Here's an uncomfortable vision of the future that'll make your soul tremble a little bit: what if we built automated machines to fight our wars for us? What if those machines killed everyone on the planet? And what happens when the war is over and everyone is dead but those machines are still programmed to fight?
Turns out that gum you like is going to come back in style: As tweeted by co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost, reported by TV Line, and confirmed in an appropriately cryptic teaser trailer, Lynch and Frost will return to Twin Peaks for nine episodes in 2016. The announcement makes good on decades of speculation about a follow-up to the TV cult classic—specifically, it makes good on the prophecy from the show’s 1991 season finale, in which Laura Palmer tells Agent Dale Cooper “I will see you again in 25 years.” According to TV Line, Lynch and Frost will write the complete limited series, with Lynch set to direct all nine episodes. That’s good news for fans of the show’s shorter, largely Lynch-and-Frost-handled first season; bad news for any Twin Peaks enthusiasts hoping for a return effort from “Slaves And Masters” director Diane Keaton.
Following the ...
Such cool. Very relax. Much sand. Wow. #9gag
If I’m able to, then perhaps I’ll be closer to portraying a true expression of love.
-Hayao Miyazaki (x)
Futurists and science fiction authors often give us overly grim visions of the future, especially when it comes to the Singularity and the risks of artificial superintelligence. Scifi novelist David Brin talked to us about why these dire predictions are often simplistic and unreasonable.
Dave Grohl has apparently decided that being a guest talk-show host is not the best use of his time on late-night television. The musical multi-hyphenate (actor, director, Carrie re-enactor) will return to nighttime TV, but this time with Foo Fighters in tow.
Taking a cue from Justin Timberlake, Foo Fighters will be doing a weeklong residency on The Late Show With David Letterman, performing as musical guests the entire week of October 13-17. The final date of the band’s residency will also see the premiere of Grohl’s new docu-series, Sonic Highways, which details the recording of the band’s most recent album of the same name. It was recorded in eight different cities, presumably in an effort to see if spending days on end cooped up with the same five guys gets less stultifying when you change the wallpaper.
I got the opportunity to talk to some students later this month about making a career as an artist. This is pretty much the TL;DR version of what I’m gonna say. (bonus panel)
No Brasil, ninguém mais presta atenção na intervenção da coalizão comandada pelos EUA, com apoio de países árabes e ocidentais e da Turquia, contra o grupo ultra-extremista ISIS, também conhecido como Grupo Estado Islâmico, ISIL e Daesh. Mas vou explicar o caso da cidade de Kobani para mostrar como, até agora, tem sido um fracasso.
Kobani é curda, dentro da Síria, na fronteira com a Turquia. Na Guerra Civil, conseguiu autonomia do regime de Assad. Era praticamente a capital do Curdistão sírio. Se há uma cidade que seria simples ser defendida é Kobani. Primeiro, eles não são aliados do regime de Assad, nem do ISIS e da Frente Nusrah. Não havia membros destas organizações radicais ou do regime de Assad até a semana passada. Eles viviam em relativa calma. Seriam os sonhados “moderados” pelo governo dos EUA. Além disso, por estar ao lado da fronteira da Turquia, poderia facilmente ser defendida pelo super poderoso Exército turco.
Mas, desde que os EUA começaram a intervenção, em vez da calma Kabani ficar segura, ela passou a ser alvo do ISIS. Hoje o grupo ultra radical praticamente controlou a cidade. Dezenas de milhares de curdos buscam abrigo na Turquia. Ironicamente, os bombardeios da coalizão dos EUA, se é que ocorreram (alguns opositores dizem que não), não serviram para nada. A Turquia, sempre ambígua na questão do ISIS, não interveio. Afinal, para o governo de Erdogan, os curdos são piores do que o ISIS.
No Brasil, claro, ninguém presta atenção. Impressionante. De Copa fomos para Gaza, de Gaza para o ISIS e agora, temporariamente, os brasileiros, com uma certa razão, estão focados nas eleições. Daqui a pouco, vai ressurgir o debate sobre o Irã e quem não tem acompanhado absolutamente nada das negociações nucleares entre o regime de Teerã e o Sexteto (EUA, Rússia, China, França, Reino Unido e França), que chegarão à sua data limite, começará a dar opinião.
Não sei como faz para publicar comentários. Portanto pediria que comentem no meu Facebook (Guga Chacra) e no Twitter (@gugachacra), aberto para seguidores
Guga Chacra, comentarista de política internacional do Estadão e do programa Globo News Em Pauta em Nova York, é mestre em Relações Internacionais pela Universidade Columbia. Já foi correspondente do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo no Oriente Médio e em NY. No passado, trabalhou como correspondente da Folha em Buenos Aires
Comentários islamofóbicos, antissemitas, anticristãos e antiárabes ou que coloquem um povo ou uma religião como superiores não serão publicados. Tampouco são permitidos ataques entre leitores ou contra o blogueiro. Pessoas que insistirem em ataques pessoais não terão mais seus comentários publicados. Não é permitido postar vídeo. Todos os posts devem ter relação com algum dos temas acima. O blog está aberto a discussões educadas e com pontos de vista diferentes. Os comentários dos leitores não refletem a opinião do jornalista
Acompanhe também meus comentários no Globo News Em Pauta, na Rádio Estadão, na TV Estadão, no Estadão Noite no tablet, no Twitter @gugachacra , no Facebook Guga Chacra (me adicionem como seguidor), no Instagram e no Google Plus. Escrevam para mim no gugacha
Digital effects company A Large Evil Corporation is living up to its name, continuing to mercilessly taunt us with digital versions of gorgeous pop culture vinyl figures that we’ll never actually be able to own, because they don’t really exist. The company began its madness-inducing crusade with a series of figures based on Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s characters from Edgar Wright’s Cornetto Trilogy, which we foolishly shared with you last month, unaware that we were only playing into the company’s vile plans. Apparently the response to those figures has been great, so the group has taken the next logical step by teasing the hell out of us with even more figures, instead of just taking its designs down to the Vinyl Plant (or wherever figurines come from) and having them made.
So anyway, here are some more pictures of things that would look amazing ...
tonitruation
n. thundering
Finnegans Wake is punctuated by ten thunderclaps, which occur at moments of crisis in the text. “A situation is presented, developed, and subjected to increasing stress until, with the thunder, a collapse, and suddenly a complementary situation that was latent in the first is seen to be in place,” writes scholar Eric McLuhan.
First thunderclap:
bababadalgharaghtakamminaronnonnbronntonnerronnuonnthunn-
trobarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurknuk
Second:
Perkodhuskurunbarggruauyagokgorlayorgromgremmitghundhurthru-
mathunaradidillifaititillibumullunukkunun
Third:
klikkaklakkaklaskaklopatzklatschabattacreppycrottygraddaghsemmih-
sammihnouithappluddyappladdypkonpkot
Fourth:
Bladyughfoulmoecklenburgwhurawhorascortastrumpapornanennykock-
sapastippatappatupperstrippuckputtanach
Fifth:
Thingcrooklyexineverypasturesixdixlikencehimaroundhersthemagger-
bykinkinkankanwithdownmindlookingated
Sixth:
Lukkedoerendunandurraskewdylooshoofermoyportertooryzooysphalna-
bortansporthaokansakroidverjkapakkapuk
Seventh:
Bothallchoractorschumminaroundgansumuminarumdrumstrumtrumina-
humptadumpwaultopoofoolooderamaunsturnup
Eighth:
Pappappapparrassannuaragheallachnatullaghmonganmacmacmacwhack-
falltherdebblenonthedubblandaddydoodled
Ninth:
husstenhasstencaffincoffintussemtossemdamandamnacosaghcusaghhobix-
hatouxpeswchbechoscashlcarcarcaract
Tenth:
Ullhodturdenweirmudgaardgringnirurdrmolnirfenrirlukkilokkibaugiman-
dodrrerinsurtkrinmgernrackinarockar
Like everything in Joyce, the claps’ meaning is open to question, but they’re not arbitrary: Each of the first nine words contains exactly 100 letters, and the tenth has 101. Joyce, who called thunder “perfect language,” had apparently adjusted the spelling of the thunderclaps as the book took shape: McLuhan found tick marks in Joyce’s galley proofs, “the only evidence of actual letter-counting I have found in any of the manuscripts, typescripts, proofs, and galleys.”
(Eric McLuhan, The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, 1997.)
At the turn of the 19th century in the U.S. and Europe, it became wildly popular — and that’s an understatement — for ladies to wear feathers and whole taxidermied birds on their hats. One ornithologist reported taking two walks in Manhattan in 1886 and counting 700 hats; 525 of which were topped by feathers or birds. Buzzfeed has a collection of vintage hats featuring birds; here are some of the ones that were most stunning to me:
At the time, not many people thought much of killing the birds. Europeans and their American cousins “didn’t believe they could put a dent in an animal’s population.” Birds seemed to be an “abundant, even inexhaustible” natural resource. So take they did. Millions of birds all over the world were harvested for hat makers for years. The Fashioning Feathers blog offers this example:
A single 1892 order of feathers by a London dealer… included 6,000 bird of paradise, 40,000 hummingbird and 360,000 various East Indian bird feathers. In 1902 an auction in London sold 1,608 30 ounce packages of heron… plumes. Each ounce of plume required the use of four herons, therefore each package used the plumes of 120 herons, for a grand total of 192, 960 herons killed.
Ornithologists started to sit up and take notice. One estimated that 67 types of birds — often including all of their sub-species — were at risk for extinction. Not only were birds killed for their feathers, they were killed when their feathers were at their most resplendent. This meant killing them during mating season, interrupting their reproductive cycle and often leaving baby birds orphaned.
A campaign to end the practice began. In Europe the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds targeted women. They launched a sexist campaign accusing women of supporting the heartless slaughter of birds. Fashioning Feathers includes this image from a pamphlet titled “Feathered Women” in which the president of the Society calls them a “bird-enemy.”
Virginia Woolf went for the jugular, pointing out that — even though the image shows a woman swooping down to kill a bird — it was largely men who did the dirty work of murder and they were also the ones profiting from the industry.
Ironically, middle class women were at the forefront of the bird preservation movement. They were the rank and file and, thanks in part to their work, in the U.S. the movement led to the formation of the first Audubon societies. The Massachusetts Audubon Society organized a feather boycott, angering hat makers who called them “extremists” and “sentimentalists.” Politicians worried out loud about the loss of jobs. Missouri Senator James Reed complained:
Why there should be any sympathy or sentiment about a long-legged, long-beaked, long-necked bird that lives in swamps and eats tadpoles.
Ultimately the Massachusetts Audubon Society succeeded in pushing through the first federal-level conservation legislation in the U.S., the Lacey Act of 1900.
Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College and the co-author of Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.
Sick of being called a social justice warrior? Correct the record with a pin declaring your Social Justice character class (Wizard/Ranger/Warrior/Cleric/Bard/Rogue).
At least one member of this household is happy with their created character.
The latest addition to the NBA 2K franchise released Tuesday in North America with NBA 2K15 gracing store shelves. It's an incredibly lifelike reproduction of basketball, but one new feature is anything but. SBNation.com believes in scientific pursuits, so we put the Xbox One edition of the game through its paces.
The process to get your face in the game is fraught with difficulties. When prompted you're asked to position your face inside a box, wait for it to turn green, then slowly turn left and right for a complete scan. At the end it maps out the points on the model, presumably being more accurate the more points of data it has loaded in.
Pepper is a good dog. A very good dog. She lived a tough life until my wife and I rescued the now 10-year-old chihuahua who was seized in the raid of a puppy mill. Sure she's missing some teeth and is afraid of strangers, but I thought she was ready for the NBA.
It look five scans to get Pepper in the game. She moved around a little too much and NBA 2K15 had issues plotting her face. This example boasted 1,613 points of data.
This Jordan Staal bobblehead is always on my desk. Given it has depth and human features I was sure it would scan. After 20 minutes of adjusting the lighting the Kinect camera finally recognized Jordan's face.
Eagerly I waited for the result and ... nothing. The game crashed, kicking me back to the Xbox One home screen and needing to start again. I gave up.
Maybe there was something in the game's wizardry that meant only organic items to scan. Rummaging around the pantry I found a hapless onion. Scanning the onion by itself didn't work. So I drew a face on it -- still nothing.
Using my Jack-O-Lantern skills I carved a face, drew with red Sharpie to give definition and finally spray painted the onion light brown. The result: One ruined Sharpie, too much inhaled spray paint and no scan.
This probably wasn't human enough, but it was worth a try.
The picture for a brief second was picked up by the camera, but utterly failed when it came to to turn the head left and right. There was nothing I could do to make this shampoo ad work.
I don't remember where this came from, but no luck for the bard.
I'm jealous of my dog. This had more than 4,000 points of data and was considered a "great scan."
We're not the only ones having problems. Owen Good of Polygon had to give up his quest to scan his face.
TadeuAnd LED's!
Japan’s Nabana no Sato Botanical Garden used over 7,000,000 LED lights to create this amazing tribute to nature featuring displays of rainbows, auroras, and Mt. Fuji.
Beautiful Chemistry is a new collaboration between Tsinghua University Press and University of Science and Technology of China that seeks to make chemistry more accessible and interesting to the general public. Their first project was the creation of several short films that utilize a 4K UltraHD camera to capture a variety of striking chemical reactions without the usual clutter of test tubes, beakers or lab equipment. I definitely would have paid a bit more attention in chemistry class if we’d had the opportunity to watch some of these. Filmed and edited by Yan Liang.
TadeuAmazing!
This is a great video of polyphonic overtone singing by Anna-Maria Hefele, where she precisely demonstrates the almost inhuman ability to create a harmony of two notes at a time using a single breath. Overtone singing is the same technique used by Tuvan (or Mongolian) throat singers of which there are several other great videos to watch on YouTube. Also check out this demo by Alex Glenfield, or this clip lifted from I’m not sure where. (via Stellar)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS
YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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