Erin McKean - Redefining the Dictionary

Another really cool video from the TED lecture series.. I love her definition of serendipity! Tho I am really starting to get annoyed with the video player on TED. I don’t know why, but it seems like it takes me going away from the page as an excuse to reset the video..

Where in the world is Osama Bin Laden?

I love the title of this movie, from the director of ‘Super Size Me’.. Watching this is certainly better than trying to study for my exam tomorrow, for which I don’t know what to do as my lecturer is the worst I’ve managed to have in the three years of my college career. Anyway, enjoy the clips & I love that the trailer has Gogol Bordello’s ‘Wanderlust King’ as the soundtrack:

Forever Hardcore

Seek and you shall find I guess. It’s interesting how in the opening clip alone, there are nearly more people than appeared in the ‘Rise and Fall’ and how people involved seem to back up Paul Heyman’s claim that he created ‘attitude’ in wrestling… Update: For example, this dvd shows up two of the main faults I have with the WWE produced stuff, there’s a proper explanation for what happend with the NWA and its championship AND they mention whats apparently the ‘first’ 3-way dance in the U.S between Sabu, Shane Douglas and Terry Funk. Now apparently its an hour long but why hasn’t the WWE put that on the ‘Rise and Fall’ disk? I mean, if it’s simply just becuase of the fact that they weren’t working for them its a bit of a blow to the fans…

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The Rise and Fall of ECW part duex

So as a few of the posts I have done before might suggest, I’m somewhat of a fan of ECW. Now, I have covered the ‘Rise and Fall of ECW’ before in the book form, but I recently picked up the DVD version of the same.

As I said in the book review, the DVD works better because wrestling is a visual medium, and the whole documentary works really well as a talking heads example of history. Now plently of the history and things that happened there are covered, though you can’t help but feel that the lack of Raven, Sabu and Shane Douglas harms the production somewhat (many wrestlers who weren’t under contract to WWE at the time were not involved in the DVD). In some ways, its an advertisement for the ‘Forever Hardcore’ documentary that Douglas did afterwards. Yet, despite the fact that it is a ‘WWE produced’ dvd, it seems to cover most of the bases pretty honestly. Many of the individuals involved are quite critical of each other, and so on, but to be honest, until I see ‘Forever Hardcore’ and see what that says about things, I won’t really know how to feel. Basically, its 3-odd hours of solid documentary and well worth a look.

There are one or two serious complaints though, both of which appear in my other reviews of ECW material produced by WWE. Firstly, as I said in the review of the ‘Rise and Fall book’ the whole ECW seccedding from NWA isn’t covered, while it’s mentioned in the book, it has no real role in the DVD. Secondly, I’m fairly sure they have the same ‘Bam Bam Bigelow VS Taz’ match on both the ‘Rise and Fall’ and ‘extreme’ dvds. Seriously! If your going to put out these dvds, try minimise overlap! ECW ran long enough that there should surely be enough good material to go around. Still though, the matches available on the DVD are quite enjoyable, with plenty ‘holy shit!’ moments so….

So d’ya know the way that the U.S., Canada and Mexico are actually the one country and are run by the overlords?

I love paranoia:

You are NOT the father!

Man, this show looks SO shit but this clip is just hilarious! Also, the Wikipedia page for this is absolutely brilliant, as it’s really badly written:

Usually, when the man is shown to be the father, the woman gets up, chases the man, victoriously declares that she told him so, and does the “give me yo money” dance which includes cash hand gestures. Then she challenges him to follow through on his claim that he will provide support to the child; there is usually no follow-up to see if this actually happens, possibly due to the rather large number of cases that appear on the show monthly. Upon such confirmation, most men accept the fact that they are the father. Conversely, when the man is proven not to be the father, it is common for the men to celebrate by performing dance steps or running in to the audience to high-five audience members while the women walk or run backstage crying, often collapsing (or sometimes even diving) to the floor into the fetal position. In such cases, the man rarely receives an apology.

Fitna (English Language version)

Ideologically rather corrupt and shallow, this film doesn’t really make much of a point beyond ‘extremists are bad’ which one would imagine is rather self-apparent. While it has some impact, mainly through using footage from some real-life executions, any person with a brain should be able to see through the blatant racism and short-sightedness of Geert Wilder’s film. There’s an intersting article about it on the BBC here and it certainly shows what the BBC is talking about in terms of his ability to generate interest - as I write this, the film has been seen 410,211 times on the host website alone. And that doesn’t take into account other language variations.

Just to be clear, I’m posting this out of interest in the topic and the controversy it has generated. Not out of any belief in Mr.Wilder’s ideas. I’m also doing this because I think that silencing talk becuase religious extremists don’t like the content of a video is a bad thing and should be opposed on principle if nothing else.

Does Snuff Exist?

Surprisingly good documentary on horror movies and supposed ’snuff’ movies. Granted, at the start it’s more of a history of certain types of ‘video nasties’ than about snuff itself but as it goes along it shows how there have been ‘possible examples’ of snuff. Interesting also is the ‘chicken or egg’ question. Does demand creaty supply or supply demand? The moors murders example was one I hadn’t heard before.

Hitman Hart:Wrestling With Shadows

Interesting documentary detailing the final part of Bret Hart’s career in the WWF and such. Maybe a little to close to its subject but well worth a watch, especially for its dealing with the ‘Montreal Screwjob’ & Bret’s inability to deal with the ‘Attitude’ era of pro wrestling. Addendum: Though the documentary seems to be aiming for some sort of ‘balance’ its interesting to see how much of what happens backs up Bret Hart’s version of the ’screwjob’. A lot of Vince’s actions seem rather petty and mean-spirited…
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Up until the 1990’s you could set off the British nuclear arsenal with a bike lock-key:

Unbelievable:

PALs (Permissive Action Links) were introduced in the 1960s in America to prevent a mad General or pilot launching a nuclear war off their own bat - the Dr Strangelove scenario.

And this was apparently all you needed to do if you were any British soldier wanting to set off WW3:

To arm the weapons you just open a panel held by two captive screws - like a battery cover on a radio - using a thumbnail or a coin.

Inside are the arming switch and a series of dials which you can turn with an Allen key to select high yield or low yield, air burst or groundburst and other parameters.

The Bomb is actually armed by inserting a bicycle lock key into the arming switch and turning it through 90 degrees. There is no code which needs to be entered or dual key system to prevent a rogue individual from arming the Bomb.