I seem to recall attitude serving me as well as any gadget in the bad old days before freelancing. Ten gadgets to get you sacked | Reg Hardware
Nice to see even El reg has to do silly season stories. Like the Cyberman helmet though...
22.7.06
D-Cinema actually here this time?
Cinema Tech quotes from a Christie press release that the company is Gearing Up to Crank Out 400 Digital Cinema Projectors Per Month. Which is a) a lot considering that a couple of years ago there weren't that many digitally equipped cinemas in the world, b) represents a 400% increase in production in a year, and c) means the company can now double its installed base of units in two and a half months.
Ladies and gentlemen, the blue touchpaper is lit.
Ladies and gentlemen, the blue touchpaper is lit.
21.7.06
Map of quietitude
Artist Simon Elvins has produced this, a map of the quiet spots of London. Darker colours = quieter areas and, no surprise really, tend to occur right in the middle of the capital's big parks. Not a technique that works quite as well, or indeed as interestingly, in rural areas...
16.7.06
Formative Experiences
Totally, but totally, gratuitous. I'll find something intellectual to blog about to make up for it later, or insert some knowing commentary on geek iconography and the scarcity of feminine role models. Ahem.
Wired News: The Cult of Leia's Metal Bikini
Did I mention the photo of Sabrina the Teenage Witch at a fancy dress party wearing the outfit? Thought not...
Wired News: The Cult of Leia's Metal Bikini
Did I mention the photo of Sabrina the Teenage Witch at a fancy dress party wearing the outfit? Thought not...
3.7.06
Doonesbury vs The Creationists
Excellent Donnesbury strip that poses the question every doctor should ask of a Creationist: do you want the old style antibiotics, or do you want the new ones that can deal with all those pesky 'evolved' virii.
Doonesbury@Slate - Daily Dose
Via the ever-marvellous Boing Boing.
28.6.06
25.6.06
Up, up and away
Much though the Space Shuttle is a ridiculous throwback to the 1970s, much though NASA is a tarnished, bloated, stumbling beast of an organisation, much though the US space program has been in hock to the military ever since it first started, much though they should throw the whole thing away and start again from scratch...Much though all that I still can't help getting caught up in the drama of a Shuttle launch.
STS-121 coverage
here. As Rush warbled, 'Lit up with anticipation, we arrive at the launching site...'
Roll on July 1st.
23.6.06
Toshiba massively subsidising HD DVD
According to this Reg Hardware story, industry snoops iSuppli took apart a Toshiba HD DVD player and put it back together again, estimating how much all the little bits and widgets costed along the way. The result? $674. The cost of the player? $499.
As El Reg says; "that's before the cost of assembly, packaging, peripherals, distribution, advertising, software development and so on. Oh, and that $499 is the retail price - Toshiba will be charging resellers even less for the player."
iSuppli says that this level of subsidy is 'unusual'. Hmmm...long as I get a PS3 this Xmas free with a packet of cornflakes, I don't think I really care.
As El Reg says; "that's before the cost of assembly, packaging, peripherals, distribution, advertising, software development and so on. Oh, and that $499 is the retail price - Toshiba will be charging resellers even less for the player."
iSuppli says that this level of subsidy is 'unusual'. Hmmm...long as I get a PS3 this Xmas free with a packet of cornflakes, I don't think I really care.
Radio Times | Big Brother Blog
Okay, so if you're lucky you haven't been infected with the madness that is Big Brother 7, which stalks the TV channels waiting to scoop up all those dazed unfortunates for whom Wall to Wall Football (tm) doesn't really do anything.
However, help is at hand with the wonderfully written, remarkably waspish Radio Times | Big Brother Blog. Read this and you'll never need to actually watch the godawful bloody programme again, as its author, Grace Dent, has got the whole thing absoloutely nailed.
"It's like The Late Review live from Rampton Secure Unit," she writes at one point. Couldn't have put it better myself.
However, help is at hand with the wonderfully written, remarkably waspish Radio Times | Big Brother Blog. Read this and you'll never need to actually watch the godawful bloody programme again, as its author, Grace Dent, has got the whole thing absoloutely nailed.
"It's like The Late Review live from Rampton Secure Unit," she writes at one point. Couldn't have put it better myself.
10.6.06
Wired News: Fan Films Reclaim the Whedonverse
Wired News: Fan Films Reclaim the Whedonverse
Neat. I mean Whedon's not doing anything with it at the moment, is he? Article contains links to such gems as Fluffy: The English Vampire Slayer and a parody of Firefly called Mosquito.
Also a Canadian production set in the Firefly universe called Into the Black which is teetering on the verge of having its first hour in the can. Can't stop the signal...
Neat. I mean Whedon's not doing anything with it at the moment, is he? Article contains links to such gems as Fluffy: The English Vampire Slayer and a parody of Firefly called Mosquito.
Also a Canadian production set in the Firefly universe called Into the Black which is teetering on the verge of having its first hour in the can. Can't stop the signal...
18.5.06
PS3 to cost £425 in the UK
Surrender to Sony now! (via El Reg). And there'll still be a bloody shortage.
BBC HD London trials hacked
http://www.hdtvuk.tv/2006/05/bbc_hd_london_t.html
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
8.5.06
London poverty map
Via the ever-wonderful Boing Boing comes this, an 1898 poverty map from the Charles Booth Online Archive.
'Tis interesting not only for the spatial distribution of poverty - you can see where cabbies got their prejudice of going south of the river - but also for the key. One of the colour codes simply says: Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal. Expect a reprint in the Evening Standard soon...
5.5.06
Shiny - it's a paper Serenity
It is too: Serenity in all her lovingly recreated paper detail. The man behind this is obviously a genius.
English instructions for those that don't want a social life for the next three months here
30.4.06
What Al did next
One from Wired. As they bill it, He invented the Internet (sort of). He became President (almost). Now Al Gore has found his true calling: using the power of technology to save the world.
But, while Wired 14.05: The Ressurection of Al Gore is an interesting read in itself, elsewhere in the same issue you can see the shape that US environmentalism is now taking. The Next Green Revolution is subtitled How technology is leading environmentalism out of the anti-business, anti-consumer wilderness.. This is probably fair enough, once tech gets to a certain level it makes sense to engage with it rather that slavishly adopt the policy of protest at all levels.
What worries me is the whiff of the dead hand of neo-conservatism about all this. There's also a table in the same issue which looks at the Pros and Cons of what it refers to as the 'old guard' environmentalists. Under cons for Friends of the Earth is listed: "Suspicious of nuclear power, carbon-trading markets, and free trade."
Free market environmentalism is an oxymoron and then some. Looks like the US might be going its own way again.
But, while Wired 14.05: The Ressurection of Al Gore is an interesting read in itself, elsewhere in the same issue you can see the shape that US environmentalism is now taking. The Next Green Revolution is subtitled How technology is leading environmentalism out of the anti-business, anti-consumer wilderness.. This is probably fair enough, once tech gets to a certain level it makes sense to engage with it rather that slavishly adopt the policy of protest at all levels.
What worries me is the whiff of the dead hand of neo-conservatism about all this. There's also a table in the same issue which looks at the Pros and Cons of what it refers to as the 'old guard' environmentalists. Under cons for Friends of the Earth is listed: "Suspicious of nuclear power, carbon-trading markets, and free trade."
Free market environmentalism is an oxymoron and then some. Looks like the US might be going its own way again.
27.4.06
Destabilising the moral fabric of society
Well, we all have a go at it at some point.
Latest target in the US Senate seems to be videogames, which no doubt will drag the children of the US down into the moral mire of degeneracy from whence they shall not escape. So Wired has put together this handy little list or morally destablising pasttimes through the ages it refers to as The Culture War.
Thus we have movies demonised:
"This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood ... Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the 'moving pictures.'"
- The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1909
And (my favourite), that evil canker eating at the heart of society, the waltz.
"The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced ... at the English Court on Friday last ... It is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies ... to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is ... forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."
- The Times of London, 1816
Latest target in the US Senate seems to be videogames, which no doubt will drag the children of the US down into the moral mire of degeneracy from whence they shall not escape. So Wired has put together this handy little list or morally destablising pasttimes through the ages it refers to as The Culture War.
Thus we have movies demonised:
"This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood ... Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the 'moving pictures.'"
- The Annual Report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1909
And (my favourite), that evil canker eating at the heart of society, the waltz.
"The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced ... at the English Court on Friday last ... It is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs, and close compressure of the bodies ... to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is ... forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion."
- The Times of London, 1816
25.4.06
On public service gaming
A fairly long but thoughtful essay posted on the ever-wonderful Wonderland on the subject of public service gaming. Okay, so there's always a US angle to this where PBS is seen as a fairly minority concept rather than being the backbone of our national broadcast service as it is over here that has to be taken into account, and as the games industry is primarily US led, that leaches through. Good stuff though. A samplette:
Public Service Media probably suffers too much from being tagged as 'worthy' for it ever to have a public persona. Public service media should be like cod liver oil pills: life-enhancing and good for you, as long as you can't taste it. A public service game can range from a quality web-based bit of fun to a multi-million-pound commercial co-production for the expensive stuff (much like Rome, a BBC & HBO co-pro TV show), but must have a primary focus on quality and integrity, not just a fast buck.
Public Service Media probably suffers too much from being tagged as 'worthy' for it ever to have a public persona. Public service media should be like cod liver oil pills: life-enhancing and good for you, as long as you can't taste it. A public service game can range from a quality web-based bit of fun to a multi-million-pound commercial co-production for the expensive stuff (much like Rome, a BBC & HBO co-pro TV show), but must have a primary focus on quality and integrity, not just a fast buck.
24.4.06
Meanwhile in Kathmandu...
Nepalese photo blog www.PHALANO.com is blogging pictures of the ongoing situation in Kathmandu, which I post myself a) in the interestes of spreading what they're doing and b) in the increasingly forlorn hope that I'll get out there any time soon.
19.4.06
Sony Ericsson hitches to bandwagon shock
Sony Ericsson! Sees market for! TV on phones soon! - Yahoo! News
But they're not quite as optimistic as everyone else who'll be tub0thumping at NAB this week, saying '07 or '08 are theyears when it will break through. Also, this interesting little snippetette:
The head of wireless equipment giant Ericsson said earlier this week that operators were also taking a look at MBMS as being more user-friendly and allowing more on-demand services. The group has done a trial of MBMS in Stockholm.
But they're not quite as optimistic as everyone else who'll be tub0thumping at NAB this week, saying '07 or '08 are theyears when it will break through. Also, this interesting little snippetette:
The head of wireless equipment giant Ericsson said earlier this week that operators were also taking a look at MBMS as being more user-friendly and allowing more on-demand services. The group has done a trial of MBMS in Stockholm.
MediaGuardian: Sales surge for Brit TV
MediaGuardian.co.uk | Broadcast | Sales surge for Brit TV
The revenue generated by the export of British television programmes including Jamie's School Dinners and Midsomer Murders leapt by 21% in 2005 to £632m.
UK television export figures, which cover sales of programmes, formats and related DVD, video and merchandising, show a marked increase on the 2004 figure of £524m with particular growth last year in revenues from Germany, Spain and the US.
The revenue generated by the export of British television programmes including Jamie's School Dinners and Midsomer Murders leapt by 21% in 2005 to £632m.
UK television export figures, which cover sales of programmes, formats and related DVD, video and merchandising, show a marked increase on the 2004 figure of £524m with particular growth last year in revenues from Germany, Spain and the US.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
