8 Facts That Show Us Elephants Are People, Too Okay, fine -- elephants aren't people. But they're like people in a lot of ways, and on World Elephant Day, that counts for something. And yet around 35,000 of these pachyderms were killed in 2013 alone, and there's a continuing demand for their valuable ivory tusks. If we aren't careful, most of these creatures could be extinct by 2020, according to some conservationists. It's a tragedy for any animal to face extinction, but it would seem like a special tragedy to lose this one. Our very history is entwined, with elephants and humans evolving in parallel hundreds of thousands of years ago. 1. In a 2006 study of three Asian elephants, Emory University researchers placed a mirror in the enclosure of three female Asian elephants. The fact that Happy passed that test, the researchers said, indicates the capacity of elephants to recognize themselves as individuals rather than just part of a pack. Another test showed that elephants understand pointing, using, of course, their trunks. 2. 3.
The Roof: Original Soundtrack | FuelTheatre Original Soundtrack from Requardt & Rosenberg's 'The Roof' produced by Fuel. Commissioned by LIFT and presented in association with the National Theatre. Funded by Arts Council England. Supported by Jerwood Charitable Foundation, the Backstage Trust and the Binks Trust. www.davepricemusic.net www.requardt-rosenberg.com www.fueltheatre.com released 16 June 2014 Music and songs composed, arranged, performed and produced by Dave Price Tracks 1, 2, 6, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21 & 22 mixed by Ben Hales Lyrics by David Rosenberg Dave Price - vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards, strings, guitar, programming Ben Hales - guitars, bass, backing vocals Gwyneth Herbert - vocals Finn Peters - saxes & flutes Sam Burgess - double bass
40 Of The Most Powerful Social Issue Ads That’ll Make You Stop And Think Many people complain about glossy advertisements and TV commercials as an obnoxious way for companies to invade our everyday lives and ram their products down our throats, but that’s not all that printed ads are good for. The best commercials on this list are excellent examples of effective advertising strategies for social issues marketing campaigns that let their voices be heard. A well-made advertisement is designed to grab your attention and to remain in your memory long after you’ve left it behind, and that is precisely what many of these social problems need. Getting people to think and worry about various social and environmental issues such as human trafficking, racism, and air pollution is significant for raising public supporting and affecting meaningful changes. A few of these ads are, in fact, commercial ads, but it’s still nice that they champion socially or environmentally aware causes/products.Just like with commercial advertisements, having just the facts is not enough.
Bad news won't give you PTSD, anxiety, or depression, but subtle long-term impacts are possible. A terrifying jihadist group is conquering and butchering its way across big swaths of Iraq and Syria. Planes are falling out of the sky on what seems like a weekly basis. Civilians are being killed in massive numbers in the Israel-Gaza conflict. That’s how it feels, at least, to those of us who sit at a blessed remove from the death and destruction, but who are watching every bloody moment of it via cable news and social media. Mary McNaughton-Cassill, a professor at the University of Texas–San Antonio and leading researcher on the connection between media consumption and stress, said the current trend of breathless, protracted coverage of tragedy and calamity can be traced back to the Oklahoma City bombings. Almost two decades later, news outlets — facing pressure from an endlessly multiplying array of competitors all zeroing in on the same stories — have greater incentive than ever before to ramp up their coverage of scary, emotionally wrenching stories.
The Language of Visual Storytelling in 360 Virtual Reality. | RealVision.ae Knowledge Base and stereoscopic 3D Blog By: Clyde DeSouza Immersive Story telling in 360 Stereo 3D: They say you shouldn’t hijack the head-tracking data stream of the Oculus Rift; visuals should not be separated from the human vestibular system…but rules were meant to be broken. Why? because there’s so much more to VR than gaming. This is not to say games aren’t becoming movies! Defining a language for 360 look-around movies: You know how it all began oh so long ago (OK, 4 years ago) when the language of film-making was being defined / re-written for S3D. Citizen Kane, back in the day, although a 2D film, had given enough clues to modern 3D film-makers on how to effectively use the medium of S3D… but no one really had the patience to listen. When I started investigating this exciting medium a few months ago, alarm bells would go off when I asked on Oculus Rift / Game Engine forums about intercepting head-tracking and orientation info of these devices, but that’s because so far it’s only games that have been designed for VR.
Incredible New Software Allows Full 3D Manipulation of 2D Photos – Could Lead to Creative 3D Printing There are three major market segments within the 3D printing space which combine to influence the entire market. The three segments are the hardware (the printers themselves), software (design, manipulation and slicing), and materials(filaments, powders, resins) markets. It can be argued which of these areas is the most important for the long term growth of the industry. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of California have announced a new suite of 3D manipulation software. The algorithms behind the software are complicated, but the basis for how this software works lies within the availability of stock photographs and 3D models online. “Graphics is now entering the age of Big Visual Data: enormous quantities of images and video are uploaded to the internet daily,” the research report states. Have you tried it out?
17 Ways That Drones Are Changing the World Drones are a truly exciting area right now and are constantly in the media, with so many interesting uses popping up on the Web. They’re certainly no longer just the domain of the military. Here are 17 things drones can do that prove this. 1. The easiest way to order the shopping is to simply load up a shopping app for next-day delivery, but drones mean you could end up having items the same day. 2. Modern journalism is being enhanced by developments in fields like video and imaging, but the idea of using drones to cover a story takes the industry to another level. 3. Oil is a crucial resource, vital to the survival of many economies and mankind in general. 4. Natural disasters and wars call for emergency distribution of medication and aid. 5. A graduate from Austria has put the world’s emergency services to shame, coming up with a system that would see drones being used to drop off defibrillators to heart attack victims.
‘The Negro Motorist Green Book’: An eye-opening look at ‘traveling while black’ in postwar America ‘The Negro Motorist Green Book’: An eye-opening look at ‘traveling while black’ in postwar America For some fascinating insights into the second half (roughly) of the pitiable era known as “Jim Crow,” the Negro Motorist Green Book is a positive trove of information. It was founded in 1936 by an African-American employee of the U.S. Postal Service named Victor H. Green, who realized that with the new availability of automobiles to a rising African-American middle class, travelers of his race increasingly required a guide to navigate the informal and treacherous logic of discrimination. Victor H. On the cover of the 1949 edition is a hopeful quotation from Mark Twain: “Travel Is Fatal to Prejudice.” With the introduction of this travel guide in 1936, it has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trips more enjoyable. Here is a brief documentary about the Green Book:
The Top 10 Reasons I Don't Believe in God March 30, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. The following is an excerpt from Why Are You Atheists So Angry? "But just because religion has done some harm -- that doesn't mean it's mistaken! Yup. 1: The consistent replacement of supernatural explanations of the world with natural ones. When you look at the history of what we know about the world, you see a noticeable pattern. All these things were once explained by religion. Now. Exactly zero. Sure, people come up with new supernatural "explanations" for stuff all the time. Given that this is true, what are the chances that any given phenomenon for which we currently don't have a thorough explanation -- human consciousness, for instance, or the origin of the Universe -- will be best explained by the supernatural? Given this pattern, it's clear that the chances of this are essentially zero.
Men in black: The Stranglers’ BBC documentary about the color black, 1982 In 1982, BBC Southwest aired a short documentary about the color black made by two members of the Stranglers. Singer/guitarist Hugh Cornwell and drummer Jet Black “were asked to put together a piece about the colour black for an arts programme called RPM,” according to Cornwell’s autobiography Around this time, the Stranglers were obsessed with the sinister Meninblack (as they stylized it) legends of UFO lore. They had released their great concept album, The Gospel According to the Meninblack , and changed their names to Hughinblack, JJinblack, Daveinblack and Jetinblack; they were even thinking about changing the band’s name to the Men in Black. “We were unearthing very curious connections between UFOs and dark forces,” Cornwell writes in his autobiography, characterizing the period as “disastrous.” Cornwell touches on the BBC documentary in The Stranglers: Song by Song: “Jet and I made a television programme about how the colour black has always been associated with authority.
Moving 1960s short interviews the ‘Bowery Bums’ of old New York Despite former Mayor Giuliani’s highly successful war on the homeless, the destitute faces of “Old New York” remain some of our most recognizable mascots. One of the misconceptions about present-day NYC is that the streets are now “scrubbed” of the homeless, but nothing could be further from the truth. The post-Giuliani policing of the poor was however, an unmitigated success when it came to dispersing indigent bodies—in other words, busting up homeless communities. Simply put, it’s not illegal to die in the street, it’s just illegal to fraternize with your fellow undesirables. The video below, shot in 1960 and 1961, doesn’t dig deep—it doesn’t have to. Via Bowery Boogie
The 4 Secret Psychological Tools Filmmakers Use | Raindance Toronto It may come as no surprise when I tell you that my mother used to call filmmakers the biggest fibbers and fakers out there. I guess she saw through all the shamanic tricks and sleights of hands that filmmakers use to get their stories out there. There is more. Filmmakers need to know how to get people to click on stuff on the internet. This helps them get people to watch their trailers, their webseries, their crowdfunding campaigns and hopefully buy tickets to their festival screenings. Two things happened to me this week: Firstly I was chatting to one of our amazing postgraduate film degree students in what was, I suppose other film schools would call a tutorial. I then read a fascinating article by Harvard grad student Lanya Olmsted in which she outlines four of the tools used by professional digital marketing experts to get fantastic response. According to Lanya studying Freudian theories can better explain why we engage with certain types of headlines in social media 1. 2. filmmaker?