What was already a strange new story about a woman crashing her car into a DMV office that she’d been summoned to in order to take her driving test is pushed over the edge into the truly wonderfully bizarre by the following line.
Inexplicably, a man in a Superman costume could be seen walking around the car, but he did not stop to help the driver or any of the victims.
I guess there was a more critical emergency he had to attend to at that moment like a collapsing dam or something.
The Financial Times have asked the readers of their website Should music companies drop DRM? [via]
There appears to be overwhelming opposition to DRM amongst voters as the current tally shows 98% opposed.
Iridology may be bogus science, but it appears that the eyes really could windows to the soul as Swedish researchers reveal it may be possible to read a person’s personality from their irises.
Nearly six-in-ten adult Americans (57%) favor requiring all US citizens to carry a national identity card at all times. A new Pew poll also finds the same percentage favoring allowing airport personnel to do extra checks on passengers who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. By contrast, there is much less support for the government monitoring personal communications and credit card purchases — especially when people are asked specifically about government monitoring of their personal calls and credit card purchases.
BBC News: Could X-ray scanners work on the street?
X-ray cameras that would “undress” passers-by in a bid to thwart terrorists concealing weapons, could be coming to a street near you, according to reports. Aside from the obvious privacy issues, would such a plan work?
Leaked documents said to have been drawn up by the Home Office and seen by the Sun newspaper say cameras which can see through clothes could be built into lamp posts to “trap terror suspects”.
X-ray type cameras have their place in the security framework but in the War on Terror they would be costly and ineffective if implemented widely like surveillance cameras.
They are effective in situations where specific locations need securing such as airports as they can be used to filter out individuals for additional scrutiny by security guards who are hand to do so.
Surveillance cameras are used in an entirely different manner they are predominantly used as a visible deterrent against criminal acts or as evidence gathering devices for prosecution of criminals after the fact. They are very rarely used to apprehend criminals in the act.
Security expert Bob Ayers, of Chatham House, believes putting an X-ray lens on a lamppost poses all sorts of resource questions.
“Some guy walks past and his picture is beamed back to a control room to say that something is under his jacket. What do you do? Despatch a police car to hunt him down and frisk him?
“The real question is not whether the technology can see something under the clothing. It’s how you respond to it when the technology says there’s something unusual.
This may well have been obtained from leak Home Office documents but I doubt even that incompetent government department would pursue this ill-thought out scheme.
BBC News: YouTubers to get ad money share
It was bound to happen at some point that Youtube would have to start pay those people that make the site what it is today – the video makers. Although to be honest the success has mostly been off the back of material that infringes copyright rather than the truly user-generated stuff.
But with other video sharing sites such as MetaCafe and Revver already having business models that reward the creators of well viewed movies then YouTube had to do the same or risk losing their number one spot.
The Guardian: The director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, put himself at odds with the home secretary and Downing Street last night by denying that Britain is caught up in a “war on terror” and calling for a “culture of legislative restraint” in passing laws to deal with terrorism.
The use of the term War on Terror only serves to justify in the minds of the terrorists that they really are waging a holy war rather than committing and conspiring to commit what are essentially criminal acts.
The Guardian: Celluloid dreams set to disappear in a digital puff
Before long film will be but a memory at your local cinema as reel projectors are replaced with newer, sharper digital systems.
I think that digital projection will be a great boon for cinemas and the independent movie industry. I think it will be quite a long time until the projection of film is phased out completely, we at The Little Theatre will be running both systems alongside one another for the foreseeable future.
One great advantage of digital projection is the lower distribution costs for the medium as currently the cost of a producing a single print of film is thousands of pounds plus there is the substantial courier costs for transporting 10 000 feet of polyester film (celluloid was discontinued decades ago). Digital ‘films’ will be distributed on hard drives and therefore will be of the order of £100 rather than thousands.
Lower costs will mean that more independent movies will be able to get a wide release among cinemas across the country. Better choice for the moviegoer and better chance for the small movie producers to compete against the big boys.
Screenhead presents The Unfilmables: A List of the Hardest Novels to Film and then proceeds to explain how they might after all be filmed and which film director might be best suited to the task.