Just now hitting the internet are videos of a ‘cigar ufo’ doing a drive-by of a volcano in Mexico. In October of 2012 a more daring group of what’s probably the alien equivalent of a tour bus decided to just fly into a volcano so its occupants could probably Instagram much cooler pics than the other tour groups who were just safely cruising by.
In another step toward getting our food like the Jetsons, Fanta has created a print ad to describe, in a lot of adjectives, what their orange-flavored soda tastes like…
Then they offer you a chance to taste it.
And not by giving you a redeemable coupon for a cold, delicious orange-flavored drink from the store…
Nope…we’re in the ‘future’ now, kids.
Fanta is asking people to actually eat the print ad which has been created solely for that purpose.
If you live in Sweden, you can quit wondering and put your money where your wondering is.
In order to raise awareness for the plight of the homeless population in the city of Gothenburg, an interactive agency has set up 10 locations that you can actually book for a stay. These 10 locations are the real deal and by booking one you’ll be giving the money to a charity to help the people actually living in those conditions.
You can even gift a night stay to a friend…or potential ex-friend.
Russia is a unique place. They drive a little differently there, meteors land there and now they’ve decided to tackle robotics…in the form a creepy walking robot disguised as a cute (but threateningly non-cute and blankly-staring) ostrich-walker.
Like the love-child of an AT-ST from the Star Wars universe and the little robots from the classic sci-fi film Silent Running, this attempt at making roaming ‘bots cute just ends up making it all that much creepier.
Why an ostrich? Only the group of four Russians calling themselves the Konstantin Ivanov could answer that question.
Using parts you might find at home and your local Radio Shack, the team set out to contstruct a walking robot on an extremely limited budget as a way of showing what they might be capable of if someone actually opened their wallet for Team Ivanov.
Total cost of Ostrich Mech? $1,500…
Expressions of horror from anyone who sees this thing marching toward them on the street?
Posted in Animal Attack, Invention, Robot | Comments Off on Russian Team Creates Cheap, DIY Ostrich Mech – Future Armies Will Look Terrifyingly Ridiculous!
Justin and Andrew are again two against the world. We discuss the Russian meteor and why it explains how terrible Russia’s music taste is. SpaceX is hinting at a new test launch that could leave a smoking crater in the ground. A law is passed leading to a culinary freedom that might turn your stomach AND FINALLY Florida Python Hunt Results!
It’s all part of a new Weird Things podcast.
Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.
Like found footage from an unannounced JJ Abrams flick, video is slamming YouTube from all over Russia about a large meteor that hit the atmosphere.
Details are still coming in about the event and we’ll have a fuller piece about it later.
For now? Grab some popcorn and enjoy a teaser for what the end of the world could look like.
The most amazing video that hit the internet almost immediately is from a driver’s dash-cam as the event takes place (for all of you who have NOT seen videos showing why Russian drivers need dash-cams? You’re depriving yourself)!
Next up? The sound of the sonic boom reaching the street. There have been reports of multiple injuries from exploding glass and falling objects…it’s like an ‘air-quake’!
And as people begin turning their cameras to the sky, the whole JJ Abrams-esque thing begins to manifest as everyone stands around staring at this terrifyingly strange and probably overwhelming event.
We’ll post more later as Russia calms the hell down.
Justin and Andrew are riding as a power duo in this episode of the Weird Things podcast. Who is going to be the next Pope? We thumb through many surprising possibilities including a few super spies who would take the head Vatican role on His Majesty In Heaven’s Secret Service. A space death missile will narrowly miss us, but what would happen if it didn’t? And why shouldn’t we be shooting at it?
It’s all part of a new Weird Things podcast.
Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.
We’re always making references to the ‘Robot Apocalypse’ or about all of us being enslaved by ‘our future overlords’ when it comes to our slowly evolving erector set-like counterparts. While 30 and 40-somethings stand around and make jokes, robots continue their often awkward baby-steps into being a part of our lives.
But what about the children?
You know…the children forced to oil the joints of the those aforementioned ‘future overlords’ so that they can continue their ‘overlording’ of the humans?
Those children won’t be worried because they’ll have grown up with robot friends at school.
Friends like ‘Robovie’.
Higashihikari (sneeze it and it’ll sound just fine) Elementary School in Kyoto began a 14-month experiment just a few days ago where a new ‘student’ joined the fleshy ankle-biters’ ranks in order to collect data that will help ‘Robovie’ and other tin-men of the future to interact more naturally with various people. That way, instead of speaking atomic-age sci-fi robotic phrases like “You will not be needed” or “Exterminate!”, they’ll be sitting us down quietly and gently breaking the news our enslavement is really for our own good.
Although this isn’t the first time that a robot has been placed in this kind of environment, this will be the longest amount of time that a robot has spent in the harsh, Lord of the Flies-like habitat of the elementary school student.
Posted in AI, Experiment, Robot, Technology | Comments Off on Robot Begins Year-Long Mission: To Survive One Year of Elementary School Among Real Students!
King Richard III’s body has been missing for several centuries now. Most historians figured the guy was buried near Leicester, England…somewhere. Nobody could figure out where the hell the body ended up after Henry VIII’s people lost the records showing the location of the remains.
Using other records of the day, archaeologists determined that the King’s remains were buried somewhere near the altar of the Grey Friars Church…
The very same Grey Friars Church that was about to become a parking lot.
After construction began and trenches were being dug for the new parking lot, things came to a screeching halt as workers found they’d unearthed a skeleton…a skeleton that had been there for a very long time.
Scientists and archaeologists descended on the future home of another forgettable strip mall to see if they could learn more about the skeleton who’d been chilling just a few feet below the surface of the area for what appeared to be several centuries.
After a lot of testing, retesting and verified tests….there was no doubt as to whose body this was.
Discovered last summer, this story has resurfaced (totally intentional pun) as the lab-coats have determined that this, in fact and without a doubt, King Richard III’s remains.
Makes you wonder what the hell’s under the nearest WalMart.
OG Lineup Reunited! A mystery that could rewrite cultural, space and political history is revealed. What is the future of television? How about a technology that draws on your flipping eye balls! This triggers Brian to imagine a beautiful world where everyone is forced to wear glasses. Then Andrew and Justin disagree. Then the yelling begins. Oh, the yelling.
Ask Thin Lizzy, the Weird Things podcast is back in town!
FLOWERS is the third feature film from writer/director Phil Stevens. An abstract, surreal horror film centering around six dead women waking up in the crawl space below their killer’s house only to discover that they are trapped in their own limbo and purgatory. A movie that tells it’s story in silence. Without any spoken dialog and surrounded in a cryptic and dark visual atmosphere, FLOWERS is a film that builds on the journey and not the destination. check out the site at flowersthefilm.com or help out by donating to the kickstarter at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manomatul/flowers-a-return-to-the-dark-art-house-underground.
Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.
Dream big kids as you check out this retrotastic video from NASA on building colonies in space. Besides the awesome music, my favorite part is NASA’s recommendation for getting a better growing season from your crops on the space station – just increase the amount of CO2. Oh, the 70’s!
Posted in NASA, Space | Comments Off on Awesome 1970’s NASA Film on Space Colonization
Ever wonder what it looked like at the inception point of a thought? Like when your watching ‘fail videos’ online and you do that mental cringe at the exact moment that you’re watching someone sledding down a hill on an oil-pan and suddenly the shot pans far enough to see the gaggle of unattentive people about to meet said oil-pan driver?
Wonder no more!
Researchers in Japan have actually filmed that ‘Oh $#%*!’ moment…
In a zebrafish.
Watch the video. That sudden flash of light takes place the moment the fish noticed food being put into the tank. Zebrafish aren’t going to be taking over the world anytime soon with all of their incredible cerebral abilities, but that was the point of this…to record the inception of a thought in a more simple brain simply to see if it could be done.
A double-transgenic larva was embedded in agarose, and a spot was presented on an LCD display placed on the right-eye side. Ca2+ signals were detected on the left tectum upon appearance (ON) and disappearance (OFF) of the spot. The spot was shown for the first 3 s in this 6 s movie. The video is shown at 3x real time.
Experiments are expected to take place on more advanced brains way too soon.
We could sit around all day and come up with scenarios about this stunning breakthrough.
But if you were a zebrafish, we’d already know that.
Not sure about you…but pretty sure that having the ability to create our own bad-ass appendages like He-Man’s Trap-Jaw would take precedence over things like eating…sleeping…everything…well almost everything.
Ivan Owen created a mechanical hand prop and posted it on YouTube. A couple days later he was contacted by Richard Van As, an amputee and craftsman who admired Owen’s work. Once they put their put their brains together, they created a prosthetic finger for Richard. After many more prototypes, the two learned of an awesome kid named Liam who was born missing the fingers of his right hand. The two men decided to help Liam out.
A few more prototypes later and “Robohand” was born. Crafted for Liam, it took only a few days for him to get adjusted to using his prosthetic.
Most bare-bones, low-end prosthetics can easily set someone back $600 and take weeks to go through the fitting, customizing and refitting process.
Using a 3D printer, Owen and Vas As stripped down those weeks into a matter of hours and that $600 for an arm that was nothing more than a stick with a glove on the end was whittled down to a prosthetic with individually moving fingers for the pocket change of $20.
Using a Replicator 2, Ronning created
During the course of a single day and a couple more twenties? Someone’s eventually going to start tossing out ‘what ifs’.
Next day? Someone’s going to be sporting a grappling hook, a flame-thrower, a buzz-saw, a built-in paintball gun, a slingshot or some kind of ridiculously awesome combination we haven’t even imagined yet.
