Alexander Gieg

Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki
Music by Joe Hisaishi

Made with Blender, Gimp, Octane and Natron.

Thanks to Blackschmoll, Boby, Christophe, Clouclou, Cremuss, David, Félicia, Frenchman, Sozap, Stéphane, Virgil !
And Thanks to Ton Roosendaal, the Blender community, the developers of Blender, Gimp and Natron !

dono 2015

Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki from dono on Vimeo.

Tribute to Hayao Miyazaki
Music by Joe Hisaishi

Made with Blender, Gimp, Octane and Natron.

Thanks to Blackschmoll, Boby, Christophe, Clouclou, Cremuss, David, Félicia, Frenchman, Sozap, Stéphane, Virgil !
And Thanks to Ton Roosendaal, the Blender community, the developers of Blender, Gimp and Natron !

dono 2015

Why do people want to immigrate to the United States?

Answer by Feifei Wang:

I’m a Chinese American, my family and I immigrated to US some 10 years ago, and became citizen a few years later.

Here’s the reasons we decided to move to the US, I imagine these probably apply to many Chinese Americans as well:

Overall superior basic living conditions, which include: better air quality, cleaner water, greener cities and suburbs, better roads and bridges (they don’t collapse)… You can’t buy these thing in China, no matter how rich you are, you breathe the same polluted air like everyone else.
No poisoned food. Food safety is a huge problem in China. From street food to milk to restaurant food, you’re never sure if it’s safe. There’s a famous joke saying “You can’t honestly say you’re a Chinese unless you’ve eaten everything on the periodic table”. While in the US, the most you have to worry about are probably bad sushi and Monsanto.
Better, less exam-focused primary education system. This is probably one of the most important reasons many Chinese families try to move to the US. The elementary and middle schools in China are brutal. It’s heavily exam- driven, and it’s really not good for overall development of the child. There’s a lot of memorizing, a lot of test preparation. The last 3 years of high school is just a 3 year long exam preparation class for university entrance exam. There’s no way to escape it, and many parents don’t want their children to be limited like that. Especially with the “one family,one child” policy. A lot of people tried to send their kids here to attend middle/high schools even if they themselves can not come over.
Better universities with more freedom. China has some pretty good universities, like Peking University and Tsinghua University. However, unless you did well in that once-in-a-lifetime university entrance exam, you won’t have other opportunities. US universities offers a lot more freedom, you can transfer department, or even universities. You can improve your GPA and go to a better university midway. This is a huge plus compared to the rigid Chinese universities.
Better grad schools. The reason I separate grad school and 4 year college is because it attracts different people. Going to US grad school is still the most accessible method to go to the US. It is very hard for a Chinese to apply for US Visa, and getting an F1 (Student Visa) through grad school is the cheapest way. And Chinese grad schools suffer from corruption like other Chinese organizations. Students don’t feel that they can do anything in grad school other than being the slave labor for their advisers. I guess US grad schools also have similar problems, but it’s a lot better.
Overall better social welfare system, especially if you can get green card or become a citizen. You can actually buy land and house (Chinese government only allows people to buy the use rights of a land, you don’t own the land or the house). If you rent, the landlord can drive you off anytime he/she wants (yeah… renting law in China sucks, reason why people want to own their own home). Better health care, better unemployment insurances, better domestic violence support, less corrupted justice system… overall, safer, easier to live in the US.
More freedom. This is a personal experience, but since I’m lucky that I entered the US with green card, so it may not be true to people who struggle with their visa. I think I have a lot more options to do what I want to do with my life. And the general ideology is that you can do whatever you want, be whoever you want, as long as you work hard and don’t give up. I’ll say regular Americans have better chance working towards their dream and succeed than regular Chinese people.

Now I sound like a total traitor, praising America over the motherland. US is not perfect, if it’s up to me, I’d live in one of those welfare states. But I really like being an American.

Why do people want to immigrate to the United States?

Why is there such a strong correlation between geographic distance from the equator and prosperity?

Answer by Sam Tanzer:

The correlation is there.
I was surprised by the assumptions in the initial answer. New Zealand and Australia are among the world’s wealthiest countries, and although Chile, Argentina, and South Africa are not, they are very prosperous for their respective continents. India may be “up-and-coming,” but most of its people are still desperately poor. Further, exceptions (the most striking is Singapore) do not disprove correlation.

I won’t answer the original question other than to say that:
If I saw a six-month Swedish winter coming around the corner, I’d probably be pretty quick to get my act together and start laying in supplies
Since just staying warm enough to survive the winter in these climates costs more than the per capita income in some of the world’s poorer equatorial countries, I’d expect the correlation to exist almost by definition

But I will illustrate mechanically that the correlation is there, and hope that someone can build on this and try to explain why.

Here’s what I did:
Defined “prosperity” as GDP per capita, per the latest World Bank estimates. Not perfect, but as good a metric as any. (The conclusions still hold with PPP numbers).
For each country, calculated a “weighted average distance from the equator” that reflects where the “average person” lives, using gridded population data from http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/global.jsp. For example, in Australia most of the population lives on the southern coast, so using the weighted average population will result in a more southern latitude than using the geographic midpoint of the country. This is an imperfect approximation, and a better analysis might look at the prosperity and location of individual population centers, but I’m not sure if this data exists or where to find it.
Looked at the numbers and put together some pictures.

Overall, the correlation is striking
79% of the world’s population lives in countries closer to the equator than Japan, but only 31% of the world’s GDP is located there. In other words, the world’s most polar 21% of the population produces 69% of the world’s GDP.
In the chart below, cumulative GDP and population are displayed by distance to the equator (don’t look at the green line yet). Following the blue and grey lines from left to right, we start with equatorial countries and gradually move north and south. The line representing population is slightly “bowed out,” meaning that the world’s population is relatively concentrated around the equator. But the line representing GDP is significantly “bowed in,” reflecting the concentration of prosperity far from the equator.

Now take a look at the green line. This represents the gap between cumulative GDP and population at a given latitude, and is best read from right to left. It starts by including Scandanavia. These countries don’t have many people, but they do have a fair amount of GDP, so the green line edges up. As the line continues to incorporate wealthy countries in Western Europe, it keeps edging up. The huge spike occurs when the line adds the United States, and the high point is reached after it adds Japan. Then it starts to include countries closer to the equator. Since these countries tend to be populous and relatively poor, the gap between cumulative GDP and population starts to collapse, and the line heads back down.
If there were no correlation between prosperity and distance from the equator, we would expect the green line to be centered at zero with random oscillations due to noise in the data. Clearly this is not the case.
Additionally, there are aren’t any big exceptions. Reading from right to left, the green line is almost uniformly upward sloping as we add polar countries until reaching Japan, and almost uniformly downward sloping for more equatorial countries. This means that almost every country as far from the equator as Japan is near or above the world average GDP per capita, and almost every country closer to the equator than Japan is near or below the world average.

But isn’t Europe having, like, issues?
It’s worth noting that the answer is very different if equating prosperity with GDP growth.
In the chart below, the weighted GDP growth reflects where the world’s engines of absolute growth. The US economy is so large that even though it is growing at only a moderate rate, is still accounts for a big chunk of world GDP growth. Same goes for Europe, despite even lower growth rates.
The unweighted GDP line says, “ok, let’s pretend each country were starting from the same GDP but still growing at its present rate – if this were the case, where would the world’s growth be coming from?” In this scenario, the line is “bowed out” because equatorial countries are growing much more quickly – partly due to population growth, but also in per capita terms.

The correlation exists both across continents…
Western Europe and North America are two of the world’s three most polar regions, and its two most prosperous. (Per the original question, it may be worth noting that due to the gulf stream, much of the Colonial US was “effectively” as far north as Europe in terms of harsh winters.) Eastern Europe is the world’s other polar region, and is close to the world average GDP per capita.
Africa, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central and South America are the world’s equatorial regions, and Africa and Southeast Asia have the lowest GDP per capita. Central/South America fares better, but apart from Brazil and Venezuela, its more equatorial countries are also below the world average.

…And within individual continents. Polar latitude is…
A good predictor of prosperity in Western Europe, Africa and North America (counting the Caribbean states). It’s particularly striking in Western Europe, and in Africa for its prediction of relative prosperity in both the Maghreb and South Africa.
A reasonable predictor in South/Central Asia and Central/South America, with the exception of Venezuela.
A good predictor of prosperity in East Asia, with the notable exceptions of Singapore and North Korea.
A useless predictor in the Middle East, where oil wealth is a major factor, and Eastern Europe, for which I have no explanation.

There is no region in which the reverse is true, i.e., in which more equatorial countries are more prosperous than countries further from the equator.
While I say “good predictor,” I won’t include any correlation statistics, mostly because I have no idea how to weight the countries. Obviously China should be weighted more heavily than South Korea, but how much more is a question I won’t attempt to answer.
Instead, I will include a series of pictures that illustrate the correlation. The size of the bubbles is proportional to a country’s population. The x-axis is degrees from the equator and the y-axis is Per capita GDP. Countries with populations below 1,000,000 are not shown.

Why is there such a strong correlation between geographic distance from the equator and prosperity?

What if Wes Anderson directed X-Men? from Patrick Willems on Vimeo.

Watch the behind-the-scenes video here: youtube.com/watch?v=v1TamCl-k1c

James Zebooker as Iceman
Scott Thomas as Cyclops
Chloe Holgate as Jean Grey
Matt Torpey as Beast
Jacob Torpey as Angel
Zac MacKrell as Wolverine
Nate Miller as Magneto
Kendra Pettis as Storm
Chad Ruhle as the voice of Professor X

Model designer/maker - Benjamin MacKrell benjamin-mackrell.tumblr.com/
Costume designer - Kendra Pettis
Wardrobe consultant - Mary Willems

TWITTER: twitter.com/patrickhwillems
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/patrickhwillems
TUMBLR: patrickhwillems.tumblr.com/
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/patrickhwillems

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mlp-merch:

We are happy to announce that we are able to hold our first giveaway sponsored by Littles Toy Company! We are going to give away a complete set of the Winter Gear Aurora plushies, for free! One lucky person will receive these 3 adorable plushies. They are really soft and cuddly and ready for the cold winter.

Follow us and reblog this post to join the giveaway!

See our blog post for more info: http://www.mlpmerch.com/2014/11/mlpmerch-christmas-giveaway-3-aurora.html

The winner will be announced on the 24th of December 2014.
We’ll ship the plushies to any country!

Yay!

Source: mlpmerch.com

Poliamor from Zé Agripino on Vimeo.

(Documentário, HD, Brasil, 15 min, 2010)

Direção: José Agripino.
facebook.com/zeagripino2
Twitter
twitter.com/zeagripino

Sinopse:
Numa sociedade onde predominam valores afetivos monogâmicos, algumas pessoas escolhem um arranjo de relacionamentos que está se tornando conhecido como Poliamor.

Festivais
Prêmio André Carneiro de curta-metragem. Curta Atibaia 2010.
Melhor Roteiro Festival Close de cinema da diversidade sexual 2011.
Selecionado em 25 festivais de cinema no Brasil.

No facebook estou disponível para trocar ideias e dialogar com quem quiser dizer alguma coisa! Também compartilho outros trabalhos, referências e inspirações.

Contato:
zeagripino@gmail.com

Soderbergh's black-and-white Raiders Of The Lost Ark

parislemon:

Rob Dean:

Over on his excellent website, Extension 765, Soderbergh has uploaded a black-and-white version of the 1981 blockbuster in an effort to prompt cinephiliacs to think about how an impressive talent like Spielberg was able to convey so much of the story merely through length and composition of shots. He also removed all sound from the video, instead replacing it with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score for The Social Network, so that viewers can solely focus on the staging of the film.

So this is what “retirement“ is like for Soderbergh. (The end result, which you can watch on Soderbergh’s site is beautiful and sort of mesmerizing.)

(via parislemon)