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

[JohnS]

4 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

28 VINTAGE ADS THAT WOULD BE TOTALLY ILLEGAL NOW

There's no denying it. This collection of vintage ads is absolutely inappropriate. There's no way they would see the light of day nowadays.

If nothing else, these slightly shocking ads reveal just how sexist, racist, or generally inappropriate the world of advertising used to be. You know Mad Men, right? Well, there you go.

The world of advertising used to be a great career to be in if you were a straight, white man.

Keep scrolling to understand just how inappropriate these vintage advertisements really were and I do hope some of these do not offend our members. Remember, this is a glimpse into the past and are not in any way my own opinion(s).

 

 

Wow, I can't believe that these ads were around not that very long ago!

[MIKA27]

Elephant-Sized Extinct Cattle Being Brought Back in England

Someday soon you may wish you hadn’t complained so loudly about your neighbor’s dog digging in your garden. A project designed to bring elephant-sized cattle back from extinction is approaching its goal – which is not just to bring back the monstrous bulls and cows but to re-introduce them into the wilds of Britain. Is this a good idea? If you have any spare money, you may want to buy stock in steel fence companies.

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Wild cattle are one of the species that shaped the European landscape over hundreds of thousands of years. If there are no large herbivores then the forest regenerates very fast. Big grazing animals keep patches of land open and create variety in the landscape which helps many thousands of species of plants, insects and animals.

Well, that’s the plan according to Wouter Helmer, founder of Rewilding Europe, a project to reintroduce lost species in parts of Europe, either by bringing them in from other parts of the world or by bringing them back from extinction using DNA. The lost species of cattle is the auroch, a monstrous breed that once roamed Europe, Asia, and North Africa until they were hunted to extinction, with the last dying in Poland’s Jaktorów Forest in 1627.

Hitler’s geneticists tried to bring back the massive aurochs – weighing up to 3,300 pounds and standing at least 7 feet tall – via cross-breeding known descendants. A farmer in England ended up with a few of those cattle but had to destroy them because they evolved into “killers.”

Since 2009, a program called Operation Tauros has been extracting DNA from Italian Maremmana and Podolica cattle and Balkan Busha cattle because they are closest to the DNA of aurochs. As each generation is born, DNA is extracted to make the next generation even more like the aurochs. Professor Donato Matassino of Operation Tauros says they are now very close to the original species.

Why has everyone from Hitler to environmentalists been trying to bring back the aurochs?

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Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied.

No, that’s not it. That’s a quote from Julius Caesar describing aurochs during his time. The bull has been a popular symbol throughout history and it’s believed the animals drawn on prehistoric cave walls were aurochs, so there’s an obvious connection to the past, coupled with a possible forgiveness for humans hunting yet another species into extinction.

But releasing them into the forests of Great Britain just so trees and grass grow better? Have you looked at the size of British cars, not to mention British drivers? Wouldn’t it be better to bring back something that can be raised in a backyard and goes with chips?

Is this a good idea? Rewilding Europe isn’t saying exactly when or where the aurochs will be released. Perhaps they already know the answer.

[MIKA27]

How Will Star Wars Move Forward Without Carrie Fisher?

One week ago today, Carrie Fisher's sudden and tragic death left the pop culture icon's friends, co-stars, family, and fans reeling, and inevitably put the future of the Star Wars franchise into question. How will the series continue without General Leia, the leader of the resistance?

While the answer to that question is still unclear, we do know that according to early reports Fisher had finished her work on Star Wars Episode VIII before her death on December 27. The film wrapped in July and is currently in post-production. Her character, however, was slated to appear in Star Wars Episode IX, which was scheduled to begin shooting in 2018.

Now, sources are reporting that Disney had taken out a $50 million "so-called contract protection cover as insurance for the event that Fisher was unable to fulfill her obligations to act in the new Star Wars films, with the policy now likely to trigger."

Though an insurance payout of this size does not help solve the problem of Fisher's role in Star Wars IX, it does show the substantial investment Disney had in her part in the future films. With the character of Han Solo killed off in The Force Awakens and given the size of this insurance claim, it's likely to assume General Leia would have had played a big part in Star Wars IX.

In Rogue One, Disney used the stunning—and rather unsettling—visual effects to depict a young Princess Leia and the late Peter Cushing. Would audiences be comfortable with a CGI General Leia appearing in Star Wars IX so soon after Fisher's death? It certainly wouldn't be unheard of, considering what Rogue One and other examples like Paul Walker's return in Furious 7 and performances featuring a holographic Tupac and Michael Jackson.

"When he first showed up, my initial reaction was pure excitement at seeing Tarkin again," one visual-effects artist told Engadget about the return of Cushing's character. "I had no idea it would be more than a little cameo. The more he did, the more I wondered why they were using him so much. He seemed as believable to me as I think they could have achieved. Everything looked great visually, but there was something off in the animation. The lips always give it away for me. There is a subtlety to mouth movements that gets lost in the motion-capture."

But this Disney artist also pointed out that while the technology is incredible, it's also disrespectful to actors who have died. There's also the actor's estates to consider, which dictate how their images can be licensed. With $50 million to spend from the insurance payout, though, Disney could potentially pull off something never before seen in Hollywood.

[MIKA27]

18 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Wow, I can't believe that these ads were around not that very long ago!

The Asthma cigarettes crack me up. Not recommended for children under 6!? 

[polarbear]

35 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Wow, I can't believe that these ads were around not that very long ago!

Some of those are a little hard to imagine now

That being said, I've been searching for a decent copy of the "Asthma Cigarettes" ad for a while now

Want to frame it and hang it in my living room

[MIKA27]

COMMERCIALS: ABC OF DEATH - VOLVO

How do you make death and autonomous driving systems humorous? Well filmmaking duo Daniel Titz and Dorian Lebherz have done just that. From the same agency that brought you Johnny Walker's amazing 2015 ad "Dear Brother", comes a commercial that rivals its predecessor. Although its a bit more morbid than their previous work, this ad for Volvo swaps out the gut-wrenching tears for a bit of dark humor.

And here is the Johnny Walker Dear Brother commercial;

 

[MIKA27]

Don't Knock Twice Trailer Demonstrates Why It's a Terrible Idea to Bother the Witch Next Door

In Don’t Knock Twice, Katee Sackhoff plays Jess, a successful American artist who moves to the UK to reconnect with her long-lost daughter. Too bad the teen is obsessed with a supernatural curse brought on by a witchy ghost— a vengeful creature who does not appreciate being disturbed.

IFC Midnight’s Don’t Knock Twice—directed by Caradog W. James, who previously made the Caity Lotz-starring A.I. thriller The Machine—hits theaters and VOD on February 3.

 

[MIKA27]

How To Follow The Race No One's Ever Meant To Finish, The Dakar Rally\

When a race goes through sand, mud, and painful silt, has both freezing temperatures and grueling heat, climbs to elevations of nearly 15,000 feet above sea level and ends near sea level, you know it’s going to attract some of the most talented and downright crazy individuals on the planet. Welcome to Dakar. Here’s how to follow along.

One of the most insane races on the planet—the Dakar Rally—is on right now, taking competitors through nearly 5,500 miles of unforgiving terrain. Dakar also started from a brand new country this year: Paraguay. 

The Dakar makes vehicles of all shapes and sizes go through a bunch of stuff meant to gum them up, flood them, bog them down or otherwise destroy it, and then has the gall to wait for them at the finish line. 

The Dakar Rally put together a quick list above of their favorites for conquering the 13-day-long event, which includes of some of the most varied terrain on earth. 

There are five main types of vehicles attempting the Dakar this year: motorcycles, quads, UTVs, cars (vehicles of normal size), and trucks (the truly gigantic vehicles that are bigger than a small house). You can thumb through the full entry list here.

 Because the Dakar Rally is such a long and difficult race, it’s one of those epic feats that a little bit of everyone wants to try to overcome. 

Many of the names in cars are familiar to those of us who follow rally elsewhere. Ex-World Rally Championship stars Mikko Hirvonen and Martin Prokop are having a go at the race in a Mini and a Ford, respectively. Hirvonen’s old WRC nemesis and most successful WRC driver of all time Sébastien Loeb is there in a Peugeot. Two-time WRC champion and father of one of F1's rising superbabies Carlos Sainz is also competing in a Peugeot. 

Potential savior of Volkswagen’s stillborn 2017 Polo R WRC cars and two-time Dakar winner Nasser Al-Attiyah is also back in a Toyota Hilux, and he starts today in the lead after yesterday’s first stage.

Occasional WRC dabbler, three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, two-time Pikes Peak International Hill Climb winner and four-time 24 Hours of Nürburgring winner (phew) Romain Dumas is there in a Peugeot, too, because, well, of course he is. 

The United States’ best hope for conquering South America’s toughest terrain is Honda motorcycle rider Ricky Brabec, who is in second place after the first stage yesterday. Unfortunately, American Trophy Truck and Pro2 beast Bryce Menzies had to pull out of the race due to a lingering shoulder injury from a world-record jump attempt in August, per Motorsport.com. Beloved American off-roader and perpetual Dakar entrant Robby Gordon is also sitting out this year to tackle a number of other huge projects, reports NBC Sports. 

Of course, Dakar has its fair share of its own stars, too. Stéphane Peterhansel is Mr. Dakar at this point, having won on both bikes and cars to become the winningest Dakar competitor of all time. He has an incredible 12 Dakar Rally wins to his name—including one from last year—and is in a Peugeot this year. Last year’s other winners Gerard de Rooy (Iveco truck), Marcos Patronelli (Yamaha quad), and Toby Price (KTM motorcycle) are also back this year. 

Last, but not least, beloved Dakar-driving brothers Tim and Tom Coronel are there in Suzukis this year. Their frequent updates and incredible attitude about one of the toughest races on the planet are always a joy to follow along. 

How To Follow The Rally

The Dakar Rally set off yesterday, and fortunately this year, many daily wrap-ups are being posted on the Dakar Rally’s official YouTube channel along with other cool tidbits from the race, including interviews, highlights, explainers and more. 

Already, the rally has seen Joan Barreda Bort’s bike hop just a bit too enthusiastically into deep water, and Al-Attiyah’s Toyota pretending to be part of Vape Nation. Ouch! Fortunately, it’s still early in the event, and Al-Attiyah made it out of the first stage in the lead, anyway. 

In addition to the daily recaps, you can also keep up with live timing on the Dakar website here, and a live feed of major happenings here. Many drivers and teams, including Tom Coronel and the Euro Veka MAN Rally Team, also post their own updates on YouTube throughout the rally. 

If you’d rather sit down and watch the daily recap on the TV every evening and you’re in the United States, NBC Sports has your back. Starting today, January 3, recaps of Dakar Rally action will be shown on the NBC Sports Network, with coverage concluding on January 16. The full schedule of new half-hour episodes to be aired on NBCSN is as follows (all times Eastern):

• Tuesday, Jan. 3: 5:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Jan. 4: 6:30 p.m.
• Thursday, Jan. 5: 6:30 p.m.
• Friday, Jan. 6: 6:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Jan. 7: 12:00 p.m. 
• Monday, Jan. 9: 12:00 a.m.; 6:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, Jan. 10: 6:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, Jan. 11: 6:30 p.m.
• Thursday, Jan. 12: 6:30 p.m.
• Friday, Jan. 13: 6:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Jan. 14: 6:30 p.m.

A full schedule including replays can be found on NBC Sports’ website here. An international list of broadcasters can be found on Dakar’s website here. 

Dakar is a unique spectacle among racing events, with the most incredible off-road machinery driven by the lunatics crazy enough to attempt this ridiculously long and unpredictable race.

Watch out for highlights and other assorted mayhem this week, because nothing on the planet puts vehicles and their drivers and riders through total hell like the Dakar Rally. 

 

[MIKA27]

Kingston 2 Terabyte Flash Drive Packs More Storage Than Your MacBook

For those eager to easily misplace two terabytes worth of photos, videos, MP3s, and other important documents, today Kingston unveiled a three-inch USB flash drive packing more storage than even a fully spec'd MacBook Pro.

The Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate Generation Terabyte (GT) flash drive isn't exactly tiny, but compared to the external backup drive sitting on your desk, it's probably considerably more pocket-friendly and easy to travel with.

When eventually available the USB 3.0 drive will presumably arrive with an equally massive price tag, but those two terabytes of storage also come wrapped in a tough zinc-alloy metal casing that can survive sub-zero temperatures all the way down to 4 below zero, and protect your data all the way to up to a toasty 85 degrees Celcius. But all that armour won't protect a single byte of data if you lose it.

[MIKA27]

Watch This Woman Pretend to Get Hit By a Car In the Least Convincing Way Possible

In China, there’s something known as “pengci,” which is basically when someone runs in front of a moving vehicle, pretends to have been struck by it, and “demands compensation” from the driver. While NPR reports “the advent of dash cameras has helped shame the guilty parties” and decrease the popularity of pengci, people occasionally give it a shot anyway. But they’re not always good at it.

Take this woman for example, who attempts the con not in a single fluid motion, but a sort of three-act play that’s broken up by brief intermissions. She runs in front of a moving car. The car stops. She pauses. (INTERMISSION.) She falls. She peeks up to see if the driver is reacting. She goes down, then up, then down again. (INTERMISSION.) She rises to her feet to confront the driver, and the footage ends before we’re given a satisfactory conclusion to the story.

Did she run away soon after realizing her pengci had been caught by the driver’s dashcam? Did she attempt to “demand compensation” regardless? Will she start studying the teachings of Lee Strasberg? We’ll never know.... 

Here's a bonus for S**ts and giggles;

 

[MIKA27]

How The World's Best Bar Makes The Perfect Irish Coffee

When you're relaxing at home, there's nothing quite like an Irish coffee to get your day started. Here's how the recently-awarded best bar in the world makes theirs.

The Dead Rabbit in New York City recently won the "World's Best Bar" award from Drinks International, and have won "Best Bar In North America" for four years straight, so they know a thing or two about mixing up good drinks. In this video from the Travel + Leisure YouTube channel, Jillian Vose, the beverage director and bar manager of The Dead Rabbit, shows you how to mix up the best Irish coffee of your life.

Start by filling a six-ounce glass with an ounce and a 1/4 of blended Irish whiskey. Next — and this is key — blend some sugar with your hot coffee before you pour it into your glass with the whiskey in it. Then whip some cold, unsweetened cream (30% to 35% fat content) with a protein shaker bottle, and use it to top off your coffee. Now kick back and enjoy.

[gweilgi]

On 1/3/2017 at 4:31 AM, MIKA27 said:

ASPEN GROVE RANCH

Situated on 350 acres just a couple hours outside Denver, the Aspen Grove Ranch is a truly palatial residence. Spread across its 24,400 square feet of interior space are 10 bedrooms and 15 full bathrooms, with two half baths thrown in for good measure. The master suite and guest house each get their own wing, connected to the main house by separate bridges that cross over waterfalls and streams while providing views of the surrounding mountains. The guest area also gets its own kitchen, giving the home a total of two, to go along with the home theater, elevator, multiple fireplaces, steam room, stables, wine cellar, billiards room, spa, fitness center, and bowling alley.

 

No walk-in humidor?

Crap.

Demolish and rebuild!

[MIKA27]

These Aussie-Made Wireless Earbuds Are A Cure For Pub Deafness

Imagine a pair of completely wireless earbuds that can block out the ambient noise of crowds or busy offices or loud restaurants, but that still let you have a perfectly audible — amplified, in fact — conversation with the person in front of you. Think of a hearing aid, but that connects to your phone via Bluetooth, with dynamically adjustable noise cancellation and boosting. Think of Apple's AirPods, but on steroids.

On paper, Nuheara's IQbuds aren't hugely different to other Bluetooth earbuds like the Apple AirPods or Jabra's Elite Sport — they don't have any wires, and live in a charging case when not being worn. Nuheara claims 16 hours of Bluetooth streaming on one charge, though, and 32 hours of ambient noise cancellation and speech amplification.

The hook, though, is multiple microphones on each earbud that pick up audio from different directions. Using an algorithm rather than more basic frequency-level noise cancelling, the IQbuds can block out ambient noise while simultaneously amplifying speech from a person close by and directly in front of the wearer. And it works.

I tried the IQbuds for the first time at CES and came away impressed. In a large room filled with hundreds of loud conversations, Nuheara's wireless in-ear buds blocked out the background noise. Different silicon ear-tips can seal the IQbuds into the wearer's ear canal — important, since any leakage removes most of the digital noise cancellation going on.

The hardware is solid, but it's also backed by a smartphone app that can be used to adjust the IQbuds' noise cancellation. Each earbud can be adjusted independently to compensate for more or less deafness in one ear, or different frequencies or levels of speech amplification can be set. It's not necessary — there are five default settings for restaurants, outdoors and so on — but the option to dig deeper is there.

You can also tap each of the IQbuds' left and right buds to either switch between different amplification/cancellation settings, and to play/pause/skip any music or audio that might be playing simultaneously as the ambient audio adjustment element of the headphones. It's easy to forget that alongside the hearing amplification, these are also regular noise cancelling Bluetooth earbuds and can just be used to entirely block out outside noise while listening to music.

Nuheara is already shipping production-ready IQbuds to the nearly 4000 customers that backed the company's Indiegogo campaign, where it raised just over $1 million to develop and produce the gadget. There are plenty of different 'hearables' at the show, but Nuheara's Australian story — the company is based in Perth, and is listed on the ASX — is unique. The algorithm that the IQbuds use to block and amplify different ambient elements was developed in collaboration with Curtin University.

When they're released to the general public in March, Nuheara's IQbuds will cost $399 in Australia. The company will sell directly through its website, but it's also actively searching for retail stockistd throughout the country and around the world.

[MIKA27]

Article From 1917: Don't Worry About Coal, They Will Definitely Be Using Something Else By 2017

In the autumn of 1917, a severe coal shortage hit the United States. Riots even broke out over the lack of energy as the nation went into the winter months. Some people were calling for conservation, but one snarky newspaper article insisted that conserving was for suckers. Why? People of the future — specifically, the people of 100 years hence — wouldn't be using coal anyway.

I recently came across this article in the 12 November 1917 edition of the Lincoln Evening Journal in Nebraska which ran under the headline "Looking Ahead". The piece was reprinted from the Chicago News and ridiculed the idea of worrying about whether people of the future would have enough coal. They needed coal now, and there's absolutely no way that people of the year 2017 would still be using coal as energy.

What will be people be using a hundred years hence? The author speculated that perhaps someone will find a way "to put the sun's energy in storage, and pump it into people's houses thru pipes".

Solar power! It wasn't such a silly idea, of course, as some people had been inventing strange solar-powered devices in the 19th century. And the 1930s would even see this solar-powered refrigerator.

The author of the article explained that their grandfathers had "fussed around with tallow candles" and that "highbrow writers" warned people to save their candles. But it was all for nought, of course. Better energy sources were found and humanity progressed.

"And these gifted lunatics who are worrying about the coal supply are in the same class," the writer from 1917 continued. "It doesn't occur to them that in a hundred years people will be saying, 'Our grandfathers, the poor boobs, actually used coal for heating purposes!'"

In some ways this writer from 1917 is right. When we heat our homes here in the year 2017, very few of us have to literally use coal in a furnace that's sitting in our houses. But in 2015, roughly 67 per cent of America's energy needs were from fossil fuels. The largest single source? Coal, at 33 per cent. Solar energy accounts for less than one per cent of American energy. And in Australia, around 77 per cent of energy was produced by coal, and only two per cent by renewables. We haven't progressed very far when it comes to our energy sources, sadly.

Much like oil, which we aren't running out of any time soon, we need to move away from coal because it's the right thing to do for the environment. And even if you somehow don't believe in humanity's role in climate change, at least do it for the future.

If nothing else, it's kind of embarrassing that a writer from a hundred years ago had absolute confidence that we'd have moved to better technology by now, and we've all proven him wrong.

 

[MIKA27]

Brilliant Space Invaders Pack Straps A Miniature Arcade Cabinet To Your Back

Let's get the bad news out of the way first. This Space Invaders-themed backpack only looks like a miniature replica of an arcade machine — it doesn't actually let you play the classic video game that has you fending off alien invaders. But we'll happily turn a blind eye to that oversight, because everything else about this pack is fantastic.

Inside the backpack you'll find countless pockets and compartments lined with a lovely polyester patterned print featuring images of the actual invaders, who also pop up as 3D rubber zipper pulls. And below the simulated screen on the back of the pack is a working coin slot you can use to stash coins you don't want bouncing around your pocket.

It's available from ThinkGeek for $US50 ($69), and while we're sure someone will find a way to hack in an actual playable version of Space Invaders, do you really want all that extra weight hanging off your back?

[MIKA27]

These Shoes Let You Feel The Surface You're Walking On In Virtual Reality

There's an obsession with "immersion" in virtual reality. Everyone wants to find the next way to make VR experiences feel more real. So far, the best ways to do it have been room tracking sensors that let you walk around a designated area or wireless hand controllers that let you grab things in the virtual world. Now, a new startup is betting big on plastic shoes that give you a sensation that you're actually walking around in the virtual world.

The Cerevo Taclim is pair of tactile feedback shoes and wireless hand controllers made to work with Google VR experiences that make it feel like you're actually walking on the surface shown in the virtual world. That means snow crunches beneath your feet, grains of sand rub against your toes, and water splashes as you wade around in virtual puddles — at least in theory.

The idea is totally freaking insane, and it immediately caught my attention at this year's CES. Virtual reality has been one of these hyped-up categories for years, but it's always fallen short of complete immersion. I decided I had to give the Taclim shoes and controllers a chance in order to see if its dramatically improved any VR experiences.

The creator of the shoes booted up a fighting game, and I was asked to walk into the arena where I'd fight a bunch of robots. As i entered the arena, I stepped on water, concrete, and sand. Each different element provided a different sensation on my toes, the balls of my feet, and my heels. I wouldn't call it realistic, but the sensation did at least somewhat help me suspend my disbelief that I wasn't actually in the middle of a crowded convention center in Las Vegas.

The shoes themselves are really easy to strap on and are relatively simple builds. There are two straps that go across the top of your feet like a pair of Tevas or other athletic sandals. There are tactile feedback motors in both the front and rear of the shoes and also across one of the straps. It's enough to give you a tingly feeling in your feet as you march in place, walking around a virtual world. There are also motors in the palms of the hand controllers that come with the shoes, though I didn't find them all that helpful, and frankly, they weren't that innovative. They looked like modified versions of the Oculus Touch controllers.

Cerevo says it hopes to ship the Taclim set in the fall of 2017, and the pair of controllers and shoes will cost between $US1,000 ($1,384)-$US1,500 ($2,076). It's a steep price to pay, especially since its only compatible with Google VR at the moment, but Cerevo says it hopes to add bigger platforms — namely Oculus, Steam VR, and PlayStation VR — in the near future. We certainly hope so because without the support of those bigger platforms, these shoes will be dead on arrival. Still, it's a very fun accessory to play with and it would be even better if they worked with room tracking sensors. Then, finally, we might get some real immersion.

 

[MIKA27]

Ryan Reynolds Is Still Trying To Convince Hugh Jackman To Do A Deadpool/Wolverine Movie

Sure, a version of "Deadpool" and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine have already teamed up, thanks to the excruciating X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but wouldn't it be amazing if Ryan Reynold's wittily maniacal mercenary could join forces with Hugh Jackman's Logan? Well, Reynolds agrees — and he's actively trying to get Jackman to do so, too.

Variety has released a new extended interview with Reynolds in the run up to Deadpool potentially striking big in the movie awards season. As well as discussing the runaway success of the movie, Reynolds also teased a glimpse of future Deadpool projects, saying multiple ideas for future films beyond Deadpool 2 are being discussed... including a Wade/Logan team-up:

Quote

 

I would love to play Deadpool for as long as they would let me play Deadpool. We have outlines and stories for a number of different films.

...I have no idea if I can change [Jackman's] mind [about a team up]. It's the audience: I would exclusively exploit that relationship to get Hugh back for another one.

 

Jackman, however, is resistant to the idea, especially after declaring that he would retire from the role after this year's Logan:

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I'm hesitating, because I could totally see how that's the perfect fit. But the timing may be wrong.

Which, while not really confidently positive, isn't exactly a no, is it? Hope springs eternal and all that. The comments are particularly interesting coming off the back of last week's report from The Wrap that Deadpool would make a cameo appearance in Logan's post-credits scene — a report that was swiftly and publicly denied by Jackman and Reynolds on social media. So while that avenue seems closed altogether, there's still a chance, if Jackman relents, that Wolverine and Deadpool could come together on the big screen once more.

[MIKA27]

How Russians Imagined the Year 2017 In 1960

 

How did the people of the Soviet Union expect to live in the year 2017? A filmstrip from 1960 shows that their expectations were pretty similar to the futuristic predictions of Americans. With a touch more Communism, of course.

Matt Baillie from the Facebook group Soviet Visuals sent me a tip about the retro-futuristic filmstrip, which would have been played through a Diafilm in the 1960s—a kind of home slide projector that was incredibly popular in the Soviet Union.

The illustrations were created by L. Smekhov and written by V. Strukova and V. Shevchenko. And it’s incredible how closely they mirror what was going on in the United States as far as technological dreams were concerned.

 I’ve included select images from what appears to be the original source (Sergey Pozdnyakov) below, along with some of the translations from the Moscow Times, which our own Russian-speaking editor confirmed are accurate.

Someone also did a video version (Above) if you’d like to watch it that way. It has jazzy music and star wipes if that’s your thing. Otherwise, some of the stills are below.

1960 panel from a film strip about the Soviet Union in the year 2017

One of the panels shows students of the year 2017 using a “special cinema device” which allows them to look back at how the Soviet Union was created and evolved. Interestingly, the illustration looks like it was almost certainly inspired by the Futurama exhibit from the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

Visitors to the fair could look at the futuristic cities of tomorrow in the Futurama ride, not unlike the Soviet kids above.

Much like the dreams that were sold in the United States at midcentury, everything in the future Soviet Union would be atomic powered! Including the trains!

From the Moscow Times:

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The children hear the voice of the narrator: “And here is the dam across the Bering Strait. Do you see what’s whizzing over it? Atomic-powered trains. The dam blocked the cold water currents from the Arctic Ocean and the climate in the Far East improved.

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The drilling of the future will be advanced as well. “And then, the earth surface kind of melted away, and you could see what was happening in the bowels of the earth. In the depths of volcanos, underground boat-moles made out of special heat-resistant steel were ripping mines towards eternal sources of energy.”

And there’s amazing space travel, of course.

From the Moscow Times:

Quote

Then in the film, the Earth itself disappears. In outer space, almost at the speed of light, photon interstellar rocketships set off for the nearest and faraway planetary system, Alpha Centauri.

The pictures of space travel are decidedly Soviet, but Americans will perhaps recognize a hint of Chesley Bonestell from the mid-1950s.

We meet a young boy named Igor in the strip, whose father works in weather control. Weather control, of course, was something that both the United States and the Soviet Union obsessed over during the Cold War as a potential weapon.

Above we see Igor inserting an “instruction note” into the computerized kitchen, which makes his breakfast. After the machine reads the instructions, “automatic scoopers measure out what’s needed, and special knives quickly chop vegetables.”

If this all looks similar to the Jetsons, that’s because it is. And this was produced a full two years before the Jetsons would air on American TV.

Did the Jetsons of 1962 rip off this Soviet filmstrip? Probably not. It’s yet another reminder that the Jetsons was a parody show, taking its ideas from 1950s futurism and heightening the absurdity. This computerized kitchen was likely inspired by the other visualizations of futuristic food that would come out in the 1950s. Perhaps they were even inspired by the futuristic fair put on in Moscow in 1959— organized by the Americans who were much more obsessed with the future of food than the Soviets were during this period.

Igor’s home has a videophone, as one might expect. You can see it as a standalone appliance on the left as Igor rushes to talk with his mother. Much like the Jetsons, distance isn’t a hindrance to communication for this version of 2017.

Igor’s mother happens to be on a “floating kindergarten” of the future on the Black Sea.

From the Moscow Times:

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“Are you … in the Black Sea?” Igor asks, surprised. “I’m here for work,” she says. “I’m inspecting the Black Sea’s floating kindergartens, and I also dropped in on ours. Call Dad and tell him I won’t be home until tomorrow.”

And what happens when you’re in the harsh winter elements, like the scene you see above?

You go underground...

...where an incredible utopia of perfect weather awaits.

These underground cities produce plenty, though. This one, known as Uglegrad is showing a visiting group of students how much they produce.

But it’s not all hard work. “An eternal spring reins,” as the guide boasts of what they have built underground in the futuristic year 2017.

And much like the impressive drills illustrated in the United States by the likes of Arthur Radebaugh and Walt Disney (through the direction of Ward Kimball in 1958's “Magic Highway, USA”) the Soviets had their own version.

Igor’s father works with weather control stations like the one we see above.

But there’s trouble in paradise. The dirty imperialists (read: Americans) are messing with weapons that they shouldn’t have.

From the Moscow Times:

Quote

Meanwhile, back at the Central Institute for Weather Control, where Igor’s father works, there’s dire news. “We’ve just been informed,” the head meteorologist says, “that the last remaining imperialists, hiding on a remote island, have tested a banned meson weapon. During the test, there was an explosion of unprecedented strength, which destroyed the entire island and simultaneously created atmospheric disturbances around the planet.”

What will Igor’s father do? The dirty rotten imperialists have caused a storm with their damned weapons tests in the South Pacific.

The weather station needs to be dispatched to save as many people as possible.

From the Moscow Times:

Quote

On the television screen in the station, an image of the Black Sea coast flashes. A gigantic tornado rips off the roofs on homes, tearing apart a century-old village.

The brave men of the weather station have saved the day.

When the weather station returns to Moscow, the men are hailed as heroes, having used their weather control powers to save hundreds of lives.

Igor and his father embrace, as everyone in Moscow breathes a great sigh of relief and women throw flowers at the brave Soviet heroes.

And the family is reunited, if only over videophone for the moment. The imperialist weapon’s terrible weather effects have been contained in the glorious year 2017, but the last vestiges of their capitalist movement probably haven’t been completely wiped out. We assume that vigilance will remain necessary.

[MIKA27]

A New Zombie Classic Is Coming Out Very Soon and You Don't Want To Miss It

One of the best zombie movies to come out in years is finally coming to the U.S. later this month, and we want to make sure you don’t miss it. It’s called The Girl With All The Gifts, and it’s got a new trailer.

Directed by Colm McCarthy and starring Paddy Considine, Glenn Close, and Gemma Arterton, the UK production opened there in September and bombed. Why? Zombie overkill maybe? Bad marketing? We don’t know. What we do know is that the movie is absolutely fantastic. But, because of its lack of success overseas, it’s getting dumped in the U.S.

So if you have DirectTV, it’ll be available on January 26. Then, on February 24, it’ll get a small theatrical run, as well as hitting digital download and on-demand.

To commemorate the release, Entertainment Weekly has a new trailer which you can watch below. But, if we’re being honest, it’s pretty similar to the original trailer I posted last year, just with more spoilers. 

 

 

[MIKA27]

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me Soundtrack Gets a Dreamy Vinyl Re-Release

As excitement for the Showtime Twin Peaks revival builds, there’s no better time to revisit David Lynch’s cinematic prequel to the series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Specifically, the 25-year-old cult classic’s spooky Angelo Badalamenti score, which is getting a stylishly packaged and fully remastered re-release.

Yep. That is cherry pie red vinyl caressing your eyeballs, an aesthetic touch that’s not entirely surprising, since last year’s re-release of the Twin Peaks TV show soundtrack—also on Mondo Music label Death Waltz Recording Company—featured coffee-colored vinyl. The artwork (touted as “David Lynch-approved”) is by Sam Smith, and the packaging and layout are designed by Jay Shaw.

Here’s the track listing:

01. Theme From Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me (6:40)

02. The Pine Float (3:58)

03. Sycamore Trees (3:52)

04. Don’t Do Anything (I Wouldn’t Do) (7:17)

05. A Real Indication (5:31)

06. Questions In A World Of Blue (4:50)

07. The Pink Room (4:02)

08. The Black Dog Runs At Night (1:45)

09. Best Friends (2:12)

10. Moving Through Time (6:41)

11. Montage From Twin Peaks - Girl Talk / Birds In Hell / Laura Palmer’s Theme / Falling (5:27)

12. The Voice Of Love (3:55)

 

And the eerie album cover, beamed straight from the Black Lodge:

The double LP will be available starting January 25 at MondoTees.com; visit the Alamo Drafthouse website to check showtimes of special 25th anniversary screenings of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me at select theaters around the country.

[MIKA27]

Internet Legend Slenderman Gets a New Horror Movie and an Even More Horrifying-Looking Doc

So 2017 is only a few days old, but the breakout star so far is Slenderman. He’s the terrifying internet meme turned real-life crime inspiration who is soon to be the subject of an HBO documentary, which just got a premiere date. And now, we have news of a feature film.

Documentary Beware the Slenderman, which tells the story of how the internet legend inspired two 12-year-old girls to commit a shockingly violent act, will premiere on HBO January 23 at 10pm EST.

Much later than that, the entire Slenderman myth is getting its own movie. Deadline reports that director Sylvain White (The Losers) will helm the film under Sony’s Screen Gems banner. Production will start in the spring. There aren’t any details beyond that, but you’d guess it’ll turn the character into a more traditional horror villain.

Bonus: Here is an added video for the Slender Man Stabbing Survivor's Remarkable Recovery | Nightline | ABC News

 

[MIKA27]

These Are The Only Cables Coming Out Of Samsung's New TV

The idea is so simple it's kind of amazing no TV maker thought of it before. A TV mounted on the wall should, theoretically, look gorgeous, but the tangle of cords jutting out of the back of the TV, pushing it away from the wall and then dangling down to wherever the cable box, PS4 and Wii U reside, is ugly. So Samsung did something that strikes you, innately, as both backward and forward thing — it moved all the ports of the TV.

The Q9 television is Samsung's 2017 flagship TV. It's thinner than a card pack, more than three times brighter than your smartphone (around 2000 nits vs the average 500-600 of a high-end phone) and it fits at least six ports worth of inputs into a cord the width of a fishing line.

That's the power cord and Connect cord side by side.

The minuscule cord is translucent, making it less visible against a bare wall, in case you don't decide to just tape it down and paint over it. It will connect to a unit like Samsung's current One Connect Box, which includes USB 3.0, coax and multiple HDMI ports.

While the tiny cord is outstanding, and left a gaggle of tech reporters astounded when revealed, Samsung would prefer you focus on the front of the TV. It's using a new formulation of quantum dot technology to better mimic the colours and contrast of an OLED TV, without the price or potential for devastating burn in.

Samsung has been quiet on what precisely changed between the quantum dots in its old SUHD TVs and the new Q line. Instead preferring to talk about smaller pixels and higher colour volume (Samsung is claiming the Q9 will render 20 per cent more colours than the 2016 SUHD sets did). In practice I couldn't say much, at least in the super controlled settings of yesterday's press event. The TV does appear to pull off blacks nicely, and the colours, as with previously quantum dot displays, continue to pop impressively. There's little of the "halo" effect that can occur when a very bright light source is set next to a very black part of the screen. But there's also none of that wow factor that we've seen in years past. This picture improvement appears marginal at best.

Samsung hasn't announced Australian availability, but expect the Q9, and the less expensive Q8 and Q7, which have uglier finishes, larger port replacement cords and curved options, to appear in US stores in autumn. As for price, Samsung hasn't dropped any numbers yet, but previous flagship TV sets from Samsung started at $US3000 ($4151).

[Lotusguy]

Wow, I can't believe that these ads were around not that very long ago!

Almost as long as fullquotes

[MIKA27]

Astronomers Pinpointed The Location Of Multiple Weird Radio Bursts Beyond Our Galaxy

Fast radio bursts, powerful pulses of radio energy of unknown cosmic origin, are a source of endless fascination to astronomers and alien conspiracy theory fodder to everybody else. But while most FRBs discovered to date are one-off events — a single chirp in the interstellar void, if you will — these phenomena got more interesting last year when astronomers discovered the very first FRB signal that repeats. Now, they have pinpointed its location.

FRB 121102, the only repeating fast radio burst know to science, is located over three billion light years away, in a dwarf galaxy a thousand times dimmer than the Milky Way, according to new research published today in Nature. Not only does the new analysis confirm that mysterious radio bursts emanate from a source far beyond our galaxy, zeroing in on their location means we can start unravelling what exactly that source is.

All we know at this point is that FRBs are coming from something powerful. "These radio flashes must have enormous amounts of energy to be visible from over 3 billion light-years away," Cornell astronomer and lead study author Shami Chatterjee said in a statement.

"I think this is a really big deal, and I'm really excited about the result," Peter Williams, an astronomer at Harvard's Center for Astrophysics who was not involved with the study.

Over the past decade, astronomers have catalogued more than a dozen FRBs, seemingly random flashes of radio energy that appear in the sky at far-flung locations and then disappear. FRB 121102 was first spotted in 2012 at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, one of the world's most powerful radio telescopes. But unlike earlier FRBs, 1211102 wasn't just a flash in the pan: Follow-up observations in 2015 revealed 10 additional radio bursts emanating from the same region of space. "This unambiguously identifies FRB 121102 as repeating," astronomers wrote of the discovery last year in Nature. 

FRB 1211102's repetitive signal removed any doubt that astronomers are looking at a genuine astrophysical phenomena, rather than, say, random bursts of energy from the nearest microwave oven. Equally important, FRB 121102 proved that whatever is producing fast radio bursts — or at least, some of them — isn't being destroyed in the process.

Still, much more information was needed to figure out what's causing FRBs, starting with where in the universe they are coming from. Now, that mystery seems to have been solved for FRB 121102.

Prior to the new study, the patch of sky associated with FRB 121102's powerful outbursts was several arc minutes in diameter; wide enough to encompass hundreds of potential sources and many galaxies. To more precisely zero in on its location, Chatterjee and his co-authors turned to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (VLA). In 83 hours of observing time last year, they watched FBR 121102 fire off nine additional times, all at a consistent sky position. Follow-up observations with the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii revealed a very faint dwarf galaxy at precisely the location of the source.

A composite image of FRB 121102, located in a dim and distant host galaxy.

More follow-up observations, with other telescope networks around the world including the European Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network, showed that the various FRB signals were occurring within 100 light years of each other. Astronomers also identified a fainter, continuous radio source, that also seems to be co-located.

"We think that the bursts and the continuous source are likely to be either the same object or that they are somehow physically associated with each other," Benito Marcote, a research at the of the Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC in the Netherlands, said in a statement.

So, now that we know where all the intergalactic chatter is coming from, can we say what's causing it? Not yet — but the location of FRB 121102 within a dim dwarf galaxy does imply one rather badass possibility: A magnetar. That's an insanely dense, rapidly rotating dead star with a magnetic field powerful enough to shred the entire cosmic neighbourhood to atoms.

"I favour the idea that they're related to magnetars," Williams said. He noted that dim dwarf galaxies, such as the one which birthed FRB 121102, also happen to be associated with another weird cosmic phenomenon — super-luminous supernovae. Nobody's really sure why the brightest stellar explosions are happening in the dimmest galaxies, but there's reason to suspect such environments might also be conducive to the formation of magnetars. Alternatively, the signal could be associated with an "active galactic nucleus", with radio jets coming from material surrounding the galaxy's supermassive black hole.

My personal pet theory is that the galaxy is dim because an advanced alien civilisation has built a Starkiller Base-esque contraption to systematically suck the life out of the stars, and that said alien death machine releases powerful energy bursts every time it knocks off another non-compliant planet. But according to scientists, I shouldn't get too attached to this idea.

"We've joked about spaceship battles and death stars blowing up, but we think we can explain it with ordinary physics," Chatterjee said.

 

[MIKA27]

'Mass Effect: Andromeda' Is Coming In March

It's official! The next installment in Bioware's glorious Mass Effect series has a release date - March 21 2017 for the US, and March 23 2017 for Europe.

Bioware's general manager, Aaryn Flynn, made the announcement today in a blog post - which also revealed a few more tidbits of info about the game.
The full statement reads:

Quote

 

On behalf of our teams across Montreal, Edmonton and Austin, I’m excited to announce that Mass Effect: Andromeda will be launching in North America on Tuesday, March 21, 2017 and beginning Thursday, March 23, 2017 in Europe. We appreciate your patience (and in fact, even your lack of patience in some instances) as we’ve been focused on completing the game. Here’s a little bit of context into how we’ve gotten here.

Mass Effect: Andromeda is our most ambitious Mass Effect game to date. We’re telling completely new stories, creating new characters, new planets, new species, and introducing new gameplay systems. And for the first time, we’re bringing Mass Effect to the Frostbite game engine, an incredible engine that’s delivering a tremendous graphical jump from the trilogy to Mass Effect: Andromeda. To deliver on this, we’re taking all the time we can to make sure you’re getting the best possible experience.

Over this holiday break, developers at BioWare took home a version of the game in what we call the “holiday build”. This is a longstanding studio tradition that goes back to the early days of the original Mass Effect. Many load up a PC or console and go home to play as much as possible at their leisure. Coming back from holiday, the feedback has been great. Getting the endorsement from members of our studio, many of whom played key roles on the original trilogy, was definitely a key factor in helping us lock in on the date.

Even more exciting for us over the last couple of months has been seeing the excitement build in the community as we’ve started to share more about the game. The passion you have for the franchise continues to drive us. And now, we’re just a couple of months away from delivering a brand new Mass Effect experience to you for the first time in five years – richer, deeper and ready for exploration. We’re excited about how far we are going with the franchise, and we hope you find it’s been worth the wait.

See you in Andromeda,

Aaryn