David "Fight Club" Fincher has directed a new movie written by Aaron "West Wing" Sorkin. It's a story about the founders of the social-networking website, Facebook. It is scored by Trent Reznor.
That's enough cognitive dissonance for one morning. I am going for a lie down.
Lunchtime Update
It gets stranger. Here is the founder of Facebook shooting the video conference breeze with the Prime Minister, as posted by No10 on their YouTube channel today.
Paul, an octopus in a German zoo who predicts the national side's football results, maintained his 100 per cent accuracy rate at this World Cup by foreseeing the team's downfall at the hands of Spain.
.....
His keeper, Oliver Walenciak, said before the match: "We know that all octopus have nine brains so we know he has exceptional powers.
.....
Paul's unwavering accuracy this year has even seen him become a target for furious Argentinian fans, who blamed him for their side's quarter final defeat against Germany and threatened to eat him.
Spillers is the oldest record shop in the world! I never had an inkling. Let's bend the rules a little and elevate a shop to the rank of Welsh Born Icon.
As we're in the neighbourhood be sure to catch "What good am I?" - a profile of Lord Jones of Treforest, on the BBC Iplayer while you can.
A star cast in a timeless comedy.Public service broadcasting still thrives in some parts of the BBC. I note with some concern however that the current IPlayer link for this:
Affably absent-minded Earl of Emsworth, preparing his prize-winning pig Empress of Blandings for the Shropshire Agricultural Show, is afraid that rival pig-owner Sir Gregory Parsloe is planning to nobble his precious Empress. Parsloe fears that Emsworth's brother Galahad's memoirs contain scurrilous stories about their younger days in the naughty 1890s - particularly a racy story involving some prawns. He plans to hire private detective Percy Pilbeam to purloin the manuscript.
Emsworth's sister Lady Constance, equally desperate to stop publication, also has a secret plan.
And romance is in the air. His Lordship's new secretary and Emsworth's niece Millicent are secretly in love, but need financial help to pull off the marital merger. Emsworth's nephew, Ronnie Fish, is also in love with an unsuitable person - chorus girl Sue Brown. But Emsworth refuses to allow Ronnie any more money. Ronnie concocts a plan to regain his uncle's approval.
Pig-napping, private detection, impostering, mistaken situations, fisticuffs and broken engagements ensue. All is set for glorious mid-summer mayhem.
I love every minute Marvin Gaye committed to vinyl with the exception of "The Onion Song" which I hate as much as I hate "Dignity" by Deacon Blue and "Big Yellow Taxi" by Moany Jitchell.
Go figure.
I had a meeting in the Chinese Dining Room today. An interesting companion piece to the meeting in the Yellow Drawing Room last February: See Icons passim.In the "War of Currents" era (sometimes, "War of the Currents" or "Battle of
Currents") in the late 1880s, George Westinghouse and Thomas Edison became adversaries due to Edison's promotion of direct current (DC) for electric power distribution over alternating current (AC) advocated by Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.
.......
Edison opposed capital punishment, but his desire to disparage the system of alternating current led to the invention of the electric chair. Harold P. Brown, who was at this time being secretly paid by Edison, constructed the first electric chair for the state of New York in order to promote the idea that alternating current was deadlier than DC.
When the chair was first use, on August 6, 1890, the technicians on hand misjudged the voltage needed to kill the condemned prisoner, William Kemmler. The first jolt of electricity was not enough to kill Kemmler, and only left him badly injured. The procedure had to be repeated and a reporter on hand described it as "an awful spectacle, far worse than hanging." George Westinghouse commented: "They would have done better using an axe."
During Onishchenko's bout with their captain, Jim Fox, the British team protested that Onishchenko's weapon had gone off without actually hitting anything.
.....
In electric épée fencing, a touch is registered on the scoring box when the tip of the weapon is depressed with a force of 750 grams, completing a circuit formed by the weapon, body cord, and box. It was found that his épée had been modified to include a switch that allowed him to close this circuit without actually depressing the tip of his weapon. Unlike foil, there are no off-target hits in épée, so Onishchenko could get away with this form of cheating if it appeared to onlookers that he had struck anything at all.
Newspapers decried him as "Disonischenko" and "Boris the Cheat". Onishchenko earned the enmity of other Soviet Olympic team members: for example, USSR volleyball team members threatened to throw him out of the hotel's window if they met him.
The two guys in white suits practising ne-waza attacks against their defending partners in the phtoto above are: Julia Eileen Gillard (born 29 September 1961 in Barry, Wales, United Kingdom) is the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, and is the first woman to hold that office. She was sworn in as Australia's 27th Prime Minister on 24 June 2010.A Welsh Born Icon previously unknown to me.
Leading the way was long-time standout Winston Gordon who provided a timely reminder of the talent which saw him compete at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, by surging to gold in the under 90kg weight category.I see him regularly when I take the Bomber to his judo lessons, so I've watched him go from crutches, to a walking stick, and back to the podium over 2009 and 10.
Gordon, 33, who was returning to the British fold after a nine month absence, showed he was in peak condition as he continued his return from a knee injury.
“It’s a nice feeling to get back in the swing of things,” said Gordon.
“I went out and I enjoyed it, it’s important to make sure I’m ticking all the right boxes and my techniques are looking sharp. Hopefully I can push from here and keep on the mind of the selectors.”
Gordon, who's itching to compete at London 2012, won his five fights in emphatic fashion, four coming by way of ippon.
Beuys’s first solo exhibition in a private gallery opened on November 26, 1965 with one of the artist’s most famous and compelling performances: How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare. The artist could be viewed through the glass of the gallery’s window. His face was covered in honey and gold leaf, an iron slab was attached to his boot. In his arms he cradled a dead hare, into whose ear he mumbled muffled noises as well as explanations of the drawings that lined the walls.Beuys our troubles are over.
My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of coffee cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
"I didn't come here to save the day," an emotional Costner told reporters here on Friday, adding: "I have come to participate."
It's still far from a happy ending, but I can't help but be cheered by BP's decision to add Kevin Costner's Ocean Therapy Solutions technology to its arsenal in fighting the oil spill.
Hedy Lamarr's U.S. Patent 2,292,387 serves as a basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology, such as COFDM used in Wi-Fi network connections and CDMA used in some cordless and wireless telephones.
Imagine reading the National Enquirer if I edited it.
audio edition of the book as well as the text itself so I may invest in that at the same time. I've been working though Stephen Fry's unabridged Harry Potter readings with Ben on our drives to Cardiff etc. and supplementing that with the physical books which seems to be a good way of kick starting a reading habit.You know the world is changing when the next Bond movie is on "indefinite hold" but Daniel Craig is in the next Bond video game.
I can remember Raybs playing the original GoldenEye 007 on the Nintendo 64. He would often pistol whip his foes on the backside rather than shooting them and roar with laughter. I was never quite sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Our Twitter App got caught in the same bind as everyone else yesterday and Tweeted the same message once a minute from quarter past eight in the morning until nine when I got into the office, noticed the problem and shut it down.A vuvuzela, sometimes called a "lepatata" (its Setswana name) or a stadium horn, is a blowing horn approximately 1 m (3 ft 3 in) in length. It is commonly blown by fans at football matches in South Africa. The instrument requires some lip and lung strength to blow and emits a loud monotone (B♭). Commentators have described the sound as "annoying" and compared it with "a stampede of noisy elephants," "a deafening swarm of locusts," "a goat on the way to slaughter" and "a giant hive full of very angry bees."Perhaps - as the tone it drones is B♭- I could try drowning it out by amping up a guitar through a flanger and jamming on Purple Rain for the entire ninety minutes of any game I watch? A cure can be worse than the disease.
The sound level of the instrument has been measured at 131 dB(A) at the opening of the horn and at 113 dB(A) two metres in front of the opening, both dangerously high levels for unprotected ears.
Wikipedia provides the skinny.
MERANTAU WARRIOR UK RELEASE TODAY! Available for download on iTunes at http://tinyurl.com/39fcw2r
Strasbourg, 04.06.2010 – The handling of the H1N1 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), EU agencies and national governments led to a “waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public”, according to a report by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) made public today in Paris.Interesting n'est-ce pas? This is damning stuff. Here's a PDF of the provisional report. I will be intrigued to see how much coverage this gets in the UK media up to and after the debate "by parliamentarians from all 47 Council of Europe member states on Thursday 24 June during PACE’s summer session in Strasbourg". Is that the same thing as the European Parliament? I'm ashamed to say I don't know.
The report, prepared by Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC) and approved today by the committee ahead of a plenary debate at the end of this month, says there was “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO”, resulting in a distortion of public health priorities.
Presenting his report, Mr Flynn told the committee: “this was a pandemic that never really was”, and described the vaccination programme as “placebo medicine on a large scale”.
In its adopted text, the committee identifies what it calls “grave shortcomings” in the transparency of decision-making about the outbreak, generating concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on decisions taken. Plummeting confidence in such advice could prove “disastrous” in the case of a severe future pandemic, it warns.
In particular, the WHO and European health institutions were not willing to publish the names and declarations of interest of the members of the WHO Emergency Committee and relevant European advisory bodies directly involved in recommendations concerning the pandemic, the parliamentarians point out.
However, attending the meeting was Fiona Godlee, the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal, who told the parliamentarians that, according to an
investigation by her journal, scientists who drew up key WHO guidelines on stockpiling flu vaccines had previously been paid by drug companies which stood
to profit.
If you wish to bask in the full, developing story, Greg is posting the standout gems at shavedbieber.tumblr.com. For now, we'll play out with our Tween Commenter of the Week, who is 15-year-old Alex from Switzerland. "What you're doing is going back to world war two all over again," Alex explains. "Hitler wanted to erase Jews from society, you want to erase Justin Drew Bieber."
President Barack Obama meets with BP Oil Spill Commission co-chairs, former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, second from left, and former EPA Administrator William Reilly, second from right, in the Oval Office, June 1, 2010. Also attending the meeting are John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, left, and Carol Browner, Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change right. June 1, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Corgi have unveiled a judo branded taxi in their collection of official London 2012 merchandise – part of Destination London 2012, a range of 40 London 2012 inspired 1:64 taxis.Which is already weird enough even before noting that what appears to be delivered in the illustration is an old fashioned kick in the knackers rather than tomoe nage.
The exciting new range follows on from the popular London 2012 Olympic handover bus that was released in October 2009. Made by London 2012 licensee, Corgi, a Hornby brand, the models contain official London 2012 livery and branding. Each model also carries a pictogram of a particular sport appearing in the Games along with special ‘did you know’ facts on the featured sport.
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The Bomber and I went to Rutsfest yesterday, as the Old Ruts extended their influence on our lives from rugby and cricket to - and this is unlikely - blissed out, psychedelic, sunny days of music.Release date: 25 May 2010I've embedded it below from this link. It is in a Microsoft format so you may have to give it permission to run.
BP today confirmed that following detailed discussion with the National Incident Commander, Admiral Thad Allen, it will continue to provide live video feeds from the seabed throughout the planned ‘top kill’ procedure – the attempt to stop the flow from the damaged MC252 well by pumping heavy drilling fluids into it.
The Queen, as Head of State, carries out the duty of formally opening each new session of Parliament.
But before she travels to Parliament from Buckingham Palace, certain historical ''precautions'' are observed.
The Yeomen of the Guard, the oldest of the royal bodyguards, armed with lanterns, search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster, a practice which dates back to the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605.
Another tradition sees a Government whip held ''hostage'' at the Palace to ensure the Queen's safe return.
The custom dates back to centuries when the monarch and Parliament were on less cordial terms.
Spotify has added a "host" of new social features, and I am underwhelmed. Maybe I haven't got enough friends.
THE Duchess of York is shamelessly plotting to sell access to her trade envoy ex-hubby Prince Andrew for £500,000.
Thousands of Cardiff City fans watched in agony as their team lost the Championship play-off final to Blackpool at Wembley.No poem this time.
Cardiff could not pull back a 3-2 half time deficit. They had led twice in the game, through goals from Michael Chopra and Joe Ledley before falling behind.
The Bomber has segued from rugby to cricket as the seasons change at the Old Ruts.There's a breathless hush in the Close tonight -
Ten to make and the match to win -
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of the ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote -
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
The sand of the Desert is sodden red -
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel's dead,
And the regiment's blind with dust and smoke.
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
This is the world that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind -
'Play up ! play up ! and play the game !'
The saga of "Uncle Simon" continues with a poster from the MTV movie blog. It seems like everyone's making movies but me. Mark was telling me he is going to shoot ‘Cruentus: The Blood Lust’ with Ingrid Pitt in Goa later this year. Probably with a more modest budget than an action movie with Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx, but watcha gonna do?I heard this rather simple yet lovely Bowie song on the radio the other day, and assumed it was an early piece, but it turns out to be from 2002's Heathen album. (I was pretty much a Bowie completist back in the day but bailed out around the time of Tin Machine.)
And thus, due to the offices of LoveBolts (hat tip John), I could strum it to myself of an evening after Raybs was reported missing and then turned up in Florida.
I think I should play acoustic guitar more often.
"Sir: I am seated in the smallest room in the house. Your review is before me.This was simply because I had read the quote above, and it was new to me, in an article called "Alain de Botton: You'll regret those words until your dying day" in the Telegraph.
Shortly it will be behind me." http://bit.ly/15dP0C
Alain de Botton (alaindebotton) is now following your tweets on Twitter.
This seems extraordinary to me considering that:
Passing strange, the interactions that are evolving online. The opportunities for paranoia seem unlimited.
In this episode of the online comedy sketch series, Henry gets his own back on the King of France using the power of social networking. Starring Brian Blessed as Henry VIII. The Tudor king is alive & well, and living in a suburban semi with his long-suffering sixth wife Catherine Parr. He has embraced modern technology and lives his life online - insulting the King of France on Facebook, surfing for honeys, and blocking the Pope on Twitter. Very much the modern man - he likes Top Gear, Kings of Leon & Sunday roasts, he dislikes Michael Buble, I.T. helpdesks & Lily Allen's manager. These clips offer an insight into what happens when a 16th century king meets 21st century suburbia. Eat your heart out David Starkey here's the real thing!
I couldn't possibly comment.
The first working laser was built by Theodore Maiman and "fired" at Hughes Research Laboratories, Malibu, California on 16 May 1960.I can't help wondering if the were as much inspired by sci-fi rayguns as anything else.
An American newspaper has been accused of attempting to "out" Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan as a lesbian by publishing a front page photograph of her playing softball.What a strange country the US is. Include me among the "unaware."
The Wall Street Journal was attacked for using a 1993 image of Miss Kagan, who was nominated for the top court by President Barack Obama this week, holding a bat during her time as a teacher at the University of Chicago.
Critics have claimed the sport is regarded as a "lesbian" pastime in the minds of many Americans and the picture was used to allude to rumours about her sexuality.
John Wright, of gay newspaper Dallas Voice, told Politico: "Personally I think the newspaper, which happens to have the largest circulation of any in the US, might as well have gone with a headline that said, 'Lesbian or switch-hitter?'."
Cathy Renna, a former spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation, said: "It clearly is an allusion to her being gay. It's just too easy a punch line."
The newspaper has ridiculed the suggestion as "absurd" and the row has surprised many who were unaware softball had lesbian connotations.
if Elena Kagan is confirmed to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, the Supreme Court would for the first time in its history be without a justice belonging to America's largest religious affiliations -- the Protestant traditions. If Kagan is confirmed, six of the justices will be Roman Catholic and three will be Jewish.
In April 2008, Harman's blog was "hacked" and changed to state that she had joined the Conservative Party. Harman later admitted when questioned by Sky News that the incident was a result of her using "Harriet" and "Harman" as her username and password.Do you begin to see a pattern emerging with regards to brain power?
One year to the day from starting judo here is the Bomber's gold medal from Sunday's tournament.
British soldiers have marched in Red Square in Moscow for the first time to mark the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany on Sunday.
Seventy six soldiers from 2 Company 1st Battalion Welsh Guards marched beside more than 10,500 Russian troops and others from the US and France.
"My motto is 'Never say never'. Which makes it difficult to tell people my motto." - Steve McKenna
NickBrowne
The most I would say is that you should do tomorrow exactly what I am going to do myself, which is to look down the list of people who are offering themselves to you for your vote, read what they profess to stand for, and vote for the person whose values and sense of priorities most closely reflect your own.
Iggy bounded on to the stage twisting to the sound of Raw Power itself, tearing off his waistcoat even before he launched into the searing Search and Destroy (bizarrely composed in Wimbledon, with lyrics dreamt up in the gardens of Kensington Palace).
I have no personal system of philosophy. I never attempt to do that. I am merely a man of letters. In the same way, for example that — well, of course, I shouldn’t perhaps choose this as an example — in the same way that Dante used theology for the purpose of poetry, or Milton used theology for the purposes of his poetry, why shouldn’t I use philosophy, especially idealistic philosophy — philosophy to which I was attracted — for the purposes of writing a tale, of writing a story? I suppose that is allowable?I think we'll allow that, yes, if we get “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” out of it.
Iron Man 2 hits theaters soon and Marvel and Paramount are teaming up to put together some very cool augmented reality web experiences.
At the UK Iron Man 2 website, users can use their webcams to get suited up with either an Iron Man or War Machine helmet, as well as take a look at what the HUD (heads up display) would look like through Iron Man or War Machine’s perspectives.
These sorts of features are pretty standard AR-fare these days, but what makes the Iron Man 2 approach interesting is that you can record your interactions and then link to the videos on Facebook or Twitter or embed them on your own website.
While I'm on the subject, Dominic Lawson throws a cat among the pigeons, to my approval.A bid to bring the Pope to Colliers Wood when he visits Britain later this year has failed.
His Holiness had been invited to the area to view the remains of Merton Priory, the site of England’s first parliament and the place where Pope Adrian IV was educated in the 12th century.
The spiritual leader of Britain’s Catholics will visit the country from September 16 to 19. He is set to stay at the Apostolic Nunciature in Wimbledon Village - the home of his representative in the UK.
The invitation to visit the site was made by the mayor of Merton, Councillor Nick Draper, who is a trustee of conservation group the Merton Priory Trust.
Established in 1974 the St.Moritz is London's oldest Swiss restaurant. Genuine traditional Swiss cuisine prepared and served under the auspices of the renowned proprietor and chef Armin Loetscher.Follow the links for our real and imaginary destinations.
Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says.Padawan Prodnose: Did the earth move for you?
Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.
"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he explained.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which "people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it". The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority. This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people. It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding. "Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others."
David Goodman, Last.fm's chief, talks to Emma Barnett about how the music site is going back to its roots, having terminated on-demand streaming, with a renewed focus on scrobbling and personalised internet radio.
The South Coast club’s win over Cardiff City in the 2008 FA Cup Final triggered bonus payments that helped to drive them into administration this season, and the consequent nine-point penalty resulted in their demotion to the Coca-Cola Championship.
GRAY gnashed his teeth with envy as he saw a mighty store
Of DVDs neglected on his fellow-creature's shore:
Wilson (reading from an encyclopedia): P O O K A - Pooka - from old Celtic mythology - a fairy spirit in animal form - always very large. The pooka appears here and there - now and then - to this one and that one - a benign but mischievous creature - very fond of rumpots, crackpots, and how are you, Mr. Wilson?" "How are you, Mr. Wilson?" Who in the encyclopedia wants to know?Encyclopedia:
The Púca (Old Irish for ghost), (also Pwwka, Pooka, Puka, Phouka, Púka, Pwca in Welsh, Bucca in Cornish, Pouque in Dgèrnésiais, Puca or Puck in English, Glashtyn, and Gruagach) is a creature of Celtic folklore, notably in Ireland, the West of Scotland, and Wales. It is one of the myriad of faery folk, and, like many faery folk, is both respected and feared by those who believe in it.Frank Kelly Rich
..
According to legend, the púca is a deft shape shifter, capable of assuming a variety of terrifying or pleasing forms, and may appear as a horse, rabbit, goat, goblin, or dog. No matter what shape the púca takes, its fur is almost always dark. It most commonly takes the form of a sleek black horse with a flowing mane and luminescent golden eyes.
Read a good book alone in a quiet place and you will absorb and understand the beauty of a perfectly worded sentence. Read in a crowded and loud room and you will skim the beauty and absorb nothing. The same goes for drinking. There are no distractions to divert your attention from the rich bite of a mouthful of bourbon. You will notice the vast array of flavors and aromas. You will realize hidden depths of taste in a cocktail you had imagined a shallow pond.Elwood P. Dowd:
Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.
In an official submission to the Electoral Commission, Labour admitted that its membership at the end of 2007 was 176,891.I would be surprised if this figure has gone up over the last couple of years.
That is scarcely 40 per cent of the 405,000 peak reached in 1997 when Tony Blair took office, and thought to be the lowest total since Labour was founded in 1900.
AOL (NYSE: AOL) told employees today that it may sell or shut down social network Bebo this year after deciding it would take too much additional investment to make keeping it worthwhile.AOL bought Bebo for $850 million in 2008.
an act of desperation by the makers, who have presumably noticed that not only can younger people not spell, read or write, they will cry off to their Playstations if asked to cope with the simple and necessary rule prohibiting proper nouns because, of course, they don’t understand the difference between proper and common nouns and have a functional vocabulary of approximately thirteen nouns, which is pretty limiting in a Scrabble context). The logical next relaxation of this rule would be to allow players to play all seven letters at whim, just so long as the resulting word looks pretty or sounds phonetically interesting in the eyes of the individual.As a nod to the vulgar world of politics however I offer you prorogation (64 points).
Prorogation marks the end of a parliamentary session. It is the formal name given to the period between the end of a session of Parliament and the State Opening of Parliament that begins the next session. The parliamentary session may also be prorogued when Parliament is dissolved and a general election called.Nick Browne is a constitutional expert.
Based on the scriptural details[citation needed] of the Sanhedrin Trial of Jesus, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most probably on a Friday. The estimated year of Good Friday is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon. A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter's reference to a "moon of blood" in Acts 2:20) arrives at the same date, namely Friday April 3, AD 33.
Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE, and the Islamic conquests of the 7th century CE. Greco-Buddhist art is characterized by the strong idealistic realism of Hellenistic art and the first representations of the Buddha in human form, which have helped define the artistic (and particularly, sculptural) canon for Buddhist art throughout the Asian continent up to the present. It is also a strong example of cultural syncretism between eastern and western traditions.This is astonishing on so many levels that I scarcely know where to begin. Perhaps I should learn to draw the Buddha's face.
The origins of Greco-Buddhist art are to be found in the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom (250 BCE- 130 BCE), located in today’s Afghanistan, from which Hellenistic culture radiated into the Indian subcontinent with the establishment of the Indo-Greek kingdom (180 BCE-10 BCE).
