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2005

Some people just don't get it

Some people just don’t get it, and Jack Valenti is one of them. The former head of the Motion Picture Assoc. of America, his voice is still heard in Hollywood as an advocate against movie piracy.

We all know who this is: in the early 80’s, he’s the one who predicted doom for the movie industry if the VCR was allowed to be legal – and we all know how that turned out for the movie industry – 20 years later 40% of their revenues are from DVD.

In a recent interview Mr. Valenti has many choice quotes of how he still doesn’t get it. Locking content to protect against “piracy” isn’t the answer. Embrace technology, share, and don’t get in the way of innovation and let people use their legally bought content how they want to.

I’d like to ask one question about the DMCA, and its effect on home moviemaking for personal use: Let’s say a homeowner is making an amateur video using video footage of his son playing pee-wee football. To jazz it up, he buys a copy of the movie Rudy and uses the De CSS program to strip it of its copy protection—

[Jack Valenti:]Well, then he’s committing a violation of federal law.

So if he wants to add a few seconds of crowd shots to the final version of the new home video he’s creating—

[Jack Valenti:]He should go to the company that owns the movie and get permission to do it. If you start that, where does it end? How much is a little snippet? Is it 10 seconds? Ten minutes? Thirty minutes? He might want the first 23 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, or all of Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain. Once people have the power to do a snippet, they could do a whole movie.

So you’re suggesting there is no fair use right to a few seconds?

[Jack Valenti:]There is no fair use to take something that doesn’t belong to you. That’s not fair use. If you’re a professor in a classroom, you show Singin’ in the Rain to your class. You can fast forward it, and there’s no performance fee for that. That’s fair use. Now, fair use is not in the law. People are taking fair use and changing it to unfair use and claiming that it’s fair use.

Mac Mini First Impressions

I’ve had a Mac Mini for the last week. I am ecstatic about getting it for a couple of reasons:

  • Mac OS X is the only operating system I don’t own.

  • Max OS X is based on Unix, and I’m a big Linux guy.

  • Finder’s new functionality in Tiger is supposed to be similar to Beagle.

  • PowerPC processor – again, only processor architecture I don’t own (Pentium 4, AMD, AMD64).

Ok, so I’m bragging a little bit, but I’ve wanted a Mac for a long time, and they’ve just been too darn expensive. Even the Mac Mini I customized on Apple.com when they came out for over a $1000 (this one was a gift, it’s the entry level one).

Initial thoughts: Mac OS X is as well done as everyone says. It’s polished, the bundle iLife applications are very good, and the OS is very intuitive. It has it’s quirks – I still haven’t found where to launch Dashboard and play with the desktop widgets. I’ve looked in the software folder, I’ve looked in the dock, and I’m stumped.

The form factor is awesome. This thing is about 20% smaller than I really expected it to be. It’s just so darn cute.

The bad: The entry level Mac Mini is way too damn slow. 256 megs in a modern day operating system just doesn’t cut it. It feels sluggish. And for a real kick in the teeth, the Apple store offered to upgrade it to 512 megs for $150 with free installation. $150 for 512 meg DDR 333 stick? I can go to the local Best Buy store and get a 512 stick for $30-$40 on ad and have the Geek Squad install it for $30. I didn’t even bother to ask Apple how much 1 gig is.

Overall, I’m pretty impressed. The tiny, tiny footprint of the machine combined with a well done operating system bodes well for Apple as they switch to Intel over the next two years. I still won’t switch from Linux though.

X3 Follow-Up

As I blogged the other day, talking to a cow-orker in the know, Kelsey Grammar will be playing Beast in the upcoming X-men 3 movie.

My cow-orker is pretty excited about it as he thinks it’s the perfect role. I can see it – he has the speech mannerisms down to play a smart scientist. He and I share the same concerns about Bret Ratner directing though.

Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere column had a brief mention of Ratner taking over in his “Wired” blog like piece on the front page, seperate from the stories he writes, that’s pretty harsh as well:

06/ 9/2005 5:53 AM

The fanboy community freaked last week when 20th Century Fox announced their decision to hire Breet Ratner to direct X-Men 3. Ratner will of course degrade the franchise. Not in any thuddingly obvious way but in a hundred little ways. One of these is his decision to add more laughs. “Not jokes for the sake of jokes,” Ratner said in a recent interview, but “jokes that come from character humor, that come from characters and that come from the situations.” This sounds to me like a guy saying he doesn’t entirely get (much less get off on) the X-Men mythology or metaphor, and that he’s a tiny bit bored by it so why not throw in some more gags? As Red Dragon was to Silence of the Lambs, X-Men 3…we know how this sentence ends, dont we? X-Men 3 will begin shooting in Vancouver in mid-August.

Apple & Intel

Icculus sums up similar thoughts to mine on Apple picking up Intel much better than I can.

He’s 100% right when it comes to gaming. And that’s me saying that after making the switch to Linux 100% this week (more on that later).

Episode III, Part 2

I figured out what’s been bothering me about Episode III. For as much as I love it, it’s Padme’s role that bothers me. In Episode I, Queen Amidala was portrayed as a strong character, who loved her planet, and fought the evils of the Trade Federation’s invasion. In Episode II, she was again a strong character as a Senator, trying to keep the Republic together when the Separtists threatened to destroy it.

In Episode III, her role is to be in love with Anakin. She’s not shown as a strong political figure anymore, just as someone who questions what side she’s on. Her love for Anakin is the major plot line, and she’s, at best, a secondary character relegated to worrying, instead of taking action like she did in the first two movies, whether it was traveling to Coruscant to defend Naboo, or going to rescue Obi-Wan in AOTC.

It’s too bad really – she’s much more emotive in this film, and for as good as an actor as she is, and her two awful performances in the first two (which I blame Lucas for more than her), it’s too bad too see her relegated to the sidelines in Episode III.

Some other interesting thoughts on Episode III.

Doubletake in X3 Casting

Reading the news that Bret Ratner is taking over filming X3 (X-men 3), I did a double take when I saw:

The original returning stars have been signed, and the cast is bolstered by Kelsey Grammer, Vinnie Jones and Maggie Grace (“Lost”), who just came aboard as new mutant characters. (As reported by VARIETY)

Kelsey Grammer? Really? I have to assume he’s the villain – his over the top acting might work in that role.

Wait and see, I guess.

TCLUG

I went to my first Twin Cities Linux User Group meeting Saturday. I’ve been to a few of the installfests, but was always too lazy to go downtown for a meeting.

It was pretty cool – held in the Computer Science building of the U of M, Jeff Price from Novell gave a talk on everything Novell is doing around Suse. While vague at times, Jeff gave a very good overview of how the entire suite of Novell products (Suse Linux Enterprise Server, Novell Linux Desktop, etc) work together, how NLD9 is different than Suse Professional 9.3 (corporate vs. hobbyist respectively), and various other topics.

His tone was conversational, and he skipped the slideware, which was just fine. Good participation from the audience, including sidebars on HDTV and MythTV. I’ve volunteered to burn some copies of Suse 9.3 Pro, so I’ll definitely be at the next one.

Downtown

This weekend, I headed to downtown Minneapolis twice, which I rarely do.

Friday night I visited The Lounge, a bar in the Warehouse district to catch up with some work folk. This was one of the coolest bars I’ve been to in the Twin Cities. Before 10 or 11, they have a small area open near the front doors, with a bar, that turns into a bit of a dance floor later in the evening when it starts getting packed.

We were in the Cathedral room, a private room in the back, that adjoins the larger dance area & bar that opens after 11. The Catherdal room has faux stained glass ceilings, it’s own bar, DJ, and couches. The music was pumping, and a very good time was had.

Definitely worth a visit if you’ve never been there.

What a difference a year makes



dsc00063, originally uploaded by silwenae.

This is Alex’s 3rd year in organized baseball. Last year was the coaches pitching with a manual machine, this year is the first with kids pitching.

It’s amazing the difference a year makes. Last year in 7-8 year old, most of the kids had a hard time paying attention, hitting, throwing. This year, even Alex, who I don’t practice with enough, has shown tremendous improvement in the skills department.

He has a fun time playing, and is lightyears ahead of where he was. Tuesday night, the night the picture was taken, he was 3 for 4, including the hit pictured here.

I’ll group ’em on Flickr this weekend.