Author: m1k3y

The skeletal trees are said to have given rise to the local legend of a lost kingdom, Cantre’r Gwaelod, drowned beneath the waves. The trees stopped growing between 4,500 and 6,000 years ago, as the water level rose and a thick blanket of peat formed.

This year a great swath of the lost forest has been revealed. Last month archaeologists also found a timber walkway nearby, exposed by the storms.

It has been dated to between 3,100 and 4,000 years old, built as the local people found ways to cope with living in an increasingly waterlogged environment.

Two years ago human and animal footprints were found preserved in the hardened top layer of peat, along with scatterings of burnt stones from ancient hearths.

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Pitching a Metafictional Planetary Rescue Squad

Like many people I recently binge watched House of Cards. For me that meant the show in its entirety, because I’d quickly dismissed the remake as being far inferior to the supremely Machiavellian original series. But I was convinced to revisit it in light of the second series being dropped, and much recommendation of the first.

What hooked me early on was the backdrop of Energy Politics. Underwood trying to free himself from grip of the Big Oil lobbyists. Scheming to get renewable energy seriously deployed.

Playing chess with the evil billionaire, being a personification of the corrupt nature of Nuclear Power. And the complications involved in securing the rare earth minerals on which solar power, not to mention laptops and smart phones, depend.

Here, I thought, is a show that’s not just about power and politics, but seriously examining a civilisation in phase shift. Moving towards becoming a Type 1 Civilisation. Showing how the fingers of the energy cartels grip the corridors of power, and how that grip might be slipped and a new future born. A bright green future.

Here, I thought, just might be a mundane, contemporary set counterpart to Dracula. While the immediate fantastic comparison was Game of Thrones, just maybe the Fincher led remake was attempting to do more than portray primate politics, but also examine the nature of change on a global scale. Its price; its bloody at all costs, whatever it takes, do not back down, we are hijacking this reality and taking it to its scheduled destination, because we are beyond good and evil actors so don’t mind the ledger.

Nope, that’s just Dracula.

Spoiler: Underwood becomes President at the end of season 2.

The image above is the end moment of the current continuity. Newly minted President Underwood, who’s completed his move from House Whip, through Vice President to now Leader of the Free World TM, without a single vote from Amerika’s citizens. Punching the desk. Keeping his knuckles hard. Ready to defend his place at the top of the primate tree against any attackers.

No closer to overcoming Type 0 Civilisation problems. In fact, he’s the chief cause.

And how did the most weighty of recommendations describe this show? “Because primates.”

(Welcome to 2014: Obama loved this show.)

Because this is #Multiverse TV we turn to considering an expanded metafictional universe. Made all the more possible because if his lawyers are any good, Fincher should have to the rights to make this real (having directed The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and presumably optioned the rest, and healming the (completely unnecessary) Utopia remake).

This was my immediate reaction:

Upon further reflection, in composing this entry, it seems even better to go completely nuts and pitch a 21st Century Planetary Rescue Squad.

The ultimate team up of Nietzschean, ubermensch characters to face off against the biggest, baddest, schemiest primate… a man that shits on the future, and holds all the cards.

The President of the US is something to be overcome.

  • we start with Lisbeth Salander joining Gavin Orsay, his furry familiar, Cashew, gnawing on the bleeding face of that FBI agent that had him literally, and his guardian, underfoot.
  • Salander reaches out to newly styled, no longer woolly jumper wearing, Sarah Lund of Forbrydelsen (The Killing), last seen boarding a plane to bring a billionaire to justice.
  • she in turn reaches out to her compatriot Scandinavian detective of Bron|Broen (The Bridge) fame, Saga Norén.
  • Luther and his gas masking wearing companion, Dr. Alice Morgan, were already hanging out at the Salander Icelandic base, so they’re in.
  • and it just happens that Alice started up a correspondence with a certain reformed serial killer that’s wandering around Alaska, looking for a mission beyond not ruining his family’s life; one Dexter Morgan.
  • And just as their introduction meeting is concluding, through a flash of arc lightening, John Connor and liquid metal Shirley Manson drop back through time, to destroy the past and save the future… again.
  • and lastly, Tesla Boy Gangster himself, Alexander Grayson III (aka Dracula), steps out of the shadows.

[Pose like a Team graphic PENDING]

And the plot computes itself…

…but if you wanna pay me Fincher, call me baby!

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sci-universe:

Underwater For Outer Space

Training underwater on a life-size mockup of the Space Station is one way astronauts prepare for their mission. It’s as close as it gets to experiencing weightlessness on Earth so spending time in a full spacesuit is used to practise techniques for spacewalks.
Support and training divers are on hand to guide the astronauts during their tasks. In space, the astronauts are aided by mission control and colleague astronauts on the Station. A typical training session lasts up to six hours confined in the spacesuit 12 m (40 ft) underwater.

Credit: European Space Agency

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The only diving suit that lets a human reach 1,000 feet underwater was put on display at the American Museum of Natural History on Thursday. Dubbed the “Exosuit,” the system lets humans dive to regions where bioluminescent fish lurk in the darkness, with the goal of studying the fish and their environments more closely, as well as leveraging their biology for medical research.

Not only will the suit allow divers to see and potentially capture fish more safely, they will also get to image them with cameras in their natural habitat. The deep ocean is naturally hostile to humans, and therefore scientists know relatively little about it. Sparks noted that the suit will also let researchers gather more information about how creatures at those depths speciate and diversify, a process that’s not currently well-known.

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A Telepresence RoboCop Piloted by Oculus Rift and Sensored Gloves

singularitarian:

A student at the Florida International University (FIU) dons a sensor-laden pair of gloves and vest and an Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. He lifts his arm, makes a fist—and across the room a robot awakens and mimics his movements.

The current prototype, or TeleBot, is six feet tall, weighs 75 pounds, and goes by the name “Hutch.” Such telepresence robots might help get disabled cops back into action.
Hutch is outfitted with a pair of stereoscopic camera eyes that relay a video feed to the Oculus Rift, giving the wearer a 3D view of the robot’s immediate surroundings. The vest communicates arm movements to the robot, and the gloves operate its hands. Users pilot the robot with a joystick.
Sensored gloves control the robot’s hands.
Sensored gloves control the robot’s hands.

“With telebots, a disabled police officer will be capable of performing many, if not most, of the functions of a normal patrol office—interacting with the community, patrolling, responding to 911 calls, issuing citations,” said Robins.

A Telepresence RoboCop Piloted by Oculus Rift and Sensored Gloves

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So far, the team have documented 40 separate skeletons, which are all between 6 and 9 million years old. Thirty-one of these were probably from the same species of rorqual whale—the family of giants that includes blues, fins and humpbacks.

There were other animals too, including a penguin, an extinct type of sperm whale, and two seals (one of which is new to science). There was a walrus-whale—a bizarre prehistoric dolphin with a tusked walrus-esque face.  There was even an aquatic sloth.

All of these specimens were found in an area of roadcut just 240 metres long and 20 metres wide. Pyenson estimates that there are hundreds of skeletons still buried in nearby areas that the construction teams didn’t touch. “What did they obliterate when they built the first two lanes of highway?” he wonders. “They must have dug up bone after bone.”

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