Morgui The Scary Robot

I don't know if I'm afraid of robots because they are inherently ominous, or because I watched entirely too many sci-fi movies as a child. Either way, my views on allowing them into decent society have been consistently pessimistic. I don't know how I feel about an 'I, Robot' kind of future, where they become our mechanized indentured servants. Why? Because enslaved beings always revolt, and I don't want to be apart of that either. I guess I'm xenophobic toward the robotic.

In that case, I'm not alone. And I'm kidding. Somewhat.

Meet Morgui, the new robot constructed at the University of Reading, which has been deemed so scary it has been banned from interacting with anyone aged under 18. The x-rated robot is a disembodied head with five senses and big bright eyes and is able to follow people around the room.

But the university's ethics and research committee took one look at Morgui and decided it might be just a bit too scary. This is ironic. Morgui, which is Mandarin for Magic Ghost, cannot experience emotions - it is an experiment in how people react to robots.

We're not on the verge of a 1:1 human-robot ratio, but the technology we're developing (as humanity; I'm not British) is helping us discover more about who we are, oddly enough, in some strange self-indulgent way. It's like we're only interested in an enlightened form of intellectual masturbation, perpetuated, of course, by (who else?) our best and brightest minds.

University Robot Ruled Too Scary - Guardian UK

'Creation' Trailer - Watch if you Dare, Americans!

The new movie based on Charles Darwin's life (with Paul Bettany in the title role) is coming to the Toronto Film Festival two weeks before its release in England, and it's looking for a U.S. distributor. There is a controversy brewing, and those who live in the U.S. know exactly what it's about: evolution.

The movie, about Darwin's writing 'On the Origin of Species' and the impact it has on his personal life - is being hyped as 'too controversial' for American audiences, but I wonder how much of that is meant to court distributors. The movie is a drama that will have potential 'Academy' aspirations, so maybe this is all a marketing move. That the movie doesn't have a U.S. distributor yet is disheartening, but it doesn't necessarily mean the movie isn't going to or that the movie is, indeed, too much for American audiences to handle.

Even if the movie is having trouble finding a distributor, it's also a period drama, and period dramas are not wildly successful in America. I'm not saying that releasing a film about Charles Darwin won't have some negative backlash - it could have a lot - but if it were a documentary by Michael Moore or action movie about Darwin by Ron Howard, it probably wouldn't be having the same kind of difficulty that it's having now.

'Survival of the Dead' Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek at the new George A. Romero movie, Survival of the Dead, about humans surviving off the coast of North America post-zombie-apocalypse. It's not anything particularly novel, especially from the man who basically invented the zombie sub-genre of horror, but it may be enjoyable nonetheless. The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting review of it posted online:

George A. Romero's latest zombie fest, "Survival of the Dead," is a polished, fast-moving, entertaining picture whose mainstream success will depend on audiences' tolerance of its tendency to become an abattoir of extreme carnage.

'Polished' and 'fast-moving' are not adjectives generally associated with Romero's zombie flicks. Romero usually treats these flicks with an old-school style of slow burn, building the tension to a mad crescendo, but, alas, times have changed. After the release of a somewhat disappointing bit of social commentary masked in blood and guts called 'Land of the Dead', he bounced back with an entertaining, smallish production in 'Diary of the Dead' (which I enjoyed enormously). Let's hope that 'Survival' is one of the fittest of his post-'Day' apocalyptic visions (I couldn't help myself with the pun).

Johnny Cash Elivs Impersonation

Johnny Cash died six years ago today, and instead of posting something depressing about him, I thought I'd show his rather acerbic sense of humor instead. This is a video of him goofing on stage, riffing on Elvis's stage act. He's not (always) the brooding Man-In-Black that people made him out to be, but he was a great musician and a terribly important influence on country music and, later, rock as well.

Here is what Bob Dylan had to say about him in Rolling Stone:

I was asked to give a statement on Johnny's passing and thought about writing a piece instead called "Cash Is King," because that is the way I really feel. In plain terms, Johnny was and is the North Star; you could guide your ship by him — the greatest of the greats then and now. I first met him in '62 or '63 and saw him a lot in those years. Not so much recently, but in some kind of way he was with me more than people I see every day.

Just for S-n-Gs, I also decided to post a performance of 'Cocaine Blues'. It's my favorite Johnny Cash song. Hey, it's my blog. I can do that kind of stuff with my blog on Gameday Saturday.

Rotten Comic

'Rotten' is a new zombie-phile comic set in the Old West, from creators Mark Rahner, Robert Horton, and Dan Dougherty. Don't fret, though, if you don't want to get behind, because issue # 3 only came out a few days ago. There's even a sample opening page of the comic on the web site, if you're unsure whether or not a Wild West-era zombie story is exactly in your wheel house.

I read on the site that comic book shops are having trouble keeping the book in stock, because it's selling out fairly quickly, so if you're in dire need of reading it and can't find it, you can order it directly from the publisher, MoonStone Books.

Two Guys On Beer

No, I didn't mistype it. At first I also thought it should be "Two Guys One Beer", but that's neither here nor there. Needless to say, beyond my juvenile humor, the show itself is pretty self-explanatory. From the site:

Most of what you will see is episodes – Johnny [Bilotta] and I [Dave Martorana] reviewing beer, talking about the brewery, the style and its heritage, etc. Sometimes, we’ll have special shows – we call them “TGOB Specials” – and they can vary from interviews to covering beer events such as Oktoberfest.

I've posted the 100th episode special, where they review - and drink - Flying Dog's take on the Oktoberfest, 'Dogtoberfest'. The episodes are decidedly short and informational, and they make me wish I'd thought of the idea first.

You can visit the web site, subscribe to their feed on YouTube or follow them on Twitter. They seem like very nice guys, and it appears as though they're just getting started on this project, even though they're 100 episodes in, so give them some support. I can get behind just about anybody who drinks good beer.

Linnea Quigley's Zombie Workout - Today's WTF

If you're a zombie aficionado, you may remember Linnea Quigley from Return of the Living Dead, and - I guess - to capitalize on that, there's a video of her working some undead mother-effers into shape. A zombie workout video. I've almost seen everything now.

It's weird, awkwardly bad, and I wouldn't recommend you watch it if it weren't so strange. I found it on a list of the 20 strangest zombie videos over at ninetythrees.com, so you may want to wander over there and see what else the weird world of the undead has to offer.

Weekly Movie Poll - 9/11/09

 Which Movie Are You Most Likely To See This Weekend?

• 
  
  9


• 
  
  Whiteout


• 
  
  Sorority Row


• 
  
  None of them. They all look terrible.


• 
  
  Movies?! I don't have enough money for the movies!


• 
  
  Movies?! It's football season, chump.

view results
Free vote poll

Mad Villain - All Caps

MF DOOM and Madlib are Madvillain. The two met in 2002 and soon began working on Madvillainy which would be finished over the next year and released in March 2004. The music on Madvillainy went against the grain of all popular conventions in contemporary hip-hop: short songs, dirty sound, no choruses, and with lyrical themes which were not always clear to everyone on first listen. The album received the highest critical praise of a hip-hop album released in 2004, and years later has continued to generate interest and controversy.

The main character in the video looks like a mixture of Rorschach from Watchmen and Dr. Doom, which may not be a coincidence, since one of the Emcees is named MF Doom. I tend to be sort of a hip hop snob, since I listen to that which is considered underground, but take my word for it when I say that MadVillain is Hip Hop on the highest level. 'All Caps' comes from the album 'MadVillainy', and you can buy it on Amazon.

Madvillain - Stonesthrow Records

'Braid' on XBox 360

Braid trailer from David Hellman on Vimeo.

If I owned an XBox 360, then I would probably be on XBox Live buying this game right now. Braid is a platformer that lets you to do more than run and jump. In it, you can manipulate time and 'undo' death and even see multiple realities play out simultaneously. It was developed by independent programmer/designer Jonathan Blow, and the game won "the 'Game Design' Award at the Independent Games Festival in 2006." Honestly, it looks very, very cool.

Here is a more in-depth description from the game's web site:

Braid is a platform game in a painterly style where you manipulate the flow of time to solve puzzles. Every puzzle in Braid is unique. There is no filler. Braid treats your time and attention as precious. Braid does everything it can to give you a mind-expanding experience.

If you go to Steampowered.com, you can buy the game for $4.99 this weekend only. From everything I've seen and heard about it, the purchase price looks totally worth it.

Even More Images from the Hubble Telescope

I am utterly amazed every time I see pictures emerge from the Hubble (or any deep-space) Telescope, but it may just be that, since I do not have a scientific mind, my mind is easily boggled.

Recently, the Hubble Telescope received a 1 billion dollar repair job, and thank Jebus for that. Some of the newer pictures emerging from the 'scope are even more mind-blowing than the one I've posted above. The description of the pic - plus plenty more pics - can be found on The Sacramento Bee web sit:

An image of a pillar of gas and dust. Called the Cone Nebula (NGC 2264) because in ground-based images it has a conical shape, this giant pillar resides in a turbulent star-forming region. This picture, taken April 2, 2002, by the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows the upper 2.5 light-yearsof the nebula, a height that equals 23 million roundtrips to the Moon. The entire nebula is 7 light-years long. The Cone Nebula resides 2,500 light-years away in the constellation Monoceros. NASA

Hubble Telescope's Latest Images

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• Mini Galaxies Orbiting Milky Way
  
• Dark Flow - Science Stuff, Not a Horror Movie
  
• M87 Black Hole is Big. REALLY Big!
  

Derren Brown Predicting The Lottery Numbers

Derren Brown is an English illusionist, and the other night he "predicted" the British lottery numbers sort of live. "The BBC Rules" wouldn't allow him to do it beforehand, but he "did it" nonetheless. It's a complicated set-up and a masterful bit of trickery, so watch the video for yourselves. It is impressive, only because we know not how he did it. Apparently, a segment will air on Friday night - at 9 pm - to explain the trick (I think), and to me that will be the amazing part.

I respect illusionists, only if they subtly wink at the audience with their "magic" to let us know they're not self-centered enough to believe it's real. It's only when they pretend it's real - ahem, religious figures - that I become an overbearing skeptic. People, on the whole, are entirely too credulous, and turning them into sheep entirely too easy, so, people, always be skeptical. Okay, I'm off my podium now.

If you want to find out how the most disgusting of these people operate - John Edward and the like - spend a few minutes at the James Randi Foundation Site. James Randi has devoted his life to exposing hucksters and charlatans for the, well, hucksters they truly are.

Streamin Soon - Seeing Into the Future of Netflix's Instant Watch

I am a Netflix junkie. I've been a member of their service since 2003, and I was ecstatic when they added the 'Instant Watch' function on the site. Keeps me from having to wait on movies to arrive "on my doorstep". It also probably helps to keep Netflix's costs down, if there is no physical copy of the DVD that could potentially get lost. But I digress.

One downside is that I never know what may be coming to the streaming section of the site, and I miss movies for this reason or that one. It's a bummer, but I just thought that was one of the tricks; you have to go to the site to see what's available.

Not anymore. With Streaming Soon, you can check out which movies will be added to the site in the coming weeks and plan to watch accordingly. It's definitely a big help if some of those movies are near the top of your queue. You can simply move them down on your list and watch them at home, saving that necessary space for movies that aren't streaming online. Just thought I'd bring it to your attention.

'Don't Copy That Floppy' 2: The Sequel

I don't know if you remember MC DP - Disc(k?) Protector - and his rap excoriating the practice of illegally copying games via floppy disk. It was called "Don't Copy That Floppy" and it's hilariously - almost satirically - out of date today. When it came out in 1992, I was in no place to own a computer, so the message went right over my head. I remember seeing it, but I had to watch it again to refresh my memory.

I guess that collective dementia is why they remade it to account for the kind of piracy going on today, with MC DP returning to his duties as the Grand Inquisitor of internet and media piracy in "Don't Copy That Floppy Two". In the background of the new vid, you can see the original DCTF(and I also have it posted below, just in case).

Here's the original, in case you don't remember it.

Hacking 'Treasure Seeker' - NES

"Treasure Hunter" is, by all appearances, is a horrible game. You don't even necessarily have to play it to know it's not top notch. See, NES games had this thing where they tried to cash in on "trends", so if a game adhered to too many of these generic traits, mostly, it wasn't any good.

So, in that respect, "Treasure Seeker" is in big trouble. Look at the dweeb on the cover: Backwards (non-fitted) cap, shades, 90's shirt, thumbs up. Sad on so many levels, to the extent that it's attempt to make it cool actually makes it less cool. In addition, check out the drawings surrounding him. They couldn't be more culled from disparate genres. Robots. Dragonflies. Spiders. Spaceships. Sharks! Sharks. Sharks! Really? Okay, I'm done. I think I've proved my point.

Beyond the obvious aesthetic flaws of the cover, though, "Treasure Seeker" has an interesting history, at least according to the Reddit blog:

As advertised on the box (and in Nintendo Power), players had several months after the 1991 release to practice playing it. Then, in a live and much-anticipated MTV event, a secret password was revealed.

Entering this password opened up a bonus level at the end of the game, and at the end of the level was another secret code that was worth thousands of dollars in cash and prizes: You had twelve hours to race through the game, reach and beat the never-before-seen final level, and call into a special 1-900 number.

If you were the first to do it, they'd send your family to the Superbowl. If you were one of the next 250 people, you'd get the brand-new, just-released Super Nintendo. But you only had until midnight to claim it!

Reddit has, in its infinite wisdom, commissioned another similar project. They want people to purchase a cheap-o copy of the game and beat it, submitting all of the passwords so they can, well, I don't know, post them or something. They don't really make it clear what the endgame is, but they do want people sending in game saves and such, so if you own a copy, get to playing, sucka.

Help Reddit Hack the World's Worst Nintendo Game

Fifty Things the Internet is Killing

I've seen the internet implicated in a lot of things, but murder is not one of them. Well, actually it is, but that's neither here nor there. On a grander scale, the internet is actually responsible for some of the economic mess we happen to be in right now. The UK Telegraph has put together fifty things - both tangible and intangible - whose utter downfalls can be (in)directly attributed to the internet. The internet is a cold-hearted snake, indeed.

Think about it. Music. Movies. Books. Magazines. Newspapers. No word yet on death panels, but still...there's something about the internet that just seems to drive businesses to bankruptcy. Imagine how different the world would be if only the music, movie, and publishing industries had met the challenge of the internet head-on a decade ago, developing viable solutions almost immediately, instead of ending up like a grandfather who forgot to bring adult diapers to the family picnic.

A few of my favorites on the list:
* Sarah Palin
* Memory
* Dead Time

50 Things That Are Being Killed by the Internet

Open Canvas - Now You're Painting with Power

Open Canvas is an ostensibly free drawing tool slightly higher in quality than MS Paint. The above video was done all in Oc (as it is apparently abbreviated), so it definitely has a kind of diversity of palette and flexibility of use that Paint does not.

When I tried to download the free trial, the link wouldn't work, but you might want to try download.com, if you're hard-up for a better Paint tool. It has several features that MS does not, including the water color function and a wider selection of colors in the palette. I've been playing around with it, and I'm definitely no artist.

Mini-Galaxies Orbiting Milky Way

One of the misconceptions about astronomers is that they're merely stargazers, peering into telescopes at night, scanning the skies for new information. That's not entirely true. The telescopes that have been built for scientific purposes generally scan very specific places in space. That's perhaps why we occasionally find objects "near" us, if you count the outer edges of our galaxy anywhere near us.

That includes a potential hidden mini-galaxy orbiting our own. It may take more research to define it as such, but early indications tell us that it may indeed be a galaxy orbiting the Milky Way.

The satellite's immense invisibility could be because of it's location in the plane of the galaxy: instead of conveniently swinging far "above" or "below" the galactic discs as the other satellites are considerate enough to do, the missing mass is predicted to be on the other side of the Milky Way. Meaning we have the entirety of almost every local star in the sky between us and it, and if it's made up of old or burned-out stars it won't emit enough light for detection until it orbits round to our side again. Which'll be a job for our great-great-great-greatest-to-the-nth-degree descendants to detect.

Hidden Galaxy Discovered Orbiting the Milky Way

Iain Banks - An Old Dog With New (Publishing) Tricks

The publishing industry is changing in big ways, and not necessarily just for the up-and-coming author. Even those with reasonable success have been hit by major changes, including authors like Iain Banks. Banks is perhaps most well-known for his violent, surreal novel The Wasp Factory. In addition to lowering his advances, Banks's publisher has decided to try new marketing tactics to sell his books:

With book publishers now facing the same potentially ruinous challenges of the digital era as newspapers, Banks has gamely agreed to act as guinea pig for his own publisher, Little Brown, which is releasing an abridged audio version of Transition free on iTunes (the first instalment went online last week, on the same day the print version was published). Is he really reduced to giving away his work? Banks seems sanguine – perhaps even a little resigned – about the whole thing: "I think [the podcast] is quite brave of my publishers. I hope they're getting it right. My agent said to me: 'What do you think about this?' I said: 'I don't know.' We've got our fingers crossed."

The lesson here may be that the monolithic author is probably going to be a thing of the past. After the generation of Stephen King and Dean Koontz and James Patterson goes away, the super high-quantity author (mostly) may not require the vast sums that he/she used to. It's my belief that, unless the major publishers restructure to account for changes in technology and the way that people read, publishing will slowly become more decentralized and will benefit the most self-driven authors. But that's just my take on what I see in publishing trends.

Iain Banks: Even at my age I still have something to prove
Video: Iain Banks on 'The Book Show'

Mario Paint - Weezer "Pork and Beans"

It's a sort of gimmick to translate songs to media like this, but for some reason I'm really impressed by them, so I'll continue to include them on the blog, and I hope you continue to enjoy them. This particular song - in case you don't recognized it - is "Pork and Beans" by Weezer, from their "Red Album".

If you want to see more of this sort of thing, here is a list of other songs I found:

• DragonForce - 'Through the Fire and Flames'
  
• the 'One' solo from Metallica's 'And Justice' album
  
• Slayer - 'Raining Blood'
  
• Metallica - "Master of Puppets"
  
• The White Stripes - "Seven Nation Army"
  
• Muse - 'Knights of Cydonia'
  
• Europe - 'The Final Countdown'
  
• Coldplay - "Viva la Vida"
  
• Thriller, by You-Know-Who.
  

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• Kind of Bloop - an 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis
  

DIY BioShock Big Daddy Costume

The guy over at Volpin Props in Atlanta has created a fully functioning "Big Daddy" costume, taken from one of this year's runaway games, 'BioShock'. If you go to the site, you can see the construction pic-by-pic in great detail by proprietor Harrison Krix, resulting in a convincing version of the suit.

Here's what Krix himself had to say about it:

I finally lost my mind enough to try to tackle one of these big guys. For those unfamiliar, Big Daddys are the protectors of the Little Sisters in Rapture, an underwater city devoid of morality which has degenerated into chaos and insanity. They are huge, fast, strong, and as it turns out, a solid pain in the ass to build.

I will not ruin the suit by showing the final product. You'll have to go to the web site to see it, and believe me it's worth it. Volpin Props can be commissioned for props, but unfortunately for right now, he's entirely booked up until 2010.

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Nick Cave's Musical E-Book

Audiobooks can be awfully boring, if they're not your "thing". And, combine that with the possibility that the publishing industry is tanking, and it frees up artists to try out new marketing tactics.

Nick Cave is one to take chances. He's never hid behind crass commercialism, and he's beloved by hipsters and "those in the know", so perhaps his e-book gamble may pay off. The Guardian UK does a good job of predicting the potential pitfalls. Sorry for the alliteration.

Later this month, Nick Cave's new novel The Death of Bunny Munro – the story of a sex-maniac travelling salesman taking his last road trip – goes to market through the iPhone App Store, in an enhanced edition that is being launched before the print version.

The Enhanced Edition does some of the things we're now accustomed to seeing as standard in electronic texts: you can faff with fonts, change colour, bookmark it, and so on; and there's some smart social networking stuff attached. But it also includes enhancements that could have a noticeable effect on the experience of reading. Instead of paginating the book conventionally, it's presented as a continuous vertical scroll (one geek-pleasing trick is that you can adjust the scrolling speed with the angle of tilt of the phone), and the App includes an audiobook that syncs with the written text. Pop on the headphones, thumb the screen and Cave's voice picks up where you left off.

To put a finer point on this, there's also another little easter egg involved with the purchase of the audiobook:

The other thing is that it comes with a soundtrack, composed by Cave and Warren Ellis, one of his Bad Seeds. Soundtracked novels: now that really will change the experience. Could the soundtracked novel be to fiction what song is to verse?

I do not want to place super high expectations on Nick Cave as some visionary savior, but it's clear that the future in publishing could be very exciting indeed. What began as a very sober time for the big industry of publishing may turn out to be an interesting one for the niche writer, as with the market shrinking, the possibilities grow. The better one is able to perform in a niche, the better off that person will be. It's akin to the chocolate and sprinkles idea Friedman pushes in 'The World is Flat', and it may cause a shift in the changing publishing world. Let's hope it is a shift toward the better.

Monopoly: City Streets to Use Google Maps

In an almost Orwellian movie, Google has teamed up with Monopoly, using the city streets as a guide, for a new game called - obviously - Monopoly: City Streets. Wonder what it's like? Here is the hype from the 'Coming Soon' web site:

On the 9th SEPTEMBER, a world of property empire building on an unimaginable scale will be launched! A live worldwide game of MONOPOLY using Google Maps as the game board. The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.

Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.

Rambo V Feat. "Sci" Stallone?

I just saw on io9.com (quoting Ain't it Cool News about a recent conversation with Sly Stallone RE: the new Rambo movie. It...might take a leap of, erm, logic. Here's what Sly had to say about it.

It is set in the Pacific Northwest. Back in the general area where we first were introduced to John. It seems that somewhere in that Area there is a U.S. Military installation that is doing experiments on elite soldiers as part of some sort of program where they're attempting to tap into that SAVAGERY that we have deeply embedded into us. The plan is create brilliantly instinctual killer soldiers that have no qualms about taking life.

I was down with the fourth movie because it seemed to work in the spirit of the series (and it was hella bloody), but this new version may take it into "Leprechaum in Space" territory. Though the series probably couldn't have jumped the shark, it's bordering on becoming this whole other thing, this weird amalgamation of crazy Ed Wood style of geniuousness. I'd still watch it, but my reservations are only in my small reserve of "good taste". Ah, but did I ever have that in the first place?

IN OTHER MOVIE NEWS:

• Guy Ritchie Will Direct 'Lobo'.
  
• Sneak 'Clash of the Titans' footage
  
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Defendor Trailer

The new take on super hero flicks stars Woody Harrelson as Defendor, a nocturnal vigilante hell-bound on catching a villain named Captain Industry (obviously!). He has no super powers and uses only his wits to prevent crime.

Historically, satirical super hero movies haven't done super well, but I'm looking forward to seeing what this might have to offer. According to DontCThis, 'Defendor' is coming to the Toronto Film Festival later this month. io9.com put it succinctly when they previewed the movie last year:

Defendor - only the second superhero movie ever to be named after an anti-vandalism product following 1995 flop FAAC 615 Hydraulic Barrier Gate Operator - will be written and directed by Peter Stebbings, who has some experience with the genre, having acted in an episode of short-lived 2003 X-Men rip-off Mutant X. Gray's Anatomy's Sandra Oh will also appear in the film, as Harrelson's psychiatrist, alongside currently-hip actor Kat Dennings, who'll play a teenager who befriends Harrelson's character.