brian's blog

From ZDNet, Hollywood seeks iTunes for film:

"We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like Steve Jobs did for music, but for the film industry," Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at the Digital Hollywood conference.

Of course, that's easy to do when you're both a) the content provider, and b) the storefront.

But it's great that they're realizing users want to consume media in many very different ways. Sony -- and other studios -- are trying to be proactive in an industry where change can be slow and tedious. I'd argue that they've already waited far too long as it is.

Also, given this announcement, and with the bundling of a Spider Man 2 UMD disc in the PSP launch last week, you can certainly bet the PSP will be a big part of Sony's on-the-go movie distribution strategy.

BoringBoring, a great and excessively detailed April Fools parody of the geek haven BoingBoing.

Just saw a screening of Sin City. Amazing visual style. Ultimately leaves you feeling empty, but the imagery is enough to keep you completely engaged until the end. If you're a) a guy, and b) under 30, it's worth seeing once.

Sorry for the lack of updates; I'm in a crunch period at work.

(And the Interurban decorations haven't changed since Sunday.)

I'm starting a new sidebar called the "Interurban cam." Because there simply aren't enough webcams online, I've decided to make my own.

Okay, strictly speaking, this won't be a traditional "webcam," since I'll have to capture and upload each photo manually. But it will give you a relatively up-to-date view of Seattle's crowd-pleasing outdoor sculpture Waiting for the Interurban, which tends to "change" on a daily basis as people decorate it to celebrate birthdays, raise awareness for a cause, or protest a political issue. It's right outside my building in Fremont, so I hope I'll be able to grab a photo each day.

The sculpture depicts six commuters (and a dog) waiting, eternally, for a bus that no longer exists. The dog isn't even a dog -- the artist, Richard Beyer, got revenge on Armen Stepanian, the former "unofficial mayor of Fremont," by putting Stepanian's face on the dog after Stepanian opposed Beyer's initial sculpture proposal.

Many people from MS Canada were on campus the other day and held an event to connect with all the expat 'softie Canucks living around Redmond. They served poutine, Molson, Labatt, Smarties, PC Decadent cookies, caesars, free health care, Humpty Dumpty chips, and more.

Before heading over, I stopped by my co-worker Leo's office, another recent college hire who happens to be from Texas, a rather non-Canadian province. But I didn't want to go to this event by myself. I told Leo there would be lots of free food and drink. "Dude, I'm so in," Leo said, without a hint of a Texan accent. I figured he would be able to blend in, so I told him to pretend he was from Waterloo. Which, to my amusement, didn't work out so well for Leo.

Things were fine at first. We met up with a Waterloo co-op, and Leo, surrounded by Canadians, pretended to understand every single Waterloo and Canadian reference that came up. I "saved" him once or twice when the co-op asked him a question he obviously didn't know the answer to. Other times, he rolled well with the questions; yes, he does enjoy going out to the Bomber every Wednesday, thank you for asking.

But then while Leo stepped away for a moment to grab another drink, I told the co-op that Leo was really from Texas, and that he should ask Leo all sorts of very specific questions about Waterloo. It was hilarious. The co-op asked him some of his other favorite bars, and Leo thought for a moment, giving me plenty of time to jump in (which I didn't), before being forced to answer "Well, I don't really go out that much..." It was definitely too late for him to admit the lie at that point.

Things went back and forth for a bit, with Leo doing his best to deflect the questions. Then the co-op worked his way to asking Leo who his favorite prof was. "Umm...well...it's so hard to pick...um...I...," he struggled. I was in stitches, and the co-op could barely hold his laughter in as well. Finally, I told Leo, who was totally cool about the prank and laughed about it as well.

Ironically, he later said he was about to answer "Smith," which anyone from Waterloo knows really is the answer to "favorite prof."

I'm currently ranked 4904 of 13185 in the Yahoo Tech Buzz game; that's better than most, but I've still lost $1,313.80 overall. The current leader has over $3 million dollars, and many aren't far behind. They're trading by the minute and creating their own trends, while I'm still holding the same stocks I opened with.

This definitely is not a realistic market simulator if many people can grow their net worth by 30000% in a matter of days. (At least, I hope you can't do that in the Real World.)

I feel guilty linking to this, but I recognize the one thing I'm missing on this page is tasteless, trashy content. So, here are two top 10 lists showing who looks better -- and worse -- in HDTV:

3. Britney Spears
The pop tart is still in her early 20s, but she looks about 10 years older in high-def. Her face is puffy and she's starting to show wrinkle marks around her lips, reportedly from a two pack-a-day cigarette habit.

Weekend was slow, but productive. Mostly spent time relaxing after a busy week, unpacking and organizing my bedroom (I can see the floor again!), and fighting ninjas.

Forgot to mention my St. Patrick's night last Thursday. I was over at a co-worker's apartment for his usual weekly Apprentice viewing night, which is much more about frat party drinking games than it is watching Trump. He and his roommates have graduated, but they're still holding on to weekly keg parties like they're going out of style -- except now that everyone's working, the beer is free and few people stay out too late.

Anyway, it's still all absolutely new to me, coming from a boring Canadian university not exactly known for its party life. We played flipcup, which is similar to a boat race, except after downing your cup you have to flip the cup perfectly on the end of a table before the next person on your team gets to drink.

(If you don't know what a boat race is, it's sort of like alcohol abuse, only without the dignity.)

The next day at work was interesting. Not too many people ordered solid foods from the cafeteria that day.

I just had a very distinctive Seattle experience. Observe:

1. It was raining
2. I was riding the great bus system
3. A long line of protesters holding signs walked by, stopping traffic
4. They were protesting Bush and his policies
5. Many of them were also holding coffee cups
6. A police patrol followed, mounted on environmentally friendly bicycles
7. No one on the bus seemed to notice

Did I mention it was raining?

Was very surreal to watch a webcast this morning of Ballmer and an MSN VP showing off, to a large audience, one of the small areas I'm responsible for. (It was very, very brief, and only one of many demos.) It's humbling to remember that there are a lot of people interested in any given product, even if the product is only a small piece in a much larger company.

The Yahoo Buzz Game is, in their own words, a "fantasy prediction market for high-tech products, concepts, and trends." You get $10,000 dollars to invest in keywords within various technology markets; if your keywords are searched more frequently than others within a market, your investment goes up. Well, presumably, anyway -- I'm not terribly sure on the exact model they use for determining a stock's current value.

Right now I'm ranked 144 out of 612 (user bglick), with a net worth of $10,232.95.

I don't see the point in investing in something like Google Maps -- I can't see someone going to Yahoo to search for "google maps", y'know?

There's also a flaw in the game: Yahoo needs to be very quick about spotting buzz and trends before anyone else and then adding it to the game. The game lasts several months, and many of the upcoming movers and shakers aren't yet on anybody's radars.

Anyone else playing?

Got forwarded an amazing video today of the Blindfolded Mario Pianist, a well-known Internet phenom that I'm just finding out about now. This kid has perfectly mastered each and every Mario song, and plays them back to back. Most remarkable is at the end when, after playing a level's theme music with astonishing speed, he interrupts with the "time is running out" melody and then impossibly speeds up the theme music even more. I was pretty envious of so much talent until I learned that he's been practicing piano for 14 years, 6 hours a day. Funny how you're only jealous if you think it comes effortlessly.

On that note (ha, ha), I now need to find time to re-learn the drums. There are a few musicians on my team and the lack of a drummer across our division is the only thing that's kept them from forming a jazz band.

Well, that was a fun ~40 hours in Waterloo. After hearing of my travel itinerary, someone suggested I could tell people with an air of elitism that "I week-end in Waterloo." Which is funny, 'cause, you know, it's Waterloo.

Grad ball was okay. Food was good (if somewhat mass-produced), the DJ kinda sucked (a hip hop set, followed by a hip hop slow dance set, followed by...a folk dance?), and the stand-up comedian (!) was a little out of place for a formal event. Coolest element: A professional photographer was taking everyone's photos -- if I'm going to be unphotogenic, as least I'll be unphotogenic with proper lighting and composition.

...Am I really back in Seattle already?

Made it to Waterloo last night, though my alarm didn't go off yesterday morning, and I had to rush a taxi to the airport to make it on time.

Felt pretty strange at first seeing people and places I know again, but that's worn off now. It's good to be back, if only for a weekend.

Oh, and good thing I didn't fly with Jetsgo. I did fly with bankrupt United Airlines, but they're still in the air and I fly back with Air Canada on Sunday.

Many homeless people in Seattle stand by freeway exits with cardboard signs asking drivers for change. But last week, I saw a respectable suit-and-tie businessman at the Seneca St. exit with a cardboard sign advertising that he was single and looking for a date. There was a crew filming him.

I wonder if he got any numbers.

From Matt Goyer's blog, some changes are happening to the express bus from downtown Seattle to Redmond:

* 545 will run every 10 minutes during peak
* New eastbound 545 stop at Bellevue & Olive [...]
* New 58 seat busses

Also...

[...] Ian reports that his friend (who works on Seattle traffic timing) recently convinced the Redmond traffic folks to change the signal timing at the 40th st exit on the 520. Apparently it was off a bit and that was causing those long backups.

Besides the most obvious reasons, this is particularly great for me because:

• Less waiting during connections when I'm downtown, due to transfer timings where I usually miss the earlier bus by a few minutes
• More likely to get bike rack space in the summer when I skip the downtown connection altogether and just bike to the Montlake freeway bus stop :)

Yes, I know this is absolutely irrelevant to most of my current readers. But I whittles what I sees.

A quick comparison image I created based on two different current weather readings on The Weather Network's website:

(For the record, that's a difference of 27 degrees.)

I may be missing the friends and family, but I'm certainly not missing the weather.

I'm sorry, Waterloo.

Sorry, couldn't post yesterday as I was having trouble getting Comcast set up. But today we're All Better.

So. Pictures of Fremont. I took pictures of my apartment, and of the neighborhood during a short walk this past weekend. The area seems great, full of quirky restaurants and shops, and I can't wait to check out more.

Right now I'm busy trying to unpack everything, which is not as easy as it sounds. Every tiny item, such as a PlayStation memory card, was individually wrapped in eighty nine giant wads of paper. I grabbed a wrapped item, guessing from its shape that it was a big tumbler glass, only to eventually find a tiny shot glass inside.

Passed my multiple choice knowledge test today for the Washington state driver's license. It's similar to the written test you take when applying for a G1 in Ontario.

My favorite question: When involved in a collision, what should you do?

a) Pull off to the side of the road if it is safe and you are able to do so
b) Remove any downed electrical wires from the accident scene
c) Move any injured parties out of the car, whether or not the car is on fire
d) Stand around in traffic lanes until help arrives

I really wanted to pick b). Maybe I would have been instantly disqualified.

I'll have to put up photos tomorrow after my cable internet access is hooked up; Fremonters seem to be pretty tech-savvy and have made it difficult for me to latch onto a decent unsecured signal. Sneaky hippies.

They Stopped Calling It Rendezvous, one man's brief tale of flirting with a cute girl in a coffee shop entirely via iTunes:

A conversation began, conducted solely by library title, and it continued for the next couple of hours. At one point I offered my AIM screenname, identified myself as the kid with the 3 on the back of his neck. She didn’t talk to me online. She didn’t leave her table to talk to me in the coffee shop. I didn’t dare approach her, personal space and all that. But we kept talking.

Technology is allowing us to be selectively shy in so many dynamic ways.

Moved into my new place this morning. Met the movers at the door, and checked off each of my boxes -- all 54 of them -- from my moving list as they were hauled in. I haven't unpacked much yet, but it's nice to see my things again (bed, chairs, etc), and to finally get settled into a long-term place.

Seattle comfort level rising...rising...

It was a bit risky moving into an apartment having only seen the floorplan and a similar unit elsewhere in the building, but it seems to have worked out okay. The layout seems great, the bar countertop is perfect, and while the view facing out from the back of the building isn't much to write home about, my unit is high enough to give me a view beyond the backs of other buildings. (Among other things, I can see the Fremont Rocket, which happens to shoot out vapor a few times a day.) Best is that I'm insulated from a pretty high volume of street and bar noise nearby.

Tomorrow: Photos!

This is an article I've had saved for a while. Chris Pratley talks about Starting out as a Program Manager:

About 4 weeks into the job, you start to feel strange. People keep asking you to decide things you don’t know anything about, as if you’re some kind of expert. You find yourself going to your peers for help more often than you feel comfortable with. You start to wonder if you can actually do this. You start to tank. Depending on your personality, you withdraw into your office to try to figure everything out by yourself without bothering anyone, or you start asking a broader range of people how to do things as soon as you hit an obstacle, to try to "spread the pain" and get results quickly.

I'm midway through my fourth week as a full-time PM. I do a little bit of both of the two options he mentions -- sometimes I do a lot of reading to try and avoid asking too many stupid questions, and sometimes I just ask away like a small child.

I'm not "tanking" or feeling any sense of despair, but I'm quickly realizing that as an intern, since I knew I would be on this team for less than 4 months (and had no idea if I'd be back), I didn't spend a lot of effort learning processes and procedures that weren't related to the work I was doing. So in some respects, I'm starting fresh now. Too many conversations are over my head and filled with TLAs (three letter acronyms). Before too much time passes, I really need to sit down for one-on-ones with people all over my team and learn about their respective roles and tools (dev, test, marketing, etc).

To be clear, yes, I'm still having a great time at work. It's just turning out to be as big a challenge as I was expecting, and I know I can do it. Good to know from Chris' article what I can expect over the next year.

Speaking of money (see below), I realized that yesterday was the first day since I was a kid that I didn't pay a cent on anything, not even as a fraction of one day in a monthly payment. No car payment, no rent (still in the temporary housing), no insurance, no utilities, grabbed a spare unwanted boxed lunch from a catered meeting (hey, I can still act like a student), took the bus for free, didn't buy anything during the day, etc.

Sure, it's an utterly useless observation (and, I suppose, a point of personal pride), but it's also kinda cool. And I doubt it'll happen again, ever.

Update: Crap, I forgot that I've got a cell phone that I'll get a monthly bill for in the next few weeks. Oh well.

Wow, the combo of income tax + Social Security + Medicare sure is a kick in the pants. After being a student for so long and paying virtually no tax on my income during co-op terms, suddenly needing to give away a large percentage of it definitely feels strange. Now I fully know why people feel so possessive and angry about how the government spends tax dollars.

(No, I'm not turning Republican yet.)