Graham Sergeant

"On his own blog, he set up a "Googlewhack" of Belle de Jour and Brooke Magnanti, creating the only page on the internet where the two terms appeared together in an unrelated context. Because his software alerted him to the IP address of those accessing his site, he was able to monitor anyone Googling the two terms... ...However, several weeks ago he spotted searches originating from an IP address at Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail, and contacted Magnanti to warn her the paper was on her tail." - Graham Sergeant

"Has nothing to do with threatening to rip your opponent's arms off if they beat you at chess or its equivalents, though it operates on similar principle. In war, if the opposing side pulls back and raises the white flag, you've won. Some people like to think that this strategy also works in the art of debate - that if you can get the opposing side to shut up, you're right by default. The sad part? It works. Not just in media, but in real life, too. In fact, most political systems are based on doing this. No, seriously. A Chewbacca Defense is part of an argument that intentionally or unintentionally has the effect of confusing the opponent so that they will stop arguing with you. If they are too chicken to continue the argument, the point they are trying to argue must be equally as flimsy, right? Right? " - Graham Sergeant

"The celebrated crime writer reveals that after his last book led to a breakdown, drugs and divorce, this time he has his demons in check" - Graham Sergeant

Looking forward to this. - Kol Tregaskes

I never played the first one. - Akiva

me neither... looked a bit dull but this looks like the dog's - Graham Sergeant

Goce will map the Earth's gravitational field with unprecedented accuracy to reveal changes in ocean circulation and sea level caused by climate change - Graham Sergeant

Gothic Tech drones own this satellite and provide AR overlays to raft dwellers to show useful water currents. - Graham Sergeant

once they have that accurately mapped they should surely take it into consideration when judging athletics records. - James Tindall

*chortle* :D - Graham Sergeant

If you’re not a member of the elite, you’re basically inconsequential, even if you die heroically trying to save your people and your way of life (from the Star Wars movies). - Graham Sergeant

"Orwell's Rules Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. Never us a long word where a short one will do. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, scientific word, or jargon if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. Edward Tufte's Presentation Rules Show up early: Something good is bound to happen. Lay out the problem:who cares about it and what the solution is. When presenting complicated material, follow PGP (particular/general/particular). When you talk, TALK: avoid the obvious reliance on notes. Give everyone in your audience a piece of paper. Match the information density in your presentation to the highest resolution newspapers. Avoid overhead projectors. Keep the lights up in the room. Never apologize. Use humor, but make it relevant and never irritating. Use gender-neutral speech. Practice intensely beforehand. Meetings have a very low rate of information transfer. Take questions, but NEVER condescend to the questioner. Keep in mind that most questions arise from personal concerns. Express enthusiasm about your material, but only if your enthusiasm is real. Finish early. Orwell's Questions What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly? Strunk and White: Principles Of Composition Choose a suitable design Use the active voice Put statements in positive form Use definite, specific, concrete language Omit needless words Place yourself in the background Write naturally Write with nouns and verbs Revise and rewrite Do not overwrite Avoid qualifiers Do not affect a breezy manner Use orthodox spelling Do not explain too much Do not construct awkward adverbs Avoid fancy words Avoid dialect Avoid mixing languages Prefer the standard to the offbeat Evil Passive Verbs: is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been, I'm, it's, he's, here's, she's, that's, there's, they're, we're, what's, who's, you're Heinlein's Rules You Must Write Finish What You Start You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order You Must Put Your Story on the Market You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold Start Working on Something Else - Graham Sergeant

""The picture was taken in the Altai territory of Russia, right in the border regions of Kazakhstan. It shows the second stage of a Soyuz rocket in the crash zone where they come down to earth. You can see them fall during the day, and usually hear the big bang as they hit the ground. These things are made out of pretty good metal too, so a lot of the locals make a living chasing rocket parts, before selling them as scrap. If you look very carefully, you can see that the white things all around them are butterflies or moths." Jonas Bendiksen is a Norwegian photographer based in New York." - Graham Sergeant

"a flayed, javelin-impaled, cable-delineated-pendentive-funnel-suspended, squid-like, priapic / labio-vulval, Janusian meta-portrait lozenge of the artist, screaming, and Matthew Barney, stoically becalmed, richly embossed, in a manner reminiscent of late-Renaissance Milanese parade armor, with a cornucopia of silhouetted motifs: Abrahamic ecclesiastical symbols, animals, decorative flourishes, and protuberant, warty, half-spheres, in variegated, exuberantly-colored, fractal-patterned, striped, spotted, semi-translucent, onyx from Baja California, with differing surface treatments keyed to the corresponding swag-draped corporeal flay strata: a glistening mucosal sheen for the splayed entrails, miniscule horizontal flutes for the mid-level viscera, and gnarled, rigid, sfumato-esque soft-focus ornamental relief for the epidermis with eyes and oral features gleaming, respectively, with a moist, lachrymal / salivary polish, with a mannered, attenuated, crown-like cranium-top shatter-burst exit-wound" - Graham Sergeant

"The “Inner City Bike” was inspired by the cafe racer (check out those handlebars) and the roll-along hobby horse. The most obvious design feature is the lack of a chain. Instead, the crank and pedals are fixed directly to the rear wheel, meaning that the poor rider will be always leaning forward putting his weight on both his hands and his crotch — not ideal. Further, the compact design puts the wheels very close together. This should mean tight turns are possible, but when combined with the weight-forward stance and the rather effective-looking front disk-brake, it looks like a recipe for over-the-handlebar disaster." - Graham Sergeant

Bloody hell. - zeroinfluencer

Quite an emotional narrative of disenfranchisement and hope... we can fulfill that hope in Cotidal. - Graham Sergeant

"A rare British "skyscraper city" made by ants has been given the equivalent of listed building protection and a place on maps to safeguard it from forestry work. Nests up to two metres (7ft) high, constructed from millions of conifer needles in Northumberland woodland, will be monitored during the felling of "intrusive" 20th century conifers amid the ancient oaks of Holystone, near Rothbury." - Graham Sergeant

Give an industrious community a free supply of modular resources and some simple rules of engagement and you get "Skyscraper City" :D - Graham Sergeant

"Half-Minute Hero was originally a Flash game, whose concept was adopted by the producer for a PSP title. It was designed to be a quirky adaptation of the traditional, lengthy JRPG formula into 30 second intervals. The 8-bit graphics were designed to appear "old-school", resembling 8-bit RPGs such as early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, and make the player use his imagination." - Graham Sergeant

"And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us." Apocalypse Now - Graham Sergeant

"Surman claimed that our failure to imbue game design with identity, cultural relevance and to settle upon a language that goes beyond the utilitarian components of the process has ensured that there is still a stigma attached to the discipline for students studying game design. “We need to open up the language and stop talking in purely mechanical terms,” he said. “At the moment we seem restricted to talking about design in mere manufacturing terms.” " - Graham Sergeant

"Surman claimed that our failure to imbue game design with identity, cultural relevance and to settle upon a language that goes beyond the utilitarian components of the process has ensured that there is still a stigma attached to the discipline for students studying game design. “We need to open up the language and stop talking in purely mechanical terms,” he said. “At the moment we seem restricted to talking about design in mere manufacturing terms.” " - Graham Sergeant

"Tier-Scalable Reconnaissance is the term for an approach to deploying and controlling vehicles in multiple areas of interest, such as in the exploration of planets or diverse regions on Earth. It is not a rigid or fixed paradigm, but is infinitely extensible. It uses hierarchical levels of oversight called tiers, each tier commanding or controlling the vehicles within the tier beneath it. The size of each tier can be scaled from one to many vehicles." - Graham Sergeant

Pretty much all my faves in the overlap :D - Graham Sergeant

is considering mosaics to be "outsider art" being overly literal? - Mike Chelen

They haven't been an expression of hegemonic forces since the fall of the Roman Empire. (am guessin ;-)) - Graham Sergeant

"The Coen brothers may just have made their masterpiece with this" - Graham Sergeant

In a recent book, The Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock has proposed that instead of providing negative feedback in the climate system, the components of the CLAW hypothesis may act to create a positive feedback loop[7]. "Under future global warming, increasing temperature may stratify the world ocean, decreasing the supply of nutrients from the deep ocean to its productive euphotic zone. Consequently, phytoplankton activity will decline with a concommitant fall in the production of DMS. In a reverse of the CLAW hypothesis, this decline in DMS production will lead to a decrease in cloud condensation nuclei and a fall in cloud albedo. The consequence of this will be further climate warming which may lead to even less DMS production (and further climate warming ...)" - Graham Sergeant

"As narrative is one of our major cognitive instruments for structuring reality, there is some common ground between apophenia and narrative fallacies such as hindsight bias. Since pattern recognition may be related to plans, goals, and ideology, and may be a matter of group ideology rather than a matter of solitary delusion, the interpreter attempting to diagnose or identify apophenia may have to face a conflict of interpretations." - Graham Sergeant

how strange, it really seems like there is a sort of symmetry across the middle - Mike Chelen

Not to mention those angel twins fucking the dogs skull :D - Graham Sergeant

Talks about how metrics expand consciousness, alter usage and create goals which can become game orientated, data from buildings can be displayed on taps and plugs in realtime, this data can be pumped out and aggregated into web databases which can be looped back into the system by home owners with expanded consumption consciousness who can be rewarded on an individual or community basis for gaming the system towards more sustainable energy use. - Graham Sergeant

knowing is half the battle :) - Mike Chelen

"Too much conflict of interest surrounds Valve's Steam service, and the company is taking a larger share than it should be for the utility it is providing, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford has said." - Graham Sergeant

yup, can't say how much time it has save me from having to find and save discs - Mike Chelen

"Every product that we are working on has a web component. The web is like the connective tissue in entertainment today." - Graham Sergeant

"You can call it a Remix Culture as well. Once something becomes digital and it’s on your computer, people want to play with it. It becomes malleable. They want to do fun things with it." is another good one - Mike Chelen