This mysterious video by District 9 director Neill Blomkamp was apparently discovered in the latest iPad issue of Wired magazine (issue number 18.12). Could this be for an upcoming movie by Mr. Blomkamp?
Here is what I’ve discovered. 18.12 is the number of the issue of WiReD that this video appears in. I did some searching and found out that a Beverly Hills-based company named Sable Productions Ltd. filed for the trademark “AGM Heartland” on October 18th 2010. The trademark use is labeled as:
Entertainment services by way of an online website with video, audio and textual content and images featuring characters and storylines about a fictional genetic engineering company that produces genetically engineered and altered organisms
The fact that it mentions only online and not theatrical or television makes me think it’s not related to a film project… but you never know. My guess is it’s for some kind of online narrative. What do you think?
The United States Department of Defense has put money into airborne snake research. But sadly it doesn’t involve hiring Samuel L. Jackson to help train the Air Force against unexpected passengers.
Instead the funding, which comes from the DoDs Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (which is known for backing some pretty unusual research), went to Jake Socha of Virginia Tech. He’s been working on a mathematical model to explain why five different species of snakes in South Asia are able to stay airborne when leaping between treetops as far as 79 feet apart.
The snakes, from the genus Chrysopelea, are among the few (if not the only) creatures to fly without either wings or a similar body part. It turns out the answer to the puzzle is fairly simple: the entire snake’s body acts as if it were a single wing.
The movement is closer to gliding that full-scale flying, but combines elements of the two. Through a combination of the body flattening out and then adjusting itself to a suitable angle, the snakes are able to create a situation where the aerodynamic force is stronger than gravity, meaning the snakes actually move upwards immediately after “launch.”
This effect quickly wears off, and there’s never actually a point where the two forces are equal and the snake is gliding horizontally. Instead it quickly switches to downwards gliding which is why, over any distance of note, the “flying” has to be from a taller tree to a shorter one.
As for what DARPA hopes to get from the work, officials are remaining tight-lipped. One theory is that it could be used to give insight into possible designs for unmanned airborne vehicles that would require less power.
Sure, budgeting is important. This is a touch economy. But we can dream, right? Without dreams, we just can’t get by!
So, rather than suggest all these economical options for the holiday season, I thought I’d compile a list of the kind of gifts every geek dreams of, and if given the opportunity would probably snatch up in a heart beat. You might need a crane to move some of these, but I suspect for many of you, it would be totally worth it.
Microsoft Surface – No, I haven’t turned to a total Microsoft fangirl. However, the applications for this are just mind blowing. I’m sure you’ve all seen the possibilities when it comes to D&D and gaming in general. And while the endless delight of owning such a piece of technology would be quite life-changing, keep in mind the steep price tag: over 12K, just to start, not counting shipping.
Geek Chic Tables – While not quite as expensive as the Surface, the tables from Geek Chic are the low-tech version of a geek surface dream. I was lucky enough to see these in action at PAX East last year, and let me tell you, they are beautiful. Not only are they totally handcrafted, and coupled with a marvelous steampunk aesthetic, but they are also superior multitaskers. If your house is anything like ours, flexibility of furniture is essential, and no place moreso than the kitchen or dining room table. Is it wrong that our first requirement for a table is that it can accommodate Arkham Horror? Anyway, with Geek Chic tables, you don’t have to sacrifice form for function. They’re gorgeous. And honestly, even with the $1500+ price tag (check out the Ethan Allen catalog if you think that’s high for furniture!) it’s not that bad, for the Emissary design, anyway. The Sultan (see the image below), as befitting of its name, starts at $8850. But it is heirloom quality. You know, so you can bequeath it.
Got a Tolkien geek in your midst? Have a ton of expendable income? How about a first edition hardback of The Lord of the Rings. Believe it or not, that’ll set you back five times what the Microsoft Surface costs. Currently one is listed on Alibris for $62,000. That’s a whole lot of pipeweed and mushrooms. If the books are way out of your price range, consider an official Gondorian arrow from the films. That’ll only cost you about a 800 GBP.
Antiquities. I mean, why bother with the movie stuff if you can go all-out ancient world? For a few grand you can purchase a piece of history, quite literally. The Web is filled with companies hocking wares from all around the world, and while I wouldn’t vouch that they’re all legit (you might want to steer clear of eBay…) there are some really gorgeous antiquities to be had. I inherited a little Roman statuette from my great-aunt, and it’s not only a point of conversation among our geekier guests, it’s also a neat connection from me to a much older time. Granted, I think the story goes that my great-grandfather “picked it up” “somewhere in Italy” but, hey, that’s history, right?
I’ll admit, being a relative newbie to the PC party, I’m not sure how awesome Alienware computers are. But at 4K, well, they better be pretty awesome. I mean, they should do more than play games at that price: how about fold laundry? Make dinner? Do your taxes? Clean the bathrooms? Either way, they are pretty sweet looking.
What are your geek dream gifts? If money was no limitation, what would you do? Go to space? Buy your own personal ornithopter?
Our friends from Epic Meal Time are back with another crazy recipe, and this one should be just perfect for the upcoming Thanksgiving celebration! Behold the TurBaconEpic: A bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a bird in a pig.
Can you believe that this thing amounts for 79,046 calories and 6,892g of fat? If you take into account that 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories, the TurBaconEpic should put an extra 22 pounds of fat in the bellies of these poor folks. Ouch.
Seems like everyone wants to impersonate R2-D2 these days. First, there was the swimsuit, and now, the hat and dress combo. Next up, an R2-D2 snowsuit?
For those Huskateers out there, StarCraft 2 shout caster Husky Starcraft celebrates his 300,000’th subscription with this awesome collaboration with Kurt Hugo Schneider. Enjoy!
One of the reasons I write so much about ereaders (without actually owning one) is because I feel like they represent something truly different in publishing, an industry that, until relatively recently, hasn’t changed a heck of a lot in the last hundred years. In the last decade, I’ve gone from total writer n00b to journeyman author, but it hasn’t been easy. The industry is being turned upside down, the recession is affecting everything, and everyone has an opinion but there’s not much of a consensus. Making progress is tough.
I read this piece this morning on O’Reilly by Mac Slocum, and it definitely speaks to my hopes of the future of publishing. From the get-go, I wanted to write things that were open-ended: I wanted to create worlds wherein other people were free to play, to write content that could be easily shared (sorta shameless plug: I released a draft one of my first books, The Aldersgate a few years ago as a podcast, all with Creative Commons licensing).
But the reality of my hopes doesn’t really gel with the model of traditional publishing. And that’s been something I’ve struggled with for a long time. I’ve often if I’d done the right thing with the podcast, and have debated whether or not I should do it again (so far I haven’t).
Anyway, Slocum was inspired to write his post by comments from Russel Jones, also at O’Reilly. Jones was pontificating on the future of publishing, and said:
The “book” now consists of whatever content you provide for readers to download — and if you can update them automatically, that’s not even exactly true. For example, you could create a book that updates constantly, a book that consists entirely of reader input, a book that is actually a series of links, a book that readers interact with, a book that grows over time, and, of course, book readers that collect their own metadata. Books that are applications, books that are interactive tours. Books where the ending (or the whole story) changes as people read them…
In this model, stories are plastic: they change and move and fluctuate with the input of readers, writers, editors. They evolve in a very short time. And evolution is certainly a huge component of storytelling, considering so many stories simply rehash older ones (take the Arthurian canon, for instance, and trace its beginning in Celtic and Welsh mythology to today’s incarnations… quite a trip in the evolution of a narrative). Not only are the stories changing, but they’re interactive. Writers and readers engage in dialogue like never before. And that’s immensely important.
I like what Slocum talks about, too. He believes that with new thinking, real innovation can be had. And in publishing, a huge part of that is making things public. This, of course, is where the publishing industry really gets their collective bookmarks up their spines. It just flies in the face of the traditional model, making “rights” and “ownership” an absolute nightmare.
Slocum explains:
That’s a huge change from what most of us are used to. From early on, we’re trained to create editions: an essay, a book, a magazine, a newspaper, a movie, a game, etc. Those are projects with defined beginnings and endings. But digital content doesn’t really exist in an edition-based world. It moves, it flows. It gets chunked up, mashed up, and recombined. It can be copied and pasted at will (whether you like it or not). It can be added to. It can be deleted from. It hibernates and reappears unexpectedly months or years later.
Whether or not the industry is ready — and whether or not readers and creators are ready — the face of how we perceive published materials is changing quickly. I think it’s a chance for plenty of opportunity for writers — and non-writers — to produce, consume, and interact with content like never before. I’m of a mind that, as we enter into the next decade, we’re going to be seeing a lot more examples of writers finding their voices online, through digital media, and then to print, reaching an audience before they go through the tedium of traditional publishing venues. Sure, not all of it will be top-notch, but inevitably the good stuff will rise to the top. It’s crowd-sourcing for reading, in a way.
How about you? Do you view digital books the same as traditional print? Do you feel more vested in something if you’ve got a window into the creative process? Does the idea of interactive writing attract you?
News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch’s international media giant, is reportedly working on an iPad-only newspaper that won’t exist in printed form.
Murdoch’s main involvement in online technology to date has been putting some of his leading titles behind a subscription-only “paywall”, making the newspapers available to paying users only. So far that project has attracted customers but, even with the increased attractiveness of a focused audience for advertisers, it doesn’t appear the subscription fees have made up for the loss in ad revenue of shutting out the vast majority of site visitors.
The precise details of the new project vary depending on the source. (If you think journalists are gossipmongers, you should see the way they talk about their own industry.) The most consistently reported points are that it will be known as The Daily, be produced from the company’s Manhattan office, and debut in December or January.
The newspaper — if you can call an electronic-only product a newspaper — is said to have a staff of 100 and a start-up budget of $30 million. It will syndicate some content from other News Corporation titles, but most of the material will be original. Reportedly readers will have to pay either 99c a week or $50 a year, though the latter figure makes little sense as a subscription discount.
Apple’s involvement in the product, if any, appears to have been talked up through the rumor mill. One British newspaper referred to reports that Steve Jobs was a “major fan” of Rupert Murdoch, which sounds unlikely from a purely political perspective. That somehow became enhanced in other reports until it was being rumored that Apple engineers were helping out on the project to ensure not only compatibility, but that the newspaper made full use of the technology.
There are also conflicting reports about whether the publication will be available on other tablet devices. Even if that does happen, I’d expect it to come after the launch, simply because of the need to produce separate applications.
As fascinating as it will be from a technology and journalism perspective to see a title designed specifically for the iPad rather than adapted from print, for me the numbers simply don’t add up. The $30 million budget is the equivalent of 600,000 annual $50 subscriptions. Depending on how the budget accounts for running costs, that could of course be, for example, met with 200,000 customers over three years.
But even that would be 2.6% of the entire iPad audience worldwide. Take into account that 21st century newspapers traditionally aim a specific audience, either geographical or political, and it’s hard to see how — even with whatever advertising the project can raise — such a project can turn a profit any time soon. Then again, when your company has assets of more than $50 billion, such matters aren’t always a major concern.
Got a Tolkien geek in your midst? Have a ton of expendable income? How about a first edition hardback of The Lord of the Rings. Believe it or not, that’ll set you back five times what the Microsoft Surface costs. Currently one is listed on
