Derren Brown Blog

Happy Birthday Gary Oldman

Posted by Phillis March 21, 2010 at 11:27 am

Gary Leonard Oldman born 21 March 1958 is an English actor, writer, director, producer, voice-over artist and occasional musician who is well known for his roles as Sid Vicious in 1986 biopic Sid & Nancy and The Count in the 1992 blockbuster adaptation of Dracula. He has garnered critical acclaim for his diverse performances and portrayals of real-life historical figuresand is noted for his avoidance of the Hollywood celebrity scene, often being referred to as an “actor’s actor”.

After coming to prominence for his award-winning portrayal of ill-fated rocker Sid Vicious in 1986 biopic Sid & Nancy, which was featured in Premiere Magazine’s “100 Greatest Performances of All Time”, Oldman found further recognition during the late 1980s and early 1990s via starring roles in films such as Prick Up Your Ears, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and State of Grace.

During this time he earned considerable critical respect, with Janet Maslin referring to his work as “phenomenal” and Roger Ebert calling him “the best young British actor around.” Oldman subsequently starred in one of his best-known roles as Lee Harvey Oswald in 1991’s JFK. Since leading Dracula the following year, he has starred in such popular motion pictures as: True Romance, Immortal Beloved, Léon: The Professional, Murder in the First, The Fifth Element, The Contender and Hannibal.

In recent years Oldman has become well known to younger audiences as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter film series and James Gordon in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. In 1997, Oldman directed, produced, and wrote the award-winning Nil by Mouth, a movie partially based on his own childhood.

Oldman has received various awards and honours throughout his career but has at various times expressed his lack of regard for the Oscar and the presenting Academy. Several of his roles – particularly Sheldon Runyon in The Contender – have brought forth predictions of an Oscar nomination, but to date he has yet to be nominated for such an award despite a critically acclaimed film career spanning three decades.

The above painting by Derren from 2008 is available as a limited edition print in the art store.

Wikipedia

IMDB

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For One Tiny Instant, Physicists May Have Broken A Law Of Nature

Posted in Amazing, Interesting Theories, Technology

Posted by Abeo March 21, 2010 at 10:42 am

ionscollide

“For a brief instant, it appears, scientists at Brook haven National Laboratory on Long Island recently discovered a law of nature had been broken.

Action still resulted in an equal and opposite reaction, gravity kept the Earth circling the Sun, and conservation of energy remained intact. But for the tiniest fraction of a second at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), physicists created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity no longer existed.

Parity was long thought to be a fundamental law of nature. It essentially states that the universe is neither right- nor left-handed — that the laws of physics remain unchanged when expressed in inverted coordinates. In the early 1950s it was found that the so-called weak force, which is responsible for nuclear radioactivity, breaks the parity law. However, the strong force, which holds together subatomic particles, was thought to adhere to the law of parity, at least under normal circumstances.

Now this law appears to have been broken by a team of about a dozen particle physicists, including Jack Sandweiss, Yale’s Donner Professor of Physics. Since 2000, Sandweiss has been smashing the nuclei of gold atoms together as part of the STAR experiment at RHIC, a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator, to study the law of parity under the resulting extreme conditions.”

Australian Genderless Person Loses Official Status

Posted in Interesting People

Posted by Abeo March 21, 2010 at 8:37 am

Norrie

“An Australian has lodged an official protest after losing an official designation of gender neutrality.

Norrie May-Welby made headlines earlier this month after the New South Wales Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry issued a certificate declaring the Scottish-born 48-year-old “sex not specified”.

The New South Wales government this week said the official document had been withdrawn after legal advice suggested the registry did not have the power to issue such a certificate.

The Australian Human Rights Commission said Norrie had filed an official complaint following the revocation.

‘I can confirm that the complaint has been lodged under the Sex Discrimination Act,’ a spokesman said.”

Read more at The Telegraph (Thanks Jake)

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Sceptic challenges guru to kill him live on TV

Posted in Funny Ha Ha, Popular, Religious Matters

Posted by Phillis March 20, 2010 at 8:21 am

When a famous tantric guru boasted on television that he could kill another man using only his mystical powers, most viewers either gasped in awe or merely nodded unquestioningly. Sanal Edamaruku’s response was different. “Go on then — kill me,” he said.

Mr Edamaruku had been invited to the same talk show as head of the Indian Rationalists’ Association — the country’s self-appointed sceptic-in-chief. At first the holy man, Pandit Surender Sharma, was reluctant, but eventually he agreed to perform a series of rituals designed to kill Mr Edamaruku live on television. Millions tuned in as the channel cancelled scheduled programming to continue broadcasting the showdown, which can still be viewed on YouTube.

First, the master chanted mantras, then he sprinkled water on his intended victim. He brandished a knife, ruffled the sceptic’s hair and pressed his temples. But after several hours of similar antics, Mr Edamaruku was still very much alive — smiling for the cameras and taunting the furious holy man.

“He was over, finished, completely destroyed!” Mr Edamaruku chuckles triumphantly as he concludes the tale in the Rationalist Centre, his second-floor office in the town of Noida, just outside Delhi.

File-Sharing and Link Sites Declared Legal in Spain

Posted in Technology

Posted by Phillis March 19, 2010 at 2:25 pm

Despite many rulings which have declared file-sharing sites legal if they don’t profit directly from copyright infringements, in recent years its become something of a custom in Spain for music rights groups to attempt to close down sites in advance of a full hearing to assess their legality.

One such case involves eDonkey link site elrincondejesus.com and although fairly low profile worldwide, the site will now start to set headlines.

Back in May last year, site and bar owner Jesus Guerra received a complaint from music group SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores y Editores) which alleged the site abused the copyrights of its members.

In a June court appearance, SGAE hoped to get an early injunction to shut Elrincondejesus immediately in advance of a full hearing which would happen at a later date. Guerra protested that his site is legal, carries no advertising and simply provides links like any other search engine.

Judge Raul N. García Orejudo threw out the request for an immediate closure of the site in July, declaring: “P2P networks, as a mere transmission of data between Internet users, do not violate, in principle, any right protected by Intellectual Property Law.”

Dead Starfish Cover Beach

Posted in Freaky Deaky

Posted by Abeo March 19, 2010 at 12:25 pm

starfish

“Thousands of starfish have been washed up on a Devon beach after becoming exhausted while spawning. Thousands of dead starfish covered a pebble beach over a mile-long stretch. It is thought they drifted into shallow waters to feed on mussels and other shellfish but were brought ashore.

The starfish were strewn along the beach at Budleigh Salterton, East Devon. The Environment Agency said it appeared to be a natural occurrence and not caused by pollution. A line of the creatures stretched for more than a mile across the pebbles at Budleigh Salterton.

One expert said the process of reproduction had left the starfish “tired out” and they had been left “susceptible” to tides and the wind. Similar events happen once or twice a year in the UK, but it is the first time for Budleigh Salterton.”

Read more at The Telegraph (thanks, KirstyJ)

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Scientists supersize quantum mechanics

Posted in Freaky Deaky, Interesting Theories, Technology

Posted by Phillis March 19, 2010 at 12:21 pm

Nature.com reports on an article that put us in to a state of flux with a curious mention of Schrodinger’s cat.

Article as follows:

A team of scientists has succeeded in putting an object large enough to be visible to the naked eye into a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving.

Andrew Cleland at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team cooled a tiny metal paddle until it reached its quantum mechanical ‘ground state’ — the lowest-energy state permitted by quantum mechanics. They then used the weird rules of quantum mechanics to simultaneously set the paddle moving while leaving it standing still. The experiment shows that the principles of quantum mechanics can apply to everyday objects as well as as atomic-scale particles.

The work is simultaneously being published online today in Nature and presented today at the American Physical Society’s meeting in Portland, Oregon.

According to quantum theory, particles act as waves rather than point masses on very small scales. This has dozens of bizarre consequences: it is impossible to know a particle’s exact position and velocity through space, yet it is possible for the same particle to be doing two contradictory things simultaneously. Through a phenomenon known as ’superposition’ a particle can be moving and stationary at the same time — at least until an outside force acts on it. Then it instantly chooses one of the two contradictory positions.

Full article at Nature.com

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Southampton

Posted in DB Direct

Posted by Derren March 18, 2010 at 11:12 am

It’s the nature of touring that you rarely get to know a city at all, even if you come back year after year. The Mayflower Theatre in Southampton is a regular venue for us: about 2300 strong, it’s a good size and always sells out quickly, despite the huge Bournemouth BIC just down the road where we play later on. As familiar as I am with the brief walk from stage door to the Waterstones in the shopping mall round by John Lewis, I still have no sense of the city. However, I have an inkling of the people.

You can get a sense of a town by two factors on tour: the audience and those people who come to stage door. The sounds and energy of the audience betray the general liveliness of the place (bright, dynamic Bristol goes mental after every routine and roars with approval when the show starts; tranquil Eastbourne sits quietly or coughs), and the amount and style of Twittering in the interval says a lot about them too. Even the local level of intelligence can be broadly gauged by the jokes it laughs most at, and this too varies hugely from city to city.

Stage door is trickier, as it is only the less casual attendees who are prepared to wait around in the cold after the show. Many of these have travelled, but the locals or locally studying are easy enough to spot. Southampton, I think more than any city so far, has provided the loveliest bunch at stage door (competition is high: you’re always very lovely to meet). Only a smallish handful of 20 or so gathered, which is a nice amount of people to take ones time with, and all bubbly, polite, pleasant and relaxed. Some were hugely excited to meet me, but none had the solemn urgency of the too-strongly-fixated; programmes were signed and snapshots snapped in a particularly congenial atmosphere. I was delighted, but not surprised, to hear yesterday from a particularly likeable cabbie (who was rueing the fact that after dropping me off at my remote hotel, he would have to drive back alone through the New Forest in the thick, eldritch mists of midnight) that Southampton has just been voted most friendly city on the UK. (Not ‘in England’ as I tweeted last night, apologies). London, of course, came proudly last.

Tonight is a return night to gorgeous Bristol, and a long day for us all. We must drive to Bristol, the crew must build the show (while I have meetings), run the show, dismantle it and then drive home around midnight. This is the first time back for quite a while, and we get to have a few days off. Tomorrow I’m filming a sketch, and on Sunday night I’m off to the Olivier Awards with my lovely Andy Nyman to lose happily Tom Whitnall’s Morecambe. Back on Monday, in Andy’s home city Leicester, with the silly, upbeat energy that always comes from not having done it for a few days.

Right. Must check the local papers to make sure that the cabbie last night got home safely and was not, as I suggested when leaving the car, slaughtered, bum-raped or both. Hugs.

PS Yes, I know that’s a different Southampton on the map.

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We Feel Your Pain: Extreme Empaths

Posted in Freaky Deaky, Interesting People

Posted by Abeo March 18, 2010 at 11:04 am

eek

“HORROR films are simply a disconcerting watch for the majority of us, but for Jane Barrett they are literally torturous. She writhes in agony whenever the actors on the screen feel pain. ‘When I see violence in films I have an extreme reaction,’ she says. “I simply have to close my eyes. I start to feel nauseous and have to breathe deeply.”‘

She is just one of many people who suffer from a range of disorders that give rise to ‘extreme empathy’. Some of these people, like Barrett, empathise so strongly with others that they experience the same physical feelings – whether it’s the tickle of a feather or the cut of a knife. Others, who suffer from a disorder known as echopraxia, just can’t help immediately imitating the actions of others, even in inappropriate situations.

Far from being mere curiosities, understanding these conditions could have many pay-offs for neuroscience, such as illuminating conditions like phantom pain. They may even help answer the age-old question of whether empathy really is linked to compassion.”

Read more at New Scientist (thanks, Tiram)

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