It is true, there is a new Ghost In The Shell project with an all new series of videos and a new story line. This one is called Ghost in the Shell: Arise! and it is made up of four 50 minute episodes. It looks like it will bring all our favorite characters back together again in that same cyberpunk universe we have enjoyed so many times before. Episode 1 hit the big screens in Tokyo last week, but I figure it will be at least the end of July before the DVDs get released here and we get to enjoy them. There may be a few rare theaters that will throw this on the big screen in the US, but I haven’t found any yet. If you find one of them, give me a shout; I would really like to be there!
Friends of the Planetary Society, founded by Carl Sagan and others to promote the colonization of space, have a Kickstarter project: ARKYD. The team at Planetary Resources has begun a project for mining the asteroids, starting with the ones featured in all those tweets from Low Flying Rocks which come much closer to the Earth than a lot of folks find comfortable. Step one is finding them heading our way when they are still far enough away that we have time to intercept them, and for that they are launching a gaggle of small telescopes specially designed to see the faint reflected light from their surfaces. And when there aren’t any rocks fling at us, they can use the telescope farm to monitor interesting things, like Jupiter and Saturn. One of the telescopes will be used to allow pretty much anyone who wants to contribute to take their own pictures of the things that interest them from an orbiting telescope, or have a picture of their choosing photographed in space, with the Earth as a backdrop. There are still 11 days until the project funding window closes, and they have made over $900,000 of their one million dollar goal, so you still have time to contribute and help make this project happen! And, if you contribute a hundred dollars or more, you also get a years membership in The Planetary Society along with the other rewards.
They are a little pricy at 1.35 million dollars each baseline (options cost you more), but in the first month they went on sale they took orders for 3,000 of them. Called the Kuratas after their designer, Kogoro Kurata, when you order yours from their web page you can even have it customized with the various weapons systems they offer. They have been out for about a year now, and they do have a disclaimer on their home page that these are sold as works of art, not as combat mechas. Thanks to Rocket News 24 for the heads up on this one.
Not just any Pacific Rim trailer, this is the one they showed at Wondercon. It has to be Guillermo del Toro’s tribute to Japanese movies and anime, and I am very ready to see it. It will hit the big screen on July 12th, and has a great little viral site.
Ravi Fernando is a Stanford undergrad who can actually solve a Rubik’s Cube while juggling it. When he doesn’t juggle it, he can solve it in as quick as 10.49 seconds. Pretty amazing to watch, isn’t it? Back in 2011, Mike Dobson and David Gilday built CubeStormer II from a Lego Mindstorm set, a smart phone, and a custom written android app that solved it in 5.32 seconds. I used to be so proud of being able to solve it in 10 to 15 minutes… ah, well. Thanks to Open Culture for the heads up on this one.
How many tons does your rock band weigh? That is something of a concern when the band Compressor Head goes on tour, since they mass somewhere around the value of several average automobiles. Not a group you would want to share an overseas flight with, unless you had your own separate escape sequence in case of emergencies. Stickboy does the drums, using 4 arms, 2 legs, 1 head, and no brain (the latter is something of a tradition amongst drummers), while Fingers brings 78 purpose built digits to the lead guitar. There are several other bots in the band, and I am really hoping to get to see them play live some time soon (for several nonstandard values of the term “Live”)