Author: Ianforrester

Senior firestarter at BBC R&D, emergent technology expert and serial social geek event organiser. Can be found at cubicgarden@mas.to, cubicgarden@twit.social and cubicgarden@blacktwitter.io

The matrix revisited, this time by the fans…

From the CCB the editors of The Matrix Dezionized, a special fanmade edition of Matrix – Reloaded and Matrix – Revolutions.

We got the idea, when we finally watched Matrix Revolutions and couldn't believe, how bad it was, pathetic, without purpose. The most important thing is, to realize what is wrong, why is this movie not working, what makes it so bad. We decided that the complete plot string about Zion and Zion's battle against the machines was rather distracting from the main Matrix plot than improving it in any way. So we edited both DVDs, took out plenty of scenes, wherever needed and made a new edition, about 90 minutes smaller (the length of an entire moive, yes) and combined them to one final Matrix chapter.
What you get is a complete story, the story of Neo and his being the one. Plenty of people already watched this and the feedback was nothing but great. Still we had to redo the thing over and over again, just to get rid of possible flaws, bad cuts or whatever seemed unnecessary to us. Of course you can have a different opinion. And if you do and still like the idea of a better Matrix 2 movie, make your own edition and let's watch it. Choice is the problem of the Matrix universe, but choice is the thing that means freedom for us. We all like to be able to choose between editions and switch to the one we like best, no
matter who has created it. This is not meant to take any credit from the great Wachowski brothers, we admire your work, we are not interested in credit at all and absolutely not in making profit or money. Our interest is to improve an already existing work of art. See for yourself, decide for yourself.

I'm currently watching another remix titled The Matrix Regenerated. The Matrix regenerated has an alternative ending and seems to be a little more suttle with the cuts. There is a point between Part 2 and 3 which has the cliff hanger about neo, well they did some very good work to change that and make it a smooth flowing section. Generally I would have like to have seen a better quality 2CD version, as some scenes are a little pixelated due to the low bitrate. The sound is also plain stereo which sucks because the Matrix was made for a AC3 surround sound system. But I imagine editing in AC3 is still really difficult. I guess these people like myself already bought the dvds and copied them to there hard drive for editing, it really makes me want to do the same for a couple of films I own – Donnie Darko and Matrix included.

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Makoto Shinkai somewhat in Conversation

Blury shot of the conversation

So yesterday I did make it to the NFT for Makoto Shinkai in Conversation which kicked off a short season of Anime at the NFT. To start off we were treated to She and Her Cat followed by the insanely popular Voices of a distant star. The nicely air-conditioned NFT2 cinema was perfectly dark, specially when compared to the Filmworks cinemas where half the lights were on through out the film (highly distracting). After which the somewhat conversation started. There was tons of clapping while Makoto Shinkai walked down the cinema followed by his translator. Well it seemed that way at first. See the translator was very tired and didnt want to translate slightly difficult questions. She was struggling with questions about what anime Makoto is looking forward to this year! When I asked the tricky question about what Makoto felt about remixes, fansubs and re-versions of anime for other audiences (such as the uk one). We must have spent about 10mins on it. In the end Makoto answered with a interesting answer. First he was not totally aware of alternative versions of his films but he believes in building on top of peers work which involves taking other peoples anime films apart is a fine. When you post it to the net for others to learn and build upon your in tricky ground. He some what supported this but followed with a comment about his publishers and producers would not support such a movement.

Other questions included the usual what influences you, did you really make the anime yourself, what applications do you use? Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. A japanese lady asked in japanese how old he was and did he have a girlfriend? Makoto covered his mouth when he replied out of shyness, but at only 32 he's still looking like 24. After the questions and answers Makoto signed tickets and DVDs (got mine done) outside in the lobby. Generally it was good event let down by the translator, which I understand is a bloody difficult job but its what you do.

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Please tell them to give it a rest…

Give it a rest please!

So I went and watched the Skeleton Key with Sarah on Wednesday night at the Filmworks, and walked pass this lit up poster. Its one thing to warning people not to record the movie but to start throwing together the words terrorist and pirates. I wont even get started on the single words which have been twisted and abused recently (last 20 years). But all I can say is, this is a seriously worrying trend. Without going into a huge post about the perception of piracy in this day of age. I'll stop here and repeat what Sarah said. In her own words, What idiot would pay money for a DVD when they could download it for Free? (big smile) You got love a little humour on such a negative subject.

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Saxon 8.5 with collection()

Via Cafeconleche some really good news about the new version of Saxon.

Michael Kay has released version 8.5 of Saxon, his XSLT 2.0 and XQuery processor. Saxon 8.5 is published in two versions for both of which Java 1.4 or later is required. Saxon 8.5B is an open source product published under the Mozilla Public License 1.0 that “implements the 'basic' conformance level for XSLT 2.0 and XQuery.” Saxon 8.5SA is a £250.00 payware version that “allows stylesheets and queries to import an XML Schema, to validate input and output trees against a schema, and to select elements and attributes based on their schema-defined type. Saxon-SA also incorporates a free-standard XML Schema validator. In addition Saxon-SA incorporates some advanced extensions not available in the Saxon-B product. These include a try/catch capability for catching dynamic errors, improved error diagnostics, support for higher-order functions, and additional facilities in XQuery including support for grouping, advanced regular expression analysis, and formatting of dates and numbers.” Besides bug fixes, version 8.5 adds Unicode normalization and enables the collection() function to process a directory.

The collection() function is of interest because it gives XSLT the ability to read a file system metadata without any prior knowledge of the file system, like in the document() function. This was one of the useful things Cocoon does really well via the directory generator. Anyhow, more details can be found on the Xml hack blog including exactly how to call the function.

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Social networks vs social tools

Honestly I dont really go for these social networks for the sake of social networking. Linked in, Friendster, etc have been some I've looked at but have not been that interested in. The one I invested the most time in is Microsoft Wallop, which is still an invite only beta. At the moment its simply reading my RSS feed from this blog and using it as a base for my own wallop blog. Weirdly enough, it also counts anything I link to as a resource of my own which it then stores. Anyhow, i've recently started using O'Reilly's connection beta which is another social network but focused around developers, net type people and designers. The ability to get FOAF data out seems really simple and I have to admit it seems quite simple and not this super elaborate affair of wallop or orkut.

I do however have to wonder once again, how long I'll stay with this one? All the social networks I use all the time tend to be more like social tools. Del.icio.us, Flickr, Audioscrobbler and even recently Yahoo's new killer/social tools, seem to take a different view of social networking. There much more intergrated into daily life that a place to hang out. If O'Reilly's connections was to open things up a litle more, so for example using other services for job listings, etc. Then maybe it would stand a better chance at staying relveant. I do have a feeling that they will base it around there books and conferences in the future but will that be enough? I mean is it a career development site? no is my gut answer but what room is there for connections in face of the other tools?

I was kinda of upset that it didnt import my current FOAF profile. I mean I would have uploaded if they liked, but I would expect it to look at my website url and read the linked FOAF file without a bother. But oh no, I need to add all the data again via multiple html forms, which really sucks. Isnt this the point of FOAF in the first place? I have no idea if there's the ability to see inside the network from outside? For example here is my profile view and the FOAF data which is created from it. Please note, although I said I was based in the UK, it still puts US in my FOAF data. Maybe this is a bug in there processing? It must be because for some reason it hasnt even got my surname – forrester! I'm also not happy about the fact it uses many redirects to make up the FOAF data. http://connection.oreilly.com/users/profile.public.php?user_id=1671/ is not my homepage sorry.

There is no way i can use this as my FOAF profile till its sorted out and reliable. Also note everyone in FOAF profile has to be registered with Connections for it to add a entry to my FOAF data. This is deeply inward looking and this is why I think Yahoo 360 will succed where others failed. I mean think about it for a quick second. Buy a social network/tool like flickr with millions of users and billions of user generated data then buy yourself on to peoples desktops through Konfabulator. The possiblities are pretty endless, now I can see where the 360 nature comes from.

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Great Night at Donnie Darko in the Park

The screen from our spot

We had a great evening and night at Donnie Darko in the park. Listening to the national symphony orchestra playing live versions of Donnie Darko theme and background music was great while people found places to sit. My favour titled the Tangent Universe was very enjoyable to hear live. Then about 9:30pm there was a short interview with Richard Kelly, where he thanked us all for attending the showing and supporting the film. He also talked about his new film which he's currently working on. Kelly sounded confident in proving the critics. he is not a one trick pony. After which the film started with a lots of clapping and cheering from the now huge audience. When I first sat down, I never expected people to be sitting all the way at the entrance which was some distance away from the screen, but it certainly happened. I'm so glad the version they played of Donnie Darko was the orginal version not the watered down directors cut. No offense, but that was obviously made for those who didnt quite get the orginal version. I highly recommend this experience if there is a Stella screening with a film you really enjoy.

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Makoto Shinkai in Conversation

Makoto Shinkai in conversation



Makoto Shinkai in Conversation: Friday 12 August– at the NFT, South Bank, London

Via my lovely self-sacrificing wife who doesn't even like (her own words). Its looks like Japanese Animation month at the NFT. The highlight of the month includes a discussion with Makoto Shinkai who created the simply amazing Voices of a distant star.

Voices of a Distant Star is the moving tale of Mikako and Noboru, high-school sweethearts who try to keep their romance alive against all odds. Mikako is sent into space as part of a team to save mankind from an alien threat, leaving Noboru at home with texting as their only means of contact. The further he moves away from earth, the longer the texts take to come back, and soon a whole lifetime stands between them. Made solely on a Macintosh computer, using off-the-shelf software, this is an astonishing achievement, and we are delighted to welcome Makoto Shinkai to the to talk about it and his other films, including the earlier She and Her Cat.

Like the Donnie Darko screening this weekend, I'll be attending. certainly is a great place to live.

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Kill A9 and delicious now, Technorati later?

Yahoo search!

Well it seems Yahoo are really making moves recently. After there buying of Konfabulator and Flickr. There is now a two version beta of there new search service. The web 1.0 version which saves searches and competes with A9. And the tagging web 2.0 version which competes with Del.icio.us. Oh and you better add podcast Alley and other podcast directorys to the Yahoo! hit list now they have a audio search service. And how could I forget the Yahoo ad service which is aimed at the small website and blogger market. No need to add google to the Yahoo! hit list, they have been on there for quite some time. I'm sure a shopping API would really lands some damage on Froogle.

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The up hill battle of embracing new media?

This is so weird, I was reading through Ben Metcalfe's Massive Rant about the BBC news away day at the same time as hearing about the Breaking news about the Toronto Air Crash and followed by the BBC. But started thinking how different Bens experience of his away day compares to my World Service away day (which to be fair was within a new media team). But slowly this entry turns into a realization that his observations are actually not that far off from my own. Ben sums up with this which I'm in two minds about.

So life goes on. Us ‘new media’ folk continue to push the boundaries and the ‘old media’ folk continue prop up the established broadcast mediums. On the outside we try and look like we’re all connected and know what each other are doing. And most of the time it works – we appear to be a progressive organisation working together in harmoney. Inside people like myself are desparatly trying to pull the old guard, kicking and screaming, into the 21st Century.

The rest of my entry…

At which point I was effectively ostracised by the group as to these people it all appeared too radical, too unfamiliar (and probably too scary).

In my own experience, few idea are too radical and if unfamilar people will ask futher questions till it relates to something they have experience of. Even in future brainstorming sessions with language services which tend to be Radio focused. They really push the ideas out there and demand more experiences like how they use the internet.

However, it was clear how threatened most of them felt. Here was a medium they barely understood, with behaviours and opportunities they had no comprehension of, being communicated to them by someone who, for a few of them, had lived for fewer years than they had worked at the BBC.

I have not seen much of this in my away day but I know exactly what Ben means in other aspects of my work life. Miles always said the great divide going into the near future is not those with or without net access. Its those who get it and those who dont. Honestly its worrying because those who dont are really holding back those ideas from those who do. I wont go into details but just recently I had a large discussion about tagging vs categorisation. I'm fine with having such a discussion but you need to understand or at least tried both sides of the coin to really get it. So generally tagging will never be taken seriously by the old media people because they dont get Flickr, dont get social software, emergence, etc. It kind of makes things really difficult when suggesting new ideas and ways forward which really could benefit our audience.

It is quite disapointing just how much they don’t ‘get it’; that they assume that only “professional old school news people” can come up with these ideas and as such further assume no one else outside of a news background might have already thought of such an idea.

I get this all the time, but on a different take. During 7/7 (london bombs) I checked out Flickr, Googlenews, Yahoonews, the BBC, wikinews and technorati. Most of those sources are out side of the professional old school news media. Some of the people who say they get it [Type 3 if were going by Ben's observations], actually dont ever consider looking any where different. They claim to be forward thinking but turn there back on new media when push comes to shove. Ben uses the word Embrace and I really think this is key. Its like applying rock and roll values to dance music, there maybe room for overlap but you need to embrace it to truely understand it – get it!

What’s dangerous is that they tend to want to apply their old media values to it rather than embrace the already established culture of openness, freedom of expression and equality that is so much more apparent on the Internet than in the traditional broadcast industry. (This is, of course, nothing new as we’ve seen this elsewhere – for example the music and film industry taking on p2p)

Exactly… The question is where we go from now? The example of someone moving around to get experience of other professionalism is a good way forward and I would suggest that you do not need to leave your job to do so. I'm sure I'm not revelaing any World Service secrets but the attachment scheme basicly allows people to move around the world service without forsaking there jobs. I'm sure the attachment scheme isnt unique to the world service but for it to work there needs to be an embracement. Luckly there seems to be a lot more of that from where I'm sitting.

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