Review: Aliens in the Attic

Hey, remember everything I might have said negative about UP? I take it all back. I just watched Aliens In the Attic. Right off I would like to know if anyone responsible for this movie is ashamed? Or maybe embarrassed?

First, let's get the people responsible list first:

Aliens in the Attic
Directed by John Schultz
Written by Mark Burton Adam F. Goldberg
Starring Carter Jenkins Ashley Tisdale Austin Butler Robert Hoffman Kevin Nealon Doris Roberts Tim Meadows

The plot (if you can call it that) revolves around four small aliens who infest the attic of a Victorian style country home, bent of uncovering a machine buried beneath the floor of the cellar which due to it's nature will aide the incoming invasion fleet.

The only real person of note is Doris Roberts who is almost completely wasted in this film. Her character Nana under the influence of alien remote controls thinks she is blacking out and having senior moments...oh high-laire-ous!

Add in 2 scheming twins, a lecherous older boy-friend and an apparent air head blond sister cookie cutter parents and a high school nerd. For aliens, 1 ultra by the book, 2 that couldn't really care and one who only wants to have fun (Third Rock anyone...?)

Umm take uncle buck, Harry Potter and any Disney kid movie, strip away anything of plot value, break up in manageable sections, mix randomly Mix in gratuitous CGI instead of any real acting and you have one of the poorest excuses for a movie I have seen for years. Doris is totally under utilized or being used to denigrate her age group. "oh I am blacking out and waking in strange places!" senior moments! har har oh make her have a stroke! Oh that would be soooooooo funny! Oh and paint balls to the crotch, railing to the nads and a half dozen other whacks to the family jewels...talk about grade school humor....someone needs a time out for this travesty.

Total by the numbers mindless movie making that all but went straight to disk where it was obvious that it was a major embarrassment due to the total and I mean TOTAL lack of comments, commentaries, features, extras, deleted scenes NOTHING and on Blue Ray that meant they wasted gobs of space and time so they all abandoned this movie as soon as it was in the can.

Conclusions? What can you say good about a movie that telegraphs it's intentions from the opening scenes?! Worse than the fantastic Four part 2 ! maybe a 3?4 if I am feeling generous and I aint. Don't bother renting this unless you have some 4 year olds needing distraction. Period....

Got Some Spare Cash? Build a real Iron Man Suit!

IO9 asks, How much would it cost to build a real Iron Man suit? Since we looked last week at how close we might be to really building one...I thought a cost outline might be fun!

First a Helmet mounted display. Now there is just such a thing under development for the f-35 Fighter jet pilot....development budget stands at 54 million.

Exoskeleton: we have seen that there is plenty of work in this area, something like Raytheon's XO8 with a development cost of 10 million.

Portable Nuclear power source: and I read that the new Martian rover called Curiosity will have something akin to Tony's. It's called a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. Something like this gem costs around 36 million.

Oh and got to have Jet Packs for the feet: right now the closest thing we have is the flying wing that Yves Rossy flew across the English Channel with and there ARE companies working on strap on jet packs. Expect something like say 400,000 for two.

And cheapest of all would be the wearable computer to run everything. 20,000

What's the damage? Well over 100 million. As much as that sounds like...it's about the cost of one of those fancy prototype f 35 fighters. Hey, check out the pics here

What if the battle of Gettysburg had never happened?

Announcing the release of a very special Science Fiction novel:

A New Birth of Freedom by Robert G. Pielke

It has taken centuries to recognize that all humans possess certain unalienable rights. There will come a time when we have to consider whether others deserve those rights as well.

That time will come on July 4rd 1863.

 =============================================================
When a stranger carrying a shiny,metallic valise steps aboard a train carrying Abraham Lincoln home from a 2 year stint in Congress, everyone stares, wondering about the stranger's odd clothing and strange footwear with the word Nike emblazoned on them.

When the strange man shows up in Lincoln's office at the White house 14 years later, still wearing the same clothes, carrying the same valise and looking not a day older, the president and his staff know something is odd.

But when Edwin Blair opens his valise and projects a 3d image of the Earth on Lincoln's wall, then proceeds to tell a fanciful tale about time traveling aliens preparing to land at Gettysburg on July 3rd, they are sure they've met a lunatic.

Unfortunately for them, they're wrong.

~*~

Read an excerpt from A New Birth of Freedom

When Blair reappeared precisely ten seconds later, everyone, with the exception of Lincoln, was still staring at where he had been. Lincoln had immediately faced the window, and thus saw him fade back into existence. A faint smile touched the president's face and he cleared his throat. Everyone else whirled around and stared at Blair with eyes wide and mouths agape.

Uh oh. Blair slipped the device off his arm. "Gentlemen, it may seem like I've preformed magic, but I assure you, I have not. The scientists who explained things to me said that every place and time has a unique set of vibrations. They said a lot more than that, in fact. It seems like scientists are never capable of giving simple explanations, but what they said boils down to you just change the settings and it moves you from one place and time, to the other."

"How...," breathed Washburne, "does it do that?

"I can't explain it very well, Mr. Washburne, and certainly not like they explained it to me. My understanding is that it re-situates a person, and anything or any other people that might be connected to that person, from one place and time to another. You can schedule your re-situation for a time or place of your choosing and you can go back to where you began, but you can only take back what you brought with you. It's dangerous to do this, however, so if you don't mind, I won't repeat the demonstration." Dangerous for you, that is, and I don't want this to turn into a circus.

Washburne's face had turned ashen gray and he was shaking, but he managed to stumble over to Blair and touch him on the shoulder, as if to confirm his existence. All the others continued to stand motionless.

Not good. Either they're going into shock or they're on the verge of worshiping me. Let's try this. "Think of it this way," Blair moved over to his valise and replaced the object into its compartment while talking. "Every tick of your pocket watch is unique. All this device does is allow me to pick out the specific tick I want to visit, and go there."

Lincoln raised his brows and observed in a voice that exhibited both calm and awe. "This reminds me of Hamlet when he tried to explain the apparition of his murdered father to his friend. To quote, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

"And so there are, Mr. President," Blair said with a nod. "So there are." He shut and locked the valise.

The others, gradually recovering, found seats, but continued to stare at Blair.

After a few more moments of strained silence, Lincoln drew in a deep breath. "Now, Mr. Blair, what has this marvelous contraption that moves you through time got to do with the problem you mentioned, or the one confronting us? What advice can I possibly offer you? What do you want from me?"

"Let me answer the second part of your question first, Mr. President. I wish to borrow the entire Army of the Potomac for several hours on the third of July. This coming Friday."

Buy books. Mention this post when ordering any book from a Cyberwizard Productions imprint, and receive 10% off your next order.

Photon powered Nanomotors? Closer?

Ron Huber sends in an article from the University of Florida News on a newer light driven nano motor. These incredibly tiny engines (closed 2-5 nanometers and open 10-12 with a nano-meter being 1 billionth of a meter) can convert sunlight directly into motion.

These motors are the very first of their type to be built directly from a strand of DNA, which makes them simple and reliable and more important, much easier to develop.

The first issue that researchers have to address is unified movement. Because the motors are so small, to get any usable work a high percentage of the motors must move all at the same time. Also the motor's efficiency needs to improve. Right now they are far less efficient than solar cells but the amount of work that the engines can produce are in proportion to their size.

Uses could be: repair of single cells, anti viral or bacterial. Even on a macro scale it's not hard imagining billions or trillions of them powering a car or even a factory! Plus since they are DNA they would produce no waste.

Read the complete article here

How Close Are We to a Real Ironman?

In a recent Dvice article I was reading a question by a writer that basiclly asks, since IM2 is now in the theaters, just how close are we to having an Iron Man powered exoskeleton? It seems, closer than you might have imagined.

1. HULC

Creator: Lockheed Martin

Powered by: Four lithium ion batteries, 48-hour operation

What it does: ...system allows a soldier to travel 10mph while carrying a 200lb payload

2. HAL-5 (hybrid assistive limb)

Creator: Tsukuba University (Japan) (even now seeing limited use)

Powered by: Waist-mounted 100-volt battery pack

What it does: uses electrodes resting on the operator's skin to analyze muscle movements, and then enhances the wearer's strength by up to five times what it'd normally be.

3. Trojan T Series

Creator: Troy Hurtubise

Powered by: Helmet-mounted, solar-powered battery packs

What it does: Not a true powered exo/suit. Batteries power radio and range finders and even air conditioning, sometimes called a Halo suit because of it resemblance to the video game "Halo" suits. In truth may be too cumbersome to be practical.

FEATURE

Related Sections: Future Tech Lists Military

5 real Iron Man prototypes in the making

Iron Man 2 hits theaters today, telling a tale about a man in a suit of armor who flies around like a jet and shoots energy bolts from his palms. In the real world, we're not quite there yet, but you may be surprised just how close we are to an Iron Man of our own.

Powered exoskeletons are mostly sought after to enable the soldiers of tomorrow, who will be able to lift hundreds of pounds and run for miles without breaking a sweat. Beyond that, though, they could save lives in the wake of a terrible disaster, or even perform smaller miracles such as helping the paralyzed walk again.

Continue reading to check out five exoskeletons that do all that and more.