Two weeks ago in Phoenix, we went to see The Counterfeiters. Winning the Oscar for best foreign language film does help bring a movie some attention, and some needed distribution.
My German is non-existent, so when the film started with the subtitles half off the screen, annoyance started to rise. But the projection corrected, and the film took shape. You never forget the Holocaust setting, but you are compelled to follow the people. The story of Nazi counterfeiting (Operation Bernhard) is new to me, and the film makes me wonder just how was true, since it was “based on a true story.” Either way, the moral ambivalence of the lead concentration camp counterfeiter — himself originally a criminal — helps focus the story. In a world soaked in atrocity, Adolf Burger’s survival instinct isn’t pretty, but his choices are understandable.
Courtesy of a supercollider experiment, the world gets a glimpse of its future 21 years out. Sawyer takes a swing at the mundane (patent office is overwhelmed with applications based on these glimpses) and the existential (can you change the future you foresaw, including your own murder?). Not all equally compelling threads, but the core premise is entertaining.
The first hundred pages or so did not draw me in. Usually, I’ll plug away. I hate dropping a book unfinished. But I’m going to suspend my usual practice here. I’ve long since moved on to more interesting reads, of which more soon.
Pirillo Starts Large Scale Community CMS Project is TechCrunch coverage of Chris Pirillo’s announcement of Gnomepal. I’m trying to think of a company where its content management system is a sustainable competitive advantage. I’ve been involved in the building (and rebuilding) of several, and it’s hard to imagine a scenario where you wouldn’t start with one of the open-source projects first.
Dan Bricklin video about WikiCalc is on my list simply because I enjoy his continued evolution as a curious mind in this industry.
Mary Meader led an interesting life. (via) The opening graph of her obituary in the NYTimes:
Mary Meader, who as a spunky new bride in the 1930s took off on a 35,000-mile journey to advance geographic knowledge by making unprecedented aerial photographs of South America and Africa, died Sunday in Kalamazoo, Mich. She was 91.
I watched the CampfireOne videos introducing Google App Engine, and read a few reviews/reactions. Many folks I respect pointed to this writeup as the most useful. It’s alright if you’re only going to read one.
My friends Vin and Chris found time for favorite10 this year. f10 is for music lovers who are constantly on the lookout for new music. Honestly, I am not the target audience. Hard to remember the last time I looked for new music, whether online or off. But Vin was kind enough to invite me to the private beta, and now it’s available for everyone. If you believe in vinyl and the coherence of the album in a singles world, then you care enough about music to use f10. Give it a look.
Khoi Vinh watches another generation fall under Tintin’s spell. Been there, and also waiting for the movie. Some of the language in these comic albums isn’t PC anymore (e.g., “dirty gypsies”), but Tintin is never one to stand for injustice.
Google News finally answers some of publishers’ questions, and promises more information in the future. Wow…I spent a fair bit of time trying to deconstruct this for News.com 3-4 years ago.
Jon Udell goes LazyWeb with “Parsing human-written date and time information, and the commenters come through, especially with DateJS.com. Not the only solution, though. I’d never heard of GATE, but looks useful. I’ve used solid implementations of this type of parsing at I Want Sandy, 30boxes.com and a few other places. Wonder how many rolled their own, or started with DateJS, GATE or similar utilities, and built from there?
During the last year or so I was at CNET, I pinged the legal team a few times about a corporate policy on blogging by employees. Didn’t happen while I was there. I realize it’s not so simple when you’re a media company — but it didn’t have to be that hard, either. So I noted the BBC’s Guidance -
Personal use of Social Networking and other third party websites, including the section on blogging. Good for them: more media organizations should follow this lead.
Speaking of British media companies, the Guardian impressed me in two ways last week. First, by creating the position of head of the Guardian’s development network with the goal of “offer[ing] data and tools for external developers.” Second, by hiring Matt McAlister to inaugurate the role. Good luck and have fun.
Brief notes on Charlene Li’s 2008 SXSW presentation, “Social Strategies For Revolutionaries.”
Stefanie Olsen talks with John Battelle a couple of weeks ago. For when you can’t keep up with his blog, a distillation of some of the topics he covers and thinks about for FM.
I know storage isn’t free, and photos add up, but still surprised to get an email from BrightRoom telling me it’s the last chance to order some race pictures. I’ve bought a few before… wouldn’t you at least keep shots of customers, even if you dump all the other finish line photos? Of course, the email is remarkably promotional, and short on details: “Your Run Wild 5k/10k photos are going into retirement: SALE details below!” Will the photos disappear, or will you simply charge me more in the future to “retrieve” them? If you’re keeping them at all, then retrieval is almost without cost, so this feels like forced urgency. And I’m not interested or impressed.
I’ve set up my FriendFeed, but not using it yet. Definitely finding Twitter more and more interesting, and I’m now including my tweets on clock, on the home page.
2005 article someone (Ken?) recently reminded me about: “Wheels and Deals in Silicon Valley” I did my first racing in January, at the Early Bird, and I’m putting in some miles now in preparation for a mid-May century. Been mostly solo, though…guess I’m missing out on the deals! Any San Francisco-based riders reading?
My sister Mary sits in with The Loose Marbles, a New Orleans street band. That’s her on the accordion, on the right. Original location, if the embed causes any problems.
More about the Loose Marbles in The New Yorker from May 2007.
I found the final book of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, a bit loose. No untidy loose ends, but Philip Pullman uses more words to describe less action as the climax approaches. I do appreciate the bittersweet ending, though. You don’t get to save the world and live happily ever after. Think of Frodo at the end of The Lord of the Rings. Even in victory, something may be lost.
I’m an optimist, generally, but a bit of pathos never hurts.
Book 2 of His Dark Materials passed in a flash last week. The Subtle Knife continues Philip Pullman’s trilogy, and introduces the not-so-subtly named Mary Malone, the former nun turned physicist. These tales twist, and are complete independently, but the sweep across all three books taken together is marvelous.
I was heading somewhere I knew I’d have to wait, so I grabbed John Steinbeck’s thin novella Of Mice and Men off the shelf. A few pages in, I realized I’d read it before, but didn’t remember details. Anyway, 118 pages later, I knew why Lennie had to die, just like their dreams. It’s not subtle, but the stark language feels like people.
Any San Francisco-based riders reading?