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Selasa, 07 Januari 2014

The Biggest Alien in an Alien Game Stalks You in Isolation onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

Written By 12; About: The Biggest Alien in an Alien Game Stalks You in Isolation onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com on Selasa, 07 Januari 2014

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Biggest Alien in an Alien Game Stalks You in Isolation

The Biggest Alien in an Alien Game Stalks You in Isolation


The largest alien in an Alien video game is in Alien: Isolation, and it's the only one you'll face in the upcoming survival horror game from Creative Assembly. This looks like one of those games that will kill me about eleventy-billion times during the course of finishing it. So, get used to seeing a lot of this.


This 10-minute discussion features many good looks at the environment and gameplay while the studio explains the "haunted house in space," concept it's shooting for. "Most previous alien games have been about mowing aliens down en masse," says John from Creative Assembly. That would definitely describe Aliens: Colonial Marines, in which the xenomorphs were decidedly un-threatening.


Creative Assembly says they have been working on the game for three years. This video showcases PlayStation 4 gameplay; the game will also release on the Xbox One and PC.


To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com The Biggest Alien in an Alien Game Stalks You in Isolation

Kid turns three years of self-portraits into one amazing music video onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Kid turns three years of self-portraits into one amazing music video

Matt Perren has vision, patience, and good taste in music. The result of these talents is the above video, which features Perren transforming three years of self-portrait photos into a music video where he lipsyncs Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" while aging three years in less than a minute... and then back.


I'm giving him bonus points for not going the obvious route and choosing Bowie's "Changes."


[Via Laughing Squid]


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Kid turns three years of self-portraits into one amazing music video

Pornostreamingabmahnungsupdate: Bundesjustizministerium says Pornostreaming ist unbedenklich onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Pornostreamingabmahnungsupdate: Bundesjustizministerium says Pornostreaming ist unbedenklich

Gysi hatte ja kurz vor Weihnachten eine kleine Anfrage an die Bundesregierung bezüglich der Pornostreamingabmahnungen gestellt. Das Bundesjustizministerium hat nun geantwortet und zwar recht eindeutig: „Nutzer verletzen das Urheberrecht nicht, wenn sie Videos im Browser schauen.“


Damit dürften auch die Klagen gegen die Pornoabmahner Rückenwind erhalten, die FAZ hatte da jüngst ein Interview mit einem Anwalt, der in Eigeninitiative eine Anzeige gegen den Pornoabmahner Thomas Urmann erstattet hatte.



Inhaltlich ist die Einschätzung des Justizministeriums, das sich auf die Paragrafen 44a und 53 des Urheberrechtsgesetzes stützt, für Experten keine Überraschung – viele teilen die Meinung, dass Videostreams im Browser nicht als Raubkopie zu bewerten sind. Doch die Frage haben Gerichte in Deutschland nicht abschließend geklärt.


So schreibt auch das Justizministerium an die Abgeordneten: “Ob die Nutzung von Streaming-Angeboten eine Vervielfältigung darstellt, die Rechte von Urhebern oder Leistungsschutzberechtigten verletzt, ist allerdings bislang noch nicht durch die höchstrichterliche Rechtsprechung geklärt worden.” Letztlich könne die Frage “nur vom Europäischen Gerichtshof entschieden werden”.



Porno-Abmahnungen: Justizministerium hält Streaming für unbedenklich


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Pornostreamingabmahnungsupdate: Bundesjustizministerium says Pornostreaming ist unbedenklich

Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS

Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS S


Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata is using some of his time aboard the International Space Station to create art, namely spiral light paintings made utilizing the station's microgravity and a spinning top.


Wakata has been tweeting his most recent light paintings. First, he showed off the "Spiral Top" designed by light artist Takuro Osaka. The top has LEDs attached, and by taking long exposure photos, Wakata can show off the path of the LEDs through the ISS corridors.





This isn't the first time that Wakata and Osaka have collaborated on ISS art. Here a couple of pieces that Wakata made using an Osaka Spiral Top during his 2009 stay aboard the ISS (via the University of Tsukuba):


Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS S


Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS


[via Geekosystem]


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Japanese "Spiral Top" makes zero-gravity light paintings aboard the ISS

Our first glimpse of the dusty remnants of an exploding star onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Our first glimpse of the dusty remnants of an exploding star

Our first glimpse of the dusty remnants of an exploding star S


See that reddish cloud inside this supernova's shockwave? It's a massive plume of dust that formed shortly after the star ripped itself to shreds. The observation was made using the the brand new ALMA telescope — and it's one that will help explain how galaxies got their dusty and dim complexion.


The image above is an artistic impression of Supernova 1987A — the closest observed supernova explosion since Johannes Kepler's observation of a supernova inside the Milky Way in 1604. It's located about 160,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. The visualization shows the cold, inner regions of the exploded star's remnants (in red) containing a tremendous amount of dust. The outer shell, shown in lacy white and blue circles, is where the blast wave from the supernova is colliding with the envelope of gas ejected from the star just before it detonated.


Below is an actual composite image of 1987A as captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope, Hubble, and Chandra. Its remnants are seen in light of varying wavelengths, with red indicating newly formed dust in the center (ALMA), while green (Hubble) and blue (Chandra) show the expanding shock wave.


Our first glimpse of the dusty remnants of an exploding star S


A Remarkably Large Dust Mass


Galaxies contain a considerable amount of dust. Astronomers have speculated that supernovae are the primary source of that dust in the early Universe, but evidence has been lacking; scientists haven't been able to account for the sheer amount of dust found in young galaxies. But these new observations are reaffirming their suspicions.


"We have found a remarkably large dust mass concentrated in the central part of the ejecta from a relatively young and nearby supernova," said Remy Indebetouw, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the University of Virginia, in an ESO statement. "This is the first time we've been able to really image where the dust has formed, which is important in understanding the evolution of galaxies."


The dust formed as atoms of oxygen, carbon, and silicon bonded together in the cold central regions of the remnant. It's estimated that it now contains about 25% of the mass of the Sun in the newly formed dust. What's more, this dust hasn't mixed with the surrounding environment — so it's a very "pure" sample. Fascinatingly, this dust didn't even exist just a few decades ago.


Sending the Dust Into Interstellar Space


But most of this dust won't make it out alive, as what a supernova creates it can also destroy. The ESO explains:



As the shockwave from the initial explosion radiated out into space, it produced bright glowing rings of material, as seen in earlier observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. After hitting this envelope of gas, which was sloughed off by the progenitor red giant star as it neared the end of its life, a portion of this powerful explosion rebounded back towards the centre of the remnant. "At some point, this rebound shockwave will slam into these billowing clumps of freshly minted dust," said Indebetouw. "It's likely that some fraction of the dust will be blasted apart at that point. It's hard to predict exactly how much — maybe only a little, possibly a half or two thirds." If a good fraction survives and makes it into interstellar space, it could account for the copious dust astronomers detect in the early Universe.


"Really early galaxies are incredibly dusty and this dust plays a major role in the evolution of galaxies," said Mikako Matsuura of University College London, UK. "Today we know dust can be created in several ways, but in the early Universe most of it must have come from supernovae. We finally have direct evidence to support that theory."



[Via ESO]


Images: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Alexandra Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF) | ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. Angelich. Visible light image: the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. X-Ray image: The NASA Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Follow me on Twitter: @dvorsky

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Our first glimpse of the dusty remnants of an exploding star

Nimona creator is writing a comic about monster-flighting girl scouts onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Nimona creator is writing a comic about monster-flighting girl scouts

Nimona creator is writing a comic about monster-flighting girl scouts


Noelle Stevenson's Nimona is one of our favorite webcomics, a hilarious tale of a not-so-evil supervillain and his pushy, shapeshifting sidekick. Now Stevenson is headed into Buffy territory with a new print comic about girls at scout camp who fight monsters.


Comics publisher Boom! has announced the new series Lumberjanes, a full-color series published under the creator-owned Boom! Box imprint. Lumberjanes will be co-written by Stevenson and Grace Ellis, and drawn by Brooke Allen—although the promo image below is clearly Stevenson's work. Boom! describes the series as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets Gravity Falls," with five friends spending the summer at scout camp and dealing with pesky supernatural critter."


Nimona creator is writing a comic about monster-flighting girl scouts


As Nimona has a finite story to tell and will eventually (sniff) come to an end, I'm excited that we'll see Stevenson bringing her particular magic to another project so soon. You can check out preview images from Lumberjanes at ComicsAlliance, and we'll be seeing the comic itself in the spring.


BOOM! BOX ANNOUNCES STEVENSON, ELLIS AND ALLEN'S NEW 'LUMBERJANES' SERIES [ComicsAlliance]


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Nimona creator is writing a comic about monster-flighting girl scouts

You've sobered up. Now tell us what your New Year's goals really are. onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com You've sobered up. Now tell us what your New Year's goals really are.

You've sobered up. Now tell us what your New Year's goals really are.


Here in the west, we've just spent the past week sobering up from our New Year's celebrations. And now it's time to get down to brass tacks. What are your goals for 2014?


Image from Strange Days, about the distant future in the year 2000.


Tell us about goals you think you might actually reach, or goals that are your craziest fantasies for what you might do in the next twelve months. Even if you live in a country where New Year's is at a different time of year, you can join in too! Everybody is welcome to make resolutions — and, if you really want to participate in our glorious western tradition, you'll have to break at least one of them too.


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com You've sobered up. Now tell us what your New Year's goals really are.

Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon

Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon


In what may be the first discovery of its kind, scientists working in Mexico's Laguna Ojo de Liebre discovered the remains of recently deceased conjoined gray whale calves.


The conjoined twins probably didn't survive birth and may have been miscarried; the carcass is only about seven feet long, whereas normal calves emerge between 12 to 16 feet. American Cetacean Society researchers Alisa Schulman-Janiger also noted that the twins were underdeveloped.


Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon


There's no sign of the mother and the scientists are curious to learn what happened to her. The twins' body has been collected for further study.


Conjoined whales have been discovered before, including fin, sei, and minke whales. But this may be the first documented discovery of conjoined gray whales. Conjoined sharks have also been found.


Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon


[Via au.news.yahoo]


Images: Jesus Gomez, Farah Castillo, Guerrero Negro Verde.


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Conjoined Gray Whales Discovered in Baja California Lagoon

What's the most ridiculous part of this Justice League: War clip? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What's the most ridiculous part of this Justice League: War clip?

Is it when Batman starts questioning the alien-demon-thing about why he was at the docks, as if that's the important aspecy of an alien-demon-thing running around, or is that somewhere in the DC universe someone thought of, constructed and paid for a large sign that only said "FOOD"? I'm genuinely asking.


Justice League: War hits home video on February 4th.


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What's the most ridiculous part of this Justice League: War clip?

Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film?

Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film?


Katee Sackhoff wants to play anything in J.J. Abrams' Star Wars. The Paranormal Activity franchise has a plan that's dependent on a bunch more films getting made. And Michael Ealy explains why he hopes Almost Human never addresses race. Plus, photos from the first episodes of The 100, Helix, and Star-Crossed. Spoilers now!


Top image: Helix


Ant-Man


Edgar Wright posted a single image from Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and simply captioned it "Homework." The screencap is from the episode "To Steal an Ant-Man," based on "Marvel Premiere #47." Both of which feature future Ant-Man Scott Lang stealing Hank Pym's equipment and using it to commit crimes. This, combined with Wright's earlier comments that his idea for the film included both Hank Pym and Scott Lang and Marvel's Kevin Feige saying that it'll be a "heist" story, has led Coming Soon to wonder if Paul Rudd will actually be playing Scott Lang, rather than Hank Pym. [Coming Soon]




Star Wars


Katee Sackhoff seems to be actively campaigning for a part in the next Star Wars movie, saying:




If J.J. would listen, I would play a rock in the Star Wars movies. I think that they're fantastic, I think that he's a great choice, and I'm excited to see what happens in that world.



[Total Film]




Riddick


In the same interview, Sackhoff also said that she thinks her character, Dahl, is spinoff-ready:



Do you ever see your character getting a spin-off?


Absolutely, I love Dahl and I think she has a lot more to say. I think there's opportunity there to build off of what we've created for her.


Is that something that's a pipe dream, or is something you're actively pursuing?


Not actively pursuing, no, just because there are so many other things that are requiring my attention right now, but it has been broached, so it's something that... maybe not necessarily a movie but it's been brought up.


And Dahl didn't die, so her coming back in extra installments is more of a likelihood.



[Total Film]




Paranormal Activity



Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones writer and director Christopher Landon says that there's a plan developed for the film series, and that the ending for it all is further away than October's Paranormal Activity 5:



We've always been looking ahead. I'll say this much. There is a very specific end goal and I'm hoping we have enough time in the franchise to get there. We have a really big idea that's at the finish line but we need time to get there. So we're hoping the fans keep coming back and allow us to get them there.



While he won't give details of the plan, he did describe how it was created, telling Slashfilm:



The beginning of that started in Oren's movie. I don't think Oren realized it then, because when he made the first movie it felt like a stand alone movie, but then when we started making 2 and we started to see the potential and possibility there for a franchise, that's when the real think tank element came in to play and we really started to throw out crazy ideas. Then, over the course of the last couple movies, we came to a really good, interesting place.



[Slashfilm]




Transformers 4: Age of Extinction


A photo of Transformer bobbleheads has surfaced from Instagram member popwars. The photo shows Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee, and Drift. If these are part of the merchandise of the film, as suggested by popwars, then we can add Drift to the list of appearing Transformers. If they incorporate his backstory, then Drift will be a former-Decepticon-turned-Autobot that isn't trusted by the good guys, due to his past. [Tformers via Fashion & Style]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S




Legend of Hercules


Here's a new trailer. [via Coming Soon]




The LEGO Movie


Here are a pair of character posters. The first features a Batman closeup and the second a Superman one. [Coming Soon and Sci Fi Now]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S




Almost Human


According to star Karl Urban, the rest of the season will continue to see an evolution in Kennex and Dorian's relationship. He also explained that the show is meant to be fun, saying:



We know ideally the type of show that we want to be delivering on a consistent basis. It's got to be a fun show. We want the audience to have fun with the show. It's got to have great humor. And it has to have an element in it that has depth and meaning and makes you feel. And I would cite the episode called "Skin" as a good example because it was just a wonderful balance of all those things. And I believe if we can deliver that on a consistent basis, then we are succeeding in what we're trying to achieve.



His co-star Michael Ealy also pointed to "Skin" as an episode which sets up the rest of the show, but he's looking at how Dorian will change:



I think, because Dorian operates from a place of free will and he can learn certain behaviors and then react and act accordingly. What I don't want to lose on the 110th episode is I want him to still be learning. I just think it's important that, every episode, he learns, at minimum, one or two things. It's what makes him him. It's what makes him, to me, interesting in a lot of ways because, yes, there's some things that he can do physically that are superior to the human race, but he was designed to do that. But he was also designed to learn. He was also designed to watch and observe and pick up on what he sees and make decisions according based on that." He continued, "I never thought that Dorian would have perhaps a sexual connection. And after we did "Skin" and he got close to the other droid, he didn't quite know how to deal with what she was saying to him. That's something Dorian is going to have to rectify one day. So you'll see that in another episode, where he comes to terms with death and what it means and saying goodbye to someone. But it was also just a glimpse into the possibility of him connecting with another droid, another person, whatever it is, that could actually go beyond the realm of just "I know you." It could go into "I care about you." And that, to me, is fascinating.



Ealy also says that he doesn't want the show to discuss race, since he hopes that in 2048, humanity is "beyond that." He also opined that it would mean that Dorian's being seen as a person rather than a machine:



And I know that if Dorian were white, no one would ever say, "Let's talk about race on the show." But because he's black, someone is going to say, "Well, when are they going to address it? He's being played by a black actor. When are they going to address race?" And we had this conversation back and forth. And I was like, "I hope we don't ever address it because I think by not addressing it, we're addressing it." If you look at Dorian and you see a black man, you're not seeing the machine. You're seeing a human.



[TV Equals]




Teen Wolf


Arden Cho, who plays the recurring character of Kira, tried to nail down what her character knows and doesn't know about Beacon Hills:




When we first meet Kira, she's not exactly welcomed with open arms. Is it going to take a little while for everyone to warm up to her?


She's a little quirky (laughs). She doesn't mean any harm and she doesn't mean to be rude and butt in, but I think she's just excited. She's very curious and she wants to fit it. And sometimes people aren't really ready for that.


Especially with all the supernatural craziness going on in Beacon Hills.


Exactly. Unfortunately, Kira just has no idea what's really happening in Beacon Hills.


She seems very smart though. Should we keep our eye on her? Does she know more than she's letting on?


Kira definitely has interest in a lot of the Asian mythology and is interested in what she hears the gang talking about, but she doesn't really know. She knows what she knows from reading books and doing research, but when it comes down to it, what the guys are going through, she has no idea. It's going to be very interesting and scary for her.



More at the link. [Just Jared Jr.]




Intelligence



Here's an interview with Josh Holloway, Meghan Ory, and Marg Helgenberger. It seems like the show will be using the device of Halloway's Gabriel having a computer chip in his brain as a vehicle to explore how we communicate and relate to one another. [Buddy TV]




Helix


Here's a very short description of the pilot:



CDC pathologist Dr. Alan Farragut and his team come face-to-face with unimaginable horrors when they arrive at the Arctic Biosystems base to investigate a strange retrovirus.



More photos from the pilot can be found here. [Multipleverses]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S


Go here to see a complete gallery of posters and character photos. [Multipleverses]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S




Lost Girl


Here's the synopsis for episode 4.12.



Bo is reluctant to comply with her role in a prophecy foretold by an order of Knights, until advice from a surprising source helps her make a difficult decision.



[SpoilerTV]




The 100


Go here to see the cast's promo photos. [Multipleverses]


Below are some stills from the pilot. [Multipleverses]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film?


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film?




Star-Crossed


Go here for more photos from the pilot of the CW's latest sci-fi romance show. [Multipleverses]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S




Beauty and the Beast


A complete set of photos from episode 2.10, "Ancestors," are here. [SpoilerTV]


Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film? S




Additional reporting by Charlie Jane Anders and Emily Stamm


Related Related Related Related Related

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Is Edgar Wright adding more than one Ant-Man to his film?

Streams werden Teil der deutschen Musikcharts onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Streams werden Teil der deutschen Musikcharts

Seit heute werden Streams in die Berechnung der Charts einfließen. Einerseits bin ich gespannt, ob das irgendwelche Auswirkungen hat (ich befürchte: Keine.) Andererseits: Wann hab’ ich zum letzten mal in die deutschen Charts geguckt? 1986?



onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Streams werden Teil der deutschen Musikcharts

140 Kilo Koks in Aldis Bananenkisten onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com 140 Kilo Koks in Aldis Bananenkisten

„In mehreren Berliner Filialen des Discounters Aldi ist Kokain in Millionenwert entdeckt worden. Insgesamt sollen mehr als 140 Kilogramm Drogen in Bananenkisten versteckt gewesen sein.“



onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com 140 Kilo Koks in Aldis Bananenkisten

Don’t hug me, I’m scared 2 onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Don’t hug me, I’m scared 2

Don’t hug me, I’m scared 2 von Becky&Joe, ein „exclusive, surreal, musical film about understanding time.“ Den ersten Teil hatte ich vor zwei Jahren hier gebloggt.


Vorher auf Nerdcore:

Don’t hug me, I’m scared



onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Don’t hug me, I’m scared 2

Cosplaying while Trans onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Cosplaying while Trans


Großartiges Tumblr von und für Transgender Cosplayer, der Doktor rechts hat über Cosplay seine Trans-Identität gefunden und veranstaltet heute „panels about crossplay techniques at local anime cons“. The Daily Dot hat mehr Infos dazu:



Cosplaying While Trans (CWT) invites “all trans people, including trans women, trans men, non-binary people, and genderqueer individuals to submit their cosplays from their favorite media,” regardless of the gender of the character they’re playing.


CWT makes visible fans and geeks from every possible aspect of the gender spectrum—but perhaps the most immediately striking thing about CWT isn’t something visual, but rather something lingual. When people are empowered to self-identify their own designation, the descriptions you see cover everything from pangender to “nonbinary and sort of a boy.”



Cosplaying While Trans represents cosplayers across the gender spectrum


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Cosplaying while Trans

Zero-G Lightwriting in Space onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Zero-G Lightwriting in Space


Dr. Koichi Wakata hat ein Spielzeug namens Spiral Top mit auf die ISS gebracht und damit malt er jetzt mit Licht in Space. Prof. Takuro Osaka hat das 2009 schonmal gemacht, scheint so’n Ding japanischer Astronauten zu sein. Lightwriting in Space. Nice! (via Geekosystem)


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Zero-G Lightwriting in Space

Senin, 06 Januari 2014

Your brain is what makes broken escalators dangerous onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

Written By 12; About: Your brain is what makes broken escalators dangerous onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com on Senin, 06 Januari 2014

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Your brain is what makes broken escalators dangerous

Your brain is what makes broken escalators dangerous


Many people have a moment of nervousness when hopping onto a moving escalator. They should feel more nervous when they're getting on a broken one. Climbing on broken escalators invokes a weird dizziness that's literally called the Broken Escalator Effect.


It's strange to hear about other people's neuroses - mostly because I have so many that I find it odd when I run across one I don't have. One anxiety that always missed me was the moment of nerves some people experience when getting on an escalator or moving sidewalk. I step on them without fear, and was surprised to hear that people worry about missing a step or even being dragged into the escalator workings by their clothes.


My uncharacteristic lack of nerves might be why I've never experienced the Broken Escalator Effect, or Broken Escalator Phenomenon. A broken escalator is still perfectly functional as stairs, but often people report a strange feeling of dizziness or vertigo when they try to climb up a stationary escalator. The sense of wrongness is so strong that it becomes physical and they stagger or stumble.


Then again, maybe I've never experienced the effect because of my utterly characteristic lack of coordination. One group of researchers investigated the effect by studying people stepping onto a moving platform. The people stepped on the platform once while it was stationary, twenty times while it was moving, and then again while it was stationary. Each volunteer was told when the platform would move and when it would not, and each volunteer could plainly see it.


There was an obvious difference between each volunteer's boarding hop when the platform was stationary and when it was moving. When the platform was stationary, they moved at their regular walking pace. When it moved they stepped onto it more quickly, so it wouldn't throw them off balance and take their legs out from under them. Neither time was a challenge. But when the platform was stationary again, the volunteers stepped onto the platform more quickly than they did when it was originally stationary, but less quickly than they would if it were moving. Knowing that the platform "should" move made the people move at an unnatural pace. So perhaps people stepping onto a stationary escalator move differently than they would under any other circumstances, and that throws them off-balance.


Do you experience the effect? If not, are there any other situations during which you experience vertigo when the machines around you don't behave as they normally do?


Image: Jakub Halun


[Via The Broken Escalator Phenomenon.]


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Your brain is what makes broken escalators dangerous

Christopher Lee’s greatest horror movie is getting a director’s cut onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Christopher Lee’s greatest horror movie is getting a director’s cut

Christopher Lee’s greatest horror movie is getting a director’s cut


Yes, 40 years after The Wicker Man came out — and of course I mean the British movie, please pay no attention whatsoever to the Nic Cage clusterfuck of the same name — director Robin Hardy has returned to the horror masterpiece to make his definitive version. Plus Archer, Enterprise, Kurosawa and more!


• The Wicker Man


The 40th anniversary edition of Christopher Lee's disturbing horror classic gets a restored, all-new director's cut for Blu-ray, including two making-of featurettes and an interview with director Robin Hardy. But hardcore fans might want to try to import the three-disc "final cut" set, which including the theatrical release and way more extras.


• Archer: The Complete Season 4


You either love Archer or you don't, so there's little point in trying to praise what is one of the best animated shows on TV right now. Suffice it to say, this is worth watching and owning for the amazing Bob's Burgers crossover alone.


• Star Trek: Enterprise — The Complete Third Season


A.k.a. the good one. Now on Blu-ray, complete with a documentary on the future stories the show never got to tell.


• Being Human: The Complete Third Season


Aidan has the vampire plague, Sally is alive but rotting, and Josh is no longer a werewolf. Fun times!


• Throne of Blood


Akira Kurosawa's samurai-filled, blood-soaked adaptation of Shakespeare's play MacBeth. Including two different subtitle translations by a linguist and a Kurosawa expert, just for kicks.


• Big Ass Spider!


I guess this got delayed from a few weeks ago, but I'd like to point out that star Gren Grunberg wrote the first Amazon review on the page, and he gave his own movie five stars. Wow.


• Birth of the Living Dead


A documentary on how George Romero and a small film crew cobbled together the first Night of the Living Dead movie back in 1968, and how the movie became a phenomenon. As such, I will forgive its use of "of the Dead" in its title.


• The Hunters


An elite group of attractive, globe-trotting teens try to collect and protect the world's mythical and magical treasure from the guy who played Jennifer Garner's dad on Alias


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Christopher Lee’s greatest horror movie is getting a director’s cut

Has Creepypasta Reinvented Classic Folklore? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Has Creepypasta Reinvented Classic Folklore?

Has Creepypasta Reinvented Classic Folklore? S


If you ever read a story online about a haunted TV episode, you've already eaten the creepypasta. Scary viral stories, images, and vids, often very short, are creepypasta — some will scare you so much that they've been nicknamed "shitbrix." And they could be the closest thing we have to folklore in the twenty-first century.


Over at Aeon magazine, Will Wiles has a really fascinating meditation on creepypasta, where he describes some of the best examples of the medium. Perusing the collection at the Creepypasta Wiki, Wiles notes how closely they resemble H.P. Lovecraft's definition of weird fiction. In his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature," Lovecraft wrote:



A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain — a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daeligmons [demons] of unplumbed space.



Has Creepypasta Reinvented Classic Folklore? S


The Slender Man stories and images are perhaps the most famous creepypasta. You can see one of the first Slender Man images here, with a scary, tall, enigmatic figure lurking at the edge of a playground, menacing the children. Slender Man emerged from ideas shared among users on the Something Awful forums, spread like wildfire, and became so famous that there's a Slender Man movie in the works. The hallmark of creepypasta is that these are scary tales designed to be shared, and which often have no obvious original story behind them. French cultural critic Jean Baudrillard would call them simulacra, or copies without an original.


Though creepypasta can be about anything, they are often about storytelling itself. Writes Wiles in Aeon:



Creepypasta works best when the medium infects the message — in fact, when the messageboard infects the message, and you get a sense of the internet starting to talk about itself. Since these stories are shared on forums, why not use the direct and unliterary vernacular of the everyuser to tell your story, putting it as an anecdote? Which isn't to say that the story can't be subtle and intelligent. Kris Straub's 'Candle Cove', a 'lost TV show' story and certainly among the best creepypasta out there, does exactly this. An obscure children's television programme is discussed by members of 'NetNostalgia Forum — Television (local)'. Each message elaborates and clarifies the premise and cast of the show as users reminisce and correct one another. Candle Cove quickly begins to sound more like a nightmare than innocent entertainment, with a swivel-eyed, loose-jawed puppet called the Skin Taker, and unexplained screaming and crying. Indeed, users who recall bad dreams about the show are told by other users that those 'dreams' were real episodes. The last message in the thread delivers a chilling twist with Twilight Zone precision and force. And it's done without the '500 kids killed themselves!' excess that generally plagues the 'lost episode' subgenre.



Though horror movies like The Ring and Pulse have dealt with haunted videocassettes and internet chat rooms respectively, Wiles is right that creepypasta pretty much owns the "terrifying media" tale. He speculates that possibly this is because creepypasta itself is the ultimate expression of industrialized media culture:



Creepypasta represents a kind of industrialised refinement of [weird fiction] art. It is a networked effort to deliver dread in as efficient a way as possible, with the minimum of extraneous matter.



But I think there are two good reasons that creepypasta isn't "industrialized" at all. It's much more like traditional, pre-industrial folklore than anything else. First of all, a lot of creepypasta is not actually written down. It comes in the form of pictures or videos. This mirrors one of the definitions of folklore, which is generally passed along orally, as a spoken story.


Often, folklorists will contrast the world of "orality" with the world of "literacy." Stories are shared differently in an oral culture, remaining fluid and ever-changing with each retelling. In a literate culture, stories are fixed — once they are written down, they can be copied but are rarely transformed. Though pictures are visual rather than oral, I think they make creepypasta more of a folk phenomenon than an industrial one.


This becomes especially obvious when you consider that creepypasta stories — whether visual or written — are always undergoing transformation. Certainly some stories are copy/pasted over and over, but many of them are changed and altered and "retold" in new ways. Folklorists call the different versions of a familiar story "variants." Many folk tales have regional variants where different characters are highlighted, the ending is changed, heroes are killed rather than surviving, and so on. You can even track the spread of a story across a region by investigating the evolutionary tree of different variants.


Creepypasta like Slender Man are perfect examples of variants. There are thousands of different Slender Man pictures, which require absolutely no literacy to understand. And there are many variants on the familiar story. An even more obvious example of creepypasta variants on "The Holders" stories, which are about hundreds of haunted objects — all of which begin with the phrase "In any city, in any country, go to any mental institution or halfway house you can get yourself to."


The pre-literate, pre-industrial world that was the heyday of folklore has disappeared into history. But online, creepypasta has reinvented some of its most enduring tropes. Somehow, in our post-industrial world, folk tales make sense again.


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Has Creepypasta Reinvented Classic Folklore?

Why you should learn to love the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Why you should learn to love the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion

Why you should learn to love the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion S


This Friday, the third Evangelion movie (of four) comes out, which makes us wonder how the fourth movie is going to end. A lot of people complain about the ending of the original ending of the anime series, but today some people argued that it's actually way underrated.


Over in our list of 2014's science fiction and fantasy movies, buttnothing wrote:



I love the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion. It took a damn cool anime series and raised it to the level of art. I get why someone looking for a typical action series ending would hate on it, but surely there's other people out there who enjoy the mind melting direction they went?


So yeh, if they do change the ending, I hope they don't do it just to try to appease those who hate on the original.



And then Rogue5211 offers an explanation of what that somewhat controversial ending was really about, and why it was so cheaply made:



NGE is as much a case study of depression as it is a television series about giant robots. The writer/director, who'd struggled with it all of his life, descended deeper and deeper into it as the show went on, which is why it eventually because somber and hopeless. The studio hadn't been happy with this, they wanted a show about vaguely Christian giant robots, and started cutting his budget. The last two episodes almost didn't exist at all, and Anno had to resort to extreme measures to get them out at all, which is why there are so many recycled scenes, text screens, and (cheap) artistic touches.


When they finally did a big budget version of those episodes, the movie End of Evangelion, it was still depressing and dark and weird as hell, but had more giant robot fights.


It should also be noted that FL/CL came out of NGE, largely to give the crew something to cut loose and be goofy with.


Anno has been under treatment for his depression for a decade now, and is taking the opportunity the revisited movies are giving him to address the things he felt he got wrong the first time. You should expect a different ending.



Do you like the ending of Neon Genesis Evangelion? In either case, what would you hope to see happen differently in the new movies?


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com Why you should learn to love the ending to Neon Genesis Evangelion

What happens if you gender-swap characters when reading to your kids? onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com

onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What happens if you gender-swap characters when reading to your kids?

What happens if you gender-swap characters when reading to your kids?


If you switch the genders of characters around while reading to your kids, do they get confused? Or do they just take it for granted that Tolkien was writing The Hobbit about a girl named Bilbo?


Image by Lanimalu.


Over at Last Word on Nothing, Michelle Nijhuis explains what she did to change The Hobbit around, and how easy it turned out to be:



And you know what? The switch was easy. Bilbo, it turns out, makes a terrific heroine. She's tough, resourceful, humble, funny, and uses her wits to make off with a spectacular piece of jewelry. Perhaps most importantly, she never makes an issue of her gender—and neither does anyone else....


I started to fool around with other books and their major and minor characters, sometimes by request and sometimes not. InThe Secret Garden, Dickon, the animal-loving adventurer who rescues Mistress Mary, became Mary's best friend Diana. In the Finn Family Moomintroll books, the Snork Maiden and her brother the Snork traded genders. In the Narnia series, Peter Pevensie and his sister Susan made the pronoun switch.



To learn more about what she found out from this experiment, and how it made these books better, check out her essay. [via David Brin]


onlinecollegedegreee.blogspot.com What happens if you gender-swap characters when reading to your kids?