assynchronous collab
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i’m reading about the “outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism” documentary (go fast, NYT link there), and the way it was done. it’s a classic example of what i’m thinking about - assynchronous collaboration - and since we’re on the web, how easy (and cheap) it is to get some results that it’s gonna be our new way to work.
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“In January, Greenwald rigged up a dozen DVD recorders and programmed them to record Fox News 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for about six months. Greenwald and a team of researchers compiled a list of what they saw as Fox’s telltale themes and techniques: stories questioning the patriotism of liberals; relentlessly upbeat reports on Iraq; belligerent hosts who scream at noncompliant guests. Greenwald planned for the list’s categories eventually to become organizing sections of the film.
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Once the list of categories was complete, Greenwald asked MoveOn to round up 10 volunteers, each of whom was assigned a particular time slot during the day to monitor Fox, so that the network’s news stories or commentaries were under observation virtually 24 hours a day. When a MoveOn volunteer would spot an example of footage that fit one of Greenwald’s categories, he would note the date and precise time and send the information in an e-mail message to Greenwald, who had an assistant code it and transfer it to a spreadsheet.
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By May, Greenwald had received enough examples to construct a rough outline of the film. He then hired five editors. In the evenings, two editors would consult Greenwald’s spreadsheets and locate the flagged footage in his vast library of Fox News segments. During the day, the three other editors worked simultaneously on separate parts of the movie, stitching together a coherent narrative from the Fox clips as well as interviews that Greenwald conducted with former Fox employees (some of them disguised to protect their identities) and commentators like the former CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite and the liberal media critics Mark Crispin Miller and Eric Alterman. At the end of each day, the editors posted their work on a secure Web site for Greenwald’s review.”

about vonage
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well, i don’t know about the actual service, i’m still only using their “softphone”, a program that permits you to make and receive calls from anywhere you have broadband connection.
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the service is kinda choppy, but i guess i’m doing something wrong, because ppl are talking wonders about it.
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i used it on hilton hotel, and it worked fine. i suppose that if the service gets popular, the wi-fi providers will start to get angry… coz it probably sucks too much band. or not.
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if i’m not available (computer off, program off, internet off, or the usual 3 rings after), the caller goes to a voice mail service, as usual and i receive a mail telling me i have a new voicemail. going on the website, i can hear (and download, think of the possibilities) the message. kinda neat.
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too bad their site is crammed with irrelevant information. i’d suggest something like:
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- a cookie to remember my login/password (kmon, write it everytime i want to hear a message is clunky)
- a link on the mail, so i could go to the message right away
- better integration with the OS (but i guess the mac version is really new). i tried to use an apple script that bridges vonage softphone with mac’s address book, but it didn’t work with me (everytime i try to call someone, it appears as if THEY are calling me. weird).
- and again with better integration, open the source for some other apps… i’d love to have a program that pops up a textfile for each person, so i could write down what i have to talk with someone, and then when they call me, i’m all prepared.

i was enjoying the flow of all those connections and coincidences, and then i realized that when the world acts like a ball your mind (everything starting to make sense, the joining of missing links, a sense of wonder and fullfillment), it’s because a crash is about to happen.
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i explained my state of mind to sweethell - an old friend of mine - and she said “beware, i was feeling this way just before i got pregnant” (it was a turning point for her, she had to change everything from inside out to adjust to her new reality).
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damn witch. she’s not only right but she said exactly in the tone i was concluding myself. a warning.
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If it cannot hatch from its shell,
the chick will die without ever being born.
We are the chick;
the world is our egg.
If we don’t break the world’s shell,
we will die without truly being born.
Smash the world’s shell,

for the Revolution of the World.

netflix bookmarklet
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I’m so amazed by the netflix service that I decided to create a bookmarklet of it.
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how it works: whenever you read about some actor, movie or director you wanna know more about, just select the term and click on Search Netfix!. A new page will open with the netflix answers, so you can add to your queue right away.
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how to install: as any other bookmarklet, just drag this Search Netflix! link to your Links (Favorites, in some browsers) toolbar, click ok to the warning, and you are good to go.
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if you have no Links or favorites toolbar on your browser, try View > Toolbars and check it.

suck your printer dry
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waste all ink you still have on your printer with these two nice websites.
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on science fiction papercraft (crude engrish a japanese website) you can choose to build between some starwars robots or other sf movies (how about the back to the future delorean?)
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in the other one, called rasterbation, you send a picture (upload or the web) and they give you a big pdf file to print (in black & white, huge dots and tiled). good to tell the world about your last obsession.
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