An Earth Day Message from Zeus

Sorry this is a bit late, Earth Day having been celebrated on April 22nd. Though I think the environment is still largely on our minds with this terrible oil rig disaster in the Gulf. I hope they are able to contain and clean up the spill quickly and can limit the impact on the wildlife, beaches and wetlands, though last I read it may take up to three months to dig a relief well to stop the oil from flowing (at 5000 barrels, or 200,000 gallons, a day). We definitely need these oil companies to follow strict safety and environmental regulations if they are going to operate in sensitive offshore areas. I was just reading that most of the regulations are “voluntary”. Hmmm… yeah, that makes sense. Install expensive, time-consuming safety devices, or make more profits? Let’s just leave that up to the companies to decide, alright. Offshore rigs in countries like Norway must have a special remote valve seal that can be shut to prevent such a major disaster. But I guess if we try to slap more government regulations on these companies, everyone will cry “socialism”. Hopefully we will make the switch to more clean energy solutions and break our oil habit soon. I believe, ultimately, we need to seek energy solutions in space, like orbiting solar arrays that beam energy back to Earth, or mining asteroids. There is no easy way to solve these problems, since much of the infrastructure needed for clean solutions would still require oil to manufacture.

On a side note, you may also want to google “Release the Kraken” – Liam Neeson’s portrayal of Zeus powerfully giving that command, in the recent movie remake of the 80’s Clash of the Titans, seems to have spawned a new internet meme.

– Nigel Matrix

Bye-Bye Books

April 3, 2010, will long be remembered as the day the book died. Okay, so maybe I’m exaggerating, just the tiniest bit… (and, I realize that only a total Apple fanboy like myself would assume that a couple generations in the future we’d still be referring to such tablet computers as the iPad, in general, as “iPads” – though I guess that’s what Star Trek predicted with its PADDs – and, hey, how come Trek didn’t get any flak on the feminine hygiene front, huh?). But, I’ve seen and touched the iPad for myself now, after fighting off some vicious crowds at the Freehold Mall Apple Store this past Saturday, and I have to say I was instantly lusting this device. It’s exactly the perfect size – makes the iPhone and iPod Touch seem very small and awkward to use once you’ve held the iPad, but it’s not so big that it just looks like you chopped a notebook computer in half, like some earlier attempts at tablet PCs did. The iBooks feature is just what I’ve been waiting for. I know, there’s the old Kindle with it’s e-ink screen that’s supposed to be better on the eyes. But the iPad is color, and has so much other functionality with web, movies, photos, music, games, etc. Plus, I’d rather have something backlit that I can read upside-down lying on the couch or in bed, than the Kindle which requires an outside light source. I know, backlight is bad for your eyes… we’ll, I already spend most of my day in front of a computer screen, so I don’t think it will make much difference at this point. Whatever the case, the iPad rocks, you’ve just got to check it out, whether you are PC or Mac or Droid or whatever… it’s just about the coolest gadget I’ve ever seen. I think it will really speed up the shift to digital books that Kindle and other e-readers started, just like the iPod mainstreamed digital music, even though mp3 players had been around for a while before it.

So, stash away any current books you have in a safe place – maybe they will be worth something someday as relics of a simpler age…

– Nigel Matrix

Snow Removal in a 1950’s Retro Future

Don’t eat the glowing snow… Wow, it’s the middle of the “February Fury” (as the Weather Channel has dubbed it) blizzard part three here in Jersey, and I could really use this Atomic Snow Removal truck from the 1950’s idea of the future. Shame about that whole radiation thing, though, so guess we’re stuck with plows and salt.

I just finished reading the book Your Flying Car Awaits – Robot Butlers, Lunar Vacations, and Other Dead-Wrong Predictions of the Twentieth Century by Paul Milo (thanks, BTW, to Raven for the xmas gift). Really fun to read about the science fact and fiction predictions over the years. Being a science/sci-fi nut since I was pretty much a toddler, I actually remembered a lot of the predictions from the 70s, 80s and 90s – from magazines like Omni, Discover, Wired, etc. And cool to make the connections of the predictions to the sci-fi movies of those same eras.

I was really disturbed by the chapter on Nuclear Fusion and Weather Control, especially the many ideas governments (including the U.S. and Russia) and engineers had for using nuclear detonations for massive construction projects. Suggestions such as creating a new harbor in Alaska, a new Suez canal and huge inland lakes using nuclear blasts were seriously considered during the 1950’s and 60’s. In the end, they decided that these areas would remain too radioactive to actually use. Glad we figured that out before it was too late! Though, I am worried lately reading online about Bill Gates dropping millions into weather control research as a way to combat climate change. Hopefully as a very, very last resort… just testing weather control systems could cause more damage than it’s worth.

If you get a chance, check out Milo’s book. Really makes you think about the predictions that are being made today and how they shape our collective vision and expectations of the future.

– Nigel Matrix

P.S.- The “Atomic Snow Removal” truck idea (however it works) is something I made up, just extrapolating from what I read in Milo’s book about the attitude in the 1950’s that we could use nuclear power to solve pretty much everything.

Amazing Apps and Accessories for the New Apple Tablet

Capillary dilation or the so-called blush response… fluctuation of the pupil, involuntary dilation of the iris…. Um… Do you like our owl? Sorry, somehow all of the anticipation for the new Apple Tablet (or iPad, or iSlate, or Canvas, or Electronic Messiah) has put me in a Blade Runner mood. Just thought it would be cool if the new tablet has a Voight-Kampff app so you could detect Replicants on-the-go. You’d still need the retro bellows as an accessory (think it has something to do with detecting pheromones of an emotional response), but it’s a lot more portable than that CRT monitor setup Deckard has to usually lug around. Oh, wait… Replicants haven’t been invented yet, right.

Still, the tablet is gonna rock… whatever it does. I mean, I’m a big-time Apple fanboy, but even I’ve been worn out from all the hype and speculation about this thing. Please, Steve, let it go… release it to us… we are ready to finally have this futuristic sci-fi device that we always see in every sci-fi movie ever made. I know, there are other tablet computers announced by other companies, and the Kindle is a specialized book-reading tablet, but Mr. Jobs always seems to have an eye for details other designers miss, just a knack for innovation that takes things to the next level. Yeah, I know, I’m a hopeless Apple fanboy…

– Nigel Matrix

2010: The Year We Add More Contacts

“Something’s going to happen… Something wonderful.“ Hmm, okay, whatever you say there, incorporeal Dave Bowman. You can transform Jupiter (spoilerz) into a new sun, but you can’t work your Monolith magic to whisk a relatively small starship out of harm’s way? Oh well, guess it’s one of those “higher beings/God” can’t interfere with free will or something. Unless they’re in the whole “wrath/armageddon” mode, or course…

Well, the New Year, 2010, is upon us in a couple weeks, and I was reminiscing about the film 2010: The Year We Make Contact – the Peter Hyams-directed sequel to Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I used to love this movie back in the 80s. Closest thing to a “hard” sci-fi movie I’d ever seen at the time (hadn’t seen Blade Runner yet – don’t think that film had much popularity really until the mid-90s when it was sort of rediscovered. Plus, you could argue, that was more “cyberpunk”). Yet, 2010 was a lot more accessible (in an 80s way) than the avant-garde mind-freak of 2001 – not to say it’s anywhere near as epic or culturally important. I thought the best parts of 2010 were Dr. Chandra’s psychoanalizing of HAL9000, the Discovery’s onboard AI that basically murdered the crew in 2001.
 
I haven’t watched 2010 in many years, but it would be interesting to see how it holds up against the real year 2010. Off the top of my head, I think they had video-phones, though they were more desktop-computer or monitor-based than handheld cell-phones. I would think no mention of the Internet or the latest App to download. The Cold War was still on, and was a major plot point of the film. Plus, the film’s spaceship tech was way ahead of current capabilities, though this was also true of 2001. And in the film, there’s Artificial Intelligence (HAL) from back in 2001. All we’ve got is Wolfram Alpha and some Roombas cleaning our floors (and terrorizing our pets).

– Nigel Matrix

P.S. – Just wanted to send out a massive THANK YOU from us at stupidfuture to everyone who stopped by this year to check out our site!!! Have a great New Year, and we hope that 2010 does turn out to be “something wonderful” for you!

Some things just never end, Buck. (Be-de-be-de.)

Welcome to the jungle, Buck. They’ve been talking recently about making a grittier remake of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, but, I don’t know, I’m getting tired of these gritty, dark remakes. I miss the cheesy, futuristic fun of the early 80’s Buck. (And I really miss the perfect bad girl/good girl tag team of Princess Ardala and Col. Deering…). I’ve got the entire series on DVD and occasionally need to relive my wasted youth watching the same Draconian fighter explode in episode after episode, or the same Stargate activate or, hey – didn’t I see that starship on an episode of Battlestar Galactica once? Oh, well – yeah, they did recycle some of the special effects, but it was all in the name of campy sci-fi goodness.

Oh, and sorry to poke fun at Axl Rose – I did actually quite like his Chinese Democracy album, once it was finally released after 15 or so years. Though, I think by that point he should have just called it an Axl Rose solo album, not a Guns’n’Roses one.

If Axl does make it to the 25th Century, maybe he can use that band Andromeda on his Chinese Democracy sequel.

What caused the apocalypse in “The Road”

A Nanobot “grey goo” attack? No… Nuclear war? No… Ecological disaster? No… It was the dreaded Zhu Zhu Pets. Once they were shown how to drive cars, these small robotic creatures managed to escape their human masters and wage a destructive path across the world. Only Viggo and his son survived, and they spend most of The Road trying to scavenge up the various plastic Zhu Zhu ramps and playsets in an attempt to end the Zhu Zhu rampage. Well, at least that’s what I think it’s probably about…

These Zhu Zhu Pets look pretty lame. Seems like robot toy tech is actually devolving from the days of Elmo, Aibo, and Pleo. Or I guess ten dollar robot hamsters are all we can afford now.

What really happened at Roswell.

Okay, I know their fifteen minutes is about up, but I had to comment on the whole balloon boy incident. Yes, I was one amongst the media-saturated masses who was totally sucked into this story. I think the really marvelous Pixar movie Up primed us all for a boy-in-a-balloon story (maybe even gave Mr. Heene fuel for his evil scheme). Glad that the boy was alright (not that he was in any real danger, it being a hoax after all). I do have to say that I am quite disturbed by all media outlets, both right, left, and in-between (well, is there really any news nowadays that isn’t slanted either right or left?) for their incessant replaying of poor Falcon getting sick during two of the interviews. I mean, he’s just a six-year-old. Don’t you think it will be kinda traumatic, or at least annoying, for the kid to grow up being “known” for this? It’s bad enough he will be the “balloon boy”, can’t you cut him some slack? And, hey, I was trying to eat my dinner when you played that clip, too… yechh.

BTW, who the hell is Wolf?

– Nigel Matrix

SOYLENT PINK IS STRAWBERRY-FLAVORED PEOPLE!!!!!!! (WITH FROSTING!!!!!!)

After hearing about “Death Panels” all week, with all the hub-bub related to the healthcare reform bill and crazy town hall meetings with people screaming about the government wanting to “pull the plug on grandma”, it got me thinking about that old Charlton Heston epic from the 70s about the ultimate form of healthcare. It’s more like “death care”…

(Spoilerz) Basically, in Soylent Green, from what I remember, there’s a future dystopia where people have to ride stationary bikes in their apartments just to charge up the ceiling light bulb. There’s huge overpopulation, and like one tree left that’s preserved in a glass dome. Some rich dudes hoard actual food like steak, but everyone else is forced to wait for some trucks to show up in the street shooting out rectangular chunks of synthetic food. Eventually, Heston’s aged roommate or dad or whomever is feeling sick and decides to go “Home” which is this big hospital where they make you watch a 360-degree film about nature like at EPCOT center, except instead of being funneled out to the overpriced gift shop at the end, you are euthanized and your body is thrown on a conveyor belt in a factory that processes it into Soylent Green, the food that the trucks spew out to the ignorant masses. Heston tries to reveal this at the end, but I believe he is tragically taken down by the police just as he shouts “Soylent Green is people!!!” Poor Heston – all the troubles of our future worlds rested on his shoulders… too much for one future man to take on.

Funny thing is – I saw this film in my HIGH SCHOOL HEALTH CLASS! I think it was some kind of health class tradition in my school – they had the actual film reel you put in the old-timey projector and played on the pull-down movie screen. I guess it had something to do with learning about social issues like overpopulation and the environment. Okay, so first they made us watch the whole graphic child-birth movie, and then we have to watch this movie about future cannibalism related to overpopulation. Nice. Were they trying to discourage us from procreating??? No wonder people are scared to death of government healthcare – maybe they had the same crazy sci-fi dystopia health class curriculum I was exposed to!

– Nigel Matrix

You may have Syfy if you are…

I’ve got Syfy on my fingahs!!! (I keep going around saying that… if you listen to The Beatles you’ll know the reference). Supposedly the main reason for the Sci-Fi Channel to change to Syfy is that it can be trademarked, while Sci-Fi is a genre description so it couldn’t be. It’s just freaking me out, like, I feel as if I have a reading disorder as I know the word should be “sci-fi” but it’s spelled all weird now and somehow my brain is confused, like learning a new language. And their tagline is “Imagine Greater”, which is like a rip-off of the old Apple “Think Different” (both have adverb troubles, too…)

I think the problem with “syfy” is that it reads as “siffy” and not “sci-fi just spelled differently”. I think if they were a brand new channel/site it wouldn’t be a big deal, but to just re-brand an established channel that does well within its niche is weird. And if they are looking to expand beyond sci-fi content, then why not come up with some completely new name to reflect that? Weird…

– Nigel Matrix