Daily Links
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An excellent case study in flexible data schemas.
Daily Links
YouTube – Johnny Cash – Redemption
Today would have been Johnny Cash’s 77th birthday
Daily Links
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"The president carried this idea forward last night, delivering a national address that was, at its core, a full-throated defense of government intervention."
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Obama used the word “crisis” 11 times — more than twice as much as any other president. Hoover used it only four times in 1932 during the Great Depression.
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"Once extracted from marks these login credentials could be used for a variety of malign purposes ranging from impersonation to identity theft, or simply for sending spam. The motive for the attack is unclear."
Unclear? How about identity theft, impersonation, sending spam, theft?
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Roy Blount Jr., president of the Authors Guild, states his case against Kindle's new text-to-speech technology.
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Some interesting thoughts on President Obama's Feb. 24th adress to Congress.
Ginx.com
I signed up for ginx.com yesterday and I enjoyed checking it out.
There are at least three things I like.
- Links are expanded and titles are displayed
As a bit.ly user I’d prefer people click on the shortened link but I know there is nothing I can do to have control over that and it’s only a preference.
As a user, I love to be able to see the real link before clicking. I tend to agree with Dave Winer that this is easy to do and Twitter will certainly add this. At the very least, Twitter clients will add this feature.
I’ve also noticed that not all links are expanded – screen shot.
- It keeps track of the links I’ve clicked
I never really thought of having this as part of the Twitter experience but several times I’ve used search.twitter.com to find a link I’d opened. In most cases I did this so I could remember who posted the link, which brings me to what is by far my favorite feature.
- It gives me an easy way to reply or retweet after I’ve read the page linked to
I love this feature.
Frequently, I click on links in tweets and I want to review the content later. Until now, If I wanted to @reply on the content I would have to go back and find the original post using search.twitter.com as noted above. Now I have a much better option. The links open a framed page with information in the top frame about the user who posted the link and an easy way to reply, dm, or retweet after I’ve read the page (screen shot).
Daily Links
Slumdog Millionaire Steals the Show
First of all, I loved this movie. I had not read the book and I fully expected it to have an ending that strayed from the typical “feel good” Hollywood movie. I’m okay with that – I don’t particularly care for “everything turns out in the end” films.
I loved the movie from the beginning. I felt it was a lock for Sound Mixing, Film Editing, and Cinematography. Those are actually the three categories I am best qualified to vote on – in that order. I also assumed it should win for Directing and Writing – two things I know a little bit about.
I also loved the music. I raved about it so much that my wife made it her pick for original score and song even though she had not seen the movie. I picked it for those as well.
Just a couple of days before the Oscars I read a piece that had a gripe about the film and I would like to hear your thoughts. I found the piece via SteveSilver.net - http://bit.ly/u4OtI
Daily Links
Oscar Picks
I forgot to post these before the show started. Oops!
I decided to vote as if I were actually voting. This is not the way I would vote if I were trying to guess the winners in Vegas.
The hardest categories for me were Best Leading Actress and Live Action Short. Meryl Streep was the first I saw and I thought for sure noone could top that performance. I’ve since seen them all and it is a very tough call.
I’ve placed my second choice for some in parenthesis.
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire (The Reader)
Actor in a Leading Role: Richard Jenkins (Mickey Rourke)
Actress in a Leading Role: Meryl Sreep (Anne Hathaway)
Directing: Slumdog Millionaire (Frost/Nixon)
Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger (Robert Downey Jr.)
Actress in a Supporting Role: Viola Davis (Penelope Cruz)
Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire (Doubt)
Original Screenplay: Frozen River (In Bruges)
Animated Feature: WALL-E
Animated Short: Lavatory – Lovestory (La Maison en Petits Cubes)
Live Action Short: New Boy (Manon on the Asphalt)
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire (Changeling)
Score: Slumdog Millionaire – I loved the music in this movie!
Song: Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire
Visual Effects: Iron Man
Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire (The Dark Knight)
Sound Editing: WALL-E
Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
Art Direction: Changeling (The Duchess)
Costume Design: The Duchess (Milk)
Makeup: Benjamin Button (Hellboy II)
Documentary Feature: Encounters at the End of the World (Man on Wire)
Documentary Short: The Witness – the only one I saw in this category 
Foreign Language Film: Waltz with Bashir – didn’t see any in this category.
Daily Links
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I have got to try this.
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"There are about ten thousand billion billion habitable planets in the observable universe, and some of these Earth-like worlds could be found by a mission set to launch early next month, a leading planet-formation theorist now speculates."
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A great way to browse for movies available to watch instantly.
Daily Links
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A great list of CSS tools. Not all the tools are great, but the list is.
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An interesting look at the stats of retweeting.
links for 2009-02-16
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I think this makes a lot of sense.
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Wow
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Fun logos for V-Day
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I was surprised George W. Bush ranked so high, but the 6 below him make sense.
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Create a massive information stream.
Update on My Oscar Hunt
I posted a while back about my hunt to see many of the Oscar nominated films and I wanted to post an update.
I saw all of the shorts.
I also saw Man On Wire, In Bruges, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Visitor, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, and Benjamin Button. I enjoyed all of them. I thought Slumdog was fantastic and Button was much better than I expected.
I tried Wanted but turned it off after a few minutes. It was clear it was not my kind of film.
I have The Duchess and Frozen River at home and I am off to watch Frozen River now.
Daily Links
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Take it easy dude!
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Well, how about that.
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If I had a TV, I’d watch it!
Daily Links
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No comment.
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I had to smile just reading this. Great fun!
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Smart kid.
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A great idea.
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Old news now, but still interesting.
Gran Torino
In a strange twist of circumstances, I ended up seeing this film twice. After the second viewing I am even more disappointed that Clint Eastwood was not nominated for acting (directing too probably). The academy nominated the same films for directing and best picture which I think is a lazy call to begin with, but that is not something I want to rant about now.
I fully expect the actor who wins the Oscar to mention this performance – it was brilliant. When Walt (Clint Eastwood’s character) said “I could blow your head off, and sleep like a baby,” I had no doubt about it. Make no mistake, Walt is as tough a character as Eastwood has every portrayed – perhaps the toughest – but there is more to Walt than tough and I believed that too.
I was worried at the beginning of the film. The exposition of Eastwood’s character came off as a bit forced to me at first. Once I made my way past that (and one apparent moment of out-of-character behavior), I enjoyed this movie very much. I even cried a little the second time through. I do cry more easily at movies than most men, but not usually the second time I’ve seen one. I still consider myself as masculine as any man. I’m actually a pretty tough guy, though not nearly as tough as Walt – I’m sure of that.
FeedFlix: Getting My Money’s Worth at Netflix
I’ve said this before – I love Netflix.
I first discovered Netflix via it’s affiliate program in 2000. I’d been using the Internet for years but I was just starting my online profit-making ventures. The thought of shelling out $24.99 per month to get movies in the mail was much too expensive for me compared to the system I’d used since 1982 but I loved the idea and apparently lots of others did too because the affiliate program was very profitable. Netflix actually helped me survive through several months when not much other income was coming in.
I finally subscribed myself when the price fell to $5.99 a month and my family loved the experience. We liked it so much we decided to set my son up with his own BlockBuster Online account so he could have his own queue and we were could drop movies off at the store and pick up a movie on a whim – something that was not possible on Netflix (until they released instant watching – don’t get me started on that, I love it!).
There was something dreadfully wrong with BB compared to Netflix, though. It came with that feeling that I was being exploited by a giant corporation that cared little about my experience. They insisted on tacking on $0.08 per month for the DE rental tax, they always insisted on identification though I’d frequented that location for four years, they changed the terms of the coupon program, the price went up etc. Meanwhile, Netflix sends me an email announcing a reduction in the rate to $4.99! So, we ditched BB and jacked up our membership at Netflix to 5 movies at a time.
Then we found out about the sub-queues and I read something about Netflix users blowing through 80+ movies per month and my son and I realized the potential for seeing some great movies. We thought we were getting our money’s worth but we knew we could do better. Like most users we’d hold on to a movie for longer than we should. So, we set up my son for two per month and my wife, daughter and I for one each.
A couple of weeks ago I discovered FeedFlix, a site that would let me check on my account to see if I was truly getting a good value. On my first check, it only gauged my queue and my cost per movie was $2.55. I asked about support for sub-queues and learned that they expected to have that in place soon. I did not hear back from them but my last check worked as I wanted. It recognized me as a five-per-month and my price per movie is now $1.98.
What I’d like to see now is the ability to check each queue separately. Now that I think about it I realize that may be what the FeedFlix team meant when they told me they were working on support for sub-queues. If so, we should expect it soon. If not, this is my official request to have that done. I’d like to see how my son does on his. I am going to guess less than $1 per. My wife and daughter will be much higher. Obviously, it’s just my overly curious geekiness – the important thing is the total cost for all five.
If you’d like to know if you are getting your money’s worth check it out. You can also find recommendations and learn some other interesting things about your use like the amount of time you hold DVDs on average.
Have fun!
Daily Links
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Phelps doesn't fall into the trap of denying everything like many athletes – good for him.
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I was thinking about this when I learned of Magnolia's data loss. Make sure you have your data backed up.
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We have a lot of those remotes but don't always know where they are.
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No wonder print media is suffering. Wow!
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We actually bough a 360 this Christmas so we could watch these films on the big screen. Being able to play Halo again was a fringe benefit.
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There is no other way to say it. I LOVE NetFlix. It is actually strangely ironic that NetFlix helped me earn enough to be able to afford to subscribe ($24.99/month back then). I became an affiliate for NetFlix in 2000 and it was the first real success for my online ventures. I haven't stopped making money since and the family and I blow through at least a dozen movies a month now.
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Agreed. I'm not doing it wrong – everyone else is.
Super Bowl Ads
Super Bowl Sunday is the one day when many people look forward as much to the advertisements as to the game itself. The last few years have been a letdown in my opinion, but there have been some great ones. You can see a collection of them at superbowl-ads.com.
The first great commercial I remember was the Mac commercial “1984″. We don’t consider the Skins disgrace an “afterthought” but the ad did help ease the pain.
There have been some good ones since. The Budweiser horses playing football, the Budweiser dalmations, and the e-Trade baby to name a few.
I am looking forward to the baby’s return this year.
Is Pittsburgh’s ‘Super Bowl’ delay a Bad Sign?
People are saying this is a sign of the decay of our educational system.
Don’t be ridiculous! It’s the Super Bowl – in Pittsburgh!
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This website is simply a place for me to express my opinions. I post my thoughts on faith, family, freedom, and fun. -
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