Friday, 23 April 2010

Boredom is a killer

Please, readers! If you experience disinterest, apathy, ennui, malaise, dysthymia, lassitude, or neurasthenia as you peruse this essay... click away to safety! If you sense your cognition tumbling towards a fetid swamp of brain-paralyzing boredom — abandon me! I don’t want your death on my conscience.

Boredom is a killer, suggests an essay in the April 2010 International Journal of Epidemiology. Researchers Annie Britton and Martin Shipley at University College London examined questionnaires completed by 7,524 civil workers in 1985-1988 that queried the bureaucrats on their interest level regarding work. Multiple-choice options ranged from experiencing boredom “not at all” to “all the time.” In 2009, the surveyors reconnected with their subjects. They discovered that those who expressed severe job boredom were 2.5 times more likely to be dead of cardiovascular disease. Their conclusion: “those who report being bored are more likely to die younger than those who are not bored.”...

A blank to have fun with...

One less Nazi to worry about

Richard Barrett

Modern Day Politics

HA!

(Click to enlarge)

(Thanx Cal!)

PS: Even the director of Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, thinks the parodies are funny

...Even the director of Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, thinks the parodies are funny. He told New York Magazine in January 2010: "Someone sends me the links every time there's a new one. I think I've seen about 145 of them! Of course, I have to put the sound down when I watch. Many times the lines are so funny, I laugh out loud, and I’m laughing about the scene that I staged myself! You couldn't get a better compliment as a director."

Some of Hirschbiegel's favorite parodies include the one where Hitler hears of Michael Jackson's death, and the one in which Hitler can't get Billy Elliot tickets--both of which have been blocked by Constantin's copyright claims. Hirschbiegel thinks the parodies are a good thing, too--"The point of the film was to kick these terrible people off the throne that made them demons, making them real and their actions into reality," he told New York Mag, "I think it's only fair if now it's taken as part of our history, and used for whatever purposes people like."...

Sarah Jacobsson @'PC World'

www.eff.org/fairuse

Everyone Who’s Made a Hitler Parody Video, Leave the Room

Murdoch's mob-handed Indy visit

From Hugh Muir's Guardian diary: "Rupert Murdoch won't decide this election. You will," says the bright new poster for the bright new Independent and as a rallying point for new readers and a morale boost for staff, that seemed fine. But these things have a momentum of their own and Rupert is known to be a spiky type and so picture the scene at Indy HQ yesterday afternoon as both James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, the heaviest News Corps guns save for Rupert himself, went striding into the office of Simon Kelner, the editor-in-chief. There was no eavesdropping, say observers, but brows seemed furrowed. "It looked for all the world like a mafia capos visit," one told us. Puzzling. Scary.

MediaMonkey @'The Guardian'

James Murdoch at the Independent: 'like a scene out of Dodge City'

The forces that have been blocking British democracy are becoming visible in this election

جشن در یکی از دبیرستانهای تهران قبل از انقلاب

Iran Before Hijab
An oddly moving film, said to be taken in Iran in 1975.
@'Radio Free Europe'

Dead Fingers Talk: The Tape Experiments of William S. Burroughs

@IMT Gallery

Bethnal Green, London

28th May – 18th July 2010

The exhibition includes work by Alma/Joe Ambrose, Steve Aylett, Alex Baker & Kit Poulson, Lawrence English, The Human Separation, Riccardo Iacono, Anthony Joseph, Cathy Lane, Eduardo Navas, Negativland, o.blaat, Aki Onda, Jörg Piringer, Plastique Fantastique, Simon Ruben White, Giorgio Sadotti, Scanner, Terre Thaemlitz, Thomson & Craighead, Laureana Toledo and Ultra-red, with performances by Ascsoms and Solina Hi-Fi.

Gawker’s Nick Denton says Gizmodo made no direct revenue from leaked iPhone post

Since Gizmodo penetrated Apple’s impenetrable fortress and posted videos and pictures of a not-yet-released iPhone earlier this week, the post has received 7,861,004 views, made it to the front page of Digg, been linked to by thousands of blogs, and retweeted over 30,000 times. A follow-up post detailing how the iPhone prototype had been lost received over 2 million views and saw similar ubiquitous coverage. Given that Gawker Media charges about $10 CPM, then one would think the media company raked in somewhere to the tune of $100,000 in advertising, making the $5,000 Gawker-owner Nick Denton reportedly paid to get his hands on the found (stolen?) iPhone well worth it.

But at a recent Paid Content event, Denton said that the scoop brought “”no immediate revenue benefits whatsoever,” and that instead it garnered “hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of publicity for the site.”

After reading this I emailed Denton asking him to confirm the no-direct-revenue claim and explain why the high page views didn’t result in more advertising dough...

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Simon Owens @'Bloggasm'