Category: Uncategorized

Huh. I always thought there was something fishy in the whole ‘biodiesel’ thing – Monbiot explains in last Tuesday’s Guardian. (via. the aforementioned InkyCircus).

James emailed me from the next desk to say:

I’ve never had a favourite duck before. Now I do.

Too right. That’s one mighty fine duck.

One odd aspect of freelancing is that it’s sometimes hard to keep straight who you’ve worked with and who you’ve simply heard of. One such person is Alom Shaha, with whom I’m fairly certain I’ve never made a show. I’m less sure about whether we ever shared an office, though I think that’s unlikely also. But somehow I seem to have known him for years. As I say, odd.

Anyway, he’s a science development chappie at interesting London indie Pioneer Productions, and he has some sort of swanky NESTA thing going on too. And as of a short while ago, he also has a blog. And mighty fine it is too, filled as it is with Alom’s personal take on goings-on in the world of science communication. Do read: Alom’s blog at Resonance TV.

Alom also plugs inkycircus, a blog by a bunch of London-based girl geeks who are aiming to start a magazine.

Ah, feel the linkbloggery love.

This is linked from NTK – and if you’re not reading NTK obsessively, then… oh, well, I suppose it doesn’t make much sense, actually, but anyway – but I’ve never been shy of blatant linkbloggery so:

Dave Green and his Snackspot were featured in the Independent the other week. Marvelous stuff. Also mentioned, albeit indirectly, was Cyber Candy, a sweet shop in Covent Garden that sells the most wonderfully eclectic range of stuff. Just beware of the Scandinavian salt sweets.

No, I didn’t go. Wanted to, but was in the office writing scripts, unfortunately. A shame, I suspect, since the inaugural meeting of the Open Rights Group sounds like it didn’t quite proceed as everybody expected. From Suw’s brief write-up you might not guess, but it seems the event was at least mildly hijacked by the Trots.

The rant is well worth reading. Despite my having been in the room when the ORG PledgeBank thing was started, it’s a matter of record that I didn’t cough up the dough since I’ve never been remotely clear on what ORG would actually do. Nick’s concerns may be rather deeper than my own – and arguably deeper than necessary – but it’s likely a good thing to have some of this out.

Make sure you stick around for Danny’s comments on Nick’s blog post; also worth reading Nick’s later post.

My tuppence-worth: Polite finger-wagging campaigning can work, can get results, and is worth the effort. It’s not the only form of campaign that gets results, and arguably a more all-out approach is necessary to effect sweeping changes. But the latter is higher-risk – it’s not at all clear that any change will result.

It’s not, of course, an either/or situation. While ORG, by its nature, background, membership and staff seems set along the finger-wagging-and-tutting course, in my humble that’s a good thing not only in itself, but also because it leaves ample room for a more reactionary movement should one accrete support.

To cite an example of a finger-wagging-and-tutting organisation I admire: Amnesty International. Sure, it’d be far more effective overall to change the global mindset on fundamental human rights issues. But while you do that, we’ll keep on writing letters about individual cases…

But meanwhile: dang. On a personal level, ORG is another of those ships that sailed without me, while I was too busy doing something else.

This has been linked from everywhere ad nauseam, doubtless, but since I’m frighteningly busy I’m somewhat behind with the blogosphere again. Plus, I have something to add: Sony have a new advert out for their latest Bravia LCD TV (which I saw on Tottenham Court Road the other week, and is indeed quite lovely in a ‘why would I conceivably want something that large in my lounge?’ sort of way). The ad involves a quarter of a million bouncy balls being released down a street in San Francisco, all filmed in glorious superslowmo and almost certainly hi-def too. There were lots of Flickr posts about the event at the time (surprisingly hard to find now – interesting) and a post on BoingBoing, and now the secret is revealed. It’s a lovely ad, and is probably being hailed as the best thing in ad breaks since that Honda spot a couple of years ago where one thing knocked another thing, and so on.

But:

I don’t personally think it’s that good an ad – certainly not in the Honda league. But that’s a personal thing. The longer version is distinctly better than the shorter one, fair enough, but even then… it just doesn’t quite hang together for me.

This is partly because it has something else in common with the Honda ad, apart from being ‘event’ advertising – it’s not an original idea. The Honda ad was, famously, inspired by an old German art film called ‘The Way Things Go,’ which has its flaws but is basically magnificent. This Sony ad was clearly inspired by a whole genre of experiments done by avalanche researchers, who have a penchant for saving vast amounts of computer time by… er… chucking ping-pong balls down dry ski slopes. Here’s a paper from 1997, and a whole bunch of other articles. And yes, that last one is on BoingBoing, from January 2004.

What I find a tad frustrating is that Sony’s repetition of the experiment replaces the ping-pong balls with latex superballs, and to my mind the result is less photogenic. The effect is to spread the balls further apart – in model terms, they behave more like a gas than a liquid – and I just don’t think it’s as pretty. I can see why they’d have thought it would be better, but really, I believe it was a bad move. There’s nothing like the complexity of flow front and detail that the ping pong balls produced – it’s just a bunch of balls bouncing down a street. Sure, it’s a lot of balls bouncing down a street, but the beauty of the ping pong balls lies in the unexpected complexity and subtlety, all of which is lost in Sony’s ad.

Sure, it’s beautifully shot, but… nah, I’m sorry, I’ve been wanting to do that for two years, and (a.) they’ve ruined it for me now, and (b.) I’d have done a better job of it than they did, dammit!

Harrumph.

Meanwhile, the Christmas Lectures continue apace. We’ve been frighteningly busy this week with one thing and another, and my script editing hasn’t been going as quickly as any of us would have liked. I really should have bundled up one of the scripts and handed it to somebody else a fortnight back, but heigh-ho.

Last Monday, however, we had a rehearsal day with audiences, performing a very early version of the first lecture. We’d been skeptical beforehand about how valuable it was likely to be, but as is usually the case the teenage mob turned into a fantastic, constructively critical bunch who almost willed us to make the thing better. An extremely useful day.

However, we’ve only a few weeks to go. Eek!

If anyone reading this is within striking distance of London, by the way, tickets are available via the Royal Institution’s website. 11-14s particularly welcome.

A project I’d very much like to see succeed; science.tv, an online television channel dedicated to science content.

I met Matt Thurling, one of the chaps behind it, the other week, and he’s an interesting guy. There are all sorts of problems with what he’s trying to do, but sometimes you have to just assume it’ll all work out and press ahead anyway. And while I’ve a vested interest in it coming off, in that I’d like to make shows for them, I’m also sufficiently idealistic about science media to just plain hope it works too.

Go and have a look, folks, and join in the discussions too – I know several readers here are involved in the more popular end of science TV production. You’ll be pleased to know that the sorts of budgets Matt’s talking about are actually rather reasonable by terrestrial standards. Certainly enough to be worth your time, I’d have thought. Just leave your preconceptions at the door – with a web channel, there’s no need for formats to fill 30 or 60 minute slots, each show can run at whatever length suits it. And that’s a huge benefit.

Those terribly terribly clever MySociety chaps have been drinking their fortifyingly strong tea again. They’ve cogitated and coded, and come up with HearFromYourMP.com. Read the page – it’s so simple, one wonders how it can possibly be a new thing.

Dashed clever. Bravo!

There’s a plan afoot to remake The Prisoner? Oh, for heaven’s sake!