Denim age
This month, Levis is celebrating the 130th anniversary of the 501 range by holding its first digital art competition. The brief "required students across Europe to reinterpret and explore the rich cultural heritage of the 501 jean for the web environment". Go to the European site and you can vote for your favourite bits. Unfortunately, the site is done in Shockwave Flash with a user interface from hell, but some of the work is being shown at London's Institute of Contemporary Art from May 12-14. The winner will be announced on May 31. However, the most disappointing thing on the site is the advertising section. You should be able to replay about 60 commercials, going back to Rivets in 1984. Some were entertaining and/or featured great songs. I sampled a few but only got the message: "Sorry, but the online rights for this advert have expired." Are these people insane? http://eu.levi.com
www.ica.org.uk
www.levistrauss.com/about/history/jeans.htm
Film Mogul
First there was the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which was followed by the BBC's Celebdaq celebrity stock exchange. Now there's Film Mogul, which lets you hire "real-life actors, actresses and directors" and make movies. But you are not condemned to a life of drudgery as a studio head or producer. You can also sign up to a life of drudgery as an agent, a critic or even a journalist, which means the editor in chief of The Film-Mogul Times will send you stories to write for the paper. "Journalists are paid at a rate of $500,000 per printed story, and the top 10 journalists receive $2 million per week as a salary." The top 10 critics also bank $2m a week. Pity it's only a game. www.film-mogul.com
DNA revisited
The DNA story has now been retold countless times from the Crick and Watson point of view, but Linus Pauling has often been forgotten. Pauling, who won two Nobel prizes, was the world's leading structural chemist and odds-on favourite to win the race. His story has now been told in day-by-day format in fantastic detail by Oregon State University, which has 4,400 feet of Pauling's papers. The collection includes correspondence, notebook pages, photographs and audio and video clips. And considering the vast amount of stuff available, the site's designers have done a good job of making it accessible. America's PBS network has also done a nice site about Rosalind Franklin to go with Nova's TV documentary, Secret of Photo 51. osulibrary.orst.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/dna
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/photo51
Band names
Elvis Costello reckons that "talking about band names is like dancing about architecture". However, there is a certain anorak fascination to knowing the origins of names such as the Ramones, Cabaret Voltaire, Röyksopp and so on. Vast numbers of band names are missing, of course, but the site has just been a Yahoo Pick, and visitors can submit the origins of names they know. www.8ung.at/nina_m
May weeks
This is a busy month. The National Baby Safety Week ends today, but we go straight into the National Endometriosis Awareness Campaign (May 6-16), National Breastfeeding Awareness Week (May 11-17), Allergy Week (May 12-16), National Vegetarian Week (May 19-25), and World No Tobacco Day (May 31). It would be nice to suggest the month might include a little jollity. However, National Smile Week is only intended to remind you to visit your dentist, or at least brush up your oral hygiene. What's ahead for the coming year? The National Assembly for Wales site is keeping a handy diary. Cot death awareness
Endometriosis Awareness
Breastfeeding Awareness
Allergy Week
National Vegetarian Week
World No Tobacco Day
National Smile Week
National Assembly for Wales
New & noted
E-commerce competition:
www.ecommerce-awards.co.uk
BBC Innovation competition:
www.bbc.co.uk/science/innovation/about.shtml
100 years of Harley-Davidson:
www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/harley100
Six of the best: Revision
BBC Bitesize
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize
Guardian Learnthings
www.learn.co.uk
4Learning
www.homeworkhigh.com
Revision Central
www.revisioncentral.co.uk
Schoolsnet
www.schoolsnet.com
Links
revisionlink.co.uk
