If you've got eight minutes to set aside, consider this video of Alan Rickman, from a series of videos "Portraits in Dramatic Time", produced for the 2011 Lincoln Center Festival, by David Michalek. (There are plenty of copies of this on YouTube, sometimes adding an amusingly dramatic soundtrack - the version I first saw used a loop from Inception. The original is entirely silent) It does indeed move slowly, in every sense - but it's surprisingly engaging, and effective as a character study, and the effect of such a marked time dilation has upon what would ordinarily be very routine, unremarkable acts. (Well, mostly..)

Speaking of time dilation, the WaPo recently posted a story on deep sea bacteria: "Call it survival of the slowest: Extraordinarily old, bizarrely low-key bacteria have been found in sediments 100 feet below the sea floor of the Pacific Ocean, far removed from sunlight, fresh nutrients and what humans would consider anything interesting to do. Some of these organisms, scientists say, could be at least 1,000 years old. Or maybe millions of years." Consider that for a moment - these particular examples, not the species, could themselves be millions of years old, so vastly slower is their metabolism.

The Leap is an input device, roughly analogous to a Kinect for hands, but designed with precision in mind - they claim accuracy down to 0.01mm. The demo video shows some surprisingly tidy writing, and drawing within a 1x1cm area on the screen, along with game control, and OS X style swipes and similar gestures. The big difference, it would seem, between this and a touchscreen for desktops is that your hand(s) don't need to be touching the screen, but can be in a more comfortable, natural location - stop snickering at the back, there - so you're not faced with the usual problem of reaching up to a display getting quite wearing after short periods of use.

From the London Review of Books, Gareth Pierce - a defense lawyer in extradition matters - writes on the Framing of al-Meghrahi.

There really needs to be a shirt produced of this design. The artist notes they do intend to. (What other furry shirts can you recommend? There aren't that many, especially once the more cheesecake/beefcake designs are discounted. Bonus points for lapinity =:)


The Home Office has a survey regarding marriage equality, which UK peeps may wish to complete - it's fairly concise, and shouldn't take more than around five minutes to complete, unless you have plenty to say. =:) The consultation document linked from there outlines the proposals tidily and eminently clearly. The consultation period closes on June 14 2012, so be sure to respond by then.

Very much for the electronics geek - a very detailed look inside two iPhone chargers: a cheap, anonymous unit, and Apple's rather less cheap device. It's interested for its examination of the different ways in which one can go about designing a circuit that has essentially the same function, but with different levels of quality of the output smoothness, and the safety margins involved.

Does Grillstock not sound rather enjoyable? =:9 "Music, Meat & Mayhem return to Bristol this Summer! Grillstock is back and it is bigger, louder and meatier than ever! Soak up the smokin’ atmosphere, tantalise your tastebuds with the best in BBQ cooking, and tune your ears to some of the coolest live music around. Great flavours, great bands and great characters in this fantastic festival for all the family." Saturday headliner: Alabama 3.

Well, that's one way for visitors to remember this place.. as I was passing by, someone asked out generally if anyone lived here. I noted I did, but didn't recognise the place they were enquiring of, and was about to reach into the bag for the wonderslab, when I heard a loud *squirt*, and saw the two guys suddenly adorned with brown splashes, victims of the eternal gull-human battle. They couldn't help but break out laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation. ^_^; (Mercifully, I was almost entirely untouched..)

I'm not hugely into sports, as you know, but you can also feel the pride radiating off the runners chosen as torch-bearers. I'm happy for them. ^_^

Here's an open source laser cutter: Lasersaur. Well, it's almost open - they're still needing 8% of their funding. I thought a couple folks hereabouts might be interested. ^_^

Eurovision is almost upon us! I've deliberately avoided listening to any of the entries, to maintain the surprise factor, with the exception of Englebert Humperdinck's entry for the UK, as I was curious how the old crooner would stand up now - and indeed, it's actually not a bad tune. Not one I'd exactly rock out to, but not of the "please, let it be over soon" grade we've sometimes seen. I do hope at least one of the Nordic entries turns out to be enjoyably cute and shiny, though. ^_^ I'll be heading down to one of the familial abodes for the weekend, but I'll remain connected, courtesy of the MiFi. Most likely I'll head down there on Saturday lunchtime, back here sometime on Monday, maybe Tuesday, if it turns out to be peaceful enough to get work done there.

Admit it! Will you be watching? ^_^

Also, I thought I'd make quick mention of a particularly interesting security match-up: Bruce Schneier, who many of you will be familiar with, is playing host to the former TSA head, Kip Hawley, on FireDogLake's Book Salon today (Antipodeans notwithstanding =:) at 2200-0000 BST, 1400-1600 PDT. Details here. It ought to be quite a worthwhile exchange.

And, per flayrah, Blacksad creator Juanjo Guardino is at the Big Wow ComicFest this weekend, in San Jose, for his first US appearance.

Some rather interesting samurai helmets, including a few bunny-inspired designs, and one with a lobster motif. (Caution: the article's perfectly safe, but the ads surrounding it aren't necessarily so)

Do you work in an open-plan office, and find the noise level irritating? You're not alone:

When Autodesk, a software company, moved into a an open-plan building in Waltham, Mass., three years ago, it installed what is known as a pink-noise system: a soft whooshing emitted over loudspeakers that sounds like a ventilation system but is specially formulated to match the frequencies of human voices.

Autodesk ran the system for three months without telling the employees — and then, to gauge its impact, turned it off one day.

“We were surprised at how many complaints we got,” said Charles Rechtsteiner, Autodesk’s facilities manager. “People weren’t sure what was different, but they knew something was wrong. They were being distracted by conversations 60 feet away. When the system’s on, speech becomes unintelligible at a distance of about 20 feet.”

The original rationale for the open-plan office, aside from saving space and money, was to foster communication among workers, the better to coax them to collaborate and innovate. But it turned out that too much communication sometimes had the opposite effect: a loss of privacy, plus the urgent desire to throttle one’s neighbor.

I'm very happy to note that "my" bun is back. ^_^ As indeed is her suitor, judging by his behavior as I approached - unfortunately, rabbit courtship tends to be a rather.. well.. damp affair, and not overly enjoyed, as far as I can tell, given the usual reaction is to try cleaning themselves as quickly as possible. She wasn't too keen on letting me close, and was mostly content to carry out her rock impersonation, but still - it's very good to know she's well. ^_^



(And now to catch up on the past few days of LJ! I've fallen behind, I'm afraid)

patch_bunny pointed out to me that the Mystery Fandom Theater 3000 productions are up on archive.org now! The first one is Little Red Riding Hood.

whitetail noticed one of the more stunning furry-themed latex costumes I've seen: Evil Bambi, realised by Oliver Spiers at Obsidian Design, London; photography by Jen Hell.

Welcome to Life is a 2m45 short, starting with you being notified of your death, and subsequent activation as an uploaded consciousness. It's more than a little cynically realistic, however..

B&H are running a little photography competition: submit your best Springtime photo (although, the rules only specify "your best spring photograph", so upholstery fetishists might consider entering as well), and they'll select ten shortlisters, which will then be open for a public vote. Prizes on offer are $500, $150, and $100 gift cards. Closes at the end of the month; specifies US only, but, you know. =:)

Or, for a compo with a rather more unique angle, Crucial's offering dinner with Woz. Worldwide entries appear to be fine.

Some examples of Lytro photography, permitting refocusing on different points of the image.

In other photographic niftiness, Autodesk's got 123D Catch out, for iPad 2 & 3 only (for the fairly good reason of the first rev lacking any cameras) - take a series of photos, and it'll convert them to a 3D file. The magic's performed server-side, but still, quite cool.

Last week, the Perian developers posted an open letter stating that it will be retired in the not so distant future. (For anyone outside of Macland, it's a QuickTime plugin that bundles up a variety of helpful functions, like Matroska container support, SSA/SRT subtitles, Vorbis, and more) It's not immediate, but does clearly state: "Starting 90 days after the final Perian release, we will no longer provide support. We'll wrap up our loose ends, pack up our bags, and move on to new and exciting projects." It'll remain FOSS, though, so the torch may wind up simply being passed on to a fresh crew of developers.

wruf spotted this gorgeous new stamp collection from the Royal Mail, on fashion - quite strikingly done, cleanly removing the faces, leaving the clothes and poise as the focus.

By contrast, the work of Alex Box..

For anyone who remembers Neonbunny's "A Bunny Named Starfox" mix, you might enjoy seeing the genuine music video for one of the tracks involved, La Bionda "I Want To Be Your Lover", from 1980. Not quite Heavy Metal, but not so very far off. ^_^

This is actually good. ^_^ Meco - Star Trek Medley - full-throttle disco.

Spectral Instruments make highly sensitive cameras - typical applications are in orbital astronomy, at the National Ignition Facility at LLNL, and cellular microbiology. They'd quite like to make a unit that could be used like a normal camera, if there's sufficient interest to warrant making it - it'd still be a one-off, but the idea is that they'd make it available to skilled photographers, to see what they could accomplish with it. Here's Zeke to explain.

Here's a handy tutorial on modding a Kani into a pony. Maybe it's just me, but I found the way the Kani head happily carried on occasionally blinking, when isolated from its body, a bit disturbing. ^_^;;

True, it's just a company promo - but it's (a) amusing, (b) quite definitely furry. =:D Pure Storage: You Know You Want Flash, Right? (And they've got a drawing to win some SSDs)

The iTunes Festival app just received its 2012 update, with the first of the acts that'll be filling the Roundhouse throughout September (rather than July, as in previous years). Only four confirmed at the moment, so there's no hurry to apply for (free) tickets. ^_^

It's Dig Dug's 30th anniversary - and Namco's commissioning a slew of webcomic folks to chime in. =:D

Last Saturday's amblings got truncated somewhat, thanks to (surprise!) not setting off until the middle of the afternoon. Still, I did have a good ramble around the intended starting point of the voyage back, modulo two points where the right of way had been interrupted, once by a gate being chained up, another by an electric fence strung midway across. =:P Still, really, that hardly detracted desperately from the day, with the sun sparkling in the stream waters, and the deer enthusiastically blowing me off. I spotted one deer, quite by chance, in the adjacent field - we exchanged glances, and they bounded off melodramatically, as is the cervine wont. Of course, I only had the short lens on the D90, not expecting such a sight.. now, you could excuse that the first time, and perhaps the second.. but it wasn't until after the third time I resolved to accept the hassles of navigating styles with a hefty camera in hand. And there he was.. too far away for good shots, unfortunately, but so it goes.

Sunday, meanwhile, was characterised by the Dead End sign. *sigh* I knew where I wanted to reach, as part of the day's route, but it wasn't to be - or at least, easily. ^_^; The first path down to the river valley turned out to become something of a rocky stream, and these boots are on the worn and porous side. (Even if new, that ruggedness would've required serious hiking soles) So, I took the slightly more circuitous route to the road I was aiming for, which was easy going, and included a look at mad scientist's farm, with results of stretching innocent sheep's necks to crazy proportions. Still, they seemed happy enough. Wandered along, and hit a dead end, courtesy of a You Shall Not Pass landowner. How nice. Backtracked, up and along toward the same spot.. and yep, same thing. Thankfully, cutting through a nearby woods onto a surprisingly busy little road finally yielded exhausting success, up a trail with remnants of a rocky pathway, ideal for suicidal bikers. A little further, and I reached the scene of a 1653 battle, now the very scene of quiet pastoral life. By that point, I'd opted to aim for dinner at another of the few pubs my preferred local belongs to, with an 8pm deadline in mind, after which my wishes for food would be denied.

I arrived, ordered a pint of their seasonal special, and proceeded to enjoy the tantalising menu, before checking the bus schedules again - whereupon I came to the Horrible Truth that the 10pm bus I'd been aiming for only ran on holidays, not every Sunday. Thankfully, I was in good time to catch what was apparently the final bus back into town. I suppose I could've walked back, but it'd been 4.5 hours already, and I wasn't much in the mood for another two hours, especially with nowhere to eat to look forward to by that point.

Perhaps I ought to post some of the shots along the way? Here's one, in any case.


Compare: new, unskippable anti-copying ads for US DVDs & BDs, each on screen for ten seconds; and a skippable spot produced for UK discs.

A pizza of note: begin with a Sainsbury's roquito "Taste the Difference" pizza. Add a good sprinkling of smoked hot paprika, herbes de provence, and rosemary; then, a chopped artichoke heart, and some capers. Cook mostly through, before adding raw tiger prawns, then return to the oven for completion. One of the best pizzas I've enjoyed at home in quite a while. ^_^

"Iron Sky" is a film I hadn't actually heard of (or have forgotten =:) before today, but I wish I had! Go on, tell me this doesn't sound like fun: "In the last moments of World War II, a secret Nazi space program evaded destruction by fleeing to the Dark Side of the Moon. During 70 years of utter secrecy, the Nazis construct a gigantic space fortress with a massive armada of flying saucers. When American astronaut James Washington puts down his Lunar Lander a bit too close to the secret Nazi base, the Moon Führer decides the glorious moment of retaking the Earth has arrived sooner than expected. Washington claims the mission is just a publicity stunt for the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul), but what else could the man be but a scout for the imminent attack by Earth forces? The Fourth Reich must act!" And did I mention the soundtrack is provided by Laibach?

Unfortunately, for reasons known only unto themselves, the UK distributor - Revolver Entertainment - is planning a cinematic release of.. one day, May 23. The director is understandably somewhat miffed, and is requesting people ask Revolver to reconsider.

Some researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have a survey on virtual world usage they'd like people to add to, amounting to around 10-15 mins.

Here's a video loganberrybunny might want to peek at, and indeed, anyone else who agrees that Fluttershy is Best Pony. ^_^ Flutterwonder, set to a remix by PinkiePieSwear, with the whole feeling like something Pogo (né Faggotron) might come up with - an upbeat, ambient track, with no real lyrics, so much as a sensation. And in a similarly abstract vein, the particularly catchy Fluttershy's Lament. (Thanks to ducktapeddonkey)

This short, a second year animation student project, needs to be seen as an example of just how engaging you can make your characters, in barely three minutes, and with no dialogue to boot: Crayon Dragon. Just beautiful.

And then, we have Ratatoing, not so lovingly made by a Brazilian outfit with a fondness for finding inspiration in Pixar productions. Enjoy the trailer - or, if you're strong enough, there's a genuinely funny version of the film itself, plastered with MST3K-worthy annotations, to help ease the pain.

Sadly, just a design concept.. but wouldn't it be magnificent if these could actually appear somewhere? =:D (Thanks to whitetail!)


An experimental (as in, it's costing them money, but they're not yet charging for it - as the FAQ notes, they want to find out if it'll prove popular and useful) search tool for UK train fare splits: Tickety Split Lite. Give it a route, and it'll try to find combinations of tickets for sections of the route that wind up being cheaper than just one ticket. "Why is it cheaper? Simply because train fares and logic go together like Coco Pops and ketchup."

You may have seen a recent story doing the rounds, implying that dinosaurs may have, effectively, farted themselves to extinction. However, that's not really what the report says, not so surprisingly. The paper does, though, estimate that a medium-sized sauropod may have given off some 2700 liters of gas per day.

I doubt it'll be enough to make me pick up a 3DS, but I was pleased to see there's work progressing on Animal Crossing: Jump Out. Sounds like it'll be very much a continuation of it all, with little additions like being able to become mayor of the village, and finally being able to swim. Some of the additions are shown in this series of stills.

It's not all that often that lawyers are entertaining, but Regretsy's offering up a truly memorable example. Recently, there was, shall we say, a modicum of disagreement over the "hand made" nature of some furniture being offered by someone Etsy promoted as a Featured Seller; an amusing little saga in itself. The disgruntlement has lingered, leading to one of the parties involved sending a rather awkward Cease & Desist notice (scroll down a bit, if you only want to read the C&D) to someone who started a forum thread. It's an oddly rambling letter, but claims to be from someone who is indeed listed by the State Bar of California. So! The fun part? Popehat, a genuine lawyer with a record of blogger pro bono work, sent off a reply. The contrast is.. delicious.

Speaking of which, Thursday's experiment turned out rather well: some cubed stewing steak, gently fried to start off with, then joined by half a tin of borlotti beans, half a tin of baked beans, and two sliced mushrooms. To create the real flavors and sauce, I added a good bit of oyster sauce, plus a dash of black bean, and a teaspoon of sesame paste. Also some black pepper and herbes de provence, a few quartered tinned artichoke hearts, and a good dash of balsamic vinegar. While all that was gently melding together, I sliced two potatoes reasonably thinly, gave them a quick rub with olive oil, a little salt, and into the toaster oven to crispen up. Finally, all of it on top of the potato slices. Tasty! And nutritious.


On Tuesday, the weather wasn't too bad, so I headed up the line one stop west, with a view to probably looping around and catching the train back a few hours later, hopefully with a good shot or two in the bag - ideally buns, but I'll happily capture any wildlife. It began well, if a bit soggily, with some of the meadow sneakily submerged at the roots - but that was forgotten soon enough, when I came upon a bunch of swallows, performing their usual amazing acrobatics. I wasn't really close enough, but, there were some reasonable outcomes, all the same, including the one above. ^_^ Even got to see some variety of owl, whom I really ought to identify, and a curiously ancient looking barn, styled like an old abbey - probably just a folly, but an enchanting sight regardless. Then onto a cycling path, once a train line, now properly surfaced and away from any traffic - a good walking route, though being somewhat elevated for part of the route, not so much use for wildlife.

Or so I thought.. until, as the day drew close to its end, and I reached a more forest-like section, and spotted a bun crossing the path. No sign of them when I got there, but it seemed like a hopeful sign - and indeed, a short way on, I saw three by the side, gradually edging up the path, and seeming not to mind my presence. I gradually crept closer, with them about as close as I've been to wild rabbits. The light was rather muted by that point, being less than an hour from sunset on a cloudy end to a day, shoving the camera into high ISO territory and longer exposures than I'd have preferred (around ISO 5000 for this, at 1/400th, 300mm f/4) - but some results I'm very happy with, not to mention simply having been able to be that close to them. ^_^

Only catch was, it wasn't really worth heading back to the station by then, leaving me with about another five miles to walk back into town.. my paws were definitely unhappy with me, but I didn't care. =:D

I might have seen "my" bun again! It's difficult to be certain, though, as they departed fairly soon after I arrived, though not before I'd set the bag down and swapped the lenses over, thankfully. From their left, the eye seems much more pronounced than I'd seen before; on the other paw, from the right side, there does seem to be a shallow ear notch of similar length and position. I do hope it turns out to be her. ^_^ (And conversely, the ears don't seem to match the male that dropped by a couple times, as shown here)

Here's an interesting tweak to a search engine - Million Short. "The thinking was the same popular sites (we're not saying popular equals irrelevant) show up again and again, Million Short makes it easy to discover sites that just don't make it to the top of the search engine results for whatver reason (poor SEO, new site, small marketing budget, competitive keyword(s) etc). Most people don't look beyond page 1 when doing a search and now they don't have to." You get to select, in a pulldown, whether you want to remove the top million (the default) sites, or decreasing powers of ten, ie 100k, 10k, 1000, or 100. And indeed, it actually works - you'll find relevant sites, but not the usual ones you'd normally see elsewhere.

There's a Fetish Art Show in SL coming soon. ^_^ Deadline for applications is today (May 5), exhibits ready by the 10th, opening on the 13th.

Culled several more folks from the flist, pruning peeps who haven't surfaced on LJ in a while. Thankfully, my friends page here remains active enough I still have to check at least daily, if I don't want to wind up being forced to skim through. ^_^ Even though those folk have left LJ, I do nonetheless feel uncomfortable, and rather sad, unchecking that box. It goes without saying, of course, that I'll happily add anyone back if they do start twitching again.

By Plomomedia on Flickr; background here

Direct from Brad Bird: "Got lowdown on RAT 3D(Dland Paris): $ limitations made theater build not viable. 3D version of RATATOUILLE done and waiting. Ride in works."

I'm rather liking the sound of this Kickstarter project, aimed at funding a film: Granny's Dancing on the Table. It'll be Creative Commons licensed, BY-NC-SA - fittingly, given the creator of the project's previous endeavor was distributed via The Pirate Bay, and indeed, where this link came from, on their front page. ^_^ (FWIW, I was originally seeking an HD version of Cats Don't Dance, given Warner's all but buried it, but it doesn't seem there's even been any HD broadcast thereof, let alone a proper HD release. Such a pity, as it's one of the 90s' most creative animated features)

LJ's offering Planned Parenthood vgifts during May, in $1, $5, and $10 versions, with all the money going toward PP.

One of the former Doctor Who executive producers, Piers Wenger, is to be the new head of drama for Channel 4. Augurs well for a channel that once had quite an avant garde reputation, before settling into a middle age dominated by "reality" shows - will they manage to head back toward their origins?

Does anybody know what I'm talking about? (Specifically, I mean) A couple years ago, I stumbled on a few Japanese flash games, sort of like micro-Sims worlds - you were given a starting point, and various objects you could affect in some way, like starting a fire to get a boiler going, or encouraging wind to arrive, to set a windmill turning, all toward achieving some end goal, like launching a rocket. The key was that everything had to be done in a particular sequence, else you'd wind up seeing some part of the puzzle not happen, or mistime. Is there a particular genre you'd tag such a game with? I'd like to find another one or two, but searching for them is predictably awkward.

Rather a pleasant piece of classical/modern piano-based instrumental music, via schnee, based on one of the pieces in the recent finale: Princess Mi Amore Cadenza & Shining Armour (YouTube, just audio), or you can find a higher quality mp3 download over on MediaFire.

Or, for something much crunchier, Not that Kind of Party by General Mumble is easily worth a download. Again, there's a high quality MP3 link available, if the style appeals.

And! wruf kindly noted Studio Killers have a new video out: Eros & Apollo. Again, a similarly immersive track with lovely, rich bass, and a video that combines retrogaming graphics sensibilities with current CG. Sadly, the voop and mink are only marginally present, although seeing the former's head spin around to a blinking "LOADING MUSIC" reminded me of ice_foxx. =:)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Rat:

What is a memory? Science writer Jonah Lehrer tells us is it’s a physical thing in the brain… not some ephemeral flash. It’s a concrete thing made of matter. And NYU neuroscientist Joe LeDoux, who studies fear memories in rats, tells us how with a one shock, one tone, and one drug injection, you can bust up this piece of matter, and prevent a rat from ever making a memory. LeDoux’s research goes sci-fi, when he and his colleague Karim Nader start trying to erase memories. And Nader applies this research to humans suffering from PTSD.

I'm becoming concerned for the well-being of a particular local rabbit, as featured here and here. Rabbits tend to keep to their locality, although they will sometimes journey further if necessary, so not having seen her in about a fortnight leaves me worried. It could very well be I put her off that spot, though, as the final time was one where I gradually edged closer over the course of several minutes, eventually prompting her to scamper off up the trailway. *sigh* Still, I've also seen buns in one of the slightly further away fields, including a few youngsters - the catch there being is it's a well-known path, used by humans and dogs, with no fences to keep the buns safe. A place I'll be returning to, all the same, though the weather's slipped back to February lately. Still, that did leave me able to catch some quite special light a week ago:


I can also note that my email is once again flowing properly. ^_^ I was finally able to order Dandelion's replacement HD, and restored that with a pleasing lack of drama on Friday, from the final Time Machine backup. That accomplished, Mail was magically happy once more, and perfectly willing to accept the copy of ~/Library/Mail I offered it, saving me the fun of potentially having to reimport everything, including unearthing passwords not seen since the Cambrian.

Finally got around to seeing Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (the trailer is here, but I'd actually suggest not viewing it, as it spells things out a mite heavily) with a little diversion from the usual trailers and advertising - the curtains drew to a close momentarily, then reopened, to a rather obviously locally generated display, presenting a simple text message, partially animated: "Is there a [name] in the audience?" "If so, [name] would like to know.." ".. if you'll marry him?" A moment later, a "yes!" was heard, to great applause. ^_^ The film? Yes, definitely worth seeing. Hardly a perfect production, but with such feeling, and a healthy dash of political savvy (not quite The Day Today, but maybe not so far off Absolute Power =:), it has a joyful sense of optimism and perseverance. The basic premise is of a request received by a ministry minion regarding a proposal to bring, yes, salmon fishing to the Yemeni highlands. A crazy notion, obviously, and one which our protagonist dismisses - except, it becomes a favored cause of the Prime Minister's office, seeking a positive news story out of the Middle East.. and so, it begins. Ultimately, it's something of a romantic comedy, of quite a British kind. Yes - give it a try. ^_^

If you'd prefer some additional anonymity on the web whilst on your iThing, some kind soul has just released Onion Browser: a minimal browser that uses the Tor network. You can download the source, or pick it up on the App Store for a princely 99¢.

In all seriousness, this discourse on the thrilling, life-affirming nature of the manifold genres of fringe porn is quite superb reading. The essence lies in the formerly passive nature of our lives and media - by and large, people were consumers, taking in what was broadcast. By contrast, now, the net's spun all that around, with people at large themselves creating a vast array of works, visual and written.

And as fate would have it, a moment later, ibneko mentions …But the Kitchen Sink, a MLP fanfic in which Rainbow Dash falls for.. yes, a kitchen sink. =:D

You see? It was rigged!

Congratulations to huskyteer for winning Writers' Village's Spring 2012 contest, with a genuinely top-notch vignette, The Philospher & the Weasel. Even if you're pressed for time, it's worth a read. ^_^ It begins:

Socrates was sitting cross-legged in his cell when the weasel bellied in through a gap at the base of the wall.

It was a beautiful little beast, with soft, russet fur fading to cream on its belly, and bright black eyes. Its slender tail was tufted at the end, and it travelled with a liquid, looping motion. To Socrates, it seemed such a perfect creation that it might have been the original Form or Idea of a weasel on which all other weasels were modelled. The philosopher sat still as a marble statue, watching his visitor sniff and scurry its way to the crust of bread in his clay bowl.

“Kaire, Big Beard!” said the weasel. “Mind if I take this?”

There's some quite perfect design work in this series of posters designed by the Lowe Agency, for the Colsubsidio Book Exchange, on the theme of "come with one story, leave with another".


I've got to make note of this MLP fan animation, of noteworthy quality, wherein Octavia is interviewed on life with a DJ roomie. The animation quality isn't much below what you'd see in the show, with commensurately convincing voice acting - and it's funny. Also in animation, there's a 2m26 short by Dana Terrace, completed in some eight weeks. It's a simple little story of a bullied bunny, who gains a seemingly unlikely ally, in Kickball.

Folks interested in Second Life aviation might want to note this event on a suite of German sims, on Sunday, May 6 2012, from 3am-3pm Pacific/11am-11pm BST.

I'm not one for celebrity, but, This Is Not Porn is rather interesting, all the same - celebrity photos, but of a much more genuine, casual kind than you'll usually see, like Peter Mayhew and Kenny Baker off set, the former in half of Chewie; or Iggy Pop grinning while reading a copy of Nursing Times on a bus. (Thanks to ducktapeddonkey)

Storage fiends! Is 1TB really still the largest 2.5" drive around (12.5mm or thinner)? Seems a little odd that I purchased Dandelion's current 1TB back around June 2010, and yet there's apparently nothing larger now, almost two years on, other than a couple chunkier drives intended for PS3/X360 use, whilst 3.5" drives have swollen up to 3-4TB. Still, at least it looks like the replacement will be 9.5mm rather than 12.5mm, so it'll have a bit more leeway inside the case.

I've only just learned about quite an intriguing SF book collaboration: The Long Earth, coming on June 21 2012, by Stephen Baxter and Terry Pratchett. It's a tale of parallel worlds, with the description reminding me somewhat of the original Adventures of Luther Arkwright. (Now, tell me that wouldn't be something amazing to see on the big screen.. though, by the time Hollywood got through with it, they'd probably have it re-imagined into a Sylvester Stallone vehicle =:)


As you may have read, Dana Simpson, of Ozy & Millie fame, has a new strip out, syndicated by Go Comics: Heavenly Nostrils, beginning with accidentally hitting a unicorn with a rock being skimmed across a lake. Needless to say, that's been added to my daily comics roster straight away.

Want to sponsor a fursuiter in Race for Life Stockport 2012, on May 27? Now you can. ^_^ Proceeds go to Cancer Research UK.

A webcomic I noticed (advertised on OGLAF!): Wizard School. It owes a lot to Harry Potter, but takes the thinking down a different road - what if the Marked One were, in actuality, a plant delivered to them by the bad guy? In this case, the most vainglorious "winner" they could find.

In an amusing footnote to the incredible situation of an Indian sceptic being charged with blasphemy for explaining a "weeping cross" (capillary action) being promoted as a miracle by the local Catholic church, one commenter noted, "There's a story that geologist William Buckland once visited a cathedral in which a substance claimed to be the blood of saints kept appearing on the stone floor. Buckland examined the liquid and promptly identified it as bat urine."

The Surface Tension Lamp is rather a neat bit of design - its "envelope" is a bubble. If it bursts, a new one forms, and the show continues; the light comes from an LED source, so it remains unaffected throughout.

So, let's see if ( this image enhancement software's as good as they claim )

Finally! Madhouse has released the (well, second, I suppose) trailer for The Wolf Children Ame & Yuki, about a student who meets a werewolf, and winds up starting a family. Be cautioned, there are quite high levels of cuteness and lupine fuzziness involved. It's untranslated (though that'll change soon enough =:), but it really doesn't matter. (And to remind those who've seen them - this is from the director of Summer Wars, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time; so it has a chance of being quite good)

Unmitigated design brilliance: tyrannosaurus radiator. And on that note, if you don't happen to follow Wondermark, you'll not have noticed mention of Dapper Dinos, a weblog dedicated to postings thereof.

Following NASA's withdrawal in February, it seems likely that Roscosmos and ESA will commit to joint missions to Mars, due for 2016 and 2018.



Fancy a sofa with synth style? It can be yours, although you'll need a bit of spare change for it.

What happens if you sync the Cookie Monster to Tom Waits? Have a look. Works.. remarkably well. ^_^

A teaser for Pac-Man: the Movie, if it were to become a live action movie.

Want a (fake) grizzly bear coat? 'Course you do. Here's your chance to back its manufacture, via Kickstarter. And, hey, it's a San Francisco project - which is naturally a complete shock.

If you find yourself on a cellular connection sometimes, and needing shell access, MOSH (MObile SHell) from MIT might be worth looking at. Entirely free, and, well.. in the FAQ: "Q: Why do you have sophisticated colorimetery in your terminal emulator!? A: It seemed like the right thing at the time…"

A little article on strange cameras, including one with plexiglas lenses ground with ash and toothpaste, and another with a heart, literally.

The coming episode of The Simpsons will feature a couch gag animated by Bill Plympton! I might actually watch an episode again for the first time in.. probably about four years, and about as long before that. (Futurama, on the other paw, I eagerly await every new episode)

I should perhaps note the passing of Jack Tramiel, another prominent figure in the rise of home computing, as anyone who's had acquaintance with Commodore or Atari's wares will know.

For Bay peeps: Brad Bird will be at the Walt Disney Family Museum in the Presidio, discussing "The Disney Treatment: Walt's Versions of Classic Stories", at 3pm on May 19th.

I'd forgotten I'd commissioned Ende for a pic a while ago, before I gave up on FurAffinity. Quite randomly, I stumbled upon the outcome the other day. ^_^ (And there's a second image too, over here!)

The Tinies of Raglan Shire has met its Kickstarter goal, with over $10k pledged, against an original target of $8,500. ^_^

Trailer for the day is Safety Not Guaranteed, which leads from a classifed ad, reading "WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. You'll get paid after we get back. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before." - this is picked up by a local newspaper reporter and his two interns. And the trailer got the nod from Brad Bird. ^_^

You might consider sending a few currency units toward eliki's aunt, as sponsorship for a fun run she'll be taking part in in July, to help raise money for Cancer Research. The target's only £100, but it'd be rather neat to see that exceeded. (And if you're a UK taxpayer, remember to tick the Gift Aid box, so Cancer Research can reclaim the income tax paid, boosting the amount donated with no extra work involved)

It seems the BBC is quietly planning a separate downloads store, Project Barcelona "(no, none of us can remember why it's called that)". Still at a very early stage, though - the intent is to make it the case that it's the norm for anything broadcast to then be available for purchase.

loganberrybunny may be in a position to offer an informed opinion on this article on the high cost of rail travel in the UK, versus European neighbors. It's more than the average puff piece declaring that fares are high, though, asserting that the industry itself is less efficient than elsewhere, with a battery of charts to make their case.

If you live in the EU or Croatia, the EU has a survey for GLBT folks, taking around 15-20 minutes - all completely anonymous, with no use of cookies.


Meanwhile, one researcher at Salem State University is running a survey on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, exploring the breadth of the fandom, and others who enjoy the show. It'll take around 5-15 minutes, depending on how brief or expansive you are in your responses.

An amusing little wheeze by the Mayor of London: "A report by the Mayor's office recommends the use of a sticky salt spray along busy streets to reduce the amount of dust in the air, especially during the Olympic Games. The biodegradable saline solution is sprayed by trucks usually used for salting the roads in winter. It acts like a glue attracting particles of dirt to stick to the ground rather than make dust. Already so-called “dust suppressants” are being used in 15 sites around London, including on Upper Thames Street, Marylebone and in Neasden Lane.
However, Simon Birkett, Director of Clean Air London, has pointed out that all of the sites are close [to] official air quality monitoring stations to measure the level of pollution in London."

Here's a pair of bunny yawn shots (not yet on Flickr), deliberately cropped to show pretty much exactly the same area in both. Try flipping between the two. =:D





Pony music video for the day: Sweet Apple Acres, set to an original composition, of a relatively classic rock nature, leaning heavily into the more bluesy side.

Rick Santorum: "My foreign policy philosophy is based upon my belief that America is an exceptional country - a land of freedom, prosperity & equality."

m1sp: "My friendship policy is based upon my belief that I am an exceptional person"

I should perhaps note that I'll probably be a bit thin on the ground on LJ over the next few days, as the former housemate's in town for a visit. There may be one or two excellent pints of beer and cider involved along the way, given the preponderance of excellent pubs, and all within a beautifully walkable city center. (Not to mention a variety of museums, miles of gorgeous Georgian architecture, and some fabulous Gothic churches)

Finally, here's a happy tale of one fursuiter who suddenly finds himself with a lost child.

An interesting approach to translation for speakers of lesser-used languages, inspired by Blade Runner's "Cityspeak" mélange of English, Japanese, Spanish, and German. It effectively fakes the task by freely permitting substitutions from related languages - it's unlikely to be perfect, but it's very likely to be intelligible. "For example, imagine that Spanish is a minority language, and a native speaker wants to read the English sentence 'Another label with the same name already exists'. Machine translations between English and Italian, French and Portuguese are fairly accurate and Spanish shares many characteristics with those languages. By choosing the appropriate words from each language, it is possible to automatically construct the sentence "Un'altra étiquette con mesmo nome existe déjà", which is not Spanish but should be reasonably comprehensible to a Spanish speaker."

Rather a nifty new male contraceptive, which promises to be easy to "install" via injection, cheap, and lasts for up to ten years, though easily reversed with another injection.

Though, on the medical front, rather more dramatic news from MIT (again, some time off actual availability - a decade or so) in the form of DRACO, Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer, which detects any long double-stranded RNA at one end, while the other end triggers cell apoptosis. Result? It kills viruses. All viruses. More info from the MIT News Office.

Even horses can now enjoy lycra. I can't help but feel the blue one needs a cutie mark, though. =:)

Someday, I'd like to have a particular pair of boots in SL brought into RL. ^_^ Might anyone have any recommendations for where to look for someone with such skills? They'd have to be tweaked a little to be feasible in RL, but the shapes and curves ought to be entirely attainable.

Yays! I hit Flickr Explore twice recently - first, and amazingly popularly, with I Can Fly, as in a recent entry, and again with this sunset shot of a tree reluctant to enter Spring.


A fun bit from Cracked: five computer hackings from films, seemingly implausible, yet accomplished more impressively in RL. eg Leverage's car theft via phone - seems a bit far-fetched, one might think, except.. "Researchers at iSEC Partners demonstrated how, with a few quick text messages sent to a Subaru Outback, they could unlock the car, start it up and add it as a friend on Facebook." Their five ways to game a courtroom are subtly intriguing, too - nothing revelatory, just playing to human psychology and stereotypes, such as wearing glasses reduces your chance of conviction for violent crime, and raises it for white-collar crime.

What might it be like to come into the world as a new robot? A tech demo from Sony - sadly not, they note, part of any title under development - explores the theme in Quantic Dream: Kara. It starts off quite simply..

Firstly, thank you, everyone. It's been an indescribable time, and it has helped, knowing and seeing your support. The funeral was last Friday, and it went.. well, about as well as such a time can. His influence doesn't end with his life, however - I continue, as does my brother, and the rest of the family, descendants and siblings alike. Mixed into all that's been the news that a friend's son, who's been seriously ill for a few months, may well also depart in the next few days. His tragedy is the greater - Dad had led a long and well-explored life; but what the hell kind of age is 13 to go?

It was, thankfully, a beautiful day - bright blue skies, faint wisps of cloud. I shan't go into the service here, but the eulogy my brother prepared was superb, genuinely evoking who he was, from his early working life, through his peak, and into his retirement, in the locale he'd long called home. Afterward, we reconvened at a nearby pub, whose glass-roofed function room provided a fine venue to talk more openly about the loss we'd felt, and in many cases, to reconnect old bonds, family and friends alike. Amidst such sorrow, there was much happiness also. Not such a bad way for the day to end.

If you could use a moment of beauty, take a minute to read this letter from Helen Keller, in reply to Dr John Finley asking what she really saw from a visit to the top of the newly-opened Empire State Building.

I'll admit, last weekend's MLP:FiM resonated with me - true, it's impractical to convey the complexities of such feelings in half an hour, let alone in such a context, but they did well nonetheless. (Now, if we can only see a comparative episode that's purely intellectual, rather than physical.. !)

For anyone interested in the old children's TV show, "Animal Kwackers", I can offer a modicum of hope - contrary to popular belief that all episodes but one were lost, I've had it personally confirmed by the BFI that they hold about 40 episodes. Copyright apparently now rests with the umbrella ITV group, though I've heard murmurings that a lack of rights clearance prevents it from seeing commercial release; I'll be asking after authoritative word on that. Copies for personal use are available, albeit at the kind of price one might expect of bespoke work.

A cute game idea - rather than just tapping in accordance to rhythmic elements, Rock Photographer challenges you to capture noteworthy moments in a number of performances, with the camera angle adjustable with a good degree of freedom, as you seek the perfect shot. (Sadly, I won't be able to try it out, as it's specifically only for the iPhone 4 and 4S - nothing earlier, nor any iPad =:P)

I hadn't realised Build-A-Bear offer E.B., of Hop fame - and looks actually nicely done! I think I may have to give him a home. ^_^

There's hope for folks living with tinnitus, in a new treatment that simply involves wearing headphones giving a personally tuned signal for a few hours a day, disrupting the rhythmic firing patterns of the auditory receptors involved in giving rise to the phenomenon. At present, it's a private-only treatment costing £4500, but with initial results offering a 75% response rate, NHS availability would seem highly likely.

Trailer for the day has to be Prometheus, a newly released one, not from a couple months back. There's also a little fake ad, Our Family is Growing - not necessary for the trailer, but it mightn't hurt to watch it first.

Some of youse guys follow computing components developments closely - has there really been no advance in 2.5" HD capacity in the last two years? Seems 1TB remains the upper limit, despite my 1TB Toshiba being almost that old now. I'm keeping an eye on the bad sector count, though, as I've noticed a few random system-wide stalls lately, lasting several seconds, which is what I found when the original drive went south. It does have a few thousand remapped sectors now, new in the past year, but I wasn't monitoring the state of the drive in the meantime, so I don't know if that's a recent thing, or a gradual development. In any event, it doesn't seem to be an immediately ongoing degradation, as the past few days haven't shown any change in its SMART stats (courtesy of smartmontools), so it doesn't seem to be an ABANDON DRIVE situation. I see Seagate has a 1.5TB available, but it's around 14mm tall, so not much use in most laptops. Is there really nothing better?

Despite its proximity to the Sun, and consequent searing temperatures across much of its surface, there are hints emerging that Mercury may have water ice at its poles, in craters that are permanently in shadow.

TED's just launched TED-Ed, "pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos".


An interesting set of observations from James Whittaker, formerly of Google, on the way the company has changed in its relentless pursuit of Facebook.

Google could still put ads in front of more people than Facebook, but Facebook knows so much more about those people. Advertisers and publishers cherish this kind of personal information, so much so that they are willing to put the Facebook brand before their own. Exhibit A: www.facebook.com/nike, a company with the power and clout of Nike putting their own brand after Facebook's? No company has ever done that for Google and Google took it personally.

Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong. Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+. It was an ominous name invoking the feeling that Google alone wasn't enough. Search had to be social. Android had to be social. You Tube, once joyous in their independence, had to be … well, you get the point. Even worse was that innovation had to be social. Ideas that failed to put Google+ at the center of the universe were a distraction.

Officially, Google declared that “sharing is broken on the web” and nothing but the full force of our collective minds around Google+ could fix it. You have to admire a company willing to sacrifice sacred cows and rally its talent behind a threat to its business. Had Google been right, the effort would have been heroic and clearly many of us wanted to be part of that outcome. I bought into it. I worked on Google+ as a development director and shipped a bunch of code. But the world never changed; sharing never changed. It’s arguable that we made Facebook better, but all I had to show for it was higher review scores.

As it turned out, sharing was not broken. Sharing was working fine and dandy, Google just wasn’t part of it. People were sharing all around us and seemed quite happy. A user exodus from Facebook never materialized. I couldn’t even get my own teenage daughter to look at Google+ twice, “social isn’t a product,” she told me after I gave her a demo, “social is people and the people are on Facebook.” Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn’t invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation. The fact that no one came to Google’s party became the elephant in the room.

Village Voice reports of the surreal, yet hardly unique, case of NYPD office Adrian Schoolcraft. "In October 2009, Schoolcraft met with NYPD investigators for three hours and detailed more than a dozen cases of crime reports being manipulated in the district. Three weeks after that meeting - which was supposed to have been kept secret from Schoolcraft's superiors - his precinct commander and a deputy chief ordered Schoolcraft to be dragged from his apartment and forced into the Jamaica Hospital psychiatric ward for six days." A report in his forcible detainment was completed two years ago, but the NYPD's since fought to keep it under wraps. "Investigators went beyond Schoolcraft's specific claims and found many other instances in the 81st Precinct where crime reports were missing, had been misclassified, altered, rejected, or not even entered into the computer system that tracks crime reports."

Or, if you'd prefer something lighter to consider, how about a brief video clip of Darth Vader in a kilt, playing the Star Wars theme on bagpipes, riding a unicycle?

Completely NSFW, but Lurid Digs is hilarious. They take photos from gay introduction sites and porn, and critique the often spectacularly awkward interior decoration. Smartly written, judiciously edited, and with some superbly incisive commenter wit, this is definitely somewhere to check out. ^_^

Fascinating chance discovery: a cheap antibiotic, minocycline, appears to be dramatically effective against psychosis.

Officially, only the iPad 2 and 3 can run iPhoto - but, if you fetch Apple's free iPhone Configuration Utility (OS X and Windows versions available), you can indeed install it on an original iPad, and it does appear to work quite satisfactorily. ^_^ Rather a nice app, too, both in terms of functionality and UI. A particularly adorable furry Kickstarter: The Tinies of Raglan Shire, which has actually met its original goal of $8,500 - but more probably wouldn't be badly received! It's an ad for Mercedes-Benz, but really rather cute - to promote their zero emissions "F-Cell" car, as "invisible to the environment", they took one of them, and plastered one side with LEDs, treating that as a display, fed by an image from the other side of the car. It's not perfectly transparent, of course, but quite nifty all the same. ^_^ Someone asked What do all the controls in an airplane cockpit do?. So, using a particular 737 as an example, the question was answered. =:D ice_foxx's latest edition of This Electric Music is out: download episode 5 here, or let it get slurped into iTunes automagically over here. Cracked took a wry look at five Cold War myths - nothing revelatory, but succintly executed. Here, have an introduction to molecular biology, courtesy of the NIH. ^_^ Interesting little utility from Adobe Labs, for web designers looking to ensure their sites perform well on mobile devices as well as desktops: Shadow. It's a simple concept - essentially, it lets your mobile devices (iOS and Android) browse synchronously, under control of the desktop client, so you're literally seeing the same page on multiple devices at the same time, without needing to manually browse on each one. Quite a promising waste water treatment system, seemingly ready for initial deployment - rather than requiring energy to process the water, typically around 1.2kWh/kg, this turns the waste into an energy source, producing 0.94kWh/kg. It's the stuff of urban legends, but verifiable in this case, where a teen driver was rattling off text messages to friends, while driving at 80mph along I-84. Her last message? "I can't discuss this now. Driving and facebooking is not safe! Haha." A tragedy in any event, but even moreso for the loss of an otherwise star student.

If you're looking to develop an iOS and/or Android game, Unity3D's kindly offering Unity Mobile Basic for free, until April 8th - not a trial, but the real deal. Just go along to their store, pick Unity Basic, and add the iOS and Android versions for nothing extra, and go throught the checkout procedure. You'll need to register for an account, but that's a painless matter of email address and password, and a billing address.

Today in the Death of Print: Encyclopedia Britannica ends its print editions. "It’s a rite of passage in this new era," Jorge Cauz, the president of Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., a Chicago-based company, said in an interview. "Some people will feel sad about it and nostalgic about it. But we have a better tool now. The Web site is continuously updated, it's much more expansive and it has multimedia." And yet, as far as I'm aware, it's still only available in highly abridged editions for mobile devices, when the entire work would likely be on the scale of only 2GB or so; similarly Grzimek's excellent Animal Life Encyclopedia, some 17 volumes in print, and not even 1GB in digital form. And then there's the new iPad, which I finally got to see in person on Wednesday - yes, the display is as good as they've said. Text is beautifully crisp, as if on perfect paper, and images are at least as good as in the hands of a good professional printer. I shan't be getting one for a while, however - the little fragments of surplus are likely to be soaked up by photography and travel. Still, who knows? As and when I get off my tail and open the store, maybe there'll even be some sales to help recoup the costs so far. ^_^; (Not huge, admittedly, especially against the hair-raising costs of, say, the Nikkor 600mm f/4..) There's quite an amazing story behind a particularly distinctive - and huge - insect that was considered extinct, until its rediscovery on a nearby.. well, technically an island, but more of a tall crag, making for a known worldwide population of 24 at that point. Finally, have a couple particularly good pony remixes: Alex S. - Party With Pinkie, a growling dance anthem (track only), and Art of the Dress (Trance Dance/Sim Gretina Remix), with a simple loop video. =:D

We - my mother and I - wound up heading down on Thursday, taking a few hours on the train. It was, thankfully, mostly a bright day, helping both our moods, as we had no idea just what condition Dad might be in - would he even be conscious?

Eventually, we got to his ward, and were shown into his room. I'm very pleased I did choose to bring along the camera, as I managed to take a few reasonable shots of both of them together, with smiles. His sister and her son later joined us, and more conversation ensued, before we eventually took our leave.

I'd been guardedly optimistic, as he did seem to be much improved on but a day or two previously - it seemed possible to look forward to being able to celebrate his return back home.

I tried to just get back into work, but the brain wasn't really going along with that plan, so I headed up to the former housemate's abode for company, as we've known each other for quite a while, and I thought Sunday's Douglas Adams' Virtual 60th Birthday Party might help. And indeed, it was a fairly amazing time, with science, comedy, and some incredible music (Procol Harum meets Pink Floyd, and more.. get musicians of that caliber together, recreating what DNA said would be his dream band, and indeed, he played host to such musical gatherings himself), on as perfect a day as one could wish for.

But, the call came, about an hour ago, letting me know that he's gone - seemingly suddenly, but peacefully. It seems difficult to believe, but.. I'll always have so many fond memories, and be grateful for an upbringing that let me always strive for what I wanted to accomplish, never judgmental, if sometimes bemused.

I've just heard from one of my stepsisters that Dad's in very poor condition, in the hospital near him. Time for rapid travel plans.

Of all publications, it's perhaps a little curious that it's the Radio Times noting a rumor that Benedict Cumberbatch may be the next Master, in the Doctor's 50th anniversary next year. (The poll at the foot of the story is, not terribly surprisingly, positive on the notion, with 85% saying he should) The outcome of surviving a lightning strike - a Lichtenberg scar. Quite beautiful, despite its origin. A lengthy, meandering, and sometimes perspicacious discourse on the nature of formal education, and its place in life: Stop Stealing Dreams. Could be worth a visit, if you're in London in July: the Barbican will be hosting a James Bond exhibition: Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style, which 'promises to showcase five decades of gadgets, sets, costumes and cars, along with the blueprints, drawings and models that went into creating them. "It's the unseen Bond," said the show's curator, fashion historian Bronwyn Cosgrave. "We're showing the complete scope of design of a Bond film, which has never been done before." Cosgrave has worked on the show for the past two years with Bond producers Eon, with "unprecedented access" to the Bond archive in north London. Designed by architect Ab Rogers, the "immersive" show will take up the Barbican's entire ground floor and a lower level theatre, with exhibits from Dr No, to this year's forthcoming Skyfall.' I wonder if the MLP:FiM producers could be tempted into putting on a concert of the many wonderful musical numbers they've included in the show.. it'd be quite challenging, I imagine, but what an event that would be - imagine a venue filled with Winter Wrap-Up and The Smile Song. =:D If you do any DVD encoding still, or indeed, other video transcoding, you might like to kno Handbrake 0.9.6 was released the other day. Nothing massive, but various nice refinements, as well as the usual updating of the encoder libraries themselves. Free, open source, with downloads for OS X, Ubuntu, Fedora, and Windows.

It's only open to UK residents, unfortunately, but with that caveat, I noticed the Guardian's running a drawing for a rather spiffy five-night trip to Tokyo, for two people, with Virgin. Thankfully, the entry form seems well designed, with the "send me information about.." boxes all needing to be actively ticked by you, rather than supplied that way. Entries need to be in by March 15th.

Behind the Sofa comes out in September 2012, but if you want to pre-order, there are various incentive levels available. It's a 200 page tome, compiling many celebrities' childhood memories of Doctor Who, including the likes of Charlie Brooker, Bill Oddie, Chris Tarrant, Johnathan Ross, Paul Hartnoll, and Rick Wakeman. All profits go to Alzheimers Research UK. The hardcover will set you back £15, or PDF for £5, with packages at £20, £40, £200, and £1000 - the last (one available) nets you your memory included in the book. ^_^ And yes, Michael Grade's in there.. =:D I'm now a three-lens bunny. ^_^ Nothing exotic, but while perusing one used equipment dealer's selection on the bus in one day, I spotted a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 for peanuts. It's only an AF (rather than AF-S) lens, so focus is driven not by a motor in the lens, as is the norm now, but by a motor in the camera body, via a screw drive. That said, focus point changing seems quite rapid nonetheless, and the resolution seems quite acceptable, if soft when fully open. The main purpose for acquiring another lens was for situations like capturing the nephews, where painstakingly finding manual focus correct really doesn't work. =:) Slightly unusually, the design means the lens grows longer as you head toward 80mm, but also as you head down from around 40mm. Another search engine to add to the toolbox: Stealth. Their tagline? "No tracking, no targeted ads, no saved searches, no recorded IP addresses, no cookies." Seems quite elegantly implemented, too.

Now, if I'd *known* the last Republican "debate" was going to include a musical number.. (many thanks to schneelocke!)

If you'd like a chance to win a unique signed Moog, and support the Moog Foundation's educational work, have a peek over here, before the end of Thursday. Contributions of $25 or more qualify for entry into the drawing for the synth, signed by the likes of Brian Eno and Moby, and quite a few more.


The EFF has some advice on removing your Google history before the company's new "privacy" policy goes into effect.

It's rather disappointing, of course, that things didn't pan out quite the way they'd hoped, but this Kodak corporate short from 2006 is rather fun. Frankly, I'd love to've seen short form versions of this as their public advertising - so much advertising winds up being so damnably sterile.

A friend in SoCal's wondering: "Might Anyone know of someone/somewhere in the Los Angeles Basin who has 2 74# 33' Railroad rails they're willing to part with?" - a long shot, but if you know anyone that might be able to help, I'd be delighted to refer you to the fur in question. ^_^

Brenda Chapman recently shared some illustrations from the children's book project she's had quietly simmering away for many years. Look, and understand the wonder of illustration. ^_^ (Hey, tania! Still reading this?)

Want to be part of a four month long simulated Mars mission, taking place on Hawaii? Applications close on Feb 29. You'll need to have a degree in engineering, science, or mathematics, have three years of professional experience in your field, and be in a condition to pass a flight physical examination, amongst other qualifications. The Royal Institution now has its video collection available on Vimeo as well as YouTube. If you sometimes find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, and unable to get back to sleep for a couple hours - that may, in fact, be what we're more attuned to naturally.

You might like to waste a minute on the Pew Research Center's News IQ Quiz. Only thirteen questions long, all multiple choice, with four options each. At the end, it'll show your results, broken down by question, with the option of seeing how the public fared in their actual survey (the questions are taken from a larger set used in the actual survey; these net results don't affect their findings - just for fun), broken down by age, gender, and education level.

As you've probably heard, a US District judge has ruled against section 3 of DOMA. One highlight I found particularly worth highlighting, on the justifications used in the legislation, from page 40. (BLAG being Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, a standing body of the House of Representatives, comprised of the Speaker, the maj/min leaders, and the maj/min whips) Amongst the many positive effects DOMA's eventual downfall will have, of course, will be to permit international same-sex couples to choose which of their home countries to jointly call home, rather than at the moment, the US-based partner either has to leave, or be prepared for a contentious legal battle with the USCIS, on the basis that foreign same-sex marriages cannot be legally recognised by them, whilst het marriages form the basis of a comparatively (I should perhaps emphasise that word =:) straightforward legal process.

BLAG also contends that Congress should remain cautious, especially in an area of so much social divisiveness, by holding the purported federal definition of marriage steady while waiting to see how the states tinker with new definitions. The Court finds the contention similar to arguments that were advanced in support of antimiscegenation laws. Proponents similarly argued that the long-standing tradition of the separation of the races provided justification for prohibiting interracial marriage. The lower court in Loving found that God had created the races and placed them on separate continents in order that there “would be no cause for such [interracial] marriages.”

Congress cannot, like an ostrich, merely bury its head in the sand and wait for danger to pass, especially at the risk of permitting continued constitutional injury upon legally married couples. The fact that the issue is socially divisive does nothing to relieve the judiciary of its obligation to examine the constitutionality of the discriminating classifications in the law.

Trump card deck.. based on CPUs. =:D And the proceeds go toward the National Computing Museum, at Bletchley Park.

Of some minor geek interest: an overview of a dozen lesser-known OSs, including household names like OpenGEM, Inferno, Viopsys, and MenuetOS. Some are offshoots building on a DOS background, or other defunct OSs, whilst others are entirely original fresh creations.

The emoticon mask. ^_^

Yet another fun experiment from Brew Dog: Mr Squirrel lager, infused with miso, conditioned with walnuts, and aged over apples in Bourbon barrels. =:9 Only a limited edition, sadly, so it's anybody's guess whether you'll actually be able to lay your paws on some.


Even if you're not a linguist, you ought to consider checking out this link: Why Arabic is Terrific. Okay, it's in a very geeky way, but it goes into a dozen ways of just how curiously interesting a language it is. eg:

Nearly all Arabic words consist of a three-consonant root slotted into a pattern of vowels and helper consonants. The root gives the word its base meaning, while the pattern modifies this meaning in a systematic and predictable way. This idea is so cool that you'd think it came from a constructed language, and yet Arabic has actual native speakers who live completely normal lives and will not try to talk to you about Runescape.

Arabic has a number of very unusual agreement rules. My absolute favorite is that all non-human plurals are grammatically feminine singular: al-kutub hadra' (الكتب حضراء) 'The books, she is green'

And then there is this beast: ع a consonant pronounced so far back in the throat that you must wait two hours after eating to safely attempt it. Naturally it's one of the most common sounds in the language.

Are these not quite wonderful examples of transportation? ^_^

More good cinematic news for the City: the disused New Mission Theater may be returning to life in its original role, as an Alamo Drafthouse, the Austin-based chain of cinemas with an unorthodox line in PSAs. Like the old (and forthcoming rebirth) Parkway in Oakland, there'll be food and good beer to go along with the projected offerings.

In a thrilling home development, I finally have a dial tone. =:D And to think, it only took them almost six weeks to accomplish that. *cough* Needless to say, the DSL order went in - not with said telco - about two hours later. The ISP's site notes around a week for typical turnaround, though it can sometimes be less. Erf.. it'll be such a welcome change to be able to slurp down the bytes again, without having every gigabyte costing money, as well as (hopefully) having connectivity that simply never goes down, versus the situation I've had, where some days are fine, and others see the connection stall every few minutes. Still, it beats having no connection at all. ^_^

The New Yorker takes a look at the steadily rising number of people incarcerated in the US: The Caging of America, by Adam Gopnik.

The ISP Entanet comments on ACTA, DEA, and other judicial joys in the UK.

A quote I've only just encountered, which I can wholeheartedly side with, from Kofi Annan: "The Lord created the universe in seven days but the Lord had the wonderful advantage of being able to work alone". Appropriately, seen while working from home, having achieved more in the first hour after waking up than all of yesterday. ^_^

So, Hzyenthlay's gone to the elder nephew. ^_^ Ah, I recall how enthusiastically I unboxed that wonderslab, on the way back from Los Altos to the City (no, I wasn't driving =:).. such a lovely high-resolution diplay, and so big - 1680x1050, 17". It's "only" a 1.67GHz G4, with the maximum 2GB RAM, but still a perfectly good system, despite being over six years old. (And the keyboard replacement went flawlessly! It'd had the top three keys dead since some water damage a few years ago, but the only impact for me was needing to use ctrl-H instead of Delete; but that wouldn't do in this new context. So, a cheap eBay purchase and iFixIt download later, and I was all set. Mostly fine, but ye gods, the adhesive connecting the trackpad and keyboard ribbons is a pain to separate gently. But, I had to try)

Hereon, this entry will be exclusively movie-oriented. Not really anything I'd planned, but, there've been a couple good flicks lately, and some especially fun ones coming. It'll probably be a very busy few weeks ahead, but I'll be around nonetheless. ^_^

Now, this is a film I definitely want to see: Beyond the Black Rainbow. It's listed as being produced in 2010, but it's only now seeing some form of release - by "now", I can only go by Apple's trailers page for it saying "coming soon". =:P Thus far, it seems to've only been shown at film festivals, and there doesn't seem to be any sign of it on iTunes or Amazon. One of the IMDb comments suggests the trailer does indeed convey what sort of trip you'll be in for, and certainly, not for everyone:

OK so for convenience, I'll just break it down to the kind of people who will like this movie, vs. those who won't. You pick your category and then you will know if you should see it. Because 1 out of 20 people will love this, and the rest will think it is the worst movie ever.

You will love it if: 1: You felt 2001 could have been even slower paced and still be awesome 2: You love really thinky sci-fi even if it doesn't involve people shooting aliens 3: You are crazy in love with 80's hair styles and weird synth music (this movie takes place in 1983, and takes that responsibility VERY seriously) 4: You loved Agent Smith's delivery of lines in The Matrix, and would have liked it if he talked even more slowly and threateningly 5: You think the only good sci-fi is 70's Russian sci-fi

You will hate this movie if: 1: You enjoy having more than one person deliver lines over the course of two hours (basically one speaking part in this movie, though the actor does a good job) 2: You don't like when movies are very, very pretentious 3: You like your movies to generally make an effort to make sense (at one point I swear the main guy gets a phone call from Speak-n-Spell) 4: You don't like when movies spend a considerable amount of their running time trying to injure the viewer's senses 5: You like a really good ending (if you look over the reviews, whether people loved or hated this movie everyone agrees the ending was weak)

All things considered, I really liked this movie, and so did the people I saw it with. But that's a bunch of film geeks. If you're a weird film geek too, I recommend it.

.. or ..

I saw this film at the AFI film festival. Before the film started the director said "I hope you're as messed up in the head as I was when I made this film." He was very right. The film is not for everybody, nor should it be. It is long, confusing, and I loved every minute of it. It is a film you have to buy into to enjoy, but once you're in you're in for a trip. A brilliant piece of science fiction, and contains one of the scariest scenes I have seen in a long time. The cinematography was also brilliant and some phenomenal lighting. This movie is not for those with a short attention span, but anybody who can sit through 2001, Enter the Void, or Stalker should love this film.

Two other trailers that make me wish I could see the film already:

The Fairy, a Tati-style comedy, and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, about a group of British pensioners lured to a retirement home in India.. and the cast measures up, including Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Maggie Smith.

Films seen lately:

- The Muppets. I'd been vaguely interested for a while, and then the family came up for a visit, so that was the obvious choice. Very well worth it. ^_^ Surprisingly smartly written, with some out-loud musical numbers, and a good old fashioned carpet-chewing bad guy.

- The Woman in Black. Ah, yes.. famous names may come and go, and all too often, their re-emergence is little more than a familiar name or logo. In this case, seeing "Hammer" at the start really does seem to usher in a return for the old name in British horror. For better and for worse, I'll admit - it felt often somewhat unrelenting, with little chance to savor normality again, before knowing that their world was again being thrown around. Still, there's hardly any shortage of atmosphere (or tropes =:), and the ending was particularly good.

- Chronicle. I felt matters escalated somewhat more quickly than felt plausible within that context, but nonetheless, despite the opening setting up some fairly unlovable characters, we began to feel some hope for their potential, and with it, sympathy for their future, and themselves.

At the risk of seeming to be a showbiz reporter in this entry, I was intrigued to see a Doctor Who comic crossover planned - with ST:TNG, wherein the Cybermen and the Borg forge an alliance, compelling the Doctor and Picard to join forces. We can only hope the writers manage to pull it off. ^_^

These furry shirts are just too much fun.. I'm going to have to get one. ^_^ They're also available with wolf, cat, and fox designs, though the design concept does seem ideally suited for us lapines.

Disconnect is a free, open-source plugin (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) to block and display the various well-known websites that track your progress around the web, then proceed to sell your data - Facebook's the worst offender, but they're by no means alone.

We've all seen the tiresome relaunches of "classic" computing brands, particularly Commodore, where the only connection to their roots is a logo. In this instance, however, it's sort of the other way around - no familiar brand, but a slew of classic game developers, from Atari's glory days, including the creators of Battlezone, Missile Command, Asteroids, and more, corraled together by the co-creator of the Xbox. (Oddly, the company name, at least for now, is dreadfully forgettable: "Innovative Leisure") A somewhat worrisome note, potentially, is the prominence of THQ in the plans, given that studio's considerable troubles, and current retrenchment.

Another new face on LJ, whom you may want to follow: pawnytail.


So, I set off for the office on Saturday afternoon, with the snow lightly falling - seemed like the perfect opportunity to snag some bandwidth (given I still remain on the MiFi dongle, until the telco's systems finally admit to the world that my line is indeed alive, so ISPs can offer a veritable plethora of options. Think I'll be going with Xilo's "pro" offering - no metering, with the tradeoff of not being quite as fast as it could be, but with noteworthy service, judging by the reviews, and indeed, my own minimal experience in asking a few questions of them. Where so many ISPs will respond with a generic letter to any enquiry, after a day or two, they seem to make a point of replying intelligently, with their response interleaved with your original message, within minutes. Or, in Friday night's case, nearly an hour - which, at 8pm on a Friday, is not exactly bad going), and some snowy landscapes. Of course, I got off a bit too late for the landscapes to really be at their best, but a few mildly enjoyable scenes were caught nonetheless. Once the day's ponies were securely on the drive, I headed back to the central bus stop, and waited.. realising that snow hereabouts is about as potent as drizzle in LA. I checked one of the bus companies' numbers on the iPad, gave them a call, and had it confirmed: no service now. =:P

Hey ho. It's not a huge walk into town, and downhill's easier, even with a bit of snow (gradually becoming slushy toward the bottom). The reason became evident at the end, when I saw the police car blocking the way up. =:/ Still, given I'd seen one car do a perfect doughnut just on the level, let alone with any slope involved, I suppose the extreme caution might not have been misplaced. (Apparently, you can't do 90 degree turns on the snow quite as readily as without. Who knew?)

The Mollisan Town quartet sounds like a set of books worth a look, even if arguably flawed in their universe's logic. Still, there aren't too many other hard-boiled detective yarns set in a world inhabited entirely by plushies. They're written by Swedish author Tim Davys, published in English by HarperCollins, available in Kindle and hardback editions, with some rather well-designed cover artwork to boot.

On the iOS gaming front, two that seem noteworthy: Ghost Trick, which'll be familiar to DS folk - the first two chapters are free, with the rest available in one (quite cheap) bundle, or three slightly higher priced packages; and New Orbit, a sort of Asteroids/physics puzzler set in a horror storyline.

And from a couple days ago, with somewhat better light, here's a local grey sqrl, about to enthusiastically launch into a nutritious nugget. ^_^