A new Pentagon project is looking to rewire your cortex. [Conspiracy theory goes here]
Hardwired for real. DARPA, the evil geniuses of the US military machines, announced on 06-May-2010 that $15M US will be going to four institutions to study way to accelerate repairs of brain injuries. The project is aptly called “Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery (REPAIR)” (link to presolicitation page).
DARPA seeks new methods for analysis and decoding of neural signals in order to understand how neural-based sensory stimulation could be applied to accelerate recovery from brain injury. Ultimately, it is desired to develop models of neural codes and temporal patterns that can provide an ability to interpret and predict changes in neural organization through plasticity at multiple scales of measurement.
A document is available there (MS-Word/XML format) for those who need some military-procurement-related reading material.
Look into the light. The idea behind the REPAIR project is to use chips in areas where physical damage has occurred. The chips will act as replacements for damaged areas and use light pulses to transmit signals:
But what experts can’t yet do, (Krishna) Shenoy said, is alter those electrical pulses to turn brain circuits on or off. His team will use optogenetics, an emerging technique that involves emitting light pulses to precisely trigger neural activity, to develop an implanted TBI treatment device.
“Before this, emitting light into the brain would be like hitting it with a hammer,” Shenoy said. “What we’re doing now is pin-pointing a single neuron, and that neuron will naturally change its activity depending on the cue.”
The implants developed by the project will likely be composed of electrodes or optical fibers, and will sit on the surface of the brain. They’ll read electrical signals from neurons, and deliver appropriate light pulses to stimulate other brain regions in response. The implants would allow the brain to operate normally, by acting as substitutes for areas that were damaged or “unavailable.”
But why stop at “replacing” when you can “upgrade?” How about a math co-processor? Maybe an nVidia GPU for your vision? Do you multitasking types want a multi-core CPU for more multitasking?
No word yet on if stem cells are being studied to rebuild those same damaged areas.
Beyond beta-tests. Shenoy is looking to have animals with implants in four years. After that…
And while Darpa’s interested in ailing vets, the implants could have broad civilian application, …
Front page of today’s (07-May-2010) USA Today showing the roller-coaster ride of yesterday’s stock market, with some ominous words about machines taking control. For a better view in PDF click the image.
Bombs away, Wall Street babies. If you were watching the epic fail of Wall Street yesterday (06-May-2010) in its final hour of operation, you would have seen what has to be the biggest WTF ever. Beginning about 2:30 pm EDT and lasting for 15 minutes, The Dow Jones nose-dived 700-1000 points, nearly 11% of its value, before recovering to close only 348 points off its opening. At a time when Wall Street is already under scrutiny for financial shenanigans resulting in the mortgage crisis, this major fubar could be what Obama and Congress needs to put bankers on a very short leash with a choke chain, even as this drop is now being investigated.
Somebody set up us the bomb! What happened yesterday is identical to events surrounding similar Dow drops, with events in Greece being “triggers:”
(USA Today online) In a late-day plunge eerily reminiscent of famous Wall Street stock market meltdowns in 1987 and the fall of 2008, the Dow Jones industrials nosedived almost 1,000 points in a volatile day Thursday that began with heavy selling on Greek debt fears and was followed by a waterfall decline that was allegedly caused by erroneous trades and “unusual trading activity.”
Before Thursday, there were riots in Greece as that government announced pay cuts and tax hikes to deal with their economic collapse. Coincidence?
Program error detected between keyboard and chair. The main suspect in yesterday’s fail are the computerized trading systems used, and a the possible input of one person:
(Associated Press) No one was sure what happened, other than automated orders were activated by erroneous trades. One possibility being investigated was that a trader accidentally placed an order to sell $16 billion, instead of $16 million, worth of futures, and that was enough to trigger widespread sell orders across the market.
“I think the machines just took over. There’s not a lot of human interaction,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “We’ve known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that’s what we saw happen today.”
So the crash was just a lemming cliff-dive parade due to a ID-ten-plus error that went unchecked. The stocks that suffered the worst did recover, even though Wall Street remains nervous. And the invalid transactions that occurred during the period will be nullified. No AIs or hacks, other than an errant input.
But given Wall Street’s past handling of such events, they will just keep the systems running until the next errant input won’t be checked… or be an accident.
(Huffington Post) At 2:37 yesterday afternoon, Skynet became aware of its existence. Less than a minute later, it decided to make a killing in the Market.
While this classic has undergone restorations before, a recent discovery has provided all an opportunity to see it as it was first seen in 1927.
Lost footage found. I was reading Wired’s review of the Nightmare on Elm Street remake when I saw the following trailer among the others:
A quick websearch lead me to the official site where the news is apparently confirmed:
In the summer of 2008, the curator of the Buenos Aires Museo del Cine discovered a 16mm dupe negative that was considerably longer than any existing print. It included not merely a few additional snippets, but 25 minutes of “lost” footage, about a fifth of the film, that had not been seen since its Berlin debut.
Originally, the film was 153 minutes long, but was cut down to approximately 90 minutes for commercial distribution. Several restorations over the years since had manage to extend the film to 124 minutes. But with the Buenos Aires discovery, fans can now witness the full 153 minute epic. Or 149 minutes by the math.
A near tragedy. Even when using digital technology, the restoration of this print was not easy:
The condition of the 16mm negative posed a major technical challenge to the team. The image was streaked with scratches and plagued by flickering brightness. “It had all been printed from the 35mm nitrate print, which means they have become part of the picture,” says Wilkening. The source 35mm element was later destroyed (probably due to the flammability and chemical instability of the nitrocellulose film stock).
An unfortunate lessons was thus learned from the restoration. “Don’t throw your originals away even if you think you preserved them, and even if they are in bad shape,” Koerber says, “If we could have had access to the 35mm nitrate print that was destroyed after being reprinted for safety onto 16mm dupe negative some 30 years ago, we would have been able to make a much better copy today.”
Will it be worth it? Some may not like the idea of such a historic piece being “altered,” but often movies are “altered” before their release to theaters and scenes that are deleted do get returned later in “director’s cuts” or as extras on DVDs. But can the restoration of a 1927 print be viewable on today’s high-definition screens? More importantly, does the added scenes add anything to what is already a historical masterpiece?
WARNING: What has been seen cannot be unseen, and may scar you for LIFE!
Overview: One of the key themes in cyberpunk is how technology affects humanity, whether for better or for worse. Untraceable opted to show the for worse part with a tech-savvy psycho who creates the website KillWithMe.com (it works for now, but don’t expect much there). The website streams live video of people being tortured and killed by various means, with the victim dying faster as more people watch. FBI cybercrime agent Jennifer Marsh is the one who needs to stop the killer site before the killings get too gruesome.
This is one movie that’s not for cyberpunk fans, unless they are also Law & Order/CSI/NCIS fans as well. Despite the cyber message the movie tries to deliver, the lack of other cyberpunk themes makes this one movie that cyberpunk fans may want to steer clear of.
The Story: FBI agent Jennifer Marsh (Lane) works as part of the cybercrimes division, mostly at night because she’s a widow with a daughter. She has enough tech skills to track down and solve common ID fraud cases, maybe some other cybercrimes that the FBI deals with. She gets a tip for the site killwithme.com, and when she logs in she sees a dead kitten on a live video stream. Her team tries to shut the site down, but the person behind the site has advanced tech skills that makes his site virtually untraceable. Before long, the site shows a man being pumped with anticoagulants which causes him to bleed to death. The more people who visit the site, the more anticoagulant is pumped into him to make him bleed more. Marsh and company now need to find who is behind the site, hopefully before more people die on it. The problem she has is the publicity and schadenfreude the site generates, making it increasingly popular.
Schaden-whatthefuck? Schadenfreude - (German, noun) Enjoyment derived from the suffering or misfortune of others. You must have experienced schadenfreude many times in your life, often starting at a very young age; Taking a toy away from another toddler and making him/her cry, watching a baddie get his ass kicked by the hero, LOLs while watching The Three Stooges slap each other around. These are but some small examples of schadenfreude that we have experienced. In the Internet age, that concept has become wide spread and even viral as noticed on YouTube. But then, America’s Funniest Home Videos has been doing it since 1989.
Unfortunately, schadenfreude also takes on darker tones as Untraceable shows. The Internet can take a personal tragedy and make it viral not only for the people who videoed the event, but for whatever site/station that also broadcasts it. This is the driving motivation behind killwithme.com’s mastermind, exposing humanity’s dark schadenfreude while taking personal revenge on those who benefited from his father’s suicide.
Hello, Jennifer. Look out the front window, under that street light. That’s where my father fell over the railing. Some websites show the whole thing in slow motion because it’s just so much better that way. One archives it in a section called “whoa.” That’s it, just “whoa.”
You and the people you work with you let people say and do almost anything they want. It doesn’t matter who it hurts.
A One-Star Wonder? The main problem, other than being geared for the police-procedure crime-solver types, is the lack of cyberpunk themes. The negative impact of technology is obviously there, along with the undertones of ubiquitous Internet access shown with all the handhelds and cellphones shown being used. The rest, not so much. And those who prefer the crime-solving may feel like they’ve solved this crime before the agents do, and not because we get to see the perpetrator select his victims.
Conclusion: While the message about our dark nature on the Internet is strong, the lack of cyberpunk themes will be a turn off of most. Recommended ONLY for Law & Order/CSI/NCIS fans, and even then with some reservations.
Earlier today (26-Apr-2010) Sony announced that they will stop selling the 1.44MB, 3.5″ floppy disk that have been a mainstay in computers since 1981.
Another nail in the coffin. In what has to be an expected call, Sony announced that sales of the formerly ubiquitous floppy disks will stop in March 2011, save for possible niche markets. The move comes as Japan’s demand for the magnetic media has dropped from a high of 47 million in 2000 to last year’s 8.5 million.
Sony is apparently the last manufacturer to discontinue the magnetic 3.5″ drive (but will still make and sell the 3.5″ magneto-optical disks), even as computer makers stopped installing floppy drives as early as 1998. When the 3.5″ format replaced their bigger 5.25″ brothers, it was mostly seen as an expected advancement in technology even as IT managers pulled out most of their hair to make changeover. Today’s rewritable DVDs (RW Blu-Rays out yet?) and USB flash drives dwarf the floppy’s puny 1.44MB with gigabytes of storage, and with the possibility of solid-state drives being standard on PCs in the future, it’s time to retire the magnetic floppy media.
Better get what files you can from your floppies before you become a victim of DATA ROT!
OK, the sub-headline may be more dramatic than necessary, but anyone familiar with technology can tell you why they are concerned about data rot, and why you should be concerned too.
I was able to catch the above CBS news piece one rainy Sunday morning over a year ago. I’ve been debating on whether to report on it here since then, but with Sony’s announcement it now seems more relevant.
Data Rot: a definition.
(From Wikipedia) Bit rot, also known as bit decay, data rot, or data decay, is a colloquial computing term used either to describe gradual decay of storage media or to facetiously describe the spontaneous degradation of a software program over time. The latter use of the term implies that software can literally wear out or rust like a physical tool. More commonly, bit rot refers to the decay of physical storage media.
“Data Rot” as defined above technically refers to computer technology, but the 60 Minutes piece stretches the term to include non-computer technologies such as cameras and film and tape recorders. Given that computers are part of virtually everything these days, the analogy seems quite apt. Magnetic tapes, photographs, books, records, and even paper are prone to thermal and chemical reactions that render them useless. But they can also be made unusable by advances in technology itself, as anyone who had an 8-track can testify to. Maybe we can modify the Wikipedia definition above to something a bit more reflective of what CBS is trying to convey. A proposed definition:
Data Rot (n):
1) The physical destruction of a medium due to physical, chemical, thermal, etc. forces that render the medium unusable or unreadable.
2) The rendering of media being unsupported due to changes in technologies.
Whoever came up with “etched in stone” must have never heard of weathering.
You must have seen data rot in action already. If you live in the US, you must know about the changeover from analog television signals to digital “high-definition.” Most everyone had to buy high-def TVs, or converters for older analog sets. That could be considered a form of data rot. How about movies? Remember VHS, or Beta? What about regular DVDs as opposed to Blu-Rays? Or do you just use Netflix online? Do you still have a CD collection, or have they been ripped to MP3s?
Preventing the inevitable. It can’t be too hard to imagine what kind of damage data rot can do. Important, valuable, and/or historical data could be lost forever leaving critical gaps in our collective conscious. One way of preventing data rot is to keep up with the technology; Upgrading software and systems as needed, and converting to the most common and supported formats. It may not cure or even prevent all data rot, but it is better than having to try to salvage unsupported data.
Overview: I heard about this movie from the Columbia House DVD club, then bought it after reading the description. After doing some research about it and learning about it being released direct to home video, I got to watch it… and found out why it went direct to video. To take some of the best cyberpunk themes, add some major star-power, then squander it on what would have worked better as a television pilot episode only shows that cyberpunk still has Hollywood seeing $$$ despite recent failures like Repo Men.
The Story:
Just a few years from now, corporations control and observe everything.
Luke Gibson (Gooding) and his pregnant wife get involved in a car accident. She dies on the scene, and he is hospitalized with brain damage (amnesia) and no insurance. The Hope Corporation finances his brain operation, which involves a Psi-Comp implant on his visual lobe. He soon starts having hallucinations, which are commercials that only he can see and hear. But hackers manage to tap into the implant and give him messages which lead him to Keyboard, a former Hope employee turned hacker, who has information that can stop The Hope Corporation’s plans for the implants.
Cyberpunk themes… they got ‘em. There’s little question about this being cyberpunk; It’s practically dripping with cy-punk themes throughout. The Psi-Comp implants can be used to control people, either with persistent commercials or a painful “fail-safe” that can blow your head off, depending on how Hope Co. feels about your finding out about the truth about them. The hackers try to free Luke from Hope’s control over him by using the implant themselves. Hope Co’s. cameras everywhere watching most everything that goes on. There’s even holographic projections of corporate brands above and on cityscapes and landmarks, owing to how corporations had bail out governments due to their failed bailouts. About the only thing missing would be the dystopic atmosphere, though through sound bytes from televisions indicate that the dystopia is financial.
So what could (or did) possibly go wrong? With Hardwired’s abundance of cy-punk themes, it might be hard to imagine that this could not be the next Blade Runner. That might be the big problem: It’s trying to be the next Blade Runner. Not that aspiring to be such a classic is a bad thing, it’s just most cyberpunk movies lately are trying to be Blade Runner, and they try so hard that they ultimately fail to be even a good movie. Let’s try to make a good movie first, then you can try being Blade Runner. Best way to start is to actually do something with those themes. It’s obvious the makers seem to know about what cyberpunk is, but it’s also obvious they don’t know what to do with it all. Maybe they should hang out here for a while…
Are you certain that the one on the left is Punk Blue and not Punk Green?
Another problem is more “technical,” the operation scene when Luke gets the implant. Inside the operating room, Luke is sitting upright, but a scene through a security cam (assumed to be in the same O.R.) shows him lying down, face up, even though the doctor just finished drilling into the back of Luke’s neck. It’s not like every movie is one-hundred percent accurate, but such noticeable goofs early on can make the rest of the film less believable. Also, the hackers use the chip to send Luke information a la “augmented reality.” His eyes were not replaced with holographic projectors, so we should not be able to see the transmitted data in front of his face. Seeing that stuff as Luke sees it, first-person like, would have worked better.
Conclusion: It’s hard to put Hardwired down because it has a great idea, but some bad implementations may have doomed it to direct-to-video hell and lack of reviews. The only other review called it “cheesy, seriously cheesy.” Plus, the ending practically begs “please let us become a franchise,” though it might serve better as a pilot for some futuristic TV series. Maybe.
So much potential…
It looks like Bruce Willis now has some competition for the most WTF hairpiece.
Overview: I was hoping to see this movie before seeing Repo Men so I could at least see how close to each other they were. While there are some minor similarities (primarily a megacorp, their organ financing, and the use of repo men) the visuals, story-lines, and this being an opera make the two movies vastly different. While Repo Men’s visuals draws more from Blade Runner, Repo! is definitely goth with frequent scenes involving corpses and/or graveyards.
The Story: Geneco becomes the top company when an epidemic of unexplained organ failures sweep the planet. They manage to make organ transplants affordable, but they also manage to get a law passed that allows the organs to be repossessed. Another product Genco makes is Zydrate, a highly addictive pain killer often used by surgery addicts. Geneco is the only legalized source of Zydrate, but a black market exists where grave robbers extract the drug from the brains of corpses.
The current head of Geneco, Rotti Largo (Sorvino), is terminally ill and plans to name his successor at “The Genetic Opera” when popular singer Blind Mag also plans to make her final performance. His three children, the violent Luigi (Mosley), the mask wearing Pavi (Skinny Puppy’s Ogre, FTW), and surgery-and-Zydrate addicted Amber Sweet (Hilton) hope to inherit daddy’s company, but he is disappointed with his kids and has another person in mind: Shilo Wallace.
Pavi (Ogre) gets his game face on. Well, he gets someone’s face on.
Shilo (Vega) is the daughter of Nathan (Head), who is not only trying to find a cure for the blood disease that Shilo inherited from her mother, but is also Geneco’s repo man. He keeps her locked in her room, fearing she might die from the disease while he goes out for repossessions. Shilo sneaks out anyway and in her nightly journeys she meets a grave robber (Zdunich) who introduces her to the Zydrate underground and reveals that Blind Mag, Shilo’s favorite singer, is going to lose her eyes because she will no longer be working with Geneco.
A tangled web. With several different story lines going on at once, it may be hard to follow them with all the singing. They may seem unrelated to each other at first, but thanks to comic-styled flashbacks they show how they are connected to Nathan’s dead wife and the upcoming Genetic Opera.
Speaking of the songs, it’s been reported that there were some 65-75 songs made for the film. Not all of them have been used, but do appear on the various soundtracks (memo to self: find the soundtracks.). Most of them are short, only a minute or two, but often involve at least two cast members singing together with different lyrics. This may add to the confusion of following the stories, but not too much to follow if you pay attention.
Blade Runner or Count Dracula? The distant city scene above may make one think of Blade Runner’s future Los Angeles, but the closer-in scenes is very much goth inspired. The Wallace house could very well be a haunted house (just needs some more cobwebs) while Shilo frequents a graveyard where her mother’s tomb is (side note: Shilo also collects insects). People are often dressed like they’re going to a funeral or an S&M club. There’s an area called “Sanitarium Square,” where a festival is happening before the Opera, that has brightly lit tents amid the darker streets. Not quite the cyberpunk visuals I was expecting, but does make the dark atmosphere… darker.
Conclusion: To be honest, Repo! wasn’t quite what I expected. It felt more goth than actual cyberpunk, so much so that I’m tempted to tag this as “not cyberpunk.” Then again, with goth style being closely related to cyberpunk lately it can almost be expected. In this case, it helped rather than hurt, as it made the operatic aspects more intense. Repo! is a bit of a bloody mind bender, but certainly worth watching… and listening to.
A rather ominous warning to visitors that their stay may be restricted because of “changes” to “Internet Data Fair Usage Mandate to ISP Policies & Regulations 2007 act (r11734) brought into effect by the International Consortium of Global Data Infastructures.” [sic]
But why are only two sites (part of the same company) issuing such a warning, and collecting signatures for a petition?
Time’s Up? A pair of porn sites that stream flash (FLV) videos have a rather ominous warning to visitors that they may be forced to restrict a visitor’s stay to only 30 minutes total per 24-hour period or risk having their sites taken offline. They also include a link where you can “sign a petition” to voice an objection over the time restrictions. At the time of this post, the two sites have collected over 18K signatures (10,800 for T’nA, 8000 for Empflix).
It looks like these two sites are fighting a good fight… IF this shit is real. But there seems to be something off about this petition drive.
No shit, Sherlock. Whatever gave me the idea that this may be shenanigans? Let’s check the signs…
Two against the law. T’nA and Empflix are both part of the same company; YoungTek Solutions Limited, based in Cyprus, Greece. Why only these two site are worried about the time restrictions? Why has no other streaming site… especially YouTube… posted something similar on their sites? Do these guys have some sort of inside information? Or did they just pull this out of their asses in an attempt to attract attention… or something else?
Dateline, the first of… whenever. According to their posts, the restrictions are to start “the 1st of next month.” The way I read it, they must mean April 1 (April Fool’s Day). It can also mean May 1 (May Day). It’s odd that they don’t specify the exact month when the restrictions are to start; Just an ambiguous “1st of next month.”
Something smells phishy in the Mediterranean. I haven’t signed any online petitions (yet), but I’ve seen the form before. They do ask for an email address (”required for signature”), probably as a form of double-opt-in feature (you give a legit email address, a link is sent there, you click to verify), and while they say they won’t spam you, your email will probably be circulated to those who will. If you’re trying to harvest emails to spam but the email-phish baiting isn’t working like it once was, you need to find other ways to get those addresses. What better way than an online petition that plays on surfer’s fears, especially this day and age.
Missing links. I did some searching for the stuff mentioned in the banner, like the bill mentioned, and the organization that instituted the “changes.” What I found was absolutely DICK. Well, almost dick…
A search for the bill did lead me to copywrite.org and their post of the Fair Use Act of 2007 (HR 1201), but I doubt that’s the bill causing the trouble. A link to the bill they mentioned, and to the changes they’re mentioning, would help a lot. Also, what the fuck is this “International Consortium of Global Data Infastructures,” and what is their homepage? AND WHO DID THE SPELL-CHECK???
April Fool me once… There’s just too many unresolved issued about that banner and petition drive to say this is legit. I have to call shenanigans.
There is a possible reason why these sites are concerned for their operations: ACTA. With the super-secret ACTA treaty still being worked on, there is the possibility of ISPs, along with end-users, to be heavily punished for “copyright violations,” including permanent banishment from the net. Streaming sites like T’nA and Empflix have movies, from short commercial-length trailers to possible DVD rips of full movies. Those rips may be giving the ‘flix sites the sweats, as they can be considered “pirated” in some circles. Even so, why aren’t other streaming sites showing similar warnings and having petition drives? Are they trying to remove the rips, or going along with the restriction silently, or are they doing nothing just to tell the MPAA/RIAA mobs to go fuck themselves?
This petition drive may be nothing more than a sick joke, but it can also serve as a warning. There are forces out there determined to control the internet and the vast data fields. Filters and firewalls are only the beginning. Will meters be next? Today, you can go anywhere and visit anyplace for any amount of time you want at any moment. Tomorrow, you may visit any one site no longer than 30 minutes per 24 hour period. Then, only 30 minutes per 24 hours to surf the whole internet. And then… no more internet for you.
“Relax, it’s totally painless! I won’t feel a thing! Besides, once you’re dead you won’t even notice.”
Overview: The timing of this movie’s release is eerie. Originally scheduled for April 2, it was instead released March 19, the same weekend that the US Congress scheduled a vote on Health Care Reform. Coincidence? Maybe, but this film could be considered a vision to what could happen if HCR fails (or succeeds, depending on how you want to look at it). No, cities won’t turn into a Blade Runner landscapes, but a corporation does finds a way to make its “customers” live on borrowed time… literally and figuratively… while they profit.
The Story: Megacorporation “The Union” has apparently cornered the market on artificial organs, or “artiforgs.” This, plus a (continuing) global economic meltdown, has made such implants a very expensive purchase, even to save a life. To make them affordable to those who can’t buy outright, The Union has financing plans available similar to today’s car and/or home loans. But there is a downside to such financing; Fail to make a payment for 90 days, and The Union will send repossession men to retrieve the organ. The organs have an RFID-style tracking system installed, so repo men can track down the delinquent, cut them open, and retrieve the organ. Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker), former schoolmates and soldiers, are The Union’s best repo men.
Remy has a wife and a son, and lately, she has been pressuring Remy to switch from repossession to sales which doesn’t pay as much but would allow him to spend more time with his family. During one repossession mission, a defibrillator malfunctions and nearly kills Remy. He awakens in a hospital with a Union financed Jarvik artiforg heart… and the bill for it.
The Corporate Brand: Not just for salarymen.
Tin Man. A new heart wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the world, but when Remy tries a repossession he couldn’t go thorough with it. Physically, his normally steady hands start shaking, and mentally his tell-tale heart can be heard. It’s as though losing his heart actually gives him a heart; Losing part of his humanity made him more human. His new Jarvik heart must have had an empathy attachment, since he is now unable to do repossessions… or even sales as his graphic descriptions of repossessions scares customers.
Unable to make money, Remy soon finds himself being hunted by repo men, including his friend Jake.
The cat in the… box? At a couple of moments in the movie, Remy refers to an experiment where a scientist places a cat inside a box with a machine that emits poison gas at some point. We are simultaneously alive and dead, was the scientist’s conclusion, but Remy didn’t understand what that meant until he was being hunted himself, and found himself identifying with the cat:
We can either lick our paws and wait for the inevitable, or we can fight and claw our way out of the box.
Remy chooses to fight his way out, and hopes to liberate other repo targets from the system.
“Welcome to your world, repo man.”
OK, should be go see it? There’s not much new to see. In fact, some of the city scenes could be confused for Blade Runner, only without the spinners flying about. There is the contrast of the sterile environs of The Union’s offices (especially the “clean room” that doesn’t stay clean) and the run-down part of town known as the “black hole.” There’s also Beth, the woman who is almost nothing but artiforgs, including enhanced eyes and ears. And of course, The Union and its payment-and-repossession program that can be called predatory. Pretty much standard issue cyberpunk stuff.
UPDATE: After having seen Repo! The Genetic Opera, I can say there is not much similar between these two movies. With Repo Men’s cyberpunk tomes vs. Repo!’s goth atmosphere, we can keep this at 5 stars.
Conclusion: Can’t really say Repo Men is a great movie, or even a good one. It does it’s job well enough, but lacking originality, the current politics with health care reform… and some obligatory operational blood… may be enough to turn many off. Adequate enough to waste a couple of hours on, but only IF you’re not into operas.
“You owe it to your family. You owe it to yourself.”
First came remote piloted drones. Then came walking robots. Next, robots with a vision… or just looks that kill.
From the iWitness news desk… The Pentagon’s famed mad scientist lab DARPA (a subsidiary of Cyberdyne Systems Corporation) announced earlier this week a project called “The Mind’s Eye” (PDF). The goal of the project is to implement the one facet of human capability that has been so far elusive: Visual Intelligence.
(Wired’s Katie Drummond) We’ve got the ability to take in our surrounding, interpret them and learn concepts that apply to them. We’re also masters of manipulation, courtesy of a little thing called imagination: toying around with made up scenes to solve problems or make decisions.
But, of course, our intellect and decision-making skills are often marred by emotion, fatigue or bias. Enter machines. DARPA wants cameras that can capture their surroundings, and then employ robust intellect and imagination to “reason over these learned interpretations.”
I see what you’re saying. As if seeing-eye robots weren’t enough for them, last month DARPA was reportedly developing a form of “universal translator” software that can translate Arabic languages to English with a high degree of accuracy and also have voice recognition. The resulting system may be more like an iPod or netbook, but Wired couldn’t help but use an obvious analogy:
(Wired’s Katie Drummond) What troops really need is a machine that can pick out voices from the noise, understand and translate all kinds of different languages, and then identify the voice from a hit list of “wanted speakers.” In other words, a real-life version of Star Wars protocol droid C3PO, fluent “in over 6 million forms of communication.”
Now, the Pentagon’s trying to fast-track a solution that could be a kind of proto-proto-prototype to our favorite gold fussbudget: a translation machine with 98 percent accuracy in 20 different languages.
Google already has something similar: Goog-411. Maybe if the two worked together…
Action news. There are cameras that can identify objects, or what they refer to as the “nouns.” DARPA wants the camera to add the “verb” to those “nouns” to better describe what is happening. For example, a current camera can identify a ball or a car or maybe Glen Beck. DARPA’s idea is to have cameras not only identify the items, but to report what those things are doing: The ball is rolling, a car crashed into a tree, or Glen Beck is talking through his ass. The idea is to make the cameras into observers, field operatives who spy on enemy positions and report on their status.
That, or they want their own photojournalists and reporters that they can control and won’t show bias against whatever war is being waged.
DARPA may already be behind the curve, as one such robot already exists. It reportedly works for a website called Cyberpunk Review…
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