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Archive for March, 2008
Soul owner
Paul, of the excellent Nottingham/East Midlands photography blog what does your soul…, is readying his first POD book for publication. No RSS feed link is visible on his blog, but one exists here.
Finally, actual 8mb/s broadband – maybe
31 Mar 2008 at 13:39
David Haden
Birmingham, Regeneration, Stoke-on-Trent
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BT’s new ‘high-speed’ 21CN broadband service has been unveiled, and it seems the taps have already been turned on at 39 exchanges in Birmingham and the Black Country, the first in the UK. I’ll be interested to hear from any readers on an existing uncapped BT Total 8mb/s connection — are you being automatically switched […]
Ideas of art, art of ideas
31 Mar 2008 at 12:55
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Creative industries, Photographers
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Interesting ‘just-in-time-delivery’ news, of three free events organised by London’s Arts Co, happening at IMI Suite of Birmingham’s Hippodrome theatre: “Culture & Identity: The Role of Place in Shaping the Arts” Tuesday 8th April, 6.30pm”8pm Speakers: Richard Billingham “ Artist, Turner Prize nominee, Catherine O’Flynn “ Writer, Costa First Novel Award winner 2007, James Yarker […]
Birmingham’s ‘commuter do-nut’ expands
Interesting info in the Times on where people are choosing to live in the West Midlands. Apparently, the M6 Toll and better rail services to London have opened up mid Staffordshire to commuters, and down-shifters from the south-east and London are surging into Worcester and Worcestershire. And the Birmingham commuter belt is relaxing a notch, […]
The Victorian popular fantastic
30 Mar 2008 at 23:20
David Haden
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Just released, to those who can afford £9,500, a huge online collection of images of Victorian stage magic, circus sideshows, and the fantastic supernatural in popular culture. Which inspires the thought that an investor might do worse than make a collection of today’s worthless popular ephemera, and stash it in a vault for 120 years […]
Epic fail
Adobe Acrobat has got to version 8, and it still doesn’t include a word count feature? Even in the professional edition? Amazing. So a user still has to convert the PDF to a format used by Adobe ‘s deadliest rival, and then load it in MS Word, just to get a word count? Even more […]
Amazon to ban Lulu books?
Urgh, nasty. Amazon are reportedly forcing book sellers to use their own print-on-demand service… or else. So people using services such as the excellent and affordable
Academic blogs as marketing tools
30 Mar 2008 at 11:37
David Haden
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Birmingham City University’s new marketing blog speculates about the marketing uses of academic blogs.
Oblivion obliviated
This month sees the second anniversary of the release of the videogame Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, generally hailed as one of the best games yet made (yes, ok; best after you’ve spent four hours comprehensively modding it for the PC). So where’s the critical and academic literature on the game? Absolutely nowhere, it would seem, […]
Cultural Industries: The British Experience
29 Mar 2008 at 16:42
David Haden
Creative industries, Reading, Teaching
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A free copy of the 233-page book Cultural Industries: The British Experience in International Perspective (2006) (PDF, 2.2Mb).
Detected crime in Birmingham to quadruple by 2012?
This report doesn’t seem to bode well for a decrease in the level of crime, any time soon… “Birmingham’s planned new magistrates court were announced today [ it will be ] 15 storeys high and have 24 courtrooms. The existing Victoria Law Courts in Corporation Street will remain and will house around eight courtrooms.” So, […]
Nation as brand
Wally Olins will be giving the keynote speech (“The nation and the brand and the nation as a brand “) at the International Conference on Brand Management 2008, being held at the Birmingham Business School, 15th-16th April 08.
Vbug Brum
Vbug Spring Conference, in Birmingham on 24th April 08… “…we invite you to come along and take part in a great day of technological “axe sharpening” […] Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight […] start to see how the User Interfaces of the future might look […] Windows Workflow and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 or […]
Alt.fiction in Derby
It’s encouraging to see that the Alt.Fiction event seems to have survived the Arts Council’s recent mass cull of local authority literature officers in the East Midlands. This is the third annual one-day event, and is… “one of the UK’s leading event for writers and readers of horror, sci-fi and fantasy fiction.” It’s in Derby […]
Have a cow
27 Mar 2008 at 18:55
David Haden
Artist(s), Birmingham, Comic art, Reading
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Hunt Emerson has a new Large Cow…
Free photography events
I’ve just had an email from Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, who have three free photography workshops coming up… Monday 31st March 08, 12pm – 4pm, Cannon Hill Park and Nature Centre: a focus on wildlife and landscape photography with commercial photographer Rory Buckland. Wednesday 2nd April 08, 12pm – 4pm, Epic Skate Park, Moseley: […]
BIAD Open Days
BIAD, the largest art & design teaching and research institute outside London, has spring Open Days soon… Birmingham Institute of Art and Design … substantial portfolio of degree courses including Fine Art, Design such as Product, Textile, Fashion, Interior and Graphic plus courses in Media Communication including Photography, Journalism, TV and Radio Production PR and […]
“The plastic sprocket’s broken!”
27 Mar 2008 at 15:37
David Haden
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The problem with expensive kit is that it so often all hinges on some two-penny plastic sprocket or clip, and if that breaks then all the rest comes tumbling down. You could get out your whittling knife and superglue in order to make a replacement, although for things with intricate interiors the Ponoko fabrication service […]
Visioning the City
Organised by BIAD’s School of Architecture, the Visioning the City conference will examine the historical… “…process of creating a vision for a city centre, with special reference to the Highbury Initiative [ 25th-27th March 1988, the event which kick-started the redevelopment of Birmingham city centre ] … It will be of interest to those concerned […]