- Flickr Album – an elegant bit of Flash using their API You have to grab the corner with your mouse and literally turn the page over for it to work. Nice implementation though.
Categories
Year: 2005
Categories
On 'Batman Begins' and St. Pancras Station…
Last night – thanks to the intervention of my good friend Katy Lindemann – I was lucky enough to see a media screening of Batman Begins. I used to go to media screenings of things quite a lot when I was writing film reviews for the BBC and working at Time Out, but it’s been a while and I’d forgotten quite how lovely they are. The screens are always a good size, the film is never covered in scratches and you get little nibbly bits beforehand (mmm houmous). But most importantly, the seats are astonishingly comfortable. Sometimes you’re particularly lucky and you get dedicated armchairs to sit in. I wasn’t quite that lucky this time, but they were still more than ample – clearly designed for super-rich, super-powerful and amply-buttocked executives like Harvey Weinstein. I have this image of escalating arms races in screening room technology to persuade ever higher-powered people to think kindly on your production – “And this one is built as a floatation and isolation tank complete with martini tube and foot massager”…
Cough. Well that’s enough about the food and the seats, I suppose. So here’s the surprising bit. The film itself was bloody good fun. It’s a film that plays more to the motivations and personal development of the man who comes to wear the bat suit and it’s all the better for it – this is absolutely not a film made by people who fundamentally believe that comic books are fundamentally laughable. This is a film by people who respect the source material, who are prepared to engage with the fundamentals of the enterprise – strip it all back down to the essence of the story and rebuild again from scratch. This is a Batman movie with genuinely scary bits: a Scarecrow who actually freaks you out, savage fighting in prisons, crazed killers on the streets and a major villain who is so focused and clear that he seems more like a religious fundamentalist than a cape-wearing weirdo. The script and actors really hold up to scrutiny as well: Bale is solid (even if his accent isn’t), Katie Holmes plays a bit of a whiny cow, but at least she’s a tough, smart, idealistic whiny cow (which is a step up from being a generic off the shelf swooning dame, I guess), Gary Oldman’s Gordon is believable and Ra’s Al Ghul pretty much rocks. And in the background, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman steal every scene they’re in.
The only problem with the whole film for me (other than the microwave whatsit, which I’m pretty sure would cook all the people nearby) is the standard problem with superhero films – Batman still looks pretty dumb in the batsuit. Thankfully they’ve figured out that you keep Batman scary by respecting his methods – it’s designed to be scary in the dark – so (for the most part) that’s where they keep him. And certainly, the minor quibble is far from enough to stop me recommending that you all go and see it immediately.
Oh and there’s something else and it’s pretty damn awesome. Last year I sneaked into the ruins of the great St Pancras train station with a few other Map Club types like Rod, Phil, Webb and Hill. Inside the epic pseudo-gothic structure were some beautifully over-the-top features from its time as a hotel at the beginning of the century. Particularly impressive was the great staircase that runs up the wall on the British Library side of the building, up to a fully restored deep blue-green and gold hall at the top of the building:
Now imagine that space full of conflict and battle, filled with shadows and with the lunatic flurrying of ten thousand bats and SWAT teams and with Batman – arms outstretched – launching himself down from the top floor through the shaft of the staircase to land like a god in the middle of some vision of hell. Imagine that all happening around that ornate gothic staircase. Well, I don’t have to imagine. I’ve seen it! And it’s one hell of a moment, on one hell of a location shoot in the heart of London. Bloody brilliant.
Categories
On Beethoven at the BBC…
This is really more just an exercise in quoting than anything else. You’ll remember a week or so ago I mentioned that the BBC was putting up every Beethoven symphony to download as an MP3 – well now the BBC has reported on how successful the whole enterprise was: Beethoven downloads receive more than 600,000 requests . Here are some samples from the press release:
“Roger Wright, Controller of Radio 3, said: “The response has been incredible and much bigger that we expected. “The success shows Beethoven’s enduring appeal and we hope this will encourage new audiences to explore online classical music.”
“Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive, said: “This trial was all about gauging listeners’ appetite for downloads and the results are astonishing. We are hopeful that we have attracted people who wouldn’t previously have explored much classical music, as well as inspiring others to embrace digital technology.”
“Gianandrea Noseda added: “I’m thrilled that our performances have reached such a large, new audience and hope this trial will encourage more people to experience and enjoy orchestral music live in concert.”
There’s more reaction from my boss, Dan Hill over on his personal site:
I can’t tell you the amount of buzz this is generating right across the BBC. Lots of extremely interesting questions continue to be raised by the success of our trials – from distribution to commercial policy, from music strategies to on-demand radio, from marketing to navigation and so on – and we’re feeding a lot of the learning and creative ideas right into the heart of the various bits of strategic and tactical BBC work going on at the moment. It’s profoundly interesting for us, and I hope for some of you. [ Over 600,000 mp3 downloads of BBC Radio 3’s Beethoven programmes ]
The first set of symphonies have now been taken down, but the second half of the whole enterprise goes up in about ten days at the Beethoven download page.
Categories
On my upcoming trip to San Francisco…
So here’s the plan – I’m flying to San Francisco on Saturday and I’ll be hanging around until the 26th with all my geek hipster friends. But don’t take that to mean that I’m busy all the time – I’m keen as ever to see (and meet) as many neat people as possible. When I go to San Francisco, I normally try and set up some kind of drunken evening at the Tonga Room – because the rain and the thunder and the tiki stylings and the lounge act are all so cool. But I am also aware that the cocktails are terrible and that maybe I’ve milked the experience as much as I can. So, guys, does anyone have any better ideas?
While I’m at it, I might as well put out another call – are there any glorious geek events, any particularly cool exhibitions or bars that I’d regret not going to? It’s not every day I get a full week in my spiritual homeland to reconnect with the mothership. So what should I be doing?
Of course, no trip comes without its inconveniences, and this one is particularly poignant – while I’m on the flight to SFO I’ll be missing the big reveal in the final episode of Doctor Who. This is doubly galling since I’m currently enduring hundreds of lunatic comments on my Doctor Who and Bad Wolf post. Regular visitors to the site may be getting bored of hearing about this, but things are way out of control – the post has received seven hundred comments as of now, and sometimes they come in at the rate of one or two a minute. The whole thing’s starting to remind me of Kottke’s famous Matrix meltdown. All of which is a roundabout way of saying don’t spoil it for me until I’ve got my hands on a copy.
Anyway, as of this evening, I’m either in pre-flight limbo or stuck in some terminal interzone, and I’m hoping to take the opportunity to catch up with all the notes and writing I’ve been doing recently but haven’t had a chance to post to my site. So more later…
Categories
Links for 2005-06-16
- The Futurama Taglines Flash Slideshow includes every tagline from every episode in seasons one to four… You can’t really go far wrong with Futurama. Except the taglines. Which were rarely funny. Better here than on TV.
- The Helvetica Meditations from Typographi.com Some beautiful and oddly poignant pictures containing Helvetica. #24 is kind of darkly entertaining I suppose as well…
Categories
Links for 2005-06-15
- The pilot for the TV show of the “Global Frequency” comic book has found its way onto BitTorrent Apparently the show itself didn’t get picked up by any networks, so this is all there is. No idea yet whether it’s any good or not…
- How to Make a Million Dollars, by Marshall Brain It seems so sensible when it’s written down. I don’t know why everyone hasn’t done it, frankly…
- Bottom Drawer weighs in on the issue of Britain’s Missing Bloggers “the UK sees the internet as a resource for information rather than a medium for personal expression, and the perception currently is that blogs are more vanity publishing than information resource.”
- OmniGraffle 4 beta version has been released OmniGraffle is one of those (not so) little applications that makes it possible for you to look really professional relatively quickly…
- I really want to get the new DVD of The Daily Show’s election coverage Unfortunately I’ll be flying back from the States the day before it’s released. Nngh.
- A really interesting article on declines in human productivity when working in ‘crunch mode’ I tend to encourage workstreams in three month cycles, limiting any crunch periods to the last two or three weeks
- Alex Bosworth’s engaging and well thought-through articulation of mistakes that people can make when using Ajax “Ajax is also a dangerous technology for web developers, its power introduces a huge amount of UI problems as well as server side state problems and server load problems”
- Missing Dalek found on Glastonbury Tor “A Dalek stolen from a Somerset tourist site has been found on Glastonbury Tor after thieves said it was “too hot”.”
- How to avoid libel and defamation A must read for every British weblogger – a guide to defamation and libel under UK law…
Categories
Links for 2005-06-14
- Blogging 101 explains how to do an interview for your weblog… Apparently I’m a low-grade Tom Cruise. Someone should tell Vanity Fair.
- Simpsons movie on its way Obviously I’m looking forward to a Simpsons movie, even though I don’t really have any idea how they’d write it and whether it would work at all…
- This week’s audioscrobbler charts show an extraordinary disposition towards Coldplay Mr Biddulph and I are really interested in the distributions – why are some album tracks being listened to by 3000 less people than other album tracks?
- “Joss Whedon is my master now” – Where can I get one of these T-shirts? I just want to restate that Firefly was awesome and that Serenity will rock and that I’m not a huge nerd…
Categories
Links for 2005-06-13
- The Technorati beta redesign is up and it’s pretty fine. Classy work by Mr Derek Powazek as always It really does look like a quantum leap in apparent respectability and makes them look much more obviously professional. Nice logo too.
- Quite cute this – a seven year old who has seen all the Star Wars prequels watches the original for the first time “Why are red leader and gold leader the leaders? They don’t know what they’re doing…” Ah so wise, and so young…
- I can’t believe it’s true! Cats really do make men scruffier and women more attractive / slutty… Seems a bit unfair, really… So I’m so using this as the major excuse for not wearing my suit very often and getting a bit fat. Parents exposed me to cats at an early age.
- Bart talks about how much he wants children and how difficult he knows it’s going to be for it to happen It’s a post very close to my heart and one that I found quite surprisingly moving. I can’t actually imagine anyone being a nicer parent than Bart…
- Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex – the original Larry Niven investigation of the physiological issues of Superman attempting to mate with a human Beautifully blunt. “Were they human sperm, they would be out of luck. But these tiny blind things are more powerful than a locomotive. A thickened cell wall won’t stop them. They will all enter the egg, obliterating it entirely”
- Asynchronous slow-gaming on the front of your fridge with magnets (as described on Wonderland) Good idea for a family home – I wonder how you tell people who’s turn it is.
- Where are Britain’s Missing Bloggers? “If you start from the more obvious people, you rapidly end up going in circles around the same small and overlapping groups”
- A mobile tale of three cities “Spanish sociologist, is completing a study conducted for the Digital World Research Center at the University of Surrey in England of mobile phone users in London, Madrid and Paris to compare behavioral changes between cultures and over time…”
Categories
Hello to 'Broadcasting House' listeners…
A brief welcome to everyone who listened to Broadcasting House this morning and find themselves on plasticbag.org for the first time. If you’re looking for posts about weblogs then I can recommend the Personal Publishing archive. If you’re unfamiliar with weblogs, then probably the best way to describe them is as a launchpad to express your opinions, engage in conversations and note stuff down in public. I’ve been writing this particular weblog since November 1999, when it was very informal and only for a few friends. Today all kinds of people seem to get value from it. At the moment those people seem (weirdly) to be Doctor Who fans who have seized a little post I wrote a couple of weeks ago and have decided to use it as a launchpad for slightly over-the-top theorising. I think that post got sixty comments yesterday alone. To be honest, I couldn’t be more delighted.
I’m probably more known for my thoughts on social software, future media consumption and net culture in general. I’m also in the process of trying to find my father and I write about that whenever I get any news. If you want to know more about me then I can recommend reading About Tom Coates. If you’re interested in finding out more about corporate weblogging in general then I can recommend posts by Scobleizer, Anil Dash and an article called The Unbearable Rightness of Nick Denton. Nice to have you with us!
Categories
Links for 2005-06-12
- LukeW on AJAX Interface Design A couple of weeks old this one – but some useful tips for designers thinking of exploring AJAX
- Rands in Repose on the ‘Holy Shit’ moments that have defined his experience of computers and computing His list: Macintosh, Windows 95, Telnet, Mosaic, Napster, Ebay, Doom. Good list.
- Kevin Marks is hosting a video of the Steve Jobs WWDC keynote. The podcast section is particularly interesting. Two reasons: Firstly because the BBC’s In Our Time is beautifully promoted at the top in the middle, and because Steve calls podcasting the hottest thing in radio…
- Robert Cringely thinks the Apple switch to Intel processors is about Apple+Intel vs. Microsoft I have no idea what to make of this article. It looks – frankly – like total balls to me, but….
- I’m spending much of my time watching the Flickr photostream of Reboot with barely-controlled jealous rage When are Flickr going to do some kind of interactive TV client. I’d love to be able to watch these as they came in like a rolling webcam…
- Brian Walden talks about “the West” as a term that emerged in response to Communism, and suggests that without that spectre the term will soon become meaningless Nice link found via Mr Webb which articulates nicely the emerging differences and conflicts between the major nations of the Western World
- On Bees, six-dimensional manifolds and a peculiar sensitivity to Quarks Another one found via Mr Webb of interconnected.org – this time on the waggle dance that bees do to communicate
- Happy Slapping Webloggers – it’s the new craze that’s spreading across webloggia Yeah thanks so much Meg Pickard. Be warned – soon the craze will spread to your area…
- Five Years Later – British webloggers get together for the fifth anniversary of the first UK blogmeet God it was weird. Everyone’s exactly the same only a bit fatter and a little more tired. Except Jen and Katy and Mo who remain slim..
- To cut a long story short – a Guardian feature about the cynicism of trailers and how comfortable they are lying about the films they represent Not sure I agree with all of it – a trailer that effectively sells a film but portrays it incorrectly, can bring the wrong audiences or spoil the film for the right audiencs. This affects word-of-mouth. Film flops.