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I was slighly horrified to read Nick Davies (a journalist I normally have a lot of respect for, and consider his book Dark Heart to be mandatory reading) article in the Graudiad yesterday, which contained the elemetary error that just because a six month operation had failed to successfully prosecute anyone for sex trafficking in the UK, the problem wasn't that bad. Here is an excellent rebuttal to that piece, also from the Grauniad (which itself contains a link to Mr Davies original piece at the top, which is why I haven't linked it here.)
Links For Monday 19th October 2009
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Wish I'd been at this talk. Still, filed for later reference.
Links For Thursday 15th October 2009
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I shall work on this. I'm pretty relaxed, but I'm not as observant as I could perhaps be. Still, it's nice to know that "Be Lucky!" can be taken as an instruction, rather than just generic good wishes…
RPG filter?
So, I spend quite a lot of my spare time running, playing, or thinking about running or playing RPGs, and I do have a fair amount to say on the subject, and have been thinking about trying to set some of it down for a while now, and prompted by mindwanders, I thought I might see about getting on with it in the near future.
I am aware, however, that quite a number of my friends don’t have much interest in that kind of thing, so I thought I’d set up a filter for it, so as not to accidentally bore anyone rigid.
So: who wants in?
Links For Wednesday 14th October 2009
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Absolutely superb hexagonal tiled map of London boroughs.
Golden Hour
The best camera is, of course, the one that’s with you. After last night’s awesome twilight in Tooting, when I had my ever-present compact on me, well, I only went and left the sodding thing on my desk, didn’t I? So when the sunset tonight at Wandsworth Bridge had me leaping off the bus and haring back across the bridge to take photos it was with the only camera I still had on me – the one in my phone. So it’s not pin sharp and it’s not hi res. It is, however, bloody lovely
Links For Tuesday 13th October 2009
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Once every seven yeats, Sagmeister closes his studio completely for one year. Here, he gives a talk at TED on what he gets from that year, and it's a fascinating and compelling idea. I wonder if I could arrange to take a sabbatical somehow – I've been at this for ten years, and I know my general level of enthusiasm for hacking about with the next is not what it was…
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"I can just about forgive the tendency of these programs to hit the reset switch at the end of every episode, returning the universe to pristine un-played-with shape in time for the next dramatic interlude; even though it's the opposite of real SF (a disruptive literature that focusses intently on revolutionary change), I recognize the limits of the TV series as a medium."
Mr Stross hits the nail on the head of why I don't get on with televised SF – I'm less willing to forgive the reset switch for exactly that reason.
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Ever wondered what your oystercard really looks like? The Ghost In The Field shows us the hidden signals underneath fabric of our cities – the invisible maps of data and super-frequency chattering that increasingly underpin our daily lives. What is your data ghost like?
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"Make something great. Tell people about it. Do it again." This is not just a rule for getting web traffic, it is the single simplest rule for a happy life.
Sunset
I have remarked in the past that Tooting gets some of the best Sunsets I have ever seen. I have no idea why this should be the case, but it is. Tonight’s was particularly impressive – this doesn’t really come close to doing it justice – when I got off the bus the whole street was bathed in reddish purple light, and was a wonder.
Up
I went to see Pixar’s new release, “Up” at the cinema on Friday night. II appreciate that my friends in other parts of the world will have seen it months ago, because Pixar are apparently the only studio left who like treating England like second class citizens when it comes to release dates, but there’s nothing I can do about that.
Like all right thinking people, I love Pixar movies. In fact, I strongly suspect that people who do not love Pixar movies may in fact be less than human, and I think we should perhaps organise some kind of cull. It’s certainly a yardstick worth considering when we finally decide to do something about this planet’s overpopulation problem, anyway.
I was a little tentative about Up in that the trailer gave away very very little about it – there’s a kid and a grumpy old man, in a house suspended from helium balloons. It didn’t have the immediate accessibility of something like Toy Story, The Incredibles, or even Ratatouille, which had high concepts that were clear from even the short trailer. I didn’t have a lot of idea what to expect, and well, while I don’t think there Pixar have yet made a bad movie, they have definitely made movies that are less good than their usual standard. (From any other studio, Cars would have been a perfectly OK movie. It just didn’t clear Pixar’s usual bar, that’s all.) I had, however, heard good things about Up from people I trust. So I went in with an open mind and some hopes.
I was utterly blown away. I do not mind admitting that they had me shedding a few tears within the first ten minutes of that film, a feat they then repeated at intervals throughout. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie with such a perfectly judged level of sentiment – it remains steadily touching throughout without ever tipping over into mawkishness. The film is an absolute masterclass in how to tug on heartstrings, and have the audience thank you for it. And yes, it’s still as funny as all the other Pixar movies. I really don’t know when I’ve seen the subjects of love and grief handled with such a lightness of touch.
Serious candidate for the best film I’ve seen this year. I’d love to see get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars, because if ever Pixar have produced a film that deserves to break out of the animation ghetto at the those awards, then this is it. Go and see it.
Links For Thursday 8th October 2009
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By the look of it, Royal de Luxe knocked it out of the park again. I really, really wish they'd come back to London. I mean, I know we got them a few yers ago, and everyone should get a turn too, but they really are a dose of pure magic, and I would love to seem them perform again.