On Wednesday, Cory Doctorow wrote an excellent piece in response to an Op-Ed piece by Roy Blount Jr. to which I’ve linked before
Today, Peter Glaskowsky at CNET tells us that he has been “sorely tempted” to write a formal response to Doctorow’s essay but he decides instead to dismiss it as “grossly deceitful” and move along to his own opinion on the matter.
I’d like to see Mr. Glaskowsky at least attempt to answer the questions Doctorow and other have rasied.
read moreUnclear? How about identity theft, impersonation, sending spam, theft?
I signed up for ginx.com yesterday and I enjoyed checking it out.
There are at least three things I like.
As a [bit.ly][1] user I’d prefer people click on the shortened link but I know there is nothing I can do to have control over that and it’s only a preference.
As a user, I love to be able to see the real link before clicking. I tend to agree with [Dave Winer][2] that this is easy to do and Twitter will certainly add this. At the very least, Twitter clients will add this feature.
I’ve also noticed that not all links are expanded – [screen shot][3].
I never really thought of having this as part of the Twitter experience but several times I’ve used [search.twitter.com][4] to find a link I’d opened. In most cases I did this so I could remember who posted the link, which brings me to what is by far my favorite feature.
I love this feature.
Frequently, I click on links in tweets and I want to review the content later. Until now, If I wanted to @reply on the content I would have to go back and find the original post using [search.twitter.com][4] as noted above. Now I have a much better option. The links open a framed page with information in the top frame about the user who posted the link and an easy way to reply, dm, or retweet after I’ve read the page ([screen shot][5]).
First of all, I loved this movie. I had not read the book and I fully expected it to have an ending that strayed from the typical “feel good” Hollywood movie. I’m okay with that – I don’t particularly care for “everything turns out in the end” films.Â
I loved the movie from the beginning. I felt it was a lock for Sound Mixing, Film Editing, and Cinematography. Those are actually the three categories I am best qualified to vote on – in that order. I also assumed it should win for Directing and Writing – two things I know a little bit about.Â
I also loved the music. I raved about it so much that my wife made it her pick for original score and song even though she had not seen the movie. I picked it for those as well.
Just a couple of days before the Oscars I read a piece that had a gripe about the film and I would like to hear your thoughts. I found the piece via SteveSilver.net -Â http://bit.ly/u4OtI
read moreI forgot to post these before the show started. Oops!
I decided to vote as if I were actually voting. This is not the way I would vote if I were trying to guess the winners in Vegas.Â
The hardest categories for me were Best Leading Actress and Live Action Short. Meryl Streep was the first I saw and I thought for sure noone could top that performance. I’ve since seen them all and it is a very tough call.
I’ve placed my second choice for some in parenthesis.
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire (The Reader)
Actor in a Leading Role: Richard Jenkins (Mickey Rourke)
Actress in a Leading Role: Meryl Sreep (Anne Hathaway)
Directing: Slumdog Millionaire (Frost/Nixon)
Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger  (Robert Downey Jr.)
Actress in a Supporting Role: Viola Davis (Penelope Cruz)
Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire (Doubt)
Original Screenplay: Frozen River (In Bruges)
Animated Feature: WALL-EÂ
Animated Short: Lavatory – Lovestory (La Maison en Petits Cubes)
Live Action Short: New Boy (Manon on the Asphalt)
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire (Changeling)
Score: Slumdog Millionaire – I loved the music in this movie!
Song: Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire
Visual Effects: Iron ManÂ
Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire (The Dark Knight)
Sound Editing: WALL-E
Sound Mixing: Slumdog MillionaireÂ
Art Direction: Changeling (The Duchess)
Costume Design: The Duchess (Milk)
Makeup: Benjamin Button (Hellboy II)
Documentary Feature: Encounters at the End of the World (Man on Wire)
Documentary Short: The Witness – the only one I saw in this category 
Foreign Language Film: Waltz with Bashir – didn’t see any in this category.
read moreI posted a while back about my hunt to see many of the Oscar nominated films and I wanted to post an update.
I saw all of the shorts.
I also saw Man On Wire, In Bruges, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Visitor, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, and Benjamin Button. I enjoyed all of them. I thought Slumdog was fantastic and Button was much better than I expected.
I tried Wanted but turned it off after a few minutes. It was clear it was not my kind of film.
I have The Duchess and Frozen River at home and I am off to watch Frozen River now.
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In a strange twist of circumstances, I ended up seeing this film twice. After the second viewing I am even more disappointed that Clint Eastwood was not nominated for acting (directing too probably). The academy nominated the same films for directing and best picture which I think is a lazy call to begin with, but that is not something I want to rant about now.
I fully expect the actor who wins the Oscar to mention this performance – it was brilliant. When Walt (Clint Eastwood’s character) said “I could blow your head off, and sleep like a baby,” I had no doubt about it. Make no mistake, Walt is as tough a character as Eastwood has every portrayed – perhaps the toughest – but there is more to Walt than tough and I believed that too.
I was worried at the beginning of the film. The exposition of Eastwood’s character came off as a bit forced to me at first. Once I made my way past that (and one apparent moment of out-of-character behavior), I enjoyed this movie very much. I even cried a little the second time through. I do cry more easily at movies than most men, but not usually the second time I’ve seen one. I still consider myself as masculine as any man. I’m actually a pretty tough guy, though not nearly as tough as Walt – I’m sure of that.
read moreI’ve said this before – I love Netflix.
I first discovered Netflix via it’s affiliate program in 2000. I’d been using the Internet for years but I was just starting my online profit-making ventures. The thought of shelling out $24.99 per month to get movies in the mail was much too expensive for me compared to the system I’d used since 1982 but I loved the idea and apparently lots of others did too because the affiliate program was very profitable. Netflix actually helped me survive through several months when not much other income was coming in.
I finally subscribed myself when the price fell to $5.99 a month and my family loved the experience. We liked it so much we decided to set my son up with his own BlockBuster Online account so he could have his own queue and we were could drop movies off at the store and pick up a movie on a whim – something that was not possible on Netflix (until they released instant watching – don’t get me started on that, I love it!).
There was something dreadfully wrong with BB compared to Netflix, though. It came with that feeling that I was being exploited by a giant corporation that cared little about my experience. They insisted on tacking on $0.08 per month for the DE rental tax, they always insisted on identification though I’d frequented that location for four years, they changed the terms of the coupon program, the price went up etc. Meanwhile, Netflix sends me an email announcing a reduction in the rate to $4.99! So, we ditched BB and jacked up our membership at Netflix to 5 movies at a time.
Then we found out about the sub-queues and I read something about Netflix users blowing through 80+ movies per month and my son and I realized the potential for seeing some great movies. We thought we were getting our money’s worth but we knew we could do better. Like most users we’d hold on to a movie for longer than we should. So, we set up my son for two per month and my wife, daughter and I for one each.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered FeedFlix, a site that would let me check on my account to see if I was truly getting a good value. On my first check, it only gauged my queue and my cost per movie was $2.55. I asked about support for sub-queues and learned that they expected to have that in place soon. I did not hear back from them but my last check worked as I wanted. It recognized me as a five-per-month and my price per movie is now $1.98.
What I’d like to see now is the ability to check each queue separately. Now that I think about it I realize that may be what the FeedFlix team meant when they told me they were working on support for sub-queues. If so, we should expect it soon. If not, this is my official request to have that done. I’d like to see how my son does on his. I am going to guess less than $1 per. My wife and daughter will be much higher. Obviously, it’s just my overly curious geekiness – the important thing is the total cost for all five.
If you’d like to know if you are getting your money’s worth check it out. You can also find recommendations and learn some other interesting things about your use like the amount of time you hold DVDs on average.
Have fun!
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