“There’s no hope left, I see that now.”

Herschel, our ever-optimistic farm host is now crestfallen over the events of the zombie barn party. He’s now come to the conclusion that he was wrong about zombies, it’s not a disease, it’s a death sentence.

But he isn’t really talking about walkers. No. He’s talking about this show. One insanely stupid character decision piled on top of more trite plot devices and topped itself off with a TWD hallmark, repeated conversations between characters that aren’t that interesting the first place.

Abandon all hope ye who click AFTER THE JUMP. Read the rest of this entry »

The whole gang is back! After an inexcusable hiatus, breaking up the momentum just as the season got reasonably interesting we finally return to meet back up with Rick Grimes and company this Sunday on AMC.

Either the series rebounds to the form of the first season and the flickering promise of the final act of the mid-season finale. Or we return the plodding nonsense that was the heft of first half. In genre television, a realm where concepts and execution mean so much, you either pass or fail.

The Walking Dead is at the tipping point.

Two sides of a coin. Two paths in a wood. Is TWD ready to step up its game?

Let’s consider the possibilities.

Remember true believers, we’ve been here before. Worse even! It was late November, 2006. In order to avoid maddening rerun breaks in the schedule of their suddenly popular cult hit Lost, ABC came up with a brilliant plan. Run it with no repeats, but in two parts. One six-episode run in the fall and the bulk in the spring.

The results were awful. The six-episode arc plodded, new characters added nothing to the show and took away screen time from old favorites and at the end of six hours we got a tense yet predictable climax that delivered on none of the mind blowing awesomeness we’d come to expect from Lost.

Run Kate! Run (away from this show because it’s boring)!

But something miraculous happened when the show returned in February of 2007. The creative spark was back. We got the first of what would become a trilogy of great episodes centered around Desmond’s time defying, reality hopping prowess. Our big bad Ben Linus became both more ruthless and sympathetic through an artfully told backstory. Found out why Locke was in a wheelchair. AND.. AND… AND they cleared the new character dead weight with a flourish. And Billy D. Williams.

Meanwhile, the season finale ended with perhaps the biggest sucker punch in a series known for sucker punches. A brilliant example of why you need to consistently blow up your mythology to keep things interesting.

We have to go back Kate! We have to go back (to watch this seasons again because it ruled)!

What can TWD learn?

Dead isn’t Lost. But it is the most important show about zombies since… well… ever. The first season showed so much outside-the-box promise. The CDC and Merle Dixon explored concepts like global hope and power dynamics in a thrilling and exciting way. Although Herschel’s farm certainly gave us a careful examination of how to consider the humanity of the undead, it took it’s sweet time to do it and diluted the point like a homeopathic cold remedy.

In the second half of season three, Lost focused on telling great one episode stories. Some dealt with previous mythology but many (like Desmond’s Flashes Before Your Eyes) did not. Let’s get more of those! You have an endless possibility of character interaction in show about post-apocalyptic survivors. What strange people? Cultures?

Think about how many terrible episodes in the first half hung their entire dramatic arc on the search for a little girl they knew they weren’t going to find? The complications they found were either easily solvable or had no dramatic consequence.

Not to beat a dead horse, but the sure fire way to fowl this up is to follow the comic series closer than they have. Until we get to Woodbury and meet The Governor (whose casting rumors are quite juicy) there’s a whole lot of sloooooooooooow burn in this source material.

This is not a slow burn series, it’s a story about survival and the forces against it. Or at least it shouldn’t be if it wants to be watchable.

The Foundation is a sprawling series of novels by Issac Asimov revolving around one core conceit. In the future, a brilliant man cracks the source code of the universe. He boils down the seemingly random emotions and decisions of billions into mathematical certainty.

He understands that civilizations will rise and fall and rise again only to again break down and rebuild.

So, he makes a choice for the betterment of humanity. He creates a society, far away from the hub of humanity, where a core group will curate the whole of human knowledge. The idea being, if he cannot stop the universe from descending into chaos he can certainly help it rebuild faster.

Today, we live in a world where that source code gets clearer every day. In a report published this week, we’ve begun to find mathematical patterns in seemingly random group decision making.

In the Jan. 29 Nature, for example, a team led by Scheffer reported success using one mathematical test of an approaching tipping point. Theory says that when a shift is coming, a system exhibits what scientists call a critical slowing down. Normally, a really stable system quickly recovers after being perturbed. But when everything is about to come unglued, the recovery time from even a small perturbation becomes slower and slower.

But the question remains, as we get better at this, how do we handle the knowledge? If we know outcomes won’t we become determined to change them? Doesn’t this effect the calculus? It is ironic that Asimov saw all this coming? Or was he truly the Seldon of our age?

[Science News]

I guess this means we can stop trying to clone them, right?

[The Sun]

Two movies, ten years apart, one friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

Both were preceded by teasers which didn’t quite hit as intended. Sam Raimi’s independent mini-story containing all original footage that wouldn’t be seen in the film was understandably shelved after 9/11 due to a final shot of a baddie helicopter ensnared in a web between the World Trade Center towers. Meanwhile, Marc Webb’s first peak into his Spidey universe was criticized for an over-serious tone, origin story fatigue and underwhelming “MADE FOR 3D” first person perspective sequence.

But let’s focus on the big trailers… the one that in 2001 proved to give us the most accurate look at 2002’s film and whose modern-day counterpart will hopefully do the same for July’s Amazing adventure.

The biggest difference upon watching both back to back is how differently Peter Parker is handled. Toby Maguire is an affable goofball who is gaining a sense of purpose by way of his powers. Oozing likability, Raimi gives him the trappings of a nerd (glasses, ill-fitting clothing, square hair cut) but aside from an awkward pass at Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson, we don’t see much of that evidenced in his character.

Even the Parker narration over the first minute of the trailer has a “Holy Moly, you wouldn’t believe what’s happened over the last few weeks” tone.

Compare that to Andrew Garfield’s far more brooding, introspective Parker. We skip the “spider bite shot” and get right into web swinging action. 20 seconds into the trailer, Parker is inventing his web shooters. A few seconds after that he’s defending Spider-Man in a heated conversation.

If there were a character narration over this trailer, one might assume it would sound much more like a Captain’s Log. He knows he’s smart and draws strength from that when dealing with others. His weakness comes for abandonment issues which makes him quiet, but not necessarily unsure of himself.

In a word, the difference is confidence. The Maguire’s Parker never truly understood his powers and was constantly struggling to make sense of them. Garfield’s version appears to look at them more like an experiment. He’s not afraid to push them past their limits and doesn’t view them as a reflection on himself.

Our new Peter Parker seems determined to make his mark on the word through science. His new abilities just give him another tool to do it.

“While wobbegongs eating sharks has been recorded before from stomach contents, this is the first time it has been photographed in action.”

[NewScientist]

Lake Vostock, a body of water concealed under 2.2 miles of ice in Antarctica has been contacted by Russian researchers who began drilling for it more than two decades ago. The subglacial lake has not been touched in over 20 million years.

What is found under the ice, could very well inform how we look to explore more exotic locales beyond Earth.

Many scientists see Vostok as not only a last frontier on Earth but also a potential gold mine for learning about possible conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Encedadus. Each is covered by a thick shell of ice with liquid water below, warmed by either the inner heat of the moon or by tidal forces.

The United States and Britain will begin drilling later this year into small subglacial Antarctic lakes. Scientists estimate that there are about 200 of these lakes beneath the ice sheet.

The breakthrough comes after worries that the Russian team might have been in trouble after they did not respond to colleagues in the United States in the days leading up to the discovery.

[Washington Post]

He spent his time with zombies.

That’s the excuse for a man claiming to be Zulu folk singer Mgqumeni, who died and was buried in 2009 on why he hasn’t be around. The would-be Mgqumeni says he’d spent the intervening years amongst the undead before freeing himself and returning to the world of the living.

The man claiming to be the resurrected artist, told The Times newspaper: “I have been suffering a lot at the place where I was kept with zombies. It was hell there and I am so grateful that I was able to free myself and return to my family and you, my supporters.”

The man has now been brought to a local court and authorities could exhume Mgqumeni’s remains to test them against his alleged incarnate. They are going to test his DNA against Mgqumeni’s and have warned him that he will be charged with fraud should they not match up.

Upon hearing of his return, many of the singers fans have flocked to see their possibly resurrected idol. Above is a picture of Mgquemi now after surviving the afterlife and below is a picture before.

[News24]

Many noticed an irregularity in the maps of Google Ocean. What looked to be a massive sunken land mass with a city-like grid.

Of course, the words massive sunken land mass with a city-like grid cannot be uttered around anyone with half a personality before someone wonders aloud… “Wait, is this the lost city of Atlantis?”

Now, it appears Google has taken steps to cover up this discovery. No doubt counting their newly dried doubloons from their waterlogged paymasters, the folks at Mountain View decided to “update” their maps with new “data” which “corrected” the “anomaly”.

A likely story.

In fact, the grid was merely caused by overlapping datasets, according to NOAA. Besides that, the grid that looked like a little town actually covered an area of ocean more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) wide — not exactly small-town proportions.

The updated Google Ocean has been scrubbed of this Atlantis artifact. Google Ocean is also becoming increasingly accurate in other ways.

Google has yet to confirm or deny reports that crucial early funding was delivered by Atlantean plutocrats or the Eric Schmidt is not, in fact, a fish.

[MSNBC]

In this remarkable video, we see two Texas heart surgeons who replace a dying man’s failing heart with a turbine. This does a few remarkable things.

1) Saves the dude’s life
2) Removes his pulse, since the turbine creates a continuous flow of blood
3) Changes the conventional definition of physiological death

Very emotional stuff. Things might have gotten a little dusty for me while watching it. The closer we get to liberating ourselves from the fragile limitations of our meat bag prisons the better.

[Design Taxi]

Legend has it that this caterpillar used to be a journalist, a good one too. If it weren’t for that one story about the Sin Eater he could have been Bob Woodward. But no, he was fed some bad information and revealed to be a fraud by Spider-Man.

Dejected and suicidal, he went to pray for The Lord’s Salvation when he was bonded with The Symbiote giving him powers equal to Spider-Man and a pathway to the true revenge he’d always sought.

Or it’s just an awesome picture taken by photographer Igor Siwanowicz.

[Geekologie]

I don’t even know where to begin with this one, so lets just start with the opening paragraph:

“A New Zealand repair man is on his way to Antarctica after a renegade Norwegian yachtsman set sail unaware he was still on board.”

Apparently, a marine mechanic was still working on the 52 ft Nilaya in Auckland when Jarle Andhøy and crew hurriedly cast off  to avoid being served deportation papers. Andhøy, who has declared himself a “Viking“, and crew and bound for the Ross Sea without a permit and in defiance of both the New Zealand and Norwegian governments.

Mr Andhoy told the Norwegian public broadcasting service NRK that the presence on board of the unnamed New Zealander was not part of his plan, but was the result of “a hectic departure” from Auckland last week.

He said it was “a somewhat tricky situation” because the man did not have a passport or papers with him.

But Mr Andhoy insisted: “Everything is on schedule and the atmosphere is good on board.

“We are well prepared for what may befall us.”

In case you missed the subtle inference  – the mechanic is along for the ride. Returning him seems to not even be a consideration on the table.  At this point you may well be wondering what are they doing that is so important. Approximately a year ago, Andhøy lost another vessel, the Berserk, on another Antarctic exploration where three men died and he is attempting to locate the wreckage. New Zealand is “furious” because last year they coordinated the entire search and rescue operation and they do not want a repeat this year. Andhøy has an answer for that as well:

The broadcaster reported him as saying that the Nilaya was not carrying a locator beacon so it would not put rescue services at risk.

So, lets recap this if we can – A rogue Norwegian adventurer accidentally kidnaps an New Zealand mechanic on an unpermitted Antarctic expedition in search of his last sunken ship without the use of a rescue beacon. Somehow I do not think that this is the end of this story.

[The Telegraph]

There is no reason all newly discovered planets shouldn’t immediately be given science fiction inspired names. None at all. It would be easier for scientists to remember and reference, capture the imagination of those that find this kind of stuff awesome and create a cultural touchstone between us and our dreams for an exciting and adventurous future.

Take for example the newly discovered GJ 667Cc, it’s right in the middle of the “Goldilocks” zone making it a huge candidate to play host for liquid water and life as we know it.

Quote UC Santa Cruz astronomer Steven Vogt…

“The planet is around one star in a triple-star system,” Vogt explained. “The other stars are pretty far away, but they would look pretty nice in the sky.”

You mean like this?

Just think of it as a really convenient place to put our pod races and slave-owning racist caricatures. In 3D!

Then again, it might al still be a trap.

“Statistics tell us we shouldn’t have found something this quickly this soon unless there’s a lot of them out there,” Vogt said. “This tells us there must be an awful lot of these planets out there. It was almost too easy to find, and it happened too quickly.”

You’re right, it did happen too quickly. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. That’s no possibly habitable planet, it’s a space station!

[Scientific American]

The picture you see at right is some kind of ape. It was seen running loose through the Florida Everglades in 2006 and successfully evaded capture.

Distribution of the pics inspired some to anoint them as photographic evidence of Florida’s premium cryptid, the Skunk Ape. A version of Bigfoot alleged to live in the swamps which dominate the southern, tropical wetlands of the Sunshine State.

But allow me to posit another theory. There is monkey kingdom in a swamp that also contains alligators, panthers and snakes so large they sometimes burst because they’ve attempted to eat an alligator. Also, Chris Cooper from Adaptation.

My question to the Weird Things readership, which is a cooler idea? A genuine cryptid albeit a lonely one OR an ecosystem of swamp monkeys that have learned to live amongst the rest of the Everglades buck wild natives.

[Cryptomundo]

Who doesn’t love a color changing cereal? It’s dumped into the bowl one color and boom, before you know it, your milk has changed your breakfast into a completely different hue. But it’s your milk itself that tells the tale true, as it is now tinted the original color of the previously dry crunchies.

That’s because the first shade was a powder applied to the cereal, since washed away to reveal the second stage.

But if you have any designs on making your own version of this fun breakfast classic, think again, the process is patented by Quaker Oats.

Their method is to create cereal pieces of one colour, then coat them with powder of a different hue. That leads to breakfast table magic: “The coating is of a second colour different from the first colour and is in a quantity sufficient to obscure the first colour … Upon mixing milk with the resulting cereal, the edible powdered surface is instantly dissolved or dispersed, revealing the specific colours of the individual pieces very quickly.”

What are the ingredients? Glad you asked. “The cereal base has a coating comprising cornstarch, powdered sugar, [and] food colouring.”

The patents in question were granted first to Hideo Tomomatsu of Crystal Lake, Illinois and then to the team of Joseph Farinella of Chicago, Illinois and Justin French of Cedars, Iowa through the late 80s and 90s.

[The Guardian]

A West Virginia Man caught this slowly moving aircraft above him. At first thinking it to be a refueling craft he realized as it got closer it was something different. It’s hard to get a great screen grab of it, but check out the video below for a flashes of the craft.

Kind of looks like an A-Wing to us.

[UFO Casebook]