Tag: James Bond

Google Maps
News

Map slippage is real, and it’s about to matter

If an object does not exist on a map, does it exist at all? Do you? You can see it with your own two eyes, and yet it is exists outside your world. In the early days of mapping, when much of the world was unknown, such discoveries simply expanded the known universe. There was a world beyond maps. But now that we go through life with the reasonably well-founded belief that maps can accurately capture the intricacies of our world, the process of mapping glitches raises a whole new series of problems. When this happens in a game, it’s…
Feature

How videogames are changing the action movie

Something strange happens with the camera at the start of Spectre (2015). The movie opens with a wide view of an elaborate Day of the Dead parade in Mexico City. We’re then shown a villain before focusing on James Bond, who starts to follow this villain. Bond and a woman then go into a hotel and he leaves her by exiting through a window onto the rooftop, where he prepares to shoot his target. It’s a standard set-up for a Bond film, but throughout all of this, the camera doesn’t seem to cut away, not once. The entire opening is…
News

Unless your name’s James Bond, the Cold War is still the topic of the day

In the interest of accuracy, I must attribute “Christ, I miss the Cold War” to Judi Dench’s M in Casino Royale, because she actually uttered those words. But M never had a monopoly on this sentiment. Here, for instance, is international relations bigwig John J. Mearsheimer’s “Why We Will Soon Miss The Cold War.” Would you prefer your Cold War nostalgia in listicle form? Good news! Here’s historian Jon Wiener’s “Eight Things I Miss About the Cold War.” Clearly the academe edges M when it comes to clickbait titles. This is the point in an “if only the Cold War…