A choice gobbet from the fab Gore Vidal on a Guardian page of contributions from various writers and artists, examining what the paper curiously refers to as the ‘cultural legacy’ of the soon-exiting George Bush. Something which should make for very few words indeed.
The piece can be read in full here…
Here’s a bit more Gore…
“Although all politicians tell lies, Bush has gone right round the bend as a liar and he’ll be remembered for a great many of the lies, starting with weapons of mass destruction and going on and on. That’s the only legacy.
Oliver Stone, I gather, is doing father-and-son stories. I’m very fond of Oliver, but you don’t need Freud when you’re dealing with Caligula…”
Other contributors include Edward Albee, Naomi Wolf and Daniel Libeskind.
(*Photo nicked from hEyOkA mAgAzInE – where you can read Gore Vidal’s Article of Impeachment)
Whilst I generally question the mental health of pet owners who dress their animals up, you’ve got to love this…
Particularly at Halloween :)
I’ve just finished designing a website for composer Keith Johnson for the fascinating “Music From The Worm Farm” project, a six month residency on a R&D project in the MRC Cell Biology Unit at University College London and funded by the Wellcome Trust.
The project aims to explore “the deep questions at the heart of both our interests are those that concern the brain and the body, what we think and what we do, and the mysterious middle ground between them.”
The main website is here… and its ongoing journal/blog is here…
The project culminates in live performances of the work that comes out of the residency next year. What I’ve heard so far sounds terrific…
(*Above: Don’t trust the little bastards… One of these critters could be a ruthless killer…)
In a perfect example of what happens when you don’t get out enough, a woman in the far east has been jailed for ‘virtual murder’ after killing her virtual exh-husband who had just got a virtual divorce from her in a virtual reality game called Maplestory.
The whole sorry – and let’s face it, bloody bizarre, story is here…
Though, surely, rather than jailing her in the real world the most reasonable and appropriate (and nerdy) thing to do would be put her Maplestory character in a virtual jail….?
Google Earth hits the small screen with the release of its iPhone (and iPod Touch) version.
Although a natural for a nice big monitor and a fast computer, it holds up surprisingly well within the confines of the iPhone.
As well as some decent smooth zooming and searching – and the inclusion of familiar functions such as photos and Wikipedia location notes, it also holds the odd nice touch in reserve such as using the iPhone’s tilting to alter the view from ‘above’ to the more 3D angle treatment.
I need to get to know it a bit more but first impressions are pretty sweet :)
Here’s a quick trial run…
1 – Initial view
2 – Searching for “Talavera de la Reina”
3 – View of Talavera de la Reina, with picture icons and Wikipedia icon showing up (activated by tapping…)
4 – Tilted over, looking in 3D ‘landscape’ view, north from Talavera (the compass icon shows up in the top right corner)
Just go to the iTunes Store, and seaarch for “Google Earth”…
Enjoy :)
