Established in 2006, in San Francisco (US) and in Ottawa (Canada) with Dr. David Kirn as CEO and Dr. John Bell from the Ottawa Health Research Institute/University of Ottawa as CSO, Jennerex Biotherapeutics was granted by European Medicines Agency (EMEA) the Orphan Drug Designation to Jennerex’s product JX-594 for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer. JX-594 is expected to enter a Phase 3 pivotal trial in the second half of 2010.

Read more on Jennerex news >

]]> http://sheepwreck.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/i-soared/ Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:34:00 +0000 ellenspn http://sheepwreck.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/i-soared/

I’m back, well at least part of me is back.

A part of me is still wanting to be back in the mountains, but that’s a the geologist in me.  I have returned from SOAR 2009 that was held in Sunriver, Oregon.  I cannot say enough about the staff of Sunriver, especially the shuttle drivers!  Tireless they drove us all over the place, brought our to our rooms and generally were my salvation when I didn’t think I could make it another step with all the stuff I was dragging around.  And another thing,  I really debated with myself during the trip if I should have brought the Victoria or not.  Honestly, I would have been better off in so many ways if I had brought the much lighter Victoria, but I didn’t want to chance bringing a wheel that I would not be comfortable treadling in my cotton workshop and to be honest, the thought of borrowing a wheel never crossed my mind.

Ah my workshop with Stephanie Gaustad.  What can I say?  Early on I had narrowed my workshop choices down to three workshops, two of which I was having a hard time deciding between.  Then back in March I asked Judith MacKenzie McCuin what workshops she would recommend for someone like me.  The intersection of the sessions I wanted to take and what she recommended was cotton with Stephanie.

My goals were simple.  Spinning cotton on my Lendrum and making multiple ply yarns.  In no time at all on the first day she had many of us spinning cotton on our wheels.  We also got to do a lot more in her workshop.  Ginning cotton, willowing cotton, cotton biology, cotton economy and politics all interwoven during our spinning times.  Stephanie brought a lovely great wheel.

As well as charhas built by none other than Alden Amos.  Well, who else would they have been build by?

Our sessions were punctuated by bits of banter and well as some fabulous hot chocolate make by the resort.  Stephanie, bless her, will be getting copies of the video she allowed me to take.  Yarn handling skills I found I was weak in.  With wool it is so forgiving you can get away with a lot of sloppy handling, but cotton is a whole different beast.  Improving my  yarn handling skills will allow me to branch out.  Some of it is a lack of the right equipment.  But other is a problem I have locking myself into a list of items and not allowing myself the time to to learn skills, some of them quite basic.

Sigh

So what did I learn at SOAR?  That I have a lot more to learn!

The retreat was exhausting.  I found that after three days of staying in one place I resented flitting from room to room with the junk of doom in tow.  This one needed combs, this one needed five bobbins and a lazy kate, this one needed half my bag of stuff.  The sessions themselves was fine, just packing up and moving I found daunting.  Either I pare down my “stuff” or I invest in a cart to move my stuff around with!  Met many many lovely people including a woman from Perth, Australia who seems to have traveled the farthest.

My favorite of the retreat sessions was certainly reeling silk with Michael Cook.  Very cool to do and not as hard as one might imagine!

The marketplace was fun, especially when I walked around with a box of chocolate offering pieces to the vendors on Friday evening.  I had fun buying books, pygora (ah), pacu-vicuna (ah), batts (ah), yeah you get the idea.

I really enjoyed the gallery and attempted to document it as well as I could, until the batteries gave up the ghost in the camera.  I caught the rest of the gallery on video which is now posted on YouTube.  I also showed a couple items in the fashion show and both were well received, but the shetland/shetland shawl was fondled and admired all week long.

And no mention of SOAR is complete without  a mention of Dan and Phredde.  The two of them made my first SOAR memorable and delightful and yes a bit relaxing with a bit of swill.  Thank you for the cotton, the instruction, the rubber bands, and the talk!  Good to know other geologists out there in the fiber world.

Next year?  Certainly, it’s only an hour from home!

Con poco más de dos meses para su estreno oficial, la cadena Syfy presentó un nuevo adelanto oficial de Caprica, que tiene como detalle interesante las primeras imágenes oficiales de James Marsters como Barnabus Greeley.

Aunque gran parte de la historia se mantiene en secreto, es sabido que el personaje de Marsters (Angel, Buffy) es el peligroso líder de un grupo terrorista, manejado por profundos deseos morales y carnales, que aparecerá en al menos tres episodios de la serie.

Como todos saben, la esperada spinoff de Battlestar Galactica tiene lugar varios años antes de los eventos de BSG, cuando los humanos comienzan a dar los primeros pasos con la tecnológica que finalmente terminará convirtiéndose en los Cylons.

El piloto de Caprica se encuentra disponible en DVD, mientras que la serie comenzará oficialmente el 22 de enero por Syfy.

Thought I would jump on AddictingGames.com again and see what I could find.  While I am not a huge fan of Pac-Man, I found this little spin off to be really fun.

PacXon quickly tries to collect blue squares!

The objective in PacXon is simple, turn at least 80% of the stage into blue blocks.  You do this by moving through the dark areas turning them into blue blocks.  Any dark blocks fully surrounded by blue blocks will instantly become blue, encouraging you to get greedy and try and grab more at a time.  If you happen to surround a ghost the interior blocks will not change color, but at least it keeps a ghost under some control.

The ghosts themselves have different movement patterns, some can only move in the dark space where other can only move in the blue.  The large red ghosts will actually turn your hard earned blue blocks back into dark ones, so it is a constant race for time.  There are a few power-ups that appear that will increase your speed or reduce the ghost’s speed and they seem to help allot!  If a ghost connects with your trail of blue squares they will turn red and kill you.  You can avoid this by moving back into the blue blocks you have already captured.

Getting owned by the ghost.

All in all PacXon is a fun little game that delivers.  It doesn’t last all that long but I feel it is a good example of how simple can be effective.  I would love to see the game re-skinned with unique characters and a little better music would be nice.  Check it out.

Photo: Boston Dynamics

The MIT spinoff robotics company, Boston Dynamics, recently released footage of their PETMAN prototype, a biped robot the balances dynamically using a human-like walking motion. The company says it is a close relative of BigDog, sharing elements of the mechanical design and control. However unlike BigDog, PETMAN will be used to test chemical protection clothing by the US Army. The biped will simulate human physiology within its suit by changing temperature, humidity, and even sweating when necessary.

After a 13 month design phase, the program has a 17 month build, installation, and validation phase. Delivery is scheduled for 2011.

Related Articles: Explosive Pogo Stick Robot Leaps Over 25-Foot Obstacles

I am working on a video game for my TSA state project now. My Friends and I will be doing voices, I (and I alone) will be doing the art and game production however, another of my friends will be creating the music for the game. I am currently working on both a storyline and beginning artwork for the game. On top of all that I am practicing my voices because the voice for the final boss kills my throat. It will certainly be completely off the wall but, it will be well made and fun to play. The main ideas that I have developed are the main character Jeff, the soon-to-be owner of the death star and far superior to his older brother Darth, and Mr. Stevens, Head of catering and the current ruler of the Death Star in the game. In order to win you must traverse through the Death Star and the further you go the darker and stranger it will become. You will finally meet Mr. Stevens in the final room and must battle him for control of the Death Star. In the end who will prevail? (Loosely based off of Star Wars and Eddie Izzard’s Star Wars Cantine) Only you can decide. S33 Y0U L8T3R, ThynkTank

Idea Prompt for 10/17/2009.

THE SOURCE: Can’t really tell you how I came up with this. It’s just something I’ve done most of my movie-going life.

WHAT WAS I THINKING… Next time you’re watching a beloved movie classic, think about minor characters and what their stories are. What happens to them after they leave the screen?

Why not make them major characters in their own story? I’m not talking about a prequel or sequel, as those words apply to the protagonist. What I’m talking about they do on TV all the time: a spinoff.

IMAGINE… giving your favorite supporting character a movie of their own.

… THE POSSIBILITIES:

Casablanca: After Bogart and Rains fled into exile,“Rick’s” was reopened under new management. Sydney Greenstreet now ran the place, with all the old familiar characters sticking around, including Sam the piano player. The time is just after the Allies land in Africa and the Germans are hurredly preparing to flee.

The Godfather: Tom Hagen has quite a colorful part to play in the Corleone saga. The horse’s head in the bed is worth a separate story all its own. His being the lone non-Italian non-Jew in the family makes him a unique character. You’ll want to fill in Hagen’s backstory when you research the real life mobster that Hagen is patterned after, Murray Humphreys.

Wizard of Oz. From Toto’s point of view. Seriously.

THE EXERCISE: Create a concept for a favorite character in a famous movie. Start with AFI’s Top 100, and look for characters whose stories haven’t yet been fully told.

NOTE: If you’d like to develop these Ideas further, just leave a Comment and share your work.

My experience with the Stargate franchise is somewhat limited: I’m fairly certain I’ve seen the movie, likely stumbled upon SG-1 at some point, and saw quite a few random episodes of Atlantis while home during holidays. It is a series that, for me, has always failed to keep my interest largely because of the repetitiveness of its procedural construct, especially with Atlantis. While there were some interesting ideas on that show, and even some interesting performances, I found that the universe being constructed wasn’t interesting enough for me to come back week after week for very similar storylines that would either end quickly or, at the most, develop into a 2 or 3 episode arc.

However, like any show of this nature, by the end of its run Stargate Atlantis had built up a large following based on a cast of characters that audiences related with, characters which would prove capable of sustaining repetitive storylines. It is for this reason that the decision to end Atlantis somewhat prematurely, before fans had felt its time was up, seemed particularly strange: yes, Stargate Universe (which debuts tomorrow night at 9pm on Space in Canada and SyFy in the U.S.) offers many of the same procedural elements, albeit with a twist, but because this cast of characters is completely different it means that audience goodwill starts all over again.

The biggest problem with tonight’s two-hour pilot for Stargate Universe is that I felt absolutely no emotional connection to these characters, or this story, and perhaps most importantly nothing the episode accomplishes makes me feel as if this is going to change in the immediate future. I won’t suggest that over time this group of characters couldn’t be engaging, but in the pilot their actions feel contrived and lifeless with a thin back story and an overbearing sense of helplessness which should bring them closer together but actually just operates as a false tension.

Free from the pressure of establishing a whole host of characters and the show’s premise, it is possible that these kinds of issues will be ironed out. However, even then, there is something about this Universe that feels muddled in a way which seems inherent to creative decisions that have the franchise starting over with a direction both too clear and too unclear.

Tonight’s pilot opens with the kind of scene that science fiction thrives on, a group of people coming flying through a Stargate too quickly and resulting in injuries and general chaos. We’re supposed to be asking the same questions as this ragtag crew: where are they, and more importantly how did they get there? The show then follows their efforts to discovery just where they are, how they’re going to survive, and in the end how they might be able to get back home to Earth, all while flashing back to how they got to this point. We learn that Eli Wallace (David Blue) was a role-playing game nerd who was recruited due to his ability to discover the solution to a secret puzzle embedded in the game, and that Lt. Scott (Brian J. Smith) was having some sort of clandestine sexual relationship.

However, none of the backstories really justify the decision to join things in media res. When we do learn why they went through the Stargate to this location, the knowledge of their destination actually damages the uncertainty of that moment. If the pilot had played in chronological order, their apprehension at jumping through the gate would have been our apprehension, and we wouldn’t know any more than they do about what’s about to happen. Instead, the show spends needless time jumping back and forth to fill in gaps, sucking tension and suspense out of the flashbacks while distracting from what’s happening in the present. There’s one “twist” which sheds new light on a character which is helped by the fractured narrative, but every other character feels as if they would have been more engaging if we had never joined things already in progress.

I can understand the impulse, considering that the premise of the show is going to be the situation we see in that opening scene, but it sets a strange tone for the pilot. Rather than creating interesting scenarios that tell us something about the mysterious ship they end up on (which is on an unknown course which can’t be corrected), the show relies on the flashbacks and  a whole host of science fiction clichés for dramatic interest. Most unfortunately, these larger moments (which do feel reductive of shows like Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek: Voyager) are surrounded by some rather mundane search party missions that do nothing to convince me that seeing these people search the ship week after week is going to be particularly thrilling.

The pilot ends with a pretty clear premise, one which is predicated on the “survival” element of the show. However, what I’m unclear about is how precisely the show is going to be able to actually make this premise interesting. The writing is quite stiff when I felt it needed to feel more natural, and the show lacks urgency even when the characters are talking about how urgent their situation is. It is possible that the show will become more interesting when they head off to different planets (in the Stargate tradition) and visit different cultures where there is more variety in their surroundings. However, parts of the pilot’s conclusion limit human agency’s role in the series quite substantially, meaning that the show will boil down to character interaction in a way that feels premature for a show that’s starting over from scratch and not yet able to carry that burden. The show insists that the show is designed to reveal the “heroes and villains” amongst the crew, but the pilot doesn’t make that dichotomy clear so I can’t help but note the absence of such intriguing interpersonal dynamics.

I think the show does have some potential to grow, as the direction is competent if unspectacular and I do think the cast is quite solid. Robert Carlyle’s Dr. Rush is more unlikable than I had imagined, given only a simple and throwaway bit of sympathy to justify his bullish behaviour, but Carlyle is a strong actor who could handle better material in future episodes. Similarly, I think that Blue’s Wallace is a decent avatar (to use the video game term) for the audience to experience this world through, but the pilot has him acclimatized too quickly and makes him too comfortable with the suddenness of the surroundings. Lou Diamond Phillips is briefly glimpsed early on, and Ming Na appears in a largely undeveloped role, so it’s not as if the cast is lacking in talent.

But right now it doesn’t seem like a show that is using them to their full potential. I’m pretty sure I’ll run into the show on occasion, and there could be a point down the road where the fate of these soldiers, civilians and scientists really captures me. But, in pilot form, what potential there is feels misused, and some structural choices keep even its emotional beats from hitting in a way that would turn me into a fan. How it will play for Stargate fans, of course, is unknown to me, but I feel that even fan goodwill won’t be able to hide that this pilot feels like a misstep that hampers the show’s ability to launch with much momentum.

Cultural Observations

• Like any show filming in Vancouver, there’s some Canadian content in the show’s cast: Elyse Levesque (who does well playing the underdeveloped Chloe Armstrong), Alaina Huffman (who plays the ship’s medic-turned-doctor Tamara Johansen), and Justin Louis (who plays Colonel Young, and who I last saw in HBO’s Emmy-winning Grey Gardens).
• Interesting that Lou Diamond Phillips is listed as a guest star in the pilot, and yet his character is considered part of the series. I don’t know if this is a marketing decision or not, as the circumstances of his appearance make me question how he’s going to be reworked into the plot.
• One element of the show that seems particularly strange, for me at least, is a particular piece of technology. There’s a decision not to show us just how a particular advice work that’s done to make us suspicious, but when it’s something a bit bizarre (and a bit too cheap for the series, in some ways) I felt like we needed more of a demonstration in order to really understand it.
• Fans of Stargate have a few cameos to look out for, which I realized were cameos simply based on how the show handled them as opposed to really knowing the actors involved.
• Meanwhile, fans of Happy Gilmore will enjoy the appearance of Shooter McGavin, Christopher McDonald.

A recent post on Wayne Hale’s Blog pointed me to NASA’s Technology Spinoff site. The current edition is located here Now you too know where the answers to all those questions about the value of space exploration resides. “For more than 40 years, the NASA Innovative Partnerships Program has facilitated the transfer of NASA technology to the private sector, benefiting global competition and the economy. The resulting commercialization has contributed to the development of commercial products and services in the fields of health and medicine, industry, consumer goods, transportation, public safety, computer technology, and environmental resources.”

Credit: NASA Image

The Spinoff site features summaries of past issues. One of these is about NASA research into aerodynamic drag and its application to the Trucking Industry. Rounding the horizontal and vertical edges of the traditional cab-over design, closing the gap between the cab and the trailer, and adding a faired underbody yielded large reductions in drag. “Assuming annual mileage of 100,000 driven by an independent trucker, these drag reductions would translate to fuel savings of as much as 6,829 gallons per year.”

Initial testing began in 1973 with a retired delivery van. Engineers attached metal sheeting to create a box with all 90 degree angles. This was the baseline shape used for the drag measurements. Rounding the front vertical edges, then the top and bottom edges gave a 52% reduction in drag. Sealing the underbody yielded another 7%. Total fuel savings on the highway was estimated at from 15% to 25%.

Between 1990 and 1991, additional vortex-generator research was conducted. Both active and passive methods for controlling two-dimensional separated flow were examined.

NASA makes its research results available to the business community, and Aeroserve Technologies Ltd., of Ottawa, Canada, with its marketing arm, Airtab LLC, in Loveland, Colorado, have created commercial applications that reduce aerodynamic drag and increase fuel efficiency.

Interestingly, the traditional cab-over-engine design (COE) was developed in response to laws limiting the maximum length of cab and trailer to 55 feet. NASA engineering showed that there were savings available if the limit was placed on trailers and not on the cab. In 1982, the limits for trailers were changed to 48 feet. Prior to this, 65% of all cabs were COE designs. As of 2004, only 1% of designs on the road are COE. With the engine out front of the cab, additional aerodynamic drag reduction has become possible.

Other 2008 Spinoff articles include:

• Wireless Fluid-Level Measurement System Equips Boat Owners where “…a key safety feature unique to the system is that it allows the sensors to be completely encapsulated so that the fuel level can be measured with neither the fuel nor fuel vapors coming in contact with any electrical components of the system, thus eliminating the potential for combustible fuel vapors being ignited by arcing from damaged electrical components”.
• Polymer Fabric Protects Firefighters, Military, and Civilians. Beginning in the late 1950’s, Polybenzimidazole (PBI) was first synthesized by Dr. Carl Marvel while studying the creation of high-temperature stable polymers for the U.S. Air Force. Subsequent applications over the succeeding decades have been to protect astronauts and firefighters, and new applications are in development for carbon sequestation and hydrogen fuel cells.
• Lithium Battery Power Delivers Electric Vehicles to Market
• Space Suit Technologies Protect Deep-Sea Divers
• Space Age Swimsuit Reduces Drag, Breaks Records

Since 1976, Spinoff has featured between 40 and 50 of these commercial products annually. Spinoff maintains a searchable database of every technology published since its inception.

As we all now know, Ecco the Time Dolphin joined the Bookass mythology in the third installment of the series… but did you also know that the quirky little aquamarine detective himself has his own series of spinoff films!??! First in the pipeline for the popular porpoise is “Ecco the Time Dolphin vs. the Nazis!” In this delightful historic comedy of manners, Ecco’s wacky antics get him in hot water with the American military brass. He decides to go deep behind enemy lines, in the past, to take on the evil Nazi party you may also remember from World War 2!

As he bounces along on his stomach from bunker to bunker, he gets himself out of the frying pan and into the oven by changing the face of war into an elongated snout! With the American flag streaming behind his dorsal fin, he charges into combat and makes the Germans realize that being the conquerors of Europe isn’t going to be as easy as they thought! Bring your kids to learn about the past, bring yourself to learn about your future living with the beautiful images of Ecco The Time Dolphin vs. The Nazis implanted in your brain! Sure to appeal to everyone in every demographic ever.

Exclusive Storyboard!

First Look at the Movie Poster!

Well, fuck Photobucket, I know you want it, and baby I have it, so here you go.

The Uncensored Original Movie Poster

The cast of Showtime's 'The L Word'

Like a combination of ‘The Real World’ and ‘The L Word’, ‘The Real L Word: Los Angeles’ is the name of a reality show based on the popular series ‘The L Word’ that Showtime is developing. This is the first time Showtime will try to tackle this kind of a reality show. Showtime has ordered nine episodes, from ‘L Word’ creator Ilene Chaiken and reality producers Magical Elves (‘Top Chef’).

According to Variety, the show will “follow six lesbians in Los Angeles as they go about their lives — a lesbian answer to Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchise. Project is dependent on casting, the net said; if all goes as planned, “The Real L Word” would debut sometime next year.”

‘The L Word’ was a popular Showtime series that aired for six seasons and ended earlier this year. Showtime announced this April that they won’t be picking up the show’s spinoff ‘The Farm’.

Platform yang dibangun di posting sebelum ini belum tuntas; platform bukan dan tidak berarti apa-apa tanpa link! Link dengan sumber informasi di dunia luar sana…

Di awal, sebuah link sistem telefoni percontohan dibangun untuk melayani masyarakat agar bisa mengakses informasi melalui telepon karena desanya belum tersentuh sistem komunikasi telepon. Contoh link diperlihatkan di samping.

Tiba di sentral (ITB, Bandung) komunikasi bercabang, dapat disalurkan melalui jejaring telepon kabel resmi milik Telkom, atau disalurkan melalui internet, hingga tiba di tujuan.

Sistem percontohan ini sukses, dan dikembangkan lebih lanjut agar sistem tidak membatasi diri hanya untuk sistem telepon analog seperti di atas, tetapi juga sanggup mengikuti perkembangan teknologi dengan melayani telepon digital (IP phone), telepon seluler,  dan data/pesan digital lainnya termasuk konperensi video. Dalam bahasa canggih sistem link disebut, interoperable digital network.

Keberadaan interoperable digital network melengkapi sistem komunikasi telepon dengan komunikasi informasi lain yang dihasilkan oleh perangkat komunikasi lain, selain telepon (baca, komputer).

Eksperimen link terus dicobakan untuk memajukan daerah/desa. Kondisi daerah yang unik menarik dan menantang dicarikan solusinya yang tepat. Hanya kita sendiri yang tahu dan bisa menyelesaikannya. Lainnya, dari luar sana, tunggu dulu. Hands off, please.

Untuk menjadikan platform kita yang kemarin itu menjadi bagian tak terpisahkan dari sistem link ini, masih banyak pekerjaan yang harus diselesaikan. Selain itu, link yang tetap dan permanen diharapkan didampingi link bergerak, yang berkeliling melayani dan memajukan daerah/desa yang masih tertinggal. Indonesia konek!

Bagi yang ingin mengetahui lebih lanjut dan mendalami komunikasi dan jejaring pedesaan (rural network), informasi ringkas ada di berkas ini Rural Next Generation Network (.pdf) dan perusahaan spinoff, yaitu kegiatan yang mengangkat nilai sosio-ekonomi hasil riset, di sini, Clarisense.

• Cardinal Health (ticker: CAH), provides products and services to the healthcare community. The company is split into two divisions:

1. Healthcare supply chain services (HSCS)
2. Clinical and medical products (CMP).

HSCS supplies drugs to hospitals, clinics, drug store chains. CMP creates medical products for hospitals to improve patient care. (think ventilators,  antiseptics, infusion pumps). HSCS makes up of the bulk of the Cardinal’s revenues and profit, and is growing. FY09 revenue is aimed to be at 95.7 billion.  CMP, the smaller, barely growing division is projected to hit 4.6billion for FY09.

Some things to be aware of:

• Sales for Cardinal’s HSCS nonbulk division have grown at a slower rate than the bulk division, non-bulk customers require more complex servicing (think value added services which includes receiving inventory in large sizes and breaking it into smaller quantities, warehousing the product for a longer time, delivering smaller orders to a customer location), all of these which translates into a fatter profit margin from non-bulk customers.

• Alaris product recalls (which are part of the CMP division), this is a negative for future growth.

• Hospital capital spending declined drastically probably due to economic conditions as well as the political situation with the Obama healthcare plan.

Cardinal Health’s situation is very murky with sales slowing, hospital capital expenditure curtailment, however  where there is uncertainty there are profits to be made.

Some questions you should be thinking, why is this spin-off important and why should you be interested in it?

CMP is a rather unloved subsidiary that’s full of problems and Cardinal can’t wait to get rid of it. HSCS is the prized crown jewel that investors are interested in investing in. The spinning off the undesirable slow growing company will realize  value for the parent company (CAH) by refocusing their attention on the HSCS division.  As with most spin-off situations, the mutual fund managers will probably sell spinoff without regard or care for value.  This is a type of “forced selling” as most mutual funds that are invested in CAH will not be able to hold on to Carefusion due to their investment guidelines (think large cap mutual funds).

Some links to look at:

• CAH news release (here)
• CAH slide presentation (here)
• CAH unaudited financial statements(here)
• Carefusion unaudited financial statements(here)

Family Guy spinoff? Come again?…Well then it must be about stewie, or at least brian…both?

Quagmire?

No. As strange as it may sound, the Cleveland Show will be premiering on fox this fall. And i couldn’t be happier about it. By the looks of it, the writers are replicating the family guy success to an obnoxious degree, which could just make me laugh even more. There’s a father, attractive wife, overweight sun, smart-alleck baby, and a teenage daughter who wears a hat. Sound familiar?

But even more exciting is the fact that Kanye West has already recorded his voice for the show, and wants to do more, as well as Taraji P. Henson (Benjamin Button). Family Guy humor + Kanye = Success.

Here’s the trailer…

I remember watching an episode of ‘Different Strokes’ a few weeks back. It was a strange episode..I think they were trying out an idea for a spinoff for another show – about immigrants in the US learning to talk in English..learning American culture and mannerisms etc. The only thing of interest in that episode was this one dialogue by an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, who, on entering the Drummond’s Park Avenue penthouse, says, “This is your home? In Czechoslovakia, only railways stations look so grand”.

I didn’t quite understand that statement. Was Czechoslovakia such a majestic nation that their railways stations were built like Manhattan penthouse apartments? If so, why did so many people still want to flee the country and settle in democracies like the US? Was it just one of the manifestations of socialism, where such basic things got turned upside down – where the citizens constitute groups of dissidents wanting to reject the country’s communist regime, while their railway stations remain content in their architectural splendour, oblivious to the miseries of the people? I figured it might’ve been the time..the era..its place in world history back then which might’ve led us to view this as a discrepancy. After all, nobody claims that communism hampered the aesthetic senses of architects and people in general. The Red Square after all was built in Czarist Russia.

My thoughts were not centred on this though. What I was thinking of, was how certain public places become symbolic of a country’s people..its politico-social history. Like railway stations do. Sort of like signboards that say, ‘This is our country. And these are our people. Live and accept. And enjoy’.

Most railway stations in Mumbai would have to write the ‘live and accept’ very prominently on their signboards. In bold. Doing so would acknowledge the fact that most railway stations here suck and are dirty..while at the same time providing outsiders with a piece of warning so they’re not taken too much by surprise at the filth and decay in and around railway stations. The ‘enjoy’ would be a rare word used within India..at least within Mumbai..and looked at with suspicion at places that display it.

The pleasure in writing this post lies in recalling countries and places where this is not the case. I can think of a few railway stations elsewhere, which would proudly scream the word out to commuters and visitors, asking them to enjoy and have a pleasant stay. In a believable fashion. Switzerland is one such country. Railway stations in Switzerland are so reflective of what the people and the country are like – they’re effortlessly clean and welcoming. And that’s a rare thing to achieve!!

Before continuing on with this, I must say I’m not an expert on railway stations. I’ve travelled by trains very few times; all through college and later I’ve travelled mostly by bus. But there is an enigma of sorts that trains and railway stations possess which I haven’t completely fathomed yet. The fact is that they do reflect a microscopic view of the population of a country going about its daily routine – in a sociological experiment to study human behaviour and its transition through time and in the course of one day, a railway station could provide the perfect setting for a random sample collection. In Mumbai, I’ve known people who swore to never travel by trains, become train aficionados. I have a cousin who’s obsessed with the Indian Railways – listening to him talk is like having an overabundance of station names and technologies thrown down at you while you try and decipher the meaning of this fixation which apparently exists in many people!!

But the point of this article is not trains or the Indian Railways. What’s amusing is that, when you start considering how indicative railway stations are of the prevalent social scenario of a particular country, it’s almost eerie. You begin to wonder why the Indian government doesn’t end up spending more money in revamping them and their premises, and then printing photographs on brochures to send off to other nations, as a way to brag about the fulfilling role they play in the lives of its citizens. Who needs statistics indicating the GDP and celebrities endorsing tourism, when you have gleaming railway stations with pleased people running to and fro looking like they actually ‘enjoy’ being there – going to work at rush hours and trying to look appropriately nonchalant doing so?

But alas, reality is not so rosy. Indian railway stations are surrounded by piles of garbage that are deeper than Pink Floyd lyrics

Let’s review a few railway stations..and what they signify. As I mentioned, there’re the Swiss stations. Sure, just on the outskirts of Zurich there’s lots of graffiti and the area does look like a shady ghetto, but the rooftop gardens that you can see through the trains, where, during office lunch breaks, you see people sipping cold drinks under sun umbrellas, compensates for the harsher alternatives. The train station for the capital city Berne is magnificent. There’s nothing overly official about it..and it doesn’t ooze the feeling of power that you might expect out of a country’s capital; but when an entire city is named UNESCO’s World Heritage Site, rest assured the city’s train station would be splendid!!

Zurich train station

Outside Berne railway station..the glass enclave and the trams

Lucerne, on the other hand, has a more modest station..although it is the most popular tourist destination in Switzerland. The station itself is non-descript, but it has some of the most wonderfully accommodating staff I’ve ever found anywhere – when you do find them, that is. When a close friend and I were staying in Lucerne, for just 3 days last July, we did all our travelling through trains. On our first day of exploring the country, on a gloriously warm summer day, we got to Lucerne train station and decided we’d have to book our tickets on the machine ourselves because there was no ticket counter. When we started the ticket retrieving process, we found out all the instructions were in Swiss-German. After frantically but intelligently punching the right buttons and getting 2 tickets, my friend and I looked pleased with ourselves. It was before we realized we still had to figure out which platform the train would be coming to. Swiss trains are staggeringly on time; and train stations there have platforms up to numbers 58, 60 etc!! Even three days was not sufficient time to figure out how the system of platform numbers works there; and right then, we were sufficiently alarmed. Just then, we came across the lone station personnel on the platform – he was a middle-aged man in uniform and he was carrying a gadget with him which from a distance looked suspiciously like an ‘Etch a Sketch’ model.

We approached this man to ask him about our train’s arrival and realized immediately that he didn’t speak or understand English. By now, we were more than nervous. We’d come to the station on time, not knowing the ticket-booking process would take so long. Now we were in more of a soup..because the tickets were booked – and travel in Switzerland is EXPENSIVE..for that matter, most things in Switzerland are – yet, we had no idea which platform we were to rush to, and now we were playing Pictionary with a sweet man who carried an ‘etch a sketch’ toy to work!!

The fact is though, that at the time, with all our nervousness, the man actually managed to make me giggle. I can’t say now for sure, that it wasn’t hysteria making me giggly, but the fact that my friend was amused too – and he wouldn’t giggle hysterically..thats solely my forte!! – is some proof that the man did actually amuse us terribly!! He made a lot of random etchings on his toy, he even said a lot of friendly-sounding stuff in German, while he also pointed his pen towards a certain spot on the paper he had tucked under his arm. All of this while smiling – no, beaming – at us.

We felt like god’s golden children right then..and he our saviour. We were so glad to have just seen him explain things to us, that for a moment we forgot we had a train to catch. Thankfully, an English-speaking official came by and sweetly directed us to the correct platform. And that’s how everyone in Switzerland is – sweet and neat without being overly so. Every train station there looks like a picture postcard – well, they have spots of peeling colour and some are uncomfortably small – but they’re all adorned with bright cheerful flowers, are clean and homely, and have good seating arrangements. Not to mention the trains are absolutely on time!!

I was often led to believe that Switzerland is a breathtakingly beautiful country. Somehow, I didn’t get that feeling. In a way, I liked it better this way – the city streets and cafes were charming and quaint enough to be old-fashioned and the stores were stylish and expensive enough to remain untouchable – but what was amazing were the flowers in every window, the gardens that you could see through the train windows, the country’s flag perched proudly atop houses and in backyards, the innumerable lakes and streams, and the big lovable dogs. You can see all of this while (a) you’re at the train station, (b) on your way to or from the train station or (c) travelling in the train itself. The perfect microscopic view of the nation and its people (and animals).

England is different. Everything is grey around English train stations. In Sheffield, the train station is the first thing you see as your coach enters the city. It is big and intimidating; with a huge dome and a glass front and several art pieces near the entrance. You can feel the busy lives of people around – in trench-coats and skinny ties. A town near Sheffield called Chesterfield has one of the funniest stations you’ll ever see. It’s technically outside the town and you get out of the train directly into the ticket collector’s booth – that’s how small it seems. But then, they’ve managed to acquire space to build a parking lot and a driveway which enables it to have the look of a domestic airport. Southampton, on the other hand, is a lot more laid-back for a big city. For a while after I saw the train station there, I wondered if most people just travel to and from Southampton by flights (since they have an international airport) or by ferries (lots of them..the sea is right there!!). Bristol is grey, grey, and some more grey. My memories of the Bristol train station are a bit vague because I was dazed with pain during my visit there; but I recall the desolate look of the station, a wooden bridge, and the grey. It’s a very uncomfortable-looking station.

Do English train stations resemble a microcosm of life in England and the English? They so do!! Train stations are the archetype of English standards. They stand there – either as glass and stone structures looking opulent and out of place in the neighbourhood of other brick buildings or dull grey brick constructions standing out against green and blue coloured “modern” buildings;  unbothered about the architectural anomaly they create for the given city.  That’s how the English people are too – fussy about their own kinds and strangely unbothered with anything else. At train stations, this type of behaviour is evident to such a large degree it’s hilarious. Everybody has this scrunched-up look on their faces, and groups of people getting out of the station whirl so much wind around them, simply because they seem to walk much faster than everyone else. The buses have to wait for groups of station-premise-leaving people to cross the streets; it all looks very droll because as soon as the people get away from the train stations, into the world of regular humans, they seem normal too – almost unbelievably so. It’s such a quintessential view of all things English – they always seem either too aloof or too boisterous when they’re in groups by themselves, but once they mingle with you and others of different species, they seem hardly stiff upper-lipped – likeable in fact.

Railway stations. Train stations. Czechoslovakia had their grand penthouse-styled ones, Switzerland has the effortlessly clean and charming ones, and England’s are the epitome of grey. I feel like I’m on the brink of the afore-mentioned sociological experiment where I must try and figure out the place-people-country equation and publish it as a series of adventure stories. Study one place at a time, its relevance to the culture of that country, the importance of people’s attitudes in and around the place as well as towards such a place, and the larger social construct that is formed with the intermingling of all these forces.

And so..onwards I head towards working for such a paper. Next round – supermarkets!!

ChannelM Representative announced that Season 1 is not over at 10 episodes, infact there are 3 more drama filled episodes left! Here is why:

After the Season Finale, Jamie’s role will be officially over and he will head back to New York, so the 3 extra episodes are a tease for Season 2… How exciting! The extended episodes will have Sydney Blanca and she will be taking over Jamie. The drama will be centered around her for the next 3 episodes after the Finale. So in total, its 13 episodes!! I cant wait!! All the expected members are beginning to film for the last 3 episodes again.

Sean, Jamie’s best friend and enemy of Aaron has spoken out about Sydney on The Narrows. “She is crazy! I have never met anyone with so much intent on creating drama!” WOW hypocritical much? But the scary thing is, even Sean is worried about Sydney!

I bet the last 3 episodes are going to be the best episodes of the entire season!!

PS. The interview with Jamie got cancelled due to schedueling conflicts.

After the exciting news of Sydney Blanca to join The Narrows, another member has been confirmed to join! It’s another girl! Wow, first it was an all guys show, there probably wasn’t any drama so bringing girls will do it . The new cast member is named La”Toya Jackson, so keep on watching Marcoolate’s channel because an interview about Jamie will have all the latest news!

http://www.youtube.com/user/Marcoolate

In 2007, while wrapping up his Master’s degree on image recognition,  Kris Woodbeck observed that leading search engines are great at searching text, but are at a loss when it comes to visual data.  Seeing an opportunity Kris Woodbeck developed an engine that looks at each picture, analyzing the pixels of each image and its associated meta-tags to places similar images together.

M. Woodbeck, nommé Innovateur de l’année 2007 par l’Université d’Ottawa et finaliste au Prix du jeune chercheur de l’année du OCRI en 2008.  M. Woodbeck a fondé Incogna Inc., une jeune entreprise qui offre officiellement ses services de recherches d’images sur Internet depuis Novembre 2008 .

Pour plus d’informations lisez Connections – Décembre 2008 >
Read more on Connections – December 2008 >