- The robots are not dead yet, not in Steven Spielberg’s
world. Despite rumors to the contrary, Spielberg has insisted that
his much-anticipated sci-fi flick “Robopocalypse”
alive and well. If it does happen, the film would be Spielberg’s first sci-fi
effort since 2005’s “War of the Worlds” and like “War,” “Robopocalypse” is
based on someone else’s original story. This time around, Spielberg will be
working from a script based on an acclaimed novel by Daniel H. Wilson. The story follows
the human race's attempt to survive an attack from its own robot servants. In
essence, it’s a not-so-new take on the concept behind “The Matrix” franchise.
Spielberg spokesman Martin Levy said the project was "too important and
the script is not ready, and it's too expensive to produce. It's back to the
drawing board to see what is possible." So….the script was dictating an
absurd budget that no studio would green-light and which made churning out a
profitable film a virtual impossibility? That’s nothing new in Hollywood and it’s
certainly not going to be enough to scare off a legendary director such as
Spielberg. "Not at all. I'm working on it as we speak,” he countered.
"We found that the film was costing a lot of money and I found a better
way to tell the story more economically but also much more personally. I found
the personal way into Robopocalypse, and so I just told everybody to go
find other jobs, I'm starting on a new script and we'll have this movie back on
its feet soon." Whenever it finally happens, Anne Hathaway appears
staunchly committed to the project, having said in November that if the movie
“happens I will be in it." Christ Hemsworth has been suggested as one of
the favorites for the male lead and Ben Whitsaw has also been linked to the
script………
- So much for activism, eh conservationist
Paul Watson? Watson, one of the stars of the reality series “Whale Wars,” is
tucking his tail between his legs and running, all because of a recent federal
court injunction against him and his group's anti-whaling activities. Watson quit
his conservation society Tuesday, the latest blow in a series of events than
began last month when the Japanese firm Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd. secured a
U.S. District Court injunction against Watson and his Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society. Watson and his minions have made a career out of harassing and
attacking whaling ships in open water, but the injunction prohibits Watson and
his group from coming within 500 yards of the plaintiffs on the open sea according
to court documents. Animal Planet's "Whale Wars" TV show has detailed
the SSCS’ attempts to disrupt Japanese whalers on the open water, but now that
he’s legally banned from harassing people to make his point, Watson is showing
his true colors and quitting. "As a United States citizen, I will respect
and comply with the ruling of the United States 9th District Court
and will not violate the temporary injunction granted to the Institute for
Cetacean Research," he said in a written statement. "I will
participate as an observer within the boundaries established by the 9th Circuit
Court of the United States." An observer? Weak sauce. So is resigning as
president and executive director of the conservation society in the United
States and as president of the society in Australia. On the way out the door,
Watson did offer up one last piece of comedic gold by suggesting that for the
35 years he operated the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he “strived to act
non-violently and within the boundaries of the law.” You’ll be missed, Paulie…….
- Ginormous Quasar Alert! Ginormous Quasar Alert! That’s
right, space dorks, the good news is plentiful and the time to celebrate is
here now that astronomers have
discovered the largest known structure in the universe. That structure is none
other than a large quasar group (LQG), a clump of active galactic cores that
stretches 4 billion light-years from end to end. This outer-space phenomenon is
a collection of extremely luminous galactic nuclei powered by supermassive
central black holes. And yes, “Supermassive Black Hole” IS the name of a great
song by British rockers Muse, but that’s beside the point. This find is
riveting because the grouping discovered by a team led by University of Central
Lancashire researcher Roger Clowes is so large that it challenges modern
cosmological theory. "While
it is difficult to fathom the scale of this LQG, we can say quite definitely it
is the largest structure ever seen in the entire universe," Clowes, the
study’s lead author, said in a statement. "This is hugely exciting, not
least because it runs counter to our current understanding of the scale of the
universe.” For those who don’t know, quasars are the brightest objects in the
universe – yes, even brighter than noted reality TV tool Ryan Seacrest’s teeth
after he bleaches them for the fourth time in a week. Astronomers have long
known that quasars tend to assemble in huge groups, some of which are more than
600 million light-years wide. This new, record-breaking group was identified in
data gathered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and it is 73 quasars and spans
about 1.6 billion light-years in most directions, though it is 4 billion
light-years across at its widest point. Its mammoth size absolutely dwarfs the Milky
Way galaxy — home of Earth's solar system — which is about 100,000 light-years
wide. To put it differently, this giant LQC is so massive that theory predicts
it shouldn't exist. Its size directly violates a widely accepted assumption
known as the cosmological principle, which holds that the universe is
essentially homogeneous when viewed at a sufficiently large scale. Yet here this
quasar is, too big to exist and if the U.S. government is ever asked to bail it
out financially, probably too big to fail………
- Bitter ex-athletes are usually a giant wet blanket on the
sports world. No one likes crotchety old dudes bittering their way through life
and resenting today’s athletes for making more money than they did in their day
and being famous while they and their retired peers fade into the background. This
could be the exception. After Baseball Hall of Fame voters rejected all of this
year’s candidates for induction, including retired ‘roiders Bar-roid Bonds,
Roid-ger Clemens and Sammy Sosa, it took existing hall of famers all of two
seconds to pile on and celebrate the rejections. "If
they let these guys in ever -- at any point -- it's a big black eye for the
Hall and for baseball," legendary reliever Goose Gossage said. This
is just the second time in 42 years failed to elect anyone to the Hall of Fame
and there is no doubt that suspicions those the feats of the aforementioned
trio were artificially boosted by performance-enhancing drugs played a huge role in that result. That makes Gossage and
fellow hall of famers Al Kaline and Dennis Eckersley feel pretty damn good. "I'm kind of glad that nobody got in this year,"
Kaline said. "I feel honored to be in the Hall of Fame. And I would've felt a little uneasy sitting
up there on the stage, listening to some of these new guys talk about how great they were." Gossage hates
the alleged cheaters so much that he actually believes they received too many
votes even though Bonds received just 36.2 percent of the vote and Clemens 37.6
percent, with Sosa lagging way behind at 12.5 percent. "I think the
steroids guys that are under suspicion got too many votes," he said.
"I don't know why they're making
this such a question and why there's so much debate.” Combined, Clemens and
Bonds didn’t receive the 75 percent of votes that any one player needs to be
chosen and the point made by those voting totals was not lost on Eckersley, one
of the greatest relievers in the history of the game. "Wow! Baseball
writers make a statement," Eckersley tweeted. "Feels right." For
now, the sport's career home run leader (Bonds) and most decorated pitcher
(Clemens) are on the outside looking in when it comes to Cooperstown, although
both men, and Sosa, have up to 14 more years on the writers' ballot to gain
baseball's highest honor. Bonds is the only one of the trio with a criminal conviction
relating to steroids on his record. He convicted of one count of obstruction of
justice for giving an evasive answer in 2003 to a grand jury investigating
PEDs, while Clemens was acquitted of perjury charges stemming from
congressional testimony during which he denied using PEDs, mostly because the
government botched his prosecution as badly as it could. "If you don't
think Roger Clemens cheated, you're burying your head in the sand,"
Gossage said. Keep up the bitter, guys………
- What is China up to in the middle of its remote western
desert? Other than oppressing the basic human rights of anyone in the area and
buying up as much of America’s national debt as possible, that is. The question
was raised by an
ex-CIA analyst who reported recently that he had found mysterious structures in
the desert around Kashgar, a city in China's remote western desert that is part
of the Xinjiang province. Stefan Geens spotted the buildings in a mysterious
set of satellite images and mused that they could be secret military
facilities. Experts have since suggested that the facilities are more likely to
be factories or commercial warehouses, but that’s a freaking boring
explanation. The images show a site with several large buildings, including a
large U-shaped building, measuring nearly 350 feet long. When those pictures
are combined with China's recent anti-satellite tests, conspiracy
theories abound. The disappointing reality is that the area is likely part of a
plan to develop
the region into a major manufacturing or economic center. Geens postulated that
the development may eventually be similar to Shenzen, a major industrial city
in China that builds much of the world's products. For now, would-be spies can
continue to take to Google Earth to get their own look at the mysterious
structures. Experts have pointed out that seeing the buildings and knowing
their size is much easier than figuring out what a building’s purpose is merely
by viewing a satellite image of it from thousands of feet overhead. One could
simply believe China’s announcement a few years back that it would build a
special economic zone in Kashgar and admit that creating high-speed rail lines
and razing ancient Islamic buildings in the heart of the city both suggest the
Communists are telling the truth, but that’s just soooooo booooooooring………
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