Here are 8 developments of interest to fans.

(1) Isaac Asimov’s West Philadelphia years are chronicled in Bart Everts’ concise article at Hidden City Philadelphia.

The Sansom Street house would be his first and last home away from his parents as a bachelor, and he used much of his free time going to the movies (likely at the Nixon or the Commodore), visiting the Franklin Institute and Free Library, and eating at the Horn and Hardart on Broad Street. Asimov was largely a teetotaler, a fact that quickly earned him friends at the Navy Yard, as he would give away his liquor ration card.

Asimov returned to Brooklyn on a near weekly basis to visit his family and fiancé, Gertrude Blugerman. The two married in July of 1942 at his parents’ home, after which she joined him in West Philly. The couple sublet an apartment at 4715 Walnut Street, then called Verona Court.

Everts followed up on the Change.org petition calling for a commemorative marker to be placed on one of these properties and learned no formal application has been submitted.

(2) The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) has an opinion about The worst black&white Twilight Zone episodes. I says, “Who asked ya? “

(3) At World Wide Words, Michael Quinion recently did a study of ”grok”. Got to teach the young’uns the essentials. There’s already too many who don’t know the difference between “one if by land” and “two if by sea” – so beware, if it can happen to Longfellow, it could happen to Heinlein!

Grok is a word borrowed from Martian (and you won’t see that written very often) in which it literally meant to drink. However, in its figurative sense, to grok is to gain an instant deep spiritual understanding of something or to establish a rapport with somebody.

(4) Brianna Wu’s article ”No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry” is grim but informative.

I haven’t been out to my car at night by myself since January 2nd.

My name is Brianna Wu. I lead a development studio that makes games. Sometimes, I write about issues in the games industry that relate to the equality of women. My reward is that I regularly have men threatening to rape and commit acts of violence against me.

(5) Susan Ellison has picked the contents for collection celebrating Harlan’s birthday: 8 in 80 by Ellison.

In honor of Harlan Ellison’s eightieth birthday, Susan Ellison—his wife of thirty years, the Electric Baby—has scoured raw eight (8) decades of his written output (from his 1949 serialized stories in The Cleveland News to as-yet unpublished tales fresh from his Olympia Manual typewriter) to present one artifact from each calendar decade. Where possible, the eight stories herein have been reproduced from Ellison’s original typescripts, as preserved in his meticulous archives. In some cases, they may differ from the preferred texts established over years of revisions and reprints.

(6)  Didn’t some Western legend claim, “I eat lightning and shit thunder?” Maybe his intestinal bacteria are related to the lately discovered bacteria that eat pure electrons rather than sugar.

Some intrepid biologists at the University of Southern California (USC) have discovered bacteria that survives on nothing but electricity — rather than food, they eat and excrete pure electrons.

(7) IDW Publishing will be releasing a 5-issue adaptation of Shadow Show, the prose tribute to Ray Bradbury first released in 2012 and edited by Mort Castle and Sam Weller.

Carlos Guzman: “Shadow Show” started as short story collection that paid tribute to Ray Bradbury, himself an incomparable master of short fiction. It features stories by a murderers’ row of incredible authors: Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Harlan Ellison, Audrey Niffenegger, just to name a few. Mort Castle and Sam Weller, the editors of the collection, wanted to bring these stories to comics as well as prose. IDW loved the idea, and now we’ve lined up a 5-issue limited series that will adapt several stories from the book!

Which stories are you most looking forward to?

Joe Hill’s “By The Silver Water of Lake Champlain” is a standout, a beautiful story of childhood, loss and memory. Jason Ciaramella and Charles Paul Wilson III are adapting it for the series, and have done a stellar job of capturing the wistful, foggy, far-away feel of the story. Another favorite is “Conjure” by Alice Hoffman, a stunning short story that just leaves the most bittersweet aftertaste. It’s probably one of my favorite things I’ve read all year, everyone should go out and read it!

(8) Videos that allow you to watch someone play a computer game are a think on YouTube – and if you’re curious what it was like to play Fahrenheit 451 on the Apple II here’s your chance.

Game description: Based on Ray Bradbury’s classic science fiction novel Fahrenheit 451. In a not so distant future, books have become illegal. As Fireman Guy Montag, your role is not to save houses, but to burn them for the books inside. But, you become passionate about books and become a rebel, pursued by the authorities. With the help of the Underground, you must survive and save books from complete extinction.

[Thanks for these links goes out to Sam Long, Andrew Porter, Michael J. Walsh and  John King Tarpinian.]