Russian Short on Flying War Machines

Normally I care more about the ideas than how they're rendered, but this is outstanding enough that it made even my blunted retinas happy. The theme is somewhere between the Terminator and Bradbury's There Will Come Soft Rains.

Крепость/Fortress from Dima Fedotof on Vimeo.

ROBOTS MADE OF DNA KILL CANCER!!!!! OMG!!!!

Like OMG! DNA Robots!

The title above (and image) is what the press release title would have you believe. The reality is still pretty cool - the lab created structures composed of DNA and engineered to move in the presence of certain compounds, so that the structures opened when they contacted leukemia cells; then they can deliver therapeutic chemicals to kill those cells.

This is a good innovation that has potential but right now it's barely proof of concept, because "killing cancer cells" does not at all equate to "curing cancer". (That particular inequality is why we have drug development professionals.) The problem here is not in a lab that's doing cutting edge work, it's in (presumably) the university's press office, and the outlets that distribute their breathless releases. The press has to learn to stop swallowing releases undigested, whether they're from Harvard or much more entertaining ones that explain the whole universe - or we have to learn to stop wasting our time on those particular press outlets.

Attention Kids: Download These Drugs

By that I mean, I-dosing! You can get high from mp3s! Come on, all the cool kids are doing it! I prefer to snort them, but administration by enema is also effective. Note: if you do actually attempt this please send me video. I promise I won't immediately post it.

Despite that I-dosing is obivously bullsh*t, the news media never fails to wring some alarmism from something that kids are doing:



Hey kids, do you have your Silver Shamrock masks?

My favorite thing about this story is how it drips with moral panic - "Parents, don't let your kids listen to these!" Then half-way through, "Here's what they sound like." Have you idiots never seen the Halloween movies!?!?! Now pardon me while I exchange unprotected sex for mp3s and steal cars in order to support my habit before going on a cackling psychotic shooting rampage. I-dose! I-dose! (Never trust a junkie.)

OR, alternatively, you could just listen to Cast Iron Crow, which is to I-tunes as DMT is to Pez and will cause your brain to melt out of your nose and then re-solidify into the form of Bruce Lee and then kick your ass for being a pussy.

My Roadtrip to Ganymede

Nine years ago I decided to make the drive from San Francisco to Denver at Christmas. I took these at dawn in western Wyoming and between the wan sun and near-sterile landscape, when I developed these, they reminded me of what I imagine the surfaces of gas giant moons look like, minus the occasional sage.