“Future Imperfect” at the Boston Underground Film Festival
My brother's movie 'Robotic Panic' was accepted into the "Future Imperfect" short film collection showing today and tomorrow at the Kendall Theater as part of the Boston Underground Film Festival. That was reason enough for me to go see the collection but I also wanted to see what the future looks like in 2011.
In short: grainy, grimy and grim.
DIY Drones
From thermal imaging to prosthetic arms, from computers to Hum-Vees, military technology has regularly been adapted for civilian uses. This process has been going on since Roman times so it should be little surprise that the current crop of conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have bequeathed their own technological advances. One could argue that drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) are the signature weapon of the past decade. Now these automated spying and weapon platforms have been adopted by a growing community of hobbyists and there are indications that this technology could soon find commercial application.
PAX East Day 3
I was feeling pretty on top of things Sunday. The alarm went off and I staggered over, hammered the button and slept until 7:45. Woke up, got everything ready to leave, glanced at the clock, saw that it said 8:27. Feeling really good at this point. I'm trying to decide in my head if I want to sit down on the hard concrete of the queue line again or pretend to be waiting on carpet for the opening of the Wyvern Theater for some presentation I don't know if I really want to see. I pull into a nice parking spot about a block from the BCEC and realize two things.
I forgot about Day Light's savings and I'm a complete idiot.
PAX East Day 2
So I had to wait until Saturday to go to PAX, which sucked but I did get there early and left late so I feel like I got at least a taste of the convention's awesomeness.
The opening of the PAX East, standing in enormous roped off lines is how I imagine a colony world being evacuated in the far far future. When the word was given, in a gentle, loving stampede, the nerd herd advanced into the convention area. There was a great rumbling cheer that spread through out the crowd. There were far fewer steampunks here than Arisia; the dominant visual meme appeared to be these orange traffic cones from plants vs zombies.
I walked through the table top area first before taking a dip into the expo area. This was my first gaming industry con so I just did the whole gap mouth tourist thing blundering from one epic line to the next looking at the enormous pretty screens. There is just a stupid number of upcoming games, and eventually I realized I had entered the shell-shocked state of a walking coma and decided to find something else to do.
From Fear and Wonder to Wall-E:
The feature picture is a snippet of Ward Shelley's Timeline painting, "History of Science Fiction." I stumbled onto the picture from Cory Doctorow's blog Boing Boing, but it's popping up in Reddit as well. I'll pause while you find the original picture and stare at it and all of its awesomeness.Original
Retro-futurism
In the 40's and 50's people imagined a future filled with elevated motorways, flying cars, robots and rocket ships. Obviously, that future didn’t quite come to pass. Instead we have the chaotic and post-modern world of the Internet, wild disparities in economic opportunity, ubiquitous corporations and the steady accelerating pace of technological development. On the surface the shiny silver rocket ship future has been supplanted and replaced by the future described by Gibson, Sterling and Cameron.
Foolish Forays: Internet Dating <3
I’m desperate not to spend Valentine’s Day alone, and having considered all my options, the best bet I have is FlapperJulie. Flapper and I have been carrying on conversations for the past few weeks and I feel like it’s either time we met up or I give up on this enterprise.
FAA Condemns Directionally Challenged to Wander Forever
My Android device does a lot of cool stuff--audiobooks, internet radio, 3d gaming, emulation, ebooks, weather, email, and more--but the chief reason I decided to bump up to a smartphone after years of using their dumber cousins was Google Maps and its astoundingly awesome, free, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation. To say that I'm hopeless with directions is a massive understatement: I could get lost on the way to the bathroom if it weren't for the soft blue glow of my LED nightlight.
Project: iPhone Griptape Sticker
Over the holidays I dropped my phone into the snow. Again. After cursing some, thinking some, and then cursing some more, I decided to make a backing for my phone that was less slippery than the glass or even the metal one I have. I went through a few materials (thin adhesive-backed silicone, adhesive sandpaper, and some others) when I arrived at the perfect solution that takes care of everything all at once: skateboard grip tape!
Update: These are now for sale at RF Laserworks!
Edit: Well, it looks like I didn't do enough homework before I posted these for sale! A couple angry people have told me that there's already a similar product out there. This is great! Competition is always good; the end user always ends up winning :)
Alternate Frame Sequencing sans 3D Glasses
...but then again, maybe the glasses aren't so bad?