Oddity Central |
- Russia 2045 Claims Immortality Is Just a Few Years Away
- Test Your Middle Finger at the Bavarian Finger Wrestling Championship
- Real-Life MacGyver Builds Working Motorcycle Out of Car That Broke Down in the Desert
| Russia 2045 Claims Immortality Is Just a Few Years Away Posted: 23 May 2012 08:02 AM PDT
Making the impossible possible is just a matter of time, according to Dmitry Itskov and the people involved in his project, called Russia 2045. It’s by that time they hope to recreate a whole new civilization with the help of android avatars into which to transfer humans’ personalities after their bodies die. It sounds a bit far-fetched, I know, but Russia 2045 is a real project, with a team of real scientists working on a way to make us all immortal. It was founded by Dmitry Itskov, a man who’s been doing media projects, especially on the Internet, for the last 12 years. At one point he became interested in the prolongation of life and the idea of immortality through cybernetic technology. Neither a scientist nor a philosopher, he had no idea how to expand on these ideas to attain the ultimate goal of attaining immortality, but he used his skills to create a social movement with the goal of connecting scientists, philosophers,visionaries and public figures to work on this common goal. They’ve already started working on androids, or human avatars, that will soon replace us physically, but carry on our spiritual and intellectual legacy. This might sound like sci-fi now, but according to propaganda material from Russia 2045, by the year 2015 humanoid robot avatars will be as popular as cars are today. By 2020, this robotic copy of a human being will be remote-controlled via BCI (Brain Computer Interface), and by 2025 we’ll be able to transfer a person’t brain into one of these avatars, after they die. By 2035 these androids will be so advanced they’ll be able to support a human’s personality as well (Data himself would be jealous), and finally, in 2045, humanity will have created holographic avatars able to carry our legacy beyond the stars and practically render us immortal. I sure hope they’re calculations are correct, because if everything goes well, I’ll still be around in 2045, and I can certainly see myself as a handsome hologram. To begin with, scientists from Russia 2045 have presented half of an android that looks like a creepy robotic version of Dmitry Itskov. It has some basic face recognition functions and can move its arms, but the project is clearly in the early stages of development. It can’t even blink yet, but its creators are confident they can get it to walk in a year or two. I have to say this is hardly enough evidence Russia 2045 will reach its goal in due time, but they certainly are very optimistic about it. What has the organization accomplished so far, except that half android, you ask? Well, they’ve managed to recruit 5,000 members from different countries, defined various projects and even started working on some, got the support of the Russian Federation Ministry of Education and Science, and most importantly, they got Steven Seagal to write an open later to the Russian Prime Minister inviting him to cooperate. No, it’s not a joke, THE Steven Seagal supports Russia 2045, so there must be something to it. Medvedev/Putin (which one of them is prime minister these days) better lend a hand or they’ll have one of Hollywood’s worst actors to answer to. On the Russia 2045 website and in his propaganda materials, Itskov has a way of making everything sound very believable, but I remember those old 50s and 60s shows that predicted moon colonies and flying cars by 2000, so I’m a bit skeptical about all this. But the Russian media professional appears convinced of the success of his pet project. He believes “it is our right to be free and immortal” and says he’s ready to dedicate his entire life to realizing this dream. More power to you, dude, and don’t forget about my hologram avatar!
We’ve posted three videos by Russia 2045, but you can learn a lot more about their vision and goals, by visiting their official site and reading this particular article. via Plastic Pals Russia 2045 Claims Immortality Is Just a Few Years Away was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Test Your Middle Finger at the Bavarian Finger Wrestling Championship Posted: 23 May 2012 06:32 AM PDT
Finger wrestling, or “fingerhakeln”, used to be the way the men of Bavaria settled disputes back in the 17th century, but now it’s just an obscure sport that draws hundreds of strong men to the German region, for the annual Finger Wrestling Championship. Now, I knew about thumb wrestling and toe wrestling, but I was totally oblivious to finger wrestling. That’s probably because it never caught on outside Bavaria, but the men there take it so seriously they even have a championship to determine which one has the strongest middle finger. The 35th edition of the annual Finger Wrestling Championship was held in Schnaitsee, Chiemgau, right in the heart of Bavaria, and brought together 156 competitors ready to snap their fingers for the title of champion. The rules of finger wrestling are pretty simple. Two contestants, usually men, sit on opposite sides of a wooden table and thread one of their fingers into a strap. Once in position, they wait for the referee’s signal to pull with all their strength, hoping to pull the other person across the table and win the match. They can only use one of their fingers and most prefer the middle one, because of its size and strength. Although it seems like a silly game, contestants train hard to prepare their fingers for the annual event. Some prefer to squeeze tennis balls, while other choose to sustain their whole body weight with one finger, or do a crazy number of single-finger press-ups. In the 2012 edition of the Bavarian Finger Wrestling Championship, contestants participated in nine different categories, dressed in Leiderhosen, the national dress of Germany. Like in most other competitive sports, it was the heavyweight category match-ups that sparked the interest of the over 400 spectators present in Schnaitsee. It was Josef Utzschneider, from Werdenfels, in southern Germany, who had the strongest finger this year, with Andreas Lindenthaler finishing as runner up. via 3News Test Your Middle Finger at the Bavarian Finger Wrestling Championship was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
| Real-Life MacGyver Builds Working Motorcycle Out of Car That Broke Down in the Desert Posted: 23 May 2012 03:39 AM PDT
This is one of the most unbelievable stories I have come across in a while, and had my doubts about its authenticity at first, but after reading about it on some reputed websites, my worries were put to rest. The story was recently made public by Reddit user ‘Naruhodo‘, who linked to a bunch of photos of a Mad-Max-style motorcycle apparently built out of the parts of a broken-down Citroen 2CV, by a man stranded in the Sahara Desert. Pretty unbelievable stuff, only it turned out to be absolutely 100% true. It all happened back in 1993, when Frenchman Emile Leray was on a solo trip in Northern Africa, driving his specially prepared Citroen 2CV. His car broke down in the middle of the desert, tens of kilometers from the nearest settlement. To survive, the French MacGyver created a motorcycle out of parts of his broken down car. So here’s how it all happened: Emile had left the city of Tan Tan, in Morocco, and was driving his Citroen 2CV across the Sahara. Upon reaching a military outpost, he is informed by the Royal Gendermerie that he cannot continue further, due to new developments in the conflict between Morocco and Western Sahara, in the area beyond Tilemsem. Left with the option to go back to Tan Tan and asked to take a passenger back with him, the Frenchman refuses invoking an insurance problem that doesn’t allow him to take any passengers. He turns his car around driving at high speed, to make sure he isn’t followed by the military, and decides to by-bass their post by circling around and returning on the original trail later. After venturing off road, on rocky and bumpy terrain, it doesn’t take too long for his car to break down, after brutally hitting a rock. Emile is now stranded in the middle of nowhere. The Citroen’s swing arm and wheel axle were broken, and Leray knew he wasn’t going to be driving it anywhere, anytime soon. He had food and water to last him about ten days, but the nearest human settlement was tens of kilometers away, too far for him to reach on foot. The French adventurer decided his only chance of survival was to construct a working vehicle from the parts of his broken-down Citroen 2CV. If only he had an arc reactor, he could have built himself an Iron Man suit and things would have been much simpler. But alas, reality is much crueler than superhero movies… After carefully considering all the mechanical barriers he would have to surmount, Emile starts work on his DIY motorcycle, the next morning. He starts dismantling his Citroen, by removing the body, which he then uses as shelter against the sandstorms. Working under the scorching sun in a shirt with short sleeves, he makes his own sleeves out of a pair of socks, and keeps tinkering on his Mad Max-style creation. He fits the wheel arm upside down on a smaller chassis, adding the engine and gearbox in the middle. The French adventurer does all this knowing he needs to reserve some space for the battery, gas tank and his luggage, and without neglecting the arrangement of the steering system. But it’s the 2CV transmission that’s truly surprising – a drum drives the rear wheel by friction, and the laws of physics force Emile to drive it only in reverse. It seems almost impossible for someone to build a motorcycle in the middle of the desert, with just a few basic tools, and no drills, blowtorches or welding equipment. But Emile Leray created his two-wheeler only by screwing the parts together. To make the needed holes, he bent the pieces of metal to a 90 degree angle and weakened the thinner areas using a hacksaw or a round file, puncturing them with the hammer and punch. Emile in classic desert wear. If you look closely at his right hand, you can see the string he uses to operate the camera The adventurer began work on his unique project thinking he would complete it in three days time, but he only succeeded after twelve days of hard work. With only 1/2 liter of water left, he managed to ride his motorcycle (called Desert Camel) out of the desert. On his way to civilization, Leray was actually pulled over by the Gendermerie, for driving an illegal vehicle. Now that’s what I call a real-life story fit for a movie. Check out Emile Leray’s website (in French) Real-Life MacGyver Builds Working Motorcycle Out of Car That Broke Down in the Desert was originally posted at OddityCentral.com  |
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