"My God. It's full of stars!"

Just a short post reacting to the news that two Space Agencies, that are normally competing with each other are joining forces. Their goal is to get to Jupiter. More importantly the Ice World Europa, which is one of its natural satellites(moons).
Now I have heard this story before, in Sir Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010. It doesn't go that well.

Although it won't launch until 2020 it will not reach its destination until 9 years later. A whole 19 years after we should already be there.

Well in the novel and its movie adaptation. Europa has life. The hyper advanced race which are only personified by their 1x4x9 black featurless monoliths encourage the life turning Jupiter into a dwarf star (which Jupiter actually is close to becoming). Earth then has two suns and mankind receives its first message from an extra terrestrial intelligence transmitted through the HAL 9000.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.....

I'm sure nothing will happen, but you never know.

I would however, like to offer ideas for naming the crafts NASA/ESA would send to jupiter..

LEONOV
DISCOVERY
BOWMAN
FLOYD
ARTHUR C. CLARK
ODYSSEY
LUCIFER
TMA-1

But please don't call it the TSIEN.


Use them together. Use them in peace.

Light @ The End Of The Tunnel

The present is bleak. For proof just look out of your window or turn on the news.
Wars, recession, corruption, erosion of civil liberties and moral decline.
That's the general population for you. What about the rest?
Scientists, inventors, writers, readers, and the freethinkers of the world. You know who you are and you are not alone.
Today the web is an ubiquitous tool for the masses. Navigation of the web has been made easy by Google and Microsoft. Only if you ask it the right question.
But what if you want to do more than search for other peoples creations? What if you want to create something yourself? Something to share with the global community. What If you don't know where to begin?
Help is on hand in the form of new earth online.
It is a website controlled by an old college friend of mine, and throughout the years I have known him, he has always been a big science, technology and media guru. This was when the internet was in its relative infancy towards the end of the end of the last century.
The website helps software and web based developers get to grips with the technology and technique of new hardware and software, and guides people from humble beginnings to a more advanced level.
Admittedly my blog is still in its proto-form. I wish to expand sometime in the future and a lot of the tech-jargon that comes with the web development has stopped me before I have even gotten started, so this will help me.
Its not all about development either. As a sort of tea break from the seemingly endless coding, there are many informative movie reviews. Encompassing all genres of cinema from Manga to mainstream. The site offers many informative reviews of new software products, for those that are never sure whether to download something, and want a second opinion even though Google says that it is the best thing since sliced bread.
Recent posts include online security. Making sure you choose the right password. In an internet that always asks you to register before you do anything.

So even though the old world is crashing and crunching. A New Earth is forming and there are people like this offering us a helping hand into the twenty-first century.

The Lost World: Found

Any one that knows me will know that I am a nut for dinosaurs and other prehistoric life.

And anyone that know that, and has enough knowledge of the subject to engage me in debate will know that I have been staunchly reluctant to accept that dinosaurs evolved into bird even though there is evidence to prove otherwise all be it sparse and fragmented. I have accepted the school of thought however an not dismissed the notion that a group as diverse as dinosaurs, could contain a species that had the potential to evolve into a group as diverse as birds.

This post is dedicated to the Naturalist Charles Darwin who would be celebrating his 200^th birthday this month. His ground breaking theory of evolution by natural section is the reason why we don't all look the same and why a lot of us are more than just a couple of microns in diameter.

This post is not a rant as to why birds are not dinosaurs. Actually I would like to announce that I am now thoroughly convinced that birds do have a dinosaurian ancestry. This post is not about that either.

How close do you think we are to recreating them? Dinosaurs I mean. You know, bringing them back to life.

The answer is very close and I'm not talking about going the whole insects trapped in amber route.

It is unfortunately not common knowledge that there are more animals that have had it's genome mapped than just humans. There is a myriad of plants, animals, fungi and even viruses with genomes mapped. The chimpanzee, the brown rat, the platypus, brewers yeast (which was the first genome to be mapped) and the Chicken. A bird. A descendant from from dinosaurs perhaps. Still I was unconvinced at this point. However I had heard of reverse engineering before.

Reverse engineering is when you search the genome for genes that are still present in the DNA strand from a previous incarnation. So in theory you could find the very single celled life form that everything evolved from. Which fascinates me a lot.

Well they did this with a chicken. They actually did this, not are doing, or even thinking about doing. They did it.

Scientists took a chickens embryo and using proteins, reactivated genes for tail growth. Knowing that chickens only have a small number of bones in its tail, you could understand the astonishment to the geneticists to find that not only the tail was nearly three times as long but contained new bones too. The embryo had made a tail from memory as if it had never not had one.

Next they tried to create teeth in the jaws, using the same technique, success here too. With gene sequencing technology in its adolescence at the moment it will not be long before mankind could revive a small therapod.

This causes an ethical debate, which is the fluffiest sort of debate because no one is really wrong.

Since the discovery of the first dinosaurs in England during the early nineteenth century scientists and the general populous has been hungry for knowledge of these monsters. So to recreate one would answer a lot of the questions, but not. The animal would only react to our environment not the environment of over sixty five million years ago, it could only consume today's prey. It could not behave the exactly the same.

Another great character who liked to dress all in black and talk about the ethics of bringing dinosaurs back to life was Dr Ian Malcolm in the Jurassic Park books and movies.

He made a very impressive speech round the dining table in the 1993 movie Jurassic park, which is one of the most profound things I have ever heard to date, granted it was lost on the majority of the audience who went to see monsters chase people, and only giggled “he said rape.” in response.

I urge you all to revisit this movie and especially this scene.

I would love to have questions about dinosaurs answering once and for all.

What colour were they? Did they have feathers? Were they, what we call warm blooded?

One of my own what did they taste like? Chicken?

For Charles Darwin.

Highlander II: There Should Have Been Only One

I don't want to get in the habit of doing movie reviews, as that is not what Mikes Soapbox is all about. I feel this should be shared with you all, so I have decided to do one.

In 1986 on of my all time favourite films was released. Highlander, a story about immortals living among us in secret, battling through the millennia until one remains. The only way to kill an immortal is by decapitation, and the most efficient method is by sword. Most immortals go by the name of their origin the Highlander from Scotland, and the Kurgan from Russia.

The movie tell the story of Connor McLeod played by Christopher Lambert. Who was born in Scotland in 1518 and has been kicking about in different countries and using different names ever since.

The movie opens with a page of dialogue told by Sean Connery who also stars in the movie.

From the dawn of time we came. Moving silently, down through the centuries. Living many secret lives. Struggling to reach the time of the gathering, when the few who remain will battle to the last.

No one has ever know we were among you..... until now.

Then something amazing happens....

QUEEN

The sound track was made by Queen, and classical score by the late Michael Kamen. Something that has never really been done before in a film based around historical period and has been imitated badly many times since. Take the Immersion breaking soundtrack of “A knights Tale.”

Queen's 1986 album A kind Of Magic is essentially the Highlander Soundtrack.

I digress.

After countless years of fighting the gathering is upon the few remaining immortals. There are now four left and they all have “An irresistible pull to a far away land” the land of New York in 1986.

The public is frightened about the spate of murders of foreign nationals involving decapitations and the police are “baffled”.

They fight until only one remains, that one becomes mortal and receives the prize. The prize is ultimate knowledge.

After the prize is my number one scariest bad guy ever to grace the movie screen. Forget Darth Vader. Forget the Terminator. The Mike's Soapbox award for being truly inconsolably evil and malicious goes to “The Kurgan” his real name is never really known perhaps he is so old that he has forgotten. the Kurgans were an ancient people, from Russia. A seven-foot tall savage brute with a broadsword, and the most nasty gravelly voice, that could only come from Clancy Brown.

He is the strongest of all the Immortals. One immortal only goes on living, to stop him claiming the prize, Connor McLeod.

The fight, an epic sword fight in an old warehouse, where the Kurgan is slain, and the reluctant hero claims the prize, and wants to use his knowledge to save humanity.

The movie is a kind of magic.

In 1992 its sequel was released after many delays budget cuts and script re writes. Highlander II the Quickening was released. The Quickening was briefly mentioned in the first film by Connors mentor Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez. Played by Sean Connery. The Quickening is an energy felt and shared by all Immortals.

The film opens with a futuristic glimpse of 1999.Yes I know. My Chronologies, but bear with this for a minute.

The Ozone layer is knackered and a team of top scientist and engineers lead by Connor McLeod to build an electromagnetic shield over the earth to protect it from the suns rays. 25 years later Connor McLeod is an old man living in cliché world of a deteriorating society and goes to the opera.

During this trip the movie takes a nosedive, falls through huge plot-holes and faceplants for another eighty minutes.

Connor McLeod is well known from the first film for spending a good portion of his time reminiscing of his past, friends and love ones and assures most that he would not forget them.

Well it turns out that after having ultimate knowledge for the best part of forty years, a voice in his head informs him that he is from another planet.

The planet Zeist to be exact. A planet with an evil dictator general Katana. Now the Highlander franchise has begun it can have its own reoccurring themes in true Sesame Street fashion. Today's immoral bad guy is brought to you by the letter K. McLeod and friend Ramerez are both exiled to the Earth for being rebels. The act of sending them to Earth causes them to become immortal. Sort of like sending English criminals to beautiful Australia. What sort of punishment is that?

Long and short of it Katana sends more exiles to kill off McLeod, failing, Mcleod becomes young again (somehow) and flies on a hover board and revives his long dead friend Ramerez (somehow) fully clothed in Scotland.

Katana exiles himself to earth and upsets a few people by driving a subway train at 400mph (somehow) and enrols himself in the company controlling the shield protecting the earth from harmful UV rays.

Meet Louise Marcus. A young attractive eco-warrior/terrorist running a group called Cobalt. She discovers that the shield is no longer needed and the Ozone layer has repaired itself (somehow) and the shield corporation is price fixing every country to keep the shield active. She goes to find the shield's creator our man Connor McLeod, he's just come out of a bar called RAP with some of its lettering stolen from the OPERA he's just visited. It is at this point where Katana’s assassins attack and after Connor decapitates two strangers and becomes 35 years younger, Louise Marcus and Connor kiss (for some reason), unless you have a copy of the Renegade Edition in which they have short, rough sexual intercourse in the alleyway where two corpses lay (again for some reason).

Lets talk about the Renegade Edition. It is nearly thirty minutes longer with added, and unnecessary scenes added and all references to the Planet Zeist are omitted. And the origins of the immortals are “a very long time ago” in a time where mankind had derelict spaceships and rifles (somehow). There would have had fewer plot holes if they were from the future, and then the time lines could have been less tangled. Because in their past you can see the future events on screen. Wouldn't it be more logical to view them retrospectively? If you have seen this version you would understand, but I don't want to advertise this awful movie.

The director Russell Mulcahy was so unhappy with the final release he wanted to change his directorial credit to Alan Smythie but was threatened with legal action if he did. He even walked out after 15 minutes of its premier too.

So the Renegade Edition was a chance to clear his name and save the movie.

Nice try but you cannot polish shit.