MPJ

In almost all cyberpunk masterpieces in literature, comics, movies, games, or whatever media exposure we think of when it comes to this genre, the settings are familiar. Dark atmosphere in both social and technological aspects of the story with dystopian surroundings and a thin, distinguished line between all characters within, no matter whether they are good or bad. I can't tell exactly why, but despite all the prosaic backgrounds and used stereotypes, I actually like this literary movement, perhaps because of the fact that people can't be really divided into good and bad per se. We are all combinations of all possible adjectives out there, and their summary is what makes us what we are. Actually, this is more accurate and closer to the truth compared to the "normal" or "usual" fiction with its ordinary hero-villain relations and idealized characters. Of course, like in any other genre, there are many poor and unmentionable works but also a couple of those ...

There is a debate over whether or not the Holocene, the latest geological epoch, is already finished with the ultimate human impact on Earth's ecosystems, which started along with industrial and technological maturity in the recent past. Many of us believe that a new era, suitably named the Anthropocene, is what we are living in already. With technology rising, it looks like humans already changed fundamentally to the point of incompatibility with our distant ancestors. Perhaps we are indeed heading toward rapid evolutionary change, like in the latest Dan Brown novel, " Origin ", but this premise is way more suitable for another science fiction I have just watched (for the second time). I am sure that for all of you who like intelligent movies , a long-anticipated sequel for "The Man from Earth" finally came, and it, without a doubt, opened the Holocene-Anthropocene transition for John Oldman, a 14000-year-old man who also, like entire humanity, seemed to be goi...

DNA is a fascinating world. That single molecule of life contains all the information about an individual living being. Any bacteria, plant, insect, algae, fish, animal, or human grows from that one molecule of seed. Probably even some alien form is still waiting to be discovered on some moon orbiting Jupiter or Saturn. In one way or another, the same could be true with all life in the universe. All of us are grown from that single instruction manual inside the single DNA set of written directions. And there are no two identical DNAs in existence; even if we could mix the same two identical human egg and sperm cells several times, similar but different resulted DNA would always be the outcome. We are surely still not mastering DNA and bioengineering—it is still young science, and even though one giant molecule of life was hinted at by various scientists and scholars more than a century ago, it was only in the early fifties of the 20th century when James Watson and Francis Crick created...

Thrillers. Books that are perfect for the summertime. Even though they were not exclusively tied to the beach, in my case, of all occasions, somehow sand and Kindle went along hand in hand the best. Every time. As with the default definition, thriller stories and novels engage all your senses and trigger the right level of entertainment and all kinds of emotions during those couple of days of intense reading. Also, they always successfully keep away your thoughts from your job, your daily issues, and raw reality from your mind. In the previous couple of years (mostly summers), my stock of thrillers piled up significantly, so I decided to create a recommendation and small glimpse into stories of five different styles of writing, and with that, many main characters stored in the similar background of political or fictitious conspiracies. And all that in the familiar form of classic 'villains vs. heroes' storytelling, with the hero winning the girl every time. Cliché, I know, but ...

Let me ask you a hypothetical question. What would you first type into a time machine if you had one? Would it be some date in the past or in the distant future? Would you go to meet Neanderthals or perhaps to take a photo of a T-Rex family from the distance? Or perhaps you'd go to see some historically relevant times to meet famous people from the past? Well, there is no doubt for me—one of my first time travels would definitely be 33AD, April 1st. The time of Christ and his last days, the time of the last supper, his death and resurrection. I have no idea how I would be able to hide my Nikon and smartphone, but I am sure I would find a way. Every tourist trip requires a camera, doesn't it? However, there would be other challenges, and in this case, even if I tried to dress accordingly and mingled into a crowd, understanding old Aramaic, which was spoken by most of Jesus followers, or old Hebrew, Latin, or Greek used officially among Jewish people or within Roman administratio...

"It is unwise of some interstellar species to give us technology to leave the Earth; chances that we would use it for star wars are bigger than we would go to the next level and use it for peaceful exploration of the solar system and beyond." - What is Intelligent Life? As promised in my last post story about one grim political view of the last forgettable year , please behold another glimpse of humanity from another angle. Let's move today from raw reality to reality-inspired fiction and make a little peek into three science-fiction masterpieces. Two of them, products of the current almost expired year, are, if you ask me, making this forgettable year, well, a little less forgettable. But before Daniel Abraham's and Ty Franck's "Babylon's Ashes", the sixth book of The Expanse, and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story", the Star Wars sequel, I think this is a perfect moment for me to start the review with another classic, in the most genuine mea...

Sometimes I think we are just like ants. Too small and with a lifespan too short to make a valuable difference. Our civilization, I mean. After reading another book or watching another movie or documentary, it's difficult not to notice that there are far too many 'apocalyptic scenarios' capable of putting 'the end' sign in the thin air. Far too many boots to step on our little fragile anthill. This November, thanks to Matthew Mather, one of the definitely greatest stars of the Earth's science fiction realm, I am 'proud' to announce two more ways of how to kill the Earth. Two more latest additions to this blog Post-Apocalyptic thread. Black hole and Sun direct collision with Earth close by I know you are now wondering about this above image and have already expressed a couple of frowns and disbelief looks, but before diving into rogue black holes, let's first glimpse the first scenario from the title. If nothing else, then just to ease things...

Last night I had a vividly strange science fiction dream. Like with most of my dreams, and dreams in general, I guess, it was hard to recall all the details in the morning, and this one was no exception, but in a nutshell, the scene started with me in some science lab, describing the idea of how to effectively make a tiny hole in the universe. It was pretty simple—I was using four Tesla coils, perfectly positioned in the corners of the large square with edges of about a couple of meters long and with a small, battery-sized, two metal plates positioned in its center of the square. The experiment was that at the precise moment, Tesla coils fired four filaments of thunder, reaching the center point exactly between two metal plates at the same time, initiating a process that in the end created a tiny breach in the universe that I was describing in the dream as a brane between dimensions and within the void between multiverses. Anyway, in the process, one plate goes from metallic through da...

People are asking me these days: What is the "Game of Life" we are dealing with this whole summer? The only honest answer I can give is that I don't really know. I guess I lost myself in the entire story of our pioneer filmmaking project. It started like any other father-son benign tech play—it was sometime back in the middle of April when I was categorizing our pile of ordinary family video files and our 'cooking series'. So in a moment of 'light bulb floating above my head' I asked myself why we don't move one step further and create a little longer short film of some sort. So I asked Viktor, and he seemed thrilled about it, especially when I told him that he would play the major role, and from there our "Game of Life" project became reality and started growing and morphing into a real short movie, and after a little while began being more and more enjoyable and serious. In short, after four months of all of our 'Hollywood' effort...