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Yes, Poltics and Science are interrelated and in many ways forgotten as to what we have in regards to social construct and order within our own contextual environment.

Awhile back I began to question the order of effectiveness and efficiency of such methods of providing social construct and order within an organization, institution, and Nation states such as the U.S. Even the great Greek Philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) did not believe democracy would be entirely effective. I began to question the very fabric that Nations were built on - ideologies and methods. What I did not understand was first the difference between an ideology, a method, variations of these methods, and cross functional similarities between other disciplines such as science. These differentiators can be extensive but just as meaning has its place in context, context has its variables that can be altered to formulate a new way of seeing meaning. Is science any different? ....and wouldn't ideology just be one of the many variables within context that could change and make that ideology significant or insignificant?

Passion, inquietude, disappointment, expectations, romanticism, solitude and a strong need to escape reality, a mediocre, bourgeois and above all an unhappy reality.

Revealing a pure nihilism and an abyss from which she couldn't escape. This is the story of Emma Bovary, also known as, “Madame Bovary” the name of the French author Flaubert's masterpiece, that scandalized the bourgeois society of the 19th century because of its explicit content. Emma was a young woman, who spent her whole childhood nourishing her soul with romantic novels that eventually molded her mind to have expectations of a wonderful life.

“I, Tschuang Tse, dreamt once, I was a butterfly, flying here and there
looking for and searching for things that a butterfly would do. I only knew
that I was following my moods as butterfly and was unaware of my being
a human being. All of a sudden I awoke up from my dream; there I lay: again
"myself."

Now I don't know: was I there a man who was dreaming
he was a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly dreaming it
is a man? Between man and butterfly lies a barrier.
To transcend it is called transformation. “

(Tschuang Tse)

Tschuang Tse was a chinese thinker of the fourth century; he belonged to the Daoist philosophy, also known as Taoism, wich influenced the Eastern Asia for more than two millennia.
The butterfly's aphorism, expresses the relation between dream and reality, an interdependent relation in wich two worlds combine and influence each other.

The dream vanishes in reality and reality vanishes in dream. Tschuang Tse asks himself what is real...if he is a butterfly dreaming of being a man or if he is a man dreaming of being a butterfly.
The relation man-butterfly clearly expresses the duality of nature, which comes from the higher principle that originated everything - also known as the Tao.

According to the Taoist philosophy, the Tao originated the ying and the yang that represent the opposition and at the same time the influence between things, like good and bad, day and night, hot and cold, dream and reality.
All the elements that apparently are opposite, according to Taoism are actually the same thing. Their apparent opposition is caused only by man's perception that aims to classify them as opposites.

Dualism is only an illusion because all the elements are actually equivalent and belong to the same reality.
Therefore day and night, good and bad, man and woman, all things are not really opposites, but each flows in the other and vice versa.

In Tschuang Tse's aphorism: no priority belongs to the waking existence, reality could be a dream or what we see when we are awake, or rather a butterfly or a man.
Coming to a conclusion by analysing Tscheng's words in a taoist point of view I would say that since things are not opposite...a butterfly is a man and a man is a butterfly as well as dream is reality and reality is a dream.
Therefore instead of trying to understand what is the true reality, we should just accept that they are the two sides of the same thing since reality is only one.

The September 2010 Scientific American Mind edition has an article called, "Inside the Mind of a Psychopath." I had to buy it as well as shed some light on what makes a Psychopath tick.

This is what I found...

After interviewing hundreds of prison inmates to assess their mental health, some observations were made.

As a student of both American and international studies as well as a person brought up between both American and Asian schools of thought (Western and Asian philosophy), I always have been interested in fully understanding the world or worlds we live in. In many cases our ground foundation here in the United States has been built on many variations of western philosophy. Even our great schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) have been built on the model of Plato's first school "Akademia." In which Plato (and his disciples) would find the best and the brightest and teach them the most modern advancements of philosophy in order to prepare them for great positions in society. How did Plato know who would be the best and the brightest?

As the definitions of "smart" as well as people we see as having potential shifts as the world changes I would like to bring a little known fact that indeed brings me to dig all the way back to the ancient Greek philosophers. In many ways, "we have to know where we came from in order to know where we are going." The definition of "educated" around the early days of Socrates (even before Socrates) was if a person had a great depth of knowledge of such epic poems as the Illiad and the Odyssey. During these days it was indeed the wealthy that possessed this knowledge. This knowledge led great generals and politicians to seek epic glory in exploration and adventure, which was in fact very similar to stories that these epic poems portrayed. Seems to me that this knowledge helped propel the type of thought needed to advance Greece as arguably the first democracy in the western world; a knowledge that cultivated such great minds as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Now I question our direction of education and even our understanding of what we have built centuries of western thought on.

Current computer technology allows users to think about making physical movements to control a cursor on a screen.  Instead, the new technology Intel is working on will be capable of directly interpreting words as they are thought.  This new technology could allow people to dictate letters and search the Internet simply by thinking.

Scientists at Intel are creating detailed maps of the activity in the brain for individual words that can then be matched against the brain activity of someone using the computer, allowing the machine to determine the word they are thinking.

Much like the childhood game of 20 questions, the technology uses a form of 20 questions to narrow down what the word the user is thinking of.  Some projected capabilities will allow users to write letters, open emails or do Internet searches just by thinking.  This will undoubtedly change user interfaces to allow people to interact with computers faster and more efficiently than ever.

 

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"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world. "
Arthur Schopenhauer

What if everything we see isn't true reality, but a twisted reality, an illusion, a dream? Everything we consider real is only an illusion, the reality we perceive is only appearance. The german philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, in his work, “The World as Will and Representation” talks about the “Maya Veil." He believes that men look at reality through a veil that has the power to twist reality and create illusions. What we see does not exist; it is only made by the veil that can create and make things disappear.

“To release the essence of sensations by constituting them, to detract them from time's contingency, in a metaphor.”

This is the aim of the French author Marcel Proust as like as Baudelaire and other symbolists.The writer is convinced that the duty of an artist is to reveal and not to create, to get the hidden parallelism. According to Proust, sensations and things are immersed in a temporary and ephemeral state and they are submitted to time, that overwhelm and destroy them. It's about engaging a fight with time and to protect our inner self-legacy. Only in memory a man can understand the unceasing transformations of things, people and feelings.

In his masterpiece “The Research of Lost Time”, Proust explains about the concept of the involuntary memory and the voluntary memory.

Hungarian architecture professor Ernő Rubik invented the Rubik's Cube puzzle in 1974.  Until recently, it was thought that the fewest possible moves top solve the puzzle was 37 moves.  That was until Google engineers pitched in with some high technology help to sort through all 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions of the Cube.  This effort found that the absolute fewest moves to solve a Rubik's Cube from any degree of shuffleing is 20 moves.  The shortest sequence of moves that the most efficient algorithm takes to solve a puzzle is known as the "God number."

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I read a recent article from the magazine – Enlighten Next, THE MAGAZINE FOR EVOLUTIONARIES (Spring/Summer 2010 Issue 46) and a couple things stood out to me that really made me want to understand the article further….

The difference between “primal fear” and “primal trust” and how one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century was able to gain strength as well as complete his journey through embracing the latter. Jean Gebser was a German-born cultural philosopher and his work is known more through his ideas about the “structures of consciousness.” His work was influenced by Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity, developed alongside psychologist C.G. Jung, and fine-tuned within the context of quantum theory and existentialism. What impressed me is that he did all of that while embracing a sense of chaos and unknown by embracing “primal trust.”

How have we become what we are?! Questions of the human condition have and will always perplex me...

I have two sources that I have read that really bring about questions of nature vs. nurture, how we understand ourselves in relation to context, and the different variations of ourselves throughout life. I am sure these two sources will only lead to more questions but I assure you I have better questions as a result of these two sources. One such article starts with Nature vs. Nurture...

Scientists have been struggling for years with the question of whether "Nature" or "Nurture" is the prime determinant of how a person develops. Recent studies have led scientists to build a convincing body of evidence that it could be either or both! Individual genes points to many human traits that we have little control over, yet in many realms, peer pressure or upbringing has been show to heavily influence who we are and what we do.

This led me to look up the Stanford Prison Experiment as their intense study explored two questions through a dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University. What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? This experiment is interesting because the test subjects were average healthy, intelligent, middle-class males who were given diagnostic interviews and personality tests to eliminate candidates with psychological problems, medical disabilities, or a history of crime or drug abuse. 24 college students were divided into prisoners and guards. The experiments lasted 6 days out of the planned 2 week experiment.

So, it's been a long time since I've seen a movie at the theater twice in less than a week. Chalk it up to trite storytelling and the fascination of the gimmick of 3D, but every once in awhile, a story comes along that truly hits home on all levels cerebral, visual, and humanistic.

Inception comes along, and it reminds me that cinema can be a transcending experience.  

So, like everybody else, I'm sure, I have a theory, and I'd love to share it with you.

At first, I'm reminded of Ambrose Bierce' phenomenal story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and Blade Runner (Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep"), then I gave it a day to sink in (I saw it at midnight and had to be up at 7am).

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Dark Knight:  The Brooding Id

The Dark Knight is a story about one man’s conflict with his Id and Superego and the Jungian symbolic nature of a superhero.  As a boy, Bruce Wayne wrestled with the experience of witnessing his affluent parents murdered in a dark alley by a menacing gangster.  Thereafter, he devoted his life to conquering crime and injustice, as any superhero would.  But the interesting aspect of Bruce Wayne and Batman didn’t lie in his superhero ability, but in his very human traits of dealing with fear and his dueling nature.  Erik Erikson’s theory of the adolescent phase rings true in this story because the turning point in Wayne’s life from boy to developing hero turned during a very primitive stage in his life where he found out who he really was.  Also, the Id begins to show its face and take over.

Just saw "Robert Rodriquez presents: Predators." It was ok. What I would not like to confuse in this article is that the movie had immense potential. The theory could of really evolved on Nietzsche's Overman (or in English Superman concept) theory that he presented in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I mean...the movie was all about the hunt, overcoming barriers to be a better predator, and even survival of the fittest. You can even parse it out to the evolution of the human race and the evolution of the Predators themselves. When all societies throw their rules out the door what becomes of the Overman?

In Friedrich Nietzche's book Thus Spoke Zarathustra he contends that "man is something which ought to be overcome." The book's protagonist, Zarathustra speaks...

"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the Overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment…"

Christopher Nolan's much anticipated film "Inception" brings the imagination back to theaters. Again he brings the futuristic chaotic beauty of our own creative destruction back to the realms of our mind. If nothing more than the theory and the epic exploration of the limits of our imagination and how fact and fiction can be manipulated, distorted, and eventually form fitted, is what this movie brings - I am game.

"Dreams feel real while we are in them. Its only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange"- Inception 2010

"There is no knowledge one without sacrifice. In order to gain anything you must first lose everything" The Supreme Wisdom of Budda.

Thought this recent talk from a sort of “child prodigy” was an interesting viewpoint. As we all get older we seem to gain experience and learn more (for the most part); how does that affect our free-thinking, our way of seeing the world without knowing? At times maybe it is better to see the world without borders.

I just finished a TED talk about Amy Tan. She is an Asian American who is the author of such books as the Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife, and The Hundred Secret Senses. She is definitely a woman that has lived with ambiguity. There was a sense of mysticism and complexity of understanding the world that I really liked in her talk. While traveling to China in a lower income rural village she took on the mysticism and Confucian values that was so much stronger than her American values.

Steve Jobs. The constant innovator.

His words from “Pirates of Silicon Valley,” a movie about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates still rings in my ears..

“We’re here to make a dent in the universe otherwise why even be here. We’re creating a completely new consciousness like an artist or a poet”

A recent article from Times magazine shows glimpses of that attitude. The Ipad was created without focus groups or even a market research agenda. An MBA nightmare...

FORT WORTH TEXAS: A local Fort Worth woman got more than she bargained for when hunting for deer one night.  She captured evidence of a UFO in the background of a picture she took.  The video below shows what appears to be a UFO that hovered in the sky for almost 2 hours.

Astronomers are predicting a massive solar storm in 2012. How big? The magnitude is a around 100 million hydrogen bombs. 

The flare that we experienced earlier this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building. This massive solar storm is predicted to wipe out the entire planet's power grid. Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale. This storm is predicted to be even more disruptive and would be the most violent in 100 years! 

Read more below! 

Massive Solar Storm to hit Earth!

Something strange is happening in Gakona, Alaska.  The US Air Force, the US Navy, the University of Alaska and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have been working on the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) at a strange looking facility in Gakona.  

They claim that the purpose of HAARP is to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance purposes.  

The truth maybe stranger than most people imagine.  Many people believe that the US military is changing the weather with the large array of powerful antennas.  This program combined with what is referred to as "Chem Trails" (Chem Trails will be covered in another article) is changing the current weather patterns.  As bizarre as it sounds, it is also thought to be a contributing factor in the Haiti earthquake.  Also see a related article on weather change weapons.

In November 2006 in a northern Mexican town of Cuatrociénegas, farmers started to see some of their animal livestock dead and dismembered in the mornings when they checked on them.  Most of the blood was missing from the dead animals and it didn't appear to be from coyotes which the farmers are used to dealing with. They feared it was from the Chupacabra which first originated in Puerto Rico. 

All that is known about the creature is that is some type of canine creature that is known for sucking the blood from its prey.  Two farmers determined to kill the predator started hunting it at night.  This video taken on one of the nights of hunting was thought to be lost, but was recently uncovered.

 

Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries. 

Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, "At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries." Articles on this have been carried by publications throughout Russia, including "International Affairs," a journal published by the Foreign Ministry and by the state-owned new agency RIA Novosti. 

Areshev voiced suspicions about the High Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska. HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection. Areshev writes that that the true aim of HAARP is to create new weapons of mass destruction "in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries." 

Russian Scholar Warns Of Secret US Climate Change Weapon

Research done in the August 17 edition of the Journal of Physiology states that astronauts on a mission to Mars could lose nearly half their muscle strength during the long trip, giving them the physiques of senior citizens by the time they arrived. Prolonged exposure to weightlessness could cause astronauts to lose more than 40 percent of their muscle strength even with regular exercise, researchers said. On a long voyage, a healthy 30- to 50- year-old astronaut could end up with the strength of an 80- year old.

A ten month trip to Mars would cause such extreme muscle deterioration that even routine tasks would be hard to perform, let alone move around the Martian surface in spacesuits, according to the study, which was lead by Robert Fitts of Marquette University. Returning to Earth would be even more perilous with astronauts too weak to evacuate their spacecraft if they needed to make an emergency landing.

Currently six-month stints aboard the International Space Station involve rigorous exercise for 2.5 hours per day, six days a week.

Trip to Mars Would Turn Astronauts Into Weaklings

Recent global trade data puts China's economy in the world ahead of Japan. The trend was forecasted years in advance.

I recently watched Bladerunner, a movie directed by Ridley Scott. What was interesting about this extremely successful movie is that this movie was made in 1982. Japan beat the United States economy via global trade data in around this time. Watching the movie I noticed a huge Asian influence to include Japanese moving billboards, mostly Japanese eating establishments, and other Asian propaganda. I could not but wonder how this movie really captured the mood during that time. This was a time where Japan introduced a new type of management (Kaizen management and "The Toyota Way") and even a new way of doing business. Some say this changed the way business was conducted from that day on. There was fear that the world was changing.

Things did not exactly happen that way.

Bladerunner gave me a glimpse of the future in a Sci-Fi realm. The possibilities and the way the world could be. Now as I do my daily scan of interesting topics I have come across an interesting topic that I think needs a bit more imagination.

Ready for 2035? Well..we may have proof of alien life by that time.

A SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute) senior astronomer says there is a good chance we will have evidence of alien life within 25 years. Shostak bases his estimation on the Drake Equation. This equation is a formula conceived by SETI pioneer Frank Drake to calculate the number (N) of alien civilizations with whom we might be able to

communicate. This equation takes into account a variety of factors to include the rate of star formation in the galaxy, the fraction of stars that have planets, the fraction of planets that are habitable, the percent of those that actually develop life, the percent of those that develop intelligent life, the fraction of civilizations that have a technology that can broadcast their presence into space, and the length of time those signals would be broadcasted.

How to interprete what an alien lifeform would be trying to tell us through an alien signal is the next step.

Alien life in 25 years?

Stan Lee does it again. He is currently hosting a new series called "Stan Lee's Superhumans." A must watch. You can watch the first episode here online!

Stan Lee Superhumans

This show is about Human potential and real life superhuman powers. What you are going to see is people with powers from around the world. 

 

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Linke provided are files (PDF) about inquires made into a UFO sighting that Winston Churchhilll decided to cover up. Check out the files.

So...Stephen Hawking is giving us another warning. WE HAVE TWO CENTURIES LEFT!

Stephen Hawking Predicts the End of Humanity, Again

"The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load," he said in an interview with BigThink. See the video below!

 

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I just finished watching the movie “Bladerunner.” After telling the rest of The Mystery Workshop crew that I did not watch Bladerunner I was given an assignment from Andrew (head creator) to watch Bladerunner immediately. It was in a sort of ordering tone of voice. So after my journey to Comicon and fully deciding to understand the Sci-Fi realm in much better detail I watched this incredibly interesting movie.

Not only did the movie catch my attention because of the interesting way the story was told (started with a sort of “old style” Dick Tracy detective movie narrative). I thought the Asian and European mixed slang that one of the detectives used in the beginning of the movie to talk to the character Harrison Ford played was really cool. The Japanese and Chinese mixed background and marketing put the movie in a imaginative and futuristic backdrop. I loved it.

The backdrop then mixed in with genetic engineering and alien planet colonization with a story about robots with developed feelings and emotions.

“I think therefore I am”

Now – 28 years after the movie Bladerunner, we actually have a robot that is able to develop and show emotions. Nao was developed by a European research team and can form bonds with the people he meets.

First robot able to develop and show emotions is unveiled

I (as many people I know) have seen Inception and still think Christopher Nolan has made a spectacular movie that has left me questioning the depths of reality and how it applies to my perception of what I believe to be truthful interpretation. I am sure different cultures look at dreams, reality, and the "spirit world" as many variations of what is "real." As the old Indian man questioned Cobbs in the movie along the lines of what was reality and what was a dream when Cobbs visited what seemed to be an Indian (one never knows if he was really there!) dream drug house, I too question the perception of reality.

Perhaps perception was the one thing that was never pinned down in the first place....

What is the importance of space exploration? Why do we look to the stars for answers? Is it the desire to know where we came from or is it the uncontrollable need to relate and connect with something bigger then ourselves? The late 1950's was the age of space. There was fear of global disaster and though ideas for refuge on our home planet were exercised, space was truly the last frontier.

 

Space exploration and research wasn't a brand new idea however the competition sparked between America and Russia opened the eyes of the general public to explore the possibilities that lie in front of us. Now in 2010, space exploration is about to shift yet again. With the Hubble Space Telescope's life coming to an end, more powerful and amazing technology are on the verge of being launched into the still very unknown world that is the Milky Way. Will we find the answers we have been searching for? Or will our curiosities lead us down a road we shouldn't have taken?

After watching Inception I wanted to understand the practical uses of dreams. There must be some sort of experiment...some way of diving into a person's subconscious to extract some sort of value. Turns out there is...

An article in Live Science  (Why We Dream: Real Reasons Revealed) shows that scientists have been studying the uses of problem solving in dreams for more than 10 years. Experiments are done with college students in which they are given homework problems to try to solve in a dream. The problems were not too hard but were problems that the students have not gotten around to. The results were that half the students dreamed about the problem and about a quarter had a dream that contained the answer. This proves that problems can be solved in dreams.

I recall hearing about the Mysteries of the Bible series on the National Geographic Channel a number of months ago and wanted to see it - eventually, anyway. There is one program of this series in particular that brings to mind (at least in my mind) all sorts of nefarious things: witchcraft, sorcery, black magic, alchemy, Roger Bacon, Agrippa, and Doctor Faust to name a few. Not to mention the writings of M. R. James and H. P. Lovecraft. I'm talking about the Codex Gigas (or Devil's Bible), a book whose shadowy origins are steeped in myth.  Here is a quick overview of this esoteric manuscript as quoted from the National Geographic Channel website:

The Plague in California!?! The last I heard of the plague is the bubonic variety that spread across Europe in the 14th century, killing in excess of 25 million people! Didn't the Bubonic plague destroy the Roman Empire?

Every once in a while, when I'm cruising through articles on MSN's homepage, I'll sift through the everyday news grind and come across something that catches my eye. Yesterday was the latest such occurrence, the article in question this time concerning the discovery of a 3,400 year-old clay fragment bearing Akkadian wedge script, an adaptation of Sumerian cuneiform.

Shard bears oldest script found in Jerusalem

"Archaeologists say a newly discovered clay fragment from the 14th century B.C. is the oldest example of writing ever found in antiquity-rich Jerusalem."

Shard bears oldest script found in Jerusalem

Of course, knowing nothing of Akkadian culture and its place in the pantheon of history, I decided to do a bit of research and educate myself. After some careful digging, weeding through the mire of the world-wide web to get a nugget scholarly information, I discovered the longest piece of literature in Akkadian was the Epic of Gilgamesh. In fact, there is a cuneiform tablet on display at the British Museum (called the Deluge or Flood Tablet) that supposedly relates to a part of Gilgamesh - the eleventh of twelve tablets of the standard Akkadian version. Fascinating stuff, if you're familiar at all with this ancient poem. Here is a link to the British Museum's highlight on this topic: The Flood Tablet, relating part of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Ghosts that are having the Marines running scared...it can't get better than this! Three articles report that Observation Point Rock in Afghanistan, a lonely and exposed outpost 20 meters (65ft) above the surrounding landscape is haunted.

NASA has identified 706 candidates for potential alien worlds while gazing at more than 156,000 stars packed into a single patch of sky.

Hundreds of Possible Alien Planets Discovered By NASA Spacecraft

Currently NASA is conducting a sort of alien world means test and if following tests of the 706 candidates pass that could mean that the current number of known extrasolar planets could triple. "This is the most precise, nearly continuous, longest and largest data set of stellar photometry ever," said David Koch, the mission's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., in a statement. "The results will only get better as the duration of the data set grows with time."

This information was announced recently as part of a huge release of data from the missions first 43 days by NASA's Kepler science team this week.

Listed on ProductionHUB.com in Camera Operators / Cameraman - HD / High Def / High Definition in Maryland

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Smart Cities team has developed a solution for smart cities of tomorrow.  In order to resolve the issues of traffic congestion they have proposed "stackable" cars.  The idea is that the cars--similar to golf carts would be a public item that you would rent much like a Zip Car.  The cars could be stowed much like shopping carts--as the cars are able to be compacted into a small space. 

The cars would be electric powered and charged when they are stacked in storage.  The plan is only for city driving at the moment, but the potential to use them more widely is there.

MIT research is currently developing an advance space suit that uses exotic materials and mechanical counter-pressure to create a "second skin," in contrast to the bulky, inflated models currently used by astronauts.

MIT Researchers Take Space Suit to Next Level

The skin-like layer would maintain pressure mechanically allowing you to create additional layers that can be donned more like clothing, quickly replaced or repaired. Tests have already shown that the mechanically applied pressure successfuly protects against exposure to vacuum, the problem would be to ensure such pressure can be maintained across the skin. Joints would be a problem. Work in "Shape Memory Polymers" and exploitation of so-called "lines of non-extension" on the human body would have to developed into the current design.

If successful, such suits could be in use for NASA lunar missions next decade and on a first mission to Mars.

“The acceptance of a contradiction is the telling of a story”

I just saw a wonderful talk on TED from an Indian director named Shekhar Kapur. His understanding of how to tell a story involved understanding dualities, accepting contradiction, and allowing chaos to flow. He was clear to explain that the resolution of storytelling was not what he strived for. A truly enlightening talk. His work includes Elizabeth The Golden Age” which was truly a great film.

What is our story? How do we seek to tell our story through our at times complex dualities? How is this developed? Does this involve learning to let go of these “complex dualities?” Do they all have to make sense?

As both a writer and reader of dark fiction, I have seen one question appear in the forwards of books by some of my favorite authors, again and again: "Where do you get your ideas?" This question is a bugbear, a pesky insect that keeps on returning no matter how many times it's swatted away; so why the recurrence? I'm not going to try to pose an answer, as everyone's mental thought processes work differently, although I do think that Stephen King describes this phenomenon best in the introduction to his short story collection Night Shift:

We know Christopher Nolan directed Inception. Now I want to know more about the maker..

A little more about Christopher Nolan would help me to understand at what angle he directed this movie. I love his style to include movies such as The Prestige, Insomnia, Memento, The Dark Knight, Batman Begins and Inception. He brings so much to a film and his philosophical approch has given me much joy in watching films again. I actually have to think when I leave the movie theaters!

Let's start with a quote of him walking on a beach (as per Empire The World's Biggest Movie Magazine - July 2010)...

"My mind did that. It put every grain of sand into my hand..." Not only that. "We all do this, every night, when we dream. Our minds create and perceive the world simultaneously. The mind is infinetely expansive, and infinitesimal..."

He's simple in the way he makes movies...

I recall reading about this in Fangoria magazine several years ago and getting really excited, because H. P. Lovecraft's work was going to get the big budget treatment it needed at last, especially in the capable hands Guillermo Del Toro, who directed Cronos, Mimic, Blade 2, The Devil's Backbone, Pan's Labyrinth, and the Hellboy pictures. Then I heard that Del Toro was going to direct The Hobbit next and thought At the Mountains of Madness was going to be put on  hold indefinitely. However, all of that has changed and it looks as though my wildest cinematic imaginings are going to come true:

Guillermo Del Toro (and James Cameron) follow Lovecraft passion

Here's a radio script I wrote in 2009, which was inspired by an idea I got several years ago after driving home late one night and seeing a hearse on the highway. I began to wonder what would happen if I followed it and imagined the worst. Click on the title below to download a copy. Enjoy.

Produced at the Wildclaw Theatre Company's Deathscribe: Ten Minutes of Terror Radio Play Festival (Chicago, IL / October 2008)

Download the original radio script below and read it if you dare...

***If you have seen Inception please proceed with this article, if you have not, you may want to hold off until you have seen the movie***

The film cuts off at the end when Cobb spins his totem (which is a top). Per Cobb's explanation about the use of his totem in dream extraction and inception, he explains that his totem keeps spinning if he is in a dream state. If his top spins and eventually stops he would not be dreaming.

Soo...what are your guesses? Did Cobb make it out of limbo?

The MIT Media Lab has announced the creation of a Center for Future Storytelling. The center will make stories that will be more interactive, improvisational, and social according to an official statement. The investor? Plymouth Rock Studios. They have invested US$25 million over a seven year contract. The media lab's goal is to create "a sort of living story that can continue to evolve and shape depending on who is listening to it and how they can derive meaning from it."

See the full video at - http://www.larpnecks.com

Horrorfind 2010 recap by "Charred" Charles Kline. 

Greetings everyone, 

A friend of mine told me about a new course being offered at the University of Baltimore today and, believe me, people will be dying to get in. Of course, I really don't want to know what you have to do to get an "A" in this class. Go on a field trip to the Baltimore City morgue at midnight for a tour perhaps? Let your imagination run wild with that thought. In the meantime, here's a link to the article: 

A class to Die for: Zombies 101 at U. Baltimore

See an interview with one of TMW's special effects gurus Mike Conlon!

Horrorfind 2010 TMW video recap!

Kordairo Campbell was born on December 10, 1988 in Baltimore, MD and raised in Reiserstown. Aside from being one of our actors in The Pickman Incident, he has done quite a bit of work for television, theatre, and film. Below is a brief interview one of the members of TMW conducted with him, and we hope to spotlight other cast-crew members in the near future!

TMW wrap-up of the Baltimore Comicon from Charles Kline. 

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Our special effects guru Charles Kline goes to the Baltimore COMICON and wins the zombie category costume contest! 

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Our special effects guru won the zombie category competition for Baltimore COMICON 2010. He conquered the competition with his outstanding special effects ability!

Charles Kline's interest in the macabre started with the horror films he watched as a young boy growing up in Maryland. But it wasn't until about the age of eleven that he first began experimenting with makeup, usually to transform himself into some sort of ghoul or monster on Halloween . . . always determined to out-do what he'd done the previous year.  He's kept up ever since, with "The Suffered" being the first feature film he's done effects for. In his free time, when not spilling blood on the set, Charles enjoys writing scary stories, drawing scary pictures, and reading lots of scary books, yet he's still afraid to sleep in the dark without a night light on and a teddy bear for company. Currently, Mr. Kline is  working on a collection of poems and short stories.

On October 31st (Halloween), AMC will launch its 90 minute debut of The Walking Dead.  The zombie series is based on Robert Kirkman's original graphic novel.  Frank Darabont (acclaimed Director of the Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile) will be bringing the graphic novel to life on the small screen along with Gale Anne Hurd (Producer of Terminator and Aliens).

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As I was driving to a Starbuck's this morning to type up this article, I tuned in to the Radio Classics channel on Sirius-XM 164 as I tend to do on occasion. That's where I caught the tail end of the Suspense episode Zero Hour, adapted from the chilling story by Ray Bradbury. By this point in the program a pair of frightened parents are hiding inside when a game called "Invasion" starts, which the children have begun to play - their own daughter included. How appropriate, I thought, as today also happens to be Mr. Bradbury's 90th birthday.

"This Summer 3D Shows Its Teeth"

So boasts the tagline I've been seeing in the Piranha 3D previews for months and, having just returned from a viewing, I can honestly say that it lives up to its claim - especially with Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero heading up the special effects and make-up, and Neville Page on creature design. Of course, I would expect nothing less from Alexandre Aja, whose previous films (such as High Tension, The Hills Have Eyes remake, and Mirrors) have made him one of the most exciting horror directors working in Hollywood today. In fact, he's so good I can even forgive that he helped write and produce P2 . . . but I digress.

Well I'm not going to lie to you...Samual Jackson is yelling, screaming and doing terrible things. BUT....

This film had a strong message. A message so strong that the director Gregor Jordan did not show how the movie ended. I believe he wanted people to question themselves.

Today is the 120th anniversary of the birth of Mr. Lovecraft, so I decided to write this post and thus pay tribute to the man Stephen King hailed as "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." However, instead of focusing solely on Lovecraft's literary body of work and influences in the genre of weird fiction, I though it would be fun to pick out a few of my favorite movies that were inspired by his stories - the reason being that I saw a number of these films long before I ever read anything Lovecraft had written. Here are some titles, in no particular order:

New Skyline poster emerges even after the Sony possible lawsuit....

Footage shot by National Geographic. The World Cyber Games 2005 was hosted in Singapore!

Today we finished Production Phase 1. Thank you to Nicholas Hanson for being a sport and performing as Pickman, we enjoyed your spectacular performance! Chad Pettit for the great convulsion scene, Alex Ewing for sporting a great tenticle, Ryan Braxton for being a great shotgun tough guy, Kordairo Campbell for your superb acting and energy on set, Godwin Yeboah and Ire Akinsiku for being good sports throughout the blood and guts! Special thanks again to Godwin Yeoboah and Ire Akinsiku for your professionalism on set and also to their parents for being so patient and understanding during this phase.

On Friday the 13 at precisely 13:13, a boy aged 13 was seen by the St John Ambulance team at Lowestoft Seafront Air Festival in Suffolk after he was struck by lightning. The boy suffered a minor burn and was taken to James Paget Hospital, where he is expected to make a full recovery. Talk about an unlucky occurrence!

 

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Wow, talk about accomplished! Dolph Lundgren has a master's degree in chemical engineering, was a Fulbright scholar at M.I.T., speaks seven languages, was an elite marine ranger in the Swedish miltary, and has a third degree black belt in Kyokushin Karate! Saw this guy at COMICON and he was one of the quietest guys at the panel!

 

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View the teaser for the movie - Skyline!

Think this below is the website. Check it out. Correct me if I got the wrong website!

Skyline website?!?

 

 

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