personal jet — redesigning the private jet

cool hunter has a story about the personalized jet, a project between design house Design Q and Lufthansa-Technik.

what i found most amazing about this, not only that the colors are great, is the idea of a panorama window in a plane. i might have lived behind the moon but i am not aware of anything like this. this is really about turning the plane into living space, rather than just another sleep or work area.

while cool i wonder how practical the new design is, would the pieces of furniture actually be able to be in a plane?

Germans are brainiest

It is always fun to see the english deal with germans and french. this London Times article Germans are brainiest is fun because on the one side it let’s the Times explain why the english are smarter than the french, but then has to go on and make a case for why the germans are the brainier than the english, and even the brainiest of all in europe.

“A new European league of IQ scores has ranked the British in eighth place, well above the French, who were 19th. … But it is not all good news. Top of the table were the Germans, with an IQ of 107.”

But the article might even go on and explain why bush here in the US did do badly in all of the large metropolitan areas:

“He added that differences in intelligence across Britain could be attributed to bright people moving to London over hundreds of years. …
The pattern is repeated in other countries, Professor Lynn claimed. In France, IQ scores in Paris were much higher than those in rural areas.”

this might be true for the US, too.

(articles like this are always fun … broad generalization …

content vs. infrastucture — finally someone gets it right

the people over at techdirt are right on in their piece: Why Aren’t The Telcos Paying Google For Making Their Network Valuable?

” … More importantly, the telcos need to realize that people aren’t just paying to connect to the middle of the network, but to connect the ends to each other. In other words, the internet connection is valuable because Google, Vonage and the others make it valuable for them.”

of all the recent conversations about the telcos wanting money from content providers, or creating different classes of connectivity, this question is actually a valid one. telcos and mobile carriers have to learn and understand that nobody cares about infrastructure. an infrastructure in itself is boring. it is the services that attract users to the infrastructure, but not because of the infrastructure but because of the service. the only reason i pay money to comcast for cable is so that i can watch the daily show and access sites like google, technorati, boingboing … and send and receive email.

i know that the telecoms are being told that this is how it works, but somehow they seem to not want to understand this reality.

what they can do is create infrastructure that will enable new kinds of services, or make existing services better … which will then enable the telcos to charge more for access to the new and improved infrastructure. but they will also be dependent on content companies to offer services that will require the new infrastructure. in a way this is very much like the PC industry … with Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Nvida, EA … all creating an environment which pushes users to get new PCs to because of a new game, or OS which then will also require a new graphic card …. and in the end everybody is making more money … even the Dell’s who are more or less just an infrastructure kind of player in the PC world.

time II — a poem

It is always there

Tick

It goes on and on

Tack

It makes the world grow old

Tick

It is unstopable

Tack

People die of it

Tick

Everybody follows it

Tack

Old,Young,Born,Dead

Grave,Yard,Play,Ground

Baby,Kid,Teenager,Adult

Tick,Tack

Growing,Living,Dying

Tick

No way to escape

once invented, never stopable

made to last and survive

all it´s inventors

Tack

No way to end but to stop, to

run out of, but to last

Tick

Tack

Tick

Tack

new york — a poem

– New York
You go through the streets
See the lights, the brights
See the dark and the dirt
People are running, walking, driving, flying
They are sittin,lying,dying in New York
The mind explodes, there is too much
Too much to see, to talk, to give
It wants all and more and it doesn`t take less
It doesn`t give back
New York the dream, the dream is New York
It is too fast, you can`t jump on
It`s too fast, you fall down
Like the subway, way down in the earth
The hell but heaven for some only in New York
It is bigger than big,it is small
It is greater than great,it is normal
You like it,you do not like it,you love it
It is ugly,it is dirty,it is trash
it is New York
It is there, it was there
In the heart of everyone
It is human,it is man
It is metal,not stone
It is money not love,it is a machine
Then you go, go back
the lights are on
They do not go out
the thoughts are there
They don’t go away
You leave it but you are always
New York

it must be nice to live in another world

Bush’s view of the World

this is the cover of www.nyt.com right now. on the left a picture of bush during his press conference in which he said there will be more fighting but there is no civil war. on the left three headlines
1. Iraqi Insurgents Storm Police Station, Killing 18 Officers (oh and freeing 100 rebels)
2. New Business Blooms in Iraq: Terror Insurance
3. 2 Years After Soldier’s Death, Family’s Battle Is With Army

why brokeback should have won

in my previous entry i said brokeback should have won best picture, it was in my opinion hands down the best movie of 2005 if not the last 10 years. but not having seen crash only read a lot that didn’t really make me want to see it since it seemed to be too cliche and regular hollywood i was wondering why brokeback should win no matter how good crash is. and if found this blog entry on the oscar’s and i have to say i completely agree.

“A Best Picture film has to be timeless. … Brokeback is a perfect example because we have never seen a film like it before; it beautifully portrays love as a universal object rather than something that’s only shared between a man and a woman, or that everything regarding gay relationships is strictly based on sex. Crash is a movie that sort of says what all of us are thinking, but that’s NOW. In the year 2026, things won’t be the same. Brokeback says so much more and accomplishes so much more than Crash did; it introduced us to new perspectives,…”

yes, it is giving a new perspective while doing so by telling a timeless story … that makes a “best picture” and the saddest thing is that movies like this are so rare.

oscar’s have to get back to basics

the movie industry is complaining about dwindling movie ticket sales and the oscar’s ratings are going down. oh and the academy was quite clear in a way who is the culprit, it is us, the movie viewing public we are not going to the movies enough, we are instead watching them at home on small screens, by ourselves, oh, and then there are the movie pirates who are not even paying but getting illegal copies off the internet.

but after watching the oscar’s last night it became just too obvious what is wrong with hollywood. it is hollywood that is just trying too hard. they try to please everyone and at the same time try not to be too edgy. the show yesterday was a yawner not even john stewart was able to make it fun, it was just painful to watch all these people trying to make sure not to piss anyone off (not on the left and not on the right and none in the middle). only that way could you end up with a best movie oscar for crash, best director for brokeback, best supporting actor for clooney, best supporting acress for reese, and best documentary for the penguins movie.

what has to happen is a move back to the basics. actually good movies and good performances win, no politics involved. only if hollywood moves above politics and trying to please everyone will they be able to be trustworthy and win over large audiences again. and only then will they be able to fulfill clooney’s idea that hollywood has to play a critical role in society (which i agree with btw).

and for that they would have had to make brokeback the single most important movie of last year — not because of the politics, but because it was the best overall movie, only a die hard right wing christian conservative can hate this movie. but at the same time reese (who was good in her role) should not have won an oscar for a good nevertheless basic performance. also clooney shouldn’t have gotten an oscar for best supporting actor in syrianna, again he was good but not great, there were many others who were better, and he shouldn’t get this oscar for not getting one for best director. and then there is the documentary section. first of all grizzlyman was not even nominated, which is just an amazing mistake, and then the penguin movie while good again was nothing more than bland hollywood.

so please next year, if there is again such a depth of great movies available, please select oscars for the really great movies and leave out the politics.

nokia is trying to hype mobile tv

according to this reuters story Nokia sees mass mobile TV takeup by ‘08. now ok i don’t know how nokia defines a mass takeup, but if you consider their market share and their sales it should be quite considerable. the article states nokia with “Dozens of trials in the last year have shown the mobile industry that consumers enjoy mobile TV and, more importantly, that they are willing to pay from 5 to 10 euros a month for it.” and “”In 2006 … mobile TV is expected to become available in select markets and to reach mass market by 2008,” Nokia said in its 20-F annual regulatory filing”

while this might make some people think that there will be mass-market for mobile video/tv in 2008 that is not the case, and mobile tv content providers should not fall for this trap. all this means is that among nokia’s handset range most of them will have mobile tv capabilities. and with users keeping phones at least a year and by far most of them replacing them about every three years, a real mass market is still some time away.

plus, 5 to 10 euros is quite on the upper end in my opinion. with most users averaging in the range of 30 to 40 euros a month, this would an additional 20 to 30% for mobile video — and with the exception of sms not a lot of mobile services have really taken off. and while asking people what they are willing to pay for a service and what they actually pay is a whole different story.

and the biggest mobile content gamble — espn mobile — has yet to really show any success.

for mobile tv to take off networks have to be upgraded and offer the bandwidth needed (all the time and at least everywhere people live and move), then handsets have to be easy to use (beyond placing a call, and even nokia phones fall short in this area), and then pricing has to be figured out (this can’t be just a 10 euro premium, there have to be different models that might link to a cable subscription …) and then content has to be made available … and please don’t try to sell me lord of the rings for my mobile.