The White Heat of Technology

Get in! I am writing this on a train, due to the amazingness of it having wi-fi. On a train! wow.

This…

…was thoroughly enjoyable. I particularly liked the way that it wasn’t revisionist, or tried to go over the “creation myth” of the superhero. It’s just Supes flying around saving people like it’s 1977 again, complete with the proper music, big whooshing titles, and Marlon Brando. At one point I thought he was going to make time go backwards but thankfully he didn’t. It even contains frequent references to Superman’s old anti-smoking campaign, which you may remember he carried out by battling symbolic supervillain Nick O’Teen in posters on the walls of schools and GPs’ surgeries in the early 80s. Top stuff. Well, better than Quest for Peace anyway.

Stuff

Some links:

Some students have come up with a map which tells you how long it takes to walk between stations in zone one. (via Londonist)

Ace Hot Fuzz trailer (via Empire magazine)

Pandas are funny. All of these pictures of pandas are great, but this one

is the best. (BBC)

Finally, old but still brilliant, if you’ve never seen it, here’s the dog that says “I love you”.

The Sea of Okhotsk

Nasa image of the Sea of Okhotsk, which sounds like it would have been a great name for a second-rate moody 80s long-coats band.

Current Favourite Non-Swearwords

Pump

Rubbish

Rubs

Bobbins

Any others?

Cassette

Too good to just leave in the comments

Two Digital Assumptions (or “Dumptions”)

I’ve recently caught myself making some assumptions about digital things, which I realised were probably wrong because they were based on analogue things.

1. I left my freeview recorder on pause, then thought “oh no – don’t leave it on pause. It messes things up when you leave them on pause.” Then I thought “or is that just VHS.”

2. My phone was full of photographs as I hadn’t transferred them onto my computer for a while. Also, it was low on battery. I realised I was assuming that the two were related – some part of my brain was thinking that the phone was somehow using up battery power because it was “straining” to hold in all the memory.

Not bad.

Two facts

Incredible photo from Homemade on Flickr.

- FACT 1: The Gherkin is worth 600 million pounds. (I would have thought it was worth much more than that)

– FACT 2: Ben Miller is the voice of (former ITV Digital, now PG Tips) Monkey.

Anteater

“Yes? Hello? Can I help you?”

Ten Things About Octopi

Octopi/octopuses freak me out almost as much as anteaters make me happy. Here’s why:

1. Octopi can squeeze through spaces not much bigger than their eyeball.

2. Octopi are very intelligent – perhaps as intelligent as dogs – but in a different, “alien” way.

3. Octopi can open jars.

4. Octopi play.

5. Octopi have been known to leave tanks either by breaking glass and climbing out, or squeezing through a tiny gap. (photo from Wikipedia)

6. Once they’re out they have been known to cross the floor and get into another tank full of fish to eat them. This is one of the reasons why I find octopi very scary.

7. Other times, though, apparently, they just walk around the room until they dry out and die. Which isn’t that intelligent, really.

8. They make eye contact with you. Despite being a mollusc.

9. Octopi – and strap yourself in for this one – MIGHT HAVE PERSONALITIES.

10. Octopi have powers to turn pretty much invisible and it makes them really, properly wrong and scary. You may have already seen this Youtube clip of an octopus being invisible. If you haven’t, prepare for your mind to implode. It’s the way that when it “decloaks”, you realise it’s been looking at you all the time…

I’m glad I don’t live in the sea.