Dahl, Roald Dahl
I re-watched Trainspotting last night. The Trainspotting: Collector’s Edition DVD has deleted scenes. One has Renton (Ewan McGregor) and Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) sitting in an apartment, pre park-gun-dog incident, with Sick Boy, as usual, spouting James Bond trivia. Sick Boy is grilling Renton on bits of info related to the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice. One bit stuck out:
SICK BOY
Screenwriter?
RENTON
Eh - Ian Fleming?
SICK BOY
Fuck off! He never wrote any of
them.
… a bit of banter, and then …
RENTON
Who wrote it?
SICK BOY
Roald Dahl.
RENTON
Roald Dahl. Fuck me.
… and, damn, if it isn’t the case.
This is the same Roald Dahl that wrote such children’s classics as Matilda, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Interesting fellow, really. From the mini-bio on his IMDB page:
When his then wife actress Patricia Neal suffered a series of devastating strokes in 1965, he was appalled at the lack of effective rehabilitation. He subsequently designed techniques that restored his wife to full function after the doctors had told them she’d never recover. His techniques are now standard procedure throughout the world for the treatment of stroke victims.
New Toy
My first point ‘n’ shoot – the Canon Powershot SD100 – bit the dust long ago. It was the victim of careless treatment on my part and ended up with a cracked screen that, although pretty looking in a sort-of lava lamp 60s trip-out type of way, prevented one from seeing anything on the screen.
My second – a hand-me-down from my mother in the form of a Canon PowerShot S400 – did not last long before a terrible pink tinge overcame every photo it took. It was used after all. No complaints here.
In fact, no complaints on either camera. The first was a flippin’ stalwart little guy that was small enough to take almost anywhere. The second, a tad larger, due it’s using a larger memory card format, was equally transportable. Canon has been good to me.
So, naturally, I switched brands.
To be honest, as good as Canon is, I think it has gone to their heads as their cameras are a good $50 more expensive, at the least, as other brands. I did a fair bit of research and, so, this is what I decided upon (the link is to the FS3, not the FS5 as, even though I have pics uploaded using my camera, there seems to be no reference to them via flickr’s camera finder function). TIme will tell if the decision was a sound one but, damn, if it isn’t nice to have a camera again.
Peak Oil
In fact, no unbiased expert claims that exploiting the fields in the Alaskan wilderness would cause more than a bump in world supply or prices in the U.S.
Oil executives know that they haven’t explored 80 percent of their existing leases in the continental U.S., according to Barlett.
As followers of the “the peak-oil theory”, big oil believes that, by 2010, their industry will have hit a maximum level of output. After that, weather because of competing energy sources, depleted sources of oil or the increasing amount of money it takes to produce it, oil output will begin to permanently decline.
In “Crude Reporting: Ask the Tough Questions About Oil” Howell Raines of Portfolio.com looks at the myths of supply and demand oil companies have perpetuated in order to gain monumental profits before their tap begins to run dry.
A Commodity of Errors
McDonalds is now Starbucks’ main competitor and Starbucks has nobody to blame but themselves. By opening up so many stores and introducing so many “frou-frou” drinks that they commodified the coffee buying experience, Starbucks gutted the value proposition of buying an espresso drink at their stores and, in so doing, created a monster in their own competitive space by inviting the king of commodified food service operaters - McDonalds - into the business of selling coffee. Starbucks has gone for the big middle ground and given McDonalds a new lease on life in becoming the scrappy underdog in the battle for the palettes of middle-america. Good job, Starbucks.
The wonderful thing about all of this is that Starbucks has made plenty of room for the so called “third wave” of coffee to gain a foothold in the marketplace. The commodification process Starbucks has undergone has allowed other shops to compete on the quality of their product. While Starbucks’ focus in making you an espresso drink is to get it in your hands as fast as they can, others are focussing on making sure that the beverage you are holding in your hand is of a certain quality: that the money you just shelled out is reflected in the integrity of the drink. They are bringing the craft back to the espresso bar. Good job, Starbucks.
In honor of the announcement that Starbucks will be closing 600 stores nationwide, a list of posts on Starbucks here at Dan Markham dot net.
UI Nightmare
Palm developer Steven’s Creek Software vomited out this app for the iPhone/iPod Touch.
The question is: will this app be “accepted” by Apple for inclusion in the AppStore or is UI design going to be a deciding factor in which apps get in and which don’t?
As leery as I am of having one gate-keeper giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down to every app I would be just as leery of having to wade through crap like this to get to the good stuff. Time will tell …
Update: pilkycrc says “no”
Original linkage, as well as the screenshot of this train wreck of a UI, courtesy of Mr. John Gruber.
Anchored
Michael S. Rosenwald at The Washington Post creates the inaugural post on his new blog “The Financial Lobe” and he addresses an issue that I wanted to address but did not have time or, probably, experience to address: why it is that a $199 iPhone sounds like a better deal than a $399 iPhone when, if you look at the total overall cost over even as short a time as a year, the average iPhone 3G consumer is going to pay at least $20 more than those that bought the original. It’s a good read and raises some excellent points but I think it still falls short in some ways.
An Incomplete Analogy
As far as Mr. Rosenwald’s restaurant analogy is concerned (read the article and you will understand what I mean), I think that it misses the mark a bit. The situation he refers to assumes that the restaurant patron is sitting down already, scanning the menu for a dish he or she prefers. At that point one is a bit of a captive audience. You’re hungry, you’re there and I am assuming that there are few people, once they decide they are going to eat at a restaurant, who are going to get up and leave because of prices. They are, instead, going to look for some menu item that will fit their budget. There are more people that will be willing to walk out of an AT&T store because they are, maybe, unhappy about how much they are going to have to pay for their phone and contract, iPhone or not.
The Cost of Entrance
Furthermore, even though I am happy that someone addressed this subject I still have a problem with the current popular analysis. I think Mr. Rosenwald’s article continues to place the consumer into the role of the unwitting victim of marketing manipulation. It assumes, I think wrongly, that the consumer is being played as they blindly fall prey to their iPhone lust. I think that, for the most part, those that choose to buy the most recent edition of Apple’s seminal phone effort, having eschewed the first edition, are not victims of marketing but instead are making a conscious decision based on the cost of entrance.
I would like an iPhone. I have wanted one since they came out. I think that I could, indeed, justify the monthly expense of owning an iPhone if I could just afford to get one. $600, even $400, was a steep amount to shell out all at once simply to gain entrance into the iPhone market. $199? Now that I might be able to do. And even though it is going to cost more, over time, to own the phone, that increased cost is going to be diffused, paid in small increments over a long period of time and that, my friends, is alot easier to handle than one large chunk of cash, shelled out all at one time, just to save $20 per year. Yeah, Mr. Rosenwald — and everyone else who has followed this same line of thinking — I am indeed thinking about utility.
I was thinking, while I was watching the keynote (via liveblog), that If anyone was the victim here it was Apple and maybe, now that some time has passed, even more so, AT&T. First, it is entirely possible that Apple came to the conclusion that there was no way they were going to reach their sales goal for the iPhone while retaining such a price premium and, so, slash the price they did. Planned at the birth of the iPhone or not, they realized that for the iPhone to explode in the U.S. market, the price needed to come down.
Second, AT&T has flatly stated that their profits, and therefore their stock price, are going to take a bit of a hit now that the decision has been reached that the iPhone is going to follow the same subsidization model every other phone they (or anyone else, for that matter) offer follows.
I am not saying that there are not some people out there blindly throwing themselves at the new iPhone but I also don’t think that the bulk of the people that are excited that the latest iPhone is cheaper to acquire than the old one was, are just brain-dead receivers of magical marketing signals. I think they we deserve a bit more credit than that. In fact, we may just deserve the credit for the presence of a $199 iPhone in the first place. Maybe.
Once again, thanks go to Daring Fireball for the link.
More on the Thin Man
Despite the fact that there have to be many talented people toiling away behind the doors of 1, Infinite Loop, there is no denying the importance — both symbolic and real — of the man in the mock turtleneck when, a week after Steve Jobs appeared on stage looking, by all accounts, dangerously thin, there is still a profound interest in discovering exactly what, if anything, is going on with his health. indeed, even after a statement by Apple’s PR department that the culprit was just a “common bug”, the investigation continues in ernest. To wit, Fortune’s “Apple 2.0″ blog has a post on the results of an investigation into the possibility that Mr. Job’s gaunt appearance is a not unexpected result of the type of surgery he underwent to remove a cancerous tumor from his pancreas a short time ago.
Known as The Whipple Procedure, apparently it significantly rewires your digestive system, can make it difficult to manage your weight and can even cause aversion to certain foods.
Maybe what Mr. Jobs needs is an old Italian grandma. “Steven, you’re so skinny! Eat, eat!”. That’ll take care of it.
Chyrp v2.0b2
The blogging system with which I had a short-lived and tawdry affair, now has a new version out (finally!). It’s a great system (”system” is as a good a word as any, I guess … I never know what to call these things). Simple and easy to use as it was, I never did get the hang of how to really dig into the guts of it, not like I can with Wordpress.
For a while it was thought that Chyrp was going to be left to die on the vine. Thankfully for for those that adopted the system, the big cheese is back at the helm. Worth checking out.
A New Word?
Has Ellen Lee, in the process of writing, in the San Francisco Chronicle, about today’s expected iPhone announcement, invented a new word?
It’s Coming
WWDC! Yay! by Gernot Poetsch © & John Siracusa’s WWDC 2008 Keynote Bingo board
The next best thing to Macworld for Apple geeks has got to be Apple’s annual WWDC. A few years ago the conference, held every year at San Francisco’s Moscone West (site of last years’ Macworld admission fiasco – god I hope it’s not a repeat of that nasty scene), flowered into a second venue – joining Macworld – through which Apple regularly introduces new hardware and software.
This years’ near sure bet is the much rumored 3G iPhone but there are other possibilities being thrown around as well. It seems Apple always has something up it’s sleeve. I am sure this year will be no different.
The keynote will begin at 10:00 AM on Monday, June 9th. I am sure there will be some sort of live coverage, weather it be various sources liveblogging the event or a video stream (more likely, it will be the former) but there is usually a video of the event posted on Apple’s website the day after if you prefer to catch “His Steveness” in action, live, tossing out his reality distortion field into the audience … and beyond. One thing is for sure: don’t expect to be able to access Apple’s website from around Noon to, say, 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
I Knew There Was Something Fishy About That Rachael Ray
Leila Khaled (aka Rachael Ray) is a big fan of Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee, which is served everywhere in heaven by the seventy virgins.
Dunkin’ Dounuts should know better than to use a terrorist sympathizer in it’s advertisements.
I don’t know which is the more absurd thought: Rachael Ray as a terrorist sympathizer or Rachael Ray as a donut sympathizer. Only one of these things has come to pass, though. Although, I suppose that you could get by, in almost any city, on $40 a day, if you could survive on donuts and iced lattés. Genius. Pure genius.
The Highway Analogy
This CNET article (via Gruber), about a grand plan, by Microsoft’s ad division, to open the flood gates (even further) and place ads on every device (even the Zune! … a personal device.) and service Microsoft owns, points to one of the main, and I think, under-appreciated differences between the Mac and the PC user experience.
With all it’s bubbles and windows constantly popping up every minute, telling you how vulnerable your computer is unless you get this or that upgrade or the gobs of nagging entreaties for trial software and their subsequent pushes for you to buy said software at the end of the trial period that you probably don’t remember signing up for because it was probably automatically done for you, using a PC can feel like slowly creeping down an L.A. freeway during rush hour frustrated by the molasses-like drip of cars slowly going nowhere and assaulted left and right by a plethora of garish billboards asking you to buy this, that or another thing. Every manufacturer of third party piece of shit software wants a piece of your attention on the PC. The PC is an advertisement venue much like a fashion mag: 99% ads, 1% content.
The Mac, on the other hand, feels tranquil by comparison; like cruising down a country road with the top down on a clear, sunny day. No nagging. No warnings of impending doom. Just you and your computer ready to sit down and get some shit done.
As Apple’s products get more and more popular and ubiquitous, more and more people are going to want a piece of the pie. Will it be a challenge for Apple to keep it’s user experience as simple and clutter free as it is currently? I don’t know, but I think Apple, with how much control it insists on wielding over the look, feel and behavior of it’s devices, is in a unique structural and philosophical position to do just that.
Letter & Numbers @ El Rio
If anyone’s out there, Letters & Number (my friend Nic!) is playing at El Rio in the MIssion (San Francisco) tonight at 9. He’s good. You should really go.
Conflicted
Ahhhh, aren’t we a conflicted country. One day we’re bustin’ down the doors so we can kick ‘em out, the next we’re trying as hard as we can to keep them here. If we were a person someone would recommend some therapy … or some sort of drug. Oh yeah, we’re sick.
The Answer
The answer to my question over the weekend is … Yahoo! ↓$4.74 to $23.93, Microsoft ↑$0.55 to $29.79.
As John Gruber says …
that’s not bad, given that their stock was at $19 prior to the Microsoft takeover bid.
That $4/share difference? I think it’s hope. Hope, that the shareholder’s and public’s rooting for the underdog is going to bare fruit.
Give ‘em hell Yahoo!
Rounding up the Victims
The day after May Day marches by thousands of immigrants took place urging the Federal Government to legalize undocumented workers the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency raided eleven San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, arresting 63 undocumented workers.
What a joke.
Rounding up 63 undocumented workers does nothing to stem a flow of labor that nobody really wants stopped anyway. Way to round up the victim and leave the criminal loose, Feds. How about you round up the hundreds of business owners illegally –– and many times immorally, in regards to the treatment afforded the workers –– employing undocumented labor and arrest them. Then we’ll know you’re serious.
Anyone holding their breath for that one?
I didn’t think so.
Sound Bytes
An Introduction
There is a plethora of video on the ‘net these days. Vimeo, YouTube, and (now) Flickr - there are many more - are all vying for eyeballs and trying to capitalize on people’s continuing fascination with the promise and possibility that is web video.
But what about audio? … and I’m not talking about music here. I’m talking about the simple pleasure of just listening. Just as it is said that there is nothing like a radio show (versus, say, a TV program) to juice your imagination and put you in the action I think there is nothing like ambient or “found” audio (versus, say, any number of short web videos) to take you from the place you are in and transport you somewhere else.
Now, there are any number of “ambient” or “found-video” style video repositories to be found out there (some of my favorites being Heather Powazek Champ’s “10 Seconds” project and the “Five Vignettes” channel on Vimeo) but I know of few to none dedicated to just audio with the exception of possibly NPR’s “Audio Postcard” series.
To that end I would like to introduce you to Sound Bytes: a semi-regular posting of ambient, found-audio that I hope you will find enjoyable. The first in the series is a bit of audio taken from the Civic Center MUNI station in San Francisco, CA. So relax, put on the headphones if you like and take a little trip to San Francisco and the Civic Center MUNI station.
This piece of audio takes you from the train, two levels below the surface of Market Street, all the way up an escalator to the surface across the street from the main San Francisco Public Library.
Special mention must be made to the invaluable help in creating this “byte” provided by my partner-in-life-and-crime: Danielle Clay.