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Youtube roundup: Tonight I’m Frakking You and Minecraft Girlfriend

Posted by on 2011/12/03 No comments

I bring you Minecraft Girlfriend. This is the story of one man’s descent into madness through Minecraft penis sculptures. I actually wrote the script for this one and it was produced by my friends at Megasteakman. I was really amazed with the ability of the actors and director to take such weird and goofy material and then maintain a sense of drama. This video was in part a response to the new Minecraft 1.0 release, although overshadowed by Skyrim and Skyward Sword (mostly Skyrim since even the new and amazing Zelda game barely made tremors in the Skyrim-dominated gamersphere). But again I’m blown away with the cinematic treatment given to a video about making giant penises in Minecraft. It looks and feels like a short film that would screen at a festival, but it’s about penises. It drips a love for cinema that is evident in everything from acting, cinematography, and the platoon references as the lead character watches his creations’ ultimate fate.

Tonight I’m Frakking you! A nerd-culture dance music video featuring actual celebrity TV and youtube talent! I feel videos like this add credibility to the microbudget video movement. It’s really cool when a bunch of hungry slumdogs pick up the camera and make a video to share with the internet for lulz and profit, but it’s also cool to see established actors and professionals joining the ranks of the internet viral videographers. What I found really brilliant was that this is the first instance I’ve seen in any media of the elusive Jedi Vulcan. The battle between Star Wars and Star Trek has been waged for an eternity. It strikes me as odd that people haven’t taken into consideration the possibilities created by combining both franchises. Imagine a force nerve pinch. Or a phaser saber, like a light saber but with an infinitely long blade and the ability to destabilize anything it touches. A mind trick combined with a mind meld is no longer a mere trick but a whole mind theater. What would happen if the Borg assimilated Sith into the collective? Phaser immunity and force lighting? That moment in the video where the cloaked hero at the dance party removes his hood set my mind free from the rigid structure of Star Wars v. Star Trek

The Princess Bride: Reunion

Posted by on 2011/10/10 No comments

HiSciFi: Copyright in Canada_Russell McOrmond

Posted by on 2011/10/10 No comments

Russell McOrmond hails from Ottawa and is an outspoken critic of new measures introduced in Bill C-32, a bill aiming to reform current copyright laws in Canada, specifically those regarding draconian Digital Locks.

Tune in and let us know what you think of recently announced copyright reform in Canada:

HiSciFi _Copyright in Canada_Russell McOrmond Part I

HiSciFi _Copyright in Canada_Russell McOrmond Part II

HiSciFi: Murdoch vs WikiLeaks, plus Giant Robots

Posted by on 2011/10/10 No comments

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Lord of Recycling (LotR parody )

Posted by on 2011/10/03 No comments

The latest Megasteakman video is out and turns the humble act of recycling into an epic battle for the fate of the world. It’s a Lord of the Ring’s parody that uses littering and environmentalism as metaphors for the forces trying to save and destroy the planet. It seems fitting in so far that movies like LotR and Avatar are almost like advertisements for the wonders of natural splendor, even if the nature is modified, or even entirely created, digitally. Whereas the heroics and the environmentalist parable that exists in these movies are out of reach of most people, simple acts like cleaning up your garbage and recycling are real gestures that serve to benefit the world. But yeah, it’s goofy parody video. Also bonus: I’m in it for a moment. I’m one of the extras playing garbage orcs. That made me really happy for two reasons.
1) I like making messes.
2) I’ve wanted to do garbage cosplay larping for years.

Miku Hastune live …. what.

Posted by on 2011/10/02 No comments

It happened awhile ago, but the concerts are still going. What concerts? Miku Hastune and the vocoder characters live. Live? You mean like actors in cosplay, right? The characters are fictional they can’t really perform in front of an audience. Ha ha ha, no. It’s a real concert with a real audience and a real back up band all for a hologram performer with a vocoder voice. The people. Are there. For a hologram. And the musicians are playing for a lead vocalist made of light. Granted that at least 76% of the audience wanted to have sex with the hologram, what with the vocoder cast being 2ch memes and young girls, and there’s certainly a novelty in being among the first people to witness the validation of a sci-fi trope like holographic or android pop stars, but neither of those fully explain the surreal nature of what was just witnessed. Like holograms are cool. I’d look at one if I were at a science demo, but for hundreds of people to show up and cheer for a pre-programmed hologram is the awakening of a new age of human consciousness. It’s like all the men marrying body pillows or pretending that cartoon characters are their girlfriends have finally been recognized by the entertainment economy and have been presented with an artificial pop star to lust after in addition to their cartoon wives and girlfriends.

Then I wonder if this is really a bad thing. In many ways pop stars are vapid, pre-programmed images that exist as constructs with so substance or capacity for thought. Where as producing a pop star requires the destruction of a young person’s psyche as they’re plunged into a world of fame and entertainment industry mindwarping, programming a hologram hurts no one. Celebrity status produces insane people who have had any connection to reality severed and leaves the star in a world without authenticity. Egos and expectations reach unreal hyperbole and the result is a person who simply cannot deal with reality. It’s simple. Kill the reality. With an artificial pop star no humans had their teenage developments ruined and no parents were transformed into to greedy and abusive managers. All that’s left is a robot idol for a generation that fetishizes robots and doesn’t care if it’s made of flesh or light

Seeing what the brain sees.

Posted by on 2011/09/26 No comments

Recently Berkley scientists used fMRI data to reconstruct images processed by the brain by using YouTube videos to build a computer vision model. Linked above are some of the reconstructions they’ve made using this process.

In 2008, the lab published that they’ve learned how to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect images being processed by the brain (2008 paper here)
But how do you turn raw neuronal activity signals into an actual image? In the case of Jack Gallant’s neuroscience lab they contructed a vision model on a computer using a library of YouTube videos. A subject would watch a video, their brain activity would be measured, and that data would be used as part of a dataset for correlating a certain type of brain activity to a certain type of video. Then when the subject watched a novel video that the computer hasn’t seen before, the computer would read the brain activity and superimpose the population of videos that correlate to the neuronal signals.

It’s quite striking how well their model works. With unlimited computing power and an even bigger video library such reconstruced visions could become incredibly detailed.

This isn’t the first time scientists have been able to metaphorically see through someone else’s eyes. Ten years ago experiements, also performed at Berkley, were done with cats (link 1, link 2) in which electrode arrays were placed in the thalamus of a live cat and the measured neuronal activity was processed into an image.
Below is a video showing some of the moving recontructed images obtained from a cat’s brain. Note that it may be grotesque so some people – it contains invasive electrophysiology in a live animal. It’s also creepy in how the cat’s thalamic visual processing interprets human faces at catman faces.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO and Dubstep Guns

Posted by on 2011/09/20 No comments

So my buddies down at Megasteakman have uncovered some deleted scenes from George Lucus’ endless reimaginings of the Star Wars Franchise. Yes, it’s all about the No’s. The guys at Megasteakman are longtime friends of mine, and they’re committing to a fairly rigorous schedule of releasing videos, so I’ll be reposting them here as they come. Be sure to check out their old videos for fun like laser tits and even more boobs.

On the topic of youtube vids I’d also like to talk about:

DUBSTEP GUNS – GUNS THAT SHOOT DUBSTEP

Featuring Mike Diva and his brand of high octane dubstep special effects malestrom. I’m really amazed at his ability to include dubstep in every video he makes with the exception of the (non-dubstep) music videos he does. That being said the Dubstep Guns video is really a marvel. I had to watch it with a stuttering connection and even the freeze frames of the dubrays were fairly glorious.

PLUGGED IN CYBORGS: Going Wireless

Posted by on 2011/09/19 No comments

NYTimes reports of new advancements in telekinesis, of the electronic kind, of course.

New developments in electroencephalography suggest that Army (yes, you military giants with seemingly incalculable budgets for all kinds of nifty and equally frightening toys) has been developing an implant that would allow the users to program and use electronic devices in their near surroundings.

The probe would be burred in the patients skull, and is a dime-sized widget with an antennae.

This a la Matrix implant would allow users to telepathically control devices, which while giving hope to millions of potato couches everywhere, also may provide some well-deserved respite for those who are paraplegic or suffer from paralysis.

Read more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/the-cyborg-in-us-all.html?pagewanted=3&_r=1

LEGO electrophoresis

Posted by on 2011/09/16 No comments

http://citizensciencequarterly.com/2011/09/12/lego-electrophoresis-box/

Gel electrophoresis is a molecular biology technique that is often used to visualize, purify, or separate DNA based on the size of the DNA molecules inside a solution. It uses an electric current to force charged DNA molecules to migrate through a porous gel that restricts the DNA strand’s movement based on the size of the strand.

And now it’s in LEGO. These are images of an electrophoresis apparatus made out of LEGO blocks. Unlike Lt.Cmdr Data it’s not fully functional though – it would have to be modified to include electrodes. You’d have to drill a few holes into the LEGOs, but you could have your own electrophoresis apparatus for the price of a few plastic blocks.