Have you got anything without Spam? (sponsored)

Unlike the unfortunate Mrs Bun in Monty Python's Flying Circus, thanks to Nixcall you can live without spam.

Review: The Amateur Astronomer's Journal

Buy at Amazon.co.uk

A brief but endearing explanation of why we should all live in wonder at our universe. Click below for the full review.

Top 5 Places (You Can't Visit)

The Vinland Map

One of the most appealing things about fiction - videogames, comic books, films, or anything else - is getting to remotely experience things we couldn't possibly do in real life, and go places most of us can't reach. Our massive and intricate universe is a bit of tease like that. Here are what I think are some of the coolest places (real and fictional) that, for now, we can only dream of visiting.

Science FTW

I honestly love this thing over and above either of my 'proper' university degrees:

Follow the link for the full picture!

Final Act Films

There's a link at the foot the site as well, but I thought I'd front-page Final Act Films, where you can see some of my brother Stuart's short films (which I helped with a little, and I even have a cameo in A Final Act 'Short' :D). And here's a behind-the-scenes production photograph I took during the making of Day of the Year.

Zombie!

Final Act Films

Azure Days

An Arts & Media Informatics basic 3D modelling project. Originally the geometry was much more complex, but the files loaded too slowly on the university's computers. Now the main body of the ship is a single cuboid, with separate objects for the cockpit, communications dish, heat-absorbing 'wings' with fusion-powered propulsion drives etc. The illusion of being in outer space is created by using flat textures on the inside walls of the invisible cube which the ship is placed in. The Earth and our sun are also present, though not to scale. The side of our home planet facing Sol is in daylight, and of course the dark side is facing away, lit only by the artificial lights of urban areas.

More Pictures of the Azure Days on Flickr

Invisible Roads

This is the start of the introduction to a prototype of a postgraduate investigative study that was ultimately changed, and so never went beyond the following stage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Invisible Roads: fighting today’s artefact smuggling trade

Introduction - the spoils of war

A ceremony was held in Washington, D.C. on July 25^th, 2006 in which the United States returned the Statue of Entemena to the new government of Iraq. It was three years after the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the capture of Baghdad by the international coalition forces. Journalist Jon Lee Anderson was on site when the invasion occurred, and described the swarming of people in the streets as the occupying force took control, and the perhaps inevitable looting that followed. While visiting Ala Bashir, an Iraqi doctor and artist, he expressed his sorrow at the pillaging of the National Museum of Iraq, which had been the headlining news of the past few days, and his hope that the Americans would soon get things under control in order to prevent the further looting of the country’s heritage. Dr Bashir responded by asking “What do these things matter? They’ve already stolen the whole country.” (Anderson, 2004: 285) 
    This was a political message, of course, but these words also apply strongly to the loss of Iraqi artefacts after the fall of Baghdad, as the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates that 7,000 - 10,000 objects was stolen from the National Museum between April and March of 2003, of which the Statue of Entemena was among the most significant (FBI, 2006). 

Figure 1. Statue of Entemena

(FBI, 2006)