List Maniacs

List of Blood Donors Searching Portals in India

noreply@blogger.com (Navi) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:25:30 PDT

Many people in India die just because they dont get blood on time, here are some portals which are trying to help people in searching blood donors, lets take the best use of it and try reducing the percentage of deaths because of lack of blood.
And there are some organizations like Sankalp India Foundation currently in Bangalore, helping people in finding the blood in easier way.

Sankalp India Foundation
Looking for Blood in Karnataka
Call 94800 444444

1.http://www.friendstosupport.org/index.aspx

2.http://www.bharatbloodbank.com/

3.http://www.bloodbankonline.org/Page/frmSearchResult.aspx

4.http://www.lionsbloodbank.net/

5.http://www.thebloodbank.org/bloodbankregister.asp

6.http://www.indianblooddonors.com/

7.http://www.blooddonors.in/

8.http://www.jeevanraksha.com/blood-donor-search-in-india

9.http://www.selflessservice.org/Search.asp

10.http://www.kshan.org/RequestBloodForm.html

11.http://www.raktadan.org/

12.http://tsu.trp.nic.in/blood/welcome.asp
Only for tripura

13.http://www.webbloodbank.org/donorsearch.php
Need Login

My favourite film posters

noreply@blogger.com (Yawar) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:50:40 PDT

Poster art is one of the best forms of art. Posters can speak more than photographs, as they can capture the painter’s vivid imagination and his master strokes. Unfortunately, the art of making good posters is slowly diminishing. We hardly see good posters these days. The poster artists, who played a significant part in making those wonderful posters of Sholay, Umrao Jaan, Mughal-e-Aazam, Deewar, are either unemployed or are involved in making posters for cheap B-grade films. Isn’t that a matter of shame for all of us?

Two of the directors whose posters had always been good were Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman. While Hitchcock’s posters had layers of abstraction in them, Bergman’s close-up posters rightly captured the complex emotions of their characters. Thanks to the internet, these posters are well preserved and indexed online.

May it be the bouncy, kinetic poster of 1950′s All About Eve, or closeup image of Dustin Hoffman in the shattering violence packed Straw Dogs (1971), film posters have always had the power to attract viewers. Well, who can forget the beauty in the posters of Umrao Jaan (1981) and the scerenety in the posters of Devdas (1935)?

I have come up with an exhaustive list of my favourite film posters. I understand that displaying these beautiful posters on my site would have been a better way of representation, but that would have terribly slowed my site down down. Therefore, I have linked each film’s title to their respective posters. Click on the titles to view them-

61 favourite film posters

noreply@blogger.com (Yawar) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 07:46:17 PDT

5 Important Questions on 4G Wireless Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Navi) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:54:37 PST

1.What is 4G Wireless Technology?
At present 2G Technology (GSM) is widely used worldwide. The problem with 2G technology is that the data rates are limited. This makes it ineffecient for Data Transfer applications like video conferencing, music or video downloads, etc. To increase the speed various new technologies have come into picture. The first is 2.5G (GPRS) technology that allows data transfer at a better rate than GSM and recently 3G (WCDMA/UMTS) technology has come into picture. The maximum theoretical data transfer with this 3G technology is 2Mbps (practically it could be a max of 384Kbps or even less). The 4G technology which is at its infancy is suppose to allow data transfer upto 100Mbps outdoor and 1Gbps indoor.

2.When is the 4G Technology going to be launched?
NTT Docomo is planning to launch 4G sevices in Japan around 2010-2015. Earlier it announced that it would be launching the service in 2006-2008. But at the same time it has said that the data transfer would be maximum of 20Mbps. Recently they have started calling this intermediate launch as ‘Super-3G’.

3.What would be the main features of 4G Technology?
The 4G technology will be able to support Interactive services like Video Conferencing (with more than 2 sites simultaneously), Wireless Internet,etc. The bandwidth would be much wider (100 MHz) and data would be transferred at much higher rates. The cost of the data transfer would be comparatively very less and global mobility would be possible. The networks will be all IP networks based on IPv6. The antennas will be much smarter and improved access technologies like OFDM and MC-CDMA (Multi Carrier CDMA) will be used. Also the security features will be much better.

4.What are the likely new features?
The entire network would be packet switched (IP based). All switches would be digital. Higher bandwidths would be available which would make cheap data transfer possible. The network security would be much tighter. Also QoS will imrpove. More effecient algorithms at the Physical layer will reduce the Inter-channel Interference and Co-channel Interference.

Evolution of Mobile Cellular Communication System

5. What are the innovations made by 4G Mobile Technology.
1. The mobile communications comprise two steps: access to the mobile network, and access to the mobile services. Traditionally, these two steps are all controlled by one operator in a closed and proprietary way. In the 4G mobile era, the access to the mobile services will be evolved to an open Mobile Cloud so that it is fully open to any developers and providers. In this way, any non-wireless industries, such as Google, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, GM, Bank of America can provide services for their mobile users. The access to the mobile network is still controlled by the traditional wireless operators such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and China Mobile. Of course, the operators are very reluctant to go this trend, but for the mobile users and for the future global movement, it is just a matter of time to do it.

2. The mobile device system architecture will be open in order to converge multiple RTTs (radio transmission technologies) in one same device. Same as laptop computer, the future Smartphone will be based on open wireless architecture (OWA) technology which means, when you change the wireless standards, you do not need to change phone. It is totally different from current multi-standards phone which is in closed system architecture, and users can not remove the unused RTT modules and basically can not do anything on the mobile phone system. In the OWA system, you can just change RTT card in your Smartphone to switch your wireless standards, or you can integrate multiple wireless standards in one RTT SIM card. Based on this OWA platform, you can integrate home phone, office phone and mobile phone into one common Personal device – it is more beyond just a phone. In fact, this 4G mobile device is a system to bring the world to your hand, or we call it iHand – the World in Hand, which is more better than calling it an iPhone.

3. Any portable consumer electronics device can be a mobile phone by inserting the OWA-powered mobile RTT(s) card. This approach is truly converging the mobile wireless technology with the computer technology by providing the OWA virtualization layer between the high-layer computer-based OS (operating systems) & applications solutions and the underlying wireless transmission-based different mobile networks access means.

4. More breakthrough technologies are being developed for efficient utilization of wireless spectrum, and the dynamic and open spectrum management. Wireless is totally different from wired communications, and therefore the overall performance relies on both system performance and transmission performance where spectrum is one of the key issues.

5. Power efficiency is another critical issue for mobile device. The system architecture must be open to enable removable of unused modules, and the processing architecture must be optimized to the lowest possible in terms of the whole system performance. Meanwhile, the RF radio modules should be narrowed to the minimal meeting the basic requirements of necessary RTTs.

10 Top Strategic Technologies For 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Navi) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:16:42 PST

1. Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. Cloud-based services can be exploited in a variety of ways to develop an application or a solution. Using cloud resources does not eliminate the costs of IT solutions, but does re-arrange some and reduce others. In addition, consuming cloud services enterprises will increasingly act as cloud providers and deliver application, information or business process services to customers and business partners.

2. Advanced Analytics. Optimization and simulation is using analytical tools and models to maximize business process and decision effectiveness by examining alternative outcomes and scenarios, before, during and after process implementation and execution. This can be viewed as a third step in supporting operational business decisions. Fixed rules and prepared policies gave way to more informed decisions powered by the right information delivered at the right time, whether through customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other applications. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. The new step looks into the future, predicting what can or will happen.

3. Client Computing. Virtualization is bringing new ways of packaging client computing applications and capabilities. As a result, the choice of a particular PC hardware platform, and eventually the OS platform, becomes less critical. Enterprises should proactively build a five to eight year strategic client computing roadmap outlining an approach to device standards, ownership and support; operating system and application selection, deployment and update; and management and security plans to manage diversity.

4. IT for Green. IT can enable many green initiatives. The use of IT, particularly among the white collar staff, can greatly enhance an enterprise’s green credentials. Common green initiatives include the use of e-documents, reducing travel and teleworking. IT can also provide the analytic tools that others in the enterprise may use to reduce energy consumption in the transportation of goods or other carbon management activities.

5. Reshaping the Data Center. In the past, design principles for data centers were simple: Figure out what you have, estimate growth for 15 to 20 years, then build to suit. Newly-built data centers often opened with huge areas of white floor space, fully powered and backed by a uninterruptible power supply (UPS), water-and air-cooled and mostly empty. However, costs are actually lower if enterprises adopt a pod-based approach to data center construction and expansion. If 9,000 square feet is expected to be needed during the life of a data center, then design the site to support it, but only build what’s needed for five to seven years. Cutting operating expenses, which are a nontrivial part of the overall IT spend for most clients, frees up money to apply to other projects or investments either in IT or in the business itself.

6. Social Computing. Workers do not want two distinct environments to support their work – one for their own work products (whether personal or group) and another for accessing “external” information. Enterprises must focus both on use of social software and social media in the enterprise and participation and integration with externally facing enterprise-sponsored and public communities. Do not ignore the role of the social profile to bring communities together.

7. Security – Activity Monitoring. Traditionally, security has focused on putting up a perimeter fence to keep others out, but it has evolved to monitoring activities and identifying patterns that would have been missed before. Information security professionals face the challenge of detecting malicious activity in a constant stream of discrete events that are usually associated with an authorized user and are generated from multiple network, system and application sources. At the same time, security departments are facing increasing demands for ever-greater log analysis and reporting to support audit requirements. A variety of complimentary (and sometimes overlapping) monitoring and analysis tools help enterprises better detect and investigate suspicious activity – often with real-time alerting or transaction intervention. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of these tools, enterprises can better understand how to use them to defend the enterprise and meet audit requirements.

8. Flash Memory. Flash memory is not new, but it is moving up to a new tier in the storage echelon. Flash memory is a semiconductor memory device, familiar from its use in USB memory sticks and digital camera cards. It is much faster than rotating disk, but considerably more expensive, however this differential is shrinking. At the rate of price declines, the technology will enjoy more than a 100 percent compound annual growth rate during the new few years and become strategic in many IT areas including consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems. In addition, it offers a new layer of the storage hierarchy in servers and client computers that has key advantages including space, heat, performance and ruggedness.

9. Virtualization for Availability. Virtualization has been on the list of top strategic technologies in previous years. It is on the list this year because Gartner emphases new elements such as live migration for availability that have longer term implications. Live migration is the movement of a running virtual machine (VM), while its operating system and other software continue to execute as if they remained on the original physical server. This takes place by replicating the state of physical memory between the source and destination VMs, then, at some instant in time, one instruction finishes execution on the source machine and the next instruction begins on the destination machine.
However, if replication of memory continues indefinitely, but execution of instructions remains on the source VM, and then the source VM fails the next instruction would now place on the destination machine. If the destination VM were to fail, just pick a new destination to start the indefinite migration, thus making very high availability possible.
The key value proposition is to displace a variety of separate mechanisms with a single “dial” that can be set to any level of availability from baseline to fault tolerance, all using a common mechanism and permitting the settings to be changed rapidly as needed. Expensive high-reliability hardware, with fail-over cluster software and perhaps even fault-tolerant hardware could be dispensed with, but still meet availability needs. This is key to cutting costs, lowering complexity, as well as increasing agility as needs shift.

10. Mobile Applications. By year-end 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing a rich environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. There are already many thousands of applications for platforms such as the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market and need for unique coding. It may take a newer version that is designed to flexibly operate on both full PC and miniature systems, but if the operating system interface and processor architecture were identical, that enabling factor would create a huge turn upwards in mobile application availability.

10 Most Bizzare Videos From You Tube

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:51:05 PST

1. The Alphabet

This is the first film David Lynch recorded – based on a dream by the young sister of his then girlfriend. This is nightmare material. Make sure you watch to the end as the very last scene if horrifying. I promise you will have nightmares after watching this. A final note: Lynch’s girlfriend is the singer.

2. Idol

An incredible lucid showcase of true human greed. Very enlightening, I love the use of young children, putting their greediness and longing into even more stark and alarming clarity.

3. Homage to Antonin Artaud- I

Born in 1896 (died 1948), Artaud is one of the most unusual artists of the 20th century. He wrote poetry that was banned by the French government, assisted in some of the most bizarre films in history, and even wrote music. He had a small part in the film The Passion of Joan of Arc (hailed as the film with the most emotional performance ever captured on film by Maria Falconetti).

4. Homage to Antonin Artaud- II

5. Symphony Mechanique

Antheil, an American composer, wrote this score to accompany a dadaist film. This piece of ballet music which is impossible to play in full, is set to a film by Fernand Léger (1881 – 1955). Strangely, it was not until the 1990s that the film and score were brought together. The film and music is a masterful example of the movement. It is hard to believe that this is from the 1920s, nearly 100 years ago. Here is the Ballet Mécanique (with plane propellers and various other strange instruments). This is Antheil’s most famous work.

6. The Holy Mountain

The Holy Mountain is a 1973 cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky who also participated as actor, composer, set designer, and costume designer. The film was produced by Beatles manager Allen Klein of ABKCO after Jodorowsky scored an underground phenomenon with El Topo and the acclaim of both John Lennon and George Harrison (John and Yoko Ono put up production money).

7. Dream Machine

Gysin (born 1916, died 1986) was a great friend of William Burroughs. He invented the Cut-ups technique (1959). One of his most important discoveries was the dreamachine – essentially a spinning cylinder with various holes cut in to it which – when viewed with the eyes closed – caused one to see a variety of hallucinations. I should add that this was invented under the influence of drugs (are we surprised?) If you want to try it, here is a web based dream machine - click start and close your eyes.

8. The Cut Ups

The Cut Ups is a film by Burroughs and Balch. It uses the cut-ups style invented by Brion Gysin but made famous by Burrous (especially in his masterful book Naked Lunch). I can’t even begin to describe this film – just believe me, it is weird.

9. 4' 33"

Cage is one of the most forward thinking composers of the 20th century. This is a video of a performance of the piece of music that is probably his most famous. It is called 4′33″ (ie, four minutes and thirty-three seconds). The idea behind this piece is that we are constantly surrounded by music in every day life. At the risk of spoiling the surprise, this is an orchestra playing silence in three movements for 4 and a half minutes. I won’t go into the issue of the pretention of the audience (watch it – you will see what I mean). Highly recommended.

10. Sickness Inducing Video

From youtube: “This is a weird scene that was floating about a bbs and apparently causing phsychotic reactions in some people who watched it with high quality headphones. There seems to be a variety of audio frequencies in use, primarily 17 and 19hz and the garbled speech could be from anywhere someone mentioned a reference to Hitler somewhere they thought.” There were also mentions of the brown note but it is unlikely that a computer could produce the sound required and it is not even likely that the brown note is anything more than a myth.

20 Greatest Mark Twain Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:11:13 PST

Humorist, satirist and scathing social commentator, Mark Twain occupies a special place in the pantheon of American (and world) writers. Few have come close to matching his precision in lampooning the ills of society, but none have surpassed him. Here is a collection of twenty of his greatest quotations, though there e certainly hundreds to choose from. Enjoy!

1. A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read.

2. All generalizations are false, including this one.

3. Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.

4. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

5. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

6. I have a higher and grander standard of principle than George Washington. He could not lie; I can, but I won’t.

7. A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

8. A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.

9. Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.

10. 'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read.

11. Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.

12. Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

13. Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

14. Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold.

15. I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

16. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

17. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

18. It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

19. It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

20. In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

10 Greatest Rock Vocal Performances

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:49:15 PST

1. Love Reign O'er Me

(The Who)

2. Child In Time

(Deep Purple)

3. Bohemian Rhapsody

(Queen)

4. Since I've Been Loving You

(Led Zeppelin)

5. Say Hello To Heaven

(Temple Of The Dog)

6. Piece Of My Heart

(Janis Joplin)

7. Grace

(Jeff Buckley)

8. The Great Gig In The Sky
(Pink Floyd)

9. Stairway To Heaven
(Led Zeppelin)

10. Release
(Pearl Jam)

10 Greatest Cinematographers

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:26:08 PDT

10. Kazuo Miyagawa

Some of Miyagawa’s stunning work on Rashomon can be seen in the clip.

Miyagawa is arguably the most important cinematographer in Japanese history, having worked with a who’s who of Japanese auteurs, including Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi. He is perhaps most famous for his work on Rashomon, where he was the first person to point a camera directly into sunlight (utilising years of study on light exposure). He was also known for using multiple camera setups for scenes, and acclaimed for his contrast of sweeping tracking shots and sharp close-ups. Other innovations on the film include using mirrors to reflect natural light and using dyed black water as rain, to make it appear more vivid on camera. He was also a master of genres, working on comedies (The Rickshaw Man), samurai films (the Zatoichi films), as wells as overseeing 164 cameramen and using over 234 different lenses for Tokyo Olympiad, often compared with Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia as one of the greatest Olympics documentaries.

Some of Miyagawa’s stunning work on Rashomon can be seen in the clip.

Notable films: Rashomon (1950), Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Floating Weeds (1959), Yojimbo (1961), Zatoichi (1964), Tokyo Olympiad (1965)

9. Sergei Urusevsky

The above, much celebrated, clip is perhaps the most famous scene in Urusevsky’s repertoire, a balletic tracking shot from the opening of I am Cuba shows off his blistering and original camerawork.

Though nowhere near as prolific as others on this list, Urusevsky has earned an almost mythic status among cinematographers due tohis work with Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov on such films as I am Cuba and The Cranes are Flying. His nearly unbelievable combination of deep focus, acrobatic tracking shots, subjective perspective and other remarkable cinematographic trickery was so ahead of its time that it wouldn’t be seen in the west until over a decade later. Unfortunately, his Kaltozov collaborations were largely buried by the Soviet propaganda machine, and have only recently been restored thanks to acknowledged admirers such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. His spectacular camerawork, which often distracted from the proper focus of the scene, was defended by Urusevsky, remarking that, “It has never interested me, as cameraman, to just register what is going on in front of the camera.””

Notable films: The Forty-First (1956), The Cranes are Flying (1957), The Unsent Letter (1959), I am Cuba (1964)

8. Vittorio Storaro

The clip is a scene from The Sheltering Sky, showcasing arguably the most beautiful desert cinematography ever put on film. For a much better quality view (and longer version) of this scene, go here. You will absolutely not be disappointed.

Vittorio Storaro (born 24 June 1940 in Rome) is a three-time Academy Award winning Italian cinematographer. He is most famous for his work on Apocalypse Now (his first Oscar), where he was given free reign by Francis Ford Coppola to photograph the film’s acclaimed visual look. He went on to win Oscars for Reds and The Last Emperor, which was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, his most frequent collaborator. Storaro is widely regarded as a mastercinematographer with a sophisticated philosophy largely inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colors, which focuses in part on the psychological effects different colors have and the way in which colors influence our perceptions of different situations. With his son, Fabrizio Storaro, he created the Univisium format system to unify all future theatrical and television movies into one respective aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

Notable films: The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), Reds (1981), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990)

7. Sven Nykvist

Above is a beautiful scene from Persona. Notice the remarkable fading of light.

As Ingmar Bergman’s choice cinematographer, Nykvist was given the unenviable task of transforming the Swedish auteur’s startling, often surreal, images into reality in front of the camera. Despite this, Nykvist was noted for his subtlety and simplicity, favouring naturalistic lighting to complement Bergman’s slow, paced style of storytelling. He was unpretentious and often hidden behind his towering director, but Nykvist was still acknowledged forhis work with two Academy Awards for Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander. Nykvist also worked with directors such as Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Andrei Tarkovsky. He was the first European cinematographer to join the American Society of Cinematographers, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the ASC in 1996.

Notable films: The Virgin Spring (1960), Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1973), Fanny and Alexander (1982), The Sacrifice (1986), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

6. Gregg Toland

Above is an example of deep focus in Citizen Kane.

Gregg Toland was not with us long, but it is a credit to his brilliance that he is so revered today. Toland was nominated five times for the BestCinematography Oscar during a seven year golden period which lasted from 1936 to 1942, but it is his collaboration with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane that is most remembered. Though he didn’t create deep focuscinematography , he perfected it in Citizen Kane, allowing characters in the fore and background to be shot in focus at the same time. In fact, much of the film’s visual and cinematographic genius – low angles, high contrast, dark shadows – though often credited to Welles, was largely Toland’s doing. Welles later acknowledged that Toland was advising him on camera placement and lighting effects secretly so the young director would not be embarrassed in front of the highly experienced crew. So indebted was he to Toland’s work, that Welles insisted that their names appear together on the end credits. Later on, Toland worked on Disney’s Song of the South, which combined live action with animation.

Notable films: Wuthering Heights (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Song of the South (1946)

5. Gordon Willis

Above is a clip showing Gordon Willis (and others) discussing the cinematography of The Godfather.

Nicknamed ‘The Prince of Darkness’ for his penchant for using rich blacks and dark interiors, most famously in The Godfather films for which he is best known, Gordon Willis is famed for his innovativecinematography which has garnered him two Oscar nominations and heaps of respect. His work on The Godfather films is legendary, and his innovations include pioneering the use of warm, fuzzy, amber glows to represent nostalgic scenes of the past in The Godfather Part II, and the unique recreation of 1920s photography for Woody Allen’s Zelig.

Notable films: The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), Zelig (1977), Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), The Godfather Part III (1990)

4. Christopher Doyle

Above is a clip from the film Hero, where Doyle’s attention to vivid colors was crucial to the story.

Though born in Australia, Doyle made his mark by photographing Asian films, especially the work of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai.His work with the director, particularly the films Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and 2046, is lauded for their vivid splashes of colors and high saturation, and he is considered one of the most important architects of Asian New Wave cinema. He is also one of the few “superstar” cinematographers, whose reputation is often higher than the directors he works with.

Notable films: Chungking Express (1994), In the Mood for Love (2000), The Quiet American (2002), Hero (2002), Infernal Affairs (2002), 2046 (2002), Paranoid Park (2007)

3. Conrad L. Hall

Above is a funny scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for which Hall won an Oscar.

Beginning with films such as Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hall helped liberate approaches to filming by making, as Sight and Sound puts it, “making virtues of mistakes”. Blemishes such as the sun hitting the lens, dirt getting on the lens, or other seeming distractions which would have necessitated reshoots in the past, but Hall’s approach exemplified the new wave of American cinema and helped set a template for gritty, independent films. But Hall also proved he could handle more ‘pristine’ pictures, photographing films such American Beauty later in his career. He won his first Oscar in 1969 for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and then would have to wait 30 years for his next, for American Beauty. His third Oscar was awarded to him posthumously for Road to Perdition. As well as that, he was nominated a further seven times during his life.

Notable films: Cool Hand Luke (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Day of the Locust (1975), American Beauty (1999), Road to Perdition (2002)

2. James Wong Howe

The clip is some crisp, beautiful black and white photography from Hud, for which Howe won an Oscar.

James Wong Howe had over 130 films to his credit, spanning from the silent era to color. During the 1930s and 1940s he was considered one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood. He was nominated for ten Academy Awards for cinematography, winning twice. As well as being one of the first cinematographers to use deep focus photography, Howe pioneered techniques to augment eyes on B&W film, early dolly techniques, handheld camera techniques and shooting by unusual light sources, such as by candlelight on The Molly Maguires.

Notable films: The Thin Man (1934), Algiers (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Hud (1963), Funny Lady (1975)

1. Charles Rosher

Above is an example of Rosher’s revolutionary work on Sunrise.

Charles Rosher was a two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s. Born in London, he was the first cinematographer to receive an Academy Award, along with 1929 co-winner Karl Struss. Rosher studied photography in his youth but earned a reputation early as a newsreel cameraman, before moving to the United States in 1909. He subsequently found work for David Horsley working in his production company in New Jersey. Because early film was largely restricted to using daylight, Horsley relocated his production company to Hollywood in 1911, taking Rosher with him, and opened the first movie studio there. This made Rosher the first full-time cameraman in Hollywood. In 1913 he went to Mexico to film newsreel footage of Pancho Villa’s rebellion. In 1918, he was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers and served as the group’s first Vice-President. In the 1920s he was one of the most sought-after cinematographers in Hollywood, and a personal favorite of stars such as Mary Pickford. His work with Karl Struss on F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film Sunrise is viewed as a milestone in cinematography. In addition, Rosher also received two Eastman Medals (named for George Eastman), Photoplay magazine’s Gold Medal, and the only fellowship ever awarded by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers.

Notable films: Sunrise (1927), The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), The Yearling (1946), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951)

33 Funny Exam Answers

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:26:56 PDT

1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics.They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

2. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible,Guinessis, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children,Cain, asked, “Am I my brother’s son?”

3. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

4. Solomom had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.

5. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

6. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.

7. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.

8. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.

9. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.

10. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: “Tee hee, Brutus.”

11. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.

12. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was cannonized by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offense.

13. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.

14. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.

15. Queen Elizabeth was the “Virgin Queen.” As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted “hurrah.”

16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.

17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies,comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo’s last wish was to be laid by Juliet.

18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.

19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.

20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim’s Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.

21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, “A horse divided against itself cannot stand.”. Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.

22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.

23. Abraham Lincoln became America’s greatest Precedent. Lincoln’s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth’s career.

24. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.

25. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.

26. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.

27. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.

28. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn’t have any children.

29. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is In the East and the sun sets in the West.

30. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.

31. The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of river to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick raper, which did the work of a hundred men.

32. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

33. The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.

15 Shocking Coincedences

noreply@blogger.com (Sourav Roy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:58:19 PDT

15. Childhood Book

While American novelist Anne Parrish was browsing bookstores in Paris in the 1920s, she came upon a book that was one of her childhood favorites – Jack Frost and Other Stories. She picked up the old book and showed it to her husband, telling him of the book she fondly remembered as a child. Her husband took the book, opened it, and on the flyleaf found the inscription: “Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs.” It was Anne’s very own book.

14. Poker Luck

In 1858, Robert Fallon was shot dead, an act of vengeance by those with whom he was playing poker. Fallon, they claimed, had won the $600 pot through cheating. With Fallon’s seat empty and none of the other players willing to take the now-unlucky $600, they found a new player to take Fallon’s place and staked him with the dead man’s $600. By the time the police had arrived to investigate the killing, the new player had turned the $600 into $2,200 in winnings. The police demanded the original $600 to pass on to Fallon’s next of kin – only to discover that the new player turned out to be Fallon’s son, who had not seen his father in seven years!

13. Twin Deaths

On 2002, Seventy-year-old twin brothers have died within hours of one another after separate accidents on the same road in northern Finland. The first of the twins died when he was hit by a lorry while riding his bike in Raahe, 600 kilometres north of the capital, Helsinki. He died just 1.5km from the spot where his brother was killed. “This is simply a historic coincidence. Although the road is a busy one, accidents don’t occur every day,” police officer Marja-Leena Huhtala told Reuters. “It made my hair stand on end when I heard the two were brothers, and identical twins at that. It came to mind that perhaps someone from upstairs had a say in this,” she said.

12. Poe Coincidence

In the 19th century, the famous horror writer, Egdar Allan Poe, wrote a book called ‘The narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym’. It was about four survivors of a shipwreck who were in an open boat for many days before they decided to kill and eat the cabin boy whose name was Richard Parker. Some years later, in 1884, the yawl, Mignonette, foundered, with only four survivors, who were in an open boat for many days. Eventully the three senior members of the crew, killed and ate the cabin boy. The name of the cabin boy was Richard Parker.

11. Royal Coincidence

In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I, went to a small restaurant for dinner, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, General Emilio Ponzia- Vaglia. When the owner took King Umberto’s order, the King noticed that he and the restaurant owner were virtual doubles, in face and in build. Both men began discussing the striking resemblances between each other and found many more similarities.

1. Both men were born on the same day, of the same year, (March 14th, 1844).

2. Both men had been born in the same town.

3. Both men married a woman with same name, Margherita.

4. The restauranteur opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy.

5. On the 29th July 1900, King Umberto was informed that the restauranteur had died that day in a mysterious shooting accident, and as he expressed his regret, he was then assassinated by an anarchist in the crowd.

10. Falling Baby

In 1930s Detroit, a man named Joseph Figlock was to become an amazing figure in a young (and, apparently, incredibly careless) mother’s life. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother’s baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby’s fall was broken and Figlock and the baby were unharmed. A year later, the selfsame baby fell from the selfsame window, again falling onto Mr. Figlock as he was passing beneath. Once again, both of them survived the event.

9. Mystery Monk

In 19th century Austria, a near-famous painter named Joseph Aigner attempted suicide on several occasions. During his first attempt to hang himself at the age of 18, Aigner was interrupted by a mysterious Capuchin monk. And again at age 22, he was prevented from hanging himself by the very same monk. Eight years later, he was sentenced to the gallows for his political activities. But again, his life was saved by the intervention of the same monk. At age 68, Joseph Aigner finally succeeded in suicide, using a pistol to shoot himself. Not surprisingly, his funeral ceremony was conducted by the very same Capuchin monk – a man whose name Aiger never even knew.

8. Photographic Coincidence

A German mother who photographed her infant son in 1914 left the film to be developed at a store in Strasbourg. In those days some film plates were sold individually. World War I broke out and unable to return to Strasbourg, the woman gave up the picture for lost. Two years later she bought a film plate in Frankfurt, over 100 miles away, to take a picture of her newborn daughter. When developed the film turned out to be a double exposure, with the picture of her daughter superimposed on the earlier picture of her son. Through some incredible twist of fate, her original film, never developed, had been mislabeled as unused, and had eventually been resold to her.

7. Book Find

In 1973, actor Anthony Hopkins agreed to appear in “The Girl From Petrovka”, based on a novel by George Feifer. Unable to find a copy of the book anywhere in London, Hopkins was surprised to discover one lying on a bench in a train station. It turned out to be George Feifer’s own annotated (personal) copy, which Feifer had lent to a friend, and which had been stolen from his friend’s car.

6. Twins

The twin brothers, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, were separated at birth, adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. Both James grew up not knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. Both had sons, one of whom was named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women – both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy.

5. Revenge Killing

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl’s enraged brother hunted down Ziegland and shot him. Believing he had killed Ziegland, the brother then took his own life. In fact, however, Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet had only grazed his face, lodging into a tree. It was a narrow escape. Years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the same tree, which still had the bullet in it. The huge tree seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland’s head, killing him.

4. Golden Scarab

From The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: “A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience.” – Carl Jung.

3. Taxi

In 1975, while riding a moped in Bermuda, a man was accidentally struck and killed by a taxi. One year later, this man’s bother was killed in the very same way. In fact, he was riding the very same moped. And to stretch the odds even further, he was struck by the very same taxi driven by the same driver – and even carrying the very same passenger!

2. Hotel Discovery

In 1953, television reporter Irv Kupcinet was in London to cover the coronation of Ellizabeth II. In one of the drawers in his room at the Savoy he found found some items that, by their identification, belonged to a man named Harry Hannin. Coincidentally, Harry Hannin – a basketball star with the famed Harlem Globetrotters – was a good friend of Kupcinet’s. But the story has yet another twist. Just two days later, and before he could tell Hannin of his lucky discovery, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin. In the letter, Hannin told Kucinet that while staying at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, he found in a drawer a tie – with Kupcinet’s name on it.

1. Historical Coincidence

The lives of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America’s founders. Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, showing drafts of it to Adams, who (with Benjamin Franklin) helped to edit and hone it.The document was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Surprisingly, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826 – exactly 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.