STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

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Tony Stark Is Doing What Needs To Be Done In The Latest Civil War Teaser

Now that Batman v Superman is out of the way, the deluge of promotional material for Captain America: Civil War is coming. There’s a bit of new footage in the latest teaser spot.

This trailer highlights a couple of things: Steve Rogers believes that the “safest hands are still our own”, while Tony Stark is doing “what has to be done to stop something worse”. Sam Wilson has an interesting line: “How long are you going to play both sides?” The teaser cuts to Tony Stark, but I’m guessing that that’s not who he’s talking to. Let the speculation begin! (My monies on Hawkeye.. )

Captain America: Civil War comes out in theatres on April 28.

[MIKA27]

UK's Trident Sub Missiles To Receive Expensive (And Potentially Unnecessary) Software Update

It’s all been pretty quiet on the Trident front since that February rally, which saw a tie-less Jeremy Corbyn and other opposers take to the streets of London. However, it’s now emerged that the MoD plans to splash the cash to protect its 58 Trident II missiles from pesky hackers.

The 25-year-old submarine-based system requires a rather expensive software update. A whopping £1.9 billion, which will be spent between now and 2021, has been put aside, and BAE Systems will be charged with getting the job done. The US, always eager to get its XXXXL bollocks out when it comes to anything military-related, is reportedly planning to spend £24 billion on its warheads over the same period.

“We take our responsibility to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent extremely seriously and continually assess the security of the whole deterrent programme and its operational effectiveness, including against threats from cyber,” said a spokesman from the MoD.

Intriguingly, however, Leicester University’s nuclear expert Dr Andrew Futter has come out and claimed that there’s almost no risk of the Trident system falling prey to a hacker, as the missiles aren’t actually connected to the Internet. Still, you wouldn’t want to take risks with a weapon deterrant capable of smashing entire cities to bits, even if it does happen to be named after a type of chewing gum.

[MIKA27]

The Expanse: The Best New Sci-Fi You Can't Watch In Australia

The Expanse is a sci-fi series that respects space. In the show — and in real life — space is huge, empty, and deadly; it’s a massive gap of nothingness in between tiny pockets of humanity and activity.

It’s a great show, based on a great series of novels. I actually think it’s one of the best sci-fi shows in years. But Foxtel’s Aussie SyFy channel strangely doesn’t seem keen on showing it, so we might not even get to see it in Australia at all.

The Expanse is a science fiction TV show set hundreds of years in the future, in a time where humanity has expanded its reach from Earth to Mars and the solar system’s asteroid belt. Earth is controlled by a global United Nations, and Mars is an independent military junta only tenuously connected to its Terran roots. Both planets depend on the resource-rich Belt, but those Belters are harshly treated in an area of space where air and water are precious commodities.

It’s like Battlestar Galactica in that it’s just as much a show about politics and the machinations of government as it is science and space and the stars. The mix is good — it’s an interesting and gripping show, and beautifully filmed with young and interesting actors that inhabit their roles. There’s just as much science as there is fiction, though — spaceships are thin-hulled balloons of pressurised air, and the people inside are deathly afraid of the inky black space between the planets and space stations.

The Expanse is based on a set of novels by James S.A Corey, a pseudonym for the writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Both have worked with Game of Thrones‘ George R. R. Martin, and while the show isn’t quite as labyrinthine as GoT in space, it’s similar in that the politics of the world affect the lives of the people that live within it. The five books in their series so far are some of the best and most interesting sci-fi writing that I’ve read in ages.

I wish I could show you a full episode so you’d understand what I was talking about. But I can’t. The best I can do is tease you with a trailer for a show that you’re not able to watch in full. I can’t even show it from a legitimate YouTube channel, because SyFy US is blocked to Australians and SyFy AU refuses to acknowledge the show’s existence.

In the US, The Expanse screened on SyFy. Its first 10-episode season was well received by critics, and four episodes into its run was picked up for a second series. In the absence of shows like Stargate: Universe and Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse is just about the best and most interesting science fiction series on TV right now.

If you have watched the show, you’ll appreciate the long list of excellent companion videos that SyFy US has on YouTube — more world-building, more behind the scenes, more character info than any other sci-fi series that has ever been put to air. SyFy is committed to The Expanse, and as a sci-fi fan that’s so great to see, and as an Australian it’s so frustrating.

Here’s the problem — according to a post on Foxtel’s community support forum, SyFy AU currently has “no plans” to screen The Expanse in Australia, leaving fans of the books (and, potentially, the series) high and dry. You’d expect that SyFy in Australia would have exclusive rights to SyFy US shows, too, so don’t expect to see it popping up on Netflix or Stan any time soon.

I’ll freely admit to using a US VPN and watching the first four episodes of the series on the Syfy, something you can’t do any more, now the show has aired internationally. But to watch the rest of the series, I would have had to resort to piracy and Bit-Torrent to get my fix. I now have all the episodes

It’s extremely easy to find the entire series in high quality online through the usual illegitimate sources, and it’s a pity that that’s what all the fans of the books and series in Australia will have to resort to if they want to watch The Expanse. This is an argument that I have made many, many times before, and I’ll continue to say it — timely, complete, honest international distribution of shows like The Expanse is the most important key to fighting piracy that content owners and rights-holders have.

Please, SyFy. Give Australia a chance to see The Expanse. I think you’d find that we’d like it quite a lot.

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The Director Of Midnight Special Wishes You'd Stop Calling It A Spielberg Homage

Everybody’s been calling Midnight Special an homage to Steven Spielberg. But director Jeff Nichols didn’t plan it that way, which he was keen to make clear the moment we sat down to talk about the film. Sure, Midnight Special, which expands wide this weekend, owes some of its DNA to Spielberg’s work like ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind — but Nichols was not aiming for that.

“Those films are part of the DNA of who I am as a moviegoer,” Nichols told io9. “I think a lot of people are like that. When I think of movies, I think of those movies. And so it’s definitely baked in. [but] I never held those films up and said, ‘OK, this is when a gas station blows up and this is when my gas station blows up.'”

Even so, he admits the comparisons make a certain amount of sense. Midnight Special stars Michael Shannon as Roy, the father of a mysterious boy named Alton (Jaeden Lieberher). Roy, along with a friend played by Joel Edgerton, kidnap Alton from a cult to bring him to bigger and better things. Alton has special powers, can’t go out at night, and occasionally shoots blue light from his eyes. Nichols admits the movie’s science-fiction chase structure is in the mould of those Spielberg films (as well as John Carpenter’sStarman) but he’s frustrated by reviews that say the film either fails, or succeeds, in hitting that Spielberg sweet spot.

“I never was trying to achieve [a Spielberg level],” Nichols said. “It makes sense now with hindsight. You’re like, ‘Well, of course that’s what people think you’re setting out to do, so if you don’t do that then you’ve somehow failed.’ But it always hits me like a sideswipe, because I’m like, ‘Wait, I wasn’t going for that. I was just going for a natural progression of this story.’ And you can talk about the merits of that on its own, but when you [say], ‘Does it do this specifically?’ No. Because I’m not Spielberg.”

In fact, Nichols’ intentions were much simpler at the outset. He dreamed up a very simple image and tried to figure it out. “I had an idea of two guys driving in a very fast car down these dark, southern roads in the middle of the night,” he said. “And I was wondering why they were moving at night? Why they had to move at night? That idea interested me.” He then put a boy in the back seat of that car and wondered why he was there. That’s when the science fiction came in. “The scifi chase movie is kind of a sub-genre unto itself,” Nichols said. “Especially the government scifi chase movie is a unique sub-genre unto itself, and that just felt like an easy answer.”

From there, the film was not about easy answers. Nichols, a new father, began to write the movie as a way to deal with his own insecurities and fears as a parent. “Well it’s really kind of a metaphor for parenthood, not to get to hifalutin and cheesy about it,” he said. “It seems like you’re on this journey as a father and you just don’t know where your child is going. You don’t know if they’re going to make it….And that felt oddly in line with the scifi chase movie. It felt like an opportunity to do what I really love to do, which is blend genre elements with really intense, kind of personal feelings.”

Scifi is almost always built out of personal feelings, but it’s sometimes about universe-building too. Midnight Special sets up a big, interesting, universe, but is very careful as to what information we actually learn about it. Nichols swears he has those answers, because he outlined the entire history of the movie from the birth of the adult characters and past the jaw-dropping ending. But once that was all plotted out, he sliced out a single sliver of a story to tell. It’s his preferred method of storytelling.

“I think, as a writer, you’re compelled to want to bring all this other stuff from earlier back into the film. Like, look at all this cool stuff I built. But I think that’s weak writing,” Nichols said. “I think too often you say, ‘Well we’ll just let the characters explain it.’ And that’s not how people behave. So, what I was really trying to do was take this chunk of out the timeline and try and keep it as intact as possible. Now, you make decisions as a writer which parts of that to show. And you hopefully create situations that are organic enough that people know what’s going on, but it still stays true to the way people behave if you were just looking into the microscope of this particular part. So I think that writing style is kind of what creates this mystery. It’s certainly created the rules that I’ve applied in terms of what to show and what not to show. What to tell and what not to tell.”

One thing he will tell us? A moment that feels like a nod to another new scifi movie is unintentional. In the film, Adam Driver’s government agent character says the words “Red Saber.” Of course, it sounds like a nod to his Star Wars character Kylo Ren, who carries a red lightsaber. Nichols swears that’s not the case.

“I have a book of code words from the US government. And I think I pulled [Red Saber] out of there? I might have just made that one up,” he said. “So no, it had no comparison to Star Wars. We didn’t know he was going to be in Star Wars until we were actually off set shooting. So the universe was just being ironic.”

Midnight Special is in select theatres now. It expands on April 21.

[MIKA27]

CONVERSE ALL STAR II KNIT

Over the years, the Converse Chuck Taylor’s have seen a lot of makeovers. Some good, some bad, some downright weird. At the same time, we should acknowledge a brand like Converse for the artistic expression through one of their hottest items. Now, soon to be released in the United States, one of footwear’s most fearless companies is altering its flagship shoe’s composition.

We’re talking of course about the Converse All Star II knit kicks. Though the construction has been around for some time now, we for one are quite excited to see the style enter into one of the most iconic shoes of all time. The line drops a flurry of colors in both high and low-top versions of the shoe while hosting the usual All Star II characteristics, such as Lunarlon cushioning, a non-slip padded tongue, and micro-suede lining. They are currently available in Asia, hitting European markets April 18, and North America April 25. Retail is set between $80-85 per pair.

[MIKA27]

TESLA MODEL 3

Elon Musk and Tesla deliver the goods once again with the unveiling of the Tesla Model 3, their newest and most affordable 5-seater edition to the Tesla family. The release rounds out the Tesla cohort which now includes the Roadster, Model S, and the Model X. And in true Tesla fashion, their release is a hit. So far they received over 115,000 preorders for the vehicle, a staggering number considering each reservation requires a $1,000 deposit.

Looking like a more compact version of its Model S brethren, Tesla minimized the instrument panel and moved the front seat forward a tad to increase legroom in the rear to comfortably fit three passengers. In terms of range and acceleration for the Model 3, it’s obvious that the vehicle is in the bottom tier of the family. Even so, a fully electric vehicle with 215 miles of range and the ability to hit 60mph in less than 6 seconds is still an accomplishment. “We don’t make slow cars,” Musk commented with a smirk when asked about the Model 3. We’re with you Elon. Well done. And with a base price of $35,000, Supercharging capability, and the ability to produce 500,000 models a year, Tesla continues to set the bar high for the auto world.

[MIKA27]

Alfar Mountain Jacket

Jottnar is a new technical-wear brand founded by two former Royal Marine commandos and lifelong mountaineers, climbers and skiers. The technical garments have clean lines, disciplined designs, craftsmanship, technology and great attention to detail. The multi-functional Alfar Mountain Jacket, is a versatile and lightweight wind and water resistant hoodie, that can either be worn as an outer or mid-layer. Details include thumb loops and back of hand protection, harness compatible pockets and a close-fitting insulated hood that can be worn under a helmet. Available in four different color schemes.

[MIKA27]

KNOG Bike Lights

KNOG is a cycling accessories brand from Melbourne, Australia, they are specialists in manufacturing products for urban riding. The KNOG Bike Lights are affordable and easily attachable, they’re a commuter essential, and stand out from the crowd with colorful, fun and stylish designs. Perhaps you’re a rural commuter, an urban rider or a general all-rounder? Whatever the ride, KNOG have got you covered with lights that are built with advanced LED tech that produce powerful and consistent illumination. Choose between front, rear or lightsets.

[MIKA27]

WTF? Daniel Radcliffe Is Dead and Farting in the Insane First Trailer for Swiss Army Man

Yes, in his new movie Swiss Army Man, the Harry Potter star plays a gassy corpse that washes up on the beach and becomes the companion of a stranded man played by Paul Dano, and thus begins one of the most insane movies in recent memory.

Swiss Army Man debuted at the Sundance Film Festival this year and was incredibly polarizing. Many people walked out quite early into the movie, but those that didn’t apparently found a movie that’s surprisingly poignant in its absolute madness. You get a good sense of that in this trailer, where Dano just contorts and bends Radcliffe’s rotting body to his will.

Swiss Army Man, directed by Daniels (a director team that includes Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) opens in theaters June 17.

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Our First Ever Look at Bruce Timm's Animated Adaptation of The Killing Joke

It’s one of the most famous comic books of all time, and now we have our first look at the upcoming adaptation of Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke, starring Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill.

A teaser and behind the scenes featurette has appeared for the film, giving us a good look at the the origins of the story and why it was such a big hit, as well as what the film is going to look like.

It’s interesting to see some of the changes that they’re making: they’re adding on a new prologue, and they’re (thankfully) doing more with Barbara Gordon, especially given that her treatment in the comic has been one of its most controversial legacies.

The talent behind it is already spectacular, but from the glimpses that we see of the film, this looks like it’s going to be a really great adaptation of the comic.

The Killing Joke is slated for release sometime this year.

BONUS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLxwK0kd5kE

[MIKA27]

The Omata One Is An Analog GPS Speedometer For Your Bicycle

With Australian cities bringing in harsh new cycling laws, being in full control of your bike is more important than ever. A cycling computer can tell you everything you need to know, but they’re not stylish. Omata’s solution to the problem is an analog speedometer for bicycles that uses GPS, and that also tracks your distance, time and elevation changes.

Inside the Omata One, a 800mAh battery powers the GPS/GLONASS receiver and internal Bluetooth 4.0 transmitter, but the dials on the front are actually analog, with four movements for speed, distance, elevation and time designed by Seiko. A USB Type-C port works for charging and transferring data. At the time of printing, over 200 Ones have been pledged for by keen cyclists.

Omata is building the One with both MPH and KPH readouts, and with grey and white faces, although the 5000-series aluminium case will only be produced with a black finish. The internal battery should be enough for 24 hours of continuous usage — around two weeks of 90-minute commutes from home to office. The speedometer will max out at 105km/h, so unless you’re strapping it to your car and driving down the highway, you should be just fine.

Having launched just yesterday on Kickstarter, Omata has already nearly reached its US$150,000 production goal with 29 days to spare. The Omata One isn’t cheap at US$499, but that’s the price you pay for something so elegantly designed and with the internal smarts to track your ride and export it to an app like Strava — and hopefully help you avoid a speeding fine. It’ll reach production by February 2017.

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Self-Driving Formula E Racecar Robots Are Coming In 2016

During its GTC 2016 keynote address, Nvidia unveiled a new Formula E event dubbed Roborace. As its name implies, this new racing class will feature fully autonomous cars powered by Drive PX 2 supercomputers. If that’s not crazy enough, the first race is expected to kick off this season. Blimey.

The FIA Formula E Championship is a class of auto racing that uses only electric-powered cars. Now it’s throwing robots into the mix. Roborace (we’d work on that name, fellas) will see 10 teams compete with 20 driverless full-size cars powered by Drive PX 2. For the uninitiated, this is Nvidia’s new self-driving platform that packs in 12 CPU cores and four Pascal GPUs for eight teraflops of computing power.

Explains Nvidia: “The supercomputer-in-a-box is vital to deep learning and trains artificial intelligence to adapts to different driving conditions, including asphalt, rain and dirt.”

Each team will command two cars each. The vehicles weigh in at just under 1000kg which is roughly in line with other electric Formula 1 cars. The vehicle pictured above was designed by Daniel Simon who knows a thing or two about sleek sci-fi aesthetics: he also created the light cycles in Tron Legacy.

The cockpit-free design has allowed Nvidia’s engineers to house the Drive PX 2 computer without compromising the size or weight of the vehicle. On the downside, this means you can’t go for a ride on autopilot if you were crazy enough to trust a robotic racecar.

While the cars in the race will all be identical, each team has the freedom to develop their own software algorithms which should result in different tactics being deployed on the tarmac. Doubtlessly, there will be plenty of spills and crashes in the first few seasons as the platform finds its feet; thankfully, with no human injuries.

Nvidia hasn’t revealed much about the car’s specifications or what its top speed will be. We’d imagine not very fast. Indeed, Nvidia is highlighting the “intrigue” of robot competition and “earth-friendly” alternative energy racing over performance grunt. On the other hand, one of the slides we were shown included the phase “blazing fast”, so who knows?

To be honest, I'm not sure what revheads will make of this, I'm certainly not sold, let alone Formula E in general. While self-driving cars are certainly cool, part of the appeal of any Forumla is the spectacle of occasional accidents and overtakes. Will removing this element of human decisions lessen the sport’s appeal?

[MIKA27]

350-Year-Old Pendulum Synchronization Puzzle Finally Solved

The inventor of the pendulum clock gave the world a fine timepiece and a seemingly unsolvable mystery … why do two pendulum clocks positioned closely together on a wall or table end up synchronized in a very short period of time without human intervention. The puzzle has persisted to perplex scientists, clock makers and pendulum clock owners until it was solved recently, and the solution is the same one proposed by the inventor. Why didn’t anyone listen to Christiaan Huygens?

Christiaan Huygens

In 1665, Huygens, a Dutch physicist, was sick in bed doing what all guys do when they’re sick in bed – complaining and watching the clock. In Huygens’ case, it was two pendulum clocks he had invented. Not sick enough to play, he began messing with the pendulums and found that no matter what position they started in, the two ended up swinging in exactly the opposite direction from each other within 30 minutes.

An illustration of the pendulum clock invented by Christiaan Huygens

When he felt better, Huygens postulated that the clocks communicated via imperceptible vibrations traveling through the beam they were hanging from. But was unable to prove it – mostly because differential calculus hadn’t been invented yet. Neither was anyone else for 350 years. According to a new study published in Scientific Reports, the puzzle which eventually became known as Huygens’ synchronization has finally been solved and the solution involved going back to Huygen’s sickbed.

Jonatan Peña Ramirez, a dynamicist at the Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education in Ensenada, Mexico, used two identical custom-built monumental (large) pendulum clocks similar to Huygens’ invention. The clocks were placed on a wooden table (Huygens’ were hanging from a wooden beam). The clocks synchronized in a short time but, unlike Hugyens’, they swung in the SAME direction and the clocks slowly and inexplicably lost time.

Having access to differential calculus, Pena developed a mathematical model of the clocks and the flexibility of the wooden table. The model showed that the clocks made the wooden table vibrate enough to synchronize their pendulum swings. Moreover, the rigidity, thickness and mass of the table was responsible for the pendulums swinging in the same direction and the synchronized degradation of the clocks’ accuracy.

Is there a lesson to be learned here? Yes – swinging pendulums or moving rotors in opposite directions is more efficient because their vibrations will cancel each other out and allow them to move or operate without vibration interference, which is why Pena’s same-direction pendulum clocks were less accurate than Huygens’ opposite direction ones.

[MIKA27]

Elefantentreffen Is the Most Bizarre Motorcycle Rally You’ve Never Heard Of

Forget about Rolling Thunder and Daytona Bike Week and even Sturgis. If you want to see truly hardcore motorcycle fanatics, make your way to Elefantentreffen. It’s the most amazing motorcycle rally you’ve never heard of.

Every winter for the past 60 years, a few thousand riders from throughout Europe descend on Germany (the location has changed over the years) in the dead of winter for three days of laughter, roast pig, and many, many drinks.

Italian photographer Alessandro D’Angelo caught wind of the event a few years ago when an old mechanic told him he must go to Elefantentreffen if he wanted to see a true biker. The name means “Elephant Rally” because of the olive-drab Zündapp KS 601 or “The Green Elephant” driven at the event in the 1950s. It’s held in late January or early February in the Bavarian Forest about 110 miles east of Munich, near the Czech border. Everyone takes a different route, and getting there through the sleet and snow is half the fun.

D’Angelo made his first trip in 2014, setting out from his tiny hometown in central Italy. He took a car, two trains, and a bus before hitchhiking in a van to Thurmansbang, a tiny town at the edge of the Bavarian Forest. From there, he trekked nearly five miles into the snowy wood, spotting a few several heavily-loaded motorcycles whizzing by along the way. Just when he knew he was lost, he heard the faint roar of engines in the distance. He trudged on. “Finally in front of me lies a valley: motorcycles parked everywhere, people laden with firewood and tents that go in all directions, hundreds of campfires and a great euphoria that saturates the air,” he says. “Now it’s time to shoot pictures.”

At least 5,000 riders attend Elefantentreffen each year (although legend has it that 35,000 attended in 1977), riding in from as far as Russia and Italy. Old iron abounds, with the Zündapp KS 601 always a popular ride, along with old Jawas, the obligatory BMWs and even the odd Vespa. The machines are as unique as the people who ride them, sporting everything from sidecars tricked out to carry vast quantities of beer (and other, um, supplies) to a “rusty Moto Guzzi with animal bones screwed on.” Riders dress for the cold, but also for show. Vintage military uniforms, furry hats, and the occasional Spiderman costume are common.

Most arrive the on the first night, roaring in on bikes heavy with chainsaws, stoves, tents and so much beer. Camp is made, fires built, and drinking commenced. Soon the air is filled with the smell of roasting pigs and “many cauldrons with strange alcoholic concoctions.” It is invariably bitterly cold, but no one seems to mind. “For the Elefantentreffen participants, the snow and the cold, the smell of smoke and roasted pork are the essential requirements for happiness,” D’Angelo says.

The photographer attended in 2014 and 2015, wandering about making friends and taking portraits. He wanted to portray the riders as “movie heroes,” which certainly comes across in their strong poses and big smiles. D’Angelo was fascinated by the people, who represent all walks of life, from farmers and students to engineers and doctors. The photographer notes that even though they rarely spoke the same language, it didn’t really matter. “The beauty of this rally it’s that to all the people no matter who you are, how you are and what you do,” he says. “Everybody is equal as long as they get there.”

[MIKA27]

CASIO G-SHOCK MR-G ‘HAMMER TONE’ WATCH

If you’re looking for a tough watch that’s not over-assuming; a watch that will stick with you through thick and thin during the toughest tasks, then be sure not to skim over the Casio G-Shock MR-G Hammer Hammer Tone watch. Worn by police officers and firefighters, men and women in the armed forces, and special forces operators, Casio has built their brand on rough and rugged watches that won’t break the bank. So with this in mind, you may ask, why would they try and offer a watch for thousands of dollars?

Well, after years of functioning strictly as a watch of utility, not luxury, the G-Shock is finally taking a turn toward developing timepieces, especially with this 20th-anniversary tribute. The Hammer Tone, seen here, is one of these luxury timepieces that’s G-Shock to the core. The solar-powered device is water resistant up to 200 meters, shock resistant, and boasts a handful of features (including a GPS receiver to update time at any of the 40 time zones around the world).

However, what gives the watch its name, and price, is that it’s decorated with a metal surfacing technique knows as tsuiki. The process involves hammering small indentations into metal, most notably Japanese arms and armor. The Hammer Tone was designed in conjunction with third-generation master metalworker Bihou Asano, who created hammered metal statues of deities for the Kyoto State Guest House. Production is limited to 300 pieces worldwide and they’ll become available this July for $6,500.

[MIKA27]

TRIUMPH BONNEVILLE ‘RONIN’ BY TAMARIT MOTORCYCLES

Tamarit Spanish Motorcycles opened just a couple of years ago in 2014, piggybacking on the North American and European trend of customizing classic motorcycles and styles. Their speciality falls in the development of cafe racers, scramblers, street tracker and brat styles. However, it wasn’t until February of this year (2016) that Tamarit opened its first brick and mortar location; a store where you’ll find their rides, a complete line of clothing, and a cafe bar. And what better way to celebrate this milestone for their business than with a customized 2004 Triumph Bonneville?

Dubbed the ‘Ronin,’ this little scrambler features a 865cc parallel twin engine, and took Tamarit about a month and a half to complete. It’s been updated for off-road rides with a pair of Öhlins shocks, Renthal handlebars, garnished with Biltwell camel grips, and Continental TKC 80s chunky tires that also function on regular pavement. The paint job was also completed in house, providing this Samurai warrior with the colors it needs to tear up the Spanish countryside. Additional features include a Scrambler seat, “Boca negra” pipes, Highsider black mirrors, black blinkers, crankcase cover and chain cover and a classic “Gran Bastard” front mudguard. All told, we’re quite impressed with this new Spanish outfit and can’t wait to see what other projects they have in store.

[MIKA27]

Belcampo Meat Co. Beef Blunts

A far cry from the “beef” stick you’re used to snapping into, Belcampo’s 100% Beef Blunts are equally snackable and portable but made with real beef from California. Belcampo (a farm, processing plant, neighborhood butcher shop and restaurant) has a singular commitment to delicious, organic and humane meat, which is just one of the many reasons that these Beef Blunts are superior to all of their portable beef stick brethren. Designed and packaged to resemble a cigar, they’re perfect for snacking on the go, slicing as part of a charcuterie platter or even gifting to friends on occasions that call for cigars.

[MIKA27]

ALTERNATIVE LIVING

It might be hard for those of us living "normal" lives to imagine, but some people prefer to spend their time isolated from modern society, at one with nature.Alternative Living was born from a quest to find out why. Penned/shot by photographer Alex Strohl, the book shows what he and his wife Andera found through four months of living out of their car, using solar panels, a solar shower, and a roof top tent to make their vehicle as self-sufficient as possible. Passing through a solid chunk of Europe, reaching all the way past the Arctic Circle in Norway, they made friends, saw amazing sights, heard terrific stories, and gained a new insight into off-the-grid living that made them question their own day-to-day lives. Available in limited quantities, with the first 250 copies both signed and numbered.

[MIKA27]

The BFG Is Revealed in the Magical New Trailer for Steven Spielberg's Latest

The latest trailer for The BFG, Steven Spielberg’s first film ever released by Disney, is here. And it looks just as whimsical as that previous sentence makes it sound. Based on the Roald Dahl book, it hits theaters July 1.

Newly minted Oscar-winner Mark Rylance plays the lead character and the uncanny likeness of the actor and the giant he plays is the biggest take away here. Rylance has a real presence to him. A look that screams experience. And it’ll be great to see how that plays out in this film, among Spielberg’s fantastic visuals.

[Fuzz]

The BFG Is Revealed in the Magical New Trailer for Steven Spielberg's Latest

Aww nuts. My hopes were raised after reading the first 4 words in the post title.... then were completed deflated after reading the rest.

I want a Doom gun!!!

[MIKA27]

Aww nuts. My hopes were raised after reading the first 4 words in the post title.... then were completed deflated after reading the rest.

I want a Doom gun!!!

You worry me sometimes mate

[MIKA27]

The Worst Lies You've Been Told About The Singularity

You’ve probably heard of a concept known as the Technological Singularity — a nebulous event that’s supposed to happen in the not-too-distant future. Much of the uncertainty surrounding this possibility, however, has led to wild speculation, confusion, and outright denial. Here are the worst myths you’ve been told about the Singularity.

In a nutshell, the Technological Singularity is a term used to describe the theoretical moment in time when artificial intelligence matches and then exceeds human intelligence. The term was popularised by scifi writer Vernor Vinge, but full credit goes to the mathematician John von Neumann, who spoke of [in the words of Stanislaw Ulam] “ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.”

By “not continue” von Neumann was referring to the potential for humanity to lose control and fall outside the context of its technologies. Today, this technology is assumed to be artificial intelligence, or more accurately, recursively-improving artificial intelligence (RIAI), leading to artificial superintelligence (ASI).

Because we cannot predict the nature and intentions of an artificial superintelligence, we have come to refer to this sociological event horizon the Technological Singularity — a concept that’s open to wide interpretation, and by consequence, gross misunderstanding. Here are the worst:

“The Singularity Is Not Going to Happen”

Oh, I wouldn’t bet against it. The onslaught of Moore’s Law appears to be unhindered, while breakthroughs in brainmapping and artificial intelligence continue apace. There are no insurmountable conceptual or technological hurdles awaiting us.

And what most ASI sceptics fail to understand is that we have yet to even enter the AI era, a time when powerful — but narrow — systems subsume many domains currently occupied by humans. There will be tremendous incentive to develop these systems, both for economics and security. Superintelligence will eventually appear, likely the product of megacorporations and the military.

This myth might actually be the worst of the bunch, something I’ve referred to as Singularity denialism. Aside from maybe weaponised molecular nanotechnology, ASI represents the greatest threat to humanity. This existential threat hasn’t reached the zeitgeist, but it will eventually get there, probably after our first AI catastrophe. And mark my words, there will come a day when this pernicious tee-hee-rapture-of-the-nerds rhetoric will be equal to, if not worse than, climate change denialism is today.

“Artificial Superintelligence Will Be Conscious”

Nope. ASI’s probably won’t be conscious. We need to see these systems, of which there will be many types, as pimped-up versions of IBM’s Watson or Deep Blue. They will work at incredible speeds, be fuelled by insanely powerful processors and algorithms — but there will be nobody home.

To be fair, there is the possibility that an ASI could be designed to be conscious. It might even re-design itself to be self-aware. But should this happen, it would still represent a mind-space vastly different from anything we know of. A machine mind’s subjective experience would scarcely resemble that of our own.

As an aside, this misconception can be tied to the first. Some sceptics argue there will be no Singularity because we’ll never be able to mimic the complexities of human consciousness. But it’s an objection that’s completely irrelevant. An ASI will be powerful, sophisticated, and dangerous, but not because it’s conscious.

“Artificial Superintelligence Has to Be Friendly”

There’s a meme among some Singularitarians that goes like this: As intelligence increases, so too does empathy and benevolence. According to this thinking, as AIs become smarter and smarter, we should expect to see them become friendlier and friendlier.

Sadly, this won’t be the case. First, this reasoning implies (1) a certain level of self-reflexivity and introspection on the part of the ASI (which is absolutely not a given), and (2) a utility function or ethical imperative that’s closely aligned with our own. On this last point, we can’t possibly predict or know the cogitations of a completely alien machine mind — one that’s drifted several orders of magnitude beyond our own — or what it would find morally valuable or not. Moreover, if it’s programmed with a set of goals that are unalterable, it will always prioritise those initial parameters beyond anything else, as illustrated by the infamous paperclip scenario. As AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky has said, “The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.”

“Accelerating Change is the Singularity”

Ever since the term became popular, we’ve been told to expect several different kinds of Singularities — some of which don’t even have anything to do with ASI. We’ve been told to expect an economic singularityor even a razor blade singularity. Some have even equated (or conflated) the Singularity with radical life extension, mind uploading, transhuman intelligence, and the merging of humans with machines (more on that next). Kurzweilians are particularly guilty of this, often equating the Singularity with the steady, accelerating growth of all technologies, including AI — a perspective that largely fails to account for an uncontrollable intelligence explosion.

“Humans Will Merge With the Machines”

Some say we don’t need to worry about the Singularity because we’ll just tag along for the ride. By the time the Singularity arrives, goes the argument, we’ll be so closely integrated with our machines we’ll be one-in-the-same. It will be a Singularity for everyone!

The first problem with this theory is that human cyborgization and/or uploading will happen at a much slower pace than advancements in AI (mostly for ethical reasons). The second problem is that the immediate source of an RIAI will be highly localised. It will be one system (or multiple systems working in tandem to take advantage of synergistic effects and/or game-theoretic strategies designed to ensure future freedom of action) that suddenly goes off the deep-end, iteratively improving upon itself as it works to achieve a certain goal or configuration (a so-called “hard takeoff” Singularity scenario). In other words, we’ll just be bystanders to the Singularity.

Sure, an ASI may decide to merge itself with as many humans as possible — but that has some rather dystopian connotations to it.

“We Will Be As Gods”

If we survive the Singularity, and assuming there’s still a place for us in a completely redesigned machine-ruled world, we may collectively possess unprecedented powers. We may be able to exert these “god-like” gifts as a hive mind. But as individuals, not so much. The jury is still out on how much intelligence a single mind can handle. Referring to radical intelligence augmentation (IA) for humans, futurist Michael Anissimov has said,

One of the most salient side effects would be insanity. The human brain is an extremely fine-tuned and calibrated machine. Most perturbations to this tuning qualify as what we would consider “crazy.” There are many different types of insanity, far more than there are types of sanity. From the inside, insanity seems perfectly sane, so we’d probably have a lot of trouble convincing these people they are insane.

Even in the case of perfect sanity, side effects might include seizures, information overload, and possibly feelings of egomania or extreme alienation. Smart people tend to feel comparatively more alienated in the world, and for a being smarter than everyone, the effect would be greatly amplified.

“Things Won’t Change Too Radically After the Singularity”

Hardly. Think of the Technological Singularity as a hard reset button on virtually everything — right down to each and every molecule on Earth. As long as the laws of physics and theoretical computation will allow it, an AWOL machine mind could make anything happen. What lies beyond the Singularity is nothing we can imagine — a conundrum that may be hindering science fiction.

[Fuzz]

You worry me sometimes mate

Only sometimes? Dammit! I'm not doing a good enough job!

[OZCUBAN]

The Expanse: The Best New Sci-Fi You Can't Watch In Australia

The Expanse is a sci-fi series that respects space. In the show — and in real life — space is huge, empty, and deadly; it’s a massive gap of nothingness in between tiny pockets of humanity and activity.

It’s a great show, based on a great series of novels. I actually think it’s one of the best sci-fi shows in years. But Foxtel’s Aussie SyFy channel strangely doesn’t seem keen on showing it, so we might not even get to see it in Australia at all.

The Expanse is a science fiction TV show set hundreds of years in the future, in a time where humanity has expanded its reach from Earth to Mars and the solar system’s asteroid belt. Earth is controlled by a global United Nations, and Mars is an independent military junta only tenuously connected to its Terran roots. Both planets depend on the resource-rich Belt, but those Belters are harshly treated in an area of space where air and water are precious commodities.

It’s like Battlestar Galactica in that it’s just as much a show about politics and the machinations of government as it is science and space and the stars. The mix is good — it’s an interesting and gripping show, and beautifully filmed with young and interesting actors that inhabit their roles. There’s just as much science as there is fiction, though — spaceships are thin-hulled balloons of pressurised air, and the people inside are deathly afraid of the inky black space between the planets and space stations.

The Expanse is based on a set of novels by James S.A Corey, a pseudonym for the writing team of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck. Both have worked with Game of Thrones‘ George R. R. Martin, and while the show isn’t quite as labyrinthine as GoT in space, it’s similar in that the politics of the world affect the lives of the people that live within it. The five books in their series so far are some of the best and most interesting sci-fi writing that I’ve read in ages.

I wish I could show you a full episode so you’d understand what I was talking about. But I can’t. The best I can do is tease you with a trailer for a show that you’re not able to watch in full. I can’t even show it from a legitimate YouTube channel, because SyFy US is blocked to Australians and SyFy AU refuses to acknowledge the show’s existence.

In the US, The Expanse screened on SyFy. Its first 10-episode season was well received by critics, and four episodes into its run was picked up for a second series. In the absence of shows like Stargate: Universe and Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse is just about the best and most interesting science fiction series on TV right now.

If you have watched the show, you’ll appreciate the long list of excellent companion videos that SyFy US has on YouTube — more world-building, more behind the scenes, more character info than any other sci-fi series that has ever been put to air. SyFy is committed to The Expanse, and as a sci-fi fan that’s so great to see, and as an Australian it’s so frustrating.

Here’s the problem — according to a post on Foxtel’s community support forum, SyFy AU currently has “no plans” to screen The Expanse in Australia, leaving fans of the books (and, potentially, the series) high and dry. You’d expect that SyFy in Australia would have exclusive rights to SyFy US shows, too, so don’t expect to see it popping up on Netflix or Stan any time soon.

I’ll freely admit to using a US VPN and watching the first four episodes of the series on the Syfy, something you can’t do any more, now the show has aired internationally. But to watch the rest of the series, I would have had to resort to piracy and Bit-Torrent to get my fix. I now have all the episodes

It’s extremely easy to find the entire series in high quality online through the usual illegitimate sources, and it’s a pity that that’s what all the fans of the books and series in Australia will have to resort to if they want to watch The Expanse. This is an argument that I have made many, many times before, and I’ll continue to say it — timely, complete, honest international distribution of shows like The Expanse is the most important key to fighting piracy that content owners and rights-holders have.

Please, SyFy. Give Australia a chance to see The Expanse. I think you’d find that we’d like it quite a lot.

Thank god for torrents LOL

[MIKA27]

Thank god for torrents LOL

Indeed (I DON'T CONDONE THIS)