...more recent posts
Something is coming into focus for me. For a while I had my head down and was really caught up in building something. Then, although it isn't, and probably won't ever be, finished, I felt like I crossed the threshold. I took things about as far as possible given my not too incredible starting assumptions. So I started to pick my head up and sniff the air for the next thing. I'm ready to start in again (on another learning curve) but I'm a little wiser now about the necessity of picking really good problems. A good problem will take you a long way in the process of working through it. I think I'm starting to get hold of one. At least I have some sort of central nugget in hand. It feels good to turn it over in my mind, to have something to work on.
Here's John Perry Barlow on Napster. I keep going through cycles of being fed up with this whole story, and then rediscovering it again from a different angle. Add in gnutella and freenet, and the conversation can start to swerve into some interesting areas. The Barlow piece is good background.
The New York Press has this interesting piece on the future of digital projection movie theatres. Some interesting ideas about how digital content (and wireless delivery of that content) will change the whole business model.
[T]he advantage... is that it will allow theaters to program much besides canned entertainment like movies: every sort of live event from basketball playoffs to rock concerts to telethons. I argued in my "Death of Film" article last year that this will be the real revolution, since it’s destined to produce a new form of entertainment palace that will owe as much to the programming paradigms of television as it does to traditional movies. In fact, this revolution is already under way: in January, Canada’s Famous Players chain started beaming live professional wrestling matches into its theaters. The shows have been selling out at $15 a seat.Entertainment palace... ummmm....