Awesome Ways Movies Predicted Future Technology

The future has arrived... and it looks oddly like an eighties film. Despite the fact that a quarter of a century after Back To The Future, we still do not have hoverboards, flying cars, or cold fusion, a lot of modern ingenuity has yielded results that look, well, pretty much like the movies we grew up with.

Here a few of the more brilliant future predictions from films of previous decades.

The Roomba

Predicted by: Star Wars, The Fifth Element

Oh, the mind-blowing, fantasy-inducing concept of sitting back with a cold one while a robot cleans your kitchen for you! When Zorg leans back in his chair and ruminates on the beauty of his robotic cleaning appliances, it's hard to disagree. Also hard to disagree with is the sort of elephant worm-baby he keeps as a pet.

It has HUMAN EYES!!

Elephant aside, it seems we didn't need to wait until the year 2263 for some tech geeks to put the ultimate human fantasy into motion. Product: the Roomba. A freaking robot that cleans your freakin' house, while you sit back with a cold one.

Guaranteed not to overthrow the universe.

Robotic Limbs

Predicted by: Star Wars, Cyborg, The Six Million Dollar Man

Recent advances in prosthetics have yielded replacement limbs so cool as to almost take the sting out of losing a limb in the first place.

A good sense of humour can also go a long way towards this end.

But seriously, behold the beauty that is the myoelectric limb:

These nifty devices operate using myoelectrography - that is, sensors attached to the remaining limb interpret output from voluntary muscle movements. You might not have a forearm anymore, but you have muscles in your upper arm that would have controlled its movements. The prosthesis extrapolates what your forearm or hand would be doing when those muscles are moved, and moves the prosthesis accordingly. The most recent models allow complex movements of the fingers and thumb, allowing for rotation and adjustment of grip, giving users a fairly good approximation of normal hand movement.

You can even get a fancy cover for these prosthetics, called a cosmesis, which approximates the appearance of normal human skin. Copy and paste the link below for some great images of just how realistic this can look, as well as an enthusiastic testimonial from a user.

http://www.gearability.com/2007/07/18/a-life-like-fully-articulated-prosthetic-hand/

Neural Prostheses

Predicted by: Johnny Mnemonic, The Matrix

Ok, it doesn't really look like that. It looks much more like this:

Pictured: Less frightening

Fortunately, the 90's shocker that was "Johnny Mnemonic" predicted the technology but not the application. Rather than nefarious purposes such as information-smuggling, modern medicine employs these implants for things made of sheer awesome, such an enabling deaf people to hear again. Oh, and speaking of sheer awesome, did I mention that these devices are basically computer chips that are configured to fit into and work with your brain, replacing damaged or impaired neural networks?

With these types of advances, it's only a matter of time before we can download Ju-Jitsu straight into our skulls.

And, presumably, stop bullets while looking like a stone-cold douchebag.

Androids

Predicted by: Blade Runner, Alien

The Japanese android or "actroid" DER-01 contains 47 moveable joints, and is capable not only capable of performing complex hand and foot movements, but mimicking a range of facial expressions.

In a really non-convincing way.

Potential uses for this type of android have not been clearly articulated - they don't really need to be, as most tech-geeks are happy enough just to stare at the thing in wonder, and ruminate on how much it might cost to buy one. My personal prediction is that they end up somewhere between interpreter droids and sexbots:

We are already frightening close on this score.

Any others?

An Historical Compendium of Dick Jokes

Clever Bitch is up to her elbows in her Masters thesis, so it seems like time for something light. It's hard to get lighter than dick jokes, so here is a collection of stunners from the last couple thousand years.

Yes, they really do go back that far.

Martial (circa 38 - 104 AD)

When you hear clapping in the baths,

You know some moron with a giant dick has arrived.

Juvenal (circa 100 AD)

When you've run out of luck, it doesn't matter how long your dick is.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

This little treasure was found scrawled in the margins of one of da Vinci's notebooks:

A woman was washing her clothes, and her feet were very red with cold. A priest who was passing by asked her in amazement, whence came the redness and the woman replied at once that it was the result of the fire she had burning below. Then the priest seized that part on his being that was responsible for his being a priest and not a nun, and drawing close to her, with a sweet and soft voice, begged her to be so kind as to light his candle for him.

William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, 1601-1602)

Fool: Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage. (Hahah, geddit?)

William Shakespeare (Anthony and Cleopatra, circa 1603-1607)

Iras: Am I not an inch of fortune better than she?

Charmian: Well, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

Iras: Not in my husband's nose.

(Translation: in his fucking pants.)

Mae West (1936)

To a Los Angeles police officer who was to escort her:

Is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

"Alexander DeLarge" (A Clockwork Orange, 1971)

To an attractive girl, sucking on a popsicle:

Bit cold and pointless isn't it, my lovely?

Robin Williams (1951 - present)

When in doubt, go for the dick joke.

Amen, brother.

Please add your own!

Divided Loyalties

Amy is an army wife, who met me for our appointment armed with an eight week-old baby and a stiff upper lip. She's impressively calm, considering her age (21) and her first-time mother status. That, and her husband has been on deployment for the last month.

"He was here for the birth," she chirrups, happily, nudging a pacifier into her baby's mouth. "I guess that's the important thing. And next week he'll be back. We have three whole weeks before he's deployed again."

"How long is his next deployment?" I asked.

Surprisingly cheerfully, Amy responded that Nathan would be away for six months. And, incredibly, she's happy about having a mere three weeks of her married life before he goes.

It suddenly occurred to me that I was never going to share her attitude.

I've always considered military service as a sort of relationship deal-breaker. This could cop me a lot of flack (no pun intended), but if you ship out, don't expect me to be here when you get back. Short of a major war posing a direct threat to our country, my policy is that your first duty is to your family. Asking to have a career in the field and a family waiting patiently at home seems to me a bit like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

Nathan's enlistment is more than just a powerful contract between himself and the armed forces. It is an enormous sacrifice on the part of his family. Nathan will not be here to see his son learn to sit alone, to crawl, or to start babbling his first words. His son will miss the chance to bond with his father, imitate his voice or play with him. In effect, when Nathan returns from his stint overseas, he will walk into his son's life as a total stranger.

All alone in her comfortable, military-funded apartment, Amy will endure sleepless nights, tantrums, teething, colic, and probably at least one midnight trip to the Emergency department with a screaming baby - all without the support of her husband. A weekly direct-deposit into her bank account will be, for months on end, the only sign she sees of him apart from an occasional, rushed phone call from a ship's satellite. And when he comes back, a few months of respite before it is all repeated again. That, of course, is assuming that Nathan returns at all. It's hard to imagine the sleepless nights, the unrelenting anxiety that he might not come home... and the grim reality if he does not.

In the end, Nathan's career choice has left Amy holding the baby.

Amy is happy - at least for now. She respects her husband's career and certainly enjoys the benefit of being able to stay home with her baby thanks to Nathan's income. But, to me, it would never be enough. Nathan has sworn an oath and signed a contract stating that his primary loyalty is to his country - his family, by necessity, will come second.

To me, that's the ultimate deal-breaker.

What do you think?

Is "Sorry" Ever Good Enough?

"Zoe" furrowed her brows as if in physical pain while she told me the story, and asked me, almost imploringly;

"What could I say to her? I was supposed to disagree - to take control of the situation, somehow - but everything she said was true."

Zoe is finishing up her training as a psychologist, working in a psychiatric clinic where she is responsible for running group therapy. There are a range of personalities, backgrounds, and clinical presentations amongst her clients - many have mood disorders such as anxiety and depression, some have addictions, whilst others suffer from post-traumatic stress. All are on shaky ground in many respects. There's a lot of pain in the little room from which she runs the afternoon groups. And a raw nerve was touched last week.

One group member, "Rachel" told the group about how she had been a bully as a teenager. She related in detail how she had emotionally, and occasionally physically brutalised a particular girl she disliked, isolating her socially and effectively running her out of the school. Zoe sighed as she told me this part of the story, because, in her words, "She said she felt sorry, but Rachel sounded a lot sorrier for herself than for the things she did to that other girl. She was trying to relate it back to how troubled a teenager she, herself, had been. She had a point, but... well, I can see why it triggered what happened next."

What happened next was that another group member, "Jane", threw a chair at Rachel. As Zoe frantically tried to calm the situation, Jane screamed that bullies like Rachel had ruined her life, and that she didn't want to sit here listening to a sob story about how hard it had been for them to do it. And it was right then that Zoe faced her worst professional dilemma so far. She was obliged to defend Rachel - but she secretly agreed with Jane.

I can understand how torn Zoe must have felt. She, I, and many millions of other people around the world can remember only too well what it was like to be on the wrong end of a high school bully. When I was 15, the new Queen Bee pulled a Rachel-style attack on me, and it's painful to admit that, a decade later, I still have occasional nightmares about that time. Within a few short weeks, she had orchestrated a coup that permanently cost me the girls who had previously been my best friends. Of course, she didn't stop there. In typical Queen Bee Bully style, there were my secrets to disseminate, nasty rumours to be spread, and boycotts to be organised. To this day, I'm still not sure why I was the particular object of her wrath - but then, the motives of bullies are generally mysterious to their victims. All I know is that she was wrathful, ruthless, and extremely efficient in her stated aim of destroying my confidence and shrinking me into a miserable wreck for the remainder of my high school years.

Two years after I was shredded by the bullies, my old best friend, who had not spoken to me since, decided to try to apologise. I was at an end-of-school party when she approached and asked rather nervously for "a moment to talk". For a moment, I was so happy I nearly choked on my beer. Maybe, after all this time, she was going to say she was sorry for how she had treated me, and maybe try to patch up our friendship which, despite everything, I still missed. Maybe she was going to admit that Queen Bee had been wrong.

She did apologise, in a sense. Once we got out of earshot of the other partygoers, she told me that she felt "pretty bad about everything". She hoped I could forgive her, she said.

I was caught somewhere between happiness and indignation. I tried to keep my voice steady.

"After all this...? Well, I mean, if you want to sort of make an... effort to --"

That's as far as I got. Her eyes flickered nervously as she stammered;

"Oh no! I mean, not like that... like, make an effort or anything...", she trailed off lamely, and suddenly there was almost a nakedness between us of perfect understanding.

"You don't actually care what you did to me, do you? You just want me to forgive you so you don't have to feel bad, right?" My voice shook a little and a tear dripped down my nose during the long pause before she shook her head, sadly, and walked off. We never spoke again.

Would sorry have been good enough if it had come with reparations?

I can't say. All I know is that it felt empty to hear her ask for forgiveness without ever needing to suffer, or acknowledge the suffering she caused me. Jane must have felt the same way, listening to Rachel talk about her past and ask the group to acknowledge her experience. Jane's life had been scarred by people like Rachel, and now Rachel was asking for forgiveness, sympathy - all the things she had not shown her victims. To Jane, these were the crocodile tears of an unrepentant predator.

In the end, Zoe had managed to defuse the situation, calm Jane down, and get the group back on track. But she was shaken, having realised a weakness she hadn't known would affect her professionally. Part of her had wanted to stand up with Jane and yell at Rachel that Sorry wasn't good enough, and that No, she was not understood. She was Not Forgiven. Of course, she didn't. Her years of training served her well, and she ran through her usual spiel about how the group was a space where we had to show respect for others and allow them to express themselves and how criticism should be brought up in a respectful way and yada yada yada.

"But the whole time," she said to me later, "the whole time, I felt so wrong inside."

Tony Abbott: The Finer Points of Idiocy in Public

With the approach of yet another Australian Federal election it becomes the right and privilege of bloggers around the country to bag out the candidates. In accordance, here is the sordid little history of Tony Abbott, and some of the highlights of the two decades he has spent ritualistically assassinating his own public credibility - seemingly without political repercussions bar being nominated as the Coalition candidate for (gulp) our next Prime Minister.

You're laughing already, aren't you, bitch?

Here is a collection of some of Tony's most memorable public statements, foibles, and episodes of apparently total public idiocy.

Back to your Ironing, Woman! (2010)

Tony was having a good old chin-wag with a country local dry-cleaner earlier this year about the proposed Emissions Trading Scheme. Being the sort of guy that he is, Tony thought he'd put in the terms of an ordinary person. This comment was taped:

What the housewives of Australia need to understand, when they're doing the ironing is if they get it done commercially it's going to go up in price, and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.

When his comments were criticised for being old-fashioned and sexist, Tony did little to reassure angry women, standing by his comment and claiming that his wife did all the ironing in house. When the predictable backlash occurred, Tony organised a film crew to follow him to a laundromat, where he learned to use an iron for the first time in his life, at the tender age of 52.

The Dying Man is Pulling a Stunt (2007)

Specifically, this guy:

His name was Bernie Banton, and he was dying from advanced asbestosis and mesothelioma. Here's a visual aid to put that into perspective:

Banton was a social justice campaigner representing thousands of workers who had been exposed to asbestos and other dangerous building materials in previous decades. During the lead-up to the 2007 Federal Election, Banton had been compiling an enormous community petition to try to have a new mesothelioma medication added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme - in other words, so that those who needed the drug could afford to get it.

Understanding the delicacy of the situation, Tony accepted to meet Banton at his electoral office and receive the petition - and then basically blew the meeting off cause he was interstate. Rather than apologise, Tony labelled the event as a stunt, and stated;

I know Bernie is very sick, but just because a person is sick doesn't mean that he is necessarily pure of heart in all things.

For the record, Bernie died three days after the election.

Gay People Are Threatening (2010)

Tony has never made it a secret that he feels this way, repeatedly opposing gay marriage, access to IVF for gay couples, and generally any extension of social recognition to homosexual relationships. To this day he remains unashamed of his standpoint, as recently evidenced by the failure of his tongue to communicate with his brain in a 60 Minutes interview. Upon being asked how he felt about homosexuality, Tony replied;

I probably feel a bit threatened... as so many people do.

He "clarified" this comment the following day, stating that:

There is no doubt that (homosexuality) challenges, if you like, orthodox notions of the right order of things.

I suppose the one thing that the guy has going for him here is that he can actually admit he's a bigot. Unfortunately, he seems to think that everyone else is, too.

And it's a shame, cause he would fit in perfectly at Mardi Gras.

Tony Wins! (2002-present)

The Ernie Awards are to a political honour what the Razzies are to the Oscars. M0re specifically, the Ernies are annual awards for Australian men who make the most sexist, misogynistic, or otherwise unhelpful remarks about women. They've even compiled a book of this crap.

Tony, who seems to have a peculiar dislike for women's policy issues, was "honoured" with the 2002 Silver Ernie for Politics, for stating that a paid maternity leave scheme would happen "over this government's dead body!". He has been awarded four "Repeat Offender" Ernies in 2002 and 2005-7, and was also nominated for the Gold Ernie for his 2004 comment that "abortion in Australia has been reduced to a question of the mother's convenience."

There's a hot tip out there that he might well be re-nominated this year. If not for the ironing board remark, then for his bafflingly hypocritical statement to the Australian Women's Weekly that young women should consider their virginity to be a "precious gift" they should not give away lightly. Hypocritical? Well, yes, in light of...

The Phantom Love-Child (2004)

In 2004, a young man who had been adopted as a baby went in search of his biological parents. He found his mother, who directed him to the man she thought was the father - Tony Abbott, who it seemed had fathered a baby boy at the age of 19. Tony found himself in a peculiar and delicate situation - a son he had never met, a media pack swarming around his every door, and the need to reconcile the current scandal with his heavily self-promoted image as a Christian family man.

He ended up using his reconciliation with his son to promote his anti-abortion, pro-adoption stance - conveniently, in the run-up to the parliamentary vote on RU486. He published several mushy interviews expressing his delight in finally meeting his "long-lost son", and condemning how "callow" he was to put the child up for adoption in the first place.

In all the excitement, nobody bothered to wait for the results of the DNA test. By early 2005 it had become apparent that Tony bore no biological relationship to his widely publicised "son". Tony was left with a soiled reputation and no long-lost family members to show for it.

Don't Believe Me (2010)

As though in an attempt not to merely piss all over his credibility but actually stomp it into the ground and bulldoze it into submission, Tony came out with this purler on the ABC's 7:30 Report. Inexplicable failures of grammar and thought processing do little to mask the brilliance of this half-hearted admission to lying during interviews;

Politicians are going to be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you do go a bit further than you would if it was an absolutely, ah, calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark.

Which is one of the reasons why the, the the statements that need to be taken absolutely as, as gospel truth is those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.

You have it from the horse's mouth.

2010: A Vampire Odyssey Comes Full Circle

For a genre that may have seemed to have had the blood sucked out of it a long time ago, vampire films have proved a remarkable ability to evolve with the times. It's taken a few subtle and not-so-subtle turns before arriving at the present-day sorry state of affairs. (Seriously, fucking sparkling vampires?

Clearly, the best place to start would be...




Stage 1: The Monster
Nosferatu, 1922

Film was new, horror was new, there wasn't a great deal of subtlety in the industry - and yet this is one of the best vampire films ever made. (Note to Stephanie Meyer: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)


Moving right along to...

Stage 2: The Creepy Foreigner

Dracula, 1931

Despite the fact that he seems to have a girl's name (and even though you used something close to it in Twilight, Meyer, you bitch), Bela Lugosi makes a formidable Dracula. And, let's not kid ourselves here, it plays nicely into the deep post-WWI suspicion of all things Eastern European.

Which brings us nicely along to...

Stage 3: The Even Creepier Foreigner

Dracula, 1958

In the early Cold War years, it was time to up the ante on just how creepy and threatening those Russians could be. Christopher Lee proved just the man for the job, despite being, a) British, and b) camper than a row of tents. Also, he seems to have pinkeye.

Things move along in a similar vein for while, until the world is stunned by...

Stage 4: Blacula

Blacula, 1972

By the 1970s, vampires had visited genres ranging from traditional horror to Westerns (Billy the Kid vs. Dracula - seriously), t0 pornography, and finally blaxploitation. This defies description except for the curious fact that it is the first known film to include a subplot about gay vampires.

Which sets the scene for the next incarnation...

Stage 5: The Cute Bad Boy
The Lost Boys, 1987

Problem: the genre had been flogged for decades, then finally pissed upon by the advent of far scarier movie monsters such as Alien and Freddy Krueger.

Solution: Shaggable vampires on motorbikes.

And speaking of shaggable:

Stage 6: The Sexy Super-Freak
Bram Stoker's Dracula, 1993

It's probably a good thing that this film wasn't released in the current climate, as it probably would have resulted in a barrage of horny Emo teenagers storming Gary Oldman's house and crushing him before he had a chance to make The Fifth Element. Even though in this film he tends to spontaneously fluctuate between human form and that of various monsters and demons, a new tone was set for sexy vampires. (Again, Meyer: YOU ARE NOT NEEDED HERE.)

Unfortunately...

Stage 7: The Sensitive New Age Guy

Buffy, 1997- 2003

... they went and ballsed it up. Vampires were just getting good again when someone decided to unleash a great new concept - the non-threatening vampire.

If you're not familiar with the series, the above photo depicts the vampire Angel (David Boreanaz) - who not only has a girl's name but has an awesome history of murderous and sexual mayhem. Unfortunately for the audience, he was cursed with remorse for his crimes, and resolves to be a soft-cock for the entire damned series. That is, until he finally does something vampire-like and Buffy kicks him into Hell's mouth.

However, he is nowhere near as bad as...

Terminal Stage: The Boy Band Member
Twilight series, (2008-10)

There are so many things wrong here that I don't know where to start. Suffice to say: I hate you, Stephanie Meyer.

5 Awesome Fails by Kill Bill characters

5. Johnny Mo and The Crazy 88

It would seem that Johnny Mo was holding down that security thing pretty well down when The Bride showed up to demonstrate some human topiary techniques. You'd have to, right? I mean, after all, you're protecting the head of the Yakuza here. So let's run through a brief list of strategic assets, shall we?

Army of highly mobile, motorcycle-riding henchmen armed with razor-sharp katanas? Check.

A personal entourage for the Boss, comprising a few top assassins and a personal bodyguard - all armed with razor-sharp katanas? Check.

The Boss herself armed to the teeth with a razor-sharp katana? Check and Check.

Even ONE individual who carries, say, a gun? Or any other kind of weapon which can be used on a person who isn't close enough to hack you to death with a razor sharp katana?

Oh.

Incidentally, Wikipedia states that the eventual casualties that The Bride inflicts upon the Crazy 88 stand at "67 killed, 12 maimed, 1 killed by an axe thrown by somebody else, 1 possible killed, and 1 spanked". Seems like a bit of forward-thinking and a well-placed bullet could have ended this battle before it started.

4. Gogo Yubari

The item that the fetching Miss Yubari is holding in her hand is an ancient Chinese weapon known as a Meteor Hammer (which I guess is slightly more subtle than the more obvious Fuck-Christ-Please-Don't-Hurt-Me-Ball), which she uses to beat the living crap out of The Bride at the House of Blue Leaves. She does such a good job of it that she almost actually beats The Bride, landing two hefty shots straight to the chest before good Ol' Beatrix knows what hit her.

So why the epic fail? Perhaps something to do with the freaking retractable blades that she doesn't bother to activate on the Meteor Ball until after she has landed what could have been not one but two perfectly lethal blows. Seriously, watch this scene again. Gogo could have annihilated The Bride before a single drop of Deadly Viper blood was spilled - but it totally looked like more fun to mess around with that skilled assassin for a while before getting too serious with her ass. Her decision to give The Bride a couple of practice swings to get used to avoiding the Meteor Hammer seems just depressingly... adolescent, coming from a chick who disembowels losers in bars to have a good time.

3. Budd

Oh, Budd - you were so close. The only character in the franchise, actually, who overcame The Bride single-handed. You even had her tied up in a goddamned coffin - and yet you still managed to balls it up. Too polite to mace the lady before you stick her in the coffin, too cheap to buy a coffin made of anything sturdier than plywood, too thick to search The Bride for any weapons or lighters before burying her alive, Budd really ticks all the boxes in terms of stupidity when dealing with the world's most deadly female assassin.

The only thing that mitigates this epic fail is that even if Budd had succeeded to kill The Bride, he still would have died courtesy of several Black Mamba bites to the face.

2. Elle Driver

Elle might have a better shot of survival if that syringe contained, shall we say, a dose of Black Mamba anti-venom. Fans will remember that she employed this fanged beastie as a means to dispatch Budd, using a slightly more sophisticated version of the "snake-in-a-can" trick, known as the "snake-in-a-case-full-of-money" trick. But with a real snake.

Steve Irwin could have told this woman that there's no use in getting cosy with serpents unless you carry some anti-venom for insurance. You know, in case it all goes wrong and you end up blinded in a trailer containing a pissed-off Black Mamba, in the middle of the fucking desert. Or, for the sake of argument, impaled on a sting-ray.

1. The Police

First, please note the organised police response to crisis depicted in the above photograph. Now, please note the complete lack of any images like this in either of the Kill Bill films. Sure - we do get this guy:

Who looks about as helpful as if he's drowning in a barrel of titties. But that's still a whole lot better than the police response in Tokyo. Careful examination (read: drunken re-watching) of Kill Bill Volume I yields no evidence whatsoever of a police response to the massacre at the House of Blue Leaves. Sure, you say, they probably didn't show up cause they were too afraid of all those Yakuzas running around, right?

Well, not really. All those Yakuzas were dead, or crawling away dragging their bloodied stumps in a way that doesn't exactly scream subtlety. And yet, as the carnage rages on and terrified bystanders flee the premises, The Bride manages to not only kill the entire Crazy 88 and their mistress, but actually has time to cool her heels and reflect on what she's done.

In short, the police say that the Tokyo crime syndicate problem can go fuck itself.