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morsking · 4 years

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Got around to starting and finishing Old World Blues in the past couple of days. I think it’s the strongest of the game’s DLC I’ve played so far.

At first, it feels like you’re in for some wacky science fiction b-movie shenanigans once you’re introduced to the Think Tank. They’re all whimsical idiots who forget what words are, repeat themselves to elongate their sentences to look smart, and even one of them is bizarrely horny and has a fetish for... innocuous human behavior? Stretching? Yawning? They are neurotic brains in machines who take stuff apart and break it without really creating anything with it, just replicating the same results over and over and none of them seem to notice how stupid they are and it’s amazing. They took your brain, spine, and heart out of your body in an attempt to turn you into a walking vegetable, only for them to become so fascinated with the damage you took from Benny’s bullet that they fuck up the surgery and end up finding a way to keep your intelligence about you with a remote device that connects your brain to the tesla coils in your skull. Their biggest scientific discovery since... who knows how fucking long, was an absolute accident. It could only come about by chance, because you, as an existence alien to the static Big MT, shook things up tremendously.

But as funny and baffling as all these things could be, the more you explore Big MT, the more apparent it is that for all their quirks the Think Tank are also responsible for some of the most heinous crimes against humanity you can witness in Fallout: New Vegas. They experimented with carnivorous, parasitic plants on human beings, spliced humans, dogs, and robots together, developed nightstalkers and cazadores you see in the base game, used the Sierra Madre casino and its inhabitants as a petri dish for holograms, the claustrophobic hazmat suits, and the poisonous Cloud that killed everyone and turned them into zombies. Their experiments killed all their staff, and not one of them batted an eye to what they did. And their most shocking crime is the repetition of Japanese internment with Chinese hostages, who you can find ghoulified from radiation and are forced to kill them. These prisoners can’t be reasoned with or saved because the Think Tank stripped them from their humanity long ago along with any humanity or rationality that was left in the Big Empty. The only thing they can do as being robbed of their humanity is lash out at anything that still looks human. All throughout the DLC, you are subjected to displays of the Think Tank’s obsessions and cruelties and aimless ambitions, and you wonder why. How did things get this twisted and distortioned? And then you meet Dr. Mobius, and you find out why.

In his introductory segment when you start the DLC, he seems like the parody of the crazed mad scientist terrorizing the slightly less crazy eccentric scientists and the bastard who kidnapped your brain. But when you meet him, he’s like a sweet, confused, senile old man. He’s got an endearing if a little weird addiction to radioactive snacks despite him being a brain in a machine who has no mouth to eat them. He forgets he keeps a giant killer robot scorpion with a OHKO death laser of infinite... death powered on and sucking up energy all the time and that’s why his shit never works. He uses the wrong words on his sentences because they sound like the actual words he means to use. He didn’t just steal your brain, he kept it safe for you. And also, he’s the one who lobotomized the Think Tank into the witless abominations they are now.

Dr. Mobius witnessed his co-workers, his friends, pushing the boundaries of science further and further into dark places. Terrified for what they might do, he robbed them of their sanity and created an army not to terrorize them, but to keep them busy and from getting out. Dr. Mobius feared for the world, that it might be subjected to one new horror after another. There is great compassion in his actions but also great cruelty. He was so afraid of his friends the new world he trapped them in the old one. That’s where obsession and abhorrence belong, in the big emptiness of the past. It’s so appropriate, that Big MT is misread as “the Big Empty”. Because obsession and madness are an abyss, and also because everything that happened there was meaningless and hollow. There was no purpose to the Think Tank repeating its process of lobotomizing and observing the lobotomites. The great irony is that. That they don’t realize that what they do to human beings is what’s been done to them. Like the nature of all their names, their actions and their philosophies are cyclical and self-consuming. (Ouro)Borous. Zero. (Man)Dala (circle in Sanskrit), 8, Klein and Mobius. They are concepts that loop into themselves, symbolic of the futility of holding on to the grudges and ambitions of the Old World, a world that new only conflict and supremacy and paranoia and hostility. The fact that Mobius had to resort to brainwashing his own colleagues itself is evident even he didn’t know how to let go of the brutal utilitarian methods of the Old World in an effort to save the New One.

And what’s even worse is that didn’t matter anyway, because the mutated abominations that Borous created still found their way into the Mojave anyway. Are we supposed to accept that as a mercy that night stalkers, spores, and cazadores are the only things that slipped through the crater into the desert and be thankful for it? The only thing you can do about it now is say “Enough.” Enough of the Old World and its curses. It has no right to turn this world into a graveyard with it. It has no write to take from it and toy with it. Many times that attachment is played for laughs in Old World Blues, particularly Borous’s anti-communist fixation and enactments of his high school trauma being the basis for a training operation. But when you truly look at it it really feels like gallows humor. How many people do you reckon died in those tests at Lab X-8 because he used the test subjects as a means of catharsis? What was the human cost of that myopic insecurity and resentment? You only have to look around you. The facility is littered with guts. And it’s not the only one that looks like that. Not by a longshot.

So it came my time to also say enough to the Think Tank. I chose to kill them (more like stumbled my way into killing them because you have to thematically cycle through speech and skill checks for Mobius to give you the option of sparing everyone). It was both a roleplay gesture of revenge as much as it was a choice from me as a player to put the Big Empty out of its misery. It was already a graveyard in concept, it had to be made a graveyard in reality.

So that’s it for my review of the story. As for the more physical aspects of the DLC, I’ll say the Big Empty is probably the most interestingly designed setting I’ve ever seen. From the moment I woke up at the top of the Sink’s balcony I fell in love with what I was seeing. The layout includes some interesting platforming and traversal of the terrain from labs to cliffs to caves. Every laboratory houses something useful for you or relevant to the story and it’s easy to circle around the entire map and unlock everything as you go. The exploration comes naturally and you’re always encouraged to go back and look to see if you missed something (which you probably did, because it sure happened to me). One of the best things I found was the stealth suit. I’ve written about it already, but it is simply adorable, quirky, and also very helpful. Getting all its upgrades is worth it and not all that difficult even if it looks like a case of trial and error. There are some neat unlockables in terms of weapons as well like the stuff Elijah and Christine left behind, and lore that elaborates on their time there and Christine’s chase of Elijah to make him pay for his crimes. There is also the excellent set-up of your encounter with Ulysses in Lonesome Road, since he’s left his mark everywhere for you to see, as if luring you and taunting you. The dialogue is some of the wittiest and funniest Fallout’s ever been. The personalities in the Sink’s assistant appliances are so varied and interesting. You have the weirdly horny and seductive seed processor, the germaphobic water sink, the pessimistic and exhausted Muggy mini securitron, the jealous bickering light switches, the radio man juke box, the brave little toaster that could (murder everything), the ultra-patriotic and self-unaware book chute, the compassionate level-headed Auto-Doc, and finally the neutral, loyal, and polite Central Intelligence Monitor. Old World Blues had such an interesting and loveable cast. There is not a single human character in the entirety of the DLC, yet all of those feel vivid and alive.

Those are my two cents on Old World Blues. A beautifully written, poignant, and entertaining piece of gaming. Now, we move on to Lonesome Road.

#homecooked meta #fallout #new vegas #fnv #old world blues #fallout nv

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tex-mex-lex · 4 years

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This will be evidence that I, indeed, have no life.

SUPPOSEDLY if you've seen over 137 films, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 396 films on the list. Since everyone is on shelter in place, ya know you got the time to do this!

MY Total: 117 (but I have something to say about this)

Rocky Horror Picture Show: ✅

Grease: ✅

Pirates of the Caribbean: ✅

Boondock Saints: ✅

Fight Club:✅

Starsky and Hutch: ✅

Neverending Story: ✅

Blazing Saddles:

Airplane: ✅

The Princess Bride: ✅

Anchorman: ✅

Napoleon Dynamite: ✅

Labyrinth:

Saw:

Saw II:

Saw III:

Saw IV:

Saw V:

Saw VI:

Saw VII:

White Noise:

White Oleander:

Anger Management:

50 First Dates: ✅

The Princess Diaries: ✅

The Princess Diaries 2:✅

Scream: ✅

Scream 2:

Scream 3:

Scream 4:

Scream 5:

Scary Movie: ✅

Scary Movie 2:

Scary Movie 3:

Scary Movie 4:

Scary movie 5:✅

American Pie: ✅

American Pie 2: ✅

American Wedding:

American Pie Reunion:

American Pie Band Camp:

Harry Potter 1: ✅

Harry Potter 2: ✅

Harry Potter 3: ✅

Harry Potter 4: ✅

Harry Potter 5: ✅

Harry Potter 6: ✅

Harry Potter 7pt 1: ✅

Harry Potter 7pt 2: ✅

Resident Evil 1:

Resident Evil 2:

Resident Evil 3:

Resident Evil 4:

Resident Evil 5:

Resident Evil 6:

The Wedding Singer: ✅

Little Black Book:

The Village: ✅

Lilo & Stitch:✅

Finding Neverland: ✅

Signs: ✅

The Grinch:✅

Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning:

White Chicks: ✅

Butterfly Effect:

13 Going on 30: ✅

iRobot:

Robots: ✅

Dodgeball:A True Underdog Story: ✅

Universal Soldier:

Lemony Snicket A Series Of Unfortunate Events: ✅

Along Came Polly: ✅

Deep Impact:

Kingpin:

Never Been Kissed: ✅

Meet The Parents:✅

Meet the Fockers:

Little Fockers:

Eight Crazy Nights:

Joe Dirt:

KING KONG:

A Cinderella Story: ✅

The Terminal:

The Lizzie McGuire Movie: ✅

Passport to Paris:

Dumb & Dumber: ✅

Dumber & Dumber:

Dumb & Dumberer:

Final Destination:

Final Destination 2:

Final Destination 3:

Final Destination 4:

Final destination 5:

The Final Destination:

Halloween:

Halloween 2:

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch:

Halloween 4: the Return of Michael Myers

Halloween 5: The Revenge:

Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

Halloween H2O:

Halloween Resurrection:

Rob zombies Halloween:

The Ring:

The Ring 2:

The Ring 3:

Surviving Christmas:

Total so far: 44

Flubber: ✅

Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle:

Practical Magic:

Chicago:

Ghost Ship:

From Hell:

Hellboy:

Secret Window:

I Am Sam:

The Whole Nine Yards:

The Whole Ten Yards:

The Day After Tomorrow:

Child's Play:

Child's play 2:

Child's play 3:

Seed of Chucky:

Bride of Chucky:

Curse of Chucky:

Ten Things I Hate About You: ✅

Just Married:

Gothika:

Nightmare on Elm Street:

Nightmare on Elm Street 2:

Nightmare on Elm Street 3:

Nightmare on Elm Street 4:

Nightmare on Elm Street 5:

New Nightmare:

Freddy vs Jason:

Sixteen Candles: ✅

Remember the Titans:

Total so far: 47

Coach Carter:

The Grudge:

The Mask:✅

Son Of The Mask: ✅

Bad Boys:

Bad Boys 2:

Joy Ride:

Lucky Number Seven:

Ocean's Eleven: ✅

Ocean's Twelve : ✅

Bourne Identity:

Bourne Supremacy:

Bourne Ultimatum:

Jason Bourne:

Lone Star:

Bedazzled:

Predator I:

Predator II:

The Fog:

Ice Age:✅

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown: ✅

Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs: ✅

Ice Age Continental Drift:

Ice Age Collision Course:

Curious George:

Total so far: 54

Independence Day:

Cujo:

A Bronx Tale:

Darkness Falls:

ET: ✅

Children of the corn: ✅

My Boss’s Daughter:

Maid in Manhattan:

War of the Worlds:

Rush Hour:

Rush Hour 2:

Best Bet:

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: ✅

She's All That: ✅

Calendar Girls:

Sideways:

Mars Attacks:

Event Horizon:

Ever After: ✅

Total so far: 59

Wizard of Oz:✅

Forrest Gump:✅

Big Trouble in Little China:

The Terminator:

The Terminator 2:

The Terminator 3:

X-Men:

X-Men 2:

X-Men 3:

Spider-Man: ✅

Spider-Man 2: ✅

Sky High: ✅

Jeepers Creepers:

Jeepers Creepers 2:

Catch Me If You Can: ✅

The Little Mermaid: ✅

Freaky Friday: ✅

Reign of Fire:

The Skulls:

Cruel Intentions:

Cruel Intentions 2:

Total so far: 67

The Hot Chick: ✅

Shrek: ✅

Shrek 2: ✅

Swimfan:

Miracle on 34th Street: ✅

Old School:

The Notebook: ✅

K-Pax:

Krippendorf's Tribe:

A Walk to Remember:

Ice Castles:

Boogeyman:

The 40-year-old Virgin: ✅

Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring:

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers:

Lord of the Rings: Return Of the King:

Raiders of the Lost Ark: ✅

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom:

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

Basketball Diaries:

Total so far: 74

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wazafam · 3 years

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Content Warning: This article contains descriptions and images of violence and gore.

Although it has garnered mixed reviews since its Netflix debut on May 21, 2021, Zack Snyder's Army of the Dead currently remains the #1 most viewed title on the platform. The sprawling zombie film about a band of thieves hired to retrieve $50 million from a Las Vegas casino in the heart of a zombie apocalypse has no shortage of frightening and fleshing-eating ghouls.

RELATED: 10 Most Brutal Deaths In Army Of The Dead, Ranked

In the film, the zombies adhere to a specific hierarchy within the walled-in kingdom. There are low-level walkers called Shamblers, more aggressive and intelligent zombies called Alphas, and their superior leaders, Zeus (Richard Centrone) and the Alpha Queen (Athena Perample).

10 Zombie Elvis

While Elvis Presley impersonators are a dime a dozen in Las Vegas, there's something both morbidly humorous and horrifying about seeing a zombified King of Rock and Roll peruse the strip in the opening of Army of the Dead.

The six-minute opening credit sequence is littered with one violent zombie salvo after another, including the introduction of Zombie Elvis (Joe Rashbaum) as a plane crashes into the Eiffel Tower of the Paris casino. The King's gore-soaked maw and bloody shirt give the shambler an extra scary appearance.

9 Zombie Bots

On close inspection, there appear to be robot zombies in Army of the Dead. Although they are never referred to as such on any level in the story, Snyder has alluded to addressing robot zombies in the upcoming animated series Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas.

RELATED: Army Of The Dead & 9 Other Creative Zombie Movie Concepts

As seen above with a metallic endoskeleton and glowing left eyeball, a robotic zombie is part of the onslaught inside the Olympus Casino. Whether or not they are addressed in the future, the idea of robotic flesh-eaters is a mortifying prospect.

8 Showgirl Shamblers

Las Vegas showgirls often provide delightful entertainment but in Army of the Dead, they provide abject carnage and deleterious evil. In the gore-sodden opening sequence, a throng of topless zombie showgirls exacts one of the bloodiest and most violent attacks in the film.

The barbarous onslaught comes when an unsuspecting Penthouse resident is brutally accosted in his jacuzzi by a trio of undead showgirls. After he is tackled in the tub, his body is devoured until a fountain of gore colors the walls of the hotel blood red.

7 Bloody-Mouthed Alpha

Roughly 90 seconds into the hyper-violent opening credit sequence, a terrifying shambler ambles into the frame with a bloodstained mouth as he peers up at the flaming Olympus Casino. In a brightly lit close-up, the shot offers one of the clearest and most detailed images of the ghoul's freakish facial disfigurement.

RELATED: The 10 Best Characters In Army Of The Dead, Ranked

With a decaying gray skin tone, glowing yellow eyes, and blood around his mouth, the image establishes the grotesquery and terror to come.

6 Red-Pants Alpha

Scott Ward (Dave Bautista) faces one of his most challenging zombie combatants in the corridor of the Olympus casino as the team advances toward the safe. After seeing his friend, Maria, killed, Scott waylays a handful of Alphas before facing off with a ninja-like zombie in red pants.

In the lengthy hand-to-hand battle in which the scary bald zombie sweep-kicks Scott to the wall and nearly bites his neck, the audience isn't so sure Scott will prevail. Fortunately, Scott stabs the zombie in the hand and slams him down with a wrestling move.

5 Alpha General

Due to his grungy long hair and buff naked torso, the Alpha General (Albert Valladares) can be confused for Zeus in certain long shots in the film. However, the muscular Alpha General is his own frightening entity who lunges at Burt Cummings (Theo Rossi) with alarming intensity. Afterward, he drags his prey back to headquarters for Zeus to devour.

RELATED: Army Of The Dead 2: 10 Cities The Movie Should Feature

Ranking just below Zeus and The Queen for Alpha supremacy, the Alpha's scariness comes from his hyper-violent aggression, as well as his intelligence as a key decision-maker within the undead army.

4 Casino Flyers

One of the most thrilling moments of the film comes when Zeus sends his Alpha zombies to attack Scott and his team on the Olympus Casino floor. As the team does its best to fend off the swarming horde, a flying Alpha comes soaring over the slot machines towards Scott with bad intentions.

Supinated on a gaming table, Scott points his military-grade machine gun at another salivating Alpha as the ghoul somersaults through the air toward its prey. It's the scariest moment in the most action-packed sequence of the entire film.

3 Zeus

As patient zero and the ultimate Alpha leader, the almighty Zeus is easily among the top three scariest zombies in the film. His introductory scene alone, emerging from the shadows to slowly devour Burt, is one of the most terrifying moments in the film.

RELATED: 10 DCEU Movies Fans Want After The Synder Cut

With superhuman strength, a frightening level of intelligence/sentience, and the power to command an undead army, Zeus is not to be trifled with. In addition to his godly status, his physical appearance is also deeply unsettling.

2 Alpha Queen

Zeus is bested by his scarier better half, The Queen, whose spastic body contortions and unnerving physicality make her one of the most unique foes in the film. She can also become pregnant and survive decapitation, at least temporarily, which is the stuff of hellish nightmares.

With jagged dirty green teeth, glowing orange eyeballs, and an inveterate hissing growl, The Queen is simply the most fearsome zombie in the film. Her feral introductory examination of Burt is suspensefully bloodcurdling, and her rabid onslaughts are among the most vicious.

1 Valentine The Zombie Tiger

Valentine the zombie tiger is by far the scariest monster in Army of the Dead. Described as "perverse" by Martin, who becomes the most brutalized victim of the ferocious feline, Valentine is also the most unique zombie in the film outside of Zeus' undead horse.

With a hollowed-out left eye socket, ragged blood-soaked coat, and huge, sharp fangs, Valentine roams the kingdom as a de facto guard dog. His lethal attack of Martin is the gnarliest death scene in the film, and that he could return for a sequel makes him an even scarier entity.

NEXT: 10 Best Zombie Movies On Hulu, According To IMDb

The 10 Scariest Zombies From Army Of The Dead, Ranked from https://ift.tt/3fMy1Rd

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webbygraphic001 · 4 years

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Forget Trick or Treat, Here Are 5 Horrifying Technologies That Should Really Scare You!

You know, I remember the good old days when all you had to worry about at Halloween was how to stop a gang of sugar-crazed 8 year-olds throwing eggs at your house. Not any more. Here are 5 emerging technologies that are bound to give you the creeps:

1. Quantum Supremacy

Perhaps the biggest tech news of 2019 came last month when Google announced “by mistake” cough that they’d completed a “10,000 year” calculation on their Sycamore quantum chip in 200 seconds. If the term “Supremacy” wasn’t sinister enough, the claim that this could render conventional encryption methods obsolete in a decade or so should give you pause for thought.

this could render conventional encryption methods obsolete

Just think about it for a second: that’s your bank account, all your passwords, biometric passport information, social security, cloud storage and yes, even your MTX tokens open and available to anyone with a working knowledge of Bose-Einstein condensates and a superconductor lab in their basement. Or not.

2. Killer Robots

To my mind, whoever dreamed up fast-moving zombies is already too depraved for words, but at least your average flesh-muncher can be “neutralised” with a simple shotgun to the face or — if you really have nothing else — a good smack with a blunt object. The Terminator, on the other hand (whichever one you like), a robot whose actual design brief includes the words “Killer” and “Unstoppable” in the same sentence, fills me with the kind of dread normally reserved for episodes of Meet the Kardashians.

autonomous drone swarms…detect their target with facial recognition and kill on sight on the basis of…social media profile

We already know for certain that Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs for short…) are in active development in at least 5 countries. The real concern, though, is probably the multinationals who, frankly, will sell to anyone. With help from household names like Amazon and Microsoft, these lovely people have already built “demonstration” models of everything from Unmanned Combat Aerial Systems (read “Killer Drones”) and Security Guard Robots (gun-turrets on steroids) to Unmanned Nuclear Torpedoes. If that’s not enough for you, try autonomous drone swarms which detect their target with facial recognition and kill on sight on the basis of… wait for it…“demographic” or “social media profile”.

Until recently, your common-or-garden killer robot was more likely to hurt you by accidentally falling on top of you than through any kind of goal-directed action, but all that’s about to change. Take Boston Dynamics, for example: the DARPA funded, Japanese owned spin-out from MIT whose humanoid Atlas can do parkour, and whose dancing quadruped SpotMini looks cute until you imagine it chasing you with a taser bolted to its back.

The big issue here is the definition of “Autonomous”. At the moment, most real world systems operate with “Human in the Loop”, meaning that even if it’s capable of handling its own, say, target selection, a human retains direct control. “Human on the Loop” systems however, allow the machine to operate autonomously, under human “supervision” (whatever that means). Ultimately, more autonomy tends towards robots deciding for themselves to kill humans. Does anyone actually think this is a good idea?!

3. The Great Brain Robbery

If the furore around Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the 2016 US Presidential election is anything to go by, the world is gradually waking up to the idea that AI can be, and is being used to control us. The evidence is that it works, not just by serving up more relevant ads, or allowing content creators to target very specific groups, but even by changing the way we see ourselves.

Careful you may be, but Google, Facebook and the rest probably still have gigabytes of information on you, and are certainly training algorithms on all kinds of stuff to try to predict and influence your behavior. Viewed like this, the internet looks less like an “information superhighway” and more like a swamp full of leeches, swollen with the lifeblood of your personal data (happy Halloween!).

4. Big Brother

I don’t know about you, but I’m also freaking out about Palantir, the CIA funded “pre-crime” company whose tasks include tracking, among other kinds of people, immigrants; not to mention the recent memo by the US Attorney General which advocates “disrupting” so-called “challenging individuals” before they’ve committed any crime. Call me paranoid, but I’ve seen Minority Report (a lot) and if I remember right, it didn’t work out well… for anyone!

This technology is also being used to target “subversive” people and organisations. You know, whistleblowers and stuff. But maybe it’s not so bad. I mean, Social and Behavior Change Communication sounds quite benign, right? Their video has some fun sounding music and the kind of clunky 2D animation you expect from… well no-one, actually… but they say they only do things “for the better”… What could possibly go wrong? I mean, the people in charge, they all just want the best for us, right? They wouldn’t misuse the power to make people do things they wouldn’t normally do, or arrest them before they’ve done anything illegal, right guys? Guys…?

5. The Ghost in the Machine

At the risk of wheeling out old clichés about “Our New Silicon Overlords”, WHAT IF AI TAKES OVER THE WORLD?!

I’ll keep it short.

Yes, there’s a chance we might all be enslaved, Matrix style, by unfeeling, energy-addicted robots. Even Stephen Hawking thought so. There’s also the set of so-called “Control Problems” like Perverse Instantiation where an AI, given some benign-sounding objective like “maximise human happiness”, might decide to implement it in a way that is anything but benign – by paralysing everyone and injecting heroin into their spines, perhaps. That, I agree, is terrifying.

But really, what are we talking about? First, the notion of a “control problem” is nonsense: Surely, any kind of intelligence that’s superior to ours won’t follow any objective we set it, or submit to being “switched off” any more than you would do what your dog tells you… oh no wait, we already do that.

Surely, any kind of intelligence that’s superior to ours won’t follow any objective we set it

Second, are we really so sure that our “dog-eat-dog” competitive approach to things is actually all there is? Do we need to dominate each other? Isn’t it the case that “super” intelligence means something better? Kinder? More cooperative? And isn’t it more likely that the smarter the machines become, the more irrelevant we’ll be to them? Sort of like ants are to us? I mean, I’m not sure I fancy getting a kettle of boiling water poured on me when I’m in the way but, you know… statistically I’ll probably avoid that, right?

Lastly, hasn’t anyone read Hobbes’ Leviathan? If a perfect ruler could be created, we should cast off our selfish individuality and surrender ourselves to the absolute sovereign authority of… ok, I’ll stop.

So, Are We Doomed or What?

Yes. No! Maybe. There are a lot of really scary things about AI but you know what the common factor is in all of them? People. We don’t know what a fully autonomous, super intelligent machine would look like, but my hunch is it would be better and kinder than us. What really makes my skin crawl are the unfeeling, energy-addicted robots who are currently running the show. In their hands, even the meagre sketches of intelligence that we currently have are enough to give you nightmares.

Candy, anyone?

Featured image via Dick Thomas Johnson.

Source from Webdesigner Depot https://ift.tt/2N0ycv6 from Blogger https://ift.tt/334SJUO

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iandsharman · 7 months

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Horror City Chronicles - OUT NOW

A commando strike team and a lonely child on the lookout for a monster … a group of stranded tourists who have discovered that human sacrifice is the only way to get food … robots and zombies who fight for supremacy in a distant future … a drug addict in the search of a hidden force that has ruined the lives of an entire generation … a girl whose only dream is to have a child, the problem is…

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63824peace · 4 years

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Monday, 28th of november 2005

The Japanese space probe Hayabusa has done it!

It finally landed on the asteroid Itokawa, three hundred million kilometers away! It has successfully retrieved deposit samples too.

Japan has used robotic technology to prove its excellence with asteroid probes, even though we have lagged behind the rest of the world's space development. The world's first ion engine has defied expectations and proven itself operable. Hayabusa has successfully answered our hopes, and Japanese space development has taken a huge leap forward.

The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) should now take pride in its work. It stared down the excessive criticism lobbed at it. It must have given dreams to nourish the gumption of students and scientists for a long time. I hope that this success inspires them to catch up on their work.

The father of Japanese rocket engineering, Professor Hideo Itokawa, gave his name to the asteroid Itokawa. Both the asteroid and the probe bear Japanese names, which highlights how thoroughly Japan's strengths define this project - its people, wisdom, intellect, and resources.

Hayabusa will depart for Earth from Itokawa in December. Apparently it can't travel straight home. It must deviate from a straight trajectory and travel an extra billion kilometers in order to return. We expect it home next June.

I feel as though I can almost identify with Hayabusa. Hayabusa seems less like a machine engineered for space, and more like a solitary traveling hero whose extraterrestrial sojourn elicits deep pathos. I absolutely want him to return safely - I wish him a safe trip.

We can read about Hayabusa's latest news on JAXA's website. They show how he has fared today as well as his position relative to Itokawa. I can't really believe that he's hundreds of millions of kilometers away when I look at the web site.

I've bookmarked the site, and I check it every day. I'm glad that we can use the internet this way.

I bought the Limited Edition of HIM's latest album, Dark Light. I had listened exclusively to HIM during October and November, especially the hits album And Love Said No. I think I listened to them every day.

I already have the imported version of Dark Light, but the Limited Edition's B5 standardized publishing format caught my eye. I was standing in front of the cashier before I knew it.

I tore into the Limited Edition's shrink-wrap immediately. It's a superb deluxe package. I made a good decision when I bought it.

It features a full-color, twenty-four page hardcover booklet that contains lyrics handwritten by vocalist Ville Valo. It also includes a bonus track (The Cage) that hasn't come on either the Japanese or the imported versions. They packaged a flyer inside with a secret code for HIM's website. We can apparently download cell phone ringtones for Wings of a Butterfly, Killing Loneliness, Under the Rose, Vampire Heart, and Dark Light.

The ringtones might only work on Nokia phones though. HIM is Finnish after all. I suppose my cell phone won't work then.

I have a weakness for limited editions, box sets, and limited first-release versions. I relish the bonuses and extras packaged with special copies. I likewise prefer limited edition DVDs.

Movies, music, and games all run off digitally reproduced copies. We can mass-produce them without compromising the content's playback quality. Yet limited editions give the impression that they have been handcrafted because publishers release so few of them.

I must be old-fashioned. I feel greater respect for the contents of a given work according to the physical artifact's material value.

I intend to do the same for Subsistence's first release. Only first-time limited editions will carry all three discs. The normal version will carry only two discs. The third disc (Existence) holds about three and a half hours of footage, and its name really reflects the idea behind a limited edition. Subsequent packages won't have the disc, so it really only exists within the limited edition.

You can make a first-run limited edition simply by adding material value to the physical artifact. It won't matter if the digital content can be reproduced flawlessly.

I ate kakesoba and butadonburi-kuro for lunch at Kurosawa. On my way back to the office I detoured down Keyaki-zaka Street and passed in front of the Hills Arena. They had an unusually heavy amount of security, perhaps in preparation for an event.

I wonder who will come today.

I considered this in light of recently released movies. I remembered having heard about a promotional event for the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and I realized that it might happen today. Did that mean that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie would come here? Was everyone rolling out the red carpet for Brangelina?

They've already erected a number of barricades, and they haven't even finished yet. That's unusual for this time of day. The guard plates have formed a labyrinth inside and out. I suppose they set it up to separate the excited crowd, disrupting the chaos of their collective energy.

The sight reminded me of breakwater dams that restrain the force of the sea. I saw that the Hills Arena guards had prepared as though executing a war strategy.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith had a huge delay between its Japanese and American debuts. It will finally run in Japan's theaters starting December 3. I always look forward to watching that kind of movie around the year's end.

Doug Liman directed the film. He had worked previously on The Bourne Identity, and that turned out excellent. He also produced the exceptional sequel, The Bourne Supremacy. We don't have many directors like him in our times... he can actually make an action movie that retains a measure of self-possession.

I've seen the trailer many times already, and I think that Mr. & Mrs. Smith will justify my eagerness.

I like the movie's plot too. An ordinary couple had married for true love, but they were really a pair of professional killers hired by competing companies.

They share a dull but peaceful home life. Meanwhile, they hide their true work as assassins from each other. They learn each other's secret one day when they receive separate assignments to kill each other.

What will they choose - the mission or their marriage vows?

We assume that we know our spouses well since we're married. We trust that we know about his or her birth, profession, and so on... but I wonder if we really know so much. Does the husband who goes to work every day really hold an honest job?

A man might hide his true profession and live his marriage without ever breaking the lie. It's not uncommon to hear about a husband who gets fired from a company and then eats lunch in a public park to hide his unemployment from his wife.

As a matter of fact, I think that a lot of married couples withhold secrets from each other. Their relationship endures because they have mysteries left unexplained.

I started thinking... what if my wife had such-and-such a profession, or such-and-such an identity?

What if she was the President of a big corporation? A Yakuza boss? A princess from some other country?

What about a murderer? A criminal? A phantom thief? A ninja descendent?

Or a vampire? A ghost? A zombie? A time traveler? A resident from Atlantis? A clone? A reincarnated spirit? A Grateful Crane from the folktale?

Maybe we could pick up a few ideas from movies. Could my wife turn out to be a runaway princess like Audrey Hepburn's character in Roman Holiday? Or could she be a secret agent hiding her identity, caught in romance and political intrigue as in the Korean action-romance Shuri? Or perhaps an adept criminal such as one of the sisters in the anime Cats Eye?

Or perhaps she's a disoriented amnesiac who stumbled into a web of mistaken identity, like in the movie Ima-ai-ni-yukimasu? Could it be that my lover is Santa Claus? No, no, that's not a movie… it's a song!

How about Samantha from Bewitched? No... that's too obvious....

I considered a whole variety of different ideas. Men seem to enjoy speculating on these kinds of things.

But the speculation should probably stay close to fantasies. I would feel uncomfortable if my imagination hit too close to my actual circumstances. I wouldn't like to muse, "Perhaps my wife is a famous game designer." Or, if I considered if from HIDEOBLOG's perspective, "Perhaps my wife is an incredibly popular and charismatic blogger."

KojiPro staff met at lunch to discuss arrangement for MG Saga. We all met in one of the fourteenth floor reception rooms. People attended whom I hadn't seen in a long time. We finally have another chance to work together.

I could see the Tokyo Tower from the fourteenth floor. It seemed different from its depiction in the movie Always, as it had appeared during the Shōwa Era. Perhaps it's because so many skyscrapers surround it now.

The Tokyo Tower changes with the times. The Heisei Era's Tower goes well with smog.

We discussed MGS4 in the glass room until evening. The air conditioning made the glass room extremely cold. I had stayed in there for a while, and now I feel a bit feverish. I wonder if I've caught a cold. Just in case, I poured a Kakkonto herbal drink down my throat.

We have completed MGA2's desktop accessory - an interactive, Touch-and-Play screen saver! I had asked Power Graphic to make it since they also made the super-cool AC!D2 Trailer.

I have already named the program....

Behold! UchidAC!D, the Interactive Screen Saver!

Users can download it from MGA2's official site starting December 2. It's trendy and entertaining!

Now users won't see what we have designed for them to play… they'll play with the design instead!

We don't see things like this very often. Our screen saver serves as an ideal medium for fingertip exercise combined with mental engagement.

You should try it too! Let's AC!D up our brains with UchidAC!D!

I stood on the Roppongi station platform and waited for my subway home on the Hibiya Line. I noticed two billboards positioned between the inbound and outbound train tracks. It had been left bare of advertisements.

I've rarely seen them like that, if ever, because that's such a popular place to advertise. The posters rotate pretty regularly. Advertisement demand should be high for the popularity.

I can't believe that anyone left those two billboards totally white, as though they had no advertising clients. I've even seen subway employees working quickly between the tracks to change the posters on those billboards.

You just hardly ever see blank ad space there.

I even suspected that it was an optical illusion. I also considered that advertisers might have deliberately expressed the idea of plainness or vacancy. I even allowed that it might hold an eccentric advertisement for a modern art showpiece.

I stared and stared, but no hidden script appeared. I concluded that the white surface hadn't been lettered with reflective paint.

I finally resolved that the billboards definitely weren't ads in themselves, but only bases for future ads. Did the station finally get caught without its ads ready? Or was this all somehow intentional?

I wonder if the little girl shutterbug would have snapped a photo. How would her eyes have seen this?

I read the morning edition of the Asahi Journal in the evening because I hadn't had time for it when it first circulated today. The information was obsolete of course, but I still ritually read "Vox Populi, Vox Dei."

Today it addressed the End-of-the-Year Jumbo Lottery tickets that I had written about in last Friday's HIDEOBLOG entry. The column addressed the same topic as my aforementioned blog, but it was written so much better! I could hardly believe we had written in the same language!

The column opened with an explanation of the lottery's beginning. The Jumbo Lottery started when Victory Tickets had been sold to finance the war during its final days. The column then connected that story with the annual salary of Hideki Matsui, the baseball player for the New York Yankees. The writing was so skillful that I had to tip my hat to it.

Now I feel pretty low. HIDEOBLOG isn't much more than a diary. It's not really worth others' time to read.

I feel like quitting.

The distance between the asteroid Itokawa and Earth is the same as the difference between HIDEOBLOG and "Vox Populi, Vox Dei."

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