Edu

Zach Galifianakis graced Saturday Night Live with his manic, bearded hosting skills last night and showed us that it's not easy being green. Or, more precisely, it's not easy being dressed as a green dragon while enduring game show humiliation.

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Have you ever seen a wad of chewing gum on the sidewalk and wondered about the person who spat it out? Artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg has done more than wonder. She collects errant hairs, cigarette butts, fingernails, and discarded chewing gum from public places and using the DNA she finds, creates 3D portraits of how the owners of this discarded genetic material might look.

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It's May the Fourth, that day when Star Wars fans punnily wish each other well. We're celebrating with some of our favorite Star Wars gifs. How are you celebrating Star Wars Day?

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Overdue for more from The Collection, we are, so here are a buncha videos to amuse and entertain all y’all:

First, some of public television’s legends band together Avengers-style to rescue America from mindless television in Gritty Reboots’ PBS: The Movie:

A LEGO Breaking Bad video game? If only:

The folks at Fox Animation Domination High Def continue their series of Scientifically Accurate rethinking of hero icons with Scientifically Accurate Ninja Turtles, and, yes, they do carry salmonella:

Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” in 8-bit? Chiptuney!:

And an elaborate parody of Downton Abbey with a projection of Season 4′s opener performed as a Broadway musical? With a huge cast and Colin Mochrie as Julian Fellowes introducing it? Oh, sure, and there are spoilers, in case you’re not caught up or don’t know who’s not coming back.

It’s not the first musical treatment of D.A., though. Quick and Funny Musicals did it at UCB L.A. a few months earlier, among others:

Face it, even after (redacted) were killed off and (redacted) quit, you’re still gonna watch Season 4, whenever we get it.

Naki’o lost all four of his feet to frostbite when he was abandoned as a puppy in a foreclosed home. Now Naki'o is a prosthetically enhanced super-animal with awesome superpowers like TURNING YOUR COLD, STONY HEART INTO A MUSHY PILE OF RAW EMOTION.

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sircreate:

“He got out.”
Based on Miracleman #15 by Alan Moore

This was commissioned by a very patient fellow. He gave me a lot of freedom with this piece, so I did my best to do the comic justice. I believe this is the first time I’ve had a painted background for a piece, and on it, I tried to incorporate some of John Totleben’s imagery from the issue.

Before Hollywood's biggest movies have even entered production, casting directors, scriptwriters and special effects teams spend an incredible amount of time auditioning, storyboarding, and shooting test footage to ensure they have every angle covered. Can you imagine Nicholas Cage as Superman? What about an Indiana Jones movie starring Tom Selleck? They were once very real possibilities, as evidenced by revealing casting videos and deleted scenes uploaded to YouTube.

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The term ‘DDoS attack’ is one that is well known to geeks everywhere and unfortunately they are becoming more common-place with each passing day. Now it is one thing to hear about a ‘DDoS attack’ and understand the sheer power that one can wield against a target, but what would one look like if you could visualize it? Enter Ludovic Fauvet and the video visualization that he made using Logstalgia for the recent attack against VideoLAN’s infrastructure.

Intial Tweet About the DDoS Attack [Ludovic Fauvet - Twitter]

Update Tweet About the DDoS Attack [Ludovic Fauvet - Twitter]

DDOS on the VideoLAN downloads infrastructure [YouTube]

What happens within the walls of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp has largely remained a secret, unless you read the accounts of NY Times journalist Charlie Savage. Having gained access to the prison library, Savage started a photo blog to chronicle the various literature available at the camp. Inside the archives lies a collection of bestsellers (including Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings), religious and self-help books, and also some peculiar choices like the Captain America comics and pulp romance books (the latter of which are a popular choice with Islamic detainees). Savage provides a fascinating insight into the 3,500-plus books that the facility has preapproved for inmates, some of whom have spent more than a decade in...

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Owen Wilson will never say words out loud in this town again: The Hollywood Reporter writes that Sony Picture Classics is being sued by the owners of the rights to William Faulkner's literary works over two sentences the actor uttered in Woody Allen's 2011 film Midnight in Paris. The suit claims the lines violate copyright. More »

iggychaos writes "The idea that aliens will come visit us is fundamentally flawed. Paul Tyma ponders the technology that would be required for such an event and examines how evolution of that technology would preclude any reason to actually make the trip. He writes, 'Twenty years ago if I asked you how many feet were in a mile (and you didn't know) you could go to a library and look it up. Ten years ago, you could go to a computer and google it. Today, you can literally ask your phone. It's not a stretch at all with the advent of wearable computing that coming soon - I can ask you that question and you'll instantly answer. ... How would you change if you had instant brain-level access to all information. How would you change if you were twice as smart as you are now. How about ten times as smart? (Don't answer, truth is, you're not smart enough to know). Now, let's leap ahead and think about what that looks like in 100 years. Or 1000. Or whenever it is you'll think we'd have the technology to travel to another solar system. We'd be a scant remnant of what a human looks like today. ... The question of why aliens might 'want to come here' is probably fundamentally flawed because we are forming that question from our current (tiny) viewpoint. The word 'want' might not apply at all to someone 1000 times smarter than us."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A brain implant could become a new tool for treating obesity in patients unresponsive to traditional medications. A new study at the University of Pennsylvania found that by treating mice using a specially tuned brain pacemaker — a device that sends electrical signals to specific areas of the brain — behaviors such as binge-eating could be significantly inhibited. Though the trial was only performed on animals, the study's lead author is optimistic about its translation to humans. He explained in a statement, "Once replicated in human clinical trials, [the method] could rapidly become a treatment for people with obesity."

The technique is a type of deep brain stimulation, and in this application involves targeting a small structure...

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On March 5th, a Wikipedia contributor foiled an incredible hoax. Two British filmmakers had invented a Russian film director, painstakingly crafting evidence of his existence, his genius, and his murder over 50 years ago, in order to promote an upcoming documentary about piecing together the man's final film.

"Imagine a documentary about events you've never heard of-that no one's ever heard of-but that are meticulously chronicled in online sources many people trust implicitly. Imagine the confusion. Imagine the buzz. Imagine the publicity," writes the Daily Dot. Read about the incredible plan to make "Yuri Gadyukin" famous at our source link below.

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Since his creation in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, Her Majesty’s finest Secret Agent – James Bond: 007 has been popping off bad guys like it ain’t no thang, making a tux look better than you ever could and getting ladies wetter than November while chain smoking, drinking martinis and winning at poker.

He’s basically the ultimate man’s man, ladies man and in essence ‘The Man’, made all the more evident by the fact that he’s been going since Sean Connery strapped on a bow tie in 1962 for Dr. No and is still sporting one 50 years later under a different wearer since Daniel Craig debuted in Casino Royale (see Top Casino Movies)  and continues as Bond in last years Skyfall.

Nothing can remain that prolific if unloved, and Bond for all his hinted at underlying sexism and chauvinistic posturing 50 years, 7 actors and about 90 odd Bond girls (in the films at least) later, still makes blokes go ‘fuck yeah’ every time he unzips an hour glass bod from a little black dress or makes the girls go ‘phwoooar’ when he strides out of the ocean with a glistening six pack and a gym sock down his speedo.

It helps that he’s smooth as a bar of galaxy and could kill you with a glance if he stared hard enough. What a bloody legend.

Here’s some art below to celebrate the man, the myth, the legend that is James Bond 007:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m embarrassed by how long it took me to discover Terry Pratchett. I avoided him during much of my early reading career—I’d read the works of fantastical humorists before, and while I’d always enjoyed the experience, it wasn’t something I intentionally sought out. I didn’t realize I was missing out on what are arguably the best books fantasy has to offer.

It’s hard to describe Pratchett to the uninitiated. His works mostly take place on a fictional world shaped like a disc, and the stories tend to be murder mysteries or thrillers mixed with a healthy dose of satire on the human condition. Like the best works of fantasy, a journey with his trolls, witches, and crusty night watchmen provokes inspection of our own world. But what other authors do with light allusions, Discworld does with a sledgehammer. And with light allusion too. Then it steals your wallet.

Discworld is story, humor, and philosophy all in one. Nowhere else have I been made to laugh so much while being forced to think so much, all while being given a wonderful plot. The closest thing to Pratchett out there is Shakespeare. Yes, really.

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Can’t make it to C2E2 to get the latest news about your favorite comic book creators in person? Relax – we’ve got you covered because we can announce that Dark Horse Deluxe, Dark Horse’s collectible goods imprint, is teaming up with Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming to release figures based on their uber-popular Powers series.

The initial run of products is set to include a limited-edition statue of Retro Girl, a major figure in the first story arc of the superhero crime procedural story, and a boxed set of vinyl figures of the series’ principal characters, including Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim. Working together with celebrated sculptor Tony Cipriano, Oeming and Bendis had a large hand in guiding the production of the figures, which are slated for a fourth-quarter 2013 release. Although we’ll have to wait until San Diego Comic-Con to see the prototypes, we have, in addition, some exclusive concept art of the products below. And because we love you, I spoke with Bendis and Oeming to get the skinny on how these figures came to life, the status on the Powers pilot for FX, and, of course, their ideal burritos.

Nerdist: Tell us a bit about this new Powers product line. What’s the experience like of having your creations be immortalized in action figure form?

Brian Michael Bendis: We have been very careful over the years about what kind of merchandise we wanted to put out into the world. We wanted to be fully confident that we were going to put out some high-end stuff and no one puts out better stuff than Dark Horse.

Michael Avon Oeming: I’ve done a few statues and figures before, but I’ve been really excited to work with Dark Horse, especially their PVC line like Hellboy and the Umbrella Academy figures.  I’m proud to have Powers be a part of that.

N: Did you have any involvement in the sculpting/product line development process? How closely did you work with the sculptors?

BMB: Mike is doing brand-new designs specifically for all the products, so these will not just be a facsimile, but as close to the actual thing as you can get.

MAO: Yea, we’re deep in the middle of it as we speak. Doing 360% shots of characters is always challenging, especially to a non-perfectionist like me.

N: Were there any characters that you wish had been included in this initial run?

BMB: Now that we are making these and I see how awesome they are, I want every single character that has ever appeared in the book, including background extras, to be immortalized in this way.

MAO: If there’s enough support, I’d love to do several versions of the characters, especially the FOREVER line of Walker.

N: It seems like superhero crime noir is making a bit of a comeback, which is certainly a testament to Powers’  lasting influence. What is it about the genre that captivates audiences in a way that others don’t?

BMB: They are two genres that at first glance don’t seem to have a lot in common, but if you think about it, they have almost everything in common. Plus the crime genre allows us to take the rules and visuals of the superhero genre into dark and interesting places. And who doesn’t love dark and interesting places?

N: Has there been any movement on the status of the Powers pilot at FX? We’d love to see it on the small screen.

BMB: I’m happy to say that we have been given a second chance at FX. The first pilot came in and was received well enough for them to continue developing with a brand-new show runner in the form of acclaimed crime novelist Charlie Houston. He has just handed in the latest draft, which is by far the best version of the show so far.

MAO: I’ve already spent the second season money, so, fingers crossed.

N: What comics are you reading and enjoying right now?

BMB: I am enjoying Victories by the aforementioned Mike Avon Oeming; the latest Hellboy is the best Hellboy has ever been; I’m enjoying Fantastic Four by Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley; Hawkeye by Matt Fraction and David Aja; Avengers Assemble by Kelly Sue; every single one of the artist editions from IDW; and Wolverine and the X-Men by Jason Aaron and Nick Bradshaw. And a lot of others. but my mind is blanking.

MAO: Hellboy in Hell and Black Beetle are fun, Brian’s End Of Days with David Mack, Alex Maleev and Klaus Janson…yes I’m just reading my friends’ books!

N: Last question: what would be inside your ideal burrito?

BMB: Marshmallow fluff, which I think technically makes it a crêpe.

MAO: Hundred dollar bills. See, always thinking!

—

And now, check out these exclusive concept sketches of the forthcoming Powers product line from Dark Horse, Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming:

Deena Pilgrim figure

Christian Walker figure

Retro Girl Statue

Are you looking forward to the Powers figures? Who else would you like to see turned into a collectible? Let us know in the comments below!

By using Darwin’s principle of natural selection, researchers from Cornell University’s Creative Machines Lab found got these virtual robots to evolve into proficient (albeit goofy) walking machines.

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Stoya does not look like a stripper. The artist Molly Crabapple, a friend, describes her as “a cat-eyed Snow White beauty” who is “mathematically perfect.” Stoya declined Digital Playground’s offer of free breast implants, twice. When the company later seated her next to a plastic surgeon at an awards show, she told him, “I’ve seen your work, and I am not impressed.” When she books a sex scene, she stuffs herself with ice cream for a week in an attempt to exhibit, she says, “something resembling a bosom.” In Los Angeles, she carries a frilly black parasol with UV coating to protect her porcelain skin. Once, at a signing, porno fans mistook Stoya for Jesse Jane’s assistant. She was OK with that. She mocks the plots of porn films and constructs morbid fantasies about her least-favorite co-star (“Peel strips of her skin off and douse her in lemon juice and just let me watch!”).

But Stoya loves her job, and it shows: She giggles so exuberantly throughout her sex scenes that an early partner, Mick Blue, initially thought she was mocking him. “Her performances are ones of genuine pleasure,” says Jiz Lee, a genderqueer performer who once posed as Jack the Ripper while Stoya dressed the part of a Victorian prostitute. “It’s hard not to fall in love with Stoya,” says Lee. “I cannot help but be aroused by the joy she expresses while she’s fucking.” Internet fans have isolated those facial expressions into 1,000 constantly repeating GIFs, and launched Tumblrs like “Fuck Yeah, Stoya!” devoted to her. “But when Hollywood asks for a porn star,” Stoya says, “they don’t like it when I show up.”

Read More | “Stoya, Pop Star of Porn” | Amanda Hess | ᔥVillage Voice

Intentional or no, this is pretty funny. Don't even pretend like you're above it. Because you're not.

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By E. Paul Zehr

When I was writing the book “Inventing Iron Man: The Possibility of a Human Machine” I took a real hard look at how Iron Man’s suit of armor could actually work with all that human biological hardware inside of it. The first step was was—in homage to Coleridge—to employ some willing suspension of disbelief—if the technology for Iron Man’s suit of armor existed, how could you link it up to a human body?

So I did a lot of thinking about Iron Man as a neuroprosthetic. The fanciest, jazziest, most ambitious neuroprosthetic ever conceived, in fact.

And that’s when I came across the Iron Man “Extremis” story arc that Warren Ellis penned and Adi Granov illustrated . I came across it and read it and I went all slack-jawed. Here was a comic book writer who had identified the exact way I had by looking at the problem through the lens of modern neuroscience. It was very cool. But at the time the problem with the concept was linking the robotic suit of armor to the nervous system of Tony Stark. How do you interface that with the brain and spinal cord?

At the time I looked at the problem in a very conventional way. Brain machine interfaces with the highest fidelity typical involve implantation of electrodes into the brain itself. So that’s how I conceived of it. An electrode array would be implanted into the brain and the spinal cord and then used to control the Iron Man suit. The trick is that to fully integrate the suit with the brain would mean many implants into the central (brain, spinal cord) and peripheral (nerves in arms and legs) nervous system.

This worked as a conceptual explanation but I wasn’t very happy with how this might work in practice. Recently, I was doing a talk for a group of high school students visiting campus, I thought about this again. I was using Iron Man as a metaphor for neuroscience and neural plasticity and suddenly realized a much better way to do this. A way that’s actually a lot closer to the Extremis interface itself.

The problem is how to create an interface between the suit of armor that will come in contact with the skin and the finely branching terminal projections of the nervous system that lie just underneath that skin? The answer is…enter the Mandarin! Umm, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, I mean.

Even though the term “tissue engineering” wasn’t used until 1987, Francois Berthiaume and colleagues at Rutgers in New Jersey suggest that this field began way back ~3000 years ago when skin grafts were performed in India. More recently, composite living skin was created in 1981. Now tissue engineering has impacted on skin, cornea, liver, pancreas, cartilage, heart, kidney, and, with particular relevance here, neurons.

The way to integrate the Extremis concept for Iron Man with modern neuroscience is to create an interface through the skin using the basic concepts of regenerative medicine. The gist of this is shown below. Tissue would be extracted from the person for whom the interface is being created, the appropriate cells (neurons in this case) would be isolated and cultivated. In vitro the process would continue with proliferation of the neurons but in a targeted way using a tissue scaffold to direct and shape the growth. After shaping by mechanical and electrical stimulation, these artificially integrated tissues would then be implanted back into the user.

Voila. You now have the makings of an interface that could be used to link to the user. Of course you then have to add the autonomous robotic Iron Man suit of armor, ensure that the tissue continues to grow in a targeted way to connect to the natural nervous system of the user, and hope the biotech interface you created is accepted by the immune system of the user. Oh yes, and do a bunch (years) of training.

But those are considerations for another day. For now, when you read an Iron Man comic book or graphic novel, or watch the latest installment of big screen Iron Man, just marvel that the real science needed to connect that tech to human biology is rapidly advancing. The future really is now.

Lois and Clark dangle their feet high over Metropolis—and the art world—in Daniel Irizarri Oquendo's superpowered tribute to Gustav Klimt's classic painting "The Kiss."

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Just because you've cut the head off a venomous snake, that doesn't mean that the snake is done with you. One Santa Cruz homeowner learned that after he decapitated a rattlesnake that wandered into his garage and the head kept on going.

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Heavy metal has long been relegated to the fringes, transgressing norms through guttural screams and chaotic walls of sound. But as the Wall Street Journal reports, the genre has recently spawned its own branch of academic study at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, where scholars, musicologists, and so-called "metallectuals" regularly convene to discuss the finer points of Black Sabbath and the anthropology of face paint. The rise of heavy metal studies hasn't come without controversy, but its proponents wouldn't have it any other way. "This is a great day for metal studies, and maybe even for metal," Jeremy Wallach, an associate professor at BGSU, told the Journal. "To be a metal-head in 2013 is to be part of a global community."

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Whether you're promoting a new movie, an event, or a presidential campaign, you need a website. But what happens to those sites once the publicity drive is over? As Wired reveals, many promotional sites are still running. The site for the 1996 Michael Jordan / Looney Tunes crossover Space Jam is perhaps the pick of the bunch. Jam-packed with GIFs, sound bites, HTML frames, and even a replacement browser icon ("unfortunately, this only works on a Macintosh running Netscape; sorry, Windows users") the official Space Jam website stoically serves as a reminder of what the web of the mid-nineties looked like. Wired's article has several other fantastic examples, including the official site of Dole/Kemp '96, the Republican party's unsuccessful...

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Google Maps lets you zoom in pretty close for its mapped locations, but there's a secret way you might be able to zoom in even closer. Here's how.

Reddit user xythrowawayy revealed this trick when debunking another Redditor's claim of a murder happening near his house:

Start by going to somewhere on Google Maps, say, http://goo.gl/maps/t4sph

Zoom in as far as it will let you by clicking on the "+" sign at the top of the magnification slider at the top left of the map.

When you're in as far as you can go (heh) but not all the way to street view (if the location you're looking at even has street view), look over at the white space just to the top left of the map....where the little printer and chain link buttons are.

Click on the chain "link" button. That will show you a box with a long URL to the map you are looking at and another box with some HTML code to embed. Ignore the HTML code.

Copy the long URL and paste it into your browser's address bar, but don't hit enter to go to that URL yet. Instead, click to edit it and scroll all the way to the right. It should end with something like "&z=22". Change the 22 to 23 ("&z=23") and hit enter. If Google Maps has imagery at that higher zoom level, it will show it to you.

I tried it with both the faux murder scene (which turns out to be two people with a wet dog) and the Empire State Building, and it works, much like other Google URL tweaks. It doesn't work for all locations, however. Your best bet is major cities. Xythrowawayy says you can view some high-res images for them not available to you by default.

A murder near my house on Google Maps, link in comments | Reddit via Huffington Post

I like the odd piercing as much as the next bot, but seriously OMG WTF and all manner of other condensed txt adjectives for describing my shock, horror, and utter curiosity at the mad bastard lengths some people will go to, to emulate Wolverine.

I’ll jut stick to putting kitchen knives between my fingers and pretending I’m the best there is at what I do. Which is mostly masturbating to online porn (I’m pretty good at it). I’ll leave sticking massive needles in my arms to people who have massive needles and a Wolverine fetish…. and also heroin addicts.

 

 

Source: ObviousWinner

Hot on the heels of the enthusiastically received new trailer for Man of Steel, Zack Snyder has offered a little taste of another of his upcoming projects.

The filmmaker took to Twitter to reveal the first poster for 300: Rise of an Empire, the long-awaited sequel to his 2006 comic book adaptation 300. Noam Murro (Smart People) takes over in the director’s chair this time around, while Snyder serves as co-writer and producer. Check out the new art after the jump.

Sullivan Stapleton leads the beefy cast of 300: Rise of an Empire, and featured prominently in the first image from the film. But the figure in the poster is wearing a face-obscuring helmet, so it’s tough to say for certain whether it’s Stapleton we’re looking at. Whoever he is, his heroic pose and scanty costume mark him as a citizen of the heavily stylized 300 universe.

Here’s the first poster for #300movie: Rise of an Empire! Seize your Glory! twitter.com/ZackSnyder/sta…

— ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) April 17, 2013

Based on the graphic novel Xerxes by Frank Miller, 300: Rise of an Empire runs parallel to the events of the first film. Stapleton plays Greek general Themistokles, who goes to war against the Persian army. Rodrigo Santoro reprises his role from the first film as Persian “god-king” Xexes, while series newcomer Eva Green plays his vengeful second-in-command Artemesia. Additionally, Lena Headey steps back into her role as Queen Gorgo from the first film.

While the new movie will mirror the look and feel of the first 300, its scope and dynamic are rather different this time around. The battles will be waged in several new locales, including the sea. Themistokles is more of a politician than Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas was, and his soldiers are humble citizens, not highly trained Spartans. But if this poster is any indication, they’re in equally good fighting shape.

300: Rise of an Empire lands in 2D, 3D, and 3D IMAX on August 2. Hans Matheson, David Wenham, Igal Naor, Callan Mulvey, Jack O’Connell, and Andrew Tiernan round out the rest of the cast.

• First Look: ’300: Rise of an Empire’
• ‘Man of Steel’ Trailer: Super-Sized Scope, Action And Emotion From Zack Snyder
• Video Reaction: Warner Bros Premieres ‘Gravity’ and ‘Man of Steel’ Trailers at CinemaCon
• ‘Man of Steel’ Reimagines Origin, Leaves Door Open For ‘Justice League’ Without Christopher Nolan [UPDATED]
• New ‘Man Of Steel’ Details Appear in Latest Entertainment Weekly
• The First ‘Man of Steel’ TV Spot Is Here

You’ve heard about Funny or Die’s creation of a close-to-feature-length Steve Jobs movie, iSteve, with Justin Long as the man himself (hey, he really WAS a Mac) and Jorge Garcia as Woz. You thought, hey, funny idea, but they’re not really gonna make a whole movie (with writer/director Ryan Perez professing to using only the Steve Jobs page on Wikipedia as a source) to beat the Ashton Kutcher thing (and the Aaron Sorkin one based on Walter Isaacson’s book) to market, are they? Guess what? They did. The movie debuted online today, delayed from Monday due to the Boston Marathon bombing. All 78 minutes and 55 seconds of it are available at FunnyOrDie.com. Click here for it (they’re not allowing embedding).

Whaddya think? Funny and entertaining, or not? (Or one might ask: funny or die?) Comment, and remember, they intended this not to be the best, but the first. And first they are.

The very first trailer for Zombieland's TV series takes place in the same post-apocalyptic world as the movie, and it even has the same collection of life-saving rules the characters follow. However, the original band of survivors has been recast and it feels... off.

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Here are just a few of the 1,300+ reviews…

Many, many more here

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