People are Awesome 2011:
(via kottke)
Battleship: the Movie
They’re really, seriously making “Battleship: The Movie“. And you thought comic book movies were bad?
(On the other hand, Funny or Die has a great “What other movies could they make?” post, which happens to include Clue(do):
When your family is more prolific than the Kennedys’ and more secretive than the Knights Templar, reunions can be a tedious affair. Especially when the mysterious, estranged patriarch is discovered dead before dinner can be served. Now in two days the Von Clu family must try to find a killer without murdering each other first. (Will be a quirky reboot of the storied Clue franchise)
Starring Bill Murray as Colonel Mustard, Meryl Streep as Ms. White, Angelica Houston as Mrs. Peacock, Luke Wilson as Rev. Green, Christina Ricci as Miss Scarlett and Jason Schwartzman as Professor Plum. Written and directed by Wes Anderson. That joke is an elevator pitch worth $25 million right there.
Vale, Steve Jobs
I was at work, browsing idly on my iPhone when I stumbled upon the news, linked to a short news blast from the AP. This wasn’t fake: it was a statement by Apple, and the language was solemn.
Man oh man, the shock froze me for a minute. As though I was searching for a clue, somewhere in there, that this wasn’t real. But it was, and the Apple homepage spoke volumes in its simplicity, their tribute as minimal as could be, befitting the man.
The amount of coverage Jobs’ passing has received is off the chart. I thought that perhaps this matched the level of Michael Jackson’s passing, but the sordid circumstances surrounding that doesn’t hold a candle to what I’ve seen in the media today. It may well be the technology focused echo chamber I live in, but it certainly felt like everyone was talking about it.
At lunch, outside the Apple store in Sydney, three bouquets lay on the pavement. Five minutes later, another had joined them. Astonishing.
it would seem a day for reflecting on Jobs and his way of thinking, and the most intimate view you could have of his thoughts and philosophy seems to have come from his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (available on Youtube):
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Perhaps the most eloquently put epitaph for Steve Jobs today comes from Barack Obama:
Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world. The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.
Vale, Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011.
Climate Change and the End of Australia
Jeff Goodell, for Rolling Stone: Climate Change and the End of Australia:
As the Big Dry dragged on, rainfall declined in the southern part of the country, where most of the people live and the majority of the food is grown, fueling the risk of catastrophic bush fires. The reasons for this change in rainfall patterns are complex, but many climate scientists believe that the Big Dry was driven by subtle shifts in the structure of Australia’s atmosphere caused by the dramatic buildup of carbon pollution. “The storm track, which brings rain-bearing weather to Australia, has shifted a few degrees south,” says Karoly, the University of Melbourne scientist. “Rain that had fallen on southwestern and southeastern Australia now falls on the ocean.” Global warming, in other words, shifted the continent’s vital rainfall out to sea.
For farmers in southeastern Australia, the minute shift in atmospheric conditions was devastating.
Nothing you don’t already know if you live in Australia, but seeing it all condensed into this article for foreign consumption makes it all the more relevant.
Clark is Offline
These days, when you lose someone you care for, the digital world keeps their footprints:
My Gmail is a priceless hoard of us making plans, telling inside jokes, calling each other “snoodle” and “bubbies.” I type his name into the search field and enter a world of the unscripted dialogue that filled our 9-to-5 existence. I become immersed in the coziness of our union. In hundreds of chats automatically saved to my account, we express our love for each other readily and naturally in our own private speech. This is a history of our relationship that we didn’t intend to write, one that runs parallel to the one authored by his uncontainable illness.
Movie Review: Horrible Bosses
Horrible Bosses: Jason Bateman, Jason Sudekis, Jennifer Anniston, Kevin Spacey, and Colin Farrell – and that’s only the part of the cast you’re likely to recognise just by name. Nimble and adept, modern and unflinching with enough to keep the laughs going, this comedy provides some light relief without compromising or requiring you to switch your brain off. ★★★
Windows 8 Developer Preview
I’ve been an Apple user since 2006, but I’ve been a Windows user since 1993 – the sheer gravity of Microsoft Windows on the computing landscape is inescapable, and it’s given me a certain amount of perspective: you can’t be ideological about what you use to get your work done[ref]Or at least, it doesn’t help. YMMV.[/ref].
Last week, Microsoft introduced the upcoming Windows 8 at its BUILD conference to an audience of developers. In many ways, it’s almost the direct opposite of what Apple would do – introduce to devs and market to devs the biggest change in the user interface since Windows 95, instead of a consumer-friendly presentation. The key here is that Microsoft needs developers on board much more than they need the consumers – for all the hype Apple gets, it’s still only around 10% of the computing market, and the overwhelming weight of Microsoft in the corporate environment will give Windows inertia for years.
Windows 8 does something totally different, though: it pivots Microsoft’s market towards the consumer. This is a user interface that takes Windows Phone 7 and turns it up to 11 – everything is big fonted, with broad splashes of colour and blocks as the “icons” of applications, all geared towards touch. The traditional desktop-and-window application model that defines the name “Windows” is relegated to a “Classic”-style compatibility mode.
Microsoft is pitching this as the unifying OS, bringing tablets and desktops together, but what we’ve seen thus far of the OS suggests tablets and touchable screens are the way of the future as far as Microsoft is concerned, and the old-school of peripheral-based computing is a legacy to be supported.
To Microsoft’s credit though, that legacy is supported – as evidenced by the free public release of the developer preview build. You can go download it here, install away on any device[ref]Min requirements: 1GHz, 1GB RAM, 16GB HDD, DX9 Graphics – but it runs on virtual machines – I’m using VirtualBox[/ref] you so chose (with the obvious caveat emptor about being pre-release software), and have a play with it. That’s something you’d never see from Apple, and it goes to show – in my mind – the extent to which Microsoft is trying to get developers and cutting-edge users on board before this thing goes “live”.
Windows 8 is a complete rethink of how Windows works, and it will polarise. No longer are you opening programs from shortcuts to live in confined windows alongside other programs – you “tap” a “tile”, launching the program full screen. You do actions with swipes and taps, programs interact through “contracts”, and the idea of multitasking takes a bit of a back seat. Even IE 10 in “Metro” mode goes down the Apple route – no third-party plugins supported. This spells the end for Flash as we know it, if Windows too plunges the knife into Adobe’s back.
This is all not to say that touch is the only way to go – after all, this is a unifying effort. Windows offers the cop-out of Desktop mode, instantly familiar but also instantly dated in comparison to Metro-based apps. The desktop view is not designed for touch, so it’ll be interesting to see how this integrates into the wider Windows environment.
I’ve played around with the dev build in a virtual machine, and it really intrigues me as to where Microsoft is going with this. Metro really is a bottom-up rethink – it would be easier to get most people to understand the pivot from Windows to Mac than Windows 7 to Windows 8. Microsoft is taking that risk, willing to see the experiment through to ensure that a unified approach is being used for the OS. It’s admirable that there’s no desire to fracture the OS, but sometimes its unclear which will be the lead element of the design – for instance, Metro’s control panel doesn’t have half the options and offers the kick out to Desktop mode Control Panel to grant you full control.
All in all, I like it – it’s refreshing to see a fresh approach from Microsoft, and in taking the big & bold aspects of Windows Phone 7 to the full desktop scale, Microsoft has brought innovation back to the field. While Windows 8 currently feels built-for-touch, I’m sure Microsoft will refine this to make it more palatable to non-touch users prior to release. The Metro UI forces a total rethink on the developer, and some will thrive while others falter. This goes doubly so for software framework providers – Flash and Java appear to have their days numbered in the new format, and Microsoft are obviously pushing hard to enforce some control over their environment.
What does this mean for enterprise? I would suspect many IT managers are looking at Windows 8 with a lot of dread. Windows 7 tweaked the taskbar, but fundamentally you could follow the idea of programs and program management through from Windows 3.1. Windows 8 asks you to change your paradigm entirely, and those custom built VB6 programs from the guys you had spare after the Y2K bug was fixed are finally going to bite the bullet in terms of seamless experience. This is going to be a hard transition, and some users will be alienated along the way – I wouldn’t put it past Microsoft releasing a “professional” edition for non-touch devices where the traditional desktop remains the primary focus.
Finally, what does it mean for Apple? Simple: They’ve got a fight on their hands.
Julia, resign
At the same time you were blind to Rudd’s achievements, most importantly his tactical response to the global financial crisis mark I. It was fast, intelligent and successful. Few believe you can perform to his level for GFC II.
Neither the voters, according to the pollsters, nor the frightened people sitting behind you in the Reps. They know the party is doomed but are paralysed. They don’t have the guts to admit to a huge error of judgment and demand you leave.
That’s why you must resign. You started this fiasco. Only you can end it. That’s the only way to have a fighting chance. Not only in the next election but in the dramatic months between then and now.
Never, ever did I think I would find something in The Australian that I could point to as rational thought. Have a look at this chart of polling:
If Rudd had lost his way, Gillard is up the proverbial creek without a paddle and sinking fast.
Mining is Making Aussies Lazy
Interesting post from the MacroBusiness blog: looks like the widely reported cringe about Australia’s workplace productivity declining is far too overblown. To quote:
In his speech Dr Parkinson quoted figures showing that Australia’s annual productivity growth slipped from 2.1 per cent in the 1990s to 1.5 per cent in the 2000s. It is far more illuminating, however, to describe the productivity performance of the non-mining and mining sectors of the economy separately. This can be done by removing both mining output and the hours worked in the mining industry from the national figures and analysing the residual.
When such an adjustment is made productivity growth actually increases from the 2.1 per cent cited by Dr Parkinson to 2.4 per cent in the 2000s in the non-mining sectors of the economy.Figure 2 provides a comparison of the trend in productivity in the mining and non-mining industries over the period 1995 -2010.
The results of this disaggregation make clear that the existing industrial relations and wage setting arrangements in Australia are not acting as an impediment to productivity growth. The measured decline in average labour productivity is being caused by the unprecedented haste with which Australia’s mineral resources are being extracted. That is, high commodity prices are encouraging mining companies to exploit mineral deposits that require more energy, more capital and more labour to extract an additional tonne of output.
In the meantime, the headline is being reported as a crisis for Labor’s Fair Work IR laws, when it’s really just the result of an industry growing at a bonkers rate.
The Founding Fathers in a new light
History diversion: Today I learned… the “Founding Fathers” of America might not have been so pure in their motives after all:
As Ethan Allen: His Life and Times, a new and frustrating biography by Willard Sterne Randall, shows, Allen is hard to write about. He poses a challenge not so much because he is different from more famous Founders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin but because he resembles them perhaps a bit too much—in ways most Americans prefer not to think about.
…
Indeed, who wasn’t a land speculator in this freewheeling age? George Washington, a former surveyor, had amassed thousands of acres in the Ohio valley and spent 10 years lobbying the governor of Virginia to legalize his titles. Gen. Thomas Gage, who would lead British forces against Washington, held 18,000 acres, and had married into one of the greatest landowning families on the continent. When fighting broke out in 1775, these contested speculations loomed in the background.
If Allen had one thing in greater quantities than courage and verve, it was good timing. In the spring of 1775, just as officials were planning to arrest Allen and his Green Mountain Boys, a far greater insurrection broke out in Boston. Had the imperial crisis not come to a head just then, Allen would surely have been captured and executed.
and, alluding to the religious context of the time, the article makes mention of Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason, a text by one of the Founding Fathers that explicitly attacks Christianity in its then-modern form, along with straight-out calling the Bible just another book. Imagine someone on the level of the US President saying that these days – it’d cause apoplexies across the US and be liable to see him impeached before the week was through!
Fascinating that the US has warped into the strange country with conflicting drives that exists today.