And On And On

Conditions: Colder

The Mining Frontier

Turns out some people saw Armageddon as more of a potential blueprint for mining space asteroids rather than a precautionary tale of the end of civilisation. A new venture has been announced that is intending to do exactly that.

While the announcement may cause some people to snicker at what could be a page out of a sci-fi novel or a Hollywood movie scene, Planetary Resources is making its debut just as scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other groups are embracing the notion of mining "near-Earth asteroids" and providing blueprints for how such a feat would be
accomplished.

The possibility of extracting raw materials such as iron and nickel from asteroids has been discussed for decades, but the cost, scientific expertise and technical prowess of fulfilling such as feat have remained an obstacle. NASA experts have projected it could cost tens of billions of dollars and take well over a decade to land astronauts on an asteroid.

- online.wsj.com/article/

Really? Space mining? I dunno, I just can't see what could possibly be out there that could justify the enormous expense to find it, go to it, extract it, then somehow bring it back. How much gold out there can there be?



Film Review: Titanic (3D)

James Cameron's Titanic was a big moment in cinema. It was a revelation, revolving around the point that you can make a big romantic movie, have it also be exciting, and the audience will come and see it. - Not the regular teenage boy sub-audience that every normal blockbuster chases after, but the actual audience, the people around the world, of all types and ages who will pay to see good movies in the cinemaplex. And they came, making Titanic the biggest box office success ever - not needing the gimmicks of 3D, but instead relying on storytelling, character and spectacle, all handled by a master director at the top of his game. So it's a little ironic that it now is being released back to the theaters in 3D. I've railed against 3D often enough for it to get monotonous, but the key point is that it is a diversion, distracting us from the movie. It's also annoying in that the focus is a lot more narrow in a 3D movie, so many characters in a scene become blurry if you are not looking at the character you are supposed to be.

All of that is true again of Titanic, and the fun of seeing the ship in 3D, as well as the spectacular parts doesn't make up for the distraction factor. But despite it all, the heart of the film still shines through. And like so many Cameron movies, it's the female characters that drive the film. Here it's the lovely Kate Winslet as Rose, fighting to escape her fate as an unhappy housewife. Fighting to be with Jack, the catalyst to her revolution, and fighting to save him, save them, and finally to save herself as the ship sinks out from under them. The movie may groan at times under the weight of the inevitable, and the stuffy atmosphere of the early twentieth century, but all that fight keeps things moving.

Of course a big strength is the "realness" factor, the impression that we are seeing the reality of what happened, that these people are really real, another kudos to how well Cameron and his actors have done with their roles. And so as the ship sinks we are struck forcefully of how tragic it all was. This,of course, is a downer movie, with a hard and unhappy ending - and yet Gloria Stuart, as Rose's older half, manages to leave us with a sense of wistfulness, rather than despair. Not bad for a disaster movie. Four icebergs out of five.


- Peace out

That's Entertainment

Conditions: Pretty Nice

Computers Are Evil

Easter is a traditional time for religious leaders to make grand announcements, and this one is no different:

VATICAN CITY: Pope Benedict, leading the world's Catholics into Easter, said on Saturday technological progress, in the absence of awareness of God and moral values, posed a threat to the world.
[...]

"The darkness that poses a real threat to mankind, after all, is the fact that he can see and investigate tangible material things, but cannot see where the world is going or whence it comes, where our own life is going, what is good and what is evil," he said.

"The darkness enshrouding God and obscuring values is the real threat to our existence and to the world in general," he said.

Benedict, repeating one of the central themes of his pontificate, said man was too often in awe of technology instead of being in awe of God.

- indiatimes.com/

And that's a good point, and well made, but I'm not entirely sure that a shunning of technology is going to right the problems. After all, the crusades was all about embracing the awe of god and shunning technology, right? And that wasn't cool.



Film Review: The Hunger Games

They have compared it to a few different famous movies like Logan's Run or Twilight for example, but the main film I thought of during my screening was the old Schwarzenegger classic: The Running Man. Of course it has none of the bite or the grit of The Running Man, but the parallels are obvious. In a dystopian future, people are regularly selected by the wealthy and powerful to take part in a televised game where they are killed off until there is one winner. The real difference in the Hunger Games is that the participants are kids, and they have to hunt each other.

Our heroes are Katniss and Peeta, both from a coal-mining district, one of twelve districts that serve the all-powerful Capitol, as punishment for a civil war that took place long ago. Katniss volunteered herself in place of her little sister, and as she is already an experienced hunter, she has a chance of winning against the others. However the film focuses as much on the preparation of the participants as the game itself, so we see the focused and bashful Katniss have to learn to project herself to the audience, and become a character for people to identify with - as ratings are all important. Based on a series of famous teen-oriented books, the film is very deliberate about setting up the world the story takes place in. Once the actual game starts, about halfway through the film, the action is thick and fast with Katniss quickly learning how to survive and kill to get to the end of the game. Of course it's never that easy and a blossoming romance between her and Peeta ends up making her both more vulnerable and more fearsome.

While the subject matter is good, albeit well-traveled, I have to say the way the film has been directed was awful. Massive overuse of the shaky-cam, combined with a lot of shots that are just zoomed-in too much, make for an uncomfortable viewing experience. I realise that feeling may have been what the director was going for, but I don't think "annoyed" is what he wants the audience to be principally experiencing. Given the fact that we've got kids murdering other kids for a television show, I'm a bit confused as to how the film doesn't really horrify us as much as it should. Perhaps it's because that, since it's for kids, the violence has been turned down somewhat, and I note that a lot of the more violent scenes feature the camera shaking so much that it's plainly obvious that they are trying to obscure just enough to keep a kid-friendly rating. Furthermore, the franchise-friendly nature of the material is very obvious in the way the film ends, which is annoying, albeit to be expecting. The actors are spot-on, though, and Jennifer Lawrence really inhabits her character with a warmth and a shocked innocence. Not bad for a kids film. Three knives out of five.

- Peace out

But That's Just Peanuts To Space

Conditions: Meh

More Trouble With Travel.

In doing some medical checks of it's astronauts, Nasa stumbled across another surprising medical issue: the eyeballs of the people who spent time in space had flattened a little bit, which indicates another problem with sending fragile humans into space for long periods of time. What do you think, Dr Kramer?

Dr. Kramer said he suspected increased pressure was at the heart of the problem for the astronauts, too. Without the downward pull of gravity, fluids in the body shift higher in the body, including inside the skull. (It is, however, too early to rule out other causes, he said, like the increased radiation that astronauts experience while in orbit.)

The flattening of the eyes is easily compensated for by eyeglasses, and nearsighted people become less nearsighted. But the M.R.I. scans also revealed little ripples in the back of the eyes of some of the astronauts, distorting their vision in a way that “would be more disconcerting to us,” Dr. Kramer said.

The swelling, if untreated, could damage vision, possibly even leading to blindness. The astronauts who had spent longer time in space exhibited more abnormalities, although some of those who had floated in space for less than a month also had eye changes.

- nytimes.com/

Now of course, we can be fairly clever, and could potentially come up with some kind of solution before we actually have the funding to try traveling long distances in space (probably about a decade away) but what with this and the deadly radiation that lies outside Earth's magnetic field, it's looking more and more to me that we're just not physically not meant to travel that far.

Related: How Big Is Space: A fun graphic from the BBC demonstrating just how big our galaxy is.



Film Review: John Carter

The poster didn't really make a lot of sense. Some guy, presumably Carter, chained to a giant rock while two Kong-sized creatures charge at him. Looked like the ultimate foregone conclusion, so you knew there had to be a twist. And there is, thanks to the words they removed from the name of the movie: "of Mars". And on Mars, apparently humans have like four times the strength they have here on Earth.

A wildly imaginative film, John Carter is a captain in the America Confederate army who is sick of war, mostly due to having lost his wife and child. Rebellious to a fault, all he wants to do is find a fabled cave of gold. However in finding it he accidentally triggers an alien device that transports him to Mars - a planet that not only has an atmosphere but also three warring races of aliens. It's one of these, the Tharks, that Carter gets captured by. Impressed by his ability to jump huge distances, thanks to Earth-conditioned muscles and bones, he is befriended by the Thark king. The two other races are in the last stages of their war, the evil side are winning thanks to some mysterious ...guys, who shape shift and possess way better technology than anyone else, and who have decided to help the evil side win the war (because the evil guys are thugs and therefore easier to control). Carter, therefore, drops in the middle of this as a total wild card, rescuing Princess Dejah. Together, along with a Thark called Sola they set off to find a gateway John can use to get back to Earth. But will he turn his back on the Princess and her people to return home to Earth, leaving her to have to marry the evil king?

As you can no doubt tell, we're deep into the realms of fantasy here, so far in that we can't even ridicule a crazy eight-legged dog that runs at about mach 2. Well, maybe a little sniggering, but these kinds of films can work if they take themselves seriously, and this one tries so hard. But it doesn't work. Oh, it tries it's damnedest, with great swooping deserts, tribes of aliens, crazy flying machines and a Warrior/Scientist/Princess to fall in love with, but it stumbles in a number of places, despite the Disney polish. Based on a famous book written 100 years ago, this story has inspired practically all the great movies that have gone before. So unfortunately now Carter has finally got his turn, it's to the feeling of deja-vu. It's a spirited film, to be sure, but the needlessly-complicated plots, and the odd characters (including Carter himself, who is difficult to figure out), and the truncated ending leaves you with a bit of a mash.

You want to like it, it is a bit of a hoot. But really, you can't overlook the disjointed issues and plot holes, and I guess the overall cheesiness that the film contains. And yet... And yet... It is a pretty grand adventure, in a world growing less adventurous by the day. Three jumps out of five.

- Peace out