"Midnight in Paris". Light comedy from a somewhat obsessed director.

While Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” has genuinely charming comic moments as it explorers nostalgic time traveling in the City of Love, Allen would have done well to have spent slightly less camera time lingering on Rachel McAdams denim clad backside, those shots belong in his private collection - in the cinema they where just clumsily voyeuristic.

That said the presentation by The Electric Cinema was first class. Great digital projection, good sound, and completely unobscured viewing from deliciously comfortable seats.

Farewell Steve

Incredibly sad news today about the death of Steve Jobs. Echoes of Douglas Adams early departure.

Farewell Steve. Happy travels.

Kindle Fire. Another platform that pitches books against games and movies.

The newly announced Kindle Fire tablet may not be the quite the boost to ebooks (do they need a boost, they seem to be doing an admirable job at replacing paper) that some folks think. Part of the pitch for the ‘Fire is that it’s “Angry Birds Ready”. Just like Apple’s iPad what this means in practice is that books (or more specifically the written word) will be competing with games and video on the ‘Fire. In other words Amazon’s new tablet will be doing its upmost to present all kinds of shiny distractions from reading… Not that reading is the be-all and end-all, but I wonder how many Kindle Fire users will find themselves reading more than they would with a regular Kindle, or less.

Still, it’s another viable platform for interactive books, a medium I really hope doesn’t go the way of ‘interactive CD-ROMs’… And it’s real competition for Apple, which can only make both parties better.

For the moment I think I’ll focus on iOS development, there’s enough to learn there to keep me happy for a couple of years and who knows what ebook related goodies will be announced on October 4^th.

Truly inspiring Nimbus conference

I am naturally sceptical about the motives of companies and corporate messaging. But after the Nimbus conference http://www.inspiring-performance.com/ I feel uplifted and full of new ideas.

Things I learnt:

Astroturfing: Fake twitter accounts being created to automatically reply to certain tweets and so creating the illusion of a grass root movement.

Gamification: the use of game design techniques and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamification

Quagmire: a nice word for a difficult or precarious situation

I started writing this post from the tube on the way back from The Brewery http://www.thebrewery.co.uk/. The venue was fantastic, with wooden beams and free wi-wi. My first attempt at tweeting was at the conference, and I am giddy with excitement about it.

Nimbus ruled the tweet arena #ip11, but then it was easy as not many attendees were tweeting. There were lots of gushing tweets from employees, mostly justified though.

When Naturally 7 (are on YouTube) came on stage I became aware how white the conference actually was. I guess it is a reflection of skin colour and power relationships in London.

Nimbus truly embraced new (or not so new?) technology. I almost didn't need any paper with my iPad. The agenda and map were online, people were tweeting snippets from the presentations as well as mind maps. Just the feedback form was on paper. They should have tweeted it!

In the morning of the second day we were shown an awesome video about the first day and the late night party. Someone at Nimbus must have had a long day.

Staff seem to be genuinely passionate about Nimbus the company and the product. Lucky Tibco who acquired it.

The presentations of Ian Gotts and Craig Willis were sending shivers down my spine. How do they get to be so nimble at presenting?

All in all - WOW.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

"Tyrannosaur"

The last two films I've seen at Notting Hill's wonderful 'Gate' cinema have both featured the trailer for "Tyrannosaur". On both occasions I've been left numb by the levels of violence it contains. I'm very curious to know if the movie actually justifies these visuals, or if they're a cheap alternative to good writing.

Great movie poster though..

Movie posters from hell

As I get older I find myself being less cynical about relationships and love. I am getting married on Friday :-) and that is probably also a big reason. I so much dream and hope of living happily every after. So as I potter through London with all these hopes and the occasional pre-wedding stress posters like these make me feel rather anxious.



The poster pretty much summarizes my worst fears. Like my partner feeling burdened by our day to day life, by having children. Also, sharing my partner with another woman is the stuff my nightmares are made of. Is this effect intended by this movie's producers?

"The Change Up" is playing on women's fears but men can't feel safe either because according to the poster below, this is how a man should look like.



The tag line reads 'family is worth fighting for'. I imagine these warriors spend most of their time at the gym lifting heavy weights rather than giving emotional support to their family members. Either that or the implant went really well.

Finally, a poster which subtlety hits me in the face from passing buses every day at the moment.



A straight finger pointing at a hole. Maybe in a few years posters won't even bother with rude symbols, maybe we'll just have shots from porn movies.

When did it become acceptable for a chap to give a girl a piece of software in the form of an “app” and to have said gift greeted with joy rather than horror? It wasn’t so long ago that when asked what do you do for a living? I would hesitate before saying I write software. Now it seems that software, at least in bite sized app form has become something that people seek out for enjoyment and then actually look forward to telling their friends about.

It’s going to be very interesting to see what effect the economics of the app-space does to the price of enterprise software. How do you charge hundreds of pounds for something that mostly does more than you’ll ever want when there’s a competitive product that does exactly what you want for £2.