From
the fevered swamps of Skull Island to the dazzling skyscrapers of Manhattan,
and all points in between, everybody’s talking about exactly one thing: the
controversial new gay cowboy flick, Brokeback Mountain.
Naw, just kidding. They’re all talking about Kong! Kong is King! Kong
rules! So in honor of everyone’s favorite giant gorilla — and in no way
as some kind of cynical attempt to cash in on a fad — we have asked the big
ape to be our host in this week’s journey into the future. So, let the journey
begin!
Recently Stephen wrote about Gigantopithecus
blackii – a ten foot tall ape that once roamed the Pleistocene.
Stephen suggested that legends of this animal might have have inspired the American
Sasquatch myths even if the animal never made it to this continent.
Since methods to clone animals from that era are
being perfected, will we one day see a real Kong up close and personal?
We’re hopeful…just not too close or too personal…please.
Risk-taking aviators need not ponder buzzing the world’s tallest building while
being swatted at by a giant simian: Jay
Manifold reports that attempting to land at Chicago Midway is plenty dangerous
enough, and he’s got numbers to back it up.
We all know ’twas beauty killed the beast, but had Kong hooked up with a Girl
Geek rather than your garden-variety
blonde hottie,
said alternative S.O. might just have figured out a way to avoid that whole tragic
Empire State Building/buzzing biplanes/nasty fall scenario. Melody
tells us all about the women of the future, the aforementioned Girl Geeks, both
at her own blog and at Multiple
Mentality .
Speaking of women of the future, Virginia
Postrel is recommeding a book on the subject of urban
sprawl. The book deals with the evolution and adpation that takes place
in city design over time; reading it we might well find some clues as to what
we can expect cities to look like in the future:
But Bruegmann’s book is grounded in a history lesson–one that finds the
roots of present-day Houston, Atlanta and Los Angeles in Augustan Rome or
Restoration London. People of means, he writes, have always tried to get some
distance from urban centers, often inhabiting villas outside city walls.”I’m sure you would have found it in the very first city ever established,”
he says. “Living in cities has almost always been unpleasant and unhealthy–not
something most people wanted. If you were in imperial Rome, crowded into dark,
dingy, polluted apartment buildings, it would have been a nightmare. Most
cities I looked at had just crushing density until about the 18th century.”
So cities will probably continue to spread out into clean, safe, sprawling suburbs
that provide everything the residents need. And that are free, we might add,
from those tempting and dangerous skyscrapers.
Whether Kong decides to go for a Geek Girl or stick with the supermodel type,
he needs to focus on getting along okay, especially leading such a high-risk
life. Joshua
Zader at Mudita Journal
has the latest on new research indicating that a marital spat can significantly
reduce the body’s ability to heal :
The stress a married couple experiences during a 30-minute argument can delay
their bodies’ ability to heal a wound by at least a day, according to a new
study.
And if the couples’ relationship endures routine hostility, the delay can
be increased yet further. There could be important implications for people
suffering from chronic wounds, such as skin ulcers.
The Big Guy must down an awful lot of bananas to keep his huge frame moving.
This puts us in mind of the exciting Second
Generation Biofuels recently reported on by Green
Car Congress.
As Kong gets older, he may be concerned, as many of us are, about the loss
of muscle mass. Sci-Tech
Daily points us to some new information indicating that part of the answer
may be to lay off the bananas in
favor of meat .
While we’re on the subject of life extension (sort of) Fight
Aging! reports that our good friend Aubrey
de Grey will be appearing on 60 Minutes in January.
MattG at “Press the buttons”
recalls his childhood love of all things Donkey
Kong. Lately the character has had cameo appearances in other games,
but…
For all his moonlighting, however, I continue to look forward to his next
traditional adventure.
Mike at TechDirt warns
of a new software trend that may slow the introduction of new Kong adventures,
as well as innovation generally — copy
protection. Meanwhile, BoingBoing
directs us to a report detailing how Congress is working to build copy protection
in at the hardware
level. On the other hand, Lawrence Lessig reports that Sun is trying to
open things up at the hardware level. Open-source
hardware? Apparently.
FuturePundit
reports that power plant operators have decided to take a serious look at nuclear
energy.
[Please redo. Need Kong angle.-- Ed.]
FuturePundit
reports that power plant operators have decided to stop monkeying
around and take a serious look at nuclear energy.
GeekPress directs
us to this New
Scientist article about how neural networks are being used to determine
whether new movies will be a hit.
While the crime rate overall seems to be going down, some crimes are getting
bigger. A lot bigger. The Minstry
of Minor Perfidy , who will be hosting next week’s carnival, reports on
a brazen criminal act of King Kong proportions: grain
silo theft. Could this be the future of crime?
Mark at Curmudgeon’s
Corner , while not explicitly addressing the issue of cloning a gigantopithecus,
directs us to commentary from a noted paleontologist who raises serious questions
about whether a creature such as Kong could ever exist. Then Rand Simberg of
Transterrestrial
Musings joins the fray with these pertinent thoughts:
Even if he could get enough to eat, for a body with that much mass to move
that fast, the heat generated would be much greater than could be radiated
out through the skin (mass goes up as the cube of the major dimension, whereas
surface area only goes up as the square), particularly through that fur coat,
so he’d cook from the inside if he maintained the kind of activity levels
presumably depicted. Also, he wouldn’t be able to maintain his own weight
on those (relatively) spindly legs, once scaled up to that size–they’d splinter
like toothpicks.No point in seeing the movie, folks–it’s just not realistic…
A devastating analysis. For those who will now skip the Kong movie as it has been
thoroughly debunked, might we recommend a more plausible hit
film from last summer, recently out on DVD?
Carnival of Tomorrow #16 will be hosted by The Ministry of Minor Perfidy.
If you would like to contribute to or host an upcoming Carnival of Tomorrow, please write to:
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