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The Grand Tour
He outlined the plan: we would be spending many hours on the bus, during which he would deliver lectures on history and culture, so as not to waste precious minutes at the sights, when we could be taking photographs. He informed us that French scientists had determined that the optimal length of a tour guide’s lecture is seventy-five minutes. “Before Guide Li was aware of that, the longest speech I ever gave on a bus was four hours,” he added.
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Children of Men - every shot 45 seconds or longer
I had seen the film a few times before, and couldn’t recall more than handful of shots that I thought would work. I was shocked to find there were 16 of them — heck, there are 6 longer than 90 seconds! They are used in a variety of situations, and to great effect. It was easy to see how I could forget there were so many, as each one simply pulled you further into the story. It made me so excited for ‘Gravity’ that I felt I just had to share with anyone else who would be interested.
The longest shots from one of my favourite movies. Must see for those who have seen it.
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Paying to Publish
We could just eliminate the conferences and publish the proceedings and post videos of talks, made at the home institutions, saving the field huge amounts of money. Then we could actually choose to attend conferences to meet people in our field instead of just talking at them.
There is no reason why this is not a good idea.
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Architectural Stationery Vignettes
A lovely collection from the Biggert Collection.
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In defence of obscure words
Our arts and humanities education at secondary level seems particularly afflicted by falling standards - so much so that universities are now being called upon to help write new A-level syllabuses in order to cram our little chicks with knowledge that, in recent years, has come to seem unpalatable, if not indigestible - knowledge such as English vocabulary beyond that which is in common usage.
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Aaron Huey: America's native prisoners of war
1890, a date I believe to be the most important in this slide show. This is the year of the Wounded Knee Massacre. On December 29th, U.S. troops surrounded a Sioux encampment at Wounded Knee Creek and massacred Chief Big Foot and 300 prisoners of war, using a new rapid-fire weapon that fired exploding shells called a Hotchkiss gun. For this so-called “battle,” 20 Congressional Medals of Honor for Valor were given to the 7th Cavalry. To this day, this is the most Medals of Honor ever awarded for a single battle. More Medals of Honor were given for the indiscriminate slaughter of women and children than for any battle in World War One, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan. The Wounded Knee massacre is considered the end of the Indian wars. Whenever I visit the site of the mass grave at Wounded Knee, I see it not just as a grave for the Lakota or for the Sioux, but as a grave for all indigenous peoples.
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The Crisis of Big Science
The first to disintegrate a nucleus was Rutherford, and there is a picture of him holding the apparatus in his lap. I then always remember the later picture when one of the famous cyclotrons was built at Berkeley, and all of the people were sitting in the lap of the cyclotron.
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Don’t fight forces, use them
Photographs by Christian Stoll
Title: Buckminster Fuller -
Kurt Vonnegut writes to man who burnt his books
Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people. I am writing this letter to let you know how real I am.
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Shipbreakers.
