Well BigDog just got out-weirded and out-creeped by DARPA’s newest step toward removing the word ‘human’ from ‘humanity’.
Designed as a part of DARPA’s Robotics Challenge, the robot ‘thing’ in the video above, known as the Pet-Proto, will be let loose in a series of environments designed to replicate the conditions of a natural disaster. Several other teams are working on similar robots to compete in the challenge. They will all be competing to gain access to a more advanced version of the Pet-Proto called the Atlas which will be used in the 2013-2014 live disaster-response event.
We don’t know what’s worse…being trapped in a natural disaster or being saved from natural disaster from something that looks like this.
There are elements of leadership we admire and those we apologize for. At best, an effective leader needs to achieve the goals of his community, make tough decisions when they need to be made and advance the cause. The identification and execution of the methods are up to them.
We’ve slowly seen the toll leadership has taken on Rick. He’s become a shoot first murderer multiple times and felt less and less remorse after each incident. Was he right? We think so, or at least we hope so.
So when it comes to The Governor, the major villain of this series, it’s very important that we understand, and sympathize, with his motivations. His actions can remain diabolical, but his sense of duty must remain pure.
The overarching story of The Walking Dead in any form or function in the loss of humanity amongst the living while the dead roam the Earth. In the same way that Battlestar Galactica could be set on a submarine and still be awesome, TWD could be about a global political uprising or a world where all the electricity stopped running. Okay, maybe not the second one.
At it’s best, we watch the characters evolve and measure ourselves against their actions. If they succeed, we find redemption in even their darkest moments. At the very least, we understand why they would do something even if we never would.
This episode was one where we continue to understand how this experience has taken a toll on our survivors. After a long Winter, the seeds sown have born strange fruit.
Body modification seemed to root itself into underground culture of the 90s. Since that time we’ve seen our share of modded bods. You’d think that there just wasn’t anything to really mod until low-cost cybernetic parts started popping up on the shelves at WalMart. Wrong.
Check out all the fun these body-moddin’ kids are having!
They’ve sadly been slapped with the descriptive slang-term “BagelHeads”.
The whole ‘BagelHead’ scene has been around for many years already but is only recently getting some serious face-time across the internets after the Taboo show aired on Discovery.
In a nutshell the kids are taking needles, inserting them into their foreheads and then dripping saline into their heads creating what looks like some kind of giant egg under their skin. Once the ‘egg’ is big enough someone then presses slowly into the center of the bloated lump leaving a small indentation in the center. The end result? It looks exactly like a doctor was caught mid-breakfast and just left his bagel under the patient’s skin on her forehead.
Sexy, right? Yeah…that’s a no…we don’t think so either.
There are a lot of animals that mimic human vocalization.
But when an animal you’d never expect to develop mimicry suddenly begins doing it? It’s a little disturbing. Imagine if your dog suddenly quit barking and just started asking for his dinner in a crude-sounding human voice? You’d understandably be a little freaked the hell out.
This is exactly what happened recently National Marine Mammal Foundation in California. NOC, a nine-year-old Beluga whale, suddenly began making strange sounds unlike anything his trainers had ever heard. At first, no one could tell that it was actually the whale making the bizarre noises. As days went by and the sounds were more frequent, the trainers realized it was NOC.
There have been reports of this kind of mimicry taking place amongst Beluga whales (who’re often called the ‘canaries of the sea’) but it’s never been recorded until now.
At one point one of the divers actually got out of the pool that NOC was in and asked the other trainers at the facility who told him to get out of the pool. We could only imagine the slack-jawing that took place when they realized that their own whale had just told them to get out of his pool.
Just think…we’ve been looking for signs of a robotic take-over or the zombie apocalypse while these adorable whales have just been swimming around…plotting.
Because there’s not enough tension already in North and South Korea, a company has now developed what’s being hailed as a ‘super gun’ to help keep an eyeball on the demilitarized zone between the Hatfield/McCoy-style rivalry amongst the two countries.
The Super aEgis II is one of the most intimidating weapons ever to back up someone’s ‘No Trespassing’ policies. Featuring a thermal camera, a laser range-finder and can nail and destroy a human-sized target from almost 2 miles away. Because it’s designed as a modular system, the aEgis II’s ‘gun pod’ can be replaced and fitted with various other life-destroying joys like surface-to-air missiles or similar goodies yet to be revealed by its manufacturer.
What’s disturbing about the Super aEgis II isn’t that it can destroy a target before the target’s even aware it’s being destroyed…it’s that once Skynet takes over or some 12 year-old hacker decides to add them to their toybox? We’re all in a lot of trouble.
Here’s Brian’s explanation of what it’s all about:
What’s This All About Anyway?
Hey all, Brian Brushwood here, host of Scam School on the Revision3 network.
For the past four years, the Scam School audience has been asking for a place to go to pick up all of the odd and fun stuff they see on the show. So I want to launch ScamStuff.com, a sort of “Con Man’s woot.com” for fans to go to get all the hard-to-find stuff I recommend on the show, from bump keys to flat-edged toothpicks, to the unusual shirts I wear on the show.
**Note: The above is a mockup of ScamStuff.com
The problem is I’m constantly touring with my live stage show to audiences across the globe. Starting Scam Stuff would require me to stop touring for a couple of months to focus on making this project possible.
What We Need
The first product we want to make available on ScamStuff.com is the “Scam Pack.”
The Scam Pack contains everything you need to pull off over 115 of the best Scam School tricks, including 17 unusual or hard-to-find items and (most importantly) Theory 11’s premium Rebel deck of cards. Everything will come packed in the first-ever official Brian Brushwood pint glass.
The thing is, we need $10,000 in total presales to launch everything smoothly. The funds will go directly toward purchasing the intial stock for hundreds of Scam Packs and other goodies we plan to sell on ScamStuff.com.
Additionally, this fund will make it possible to stop touring for some time to move my main focus to building ScamStuff.com, while keeping my family fed and happy, including the newest member who is due on December 24th!
Awesome Loot
We have perks of all sizes to fit your giving ability accordingly, from exclusive desktop wallpapers to personal tutoring sessions with me over Skype, and from digital downloads of the Scam School books to flying YOU out to San Fransisco be on the show!
At the $30 level, we’ll hook you up with one of the very first Scam Packs, AND digital copies of Scam School books 1 and 2.
(Important Note for International contributions: We’d appreciate an extra $7 to guarantee quality shipping to your region. Please just add this on top of your chosen perk leve. Thank you!)
For everyone who contributes $75 and above, we’re hooking you up with one of the first 200 copies of the physical Scam School book! (That’s right, I’ve signed my very first real publishing deal, and I couldn’t be more excited!)
Take a look at the specifics of each perk – there’s some seriously awesome, and highly unconventional rewards over there.
-Brian
PS – You are looking very tall and handsome today. I forgot to mention that.
Long before we were able to see inside people with x-rays, tiny cameras or accurate 3D models doctors still had to know what pieces we were made up and where they went. Students learning anatomy didn’t always have the luxury of a bunch of fresh cadavers to study either.
Enter the wax anatomy model.
During the 17th century, there wasn’t any way to learn anatomy unless someone died and their body was immediately trucked-in fresh for people in disciplines that needed to study anatomy. Instead, artists began creating anatomy models out of wax. The intricacy of these models is unsettling and creepy but also amazing because of the stunning extent of the details. Many of these wax models featured things like a removable chest, face or vital organs which, when removed, would reveal even more gruesome details of our inner anatomy.
Often called ‘Venuses’, referencing the Venus Di Medici statue created by an unknown Greek sculptor, most of the models were female forms and several were put in often nightmare-inducing poses.
What do we mean about nightmare-inducing? How about a pregnant woman showing her womb in operation by pulling back flaps of skin on her belly.
Most of us are never going to get the chance to hop inside any of Space X’s amazing space vehicles and just sit there like little kids in the coolest toy store ever.
Go visit, take a look around and linger (images will transistion revealing airlocks, storage lockers opening and more) over the interior of a vehicle which is heralding one amazing future.
Looking like a cross between a Transformer sea anemone robot and a giant 1960s-styled light fixture in some swank space-lounge of that era, this strange-looking object is set to save a lot of lives on the battlefield.
What you’re looking at is the Mine Kafon. Created by Massoud Hassani, the Kafon is made to do something that, if we didn’t tease it in the headline for this article, you wouldn’t expect…it’s a landmine clearer.
Powered by the wind, the Kafon can take quite a bit of punishment before being retired. In the center of the porcupine-like ball is a small core ball containing a GPS sensor to track the Kafon’s whereabouts.
Designed to clear up to up to 4 landmines, Hassani is looking to begin mass-producing the Kafon once a contract is approved. Before that begins, Hassani is about to open a KickStarter to help move production of the Kafon forward. Currently it costs about $1200 (USD) to get rid of a single landmine. The cost of the Mine Kafon? Just shy of $90!
The cost of saving civilians and soldiers’ lives? Priceless.
William Barnes calls himself an “idea man” and this is one idea we enthusiastically endorse.
Barnes is equipping an airship to hover over the Pacific Northwest in a hope to find the beast they call Sasquatch. His passion stems from a run-in Barnes claims he had with the beast. He wants to record up to 45 minutes of Sasquatch footage in it’s natural habitat. The whole enterprise is called The Falcon Project and here is their mission in their own words:
The Falcon Project proposes to conduct an extensive aerial search for an unrecognized North American primate, a.k.a. sasquatch or Bigfoot, by means of an helium-filled airship, upon which a platform supporting thermal-imaging and high resolution wireless videography equipment is mounted. The Aurora Mk II airship offers major advantages over similar applications with helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft platforms, foremost, stealth and maneuverability.
This isn’t the first time Barnes has talked publicly about his plan since his 1997 encounter with the beast. Here is a news report from 2010.
Felix Baumgartner is amazing, but seriously, what comes next? The boys make their guesses. Killjoy scientists try and kill our dinosaur dreams. Because they hate joy. And want to kill it. But fear not! Andrew has a plan that can not only make your dreams a reality, but make the argument it couldn’t have worked any other way anyhow.
Hold on to your butts, it’s another Weird Things podcast!
Support the show by purchasing Andrew’s BRAND NEW BOOK Hollywood Pharaohs just click on the image below.
During interviews on SpaceX’s current and near-future plans for the company, both Elon Musk and SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell have made allusions to a much larger rocket than the Falcon Heavy they plan on launching next year. The Falcon Heavy, basically three Falcon 9’s strapped together with modified Merlin engines will be the most powerful rocket since the Saturn V with a launch to low earth orbit capacity of 53 tons. The new rocket, powered by “MCT” engines would have a capability of up to 200 tons to LEO. That’s enough capacity to put the entire International Space Station up in two trips.
By comparison, NASA’s next rocket system, the Space Launch System is planned to have a cargo capacity of 130 tons to LEO, a third less than the MCT.
The engine cores for the MCT rocket would each be capable of 1.5 millions pounds of thrust. Shotwell says final specs are still being determined. The vehicle itself could have a diameter of 21 feet – making it wider that an Boeing 747 jet.
Elon Musk hasn’t elaborated on what MCT stands for, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating. Given his stated goal of retiring to the red planet, the “M” could stand for Mars; making this the Mars Cargo/Crew Transport?
We are pretty sure this picture from a trail camera in Luneberg County, VA is either not real or some kind of lighting trick. But also… HOLY SMOKES THAT’S A ZOMBIE! THE END IS NIGH!
Thanks to reader J Lowder Jr. for sending this along.
What’s that? You want a terrifying close up? Okie dokie!
Imagine you have an alcoholic uncle. He and your dad were always close and even though he’d embarrass himself sometimes it was always funny and never tragic. But over the last few years things got worse. He borrowed money, burned through friendships, marriages and familial trust.
Then one February he really screws up. Wrecks a car. Loses his job. Needs to borrow even more money. Finally, dad has enough. He’s still his brother, but the trust isn’t there. More specifically, the faith that he could ever pull out of his tailspin finally vanishes.
That Thanksgiving, he shows up. Everyone sits down and as your mother offers a glass of wine to everyone he makes a show of asking for water. In conversation he makes sure to mention that he’s been sober for the last five months. After dinner, he gives your dad a check. Not for everything, but something. He promises there is more where that came from.
Is he a different man? Who knows. But in this moment, he’s doing everything you’d ask of him. Even if it proves fleeing, he’s changed.
Two things are for sure. One, I really enjoyed the Walking Dead season three premiere. Two, this metaphor is too long.
