"Bolero" played by Symphonic flash mob

[Thanks to Jim in Seattle]

Copenhagen Philharmonics playing Ravel's Bolero and leave. 



This station is like a second home to me. I've no count of how many times I've been in it, but thousands for sure, maybe tens of thousands. I really like it, it doesn't have the hostile super-busy feel that bigger international stations do, it's more relaxed and friendly.
It changed over the years, the great pillars for instance didn't used to stand free.
I often used to have coffee in a coffee shop on the first floor, above the hustle and bustle, what a great place to read and look at people for a while. One day I saw a film crew film a scene with well known actors. They were using one of the long rows of pay phones which used to be there. That's another thing that's changed!

Lenka - Trouble Is A Friend

[Thanks to Anna]

Good song, pretty singer, very cool visuals, and even thought-provoking lyrics. I've heard about how periods of trouble have helped people in their personal development much more than plain sailing had usually done.

Fuji X10

New: Fuji X10. It's not a large-sensor camera like the X100*, so it won't have the X100's outstanding low-light performance, but on the other hand it has zoom, something I'll admit to miss when I don't have it.

Update: I have the camera now, and the low-light capabilities are actually *really* good.

I like the look of it, very "camera like", meaning it's a machine, not a blob. And apparently it's a dang good lens, so it'll be interesting to see what reviewers say. And it's a 28mm-e to 112mm-e and 2.0 to 2.8, so that sounds great. Still very few zoom lenses are that fast, and the range appeals to me, unlike 12x super-zooms, it has a chance of delivering high fidelity over the whole range.

*The sensor is still larger than most compact cameras', including the one in the Canon S95. Thanks to ES.

----
tOP also has an interesting little article about which is the best aperture to use, fidelity-wise.

Wolfman 2010

When I wrote about the classic monsters recently, I found out that Universal had re-done Wolfman in 2010. And being a fan, of course I had to see what blu-ray and recent tech could do with this story.

I am a fan for at least one reason beyond being generally a lover of SF and F, and that is that when I was just the right age, 8-13, Danish publishers were putting out versions of the classic Eerie comics from the fifties. And many of these were not only good, they were amazing. Subversive and surprising stories, and some of the best artists on the planet drew them. So Dracula, the Wolfman, etc, stuck with me good and well.

Reception of the 2010 Wolfman was mixed, but I liked it. Beautifully lit and photographed (and created digitally, like Victorian London rooftops scenes for example), and solid story and solid acting. And very good effects. Unlike some movies done in recent years (van Helsing for example), not done mostly in digital but kept physical where possible, and blended with digital quite seamlessly.  I don't know that the ending quite held up the pace in terms of importance to the story, but overall I quite liked the film.

Just as was the case with the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula, I found the intermediate stages of the monster-transformations to be the "scariest" and visually most interesting. In the final shape of both Dracula and Wolfman, they are stuck in the traditional depictions, it seems, but in the middle of the changing, the designers could go wild, and found some interesting far-out inhuman shapes.

Ebook search

Inkmesh, ebook search engine, find formats and compare prices. Seems highly useful.
... Oh, it even includes audiobooks, excellent.

Richard Branson, Victoria Secret Models

Here's a tidbit for the reader or two for whom I clearly am a huge irritation. Seeing as how Richard Branson has, if possible, an even bigger ego than myself, maybe he can be lightning rod for a few hours...



Most people in this world has been taught to not speak well of themselves. But still if you combine them, there are still very many people who have not learned the lesson. Given that, it must take an enormous amount of energy to snarl and lash out at all of them. And does anybody thank you for your hard and selfless work? Nooooo!

Update:
I'm happy to hear that the promotional stunts paint a wrong picture of him. Timo points this out, and Philocalist wrote:

I met Richard Branson several years ago, quite casually in the coffee lounge of a large London hotel.
I was sat on a couch, waiting on the arrival of a courier, with my nose deep in a book: I took no notice of the guy who sat down opposite and ordered coffee, which arrived for 'two' rather than just him - the waiter had made a simple mistake and assumed us to be together.
At this stage I looked up to recognise him immediately, and before I could even react, was offered coffee and cake by him!
Purely coincidentally, his company, Virgin, had very recently purchased a large country hotel close to where I lived, and there was talk of him moving his UK office there, into a refurbished stable-block - it gave me something to talk about :-)
What I found very different about this guy was that he sat and genuinely listened to what I had to say, asking questions of me that perhaps only I, as a local, could answer honestly.
We sat for maybe another 30 minutes: his appointment arrived at the same time as my delivery.
This was in direct contrast with another 'celebrity' who arrived into reception as we sat there.
I won't name names: he was, and possibly still is the biggest game-show host (amongst other things) in the UK. I've never seen such rude arrogance on open display: it was such a marked contrast ... the staff were very happy (and relaxed!) to be around Richard Branson, but avoided GSH like the plague! 
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Darren's Great Big Camera

Darren's Great Big Camera blog.

"No fix for that" says Virgin UK

My TV cable box with the Virgin extra V+ service can record programs. And normally it does it fine. But recently it has suddenly deleted a whole string of recordings at once, everything on it. When rebooted, it has "recovered content" files listed, but these files won't play. It has happened several times.

Not great, so I called Support. After much checking and waiting, I was told that "there's no fix for that". Apparently not even getting a new box would help. And there was no light on the horizon either.  I would simply have to sit back and accept my recorded fave TV programs disappearing periodically. Or, I guess, get Sky TV instead. But I don't think they do broadband.

Wow, that has to be the worst ending of a Support call I've ever had! "There's no fix for that"... seriously?

German city introduces parking meter for prostitutes

German city introduces parking meter for prostitutes, article.
Juanita Rosina Henning, from the Dona Carmen prostitute-support group, called for the meter's removal, saying the women already pay income tax on their earnings.
"This has nothing to do with fiscal equality," she said, adding that prostitutes were the only workers to be taxed in such a way.

Yello - Si Señor the Hairy Grill

[Tak til Benny]

Human penguins

Norm found this video, a commercial which uses nude humans to show how penguins survive in the cold, or maybe it's the other way around.

Tim Cook: my first-person impression of Apple's new CEO

Tim Cook: my first-person impression of Apple's new CEO, article.

Tim sounds like a real mensch*. Not a Walking Suit. I've had some cool bosses in the past, all my major jobs actually. And if I ever had to have one again, I wouldn't mind at all if he was like Tim Cook seems in this report.


*"...a decent, upright, mature, and responsible person."
Great definition, eh?

Origin: 

1950–55;  < Yiddish mentsh  man, human being < Middle High German mensch  ( German Mensch )