Great video showing a compilating of 100 years of special effects, but to be honest, it is over dominated by the last 20.

I must say (except for Benjamin Button 'youthing' of Brad Pitt)  the digital effects post Tron are somehow disappointing. Why? They're much more real in some way - which is part of the problem. The old stop action trickery Harryhausen, or indeed the simple magic of matteing or cut edits, is much more obvious, but somehow more satisfying. It plays to what film does best - portraying reality, if edited and composed - whereas computer graphics create a new digital reality which, though detailed and realistic, somehow lacks the grain of real life.

I wrote about the limits of digital versus analogue 15 years ago in The Work of Art in the Digital Domain, and complained that CG lacks a feeling for 'mortality'. This compilation only confirms it.

 A great site by Shirley Ann-Dick, with some of the best lines

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Bird's eye view: Safe from harm, NASA scientists look down on the Sarychev Peak volcano as the dramatic eruption takes place. The force of the blast sends clouds scattering

 Looks like Jim Jarmusch is a sorealist. He precisely defines the 'soreal' attitude to authenticity over originality. To be authentic, in this world of shared images and words and realities, you cannot be entirely original. 

 It's taken several  weeks, but I think I've found someone who gives a brand new insight into economics, at this critical moment, and with his emphasis on creative commons, land aswell as capital and labour, and issues such as copyright and copyleft.  is beginning to define economics as we know and experience it in this wired up, but concrete world

Still struggling to grasp some of the concepts. But here's an essay on Towards the Economics of Common Sense

"Factors of Production
Neo-Classical Economists in particular define Labour and Capital as the only Factors of Production, and take the anthropocentric view that the Sun of Capital orbits the Earth of Labour....

One of the most famous lines of American poetry

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

-- James Wright

 Check out the work of Amy Casey - who graphically and humorously depicts how we've all become tangled up over house ownership

Revamped Graphic Equalizer from Marcelo Costa on Vimeo.

Music equaliises us all

 So art is imitating life again. At the Saatchi Gallery, Hojjat Azzizi is declaring himself part of this spontaneous emergent movement. As the 25 year old artist from Tehran says about himself: Typography and Hand lettering and I work in Sorealism" Here is an example of his work:

A great story from The New Scientist. Apparently the more religious or 'red' the state in the US, the more online porn they were likely to consume (though this does go down on Sundays apparently). This is soreal because it's an apparent paradox masking a deeper truth - religion thrives, hides and sustains itself on unresolved contradictions.  Ask any Catholic

"Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama....

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code's religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds."