Things of note for the week ending December 14th, 2012
1. The Atlantic’s photographic review of 2012 (Part 1)
Heart-wrenching and beautiful; some made me laugh out loud, others caught my breath and made me cry – take some time of your day, and scroll your way through. I honestly can’t recommend this enough.
(Parts 2 and 3 ain’t bad either – there, that’s your lunchtime sorted)
2. Catfish now eat pigeons. PIGEONS.
In Southwestern France, a group of fish have learned how to kill birds. As the River Tarn winds through the city of Albi, it contains a small gravel island where pigeons gather to clean and bathe. And patrolling the island are European catfish—1 to 1.5 metres long, and the largest freshwater fish on the continent. These particular catfish have taken to lunging out of the water, grabbing a pigeon, and then wriggling back into the water to swallow their prey. In the process, they temporarily strand themselves on land for a few seconds.
More –
3. A New York Love Story
4. How to fix your soul
I’ve been stuck on something of late. A thought. A bugbear. An itch in my brain telling me that something is wrong. Something that sits between the impact of technology on our social interactions and the blind dependence/obsession we have developed with screens, big and small.
This past week, a dear friend (whom I shall miss) highlighted to me the above titled piece on Harvard Business Review. I read it. I read it again. It spoke to me. And so I read it once more. In short: I’m going to try and read it every single day for the rest of my life.
Perhaps you should read it too.
5. A whole bunch of bad-ass trailers
- Big mad robots vs monsters in Pacific Rim
- The reinvention of Superman in Man of Steel
- Futuristic Father/Son craziness in After Earth
I would’ve done separate posts for each of them but in a week where we’ve already seen Star Trek Into Darkness and OBLIVION both make their respective trailer debuts, I really didn’t want to drown you all in two minute videos (or more moaning about the over-use of HOOOONK as a large scale drama trailer device).
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Bonuses this week – Facebook really should do something about its Zombie problem. Joking aside, dead people are genuinely liking things on Facebook and it’s actually quite upsetting and offensive; next, ‘Hey Hetero, when did you realise you weren’t gay?’ – is quite the moving/hilarious Reddit thread; and finally, this City/United video from ESPN is a lot better than it should be.