You know you're obsessed...
...with a video game when you start thinking about installing a special utility just so you can get hotkeys to make your gameplay more efficient.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
~CKL
...with a video game when you start thinking about installing a special utility just so you can get hotkeys to make your gameplay more efficient.
As previously mentioned, I did enjoy the new movie, but there are plot holes aplenty. And, like Scalzi said, would it have killed them to get some basic science right?
Just in case you were unclear on how much of a huge geek I am, here's what the back of my new iPhone now looks like:
On Thursday and Friday, I was an extra (background performer) for episode 204 of Leverage, which is shooting their second season in Portland.* Since there's a lot of waiting around during each day, I thought it would be fun to Twitter a few interesting, spoiler-free remarks about my experience.
That's my one-line review of the new Star Trek movie.
To explore strange new worlds;
To seek out new life and new civilizations;
To boldly go where no one has gone before.
Labels: sci/tech
The way I see it, there are only three right now:Because, let's face it, if you're going to spend $400 on a DVD player, you might as well get one that can play some games, too.
(Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
Labels: publishing, sci/tech, writing
(Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)
Labels: publishing, sci/tech, writing
You may have read last year's Wired article about the novel Daemon, detailing how three agent rejections discouraged first-time novelist Daniel Suarez so much that he started his own company to publish and market his half-baked techno-thriller.
Labels: publishing, sci/tech, writing
If you want to give your tired old media property a badass reboot, Warren Ellis is clearly the man to call. He helped elevate Ultimate Fantastic Four, and now he's done it again with G.I. Joe: Resolute, the new animated movie that's been airing in installments on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. It's a solid junior techno-thriller.
After suffering a variety of unresolved problems with my laptop over the last few months, I will probably never buy a Lenovo machine again. Thinkpads were good, solid hardware when IBM owned the brand, but now they're living down to their reputation as cheap crap from overseas.
Labels: sci/tech
Castle gets a lot of things wrong. It wildly misrepresents--or, at best, cherry-picks--the experience of being a bestselling novelist or a New York City detective. But damn that smarmy motherfucker Nathan Fillion. He's just so entertaining to watch.
Well, what do you know? Light does travel faster than sound!
This is what my former colleague and IT/security guru Jason Sylvester has done. Is it wrong for me to hope he stays jobless for a while so he'll blog more?
Labels: sci/tech
I can't comment on Peter Sarrett's blog (hello, 500 server error), so I'm posting my remarks on "Puzzle Hunt 123" here:
My friend--let's call him "Kojak"--shared some interesting details about his employer, OnLive, who made a big splash last week at GDC (read more about it: company web site, press conference video, Penny Arcade comic). Some highlights from his email to me:
Still recovering from several days of stress and almost no sleep, but I'm relieved that our big announcement is over. I wish it had been all smoke and mirrors, but unfortunately it was all live and relied on servers in our Santa Clara datacenter. This necessitated insane fallback options, including the "Tertiary Contingency," which I can't really go into. Let's just say we're all very grateful it wasn't necessary, leaving us instead worrying how far Steve [Perlman] would stray from the script.
Most of these facts have been mentioned elsewhere, but some journalists missed the significant bits, so to speak:
Latency
This is of course the big one that everyone's talking about. A couple of early news articles misinterpreted what Steve said in previous interviews. All the bloggers picked this up as gospel truth, and distorted it further. On the morning before the press conference, almost every mention I saw had our total round trip latency being <1ms. Anyone with half a clue pointed out this is completely impossible, and it led many to assume we're just another in a long line of charlatans.
Steve tried to clear this up a bit in the announcement, saying that "encoding latency" means what we add by running it through our proprietary encoding card in the datacenter (this is really our key technology). "Last mile latency" can add anywhere from 5 to 25ms, depending on your ISP and other factors. Improvements in that in recent years are key to making this all possible. The latency from Moscone to our Santa Clara datacenter ~50 miles away is <2ms (I wouldn't have thought that possible a few years ago).
He's also talked about the contribution other sources of latency make, in particular your display. Gamers who switched from CRT to LCD may have added more latency to their experience that we could ever add (assuming worst case LCD and best case network). As you probably know, LCD TVs can be even worse, especially for those who don't know how to turn off the various "pixel shining" features. We literally only found one model of Sharp LCD TV that was really optimal for games (and apparently we bought every one in northern CA). Many people happily play Halo 3 on some of the worst latency TVs without ever knowing the difference. What's great for movies isn't necessarily great for games. Don't even get me started about the latency added by most wireless controllers.
It's expected that certain titles might not really be playable due to latency, but I've been pretty surprised so far (we've all been forced to play lots and lots of games at work!). Mirror's Edge was one I really didn't figure would work, but it's done pretty well.
Bandwidth caps
This is probably the most valid concern I've seen people raise, besides those who don't think they can get a consistent 4-5Mbps in their area from any ISP. I don't know what the official Comcast monthly limit is in most areas, but Steve has been saying 250GB. Since you're rarely pushing the peak bandwidth, average use is much less (and varies widely between games and play style, even if everything's running at 720p60). If it's ~2Mb, that gives you 278 hours or 11.6 days of continuous game time per month (assuming you're not using the connection for much else).
We expected the major ISPs to be pretty hostile, but they ended up almost scaring us with their enthusiasm. As long as we're causing a predictable load and we're willing to peer closely with their networks, they don't seem overly concerned (and Steve talked about various bundling possibilities here and in other interviews). So, it's realistic to expect either a special "OnLive" tier from your ISP with no cap, or some other arrangement where our data usage doesn't contribute towards your cap.
That doesn't mean it won't be a rocky upgrade path for some of them. If this takes off like we hope, they're going to be very busy, and it won't work perfectly in all areas for a while. This is part of the purpose of the Beta.
Target audience
We're targeting all segments of game players, but we don't expect we'll ever satisfy the most discriminating/insane gamers (the ones who shell out $5K/year for a top-of-the-line beast to play first person shooters at one frame/sec faster than their friends). However, by leading most of our demos with one of the most demanding FPS out there (Crysis), we try to make it clear that we're "good enough" for most who would want to play even the most extreme titles.
We have hopes of eventually combining our MOVA facial capture technology with customized servers to allow experiences beyond anything a console or PC game could offer. We'd certainly give anyone willing to do an exclusive title access to some interesting technology, though I'm not sure who would buy "Benjamin Button: The Video Game."
As with WebTV and other resource-intensive services, our ideal customer is someone who pays their bill and hardly ever logs in. Some have said we're ideal for the mythical "casual hard-core gamer"--someone who likes to play the latest high-end games, but only a few hours a month, and thus can't really justify maintaining a PC capable of playing them.
We're also really interested in true casual gamers (people who enjoy Xbox Live Arcade titles more than any of the $60 ones from the store). As Steve mentions, the hope here is that many of these titles will eventually be able to be "virtualized". This isn't quite as far fetched as it sounds, as Xen already has experimental support for GPU virtualization (so one video card could really be shared between multiple users).
Though Steve touted that we were demonstrating "every type of game from all major publishers," you'll notice one obvious omission: no MMOs. This is not a coincidence. Most of these games would be difficult to virtualize (they're not Crysis, but some are getting closer), and MMO gamers neither sleep nor work, apparently. So even though MMO games work great on our service for several reasons (slightly less demanding of resources and their users are accustomed to poor service), it's hard to imagine any business case that would make sense. Sadly, many of the bloggers that seem most enthusiastic about our service hope to use it exclusively to play MMOs. It could happen, but don't hold your breath.
Streaming
We're not a "streaming" service. Apparently voice actors now insist on certain clauses in their contracts that refer to streaming. Thus, we do not "stream" games, but instead provide them in real time, over the Internet. It's easy to see how there might be some confusion here.
Meanwhile, at the demo booth...
Highly skeptical gamer shows up and plays for quite a while. Finally, he says, "I'm an Atheist, but I feel like I've just seen the face of God!"
Someone from the Xbox Live group at Microsoft drops by our booth. After briefly playing a game, he quickly makes a cell phone call and says, "It works." Then he dashes off.
On Thursday, my former employer announced another round of layoffs--its third this year. But there were two big differences this time around.
Bottom line is, even if you see 'em coming, you're not ready for the big moments. No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
"This is the thing about the new landscape that drives everyone crazy: you can’t see inside the cow; you can only build one, feed it music, and wait for it to poop."
My new favorite web video series. (Thanks @feliciaday!) For best results, expand to full screen so you can actually read the various windows:
Having watched the Academy Awards on Sunday over the air--for free, with a $15 UHF antenna--and having read Saturday's Consumerist post about How To Cancel Cable Without Losing Your Favorite Shows, I felt it was a good time to review our family's own TV watching arrangements.
Every year, D and I host an Academy Awards viewing party at our home, and we amassed a bit of a following in the bay area over the last decade. Now that we've moved away, our friends Ken & Jerry are carrying on the tradition down there. The following materials are for them, and anyone else hosting an Oscar Party tomorrow, to use freely!
(The anticlimactic conclusion to the laptop repair saga!)
Labels: sci/tech
The bad news: On Sunday, I misplaced $400 worth of electronics.


Labels: sci/tech
(Previously, on CKL's HotSheet... "Languishing Laptop." And now, the continuation!)
Labels: sci/tech
Read it now!
Back in the 20th century, I got into my head this crazy idea to make a mockumentary about how my friend Bryan had invented faster-than-light travel. It was based on an offhanded comment he made once, about how he wanted to change the world by doing something really big, and which he now denies. WHATEVS. It was a good excuse for me to spend $2,000 on new toys.
"It takes about three days to get used to [the Kindle] -- during which you wonder what chimp engineer designed it so every surface a normal human would use to hold the device is actually a button -- but after that you can't live without it."
Labels: sci/tech
Labels: sci/tech
(The long-awaited conclusion to Part 1!)
Hey, Mac users! I'll bet you were all excited about today's announcement that Google was releasing its Picasa photo software for the Mac, weren't you? Well, so was I! Until I discovered the bad news--it only works on Intel CPUs. PSYCH! So it's no good for our humans' vintage 2005 Mac mini, which runs on a PowerPC G4. LAME! I mean the new Picasa is lame, not our Mac mini. Macs are cool!
Eager to say goodbye to the worst economic year since the Great Depression? You'll have to wait a second.
That's because the custodians of time are preparing to tack a "leap second" onto the clock on Wednesday to account for the minute slowing of the Earth's rotation — meaning champagne toasts and Auld Lang Synes will have to come a second late.
-- The Associated Press: Scientists prolong gloom of 2008
Labels: sci/tech
A selection of this morning's Twitter messages:
While preparing myself for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I browsed the nanowrimo.org web site and saw a "Get Sponsored!" link. Intrigued, I clicked, and was initially pretty happy:
You can get friends and family to sponsor your novel-writing month through Firstgiving.com. All proceeds from sponsorships go to NaNoWriMo's parent 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the Office of Letters and Light to pay for this year's Young Writers Program and adult main program.Cool, right? Then I went over to firstgiving.com to see how this sponsorship thing works, and got one page into the signup process before hitting disappointment.
Firstgiving will (i) be paid and process on-line donations (“On-Line Donations”) made by individuals or entities (“Donors”) through the Firstgiving Service; (ii) comply with the Privacy Policy in the form set forth at http://www.firstgiving.com, (iii) hold the funds received through On-line Donations in a non-operating bank account; (iv) remit funds to the designated non-profit or by check or electronically to the bank account the On-Line Donations, less (A) a service fee of 7.50% of on-line donations collected via the Firstgiving service, (B) 3.3% for fees collected for all online event registrations processed through our system (only applies if Firstgiving’s Paid Event Registration module is used). These fees above are inclusive of all credit card processing and banking fees; these fees are subject to change at any time at the discretion of Firstgiving...I understand that any service like this needs to charge a fee. They need to pay for web hosting, staff, credit card and bank fees, and so on. But seven and a half percent? That's more than twice what most credit card processing fees run (around 3%). That's more than the sales tax in some states. Maybe it really is the least they can charge and still get by as a business. But knowing that only $18.50 of a $20 donation will actually make it to the charity still rubs me the wrong way.
Installed a new Firefox extension today (RetailMeNot, if you must know), so it's time for a restart. And I might as well clean up these tabs while I'm at it:
Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten's September 21st piece, titled "Illiterature: Can a computer judge fiction?", includes 385 words of custom-built slush. An excerpt:
JASMINE AND LAURENCE
By Gene Weingarten
The two lovers writhed as one, entwined and moist, like a spool of twine that had been dropped in the toilet.
"Oh, Laurence," Jasmine moaned, her breath the color of warm air.
Jasmine had a very complex character arc. Actually, it wasn't an arc so much as a parabola that could be expressed in Cartesian coordinates as an asymptote with polynomial coefficients, viz., y2 = 4ax, x2 = 4ay. In short, Jasmine was really hard to fathom, the way it's hard to fathom why you sometimes have to type "www" to access a Web site, but usually you don't. Also, she had very perky breasts...
Twenty-two is probably about the total number of hours (so far) that I've spent playing Spore or fiddling with the Creature Creator. I also felt like I was living a Catch-22 paradox this afternoon, when I ran into a crash-to-desktop bug several times. D and I have played our first creature up to the Space stage, but now every time our homeworld gets attacked (which is way too much--a different gripe, see below), after we fend off the invaders and try to save the game, CRASH.
Can't wait to download the new web browser from the big G? Pass the time by reading the Google Chrome comic book by Scott McCloud (author of the seminal Understanding Comics), which summarizes a lot of technical detail very well. I also know a few of the people featured in the comic, and it's a kick to see their line-art alter egos.

Labels: sci/tech
Yes, I am now on MySpace. When you're done weeping, please add me as your friend.
Get your fill of GrooveLily songs at the band's new WordPress-based web site! If that page reminds of Jonathan Coulton's MP3 Store, well, it's a good thing. I think all musicians should post free listening samples online, and offer DRM-free downloads for purchase at a reasonable price.
One of the many sights we saw today at the 66th WorldCon:
| From Denvention 3 |
In case you haven't seen the news, Stephanie Lenz is the woman who is suing Universal Music Corp for issuing a takedown notice against this video of her kids, which happens to have Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" playing in the background:
The issue in Stephanie Lenz's lawsuit against Universal is whether the owner of the rights to a creative work that's being used without permission can order the Web host to remove it without first considering whether the infringement was actually a legal fair use - a small or innocuous replication that couldn't affect the market for the original work.Back in December of last year, when The Richter Scales' "Here Comes Another Bubble" music video also ran afoul of a YouTube takedown notice, there was a lot of hand-wringing discussion within the group about how to respond. We actually consulted with EFF and other lawyers, but in the end decided that the potential downside of inviting legal action was too big. (The video currently on YouTube is "version 1.1," with the single controversial image removed.)
Lenz's lawyers, from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say her 29-second video, with fuzzy camerawork and unclear sound, was such an obvious noncommercial fair use that Universal should have to reimburse her for the costs of taking it out of circulation for more than a month last year.
All three parts of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog are now online! Watch it for free and risk slashdotting their site again, or buy it from iTunes for a paltry four dollars. C'mon, skip the Starbucks for one day and do the right thing.

After being predictably slashdotted this morning, Act I of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is once again available for your viewing (and listening) pleasure. It's quite delightful.

I am nothing if not malleable. Barely three weeks after complaining that I couldn't buy and download the TV shows I want to watch on my computer, I'm trying out the available options to see if I can live with them. So far, I've bought five episodes of Reaper from iTunes, and D and I have watched two of them. After this, it'll be House from Amazon Unbox.
You've got one more week to catch live coverage of the STS-124 mission on NASA TV, being transmitted from the Space Shuttle and International Space Station in Earth orbit. Seriously, there is nothing better on television right now. My favorite part is Karen Nyberg's zero-gee ponytail, which is a more awesome hairstyle than anything Hollywood can produce.
If you watch CNN, you've already seen the first super badass awesome image of the Phoenix lander descending to the surface of Mars. Here's a followup:

Labels: sci/tech
Earlier this week, the Netflix Player set-top box launched. The Roku hardware costs $100, and the minimum subscription plan that lets you stream content is $9 a month. This would have been awesome, except for three serious deficiencies:
That's a rhetorical question.
Regular readers of this blog will recall that I was disappointed a few days ago by the lack of non-sucky ways for my to sync my PalmPilot's calendar with my Google Calendar. You'll be happy, I'm sure, to know that I've found a solution. It's a bit kludgey, and has so far cost me $50 and a few hours to install and configure, but it works.
Labels: sci/tech
So I was all excited earlier this year when I heard about Google Calendar Sync, which would not only export my calendar data, but actually sync it with another application. Unfortunately, it only syncs with Microsoft Outlook, and I use Palm Desktop (with my Sony CLIE PEG-NX70V. Long story. Don't get me started).
For Password, fill in your password. (NOTE: This must contain only alphanumeric (A through z and 0 through 9) characters. If it contains anything else, then you will not be able to use CompanionLink for Google Calendar at this time.)What. The. FUCK.
Labels: sci/tech
THDI, a term coined by my friend Jeff, stands for "Trash Heap Development Index." Remember that for later.
The way people handle trash in the developing world is interesting. Everywhere, the trash can is implemented not in metal or plastic, but by gravity (a perfect developing world technology substitution: it is simpler, cheaper, and available everywhere). If you don't need something, you drop it. It falls to the ground and that's it...D and I feel pretty good about our THDI at the moment. We gave away a lot of our usable stuff to friends who would get good use out of it, and most of the rest of it is on its way to Senegal right now, where it will either be used in its existing form or stripped down for parts--I'm not sure what they'll do with all the 3.5" floppy disks, but I'm sure it would be interesting to see.
The problem with the gravity system of waste management is that the trash ends up everywhere, especially places where the wind blows it, or water washes it. So every morning, everywhere in the world from Guatemala to Indonesia (and probably all the places I haven't yet seen) the women carefully sweep their property and ensure that all the garbage is in little piles at the edge. Sometimes they light the piles on fire to reduce them to ash. An interesting detail in French colonies is that in intersections, they push the trash into the middle, making little trashpile rond-points (roundabouts). The drivers then carefully pass the rond-point à la droite, and a little bit of civility is restored to a place where dogs and pigs have the right of way everywhere else.
But the THDI is not about where the piles are, or what other function they serve. It is about what's in the piles.
The first morning I woke up in Chad I was restless and I wanted to go out and see the city. The safe area for walking alone in N'Djamena is measured in meters, so I pretty quickly exhausted the possibilities for sightseeing. The embassy of Saudi Arabia's back door was kind of interesting, and the gardener cutting the bouganvilla taught me some Arabic (he certainly wasn't speaking French), and finally the children helped me practice the conjugation of donner (to give). "Dons-moi un biscuit. Dons-moi du argent. Dons-moi un bonbon." After a bit, I became interested in the trash that had been pushed to the end of the street by the women that morning, and that had washed into the drainage ditch over the years. There was some good stuff in there! Empty cans of powdered milk (Nido, from Nestle), broken flip-flops, a tangle of wire that used to be a tire before it burned, and the tail of a goat. As I contemplated the trash, I realized Chad was a much richer country than I was used to working in, and that I'd have to take that into consideration as a new log.
You see, in Liberia, the trash piles have the things with absolutely no remaining value. There are flip flops, but they have already had little foam wheels for children's toys punched out of them. There are powered milk cans, but they are rusted from being put over too many fires to heat water, and they are from a cheap Dutch brand of milk, not Nestle Nido. The smallest useful scrap of metal wire is already in service holding some rusting taxi together.
The THDI of Congo is closer to Liberia, but certainly not quite as low. For instance, Congolese in the east have access to Uganda and Kenya, where they can buy raw materials like steel and wire. They fix their old motorcycles with new parts that arrive on boats in Mombasa and come across on good trucks on good roads. The THDI, then, seems to be related to the transit system and your proximity to rich countries.
I haven't been home for a while, so I am starting to forget... perhaps you can go take a look at your trash and see what your THDI is. What does it say about your life? Did my new metric make you want to "improve" your THDI?
Dr. Robert Zubrin visited Authors@Google last Monday to talk about his latest book, Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil.
Finally, people are getting it: DRM doesn't work. The title of this post is a direct quote from Madeline McIntosh, a senior vice president at the Random House Audio Group, who was quoted in "Publishers Phase Out Piracy Protection on Audio Books" (New York Times, 03 Mar 2008):
In a letter sent to its industry partners last month, Random House, the world’s largest publisher, announced it would offer all of its audio books as unprotected MP3 files beginning this month, unless retail partners or authors specified otherwise.
Penguin Group, the second-largest publisher in the United States behind Random House, now appears set to follow suit...
Mr. Heffernan said the company changed its mind partly after watching the major music labels, like Warner Brothers and Sony BMG, abandon D.R.M. on the digital music they sell on Amazon.com. “I’m looking at this as a test,” he said. “But I do believe the audio book market without D.R.M. is going to be the future.”
Other major book publishers seem to agree. Chris Lynch, executive vice president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Audio, said the company would make 150 titles available for download in an unprotected digital format in “the next couple of months.”
Totally awesome. It's like TOS meets Firefly...
I generally find the product reviews on Amazon.com very helpful. Sort them with the lowest ratings at the top and you'll see if there are common complaints about a product, or if people are just blowing off steam for some other reason. But every now and then, in addition to being useful, a review will be entertaining in the sublime.
Cat Genie takes the small unpleasantness of daily cleaning the litter and it saves it up and releases that unpleasantness as one big unscheduled, unpleasant inconvenience every week or two. Advanced monitors will ensure that the device failure will occur during the workday, as you prepare for your important meeting with your prospective client. Nothing like cleaning out wet cat poo in your nicest suit. Or, you may be pleasantly awoken in the middle of the night by the repeating three beeps of "there's poo and hair in the hopper." You will become more familiar with your cat's feces every day as the cat genie gently fills your home with the aroma of baking excrement.Follow the link above to read more. Was this review helpful to me? Oh yes. Oh hell yes.
(Pop quiz: Does the title of this post make you think of the Carpenters' "Goodbye to Love," Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You," or another song? Leave your answer in a comment below!)
Courtesy of BoingBoing:
Browsing the web from Guatemala is always an adventure. Works okay when there's electricity, which hasn't been very steady while I've been down here over the last few weeks (there have been some big blackouts here related to a sketchy power grid, and unusually intense windstorms). What sucks worse than the lights dimming, or DSL or sat bombing out? Constant Google cockblocking.Read the complete post and further discussion at "(Guatemala) Google is sorry."
Those are the final words of Cory Doctorow's short story "Printcrime," and I didn't spoil anything by telling you that. But you should read the story--it's short, less than 750 words--before you read about the RepRap, an actual, open-source product being developed in England.
D and I spent the week between Xmas and New Year's with my parents, who live in Rancho Palos Verdes. Here's the view from their back window, looking north toward downtown Los Angeles:

Labels: sci/tech
It may just be a faulty translation, but I'm amused that the Vanksen|Culture-buzz blog calls me a "bassist" for The Richter Scales. The post is, of course, about our wildly popular "Here Comes Another Bubble" music video--over 600,000 views on YouTube and counting!
(EDIT: added screenshot below)

Million Dollar Password – A modernized take on the original game show. Regis Philbin will host
Moment of Truth – Contestants will answer personal questions while being connected to a polygraph machine
Duel – This game show has contestants going “head-to-head” for the opportunity to win a big jackpot
Clash of the Choirs – Celebrities go back to their home towns to establish an amateur singing group and these choirs compete live
My Dad is Better than Your Dad – Dads lead their families in fun competitions against other fathers and their families
American Gladiators – Hosted by Hulk Hogan, this show follows four women and four men as they take on contestants
Do You Trust Me? – Tucker Carlson hosts. Contestants who are strangers wager how much they trust one another
Dance War: Bruno vs. Carey Ann – The choreographer judges from “Dancing With the Stars” coach their own dance teams through a routine each week
Oprah Winfrey’s The Big Give – This show centers on the competition, drama and emotion as millions of dollars are given away to make a difference in people’s lives
Baby Borrowers – Five young couples ages 16-19 must set up a home and take on various stages of parenthood
When Women Rule the World – Participants are brought to a remote island where women have the opportunity to rule as they build a newly formed society
Amne$ia – In this game show contestants must answer questions from their own lives for money and prizes. Hosted by Dennis Miller
It really is that simple, folks. The good news is, the AMPTP has agreed to re-open negotiations with the WGA on November 26th, the Monday after Thanksgiving. And I'm encouraged by all the pro-WGA, positive press that's been hitting the mainstream in the last week.
The AMPTP's first response to this [proposal] was to waste weeks by advocating a complete abolition of the residual system. Why, they argued, should writers get paid anything for their work after it's released? Studio chiefs who are smart enough to know better even hauled out a tired old maxim attributed to the late MCA titan Lew Wasserman -- "My plumber doesn't charge me every time I flush the toilet" -- and repeated it in perfect Karl Rove everybody-stay-on-message lockstep.Zing! Long story short: WGA==Right. AMPTP==Wrong. It's that simple. Spread the word.
Ugh. Lines like that give you a taste of what the entertainment world will be like if management ends up doing its own writing. Not to belabor an already disgusting analogy, but writers -- and directors and actors, who have their own renegotiations coming up -- aren't the plumber: They're the water. Without them, nothing goes anywhere, and you end up with a toilet full of...well, let's just say "reruns."
It's the second week of the Writers Guild strike, and things are just starting to get ugly. Yesterday, the AMPTP went Godwin and dropped the word "blacklist" into a press release. The WGA responded with a concise and focused message:
Mr. Counter's charge is as offensive as it is untrue. To accuse the Writers Guild of America of blacklisting, when it was we who suffered the most from it in the past, is simply Mr. Counter's desperate attempt to divert attention from the fact that it was he who walked out of the negotiations, and it is he who refuses every day to return to the table. The WGA has an offer on the table and is ready and willing to meet with the AMPTP any day, anywhere.If this was an Internet forum, the producers would already have lost the argument. But in the world of old media, the corporations that employ the producers also employ the newspapers, and it's unclear where public support currently lies.
Non-Traditional Media ResidualsLet's do the math: that means, for a $1.99 iTunes download of a House episode, the writer would get less than five cents. Surely that seems reasonable? I mean, you wouldn't have any content if someone didn't write it; and if you're making money from that content, it seems fair to give the people who created it a little piece of the action.
WGA Proposal: We propose all TV and theatrical content earn a residual payment of 2.5% of the distributor’s gross for re-use on non-traditional media, including the Internet, cellular technology and any other delivery system not already covered in the MBA [Minimum Basic Agreement].
11. Residual Payments for Theatrical and Television Motion Pictures...Translation: the corporations want to pay nothing in residuals. Zero, zilch, nada.
(C) Add a provision to the MBA stating that there shall be no residual payments for the exhibition or distribution of theatrical and television motion pictures, whether in whole or in part, in new media (other than as set forth in the “Sideletter on Exhibition of Motion Pictures Transmitted Via the Internet”). For this purpose, the term “new media” means any digital distribution platform now known or which is hereafter developed during the term of the 2007 Writers Guild of America Theatrical and Television Basic Agreement, including, but not limited to, digital video on demand, alternative digital broadcast channels, Internet exhibition, PDAs, broadband and cell phones.
The pie, on the other hand, is quite delicious.
Q: Why should I use the PayPal Security Key?So I'm checking my PayPal account balance today, because I was supposed to get a refund from a merchant who couldn't ship a Halloween costume accessory in time, and I notice a sidebar image ad for the PayPal Security Key. It looks a lot like a VPN token card, so I click on the ad to read more about it. Yup, that's exactly what it is.
A: You shouldn't, really.
- my version of the PayPal Security Key FAQ
Labels: sci/tech
Did someone say synchronicity? I just read the first TPB collection of Greg Rucka's Wonder Woman run a few days ago, and now a huge swath of southern California is on fire.
WONDER WOMAN: Let it burn.Just to be clear, Wonder Woman is saying they should protect the homes, but let the forest burn itself out. This is a pretty standard firefighting approach, but I'm sure it still freaks people out to see huge fires burning within sight of their homes. My thoughts are with all the victims--which, thankfully, don't include my parents or my sister, who are nowhere near the actual burning.
FLASH: What?
WW: The forest needs this fire, Flash. It's how it grows, it's how it stays healthy. If you pull the air from it, you will seve nothing but the now to the pain of the future. The next fire will be worse.
F: Do you hear yourself, Diana? This isn't a new age seminar, it's a damn forest fire! We're wasting time--
WW: No, Flash. Let it burn.
NetFlix should seriously be advertising the heck out of this: You can watch new episodes of Heroes via their "Watch Instantly" service, the same week they air. No DVR or advance planning required. Hooray for convenience! (The bad news is coming. Wait for it.)
My hand stamp from tonight's They Might Be Giants concert at The Fillmore. They are getting more like a "normal" band as they age, and I do miss the days when it was just two Johns and a bunch of electronics, but they still put on a great show.
Specifically, the NASA Ames Exploration Center. I've been living in the bay area for over a decade, and this was the first time I'd visited. What's wrong with me?
Labels: sci/tech
Earlier this week, Amazon.com launched their MP3 Music Store. In the three days since then, I've bought two complete albums from them--that's as many as I've ever bought from the iTunes Store, in more than three years. And I'm going to end up buying a lot more music from Amazon. You know why? Because they don't treat me like a criminal.
I'm not worried about [piracy], however, basically for two reasons.I've probably quoted this bit before, and I'm sure I'll do it again. It's a great argument against the very principle of DRM, and I wish it would get more play in the mainstream media.
The first is a simple truth which Jim Baen is fond of pointing out: most people would rather be honest than dishonest.
He's absolutely right about that. One of the things about the online debate over e-piracy that particularly galled me was the blithe assumption by some of my opponents that the human race is a pack of slavering would-be thieves held (barely) in check by the fear of prison sentences...
The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices. But so long as the "gap" between the price of a legal product and a stolen one remains both small and, in the eyes of most people, a legitimate cost rather than gouging, 99% of them will prefer the legal product.
"I can't believe NBC is promoting Bionic Woman like this. What a terrible idea."
"This next one is a song about math. [crowd cheers] Wow, this is probably the only place in the world where that would get applause."
"$5 an episode?" asks screenwriter Alex Epstein on his blog. That's what NBC wanted to charge for their TV shows in the iTunes store, which Apple refused to do, preferring to stick with their current $2-per-episode price.
From my friend Jeff:
Labels: sci/tech
We saw Ratatouille tonight, and it did not disappoint. D didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did, because--in her words--"It's a rat!" Which I found amusing, because she and the protagonist rodent both enjoy heightened olfactory senses. She can often identify the ingredients in a dish by taste, and she can distinguish Coca-Cola from Pepsi by smell. I'm not even kidding here.
Okay, I admit I'm not a hardware guy, and I got a B in the only EE class I took in college. Maybe I should have known this tidbit already, and maybe Wikipedia is lying to me (perish the thought!), but this was my mind-expanding moment for the day:
"The magnetic force is actually due to the finite speed (the speed of light) of a disturbance of the electric field which gives rise to forces that appear to be acting along a line at right angles to the charges. In effect, the magnetic force is the portion of the electric force directed to where the charge used to be. For this reason magnetism can be considered to be basically an electric force that is a direct consequence of relativity."
- Magnetism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Labels: sci/tech
Blogged today on CNET: "According to Novell ads, Linux is a cute girl who needs a haircut." Novell, which sells machines pre-installed with SUSE Linux, has created their own ads parodying Apple's brilliant "Mac vs. PC" TV spots.
Labels: sci/tech
The people responsible for CD Baby have branched out into video with Film Baby, and I'm happy to see that they haven't changed their customer service policies.
You have chosen to risk life and limb to order the Ask A Ninja Volume 1 DVD. You have earned Film Baby's eternal respect for your obvious bravery.
A messenger just tip-toe'd over to the Ninja's office and whispered to him in his sweetest voice that you'd REALLY like one of his DVDs. He said to tell you that he'll send it to you, and he looks forward to killing you soon. And then he killed the messenger.
Provided the Ninja doesn't kill US first, we'll ship your DVD right away. We'll send you another email to WARN you that a NINJA is on its way to your house....
We have good news and bad news. The good news is that your order of Ask A Ninja Vol 1. DVD was shipped out today. The bad news is that there is also a real, live Ninja on his way to your house. Use extreme caution when opening your mailbox in the next few days. Just before we sealed the box, our packing master thought he heard a whisper saying "I am looking forward to killing CKL soon". We can't be sure. It was either that or "what the hell... why are you stuffing me in the in this..." and the rest was muffled.
Please rest assured that we've taken great care in the shipping of your DVD. We hold true to an ancient DVD shipping tradition passed down for over 5000 years. This very intensive practice is only achieved after years of training, meditation, and purity of mind, and sadly' some accidental killings (we're looking for a new intern, if you know anyone...). After a rigorous 17 step process of verifying the authenticity of your DVD, we donned silk gloves and placed it into a sacred box made of magic and lined with Unicorn fur, tied the box with a strand of Gypsy hair, and wrapped the whole thing in a snazzy looking faux gold leaf paper, with elm leaf inlay from Costco. Unfortunately, by the time it gets to you, all of that fancy stuff will likely have been picked clean by the greedy postal service employees. Please don't be surprised to see just a plain cardboard box.
Since jra doesn't allow comments on his blog, I'm using this post to respond to his "Another theory of climate change" post. Blogwar!
Labels: sci/tech
It's titled "Business method protecting jokes" and was granted on November 16, 2006. Bonus meta points for repeatedly using "homoproprietary" to describe itself. Do you really need further proof that the U.S. patent system is broken?
It's been a while since I reviewed things, so here are four quick capsules for things that, coincidentally, all have four-letter names:
Will installing Flash cause any harm to my computer?
There are no known issues associated with installing Flash.
-- Jeopardy! Online Test FAQs
Labels: sci/tech
Slashdot ponders:
Labels: sci/tech