Entelechy

Photosynth is pretty cool

Check out CNN's 3D image from the Inauguration, made from crowdsourced photographs.

Where Technology Leads ... Art Can Follow

I have a fascination with the wild Pre-Code era, Hollywood movies. I just watched the documentary "Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood." Interesting how big a role technological change plays in the evolution of movies. Apparently:

The silent films required actors to express emotion with gestures and facial expressions. The advent of sound shifted the emphasis to dialogue. At first cameras that stood still enforced another limitation, though: relatively little motion. In the early 30s, boom microphones and moving cameras followed the actors around, letting loose movement around the sets - shoot outs, car chases, fisticuffs, and even a Cecil B. DeMille extravaganza labeled by one of the commentators as an "orgy" scene, a drunken/drugged party on a Zeppelin.

Future Shock?

My niece got a Wii for Christmas. She explained to me, with the authority only teenagers have, that she plans to exchange her trumped Game Cube at the game store. Technology that becomes obsolete before it wears out and marketplace activity based on interactivity - for my parents, a sign of decline; for me, a source of consulting opportunities; for the next generation - just the way things work!

How the 2008 Candidates Use LinkedIn

I just perused the LinkedIn profiles of candidates in the  U.S. presidential race. Interesting exercise. I know ghostwriters were responsible, but the differences in style are still interesting:

Barack Obama writes  his summary in the first person, in the tone of business letter to a trusted friend or colleague. It gives the impression that he wrote it himself. Under specialties, he uses full sentences, each with a dependent clause, covering three issues.

Hillary Clinton's summary is also in the first person but has a certain generic quality that somehow does not feel as if she herself wrote it. She includes no specialties section.

John McCain's begins with "Welcome to the official John McCain profile" followed up by a quote (in quotation marks" from the candidate. The quote consists of familiar talking points. He has posted a recommendation for Sarah Palin. Specialties listed are unadorned phrases. ("Straight talk, politics, history.")

Sarah Palin's page has no introductory sentence, but also uses quotation marks around the candidate's statement." She has posted a recommendation for John McCain. Among her specialties- "attacking good old boy networks."

The profiles give the impressions that Obama's campaign is comfortable in the online world, Clinton's doesn't quite get it, and McCain/Palin's seems to communicate in a manner more typical for television than for online.

Oh - and Bill Clinton was inaccessible - not in my network!

Fun Article about Usability

Title sound like an oxymoron? Read this article about usability bloopers in the movies.