How Netflix Reverse Engineered Hollywood - Alexis C. Madrigal

Improbable research: The Limerick laureate works his magic In 2003, an independent scholar from New Jersey began submitting limericks for a competition in mini-AIR, the monthly online supplement to my magazine, Annals of Improbable Research. The contest challenges readers to read an off-putting scholarly citation, and explain it in limerick form. Martin Eiger so consistently won that we eventually banned him as an unfair competitor, gave him the title Limerick laureate, and now publish him every month. He handles a huge range of subject matter. An early Eiger limerick summarised a Japanese study called Pharmacological Aspects of Ipecac Syrup (TJN-119) - Induced Emesis in Ferrets: If you're hoping to hash out a thesis,And stuck for a topic: emesis,As triggered in ferretsUndoubtedly meritsMuch more than a mere exegesis. Warwick University mathematician Jonathan Warren's 1999 treatise On the Joining of Sticky Brownian Motion includes a three-page proof of the Non-cosiness of Sticky Brownian Motion.

Before You See 'The Counselor': Watch 1977 Film 'The Gardener's Son,' Cormac McCarthy's First Produced Script While there's still no sign of Ridley Scott's "The Counselor" at either Venice, Toronto or New York (perhaps it'll pop up in Telluride?), the anticipation for the film still remains very high. Not only does it feature a ridiculous cast (Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and more), it also has a script from one of America's literary titans, Cormac McCarthy. This is something written directly for the screen, not an adaption of a book, but as hardcore fans know, this isn't the first script he's written. Way, way back in 1977 PBS unveiled "The Gardener's Son," as part of their "Visions" series of original programming, and it's a feature length film penned by none other than McCarthy. Nominated for two primetime Emmy awards, the movie has been somewhat forgotten.

BI V2.0: The self-replicating 3D printer 3D printing promises that one day we may be able to print out goods in our own homes rather than popping down to the shops or ordering widgets online. But what happens when the printers are able to print themselves? Boots Industries’ BI V2.0 takes a step down that road with a design aimed at self-replication. Currently the subject of a Kickstarter campaign, the open-source printer is capable of printing its own core components. View all Founded in 2012 by Jean Le Bouthillier and François Crête, Boots Industries already has several other printers on the market, but the BI V2.0 is something of a departure for the company. The key to the BI V2.0 is that it’s a delta-style 3D printer, based on the delta robots developed in the 1980s for picking up small objects rapidly and precisely. The design incorporates sleeved wiring with quick disconnects for easy maintenance, and the company says that the whole printer takes only 30 minutes to an hour to put together.

10 reasons why today's TV is better than movies | Television & radio Have you heard the news? The golden age of television is over. It's true. Now, I love film. 1. When applied correctly, the elongated storytelling opportunities afforded by television trump cinema's frayed reliance on the drudgery of 90-minute three-act plots. 2. Hollywood is increasingly reliant on brand recognition, churning out endless sequels and spinoffs and reboots because it's easier than marketing an original idea. 3. At its best, a TV show can be freeform, veering from comedy to thriller to horror and back again. 4. Again, look at Breaking Bad. 5. Because television is increasingly becoming a writer's medium, it is attracting the best acting talent. 6. The state of British TV is leagues ahead of British film. 7. One of David's points was that Kate Winslet is often called upon to be an American in films. 8. 9. Bruce Willis started on TV. 10. Netflix is changing the way we consume media.

Stanford Prison Exp IT BEGAN WITH AN AD in the classifieds. Male college students needed for psychological study of prison life. $15 per day for 1-2 weeks. More than 70 people volunteered to take part in the study, to be conducted in a fake prison housed inside Jordan Hall, on Stanford's Main Quad. The leader of the study was 38-year-old psychology professor Philip Zimbardo. He and his fellow researchers selected 24 applicants and randomly assigned each to be a prisoner or a guard. Zimbardo encouraged the guards to think of themselves as actual guards in a real prison. The study began on Sunday, August 17, 1971. Forty years later, the Stanford Prison Experiment remains among the most notable—and notorious—research projects ever carried out at the University. The public's fascination with the SPE and its implications—the notion, as Zimbardo says, "that these ordinary college students could do such terrible things when caught in that situation"—brought Zimbardo international renown. The Superintendent Mark.

50 Best Horror Movies of All Time Come on in, the blood's fine Horror movies aren’t for everyone. You’ve heard it a million times, or else you’ve said it a million times: “I just don’t like them”. What you should say — what’s far more likely — is that you don’t like most horror movies. Truth is, skimming our list of the best 50 horror films of all time on this very special Friday the 13th should do more to convince you than any argument ever will. Methodology: like our books piece, the selections for our Definitive Men’s Movie Collection represent our favorites, “considered in the light of how much they changed our lives, and might change yours.”

Connected Underwear Will Turn You On LAS VEGAS — Ladies, your lacy underwear is about to get a whole lot smarter. Connected sex toy company OhMiBod announced at the 2014 International CES show in Las Vegas on Monday panties that can be controlled by a partner. In line with the wearable technology trend, the blueMotion massager ($129) aims to give women pleasure with the help of its accompanying iOS or Android app. Vibrations can be controlled for solo play or by another user nearby. "It's a really fun way to control vibrations without anyone knowing what you're doing because the remote is on your phone," Brian Dunham, who founded OhMiBod along with his wife Suki, told Mashable. Dunham said he and Suki came up with the concept when they noticed they were spending too much time on their smartphones and less time being intimate. The vibrator has a Bluetooth chip inside it, which slides into the front of the blue panty. BlueMotion can also record ambient sound up to 60 seconds. Image: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Las limitaciones de las majors reducen el potencial actual del Video On Demand El futuro de la televisión (y el presente) pasa por el Video On Demand (VOD), un concepto que se refiere a la posibilidad de ofrecer al usuario una videoteca de contenidos que rompe con la dinámica habitual de los canales lineales y que ofrece al usuario la posibilidad de disfrutar de sus series, películas u otros programas, sin coste adicional, y cuándo, cómo y dónde quieran. La fórmula es sencilla, no es nueva y ya está funcionando pero las limitaciones de las distribuidoras de los contenidos no terminan de explotar las enormes ventajas del VOD. ¿Tiene sentido ofrecer un capítulo de una serie durante menos de una semana? La industria impone limitaciones a la disponibilidad de los contenidos, tanto en tiempo, como en dispositivos y otras cuestiones. Al final, el usuario no entiende las limitaciones que las plataformas se ven obligadas a trasladar y la consecuencia es una desconfianza que juega en contra del despegue de la televisión de pago. ¿Una cuestión de dinero?

Walking Through Doorways Causes Forgetting We’ve all experienced it: The frustration of entering a room and forgetting what we were going to do. Or get. Or find. New research from University of Notre Dame Psychology Professor Gabriel Radvansky suggests that passing through doorways is the cause of these memory lapses. “Entering or exiting through a doorway serves as an ‘event boundary’ in the mind, which separates episodes of activity and files them away,” Radvansky explains. “Recalling the decision or activity that was made in a different room is difficult because it has been compartmentalized.” The study was published recently in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. Conducting three experiments in both real and virtual environments, Radvansky’s subjects – all college students – performed memory tasks while crossing a room and while exiting a doorway.

635 Free Movies Online: Great Classics, Indies, Noir, Westerns, etc. Watch 4,000+ movies free online. Includes clas­sics, indies, film noir, doc­u­men­taries and oth­er films, cre­at­ed by some of our great­est actors, actress­es and direc­tors. The col­lec­tion is divid­ed into the fol­low­ing cat­e­gories: Com­e­dy & Dra­ma; Film Noir, Hor­ror & Hitch­cock; West­erns (many with John Wayne); Mar­tial Arts Movies; Silent Films; Doc­u­men­taries, and Ani­ma­tion. Free Comedy & Dramas 125 Kore­an Fea­ture Films — Free — The Kore­an Film Archive has put on YouTube over 100 Kore­an fea­ture films, includ­ing Im Kwon-taek’s Sopy­on­je and Hong Sang­soo’s The Day the Pig Fell Into a Well. collective:unconscious — Free — Five indie film­mak­ers adapt each oth­er’s dreams for the screen. Free Hitchcock, Noir, Horror & Thriller Films A Buck­et of Blood - Free — Roger Cor­man’s clas­sic comedy/horror film set in Bohemi­an San Fran­cis­co. Find a com­plete col­lec­tion of Film Noir movies here and Alfred Hitch­cock movies here. Free Kung Fu & Martial Arts Films

Pupil reflections in photographs could help investigators solve crimes The eyes are more than windows to the soul, thanks to technologies that can reveal reflected faces in pupils of photographs. Dr. Rob Jenkins of the University of York's Department of Psychology published a study that showed how pupils in photographs of faces can be "mined" for hidden information. The study simulated crime photos, in which victims are photographed by attackers, to examine the reflections in the eyes of those being photographed. Jenkins and co-researcher Christie Kerr of the University of Glasgow's School of Psychology photographed eight people who were looking at four other individuals behind the camera. Despite poor image quality, face reflections were accurately identified Crime investigators often use photographic evidence to try to catch perpetrators. There are some limitations to the forensic use of photographs like these.

BBC is in a 'soft power' battle with international broadcasters | Media BBC director general Tony Hall wants the corporation to double its international reach from just over 250 million users today to 500 million by the time of its centenary in 2022. This target, set out last month, would be ambitious at the best of times, but looks extremely challenging after all the cuts that the World Service has had to digest in recent years, including the loss of 15 language services since 2006. It is also facing fast-growing competition for international audiences, a battle for "soft power" that was the subject of a seminar held at the BBC last week, A World of Influence. The BBC remains the world's leading international broadcaster, with a weekly reach of 256 million, including 192 million watching or listening to the World Service. CCTV may be unfamiliar to most British viewers – although its English language channel can be found on Sky and Freesat – but its global ambitions are huge. By contrast, will people trust CCTV?

Shock study, replicates Milgram's findings Nearly 50 years after the controversial Milgram experiments, social psychologist Jerry M. Burger, PhD, has found that people are still just as willing to administer what they believe are painful electric shocks to others when urged on by an authority figure. Burger, a professor at Santa Clara University, replicated one of the famous obedience experiments of the late Stanley Milgram, PhD, and found that compliance rates in the replication were only slightly lower than those found by Milgram. And, like Milgram, he found no difference in the rates of obedience between men and women. "People learning about Milgram's work often wonder whether results would be any different today," Burger says. Milgram found that, after hearing the learner's first cries of pain at 150 volts, 82.5 percent of participants continued administering shocks; of those, 79 percent continued to the shock generator's end, at 450 volts. —K.I.