+ This I found in the flickr group ‘Technique’, under the heading ‘Low-Light, No Flash, Hand-Held’ How to make a string tripod..which is actually a string monopod.

+ I wrote and emailed my impression of The Brown Bunny for John and Monica.

Hmmn. The Brown Bunny is definitely cool. Vince Gallo is very obviously a hip
photographer>>cinematographer, and inspired. The movie is tragic, with enough distance from the
experience that one can appreciate tragedy as an art. The meaning is on
the surface quite clear, but it has a few layers of subtext. Visually it’s cool, kinda slick in a
Vice magazine photos-of-the-roadtrip-we-did kinda way. –there’s a lot of driving, which in the
context of the movie makes total sense..but some people might have been squirming through that,
in spite of how cool it looked.

I’d give it a 9.2 for style, 9 for story, the pacing perhaps an 8 (even if it made sense for the
movie, personally I have to admit I was a little challenged).

Would I recommend this one. Yes, if you see more than two movies in a month. No, if you only go to one
movie a month. If you do go, it’s a movie that you probably won’t forget.

-it was to my mind superior to “What The Bleep Do We Know” [metafilter link via Ariadna].

+ There’s a BIG BLACK HOLE out there. Bigger than my brain can handle. How can a hole be ‘ a billion times more massive than our sun.’? [The Register link via David]

+ Dirty Laundry is having a sale.
THURSDAY DECEMBER 2nd - 10am - 9pm
FRIDAY DECEMBER 3rd - 10am - 6pm
SATURDAY DECEMBER 4th - 11am - 5pm

55 Water Street # 611 (buzzer is also # 611)

[via Rayna]

+ Don’t forget that as well as the sick pieces of dung in Iraq who behead civilians, there are Israeli soldiers who think that “anyone who’s mobile, moving in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed” and so last month repeatedly shot a 13 year old girl who at the time he thought was “under 10″. He is charged with “illegal use of a weapon” and overstepping his authority to the extent of jeopardising human life.” -not murder. It wouldn’t look good politically.

+ Fuck the South. [via David]

+ Corporate Fun. [via Ariadna]

+ I keep getting PowerPoint .pps files from friends in my in box. Until now, without PowerPoint installed, I couldn’t view them. Microsoft has a free PowerPoint Viewer, which is supposed to only work for 95, 98, or 2000 operating system, or Microsoft Windows NT Workstation operating system 3.51 (with Service Pack 5.x or later) or 4.0, or Microsoft Windows ME users. I installed it on XP SP1 and it works fine.

+ A village in Mexico badly needs a Pied Piper. It has been completely over run by rats. Averaging 200 per household. [Reuters Videostream]

*** follow up: 71-year-old Stephen Petren read about the problem on the internet, he got in contact with Mexican officials with a plan to deal with their rat problem. A technique told to him by his biology professor years ago about how Second World War soldiers dealt with a rat infestation problem in a warehouse in France.

+ Hack the size of XP or 2000 down by up to 50% using XPlite and 2000lite. -LitePC still develops their original software 98LIte for Windows 98 users.

+ Andrew Veal drove from Georgia to commit suicide at the World Trade Centre, ground zero. It’s believed that it was in protest of the election results. -suicide bomber..suicide protester…pretty radical. I wonder if this will get him a place in heaven. -dark humour, dark humour. shhh kent..your secrets are slipping out…

+ Another documentary, The Take is about Argentinians expropriating factories closed after Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse. After the International Monetary Fund crushed the economy. 40 Billion dollars left the country overnight escorted by the police. Then all banks were closed. Factories shut down. And these factories sat collecting dust. Factories that workers feel are owed them as a result of years of government subsidies, and million in unpaid salaries. -a Canadian film. Go see it.