VOTD: Movie Trivia Animations by Evan Seitz

Movie fans love a good movie trivia game and Evan Seitz has created some fun, albiet it quick, ones. Seitz has animated three beautiful, 30 second videos of different, morphing imagery that are all meant to evoke specific movies. There’s one based on colors, another on numbers and a third letters. How many can you name? Check out the videos below.











Thanks /Film

NAB 2012 - An Australian Post Perspecive: Its NAB time again!

From a dude at NAB who's watching all the new film and media tech roll in...

NAB 2012 - An Australian Post Perspecive: Its NAB time again!: Here we go again folks! I'm off to Vegas on the 12th for NAB 2012. I'll be covering all our meetings, whats happening on the show floor an...

Progress on the Mass Effect Anime

If you love the Mass Effect universe and anime, then you might be interested in checking out the upcoming Mass Effect anime, Paragon Lost. The story revolves around James Vega as he and his squad must defend a colony against The Collectors, aliens that have been turned by The Reapers to collect humans. Vega talks about his history for a bit in the Mass Effect 3 game.

James Vega is my least favorite character in Mass Effect 3. I would prefer for us to have a story following Ashley, Tali, Liara, or Garrus. Hell, I’ll even take Cortez.Here’s a trailer featuring character and background art. So far I’m liking the style, and we get to see how the different alien races look like in anime form.

China's ageing population and the "demographic time-bomb"

I found Tania Branigan's Guardian article on China's coming demographic spasm really interesting. China's One Child policy means that there's a giant cohort of imminent retirees and a much smaller group of young adults of working age who'll have to support them. Combine that with the tradition (and law) of filial piety, which puts responsibility for the elderly on their children, increased life-expectancy, and a shame-taboo against retirement homes, and you've got the makings of some very turbulent times ahead.

China's economic miracle has been fuelled by its "demographic dividend": an unusually high proportion of working age citizens. That population bulge is becoming a problem as it ages. In 2000 there were six workers for every over-60. By 2030, there will be barely two.
Other countries are also ageing and have far lower birth rates. But China is the first to face the issue before it has developed – and the shift is two to three times as fast.
"China is unique: she is getting older before she has got rich," said Wang Dewen, of the World Bank's China social protection team.
Tens of millions of workers have migrated to the cities, creating an even worse imbalance in rural areas which already suffer low incomes, poor public services and minimal social security.
Most old people there rely on their own labour and their children. China not only needs to support more older people for longer, but to extend support to new parts of society. World Bank researchers point to promising advances, such as the national rural pension scheme and the expansion of health insurance.
China can help deal with increased costs by raising its retirement age; at present, only about a fifth of urban women are still working at 55. Improving education should also raise productivity. Some experts believe such measures will be enough to wipe out the "demographic debt". Others wonder if China will begin to welcome immigrants.

China faces 'timebomb' of ageing population

Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome - TV No More :(

Sorry, Battlestar Galactica, you’ve been grounded.

Syfy has decided not to order to series the prequelBattlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome.

Although an unofficial trailer screened at WonderCon this past weekend and made its way online, reigniting fan interest, the project will not be moving forward — at least as a TV series.

Dexter Vets Julie Benz and Jaime Murray to Reunite on New Syfy Series Defiance

“We are actively pursuing it as was originally intended: a groundbreaking digital series that will launch to audiences beyond the scope of a television screen. The 90-minute pilot movie will air on Syfy in its entirety at a future date,” Syfy president Mark Stern said in a statement, adding that “our enthusiasm for this ambitious project has not waned.”

The network announced the pickup of a two-hour pilot, which follows the early years of William Adama (played by Skins‘ Luke Pasqualino), nearly a year and a half ago (in October 2010). But because of intensive post-production work, the final product was not delivered until last November, reports Deadline.

New Series of Battlestar Galactica - BSG: Blood and Chrome on the way, with trailer!!

BSG: Blood and Chrome

OMG! From out of the blue comes a new trailer for a prequal seriers for Battllestar Galactica (an no, it's not that god aweful Caprica series) ... Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome. The story follows young William Adama fighting in the first Cylon War. With David Eick (Exsetutive Producer of the Syfi Series as well as working on an TV adaptation of "Children Of Men") and Michael Taylor (of Star Trek Voyager and BSG S3 fame) it looks pretty rock solid... check out very exciting, all be it rough trailer below. 





With a 2 hour pilot in green lit on SyFi (sound fimilar... BSG Fans?) as well  as rumors of a Web Only continuation of the series proper this is looking to be some steller stuff from the old BSG crew. I mean they've even confirmed that Bear McCreary has finished the score of the pilot! Uber exciting... I think I may have a chubby. 


Stay tuned for more info from TapeMonkey!

Pirate Bay Putting Its Servers In The Air

In ye olde days, when pirates wore black and swung cutlasses, they’d take to the high seas to avoid the authorities. The Pirate Bay is going to go one better, taking to the high skies by putting its servers up in the arrrr… erm… that is, air.

A blog post on the PirateBay reveals the plan, which at this stage is just experimental, although it’s also described as “A real act of war”. The plan is to use GPS-controlled drones with “tiny computers like the Raspberry Pi” to host the Pirate Bay’s servers, so that any attempt to take the Pirate Bay down would have to involve actually shooting the drones down. The blog post does note that not everything is set up just yet:

We’re just starting so we haven’t figured everything out yet. But we can’t limit ourselves to hosting things just on land anymore. These Low Orbit Server Stations (LOSS) are just the first attempt. With modern radio transmitters we can get over 100Mbps per node up to 50km away. For the proxy system we’re building, that’s more than enough.

But when time comes we will host in all parts of the galaxy, being true to our slogan of being the galaxy’s most resilient system. And all of the parts we’ll use to build that system on will be downloadable.

Memes, Rages Faces and where they come from...

Once merely obscure inside jokes on the image board 4chan, the "rage face" comics that now appear widely on the Internet have have been toughened by natural selection as they evolved into a dominant species of Internet meme. The amateur cartoons, made using a recurring set of expressive characters, are used by a growing international community. Far from being insignificant doodles, the faces are now an accepted and standardized form of online communication used to tell stories that can be quick and funny or serious and deeply personal.

Because they have become so ubiquitous, and because any surfer worth his salt should have a working knowledge of top Internet memes, we've created this Field Guide to Rage Faces. In any expedition, preparation is key; for Internet adventurers, the ability to tell a “Challenge Accepted” from a “Me Gusta” can make all the difference. So kick off your boots, set your pith helmet aside, and enjoy a snifter of brandy as we explore the evolution, habitat, and social characteristics of rage faces....

...

Here are ten of the most common:

Face	Description
	Cereal Guy: A versatile character, Cereal Guy generally express surly skepticism (if he’s just eating), but he’s been known to spit his cereal everywhere if he is shocked or surprised.
	Forever Alone: Forever Alone is a sad, lonely individual with no friends and few options in life. He can be found in any situation where someone is feeling morose or, as the name implies, alone.
	F--k Yea: Almost the polar opposite of Forever Alone, F--k Yea walks with a swagger that can only come from victory, be it from a major accomplishment or from successfully handling something in everyday life
	Herp Derp: A character no one in the Rage Kingdom enjoys, Herp Derp can sometimes be simply obtuse and dumb, but more commonly he's self-centered, uninformed, and completely sure of himself.
	LOL Guy: An easy guy to understand, LOL Guy howls with laughter at the funny situations he finds in rage comics.
	Me Gusta: His name means “I like” in Spanish, which is exactly what he expresses. Me Gusta can be used to express enjoyment in anything from the perverse (such as odd sexual activities) to the mundane (such as petting a cat).
	Okay Guy: If you’ve ever felt powerless to change something, you understand Okay Guy. He doesn’t stand up for himself in any situation; he simply sighs and put up with what life throws at him.
	Poker Face: Poker Face tries to hide his embarrassment in any awkward or uncomfortable situation, trying to pretend nothing is out of the ordinary as he waits for the situation to resolve itself.
	Rage Guy: One of the most basic characters, Rage Guy expresses pure, blind rage, typically directed at life’s small, everyday annoyances (like Troll Face’s antics). Rage Guy has also spawned several spinoff characters, such as Derp.
	Troll Face: One of the oldest and most widely-used faces, Troll Face is a prankster who makes others' lives more difficult for his own amusement. His wide, toothy grin perpetually snickers at his victims. Full Article...

Smithsonian turns to 3D to bring collection to the world

With the Pirate Bay, Google and now the Smithsonian releasing 3D models it really makes me want to get one!!! Wow...

With just 2 percent of the Smithsonian's archive of 137 million items available to the public at any one time, an effort is under way at the world's largest museum and research institution to adopt 3D tools to expand its reach around the country. CNET has learned that the Smithsonian has a new initiative to create a series of 3D-printed models, exhibits, and scientific replicas--as well as to generate a new digital archive of 3D models of many of the physical objects in its collection. Representative of that effort, the museum is touting the 3D printed replica of a Thomas Jefferson statue that it recently installed for the "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty" exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. According to the museum, this is the "largest 3D printed museum quality historical replica" on Earth and is a copy of a statue on display at Monticello, the Thomas Jefferson museum in Virginia.

According to Adam Metallo, a 3D digitization coordinator at the Smithsonian, the team working on the Jefferson replica project decided that rather than use a traditional method involving rubber molding and casting, they would utilize modern technologies. Taking a Minolta laser scanner worth well up to $100,000 along, they contracted with Studio EIS to generate an intricately detailed 3D model of the statue that was then turned into the 3D printed replica by RedEye on Demand. Now, with that high-end scanner, as well as less expensive tools that include normal digital cameras and freely available cloud-based digitization software, Metallo and his fellow 3D digitization coordinator Vince Rossi are slowly setting out to begin building a new Smithsonian digital archive. They hope this initiative will eventually lead to scores of 3D printed exhibits, as well as countless 3D models that could theoretically be used in the museums, in schools, or just about anywhere people have an interest in the Smithsonian's vast physical holdings. The only problem? They need more companies that, like RedEye On Demand, have the resources to help bring the efforts to fruition.

Read more

The Pirate Bay Switches from Torrents to Untraceable Magnet Links

The Pirate Bay will no longer link to .torrent files. It will use better technology instead. "Today marks the end of an era," the Pirate Bay blog says. "Sort of." The famed torrent site will now use magnet links. Magnet links don't break as easily, and they're more bandwidth-efficient for people who mirror the linked files.

Oh yeah, and unless a government is willing to shut down a whole Web page using out-and-out censorship tactics, magnet links can't be stopped. Magnet links hash their contents. They're effectively anonymous. There's no file living on The Pirate Bay's servers; it's just a link inside a page. You can pass the link around however you want and open it using any compatible application. No one can tell whether or not you downloaded the file.

The only way to stop magnet links is to actually block the exchange of the link in the first place, i.e. forbid access to a part of The Pirate Bay. And even if that did happen, the magnet links could just pop back up somewhere else. full article...

To help explain what a HASH is and why it's used in these new (ish) magnet files check out the below explanation. 


'.torrent' files

For years, BitTorrent clients, trackers and indexers have relied on .torrent files to store information on the files shared with the popular p2p protocol. These files are stored by indexing sites and are used by BitTorrent clients to connect to the tracker sites. The files hold several types of data, a URL of the tracker site, names for the files it shared, as well as hash codes of files. 

All of this is used by the client to connect with peers that have the files in the torrent, or portions of them, and also to ensure that the downloaded data is accurate. This system has several disadvantages, some technical, but one of the biggest is that BitTorrent indexers have to store the .torrent files on their servers, which leaves them vulnerable to legal threats if the content shared happens to be infringing despite containing no actual infringing data by themselves.

Magnet links

Magnet links though are just links, they have no files associated with them just data. The links are an evolving URI standard developed primarily to be used by p2p networks. They differ from URLs, for example, in that they don't hold information on the location of a resource but rather on the content of the file or files to which they link. Technically, magnet links are made up of a series of parameters containing various data in no particular order. In the case of BitTorrent, they hold the hash value of the torrent which is then used to locate copies of the files among the peers. They may also hold file name data or links to trackers used by the torrent. You can check out the entry on Wikipedia for a more detailed technical description.

With magnet links, BitTorrent indexers don't have to store any file at all, just a few snippets of data leaving the individual client apps to do all the heavy lifting. In fact, magnet links can be copy-pasted as plain text by users and shared via email, IM or any other medium. For the indexer sites, the allure is clear, using magnet links makes it harder for them to be accused of any wrong-doing in court. Theoretically, magnet links should not have any disadvantages for the users over .torrent files either. It would also potentially make downloads faster as it would enable the clients to download from peers which have identical files but with different names, for example.