I don’t know if WWE wrestling fans like to play Facebook tagging games or now, but we’ll only know if we give them a chance.
Below are three posters of WWE superstars for Facebook tagging. One is of the RAW cast at one point. Another is of the Smackdown cast at one point. The wrestlers move back and forth, seeing some in both posters, so there could never be a definitive version of either. Finally, there is one of the Divas at some point as their roster changes, too.
Let’s see if people take up these Facebook tagging memes. I have not labeled the wrestlers with names because their personalities get changed more often than underwear! Any label I put to them would not be accurate for long. The posters were not created by me. Seems they were corporate wallpapers put out for marketing to give to fans. What I did was convert them to be used for Facebook tagging, changing sizes, cropping, adjusting for more contrast that Facebook seems to lack, etc. Enjoy!
To use the poster below for tagging your Facebook friends, please:
Click on the WWE poster you want below to get it at full size.
Right click on that picture and save to your computer.
This post is about my view on religion justified as a reason to fight wars, with robots facilitating the process to depersonify killing that is now easier than before with the revolution going on in robotics used in war. It is based on the video below from the 2009 Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference of military analyst P.W. Singer, in his talk about the revolution quietly going on in war of using robots to fight them. By quiet, I don’t mean anything like top secret, but to the degree that’s going on and some of the details you really don’t hear about. The revolution is hugely eye-opening and, more importantly, morally challenging since it really depersonifies war the way guns have depersonified murder and war where it’s become so easy to kill. With robots, we don’t even have to be on the same continent to do the same. It’s all like a video game.
Military Analyst and Wired for War author, P.W. Singer
One point P.W. Singer brings up in his talk is how this is perceived in the Arab world, that Americans are cowards to fight with robots instead of people. Trust me. If they had access to these robots, they would, too. It’d be a lot more efficient, economical and easy than trying to convince potential recruits of the 70 virgins waiting for them in the afterlife if they become terrorist bombers. Besides, how long could 70 virgins occupy one’s interest for eternity, anyway? It’s hypocrisy to take the stance Americans are cowards for not fighting man to man. They should be appreciative there’s some compassion in modern society, despite the lack of compassion that seems to exist in war. In the good old days, if you had the weaponry to wipe out the enemy, you’d put them all down, or at least down to their knees, mercilessly so they would know there were consequences to petty acts of war like terrorist bombings. You know, they’d take on the kill one of us and we’ll kill 10 of you policy. No exceptions.
The scary thing about P.W. Singer’s talk, though, is that all this robotic technology could easily belong to the enemy. Considering all the manufacturing going on outside the US. Think about all the software writing done outside the US. Don’t forget that US science and engineering graduates becoming smaller and smaller compared to other countries. Then there’s the ease of duplication from learning by capturing one of these things. Put it all together and I think you can see how it would not take long before the enemy can play at the same level, or slightly less but in greater numbers. That was the old Soviet Union’s war technology approach with how many of their war machines looking like US ones, only not as good. They didn’t lose the Cold War on that strategy though, but economics. And don’t forget, this time around, there are no humans to die with loss of inferior machines but that bundles of them could outdo the fewer better ones.
P.W. Singer ends his talk with a great question of who is really wired for war, humans or robots? I think the answer to that question is easy, though hard for a lot of humans to admit. However, my additional take on it is if in depersonifying the killing for wars, and having to morally debate how responsible for it all, if we would not fall back on the most convenient excuse for killing we have ever had, which is in the name of religion.
In the past and present, we have used religion to remove responsibility from ourselves for killing in wars, but we still had to do it ourselves.
In the future, we will be able to use religion to justify our killing, and claim our innocence as the robots do the killing.
Both will make it more convenient to kill, which will only lead to more killing.
Brad Pitt at the spa getting a facial. JUST KIDDING! Though they reminded me of stuff stars don
In the newly released (Feb 23) 18 minute video below, Ed Ulbrich demonstrates the technology of his Digital Domain team which allowed Brad Pitt to act out Benjamin Button‘s face throughout the movie, at all ages of Benjamin’s life. That way, all of Brad’s nuances and unique acting skills were able to be applied to the character throughout the movie, not just the part where the character resembled Brad and he could play him. It was almost like unspecial effects, if common effects did not convey something far less worthy, where the special effects were meant to be as unnoticeable as possible.
The video is far better than I can explain it. However, I’ve given you some interesting, albeit less than flattering photos of Brad at his work, with brief descriptions of their roles in the process. The photos were screen captured and compiled from the video to give you something to hang on to, put on your blog or whatever. Video is not the same as photos and these leave a few lasting memories of Brad Pitt like you’ve not likely seen him, like him at 80 years old below.
On the inspiring side of the talk, and as a mind blowing subplot, is the courage Ed’s team had to walk away from the state of the art technology of the day to come up with this technology since the best wasn’t nearly good enough. You’ll see in the video why it really wasn’t really nearly good enough.
The courage and ingenous outcome to “stew-pot” existing technologies as a foundation on which to build the new technology was what got Ed (for his team) the invite to the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference where he gave this talk.
High-powered as TED may be, though, the talk was easily understandable, enjoyable and jaw-dropping, as one category for ranking TED.com videos went.
Enjoy!
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Reading Level: 10.0
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Brad Pitt being filmed from four angles to make sure the right shot was captured. The phosphorescence on his face does not show on this regular film.
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Brad Pitt's projected look at the age of 80, from which they created Benjamin Button's 80 year old looks onto which to project Brad's expressions above. They use this sort of technology to predict what criminals would look like years later, and you can see it on shows like Cold Case Files.
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Brad Pitt's phospherence image to the computer is at left. A starting head model for movement purposes is in the centre. The aged version based on Brad's older projected look is at right. The fine details are left out to get all the movements right first.
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Out of the darkness and computer simulation environment, with some basic facial details added, a basic Benjamin Button comes alive simultaneously with Brad's acting.
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1. An actor plays a body double, with a blue hood to take out the head for computer substitution. 2. A "dead head" computer model is put in to simulate movement. 3. Brad then acts in the facial details. 4. Lighting, hairs, eyes, tongue and such facial details are added for the finished movie version.
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Wait. Speaking of tongue, this is a model of Brad Pitt's mouth and tongue model, worked on by a guy to get it right for 9 months! I heard he was pretty popular! Probably not sexy in this context, but just use your imagination!
