I posted up something quite personal a few weeks ago. It was misguided. I tried to evoke how I feel about it now, perhaps a better tactic would have been to write about how I felt then. The trouble is that I think words fail to express such extremes of life. In fact, I’ve been reading blogs a lot recently to discover if anyone else can explore extremes.

There are a few blogs that seem quite capable at delighting in the minutiae in far more lyrical styles than I thought possible. But mostly it was prosaic and of a particularly self-obsessed clan. I felt like I had googled ‘mirror’ and encountered hundreds of hits that made me feel uneasy about what I had so naively entered into a few months ago. Blogs aren’t meant for individual stories. That’s what instant messaging, twitter and youtube comments seem to be for. Blogs work far better when acting as a lighthouse.

I enjoyed Derren Brown and his events shows recently and his blog seems well-pitched. Appropriate posts about whimsical topics, serious issues and fascinating research. You know when you visit his blog that it will be themed around psychology, magic and rationalism., it’s why you visit. Why visit and individuals blog when far more entertaining stories are told on television every hour of the day?

Entertainment is so precisely because it focuses on the entertaining aspects and jettisons the irrelevant and dull minutiae (second use of the word minutiae – I promise I knew this word before today). Current affairs, science, theology etc has a mass of information that needs to be dulled down for a lay audience to be able to enjoy without getting bogged down in the minutiae (and counting). That means that those entertained by the basics may end up being thrilled by the minutiae. The minutiae now made easily available by blogs up and down the internet.

On finishing this post I have convinced myself that I’ve engaged in a circular argument. The minutiae of current affairs is interesting – current affairs is diluted to be entertaining for the masses – the minutiae is then unpacked for those interested in blogs. Dramatic entertainment eliminates the minutiae because it’s dull – the masses enjoy the broadstrokes – intimate, personal blogs are just ego-driven pulsing member stroking.

That, I believe, is my first phallic imagery. Congratulations all round and a most appropriate end to a most rambling blog.

Peter Tatchell

Echoing something which has recently happened in the Italian LGBT media, Peter Tatchell has gone on record criticising broadcasters here in the UK for portraying homosexuality as exclusively camp. He’s mentioned such flamboyant characters as Graham Norton and Alan Carr to get his point across.

In a similar Italian case recently in the media, the director of an LGBT online media publication has openly criticised the producers of the Italian version of Big Brother for never having included a “next-door type” gay character in the programme’s 10-year history, his implication being that the flamboyant, openly gay character in the current series is too camp and should be considered a transgender.  Mr De Giorgi stated that “Maicol doesn’t represent us” and his letter was echoed by a number of groups that have popped up all over Facebook to the same tune. The very camp twentysomething-year-old has indeed once mentioned feeling like a woman in a man’s body but he’s never stated his intention to transition and has always defined himself as gay.

In the UK Tatchell declared: “I am not saying Graham Norton and Alan Carr should be taken off TV. I am just fed up with the way this camp, cliched stereotype is mostly the only one that gets broadcast”.

Alan Carr

He may have a point on this. Mainstream media have often loved portraying gay men as ubercamp funny characters as this seems to be the model that tends to please and entertain straight audiences the most. It is the model that doesn’t challenge the assumption that real men should be manly: “me Tarzan — you (better be) woman”. So if a gay man is camp, he’s not really a man, and proper manly men can continue acting the real man’s stereotype and have a civilised, modern good time enjoying a tolerant laugh at or with these other varieties of male humans: the homosexuals.

The fact that this way of thinking is behind our current gay comedy genre is, in my opinion, a given. Whether TV producers are entirely to blame for this is a different story altogether. Entertainers like Norton and Carr are hugely successful and, I would assume, not being forced to act camp. I for one thoroughly enjoy following both and would define Graham Norton as bitchy rather than camp but that’s beside the point. The issue here is that it is absurd to blame those who are camp for campness being comforting to heteronormative society. There is nothing inherently wrong with being camp or feminine and we should only ask ourselves the reason why non-camp gay men don’t appear more frequently on TV. Or do they?

Derren Brown

Well, I could never have told you this myself because I must admit I don’t know much about TV personalities but others have pointed out in online forums that the list of non-camp TV celebrities is indeed quite long. I won’t mention them all here because it seems rather silly to list names of people, simply because I’m being told that they are gay but I will mention the name of one I do know very well of: Derren Brown.

I’ve seen Derren on TV many times and I know he’s gay. Yet, when I heard what Tatchell said I didn’t think of him at all, in the same way Peter probably didn’t think of him when he said what he did, the illusionist’s sexuality being something that’s hardly relevant to what he’s known for.

So I must wonder: when Peter Tatchell zeroes in on camp characters judgmentally using them as demonstration of society’s lack of non-camp gay models but fails to mention the many non-camp celebrities whose non-obvious sexual orientation seems irrelevant, isn’t he actually himself demonstrating to us what the real problem is? Gay people are only taken as such when they act the gay out. The positive non-camp gay role models inhabiting our ideal world might actually already be here but regrettably, in an unfortunate catch-22 scenario, they’re just not acting camp enough for us to take any notice of them.

If you reside in good ol’ blighty you will now find a channel called Shows located under the search bar on YouTube. What does clicking on it get you? An archive full of programmes, all for free. Too many to mention, but ill give you a few headlines just for tags sake. Peep Show, Nathan Barley, Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, Mr Bean, QI and Derren Brown’s sublime special, The Heist is also worth a shout for those who missed it a few years ago

Naturally, it’s all ad-supported. To those who say pff – I simply pass on the words of Louis.

click here or here but not here.

Dré

A few weeks back I wrote about “Cave Dwellers & Teflon Christians.” As believers in Christ, we tend to gravitate towards extremes when it comes to culture’s influence on us: It’s either to blame for everything bad in our world, or it has no influence on me whatsoever.

If you think you’re immune to the influences that marketing (commercials, advertisements, and especially subliminal advertising), then watch this!  Derren Brown is a Brittish illusionist/mentalist who in this video sets up a marketing team to show them that they’re influenced by subliminal advertising just as much as their customers are.  Seriously, watch this!

Derrin Hosts a Magical 3D Show on Channel 4

Two shows down, and the verdict? I still love it. I have always been fascinated by 3D much in the same way as Brian May described it in The Queen Part 1. I too can’t understand why 3D hasn’t took off before as it adds this extra level of immersion that allows you to better perceive an event.

I do have some criticisms though. Having to take your glasses on and off so much through The Queen was both distracting and annoying. It takes a while for the eyes to adjust to fully allow the brain into being tricked. Taking them on and off like that didn’t allow you enough time and some of the close up stuff relies on the brain to be already fooled. As I’ve noticed with a lot of the older footage is that there always seems to be a considerable amount of ghosting, the blue layer in particular and this too can be distracting and degrades the viewing pleasure slightly.

Out of the different coloured 3D things I’ve watched I have noticed that blue and amber, the colour code used by Channel 4 is least distracting when watched without glasses. This is obviously intended so not to alienate those viewers who could not obtain a pair of 3D glasses, I do also feel however that blue and amber are not the best colours for a true experience, it is a good compromise for none glasses viewers but I think Channel 4 should have had a bit more guts and said “TO HELL WITH THOSE WHO DON’T HAVE GLASSES” and chose a better colour code. So far green & magenta is my prefered colour code, not so good for those without glasses but better colour reproduction and less distracting, unlike the blue filter on C4’s glasses.

Derren Brown I thought was a lot better visually, still some ghosting but not as bad as it was in The Queen. Did 3D add anything to this show? Not really. I’m already a huge fan of Derren but I think the show didn’t really use the full potential of 3D. The magic tricks were not made for 3D and I have seen some of them before so I know these tricks were not created especially for the show. Knowing that show was going to be screened in 3D I think at least one of the magicians could have come up with a trick that used the 3D in some way.

Overall a good start I think, plenty of activity on C4’s 3D Week page, a lot of disappointed viewers unable to get glasses having a moan. One unfortunate soul complains that “we turned the lights off and sat facing the screen as instructed….nothing. There were no 3D images at all, why is it not working??”….this was posted at 2016! They have obviously not noticed that the 3D goodness doesn’t start until 2100!

So onwards to the week ahead, I will post my thoughts after every show so keep me bookmarked!

He visto como 40 post de zombies aca y pensé darles un regalito adelantado de navidad.

DERREN-FLIPPING-BROWN es tata de mentalismo, miss direction, psicología y general badassery (gracias Peewee por enseñarmelo).

En fin, su tarjeta de presentación dice “Derren Brown, Professional Mindfucker”. El chato se la pasa haciendo terrorismo por todo london, jodiendole la vida a la gente (links abajo).

PERO en este caso hace la pregunta “y si metemos a alguien en un juego de zombies? MUAHAHA”…la risa malevola prosiguiente es asumción mia, mind you:

Some of my favorites:

Getting drunk without drinking

Quiero hacer esto en Oakland

Picking up some models (para Leiva)

Swapping People

…today the weather is absolutely HORRENDOUS! It is so so windy! Even @DerrenBrown thought so too earlier!

I was quite impressed he wrote to me on my twitter (I’m @judypink)

With this all in mind, lots more blogs to come this evening – albeit inbetween XFactor and the better half distracting me with C.O.D: ModernWarfare2!

Cx

3D is huge at the moment. Almost every animated movie in the cinema these days is watched with a pair of 3D glasses, with Pixar recently remastering Toy Storys 1 & 2 in the format. Over the last year, a crop of horror sequels and remakes have been given the 3D treatment, and next month it’s set to get even bigger with James Cameron’s space epic Avatar, the most eagerly anticipated film of the year. Next year, special 3D televisions will start to come on to the market, with Sky launching the Sky 3D channel through it’s Sky+ HD service.

These are the Channel Four 3D glasses available to pick up for free from Sainsbury's

Next week, Channel Four gets in on the act, with a week of 3D programmes which you can watch with a pair of glasses you can pick up for free from Sainsbury’s. Unlike Sky’s state-of-the-art system which uses Circular Polarized 3D (similar to the system used in the cinema), Channel Four is using the more basic anaglyphic ColorCodeViewer 3D, which uses blue and amber filters. While the effect isn’t as amazing as with polarised glasses, it’s still good and most importantly you don’t need to buy a brand new television set to use it. So, what treats do Channel Four have lined up for us over the week? Let’s have a look…

The Paul O’Grady Show

The week kicks off with a few 3D moments throughout Monday evening’s Paul O’Grady Show.

Monday 16 November, 5pm on Channel 4

The Queen in 3D

This promises to be quite astonishing. In 1953, a pair of young film makers named Bob Angell and Arthur Wooster made a 3D colour newsreel of the Queen, entitled “Royal Review”, taking in her journey to the Coronation at Westminster Abbey and various other events including the Queen watching the Derby at Epsom, hosting  a garden party and a taking a trip on the Royal Barge on the Thames. This two-part documentry will tell their story and show the incredible footage they made, as well as three other 3D films also commisioned by the BFI for the Festival of Britain, including “Sunshine Miners” which shows the rebuilding of post-war industrial Britain with vast machines turning farmland into coal mines, which should be quite a sight in 3D .

Derren Brown Presents the 3D Magic Spectacular

Derren’s recent “Events” series was a little hit and miss, but he has enough of a track record to prove he’s a great entertainer. Here, he hosts as some of the world’s top magicians join him on stage to perform dazzling trickery in 3D, along with some archive clips. Expect playing cards to fly in your face, and all sorts of other 3D gimmicks in what should be a spectacular show.

Flesh for Frankenstein

When we think of 3D, we often think of 1950’s horror B-movies, one of a number of gimmicks producers would use to get people into the cinema in the face of the increasing popularity of television. This, however was from a couple of decades later, directed by Paul Morrissey and produced by Andy Warhol (it was indeed marketed in the US as “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”). An offbeat take on the  Frankenstein story, the famous doctor is given fascistic overtones as he tries to build a super-race by making the perfect male and female from parts of corpses. With some quite graphic horror and plenty of naughty bits, this is definitely the weirdest offering of the week.

Friday the 13th Part III

A more mainstream horror movie, part of the early-eighties 3D renaissance that also gave us Jaws 3-D and Amityville 3-D, this was originally intended to be the closing part of a trilogy, attempting to end the Friday the 13th slasher franchise in 1982. Seriously. Nine films and a TV series later, we know the idea by now – Jason turns up in his trademark hockey mask and terrorises a group of teenagers camping in the woods.

The Greatest Ever 3D Moments

Channel Four loves a good countdown show, this one looking back at the ten (yes, just ten) greatest three-dimensional moments from cinema and television should be great fun. But does this also mean we’ll see Stuart Maconie and David Quantick in 3D, and if so, do we really want that? Really, do we?

Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert

Every theme week is going to have a weak link and here it is. The Jonas Brothers make an appearance for good measure. If this was shown on the previous Sunday to open the week, a think a lot of people would be tuning in just to see how it looks, but by the end of the week I think we’ll have had our fill of 3D. Exciting as it is, I don’t think I’ll bother with 3D Miley. But, something for everyone, right?

As well as these programmes, there will be 3D videos sent in by viewers shown during continuity junctions, and some more 3D pop performances and interviews during the weekend’s T4.

One of the many projects I have queued up to code one day is a psychic site. This isn’t going to be any weird paranormal thing, or a way of ripping people off, but a way of showing what’s possible. The idea is to create a site, where a user fills in a few details, then the site does a cold reading. However, rather than just using the information provided, the site’s able to use information the person didn’t know they were giving to make it appear to be doing the impossible. Useful tools to aid with this are linked below:

Gender Genie. This shows how the language a person uses gives some indication as to their gender.
Polite Software’s Web Spy. This is a security flaw I discovered a while back, which it seems many geeks have worked out for themselves, but is still not that well known. Since you can tell a visited link from an active link by taking advantage of the different CSS style, and reading this using javascript, you can tell which popular sites a person’s been to. You can then use this information to build up a profile of the person, based on the sites and their demographics (e.g. someone who visits facebook is likely to be under 30, whilst someone going to the bbc news site is likely to be over 20).
HTML 5 GEO. HTML 5 introduces an amazing feature; your standard web browser is able to tell your location without requiring GPS. This is done by using GPS where available, your wireless network card to detect signals from various mobile phone masts, then using the strength of each of these signals along with signal strength maps to triangulate your location, your IP address to find the location of your ISP and various other methods. More on how this works can be found here W3 Geo Spec. Getting hold of this info is slightly less covert, as browser security will prompt the user to allow their location to be sent, but this small snippet of information can tell you much more. Once you know someone’s location, you can assume it’s their home, business, or school, since these are the most likely places from which someone will be accessing the net. You can then use data about these places to work out who someone works for, or how much their income’s likely to be (based on where they can afford to live), giving an idea of that person’s status in society. For an idea of what info you can get from someone’s address, UK residents may like to try putting their postcode into this site: Home Check.
You can then wrap all this data in with a few cold reading general comments (there’s a great example in Derren Brown’s
Tricks of the Mind, of a few paragraphs which describe almost anyone between 20 and 40, but sound as if they’re aimed directly at the reader) to make the few bits of real data you’ve gathered have more impact.

Other potential sources of info.
PIPL. Search for people.
192. Another person search tool
Facebook. Details on how to read data from people’s facebook accounts (with their permission!).
Google Dashboard. Everything Google knows about you (if you have a google account).
What’s My IP. Details glean-able from your IP address.
. Information on what web browser you use (safari people are artistic, chrome are techie purists, opera like elegance, firefox like functionality, and IE people follow the status quo).
How long is a piece of string?. A book with a few examples of ways in which people have been conned by not understanding statistics. Slightly off topic, but an interesting read (my favourite is the football score predictor that gets the result right every time).

When you find out how much it’s possible to find out about yourself, you may get scared. However, most of this information is harmless for people to find out, and the stuff that isn’t you have protection from (privacy settings in applications such as Facebook, prompts before allowing features such as HTML5’s Geo). These features can be put to good use, for example by having a site which changes it’s style to match the user’s likely tastes, and to bring more relevant content to the front (such as Google searches bringing up local restaurants when you look for somewhere to eat).

Okay… before I rant I will say that there are some fantastic illusionists who use their own physical skills to do their illusions. Sleight of hand, close up illusions – all very good… but as for magic, that’s the stuff of King Arthur and Merlin, or Dungeons and Dragons.

I appreciate the skills of these illusionists almost to the same extent that I detest so called magicians and illusionists that rely on getting an audience to lie, tricks of the camera and other such bull to make their “tricks” work.

It stems back to me as a young lad being privileged enough to see Paul Daniels make an elephant “disappear” with his “magic”…. what a bunch of tosh.

The “trick” involved a big square tent with a pointy roof. The tent sides all drop down outwards so they lay flat on the ground. The roof of the tent is pulled off by a rope going up to a crane jib. In the top of the tent is a trapeze.

The idea is that the sides are down but the roof is on so the trapeze can’t be seen. Hidden in the roof is Debbie McGee. An elephant is walked into the tent. The tent sides are hoisted up, Paul says some “magic” words and then the tent sides drop and the roof cover is rapidly whipped off to reveal no elephant in the tent and just Debbie McGee sat on a trapeze.

To add credibility to the “magic” there are four Gurkha soldiers guarding the four corners of the tent. Their job is too act all shocked when the elephant vanishes… and have been told to lie, as they have to say the elephant hasn’t left the tent by any other means. This is where Daniels starts to get supposed audience participants to lie to the viewing public to help the so called illusion. I’m sorry, but if it takes making people lie to make the “magic” work, then it is nothing but a con at best. Not an illusion, not magic… a pure con.

What made me feel worse was even as a young kid I knew how honourable & honest the Gurkha soldiers are – I knew these brave soldiers would do anything for the Queen & Country…. and here they were being told by the dwarf like Daniels to lie for entertainment…

To add even more credibility to the farce they even had Johnny Morris there, walking around in the tent and jumping up and down proclaiming how the ground under the tent was absolutely solid. For all Johnny knew it was…

From my vantage point I watched the elephant getting walked into the tent. As the sides went up the rear tent panel opened like a pair of curtains (hidden from view, and ignored by the Gurkhas) and the elephant was lead out onto a platform. This was a lift platform that then dropped the elephant into a big old hole in the ground. As the platform retreated into the hole, the curtains were shut again. All of this happened very quickly as Daniels spun his cheesy magic to the camera…. and then! BANG… the tent sides drop, the roof is lifted and you are left with Debbie on the trapeze and no elephant – as the elephant is now hidden in a hole underneathe the back tent panel that has been dropped over the hole. See… I told you for all Johnny knew the ground directly under the tent was solid.

What the home audience see is the disappearance of an elephant, a confused Johnny Morris, four Gurkha chaps who have been told to lie, and several scattered spectators who also “didn’t see anything dodgy happen”. Home audiences are wowed and one small boy who saw it all for his own eyes is thoroughly disillusioned (see what I did there?).

Derren Brown is another to get people to lie for his act. The Lottery number trick was all done with split screen monitors (a bit like in movies where a thieves loop a video clip of a corridor to trick the guards). I won’t go into that here – but instead I’ll hand over to this YouTube clip (by Mutated Monty) that explains it. If one guy with a camera at home can do this, then Derren Brown would have no problem. Goes to show what a bunch of arse it all is. Well Done Mutated Monty.

So, unless you can pull a clever trick off WITHOUT getting people to lie to cover you, or relying on camera or computer trickery, then you don’t deserve to be called an illusionist – AT ALL. You are nothing more than a visual effects performer or con man.

Copperfield, Blaine, Daniels, Brown and all – you can all kiss my enchanted ring with your huge vanishing buildings and psychic mumbo jumbo – it’s all pathetic tat.

Now, street performers who can, by pure use of hand skills, make things happen before my eyes, then you people are the true illusionists. Lets not forget though – it’s all illusion and not magic…. magic is all Lord of the Rings.

What brought all of this up you may ask…. Simple… I just found out our works Christmas party has table “magicians”…. I am really hoping they are from the street performer side of the illusionist track, than the pathetic fakers side…

]]> http://luxverum.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/armed-service-people-be-careful-when-answering-the-phone/ Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:09:14 +0000 verumlux http://luxverum.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/armed-service-people-be-careful-when-answering-the-phone/

Commands will be given and orders will be followed.

During the Cold War of the 1950s, the Soviet Union planted a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they didn’t know they were agents; they could only be activated by a special code phrase (a line from Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” followed by their real given names). Their mission was to sabotage crucial parts of the civil and military infrastructure in the event of nuclear war.

Be careful, please.

Here is an example of using Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to anchor a certain state to a key word/phrase performed by Derren Brown:

LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPM0BkMSZCU

I’m not a Luddite, but I simply didn’t understand Twitter. It’s not the first time I’ve been slow on the uptake. In fact if you were looking for a trend-setter you’d do well to look anywhere, no sorry everywhere else for a better person to follow. I’m rubbish at predicting the way the world will move. If it wasn’t for the certainty of the fact I knew time moved forward because it always has done, I would probably end up doubting even this staggeringly basic fundamental element of life.

I’m not adverse to change, I just need to understand it. Regarding Myspace – I couldn’t get to grips with it, Facebook – never saw the need and Twitter? I never saw the point. By the time I finally made a Facebook account I was one of the last of my social group and yet suddenly became a huge advocate of it. Same with Twitter. I’ve been a member for just 2 weeks, and wow, what a way to be brought up to date.

Twitter can be nothing more than innocent fun if that’s all you want it to be, it can also be malicious if you don’t know how to handle and use it, but one of the joys I have discovered this week was the way it can expose and demolish atrocious behavior. It’s a 21st Century tool of revolution if it needs to be, or a shameful way to spend a Friday afternoon watching funny you-tube videos.

In the time since I joined I have met some very funny, witty, kind people. I have also accumulated 28 followers, most of whom I have never spoken to. But that’s OK, that’s what Twitter is about – collecting followers like a junkie collects puncture marks. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate them. Every follower makes my pride swell a little. Sure some are probably just bots advertising jobs, health trips or Br1tney F.ck V1ds, but who cares? The rise in numbers makes my ego grow. It makes me feel like I must be a fairly normal, well adjusted and (reasonably) intelligent and likable person. The adverse effect, of course, being that when I look at another person’s profile and discover they have 1,267 followers I suddenly feel very small. Twitter can also be a very lonely place.

Even so, since joining I have discovered this – nothing spreads news faster than Twitter. It’s a basic fact. For those connected to the Twitter-verse news spreads quicker than the proverbial fire. It doesn’t need heat, it just needs to see the letter ‘H’ before it sparks up and roars off, screaming into the distance. Two examples have hit me already: The Trafigura/Guardian newspaper case, and the Jan Moir Daily Mail article following Stephen Gately’s death.

If I had not been following Graham Lineham, I would never have known that it existed. If Derren Brown and Stephen Fry had not commented I would have been unaware. Thank God I have some interest in these bright, intelligent, witty people otherwise I might never have gotten to this point.

I don’t follow the news regularly because other things get in the way, namely life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. I’ve always considered myself a very passionate person about causes that matter. Throughout my life I’ve wanted to fight back against injustice and issues which strike me as morally wrong and/or dumb. I just don’t seem to be able to keep track of all wrong-doings that spew into the world. Twitter now keeps me informed. While detrimental to my stress levels and physical health, it’s fantastic to keep the mind alight and the passion burning.

Regarding Trafigura, I’d honestly never heard of them before. Then the story hit, I did some research and BOOM I had an opinion and a way to voice my anger. Twitterate people know we had a huge impact in the outcome of that scenario. We bombarded the site with links and updates regarding the injustice, and when it was fixed it was fantastic. A real victory. Now Jan Moir, not happy at writing one of the most shockingly inept articles to have been produced for some time, “apologises” with a statement while never acknowledging how wrong she was and seems surprised at the internet out-cry.

You can find the original heavily edited article here and the “apology” here.

I’m not going to write a critique of the piece. Far more intelligent people have done so already (Charlie Brooker’s fantastic article in the Guardian stands head and shoulders above the rest). But I am going to point to the following pictures. See if you can spot the difference between A) The original article and B) The edited article. Did you see it?

The shockingly altered headline does not actually cover up the sewage of the article. Note the description in the nav bar to the right too. To claim it was “sordid” and then attempt to make out everyone else was mis-reading the story is stupid enough to warrant an immediate arrest and possible expulsion to the nearest planet where life has barely managed to crawl out of the sea. I’m fairly sure Jan Moir would settle rather well in such a place with her bloated, pasty fish-face and single brain-cell.

Furthermore, claiming it was an “orchestration” shows how little grasp she has of the Internet, social networking or, indeed, the 21st Century. There was no orchestration, it was the voices of thousands of people who simply did not agree and took offense at what she wrote. Twitter and other social networking sites give people the power to voice their anger and expose this kind of backward thinking, pathetic excuse for a journalist instantly.

I found it amusing that she should question how many people fully read her article. Now come on, Jan, let’s be honest. It’s not exactly what you would clasify as high-brow literature is it? A few measley, one to two sentence paragraphs with enough pictures to space it out. It makes Spot The Dog’s Day At The Zoo look like Tolstoy in comparison. There really wasn’t much there to read, and even less to mis-interpret. So just admit it, we all read the scattering of sentances because honestly it wouldn’t have taken us any longer to finish then eating a digestive biscuit.

In an age where anyone can blog and say what they want, share stories and are granted the ability to respond instantly to whatever hits the web first, did she honestly think this narrow-minded piffle would go un-challenged? Did she learn nothing from what happened regarding the injustice of the Guardian being potentially blocked from Parliament just a few days before and how powerful the Internet had become? No, because she is, as I have said before, an utter idiot. A cretinous life-form who should be punished.

If I write here that I think all immigrants are filth and deserve to rot in their country of origin, I would expect people to make comments to such an outrageous statement. That is if anyone actually reads this, which I doubt very many people do. The troublesome side to the 21st Century is that nearly everyone can be a published writer and “philosopher” and they can spread whatever vile thoughts fill their mind. Even so, I’d be surprised if a neo-nazi writing a blog on why white is right didn’t imagine it would spark some outrage somewhere. It’s the way the internet works, so how did Jan Moir think she could get away with it? Because she is an idiot.

The Daily Mail’s self-righteous attitude caused Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand to be suspended after the media-storm they created. I don’t think what those two did was right, but for an offensive journalist to be so sanctimonious and smug after offending so many takes the proverbial slice of cake and then vomits it over the public who she apparently “writes” for. I am hoping this woman gets similar reprisals and judging by the astonishing response that the article provoked, I know I am not alone. It has been fascinating tracking the outcome of both this and Trafigura in context with the Twitterverse. I used to feel people couldn’t make a difference, my opinion now has completely changed and I urge others to do the same.

It’s staggering. It’s exciting. This is how the world is working. Justice served and bigotry exposed and potentially stamped out all within 5 days. It feels like now, more then ever, we have a voice.

All I can say is bring on the next week! Oh, and make sure you follow @serafinowicz, he’s a VERY funny guy.

First of the bit of sick, thanks to my gf for finding this quite frankly gross article from times online:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1034129.ece

That’s right folks, just imagine what that must be like….INSIDE YOU!!!

Now for the warm fuzzy glow we go to a delightful little piece from xfactor fan…Derren Brown. Indeed between trying to confound the nation this lovely man watches xfactor with us normal folk. The only difference is that he gets invited behind the scenes for fun and frolicks:

http://derrenbrown.co.uk/blog/2009/11/xfactor-experience/

Enjoy!

TWH

It was a bit of a surprise to see Derren Brown on the Xtra Factor last night,  but a nice one. I have had a great deal of respect for ol’ Derren since a particularly memorable experience at one of his live shows, where I was actually one of his chosen audience members. Yes, I was one of those people who went up on stage, and of course, behaved in just the way he predicted. It certainly goes down as one of the weirdest moments of my life! And I still get emails, and Facebook messages from friends every time the TV version of the show is replayed somewhere in the world – “Was that you??”

Even if his recent Lottery stunt wasn’t resolved satisfactorily enough for you (but then, what did we expect? that he actually predicted them!?), I think we can all agree that Derren is an exceptionally clever man, a great showman, and that we would never want to take him on in any game of chance or battle of wits!

So when I read his blog about his X Factor experience today it gave me a great deal of pleasure to know, that like me and many of my friends, there are quite a few intelligent, culturally savvy people out there who, like me, get inexplicably drawn into the X Factor. And, of course, it gave me even greater pleasure that he too thinks Danyl should win! With the power of Derren on our side, how could we lose!?

Anyway, I just thought I should share with you a beautiful bit of wisdom from Derren’s post, because I thought it helped to encapsulate what makes certain contestants  more “likeable” than others, and why it is important to try and see past all of the production smoke and mirrors, to the real people, and talent underneath. Enjoy the whole circus, sure, it is there for your entertainment, after all. But just recognise it for what it is.

“Joe, Lucy and Stacey seem to offer us ‘journeys’, and sadly, when we’re watching these people every week for so long, we value journeys over talent. This is the power of story, and the producers know it well. Danyl will struggle to give us a good journey, for he has come in already at the top. He’s so good, he has nowhere to go. This we can unfairly read as smugness. Now he needs to be knocked down in order to build up again, to a new place with new learnings: it’s the hero’s struggle, and will be important for him if he’s going to win. Stacey, Joe and Lucy have a clearer story: modest and much-loved, they rise to find the star within themselves. And I hope they do, even if it’s just a confection of the show, because I love a good story and bawl my eyes out at anyone winning anything.“

Ain’t that the truth?

Hello!  I’m back again to blog another piece of reflection.

Last week, we learnt about the Wisdom of Crowds.  Bee Ping and I led the class in a pseudo-discussion. This theory is simply trying to say is that wiser decisions are made when everyone’s independent decisions are averaged, as compared to decision made by a single person.  I believe the video below would provide a better explanation.

A good example to demonstrate this theory would be the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” game.

Fun Fact #1!
Did you know that an audience offering an answer to a “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” contestant usually provides the right answer 91% of the time?  Whereas, the smarty-pants friend whom the contestant calls only provides the right answer 65% of the time?

I guess this fact is true.  The more people, the higher the accuracy.  That’s why we see a gazillion surveyors roaming around Orchard Road, looking for targets to ask complete surveys.  I’ve been down that road.

Bee Ping and I also conducted a simple Mentos-in-a-jar experiment.  The class answer was pretty close to the correct answer as compared to the answer by ‘Karen the Expert’.

To further prove our point about the wisdom of crowds, here is a pretty interesting video to watch.  Derren Brown, the super famous illusionist/mentalist, conducted a similar experiment with a group of bankers, accountants, brokers, etc.  Surprisingly, the crowd’s guess was spot on!  Sheer luck or wisdom of crowds? Hmmm…

Derren Brown even made a crowd churn out 6 random numbers of the weekly lottery.  And once again, the crowd made an extremely accurate prediction!  The numbers were in the correct order as well!

Fun Fact #2!
Did you know that the probability of you winning the UK-version 6-numbers weekly lottery is only 1 in 40 million?  Whereas, the probability of you dying in a particular day is 1 in 9 million? Therefore, probability of dying > probability of winning lottery.

If you are interested in how the people guessed the lottery numbers, you can watch the episode here.  Really interesting video!  It kept me glued to my set the entire time!

What puzzles me the most is that, how can they even predict numbers that a machine, not human, will determine?  Unless you’re a psychic, guessing 6 consecutive and correct lottery numbers is nearly impossible.  Derren Brown actually made his people do ‘automatic writing‘, whereby the writer is in a trance, fully aware of his/her surroundings but not of what he/she is writing.  Honestly, I think the crowd is controlled by “spirits”, so it’s not the wisdom of the crowds.  Derren Brown claims otherwise though.  He said Mathematics is involved.  But no matter what deep Math is involved, I think Math is something that involves logic.  How can you even guess which ball the machine is going to pop out?  Where’s the logical reasoning behind all of these?!  I need someone to convince me.  Right now, my mind says “It’s definitely not the wisdom of crowds.”

However, how the Internet is tapping on the wisdom of Homo Sapiens’ is genius.  Sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, Google, and even my favourite website, OMONATHEYDIDNT!, make use of us to make their sites more informative, interesting, accurate, resourceful and what not.  The OMONATHEYDIDNT! contributors, and even comment-leavers, without fail, provide me with my daily dosage of K-Pop news.  I think I’ll die without these people around.  So, sank ewxzxz to everyone!

Also, the star rating thingy on YouTube allows me to pick out good videos without having to look through all the other trashy videos.  But then again, the ratings may be quite inaccurate sometimes, especially when not a lot of people have rated the videos (a.k.a cheat-mai-peelings-beejous).

I think it’s super amazing as to how the world has changed.  Previously, it was us who made use of artificial intelligence but now, it’s the other way around.

Extremely cool:

And for a little bonus, here Brown demonstrates some amazing seance tricks. His skills in the dark are rather astounding.

Your Fears?

Derren Brown with his friend Rebecca Hossack, a councillor in Camden

UNSURPRISINGLY, Derren Brown, the fantastically slick showman who makes good TV programmes, is too smart for me. Well, the Freedom of Information team at the Science Museum are.

The museum over in Kensington is subject to the same Freedom of Information rules as other bodies which accept public money, so I whooshed in a FOI request to their info team to see what people at the museum were saying about Brown’s recent stunt/trick/illusion (what are the things he does officially called?) staged there. The one which involved getting a woman from the museum to draw a symbol on a painter’s easel, hiding it under some wrapping in the museum and then convincing everybody watching his show The Events to draw the same shape. It turned out to be concentric circles, just like the ones that shone out of the woman’s eyes, the ones we were repeatedly asked to stare into during the show.

I’m sure it wasn’t as simple as that. So, how did he do it? The FoI answer came back yesterday and shed no light on it. In fact I was told that the release of any details of his arrangements with the museum (clues, to you and me) would ‘in no way benefit the public interest’. That’s me told. And fair enough. If you knew how Brown did his amazing feats, it’s would ruin his act – and his act is far too entertaining, far too enjoyable for that. I’d rather gasp in amazement at the telly than find out that a paper trail of emails at the museum reveals a humdrum explanation for it all. Whatever stunt/trick/illusion he comes up with, he always captures the imagination.

The full text of the Science Museum’s response:

Dear Mr Osley,

Thank you for your recent Freedom of Information enquiry regarding the filming of a television programme at the Science Museum. I can confirm that this was a standard commercial agreement between the museum and the production company and that all correspondence and related documentation, both internal and external, related to the practicalities of using the Museum’s premises as a location. The Science Museum had no direct input nor exercised any editorial or other controls, other than that standard in such agreements, over the format or content of the programme. Accordingly, we have concluded that the release of this correspondence would in no way benefit the public or be to their interest.

I can also confirm that, other than your own enquiry, the museum has received no feedback from the public relating to this particular programme. I hope this information is of some use to you and I wish you all the best with your research.

Documentation Centre,
Science Museum,
London, SW7 2DD