Week 21 of the Internet

Hello, hello, hello! And welcome to another week of the internet. Well, my internet anyway. The bits and pieces that fly by my eyes and make me think 'huh', because really, if we're honest, that's all we think. It's all crap really, only to be forgotten as soon as you leave this page. But you know what? That's OK. Why? Because I'm to Thailand. Ha! In May, I should add, so you're stuck with me for the next few weeks. 

So, start your weekend by reading about the history of barbed wire. It's more interesting than you'd think, and has the bonus (?), of containing one of the most depressing and shaming photos in our history (hint: buffalo skulls).

Once you've hung your head in European shame for a suitable amount of time, cheer up by looking at this tea, which is just how tea would have looked when those silly Americans threw it in Boston's harbour. Silly Americans. They actually had a fair point really. 

I've got a feeling I've posted this before, but I like it, so here it is again. 

Speaking of spectating, well, actually this is dreaming, but you know, same same (ish)... I love this montage of dreams in films. It ends with the dream sequence I remember most of all. It horrified me when I first saw it. 

Hey, are you a dreamer? They say dreaming's dead. No one does it anymore. It’s not dead, it's just its been forgotten. I’m trying to change all that and I hope you are too. . . . Music - Hand Covers Bruise, Reprise - Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross Quotes - Waking Life, Spellbound, Inception FILMS Sherlock Jr. 0:00 Spellbound 0:04 8 ½ 0:07 Vertigo 0:08 Little Nemo in Slumberland 0:09 The Big Lebowski 0:14 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 0:16 Blade Runner 0:20 Aliens 0:22 Brazil 0:23 A Nightmare on Elm Street 0:24 American Beauty 0:27 Inception 0:30 0:55 Vanilla Sky 0:32 Un Chien Andalou 0:35 Waking Life 0:38 Eraserhead 0:43 The Wizard of Oz 0:46 Dumbo 0:47 Take Shelter 0:50 Paprika 0:57 Scott Pilgrim vs. the World 0:59 Alice in Wonderland 1:03 The Matrix 1:06 Cache 1:09 Waltz with Bashir 1:12 The Cell 1:14 Shutter Island 1:22 Watchmen 1:28 Terminator 2 1:30

While we're on films, check out this collection of first and final frames from films. It's oddly beautiful.

What can we learn by examining only the first and final shot of a film? This video plays the opening and closing shots of 55 films side-by-side. Some of the opening shots are strikingly similar to the final shots, while others are vastly different--both serving a purpose in communicating various themes. Some show progress, some show decline, and some are simply impactful images used to begin and end a film. MUSIC: "Any Other Name" by Thomas Newman Films used (in order of appearance): The Tree of Life 00:00 The Master 00:09 Brokeback Mountain 00:15 No Country for Old Men 00:23 Her 00:27 Blue Valentine 00:30 Birdman 00:34 Black Swan 00:41 Gone Girl 00:47 Kill Bill Vol. 2 00:53 Punch-Drunk Love 00:59 Silver Linings Playbook 01:06 Taxi Driver 01:11 Shutter Island 01:20 Children of Men 01:27 We Need to Talk About Kevin 01:33 Funny Games (2007) 01:41 Fight Club 01:47 12 Years a Slave 01:54 There Will be Blood 01:59 The Godfather Part II 02:05 Shame 02:10 Never Let Me Go 02:17 The Road 02:21 Hunger 02:27 Raging Bull 02:31 Cabaret 02:36 Before Sunrise 02:42 Nebraska 02:47 Frank 02:54 Cast Away 03:01 Somewhere 03:06 Melancholia 03:11 Morvern Callar 03:18 Take this Waltz 03:21 Buried 03:25 Lord of War 03:32 Cape Fear 03:38 12 Monkeys 03:45 The World According to Garp 03:50 Saving Private Ryan 03:57 Poetry 04:02 Solaris (1972) 04:05 Dr. Strangelove 04:11 The Astronaut Farmer 04:16 The Piano 04:21 Inception 04:26 Boyhood 04:31 Whiplash 04:37 Cloud Atlas 04:43 Under the Skin 04:47 2001: A Space Odyssey 04:51 Gravity 04:57 The Searchers 05:03 The Usual Suspects 05:23 Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. For original content, please visit www.dcviz.com

If you like growing stuff but don't know when to plant it (like me), then this is the cheat sheet for you. 

This is truly horrifying, and apparently completely legit. 

Unprecedented video analysis finds that distraction was a factor in nearly 6 out of 10 moderate-to-severe teen crashes, which is four times as many as official estimates based on police reports. Some of that footage is included in this video. (Video courtesy AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety)

Hmmm. I can't end on that note. God knows why I put things in that order. Let me see what I can find to end on a high. 

Oh right, well McDonalds has launched their own line of clothing and home stuff. Yes, now you can dress in Big Macs and have a Big Mac duvet, in your Big Mac wallpapered bedroom. 

The lovely and humble (but quite aggressive, I'm told), robin was crowned the Britain's National Bird this week. I actually voted for the blue tit, but it was a really tough choice. I just like blue tits. They remind me of sitting the garden in spring and summer. 

Not really a high, but spare a thought for Petal, who went to the big bed in the sky this week. She was a tiny little thing, but went on forever. If she wasn't tripping you up as you went up and down the stairs, causing you to fall and simultaneously almost cut her in half with your legs, she was creeping under the duvet and licking your bottom. She will be missed. 

Have a great weekend. I won't be back next week as it's Easter, so I'll either be drunk or eating. 

Ah ha! Look - I found something cool to end on: flying through the solar eclipse.

The Internet: Week 20

Hello and welcome to another week of the internet. Right now, as I type, a solar eclipse is happening. At least I think so. It's been nothing but blue skies the whole week, but today? Today is cloudy. That, I'm told, is what they call 'life'. Luckily, with 36 years on this lump of rock, I am used to this 'life' business, so I'm not surprised at this turn of events. The next significant one won't happen until 2026 (in the UK, anyway). Hopefully I'll still be around then. And in the UK. Anyway, enough about me, what about you?

Discussions about art are wonderful. I have zero education in art, but I love getting in to not-quite-sober discussions about what is art. I once saw a programme about an elephant who bashed a brush about the canvas creating, well, a mess. They then put that painting in a gallery, said it was by a new artist, and people went nuts about the hidden meaning, or how it deconstructs today's society with a hint of postmodern sarcasm, or whatever. It was partly hysterical, and party maddening. Art. I dunno. 

We placed an IKEA painting in a museum and told art experts it was from the famous IKE-Andrews. Would they notice? http://www.lifehunters.tv Special thanks to: Museum Arnhem http://www.museumarnhem.nl/

If films are more your kind of art but you can't decide what to watch, check out Flixfindr. It will help you. 

Guns are bad, mmm-kay? This is a good idea to drum home that guns aren't just things you should own because you can. 

Show your support, sign out petition at http://action.ceasefireusa.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=19750 States United To Prevent Gun Violence opens a "gun store" in NYC as hidden camera social experiment to debunk safety myths. Every gun has a history. Let's not repeat it. Learn more at gunswithhistory.com

Still in America, but on quite a different note, Vincent LaFloret has captured stunning aerial shots of San Francisco. Check out the others here. It's really worth a look. 

Next time you're bored, try Google Feud. "Google Feud is a web game based on the Google API. We select the questions, then the results are pulled directly from Google's autocomplete."

Still bored? Watch Jurassic Park in LEGO.

The blockbuster hit Jurassic Park is brought to life in LEGO as a father, daughter and all their friends combine over $100,000 of LEGO pieces to make this epic stop-motion production.

It's the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. If you don't know what that is or how it affects you, watch this, because it does affect you, and everyone else. 

One of two beautifully illustrated animations telling the story of Magna Carta, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of it's creation, and the re-union of two of the original parchments at the British Library in London - with the added bonus of being voiced by Monty Python's Terry Jones! The film takes you back in time to medieval England in 1215 under the reign of Bad King John. Why was the charter originally created? And what does it actually say? - See more at: http://www.bl.uk/magna-carta/videos/what-is-magna-carta#sthash.wJy8DGUp.dpuf

OK, history lesson over, and in fact, post over. 

I sat and watched somewhere in the Faroe Islands go completely dark, while Copenhagen remained relatively light and sadly very cloudy. It looked very exciting from YouTube. I hope you managed to catch a glimpse, wherever you are. 

Bon weekend!

Week 19 of the WWW

Another late post this week. It's been beautiful weather and to be perfectly honest, I've been out a lot rather than in the office. I'm sure you understand. I've now got 30 minutes before dinner is ready and guests arrive (we eat early now we're parent type people), so I'll try and make this post have some kind of coherence. Not that they usually do but who cares?

This video will make you angry. So think calm thoughts. 

💦 Sneeze on FB: http://goo.gl/I1cVDg 💦 💦 Sneeze on Twitter: http://goo.gl/XPqm0z 💦 💦 Sneeze on Tumblr: http://goo.gl/zdvZSq 💦 😡 Argue about this on the reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/CGPGrey/comments/2yjs25/this_video_will_make_you_angry/ 😡 Get more updates from CGP Grey: http://goo.gl/E6sB0x CGP Grey Hoodie: http://store.dftba.com/products/cgp-grey-logo-hoodie CGP Grey on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cgpgrey Share on Twitter: https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?original_referer=https://about.twitter.com/resources/buttons&text=This%27s%20Video%20Will%20Make%20You%20Angry&tw_p=tweetbutton&url=http://youtu.be/rE3j_RHkqJc\ "What Makes Online Content Viral?"

We lost Terry Pratchett this week. Very sad news. He's been a figure in most of my life, thanks to my brother who was a big fan. I'll admit I've never read his books. I was never a huge fan of fiction, but I've started to lean that way these days. Despite my not reading his books, I still found his last tweets and the emotional response to his death overwhelming. 

Find out what made Terry, and the rest of us, human, in this very nice parallax site from the beeb. 

I've never been on a cruise ship, but I've always been tempted by it. There's something intriguing about living in a contained area for a certain amount of time. Great for people watching too. 

The mighty, mighty mountains. I've also never been to the Himalayas, and given the choice between them and a cruise ship, I'd get cold any day of the week. 

The aerial cinema experts at Teton Gravity Research release the first ultra HD footage of the Himalayas shot from above 20,000 ft. with the GSS C520 system, the most advanced gyro-stabilized camera system in the world. Filmed from a helicopter with a crew flying from Kathmandu at 4,600 ft. up to 24,000 ft. on supplemental oxygen, these are some of the most stable, crisp, clear aerial shots of these mountains ever released, which include Mt. Everest, Ama Dablam, and Lhotse. Sound design and mix by Jeff Cormack at Play+Record

Here's a taste of Austria. I have been to Austria. Twice, so there. 

The scenery of our home country Austria is beyond compare. We live in the heart of Europe where we have a spectacular combination of cultural and natural attractions. No matter what time of year, Austria will welcome you with „Schmäh“ and „Gemütlichkeit“. We hope you enjoy this glimpse into the atmosphere of Austria’s cities and landscapes. By the way: The voice-over is original footage of Felix Baumgartner's stratos mission in 2012. Technical Details: After 2 years (2013-2015) of filming in the whole country, we gathered about 600 time-lapse clips, which is about 5TB of raw footage. Produced by: Thomas Pöcksteiner // Peter Jablonowski www.filmspektakel.at Equipment used: + Dynamic Perception Stage One + Emotimo TB3 + Pocketslider + Canon 5D Mark III + 2x Canon 6D + Canon 600D + several Samyang/Walimex 14mm F2,8 (Boy, these break easy.. :P) + Canon 24-105mm F4 + Tamron 150-600mm + Tamron 24-70mm F2,8 + Tamron 28-300mm F3,5-6,3 _________________________________ Visit our website: http://filmspektakel.at Like us on Facebook: http://facebook.com/FilmSpektakel Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FilmSpektakel Follow us on Instagram: http://instagram.com/filmspektakel For licensing & inquires please contact us via email: info@filmspektakel.at All shots are available in 5K!

Excellent drone footage through the Crossrail tunnels in Loondon. I've never flown a drone, but I did see one crash into a crowd watching a cruise ship dock in Hamburg (apparently it was a very exciting cruise ship. New or something). 

That's it! Go about your weekend.