fragmentary

Guess what? It's time to save the Internet again. This time around the government is calling it CISPA (aka H.R. 3523), but it's the same idea as SOPA/PIPA: the government wants to eradicate citizens' rights to privacy and take complete control over the Internet. The sweeping language around "cybersecurity purposes" is so over broad and vague that it:

Would allow companies to monitor and collect any kind of data, no matter how sensitive it was, even private emails and text messages. 

Would let companies share your data with anyone at all, including other companies and the federal government.

Gives companies total immunity from all liability for their actions, no matter how many peoples’ privacy is violated.

Hands the keys to this data to intelligence agencies, which lack transparency and public accountability.

Please join me and the EFF in urging our representatives to vote against CISPA:

→ Don’t Let Congress Use "Cybersecurity" Fears to Trample on Civil Liberties - Electronic Frontier Foundation

While looking at EllisLab's ExpressionEngine as a possible solution for an upcoming project, I came across this little gem: EllisLab's MojoMotor, billed as "the publishing engine that does less". There are no advanced content management features, but it provides a very easy, very slick on-site page editing/management experience ideal for non-technical people who just need a very basic web presence, such as busy small business owners, club organizers, and your mom.

I haven't tried actually installing it anywhere, so I have no idea what this thing looks like under the hood, but I liked what I saw in 15 minutes messing around with the demo (which, oddly, is not linked from their main site; I had to Google it). It is a commercial product, but at $50/license, it's priced pretty affordably. If you're a freelancer looking for a simple, easy to use solution for your clients, it's definitely worth a look.

Please take a moment to sign Google's on-line petition against SOPA/PIPA.

The first half of this movie is a compelling drama about children investigating strange events in the wake of a tragedy in small town America in the early 80's; the second half is a toothless horror/disaster movie where children save the day through the power of forgiveness. The movie works well when it keeps its focus tightly on the children and their families, and if it had been willing to be a smaller, more personal film, it could have been very good. Unfortunately, it was instead made to be a big budget Hollywood blockbuster. As the scope of the film widens, there's soon too much happening to leave room for the small moments and interpersonal relationships that made the early parts of the film so watchable, and yet, clearly aiming for its PG-13 rating, the action never produces a real sense of peril, which prevents the build-up of suspense that would have been necessary for the latter half of the movie to really work. In the end, there's an attempt to thematically tie together these two halves and make it feel like one cohesive plot, and enjoyment of this movie largely hinges on that final, pivotal scene: if it works for you, you'll likely leave the theater happy. For me, the connection it strains to make is just too big of a stretch, so I left unsatisfied.

Mad Area Driving School completely failed to provide me with any service whatsoever.

First, I tried to contact them by email, but all they would reply is that I needed to call them. If they won't help customers by email, why do they publish an email address on their website?

So I took the extra time out of my day to call them, and we scheduled an appointment for an instructor to pick me up for a driving lesson. When the time came around for the lesson, I was standing at my living room window looking out over the street, waiting. Twenty minutes later, when there was still no sign of them, I called for an ETA, thinking maybe they were running late. No one answered their office phone, so I had to leave a message. 

They never showed up, nor called for directions, nor made any attempt to contact me. I didn't hear anything back at all until the end of the following day, after normal business hours. By this point I had given up on them and already scheduled lessons through another company, so I didn't want to waste my time talking to them. But they called three times in less than an hour, so I finally answered just so they would stop interrupting my evening.

The representative on the phone identified himself as Jim from Madison Area Driving School (who I believe is the owner), then simply said, "You called?" He didn't seem to have a clue who I was or what he was supposed to be calling me about, even though I had left a pretty clear message. I tried to tell him I was going with another company and no longer needed his assistance, but he pushed so I gave him the time and address of my appointment and explained that they had stood me up. He immediately insisted that they were there, I assured him that they hadn't been, and he again insisted that they were. I said that I was there, so I KNEW they hadn't been, and that I didn't want to waste my time discussing it further; his only response was to hang up on me.

Now, even though I was frustrated, the owner could have salvaged the situation by simply apologizing for the mistake and trying to figure out how it happened -- in other words, by showing even a modicum of basic customer service skill. Instead, he all but called me a liar.

Despite that, I still want to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume that the owner was just going with what the paperwork said, not intentionally lying to me. But if the instructor had, say, made an honest mistake and went to the wrong address, why didn't they call me right then? They had my phone number. If he had just called, I could have given him directions and this whole issue would have been fixed before it even started. 

I also want to make it clear that, though I was getting pretty frustrated with the phone rep (justifiably, I think), I remained reasonably polite throughout the conversation; I was not shouting, swearing or insulting him in any way, even though he was all but calling me a liar. Hanging up on me was completely uncalled for.

I can't comment on their instruction technique, but their office staff seems to be completely incompetent, and their customer service couldn't get much worse. The only way they could possibly fail more than they already have is if they try to bill me for the lesson they skipped out on (they haven't so far, but I'm watching my mailbox). 

If you need driving lessons, I've had a mostly positive experience with my new instructor at 4 Lakes Driving School. But avoid Mad Area Driving School like the plague.

(Review cross-posted to Yelp and Google.)

How did Blade Runner ever come to be considered a science fiction classic?

I realize it was made in the early 80's, so I'm willing to look past the garish soundtrack and laughable attempts at futuristic technology and architecture. And I understand that showing seas of blinking lights and giant animated billboards likely had more impact before that kind of thing was commonplace.

But none of that excuses the film from being an aimless, lumbering morass of poorly shot scenes populated with dimensionless cut-outs in place of characters who give each other long, expressionless stares in place of exchanging lines of dialog (let alone actually acting). It repeatedly touches on ideas about identity and the nature of humanity that could be really interesting to explore, but unfortunately it only shoulders past them without so much as muttering "excuse me" as it plods inexorably towards nowhere in particular.

The romantic subplot that seems like it's probably supposed to be a key part of what's supposed to pass for the plot is awkwardly introduced, and never really gets developed beyond a sex scene that might actually be rape if you squint a little, and a sudden and baffling declaration of love in the end. Though the movie does actually spend some time on the two characters together, the utter lack of chemistry (which might relate to the utter lack of personalities) makes this the most wooden attempt at romance I've seen since Hayden Christianson deadpanned his way into Natalie Portman's pants in Attack of the Clones.

Seriously, I don't think I can come up with a single good thing to say about this movie. It wasn't even short. That was a full two hours of my life that I'll never get back.

According to their initial marketing push, with Google+, Google set out to create the next generation of social network, one that would provide the nuance of real-life interaction that other social networks (i.e., Facebook) lack, in part by giving users better control over their privacy. However, the result, while intriguing in many ways, misses the mark so badly that one wonders if that was really even the target they were aiming for. To illustrate, let's contrast some key differences between Google+ and the biggest name in social networking, Facebook:

On Google+, "public" literally means public, and is visible to anyone on the Web whether they have a Google+ account or not, and can be found with search engines. On Facebook, even "public" usually means limited to Facebook users who are logged in.

On Google+, much of your profile (which is required to include your full legal name) is forced to be completely public. This means even if you block someone, you can't make your on-line presence cease to exist to that particular person; simply by having a Google+ account, you're making your on-line presence *public*. On Facebook, you can make your profile private, so no one can even tell your profile exists unless you choose to friend them.

Most importantly, on Google+, adding someone to your circles just means you want to read what they share with you. It is the same as bookmarking a website. On Facebook, adding someone to your friends list is explicitly creating a mutually agreed upon relationship between two people.

That's *the* key difference between Facebook and Google+: Facebook maps social relationships. Google+ maps reading habits.

In other words, when Google set out to develop a new social network... they didn't develop a social network at all. They developed a publishing platform.

Talk about an epic fail.

I just watched a preview of Windows 8.

I've known for some time that phones and computers would eventually share an interface... But I thought it would be because phones advanced to be as powerful as computers; not because computers got dumbed down to be as primitive as phones.

If this steaming pile actually becomes the next Windows, I think it's going to be a very, very profitable move... for Apple.

"If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all." --Noam Chomsky

Wallpaper based off of a photo of the Memorial Union area. Available in two different sizes for your resolution-matching pleasure.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

We watched the premiere of the new season of Doctor Who, and I'm tentatively liking Matt Smith, so far. He's no Eccleston, but he's certainly better than Tennant was in his early episodes. His version of the Doctor seemed to lack something, but it remains to be seen whether that's a result of the new writing and direction, or if Smith just needs time to grow into the role, much as Tennant did. He's great at getting across the energetic and excited side of the Doctor, but so far there's no sign of the gravitas that should come from over 900 years of life, and I'm skeptical that he'll ever be able to get that side of the Doctor across.

In fact, between Smith's decidedly youthful performance, the arbitrarily revamped TARDIS and other changes to the show, I find myself not thinking of this new show as Doctor Who at all -- I really think of it as a spin-off about the Doctor's much younger nephew.

It is for all intents and purposes a whole new show, with new actors, new characters, new writers, new TARDIS, new music, new opening and a new logo -- Which is strange, because it used to be that the re-envisioned, rebooted remakes of shows would be years apart, and clearly separated. Now it happens so soon that they try to pretend it's still the same show, even when it's not.

I kinda miss Doctor Who. But I'm looking forward to seeing what this new show, that also just happens to be called Doctor Who, brings us.

Over all, I liked "The End of Time" quite a bit. I thought it was loads better than any of the previous season finales in the New Who (which, frankly, have consistently sucked). For one thing, it managed to keep the worst of the schmaltz and fan service confined to a short section at the end, and while that wasn't my favorite part of the episode by any means, I felt it made for a fitting end to Russell T. Davies's tenure as show runner; really, what would RTD's big sendoff be without at least a little of his signature combo of schmaltz and fan service?

I'm tentatively looking forward to the new season under Steven Moffat. As I'm sure I've posted before, I'm extremely skeptical of the new baby Doctor (he's younger than ME), but I'm willing to withhold judgment until I see him in the role; and all the best episodes of the new series have been written by Moffat (who's also responsible for the excellent britcom Coupling), so while I have my misgivings, I'm trying to remain cautiously optimistic.

(Copied from a conversation on Facebook)

We watched Avatar in 3D for New Year's.

When a movie has as much hype surrounding it as Avatar does, it's difficult not to go in with preconceptions. I didn't want to have any unreasonable expectations, but the story sounded interesting and I've generally enjoyed Cameron's work in the past, so I went in expecting it to be decent -- say, a solid three-star flick -- with a ton of pretty CGI eye candy as a bonus. Pretty reasonable, I think. Even so, the movie wasn't what I expected.

People will react differently to this film depending not only on their particular tastes, but in large part on their physical reaction to the visual techniques used. Many people have reported experiencing motion sickness, others have complained of strange reflections in their 3D glasses, while still others just found the graphics less effective than I did. Obviously, I only speak for myself, your mileage may vary, etc.

But for me, the film was absolutely mind-blowing.

First of all, the story was excellent; even though nothing specific in it felt particularly new, it managed to take many popular tropes from genre fiction -- so many it felt like they made a checklist of everything the modern fanboy would want to see -- and managed to combine them in a way that worked and for the most part felt natural. If you like elves, cat people, tree-hugging eco-parables, scads of nearly-topless women, dragons, mentally-bonded dragon riders, floating islands and mecha... this is very much a movie for you.

Second, the presentation. The 3D messed with my eyes at first -- I blinked and squinted a lot through the first 5 minutes or so of the film, and even after I got used to it, there were periodically scenes where it seemed jarringly off: the distance between objects on the screen would seem either flat or exaggerated, or one object would be in focus while the background was blurry, and because the image appeared 3D, when I looked at the blurry objects in the background my eyes would strain trying to make them focus. In other words, it was obvious this was the first 3D film they had made, and they're still learning the best techniques for this sort of film making. I'm sure many of these kinks will be worked out with more experience, and really, they were only an occasional nuisance. Most of the time, the 3D combined with the best CGI in history to create the first mostly-CGI movie where I didn't spend the whole time marveling at how good the CGI was. Though there are many beautiful scenes throughout the movie, it never felt like "eye candy" in the usual sense, because I kept forgetting that I wasn't watching real people right in front of us. It just didn't look like a movie. It looked like reality.

In a recent post on Andrea Brokaw's blog, she said:

It's fundamental, writers are told repeatedly, not to try following market trends but to write what's what we're passionate about. Don't write something you don't love just because it's selling better. People will know when you're faking it. Follow your heart...

To which I wrote the following response:  

"People will know when you're faking it."

Bullshit. I've read quotes from comic artists (And I believe this applies to writers and actors as well, though perhaps to a lesser extent) talking about how people will always say things like "Oh I could tell you were really into this comic" on projects they did purely for the money, and just as often have people saying "Man you really phoned it in on this one" when they'd been working really hard on something they cared about. The end product doesn't always represent what went into making it. If you write a story you don't care about, but follow all the rules, the latest trends and make it technically superb, even if you personally don't have your heart set on it, most readers won't know. It will sell, it will make money, and no one but you will know what you were truly feeling when you wrote it.

"People will know when you're faking it."

This is just another example of the romanticization of art. People look at great works of art -- be they books, paintings, movies, whatever -- and they say "Oh what talent you have" and talk about how this piece of art is an "expression of the artist's inner heart and soul" and rail against those who have "sold out" by creating works of art for money instead of because it's their "true calling". This is all bullshit.

There's little meaningful difference between writing a good story and building a wall. Each works best when you follow certain rules and certain structures, put them together in particular ways, and either way, you don't magically write an awesome story or build a solid wall just from your "inner talent" the first time out -- you write a shitty story and build a wall that falls down, then you look at what you did, you learn from it, and practice, practice, practice... Until eventually you've developed the SKILL to tell a moving story or build a solid wall successfully.

Once you've developed that skill, you can use it for any reason. It doesn't matter if you're writing a story you LOVE any more than it matters if you're building a wall you LOVE -- If you have the skills to do it right, and put NOT your heart and soul into it, but merely your time and effort, 99% of the people who read your story or lean on your wall will neither know nor care how you personally felt about the work you did. They'll just know that you created a good solid work.

Watched "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage (actually, I watched it with my wife, but that's neither here nor there). I had expected the sci-fi premise (a page full of numbers predicts future disasters) to just be justification for a fairly typical Hollywood adventure/disaster flick, but while it had its big Hollywood CGI set piece moments, overall it's actually more of a suspense story (or trying to be -- I found it rather predictable, but I tend to find Hollywood movies predictable). It actually fell much more solidly into the sci-fi category than I had expected; there were some neat ideas woven into the story, but unfortunately they were dragged down by heavy-handed religious overtones that turned the whole film into little more than an allegory about faith.