onfocus

I'm back in Pacific Standard Time. I didn't post here as much as I wanted to during the conference. And I didn't take very many pictures. (Though I did post quite a few mophos. And added some photos to SXSWBlog.) I'm still processing the panels, conversations, situations, impressions, plans, ideas. SXSW is the social side of the Web sped-up to synchronous real-time. Fray Cafe was incredible—I'm glad I was able to be there this year. I spoke on a panel. I finished reading two books on the road: Air Guitar by Dave Hickey and Interface Culture by Steven Johnson. The ideas in these books are now bound-up with the whole SXSW experience for me. After this week I feel like there are new possibilities and new paths to follow...and a lot of work to be done.

The Dakota Smith

I arrived in Austin, checked into the hotel, set up a WiFi network in the room, and found a good data network signal on my cell phone. I even heard there's free wireless access at the conference center. So you can expect more meaningless posts like this to follow! The weather here is great. I was walking around comfortably last night in a T-Shirt. At night. (And the salsa is better here, as usual.)

You can find a cleaned-up, commented version of the code behind Google Smackdown in the recently released Google Hacks. It's Hack #66 in the Web Services section: Running a Google Popularity Contest. Here's a list of all the hacks in the book. It looks like very useful stuff to know.

And speaking of me coding, I've set up a separate website for business-related information: pbcoding.com.

I've seen two films this last week about people who grew up in the West but eventually lived for a while with other (now vanishing) cultures: Keep the River on Your Right about Tobias Schneebaum, and Wade Davis: The Explorer (part of the touring MountainFilm Festival). They're both very different films, but what came across from these character studies was the sense of peace that each of them have about themselves and others. Each of them were described at one point as social chameleons by their friends—able to be accepted and join any group they happen to find themselves in. Tobias Schneebaum lived with a tribe in Papua New Guinea, and Wade Davis participated in Voodoo ceremonies in Haiti among other things. As I watched I kept thinking how were they accepted? "My intuition unhindered by biases served me well," [Davis] says. "I didn't make any judgments." (from Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion.) By experiencing the world in alternate ways, they both seem to have found a way to relate to others despite vast cultural differences. Or maybe the differences aren't as vast as they seem.

Why isn't Lynne Russell on TV anymore? When CNN Headline News made the big switch to a younger (and cheaper) anchor pool, she apparently got the axe. That was the worst decision they made in the whole "makeover" fiasco. She always had a sly wit when reporting stories that she knew were ridiculous—and that brought a certain edge to Headline News that's gone today. [via BlogFodder]

More Google/Weblog integration foreshadowing: WebQuotes.

Ben Hammersley is putting together a new book for O'Reilly called Weblog Hacks. [via BlogPopuli 3/1]

NY Times: US Diplomat resigns over Iraq policy, "Has 'oderint dum metuant' really become our motto?" [via kottke remainders 2/28]

I watched Alphaville last night. It's a French science fiction film from 1965. It was sometimes difficult to follow, but it had some great ideas. The story is set in a future technocracy called Alphaville—which is an authoritarian society run by a computer called Alpha 60. An outlander secret agent visits Alphaville posing as a journalist; constantly snapping pictures with an old-fashioned camera. The logical society has eliminated poetry and music, and imposes the death penalty for any display of emotion. The society is run based on probabilities the computer determines. At one point Alpha 60 decides to invade the outlands because it is highly probable they will someday invade Alphaville. Their "bible" is a dictionary, with words like "conscience" declared illegal and removed permanently. And, as one character says, "They are replaced by new words expressing new ideas."

Like any good science fiction, it has me looking at the present in a different way. It's based on a novel by Paul Eluard called Capital of Pain (or Capital of Sorrow depending on the translation). Eluard is one of my favorite surrealist poets and I'd love to read it, though I can't find the book in English at any online stores.

Update: Here's a site devoted to Alphaville with stills and some dialogue. And here's a transcription of the subtitles.

Has anyone out there seen an OBEX file transfer program for Windows? I found one that's part of an open source Linux project, but nothing for Windows so far. My goal is to transfer files between a laptop and cellphone via the IR port. I have no trouble getting files to the phone, but can't get them going the other direction.