Month: July 2003

OK. Fluff movie, I admit. I saw the first one, and was mildly amused. Rumors were that the second Tomb Raider movie was better than the first. Not exactly high standards, but I needed a break from a Sunday evening at the office. Film was about what I expected, but I did not expect to have to wait through 25 minutes (literally) of advertising and previews before the film. I wanted to stand up and shout “Start the movie!” (I didn’t.) I considered complaining to the folks who run the theater, but felt I had wasted enough time.

Reading the above makes me seem old and crotchedy. I’m at least one of the two. Oh well.

Saw a preview last night for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, a movie coming in November. As far as I know, this is the first Aubrey-Maturin motion picture made, but I’m quite willing (eager, even) to be enlightened. Russell Crowe is starring as Lucky Jack. I don’t recognize the actor playing Maturin, but his name is Paul Bettany. I’m looking forward to this movie already, even though (a) the title makes it sound like they are mixing and matching the plots of more than one novel and (b) it’s going to be hard to match the mental pictures so many readers already have of these characters. I wonder whether or not the same folks have optioned future movies in the series… there are 20 books, after all, so if these are successful, there is a lot more material to mine. I’d welcome any links to info on this movie. I tried AintItCoolNews.com last night, with two slipshod reviews… clearly not written by those who have read the books. I’m sure there are enthusiast sites out there. I’ll have to find them.

For five short days, I’m a bachelor. I’ll try not to waste it all working!

I’ve written briefly about David Gelernter before. Now William Grosso, a “well-known speaker” I’ve never heard of throws out a short article titled “We’re all Gelernter Now“. Grosso doesn’t write much, but he does hit on the key point:

“has anyone else noticed that time-based tagging is becoming more and more important to the way we store and process data?”

Along the lines of Sifry’s interview with Lydon, this brief aside really underlines that we are finally building metadata as a side product of our normal process. It’s that lack of effort which is contributing to its ubiquity… and therefore its importance.

Gelernter hits on many useful concepts, but his academic foresight was, well, academic, in that I don’t believe he’s profiting from his early insights. Recognizing the way people think ahead of others didn’t give him enough of a head-start in envisioning how to take advantage of his ideas. Still, maybe it’s better to be right than rich. On most days, I’d settle for either, even if history cares more about who’s right. [found via Evhead, who noted the surprising non-mention of blogs as an “time-based tagging” example, even though Grosso was writing in his blog?!?]

A few days ago, I cited my limited awareness of MacOS RSS newsreaders. Just found one today, Shrook. While I don’t have a lot of time to explore, this looks like an intelligent application, and I see that the developer is smart enough to build in NNW subscription import… although Brent made the job easier by including an “Export Subscriptions…” menu item. (Shrook is also $10 cheaper.)

I don’t know Brent, nor his intentions, but I appreciate that he didn’t force lock-in via these preferences. Instead, he’s focused on the application and its experience. I see the Shrook uses WebKit already, which Brent has said he’s moving to. Probably harder with an installed base! Let the competition thrive, and the best application win!

I’m listening to the fascinating Christopher Lydon interview of Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati. Sifry defends editors, or says the discussion/debate about editors (as witnessed — and read by both Lydon and Sifry — by Jeff Jarvis) really obsures the point: saving time. Editors save time, and the collaborative filtering does, too. Sifry says that Technorati shows the real promise of collaborative filtering.

Other notes:

• Sifry calls blogging “an incredible lesson in civics for a new generation” — he’s emphasizing the ‘markets are conversations’ theme.
• RSS… he doesn’t care about the format wars, just that there ARE formats
• metadata is “tactical” — Google starts with one piece (the link)… now add when and just those two pieces of metadata create an explosion of applications
• “The one thing that this economy revolves around, this web economy, is an economy of attention. The one thing we don’t have enough of is time.”
• “Votes of attention” is a repeated phrase.
• Go to Sifry’s Alerts and look at my blogroll.

Near the end of the interview, Lydon notes that he is trying to create a “voice-driven analog to this whole blogsphere” in his blog. [Interview is in MP3 format; 30+ minutes long.]

As one who has started to limit his time creating in part because of the nuisance/stress of typing, I love seeing exploration into alternative interfaces, especially ones that take more advantage of our full range of physical expression. [thanks to Steve Ivy for the link]

San Francisco is shrinking. In this Reuters story about newly released Census data, SF is even compared to Flint, Michigan and Gary, Indiana thanks to its incredibly vanishing population.

San Francisco, with a population of about 776,000 in mid-2002, joins some other famously depressed U.S. cities, including Flint, Michigan, which ranked 240 on the list with a population decline of 1.4 percent or 1,687 people, and Gary, Indiana, which came in at 227, losing 0.8 percent of its population, or 793 people.

And then the Census bureau announces that this extended urban area (aka, the Bay Area) is now officially known as the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland metropolitan area, . This was front page news in the (ahem) San Francisco Chronicle just over a week after the above Reuters story… although I’m guessing both tidbits came from the same release of Census info. Of course, it’s not like the government moved quickly on this decision.

San Jose surpassed San Francisco in population in 1990, but San Francisco had held onto top billing until June, when census officials decided to change the name.

In any event, I’m not planning on going anywhere.

Lots of different things come to mind when I think about this site, but my energy is quite directed right now at family and work, not always in that order, unfortunately. This site feels like a luxury. I’d prefer to create here, rather than simply comment, but opining on other’s work is sure a whole lot easier/faster.

Last night I was leaning in another direction, but after consultation with my sister Laura, who also has a 12″ PowerBook, and further review here in the house, I ordered the Incase Laptop sleeve.