To Boldly Go

Where  no man has gone before . . .

Kickstarter Movie Part 2

As you all probably know Veronica Mars movie kickstarter project hammered home over 5 million dollars in backer money. Zach Braff has now joined the fray with his own project, Wish I was Here. Braff is most commonly known for his work on Scrubs, but also in Garden State, a movie he wrote and directed. Braff hit 1 million in less than a day and as of this writing he's at about 1.2 million. He'll hit his mark and then some.

Its an interesting paradigm, the growth of kickstarter to fund such a variety of projects, and honestly its welcome as we can see movies made more to the liking of the actual movie makes with less of the idiotic changes we often here proposed by studios. With crowd funding artists can certainly maintain their original concept and avoid some of the crazed pit falls we've seen in movies before.

Word of the Day -- Froufrou

There's just something about this word i like.  Reminds me of susurration.

Froufrou: a rustling especially of a woman's skirts; 2 : showy or frilly ornamentation. 
Nineteenth-century Europe featured a lot of sophisticated fashions—especially in Paris, a city considered by many to be the fashion capital of the world. Women's dresses were often made of drooping layers of fabric (such as satin or silk) that rustled as the women moved around, and "froufrou" was the French word coined in imitation of the sound they made. The word made its first appearance in English in 1870 as a noun meaning "rustling." It later came to mean "ostentatious decoration," and its usage expanded beyond the world of fashion to other crafts such as architecture and interior design. These days it also shows up as the adjective "frou-frou," meaning "very heavily decorated and fancy," as in "frou-frou designs."

Hill Giant Foot Found

It would seem some boys found the severed foot of a hill giant in Lakeville MA. The boys were seeking the Horn of Unklar when they stumbled upon the foot, clearly severed by an axe. Local police officers hazarded a guess about the happenstance, "probably a dwarf, or maybe a halfling, got into a tangle with a giant. In the tussle the dwarf hacked off the giant's foot."

Its clearly a big foot.

Daily Cosplay

Wrong Conclusions

Interesting study coming out of Germany. 40 people were tested there to gauge their reactions toward seeing a robot tortured. The study showed  a robot dinosaur tortured and almost all the participants showed signs of distress at the torture. When the robots were tortured and humans tortured they showed the same responses. The participants had identical neurological responses.

That's all find and dandy, We talk to both the perfect binder and the cutter every time we turn 'em on and use them; we pat them and make them feel loved as they've been with us for so long they might as well be Trolls!

But this conclusions is spooky!

"Ultimately, this type of research can teach scientists how to build robots that we can more fully identify with and even deeply trust with tasks such as preparing our food and teaching our children."

This is just what the robots want us to do! Its all fine and dandy when the robot, like the binder, can't walk or talk, but once they become self aware . . . all hands on deck or the love fest leads to this:

Scienceshot

Vanishing Europeans

I feel like I'm missing something in this article, like a detailed explanation of what exactly changed in the genetic markers to signify to scientists the extinction of entire continents worth of people or perhaps or maybe a less than sensational title? Not sure.

But according to Live Science and Yahoo it seems that the hunter gathers who dwelt in Europe about 7500 years ago disappeared from the landscape about 4500 years ago. The Genetic markers were "suddenly replaced" according to the DNA expert. I'm not sure how to define sudden, but using the 39 samples of bones they had that ranged from 7500 years ago to 4500 years ago I don't think anyone should jump to any sudden conclusions.

It goes on to say that people sweeping out of Turkey as part of a the agricultural revolution that ended the Mesolithic Era changed the face of Europe . . . of that I do not doubt, but did the locals adapt to new forms of living (agri from hunting), or did people physically move from Anatolia to Europe pushing out or absorbing the locals.

Does changing ones diet affect the DNA markers in your body? I know that is a hot topic of debate...is the DNA set in stone or does it alter (I can't imagine it NOT altering to be honest).

So could we postulate that the new form of living, from hunter/gather to hunter/agricultural spreading out of Turkey had a significant enough impact on the way locals communities lived and ate and thus over several thousand years altered the DNA markers in the indigenous population?

Seems more likely than a continent's worth of people vanishing. Even our species' most determined efforts at genocide have failed to wipe out even regional populations, seems odd that it happened before, even accounting for the sparsity of population.

Need I remind yahoo of these guys?

post script: Anyone with a knowledge of genetics if you can help my tired brain on this, the comments would be appreciated.

Word of the Day -- Occlusion

Occlusion: a shutting off or obstruction of something; 2: the coming together of the surfaces of the upper and lower teeth; 3: the front formed by a cold front overtaking a warm front and lifting the warm air above the earth's surface.

"Occlusion" is a descendant of the Latin verb "occludere," meaning "to close up." "Occludere" in turn comes from the prefix "ob-," here meaning "in the way," and the verb "claudere," meaning "to close or shut." "Occlusion" is one of many English terms derived from "claudere." Some others are "recluse," "seclusion," and "exclude." An occlusion occurs when something has been closed up or blocked off. Almost all heart attacks are the result of the occlusion of a coronary (heart) artery by a blood clot. When a person's upper and lower teeth form a "malocclusion," they close incorrectly or badly. An occlusion, or occluded front, happens when a fast-moving cold front overtakes a slow-moving warm front and slides underneath it, lifting the warm air and blocking its movement.
 

The Sad Tale of the Parthenon

The Parthenon was built by the ancient Athenians as a temple to Athena the patron goddess of their town. It was built on the rocky butte that housed the whole of the Acropolis; the administrative buildings of Athens. It took the better part of 2 decades to build, being completed in about 432 BC. It was not a temple in the traditional sense, but rather a building that honored the goddess.

It survived centuries of turmoil, from the Persian conquest, to the Spartan, to the Macedonian and the Roman. After the Romans there stood the Byzantines who made it into a church and altered is construction a little by adding a door and changing the front/side entrances. Tinally the Ottoman Turks took over Greece and made the building a Mosque The last to conquer it were the Turks.

Under the Turks it was turned into a mosque and thus it stood when the Frenchman Jacques Carrey came to it and drew sketches of it. From him we know the relative shape of the building in 1672, the state of the friezes etc. It was in pretty good shape for its thousand years.

But then the Turks used it as an ammo dump in their war with Venice. A stray mortar round struck the gun powder magazine and blew the structure's center out and knocked one of the walls completely down.

Thus the Parthenon became a ruin.

The World's End

 

Say it Isn't So! Futurama

On June 19th Futurama kicks off its last season on Comedy Central. The show has enjoyed seven seasons on the network, having migrated there from Fox back in 2007 (it was canceled in 2003). Futurama has had about 140 odd episodes in its on again, off again romance with its fans.

But you cannot deny it had one of the greatest moments in TV history . . . .

(couldn't find the actual clip, but its in this interview, which is worth a look see for the Gary Gygax story in it)