2012 Promo at Cannes
May 26, 2009
According to MEI Events:
To announce the release of director Roland Emmerich’s latest blockbuster, 2012, we projected Sony Pictures 2012 marketing messages onto a massive 75m wide, 30m high water-screen complete with 30,000 watts of pro-audio sound. Traffic on the Croisette was brought to a standstill every time we ran the sequence.
2012 Dissed at Newsweek
May 19, 2009
The column is entitled “BeliefWatch“. The topic is 2012, and author John Major Jenkins is pitted against Washington University archaeologist David Freidel:
He recently agreed to speak at a New Age conference on 2012, he says, mainly because he wanted to deprive Jenkins of the opportunity. “I immediately said yes so I could get to the podium before the charlatans do,” says Freidel.
…Freidel accuses Jenkins and other popularizers of inventing a theology to support their view that the world is in decline—and that an external force will soon intervene to set things right. “There is a tendency,” he says, “to be wholly naive on the part of individuals who want to see consciousness raised on a global scale.”
Extra! 2012 Space Weather by Wired
May 13, 2009
You are no doubt aware of the potential for a catastrophic space storm (from our Sun), as described recently by NASA. Now Wired asks a pair of experts, author Lawrence Joseph, and John Kappenman, CEO of electromagnetic damage consulting company MetaTech, about what might occur in our immediate future:
Lawrence Joseph: Ultra-high voltage transformers become more finicky as energy demands are greater. Around 50 percent already can’t handle the current they’re designed for. A little extra current coming in at odd times can slip them over the edge.
The ultra-high voltage transformers, the 500,000- and 700,000-kilovolt transformers, are particularly vulnerable. The United States uses more of these than anyone else…
Power grid operators now rely on one satellite called ACE, which sits about a million miles out from Earth in what’s called the gravity well, the balancing point between sun and earth. It was designed to run for five years. It’s 11 years old, is losing steam, and there are no plans to replace it.
ACE provides about 15 to 45 minutes of heads-up to power plant operators if something’s coming in. They can shunt loads, or shut different parts of the grid. But to just shut the grid off and restart it is a $10 billion proposition, and there is lots of resistance to doing so. Many times these storms hit at the north pole, and don’t move south far enough to hit us. It’s a difficult call to make, and false alarms really piss people off. Lots of money is lost and damage incurred. But in Kappenman’s view, and in lots of others, this time burnt could really mean burnt.
2012 iPhone App
May 12, 2009
Available from iTunes for 99 cents. Combines a 2012 countdown with a “note to future self”. Plus a “a short surprise video which plays when the countdown reaches zero”.
“In The Courts Of The Sun” by Brian D’Amato
May 9, 2009
First off, it is fiction. But so was the Da Vinci Code… A review in the Chicago Tribune says:
They developed a way to send bursts of energy through a tiny, artificially created singularity… ”
That singularity is the narrator of D’Amato’s absolutely amazing new thriller about the end of the world—Jed DeLanda, a descendant of the Maya living in the year 2012, a math prodigy who spends his time playing Go against his computer and raking in profits from online trading.
…D’Amato’s genius is in making that possibility personal. His DeLanda is believable and very likable, even when he’s spouting ancient history and obscure mathematical theory.
Publishers Weekly says:
“A remarkable, unique, stand-out book. Prodigious in its scope, its originality, its ambition, its intelligence, and the mastery of its research. In a word: awesome. Or brilliant. Make that two words: awesome and brilliant.”
—Raymond Khoury, author of The Last Templar and The Sanctuary “Fans of the late Michael Crichton will welcome this engrossing thriller. . . . The period details are as convincing as those in Simon Levack’s superb Aztec mysteries.”
If I get a chance to read my preview copy in the next few weeks, I’ll let you know if is worth buying, but based on the previews, I’d say yes!
Planetary Doom a Result of Advancement in Special Effects?
May 3, 2009
This year we have perhaps more apocalyptic Hollywood movies than ever before;
Her examples include “Watchmen” (where nuclear conflagration is just minutes away) and the recent hit “Knowing,” where Nic Cage is our last hope to save the planet. She notes that two of this summer’s most anticipated box-office behemoths are “Terminator Salvation” and “2012,” both of which involve potential planetary demolition. Kennedy also lumps in destruction sequences from such family films as “Monsters vs. Aliens” (where the Golden Gate Bridge is gleefully wrecked) and “Wall-E,” which is set in a city that bears the unmistakable look of post-apocalypse.
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