Q

Judges have overturned a legal ban on science fiction fans naming their son ‘Q’ after their favourite Star Trek character.

John De Lancie as Q in Star Trek : TNG

The parents, from Jamtland, Sweden, appealed to the Swedish Supreme Court after two previous hearings upheld a court order saying the name could cause the boy “mental anguish”.
Appeal judges have now lifted the ban saying there was no proof the boy – now nearly one year old – would suffer because of the name.
Dad Rickard Rehnberg said: “He’s been called Q almost since day one. He listens to the name and can actually say his own name.
“He is a unique child and we thought he should have a unique name.”

Original story : Ananova

100 Top Sci-Fi Films

I’m looking for submissions to help compile my personal top 100.
I already have a long list of films to sort through, some of which won’t make the cut, but I’ve found it tough to come up with all the sci-fi films I’ve ever seen, so I’m looking for submissions to see if (a) there’s any I don’t already have in my list and (b) if there’s any good suggestions made that I haven’t yet seen so I can try and hunt them down and watch them before the list gets compiled.

I’m not just looking for Hollywood sci-fi either, U.K., European, Russian, Hong Kong … in fact any film that you think is seriously worthy of being in a top 100 I’m willing to accept as a valid submission.

The genesis for this idea came from another top 100 films that I’ve been following all this past week being published by Anthony Quinn of The Independent.

Click the link below to see a list of titles that I’ve already compiled and to see if you can think of any films that I don’t already have.
Please leave any title/s in the comments that you think worthy of inclusion that I’ve overlooked.

Torchwood : Children of Earth (parts 1-3)

Yes I’m watching it, and yes, I’m enjoying it tremendously.

This post will contain some spoiler material that those that haven’t viewed the episodes yet may not want to know about.

To answer a couple of points that a poster (Paul) made on my forum (in this Torchwood thread), the concrete cell didn’t even register with me as being remotely like the interior of that concrete house made by Rachel Whitehead, but then, I have major problems with that particular story element, namely, it dried too fast, it should’ve ripped Jack apart when it broke up on impact, it really shouldn’t have broken up on impact (it should have buried itself more than breaking up) and Jack should have been cooked alive as the concrete dried.

Now knowing that Anthony Gormley, who did the Angel of the North, did something similar to the container that the 456 are in adds nothing to the story line to me.
I actually thought it more reminiscent of ambassador Kosh in Babylon 5 and the encounter suit. When he was out of the suit he had to remain in a sealed off portion of B5 with his own atmosphere.

I thought that the blowing up of the Torchwood Hub was a budgetary decision.
This has much larger ramifications in the mythos of Torchwood though, what happened to the people and creatures contained within it? What about all the alien tech that has seemingly gone up in smoke?
It’s all a bit too clean at the moment. These things need to be addressed if the show lives on after the end of this week.

On that note, if this is the future format of this show, then please, can we have two per year?
This is proper event TV and having just one week a year isn’t going to help with maintaining audiences – even though the BBC shouldn’t really be about the audience figures.

Terrorism Act & Photography

A document by the National Policing Improvement Agency gives guidance to police officers accross the UK.

“The Terrorism Act 2000 does not prohibit people from taking photographs or digital
images in an area where an authority under section 44 is in place. Officers should not
prevent people taking photographs unless they are in an area where photography is
prevented by other legislation.”
“If officers reasonably suspect that photographs are being taken as part of hostile terrorist
reconnaissance, a search under section 43 of the TerrorismAct 2000 or an arrest should be
considered.”
“Film and memory cards may be seized as part of the search, but officers do not have a legal power to delete images or destroy film. Although images may be viewed as part of a search, to preserve evidence when cameras or other devices are seized, officers should not normally attempt to examine them.”
“Cameras and other devices should be left in the state they were found and forwarded to appropriately trained staff for forensic examination. The person being searched should never be asked or allowed to turn the device
on or off because of the danger of evidence being lost or damaged.”

Further more The Metropolitan Police have issued a tactical review of procedures of section 44 of the Terrorism act.

Northern Ireland by Camera

On the weekend of the 1st-3rd of May a friend of mine paid me a visit with his camera with the sole purpose of creating another in his series of …by Camera books.

There’s a Flash preview of Nick’s images available here and the contact-sheet style image below is a preview of mine. As soon as Colin has his images ready then we’ll ship them all off to Nick who’ll put the book together, fire off a preview to myself and Colin where we can make any changes (if any are needed) and then we’ll go to print.

Point of note, Images 1 and 21 have been removed from the finished listing.

Busy Weekend

After work on Friday I started planning a photographicing trip to the local reservoir to capture the sunset.
I got the time of the sunset and decided to set off an hour early as I hadn’t actually been to this location before. During the drive to get there I realised that I had got the time the sun sets on the horizon, not when it’s likely to vanish behind the tops of the trees. Consequently I missed the sun passing the treeline by about 60 seconds. (8+(
The location was still worth taking images of though so I did just that.
Arrived back later than expected – and a lot more tired too which resulted in me oversleeping on Saturday morning by about 40 minutes.
I managed to make it in to work only 15 minutes late.

Saturday night was a very late one. I went to a mates house where I totally geeked out on a potoshoot. I think I got back home around 3am.

Yesterday me and Geekette and my Brother-in-Law and his girlfriend and Honey all went out to a local coastal spot. What was planned as a half-hour trip ended up taking the best part of 3 hours.
It was a little hazy to start with but that cleared up a little bit and I think I got so good photos from it.

I think I’ll have a bit of a rest from photography this week (though I do plan on taking a fun photo comp entry and another pic for a group on Flickr I started over the weekend) because at the end of next week I have a full day of photographicing planned with a couple of mates that starts at arounud 4am and finishes at about 10 or 11pm.

All my images from the weekend will eventually make it up on my Flickr photostream, as well as my Facebook profile.

Is technology getting in the way?

This article came to me by way of a friend’s posting on Facebook, and the rest of this post is basically what I commented on that posting, but not everyone I know reading this uses Facebook.

I’m really not sure about this at all. I’ve never felt that I was missing anything while I was taking a picture of it.
Instead of feeling disconnected from the subject I feel that the technology I’m using is actually bringing me closer to whatever happens to be my subject of focus at that time.

Why can you not enjoy the music at a concert if you’re taking pictures? It’s different sensory stimulus. When I’m at the top of a cliff taking a photo I can still very much feel the sense of awe and wonder at the view that’s laid before me.

No, I certainly don’t feel that technology has hindered my appreciation of anything.

The Films of 2008

It’s that time of year again, where I post up my list of films that I’ve seen throughout the whole of the past 12 months.
For those not familiar with the concept, basically I keep track of all the films I watch (I’ve been doing this since 2006) on a monthly basis over the course of the year, just so I can post the list up on my blog at the end of December.

Last year there were calls for some form of ratings, so this year I’ve given each film a score out of 5. Now this score is based entirely on my enjoyment of the film at the time of watching.
It’s entirely possible that my mood at the time could give an otherwise great film a mediocre score, but I have tried to be fair with the marks.

Highlights of this year were Across the Universe, Waitress and Á Travers la Forêt, the latter of which was the most enjoyable film I saw all year.
Lowlights include Max Payne and The Golden Compass.
I was really quite enjoying The Golden Compass, but they seemingly forgot to film the ending of it, or at least forgot to include the ending with the rest of the film. I’d feel very cheated if I went to pay for this film at the cinema.
Best title of the year goes to Chan-woo Park’s I’m a Cyborg, but that’s OK.

Just glossing over the list now, it appears that I never saw any films for the months of February, March and April. *shrug*

Next year I really would like to see more films at the pictures, I’d also like to see more science fiction/science fiction related films than I did this year.

Follow the link below to get to the film listings for 2008.
Happy New Year to all my readers.

On the skids.

Due to increased attention from certain quarters, this posting has had to be removed for my own good.

Nikon D3x

The rumours and speculation had been circulating for a while. Originally rumoured to have an anouncement on the 20th of November, that date was pushed back to the 1st of December, and today Nikon deivered.

The much rumoured D3x is here, in all it’s 24.5 megapixel glory. It’s not all about the big numbers though. ISO is down from the D3, as is the maximum FPS – which isn’t really a surprise given the amount of data that has to be written for each file.

There’s also no mention of the anti-dust mechanism being present in this camera either, which is a bit of a big ommission. I think the D3x is being aimed at the studio photographer, but as a mate of mine observed, “why deliberately limit your camera’s appeal?”. I can see their point.

For all intents and purposes this is simply a D3 with a beefed-up image sesor and a couple more bells and whistles. It’s not so much an upgrade to the D3 as it is a complimentary stable mate.
After a year of owning it, I’m still very happy with my D3.
There’s nothing in the release of the D3x which makes me want one.

For some of the specs on the D3x and sample images click the link …