Chris Hardwick's Blog, page 2197

Mind-Bending Sculptures Come Alive Thanks to Math

About a year ago, we brought you an enchanting video featuring 3D-printed sculptures dubbed Blooms that seemed to come to life before your eyes. There were no magic or camera tricks at play, just good old-fashioned math courtesy of artist/lecturer John Edmark of Stanford University. Each solid sculpture began as a computer program written in Python that directed the 3D printing of these works of art, brought to life courtesy of a rotating turntable and a finely tuned strobe light. Edmark is back at it again with a new batch of psychedelic sculptures he calls Blooms 2.

Check out the hypnotic video from John Edmark below (via Colossal) and continue reading to find out just what the heck is going on:

Here’s how Edmark describes the math behind his illusion-inducing sculptures:

Blooms are 3-D printed sculptures designed to animate when spun under a strobe light. Unlike a 3D zoetrope, which animates a sequence of small changes to objects, a bloom animates as a single self-contained sculpture. The bloom’s animation effect is achieved by progressive rotations of the golden ratio, phi (ϕ), the same ratio that nature employs to generate the spiral patterns we see in pinecones and sunflowers. The rotational speed and strobe rate of the bloom are synchronized so that one flash occurs every time the bloom turns 137.5º (the angular version of phi). Each bloom’s particular form and behavior is determined by a unique parametric seed I call a phi-nome (/fī nōm/).

In plain English, the sculptures themselves (solid structures) appear to shift and undulate because our eyes are seeing different “faces” of the sculptures in sequence instead of the whole thing at once, much like how a movie is actually a sequence of still images played in sequence at high speed to trick our minds into perceiving motion. As for the golden ratio (roughly 1.618), it not only produces some stunningly beautiful visuals that appear almost organic thanks to numerous examples of this ratio found in nature, it’s also used to time the strobe light’s flash in order to sync up the rotation and pull off the illusion. It’s a perfect melding of mathematics, computer programming, art, and technology.

Do you plan to pick up one (or more) of these optical illusions for your own personal gallery? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

Images: John Edmark

This Super Mario Question Block Cake Has Coins or Whatever You Want Inside

Here’s the deal: Mario is a beautiful thing. Cake is also a beautiful thing. Let’s come up with a way to combine them… actually, we don’t have to, since YouTube cakestress Rosanna Pansino has already done that with her very fun Mario question block surprise cake (via ViralViralVideos).

Not only does it look exactly like you’d expect a question block cake to look, but there’s an interactive element to it. Pansino calls this a “piñata cake” because it’s hollow in the middle, so you can put whatever you want into it. She went with gold coins, which is fun and great, but we’re thinking a bit more devilishly: Throw some bitter mushrooms in there, in reference to the poison mushroom introduced in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. Or, if you’re not a mean person, go with gold coins.

The recipe for the cake itself is pretty standard: flour, cake flour, sugar, eggs, and all that jazz (find the recipe here). Pansino decided to make a lemon cake to match the flavor with the color, but you could do whatever you want with it; Maybe double down on evilness we alluded to above and bake some sort of mushroom cake, like a Chopped desert round from hell.

Structurally, the cake is made from six layers stacked on top of each other, the middle four being hollowed out to make room for whatever tricks/treats you decide to put inside. Watch the video yourself above and follow along, or if you’d rather have the recipe written out in front of you, find the detailed instructions here.

Featured image: Rosanna Pansino/YouTube

POWER RANGERS and Cats Means It’s Nappin’ Time With the Meower Rangers

Go, go Power Rangers!



Unless you found a nice spot in the sun to sleep, Then you’ll probably just do your own thing anyway.

Nap, nap Power Rangers!

And you won’t even be mad at them for sleeping on the job when the entire city is destroyed. Because instead of Morphin’ Time it’s “Meowphin’ Time,” with the fiercest feline team of superheroes the world has ever known, the Mighty Morphin Meower Rangers.

Guided by their floating fish leader Zzzordon, the all-cat team of Kimpuuurly, Jassssson, Trrrini, Zzzzack, and Billllly battle to save the animal kingdom from falling into the paws of the evil Akita Rrrepulsa. That is, when they aren’t hunkering down for some quick shut eye.

This adorable and funny fan-made video was put together by…hey, wait a second, this was made by the official Power Rangers YouTube channel! Do you know what that means? That means this is officially canon and we are already thinking of ways to retcon this version of the team into the original series.

More importantly, it means we are probably getting more episodes of the Meower Rangers. Akita Rrrepulsa, who isn’t actually seen here, is listed as being played by Doggo the Pupper, and why even give the credit to Doggo if he won’t be in the show-o, you know-o?

And if we’re getting more episodes, that means we could eventually get more characters too. How about Lord Spedd, played by an evil tortoise? Or Alpha Hive, played by…no a bee probably wouldn’t be a good helper. We better slow down and think this through. We obviously want it to be purrfect.

So why don’t you help us out by sharing your best animal casting ideas in the comments below? It would meown a lot to us.

Images: Power Rangers

2CELLOS Rock Out in King’s Landing for GAME OF THRONES Medley

As someone that loves the Game of Thrones‘ theme song so much it’s his phone’s ringtone, I’m constantly on the lookout for great covers of it. I also love listening to anything put out by 2CELLOS, the most bad-ass, rocking cellists in the world. So try and see if you can guess how I feel about their latest song of music from the Seven Kingdoms.

Spoiler alert: it’s freaking awesome.

This medley from Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser, which opens with a beautiful version of The Rains of Castemere before breaking out into a full rendition of the show’s theme song, is off of their upcoming new album “Score,” which also features the London Symphony Orchestra.

Unfortunately for the orchestra though, it wasn’t lucky enough to get to film the official video with the guys in Croatia, where HBO films their King’s Landing scenes. Yeah, just in case the music here wasn’t good enough, they also added a whole lot of authenticity to it by shooting the video in the same spots where Cersei felt shame, Sansa watched boats come in and out of Blackwater Bay, and Lannister troops patrolled the streets.

The album is made up of songs like this, with “versions of some of the most beautiful film music,” and even though it doesn’t come out until March 17, you can get their Game of Thrones track now if you pre-order the album. You can find the different ways to do that over at the duo’s Facebook page.

I love Game of Thrones and its music so much though that I’d be perfectly content if the only track was just a cover of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.”

What other theme songs would you love to hear the guys play next? Swear to it by the old gods and the new in our comments section below.

Images: 2CELLOS

Lin-Manuel Miranda Creates HAMILTON-esque Rap About THE WEST WING

It should probably come as no surprise that Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda has a thing for politics. He’s spent the last few years rapping about some of the real founding fathers and politicians, and it seems he isn’t done rapping about his favorite past heads of state. Even if one of them is fictional.

As it turns out, Miranda is a huge fan of the Aaron Sorkin political drama The West Wing. So much so that he wrote a short tune about everyone’s favorite fictional President, Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen). A recent post on TVLine.com brought this bit of political hip-hop to our attention. Because it’s in Miranda’s special brand of political rap, we’re probably never getting it out of our heads.

Miranda wrote and recorded the lyrics to the song after Hrishi Hirway of The West Wing Weekly (a podcast about the show) created the beat from the podcast’s theme song. The result is a quick but densely informational rap that nods to all manner of West Wing creators and characters. What we particularly love is the chorus of the song as it loops President Bartlet saying what could be considered his catchphrase: “What’s next?” Somehow, that really works in a rap song. Our only criticism, if you can even count this as one, would be that there’s no mention of the distinct way President Bartlet always put on his coats. “Flippin’ you like my jackets” seems as if it could have made for an awesome rap diss.

What do you think about Lin-Manuel’s West Wing rap? Does it make you miss the show as much we do? Let’s discuss in the comments below!

Featured Image: Steve Jurvetson/Flickr

Report Finds 47% of U.S. Jobs at ‘High-Risk’ of Being Automated in 10-20 Years

The concept of “robots taking our jobs” is the epitome of a trite realization. Bring up robots taking jobs from humanity and there’s maybe a quick mention of Skynet and then some hardcore eye-rolling. But research from Oxford’s Martin School, published in 2013, clearly shows how real the possibility is that machines could take over nearly half of all jobs in the U.S. within the next decade or two.

The report, which was posted by Reddit user ThreshingBee, is titled The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation?, and aims to determine which U.S. occupations are most likely to be automated “over some unspecified number of years, perhaps a decade or two.” The list includes over 700 occupations, and finds (unsurprisingly) that, in general, jobs that require higher levels of education and pay higher salaries are less likely to be automated.

The report notes that it takes into account “recent advances in Machine Learning (ML) and Mobile Robotics (MR)” in order to determine which jobs are likely to be automated, and finds that in general, there will be a “structural shift in the labour market, with workers reallocating their labour supply from middle-income manufacturing to low-income service occupations.”

A strong polarization of the workforce is also predicted, with people either being employed in very high-skill, high-paying jobs, and low-skill, low-paying jobs, which will result in the “hollowing-out of middle-income jobs.”

On page 57 of the report, there is a list of 702 occupations with their corresponding likelihoods of being automated. Below are the ten jobs least likely to be automated (top) as well as the ten jobs most likely to be automated.

What do you think about machines taking over half of the U.S.’s jobs in the next 10-20 years? Did your brain just explode thinking about that possibility? Do you have a robot to help clean your brain off the ground?! Let us know in the comments below!

Images: Wikimedia / DARPA

THE FORCE AWAKENS Deleted Scene Shows Chewie Rip an Arm off

“Let him have it. It’s not wise to upset a wookiee.”

“But sir, nobody worries about upsetting a droid.”

“That’s cause a droid don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that.”

It also turns out that they aren’t opposed to ripping your arm clean from your body if you mess with one of their friends either, as this new deleted scene from The Force Awakens shows.

We first came across this cut Star Wars scene at io9, which was shared to YouTube by the channel Trailers and BTS, and in it Chewbacca makes good on Han’s three-decades-old threat by swiftly tearing Unkar Plutt‘s limb straight off his body. The violent scene takes place at Maz Kanata’s establishment, with Plutt confronting Rey and demanding she come with him because she’s in big trouble. When Chewie comes over to help out his friend, Plutt doesn’t back down, and instead gets in the wookiee’s face…well, chest. And that’s when we finally see why C-3PO advised R2-D2 to let Chewbacca win all those years ago.

So why did this not make it into the film? The most obvious answer is that it is just way too violent for a standard fare Star Wars film, since these are supposed to be kid friendly (that level of violence is part of what makes Rogue One such a different movie from Lucasfilm).

However, the other reason might be that it makes no sense. There is no way Plutt could have managed to get from Jakku to Maz’s before the Millennium Falcon did. It’s so illogical for him to be there that it’s hard to even pretend it would have been reasonable for her to encounter him there.

But still, it is super cool to see that Han wasn’t exaggerating in A New Hope, and that Chewbacca is as badass as we’ve always thought. And now we know: it’s not just enough to let the wookiee win; you should probably also make sure you’re really nice to all of his friends too.

What do you think of this scene? Should it have made it into the movie, or was the cutting room floor the right place for it? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Images: Lucasfilm

Time for some Episode VIII rumors!

SHERLOCK’s ‘The Final Problem’ is the Most Apt Title of All

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS, SPOILERS, EVERYWHERE SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

For the last week, I’ve been harping on about two things with regard to Sherlock series 4: I’ve been saying that the show is truly great when it returns to putting the crime-solving front and center (as was done in the masterful “The Lying Detective“), and that “The Final Problem” would very likely be the end of Sherlock as a series. These things still hold true; “The Final Problem” seemed perfectly tailored to be the end of the show as a regular thing, but it back-burnered crime-solving in favor of character revelations. It was Sherlock‘s “final problem” indeed.

The first problem with “The Final Problem” came from using that title, hearkening back to the very famous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story in which he introduced Professor Moriarty in order to kill off Sherlock Holmes. This evoked something very specific for Holmes purists, which was especially odd given that the series had effectively done the Moriarty story twice before, in “The Reichenbach Fall” and “The Abominable Bride.” But because they were using the title, they had to have Moriarty in there somewhere, even though he’s been dead for a real long time.

The second problem is, after the revelation that Sherlock and Mycroft had a sister, whom Sherlock had entirely forgotten, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat needed a contrivance to get everybody to where she was–the island penitentiary known as “Sherrinford,” finally an answer to that riddle. Eurus Holmes (Sian Brooke) is name-checked as being like Hannibal Lecter: incredibly compelling and able to effectively enslave people just by speaking to them. Hence, she had completely taken over her prison (and can leave and return as she pleases) waiting for Sherlock, Watson, and Mycroft to arrive. The details of how she has done this, or the fact that only a FIVE MINUTE conversation with Moriarty five Christmases ago enabled her to have all of this craziness set up, including a ton of pre-recorded video and audio inserts by him… Huge leaps in logic, there.

The third problem is really that the entirety of the “mystery” and resolution hinged on things that neither we nor Sherlock knew, and couldn’t be figured out using his usual deductive methods. Scant few times in the episode did he actually use his powers of observation–the violin Eurus is holding, determining which of those three MacGuffin brothers actually committed the murder, that almost needless deciphering of song lyrics–leaving the rest to be either told to Sherlock flatly by Eurus herself, or to having the outcome hinge on emotional resonance rather than actual detective work.

This leads inextricably to the fourth problem with “The Final Problem,” which is that the episode cheats more often than it doesn’t. Sherlock is always a show full of red herrings and double bluffs, but in this case, it’s almost all bluff and the red herring is us for trying to figure out what the red herring is. We don’t get to see how the boys survive the patience grenade; they just show up on the boat to Sherrinford later. We don’t get told how Eurus transports Sherlock to their old house or Watson into the well; they just wake up and they’re there. We ARE, however, shown a little girl aboard a slowly crashing airplane, with everyone else aboard completely incapacitated, but that ends up just being a metaphor for Eurus…which she somehow is able to talk about with Sherlock in the voice of a little girl. And perhaps the biggest one of all: we didn’t know Sherlock had a sister until the last episode, we didn’t know he had a dog until this one, we guessed Eurus killed the dog, only to find out it was actually Sherlock’s childhood friend Peter she killed. Okay…so what? It’s awful, it’s a gut punch of sorts, but it didn’t really change the ultimate issue at hand which is that Eurus is too dangerous not to be locked up.

Now I don’t want to be wholly negative here, and there were things I liked. I’m always a fan of Gatiss’ portrayal of Mycroft and this episode gives him tons to do, even starting with a creepy Gothic ghost story scene (that we find out was completely concocted by Sherlock and John…). I like the set-up of the three of them having to work together to get out of their predicaments, and the realization that for all of Mycroft’s heartlessness, he’s actually completely incapable of performing violence or even witnessing it. We saw it coming a mile away, but Sherlock having to choose whether to kill Mycroft or John made for a good scene and showed Mycroft will do the right thing ultimately, even if he’s a dick about it.

The episode also–being the last one and all–brought back every one of the major players in some fashion or other, most notably Moriarty (Andrew Scott), yes, but perhaps most heartbreakingly Molly Hooper (Louise Brealey), forcing Sherlock to create an emotional problem for himself later by needing to say those three little words in order for her to reciprocate. It’s a cheat, though, that we never really got to see the end of that issue. Contrived and unlikely as it was, Mary (Amanda Abbington)’s last DVD message to Sherlock and Watson provided a nice sum-up of the series, with flashbacks to the first episode ever, and lays the groundwork for what could be a few more one-off adventures years from now. They could always come back.

Which truly brings me to the final problem with “The Final Problem”; in the end, after 12 previous episodes–which essentially are 12 feature films of sleuthing adventures–the writers of the show didn’t trust in what Sherlock truly is: a detective series with amazing characters. There was nothing to figure out here, no grand and final Riddler-esque series of clues to track down and decipher, and no triumphant end for the world’s greatest and only consulting detective. I almost feel like “The Lying Detective” would have made a better finale, because it was an actual episode of Sherlock but with our hero having to pull himself up by his bootstraps and win. All he did here was figure out what his crazy sister was doing.

This episode hardly felt like Sherlock at all, instead becoming a less gory Saw movie or something, where the big shocking reveal was only shocking in how unsatisfying it is. It was going to be very difficult to properly finish up such a beloved series; hell, the gap between series 2 and series 3 ensured that fans had become rabidly particular about what they liked in the show. But I can’t imagine anyone is truly happy with this final bow, save the nice montage at the very, very end.

If I’m wrong, please let me know in the comments. How did you like this series of Sherlock overall? Let us discuss!

Images: BBC/PBS

Kyle Anderson is the Associate Editor for Nerdist. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Twitter!

A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS Recap: Just a “Wide” Boy

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that this recap of the A Series of Unfortunate Events episode “The Wide Window: Part Two,” has spoilers in the beginning, spoilers at the end, and very few moments of non-spoilage in between. Should you prefer to be surprised, it is suggested that you navigate–which in this case means “browse elsewhere”–away from this page, to something happier, like a Jessica Chobot video.

Continuing the pattern set by “The Reptile Room,” “The Wide Window: Part Two” features Neil Patrick Harris singing the final verse of the theme song in-character as Count Olaf’s latest alias, and hearing him sing as more-or-less-Sean-Connery makes me want Harris to star in a James Bond musical, like, immediately.

I don’t want Aunt Josephine to die–her grammar-obsessive ways warm my editorial heart–but I know she must. Let us enjoy her just a little longer. “It can’t be that you have nothing better to do…It can’t be that you are interested in watching them suffer,” said Lemony, to kick things off, but boy, does he overestimate the general public.

Poe remained as gleefully stupid as ever, yet surprisingly came up with one good idea: comparing the apparent suicide note to Josephine’s actual handwriting elsewhere. It matched…but it was full of grammar and spelling errors, which should have been a huge red flag, except that in this world, huge red flags and their attached flagpoles could be used to bludgeon grown-ups to death before they’d even notice their presence.

Sunny is such a smiley baby that I hope the DVD set has all the outtakes of her screaming. I cannot imagine how many takes were needed to have her sit up straight beside an actual house of cards.

NETFLIX JOKE! “Imagination’s all well and good for children’s books or digital entertainment, but this is real life.”

Love Poe inadvertently equating disguises with grammatical errors as “dire accusations.” Especially when he’s prepared to sign over custody of the children to a fake sailor he has only just met over the phone, telling him he wanted to buy a knife as a surprise for some kids. Lemony’s subsequent description of how a venus flytrap plant works was, while pointless, an excellent bit of scene-chewing by Patrick Warburton.

Okay, seriously, Netflix, you need to be making “Anxious Clown” restaurant T-shirts, at the very least. And now we know that the proprietor, who has a connection to the Baudelaire parents and their secrets, is named Larry. [Everybody, on three: “IS THIS SOMETHING YOU CAN SHARE WITH THE REST OF US, AMAZING LARRY?”] His description of the Extra Fun Special Family Appetizer–“It’s a bunch of things fried up together and served with a sauce”–is pretty much my own default order at any chain restaurant. Captain Sham slowly repeating the appetizer name in his Connery voice might have just been the best thing ever today. Sham’s constant repetition of obvious lies that can be easily checked reminds me of some politicians, but I’ll leave it to you readers to decide which ones. Point is, he could probably run for office. Maybe he does later in the series; I haven’t read all the books, and they’re changing some things anyhow.

“Cheer-up Cheeshburgersh for everyone, LARRY!”–Harris is so on-point here it’s ridiculous. Literally.

“McCarthyesque accusations” is a weird reference. Not one kids will get, and adults will wonder how exactly McCarthyism would work in this world where transparently obvious disguises fool everyone except children. One imagines that any communists in this alt-universe America’s state department could go unnoticed simply by wearing Groucho Marx mustache glasses.

I was wondering why Captain Sham drinks fuzzy navels, and it just hit me. Naval/navel. Duh. Anyway, remember how I said that allergy to peppermints would be important? (Side note: must suck trying to buy toothpaste that has no mint in it.) Here it provided a handy excuse for the Baudelaires to make themselves sick and get sent home, all while Poe told a hilariously boring story about buying milk.

Another pasta puttanesca callback! The villains must have genuinely liked the orphans’ cooking.

The parents somehow managed to make a telephone call from a biplane, and are about to fly into an incoming hurricane. This is the first time we’ve seen them in the middle of an episode rather than just the end, so the subplot is definitely thickening. Meanwhile, the kids realized the grammar errors in the suicide note were a secret code pointing to Curdled Cave…just in time for part of the house to break off and do some tilting back and forth, Charlie Chaplin-type gags. A mysterious family photo was revealed, and then the house collapsed into the lake.

Lake Lachrymose, Curdled Cave, Fickle Ferry…Lavender Lighthouse? One of these things be not like the other. As the kids steal a boat to sail through the hurricane to the cave, I’m starting to notice that they wear color-coded outfits: always yellow, red, and blue. But it’s not consistent: Violet wore blue in the first two episodes and Klaus red, but they’ve switched now, and will stay switched for the rest of the season.

Aunt Josephine was alive and well in the cave, but her big plan was simply to live there forever. Which wasn’t going to work, as the cave was up for sale, and Josephine has a phobia of real-estate agents; a more effective deterrent than Violet’s speech about overcoming fear, which was essentially an unironic South Park “I learned something today” lesson.

So, the family photo found in the tilting house is from Lucky Smells Lumber Mill, and features Uncle Monty, Aunt Josephine, the parents, and yes, Lemony Snicket himself. And the mill itself is where the next story arc happens. But enough about that when there are some seriously fearsome leeches attacking. I would watch an entire movie of these critters attacking Lake Achrymose tourists, a la Slither.

NETFLIX JOKE AGAIN! “Let’s all close our eyes as if we’re watching some onscreen entertainment that’s too scary for people our age!”

The parents flying overhead were able to help set a signal fire using binocular lenses (ironically, something like this is probably how their house burned down), but clueless as to the identities of the people in the boat, and equally clueless that the ferry picking them up was not benevolent. Nonetheless, with the engine of the (kinda Wes Anderson-y deliberate-fake looking) biplane crapping out, they had their own problems, to be continued next week. The “rescue” boat was, of course, commandeered by Count Olaf who, after all this drama, simply pushed Josephine overboard. With the jig up, the Captain Sham voice was done.

I want a GIF of that final, defiant Alfre Woodard “You made a serious grammatical error!” Just to send to some fellow writers sometimes. And thank you, Lemony, for your articulate explanation of how adding the prefix “sch-” to anything makes it a dismissive form. Josephine may not have approved of that as grammar, but I can let it slide.

Wait, so all this time Sunny could have saved the day by chewing through his peg leg? Why did she wait? Poe was finally convinced, but rather than be placed with someone new, the kids hopped on the back of a truck to Lucky Smells Lumber Mill. We’re about to enter previously uncharted territory.

Can NPH top Captain Sham as a disguise? Will the parents finally show up in the last two episodes of the season to confront him? Now that the three books which were also adapted as a movie are done, how did the new version compare? Let us know your thoughts below!

Images: Netflix

 

 

Nature Meets Metal in the Intricate Sculptures of Alan Williams

Every so often there’s something on the internet that makes us think we got into the wrong profession, especially when it’s  someone displaying a talent they’ve developed over the years with astoundingly beautiful results. These metal sculptures make us want to quit our jobs and devote our lives to learning such a gorgeous craft.

This video recently uploaded to Vimeo by director Ben Cox showcases the amazing sculptures created by English artist Alan Williams. Using some expert welding skills, a forge, and a great deal of recycled scrap metal, Williams brings all manner of creatures to life with incredible detail. The video also delves into how, as a child, Alan used to pick apart and re-attach toys in different ways which clearly lead to his current artistic career.

William’s work is absolutely breathtaking when you think about the work involved in shaping pieces of bicycle sprockets, chain, rebar, and any sort of reclaimed metal bits into what he envisions. We’re astonished at his remarkable ability to make such fluid and lifelike recreations of animals from such cold and rigid materials.

If you’re anything like us, you certainly want to see more of these creatures and thankfully, Williams’ website has a gallery of all his work with close-up shots of some of the finer points of each.

Which one of his creations would you like hanging on your wall? Do you think he’ll like this article enough to just send the squid one to me? Yeah, I also doubt it. But hey, let’s discuss how awesome these sculptures are in the comments below!

Images: Alan Williams Metal Artist | Creatures of the Deep