Monday December 27, 2004 
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All
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Holes in the Water
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Non Sequitur
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Sun
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The Orthodox Church
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What's in the CD player?
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What's in the DVD player?
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What's on the bookshelf?
Monday December 27, 2004 Jonatha Brooke: Back In The Circus
I had been hearing some of Jonatha Brooke's singles on the local grownup radio station: Linger, from 2001's Steady Pull, and from her most recent release, Better After All and her cover of Alan Parsons' Eye In The Sky. The customer reviews on Amazon.com were somewhat mixed, but I really liked the singles -- just not enough to go out and buy the thing. (I know, I know, I need an iPod -- just that I need a new computer to manage it first!) Then one foggy Chrismas Eve, overcome by last-minute shopping pheremones, what started out as an expedition in search of things for the family turned into a game of "one for you, one for me", the latter being this CD. I think I agree with the (mixed) reviews. A lot on this album sounds familiar. Sleeping With The Light On reminded me of Shawn Colvin's haunting Another Plane Went Down (with the same echoes of 9/11). The over-caffeinated drumming on Less Than Love Is Nothing is right out of David Gray's irritating Please Forgive Me. And there's a three chord riff in the refrain to It Matters Now that reminded me very much of Sarah McLachlan's Building A Mystery (far from her best work, in my far from humble opinion). There are hints of Joan Osborne too, and a little Sheryl Crow sprinkled in, and traces of Shawn Colvin all over the place. In other words, parts of this album struck me as being very derivative, very "second-tier girl with guitar"-ish. At the same time, the title cut, Better After All, Sally, and No Net Below, are really first-rate pieces in their own right, with their own (not-borrowed) sound. (Okay, No Net Below sounds just like Shawn Colvin's I'll Say I'm Sorry Now, but I still like it.) Which is in sharp contrast to two of the covers she includes on this disc: James Taylor's Fire And Rain is absolutely, bizarrely off-kilter -- the dippy arrangement clashes with the anguishing lyrics -- and God Only Knows is unremarkable at best. (God only knows why she did these covers, if you ask me -- even the arrangements are very Radio Shack keyboard.) At the same time, she knocks Eye In The Sky out of the park. She really puts her heart into it, and makes it her own. Which is the whole point now, isn't it? If she were asking me for advice -- music expert that I am -- it would be simple. "Do your own thing." When she is most original, she is truly outstanding. When she's paying homage to those who have, and that which has, gone before, she veers between unremarkable and cheesy. But the upside potential is huge. I will be back for more. (2004-12-27 07:21:22.0) Permalink Comments [0]
Sunday December 26, 2004
Silent Night, Holy Night; Silence, calm, peacefulness: the marks of a night where all is quiet, everyone sleeping, nothing stirring. But on this night, the silence is a cover, a disguise, to hide from prying eyes the beginnings of a radical plan to rescue us from a trap we had fallen into so long ago. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Gen. 1:1) And of all the things He created, man was the pinnacle: created in His own image and likeness, he was intended to live in free and perfect communion with his Creator, sharing His dominion over the creation: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name." (Gen. 2:19) God wanted to share everything with him, His very life, offering him the possibility of becoming, by grace, what He is by nature. It did not take long for God's plan to go awry. Seduced by the one whose bitterness and envy and despair now infect the whole creation, man tasted (experienced, in the biblical metaphor) the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent promised him that "in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil". (Gen. 3:5) God wanted man to be like Him, but in His own way and His own time. Man wanted it his way, to be like God without God, and the result, sadly, is our alienation from Him and from each other since that day. We were deceived, duped -- trapped, and unable to save ourselves. So on this silent, holy night, thousands of years later, God took it upon Himself to save us. He sent His Son, "who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross." (Phil. 2:6-8) But He sent Him in disguise: as a baby, in meekness, humility, even mortality (for God, the ultimate act of humility!). He did this out of respect for our freedom, the freedom with which He endowed us in creating us, the freedom which makes us like Him. We had freely chosen to go our own way; we had freely (though unwittingly) enslaved ourselves to the deceiver. And now He, Himself, submitted to the deceiver's rules:
1. Every man sins; Now he, the deceiver, knew that something was going on. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying "Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him." When Herod the king heard these things he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people Israel.'" (Micah 5:2) Then Herod, when he had secretly called the wise men, determined from them what time the star appeared. And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search diligently for the young Child, and when you have found Him, bring back word to me, that I may come and worship Him also." Of course, Herod's plan was not to worship Him but to kill Him. The wise men were warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, so they returned to their own country in secret. Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying: "A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they were no more." (Jeremiah 31:15) Silent night? Holy night? Hardly! Jesus escaped this first of many attempts on his life when his foster-father, Joseph, being himself warned in a dream, fled with Him and His mother, Mary, to Egypt, until the death of Herod. Even then, they could not return to their home in Judea, but settled in the city of Nazareth, in the region of Galilee. The deceiver did not give up trying to destroy him. Thirty-three years later, he succeeded -- even though he did not grasp, until it was too late, what would be the result. For in "humbling Himself and becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross", Jesus shattered his rules -- and thereby, his rule over the creation:
1. Every man sins -- but Jesus did not sin, ever; He destroys its power over us; he frees us from our enslavement to the deceiver whose lies caused us to die in the first place. He traps, in his own rules, the one who entrapped us! Silent night? Holy night? Ho ho ho! It marks for us the beginning of the end of our enslavement to bitterness and envy and despair, our alienation from God and from each other, and ultimately from our true selves and all we were created by God and intended -- with great love! -- to be. If today marks for us the beginning of the end, then the end of the end comes at Easter, when Christ's victory over death is celebrated and proclaimed. Each year, on that holy night, we hear these words from the Paschal sermon of St. John Chrysostom: Let no one fear death, for the Savior's death has set us free. He that was held prisoner of it has annihilated it. By descending into Hell, He made Hell captive. He embittered it when it tasted of His flesh. And Isaiah, foretelling this, did cry: Hell, said he, was embittered, when it encountered Thee in the lower regions. It was embittered, for it was abolished! It was embittered, for it was mocked! It was embittered, for it was slain! It was embittered, for it was overthrown! It was embittered, for it was fettered in chains! It took a body, and met God face to face. It took earth, and encountered Heaven. It took that which was seen, and fell upon the unseen. O Death, where is thy sting? O Hell, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown! Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen! Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice! Christ is risen, and life reigns! Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in the grave! For Christ, being risen from the dead, is become the first-fruits of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages! Amen. Amen -- Christ is Born! Glorify Him! (2004-12-26 14:21:13.0) Permalink Comments [0] The Sunday Before Christmas: The Sunday of the Holy Fathers Each year, on the Sunday before Christmas, the Orthodox Church reads from the first chapter of the Gospel According to St. Matthew: The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez begot Hezron, and Hezron begot Ram. Ram begot Amminadab, Amminadab begot Nahshon, and Nahshon begot Salmon. Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, and Jesse begot David the king. David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon begot Rehoboam, Rehoboam begot Abijah, and Abijah begot Asa. Asa begot Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat begot Joram, and Joram begot Uzziah. Uzziah begot Jotham, Jotham begot Ahaz, and Ahaz begot Hezekiah. Hezekiah begot Manasseh, Manasseh begot Amon, and Amon begot Josiah. Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. And after they were brought to Babylon, Jeconiah begot Shealtiel, and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel begot Abiud, Abiud begot Eliakim, and Eliakim begot Azor. Azor begot Zadok, Zadok begot Achim, and Achim begot Eliud. Eliud begot Eleazar, Eleazar begot Matthan, and Matthan begot Jacob. And Jacob begot Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins." So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us." Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife, and did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called His name JESUS. Obviously, the first seventeen verses -- the genealogy -- are kind of "dense": your eyes glaze over reading them, my tongue ties trying to sing them in Church! But there's a wonderful message hidden in them, which, if you can discover it, points to the real meaning and power and joy of Christmas. The key to the message is the women. This is a Hebrew genealogy; it should go from father to son, to son, to son, and so on. Who the mother is, is, genealogically speaking, irrelevant. But there are five women listed among Jesus' ancestors!
1. Judah begot Perez and Zerah by Tamar... (v. 3) Who were these women? Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, the "twelve patriarchs." He promised to marry her to three of his sons (one at a time!), but the first and second were wicked and the Lord killed them before they could give her a child, and Judah was taking his own good time before marrying her to the third, who was still quite young. So she took matters into her own hands, disguised herself as a harlot, and slept with her father-in-law, unbeknownst to him. (He just thought she was any old harlot I guess!) Jesus is descended from Perez, one of the twin sons she bore him. (Genesis 38) Rahab was a harlot living in Jericho. When Joshua, who was leading the Israelites after Moses' death, sent spies into Jericho to see how he could take the city, she sheltered them, and helped them to escape those who were pursuing them. Because of this, Joshua spared her and her household when he conquered Jericho. Jesus is descended from Boaz, the son she bore Salmon. (Joshua 2) Ruth was a foreigner, from Moab. She was married to one of the sons of a Hebrew couple, Elimelech and Naomi. When her husband died, rather than return to her own country and people, she decided to remain with Naomi: "Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; and wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me." Eventually, she was married to Boaz, the son of Salmon and Rahab. Jesus is descended from their son, Obed. (Ruth) Finally, there's "her that had been the wife of Uriah", Bathsheeba. David saw Bathsheeba from his roof, one night, as she was bathing; he took a fancy to her, and slept with her. He had her husband, Uriah, one of his generals, killed by ordering him into "the forefront of the hottest battle" and commanding his men to abandon him there. David then took Bathsheeba as his wife. Their first son died, God's punishment for David's sins of murder and adultery. Jesus is descended from their second son, Solomon. (2 Samuel 11-12) Why are these women listed in the genealogy of Christ? Strange enough (genealogically speaking) that women are listed at all -- but these women? And these scandalous unions? What's the message here? Throughout human history, and in our own lives, we see -- painfully, tragically -- that which is whole, being broken; that which is high and holy, falling. The message here is that in human history, and very specifically, in our own lives, God can and does act to undo this tragedy. He takes what is broken and makes it whole; He takes what is fallen and raises it up! He produces, from this very humble, very "mortal" family tree, one who is capable of giving birth to His immortal Son. For the fifth and final woman in the genealogy is "Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ": Mary, who replied to the Archangel Gabriel, when he had delivered the shocking news of her impending maternity, with these words: "Behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word!" Mary, who is the fruit of this family tree, is the proof of God's ability, and His passionate desire!, to make right all the things that have gone wrong. By her free choice and assent, God Himself is born into the world to make it new, whole, and holy once more. By our free choice and assent, the same thing can happen to us, in us. If we are willing, God is able. If we are even willing to consider being willing, it's a start -- and trust me, sometime's it's enough! This is the real meaning and power and joy of Christmas. "Let it be to me according to your word!" Amen -- Christ is Born! Glorify Him! (2004-12-26 13:55:38.0) Permalink Comments [0]
Thursday December 23, 2004
Okay, I will tag Lizzie with this one. In fact, she wanted to see it so much, we ran out to the video store last night so as not to have to wait for Netflix to ship it out to us. And she wouldn't let me pull it from our queue afterwards -- so this is shaping up to be the winter that finally makes up for Napoleon's bad winter of 1806-1807. It's not a bad movie at all. In fact, if you're a big Freaks and Geeks fan like me (that was the show Lizzie and I used to watch together each week, following Felicity, and prior to Gilmore Girls and Joan of Arcadia), the theme is somewhat familiar. With one huge difference. In Freaks and Geeks, the geeks are more than sympathetic and fun to hang out with. (At least for me. :) In Napoleon Dynamite, by contrast, it hurts to watch them. Of course, this makes for some of the funniest moments in the movie: Napoleon trying out his Uncle Rico's time machine (he bought it on-line), for one, and his brother Kip's chat room romance, for another. But this is because they are that somewhat rare breed: geeks whose geekiness is not compensated for, either by intelligence or compassion. They are dumb, nasty geeks. Even so, they (and the movie) have their moments. The humor is really dry, but compared to the target audience, I'm really old, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and three geeky stars. If only this didn't remind me so much of my freshman year at MIT, I might have been a bit more generous. Some memories just die hard...
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Lizzie's home for Christmas Break. Actually, that's not fair. I'm the one who found it on the FX channel yesterday, and yelled upstairs that she should come down and watch it with me. I will own up to liking it, which I do. Not only is the plot fun (it's kind of a poor man's Memento), it boasts an all-star cast, including Marla Sokoloff, Jennifer Garner, John ("Jaaaaaaaaaaaaay Leno!!") Melendez, Andy Dick, Fabio, Brent Spiner (f you don't know who Brent Spiner is, you don't deserve to have me tell you), and that guy who's dating Demi Moore. All in all, this is one shibby flick. Dude -- sweet!! (2004-12-23 08:06:43.0) Permalink Comments [0]
Tuesday December 21, 2004
Really bad movie. Lorelai Gilmore, what would your mother say??!! She would wash your mouth out with soap for sure. And forbid you to see Billy Bob ever again. At least that's what I would do. (2004-12-21 14:55:40.0) Permalink
Roger Ebert didn't much like this flick, but I didn't think it was all that bad. On the down side, the acting is pretty lame, and I'm a big fan of both Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan. He was great in Independence Day and Men In Black I and II; she was wonderful in The Recruit. But here, they are strictly one-dimensional; the movie fails to follow up on the intriguing angles of his divorce and her relationship with the man at the center of the movie, Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), whose apparent suicide Smith believes to be the work of a murderous robot, voiced well and eerily by Alan Tudyk. (One can observe that the humans give rather robotic performances, whereas the robot is intriguingly human. I don't think this was entirely intentional. :) Plot-wise, Lanning was the inventor of the "Three Laws of Robotics": 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. and thus his murder at the hands of "Sonny" presents a bit of a problem, the solving of which occupies Smith throughout the movie. On the up side, the basic premise -- a hidden, fatal flaw in these deceptively simple and perfect laws -- is really intriguing, and full credit is due to Isaac Asimov, author of the 1950 volume of the same title, a collection of short stories around the theme of the (imagined) history of robotics, and, in particular, the impact of the three laws as they are played out in "real life". Asimov was a genius and a brilliant writer, the book is a classic, and for all its shortcomings, the movie it inspired can't help but be engaging and thought-provoking. With better acting (and I have to fault the screenplay and the direction here), the movie could have easily garnered a fourth star. As it is, three is sui generis. (Get it?!) (2004-12-21 14:37:59.0) Permalink
Saturday December 18, 2004
From the sublime to the ridiculous. I think Tom Hanks is the bees' knees. One of the best actors out there -- back-to-back Oscars in that category for Philadelphia in 1994 and Forrest Gump in 1995 -- and surely one of the finer human beings on the planet. (And a co-religionist, by the way, thanks to his Big Fat Greek Wedding to Rita Wilson, who co-produced that fun flick with him.) But everybody has a bad day or two, and Hanks is certainly entitled. The Ladykillers, the Coen brothers' 2004 re-make of the 1955 original, is irritating and verbose: I'm not sure whether irritatingly verbose or verbosely irritating better describes it, but the very irritating verbosity of this sentence will give you the verbosely irritating flavor of it. And at the end of the day (it feels somewhat longer than The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the extended edition), it seems more like an excuse for the Coen brothers to crank out another great Southern-fried soundtrack along the lines of O Brother, Where Art Thou? than a serious film project in its own right. I think it would have been more aptly introduced as a sequel to that sonorous flick, and simply titled "O Brother". (2004-12-18 06:09:06.0) Permalink
Wednesday December 15, 2004
A dark, haunting, hauntingly beautiful film. Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly) is a recovering alcoholic, abandoned by her husband, not really getting by in the house her father left her. Failing to attend to an improper tax bill from the county, her house is auctioned off and purchased by Massoud Amir Behrani (Sir Ben Kingsley), formerly a high-ranking military officer under the Shah of Iran. Behrani isn't really getting by either, working construction by day and clerking at a convenience store by night, as he tries to maintain at least the illusion of the kind of life he and his family enjoyed back in the day, back in Iran. Things are especially difficult for his wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who has not quite adapted to her new life in exile, and for their teenage son Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout). Complicating things: the deputy sheriff (Ron Eldard) sent to evict Kathy is going through a crisis of his own, the sparks of which will ignite the tinder of pride and need surrounding the House. You can see the end coming long before it happens, like watching a train and a car speed towards the same crossing in the distance; you can feel the vibrations of it in the air. She must get her house back; he cannot possibly give it up. Neither is a bad person, neither one is wrong. Rather, they are both wronged; both suffer as fallen innocents, fate driving them towards a tragic conclusion that cannot be averted or delayed. That they can feel compassion for the other -- there's one scene in the driveway of the house that is as heartbreaking as anything I can ever remember seeing, in any film -- makes the tragedy all the more poignant. And there's more to come before the end. Kingsley is magnificent (as always); Aghdashloo is pitch perfect. And Jennifer Connelly will positively melt your heart. She is every bit as good here as she was in A Beautiful Mind, for which she won the Oscar in 2002. She should have won another one for this. You absolutely must (2004-12-15 17:47:40.0) Permalink
Tuesday December 14, 2004
The real canvases in this quiet film, which imagines the story behind Johannes Vermeer's painting of the same name, are the faces of the characters. Maria Thins (Judy Parfitt), the scheming mother-in-law of the Dutch master (Colin Firth), directs the affairs of a family whose welfare is dependent on the continued patronage of Van Ruijven (Tom Wilkinson), which in turn requires the continued inspiration and productivity of her son-in-law, while it is simultaneously threatened by the continued fecundity of her daughter Catharina (Essie Davis). Into the picture (no pun intended :) comes Griet (Scarlett Johansson), the new maid, who arouses the lust of the patron, the jealous suspicion of the wife and children, and the watchful eye of the mother-in-law as she apprehends, almost immediately, the impact this girl is having on the painter. There is a bond between them -- not of lust or even romantic love -- but of kindred artistic spirit. She intuits the impact that cleaning the windows of Vermeer's studio will have on the quality of the light; she sees that a chair is crowding the subject of a portrait and rearranges the scene to make the resulting painting better. Vermeer takes her on as his assistant and also, secretly, as the subject of a new commission for Van Ruijven in which she models his wife's prized earring. The scene in which the artist pierces her virgin ear is as erotic (in the Greek sense of the word) as anything you'll ever see with fully-dressed actors. Of all the great faces in this picture, Johansson's is by far the most amazing. (Which you'd know if you've seen Lost In Translation.) How extraordinarily vacant and plain it can be at one moment; how rich and alive at the next, as when Griet's boyfriend Pieter (Cillian Murphy) first coaxes a smile from her. The lovely thing about this movie is that it keeps its quietness, its modesty. Griet does not wind up in bed with Vermeer; jealous Catharina does no one in with a carving knife. The power remains beneath the surface, waiting for the viewer to discover it -- in this way it is much more like a painting than like a movie, which will remain to its eternal credit. Roger Ebert's review of the film is spot on -- recommended reading. (2004-12-14 06:09:30.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Thursday December 09, 2004 "How to Build A Better PC? Don't Give Up." Get a Sun Ray! From The Wizard of Oz:
Dorothy: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me? Reading David Gelertner's Op Ed piece, How to Build A Better PC? Don't Give Up., in this morning's Wall Street Journal (p. A16), I was reminded of what Dorothy learned: that if she ever goes looking for her heart's desire again, she won't have to look any further than her own backyard. In this case, what Gelertner is looking for may not be in his own backyard, but IT IS AVAILABLE FROM SUN! To his heart's first desire: Like many people, I have several PCs in my life -- and I constantly need to ask such ridiculous questions as, "Where did I leave the latest version of that file? By what clumsy method should I move it from where it is to where it's needed?"... IBM might have done well selling PCs with built-in "transparent information sharing." As soon as you connected such a machine to the internet, all your electronic documents would immediately be available -- no matter where you created or worked on them. If all your computers had transparent information-sharing, you could start composing an e-mail at work, touch it up during your drive home (using a -- theoretical -- in-car, audio-interface IBM PC) and finish it up on a laptop in your backyard... Many old and decrepit PCs would be replaced tomorrow if bringing new PCs up to speed weren't such a colossal nuisance. IBM PCs with transparent information-sharing would have made that problem disappear. Connect a new machine to the internet and all your electronic information would have materialized automatically... [and...] Why doesn't every computer I use show me the exact same desktop, with the same layout of the same icons? -- or (at any rate) the same picture, no matter what interface I use? I could go on. Dude, you don't have to go on: with the exception of the voice-driven car interface, we can do all that today. It's called the Sun Ray Ultra-Thin Client, and you can read all about it at sun.com/sunray and you can buy them in the on-line Sun Store. And to his heart's second desire: Why are we wedded to a windows-menus-mouse interface that is flat, as if it were stuck to the back of the screen, when computers are easily powerful enough to turn the screen into a viewport that lets us "peer through it" into an imaginary 3-D landscape? (Information can be more clearly and effectively arranged in a 3-D space than on a restricted flat surface.) We don't actually sell this in the Sun Store. We've open sourced it! Check out Project Looking Glass by Sun Microsystems: A Revolutionary Evolution of Today's Desktop, and if you want to see what it looks like, here are some screenshots. So instead of sending a wish list off to IBM via the Wall Street Journal, check out what Sun has to offer today.
Glinda: That's all it is! Nah. It's just what we do. (2004-12-09 13:53:50.0) Permalink Comments [3]
Monday December 06, 2004
Another movie based on an old Philip K. Dick short story; others include Blade Runner (based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?), Screamers (based on Second Variety), Total Recall (based on We Can Remember It for You Wholesale) and Minority Report (based on... em... The Minority Report). I haven't seen or read all of these, but like Total Recall and Minority Report, Paycheck has to do with the interplay of time, memory, free will, and the future. In this case, the philosophical question at hand is: does knowing what will happen in the future cause that future to come to pass? In one instance, for example, does knowing a war will happen cause the know-er to strike pre-emptively, thus causing that war to happen? Interesting question, but wrapped in a goofy enough plot (the evil military-industrialist uses a laser to make a lens perfect enough to see into the future, which is something I would have expected from Dr. Evil but nobody any less campy) with wooden enough acting to take a lot of the fun out of it. Total Recall and Minority Report are alot more engaging because you give a rat's you-know-what about the protagonists. Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman somehow manage to have less chemistry than Ben Affleck and J Lo or Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner. On-screen chemistry, in any case. Kathryn Morris has a bit part, as she did in Minority Report. (Maybe she's a PKD fan?) We need to get her a real role in a real movie; she's tremendous in Cold Case. Not the worst flick I've seen, but not worth blowing your whole paycheck on it either. (2004-12-06 15:05:49.0) Permalink Comments [1]
Friday December 03, 2004 Okay, so I've been playing a lot of Snood lately. I have it on the Mac, on the PC, and on my Palm Pilot. I had it on the old cell phone, but it's not (yet) available on the new one. (Come on, guys -- a Java port should be a no brainer!) The cool thing about Snood, the sweet spot it hits, is that it's challenging enough to be interesting -- and dead simple enough to require no learning curve whatsoever, at least if you're happy to play badly at the junior levels of the game. As I am. Contrast this with some of the other video/computer/phone games out there that only teenage synapses can digest. But I digress. So I've been playing so much Snood lately, I decided I needed to set limits for myself. I'd been playing at the "Medium" level, and would only win (clear the board) about 20% of the time, losing 80% of the time. You see that all this Snood playing has not degraded my mathematical skills. So I figured it would be reasonable to play until I'd lost three rounds. That means that I'd play about three or four rounds, and after the third defeat, I'd have to go do something else. And then it happened. Once it mattered whether I won or lost -- once I had some skin in the game, however little and virtual -- I started winning. I went from winning 20% of the time to winning about 80% of the time, turning the earlier rate inside out. This trend became so pronounced that I had to change my rule, and now I only play until I lose once. And I can still go three or four rounds at a time. What does that tell me about me? What sort of coin-operated, mouse in a maze, hamster on a treadmill, bang the bar and get a cookie kind of guy am I? For the first time, a winning career in sales feels within my grasp. (2004-12-03 15:00:31.0) Permalink
Not a bad flick, but nothing to spend a lot of pixels on either. Kind of like Dances with Wolves, except instead of the accidental Civil War hero falling for the Sioux, he falls for the Sushi. Pass the wasabe, Kemo Sabe... (2004-12-03 14:40:03.0) Permalink
Wednesday December 01, 2004
Al Ries and Laura Ries: The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
This is a very insightful, clear and convincing primer on the laws of branding, in general and, in a bonus section, on the internet. Each law is illustrated with multiple well-known examples, to the point where you'll likely find it very hard to argue with any of the authors' conclusions: the facts are plain to see. This edition (copyright 2002) is recent enough to reflect the dot.com crash of 2000, and dated enough to call out, in a P.S. to "The Law of Time" (internet branding law #8), "You probably noticed that it was AOL that took over Time Warner and not vice versa." There are just a couple of other anachronisms in the book, none remotely significant enough to detract from its value. Two of the ideas in the internet branding section of the book particularly stood out for me because they so strongly go against the common wisdom. (Since I've spent most of my career in the internet space, vs. pure branding, I have a tad more common wisdom to be challenged.) The first was, again, from "The Law of Time" section, subtitled "Just do it. You have to be fast. You have to be first. You have to be focused." No argument here -- but when Al and Laura Ries say "Getting it right makes no sense from a branding point of view. Anything worth doing is worth doing in a half-assed way.", it raised my hackles. I get their point; I hate the fact that they're possibly right, and have fought doing things in a half-assed way for as long as I've been in a position to do anything about it. I'm all about the 80/20 rule -- and I do agree with their follow-on statement that "Anything not worth doing is not worth doing in a perfect way." It's just the "half-assed" thing that troubled me. The second piece that really struck me is "The Law of Divergence" section (internet branding law #10), subtitled "Everyone talks about convergence, while just the opposite is happening." They smartly tie the Law of Divergence in branding to the Law of Entropy in physics, and the Law of Evolution in biology. The centre cannot hold. And they provide a wonderful vignette in a sidebar: We were talking about divergence at a seminar in Helsinki when a man in the back row interrupted our presentation by pulling out his Nokia 9110 Communicator and shouting, "What are you talking about? Convergence is happening, I have it right in my hand." We stopped the meeting, walked to the back of the room, and compared our tiny Nokia cell phone with his 9110 Communicator. "Look," we said, "ours is the size and weight of a cigarette package and yours is the size and weight of a brick. Who wants to carry a brick to make a phone call?" Over the years, I've probably been making the divergence case as strongly as anyone has, given that from a purely technical perspective, it's only logical -- but they're absolutely right. I have a cell phone with e-mail and web browsing features and I hardly ever use them. I get almost no mail, and surf very few pages, that fit well on the tiny screen. And typing out long messages, even with the predictive text input turned on, is still an exercise in frustration. Heck, I don't even use a web browser to read my e-mail unless there's no other way; only a dedicated e-mail client is fast and efficient enough to deal with the volume of mail I get and send. And I miss dtcm, the CDE Calendar Manager that was so much faster than anything that has to redraw an entire window just because a meeting gets pushed back 15 minutes. You'll recognize the authors' command of their discipline throughout this fine book, and perhaps they'll open your eyes a few times, as they did mine. If you're interested in branding, advertising, or business strategy, it's definitely worth your time to read. (2004-12-01 11:31:22.0) Permalink Check the archives for entries dating back to the dawn of recorded history (June 14, 2004). |
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