Prattle & Jaw

Two blogs about a whole lot of nothing

Filtering by Tag: Carl Sagen

Interweb 16

Another week of baby stuff marred by shootings much closer to home this time. Miraculously, only three dead and five injured, but three and five too many. 

Other things that happened this week were a jaunt to England to visit the grandparents (no screaming on the flights, thankfully!), and, no...that's it really. Oh wait, actually Photoshop turned 25 (!). 

To celebrate the tool that has helped shape creativity, artists from all over the world contributed their most amazing dreams-and their working files with layers. These PSDs were then animated layer by layer to create a film made in Photoshop. #Photoshop25

This "map of self-declared identity according to the 2011 Census: how English and/or British is each local authority?" is wonderful (see here for a much, much larger version). I've alway considered myself more British than English, having a strong link to Scotland, and a surname stemming from Ireland (not much to do with Wales, mind you). It's interesting to see the odd patches of Britishness around the country, as well as the very high rate in London. I'd have actually thought it would be the opposite, but there you go. 

The biggest film news this week (if you look away from the Oscars coming up), is that a new Alien movie is in the pipeline - officially! Directed by Neill Blomkamp of District 9 (I just found out he's a year younger than me. I'm so old), the final film can't be any worse than Alien: Resurrection - even the usually resplendent Sigourney couldn't save that. Or can it? We'll have to wait and see. 

Anyway, to travel stuff, because why not. America, Liberia, and Myanmar are the only three countries that still use the imperial system. Go figure. If you're an expat or travelling there, here's a handy guide to help you out. Silly Americans. 

Gird your loins. Bet you never knew that!

From loins to chemical reactions. 

Eight types of beautiful chemical reactions are presented in this short video. For more information, please visit: http://BeautifulChemistry.net Video & Editing Yan Liang (http://L2Molecule.com) Chemical Reaction Design Xiangang Tao, Wei Huang, & Yan Liang Chemical reactions were shot at the Chemistry Experiment Teaching Center of USTC Music Royalty-free audio clips from Maxon Cinema 4D Assets © 2014 Institute of Advanced Technology, University of Science and Technology of China © 2014 Tsinghua University Press

Maybe I should have put Jesus and his marketing team before the chemical reactions. Loins go much better with Jesus. Anyway, too late. 

Never-seen before original footage of the historic meeting leading to the biggest advertising stunt of all time. www.1one.ca Agency : lg2 Client: 1one production VP and Creative Director: Marc Fortin Copywriter and art director: Philippe Comeau Director: Pierre Dalpé DOP: Barry Russell Producer: Jean-René Parenteau Production house: 1one production

Occasionally I notice a Wilhelm Scream in a film, but I'll willingly admit I've missed most of these. 

UPDATE: Now that the contest is over (Congratulans Konner!) I can post a list of all the films used in this video: http://www.cinexcellence.com/complete-list-of-wilhelm-screams/ THE WILHELM SCREAM is a popular stock scream used in countless films, tv shows, and video games.

And for your weekly dose of space (actually, that was something else that happened this week. This photo of us, the earth, turned 25 too. "Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles)." Now sit back, close your eyes, and listen.

Plain and simple, no music or changing images. From the audio book version of Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

Have a great weekend. Be kind to one another. 

Internet. Numero 9

Happy new year! It always comes around so quickly. I can't believe it's January again, but there it is. This is the first year in a while that we haven't gone somewhere hot for this miserable month, so I'm interested to see how I cope with sleepless nights combined with what can be overwhelming Scandinavian bleakness. I'm sure all will be well, however. There's plenty to do, plenty to watch, and plenty to see. There's also plenty of baby poo to clean up. OK, enough random mutterings. 

If you, like me, like the idea of smoking a cigar but have no idea what to do with one, then this is for you. 

If you've not see the deep, dark fears comics yet, you should click here

These are apparently the best face swaps of 2014. I'd agree. Bond/M is still my favourite. 

Take a note from Carl Sagan 

Or from this...

My dad says I always post about space, so this, dad, is just for you.

Watch Earth roll by through the perspective of ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst in this six-minute timelapse video from space. Combining 12 500 images taken by Alexander during his six-month Blue Dot mission on the International Space Station this Ultra High Definition video shows the best our beautiful planet has to offer.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the eight books every intelligent person on the planet should read. I'll be the first to admit I've read exactly none of them.

If you're a Chrome user, check out The Next Web's 10 useful extensions for 2015. They've very good, both in a useful way and a not so useful way, like this web history analyser. I'm not going to tell you which website I've spent the most time on today, this week, this month or ever.

OK, that's it. It's the weekend and I have brunch plans!

Copyright © 2026, Lara Mulady. All rights reserved.