An immutable law

The Website at the End of the Universe reveals that Next proves that every even-numbered film base don a Philip K Dick story sucks.

Consider the evidence. Here is a list of PKD movies and their Rotten Tomatoes scores:

1. Blade Runner (1982) Based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"- 92%
2. Screamers (1995) Based on "Second Variety" - 29%
3. Total Recall (1990) Based on "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" - 79%
4. Impostor (2001) Based on "Impostor." - 15%
5. Minority Report (2002) Based on "The Minority Report." - 92%
6. Paycheck (2003) Based on "Paycheck."- 27%
7. A Scanner Darkly (2006) Based on "A Scanner Darkly" - 66%
8. Next (2007) Based on "The Golden Man" - 26%

Happily therefore, next time a Hollywood studio is trawling through the Dick back catalogue looking at options, they'll strike a slice of fried gold.

This is the universe...big isn't it?

It's corporate, but it's good.

Nikon's Universcale presents the known universe in measured dimensions from 10 to the -14 metres and upwards - so that's all the way from subatomic particles to the width of the entire known universe.

Which is pretty cool.

Nikon | Universcale

Not too sure about the ambient music by numbers soundtrack, but the rest of it is stunning.

Sao Paolo goes no logo

One off of Boing Boing here.

Back in December, 2006, the mayor of the 11-million-person Brazilian city of Sao Paolo banned all outdoor billboard advertising, citing advertisers' unwillingness to comply with the city's rules on what sort of billboards can be placed where. Now the rule is in effect, and Flickr user Tony de Marco has documented the eerie sight of a city stripped bare of commercial visuals.

We can but dream...

The Flikr set is ici

Another Chinese knock-off

An interesting one from BoingBoing: Chinese developers are trying to attract the new breed of Chinese yuppy capitalist into urban developments by modelling them on romanticised versions of old European city centres.

In Nanjing, there are Balinese retreats and Italian villas. In the southeastern city of Hangzhou, there are Venice and Zurich. In downtown Beijing, everything is about Manhattan, with Soho, Central Park and Park Avenue.

Boing Boing: Chinese housing developments like old European cities

Le Corbusier must be spinning about 1000rpm in his grave...

Vonnegut dies

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | Writer Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

The perils of becoming stuck in time I guess...

Happiness is...

Not sure, but eight tries against Bristol will normally do it...:-)

YouTube - Bath v Bristol 31st March 2007

Undermining reality

A bit genius this: a website called Vote for the Worst is threatening to totally derail American Idol. We say: yay!

Long quote a coming, and the full thing's here:
Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - TV & radio: American Idol falls victim to bloggers

If, like me, you have watched askance and then aghast as first Pop Idol in the UK and then American Idol in the US turned our charts into a hellish, pap-driven kindergarten, then here's some good news. The whole sorry, cynical edifice may soon come crumbling down around Simon Cowell's ears (along with, I might add, the very lucrative premium phone services that support it).

Once again, TV has become the victim of the internet, this time in the form of some very smart American bloggers who run the site called Vote for the Worst. Like all great and truly subversive ideas, Vote for the Worst is deliciously simple. Using the show's own strength - the public phone vote that has proved so reliable in propelling bland, semi-talented teens into the charts - against it, ju-jitsu style, Vote for the Worst urges you to do exactly that. Those acts who offend even Cowell's limited aesthetic sensibilities are being driven past the judges and toward victory by a carefully marshalled online campaign, the stated aim of which is to improve the viewer experience: lousy singers, after all, make for better, funnier TV. I say stated aim, because the real purpose of the site is permanently to remove Cowell and company from the American airwaves.

Oh but I sense a summer of fun coming...

Peanut butter disproves evolution

A classic of its kind.

1. Evolution says that life sprang from energy + matter.

2. A jar of peanut butter = matter

3. These jars are subjected to light and heat, ie energy

4. The billion jars opened every year contain no new life. In fact, "The entire food industry of the world depends on the fact that evolution doesn't happen."

5. Therefore, evolution is wrong.

There's even a YouTube clip explaining it. Go see:
Mike the Mad Biologist

Steampunk Star Wars

Eric Poulton is reimagining the Star Wars universe in a steampunk stylee.

As he says, "I know, whenever anyone reimagines anything, they either make it a) adult and edgy (99%) or b) steampunk (1%), so I'm not getting any originality points." But, the artwork is definitely worth a look.

Eric's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Idea: steampunk star wars

[Via The Website at the End of the Universe]

Dredd hits 30

Well, not quite. AFAIR he didn't make it to the pages of 2000AD until Issue 2 by which time I already had the poster of Dan Dare's world of the future on my wall.

Even, so 2000AD 30 years old? Crikey etc. BBC NEWS | Magazine | 30 years of the future

Crochet Evil

Damn...never thought I'd feel the need to learn to crochet...

shigella: EXTERMINATE!

Careers for Girls

Via BoingBoing, a 1966 boardgame called The Exciting Career Game for Girls that set out to tell young American women what they could potentially do with their lives. Gosh what can you be, young ladies of America? Well, your choices are limited to how well you do in the various schools. To whit:

Teacher (College), Actress (Drama School), Nurse (Nursing School), Model (Charm School), Ballet Dancer (Ballet School), or Airline Hostess (Airline School).

And jolly well done all of you.

Here's the link: bradley's almanac

In the interests of gender equality, I hear you ask if there was a boy's version. Well, yes there was. And while the girls were doing all the important stuff, we had to put up with being either Statesmen, Scientists, Athletes, Doctors, Engineers, or Astronauts.

40 years suddenly seems like a long time ago...

A bit rubbish

From the BBC News website:

The deepest snow recorded so far is Sennybridge in the Brecon Beacons where 7cm (3in) is lying and overnight temperatures plummeted to -4C (25F).

7cm of snow, temps 'plummeting' to -4C and a country grinding to a halt? Ye Gods, you'd think that we'd normally be baskimg in Floridian conditions the way everything's fallen apart so swiftly.

Caught by the fuzz

Went to see a preview of Hot Fuzz last night and the good news is it's as excellent a slice of fried gold as it should be. Pegg, Frost and Wright have pulled off the mightily tricky achievement of making a film that works equally well as a comedy and an action movie. And it is a very funny comedy, with enough of a splattering of comedy gore and references to cornettos to keep the Shaun of the Dead fanbase happy.

Frost as usual gets the best/most outrageous lines, Timothy Dalton chews the scenery in memorable fashion as the town nasty, and the supporting cast are all note perfect (a befuddled Bill bailey in particular). Am still snorting about various scenes in it the day after, which is usually the sign of a good comedy.

On the Kermode Scale of laughing out loud: well over a dozen. Easiest the funniest British comedy since their last film.

As PC Danny Butterman would say, "Richard Curtis? What a **n*!"

Buffy - season 8

Seems that The Whedon has been spilling the beans on his forthcoming comic book series of Buffy adventures here.

Already being billed as the eighth and never filmed series of the show, it seems that the Buffster's now in charge of entire legions of crack Slayer corps who've been branded as a terrorist organisation by the US government.

Whedon can get away with a lot more in comic-form. "This is bigger variations. It's a symphony based on the little tune we played," goes the quote.

Should be good...

Is it just me?

Or does the Sun's new celebration of all things multicultural in the wake of the Celebrity BB scandal come across as just a teensy, teensy bit hypocritical?

Coming next: the Daily Mail on why immigration is a good thing and Margaret Thatcher was actually a raving neo-con lunatic.

Nights on Cydonia

Or perhaps triple strength West Country cider-nia to be more accurate...

The Halexandria Foundation maintains an interesting website full of what is often referred to as Forteana. This (Cydonia) is probably my favourite, found following a fairly random clickstream and suggesting that the area around Avebury exactly corresponds to similar geographical features found in the Cydonia region of Mars. Y'know, the bit with the 'face'.

Good, harmless fun, that concludes:

The reality appears to be that if we merely look around our planet for artifacts and other anomalies -- those which simply can not be explained by a limited view understanding of what the ancient human civilizations were capable of -- then we are faced inexorably with the fact that other non-human intelligences were involved in their creation.

Well, indeed. Unfortunate though that the Halexandria Foundation intro page kicks off with the following:

“May you live in interesting times.” Depending upon the source, this ancient Chinese phrase is considered either a curse -- attended by difficulties, stress and the lack of ease, comfort, and routine -- or a blessing -- filled with stimulation, adventure, and excitement.

Wonder if there's anything in the fact that 'may you live in interesting times'has recently been revealed to be a thoroughly modern phrase coined in a Golden Age SF short story? Hmmm...perhaps they could be linked...

PS3 launch date

Date: March 23

Cost: £425

Model: 60GB, wi-fi enabled

Desirability: Extreme

Chance of actually getting one round then: slim

Hand Solo

No, not a euphemism, but a rather neat retelling of the climactic destruction of the Death Star in Star Wars using nowt but hands. Okay, so the blackout costumes could be a bit better (or they could have spent some time in post), but them's minor quibbles. This = neat.

Big Brother accused of racism

It's probably wrong to take so much vicarious pleasure out of this, but it is fun to watch the wheels start to come off the Endemol BB juggernaut.

Ofcom has had 2000+ complaints from viewers alledging racist treatment by housemates towards Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty. C4 says it's just 'girlie rivalry' but you can smell the escalating stench of worry from here. Either way, they're probably going to have to ride herd on the production a bit closer and make sure that they don't have another incident where presenter (McCall) refers to housemate (Jackiey) as an 'awesome' housemate right after the latter had just contempuously called Shetty 'that Indian' live on air.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Ofcom probes Big Brother 'racism'

Update: complaints now stand at 4500 and questions in parliament!