One of my first long distance train journeys was this one. It was only for three hours, but still, it included trains for a fair amount of time. Getting to the station was the stressful part because my know-it-all brother thought  he didn’t need any navigation. We ended up in a godforsaken(and wrong, I might add) train station and figured out which train station to go to 10 minutes before the departure. Luckily, I made it to the right station and got to the train. yes, stress had ended but something was wrong. As the sun shined upon my face, I suddenly got the urge to take a photo of the coach I was in along with the outside, and realized my camera lens wasn’t working. The pictures were blurry, shutter wasn’t working and I almost started crying because all my plans were on hold.

Above picture is the small summary of the pain I was in. Luckily for me, I texted my dear friend Hande immediately, and she told me we can go around the town to search for a cheap and compatible lens for me Nikon. As I got off the train, I started walking towards the voice that was calling me. It was coming from a pepper red Audi. Hande and his boyfriend Enver were there to welcome me to Buffalo. They were kind enough to search for a lens with me for my camera after a really nice breakfast that included bacon, eggs, pancakes and unlimited coffee!! We basically tried every single camera store—both local stores and Best Buy to find 18-55 mm lens(because lets face it I have no money). Our last line of defense was the successful one and I got my lens back after driving at least 25 miles around town.  This small adventure took us more than 2 hours, we then decided it was time to go home to relax and then head out for the Niagara Falls.

We took a “lazy break” for about an hour, and this also gave me time to practice my blackjack skills, because we were obviously going to gamble after the falls. Our companions, tea, cigarettes, Oreo and internet didn’t let us go for a while, but then we knew we had to leave soon if we wanted to see the Niagara falls before dusk. So we grabbed our stuff and drove to Niagara Falls with the fire-red Audi! After thirty minutes or so, we saw the Canadian side of the falls with the fancy towers and casinos. We parked the car and started walking and MAN!!! IT WAS COLD AS HELL.

Seriously. If there is a hell, it’s not fiery and hot. It’s FIFTEEN DEGREES BELOW ABSOLUTE ZERO(for those of you lacking-sarcasm-detectors, this is a futurama reference.) and it definitely is Niagara Falls because all the mist coming from the falls turns into small pieces of ice that sprays your skin like small bullets and if you’re not wearing any gloves like I didn’t(I admit this was a stupid thing to do), your hands are going to be the ones that suffer. And this becomes a terrible burden because it feels like small needles are piercing your skin as you’re trying to take some good pictures and have fun with your friends. Try to take a little break. Either put your hands in your pockets or try to warm up in the gift shop.
So remember. If there is a hell, it’s going to be really cold and it’s going to be Niagara Falls. But hell is not always bad! Think of all the awesome things you’ve done to get there… Okay, this was a terrible metaphor so let’s drop all this and let me tell you why Niagara Falls is awesome in Winter:

Because it’s as beautiful and white as heaven could be. All that ice, snow and water just turns this place into somewhere magical because it’s nothing but white there. There are several places you can see the falls and one of them is an observation deck just in the imaginary border between Canada and  United States. The above picture was taken in that observation deck. There is another place I completely fell in love with. It’s the rightmost end of the falls if you look really closely. Yes, as you can imagine, it takes a really long time to get there and road to that place is incredibly painful but beautiful as always. It took me around thirty minutes to walk that half a mile but it was definitely rewarding. This is how it looked like while walking:

As you can see, it’s all ice. Even the grass was covered with a really thick layer of ice because of all the mist coming from the falls. Trying to walk to the end of that road where the people are was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life. Seriously. I am a terrible ice skater by nature and walking on ice is even worse. Especially if you have a really large backpack and a huge camera with you. But in the end, it was all rewarding and the scene we came up with was this:

Luckily for us, Hande’s boyfriend came to save the day with his fire-red car and picked us up from the beautiful hell that is Niagara Falls. Later in the day we went to the Seneca Casino and guess what? There are shitloads of people in there. I felt so sad because one of the greatest wonders of the world only had 50 people around it because it was really cold but the casino just a couple of hundred meters away from it had all the people inside. Gambling is seriously a problem in everywhere. and believe me when I say this, because I’ve already seen Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

Enough of the sadness. We should be enjoying the beauty nature has to offer to us! I, personally, consider myself lucky to have seen this wonder and would definitely recommend you to see it on winter when there aren’t many people around to ruin the joy of seeing the falls and when everything is white and gives you the illusion of purity. Maybe next time, I’ll go to Niagara Falls on summer and take the exact same pictures!

And also, I’d like to thank Hande and her boyfriend Enver for enduring me the whole time I spent there and giving me the quick tour. Your hospitality is very much appreciated! I hope one day I could return the favor!

We won’t really see most of them, since they’re impossible to exist but who cares, right?

Finglonger:

A man can dream. Designed by Hubert J. Farnsworth, yet still not invented in the year 3000. The index finger was developed longer than the other ones to provide important tasks like giving briefings easier or poking people while they’re sleeping. Finglonger is the most useless yet useful invention from Futurama.

Probability of existing: 1

Space Ships with Personalities:

Yeah, I know. Planet Express Ship(or the ScienceMobile?) wasn’t the first ship with a personality and there are many sci-fi movies which has an AI installed on the ship. Yet, I have seen this on Futurama too and I WANT IT. I want my ship to talk to me, guide me and help me with defenses. I even have a name for mine: EDI(Enhanced Defense Intelligence). Yeah sounds too Mass Effect 2 but what can I say? At least she doesn’t go crazy and vacuum the whole air in the ship just because she broke up with Legion. Come on. How immature is that?

Probability of existing: We don’t have spaceships, and we don’t have powerful AI’s. But I’ll give a 100 years for this one to be invented.

The Internet

I know you smart ass. DUH. Not this one. I mean the one in Futurama! The Internet where you can play arcade games and date in 3D! And this way, you can’t be an internet smart-ass or prince charming; it would save both the time and the money spent on those useless junk. And Think about the internet gaming! You can actually play Call of Duty or Left for Dead like it’s actually happening! That would be some crazy shit, a new era in internet gaming. WOOOOO!

Probability of existing: I bet somebody out there is actually trying to make this come true.

Bending Units

This is where the fun starts. Think about a robot which has to drink alcohol in order to process, smokes cigars for no particular reason, swears a lot and wants to kill all humans! Yes, Bender Bending Rodriguez is just one of the bending units in Futurama, but we already know other bending units are fun too. Take Flexo, for instance. He would usually say things that would break your heart, but you knew he was always kidding. Not just that, they’re great companions too! They would be the best friends of us nerds and idiots(reference point: Phillip J. Fry). And they have a purpose other than sitting on the couch all day long and drinking booze: Bending girders! Think about the work they could do. If they weren’t too lazy about it.

Probability of existing: Very low. We have to build AI’s, robots that could work like us humans do. And I’m sure a bending unit which works on alcohol would be the last thing that a robot manufacturer wants to develop.

The Smellescope

Behold! The mighty Smellescope!! Think about the implications of this awesome device! You could actually smell anything in the universe! Physically impossible, yet it would be nice to smell the hourglass nebula or the horsehead nebula. If anyone cooks a good dinner at the house filled with naked girls across the street; or something smelled wrong in the universe, you’d be the first to know it!!! Just try not to smell Uranus(Urektum in 3000).

Probability of Existing: Zero.

The Mind Switcher

“We’re just the people this mind switcher was made for by us!”

Say, you’re a woman and want to experience what it’s like to be a man for just one day. Then the Mind Switcher is just the device for you! Too bad you can’t return to your old body once you switch minds with another. Yet, you can use MATH and calculate how many more people you need to get back to your original body. But here’s the Good News, Everyone! The leader of the Harlem Globetrotters Ethan ‘Bubblegum’ Tate has calculated the number of people you need to get back to your original body as 2(two). So all you need is two more people willing to change minds.

Probability of existing: With this huge engineering error, I’d say none. I’m totally fine with the science behind mind switching(I hope to god you don’t need  a sarcasm sign for this).

Third & Third & Third

Don’t really know what it does, but Bender uses it for making a birthday cake for Nibbler.

Probability of existing: If one day humanity needs one more ingredient for Half & Half, yes; we might actually have Third & Third & Third.

Head in A Jar
Ah! By far the best invention in Futurama! From Leonard Nimoy to Pamela Anderson; from Beck to Richard Nixon, every single historical figure has their head put in jars! Just think what we can get from them!

Thanks to Mr. Jacket Trooper for this video.

So, there are no enemies in this god damned game? Well, you can say that. But to enhance the `testing experience`, Aperture Science has also assembled the cutest turrets ever to block our way and shoot us vigorously on sight, therefore causing death(DUH?!?!). Then again, this is not a warfare so you won’t have guns basically to shoot the shit those cute turrets. You can carry them to a corner if you don’t want them to have any malfunctions, of course, if you approach them on the back where they can’t see you(If you’re asking why you should do that, I suggest you listen to this). Throwing them or opening a portal through which they can malfunction for good are also other options.

Most of the things I mentioned can be seen in this video, giving you a better opinion of the game. Once you are into this game, you’ll be amazed at how fun it is to solve puzzles and use good timing. Also, you’ll realize how awesome it could be to eat a cake which will be rewarded to you at the end of all enrichment activities. At the end, you will be surprised at how short the time of gameplay was, and get anxious for the release of P0rtal 2. I would love to talk about Portal 2, yet I feel like have taken enough of your time which can very well be spent on playing this game. Maybe next time? So, do yourselves a favor: Buy Portal(downloading it illegally won’t do you any good since you’ll realize Portal is worth every single penny you paid for it) on Steam and enjoy it while waiting for the next game.

Oh and also, mind the gap and mind your step. Good Hunting!

Since its moment of announcement, I knew Inception was going to be something else entirely; the amazing distortion of reality mixed with a pinch of madness. I didn’t know anything about the plot, just watched a few bits from teaser and there I was at the movie theater. My expectations were clearly high as it usually is with movies which have amazingly well produced trailers(300 and Avatar is just two of many). 99% of the time, I go home disappointed(300 and Avatar is just two of many[Surprised?]). This time, everything changed.

Most of us have met Christopher Nolan with Prestige, Memento and new Batman Series. I doubt anyone will say he wasn’t able to handle them.  The first Batman was OK. The second one was a giant leap for selfless hippie drones(JK, you delirious morons. I love The Dark Knight) because it promoted anarchy and was put behind a strong ideology. Similarly, Inception is put on a very strong pedestal of ideas and even though it has four different incidents with identical characters in the very same timescale, it manages to catch the watcher’s attention. Of course we can’t just thank the director for that because every single detail is put into the movie very thoroughly, including the great score by Hans Zimmer. I’m not mentioning the actors because even though I think the choice of actors were a little sloppy, I doubt someone will say they were not at one of their best.

While the major components of the movie make it a blockbuster, the details behind it are what makes this movie so damn good. Let’s examine the character, Ariadne, the architect of dreams. Ariadne was believed to be the “Mistress of the Labyrinth” in Greek Mythology and in the movie she uses a Bishop(chess piece) as a Totem. In Catholic Church, bishops are entrusted with their position and oversight. She is an overseer and a flawless guardian of Dom Cobb, representing the logic and rationalism with a chess piece totem while Dom Cobb represents emotions and irrational thinking(his totem is a spin top, remind you). Another good reference that made me smile was the talk about ideas acting like viruses. It reminded me of Daniel Dennett’s talk on TED. You can watch it here and see how similar Dennett’s talk and Dom Cobb’s idea of inception. Dennet states: “It’s the ideas that hijack our minds[...]Now am I saying a sizable minority of the world’s population has had their brain hijacked by parasitic ideas?” while mentioning memes, and Dom Cobb mentions that ideas are like parasites: “What’s the most resilient parasite? An Idea.”. I was amazed, amused and really happy to hear this, although what Dennett is talking about in that clip is religion while Dom Cobb extends Dennett’s hypothesis to almost every idea. You can watch the video [Here].

A Note: I didn’t mean to imply that Christopher Nolan came up with “ideas infecting people”. I was just amused how the two are similar. Sorry for the misunderstanding I caused.

About a week ago, I was discussing the perception of reality with one of my friends. If you intensely dream for quite a long time, and when you suddenly wake up, how can you tell the difference between real life and the dreamworld? Are things you see with your eyes and perceive with your mind really real? Or are yourself the architect of everything you set as reality? You know you touch it, you know you feel it. But what if those feelings are  just simple products of your subconscious? Testing these questions are simply impossible(or probable. Maybe I’m too narrow minded to see how). Hypothetic0-Deductive Model will not get us anywhere unless someday we see Morpheus-figure coming for us and showing both the red pill and the blue pill. Maybe Mal was right from the beginning! What if the only way to wake up from this so called reality is just to end it? Questions pop, they vanish but one thing’s for sure: you won’t be getting anywhere with observation or experimentation.

So, what do you do with it? When scientific method is not an option, you either discuss the subject with friends for hours, then at the end all you have is a huge fear of not knowing anything about this world and even our own mind followed by horrible headaches(that’s how it ended for me)or, you can go watch a movie about it! Matrix looks like a piece of crap near this awesome motion picture, and I’m proud to say that it’s one of the best movies I’ve watched in a  movie theater since… I don’t even know when!

At least the teacher isn’t.

Yep. It’s a pink mass relay. Pretty boring stuff. Now check out the other mass relay I drew on the other side of the page. Notice that they are not on the same piece of paper.And what I realized today is significantly weird. Here’s what happens when you put together those two pages:
They’re almost identical to each other, and believe me, I did not copy these two. Funny how brain works in different ways.

We had this wild gray squirrel in our back yard that I could never get on film that kept passing out. I finally left the video camera on the kitchen counter on a regular basis trying to catch it on film. Over a few months of filming I was able to get two minutes on film. The amazing thing here is that it lived in 80 foot tall trees and we saw it for a period of six months.

A classic periodic table of the  elements, I thought it would be nice to remember Mendeleev for his amazing design. Thanks to him from Me in the name of all natural society of the world.
Source: ElementsDatabase

AWESOMENTS:

A table of all the awesome things in the world, including Chuck Norris.
Source: ıO9

Criminal Elements:
A pretty good one. From Katrina to Petroleum, from baseball to MORON, you have everything to laugh at. Enjoy.
Source: Scienceblogs

TYPEFACES:
The periodic table of typefaces, a perfect valentine’s day gift for your geek lover, and a wonderful poster to stare for hours.
Source: dirkdallas

CONTROLLERS:
Bringing back the good ol’ days, eh?
Source: Gawker.com

INTERNET:
Google, Yahoo, FSM and more.
Source: No source, just found it on imageshack. Sorry guys.

DESSERTS:
It doesn’t look that sweet when you look at the molecular structures. But boy, do they look awesome!
Source: eblong

And for your viewing pleasure, THE REAL PERIODIC TABLE:

Thank you, and have a very fun weekend. Hope to eat on that table one day!

“I want something good to die for
To make it beautiful to live”

This is the key to happiness. You need something good, something more important and better than you, making it for yourself and trying to get to its level, so that you can live beautifully.

Well. I guess I found what I am living for.

And I intend to keep it.

Edit: Comment:
“I see some Dennett in here…”

I googled “Daniel Dennett on Happiness” after what Deniz Cem Önduygu meant with his comment and to be honest with you, I feel like I’ve accomplished something amazing just by thinking about a song:

“Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it”

Source: Here
Source of the Source: TED.com

I should begin watching his lectures on TED.

Most Useless Machine. Ever.

Avatar. THE ALMIGHTY AVATAR!! James Cameron’s Epic sci-fi tale, intended to be unlike anything we have seen or read before. To be perfectly honest, I’ve heard of this tale millions of times and my wish for 2010 for producers is to stop making movies like Avatar. What do I mean? I’ll start from the beginning.

Venezuela War veteran Jake Sully is condemned to use a wheelchair and can’t get his legs fixed. “Not with veteran pension. Not in this economy.” says, Jake Sully. Luckily for him, his twin brother who has a PhD and who was in another planet, gets killed. Because the genomes of Jake and his twin brother are identical, some corporate man-whores ask Jake if he wants to take the place of his brother. He needs a fresh start, so he goes to another planet.

Pandora, our new moon-planet, is one the 14 moons of a Jupiter-like planet called Polyphemus, and Pandora is a biologically hostile environment for human beings. You have to wear respirators, and watch out for every creature that is programmed to kill you by the deity of this planet: Eywa. But there is something really important about this planet, a new element Unobtanium which sells for $20 million a kilo. So the point is just to get every single bit of Unobtanium(which actually looks like the Fool’s Gold) by being nice to the natives of the moon. One of the natives of this moon is a species called na’vi, which are blue tree-huggers trying to be `one` with Eywa and protecting its creatures. That’s why the earthlings have the Avatar program, a cocktail of human/na’vi which is only used by the DNA of a particular human being. Since the genomes of Jake Sully and his twin brother has an exact match, there is no reason for corporate man-whores to ask Jake if he wants to join this Avatar program. When Jake arrives at Pandora, the badass security chef commands Jake to obtain information about na’vi and convince them to leave their looking-like-Empire State Building home tree so that they can get to the source of Unobtanium. As Jake remotely controls his(formerly his brother’s) Avatar, he realizes that Pandora is much more than a bunch of tree-huggers and their deity. That’s pretty much all about the main subject of the movie.

Note: If you haven’t seen Avatar, the rest of this articly may contain spoilers. Read it at your own risk and read responsibly.

Before the movie was out, we were told Avatar would be nothing like we have ever seen. Then why was it so familiar? I’ll tell you why. White guilt. This subject was going on and on for over years in Hollywood and it looks like they will never get tired of it. Last Samurai(2003), Dances with the Wolves(1990), Dune(2000).. These movies are all the same in the eyes of the beholder. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look.

I got these plots from IMDB, (I was too lazy to write them down myself) so maybe you can have a clue of what I’m talking about(by the way, it’s only blah blah after some point so after reading a bit of every story just skip them and get to my summary):

The Last Samurai:
Set in Japan during the 1870s, The Last Samurai tells the story of Capt. Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), a respected American military officer hired by the Emperor of Japan to train the country’s first army in the art of modern warfare. As the Emperor attempts to eradicate the ancient Imperial Samurai warriors in preparation for more Westernized and trade-friendly government policies, Algren finds himself unexpectedly impressed and influenced by his encounters with the Samurai, which places him at the center of a struggle between two eras and two worlds, with only his own sense of honor to guide him. Written by la pointe )
From Here.

Dune:
It is a distant galaxy in the far future. Arrakis is a desert planet and is the only source of Melange, a vital drug used by the Guild Navigators for space travel from star system to star system. The corrupt Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV sends the Atreides family to Arrakis to take charge of the mining operations of Melange, once controlled by the Atreide’s rival family, The Harkonnens. Duke Leto Atreide’s son Paul becomes fascinated by the native Freman’s culture and learns he has a special powers and he can see images of the future. But the Emperor is in league with the evil Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and the Baron and his loyal army attacks, taking control of the mining operation on Arrakis and Duke Leto is assassinated. Paul and his mother Lady Jessica flee in the desert, where they are befriend by the Fremen. Adopting his Fremen name “Maud’Dib”, Paul vows vengeance on Baron Harkonnen and the Emperor and he unites the Fremen and forms a army of warriors and leads into battle, as he sets out to defeat the Harkonnen family and put a stop to the Melange mining operation, as Paul sets out to fulfill his destiny, as he becomes the prophesied all-powerful Kwisatz Haderach. Written by Daniel Williamson
From Here.

Dances with the Wolves:
Having been sent to a remote outpost in the wilderness of the Dakota territory during the American Civil War, Lieutenant John Dunbar encounters, and is eventually accepted into, the local Sioux tribe. He is known as “Dances with Wolves” to them and as time passes he becomes enamoured by the beautiful “Stands With a Fist”. Not soon after, the frontier becomes the frontier no more, and as the army advances on the plains, John must make a decision that will not only affect him, but also the lives of the natives he now calls his people. Written by Graeme Roy {gsr@cbmamiga.demon.co.uk}
From Here.

See? Every single one of these movies are identical when you compare them by the plots. The main character is in another culture which is completely different from where he/she came from and joins them, after some time he realizes that his world was nothing but a lie, then he makes a decision about his new life, whether he should abandon it or protect it… Now, tell me something. Why would I be excited for a story that has been told for years? Just because it has godlike special effects? I don’t think so! I admit that the CGI’s are something that I have never seen before, and Pandora is simply amazing, when you realize it, but this just does not mean that I should be loving this movie. Not everything is about computer generated images or Real D. It’s about the spirit, the breathtaking story of the movie. In Avatar, all we do is to hate Americans and Aero-Imperialism which has been done many many times throughout the history of Hollywood movies.

I would also like to talk about the Real D thingy. I watched the movie both in Real D and 2D and if you ask me, my choice would be with 2D. I’m not an old-schooler, but somehow Real D seemed like a technologic improvement just to show off. My eyes were all worn out after the movie. I went home and got a terrible headache!

Conclusion? Yeah, conclusion. $300,000,000 is too much for a movie like Avatar. I’m so sorry, but the movie is the compilation of everything I have seen before. Nothing new, nothing too exciting, nothing to worship about.