Interesting Links for 14-12-2012

[andrewducker]

• My brother just quit his job at Lionhead/Microsoft to be an Indie games developer. You should all go read his blog.
  (tags: games viaMyBrotherMike software )
• Mona Lisa in 50 overlapping polygons, as created by genetic algorithms.
  (tags: art genetics computers )
• The Best Movies You Didn't See in 2012
  (tags: movies )
• Testing audiophile claims

Comments

[marrog]

Have seen two movies on that list, Safety Not Guaranteed and Haywire.

The former was great, really engaging and charming and deeper than you expect.

The latter was rubbish - despite MacGregor, Fassbender and Carano being OMG soveryhot. A definite miss.

[andrewducker]

Safety Not Guaranteed is very-much on my watch list. Just haven't quite got there yet!

[marrog]

Aubrey Plaza is amazing (we already loved her from Parks and Recreation) - and she's a huge geek! She posted a picture on her Twitter of a full set-up of the BSG board game plus Pegasus expansion with the message 'SO SAY WE ALL'! Erin and I may have squeed a little.

[pigwotflies]

I'll second the praise for Safety Not Guaranteed. I liked it very much.

[philmophlegm]

The audiophile claims / myths post is interesting, but it's a shame that so many of the tests start with a typical audiophile view of what a basic, entry-level product is. Apart from the tiny, tiny population of very rich audiophiles, I would have thought that most people would see a Pioneer amp as actually quite a high-end piece of kit, not one to be the cheapest in a survey. What would have made this a more interesting collection of articles is more tests where the cheapest alternative was something genuinely cheap, for example does that "cheap" Pioneer amp sound any better than a £50 'home cinema 5.1 speaker kit with built-in amp' from Argos?

[andrewducker]

I'd love to see that too. They do it with cheap cables sometimes, but not with cheap amps.

I came across the link because I was discussing cheaper hifi systems with a friend, and saying I could put together a _good_ system for about £500, and wouldn't spend more than that for the home - but I did make the point that you could get all-in-one 5.1 systems for about £300, and 2.1 systems for £200, and you can go even cheaper than that.

To _my_ ears, the really cheap systems do end up sounding tinny and distort easily. But I've not done any blind listening tests.

[philmophlegm]

Yeah, that's probably where I get to on this (although more from home cinema than music). I can produce anecdotal evidence of what looks and sounds better to me and what seems to make little difference

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I love Richer Sounds.

I got my AV amp based on "It has 3 HDMI inputs and will convert Component in to HDMI out".

And I am totally with you on cables. Comet and suchlike were a massive ripoff for HDMI cables, when the Amazon basics range is cheap and works perfectly well.

[philmophlegm]

Good economics link by the way - I'll own up and admit that I hadn't heard of Friedman's Thermostat either, but I agree that it's a simple concept that deserves wider coverage.

[gonzo21]

There is quite substantial public opposition to Fracking, but I'm sure that will be overcome when people realise it might offset massive energy price increases in years to come.

[momentsmusicaux]

Yeah, but solving the energy problem is not done by extracting more damn fossil fuel to burn, surely!

[andrewducker]

Might be. If the extracted gas is cheaper and produces less CO2 than current coal then it could keep us going while we get solar/wind/water to a productive level.

I'm yet to be convinced that 100% renewables is possible, so we either need nuclear or fossil fuels in the mix.

[naath]

Have you read "Sustainable Energy with the Hot Air"?

Conclusion - it is possible but we have to carpet huge areas with renewable generation (especially if we want to do the generation in the UK). It is not very easy, especially if we continue refusing to reduce our usage.

Fracking helps with the problem of running out of gas before we have a replacement for gas. But it might just delay our investment in replacement technologies because we "don't need them yet", we really need to be putting money and effort into bringing technologies like wave power generation that are currently at the "it worked in my lab" stage up to the "commercially available" stage.

[momentsmusicaux]

The film article has 8 sections, and 7 pictures and somewhere along the way changes the way in which a section goes with a picture. ARGGGGH.

[pigwotflies]

It doesn't. It has 8 pictures. You just have to realise that the top cartoon is the first picture. (It took me about 3 films to work that out).