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  1. Derrick Bang on Film, , more info

    Vengeance Most Fowl: It's a gnome run!
    Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) • View trailer4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humorAvailable via: NetflixBy Derrick Bang Filmmaker Nick Park already had won two Oscars, the second for Wallace & Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers, when American viewers finally got to see that hilariously clever claymation short via a Wednesday evening PBS screening on March 20, 1995. That’s how long it took to cross the …
    By Derrick Bang, 974 words
  2. All Edinburgh Theatre.com, , more info

    Summerhall confirms EdFringe 2025
    Summerhall Arts charity announces future plans Summerhall will be a venue at EdFringe 2025 according to Summerhall Arts, the independent charity set up in 2023 to take over the running of Summerhall’s arts and performance programme. The charity says that it is now welcoming applications for performers and theatre companies for this year’s fringe. And that besides being a venue at future fringes, it intends to run a “diverse programme …
    By Thom Dibdin, 609 words
  3. theatreCat, , more info

    TITANIQUE.   Criterion theatre. W1
    NO SINKING FEELINGS HERE, GIRLFRIEND Call it a jukebox musical if you like, but only if the jukebox came alive, went rogue and started tottering around the stage on rubber feet hurling insults and doing its own thing like the one in the Kuttner sci-fi story which got modified by aliens from the future. Curiosity drove me into a snug balcony seat up against the sound-desk (high-fives with the young …
    By Libby Purves and friends, 677 words
  4. My Life 100 Years Ago, , more info

    The Top Posts of 1924
    Belated happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to the (can it be?) eighth year of My Life 100 Years Ago.* J.C. Leyendecker, January 3, 1925 This year’s J.C. Leyendecker New Year’s baby apparently just registered his new car and immediately has to repair it, which I gather is par for the course for ca. 1925 vehicles. John Held Jr., January 5, 1925 Cars can be fun, though, as you can …
    By Mary Grace McGeehan, 804 words
  5. The Adventurers Guild, , more info

    Companions of Xanth – Ogre, Ogre and Dragon on a Pedestal
    By IlmariI bet that “sail” is meant to be taken literallyWould this do the trick?Apparently notSo, here I was in front of a shack. I still had no idea where I was supposed to be heading and Nada suggested I should take a look at who’s living there. I knocked on the door and an old lady called Ma Anathe (get it, it’s like anathema) let us in.I guess Christmas …
    By Ilmari Jauhiainen, 955 words
  6. Bear Alley, , more info

    Comic Cuts — 10 January 2025
    I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things after a welcome Christmas and New Year break. I mentioned last week that I had sidelined myself into writing a probably unnecessary article on the history of newsprint rationing during and just after the Second World War (1940-56). Well, that came about because I wanted to write about why newspapers were still dramatically reduced in size all the
    By Steve, 73 words
  7. MUBI | Notebook, , more info

    Mike Leigh’s Humanist Gestures
    Illustrations by Michelle Perez.It’s odd that a movie like Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) should have an unsettling climax. Mike Leigh’s film stars Sally Hawkins as Poppy, a bubbly kindergarten teacher who takes a few driving lessons with a curmudgeonly Scott (Eddie Marsan). He dispatches conspiratorial rants, replete with right-wing dog whistles, and berates her for her clumsiness. He is, in the language of professional wrestling, the heel to Poppy’s face. Poppy’s life …
    By Sam Bodrojan, 3,246 words
  8. Valhalla's Things, , more info

    Winter
    Posted on January 10, 2025 Tags: madeof:atoms, craft:painting, medium:acrylic A few days ago1 I wanted to paint, but I didn’t know what to paint, so I did a few more colour tests to find out which green combinations I can get out of the available yellows and blues (and greens) acrylic I have (from a cheap student grade line). I liked the cool grey tones in the second to last …
    190 words
  9. Shtetl-Optimized, , more info

    Above my pay grade: Jensen Huang and the quantum computing stock market crash
    Apparently Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, opined on an analyst call this week that quantum computing was plausibly still twenty years away from being practical. As a direct result, a bunch of publicly-traded quantum computing companies (including IonQ, Rigetti, and D-Wave) fell 40% or more in value, and even Google/Alphabet stock fell on the news. So then friends and family attuned to the financial markets started sending me messages …
    By Scott, 645 words
  10. SPINE, , more info

    What Message Does (Hyper)realistic Photography Send on a Book Cover?
    Photography as part of book cover design is a relatively recent addition to book cover designers’ and marketers’ toolboxes. It was not until the late 20th century—as camera equipment became more accessible—that photographic book covers began to gain popularity for their ability to convey realism, emotion and immediacy to the audience.Now that designers are able to blend graphic design, photos and typography freely, the possibilities are endless when it comes …
    By Linnea Gradin, 1,037 words
  11. Special Needs Jungle, , more info

    SEN Resource Bases and Unit Provision in Secondary—what are they and do they count as inclusion?
    New article from Special Needs Jungle: It’s over 14 years since David Cameron pledged to end the bias towards the inclusion of children with special needs in mainstream schools. Now the policy pendulum seems to be … The post SEN Resource Bases and Unit Provision in Secondary—what are they and do they count as inclusion? appeared first on Special Needs Jungle. Gillian Doherty ⓒ Special Needs Jungle 2008-2023 All Rights …
    By Gillian Doherty, 87 words
  12. Europe by Rail | The Definitive Guide, , more info

    ERT Newslines Jan 2025
  13. Tim Harford | Articles, , more info

    Cautionary Tales – Cleared For Take-Off? (Tenerife Air Disaster 1)
    “Evacuate the airport, we’ve planted bombs,” a terrorist tells the telephone operator at the airport in Gran Canaria, in 1977. By the end of that day, 583 people will have lost their lives – but not to a bomb explosion. The planes are diverted to the neighboring island of Tenerife. Loaded with passengers, they’re forced to sit on the hot tarmac for hours. Meanwhile, the flight crews rely on air …
    By Tim Harford, 334 words
  14. Stats Chat, , more info

    All-day breakfast
    Q: Did you see that coffee only works if you drink it in the morning? A: Works? Q: Reduces your risk of heart disease A: That’s … not my top reason for drinking coffee. Maybe not even top three. Q: But is it true? A: It could be, but probably not Q: Mice? A: No, this is in people. Twenty years of survey responses from the big US health survey …
    By Thomas Lumley, 425 words
  15. Cassidy's blog, , more info

    A couple CSS tricks for HTML Dialog elements
    I recently was messing around with the HTML <dialog> element. It’s really handy for native dialogs without a ton of JavaScript. If you want to see a decent quick example of them in action, you can check out my game Jumblie and click the Settings gear button at the top. Anyway! There’s a couple tricks that you might find handy when you’re implementing your own <dialog>s on your websites! Blur …
    258 words