John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 8, 2012, 6:28 pm
A Separation (trailer), by Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi, is a story about Nader (Peyman Maadi), and Simin (Leila Hatami), who live in Tehran with their daughter Termeh (Sarina Farhadi). Simin feels Termeh would have more opportunities if they moved overseas, but Nader won’t leave his elder...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 8, 2012, 6:01 pm
A list of occupations spanning the likes of government, military, religious, commercial, and even criminal domains, during the middle ages.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 8, 2012, 5:33 pm
The urge to be out on the various social media channels apparently trumps the desire for sleep, sex, and possibly even relaxing. If that’s the case then it’s time I think to logout for a while, and – what’s the term that gets bandied about – go dark. Very dark. Researchers also found that...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 8, 2012, 4:59 pm
Anglo American film director Terry Gilliam, of “Brazil” and “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” fame, believes growing up can be detrimental to a filmmaker’s career. As a child, I always drew funny creatures, funny characters. But I think the trick is not to grow up, not to learn to be ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 7, 2012, 6:26 pm
Living alone, once seen as something of a stigma, now suggests privilege, even success, rather than anything else, especially so loneliness. The mere thought of living alone once sparked anxiety, dread and visions of loneliness. But those images are dated. Now the most privileged people on earth us...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 7, 2012, 6:02 pm
Air travellers could make good use of postcards that consist solely of all currently in use three-letter airport codes. Using say a red pen, they could mark out their flight plans, circling the various airports they’d be passing through on the way to their final destination, producing a simple s...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 7, 2012, 5:29 pm
Life should be a party, or so some will argue, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be one continuous alcohol fuelled night on the town… Liquid courage is nice. It helps you get up the nerve to dance, spark up a conversation, relax… But you don’t need to drink in order to do this. Chances are ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 7, 2012, 5:01 pm
After stumbling upon a 1908 newspaper advert for Cora M. Strayer, a Chicago based private detective working one hundred years ago, Paul Reda decided to do a little investigating of his own, and drawing largely on information located online, was able to assemble an intriguing chronology of significan...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 6, 2012, 6:25 pm
From a short work by US science fiction and fantasy writer Terry Bisson… the transcript of a conversation between two extraterrestrials who are studying humans: Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can’t live on them. And being meat, they can only tr...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Feb 6, 2012, 6:02 pm
If you find the sound of falling rain to be soothing, as I do… to an extent – parts of the Central Coast for instance have been excessively damp this past year – then RainyMood is for you.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 26, 2012, 6:26 pm
True, false, or a conspiracy? There’s only one way to find out.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 26, 2012, 6:01 pm
A crowd-sourced collection of photos taken from aeroplanes… in a word, spectacular And on the subject of high attitude – to be precise, very high attitude – photography, Blue Marble is a composite image of the Earth, made up of many photos taken by the “Suomi NPP” satellite, a few days ag...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 26, 2012, 5:29 pm
The use of apostrophes is in slow decline, but is this a result of carelessness, or might some other factor be at play? So is there a politics of punctuation? Well, in a way, there is. We’re talking here about ‘orthography’ – the appearance of the written text. Those who state that a) there...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 26, 2012, 5:02 pm
US photographer Dennis Manarchy has built a camera that is some ten metres in length. While the two metre high negatives it produces may be too much for some photographers to handle, the resulting images are said to be highly detailed. Styled like an old fashioned large format camera, it’s so lar...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 25, 2012, 6:30 pm
If a tree’s year rings could be converted into musical notes, what songs they could sing. A tree’s year rings are analysed for their strength, thickness and rate of growth. This data serves as basis for a generative process that outputs piano music. It is mapped to a scale which is again define...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 25, 2012, 5:57 pm
When certain smells evoke certain memories, usually from our distant past, it’s called the “Proustian phenomenon”, named after French novelist Marcel Proust, who died in 1922. But how effective are smells, or odours, when compared to other “triggers”, such as music, in the recalling of mem...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 25, 2012, 5:34 pm
Paper books win out when compared with ebooks, argues Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge: I am not against ebooks – I believe that their mass use is not only inevitable but will change the ways that we think and learn. I am, however, deeply concerned about ebooks when compared to paper as a techn...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 25, 2012, 4:59 pm
Can’t live with them, can’t live without them… call centres that is. I am abundantly thankful that I haven’t had to deal with too many of them recently. Waiting on hold is interesting because it represents an imposition on the user – because telephony is a hot medium in McLuhan’s termin...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 24, 2012, 6:28 pm
The premise J. Edgar (trailer), a biography drama, the latest feature of US actor and director Clint Eastwood (“The Bridges of Madison County”, “Million Dollar Baby”), casts a spotlight on the life of J. Edgar Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio), the first, and longest serving, director of the US Fe...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 24, 2012, 5:59 pm
Recent attempts to enact heavy handed laws in the US to curb online piracy have only served to expose Hollywood’s weaknesses, according to startup funder Y Combinator, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop new ways of producing and distributing entertainment: How do you kill the mo...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 18, 2012, 6:25 pm
It sure has people talking… a critique of the… trailer for Moonrise Kingdom, Wes Anderson’s most recent feature, he of “The Darjeeling Limited” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” fame. Congratulations to Wes Anderson. He has squeezed more preciousity into two minutes of trailer than most films...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 18, 2012, 6:02 pm
“Elegant or beautiful” answers to questions that are sometimes difficult to even comprehend. An accounting for of the ever elusive commitment is also included… It is a fundamental principle of economics that a person is always better off if they have more alternatives to choose from. But this...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 18, 2012, 5:25 pm
If you thought being a photographer was all beer and skittles, a breakdown of how they actually spend their time working might prove to be an eye opener.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 18, 2012, 4:57 pm
Middle age appears to be the ideal age, at least according those over 65, who when asked what age they considered to be the most desirable period of life, choose their 40s and 50s, over, surprisingly perhaps, their 20s or 30s. It’s also a view shared by many creatives who feel they do their best w...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 17, 2012, 6:35 pm
Book shops, and likely libraries also, have a way of coming to life when no one is watching.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 17, 2012, 6:01 pm
Systems and conventions created in another era that remain in everyday use despite the fact there may, or should be, be more up-to-date alternatives: Money is still printed on paper and stamped with coins, while nearly everything in our entire world operates on a digital platform. We have work arou...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 17, 2012, 5:28 pm
Our galaxy, the Milky Way, may be home to some 100 billion planets, 1500 of which could be within just 50 light years of Earth, according to some recent statistical calculations. Better extend the USS Enterprise’s “five year mission” me thinks.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 17, 2012, 5:01 pm
The so-called traditional “9-to-5” workday may soon be a thing of the past as younger – or Generation Y – employees, who are gradually beginning to dominate the workforce, demand working conditions that are more flexible. The Business and Professional Women’s Foundation estimates that by ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Jan 16, 2012, 6:33 pm
The premise Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy (trailer), a thriller, is the latest feature of Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (“Four Shades of Brown”, “Let the Right One In”). Based on the 1974 John le Carr
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 8:33 pm
Collision Study… I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone filmed – from the driver’s seat – their car going through a car wash, and then set the footage to music.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 7:58 pm
Canadian actor William Shatner, best known for his role as Captain Kirk in sci-fi TV series “Star Trek” – whether he likes it or not – answers questions put to him by members of user-submitted technology news site Slashdot. Shatner, at age 80, seems to be showing no signs of slowing down, if...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 7:35 pm
A gold coin weighing 1012 kg (about 2226 pounds), and valued at more than A$50 million, has recently been produced by the Perth Mint in Australia, for no other reason than to make it the world’s largest coin, according to the mint’s CEO Ed Harbuz: The largest coin in the world up to now has be...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 7:01 pm
Entries are now open for next year’s Tropfest short film festival. Entries in the 2012 event, which also marks the festival’s twentieth year, need to include a light bulb as the “signature item”, an object that must somehow feature in each production. Aspiring young filmmakers aged 15 and u...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 6:25 pm
Brighton based photographer James Kendall recently photographed the contents of the kitchen cupboards at his wife’s grandmother’s old house… while that’s not extraordinary in itself, the age of some foodstuffs he found, all intended for consumption at some point, was another matter all toget...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Nov 1, 2011, 6:03 pm
A brief, though touching, excerpt from a book “Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals”, written by Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal in 1996, describing the reaction of a herd of elephants to the death of a family member: Afterward, the others sprinkled earth o...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 31, 2011, 8:27 pm
Cockatoo Island, located in the heart of Sydney’s harbour, plays host to the Outpost Project, an exhibition of work by over 150 Australian and international street artists, which opens on Friday, 4 November, 2011, and runs until Sunday, 11 December. In the past the island has housed a penal colon...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 31, 2011, 7:57 pm
“The Joker”, by Daniel Wallace, throws the spotlight onto Batman’s archnemesis, and one of the most notorious comic book villains. Since his first appearance in 1940′s Batman #1, the Joker stands alone as the most hated, feared, and loved villain in the DC Universe. Though his true origins ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 31, 2011, 7:34 pm
Day dreaming, or mind-wandering, very much appears to be the mind’s default mode of operation. Just about regardless of what we are doing, the compulsion to day dream is virtually ever present, though there is of course one activity that inhibits such a want. In recent years, however, neuroscien...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 27, 2011, 7:57 pm
The premise Drive (trailer), a drama thriller, is the latest feature of Danish film director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Bronson”, “Valhalla Rising”). While based on the novel of the same name, written by James Sallis in 2005, some comparisons have been made with a 1978 film called “The Driver...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 8:25 pm
A motion design primer – about nine minutes long – put together by the Motion Plus Design project, which aims to create an exhibition centre in Paris showcasing motion design work from across the world.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 7:58 pm
With warmer weather making itself more pronounced in these parts over coming days the prospect of spending evenings – and just maybe nights – under the stars, is becoming appealing. And from our base on the NSW Central Coast we can literally see large chunks of the night sky on fine nights, some...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 7:31 pm
Recent research suggests that creative people, and those afflicted with certain mental disorders, share some of the same personality traits.
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 6:55 pm
A brief run down of the prominent nineteenth, and early twentieth, century artists and writers featured in Midnight in Paris, the new romance/fantasy feature from Woody Allen. In the 1920s, as the film shows, the first wave of modernist art was giving way to a more political and wilfully provocati...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 6:32 pm
Consuming coffee in smaller, hourly, doses is the best way to benefit from its stimulating properties. A landmark 2004 study showed that small hourly doses of caffeine (.3mg per kg of body weight) can support extended wakefulness, potentially by counteracting the homeostatic sleep pressure, which ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 20, 2011, 5:57 pm
Images created using alphanumeric and special keyboard characters, which are often referred to as ASCII art, are by no means the product of recent decades. Artworks and illustrations consisting of keyboard symbols, or typographical ornaments, predate even the advent of typewriters, as examples of ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 19, 2011, 8:25 pm
When a wafer thin disc of crystal sapphire, coated with a ceramic material, is cooled to a temperature of 185
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 19, 2011, 8:01 pm
A Japanese programmer has recently claimed to have calculated Pi, being the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and also a number whose value can never be expressed exactly, to ten trillion digits, a task that took, all up, about a year to complete. Previously Pi had been computed...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 19, 2011, 7:27 pm
Reddit member James Erwin, who recently wrote a speculative account about a unit of present day US Marines transported back in time to the days of the Roman Empire, which I mentioned last month, has now sold the story to US film production company Warner Bros. Madhouse Entertainment’s Adam Kolbre...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 17, 2011, 8:03 pm
The premise Midnight in Paris (trailer), a romantic comedy, is the latest feature of veteran film director Woody Allen (“Manhattan Murder Mystery”, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”), who also wrote the screenplay. Set in the French capital Paris, it is the story of a struggling would be novelist ...
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John L. posted an article on disassociated.com - Oct 17, 2011, 7:33 pm
What’s interesting about many of the very early web browsers, those that were in use in the early 1990s, are the number of features they have in common with their contemporary variants… for instance a number of them, including one called Erwise, virtually offered what we now call tabbed browsing...
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