Month: July 2004

  • Fancy Sports Camerawork

    This week’s Broadcast magazine has a double-page spread on something very close to my heart – those fancy camera techniques that are used in sport. Since Broadcast’s website is totally subscription only, here are their top ten: 1. Virtual Spectator – Basically all the graphics tricks used in coverage of the WRC. It all involves…

  • IOC Corruption “Shock”

    Looking forward to this Panorama, whenever it gets broadcast. No real surprises that votes can effectively be bought – the whole regime stinks in my opinion. This being an Olympic year, Andrew Jennings normally has another book out on this subject. It doesn’t seem to be the case this time around sadly. It’s always seemed…

  • ID Cards Criticised

    The report of the Home Office Select Committee is published today (PDF), and they report that plans are “badly thought out”. I need to spend a bit of time reading the report this weekend and then see what needs to be done next.

  • Ups and Downs of ITV

    I was pleased to see that the Tour de France was good (free reg reqd) for ITV2 this year – even if a certain amount of me says that “they would say that” for the sake of the programme’s sponsor. Whether ITV keep the coverage beyond what they’ve now got is anyone’s guess. But bravo…

  • Democratic Convention

    I note that the Democratic Convention is being covered live on BBC Parliament through the night, with the unspun CSPAN coverage. I fell asleep before Clinton came on however!

  • New Roger Penrose Book

    I happened to pass by Waterstones on Friday and couldn’t help but notice a display of copies of the new Roger Penrose book, The Road to Reality. This enormous book is 1000 pages long and copiously illustrated. So I picked it up and flicked through it. Let’s just first reiterate that even picking it up…

  • Preparing For Emergencies

    The government’s much vaunted document is now available to download from the tamely named “Preparing For Emergencies” website. Helpfully it’s available as a PDF which won’t easily print on A4. Still, the best part is the BBC’s chosen graphic to indicate how we ought to put aside tinned food.

  • Rescue Me

    Any UK TV channels reading might want to make sure that they pick up Rescue Me, the new FX Network TV series starring Denis Leary. In many respects it seems very similar to The Job which aired a few years ago, and more recently on BBC Choice/Three. The only small criticism I’d make is that…

  • Various links

    O’Reilly madness (Via Gia) Very clever (Via Onlineblog) I made one of these the other day, and it only cost me 30p in parts! The American one featured cost $1.50, so the UK isn’t always more expensive!

  • Transport and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

    The other week I happened to notice in a moment of idle curiosity that the National Statistics service has an RSS feed. So I chucked it in my reader and every so often actually look at what it’s outputting. Then you see something like this! This is a fragile planet, and we only have the…

  • Rambling

    Not the hiking based hobby, but my last few entries. To make amends, here are some “news in brief” items: Rupert Murdoch featuring in Doonsbury this week (may need free registration to see). Salon interview with Alan Moore (daypass required to read). The shock news that the TV digital switchover has already been put back…

  • Apollo 11 Images

    This month’s Computer Arts magazine has Stitcher 3.1 cover-mounted, and I’ve been having some fun creating those 360 degree QTVR images. I was rather pleased with an effort I created based around our tent at the V Festival. And then I was looking at some of the unfailingly fabulous images at Panoramas.dk and noticed that…