Technics: Games: Top game company shifts to bigger later model, cuts off low-end customers

FoxNewsreports on top game company's abandonment of the little guy--both the low-end buyer and smalller console model of PlayStation 3 (call the newer models "PayStation"), "Sony Discontinues 20GB PS3" (Apr12,2k7).

SAN FRANCISCO — Sony Corp. has discontinued the 20-gigabyte PlayStation 3 game console so it can focus on a more popular--and expensive--model that has a bigger hard drive.

Since the launch of the PlayStation 3 in November, consumers have been buying the 60-gigabyte model 10 to 1 over the cheaper unit, said Dave Karraker, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Both models have much of the same hardware inside, but the 60-gigabyte console, which costs $600, has built-in wireless support and slots for memory sticks and other storage media.

Retailers still have several thousand 20-gigabyte models on store shelves, Karraker said Thursday. The 20-gigabyte consoles will continue to have a suggested retail price of $500 until supplies run out.

"Better to put resources toward the ones that retailers want," Karraker said.

Severe production shortfalls in the months after the PlayStation 3 debuted meant that thousands of consumers had to wait in long lines and still couldn't buy a console.

On eBay and other auction sites, bidders were willing to pay several times the suggested retail prices so they could have consoles for the holidays.

The discontinuation racket is the real game here, displaying Sony's contempt for its low-end customers in the country where it is a guest business.

Sports: Swimming: Phelps wins 7 golds at world aquatics meet

"American Michael Phelps Sunday became the first swimmer to win seven gold medals at a world aquatics championship. He set the mark by breaking his own world record in the men's 400-meter individual medley in Melbourne, Australia." I found this item on Christian Science Monitor email newsletter. I'll have to check out the further facts, hunt down the info about this amazing competitive swimmer.

Sports:Hockey: Toronto's last chance for the playoffs, tonite vs NY Islanders

Toronto's Maple Leafs face their last chance to gain entry to the end-of-season tournament for the National Hockey League's championship. In a racy pre-game psych-up, Bill Lankhof of Toronto Sun writes, "Somehow, Leafs keep hanging on" (Apr5,2k7)

If it is true that the most dangerous animal is one that is wounded and cornered then the Maple Leafs should be a fearsome sight to behold the next couple days.

They've got the Islanders and Montreal [Saturday, Apr7,2k7] right where they want them. The rest of the NHL just doesn't know it yet.

This team has more nicks, scratches and blemishes than a frat-house beer fridge. Parts keep falling off, the door is hanging by one hinge but somehow it keeps getting the job done.

When they beat the [Philadelpia] Flyers Tuesday they did it on goals by three defencemen, against a hot goaltender, with a No. 1 line centred by goal-slump ridden Mats Sundin and a second line centred by someone with the injury yips.

For three-quarters of the season this team couldn't win at home. Now, when it had no choice, it's won eight in a row.

They have had more man-games lost to injury than any other team. Kyle Wellwood, the lynch-pin of the power-play is back from hernia surgery, but skates like he's carrying a Ming Vase in his hockey pants. But, he'll play tonight because without him the Leafs might as well decline the penalty.

"He does so many great things even at the speed he's going. But my concern is the cautiousness in his skating. He can still create some things. But the Kyle that we remembered before the injury was quick to holes. He's not at that point right now," coach Paul Maurice said yesterday.

Here's hopin'!

FINAL SCORE & STATS: Sports Illustrated

Sports: College Athletics: University of Florida in Basketball, Football, and Women's Gymnastics

A fan of the bastion of atheletic prowess, the University of Florida posted on That'sFit blog: "My Florida Gators win second straight NCAA basketball title and teach life leason" (Apr3,2k7). Altho he left out some key details, Fitz's blog conveys the spirit of an enamored fan after his team reached the top of the National Collegiate Athletic Assocation for the second time in a row these last two years (and we mite add, it's football team earlier won the NCAA championship as well. Whether it's Gator Basketball or Gator Football (that's American-style football), this fan exudes his joy and gives us a bonus sermonette to boot:

Last night I watched and cheered as my Alma mater's basketball team won the Big Dance. Again! It was a spectacular feat which was well earned. I've had the luxury to sit court-side at many games this year, and as wonderful as they look on television, they're even more impressive in person. I have tons of respect for this team.

The Gators are composed of incredible athletes who play selflessly every second of every game. Each Gator works hard in the gym and on the court more for the guy next to him than for himself. They are quick, agile, strong and smart. Each player is a coach's dream. Since they play for one another, they never made excuses or trained half way.

Gators' basketball coach, Billy Donovan, was so roundly supported thru-out the Florida ranks for his second championship in a row that he turned down a contract offer to coach his sport at the more prestigious University of Kentucky.

While Donovan is staying, four of his players, not even yet seniors, are turning pro to enter the National Basketball Association.

...[J]uniors Corey Brewer, Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Taurean Green will all give up their final year of college eligibility to enter the National Basketball Association. The quartet and senior Lee Humphrey teamed to become the first starting five in National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament history to win back-to-back titles.

``They need to take the next step,'' Donovan said at a televised press conference with the players in Gainesville, Florida.

Each of the players are considered by scouts to be first-round picks. College underclassmen have until April 29 to declare for the June 28 draft. They can withdraw their names by June 18 if they don't hire an agent.

``We did everything we could possible do in college basketball,'' Brewer, the Most Outstanding Player of this year's Final Four, said. ``It's been so much fun, but we all know it's time to move on and take new challenges.''

The four players accounted for 83 percent of the scoring from Florida starters this season. Green averaged a team-high 13.3 points, Brewer and Horford averaged 13.2 points each and Noah 12 points.

Florida captured its second straight national title April 2 with an 84-75 win over Ohio State. The Gators are the seventh team overall and first since Duke in 1991 and 1992 to win consecutive titles.

After winning the championship last year, Noah, Horford and Brewer were projected as first-round NBA draft picks and opted to return to Florida for their junior seasons. The Gators returned to the Final Four this year, beating UCLA in a rematch of last year's title game and Ohio State.

Donovan has a 261-103 record in 11 seasons at Florida.

Without his stars on hand next year, Donovan will be building again on younger players at the university for their sophomore and junior years. He must see prospects, and have a real appetite for challenges.

As tho all that weren't enuff, New York Times weaves the men's stories in basketball and football into an account featureing UFlorida's women's gymnastics team.

last weekend’s Southeastern Conference championships in Arkansas.

The Gators’ gymnasts, using the success of the university’s reigning national champion football team and its resplendent men’s basketball team as a springboard, vaulted Georgia and Alabama to win the title, becoming the first college other than the Bulldogs or Crimson Tide since 1989 to wear the crown.

With the NCAA regionals looming in two weeks — followed two weeks later by the national championships in Salt Lake City — the gymnasts did not dare take a practice off, even to acknowledge the team whose success has spurred their own.

Here, at the center of the college sporting scene, while other athletic programs ponder how to catch up to the Gators, the Gators are busy chasing one another. After the football team equaled the success of the basketball team, the basketball team raised the bar by repeating, becoming the first university to win the football and basketball Division I championships in the same academic year.

Samantha Lutz, a senior gymnast, said, “I feel like all the sports are feeding off each other, like the entire athletic association has caught fire.”

Gators, it seems, are surfacing everywhere. Ryan Lochte, a former Florida standout, last week set an individual world record and won five medals at the World Aquatics Championships in Australia. An ex-Gator golfer, Camilo Villegas, is playing this week in his first Masters.

There has to be some kind of special social-psychological phenom in process at University of Flordia--as well as a lot of hardwork and discipline on the part of the student athletes, and good coaches.

Music: Internet: Now you can download pay-for songs on iTunes from EMI--without DRM copy blockade

Associated Press via CNN carries the news "EMI-Apple pen deal to sell songs" (Apr3,2k7). The EMI side of the partnership means that you can purchase for a little more per song thru Apple's iTunes improved digital recordings of Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Coldplay and a whole lot more artists too (but not songs of the Beatles--no loss, to my ears!). And you can do so in about a month's time without those hi-tech blocks called DRMs (Digital R+ts Management technowreckers) that are currently installed in most online music downloads when you make your purchase.

EMI Group is the first and perhaps the only one of the Big Music corporations to break with the DRM technoblocks that prevent an owner from copying a song and perhaps sending it on non-commercially to friends, etc. You know, P2P file-sharing, person-to-person.

The announcement followed calls by Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs earlier this year for the world's four major record companies, including EMI Group PLC, to start selling songs online without copy-protection software.

Music, by Audiovisiotor

The Big Music holdouts are Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner.

The technology, known as digital rights management, or DRM, is designed to combat piracy by preventing unauthorized copying or sharing, but it also can be a consumer headache. Some music players, for instance, support one type of DRM software but not others.

The DRM used by Apple does not work with competing services or devices, meaning that consumers can only download songs from iTunes to work on their computers or iPod music players.

The lock between the download services and players has drawn criticism from European industry regulators, who argue that it limits buyer choice.

"Doing the right thing for the customer going forward is to tear down the walls that impede interoperability," Jobs told a London news conference.

Yes indeed!. Mr Jobs, but what about the point the Eurocrats are making--interoperability! Got a strategy for achieving that? And surrender your grasp on the digital music market thru your reigning advantage in the brilliant combo of iTunes Music Store and iPod? I doubt it.

Sports: Horse Races: World's best assemble in Dubai for leading sports event

This afternoon on the nationwide American TV channel ABC, I watched the Dubai World Cup, which consisted of several events of magnificent horses racing, jockeys astride seeking the large purses offered. Quite stirring to see the great beasts in top condition going for it, of course prodded by their masters.

As a viewing experience, I was disappointed that the zoom-in lenses weren't used more often; also pre-race and post-race close-ups, still-standing and promenades would have been greatly appreciated. Maybe in the future, as the local TV arrangements fine-tune they camera work for the events of what promises to become, if not already, the premier location of world horce-racing sports.

Sports > Horse Racing, by Sportikos

By the way, Dubai is a Gulf State emirate and as a Muslim-ruled country, it does not allow betting within the country. Dubai is in a major buidling boom, both on land and in the Gulf where islands have been created. One is a sea-surrounded hotel, approached underwater, I believe; that facility uses its helicopter-roof as a major tennis tournament.

Reporting on the key event of the day, Associated Press' Jim Krane gives us a glimpse of the competion:

Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Call it sibling rivalry at its most lucrative.

Dubai ruler Sheik Mohammed watched as his unbeaten horse Discreet Cat finished last in the world's richest horse race Saturday, while his brother's horse Invasor ran off with the $6 million Dubai World Cup.

Invasor, the 2006 Horse of the Year, avenged his only previous defeat and ran a thrilling duel with Premium Tap, a horse owned by Saudi King Abdullah.

Trained by Kiaran McLaughlin, who spent nearly 10 years as a trainer in Dubai for the ruling Maktoum family, Invasor took charge down the stretch and won by about two lengths.

“It's an awful good year in one night to win in a $6 million race,” a grinning McLaughlin said after capturing the showcase event on the $21.25 million card, the richest in the sport.

Even tho the competitive racing of horses, at least at Dubai, did not have the visual razzamatazz that accompanies a NASCAR race, a viewer at the track or on TV enters another dimension with live beasts, even given the go-faster prods, than one experiences in the mechanical boxes on wheels. I think I enjoy viewing the horses even more than human athletes racing to the finish line. Can't say why exactly, but I discovered that sports preference in myself during today's telecast from Dubai.

Technics: Internet/Computers: Vern Seward has some complaints about Apple softaware "Mail.app"

Mac Observer internet mag carries the confuzzle-ated twists and turns that critic Vern Seward discovered as he attempted to line up certain expectations and what he thawt was implied by using both Apple's webmail on DotMac (.Mac) in sync with Apple's software application for your home or business computer, aptly called Mail.app (or, more simpy, you guessed it, Mail (which itself can be confusing if you are using or acquainted with other mail applications, or even merely talk with users of such others.

Technotes, by Technowlb

Vern calls his piece Mail Weirdness. If you're interested in many things Apple, and weirdness, you mite want to read this piece thru in its entirety. I did, and found myself intrigued, but at times a wee lost in the the labyrinth of Apple/Mac's obfuscatingly complex computer mail technics.

More later ... present text was cross-posted from Technowlb's new Technics blog.

Music Video: Greg Pattillo: An inspector-gadget remix of beatboxing flute on theme from Super Mario Brothers ... enjoy!

YouTube says this regarding its current top video (3.25 minutes): "Beatboxing Flute player Greg Pattillo ... with a twist like nothing you've heard (unless you've been wandering through Washington Square park [NYC] and heard him there)." The ellipsis in my foregoing sentence deletes the words "inspector gadget" because I don't know what this techterm means, but maybe you do. Added to the freedomworksfilms repetoire on YouTube on Jan19,2k7, in two months this experimental-music creation has now been viewed 3,451,174 times, commented upon by 13214 people, and favourited in 45,716 subscribers online accounts.

Movies: Propaganda: New biography of Hitler's film-maker Leni Riefenstahl & fascist aesthetics

Stephen Bach has written a new book on Leni Riefenstahl, Leni: The Life and Work of Leni Riefenstahl (Alfred A. Knopf, 400 pages, US$30). His study is reviewed by Juliet Lapidos in Forward, "The Real Leni Riefenstahl" (Mar23,2k7).

LR, as I shall call her, was "Hitler's filmmaker" who claimed, says Lapidos, "she was an apolitical artist who knew nothing of the Holocaust." Bach, however, smashes this claim (as well as many others made by LR) with new documentation that renders the book historiogrphically well-researched. LR made the propaganda movie Triumph of the Will glorifying Hitler at the 1934 Nuremburg Rally of his military forces; I'd long ago seen the movie's unshortened original version, copies of which were rare at the time of my viewing it in the screening room of a Toronto old-films collector, Reg Hart--altho now TV has made snipped versions more accessible to those who bother. It must be said that this movie becomes quite tedious in its monumentalism, actually, and its repetition (some of which is dishonest in that it gives a sense of larger numbers than was actually the case at the event, as big as it was). Lapido:

Using new primary sources, Bach proves that Riefenstahl was not compelled to make “Triumph of the Will,” as she maintained until her death in 2003. Rather, she specifically requested permission to direct the film that institutionalized the so-called “fascist aesthetic[s].” Furthermore, although Riefenstahl was adamant about the purely documentary nature of her work, Bach argues convincingly that “Triumph” is not a straightforward depiction of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally.

Riefenstahl had written so much about herself, as a postwar justification of her role in the cultural war of the Third Reich, in her 700-pages of autobiography (1987), that Bach's sleuthwork in previously unexamined original LR papers allows him to capsize self-exonerating, self-aggrandizing self-portrayals, one by one.

Bach also puts to rest the notion that Riefenstahl knew nothing of the racial policies that led to the Final Solution. After Hitler invaded Poland, Riefenstahl obtained war-correspondent status and traveled to Konskie, where she witnessed the murder of unarmed Jewish civilians. In September 1942 she visited Maxglan, a Gypsy internment camp, and requisitioned 23 prisoners to serve as unpaid extras in “Tiefland,” an epic film financed by the Reich.

Riefenstahl, it seems clear, was not a virulent antisemite. As she mentioned whenever the opportunity arose, she had Jewish friends, colleagues and even, in her youth, a Jewish lover. Bach makes the case that Riefenstahl was not motivated by political or racist zeal. Rather, she glorified Hitler because she was an opportunist with no moral compass. It was her lifelong ambition to become a famous artist — and if cozying up to the Führer was her best chance at fame, then ethics be damned.

One work of LR's that I really liked, to be honest myself, was her large-size photobook on the Nuba people from south Sudan and bordering Kenya. Decades ago I had read some astute dialectician who argued that her photowork in that volume was racist, but I remained utterly unconvinced.

According to Lapidos, LR was not a virulent antsemite, perhaps not a virulent racist either (I add), but "a pathological narcissist who used her talents to lionize Hitler and thus ease the path of the Nazi regime." Thus, advancing her own standing as an artist and tailoring her self-expression in horridly opportunistic ways.

TV: Movie: The Chronicles of Riddick was not as ridiculous as expected

Yesterday eve and again tonite, I watched the 2-eveningsful scifi epic starring Vin Diesel, The Chronicles of Riddick (2004). Vin has an animal-eyes thing, and can't stand the lite, especially can't stand the glare of day lite. He's a Furian. The marathon was billed as "The fite of evil against evil," so I assumed that animal has something ontologically to do with evil. Thandi Newton and Judy Drench (she's an Elemental, so she glides ephemerally).

But in the moral shakedown of these Riddick filmic events, Vin was on the side of good after all, with his chief opponent the godlike leader of the Necromongers (yes!, the deathmongers who had surrendered their souls and adopted a religion against all religions, a secularistic anti-religion so absolute it had become a religion itself).

TV Movies, by Audiovisiotor

The extremes of weather, climate, environments natural and unnatural, with shifting landscapes to complement shapeshifters all added to the superhero cartoonic quality of the scenes thru which Vin travels, mostly at h+ speed.

Want a plot summary? See Daniel Williamson's write-up.

TV: Series Watching award-winning action series 24's character Jack Bauer reaches saturation-point, as formulas lose lustre

The saturation broadcasting of Kiefer Sutherland as Jack Bauer has made the younger Sutherland less known than his character and his weekly show 24. The episodes of the show however have begun to blur into one another--counterterrorism, CIA and FBI renegades devoted to conspirators even h+er up, enemies bent on the destruction of America by bombs and mass-epidemic virii. The show seems to have worked thru its previous monotonous preoccupation with Arab/Muslim conspirators in the USA. But chases, explosions, illnesses, and narrow escapes continue to litter relentlessly the plot, in what is now becoming a nauseating routine. Tonite's episode, like recent ones, has for its chief enemies (besides internal oldstock American traitors) antgonists are bearing Slavic-sounding names (which echo the entire Cold War). In any case, it's time for this viewer to look for something less repetitious and predictable when I'm up for a breathless action flick on the tube each week. Trouble is, Jack Bauer and 24 remain far superiour to most other plot-driven fare. Ho hum, nothing new under the sun, or in the late n+t TV hours.

TV: Internet: New media combos open spaces for new unregulated contents, genres, and communications disciplines

An important TV article by Neil Midgley is slanted by the headline-writer toward a mere battle of the giants, "BBC plans to compete online with iTunes" (Mar7,2k7), Telegraph (UK). But there are several other facets of the story that widen out into major shifts around technical changes and organizations, to changes in content-trends where new opportunities for freedom of expression are opened by the media-combos involved.

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has unveiled ambitious plans to compete with music and video download service iTunes.

John Smith, BBC Worldwide's chief executive, laid out a far-reaching commercial vision for the BBC's new iPlayer software.

The iPlayer has been developed by the BBC itself, and is expected to be approved by the BBC Trust later this spring. It will fulfil a public-service remit by giving UK licence-fee payers a seven-day "window" to catch up with BBC shows online, but Mr Smith said that BBC Worldwide also wanted to generate revenue with advertiser-funded content and pay-for downloads.

Controversially, Mr Smith invited other broadcasters to participate in the iPlayer, comparing it to an online version of Freeview or BSkyB's digital satellite platform.

The move is just the latest announcement from the BBC about its new media ambitions. Last week, it put some of its clips on video-sharing website YouTube, and it has announced that it is working with IBM on a video-based search facility for its library of children's programmes.

On-demand services from broadcasters like Channel 4 and Sky have as yet failed to capture the public imagination, but this online territory has already been staked out by a rag-bag of niche players.

TV, by Audiovisiotor

"We're trying to break away from the established idea of what a television channel is," said Iain Dale, from www.18doughtystreet.com, a video website about Centre-right politics. "We have shows like World Wide Widdecombe, but we have also asked Peter Tatchell to create video for us."

Opinionated websites rely on the fact that the internet, unlike television, is completely unregulated. "If we were on Sky, we'd be bound by Ofcom's impartiality rules," said Mr Dale.

The freedom of the internet has also attracted other opinionated groups, particularly Christians. Premier Christian Media Trust has expanded from its Premier Radio base to offer evangelical TV on demand over the internet.

The buzz jargon differentiates between "lean forward" and "lean back" video content. Short clips, like those on YouTube, are the kind for which users "lean forward" to their computers. Traditional television, particularly entertainment, is intended for viewers to "lean back" on their sofas.

"There are different disciplines for programmes for the internet," said Nigel Dacre, of Ten Alps Digital, which operates www.public.tv, a website offering public sector, business and training videos. "You want to avoid complicated graphics and lengthy opening title sequences, and you include fewer separate sequences."

Newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph are also using short videos to drive traffic to their websites.

Clive James, the veteran broadcaster, started making a chat show in his living room and showing it on www.clivejames.com. "But on the internet, you pay for every signal you send," said James. "If you have too many viewers, you can die of success very quickly."

James has therefore taken to forging "alliances". His chat show, Clive James Talking, is still made in his living room, but has now made the reverse transition and has its first broadcast on digital TV channel Sky Arts.

Technics: Google Blogger: One step forward, two steps back, to the X power

Google has gained fame, and now notoriety, upon the purchase and re-jigging of the blog host, Blogger thru which refWrite Backpage is published. In recent months, the re-jigging has included a Blogger Beta which lately has been transformed into Blogger Beta or New Blogger.

When a Blogger-user follows the corporate lead, and converts over to New Blogger, certain new features become available. A small feature has been relevant to refWrite's overall blogging vision and strategy. We've wanted to advance the vision of a multi-member work-community for reformational journalism online in the blog-medium. That's now possible but tedious to establish; it just ain't easy, not inviting.

First, to bring a second blog-poster into the picture, you need to join blogger with an email address distinct from your new Google email addres (functionally, Google seems to want all of these prefereably to be be, you guessed it, Gmail addresses; something hard to attain without separate computers). In any case, to post a blog-entry to a given page, like rW4, a blogger has to go thru the maze of signing-into Old Blogger, get re-routed from there to another page for signing-in to New Blogger, only to then have the username and password rejected, with a note appearing in fine print to click on, if you want to enter as a different user.

Of course, as in my case, you're still you--but you don't get a list of your various user names where you can click the one to use for a given blog-entry post. Instead you have innumerable steps to undertake before you can get your alternative username and password signed-in for purpose of presenting to you a fresh posting-composition page, that will come out in the blogosphere for your readers, but under a different name following "Posted by ..." at the bottom of the blog-entry.

This anti-blogger rigamoroll is contrived to allow integration around Google's own poorly-conceived needs. But what you want is integration around you as the center of your various Google-served bloggerly activities. There are several reasons why a blogger may want to use three or four different names following "Posted by ..." on a given page, or set of inter-linked pages. Some of these have to do with classifying the different kinds of content regarding which a blogger may be actively blogging. In my case, for years I blogged with a signature line in each blog-entry, differing the signatures acccording to the category of the content. I used the semiotic mark "--" followed by the blogger name appropriate to that content.

But always all the posted blog-entries were further designated by Blogger on its own terms (contradicting mine and confusing my readers). Then, upon purchase of Blogger, the Google machinery kicked in with what in the end amounts to the the same old, same old "Posted by ..." single signifer. I respnded to a new feature, that did a little something along the lines I wanted, but at considerable cost.

Technotes, by Technowlb

When I left Blogger behind to become part of Blogger Beta by Google, I got the chance to use my DotMac email addresses, instead of only the newly required Beta address at Gmail: but only if I took on all the arbitrary rigamaroll involved in signing-in differently to one or another of my posting names newly establised with Google Blogger.

(I only mention in passing two other reasons for strongly preferring multiple user names and email addresses: branding; and fictional work woven into the texture of a given blogpage. Branding by use of a distinct posted-by name that is indigenous to a given content, helps to build name-recognition for that kind of content attributed to that particular name, while a different posted-by-name becomes associated strictly to a different kind of content. There could be perhaps two or three or four kinds of content (each kind with its distinct brand/username) interwoven into a single timeline of posts on a page devoted to those posts.

The fictional element would occur when the different posted-by names on a given blog-page or set of inter-linked pages are laced with characterizations, whereby one "character" emerging around a particular posted-by name may include a passing comment about a different "character" (bearing a different posted-by name), so that a perhaps quite-thin but real and perhaps fascinating buildup of distinct blog-literary characters occurs as you blog about different contents that may be diversely juridical, political, economic, pisteutic (faithic / explicitly religious), scientific, aesthetic, technic, etc.)

However, the problems of being enmeshed in the rigours of using Google's New Blogger are compounded when one finds use of other features of Google's Web2.0 suite, whether directly in conjunction with New Blogger or not.

For instance, if you use New Blogger in relation to several posted-by names, you have to be extremely and tediously careful in trying to use simultaneously Google Bookmarks. In turn, each posted-by name by which you sign into Google (Blogger) gets a different Google Homepage (which I hate, I want one Google Homepage with quick access to all Google Blogger posted-by names). Going to any newspage from any one of your Google Homepages (which happens whether you personalize it/them or not) determines in advance where your bookmarking will occur. I want to use Google's Bookmarks in a set according to different posted-by names, again according to my basic categories of content. But that means, when I surf the news and pickout valuable bookmarks for three or four different topics (each associated separately to a different posted-by name), I have to stop, sign into New Blogger, go thru the labyrinth to get to the specific username and password for which I want to enter a given bookmark. This is so clunky, time-consuming and dispriting that it dehydrates the joy of blogging out of the process, replacing it with elaborate technical routine only. Nonsensical from the standpoint of the blogger.

Google has lost s+t of the living blogger who may wish to combine journalism, opinion, and new forms of textual artistry thru differentiated posted-by naming, designed to interlace fictional elements that build up a sense of characterization, name by name. Instead, Google has made its Web2.0 suite a corporate n+tmare based on a qualitatively different point of view from that of the serious blogger. It determines for the blogger a different and alien point of integration for her/his own complex and aesthetically-nuanced blogging process--namely, its own corporate machinery and machinations.

Movies: Oscars: Elbowing out Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, the Oscar cult celebrates its week

Roger Friedman reports in his Fox 411 email newsletter (Feb19,27):

Oscar Week Begins:
All Hail Helen and ForestAt last, we are at the start of Oscar week. It’s a good thing, too. Dreamgirls needs about a day and a half to reach $100 million. The snubbed musical came “this close” over the weekend to the magic number, but fell short about $750,000.

But Oscar week 2007, if there is any justice (and usually there isn’t) in Hollywood, should belong to Martin Scorsese. After near misses with The Aviator and Gangs of New York, America’s finest director looks certain to pick up Best Director this Sunday night and maybe even Best Picture. I can only say maybe. Scorsese fans have been disappointed too many times.

What is certain about Sunday night? This much: Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson.

Queen Helen is so certain that Dame Judi Dench, whose performance in Notes on a Scandal is incendiary, is skipping the show to have knee surgery. She’s not being a sore loser, but simply practical in a Dame Judi way. She’s got to get back on the London stage. And she already has an Oscar (1999, Shakespeare in Love).

What’s uncertain: Is Peter O'Toole going to come back to Hollywood just to watch Whitaker win? O’Toole had a grand time at the nominees’ luncheon and then went home to England. Making the long trip back does seem pointless if he doesn't think he'll win, but O’Toole’s presence should enliven things.

And what about the spoilers? Little Miss Sunshine, a dark-horse film that was birthed at Sundance, could upset everything with a Best Picture win. Based on its Screen Actors Guild award for Best Cast — as well as producers and writers’ guild nods — Sunshine could throw a dark shadow across Scorsese’s The Departed. Stranger things have happened.

Meanwhile, the real drama of the weekend may wind up with the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday. After a few seasons of paralleling the Oscar nominations, this year the Spirits have chosen more of an independent path.

Best Feature should be a dog fight between Little Miss Sunshine and Half Nelson. Best Male Lead, I hope, will go to Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson.

As for Best Female Lead? The real fun would be if Catherine O'Hara gets it for For Your Consideration. Talk about making a catty statement to the Academy Awards!

Mr Friedman's judgment is always at the top for me, but I dare say the darkhorse has its own merits. So I'm divided on what to look forward to on that one matter.

Read/WriteWeb on iReader link previewer

R:WW on iReader link previewer
Originally uploaded by Anaximaximumphotographics.

See previous post on iReader. Blog entry on Technics, by Technowlb.

Technics: Previewing links: iReader is a flawed but invigorating approach to live-links previews

With this edition of refWrite Backpage's column on technical topics, our columnist wishes to announce the change of his name from Owlie Scowlie to Technowlb.

I found very interesting info on iReader, a new Firefox extension that allows you to hover your pointer/mouse over a live link on a blog-entry on your browser, for which pause before clicking, you are rewarded with an imperfect preview of the content of the page you are considering clicking to read via the live link. In other words, you won't have to waste your time if the new page doesn't really interest you upon previewing it momentarily.

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie / Technowlb

iReader is something like Snap and a small number of similar previewers. However, iReader is based on a different technical approach. It scans and summarizes the linked page, and gives a summary of the concepts of that page's content. And there's the problem, a very cretive problem indeed. Sometimes in its present stage of develpment the new Firefox extension can't do justice to the semantic task is has undertaken. ireader is semantics based! As a bonus, the new extension works (but not yet perfectly) on all webpages and both for Windows and Macs (sorry, I don't know yet if it can handle Linux at all).

The full name is iReader Web Previewer. I'm not sure whether refWrite will adopt this previewer (or any other for that matter); but the technical considerations are certainly intereting for pointing the way to a possible future for one or more or all of our rW present 5 pages.

this is only a test, says Ianne

this is only a test
Originally uploaded by lanne.

Quite beauteous!

Technics: Internet: Thawtprovocation from Read/Write Web

Read/Write Web is an email newsletter we get daily. Today it's got an stimulating article, "Read/WriteWeb on del.icio.us" (Feb15) from which a quote seems a propos to this column. I hardly ever click-up the companion site of the newsletter, but as background to the quote here's an important point that contextualizes what follows.

The pattern on del.icio.us is less obvious, but things become more clear once we realize that del.icio.us and comments on a blog reflect different kinds of actions. Comments reflect passions, bookmarks serve as references - so there is little overlap between them. More importantly, comments (like posts) are short lived. Unfortunately in our day and age, news and even analysis has a life span of a few hours. Once a post is off the front page of a blog, it is less discoverable and typically is not commented on anymore.

The bookmarks of del.icio.us, however, have a longer lifespan. After the first person bookmarks a post, it starts traveling through the del.icio.us network, acquiring more and more links, and growing stronger. What popular bookmarks indicate is a combination of time and usefulness. All of these posts are roughly 6 months old. It is likely that in another 6 months a new batch of R/WW posts will cross the 500 threshold on del.icio.us. This is just how references and networks evolve.

My uncle Owlb (editor of refWrite) insists I record each of my posts on delicious, so I do so. What the deuce? What's good for the gander is as good for the goose!

Technotes, by Owlie Scowlie

While I'm at it, did you notice on today's refWrite frontpage we updated the Valentine's piece by Unc with a YouTube 41-second videoclip (I'm the guy who got Hizz Nubbs to place it on the page, but I've got to give credit to columnist Audiovisiotor for finding it. Teamwork's a scream.

TV: Movie: SciFi has been meagre on my cable supplier (low budget) but a Mars flick with Kilmer cawt me

I stumbled on an astronaut movie about a team that heads to Mars and enters into a nitemare where most of the team dies, with guilt heavy on one of the characters. The Val Kilmer character tho, is a good guy. His role affords the movie a bittersweet redemptive ending of sorts.Is there water on Mars? In this tale, it turns out there is. Is there plant-life on Mars? In this story, there is--algae. Is there animal life on Mars? Here it turns out there are swarms of a voracious insect-species which eats not only algae but, as it turns out, human blood and flesh to boot. Besides the Mars-based ontology just outlined, we meet from Earth not just humans but super-intelligent robots, one AI cybercritter is integral to the team's space ship who comes with the team from Earth to orbit Mars at the command of the captain. Also from Earth is a a free-travelling servant-warrior machine (a cyborg with no flesh or body parts other than metals, electricity, and software), an AI machine who/which turns on its human bosses. So, the movie can serve as a pop-education piece on the ontological kingdoms--plant, animal, human, posthuman ArtificialIntelligence creatures--to teach a philosophical point, in a reformational Christian framework if a teacher chooses to do so.

Movies, by Audiovisiotor

I'll have to find the title and the list of dramatis personae. (Found it: Red Planet, released 2000.) But the main point I want to make as a viewer and reviewer is simply that this SciFi adventure flick held my attention and was entertaining, with an edge about the theme of good and evil in the human heart. The tragic death of one of the team, while guilt-producing for another team member, was an accident. At that latter team member's demise, we experience a kind of karma because the guilt-ridden person also was simply not pure of heart, proved by his later act of betrayal of his colleagues and then his own death at the "hands" of the AI metalborg.

And yet we are allowed at the end to identify with the sole survivor from the ground team, and to be delited when he makes it back to the ship in its orbit above all the ground activity on Mars itself, where he is rescued by the space ship's captain, a woman. A Valentine's movie?

Aesthetics: Arts: Chinese New Year celebrant in parade, Sydney, Australia

chinese new year parade sydney 2007
Originally uploaded by mädchenkrawall.

Madchen's set of fotos for her series "Chinese New Year parade, Sydney, Feb 11, 2007," presents this eyes-to-eyes evocation that bring the lady and the viewer into close, even intimate, contact--yet retaining considerable mystery. The effect has to do with the fotographer's framing / cropping of the image. Go to the source on Flicker and view the parade thru the photo-artist's lens.

Selecting fotographers' work to view,
by Owlie Scowlie