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The end of the world, Modern Seinfeld, and brains and bacon in this week’s Staff Picks

Monster invasions, bionic men, and the future of cool cars in this week's Staff Picks
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caleb denisonCaleb Denison: Run for your lives! The world is totally not ending next week!

You know why I can’t wait for 12/22/2012? So everybody can shut the hell up about the Mayan Calendar and the end of the world. Sure, folks will probably be buzzing and joking about how the world didn’t end, but even that will be a welcome relief after the ridiculous speculation and debate we’ve had to endure for the past few years and, especially, the past few months.

If you’re as fed up with all this doomsaying as I am, then it may come as some consolation to know that you are not alone. The folks at NASA – you know, that organization filled with some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the world – are so certain that the world isn’t going to end on 12/21/2012 that it has already released a video titled “Why the World Didn’t End Yesterday.” In it, hard-nosed scientists explain that the Mayan calendar did not end on December 21st, 2012 and there are no Mayan prophecies fortelling the end of the world on that date. NASA also does a pretty good job of debunking the wildly exaggerated claims that a celestial body – be it a planet, comet or the sun – poses any threat to us at this time. And they do it all without making us puny humans feel stupid. Simply put, nothing is going to happen.

 

natt garun
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Natt Garun: Christopher Nolan should just make every movie

I’m still buzzing from the high that was Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy. There’s just something about his storytelling that makes every movie so epic. This was reiterated when the most recent trailer for Man Of Steel surfaced this week, starring Henry Cavill (The Tudors) as the one and only Superman himself. Melodrama! Beautiful cinematography! Bluish-hue overtones! YouTube commentators say it best: This trailer makes The Avengers look like a Disney movie.

Okay, so maybe I should also give some credit to Zach Snyder (Watchmen) for actually directing Man Of Steel, but attach Nolan’s name to a movie trailer and I am so there. See you in the theater lines on June 14, 2013.

 

Les Shu: When food styling didn’t exist as a profession

The first thing everybody comments on when they walk into my stately studio apartment is the large collection of cookbooks that line the pantry shelves. Besides attempting the recipes (some of which require a science degree to execute), the real reason for my cookbook hoarding is the visual stimulation I get from the incredible, mouth-watering photos. Call it food porn, if you must. 

But once upon a time, cookbooks were not always so beautiful. Imagine my horror (and laughter) when I found myself scrolling through the entries at Yuckylicious (by way of Boing Boing), a site dedicated to “exploring the world’s worst cookbooks.” Its author, Micki Myers, highlights recipes that are not only questionable as edible food, but are equally revolting as eye candy.

As the site states, “Yuckylicious seeks to showcase examples of these awful cookbooks as well as recipes from decent vintage and classic cookbooks for dishes we no longer eat.” Let’s hope we never have to revisit “brains and bacon” again.

Brains and bacon staff picks
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andrew coutsAndrew Couts: This crazy guy is the most sane person in the world

Thanks to a major case of jet lag, I recently found myself doing some late-night link-clicking and came across what has to be the best celebrity interview ever given: Dave Chappelle on “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”

The two-hour conversation between the comedian and host James Lipton dates back to 2006, after Chappelle escaped to Africa rather than accept a $50 million dollar deal to continue making his The Chappelle Show for Comedy Central. Most people assumed he’d lost his mind – who turns down $50 million?

As the interview reveals, the truth is much more complex. In fact, I staggered to my bed after watching all two hours of this thinking me might be the most sane person on the planet. Another surprise: the interview, which can still be purchased as a DVD, has survived the intense copyright-infringement gamut that so often keeps videos like this off YouTube. 

So if you find yourself Web-surfing the night away, take some time to relish in this long-lost gem of the Web. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. And you’ll learn a thing or two about life.

Jennifer BergenJen Bergen: A Twitter feed for the Seinfeld-obsessed 

I was in middle school and far away from New York when Seinfeld, which I watched every week, went off the air. Now, more than 10 years later, I live just a few blocks away from Tom’s Restaurant on the upper East Side and wish more than ever that the show was still on. Sure, as a kid I laughed at Kramer’s crazy antics, but I didn’t really understand the more adult jokes until years later watching reruns. Thankfully, it looks like my prayers have been answered … in the form of a Twitter account.

Scanning my Twitter feed Monday morning, I was surprised to see a retweet from an account by the name of “@SeinfeldToday.” I immediately began laughing and reading all of Modern Seinfeld’s tweets.

modern seinfeld tweetsI realized what I had stumbled upon … the present-day Seinfeld that jokes about things like being embarrassed about having a BlackBerry (George), breaking up with a girlfriend who Instagrams everything she eats (Jerry), accidentally restarting the Occupy movement (Kramer), and yelling at co-workers for loving Pinterest (Elaine). The genius minds behind @SeinfeldToday have created scenarios so real and so hilarious that only Seinfeld’s kookie characters could pull them off. Unless Larry David decides to bring the gang back together, this is the next best thing. 

Digital Trends Staff
Digital Trends has a simple mission: to help readers easily understand how tech affects the way they live. We are your…
Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2023 Awards
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Let there be no doubt: CES isn’t just alive in 2023; it’s thriving. Take one glance at the taxi gridlock outside the Las Vegas Convention Center and it’s evident that two quiet COVID years didn’t kill the world’s desire for an overcrowded in-person tech extravaganza -- they just built up a ravenous demand.

From VR to AI, eVTOLs and QD-OLED, the acronyms were flying and fresh technologies populated every corner of the show floor, and even the parking lot. So naturally, we poked, prodded, and tried on everything we could. They weren’t all revolutionary. But they didn’t have to be. We’ve watched enough waves of “game-changing” technologies that never quite arrive to know that sometimes it’s the little tweaks that really count.

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CES is more than just a neon-drenched show-and-tell session for the world’s biggest tech manufacturers. More and more, it’s also a place where companies showcase innovations that could truly make the world a better place — and at CES 2023, this type of tech was on full display. We saw everything from accessibility-minded PS5 controllers to pedal-powered smart desks. But of all the amazing innovations on display this year, these three impressed us the most:

Samsung's Relumino Mode
Across the globe, roughly 300 million people suffer from moderate to severe vision loss, and generally speaking, most TVs don’t take that into account. So in an effort to make television more accessible and enjoyable for those millions of people suffering from impaired vision, Samsung is adding a new picture mode to many of its new TVs.
[CES 2023] Relumino Mode: Innovation for every need | Samsung
Relumino Mode, as it’s called, works by adding a bunch of different visual filters to the picture simultaneously. Outlines of people and objects on screen are highlighted, the contrast and brightness of the overall picture are cranked up, and extra sharpness is applied to everything. The resulting video would likely look strange to people with normal vision, but for folks with low vision, it should look clearer and closer to "normal" than it otherwise would.
Excitingly, since Relumino Mode is ultimately just a clever software trick, this technology could theoretically be pushed out via a software update and installed on millions of existing Samsung TVs -- not just new and recently purchased ones.

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AI turned Breaking Bad into an anime — and it’s terrifying
Split image of Breaking Bad anime characters.

These days, it seems like there's nothing AI programs can't do. Thanks to advancements in artificial intelligence, deepfakes have done digital "face-offs" with Hollywood celebrities in films and TV shows, VFX artists can de-age actors almost instantly, and ChatGPT has learned how to write big-budget screenplays in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon, AI will probably decide who wins at the Oscars.

Within the past year, AI has also been used to generate beautiful works of art in seconds, creating a viral new trend and causing a boon for fan artists everywhere. TikTok user @cyborgism recently broke the internet by posting a clip featuring many AI-generated pictures of Breaking Bad. The theme here is that the characters are depicted as anime characters straight out of the 1980s, and the result is concerning to say the least. Depending on your viewpoint, Breaking Bad AI (my unofficial name for it) shows how technology can either threaten the integrity of original works of art or nurture artistic expression.
What if AI created Breaking Bad as a 1980s anime?
Playing over Metro Boomin's rap remix of the famous "I am the one who knocks" monologue, the video features images of the cast that range from shockingly realistic to full-on exaggerated. The clip currently has over 65,000 likes on TikTok alone, and many other users have shared their thoughts on the art. One user wrote, "Regardless of the repercussions on the entertainment industry, I can't wait for AI to be advanced enough to animate the whole show like this."

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