Category: 5things

Five things on Friday #51

Things of note for the week ending December 21st, 2012

1. One helluva tree house
The above image is, believe it or not, one of the primary residences of the Korowai tribe. Living over a hundred feet in the air is second nature to this isolate people as the area they call home is somewhat dangerous nearer the ground (thanks to killer insects, flooding etc). Some people would move out. The Korowai, it would seem, move up.

via

2. The Web We Lost
This, from Anil Dash, is one of the best things I’ve read this month –

When you see interesting data mash-ups today, they are often still using Flickr photos because Instagram’s meager metadata sucks, and the app is only reluctantly on the web at all. We get excuses about why we can’t search for old tweets or our own relevant Facebook content, though we got more comprehensive results from a Technorati search that was cobbled together on the feeble software platforms of its era. We get bullshit turf battles like Tumblr not being able to find your Twitter friends or Facebook not letting Instagram photos show up on Twitter because of giant companies pursuing their agendas instead of collaborating in a way that would serve users. And we get a generation of entrepreneurs encouraged to make more narrow-minded, web-hostile products like these because it continues to make a small number of wealthy people even more wealthy, instead of letting lots of people build innovative new opportunities for themselves on top of the web itself.
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We’ll fix these things; I don’t worry about that. The technology industry, like all industries, follows cycles, and the pendulum is swinging back to the broad, empowering philosophies that underpinned the early social web. But we’re going to face a big challenge with re-educating a billion people about what the web means, akin to the years we spent as everyone moved off of AOL a decade ago, teaching them that there was so much more to the experience of the Internet than what they know.

Read the whole thing, won’t you?

3. The XX doing LAST CHRISTMAS

There is no need to say anything else.

4. Under Cover: Erotica and Sexism
I first met Zoe Margolis way back in 2008, I think it may’ve been at Tuttle – all those many moons ago. Delightful, warm, and fiercely intelligent, we had a fantastic stroll around Soho discussing all sorts. I follow Zoe on Twitter and recently I saw her tweet a link to her Lost Lecture on ‘Erotica and Sexism‘. I’ve only just got ’round to watching it – this morning in fact – and it’s a damn good watch. Enlightening and engaging, you’ll never look at an erotic book cover in the same way ever again.

And quite right too.

5. In Praise of [PR] Student Bloggers
Stephen Waddington, author of Brand Anarchy (book) and Two-Way Street (blog), is not only [still] taking offers of guest blog posts for his [highly-read] website, but also rounding up the best ones he’s had to date.

Looking for a break? Go talk to Steve.

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Bonuses this week are super random; first, this East/West College Bowl piece made me laugh more than it probably should; second, this Google Hangout with the chaps from Unleash the Phones was quite fun to be a part of; and third, Happy Birthday for yesterday Jane Fonda.

Five things on Friday #50

Things of note for the week ending December 14th, 2012

MONKEY!

1. The Atlantic’s photographic review of 2012 (Part 1)
Heart-wrenching and beautiful; some made me laugh out loud, others caught my breath and made me cry – take some time of your day, and scroll your way through. I honestly can’t recommend this enough.
(Parts 2 and 3 ain’t bad either – there, that’s your lunchtime sorted)

2. Catfish now eat pigeons. PIGEONS.

In Southwestern France, a group of fish have learned how to kill birds. As the River Tarn winds through the city of Albi, it contains a small gravel island where pigeons gather to clean and bathe. And patrolling the island are European catfish—1 to 1.5 metres long, and the largest freshwater fish on the continent. These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds.

More –

3. A New York Love Story

4. How to fix your soul
I’ve been stuck on something of late. A thought. A bugbear. An itch in my brain telling me that something is wrong. Something that sits between the impact of technology on our social interactions and the blind dependence/obsession we have developed with screens, big and small.

This past week, a dear friend (whom I shall miss) highlighted to me the above titled piece on Harvard Business Review. I read it. I read it again. It spoke to me. And so I read it once more.  In short: I’m going to try and read it every single day for the rest of my life.

Perhaps you should read it too.

5. A whole bunch of bad-ass trailers

I would’ve done separate posts for each of them but in a week where we’ve already seen Star Trek Into Darkness and OBLIVION both make their respective trailer debuts, I really didn’t want to drown you all in two minute videos (or more moaning about the over-use of HOOOONK as a large scale drama trailer device).

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Bonuses this week – Facebook really should do something about its Zombie problem. Joking aside, dead people are genuinely liking things on Facebook and it’s actually quite upsetting and offensive; next, ‘Hey Hetero, when did you realise you weren’t gay?’ – is quite the moving/hilarious Reddit thread; and finally, this City/United video from ESPN is a lot better than it should be.

Five things on Friday #49

Things of note for the week ending December 7th, 2012

1. The Hawkeye Initiative
There are tons and tons of completely amazing blog posts pointing out the continual (and not to mention completely and utterly sexist) objectifying of strong female comic book characters today but now –  finally - someone seems to have come up with a way to test whether or not the sketch in question is insulting to women or not.

Ready? It’s this simple –

‘If your female character can be replaced by Hawkeye in the same pose without looking silly or stupid, then it’s acceptable and probably non-sexist. If you can’t, then just forget about it.’

So, what we need then is a blog post that collates said efforts…

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you – The Hawkeye Initiative

An amazing (and hilarious) way to draw attention to a very serious issue.

Good job.

2. McAfee
He’s all over the news (and he got a mention last week too). And, even though the story has developed a lot since it was published, this New York Times piece ‘Hide-and-Seek in Belize‘ is a damn good read.

3. This is not Eros

Piccadilly Circus, London. Home of bright lights, buzzing tourists and this beautiful statue of Eros. Right?

WRONG

Thanks to awesome Serena, I found out this past week that this isn’t Eros at all. This is in fact Anteros, Eros’ twin. Confused? Yeah, you should be.

Let me *cough* Wikipedia *cough* explain –

Anteros is the subject of the Shaftesbury Memorial in Piccadilly Circus, London, where he symbolises the selfless philanthropic love of the Earl of Shaftesbury for the poor.
–
The memorial is sometimes given the name The Angel of Christian Charity and is popularly mistaken for Eros.

Yeah. I know.

Right?

MIND. BLOWN.

(and TFL aren’t helping much either)

4. Dumb Ways to Die
OK, so this has already been seen 30m times but I’ve only just got to it. Yes, it’s super sweet and super brilliant and hey, even you have seen it already, you should watch it again. Because it is SUPER.

5. Matt Muir wins the internet today
This – lifted from Matt’s brilliant (yet sadly, final) blog post for H+K today [EDIT: post now removed – can’t think why] – is quite possibly the best thing I’ve read all week.

“There is a client we have, whose name shall remain nameless, who produces biscuits – you will agree, a fine and noble profession. As part of our work for said client, we were required at one point this summer to work with other agencies in that hideous parody of friendly collaboration that is the ‘loop team’ (you will doubtless have experienced this; various agencies sitting around a table, smiling at each other with the dead-eyed sincerity of sharks or insurance salesman, nodding and making vacuous promises to ‘work collaboratively’ whilst simultaneously imagining violating each and every one of their competitors with a splintered fencepost) in order to promote a NEW THING. The process of promoting said NEW THING would involve the collaborative production of a DECK (why? WHY? WHY DO YOU ALL USE THIS BLOODY WORD?????? Is it because it makes it sound more important or interesting than ‘73 slides of powerpoint that MEANS NOTHING’??? And, as a tangential aside, Powerpoint – WHY? Why do you all persist in taking a medium that was designed primarily for the communication of visual information and not for extensive prose and then MAKING US WRITE BLOODY ESSAYS ON THE SODDING THING???? If it’s more than 100 words of copy, USE WORD. There’s a clue in the name. Christ’s sake) which was to be compiled by us with input from all of our other agency FRIENDS. Fine. Great.

So we receive submissions from other people, and start to look at them. And then this happens. I chance upon a slide which has very obviously taken ‘inspiration’ from the raft of interactive advertising that our industry has become so enamoured with this year – you know the sort of thing I mean; bus stop ads that either smell nice, or dispense free samples; that type of idea. That’s ok. There’s no such thing as a new idea, etc etc etc. I look at the slide. On it is drawn (very nicely, I must say – the agency’s art department was really rather good, so credit to them for that at the very least) a bus stop, with in clear view the advert on the inside panel. Clearly visible is the brand logo (nice and big!), a video screen, and a small, letterbox-type slot. The only other thing on the slide were the following words, and it was these that pretty much pushed me over the professional edge:

“Insert Biscuit To Receive Content”

Let me read that back to you one more time. “INSERT BISCUIT TO RECEIVE CONTENT”. Now, let’s just break down exactly the process that this one line of prose and a (very competent) illustration seem to be suggesting might take place:

  • Consumer prepares to leave house in morning to go to work; consumer grabs biscuit product to snack on to abate feelings of gnawing hunger and existential inadequacy that can often afflict one in the hours before 9am.
  • Consumer walks, whistling, on their path to work
  • Consumer passes bus stop
  • Consumer stops, thinking “Hm, well, you know what? I might be quite hungry, but there’s a video screen on that bus stop that looks like it might offer me the opportunity to watch 30-seconds of poorly made branded ‘content’ [read – advertising] if I give it a biscuit. Hunger be damned!
  • Consumer inserts biscuit
  • Consumer receives content
  • Consumer cries, bitterly, as they realise what they have just done and the sort of awful, dystopian, Blade Runner gone wrong nightmare that they are living through

ON WHAT PLANET, I ASK YOU, CAN RATIONAL MEN AND WOMEN WHO I PRESUME ARE OF REASONABLE INTELLIGENCE ACTUALLY THINK THAT THAT MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL???? WHO CARRIES BISCUITS WITH THEM WHEREVER THEY GO IN THE HOPE THAT THEY MIGHT AT SOME POINT BE GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO TRADE THEM IN FOR SOME MOVING PICTURES THAT ARE TALKING TO THEM ABOUT HOW GREAT THEIR LIVES WOULD BE IF THEY HAD MORE BISCUITS??? ARE YOU ALL INSANE???

And for that reason, I’m out.”

This is just one excerpt from Matt’s post today and the whole thing is amazing.

A-MAZ-ING.

And what’s worse, it’s all completely true too.

Matt’s just finished at Hill & Knowlton so, aside from following him at once, one of you should probably go hire him or something.

EDIT 2: The post has been taken down but fortunately for you lot, Google cached it]

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Bonuses this week are this piece about Twitter and its [dangerous] contributions to continuous partial attention; the honest trailer for Dark Knight Rises is hilarious; and ‘How a video game saved my life‘ is both moving and inspiring in equal measure.

 

Whatley out.

Five things on Friday #48

Things of note for the week ending November 30th, 2012

[click to embiggen]

1. Pacific Rim
I first blogged about Pacific Rim back in July (when it was merely a launch poster at Comic Con), and this past week a blueprint for one the giant robots – or ‘Jaegers‘ – that feature in the film has turned up as well as the first part of the teaser campaign, below –

A few things –

  • I love Guillermo Del Toro and I’m quite close to believing that he’s never made a bad film.
  • The tech blueprint is a MUCH BETTER example on how to do tech blueprints (back of the class please Prometheus).
  • I’m well up for this film, 3D-post-conversion and everything.

2.  Deadmau5 + Nokia
The Lumia 920 launched in the UK this week and, to celebrate, Nokia threw a(nother) Deadmau5 gig somewhere in the south of London.

Deadmau5

It was a bit nippy, but overall we had a good night. I grabbed an awesome video and a decent collection of photos too. Check it.

I’m using a Nokia Lumia 920 myself at the moment and, if you’re interested, initial thoughts are up over on The Voicemail…

3. Is Twitter ruining the celebrity endorsement?
This article, from The Verge, dissects the current trend of celebrity / technology placement and is fantastic food for thought, in more ways than one.

“As sales of physical recordings continue to decline, it no longer makes sense to spend six figures on a video that might not pay. That doesn’t change the production cost of a video, however, so product placement is increasingly used to fill the gap. Nokia has been particularly active in this space, with Lumias popping up in videos for Flo Rida, M83, Ke$ha and Katy Perry. Often, the deals are limited to the budget of the video itself, which can leave the performer unsure of his or her obligations once production is done. Was Flo Rida just playing a character who loved his Lumia phone, or was the “Whistle” video really a window into his life? Either way, it’s hard not to feel like someone’s pulling a fast one. Finding him tweeting from an iPhone would be like catching Bad-era Michael Jackson drinking a Coke. We can overlook a low-level sellout, but switching sides is just bad form.”

That last sentence kind of nails it for me. ‘Bad-era Michael Jackson’ wouldnever have been caught drinking a Coke because Bad-era Michael Jackson was around in the disco/pop, cash-rich, yuppy/money-can-buy-me-anything world of the 80s. NOT the new media/capture-and-share-anything-and-everything world of the post-noughties social media generation.

Basically, what I’m saying is, there’s nothing wrong with these placement deals – of course there isn’t. It’s just another form of marketing and advertising and, believe it or not, it does actually work. However, what’s required is a more in-depth contractual commitment that lives past the 4min music video. An arrangement that not only guarantees that you hold device X for one shot, but also defines that you throw device Y in the bin as you do.

The answer to the question is: NO, Twitter isn’t ruining celebrity endorsement. Poorly thought-through modern-day endorsement contracts are ruining celebrity endorsements; Twitter is just pointing out the holes.

When it comes to placement, brands need to think harder, and work smarter.

The end.

Sidenote: I love you Mike.

4. This Cheetah is Beautiful

Play it fullscreen, in HD.

You won’t regret it.

4. Live from New York
This gorgeous anecdote, via Bill Murray, over on HuffPo made me add ‘Live From New York‘ to my Amazon wishlist (hey, feel free to buy it for me won’tcha?) – and I’m fairly sure it’ll have the same affect on you too.

5. Laker Bros

For no reason whatsoever.

Like Deadspin, I just can’t stop looking…

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Before I dive into this week’s bonuses, a moment to pause –

This week I realised that this post marks the 48th part of a 52 week promise I made myself at the start of the year. A blogging challenge if you will, to reflect on the week that was and – at the end of the year – have a single blog post for every week that would show what I’ve achieved and/or done with my time on this earth.

I won’t lie. This year has been tough. For both me, and my partner. As we head into December reflecting on 2012, the year of awesome, is hard. Professionally I’ve had ups and downs, winning my first major pitch for Ogilvy was a definite highlight, but the low-points – in general – include more character assassination attempts than I’d care to shake a stick at (from friends, (ex)colleagues/girlfriends and enemies alike), as well as dealing with a few health issues affecting the one I love…

Somewhere along the line the Five things on Friday changed. Changed from things I found awesome and wrote in my Moleskine, to things I’ve found on the internet and thought you should read. I don’t know how I feel about this change. I don’t even know if I want to continue with the weekly thing [once the 52nd week comes to an end].

I guess my question is, to you dear reader, what do you think? This project was going to be a one year only deal, things have been mad – hectic even – is it worth carrying on into next year and beyond?

Let me know…

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Bonuses this week; Mark Ritson on John McAfee is an incredible read; if you’re a Mac user and need to brush up on your Lord of the Rings knowledge, it’s OK there’s an Easter Egg just for you; and finally, and rather unsurprisingly, China has a food problem.

 

Whatley out.

 

Five things on Friday #47

Things of note for the week ending November 23rd, 2012

1. Hawkeye

I’ve been on a bit of a digital-comics-sabbatical of late (it’s far too easy to spend a lot of money, on a lot of comics, in a very short space of time), but what with it being my birthday this past Wednesday (more on that later) and a couple of iTunes vouchers coming my way (thanks Dad), it was high time I dived back in again.

My first stop? Hawkeye.

A new series launched to tie-in with the character’s new found fame thanks to a certain super-massive superhero movie, this standalone book is not only incredibly well drawn but also brilliantly written. The image above, taken from issue three ‘Cherry‘, gives you a bit of an insight on what I’m talking about but basically, what I’m saying is, if you’re looking for a new comic to get into, go and get Hawkeye. I genuinely lol’d about four or five times reading this month’s issue.

2. Corporate secrets (you can now disclose)
This Reddit thread is awesome –

American Apparel –

I worked at American Apparel for two years. During the time that I worked there, the company implemented a company-wide recruitment policy where any person applying for a position must be photographed (1 headshot, 1 body shot) The actual resumes were thrown in the garbage. These photos were then sent to a company email address where someone would either give a thumbs up or down to the photographs. Staff were encouraged to recruit instore and on the street and were given a $100 bonus for every person they got approved.

Walmart –

As a former cart pusher at walmart, one thing i always noticed was how they pushed all of their employees, i mean “associates” , to 39.5 hours a week so that they wouldn’t get full benefits. That and the 10% discount card only worked on taxed items.

Eye opening, and ace.

3. Russell ‘Fag Pimp’ Brand

via

4. Random Robot Shopper
Darius Kazemi has a bot that buys him random stuff from the internet. His first shipment arrived this week and it’s kinda cool to read about. I don’t have much else to add except that this is a delightful read and it’s probably something I need to add to my Trello (as it resonates with an ongoing conversation I’m having with Kai about sparking innovation with serendipity).

5. Birthday awesomes!
It was my birthday on Wednesday – WOOOOO – and an awesome day/week was had. At the time this post is scheduled to publish, I’ll be boarding the Eurostar en route to Paris for a long weekend of relaxing with my lovely lady.

Other birthday awesomes

Friends and loved ones are brilliant – thanks for an awesome birthday, you know who you are.

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Bonuses this week are three articles that I enjoyed – a crackin’ interview with Robert De Niro; this dissection of the sorry state of pop marketing (via Rhianna); and this piece from the Atlantic – about Obama’s reelection – is immense – ‘The Hippies are punching back…’

Five things on Friday #46

Things of note for the week ending November 16th, 2012

1. The Skyfall Island is REAL

Seen Skyfall yet?

No?

Well that’s OK*, this next bit is no real big spoiler so you can stick around if you haven’t seen it.

Like all great Bond villains, Javier Bardem’s ‘Silva’ has a fairly awesome lair. However, not many people would guess that this abandoned island / secret base would actually be a real place in the real world.

But it is.

And quite unbelievably, Hashima – to give the island its proper name – used to be one of the most densely populated places on Earth. But why is it deserted now?

Despite what it might look like, this was not a war zone. There was no outbreak of disease or biochemical disaster here. Hashima Island is the victim of a country’s rapid industrialization. Once a thriving coal-mining town owned by the famous Mitsubishi Corporation, it was home to more than 5,000 employees and their families.

The full story, plus a whole load more photos, over on Messy Nessy Chic.

*Spoiler-free review, just in case –

2. Three videos worth YOUR TIME
First, Paul Simon’s ‘Call me Al’ in Zimbabwe (4mins 55), embedded because it made me smile so much and reminded me of why Zimbabwe is one of my favourite places in the whole world.

Second, The Escapist’s [NSFW] review of Assassin’s Creed III, (5mins 18), not embedded because the site won’t let you (but still worth watching).

Sidenote: I’ve finally crumbled and asked my sister to get me AC:III for my birthday next week. I was hoping to leave it for as long as possible (delayed gratification, innit) but I’m ploughing through Need For Speed: Most Wanted at an astonishing rate and I really need to get my runny-jumpy-stabby-stab-stab on fairly soon.

Third: Precisely why the Daily Mail is evil (21mins 33), not embedded because Cory Doctorow’s US-perspective intro adds that little extra bit.

Actually, scratch that – I’ve just finished watching it – make this the one thing you watch today. Please.

3. Interesting People & Interesting Things

Will Cooke at Rubber Republic – we spoke at length this week about what makes a viral, viral and how things travel through the internet. It was quite a revealing conversation which told me more about my own content sharing habits than I think I wanted to know. Findings of the research should form part of their LOL_PROJECT – something to keep an eye on, definitely.

Dominic Pride (a chap I first met at a mobile geek up in Vegas of all places) and I had lunch to chat about NewsCred – it’s like an iStock Photo/Getty Images but for the written word; branded content marketing. Interesting, and useful.

There’s a decent white paper that’s worth a look also.

Coney Agency; the Show and Tell I went to this past week probably deserves its own post (I have many notes). But I haven’t done that yet so I may as well tell you that it was both scientific without being too science-y and was overall a thoroughly enjoyable evening. You should go.

4. Munich Subway Stations

A great photo set, and one that speaks to my heart, ‘Eerily devoid of passengers’ is ace.

5. To Twitter ‘whom I once loved’
This is a great read –

Oh that night, and the many nights we shared. Of ignoring people we had long known in favour of the unknown, of staying up later and later to never miss a moment together…
–
That was three years ago now. I’m not saying we’ve changed. Oh, who am I kidding, of course we’ve changed. No don’t look away, you know it’s true. The passion has gone, well it has hasn’t it? We shared everything with each other, not a moment wasn’t recorded and broadcast. Our very location drew comments or people checking in with us but now our relationship is more and more, well, normal. The honeymoon is over.

More.

Bonuses this week are a few my sources of interesting things (this week at least). If you’re on the Twitters, go and follow these people –

– Mark
– Phil
– Adam

 

Whatley out.

Five things on Friday #45

Things of note for the week ending November 9th, 2012

1.Heard of Vlad Rodriguez?
Up until earlier this past week, I hadn’t heard the name before either. But loving a bit of pop-culture/movie-driven art as I do, I found him over at So Bad So Good and his work is incredible. The Bladerunner one above is a fave, but his takes on both The Shining and Fight Club have to be worth a look too.

2. Bat for Lashes, covering Rhianna ‘We Found Love’

Blissful.

3. The Girl Who Would Be King
I’ve been following the progress of this book (and Kickstarter project) ever since I first discovered the first part back in June (see item 5) and I must’ve taken my off the ball a little bit because the whole thing is now available for just a few quid over on Amazon.

Blurb:

‘A novel about two teenage girls with superpowers and radically different agendas, destined for a collision that will rock the world:

Separated by thousands of miles, two young women are about to realize their extraordinary powers which will bind their lives together in ways they can’t begin to understand.

Protecting others. Maintaining order. Being good. These are all important things for Bonnie Braverman, even if she doesn’t understand why. Confined to a group home since she survived the car accident that killed both her parents, Bonnie has lived her life until now in self-imposed isolation and silence; but when an opportunity presents itself to help another girl in need, Bonnie has to decide whether to actually use the power she has long suspected she has. Power that frightens her.

Across the country, Lola LeFever is inheriting her own power by sending her mother over a cliff…literally. For Lola the only thing that matters is power; getting it, taking it, and eliminating anyone who would get in the way of her pursuit of it. With her mother dead and nothing to hold her back from the world any longer, Lola sets off to test her own powers on anyone unfortunate enough to cross her. And Lola’s not afraid of anything.

One girl driven to rescue, save, and heal; the other driven to punish, destroy, and kill.

And now they’re about to meet.’

My copy is sat on my Kindle waiting for me as I type.
I’d recommend you go take a look too.

4. Music + Social
I’ve read a couple of really good music posts this week. This first this one from Songkick talks about how they worked with Hot Chip using their ‘Detour‘ product to help book some new (and off-the-beaten-track) destinations for their upcoming tour –

We picked 3 towns they hadn’t headlined before and created a Detour where each of those cities had a chance to create a show on that spare night. We emailed all of the Songkick users in those cities tracking Hot Chip and things started to take off. We wanted to raise 200 pledges to be confident of demand and rapidly all 3 started to get momentum. What happened next though was incredibly exciting. A bunch of superfans in Folkestone decided that they were going to make it happen. As one fan said, “Most bands don’t come to this part of Kent, they tend to stop at London.” They got super proactive and started to email all their friends and even petitioned the local radio station and newspaper. It exploded and went completely viral in a matter of hours through fan to fan word of mouth marketing, Hot Chip sold out.

The post has more (as well as a pretty awesome chart comparing the fans in Folkestone to the rest of the competition) and is well worth a read. It’s a great case study on how activating fans can yield phenomenal results too.

This second post, this time picked up from the guys over at Fresh Networks, talks about how Lady Gaga’s team use the listening data from Spotify to help choose her music set in each different country that she plays.

So simple.
So obvious.
So brilliant.
So go read.

5. The D is silent
Django. Trailer 2. Bring it.

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Bonuses this week; Sharp suits – amazing (and actual real life) client feedback, turned into hilarious posters (for charity), great stuff; this interview / battle between Jeremy Paxman and Conrad Black is fantastic watching; and Sarah Silverman does an amazingly filthy thing with a relatively harmless iPhone (be warned: kids will be doing this next week).

’til next time.

 

Five things on Friday #44

Things of note for the week ending November 2nd, 2012

Wolverine Poster

1. New poster for The Wolverine
This dropped earlier this week and it is gorgeous. Bold, stark and perfectly reminiscent of the 1982 mini-series that the film is based upon. It’s a little less controversial than the first teaser poster (apparently the locals weren’t happy with the apparent destruction of their flag) and alright we’re going to have wait until July to see if James Mangold‘s version will be anywhere near as good as I hoped Aronofsky’s version would be but still, it bodes well.

If you want to know more about The Wolverine, I’d suggest you go and watch this video (featuring my friend Ryan, and posted by my friend Rob – the guys I mentioned I last week), which features an interview with both the film’s lead and director.

2. Taste the rain

I have a love/hate affair with autumn at the moment, but this piece of art speaks to me on so many levels. I just, I just can’t stop looking at it. It’s crying out for breath. There’s so much going on. I adore it.

via

3. Halloween!

Beetlejuice + Grandmama

Any excuse for dress up, right?

Two parties, one costume.

Epic times.

4. Muse are hilarious
This is old, but I don’t care. I liked it. Apparently, Muse don’t like to mime.

Brilliant.

5. Rob’s THINGS
This week I (re)discovered the blog of Rob Hinchcliffe. He does a similar thing to my Five Things but his is called ‘Inspiring and Interesting Things This Week‘ or ‘I.I.T.T.W.‘ (catchy, I know). If you’re after a source of interestingness (hey, that might a reason you’re reading this post right now), then I recommend you go have a look.

Seriously, without it I wouldn’t have discovered the by far away best thing I’ve read all week which was this fantastic three page long interview with the master magician Teller (one half of Penn & Teller).

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Bonuses this week; apparently psychopaths are more attractive than the rest of us (this explains a LOT); all the 2screen reports you’ll ever need (big love to The Guardian for that one); and this piece from Warren Ellis is a damn good read too. 

 

Whatley out.

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EDIT: Apologies to those of you that subscribe by email and received an unfinished article in your inboxes early this morning. God knows how I managed to hit the publish button by mistake, but I did. And hey, if you don’t subscribe by email, why don’t you give it a go? You’ll never miss a post and it’s easy too – you just have to pop your email address in one of the boxes on the right and you’re away!

Five things on Friday #43

Things of note for the week ending October 26th, 2012

1. Worlds above the clouds
The above image is taken from a gorgeous photoset entitled ‘Magical Worlds Exist Just Above the Clouds’. And the whole set made me smile. So I hope you like it.

2. Batman 16
I’m behind a bit on Batman at the moment, but it has to be said – this latest cover is CREEPY AS HELL, and hella awesome for it.

via

3. Piano
Bonus friend action this week with a surprise visit by two buddies from overseas, Rob Keyes from Screenrant and Ryan Penagos from Marvel. They were over doing some TOP SECRET reporting on [REDACTED] and I went and met them (and Ryan’s awesome colleague Marc) for a good few beers at the end of their day.

Our destination? Piano.

Man I forgot how good that place is. You should go.

4. The Lumia 920 on AT&T
I really really like this ad. Not because it’s AT&T and not really because it’s the first TVC for the Nokia 920 either. I just think, for a 30 second spot, it tells a story of our time in an excellent fashion. So, yeah –

5. The London Transmedia Fest 2012
Anyone following me on Twitter on Friday would’ve seen a whole bunch of tweets using the #LTF2012 hashtag. Well, the London Transmedia Fest 2012 was the reason why. Some highlights –

And finally, my favourite speaker of the day was Pat Cadigan. Pat told a wonderful story about how the times in her life when she had nearly died. It was brilliant, captivating and just… delightful.

Favourite quote?

“Children are magical… Where do all the mediocre adults come from?”

—

Bonuses this week comes in the form of just a bunch of other stuff I’m reading –

– I really enjoyed this Louis CK / SNL article

– The wrong election date is on some Spanish-language voting forms

– Ghostbusters 3 has finally been given the green light, here’s the timeline

– Italy’s most famous drowned town (is there a top ten?)

– What is Drop 7?

– a breathtaking poem, ‘Sheep‘

—

Whatley out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five things on Friday #42

Things of note for the week ending October 19th, 2012

1. Antartica like you’ve never seen it before
This is the story of a LocalWiki project named ‘Open Antarctica‘. Yes that’s right, not only is there internet in Antarctica but there’s also a LocalWiki project too! It’s a great story and some of the photography is just stunning. Go check it out.

2. I share my body with 20 personalities
This is incredible.

‘The meetings came and went very quickly, like so much of my life. I was sure Valerie said she worked in fifty-minute blocks, but I barely seemed to arrive before I was home again. The conversations while I was there seemed the weird end of bizarre, as well. I didn’t really know what the therapists’ agenda was, but I quickly got the feeling they were trying to nudge me down a particular path. I couldn’t put my finger on it, so one day Valerie came out and said it.

According to her I shared my body with dozens of other people.’

AND

“No, it’s not like that,” Dr Hale said. “You are not here all the time. Other people take control of your body. They have their own separate lives, just as you do.”
–
Ridiculous as it all sounded, I couldn’t help asking questions.
–
“So where do I go then?”
–
He shrugged. “It’s as if you go to sleep.”
–
“Why don’t I fall over then?”
–
“Because someone else is awake and keeping the body going.”

—-

The above is taken from an excerpt from ‘All of Me‘ published on The Atlantic earlier this week. I read it, cried a little, then I bought the book.

I reckon you’ll do the same.

3. Best Skyfall tie up yet?
This, from Coke Zero, is kind of awesome

Nice.

4. New Global Pages on Facebook
This is a bit work-based, so if you’re not in the industry you might want to skip straight to number five. However, if you are and you want to know what Facebook are doing to help brands with global and local presences, then AnalogFolk have a decent breakdown.

5. Bodyform
You’ve probably been on some kind of media blackout if you haven’t seen the Bodyform Responds video yet, and while the content is quite brilliant, the conversations that have spun out afterward are considerably much more interesting. From the creative minds of Carat and Rubber Republic it’s been seen as brilliance by some, unauthentic by others and – in some corners – the first proof of the fallacy of social media.

How do you feel about it? Is it just a bit of fun and a fairly tongue-in-cheek response to a comedy video?
Or is it just another salty mess in the never-ending daisy chain of advertising?

You tell me.

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Bonuses this week are a bunch of videos that people have sent me; James Cordon, being funny for Sight Savers; the Duracell bunny made out of recycled batteries and LEDs, made out of LEDs; and Coffee, made the small way.

Til next time.