First, there was that Luke Cage trailer featuring Isaiah Mustafa, and now Eric Thomas? Who do you guys think would be the best suited to play the part of the black hero?
[Source]
Science Made Simple [Video]
One of the biggest hurdles to learning scientific concepts is (and has always been) getting a handle on the jargon. That’s where Science Made Simple comes in. This video focuses of quantum physics, genetic modification and superconductors. According to Jacob Slack, the series’ director, there are “15 animated interstitials produced for TVNZ 7, aimed at demystifying commonly used, but little understood, scientific and technological jargon. The series focuses on the sort of words viewers may read in the newspaper, but don’t always understand.”
Teleportation Shots (Portal Shots)
Teleportation Shots (Portal Shots)
First Shot
2/3 shot Gold Tequila
1/3 shot Orange Juice
Second Shot
2/3 shot lime juice or Roses lime
1/3 shot Bol Blue
Directions: Take the first shot, immediately take the second shot.
“In laymen’s terms, speedy thing go in, speedy thing comes out.”
Source: Scrollbar.dk (The Portal Bar, which seems to have disappeared from the net somehow)
Raise Your Glass: The Cosplay Edition [Music Video]
Ok, now that was pretty awesome!
[Youtube]
Kindle Textbook Rentals Mean Major Student Savings
Amazon has announced a new twist on its Kindle book sales business: textbook rental for students.
The service will allow users to rent a book for between 30 and 360 days. Full pricing isn’t available but the cheapest option (presumably the 30 day rental) will start at around 20 percent of the printed edition.
While prices vary, that looks to mean an average of around a third of the price to buy the same title in Kindle form. Users will be able to extend their rental period, including by as little as a day (great news for slackers) and also have the option to buy the title outright if they wish.
At the moment there doesn’t seem to be any clear pattern as to which titles will be available for rent. However, Amazon’s guide to ordering gives an example of a book that’s $184.99 in hardback, $109.20 to buy on the Kindle, and a starting price of $40.54 to rent. That may indicate its targeting the market for particularly expensive books such as medicine, accountancy and law, where the potential savings really do add up.
As with all Kindle books, user are able to make notes “on” the pages of the books. These will be accessible on all devices (including PC, tablet and smartphone apps) and will remain stored after the rental period ends, though of course the user will need to buy or rent the title again to access the notes.
Rivals Barnes & Noble already offer digital textbook rentals, but these only work on a special PC or Mac application: the company says textbooks aren’t suitable for reading on its NOOK device or smartphones.
There certainly should be a market for the rentals: various surveys across the past few years suggest textbook prices have risen far in excess of inflation, with the average annual cost to students approaching a thousand dollars. Since 2010, textbook publishers have been banned from selling books bundled with workbooks or multimedia discs unless they also sell the textbook alone at a cheaper price.
Study: Parents are Facebook Lurkers [Infographic]
According to a recent survey of parents using social media, 55% say they’re only on Facebook and Twitter to monitor their children’s online activities, with another 5% admitting they’d do the same–if they knew how.
Eleven percent of parents polled set up their Facebook accounts purely to “snoop” on Jim and Jane, 15-percent have tried to Friend their children (Thanks Mom), with 4-percent of those requests being rejected. Not surprisingly, 13-percent have resorted to logging onto friends accounts in order to check up on their children.
When asked to explain their behavior, 36-percent blamed their “overprotective” parental instincts, where as 14-percent said they were just being “nosey”. A sad 24-percent confessed that Facebook was the only way they could find out what their sons and daughters were up to, while 6-percent found that the social networking site allowed them to avoid having “awkward conversations” with their offspring.
The last statistic is perhaps the most revealing and unfortunate; as much as I’d have hated my Mom friending me on Facebook while I was still in high school, I’d hate even more to have a Mom who stalked me online to avoid talking to me.
UBYKA Army: Cyborg Bugs at War
Early in the 21st century, DARPA entered the UBYKA project with a singular goal: arm insects with programmable micro-mechanical systems and micro-weapons platforms, then send them out to covertly and effectively infiltrate the strongholds of warring nations. These UBYKA cyborg animals were superior in strength and agility, enhanced with the latest technologies, and as War Terminators, they were good. But still, war persisted.
Enter UBYKA 2.0 – Primary objective: END WAR.
UBYKA cyborg insects are upgraded; they now possess advanced artificial intelligence, access to classified documents and locations systems to plan and optimize a strategic death blow to embattled nations. But something happens. There is only one effective strategy for ending all war: eradicate the human race.
The UBYKA ARMY divides itself into SKY FORCE and EARTH FORCE, air and land units with a unified goal:
Eradicate the human race and bring peace to planet earth.
This was not called genocide.
This was called recalibration.
*****
It’s a compelling bit of fiction, and the story behind Sydney based conceptual artist Dean Christ’s collection of museum quality preserved insects outfitted with diecast metal aircraft wings, collector’s model engine parts, tactical gear, and a bevy of accessories to create micro-scale war(ending) machines.
The insects are brilliant works of art, mashing the specialization of nature with the human affinity for technological enhancement. The fictional UBYKA account adds an air of relevance, albeit a bit far-fetched. At any rate, the UBYKA Army project is interesting and imaginative.
In a bit of somewhat alarmist futures-selling, “Christ points out that plugging into the brains of insects would be far easier than building robots and programming them to move like insects. Though he is not suggesting that this course of action would be wise, his sculptures underline what could very well come to be in the future of military technology.”
I don’t put a lot of stock in that statement or the idea. but I do admire Dean Christ’s attention to detail and creativity. These are only a handful of the specimens in Christ’s collection. If you’d like to read more about UBYKA Studio and Dean Christ’s work (and get some serious details on each unit of the UBYKA Army), check out the website. Each piece is for sale, as of the time of this posting.
[UBYKA ARMY via WebUrbanist]
X-Men Born This Way: The Music Video
Remember that guy dressed as Magneto we featured a month ago who sang (rather badly I must say) a funny parody of Lady Gaga’s born this way? Well geeks, our “talented” friend is back with the same song, but this time, not only is he singing the tune a little better, but he’s doing it on top of a “real” music video. Check it out:
[Youtube]