Sunday, December 12, 2010

Joseph Kulper: Brain viruses and strange equations to save the human race

Today I received a mysterious message:
My name is Joseph Kulper, I work as a geneticist at Celtran
Corporation, one of the world's leaders in bioengineering, and I'm
sending this message to you because I have discovered something very
important, something that has the potential to change everything we
know about human life. I'm not asking for anything from you, I don't
want you to reply or click anywhere, alI I'm asking of you is that you
watch the video I have posted on youtube. Search under my name 'joseph
kulper' and you will find it. It's for you that I'm posting this
video, for all of us, so please take just a moment to watch it.

It wasn't sent to me personally and has the appearance of hapless self-promotion or odd spam.

But I was curious, and I turned up "Kulper's" video, where he invites the viewer to "become part of something greater than yourself. You see the destructive effects of climate change are inevitable, and some sort of drastic action is required to save the human race. So what has Kulper done? Created the Elysium virus, designed to "speed up evolution" so that only the smartest will survive. Watch:


So what is this? This looks like a teaser promotional video, likely for Neill Blomkamp's new movie-in-progress, Elysium.

There are a bunch of images that flash for a fraction of a second during the video which presumably have clues in them. In particular, there are a series of equations at about 4:27. I don't recognize the equations, and they could just be a red herring. Take a look - any guesses?



I couldn't find out much about the movie itself, other than Sharlto Copley - who starred in Blomkamp's District 9 - is part of the cast, and that Matt Damon may join up as well.

Despite the buzz, there hasn't been much information regarding what the plot will actually be about. Another teaser video released in November shows mutant livestock:


So the movie involves global catastrophes and genetic engineering and a selective virus passed from mind to mind; it's apparently set in a dystopian near-future in which biotechnology has run amok.  So maybe it's an action-packed version of Oryx and Crake?

It could be interesting. I just hope there aren't any zombies.

5 comments:

  1. The mathematical equations LOOK LIKE the heat equation to me, but somehow more complicated. Its clearly a coupled, non-linear differential equation expressed in terms of a variant of fourier expansion.

    That being said, I'm not sure if that means its some system of differential equations with which I am not familiar (a distinct possibility), or if its just gibberish.

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  2. Well that would explain why they didn't look at all familiar to me. My last physics class was almost 25 years ago.

    If they are real heat equations, maybe it's supposed to have something to do with global warming.

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  3. Can't tell if it's viral marketing or not but very interesting. District 9 was very heavy in its message and this seems similar. Great post.

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  4. @Glenn - the mathematical equation definitely looks like the heat equation! I am in complete agreement with you on that but I'm not sure they have anything to do with global warming.

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  5. Why are almost of the brain virus movies tightly related with zombies? It can be related with psychology or social science, right? Me too, I think this movie can be interesting, and I hope there's no zombie in this movie. lol

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