Raymond Kurzweil

The video that I chose to watch was Ray Kurzweil: The Coming Singularity. Ray Kurzweil is a brilliant man with all the facts and figures to represent what he believes is the future of technology. He believes that by 2020 we will have computers that are powerful enough to simulate the human brain. He goes over the exponential growth in technology where even the growth increases every year. By 2029 he thinks that we will have reverse engineered, modeled, and simulated the brain. This will provide us the software, algorithmic methods to simulate all of the human brains capabilities including our emotional intelligence. By this time computers will be far more intelligent than the human brain. He stresses that these extremely intelligent machines are not coming from space but from within us. By 2045 we will have expanded the intelligence of our human machine civilization a billionfold, which will be singularity. Singularity is a point in time that is difficult to see beyond. Along with the technologies that are helping us try to treat cancer and other disease can be used against us in the future if terrorists get ahold of the technology and use biological viruses they create against us. I knew that Kurzweil predicted the future before watching this video and I thought that he very easily could have just been making this information up but it seems like he has a pretty good idea on how fast technology will in fact advance.

Grid Art Project

Roommate bumped into the table coming back from st. patty's day celebrations but... 900 beer caps of all variety, drink heavily!

 

 

War of the Worlds Broadcast

The radio broadcast, War of the Worlds was very realistic and interesting. If I were alive during the time of this broadcast I probably would have been one of the suckers to actually believe this attack was going on. The entire story was narrated beautifully and with much detail. I would say that the only thing that gave away that this broadcast was not a live report was the music in the background at certain times and obviously the end where Orson Welles expresses that the broadcast was not real to listeners. The acting and writing that went into the production of this broadcast made it so realistic that I stayed fascinated even though their were no visuals associated.

Boston Flipbook

A Clockwork Orange, I'm Singin' in the Rain

This scene in Clockwork Orange is one that is sure to stay in a viewers mind forever. The character Alex DeLarge and his group of friends enter the home of a couple and assault them. After they are done with the assaulting they proceed to rape the wife in front of the husband and have both of their mouths taped shut. In the midst of this chaos Alex begins to sing "I'm singin' in the rain", a song that usually reflects a happy situation. I believe that Stanley Kubrick threw this into the movie to show that these drugged out punks were sick in the head and ultraviolence is what made them happiest. This movie was set in London in the future, it was very surprising to me that this song was chosen but this director is one of my favorites.

Stop Motion

I think the concept of stop motion animation is very unique and interesting. I remember as a kid watching Rudolph where Arthur Rankin Jr. used this type of animation and it seemed revolutionary. The Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer television special first ran in 1964 so I think its cool that people are still utilizing this animation technique. Stop motion animation is created by taking multiple photographs (frames) of a static object and these frames are played in a continuous sequence.

The two Vimeo videos that I chose to watch were Bumble Bee Boy and Iron Man Vs. Bruce Lee. I thought that both videos did an incredible job with this animation style, the Bumble Bee Boy animation seems like it must have taken a lot of photographs to complete as it is a small toy with many small parts that were moving. I believe that stop motion animation will continue to be used in the future especially in children's television shows. One example of stop motion animation in a show that I watch is in Robot Chicken on Adult Swim.

A Trip to the Moon

This video was very shocking to me, it was very ahead of its time....at that time. The way that the backdrops were transitioned and things were dissolved into the scene was impressive to me. While the physics and concept of the moon was very different at this time period it was cool to see a film with extraterrestrial life on the moon. These moon creatures reminded me of the aliens in the movie Signs how they were defeated so easily, in this case they were struck by an umbrella and went up in a poof of smoke. The characters that were brave enough to travel to the moon in the large bullet structure got a lot more than they bargained for, experiencing bizarre weather conditions and running into another form of life that did not want them to be there. It wouldn't be until 1969 when the first man walked on the moon, 67 years after this film was released; this is what opened up my eyes the most.