wtorek, 20 grudnia 2011
Rosja przekaza?a materia?y ws. wizyt Tuska i Kaczy?skiego
sobota, 10 grudnia 2011
piątek, 9 grudnia 2011
czwartek, 8 grudnia 2011
11na11: Nikt go nie zaskoczy?! Uzyska? komplet punkt�w
Unia wzmacnia fundusze ratunkowe?
środa, 7 grudnia 2011
Tech Weekly podcast: Gadget and game Christmas gift guide
Aleks Krotoski and Charles Arthur are joined by Which? technology reporter Ben Stevens to run through the best of the technology fruit under the Christmas tree. Under consideration are the pick of the tablet, ebook reader, mobile phone, camera, and audio and video markets. Is it going to be an iPad Christmas, or will Kindle carry it? Which brands should you avoid, and which should you invest in?
Games correspondent Keith Stuart asks Guardian, Eurogamer and Edge writer Simon Parkin and IGN's UK editor Keza MacDonald which games should end up under the tree, and which are just fodder.
And among all this consumer consumption, there are a few news stories. Kaitlyn Thaney of Digital Science talks the team through the implications of David Cameron's NHS open data plan ? releasing prescription and referral data to the public on data.gov.uk. Charles explains how the Iranian's use of Gmail and Skype may be intercepted by hackers. And we find out what the continuing decline in sales of RIM's Playbook tablet means for the company that makes Blackberry.
All this in a jam-packed edition of Tech Weekly from the Guardian.
Don't forget to...
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/pda/audio/2011/dec/07/tech-weekly-gadget-games-gift-guide-audio
wtorek, 6 grudnia 2011
Steven Nott's witness statement to the Leveson inquiry - full text
Full text of the statement to the inquiry on press standards by the sales manager who raised concerns about voicemail insecurity
poniedziałek, 5 grudnia 2011
Las Acacias ? review
In this widely praised minimalist road movie a middle-aged Argentinian long-distance lorry driver gives a young Paraguayan single mother and her five-month-old daughter a lift from southern Paraguay to Buenos Aires. Virtually nothing is said in the first half hour and little in the next 50 minutes. There are no interesting encounters, the scenery is unremarkable. But he gradually takes to the child, offers them water to drink and does a little nursing. Not exactly The Wages of Fear.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2011/dec/04/las-acacias-review
Guardian Viral Video Chart: baby rapper, Nando's v Mugabe and Gaddafi
Watch a two-year-old dropping some rhymes and a Nando's ad that pokes fun at dictators in our rundown of the top online clips
Never too young to start ? and so it proves for this young scamp, dropping beats (that's the phrase, isn't it?) with the UK rapper Alim Kamara.
At the other end of the age scale, watch what happens when an 82-year-old woman tries sweets that pop in your mouth (and, no, her teeth don't fall out). And since it's that time of the month, here's a "fail" compilation for November, and a bizarre advert for Norweigan jewellery.
Finally, the fall of Muammar Gaddafi has inspired an ad from Nando's South Africa poking fun at rulers from Iraq's Saddam Hussein to Uganda's Idi Amin. However, it has apparently been pulled after its portrayal of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe as the "last dictator standing" resulted in threats to Nando's staff in the country. You can watch it here:
Guardian Viral Video Chart. Compiled by Unruly Media and chopped around by Josh.
1 Two year old rapping
Never too young to start.
2 82-year-old woman tries 'pop rocks' for first time
You miss the part where her entire jaw falls off.
3 Guess which high street chain is behind this ad?
No, us neither.
4 A November fail compilation
Just ... ouch!
5 Urine-controlled video games in a London bar
It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?
6 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 at Tesco
7 Heresy
Very odd advert for a Norweigan jewellery firm.
8 Life after Santa ? Blitzen's story
Three minutes of my life I will never understand.
9 A big fan of sunglasses
What do they say about people who wear sunglasses indoors?
10 The evolution of Google search
Interesting ... if you can keep your eyes open.
Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 1700 on 1 December 2011. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2011/dec/02/viral-video-chart-rapper-nandos-fails
niedziela, 4 grudnia 2011
Teacher Network newsletter: A time-saving toolkit, Pearl Harbour and festive goodies galore
This week's newsletter is jam-packed with information, inspiration and great classroom resources
Dear colleagues
Recommend to a friend... and win tasty treats
The last few weeks before the end of any term are always hectic - and never more so than before Christmas when everyone is knee-deep in festive productions, carol concerts, parties, presents and of course trying to deliver lessons and mark work, all while warding off the threat of colds, coughs and bugs (or at least they are in the Northern hemisphere).
So we thought you could do with a treat. And not any old treat - no, this is a Guardian Teacher Network treat - a delicious hamper filled with the finest wines, Champagne, chutneys, mince pies, fudge and more. All the best bits of Christmas delivered to you in a gorgeous wicker hamper.
Ah, but what's the catch I hear you cry? Well there is no catch - you're a member of the Guardian Teacher Network and all we are asking you to do to lay your hands on this epicurean box of delights is to rally as many of your teacher friends/colleagues as possible to become members too. So you get a seriously tasty present and they get access to more resources than Santa can pull on his sleigh.
To enter, simply forward the email (which will have a unique tracking code in it) that we are going to send you on Monday 12 December to as many colleagues as possible and encourage them to join the network. The more that sign up, the better your chance of winning the prize. It really is that simple.
For more details see here: Christmas hamper competition
New teaching resources on the network
This week we are delighted to unveil yet another superb teaching resource by our good friend Mike Gershon. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of using Mike's superb time-saving resources, let us introduce you - Mike's most recent resource ican be found here: Essay-Writing-Toolkit but to access any of Mike's other resources (which include the fabulous Plenary Producer and the Starter Generator) just put Mike Gershon in the site search box.
Resource highlights this week
Primary
Secondary
Correlation and scatter diagrams
Blog of the week
Normally we reserve this spot for the blog of the week - the best of the bunch that we want to draw your attention to - just in case you missed it! But this week we feel we wanted to share with a blog that has really hit the mark- it is the most viewed blog for November and it is the story of a singing gorilla called Gus. Primary teacher Des Hegarty uses Gus as a tool to help his classes learn about the importance of storytelling. But enough from me - read his blog here.
If you have a great resource you would like to share on our blogs section, please do get in contact with emma.drury@guardian.co.uk.
Looking to change jobs or to fill a role?
At the time of writing our dedicated jobs site Schools Jobs has more than 1,400 jobs advertised - could one of them be your dream job? Take a look here: schoolsjobs.guardian.co.uk. And if you need a role filling then remember it is still FREE to advertise your jobs with us at the moment - whether they are teaching or non-teaching roles - get in contact by emailing schools.listings@guardian.co.uk. Our job ads are getting fantastic response so why not give us a try? It's free!
Seminars coming up
Due to popular demand the Guardian's Education Centre is running another Insight into digital journalism seminar on Friday 10 February 2012 09.15am - 4.30pm. The seminar will focus on all aspects of digital journalism including writing and editing for a news website, the relationship between print and web journalism, live blogging, the use of social media, podcasting, video production and new platforms and channels. It will also address the future of journalism and new developments including the Guardian's digital first strategy and its implications.
Throughout the day delegates will meet a range of journalists and editors as well as taking part in a hands on session where they will learn video editing skills.
Booking and more information here.
And finally?
On a more serious note Wednesday is the 70th anniversary of the WWII attack on Pearl Harbour - we have gathered together a set of useful resources for you to use in class which will be published on Tuesday in the paper and on educationguardian.co.uk - so please do keep an eye open for them.
Have a great week.
Very best wishes,
Wendy Berliner
Head of Education, Business and Professional
Guardian News and Media
If you want to sign up to this weekly newsletter you need to register on the Guardian Teacher Network.
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This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. Sign up to the Guardian Teacher Network to get access to almost 100,000 pages of teaching resources and join our growing community.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/2011/dec/04/guardian-teacher-network-resources
sobota, 3 grudnia 2011
Energy firms face accusations of profiteering
Household electricity bills have soared beyond wholesale cost fluctuations ? adding to pressure for competition inquiry
The big six energy companies have been repeatedly taking advantage of brief spikes in the wholesale price of electricity to pass on much longer-term increases to householders, new analysis for the Guardian shows.
The revelations of potential profiteering over many years were described as appalling by one MP and come amid mounting political pressure for a competition inquiry into the energy sector.
Npower, British Gas and others have repeatedly denied claims of profiteering and have blamed "green taxes" for increasing costs. But new calculations by statisticians at Manchester University show a widening gap between wholesale and retail prices, even before the last couple of months when domestic bills have soared and yet wholesale prices have slumped.
"There is a clear trend and this shows a widening gap between the price consumers pay and the wholesale cost paid by the energy companies," said Dr Nathan Green, a statistician at the university.
The Guardian obtained data on retail prices paid by consumers for their electricity and compared it with a composite measure of wholesale prices paid by electricity companies, generated by information specialist Mintec. This data shows retail prices, even excluding the impact of the relatively new climate change levy, increasing at a faster rate than wholesale electricity prices.
In the first six months of 2004, retail electricity prices were on average �1.93 per 100 kilowatt hour higher than the wholesale measure. By 2010 this gap had more than doubled, to over �4. It narrowed in 2011 as a result of well-publicised cost increases in the wholesale market, but averaged �2.73 in summer ? even before the price rises passed on to householders by the big six this autumn.
Green said: "When you take into account seasonal variation, random fluctuations and the time lags between wholesale costs rising and retail prices following, there is never a time at which the energy companies are losing money."
Green's statistical model suggested around 80% of the winter price spike was passed to the consumer price, but when wholesale markets fell in summer, retail prices moved far less ? only around 50% of the amount. The data also shows that when wholesale prices suddenly spike ? as they did in 2009 ? consumer prices rapidly follow suit. However, prices fall back more slowly and to a lesser degree after the wholesale price spike abates.
Richard Lloyd, executive director at consumer group Which?, said the new analysis was alarming. "People don't trust energy companies to charge them a fair price, and this widening gap between wholesale and retail costs will do nothing to put anyone's mind at rest. Suppliers have a long way to go before they can prove that recent price increases are justified," he said.
John Robertson, an opposition MP who has been at the forefront of campaigns against fuel poverty, believed that the study proved what he and others had been saying for years.
"I find it appalling that [regulator] Ofgem have taken so long to catch on to this as MPs like myself have been telling them till we were blue in the face that the wholesale market price and the rise in prices by energy companies is way off kilter. Ofgem couldn't have moved any slower on this issue. If they had, they would have stood still. It's taken them years to realise what the rest of us from customers to MPs saw as obvious," he said.
Centrica, the parent company of British Gas, upset critics earlier this year when it reported annual pre-tax profits of �1.9bn ? its largest ever ? and then months later raised consumer gas and electricity prices by 18% and 16% respectively.
Christine McGourty, director of Energy UK, the lobby group that works on behalf of the big power groups, said the Guardian data did not provide a meaningful picture of the costs of providing energy to consumers.
"Companies buy much of their energy in advance, at different times, ensuring the energy is available when it's needed and allowing them to smooth out prices for consumers over time," she said.
"In addition, what consumers pay for in their energy bills is not just the cost of the gas and electricity they use but a wide range of other factors which have been increasing, such as environmental and social obligations and the costs of using the energy networks."
Independent industry experts such as Utilyx say the lack of transparency in power company costs and prices make it very hard to judge what is going on. But they note that energy companies hiked retail prices by up to 18% late summer and yet wholesale gas prices have plunged since from 78p per therm in early September to 58p now. Electricity prices are down heavily too due to mild weather and other factors.
Volker Beckers, chief executive of RWE npower, insisted recently that his company made just �1.50 profit on every �100 spent, while making a loss per average customer between 2004 and 2009.
He said: "These are not the figures associated with an industry that is profiteering or uncompetitive."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/02/energy-firms-accusations-profiteering-electricity
Arse-covering warnings on financial armageddon aplenty. Solutions? None | Marina Hyde
As Mervyn King proclaims we're hurtling towards the biggest crisis ever, our leaders could offer more than total inertia
Last weekend, I sat under a tree in the park in the blazing hot sunshine. What was wrong with this picture? Well, not a lot, really ? until a small gust of wind brought down a strangely ominous shower of dark brown leaves, even as the mercury was hitting 29 degrees. It all suddenly felt like one of those portentous scenes at the start of apocalyptic movies, when you just know that the innocent, gambolling civilians going about their daily lives are less than one reel away from an ice ship floating up a ghostly Fifth Avenue, or an asteroid relieving the world of Los Angeles, or the worst financial crisis in living memory.
"The biggest financial crisis the world has ever faced" was in fact how Mervyn King chose to issue this week's siren wail, yet another warning giving rise to that weird formless terror that manifests itself in the form of simply muddling on as usual.
Not for everyone, of course. It is already impossible to keep calm and carry on for those who have already lost services upon which they relied. Yet even those cuts are merely licking their lips before beginning to bite in savage earnest, and we are told that those already hit have no idea of the horrors still to come. The cataclysmic event around the corner is still unseen and uncomprehended by almost everyone, and the parallels with the phoney war are inescapable.
The muddling along is understandable in those of us powerless to do anything else, suffused with a vague inchoate dread that does not preclude normal activities such as putting a wash on or wondering who'll get ditched first in The X Factor live shows. It is less appealing in any number of political leaders, who appear perfectly content to flaunt their studied inaction against a host of well-appointed international backdrops.
Keith Richards claims the Rolling Stones' manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham once locked him and Mick Jagger in a room and refused to let them out till they'd written a song. Forgive the naivety ? especially given where the sophisticated expert approach has landed us ? but can't the powers that be agree to a global conference and refuse to release themselves until they've come up with a better solution to this crisis than inertia?
At least none of them has yet brandished a piece of paper that claims to be able to solve this thing, which is the point we'll know we're truly doomed, and the laying in of tinned goods and duct tape will begin in earnest.
Instead, we are now blessed with a daily procession of messengers who are no longer shot by their craven superiors. Time was that warning the economic times were the worst in 60 years earned Alistair Darling a monstering from his old friend Gordon's attack dogs. George Osborne was admonished for talking down the pound, and even last year Kenneth Clarke was hushed for warning that western economies were in grave danger of collapse. Today, the economists who did such a bang-up job of not predicting the meltdown three years ago are falling over themselves with arse-covering warnings. Solutions? Alas, not so much.
Thus warning of impending doom has itself become a displacement activity, a version of those inappropriate responses displayed by creatures in peril who are torn between conflicting instincts. When deciding between fight or flight, birds will often peck the ground in absent-minded search of food. The lesser spotted British politician will hold party conferences.
There may be some who find the little plotlines thrown up by these elaborately pointless events a seemly response to impending financial armageddon. I have my doubts. In fact, without wishing to go out on a limb here, I suspect that the so-called catflap between Ken Clarke and Theresa May may come to rank as the most historically ill-advised displacement activity since Nero surveyed the flames licking the Circus Maximus and opted to call for his fiddle.
Mervyn King has yet to inform us whether the crisis will drive humanity down into Earth's catacombs, where we will be forced to distil drinking water from our own urine. But we'll certainly need the odd diversion when the gathering storm breaks, so let's hope our immediate descendants will be wildly amused that so much vital debate was had over the precise weight of influence a particular cat had over some dust-gathering immigration judgment while we teetered on the brink of financial collapse. The cat in question may well become a fictional star, regarded by future novelists as an absolute gift of a way into the story of a ruling class unable to acknowledge their own sensational impotence.
It is fashionable to talk about narratives in politics, so we might observe that the narrative that has long been coalescing is that something unstoppable is in motion. A disaster was set in train ages ago, and it must play out as it will. It is as if we are living in macrocosm the story of the New York trading firm that was ruined in 2003, after an employee accidentally switched on a trading algorithm. It took them 16 seconds to go bust, but almost an hour to realise their fate.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/07/mervyn-king-financial-armageddon-inertia
piątek, 2 grudnia 2011
Should Andy Serkis's monkey capture a mo-cap Oscar?
Fox has greenlit sequels to Rise of the Planet of the Apes and X-Men: First Class, but all it wants is an Oscar for Serkis. But is it too soon in motion-capture history?
It's been a big week if your name is Andy Serkis. Not only has the British star of Lord of the Rings seen a sequel to the summer's best popcorn sci-fi flick, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, greenlit by Fox, but the studio has begun its much discussed campaign to see their man nominated for an Oscar for his motion-captured turn as Caesar the intelligent chimpanzee.
The striking but unnerving "for your consideration" ad doing the rounds features Serkis in mo-cap get-up alongside a snap of his ape counterpart in the movie. The studio says it sees no reason why its star should not be given the same consideration as other thespians when it comes to awards season, given the advances in the technology over the past few years. These days, the argument goes, what an actor does in the mo-cap studio is exactly what you end up seeing on screen: it's not just the subject's motion which is captured, it's their entire performance.
I'm inclined to think that Fox and Serkis have a point here. But that doesn't mean I expect, or would even like to see, the actor on the best supporting nominees list when it's announced early next year. Here's why.
Firstly, Fox are asking Academy members to consider Serkis's turn as one of the top 10 male performances of the year almost entirely on the basis of trust. Motion-capture technology is used very differently depending on the film-maker in charge of production, the actor involved, and most importantly, the animator who takes the performance and transfers it on to the screen. The mo-cap system used on Rise of the Planet of the Apes features tiny cameras to capture every facial readjustment, so it's more than capable of picking up a turn in its totality. That's not what happens on every production, however: the amount of "interpretation" an animator employs varies hugely from film to film, and many professionals privately hint that they are doing rather more work than they're getting credit for. Handing Serkis an award for his work on Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a big ask, because in 10 years' time we may find out that the animator in question made his own adjustments at key moments, or that the director asked for changes to be made at the digital stage in order to avoid an expensive reshoot. There are a lot of variables here, and if any one of them has played a part, it would make a mockery of the Academy's decision.
Secondly, even if you accept that Caesar is 100% Serkis, there's the question of whether the turn is in itself one of the best performances of the year, rather than just the most novel and unorthodox. Fox's Tom Rothman points out that Tom Hanks received an Oscar nomination for a mostly mute role in 2000's Castaway, while John Hurt picked up a nod in 1980 following his turn in David Lynch's The Elephant Man despite (and perhaps largely because of) the fact that you never see his real face. So it should be no big deal that Caesar only speaks one word in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, especially if you follow the mantra that great acting is all in the eyes. The ape is a genuinely soulful creation, and the fact that we are able to watch his personality shift from innocent and playful to cynical and confrontational without a word being said is a tribute to the work of all involved. But does that make it one of the year's best performances, or just one of 2011's most groundbreaking turns?
Apart from anything else, no one really knows how to quantify greatness in motion-captured acting yet, mostly because the number of films which have properly made use of the technology remains low. To put it bluntly: until we've seen bad motion-captured acting, it's going to be very difficult to say just how good the good stuff is. Serkis may have to accept that his career-defining performances will only truly be recognised as the technology becomes more commonplace, and awards bodies have a context within which to place his acting.
As well as a sequel to Rise of the Planets of the Apes, Fox has also announced a followup to X-Men: First Class, the mildly enjoyable but deeply flawed latest instalment in the studio's ongoing mutant superhero saga. No details yet, but let's hope they get somebody in to write it who's capable of avoiding the last film's occasionally excruciating bad dialogue. Any movie with a cast that includes Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence is going to have something going for it, but the first film too often veered into facile, hokey territory, and featured lines ("I prefer: Magneto!", "Mutant and proud!") that felt like they'd been written in at the last minute by studio execs determined to reward the cheeto-crunching fanboy brigade for turning up. As has so often been the case with this series, there were also just too many superheroes on screen for us to care a jot about 80% of them.
Rothman said this week that he wants to bring Matthew Vaughn back for First Class 2 (as it will hopefully not be called) as well as Rupert Wyatt for the second Apes movie. "Both of them were really great scripts and so we have to be sure to get great scripts again," he told ComingSoon.net, dubiously. "We're working hard on the scripts for both of them, but we have every hope of moving forward with them."
Vaughn did his best with First Class, but the whole creative push was rushed, and it showed. Fox just seems to have a more lackadaisical approach to its genre projects than other studios, so perhaps it's not surprising that executives are determined to see Serkis get his day in the sun. They certainly won't be picking up any gongs for their comic book movies any time soon.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2011/dec/01/andy-serkis-mo-cap-oscar
czwartek, 1 grudnia 2011
GCHQ aims to recruit computer hackers with code-cracking website
Government intelligence service targets 'self-taught' hackers with cryptic website that features no obvious branding
The government intelligence service, GCHQ, is aiming to attract the next generation of web-savvy spies by running an ad campaign that challenges computer hackers to crack a code to get an interview.
GCHQ, which reports to the foreign secretary and works with MI5 and MI6, has set up a website that is home to a tricky visual code.
The agency is drumming up interest in the code by seeding a message into social media, such as blogs and forums, that cyber specialists with a "keen interest in code breaking and ethical hacking" might frequent.
GCHQ usually hires its cyber specialists straight from college or university as graduates. However, the organisation admits that with the fast-moving world of computer technology it needs to tap the ranks of "self-taught" hackers as well.
The online marketing campaign, which has been developed by GCHQ's recruitment specialists TMP Worldwide, is being run without any branding for the agency.
GCHQ said, somewhat cryptically, that the campaign is anonymous "in order that applying for a career in the department is not the primary reason for the participant to engage".
"The digital arena is fast moving, and from a recruitment perspective we acknowledge the need to engage with prospective candidates in new and innovative ways," said a spokesman for GCHQ. "With this marketing initiative we hope to reach out to a broader audience, who may not be attracted to traditional advertising methods."
Somewhat ironically, given the campaign is aimed at computer hackers, GCHQ says that anyone who is found to have illegally hacked the code will not be eligible for recruitment.
GCHQ has employed unusual recruitment marketing tactics in the past.
In 2007 it ran an ad campaign in online games, including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent, to find those interested in a "career in British intelligence".
? To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/dec/01/gchq-computer-hackers-ad