Photo series on the birth of a hummingbird
Photo series on the birth of a hummingbird.
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Entries for February 2005
Gunner Palace
People, myself included, like to lament the lack of media choices in a production environment dominated by large multinational corporations, but the truth is that with a little access and a DV camera, filmmakers are out in the field making revealing and unprecedented movies like Gunners Palace (trailer). GP follows the activities of a US Field Artillery unit (the “Gunners”) in Iraq for two months in 2003-2004. No politics. No real point-of-view on the part of the filmmakers. Just a glimpse into what it was like soldiering in Iraq after “major combat operations” had ceased and “minor combat operations” had begun.
This soldiers’ perspective is a rare one in popular media and is a valuable contribution to anyone who’s interested in a more comprehensive view of the war in Iraq. But the main takeaway from the film for me was not the completing of a puzzle, but of the near impossibility of any sort of comprehensive perspective. From the soldiers’ POV, they’re just trying to do their jobs, stay alive, and keep some level of sanity in their lives, not too much different than anyone else except, you know, it’s literally life and death for them. Their comprehension of the whys and hows of their place in the grand scheme of things is necessarily somewhat limited.
At the same time, you’ve got people in the US reading the newspaper or watching stuff on TV about the war. Maybe they’re even reading soldiers’ diaries, exchanging letters with soldiers in Iraq, or watching films like Gunners Palace, but their perspective is still a largely outside one. And then you’ve got the higher ups in the military and government whose jobs entail keeping the big picture in mind and the realities of troop life sometimes isn’t on their radar. The human mind is a wonderfully flexible tool, but it wasn’t meant to deal with such a vast array of information on so many different scales. It’s a wonder the situation over there isn’t more screwed up than it currently is.
Gunner Palace opens in limited release in the US on March 4th.
The much coveted Rooster is given out
The much coveted Rooster is given out in the final round of The First Annual TMN Tournament of Books.
Crazy photo of a stadium
Crazy photo of a stadium. Can anyone tell me what kind of lens this was shot with? Any other examples like this online?
Chipotle and the rise of the “fast casual” restaurant
Chipotle and the rise of the “fast casual” restaurant. Waiting ever so patiently for Noodles and Company to come to Manhattan.
Should we be blaming Wal-Mart just because
Should we be blaming Wal-Mart just because Americans like low prices?. “The problem is, the choices we make in the market don’t fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens. I didn’t want our community bookstore in Cambridge, Mass., to close (as it did last fall) yet I still bought lots of books from Amazon.com.”
Christo and Jeanne-Claude on the end of The Gates
Christo and Jeanne-Claude on the end of The Gates.
As more people get their news online,
As more people get their news online, papers like the WSJ who don’t publically offer articles are losing influence. “With [the] habits [of the next generation of readers] being formed now, there is little chance the Journal will become part of their lives, either now or in the future.”
Switching to a Mac isn’t for everybody
Switching to a Mac isn’t for everybody. “In general, the best candidates for a switch to the Mac are those who use their computers overwhelmingly for common, mainstream consumer tasks.”
Thomas Friedman on the falling US dollar
Thomas Friedman on the falling US dollar. “When a country lives on borrowed time, borrowed money and borrowed energy, it is just begging the markets to discipline it in their own way at their own time.”
HopStop is a transit guide for NYC
HopStop is a transit guide for NYC. Input to and from addresses and it’ll tell you which trains or buses will get you there.
Europe recently overtook the US as the
Europe recently overtook the US as the largest market for digital cameras.
Browser stats
Just took a quick look at what browsers people are using to hit the site this month:
Mozilla: 45%
IE: 31%
Everything else: 24%
This is a quick and dirty calculation so the numbers for Mozilla and IE are likely slightly higher than indicated. The breakdown on the Mozilla figure is about 30% Windows and 16% Mac (which includes Safari). Update: As someone pointed out in the comments, Safari’s stats should not be lumped into the Mozilla category (Safari uses the KHTML rendering engine). I’ll try to get my stupid stats package to sort that out.
This corresponds pretty closely with BoingBoing’s stats:
IE 36.8%
Firefox 36.7%
Safari 8.4%
Unknown 7.7%
Mozilla 4.3%
Netscape 1.6%
Roughly 37% for IE, 51% for the various Mozillas. Stats for Digital Web indicate even higher penetration for Mozilla and 37 Signals noted that Firefox was making a move for #1 back in October. This compares to mainstream usage (as reported by CNN): IE 90% and Firefox 5%.
How are your numbers looking?
Media appearances and parodies of 40oz malt liquor products
Media appearances and parodies of 40oz malt liquor products. “On an episode of Conan O’Brien, Martha Stewart sipped a 40oz of Olde English!”
Slideshow of tsunami photos recovered from a
Slideshow of tsunami photos recovered from a digital camera whose owners perished. You can see the wave approaching in the photos…that last photo is scary and heartbreaking.
The folks behind World Jump Day are
The folks behind World Jump Day are trying to shift the earth into a new orbit. Dunno if the science behind this is kosher, but the idea is that if 600 million people all jump at the same time, their collective landing will shift the earth into a different orbit and solve our warming problem.
Jef Raskin, pivotal player in the development
Jef Raskin, pivotal player in the development of the Macintosh, passed away yesterday.
The Observer is using the latest in
The Observer is using the latest in bottom-up web developments, including trackback, blogs, RSS, podcasting, folksonomy, etc.. The goals? Openness, transparency, and engaging their audience.
Some thoughts on the ten must-have titles for GameCube
Some thoughts on the ten must-have titles for GameCube. “The biggest omission to me on the list is Mario Kart Double Dash.”
Painting the town silver and black with Neck Face
Painting the town silver and black with Neck Face.
ShuffleArt is selling stickers to skin your iPod shuffle
ShuffleArt is selling stickers to skin your iPod shuffle. But you have to contend with the tedious Flash interface.
Guide to using XMLHTTPRequest (with Baby Steps)
Guide to using XMLHTTPRequest (with Baby Steps). Hand holds your way through creating an Ajax app.
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou DVD
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou DVD is available for preorder at Amazon. It’s a two-disc set, out May 10th.
Google Maps works for Safari now
Google Maps works for Safari now. Oh, happy day. Now if I can just get Saft to stop crashing…
Katamari Damacy, 3-D Pac-Man
Katamari Damacy is the game du jour among my circle of friends and, well, everywhere it seems like. There are KD handmade knit hats, costumes, reenactments in Playdoh, paper figures,
iPod socks, homemade plush dolls, and lots of photos on Flickr.
I finally got the chance to play it the other day at my friend David’s house. The game play is fairly simple. You use the two analog joysticks on the controller — KD is for PS/2 only — to steer a sticky ball (the katamari) around the game board (usually a house or a town), picking up objects as you go. As your ball accrues more and more things, it gets bigger and you’re able to pick up larger objects. The goal on each board is to get your ball bigger than a certain diameter within the allotted time period. After you get the controls down (it’s a bit like operating a backhoe), it’s the simplest game in the world to play. Lots of fun too.
As we played, we talked about the game and why it’s inspired so much devotion in its fans. My favorite aspect of the game is the crazy storyline. The sarcastic King of All Cosmos, the faux Japenglish translations…the game dialogue is hilarious. Games tend to take themselves too seriously these days; Katamari Damacy doesn’t. I also liked the telescoping sense of scale as your katamari grows larger. Smaller objects disappear from view and if you get really big, you dwarf houses, towns, and can eventually start picking up entire islands. Reminded me of Charles and Ray Eames’ Powers of Ten film…the scale may change, but the basic structure remains. David said he likes the collecting aspect of the game. He’s a compulsive collector of things and the game ties right into that for him.
But as we kept talking and I watched David play for the first time after I got stuck at level 5 or 6, I realized what I didn’t like about the game and what keeps it from being really fantastic. Whimsical storyline aside, Katamari Damacy is essentially a 3-D version of Pac-Man and possesses a similar level of complexity (when compared to Grand Theft Auto or a MMORPG). You move around a maze, eating things, and occasionally getting power-ups (i.e. growing larger) so that you can eat things you couldn’t eat before.
And like Pac-Man, there are patterns. On repeat plays, the boards are the same, objects always appear in the same spots, and once you learn the correct way to go, it’s pretty easy to clear each board in the same general manner you did the last time. In the end, there’s very little that’s complex or open-ended about the game play, which is going to limit its repeatability for many. It wouldn’t be too difficult to add some complexity to the game without making it any more difficult to play at a novice level (making it a bit like chess — easy to play, tough to play well, and nearly impossible to master). The basic rolling-around game play and the kookiness of the story make Katamari Damacy great fun, but I’m hoping KD 2 ups the ante complexity-wise so it’s still as maddening and crack-like at play #200 as it was a play #1.
The International Database of Corporate Commands
The International Database of Corporate Commands. “Be cool”, “Never stop exploring”, “Drive your dreams”, “Just do it”, etc.
The guy who did The Somerville Gates
The guy who did The Somerville Gates has museums after him to display his work.
Molly on the Phone is one of
Molly on the Phone is one of my new favorite Flickr pools. I don’t know why, but speech bubbles are hilarious!
Salon is hosting five Oscar nominated films
Salon is hosting five Oscar nominated films from the live-action and animated short categories. This is a one-day only thing, so check them out while you can. (Although something tells me they’ll be available on waxy.org in a few hours…)
With the latest update, Apple ditched the gold iPod mini
With the latest update, Apple ditched the gold iPod mini. Survival of the fittest. (Unless this was intelligent design at work…was the gold iPod mini created to fail?)
Is Google going to start aggregating calendars?
Is Google going to start aggregating calendars?. Yes please. I want “nyc concert” and “nyc readings OR signings” searches.
Wanna blog about The Dukes of Hazzard
Wanna blog about The Dukes of Hazzard and drive the General Lee occasionally?. There’s $100K per year in it for you.
Michelin is doing one of their famous
Michelin is doing one of their famous red guidebooks for NYC. Now taking bets on which NYC restaurants will be the three stars…
Dyson’s new vacuum phones home when it needs fixing
Dyson’s new vacuum phones home when it needs fixing. “The gizmo alerts the user if it has broken down or needs a replacement part. The owner then dials the number of the Dyson call centre and holds the telephone receiver to the vacuum cleaner. The machine transmits a message telling engineers what’s wrong and orders any new part it needs.”
An interview with some idiot who quit
An interview with some idiot who quit his job to run a blog. BTW, Wired totally asked me all of those questions and didn’t use any of the answers.
Holy fizzle, check out this tennis court
Holy fizzle, check out this tennis court on a heliport high in the air.
The History Channel: no women allowed?
An acquaintance of mine is doing some documentary work for the History Channel. One of the channel’s guidelines for their documentaries is that they don’t generally allow the use of female narrators…men only. The History Channel’s audience is mostly men and they want to continue to target only men. No rationale was given, but I would imagine the reason is that history narrated by men seems more authoritative to other men.
Which makes sense (in a screwy sort of way) but is also infuriating because how can women ever be considered authoritative if *the* channel all about history never gives a woman a shot? I remember watching Frontier House and thinking initially that the woman narrator was not such a good choice (probably due to years of conditioning listening to men describe WWII battles), but after about 30 minutes, I forgot all about it and ended up really enjoying her narration.
Update: I talked to another person who’s involved in making documentary films (not specifically for the History Channel) and they said that men are more often used as narrators than women in historical documentaries across the board; it’s not just the History Channel. Authority is part of the issue, but in the narrative context, men are perceived as gender neutral, while women are perceived as female. Since the narrator is supposed to be anonymous and not perceived by the audience as a person, the more general neutral the better. So, not the History Channel’s fault and probably an issue that requires a gender studies degree to even begin to unpack and something I’m not going to touch with 8 or 9 ten-foot poles.
“Facts” that could be wrong or could be right
“Facts” that could be wrong or could be right. Followup on my post about “plausible lies and false truths”.
The vernacular of early web design
The vernacular of early web design. A discussion of midi files, “mail me” icons, browser buttons, frames, and under construction graphics.
The panel schedule for SXSW Interactive has been posted
The panel schedule for SXSW Interactive has been posted.
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