Creating a film in two days

The 48-Hour Film Project is a challenge to make a 4 to 7 minute film in only 48 hours, including writing the script, shooting the scenes and all editing the film, including the creation of a musical score. Very ambitious and intense. The competing teams each submit films which are viewed and graded by judges. In 2011, a friend of mine, Jon Abrahams, was part of the team that won not only the local competition, but the international competition, with a film called "In Captivity." His team's film was featured in this Youtube introduction to the 2012 competition. Also featured here is an interview of Jon. This looks like a blast--I'd love to try it someday.

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Annie Leonard: Stay home on Black Friday

Annie Leonard ("The Story of Stuff") urges us to stay home on Black Friday, offering us some stunning images in this one-minute video: What else is there to do? Fifty years ago, people would have thought you were an idiot to even ask this question. Although I have NEVER shopped on Black Friday, I signed Annie Leonard's Pledge.

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Cursive is crumbling

It's long overdue, but cursive writing is losing its grip, so to speak.

Hawaii is joining several states across the country that are dropping cursive writing from mandatory school curriculum . . . The Aloha state has adopted for this school year the national Common Core State Standards, a set of education standards that omits cursive but includes keyboard proficiency.

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Two-Buck Chuck

How Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck beat out 2,300 other wines in a blind taste contest. Here's more on the big win for the cheap wine. And there's more evidence that wine tasting is subjective. The wine experts can easily be fooled when the experimenters secretly switch the labels:

The second test Brochet conducted was even more damning. He took a middling Bordeaux and served it in two different bottles. One bottle was a fancy grand-cru. The other bottle was an ordinary vin du table. Despite the fact that they were actually being served the exact same wine, the experts gave the differently labeled bottles nearly opposite ratings. The grand cru was “agreeable, woody, complex, balanced and rounded,” while the vin du table was “weak, short, light, flat and faulty”. Forty experts said the wine with the fancy label was worth drinking, while only 12 said the cheap wine was.

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How discriminating are you? With regard to musical tones, that is.

How discriminating are you? With regard to pitch, that is. I have performed music much of my life, and I ended up doing quite well on this 3 minute test (better than 99.4% of those who take it). But I felt like I was guessing on quite a few of these micro intervals. If you think you have a discriminating ear, you might find this test interesting.

Continue ReadingHow discriminating are you? With regard to musical tones, that is.