- With the recent memos NBC news leaked — wow, good on you NBC — I’m getting a little frightened for the future of the USA. The President has taken the War on Terror ball from the last guy and he is running with it without looking back or stopping for nothing. When he hands it off to a more than likely more conservative successor in 2016 I fear we will continue down the rabbit hole to oblivion. Oblivion looking like a mild, subtle, and polite police state.
- 2013 could be one of the best years for science fiction films we’ve seen in some time. The ones I’m most excited for:
Neill Blomkamp‘s second feature film behind the brilliant “District 9″, called Elysium. The overall concept of the film: 2159, overpopulated and most likely trashed Earth, the well-to-do living in a massive glorious orbiting space station society (called “Elysium”), the less than fortunate living on the surface, an ex-Con who has a chance to bring about equality back to the human race. The fact that Jodie Foster is going to be the pseudo villain, in an anti-immigrant authoritarion role aboard the station, is enough to get me to the theater on this one. Throw in the fact that this is Blomkamp we’re talking here, who’s use of CG is so subtle, who’s art direction is so grimy, this film could turn out to be eerily plausible. And I would not be surprised if he throws in some modern day rhetoric to make it feel all the more real.
The highly anticipated (for me at least) Gravity. Alfonso Cuaron‘s first movie since 2006′s “Children of Men“, which is a great flick. The story is quite simple really: two astronauts (Sandra Bullok and George Clooney) get caught-up in the destruction (accidental, most likely) of something similar to our International Space Station, the film depicts their attempts to get back on Earth safely. Now, I think this was scrapped, but rumor had it the movie was going to be one long take. Which would be insane. I have read more recently though — from fairly reputable sources — that it’s looking like the movie will be composed of a select handful of long takes. That alone has my interest peaked, Cuaron’s shot at the end of “Men” was spectacular.
In terms of discussing the influence of film on American society and the alarmingly frequent and horrifically violent acts perpetrated by Americans on other Americans, we have recently heard, AGAIN, two specific films called out and scapegoated, American Psycho and Natural Born Killers; despite the field day that these so-called “film critics” could have had with movies actually from this decade like Killers, from 2010 (oops, that’s an Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl romantic comedy). Taking a closer look at both American Psycho and Natural Born Killers, it becomes clear how weak both movies are when called out as examples of media “aired like propaganda loops on ‘Splatterdays’ and every day.”
- Considering I received an oh-so subtle death threat on Facebook the other day, it’s no surprise many users are taking hiatuses from the service right now, and will continue to in the year 2013 (it’s looking like). It was December 2012 when the data of a PEW survey was taken, finding that 61% of users were backing off from the social networking site. I think election hangover might have something to do with this. Although study subjects’ top two claims were “gave it up for lent” and “too much drama”. I actually do not agree with this idea though that on Facebook we can’t talk about deep philosophical issues. Sure, it gets tedious. But that’s because of the quality of discussion, not the discussion itself. People don’t listen to each other and they don’t think critically. Sure, I generally use Facebook to share music I like with my friends, or keep people updated on the status of my family… but it can be more than that. It’s not as good as the real thing, but it could be the 21st Century town square. Where someone presents an idea, then the rest of the public comments on it, likes or dislikes it. But no one is civil anymore. In fact, mostly what you get is 20-somethings lashing out against their family about how terrible they’ve been to them publicly. I know, this happened on my feed (not surprisingly) around December 2012.
We’ve written a few times about a patent trolling operation called Personal Audio. Like so many patent trolling companies, whose actually behind it is something of a mystery, but it does have an empty office in East Texas that no one ever goes to. It sued Apple and others claiming that it held patents on the concept of “playlists” and actually scored some victories. Amazingly, it sued Apple multiple times over the same patent, arguing that small changes to its products were new violations.
- Alfonso Cuaron‘s first film since 2006′s brilliant Children of Men has finally set a release date: October 4th, 2013. While this may seem like eons away it really isn’t too far to go considering it’ll have been seven years since “Children”. The movie stars Clooney and Sandra Bullock as astronauts attempting to return to Earth. I’m a sucker for high concept, intelligent sci-fi flicks, so I’m counting this as one of my most anticipated releases of the year. Not to mention Cuaron’s spectacular direction… he’s certainly got an eye for it. The movie is called Gravity.
- Similarly, Shane Caruth‘s first film since the brilliant Primer (2004) is also set for release this year, it’s called Upstream Color. Primer is confusing, no doubt, but it’s one of the best science fiction films of the 2000s and one of the best time travel films of all time. And — it could be argued — the complexities of the film serve a purpose, in putting the viewer in the shoes of the characters. Synopses for “Upstream” have been vague to say the least. The IMDB description reads: “A man and woman are drawn together, entangled in the life cycle of an ageless organism. Identity becomes an illusion as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of wrecked lives.“ The obvious wrench in there is “ageless organism”. Hmm.
- In 1926 William Douglas Burden, of the American Museum of Natural History, set out with a hunter, a herpetologist, a cameraman, and his wife to capture giant dragons they’d only heard about. Turned out they were actually Komodo dragons. No one had seen them in the Western world though, they were only a legend. Besides bringing back footage to New York, the group also brought back several Komodo’s, some dead… some living. This was the inspiration for King Kong.
- OK, What Should We Make of Benghazi? by Thomas E. Ricks. Ricks is a pretty brilliant Foreign Policy journalist, he knows his stuff. This article is filled with close calls, including one from an ambassadors mouth in 2011 Syria. Here’s a standout paragraph:
Surprisingly few of Crocker’s PRTs were killed in Iraq, primarily due to the robust US military presence there. But that is seldom the case in most unstable areas where US engagement is essential. From 1968 to 1979, a US Ambassador was killed in office on the average of one every two years, so its is not just about “our times.”
A few months ago, physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive. His proposed design, an ingenious re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks — and all without violating Einstein’s law of relativity. We contacted White at NASA and asked him to explain how this real life warp drive could actually work.
- On Thanksgiving I wrote quite a long piece about the infamous comic strip “Huxley was right; Orwell was wrong”. It very poorly tied the idea that Huxley was right to Black Friday now spilling over into Thanksgiving now, the day of the year we’re supposed to be thankful for what we have. The only day of the year in this country where we aren’t supposed to be consumers. It also compared and contrasted 21st Century living to what Brave New World and 1984 predicted would happen to our societies. I wrote it, edited it, and published it. For some reason the published version wiped about 3/4 of the thing clean. Probably a good thing as it was terribly written.
“In June, director Martin Scorsese tried to show his 1993 film The Age of Innocence at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s editor for the past 40 years and a three-time Oscar winner, called Grover Crisp, the senior VP of asset management at Sony, for a 35mm print. But Sony not only didn’t have a print, it couldn’t even make one.
“He told me that they can’t print it anymore because Technicolor in Los Angeles no longer prints film,” Schoonmaker recalled. “Which means a film we made 20 years ago can no longer be printed, unless we move it to another lab—one of the few labs still making prints.”
- A swath of Nordic countries (all of them?) are telling Facebook to stop unsolicited advertising of users in their countries or face legal action. Good for them. Not only did they cite the current EU on “privacy and electronic communication” in their threat, they also are looking into amending the law to uniquely tackle the topic. “It is prohibited to send electronic advertisements to consumers who haven’t given their consent, either by email or SMS… We think that some of the advertising that Facebook calls ‘sponsored stories’ is beginning to look like unsolicited electronic messages.”
- The Independent: “The Future of War Is LookingBleak“. What a spectacular title for a news article! Now we’re talking! Havard Hegre, a professor at the University of Oslo, developed a model for predicting future events and trends on a global scale this past year, his work has just been published. In it Hegre discovered that the amount of “wars” (defined as a conflict between countries in which at least 25 people die) has dropped dramatically in recent history, and the extended model shows a continuation of decline in the next 40 years. “War has become less acceptable,” Hegre said, “just like duelling, torture and the death penalty.”
- I’ve been getting really into a remix project lately, and will likely come very close to finishing on my days off work this week. Seems like lately I keep having the same crisis: during instrumental breaks do I go batshit crazy with a guitar or with a turntable. Obviously this depends on the song, but it’s still hard to be clairvoyant and know which one will work better. So typically I will just record both and compare and contrast. First World Producer Problems.
- I think I’ve posted Ulises Farinas’ art here before, but it’s well worth a second mention:
The past three decades of wanton patent-granting have created a disastrous environment for innovation. Today it’s practically impossible to build anything without violating a patent of some kind—and risking a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for your troubles. Once intended to protect lone inventors, patents now form a kind of shadow tech industry, in which billions of dollars are spent on amassing huge portfolios. (A recent New York Times article noted that Apple and Google, companies that define themselves by innovation, now invest more in patent acquisition and defense than in research and development.)
Why are companies spending so much money on patents? First, as protection. “Patents are like bullets,” law professor Chien says. “They’re cheap to acquire but can cause a lot of damage.” But if you have your own bullets, would-be assassins are less likely to target you. That’s the thinking behind RPX (Rational Patent Exchange), whose clients include Google, Microsoft, and IBM. RPX amasses patents, it says, to keep them out of the hands of lawsuit-happy competitors, and it vows not to sue anyone over them.
- I’m a massive proponent for not going to war with Iran. The problem with my viewpoint is we kinda already are at war with Iran. It’s just a sophisticated war, a secret war.
The dramatic spike in suspected Iranian cyber attacks this year also has some in the U.S. distinctly worried. While direct denial of service attacks on U.S. banks – widely seen as retaliation for US sanctions and attempts to freeze Iran from the international financial system – were seen relatively simplistic, attacks on US allies in the Gulf were more complex.
The most worrying, experts say, were those on Saudi oil firm Aramco and Qatari gas export facilities. Last month, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described the Saudi attack as the most sophisticated yet launched on a private company, effectively destroying tens of thousands of computers – although he stopped short of blaming Tehran directly.
- So Disney bought Star Wars. If you don’t know. Which is… meh. I mean, I’m not like a huge Star Wars fanboy or anything so I don’t have to strong of feelings either way. I do, like 80% of humans, love the old Star Wars movies; and I do, like 85% of humans, hate the new ones. From what I’m reading from people who know a lot about this stuff, there are novels that act as the official “post-Original Trilogy” story. Something to do with Han and Leia’s kids, Luke running a new Jedi order, and the resurgence of the Empire and the Sith. This could be decent I suppose. The problem with the new ones — and I’m sure this has been written about extensively — is the fear of treading new ground. This notion that they had to fall back on the old ones to be good. You can see that in everything from the bizarre and wacky coincidences written into the story, the way the ships are designed, even the way Palatine was scarred to look like a shitty Halloween costume of himself in Jedi. As long as they don’t do any of that, and focus on a new story, new characters, new designs, they should be alright I hope.
[But hey, I'm one of like 3 million assholes writing my opinions on the Internet about this so what the fuck do I know?]
- William Gibson’s seminal novel Neuromancer is being turned into a film as we speak. Little is known about the project. The IMDB page is empty, to say the least. Liam Neeson’s name is on the cast, which may or may not be true, but sounds awesome. If you don’t know about the novel it’s one of the best science fiction novels of all-time. It started the genre we call “cyberpunk”. It also featured characters “jacking into” the Internet which was obviously directly lifted for The Matrix movies. Anyways, here’s a new poster (the first):
I have the impression that this is the opinion the government wants to impose on people, their way of opposing the situation. I think that when a person goes somewhere, she reflects, she thinks about where she is going and why, because she is using her time and energy. It’s a conscious choice. I don’t go to a demonstration because it’s cool. It isn’t at all cool to go to demonstrations today. The forces of order are nearby. They can beat you up. The demonstration on May 6th proved that. Nowadays, many people find themselves behind bars solely because they went to a public demonstration.
If I mentally transpose the words “entertaining” and “sport,” Dylan’s sentiment gets close to what I’m trying to express (and what I want to feel, but can’t). There was a time when I watched football in order to not think about my day-to-day life, but fantasy sports slowly changed that — in fact, my affinity for fantasy only makes it worse. I turn the players I draft into tiny parts of my life, which stops me from remembering that they have no relationship whatsoever to who I am. It makes me unconsciously think of them as extensions of myself. And I wonder if this is more problematic than I want to accept. Do I have any right to get angry at Chris Johnson? Does anyone?
- The Trouble With The Mask. Great op-Ed on the inherent problems with the new Joker in Batman and featuring a brilliant Bukowski quote.
- Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes. Christopher Waltz just signed up to star in the upcoming Terry Gilliam flick, Zero Theorem. Course, in Gilliam time “upcoming” could mean years upon years. But supposedly, the film we be going into production soonish… with Waltz fresh off his stint on Tarentino’s set. Reason I’m so excited — besides loving said star/director combination — is because SlashFilm is calling the script “a Philip K. Dick story on steroids”. It revisits the Orwellian world and themes of Gilliam’s Brazil. BleedingCool has a synopsis, if you like. The story involves virtual sex, a Big Brother-esque organization called “Management”, therapists as computer applications, and suits that allow users to explore their souls (falsely?). Not to mention the theorem (titular) Waltz’s character is working on, which will once and for all prove that life does or does not have a purpose. Wheew.
Living in an Orwellian corporate world where “mancams” serve as the eyes of a shadowy figure known only as Management, Leth (Waltz) works on a solution to the strange theorem while living as a virtual cloistered monk in his home—the shattered interior of a fire-damaged chapel.
His isolation and work are interrupted now and then by surprise visits from Bainsley, a flamboyantly lusty love interest who tempts him with “tantric biotelemetric interfacing” (virtual sex) and Bob.
Latter is the rebellious whiz-kid teenage son of Management who, with a combination of insult-comedy and an evolving true friendship, spurs on Qohen’s efforts at solving the theorem. But these visits turn out to be intentional diversions orchestrated by Management to keep control of Qohen’s progress.
Bob creates a virtual reality “inner-space” suit that will carry Qohen on an inward voyage, a close encounter with the hidden dimensions and truth of his own soul, wherein lie the answers both he and Management are seeking. The suit and supporting computer technology will perform an inventory of Qohen’s soul, either proving or disproving the Zero Theorem.
Such an event occurred in March 2011, when scientists using NASA’s Swift telescope detected a sudden flare of X-rays from a source located nearly 4 billion light-years away in the constellation Draco. The flare, called Swift J1644+57, showed the likely location of a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy, a black hole that had until then remained hidden until a star ventured too close and became an easy meal.
The resulting particle jet, created by material from the star that got caught up in the black hole’s intense magnetic field lines and was blown out into space in our direction (at 80-90% the speed of light!) is what initially attracted astronomers’ attention. But further research on Swift J1644+57 with other telescopes has revealed new information about the black hole and what happens when a star meets its end.
- Wired.uk has an article reporting on new research about the microbe marine life levels in the Gulf of Mexico 2ish years after the now mostly forgotten BP oil spill. And it has been mostly forgotten; unless you live down there, and your economy is so closely tied to the ocean. Characters at my work have said that “it really isn’t as bad as it seems”, or that the whole thing was overblown by the “liberal media”. But, and this is from a strictly non-political viewpoint, I just don’t see how 210 million gallons of crude oil could be dumped into a gulf (we’re not talking the middle of the Pacific here) and it not affect the marine life. I was right. PLoSONE research group studied the shoreline and found “predatory fungal communities that can survive in harsher conditions appear to have replaced the previously diverse range of microscopic marine life that once populated the shoreline, including metazoan phyla, protists, algae and fungi.”
- From IEET (Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies), Patrick Lin of The Atlantic asks “Is It Possible To Wage A Just Cyberwar?”. Lin discusses 6 issues that relate to the righteousness of an act of war, as pertaining to cyberwarfare: 1) Aggression, 2) Discrimination, 3) Proportionality, 4) Attribution, 5) Treacherous Deceit, and 6) A Lasting Peace. Very interesting:
This digital evolution means that it is now less clear what kind of events should reasonably trigger a war, as well as how and when new technologies may be used. With cyberweapons, a war theoretically could be waged without casualties or political risk, so their attractiveness is great — maybe so irresistible that nations are tempted to use them before such aggression is justified. This essay identifies some important ethical issues that have been upturned by these emerging digital weapons, which in turn help explain why national cyberdefense is such a difficult policy area.
- Finally, On The Natural History of Surveillance likens science fiction tropes to the tech we have now. Well… “likens” might be the wrong word considering lots of the shit from 60′s science fiction (particularly PKD books) IS HAPPENING NOW tick for tock.
Upon hearing the phrase, we may not know exactly what a “cephalic sniffer” is, nor whether it is a real piece of technology. However, as to what such a nefarious device might be able to do, we could surely begin to imagine from the name alone. And as for whether it is technological reality (it is not, being invented by Philip K. Dick in his story Clans of the Alphane Moon), from its “sci-fi” sounding alliteration we might guess correctly that it is purely fantasy.
At least it was fantasy when PKD invented it in 1964. Today, advances in biometric identification mean that while a device that can search out an individual by his or her brainwaves is not yet on the market (at least publicly), searching out a person by face or speech pattern is decidedly real. Furthermore, brain-computer interface devices (BCI) have been commercially available since at least 1999.
- I had this thought today that I would watch a movie while writing and doing other things on my computer… then I picked The Tree of Life and now I can’t look away. It almost reminds me more of an Iñárritu movie than a Terence Malick one. The imagery, the narrative nature, even the loud/quiet/loud sound dynamics. It’s beautiful to look at, if anything. And this isn’t a review, cause I’m in the middle of the damn thing. The shots of the Universe and volcanoes erupting and cellular structure are really fucking cool; reminds me a bit of 2001. Also, some of the most realistic portrayals of dinosaurs ever on film.
- Did George Lucas honestly say that Empire Strikes Back is the worst Star Wars flick?? Wow. Now, the context might point in the direction of a joke. So it should be taken with a grain of salt. Or it could be one of those things where somebody makes a joke to cover up the fact that it’s actually a sore subject. Either way, it’s far and away the best Star Wars movie and Lucas didn’t direct it. Thought this was a cool Hitchcockian type poster for Empire, found it on DeviantArt:
- Cody Walker at Sequart.org has some brilliant comics articles (as do other writers at the site). A lot of them are particularly of interest for me, being a massive fan of Grant Morrison’s years-spanning Batman epic. Walker has three part articles on the passive aggressive (eventually turning plain old aggressive) feud between Joker and Dr. Hurt. That series is very interesting to read because he delves into the history of Morrison’s writing of the Joker, including the deconstruction of his personality way back in 1989′s Arkham Asylum (Dave Mckean’s art still messes with my brain every time I open that book). He also writes extensively about the transformation of Bruce Wayne’s son Damien, from his initial appearance in “Batman & Son” to his heroic turn in GM’s Batman & Robin. His character arc was plotted wonderfully: Morrison deliberately wanted him to be hated when he first appeared, the wrote him more and more likeable as the issues and years passed by.
- Mentioned Blade Runner yesterday. Here’s a link to the original production sketchbook. Lots of really great conceptual art, everything from vehicles (the “flying cars” in the film, and pictured in PKD’s mind when he wrote it, are some of the more realistic we’ve seen) to weapons to locales. One very odd connection between this film and Metropolisis the use of a very massive and towering complex in the middle of an already massive metropolitan, skyscraper riddled city. Both are surely references to the biblical Tower of Babel. Which is significant.
- Brian K. Vaughan explains some interesting, and logical, viewpoints on what it means when comics sell out. Not in the “maaan, you’re such a sellout… you used to be cool” type way; as in when a comic gets ordered by suppliers enough to the point where no copies remain for ordering from the publisher itself. Long story short: great for buzz, not so much for practical sales. It’s simply “creates a roadblock between readers and the material they want to read, and between retailers and the books they want to sell”, in Brian’s terms.
His new book Saga seems like it’ll be wonderful. The first issue was charming and funny and romantic. Not to mention timely yet very otherworldly. Cover:
- Awesome video of the evolution of the Moon. Courtesy of NASA (I thought they didn’t have any money?):
