Favourite Movie Directors

In no particular order. (Bracketed films are good but not specific favourites)

* Charlie Kaufman:
 (Being John Malkovich)
 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
 Adaptation

* David Lynch
 Lost Highway
 Mulholand Dr.

* Wachowski Brothers:
 Matrix
 Reloaded
 V for Vendetta

* Luc Besson
 Leon
 The Fifth Element

* Cameron Crowe
 Almost Famous
 Vanilla Sky
 (Jerry Maguire)

* Francis Ford Coppola
 Bram Stoker's Dracula
 Apocalypse Now
 (The Godfather)

* Sofia Coppola
 Lost in Translation
 The Virgin Suicides

* Christopher Nolan
 Memento
 The Prestige

* Terry Gilliam
 Twelve Monkeys
 Brazil
 (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

* Bryan Singer
 The Usual Suspects
 X-men (1 & 2)

* Zach Braff
 Garden State
 (Scrubs)

* David Fincher
 Fight Club
 (Se7en)

* Richard Linklater
 A Scanner Darkly [Philip K. Dick - novel]
 (The School of Rock)
 (Waking Life)

* Steven Spielberg
 (War of the Worlds)
 (The Terminal) 
 (Catch Me If You Can) 
 (Minority Report) 
 Artificial Intelligence: AI
 (Saving Private Ryan)
 (Jurassic Park)
 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

* Andrew Stanton
 Wall-E
 Finding Nemo

* Tim Burton
 Edward Scissorhands
 Beetle Juice
 (Mars Attacks!)
 (Sleepy Hollow)

* John Lasseter - Toys

* Wes Anderson 
 The Darjeeling Limited
 (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou)

* Tomas Alfredson - Let the Right One In

* Paul Verhoeven - Starship Troopers

Most impressive autonomous robot implimentation

From Wired, check out the video of them moving the shelves around in the wharehouse, the mechanics are pretty damn simple, but the overall effect with the system working is near magical in appearance. (http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/retailrobots.html)

Ammo for Google as an information heat engine

Cory Doctory interview on RUSirius

OverClocked (collection of stories - read)

The future is a recent invention... (literally?!)

recomend> "The wealth of networks" - book (3rd mode

of industrial production)

Bikes and Qbits

Electric super bike that should *so* have a PML flat motor (see QED Mini article on Lewy Land) instead of that stupid chain drive: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/06/lightning_lithi.php

Diamond based quantum memory/processor: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-05/hu-ssn053007.php

In other news:

Some recently downloaded open source (i.e. legally free) software is changing my life: http://www.ttcsweb.org/osswin-cd/
Particually the file sync'ing programs that have let me easily sort out my work files accross desktop/laptop/backup and the wiki-pad that's a become a linked up notepad of my ideas!

Connected:

Seems like there's been loads of planes overhead this morning (don't usually notice any)...checked news, and it seems the bagage conveyer at gatwick's shot, causing delays. Mmm, causality...

With 3rd year mobile robot in mind: http://www.newscientisttech.com/article/dn11455

General stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Star_Search_Algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Go
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=1335&dDocName=en010243
http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?t=1622

Plenoptic Cameras

When will the replace traditional style digital cameras?: So the photographer needn't worry about focusing when taking the image and can also get depth of field measurements from a single image. Could be useful for robitic, pseudo 3D vision from a single camera (simpler than stereoscopic vision).

Taking the fish for a walk!

I want one!; i thought about doing something like that a year or 2 ago as a fishy version of an old obsession with building space station esq homes for hamsters (out of cardboard, so not too successfully).

If i ever have my own house it's having fish corridors! Though the maintenence could be awkward (cleaning the damn tubes). Incidentally, i wonder if the low pressure water in the tubes bothers the fish folk?

KurzweilAI.net

Eschatology
Extropian
Seed AI
SIAI
Singularit Sumit

Higgs found at 214MeV?!

Keep an eye out for this one! (possibly provides further support for Tippler's Omega Point theorem)

Reading Physic department Closure Makes BBC news

Boing Boing

1Laptop/Child Good stuff

Wikipedia re-banned in China It's gona be a long struggle

More on Second Life Copyright What happens here may set major precidents

Reading The art of consuming art (Claire's kind of interest?)

"big poo-flinging goat rodeo" Myspace sued, GooTube and the rest to follow?

Idea:

3D space family tree diagram, with birth date as z axis (possibly with death date too, forming a bar of life length, children brancing at appropriate points).

Adaptive model driven robot learning

Tulip mania

"The term tulip mania (alternatively tulipomania) is used metaphorically to refer to any large economic bubble. The term originally came from the period in the history of the Netherlands during which demand for tulip bulbs reached such a peak that enormous prices were charged for a single bulb. It took place in the first part of the 17th century, especially in 1636-37" Wiki extrack...who-da thought!Publish

Sensible architecture

Obvious idea to put all the heavy processing in one place! Simpler, more compact devices with a single heat source to cool, reduced graphics bandwidth problems.

Keeping Pace?...

Been to an extra-curicular lecture tonight (as blogged) + reading through New Scientist and (blogging some of that too) + trying to keep up with Slashdot (hard enough on it's own) and the rest...it makes me feel like Manfred in the opening chapter of Accelerando, having to digest a constant barrage of information on current events to stay on the edge.

IMechE

IMechE events near Reading

Aubrey de Grey

This blog article posted on somewhere brought my attention again to Aubrey de Grey's: SENS (anti-aging push: methuselah mouse project and generally trying to make public oppinion more optimistic about living more!)

Blog no.2

I've set thins up for me to casually post up thoughts, facts and links before i forget them, without having to worry about constructing anything into a correctly spelt and coherent article. :o)