<![CDATA[io9: don davis]]> http://tags.lifehacker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/io9.com.png <![CDATA[io9: don davis]]> http://io9.com/tag/dondavis http://io9.com/tag/dondavis <![CDATA[Don Davis, Stargate's Beloved General, RIP]]> Don Davis, who played the cantankerous father-figure of the Stargate SG-1, Major General George Hammond, passed away on June 29. We'll always remember Davis' terrific performance as the dad-like presence who yelled when he had to and made Teal'c roll his eyes with his bad jokes.

SG-1's producer, Joe Mallozzi shared that his favorite memory of Davis' was watching him work the conventions with fans. Many fans approached the General with trepidation (because of his character) but Davis was always incredibly charming with the fans and won them over immediately. Mallozzi also added that Davis was a true friend and, "had a bigger heart than his character that he played... and will be missed not just by the fans but by everyone who worked with him."

Davis' last Stargate appearance will be in the DVD movie Stargate: Continuum. We'll miss you always setting the crew straight, Don.

Davis' representatives have asked those wishing to make a charitable donation in Davis' name to donate to the American Heart Association.

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<![CDATA[Build Your Home In TunnelSpace!]]> NASA churned out a lot of concept art in the 1970s while the agency was exploring ways to build colonies in space. NASA concept artists created trippy pieces like the Cynlidrical Colony above, and Torodial and Bernal Sphere colonies as well. We'd like to imagine that you could low-grav the whole thing, and just leap from one side of the colony to the other. Of course, it's not quite clear what would happen if you ran into one of those giant window sections. Hopefully they're made out of some synthetic diamond material to keep accidents from happening.

Don Davis, who painted this piece, has worked at NASA for years, and he's responsible for concept art on everything ranging from these space colonies, to the Voyager program. He's worked at the Ames Research Center, which is the mecca for speculative science fiction/faction at NASA, located in California. When he wasn't working on art like this, he was also collaborating with Carl Sagan, and contributed to Cosmos, for which he won an Emmy. You can check out more of Don's retro-futurist paintings at his website, where he also has an impressive number of Burning Man trip reports as well.

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