dcinput

Mark Pilgrim has written a history of DVD copy protection which is very interesting, especially in the light of all the talk about the Netflix anouncement which I’ve been waiting for since Scoble wrote about it.

Netflix, the world’s largest online movie rental service, will give customers the choice of either having the DVDs sent out to them or watching the content straight on their PCs.

Screencast Demo of the new service.

Robert Sobble’s not too happy about the streaming: “Hollywood: you need to find a better solution”.

Dave Winer: “It’s another example of the movie industry’s lack of will to compete”.

Mike Arrington: “Studios contributing to Netflix’s new service include NBC Universal, Sony Pictures, MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate and New Line Cinema.”

Thinking different…

This video for the Apple “Think different” campain is great. Ignore for a second that it is an Apple branding exercise and just look at the message. This is the sort of thing that is happening on the web every single day.

I’ve been reading Jello Biafra’s Wikipedia page.

He is an american punk rock musician and politcal activist best known for being the lead singer and song writer of the Dead Kennedys (78-86). Inertia, my high school’s best band when I was there used to do loads of covers of theirs.

A bit of Googling revealed that his record label Alternative Tentacles have a podcast covering the music they release and also some polical speaking by Jello.

I also found a very old interview with him by an impressively young Jools Holland.

Wordpress not good for my feed?

I’ve noticed recently that because of the way I write the blog if you read this via the feed you might miss updates that I make throughout the day. I tend to make one “dcinput daily” post and add to it. Unfortunately if you read the post early in the day and mark it as read in your aggregator then following updates won’t show up. I am looking for a way of using Wordpress to get around this currently so sorry about that. Suggestions welcome.

Windows adverts sure aren’t what they used to be. Bring back the 386!

Another really long day at the office.

If you regularly have to work on several different operating systems at the same time, then make sure you check out Synergy:

“Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It’s intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).”

This product has improved my work life by at least 5%. I need to work simulataneously on a windows and a linux machine and find myself constantly switching. I now have 1 keyboard and mouse and two flat screens, when I move the mouse from one screen over to the other, the keyboard automatically switches to work on the other machine. Get this you can even copy and paste between the two. It’s a little client/server system that is simple to install and really easy to configure and it works on most platforms. First software product in a long time that has made me very happy!

Al Jazeera English is hiring videobloggers to do pieces for them. Max Keiser of KarmabanqueRadio has one here: People and Power: Death of the Dollar [bad quality recording though]. I had a long conversation with a documentary maker who was working with the KarmaBanque over a year ago at a party I was at. Not sure I fully understood the project. Some interesting ideas in this piece though.

Another great Big Lebowski mashup: The Big Lebowski - The Dude’s Version.

DCinemaToday: “Barco and Silicon Graphics announce that worldwide media company Deluxe Labs has installed a Barco DP100 2K D-CINE PREMIERE projector at its Hollywood facility through SGI Professional Services”.

Its nice to finally see some press releases from Deluxe and EFilm considering their considerable input into digital cinema recently which, especially in Europe, has remained under the raidar. I get the feeling that we’re going to be seing a lot of very interesting things from these guys in the near future. Key word in this press release: worldwide.

I’ve had many dealings with SGI in the last few months and I contiunue to be extremely impressed. Whether it be in times of exteme time pressure or periods of technical planning their engineers continue to produce the goods without fail. Their share price may be low right now but sending investments their way at this time might just make you some money in the next few years.

There’s a UK podcasters meet up with Adam Curry and the podshow massive happening in London this coming Sunday (3pm) at the Bricklayers affectionally entitled Curry Club. Great pub by the way. Sign up on the Wiki if you want to come. I’ll definitely be there…sounds like fun. Beer and darts…how could I possibly pass it up? I’ll see if any of the ICSelect crowd want to come down.

It’s also the London Marathon on Sunday so good luck to my two most excellent buddies Laurie Bantin and Tony Uberschar of (among other things) the fabulous Terra Plana. May the best man win. As much as I’d like to be there with you I’ll be in a far more sensible place: the pub.

Check out these most superb Terra Plana shoes.

LATimes: ” Historically, the porn industry has adopted new technologies more nimbly than Hollywood”.

DCinemaToday: “The QuVIS Digital Cinema System™ is part of the QuVIS Digital Cinema Solution, which includes the QuVIS Acuity™ and QuVIS QuStudio™ for post production, mastering, and content management, including encryption, secure distribution and key management. QuVIS QuShow™ provides screen management of content for in-theater scheduling and show playlist management; either standalone, or in conjunction with an existing system”.

I am mainly linking to this article from the New Yorker because I haven’t finished reading it and I want to go back to it later. It’s about possible US plans to attack Iran. Pretty scarry stuff.

It’s great to see that my old University Imperial College supports RSS! One for news and one for events.

Looks like Universty College London, where I did my Masters, has one for news too! It’s a little harder to find but it sure is there.