“…imagine what would happen to Pulp Fiction if, when the character of Jules looked into the briefcase, he “woke up” in mid-scene and not only realized that he was a character in a movie, but also realized that he “was” also Mace Windu and Shaft and a bunch of other characters in realities he can scarcely comprehend, while also glimpsing an uber-reality where all of those realities are just movies and he’s an actor called Samuel L. Jackson.”
Happy Eostre. I’m off back to Wales.
Gene at Fredshouse.net – reflecting on Rem Koolhaas / IDEO’s Prada disappointments – does some expectation-setting around deploying tech beyond the desktop:
“I’m not surprised that Prada’s experience has been less than delightful. We did some large-scale demo systems and real-world user experiments in cooltown, and we discovered some serious challenges in deploying even relatively simple ubiquitous computing technologies.
…what seems straightforward to build and run in the lab, is an order of magnitude harder to make work in the world. Using wireless LAN? Count on interference. Using infrared? Count on sunlight and heat sources. Using RFID? Count on damaged tags and misreads. Using PDAs? Count on dead batteries, lost styli, frequent crashes, both the soft and hard (floor) kind. Oh, and everything will be obsolete or broken in a year or two, so count on plenty of ongoing support to keep things fresh and fun….
Ubicomp is hard, understanding people, context, and the world is hard, getting computers to handle everyday situations is hard, and expectations are set way too high. I used to say ubicomp was a ten-year problem; now I’m starting to think that it’s really a hundred-year problem.”
Fantastic news! Our correspondent writes that the BBC has decided to release the 2004 Reith Lectures in downloadable DRM-free mp3 – they should be available on the site tonight.
A great move, and hopefully the shape of things to come.
I wonder what the licence is, and whether derivative works from the lectures? The thought of DJ Dangermouse releasing ReithHop mash-ups might be an advance too far for Radio 4 stalwarts for now…
Ironically, the subect of this year’s lecture series given by playwright Wole Soyinka is “The Climate of Fear” – good to see Auntie (at least BBC Radio & Music Interactive… other recent news has not been as encouraging) bucking the trend.
I have just watched the most important movie of the early 21st century
It’s name is Loony Tunes: Back in Action.
Everything is in there – it’s a knockabout satire of late captialism and it’s entertainments, and it’s a visual essay on the magical nature of our fictions and our technologies as we enter the rapture of the spectacle. Or something. So, so now!
And it’s got Duck Dodgers.
“Two thumbs up”- M. McLuhan
“I dug it, fully” – G. Deleuze
“Whoa! Basta! That f**cking ruled!” – U. Eco
Petafloptimism 