Pernicious Gremlins

‘Pernicious Gremlins’ Delayed Issue #2 Of Virgin’s iPad-Only Mag, Now Out 

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Staci D. Kramer
@sdkstl Jan 12, 2011 9:25 AM ET

 

I was literally in the middle of writing about Project‘s delayed second issue when I had to reload the page and it was for sale. Oddly, the Jan. 9 post about the delay was gone (thank you, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) cache), replaced completely by an earlier post about the new issue of the iPad-only magazine from Sir Richard Branson and company.  The reason for the delay six weeks after the first issue debuted:

“particularly pernicious gremlins have briefly postponed the release of Project issue 2. Think of it as ‘difficult second album” syndrome, but with more XML programming.”

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On the plus side, without printing or physical distribution, delaying the publication of a new digital-only issue has far fewer repercussions than missing the traditional newsstand date. This is also one place where not having a subscription yet helps: some people looking for the second issue may not come back but they haven’t paid for it yet. The cost sans subscription: $2.99 an issue.

Project has had more than its share of gremlins in its brief life. The first issue made the same mistake as Wired with its first iPad edition and came out of the gate too hefty to download easily for many. They trimmed the file size of the first issue by 33 percent, made some other tech tweaks and put it back up for free so people could trial it before the next one. They applied the same effort to the second issue. It took 8 minutes to download and install the 320MB file using WiFi, compared with 14 minutes last time. That puts the buying process at about 10 minutes if you know what you’re doing and already have the app installed. It’s also been adjust to work with the earlier version of iOS for iPad.

To be fair, the Project team—a staff from Virgin Digital with agency Seven Squared—is also trying to do more with the iPad than many other publishers and publish a completely new editorial venture. It’s an ambitious endeavor with a strong visual impact and an edge that’s sure to get more sharply honed if the mag is given the time to make its case.

Would I have spent the $3 this time if it weren’t my job? Probably not. I’m not the target audience of youngish, affluent males. And if I were, how many times would I pay the single-issue price? Hard to say. As this rate or slightly lower, it’s a rational price for a good monthly read. But Project is much more likely to succeed if it can solve recurring payments and expand to more devices in a cost-efficient way.

The first issue had Jeff Bridges on the moving cover; this month’s cover is adventurer Bear Grylls, ex-Special Forces turned TV host and author, perched on a roof ledge with the Manhattan skyline. The photo leading into the article is a striking image of Grylls unsinged in the midst of flames. He’ll survive. Will Project?

 Source:‘Pernicious Gremlins’ Delayed Issue #2 Of Virgin’s iPad-Only Mag, Now Out 

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Oscar Nominations 2011

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Few Surprises Appear As 'The King's Speech' Leads With 12 Oscar Nominations

 

The Academy Award nominations went largely as expected this morning, with the ten Best Picture nominations going to 127 Hours, The Kids Are All Right, The King's Speech, Black Swan, The Social Network, Inception, The Fighter, Winter's Bone, Toy Story 3, and True Grit. For a set of nominations that delivered so few surprises, they managed to do a reasonably good job of recognizing very fine films and actors. (Here's a list of the major nominees.)

The King's Speech led with 12 nominations, including major-category nods for its screenplay; actors Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush; and its director, Tom Hooper. Behind it were True Grit with 10 nominations, and Inception and The Social Network, both with eight.

Also making a strong showing was the Boston boxing film The Fighter, which had seven nominations, all in prominent categories — three for its acting (Christian Bale, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams, all in supporting categories — nothing for lead Mark Wahlberg), one for its screenplay, one for its director, and one for its editing, in addition to Best Picture.

In particularly good news, the marvelous, disquietingly still Ozarks-based drama Winter's Bone, a film that seemed at risk of being nudged out of a bunch of different categories and forgotten, wound up earning four nominations. And they're all big ones: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress (for near-rookie Jennifer Lawrence), and Best Supporting Actor candidate John Hawkes — an intriguing actor you may well know from a large backlog of character work on television (including a late run on Lost), whether you recognize his name or not.

 80 Years of the Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards

A Collection of 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films

Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection - 15 Winners, 26 Nominees

Awards Night Male Statuette

Awards Night Female Statuette
  One minor surprise was that Joel and Ethan Coen were nominated for Best Director for True Grit, alongside David O. Russell (The Fighter), Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David Fincher (The Social Network), and Hooper. That nudged out expected nominee Christopher Nolan, who directed the infernally complex Inception. Also showing up a little less than some expected was Ben Affleck's film The Town, which pulled in only a Supporting Actor nomination for Jeremy Renner after being talked up for a possible Best Picture spot.

The much-discussed "fifth spot" for Best Actor — after Firth, James Franco (127 Hours), Jeff Bridges (True Grit) and Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network) — went to Javier Bardem for Biutiful, which was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. That left out possible contenders like Robert Duvall (Get Low) and Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine).

Nominees for Best Actress, meanwhile, are Annette Bening (The Kids Are All Right), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone).

The least familiar acting nominee to the audience watching on Oscar night may be Jacki Weaver, nominated as Best Supporting Actress for Animal Kingdom, an Australian crime film. She'll face Helena Bonham Carter, Adams and Leo from The Fighter, and Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit — but back to that in a bit.

Perhaps the biggest shocker was over in Best Documentary, where one of the most-discussed docs of the year, Waiting For Superman, didn't make it, although two other buzzed-about films, Exit Through The Gift Shop and Restrepo, did.


As for snubs, there are a couple of things I found disappointing, but none of them are at all unexpected: I'd have liked to see more recognition for Blue Valentine, but the nomination for Williams is something. I also hoped Tangled might grab a Best Animated Feature nomination, but since I can't argue with Toy Story 3 and didn't see the other two (How To Train Your Dragon and The Illusionist), I'm in no position to complain. Furthermore, for the second year in a row, the expanded field allowed the big Pixar animated film of the summer to be nominated for Best Picture — last year, it was Up, this year, it was Toy Story 3.

   













I'd certainly have put Andrew Garfield up for Best Supporting Actor in The Social Network, but that's smaller and less aggressive acting, which, especially from a new-ish actor, can easily and not particularly objectionably be outshone by bigger performances (like Bale in The Fighter) or ones from actors who have been around longer (like Rush in The King's Speech). Matt Damon did some very nice work in True Grit, but if I could only have that nomination or the one for Hawkes in Winter's Bone, I'd take the nominations we got.

It does seem a little odd that Nolan was snubbed for Inception, but other than my sneaking sense that The Fighter is not quite the film it's made out to be aside from a couple of very big performances, I'm not sure who I'd bump out. I was not entirely sold on Black Swan, but I can't take anything away from the careful buildup of its creepy/ridiculous tone, which I do think is well-controlled, and that's partly to the credit of the director. (Interestingly, Black Swan was the one Best Picture nominee not to see its screenplay nominated.)

There's also the fairly dopey decision to shove young Hailee Steinfeld into Best Supporting Actress for what is unambiguously a leading performance in True Grit, but Academy politics being what they are, perhaps that was her best shot at being nominated at all. I wouldn't have had any trouble with her taking the Best Actress spots held by Portman or Bening, both of whom were very good but not as interesting as Steinfeld for my money, but neither of those things was ever going to happen.

You can always sit back and find oddities in the nominations — Blue Valentine has the same number of nominations as Tron: Legacy! — but while both The Social Network and Inception have their detractors, neither of them seems to have as many as The Blind Side and (to a lesser extent) Avatar did last year.

Bottom line? These nominations are likely to be significantly less controversial than the ones that came out a year ago — and to do more to advance the idea that this 10-contender Best Picture field may turn out to be a pretty good idea after all.

Source:  Oscar Nominations 2011

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Republic Day Of India ... 26th January

Republic Day (India)

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The Republic Day of India commemorates the date on which the Constitution of India came into force replacing the Government of India Act 1935 as the governing document of India on 26 January 1950.^[1] The date 26 January was chosen to honour the memory of the declaration of independence of 1930. It is one of the three national holidays in India, and while the main parade, Republic Day Parade takes place at the Rajpath, in the national capital New Delhi, where the president views the parade, state capitals also have their state celebrations.

Although India obtained its independence on 15 August 1947, it did not yet have a permanent constitution; instead, its laws were based on the modified colonial Government of India Act 1935, and the country was a Dominion, with George VI as head of state and Earl Mountbatten as Governor General. On 28 August 1947, the Drafting Committee was appointed to draft a permanent constitution, with Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar as chairman. While India's Independence Day celebrates its freedom from British Rule, the Republic Day celebrates the coming into force of its constitution.

A draft constitution was prepared by the committee and submitted to the Assembly on 4 November 1947. The Assembly met, in sessions open to public, for 166 days, spread over a period of 2 years, 11 months and 18 days before adopting the Constitution. After many deliberations and some modifications, the 308 members of the Assembly signed two hand-written copies of the document (one each in Hindi and English) on 24 January 1950. Two days later, the Constitution of India became the law of all the Indian lands. The Constitution of India came into effect only on 26 January 1950, 10.18 AM IST. Following elections on 21 January 1950, Rajendra Prasad was elected as the president of India. The Indian National Congress and other parties had been celebrating 26 January as a symbol of Independence, even before India actually became independent. Thus, signing the constitution on 26 January, to mark and respect 26 January and the freedom struggle and the freedom fighters.

 The amending mechanism was lauded even at the time of introduction by Ambedkar in the following words: "We can therefore safely say that the Indian federation will not suffer from the faults of rigidity or legalism. Its distinguished feature is that it is a flexible federation.

"The three mechanisms of the system derived by the Assembly, contrary to the predictions, have made the constitution flexible at the same time protected the rights of the states. They have worked better than the amending process in any other country where Federalism and the British Parliamentary system jointly formed the basis of the constitution".

What Sir Anthony Eden, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (April 1955 to January 1957), said at the time of the emergence of Indian Republic is relevant in this context. He said, ‘Of all the experiments in government, which have been attempted since the beginning of time, I believe that the Indian venture into parliamentary government is the most exciting. A vast subcontinent is attempting to apply to its tens and thousands of millions a system of free democracy... It is a brave thing to try to do so. The Indian venture is not a pale imitation of our practice at home, but a magnified and multiplied reproduction on a scale we have never dreamt of. If it succeeds, its influence on Asia is incalculable for good. Whatever the outcome we must honour those who attempt it.

Even more meaningful was the opinion expressed by an American Constitutional authority, Granville Austin, who wrote that what the Indian Constituent Assembly began was "perhaps the greatest political venture since that originated in Philadelphia in 1787."

Austin has also described the Indian Constitution as 'first and foremost a social document.' ... "The majority of India's constitutional provisions are either directly arrived at furthering the aim of social revolution or attempt to foster this revolution by establishing conditions necessary for its achievement."


Republic Day & Important Speeches: Presidents of India (1950-2007)

Presidents speak to the nation: Republic day speeches, 1950-2000

NEHRU: THE FIRST SIXTY YEARS Founding of the Republic of India, 1950.

What the republic needs: [Address delivered to the Bangalore Rotary Club on the Republic Day, 26-1-1953]

Source: Republic Day Of India ... 26th January

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Republic Day is celebrated with much enthusiasm all over the country and especially in the capital, New Delhi where the celebrations start with the Presidential address to the nation. The beginning of the occasion is always a solemn reminder of the sacrifice of the martyrs who died for the country in the freedom movement and the succeeding wars for the defense of sovereignty of their country.

Then, the President comes forward to award the medals of bravery to the people from the armed forces for their exceptional courage in the field and also the civilians, who have distinguished themselves by their different acts of valour in different situations.


 Republic Day & Important Speeches: Presidents of India (1950-2007)
 Presidents speak to the nation: Republic day speeches, 1950-2000
NEHRU: THE FIRST SIXTY YEARS Founding of the Republic of India, 1950

 
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Republic Day 2011 | Republic Day Of India | Happy Republic Day 2011 | 26th January

 

 

 

 

 

 

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