De pel·lícules sobre l’espasa Excalibur ne’m vist moltes, tant d’animació com de carn i ossos. Aquesta, però, planteja la història des d’una altra perspectiva. Deixa de banda el mite sobre Artur i com va desenganxar l’espasa de la pedra on estava encastada i es centra en explicar com va arribar l’espasa a aquesta pedra. Explica com Ròmul, un nen d’uns dotze anys i últim emperador romà, es va fer amb l’espasa i amb ella va combatre a Britania amb les restes de la novena legió, l’única que encara li era fidel.

Però parlant de fidelitat, podem dir que és una pel·lícula fidel a la història. Va ser així realment? La veritat, no ho puc assegurar. La història no és el meu fort i de ben segur que algú ho podrà explicar millor que jo. Llenço la pregunta perquè moltes vegades se’ns ha enganyat amb falsos relats històrics que, encara que semblessin totalment reals no eren més que ficcions ben buscades. És per això que m’agradaria que en aquest tipus de pel·lícules quedés clar si es tracta d’una història real o d’una llegenda. En el cas de la “Ultima Legión”, ens la vénen com la “Veritable història de l’espasa Excalibur”. Serà cert?

Tot i tractar el tema supersucat de la famosa espasa, la perspectiva en què ho fa li dóna certa gràcia al film. A part d’això, no destaca respecte les altres pel·lícules sobre guerra i honor amb espases i escuts. Un guió senzill, amb pocs girs argumentals i absència de macrobatalles exagerades (cosa que s’agraeix). Tot i així, és molt entretinguda i, a estones, divertida. Una bona opció per passar una bona tarda de cinema històric.

When an article of mine looking at the role of Africa, Caribbean and South Asian troops in the British army during the two World Wars was published on Remembrance Sunday, some people criticised me for “re-writing history in favour of the BME community.

So I thought I’d see what the BNP had to say on the subject, by way of comparison. To be totally honest, I hoped to find ammunition for another article like my original “They’re taking our Spitfires!” After all, making your political opponents look ridiculous is often a good way to defeat them.

Of course I didn’t expect to find anything about non-white troops fighting for Britain in the two World Wars; but I was surprised to find nothing about the white British troops in those wars either. There’s a picture of Churchill on the home page, but no profile – though figures of legend such as Hereward the Wake get one – and he’s not one of the “British Giants”. The section on defending us from invasion has a Spitfire picture, but while there’s an article on Boudicca, there’s no Battle of Britain.

Potteries historians note there’s no RJ Mitchell, nor James Brindley and Josiah Wedgwood. I guess Wedgwood’s politics were wrong, as social and political reformers are notable by their absence. Whole political movements are missing too – nothing on the Chartists or Suffragettes, and for a party supposedly all for the working class, no mention of the Levellers, the Tolpuddle Martyrs or the Jarrow Marchers.

Art and literature are clearly for wimps – Shakespeare gets a mention but not Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot or the Bronte sisters; no Wordsworth or Tennyson, and no sign of Dr Johnson (another snub to Staffordshire!). There’s a serious lack of the “Christian heritage” the BNP claim to defend too, but lengthy articles full of glossy illustrations on the “Gods of the Ancient Britons” and Anglo-Saxon gods. No Quakers, no Methodists – all that social reform and concern for justice and the poor must be totally the wrong values for the BNP!

And I thought that was about it – a version of history ending with the British Empire at its height full of the sort of uplifting stories of powerful men taught when a quarter of the globe was coloured pink – a sort of “Boys Own Yarns” meets “1066 and all that”. The makings of a witty little item, perhaps.

But it’s not that simple, and not actually funny at all when you look a bit deeper.

On every page of this site, there’s a flyer for a book called “March of the Titans” by Arthur Kemp. If you click on this, you can buy the book via the BNP’s merchandising site, or you can read it on line. If you do so, you’ll find the whole of human history twisted to support the following:

“revealed in this work is the one true cause of the rise and fall of the world’s greatest empires – that all civilizations rise and fall according to their racial homogeneity and nothing else – a nation can survive wars, defeats, natural catastrophes, but not racial dissolution”.

Arthur Kemp moved to Britain from a murky past in South Africa in 1996 and is responsible for writing the BNP’s education and training manuals and the content of their website. He also runs the party’s merchandising arm, Excalibur.

If you are under any doubts at all about the ideology still at the heart of the BNP, you’ll find it within the pages of Kemp’s book, in all its ugliness. Note that this isn’t just a link among many other links – it’s an integral part of the BNP’s history section. Some items on the main site are lifted straight from it – “British Genius” is simply Kemp’s list of clever white folks with the non-Brits cut out.

Still, it might not have done the BNP’s reputation much good to include Kemp’s analysis of the Second World War, where sympathies seem to be very much with the Third Reich. He’s full of praise for Nazi science and medicine, and their banning of vivisection, but draws a discreet veil over the issue of how such “progress” was made with the frequent use of unwilling human “guinea pigs”. Here are a few extracts on what Kemp calls the “Second Great Brothers’ War”.

Dunkirk – HITLER LETS BRITISH ESCAPE

By 26 May – 16 days into the campaign – the Allied army in the north was trapped along a coastal enclave next to the town of Dunkirk. For reasons which have never been explained (the most common belief is that Hitler wanted to let the British escape so as to facilitate a peace with them at a later stage) the German panzers were deliberately stopped outside the town.

So it was that when Winston Churchill became prime minister of Britain on 10 May 1940, his first act the next day was to announce that German cities would be targeted for bombing attacks. The same month the first German cities were bombed by British aircraft. The German air force however avoided bombing British cities, concentrating on the strategically more important airfields and ports, launching the first of these major raids during August 1940.

The Blitz STARTS IN RESPONSE TO BRITISH AIR RAIDS

In the interim, British bombers had been raiding German cities for almost four months: finally, after a bombing raid on Berlin itself, Hitler authorized the Luftwaffe to start bombing British cities in return.

Nazi atrocities are given a sinister positive gloss: note the phrases “granted euthanasia” and “mercy killings” for the murder of disabled people.

In all, some 5,000 retarded and deformed children were granted euthanasia by the German government before the end of the war – with each case being individually reviewed by a specially appointed committee. The policy of administering euthanasia to retarded and deformed children was then also extended to incurably insane adults. Thanks to the German habit of keeping meticulous records, the exact number of incurably insane adults granted euthanasia is known: 70,273. Although the adult euthanasia project was conducted in secret, it was impossible to conceal such things from the German public, and by 1941, news of the mercy killings had been leaked. Growing public pressure on the Nazi government forced the abandonment of the program in that year.

The Concentration Camps

Nazi Germany is however most known for its concentration camps, and particularly those in which large numbers of emaciated and dead prisoners were discovered at the end of the war, and which have become synonymous with any image of that era. The first concentration camps were set up soon after the Nazis came to power, with the best known being Dachau, which is situated to the north of Munich.

These camps were in fact large prisons, and the prisoners were sentenced by civil courts to fixed terms of imprisonment which depended upon the crime committed. These crimes could be overtly political – membership or activism in the banned Communist Party was common – but was also extended to all other crimes, including conventional criminal activities such as theft or robbery. Eventually homosexuals were also interned: although this would only occur quite a while later.

All things said, to have been a Jew in Nazi Germany could not have been a pleasant experience: but, as the over 4.3 million claims against the post war German state from Jews who suffered as a result of this persecution, (by 1998 the German state had paid out over $50 billion in reparations), certainly far fewer died than what is most often claimed. Increasingly, all the evidence urges a complete revision of this aspect of the history of World War Two.

The effect of the Jewish factor was a primary reason for the outbreak of the war and lay behind much of the Allies’ double standards when reacting to German and Soviet aggression at the beginning of the war.

So much for Griffin’s claim to have left the bad old days of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism behind him; this book so keenly promoted by the BNP also says:

The well known Jewish propensity for business and the ability to accumulate vast amounts of money – a phenomena well known to this day – was the source of much original anti-Jewish feeling.

Whether by deliberate plan or accident, the situation has arisen whereby Jews have ended up dominating the mass media forms of both the USA, and to a slightly smaller extent, of Western Europe. The ownership of the mass media by a small group of Jews is well documented and full details are easily obtainable on the Internet. Given the long association between Jews and assorted left-wing causes, varying from hard-core Communism to all manner of pro-Black activities, it is therefore not surprising that the mass media then also mirrors an uniformly pro-non-White message in its portrayal of current events and opinion. This Jewish domination of the mass media means that what is generally construed as ‘public opinion’ is in fact always presented in a way which is as sympathetic as possible to Jewish interests.

This Jewish domination of the media can, and does, have serious consequences, so vividly illustrated by the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.. These events were triggered exclusively by the unflagging US support given to Israel against the Palestinians. The fact that the USA – and much of the West – continues to support Israel at any cost – including the deaths of thousands of its own citizens – is the surest evidence yet of the power of the Jewish lobby in both the mass media (which generates ‘public opinion’) and of the Jewish lobby’s famed control over the US government, and to a lesser extent, the governments of Western Europe.

Note particularly the claim that “These events were triggered exclusively by the unflagging US support given to Israel against the Palestinians”. Consider for a moment what our local BNP councillors might have to say if such a comment was made by, say, a Muslim student union officer…

And in case you think it’s just the Jews Kemp despises, here are a few words about Christianity, from the people who are telling us they are the true defenders of the faith:

The introduction of Christianity has to count as the single greatest ideological catastrophe to ever strike Europe.

So it was that Christianity came to be the dominant religion of Europe – the first religion to convert by mass murder. The original White religion had never tried to convert followers upon pain of death, and had never waged a war in its name – and as such it was psychologically unprepared to do battle with a Middle Eastern religion which engendered a genocidal fanaticism amongst its followers. Once the Christians had run out of pagans to kill, they turned upon themselves in a violent and bloody fratricidal conflict which saw the Church split and the various protagonists kill each other in a crazed blood lust.

I ’m an agnostic, and my point here is not to defend Christianity, or for that matter Judaism or British strategy in World War Two; it’s to highlight the BNP’s hypocrisy. Their enthusiasm for our “Christian” heritage and sudden keenness to see it promoted in schools is surely exposed here as just another means to divide “us” from “them”.

Remember that this book was written by one of Nick Griffin’s right-hand men, who strongly influences party ideology. The new website might look pretty flashy, but it’s just a new set of sheep’s clothing for the same very dangerous wolf.

Pits’n'Pots – The Radical Press

Somewhere along those lines is how the National Post rated “I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell” the movie. I suppose there’s something to be said for any publicity is good publicity, although this may only be true for building up Tucker Max’s fame, and not for boosting the popularity of this movie.  Read my published review of the movie, and my interview with Tucker Max here.  The story ran in the Excalibur this week.

Enjoy!

Jedesmal wenn ich bei mir am Bahnhof stehe, sehe ich das riesige Plakat für die Show Excalibur, mit  dem Untertitel “Celtic Rock Opera”.
Jedesmal bleibe ich vor diesem Plakat stehen um dort auf meine Bahn zu warten und  versuche jedes Detail in mich aufzunehmen.

Es gibt nur wenige große Shows die mich tatsäcchlich interessieren würden, ausgerechnet diese ist so eine, da sie vieles von dem vereint das ich mag.
Da wäre zum einen das Thema Excalibur, das mich schon seid Jahren fasziniert und bei dem ich mioch über (fast) jede neue Version freue die ich finde, Corvus Corax sind involviert und Rockmusik und Feuervogel…

Wie üblich bei /großen Shows würde ich auf den Plätzen die ich mir leisten könnte kaum etwas sehen und bis ich das entsprechende Geld zusammengespart habe (ohne zu verhungern ) sind selbst diese weg.
Sollte aber jemand der hin geht das hier lesen: Erzählt mir doch bitte wie es war

Get the hole truth about the ABCs:

Get the hole truth about the ABCs:

Get the hole truth about the ABCs:

Rinunzio ai miei castelli e alle mie terre, qui è il mio dominio, DENTRO QUESTA PELLE DI METALLO
E do in pegno tutto ciò che ancora ho: la mia carne, le mie ossa, il mio sangue e il cuore che lo pompa [Lancillotto, Excalibur, 1981, film]

WELCOME TO VALHALLA

http://lapoesiaelospirito.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/metalli-commedia-0-1/

El Rey Del Invierno : La Britania del siglo V se tambalea al borde del precipicio: el recuerdo de la civilización romana es cada vez más lejano, los dioses paganos ceden ante el avance del credo cristiano, los sajones amenazan en las fronteras. La supervivencia de los aguerridos reinos de Britania se funda en una precaria unidad, la que encarna Uther Pendragon, el rey supremo.  Pero el rey desaparece y deja el trono vacante cuando el heredero no es más que un niño de pecho. Sólo un hombre puede preservar la unidad entre los reinos y frenar el avance sajón. Ese hombre es Arturo, soldado, protegido del mago Merlín, hijo ilegítimo de Uther. Pero, expulsado por su propio padre, vive en un exilio involuntario. El Rey del Invierno es el relato del regreso de Arturo y del arduo restablecimiento de la paz y la justicia, al tiempo que un magnífico retrato de los ideales y la realidad histórica de la Edad Media.

DESCARGAR

El enemigo de Dios: Después de una terrible época de precariedad y batallas, el bravo guerrero Arturo ha logrado instaurar la paz y la unidad entre los reinos britanos, y todo parece apuntar a una felicidad perpetua: el trono de Mordred está a salvo, Ginebra lleva en su entraña al hijo de Arturo, Lancelot está a punto de casarse. Pero Arturo, con su arrogancia de soldado, ha desdeñado la influencia de los caprichosos dioses paganos y de su aliado Merlín. Éste trata de reunir los trece objetos sagrados esparcidos por toda Britania para restituir el imperio del caos y expulsar a los sajones. ¿Cuánto podrán el bien y el orden imperar en la isla? Los sufrimientos de Arturo parecen no tener fin, sus adversarios son tenaces, pero el rey persevera en el cumplimiento de los altos ideales de la moral caballeresca.

DESCARGAR

Excalibur: La tercera novela de la serie el Señor de la guerra nos lleva al mundo de Merlín y los druidas. Mordred reina de una forma cruel y los sueños de paz de Arturo se desvanecen. Cornwell nos ofrece una excelente descripción de las batallas, torneos y de la vida en aquellos tiempos.

DESCARGAR

I accept everything:

even this blow
that knocked the blade
from the bedrock of my heart.

It was kindness
and blindness
ensconcing it in its prison
of stone,

where it slept
unused
for a thousand years,
scrolled Toledo steel
impressed with luminous glyphs
marking secrets of survival,

which, contrary to popular belief,

are beautiful.

I accept everything,
even this act of betrayal
which some would call
unthinkable

because I believe
in a grail
so beautiful,

it transcends
all ugliness of the world.

And it is worth defending. 

Softness is my frailty.
Sometimes it is better to be metal
than petal,

to call a spade a spade
and dig your grave ungrievingly
by the side of the road.

All wrongs are made right;
the day of Brahma has its night.
All dirt is washed by water,
which falls from the sky
and is recycled 
in never-ending cycles of
disgrace and purity
that make up the human race.

I close my eyes
and blow out the candle.
An era has ended,
a sacred trust abandoned.
There’s nothing more I can say or do.
Those who say God only gives us
as much as we can handle
clearly have never spoken
to the ones who are finally broken.

I know my Grail is holy,
so all I can do is move on.
This wound in me
is really just the faultline
from which I draw my power.
If my heart must turn to stone
to harden all the soft places
you still play inside me,
then at least let me learn
to fight
because I still believe
in beauty 
and know it’s worth
dying for,
even if you can’t face me.

What can I say?
Every book has its ending.
Anyone can fall from grace.
I watch my step,
hands on the hilt, 
wary of the jackals of spite
that hunt me even in dreams.
Anyone can turn
from friend to ghost
in this moment between heartbeats
that traps and sieves light
through the scum-seeking cheesecloth of fear.
And who am I to question this?
The heart, though sincere, is hardly a match
for the lifetimes of hurt
that define us.
I cannot blame you for being human
any more than the sky for darkening. 
In another lost heartbeat,
I could mirror your malice.
And if you asked for forgiveness,
I could grant it. 
But in drawing my blade,
I reclaim my soul
and choose the path of innocence.

I know the line
between love and betrayal
is as subtle and shifting
as twilight.
And sometimes it’s noblest
to carry a sword
when walking alone in the night. 

- Sarah Noack 2009

In fact, after a quick survey of a few friends and colleagues, it turns out that I was living under a rock.  Tucker Max has sold over 350,000 copies of his book entitled, “I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell,” was on the New York Times best-seller list multiple times, and the book was recently adapted into a film. 

Now, I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea here.  Tucker Max is not a literary giant because he can put words together like Linden MacIntyre, or Margaret Atwood, nope Tucker Max is popular becuase he writes about getting drunk, ‘wheeling broads’ and generally being as irresponsible as possible.  As it turns out, this type of writing has a big audience who can relate…sort of.  I think most people will make it through college or university without having sex with literally HUNDREDS of women (including a little person, a deaf girl, and Miss Vermont 2001), waking up in a random park with no wallet or cell phone, vomit caked to your face, and dog feces in your hair,  or perhaps accidentally pooping in an upscale hotel lobby and then running naked to your room.

I don’t do interviews unless I feel absolutely qualified and prepared to do an interview, and that means a lot of research.  I mean, if I researched for my school work as much as I researched Tucker Max prior to interviewing him, I would have straight A’s.  I read his book, I read his website, I watched his movie at a press screening, I read his blog, and I watched previous interviews he’s done.  I got really into the book not only because I was laughing out loud like a crazy person while I was reading it on the subway, but because I knew that I would get to pick his brain at the end of the tunnel.

I’m not sure what the proper journalistic ettiquette is for being a fan of someone you interview. I had a colleague tell me that he would ‘never’ get an interview subject to sign a copy of their book, movie, etc.  Agree to disagree. After the interview, I was so caught up in the fact that he was shooting the shit with me and the camera crew that I forgot to have him sign my copy of the book. So, I left it with one of the publicists with these instructions on what to write: ”To Scott, something innapropriate, Tucker Max.”  Here’s what he wrote, word for word: “To Scott, I don’t remember you, but I think your [sic] gay. T Max.”  Classy.  Wouldn’t expect anything less.

The thing about interviewing a guy like Tucker Max is that everyone tries to incriminate him for all the above adjectives he uses to describe himself.  Turns out, thats not that original, and you’re not really telling us anything we didn’t aready know.  For instance, check out this piece on him from Eye Weekly .

My goal wasn’t to get him to confess to being a dickhead — he’s pretty much already done that — I wanted to know what made him tick, and what has influenced him to be the way he is, and whether the movie, for him, was a chance for him to reach a new audience or perhaps modify the message or the delivery.

I thought he was a pretty cool guy, he never came across as rude, or snotty, he’s just a guy who happened to write down all of his stories — that aren’t that uncommon amongst people my age — and gained some success from that. I was a bit nervous about how he would be in person, but I guess its sort of like how he views women: if you let him walk all over you, he will, and he won’t respect you, but if you command respect, then he’ll give it (or just leave in the case of women).

In terms of the film, perhaps going the independant route wasn’t his best choice, because its been HORRIBLY marketed.  It only has a limited release in three Canadian cities, and most people in this city don’t know what the film or the book is all about.  The film itself is Ok (although it was ripped to shreds by the critics).  I’m not a film critic or anything, I thought it definately had its funnier moments, it had a message, but it suffered with a weak performance from Jesse Bradford who plays Drew (‘Slingblade’ for those of you who have read the book), and a few other characters.  All in all its a funny take on the teen movie that those who have read the book will enjoy a bit, and those who haven’t read the book will enjoy a little less.

An edited version of my interview with Tucker can be seen below.  It’s for the Excalibur website.  My print story will be published in the Arts section of the Excalibur on Wednesday.  Some of you said you want to see the uncut 17 minute interview, and I might try and get that up sooner or later if some of you are interested.

Ringrazio BananaJoe per l’ulteriore intervento (in grassetto)

La cosa che mi stupisce e che “ribalta” certi “concetti” è legata alla DetectorPro…
Ho usato il Diver…che poi sarebbe la stessa versione del Waders ma subacque e in un certo senso “fratello” del più famoso ed economico Pirate…
…orbene…TUTTI questi MD utilizzano la frequenza di 2,4 khz…quindi una BASSISSIMISSIMA frequenza…che TEORICAMENTE dovrebbe creare dei problemi con l’Oro (il più difficile tra i metalli!!!) e soprattutto con gli oggetti piccoli (sempre e soprattutto d’Oro!)…
…dicevo TEORICAMENTE…visto che come è noto…il Pirate (ahimè…non ho fatto ANCORA test con il Diver!!!) sente le CATENINE SOTTILI…mentre il più noto dei Minelab, il mitico Excalibur, non le sente manco se gliele aggrovigli sulla piastra!!!

Come si spiega tutto ciò???

Forse per il SOFTWARE o la CIRCUITERIA…(lo sò…’sta parola fa un po’ cagare!)…che riescono a “OTTIMIZZARE” le prestazioni di questa “famiglia” di MD???

2.4KHz è un’ottima frequenza per le oggetti non ferrosi di dimensioni grandi (leggi monete). Pessima, almeno in teoria, per la ricerca dei piccolissimi fiocchi d’oro.

Attenzione Banana! Non faccio fatica a credere che il Diver/Wader senta bene l’oro (anelli, monete, gioielli e addirittura catenine sottili) pur usando una frequenza così bassa. Discorso ben diverso è se sia in grado in maniera EFFICACE di indicarmi CON CERTEZZA la differenza tra un oggetto in oro e un pezzo di stagnola/alluminio. Come dicevo sopra, la frequenza operativa è importante…ma non è L’UNICA cosa che fa la differenza.

Mi dai però un altro ottimo spunto di riflessione…

Un’altro aspetto che può aiutare a capire invece il come mai invece ci siano metal detector come per esempio l’Excalibur che non siano altrettanto performanti con le catenine d’oro (per altro, sai che l’Excalibur è stato progettato proprio dalla DetectorPro e poi venduto alla Minelab?) è che essi non siano troppo precisi nel bilanciamento del terreno nel contastare la mineralizzazione salina.

Cosa centra il sale con questo mi chiederai?

Centra…centra… ora ti spiego.

La risposta di segnale del terreno saturo di soluzione salina (quindi con conducibilità elettrica aumentata proprio dal sale disciolto) è “vicina” a quella dell’oro e dell’alluminio. Il metal detector, tentando di contrastare questo effetto (così come fa per la mineralizzazione ferrosa) viene reso elettronicamente “molto meno sensibile” ai valori vicini a quelli del terreno (sabbia) con sale. Ahimè li vicino c’è l’oro e, specie se l’oggetto è piccolo come una catenina sottile e quindi il segnale è di per se debole, il metal potrebbe addirittura non vederlo proprio perchè “accecato” dai suoi stessi circuiti/software ANTIMINERALIZZAZIONE SALINA.

Se invece il metal ha un migliore bilanciamento contro il sale, più “stringente” e preciso intendo, potrebbe limitare il danno e segnalare abbastanza correttamente (vedi il tuo Diver) anche le catenine.

Non mi stancherò mai di ripetere (scusate il maiuscolo…non è per gridare ne per essere maleducati…solo per ribadirne l’importanza): “MAI FERMARSI AD ANALIZZARE LE PERFORMANCE GUARDANDO UN SOLO PARAMETRO PER VOLTA “. I nostri amati MD sono strumenti sofisticati, complessi e la loro forza e la loro debolezza sono la risultante di tanti fattori messi insieme. Non è possibile ignorare una componente senza che un’altra non ne venga influenzata. Io ne capisco ancora tanto poco di questa roba, ho tanto ancora da studiare e sperimentare sul campo… ma questo ho dovuto impararlo per forza…e ora, in qualche modo, mi è tutto un po’ più chiaro.

Happy Gold Hunting!
Bodhi3

Ringrazio innanzitutto Marco/Stradale77 per aver contribuito alla discussione con le sue interessanti e intelligenti integrazioni.  Mi permetto quindi di aggiungere ora qualche ulteriore dettaglio a commento di quanto detto da Marco (in grassetto).

(omissis…) Ad ogni modo, è preliminarmente necessario stabilire se una discriminazione “precisa” sia da considerarsi un vataggio o uno svantaggio…
Misurare un divario di fase minimo, pur consentendo una precisa analisi del metallo rilevato, ci espone al rischio concreto di eliminare ancora più target desiderati (un monile in oro non esattamente rispondente alle caratteristiche fisiche dell’oggetto campione risulterebbe discriminato….).

Una discriminazione “precisa” è di per se quella che ha la migliore risoluzione possibile e quindi quella che ci permette di “discriminare” appunto (scusate il gioco di parole) tra stagnola e oro per esempio. Quindi, per il mio modesto parere, è sempre un vantaggio.

In buona sostanza dire che un md ad alta freq discimina meglio di uno a bassa o viceversa è decisamente opinabile….

Se rileggi il mio post iniziale  ti renderai conto che non ho mai voluto dire questo. Si parlava solo di Oro Vs Stagnola, due materiali che spesso ingannano parecchi metal detector.

Inoltre il ragionamento di Bodhi parte dall’assunto che le varie risposte in frequenza dei metalli si posizionino sequenzialmente lungo una linea.
In verità alcuni fattori ( principalmente dimensione, forma e non ultimo la presenza di altri metalli all’interno della lega ) incidono pesantemente sulla risposta del md.

Su questo hai perfettamente ragione. Per semplicità, nella mia trattazione ho idealmente identificato gli oggetti come se fossero PUNTI precisi disposti lungo un segmento che rappresenta l’intero spettro. In realtà, proprio grazie ai fattori di forma, di posizione nel terreno, di ossidazione, di mineralizzazione etc..sarebbe più corretto indicarli come “SOTTOSEGMENTI” ovvero parti di questo segmento che alcune volte, direi addirittura spesso, possono avere delle parti in comune. Maggiori sono le parti in comune (leggi sovrapposte) maggiori sono le possibilità che il nostro metal detector sbagli ad interpretare il target e ci fornisca un valore di identificazione falso o ambiguo. E’ proprio in questo senso che le varie frequenze operative possono fare la differenza. Se avrai la pazienza di effettuare qualche test e di fare qualche piccola ricerca in Internet, ti convincerai anche tu che, per esempio, con metal VLF ad alta frequenza (es 15-18KHz) è molto più facile che vengano identificati correttamente l’oro e la stagnola rispetto ai metal a bassa frequenza (5-7KHz). Ciò, torno a ripetere, sia perchè c’è una maggiore “distanza” tra i valori medi di ritardo di fase e sia perchè la grandezza di questi sottosegmenti si assottiglia permettendo quindi di avere minori sovrapposizioni.

Questo comporta che, lungo la linea pocanzi immaginata, i vari oggetti si posizionino non in maniera sequenziale (es stagnola piccola, stagnola grande, oro piccolo, oro grande ecc) ma in maniera quasi casuale ( es stagnola piccola, oro piccolo, stagnola grande, oro grande ecc).

Giustissimo… Le dimensioni non sono collegate alla posizione lungo questo ideale asse.

L’unico soluzione per non perdere i target interessanti è allora “abbracciare” un range ampio….

Sacrosanto! Infatti per avere le maggiori probabilità di trovare oggetti buoni, si usa la modalità ALL METAL ovvero quella che comprende TUTTO lo spettro rilevabile da quel metaldetector.

Happy “I Love This Game!” Hunting!
Bodhi3

Pre-Production is when the filmmakers and Producers have been green lit to make a film and are finishing the script, gathering funds, casting and hiring. There is a good chance the film will be made at this point, though until it’s in post-production, there is never any guarantee. And sometimes there’s no guarantee it will be released even when it’s completely finished.

But, on IMDB Pro, here are some of the films listed as in Pre-Production:

Saw 7 - In 3D! (I’m not kidding.)

Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2

Wanted 2

Lethal Weapon 5

Kung Fu Panda 2

Rambo 5: The Savage Hunt

Scream 4 (Do you see a theme with sequels? There are plenty more coming.)

The Three Stooges - with Benicio Del Toro as Moe and Paul Giamatti as Larry. Sean Penn was originally Larry, but dropped out. I loved the Three Stooges growing up, but I’m shocked at the quality of actors they are getting. This may actually be pretty good.

Total Recall – This is still in the script phase. The original film with Arnold Schwarzenegger is super cool. They better not cast someone like Vin Diesel in the lead role.

Red Sonja - Rose McGowen starts, but her boyfriend Robert Rodriguez is not directing, only producing this film. I’m a Rodriguez fan, but with him not at the helm, I’m uncertain about this film. I’m not a big McGowen fan.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea: Sam Worthington from Terminator is Captain Nemo. There’s potential here.

My Fair Lady - A remake to star Kiera Knightley as Eliza Dolittle. She looks the part (Audrey Hepburn played the part in the original film, though she didn’t sing.) Can Kiera sing? Guess we’ll see. Wonder who will play Professor Higgins? An interesting note: Emma Thompson is writing the screenplay.

Spring Awakening - A very successful new musical. I’m very curious to see who will be cast. The girl from Glee was in the original Broadway production. Maybe she has a shot.

Mary the Mother of Christ - with Al Pacino as Herod. Oh, the jokes, the jokes…

The Warriors – A remake Benny is super excited about. No news on casting yet. Probably will be mostly unknowns.

Hamlet - Another one? This one with Emile Hirsch. The Speed Racer guy? He better have the acting chops for this or it could be a disaster. I am always interested in who will be Ophelia. Kate Winslet rocked it in Kenneth Branagh’s version and the best part of the Mel Gibson one was Helena Bonham Carter’s Ophelia.

Jack and Jill - with Adam Sandler playing both parts. Was Jim Carrey busy?

Excalibur - Bryan Singer is doing this film. Love him. The Usual Suspects is an all time favorite of mine and I love the King Arthur mythology. However, the original Excalibur film is awesome, so I’m not sure what Singer can bring to the story. No casting news yet. I wonder if they will remake Camelot the musical too?

Battlestar Galactica- I’m a huge fan of this series and I’d love to see a film version. Right now Bryan Singer is also slated to direct this, though it looks like it’s a long way from being a done deal.

Warcraft - Directed by Sam Raimi, this could be fun.

Often demonized and dismissed by politicians and police as “gang hooliganism”, graffiti and street art have nonetheless emerged as a leading force in contemporary art worldwide

Graffiti is many things to many people, but by and large it is a conversation that a city is having with itself – spoken by many voices and seen through many eyes.

Its inherent illegitimacy makes it by default interactive, which allows it to be uniquely powerful in a way many gallery-showcased artists can only dream of.

Graffiti is pervasive, yet often overlooked, typically because we are taught to disregard it. One friend of mine recently had her mind blown when she realized that graffiti actually contained text, comparing it to a “Magic Eye” stereoscopic image.

Toronto city councillor Howard Moscoe was quoted in the Toronto Star saying, “I think most people can tell the difference between a tag and artwork.” The “tag” Moscoe is referring to is a piece of graffiti that is merely a word, typically the artist’s name, as opposed to a picture.

However, I would like to suggest that tagging – while admittedly far less appealing aesthetically – is an important part of graffiti culture that not only forms the foundation of the art but also allows inexperienced readers to discover and interpret more complex pieces.

The historical timeline of graffiti is open for debate. Cave paintings and hobo symbols are worth considering for inclusion, but the earliest forms of what we would call modern graffiti appeared in the mid-20th century during the Second World War. Many U.S. soldiers, spread across the globe, would leave behind the familiar “Kilroy Was Here” tag with a drawing of a face created from a horizontal line and several circles. To this day, this remains a part of our culture – I found a Kilroy drawing, sans text, markered onto a Toronto subway ad warning people about iPod theft.

The actual culture that has now been labeled graffiti is one of the four pillars of hip-hop culture – along with MCing, DJing and breakdancing – all of which are based on expression and creativity built out of next-to-no resources.

The first single-person tagging campaign was apparently run by “Cornbread,” a.k.a. Darryl McCray, who began writing his nickname with a crown over it in 1967 in order to impress a high school crush. He went on to tag an airplane belonging to the Jackson 5 and even an elephant at the Philadelphia zoo.

This filtered through into the development of hip-hop culture in New York City in the late 70s and early 80s, when writers would use stolen supplies and stolen space in order to give themselves the artistic outlet they craved. Subway trains were the preferred canvass because a well-bombed train could then take the artists’ name and work across the entire city for many eyes to see.

When NYC cracked down on subway graffiti with their “broken windows theory” of criminal space reclamation – which postulates that neighbourhoods that seem unwatched and unprotected are more susceptible to criminal activity – local artists were pushed onto building walls and competition for territory became extremely high, making it a dangerous time for artists, who risked being attacked when going out alone.

Starting with NYC’s subway train template, graffiti took to the broader continental railway system and was soon seen by people from all over. These works often took the form of full-fledged spray-paint murals and were primarily intended to carry the artists’ tag and accompanying messages to other graffiti writers. This is where “wildstyle” emerged, which is possibly the most definitive graffiti style in today’s terms: a complex interlocking arrangement of text with arrows and symbols that was highly codified and impossible for laypeople to decipher. This is where tagging comes in handy to the newcomer, as one may not be able to recognize a masterful BACON piece without already realizing that someone is tagging the unusual word across the city.

A dispute developed within the culture between artists who would spend many hours meticulously working on a piece and those who would “Cap” (named after the artist) their pieces by just spraying a quick bubble-letter throw-up over top. These quick throw-ups are among some of the most visible today.

The street-level disputes exemplified by capping are only one of many risks graffiti artists face, including arrest and death by a speeding train while at work.

In time, street art was soon stuck with a more inclusive definition. In 1986, in Providence, R.I., Shepard Fairey designed a sticker with wrestler Andre the Giant’s face and the words “Andre the Giant Has a Posse.” These were distributed among the skateboard community as part of a campaign Fairey called “an experiment in phenomenology.” He eventually redesigned the sticker into the ubiquitous OBEY Giant.

Then there’s street art’s expansion into the world of the quasi-legal, legal and legit. Stenciling became prominent as a method of quick-application of detailed images with minimal risk of arrest. Stickers and postering (like the work of Toronto artist fauxreel) also emerged as a way for artists to apply even more detail while minimizing the actual illegal vandalism they were doing.

Contemporary installation street art (like, internationally, that of Mark Jenkins and Specter here at home) even evolved into high-technology artwork through the Graffiti Research Lab: projection “tagging” with lasers, LED “throwies” and glowing LED tags.

With this increased legitimacy came a fallover into gallery space. You can currently find a number of galleries in Toronto showcasing graffiti work. The Royal Ontario Museum also showcased a number of local street artists this past year in an exhibit called “Housepaint.”

For further exploration, check out Toronto-area graffiti blog at www.416streets.com as well as the global graffiti blog based out of NYC at
www.woostercollective.com.

-Chris McConnell, Excalibur (York University)

Et oui, Unw, ça fait un an que ça dure! Et quoi de mieux que de faire un bilan après un an de travail acharné?

Donc, souvenons nous de ce 7 Novembre…

Après avoir lu l’appel à la PASSION de Kyouray, la question se posait… Lurker ou Bloguer? L’accès aux sites WordPress étant très facile même pour un novice, je ne pouvais plus me cacher derrière mon excuse du nul en informatique.  C’est alors qu’à 6heures, je décide d’ouvrir mon blog. Oui, je suis devenu blogueur ce jour la…

Unlimited Networks était est donc un blog sans prétention, très vite tombé dans les limbes du Slow Blogging. En un an, 16 articles publiés : un sur un manga, un sur un livre, un sur un film, un sur des OVAs et un sur un jeu, le reste étant des petits billets rapides sur des sujets trouvés le jour même ou reliés à la  communauté d’otake Française autours de Blogchan et Sama,

Quel est donc la prétention de ce blog? Je veut faire partager les choses qui m’ont plus. Plus ou moins plus, mais pour lesquels je pourrai conter les qualités! Je n’ai en effet pas l’intention d’écrire des billets sur des choses que je n’aime pas… A moins que je lui trouve tout de même des qualités!

Mes billets sont plus ou moins accès Japanimation/culture Japonaise, mais je ne m’impose pas de limite de style ici. Après tout, qu’est-ce qu’un blog ou l’auteur ne parle pas de ce qu’il veut?

En un an, ce blog a tout de même eu le temps de se forger quelques mystères et annales, surtout pour les Termes de recherche :

• trop moche, 58 visites. Merci à toi, internet. Merci.
• самурай, 11 visites. Wait, what?
• motivator, 17 visites. Moi, je pique les visiteurs de Corti Zone
• schtroumpf noir, 100 visites. J’ai mis longtemps à comprendre…

Les plus recherchés tournent autours de La Pierre et le Sabre, et Jin Roh, ce dernier surtout parce que la première image que vous verrez sur Google est la mienne.

A peu près 11 000 visites en un an, pour 46 commentaires ( et 114 spams,  paye ton bot). On voit l’arrivée sur Blogchan sur le graphique des visites…

Bref, merci à vous de m’avoir lu pendant un an ou moins. Oui, merci à vous aussi!

Note: Mon prochain article verra peut être le jour avant l’année dernière, sais t-on jamais…

Et sinon :

• Phoenix Wright est de retour! J’ai enfin commencé le 3eme volet
• Si je suis pas trop la, c’est parceque I’m doing Science!. Et de l’info aussi.
• Vous aimez Bernkastel? Moi aussi.
• Quand Haruhi et Ikari se rencontrent, ça fait boum!
• Contrairement à ce que dit Rodin Pandarex, the cake is not a lie

…csak féltél megkérdezni..

Először lássuk, hogy mit tanultunk róla az iskolában. (Később pedig leírom, hogy cáfol rá eme legendára néhány anime.. XD)

Az Excalibur Arthur király mitikus kardja, melynek olykor mágikus erőt tulajdonítanak, máskor pedig Nagy Britannia felségjogával azonosítják. Egyesek szerint az Excalibur és A Kő Kardja (angolul “Sword in the Stone”, azaz “Kard a Kőben”, ám elegánsabb “A Kő Kardja” fordítás) egyazon fegyver, ám a legtöbb változatban külön-külön objektumok. A kardot igen korán az Arthur-legendához kapcsolták; walesi neve Caledfwlch.

A kard eredetével kapcsolatban két, eredetileg különálló legenda létezik. Az egyik “A Kő Kardja” legenda, amely szerint az Excaliburt csak Arthur, a törvényes király képes kirántani a kőből. A másik változat szerint Arthur az Excaliburt A Tó Hölgyétől kapja, miután eltörte az első kardját a Pellinore királlyal vívott küzdelemben. A Tó Hölgye a kardot “Excaliburnek, azaz acélvágónak” nevezi. Amikor Arthur haldokolva fekszik utolsó csatája után, a vonakodó Sir Bedivere-t (egyes változatokban Sir Gifletet) arra kéri, dobja a kardot a tóba, így juttatva azt vissza A Tó Hölgyének. Sir Bedivere csak a harmadik kérésre cselekszik így. Mielőtt a kard megérintené a tó víztükrét, a Hölgy keze megragadja azt, és lehúzza a víz alá.

Számos leírás szerint az Excalibur mindkét oldalán felirat volt olvasható: az egyik oldalán Take me up, azaz “vegyél fel”, a másikon pedig Cast me away, azaz “dobj el” (vagy hasonló szavak). Ez a vízbe való visszatérést jelzi előre. Állítólag magának a kardhüvelynek is saját ereje volt. Például a vérveszteségből származó sérülések nem ölték meg a kard viselőjét. Egyes mesék szerint egyáltalán nem is vérezett az, akinek birtokában volt a kardhüvely. Végül Morgan La Fay – nagyhatalmú varázslónő, olykor Arthur és Genviere ellenfele – lopta el és dobta a tóba, hogy soha többé senki se találhasson rá.

***

Nos..akkor nézzük a ‘valóságot’ Elsőnek a Fate/Stay Night című animét említeném, amiből 2 fontos dolgot is megtudtam…

• Artúr király…(most kapaszkodjon meg mindenki) valójában egy nő volt. Igen..így már helyesebb Arthuriának nevezni, mint azt az anime is teszi. Ezzel még meg is barátkoztam, hisz az egyik legenda (a Tó Hölgy-féle) fonalát követi…csak hát..a főhős nemet váltott..
• Ahogy fentebb is írtam..a kardhüvelynek is saját ereje volt. So..adva volt Arhuria..és a kardja..de nem tudta, hol is van a kardhüvelye. De egy nap..rájött a titokra.. és én is. Egy srác a kardhüvely… (wtf? O.o) Nem tudom..lehet csak az én fantáziámmal van a baj, de mikor épp egy epic fight közepén tartunk..tök drámai a hangulat..és egyszer csak..a csaj, aki Arthuria szerepében díszeleg….benyögi, hogy Shirou, te vagy az én (kard)hüvelyem..nos..érdekes.. ^^”

Szóval..eddig van egy nőnemű Artúr királyunk, és egy kardhüvely…aki egy srác. Ekkor néztem meg a Soul Eater című animét, ami egy újabb fontos dologra világított rá. Igen. Ez volt a legendás Holy Sword..az Excalibur..kiléte.. A kard bankai-ja, azaz..valódi alakja..egy…nem is tudom leírni..mi az..De egy biztos..Idegesítő..

Akkor foglaljuk össze: Artúr király nő volt, kardjának bankai-ja egy idegesítő görcs, a kard hüvelye pedig egy 17 éves srác. Congratulations!

Today’s Intake:

Cranberry, kale, lemon juice w/ some stevia (cran and kale local)

Steamed dino kale and kelp in herbs and hemp oil (kale local)

Cilantro salad in olive oil (cilantro local)

Buckwheat Crispies, homemade w/ buckwheat honey, molasses, coconut butter, & a little Himalayan Crystal Salt (BW & honey local) (too lazy to make some sunflower seed milk to go with it)

I caved and bought the Excalibur dehydrator, and I’m so excited for it to come! I spent some down time at work today planning out all the great recipes I’m going to try out. Other than that it was a pretty uneventful day. Still cleaning out the cupboards of non-local food stuffs and I definitely need to go grocery shopping. That won’t be happening until Wednesday though. My juice this morning was effing delicious, by the way.

Halloween Juice

Yesterday’s Intake:

Cranberry, kale, carrot, ginger juice (all local except for the ginger) (it was also purple with an orange foam which felt nicely Halloween appropriate)

Cilantro salad with Wakame and Hemp oil (cilantro local)

Carrots and hemp seeds (carrots local)

Kale and apple smoothie (all local)

2 apples spread with buckwheat honey and sprinkled with cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom (all local except spices)

Today’s Intake:

Cranberry, sunflower seed, hemp, bee pollen granola in rice milk (rice milk and hemp non-local)

2 apples (local)

Hemp seeds, sunflower seeds, and Wakame (sunflower local)

Thoughts so far:

Today was weird, first of all. Yesterday was pretty craptastic for me (which especially sucked since Halloween is normally one of my favorite holidays) and I ended up quickly packing up an overnight bag so I could spend a comforting night with my parents at their place. I just threw all my breakfast ingredients into a baggie except for the milk, which my parents had, and ran out the door. Didn’t think to pack a lunch or anything, and had to be to work at 12:30 today so I grabbed the easiest thing on hand. Man do I need to go grocery shopping.

I’m considering buying an Excalibur Dehydrator so I can make some raw treats, especially to give out as presents for Christmas. I’ve wanted one for quite a while now and have found a 4-tray on sale for $105. For some reason this experiment seems like the perfect excuse to finally get one. But where I’ll get the money from, I don’t know…

After doing some research online yesterday I found a locavore website for Minnesota talking about all the great artisanal cheeses and meats available in the winter. And not talking about much else. Immediately my mind started to rebel the whole project when I saw this website for omnivores, not vegans, saying they can’t even make it through the winter eating locally except for their cheese and meat. But that’s half the point of this experiment. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done, I’ll just have to find out for myself.

 Ás vezes chamada de Coventina, Mnemosyne era uma das 9 ninfas das águas na antiga Grécia. Rainha de um grupo de donzelas numa ilha misteriosa que ficava no meio de um lago encantado, onde existe um suntuoso templo habitado não só por eles mas também por anjos e outros seres encantados. Suas águas seriam as Águas Sagradas da Graça Divina onde aqueles que nelas se banham se vem livres de todas as suas dores. Mnemosyne que virou Viviane forjou, com o auxílio dos anjos de Deus uma Espada Encantada que conhecemos por Excalibur. No campo de batalha  a espada desembainhada, a cada vez que é usada da maneira correta canta. Ouve-se um coral de magníficas vozes masculinas em louvor à Deus. Dia 20 de outubro se comemora esta dama do lago, um dia em que voce deve cuidar de suas próprias espadas. Consagre-as aos anjos e eles te ajudarão no uso correto e na proteção.

Imagem: cdzrpg.com

York student Mariana Valente is the second York student to represent Canada in the Miss Universe pageant. (Photo by Pippin Lee, Excalibur Publications)

A few weeks back, I had a chance to interview Miss Universe Canada 2009, Mariana Valente.  Valente is a York student, and I thought it would make a good feature piece in the paper. Valente competed in the Miss Universe competition in the Bahamas this year, and although she didn’t win, she has an interesting story nonetheless. From what I gathered in my research for the piece, there is lots of bits and pieces written about her, but nothing substantial.  She was on ET Canada, she did a segment of eTalk Daily, and there were a few small articles here and there around the time of the pageant.

A few days ago, the Toronto Sun ran a similar piece on Valente.  I think the author  must be a close relative of hers (I hope), because it’s the only way I can possibly think of accounting for gems like these:

“Our little miss is an angel of mercy for the kids of Brazil.”

“You could sink a rainforest in those big, brown eyes.”

“Much more than a pretty face is our Mariana.”

Here’s the link to The Sun article, entitled “Our little miss is an angel”

Here’s the Excalibur version, printed a few weeks earlier than The Sun story.

Enjoy!

According to CBC’s vice-president of English services Richard Stursberg, placing your bets everywhere is the best thing to do when you’re not sure where the market is going.  That’s exactly what the CBC is doing with their new format, hoping to eventually find the way.  You can read more on the new CBC, including my interview with Stursberg in my feature story this week found here.  The Excalibur website is a dinosaur though so the cutlines, and the pull quotes and the decks don’t quite go where they’re supposed to. 

Also, my interview with Peter Mansbridge will be printed in (nearly) its entirity in next week’s paper.  I didn’t have space for it this week.  I’ll try and upload a clip from it as well.  So, in the mean time, enjoy this week’s article, and I’ll post my interview with Peter as soon as I can.