What is Blade Runner?

Blade Runner is the best and one of the most influential Science Fiction films ever made. Based on the excellent book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", by Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott created Blade Runner as a stunning view of the dark near-future. Although seen as disturbingly bleak when it was first released, as time has moved on, it can now be seen as increasingly prophetic of the way the world is changing.

Deckard is a retired Blade Runner - a hunter of 'Replicants', (androids of the future created by the Tyrell Corporation to be "more human than human"). Replicants were declared illegal on Earth, but a group of the most advanced, the Nexus-6 Replicants, have hijacked a shuttle and returned from off-world. Deckard is forced back from retirement and it is his job to terminate them.

What do these Replicants want? Simple - they want "More Life". They have been limited with a four year lifespan. They are created as slave labour, but all they want is to live like humans. Led by the charismatic and very intelligent Roy Batty, they seek to confront their 'maker', Eldon Tyrell, head of one of the most powerful corporations on Earth.

In the action that sprawls across a fantastic, futuristic cityscape of Los Angeles, 2019, we follow the dehumanised Blade Runner as he chases down the renegade Replicants. Things are complicated with the addition of a new Replicant created by Tyrell as an 'experiment'. The new addition, Rachael, has been gifted with memories and believes she is human, before she discovers what she really is.

Blade Runner is visually stunning, with a cityscape that has been much copied, but never bettered, even after 20 years. The atmosphere is beautifully enhanced by the music of Vangelis. The actors are brilliant and many have gone on to successful careers. Ultimately, the movie leaves us asking those most fundamental philosophical questions, "What does it mean to be human" and "Who am I".


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Wake up and smell the TV

Virtual reality television to be a commercial reality in 15 years

Japan plans to make futuristic television a commercial reality by 2020 as part of a broad national project.

TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- Imagine watching a football match on a TV that not only shows the players in three dimensions but also lets you experience the smells of the stadium and maybe even pat a goalscorer on the back.

Japan plans to make this futuristic television a commercial reality by 2020 as part of a broad national project that will bring together researchers from the government, technology companies and academia.

The targeted "virtual reality" television would allow people to view high-definition images in 3D from any angle, in addition to being able to touch and smell the objects being projected upwards from a screen parallel to the floor.

"Can you imagine hovering over your TV to watch Japan versus Brazil in the finals of the World Cup as if you are really there?" asked Yoshiaki Takeuchi, director of research and development at Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

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EuroAmericans.net

EuroAmericans.net highlights the European immigrant experience and serves as a starting point for Americans to explore their European heritage. The links on the following pages will connect you to resources on arts, culture, history, language, news and current events. EuroAmericans.net is also a provider of statistics on European immigrant groups living in America that are not readily available elsewhere.

What makes the United States unique is that almost all of our citizens are immigrants, or the descendents of immigrants. By highlighting the contributions of European immigrants to our country, visitors should come away with an enlightened perspective on immigration, including those arriving in America today, often representing Asian and Latin American countries.

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Blog Box

Bells Are Ringing

Who could have predicted that one grieving mother would rouse the national media from its summer slumber, that the president's handlers would wake to mounting opposition and actually lower expectations for his Iraq folly, or that gas pump-sucking SUV-Americans would wake up one day and realize that the goal of oil men is actually to make lots and lots of money? The telltale signs of America finally waking up were front and center this week, and bloggers took note.

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Pope desires 'new wave of faith'

Pope Benedict XVI has said he hopes his forthcoming trip to his homeland Germany will give "new impulse" to the Roman Catholic Church in Europe.

He said the idea that Christianity is a burden with its many rules and prohibitions was a misconception.

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Joseph Nocera: Why the odds are stacked against the little guy

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Human beings simply aren't hard-wired to be good investors. Think about it: how many of us, really, have the fortitude to pare back our winners and buy more of our losers? Most of us do just the opposite. Heck, so do most mutual fund managers, which is why they can't beat the market either.

There is a reason we as a culture have accorded hero-like status to great investors like Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch. For all the cultural reinforcement we get that investing is something anybody ought to be able to master, we know in our bones it's not true. Buffett and Lynch are like great athletes, who have the skill and the emotional makeup to do something well that the rest of us can only dream about.

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