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RIP: The Space Shuttle

Bid farewell to the Space Shuttle program, which touched down from it's final mission today. Photo above was talken from the Intrenational Space Station, as the shuttle took off.

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22nd Jul 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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RIP Cy Twombly

American artist Cy Twombly has died, aged 83.

Via BBC

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6th Jul 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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RIP: Jackass Ryan Dunn

Jackass' Ryan Dunn has died in a non-stunt related car crash in Philadelphia. Always one of my favourites on the show, and a totem for beard appreciators everywhere.

Via BBC

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21st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

RIP Clarence Clemons

E Street Band's saxman died yesterday. January 11, 1942 – June 18, 2011

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19th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Internet Radio

Internet radio seems to be coming of age recently, mostly thanks to the ground swell of internet connected devices that everyone including your mum now uses. Almost every radio station now has an online broadcast and there are many apps and sites to aggregate those streams into an easy to use package.

I've been using the outstanding iPad/iPhone app Tune In Radio to tune in to everything from Radio 4 to KROQ, to Triple J (they also make apps for other devices and run a website) and the BBC have even got involved with the site Radio Player which offers a similar service.

Turn on, tune in, etc...

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14th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Farewell To The Space Shuttle

With only one mission remaining, there's still time for a Space Shuttle photo-op - and Italian astronaut Paulo Nespoli got this amazing image as he departed the International Space Station on a Russian Soyuz capsule. More fantastic potential wallpapers on the official Flickr page.

Via BBC

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10th Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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BMX Triple Back Flip

New Zealander Jed Mildon has just set a world record by performing the first triple back-flip on a BMX. YouTubers respond with 5M+ views.

Via BBC

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2nd Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

iCloud

Apple will be launching iCloud at their WWDC event on Monday. Music seems to be the primary focus of the rumours, providing a service where all your music will be accessible from any device, rather than stored locally. That will go some way to eliminating the capacity limitations of many phones/pads etc, as I currently have 113.94 GB of music just on my 'essentials only' laptop. 4000+ albums on the Death Star.

Talk has also expanded to including Movies/TV Shows in the service, as well as the obvious opportunity for a Dropbox-style service (hopefully better than the existing iDisk), and even a Spotify-style music subscription.

As usual, the consent of the labels/studios seem to be the hold up.

BBC

Picture nabbed from Apple Insider

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1st Jun 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

BBC Doomsday

The BBC are dumping the previous hard-copy iteration of their time-capsule "Domesday Project" for a more modern format. I have no doubt that "A Website" has about as little life-span as "A Laser Disk" - as Toby Anstis illustrates below.

Via @thecoldvein

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16th May 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Boo, Hiss

A deadly Egyptian cobra has escaped from the Bronx Zoo (via BBC). Luckily, he seems to be updating his status on Twitter.

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31st Mar 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Ad Nauseum: The Psychology of Mad Men

Great article over at the BBC Blogs looking into some of the psychology and thinking behind the advertising boom of the 1950's and 60's.

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7th Feb 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

Spy Cruise!

no, it's not an 80s comedy starring Dan Aykroyd... but a real 7 day cruise for spies

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14th Jan 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

MCA Health Update

Good news, Beastie Boy MCA is apparently in good shape after battling cancer. Hot Sauce Committee Part II will be arriving soon and alter-ego Nathanial Hornblower even has a film in the Sundance Film Festival.

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7th Jan 2011 - Add Comment - Tweet

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RIP: Irvin Kershner

More sad news today, director Irvin Kershner has died. In many ways he's a little known director, but to every chimp he is the man responsible for lifting the Star Wars saga from 'blockbuster' to 'epic'. His fantastic touch on The Empire Strikes Back elevated Star Wars into a totally different league, with classy assured direction and some beautifully storyboarded scenes - particularly those light on effects. A true master.

BBC
AICN

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29th Nov 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

1080p is the VHS of the future

How's that 47", 1080p, Full HD-ready TV working out for you? Nice try, but it's already out-of-date. What you really want is a Super Hi-Vision plasma screen, capable of a resolution of 7680x4320 - 16 x better than 1080p.

OK there is a projector, but while the TV sets don't exist yet (you can use 4 x 4K sets together) the camera does - and the BBC and Japan's NHK just did a test broadcast of a studio session from The Charlatans. Not quite sure how that content decision came about.

The quality is so clear that a special lens had to be built to cope, and much like 3DTV, the format has dictated a shooting style of its own - with a single camera wide-shot being so big and clear that the viewer would be distracted by too much editing and can just cast their eyes around the screen instead.

Watch more at the BBC

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16th Nov 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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Rubicon coming to BBC4

BBC4's autumn schedule includes AMC's new 70- style conspiracy thriller Rubicon - heavily influenced by The Conversation, Three Days Of The Condor and other all-time chimp-paraonia classics apparently. looking forward to this one.

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25th Aug 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

BBC Apps

The BBC has finally got the nod from its Trust to release its highly praised iPad/iPhone Apps. The BBC News app has been available in the US for a while, but had not been available in the UK. That's in the App Store now. BBC iPlayer and Sport apps to follow...

Via BBC (who else?) 

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23rd Jul 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Mr. Fusion

OK, it's not quite on a par with Doc Brown's banana skin eating Mr. Fusion, but Gucci web-developer-turned-physicist Mark Suppes has built his own fusion reactor in a workshop in Brooklyn.

Via BBC

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29th Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Mad Men 4

Poster out for Mad Men Season 4, which premieres July 25th in the US. Probably not until 2011 on the BBC....

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23rd Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

Eat My Gold!

Our old pal Prof. Poliakof (see here for his periodic table of videos) is back in action, this time disputing the claimed solid-gold quality of the FIFA World Cup. FIFA claim the cup is solid gold and weighs 6.175 kg, but by the professor's calculations it would weigh at least 70kg if it was actually 'solid' gold.

Via BBC

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14th Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

LOOFER!

Attention slackers! All six episodes of the excellent Luther are on BBC iPlayer for a limited time. Download now and get watching. Stringer Bell's best performance since The Wire (Season 3).

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12th Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

TV Catch Up

TV on the move is becoming more and more of a reality, thanks in no small part to the BBC iPlayer (which is even HD on the iPad) and now TV Catch Up, who have just launched an iPhone-friendly version of their site.

The name is a little misleading, as much of the site's original PVR functionality has been dropped to meet legal requirements, and by all accounts the service is now legal. Barely.

Visit iphone.tvcatchup.com from your (i)phone browser or ipad.tvcatchup.com from your iPad and once registered you can watch live TV from the bulk of the better Freeview channels. Add it to the home screen for easy access.

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4th Jun 2010 - Add Comment - Tweet

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