Recut Trailer: Shark Song

I used to love these way back when at university times when I was heavily into editing and the results were just plain awesome.

This is the winner of “Camp Kuleshov”, a competition between assistant editors to take a movie and cut it down into a trailer for a completely different type of genre film. I’d say what they did with Jaws here is quite the bit of fun, even though there’s some compositing work at play.

Reuters – Best photos of 2011

A volunteer cleans a family photo that was washed by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami as baby photos are placed to dry at a volunteer center in Ofunato, Iwate prefecture, April 12, 2011. REUTERS/Toru Hanai

Oh, it’s now coming up to that time of the year where damn near everyone online is creating ‘best of’ lists to both round out the year and take a break before the next one comes hurtling along; and I’d say they’re well justified in that. 2011 has been on helluva real roller coaster ride and I always find photography collections to be the best objective/subjective summation of a year.

This is just small portion of the 100 photos collected by Reuters in their Best photos of the year 2011 and I well recommend checking them out. Some graphic in nature, some evocative of high emotion, all relevant in looking at how we’re existing in the world today.

Well recommended.

U.S. Army soldiers from the 2nd Platoon, B battery 2-8 field artillery, fire a howitzer artillery piece at Seprwan Ghar forward fire base in Panjwai district, Kandahar province southern Afghanistan, June 12, 2011. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

A plane flies through the "Tribute in Lights" in lower Manhattan in New York September 10, 2011. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

Lightning flashes around the ash plume above the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcano chain near Entrelagos June 5, 2011. REUTERS/Carlos Gutierrez

Zukhro, an employee of the city zoo, walks with Vadik, an 18-month-old male lion, on the territory of the zoo in the capital Dushanbe, January 20, 2011. Employees take the lion from its cage to have a promenade along the territory two times a week while holding a piece of meat to attract Vadik's attention so it walks nearby. REUTERS/Nozim Kalandarov

Source: Reuters – Best photos of the year 2011

Blah blah science

Higgs rumours fly as meeting approaches
The latest rumour is that both ATLAS and CMS have evidence that the Higgs mass is about 125 GeV/C2 at confidence levels of 3.5σ and 2.5σ respectively. At 3.5σ, the measurement could be the result of a random fluke just 0.1% of the time whereas at 2.5σ the fluke factor is about 1%. [full article]

Fundamental constants are not constant—or maybe they are, we don’t really know
Now, there is a precedent here. The cosmic microwave background was initially thought to be isotropic—it’s the same where ever you look. However, accurate measurements show that there is a slight difference and the Universe seems to have some sort of global orientation. This might also imply that the fundamental constants could be different depending on which direction we look. [full article]

Smallest habitable world around sun-like star found
The planet, named Kepler-22b, lies 600 light years away around a star of the same type (called G) as the sun. It is about 2.4 times as wide as Earth and orbits its star every 290 days, right in the middle of its star’s habitable zone, where liquid water can exist on an object’s surface. [full article]

“Sit down and shut up”

In the tradition of Glove, Actually and You just don’t get it do you?, here’s the impressively compiled collection of movie ‘sit down and shut ups’.

Science Biach

The insanely weird quantum wave function might be “real” after all
Until now, we have taken comfort from the idea that, real or not, the results from the wave function would be the same. So no worries, right? Quite possibly wrong. In a paper posted on the arXiv, a trio of researchers has shown that you can’t have it both ways; a purely statistical wave function will not always give the same results as a wave function with real physical significance. [full article]


Should We Clone Neanderthals?

As the Neanderthal genome is painstakingly sequenced, the archaeologists and biologists who study it will be faced with an opportunity that seemed like science fiction just 10 years ago. They will be able to look at the genetic blueprint of humankind’s nearest relative and understand its biology as intimately as our own. [full article]

Will We Find Oceans On Pluto?
…After the impact, Pluto and Charon would have been extremely close together, and spinning rapidly. The strong gravitational tidal pull between the two should have produced enough heat to melt the interior turning Pluto into a giant Slush Puppie. Pluto could have been like Europa for hundreds of millions of years before completely re-freezing over. [full article]

The Beauty of One Second

Yes, Skyrim has lately taken up quite the few hours… wait days? Already? Well, it’s been occupying some free time, but the rest has been overshadowed with work which thankfully is finally winding down some. So back to blog and many other neglected activities.

Appropriate thinking the more I figure it in regards to this video and its affiliated the beauty of a second challenge by luxury line Montblanc.

190 years ago, Nicolas Rieussec recorded time to an accuracy of a fifth second for the first time – the chronograph was born. To celebrate this unique invention, Montblanc is announcing the one-of-a-kind “The Beauty of a Second” short-film contest presented by the famous film director Wim Wenders.

The idea is to record just a single second of something and upload it. Simple. Awesome. And hey, Wim Wenders!