love me long time

a documentary about sex tourism in thailand

superstars of speed

jeremy clarkson documentary looking at people’s addiction to speed (as in ‘velocity’, not the drug)

les paul

documentary about the american jazz guitarist / guitar maker les paul.

this documentary is extremely hard to get hold of and has just (9th july) been uploaded to google video. it’s a 1979 documentary about plants and was one of the very few at the time to use time-lapse photography. on top of that, there’s a soundtrack by stevie wonder.

imdb entry is here.

it’s the full movie and if you don’t already know it’s about the motion picture association of america (mpaa) film rating system - imdb link.

it’s funny and worrying in equal doses and the best thing you can do right now is watch it through your balls (eye)….

(there’s an interesting interview with the director here)

some genius has decided to start uploading the episodes to pootube.

here’s ’strange planes’ (it’s about strange planes)…

part 1 

part 2 
 

here’s a collection of some of the best.

the yes men - dow chemical hoax

‘On December 3, 2004, the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster, Andy Bichlbaum appeared on BBC World as “Jude Finisterra”, a Dow Chemical spokesman. (Dow is the owner of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the chemical disaster which killed thousands and left over 120,000 requiring lifelong care.)

On their fake Dow Chemical Website, the Yes Men first said as clearly and emphatically as possible that Dow Chemical Company had no intention whatsoever of repairing the damage. The real company received considerable backlash and both the real Dow and the phony Dow denied the statements, but Dow took no real action.

The Yes Men decided to pressure Dow further, so as “Finisterra” went on the news to claim that Dow planned to liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting $12 billion to pay for medical care, clean up the site, and fund research into the hazards of other Dow products. After two hours of wide coverage, Dow issued a press release denying the statement, ensuring even greater coverage of the phony news of a cleanup.’

here’s the channel 4 news report following the actual interview which you can see below…

the hoax interview itself…

orson welles - war of the worlds

although technically not a hoax i’m including this as it’s generally known as one by millions of people.

‘A wave of mass hysteria seized thousands of listeners who were led to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York. The broadcast disrupted households, interrupted religious services, created traffic jams, and clogged communications systems. Thousands of telephone calls reached CBS stations, city authorities, newspaper offices, and police headquarters in various cities testified to the mistaken belief. The broadcast became a rumor that spread throughout the country, with many people standing on street corners, hoping for a sight of the “battle” in the skies’.

you can listen to / download the original radio broadcast here or stream it through the shambolic monster we know and love as youtube…

flemish independence hoax

seems like a slightly dangerous way to ’spark debate’ to me but that’s exactly what happened late december 2006 when belgian tv station rtbf aired a fake news report claiming that the dutch-speaking half of belgium had declared independence.

‘The French-language TV channel interrupted regular programming with an apparent news report, announcing that Dutch-speaking Flanders had unilaterally declared independence and that Belgium as a nation had ceased to exist. It showed “live” pictures of cheering crowds holding the Flemish flag, huge traffic jams leading to Brussels airport, and trams stuck at the new “border”.

“It’s very bad Orson Welles, in very poor taste,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.

The broadcast came amid an apparent growth of separatist sentiment in Flanders.’

good timing chaps.

bbc panorama’s spaghetti tree hoax

back in 1957, the geniuses at the bbc broadcast one of the funniest hoaxes ever and duped thousands into believing that pasta could be grown on trees.

‘The last two weeks of March are an anxious time for the spaghetti farmers. There’s always the chance of a late frost which - while not entirely ruining the crop - generally impairs the flavour, and makes it difficult for him to obtain top prices in world markets. But now these dangers are over, and the spaghetti harvest goes forward’.

following the airing of the programme the bbc switchboard recieved hundreds of calls from viewers wishing to grow the mysterious trees, to which the bbc replied:

‘Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”

here’s a slightly rough recording of the report….

alan abel

serial hoaxer alan abel has been labelled as the ‘best hoaxer on the plant’ by many and since the 1950’s has been fooling people on a huge scale. a recent documentary about him, made by his daughter, called ‘abel raises cain’ recently won the ‘best documentary’ award at the slamdance festival.

‘Alan Abel’s radio and television appearances include Today, Tonight, BBC, Good Morning America, 20/20, 48 Hours, National Public Radio and CNN Financial News.’

here are some clips from some of his hoaxes:

alan’s ‘ban breastfeedin’ hoax…

the ‘females for felons’ hoax…

his infamous ‘howard hughes’ hoax…

the big donor show

in may 2007 the creators of big brother, endemol, announced a new show called ‘the big donor show’ in which a terminally ill woman would select one of three patients to receive her kidneys live on tv. obviously the public thought this was a step too far and went fucking mental. it was quickly all over the worldwide news with members of every possible government condemning the programme.

however, the programme went ahead and in a twist at the end the host revealed the participants to be actors, the idea being to highlight the growing shortage of organ donors throughout the world.

job done.

joey skaggs

mr skaggs is another serial hoaxer who fittingly runs the sit pranks.com, an online resource for all things devious. he’s been duping the media for decades. in 2000 he proposed ‘a combined funeral company, virtual graveyard and theme park. It was meant to satirize showmanship in places like Forest Lawn cemeteries. Some investors were actually interested. Final Curtain’s website is still functioning.‘.

a couple of reports on skaggs…

hitler diaries

in 1983, konrad kujau created the ‘hitler diaries’ and later sold them as an authentic piece to ’stern magazine’ for 9.3 million deutschmarks. he was later jailed for 4 and a half years for forgery. the diaries were ‘peppered with personal comments such as “must get tickets for the olympic Games for eva” and “the little dr goebbels is up to his tricks again with women”, (but) the works still fooled many of those who came in contact with them.‘

fucking hilarious.

harvard - “we suck” hoax

‘On November 20 2004, at the annual Yale-Harvard football game, Yale students used a card stunt to trick more than 1,800 Harvard fans into holding up placards that spelled “WE SUCK.”

Michael Kai and David Aulicino, two Yale students from the Class of 2005, created and coordinated the plan. Disguised as the “Harvard Pep Squad,” they and twenty classmates handed white and crimson placards to fans in the central area of the Harvard side of the stadium, which comprised primarily Harvard alumni, as well as a few faculty, students, and other fans. The group told the crowd that by lifting the placards they would spell “GO HARVARD.” The placards were actually arranged to spell “WE SUCK.”‘

extras:

- bbc article on hoaxes

- top 100 april fools hoaxes at the briliant museum of hoaxes

- a gigantic list of hoaxes at wikipedia

- pc world’s top 25 web hoaxes and pranks

nothing riles me more than having an enthralling movie ruined by a spot of bullshit-physics. you know the scene - a moment just so unbelievable you feel like throwing the director off a bridge to remind him that it’s actually impossible to spin round and grab onto the railing that quickly.

purely to vent some frustration here’s my top 7 6 worst movie physics moments. i’m sure you’ll disagree with my choices, feel free to offer your own favourites.

6. what the (bleep) do we know? - whole film

a film/documentary supposedly about quantum physics which has earned worldwide condemnation from physicists around the world due to the fact that it’s full of shit and is essentially pseudoscience. the first part of the whole film is below if you’re curious (later parts can be found here if you look hard enough) and there’s an interesting article about the film here.

5. speed - bridge jump

it’s a classic movie-physics moment and one i’ll always hold close.

fuck knows how the bus would go anywhere but down after leaving the edge. there’s no visible ramp or elevation on the tarmac yet the bus still manages to soar as if filled with helium. even at 200mph it’d have trouble making the gap.

4. the core - melting the golden gate bridge

this movie is full to the brim with scientific nonsense and to be honest i wasn’t sure which part to include.

here’s a clip of the golden gate bridge being melted by microwave radiation. read about the many other bullshit moments hither.

(by the way, if you want to experience every single shit-physics moment in the movie, bizarrely the whole film is on google video here)

3. die hard - firehose escape

yippee-ky-something.

i always had massive doubts about mclane leaping from the burning building, hose around the waist, magically managing to swing to safety. surely he’d fall straight down at immense speed and crush some internal organs?

yes, he would’ve. follow this link and you’ll see that someone has done the maths and proven mclane wrong.

2. independence day - virus transfer

remember when goldblum’s character helped to take down the aliens by installing a handmade virus onto the ufo’s computers with his laptop? holy fuck, that was more than genius. usb’s really are universal huh?

1. unknown movie - horse slide

please, if you know the name of this film let me know so i can find the director and shake his hand.

one of the funniest and least realistic chase scenes i’ve witnessed. first the horse falls over and visibly stops travelling, then we see a man on a fake horse sliding under a lorry after magically acquiring momentum from an unknown source. even a car manages to leap over the lorry shortly afterwards, good job it managed to catch that ramp at the right time.

also worth a look:

- hollywood science: car chases

- insultingly stupid movie physics, a brilliant and hilarious site

- bad astronomy, another brilliant site but focusing on shit astronomy in cinema rather than physics