The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.
A day in the life of New York City, in miniature.
Original Music: composed by Human, co-written by Rosi Golan and Alex Wong.
Please view in HD and full screen for best effect. For a description of the shoot, camera, lenses and workflow, please see here: bit.ly/aFmaPZ
So China is threatening Google. I’m not sure what to make of this, but thought it worthy of inclusion amongst my scribings here on this (recently very underused) blog.
Story taken from the BBC website
China’s top internet official has warned that Google will “pay the consequences” if it continues to go against Chinese law.
I thought I would share with you an email I received a while back. It’s very interesting…..read on
Dear Graeme,
Many thanks for your fireball (= notably bright meteor) report. Much appreciated, and congratulations on spotting such an impressive event!
If you can recall the time you saw this object, that may give a clue as to which date it was on, as there were brilliant fireballs seen on each of January 14-15 (at about 22:25 GMT), 15-16 (circa 22:57 GMT) and 16-17 (around 20:15 GMT) from Britain.
I appreciate the problems of trying to remember the event’s details some time later now, and that you had other things to concentrate on at the time, but it would be very helpful if you could pin down more closely just where the meteor’s track you could see started and ended in the sky. The true azimuths (that is, angular compass directions around the horizon, not just magnetic compass bearings) and elevations in degrees would be ideal, but even an indication of the directions of the first and last points you saw based on compass points, and approximate elevations in degrees above the horizontal would help. You can use your hand held at arm’s length from your eye to estimate these, as the distance across your clenched knuckles is about 10 degrees, while your outspread hand (outer edge of thumb to outer edge of fourth finger) is about 22 degrees. Your index finger’s tip is roughly one degree wide. Please don’t be concerned if you can’t recall all this information, but anything more you can manage would be most welcome!
Should you need it, there is further advice on what to report from fireball sightings generally on the SPA “Fireball Observing” webpage, at:
http://www.popastro.com/sections/meteor/fireball.htm .
In terms of the fireball’s distance from you, most meteors occur around 90-120 km (about 55-75 miles) altitude above the Earth’s surface. Even a very bright fireball will only rarely get closer than 30-50 km (20-30 miles) away before it vanishes, and that’s without regard to any horizontal distance the object may have been away too, so in general, if you see any meteor that isn’t virtually overhead, you know it must be at least 100 km (60 miles) distant or more (possibly a lot further for one seen very near the horizon). It’s extremely difficult to estimate the size and distance of such things by-eye, as we simply have no markers to judge by.
Most such brilliant fireballs seen away from a couple of major shower maximum nights each year are sporadics, that is, non-shower meteors. Although there has been a good number of such events spotted from the UK recently, this seems to be just one of those lucky coincidences, rather than because they all had a single origin (there’s no evidence they did, at present).
As regards the terminology, the object seen brightly glowing in the sky is a meteor. If a solid body fell to the surface from it, after the meteoric fireball had ceased to glow, and was subsequently recovered, we would call that a meteorite. While the object is in space (or indeed within its fiery cocoon, blazing through the atmosphere), we call it a meteoroid.
If you’ve recalled anything additional about your fireball since, or if you’ve learnt of anyone else who saw it (or indeed, any other fireballs), please do let me know with full details.
All best wishes,
Alastair McBeath,
Morpeth, Northumberland.
Meteor Director, Society for Popular Astronomy.
Meteor homepage: http://www.popastro.com/sections/meteor.htm
Equator’s latest account win sees them building upon their expertise with luxury travel brands, such as ITC Classics and Elegant Resorts, as they take on the site redesign and SEO campaign for The Azure Collection.
Having undertaken an audit of the current Azure Collection site, Equator are currently working on a full redesign in order to create a more luxurious and inspiring online customer experience, in keeping with the travel operator’s luxury offering.
Enhancing the tactile appeal of the site and allowing users to find relevant content with ease will provide a much clearer user journey and lead to increased conversion. Utilising a content management solution will also provide Azure Collection with the ability to make effective use of destination photography and provide the user with clear and up to date pricing in a cost effective manner.
As part of the site redesign Equator’s Design and SEO teams will work closely together to ensure that the new site is fully search engine friendly from the start, providing them with the best possible base for kicking off the SEO campaign and successfully driving customers to the site.
John McLeish, Equator’s Managing Director, is delighted to be working with Azure saying: “We can really use our expertise in the online travel and leisure industry to firmly put Azure Collection on the map in the digital arena. The new site will ensure that their online presence lives up to their status as a luxury travel company and will provide the user with a fantastic experience, allowing them to make the research and booking process an enjoyable part of their holiday.”
Azure are very pleased with the design work carried out by Equator for their new website. “We feel it reflects perfectly the luxury travel, the high quality service and the welcoming feel that sets apart Azure Collection. Over the coming months we look forward to launching our SEO strategy with Equator and seeing the results from it and our customers’ response to the new improved site.” Paul Britchford, Assistant Product Manager, Azure Collection.
The stats were released recently for the NMA top 100 interactive agencys in the UK. We were delighted to find that we’re still the Number 1 Interactive agency in Scotland; we’re number 15 design & build agency in the UK; and the 9th most efficient interactive agency in the UK!
Isn’t that absolute class. And we’re going to build upon that this year and become even bigger!
Read the whole article about how we have shot up in the rankings.
Not only that, but it was our 10th birthday recently and you should have a quick look at what went on.
I am most intrigued by this battle for the Christmas number 1.
In recent years, I have been completely disheartened by the whole chart scene as it has become awful in my opinion (am I allowed to have an opinion or should I just follow what us Brits watch on TV).
Susan Boyle has become a star. Some wee guy called Joe will become a star (for a couple of months anyway until the next rent a pop star to give Simon Cowell more money comes along). What ever happened to real talent, song writing, playing gigs until you are discovered. These guys don’t have any experience of that and have become famous for being on TV, not for being good musically.
Check out the NME’s biggest selling singles of the last decade. Hear’Say, Will Young, Gareth Gates and Shayne Ward all come from this manufactured music. I am damn sure my ears and brain would be all the happier if I had never had the misfortune to listen to any of their songs. Actually, do they have any songs? Or do they just sing over other people’s songs?
I have to now put up with Simon Cowell’s turgid pop machine every year, and not just once a year. It is non stop. The British public seems to lap it up though.
However, someone on Facebook has set up a page to try to stop this Christmas number 1 trend. And quite aptly, they chose the song by Rage Against the Machine called Killing In The Name. The lyric of “And now you do what they told you” seems appropriate. And to add to this, I just tried to find the Facebook page and it has gone. It would seem that Facebook has pulled it. Are they also trying to control us?
Oh, and another point – RATM and Simon Cowell are both on the Sony BMG music label, so Sony BMG must be loving it
An interesting story here. Firefox is a success, iPhone apps are a success. But will this make Linkedin spammy? I think it could as tools for recruiters could pop up. We’ll have to wait and see mind you.
The story came from New Media Age.
Business network LinkedIn has opened its API to spread use of the network across the web.
The professional social networking site has opened up its API in order to allow developers to integrate it into applications and websites.
Developers can now register on the developer.linkedin.com website and access the platform in order to build integrations.
A number of developers have already trialled the tool, with Tweetdeck being one of the first services to announce integration. Tweetdeck will launch the option for LinkedIn integration with its next version, due to launch soon.
Adam Nash, VP of search and platform products at LinkedIn, said in a company blog, “A number of developers who have helped provide us with feedback and guidance in our development will be announcing integrations in the coming weeks. Now you can easily view or take action on your LinkedIn network updates from within TweetDeck, with the full integration of the LinkedIn profile information of the person who posted the update.”
Read the original post about Linkedin at the NMA site
So here are a couple of pictures from a gig that I played with The D-Karts back in the day before I moved to London and broke the band up. Sorry lads!
Richard Branson introducing us to the stage
The D-Karts playing
Branson gets pestered by our lovely fans
I recently went on a long weekend to New York City and here is a picture of me on the escalator in Grand Central Station. I am attempting to copy a scene from Carlito’s Way, where Al Pacino was being chased by some Mafioso. Thankfully I wasn’t, and neither was I double-crossed by me old mate at the tracks just after, so I made it home alive.
The picture may not look like much, but trust me, it was exciting for me at the time.
Being Carlito
This may sound like some conspiracy theory but whilst reading a story today by Jonathon MacDonald (who I have seen speaking at a conference and is a wonderfully entertaining man) I noticed that the Telegraph had picked it up.
Here’s the Telegraph story which was published at 10:40AM BST 16 Oct 2009. In this story they refer to a comment made by Boris Johnson on his Twitter account. However, I saw the Boris comment on Twitter just a short time ago.
Here is the link to Boris’ comment which was posted at 11:32AM BST 16 Oct 2009.
Wait a minute there. Did the Telegraph just guess exactly what Boris was going to say? Or did they tell Boris what to say? I don’t know. It may even have been an update to the Telegraph page, but it doesn’t state that so I am keeping with my conspiracy theory. They’re much more fun anyway.
Shocking story about the gentleman getting shouted at by the TfL worker. Please read.
