sci-fi
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I don’t believe i ever saw this as a kid but it still holds up well : even as a kid pretending to be an adult :
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Blade Runner turns 25
Twenty-five years ago, the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner became an instant science fiction classic. Set in a sodden, squalid Los Angeles of 2019, the neo-noir masterpiece influenced a generation of filmmakers and video-game designers. Scott’s cyberpunk gem almost instantly became the most important film in the canon of movies people like me love.
Admittedly, I’m still such a fan that I watch it at least once every few months.
In Blade Runner’s dystopian near future, replicants [genetically engineered humanoids] do the hard work on off-world colonies. After a bloody mutiny the androids are forbidden from coming to Earth. So when six rogue replicants return home, they must be “retired” [hunted down and killed] and Ford’s Deckard, once a top replicant hunter, or “blade runner,” is pulled out of his own retirement to do the job.
Watching it even now showcases Scott’s genius for creating stunning effects with simple technology.
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Flatland
This is one of my favorite books of all time!
Edwin Abbott wrote the story in 1884 and it stands as a great epic to this day.
I first read it while living in Chapel Hill and recently discovered it on YouTube recreated as a somewhat crude animation:
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Adaptive Technology :: Evolved
Doctors laugh at me when they ask me ideally what do i want to do about my knee problem and i tell them how i’d like them to just lop it off and gimme a rad prosthetic.
if there are any doctors out there who’d like to help a fella get his quality of life back by hooking him up with something akin to this would you email queue [ - at - ] thinfilmsproductions dot com, please?
i don’t wanna be the fastest runner on my block or break any records other than the furthest walk i’ve had in months.
there’s no doubt this new technology is fascinating but, as we all know, every new solution brings with it a new set of dilemmas.
Whatever. You are my total fucking hero! THANKS, OSCAR!
click here to learn more about Oscar.
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Kurt Vonnegut has left the building
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R2 honored by USPS
WASHINGTON – Thirty years ago, in theaters near and far, far away, a movie opened the imaginations of millions, combining the magic of mythology and special effects to launch the “Star Wars†phenomenon.
A star of these films  the brave little droid R2-D2  is about to take a turn collecting mail as the Postal Service and Lucasfilm Ltd. commemorate the launch of the first “Star Wars†movie.
The post office is wrapping mail collection boxes in some 200 cities nationwide in a special covering to look like R2-D2.
[more]
Lucas’ network infrastructure trumps world
Given the cult-film status of 1971′s THX 1138 in the George Lucas universe, it should come as little surprise that the total capacity of Lucasfilm’s giant data center is 11.38 petabits per second.
Granted, that number–which represents the value one would get by adding up the bandwidth capacity of all the company’s 1 gigabit per second desktop machines and its 10-gbps backbone–is purely theoretical. But in an environment like Lucasfilm, which is celebrating four Oscar nominations this week, and where self-referential history is a big parlor game, numbers like that are nothing to be messed with.
The 10-gbps backbone is the core of the data center’s network. That rate is faster than the prevailing industry standard of around 1 gbps for most servers.
“They’re hesitant to change that capacity,” Kevin Clark, Lucasfilm’s director of IT operations, said of the total theoretical bandwidth number.
Take a video tour of this badass datacenter here!
Ultraman’s 40th Birthday today
dunno if many other people grew up watching this show in the 70′s and 80′s or not but it was a staple in my early TV diet.
my friends and i played Ultraman in snow, rain and shine. we lived it, actually, and each of us had our respective Beta Capsules so as to be prepared when it was our turn to be Hayata.
it was a cathartic game, after which we all felt restored and empowered. especially after those run-ins with bullies who [more than anything] hurt our self-confidence.
Happy Birthday to an icon that inspired me while providing hours of imaginative playtime with pals.
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Growing up with Newsweek
Newsweek loves to feature articles about Autism.
People love to buy Newsweek and read articles about Autism.
If the following cliche’ is true [about Autism] then most of the world is Autistic only they don’t know it yet:
Work is play and play is work
Sound like anyone in YOUR neighborhood?
When was the last time you didn’t schedule something? when was the last time you did something “spontaneously” and it was fun? when was the last time you played, really played without having to work at it?
if we’re not careful about our obsession with time management and commitment to “careers” we may all be in for more and more future generations of Rain Men and Rain Women who are engineered to think fun is being at the office until sunrise and work is going to the park [ugh] again.
how weird is this “are you a workaholic” quiz on Forbes.com?
WHAT IF [humor me here for a moment] it’s unhealthy lifestyles like ours that generation after generation give rise to abominations such as Autism?
Did you know that Autism does not exist in Native cultures, such as Native American, Native Alaskan, Aboriginal, etc? Not a single trace exists in these cultures. Well, maybe if they continue to participate in our culture long enough they will, too!
WHAT IF, collectively, we are killing off our collective consciousness [ie imagination] by exercising mostly only those “muscles” that work and watch tv or some such other unimaginative recreation? at what age does imaginative play stop? what was it 20 years ago? 50?
PLEASE. DON’T JUST SIT THERE READING NEWSWEEK.
THINK ABOUT IT.
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For the monkey who has everything…
for some reason, i find this to be fascinating in a sick, ironically unsound way:
how does it make you feel?
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APE WITH A HEART MAKES GROWN MEN CRY
$1,845,034,000 worldwide and $600,788,188 are the all-time boxoffice records for a single movie, TITANIC, first released on December 19, 1997.
Now roars along another December blockbuster, KING KONG, a film many top Hollywood executives predict will break the record!
The movie opens wide as Victoria Lake next Wednesday, but recent screenings by UNIVERSAL have left the audience cheering and sobbing.
“Grown men around me were crying,” says one Hollywood insider. “Yes, I think this will do TITANIC numbers. It is going to be a huge movie.”
Complaints the Peter Jackson movie starts slow and is too long [more than 3 hours] will fill critics’ columns. “The human relationships are s**t … the dialogue is piss poor and there is a scene of Jamie Bell shooting gigantic bugs off of Adrian Brody with a tommy gun … those are the bad parts,” says a Hollywood reporter. “But…. the scenes between Kong and Naomi Watts tug at the heart strings big time. And the final scene was just great! There were one too many longing looks between the ape and Watts … but the audience around me ate it up.”
The enduring appeal of King Kong
As Peter Jackson’s new version of King Kong receives its world premiere on Monday, the BBC News website looks at the lasting legacy of the original film.
King Kong has become one of the most enduring monster films of all time – not bad for a picture made 72 years ago, starring an 18-inch model ape.
Co-directed by the maverick film-makers Merian C Cooper and Ernest B Schoedsack, it was made decades before the computer-generated special effects seen in contemporary fantasy films.
The tale of a gigantic ape who falls for a beautiful woman was partly shot using the stop motion technique – where Kong and dinosaur miniatures were moved an infinitesimal amount, shot, moved again, re-shot, moved again…
