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Home Hastings Public Schools Foundation News Announcements National History Day: Conflict and Compromise
National History Day: Conflict and Compromise
Nine Hastings High School students and one Hastings Middle School student have qualified for National History Day this spring, having competed on the district and state levels. Eight of the nine Hastings High School students and the Middle School student have committed to continue on this summer to the national competition at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Students from twenty-seven Nebraska schools competed at the regional competition held at Hastings College, with nineteen Hastings High School students qualifying for state competition.
National History Day involves a project-based contest for students in grades 6-12 who compete on district, state and national levels. The competition is designed to promote the study and appreciation of history. The theme for 2018 is Conflict and Compromise, a broad topic allowing for a wide range of projects.
To help alleviate expenses, the Hastings Public Schools Foundation has provided stipends to each of the competitors. This is an obvious way to extend the horizon of opportunity for Hastings Public Schools students.
Back: Anderson Rogers, Ann Mays (instructor and sponsor), Betty Kort (HPS Foundation Director), Lucy Nielsen, Chyna Delker, and Chandice Rogers
Front: Chase Johnson, Christine Jonglerthan, Carter Wenberg, and Kobi Ennen
Middle School Student Erika Nielsen not pictured.


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Doctor Who: The Magician's Apprentice (2015)
"Compassion Doctor. It has always been your greatest indulgence…"
This year, I have decided to not read too many Doctor Who spoilers, to not look at set reports, or to not read costuming announcements if I could help it. Usually something really big gets spoiled for me, and I did this in order to experiment with my enjoyment of various things. I have also done this with many of the summer blockbuster films this year, and as a result I feel that I have enjoyed everything more than I usually do.
What this means, is that for the first time since 2005, I have no idea what any episode is going to be like this fall. This is both refreshing and a bit scary. With a title like "The Magician's Apprentice", I was half expecting a riff on the 1940 Disney film Fantasia – full of zany antics in an old castle, perhaps some brooms walking around. I was expecting a classic Doctor Who "romp" – something like 2014's Robot of Sherwood. Boy, was I wrong.
Very seldom is there a Doctor Who episode that starts with an opening scene that hits you in the gut like a jackhammer, only to increase the tension until you are left utterly blindsided at the end. This episode plays out like the first part of a two-part finale, rather than the whimsical series opener that we're all used to.
In many ways, this episode is a send-up of a much older episode, Genesis of the Daleks, going so far as to use a clip from the episode as a punctuation mark in the episode itself. I would even say that the entire premise is based on something said by The Doctor to Sarah Jane in Genesis of the Daleks: "If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives… could you then kill that child?"
Genesis of the Daleks was a Tom Baker episode wherein The Doctor was given a choice to commit mass-genocide on the entire Dalek Race before they rose to power. This act would have saved countless lives, ended the time war before it started, and saved himself and various companions many times. The Doctor, in his young age, could not bring himself to do this act – he could not lower himself to their level.
The Twelfth Doctor is less romantic about this idea of pacifism, and does the opposite. The idea here is that The Doctor meets an old adversary, perhaps his arch-nemesis (much to the chagrin of Missy) when said person is nothing more than a small child. A horrible war is going on, and a boy ends up in the middle of a field full of creatures (or weapons? They were called "handmines") that mean certain doom. The boy cries out for help, to be met with a re-assuring voice and the choice of taking a 1/1000 chance at survival. Then it happens:
The Doctor: "Tell me the name of the boy who isn't going to die today."
Boy: "Davros. My name is Davros."
It appears, as of this moment (stupid two-parters!), that The Doctor chooses to abandon the boy in his moment of need once he realizes who it is. This boy grows up to become a scientist called Davros, the man that creates the Daleks to end thousands of years of perpetual war on planet Skaro. This episode highlights the problems with his ongoing inner struggle: Is he a good man or a bad man? It seems that being good causes all sorts of troubles.
In many ways, this problem is a variation of The Grandfather Paradox, a popular trope in science fiction, where an event pre-supposes a previous event to the point where a discernible beginning cannot be established. If the Doctor, in a moment of weakness, attempts to kill or allows the death of the creator of the universe's chief antagonist, and that man survives to be embittered by the event (perhaps driven to hatred), surely The Doctor is to blame for this happening. It's not as tidy as a classic Grandfather Paradox, but I can see some sort of "timey-wimey" shenanigans popping up to "fix" the events of the episode. If anything the episodes cliff-hanger only serve to make the causal-loop worse.
I have stated many times that I LOVE Steven Moffat's use of the aforementioned "timey-wimey…stuff" since the show has never really capitalized on the time travel aspect of the premise aside from changing scenery. Dealing with paradoxes is hard, and Doctor Who usually gets it right, so I'm hoping that part-two of this season opener has a nice resolution and no Red Dwarf-styled shoulder shrugs and hand-waving.
I may have made it appear that this episode was nothing but a bleak ball of stress on our TV screens, but that isn't exactly true. While the laughs are few and far between, they are still there. One of the best moments for me was The Doctor, assuming he was about to die, throwing himself a three week party in Medieval England. For some reason he is set to duel a large warrior in an arena for the entertainment of the assemble masses. and proceeds to ride into this duel on top of a tank playing an electric guitar. Since the Doctor usually refuses to allow anachronisms for leak into the past this is far beyond his character and shows he doesn't care anymore.
Missy is another fun element to the episode, if one can consider her scenes fun. I finally figured out why I enjoy her as Missy so much, she reminds me of a female version the popular DC comics adversary – The Joker. She's funny, but the humor is so dark and somewhat in the poorest taste that you laugh, but feel bad doing so. I think this was where Russell T. Davies was trying to go with John Simm's portrayal of the character, but he fell flat for me. My favorite incarnation of "The Master" was Roger Delgado, but Michelle Gomez is giving him a run for his money.
Another nod goes to Julian Bleach who is once again portraying the megalomaniacal Davros. He has been great almost every single time he appears on any of these shows. He first appeared as the Ghostmaker in the Torchwood story From Out of the Rain. His second appearance was as Davros in the Doctor Who stories The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. His third appearance was as the Nightmare Man in the The Sarah Jane Adventures story The Nightmare Man. So far he is one of the ONLY people to appear in all of the Doctor Who related shows since 2005. He does particularly well, for me, simply because he takes a character so over-the-top as Davros and grounds it in some way, thus making him far more terrifying. The moment Davros is twirling his proverbial mustache it looses something for me.
This was a solid opener for Doctor Who, and perhaps the "ballsiest" way to start a season that they could have done. I will discuss everything more next week when we see a completed story, but so far I have one word – WOW!
One awesome thing that BBC America did was make this entire episode available for FREE on Youtube (which I have linked to below). Feel free to watch the episode if you already haven't and bookmark their page just in case they decide to make more available.
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Author Stephen K.Posted on September 21, 2015 September 21, 2015 Categories Doctor Who, Doctor Who Reviews, Doctor Who series 9, TV ReviewsTags BBC, BBC America, Clara Oswald, Dalek, Daleks, Davros, Doctor, Doctor (Doctor Who), Doctor who, Master, Missy, Peter Capaldi, sci-fi, science fiction, Steven Moffat, Time Lord2 Comments on Doctor Who: The Magician's Apprentice (2015)
The Monday Meme: Self-Control
If you have a funny image that would make a great edition of The Monday Meme, feel free to send it to my Tumblr, Facebook, or email it to me! Links for these options are located in the links at the top of the page! Don't be surprised to see it on here someday!
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Author Stephen K.Posted on April 20, 2015 Categories Comedy, Doctor Who, The Monday MemeTags BBC, Cybermen, Doctor, Doctor who, funny, meme, Monday Meme, science fiction, TelevisionLeave a comment on The Monday Meme: Self-Control
The Monday Meme: Honesty
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Author Stephen K.Posted on April 13, 2015 Categories Comedy, The Monday MemeTags BBC, Cactus, Doctor who, meme, the monday meme, tom bakerLeave a comment on The Monday Meme: Honesty
An American View of British Science Fiction Ep 4 – Cons
The McCoy Panel
It's been a few weeks since Planet Comicon, so this week Stephen discusses the rich convention schedule that has been popping up in Kansas City, MO in recent years. A big emphasis is placed on the fact that KC is turning into a place to meet a lot of the Doctors from Doctor Who!
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Author Stephen K.Posted on April 1, 2015 April 2, 2015 Categories Podcast, Podcast ArchiveTags BBC, Conventions, Doctor who, kansas city, Kansas City Missouri, KCMO, Planet Comicon, United States2 Comments on An American View of British Science Fiction Ep 4 – Cons
An American View of British Science Fiction Ep 3 – Threads
"In an urban society everything connects, each person's needs are feed by the skills for many others, our lives are woven together in a fabric, but the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable"
Last episode, Stephen started a series on the 1980's fascination with our own impending doom by discussing a much earlier film called The War Game. This week Stephen discusses the 1984 post-apocalyptic disaster film Threads – perhaps one of the bleakest films ever made.
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 25, 2015 Categories Podcast, Podcast ArchiveTags Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, BBC, Podcast, Podcast Archive, Post-Apocalyptic, ThreadsLeave a comment on An American View of British Science Fiction Ep 3 – Threads
The Monday Meme: point
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 23, 2015 February 15, 2015 Categories Comedy, Doctor Who, The Monday MemeTags BBC, Doctor (Doctor Who), Doctor who, Peter CapaldiLeave a comment on The Monday Meme: point
The Tripods: (1984) France, October 2089
AKA season 1, episode 12
Episode 11 of The Tripods was an action-heavy chapter that dealt with the boys resorting to theft to get food while traveling to the White Mountains. The aftermath of said choice was basically the resulting punishment they received. Not only did they have to escape a tribe of murderous "Vagrants" living outside the town, but were apprehended by some Blackguards and put on trial for theft.
They apparently have a semblance of a fair trial, but it seems that the trial itself is more of a ritual than an actual legal proceeding. It seems like it's a foregone conclusion that they will get capped once a Tripod arrives, and that is even if they are somehow found innocent. Boys of their age simply do not walk around uncapped, it's uncivilized and terrifying! Our buddy Danielle, the French Blackguard that has been stalking the boys ever since they left the vineyard, shows up and punches holes in their defense. Danielle basically ruins everyone's day by stating that he knows they are up to no good. he's no Duc Du Sarlat on the scale of jerkitude, but he's got to be pretty close.
They are caged, and Danielle volunteers to take him back to his precinct for processing. Suddenly the boys are in a moral dilemma – Henry feels bad that they have to hurt Danielle in order to escape seeing that he is part of the family that took care of them. It comes down to the fact that "it's either him or us" and the boys attack.
Danielle isn't killed or anything, but bound, gagged, and stranded in the middle of nowhere locked inside of the cage he trapped the boys in. I liked this scene a lot because Henry had to come to terms with the fact that he probably wasn't going back to that vineyard, and that Danielle was not their friend and family member.
The rest of this episode is full of some very important information including our very first glimpse at what the true nature of The Tripods is. This kicks off when the boys are traversing an eerie ruined city and stumble onto a Tripod that is guarding it. Somehow they have gone completely undetected, or as beanpole puts it "just like how a fat man cannot see his own feet".
Pretty soon a plan is concocted to attempt to destroy this Tripod. Henry climbs up a rock face and places a hammer under the foot of the hulking enormity of the machine's foot. Beanpole then hoists one of the grenades that were plucked from the shopping mall way back in the beginning of the show, and pulls the pin with a rope. The resulting explosion knocks the beast over and a hatch opens on the front face of the Tripod.
Until this very moment we were not exactly sure if the Tripods themselves were sentient robots or if somebody was inside of it piloting. With the hatch opening, the boys get a glimpse of an off-screen face that proves the latter is most likely the case. This is, of course, right before another grenade is hurled into the cockpit rendering the occupant inside nothing more than a thick green slime oozing out of the door.We are not only one step closer to knowing the true nature of the villainous Tripods, but we now know that they can also be killed.
As the episode closes, we see The White Mountains off in the distance, signaling that the first part of the boys' quest is nearly complete. They aren't sure what to expect other than the fact that there are probably more like-minded individuals there, and none of them should be capped. Here's hoping that crazy old coot Ozymandias was right and this whole ordeal wasn't a wild goose chase.
Last week I discussed how much I loved the location shooting in this show, and this is yet another episode full of great shots. The ruins that the boys walk through were especially eerie, seemingly plucked from a medieval village that was destroyed. I did a bit of research, and it appears that this was actually an old Welsh slate quarry called Diffwys Quarry, that had been abandoned since the 1950's. I'm not sure how something so recent fell into such disrepair so quickly, but it definitely gave this episode the terrifying post-apocalyptic vibe that it had lost a bit of in all of the pastoral episodes.
Also of note, were the awesome model shots and practical effects especially in the Tripod battle at the end. I've seen far more recent films have less realistic scenes of large creatures or machines walking around, and it really goes to show that sometimes models and puppets work better than computer generated effects for some things. My hat goes off to the director, Christopher Barry, and his entire crew.
That's it for this week, join me again in seven days as discuss the final chapter of season one – Episode 13, The White Mountains! Remember, if you missed any entries for this series and want to read more, go to the front page and click the "Tripods" button.
The Tripods England (1984), July 2089 AD
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 20, 2015 March 2, 2015 Categories The Tripods, TV ReviewsTags 1980's, 1984, 80's, BBC, Doctor (Doctor Who), DVD, Jean-Paul, Television, Television program, The Pool of Fire, The Tripods, The White Mountains, tripods2 Comments on The Tripods: (1984) France, October 2089
Doctor Who: Colditz (2001)
A review of Big Finish Audio drama 25
Written by: Steve Lyons
Directed by: Gary Russell
Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), David Tennant (Feldwebel Kurtz), Toby Longworth (Hauptmann Julius Schäfer), Nicholas Young (Flying Officer Bill Gower), Peter Rae (Timothy Wilkins), Tracey Childs (Klein).
Colditz takes place during World War II, and as one can probably easily piece together from the title, it has to do with the infamous prison camp Colditz Castle. While Americans are not as familiar with this legendary facility, The UK has had decades of documentaries, Television shows, and even board games based on the many escape attempts of it's prisoners. The camp was basically set up to house officers and other high ranking people who tried to escape from other camps, so it was almost seen as the Alcatraz of it's time. Over here, we have tons of versions of the Steve McQueen movie The Great Escape which is based on an escape from a polish POW camp, so you get the idea.
The bad guys in this are Nazis, and if there was any "Tardis team" that has a good chance of being able to deal with Nazis, it's definitely Ace and the seventh Doctor. We have seen their influence in Curse of Fenric, The Silver Nemesis, and one could argue that The villains of The Fearmonger were essentially some type of right-wing Neo-Nazi types. Because of this, I actually chuckled when Ace mentioned "not Nazis again, I hate Nazis!". I'm not a huge fan of science fiction having Nazi bad-guys because it usually ends up being the lazy Star Trek "Space Nazis!" trope, but thankfully this isn't the case here. These are regular Nazis in their correct time line.
I'm a big fan of historical episodes that do not involve some sort contrived alien involvement, and this one is almost entirely of that sort. In fact, The Doctor himself is the only real alien involvement we see here which is refreshing. The plot of this episode centers around The Nazis confiscating a CD Walkman from Ace and creating a paradox in which they reverse engineer it and win World War II. This plot is more-or-less in the background, but it's the way they a new anti-hero character named Klein is introduced. You see, Klein's from this alternate time line in which the Nazi powers have taken over the rest of the world. As far as she's concerned, her world is the better one; as a child of German parents growing up in England, she welcomed the Nazi victory. I know from looking at Wikis that Klein's story is fleshed out more, and can't wait to fill the gaps in.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this story is that the main villain of the story, Kurtz, is played by none other than a young David Tennant in his first Doctor Who related piece of entertainment. Kurtz is an awful piece of work, the sort of character that one really hopes will come to an early death. He plots behind the backs of his superiors, tries to hold information for his own gains, and even tries to take advantage of inmates in unspeakable ways. Kurtz is definitely a Hollywood Nazi archetype, as is another character in Schafer – the sympathetic Nazi. While these character tropes aren't bad they reek of being historically inaccurate to some degree.
My only downside to this audio seemed to be the sound mixing, which shocked me because Gary Russell directed episodes are usually very well done. There were many scenes within the interior of Colditz Castle that had weird foley work such as footsteps that sounded as if everyone was wearing concrete shoes on metal floors. I have a digital file for this audio, so perhaps I got a bad download? I'm not sure, but it sounded off in places. Perhaps somebody with the CD could chime in on the comments page. This didn't take me out the play by any means, but there were times where it got distracting or drowned out a bit of dialog.
All-in-all this was a great story, and considering people think that I'm too harsh on 80's Doctor Who, this is the second McCoy/Aldred story in a row that I've really enjoyed. I do wish that the audio mix would have been a bit better, but it's still a hearty recommendation to every Doctor Who fan. Upon listening to this, I also have a strange feeling that I should watch Chicken Run for some reason.
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 12, 2015 March 1, 2015 Categories Big Finish Audio Review, Doctor WhoTags BBC, Big Finish Productions, Colditz, David Tennant, Doctor who, escape, nazi, Nazis, Paul McGann, prison camp, Prisoner of war, Prisoner-of-war camp, Seventh Doctor, sophie aldred, Sylvester McCoy, United Kingdom, United States, World War II, WWII5 Comments on Doctor Who: Colditz (2001)
This week, the podcast takes a look at post-apocalyptic fiction in the 1980's – starting out with a movie that was banned in 1965 by the BBC for being "too horrific" and shown some twenty years later. The War Game is a chilling look at what could happen if The World had "a bad day".
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 11, 2015 Categories Podcast ArchiveTags Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, BBC, nuclear war, Podcast ArchiveLeave a comment on An American View of British Science Fiction Ep 2 – War Game
I believe that John F. Kennedy said it best when he once wrote: "There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction." I chose this quote in particular because it best illustrates the central dilemma of this episode of BBC's Tripods.
In case you're following along at home, the previous episode of Tripods showed our intrepid trio "laying low" for a while in a French vineyard. They were seeking shelter so that Will could recover from a Tripod abduction and the resulting amateur surgery required to remove a tracking device crudely clamped onto his torso. Much like the time spent at the Chateau earlier in the year, the gang is finding it hard to leave the relative comfort of the vineyard, even though Tripods seem to be everywhere. We see the gratuitous long tacking shot of Tripods walking around in the distance, and considering the way the boys evaded them in the last episode, they are probably close by because they are looking for them.
One thing became clear in this episode, and it is that teenagers are really stupid when they get hormones pumping through their systems like a rush of Nitrous through the engine of a sports car. It's hard to not want to punch both Henry and Beanpole at the beginning of this episode. They are having fun and chatting up cute girls and constantly telling Will to "lighten up!". This is a complete 180 degree reversal from the chateau where Will was "livin' it up" and the boys wanted a one way ticket out of Dodge. Winter is soon to be there, and Will understands that they need to make it to the mountains ASAP.
Luckily we don't see too much bickering between the boys, but the animosity is there. Will is jealous about what happened last episode regarding the "love of his life" Eloise. He took part in a village Olympics sort of festival, and lost to a cheating ball of jealousy that chose his love interest as the town tribute to the Tripods. She now gets to live in the Tripod city far away from Will, because if the Duke couldn't have her nobody could. Will now sees everyone else having googlie-eyes at girls and feels like crap about it.
The mother of the house, Madame Vichot, pulls the boys aside to show them a collection of art and other wonders from the past that they may have never seen. This sort of stuff is mostly lost to time and frowned upon by the Tripods and those that support them. We find out that she is showing them this a trade of sorts, she is suspicious why a french boy (Jean Paul aka Bean Pole) is traveling with two boys that are obviously from somewhere in England. They let it spill that they are on their way to the White Mountains, a place we discover is somewhere in the French or Swiss Alps. If this wasn't red flag number one that they are too comfortable, our buddy the Blackguard-in-law Danielle starts nosing around to figure out who these "travelers" are, and it's just a matter of time before his superiors want answers as well.
The reason that Madame Vichot is so worldly and interesting is that she is some sort of "Vagrant", whose capping was not fully completed or failed. If you recall a "capping" is the process by which the Tripods place a mind-control device on every person of a certain age, and vagrants are those that cannot be capped or are rendered insane by the process. While she isn't crazy, the Vineyard mistress is very distraught by the fact that she has ambition, hopes, and can still dream – all things that other capped adults simply cannot do.
She talks to Will about his guilt about what happened to Eloise, and the fact that he seems to be redirecting all of his angst towards Henry an Beanpole. This seems to level Will's head a bit, and by the end of the episode he seems mostly angst-free for the most part.
The boys get a new set of traveling clothes, maps, and travel documents to aid them on their journey, and eventually set off. Unfortunately, it seems that Danielle was basically trying to trap them with the documents, as he is seen stalking the boys at the end of the episode.
If you've missed any reviews in this series, please feel free to click the "Tripods" banner on the main page – It's all there! Tune in next week for my review of episode 11!
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 6, 2015 March 1, 2015 Categories The TripodsTags 1980's, 80's, BBC, Beanpole, France, Henry, Post-Apocalyptic, sci-fi, science fiction, Television, The Tripods, tripods, TV, Vineyard, WillLeave a comment on The Tripods: (1984) France, September 2089
Doctor Who: The Eye of the Scorpion (2001)
A review of Big Finish audio drama no. 24
Written By: Iain McLaughlin
Cast: Peter Davison (The Doctor); Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown); Caroline Morris (Erimem); Harry Myers (Yanis); Jack Galagher (Fayum); Jonathan Owen (Antranak); Daniel Brennan (Kishik); Stephen Perring (Horemshep); Mark Wright (Slave); Alistair Lock (Priest); Gary Russell (Ebren)
For some reason or another, this particular audio drama happens to be the one audio drama that I have listened to the most. A lot of it has to do with the time period in which I first started to listen to these, a time when I had long walks to work and back every day, and the fact that I would sometimes miss important things due to walking in traffic – thus repeated plays. Then again, I think I can chalk a lot of it up to my fascination, at an early age even, with the ancient Egyptian civilization, mythology, and everything related to it. For a long time, the movie Stargate was actually a film that I considered to be my favorite movie for much the same reason!
This adventure stars Peter Davison as The Doctor and Nicola Bryant as his voluptuous companion Peri. Neither Davison's Doctor or Peri are my favorites if I were to lay out a big list of preferences, but I'll hand it to Big Finish – they take things I dislike about Doctor Who and trick me into liking them! Bryant has definitely matures as an actress, and everything that annoyed me about her portrayal of the character (the terrible accent!) is gone now. She also has gone from being the eye candy of the show, merely there to twist her ankle and scream, to someone that is an actual asset to The Doctor's travels. Big Finish has also redeemed Paul McGann's Doctor, Mel, and even Adric for me somewhat, it's like they know what fans don't enjoy about the show or something!
This story is perhaps Davison's strongest yet, and considering how critical I've been with a few of his adventures so far, that's strong praise. The Tardis materializes right in time for the Doctor and Peri to witness an attempted drive by assassination of a young girl on a chariot. The Doctor channels his inner-Ben Hur and saves the day without realizing that he has possibly changed the course of history completely. You see, the girl he has saved is the only daughter of the great Pharaoh Amenhotep II, Princess Erimemushinteperem (or Erimem for short), her father has died and she is possibly next in line to be pharaoh. The problem is that The Doctor has no recollection of any pharaoh named Erimem, meaning that something is wrong.
Erimem is happy to give much thanks to her saviors, and the strangers' arrival in Thebes is the talk of court. This causes problems for a lot of her direct aide's such as a man named Antranak, who serves as her head of security, as there have been a lot of attempts on Erimem's life as of late, and her consorting with strange people is not good. What follows from here on is an adventure involving a disputed throne, a warlord trying to become pharaoh and an alien hand in the whole mess.
I really enjoyed Both Erimem and Antranak (who reminds me of Egyptian Brigadier) and love the idea of an unknown historical figure as a companion. We have seen so many times, the travels of a contemporary person in the Tardis, but imagine someone from ancient history doing it. Not only would that person be amazed by the future, aliens, and space, but pretty much anything else they are shown. I think this is why I was initially excited when Clara on the TV show was revealed to be a Victorian character initially, only to have my hopes and dreams dashed just like that!
Without spoiling too much, Erimem realizes that she has no place in history and chooses to travel with The Tardis crew, I for one, cannot wait to listen to their travels. I have so far loved these "original companions" like Charley, Evelyn, and now Erimem – great characters that keep me coming back time after time. Perhaps the only downside to this drama is that it keeps with a lot of tropes seen in Hollywood films about ancient Egypt, but we really have no idea how the civilization really lived, so it's fair game. At least it didn't succumb to the fad of ancient alien theories, that I have no doubt would be in an Egyptian episode made today!
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Author Stephen K.Posted on March 5, 2015 March 5, 2015 Categories Big Finish Audio Review, Doctor WhoTags audio drama, BBC, Big Finish, Caroline Morris, Colin Baker, Cyberman, Dalek, Doctor, Doctor who, doctorwho, Eighth Doctor, Facebook, Gary Russell, Harry Myers, Hollyoaks, Jonathan Owen, Nicola Bryant, Paul McGann, Peri Brown, Peter Davison, sci-fi, science fiction, Sixth Doctor1 Comment on Doctor Who: The Eye of the Scorpion (2001)
"This is a recorded message. I am the Architect. Your last memory is of receiving a contact from an unknown agency – me. Everything since has been erased from your minds. Now pay close attention to this briefing. This is the Bank of Karabraxos, the most secure bank in the galaxy; a fortress for the super-rich. If you can afford your own star system, this is where you keep it. No one sets foot on the planet without protocols. All movement is monitored, all air consumption regulated. DNA is authenticated at every stage. Intruders will be incinerated."
Stephen Thompson's last foray into Doctor Who writing was last year's somewhat lackluster Journey to the Centre of the Tardis, an episode that I didn't hate, but characterized as "well done from an atmosphere and effects standpoint, but [a failure] with the writing." Thompson seems like a decent enough writer, considering his work on Sherlock, but I feel that he gets too trapped in the mindset of finding a theme for each episode he does. So far, his track record with Doctor Who involves a pirate episode with The Curse of the Black Spot, his aforementioned Jules Verne pastiche, and now an Ocean's Eleven episode. "Theme episodes" work sometimes, but often fall flat as the writer tries to shoehorn all of the characteristic tropes into one episode. It's fun to have the occasional homage, but constant ones make the show seems like a parody of other shows.
The episode follows another routine day in the life of The Doctor and Clara until they get a phone call on the Tardis phone. The scene suddenly jumps to an entirely different room with a handful of strangers as they watch videos explaining that they have all willfully erased their memories for some reason. They discover a briefcase left by a mystery person simply named "The Architect", only hearing his digitally altered voice. The briefcase contains plans to rob the impregnable vaults of the Bank of Karabraxos for some reason. While The Doctor usually doesn't do things like rob banks, whatever his reasons, this seems important. The group takes items from the case designed to aid them in their caper, and head to the bank. They have no memories of why they are doing it, or who sent them, but it seems like the right thing to do under the circumstances.
The supporting cast was very decent in this episode including those "strangers" I spoke of. It appears that "The Architect" has enlisted two specialists with what could be considered "powers" to aid The Doctor. Psi, played by Jonathan Bailey, has a computer enhanced brain like something out of a 80's cyberpunk story, and Saibra, played by Pippa Bennett-Warner, can shape shift into another being by simply touching them. They, of course, have their own motivations for the robbery, and it seems that everyone involved is in this to get something VERY important.
I really liked seeing Keeley Hawes as Ms. Delphox, the ruthless chief of bank security, since I have enjoyed her in many shows in the past. I was one of those folks, that when comparing the two, actually loved Ashes to Ashes better than its predecessor Life on Mars, the former having starred Hawes in the leading role. She is almost like a "Bond Villain" in Time Heist, down to the silly part where she explains all of her motivations, then leaves the room so that The Doctor and company can escape her clutches. All she needed was a big interrogation laser, well, I guess she had "The Teller".
This week's "monster" was pretty awesome and somewhat different to the sort of monsters we're used to seeing in Doctor Who. "The Teller" is a psychic creature, said to be the last of his kind, that uses psychic abilities to determine motive in anyone it comes across. If anyone has even so much as a thought about a way to defraud the Bank of Karabraxos, the terrifying hammer-headed beast will turn their mind to "soup", which is every bit as gruesome as it sounds. From the first moments that we see "The Teller" accompanied by handlers, a straight jacket, and crunchy guitar riff, you can tell The Doctor is going to have trouble this week.
Time Heist is sort of jarring in that it uses the literary technique of the "unreliable narrator" in that we don't get much explanation as to what is happening and are somewhat misled until the end of the episode. The way The Architect's plan plays itself out reminds me of some of the sillier stuff from those "Bill and Ted" movies where they set things up with time travel to aid in the present. In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, for instance, the titular characters went through and "set up" convenient Deus-Ex-Machina type things to get them out of sticky situations – like hidden guns and the like. In Doctor Who, we see characters seemingly die, then come back later at the "nick of time" as if it's all according to one big plan.
Time Heist is better than Journey to the Centre of the Tardis and The Curse of the Black Spot in that Stephen Thompson went a bit more abstract than the usual "theme episode". This episode is by no means a classic, and has silly logic, but it was entertaining none-the-less. Keeley Hawes and "The Teller" were highlights for me, and I honestly hope we get to see both make a return at some point, although I'm not holding my breath.
Doctor Who reviews: Robot of Sherwood
Doctor Who: Hide (2013)
Doctor Who: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis (2013)
Doctor Who Season 7 Postmortem
WHO KNOWS: TIME HEIST, or Capaldi's Eleven
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 29, 2014 Categories Doctor Who, Doctor Who Series 8, TV ReviewsTags Bank of Karabraxos, BBC, BBC America, Clara, Curse of the Black Spot, Doctor, Doctor who, doctorwho, keeley hawes, Peter Capaldi, Pippa Bennett-Warner, sci-fi, science fiction, Tardis, Television, Teller3 Comments on Doctor Who: Time Heist (2014)
Written by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
Directed by Gary Russell
Sound Design and Post Production by Gareth Jenkins
Music by Jane Elphinstone and Jim Mortimore
Starring: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn Smythe), Holly De Jong (Amelia Doory), Rob Dixon (Reggie Mead), Rosie Cavaliero (Cassie), Stephen Chance (Nimrod); Rupert Booth (Dr William Abberton/Matthew), Mark Wright (Mr. Deeks),Kate Hadley (Nurse), Daniel Wilson (Eddie), Gary Russell (Newsreader)
Full disclosure here: In all honesty, I'm not much of a fan of vampire fiction. While I would say that Nosferatu is, quite possibly, one of my favorite horror films, anything after the 1950's is pretty hit or miss for me. Things that "try something different" with the legendary creatures like Hellsing, Vampire Hunter D, I am Legend or even Lost Boys are fairly interesting, but exists as diamonds in the proverbial rough of all of the other vampire stuff. I especially am not a fan of the more "romantic" side of vampire fiction, meaning that anything from Anne Rice novels to True Blood aren't necessarily bad, but are not my most favorite thing to watch/read/ listen to. So imagine my apprehension when I come face to face with an audio drama that is not only about vampires, but has the word "Twilight" smack dab in the center. If there is anything that I don't like it's a story of pre-pubescent love between a vampire werewolf, and a caricature of a high school girl, but I digress.
Doctor Who has tackled vampires before, to varying degrees of success. We have seen things like fairly classical vampires in State of Decay, fish monsters that have fangs in Vampires of Venice, or grotesque mutations with a taste for blood as in Cure of Fenric. I think one of reasons I'm not too enamored with these stories is that they go leagues out of their way to explain common vampire tropes like an aversion to garlic, thirst for blood, and sensitivity to light all with a scientific slant. This has been done so often since 1954's I am Legend that it almost seems silly at this point; it's quite similar to how contrived many of the "origin stories" for zombies have become. In the 50's, Richard Metheson breathed new life into a tired genre by making his vampires somewhat science-based, 60 years later it's yet another tired cliché. I honestly can handle these mythological creatures, there doesn't need to be an elaborate background of expositionary dialogue to set everything up.
In Project: Twilight we find ourselves knee deep in just such a situation, with vampires being explained in a silly way. It appears that the 'Twilight' vampires were a form of botched scientific experiment, having been humans (typically prisoners or war wounded) created during the First World War by the Forge, a top secret government initiative to research means by which a superior soldier class might be engineered. So basically, the vampires in this episode are like a messed up version of Captain America.
The reason The Doctor and Evelyn end up coming face to face with this situation is The Doctor's hunger for what he says is the best Chinese food in all of the galaxy, located in the most unlikely place – a dockside in south-east London. He assures Evelyn that he has sat for dinner with the legendary Kublai Khan, and not had Chinese take-out as good as this restaurant – The Slow Boat. Once they are chowing down on MSG-filled wontons and noodles, they discover the remnants of what can basically be called a "nest" filled with carcasses of brutalized small animals and other refuse. Next thing you know something like a mafia hit appears to happen nearby, and The Doctor and Evelyn are stuck in the middle of another bad situation.
'Private. Do not enter.' Oh dear, perhaps I should tell them that's ancient Gallifreyan for 'Doctor come on in, have a snoop around.'
We are introduced to the staff of a shady nightclub and casino called Dusk, run by a man named Reggie Mead who is obviously in some sort of organized crime syndicate boss, oh and a vampire. Other characters are varying degrees of likability, but a character name Nimrod stands out the most. he is described as an older man, donning all sort of futuristic vampire hunting technology. He is apparently nearly one-hundred years old, and was a twisted scientist in his past. He was mortally wounded and had to inject himself with the very same serum that created the vampires in the first place, cursing himself to hunt the earth for his own kind. My mind immediately slipped to the Marvel comics character Blade, who was a vampire himself, and yet hunted other vampires.
I liked Project: Twilight for what is was, but it's not my favorite entry of the Big Finish line. Try as I might, I just have trouble enjoying vampire stories as much as other people and I'm not sure why. I like the inclusion of the shady governmental organization Forge and Nimrod, and hope they show up up again in a later installment. Much like with a few of the New Adventures related Sylvester McCoy dramas, I disliked how gory this episode was. I am not squeamish to this sort of thing, but I don't see Doctor Who as the prime place for exploding people and vampire torture with added "squishy organ" sound effects. I originally didn't finish this drama a few years ago because it got silly towards the middle with this stuff, and I was especially burnt out on vampire stuff having worked at a retail store when those Twilight books and films were coming out. On the second listen I'm glad I finished it, and I would say that it's above average.
Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror (2013)
Whatever happened to the Western
A Review of Blood Red Turns Dollar Green Volume 2
Comic book reviews: Fatima: The Blood Spinners
The Day of the Triffids (2009) – Part One
Out of the Unknown (1965) No Place like Earth
Out of the Unknown (1965) Stranger In The Family
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 23, 2014 September 23, 2014 Categories Big Finish Audio Review, Doctor WhoTags Anne Rice, audio drama, BBC, Big Finish, Bram Stoker, Cavan Scott, Colin Baker, Doctor, Doctor who, doctorwho, Evelyn Smythe, Gareth Jenkins, Gary Russell, Hellsing, Jim Mortimore, London, Nosferatu, Rosie Cavaliero, science fiction, State of Decay, Sylvester McCoy, True Blood, Twilight, Vampire, Vampire Hunter D3 Comments on Doctor Who: Project: Twilight (2001)
The Monday Meme: I Mustache You a Question
The Monday meme: Robo-Apocalypse
The Monday Meme: Chocoholic
The Monday Meme: Tumbleweeds
The Monday Meme: Syphilis
The Dragon's Loyalty Award
This Can't Possibly Be a Real Petition…
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 22, 2014 September 21, 2014 Categories Comedy, Doctor Who, The Monday MemeTags 70's porn, BBC, Colin Baker, comedy, creepy, Doctor who, doctorwho, Facebook, funny, meme, Monday Meme, mustache, Tumblr, TwitterLeave a comment on The Monday Meme: I Mustache You a Question
For me, there has never been an episode as deceiving, and surprising, as Listen. At first, I was under the impression that this was going to be a straight-forward horror episode, in a similar vein to last year's Hide. This was "egged on" by a trailer that reveled in the creepy aspects of the episode, leaving no question to me exactly what we were going to be getting. I like these sorts of episodes a bit, but usually find them to be somewhat worse than other episodes due to the tendency to overdo the explanation for whatever supernatural creature they "seem" to be fighting. That's not a ghost! It's merely a time traveler trapped in a parallel dimension! That's not a vampire! That's an alien from the deepest outer-reaches of space! You get the idea. Then I watched the episode and everything changed. While the beginning segment of the episode was a straight forward "creep out" exercise by Steven Moffat, what followed was quite possibly some of his most clever writing since Blink.
I'm going to do far more of a recap than usual, because this is not an episode that simply needs a one paragraph blurb to get the point across. In fact, I have no idea how to express the plot of this other than actually analyzing it, and you will soon see why.
Question. Why is there no such thing as perfect hiding? Answer! How would you know? Logically, if evolution were to prefect a creature whose primary skill were to hide from view – how could you know it existed? It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it, even sense it… except in those moments when, for no clear reason, you choose to speak aloud? What would such a creature want? What would it do? Well? What would you do?
Listen opens with the long-awaited date between Danny Pink and Clara Oswald that was hinted at few episodes ago. As one can imagine, this does not go well at all, and both parties end up awkwardly offending each other in probably the worst way possible. Clara once again mentions something that offhandedly seems to be a reference to Danny's buried past, and he lashes out at her – ruining the date. Disheartened, Clara goes to the Tardis to meet a Doctor that seems to have been left alone to ponder something for far too long.
It seems he has become completely consumed with the idea that every living being has a constant companion, an entity that is with us at all times, watching us, experiencing all we experience. Being a bit into western esotericism, this almost seemed to hint at an old Platonic theory of the eidolon, a "shadow being" that we all have that may or may not be our actual suppressed personality or essence. This isn't actually referenced in the episode whatsoever, but I was all ready for the possibility that they were going for that and I got excited (LOL). The Doctor's "theory" is that everyone seems to have the same dream at some point in their lives, a dream in which a hand grabs them from under the bed at night. He asserts that this was no dream, but this entity trying to communicate with us. Clara initially dismisses this wholesale, but agrees to return to her childhood so they can investigate.
There is a blunder in the Tardis navigation circuits (WHAT!? That never happens!), and instead of visiting Clara's childhood, they seem to visit a young Rupert Pink, a boy that it is assumed to be none other than Danny. Of course, The Doctor has yet to officially meet Mr. Pink, so he seemingly does not know the significance. Rupert is terrified of a monster under his bed, making him a prime candidate to test The Doctor's theory. As they discuss the situation, and odd apparition rises from under Rupert's bed sheets, leading The Doctor to have them turn away from it, ignoring it. While this could be a monster, it also could have merely been another child keen to play a prank on Rupert.
An interesting thing happens here when both Clara and The Doctor seem to "create" Danny Pink by imprinting values and future information on him. Clara suggests he let a toy soldier stand guard for him, which he enjoys the idea of. He's always been into soldiers, and names one of his toys "Soldier Dan". Since he hates his real name, we can see this as when he chooses "Danny" as his new alias. Before wiping his mind of their meeting, The Doctor encourages Rupert to see his fear as a "superpower," because adrenaline will empower him to overcome obstacles and foes. He seems adamant of this, as if he knows something he isn't telling anyone else. Rupert slips into a deep sleep with his new life as the heroic "Soldier Dan" firmly implanted into his mind.
This is where the episode veers off into a place where I had no idea it would go. The Doctor and Clara decide to go back to her "date", mere minutes after she storms off, in order to set things right with Danny. The Doctor isn't so keen on this, but seems okay as long as he can ponder his theory more. The date still goes poorly, this time with Danny storming out after she accidentally calls him "Rupert". He assumes that she is making fun of him in some way, and is hurt. A man in an orange spacesuit steps into the diner, and assuming it's The Doctor, Clara follows him angrily. The man removes his mask to reveal a much older Danny Pink!
The Doctor identifies this man as Orson Pink, one of Earth's first time travelers, having originally come from over one-hundred years in Clara's future. The Doctor found him stranded at the end of the universe, where he was on the verge of death and fearing that an entity was trying to kill him. The Doctor theorizes that this is the very same "companion entity" that he was looking for earlier, and that it may be trying to kill Orson since he is the only remaining life in the Universe.
Orson decided to become a time traveler when he was a child due to things that happened in his upbringing. It is revealed that one of Orson's great-grandparents told him stories about time travel and that Orson possesses the small toy soldier given to Rupert earlier in the episode. He gives it back saying that she is worthy of his family heirloom. Something happens and our crew attempts to escape the entity and end up in an odd location as the cloister bell rings, a telltale sign of enormous danger.
Clara finds herself in a rickety barn with a crying child in it. She is forced to hide under the bed when two people enter and try and coax the child out of the room. They are concerned that his constant fear of the dark is going to make him a poor soldier, and that he will never become a TIME LORD at his current state. Horrified at what she has heard, Clara accidentally grabs the child's leg from under the bed.
It is at this time that she realizes that she has met none other than The Doctor himself as a young boy, and she is the "companion entity" that he is fearful of. She tells him that he is dreaming, and that he needs to channel his fear into something good, a similar idea that The Doctor told a young Rupert Pink. This barn is none other than the rickety old barn seen in "Day of the Doctor", so it can be assumed that they are somehow on Gallifrey. Clara tells the Doctor that they need to leave without question, and that he isn't to know where they just were.
Listen is the perfect set-up for a Moffat-style monster that ends up being a GIANT red herring. He excels at creating conceptual monsters that embody some sort of primal fear that we all share, and in this case it was taken to the ultimate conclusion. For half of the episode, I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the reveal on the constant companion and why it seems to be terrorizing The Doctor so much. Realizing that this monster is none other than a misunderstanding from The Doctor, and that he is secretly "scared of the dark" is pretty awesome. In fact, knowing what is going on makes a second viewing that much better.
To be honest, When I thought this was a straightforward monster episode I felt that the beginning was weird and oddly paced. The episode seemed to be almost nonsensically put together on a narrative standpoint and concentrated on Clara's date way too much. It's only half-way through when I realized that the monster isn't the main point of the episode, and the date is a study of what makes Danny Pink tick, and why the Doctor acts the way he does. We basically end up searching the negative space of the episode, looking for clues that help us know about the monster (much like The Doctor) and are left speechless when we find out that there is no monster.
We are left assuming that The Doctor has basically made an immense leap of logic that seems somewhat uncharacteristic for himself, and has veered somewhat into the realm of the conspiracy theorist. I'm not going to say that this fact makes The Twelfth Doctor crazy, but his motivation here seems to be that of someone that is utterly horrified by something, but can't get past the most likely reason for feeling the way he does. He literally cannot come out and say that he's scared and show any weakness; being so used to carrying the universe on his shoulders, he has somehow internalized it into this "superpower" he tells Danny about.
As a complete package, it all comes together in such a gratifying way that I haven't felt since the 50th anniversary special. In a way, this is the current show's Edge of Destruction, an episode from "classic Who" that seemed weird, oddly paced, and yet immensely gratifying once you realized what was happening.
If anything, this season has proven to be much more about character building than the previous few, and I for one am very happy about that. While I hope that we don't see too much more of The Doctor's past, it was cool seeing him as a child. Writers always run the risk of spoiling the mystery of characters like The Doctor by showing their "origin stories" (see X-Men's Wolverine) but seeing him before he became who he is was awesome. Clara has really imprinted herself on The Doctor much more than anyone else has, she really is "The Constant Companion."
Doctor Who: The Bells of St. John (2013)
Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 21, 2014 Categories Doctor Who, Doctor Who Series 8, UncategorizedTags BBC, BBC America, Blink, Clara, Clara Oswald, Danny, Doctor, Doctor who, doctorwho, Gallifrey, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Peter Capaldi, Rupert, science fiction, Steven Moffat, Tardis, Television, Time Lord, TV7 Comments on Doctor Who: Listen (2014)
Red Dwarf's Norman Lovett Makes Indie Dark Comedy Film
"Twisted Showcase was delighted to work with the legendary comedian, whose affinity and passion for the issues dealt with in Toilet Soup, an uncompromising attack on internet trolls and general ignorance, gives the episode a powerful authenticity that is hard to ignore."
One Leg Too Few
"When it comes to euphoniously-named book series, you can't do much better than the Tripods Trilogy, and this isn't even the most impressive thing about it. This series doesn't seem to be nearly as well-known these days as it deserves to be – the TV adaptation is thirty years old now, and the film version is apparently stuck in Development Hell – but having recently revisited it I find it still has much to commend it."
Find out why a British crime author made a sci-fi FPS at Develop Live
"The Scottish novelist has spent the majority of his writing career focused on crime novels, but he switched genres to write Bedlam. While its story tells of human trapped in a world of video games, the book's connection to gaming runs far deeper: it is part of perhaps the first true game-and-novel tie-in, where the book was specifically written to be followed by a video game."
The Greatest Sci-Fi Characters of All Time
"Vote now for your favourite heroes and heroines, villains, machines, robots and aliens of the genre. Experts, writers, directors and famous fans will be nominating their contenders. Fandoms will mobilise, old grudges will re-awaken and passions will be played out in the final battle."
St Helens muscular dystrophy sufferer granted sci-fi movie wish
"A seven-year-old boy who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy has filmed his own sci-fi movie after a charity granted him his wish. Clark Doyle, from St Helens, was given the chance to write and record a feature film by the Make A Wish Foundation because of his love of movies."
AMC Acquires Sci-Fi Remake 'Humans' After Xbox Drops Out
"The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that AMC has acquired the rights for Humans, a sci-fi drama co-produced with the U.K.'s Channel 4. The series was originally meant to be a partnership with the fledgling Xbox Entertainment Studios, but Microsoft then pulled the plug on the venture."
'Think of the children!' Parents express outrage as Doctor Who travels through time to new latest EVER slot to avoid Strictly clashing with The X Factor
"Parents have been expressing their outrage after learning that the new series of the show is to be pushed back to it's latest ever time slot of 8.30pm, one hour after the 7.30pm slot that the previous episodes have been airing at.
Doctor Who and the Scottish referendum: The Doctor's adventures in time and Scotland
"With Scotland voting for and against Independence in the referendum today, let's take a look at the times when Doctor Who and the North of the Border featured together.
Of course, let's not forget the prominent Scots: Peter Capaldi, David Tennant and Sylvester McCoy, who have all played the Time Lord; John Barrowman, Karen Gillan and Neve McIntosh, who played the Doctor's friends; and Steven Moffat, the current showrunner."
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 20, 2014 Categories Features, Saturday LinksTags BBC, Clark Doyle, doctorwho, Duchenne, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, Glory Lane, Hollywood Reporter, Make A Wish Foundation, Muscular dystrophy, red dwarf, Rick Porcello, Television, Television program, The TripodsLeave a comment on Here's Your Saturday Links: 9-20-14
The Monday Meme: Supermodels
From: Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma
Doctor Who: The Adventure Games Episode 2 – Review
The Night of the Doctor (2013)
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 15, 2014 Categories Doctor Who, The Monday MemeTags BBC, Doctor, doctorwho, Monday Meme, Steven Moffat, Television, Television program, Twin Dilemma3 Comments on The Monday Meme: Supermodels
Fun fact of the day:
"According to a report in Variety, published on 6 November 1956, a nine-year old boy died of a ruptured artery at a cinema in Oak Park, Illinois during a showing of this double bill. The Guinness Book of Records subsequently recorded the incident as the only known case of an audience member dying of fright while watching a horror film."
Deep Breath Hits No 1 At US Box Office!
"Soumya Sriraman, BBC Worldwide North America's EVP Home Entertainment and Licensing, says "Doctor Who continues to grow in the U.S. and it is thrilling to see the fans come out for the theatrical screening experience as we've embarked on new adventures with Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. We've enjoyed partnering with Fathom Events and our accomplishment in the box office is a testament to the successful collaboration between our two companies.""
Project Hieroglyph: Fighting society's dystopian future
"Just glancing at this week's movie listings, those in the US can see humans battling super apes for world domination, a gang of Marvel misfits fighting against the universe's certain doom, or a young boy tasked with keeping all memories of a society that has done away with individuality."
Revealed! The covers of our GQ Men Of The Year issue (Peter Capaldi gets a cover)
"On 2 September it was the hottest ticket in town, but if you couldn't make it to the ceremony itself you can now catch up on all the winners in this year's issue celebrating the GQ Men Of The Year Awards 2014, in association with Hugo Boss. From the Beatle who's been promoting peace and love for five decades, as well as the rogue British hotshoe shaking up Formula 1 to a sci-fi double-hitter of in the form of Doctor Who's Peter Capaldi and Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch, you'll find interviews and shoots with 22 incredibly influential men – and one perpetually intriguing woman – on the bleeding edge of now."
American Doctor Who fans befuddled by Capaldi's accent: 'He should be called Doctor What!?'
"While the 12th Doctor may have been thrilled about his development, it turns out that some of the show's fans are not. As Capaldi made his debut, the internet's complaint registry (aka Twitter) was quickly filled with the grumbles of fans struggling to understand the new Doctor's new accent."
Steven Moffat Talks Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who Costume
"Showrunner Steven Moffat has spoken exclusively to SFX about the new series of Doctor Who, launching next month on BBC One. And he tells us that new star Peter Capaldi had a major input into just what the well-dressed Time Lord is wearing this aeon…"
So Who Does the Internet Think the Next Doctor Will be?
Continuing The Peter Capaldi Discussion
The Twelfth Doctor & Why I'm Sick of Nerd In-Fighting
Author Stephen K.Posted on September 13, 2014 Categories Doctor Who, Saturday Links, UncategorizedTags BBC, Beatle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Doctor, Doctor who, fathom events, GQ, Hugo Boss, Peter Capaldi, Steven Moffat, Time Lord, Twitter, United StatesLeave a comment on Here's Your Saturday Links: 9-13-14

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Now in its sixth year, Stowe Story Labs have opened the application process for their Fall Narrative Labs. NewEnglandFilm.com will once again sponsor one New England fellow to help them receive this amazing experience for filmmakers. Use code NEFSSL for a 15% on the application fee.
Whether you're someone who's been working in film for years or you're a newbie, you're likely ready to kick your film career up a notch. Our panel of pros will discuss the state of the independent film industry in the 21st century, offering some tips for funding, producing, and distributing your films.
Suzy Cosgrove interviews writer/director Raeshelle Cooke about her film Wrath City, about what inspired her to make it, and about the conversations she is hoping it will start.
New Year's Resolution? Kickstart Your Film Career.
Losing weight, exercising more, pssha! Make your New Year's resolution this year to kickstart your film career. Here are 6 ideas to help you do just that.
Screening through October 15 as part of the 2017 Online New England Film Festival and based on a short story, the short film Fire is a story where the cold of winter becomes a threat to the protagonist. In this interview with NewEnglandFilm.com, the film's director, Ben Silberfarb talks about the trilogy of films about the outdoors he's working on and he provides insight on how he came to own his own production company, SILBERFARB-FILMS.
Screening through October 15 as part of the 2017 Online New England Film Festival, What My Friends Do on a Saturday Night is a parody of Game of Thrones viewing parties, which uses complicated relationships and intricate party etiquette to fashion comedic situations. In this interview with NewEnglandFilm.com, the short's director, Ryan Weed, enlightens us on the inspiration for his short and on what pushed him to pursue film.
Screening through October 15 as part of the 2017 Online New England Film Festival, Pan- is a beautiful portrait of a pansexual individual's struggles and her journey of self-discovery. In this interview with NewEnglandFilm.com, the director of the film, Dennis Tsai, talks about about how his college experience inspired the film and about the excitement of screening his movie at a local film festival.


Frozen & Refrigerated Food Council March National Frozen Food Month Promotional Coupon Flyer. I designed and managed national coupon insertions into our coupon flyer, produced and prepared final art files, and supervised printing of 500,000 inserts.
The Frozen and Refrigerated Food Council of Northern California's National Frozen Food Month Promotion. The theme was "From Farm to Frozen To Fork!" and the National Tie-in was March National Frozen Food Month This is the regional (Northern California) promotion where 500,000 of these coupon flyers were inserted into local newspapers and were also on-hand at all the participating retailers in the promotion area. These are supported by local radio and on the council website and social media.
For March, the Council added a Natural & Healthy Options section of the Coupon Flyer to promote those types of products.
Above are some coupon ads and recipes in the March Coupon Flyer and Below is a collage or all the participating national brands that purchased coupon or ad space in the Frozen Food Month Promotion.


text:
Q: No Warning for conflicting category methods I am running XCode 4.6.3 and try to create a project with a conflicting category methods like below.
//NSString+category1.h
@interface NSString (category1)

-(NSString*)foo;

@end

//NSString+category1.m
#import "NSString+category1.h"

@implementation NSString (category1)

-(NSString*)foo{
    return self;
}

@end

// NSString+category2.h
@interface NSString (category2)

-(NSString*)foo;

@end

//NSString+category2.m
#import "NSString+category2.h"

@implementation NSString (category2)

-(NSString*)foo{
    return self;
}

@end

XCode 4.6 is supposed to give me some warning, however, it is not. Is there a special compiler/linker flag needed to be set?

A: According to Avoid Category Method Name Clashes in the Programming with Objective-C guide:

If the name of a method declared in a category is the same as a method in the original class, or a method in another category on the same class (or even a superclass), the behavior is undefined as to which method implementation is used at runtime. ...
... In order to avoid undefined behavior, it's best practice to add a prefix to method names in categories on framework classes, just like you should add a prefix to the names of your own classes. You might choose to use the same three letters you use for your class prefixes, but lowercase to follow the usual convention for method names, then an underscore, before the rest of the method name.

Bottom line, I believe the burden rests upon the developer to ensure that method names are unique.

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Artwork of Dorias from Thracia 776.
(Japanese: ドリアス Dorias) was a knight and Duke of Leonster, and the father of fellow Leonster knight Selfina. A devoted warrior and strategic mind who was willing to sacrifice anything for the future of Leonster, Dorias played a key role in ensuring the young prince Leif survived the kingdom's downfall, and years later served as a tactician and advisor to the prince in his revolutionary war against the Grannvale Empire's control of Leonster.
By Grann 762, Dorias had achieved the rank of general in the Leonster army despite his relative youth. In the prelude to the battle of River Thracia, Dorias was the only active general who remained behind in the Leonster capital, and so he was present when news returned from the front of King Calf's demise in battle. When news of Thracia's imminent attack on the capital came, Dorias was tasked by Queen Alfiona with working with Finn to ensure her infant grandson, Leif escaped and evaded capture. As part of Alfiona's plan, Dorias and his subordinates split up from Finn, Leif, Lachesis and Nanna and took a different escape route, in order to draw less attention, with the intent of having everybody rejoin Finn's group later.
Three years later in Grann 765, Dorias, Leif, Finn and a retinue of Leonster refugees lived in Alster under the protection of its royal family. After a failed assassination attempt on Bloom by an unknown party, Dorias assisted Leif, Finn, Lachesis and Nanna in escaping from the city; in a battle he waged against the Grannvale army to buy Leif time, he lost his right arm. Some time afterward, he entered the protection of Hannibal of Thracia and took up residence in Hannibal's mountain mansion, along with Selfina and other fugitive Leonster knights and nobles. In the intervening time, he took to training the young Leonster knights in his custody.
Following the Alster battle, Leif had long believed Dorias to have died to protect him, and after meeting Hannibal himself eleven years later he rejoiced at the opportunity to reunite with Dorias. In Grann 776, Dorias, Selfina and the knights still resided at Hannibal's mansion, and Leif was sent by Hannibal to meet with them. Before Leif could arrive, however, the territory around the mansion experienced the sudden appearance of the Thracian army. Dorias assumed that Travant had learned of the Leonster refugees occupying it, but having received word from Hannibal of Leif's approach, he insisted that they wait for Leif and hold their ground. Upon Leif's arrival at the mansion, Dorias pledged his support as a tactician and his trainees joined Leif's army.
Following the escape from Tahra, Dorias came into conflict with August over the army's next move. While Leonster was the agreed-upon destination for the revolution army, Dorias believed that the army should take the northern high road to Leonster in order to act as an inspiration to those suffering under Grannvale's rule, despite being fully aware of the inevitable casualties afforded by this direct route; August criticized him for his stance of putting glory over the lives of his men. Either way, upon reaching and reclaiming Leonster, Leif's army received word of a Grannvale crackdown on Alster, and Dorias volunteered to lead an advance guard to assist the situation there while Leif remained behind to build up Leonster's defenses. A day later, Leif received word that Dorias's army had been overrun and decimated by Grannvale's might, and that Dorias had distracted the army to buy his surviving men time to escape, dying in battle as a result.
Dorias is a non-playable character, appearing only in cutscenes, but he does have one effect on gameplay. In all chapters in which Dorias is with Leif's party (from 10 to 18 onward), Leif gains an additional authority star. August has the same effect, so both being present awards Leif two authority stars.
Dorias lived for his service to the Leonster royal family, being willing to sacrifice anything, including his own life, to ensure its survival without even the slightest hesitation. His loyalty to Leonster was unwavering, to the point where he seemed to exhibit a false, idealized view of the late Prince Quan, erroneously believing him to have been the sort to spare his enemies. For all of his respect and reverence for Leif and the rest of the Leonster family, Dorias had no reservations about criticizing members of other ruling families, even going so far as to brutally lambast the late king of Alster right to Miranda's face.
While fundamentally a good and honorable man and an excellent tactician, Dorias nonetheless had an interest with symbolic inspiration and glory to the point of considering losing men in such gestures to be a worthy sacrifice; this was made primarily evident in his argument with August over which route to take to Leonster, with his assertion that taking the more heavily fortified and direct northern route would be superior solely because of the army's ability to use it to rally the spirits of the people, regardless of casualties. He had no problem with openly admiring any similar knightly honor and military efficiency exhibited by enemy forces.
(unofficial) Dorias Used in the Thracia 776 fan translation.
Japanese ドリアス Officially romanized as Dorias.
Dorias's portrait in Thracia 776.
↑ "Dorias: But you led your forces equally well, Lord Leif.
Leif: Do you mean how I left General Largo alive?
↑ "Dorias: Lord Leif, we must head west on this mountain path to exit onto the northern highroad."
August: Count Dorias, are you sure we want to take the coastline? I believe we should head east down the mountain and attack Leonster from the south.
Dorias: The thick forests of Melfiye lie to the south of Leonster. Those forests are well-known for people losing their way in them.
August: I'm aware of that. But that also means that the Empire's defenses would be lax. With our small numbers, we must take full advantage of the terrain.
Dorias: I disagree. Thracia... No, this entire continent is watching over our fight. We must not only win, our victory must be one that gives courage to the people suffering from Imperial oppression. We should march in proudly from the front, flying the flag of Leonster.
August: The northern highroad is practically Leonster's front door. Legions of enemy soldiers will be defending it. We will lose many of our troops.
Dorias: I understand. But their deaths will be in glory and honor.
↑ "Dorias: General Largo... Quite a fine warrior.
Leif: This is the first time I've ever fought the Friege army, but they were stronger than I expected... If that's what a small group of border guards is like, then I can only imagine how powerful the main army is.


Because they're commonly banished to rumpus rooms, garages and bars, foosball tables are rarely judged for their looks. In fact, the vast majority of them are very ugly. But after seeing this fine piece of design work by RS Barcelona, maybe it's time to reconsider.


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BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA (April 9, 2012)– Bloomington-based collaborative workspace, The Solution Lab, announced today a range of new membership options for established businesses that need temporary space for one for more employees.
A state-of-the-art facility for small businesses and entrepreneurs, The Solution Lab offers a variety of collaborative, private, and semi-private office space to accommodate the dynamic needs of growing enterprises. Memberships include conference room space, copier and fax capabilities, wireless Internet, a toll-free phone number with voicemail, an onsite workout center and a business library, among other amenities, with flexible lease terms ranging from one month to one year.
As part of the new membership options, The Solution Lab proudly announces the grand opening of Btown Gym, The Solution Lab's on-site workout center with state-of-the art exercise equipment, exercise coaches, and nutrition counselors. Btown Gym's motto is "helping you help yourself," and requires measurable progress of its members in order to renew a membership with Btown Gym. Membership to Btown Gym is free for all Solution Lab tenants.
"This a good example of the thriving small business environment we have in this part of the state – Bloomington entrepreneurs have stepped forward to fill a need for low cost, flexible space for other entrepreneurs and existing businesses," stated Ron Walker, President of the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation. "As we see businesses maximize their use of real estate, we expect The Solution Lab to be a resource for small, growing companies as well as start-ups needing a professional presence," explained Walker.
The Solution Lab has the capacity to host companies and individuals in 25 offices and 25 dedicated desks, as well as up to 25 collaborative work spaces. Other unique aspects of The Solution Lab include its cozy loveseats and impressive local artwork.
"The Solution Lab offers a variety of options in terms of office space: dedicated private offices with locking doors, dedicated desks, and workstations open for use on a first-come, first-served basis," explains Troy Phelps, Operations Director of The Solution Lab. "We have options for everyone, whether it is a multi-employee company that needs a combination of offices and desk space or a single-person startup company that needs sporadic access to a workspace." The Solution Lab is currently accepting applications for membership. For more information, email info@bloomingtonoffice.com or call 888.758.2678.
The Solution Lab offers office space that is divided into two workspaces: the collaborative workcenter and the dedicated workcenter. The former functions as a first come first served environment with single person tables, couches, and more, and the latter provides a more traditional workspace with desks and allocated offices. The Solution Lab seeks to provide members with the tools they need to succeed as small businesses and entrepreneurs. For more information visit http://www.bloomingtonoffice.com/.


A session on Basic Life Support & Diet Counseling was organised at Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting, Baddi. Sister Jaspreet & Sandeep, nursing educators, demonstrated and explained importance of first aid training and basic life support. Dt Abhilasha explained how diet is important and what changes are required for individuals to lead a long and healthy life. The session was attended by 35 people.


What is the right balance then? How do we hit the right person at the right times without making the person feel ad-attacked? This blog will talk about my top four strategies to negate ad fatigue and keep your audience receptive.
Frequency capping is one of those settings that is there and is important, but often times we are assigning an arbitrary number to it and calling it a day.
But here is the thing: I was a loyal Shutterfly customer to start. I will purchase from Shutterfly again. But sometimes, it takes me a while to win a hand of solitaire, and I am given ad after ad after ad of products from Shutterfly and I am over it. And I am really good at holding a grudge.
Same boring ads served in short period of time.
Moral of the story: be gentle with your ads. Shoving them in someone's face is not polite.
Remarketing lists are the best way to gain insight into your audience behavior. Build out some lists in Google or Bing or Analytics and all of the sudden you have visibility to how they interact with your site. Use this information! Serving remarketing ads in bulk to anyone who tiptoed on your site might work for a while, but eventually, you are just floating ads to people who may or may not be interested.
You know the famous scene in Jerry Maguire? The one where after Jerry is gone for a time, he shows up at Dorothy's and he gives his big speech? And Dorothy's all "You had me at hello"?
THAT is like good remarketing.
Make sure you are building out all the different types of lists you can think of. Use Remarketing Gladiators: AdWords vs Analytics Lists Dissected, a great article by Carrie Albright as a guide.
Just observe things for a while.
This tip piggybacks off of remarketing strategy. Know your audience and know them well. You will start to get an idea of your audience through data you get back from remarketing lists. Beyond that, Facebook does an excellent job building out personas called "Lifestyles".
While these are fun to read through, I highly recommend building out your own personas for your brand, rather than trying to fit Facebook's descriptions to your brand. Use market research if you have it. Visualize your ideal customers. If your ideal customer is a female, aged 25-34 and you look at your analytics demographic data and see that males, aged 18-23 are doing the most interaction with your brand, you may want to rethink your strategy.
My point is, your ideal and the reality might be two different things. So make sure you are connecting the dots and your product-audience-message are aligned. Doing this makes writing targeted ads that much easier. Which leads me to my final tip.
I mentioned how I love good ads. When shopping for my husband's birthday gift last year, I placed the TRX Home System in my cart and then started browsing other sites for reviews, better prices, etc. A day or so later, I was served an ad on Facebook with a message like, "Fitness equipment does you no good sitting in a cart. Finish your shopping and get free shipping." BOOM. Sold. Done.
Give someone a reason to return. What problem will your product or service solve? Is price the pain point? Can you offer a coupon? It is really easy to rewrite copy and say the exact same thing. No fun. Serving a generic ad with slightly different copy is likely to be ignored.
Use ad customizers. I'm just now starting to take full advantage of these. It is a no-brainer! Let people know you are paying attention and craft an ad that makes sense to them at that moment.
Address pain points. Do you have a high-price item? How can you demonstrate the benefits outweighing the cost?
Give 'em FOMO. I'm not talking about "Hurry! These deals won't last long!" copy. With each passing day, what is someone missing out on? Maybe Shutterfly should have told me that my babies are growing up fast and my phone storage is getting full so I better get those memories on a new set of placements. You get the idea.
Many big brands set out to make the ultimate ad–one that reaches a huge audience, tugs at the heartstrings, breaks barriers, etc. And many brands fail. Being innovative with ads doesn't mean trying ALL THE THINGS ALL AT ONCE to get someone to convert. We are all fighting for "screen time" with our audiences. Show your audience that you not only respect their time but you are paying attention by being hyper-relevant and have a light touch.


text:
A&E suffers worst monthly performance since 2010
Thursday April 14, 2016, 9:47 AM
. Credit: PA
Video report by ITV News' Health Editor Rachel Younger:
Accident and emergency services in England suffered their worst monthly performance since 2010 in February, new figures reveal.
Just five out of the 138 trusts achieved the standard of seeing 95 per cent of patients within four hours.
An average of 87.8 per cent of patients were seen within the guideline four-hour time period - down from from 92 per cent during the same month last year.
Meanwhile, the total number of A&E attendances during the month was up by 13.1 per cent - up to more than 1.8 million - on the same time period last year, while admissions were up by nine per cent to 463,000.
The latest report from NHS England attributes the rise to there being an extra day in the month, due to 2016 being a leap year.
The report also reveals the best and worst-performing A&E departments, comparing all patients with 'Type 1' patients - the ones in the most life-threatening conditions.
Only five out of the 138 trusts achieved the standard of seeing 95 per cent of patients within four hours. Credit: PA
Luton and Dunstable University Hospital Trust and Sheffield Children's Trust were the only two to achieve above the 95 per cent guideline for both Type 1 patients and across the board.
Harrogate and District, Dudley Group of Hospitals and South Warwickshire trusts all achieved 95 per cent across the board.
North Middlesex University Hospital Trust was named as having the worst-performing A&E, only managing to see 67.2 per cent of all patients - including Type 1 - within four hours.
Best-performing A&E departments:
Credit: NHS England
Type 1 performance relates to trusts with a "major A&E department" - which NHS England defines as a consultant led 24 hour service with full resuscitation facilities and designated accommodation for accepting A&E patients.
Worst-performing A&E departments:


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text:
ICC BASCAP calls for stronger intellectual property rights enforcement in ASEAN
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) group called today on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its 10 member states to do more to promote the value of intellectual property (IP) as a key driver for the region's growth and economic development, and to step up intellectual property right (IPR) enforcement actions to stop counterfeiting and piracy and other IPR infringements that are hurting the region's economies.
BASCAP's remarks were delivered at the 4th Philippine Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit in Manila, organized by the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL).
The event featured a keynote address by Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III on the value of IP for the Philippine economy, presented by Trade and Industry Secretary Gregory Domingo.
Mr Domingo said: "By increasing our synergies and forging a shared resolve towards improving the systems to protect intellectual property, we have laid the groundwork not only for a more effective, dynamic and more development-oriented IP regime, but consequently are fostering the conditions that will lead to our collective success. It is by protecting sectors from piracy, counterfeiting and abuse that we ensure stability and thus the expansion of the industry. This in turn guarantees the growth of market, which redounds to more doors of opportunity held open for the many."
The Summit, under the theme "Strengthening Intellectual Property Enforcement and Adjudication in the 21st Century", stressed the importance of putting in place an effective IP enforcement regime and a just and efficient adjudication system. The high-level meeting attracted IP experts, judges, prosecutors, government officials and industry from across the ASEAN region to discuss the importance of strengthening IP enforcement.
Speaking at the event, BASCAP representative Jean-Pierre Maeder, Nestle's special delegate for IP Advocacy, called on the ASEAN governments to take stronger measures to deter and prevent the trade in fakes.
"BASCAP is looking to ASEAN's leaders to actively communicate the value of IP to economic growth and employment," he said. "We call on ASEAN member countries to step up enforcement actions and protect against counterfeiting and piracy. This must become a public policy priority if ASEAN countries are to reach their true growth potential," said Mr Maeder.
With a combined population of more than 600 million people, strong economic growth and a growing middle class, ASEAN is an increasingly important region for business. Counterfeit and pirated goods have proliferated in the region, and global experience has shown that this can have a significant impact on investments in innovation, deprive governments of taxes and put consumer health and safety at risk.
Highlighting the need for increased international cooperation, Mr Maeder commended the Philippine initiative: "Today's event is an important opportunity for government officials and IP experts to put forward practical steps to resolve the problem of counterfeiting and piracy. Philippine leaders have recognized the importance of fostering creativity and innovation as a key to future economic growth, and we hope that their progress will inspire other ASEAN members to step up efforts to stop this global epidemic."
This year's Summit marked the Philippines removal from the US Trade Representative's special 301 watch list, which identifies US trading partners that do not adequately and effectively protect IPRs. The Philippines had been on the list since 1994. In discussing the state of IPR Protection and Enforcement in the Philippines, IPOPHL Director General Ricardo Blancaflor highlighted the many steps that the Philippine government had taken in recent years to improve the IP environment.
"We aim to make the IP system work better and faster for our IP right holders," Mr Blancaflor said. "The continuing push to improve IP enforcement and adjudication in the country is aligned with our bigger objective of having a demystified, democratized, and a development-oriented IP system."
BASCAP welcomed progress made by several ASEAN members, while noting that more still needs to be done to address the growing problem of counterfeit and piracy.
Mr Maeder presented a list of key measures that all ASEAN governments should undertake to achieve a strong and effective IP enforcement regime as:
•The provision of penalties that includes imprisonment as well as monetary fines sufficiently high to provide a deterrent to future acts of infringement. Enforcement should also extend to infringements carried out in the digital environment, with governments adopting procedures clarifying that companies will face liability for operating services based on promoting access to infringing materials.
•The empowerment of judicial authorities to issue injunctions against infringers of IPR and, in civil judicial proceedings, order the infringer to pay the right holder damages adequate to compensate for the injury suffered as a result of the infringement.
•The promotion of specialized skills training and expertise in IPR cases by law enforcement officials and courts through the creation of specialized IP units within enforcement agencies. Recognizing the global nature of IP crimes, national Customs authorities should be empowered to act upon their own initiative (ex-officio) to suspend the release of suspected counterfeit goods with respect to imported, exported, or in-transit goods.
Key findings from BASCAP's report on free trade zones' abuse, the use of proceeds of crime legislation as a means to deter IP crime, and importance of raising public awareness of the harms of counterfeits were also highlighted in his remarks.
The 4th Philippine Anti-Counterfeiting and Piracy Summit is the largest IP event held in the Philippines and is held as part of the Philippines celebration of IP month October. The event included speakers from Malaysia, Mexico, Taiwan and the US. Several BASCAP member companies were also present, including Nestle, Unilever and Philip Morris International.


text:
The MapInfo TAB format is a geospatial vector data format for geographic information systems software.  It is developed and regulated by MapInfo Corporation as a proprietary format.

File components

The basic file components for a MapInfo Professional data set relate to the two basic environments for working in MapInfo; "Browser View" and "Mapper View".

As with most other GIS packages, several files are required to allow the user to open a data set for viewing within MapInfo Professional. The most basic view would be the browser view only. This environment provides storage of attribute or object data and is represented like a spreadsheet. In this simplified scenario, no geographic information is available.

Minimum files required for the basic MapInfo Professional browser environment:
.TAB (The ASCII file that is the link between all other files and holds information about the type of data set file )
.DAT (The file that stores the attribute data. This is a dBase III DBF file)

As an alternative to the *.DAT file, MapInfo Professional can use other data formats such as, *.TXT, *.XLS *.WK*, *.MDB (and for each Microsoft Access format the software also makes another small file). MapInfo Professional still creates a .TAB file that contains information about the data set file, and the user interacts with the TAB file only.

There may also be a third file:
.IND (Optional index file for tabular data. This is present if any columns are indexed).

To view geographic information (the graphic representation of data) in MapInfo Professional, two additional files are required and added to the basic requirements for simply viewing data.

Minimum files required to view a map with the data previously discussed:
.MAP (Stores the graphic and geographic information needed to display each vector feature on a map)
.ID (Stores information linking graphic data to the database information. This contains a 4-byte integer index into the MAP file for each feature).

Each time a *.MAP file is saved by MapInfo Professional its objects are sorted into a storage sequence based on an R-tree spatial index. This optimises the read process of streaming data from disk to screen, at the cost of a relatively slow write process.

So the basic file set for viewing data and its graphic representation in vector form within MapInfo Professional requires a minimum of four files, normally the *.TAB, *.MAP, *.DAT and *.ID. If there is only textual information with no graphic objects, then a minimum of two files is needed: *.TAB and *.DAT.

While a data set is being edited by a user, temporary files are created by MapInfo Professional. The presence of any of these files locks the data set and prevents it from being edited by any other users. When the changes are saved, the temporary files are deleted by the software. In certain situations such as a power failure while editing is in progress, the temporary files may not be deleted and the changes will be lost. In this case the files should be manually deleted.

Normal temporary files have the following file name extensions:
.TDA  Temporary database file
.TIN  Temporary index file
.TMA  Temporary Map File

When using a database table such as Oracle Locator or Spatial, if the data is downloaded to the local machine, the temporary file name extensions are:
.LDA  Local Temporary database file
.LIN  Local Temporary index file
.LMA  Local Temporary Map File

MapInfo Professional can also use raster images and grid surfaces as layers in a map. These are stored in their native file formats, such as *.JPG, *.TIF or *.PNG, and the software again creates a *.TAB file for each one which includes georeferencing information.

A seamless table enables a single layer in a map to be derived from multiple base data sets, such as a mosaic of raster image tiles. When MapInfo Professional creates a seamless table it makes a simple vector layer which contains a rectangle for each base data set with attribute data defining the file path to the files containing the base data. When the seamless table is opened, metadata in its *.TAB file causes the map to display not the rectangles but the contents of the base tables in their place.

See also
MapInfo Interchange Format MIF and MID

External links
MITAB - MapInfo .TAB Read/Write Library
MapInfo Dataset Format Library of Congress

GIS vector file formats

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