Where the Real Action Is
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This year all five nominees for best documentary are politically charged, four are about war, and amazingly, only one feels like homework.
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A Department of Defense group tests a new battle simulator to see what it can learn about urban combat. But this ain't no SimCity. By Amit Asaravala.
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What goes around, comes around with a vengeance.
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When everything gets an API then everything you can imagine will be possible if you can write a script.  And sometimes, to give you an idea, all that has to happen is that a wall come down. The latest, most intriguing such wall was the paywall at the NY Times. Now all of a sudden we find the wealth of information published by the NY Times over many decades is available without tariff. More important, we can point into the archive. We've gotten so accustomed to the wall, that you actually have to think when it may be possible to go in there, as if it left behind a wall in our minds, even after the wall on the web is gone. For example, the first episode of Ken Burns's The War, an epic series about World War II from the American perspective, cited several NY Times articles. If you looked carefully you could see the dates, and the actual headlines, and then if you have a browser handy, as I do (I have an iPhone) you can actually read the article while the narrative continues. Today this is mostly a gimick, but I suspect as we get used to having history so available (like having a library microfilm machine, which I used to spend whole days playing with when I was a kid) it will change our sense of information, perhaps as much as anything else that's ever been on the web. Take movie reviews for example. What a thrill to be able to read a review of a movie that I love that came out in 1932! The reviewers back then were more forgiving, less sarcasting, more enthusiastic. Consider their review of the Hollywood Revue of 1929, a favorite of mine that I've only seen once (I'd pay for a DVD, if it were available). They loved audible movies (that's what they called them) as if the term "talkie" was as elusive as "podcast" was in the summer of 2004. Again, we've just scratched the surface. Wouldn't you like to have NY Times movie reviews integrated with Netflix? Or have Yahoo's movie rating service available on the NY Times site. And I have to wonder whether they really have gone all the way. You can't see the reviews unless you're logged in. Can Google's robots, therefore, see the movie reviews? Unless the've made some special arrangements, it seems not.  It would be helpful to get a technical guide to the newly hatched NY Times on the Web, or (as in the old days of software) a reviewer's guide, so we get some ideas of what to look at. Clearly a lot of work went into opening up the Times archive. I'm going to be in NY the week of October 8 and will have some time toward the end of the week. If anyone at the Times would be willing to spend some time with me reviewing what's now open, that would be helpful. In any case, at least the Times today is somewhat more available to be integrated into the fabric of the web. That's some progress. How much, remains to be seen. Postscript: Kottke did a great job of skimming the surface of the newly opened Times when it first came online, just one week ago today.
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Rob Allen has some great news that Manning Publishing (of the popular "* in Action" series of books) has just announced - the future release of a book for the Zend Framework, Zend Framework in Action.    Chapter 1 is available for you to download and see where we are heading with the book. [...] In order to set expectations, I should probably point out that Zend Framework in Action is a tutorial book intended to show how to use the components of the framework together within "real world" projects.    Each component is dealt with in a "what is it?", "why use it?", "how do you use it?", "let's use it in the real world" manner. It's not an advanced exposition of each component as that would take many books!    Looks like a Great job done by Rob and Nick Lo so far - check out the first chapter and see what you think.
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It offers more than you might have thought.
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Iâm at Moro, waiting for my friend Bob Crowley and Nicholas Hytner to come from Christopher Wheeldonâs ballet at Saddler Wells. Narciso Rodriguez did the costumes for the ballet. Heâs in town but I havenât seen him. Too many shows, I guess. Just left Giles Deaconâs show. One of Giles Deaconâs looks.(Jonathan Player for The New [...].
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If the measure of a movie&#39;s realism lies in its ability to make you physically uncomfortable, Closer is about as real as it gets.
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Gabe: There is some really nice HD footage from PAX available over at gametrailers.com now. They have a pretty slick behind the scenes look at how the show comes together as well as an interview with Gaybe and Tykoh from Pennies Arcadez!
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New data gives a peek into how the players are posed to do.
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There is growth, but it's not homemade.
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Surprisingly âRocky Balboa,â is no embarrassment. Like its forerunners it goes the distance almost in spite of itself.
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What they continue to demonstrate, more than anything else, is an impeccable sense of timing. When to run. When to hit. When to start playing like a tried-and-true
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The action film holds on to the top box office spot.
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Tycho:  Rhythm games aren't my forte, but I have a lot of inbuilt experience with meter which helps me fake it until I can build genuine skill.  And, as rhythm elements have crept into the entire medium, Tycho stock has been in a boom phase.  It's understandable, then, that while I soar and illuminate - and Gabriel sputters, bound to earth - tensions related to my prowess have begun to burn red-hot.  That is, until they cool again.  These things have a way of working themselves out in the fullness of time.          There's an incredible article over at Wired this month (and possibly also in the magazine?) about the Bungie's psychological approach to game design.  What a tremendous challenge it must be to retain authorial control in such a case!  As someone whose output is rarely screened by any agency, the whole thing gave me chills.  The right to fail nobly in a creative endeavor (as we sometimes do) is such a powerful luxury.  No such luxury may be extended to them, upon whose toil an entire platform rests.  God keep me from such a fate.          I keep hearing that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption isn't being promoted very well, but the person saying this always seems to know about it, and then when people share this complaint in the thread those people also seem to be "in the know."  It ships on the twenty-seventh of August, if you weren't aware - but since you almost certainly are, we needn't dwell on it.  What we should be dwelling on are the series of teaser vids that Retro has been trickling out.  Metroid's largely mysterious heroine has always been a huge draw for me, and going into deep detail about the character would actually damage the mystique.  But the universe she operates in need not be vague, which is why these clips are such a rich meal:  there's the Aurora Unit trailer that modernizes ancient Metroid canon in a classy way, and there's a treat at the end of the Valhalla trailer that ties it all together.  They both cover a setting that has gotten darker and more sophisticated, tones we don't typically associate with Nintendo.       We like to get kicks in on the post-Harmonix Guitar Hero, partly based on their "wacky" multiplayer concept - which ordinary gamers will probably love - but also out of a sort of tribal loyalty.  This having been established, they've built an authentically heroic tracklist that really has a lot of beef.  Going from the most recent Rock Band announcement out of Leipzig, both versions appear to have Radiohead's "Creep" and the Beastie Boys' "Sabotage," which is something of a comfort.  After seeing different songs on each game from Metallica and The Rolling Stones, I wasn't sure if they were already traveling down the catalogues securing exclusive weaponry.  I hope that the labels in this case see the old wisdom of arming both sides.
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Internet TV is a mirage, seeming so close yet turning out to be far away or downright unreal when you try to watch it. At least that's my take on the many past plans for zapping motion pictures over the Internet.
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We made it back into the house last night. There were National Guardsmen at key checkpoints in Poway that were set up to protect neighborhoods from looters. These young men were carrying fully loaded M16s. For a quick second I thought I was in a war zone. That was incredibly intimidating for me.