Buck (played by a computer-generated canine) is a massive Saint Bernard whose spoiled existence as a household pet is cut short when hes snatched and turned into a Yukon sled dog. He goes through a revolving door of owners, though the one who is especially taken with him is a sad prospector (played by Harrison Ford) in dire need of a companion; the two brave the elements together and journey deep into uncharted lands in search of fortune.
This robust, if very-loose, adaptation of Jack Londons 1903 novel has enough exciting set pieces to overcome how Londons harrowing story has been made into a mainstream popcorn movie. Considering how most of this movie is a special effects showcase, in which the four-legged protagonist is a CGI creation, The Call of the Wild is something of a lavish experimental film. We may look back on it as a milestone in 2020 visual effects technology. Thankfully, Buck the Dog (and his canine co-stars) is far more persuasive than he appeared in the iffy trailers. Many individual shots are stunning in their realism, although the illusion is far from seamless. I was always aware of the special effects but still grew attached to Buck as a character.
Ford gives an engaging, fully committed performance, with the warmth in his eyes creating a window into a man who is suffering from aching personal losses. Its worth nothing that Ford narrates, as this continues to be a controversial aspect to the otherwise celebrated Blade Runner. Here, Fords growly voice is ideally suited to the imagery, even when his vocal duties seem added to over-explain the plot.
Playing Bucks first round of human owners and trainers are Omar Sy and Cara Gee, both of whom are both very good. The perpetually one-note Dan Stevens co-stars in a ridiculous turn; his villainous character performance does nothing for the movie. The brisk running time also suggests this was once a longer movie that was shortened for multiplex appeal surely Karen Gillan didnt sign on for a role that has two minutes, tops, of screen time. The seldom seen Jean Louisa Kelly (best known for playing the rebellious teen daughter in Uncle Buck) pops up in the early stretch, as does Bradley Whitford in a nice cameo.
To think what the Coen brothers could have done with this material. Or rather, what they already did: The sublime, Tom Waits-led portion of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs is superior to this movie. So is the surprisingly gritty, better-than-anyone-remembers, 1991, Ethan Hawke-starring take on Londons White Fang (though even that film took considerable liberties with its source material).
London is hard to pull off in movies, as his survivalist tales of the wilderness never flinched from cruel, brutal violence and the harshest aspects of human behavior. Having re-read the novel recently, I was taken aback by how tough it is and wonder if an entirely faithful adaptation will ever be possible. This version has a few intense moments and even suggests animal abuse a few times, but makes the decision to keep this family-friendly most of the way (grade-school kids shouldnt have a problem enjoying it).
The Call of the Wild isnt strong enough to enter the genre of the greatest of Canine Cinema, simply for the reason that Buck and his co-stars consist of pixels. By comparison, the syrupy but surprisingly riveting Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey from 1993 has this beat for using real animals witnessing how a filmmaker can manipulate a performance from an animal will always be more impressive than anything this or Life of Pi can achieve. Yet, the idea is also that fake animals are a means of protecting the real ones from the potential harm and stress of working on a movie set. I enjoyed this softer but hearty take on London and will see it again, but Buck is no Benji.
NEW YORK New York prosecutors are hailing Harvey Weinsteins conviction as a pivotal moment that could change the way the legal system views a type of sexual assault case historically considered difficult to prove.
Most of the women who testified against Weinstein stayed in contact with him and sometimes had consensual sexual encounters with him after alleged attacks. None promptly reported his crimes. There was little physical evidence to bolster their stories.
The jury convicted anyway, finding the producer guilty of raping one woman in 2013 and sexually assaulting another in 2006.
This is a new day, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said after the verdict was announced. Rape is rape whether the survivor reports within an hour, within a year or perhaps never. Its rape despite the complicated dynamics of power and consent after an assault. Its rape even if there is no physical evidence.
But some womens advocates cautioned that its too soon to know how much the legal landscape has shifted.
This is not a signal that our systems and institutions are magically transformed, said Sonia Ossorio, the president of the National Organization for Womens New York chapter, who sat through most of the trial. This is one case, one man. Weve got to keep it in perspective.
If any case seemed to encapsulate the #MeToo reckoning with sexual misconduct, gender dynamics and power as a form of coercion, it was Weinsteins.
Dozens of women who crossed paths with Weinstein through the entertainment industry have said he bullied, pressured, coerced or overpowered them while demanding sexual favors. The alleged encounters took place over many decades, amid movie screenings in Los Angeles, film festivals in Cannes, and business meetings in New York or London.
The New York case involved only six accusers: three directly linked to the charges and three whose testimony was meant to bolster the prosecution case.
Weinsteins defense team argued that the encounters were consensual, if perhaps transactional: He wanted sex, they wanted access to his power over the film world.
While the law recognizes that people can be assaulted by intimate partners in ongoing relationships, those cases have rarely been prosecuted in the past, because theyre difficult to prove, several trial lawyers said. The tide is starting to change, however, as prosecutors take more risks and juries become more aware of the complexities of human behavior.
This case challenges our notions of what is force in a sexual relationship, what is lack of consent in a sexual relationship, said Paul DerOhannesian, an Albany, New York, defense lawyer, former sex crimes prosecutor and author of a guide to sexual assault trials. He followed the trial coverage and found it telling that one of the first questions from the jury involved the legal definition of consent and forcible compulsion.
Vance initially declined to prosecute Weinstein when a model claimed hed groped her in 2015. Facing criticism of the 2015 decision after waves of additional women came forward two years later, Vance ultimately took some of their allegations to trial.
One of the first witnesses at trial was an expert on victim behavior, who testified that it isnt unusual for sexual assault victims to continue communicating with their attackers. A decade ago, that type of expert testimony was rarely allowed.
The jury ultimately acquitted Weinstein of two of the most serious counts: one of first-degree rape, and a second charge that he was a sexual predator, linked to the testimony of actress Annabella Sciorra, who said Weinstein barged into her apartment and raped her in the early 1990s.
But Weinstein, 67, still faces the possibility of up to 29 years in prison. Hes also facing separate charges in Los Angeles involving two more alleged sexual assault victims.
The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sex crimes unless they grant permission, as Sciorra did.
Criminal defense attorney Richard Kaplan said the New York case could both empower women to come forward and embolden prosecutors to take on tough cases.
Now there is a roadmap on how you can win this kind of case, he said, predicting more people would come forward.
Theres always the fear of coming forward, you know, going through a trial, getting beat up and humiliated and then not getting that verdict. Now that they see it can be done, I think more people will come forward and definitely empower the movement.
Lawyer Carrie Goldberg represents Weinstein accuser Lucia Evans, whose complaint against him was initially part of the indictment, but Vances office ultimately dropped her allegations from the case. While Goldberg faults Vance for not sticking with her client, she said the conviction is a watershed moment and a long time coming.
I hope that prosecutors, all over this country, and all over the world, look at this case and realize that rape trials can be won, Goldberg said, and that these arent just he said, she said stories, but theyre actually crimes that are winnable and need to be brought.
The 70th edition of the Berlin International Film Festival weathered several storms: the looming specter of coronavirus; the history of pro-life, homophobic remarks by jury president Jeremy Irons, which he renounced on day one; and the revelations that late festival head Alfred Bauer, for whom the festival named one of its top awards 33 years ago, had ties to the Nazi Party (the award has been rechristened as The Silver Bear 70th Berlinale).
Nevertheless, many Berlinale regulars agreed that no matter the bumps in the road, the 2020 lineup left one impression above all: improvement.
The February gathering is among the highest-profile film festivals in Europe, but by the time former festival director Dieter Kosslick finished his 18-year run in 2019, the backlash was deafening. In 2017, an open letter signed by 79 German directors called for his ouster, citing lackluster programming standards and demanding an outstanding curatorial personality.
The solution materialized in the form of artistic director Carlo Chatrian, a genial, soft-spoken cinephile who ran the Locarno Film Festival for six years, and executive director Marietta Rissenbeek, who absorbed the business operations that reportedly distracted Kosslick from the programming demands of his job. Chatrian brought the bulk of his Locarno team with him, and there was no question that, for the first time in ages, it reflected the delicate maneuverings of a curatorial vision.
Some festivals can skate along with mediocre programs, so long as ticket sales stay up and sponsors go home happy. The Berlinale attracts far too much scrutiny for that: The festival serves a city of 4 million people, and last year saw as many as 22,000 accredited professions from 135 countries. By the halfway point of the 2020 edition, the festival reported 272,000 tickets had been sold around 20,000 tickets more than in the previous year.
Carlo Chatrian (R) and Mariette Rissenbeek arrive for the premiere of Irradies (Irradiated) during the 70th annual Berlin International Film Festival
CLEMENS BILAN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Chatrian and his team faced a daunting challenge: You cant flip a switch on a broken enterprise, and Berlinale contended with practical issues that even top-shelf aesthetic sensibilities cant immediately solve. The festival long has been a victim of timing: Hamstrung by its placement after Sundance and before Cannes, it must compete with both the most prominent festival in the U.S. and the most revered one in the world. With the pressure to assemble a program mainly comprised of world premieres, the Berlinale is often saddled with rejects rather than discoveries.
In Chatrians first year, the improved lineup provides a fascinating study in curatorial rectification that starts with an acknowledgement of its own limitations. I am aware that being in the first quarter of the year is not probably the best time, Chatrian told me during an interview at the festival. At the same time, if we want to support cinema, we cannot put all the festivals together in the second half of the year. It would be unhealthy.
Chatrians eight-person selection committee coordinated with other festivals while recognizing that certain options might be off the table. To me, it makes sense that a certain filmmaker with a certain scale of production, Cannes is the place to be, Chatrian said. We have started a discussion with Sundance in order to find cooperation. Each festival has its own profile, its own need. We want to explore that.
The 2020 Golden Bear competition included many world-class directors whose work has surfaced at Cannes in the past, and in two cases, at U.S. festivals. Chatrians program eschewed the lure of star power for its red carpet and instead focused on arthouse prestige.
That meant Hong Sang-soo, whose understated, chatty character studies tend to face mixed reviews in the polarizing climate of Cannes, found a warm welcome for his lighthearted The Woman Who Ran. Most audiences forgave the shoddy production values and celebrated the opportunity to engage with another Hong enterprise early in the year. And indeed, the movie ranks as one of his best in some time, a sharp and focused look at soul-searching women and the men who annoy them, but it would almost certainly face an uphill battle for exposure at Cannes.
The Berlinale programming also yielded a similarly appreciative crowd for Taiwans Tsai Ming-Liang, whose nearly wordless Days spends two hours mostly observing two lonely men and generates its entire emotional trajectory around the buildup and aftermath of a hotel room happy ending. Its here that the two characters find some measure of companionship, but the connection resonates only for viewers vested in its glacial approach. For the exhausted Cannes crowd, Days might face scores of walkouts and divisive reviews. Not so in Berlin.
Days
Then there were practical options. Phillipe Garrels scrappy The Salt of Tears, a playful black-and-white portrait of an obnoxious young man whose philandering catches up to him, brought the French auteur to Competition shortly before the movies European release. The small scale of Garrels films has often kept them out of the most prominent Cannes slots, and found him surfacing in Directors Fortnight. Meanwhile, Christian Petzold, the most revered filmmaker in Germany, easily found his groove in Competition with his eerie romantic drama Undine. Petzold has no need for Cannes when the Berlinale crowds welcome him each time out.
In the past, the Berlin competition has launched successful movies as far-reaching as future Iranian Oscar winner A Separation and documentary nominee Fire at Sea, but theyve been accompanied by a range of new filmmakers whose positioning in the section didnt always make sense. Chatrians team embraced the opportunity to program newcomers, but with a more refined approach, selecting intriguing debuts such as the innovative psychodrama The Intruder and the gorgeous Argentine period piece Bad Tales.
There was also DAU. Natasha, the first entry in the sprawling Russian DAU franchise, comprised of several features shot within the constraints of a Soviet set where thousands of actors lived in character for months at a time. Despite the hype surrounding DAU, the feature technically marked only the second directing credit for Ilya Khrzhanovskiy, and the first for his co-director, Jekaterina Oertel.
Respected filmmakers whose movies often surface in Cannes less-prominent Un Certain Regard sidebar benefited from the grander stage of Competition. These included Mohammed Rasolouf, an Iranian director barred from leaving his country, whose absorbing anthology feature There Is No Evil explores the impact of capital punishment on his countrys executioners and Cambodian documentarian Rithy Panh, whose experimental Irradiated takes an expansive look at global tragedies.
Chatrian made room for one celebrated Sundance feature, Eliza Hittmans Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always, a neorealist look at teen abortion that resonated better with European audiences than it did in North America, and even squeezed in an American movie from last fall, Kelly Reichardts delicate buddy movie First Cow.
All of that meant that Berlinale provided a range of different cinematic experiences in its Competition, and a pretty safe bet that critics and distributors searching for high-caliber work would find a handful of gratifying options at the very least. Because were three months before Cannes, its very easy to compare our lineup with another one, Chatrian said. But the market for cinema needs different festivals.
Chatrian and his programming team also jettisoned two sidebars one focused on culinary-themed movies, and another on indigenous filmmakers in favor of a new competitive section called Encounters, to create a broader space for edgier work that wouldnt fly in Competition even with expanded standards in play. It allowed the programmers to take some big swings, including opening Encounters selection Malmkrog, from Romanias Cristi Puiu.
Though it sported a 200-minute running time that approached The Irishman in heft, Malmkrog brought a much greater challenge almost exclusively comprised of philosophical debate, the movie finds several 19th-century Russian aristocrats debating morality and human behavior in a single room for almost the entirety of its running time. (Anyone who finds that proposition ludicrous from the outset need not apply.) Malmkrog is such a fascinating endurance test that many viewers who subjected themselves to it emerged enlightened and energized by Puius epic film experiment. A defiant non-commercial provocation, the movie is unlikely to attract much of a life beyond the festival circuit which is exactly why it makes sense for a section that can support it.
Gunda
But Encounters also provided a platform for work like Gunda, Viktor Kossakovskys 90-minute black-and-white look at the beleaguered life of a pig family, which won raves (and U.S. distribution). Gunda was a genuine beneficiary of Berlinale timing: Sundance chose not to program the film because the festival had no real slot where it made sense, and at Cannes, Gunda would have been buried.
Theres a precedent for the Encounters conceit: Five years ago, the Toronto International Film Festival added its Platform section to single out filmmakers early in their careers. It cut through some of the noise of its vast lineup with a precise, curated vision. Ten years ago, Sundance provided additional space for movies off the beaten path with its NEXT sidebar. It was clear in my mind that the creation of Encounters was important, Chatrian said. It created the opportunity to keep scouting, giving room to filmmakers that are known but doing films in a different way. I couldnt otherwise find in the festival for us to be able to scout for these films.
Of course, the crowds keen on glimpsing celebrities on the red carpet will not get their fix with these films. Its too early to say if the diminished star power will impact the wider perception around this years Berlinale, but the festival delivered did deliver the bare minimum. Opening-night entry My Salinger Year wasnt a hit with critics, but it skirted along with Margaret Qualley and Sigourney Weaver in town to promote it. Ditto for Minamatta, a maudlin Johnny Depp biopic about war photographer W. Eugene Smith that didnt have to be any good for the giddy autograph seekers who turned out for Depps arrival.
The Berlinale has very diverse expectations, Rissenbeek told me. People want to have a feeling that these films matter. Either it matters because you can see Johnny Depp or Sigourney Weaver, or it matters because the topic is political or social.
Longtime Berlinale attendees messaged caution about reaching many conclusions about the new festival leadership after its first year. The festival landscape is rapidly evolving, which is why the risk is high that Berlinale will be judged right away, said Frdric Jaeger, artistic director of the independently run Berlin Critics Week. For a festival like Berlinale, meeting the different interests is particularly difficult and finding a balance between the old and the new is not something that well be able to judge for at least a year, seeing how the rest of the film year will look like, which movies will continue to resonate and travel over time.
Chatrian was eager to shake off the shadow of the preceding editions. I dont know how the festival programming did it before, and frankly, I dont care, he said. Its not my concern. This is a learning process. I think the audience is in tune with the festival and its many identities. As we just started, I hope there wont be many misunderstandings about the choices we made.
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This week I want to talk about our coffee cup problem. Nearly two in every three Americans drink coffee, and many of us grab a cup to go. Thats a lot of cups. Because most disposable cups cant be recycled, its also a lot of waste headed to landfill. And thats just one drink in one country. Worldwide, hundreds of billions of disposable cups end up in landfills every year.
I got an Americano to go this week at Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco, but it didnt come in a disposable cup. This is what I saw when I entered the store:
My photography is poor, but hopefully you can make out the "Borrow a Cup" sign. To do so, I downloaded an app from Muuse, the startup behind the scheme. Then I scanned the QR code on the underside of one of the black stainless steel cups that can be seen in the photo. I ordered as normal, scoring a 25-cent discount for using my own cup. Once I was done, I had the option of dropping the cup back at any participating coffee shop.
So is this the solution to our coffee cup problem?
Theres a lot to unpack. Ill start with the positives, which I think are meaningful. Muuses digital team did a great job, and the app was a breeze to use. Getting set up and checking out my cup was about as easy as registering with Uber and hailing a ride. The cup is also nice to drink from. Plus a 25-cent discount adds up if you get coffee regularly. For people who get coffee from the same place several times a week, Muuse already makes sense.
Now to the big challenge: ease of use. Reusable cups are competing with an incredibly convenient incumbent, because paper cups are free and can be disposed of anywhere. The Muuse app is well done, but I still had to go to the app store, download it, register, enter my credit card details, check out a cup by scanning a QR code, then scan another code when I returned the cup, which required me to go back to a coffee shop. Beyond the eco-minded consumer, how many of us will be motivated to do all that?
Reusable cups are competing with an incredibly convenient incumbent, because paper cups are free and can be disposed of anywhere.
Carroll also pointed to cost as a motivator. Alongside coffee shops offering discounts, some cities are forcing customers to pay for disposable cups, which some research suggests does more to shift consumer choice than offering discounts. (In the case of Berkeley, California, which introduced its ordinance last month, the fee is 25 cents.) That means that even after paying for Muuse the company is transitioning to a $3-per-month subscription model regular coffee drinkers will still save money.
Are these incentives enough to get Muuse to scale? Forecasting the spread of new business models is notoriously hard, not to mention putting a price on human behavior, but my instinct is that 25 cents isnt enough to overcome the convenience barrier. Ill be very happy to be proved wrong, and will track the trial with interest.
Two more quick points before I go. Carroll told me that the company is in the process of figuring out how many times its cups need to be reused in order to offset the environmental impact of manufacturing the cups in the first place. This is a crucial number because some studies show that cups need to be reused a surprisingly large number of times before they come out on top in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and other life-cycle metrics.
Its also worth noting that Muuse is part of the NextGen Cup Challenge, a global competition to design and commercialize a more sustainable disposable cup. The 12 companies involved are pursuing several strategies with support from the organizers at the Center for the Circular Economy, as well as two industry heavyweights, Starbucks and McDonalds. If Muuses solution doesnt pan out, other parallel trials may still have a path to market.
Professor Biman Prasad and Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission Director Ashwin Raj
National Federation Party Leader, Professor Biman Prasad has called on the Chairman of the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission to critically look at Director, Ashwin Rajs behavior, his condemnation of people who are critical of government and his whole conduct as Director of the Commission while Raj says Professor Prasad is clutching at straws in political desperation.
Professor Prasad made these comments after Raj commented about some politicians and lawyers while making submissions to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights.
The NFP Leader says Raj is now engaged in condemning people who are seen to be critical of government, and he even goes to the extent of telling people they cannot be sarcastic and humourous.
Professor Prasad says Raj should know that it is Oakes test and not formula.
Meanwhile, Raj says a few weeks ago in the context of Fijis Universal Periodic Review, Professor Prasad called for the repeal of media laws in Fiji because he claimed the media operates in a draconian regulatory environment adding a week later, the NFP Leader issued a statement berating MIDA and the Online Safety Commission for not interfering in a matter of fake news involving the Fiji Times and a website called the Fijian Times.
Raj says he called out the contradiction asking well exactly what does Professor Prasad want, the media including social media in this country to be regulated or not.
He adds so when that stunt failed, last week Professor Prasad issued a statement about Alvick Maharaj stating that he is engaged in racial slur and that the Director Human Rights and Anti Discrimination Commission cannot see that as racist. Raj says he carefully looked at the speech and found no pejorative reference to race or ethnicity in Maharajs speech.
Raj further says then the NFP Leader issued a statement about investigating Minister for Lands and Mineral Resources, Ashneel Sudhakar for engaging in a racial slur adding he again issued a very clear statement that racial stereotyping is unacceptable whether it is perpetuated either by Government or Opposition because it is an anathema to common and equal citizenry and human dignity.
The Director says when that failed, he decides to issue a statement about Raj attacking lawyers.
Raj adds he stands by his comment that they must find solutions to some of the most intractable human rights challenges facing Fiji, and being sarcastic on social media and keeping people ill-informed, when they can use their knowledge of the law to educate and empower the public.
He further says he used the example of the investigations into police brutality in Navua and the statement that the Commission issued used the constitutional expression Cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment. He adds a particular lawyer took to social media to say that the Commission doesnt have the gumption to call it torture and brutality. Raj says he had to issue a very clear statement to the media that the expression cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment means torture both physical and emotional adding it means brutality.
He says some of these things are being deliberately distorted by seemingly educated people who understand the law just to show that the Commission is either not independent or does not have teeth.
Raj says so Professor Prasad appears to be running out of agendas so clutching at straws to keep in the media limelight.
He adds there are far more pressing issues that requires their attention than entertaining Professor Prasads petulance each time he issues a statement on borrowed agenda.
Can Raj please reveal the names of the lawyers - Naidu
I would rather focus on issues than personalities - Raj
Suva lawyer Richard Naidu has demanded the Director of the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission Ashwin Raj to reveal who are the lawyers on Twitter that cause Raj so much discombobulation however Raj says he would rather focus on issues than personalities.
On his official Twitter account, Naidu said that as an ordinary old lawyer, who must work for clients all day to earn his money to pay the taxes that pay the salary of the Director of the Human Rights Commission, he demands to know - who are the elite lawyers on Twitter who are causing this.
While making submissions to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice, Law and Human Rights, Raj took a jab at some lawyers and politicians when talking about the importance of understanding how to interpret limitations under the Constitution.
Raj did not name any of the lawyers he was referring to.
Raj went to say that unfortunately what's happening in Fiji is there is one side that will have a particular kind of political position and there will be another side which is "snarling like a Rottweiler ready to attack".
The Director of the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission also says educated people in this country can be doing so much good when they educate everybody.
Raj appeared before the Parliamentary Standing Committee to make a submission and respond to questions on the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission 2016 to 2018 Annual Reports.
Artificial intelligence is entering our lives in many ways on our smartphones, in our homes, in our cars. These systems can help people make appointments, drive and even diagnose illnesses. But as AI systems continue to serve important and collaborative roles in peoples lives, a natural question is: Can I trust them? How do I know they will do what I expect?
Explainable AI (XAI) is a branch of A.I. research that examines how artificial agents can be made more transparent and trustworthy to their human users. Trustworthiness is essential if robots and people are to work together. XAI seeks to develop A.I. systems that human beings find trustworthy while also performing well to fulfill designed tasks.
At the Center for Vision, Cognition, Learning, and Autonomy at UCLA, we and our colleagues are interested in what factors make machines more trustworthy, and how well different learning algorithms enable trust. Our lab uses a type of knowledge representation a model of the world that an A.I. uses to interpret its surroundings and make decisions that can be more easily understood by humans. This naturally aids in explanation and transparency, thereby improving trust of human users.
In our latest research, we experimented with different ways a robot could explain its actions to a human observer. Interestingly, the forms of explanation that fostered the most human trust did not correspond to the learning algorithms that produced the best task performance. This suggests performance and explanation are not inherently dependent upon each other optimizing for one alone may not lead to the best outcome for the other. This divergence calls for robot designs that takes into account both good task performance and trustworthy explanations.
In undertaking this study, our group was interested in two things. How does a robot best learn to perform a particular task? Then, how do people respond to the robots explanation of its actions?
We taught a robot to learn from human demonstrations how to open a medicine bottle with a safety lock. A person wore a tactile glove that recorded the poses and forces of the human hand as it opened the bottle. That information helped the robot learn what the human did in two ways: symbolic and haptic. Symbolic refers to meaningful representations of your actions: for example, the word grasp. Haptic refers to the feelings associated with your bodys postures and motions: for example, the sensation of your fingers closing together.
First, the robot learned a symbolic model that encodes the sequence of steps needed to complete the task of opening the bottle. Second, the robot learned a haptic model that allows the robot to imagine itself in the role of the human demonstrator and predict what action a person would take when encountering particular poses and forces.
It turns out the robot was able to achieve its best performance when combining the symbolic and haptic components. The robot did better using knowledge of the steps for performing the task and real-time sensing from its gripper than using either alone.
Now that the robot knows what to do, how can it explain its behavior to a person? And how well does that explanation foster human trust?
To explain its actions, the robot can draw on its internal decision process as well as its behavior. The symbolic model provides step-by-step descriptions of the robots actions, and the haptic model provides a sense of what the robot gripper is feeling.
In our experiment, we added an additional explanation for humans: a text write-up that provided a summary after the robot has finished attempting to open the medicine bottle. We wanted to see if summary descriptions would be as effective as the step-by-step symbolic explanation to gain human trust.
We asked 150 human participants, divided into four groups, to observe the robot attempting to open the medicine bottle. The robot then gave each group a different explanation of the task: symbolic, step-by-step, haptic arm positions and motions, text summary, or symbolic and haptic together. A baseline group observed only a video of the robot attempting to open the bottle, without providing any additional explanations.
We found that providing both the symbolic and haptic explanations fostered the most trust, with the symbolic component contributing the most. Interestingly, the explanation in the form of a text summary didnt foster more trust than simply watching the robot perform the task, indicating that humans prefer robots to give step-by-step explanations of what theyre doing.
The most interesting outcome of this research is that what makes robots perform well is not the same as what makes people see them as trustworthy. The robot needed both the symbolic and haptic components to do the best job. But it was the symbolic explanation that made people trust the robot most.
This divergence highlights important goals for future A.I. and robotics research: to focus on pursuing both task performance and explainability. Only focusing on task performance may not lead to a robot that explains itself well. Our lab uses a hybrid model to provide both high performance and trustworthy explanations.
Performance and explanation do not naturally complement each other, so both goals need to be a priority from the start when building A.I. systems. This work represents an important step in systematically studying how human-machine relationships develop, but much more needs to be done. A challenging step for future research will be to move from I trust the robot to do X to I trust the robot.
For robots to earn a place in peoples daily lives, humans need to trust their robotic counterparts. Understanding how robots can provide explanations that foster human trust is an important step toward enabling humans and robots to work together.
Mark Edmonds is a Ph.D. candidate in computer science and Yixin Zhu is a postdoctoral scholar in computer science, both at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Ok, so let me be open about this. Trump and I are alike. Well, not in every which way I am short, dark and I dont dye my hair. But what we share is a mad fascination for the Godfather written in 1969 by Mario Puzo and filmed by Francis Ford Coppola in 1972. I learnt about this very recently and it led me to hastily examine how or why I could possibly like something that Trump likes too.
No, I am not a millionaires kid. My dad was a hard-working accountant in the government, just like Mario Puzo. You cant get more ordinary than that. He was a distant father but whose wasnt in the last century? So, it has to be something deeper. The truth is, I love the absolute power a God Father wields. The singular ability to shape anything and everything His way or so He thinks.
Of course, there are limitations like others trying to outgun you along the way. But those just serve as a backdrop to show up how ruthlessly efficient and top gun you are because you necessarily vanquish or vanish. Its vintage High Noon and the cleverest and fastest draw wins.
Like Trump, I watch the God Father film repeatedly and I listen to the theme song even more regularly. So, quite clearly, it has been a defining piece of celluloid for me. More strangely via our common fascination for God Father, I often morph into being Trump during my REM sleep phase.
What invariably startles me awake is the specter of pushing the N button to vaporize China, which in turn would vaporize India because it cant hit back the US in its homeland. Its not the thought of dying as miserable collateral damage, in someone elses nuclear war, which scares me. Its the fear of not being able to push the damn N button when and if required to do so.
I must say I am unlike Trump in that I take time to think through decisions. Instantaneous choices are a problem for me. I believe this is not the case with Trump who, held to the test, will probably push the button just like he used to fire employees on realty TV and more recently in the White House things never change do they?
I could never do that. I prefer to shout and scream about the utter disregard shown by recalcitrant employees. But firing them takes a lot of recalcitrance along with multiple fluffed second and third chances. Clearly, I am not classic God father material, unlike Trump, who gives no second chances. So, its probably just an unfulfilled fantasy about being something I could never be, which drives me to the vicarious delights of the movie God Father.
I guess soldiers also have this tenacity to pursue a single objective without prevarication. You probably need this single mindedness of purpose to not turn around and run away in the face of enemy fire. A kindly senior who took me under his charge, once wrote in my Annual Confidential Report that if I had spent as much time doing the things I was supposed to have done rather than merely worrying about doing them, my results would have been far better.
The ACR is an annual ritual, in which officers reaffirm their biased assessments about their juniors capacity and performance and thereby make or mar their careers. But my superior was bang on. My performance results were never brilliant. His were always outstanding. But looking back I dont know who is more at peace with the outcomes each achieved.
Its the same with Trump. He is brilliantly focused in getting others to turn around and walk his way a very God Fatherly thing to do though he has met his match in Modi, who leads him by his hand. Fortunately, Trump has had less than five years to turn around a big ship like the US which has been crafted over two- and one-half centuries. But even in that short period of time he has diminished America to becoming like Sony in the film Brandos intemperate son, full of testosterone and futile belligerence though to be fair to Sony he would never have turned his muscled back on Afghanistan.
Some of this is because China has been literally waving a red rag at the Bull in Trump. China an almost great power, sadly in decline since 2010, even before it could peak chose to act hastily and provoked mirror muscular responses through its adventurism in the South and East China Sea.
Possibly Xi is also an avid watcher of the God Father series and chose to strike whilst the opposition was weak. In fact, it is Xi who most resembles Brando as God Father. Beijing might have believed that Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics had peaked and the future is unlikely to be as glorious as the present so why not make the most of a high point by throwing about sharp elbows for more space.
In this game of Russian Roulette, where the outcomes are limited and the stakes high, human behavior is unlikely to be guided by theories of international relations. Its going to become up close, personal and overtly ugly. Psychology will likely prevail over political science and most certainly over the dismal science of economics if we consider the overweight power a few individuals have, across the globe, to shape events.
So, maybe security and global strategy analysts had better also start taking their cues from God Father if they are to keep pace with the changing tactics of the principals they track.
Treachery, love, violence and pathos Mario Puzo had it all. The good news is that contemporary History might soon be taught through the Puzo lens of human behavior and its frailties as illustrated by the repeated cycles of learning and unlearning. Much like a mouse running frenetically to escape the tread mill but never quite succeeding till the very end.
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
This is Part 3 on our series on sex-slaver Keith Alan Raniere teaching his sex-slave, former actress Allison Mack.
Part #1 Allison Mack Questions Her Sex Slaver Leader Keith Raniere on What Is Creativity?
Allison Mack Breaks Down and Cries When Sex-Slaver Raniere Speaks to Her About Authenticity
The work of transcribing was accomplished by Marie White working off a video of Keith Ranieres conversation with Allison Mack.
In this fascinating part of the conversation, we hear the Profound One, Keith Raniere, speak of acting. He is a man who has never acted except in amateur theater [He was in amateur productions of Sweeney Todd] and purports to teach actress Allison Mack, who literally made millions of dollars from acting on TV.
This shows the level of faith that Allison and others had in his raw, pure genius. He knew more about acting than any professional actor ever could.
Indeed, he knew more about everything because he was the smartest man in the world, Allison thought.
In this delightful section, we get more of his wondrous word salad, topped with a heaping helping of bullshit dressing.
Rarely has anyone said so little in so many words.
Keep in mind that the woman he is speaking to was not only a seasoned actress, who quit acting to follow him, but also a felon having followed him in his racketeering enterprise, who, but for her plea bargain, would have been convicted of sex trafficking by coercing women into having sex with him.
Keith: Of course, theres things, theres people, who are naturally inauthentic but thats a different sort of a thing. So here we, we see art and we have the expression which is when a human either expresses through gesture or some sort of communication where literally [there is] some sort of material transformation. What we call art and the impression is what we get from our senses and how we interpret it and interpret the world around.
You know, I have a certain impression of this table, besides the impression of its color and its age and a bunch of other intellectualizations.
I also have very metaphysical impressions, things that I, I am not sure of, for example, exactly how hard would I have to throw a ball to hit the edge of the table? How much energy would I actually spend to reach my arm across? Thats an unknown, but by using my senses and feeling this table I could even. maybe, guess what its weight would be, like, might be very surprised, but we do a lot of guesstimation on the world through our impressions of the world.
And thats very important because when I have an impression of something thats, thats art, it allows me to project a type of creativity, a type of authenticity of the person that created that art, or some aspect of human creativity through the art. So if I look at a sculpture or a picture, there is okay, Wow, thats a nice sculpture. Wow, its really done well etc., but it has more than that.
It has the distinct feelings that humans hands did this, and if I look at a sculpture very, very protracted, um, unless it is absolutely mechanical, I start to feel like I can imagine myself almost sculpturing it.
[Keith continues] I sort of imagine the hands doing it. I imagine maybe what that felt like to make that and as I start to get these impressions from the art, I start to believe I understand the artists expression of something that transcends our science. Sometimes its totally off. Sometimes what we get as an impression is very different than what the artist intended as an expression, or maybe even what other people get as an impression of the same thing, but the impression at expression aspect of existence is the type of communication that goes beyond science.
Our communication that is data-information-based is very measurable and scientific, but when we start to use expression and impression, we summon to our aid all of the different things that we can use to try to get across a message very deeply to you.
So if I want to express anger, one way of saying is I am angry. Another way is to rile my body into an angered state and do 100,000 little things that indicate anger and a lot of them you get. I dont realize, Im doing them. You dont realize youre getting them, but the impression wells within you, Wow, hes angry!
Sometimes, we cant even put our finger on it and it is the most complex constellation. Now, of course, you can do that and not do as much of a constellation.
Allison: Umhum
Keith: You know how, how much your, theres an initial constellation of anger, and that humans, in general, have a type of constellation we generally identify as anger and then how they rally their body around, that has to do with the expression of the self. So its as if these very fundamental human things that we do are the foundation of not only the expression of anger, but that individuals anger, and actually hint at the nature of the individuals soul. Does that make sense?
Allison: Umhum
Keith: So authenticity is congruence of expression.
Allison: Ah, I want to talk a little bit about, The Source, which is a company that you created for actors/artist people who want to get better at expressing in general. Um, several years ago when we first met, I had said to you Would you be able to be willing to work with me becoming a better actress? and you said, Yeah, you know, Well talk about it.
And then, several years later, you started working with me and a bunch of other people to develop a curriculum specifically for actors and Ive been talking to different people about it and like different actors and things like that, enrolling them in the idea and coming and participating and see what youve created because its been incredible for me and a lot of the questions they ask is how is it different from [Stella] Adler [acting school] or whatever and a lot of what the answers I have given have been like, well its sort of a partnership with that because it gives you the foundation underneath all of the technical skills and all of the kind of traditional approaches to acting weve had throughout time.
Like it really gets to the core of the actor, so you can work on the raw material, and then everything else that they produce is affected by that. But I dont know. Im curious to know, what your perception is of the curriculum that you created and where it came from.
Keith: Well it comes from a mix of human behavior and philosophy and also really technical communication. You know, acting is all about a type of communication and being not only more aware but more congruent in your communication so you want people to, if you will, and Im going to be a bit, mmm, common in what I say, you want people to buy your character.
Allison: Right
Keith: And the way they buy it, is they find it congruent and authentic. The question, I mean if somebody could be totally congruent, and a character and express authentically through that character so they can do any sort of a scene or whatever, certainly that actor can do anything.
So, the question is how do you achieve that? How do you achieve congruence? How do you achieve authenticity? And I think that there are many roads to do this.
The thing that I think makes The Source a bit unique is I come from a non-acting background. You could say, I dont know what Im talking about.
Allison: Which is, yeah
Keith: So thats good and bad. The good aspect is that it comes from a, a behaviorist humanist sort of practical and philosophical background, dealing with communication, dealing with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of people and humans without being tainted by the current pedagogy of acting and theres both good and bad.
You have something that comes in like that fresh. It provides a tool that goes outside of the box of all the normal toolsets. You know any actor that wants to create a methodology of acting, especially if they know there is other methodologies, theyre influenced then a certain way and that can be very, very good, but at times its also good to have something that is not influenced in the normal way by that.
Allison: Umhum
Keith: As if coming from another planet
Allison: Umhum
Keith: So to some degree, The Source, its not just created for actors. Its created for human communication. Its something that can be used in arbitration. Its something that can be used in negotiation. Its something that can be used in parenting. Its something that can be used in a love relationship.
Allison: Umhum
Keith: And it comes from that perspective but it does have a strong application to what you would call authentic congruent expression and its not tainted by the other schools that are all extraordinary. Its not at all that theyre not great. Its that this is different. So, one of the things you can say about The Source, truly, because the way it was created had not much to do with acting. It had to do with human psychodynamic. It has to do with the whole psychodynamic model of not only human behavior but human moral-ethical action.
So, understanding that, understanding the way that functions with the body, within the emotions, within the thoughts and how thoughts interrelate with all those things. Emotions interrelate and how they all are together as a system. It is a body of knowledge that was grown specifically apart from the major schools, not only affecting but, um, of psychology and philosophy and its unique and in its uniqueness is its power and thats one of the, I think, an important thing about it.
Allison: Yeah, you said once it gets you to the source of your genius and the source of your insecurities
Keith: Umhum
Allison: It sort of allows you to kind of get in there with the root of both of those things.
Well, there you have it. You just learned it all, from a guy who knows everything.
Lets enjoy some word salad and bogus-deep thinking:
Keith said:
We do a lot of guesstimation on the world through our impressions of the world.
***
The impression at expression aspect of existence is the type of communication that goes beyond science.
***
Our communication that is data-information-based is very measurable and scientific, but when we start to use expression and impression we summon to our aid all of the different things that we can use to try to get across a message very deeply.
***
Sometimes we cant even put our finger on it and it is the most complex constellation. Now, of course, you can do that and not do as much of a constellation.
***
Authenticity is congruence of expression.
***
The good aspect is that it comes from a behaviorist humanist sort of practical and philosophical background.
***
Dealing with communication, dealing with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of people and humans.
***
It has to do with the whole psychodynamic model of not only human behavior but human moral-ethical action.
****
This is important perhaps because we are studying the mind, and human attraction. How a star like Allison Mack could have been taken in by this blather and ruined her life by following him.
Normally bullshit is not worth studying and in Ranieres case, his work of deceiving people is over. He is in prison and that is where he will remain for years to come.
But let us look at how flimsy his argument is. And ponder how someone could be deceived with such nonsense.
My comments in [bold and brackets].
Allison: I want to talk a little bit about, The Source
Keith: It comes from a mix of human behavior and philosophy and also really technical communication.
[The Source was, in fact, the usual hodgepodge of Raniere plagiarism and bullshit. As I said before, paraphrasing Johnson, It was both good and original. Only what is good is not original, and what is original is not good.]
. The thing that I think makes The Source a bit unique is I come from a non-acting background. [Yes, that does make it unique, a non-actor charging people $10,000 for a course on acting.]You could say, I dont know what Im talking about. [That may be true.]
The good aspect is that it comes from a behaviorist humanist sort of practical and philosophical background [What?] dealing with communication, dealing with all sorts of things relating to the psychodynamics of people and humans [both people and humans?] without being tainted by the current pedagogy of acting [He has a better, more advanced method].
Allison: Um-hum
Keith: You have something that comes in like that fresh [Imagine if this was applied to any art or science someone who never did the practice is fresh. Why? Because Raniere is a genius. Think of his fresh foray into real estate investment in Los Angeles, or his commodities investing, or his multilevel marketing Consumers Buyline or even his fresh approach to staying out of prison by not putting on a defense at trial.]
It provides a tool [His not being an actor] that goes outside of the box of all the normal tool sets. [This is really his main argument that his genius is so great that he does not need to be an actor to teach acting better than anyone. There is no other argument, since it is utterly preposterous to argue that someone who does not know how to paint, for instance, would teach art classes, or someone who never flew a plane should teach people how to fly.]
Allison: Umhum
Keith: You know any actor that wants to create a methodology of acting theyre influenced a certain way and that can be very, very good, but at times its also good to have something [i,e Ranieres teachings on acting] that is not influenced in the normal way by that. As if coming from another planet.
Allison: Um-hum
Keith:To to some degree, The Source, its not just created for actors. Its created for human communication [which he does somewhat poorly with non-Nxivm members]. Its something that can be used in arbitration. [He never settled a legal case; he always sued until he lost or bankrupted his opponent]. Its something that can be used in negotiation [He lost money on all or most of his business deals]. Its something that can be used in parenting [He denied he was the father of his first-born son and broke up families]. Its something that can be used in a love relationship. {he used all women as objects.]
Allison: Um-hum
Keith: And it comes from that perspective, but it does have a strong application to what you would call authentic congruent expression [what?] and its not tainted by the other schools Its not at all that theyre not great. Its that this is different. [Yes, this is the course created by someone who never acted professionally.] So one of the things you can say about The Source, truly, because the way it was created had not much to do with acting. It had to do with human psychodynamic. [What?] It has to do with the whole psychodynamic model of not only human behavior but human moral-ethical action. [What is he actually talking about?]
Allison: Um-hum
Keith: It is a body of knowledge that was grown specifically apart from the major schools, [obviously] not only affecting psychology and philosophy and its unique and in its uniqueness is its power [uniqueness is, in this case, the fact that the originator of the material never made his living from the material he is charging to teach].
The virus, known as Covid-19, has only recently emerged as the prevailing issue in the presidential race, but its spread has been rapid.
Amy Klobuchar used precious debate time on Tuesday to plug the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. Michael Bloomberg was the first to cut an ad attacking President Trump about it Wednesday. Elizabeth Warren put out a plan Thursday to swap funding for a border wall for efforts to contain the flus spread. And everyone from Joe Biden to Pete Buttigieg to Bernie Sanders to Tom Steyer wrote tweets and sent out statements on the topic.
Then there was Trump himself, holding a news conference Wednesday evening where he appeared as focused on the political fallout as he was on the spread of the illness.
"Because of all we've done, the risk to the American people remains very low, he said.
But if the president is wrong, the political impact could be catastrophic.
Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of Boston Universitys School of Public Health, said Trump made a mistake in being so definitive that coronavirus wont spread widely within the United States.
The moment there is an outbreak in the country, his credibility on this issue is shot, Galea said. History shows us that with epidemics, government leaders need to be honest and clear about what they know, what they dont, and what needs to happen next. Credibility is a big deal.
Beyond presidential trust, a significant spread of the coronavirus could alter the way that campaigns are conducted.
Ahead of a tight national election in Israel next week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped shaking hands with voters, and special polling places have been set up for coronavirus patients.
If such precautions become de rigueur in the United States, it could mean no more Warren selfie-lines or rallies for any candidate even Trump.
If we do have a widespread coronavirus outbreak, then there will be a lot of social-distance measures taking place that would impact a number of gatherings and assemblies, Galea said.
The past is prologue when it comes to public health crises disrupting politics.
In 2014, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa shook up campaigns, including the US Senate race in New Hampshire, in which Republican Scott Brown hammered the incumbent, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, with accusations the Obama administration wasnt responding forcefully enough.
Shaheen won, but it gave Brown a closing argument in ads and on the debate stage.
When something bad happens in the world, the incumbent gets blamed, said Republican strategist Ryan Williams, who was a consultant for Brown in the 2014 Senate race.
Alec T. Beall, a postdoctoral fellow in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, presented an academic paper about the impact of the Ebola scare on the 2014 midterm elections.
Beall said recent political research agreed with Williams that incumbents are often blamed for a pandemic, which could be bad for Trump if the outbreak spreads.
At odds with this, however, is research into human behavior that shows evolutionary instincts kick in when theres an infectious disease outbreak and people who may be perceived as posing an infection risk, such as immigrants from unfamiliar countries, are used politically as scapegoats.
Traditionalist attitudes and xenophobic policies are characteristic of political conservatism," Baell said. "Therefore, if people begin to feel greater vulnerability to Covid-19, they may become more likely to express conservative political attitudes and to show greater support for conservative political candidates in upcoming elections.
Beyond the virus itself, the economy is nearly certain to ripple through the race for the White House.
Polling by the Pew Research Center found that the 2008 race tipped toward Democrat Barack Obama after the investment banking giant Lehman Brothers collapsed. The crisis became a centerpiece of the campaign coverage, which turned increasingly negative for Republican John McCain.
The severity of any economic effects will be key to the Republicans political fortunes, strategists said.
The health of the economy is President Trumps central rationale for reelection, Williams said. If theres a significant downturn caused by this outbreak, it could have serious implications.
Its less clear what impact, if any, the outbreak could have on the Democratic primary.
Jon McHenry, a Republican strategist, said Bloomberg may be the only candidate whos really able to capitalize on it.
He has the money, and therefore the flexibility, to say this is the issue right now" and to start running ads about how he is the best manager to tackle the problem, he said.
For now, its unclear how the coronavirus scare will play out on the battlefield of politics. But Democratic strategist Christy Setzer said the issue could break through a lot of the political noise of the Trump era.
Voters may not care how many days Donald Trump spends at Mar-a-Lago, whether hes besties with Vladimir Putin, Setzer said. But every soccer mom in America just ran out and got the flu shot for her kids, and theyll be watching very closely.
When it comes to questions of anatomy, one would think thatWolverinewould be far more on the normal side as far as superheroes go. Whereas Superman is an alien from a whole other planet, or Spider-Man has arachnid characteristics, Wolverine is basically just a clawed Canadian who heals really well.
However, things aren't as simple as they seem. Once you start teasing out the logic behind Wolverine's anatomy there are some pretty disturbing (and gross) implications. Let's look at the five strangest aspects of Wolverine's anatomy that put the "ick" in "snikt."
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Naturally, any question about Wolverine's anatomy is going to address his metal bones. Laced with unbreakable adamantium by an experimental government procedure only possible with someone of Wolverine's immense regenerative capabilities, the adamantium skeleton may seem pretty straightforward at first. It makes Wolverine heavier than normal, protects him from greater damage than he otherwise could and all in all, proves a pretty handy tool time and again.
Since Wolverine can heal from almost any wound, his adamantium skeleton is on the front lines of keeping him in a fight so that the mutant can minimize the time it takes for him to recuperate. Bullets that would scramble his brains just bounce off his skull, and it takes far less time to heal the flesh on his head than the brain matter inside it. The value the metal adds to his claws is incalculable as well, allowing him to cut most anything while also preventing them from opponents crushing them. His skeleton may be sturdy and his claws naturally sharp all on their own, but there's just no competing with adamantium.
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Wolverine is one of the hairiest mainstream superheroes to appear in films and comics. Whereas most heroes' physiques tend toward the lean and the hairless over time, something about Wolverine's animalistic connection allowed him to maintain a shaggy mane not many other heroes share. What many people might not realize is that the signature look comes part and parcel with his powers.
While Wolverine doesn't have the Rapunzel problem of perpetually growing infinite amounts of hair, his follicles do tend to regenerate to roughly the same length even after they are burned or torn off. Wolverine has walked away from third-degree burns across his entire body, and as the skin comes back the hair comes with it, always at roughly the same length.
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Part of the reason for the healing factor's application to his hair could come from its bestial origins -- in one comic it is explained that Wolverine is actually ahomo lupine rather than ahomo superior, putting his ancestral relatives closer to wolves than humans. Many other mutants with healing factors, like Sabretooth, grow a pretty thick mane themselves and this could be the common factor linking them.
While it's not normally easy to compete with the mainstream Wolverine when it comes to feats of sheer survival, the Ultimate iteration of the character from Marvel's 1610 universe gives Logan a run for his money. Ultimate Wolverine once survived a fight with the Hulk and S.H.I.E.L.D. detonating a nuclear weapon in the middle of their fray only to wake up in a lab where the organization was keeping his body parts separate. Nick Fury spoke with Wolverine's decapitated head and explained that they just couldn't kill it.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. separated Ultimate Wolverine's head from his body he simply started breathing oxygen through his skin, realizing that when they put it in an airless vacuum the skin started making its own air. A survivor through and through, Logan's sheer refusal to die may have been the reason Nick Fury just resigned to letting Wolverine go about his business.
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A natural thing to wonder about Wolverine's healing factor is whether or not he can extend it to others. There's obviously a great amount of suffering in the world, and if the gritty hero with wanted to atone for his past sins,is it possible for him toliterally cure the world of its ills through blood transfusion?
Well, the situation has come up, but it's an insanely hard thing to pull off. InPowers of X, Wolverine was able to save Moira Mactaggart with blood transfusions, but the recentWolverine #1 provided an infographic that explained howLogan'shealing factor becomes inert within his blood once it leaves his body. Getting it to successful transmit to another body is an incredibly difficult task.
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That's not to say it hasn't been done before. Most famously, Deadpool was a member of the same Weapon X program that produced Wolverine. Using Wolverine's blood, Weapon X was capable of reproducing his healing factor within Deadpool, but at a terrible cost. Deadpool's own lethal cancer fights a constant war against his healing factor, and the end result is that his skin became scabby and scarred. He may have a good sense of humor about it, but there's definitely a curse attached to that gift.
This is where things get a little sappy because we're not talking about his actual heart. Instead, it's worth explaining the toll Wolverine's healing factor has had on his mental and emotional health over the years. Since his senescence is so much slower than a normal human's, Wolverine has spent the past century watching many of the people around him die or get older while he has largely remained the same.
And that's to say nothing of the psychological horror of enduring the countless physical tortures inflicted upon him. Even just the process to coat Wolverine's skeleton in adamantium was described as immensely painful, and it's a process he has had to undergo multiple times. At one point Magneto even ripped the metal straight off his bones, no anesthetic or preparation at all. The process nearly killed him, and in fact, burned out his healing factor so that for a brief period he was mortal.
But underneath it all Wolverine has an indomitable will that never allows such constant suffering to get the best of him. While he certainly has his fair share of mental problems, part of what makes Wolverine such a hero is that he is able to undergo such severe physical and emotional pain over time without it ever truly changing who he is. As interesting as the anatomy of the X-Man is, at the center of it all is the heart of a truly great character.
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