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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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Denmark’s Ministry of the Environment have made a 1:1 map of the entire country in Minecraft. While not a first—the Ordinance Survey did a 50:1 mapping of the UK some time ago—it is probably the first full size rendering and it comes in at a whopping 1 TB of disk space. You can download it in 10240 m2 chunks, but since there are public servers available why would you bother?
There are three servers for different areas and three mirrors as well (it has been quite popular)—details here (original Danish page). There is also a real-time map to help get your bearings.
If you are downloading, the page scripts probably won’t work running through Google translator, so you’d need both the Danish download page and the translation open.
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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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Thanks to Paul for sharing this Tumblr blog of lurid VHS covers! Such a variety of weirdness, shlock and fine design! Check out the Archive if you want it all or the tldr version at dangerousminds.net if you’re into that aggregator business.
The best of this stuff, like the poster art it comes from, crystallises a whole movie with startling economy...sometimes too much economy. Consider, for example, River’s Edge—a body, teenagers...at the edge....of the river. Or the nice, simple design of Herd or Bug. Or Earthquake.
Some of it is just weird or puzzling, like Josh Kirby, Time Warrior! Chapter Five, Journey to the Magic Cavern, Donut Hole 2: Jesus Helps Us Share God’s Love or How to Have a Moneymaking Garage Sale starring Phyllis Diller. And what the hell is Video Aspirin?
You can’t help wondering if there’s some video shame lurking here too. How does Ethan Coen feel about The Naked Man? Does Jim Carrey regret The Duck Factory? And how did Captain Apollo (Richard Hatch) fall from the heights <cough> of Battlestar Galactica to Prisoners of the Lost Universe?
Even the tackiest and most misleading of these covers were probably successful though. In the end all they wanted was for us to pick that video off the shelf, even if it was just to find out what it was!
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Daniel Cohn-Bendit a.k.a. Dany le Rouge (Danny the Red), whatever you think of his political positions, has always followed an interesting and individual path. First coming to prominence as one of the faces of the May ’68 student movement in France, despite not actually having much influence on the movement as it developed, he was expelled from France by the end of that month as a “seditious alien”. This was possible because, although he was born in France to parents fleeing Nazi Germany he was a stateless person until he chose German citizenship at 14 years of age simply to avoid conscription. He continued to be involved in left-wing activism in Germany, becoming a friend of Joschka Fischer, who later became German Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor. In 1984, he joined the Green Party, moving away from more radical anarchist politics. In 1994 he was elected to the European parliament and in 1999 became the leader of the French Green Party.
His position has become more centrist over time and he has often annoyed party members by openly disagreeing and being happy to negotiate and associate with conservatives. He attracts criticism from the left for his support for European federalism and military actions such as Bosnia and Afghanistan, and from the right for his approach to immigration, drugs and nuclear power. Now, aged 69, he is retiring from the parliament. Here’s some of his final speech.
Moi, je suis pour les États Unis de l’Europe. Oui! Je crois que l’Europe fédérale est l’avenir. Si nous nous replions sur les nations nous serons battus, nous serons balayés comme la souveraineté nationale a été balayé par la mondialisation…
Oui, c’est dur, mais c’est un avenir qui sera meilleur pour nos enfants. N’ayez pas peur! N’ayez pas peur d’affronter les bêtises de l’extrême droite et de l’extrême gauche quand ils parlent de l’Europe.
I am for the United States of Europe. Yes! I believe that a federal Europe is the future. If we retreat to the nations we are beaten, we will be swept away like national sovereignty was swept away by globalization…
Yes, it’s hard, but it’s a future that will be better for our children. Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid to confront the nonsense of the far-right and the far-left when they talk about Europe.
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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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Being stuck on a small island for an intensive math camp could have some compensations.
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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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The world of ePublishing is pretty confusing. Competing standards, competing devices and even more variation in quality than you’d ever see in print. It is difficult negotiating all this and yet remaining compatible with a wide range of devices. I am probably more, ahem, discerning than the average punter—I’ll happily edit an ePUB if I don’t like its style—but putting aside my particular preferences, I think (in 2014) there are some basics that you should expect from an electronic edition.
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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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Dublin drag queen, Pandora ‘Panti’ Bliss, was recently taken to task for calling homophobes homophobic. Here’s her response.
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- Written by: Seán Ó Séaghdha
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I knew it wouldn’t be fantastic, but I’m surprised at how bad the “Tablet Rotating Multifunction Arm Stand” actually is. It was clearly advertised as being rotatable with an arrow clearly showing you could rotate the tablet when attached. Unfortunately if you do that you will unscrew the nut which holds the tablet clamp to the arm and your tablet will fall off!
Considering the box also has a picture on it of a tablet suspended right over a woman’s face this is shockingly dangerous!
Shame Zazz—you should recall these immediately.
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Tony Abbot and Steven Marshall
Press Conference 13 March 2014
South Australian Election
If this isn’t embarrassing enough, today he finished his final election pitch with this:
“I’ve enjoyed the campaign. It’s been gruelling, there’s no doubt about it, but there’s only a few short hours now away from when the polls open and I think if people in SA want change, they want a better future, they want to grow our economy then they need to vote Labor tomorrow.”
Oops!
Source: The Advertiser
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16 MARCH WE DECIDE
[nasty fascist Crimea] OR [lovely Russian Crimea]
In fact, the referendum this weekend doesn’t even give Crimeans that choice! It’s a choice between joining the Russian Federation or reverting to the very short-lived status of Crimea immediately after the break up of the Soviet Union, when they could decide their own status. So, pretty much the same choice as above.
The choice to return to their previous status as an autonomous region of Ukraine is not on offer.
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