Super 8, the new JJ Abrams movie is retro in a couple of ways. Firstly, it's set in 1979 - and they get it pitch perfect. I was close to the same age as the ensemble adolescent cast and I instantly felt whisked back to that time period. The cars, hair and music are all spot on. There were a couple bits of dialog that I thought might have been off. Were kids beginning sentences with "Totally" in its slang sense back then? Maybe in the Valley. Also one of the characters calls someone a douche. I don't remember having that word in my vocab until much later - but I'm quibbling.

The other way it's retro is in the type of film it is. It reminds me of those early 80s ensemble kids' flicks like Stand by Me, The Goonies and The Lost Boys. And while Spielberg is listed only as the producer, I felt at times that Super 8 was a homage to some of his early 80s, small town movies like E.T. and The Goonies.

The acting performances by the whole cast were excellent. The kids didn't seem like precocious children hamming it up or growth stunted teenagers playing it young. The relationships were believable and interesting - and mainly what the movie focused on. I'm thankful to Abrams for that - he wrote the script. It's not another CGI sploogefest - the alien's role is actually very small. Instead, Super 8 is an adolescent adventure dramedy that leaves you satisfied at the end - if only a little nostalgic for the era - but that effect may only be for people of my vintage. Go see it.

I got an email a couple of weeks ago letting me know that Amazon was coming to my town - (Brisbane, Australia) to do a little talk about Amazon Web Services (AWS) . For those not in the biz, the same Amazon that sells books, has a separate B2B division that sells cloud services. These are servers and databases in the cloud that provide a cost effective way for start-ups and big companies to scale websites on demand.

The basic gist is that instead of buying or renting a dedicated server, you can rent "server instances" by the hour and have the quantity of servers scale up or down, intraday depending on your traffic. It's a pretty cool service, though others may be doing it better and more cheaply - (Racskpace and Microsoft's Azure to name a couple).

The room was packed and the Amazon presenter gave a good presentation with a demo on how the service works. I was surprised though, that during the Q&A at the end, the first question was "When will you have a datacentre in Australia?" The presenter shucked and jived and basically said "I don't know".

The next question was from an IT lawyer about the legal ramifications of hosting Australian content in the United States legal jurisiction. More shucking and jiving - and the presenter actually said "this question's above my pay grade". I was really proud that my Australian cohorts were asking these questions. It laid the groundwork for me to ask my question. I raised my hand, and the presenter chose me hopefully - I could tell he was praying for a technical question - he didn't seem in his element defending the legality issues. Now was my chance - "I don't mean to badger you on the legal stuff" (I did) "but didn't Amazon shut down Wikileaks at the behest of the US government?"

Immediate uproar of laughter, and the guy looked pretty unhappy. More, desperate shucking and jiving - he told us that Amazon made a statement on this, it's online - and he had nothing more to say on the matter. We all left shortly after that, but I heard people talking about it on the way out.

I didn't go there to poison his seminar - but I feel no remorse for it. If corporations are going to be treated as people in the United States - then they need to be held personally accountable for misdeeds and weasel actions.

The statement from Amazon says that Wikileaks violated the AWS terms of service because Wikileaks did not "own" the documents stored on Wikileaks. This seems particularly weasely to me. So many websites hosting with AWS have text content that they don't "own". Comments, embeds, uploaded documents, email addresses, images - the list is endless.

I hope they get heckled more about this, because they deserve it. I also hope that Paypal comes to town ...

I just finished the documentary on Netflix. It's both an overview of the concept of the technological singularity and a tender biography of one of its biggest proponents, Ray Kurzweil.

Computer engineer and renaissance man, Ray is painted with a semi-tragic brush. He lost his father when he was only 58 and since then has been building a philosophy and promoting technology that may eventually prevent death or even bring back the dead by way of A.I. simulations.

I was a little surprised that a documentary about the Singularity did not once mention the inventor of the concept - math professor and my favorite SF author - Vernor Vinge. I guess they were trying to enhance credibility by leaving out a science fiction author. But the other luminaries that they did use - seemed a bit on the kooky side.

It's worth watching just for the interesting bio of Kurzweil - I have to admit that after viewing it, I'm less confident about his prognostication. He is a prophet - but driven by his own longings and pain, the certainty he possesses about the coming nature of the singularity is anything but empirical. He wants to be saved from death. He wants to recreate his father as an AI based on stacks of his father's letters– and Ray's own memories, plucked from his mind by nanobots.

I want the same things as Ray, I'm just not as confident they're coming the way he wants. As a species we have a horrible, horrible track record at predicting the future. However, even though we're bad at it, it's important to try. The best ideas still come out of the SF world. Read some Vinge or Charles Stross's excellent Accelerando as a start. I'm rooting for Kurzweil but I don't think I'll sell off my spot in the family cemetery plot yet.

The internet. What is it and what is it becoming. If you were alive in the 1800s, and witnessed the birth of the telegraph, you would truly believe yourself to be living in a wondrous age. News no longer had to be carried by tall ship, or pony. Instead words could be conveyed across a continent - across the sea even - instantly.


As the telegraph began to spread - new companies popped up to service this hot, hot technology. It was a bubble. Everyone wanted into the telegraph business. Stocks were hot and vast networks of poles and wires were being deployed to points around the globe. Telegraph operators and technicians paid tuition to be trained up on this cutting edge technology - and could command high wages for their specialist knowledge. They were the MCSEs of their era. And by that I mean bloated corpses of a profession concerned more with propping up their arcane, proprietary technology than advancing the science of their field. (zing!)



But disruption happens. As telegraph stations were being built and deployed in towns and cities around the world, a new technology was creeping up. The telephone. The telegraph companies were displaced by phone companies in some cases - in other cases the telegraph companies managed to co-opt the nascent phone technology (AT&T). People could now communicate with *voice* and even in the privacy of their own home. Few saw it coming.

I'm making this point about technology and disruption because I feel like the web may be the telegraph. We're so blinded by its revolutionary nature, Facebook, Youtube, Wikileaks - that we don't see what's coming next to disrupt the web.

If I was living in the age of the telegraph, I don't think I would have predicted the rise of the telephone but I hope that I would be quick to recognise it as it began to rise - and would pivot to embrace it. That's what I would like to do, so I'm sharing my idea - and you're probably going to think I'm a complete loon.
... more inside ...

I wanted to respond to this great Tedx Talk. The gist of his message is that forcing - or even encouraging people to wear bike helmets is wrong. It places a burden on the cyclist - and decreases the utility of the bicyle - because you always have to have a helmet with you.



Much of the response to the video has been along the lines of "why would you not wear a helmet? - why volunteer to have your brains splattered?" I'd like to posit that the people with this point of view live in areas where cars are zooming down wide busy streets en masse and at speeds that can do serious damage.

It's not like that everywhere. When I lived in Japan, cars were subservient to bikes. Streets were narrow and slow, slow, slow. Everyone hopped on bikes to get to the train station, the supermarket, school. Almost no helmets to speak of - and accidents were of the scraped knee kind.


In many countries, riding a bike is like "walking plus". It's an extension for your legs that lets you go faster and carry more stuff.

Where I live, here in Brisbane, Australia - getting to work is starting to be a problem. They keep building and widening more roads - but more and more traffic is getting stuffed onto those roads. The city has taken a progressive step in starting a citywide bicycle rental program called CityCycle. Little stations for the bikes are situated at various points in the city and you can pick-up and drop off at any of them that you like.



The city has spent millions on this project. So far it's a flop. There may be many reasons for this. Brisbane is semi-tropical so it gets pretty hot for biking in the summer - the pricing structure is weird and unsuited to casual usage. But the biggest reason they're a flop in my opinion is because it's ilegal to ride withou a helmet. If you leave the house for a stroll and decide you'd like hop on a bike, you're out of luck unless you always keep your helmet in your bag - and who does that?

I hope more people abandon their cars for bikes - but it's not going to happen unless we make them extensions of our legs. Sometimes we just want to pick up some groceries - not pretend that we're in the Tour de France.

I've walked out of a few movies. Not always because they're bad. I walked out of From Dusk Till Dawn when one of the South of the border vampires started using a freshly killed corpse as a guitar. That was because my date was getting ill from the gore. Being shamefully desensitised, it didn't bother me much - though it probably wasn't much of a movie.

I walked out of 28 Weeks Later because the movie seemed to consist of dark corridors and surprises designed to provoke the startle response. I loved peek-a-boo as a toddler - now, not so much - but still probably not a terrible movie.

There have only been three movies that I've walked out of because they were just so bad I felt myself getting depressed the more I watched - to the point that the films were doing me psychological harm. Here they are, in ascending chronological order:

1. Highlander II (wow, what a stinker)
2. Angels & Demons (Tom Hanks)
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

#1 was just a complete clusterfuck, but the second two were ruined by money. They were ruined (let's be honest - at the beginning of their respective franchises) by money. There's absolutely no art in these CGI splooge fests. They are only vehicles to make money lavishly - for their producers, actors key grips and best boys. They thrilled me not a bit. Too much money seems to fuck most things up . See also Transformer movies, X-Men movies and 95% of the other dreck showing at the cineplex. Real films are still being made - just not in Hollywood.

I'm 42 years old and I still consider myself a raging liberal. I'm completely gay for liberal icons like Obama, Kucinich and Weiner. (yes, yes - I'm gay for Weiner haha) And yet ... and yet ... I feel myself pulling right on some social issues. There are a few things that I'm starting to have trouble with, to question - and wonder if my beliefs are screwed on straight. Here they are:... more inside ...

Eddie Morra is a creative, smarter than average guy with some motivation issues. He can't get off his ass and apply his intelligence to his work. Sound familiar at all - my internet slacker friends? I identified with the character after about the first 30 seconds of the film.

I won't give away any of the plot points, but Eddie's answer to his slackitude comes from a new black market pill that lets him write brilliant novels, trade stocks like a pro and speak any language fluently with just a few days of practice. In short, the pill turns him into a mental superman. The science of the drug is glossed over in typical Hollywood style - but it has to do with utilising that "80% of your brain that you don't use". Right. Of course, as this is Hollywood, there is a downside to the drug of the type that Roy Batty discovered in Bladerunner:

The light that burns twice as bright burns for half as long - and you have burned so very, very brightly, Roy.

Maybe because I identified with the character, I was able to suspend my disbelief and enjoyed this movie a lot - right through until the end credits.

Afterwords I felt a bit uneasy. It seemed like this film could have been financed by Ciba - the manufacturer of Ritalin™ or Wyeth - the makers of Ativan™. The effects of the fictional drug are like a super version of what's already on the market.

If you have the time, have a listen to this Podcast where Merlin Mann (Creator of 43 Folders) talks about medicating his ADD.

I know I'll get some flack for this - but I'm not sure that ADD is a disease so much as a condition or symptom of the world we live in. I'm wondering if pills will be required for all of us (or at least those of us in the IT industry) to keep up with the pace of change.

Limitless is an entertaining, reasonably smart action flick, shot in an interesting visual style (a bit like Pi) - that could be the harbinger of a new age of chemically augmenting your brain.

Google's search results are increasingly worthless. This a good overview article of the problem. I espectially like this anology in the article:

Searching Google is now like asking a question in a crowded flea market of hungry, desperate, sleazy salesmen who all claim to have the answer to every question you ask.

“Hey, anyone know how to wire an outlet?”

“Did you say ‘how to wire an outlet’?”
“I can help you with how to wire an outlet!”
“Here is info on how to wire an outlet!”
“Bargain prices on how to wire an outlet!”
“Guide to wiring outlets in New York, right here!”

And none of them actually know a damn thing about what you’re asking, of course — they’re just offering meaningless, valueless words that seem to form sentences until you actually try to make use of them.

I'm really biting the hand - Google now provides 50% of all VideoSift traffic.

Brisbane is a very wet place at the moment - these guys love it

HynoTreeFrog from dagmaggot on Vimeo.

@persephone and I spent a great night with @laura and her family in Silver City. There was snow on the ground, a bonfire and it got down below zero, (in Fahrenheit or Celsius - take your pick).



It was very interesting to hear some VideoSift stories (O,K gossip) that I didn't know about. I think I may be the last one to hear about certain happenings.

I hope you all have a great 2011 (it's 1/1/11!!).

It's my first Christmas in the US for 10 years. I'm still hoping for snow here in Southern New Mexico, but unless there's a Christmas miracle, it looks like a brown Xmas for the Dag family.

I'm doing most of my Christmas shopping at local thrift store (op shop for you Aussie/Anglos) - I picked up this gem of a jacket for a song. Looking forward to wearing this back home in the January heat.

Anyway- best holiday wishes to the Sift community - I hoist my flagon of nog to you all.

Like most of the internet, I've been thinking quite a bit lately about Wikileaks. I'm wondering if the massive dumps are a sign that the nation state is about to be superseded by another entity.

I'm saying that governments, as the holders of trust and information are losing power and leverage. Google Maps gives us spy satellite pics - Kindle ebooks are more efficient than a library (@blankfist will love this) and online community sourced "money bombs" have proven much more effective than political stump speeches and train tours.

I don't think countries are going to perish soon, but in a quiet revolution, they may slowly cede power to another organisation - the online community. Community manager with mad power lust you say? Perhaps. But that's where the eyeballs are these days - engaged online with groups of people sharing common interests and only sometimes common timezones.

When Google and Facebook start selling health insurance, you will know that things are rolling this way. Soon, a Microsoft Passport won't be just a way to get on their shitty mail system.

The Social Network finally made its way to Australian shores and I went to see it at my local multiplex last night. Although I know it's mainly exaggerated drama, something obvious struck me after brushing the popcorn off my lap and shambling out of the cinema:

Mark Zuckerberg is probably a very socially awkward person and has trouble relating to people. He invented Facebook as a prosthesis to correct this problem. How often does this happen, where someone invents something to fix a deficiency that they have inside them? That kind of spark comes from deep inside where fear and hope live.

In the same vein- I was listening to a This American Life episode yesterday about Harry Harlow, that American psychologist in the 60s who did experiments with baby monkeys and wire or cloth mamma monkey dolls. He did a lot to prove that parental love was important - and yet in his own life, he was a cold fish, incapable of giving or receiving affection. I'm sure he never made the connection to his life work - but Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn't either. That type of self-analysis is usually shrugged off by the technical mind.

In this rural section of Tennessee, Gene Cranick’s home caught on fire. As the Cranicks fled their home, their neighbors alerted the county’s firefighters, who soon arrived at the scene. Yet when the firefighters arrived, they refused to put out the fire, saying that the family failed to pay the annual subscription fee to the fire department. Because the county’s fire services for rural residences is based on household subscription fees, the firefighters, fully equipped to help the Cranicks, stood by and watched as the home burned to the ground.

[Article Link]

Calling @blankfist - This Bud's for you.™

Via: Daring Fireball

It's pretty rare these days that I get excited about a videogame - but if you have a kid who likes Lego, then I highly recommend this sandbox, open-ended gem, Minecraft. Here's what I like about it:

Engages the imagination for building amazing structures in a straight forward way

Truly frightening for kids (and adults) - without being gruesome like say a Doom III or similar - We have a no blood rule for games - and there is none

Don't tell the kid, but it's kind of edutainment- learning about areas and volumes, crafting complex machines from simple ones, forges, flint and steels etc.

laugh out load funny. Because of the open ended world, absurd things happen. We had a similar incident to this fire building exercise below:

It was build by one extremely talented programmer , Markus Persson (Notch), and not a big software house like EA. I loved paying him for this.

It's written in Java, which normally I wouldn't care for, but this is the first Java game that's actually impressed me, works well in the browser, Windows and Mac.

Gameplay is first, graphics second. I like that it's blocky.

Here's a fanmade trailer

I discovered MineCraft through the Sift - thanks bunches

I See so much negative, tongue in cheek derision of homeschooling. It's nice to see some real stats to refute the common wisdom.


Via: DegreeSearch.org

It's because I can watch things that are so trivial, so unimportant, so boring, so lost in the sands of time- and yet fascinating and deliciously steeped in an evolving pop culture.

I give you Shecky Green and Jim Brown on Celebrity Bullseye.

As you might have read earlier - we got kicked out of Adsense for having "fighting videos" on VideoSift. Luckily, I remembered that we actually have a Google Adsense account manager who I can call and sort these kinds of things out with. Yes- you can talk to actual people at Google- and very nice people at that. We were quickly on our way and back to serving the ads that keep this community afloat.

I've written before about the necessity of ads on VideoSift - we have tried a lot of stuff, and so far it's the method that keeps us afloat the most. We'll continue to try other methods, but at least we'll have Adsense to kick in for the server bill. - Sift on.

@MINK was often a troll, mean, probably a drunk - and I found him deeply misguided most of the time, but he was smart and sometimes an insightful critic of this community and myself. We had some amazing PM flamewars that I'm tempted to dig up and post - if it didn't violate his privacy.