Timecode was one of the more successful attempts at an entire film in one take. Alexander Sokurov’s new film goes one step further in that the single take is based upon a plot that involves traveling in time through three centuries. It takes something intrinsically non-realtime and films it as if it were. It will be showing in San Francisco in February. Russian Ark
Blogroll entries with bio’s have started coming in – keep sending them. Some of the the one line bio’s describe the weblog rather than the author. When doing your ‘<olb>’ try and make it a sentence that best describes yourself – think of these as personal headlines that could eventually link to a full bio just as a news headline is sometimes written as mini digest of a news story.
Jeff Jarvis waves Steve Case off with good riddance. Back in 1993 when the Internet itself was the top item on their hype list, Wired decided that ISPs would wipe out AOL/Compuserve etc. It seemed plausible – why would you pay for access to a walled garden, largely private, non-Intenet service with a crappy interface. What is amazing is that AOL ever became big in the first place when ten years ago they were already an anachronism. AOL actually pulled off something incredible, clearly their marketing, however tacky, worked and they were doing something right. But with a bad product, service and customer support one does wonder what exactly. The depressing thought is that several million of us behaved like Gollum, seduced by a free disk – look, me have shiny, shiny, pretty CD thing. BuzzMachine: Steve case to step down
If you look at my Blogroll you will see that all items have a one line description. Weblogs are about people and the first thing I do when looking at a new weblog is try and find the ‘about me’ info. In order to link weblogs to bios I am proposing a blogroll format of $name ($blogname): $one_line_bio (maximum 150 characters total). Where this becomes the headline link to either an XML bio or ‘about me’ page. So here is the deal, if you email me a blogroll entry in this format I will add you to my blogroll. [OK so not exactly much of a prize – but this is a kick-off to something much more interesting, I promise]
Friends reunited, the hugely successful UK version of Classmates has launched a spin-off called Genesconnected – allowing collaborative sharing of family tree information. The idea is not new but the link between the alumni sites and genealogy is. The three most successful eCommerce sites in terms of number of paid subscribers are Classmates, Match.com and Ancestry.com – this is not surprising, they are all about networks of people and so is the Internet. What about the future of online genealogy, dating etc.? Weblogs perhaps show the way. What is yet to happen with these activities is that they become distributed in the way that weblogs have done with online discussions. GenesConnected Home Page
OK, so most of the brain drain claims about Silicon Valley are bullshit. Everything is cyclical and the valley is in a down cycle for sure. But the Bay Area as a whole is unique – it is the global capital of science and its non Metropolis, campus style, environment is a testimony to its modernity and university style intellectual prowess not its parochialism. For all that, Dave Winer’s departure from the Bay Area – appropriately enough to an esteemed campus will leave a vacuum. Kevin Werbach said that “Web services, Weblogs and WiFi are the new WWW”. Dave Winer pioneered two of these and ‘two out of three aint bad’. Dave Goes to Harvard
Blix: Iraq violated sanctions CNN Blix: no ‘smoking guns’ in Iraq Guardian UK Same person, same day, same place, same story, somewhat different take.
A predictably excellent essay by Clay Shirky on the threat to phone companies from Voice Over IP and WiFi networks. “they’ve [the Telcos] digitized their entire network up to the last mile, but are still charging the high and confusing rates established when the network was analog.” Shirky: Customer-owned Networks and ZapMail Clay describes Fed Ex’s failed fax service – where they supplied a network of faxes and charged less than physical delivery of documents. This failed because people bought faxes themselves. Clay asserts that charging existing rates for telephone calls is a scam that can only be pulled off if the Telcos keep control of the last mile. If people buy products like SIP phones (Internet phones) and use the Internet then they have taken control of the last mile. Whilst this is great stuff, there is an addendum to the argument. The problem is that this assumes that…
Two all beef patties, lettuce, 1GHz PowerPC G4, 1MB L3 cache, 512MB DDR333 SDRAM, 60GB Ultra ATA/100 SuperDrive, pickles and onions all in a lightweight and durable aluminum alloy enclosure. Apple – PowerBook G4 17″
Doc Searls quotes his wife’s inspirational, 7 year old, unfulfilled wish list of browser features. “Another was a pull-down menu called “purse” that would contain credit cards and other identity items required for doing business in the world. Neither would be owned or provided by one vendor (not even the browser’s). Instead they would be features of the user’s own identity as an autonomous customer in the marketplace. “ The Doc Searls Weblog : Wednesday, January 8, 2003 There have been many attempts to create digital wallets from SET or Obongo (purchased by AOL for their aborted Magic Carpet) to Hailstorm. Just as weblogs have proven the power of decentralized, personally controlled publishing this model extends to the entire realm of digital identities which may only be successful if they are similarly decentralized and user controlled.
I want a media PC – and by that I mean a PC that controls all the media I watch/listen to/photograph etc. I don’t want a separate Tivo, DVD player, MP3 player, digital photo archive – I want one machine to handle all of this. Apple are heading in this direction, both in terms of hardware and software – and who better than Apple to provide this most luxurious of items. The problem is that every attempt at a media PC that I have seen makes an annoying amount of noise – meaning that it gets switched off at ‘bed-time’, and then takes an interminable time to boot, ruining somewhat the spontaneity of waking up to the sound of music. Please Apple, given that reliable sleep mode never works and instant boot never will, design me a silent machine that I can leave on all the time.