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The BBC applauds the US earning a draw today against Italy, although they didn’t agree that the Mastroeni red card was too much. Thank you, Ghana, for keeping this group very interesting all the way through Thursday’s matches.

I’ve had too nice a day overall to spend too much time teasing out something truly new on the topics of where data lives, which data is your data, what formats are most future-proof, and which companies may or may not have found a path for data and formats which both serves people best and supports their business.

But over the past few days, I’ve read different and varied posts on these very topics… and I don’t think they are different topics, so it is worth the time to put all the ideas (with links) in one post for contemplation. I’m going to pluck sentences here and there, but most of these are worth reading in context and in full. The better posts are the length they are because they convey ideas with varying subtlety, not in pullquotes.

Data

I saw the Flickr API conversation via Michael Arrington, which was also the path to the “how-does-he-find-the-time?” comments of Thomas Hawk in the Flickr forums. This thread of the data and formats tapestry starts on whether an API must be open to competitors or not, but gets into fun territory with the conversation about whether tags (and other metadata) are owned by the tagger or the service…and whether’s there anything that can be done about it, practically. Folks even muse on extending the JPEG format (!) for a place to store this data.

Kudos to Stewart Butterfield for answering with respect, but not being pushed around, either, both in the Flickr thread (his home turf) and in the TechCrunch comments.

Today, Dave Winer adds “It’s the Users, Dummy,” banging a drum he’s hit before

The only criteria for winning that should be tolerated, by anyone, are features, performance and price. Lock-in is not an honorable or sustainable way to win.

Also on this sunny Saturday (in SF, don’t know about DC), Scott Karp pitched in with Data Storage Is the Key to the Web App Revolution, where he quotes a correspondence with Nick Carr about how enterprises already depend on external storage and applications (Salesforce.com is only the most prominent example, mentioned by Carr). Karp adds

On the consumer side, granted that most people would do better outsourcing the securing of their data, but perceived control, even at the expense of actual security, is also a powerful force.

I’d argue that perception is certainly shifting. Webmail is the thin end of the wedge on this issue: most people are content to believe their data is safe with one of the big webmail services out there. The “cloud” hasn’t let many down in the first decade of this type of service. I have to believe it’s getting better, not worse.

Formats

After switching away from Apple for the first time in 22 years, Mark Pilgrim explains why in “When the bough breaks“

I’m creating things now that I want to be able to read, hear, watch, search, and filter 50 years from now.

He doesn’t trust the Mac to enable that future.

I’m thrilled to see Mark Pilgrim blogging again. No one combines incredible depth of knowledge with such crystallized attitude in every well-written sentence. I have no idea if he’s quite as formidable verbally as he is in writing, but damn!

John Gruber responded first with a quick note, and then with a lengthy essay to clarify: “And Oranges”

The hard part is deciding how much importance to give to each factor you care about. How much openness are you willing to give up for a system with a better interface?

(On a related note: John Gruber’s contribution to the fray is what prompted me to become a member, after reading him since the beginning. I don’t need full-text posts via RSS, but the Linked List feels worth $20.)

Pilgrim responds with “Juggling Oranges,” where he appreciates the thought put into Gruber’s essay, but notes that the larger point of data preservation is the point. ASCII text comes off looking brilliant, for reasons like this:

So if you care about long-term data preservation, your #1 goal should be to reduce the number of times you convert your data from one format to another.

I wonder what Mark Hurst thinks, and whether Creative Good still follows The Good Easy, which is not about formats, per se, but might reduce conversions. Of course, Hurst’s bit literacy would say… let those bits go. So maybe Mark Hurst and Mark Pilgrim aren’t quite on the same page here. But I digress.

Anyway…Tim Bray follows Pilgrim and Gruber’s exchange with “Time to Switch?,” where he answers his own question in the affirmative.

This feels like a crazy name-drop post, but it’s indicative of my reading habits, and given the relative prominence of all these folks in the tech blogging world, I’m sure I’m not alone in subscribing to all/most of these blogs, so I’m surprised no one has (ahem) mashed-up these two themes.

My effort here may be little better than the lines the boy draws when he connects the dots, but I absolutely feel this is all part of a larger conversation about control. Does controlling your data make you feel like you’re in control of your life? While I love that idea, it’s bound to be a false sense of security. It’s still stuff, even when it’s bits, not atoms.

Still, I admire those looking ahead, and I’ll continue to support the bleeding edge customers who help challenge companies to improve. I’d be curious to read my blog and look at my photos in 50 years, even if few others will.

Maybe someone else can put together a well-written essay on what it all means? I nominate Jarod Lanier, who enjoys wading in on hyped topics and knows how to write (e.g. Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism, which is on a separate topic altogether). But anyone else is welcome to jump in.

N.B. Of course, all this from someone still struggling to back up their current computer, which has at least a decade of files transferred across as many as four Macs. Said files may or may not be in workable formats if I should ever try to open them once more. But I console myself with two facts: I still have them (until my hard drive befores my backup) and I haven’t touched most of them yet, so would my life (or anyone else’s) really be different if they did disappear?

I’ve just upgraded to WordPress 2.03 from 1.5, less than six months after finally switching. So far, so good. This post will help test. Let me know if anything appears awry.

I also added a way to subscribe to full-text posts via e-mail, courtesy of FeedBurner. For those that are interested, enter your address at the top right of the web pages.

I’ve search StubHub and eBay and Craigslist, without success so far. Joe Jackson will be playing in Saratoga, CA next week, on Thursday June 22, 2006. The performance is sold out, so I just posted my first “Want it Now” on eBay (eBay – Want It Now Post – Joe Jackson ticket one for Saratoga, CA June 22, 2006 – 6638404263). I’m not expecting much, but any other tips? Beyond paying attention months earlier!

I find Big.com clever. It’s just another search engine, but the fonts are bigger. Fun twist, and with a short URL, sure to get some traffic. Of course, the Terms of Service are not in the bigger font. Hmmm…

This is all part of Idealab, as is the current Snap.com. Although the results for Big.com come from Ask.com. Got that straight? Enough three and four letter URLs for you?

I’m recording every single game in the 2006 World Cup, and watching whatever I can. Most of the games, I skim for goals, or watch a few minutes here and there. During the morning, before going to work (thank you, Pacific Time Zone), I watch a bit of the first game of the day. Then, I avoid news about the games (most of the time) and come home and devour a bit of the best sporting event on earth. The World Cup is better than the Olympics (which I adore) because the television is better, with no advertisements interrupting the flow, and the competition is wide-open. I wouldn’t pretend that all 32 teams are of similar quality, but any one of the top 8-10 teams could take this trophy and revel in that glory forever. Even the usually disappointing powerhouse (yes, I mintend the oxymoron) of Spain looked devastating in their 4-0 spanking of the Ukraine. We’ll see what happens.

It’s actually a bit draining to have this much soccer available, and of such importance and interest to the entire world. The Premier League games I watch most of the year are high quality, and the rhythm of the season draws you in. But it’s not quite so frenetic, with its highs (Australia’s last 7 minutes against Japan) and lows (the entire United States – Czech Republic debacle). Thanks to a tip, I’m enjoying the Tunisia-Saudi Arabia match right now in full. This is normally one I would have skimmed through at triple speed. It’s not the best soccer of this past week, but it’s not one-sided. Game ended 10 hours ago but I don’t know the final score, yet. Live TV is so 20th century!

On a technical note, I’m feeling fortunate that our previous 40 hour Series 2 TiVo had hard drive troubles several weeks ago. The 80 hour replacement is being utilitzed more completely during this tournament! I do wish I had HDTV for this tournament. I haven’t seen a single game in that format, though every single game is being broadcast that way for the first time. Maybe by 2010, in South Africa.

X-Men: The Last Stand, otherwise known as X-Men 3, was playing to a mostly empty theater on Sunday night. I’ve watched the second one earlier this month. I think it’s helpful to have seen the earlier films; I’m not sure anyone would care about these characters without a bit of the back story.

I would see this film if you enjoyed the first two, but not otherwise.

The only character interaction which pulls you in is between Professor Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen). The two British actors do a lot for this film, which is why one of the plot twists bodes ill for future films. (Slight spoiler.) Still, we can all hope that Ian McKellen continues to thrive and is available for the next film. Aside from the obvious point — this is a comic book serial, so it will continue, the director leaves us with a hint of Magneto’s future possibilities.

The camera also lingers a bit more on Mystique in this film, despite an early “departure” from the main story. Villians are more fun, and a good-looking woman (Rebecca Romijn) in blue body paint and little more doesn’t hurt the comic-book audience (read: males from 15 and up).

My one major disappointment was in continuity. I’m not a very “close reader” of film; bluntly, I’m not one for details, usually. But a critical part of the film was as jarring as the difference between night and day. Literally. The climactic battle begins with a team of mutants marching in daylight, but the battle minutes later is in pitch black night. The daylight was sunset, surely, but if I noticed the switch, you know it’s blatant. I was with two friends at the movie, one of whom makes films, and he suggested that the major battle had to happen at night for cost reasons. The special effects would have cost much, much more if the background had to be filled in with something other than the night sky. So be it… just start the battle a bit later next time?

Metacritic score of 58 feels a touch low, at first…I’d say mid-60s. But I suppose judged on its own, not as part of the series, X-Men: The Last Stand needed to do more to earn kudos. The Metacritic summary points as this film as the “climax of the trilogy,” but I would expect another one. (I don’t read film trades, so no idea if this is already a certainty one way or the other.)

Update: Thanks to Rex (comment below), I was reminded that I should have stayed all the way through the credits. Here’s a link to what I missed on Google Video (not sure how long it will stay online; it’s 24 seconds long): X-Men: The Last Stand… credits

Good for the BBC: BBC News live stats

At CNET News.com, What’s Hot is updated with data hourly, and when new stories are published. Some of the Most Popular data is updated in near-real-time, though most is daily.

For so-close-to-real-time it becomes useless (but still interesting), try Digg Spy.

Showing usage back to the users… that’s fun stuff. And it definitely changes behavior.

A long time ago (relatively), Saturday Night Live (SNL) ran a skit about combination sports, like downhill soccer, or javelin baseball. Now a French television station is channeling (ahem) SNL in an advertisement: “The Biathlon”

As a mild spoiler, let’s just say that the targets in this biathlon aren’t all stationary.

This 45 second video clip won’t be available online forever (at least at the URL above), so take a look. Here’s the original location, but the video isn’t working for me in Safari, at least.)

Of course, maybe it wasn’t SNL at all, but that’s what my memory tells me…and Google could neither confirm nor deny my remembrance. Any brain cells firing out there?

Despite the name of this blog, I don’t really have a clock fetish. But I couldn’t pass up the Top 10 Strangest Clocks from TechEBlog. My favorite is #2, the T-shirt.