Richard BF

Who invents stuff?

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:14:38 GMT

We might be about to see a big and very welcome change in the way we innovate and invent. About 20 years ago we were bemoaning the move from individual inventor to corporate R&D, when most well known developments seemed to come out of company labs, and companies such as Philips and IBM invested more and more in pure research and it's commercialisation. While inventions were still coming from an idea by an individual, the individual and the teams that went on to develop them were more often than not working for a large corporation.

Who remembers Charles P. Ginsburg of Ampex Corporation, who led the team which invented the first video recorder; or Dr. Percy Spencer from weapons developers Raytheon Corporation, who first discovered that microwaves could be used in a new type of oven; or the team behind the Joint Strike Fighter?

The day of the individual inventor seemed to be over, with the likes of Edison, Bell and Gutenberg perhaps ending with someone like Robert Moog or Raymond Kurzeil. This also seemed the case in my industry, with the days when an individual software developer could design and build a product on their own, also almost over. Goodbye to the heady days of software invention by engineers such as Dan Bricklin, Bill Budge and Alan Bird, to name a random few.

However, about five years ago the ABC TV show "The Inventors" popped back on air, and there seem to be a lot more news stories these days about individual inventors again. How come?

This story about a bed which makes itself is amusing, and was invented by an individual, Enrico Berruti. Now you may be thinking well, that's what you get from an individual inventor, but Jean-Luc Vincent, who chairs the International Exhibition of Inventions where the bed is being shown, makes reference to Proctor & Gamble's Connect & Develop strategy, where up to 50% of the P&G's innovations are sourced from outside the company. Of course this doesn't mean that these are all by individuals, but there's at least recognition that invention happens outside a formal lab environment, and more often than not when an individual randomly gets a really clever idea all of a sudden.

In software at least, are we finally seeing a shift back to individuals or small teams? Things went out of control when users started expecting more functionality in their products, particularly with companies such as Microsoft setting a new benchmark in software complexity. Small developers found it difficult to satisfy ever growing user expectations of what good software should include.

About 15 years ago I used to write software packages on my own, and have them marketed by software publishing companies. I haven't done that in a long while, due to the work that would be involved in developing so much new code from scratch. But with open source and COTS now being increasingly low risk and easy to integrate options for developers, maybe we are seeing a revitalised community of individual developers.

So go and invent something!

Problems with the Sydney taxi system

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 07:52:19 GMT

I wrote a bit of a rant about 3 and half years ago, about the Canberra taxi sharing rate. It's old, so I'm sure the system has changed since then, but for some reason I still get blog comments, usually from people who don't understand the system, or a driver with no idea what it's like to be a passenger.

Anyway, it's time to turn on the Sydney taxi system, which is completely stuffed, and was recently voted the worst in all of Australia by the Tourist and Transport Forum.

We live in Newtown, a fairly arty yet very busy middle income area of Sydney, which if you're not taking the tollway between the CBD and the airport, is pretty much mid-way between them, but again, lots of people live and work in the area. But therein lies the problem, cabbies would rather go to the CBD or airport than pick up a Newtown fare that could be going anywhere. I catch cabs several times a week, so how do I fare? A few examples are in order.

My girlfriend booked a cab over the phone around 6:30am on a weekday morning, and was told "first available", which seems to be the layman's translation of "good fucking luck if anyone happens to be in your area". After several calls, and 30 minutes, there was no cab, so she called a third time to complain, at which point they cancelled the cab that said he was on his way, and organised for another cab company to take the booking. Meanwhile, the cab that was cancelled, came past our house, but decided not to stop and take the booking. After an hour, she finally got her cab, at the expense of an important meeting.

3pm is shift changeover. If you want a cab within 30 minutes of 3pm, you're stuffed. Cabs will even drive past you with their light on ("available") but won't stop.

One day at a big taxi rank in town, I was waiting for a cab at around 2:30pm. I was at the head of the rank, so I should have gotten the next one. Two cabs turn up at the rank, but park at the rear of the rank. There used to be a law that if a taxi joins the rank, then they must take you wherever you want to go, and I have a feeling the law is now extended to anywhere, not just at a rank. However cabs these days seem to think they can sit at the back of the rank, get out of their vehicle, walk down to the line of people and ask if anyone's going to a high fare area, or somewhere on the way to their shift changeover location. If they don't want to take the chance of getting a good fare at 3pm, then just don't take any fares! It breaks the system, and makes people unhappy and pissed off with taxi drivers.

This is what happened on this particular day, and it took 45 minutes to get a cab at this major CBD rank. Meanwhile other cabs are driving into the rank, dropping people off, and then driving away empty. After 20 minutes had passed, a cab turns up at the head of the rank and drops people off, I try to get into the cab, but he says he's not taking bookings and drives off. I joke with the guy behind me about arsehole cab drivers. Then two turn up to drop off passengers, again at the head of the rank. The guy behind me goes to the second cab, who let's him in, but the first cab doesn't let me in, he's not taking bookings. So the guy behind me decides he's waited long enough and just drives off. Passengers can be arseholes too.

The other week I booked a cab for 9am at the corner of my street and King Street, the major through road in the area. Two cabs came past with their light on, and both said that they weren't the ones who had accepted the booking, even though they were from the same company as the booking. WTF? I ended up getting into the second one, and called the company to cancel the booking, but twice when I was half way through their automated booking system, they hung up on me, so I gave up bothering to let them know. I don't know whether my number is now logged, but I definitely get a lot of late cabs these days.

"first available" cab bookings used to work by calling out the job over the taxi radio, and whichever driver hit "accept" or whatever the button is called on their radio, they would get the job. The driver was supposed to only take the job if they were in the area and within a few minutes of being free. However I've had lots of cabs where while we're way outside the area of my destination, they will switch their radio to where we're going to be in 20 minutes, and accept any job they hear. No wonder it always takes so long to get a cab.

Sure, cabbies have it tough, but they have a choice of whether to be one or not, and they have a choice of whether to be nice to people or to mess with the system. Today my girlfriend and I got into a cab in town, and were on our way home. We hit traffic from a big accident about half way, and decided to get out and walk, but we didn't because the cabbie would be out of a fare AND stuck in traffic. However he overheard us talking and said it would be fine if we wanted to get out. So I gave him a big tip and we got out. Meanwhile, around the next corner, the accident had cleared, so he pulled over and waited for the 2 minutes it took us to catch up by walking, and asked if we'd like to have the rest of our journey for free. The tip wouldn't have covered the distance, but he still offered. It's nice to be nice, nice makes nice.

A few years back, cabbies started messing with the first available system, by giving their business cards to passengers who have big regular fares. Many of the cabs that take jobs from the airport, are because a regular customer called them direct on their mobile, and asked them to be picked up. The state government decides on how many taxi licenses to hand out, based on how many they think the city can handle. When many of these are used for private paid transport, it's no wonder that people not bucking the system, have to wait so long for a cab.

This is against the law by the way, and to combat this, a lot of taxi drivers have changed themselves into private hire transport, outside the taxi system, because they can make more money that way. This in effect brings in more inexperienced cabbies into the taxi system.

I met one cabbie who had two other mates who also drove taxis, and they'd spent most of their time on the phone co-ordinating their private bookings and looking after each other. His excuse was that they were now competing with the hire transport guys for fares, and so had to optimise their fares in order to survive. And this is one of the main problems with Sydney's taxi system, the drivers mess with the system, the broken system then annoys the customers, and the drivers respond by saying "fuck you" to the customers and even more trying to optimise their bucking of the system.

So for you you taxi customers out there, the best way to work with the system, and get a cab when you want it, is to book with Silver Service, over the Internet, for a specific date and time, ahead of that time.

It is ironic that the moment when you need a cab most urgently, that being right now without any warning, cab companies treat this as "first available", which effectively gives it the lowest priority of all taxi bookings.

In closing, I should mention the infamous taxi round about problem. You're waiting on a city block for a cab. You haven't booked one, and the closest rank is too far away or is empty, so you're just going to call one over when you see it. Problem is, there's another person nearby who also wants a cab, so they stand 10-20 metres in front of you, and end up getting the first cab. If you see someone standing in front of you, do you then move another 10-20 metres around the block? Eventually you'll end up where you started from.

Or what about the rank stalker? These are people who stand 5-10 metres in front of the cab rank, so they can grab the next taxi just before it gets to the rank. I was in town one Thursday night with three of us at a main rank, and had four different people steal incoming cabs just before they hit the rank. Surely cab drivers would try to respect the system when they'll still get a fare if they go the extra 10 metres to the rank? Or maybe outside the rank they can at least check to see where the person is going before taking the job.

All I ask of the taxi system is that a taxi turns up when I need it, and it takes me to where I want to go. Is this too much to ask?

The Sydney taxi system is screwed, and something needs to be done about it. It's not like you can catch public transport instead, because it's also stuffed.

Will Rove McManus live forever?

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:41:45 GMT

With the idea that if you can live for the next 20-50 years, you'll effectively live forever, comes a whole range of significant questions for human kind. Such as...

How do we provide the resources for all these people? Food, air, housing, even land itself. Will we need to restrict how many children can be born? Will we have a maximum legal age, like in Logan's Run?

What happens to prisoners who were given a 100 year or more sentence, with the courts assuming they wouldn't live any longer or would be too old to cause trouble? A life sentence suddenly carries much more weight, especially with never to be paroled. Will our jails just keep filling up with lifers? What happens when a psychopath gets out after 100+ years, is perfectly fit and after revenge? Do we automatically extend jail terms each year by the planet's average life span? Or by that time will we have found the psycho gene and have deleted it from those in prison?

With life being suddenly more valuable and no longer inevitable, will we start taking less chances in life? Less risk, less danger, less experiencing of life itself. What will it be like for a children, who grow up in a world where living forever is just a part of being human?

Will we see the end of the lifetime warranty? What will this mean for a life insurance policy? Less risk, but longer life. Where on earth am I going to keep all my memorabilia, my personal stuff I've kept from my life experience?

And do we really have to put up with Rove McManus living forever?

SpinXpress2, the ugly duckling?

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:25:33 GMT

Why oh why don't Outhink spend time on the user interface for SpinXpress for Mac OS X? Not more time, but at least some time!

Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome tool for sharing digital media, and it's free, so you can't really complain about it. But it's ugly. Like really really ugly. Ugly in the way it looks, and more importantly ugly in the way that it works. Ugly to the point of making you only want to use it when you absolutely have to. So ugly that it makes me want to actually pay them for a good looking and nice to use version, instead of having to use the free damn ugly and user unfriendly version.

The main problem for them is that it's written in Java, most likely for source sharing with the Windows version. But code sharing isn't an excuse for a shoddy user interface. Shoddy interfaces are usually due to shoddy development practices or a lack of user interface engineering experience.

Let's start with the first thing that appears when you open the application, a little window prompting you to sign in. The text all over this window seems to be just randomly placed and aligned, with some text right aligned with the window edge and others centre aligned, spacing between each seemingly randomly selected. The "Not a member of SpinXpress2 yet?" text for example is right aligned between the "Forgot your password?" text and a button, which are bother centred, with all three having different font sizes and different vertical spacing. It just looks dumb and amateurish.

The "LOG IN" button, what should be the most significant button in the window, is butt up against the right edge. And buried under the gaudy orange and green logo and tacky "GET SHARE PUBLISH" text, in the top left of the window, is a very small unlabelled button, that you miss if you're not looking for it. It's actually a second login button. The "LOG IN" text that appears on the right is some kind of link to this other button.

And why "LOG IN" in capitals? If it's a text prompt, why not "Log in" or "Log In". Speaking of "LOG IN", nobody uses "LOG IN". Ever. It's either "LOGIN", or most sites these days use the more user recognisable "Sign In". There's a "SIGN UP HERE" pseudo-button underneath it, so it doesn't make any sense.

Now I've run the application previously, so my email address is already in the Email field, but it's disabled. Why? Why can't I enter a different email here to log in as someone else? And if there's a reason, then why doesn't it tell me? Or failing that, why put it in an edit box, make it static text!

But my favourite part of this window is the almost a quarter of the height of it that is just blank at the bottom. It makes you think you're missing something.

So instead of logging in, I decide to check the preferences to see what else I can do. Surprise! Not only isn't there a preferences dialog, but there isn't even a menu bar, so you can't even quit the damn thing! Later I figured out that the red traffic light on the window title bar actually quits as well as closing the window. Very un-Apple guidelines.

And strangely, behind this window is a floating graphic with a thermometer in it. It has no window controls, so you can't close it, resize it, hide it or move it. Once you've signed in, sorry, logged in, the thermometer continues for a few seconds until the main window opens. Why? It only takes a few seconds. Just change the cursor or something. A better idea might be to open the main SpinXpress window, and login from there and show a thermometer from there. You can only ever login as your original email address, so why not just take me straight to my workspace?

So now we come to the main window. The first time in, a large window text pane will appear on every single page you look at, asking if you came here from Ourmedia, and explaining what SpinXpress is all about. Problem is, it takes up most of the window, and hides what's underneath it, including most of the FAQ. A menu bar has now appeared as well, but all you get is a really badly thought out File menu.

This window is slightly better layed out, but it looks like it's using WebKit or similar to layout each of the right hand content panes, which is probably why it looks so ugly. Text regularly gets painted over by graphics, doesn't fit in the pane correctly, and looks like a badly designed web page.

The left hand pane (or it a web frame?) at times changes the background to almost the same colour as the item text, a shade of blue, which means you can hardly read it. Why they thought a menu needed to be blue in the first place is completely beyond me, let alone the background being the same colour! And considering the right hand pane looks like a web page, these left pane items look like hyperlinks, so they're a little disconcerting when you click on them, no knowing what to expect them to do. It would be nice if the font was slightly smaller though, so you can actually see the text without the tips of the descenders being clipped by the item underneath it.

I then clicked on Share Media, Groups, New Group in this list, and it prompted me to set up a new group. But it wouldn't let me cancel it, either with clicking on another menu item, using the standard cancel keys, or via the menu bar. At this point you are locked into creating a group, regardless whether you want to or not. You can however at this point hit OA-Q to quit.

I could go on for hours detailing all the problems with the user interface, many of which are simple no brainers. So it begs the question, is anyone testing or running any kind of quality assurance on this thing before it goes out the door? Certainly not for the Mac version. And this is the scary part. What developers don't understand about user interfaces, usually corresponds with what else they don't know about the platform they're developing for. Mac developers know that the Mac UI is an integral part of Mac software development, as much a part as say accessing the file system, interfacing with the help system, managing NIBs and other resources correctly, writing to the Foundation and AppKit frameworks etc. Mac developers know about the user interface guidelines.

But then so do Windows developers and even Java developers. The Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines came out in 2001, and in the edition I have here, page 62 talks about Layout and Visual Alignment, none of which seems to have been adhered to in the Mac version of SpinXpress.

But does it work? Yes, it seems to work very well. But then I haven't tested dropping the network from underneath it, force quitting during a transfer, or entering crap into various dialogs etc. So yes, it seems to work quit well, but who knows... And anyway, it's free so I'm not complaining. :-) Yet.

Blip happens

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:19:53 GMT

Step 1, bore your audience away.

New years' resolution?

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:15:05 GMT

I hate resolutions, particularly new years' ones. If I want to change something, I should have the psychological strength to do so when I want to, instead of only when the year clicks over from 2007 to 2008. Anyway, I made this resolution around new years, so I guess it's technically a new years' resolution.

Since we started Bonny & Clyde, I've pretty much stopped all my blogging, especially my videoblogging. Well, part of the reason was B&C, but I think some of it was also a concern about the effect on my consulting clients at the time, with the general language and outlook of my blog and some of the shit I'd openly blogged about from some idiots in the videoblogging space. There see, I'm still doing it. Doh!

In conjunction with Phoebe growing up, moving house again back to where I used to video heaps of stray cats, the end of B&C, and a bunch of other secret news over the next few months, I figure it's time to begin videoblogging again.

Yeah right, we'll see if that happens.

Bonny & Clyde temporarily up

Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:26:36 GMT

Well, we're back up again. Apologies to any TVTonic users, we've temporarily blocked you for now. But we definitely want you back with us, and we will get it sorted out soon, so please hang in there.

Bonny & Clyde temporarily down

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:17:32 GMT

If you're wondering what happened to Bonny & Clyde, our server got a kind of DOS (Denial Of Service attack) from TVTonic. Well, not really a DOS, but it had the same effect, hundreds of TVTonic clients trying to suck down Bonny & Clyde episodes, all at the same time, over and over again. Joy!

We thought we'd addressed the problem earlier in the week, by banning the buggy TVTonic clients, but it seems that even the newer versions have a problem in this area as well.

Meanwhile, yes the site is down temporarily. When will it be back up? I'm not too sure. The guys at Dreamhost need to make a few patches for me before I can get back in and try to fix it.

So for now, we wait patiently...

It's an odd feeling sitting here amongst the ruins of a collapsed media project. There's no way we're going to pick up all the old traffic we had once we get up and running again, because people won't bother. So it makes me wonder whether it's worth even continuing. The annoying thing is that I'm sitting here with no way to fix the problem, watching it crumble around us, yet it wasn't even my fault! Grrrr!

We're also now looking for an alternate hosting provider for our free high volume sites. If you have any recommendations on someone cheap who can support high bandwidth for media file downloads and fast turn around on tech support, then please let us know.

We have snipers deployed to kill your rights

Fri, 07 Sep 2007 07:39:26 GMT

The most significant thing to come out of The Chaser's APEC motorcade gag, was not that $160 million of security failed to protect the U.S. president, but this quote from NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione in relation to the stunt:

We have snipers deployed around the city. They weren't there for show, they mean business, that's what they were there for.

To shoot comedians perhaps? The Chaser guys were obviously no threat to the president, however, how close could they have gotten before being shot by a sniper? This seems to be the ghist of Mr Scipione's threat, that it would be possible for a sniper to shoot someone dead, even if they posed no threat to anyone's life.

Enough of our rights have been taken away already, such as not being allowed into Circular Quay and the Opera House security area, and people who are arrested shall be held without charge or bail. I thought that our rights were there so that laws couldn't be made to deprive us of them. What's the point, if our government can just turn around and make any draconian law they please?

This farce could have been held in many different places in Australia, without shutting down our entire CBD for a full week. If not Canberra, then perhaps some country town where security would be easier to manage. What do the APEC delegates need? A place to eat, sleep and meet, and little else. They don't need a harbour view, they don't need an animal petting zoo, and they certainly don't need hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fireworks over Sydney harbour, to which the citizens of Sydney are told to stay away.

Our Foreign Minister and resident clown Alexander Downer, explained a few days ago on ABC's Lateline, why APEC was to be held in Sydney:

I often say to people there are 10 or so cities in the world you've got to see before you die, and definitely one of them is Sydney. Even though I'm from Adelaide, Sydney is a wonderful city, so we can be enormously proud of showcasing Sydney to the world.

Sydney has literally been shut down all week. And regardless whether you think APEC is a good thing or not, it shouldn't have been held in the middle of Sydney.

To borrow from a bill board in Pitt St mall this week:

21 great wankers, 1 great city

APEC - taking liberties, an infringement at time

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:37:08 GMT

Most of you probably know that I do a public radio show, A Walk in the Black Forest. Some of you may know that my home town, Sydney, is host to next week's APEC meeting. You remember APEC, that's where the leaders of every country who has their big toe dipped into the Pacific Ocean, get to come to Sydney and take over the city for a week, while 10000 protesters tell them (justifiably) to get fucked.

We've been covering APEC on the show recently, what it's like from a local perspective, and I thought if you're not listening to our podcast versions of the radio show, you may at least be interested in the APEC segment of it. Want to know a little about what's behind the great wall of Sydney?

Check out the A Walk in the Black Forest web site, and either listen to the APEC summary, or the full show #266.

This is what citizen media's all about right?

Bathroom tiles

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:36:21 GMT

For the past three months, our bathroom floor had been converted from cream tiles to black and white, yet nobody noticed. Not sure why I didn't do an after shot, maybe I'm losing my vlogging touch. And yes, that is little Phoebe who makes a few brief appearances.

Easy does it

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 08:58:30 GMT

Each year it's our tradition to enter a short film into Sydney's Tropfest Short Film Festival. Each year we compete against 700 other entries, including at least 100 from advertising and television professionals who shit on everyone with their technical quality, but don't know shit about storytelling. Each year their biased judges pick an undeserving final 16, based on unspecified criteria, and more often than not they pick a random winner from countless equally deserving entries.

And each year we get pissed off at the whole thing, yet still enter into competition anyway.

Why? Because regardless of how many professional big budget films enter (some of the finalists have upward of 50 crew, which sort of defeats the purpose of the festival), regardless of the bias of the judges, and regardless of the fact that it's like sticking your art into a black hole (they never write back to you with anything other than "thanks, you didn't win"), it actually keeps alive, in a small kind of better than nothing kind of way, the ideals of independent film makers and film making.

This year (2007) we decided to keep away from the typical Tropfest style cliched 7 minute redundant narrative with mandatory and expected tilt, and decided to remix someone elses work. Well, we'd originally planned one of those cliched short films, but for whatever reason we cancelled the shoot half way through, and decided to film our kitten Phoebe instead. Much more fun!

So here it is, a remix of the old Jam Handy film Easy does it, audio all taken from the original, and the visuals shot on the set of our other incomplete short film. Never work with children or animals? Phoebe starred in both films, and fortunately the outtakes from the first could be remixed as the second. :-)

I CAN HAS CODE? KTHXBYE

Wed, 30 May 2007 03:25:42 GMT

It had to happen. lolcode.com

How NOT to implement RSS

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:36:39 GMT

RSS is a platform independent protocol, for sucking content out of a web site. Give or take. I've written a lot about RSS and web content over the years, and in 2007 you'd think the big commercial sites would start to get it right.

Comedy Central in the U.S. is not one of them. Go to their site, I'm not linking, you know where it is.

Problem #1 - the page loads 138 items. 138! And it changes every time you load it. I managed to get it down to 98 once. 98!

Problem #2 - their featured videos start playing automatically, nice if you're at work or goofing off in a quiet environment.

Problem #3 - look at the page source, the DOCTYPE doesn't start until several lines in, and there are 228 HTML errors according to w3's validator.

Problem #4 - the page gets a load error in Safari.

So say you want to subscribe to the video for one of their shows. Look around, see if you can find where to go. Give up? You have to click on the "community" tab in the menu and then the "newsletters" sub-tab. From here you can click "RSS feeds" in the left panel, and finally you get to the list of feeds. All good... or maybe not...

The first in the list is The Daily Show Videos. All I want is the URL for the feed, so I mouse over the SUBSCRIBE button and... nothing.

Problem #5 - it's all flash, so no, you can't find the actual RSS feed URL.

OK, so we give up, let's just click on SUBSCRIBE and see what happens. Click...

Problem #6 - some weird flash dialog appears with the URL in an edit box, giving the impression that I can change it for them.

But luckily there's a list of all the readers I might be using, and a custom URL for each. What? RSS is platform neutral? Why do I need to select a reader? And what if my reader isn't in the list? I can understand selecting a feed by enclosure type, I might want Windows Media instead of QuickTime, but seriously, between readers? If it's just a handy way to automagically subscribe in your reader, then it just adds confusion, as anyone using a reader will already know how to add a feed.

Problem #7 - it gives the impression that RSS is locked to particular readers.

And that's just trying to get an RSS feed. You can check out the rest of the problems with the site in your own time.

When will they get it? Make it simple stupid.

I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

Thu, 24 May 2007 14:47:45 GMT

Gotta love the internets. From icanhascheezburger.

Sensors in them roofs!

Wed, 23 May 2007 14:47:50 GMT

The video says it all really. They may be common elsewhere in the world, but this is the first time I've seen it in Australia. You drive into a car park, and you drive directly into the first available spot. Now if only they'd direct me to the closest to the shops available spot, I'd be a very happy man.

Phoebe all growed up!

Sat, 19 May 2007 19:47:49 GMT

Back in October last year, 7 months ago, I introduced little Phoebe. Well, she's not that little anymore, and she's a bit of an adventurer at times, such as in this video.

Cats generally can't work out the logic of going down things backwards, or backards as my mum used to say in our invented family language. She's hard to catch in the act, but basically she goes forwards down the wall at first, and then quickly spins around and lowers herself down backwards. It's funny, cute, and difficult to get on camera. Unfortunately in this case I only got the second part, but you'll get the idea.

Google ranks me (an aside)

Wed, 16 May 2007 08:20:51 GMT

For some reason currently unknown to me, I typed "videoblogging definition" into Google today, and I amusingly found that 4 of the top 10 results had a reference to my post The definition of videoblogging as a genre in the result summary.

Good authority? Or just a good understanding of how Google ranking works? Although there are only 276000 results all up, so it's not that difficult to get a high rank for it.

Bonny & Clyde released

Mon, 14 May 2007 15:32:13 GMT

Well finally the first episode of Bonny & Clyde is out. Please take a look and send me some feedback. We value your input.

whereis ui testing

Fri, 04 May 2007 06:11:46 GMT

More wacky zany antics from those madcap nutbars at Telstra. They bought whereis a while back, which is ironic considering Telstra aren't particularly known for getting places on time.

So anyway I was entering an address today, and I'm a little off my skull at the moment, so I accidentally entered the name of the place into the street field. Always helpful, it came back and said the place didn't exist, without offering any alternatives, or bothering to put it into the white pages for me just in case.

Then I saw this weird second tabbed box behind the main address box. It was marked "place", as opposed to "address". Duh I thought, and after recovering from hitting myself in the head somewhat stronger than I was expecting to, I clicked on the "place" tab.

Did I mention that I was using a Mac and Safari?

And so I clicked on the "place" tab. I clicked on the "place" tab. I clicked on the &*^*#@$^(*&^ "place" tab!

Apparently Mac folks aren't allowed find out where a "place" is, but at least we can still see and click on their ads.

For more Telstra fun and frivolity, check out my other Telstra rants.

No. 44

Fri, 27 Apr 2007 02:02:45 GMT

I came across a site the other day, with this photo. And as I tend to do when looking for something, I leave other interesting windows open as I go, hoping that later that night I'll take a proper look, but never do. But for some reason, this photo just stood out. Whatever I was doing, she kept staring back at me. Eerie.

She looks partly relaxed, yet slightly tense, wary, sad, almost fait acompli.

Or maybe I'm just sensing what I already know, because the photo is listed as being from the Arkansas State Prison 1915-1937, although she's not actually marked or listed as a prisoner, like in the other photos on the same site.

Was she really a prisoner? What crime did she commit? Who was she? When was she born? When was this photo taken? And when did she die?

I came across the photo through another Australian blog, but I couldn't find the site when I went back in my history or googled the link. My apologies for not crediting it. I found that BoingBoing and other sites also posted it back in December 2004, so I don't know why I missed it, maybe it's just this photo...

Milford and Chalky

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 03:29:42 GMT

Check out Taronga's new Fiordland Crested Penguins. Cute!

Improviser vs improvisor vs improviser or improvisor or improviser

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:33:19 GMT

It is "improvisor". Even though both Google and Answers.com say otherwise.

From the following site: The Un-Scripted Theater - Company Store. Although, they need to think about how to spell theatre.

'-or' and '-er' are noun suffixes denoting an agent or doer; as in auditor, one who hears; donor, one who gives; obligor; elevator. It is correlative to '-ee'. In general '-or' is appended to words of Latin, and '-er' to those of English, origin.

French 'improvisor', from Italian 'improvvisare', from 'improvviso', unforeseen, from Latin 'imprvisus' : in-, not; see in+ 'provisus', past participle of 'providere', to foresee.

Therefore, to 'improvise', from the Latin 'improvidus', would thus dictate the use of the Latin '-or' suffix, and thus make those who practice the art of improvisation improvisors!

iFilm ^%$&(&^!@#&^%^% dicks

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 00:28:08 GMT

It's a big site, with a lot of resources, yet their sign up form still crashes with a single text error "the parameter is required gender" if you don't select a gender. Well excuse me, I just thought the field without the mandatory field indicatory was probably not a mandatory field.

Whatever happened to testing? The sign up form is probably the most used non-media display page on the site, it is the key page required to be functioning correctly in order to get users signed up. Signing up of course being an important part of their business model, so they can sell them to their advertisers. You would think that they'd want to actually test this page.

Arrgh. Morons, with no clue, dominating a market which they don't understand, in a technical domain they obviously have no particular expertise in.

But of course, it's also personal with me an them, isn't it.

So I went to upload a video, the Bonny & Clyde trailer, and I bumped into their extremely liberal terms of use. Check this out:

The IFILM Network, including all content, media and materials, all IFILM software, code, design, text, images, photographs, illustrations, audio and video material, media files, artwork, graphic material, articles, databases, proprietary information, writings, spoken statements, music, video recordings, audio-visual works and recordings, slides, portraits, animated and/or motion pictures, caricatures, likenesses, vocal or other sounds, sound recordings, voices, voice reproductions, computer graphics and visual effects, as well as any accompanying documentation, packaging or other materials, tangible or intangible, and all copyrightable or otherwise legally protectible elements of the IFILM Network, including, without limitation, the selection, sequence and 'look and feel' and arrangement of items, and all derivative works, translations, adaptations or variations of same, regardless of the medium, broadcast medium, format or form, now known or hereinafter developed or discovered, and regardless of where produced, on location, in a studio or elsewhere, in black-and-white or in colors, alone or in conjunction with other work, characters, real or imaginary, in any part of the world, are the property of IFILM and/or its Affiliates, and their Advertisers, licensors, suppliers, service providers, promotional partners and/or sponsors (all of the foregoing, individually and/or collectively, is referred to herein as "Content").

So basically, they own the world it would seem. Anyway, so I uploaded the video, which is already covered by a creative commons attribution non-commercial remix license, which leaves them in a bit of a dilemna doesn't it, because their rights can't override mine. So it's up to them to remove my stuff when they realise they don't own it. Meanwhile, I'm making use of their network for my own needs, and they can just go and get ...

Apple TV does 480i and 576i standard 4:3

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:50:41 GMT

The Apple TV will output NTSC 480p (480 progressive) and 480i (480 interlaced), and PAL 576p and 576i, as well as all the common widescreen formats. And if you're just listening to music, you can run the component output from the Y (green) socket into a standard composite (yellow) video input, and get black and white without the requirement of a signal converter box.

When the Apple TV was announced, I went out looking for the specs on what it could output. While Apple was saying only widescreen TVs, this couldn't be the truth of it, because it is impossible for a box which is outputting analogue video signals, to determine the destination resolution and aspect ratio. Even so, most of the tech "journalists" simply spouted the Apple line, instead of taking a look at what it could and couldn't actually do. You don't have to have a brain cell to become a tech journo, you just have to have all the latest gear so you don't have to write for the people who haven't.

Anyway, the question is, will the Apple TV work on a standard television set?

The answer is, yes it will, with some provisos.

Output video signal

Most older TVs will only have an S-Video or composite video input. S-Video uses a mini-DIN 4 pin connector, and carries luminance (brightness; greyscale; black and white signal) on one wire, and modulated chrominance (colour) on another. Composite video uses a single RCA connector to carry the entire video signal, and is usually colour coded with a yellow plug or socket.

The Apple TV outputs HDMI, which we can ignore because olders TVs won't have it, and component video. Component video, carries YPbPr signals, by using three wire to carry the video signal. Typically, red and blue wires carry colour difference signals, and the green wire carries luma (brightness; greyscale; black and white).

If you connect the green luma component signal from the Apple TV, to the yellow composite signal on the old TV, you'll get a usable black and white signal on the TV.

Resolution

The other issue with whether the Apple TV will work, is the resolution, and this one is easily fixed. When you turn on the Apple TV for the first time, it will give you a menu of resolutions/aspect ratios to choose from, including 480i, which is NTSC 480 lines interlaced, and 576i which is PAL 576 lines interlaced. There are also 480 and 576 progressive options, and most common resolutions above that.

Audio

Aside from the HDMI connector, which carries video and audio, audio out of the Apple TV is via standard left and right channel RCA connectors, in their common white (L) and red (R) plugs/sockets respectively.

Summary

Does the Apple TV work on old TVs?

Yes. If you have composite inputs (yellow video, white and red audio), you can run the Apple TV in black and white with full audio quality via the green video and white and red audio connectors.

If your TV has component video, so green, blue and red video connectors, then you'll be able to do full colour and full quality audio, at your standard 480i and 4:3 ratio as selected in the Apple TV settings.

The Bonny & Clyde teaser

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:32:39 GMT

For about the last 18 months or so, I've been working on and off on (sic) a new video series called Bonny & Clyde. While other projects came and went, many actually paying the rent, Bonny & Clyde just sat there, slowly ticking away in the background. Until now.

We've finally locked in a release date of 14th May 2007, which coincidentally is either Mothers' Day or the 52nd anniversary of the signing of the Warsaw Pact, depending on which way you're inclined.

Bonny & Clyde is a weekly improvised serial, so up to 4-5 minutes per episode per week, with each being mostly improvised by the characters. You can find more detail on the Bonny & Clyde Production Journal.

If you enjoyed our Frank & Dale, I'm pretty sure you'll also enjoy Bonny & Clyde.

"Toward a definition of videoblogging"

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:15:58 GMT

I came across an interesting blog today, vlogging allstars, output from the 2006 videoblogging course at the University of Iowa, run by Jennifer Proctor, who I've been a fan of for a while.

I tend to get cynical of academia fairly easily, so it's nice being surprised every now and then by fresh thinking.

The post Toward a definition of videoblogging, is a summary of a student brainstorming session, and I'm not sure of the initial stimulus given by Jennifer, but the results are pretty exciting, considering the stale old argument about the definition of videoblogging.

Coming in fresh I'm assuming, are such gems as:

It's necessarily personal, even when it's fictional or poetic.

Very Verdi and Richard BFesque indeed. Here's another one:

It's about process and intent, not product.

Amongst the monotonous chatter of "I'm a videoblogger too!", claimed by anyone with a web site, an RSS feed and a video editor, it makes my day when a group of new videobloggers come in fresh and identify with the domain in purely personal terms.

The post is an old one, from 10 weeks ago, and the class has subsequently wrapped up, but you can follow the links on the site to the allstars who participated.

Note for regular readers of my videoblogging posts: while I define videoblogging as a genre, and not a practice as they do, I do agree with everything else they mention.

Is machinima videoblogging?

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 06:14:18 GMT

Here's an interesting one for those all inclusive definers of videoblogging, which we don't necessarily agree with here at kashum.com. Is machinima videoblogging?

What's the difference between Frank and Dale, or even Red vs. Blue for that matter, and other fictional video series' on the web? Ask a Ninja, the ever awesome Chasing Windmills and others, are arguably the same, except that they have real actors instead of computer generated ones.

So what then of series' such as Michael Verdi's When We Were Robots? Some are claiming that this is videoblogging, and by the distorted definition giving on wikipedia, it is. Thus most likely they'd also consider Frank and Dale as videoblogging.

Machinima is about as far away from videoblogging as CNN's newscast or RocketBoom. Video is video. Let's just call it that and be done with it yeah?

The meeting of the ignorants

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 03:12:04 GMT

I got an interesting flyer in the post today, for "Media 2.0", a conference in Sydney on what I'm assuming is the latest term for online video. It's amusing that the Web 2.0 term was coined as a buzzword, but not to be outdone, we've double buzzed it to Media 2.0.

Media 2.0 of course, as opposed to Media 1.0, which I'm guessing is being made redundant? Doubtful, as I'm sure the presenters, consisting of corporate managers from companies such as Fox, Yahoo!7, ROO (who?) and Reeltime will reassure you. Their dependence on traditional media, would seem in direct conflict with what Media 2.0 is supposed to be about.

The tag line for the conference is content - anywhere - anytime - anyhow. I'd suggest they're missing the any in front of content, and they've missed the quite vital - anyone at the end.

Some of the conference summary text is quite enlightening, even for traditional media companies running scared from their ever decreasing traditional markets:

No longer is video an after-thought on text-driven websites. Many new websites are video-centric.

Nice. This is exactly why I keep going on about the term videoblogging being redundant as anything but a genre. Everything is video, and it's happening faster than any of us expected.

The only reference to videoblogging however, in the entire conference program, is the following:

THE BUSINESS OF PODCASTING & V-LOGGING

Cameron Reilly, CEO, The Podcast Network

The Podcast Network (TPN) was launched as the world's first podcast publishing business in February 2005 and continues to be one of the largest publishers of independent podcasting content on the globe, with over 70 podcasts in production, over 250,000 listeners, and the support of a dozen advertisers.

You remember Cameron right place at the right time with the right accent Reilly. Launched to popularity on the Gday World podcast, by interviewing (quite badly) notable people in the blogging and podcasting world, who were falling over themselves just to be interviewed by "the boys from downunder". Given an American accent, the show would have disappeared into obscurity, along with all those other amateur tech interview programs who have done so stunningly well. The converted, preaching badly, to the converted.

While the Podcast Network seems fairly successful, and good on them for jumping when the time was right, they certainly weren't the first, and I wouldn't necessarily consider their productions as independent.

However, of all the sessions at Media 2.0, this is the only one referring to V-Logging, whatever that is, and if this is supposed to be videoblogging, then excuse me, but I must have had my head in the sand when Cameron Reilly was actually involved in vidoeblogging, let alone him understanding the mantra and mission of most grass roots videobloggers. V-Logging? Pah!

The intersting thing is that videoblogging hasn't even appeared on the conference's RADAR. And why should it? Isn't videoblogging just people videoing themselves speaking into a camera? It's not like they're out there creating TV shows or anything, is it? Getting the idea? Big media get it, video is just video. Videoblogging is the personal.

I see it as a welcome nail in the coffin of the term videoblogging to describe what is simply just online video. The tide is turning, and instead of bitching that somebody's definition of videoblogging doesn't include their obviously TV like video production, small independent producers need to get on board and use the language of the corporates, if they wish to make any kind of difference.

Videoblogging, schmideoblogging. Who gives a fuck. Go make video, before that door is closed to you as well, because semantics certainly hasn't stopped the corporate Media 2.0 juggernaut, however ignorant we think they are.

The Fourth Wall on JJJ

Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:02:54 GMT

A few weeks back I did an interview with radio station Triple J's Arts Crew, about my show The Fourth Wall. The spot is now being played on rotation, and you can check it out on their website at J ARTS CREW :: The Fourth Wall.

Their arts program is a sorely needed outlet for Australian creatives, and we need to make sure that it continues to get funding, and stays on air. Not just because I'm on it. :-)