Tech: YouTube: Now the YouTube passion meets Apple's Safari browser

From CNET, I think.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

Instructional videos are de rigeur these days. I keep wondering how better they coud be employed on behalf of my pet causes, like organizations of societal service based on Christian developmental principles and of reformational philosophy. People who need to find their way toward an understanding of a Christian worldview usually need personal interaction, not so much videos. But many aspects of Christian instruction regarding service in the various spheres of life woud cetainly benefit from technical video presentations regarding the special considerations of each sphere of interest. So, to my mind, the instructional video is in, for us too.

This video cawt my attention because at present I'm using the latest Safari browser and I also love YouTube videos on a whole range of topics. So, there ya' go!

Movies: New-&- Comings: A list I scarfed from Mubi, the movie auteurs s+t

Here's a valuable list I scarfed for your viewing pleasure and/or displeasure (I often experience both at the same time regarding most movies .... yes, I'm a movie ... er, a cinema, whore). To view the longer list, click up the Film tab at Mubi webs+t. Make sure you click further for the expanded view with the important details. Here's the top of the scarfed (expanded) list:

INCEPTION
United States 2010
DIR Christopher Nolan
Currently 4.6/5 Stars.
In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one’s mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset.

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER
United States 2010
DIR Woody Allen
Currently 3.9/5 Stars.
Written and directed by Woody Allen. A little romance, some sex, some treachery, and apart from that, a few laughs. The lives of a group of people, whose passions, ambitions and anxieties force them all into assorted troubles that run the gamut from ludicrous to dangerous.

CERTIFIED COPY
France 2010
DIR Abbas Kiarostami
Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
This is the story of a meeting between one man (William Shimell) and one woman (Juliette Binoche), in a small Italian village in Southern Tuscany.

FILM SOCIALISM
France 2010
DIR Jean-Luc Godard
Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
A symphony in three movements. Things such as: The Mediterranean, a cruise ship. Numerous conversations, in numerous languages, between the passengers, almost all of whom are on holiday…

BIUTIFUL
Mexico 2010
DIR Alejandro González Iñárritu
Currently 3.7/5 Stars.
Biutiful is the story of Uxbal (Javier Bardem). Uxbal’s story is simple: just one of the complex realities that we all live in today.

Movies ... er, Cinema,
by Movie Monger

OUTRAGE
Japan 2010
DIR Takeshi Kitano
Currently 3.1/5
In a ruthless battle for power, several yakuza clans vie for the favor of their head family in the Japanese underworld.

A PROPHET
France 2009
DIR Jacques Audiard
Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
Condemned to six years in prison, Malik El Djebena cannot read nor write. Arriving at the jail entirely alone, he appears younger and more fragile than the other convicts.

SOMEWHERE
United States 2010
DIR Sofia Coppola
Currently 4.5/5 Stars.
A hard-living Hollywood actor re-examines his life after his 11-year-old daughter surprises him with a visit.

ENTER THE VOID
France 2009
DIR Gaspar Noé
Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
Oscar and his sister Linda are recent arrivals in Tokyo. He’s a small time drug dealer, and she works as a nightclub stripper. One night, Oscar is caught up in a police bust and shot. As he lies dying, his spirit, faithful to the promise he made his sister—refuses to abandon the world of the living.

Requiescat in pace
May 29,2k10 article teaser with pix
DENNIS HOPPER, 1936 - 2010
by David Hudson

"Dennis Hopper, the maverick director and costar of the landmark 1969 counterculture film classic Easy Rider whose drug- and alcohol-fueled reputation as a Hollywood bad boy preceded his return to sobriety and a career resurgence in the films Hoosiers and Blue Velvet, died Saturday," reports Dennis McLellan in the Los Angeles Times. "He was 74. A longtime resident of Venice who also was known as a photographer, artist and collector of modern art, Hopper died at his home of complications from prostate cancer, said Alex Hitz, a friend of the family."

Tech: Govt Info: Expo in Washington lobbies Fed govt for new digital info policy

A h+powered expo and conference in Washington DC will lobby for new ideas regarding govt accessiblity and info-transparency, according to the values of the Open Government movement. The event goes under the rubric of "Gov 2.9: Aspiring to greatness in Open Government," according to Governement IT Blog and the email newsletter InformationWeek Government (they have several other newsletters targetting non-govt topics, with information on information of various kinds).

Gov 2.0: Aspiring To Greatness In Open Government

Posted by John Foley (editor, InformationalWeek) on May 24, 2010 04:46 PM

Tim O'Reilly is raising the bar on what he envisions for the open government movement. At this week's Gov 2.0 Expo in Washington, D.C., O'Reilly won't be talking merely about government serving as "a platform" -- that was last year's idea -- but about government as "a platform for greatness."

It's an ambitious goal for a concept that's still so new and unproven, but O'Reilly, the tech book publisher and Web 2.0 evangelist, is right to think beyond the release of data sets once cordoned off behind the federal firewall, which is only a starting point. He foresees not just new services and applications being delivered from government platforms, but, in some cases, originating from smaller government entities and at lower costs relative to existing services. "There's an opportunity to rethink how certain government programs work," Tim told me in a phone conversation.

O'Reilly compares "government as a platform" to the iPhone phenomenon in which Apple's smartphone serves as a foundation for thousands of applications created by a thriving ecosystem of third-party developers. Think of how that model might apply to the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and the EPA -- with thousands of useful new apps and services being offered, but not by the government itself -- and you begin to see the potential.

The Obama administration unveiled its Open Government Directive in December 2009, and just last month agencies submitted detailed plans on how they will meet the mandate to become more open, participatory, and transparent. You can find a spreadsheet-like dashboard of where federal agencies are in meeting the Directive here. OpenTheGovernment.org has its own audit of agency plans.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie


Fine and dandy, with all due respect to the visionaries and evangelists of this proposed free-market innovation in digital info-flow: but without the integration of a security-minded stream, the entire advocacy posture becomes glaringly one-sided. Notice that Foley doesn't mention the Department of Homeland Security, but I imagine there are app developers out there with competence to add to the iPhone (and smart phones generally) a few cryptpgraphic ideas, and even apps for notifying local authorities of mischief on the order of the recent attempted terrorism at Times Square. Just a thawt.

Music: Postmodern Pop: Ratatat let's you hear free its 45 min LP4, until its release date June 9

I just stumbled on the group Ratatat, a duo, mostly instrumental. Grasping for references, I'd say the music is postmodern, like Frank Zappa was, in his celebrated The Grand Wazoo, but here the sound is somewhat more trancey, echoes of disco. Many genres, styles, instruments, and snippets of soundscapes are all dooodled together in what I found to be a quite enjoyable album. Yes, you can listen to it free in its entirety (45 mins) before its release date. To do so, go to the NPR page to which I've linked.

Music: Postmodern Pop, by Pop-Ear

Here's what their hype-mongers say -- no, that's incorrect. Rather, Here's what NPR's reviewer, Jess Gitner, in a proper music review has to say::

Ratatat's new album LP4 follows up on themes from the Brooklyn electronic rock duo's previous album.

Following the release of Ratatat's Classics in 2006, multi-instrumentalist and producer Evan Mast and guitarist Mike Stroud ditched their apartment studio in Brooklyn and headed to the Catskill Mountains. The prolific session at Old Soul Studios yielded roughly 30 songs, the first half of which would become the duo's aptly titled third album, LP3. The other half would comprise LP4, which comes out June 8.

Although LP4 is born of the same crop as LP3, it's not just more of the same. Mast and Stroud have reworked the songs meticulously in the two years since they were recorded. The duo pursues more ambitious arrangements this time, incorporating a full string section recorded at a later session in New York.

LP4 features sounds unheard on previous Ratatat albums — notable additions, given how recognizable the duo's tailored sound has become. Japanese strings, an assortment of international percussion instruments and other bells and whistles turn up on LP4. It's an exercise in and of itself to decipher each expertly arranged element, but Stroud says the mysterious quality is intentional.

Still, there's some continuity to LP4. Ratatat's movement away from guitar loops and preprogrammed beats toward live keyboards and percussion is a carryover from LP3. And returning from the duo's self-titled 2004 debut are brief spoken interludes — this time in German and English — which punctuate several songs on LP4 ("Bilar," "Drugs," "Neckbrace," "Bob Gandhi," "Bare Feast"). The interludes might seem strange to listeners, but weird seems to be what Ratatat was going for.

LP4 is full of unlikely twists and turns. "Bare Feast," for example, sounds vaguely South Asian, but borrows from a smattering of international influences. And "Bob Ghandi" attacks with menacing percussion before evolving into a positively charged dance party.

Ultimately, LP4 — streaming here in its entirety until its release on June 8 — showcases Stroud and Mast's immense talent for writing incredibly catchy electronic rock. Even without lyrics, their music has the momentum of a pop song. Through escalation and decay, Ratatat can capture and hold the attention of even the most distracted listener.

Hmmm ... "Brooklyn electronic rock," no mention of The Grand Wazoo (1973). As tho these guys have been listening only to trance all these years. Baaa, humbug!

I recommend that electic music-lovers listen up, give it a try.

Sports: Motorsports: Indy 500 welcomes Will Power, he seeks breakthru

"A year ago, Will Power came to Indianapolis hoping to simply finish the race. That won't be nearly enough this time," says Washington Post. Will Graves in AP via WP, "Job secure, Power eyeing Indy 500 breakthru" (May 27, 2k10).

...[T]he affable Australian admits his attitude last May [in his first Indy event] was decidedly guarded. He didn't race so much as he learned how to race at the demanding 2.5-mile oval [of the Indy race-track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA].

"There was a bit of pressure (on myself) just to finish," he said. "It wasn't like focusing on the win because ... being consistent gave me a better chance of running some more races."

Sports, by Sportikos

For a driver facing unemployment, that's not a bad strategy. His goal was to land a job, not chug milk in Victory Lane.

That won't be good enough this year. Not by a long shot.

In the meantime, he broke his back in a crash, and recovered to now have a place alongside his team-mate, the venerable Helio Castronevea, the Brazilian "who is seeking his fourth Indy crown." Power placed in the qualifying run to be located in Row 1, behind Castronevea, by topping 227 mph, the only other besides Castronevea to do so. The privilege is reserved to a qualifier who gets the Pole position, at the head of Row 1.

Soccer: USA Team: Roster set up for the USA Team at World Cup

Flexible players featured on US roster for South Africa. When looking at Bob Bradley's final 23-man roster, it's important to keep two buzz words in mind: "versatility," and "cover."

ESPN: Bob Bradley unveils his 23-man World Cup roster

ESPN features article by veteran Sports Reporters:  Luke Cyphers and Doug McIntyre

Edson Buddle and Herculez Gomez have made the U.S. World Cup roster, coming from obscurity a few months ago to earn trips to South Africa.

U.S. coach Bob Bradley cut seven players from his preliminary roster on Wednesday to reach the 23-man FIFA limit.

Let go were defenders Chad Marshall and Heath Pearce; midfielders Alejandro Bedoya, Sacha Kljestan and Robbie Rogers; and forwards Brian Ching and Eddie Johnson.

Midfielders Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley, and defender Steve Cherundolo earned their third World Cup trips. Beasley's selection capped a comeback from nine months of national team exile that ended in March.

Both Buddle and Gomez are forwards, and Bradley said they "both have been in great form, scored a lot of goals this year."

Bradley gathered with his coaching staff on Tuesday to make the final decisions following a 4-2 exhibition loss to the Czech Republic, a match used to evaluate players on the bubble rather than to showcase starters for his team's June 12 World Cup opener against England.

The roster:

Goalkeepers: Brad Guzan (Aston Villa, England), Marcus Hahnemann (Wolverhampton, England), Tim Howard (Everton, England).

Defenders: Carlos Bocanegra (Rennes, France), Jonathan Bornstein (Chivas USA), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover, Germany), Jay DeMerit (Watford, England), Clarence Goodson (IK Start, Norway), Oguchi Onyewu (AC Milan, Italy), Jonathan Spector (West Ham, England).

Midfielders: DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Michael Bradley (Borussia Moenchengladbach, Germany), Ricardo Clark (Eintracht Frankfurt, Germany), Clint Dempsey (Fulham, England), Landon Donovan (Los Angeles), Maurice Edu (Glasgow Rangers, Scotland), Benny Feilhaber (AGF Aarhus, Denmark), Stuart Holden (Bolton, England), Jose Torres (Pachuca, Mexico).

Forwards: Jozy Altidore (Hull, England), Edson Buddle (Los Angeles), Robbie Findley (Salt Lake), Herculez Gomez (Puebla, Mexico).

Information from Associated Press was used in this report.

Sports: Motorsports: Big Rig uphill drag racing in logger-land Northern Quebec

You'll be amazed by this slice of Quebec culture, a northern Quebec sports-culture, based on the logging workers and their trucks.



But what you've just seen is the cabs without their full loads, the heavy duty competitions with typical log-loads in the annual drag racing in Notre Dame du Nord, Quebec. Here's the real deal:



Another take:



Happy Birthday to Ben, 37, who will be going to Notre Dame du Nord with his brother, a Big Rig drag racer, seeking the $25,000 prize there every year.

Music: Instrumental: Jazz saxophone varieties, like a 6 footer

Sports: Soccer World Cup: Developments in South Africa preparing for the month of games

South Africa is abuzz with debates and neogiations regarding the coming soccer world championship being sponsored by Zurich, Switzerland-based FIFA. Protest and bargaining down the cost of tickets, also insuring over-the-counter sales in various localities in South Africa, has seen the number of ticket sales mushroom to over a million. The fans in the stadium will be mostly Africa, not white South Africans, not Americans, not Europeans.

The concert for the games will be telecast worldwide, like the games themselves. But now the music will be a world-blend that nevertheless features talent.

Soccer World Cup, by Sportikos

Two wins for South Africa, and the proper gloablization and democratization of the world's must closely watched and intensely loved battle among national teams for dominance.

Call it soccer or call it football (as is the case outside North America), these games are going to be stupendous, I woud imagine.

Music: Country: Little Big Town band sensation, and Carrie Underwood's glam country

At the moment, I'm listening to / watching on TV a wonderful Country Music band called Little Big Town which I never heard before. The program was a combination of interview with the four principals and excellent full-length showcases of the outstanding songs on their new first video album (it also comes strait-up in an audio-only version, it seems). Little White Church and Boondocks are among the excellent songs featured on the vidalbum. Oops!, the shows over, so I look up the band on the Net. And the homepage of their webs+t resounds with one of their original songs, Little White Church, with pictures of band members on the screen.


By the way, they're in the running for a First Video honour at the Great American Country Awards -- but sorry the daily voting is over, closed already.  Gee, when's the event?  I can't find it on the s+t, can't find it on the s+t.

Country Pop, by Music Girl

While I'm at on the theme of Country Music, I recently saw a TV music show that played lots of Carrie Underwood, a new video album, I think. The visuals were fantastic, and they seemed to be a perfect fit to the lyrics and Carrie sang them. Because of the visuals, her blonde presence, and her dresses and outfits (heitening the colour schematization thru-out), I thawt I'd add a label to this visioaudition, something like "glam country" or "costume country." But the video collaging was much wider than those labels suggest. And I liked her vocalizations in tandem with her neo-Country lyrics, trying to speak of the sound aside from the visuals. No, that doesn't say exactly what I'm trying to get at.

During her recent tour date to Hamilton, Ontario, Ms. Underwood was labelled "Country-pop." That definitely is part of her persona as a singer celehrity. On the same tour, Carrie played also in Ottawa her home town and the capital of Canada.

Computer Games: Mac: Here's a YouTube video for the Mac Games Arcade

My first video game -- on the computer, of course -- not a joystick, to be sure -- its called Crystal Cave Lost Treasure and it has 15 levels. I opted out at the third level, it got the sl+test bit difficult. I'm two months and a week before my 70th birthday, shoud I live that long at the Lord's good pleasure, whatever, and I decided I wanted to extend my pleasures and knowledge (tech knowledge, but also something I'd rather call game knowledge in the vidgame sense). Life is so full of games, not least of all between people. Politics. Schoolyards. Workplaces. Gangs. Professions and guilds. Pecking orders.

Well, here's what Mac Games Arcade says about its release that I lucked out to be my first real (simple) game.

Crystal Cave Classic is a quest for long-lost treasures buried in pitch black caves, pyramids and temples of ancient civilizations. Huge gemstones were shetered from the sunshine for eaons of time waiting for explorers brave enuff to unearth them. You -- as an intrepid treasure hunter -- will need all your ingenuity to pass the traps and dangers of the underground and collect the treasure in more than 170 levels.

Not what I bargained for, sounds far more complex than it seemed at chapter 3, from which I retired perhaps too quickly. Does that mean "170 levels" in 15 chapters? Or is this one that I bailed out from, just a dumbing down from the real thing? I thawt I was just going over the hill, but am I launched on a climb of Mount Kilmanjaro? I need a tutorial!



I just did a free download from VersionTracker, and opened the Mac Games Arcade app which offered a YouTube tutorial for using this new app. It carries instruction on how to get free game samples (mostly demos I guess) and a list of games available from Mac Game Store.

What woud Wittgenstein say if he coud see me now? What woud McLuhan say? What woud Henk Hart say? And you, dear reader of refWrite, what do you think of this woud-be philosophizing journalist-blogger trekking over the hill or up the mountain to the fantasy land of games, the ultimate Arcade ... ?

Tech: Google: Aims to add every d*** service to its apps

Oh yeah. "Google is going to make sure [that] users of its Apps productivity and collaboration software can tap all of the company's services, according to Dave Girouard, president of the company's enterprise group, in a colorful tweet on Twitter," says the subhead of a press release that was reported by Chris Kanaracus and Juan Carlos Perez a year ago (April 09,2009) on a website for professionals  CIO [for Chief Information Officer].  Since I use Google's Blogger a lot, I not only make a furtive effort to monitor the motherload from time to time, but also I want to celebrate the improvements Blogger has made since Google took it over, adding it to its ever-growing portfolio of web services.  On this blog, I also use Google Reader  as "Owlbird's eclectic reader" to make available a selection of posts by interesting others, curiosity-peaking/-piquing posts to other blogs; this retitled feature is located the sidebare on refWrite page 3.

On the "social networking" medium, Twitter, of all places!  Coud it be that Google now owns Twitter too?

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie
today featuring our publisher as a guest blogger for this column

When I last culled thru my Google Reader RSS grabs from these other blogs on my RSS feeds to Google Reader, I found myself making making comments on those blog posts, as the Reader allows.  I hoped they woud appear on my grabs on rW page 3.  But that didn't wash out technically, or shoud I say?, the attempt was a washout.  I was hoping too that my posts on those other blogs coud be cross-referenced to my coComments facility (not a Google facility). My use of coComment was intended to collect all my comments on the blogs of others, collect them from their diaspora in one place moderated by me. (If you go to coComment's homepage, enter "Semaphore" in the upper r+ search slot to get to my stuff.  Semaphore is the refWrite secretary for coComments, so she's a kind of secretary of foreign affairs. And, thus, like the rest of the refWrite staff, she's fictional -- cofictional and cofactual.)

But that coComment wish too, like posting to Google Reader RSS blog-entries for my refWrite readers,  seems unfeasible technically, for one reason or another (like the fact that the other blogs have their own moderation of comments).  Sad fact is that my coComments usage has been moribund for sometime, yet I have carried it on refWrite page 2's sidebar in all its glaring moribunditty -- perhaps I was settling for the simple idea a hope that the techical breakthru coud eventually be realized in regard to my more scattered written comments in the broader blogosphere, yet tie them all back for those refWrite readers who wanted to avail themselves of such an opportunity.

Back to Google stuff: Additionally I have a Gmail account where I get daily posts from trade lists like TidBits, Web Standards Group (tho I don't shine in meeting accessibility goals, partly because I barely have a website presence on the Internet), and CSS Digest (Cascading Style Sheets, is it?  I want to learn how to create a website, and do so).  I use iGoogle as a news hub, as well as a Google Search site -- altho I have many news sources, or as I like to call them "newshorses" or you coud call them "newswhoreses" (many of them are secularistically unprincipled, so Christian news outlets have no monopoly on being unprincipial).

And there's more reliance on Google laying behind what refWrite publishes.  I don't consider BlogSpot, which is another Google facility related to Blogger, to be the publisher of refWrite. but I coud go with copulisher.  That, refWrite folks, is me.  I'm accompanied by a fictional staff.  Not wanting to be stingy with terms, I coud go with the idea that BlogSpot is my copulisher.  It too has seen fabulous improvements since Google became its owner.  One ngging technical problem I'm facing is the complex task of adding a "Read More..." structure to my template, so that a lengthy blog appears in full on the indivudual blog-entry page, but only an intro or start of an entry appears on the mainpage, one for each of the 4 refWrite pages, and refWrite refBloggers Insert (a kind of page 5) devoted to problems of censorship of blogs in the various countries and persecution of bloggers around the globe.  This latter page is decvoted to freedom of the press, the "blogging press."

So, thank you, Google and Blogger and BlogSpot, from all of us at refWrite.

Yours for the meanwhyled,

-- Albert Gedraitis, publisher

Sports : American Football: San Diego's Chargers hoping for new stadium

The Chargers are hoping to get a spanking new stadium. An artist's conception is photo-implanted onto a picture the city of San Diego's downtown (to the left).

"Chargers release downtown stadium plan" by Andrew Kleske of SignOn San Diego,and Leonel Sanchez of Union-Tribune (May19,2k10). They indicate that the proposal allocates $800 million for a structure that woud seat 62,000 sports fans. The story was picked up and featured as the lead article on the national construction industry's AGC SmartBrief (May19).

Sports: Hockey NorthAmerica: Philly's Flyers set a new record in great game

Of all places, the meritorious deeds of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team have been sung on the venerated full-scroll blogpage of The Volokh Conspiracy, by Jonathan H. Adler (May14,2k10).

A Historic Victory

Tonight the Philadelphia Flyers overcame a 3–0 deficit to win the seventh game of their playoff series with the Boston Bruins – a series in which they had trailed 3–0. In the process they became only the third NHL team to win a seven-game series after losing the first three games, and the first such team in 35 years. Now the seventh-seeded Flyers will face the eighth-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the Eastern Conference finals — and that has to be a historic match-up as well. Go Flyers!

[Note: I went back and forth over “a historic” and “an historic,” eventually settling on the former.]

While I definitely root for the Flyers against the Bruins, when the game between the Canadiens vs Flyers comes up in our Eastern Conference finals of the National Hockey League (it's really binational, of course), I  root for the outstanding Canadian team this season.  Go Montreal! Go Canadiens!

I grew up in Philly, I visited and performed my poems in Montreal, and I've never even been to Boston (tho I watch Boston Legal and Crossing Jordan - about the tuff lady detective who does autopsies in the morgue and is loved unrequitedly by police officer Woody ... such is love in the morgue).

Joke: North Korea: A doozy on the Volokh Conspiracy blog

My Favorite on That List of North Korean Jokes
by Eugene Volokh

3 people liked this - you, and 2 more
(Eugene Volokh)
That’s the funny Radio-Free-Asia-compiled one, not the not funny North Korean Television one:
Two men are talking on a Pyongyang subway train:
“How are you, comrade?”
“Fine, how are you doing?”
“Comrade, by any chance, do you work for the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Have you worked for the Central Committee before?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Then, are any of your family members working for the Central Committee?”
“Nope.”
“Then, get away from me! You’re standing on my foot!”

Culture: Artifact: Time Square NYC 2009 on YouTube

Times Square is often called "the crossroads of the world. One of its foremost annual events and crossroads-activities is its News Year Eve gathering. This YouTube gives us a countdown from 2009's celebeation, for your retrospective viewing after the attempted terrorist megabomb that snafued a month or so ago.

Tech: Tweeter: An online YouTube devestatingly satirizing the Tweet Monster

I've been considering joining Tweeter and/or Facebook . Regarding the now controversial Facebook, I do think I have some sort of affiliation, as I was solicited by a recentlly-deceased friend to be listed as one of his many online friends, redundant tho I was. I think I had to join in some way to comply with the friend's wish, but don't remember setting up my own page there -- and then perhaps, just as redundantly, soliciting his official registration to the hypothetical page.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

Facebook has recently been accused of strongarming its members. And I've skipped over many online complaints against Tweeter, not even reading them past the headline, because I don't want to waste time. But this YouTube is devastating in its satire of Tweeter as simply a colossal waste of time for those who get addicted (all too many of us) to ithe "social network." Yet, there are many colossor wasters of time related to the Internet and personal compjuting thereon. Yes? Coud even ouTube have spawned its own addicts?, for instance.

Tech: Google/Newspaper: If Google were a newspaper ...

An interesting tech question pops up at Wire Report which is dedicated to Canadian communications regulatory, policy & industry intelligence (May20,2k10):

If Google was a newspaper how would it operate? I don’t think Google wants to own a newspaper but a Google-y newspaper would see itself as a platform. And that is a platform for many things. It’s a platform to gather and share news, to report news, to sell ads, to distribute … In fact, Google already is that because you can use all the tools of Google to create the value of a newspaper today. You can use Blogger to publish, Adsense to make money, and you can put up maps and videos and all kinds of things. So in that sense Google already is that. It’s a platform.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

refWrite uses Google alot, but far from exclusively to suggests longterm what a reformationally-committed somewhat-daily newspaper coud look like, rather. Serious model? -- perhaps if you don't leave out the the rampant tongue-in-cheek

TV: Shows: A list for the meantime

TV Fare these days:

I found a long list on a website, mytvrss - air dates for your favorite TV shows; then I cut it down by at least half, but included a few programs I thawt I may have watched once or twice, altho I'm not sure (I put a question mark behind these items on the list). Here's the result, my working list:

Favourites:

Criminal Minds - the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit based out of Quantico, Virginia, engage in deployments across the Continent, especially where serial killers are on a binge. The elite squad of men and women are excellent sociologists, psychologists, demographers, profilers who suffer the stresses of grizzly scenes and the predators who manufacture them ... the personal traumas of the profilers slowly emerge over the course of many episodes

Las Vegas -- starring Josh Duhamel, four lovely Montecito gambling palace ladies, Ed Caine. Duhamel plays his character so laid back usually, that one begins to regard him as essentially dumb, and not only so in front of the cameras, but in real life too.

The Closer - a police detective series with an excellent female lead, sporting a thick Southern accent in South California I imagine

Main List:

Andromeda - Captain Dylan Hunt leads his intrepid crew thru-out the Far Universe on many a scifi adventure

Bones - a fine detective show set in an anthroplogists lair

Boston Legal - a sometimes fine show, some times a fatuous bore, mucho leftwing soporifics that do become cloying, but if you can get past the sermons in drool, it can be a great entertainment. The character, Danny Crane, as played by whathisname of Star Trek fame often is excessive in his egomania, sexual preoccupations, and courtroom outbursts. He has a special thing for "little people" (midgets of the opposite sex).

CSI -- the set is the city of Las Vegas and its surrounds, the original CSI show ... er, Crime Scene Investigation

CSI: Miami (a CSI perennial, starring a red-headed cop with dark-haired assistants in the largely Hispanic precincts of Miami, Florida)

CSI: New York (stars Gary Sinese, strong supporting actors)

Damages - a lawfirm headed by Glenn Close spirals in many directions seething with power, and more speciically law (of course), politics, and revenge

Desperate Housewives - it's shutting down soon, with a whopper of a finale, hope I don't miss it because there will be no new episodes, as I understand

Doctor Who - uneven, see my report on UK review

Dexter - former serial killer, still a youngish man but now a detective who hunts down serial killers for a living, as a cop, and f+ts off flashes and impulses to revert to his previous obsessions

Family Guy - a ferocious comedy

Flashforward ?

Flashpoint ?

Fringe ?

House - the only hospital/medical show I watch anymore, and now this one only occasionally, but it can still deliver in large part thru the star who is painkiller addict and a cynic of the first order, who does cure, or kill

Human Target

Jersey Shore ?

Law & Order - is being closed down by network

Law & Order: Criminal Intent - mixed feelings about Vincent D'Onofrio

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - set in New York. I find myself steering away from it in recent monthss despite actomg; it's drenched in sex crimes, and I tend to fill up my quota of those watching a current fave, Criminal Minds

Lie to Me - centered on criminologists who study facial express and other body language to penetrate the psyches of liars unaware they're giving their criminal misdeeds and predelictions away to these specialist sleuths; it's still fresh to my tastes

Medium - a detective flick featuring a mother and now her eldest dawter who thru dreams mostly gets the clues that help reveal "real-life" crimes)

NCIS - Naval Crime Investigation ...? set in Washington DC and Quantico Marine Base

NCIS: Los Angeles - tuff guys go after Bad Guys, often themselves tuff enuff

Numb3rs - I'm not sure this is still being produced season to season, but there are often replays around, and I liked it for a good long time

Private Practice - principals of a lawfirm

Rules of Engagement ?

Smallville - I've grown tired of this, rather; but sometimes revert nostalically

South Park - a ferocious cartoon comedy

Star Trek - especially Deep Space Nine

Supernatural - two young blokes have esoteric experiences, discover exoteric powers, and contend with demons galore

The Cleveland Show - another ferocious cartoon comedy, spinoff from The Family Guy

The Colbert Report - political satire

The Daily Show - political satire of John Daly, a most repulsive man with a rather repulsive mind

The Dog Whisperer - I love dogs, well discipolined dogs, and thats what we see in formation here

The Good Wife - a lawyer, woman lawyer, and her errant lawyer husband

The Hills - a fine but non-ferocious comedy

The Pacific ?

Two and a Half Men - yeah, one of the stars has proved himself to be an incorrigible prick, but amusingly so sometimes on this show - Sheen the Younger, Charlie he be

Weeds - a comedy around a housewife who retails marijuana to her suburban neiborhood

White Collar ?

Hockey: Stanley Cup Playoffs: Montreal Habitants vs. Pittsburgh Penguins -- historic game May10,2k10

Montreal beat Pittsburgh 5-2 in Wednesday's Game 7 to advance to the East finals. [May 12]

For a thoro wr+tup of the game by the Associated Press go to "Canadiens beat Penguins in Game 7 to advance to East Final" for this year's Stanley Cup prize.

TV: Review: Doctor Who review in Daily Telegraph optimistc about series

Gavin Fuller is featured in a Daily Telegraph review ("Doctor Who review: Amy's Choice"), which enjoys the mentiooned recent episode of the Brit TV series, forecasting a re-invigoration of the acclaimed scifi picaresque narrative. I say so because the episodes sooner or later show up on American and Canadian TV to. Fuller pinpoints a queasiness I've felt but coudn't name when trying to watch Who-casts in recent months and finding them more poo-casts.

I'll have another go at viewing Doctor Who.

Soccer: Canada vs Argentina: Non-WorldCup team from Canada

"As has been the custom since their one shining (and short) moment in Mexico in 1986, the Canadians failed to qualify under [today's coach Stephen] Hart’s hapless predecessor Dale Mitchell, and so won’t be part of the 32-team field in South Africa" in South Africa (June 11 - Ju;y 11 this year). So the Canadians aren't nowadays duking it out in the soccer finals around the globe in thia preliminary period before the World Cup.

Argentina, however, is competing in the finals, and nevertheless they've got a date squeezed into their schedule for Stephen Hart's Canadian national soccer team on Victoria Day (May 24), of all dates!, in Buenos Aires, of all places! This event is part of a last-minute "tuneup" for the Argentines (coached by Diego Maradonna, of all the possible coaches!), Chris Young tells us in his piece in Toronto's Star. From the match with Canada, the Argentines will fly off to Dubai, then to South Africa.

You've got to read Young's dispatch, for its superb characterization of the aging and still wily Maradonna -- if for no other reason. But there's lots more that's worthwhile as well in the Young piece (May14,2k10).

In any case, after Buenos Aires, team Canada will play an exhibition game in Venezuela (May29). We expect the pubs of Toronto will to overflow for World Cup days. Coach Harper thinks Brazil take the Cup in 2010. If you're living in Toronto, try checking out Toronto's Portuguese and Brazilian bars some time thru the last two weeks.

Blood Work -- a movie/ DVD review

This is a humdinger of a detective flick, starring Clint Eastwood as the Good Guy (a character named Terry McCaleb), and Jeff Daniels as a definitive Bad Guy named Buddy Noone (a brilliantly devious serial killer -- who has cold-bloodedly assassinated a Hispanic woman Graciella Rivers (played by Wanda de Jesus) with the same rare blood type as former FBI agent MacCaleb -- and who arranges for the victim's heart to be donated for immediate transplant into McCaleb. Tina Clifford is the Black female sherrif, played by June Winston in another im;portant supporting role, The character played by Daniels wants to colonize the mind and heart of McCaleb in a fixation rooted in an overweening desire for revenge and mastery, quite conscious of his motivation to participate in a battle between Good and Evil.

The movie is marked by fast-paced action, despite the main character's age and status as a cardiac patient. The narrative is based on a novel by Michael Connelly. Eastwood is both producer and director, as well as lead actor. Color / 110 minutes / Dolby Digital sound / Restricted rating for violence and language. Warner Brothers Pictures (2002). "Vintage Eastwood: swift, surprising, and very, very exciting." says reviewer Jim Svedja on the DVD disc jacket. I agree.

Sports: Soccer: 28 days to kickoff of Word Cup, starting June 11, ending July 11

A fab new website for the upcoming 2010 World Cup is available on ESPN Soccernet.

The lead news story there today is about England's John Terry who, it is announced, "will definitely make the World Cup finals after the Chelsea (UK football club) captain suffered a foot injury in training," but may even play in the England final against Portsmouth on Saturday, May 15. John Terry is a center-back defender of h+ repute for his on-field performance, but controversial for his off-field shenanigans. Whoever wins the England final, that country's sportsmen find their chances in the World Cup this year are also quite controversial.

The World Cup games will be played in South Africa, starting June 11 thru July 11, at the following cities (on the website, each of the venues listed is live-linked, so you can check out info on each):

Venues

Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg
Free State Stadium, Bloemfontein
Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town
Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban
Ellis Park, Johannesburg
Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit
Peter Mokaba Stadium, Polokwane
Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth
Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria
Royal Bafokeng Stadium, Rustenburg

England's head coach for the Cup is Fabio Capello who announced his roster (an early-bird version that will be finalized on June 1, just 11 days before the Cup's opening).

Goalkeepers

Joe Hart, David James, Robert Green

Defenders

Leighton Baines, Jamie Carragher, Ashley Cole, Michael Dawson, Rio Ferdinand, Glen Johnson, Ledley King, John Terry, Matthew Upson, Stephen Warnock

Midfielders

Gareth Barry, Michael Carrick, Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard, Tom Huddlestone, Adam Johnson, Frank Lampard, Aaron Lennon, James Milner, Scott Parker, Theo Walcott, Shaun Wright-Phillips

Forwards

Darren Bent, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Emile Heskey, Wayne Rooney

Movies/DVDs: The Hurt Locker

This movie is about a veteran American soldier who rotates into and out of, and back again into Iraq. He's a combat soldier, a warrior. His specialization is disarming, defusing "roadside bombs" (IEDs ?). It has a strong narrative line in the action film-genre. But more than a story with a heavy action theme, it is also a study of the mindset and emotional structure of the lead characrter's personality; the movie is about his addiction to a task that involves constant endangerment and potential self-sacrifice. Colour, 5.1 Dolby Digital, 130 minutes (Maple Pictures, 2008).