The question was obvious: When was the last time members of the Red Sox[2] had seen Josh Beckett[3] be this good?
The answer was meant to reflect the fact that, in eight overpowering innings of shutout baseball, the right-hander was better than he was at any point in a lost 2010 season, or in an unimpressive first start of the 2011 campaign last week against the Indians. But the answer was more far-reaching. On Sunday, in his 4-0 victory over the Yankees[4] (recap[5]), Beckett was quite simply as good as the Sox have ever seen him.
Ever. As in ever.
The claim seems like something between hyperbole and blasphemy. After all, Beckett was singularly dominant in his remarkable rampage through the 2007 postseason.
That October, he logged a complete-game four-hit shutout with eight strikeouts against the Angels, a one-run, 11-strikeout outing against the Indians and a one-run, nine-strikeout performance against the Rockies in the World Series[6].
In 2009, he enjoyed his longest sustained run of excellence with the Sox, producing six starts in which he did not allow an earned run, including his only two regular-season complete-game shutouts (one against the Royals, another against the Braves[7]) in Boston.
Even so, it is not unreasonable to say that Beckett was even more impressive on Sunday than in any of those starts. For validation of the thesis, one needed only to ask the man who has been on the receiving end of Beckett’s best games in Boston.
“Best I’ve seen him. As far as [being] complete, absolutely,” Varitek said. “[It was] eight strong, perfect innings.”
Beckett had total mastery over his full repertoire of pitches on Sunday night. Rarely one to get carried away when breaking down his outings, even he acknowledged that he featured a special pitch mix.
“I just felt like I never did get into like a pattern,” Beckett said. “I felt like I was throwing everything.”
He leaned primarily on a 93-95 mph four-seam fastball that he powered down in the strike zone, helping him to record 11 outs via ground ball. (The Yankees[4] managed to produce just three fly balls or line drives during Beckett's eight innings on the mound.) He also featured the biting two-seam fastball that sends left-handed hitters jolting backward and then dives back over the inside corner of the plate (Beckett punched out Mark Teixeira[8] looking at just such a pitch in the first inning).
To those, he added a hammer curveball that he could either drop into the strike zone or bury in the dirt for swings and misses. And, finally, he featured the changeup that he worked to refine for the 2011 season.
That was the pitch that Beckett used for the most pivotal play of the game, a double-play grounder by Yankees leadoff man Brett Gardner that ended a first-and-second, one-out threat in the third inning.
“Right from the very beginning he was commanding all his pitches,” Sox manager Terry Francona[9] said. “And especially, when he opens up the plate with that two-seamer to the lefties, it seems like it opens up the entire plate. He commanded his breaking ball. He threw it in all counts. He established it to where they couldn’t sit on a pitch, because he was changing speeds going back and forth.”
He got swings and misses on every one of his pitch types, using each to record at least one strikeout. As he blitzed through the Yankees[4], retiring the final 14 batters, New York’s hitters started heading to the plate with a blindfold and cigarette, resigned to their impending failure. Beckett needed just nine, eight and eight pitches to plow through the sixth, seventh and eighth innings (respectively).
Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira[8] would acknowledge after the game that his team could do little more than tip its collective hat.
“They said he might have been hurt last year — he looks fine now,” Teixeira said. “[Beckett had] four pitches — fastball, cutter, curveball, changeup — throwing them all for strikes. Fastball was 94-95 again, which we hadn’t seen in a while. And his location was great.”
So were the results. Indeed, they attested to an outing that — especially given the depth and talent of the Yankees[4] lineup — was as good as, if not better than, anything he’d done with the Sox. It may well be the case that Beckett has never had such a diverse pitch mix working so perfectly for him. The line suggested as much.
This marked the first time that the Sox had held the Yankees to as few as two hits since Pedro Martinez[10]’ historic one-hit, 17-strikeout complete game at Yankee Stadium[11] in 1999. It was the first time since 2002 (again, a Pedro special, this time against the Rays) that a Sox pitcher tossed eight or more shutout innings, allowed two or fewer hits and struck out 10 or more batters.
In the 34 career outings in which Beckett had pitched eight or more innings, he had never before allowed as few as two hits. Until Sunday night, as a member of the Red Sox[2], he had never struck out as many as 10 batters in a game in which he did not permit a run.
The contest was a reminder of who Beckett can be. Varitek suggested that the right-hander remains capable of performing to the level that defined his 2007 and 2009 peaks.
“His stuff’s the same. Absolutely,” Varitek said. “He’s worked real hard to get back to where he was at. … He’s strong, he’s powerful and he’s good.”
Beckett offered a tantalizing glimpse on Sunday. The Sox need not be resigned to the idea that he is now just a back-of-the-rotation starter.
But ultimately, the dominant outing against the Yankees may mean little if Beckett cannot back it up. He was mindful of that fact when asked whether he had any game that would compare to Sunday’s outing against the Yankees in 2010.
“If I do, I can’t remember,” he said with a shrug. “That’s kind of me, moving forward to whatever is next and what I have to do tomorrow. I’m not really looking back.”
Where Sunday ranks among Beckett’s Red Sox[2] starts matters less than what it means going forward. It gave the Sox a much-needed victory, and also served as a reminder of what Beckett can be.
It was not so long ago that the 30-year-old was viewed as the anchor of the rotation. On Sunday, he offered a demonstration of how he achieved that status.
“That was the type of game that an ace throws,” Sox general manager Theo Epstein[12] said. “That was great to see. That’s an understatement. It was exactly what we needed.”
Wow. We are stunned, speechless and excited as hell, boyeeee! In anticipation for their next album The Hot Sauce Committee Part 2, the Beastie Boys just unleashed a trailer for what appears to be the most enjoyable music video in ages. Or most hilarious short movie based on a music video.
From what we gather -- and you can gather this too, when you watch the clip -- the Beastie Boys: Seth Rogen, Elijah Wood and Danny McBride get into an altercation with the Beastie Boys from the future: John C. Reilly, Will Ferrell and Jack Black.
Will Arnett, Ted Danson, Susan Saranden, Steve Buscemi and Rainn Wilson are also up in the mix. The video/film is based around the events that take place the day of 1986's "(You Gotta)Fight For Your Right To Party."
We can only assume that the future Beastie Boys come back in time to stop their younger versions from partying too hard. But the elders learn from the youngsters that they gotta keep partying on, no matter how old they are -- and break shit while tripping balls.
It premiered at Sundance this past January, can't wait to see it for ourselves in it's entirety.
About 4.5 years ago, Autoblog Green reported on a "Stretch Batmobile" concept being developed by the Dutch that was intended to one day be used for public transportation. Now, that concept has been realized.
The Superbus is completely electric, seats 23 people and rides in a dedicated lane to get its passengers where they need to go. Oh, and it goes 155 MPH. Designed by Dutchman Wubbo Ockels, a former astronaut and professor of aerospace sustainable engineering and technology, the realized Superbus was presented to a group of Dutch teenagers. Check it out in action in the video below.
Once again we have to ask: Where is our American version of this?
She was warned when she began modelling that her career would be over by the time she turned 30.
But at 57, Christie Brinkley shows no sign of losing her Uptown Girl appeal. The mother-of-three proved she still knows how to turn heads yesterday in New York as she showed off moves from her role as Roxie in the Broadway version of musical Chicago.
Scroll down to see the video for Uptown Girl
Uptown Girl: Christie Brinkley puts on a show outside the Good Morning America studio in Times Square, New York, yesterday
Hot shoe shuffle: The model slipped her heel back on in style
Still looking super: The model showed off her form in a tight Herve Leger dress
And in a skintight red Herve Leger dress, the glamorous blonde could have passed for a woman half her age.
Miss Brinkley, who has been married four times, told a New York breakfast television host that her ex-husband Billy Joel, 61, had given her some singing tips before she auditioned for the musical.
‘He helped with my projection,’ she said.
Watch and learn! Christie showed GMA's Elizabeth Vargas a few steps
The star, who has appeared on more than 500 magazine covers, also revealed that dancing in the show had ‘definitely’ improved her figure.
Miss Brinkley was criticised for her dancing in the 1983 video for Joel’s hit Uptown Girl – but insists she has improved since.
Former husband Billy Joel gave the 57-year-old some help with her singing ahead of auditioning for the role as Roxy in the new Broadway version of Chicago
Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy is a world first, with technology that hopes to revive an ailing industry. But it is unlikely to be seen in full in the mainland
Grappling with it ... Sexual content is cut for mainland audiences, for example from Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. Photograph: Supplied By Lmk
It is being billed as the world's first 3D porn film, a movie so salacious that Chinese audiences are reportedly flocking from the mainland to more permissive Hong Kong for the chance to see an uncut version.
Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy will open in the former British protectorate and Taiwan next week. The £2m Cantonese language film is an ornate fantasy with high production values, set at the kinky court of Ming dynasty ancient China. It is ostensibly based on the classic Chinese erotic text, The Carnal Prayer Mat, and follows a young man as he befriends a duke and enters a world of royal orgies and other sexual peccadilloes. The film is also a reworking of an earlier Chinese movie, 1991's Sex and Zen.
Writer and producer Stephen Shiu told local media the film would feature some "very graphic sex scenes". He added: "It will leave audiences feeling like they are sitting right there at the edge of the bed."
Sex and Zen's content means it is unlikely to be screened uncut in mainland China, though there are reports of tour groups planning trips to Hong Kong and Taiwan so that people may see it. Such a development mimics events in 2007, when mainlanders travelled to the island to watch an uncut version of Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, the Chinese cut having excised key scenes which left audiences confused and disappointed.
Last year during the shoot for Sex and Zen, Shiu told Reuters "It's because it's forbidden in China, (that there) is so much enthusiasm in China for this film." He added: "Somehow when you're doing a 3D movie you always want to make an impressive image because the viewers ... are going to buy tickets with double or even triple the ticket price to get into a world they've never seen before. It's not just erotica, they want some 'wow factor'!"
Sex and Zen stars one Hong Kong and two Japanese actors in the main roles and is directed by Christopher Sun. Some are predicting it could be the first of a wave of softcore 3D films, helping the industry to emerge from a period in which it has been hit heavily by free internet porn. However, the costs of shooting in the format have so far proved prohibitive. Nevertheless, Italian director Tinto Brass is said to be planning a 3D version of his notorious 1979 erotic film Caligula, and there are rumours of a 3D porn spoof of Avatar titled This Ain't Avatar XX.
Researchers were amazed when stem cells in a test tube spontaneously organised themselves into a complex structure that resembles the developing embryonic eye.
The surprising development could lead eventually to whole retinas being cultured and then transplanted, restoring sight in the blind and visually impaired.
The team from the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Japan, first cultivated embryonic stem cells in a test tube and then added proteins to trigger them into developing.
They hoped that they would form a recognisable organ but were still stunned when over 10 days they clustered together and began to grow the "optical cup" of a retina.
Tests showed that the cells were functioning normally and were capable of communicating with each other.
The research was done on mouse eyes, but there is no reason why a similar technique would not work on humans, said the experts.
They hope that within 10 years to be able to start clinical trials on retina implants.
"This is an absolutely stunning achievement," said Professor Robin Ali, an ophthalmologist at University College London.
"It is a landmark not just for the retina but for regenerative medicine as a whole."
More than a million people in Britain suffer from vision problems caused by a damaged or malfunctioning retinas.
The retina is the "business end" of the eye, where nerve cells convert light into electrical and chemical signals that are sent to the brain down the optic nerve.
If it is not working then the eye is useless.
Professor Yoshiki Sasai, lead author said: "What we've been able to do in this study is resolve a nearly century-old problem in embryology, by showing that retinal precursors have the inherent ability to give rise to the complex structure of the optic cup."
His team, who filmed the technique as it unfolded, grew floating clusters of the mouse cells in a special tissue culture in the laboratory that had previously been successfully used to make a variety of brain cells.
By adding particular proteins they were able to get the cells to build a three dimensional layered structure reminiscent of the optic cup within 10 days.
The retinal neurons ultimately organised into a six-layer structure closely resembling that of a retina shortly after birth.
This could eventually lead to treatments aimed at repairing the eyes of people with conditions that limit or destroy their sight.
Potential applications include regenerative medicine approaches to the treatment of progressive genetic disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa.
Prof Ali, who reviewed the research published in Nature, said: "For the first time, we see unfolding in real time the beautiful events that shape the early stages of mammalian eye development.
"But even more remarkable is that these are not recordings from live animals, but of self-organising 3-D cultures of embryonic stem cells."
Meet the Geminoids and their human counterparts. Can you tell which is which?
There are only a handful of people in the world who can say they have a robotic clone of themselves, and most of them just got together in Japan. ATR’s facilities in Nara hosted a bizarre reunion at the end of March as three Geminoid robot replicants and their originals met for a press conference and photo shoot. The first clone was modeled after its creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, another bot is a copy of an unnamed Japanese woman, and the latest is a dead-ringer for Henrik Sharfe of Aalborg University in Denmark. Watch all six of these ‘people’ converse and interact in the video below, followed by some more great pics. Looking at the progression from the oldest (the Ishiguro-bot) to the newest (Sharfe-bot) it’s clear that the Geminoids are getting better…and relatively quickly too. It may only be a matter of a few years until these replicants look human enough to pass as one of us.
Ishiguro first demonstrated his robot clone (Geminoid HI-1) back in 2006, the female version (Geminoid F) arrived in early 2010, and Sharfe’s clone was ordered in 2010 but took six months to create (and reportedly cost $200k). Geminoid DK (as it is called) arrived early this year. While all have very similar pneumatically driven systems that are remote controlled by human users, Geminoid DK appears much more life-like. Perhaps it’s the facial hair covering some of the imperfections, but in any case it really comes close to bridging the Uncanny Valley…as long as it’s sitting still. Here is a video of Geminoid DK’s movements that was released after our previous coverage came out. This clip really showcases the life-like and creepy motions of the robot:
While Ishiguro continues to improve his Geminoid creations (in association with ATR and produced by Kokoro) Sharfe is aimed at studying how humans will accept/interact with them. This little Geminoid summit then represents the two halves of human-like robotics research: technical and social. Undoubtedly the next Geminoid that Ishiguro and his team creates will be even more realistic, perhaps able to show its teeth without causing my hackles to rise. In the meantime, Sharfe and colleagues may be able to explain to us what humanity really can expect from its upcoming future full of robotic clones. I suspect that no matter how human-like these bots will appear, we won’t fully accept them until they have human-like personalities as well.
Quick, someone make a Geminoid of a prominent AI researcher and bring them into the fold!
Sometimes I really get the willies when I think Geminoid HI-1 is looking at me. To be fair, I get the same feeling when I think Ishiguro is looking at me, too.
The improvements that ATR/Kokoro/Ishiguro have made since 2006 are so clear. Geminoid DK (right) wins the human look alike contest hands down.
This is my favorite photo from the event because when you focus on Ishiguro, you forget that the two people on either side of him aren't really people at all.
from http://www.complex.com/sneakers/2011/04/seinfeld-nikes/
Jerry Seinfeld: sneakerhead. Yup. Not in the traditional sense, but over the course of the Seinfeld television show, Jerry wore his fair share of Nike bangers and obscure white on white trainers. We thought documentation of this 1990s phenomena was warranted, so Complex tapped its go-to footwear historian Gary Warnett (who put together our 50 Greatest Nike Trail Shoes and our 50 Greatest Air Max 90s lists) to painstakingly sort through Jerry's greatest hits.
We've provied images when we had them, here they are in their entirety: click on the gallery to see A Complete Guide to Jerry Seinfeld's Sneakers.
Most films are pretty linear and easy to follow in their story telling. Others are muddled, but make sense when you think about them — like Memento. But some, some are designed to bewilder, obfuscate, and confuse. These 15 films are all varying degrees of head-scratchers. Some you can pick apart with a bit of work, some you are deliberately impossible to understand, but all are worth the effort of the attempt. Oh yeah, spoilers.
15. Vanilla Sky
While personally I didn’t find this American remake of the Spanish psycho-thriller that bewildering, there were plenty who did, to the point where it was voted the most confusing film ever by a DVD rental company. The fact of the matter is that much of the perceived twistedness and confusion from the plot is all resolved by the classic cop out “it was all a dream.” While perhaps not as utterly blatant as that, but the entire film takes place in the lucid dream of a man in cryogenic suspensions whose subconscious has started to assert itself. That explains the constantly switching nature of reality, and the weirdness that surrounds him. There, easy.
14. Pi
Darren Aaranofsky’s first major flick was Pi, and this twisted black and white look at obsession and paranoia was enough to get him into the big leagues. It’s a combination of Aaranofsky’s trademark incredibly quick cuts, the dense subject matter, and an unreliable narrator that causes Pi to be tricky to follow, as Max Cohen struggles to understand the universal patterns that occur through nature as a way of understanding and predicting the stock market. As he uncovers more and more of a number that may be at the root of things, or may be the unknown name of god, his sanity begins to erode, and his headaches increase, his final inevitable decline is as horrific as it is a relief — both for the viewer and the character.
13. eXistenZ
Cronenberg excels at making you question what is real and what is not, and eXistenZ asks that about video games and reality, as the story blurs the boundary between at least three or four levels of the interaction of both. With the advent of a total immersion video game, eXistenZ is all about asking how much is free will, how much is scripted, and how much is even real. As multiple levels of games and reality begin to emerge, the final scene eventually feels like the whole movie has been sorted out — until the very last line.
12. Solaris
Partly due to being in Russian and partly due to its legendary slow pacing, Solaris (the 1972 version) is notoriously hard to follow. Often called the Russian 2001, Solaris takes place on a space station where the researchers are starting to hallucinate and go insane. The hallucinations cause plenty of questioning about the nature of their reality, which when combined with a psychologist main character and the question of how to approach a truly, truly alien lifeform has lead to many scratching their heads. The final open end to the film leaves just as many questions raised as it answers. It’s still a damn good movie if you can handle the glacial pace, but don’t expect any easy answers.
11. Adaptation
Adaptation is utterly confusing, and unlike other films which blur the lines between reality and fantasy within the world of the movie, it takes on the borders between film and real life — as in our real life. Adaptation is an adaptation of a novel called The Orchid Thief, which has no plot to speak of. So the movie is about the movie’s writer struggling to adapt the book, and make a screenplay, which ends up being about him struggling to write a screenplay about the Orchid Thief. It consciously slips between Kaufman’s attempts to write a script true to a book that can’t be adapted, while shamelessly throwing in Hollywoodesque features like explosions, car chases, and love stories. Yeah, it’s bewildering, and just how true any of it is is entirely up for debate. It’s still a great film, though.
10. Akira
Without having read the immense manga or hitting wikipedia, understanding Akira on the first viewing is extremely tricky. The amount of information presented to the viewer is minimal, and the whole “wait, what happened to Akira? Where did he go? And the blue kids? There’s another universe?” thing is pretty damn hard to get your head around, especially when most of the movie only explains these things tangentially, and you’re more concerned about Tetsuo’s crazy ass powers. Repeated watching and further research really do clarify what the hell is going on, because otherwise you’re left bewildered.
9. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001 is pretty damned hard to follow, mostly due to the bookends of the film, with the prehistoric opening and incredibly trippy closing, which serve to bewilder many viewers. The bit in the middles is juts fine, though. Kubrick was famously exacting in what he required from his films, and the slow pacing is entirely intentional, and so too is the requirement that you as a watcher actually have to think and interpret what is happening, and not have it handed to you on a platter. The transformation into the Star-Child — and proceeding bad trip through space — is definitely obtuse and was designed to be open to interpretation. My personal view is that when Bowman activates the monolith, he’s whisked to an alien zoo for observation, before they ascend him into a new form. But hey, that’s just me.
8. Naked Lunch
Cronenberg directing a book by Burroughs. You know there’s going to be nothing but batshit crazy here. Only really tangentially related to the book, Peter Weller’s laconic take on the insanity and surreality that surround him rapidly becomes an anchoring point for the viewer. Talking insects, hallucinogens, murder, sentient typewriters, psychic communications, body suits and all other manner of weirdness pervade it, and it’s certainly not for the squeamish or easily bewildered. Unlike many of the other stories on this list, Naked Lunch isn’t capable of being picked apart, instead it’s intentionally obtuse and inscrutable. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.
7. Jacob’s Ladder
Military experiments, death, drugs, and psychic powers. Jacob’s Ladder is an utterly horrifying trip into the mind of a broken individual trying to escape the legacy of the horrors of Vietnam. I won’t ruin the ending — which could be viewed either as a cop out, or else the only logical end of the story — but it’s a kick in the gut, that’s for sure. Increasingly horrific hallucinations plague Jacob as he learns more about just what happened when he was wounded during the war, and how it’s linked to everything that’s happened since then. Uniquely terrifying and difficult to pick apart, the ending kind of does away with any real need to explain what’s going on.
6. Mulholland Drive
Pretty much any film by David Lynch belongs on this list, but lets bundle most of them up in with Mulholland Drive, which is possibly his most acclaimed work. Lets face it, barring maybe Elephant Man and Dune, Lynch’s work is uniquely surrealist, and hard to follow regardless of how well you understand his corpus of productions. Lynch has specifically avoided offering explanations of the goings on in Mulholland Drive, instead intentionally wanting viewers and critics to create their own opinions. Non-linear, bewildering, and inter-cut with seemingly unrelated chunks, it’s hard to follow even at the best of times, yet remains a powerful and influential film.
5. Holy Mountain
Chilean filmmaker/artist Alejandro Jodorowsky is either the closest thing we have to a mad prophet, or utterly insane, and I can’t decide which. Anything he makes is so densely packed with symbolism and metaphor that it will break your brain trying to understand what everything means — and it all means something. Steeped in tarot, mysticism, Christian magic, alchemy, and everything else weird and wonderful, his work is transcendental, if you can follow it. He’s more or less given up on film these days, instead focusing on comics where he isn’t limited by things like the laws of physics or budgets. Unfortunately, his later work has become almost a self-cliché, invariably hitting the same points over and over. Here’s something interesting, grab anything he’s done in the last decade, and tick off which of the following are in it: incest, violence and mutilation between family members, castration of a son by a father, a horrible disfiguring wound caused by a parent figure, obese and corrupt priests, back-stabbing royalty. Yeah, all of his stuff hits these points, regardless if it’s fantasy, historical, or sci-fi.
4. Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is much, much deeper than I originally gave it credit for. I first went in with my brain turned off, expecting something “quirky”, but not actually deep. What I got was only the tip of the story, and it turns out there are volumes more information that you need to really appreciate what was going on — mostly given via the notoriously twisted and labyrinthine website. If you don’t have the time to invest the hours required to plumb its depth, I thoroughly recommend this guide.
3. Eraserhead
I know, we’ve already seen Lynch on this list, but could I really ignore the famously off-the-wall Eraserhead? It’s completely and utterly indescribable. There’s a guy, his wife, a horribly deformed baby which may or may not be human, explosions, machinery, oozing wounds and liquids, eraser shavings, and more craziness than I can even understand. It was Lynch’s first feature film, and is 89 minutes of pure snake-fucking crazy. Highly influential, but still utterly unintelligible, there’s really nothing you can do but try and ride it out, or devote a lifelong academic career to trying to decipher it.
2. Synecdoche, New York
Again we see a Charlie Kaufman flick. The guy really does excel at the mindfuck. This time starring the superb Philip Seymour Hoffman as a play director crippled by neuroses who receives an immense grant, and sets up a massive play in a warehouse where each actor acts out a private and banal life, mimicking the outside. Slowly the play begins to mirror the outside world more and more, as he is afflicted by a mysterious illness, to the point where he hires actors to portray people outside, including himself. The film twists in on itself constantly, with the impossibly large warehouse eventually housing a full replica of New York city, including its own impossibly large warehouse, and so on. Sharply dividing to critics, some hailed it as the best film of the decade, others as unintelligible gibberish. Thematically dense but incredible, if you can follow it, you’ll be justly rewarded.
1. Primer
Shot for a mere $7,000, Primer is about time travel. Sort of. It’s more about the breakdown between two people, but an incredibly confusing causally linked time travel mechanism underpins it. If someone tells you they understood it on their first viewing, they’re filthy liars. Written by a mathematician/engineer, none of the jargon or lingo is cut, making it as factually accurate as one could imagine a time travel story to be. The plot loops in on itself in recursive and terrifying ways. Trying to follow it? Here’s a sample timeline, here’s another, though this one is the most accurate. Yes, it really is that batshit confusing, but watching it over and over to pick it apart is surprisingly fun. Unlike some of the other films on this list which are confusing just to be confusing, Primer actually makes complete sense, if you’re willing to put enough time and effort into it to understand what’s going on.
Our ocean, particularly deep ocean, is one of the least explored places on earth. We know just a fraction of what plants and animals live under the waves, and barely understand the complexity of ocean ecosystems. One part of this is because we haven't spent as much time designing and building the sophisticated tools required for diving into the deepest parts of the sea as we have building space ships. That needs to change, and Sir Richard Branson wants to be a leading figure in that change. He has unveiled the Virgin Oceanic submarine, capable of diving into even the Mariana Trench. But this will be just one of five incredible trenches the submarine is set to explore.
VIrgin Oceanic is a five-journey proposal, which includes the Mariana Trench, the Puerto Rico Trench, the Diamantina Trench, the South Sandwich Trench and the Molloy Deep in the Arctic ocean.
The team will be Sir Richard Branson and Chris Welsh, an American explorer, and they'll be working in conjunction with Scripps Institution of Oceanography as well as other top marine science programs. And the submarine is designed by Graham Hawks. The craft will be able to dive 37,000 feet, or about 7 miles deep (about as terrifying a trip as orbiting the moon) and will be made of carbon fiber and titanium to resist the extraordinary pressure. Also, the craft will be able to dive at a rate of 350 feet per minute, which seems quite fast and a round-trip venture to the bottom of the Mariana Trench would take about five hours.
Of course, the features of the submarine that make it an exploration vessel are just as important, and it will have sensors and cameras for recording the voyages and taking measurements for scientists. Here's a video of the concept:
Virgin Oceanic states, "If we are successful in our mission with this innovative design of submarine, then we will have proven that a vehicle can be built to withstand the extreme pressures of the oceans and that it is possible to take humans at far reduced risks to the bottom of our Oceans... When we have evolved our capacity for exploration, we will unlock opportunities to discover vast areas of our planet that we currently have no knowledge of. This is our vision."
It's an inspiring vision to be sure. And if there is a team of cleaver and resourceful people who can help get explorers to the darkest places of the earth that no human has ever seen, I'm sure there will be innumerable grateful scientists and researchers excited to take part in the project.
On a recent episode of The History Channel’s Pawn Stars, the boys at the shop had an opportunity to buy a replica of the Michael Keaton “Batman” Batmobile. Upon hearing this news, several Fork Party Editors collapsed and defecated in their pants.
After they woke back up they found a golden glowing letter from the web content gods. It said “Ye are tasked with writing a post about lame things that could be made better with control of the Batmobile.” After passing out one more time the editors woke up, changed out of their jorts and began chiseling this piece out of their brain with icepicks… and beer… lots of beer.
The Laundromat
Nothing is worse than the laundromat. It’s life’s little ball-tap. You walk in and it’s filled to the brim with shady characters and people who look like 1930′s era gangsters on the lamb from the cats in blue. It seems dangerous also. Laundromats always kind of feel like a knife-fight is about to happen. It’s a generally unpleasant place. So could you imagine rollin up and blowing the 4 inch ash off of the cigarette being smoked by the 600lbs man who’s gut is hanging outta his stupid circa 2001 novelty shirt that says “Did you eat a bowl of stupid for breakfast?”- with the exhaust from the MOTHERF**KING BATMOBILE?! AWESOME!
Court
So in a drunken stupor you punched a man out on Friday night who you thought said Star Wars sucked. The police show up and they find the meth in your pocket or whatever. These actions can land you in a magical place called court. So on the big day you put your tie on and tuck your shirt in extra neatly. You make sure your shoes are extra shiny… then you use your car starter and fire up the Batmobile. You exit your place of residence, look up into the sky and put your sunglasses on. You slide across the hood of the Batmobile and hop into the hatch from the driver’s side. You do 145 mph all the way to the court house. Then you get there and park it at a meter. Even the judge would say… “Dude that was awesome — you’re free to go.”
The Grocery
Oh darn it. Your girlfriend just realized you are all out of nutmeg. Better make a trip to the supermarket. The supermarket is already kind of awesome. You get to be aggressive over checkout counters. People unleash hilariously awkward yelling and wrestling moves on their horribly behaved children. Hell, there’s even an old lady with a kooky eye thats handin’ out 2 inch wieners crudely pierced on a toothpick that you don’t even trust. What’s not to love? But envision for a second, the sheer joy that would be found in your soul while you intimidate someone backing out of a parking spot… WITH THE FREAKING BATMOBILE RUMBLIN’ ON THEIR BUMPER!
A Relative or Best Friend’s Wedding
Weddings can sometimes be a hassle. There’s lots of people you don’t know. You’ve got incredibly awkward dancing. And who can forget the drunk and bitter extended family? Nothing would blow all that chaos out of the water quite like the exhilarating feeling of making the bride cry because you drove the Batmobile to her most special day. You could then leave with one of the hot bridesmaids sitting shotgun…in the friggin’ Batmobile! VICTORY!
A Relative or Best Friend’s Funeral
For some reason funerals are always Bummerville U.S.A.! Lots of crying and speeches from people who weren’t formally trained to speak in public. There’s breakdowns and reminiscing. Then for some odd reason there is a ton of food prepared by obese elderly women. We here at Fork Party would want one of you to drive the Batmobile to our funerals… out of principal! That’s a true friend.
A Company Picnic
Your boss invited you to the “mandatory, without being mandatory” company picnic. All the people you loathe monday thru friday will now be sharing booze with you and partnering up with you in the potato sack race on your saturday. It is hard to find a more heinous event than a corporate get together. So think of the alpha male effect parking your Batmobile next to your boss’ Benz would have on him. You could show up late everyday for a year!
The County Fair
There isn’t much that the fair doesn’t offer in the way of unusual. You see rednecks of all different creeds, sizes and ride-preference. There are Carnies who make ends meet by slangin’ fake Oxy behind the bumper cars. You will learn the true horrors of poor dental care first hand at the county fair. So picture for a second how sweet it would be to blow back mullets by zippin by in the motherforkin’ Batmobile. Yeah, it doesn’t get any better than that.
So we all learned something very important today. That being of course, the vast amounts of epic badass owning the Batmobile would bring.
This absolutely stunning image was taken in Spain's Canary Islands by astrophotographer Juan Carlos Casado. The image combines nine different photos and reveals the band of our Milky Way galaxy in a way our unaided eyes never could.
A NASA astronomers explains how this photo reveals the full glory of the Milky Way:
In a clear sky from a dark location at the right time, a faint band of light is visible across the sky. This band is the disk of our spiral galaxy. Since we are inside this disk, the band appears to encircle the Earth. The above spectacular picture of the Milky Way arch, however, goes where the unaided eye cannot. The image is actually a deep digital fusion of nine photos that create a panorama fully 360 across. Taken recently in Teide National Park in Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain, the image includes the Teide volcano, visible near the image center, behind a volcanic landscape that includes many large rocks. Far behind these Earthly structures are many sky wonders that are visible to the unaided eye, such as the band of the Milky Way, the bright waxing Moon inside the arch, and the Pleiades open star cluster.
SpaceX teased the world last week with some rocket pr0n that hinted that the company was finally ready to reveal its Falcon Heavy mega rocket. Well, that’s what the company did minutes ago in a Washington DC press conference. World, meet the Falcon Heavy. She might take us back to the Moon.
The Falcon Heavy will be the most powerful and capable launch platform. At 52,000 kg the payload capability is nearly double that of the current heavy lifter, the Space Shuttle and its 24,400 kg carrying capacity. This super strength is thanks to a three banks of nine engines that combine to generate 17 MN (3,800,000 lb) of thrust at liftoff. SpaceX claims that the three core design makes the Falcon Heavy as powerful as a three stage rocket. (Like the Saturn V) Cross-feeding propellant from the side boosters leaves the center core the majority of the fuel even after the two boosters separate. This function is optional and can be disabled for lower-mass launches.
While impressive, it’s still half as powerful as the 44-year old Saturn V’s 7,648,000 lb record. Still, SpaceX’s CEO, Elon Musk stated that it’s powerful enough to send man back to the Moon and it very well do just that since the the Falcon Heavy complies with NASA’s human rating standards. The Falcon Heavy is expected to blast off for the first time in 2012. Space just got exciting again. [SpaceX]
The mobile phone has changed the lives of many people over the past 15 years, when it began to be used globally. But, few know that the first prototype was built 38 years ago in New York.
More specifically, the first phone call by a person walking on the streets was made in 1973, in the year when the U.S. Army announced its withdrawal from Vietnam.
On April 3, Martin Cooper, who was then 44 years, used the first prototype mobile phone on the streets of New York. As expected, the reaction of those who saw him with the device in hand was one of total bewilderment, confusion and “gape “. Cooper is now 82 and he told the Daily Mail publication about how Americans reacted:
“As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. I made numerous calls, including one where I crossed the street while talking to a New York radio reporter – probably one of the more dangerous things I have ever done in my life.”
But it had to pass a while until Mr. Cooper’s vision could have been applied at a global scale. Those where the years when only the rich ones could have phones inside their luxurious cars.
The first mobile phone that Martin Cooper created was weighing approximately 2.5 lbs., something that would now be regarded as a “brick”. Ten years have passed until Motorola managed to commercialize and distribute Dyna-TAC.
DynaTAC 8000X had the following characteristics:
weighed around 1lb
the lifespan of the battery in standby was up to 8 hours and 30 minutes of talking time
took 10 hours for a full charge
the price was around 3500$
had a length of 13.5 inchs- had 9 buttons: recall, clear, send, store, function, end, power, lock, volume
had a basic display and could store up to 30 numbers
If you grew up in a certain era, it’s likely that the first computer you ever had was a Commodore 64.
Sure, you probably played games like Impossible Mission and Boulder Dash, but the real magic was the built-in BASIC language. You might have typed in a program like this:
10 PRINT "WALYOU RULES!"
20 GOTO 10
This would print “WALYOU RULES!” over and over again until you hit the break key.
Commodore USA has acquired the rights to the original machines, including the Commodore 64.
This new version features the familiar brown-and-beige design of the original, but with 21st Century features. The machine is powered by a dual core Intel Atom processor. The keyboard features Cherry brand key switches, which give it a feel similar to those old IBM keyboards that real geeks swear by. In place of the traditional “Windows” key, there’s the famous Commodore “chicken head” logo. The new C64 doesn’t run Windows but a custom Linux distro, Commodore OS, instead. (It is possible, however, to dual-boot with Windows.) You can either boot into Commodore OS or directly into a classic Commodore 64 emulator to play your old favorites.
There will also be a media center application that will allow you to download classic C64 games. Commodore also plans to ship each system with a variety of open source software, including 3D games. They also promise to install a Microsoft Office-compatible suite. (This will likely be OpenOffice.org or its offshoot, LibreOffice.)
The machine comes with 2 gigs of RAM, expandable to 4 gigs.
Instead of that bulky old 1541 5.25″ disk drive, there’s a DVD/RW drive built into the side of the machine, with Blu-ray as an optional extra. There are the standard ports, including USB and Ethernet, card reader slots, and even an HDMI port so you can hook it up to your HDTV. Add the Blu-ray and you’ve got yourself a nice living room computer.
I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on this machine, both as a fan of Commodore and a fan of Linux and open source in general.
The authors believe it can be used to put "a megaphone in the system" to improve the treatment of injuries such as burns and leg ulcers.
Another UK expert said the research had potential.
Bone marrow was thought to play a role in repairing damaged skin, but the exact process was unknown.
Scientists at Osaka University and King's College London gave mice bone marrow cells that glow green - which can be tracked while moving round the body.
They then wounded the mice and some were given skin grafts.
Megaphone medicine
In mice without grafts, very few stem cells travelled to the wound. Those with grafts had many stem cells travelling to the wound.
Professor John McGrath, from King's College London, says grafted skin tissue has no blood vessels and therefore no oxygen. He says this environment leads to the release of HMGB1 - or what he called a 'Save Our Skin signal' - which results in stem cells moving to the wound.
He said: "It could have a very big impact on regenerative medicine for treating people with rare genetic illnesses and more common problems such as burns and ulcers.
"It could potentially revolutionise the management of wound healing."
He envisaged treatments in which a drug similar to HMGB1 would be injected near to a wound.
He said: "It would be like putting a megaphone in the system" bringing stem cells to the injury.
Researchers in Osaka are developing a drug to mimic HMGB1. They hope to begin animal testing by the end of the year and human clinical trials shortly afterwards.
Phil Stephens, professor of Cell Biology at Cardiff University, said: "I think it has potentially big clinical implications, but the key is potential if you can control it. You can't just chuck it on, you need the right amounts at the right time."
"Identifying the mechanism is a really important first step."
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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