Just wanted to do a quick review of Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, before I go off and work.
- Love the look of this movie. The production design. Cuaron's selection as director is genius. The Third World and its detritus has made its way into the First World. The glimpses of future mixed with decay suggest a restrained Terry Gilliam.
- Weird story. Part post apocalypse, part slow apocalypse in progression, part Nativity story, part comment on terrorism and the new world order. Its a vision of a world that could happen.
- Action. I felt like I was playing Gears of War. The action is tense for an hour.
- Weaknesses - After 1h39 minutes you are pretty sure this is the best picture of the year, but then the movie ends somewhat abruptly and you end up feeling cheated. Not that its a bad ending. You just realize that you were never emotionally involved with the characters, much less the entire display of humanity, so it doesn't matter what happens.
In which fictional world/universe/land/city would you most like to live?
Submitted by glenn is the new chuck.
Dune. Desert Planet. I love the combination of mysticism, science fiction, religion, and world empires. If I ever have a year off, I would write a universe with those elements.
I've been monitoring Viacom's latest moves on the internet. They are very interesting. It appears that after losing out on MySpace they are finally executing on a new Internet strategy. Yesterday, we learned about their investment in TagWorld, primarily for its web2.0 technology. Today, they purchased RateMyProfessors.com. In my opinion, this is a great acquisition. One of the strengths of MySpace is its ability to address the needs of kids, teenagers. Almost every student, whether you are in college or high school, does a little research about their teacher. Who to take? Are they a tough grader, or an easy A? Which teacher is hot?
The question is, how will this all integrate together? Will we see URGE (MTV's music site), TagWorld tech, and RateMyProfessors come together under one meta-site? At the very least, today shows that Viacom is heavily in the game. I expect to hear about more purchases by MTVN soon.
Sure, most sequels stink, but what movie really needs a sequel?
In general, fantasy movies that depict an alternate reality. A movie can only capture a small slice of that universe. Successive movies can explore other aspects of the world.
They were supposed to make a sequel to Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits.
Every decade, they should make a new Forrest Gump movie. Forrest in the 80s becoming a break-dancer. At the Ollie North trial.
What's the most obsessive-compulsive thing you do in a normal day?
Submitted by Nikki.
Check my fly. I always do it before going into public. Amazingly, I still have days (2x a year) where it's not zipped.
A couple of reactions and observations about the iphone...
- It's the most Digged article yet. So it's the hottest product announcement ever. Nice job Apple. I think it's a more significant product release than the iPod.
- It's gorgeous. Stunning. Like iPod, a technological work of art. I'd get one just to put on my mantle.
- Technology is potentially revolutionary. Has anyone used gestures with touch screen? The possibilities seem endless. Wifi support. Widgets. Built-in accelerometer. Are you kidding?
- Industry shaking - Internet. With this product, Apple is reaching for a dominant position on the wireless web. Sites will have to react accordingly. Example - My companies site will need to support Safari. Widgets have a new battleground. Microsoft and the cell phone makers need to rework their product plans ASAP.
- Achilles heel - no product is perfect. Some issue will creep up in the coming weeks. I'm sure battery will be an issue. Entering a phone number seems difficult.
- Price and availablility - pretty expensive. There might be social implications in our schools due to this. Kids will be flashing these babies in the classroom.
What's something you bought, knowing it was a total waste of money?
I just spent a lot of money on Money. Microsoft Money 2007. I've been using 2004 for some now and was perfectly happy till, 2006... I think. That year, my brokerage merged with another. Ever since then, I haven't been able to sync my accounts. Hoping that things would be improved with 2k7, I made the plunge. Nope. Probably the brokerage's problem as the directions on their site does not even work.
At some point in the future, banks, billers, brokerages, software makers and the IRS will find a way to work together. 100% Auto-Pay will be a reality. And one of life's great burdens will be swept away.
As a first blog here, I'd like to talk about why I have defected to Vox. For the past year and a half, I've been blogging at X.... Lately, I became fed up with X's site reliability. The feature set has been stagnant for years and was weak to begin with. During this period, I've also been marvelling at Vox and its feature set. It seemed everything that I've wanted is here. What exactly do I like about Vox..., let me count the ways.
- Committment to Blogging. I think this is the only social network that is absolutely committed to blogging. I just found the neighborhood blogging feature. Great. It was on the wish list at X but never got done. X is even doing away with the whole concept of neighborhood.
- Committment to open standards. Flickr integration. Amazon. Photobucket. RSS. Atom. Vox doesn't try to own the world. They know their place.
- Good Design - every page is clean. Ads are tucked away neatly. CSS customization is limited to approved templates. This guarantees that every site is readable.
- Tech central - I can have Leo Laporte as my neighbor? Sign me up. I'd love to climb the web2.0 social hierarchy. This seems like the best place to do it.
- Community features - the one mantra I always tried to push at X was community. I was able to get one community product on the list of tasks. After a year of delays, that basic functionality is still unavailable. On Vox, I see 'Quote of the Day', simple, fun, community. This is what a social network should be about.
So as of now, I'm a Vox user. I just hope they add a few new features, especially... Digg support. You can't be web2.0 without this.
