Interesting Links for 8-3-2011

[andrewducker]

• State pension to be simplified, so that it pays to save. Better for women too. I'm cautiously in favour.
  (tags: pension uk government savings)
• Microsoft gearing up for next generation Xbox (looks to be 3-5 years away)
  (tags: microsoft xbox computer_games)
• BY THE TAIL OF GLYCON! IT’S ALAN MOORE’S CHIN!
  (tags: alanmoore)
• Tron 2.0 - what they should have done.
  (tags: tron comic funny)
• A complete BSG timeline in pictoral form.
  (tags: bsg flickr timeline visualization)
• Swipe File: Miracleman Vs Being Human (SPOILER for the end of Season 3)
  (tags: Marvelman alanmoore)
• 'The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra' - first image!
  (tags: avatar airbender)
• Final day on the ISS of Discovery crew has a Star Trek awakening
  (tags: startrek space astronauts awesome William_Shatner)
• Older parents are happier with more children; young parents, with fewer
  (tags: parents children happiness)
• How ‘Gaga’ becomes ‘Water’ - scientists wire a house and track all speech in it to track a child learning to speak.
  (tags: language speech children development)
• There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption.
  (tags: alcohol health science)
• Two thirds of smokers want to quit but are addicted.
  (tags: smoking addiction)
• 1999: The Year That Changed Movies
  (tags: movies)

Comments

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

I'm certainly aware of my own language simplifying a little when Miles is learning new words along with their function in language, but he picks it all up very quickly now and with very little coaching. What will probably interest me most in the coming months is how he will learn to separate the Thai and English words he knows as he realises he's got two different ways of saying the same thing using either a tonal or a non-tonal language (Thai has 5 tones).

[andrewducker]

I've been finding your Miles posts absolutely fascinating. I'm looking forward to more!

[eatsoylentgreen.livejournal.com]

for the "no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption" article there is only one link to a health study, and it's a dead link.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

I think Greg Callus's comment to the article sums up my feelings pretty well. It all rather depends on how you define 'safe' - Prof Nut seems to be using a definition which equates to 'poses no risks at all'.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I presume you posted the 1999 film link as a bit of a joke or talking point?

Films of the 00s (influenced by 99 et al) represent a break from the 90s, 90s represented a break from the cinema of the 80s, the 80s of the 70s, the 70s of the 60s, the 60s of the mores of the 50s. Plenty of the quotes or soundbites about film structure or whatever could, with a few minor changes, have been said in the early 90s about the 80s, or the 70s about the 60s. You could pick a year in any decade and say "yep this one represented a break from how things were before" and it'd be true. I mean, I agree that some of those films in 1999 were very influential, but they didn't change things more than the films you could no doubt find if you looked at parts of the 80s or 70s or whatever,

I'd agree that, in the heyday of the studio system it might well be more difficult to find an independent film with the same visual quality, but that's about it. Apocalypse Now, for example, was an independent film.

Maybe I'm misreading it - if it's just about how 1999 influenced the next few years, that's fine. The tone of some of it seems to be OMG CINEMA AFTER 1999 WILL NOT BE THE SAME AS THE 100 YEARS BEFORE, that's just bollocks. The entire article could be summed up as "policeman are getting younger."

The thing that I would argue changed TV and quite possibly film was in 2005, not 1999.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, it was definitely overegging things. Yes, there was arguably a generation shift in 1999, but no more than has had on numerous occasions before.

What happened in 2005?

[johnbobshaun.livejournal.com]

I'd say about 2002, or whenever DV became a viable filmmaking format.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Youtube in 2005 follows on from the rise of DV in 2002 so yeah, fair point

I still don't want to call that decade the "noughties".

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

<3 william shatner