Ponderance

I'm sure you're already sick of hearing...

Google has finally set a date for the public listing of the company on the US Stock Market. Analysts agreed that Google founder/creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin are going to become overnight billionaries due to their stock in the company. The NY Times article here also points out that the public disclosure of Google's profitability have shown a company which is not only making a huge amount proportional to sales, but also a company which is expanding rapidly. Whether the public listing will radically change the way Google operates is a popular question at present, but we shall have to see. The recent release of Orkut and the beta release of GMail suggest the company is going to keep growing rapidly, at least in the near future.

PS As a beta-user of GMail, I've just been given two invitations I can send for others to get a GMail account. Does anyone want one?

Sarah Kember's Cyberfeminsim and Artificial Life

I had a pseudo-conversation with Jill in her blog regarding Richard Dawkins' selfish gene the other day. Since I seemed incapable of constructing a normal sentence that day, I suggested Sarah Kember's Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life as the text which contributed to my wariness of Dawkins' work. I recently reviewed Kember's book (it'll be in Limina 10), but I thought I'd post the text here in case anyone's interested:

Sarah Kember, Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life, Routledge, London and New York, 2003; pp.272; RRP $AU46.00 paperback.

Sarah Kember's Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life follows in the footsteps of Donna Haraway, N. Katherine Hayles and Alison Adams in extending substantial feminist theoretical engagements with the realm of science and technology. Unlike Haraway and Hayles, Kember's focus on artificial life no longer centres the work on human subjectivity per se, but rather broadens the realm of inquiry to life more generally. Moreover, while Alison Adam's Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine (1998) focused mainly on the scientific development and cultural resonances surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), Kember's work takes a similar political project but focuses on artificial life (ALife). The key difference between the two is that AI primarily focuses on electronically replicating a human-like mind, working from the top-down, whereas ALife attempts to simulate evolution in a digital system, starting from the smallest byte-size computational programs, attempting to synthesise 'life' from the bottom-up. Kember's stated aims in her book are clear: 'to trace the development of identities and entities within the global information network encompassing both human and non-human environments, and to offer a pluralised cyberfeminist engagement with artificial life as both a discipline and cultural discourse' (p.vii). The differentiation between the scientific discipline and more popular cultural articulation of ALife ideas is particular important, allowing Kember to make specific and separate analyses of the work of scientists and of ALife as imagined more broadly. However, this separation does not prevent a broad picture of ALife being constructed, and it significantly maps areas of both cultural and scientific intersection and divergence.

In her brief first chapter, Kember outlines two key points which will guide her reading of ALife. Firstly, that while ALife simulations may hold great potential for revealing information about life-as-we-know-it by examining the natural world's operations (weak ALife), ALife research often slips into arguing that the digital experiments actually illustrate life-as-it-could-be or real 'life' (the strong ALife claim). Secondly, Kember argues that in recent years there has been a 'biologisation of computer science' which entails digital and computational simulations being guided mainly by the biological sciences. While past scientific efforts, such as AI design, tended to view the body as a machine - the brain as a computer, heart as a pump, and so forth - ALife design appears to have come full circle. Kember argues further that this instils a 'new biological hegemony' in the computational and technosciences (pp.6-7). Chapter two, 'The meaning of life part I: The new biology' immediately explores Kember's claims, focusing on the well-known work of Richard Dawkins and his thesis on the selfish gene. Kember reads Dawkins as arguing from a perspective of genetic determinism. Moreover, she argues further that the shift in Dawkins' work from genes to memes--seemingly self-driven culturally replicating ideas--is just a slight of hand which attempts to escape the eugenic overtones of genetic determinism, while actually reinscribing those idea en masse. Dawkins' work is highly influential upon ALife designers as their goal is similarly to cause the spontaneous evolution of life from basic originary units (digital genes), and Kember concludes that the sociobiological genetic determinism of Dawkins is intrinsic to many current ALife design projects. The third chapter, 'Artificial Life', looks more specifically at scientific ALife designers and their work. While many of the ALifers that Kember discusses do appear to hold Dawkinsesque views, Kember makes a number of strong points about inconsistencies between such views and the actual operation of ALife simulations. Key among these is the role of the creator: while evolutionary theory may have 'killed God', ALife designers who purport to model evolution necessarily involve the scientist-as-creator setting the original Garden-of-Eden-like parameters, in effect acting as God for their digital subjects. Similarly, Kember charts the more traditional feminist reading of ALife scientists as enacting parthogenic fantasies of masculine reproduction and birth without the need for women or mothers. The chapter concludes with a carefully balanced call for feminist engagement with ALife which is not exclusively about resisting the hegemony of the biological, but works productively with these trends.

Chapter four shares considerable ground with The Video Game Theory Reader as Kember examines contemporary computer games which use ALife theories, such as Maxis Inc's range of Sim games and Creatures which was actually designed by ALife scientist Steve Grand. Kember looks at most of the Sims franchise, but focuses on SimEarth, which is a planetary evolution simulator, and SimLife which emphasises genetics and evolution in more specific ways. Kember concludes that what 'Sim games do most effectively is naturalise genetic and evolutionary determinism in an environmentalist educational scenario and - in the case of SimLife - introduce ALife in to one area of popular culture' (p.91). Steve Grand's Creatures also provided some insights into the tensions between ALife/game designers and the public at large. Kember notes that while Grand's game was designed to emphasize kinship with the artificial life creatures, often the biggest appeal to gameplayers was to create hybrid creatures or to torture existing ones. These observations, Kember concludes, show a lack of kinship with ALife in the public consciousness. Chapter five, 'Network identities' expands the ideas of ALife beyond science and specific games to look at proto-ALife, such as 'Bots', which are tiny software agents spread across the internet for various purposes and which are sometimes self-editing. Kember also analyses Nick Gessler's computational anthropology work and his 'artificial culture' simulations which seek not only to synthesize life, but culture per se as well. Chapter six, 'The meaning of life part 2: Genomics', goes a step further, analysing transgenic organisms and so forth which Kember defines as 'wetware artificial life-forms' (p.147). Cloning (both human and non-human), the human genome project, as well as popular films such as Alien: Resurrection and Gattaca are all analysed as part of the broader cultural and genomic imaginary which is, in part, informed by ALife discourses. Kember is careful in these last two chapters to emphasise the importance of dialogue between feminism and ALife (and related discourses) rather than make strongly judgemental claims.

The final two chapters attempt to bridge the so-called Science Wars, in which humanities and literary writing was (sometimes rightly) accused of engaging with scientific writing without taking the time to understand the scientific concepts. Kember argues strongly for a cyberfeminist engagement with ALife discourses and technoscience in general which keeps dialogue open and ethics firmly in sight. Kember concludes that it is at times necessary to escape the nature versus culture debates which have characterised the Science Wars, and which much feminist writing has relied upon, in favour of a 'bioethics of posthuman identity within alife discourse which cyberfeminism might productively contribute to' (p.216). While Kember's conclusions are certainly pragmatic in terms of keeping dialogue open, they may be a bit open ended for some readers. However, there can be no doubting the significant contribution Kember has made in articulating the important dialogue between feminism and artificial life discourses. Moreover, Kember's work has considerable insights beyond its immediate target audience, making this an important text for those involved in research into posthumanism, cybercultural studies, feminist theory and ideas of subjectivity as they are rearticulated in the early twenty-first century.

Comments are most welcome!

Transferring Hotmail to GMail

According to this guide, it is possible to transfer your entire Hotmail archive to a GMail account (and according to the comments, to setup a forwarding address so you get all future mail in GMail, which is something free Hotmail accounts don't normally do!). Kewl. (via Waxy.org)

Kill Bill Volume 2

From the reviews and comments I've read so far, I think I'm the only person in the world who preferred Kill Bill 1 over the second installment. Don't get me wrong, both are amazing films. Indeed, Vol 2 is closer to Tarantino's earlier work, reinserting far more of the witty pop-reference-filled dialogue that is the cornerstone of his previous films. I think what made Vol 1 standout for me was the Japanese, Hong Kong and kung-fu film references which were the fabric of the film. Vol 2 makes similar work out of Chinese martial-arts films and spagetti westerns, but these genres appeal to me less, thus Vol 2 being slightly less amazing for my eyes and ears! Indeed, for the first half an hour or so, I suspected Vol 2 might be a big mistake: the effort which went into setting up Michael Madsen's Budd character as a washed-up guilt-ridden ex-asassin was a tad drawn out. Of course, as soon as The Bride (Uma Thurman) arrives to take out Budd, we discover his will to live isn't completely gone and, well, he gives as good as he gets! After audiences discover what a Texan-style funneral is (!), Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah) is next in line and the showdown between these two is exquisite, peaking with truly Tarantinoesque gore and surprise! And, finally, the showdown between The Bride and Bill mixes some pretty cool pondering dialogue, a couple of hilarious comic book references, a real tear-jerker moment and, of course, guns/swords/death! Every actor in this film is perfectly chosen and positioned, with a broad supporting cast keeping the blood pumping through the film's veins. The cinematography and editting are, unsurprisingly, amazing and a real treat to the eye. The film lingered a little in a few places, clocking in at 137 minutes. I can see why the studio's thought two volumes was a good idea and I'm curious to see how Tarantino's directors cut turns out in which the two volumes are re-assembled into one! And, yes, you do discover the Bride's real name during this film it's ...

Coolest Gadget Ever!

I-Duck: glow-in-the-dark USB drive. So cute! (via Neil Gaiman.)

It's a Google. I do Google. You too. You do google too!

One of these days I'm going to wake up and discover I don't use Google, it uses me! Of course, until then I'm going to continue to be seduced by the new toys available through the Googleplex.

On Friday I joined Orkut (thanks to Simon) which is Google's new social software system. You can only join if you're invited in as a 'friend' of an existing Orkutter, so there's a whole six degrees of separation thing going on. It actually seems pretty well designed and there are lots and lots of active communites. Given my interests, there are a number of Blog-related communities, media based ones (Buffy and 24 and so on) and even Perth-based ones like a UWA community, Swancon and a just a 'WA' community. It will be interesting so see how these communities develop. If anyone out there wants to become an Orkutter, let me know and I'll invite you in.

Also on Friday, I was pleased to discover that Blogger was offering active Blogger users the chance to sign up for a Google's new email system: GMail. So, for those interested, my new secondary email has become tamaleaver [at] gmail [dot] com. The layout seems pretty good, although it will take a little while to get used to the idea of archiving all the email with labels instead of into folders. Given that GMail comes with a gigabyte of storage space, I suspect quite a few users are going to opt for this free platform. There are, however, privacy concerns given that google scans your messages with a bot in order to place targetted adveertising in your GMail window. While this is "non-human" reading, I still wonder what is going to happen with GMail and privacy (there appears to be a lot of tension in that regard with Internet Privacy and Advocacy Groups). However, as a secondary email that will never see my important or very personal emails, I think it should be more than adeqaute. The only major drawback for my purposes (that I've found so far) is that I don't appear to be able to create a signature file!

William Gibson's Pattern Recognition: The Film

Variety News reports that William Gibson's Pattern Recognition is getting adapted for the big screen:

Peter Weir is attached to direct "Pattern Recognition," a thriller that Anonymous Content has set up at Warner Bros. Weir will co-write the script with David Arata. "Pattern Recognition" follows the adventures of a marketing expert who finds herself in a dangerous puzzle when she's hired to track down the source of a strange collection of video footage on the Internet. William Gibson published the novel last year through Penguin Putnam. Known as the creator of "cyberpunk," it's the author's first to be set in the present day.

Pattern Recognition would have to be the most filmable of Gibson's books so far, so that fact and Weir as director actually sounds very promising to me. I suspect a Truman Show-ish sensability is just what Pattern Recognition needs. I do wonder how on earth they are going to film The Footage or whether Footage:Fetish:Forum will still have the centrality is does in the novel: I mean, how do you film text on a screen and keep it dramatic without smalzing it up with unnecessary effects? Hmmm. We shall have to see ...

Lecturing Buffy: A Rant

Okay, I realise that the title of this post makes it sound like I had Buffy sitting in my office and I was telling her off for being a bad, bad Buffy. I know that there should be an 'on', but it's been a long day so you can just put your own 'on' in if you're annoyed.

I discovered today, that while it is pretty straight-forward to copy clips from a DVD player into your laptop to screen during a lecture, you should always always check to see if your crappy little Acer laptop can handle the graphics processing needed to maintain a dual-display to the laptop's screen and the projector in the lecture theatre. You may discover, to your great dismay, as Buffy is bolding announcing to Wesley that she's quitting the council, that the only every second or third frame is actually making it to the screen. You may discover that the fantastic collage of Buffy episodes at the beginning of 'The Gift' looks very, very silly when half of the flashes of shows are missing. *sigh*

On the up side, it's lots of fun to point out to first years that when Mayor Richard Wilkins III turns into a 30 foot tall blue-green phallic demon with lots of teeth (and Buffy taunts him with the name 'Dick') there really is a pretty straight forward symbolism at work! It's fun, too, to play the (in)famous 'I touch myself' fan-made popup vid and get worried that the audience doesn't find it funny ... until the all cackle at the revelation that 66% of Norweigan's admit to having sex in a public place.

Virtual Dibbell Dollars: It's A Living

Last year Julian Dibbell set out to prove that you kind live on the profit from virtual goods. He began buying and selling within the Ultima Online MMRPG and declaring his sales and income, as well as lodging the appropriate forms and paying taxes to the IRS. Well, the project is over and Dibbell seems to have made a healthy living of around $47,000 (US) which Terra Nova points out is more than secondary teachers earn in the US. Wired points out the Dibbell didn't quite make his target of making more money using virtual goods than he has from writing, but he did come close. It's a curious thing when you can make 'real' profit off 'virtual' wares, but, then again, isn't that how the stock market works sometimes (can anyone say dot-com crash). Of course, Dibbell does leave a world of questions on the table about how real the virtual can seem to some people (Utlima players in this case), and whether the real/virtual distinction is as rigid as many people would like to think...

Digital Epistolary Novels

After reading an article in the New York Times, I was intreagued by the idea of "digital epistolary novels," which are essentially narratives built out of digital correpsondence (mainly email and instant messages). The idea is not new, but Eric Brown has created a simple but very usable (and trademarked) system for delivering such narratives. He has also launched his first DEN called Intimacies which can be read using the DENware and is a free download at his website (rather pretentiously [or is that ironically] called www.greatamericannovel.com). The software is very easy to install and use (although no Mac version as yet), and the story is surprisingly seductive. Their is a certain vouyeristic thrill associated with reading what appears to be other people's correspondence (the word epistolary, in case you're not aware, literally means "about letters"). And I'm not sure if others do this or not, but I tend to archive a great deal of my email and occassionally look through the archive, and it does sometimes read just like a narrative unfolding before my eyes. Although what I've read of Intimacies so far certainly isn't groundbreaking, the delivery system does make a certain mode of writing using fictional email and messaging very accessible and quite seductive. Check it out and tell me what you think ...

I, Robot: Preemptive Apology?

I just watched the I, Robot featurette and was a bit confused! It starts off with director Alex Proyas talking about the Asimov short stories which formed I, Robot and how he had really admired them and always wanted to bring them to the screen. This, in itself, is interesting, since I would have thought tha the short stories would have read as some of the most unfilmable words possible, unless you were going to make a short television series out of them (or something to that effect) in a noirish style. However, Proyas goes on to talk about the "spirit" of Asimov's stories and how the film obviously had to change the stories a lot to adapt them for cinema. Given that the trailers are cut to make the film look like a Will Smith action movie with a token science fiction backdrop, I'd say that even spirit might be a bit generous! Now, I'm not sure if it's just me, but does this featurette feel like an elaborate apology to Asimov fans and a warning that this is a film about WILL SMITH and the many angry cgi robots? *sigh*

Oh, and the only way I could even imagine I, Robot trying to stick to the idea that the 3 Laws of Robotics held but could be creatively interpreted and still allow lots and lots of robots en masse to seem to 'go evil' is if Proyas ripped off Marvel's idea of the Sentiels and the laws were read as a directive to protect humanity by taking away their free will and ability to wage war. I hope that's not the case, however, because doing that with Asimov would be lame!

PS If you think this is disheartening, try watching the new trailer for "comedy/thriller" The Stepford Wives . A remake of make you all wish remakes were illegal!

It's Almost Time to Kill Bill (Really, This Time!)

Elvis Mitchell's New York Times review of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 bodes extremely well after the impressive first installment! Mitchell comments: '"Vol. 2" works like a multimedia mix tape, and Mr. Tarantino rides the tempo of his films like a D.J., abetted in the wheel-in-a-wheel trickiness by the deft fingers of his editor Sally Menke.'

Earlier in the week, David Kehr's article 'Charting the Tarantino Universe' looked at the major influences on the two volumes of Kill Bill, stressing the primarily Eastern influences on the first volume, and Western influences on the second. The article traces the origin/references to many of the main characters and actors, and is a great read.

Less encouragingly, A.O. Scott looks at the upcoming Punisher movie and finds something "remorselessly ugly and punishingly inhumane."

Ancient Greek Flash Animation!!

Okay, so Ancient Greek myths and history have always been fun, but now even the non-bookish can be seduced by the saucy gods and so-violent-Arnie-would-blush heroes at the ABC's Winged Sandals site. All the Ancient Greek world comes alive in funky stylised flash animations! Such fun!

Oh, and check out 'StoryTime' for re-telling of your favourite myths. My favourite is definitely the re-telling of Orpheus and Eurydice, which has Orpheus looking rather like a grunge rock star!

Lord of the Rings: Slightly Condensed

Okay, so many of you have probably received this little viral animation, but I found it rather amusing, so thought I'd repost here:


PS Also, some extremely silly Matrix Flash animations can be found here (via Milk & Cookies).

Swancon & The Perth Blogosphere

Swancon, Perth's SF convention, was held over the Easter weekend and on Sunday I was part of a panel about Weblogs with Adrian Bedford, Erika Pearson, Elaine Kemp and Simon Oxwell. It was quite an interesting discussion, with much said about the difference between blogs run using Blogger and those using a LiveJournal architecture. I have to admit, I'm a lot more Blogger-centric than I had realised; I have been rather ignorant of how many Perth-based LJs there are! The main difference that the panel found/reinforced is that Blogger blogs tend to be more article based or issue based or filters, while LiveJournals are far more socialable. Also, having checked out Erika & Elaine's LJs (and already regularly reading Cathy's) I've come to the conclusion that just about everyone in Perth fandom has a LJ (the vast majority) or a Blogger blog (perhaps for those who prefer the soapbox!). ChesireNoir also contributed a lot to the panel and is in fact organising the next Perth SF convention Wasteland using a blog! I remember a couple of years ago Helen Merrick gave a paper at a Con titled something like "How Fans Invented the Internet" which argued that the fannish networks for distributing mail, fanzines, tapes and other info in the pre-WWW era basically set the social parameters for how social networks would emerge online. Having a look at the Blogosphere as it emerges from Perth, I'd have to say Helen was definitely on to something!

Tin Duck

At the recent Swancon (Perth SF convention) I was nominated for a Western Australia Science Fiction Award or 'Tin Duck' for Best Professional Short Work (for my essay 'Matrices of Embodiment' in Borderlands 2).

To my great surprise and pleasure, I won (thanks to everyone who voted for my essay ... I'm gratified that so many people (a) read it and (b) liked it!). I was a little embarrassed that I actually missed the award ceremony, though! When I did pick up the award on Sunday I was absolutely thrilled no just with having won, but also with the amazing Tin Duck trophy which is a wooden clock with a solid metal duck affixed to it! (The picture should be gracing your screens right now!). From a quick look around the blogosphere, I gather that this award was constructed by Lily Chrywenstrom so thanks to everyone who voted for me and a special thanks to Lily (and anyone else involved) for the gorgeous award trophy which is now living on top of my TV. Yay!

SpiderMan: New Trailers, Old Trailers and Trailers that Almost Never Were...

Okay, so the new Spiderman 2 trailer is up, and it's pretty good (although the fans at Ain't It Cool News who claim "it was better than the entire first movie" obviously prefer MTV to the cinema). What this new trailer reminded me of, however, was the original Spiderman trailer. Not the one that's on the DVDs, but the ORIGINAL one. You know the story, right? Produced as a short-film unto itself, this trailer, which few peolpe ever saw, featured a bank robbery, with the theives getting away in a helicopter, only to be dragged backwards into a spiderweb hung between the World Trade Centre Towers. Sadly, the Towers were attacked and destroyed about a week after this trailer was released and the the immediate aftermath all images of the Towers in upcoming films were immediately pulled from circulation, including this one. In itself, this was understandable. But what is bizzare is that no one from Sony or involved with the production of Spiderman would ever talk about the Twin Towers Trailer. In all fairness, it was one of the best trailers ever made for a feature film. (If you're interested, it can still be found here). There's still a documentary screaming out to be made about the aftermath of Sept 11 in terms of popular culture: the digital removal of images of the Towers from films (including Spiderman) is something unique to the digtial era.

Star Wars DVD Extras

Okay, so we know that George Lucas is wimping out and avoiding director's commentaries (or executive producer commentaries for Empire and Jedi), but what is extras are going to come out the with classic (albeit Special Edition) Star Wars DVDs? TFN reports:

Star Wars: The Independent Films feature length documentary - The story of Star Wars is the story of the most successful independent series film ever produced. It's the story of a Hollywood outsider named George Lucas and a low-budget labor of love space saga that defied the odds and reinvented the rules. It's the story of a revolution born of a dream. It's the story of an independent filmmaker who had to innovate and invent an entirely new way of creating motion pictures. It's the story of a fundamental paradigm shift in the creative process made, not by the studio system, but by a single filmmaker with a simple dream. (150 min.)

The Evolution of Characters featurette - Get an in-depth look at how all your favorite characters came to be with exclusive concept art and discussion with George and the people who shaped what ultimately became out favorite heroes and villains. Includes a separate still/video gallery cut to Star Wars music with access to artwork and classic scenes for each major character. (30 min.)

The Influence of Star Wars featurette - Without Star Wars, there would be no... The groundbreaking special effects that were pioneered to make Star Wars movies not only helped viewers escape to a galaxy far, far away, but they changed the way every movie was made thereafter. Experience never before seen effects innovations from the films and learn how pivotal the films were to modern effects wizards and filmmakers. (20 min.)

Lightsabers/Fights featurette - Forget laser pistols, the lightsaber is the coolest weapon in the Star Wars galaxy. What were George's influences for creating the lightsaber? How did Mark Hamill, Alec Guiness, and Darth Vader stunt people approach wielding a saber? How did the effects guys figure out the lightsaber beam? How did each fight escalate from the previous one? And what influences did this creation have on movies thereafter? (10 min.)

1977 featurette - Transport people back in time to the opening of each Star Wars film. Menus will showcase all the pop culture features from the 1977 opening such as: TV references, toy ads, promotional partner commercials, news clips, songs inspired by Star Wars, Star Wars magazine and newspaper coverage, classic video game demos. (20 min.)

Star Wars Battlefront X-Box Video Game Demo (15 min.)

Teasers and Trailers from the original theatrical releases of each of the movies along with the 1997 re-releases. (15 min.)

TV Spots from the original theatrical releases of the movies along with the 1997 re-releases (5 min.)

Stills - A comprehensive gallery of posters from around the world, classic artwork, and never-before-seen photos from all three films (approximately 300 images.)

DVD-ROM Features - DVD ROM link to exclusive Star Wars website.

And to try and build the tension for Episode III:

Section One - The Creator: Finally the birth of Vader. George talks about finally bringing Vader back to the series and teases about Anakin's descent to the Dark Side and the powers of seduction in play. Section Two - The Costume: Black is back. For the last Star Wars movie ever and the birth of the ultimate villain, a new costume was forged. This segment answers some key questions: who created it? was it made for Hayden? Section Three - The Actors: Finally I get to become Vader. Key interviews with the cast (including Hayden) and crew sharing their thoughts and experiences about working on the last Star Wars film and finally seeing the completion of the Saga. (10 min.)

All of this Episode III build-up material sounds, to be honest, a bit lame. Indeed, it seems that Lucasfilm has realised that the only way Episode III will do stellar box office business is to link it more explicitly with the classic trilogy and distance themselves for the first two prequels. However, a number of the extras for the original trilogy sound rather cool, especially 1977 featurette and influences of Star Wars bits. Sure, it's bound to be a bit Lucas sycophantic, but we're used to that by now!

Some Recent April Fools Gems

Sick of having to shave on the run? Forgotten to charge your electronic shaver but can't turn up to work with yesterday's shadow? Try the brand new iShave plugin for iTunes!!

Are LiveJournals just too perky and fluffy for you? Really just want to use your journal to badmouth others? Then try the new DeadJournal alternative!

SBS Duo Move to the ABC

Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, the dynamic reviewing duo at the heart of SBS's The Movie Show have decided to end their time with SBS after 17 years. Stratton and Pomeranz announced yesterday that they would be moving to the ABC, starting a new movie review programme mid-year. ABC News reports:

In a statement, Pomeranz says the move has been prompted by "something very dynamic happening at the ABC" and some changes she was less impressed about at SBS. "All organisations go through change and SBS is heading in a new direction," she said in the statement released by ABC TV. "As a passionate supporter of public broadcasting, I did not feel comfortable with this new direction. As a result, I felt it was time for me to make a change and ABC TV offers a new and exciting challenge."

Score one for Aunty.

From email to gmail!

The New York Times reports that Google is beta-testing a free email service called GMail:

The new service, to be named Gmail, is scheduled to be released on Thursday, according to people involved with the plan. It will be "soft launched," they said, in a manner that Google has followed with other features that it has added to its Web site, with little fanfare and presented initially as a long-running test. ... Google will offer consumers better access to searching their own e-mail and could well upset the industry balance by offering free access to services that previously were available only by paying a monthly subscription fee. The standard industry practice is to offer tiered e-mail services, providing only limited storage free and charging higher fees to users who want to preserve a larger number of e-mail messages for capabilities like online storage. Google, by contrast, is planning a service to be supported by advertising that will permit its users to store very large amounts of mail at no cost. One internal Google study put the operational cost of maintaining e-mail storage at less than $2 a gigabyte, enough to preserve tens of thousands of messages of typical length.

Okay, with a gigabyte of storage space, I'm be there with bells on! I suspect, if successful, this could really change the way Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail operate and seriously challenge the viability of their current pay-for-storage philosophy. Of course, there are at present some fairly large privacy concerns, as The Register points out. But the terms and conditions at Google argue that since a program/bot is reading the mail to target advertising, then it's not really invading privacy. Hmmm. Not sure I trust that one! That said, I'm definitely going to give it a try as my secondary email. The really interesting day will be when GMail goes public allowing customers to sign up. I suspect an awful lot of people will be trying to be the first to get cool addresses. Personally, I'll be there in the thick of it, because I rather fancy being tama@gmail.com or tama@googlemail.com! I wonder if I'm going to become rather Googlecentric if GMail does take my fancy ... Googling my Email, Googling a blog via blogger and using the Google Search Toolbar in Firefox as much as my own bookmarks! Perhaps tama@planetgoogle.com would be more appropriate!

Football, Already Down, Kicks Itself with a Topless Woman

Just as football and rugby in various professional forms in Australia are under intense and justified scrutiny for their sexist, macho and, in some cases at least, violent attitudes toward women, another huge gaff has happened, this time in trying to make AFL appealing to children. The Australian reports:

THE AFL has been forced to recall 40,000 CD-ROMs given to young children to promote Australian football because it secretly included a picture of a topless woman. Officials became aware of the image when a child stumbled across it among myriad football-related files on the disc, distributed to 5 to 12-year-olds in NSW and South Australia. AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said an investigation had been launched to establish whether the inclusion of the picture was mischievous or accidental. However, he said the AFL had dumped the CD-ROM's producer - a subsidiary of advertising agency George Patterson Bates. ... The AFL has apologised to parents, Auskick's 120,000 participants and its sponsors. Auskick is the AFL's development program, which aims to entice primary school-age children to the code and rewards them with giveaways such as backpacks, footballs, drink bottles and the CD-ROM. Parents have been asked to destroy the offending disc or return it to an Auskick co-ordinator. A replacement CD-ROM will be issued soon. The program made headlines last year when the plastic drink bottles had to be recalled because they contained a nozzle that could have become lodged in children's throats.

Regardless whether the image was intended to be there, or added by someone else (as will no doubt be claimed), surely the quality control of CD-Roms for kids should be sufficiently strict that all the films on a disc are checked before mass distribution?!

Harry Knowles Produces...

Harry Knowles, loved by some, hated by probably as many for his widely-read film and tv rag Ain't It Cool News, is going to risk everything, moving from the critics' couch to the producer's podium. The Hollywood Reporter notes:

Harry Knowles ... is coming on board to co-produce "Princess of Mars," Paramount Pictures' adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp classic that Robert Rodriguez is directing. ... In Knowles' 2002 autobiography, he describes Burroughs' "Martian Tales" series, revolving around adventurer John Carter, as one of the literary world's properties that is most deserving of a big-screen treatment.

Given Knowles' sycophantic love of certain Hollywood films, and equally extreme hatred of others, there are probably hundreds of reviewers waiting to sink their teeth in Knowles' own work!