• A Pickpocket’s Tale: The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins.
• Don’t read the comments! How online communities shape risk perception
• From Mubi: The Best Movie Posters of 2012
• Tree seeds offer potential for sustainable biofuels
• Japan cyber probe cops find cat collar clue
• Nice. PaperTab prototype wows at CES
• SSD predictions at CES: fewer OEMs, lower prices
• Adobe almost does something amazing by accident
• An account of living on 1.5kW
• Scientists look to fireflies to make a more efficient LED
• I’m heavily considering backing this thin-watch kickstarter
• An account of when 1080p does matter (vs. screen size vs. viewing distance)
• Another op-ed on The Hobbit’s 48HFR
• Also, this invisible driver prank video is pretty great

• Ars Technica’s craziest Craigslist posts of 2012
• Buzzfeed’s 27 science fictions that became science facts in 2012
• io9’s Most futuristic predictions that came true in 2012
• NYP asks designers for their favorite book cover designs of 2012
• Computer Weekly editor on digital publishing, growing revenue and life after print
• SMBC on Economics and the study of scarce resources
• The strange case of Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, as old by Grant Morrison
• A martian dream: What the Red Planet would look like with Earth-like oceans and life
• Profile on Jerry Seinfeld: intends to die standing up
• I now want to play Singularity Chess
• Scientific paper on The Effects of Peanut Butter on the Rotation of the Earth
• What does randomness look like?
• This guy’s assessment of the multiple visual qualities of The Hobbit‘s format is pretty damn good
• And this one at least illuminates some of the science how human perceive high frame rates
• Right on: Love Actually is rubbish
• Website: Essay Typer
• Website: Wi-fi joiner QR Code Generator

• Whoa, now the KKK are also fighting against Westboro Baptist
• “We still look at ourselves as survivors”: over 80 years later, remembering the deadliest school massacre in American history
• The rather interesting origin story of ‘Miranda Rights’
• Warren Ellis on The Social Web: end of the first cycle (stoked it’s close to what I’ve been mediating on throughout the year)
• UCL research paper on Why the Internet only just works (.pdf)
• What the world will look like in 2030 — as predicted by the Government
• Will we ever… have cyborg brains?
• A few Tolkien-rific facts about the book version of The Hobbit
• Try this interactive/zoomable four BILLION pixel image of Mt Everest
• Earthmoving: Ways of moving the Earth’s orbital path

Lastly, the latest TEDEd on ‘What is colour’ gives a very concise and simple explanation on the how with some very nice animation too.

Building the Big Apple

• A record 58 percent of Americans say legalize marijuana
• “Officers shall not take any enforcement action … for a violation of I-502”
• An insight to reporting on a movie press junket (for The Hobbit)
• The Zapruder Film: the saddest and most expensive 26 seconds of amateur film ever made
• The curious case of Clairvius Narcisse, and other instances of Hatian “zombies”
• Exploring the Paris Metro’s eerie ghost stations
• UC Berkeley Librarian to Daily Cal sex columnist: ‘Please don’t f*ck in the Library’
• Journey soundtrack nominated for a Grammy

• The BBC is making a six-part adaptation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell!
• North Korea have found a secret Unicorn lair
• A rather rare interview with Fran Walsh on The Hobbit
• The really strong possibility to there being a Planescape: Torment sequel
• Apple, SSDs and the Fusion Drive rip-off
• The Austim Advantage
• The science behind those Obama campaign e-mails
• How long are people willing to wait for a video to load? Two seconds.
• A sociological take on the Powerball Facebook fake
• Video: a 1994 profile of… the Haunted Toaster
• Video: kitty in a claw crane machine

A few years ago I made the conscious decision to stop watching trailers. Avoid them at all possible cost. For me, the state of movie advertising has gotten so bad, that by the end of watching a trailer, chances are, you’ve already seen over half the movie’s plot*.

Thanks, but fuck off, no thanks.

That has been the norm for years up until this very week, where I just clicked that I’ve watched the trailers for The Hobbit, The Dark Knight Rises and now Ridley Scott’s Alien-esque prequel Prometheus.  Granted that they’re all teasers, yeah it’s just images and impressions of what the final film will be like, and hells yeah do I feel excitement for all of them, but man, do I feel very wrong in watching trailers again like that.

Anyhow, here’s the one for Prometheus, definitely more and more becoming my most anticipated flick for 2012.

* best example is the trailer for Drive. DON’T watch the trailer for Drive before you see Drive.