O’Reilly’s TiVo Hacks book

O’Reilly’s TiVo Hacks book.

Security at the airport getting better

Airport security finally seems to be stabilizing after the frenzy of new procedures and policies following 9/11. American in Chicago is no longer checking IDs as you board the plane; once at the ticket counter to get your ticket is sufficient. The random bag searches at the gate seem to be a thing of the past as well; there were no announcements about them and no space set aside for searching at Chicago, Newark, or Portland airports. Security is still tight at the entrances to the gates (as it should be), but both travellers and airport personnel are so used to the drill by now (laptops out, coats off, take a swig of your drink, any metal on those shoes?) that everything runs fairly smoothly.

Interview with Zadie Smith about the Masterpiece

Interview with Zadie Smith about the Masterpiece adaptation of White Teeth.

Math is no longer a young man’s game, perhaps

Math is no longer a young man’s game, perhaps.

Congratulations, Paul and Shawnde!

Congratulations, Paul and Shawnde!.

Accuracy of Trinity’s hack in Matrix Reloaded

Accuracy of Trinity’s hack in Matrix Reloaded has geeks all a-flutter.

Using the iTunes Music Store to let

Using the iTunes Music Store to let smaller labels sell their music.

Schroedinger’s spam

I’m suddenly receiving twice the amount of spam per day I was getting just two weeks ago. These big jumps in spam volume seem to happen to me every few months. I’ll be getting 100 spams per day for 5 months and then one day, it just jumps to 175 per day and stays at that new level for a few months. Somewhere out there, a young Max Planck is busy formulating a quantum theory of spam.

Speaking of, a design I did for kottke.org more than three years ago still won’t die. The folks at Peppy Puppy are using it to pretty up their spam. I am honored. (thx Greg)

Chocolate Suite is an exclusive NYC hotel

Chocolate Suite is an exclusive NYC hotel that serves one guest at a time. starts at only $2000/night

Are you seeking the Skinmaker?

I completely forgot about this until the other day, but I have a bit of a link to the Matrix Reloaded. Rob Dougan has two songs on the soundtrack for the film (one of which you can hear during Neo’s fight with Merovingian’s henchmen) and the creative agency for his record company commissioned me to do a Quicktime skin to promote Rob’s music. Here’s the skin (download and open directly with QuickTime to get the full effect…you don’t get all the nice transparency in the browser). It was a fun little project to do; I enjoyed designing something other than a web site for a change. (Oh, and ignore the scrolling text at the beginning…that was an unfortunate last minute addition by the client after the budget was gone and sorta bodges up the whole thing.)

The Barenaked Ladies have a weblog

The Barenaked Ladies have a weblog.

Continuation of The Matrix Reloaded

This thread is a continuation of the uber-thread about the Matrix Reloaded. My original post is here, but I’ve archived the thread (containing 931 comments) here.

Saddam Hussein’s fantasy art collection

Saddam Hussein’s fantasy art collection.

“impeach bush” Google search yields 9,000 more results than “impeach clinton”

“impeach bush” Google search yields 9,000 more results than “impeach clinton”.

1929 New York Times review of the movie Disraeli

1929 New York Times review of the movie Disraeli. George Arliss’s first talkie!

Great account of a NY Times staff

Great account of a NY Times staff meeting about the Jayson Blair case.

The Matrix Reloaded

[No real spoilers] After reading this breathless article about the Matrix Reloaded in Wired last month, I was very much looking forward to the movie and in particular, the special effects. In the end, I think the Wachowski brothers failed in what they were trying to do with the movie, which is disappointing. The completely computer-generated effects (e.g. in the Neo vs. 100 Agent Smiths fight) looked, well, completely computer-generated. The fish in the Finding Nemo preview looked more fish-like than the humans in the Matrix Reloaded looked human-like. The technology they used was 1.0 (or maybe even still in beta) and it showed…give it a few years and then we’ll have something.

The other disappointing thing was the tone of the movie. The Matrix Reloaded would have worked a lot better as an action movie that took itself a little bit seriously (taking a page from the fun X2 flick) instead of a drama interspersed with action. The movie was too weighty and took itself too seriously. I don’t mind weighty movies, but the subject matter just didn’t warrant all the seriousness. Neo is Jesus. We get it, but it’s not compelling enough to build a whole movie around.

What did you think? Post your reviews (or a link to your review) in the comments. [Warning, potential spoilers in comments]

Update: The number of comments in this thread (931 to be precise) made it a bit unwieldy for people to read and comment on (as discussed here), so I archived the thread (as a 1.22 MB HTML file) and opened a new thread so that the conversation may continue if the participants wish.

The Matrix Reloaded

[No real spoilers] After reading this breathless article about the Matrix Reloaded in Wired last month, I was very much looking forward to the movie and in particular, the special effects. In the end, I think the Wachowski brothers failed in what they were trying to do with the movie, which is disappointing. The completely computer-generated effects (e.g. in the Neo vs. 100 Agent Smiths fight) looked, well, completely computer-generated. The fish in the Finding Nemo preview looked more fish-like than the humans in the Matrix Reloaded looked human-like. The technology they used was 1.0 (or maybe even still in beta) and it showed…give it a few years and then we’ll have something.

The other disappointing thing was the tone of the movie. The Matrix Reloaded would have worked a lot better as an action movie that took itself a little bit seriously (taking a page from the fun X2 flick) instead of a drama interspersed with action. The movie was too weighty and took itself too seriously. I don’t mind weighty movies, but the subject matter just didn’t warrant all the seriousness. Neo is Jesus. We get it, but it’s not compelling enough to build a whole movie around.

What did you think? Post your reviews (or a link to your review) in the comments. [Warning, potential spoilers in comments]

Update: The number of comments in this thread (931 to be precise) made it a bit unwieldy for people to read and comment on (as discussed here), so I archived the thread (as a 1.22 MB HTML file) and opened a new thread so that the conversation may continue if the participants wish.

A black iPod?

A black iPod?.

Plush toy microbes

Plush toy microbes.

X2

The first X-Men movie was a good Hollywood blockbuster: fun, entertaining, and not too stupid. Sequels of Hollywood blockbusters usually suck, but X2 might have been even better than the first one.

NYC subway fare increase to be rolled back

NYC subway fare increase to be rolled back.

Prevent DDoS attacks by making computers solve

Prevent DDoS attacks by making computers solve a puzzle in exchange for access.

BlogChatter tracks pings in realtime…it’s a realtime weblogs.com

BlogChatter tracks pings in realtime…it’s a realtime weblogs.com. won’t work with some older browsers

Donate A Phone lets you recycle your mobile phone

Donate A Phone lets you recycle your mobile phone.

iTunes 4, is Apple stupid or courageous?

Now that people have had a couple of weeks to tinker with it, it’s become apparent that in iTunes, Apple has created their own little Napster. Well, half of Napster anyway. Just like with Napster or Kazaa, users of iTunes can share their music libraries with anyone with anyone they want. Several public sites and applications have already sprung up to help people find folks who are sharing their music, most notably ShareiTunes and SpyMac.

The catch is that you can’t save songs from someone else’s library to your local library using iTunes. However, a few enterprising developers looked at how iTunes shares music and have been building applications that provide the other half of the Napster experience, the downloading of music from remote libraries. iLeech is a very simple, tiny program that lets you download music from any publically available iTunes library (and there are other apps that do similar things).

Conventional wisdom is that Apple seriously fucked up, the RIAA is going to sue Apple’s pants off, and Apple’s new iTunes Music Store will be shut down by the some seriously pissed off record companies.

I’d like to believe an alternative theory. Apple had to know what they were doing with iTunes. Their engineers aren’t stupid. They left the whole thing wide open and had to know how trivial it would be for developers to figure out the protocol and write apps to download the music directly. Maybe Apple is taking a stand here, saying that this type of software is not illegal and that it is individual users who choose to break the law. Apple knows that it’s in our nature to want to share music, photos, and movies with each other and is building applications (social software?) to support that behavior. Apple wants to make a business out of this and maybe they’re daring the RIAA to sue them over it. Or daring the RIAA not to sue them. After all, Apple and the record companies are all buddy-buddy now with the iTunes Music Store…are they willing to sue Apple right after getting Jobs on the cover of Fortune with Sheryl Crow? If Apple is in fact taking a stand here, I say, go Apple!

“Blog space” is one of Rem Koolhaus’s 30

“Blog space” is one of Rem Koolhaus’s 30 Spaces of the 21st Century.

My dumb cellphone

About a week ago, the display screen on my cellphone stopped working. As I am used to thinking of a cellphone as a complete collection of functionality, I dismissed the whole phone as broken and began the search for a new one. Shopping for cellphones is just above getting shot in the gut & bleeding painfully for several hours on my fun meter, so I’ve been procrastinating the task.

In the meantime, I’ve realized that my supposedly busted Nokia is still a completely functional telephone. I can’t see who’s calling, see if I have voicemail, read SMS messages, check the signal or battery strength, or dial using my phone book, but I can both call out (by manually dialing numbers) and receive calls no problem. All I need is a rotary dialing mechanism and I’m back to a circa-1980 telephone experience.

There are generally two groups of wine

There are generally two groups of wine tasters: Hedonists and Thinkers.

The American Chestnut Foundation, working to restore

The American Chestnut Foundation, working to restore the king of the forest.

Test Shows 99.99% of High School Seniors Can’t Read Perl

Test Shows 99.99% of High School Seniors Can’t Read Perl.

I can’t believe there’s only one result

I can’t believe there’s only one result.

The new $20 bill, more uncool money design

The new $20 bill, more uncool money design from the U.S..

The New Media Reader collects the texts,

The New Media Reader collects the texts, videos, and computer programs that chronicle the history and form the foundation of the field.

grandtextauto is a group weblog about computer

grandtextauto is a group weblog about computer mediated and computer generated works of many forms.

2001 BBC interview with Ted “Hypertext” Nelson

2001 BBC interview with Ted “Hypertext” Nelson.

“Don’t Partially Hydrogenate Me” t-shirts and stickers

“Don’t Partially Hydrogenate Me” t-shirts and stickers.

Guest sidebar postings

I’m trying something new on kottke.org today. I’ve invited Meg to post to my remaindered links weblog (located on the right side of the front page, archives here). If it works out well, I’d like to have 1-2 guests posting to it for a few weeks at a time. Welcome, Meg.

Weight Estimates on Air Passengers Will Rise

Weight Estimates on Air Passengers Will Rise. Fatter Americans not mentioned as a cause

Bottom-up pedestrian paths

Bottom-up pedestrian paths.

Great use of Amazon wishlists: the wish

Great use of Amazon wishlists: the wish lists of public libraries.

This is brilliant: rejected Google logos on Fark

This is brilliant: rejected Google logos on Fark.

Liar’s Poker

Michael Lewis is one of my favorite authors. He’s not the smartest or the most clever writer but he weaves deceptively simple stories into larger statements on society and humanity with a skill possessed by very few people doing creative work in any field. I haven’t gotten around to reading Moneyball yet, but Liar’s Poker is probably his strongest work. It’s as hard to put down as any fiction. Great book.

• books
• economics
• Liars Poker
• Michael Lewis
• money
• working

Gawker Stalker map, blech. I thought the

Gawker Stalker map, blech. I thought the whole point of New York is that we leave celebrities the fuck alone..

The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint by Edward Tufte

Edward Tufte has a new 24-page pamphlet out called The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint on how to improve your PowerPoint presentations:

In corporate and government bureaucracies, the standard method for making a presentation is to talk about a list of points organized onto slides projected up on the wall. For many years, overhead projectors lit up transparencies, and slide projectors showed high-resolution 35mm slides. Now “slideware” computer programs for presentations are nearly everywhere. Early in the 21st century, several hundred million copies of Microsoft PowerPoint were turning out trillions of slides each year.

Alas, slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis. What is the problem with PowerPoint? And how can we improve our presentations?

I love the cover image.

• books
• design
• Edward Tufte
• Powerpoint
• thecognitivestyleofpowerpoint

The Gospel According to Neo, the Matrix and religion

The Gospel According to Neo, the Matrix and religion.

European summer 2003 music festivals

European summer 2003 music festivals.

Apple/Microsoft pissing match is ultimately pointless…

Apple/Microsoft pissing match is ultimately pointless…MS is still kicking Apple’s ass where it counts.

Wil Wheaton’s book, Dancing Barefoot

Wil Wheaton’s book, Dancing Barefoot.

The Net and Netizens

Ten years ago, Michael Hauben wrote The Net and Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People’s Lives. It begins:

Welcome to the 21st Century. You are a Netizen (Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the global connectivity that the Net makes possible. You consider everyone as your compatriot. You physically live in one country but you are in contact with much of the world via the global computer network. Virtually you live next door to every other single netizen in the world. Geographical separation is replaced by existence in the same virtual space.

That simple description of netizenship has held up fairly well, although living in the petri dish for the last 10 years has revealed unforseen structure in Hauben’s homogeneous “virtual space”. I may inhabit cyberspace along with everyone else, but my neighborhood is determined by my social network(s). I can direct my computer to get information from a web site in Finland, but that doesn’t make the owner of that site my next door neighbor.

Hauben based his musings on a paper by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor called The Computer as a Communication Device which is worth a read as well.