Sound of My Voice-Confusing in a (Mostly) Good Way

If you haven't seen Sound of My Voice yet i highly recommend it. It's very intelligent and has dynamite acting,even if the writing can be pretty confusing. But in a good way-in a think about it for a few minutes kind of way.
**SPOILERS**

Sound of My Voice is a fun movie but it's plagued by terminal ambiguity. Is she a timetraveler? Is she not? Ambiguity is OK, when it supports multiple readings each of which work just as well. But when mysteries have no explanation at all, or are directly contradictory it just seems like bad writing. Still- the “emotional orgasm” moment was awesome and the ambiguity of Peter’s view of the cult leader was interesting too. Creators say more tv/movie stuff will answer questions, but this reviewer- http://thescriptlab.com/movie-reviews/movie-reviews/1804-sound-of-my-voice-maddening-ambiguity made a good point that it was coherent enough to be much of a carrot. My interpretation- very intelligent children are being prepared for something. 

Maggie from some kind of splinter group that is trying to gain access to children who are being enhanced in some way and she’s trying to gain access to them. The injections we see elude to some special program, and the towers elude to some gift. The only piece of info that “proves” her claims is the handshake. This is easily dismissed if we assume that Maggie had access to her file or information about her some other way. Maggie is either deluded or a con woman. She’s gathering children who are gifted to form some messed up society. 

You could also say her preknowledge about going to jail proves her credentials, but it could mean that she suspected her meeting was going to be dangerous. Until we get more information, this is the most likely explanation. Going the other way leaves way too many questions. If she is a time traveler, why does the FBI have files on her? She picked up interest along the way? If she were gathering children that she thought would be important in the future, why is she so dominant and creepy? As a stand alone, the movie definitely came up short, it doesn’t say anything except maybe “I am pointlessly confusing.” I suppose that could be potentially remedied in an ongoing story, depending on how that was done.

Still, either way, this great concept and fantastic acting could’ve received much better writing.

Scientific Telekinesis, Here We Come

“I’ll admit it’s the future when I can control everything with my mind.” People who say this are being pessimistic, downplaying the amazing way humanity is increasing its understanding and power over the universe.

Well pessimists, better come up with some new one liners, because telekinesis is more or less here. There are several products out on the market now that let people alter the world around them physically one way or another, using only the power of the mind. Here’s a few.

Mind-Controlled Cars (that light up!)

A graduate from Design Academy Eindhoven is using an electroencephalography (EEG) headset to take the electric activity in your brain and turn it into signals to control a car. The car lights up too, with the intensity of the light matching how much you focus on the car. So the old phony depictions of psychics putting their fingers over their temples and having head spams while staring at an object might actually do something now besides make everyone laugh.

In fact, the researchers are marketing the car as a way to help train people who have ADHD to focus their minds on tasks for longer. It’s not quite a mentalist helmet that shoots lasers yet, but just give it time.

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Bionic Limbs

This is only kind of telekinesis, a kind of remote telekinesis, but it still counts. There’s the story of the Re-Net program, for example, where a guy from Iraq who lost his arm got a prosthetic one that actually works pretty much just like a regular arm. Check out the amazing video below where he picks up a cup, bounces a ball, and catches a gossamer piece of cloth. This is all done through the-innervation, where your nerves are re-wired into the prosthetic, allowing you to control it with existing muscle wiring.

Then there’s Pierpaolo Petruzzielo who lost his left arm in a car accident. The LifeHand project implanted electrodes in his arm that allows him to manipulate a hand remotely. It’s not even directly connected to his arm!

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Mind Control Headband

Then there’s MUSE, the Indiegogo project that lets you-

·         Play games

·         Operate appliances

·         Analyze your thoughts

All with just your brain! The most awesome thing here is the game they re-created from the mind-control episode of TNG where you try to make balls go into cones.

Now you can do it for real, nerds rejoice! Besides just making remote controlled vehicles roll around and playing super simplistic video games, you can also take a look at your stress levels based on your brain patterns, and focusing on getting it down.

This is a game that everyone in the world can benefit from.

It’s like mind improving psychic magic.

For science!

Cyborg Cockroaches Will Save Us from Nuclear Disaster (with Real Science!)

At this point you must be thinking to yourself- “No way,” But allow me to respond to you in the traditional way of my nation, the Interwebs-

Way.

 This is real, scientists are actually using technology to control the paths of cockroaches. And they’re doing it by essentially electrocuting their antennae. When one of the antenna are “stimulated” the cockroach thinks that there is a wall or obstacle in the way, and will instead turn in the opposite direction. So, by this simple method you can make cockroaches turn this way and that.

That’s right, electrocuting cockroaches lets you control them.

 Awesome!

 But it’s true that this bring up a few quandaries. Like-

Why would anyone ever want to do this? 

Well, as you may or may not know, it sucks when buildings explode and fall on you. OK fine- you probably already knew that. But what you probably didn't know, is that continually-electrocuted cyborg cockroaches could be your one hope for survival.

The idea behind this is that it could be useful for mapping out destroyed buildings that are hard for humans to get to, but as we all know, cockroaches can get into anything. In this case scientists are using this power for the forces of good. Some have even suggested putting a button on the back of a cockroach so that if they happen to pass near a trapped person in the rubble during their quest to map out the area/not get electrocuted, someone could tap it and rescuers would immediately know there was someone trapped under ground.

And even beyond that, researchers have noted that in the long run are tiny nasty potential rescuers could help as sort of insectoid first responders, going into areas where humanity dare not venture. For example, the recent disaster at Fukishima, has some people wondering If our poison-and-radiation-resistant friends could be the answer to getting stuff done in dangerous areas without risking people. So in the future, instead of screaming at the top of your lungs when you see one of these things, you may be saying-

Thank god, I’m saved!

Bizarre Indiegogo Projects

One thing I find to be a lot of fun whenever I get a new phone like a HTC One, a Moto X, or one of the other phones I desperately want, is checking out really weird Indiegogo projects. And god knows that there are a lot of them.

Sprayable Energy?

Did you ever wish you could spray an energy drink onto your face instead of having to actually drink it? Of course you do.

It’s all the fun of drinking coffee or energy drinks but you know, without any of that tedious drinking. Who wants to actually taste a chocolaty mocha drink when you can have the great joy of absorbing it through your neck instead?

If so-well, brother, today is your lucky day.
Seriously?

Yes, this is for real on Indiegogo. It has the same principle as a Nicotine patch, since both Nicotine and Caffeine can be absorbed through the skin. Yes, just like a Nicotine patch- except instead of helping break your addiction to something, it will help you get more addicted.

Really though, it seems like it does work. So if being awake is all you want, then by all means go for it. Yay science.

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Watch the Creation of the Earth in 3D

Since Douglas Adams brought us the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, why not let creationists bring is the magic birth of the Earth in 3D?

One of the comments on this project says “It's like a time machine, I feel like I'm actually witnessing the creation of the Earth.” This brings up a confusing point. For example, if you were there at the creation of the universe, then you must be god. Because no one else was there. And if you're God, wouldn't you find a human depiction of your

Regardless of your personal religious beliefs, what makes this movie particularly bizarre and hilarious is how they go into detail about the 3D technology, yet ignore all of the science behind cosmology. The Creation of the Universe 3D project includes such dubious highlights at “Literal Biblical Precision” and “Impacts the lost” whatever that means.

And even more than that it’s how they dance around Kent Hovind.

They have his son on here-Eric Hovind-

So why not Papa, shouldn’t the so called “Dr. Dino” one of the most famous creationists around, make it to the list of other famous people on the project such as Kirk Cameron,?

Could it be because he’s currently in jail? But hey, I’m here to help. They could add this picture and text right to the bottom.

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Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind/Professional Fraudster

Kent is uniquely situated to help an indiegogo campaign designed to swindle people out of money, considering he’s been stealing money from the federal government for years! He's taking time out of his busy schedule down at the Federal Correctional Instituion in Berlin, New Hampshire.

Singing Lightening

From time to time, all of us have probably had that classic lament- “Sure bolts of lightning are cool and all, but they sure suck at playing music. The plasmonic Tesla Coil seeks to remedy this. It combines all the deadly force of lightening with all the…musicality of…. Thunder?

In order to get a sense of what this thing is like, imagine something as simple as bees. Got it? OK good. Nice simple bees. Now imagine those bees are singing in harmony in a sort of buzzing electronic MIDI chorus, like an entirely Bee Philharmonic.

Now imagine those bees are all shooting lightening out of their stingers, and you’ll have the Plasmonic in a nutshell.

Seriously though, this thing is cool, if strange. It’s an electronic music device that doesn’t use speakers. Instead, it just burns the air, vibrating it and making sound, while at the same time firing off a visible tesla coil bolt. It would be like if Nikolai Tesla were a DJ at the world’s coolest club.

New Indie Games That Prove Old School “16 Bit” Is Making a Comeback

It’s not just that you can play SNES games on your Android now with an emulator that’s making old style games come back into vogue on all of the awesome new phones that you can upgrade to these days like the Moto X.

 It’s also the huge influx of Indie games in places like KickStarter and Indiegogo that are revitalizing old school gamer graphics. It just goes to show that there’s a reason why many people vote a 16 bit game- Chrono Trigger the best video game of all time.

People love the whole package in games-music, mood, and writing, way more than they care about how great the graphics are ultimately. And now that indie gamers have been let loose on the world, we are probably going to see this more and more- the experience of video games being emphasized over just mere spectacle.

Here are a few examples of this happening right now.

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HyperLight Drifter

This game is like Chrono Trigger meets the Terminator? Sound awesome?

It is-

A better comparison in terms of gameplay would be like a Link to the Past. Imagine playing Chrono Trigger, but instead of the whole RPG choose your attack thing, you hit a button to swing your sword, hit a button to fire your ‘hardlight” cannon, and so on. I admit I always wondered what some of the more awesome RPG titles would be like they had more of an open action-RPG approach. In my incredibly humble opinion Action RPG is the best game type.

And God, this game looks so unique. It has the whole post-apocalyptic vibe going on, with huge robotic and bio-monsters, and a real lone-hero-with-cape feel. Everything is monolithic looking, like in Shadows of the Collosus, but with more of a sci fi feel.

Hyperlight is still on Kickstarter still as of the time of this posting, and will be for a few more weeks.

Here's a comparison that might look familiar.

      Hyperlight with a campfire loner feel.

  ChronoTrigger, with a campfire team feel. It almost looks like Magus (the purple cloak guy on the right) should migrate up into the top loner screenshot.

Mighty Number 9

If haunting post-apocalyptic sci-fi isn’t your speed, how about a happy Japanimation megaman clone? Mighty No. 9 might not be technically 16-bit, but it’s definitely done in an original 16 bit sidescroller style. It looks like they’re going to stick with some of the stuff that Made MegaMan fun back in the day, but with weird cool stuff added in like being able to turn into random tools.

Apparently you’ll be able to steal some “cell” energy after beating enemies and store it, using it when you’re fighting even harder bosses later on to do cool stuff like fill the screen with fire, or do tons of punches, so it’s keeping the strategy from Megaman and raising the stakes. It might even come to Nintendo 3DS at some point, which would look super fantastic.

Crystal Kingdom

Crystal Kingdom is taking old school JRPG and adding in the MMO for some great letter combinations. That’s right, instead of just have 2 or 3 friends jump in on an SNES type RPG game, you can play with the entire Internet!

You can play for free since it’s currently in open Beta.

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It really makes you wonder just how awesome retro 16 bit games are going to get. Maybe we'll start 16 bit-ifying modern games. A 16 bit RPG version of CoD would be sweet maybe?

How to Fool Your Friends into Thinking You Are Magic with Real Tech Devices (Part 1)

It’s been my dream since the *dawn of time* to just point my fingers at things and magically affect them. I wanted to be able to talk to technology and make best buds with them the way aquaman does with fish. It’s mind-blowing just how close we’re starting to get to being able to let people like me pretend. Here are a few examples-remember that the key is showmanship. If you don’t tell people how you can do all of these things, then maybe you and actually convince them you are descended from a machine god and have magic techno powers. Maybe, in time, you can also convince yourself. And yes, all of these gadgets are actually real. Welcome to the future. It's awesome.

Remote Lock-Goji

This little gadget is insanely cool looking. It got started through Indiegogo which just goes to show that now that we’re in the future, apparently mad scientist shenanigans are crowdsourced. Obviously

Sweet Austrian accents are optional.

But What IS it?

Oh nothing much, it’s just a magic door-transforming techno lock that you can control with techno magic. OK, fine-your smart phone. You can do it with ANY lock though. You just slip this thing over your regular “dumb” lock in your house, and you can now unlock it through your smartphone. You can also unlock it based on any behavior you want. This includes features like-

·         Unlock whenever you approach-

·         Unlock with a “fob”: You can get la little computer thing to jam into the slot to unlock it if all else fails. They even get you

·         Have it Unlock at a Certain time- Say you have cleaners coming over at 11 am, you can have it unlock between the hours that they’ll be there, and lock again right after. All without even being there at all.

·         Do it Whenever You want with the App

How to Be Magical-

Get our your harry potter wand, or whatever the techno equivalent might be, slip your hand into your pocket and shout ALOHA MORA! Or maybe, I abjure thee, in the name of the Machine God Machinima, OPEENNNN! Then either hit the button in your pocket, or if that’s too obvious, just wait until the last second to move within range of Goji. The door will unlock right on cue, seemingly by itself, and you can convince people that you can communicate with the spirits of machines.

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WeMo

The Belkin WeMo Light Switch can actually do way more than what I'll describe here, but we’ll go with one amazing thing at a time. This gadget is a plug that you can connect your gadgets to, just like any other plug. Except! This one can be turned on or off remotely. This means you can turn on any gadget in your house even when you aren’t there using a smartphone. You can also hook up a remote sensor that works via your home’s WiFi network. There are tons of them, but the simplest one is the motion sensor. You can use it to get lights to turn on when you enter a room, or turn on and off at random intervals to make it look like you’re there when you aren’t.

How to be Magic

Use a surge protector to hook up every device in your room up to the WeMo switch and sensor. Then get your audience.  Tell everyone they mustn’t disturb the sanctity of the room that you’ve blessed with “techno fire,” and instead to watch from the room over. Then rush into the room and proclaim; “BE SILENT!”  When all the blaring televisions, computers, radios, that you had left on earlier, even the lights in the room go off, everyone will be convinced of your technosorcery. For bonus points laugh sheepishly a bit afterwards and say “Maybe I overdid it a bit.”

Come On, Get Real

OK, so that might not work on anyone long term, and you probably wouldn't seriously want anyone to think you were some supernatural menace.A new techno-witch hunt would be pretty awkward at dinner parties. But even if you manage to make them doubt themselves for a split second, think about how awesome that would be? And even beyond that- these devices are all real, and they are darn cool. The possibilities with them are practically limitless, especially when you see some of the others later on in this series. And even if you can't convince anyone that you're a techno-sorcerer, you'll feel like one, and come on, that's way more important.

Rdio Vs. Pandora Vs. Spotify: Which Online Radio Site Is In Your Destiny?

MP3 players are quickly falling away these days in favor of having music in the cloud. After all, why settle for whatever your MP3 player can hold, when you can get an endless number of songs from music streaming sites and discover a bunch of new bands in the process? And the way the future is going, pretty soon you'll be hearing that music in your head while you dream at night. But for now, here are a few of th ebigest streaming radio sites for your phone.

Pandora

If you haven't heard of Pandora before now, welcome to the 21st century! Here's your complimentary smart-phone and Samsung Galaxy Tab. Just kidding-everything costs like crazy. And to be honest, I hadn't even heard of this service myself until relatively late in the game, so I'm just emerging from the past time travel cave myself. Pandora markets itself as the perfect way to find new music. The service is free, but you can upgrade to $3.99 per month, or 3 dollars per month with the contract.

PROS

-192K bits per second Quality on Pandora One

-24 Hour Free Trial of Pandora One

-Personalized Music Powered by Music Genome Project-This project is described as the “most sophisticated taxonomy of musical information ever collected.” It’s been in the works for over 10 years, and it’s the engine behind giving you music similar to the music you tell Pandora that you like.

-Pandora One is ad-free

-Pandora Mobile App is Free

-Pandora Available in Cars: Cars like the 2011 and later BMW vehicles have Pandora on board. So do the following-

·         2012 Regal

·         Verano

·         Lacross

·         2012 Chevy Sonic (with Bluetooth)

CONS

-Lack of Niche stations is a problem.

-Lacks on-demand streaming or playlists.

-Free option has a whole lot of ads.

Spotify

Spotify has a different approach to Pandora, since Pandora focuses on a web browser for PC solutions, though obviously both have apps. For Spotify you have to actually download software to set it up, it’s not play and go like Pandora. The social media integration on Spotify tends to be the best around though, so people who like sharing music with their friends will probably love Spotify like crazy.

PROS

-Free song playlist options.

-“Unlimited” Option costs $4.99 per month: Desktop and laptop supported. No ads whatsoever and no contract needed.

-“Premium” costs $9.99 per month: Download any song you want and listen offline. All devices supported. Free 30 day Trial.

-Browse Music Collections of friends, artists, celebrities, etc. Listen to what people you know are listening to, and post it to Facebook!

-Premium Sound Quality

-Add lyrics to music

-Share music with friends with embed link

CONS

-Free version is inundated with ads

-WMA tracks can be a problem

-Radio stations not as epic as something like Pandora.

Rdio

Rdio advertises itself has having more music that “you could listen to in a lifetime.” It’s adding music constantly and its library is already large enough that it may be hard for its competitors to keep up, especially in the long run. If you want a streaming service that has just about everything but the most obscure songs, Rdio is very likely going to be the service you need.

PROS

-Library of 20 Million and Growing

-$4.99 per month for unlimited Web streaming

-“Unlimited + Mobile” is $9.99 per month. You get Sonus or Roku support too!

-“Unlimited Family”- Get 2 subscriptions for just $17.99. For a third it’s only $22.99. Third, 4^th, and 5^th subscriptions are all half price!

-Rewind tracks as much as you want!

-Search Music

CONS

-Rdio doesn’t have lyric support at all

-Lack of good support for indie artists.

Bottom Line: Which One Will I Want?

That depends on what you. So which is more important to you?

Huge Selection: If having the biggest selection around is what you want in streaming music, than Rdio is your best bet since they focus on that.

Great Social Options- If what draws you to music is the sharing, than Spotify has one of the best reputations for this. The comment adding ability is a unique one as well.

All about the radio stations! If the radio stations and discovering new music is your thing, then you can’t go wrong with Pandora. They have a huge engine behind personalizing your stations for you.