On SmartGlass

Microsoft announced SmartGlass at their E3 press conference yesterday — an overall tiring onslaught of sports and war and more sports — which is supposedly "a companion that pulls me deeper into the experience".

I don't know in what kind of reality dividing your attention between a gripping drama and a needless flashy map is pulling you deeper into an experience, but that's where Microsoft is buying its cool-aid. There may very well be great uses for SmartGlass, but that isn't one.

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

— Dr. Ian Malcolm

And don't get me started on browsing the web on the TV, through your tablet...

Think McFly. Think.

"I'm not really connected to that."

That simplicity in the hardware has not always been matched in the software, which since the rise of iOS - the operating system for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch - has been marked by something known as skeuomorphism, a tendency for new designs to retain ornamental features of the old design. Thus the calendar in Apple's Macs and on iOS has fake leather texture and even fake stitching.

When I mention the fake stitching, Ive offers a wince but it's a gesture of sympathy rather than a suggestion that he dislikes such things. At least, that's how I read it. He refuses to be drawn on the matter, offering a diplomatic reply: "My focus is very much working with the other teams on the product ideas and then developing the hardware and so that's our focus and that's our responsibility. In terms of those elements you're talking about, I'm not really connected to that."

I'd deny any responsibility even if I was.

On Google

I do miss when Google was a software company supported by ads instead of an ad company that released software, though.

Californium Neutron Flux Multiplier

It's a thing. Kodak used it for their secret nuclear reactor. No, seriously.

(via Kottke)

"There's something alive down there!"

"Something not us."

Into the Dark Woods

With Angelo Badalamenti channelling David Lynch.

"I'm in the 'Avatar' Business"

James Cameron goes George Lucas:

I’ve divided my time over the last 16 years over deep ocean exploration and filmmaking. I’ve made two movies in 16 years, and I’ve done eight expeditions. Last year I basically completely disbanded my production company’s development arm. So I’m not interested in developing anything. I’m in the “Avatar” business. Period. That’s it. I’m making “Avatar 2,” “Avatar 3,” maybe “Avatar 4,” and I’m not going to produce other people’s movies for them. I’m not interested in taking scripts. And that all sounds I suppose a little bit restricted, but the point is I think within the “Avatar” landscape I can say everything I need to say that I think needs to be said, in terms of the state of the world and what I think we need to be doing about it.

Say what you will about Avatar, I re-watched it recently and found it less boring than I remembered it, though it could still do with a kick in the story department, but for a movie which takes place almost entirely outside, in jungles, in mountains, in water, this bit is pretty incredible:

There were zero… I can’t say zero exteriors. We did one night in the parking lot next to the sound stage. But there were no locations.

May the Fourth

This is one of my favorite McQuarrie paintings, one I recently bought a glorious print of from Dreams and Vision Press. Not the Cloud City since introduced in Empire, it's depicting the floating Imperial Prison on Alderaan from one of the earlier drafts of Star Wars, modelled on the side of an aircraft carrier, with a few exotic buildings topping it off. Worth noticing of course are the five Colin Cantwell prototype tie fighters, and the then Millenium Falcon (known as the Pirate Ship in the scripts) getting ready to dock.

May the fourth be with you.

Great iOS Cursor Movement Prototype

Do want.

Drew Struzan

While the Hollywood marketing departments have committed creative suicide long ago, and are now being run seemingly by a batch of monkeys — admittedly relatively well-trained, but monkeys nonetheless — there was a time when artists like Drew Struzan helped shape the magic of cinema from well before the audience saw the first frame of the film. He is arguably the greatest poster artist to have worked in Hollywood, and his style is indelibly linked with many of the great movies of past decades, in the minds of the film fans who've grown up in his epoc.

Well, there's a documentary in the works, and while it's almost done, it's run out of money, and needs your help to crawl the last couple of feet across the finish line.

Far Away

I'm tripping on Red Dead Redemption (and spaghetti westerns in general) these days, as well as its amazing soundtrack, and I came across this live rendition of Jose Gonzales's Far Away, recorded on a rooftop a few blocks from the Squarespace Office.

Great song, amazing game

Portal's Community Level Builder

Absolutely amazing. Having been a level designer for over a decade, I can't stress how impressed I am with this. Granted, they can do this because the environments of Portal supports it, but that's part of the brilliance, isn't it?

Geek

Being a geek is all about your own personal level of enthusiasm, not how your level of enthusiasm measures up to others. If you like something so much that a casual mention of it makes your whole being light up like a halogen lamp, if hearing a stranger fondly mention your favorite book or game is instant grounds for friendship, if you have ever found yourself bouncing out of your chair because something you learned blew your mind so hard that you physically could not contain yourself — you are a geek

Orson Welles on Repetition

Q: A critic who admires your work very much said that, in The Trial, you were repeating yourself…
Welles: Exactly, I repeated myself. I believe we do it all the time. We always take up certain elements again. How can it be avoided? An actor’s voice always has the same timbre and, consequently, he repeats himself. It is the same for a singer, a painter…There are always certain things that come back, for they are part of one’s personality, of one’s style. If these things didn’t come into play, a personality would be so complex that it would become impossible to identify it.