The invention of tie dye caught on film. [link]
A bit different than I was taught to do it.
MSNBC reporter refuses to read Paris Hilton news.
Google Maps maps forbidden parts of a deserted island. [link]
An old plan to flood Africa. [link]
Australia burns from space. [link]
Blood is a passable substitute for eggs. [link]
The bench that isn't anything but a bench. [link]
Why the walls in Wolfenstein 3D were blue. [link]
How the Jedi got it's name. [link]
Cartooning over reality.
Ladies. Want a happy relationship? Then chill the fuck out. The faster you calm down the happier everyone is. [link]
A balance debate on global climate change. 97 to 3.
A tornado going through a North Dakota oil camp.
Jim Henson's Creature Workshop is not involved with Star Wars 7. But that doesn't mean their people aren't involved. Here's a history of the relationship between Star Wars and Jim Henson. [link]
The original Star Wars will be the first movie every translated into Navajo. [link]
Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim, Spaced, etc.) is no longer attached to the 2015 Ant-Man movie. [link]
This is troublesome since his involvement was the one thing that made Ant-Man seem like is had a chance at being good.
Watson, the Jeopardy playing computer, has developed a BBQ sauce. [link]
Short on lethal injection drugs, Wyoming considers re-legalizing firing squads. [link]
Take a world war, add 95 years, have another look at the landscape. [link]
Forgotten Apple prototypes. [link]
Drone survival guide. [link]
A 9 minute film about the study of fire. [link]
An old spacecraft to be reactivated for a new mission. [link]
How to write on the Moon. [link]
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Self driving cars
I heard on NPR yesterday that Google is building self-driving cars for a wider audience than their Google Maps cars. I'll get to that, but first I want to give you some background.
This first video runs about 50 minutes. It's an episode of NOVA about the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 or so. They had two of these challenges. The first was a complete failure and the second had several cars complete the race as well as some really innovative also-rans. I've watched this episode a bunch of times. I love it.
I saw additional video at a Smithsonian museum where a couple of brothers who were developing for the competition created a truck that ended up being able to drive in the beating rain when the humans lost all visibility.
That was followed a couple of years later with the DARPA Urban Challenge where the self-driving cars had to navigate a city and obey traffic laws instead of just navigate a route in the country like in the first challenges.
Development of the vehicles continued after that and people who participated in these challenges started getting jobs at car companies interested in exploring the idea. Stanford in particular became a major partner in these projects.
A couple of years after that, Google started using self driving cars as their Street View cars. Mostly just on the highway and the drivers could take over at any time. They only had 3 accidents. Once when the human was driving and twice when someone hit them. Recently Google started taking these cars into the cities.
Google has been buying robotics companies like made lately. Presumably with these cars in mind.
This is a demonstration of a couple of cars in Google's new fleet.
I love the blind guy feeling the car so he knows what he's driving.
And here's the NPR article that talks more about them. [link]
No steering wheel, no gas or break pedals, and no windshield wipers.
They're restricted to 25 MPH until confidence in the tech builds. At those speeds I'm picturing them on college campuses, military bases, airports, and the like. Cities like Washington DC, which are pretty much just giant campuses, anyway, could make good use of them.
My Prius watched the cars in front of me and knows which lane is mine. It does some gentle steering and hits the brakes for me when it needs to. I fully expect my next car to be able to drive me to Kansas without me paying attention.
This first video runs about 50 minutes. It's an episode of NOVA about the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 or so. They had two of these challenges. The first was a complete failure and the second had several cars complete the race as well as some really innovative also-rans. I've watched this episode a bunch of times. I love it.
I saw additional video at a Smithsonian museum where a couple of brothers who were developing for the competition created a truck that ended up being able to drive in the beating rain when the humans lost all visibility.
That was followed a couple of years later with the DARPA Urban Challenge where the self-driving cars had to navigate a city and obey traffic laws instead of just navigate a route in the country like in the first challenges.
Development of the vehicles continued after that and people who participated in these challenges started getting jobs at car companies interested in exploring the idea. Stanford in particular became a major partner in these projects.
A couple of years after that, Google started using self driving cars as their Street View cars. Mostly just on the highway and the drivers could take over at any time. They only had 3 accidents. Once when the human was driving and twice when someone hit them. Recently Google started taking these cars into the cities.
Google has been buying robotics companies like made lately. Presumably with these cars in mind.
This is a demonstration of a couple of cars in Google's new fleet.
I love the blind guy feeling the car so he knows what he's driving.
And here's the NPR article that talks more about them. [link]
No steering wheel, no gas or break pedals, and no windshield wipers.
They're restricted to 25 MPH until confidence in the tech builds. At those speeds I'm picturing them on college campuses, military bases, airports, and the like. Cities like Washington DC, which are pretty much just giant campuses, anyway, could make good use of them.
My Prius watched the cars in front of me and knows which lane is mine. It does some gentle steering and hits the brakes for me when it needs to. I fully expect my next car to be able to drive me to Kansas without me paying attention.
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
I went to the deeeeeeentiiiiist
As a kid we went to the family dentist a lot. He didn't look like Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors, but boy did he act like him.
He's the kind of guy who would drill holes in your teeth and then tell you you have cavities. And he didn't really feel comfortable unless he could get his whole arm in your mouth. When installing the metal band around my teeth so the braces would stop coming off I had bits shoot out and damage the window.
Of course, I had real dental problems, too. I jammed a tooth which damaged the circulation. It changed colors for awhile and went dark. "It's dead." he said, and covered it with an enamel shell that still didn't match the other teeth and made that one tooth protrude. All the teeth in my head want to sit up front where they can get a good view. So things got a bit crowded and twisted out of shape. Braces were put on, but my teeth put up a fight and would routinely shake them off. Thus the aforementioned metal band. Teeth were pulled to make room for everyone. Before I left for college and left the tooth tyrant behind the braces were removed and placed on the back of my teeth. "Don't worry." he said. "They'll come off on their own with time. All the cement will come off."
I went to the dentist this week for the first time in 20 years. Partially because they hurt and partially because I sold a house and can afford it.
The tooth cleaner said my teeth were surprisingly clean for having gone this long without dental care. She was done pretty fast. What took the longest was trying to remove the remaining cement from the back of my teeth.
The cavities that exist are obvious. There are no minor cavities. And the ones that I have are the result of poorly filling the ones the last dentist drilled. One tooth may or may not have to go. I'm seeing a consultant Wednesday to evaluate our options.
My front tooth is actually still alive. The enamel coating on my front tooth is further from the color of the rest of my teeth than the actual tooth. So we're gonna have it off.
All my wisdom teeth came in. They're not really a problem. One of them is sideways, but since we'd have to break my jaw to get it out we're going to try doing nothing. In fact, if we have to take out the tooth that's a problem, the sideways tooth may be manipulated to replace it.
But for what I got charged for a cleaning, X-Ray, and diagnostics I don't know why I waited so long. It was only a few hundred bucks. The upcoming work will cost more, but I wasn't hearing numbers that would worry me even before I sold a house.
He's the kind of guy who would drill holes in your teeth and then tell you you have cavities. And he didn't really feel comfortable unless he could get his whole arm in your mouth. When installing the metal band around my teeth so the braces would stop coming off I had bits shoot out and damage the window.
Of course, I had real dental problems, too. I jammed a tooth which damaged the circulation. It changed colors for awhile and went dark. "It's dead." he said, and covered it with an enamel shell that still didn't match the other teeth and made that one tooth protrude. All the teeth in my head want to sit up front where they can get a good view. So things got a bit crowded and twisted out of shape. Braces were put on, but my teeth put up a fight and would routinely shake them off. Thus the aforementioned metal band. Teeth were pulled to make room for everyone. Before I left for college and left the tooth tyrant behind the braces were removed and placed on the back of my teeth. "Don't worry." he said. "They'll come off on their own with time. All the cement will come off."
I went to the dentist this week for the first time in 20 years. Partially because they hurt and partially because I sold a house and can afford it.
The tooth cleaner said my teeth were surprisingly clean for having gone this long without dental care. She was done pretty fast. What took the longest was trying to remove the remaining cement from the back of my teeth.
The cavities that exist are obvious. There are no minor cavities. And the ones that I have are the result of poorly filling the ones the last dentist drilled. One tooth may or may not have to go. I'm seeing a consultant Wednesday to evaluate our options.
My front tooth is actually still alive. The enamel coating on my front tooth is further from the color of the rest of my teeth than the actual tooth. So we're gonna have it off.
All my wisdom teeth came in. They're not really a problem. One of them is sideways, but since we'd have to break my jaw to get it out we're going to try doing nothing. In fact, if we have to take out the tooth that's a problem, the sideways tooth may be manipulated to replace it.
But for what I got charged for a cleaning, X-Ray, and diagnostics I don't know why I waited so long. It was only a few hundred bucks. The upcoming work will cost more, but I wasn't hearing numbers that would worry me even before I sold a house.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
EDITED - Movie Review: X-men: Days of Future Past
EDIT: Be sure to sit through the credits to see a teaser for the next movie.
While Stan Lee wasn't in this movie, Chris Claremond and Len Wein were. Claremont wrote the comic book version of Days of Future Past while Wein created Wolverine as well as several other mutants.
It's tempting to compare this latest X-Men movie to The Avengers. After all, both are borne from a string of other movie series that all come together in this one. Both would be considered bold new moves in movie creation. But when the first X-Men movie came out back in 2000 they were not deliberately building to the movie that came out this weekend. The Avengers was part of the plan when The Incredible Hulk came out in 2008. And in both cases, they managed to make a pretty damn good movie.
So let me catch you up so that you may properly enjoy X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The series so far:
X-Men (2000) directed by Brian Singer
X-Men 2 (2003) directed by Brian Singer
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) directed by Brett Ratner
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) directed by Gavin Hood
The Wolverine (2013) directed by James Mangold
X-Men: First Class (2011) directed by Matthew Vaughn
The first two movies were pretty good. Patrick Stewart was the obvious choice for Professor X and Hugh Jackman got his big break as the perfect casting for Wolverine. The movies showed the establishment of the school for mutants and fighting off an anti-mutant attack led by William Stryker. We also saw flashes of Wolverine's forgotten past by Professor X digging around in his memories.
But X-Men 3 is generally accepted to have been a disaster. They killed off a lot of main characters including Professor X, Cyclops, and made Wolverine kill Jean Grey, the woman he loved. They changed the personality of Magneto from someone working for the betterment of mutant-kind to someone willing to throw hundreds of mutants at the enemy to die needlessly. So you can understand there was some excitement when Brian Singer returned to direct Days of Future Past. And, in the end, this movie pretty much erases X-Men 3.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows his history running through several major wars and involvement with a Canadian special ops program led by William Stryker. It shows how his claws went from being bone to being metal. And then he lost his memory after surviving being shot in the head.
The Wolverine was a so-so movie that really contributed little. It did hint that Wolverine and Jean Grey may have had a more physical relationship than shown in the
X-Men: First Class was thought to be a reboot to the series. It took place in the 60s and climaxed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It introduced the young Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique as well as many of the characters we see dead and dissected in that we see in Days of Future Past. And it ends with the accident that should put Professor X in a wheelchair.
Days of Future Past does an OK job of keeping someone new to this world informed. It has to. The world being in ruins because of a war with these advanced Sentinels is new to this movie. There's flashbacks to the other movies, but it does more to refresh the memory of people who have already seen them than to really explain things to newcomers. If you haven't seen any of the original trilogy then the sudden influx of characters at the very end doesn't mean much. Wolverine's freakout when meeting Stryker is briefly explained, but it's not really sufficient for newcomers to the series.
I wouldn't take my parents to see this movie. Mom knows enough to know that Patrick Stewart was brilliantly cast, but didn't know why I called my brother Logan when he grew muttonchops. And they haven't seen any of the movies. This movie relies on fans of earlier movies coming to see it while The Avengers can be walked into cold. Both movies are better if you've seen the background material to catch the references, but X-Men: Days of Future Past has parts that are just puzzling without certain earlier movies. Much like how the first Hobbit movie is just bizarre if you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings movies.
I will get this movie on DVD and will probably get a few others on DVD, too. My copy of X-Men (2000) is on VHS in full screen. That needs to be fixed.
While Stan Lee wasn't in this movie, Chris Claremond and Len Wein were. Claremont wrote the comic book version of Days of Future Past while Wein created Wolverine as well as several other mutants.
It's tempting to compare this latest X-Men movie to The Avengers. After all, both are borne from a string of other movie series that all come together in this one. Both would be considered bold new moves in movie creation. But when the first X-Men movie came out back in 2000 they were not deliberately building to the movie that came out this weekend. The Avengers was part of the plan when The Incredible Hulk came out in 2008. And in both cases, they managed to make a pretty damn good movie.
So let me catch you up so that you may properly enjoy X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The series so far:
X-Men (2000) directed by Brian Singer
X-Men 2 (2003) directed by Brian Singer
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) directed by Brett Ratner
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) directed by Gavin Hood
The Wolverine (2013) directed by James Mangold
X-Men: First Class (2011) directed by Matthew Vaughn
The first two movies were pretty good. Patrick Stewart was the obvious choice for Professor X and Hugh Jackman got his big break as the perfect casting for Wolverine. The movies showed the establishment of the school for mutants and fighting off an anti-mutant attack led by William Stryker. We also saw flashes of Wolverine's forgotten past by Professor X digging around in his memories.
But X-Men 3 is generally accepted to have been a disaster. They killed off a lot of main characters including Professor X, Cyclops, and made Wolverine kill Jean Grey, the woman he loved. They changed the personality of Magneto from someone working for the betterment of mutant-kind to someone willing to throw hundreds of mutants at the enemy to die needlessly. So you can understand there was some excitement when Brian Singer returned to direct Days of Future Past. And, in the end, this movie pretty much erases X-Men 3.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows his history running through several major wars and involvement with a Canadian special ops program led by William Stryker. It shows how his claws went from being bone to being metal. And then he lost his memory after surviving being shot in the head.
The Wolverine was a so-so movie that really contributed little. It did hint that Wolverine and Jean Grey may have had a more physical relationship than shown in the
X-Men: First Class was thought to be a reboot to the series. It took place in the 60s and climaxed during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It introduced the young Professor X, Magneto, and Mystique as well as many of the characters we see dead and dissected in that we see in Days of Future Past. And it ends with the accident that should put Professor X in a wheelchair.
Days of Future Past does an OK job of keeping someone new to this world informed. It has to. The world being in ruins because of a war with these advanced Sentinels is new to this movie. There's flashbacks to the other movies, but it does more to refresh the memory of people who have already seen them than to really explain things to newcomers. If you haven't seen any of the original trilogy then the sudden influx of characters at the very end doesn't mean much. Wolverine's freakout when meeting Stryker is briefly explained, but it's not really sufficient for newcomers to the series.
I wouldn't take my parents to see this movie. Mom knows enough to know that Patrick Stewart was brilliantly cast, but didn't know why I called my brother Logan when he grew muttonchops. And they haven't seen any of the movies. This movie relies on fans of earlier movies coming to see it while The Avengers can be walked into cold. Both movies are better if you've seen the background material to catch the references, but X-Men: Days of Future Past has parts that are just puzzling without certain earlier movies. Much like how the first Hobbit movie is just bizarre if you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings movies.
I will get this movie on DVD and will probably get a few others on DVD, too. My copy of X-Men (2000) is on VHS in full screen. That needs to be fixed.
Friday, May 23, 2014
Friday Links: May 23
Game: Argument Champion - pick a word and try to link other words to it to win your argument. [link]
Bees' can make nests with plastic. [link]
Buddha is in the Bible... sorta. [link]
The best seats on a Boeing 777-300. [link]
The littlest yo-yo master.
What we actually know about the guy who accidentally lanced his own frontal lobe. [link]
Teller's magical version of The Tempest. [link]
Dean Kamen's new prosthetic arm is OKed for market. [link]
I saw his prototype demonstrated years ago. Small and light enough for a 5' female but can be scaled up for a 7' muscular guy.
A running robot.
How to explain programming to normal folk? Like this. [link]
Extended trailer for the new "The Flash" TV series.
Watch for the Ferris Air truck at the airport. Ferris Air is where Hal Jordan worked before becoming Green Lantern.
Are animals who can recognize themselves in mirrors more self aware? [link]
Why are Apple chargers so much more expensive than counterfits? [link]
High doses of modified measles virus can combat some cancers. [link]
This lawn "mooer" would fill my whole yard.
Maryland was only able to decriminalize pot, not legalize it. Here's how legalization has been working out in Denver. [link]
World's largest track layer. Jump to about 2:20.
NSA is recording almost every phone call in the Bahamas. [link]
Trying to reproduce the cancer sniffing abilities of dogs. [link]
In the Third Age of Man I was a legend. In the Fourth Age of Man no one seems to care.
A tank modified to put out oil well fires. [link]
Bees' can make nests with plastic. [link]
Buddha is in the Bible... sorta. [link]
The best seats on a Boeing 777-300. [link]
The littlest yo-yo master.
What we actually know about the guy who accidentally lanced his own frontal lobe. [link]
Teller's magical version of The Tempest. [link]
Dean Kamen's new prosthetic arm is OKed for market. [link]
I saw his prototype demonstrated years ago. Small and light enough for a 5' female but can be scaled up for a 7' muscular guy.
A running robot.
How to explain programming to normal folk? Like this. [link]
Extended trailer for the new "The Flash" TV series.
Watch for the Ferris Air truck at the airport. Ferris Air is where Hal Jordan worked before becoming Green Lantern.
Are animals who can recognize themselves in mirrors more self aware? [link]
Why are Apple chargers so much more expensive than counterfits? [link]
High doses of modified measles virus can combat some cancers. [link]
This lawn "mooer" would fill my whole yard.
Maryland was only able to decriminalize pot, not legalize it. Here's how legalization has been working out in Denver. [link]
World's largest track layer. Jump to about 2:20.
NSA is recording almost every phone call in the Bahamas. [link]
Trying to reproduce the cancer sniffing abilities of dogs. [link]
In the Third Age of Man I was a legend. In the Fourth Age of Man no one seems to care.
A tank modified to put out oil well fires. [link]
Thursday, May 22, 2014
Book Review: The Long War
I find it interesting that Terry Pratchett waited until he developed Alzheimer's to delve into writing non-Discworld books. OK, yeah, it was Good Omens that got me reading Pratchett and Gaiman in the first place, but that was a one shot. With "The Long War" he and Stephen Baxter have turned their collaboration into a series. Since Pratchett can't read or write anymore it amazes me how productive he's been.
In the Long Earth books someone figured out how to step between alternate Earths using a device that anyone can build from parts they picked up at Radio Shack. Which these days means it was probably a mobile phone and remote control truck. Anyway, as of The Long War, none of these Earths have Humans on them. Just untouched wilderness. You could spend the rest of your life moving between worlds hunting and gathering and living well on the resources at hand. And many people do. Billions of people have made like settlers and headed off across the alternative worlds to start new lives and new colonies.
Along the way they've met Trolls who can step across worlds naturally and love to be well treated slave labor. There's other intelligent life, too, but they're not important at the moment. Not everyone treats the Trolls well. Enough people don't that the Trolls have started leaving all the known Earths.
Earth Datum (or Earth Prime or Original Earth) is getting on reasonably well mining the neighboring Earths for resources. But, even with the drop in price the economy has pretty much been shot to hell by having a great whopping chunk of it's population head off across reality. And you know what kinds of politicians rise in those kinds of environments. Those who have left are the enemy and America Datum needs to assert it's control and dominance over those who have moved to alternate Americas for the glory and betterment of AMERICA! And, yeah, a few hundred thousand Earths away they're not sure why they need to pay taxes to distant people who hate them. But those from the Datum have no clue how things operate outside of their home world.
The title "Long War" implies a lot more fighting than actually occurs in this book. A few intelligent people in military command positions manage to keep the idiocy of politicians, home bound bigots, and violence loving troops from turning violent when they finally encounter the separatists. And things sort out with the Trolls pretty well. The most violence is when a race known as Beagles capture one of the main characters and hunt him for sport.
Really, this is an expansion on "The Long Earth". It's further exploration of the world(s) with more emphasis on the life, the politics, and overall development of life in this reality.
It also talks more about The Gap. The Gap is a series of realities where Earth isn't there. A space program pops up on the edge of The Gap and starts using it to explore. Presumably, that's the jumping off point for the next book "The Long Mars".
If you're looking for something like Pratchett's other work, this isn't going to be it. This isn't Discworld. This isn't Good Omens. This is serious science fiction in which those who know his work can still see Pratchett's thinking in play. I should warn you, this is a long (no pun intended) book that took me quite awhile to read.
In the Long Earth books someone figured out how to step between alternate Earths using a device that anyone can build from parts they picked up at Radio Shack. Which these days means it was probably a mobile phone and remote control truck. Anyway, as of The Long War, none of these Earths have Humans on them. Just untouched wilderness. You could spend the rest of your life moving between worlds hunting and gathering and living well on the resources at hand. And many people do. Billions of people have made like settlers and headed off across the alternative worlds to start new lives and new colonies.
Along the way they've met Trolls who can step across worlds naturally and love to be well treated slave labor. There's other intelligent life, too, but they're not important at the moment. Not everyone treats the Trolls well. Enough people don't that the Trolls have started leaving all the known Earths.
Earth Datum (or Earth Prime or Original Earth) is getting on reasonably well mining the neighboring Earths for resources. But, even with the drop in price the economy has pretty much been shot to hell by having a great whopping chunk of it's population head off across reality. And you know what kinds of politicians rise in those kinds of environments. Those who have left are the enemy and America Datum needs to assert it's control and dominance over those who have moved to alternate Americas for the glory and betterment of AMERICA! And, yeah, a few hundred thousand Earths away they're not sure why they need to pay taxes to distant people who hate them. But those from the Datum have no clue how things operate outside of their home world.
The title "Long War" implies a lot more fighting than actually occurs in this book. A few intelligent people in military command positions manage to keep the idiocy of politicians, home bound bigots, and violence loving troops from turning violent when they finally encounter the separatists. And things sort out with the Trolls pretty well. The most violence is when a race known as Beagles capture one of the main characters and hunt him for sport.
Really, this is an expansion on "The Long Earth". It's further exploration of the world(s) with more emphasis on the life, the politics, and overall development of life in this reality.
It also talks more about The Gap. The Gap is a series of realities where Earth isn't there. A space program pops up on the edge of The Gap and starts using it to explore. Presumably, that's the jumping off point for the next book "The Long Mars".
If you're looking for something like Pratchett's other work, this isn't going to be it. This isn't Discworld. This isn't Good Omens. This is serious science fiction in which those who know his work can still see Pratchett's thinking in play. I should warn you, this is a long (no pun intended) book that took me quite awhile to read.
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Movie Review: Amazing Spiderman 2
I wasn't a big fan of the Spiderman reboot. I guess I'd like more it if it came before the Tobey Maguire version, but I really do think it's the lesser series. With that said, I did like Amazing Spiderman 2 more than Amazing Spiderman 1. This Spiderman is quicker with the wisecracks and is better at dealing with the public. And the story is good, if a bit over packed. That's my issue with this series. They have a whole lot of plot to jam in a very small space. They need to take it a bit slower. Even the Harry Potter movies didn't seem this rushed and they had massive novels to cram in there. It's kinda like many of the Matt Smith Doctor Who episodes. At the end you're wondering what the fuck just happened.
This movie ties in the disappearance of Peter Parker's parents to Norman Osborne and to the eventual development of Spiderman.
It also has the creation of the villain Electro and tries to make him a sympathetic character gone bad. Much like how the original movies did with Doc Octopus and some DC stories do with Mr Freeze. It almost works. The original person is downtrodden and lonely, but you never quite feel the level of sympathy that a more sedately paced movie could have provided. So when he goes bad you might feel he's justified, but more that an unstable character just cracked.
His story is there to provide a villain while the main villain develops. One of the big complaints about The Fantastic Four was that they had no villain until Doctor Doom finally shows his face near the end of the movie. At about the same point that The Green Goblin appears in this movie. So Electro keeps things rolling for the bulk of the movie.
And then the Rhino shows up. He's not a very deep character. He doesn't plot or scheme. He's a henchman. A really strong one. But there's not enough to him to center a movie around him. So he shows up at the end for Spidey to make a triumphant comeback and beat the fuck out of him.
So, 3 villains, two or three major story lines (depending on how you count), and all the usual Peter Parker relationship issues. There's a lot in this movie.
A couple of things I want to point out. While Disney does own Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios, the movie rights to X-Men is in the hands of Fox and the movie rights to Spiderman is in the hands of Sony. So every computer in this movie was a Sony VAIO. The great thing about being such a large company is that you get to use your own stuff in product placements.
The other thing happens in the end credits. There's a clip of the upcoming X-Men movie. I'm assuming this is a response to Disney putting teasers in their end credits that lead into the next movie in the series. This wasn't a teaser. This was a clip. And not even a clip from another Sony movie. Sony showed a clip for a Fox movie. It's WEIRD, man. I thought it was great when Sony and Disney tried to work together and get Stark Tower and the Oscorp Building in the same skyline for an earlier movie. But this was just weird.
Anyway, I liked the movie. Not sure I'll get it on DVD, but I'm glad that I saw it.
This movie ties in the disappearance of Peter Parker's parents to Norman Osborne and to the eventual development of Spiderman.
It also has the creation of the villain Electro and tries to make him a sympathetic character gone bad. Much like how the original movies did with Doc Octopus and some DC stories do with Mr Freeze. It almost works. The original person is downtrodden and lonely, but you never quite feel the level of sympathy that a more sedately paced movie could have provided. So when he goes bad you might feel he's justified, but more that an unstable character just cracked.
His story is there to provide a villain while the main villain develops. One of the big complaints about The Fantastic Four was that they had no villain until Doctor Doom finally shows his face near the end of the movie. At about the same point that The Green Goblin appears in this movie. So Electro keeps things rolling for the bulk of the movie.
And then the Rhino shows up. He's not a very deep character. He doesn't plot or scheme. He's a henchman. A really strong one. But there's not enough to him to center a movie around him. So he shows up at the end for Spidey to make a triumphant comeback and beat the fuck out of him.
So, 3 villains, two or three major story lines (depending on how you count), and all the usual Peter Parker relationship issues. There's a lot in this movie.
A couple of things I want to point out. While Disney does own Marvel Comics and Marvel Studios, the movie rights to X-Men is in the hands of Fox and the movie rights to Spiderman is in the hands of Sony. So every computer in this movie was a Sony VAIO. The great thing about being such a large company is that you get to use your own stuff in product placements.
The other thing happens in the end credits. There's a clip of the upcoming X-Men movie. I'm assuming this is a response to Disney putting teasers in their end credits that lead into the next movie in the series. This wasn't a teaser. This was a clip. And not even a clip from another Sony movie. Sony showed a clip for a Fox movie. It's WEIRD, man. I thought it was great when Sony and Disney tried to work together and get Stark Tower and the Oscorp Building in the same skyline for an earlier movie. But this was just weird.
Anyway, I liked the movie. Not sure I'll get it on DVD, but I'm glad that I saw it.
Monday, May 19, 2014
Conversations with Gandolf
I was preparing to go spray weeds. Gandolf wanted to come along.
Gandolf: I'm a person now!
Me: Really? You've become a person? Can you still fly?
Gandolf: Yep!
Me: Because people can't fly. If you're a person, you can't fly either.
Gandolf: Oh.
I walk the neighborhood spraying poison ivy and whatnot. An hour later I return.
Gandolf: I'm a birdy!
Gandolf: I'm a person now!
Me: Really? You've become a person? Can you still fly?
Gandolf: Yep!
Me: Because people can't fly. If you're a person, you can't fly either.
Gandolf: Oh.
I walk the neighborhood spraying poison ivy and whatnot. An hour later I return.
Gandolf: I'm a birdy!
Friday, May 16, 2014
Friday Links: May 16
Last week I showed you a trailer for "Gotham". Guess what else is coming to TV soon.
Oliver Queen has a new buddy named Barry Allen.
Steve Rogers left someone behind when he got frozen. She went on to be one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D.
[ซับไทย] Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter by thaisubjackal
Keanu Reeves' legacy has been cast aside for this new Constantine series.
How to get yourself banned from North Korea. [link]
Hiroshima was hit by a typhoon shortly after being nuked. [link]
Jigsaw puzzle versions of New Yorker covers. [link]
Gilbert Gottfried redubbing video games.
Cat saves boy from dog.
Talk show talk about Syria turns violent... ish. [link]
The Navy has developed it's own eReader. [link]
A very short history of the pocket knife. [link]
Ultra-collapsable bike. [link]
A man and his hiking cat. [link]
Oliver Queen has a new buddy named Barry Allen.
Steve Rogers left someone behind when he got frozen. She went on to be one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D.
[ซับไทย] Marvel One-Shot Agent Carter by thaisubjackal
Keanu Reeves' legacy has been cast aside for this new Constantine series.
How to get yourself banned from North Korea. [link]
Hiroshima was hit by a typhoon shortly after being nuked. [link]
Jigsaw puzzle versions of New Yorker covers. [link]
Gilbert Gottfried redubbing video games.
Cat saves boy from dog.
Talk show talk about Syria turns violent... ish. [link]
The Navy has developed it's own eReader. [link]
A very short history of the pocket knife. [link]
Ultra-collapsable bike. [link]
A man and his hiking cat. [link]
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Movie Review: Transcendence
Transcendence is a modern retelling of a couple of very familiar stories in science fiction. The story of a guy who gets uploaded to a computer and the story of a super computer that becomes a threat to mankind.
At least as far back as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits you've seen stories of a house setup with a computer to run things and the house falls in love with the person who lives there and becomes homicidal. Isaac Asimov and others have had computers taking control of the world, often being designed for just that purpose. Much of the work of Robert J Sawyer has involved humans being transferred into computers with mixed results.
In Transcendence, an AI researcher is poisoned by Luddite terrorists. To save him, his wife has him copied into a powerful computer that they'd been developing. Immediately the debate begins about whether the mind in the computer is him or not. Is the computer pretending to be him, is it him with the humanity stripped away, or is it him, but with the changes that come with being smarter and more powerful? They generate some quick money in the stock market, buy up a nearly dead town in the desert, and turn it into a server farm with independent power supply. With the resources at his command he develops advanced nanotech that feeds on pollution and can heal almost all injuries. Honestly, the only real problem here is that he's also networking those he heals into a sort of hive mind. And he's deploying the nanotech worldwide. He can heal everyone. Save crops. End pollution. It's hard to figure out what the downside is. Oh, yeah, we're not sure how much of the networked people is really them and how much is the computer.
Oh, and the guy who gets uploaded is named Will Caster. I laughed.
Not sure if I'll buy this one. I'm on the fence about it.
At least as far back as The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits you've seen stories of a house setup with a computer to run things and the house falls in love with the person who lives there and becomes homicidal. Isaac Asimov and others have had computers taking control of the world, often being designed for just that purpose. Much of the work of Robert J Sawyer has involved humans being transferred into computers with mixed results.
In Transcendence, an AI researcher is poisoned by Luddite terrorists. To save him, his wife has him copied into a powerful computer that they'd been developing. Immediately the debate begins about whether the mind in the computer is him or not. Is the computer pretending to be him, is it him with the humanity stripped away, or is it him, but with the changes that come with being smarter and more powerful? They generate some quick money in the stock market, buy up a nearly dead town in the desert, and turn it into a server farm with independent power supply. With the resources at his command he develops advanced nanotech that feeds on pollution and can heal almost all injuries. Honestly, the only real problem here is that he's also networking those he heals into a sort of hive mind. And he's deploying the nanotech worldwide. He can heal everyone. Save crops. End pollution. It's hard to figure out what the downside is. Oh, yeah, we're not sure how much of the networked people is really them and how much is the computer.
Oh, and the guy who gets uploaded is named Will Caster. I laughed.
Not sure if I'll buy this one. I'm on the fence about it.
Monday, May 12, 2014
Movie Review: Muppets: Most Wanted
I finally saw the latest Muppet movie in our local second run theater. I meant to see it sooner, but the bad reviews that I was hearing kept putting me off. And while I can agree that it's not as good as the previous movie, it was still pretty good. The last movie had some really touching and moving moments mixed in with the comedic stuff. It was a quality movie by any standards. This one didn't have the touching and moving moments. There was the usual conflict between Kermit and Piggy. And the rallying around Kermit when he thinks he's been forgotten. But nothing like seeing the Jim Henson picture in Kermit's office in the first movie. No, this is a funny movie. With an insane number of celebrity cameos. Gandolf will be disappointed that there's a shortage of Swedish Chef, but I'm still going to use this movie to show her more of Sam... The AMERICAN Eagle.
If you can still find it and haven't seen it yet and like The Muppets, then you should forget what critics have said and see this movie.
If you can still find it and haven't seen it yet and like The Muppets, then you should forget what critics have said and see this movie.
Friday, May 09, 2014
Friday Links: May 9
Game of Thrones theme played on wine glasses.
Also check out his rendition of "Happy".
The weirdest beach in NYC. [link]
Naturally occurring nuclear reactors. [link]
Pac Man maze fish tank. [link]
We've all seen the photo from the Star Wars: Episode 7 table read. Here's a list of who is who. [link]
Solo, Leia, Luke, Chewy, 3PO, R2, sure, sure, sure... Andy Serkis. He played Gollum and King Kong and a few other. So that's a good sign. And they got Lawrence Kasdan. That tells me they're actually taking this seriously. Screw the prequels. Lets get the guy who wrote Empire and Jedi.
I know a lot of people think Disney is going to screw this up. But we all felt the same way when they bought Marvel. And they put out The Avengers and all movies and TV shows related to it. So, yeah, I have hope. I mean it can't be worse than Phantom Menace.
Footage of the Baltimore landslide that took place within easy walking distance of Yummy's old apartment.
The girl who rides a cow.
What do animals dream about? [link]
First look at the Satanist statue for the Oklahoma Statehouse. [link]
Should the last of the smallpox be destroyed. [link]
Earth gets buzzed by a big rock. [link]
Your DNA can be used to find where your ancestors lived 1000 years ago. [link]
15 best canned beers. [link]
I mostly drink bottles beers with pry-off caps, but that's just because I want to wash and reuse the bottles. I'll have to look for some of these cans and maybe try to rip off their recipes.
Concept sketches from various car companies. [link]
Those who don't use e-mail are making major technology law decisions. [link]
Tattooing in slow motion. [link]
Global warming impact is already severe. [link]
Woman films her own abortion and puts the video online to debunk anti-choice myths. [link]
The first color swatch. [link]
Young Batman show coming this fall.
Consider buying the first album from Deathmole. It's from the cartoonist who makes Questionable Content. [link]
Also check out his rendition of "Happy".
The weirdest beach in NYC. [link]
Naturally occurring nuclear reactors. [link]
Pac Man maze fish tank. [link]
We've all seen the photo from the Star Wars: Episode 7 table read. Here's a list of who is who. [link]
Solo, Leia, Luke, Chewy, 3PO, R2, sure, sure, sure... Andy Serkis. He played Gollum and King Kong and a few other. So that's a good sign. And they got Lawrence Kasdan. That tells me they're actually taking this seriously. Screw the prequels. Lets get the guy who wrote Empire and Jedi.
I know a lot of people think Disney is going to screw this up. But we all felt the same way when they bought Marvel. And they put out The Avengers and all movies and TV shows related to it. So, yeah, I have hope. I mean it can't be worse than Phantom Menace.
Footage of the Baltimore landslide that took place within easy walking distance of Yummy's old apartment.
The girl who rides a cow.
What do animals dream about? [link]
First look at the Satanist statue for the Oklahoma Statehouse. [link]
Should the last of the smallpox be destroyed. [link]
Earth gets buzzed by a big rock. [link]
Your DNA can be used to find where your ancestors lived 1000 years ago. [link]
15 best canned beers. [link]
I mostly drink bottles beers with pry-off caps, but that's just because I want to wash and reuse the bottles. I'll have to look for some of these cans and maybe try to rip off their recipes.
Concept sketches from various car companies. [link]
Those who don't use e-mail are making major technology law decisions. [link]
Tattooing in slow motion. [link]
Global warming impact is already severe. [link]
Woman films her own abortion and puts the video online to debunk anti-choice myths. [link]
The first color swatch. [link]
Young Batman show coming this fall.
Consider buying the first album from Deathmole. It's from the cartoonist who makes Questionable Content. [link]
Tuesday, May 06, 2014
The house razing
About a week and a half ago our old family farm house was knocked down. It was built by my great grandparents along with most of the buildings on the farm. My grandpa and his sister grew up in that house. My dad and his siblings grew up in that house. Many of my cousins spent so much time there that they may as well have grown up there. So a lot of people had strong attachments to that place.
But the house had issues. Much of the kitchen needed replacing once the linoleum went soft from the termites undermining it. The plumbing wouldn't last long at a family gathering because it just couldn't handle all those people flushing in such short order. The lights upstairs would come on when the toaster was used. If you hooked up a computer the wiring would hiss at you. Hiss, not hum. The foundation was cracked. Snakes would crawl in through holes in the retaining walls. And when trying to rewire some light switches we'd find that the baseboards were held in place where the wallpaper touched them more than by the studs they were supposed to be nailed to. The studs were eaten and rotten. It was a problem.
So Mom and Dad are building their old age home. The original plan was to build in the yard north of the old house, salvage what they could while the new house was being built, and then, with the old house stripped, push the old house into it's own basement and bury it. But a septic tank can't be put in that soil, so they have to build a sewage lagoon. Several options were suggested, but the only one that actually worked was the place they planned to build the house. Which means the new house had to be built on the site of the old house. And since the framers were only available in early June AND the concrete must be a month old before framing could be done AND the old foundation had to be removed before the concrete could be poured it meant that the timetable for removing the old house was very fast.
Many people who wanted to say goodbye couldn't make it back in time to do it. So I made sure to be there to video tape the whole thing. There were technical difficulties. The battery was short lived and we had to rig up alternative power sources that restricted movement. There's a change in camera at one point that I edited in when the main camera was out of power. The wind was fierce and blew over the camera a couple of times.
The efforts to salvage the flooring were difficult. It was well installed and wouldn't come up without breaking. You'll see that when the wrecker tries to knock out the second floor ... floor. Similarly, the kitchen cabinets were built in and weren't going to come out for anything. The whole wall comes out, but the cabinets remain. The guy running the wrecker didn't want to have to scoop everything out of the basement, so he uses the floor of the main level as a platform to knock things on to and scrape off rather than knock it in. The floor and basement were handled the next day. Mom taped it, but I had to head back east. The video ends with everything above the flooring of the main floor gone and a look at the hole which all the broken concrete from the house and an old fallen silo will go into.
I also have footage of a tour of the house and the removal of the trees from around the house. If anyone wants me to post that, I will. I figured the demolition was the main point.
And here's the floor plan of the house with some hurried measurements. I got the room dimensions, but didn't get the placement of the doors and windows. And the basement is the size of the main floor so I didn't bother drawing it up. The little mud room tacked on the the bottom of the main room wasn't measured, but it's the depth of a window and the space at the lower left corner where the exterior walls meet was more or less square. With this, an architect can draw up new plans if anybody in the family wants to rebuild the house.
But the house had issues. Much of the kitchen needed replacing once the linoleum went soft from the termites undermining it. The plumbing wouldn't last long at a family gathering because it just couldn't handle all those people flushing in such short order. The lights upstairs would come on when the toaster was used. If you hooked up a computer the wiring would hiss at you. Hiss, not hum. The foundation was cracked. Snakes would crawl in through holes in the retaining walls. And when trying to rewire some light switches we'd find that the baseboards were held in place where the wallpaper touched them more than by the studs they were supposed to be nailed to. The studs were eaten and rotten. It was a problem.
So Mom and Dad are building their old age home. The original plan was to build in the yard north of the old house, salvage what they could while the new house was being built, and then, with the old house stripped, push the old house into it's own basement and bury it. But a septic tank can't be put in that soil, so they have to build a sewage lagoon. Several options were suggested, but the only one that actually worked was the place they planned to build the house. Which means the new house had to be built on the site of the old house. And since the framers were only available in early June AND the concrete must be a month old before framing could be done AND the old foundation had to be removed before the concrete could be poured it meant that the timetable for removing the old house was very fast.
Many people who wanted to say goodbye couldn't make it back in time to do it. So I made sure to be there to video tape the whole thing. There were technical difficulties. The battery was short lived and we had to rig up alternative power sources that restricted movement. There's a change in camera at one point that I edited in when the main camera was out of power. The wind was fierce and blew over the camera a couple of times.
The efforts to salvage the flooring were difficult. It was well installed and wouldn't come up without breaking. You'll see that when the wrecker tries to knock out the second floor ... floor. Similarly, the kitchen cabinets were built in and weren't going to come out for anything. The whole wall comes out, but the cabinets remain. The guy running the wrecker didn't want to have to scoop everything out of the basement, so he uses the floor of the main level as a platform to knock things on to and scrape off rather than knock it in. The floor and basement were handled the next day. Mom taped it, but I had to head back east. The video ends with everything above the flooring of the main floor gone and a look at the hole which all the broken concrete from the house and an old fallen silo will go into.
I also have footage of a tour of the house and the removal of the trees from around the house. If anyone wants me to post that, I will. I figured the demolition was the main point.
And here's the floor plan of the house with some hurried measurements. I got the room dimensions, but didn't get the placement of the doors and windows. And the basement is the size of the main floor so I didn't bother drawing it up. The little mud room tacked on the the bottom of the main room wasn't measured, but it's the depth of a window and the space at the lower left corner where the exterior walls meet was more or less square. With this, an architect can draw up new plans if anybody in the family wants to rebuild the house.
Conversations with Gandolf
Gandolf: You know what time it is?
Me: Hammer time?
Gandolf: Bigger.
Me: Bigger than Hammer time?
Gandolf: Yep.
Further deliberations determined that she wanted me to say it bigger. "HAMMER TIME!" Or not.
Friday, May 02, 2014
Friday Links: May 2
Emperor Hirohito was actually a pretty good marine biologist. [link]
Russia's nukes are powering the US. [link]
Magic for dogs.
Spiderman and tiny mirror image.
The photographer and the leopard seal. [link]
Sabertooth squirrel found. [link]
A frog in a bucket of milk was a primitive form of pasteurization. [link]
What British villain are you? [link]
A fan series about Harry Potter's son that was okayed by J.K. Rowling. [link]
A castle being built using techniques used in 1229. [link]
Boris Yeltzin's already weakened faith in Communism was crushed by visiting an American supermarket. [link]
Boston's "lost" concert hall. [link]
"Vegitative" patient communicates via fMRI machine. [link]
Author's son got a bad grade when his class covered his father's book. The teacher disagreed with the author's interpretation of the novel. [link]
From time to time I look at missile silos and think of buying one. This guy did and shows how he fixed it up. [link]
If only they weren't so far from civilization.
For Batman's 75th anniversary we get a bit more Batman Beyond.
75 years of Superman in 2 minutes.
Saturn may be getting another moon. [link]
A map of where to go to be alone in America. [link]
There's such a thing as hamster sized deer. [link]
It's better for the fetus if you swallow. You love our future baby, don't you? [link]
How to drink without getting drunk. [link]
Have a dose of strange. [link]
A better way to board planes. [link]
Google cars take to city streets. [link]
I thought they had already, but...
Russia's nukes are powering the US. [link]
Magic for dogs.
Spiderman and tiny mirror image.
The photographer and the leopard seal. [link]
Sabertooth squirrel found. [link]
A frog in a bucket of milk was a primitive form of pasteurization. [link]
What British villain are you? [link]
A fan series about Harry Potter's son that was okayed by J.K. Rowling. [link]
A castle being built using techniques used in 1229. [link]
Boris Yeltzin's already weakened faith in Communism was crushed by visiting an American supermarket. [link]
Boston's "lost" concert hall. [link]
"Vegitative" patient communicates via fMRI machine. [link]
Author's son got a bad grade when his class covered his father's book. The teacher disagreed with the author's interpretation of the novel. [link]
From time to time I look at missile silos and think of buying one. This guy did and shows how he fixed it up. [link]
If only they weren't so far from civilization.
For Batman's 75th anniversary we get a bit more Batman Beyond.
75 years of Superman in 2 minutes.
Saturn may be getting another moon. [link]
A map of where to go to be alone in America. [link]
There's such a thing as hamster sized deer. [link]
It's better for the fetus if you swallow. You love our future baby, don't you? [link]
How to drink without getting drunk. [link]
Have a dose of strange. [link]
A better way to board planes. [link]
Google cars take to city streets. [link]
I thought they had already, but...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)