Taking the chair archetype and placing within it chairs that are progressively smaller. Each chair has hand cut grooves on the inside edges of its seat frame as well as notches in the seat back. These grooves range from 1/2" wide to 1/8" wide. The mechanism works so that the pegs fit into the grooves of the chair one size bigger and slides into place so that the horizontal edge between the chair seat and back line up. The simple mechanism allows the chairs to be taken apart and put together with ease.

It takes many galaxies' worth of amazing people to make science fiction and fantasy rock our world... but every year, there are some people who stand out as especially influential. Here's this year's list of the genre's movers and shakers.

As with the previous two years' power lists, these aren't our favorite people, or the people we wish were powerful. They're people who can make things happen in the genre — or help the genre reach a wider audience of people who don't consider themselves fans. These are the people who've used their power in the industry to help make science fiction and fantasy stories a national obsession — as well as helping to fuel our personal obsessions. Because we do the power list every year, we tend to focus on people who've particularly stood out in the past year.

And as always, feel free to debate our choices in the comments, or suggest your own candidates for the power list. We had to whittle down a list of dozens of names to get to 20 people, so we're aware we've left out some great choices.

Anne Sweeney and Jeff Bader, ABC television

Straight-up science fiction, that wears its genre credentials on its sleeves, is becoming an endangered species on network television these days. So it's a minor miracle that ABC is continuing to stand behind overtly SF shows like V and No Ordinary Family. We have ABC President Sweeney and Scheduling Chief Bader to thank for that — and here's hoping their gamble pays off.
Up next: ABC has a number of SF or quasi-SF shows in the Fall 2011 pipeline, including Marvel shows AKA Jessica Jones and Incredible Hulk, plus Being Erica, Hallelujah, Once Upon A Time and Patient Zero.

Tom Hardy

He damn near stole Inception from its all-star cast. And now, the man we used to think of as Picard's shoulder-pad-hobbled clone has become 2010's new hotness.
Up next: He's got an unspecified role in The Dark Knight Rises, and he's starring in the delayed Mad Max: Fury Road.

John Lasseter, Pixar/Disney

As creative director of both Pixar and Disney, Lasseter deserves a great deal of the credit for some of 2010's most high-profile science fiction and fantasy films, including Toy Story 3, Tangled and Tron Legacy. Lasseter, who was inspired by the original Tron as a young animator, was part of a group of Pixar pioneers who viewed an early cut of Tron Legacy and suggested reshoots that, by all accounts, helped improve the story.
Up next: Fanciful Disney and Pixar movies in the pipeline include Cars 2, Mars Needs Moms and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.

Steven Moffat

This was the year of the Moff. He took over as showrunner of that great British institution, Doctor Who, and propelled it to new heights of popularity overseas. And he co-created a new Sherlock Holmes series that reinvented the great detective for the modern era.
Up next: Another year of Doctor Who, plus Moffat helped with the scripting of the new Tintin movie.

Steven Spielberg

He's been powerful forever, but lately he seems to be wielding his power for the benefit of science fiction. He's got three television shows in the pipeline, including Falling Skies and Terra Nova. He's signed on to direct Robopocalypse. And he's inspired pop culture's great remixer, J.J. Abrams, to create the Spielberg tribute Super-8.
Up next: Robopocalypse, plus the Tintin movie with Peter Jackson.

Paolo Bacigalupi

His adult novel The Windup Girl has won almost every major science ficiton award and "stomped the competition" (as Locus puts it) on the trade paperback bestseller list five months running. More than that, though, he's brought hard science fiction back, helping to prove that hard SF can still be relevant and popular. Meanwhile, his YA novel Ship Breaker was a National Book Award finalist and brought new smarts to the "dystopian YA" trend.
Up next: He keeps tweeting that he's hard at work at another project. Work faster!

Christopher Nolan

We already had him on our 2008 power list, but the incredible success of Inception — almost $300 million in U.S. ticket sales — proves that his strength goes beyond merely recharging the superhero genre. The fact that a big-budget weird-fest like Inception even got made, much less that it became such a huge hit, is a minor miracle. People have been saying this means Hollywood will green-light more big films by quirky auteurs — but really it remains true that a few people, like Nolan, can make something like Inception happen.
Up next: The Dark Knight Rises.

Tim Holman, Orbit Books

Orbit launched its U.S. imprint in 2007, with Holman relocating to New York to head it up as publishing director. Since then, its list has grown rapidly and Orbit has been scoring bestseller after bestseller. Looking at Orbit's 2010 titles, too, you're struck by their range, from hard science fiction icon Greg Bear to space opera master Iain M. Banks, and from postmodern epic fantasy author N.K. Jemisin to steampunk innovator Gail Carriger. Not to mention a lot of weird zombie books, from Mira Grant's Feed to Jesse Petersen's Flip This Zombie. Holman has been instrumental in making Orbit a force to be reckoned with in the United States.
Up next: Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes, and Walter Jon Williams' long-awaited sequel to This Is Not A Game, Deep State.

Diane Nelson and Geoff Johns, DC Entertainment

DC Comics and its parent company, Warner Bros., have lagged behind Marvel/Disney in putting their classic superheroes on screen lately, apart from Smallville and Nolan's Batman films. That's about to change — Nelson signaled a shift in the company's priorities when she moved all its multimedia operations to L.A. Nelson and Johns are the president and chief creative officer, respectively, of DC Entertainment, and their only mission is to make DC's universe into the next Harry Potter. A lot depends on how the Green Lantern movie, which was already in production when they stepped up, performs.
Up next: A Flash movie, a Wonder Woman TV series, and probably a number of other projects yet to be announced.

Tom Doherty

He's the publisher at Tor Books, which he founded and still runs, and he also owns 1/3 of Baen Books. His influence can be felt in every area of science fiction and fantasy, as much today as 30 years ago. And this has been a banner year for Tor — out of Kirkus Reviews' top 15 SF/fantasy books of the year, nine of them came from Tor, including books by Kage Baker and Mary Robinette Kowal. The publisher also had a record 20 books on the New York Times bestseller list this year. Meanwhile, Tor's magazine, Tor.com, has continued to set the conversation among science fiction and fantasy readers and writers.
Up next: John Scalzi's Fuzzy Nation, Hannu Rajaniemi's acclaimed The Quantum Thief, and George R.R. Martin's Fort Freak.

Richard Pleper and Michael Lombardo, HBO

HBO's True Blood was already a pop-culture phenomenon, and becoming more overtly fantasy-oriented with the inclusion of fairies 'n' stuff, when Pleper and Lombardo decided to take a chance on a second fantasy series: Game of Thrones, based on the A Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin.
Up next: Winter is coming! Game of Thrones launches next year.

Janelle Monae

The Archandroid is appearing on lists of the year's best albums all over the place, and she's influencing a whole generation of futuristic pop and R&B artists, with her cyborg visuals and her ultra-eclectic sounds. Plus she's witty, clever and she claims Octavia Butler as her great inspiration.
Up next: She's touring Europe after doing a show in New York with Prince.

Darren Aronofsky

In 1999, Aronofsky saw The Matrix, and it inspired him to think about new ways to reinvent science fiction. The result was The Fountain, a movie that seems to divide people about evenly into evangelists and iconoclasts. But Aronofsky's never stopped thinking about how to tell other-worldly stories in a new way, and the proof is Black Swan, the ballerina movie about horror and art that's getting Oscar buzz.
Up next: The Wolverine — and let's hope Aronofsky's got enough power to keep the suits from messing this Wolverine film up. Plus Machine Man, based on the cyborg novel by Max Barry.

Sandra Bullock

Some people are on this list for work they did in 2010, but others are mostly on here for work that was announced in 2010 — and Bullock is definitely in the latter camp. She's one of the most powerful actresses in Hollywood, but this was the year she chose to use that power for good — she's starring in Gravity, the new space movie by Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men), and that film would not be getting made if Bullock wasn't in it. (Already, some are comparing Bullock's move to Halle Berry making Catwoman right after winning an Oscar.) We can't think of a movie project we're more excited about than Gravity, and Bullock has rescued it from development hell.
Up next: She's also filming Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the 9/11 movie based on Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. Gravity is supposed to start filming in the Spring.

Jon Favreau

Iron Man 2 was one of the year's most successful movies, and one of the biggest comic book adaptations of all time. And now Favreau is setting out to reinvent the Western and the alien-invasion movie in one movie with a silly title: Cowboys and Aliens. It's a testament to his clout that he was able to get Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig on board this wagon.
Up next: After Cowboys and Aliens, he's taking on an even more daunting task: making Disneyland cool, with The Magic Kingdom.

Suzanne Collins

We loved The Hunger Games, but with the third and final book in the trilogy, Mockingjay, Collins showed that she's got the potential to join J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer in the ranks of authors whose books people camp out for. We still hear people debating that ending — no spoilers here — wherever we go. And now it's going to be a movie, from Gary "Pleasantville" Ross.
Up next: Whatever Collins writes next, we'll be first in line to read it.

George Lucas

He has a successful TV series — that he made without any studio input — on the air, with two more series (a live-action Star Wars show, and Seth Green's Star Wars comedy) in the pipeline. Plus, he still controls the multi-squillion-dollar Star Wars brand including hit games, books and comics, and his Industrial Light & Magic effects shop is the essential ingredient in countless science fiction blockbusters.
Up next: Clone Wars returns next week, and we're still hopeful the live-action Star Wars series gets off the ground despite some delays. (A "movie of the week" plus 50 other episodes are already scripted, they just have to wait for technology to advance enough to make it cheap enough to film, says Lucas.) Plus the original films are coming to Blu-Ray and being converted to 3D. He'll just take your wallet now, for safe-keeping.

Matt Fraction

He's writing two of Marvel's biggest titles (Iron Man and Thor) to critical acclaim and commercial success — and he's in charge of Marvel's grand crossover for next year ("Fear Itself"). And he consulted on set during Iron Man 2. He's established himself at Marvel, in a position that at one point was Brian Michael Bendis' purview.
Up next: Fear Itself, plus hopefully more Casanova, now being published by Marvel's Icon imprint.

Jennifer Brehl and Diana Gill, Harper Collins

Between the two of them, these editors are publishing some of the most exciting science fiction and fantasy authors out there — including Christopher Moore, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, Richard Kadrey, Terry Pratchett and Ray Bradbury. But also, in 2010, they worked with Harper's editors in Australia and the U.K. to create a global science fiction imprint — Harper Voyager, with Gill serving as the Executive Editor in the U.S. This means that any title published by Harper can have support in all of the biggest English-speaking markets simultaneously.
Up next: Harper Voyager has already signed two authors for their worldwide debut, Karen Anziger and David Wellington (writing as David Chandler).

Gale Ann Hurd

The legendary producer of The Terminator was instrumental in getting The Walking Dead on our television screens this year, and it became one of the biggest new shows of the Fall season, proving that zombies — and relatable survivors — could carry an ongoing television series.
Up next: She blew up the internet the other day by suggesting she'd like to take the Terminator series back under her wing. Make it happen, Pacificor!

Thanks to Annalee, Meredith, Alasdair and Cyriaque for helping to brainstorm and cull this list. Thanks also to Diana Gill, Lou Anders, Ginger Clark, Jonathan Strahan, John Picacio, Jennifer Heddle and Liz Gorinsky for invaluable help, advice and suggestions.

Now you can get lucky in the backseat of the Millennium Falcon, with this decal. Just think of the annoying quotation potential! We'll get you started: "She may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts." [Buzzfeed]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What if the animated show Futurama came from the brilliant brain of anime director Hayao Miyazaki? It might look a little something like this. We love an earthy Bender! But is his "body matching his brain?" [Bouletcorp via /Film]

Will the director of The Dark Knight rescue us from Hollywood's summer of meh? Early reviews of Christopher Nolan's Inception are out, and they promise a complex, thrilling movie. Will it live up to the hype? Some spoilers ahead.

So basically we'll round up what the reviewers said, in a spoiler-free fashion, and then at the bottom, we'll summarize the spoilery bits. So if you are one of those people who is frantically trying to avoid Inception spoilers, you'll have a chance to jump off before we careen into spoiler-land.

UGO basically says it's one of the best movies of the year, an action film for intellectuals that sets a standard for all other Hollywood movies. You may have to watch Transformers 2 afterwards, just to balance it out.

Variety calls it "commandingly clever," and adds, "Even when its ambition occasionally outstrips its execution, Inception tosses off more ideas and fires on more cylinders than most blockbusters would have the nerve to attempt."

Thompson on Hollywood calls it a strong Best Picture Oscar candidate, and calls it a "taut suspense thriller" as well as a moving love story. It's full of Kubrick homages and actually recalls the best of Kubrick's work.

Empire Magazine's Nev Pierce is one of a few reviewers to compare it to a James Bond movie, and says it's like Charlie Kaufman's take on 007.

Awards Daily says it's easily one of the best pictures of the year, and maybe even of the decade.

AICN says it represents Nolan visually peaking, and "cinema doesn't get much purer than Inception."

InContention says, "Every single moment of Inception is more gripping than the last," and it may solidify Nolan's place among the modern masters of cinema.

JoBlo gives it 10 out of 10 and says you'll be discussing and debating about the film for ages after watching it, until you feel compelled to see it again.

FilmSchoolRejects calls it the best big-budget film of the year so far, and adds: "Inception is what The Wachowskis wish the rest of The Matrix films after the first could have been."

Cinematical says "Inception is nothing short of a stunning, spectacular, visionary achievement."

HitFix says it's an exhilarating experience, but not really an action film.

Chud says, "Inception is a masterpiece." It barely even feels like a movie, it's so immersive, and at times it feels like a miracle.

Box Office Magazine gushes, "A bold, inventive, audacious entertainment, Inception charts a new course for motion pictures and sets the bar very, very high."

The Hollywood Reporter says that it's one of the most original movies of the year, and praises all the performances — but says that two and a half hours of tense situations and mind-bending complexity may leave you exhausted. And you'll have to see it three times to understand everything.

The one dissenting opinion comes from Coming Soon, which says Inception is an exceptional film. "So how is it that Inception comes together as such a bore?" Coming Soon blames a too-exposition-heavy screenplay and and flat, lifeless characters, and says it's like a less-exciting mix of Solaris and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

So now that you're in a lather of excitement about this film (unless you choose to believe Coming Soon over all the other reviewers), are you ready for some pretty heavy-duty spoilers? Last chance to jump off, otherwise!

So as you've no doubt heard, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) specializes in extraction, pulling secrets out of people's dreams. His point man is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Cobb is a broken man, and his dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) tends to show up in dreams and haunt him, screwing up his work. This happens at the start of the film, when Cobb is leading an extraction mission inside the dreams of a wealthy businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe). Saito is aware they're all inside his subconscious. We wind up with Mal holding a gun on Arthur, who gets killed in the dream and wakes up in reality — where he, Saito and Cobb are attached intravenously to a machine.

Back in the real world, Cobb and his team try to scatter to the four winds, but Saito catches up with them. And it turns out the screwed up mission inside Saito's head was just Saito's way of auditioning Cobb for a different assignment — going inside the dreams of Saito's future rival Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) and planting an idea, instead of stealing one. (That's the "Inception" of the film's title.)

Because he was accused of killing his wife, Cobb unable to go back to the United States, and he longs to go home and rejoin his two toddlers. Saito offers him a chance to get his life back, if he can just pull off this difficult mission of planting an idea in Fischer's mind. Fischer is soon to be heir to his family's company, and Saito wants Cobb to trick him into dissolving the company for "emotional" reasons.

To this end, Cobb hires an actual architect named Ariadne (Ellen Page) to design every street, room and building in the fake dream, so it looks real enough to deceive the dreamer. In the process, he teaches her about his work, and she finds she can't resist the dream world. Among other things, we learn the rules of the dream world, including the fact that time moves ten times as fast in a dream as in real life, and the dangers of layering dreams within dreams. If you die in a dream, you wake up, but if you get lost in a deep-layer dream, your mind may never emerge intact. At one point, it's raining in a dream, and we're told that's because the dreamer didn't go to the bathroom before falling asleep. Also, another dreamer's "projections" may be adversarial and even dangerous. Even though we learn the rules in detail, the film later breaks some of them or renders them irrelevant, in some surprising but logical twists.

Cobb also recruits other members of his dream team: Eames (Tom Hardy), a "forger" who can shapeshift in the dream world, and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) a chemist who supplies the powerful sedative that puts Fischer and Cobb's gang into the dream state.

Eventually, our heroes plunge inside Fischer's mind, and get lost in the maze of chambers and antechambers. Many of the dreams resemble action movies, natch. There's a huge snow-bound set piece filmed in Calgary, Canada. Towards the end, there are no less than four different lines of action intercutting at once. The stakes keep getting higher, and yet more personal at the same time. Oh, and there's no trick or twist ending — most of the answers are given to us in the very first scene. As the film goes along, the ghost of Cobb's wife becomes more and more dangerous, because of his repressed subconscious. We realize as the film goes along that Cobb is keeping his emotions under wraps because he's trying to guard his secrets, which eventually spill out.

• Link (via Digg)

Following up our article: Top 20 Hackers in Film History and Vibrant’s Top 10 Servers in the movies, I felt obligated to dispel some of the notions about programming that these movies endorse. I understand that Hollywood needs to dress things up to make them more entertaining, but in the case of programmers, code, and hackers they’ve done more than dress things up – they’ve morphed a little stuffed teddy bear into a cybernetic polar bear covered in christmas lights and phosphorescent hieroglyphics with a fog machine pumping rainbow smoke out of his ass. In other words, they’ve layered a ridiculous amount of extravagance on top of something that in reality is very grounded.

• Link (via reddit)

Since graduating from Brown University in 1997, Oka has worked on more than 30 big-budget Hollywood films at ILM. During that time he has written more than 20 programs and 100 plug-ins for the leading special-effects house. While audiences might not have known his name or face until Heroes, they’ve seen his programming magic on the big screen in films like The Perfect Storm, Star Wars: Episode II, Terminator 3 and the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

• Link

• Sydney Matrix locations set on Flickr (via Digg)