Portent

Anyone into sci fi will be aware of both these series (never mind Babylon 5, Deep Space 9 and others) and it’s fun in a way to compare the two main ones to see how they vary in technologies, size, number of planets, political systems etc.

This is an almost academical in its scope but much more interesting reading than most academic papers. It makes a point of sticking to the canonical (ie most representative) sources such as the film and TV series whereas some other sites might cite fan fiction or non main stream sources. The ST v SW debate has been ongoing in one shape or another (via Usenet to start with) for over 20 years and this site is a welcome addition.

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Possibly qualifying for the most meaningless story title, the linked site (courtesy of Sky Arts) is a webcam showing several views and sounds of each of the 2,400 people who were successful in applying for an hour of glory. Each gets a designated hour to stand on the 4th plinth (the empty one on the north west square) in Trafalgar Square and do anything legal. 27,628 applied so it was a bit of a lottery.

The idea was the brainchild of artist Anthony Gormley and you can read about it here.

This is a 24 x 7 project over a 100 day period so if you’re in London in the early hours and can’t sleep, take a look! it’s on all night, every night.

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Ever fancied being in a movie? This British website (movie? We call them films!) lets you audition by video for one of many roles.

Additionally you can invest as an angel, with a £109 minimum, which also gives you voting privileges to help choose a cast that doesn’t appear to be made of solid timber. They need £1.2 million and are already 10% of the way there. The director and script are both award winning and if you register you can view the script. There’s a directors blog and an online community. An interesting approach and I hope the film is a smash hit.

Having said that, the site has two things I hate- white text on black and too much Flash animations- it eats up CPU time! Bring out an HTML version of the site please! (There might be one I didn’t see it).

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