digitaldust

Totally digital low budget film making. From half life to full screen.
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,53929,00.html
Giving quake based 3d animation tools to directors.

Yangfan 1.0. China’s plans to build open source Windows.
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992573
Reminds me of a sci-fi book which was based around the Chinese releasing lots of free software and destroying the US economy (I think it was by Bruce Sterling or JC Grimwood).

Self publishing works
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53996,00.html
90% of self published authors picked up by publishing houses.

I have only one question and that is why?

Seems like soon there may have to be a Surgeon’s General warning on your Big Mac.

The Surgeon General warns that eating fast food can make you fat.
The Surgeon General warns that eating fast food can harm your children
The Surgeon General warns that eating fast food may lead to chronic stupidity

Fat folks sue Big Fast Food. After taking down tobacco consumers find other targets. Who’s next? Starbucks for peddling highly addictive and life devasating coffee?

This story , one that warms the cockles of my heart and makes me glad to not live in the US, is repeated with incredulity across all major news sources.

BBC News version
Sky News version

Here’s a watery yarn I wrote in my writing workshop a couple of weeks back. The tutor said “Can’t comment on comedy, it either works or it doesn’t”.

Read Scylla & Charybdis

Australias’ largest and most successful brothel, The Daily Planet (!) floats today (or yesterday, depending on where you are) on the stock market. Its website had more than one million downloads on this first day. So what does this mean now for the worlds oldest profession?

… Nitin Sawhney and Asian Dub Foundation, at Regents park, this Sunday July 28th. Courtesy of Channel Four.

This friday at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Friday Late View 26 July from 6.30pm 10.00pm, Saturday 27 July 1.00pm- 5.00pm, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, SW7 The V&A’s Village Fete is the quirky design event of the year. The leading lights of the design world will be turning the V&A’s elegant Pirelli Garden on its head with their contemporary fete styled games. Visitors can play battleships in the V&A fountain, design their own fuzzy felt patterns or win amazing design prizes on the tombola. There will also be the chance to win an Audi A2. An international design star will judge the children’s ‘Dress as a Design Icon’ fancy dress competition. Entry to the V&A Village Fete is £1.00, 50p for concessions and free to children. Entry to the Museum is free

Astronomers have found a big asteroid on a collision course with Earth. I wonder if NASA are up for a funding review this week?

There’s plenty of these things out there and this one the astronmers admit may miss the Earth by tens of millions of miles (100 times the orbit of the moon). So maybe a lot less scary than the asteroid that passed inside the moons orbit a couple of weeks ago and wasn’t picked up till it passed. That wasnt a Mass Extinction class object but it could have seriously messed with an entire continents golf game and seriously stopped us from worrying about globabl warming for a few hundered years.

You may be experiencing the following effects because of electrically based mind control devices.

1. Static on telephone lines
2. Street lamps die as you pass under them
3. Your watch or other batteries run down too quickly
4. Limbs jerking spastically around when trying to sleep
5. Heartbeat too fast when at rest, a sense of not being able to relax
6. Coming awake suddenly at the same time, in the middle of the night
7. Sudden “drop-you-in-your-tracks” fatigue at times you should not be tired
8. A ringing in you ears that may start or stop when switching on or off electronic devices

Many of these mind control devices are hidden on orbital satellites and due to the proliferation of orbital devices they may have direct line of site to you at all times. Inside is no longer completely safe, do not stand too close to windows, as glass is just not proof against the beams. Foil lined hats are no longer full protection unless you have your entire head covered. Standing close to overhanging buildings or in skyscraper canyons are also not options. The sheer number of orbital devices is staggering and they are supplemented by roving ground based transmitters mounted in seemingly innocuous vans.

Beware

I just found out that you can get per insurance, for vet bills. What about life insurance?

Oh no fluffy just died again. What am I going to do? How will I survive after I’ve gone through 9 pets in the past 2 years. Not even the enormous insurance payout will console me this time. What can I possibly do with the million bucks that little Fluffy was worth?