SciTech Spotlight

On this day:

Nobel laureate George Hitchings was born(1905).

Nobel laureate Joseph Goldstein was born(1940).

Nobel laureate Albert Einstein passed away(1955).

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On this day in 1970 Apollo 13 returned safely to Earth.

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On this day in 1867 Wilbur Wright was born in Millville, Indiana.

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On this day in 1452 Leonardo da Vinci, scientist, engineer, artist, sculptor and inventor was born.

Ode To Don Imus

If Imus were a rapper, he’d be basking in praise.
We'd be told to admire his ability to turn an edgy phrase.

Fellow rappers would embrace him, call him brother and friend.
The ACLU would be there too, his freedom of speech to defend.

There would be no outrage, no calls for his head.
There would only be countless invitations to talk shows instead.

He’d have a fistful of Grammies, a movie contract or two.
And the media would be enthralled and clamor for interviews.

But he’s not a rapper and a double standard reigns.
So for him there will be only endless apologies and a great deal of public pain.

When Clean Becomes A Dirty Word

Every time I think I've seen it all, life throws me a curve. After all, who would have guessed that the word “clean” had become a four letter word? Certainly Senator Biden didn’t. I’m quite sure he thought he was heaping high praise on Senator Obama when he used it. Unfortunately, despite his years in politics, the senior senator from Delaware made the mistake of underestimating the ability of some people to make mountains out of molehills.

He is hardly to blame for this. However he must bear the responsibility for aiding them in getting away with this kind of nonsense one more time. How? By frantically casting about to apologize to just about anyone and everyone he can, the senator has shown a complete lack of ability to deal with the unexpected. He has empowered the usual suspects in their eternal quest to make all things racial. Also he has probably eliminated any possibility of being elected President.

What would have been a proper response? Perhaps something more like this; I said clean, I meant clean. Only someone who is a lover of the worst kind of racist rhetorical nonsense could make anything racially explosive out of such a positive word. There are of course those who would have made attacks and attempts to make him look like a closet racist.

However it would have been simpler to turn these aside by asking his attackers to explain, in detail, exactly in what context the word “clean” is a pejorative. It would have been interesting to see what kind of explanation the naysayers would conjure up, if any.

Let’s be clear about this. There are those who see a slight in every expression. They could make “hello” a racist verbal attack. Let’s not yield common sense to common paranoia. There are more than a few people who have difficulty listening to the better angels of their nature, but we can choose not to be among them. When we make that choice, it’s good news.

Synthetic Actors?

At the dawn of the use of digital effects in filmmaking, there was a small but vocal group of actors who fretted that this was the start of a sinister plot by studios to someday replace human performers with digital ones. The vast majority of their fellow actors dismissed this as nothing more than paranoia. Well, somewhere in Hollywood, those actors who were once labeled as paranoid are probably saying I told you so. Why? Orville Redenbacher has been raised from the dead.

Recently, a series of television commercials have featured the bowtie wearing, bespectacled magnate from Indiana who passed away more than a decade ago. Through a complex process using computer generated imagery, a fairly good simulation of the late Mr. Redenbacher can be seen touting his gourmet popcorn once again. However, the effect is not perfect. Most viewers will probably have the feeling that the face is not quite lively enough. In fact, some critics on the Internet have dubbed the character Orville Deadenbacher because of the somewhat stiff facial expressions. As they say in the world of technobabble, the process is not mature. Still, the fact remains that we are now tantalizingly close to being able to create people with realistic appearance; the holy grail of visual digital effects.

And while this new technological capability may strike fear into the hearts of the members of the Screen Actors Guild, it doesn’t take much imagination to see some of the possibilities that may come to pass as the technique is improved and coupled with software that can be fine tuned to mimic the movements of a particular individual. There could be new films featuring Humphrey Bogart, Gene Harlow or Cary Grant and perhaps even a sequel to Animal House featuring a digital doppelganger for John Belushi. Or how about a musical where Usher trades dance steps with Fred Astaire? And why should the technique be limited to actors? No doubt there are more than a few sports fanatics that would be willing to pay to see a digital dream match between Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson, both in their prime. On the more mundane side, won’t it be great when they can digitally reshape the mouths of performers so that they actually look like they are saying the words of the foreign language into which their movie has been dubbed?

Over time the cost of the technology will drop. When it does, it will move into the hands of video game designers and amateur film makers. And an entirely new cycle of creative visions will be unleashed. When will this happen? Well, in the words of Bogart in the cinematic classic Casablanca, ”...maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon…” Probably sooner than anyone suspects.