I don’t know if you guys are as surprised as I am… but this actually looks pretty good!
The Amazing Spider-Man is an upcoming American superhero film directed by Marc Webb, based on the comic book of the same name, and starring Andrew Garfield as the fictional superhero, Spider-Man. It is the fourth Columbia Pictures film based on the Marvel Comics character, and the first film in a rebooted Spider-Man film franchise. The cast includes Garfield as Peter Parker and his alter ego, and Emma Stone and Rhys Ifans as Gwen Stacy and Dr. Curt Connors, respectively. The film will portray Parker as his super powers are evolving in high school. [Source]
The perfect thing to watch before going to bed! Be sure to go full screen on this one after hitting the play button!
After chasing it for more than two years I was finally rewarded with two displays of Aurora Australis (Southern lights) within a week visible from Mornington peninsula, not far from Melbourne. The nights were warm an clear and the Moon was not in the sky either – I could not have asked for better conditions.
The red color of this aurora is caused by the charged particles from the Sun exciting oxygen atoms high in the Earth’s atmosphere. Hopefully there will be more to come as Sun’s activity increases in 2012-13.
While most of us have probably never even heard of a “bat fly”, a recent discovery of a unique fossilised one has revealed that they’ve been feeding off their winged vampire buddies for a really long time.
It seems that this bat fly, found in the Dominican Republic inside amber (developed from oozing tree sap), has given Oregon State University reason to believe that this creature has parasitized (yes, that’s a word) with its bat host species for 20 million years. Since the bat, the only true flying mammal and the earliest species to develop claws and make it to the heights of the trees, has existed for about 50 million years, it seems they’ve had to bear these blood-sucking parasites for about half the time they’ve existed.
The bat – literally called a “vampire bat” – is a creature that’s own diet is made up of blood, feeding on anything from sheep to dogs to humans. You will therefore forgive me if I don’t feel particularly sympathetic to this creature’s parasitic plight. Though perhaps there is some poetic justice in nature’s sense of humour here: the vampiric bat has had to endure it’s own vampire for half of its existence!
While this particular genus of bat fly is now extinct, bats these days can still carry parasitic bat flies, though they are specific to particular species (unlike fleas) but are still common and found all over the world.
What was also of interest in the find was that this bug carried malaria: further proof that the disease has been around for a significant amount of time in the New World.
This (rather cute) guy shows you how those self-esteem destroying before and after photos of people getting super buff through some magical product that we’re too intelligent to try can be far too easily faked.
Next time you’re looking at one of those pictures wondering if you could change so drastically too: know that you can. With a little bit of looking “vascular”, good lighting, and the magic touch of Photoshop, even the chiselled beautiful men can be made to look as out of shape as the rest of us average people.
Even if all this is already ridiculously obvious to you, he’s not too hard on the eyes and it’s a short clip. Eye candy…
Underwater filmmaker Mike deGruy describes his wonderful nerdy path to exploring Earth’s final frontier. He’s a good example of how you don’t have to have a PhD to be a sexy geek, getting in arms races with octopi, and observing an eco-system discovered only 33 years ago!
He also, of course, covers how irresponsible human beings can be in damaging the ocean’s environment through over-development, and how we can change the world below the sea-line, if we just leave it alone.
And he’s a fantastic storyteller so it’s not hard to stay engaged for his entire TED speech.
I’m saddened to hear that he has passed away, the victim of a helicopter crash in Australia. The world has lost a fantastic speaker and an inspiring individual.
A few days ago, during The Graham Norton Show, Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson were forced to watch their respective action figure fight it off in front of the show’s audience in a not so epic battle to determine which character was the most awesome. Let’s say the conclusion was kind of disappointing for sir Patrick Stewart.
Given the events of the past few years, it’s no surprise to see a one-man show exploring the nature of commodities and how we place economic value on items beyond their intrinsic value.
It is, however, a little surprising to see this show based around Ram-Man.
A British man is attempting to buy up every Ram-Man action figure (from the original 1980s manufacturing run) in an attempt to control the market and drive up the price of his existing collection, which now stands at 150. It’s not purely a retro-based get-rich-quick scheme though.
Jamie Moakes is attempting to draw parallels to the value placed on gold. Advocates of commodity investments argue that precious metals are in limited supply and thus aren’t at risk of losing their value to inflation in the same way as cash (and electronic money) if governments increase the supply. But Moakes argues that gold has little intrinsic value (jewelry won’t be much use after an apocalypse) and is only valuable because society treats it as such.
Moakes has now developed the idea into a stage presentation about his attempts to transform the market for Ram-Man figures into an equally valid and valuable commodity market. His logic for the choice of toy is that he couldn’t use something still in production (Barbie manufacturers would respond to a massive spike in value by making even more dolls), but that He-Man himself wouldn’t work because there’s a much higher existing demand (people who simply want one figure from Masters of the Universe for nostalgia purposes will nearly always pick He-Man.)
After a month-long run of performances at the Edinburgh Festival (at the end of which he auctions off one of the toys), Moakes has attracted attention from the financial media including the BBC radio economics show More or Less. Economists have said there is at least some logic to Moakes’ tactics, particularly the fact that he has chosen a commodity where the supply can’t be increased: Mattel could make new toys, but they wouldn’t be the 80s originals in question. A Financial Times writer noted that one trader’s attempts to quietly build up control of the copper market failed when his success in raising the market price meant mining companies found it viable to expand production.
There do appear to be a few flaws in Moakes’ plan though. One is that by doing the show, he’s making people aware of his strategy and thus undermining the likelihood of people seeing Ram-Man prices rising and considering them a worthwhile investment, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The other is that with an estimated two million Ram-Man figures in circulation, Moakes currently controls approximately 0.007% of the market and it appears unlikely he’ll be able to afford to get to a position where he has genuine and sustained market interest.
Photo by George Poinar, Jr., courtesy of 