Posted by: RFM on: November 26, 2009
Those of you who have admired my current desktop picture (a 1930s London tube map which includes the old British Museum station) may enjoy this Guardian gallery of the London tube through the ages.
Shame they’ve been so stingy with the image resolution, as you can’t really see the lovely details.
Tunnel vision: a history of the London tube map |
Art and design |
guardian.co.uk.
Posted by: RFM on: November 22, 2009
Here’s a petition to sign in order to oppose the proposed law that will allow the entertainment industry to decide who gets to use the public internet.
Posted by: RFM on: November 22, 2009
Interesting angle on the global warming debate from the New Statesman, in which Bjorn Lomborg dares to suggest that the environmental pressure group consensus on what to do about climate change is wrong. He points out how the discourse in the media is being controlled, with the use of words like “denier” and “sceptic” acting as sticks to hit people with. Use the word “denier” about somebody, and you’re immediately aligning them with the neo-Nazi holocaust deniers.
Lomborg argues that the cost of cutting carbon emissions as radically as some propose (including The Guardian newspaper, with its 10:10 campaign) would actually cause more damage than the predicted rise in global temperatures.
Anyone who reads science fiction will already know about some of the more radical weather engineering solutions (look at Kim Stanley Robinson’s series of three books, for example), and Lomborg argues that pumping sea water into the air to whiten the clouds is one idea worth considering, which would cost a fraction of the unrealistic and unreachable carbon emissions targets.
The researchers conclude, remarkably, that we might be able to cancel out this century's entire global warming with 1,900 unmanned ships spraying seawater mist into the air, at a total cost of about £6bn. When the benefits from averted warming are calculated, this is the equivalent of doing more than £2,000 worth of good with every pound spent.
[...]
Marine cloud whitening would obviously not solve every aspect of global warming. But it would achieve more, much faster, than any plausible carbon cuts could ever do, and at a fraction of the price. If we are concerned with solving global warming, then we have a moral obligation to research what we could achieve with this technology.
Posted by: RFM on: November 20, 2009
This time-lapse film of possibly the second-most boring sport in the history of the world is fascinating. My favourite bits are the frankfurters and the popcorn.
Otherwise, you wonder why people pay to get in, since you can’t see anything if you do.
Posted by: RFM on: November 19, 2009
I’ve posted this on westudyfilm, too, but its very pertinent to our recent discussions on how the film industry works.
BBC News – Will Ferrell named ‘most overpaid film star’.
Will Ferrell has earned an average of $3.29 for each $1 he was paid for his run of recent badly received flop films. I’ve never quite understood why anybody would pay him anything or indeed pay to see him in anything, but what do I know?
His salary would have been based on his previously successful career, but he now badly needs a hit, because he’s been called to account with this list, which also includes Ewan McGregor, Eddie Murphy, Ice Cube (Who?), Drew Barrymore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sam Jackson, Jim Carrey and Tom Cruise.
Some of those names are BIG names, and they all appear to be more of a financial liability than a lure for the audience. I can’t argue with the idea that they’re all overpaid (and therefore overrated), because I personally don’t really rate any of them that much. WIth Samuel L Jackson, for example, his reputation has been entirely based on great scripts provided by great screenwriters like Shane Black. On his own? He’s just an actor.
As I said in class, another screenwriter, William Goldman, famously said that, in Hollywood, “Nobody knows” what works. There’s no magic formula, and the overpayment of actors is just one symptom of this. I can’t believe that people are still employing Drew Barrymore, for example.
At the other end of the scale, the best-value actress is Naomi Watts, who has earned $44 for every $1 she was paid in recent films. Of course, this doesn’t mean that studios should be throwing money at Ms Watts. The point is, as ever, that nobody knows, and Ms Watts’ and any other actor’s earning potential is dependent on too many variables: fashion, quality of script, competition, the weather…
Posted by: RFM on: November 12, 2009
“The BBC would say, ‘You should get Professor Suchabody on talking about the environment’ and we would go, ‘F**k off, he can have the Ten O’Clock News’. Do the Two Fat Ladies say,’And if you want to have a low-fat version of this recipe you can use single cream’? They never do. They go, ‘Pile it on; heart attack now’.”
via Top Gear: why we’re mad about the boys |
Television & radio |
The Guardian.
Posted by: RFM on: November 10, 2009
Just what, exactly, is Rupert Murdoch thinking? First, he announces that all of News Corp’s websites will erect paywalls like the one employed by the Wall Street Journal… Then, he announced that Google and other search engines were “plagiarists” who “rip off” Newscorp’s content, and that once the paywalls are up… he’ll be blocking Google and the other “parasites” from his sites, making all of News Corp’s properties invisible to search engines. Then, as a kind of loonie cherry atop a banana split with extra crazy sauce, Rupert announces that “fair use is illegal” and he’ll be abolishing it shortly.
What is he thinking? We’ll never know, of course, but I have a theory.
via Rupert Murdoch: for whom the net tolls |
Technology |
guardian.co.uk
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Posted by: RFM on: November 10, 2009
Posted by: RFM on: October 31, 2009
Posted by: RFM on: October 23, 2009
Year 13s, the coursework advisor has given the go ahead for your projects. There is also a checklist to help you keep the projects on target. Ask yourself these questions whenever you feel you’re getting off track.
Research Essay:
Here is the checklist for the production:
