Tuesday, March 28, 2006

 

He's More Machine Now, Twisted and Evil.



This is freakin' sweet.

Monday, March 27, 2006

 

Fogelmatrix, Fogelmatrix. Wherefore art thou Fogelmatrix?

Seriously dude. Stop being responsible and start wasting some time with us. It's bad enough we're called Four Nerds when there's only three of us.

Friday, March 24, 2006

 

Ultimate Avengers

It's been a while since I last did a movie review, so here goes:

Well, I rented Ultimate Avengers last night. I was never really into the Avengers comic. They always seemed to be a loose collection of a lot of b-grade superheroes, none of which were particularly interesting to me. Unlike the Justice League, which brought together the best and brightest of the DC line, the Avengers always struck me as a team of spare parts, a bunch of characters slapped together because no one seemed to know what to do with them. Sure, a lot of them have their own titles, such as Captain America, Iron Man and The Mighty Thor, but the rest are just a weird assortment of boring characters, such as the Wasp (who I always assumed was an arrogant white dude who drove a Volvo and wrote for the New Yorker), Henry Pym, Scarlet Witch, or the Vision.

Anyway, the Avengers always had a few of Marvel's heavy hitters, like Spider-Man or Wolverine, but the rest are, in my mind, kinda dumb. Does anyone remember Doorman? He can hail a cab faster than any man alive.

Back to the movie. Despite my general blasé feelings over the Avengers, I rented Ultimate Avengers the other day because I saw the commercials and thought the animation was pretty cool. I have to say, the animation was excellent, the best part of the show, and quite possibly the best animation that Marvel studios has ever put out.

For those who don't know, the Ultimate Avengers is based on the Marvel comic, the Ultimates, and is a re-imagining of the Avengers comic line. There are several differences to the classic Avengers, such as the fact that the Avengers are formed by the U.S. government and headed by General Nick Fury (of S.H.I.E.L.D), who now is modeled after Samuel L. Jackson.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Anyway, the story begins at the end of World War II. Berlin is about to fall, Hitler is dead, the European war is about to end. Captain America leads a suicide mission to destroy a Nazi superweapon (a nuclear missile), a last-ditch effort to turn the tide of the war. Cap manages to thwart the Nazi plan, but not before discovering that the Nazis developing the nuke are actually (gasp!) aliens!

Well, Captain America is, of course, frozen in ice for many decades and is found and thawed sometime in the 21st century. The aliens are still a threat and Nick Fury heads the U.S. Super-Soldier program, the same one that created Captain America. Dr. Bruce Banner heads up the scientific team, the Hulk having been tamed through medication. Apparently, the record keepers in the 1940s were sloppy, and the formula which created Captain America was lost to the ages. So, Banner and ex-wife Betty are trying to recreate the formula to fight the alien threat.

Suddenly, the aliens attack, after being quiet for 80 years or so. Since the super soldier formula isn't ready, Fury assembles a team of super heroes, the Avengers, to deal with the alien threat. It's a rag-tag team of mixed personalities, such as the Mighty Thor, dangerous if provoked, the Wasp, the Black Widow, Iron Man and Giant Man.

Their first mission proves to be a disaster. The aliens not only manage to destroy the base that houses all of the government's early warning satellites, but they also manage to download all of the data in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s computer network. Fury, who is, well, furious, scraps the team and tries to get Banner to start the human trials of the Super Soldier program on the 12 pre-selected human subjects. Unfortunately, Banner has only done formula research on his own blood in an attempt to control the Hulk.

The aliens attack again and the Avengers overcome their differences to thwart the alien invasion. Banner takes the super-soldier formula, which allows him to temporarily control the Hulk. Unfortunately, once he joins the fight and the adrenaline gets pumping, he loses control and the Avengers must stop him before he destroys the city.

As I said earlier, the animation is excellent, and it has some top-quality superhero action (it got a PG-13 for violence). People get killed, and there are several shots of the Hulk squishing aliens like insects. All very cool.

At a mere 71 minutes, though, the story is lacking. There are huge plot holes in the story. Why did the aliens feel the need to help the Nazis build a nuke (and only one), when they could have easily overtaken global forces in their space ships? Why did the aliens disappear after Cap destroyed their nuke? Why didn't anyone else know that Banner had lied about his research? Surely Betty or even a lab assistant might have noticed that the files were empty. Why would America's most top secret super-soldier research project lose the formula due to sloppy record-keeping? (It was not as if they were writing with hammers and chisels on stone, you know.) Why would you set up the whole alien invasion plot, only to have the final showdown with the Hulk? How can it be 80 years after World War II and yet Captain America's ex-girlfriend and army buddy are still alive? Did I miss something there?

The story was highly reminiscent of the Justice League pilot, in which a ragtag team of superheroes must overcome their personal differences and learn to work together in order to thwart an alien invasion. In fact, they're both lead by patriotic heroes with red and blue costumes who fight for "truth, justice and the American way." It doesn't surprise me, though, since the Avengers were Marvel's response to the success of the Justice League.

Anyway, overall I give it a C+. It's worth watching for the spectacular animation (and the sound isn't bad either, especially if you have surround sound), but check your brain at the door. You won't need it.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

 

American Idol Raped My Soul

I am setting myself up for a verbal flogging of epic proportions, but I must get this off my chest.

I watch American Idol. I am a 31 year old, white, straight male and I have loved every season of American Idol since it came on the air.

However, I can not conform to the new lows of commercialism that this show has sunk to this season.

Never mind the fact that Ryan Seacrest can't get out two sentences without cutting to commercial. It is a simple fact of their business (hence why everyone watches "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and no one except me watched "Arrested Development" both equally smart shows but the prior comes without the network bullshit).

I Will Put a Ford Up My ASS Sideways Before I Drive One


The impetus for this rant are those insipid "videos" with the Idol hopefuls getting their nipples hard over the latest SUV or minivan from Ford. These shameful plugs were cute when they first did them two seasons ago, but have now become an embarrassment to the contestants and frankly anyone who can actually sit and watch them.

Last nights decent into Dante's fourth layer of the Beast was sung to "We Got the Beat" by the Go-Go's. All of the Idol hopefuls pulled crap out of the back of a Ford Behemoth and took the artistic equivelant of a big steaming dump as they enjoyed a day at the beach.

I hold no delusions that the only reason 80's music is tolerated is purely for the nostalgia factor, not because it's actually good music. Sure there were some great artists (The Cars, R.E.M. etc...), but for the most part the decade was just one long Casio riff stuck on the "autoplay" feature.

This is why an homage to this music is like someone saying they want to grow and be just like Adolf Hitler. YOU DON'T EMULATE HISTORICAL TRAGEDIES!!!!!

Only the Go-Go's should do "We Got the Beat" and even they should only perform it at a Cameron Crowe film festival.

I literally could not sit through this montage without groaning, so I turned it off. And I don't think i can turn it on agaian -- ever.

This is no longer a talent competition. It has become a showcase for mediocrity and product placement.


I think it was Moses who said "You shall not worship any false idols". Well Big M - here is one person who hold to that creed.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

 

Roads? Where were going we don't need... roads...

The problem with flying cars as they are being designed right now is that they are using the airplane model as a starting point. The problems my friend Cheese suggested, with fuel and accidents, are really the same issue: Safety. Flying cars intend to merge the world of aviation with automobiles, and quite frankly, I wouldn't trust the average driver to fly a kite, much less a car.

The reason most people don’t have personal airplanes or helicopters but do have automobiles is simple: Most aviation accidents are fatal. Most car accidents are not. Fatal car accidents generally only affect people on or by the road. Fatal plane crashes can cause devastation anywhere. In addition, September 11 showed us just how deadly airplanes could be in the wrong hands.

The problem is how planes get off the ground. As air moves across the wing of the plane, the airflow creates lift, which essentially uses the air to push the plane off the ground.

The first problem with this method of flight is, as my good friend Cheese suggested, one of fuel. Pushing a large, metal vehicle into the air requires a lot of energy, even if it is only the size of a car. When that energy is produced by burning a flammable fuel, then you only increase the danger of something going horribly, horribly wrong.

The second problem is the fact that the wing of the aircraft, whether the fixed wing of a plane or the rotors of a helicopter, has to be moving through the air in order to work. If my car breaks down, for example, I can pull over to the side of the road and call a tow truck. If I'm flying at 10,000 feet however, that's not really an option. You generally would plummet to your death.

The third issue is that of accidents. Airplanes today are piloted by highly trained, licensed professionals, many of which received their training as pilots for the military. Cars, on the other hand, are controlled largely by morons. All you have to do to drive a car is pass a test when you are 16.

So, what we need is a different form of creating lift that is safe from mechanical error and human error and does not require burning anything to power. This type of lift would need to work whether the vehicle was at rest or moving. If the vehicle suffered some sort of mechanical failure, even if everything breaks, the vehicle would not come crashing to the ground. It would either stay put or slowly descend to the ground.

So, how do you do it? In theory, a lighter-than-air vehicle like a blimp or zeppelin could work. If there was a catastrophic mechanical failure, a blimp would just float there. Since they stopped using hydrogen in blimps, you aren’t in danger of creating another Hindenburg. The problem is that airships like this are huge. Imagine trying to navigate even a personal sized blimp through the narrow streets of Manhattan.

There are other theories as well, but most of them are in the realm of pseudoscience. Electro-gravitic propulsion, for example, involves electrifying certain materials, which causes them somehow to become lighter. This is a popular theory amongst UFOlogists, but is largely dismissed by the mainstream scientific community. The trouble is that no one is quite sure what these materials are and what is meant by “electrifying” them.

Frankly, I’d like the scientific community to get off their freakin’ high horse. Sure, they might be crackpot theories. They might not have any basis in fact. They might defy the laws of the universe. But that’s the laws of the universe as we currently understand them. The laws of the universe used to say that the Earth was the center of the universe until Copernicus came along. For over 300 years, Newton’s Laws of Gravity were the end all and be all of gravitation until Einstein came along and said “Hang on a minute, there’s more to it than all of that.”

Faster than light travel is impossible? Prove it. Just because Einstein said so doesn’t make him right. If Einstein didn’t look at physics in radically new ways, we wouldn’t have the theory of relativity. Time travel won’t work? Bullshit. I’m traveling through time right now. If you can go one way, I say you can go the other.

What the hell ever happened to cold fusion? Sure, the Fleischmann and Pons experiment didn’t work, but so what? Just because it doesn’t work, doesn’t mean you ought to quit. Edison went through dozens of designs for the light bulb before he found the right filament. How many rockets did NASA blow up before they got it right?

There are a few people still looking into it. What I want to know is why the hell isn’t cold fusion the #1 priority of scientists exploring new forms of energy production? All this talk about reducing dependence on fossil fuels and finding renewable energy, yet we have a possible source of cheap energy, with very little waste, that uses the universe’s most abundant element, without burning a damn thing, and hardly anyone is looking into it.

Some say cold fusion is a myth. If it was all bullshit, then why are they still researching it? The problem isn’t that they aren’t researching it. The problem is they aren’t doing it enough.

If an idea is farfetched, if a theory is crackpot at best, then don’t simply shrug it off as bullshit, especially if the potential benefits are vast. Prove it wrong, damn it. Show us why it won’t work.

Monday, March 20, 2006

 

We can rebuild him. We (almost) have the technology...

Well kids, I've said it many times before. Since the turn of the century, I've been largely disappointed with the state of modern technology. There have been no flying cars, no robot butlers, no moon colonies or luxury hotels in orbit. I don't take a rocket pack to work. No, for the most part, the technological promises of the 21st century have been a disappointment.

Well, fortunately the good people at Popular Science are just as annoyed as I am, and have labored to keep us up to date on the progress of future science. In the March issue, for example, they have dedicated the cover story to where we stand on these various technologies. One of the more interesting articles explores the recent development of the world's first bionic hand. This device is not only capable of responding to brain signals, but it can also feel. It's still a few years away from being commercially available, but it's still a step in the right direction.

They also profile a real-life rocketeer. Granted, rocket packs have been around for a while in one form or another, and his research into rocket packs has set him back about a half a million dollars, but it's good to see that he's keeping the dream alive.

Despite the fact that they don't have robots and flying cars, I'm not entirely disappointed with the future. The last fifteen years or so have seen some amazing developments, a lot of which we don't see as future sci because we have evolved along with the gizmos. For instance, I have a computer that fits in my pocket. My entire music collection is stored on a gizmo the size of a credit card. Thanks to Spaceship One (most boring spaceship name in history), space flight has now entered the private sector and companies are exploring space travel and space tourism as a viable business. The world is connected via a huge electronic computer network (although I still can't connect it directly to my brain). There's a whole host of cool stuff that have come out in the last decade and a half that needs recognition, from GPS systems to cell phones, DVDs and flat panel HD TVs to Blackberries and WiFi internet. When I was a kid, these things were science fiction. Now, they're science fact.

I remember as a kid back in 1984, going to see 2010 for the first time. There was a little montage at one point in the film where Heywood Floyd is preparing for his trip to Jupiter. In one shot, he's sitting on a beach working on a laptop. I can remember thinking how cool it was to have a computer that you could take to the beach, how 2010 was so far away, and how impossible something like that seemed in my lifetime.

Well, it's not impossible. Science fact has caught up with science fiction. I have a laptop, and even though it's a few years old and pretty slow, it's a heck of a lot cooler than that one Dr. Floyd had. I also wouldn't recommend taking any computer to the beach. Still, we have a long way to go.

P.S. - The Popular Science issue also explores the status of flying cars and robot maids, and so on, but those aren't on the website yet. Patience, my young Jedis.

Thursday, March 16, 2006

 

George, George, Why Won't You Listen?

I just wanted to put this out there for the whole world to see:

This is a link to the quotes section for 'Star Wars' to 'Jedi': The Making of a Saga (1985) on the IMDb. Take a look at the first quote on the top of the page. Now, go watch any of the Star Wars prequels.

The prosecution rests, your Honor.

Friday, March 10, 2006

 

“I Love It When A Plan Comes Together..."

Of the thousands of TV show remakes to grace screens both big and small in the last decade or so, there have been many successes (Battlestar Galactica) and many failures (The Avengers.) It was of course inevitable that someday we would be blessed with a revival of that 80's classic, the A-Team, those lovable soldiers of fortune (aren't they all?), falsely convicted of a crime they did not commit. Well, that time is now. The worst shots in the history of popular entertainment (except maybe for Imperial Stormtroopers and Major Asshole from Spaceballs) will be hitting the big screen sometime in the next year.

They haven't released who will be playing whom, but certainly I would expect that Mr. T and Dwight Schultz might make a cameo. Dirk Benedict, known for his utter distain of remakes, (read his comments on the new Battlestar Galactica here) might not grace us with his presence. Too bad, he could really use the work. Of course, George Peppard has passed away.

Personally, I think the only A-Team you'll ever need is this.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

 

Offshoring a Ca"ta-ta"strophe -- India Needs America

I'm certainly not blazing a headline trail by calling out the inherent problems with offshoring American jobs to foreign interests.

Nor will I receive the Pulitzer in the category of Blogging for mentioning the fact that we did this in part to ourselves through a decade of sloth and laziness that resulted in the U.S. having less “science-minded” folks than the rest of the world.

No, my mark on the blogosphere – blogoverse – this page – the minds of the two other guys, occasional stalker and Jesus (Yes, Jesus reads FourNerds, we have proof because he, ghost, white dove left a comment once) will be with this singular statement, “India needs to start offshoring their communication activities to the U.S.

A Brief History


A colleague at work asked me to help him get a site off the ground. It’s basically a real estate venture with a twist. So I went out to a few different job posting boards to get some quotes on site development to ascertain whether they had the skills to get the site done.

What I got back was a litany of butchered English and turns of phrases that could only be concocted by someone who doesn’t really know the language trying to formerly write the language.

My colleague and I decided right off the bat since we would be doing most of this work virtually with the developer it was imperative that we build a good rapport and have a clear open line of communication with whoever we decide to work with. So we knew right away we wanted someone in the States. Even though it would cost us more initially we would save ourselves a great deal of frustration in the long run.

Most Humbled Sir – Gracious I am


This was one of the first forced greetings I received when I went in to check out my account and see who was vying for this particular project. Here are some others that followed:

Real Estate Practiced Professional
Web Interest Individual
Esteemed Project Implementer

Uhmmm, what about Hi? Also, “greetings” works quite well. In a pinch you could even rely on Dear Sir or Madam. This is not a Bollywood movie script, despite the fact you are oozing with respect, calling me “Esteemed Project Implementer” screams that you are writing from a faraway land.

After about the 47th submission I was able to yea or nay a developer simply from the greeting. Some however were smart enough to take my suggestion and just open with a standard greeting, unfortunately as soon as I started reading the rest of their reply they hung themselves.

“Your project is of utmost importance in our estimation” – Well I’m glad you guys are that committed, because one of us should be. I have about twenty other things in my life that take precedence over this. And I hope it’s your estimation because it’s not nice to speak for other people – unless they are geishas

Time is of the essence in us meeting – What? This one just reminded me of a Uganda money laundering scam. No, we actually have a lot of time. Chill out.

And the list goes on.
]
I am as of this day offering my services to any offshore agency that wants to sound “American” so they can at least get through the front-door on these projects.

E-mail me at rancidgovtcheese@yahoo.com with the subject “Communication Help”. I have close to ten years of experience in corporate communications and frankly guys, I couldn’t do any worse.