Phil Gyford (everything)

Photos for 18 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

Nice signwriting
On HMS Edinburgh.

HMS Edinburgh
And rain. Sue's flat in the background.

Links for 16 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-16T23:58:00+00:00

The top 20 data visualisation tools | Feature | .net magazine: A nice summary of everything from Excel to Gephi. (via Dotcode)
UWE Graduation Ceremony 1993 - YouTube: Blimey, nearly twenty years ago. Everyone is so smooth and wide-eyed. (12:30 if you're wondering.)

UWE Graduation Ceremony 1993

phil — 2013-05-16T21:46:23+00:00

Favourited on YouTube

Links for 15 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-15T23:58:00+00:00

The Online Photographer: (OT) All You Need for Great Sound: Suggestion for great-sounding iPhone/iPad amp and small speakers. More suggestions in the comments.
Recurring Developments: Showing which episodes of Arrested Development each of its recurring jokes appears in. I've been researching recently; even better than I remembered. (via Waxy)

Links for 14 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-14T23:58:00+00:00

Composer: Dependency manager for PHP. I'm out of touch with PHP and hadn't heard of this.

Letters: Peerless Wigan | From the Guardian | The Guardian

phil — 2013-05-14T07:02:34+00:00

Posted in Comments posted elsewhere

Catherine Shoard describes Col Needham as the man who “created the Internet Movie Database” (G2, 13 May). While true in a technical sense, this ignores the vast amount of data contributed, free, by users of the original website. Without their unrewarded (and apparently forgotten) labours, IMDb would not have been as attractive to Amazon in 1998, if at all.
Phil Gyford
London

Links for 13 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-13T23:58:00+00:00

Six degrees of IMDb founder Col Needham | Film | The Guardian: On the success of the IMDb’s “creator”. Doesn't even mention that the site's value to Amazon in 1998 was all the data contributed by volunteers. Imagine if Wikipedia was solely the work of Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Grrrrrr. Still angry.

Six degrees of IMDb founder Col Needham | Film | The Guardian

phil — 2013-05-13T08:00:22+00:00

Posted in Comments posted elsewhere

Catherine Shoard fails to even mention the huge number of volunteers who contributed the data which went into IMDb in the early years. Without their enthusiastic work I can't imagine Amazon would have had much interest in the site. Imagine Wikipedia if it was solely the work of its two founders - not much use. An article about websites and services that profit from the volunteer work of their users would be interesting.

Space Oddity

phil — 2013-05-13T06:54:04+00:00

Favourited on YouTube

A revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station. (Note: This video cannot be reproduced and is licensed for online music use only.) With thanks to Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran, Andrew Tidby and Evan Hadfield for all their hard work. Captioning kindly provided by CHS (www.chs.ca) Find out more: Twitter: twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield Facebook: www.facebook.com/AstronautChrisHadfield?fref=ts Google+: plus.google.com/113978637743265603454/posts/p/pub

Links for 12 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-12T23:58:00+00:00

CSS Architecture | Appfolio Engineering: Lots of good thoughts on structuring CSS. (via Tom Taylor)

Best aids for learning acting? - Ask Cool Tools

phil — 2013-05-11T21:55:21+00:00

Posted in Comments posted elsewhere

Like Tim Donahue said, you can't learn how to act from a book. But they can give you some ideas to carry with you as you learn.

The Stanislavski is possibly “The” acting book to read, particularly when it comes to The Method style of acting, although I found it a bit tough going and sometimes made little sense to me. But then it is a translation of an 80ish year old Russian text. [Correction: A couple of days later and I've realised it was written in English, not Stanislavski's native Russian.]

One evening course I did had everyone read Uta Hagen's Respect for Acting, which, if I recall correctly, was a reiteration or elaboration on Stanislavski's ideas. It also has a bunch of simple exercises she says you should practice a lot on your own, which may be useful for some people - I found this style of things a bit too “interior” for me.

I really liked Sanford Meisner On Acting. He moved things on to encourage the actor to focus on the person they're acting with, and to encourage the ability to respond to them naturally. This made a lot of sense to me. I think there are DVD(s) of him teaching available too.

My notes on those three books are on my website, which might give you a flavour of them.

Then there are very different styles of acting. I did a course based on the teaching of Jacques Lecoq, which is more physical, perhaps less “thinky”. His book The Moving Body might be an interesting contrast to those above. Some people on that course seemed very keen on Grotowski's Towards A Poor Theatre, as well as Johnstone's Impro, which you mention and is often raved about. Good luck!

Phil (ex-acting student)

Links for 10 May 2013

phil — 2013-05-10T23:58:00+00:00

The Sublime Cluelessness of Throwing Lavish Great Gatsby Parties - Zachary M. Seward - The Atlantic: For the line: “It's like throwing a Lolita-themed children's birthday party.”
Every Every Every Generation Has Been the Me Me Me Generation - Elspeth Reeve - The Atlantic Wire: Scroll down for the examples of 100+ years of oldsters moaning about kids being spoiled narcissists. (via @timoarnall)
REAL_DANCING_GIRL: Updated hi-res version of the heavily used tiny dancing woman animated gif from the 1990s.