An EXCELLENT discussion on the future of the Internet and the age of electronic incunabula
with Paul Saffo, Director, Institute for the Future. It’s a part of the Economist’s survey on New Media, and it’s outstanding.
Direct link to the mp3 here. And the Economist podcast feed (which generally rocks) is here.
I’m all for shining sunlight on the sausage factory that is our government, so the newest contender in this space, OpenCongress, is more than welcome. Looks pretty cool!
I love the Internet. I love instant access information, I love hyperlinks, I love collaborative knowledge collections (for all their faults) like Wikipedia, and media sharing sites like Flickr and The Podcast Network. It’s so easy to get so lost, and have so much fun.
Example of the day. I get an email from a friend about the whole James Cameron finds Jesus thing (which I hadn’t even heard about. Apparently, he’s pulling a Hiraldo opens the tomb
thing tomorrow. Should be a great show! Note: I realize he’s not actually going to open the coffins…I was joking there.) So anyway…sounds interesting. Clickfest time. Cameron…yeah, I like Terminator and all, but where’d he come up with THIS? Ah…the director, Simcha Jacobovici. That sounds Google-able. Yep…a wikipedia entry. Interesting stuff. Also, a link to another site on biblical studies points out there are already a couple of books out on this tomb. Cool! One is excerpted on the ABC News website.
Read through that…let’s see. Kinda neat…but what about this author? He certainly has some academic creds (chair of religious studies at UNC-Charlotte), but you never know. Google…wiki…rustle. OK, he’s listed at UNCC’s list of notable faculty. That’s a start. But hey…look who ELSE is! Frank Dux, founder of an amalgamated martial art form with the acronym FASST, also called Dux Ryu Ninjutsu
. That’s a link you gotta click, you know? *grin*
Ooohhhkay. He’s crazy cool. A little controversial, sure…some disputed claims about being a CIA wetwork guy and such. Yeah, isn’t it always the way…hey! He claimed to have fought and won an underground, no-holds-barred tournament named ‘Kumite’
, and he’s flat out legitimately the inspiration for Jean Claude Van Damme’s character in Bloodsport. As in, the character is named Frank Dux. w00t! We’re in clickfest bonus now; forget Kevin Bacon…all roads lead to Van Damme, and some of the cheesiest movies EVER. And my cheesy movie queue is low right now…let’s put all this historicity of JC on hold, and check out JCVD!
So what’s old Jean-Claude been up to? Huh…it seems his movie The Quest (holy frack, it had Roger Moore in it! Why didn’t I see this film?) was loosely based on a script by our new buddy Frank Dux. Reading the reviews on that point me to The Order
…but there are 2 movies by that name recently. One in 2001 by Van Damme, and one in 2003. Netflix? Sure, they’ve got ’em…and hey, the 2003 one is interesting. It involves the mysterious death of a priest (always mysterious), the subsequent investigation, and the ultimate discovery of a sin-eater. As in a person who, through ritual means, would take on by means of food and drink the sins of a deceased person, thus absolving his or her soul and allowing that person to rest in peace
. (considered Christian heresy, natch)
So, ALL the way back around to more biblical heresy, with a stop at JCVD along the way. Good enough for me, folks! I’m sold. The Order
(2003) and The Quest
go in the Neflix queue, and you get a glimpse into the mind of Ken. Which is scarier, I’m not sure…
In the past week, I’ve seen a couple of new and interesting (to me) announcements about media services in the cloud
. I find the tension between keeping media and metadata about media in the cloud vs. in the device a fascinating area to peruse. Media is always better when it’s with you, of course…but when it’s brand-new, or really big (either individually, or in aggregate), or rapidly changing, it’s hard to keep a device perfectly in sync. This is where cloud services become useful. I certainly see both sides as having a part to play…the media / information has to get to me at some point to become useful, but having the Net as backup, sync, and caching tool is great.
Many of the next generation
services I love (podcasting, blip.tv and other video services, Democracy Player, etc.) already understand this…but occasionally, a curveball comes from unexpected locations. I saw a couple of these over the last week. Netflix’s new streaming movie service, and MP3Tunes new unlimited free music storage locker offer.
OK, ok…neither of those are exactly old-school dinosaur sheet music and buggy-whip manufacturer style BigCos. But they are businesses trying to work under fairly standard business models, so it’s a bit different than some Free Software code-sharing lovefest *grin*.
Netflix announced the streaming plan a few weeks back, but with a staged roll-out. So I’ve been checking once a week or so to see if I’m in the club. And last weekend, I was! It is Pretty Dang Cool. I already love the Netflix model…not only the keep the disc as long as you want
subscription model, but also their customer service and the general feel…changing plans (even to a cheaper one) is 3 clicks in the website. So is cancelling or suspending your account; no requirement to call in and work through a phone support person’s offers of shiny baubles, etc. I get the respect vibe from Netflix, and I appreciate it.
It continues with the streaming movie option. First off, they just added it…you get it for free with your account. Clever…it makes dipping your toe in almost a no-brainer. 1 hour / month for every dollar your subscription costs; so 18 hours/month for standard 3 at-a-time sub. The install is simple (though Windows/IE only for now…*sigh*), and the quality is good in my opinion even at the basic level. I’m impressed. This is a potential game-changer; Netflix is easing us into the on demand
model through their service as deftly as they can. Sure, I can get on demand
at home from the cable company, too…but Netflix works with my laptop at the wifi-enabled coffee shop. And soon, I’m sure, on compact devices. Fascinating!
For the MP3Tunes change, I have to estimate the impact; I actually already have the MP3Tunes premium locker, so the new offer doesn’t apply to me. (premium lockers still have some advantages, and I got a $20/year coupon…how could I not try it?) I’ve already drunk the kool-aid here; storing my music in the cloud, as well as on my player, gives me even more super powers! Flash-based browser player, so I don’t need my player in extremis. MP3Tunes has players for devices like the Tivo already, and an open API to let developers do anything they can imagine. What a concept, eh? YOUR music. Anywhere, anytime. I like it.
As devices become cooler, more powerful, and more connected (OLPC integration, anyone?), services like these will continue to break ground AND the rules. Keep ’em coming!
Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the February 13th episode.
Took a bit longer to upload this than I planned, but I think I have a “no touch” solution for prepping the file for upload. w00t. Next step is to automate upload, and we’re golden!
Primarily discussed some books I recently finished:
A bit of a review, a bit of a riff on how they touch on issues we are or will be dealing with. All good!
Wow. Bruce Schneier linked to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project’s recent public release of information on their security platform, Bitfrost. I am impressed. I’m no security guru, but I am an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to the subject. It looks like they’ve done a very impressive job on both thinking through the potential attack scenarios, and also realizing that much of the machine’s utility lies in allowing the user to be able to have unfettered access when they want it. They’ve made some clever compromises that let both happen.
If you’re not a nerd, you may not have heard about this yet. But Yahoo just released a new service called Pipes…and it’s a big deal. Pipes is a feed (RSS/Atom) aggregator and manipulator…but that really doesn’t do it justice. It provides a powerful and interesting Ajax-based editor that is one of the best tools of this type I’ve ever seen. For those of you who are forced to deal with Microsoft DTS…this may remind you of it…but trust me, nicer. *grin* That’s really only a skin-deep comparison; a much better one would be the basis for it’s name…Unix pipes, and the small, loosely-coupled tools that unix programmers have built on that foundation for decades now.
I’ve just started playing with Pipes, but I’m already REALLY impressed. Flickr-like impressed. Google Maps-like impressed. Python-like impressed. Awesome stuff.
A combination of it’s ajax-iness (light, cross browser, cross-platform) and it’s clean interface gives me confidence that these power user
visualization/workflow type tools may actually be going somewhere, finally.
Tim O’Reilly has a good essay about Pipes in O’Reilly Radar last week. He does a much better job than me explaining the history and potential of this tool. It’s a great essay…give it a read, then come back and play with Pipes! Let me know if you come up with anything cool…I’ll do the same.
Wow. Plain Old Webserver (POW): POW is a fully-functional Web Server that works inside your Firefox/Mozilla Browser. It uses Server Side Javascript (SJS) to deliver dynamic content.
Python has two modules that pull and parse command line-type options: an older one called getopt, and a newer one (from Python 2.3) called optparse. I’ve used both, though I’ve used getopt a lot more. What I’ve never gotten around to doing before is converting a getopt-based script to an optparse one.
Wow. Conversion is an eye-opener…it makes it clear how much cleaner, straightforward, and powerful optparse is. Don’t get me wrong; getopt has been a workhorse for a long time now. But optparse rocks. If you have stuff you’ve been waiting to switch over, stop waiting. Optparse is REALLY nice.
Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the February 8th episode.
Note: I’ve gone ahead and shortened the episode titles from Kenzoid’s Autonomous Zone
to KAZ
…because, well, it’s a lot shorter! Comments welcome.
After rambling for ENTIRELY too long about my recorder and my gadget bag, I spend some time on Dave Slusher’s Jan 16th podcast, where he discusses “open music”. I realize I need more open music in my life.
Links:
