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Cyfryngau Newydd
Chwefror 2014
exciting developments afoot...
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After much discussion and background work, the digital team at Amguefdda Cymru today began on the exciting path of redesigning its website.
As well as being timely (it's been almost 5 years since our last design iteration *gasp*), there are a number of important factors driving this project, including an ambitious digital strategy to help deliver the redevelopment of St. Fagans National History Museum, as well as a comprehensive review of our institutional structure as a result of the Museums Change Programme.
Areas for development in this project will include providing greater access to online collections, increasing digital participation and also integrating today's social networking activities to encourage participation and sharing.
With these drivers in mind, we've been busy beavering away in the background over the last few months, researching audiences, analysing metrics, workshoping stakeholders and talking to our users. Why? Quite simply, we want this project to be as 'evidence led' as possible - let's act on what our users tell us, from how they get to our website, to what they do when they get there.
time to put the user at the centre
From all this background research, we have developed a specific list of objectives that our new redesigned website will seek to provide. In summary these are;
- Reflect first and foremost, the needs and interests of our users
- Be focused on individual museum sites and our knowledge, not our corporate brand
- Remove barriers to our information, including language and structure
- Present a clear and logical navigational structure
- Remove redundant sections and pages
- Present a simple, clean design
- Ensure that there are no dead ends for users - always offer an alternative if no exact content matches their search
- provide fresh and routinely updated material
We are now in a position to take stock of our whole online offer: microsites, domains, social media connections, visiting pages, collections pages, even our in-gallery interfaces, while at the same time rethinking our traditional 'institutional' view of what we present online.
Most of you in Museum digital circles will know just how easy it is for websites to evolve through a reflection of internal structures. This is our chance to turn that thinking around and apply fresh perspectives, new ideas and modern technology to a website that really works for those visiting our websites - all based on evidence driven research, of course...
Timescale for all this? 8 months, so check back for updates to how this journey unfolds…
Tachwedd 2013
The steady march of the mobile device
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Graham Davies, Online Curator, Amgeddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales
Access to online content is showing a steady shift towards the mobile device. What are the implications for Amgueddfa Cumry's own website?
There has been much discussion in the museums digital sector lately on the significant rise in websites accessed via mobile devices. It was one of the focuses of the 'Let's Get Real' Action Research project run by Culture24, of which the Museum was a part. The V&A have recently been publishing their findings on what devices people use to access different areas of their website.
In light of this, I decided to uncover the trends taking place on the National Museum Wales own website: museumwales.ac.uk
Mobile device growth over two years
From the National Museum Wales' perspective the rate of acces from mobile devices shows pretty much the same pattern reported from other similar institutions.
Overall, we see close to a 25% rise in visits via mobile device to the website over a two year period. This is significant, but applying this as a generalisation of the website as a whole may be hiding other, more significant trends.
Figure 1 shows that people are increasingly looking at our website through mobile devices, but what parts of the site are fuelling this rise? What other trends become apparent when we look at areas such as visiting information, or our content rich collections pages?
So, lets break this down and let's see if we can work out what's going on here…
What are people mainly looking at when using mobile devices?
A comparison of Figure 2 and Figure 3 clearly show a markedly higher percentage of pages accessed via mobile device to our 'visiting' pages than our content rich Art Online collections pages, (which incidentally show more of a rise in tablet use than mobile.)
What this all boils down to is that our content is now being accessed (and increasingly so) through all manner of different devices, and in all manner of different environments, from coffee shops, trains, your sofa, at work etc., etc.
The devices we choose are driven by the context (or setting) we are in, also the time we have to find out what we need to know. Think about it for a minute. How do you use digital devices to locate and find out information? Sat at a desk in your lunchtime, with time to sift through search results to find local events this coming weekend, filtering and refining on a large screen with a mouse and keyboard. Then there's that last minute check on opening times and directions on your mobile phone whilst in a crowded train on your Friday night commute, straining to keep your phone viewable whilst jammed up against another person, typing with one finger. Come Sunday evening, you're lying on the sofa, tablet on lap learning more about that nugget of information you picked up, or writing about your experiance on a review site.
This behaviour is quite logical if we take time to consider user behaviour on different devices, but what does this mean for our website and how we manage it?
What we must ensure when publishing our content is that we understand that the users could be anywhere, doing anything. A the moment, the evidence seems to suggest most mobile access targets visiting and location based information, whereas in depth collections data remains to be largely accessed via desktops.
The decline of the desktop (well, for visiting information at least)
Figure 2 shows that more people are viewing our visiting information from mobile devices than they are from desktops or laptops. It is therefore critical when planning content and designing websites, that areas of the website need to be thought out in separate ways, with visiting and site based information being designed and created first and foremost to be viewed on mobile devices.
In addition to functionality and design, we must also ensure that the content we provide for those areas of the website that are accessed primarily through mobile devices is crystal clear, succinct and quick to discover and understand - after all, you may only have a 5inch screen to get your information across.
Given the rate of growth from mobile devices it will be interesting to see where we will be this time next year...
Background reading:
V&A Blog
Google research
Adobe Digital Marketing blog
Chwefror 2013
How more sales can mean less revenue
And they're here: for the first time, we have figures for a year of e-book sales, supplied directly by publishers. It's still far from the whole picture, as not all e-book figures are available. But we now have a much better idea of what the book-buying landscape looks like in the UK.
The figure that stands out is that e-book sales are now up to 13%-14% of all book sales. However, as their prices are cheaper, that's only 6%-7% of revenue. Print book sales are down again, by 3.4% on 2011, as are average prices.
The e-book market is still dominated by fiction, and those e-book figures track the print figures. That is, if a book sells well in print, it also does well in e-book. The stand-out example is a particularly, shall we say, shady trilogy, whose e-book sales are about 36% of the print sales. Could the success of the e-book version of these titles lie, I wonder, in the fact that no-one can see what you're reading on your Kindle...?
So, it's mixed news: more books were bought in 2012, but because more of them were e-books, publishers made less money. Good news for reading, less so for publishing.
Meanwhile, here at Amgueddfa Cymru our journey into 'e' continues...
With thanks to The Bookseller for the sales figures.
Medi 2012
New Media, New Challenges
[delwedd: Plasty Margam, Morgannwg, tua'r Gogledd]
Plasty Margam, Morgannwg, tua'r Gogledd
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Plasty Margam, Morgannwg, tua'r Dde
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Graham Davies, Online Curator, Amgeddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales
Earlier this year I was approached by the Keeper of Art regarding a recent acquisition of two oil paintings dating from 1700. The paintings in question - two large panoramic paintings of Margam House - were purchased with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund, and as the funding included some form of digital exploration, I was asked to produce an interactive to compliment the gallery display (that would also be available to tour with the paintings).
On closer inspection of the paintings, lot of small, intricate detail became noticeable. As some details were very small - and would benefit from additional interpretation - some sort of zoomable image would offer the visitors with the best form of digital exploration.
In previous gallery interactive developments, the New Media Department have used the iPad2 platform, but as the newer iPad3 has a retina display - a screen resolution and pixel density so high that a person is unable to discern the individual pixels at a normal viewing distance - this platform seemed ideal to explore small detail in high resolution images. As for the software, we decided to use an adaptation of a previously developed interactive that allowed the user to move around a high-resolution image to predetermined hotspots (to explain certain details of the painting).
I then went about locating numerous details on the canvas that would be interesting and informative to the viewer. I was keen to pick things out that would not be contained on the gallery labels, thus ensuring no duplication and offering an enhanced visitor experience.
Resolution issues
After obtaining high-resolution images of the two paintings I was able to upload these to our Content Management System (amgeuddfacms), to allow them to be served from our website server. It was at this point that a strange technical inconsistency occurred....
Viewing 3800?pixel wide image on a standard Firefox browser on my desktop screen rendered the image sharp and clear. However, serving the exact same image into the iPad3 web browser rendered a fuzzy pixelated image. Given that the same image was being served to both screens it seemed that the different web browsers were handling the image in a different way.
A little bit of research on the internet revealed the possible problem: The default web browser on an iPad (Safari), runs WebKit which only seems to serve images up to a maximum size (somewhere around 1024 pixels wide). The iPad browser seemed to be downsampling the original 3800 wide image to 1024 wide, before then upscaling this 1024 wide image back up to 3800, causing the image to render at almost 400% it's downsampled 1024 pixel size.
The problem was how to get around this. After some researching on the internet for similar problems, it seemed that there was no conclusive solution. This was mainly due to the logical assumption that it's bad practice to serve huge images to a website (especially on a mobile device such as an iPad, where web content was readily downloaded via mobile networks), so the advice was always to use small images. Of course we wanted very large images, so this didn't help!
One solution that Chris Owen, our Web Manager came up with was to serve two halves of the image separately and automatically stitch them back together again after they loaded on the web page - thus the page would load two smaller images. Technically this gave a good result, but cutting the image in half was not enough. We therefore generated a script that sliced the image into 500 by 500 pixels (totaling 64 separate images), and stitched them all back together again once they were loaded into the browser.
The outcome was a high-resolution image (made up of smaller individual images) that renders sharply even when zoomed right in. This gets around the issue of the Safari web browser on an iPad automatically scaling down large images.
Research suggests that this may be a first in application development of this sort, especially one developed wholly in HTML5.
Gesture enhanced interactive
Once this high resolution was served up onto the new iPad3, in high resolution quality, it became clear that it would make more sense to make this a 'gesture enhanced' (pinch to zoom) interactive in addition to interpreting predetermined parts of the painting.
This means that the user can now fully explore the entire image, zooming right into any part of the image, whilst being able to read interpretive labels embedded within the image.
Colour Accuracy
The next problem to solve was the one of colour accuracy. Due to the original paintings being very dark, most images that we had to play with were lightened in order to see the detail. This lightening caused the colours to be untrue to the original, something that would be noticeable once screen and canvas were next to each other in the gallery.
A quick phone call to our photography department affirmed that they had high-resolution master TIFF files available that were 'colour correct', i.e. the colours in the digital capture were exactly as they were in the painting.
These colour correct images turned out to be strikingly different to the ones that we had previously been playing with, the increased sharpness causing even more detail to become apparent, even figures appeared that weren't noticeable on the previous images.
The application will be installed alongside the paintings of Margam House in the Art in Wales 1500-1700 gallery at National Museum Cardiff in October 2012.
Bringing it all together: Art in Wales 1550-1700
A parallel development to this in-gallery interactive is a website interactive exploring a major portrait of the builder of Margam House – Sir Thomas Mansel with his wife, Jayne (hung alongside the Margam paintings in Art in Wales 1550-1700 gallery). Again, certain parts of the painting can be explored in high resolution through interpretive labels embedded in the image. This further compliments an existing interactive, exploring another major portrait in the gallery – Katheryn of Berain, the Mother of Wales.
It is hoped to extend this program to include all the items in the gallery, thus forming a holistic digital interpretation of Art in Wales from 1550-1700, available both within the gallery and through the website.
Ebrill 2012
Art Gallery VADU
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VADU: Visual Audio Display Unit
My last blog entry was back in April 2009, so this is a hesitant return.
In July 2011 the refurbished Contemporary & Modern Art galleries were re-opened at the National Museum Cardiff, the following VADU would be included in the initial exhibition. The specification was mainly to showcase video shorts: recorded, interviewed and edited by a few of my colleagues (Art and New Media), the videos would have subtitles and also there would be a visitor comments page.
The iPad 2 was about to be launched when I started work on the VADU. Magic was in the air, queues were forming.
Note: it has been used for two exhibitions, so far:
- Contemporary & Modern Art (July 2011 – January 2012)
- The Queen: Art and Image (January 2012 – April 2012)
Project Ethos
Although there is an 'App Store', it seemed like overkill to write and release an application simply for four machines in an art gallery - I used 'Kiosk Pro' instead, an application which basically removed all the usual iPad functionality and locked it down to a fullscreen Safari browser.
In regards to the actual design aspect of the VADU interface: the only two constraints were museum brand guidelines and a particular colour had to be used to unify it with the surrounding new gallery signage.
Around May 2011, Braun's designer Dieter Rams design ideas entered my world (I can't repeat his mantra here, but only because it is copyrighted). Anyhow, I tried to create an interface that was simple, intuitive, consistent, and didn't distract the user from the actual content:
- Only two colours
- No drop-shadows or gradients
- 10px borders
- I did allow myself one curvy corner (bottom-right), one guilty pleasure
- User navigation: horizontal gestures only
- Page transitions: vertical only
Building Blocks
If you haven't already looked at the photograph 1 and 1b, I would take a look now; so we have a shared reference images in mind.
The top section displays the title of the exhibition, followed by page buttons (Art, Comments and What's On). All exciting stuff - the tip of an arrow indicates which page the user is on (hopefully in a subtle fashion).
The language button starts the most convoluted process on the VADU, in terms of animating a page change. I didn't want the change to be instant, instead I gave it a more graceful flow. The actual result of changing the language only swaps the domain name from English to Welsh or visa-versa (museumwales.ac.uk, amgueddfacymru.ac.uk), but the time it takes to do that is over four seconds. It should become clearer later, if you watch the video below.
The middle section displays the video in focus at the time, large screen print from the video is shown in the background - title, summary and extraneous information such as video length are shown on the information panel. In large font the word: 'Play', indicating the user can start a video. Left and right arrows also allow the user to shuffle through the videos. The information panel can be moved from the right or left of the background image - something that resulted from the fact artists don't like their work flipped [in a digital sense] i.e. if the focus of the background is to the left, the information panel can be positioned to the right by indicating such in the CMS metadata entry.
The bottom section can be dragged with a finger left and right, selecting any one of the sixteen videos. It was quite important to have draggable areas, because it is simply expected by iPad users (thus, making it intuitive). The same draggable feature is used for the what's on page (photograph 6).
If the user selects a video, the screen removes all navigation features so they are only left with the title of the video, a video time indicator (so the user knows the video is only short), the video itself in the center of the screen, the subtitles at the base of the screen and a 'back' button. The user can pause and un-pause the video by tapping of the video in the center (see photograph 3). The video's themselves use the same colour as the VADU, so it all fits together neatly.
Finally the comments page is simple too: optional name input, text input and the last three comments are displayed on the right-hand side (hopefully encouraging the user to write something). The comments are fed into the usual website comments system, approved (or not) by a staff member (photograph 5) – there has been over 2000 comments left of the gallery VADU since July 2011, which is quite a lot considering no one was forcing these people to write something.
The subtitles are again displayed using javascript, they are not integrated into the video. I built a subtitles tool within the Amgueddfa CMS using Javascript and Flash, which creates a XML file that could be dropped into the caption of the video. The idea being that the majority of videos need to be available to two languages and if the videos were published on the main website at anytime, a transcript could be displayed too. Hopefully the task of transcribing the video in the first place is easier because of it. There you go, a little of the behind the scenes work (photograph 7).
Past Performance
The gallery VADUs have been very reliable; once every few months one of them may freeze, but considering they are always on (one weakness of iOS software is you can't boot-up into a single application), that's not too bad. I darken the screen after the galleries close – simply using a whole–screen black div.
We had a brief problem when changing the local network settings in January, so I added a check before the VADU changes language to see if there is a network available (an AJAX query: onSuccess or onFailure).
Future Development
If it continues to be used, I would like to develop a local version of the VADU, providing a fallback if the network goes down, or maybe a hybrid version (storing the videos on the VADU). This would mean a update of the iOS (from 4.3 to 5.1+), but I'm sure there would be some associated browser performance improvements.
Other major changes shouldn't be required, as the video shorts are meant to be the star of the show.
Final Word
Obviously it helps to have a pleasant environment to place the VADUs (photograph 9).
Video Demo
I've included a short demo video for posterity:art-gallery-VADU.mp4
Medi 2011
Virtually cleaning a 18th Century painting
[delwedd: Golygfa o'r Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore ar y Gamlas Fawr yn Fenis [cyn glanhau]]
Golygfa o'r Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore ar y Gamlas Fawr yn Fenis [cyn glanhau]
[delwedd: Golygfa o'r Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore ar y Gamlas Fawr yn Fenis [wedi glanhau]]
Golygfa o'r Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore ar y Gamlas Fawr yn Fenis [wedi glanhau]
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Graham Davies, Online Curator, Amgeddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales
When a member of the Art department approached me to ask if I could feature two views of the same painting online — one version covered in dirt and yellowed varnish (as the painting was when it came into the Museum), and the other version showing hidden detail and crisp colours (after being cleaned by Museum conservators) — I realised it would make a perfect interactive if you could use your mouse to virtually 'clean' the dirty canvas to reveal the clean version underneath.
Guardi's view of the Grand Canal, Venice
The painting in question is Francsesco Guardi's View of the Palazzo Loredan dell'Ambasciatore on the Grand Canal, Venice, painted around 1775-85.
Acquired by Amgueddfa Cymru in 2011, this painting is an important acquisition as Guardi's Venetian views are regarded as highly significant in the history of landscape painting.
You clean the painting
To make the most out of this dramatic before and after view, I needed to work out a way of 'virtually' cleaning the painting online by dragging a mouse over the dirty image to reveal the original details and colours previously hidden underneath the dirt and old varnish.
Reinvent the wheel?
I wanted something that allowed the mouse to act as an eraser; allowing one image to be rubbed out to reveal a secondary image underneath. A hunt around the internet brought up the required functionality already created by by Jonathan Nicol (www.f6design.com/journal).
The next step was to acquire high resolution copies of both dirty (before) and cleaned (after) digital images of the artwork from the Photography department.
Precisely aligning two slightly different angled photographs of the same picture
When I opened these digital images in Photohshop it became apparent that variations in the perspective, and distance of the photographic captures resulted in two images that did not precisely match up once overlaid on top of one another.
After an hour of miniscule adjustments using the image warp feature on Photoshop using the images as separate layers within Photoshop (one set at 50% opacity), I eventually achieved a precise overlaid match.
I abandoned trying to do this at 100% view as the image was so large and the time lag in processing too great to view the results (even for my G5 at 2.44Gz and 8GB RAM). I had to settle for a 25% view that filled my Apple 32" screen)
Once I had a satisfactory matched up and aligned the 'dirty' layer on top of the 'clean' layer, I could create the two corresponding TIFF images to incorporate into the Flash file as a basis for the interactive.
After a bit of tweaking, fiddling, and constant testing, I managed to create a simple interactive, allowing you to use your mouse to erase the dirty image, revealing the clean one underneath.
Exploring the detail.
I then decided to repeat this process to create several versions, all using crops of the high resolution images to show close up details of the painting.
Areas of particular interest I choose to separate out were people rowing a goldola, the architectural detail of the buildings, and the detail of the sky and clouds where much original detail had been almost totally obscured by years of grime, dirt and previous 'touch-ups' to the painting. The clean version revealed original intricate details and brushwork.
Future applications for Museum archives and collections
I am hoping this functionality can be utilised for other online images of the collections in the future. Ideas I have at the moment are to reveal hidden under-drawings only visible under x-ray light — as in the example of Richard Wilson's Dolbadarn Castle (NMW A 72), which has been painted over a portrait of a woman, and Landscape with Banditti around a Tent (NMW A 69) which he painted over a Venetian-style reclining nude.
Additional ideas include viewing a landscape or post industrial townscape that can be erased to reveal a historical image underneath...
Awst 2011
Lots of talk, for some very small numbers
Ok, so we had the iPad moment. What's changed? Lots. The iPad itself was, in truth, disappointing for publishers. Beautiful, sure, but not very helpful. It wasn't multifunctional and it wasn't backward compatable with much stuff either (I can't be the only person still using OS 10.4?) But, like Apple's previous offers, it was a gamechanger. It established the tablet as a device, despite many people, myself included, wondering if anyone really wanted Job's 'third device'. Apple then let other manufacturers come up with their own versions, the best of which is probably Samsung's Galaxy, and quietly went home to improve their own model. Having established the tablet, and just in time to catch the secondary wave of adopters, out comes iPad 2. With improved functionality and more features (camera – two, actually), it still passes itself off as the most desirable tablet, even if it's not necessarily the best. With iPad 2 and the iPhone, Apple has now firmly entered the mainstream consumer market. In losing the geek factor, what has it gained? Well, turnover, and profit, obviously. While Apple's top-quality combined hardware/software model of Macs retains its market-leading position in the creative industries, the iPods, Ipads and iPhones are now thoroughly high-street, even with their top-end price tags.
However, part of this trajectory has been the strategic downplaying of the iPad's e-reader function, which is what publishers were most excited about. Instead, the iPad focuses on portable, sleek, seamless acces to the web and email – truly, a big iPhone, but also ready and waiting for Web 3.0.
In terms of e-readers the iPad moment just didn't happen. This has left Amazon's Kindle as market leader, even though it only reads Amazon's own e-book file format (although there are rumours Amazon will soon be allowing US publishers to submit e-books in the industry-standard e-Pub format). Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, by 2010 in the US Amazon were selling more Kindle books than hardbacks; today Amazon sells more Kindle books than hardback and paperback put together. At the moment it's selling 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books, and three times more Kindle books than this time last year. In the UK, where the Kindle store has only been open a year or so, Amazon are selling twice as many Kindle books as hardbacks.
What can we learn from this? Remember, the Amazon figures only apply to their own sales, of Kindle books, which can only currently be read on a Kindle device. What's happening across the rest of the bookselling industry? The true picture for the UK is that sales of e-books are currently 2.5% of all book purchases; interestingly, they peaked at 3% over Christmas (did you get an e-book in your stocking?!) Adult fiction is still the most popular category, at 5.4% of all purchases; men and women are buying e-books equally, and the age group 55-64 makes up over a quarter of e-book buyers.
This 2.5% seems like a tiny figure for us all to be worrying so much about, especially as the value of the sales is low – about 1.6%. I still can't wait to have a go though.
Mawrth 2011
Revealing historic sketches online
Revealing the historic sketches of Francis Place for the very first time…
After Museum conservators in the Art department had completed their conservation work on the Francis Place sketchbooks – containing some of the earliest on-the-spot- sketches of Wales in the Museums collections – I was given the task of figuring out the best way in which to present these sketches online.
Secret sketches hidden for 200 years
Places' sketchbooks had been taken apart 200 years ago and their pages stuck on a woven paper backing. Recent conservation work has since revealed further sketches on the reverse – sketches that have been hidden for over 200 years.
What's more, these hidden sketches were a continuation of the panoramic view from the previous page – so by digitally stitching two double page panoramas together, new complete views could been created that would never have been possible to see before – even by the artist himself!
Now, how could we display these new super long panoramas online whilst still allowing the detail to be seen?
The default width for our webpages is set at just under 1000 pixels across, this was just not enough to be able to show off these panoramas in any detail, so I decided that the easiest solution was to add scroll bars direct to the image, allowing them to be displayed across the page whilst at the same time allowing the complete panoramas to be studied in detail.
Cardiff 1678:
One of these newly generated images is of a panoramic view of Cardiff, containing an unique view of the medieval town as it was back in 1678.
To show this detailed sketch off in the best possible way, I decided to repurpose our interactive image navigator tool, which allows the user to pan around a high resolution image viewing details close up.
By using texts from a previously published article on medieval Cardiff, I was also able to pinpoint and highlight certain aspects of the panorama that were noteworthy – be it places that have remained unchanged since medieval times, or places that have long since vanished.
Francis Place goes global
To promote this work, the marketing team at the Museum distributed several Tweets and Facebook mentions. As well as being picked up by the BBC Wales news website and local media, we also published images onto the photo sharing website Flickr and added the extra information as notes embedded within the image. To make it a bit more user focused, I posted a comment asking users to guess where the artist was postitioned as he sketched… The foreground area of the sketch has altered so dramatically since 1678, it's not as easy as it seems….
And as if by magic - it's still not here.
Well, the iPad now has a release date for the US - early April, not mid-March as first expected. It will probably arrive in the UK late April. In the meantime we seem to have exhausted ourselves trying to decide whether or not it's a good thing - let alone a necessary thing. But then not being needed didn't make the iPod or iPhone any less desirable.
Apple's marketing for the iPad has taken a turn for the interesting, as their key words are "revolutionary" - possibly true - and "magical" - what?! Of course it's slick, sexy, a thing of beauty; there might well be something revolutionary about it; but - magical? Now using that concept to describe a piece of digital equipment, that's revolutionary! It's a piece of kit that lets us use our email and the web, look at our pics and videos and play with all our digital toys (150,000 of them apparently). Eventually we'll be able to use it to read e-books.
Previously Apple were promoting the iPad's similarity with the iPhone in terms of functionality, so that we'd all feel at home right away. Now, however, the iPad is revolutionary, magical and value for money. It sounds as though somewhere in the flurry of attention since its announcement, Apple have abandoned the "third category" concept that so many people questionned, and instead are positioning the iPad as a gem of a product, something lovely and affordable and just so much fun. A must-have accessory, perhaps. In which case, where does that leave the e-reading function? It was never primarily an e-book reader, more for all-round media consumption, but publishers were desperately looking forward to the healthy, straightforward supply deal offered by Apple, and any further delay in launching iBook in the UK is surely going to be a major cause for concern.
Chwefror 2010
Publishers are happy to have a bite
Macmillan have now ended their stand-off with Amazon, and come to an agreement over the terms of sale of their ebooks. When Macmillan initially demanded new terms, all their books became unavailable on Amazon.
Now, even Rupert Murdoch says that Amazon's terms "devalues books", and he looks like renegotiating HarperCollins terms.
The problem is Amazon's selling model, in which they act as a straightforward reseller. They can sell the ebooks at any price they choose, even lossleading on some if they want to. Apple, on the other hand, have taken a completely different model with US publishers, who are welcoming it with open arms. Apple will be buying ebooks from publishers at a price set by the publishers, with Apple effectively taking a commission.
There's still no indication that Apple has started negotiating with UK publishers, so when the first iPads ship to the UK at the end of March ebooks might not be available through iBooks. If not, however, it won't be trhough lack of enthusiasm on the part of publishers. This is one American trend I don't think we'll mind following.
Cyfryngau Newydd
Ffotograffau Hanesyddol (Esmee Ffairburn)
Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales
Project Sain Ffagan Amgueddfa Werin Cymru Project Creu Hanes
Ymchwilio yn Ynysoedd Falkland
cofnodion diweddar
Fifty years of a golden reign: a souvenir of the Queen's Jubilee [1887]
A Window into the Industry Collections
'Made in Roath' take some of the Museum's specimens on a day out to Chapter


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News and Talk
FM Schedule | Alternate Stream Formats
Classical Music
Classical Schedule | Alternate Stream Formats
Intersection | Parent Trigger Bill
March 19, 2013 WMFE - House Bill 867, the so-called Parent Trigger Bill, is making its way through the state legislature but not without controversy. The bill is said to give parents a chance to trigger change if the school receives a failing grade but some are saying it opens the door to the privatization of schools. 90.7's Matthew Peddie talks with Florida State Representative Joe Saunders, and Patricia Levesque, Executive Director of Foundation for Florida's Future about the bill.

subset: commoncrawl


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2012: Mayan Prophecy and the Shift of the Ages DVD
A startling look at the great cycle of ages and the meaning of time
2012: Mayan Prophecy and the Shift of the Ages is a provocative documentary that looks at the underlying mystery of 2012. Why did the ancient Maya place such significance on the date December 21, 2012? Is it the end of the world as we know it? Were they predicting the apocalypse some modern thinkers foresee? Geoff Stray and Philip Coppens reveal a startling perspective on 2012 and the lost meaning of the great cycle of ages. The filmmakers challenge the doomsday prophets, explore the true nature of time and argue that 2012 is not the apocalyptic end, but perhaps the opportunity for a new beginning. 77 minutes plus bonus features.


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Abraham's Sacrifice
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Chamber Testimonials:
I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to interface with local business leaders as part of the Tucson Metro Chamber's BEAR Task Force. It was invaluable to be able to gather feedback about doing business in Southern Arizona and to contribute to an initiative aimed at enhancing the local business climate. I appreciate the Metro Chamber spearheading this effort and am glad to have been a part of it.Doraliz Vega
The Tucson Metro Chamber is relentless to help support the small business interest in Southern AZ and Tucson. With so many services and programs offered you can't go wrong. You just need to get involved.Bruce Seely
Fulton Distributing
The Chamber has allowed me to make many contacts including a key influencer for my top account at the Sheraton. In a month, I accomplished what would have taken me six months if I were on my own. I work the Chamber and the Chamber works for me!Mona Moore
Sheraton Tucson Hotel & Suites
The Chamber is extremely important to ALL! By acknowledging and supporting new members, they not only helps us create new relationships, but help our " Old Pueblo " develop a stronger economy. Thus, a more attractive city to live in.Ed Palma
The Jim Click Automotive Team
I joined the Chamber in December of 2011 and have been actively involved since June of 2012. My sales for first quarter 2013 were up 60% over 2012. I can attribute half of this increase to relationships I have developed from the Tucson Metro Chamber.Brian Woods
Southwest Print and Promotions
The Chamber has an exciting commitment to revitalize and energize Tucson. There are many opportunities to meet other Chamber members and share common concerns and challenges and together we can provide input and influence on these matters.Elsie Genova


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Ricoh continues to be recognized with industry awards for leadership in innovation, marketing, and corporate sustainability, including environmental management and ethics, to name a few.
Ricoh was recognized on the 2012 Top 100 Global Innovators list by Thomson Reuters, one of the world's leading sources of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. The list honors 100 corporations and institutions around the world "that are at the heart of innovation." Selection is based on four principal criteria: overall patent volume, patent grant success rate, global reach of the portfolio and patent influence as evidenced by citations. View Press Release for more information.
Ricoh earned a spot on the 2013 Informationweek 500 list of top technology innovators across the U.S. Ranked #111, Ricoh was included in the top 250 for the second year in a row. InformationWeek identifies and honors the nation's most innovative users of information technology with its annual InformationWeek 500 listing, and also tracks the technology, strategies, investments and administrative practices of some of the best‐known organizations in the country. View Press Release for more information.
Ricoh has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI)*1. Compiled by Dow Jones and SAM (Sustainable Asset Management) Group, DJSI was the first global sustainability index to assess a company's corporate sustainability from the economic, environmental and social developments aspects. This year, DJSI reviewed 2,500 companies around the world, and 330 companies were selected to the DJSI world Index. View Press Release for more details.
Ricoh was recognized by FTSE4Good Index Series for tenth year. The award follows an analysis of Ricoh's global corporate social responsibility activities. The assessment is conducted by EIRIS or Experts in Responsible Investment Solutions (London). In particular Ricoh was recognized for its environmental management, human and labor rights, supply chain labor standards, corporate governance and countering bribery. View Press Release for more information.
Ricoh was recognized for the fifth year by the Ethisphere Institute as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies in 2013. Ethisphere, a leading international organization dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, governance, anti-corruption and sustainability, identifies companies that outperform industry peers when it comes to ethical behavior. View Press Release for more information.
Ricoh was honored with the Marketo Revvie award for outstanding achievements and leadership in marketing innovation. The Revenue Performance Excellence Awards, aka "The Revvies," recognize and celebrate customers and partners that are creating dramatic business impact with their innovative uses of the Marketo® marketing software solutions to push outside the bounds of existing markets and away from their competition. View Press Release for more information.
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Captain's Report by Dan ArmitageThe 180 SP is a new model for Sea-Doo in 2012.The Sea-Doo 180 SP's MissionThe new-for-2012 180 SP was designed as a crossover, a boat built for those who want a runabout model with the potential for wakeboarding and other tow-sports, minus the price tag associated with traditional wakeboard boats. It is also a good boat for kids because it does not have a prop and can operate in shallow water. Distinguishing FeaturesA birds-eye-view shows that the seating options offered aboard the Sea-Doo are impressive for a 17-foot, 7-inch foot boat, with a capacity for seven passengers and the operator. The compact Rotax 4-TEC engine with Direct Drive technology offers a low profile to buy much of that cockpit space for passengers, as does the boat's 98-inch beam.The 2012 SP (for "Sport") is the first model in Sea-Doo's 180 class equipped with the popular iTC feature. iTC. Intelligent Throttle Control is drive-by-wire technology offering multiple driving modes to meet specific situations. The operator can run the boat efficiently with lower fuel use, for example, by placing the iTC in ECO mode. For controlled docking, launching and loading, the system can be programmed into Docking mode, which limits rpms while allowing a full throw of the throttle. And there is no cable linkage to get stuck.The Intelligent Throttle Control (iTC) feature also offers fully customizable Ski and Cruise control modes. Jet drive. Rather than relying on a conventional propeller, the Sea-Doo 180 SP uses a water pump and propulsion nozzle, through which the water is directed to both propel and steer the boat. The lack of exposed blades makes the boat safer for those swimming off the transom because there is no lower unit and prop hanging low in the water; and the 180 is a good choice for use in shallow water.Docking mode. Simply shift the 180 into "Docking Mode" and the vessel becomes more docile and easier to maneuver. Short bursts of throttle forward and aft will slide you into any slip. Bow featuresThe bow cockpit offers passengers angled, wrap-around seating and a filler cushion to create a comfortable pit-style lounge area forward. The filler pad fits under the center forward cushion for storage.Cockpit FeaturesIn addition to the iTC technology, the 180 SP helm comes complete with a satellite-ready stereo system with mp3 port and plenty of power for the boat's four speakers.An arch tower with integrated tow pylon and built in Bimini top is a standard overhead feature aboard the 180 SP.The tower folds for low-profile towing and storage.Underfoot in the cockpit is a locker large enough for stowing wakeboards and other bulky items.The cockpit features sectional, snap-in carpet for convenient removal for cleaning.A handy portable cooler fits snugly under either side of the bench seat that spans the aft end of the cockpit.Transom featuresThe 180 SP offers a walk-through transom to the padded swim platform, accessed by a two-step telescoping ladder with plenty of handholds within reach.The 180 SP is a comfortable, economical, compact cruiser for up to seven passengers.The 180 SP maintains the raked lines and radical graphics found on traditional wakeboard boats, but in a compact package. With the tower and swing-away tongue on the standard trailer folded, the rig easily fits in a standard one-car garage and doesn't require a V8-equipped vehicle for towing to and from the lake.Price and observations about the Sea-Doo 180 SPThe 180 SP has enough performance and comfort features to keep the price ($29,999 with trailer) down, yet allow the owner to run the gamut of active watersport pursuits. The Rotax power-plant means the boat is economical to operate, the boat's weight makes it easy to tow and the rig's compact size makes it easy to stow. Sea-Doos are famous for their handling and technology, and that all adds up to an appealing package for entry-level boaters who want to get active on the water this season.
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Two works share the San Antonio Symphony program this weekend with conductor Sebastian Lang Lessing: Shostakovich's Symphony No.8 and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 22 with soloist Michel Dalberto.
Audiences won't expect the romantic sounds of Ferruccio Busoni when they hear the Mozart - but the Italian master wrote cadenzas (solo passages within the concerto) that Dalberto will play.
At this point in the legislative calendar many bills are facing a looming demise, but Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said he has found another way to get money for transportation needs.
"One of the obvious ways is to take some money in the budget and devote it to our energy related zones that have borne the burden of most of the oil and gas production. They are just simply deteriorating and they're not safe anymore," Darby said.
After meeting for hours behind closed doors, House Democratic leaders declined the Republican deal on the state's budget bill.
Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, the vice-chair of the Democratic Caucus, said House Democrats are unified in their stance against the budget in its current form, which promises $3.2 billion for education funding.
A bill that provides $630 million worth of tax incentives has already made its way out of the House, and is now heading to the Senate floor for a vote.
The bill has been altered from its original wording, streamlining those benefiting down to one business group.
"I explained to my colleagues as we've been trying to work through this in the last couple of days: It's almost like I have to pick which three of my kids gets something and which do not. It's almost impossible," said Sen. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, who is carrying the bill in the Senate.
At this late stage in the legislative session, most bills that haven't made it out of at least one chamber are left to the wind, but there is still a chance for a bill with bipartisan support that proposes to provide immigrants without legal documentation a driver's permit.
Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, is carrying the bill, which was authored by Sen. Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands.
In the first segment:
When cities and counties try to attract big businesses, they have several tools in their toolbox. Tax abatements or breaks to businesses that bring jobs have become the new normal, so are they worth it?
Today we talk with Brian Kelsey, professor at the University of Texas, Austin and principle at Civic Analytics, and with David Marquez from Bexar County Economic Development about what these all mean and why cities and counties are going this route.
Ásgeir Trausti hoped to be a professional track and field athlete but his plans were detailed by various sporting injuries. He became a professional musician instead and quickly rose to to top of the Icelandic music scene.
All the words to his songs are composed by his 72-year-old father and are filled with lyric romanticism.
His first album, "Dyrd I Daudathogn," (In The Silence) is sung completely in Icelandic, he hopes to reach a broader audience with an all English version of the album currently in the works.
As part of National Police Week, San Antonio Police Department and Bexar County Sheriff's Department are honoring their slain officers and deputies.
SAPD held a ceremony earlier this week and Sheriff Susan Pamerleau will hold a special candlelight vigil Thursday evening for members of her department - the first time Bexar County has held such a private event.
On Friday deputies will gather for the annual public ceremony, where Sgt. Yvonne Vann, wife of Sgt. Kenneth Vann, who was shot and killed while on duty in May 2011, will speak.
Lydia Mendoza has been called the first lady of Tejano and Conjunto Music and Wednesday the U.S. Postal Service unveiled a forever stamp in her honor as part of a music legends series.
La alondra de la frontera (the lark of the border) was honored at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center on the West Side.
Mendoza was born to a musical family in Houston in 1916 and she progressed in her talents, eventually mastering the 12-string guitar.
Mendoza is one of several pioneering musicians being honored in the postal services' Music Icon stamp series.
The Senate has passed a bill that prohibits the state's transportation department from turning free roads into toll roads, but the "do-or-die" deadline is approaching fast for it to clear the House in time.
Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, authored Senate Bill 1029, which addresses the conversion of existing state roads into tollways. She said there are several highways throughout the state being eyed for this type of tolling, one of which is Hwy. 281.


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I've only had it for like 10 days and the darn thing stopped playing today on the way back from lunch!
PA880 with gain set at 0, boost at 0db, and crossover at 90hz.
Volume on the car was about half. Was playing 6foot, 7 foot by lil wayne.
All of a sudden the bass cut out and all i heard was what i can only describe as sparking across a coil. I got out and looked at the sub, it looked fine, pushed in fine without scraping, and moved freely. All the sound was coming from behind the sub.
Sucks... I don't think I was overdriving it, and it was only being played for about 2 minutes (lunch drive is very short). At first I thought maybe the pole piece separated from the woofer cone, but when I pushed the cone in there was no contact with the pole that sounded like it was moving... OH while typing that I realize that maybe the pole piece did separate and pulled into the subwoofer and isn't coming back out, hence the rattling. The voice coil might just be sitting inside the bottom of the sub and sparking since it is no longer suspended.
What do you guys think? I already called Polk CS - I'm going to swap the sub out tonight for a spare one I have sitting in the garage (Kicker 10) to make sure its not the amp flipping out.
I'm kind of sad, every sub I've ever owned has been played longer, harder, and with more intent than this sub with no problems, and with less power. The PA880 is 500wrms @ 2ohms, this sub is 2 ohms with less power handling. I know I didn't clip it, so I doubt it was underpowering. (I can't stand clipping speakers). I hope this is just a fluke, Polk speakers have always been good to me, you guys know how adamant I am about Polk and this forum :).


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Editors' Picks:
- Obama military downsizing leaves U.S. too weak to counter global threats, panel finds
- Sen. Tom Coburn vows to slow down budget-busting bills ahead of recess
- Obama fantasizes about more executive power, signs new order on federal contractors
- Clintons call Klein, Halper, Kessler 'a Hat Trick of despicable actors': report
- Boehner accuses Obama of 'legacy of lawlessness'
- Pro-marijuana group claims responsibility for Brooklyn Bridge flag swap
- Young adults shun Obamacare mostly due to cost: survey
- Stabbing attack on transgender girl, 15, was 'bias motivated,' police say
- LGBT adults still lean overwhelmingly toward Democratic Party
- Lawmakers rattled by Syria genocide horrors, call on Obama to act
EMU receiver Demarius Reed shot and killed in apparent robbery
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Saying Connecticut runs the risk of "letting this critical moment in history pass us by," Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today proposed a series of gun control measures, including making large capacity gun magazines illegal in Connecticut, establishing universal background checks for gun purchases, improving gun storage safety measures, strengthening assault weapons rules in the state and improving existing gun laws.
In a speech at a symposium in Danbury earlier today that included an appearance by Vice President Joe Biden, Malloy announced he would circumvent the very gun violence task force he established about two months ago in the wake of the Newtown shootings that killed 26 people at an elementary school.
Malloy said yesterday he intended to announce his own proposals because he's grown frustrated with the delays by the task force caused by political differences among its members.
The broad outline Malloy presented for enacting gun control safety legislation includes a list of executive actions the governor's office will take, as well as asking the Sandy Hook Advisory Council to develop additional recommendations.
Some of the actions Malloy's office will take include:
- Directing state police to and requesting that state's attorneys, probation officers, parole officers, local police, and bail commissioners report on how they prioritize crimes involving firearms pursuant to 51-277c.
- Directing the OPM Undersecretary on Criminal Justice, in consultation with state police, to determine what additional information or resources are needed to ensure the completeness and accuracy of state background checks for firearm permit applicants.
- Directing state agencies to reexamine protocols for exchanging information to ensure that background checks and state and federal databases contain the most up-to-date information about permit applicants, permit holders and firearm purchasers.
- Requesting criminal justice agencies and victim advocacy groups to report on the level of awareness and use of the existing law regarding seizure of firearms; request feedback on how to increase awareness and make it easier to report when someone who owns a firearm may pose a risk to self and others.
- Directing the state crime lab to report on the backlog of firearms traces/analysis and summarize what resources would be necessary to clear the backlog.
- Directing the state police to report to the Sentencing Commission and the OPM Undersecretary for Criminal Justice on available firearms statistics, including how many military-style assault weapons not subject to the ban have been sold in Connecticut in recent years.
You can view PDFs of the governor's proposal, as well as of his speech, above.


text: This Asian doll family fits nicely in any full sized dollhouse and general creative play. Includes mom, dad, girl, boy. All sewn clothing on a wooden bendable frame. They sit and stand. The children are 4" tall, the adults are 5" tall. Made by Plan Toys in Thailand. Ages 3+.


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Dvafoto Book Club, Vol. 1: The Hurt LockerApr 13, 2010 by Matt Lutton 6 Comments »
Today we are introducing a new feature for our humble blog: The Dvafoto Book Club. I see it as a regular place for photographers, artists and other people we admire to share some of the art (literature, music, film, photography, painting, etc.) that inspires them or they want to talk about. I will be asking some of the interesting people I know to share in this space and hope that we can strike up a dialogue.
In this first installment I want to excerpt an email conversation I've been having recently with my good friend John Malsbary, who writes the excellent film blog Prison in Cinema. I watched The Hurt Locker with skepticism after reading some early reviews and seeing the trailer. I ended up really disliking the film on a number of levels. I mentioned this to John and he fought back with some pretty interesting points. Since the conversation veers into something of a discussion of cinema versus documentary, realism versus fiction and what we might gain from each, I thought it would be interesting for our audience. For starters, consider Michael Kamber's review in the NYT Lens Blog, which criticizes Hurt Locker for dabbling in fantasy at the expense of the lived experience of deployed US troops. For example, "The movie's denouement — the explosive ordnance disposal (E.O.D.) team responds to a massive truck bomb in the Green Zone — is so completely wrong in every respect that it borders on farce."
Realism in movies is something I'm interested in. I am a big fan of the Italian neo-realists and their offshoots. But they're not the end all of cinema. In fact, they're passé. I think most directors would be pretty unhappy to be labeled realists.
So let's just think about Hurt Locker as naturalistic instead of realistic. It goes for the people and the sounds and smells and cats and buildings, but does not restrict its story to the actual.
Good fictional films do not concern themselves with the Sisyphean task of replicating truth. It's impossible… obviously. And it usually backfires when academics have a more complete view of posterity. I've said before, or rather, I've aped Werner Herzog to you before. Art, especially film, can lead to an "ecstatic truth". A more powerful truth than adherence to the actual would ever accomplish.
The Hurt Locker elicits a strong visceral connection. This is a tense movie. It is really hard not to take part very actively in the characters frightening experience. Strangely, the release comes during the super slow motion explosions.
The visceral connection is unique in the Hurt Locker. It escapes the John Wayne jingoism that haunts many war films. (I've been binging on Westerns lately, and have had plenty an opportunity to see film used to promote war.) Hurt Locker does not instill a nationalistic rah-rah-rah feeling. It announces quite frankly that Will James is a piece of shit. His comrades seriously consider blowing him up on purpose! I can only feel disgust when a superior officer congratulates Will's cowboy attitude. At the same time, I am rooting for Will, and getting off on the rush of things. Instead of heroism, Hurt Locker invokes confusion.
James is a metaphor. He's this detestable, unshakable need we have to keep on fighting. Not because we are helping anybody. Not because of some John Wayne sense of duty. Not because of camaraderie with our brothers in the shit. Simply because we, the American public, are addicted to the rush. Addicted to the television that fetishizes and glorifies the whole mess. I really like these quotes from Glenn Kenny: "First and foremost, Katherine Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is a movie about junkiedom." and "… The Hurt Locker isn't about the Iraq War per se, but rather about war as a condition."
This film is so much more subversive than you're giving it credit for. It starts out with an American in a space suit. Don't you love that it Otherizes us from the very first scene? We're the aliens.
I appreciate what you do, and what documentary filmmakers, and news creators do in general. I think it's a hugely under exposed creative endeavor. It is not what fictional filmmakers do. When fictional filmmakers try to do what you do, they usually fuck it up (Take note Paul Greengrass). The Hurt Locker isn't even trying to do what you're talking about.
If it is what you say it is, and I'm inclined to trust you but also not to agree, I can't see how the majority of the movie going public understands or enjoys it for those reasons. Maybe I'm wrong, I hope so. But I still hear so many people talking about this film in terms of its accuracy in bringing home the war to the US, and they mean it literally. And we know this is not true.
I've said at points that the failures of realism in Hurt Locker are what screw this all up. Because this point undermines the rest of the puzzle and the message you're describing to me. This is the same thing that happened with the film 'Brothers' (another recent American film about war and its effects on soldiers/families). On the whole there are too many schizophrenic characters and scenes that don't add up. It isn't a clear message. You can see the subtle and subversive treatment of issues in some moments very clearly but it is the widening gap between those moments and the cliché depictions of war and military that takes everything down for me, in both films. The melodrama and ludicrous scenarios get in the way. They kick me out of the story and out of any message.
I am not calling for utter realism, just something as realistic as serves the story and subject. It is not a documentary and doesn't need to be. It is a drama about psychology of soldiers, inherently elusive and not tied to specific scenes or events that could be recreated. But you don't need an action filled, melodramatic, farcical plot to achieve that. In fact, I'd imagine you'd want to avoid those things.
David Simon, creator of The Wire and Generation Kill, quoted Picasso in an interview (go to 2:55) and I think it is very relevant here: "Art is the lie that shows us the truth"
Fiction is absolutely a worthy choice in such a story, it does something beyond journalism and documentary, and I've always and will always believe this. But it has to be done right. All art is not the same, it can get in the way of the message. I'm saying Hurt Locker doesn't get it right, even as fiction.
I'm left thinking about the scene in the desert where the EOD squad, on its own, stumbles upon an incompetent team of British mercenaries. Our squad saves the day, totally outside of the plotline as we had up to that moment expected. And totally unrealistically (they wouldn't be there, they wouldn't be alone, they wouldn't know how to fight like that). What purpose does this scene have other than melodrama? One more instance of the hero saving the day against all odds? Another chance to get off on Americans winning the war?
I'm curious what you make of that scene and what I might have missed?
I thought the desert shoot out scene was pretty satirical.
When I was sitting in the theater, and that came on, I was like "Really, a hokey bonding scene? That's where you're going with this, Ms. Bigelow?" As it dragged on, I was more like, "I'm thirsty". Then they pulled out juice boxes, and I was cracking up. Here are these macho guys, in the desert bonding over their juicy juice like little boys in the cafeteria.
I wasn't really worried about the British dudes. And I didn't really think the Americans saved the day. I just saw the British guys as a foil for the Americans.
The Brits didn't work together, couldn't cooperate, and they got killed off. The Americans did work together, they found some redeeming leadership in their jerk-off leader, and it was this moment of unity. But the satirical juice boxes diluted what would have been a clichéd scene.
A lot of Westerns and WWII Band of Brother type movies would leave the cliché alone. More people would die, but it would all be for the heroic cause. Hurt Locker undermines the heroic Will James. His addiction results in his comrade being injured shortly before he would have left Iraq on leave. Anthony Mackie's character ends up bitterly swearing at Will. The camaraderie is shredded. That could happen to John Wayne, but it would be couched as a joke. In Hurt Locker, it just feels shitty.
You bring up this point "We're not talking about if they had the correct weapon but if there really is ever just one truck out in the world. Is it metaphor, that every truck of men feels like it is on its own?…"
To my mind the truck is a 2-D metaphor, and this is where the film sort of stumbles for me. The truck is in Iraq unilaterally, like America. And that's all.
Straight through the entire movie, these guys are America, and America is addicted to war. America is acting heroic, but it's America's presence that is causing the violence. The whole time they're trying to defuse these bombs with ever more quixotic absurdity.
It's not a complex reading. I'd like to be swayed by people who think there's a whole lot more going on, especially in regards to gender. Read some of these articles at Film Studies For Free about the thrill of transcendence in Bigelow's earlier work. I refuse to accept that the creators of Hurt Locker are such jingoists that they would sign off on the film you've described. Katherine Bigelow is smart. Look at this article about her roots in the art scene. Look at this homage to the body of her work.
This is a tormented Rambo, but the plot is Rambo all the same in the veneer of what war 'actually looks like'. It doesn't come across enough as fantasy or allegory. Maybe I'm being thick, but I don't see how this film is undermining the institution of an action thriller or of war by using these motifs again. I think you need a different visual language to divorce yourself from all that baggage. For me, this is necessary, I can't see myself getting beyond that, and maybe that is to my detriment as a viewer.
But here is the most interesting part of this to me right now: I'm also conflicted by the Michael Kamber's account that all the soldiers dislike this film because it got so much wrong. There was a great piece in Harper's from some years ago about war films and their use as motivational porn by troops called "Valkyries over Iraq: The trouble with war movies." (behind a paywall, for better or worse). It leads from one of the scenes in the film Jarhead where US troops rallying before the first Gulf War watched the infamous Ride of the Valkyries scene from Apocalypse Now. It got them fired up, they got off on it. And I hear that people did the same during the latest invasion of Iraq. This can't be the 'meaning' of the original scene can it? How do troops ignore the atrocities that take place in the scene?
The false heroism and "one against the world-ness" that you take as metaphor and critique of America's position in modern war is too easily read at face value. I'm confused that is not being embraced by troops, not because they're not capable of a nuanced reading of media but because it would seem to reinforce the actual mission they're conducting. War in the Hurt Locker and the modern era often begins in the individual combatant's head and is a reflection of their society's condition. In that sense this film does a good job, but then why is it not being received well by the military itself? (if one can cull one opinion from a diverse group).
Very often films that are to many 'anti war' can be re-purposed as firestarters in a different context. If this film can't be used that way, I guess it is doing something right?
(It is very likely that John and I will continue this in the comments below, and I encourage you to include your thoughts here or on our Facebook page. One of my goals with this Book Club is to get more discussion going of interesting and important things beyond photographs themselves, which we often have enough of. Lets talk about what else inspires and informs our work)
What does it say about the American public, who gobbles up a bloodied Rambo-esque movie as a true portrayal of American military in the Middle East? Is real war, as sickening and horrifying as it is, not enough to capture the American attention span, that it has to be amped up? That to me is the the most bewildering part of the Hurt Locker hype.
Interesting stuff. I've watched the Hurt Locker quite a few times since it came out, I really like it.
I didn't see the desert scene like you did thats for sure. To me it didn't feel like the Americans saved the day or that they knew how to fight, snipers aren't such bad shots … it felt like a big joke and in the end what I thought was most unrealistic was that they all lived to fight another day.
One of your critics about the film is that you can't see how the movie going public could see the deeper truth or message to a movie like that (if there is one). I would tend to agree but it made me think … is it an obligation for movie producers (hollywood ones) that a movie should have a clear message thats easily understood by the dumbest link in the chain? Translate to photojournalism and photography, does an essay or story or single image need to be comprehensible by the masses they be considered good and a success? I ask myself that question often … who do we have to cater to?
John M Reply:
April 26th, 2010 at 11:23 pm
"is it an obligation for movie producers (hollywood ones) that a movie should have a clear message thats easily understood by the dumbest link in the chain? …who do we have to cater to?"
I guess Hurt Locker was not all that successful at the box office. More of a critical darling than a $$$ machine. So sure, we can cry the producer a river…
But it has a public, maybe not the same public lining up for Clash of the Titans, but there's a public out there eager to engage with subtlty.
I think Hurt Locker would have pulled in more money if there'd been wider distribution. Maybe the "dumbest link in the chain" wouldn't articulate anything useful about HL, but I'm sure they'd leave conflicted and personally impacted.
The catering business is probably a lot more lucrative than photojournalism.
"It got them fired up, they got off on it. And I hear that people did the same during the latest invasion of Iraq. This can't be the 'meaning' of the original scene can it?"
I don't think anyone watching this scene in the theaters when Apocalypse Now was first released mistook the intent of this scene…It was chilling and horrifying, even if strangely satirical.
It may be,however, that we weren't unaffected by the excitement and energy of the scene–the rush. And also, as this segment of the movie ends, the narrator remarks on the love of the commander for his troops, and their love and respect for him–this seems significant now, and in the context of your review.
[...] to discuss it in-depth with an upcoming Dvafoto Book Club discussion that I'm working on with past contributor John Malsbary. For a taste, here is one of my favorite clips and favorite songs from the documentary where White [...]
[...] of films and some ideas that they inspired. I suppose it is a follow-up to our first post together: Dvafoto Book Club, Vol 1: The Hurt Locker. This discussion started when he told me to watch Winter's Bone and after I saw it I started [...]
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If you read the comments in the link, it looks like these pics are of Mara learning to ride a motorcycle, not something they're filming (I was wondering because of the lack of makeup - that was even weirder than the piercings to me). So the jacket may not be the real costume.
And while the cut/dyed hair may seem like a "duh", it would not have surprised me if the US version would have a much cuter, softer look than what is necessary for the part.


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The great writers of the world have a new colleague.
The great writers of the world have a new colleague.
"He reached over to kiss her luscious (slightly boozy-tasting) lips, when suddenly he felt a gurgling and rumbling in his stomach, underneath those washboard abs...a wave of nausea came over him as he realized he should not have eaten her Slow Cooker Meatloaf...."I-I-I have to go...can't make it...t-t-t-to the bathroom!", he dumped her off of his sturdy lap onto the floor, a heap of blonde extensions, Wal-mart lingerie and seasoning packets..." He barely made it to the toilet before his romantic meal started to come out at both ends...
My favorite part. As close to real life as it gets.
Last edited by Rex; 03-25-2013 at 11:35 PM.
readers instantly go brain-dead from the inanity of her efforts?
But is the cover a montage of tablescapes?
"Skating fans are not a patient bunch." Dragonlady
I am NOT volunteering to be a test reader for this.
Hurl.Later in that scene, Grace and Mike share their first kiss, and Mike displays some of his corny humor. The two have joked about their "non-date," and Grace asks whether they should consider it a "non-kiss." "I think we have to count it," Mike says. "Maybe even enter it into the national register of great kisses."
oh what new hell is this?
I'm sure it's going to be the next Pulitzer prize winner.
'Life's hard. It's even harder when you're stupid.'--John Wayne
I can't wait to read this. This is going to be the worst book EVER
(not to mention that probably the only writing Nasty Sandy actually did on it was signing her name on the contract)
You should never write words with numbers. Unless you're seven. Or your name is Prince. - "Weird Al" Yankovic, "Word Crimes"
I gotta feeling this book is going to be like the drunk lovechild of Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel.
You would have better odds of getting a good read by randomly selecting a self-published Kindle book (and probably 99.9999% better odds the person listed as the author actually wrote the book...)
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA oh wait this isn't a joke.
*exhales* So.....
Way to set the bar high for women's fiction.A person who has spoken directly with Ms. Lee about the book added: "This is the type of fiction that appeals to her target demographic of women but it is just that—fiction."
Did anyone else read the book title as 'The Russipe Box' in their head?
I can't wait to read 'Chapter 4: Hey baby, it's Kwanzaa - now go get me some Corn Nuts!'
Just think about the chapter that talks about Pixie StixI can't wait to read 'Chapter 4: Hey baby, it's Kwanzaa - now go get me some Corn Nuts!'


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While right now this would only affect the citizens of NYC, the supersize controversy has become a nationwide discussion due to anti-obesity campaigns.
So, chime in and tell us what you think.
Is it right to ban businesses from selling any size drinks they want?
Will these limitations help cut down on obesity?
Thats totally ridiculous. This in no way is going to help anyone. They are giving the states and the government way too much power. They already run our lives and have their little fingers into everything. I say, stay out of our lives and just let us do our own thing. Isn't this the land of the free?
However, I disagree with this ban simply on the principle that the government should not have the authority to dictate our diets. That is our choice as people. I understand the reasoning behind it, but the act is wrong. Michael Bloomberg is not the most popular policy maker though.
If they want to help, perhaps they should think more creatively about encouraging people to get more fit. Extend education in the area etc.
This is just another example of people not being responsible for their actions and for what they teach their children.
Just the parents...Only, parents
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