musings from the Midwest

I knew Dune had a bad reputation, but I figured I’d give it a try because I just finished reading the book. I can give almost anything a pass if it’s at least entertaining.

It’s hard to be objective about Dune the film when you loved Dune the book. I can’t imagine trying to watch it without having read the book. The story would make no sense at all with as much as David Lynch skips over. I think to do the book justice it would have had to be about 3-4 hours long, minimum, which just wasn’t feasible.

Even with its necessary limitations, it was still a bad movie. The acting was terrible, the dialogue was silly, and the music was so corny it belonged in a 70’s low budget adult movie. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of David Lynch at this point (4th Lynch film I’ve seen, Mulholland Dr. being the only one I really like), but I guess you can write this one off as an early-in-the-career misfire.

Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is not a film to recommend to the casual movie goer. It eschews action and drama for intense personal conflict and emotion. We see each main character going through his own struggle. Nothing about this movie is fake. Dialogue between the men in this film goes from jovial to intimate details of family and life.

Beautiful landscapes of the Turkish countryside make up the bulk of the film. Dialogue is pinned underneath, making the viewer just as involved in the shared misery as the investigators are with themselves.

A tragic love story, tangled in the journey of a pair of earrings. The Earrings of Madame de.. takes place when candlelights fueled late nights, horse-drawn carriages ruled the streets, and dueling pistols were still used to settled arguments.

We meet Madame Louise, trapped in the decadent high society of Paris in the 1800’s. She enjoys the finer things afforded to her, appears trapped in a loveless marriage. She’s married to a General in the French army; a man who’s consumed with keeping up appearances and decorum of his social class. He gives her a pair of earrings as a wedding gift, but they mean so little to her she sells them to a local jeweler like some antique that’s been gathering dust in the attic. She tells the General she lost them, causing an uproar in the community as someone is suspected of stealing them.

In comes the Baron, friends with the General, but not friendly enough to keep from eyeing his wife. Louise catches the Baron’s eye, and courtship begins anew. We find the Baron purchasing the earrings in Constantinople (by way of the General’s down on her luck mistress, no less) as a gift to Louise. Only then does Louise come to appreciate the earrings: a gift from her new lover. The General unravels Louise’s white lie and confronts the Baron. Drama and maybe a little old fashioned duel insues. Suffice it to say, there are no winners.

This film had everything: whimsical, beautifully choreographed ballroom dances. Gorgeous shots of the beach, a few mansions here and there. And did I mention a duel? If two men can’t settle an argument with dueling pistols then I don’t know what can.

This is my first Max Ophüls film, and I’m sorry I waited this long to get into his catalog. I’m a sucker for long camera shots, something that he specialized in. You can see the influences on Kubrick, Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson at work. My favorite scene, though, is a touching moment when Louise is forced to show the Baron out the door. Louise exclaims “I don’t love you…”, trying again to deny her feelings for the Baron, while he stands outside looking away, hearing the words pierce him like a dagger. 

The only complaint I have is how time passes in the film. Some of the ballroom dance scenes between the Baron and Louise cut from one to the other quickly, where seemingly no time has passed but the dialogue indicates several days have passed. At one point we learn that the events in the film unfold between a couple of years, when it reality it feels like it’s only been a week or two.

Being the first to market with a product or service doesn’t always mean you’ll end up as the dominant player there. This comes to mind when thinking about two of my favorite podcast networks, TWiT and 5by5.

Leo Laporte started TWiT in 2005 in what was originally a round table of TechTV castoffs discussing the week’s news. He’s been hailed as a pioneer in the podcasting world, and rightfully so. But as Leo and his growing staff have been trying to expand the network’s reach, my attention is increasingly being focused on 5by5. Many TWiT shows feature a rotating panel of guest hosts, whereas most 5by5 shows feature a 2 person host/co-host model. This leads to a certain continuity each week where you know what to expect every time you hit play.

Like many TWiT listeners I’ve been a fan of Leo since the TechTV days. I’d come home from school, turn on TechTV and leave the channel on until it was time to force myself into bed. Leo appeals to both tech enthusiasts and novices alike, but many TWiT shows appeal to a more broad tech audience. As I get further into my own tech career, I want something with more depth and focus.

Enter 5by5. Hosts such as Marco Arment and John Siracusa have a more resolute focus on their topics, whereas TWiT panels often go off track when conversations stray from the topic at hand. Sure, Merlin Mann’s Back To Work takes about 25 minutes to actually get into the meat of the show (“Is this what people tune in for?”), but that’s part of Merlin’s unique personality. 5by5 founder Dan Benjamin[link] keeps shows on track and chimes in when appropriate. It’s gotten even worse for TWiT since the “Brick House” opened up, where in-studio guests are favored over Skype hosts. Conversations often get derailed quickly, especially when the co-hosts know each other so well that it feels like an impromptu meetup rather than a broadcast. 

5by5 often gets labeled as Apple-centric. That might be the case for most shows, but take a further look and you’ll find other great podcasts like Andy Ihnatko’s The Ihnatko Almanac where he spends an hour pontificating on any topic he feels like covering that week. In Beta is a great new show featuring Gina Tripani and Kevin Purdy that focuses on mobile and web development, often centered around Android and open source projects.

Of course these two networks can co-exist, and even thrive in a growing podcasting market. The Internet is big enough for both of them. I haven’t yet unsubscribed from any of the TWiT podcasts that I used to love, but I find myself moving any 5by5 podcast higher up in the playlist before putting on the headphones.

A lot of nerds are in an uproar lately about the changes Twitter is making to their API. If you’re like me you know this already. In a nutshell: Twitter no longer wants developers to make 3rd party clients (Tweetbot, Twitterrific, etc.). They can better control the “experience” (or, serve you ads and make money) if they encourage everyone to use the Twitter website instead.

Of course this won’t matter to most Twitter users. I can’t hardly use Twitter without Tweetbot, though. Unlike some in the technology world, I work in a normal corporate office where it’s not really okay to be checking Twitter all day. My short breaks away from the desk are when I pounce on my iPhone to find out what’s going on, and when I get home I like to settle in and catch up on the larger screen of the iPad. 

This is where Tweetbot comes in, in a huge way: iCloud sync. Tweetbot (and others) syncs your last read location in your timeline between devices so you never have to scroll through hundreds of tweets remembering where you last left off. Since I can’t let the timeline constantly refresh a few tabs away from my normal workflow, it’s the only way Twitter is fun, or even usable for me.

A lot of people I follow online seem to be able to tweet and respond to others at will. Being in a cubicle filled corporate coal mine logging the hours every day doesn’t lend itself to easy social networking. If Twitter continues to alienate 3rd party developers and clients, they seem to be driving a stake through the heart of usability for their own service. HTML5 may be the way of the future but there’s nothing like using a native app, regardless of platform.

Self-identifying geeks such as myself like to break down and analyze everything. The same geeks probably listen to a whole bunch of podcasts (I currently subscribe to 26). If you’re not already listening to The Incomparable, visit the show page here to find a variety of subjects from the latest Pixar movie to this year’s Hugo Award nominees, and more. In episode 100 they discuss exactly why they analyze and critique each week’s topic.

Frequent guest John Siracusa (of Hypercritical fame, another podcast you should be listening to) further expounded upon this when he tweeted the following video of infamous physicist Richard Feynman. Feynman describes the joy we get when we break down everything to its very core. He explains that his friend doesn’t understand how he finds beauty in a flower after analyzing what gives it its flower properties. Normal people wonder why we can’t just accept things as they are. The geek in us has to know why things are that way.

It’s been 7 months now since I’ve switched to the Mac. I’ve been a Windows user ever since my dad brought home our first computer. All I really remember about it was that it had Windows 95. I feel like such a novice while listening to my favorite podcasts talk about hacking away on their 96 baud modems and their BBS’es, but I’m still young enough that Windows 95 was the newest and greatest when I first learned what a computer was. I couldn’t understand why a “floppy” drive was a hard piece of plastic.  

I’m still trying to decide if what I feel is that new car feeling, the excitement of a new platform and devices, or if I’m genuinely enjoying everything about using the Mac. I’m nowhere close to being a power user, but I like everything about the experience so far. I cringe when I have to go to work 40 hours a week to sit on my Windows 7 machine. Windows 7 is by far Microsoft’s best OS to date, but it just feels so dated to me now. I don’t have much of a choice; I support hundreds of Windows users, so there’s no reason for me to be able to use a Mac at work. More and more of our employees are going mobile, though, and most of them are getting iPads. Maybe a revolution is in the works.