The Star Wars Battlefront II controversy, the first science fiction movies, auditory illusions, and Schoelkopf's law (Moore's law for quantum computers), among other things. Viral videos, image galleries and many more interesting notes. Don't miss them!
The first science fiction movies: "The origin of science fiction movies runs parallel to the history of cinema, the genre existing since the early years of silent cinema. Pioneers of cinema such as the Lumière brothers in 1895 with 'The Mechanical Butcher' (La Charcuterie mécanique), or George Albert Smith in 1897 with 'The X-Rays' were with their original short films the precursors of a genre that would begin a few years later. In 1902, French filmmaker Georges Méliès produced 'A Trip to the Moon' (Le Voyage dans la Lune). Using various photographic tricks to represent the journey of a spaceship to the Moon, Méliès's famous film is considered the first science fiction film in history and, due to its subject matter, it is also the first film about aliens."
The Star Wars Battlefront II controversy, an example of a widespread evil in the video game industry: "When the game was announced, with great graphics and dynamic multiplayer combat, the community got excited: it was the title they were looking for. Visually it's a marvel, that's true, but soon, in early access, users saw something that particularly caught their attention, to make it clear: to get some of the game's heroes like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker, about 40 hours of gameplay were needed. That is, spending a lot of time playing online to get more powerful characters... or paying for them. Come on, pay 2 win."
The polystyrene cutouts that Nintendo made in 1966: "In 1966, two games called 'Picture Cutter' and 'New Picture Cutter' were released, two polystyrene foam cutout kits that allowed you to create drawings with a small electric saw and then paint them to create decorative objects. The boxes followed the familiar graphic design that characterized Nintendo at the time, with the 'Nintendo Game' logo at the top left of the cover and the note 'Nintendo Company – Japan' at the bottom left, a style clearly inspired by the packaging used, to this day, by the American company MB."
Atari ST, the 'Jackintosh' computer against the Amiga series: "It is important to clarify that the Amiga 1000 was released only a few months before the Atari 520ST, which made the new series of computers from the Tramiel company debut with good success. The true objective of the Atari ST was to compete with the Apple Macintosh, and for that reason it received the nickname 'Jackintosh'... it included great graphical capability, MIDI interface, and a graphical environment as an operating system. Musicians and graphic designers found the Atari 520ST a very useful tool, and it had other important advances such as an interface to connect a hard drive, and an integrated disk drive."
The worst diseases in history in 12 works of art: "It is not a girl enjoying a sunset in the countryside while the fresh breeze hits her face as she contemplates her home in the distance, lying in the grass. In real life, she preferred to crawl through her town rather than move on a practical wheelchair. Her name was Christina Olson, a neighbor of the painter Andrew Wyeth, author of this work that has placed him as one of the favorite artists in the United States (not in vain did he earn the nickname 'Artist of the people'). Christina suffered from polio, and Wyeth, who also lived secluded in his house due to an unknown illness, was moved by the way the woman fought daily against her condition."
The 10 best auditory illusions: "Optical illusions are common topics on the Internet, there are plenty of good and bad ones. But auditory illusions do not enjoy as much popularity, perhaps because, sometimes, a little more concentration is needed to perceive them, and for the same reason they can be much more intense. This is a list of 10 sound examples of the best auditory illusions in the world..."
They find in Tasmania samples of a life form from 3.7 billion years ago, the oldest known on Earth: "In a remote and protected area, on mounds of freshwater springs in a wilderness area in Tasmania (Australia), a team of paleontologists has found fossils dating back 3.7 billion years, that is, when the first single-celled organisms appeared. The team found that the area was home to living stromatolites. These are mineral structures that have stratified in very diverse morphologies. Precisely, one of the oldest indications of life on Earth were the fossil stromatolite structures from 3.5 billion years ago found in Warrawoona (also Australia)."
What would happen if we fed the world only with organic farming?: "Supporters of organic or ecological agriculture claim that its massive use would be much more beneficial for the planet than the current production system and that the system would be sustainable. Detractors, on the other hand, consider that these models are applicable on a small scale, but that if it were about feeding the world with these methods, there would be more problems than advantages. The team of Swiss researcher Adrian Muller publishes this Tuesday an interesting analysis based on simulations to try to find out what the consequences would be of globally changing the agricultural production system to an ecological one by 2050."
China 2020: totalitarianism turned into a game: "Any dystopia imagined in China falls short when compared with the future designed by Xi Jinping's government. In June 2014, the State Council of the People's Republic of China published a document according to which, after a period of six years, its citizens would have to adapt to an evaluation and scoring system based on a capricious algorithm. The text was titled with the very long 'Plan for the Construction of a Social Credit System', and anticipated a form of control until then only explored by fiction. It consists of monitoring each person by following their digital trail; gathering all the information they scatter on the network and cross-referencing it to assess whether they are a good or bad citizen."
What is the scientific reason we SHOUT when talking on the phone: "So the reason we shout when using mobile phones is that they are mobile. This is a phenomenon known as the Lombard Effect or Reflex, discovered in 1909 by the French otolaryngologist Étienne Lombard. He discovered that we have a natural tendency to increase the volume of our voice when we are in a noisy environment. And we modulate our voice in reference to the loudest sound we are hearing, whether it be a noisy motorcycle or the person next to us. That's why, even when you are in a quiet place, since your reference is the loudest sound, other people hear it as if you are shouting."
Schoelkopf's law, Moore's law for quantum computers: "The equivalent on quantum computers is Schoelkopf's law (2013): the decoherence time of a qubit is multiplied by ten every three years, more or less. Of course, these empirical laws are not exact and their raison d'être is the technological advances that try to make this law hold (at least so far in the context of the microtechnology industry). New Yorker Robert J. Schoelkopf (Yale University, USA) is one of the fathers of superconducting qubit technology; since this technology is the strongest bet in quantum computers by companies like IBM, Google, Microsoft, D-Wave Systems, etc., his empirical law (published in the journal Science) has become very popular."
Why philosophy is so important for science education: "Many of the young people who attend my classes think that philosophy is a confusing discipline that only deals with matters of opinion, while science is dedicated to the discovery of facts, providing evidence and the dissemination of objective truths. Furthermore, many of them believe that scientists can answer philosophical questions, but philosophers have nothing to contribute to scientific ones. Why do university students so often treat philosophy as completely distinct from and subordinate to science? In my experience, four reasons stand out."
Videos
Kitten with short legs, guy sees colors for the first time, the Rabbit Island in Japan, skydiving with Jean-Baptiste Chandelier, monkey buys juice from vending machine, woman gets stuck in the mud, a piggy bank you can't put coins in, similar objects, the toxic shock of an eel, chameleon tongue in super slow motion, big accident, Policenauts opening, the illusion of the three figures, the cigarette that lights itself (cancer +100), the male mantis mating without a head, girl eats a super burrito in one minute, a T-rex playing drums in New York, behind the scenes of Starship Troopers, Jim Henson teaching how to make puppets, stupid chickens don't understand what ice is, the set of the water scene from Blade Runner 2049, Earth and Moon, fireball in the sky, low orbit, uhm, a lot of nudity for an esports ad, 10,000 geese at once, super crazy chubby guy with his game, cockatoo sings Queen, parrot controls Amazon Echo, what to do if your parachute fails, how to pick up all the nuts in seconds, girls complain about food, one-man reggae band, bluegrass cover of "Rocket Man" and the science fiction shorts Macabre, Come Swim and Icarus.
Galleries
Bongs incredibly beautiful, the art of Kaloyan Stoyanov, the giant library of China, terror dinners, retro police photos of crimes in Los Angeles (USA), Stranger Things 2 as comic covers, computer ads from the 80s, animals on planes, 100% synthwave, sinister illustrations by a Disney artist, amazing insects, chimera animals and visual dump of the week.
This week on NeoTeo
Animals using touchscreens, guide to undervolting and underclocking, the structures of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, the first televised video game tournament, don't throw away your old tablet, the deadly mental game of Star Trek TNG in real life, how to clean acid from burst batteries, neural network that generates infinite anime characters, the fungus that turns ants into zombies, the best video game documentaries and Apple's computer of the future from the 80s.
Ugh, so many things! You have no idea how much work it is to put all these links together! I'm tired. Bye.
