"The cinematic world was today celebrating the rediscovery of missing scenes from German director Fritz Lang's legendary silent film Metropolis - thought lost for 80 years, until they were found in the archive of a museum in Argentina.
Key scenes cut from the science fiction picture - either because they were considered to be too brutal or too long - will now be available for the first time since May 1927, when the original version was last shown in Berlin, where it flopped badly." - RAPatton via Bookmarklet
It looks like she is wearing something very similar to what they use in korean salons in Los Angeles - RAPatton
This film was brilliant and visually seems to have inspired many other Sci Fi classics - Angel Aviles-McClinton
hmm--wonder if these would make the movie somewhat more interesting... [ducks] - edythe
good emote ;) The film is more enjoyable if you pretend you've never been to a moving picture before and just read everything H.G. Wells and Jules Verne have published. - Michael W. May
"Montreal-based photographer Kate Hutchinson is conducting an interesting, on-going photo series called "Why Am I Marrying Him?" Consisting of everyday photographs of her fiancé, her photos speak volumes about intimacy, relationships, and the weight of marriage." - edythe via Bookmarklet
What a moving character study! There's so many little glimpses of the person she loves in the quotidian scenes she shoots him in. Even a bit of ambivalence. And what a great subject for a series... I hope it never ends. - Madsimian
"The study, given the go-ahead by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will involve treating human cancer patients with white blood cells from healthy young people whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity.
The basis of the study is the scientists' discovery, published five years ago, of a cancer-resistant mouse and their subsequent finding that white blood cells from that mouse and its offspring cured advanced cancers in ordinary laboratory mice. They have since identified similar cancer-killing activity in the white blood cells of some healthy humans.
"In mice, we've been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors," Cui said. "Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans."
The team has tested human cancer-fighting cells from healthy donors against human cervical, prostate and breast cancer cells in the laborator" - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
I <3 science. I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling every time I hear about (yet another) breakthrough. - Tudor Bosman
Wow... I'm speechless. You always hope to hear about things like this and now, here it is... Wow. - Lisa L. Seifert
this is of a kind with the story Dan Kaplan posted...about the greyhounds... - edythe
how can someone read this and not "like" it? - Chris Hollander
Tudor: tend to agree reg. science, but I must admit after taking an epidemiology methodology course my initial reaction to medical breakthroughs is somewhat reluctant, but I hope this one is great. - Amund Tveit
HiPPO is often used in the context of website optimization. Take a typical SEM scenario- Google AdWords keyword driving users to a landing page. How do you determine the best combination of imagery, messaging, call to action buttons, etc. to present on the landing page to drive conversion. For many customers, the HiPPO makes these decisions. Unfortunately, the HiPPO rarely gets it right. Website optimization is about using data to determine the best combination of factors on a page to drive conversions. - Tom Wentworth
Bad for lots of decisions, not just web design! :) - Jason Kaneshiro
Two stages to corporate purchasing: 1) The poor sap that does the research, due diligence, builds a relationship, negotiates, prints out an email 2) The guy that writes the check to his brother-in-law's company - Andy Murdoch
Smack in the middle of HiPPO pool at my work. Very frustrating - John Frost
I attended an Analytics workship where Avinash Kaushik recommended landing page testing as the most effective way to neutralize a HIPPO. They tested several LP designs, one that reflected the opinions of the HIPPO, marketing manger and janitor. The janitor's page won. - Lorna Li
Soooooo, anyone got anything interesting to say about the post itself, or should we keep making these Louis Gray jokes (Sorry Louis) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Alexander, you always write very thought-provoking posts. I will re-read it again in the morning and maybe I can pull together something halfway intelligent. - J. Phil
@Alexander - going to re-read in the morning with coffee .. operating on 3hrs sleep is starting to catch up on me. - Steven Hodson
The whole concept of "lifestreaming" is not really accurate. I'm not streaming my life when I use aggregation services. All I'm doing is having them track my behavior on some sites that friends and peers may find interesting.
Lifestreaming things like meals, bodily functions, and the mundane are completely not interesting.
But the idea of "always on" doesn't mean "broadcast everything". I like being always on. It's not just being on, it's being connected and engaged. - Louis Gray
re: trend 1, prediction: "homepage" will be dead in 10 years. A big company like Google will control a semantically connected device that is always online (maybe attached to you) that you can communicate with. That will be the destination. - Hao Chen
@Steven, good night. Louis, I probably should have used a different term, but when you combine services like Twitter, Dopplr, Beacon (-like services), I'm thinking these streams are depicting more of our actions in life (hence life-stream). - Alexander van Elsas
Louis, what interests me in the "always on" thing isn't just the streaming part. It is also interesting to think what will happen if your kids grow up, and there comes a clash between "always on" and events happening in real life. i suspect that when more people are reaching a state of "always on" there will be more interferences with physical life. It would be interesting to see what happens then. My feeling is that people will disconnect on purpose, to make a clear distinction again between on and off. - Alexander van Elsas
Hao, sounds like something I wouldn't trust Google or anyone else with ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Alexander, true about the need for a destination but then web sites have been fighting to be our home page ever since the birth of the browser. The ideals of a user-centric web are great but - in reality - how many people want the levels of data portability that the campaigns demand? We already have cross service IM but, as far as social networks go, many join a particular service as that's where their friends are and have little (or even no) need to climb the walls of those gardens. Perhaps behaviour will alter but until social media becomes more prevalent we will not have a true picture of peoples behaviour in this area. - Colin Walker via fftogo
And, with regards to your second trend - you already know where I stand on the need to disconnect from time to time ;) - Colin Walker via fftogo
Alex: Viewing all these Flickr photos is really keeping me motivated to travel more (not less)! Although now it's strange to take 1-3 hrs/day when traveling to blog/e-mail/FriendFeed/call-friends... - Mitchell Tsai
Colin, I'm thinking about a destination that is mine, that I can truly call " home" . I am not sure what it would look like exactly, but it would have to be a user-centric place. What I mean by that is that I dictate what that home looks like, but more importantly, I get to dictate the underlying business model. I might pay for it, or allow advertisement, or whatever. But it wouldn't be something that forces a business model upon me (like Facebook does). This topic would justify another post ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
Sachendra says in a response on the post " When the novelty wears off, we’ll see the similar types of human behaviors as we have now." I think he is right up to a point. I responded "@Sachendra, that’s a bit what I am thinking. But I do think human behavior is a bit affected by the new uses of technology. So it will be more ” balancing out”. Technology will and has been leaving it's trace on our lives. - Alexander van Elsas
Now if all this socialization will make us unplug and meet in person that would be best! ;-) - Igor The Troll
Igor LOL. But honestly, I don't think that it's necessarily a bad thing to be socializing on the web. Being able to connect overcoming place, time, and distance is great. But it's just a matter of finding the right balance really. As more people will start using social media I think the novelty of "always on" will wear down and people will find balance once more ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
I think you are right. Looking forward to bumping into you in Thamel Nepal or Varanasi. Just please do not Stalk me, I know Kung Fu! LMAO - Igor The Troll
Given that no one service can do everything that we would want, the "home" you want could end up being just a personalized homepage like iGoogle or Netvibes. If you put the right widgets on your page it definitely could be your "home". The problem is finding the right combination of services that suit your needs. - Rob Diana
Rob , maybe, I'm not sure. the problem with the examples is that they aren't really mine are they. There are business models over there that don't fit my need. I was thinking more along the lines of a private space. It needs to be a place where I can save the important stuff, where I can grant people access to parts whenever I want. I envision it to be the web version of a real home. That should be mine, not Google's ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
So, maybe we are looking at our own hosted site but do we host it remotely (say with our ISP), our own webspace or even at home (such as Windows Home Server). One way or another someone is going to have to write the platform that we all tweak to our needs wherever it is hosted. - Colin Walker via fftogo
We should host it in Sweden so it is neutral. lol - Igor The Troll
@Alexander, I was not recommending iGoogle or Netvibes I was just using them as examples of today's personalized homepage. In the future, I am assuming that the personalized homepage will change, and most likely existing ones will change as well. I know some service has the concept of private/public pieces, I cannot remember which it was though. There is also the problem of push vs pull (again). - Rob Diana
Colin, it could be something running on your own computer (or in Sweden for that matter HA HA), but where it runs isn't nearly as important as who is in control. I need to be in control. That ensures a business model is used that fits my own needs. That could be a subscription or an advertisement based version or whatever. - Alexander van Elsas
Trend 1 - wouldn’t your home on the Web naturally be the place where your master data resides?
Trend 2 - agree - Mark Dykeman
@Mark, thx for your response. Let me point out that I'm not so concerned if I'm right, it is merely a thought exercise to help me understand the present ;-) But in response to your question. Your data currently resides with Facebook (figuratively speaking), do you want them to provide you with a home, or would you like a more user-centric home? Wrt to the second trend. It is interesting to explore the disconnect thing. How would it work, or in other words, how would we find balance? - Alexander van Elsas
And here is excellent advice from Sarah Perez "I love social media, but I love the “real world” too. Real human interaction is not achieved behind a keyboard, so as great as social media is…and it is great…I feel strongly that people need to find balance in their life when it comes to this. Take time away from the computer. Go for a walk, ride your bike, swim in the ocean, play with your dog, read a book, play a game, fall in love, have coffee with a friend and just talk. These things are important too, and you don’t need to tweet them to make the worthwhile. - Alexander van Elsas
And that's what I'll do for tonight. If I have enough time the followup on this will appear tomorrow, else the day after (so much to say, so little time) ;-) - Alexander van Elsas
"The Art Newspaper: Regarding the Nietzsche Car piece which was on display with Galerie Chantal Crousel at Art Basel; could you explain the connection between Hello Kitty [a toy cat] and Nietzsche?
Thomas Hirschhorn: Both have a moustache!" - Jason Wehmhoener via Bookmarklet
I'm overtired from the non-sleeping child- otherwise why did the idea of Hello Nietzsche just pop into my head? Yikes. - Abby Martin
"A 21-year-old student from the UK has designed a cardboard bicycle that he has dubbed "the ultimate green machine." Supporting anyone up to 168 pounds, the frame, which costs around $6 to make, is made from the cardboard used in industrial packaging, whilst the wheels and chain are standard bike issue, and will cost around $24." - edythe via Bookmarklet
168 pounds? I wonder if I can ride two of them at the same time. :) - Harvey Simmons
You can get a real bike, made of metal, with brakes and gears and stuff, from Wal-Mart or Target for $70. Is that not true in the UK? The guy is claiming that he's trying to solve an affordability problem ("A typical round town bike can cost several hundred pounds"), but... - ⓞnor
Well, the ones from Wal-mart just have "brakes". - Tad Donaghe
but, nor, it's more fun when you make it yourself out of cardboard. :) - edythe
Folding metal bicycles available in China for $30. Ran into a lady in Shanghai who bought one to bring home. - Mitchell Tsai
"She comes up to the desk and tell me that there is something wrong with the copier. She is holding almost a reams worth of blank paper.
When I get to the copy machine I look over it, inspect it, listen for the goblins that live inside and steal your quarters. And everything seems to be copacetic.
After what seems like an eternity of conversation (she was one of those people that you have to pry what they want out of them), I finally realize that there is nothing in the copier. She was trying to make copies of nothing. All of her copy stuff was sitting on the counter. Now I can understand one. Maybe even two. But she had so many. Somewhere in the Amazon, rain forests are disappearing. And all because of her copy habits." Classic. - Mark Trapp
Maybe Librarians and Tech Support people should combine our unions, kinda like the AFL-CIO. I think I know the people being described in these stories. - Harvey Simmons
I've just recently had my qualifications accredited by the ALA (American Library Association) they sent a list of sites and societies to check out and join - why was this one not on the list!! This is only society worth considering. Thank you Ginger! - Patricia Hanrahan
Patricia, congrats on the accreditation. I don't know much about library science -- does this mean you're making a career change? - Ginger Makela
I can see it now. Samuel L. Jackson comes out of the reference section, "Motherfucker. I have had it up to here with all these motherfuckin' snakes in this motherfuckin library." - Slippy Lane
Slippy Lane, nearly fell off my chair reading that! Ginger, did my LIS studies at non-US universities so had to get the qualifications from Australia and Denmark officially recognised by the ALA if I want to get a visa to work in the States. - Patricia Hanrahan
Angry librarians are great. I'm angry-by-proxy, as a patron who gets bloody irritated by people doing stupid things in libraries. Okay, angry patron story: I was using a library a while back and wanted to check a dictionary. Ask man on desk where I could find a dictionary. Response: "On the shelf with the dictionaries". Yes, thank you so much. - Tom Morris
So, you wash your hands under the spigot (which is annoyingly set back), and then a trail of dirty soapy suds slowly winds its way down the spiral, so you have to run a gallon of water when you're done just to wash it all away...? And if you, say, spit into the sink after brushing your teeth, you'll probably splash places the spiral-trail of water never actually reaches at all, and then you'll have to take a washcloth and clean your sink basin. - ⓞnor
If it's art, why pretend it's a sink? Why not just make it a pretty fountain somewhere, and not bother with things like a faucet handle? (Similarly, I never understood why so much ornamental pottery is trying to be a bowl or a cup or a vase. Nobody's ever going to eat out of it or put flowers into it, why limit yourself with the false pretense of functionality?) - ⓞnor
If you're going to have a sink in a guest-accessible bathroom, it might as well be something that looks nice. Yes, it's not terribly practical, but so what. Yes it's going to need some extra attention when cleaning, but so what. Someone who has an awesome sink like that is likely to have a housekeeper. @ⓞnor: It's not that it's EITHER a sink OR it's art. It's BOTH. - Cyrus Lendvay
In my view there's a balance between form and function. People are often willing to compromise on functionality in exchange for aesthetic enjoyment. This is true everywhere. 'Getting it done' and 'Feeling good about it' are always goals and in some objects those goals compete. I wouldn't want every sink to have such a focus on aesthetics, but if it was a sink in an environment where the aesthetic experience was more important then it may be a valid tradeoff. - Kevin Fox
(off-topic-friendfeed-gush): man, i love that ff can spark a heated debate with a picture of a sink! - Trent Olson
I love what you can do with concrete, although I prefer the hard lines of a ramp sink like we're doing in our downstairs bathroom: http://www.concretenetwork.com... You can embed stuff into concrete also, but I haven't thought of anything cool yet. - Chris White
I love this sink. Our ordinary sinks look pretty nasty if you don't wash them with a sponge pretty frequently, and I seriously doubt we're washing our hands or brushing our teeth in an unusual way. - Jason Wehmhoener
why can't i be rich so i can get all these cool things? - Chris Harris
@Chris Harris: Build one. Concrete isn't very expensive. We built our vanity out of a console table from Pier1 and a home made bowl from Ebay. It looks like we paid $2000 for the whole thing, but our cost was <$250. - Cyrus Lendvay
Kevin: Fair enough; mostly I was responding to Russellreno, who seemed to be saying that it wasn't legitimate to complain about functional deficits. I think it's legitimate to point those out, and also perfectly legitimate to say "yeah, yeah, but it's *so pretty*!". - ⓞnor
I do think it would be great to have this one in the guest bathroom. Great conversation starter. - Russellreno
Chris, your concrete sinks seem pretty and functional. I like the way embedded leaves look on pottery, but on a sink it would be hard to burn them out and they probably don't match the theme you are going for. Mirrors are always handy in a bathroom, but easy to make a space go from classy to tacky. - Clare Dibble
Don't care if it's hard to clean. I have a thing for spirals. And for cool stuff. And for art. DO WANT. - Lindsay Donaghe
"It's official: Obama will back a filibuster of any Senate FISA legislation containing telecom immunity, his campaign has just told Election Central." - Maki via Bookmarklet
This statement and accompanying article was from October. MoveOn.org is pushing its members to call Obama and ask him to adhere to this vow. - Kevin Fox
In this case, even though the city of Ontario had a formal policy that allowed viewing of messages sent on city property, there was an informal policy that prevented it. The court let the informal policy trump the written one. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo
"To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "democracy might not be the greatest system there is but it is the greatest system mankind has invented so far." Many American corporations are dysfunctional because corporate democracy is a myth in the United States. They run like a decaying socialistic state. Our boards and CEOs exist in a symbiotic relationship where the boards nourish the CEO with massive stock options that are re-priced downward if the companies stock declines - making them forever valuable. They reward the CEO with pay packages and bonuses when the stock is floundering or the CEO is leaving the company. Corporate performance and the shareholders welfare seldom enter the picture. What kind of democracy is this? There is no accountability." - Bret Taylor
I like it when he quotes himself more. - MG Siegler
Sounds like self-fulfilling prophecy from Mr. Corporate Raider - Mark Forman
I'm kinda confused that anyone would think that corporations are democracies, or that they should be. Corporations aren't governments; they don't necessarily need to use the same structure. Every corporation I've known has been a hierarchy. And that's not a complaint. - Brent Newhall
Democracy is a great form of government, but a corporation is not a government. I don't *want* a say in a lot of the things my company is involved in, I just want to do my job. - Mitch Wagner via twhirl
er, but corporations are democracies, that's what the voting shares are for. This is not some viewpoint or angle, this is reality. - j1m
The system we have works, its a weighted democracy which means CEOs can get on with running the company rather than fighting every rabble-rousing shareholder.....Yes I'm looking at you Carl Icahn. - Cains
Most public corporations are democracies, that's what stocks are here for, except for companies like Google that just take away the voting power from their shareholders. @Brent Newhall - That hasn't anything to do with hierarchy - a government has a hierarchy, too. @Mitch Wagner - Believe it or not, if you can keep your job sometimes depends on the management. Bad management can destroy your job. So yes, you *want* a say in your company if you want to keep your job. - sebmos
@Cains - No, it doesn't work. We have a system where a guy like Terry Semel can destroy a company and still earn half a billion dollars doing it, without ever being held accountable. He didn't have to give back his stock options, he didn't have to pay Yahoo for the damage he created. If you go to a house and burn it down, you'll be held accountable. If you take a company and run it into ground, you make a lot of money. Now how does that system work? - sebmos
This type of writing is useful to read because it does give you some insight into the thought processes churning in the minds of the "corporate titans", if only that it makes you realise that the way they think can be quite different than the way most of us think. Whether or not Icahn really has the moral or social capital to write stuff like this with credibility is another story but it's hard to argue his main point: companies and the economy as a whole suffer when instead of watchmen and leaders, you have "yes" people and seat warmers who are party to what could be the most insidious pyramid-like schemes ever seen. And this highly publicized minority (or so I hope) of the total population gives a bad name to people who actually try to do good work. To be fair, though, business boards aren't the only ones with a preponderance of deadwood. It can, and does, happen in all kinds of organizations. It's just that the spoils available to those at the top are generally smaller and less opulent in other kinds - Mark Dykeman
@sebmos The board/shareholders choose the management, sometimes things just don't work out and it's not always just the CEOs fault (but ultimately it is their responsibility). Terry Semel had as much incentive to increase the share value as any other stakeholder (infact I think he missed out on performance options). - Cains
"Sweden on Wednesday adopted contentious legislation that will give officials sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all e-mail and telephone traffic that crosses the Nordic nation's borders.
After heated debate and last-minute changes, lawmakers approved the bill that has outraged some lawmakers and prompted protesters to hand out copies of George Orwell's novel "1984" outside Parliament.
Lawmakers approved the bill in a 143-138 vote. One lawmaker abstained.
It will become law in January." - Jason Wehmhoener
Why, I don't know. Because Sweden is not exactly high on the list of terrorists' most wanted nations... - Raoul Pop
There really should be a dis-like button. Governments seem to be having a really hard time protecting us from governments protecting us from terrorists. We need a higher-order politics. - Madsimian
There's no rational reason why any nation would pass laws like this. It's mindless panic being maliciously fed by the power hungry. - Jason Wehmhoener
Ahh, Lisp. The greatest language we don't use. - DeWitt Clinton
"The language we used once in undergrad but will never touch ever again." - ⓞnor
There; I deleted the old entry...I was testing RSSmeme and shared a couple of things in different ways to make sure everything was working. Thanks for copying my quote over ⓞnor - Benjamin Golub
is there any scenario where this is a good idea and will help you get ahead? - Lou Paglia
Lou - I think the big problem is entitlement. Many youth have no idea just how competitive things are getting. They have no idea that their normal behaviour has global consequences. Watch this and you'll understand my point a whole lot better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... - melmcbride
Abby: most of you do. A few from last semester, clearly do not. Tomorrow is about that. - melmcbride
yes, i predict this will be difficult to convey to them. - edythe
Edythe: you're quite right. I have a great example but there are ethical reasons I cannot show it. I will outline how professional adult people have a different response to the stuff their peer group thinks is cool and fun. I will explain legacy and consequences. Everything beyond that is up to them. But you're right: for many people consequences aren't real until they happen. By then, all is usually lost. - melmcbride
Outcome: When you post something in a public space you are publishing. When you record and upload a video to a public site you are broadcasting - particularly if the video player features embed code for rebroadcasting. To publish potentially embarrassing content on a public site where you have the options to either delete or send to a friend privately is taking a personal risk. By doing so, you have granted any person the RIGHT to reproduce, cite or comment on that publicly broadcast content. - melmcbride
