Writers Guild Strike

Here's a video the WGA put on YouTube describing the reasons behind their strike. Obviously this presents only one side of the dispute, but if you're unclear on what this is all about, this might help.

Over the weekend, the WGA took the DVD issue off the table, essentially saying, "Fine, we'll stop fighting you on this point, so now maybe you can give a little on this other point." Nothing doing, at least not yet.

I've heard two arguments against producers giving residuals for Internet distribution, at least as it pertains to this strike. The first is that Internet distribution is really just promotional, and not, I suppose, true distribution. This seems just silly to me. Maybe if you never paid $1.99 on iTunes to get a TV show, or if no ad space were sold on web sites that distribute the shows. But you do pay on iTunes, and ads are sold. That's distribution, not promotion.

The second is something that seems less insane, but doesn't really make a great argument: the studios say they don't make any money on Internet distribution. This could be true; at this still early stage of internet video distribution, broadcasters (or should I say "distributors") are spending plenty in development costs just trying to figure out what models are going to stick. Seems quite credible that thus far these ventures are money losers.

But the thing is, some will eventually make money. If the distributors didn't believe that, they wouldn't be investing the money up front. That's just logic.

So say the you're developing one of these online distribution ventures. You probably lose money, but say you have, or hope to soon, managed to work hard and build up so you start to turn a profit, even if it's just few percent of revenue. Obviously you aren't going to thrilled if you have to pay a few percent in residuals to writers (and, soon, actors and directors). Those could add up, and significantly hamper the growth of a venture that is experiencing fragile beginnings.

To be clear, I ultimately side with the creative folk here: of course they need to get residuals from distribution of content; TV or internet shouldn't really matter. I wonder if there isn't a compromise that allows the broadcasters to have the flexibility to grow these new ventures, but guarantees the appropriate residuals will kick in, perhaps after a set period of time, or after some revenue or profit target, etc.

I don't know the business side of the industry well enough to conjecture any further. Specifically, I'm a little unclear on the producer/distributor relationship here. If you're reading this and have any additional insights, or additional facts, please add them in comments.

Photo Batch

Lately I've had some photos building up in need of uploading. Today I put 5 new galleries up on Smugmug. Here are a couple of samples:

Steps

Jessica has been taking her first tentative steps lately. A night or two ago she enjoyed a rousing game of "walk across the room between Mommy and Daddy" (with an appropriate number of spills along the way).

As we encouraged her game, the thought occurred to me how lucky I am to get to play this game with her, and how quickly she will move on from here. Right now the game is fun because taking steps is such a novelty for her. Soon she'll be walking with confidence, and this specific game will cease to amuse. In total, I'm guessing the phase where taking steps itself is both challenging and delightful to her will have lasted only a few weeks before it passes.

Explain Something Complicated

I was reminded this week of some videos I had seen a while ago by Common Craft. These guys make some really great (and short, usually around 2 minutes) videos in which they explain technological concepts in ways that almost anyone can understand. They use a format they call “Paperworks”, which consists of a mix of live-action and stop-motion done with paper and whiteboard.

They’ve made a few videos on their own, and they also make videos for other companies. I was reminded of them this week when I saw the video they made for Google Docs, coinciding with the addition of presentations to the service. Here’s the video:

Now this video is paid for by Google, so of course it has a marketing message behind it. Here’s another example, one which isn’t sponsored. This one explains the concept/technology/service of social bookmarking:

What I want to say is I really, really like what these guys are doing. (It’s a husband and wife team, as far as I can gather.) Coming up with such an easy to follow explanation of ideas that so many can find confusing or intimidating (including, at times, myself!) is impressive. And I think the “Paperworks” style that they use is fun to watch. I wonder if it’s efficient: does it take a lot of time and effort to shoot the video this way, or is it reasonably straightforward after some careful planning?

Either way, kudos to Common Craft. I can easily imagine making “Paperworks” videos explaining any number of otherwise abstract or intimidating topics: Calculus, Physics, Statistics, etc.

Feynman point

Yesterday I learned of the Feynman point. This is a point 762 digits into pi where there is a sequence of six 9's. It's pretty remarkable that a run of six consecutive repeating digits would appear so soon in what is essentially a string of random digits.

Baby's First iPod

I'm a proud papa. My baby got her first MP3 player for her 1st birthday. Thank you Grace!

IMG_2341.JPG

King of Kong

Quick movie recommendation: go see King of Kong. It's in limited release, but Dana and and saw it last week, and it was really, really good. It's a documentary about the world record holder in the classic arcade game of Donkey Kong, and the challenger who would unseat him.

You don't have to know anything about Donkey Kong to really enjoy this movie. It's light hearted fun. Go see it. Or, at the very least, put it on your Netflix queue so you can see it when it's released on DVD.

See the trailer

Ken: 8/10
Dana: 7/10

One Year

Jessica turned 1 year old this week. On one hand I really can't believe it's already been a whole year since we brought her home. On the other hand I think about those first few weeks and can't believe how much she has changed and how much Dana and I have learned as parents in only a year.

We had a fun birthday party at our house. Jessica got her own cake to enjoy and destroy (Thanks Cherie!). This was her first real taste of something sweet. She seemed to enjoy it, that's for sure.

A couple of pictures below. The rest are online at SmugMug.

Context Aware Image Re-Sizing

The first 30 seconds of this may not catch your attention, but stick with it. Here's the basic idea:

If you have an image that's too big for the space you have to display it, the two main options are to scale the image down, making everything smaller, or to crop the edges off of the image to make it fit. This video is a demo of an alternative method, where the important parts of the image are kept as-is, and the unimportant parts are cut out.

(via O'Reilly Radar)

Fuel Efficiency - Great idea, but only if I have to.

Very interesting article.

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2007/07/23/070723ta_talk_surowiecki

The very, very short version: Although only a small percentage of people make the choice to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, a large majority of people are in favor of higher fuel efficiency standards. The author discusses why this might be.

[Side note: The first paragraph talks about the industry being resistant to change, to the point of declaring the death of the industry itself:

"In the nineteen-twenties, Alfred Sloan, the president of General Motors, insisted that the company could not make windshields with safety glass because doing so would harm the bottom line. In the fifties, auto executives told Congress that making seat belts compulsory would slash industry profits. When air bag came along, Lee Iacocca told Richard Nixon that “safety has really killed all our business. "

This same cycle has played out, and is playing out now, in the music ("record") industry. I think something similar is happening with real estate and the emergence of online tools which, as the Freakonomics authors would say, reduce the information asymmetry.]

San Diego and Sea World

We took a very brief summer vacation trip to San Diego earlier this week. We stayed two nights in a nice little hotel called The Dana (appropriate, huh?).

We had a great time at Sea World. We went for 1 1/2 days. Jessica never got too fussy during the shows, when she had to sit still the longest, and even when she didn't really understand that the swimming animals were what everyone was looking at, she still enjoyed flirting with anyone whose eye she could catch and joining in the cheering and applause.

The first night was a little rough with her. It's been a while since we had her in a hotel room (6 months), and a lot has changed. Also, this time there was no closet or anyplace to put her crib that was out of sight of the bed in the hotel room. So it was all very new to her: we put her down in a strange place, in a pack-and-play that is not her usual crib, and then we didn't even leave the room. She wasn't pleased with this arrangement. Dana and I ended up sitting in the dark on the floor on the other side of the bed. After she settled down, we got out our computers, and ate room service by the light of our LCD displays.

The second night was many many times better.

All in all, a great trip. Lots of Sea World, a little swimming, and a painless car trip both ways. Could have used another day of vacationing, but better to leave wanting more than to get to that "I can't wait to go home" state.

If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?

An interesting post on the Freakonomics Blog. The hypothesis is that if we didn't have libraries, and someone today proposed establishing locations in cities throughout the country which would buy content once and then lend it out to multiple users at no incremental charge, the publishing industry (and maybe authors) would fight against the idea, or at least set up elaborate payment structures.

If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?: