SOTM: 22 by Lily Allen

I finally got the new Lily Allen album last week (It’s Not Me It’s You was released at the beginning of February) and I’ve chosen the fourth song off the album as my song of the moment.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were bopping along to smile, and hearing tales of people getting robbed in LDN. In each there was a crude note of truth, a revelation of the terrible nature of human society—each and every vice. Well I’m happy to say that this latest album is exactly the same. In fact the album opens with Lily Allen singing about how everyone is on antidepressants. One of my favorite songs off the album is 22 (coming in a very close second in F*** You, which might equate to how sesame street would tell someone to go F*** themselves in a song). Well 22 is like all other Lily Allen songs in that it tell a story, this one happens to be about a girl who, even though she’s only 22, her life would seem to be over. ‘She’s got an alright job, but it’s not a career.’ The song itself is upbeat, starting with a humming organ and moving into a finger snapping beat. The sung lyrics of the verses are nicely contrasted with descents and ascents in the music behind. You’ve also got to love the electric-xylophone type sounds (or perhaps the piano in the bar of old western films) that make up the background of the verses. Overall it’s a very sing-along-able song, and despite its ‘down’ sort of nature is very ‘up’.
My only complaint about the song is how it ends. The song is in a nice little solo, and all of a sudden its over (I guess a bit like the life of the character).

the DiggBar - a Revolution for Social News Agregation

I'm a fan of social news aggregates, the likes of which include Digg.com and Reddit.com. the idea behind them is that users submit articles they find on the web and other users vote for or against (in Digg's case 'digging' or 'burying') depending on whether they are relevant or interesting. the best articles will be displayed more often to the most number of people. now thats a very simple version of what exactly goes on, there are whole algorithms that deal with what is most popular and what gets 'front page' status.
the DiggBar.
digg just released its latest, and perhaps most important, adition to the site--the diggbar. Launching on april 2nd, the diggbar is essential a tool bar containing all the most important functions of Digg (comments, digging, burying and favouriting). but its much more than that. the diggbar also alows users abreviate urls. for example the url for this blog is http://digg.com/u1GlK. Digg has now essentially become a url shortening service (along with the likes of tinyurl.com). simply put digg.com/ infront of any url and digg does the rest for you. along with this added functionality the diggbar gives related articles and also articles from the same domain.
Why I Like It
My method to Digging or Redditing has always been to click on multiple links, on say the homepage, read them and then go back to either digg or bury them. this becomes problematic for links say in the most popular section, or when ive gone to different pages. with the diggbar the articles are displayed inline with the functionality to digg and bury--all in the same page. for me this move makes sense, and its one of the best things digg has done as a site in the time ive been using it. the added usability to the site is astounding, and a much needed bonus feature for the 'original' (i use that term lightly) social news agregate. Congrats Kevin Rose.

I Love You, Man

Derived from the comedic genre that gave the Office life, this sometimes vulgar, always awkward and mostly funny comedy stands apart from its competition. The premise: what if a guy never had any guy friends, only girl friends. What if he then had to find a guy friend(s)? The abstract and ridiculous premise sets the tone for the overall movie staring Kevin Rudd (finally he takes lead actor in something), Jason Segal, the ever-funny Jaime Presley, and two parts of NBC’s up and coming show Parks and Recreation.
Why it Works
It is a comedy after all, and like I stated the movie derives a lot of its comedy from the absurd proposition around which the movie is based. How exactly does one go about finding a best friend? NBC’s the Office’s lifeblood during its first season was the awkwardness that surrounded the central character Michael Scott. It would seem in this movie that Kevin Rudd is channeling his inner Michael Scott as he looks for help to find a friends from his brother (the more and more popular Andy Samberg) or goes out of dinner dates with Thomas Lennon (aka short shorts from Reno 911). Whether is Rudd’s inability to formulate complete and coherent sentences in short succession while nervous, inability to do any type of accent or interactions as he try’s to make a best friend the comedy shines through leaving you laughing for most of the time.
Smart?
Some critics have called this movie smart and intelligent. And while I can’t say I totally agree with them wholeheartedly (screaming in peoples faces on the boardwalk, and falling on your ass while playing Rush on guitar), I do believe there was some level of smart occurring here. The relationship between Rudd and Segal is something I haven’t seen on screen before. Through this chemistry we find both the most bizarre and the most truthful lessons of the movie.
Overall
This was overall a good movie, very funny in places and a good use of good and underused comedians. However, I don’t think it lived up to the hype I at least had for it in my head.

1) Watchmen 2) Benjamin Button 3) I Love You Man 4) The International 5) Taken

“In the End…”

This Thursday marked the end of 15 years of ER. Over the past decade and a half, the peacock has brought America through the halls of County General in Chicago and into the lives of the people who worked there. It is probably for this reason that this show resonated with the people who watched it week in and week out. The serious character development that made ER the program is was, as the characters struggled with the everyday life of an emergency room.
Ever the Same
So it is sad to see this program leave its hallowed spot at the end of Thursday night. Even for a casual viewer like me, ER has always been something of a spectacle. An hour of non stop drama, both in the thick of a heart pounding mass casualty trauma, and with the heart wrenching complicated relationships and lives the staff lead. While the show might have fallen from it high back when its first seasons were airing, the core dynamics of the show have remained the same (at least for the episodes I have watched). It’s been good these past few weeks and especially in the final episode to see characters from years gone return to the show, reprising their roles and showing why we love ER. If you haven’t had a chance to see the Retrospective, take a look at it on HULU. You can see the effort and emotion that the actors, directors and writers really put into creating a show with such a reputation and history.
(It was also nice to see the opening credits return from their three year hiatus)
After It’s Gone
It was a show that survived the reality show invasion, remaining tied to the network that had developed the movie-like program. And what doubles the gloom following the departure of such a strong player is the thought that there won’t be a chance for another ER. With Jay Leno taking the 11pm time period, larger budget products cant get a foot in the door with NBC instead looking to the lower cost talk show as an option for entertainment. You can see my opinion on late night, talk shows and jay leno here.
One More Thing
I’m a huge fan of Michael Crichton—Michael Crichton being the brain behind the beginning of ER. So it’s kind of sad to say that he never saw the end of the show he started 15 years ago. It’s also sad to say that there won’t be anymore amazing books by this one of a kind author. So rest in peace Dr. Crichton, your novels, shows and movies will forever assert your creativity and intellect.

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré

Daily Motion posted this video animation about twitter and twitter users a week ago.
I might be a twitter user, but when put like this the whole concept is laughable. a lot of great quotes in this animation, and a lot of truth too.

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
Uploaded by LePostfr

"You've summoned the fail whale!"

FOTM: Mastermind: World Conqueror

Mastermind: World Conqueror
Before my computer decided we weren’t going to be friends anymore, I had planned out this post on my latest Flash of the Moment.
The next installment of this irregularly updated series (FOTM) is actually a game. A game released 6 months ago now. Now usually I like to be on the cutting edge of flash development, but 6 months ago I was in Australia. Suffering from a bandwidth and download speed headache. So basically an 18MB game was out of the question.
Create by The Swain (aka Michael Swain), creator of the blockhead series and of the mastermind series, this game is centered on tactical control and base defense.
The Essentials
You hire minions who will carry out your every will and whim. You them set your minions missions like stealing cash or, to advance, stealing science. Missions happen in 4 locations around the world—North America, Asia, Europe and South America. With each successful mission you notoriety increases. With every substantial increase your base will come under attack. Use your minions and buy weapons and defenses for your base. Then there are other things like henchmen, #2’s, extra bases, evil corporations, and coffee shops, and different more advanced missions as you increase your level.
Overall
This is a very playable game. The cut scenes are both creative (different characters, different dialogs, same locations) and funny. The animation for the most part is smooth and the drawing is, as in all Swain productions, excellent. Coding wise the game is solid, with one major bug but it doesn’t detract from game play that much. Give it a try, I seriously got hooked one afternoon.

Dorm Life

Somehow I managed to stumble upon this web gem the other day and now I can’t get enough of it.
Basically take the office in its mocumentary format, and place it in a dorm hall. This is the format for Dorm Life. Weekly 5 to 15 minute webisodes created by theatre students from UCLA that chronicle the lives of the students living in 5 South. Previously I though theatre students were only good for dancing on common’s tables, but surprisingly this web comedy proved me wrong. In fact they were a 2008 Webby Honoree for best Writing and Comedy for an individual short or episode.
Now entering its second ‘season,’ Dorm Life derives its comedy from the cast of characters in their first year of college living together for the first time.
The first thing you’ll probably notice is one of the characters looks wholly familiar (well, if you used to watch All That like I did). Jack Desena or Shane was on the sketch comedy show during some of its last years of life.
While the beginning of the series starts off at a fairly slow pace, it picks up quickly leaving you wanting more like a strange addiction. The majority of the show is built from character development, and one thing is for sure that these students have built creative and insane characters.
Give it a chance, start from the beginning. It’s available on hulu, youtube and their website dorm-life.com (they also do shorts fairly regularly). I’m fairly sure you’ll appreciate it if at any point you’ve lived in a dorm.

Facebook Rant Pt 2 –Social Diarrhea

Apparently I’m none done complaining about this latest update of Facebook(and neither is anyone else). Last time I took a mostly heavy approach on the design of the actual things now, but I believe there’s more to this problem then just the atheistic. I might have started to corner in on it in the last post, but my main complaint right now is the function of new new Facebook.

Social Diarrhea
Facebook calls its new homepage your stream. I call it social diarrhea. Why, well because it lacks any sort of consistency and content, runs contrary to anything normal and leaves you cramped and with a bad taste in your mouth. Ok, so maybe that’s a little far, but the changes we’ve seen in the past week are close to the worse thing I’ve ever associated with Facebook. What’s my point? Facebook is a social networking site. It always has been, and as far as I can tell the denizens of Facebook have used it so. These updates though, take us down the microblogging path that twitter has established. In combining these two, which were never really meant to be combined, Facebook arrives at a conscious stream that runs like diarrhea—watery and insubstantial—and ultimately interrupts the core function of Facebook (social networking).

A Photo Explanation
On the left (old new Facebook):
(a) green posts a photo of last nights party
(b) yellow comments on greens photo
(c) red sees yellows comment and reds photo and friend requests yellow because they met at last nights party

On the right (new new Facebook):
(a) green posts a photo of last nights party and a status update
(b) yellow misses the photo, but reads the status update
(c) red writes a status update about what he ate for dinner

And I Just Noticed
In creating this post I spent some more actually seeing some of the changes that Facebook has implemented. It seems everywhere I look I see something I don’t like. I just realized that Facebook has just completely dropped any sense of timeline from your profile’s wall tab. How does this contribute to a social stream? Who put on the arbitrary hat in this decision process?

Take Note
I’m not complaining here, Facebook, about change. I like change. I was for change in the past redesign. What I’m complaining about is fixing something that wasn’t broke. There are specific complaints here, all spanning from this one update. Next time Facebook, take some time to work out the flaws before jumping on a ship you don’t know is floating or sinking (I don’t even think twitter even knows).

I’m going to link this blog on huffpost again because it’s hilariously true.

Facebook Doesn’t Know (about usability and design)

So, waiting perhaps 36 hours more than some people seemed to have to wait to get their Facebook update rollout, I’m now stuck with something I don’t like. Which is surprising to me. Unlike the majority of the Facebook population, I was in favor of, and liked (for the most part), the past couple of updates and redesigns. But there’s something about this new layout that irks me. I’ll try to put my finger on it: a usability nightmare?

Rounded Images
Here’s a challenge. Look at pretty much everything on Facebook and tell me what type of corners everything has. Square. Now there are a few exceptions, but for the most part those have just been implemented. So why would Facebook change our user-icons to have rounded edges—it just looks awkward and un-aesthetical. My guess: twitter has squares and we can’t look like we were trying to copy twitter.

Wall Posts
Take a look at your news feed and quickly try to find a wall post. This might be because the news feed is now FULL of status updates (more on that later), or it might be because they display almost exactly like a status update. There is one difference and that is the tiny grey arrow, which to me doesn’t delineate a conversation at all. Suggestions: two pictures, quotes…doesn’t matter, just do something about it.

Notifications
Facebook’s thought process of this one is startling. Before Facebook had two places for notifications, the sidebar and the numbers next to the inbox. Now Facebook has three places: the sidebar for birthdays, the welcome banner for friend, application and event requests and the numbers next to the inbox. They couldn’t make this any more confusing.

Highlighted Items
Huge problems here. First off, by whose definition are these highlights highlighted. Personally I couldn’t care less what or who ‘ssenmodnaR’ is, or what ‘rar-rar’ is. Perhaps Facebook thinks I do, but I really don’t. You might have noticed in you’re news feed there is an option to hide a friends updates. Well you can’t hide a highlight. Here’s an idea: stop thinking for us Facebook ( And hiding ads in the highlights).

Icons
Again, questionable thought process here. Facebook: ‘hows about we get rid of all those icons that mark out what type of update is what, no wait here’s a better idea, hows about we get rid of all of them, except put them in the highlights bar’. Pick a design standard Facebook, this mix is confusing and un-aesthetical.

Not Enough Mix
Suddenly I’m stuck with a never ending list of status updates I don’t care about. What I really want is a decent mix of status updates, and to not have decent items I may want to view getting bumped off the bottom of the page by dumb updates like ‘don’t like new facebook’. I think you had it right last time Facebook. Keep it to three or four statuses at the top of the news feed, and have a separate section (like live feed) where you can see everyone’s up to date status.

Design Structure
Take a look at your profile and tell me how the content is divisible. Tabs. Well if this is the dominant design paradigm for Facebook, why have they done away with them on the homepage in favor of something completely different? It makes me think that Facebook has become so managerial and bureaucratically driven that separate divisions and brains are designing different pages at different times differently. Design structure unity is key to a good interface and good usability.

Combining publisher
Anyone on first glance wonder where the publisher went? I smiled and thought they’d abandoned the idea (I’d never used it except to update status). I was wrong. Turns out it’s hidden for on-click in textbox only. This is a usability flaw and a half, I always thought the idea was to have things as easy to access as possible in web design. Thought process: if I want to post a picture, I’m not going to type anything; I just want to click one button. Now I have to pretend to type a status update to get anywhere.

‘What’s on your mind?’
Basically, you need a different phrase. Of course you can’t use ‘what are you doing’ (twitter’s), but ‘what’s on your mind?’, to me, limits exactly to what I’m thinking about, and if that’s the case why haven’t they auto-inserted ‘is thinking about’ to every status box. Of if they’re mind/thinking updates, then their not status updates anymore.

We Will Adapt
The denizens of Facebook will undoubtedly adapt to the complicated, un-aesthetic and usability nightmare that is the new Facebook homepage. But right here and now it feels scraped together, a mish mash of a hundred different thoughts with no clear design patters, and no clear direction. It feels like Facebook when I first joined, which is a giant step back for a webpage, no tool, that hundreds of millions of people around the world use consistently everyday.

The Watchmen - the Comic, the Movie, the Reaction

So I actually got to see this movie last Sunday, but have until this point not had a chance to go back over it and to write up a review. Easily it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year, but I’ve only seen four movies. And to put it bluntly, this desk lamp sitting next to me is more entertaining than one of them (Taken). But it does go up against Benjamin Button, which shares the category of really good (and really drawn out) movie—but they need to be to get the story told.

The Comic
As you should probably be aware, even if you didn’t see the movie, that Watchmen is based on comic book—nay graphic novel—written by Alan Moore in 1986. It’s one of the most well respected graphic novels around and even features on the Time’s 100 top novels of all time. I managed to finish the book a week or so before the movie came out, this after starting it in mid January. For me I wasn’t terribly pleased with the novel. It was good, yes, it wasn’t amazing though. There was a great story, and great characters and a set of good overreaching archetype that blended together fairly seamlessly, but it failed in certain key aspects. The Biggest was the ending, gripping as it was I didn’t like it. It may have worked back in the 1980’s but it just didn’t feel right or suitable an ending for a book I was really into at that point. Clarification: it wasn’t the why of the end, rather the how of it (without giving away any spoilers).
The Movie
So I’d read and liked the comic book, and the trailers looked amazing for this film (although I can’t help but think they marketed it wrong—a superhero movie verses a movie of the morality of people). I personally loved the movie, and got a lot of satisfaction from seeing scenes from the pages of the book recreated on the big screen with startling precision. I also loved most of what they did with the story line. Contrary to what some might think or say it wasn’t exactly page for page, there were parts that were abbreviated and done exceedingly well. The flow was done well, especially when its source is jumpy and staccato. And the new ended tops that of the comic book in my mind, much more plausible (although less gory). So for that I commend Zach Snyder. Of course there were things that I really didn’t like. One was what I just commended Zach Snyder for, and that was story modification. Who is that cat with Ozymandias at the end? Well that’s part of the story that never made it to the screen, so what point does that cat have there except to satisfy some watchmen fanatics personal contentment. Choice a storyline and stick with it, don’t include the unnecessary. Also what was up with some of the songs? '99 luftballoons', really Mr. Snyder? This is given that some of the music was very fitting (critically praised opening credits). Over all I was more than content with the movie.
"The Times They are a Changin'"
There have been so many blog posts, stories and articles over the past week about just of good/bad (circle one) watchmen really is. One of my favorites explained that every showing really had a different feeling to it depending on the audience. 'Who Watches who walks out of the watchmen', describes how many people he saw leaving the theatre during the movie.
Whether you thought it was good or bad, I think watchmen (as screen writer David Hayter says), should be admired as a one of a kind, and one of the best, (almost) literal translations from story to film. Also I think I probably liked it more than most people just because I had the prior knowledge (reading the comic) to add the necessary connectors to this monstrously long movie.

...and all of that without mentioning big blue penis...