A video
The video comes first this week because it’s so incredibly good. If you are nearby to someone that might be interested in interesting illusion videos, get them to watch with you. It’s a simple but incredible colour-changing card trick:
Films
It has come to my attention that some people didn’t realise I have a Cineworld Unlimited card, so I better plug that just this once. You pay £12 a month and you can see as many films as you like at Cineworld cinemas all across the country (although it’s £15 a month if you also want to be able to go to those in central London, which fortunately does not include the one on King Street). Last year this meant I saw films for an average of £2.95 a ticket.
One of the objections to the idea of this card is that there aren’t enough films you would want to see in a month for it to be worth it. But of course, you will quite likely find there are more films you are happy to go and see if the cost is working out to be £3 per film on average!
Link: http://www.cineworld.co.uk/Cms.jgi?RUBRIQUE_CMS=UNLIMITED
http://www.cineworld.co.uk/unlimited [link no longer works, try this one – also it is now £13.50. – Tim, 17/8/10]
Furthermore, even if you don’t have one of these cards, the Orange Wednesdays 2-for-1 offer apparently still works with tickets bought with an unlimited card (so seeing a film with such a person on a Wednesday would be free).
So anyway, this week I saw Cassandra’s Dream, which was flawed but very effective at creating tension and so proved an interesting experience, and Smart People, which was not much more than flawed characters delivering pithy lines and so was a bit disappointing.
Next Week’s film
I’ll be seeing Mongol.
IMDb rating: 7.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 85%
Trailer: featuring some of the most hilariously overwrought and obvious deep-voiced narration I’ve heard in a while: http://www.filmcrave.com/movie_page_main.php?id=8165
A Puzzle
An open question that emerged from a discussion I had earlier this week:
In evolution, genes are passed on and alter randomly (roughly speaking), and in this way desirable traits emerge. The analogy has been made for ideas and technology, and in this case people refer to ‘memes’ (a cross between genes and memory, as these things have to be remembered by people rather than passed on). But there are several problems with the analogy. What do you think are the main problems or differences?
A Quote
Another personal maxim of mine that came up recently:
“You can’t expect something to get better if you don’t do anything about it. In fact, you can expect it to get worse.”
A Link
A fascinating report on the experiences of a guy that played Jack Sparrow at Disneyland.
An extract:
“Here’s a napkin someone wrote on for me: “I will give you a blow job on your break, so sexy! Kim—714-XXX-XXXX.” I would also get offers from women in my ear: “Anything you want, just find me.” I had a girl who had turned 18 the day before. She was with a high school group, and she wrote down her room number at the Downtown Disney hotel. I had a lady hump my leg one day in the park.”
A picture
I recently passed the picture below on to Bryan when he needed an opening image for a presentation on how to judge creative work.
