Practicalmadness

Howard Bloom ("a paleopsychologist and the author of Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind", not to be confused with the literary critic Harold Bloom) has written an article for Wired Magazine that I think I can summarize thusly: "so what if Total Information Awareness will annihilate the civil liberties of every American? When the technology goes public, it'll create a web search engine a thousand times more powerful than Google!"

Tracking terrorists is just a pretext for getting the best computer scientists at Darpa to create what we all really want: a general-purpose IQ expansion pack capable of plowing through the built-in barriers of central nervous system-based software. It will show us whole new ways to look at what we're up against - whether it's bin Laden, a demanding boss, or that damn lost phone number.

Click here for the story

CNN.com reports tonight that a surprising number of people -- either journalists, armchair generals or honest-to-god U.S. troops -- are blogging about the war even as they are out there fighting it.

LT SMASH has the distinction of being both (a) written by an American GI fighting as part of Operation Iraqi Takeover and (b) named after a less-than-flattering Simpsons reference. The upshot of this is that yes, Virginia, the Army watches The Simpsons too.

Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing eschews both hard-hitting dispatches from the front and informed commentary on the progress of the war for what appears to be a facile catalog of Wired News articles and Bad Things The Lefties Are Doing To Our Troops Back Home. In other words, a blog.

Blogs of War is by far the slickest of these sites, begging for cash through both a PayPal donation box and by selling stuff through CafePress. It's also one of the more comprehensive and open-minded sites, although the authors' pro-war slant informs it all. They've even taken time off to post some reports about Canada's SARS (superflu to you) outbreak, news which does indeed concern anyone who lives in North America, has been getting their news exclusively from the Fox War Channel and has a vested interest in not dying a horrible, painful death.

Meanwhile, today's Red Streak (if you don't know what this is, go thank God you don't live in Chicago. No, do it now.) is running a typically truncated report on which media sources have traded objectivity for access. Fox News seems to be the biggest offender, often peppering their hard-hitting, honest coverage with phrases like "we", "our troops" and "the enemy".

(As if that waving American flag in the upper left of the screen didn't leave a big enough hint.)

TIME Magazine's Big Spring War Issue is also getting in on the act, laying bare the compromises the networks' "embedded" journalists are making in order to be travelling with the coalition forces in Iraq.

The international consensus is clear: if you want objectivity, watch/read the BBC. France and Germany, however, have threatened to veto any resolution agreeing that the BBC is the only outlet covering the war objectively, and instead want coverage where reporters sit in the studio and talk about the war in broad, hypothetical terms.

Oh, and speaking of not-with-a-bang, but-with-a-whimper...

Mark Pilgrim muses today about an oft-overlooked HTTP error: 410 Gone. "As far as I can tell," he writes, "it's the forgotten stepchild of error 404 (Resource not found)."

Whereas 404 refers to a resource that may or may not have ever been there (leaving open the possibility that either webmaster or user got the URL wrong, or that the page never existed to begin with), 410 means that the resource you're looking for used to exist there, but does not anymore. It has not been moved -- if so, the webmaster could use Error 310 (Permanent Redirect) to tell you where the new location is -- it is simply gone, perhaps never to return.

We've all been brainwashed into believing that all resources should be permanent, which simply isn't true. Embracing HTTP error code 410 means embracing the impermanence of all things.

Anyone who's used a search engine has gotten used to the idea that when you click a link, the page you're seeking may or may not still be there anymore. You could end up at a porn ad server that has purchased an old site's domain name. Most often, however, you get the good old 404.

Implementing 410 errors would be karmically correct and true to the spirit of the original HTTP spec (which seeks to promote trustworthy hyperlinks by providing accurate error codes), but the user experience would ultimately be the same: telling the user that they cannot have what they have asked for.

If it's specificity we're after, perhaps we need a new 40x code: I'm Too Lazy To Update My Links Or Provide A Redirect.

CNET News.com is reporting that beginning Sunday, AOL Time Warner will begin limiting access to the websites for its magazines, starting with People and Entertainment Weekly. Over the next month or so, other titles -- including such vital, hard-hitting publications as InStyle, Southern Living, Teen People and Real Simple -- will make the same move.

AOL is trying something a little different here, tying access to the sites to purchases of the print versions, rather than charging a separate yearly or monthly fee (as the Wall Street Journal does). Subscribers will have unlimited access for the entire term of their subscription, while purchasing a copy on a newsstand will grant you access "for the duration of the magazine edition [you] purchase." AOL members, of course, will have unlimited access as part of their subscription.

So at any rate, as an AOL member who finds the recipes and homemaking tips in Real Simple to be compelling, but ultimately impractical, this does not affect me.

I have reclaimed my title; I am sorry to announce that there was no prize winner in this year's Oscars Game. There were several strong contenders, but no one who could beat my score of 82 points (out of a possible 150, not including Super-Bonuses).

The margin could have been even closer had this not been one of the strangest Oscar nights in a long while. Academy voters shocked the world by giving three surprise awards to The Pianist, including Best Actor (Adrien Brody), Best Director (Roman Polanski) and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Coming into tonight, it was believed that Polanski was too controversial a choice (after the whole rape of a minor thing that prevents him from ever entering the United States again; presenter Harrison Ford accepted the Oscar on his behalf), that Brody was too obscure and that the script would be pummeled by either The Hours or Adaptation.

In each category my own guess would be that this is a classic case of two major contenders cancelling each other out, leaving an unexpected (but in this case, incredibly deserving) winner by default. The only downside is that five minutes I spent thinking that maybe they would shock and awe everybody by giving the Best Picture trophy to Pianist, or practically any movie besides "Chicago".

And speaking of shock and awe, Pedro Almodovar -- the Spanish Woody Allen -- won the Best Original Screenplay award for Talk to Her, a total surprise that's only slightly less strange than the Writers Guild giving their similar award to a documentary. In short, Hollywood clearly wants Todd Haynes to crawl into his corner of Julianne Moore's basement and die.

Speaking of that music video writ large, it did indeed win Best Picture, as well as five other awards. Now let us never speak of this again.

Another surprise was the win by musician Marshall Mathers (better known to you as Eminem), whose 'fuck the Oscars' attitude didn't keep the Academy from giving the Best Original Song trophy to "Lose Yourself". True to his word, Eminem didn't bother to show up, sending co-composer Luis Resto to serve up forty-five seconds of spirited Eminem apologia, as well as show off his decidedly unglamorous duds.

In a delightful turn of events, Spirited Away -- the wonderful, often surreal masterpiece by Japanimation maestro Miyazaki -- beat out the more widely seen Lilo & Stitch and Ice Age to win Best Animated Feature.

One development that was not at all unexpected was the awarding of the Best Documentary Feature statuette to uberlefty Michael Moore's antigun documentary Bowling for Columbine, which led to something else also not at all surprising: Moore's forty-five second diatribe against President Bush (also the War, but mostly Bush, who he called a "fictional president"), which prompted boos (and some cheering) from the audience and a remark shortly thereafter by host Steve Martin that Teamsters were "currently helping Michael Moore into the trunk of his limo."

On the whole the presenters and winners stuck to Oscars producer Gil Cates's rules for the evening: acceptance speeches limited to 45 seconds and five thank-yous per person, with limited (if any) commentary about the Current Unpleasantness.

The notable exception was Best Actor winner Adrien Brody, who began by embracing presenter Halle Berry in a manner excusable only because he was in shock, followed by a vaguely coherent, whopping 2-3 minute (!) speech where he thanked at least fifteen people and called for a peaceful resolution to the aforementioned Unpleasantness, which prompted a standing ovation from the same crowd that booed Michael Moore offstage.

This evening U.S. President George W. Bush told the American people they can stop saying 'if we go to war...', announcing that unless Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, his sons and his entire regime abdicate and leave Iraq within forty-eight hours, a quarter-million American troops (aided by friends from Britain, Spain, Australia and other allies) will do it for them.

As for the notion that a super power like the United States should not wage war unless it is attacked first, Mr. Bush said that would be folly in the age of deadly weapons and ruthless terrorists. "It is not self-defense," Mr. Bush said. "It is suicide."

Mr. Bush said America and its allies have no choice but to move on Iraq, unless Mr. Hussein steps aside. Mr. Hussein and his cronies have been reckless in the Middle East, are in league with terrorists and are driven by "a deep hatred for America," Mr. Bush said.

At one point, the president vowed, "Instead of drifting along toward tragedy, we will set a course for safety." (New York Times via Gleaner)

Earlier today the U.S., British and Spanish ambassadors to the United Nations withdrew a proposed Security Council resolution which would have declared Iraq to be in violation of the UN's weapons inspection process, thus endorsing the use of force by member states (read: the U.S.) to ensure yada yada yada. Anyway, they withdrew it, after France and Germany vowed to veto it, and other, non-permanent Council members (who do not have a veto) vowed not to support it.

Now, what does this mean for you, Practical Reader?

The national terror alert level has been raised to Orange (again), and tonight we've told basically the entire Muslim world that they're gonna be our bitch, and they're gonna love it.

If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd be sending out recruiting tapes like they were AOL discs, and stocking up on nylons, chewing gum and anthrax spores to issue to the troops. If I were Kim Jong Il, I'd write the word "nucular" on the side of a cardboard box, go on national TV and just let the good times roll.

Me, I plan on working on my website and going to bed. As you see.

(Zzzzzzzzz.)

Several news outlets (CNN, Globe and Mail) are reporting that the restaurants in the three House office buildings will change the name of "french fries" to "freedom fries" (and "french toast" to "freedom toast") in a culinary act of rage directed at our "so-called ally", France, currently threatening to use its Security Council veto to block any UN resolution to go to war against Iraq.

Such posturing notwithstanding, there is little Congressional support for further anti-French action.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, R-California, said last month that irritation against France will not lead to legislative sanctions. "The primary reaction is kind of sadness and disappointment," he said. "There are folks who make rash statements. Those won't be translated into policy."

Speaking of rash statements...

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pennsylvania, also an Armed Services Committee member, on Friday sent letters to the French and German embassies in Washington: "Your constant opposition to America's efforts to remove a regime that has continually violated several, if not all of the human rights provisions within the United Nations charter and presents an increasing threat to democracies all over the world is nothing short of appalling," he wrote.

He concluded that Americans and Congress "will not soon forget the rank hypocrisy and blatant disloyalty displayed by your country today."

Observed: The official Associated Press story by Jim Abrams begins, "House cafeterias will be serving fries with a side order of patriotism Tuesday...". Canada's Globe and Mail uses the same report, but has changed the word 'patriotism' to 'posturing'.

Tonight we have finally gotten our cable TV reconnected after a two-month dry spell, and this time we're sticking to just basic cable, at least until the money situation improves. Then again, we may not ever have to upgrade our cable to a nicer package, as there are apparently only two channels we ever watched that don't fall within the comfy confines of Comcast's cheapest package.

I find it incredible that Food Network is a basic channel, but CNN is not, nor are Fox News or MSNBC. (CNN Headline News is the only cable news channel we get.) Bravo, with its independent movies and Canadian sitcoms, is a basic cable station. And we get Sci-Fi and Comedy Central but not USA, TNT , TNN or TBS. This is a good thing but for the loss of Law & Order Monday Marathons.

I thought that perhaps the cable guys had made a mistake -- Comcast had told me that our $17/mo cable TV would include only local broadcast stations -- until I saw which channels were not available. We don't get major AOL Time Warner-owned channels or any MTV Network besides MTV itself. We don't get the Disney Channel or ABC Family, which is owned by Disney.

This makes a lot of sense: Time Warner would charge the higher 'expanded basic' rate for their channels because they have their own cable business of which Comcast is a competitor. (I wonder if Cartoon Network and CNN are basic channels on Time Warner Cable?) Disney networks's would be better-than-basic because Disney thinks anything with their brand names on it is worth more money than it really ought to be. And MTV is basic because it always has been -- it debuted before there was even such a thing as 'expanded basic'.

On the other side of the coin, Discovery makes money by keeping its costs low, and is (I presume) able to sell their channels for less without affecting the bottom line. This is brilliant business because on some cable systems, Discovery channels like Animal Planet can run without competitiion from more glossy kid-oriented channels like Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon.

At any rate, I am pleasantly surprised.

IMDB's StudioBriefing has this very, very welcome news:

In an apparent move to place more emphasis on hard news in order to differentiate itself from rival Fox News Channel, CNN announced Friday that it has canceled TalkBack Live , its afternoon show hosted by entertainment reporter Arthel Neville and featuring weekly appearances by former basketball star Charles Barkley.

I've always hated that show. The current incarnation is perhaps the most tolerable, but the format -- a talk show with constant comments from the studio audience, peppered with e-mails and IMs from viewers at home -- becomes really, really unbearable after a while. The interviewers don't ask tough enough questions, and the armchair cowboys sending the IMs generally have nothing to add but expressions of their ignorance.

In the just-posted entry on Stan Brakhage's death, there is a link to more information surrounding the filmmaker's passing. It is hosted on Fred Camper's website.

I also mention an upcoming Criterion Collection DVD compilation of Brakhage's work. The essay for that edition is critic Fred Camper.

And I just ran into this posting by Camper -- who is not only a noted film critic, but also taught a class on Hollywood Melodrama two years ago at SAIC which I took and largely enjoyed -- on the Frameworks mailing list:

I think that it's theoretically possible to choose a sampling rate [i.e., for digital reproduction of filmed images] at which no human being could tell the difference in a blind A/B test between a print made from a digital file and one made only from celluloid. And ultimately high resolution digital files are likely the only way to preserve film for the long term, though such preservation efforts might themselves fail due to changes in technology, computers 100 years from now being unable to read today's files, etc. But at least theoretically high-resolution files with lossless copying might give us something close to the original. We already know that with celluloid several generations removed from the original there's significant quality loss, and we already know that celluloid originals turn to vinegar eventually.

I find these comments surprising, as Camper is a notorious video-hater. He has, in fact, been called the only "real" film critic in the United States for his steadfast refusal to watch a video transfer of any film meant to be shown on film, at least for a first critical screening.

I can ultimately accept this very practical viewpoint coming from a man with a well-known desire (not to mention a vested interest) for the survival of the cinema in some form. This just requires a little bit of mental readjustment.

Ain't It Cool News is reporting that legendary experimental filmmaker Stan Brakhage, whose 400 films are revered by film scholars while remaining unwatched by most moviegoers (myself included) has died.

Most of your readers probably don't know who Stan Brakhage is, or maybe they know him only from his acting turn in CANNIBAL! THE MUSICAL. But they know - for instance - David Fincher, who was highly influenced by Brakhage's films in the credits of SEVEN, or Oliver Stone, who took Brakhage's layering of images and manipulation of film texture and ran with it. Or that tape in THE RING, which certainly bears some marks of Brakhage's style. Or the many filmmakers, both experimental and narrative, who were influenced by Brakhage's modest means of production to attempt to make their own films in a similar manner outside the studio apparatus.

Details about Brakhage's passing are posted on Fred Camper's website.

Those wanting a better glimpse at some of Brakhage's work without going to the extreme of finding a cinematheque that is showing them (or a film library that even has them) will soon have an alternative: The Criterion Collection is releasing on Brakhage, a single-disc compilation of 26 Brakhage films this May.

Note my use of the terms 'cinematheque' and 'film library' -- Brakhage is obscure not only because he eschewed traditional methods of filmmaking. His distribution has been limited to avant-garde venues like SAIC's Siskel Film Center and various art museums, his audience consisting of truly hard-core cineastes and art critics for whom filmmaking is a visual, not dramatic or literary, art. And if there's a filmmaker who embodies this way of looking at and making films, it's Brakhage.

From the blurb on Criterion's site:

Challenging all taboos in his exploration of “birth, sex, death, and the search for God,” Brakhage has turned his camera on explicit lovemaking, childbirth, even actual autopsy. Many of his most famous works pursue the nature of vision itself and transcend the act of filming. Some, including the legendary Mothlight , were made without using a camera at all.

Instead, Brakhage has pioneered the art of making images directly on film itself––starting with clear leader or exposed film, then drawing, painting, and scratching it by hand. Treating each frame as a miniature canvas, Brakhage can produce only a quarter- to a half-second of film a day, but his visionary style of image-making has changed everything from cartoons and television commercials to MTV music videos and the work of such mainstream moviemakers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, and Oliver Stone.

I don't feel at all compelled to go take a class on Brakhage or anything (my school does, in fact, offer one), but I'm looking forward to this upcoming Criterion disc with great interest.

Buy the disc at Amazon

NetNewsWire, Gleaner and Hourihan are all pointing me to this story on The Morning News about the Chinatown bus trade-- "inexpensive, Chinese-operated shuttles that run between the numerous big-city Chinatowns dotting the Eastern Seaboard" -- and recent, generally enthusiastic New York Times articles about same.

Morning News contributor Clay Risen is less enthusiastic:

The Times seems to think that the offer of an ‘in-ride movie’ is a great deal. ‘The lines offer all the amenities travelers have come to expect from any bus ride,’ Steve Kurtz writes in the 12 January piece, ‘including views of the passing highway and a small rear bathroom. Add to that an on-board Jackie Chan movie and the potential to learn Chinese through osmosis, and it’s clear why these lines are becoming an alternative to Amtrak and Greyhound.’

Such comments are typical New York Times: bemused, about as far from reality as Risen and his fellow passengers were from home when their Chinatown Bus was forced off the road in Maryland and their Chinese driver couldn't tell them what the problem was, how long they would be stuck, whether they were going to die, et al.

Read the story for the harrowing details.

Side notes: For some reason, reading this story crashed Safari on such a profound level that I'm being forced to change my default browser to Camino for the remainder of the afternoon.

Additionally, does Meg Hourihan's sudden transformation from Silicon Valley cognoscenta into a living, weblogging extension of the New York City Tourism Board amuse anyone besides me?

I've found a new blog to read:

I find myself with a few spare minutes and make the mistake of reading Thomas Friedman again. His conclusion after a long, dull and witless ramble about the introduction of "democracy" to Iraq (just what the Gulf region needs, more puppet states) reads "If [it is] done right, the Middle East will never be the same. If done wrong, the world will never be the same". [It] does inspire in me the desire for a competition: can anyone, particularly the rather more Bush-friendly recent arrivals to the board, give me one single example of something with the following three characteristics:

1. It is a policy initiative of the current Bush administration
2. It was significant enough in scale that I'd have heard of it (at a pinch, that I should have heard of it)
3. It wasn't in some important way completely fucked up during the execution.

It's just that I literally can't think what possible evidence Friedman might be going on in his tacit assumption that the introduction of democracy to Iraq (if it is attempted at all) will be executed well rather than badly.

(D-Squared Digest via Textism)

Dave Kehr writes in the Old Gray Lady today about the Academy's slowness in picking up on the digital revolution, which starts to sound like a think piece about the abortive attempt by New Line Cinema to get an Oscar nomination for Andy Serkis, who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Though Mr. Serkis ultimately wasn't nominated, the academy announced that his work would indeed be eligible in the supporting-actor category.

So would that make the lovable talking mouse who starred in "Stuart Little 2" eligible as well? Apparently not. Although the academy has remained silent on this central issue, their guidelines suggest that having a human armature is essential to being considered for an acting prize. Because there was no motion-capture model for Stuart Little (the figure was composed out of geometric shapes on the computer screen), Stuart is deemed a fiction, while Gollum is ruled a performance. And so, despite the preponderance of live actors and location shooting in "Stuart Little 2," the film was shuffled off to the animation category, where it failed to win a place on the final ballot.

But being fictional is not, in and of itself, a reason to be barred from Oscar consideration. Ask Donald Kaufman (or try to). The fictional twin brother of the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, Donald is credited as the co-writer of "Adaptation," and his name will appear alongside Charlie's on any statuettes that might come his way (although the academy, willing to play along with the joke only so far, has also announced that should Mr. Kaufman win, only one statuette will be awarded).

I don't know about you, but this sounds like the Academy is extremely savvy to the advent of digital characters and postmodern billing. If indeed Gollum would have been eligible for an acting Oscar, even if he didn't end up nominated (which is simply a matter of popular vote -- the public speculation over whether Serkis could be nominated probably hurt him, but ultimately wouldn't have changed anything), that's a more progressive viewpoint than I would have expected.

Academy rules specify that 75 percent of a film must use animated effects for it to qualify for the animation category. That's a condition that "The Two Towers" almost certainly fulfills (not that I've seen it with a stopwatch in hand), given the ubiquity of animated supporting characters, digitally retouched photography and vast castles, caverns and fantasy landscapes spun entirely out of pixels. But no. "The Two Towers" is real; "Ice Age" (which uses the same technology to create its backgrounds, and which was nominated this year for animated feature) is not.

Actually, Dave, The Two Towers is largely real. Even some of the more unbelievable landscapes were achieved by compositing real elements, and 'digital grading' (the digital tinting process used to give the film its often unnecessarily blue look) does not make for an animated film. It has, in fact, been used on many films in the past and nobody else would question their realness, even if Elijah Wood does give us all our doubts.

Speaking of "Gangs of New York," Martin Scorsese's film will probably prove to be one of the last historical spectacles to be filmed entirely on built sets.

Well, this is just stupid. True, Scorsese could probably have saved some cash, but it wouldn't have been the same for Scorsese, the actors or the finished product. Day-Lewis, DiCaprio and company would have been acting in front of a blue screen, and it would have showed -- assuming, of course, they would still have even agreed to do the movie. The millions spent made for a better movie.

And The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Kehr's current poster child for digital cinema, was mostly filmed on real landscapes or built sets. Even the bigger things which could not have been built to scale were done as models, so that there would be some feeling of realness to them.

Kehr's musings on the future of art direction ignore the key fact that Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace -- which was filmed on as many digital sets as its recent sequel, Attack of the Clones -- was nominated for an art direction Oscar. Digital sets are considered traditional art direction -- the precedent for this has been set.

The content originally posted at this URL has been removed.

Now, this is a connection I missed when I was writing about DPSU's 'mad cow' viral marketing scheme:

Well gosh, best of luck with the viral marketing thing there, Dr Pepper/Seven Up (DPSU). I think if I were handed the problem of how to get word out about ‘extreme milk’ that’s the road I’d take. It just feels right.

Here in the land of cheese-eating surrender monkeys (last week the Chirac government issued mandatory t-shirts carrying the slogan ‘anti-American, PoMo, MultiCulti and mocking your fat ass’) they’ve been selling nuked milk for years – in fact it’s hard to find any fresh stuff past the aisles of hideous, plasticky milk in cardboard boxes at room temperature, with expiry dates generations away, owing to all that mad cow business.

Oh, wait… ["Rage", from Textism]

Perhaps one just has to live in France like Dean. (Incidentally, Dean -- may I call you Dean? -- Textpattern? Yeah, it doesn't work.)

Google me and you'll find...well, not me.

The first results are for a David Demaree Banta who was dean of Indiana University's law school from 1889 through 1896. Then you find some Topica archives of my various mailing lists. Then you find genealogy charts for various David Demarees who lived in the 17th and 18th Centuries, most of whom appear to have died trying to make it to America.

Then there's a guy named David Demaree who posts the following to the Texas SportsGuide Fishing Forum:

Subject: Fishing Spot 4 YMCA Troop? Date: 18-09-2002 Author: David Demaree Reply Wanted: Looking for stock pond or small lake to take small troop of local YMCA Y-Guides (approx six 7-8 yr old boys) to learn how to fish. Dads will attend and watch kids, etc.. Kids are well behaved. 4-6 dads/sons will likely attend. Catch and release is fine. Ideal location would be not too far from D/FW. Call David (214) 555-9790 or e-mail david.demaree@fy.com Thanks very much.

The first result from practicalmadness.com is the eighth one down, and a broken link anyways. (The homepage for Practical finally appears as the seventeenth search result.)

And then there's this one:

David Demaree is an energetic 12 year-old that loves to skateboard, and is active in many sports. David is beginning to approach the Word with passion, as he navigates the challenging world of Junior High. Gifted in the performing arts, he has quite a sense of humor and is a joy to be around.

They say his sister's passion for Jesus is contagious. I'll take their word for it.

Have you ever tried looking for technical support information using a Web search like Google, found a message board poster who has the exact problem you're having, only to find that all of the replies are other people saying 'me too!', with nobody ever coming up with a solution?

It's very sad how often this happens; one can only hope it's because these people all eventually call tech support and just never get around to sharing their findings with the rest of the class.

MSNBC reports that not only is Dr. Pepper launching their own MT blog to promote Raging Cow, the company's new line of milk-plus drinks, but they are recruiting "key-influence bloggers" to help start a grass-roots marketing campaign in return for swag.

To me, the phrase 'key influence blogger' suggests that they've co-opted Kottke, Hourihan or a Trott. But I'm an old fogey; they're actually thinking of the authors of popular teeny blogs, who are being flown to Dr. Pepper's Dallas headquarters accompanied by their parents to be inducted into the Bovine Order.

Dr. Pepper has not released any information regarding exactly which sites will be participating in this viral marketing campaign, although MSNBC quotes "Nicole, 18, a Louisiana high-school senior with a popular blog" as saying that she and her fellow moobloggers are "independent and can advertise Raging Cow the way we want."

DPSU hopes that their moobloggers will “be part of the ‘in the know’ crowd” and prove influential in hooking teeny-boppers and their older siblings on glorified chocowit milk.

You will note that I'm having way too much fun calling these children 'moobloggers'.

Certain individuals who have been written about on this site have found a need to not only respond, but to spam this site with comments. Then, days later, to comment again. This is entirely cool, and I will now take a few moments to address this gentleman's concerns.

Before I begin, in the interests of full disclosure I should tell you that I have a 'Valley Girl' text filter installed which is designed to make the writing of anyone who comments on my blog look really, really stupid. I have decided, because I am lazy, to use this version of the comments rather than dig the original, untainted text out of my database. So please do not let my amusingly destructive tendencies detract from the power of the words.

This individual, who we will call "D.H.", writes:

dude, i'm a bitchin' fan of david. i mean, he's a person i totally look up to and stuff. anywayz, and i'd just like to say that i totally totally agree with everythin' he wrote about dan. cuz david's so smart, yo. that's why we're friends and shit. like soulmates. but, to be fair, i asked dan what he thought too. anywayz, lemme break it down for ya.

Aww, that's so nice of you to say that.

(dan's response: i've always wondered why those who have undergone traumatic experiences must shoulder thuh burden of providin' others with a grander appreciation for their lives. seems a touch unfair, no?)

Yes, but why else would you shoulder the burden of watching a movie about your traumatic experience upon your classmates and dear viewers if not to provide some grander appreciation of something? We (that is, the class) are watching in order to troubleshoot any editing problems you're having, to give you some feedback as to where it's working and where it's not, and to provide you with emotional support during this difficult time of creation and expression.

Me, I generally drop the last bit; I've never gotten much support from anyone in the making of my work, and see my role as that of curmudgeonly troubleshooter. This may be a commercial (or even 'Hollywood') sentiment, but I think that to put your audience through your experience without some kind of payoff at the end is to cheat them. The payoff doesn't have to be all warm and fuzzy -- it can be ironic, it can be funny, it can be really, really mean, but it has to be something.

indeed [the audience principle] may be true, but perhaps not in thuh vindictive manner with which david paints it. i had no intentions for my video to edify thuh masses, or break new philosophical ground in humanity's unfailin' attempts to better understand ourselves. i only intended to create a subjective document of an individual experience--which, last i checked, still remains a valid form of artistic expression.

Yes, it is very subjective. Yes, that is valid. But I don't think it's working, and I think that the piece (NOT the artist, NOT the experience) will be misconstrued. You say you intend for it to be taken as reportage, but it operates as more of a confessional, with all the emotional and stylistic baggage that accompanies that. It'll be taken as the filmic equivalent of emo, and I don't think you want that.

Furthermore, I don't want to watch that. It comes off like the whining of a guy who has too much going on in the here and now to be worried about something like that if it didn't mean something. I was in a major car accident four months ago, which I survived only to come home to bill collectors and problems at work. I'm well aware that life doesn't provide meaning or satisfaction. I am further aware that it is not your job to provide entertainment or even catharsis. But if you don't think it's supposed to mean anything, why have you made a piece about it?

i find it difficult for me to sit back and allow david's readers to believe that his sudden espousal of thuh 'hiv-is-not-a-death-sentence' position to be entirely genuine. i have worked with survivors of hiv. i'm fully aware that one can live a moderately healthy, happy, and long life with thuh disease. perhaps my video does take a fairly existentialist view in that all sufferin' remains, in thuh grand scheme of thin's, somewhat futile, and that a grand overarchin' moral that one can glean from it does not exist--yet this in just no way means that my video propagates a myth about hiv that i myself don't even believe to be true. and besides, everyone thinks irrationally when thuh threat of a life-changin' illness, specifically aids, presents itself in one's life, no? it is like wow! only this momentary irrationality that i wanted to convey in my video.

D.H., you explain yourself very rationally. And I believe you. But the piece is not about momentary irrationality. It is about death. I call it how I see it.

More than anything, Dan, I'm frustrated by the sheer number of things the piece touches on, is about, raises. Last Wednesday's critique was a typical art-school rhetoric-fest, where some learned, intelligent people tried to pass off observations as insight, and you accommodated them with rhetoric.

You say it's just a document, but your piece is very irresponsible even if you are not, and just because you can explain that away in the classroom or here on the web doesn't mean that your film is any better.

Oh, and I know you called it a trope. That part I embellished because I thought it would be funnier. Remember funny? Remember fiction? I think this is my problem with your piece -- on the screen, it all becomes fiction. You have created something. It is not simply reportage. And I think that the fact that it is true has blinded you to the fact that it is a movie.

I will now also confess that there are moments that I loved. I think that your sequence with the prescription bottle and the chess board is masterful -- simply one of the best cinematic moments I've seen in a while. It exemplified another thing you mentioned in the critique, which was an economy of images -- your pictures speak much more eloquently than your words. I didn't much care for your self-interview scene, but that's just my own personal taste.

I agree totally with what Caroline was saying -- cut back on the narration and allow the images to do your work for you. You're smothering us with your voice.

As for your decision on Sunday to abandon your blog while you sort out the personal issues you've been neglecting by writing it...trust me, you'll be back.

You have a definite confessional streak, it comes out in your blog, and the immediacy of that outlet will lure you back. There is nothing wrong with using a blog to get over stuff. Such writing is cathartic, and whatever is motivating you, it can't make that any less useful.

If you think you need some distance, fine. But your blog will be back. And if Blogger ever gets too limiting for you, e-mail me, because it's a good blog and I'd be happy to set you up here at Practical.

First, look at this. Yes, that's a weblog, powered by Movable Type, written by a cartoon cow.

Now, look at this. It's the website for Dr. Pepper/Seven Up, Inc., makers of fine beverage products. See anything familiar?

"Having escaped from a dairy where milk was the only option, Raging Cow's unpredictable and mischievous mascot symbolizes the independence and enthusiasm of the brand's target consumers. We wanted a representative that would reflect the adventurous spirit in people, a creature with a flair for making a point. We found a perfect bovine, and she is 'udderly' overjoyed to be promoting Raging Cow until the cows come home.

"Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending upon how you view it, her only utterance is an occasional 'primal moo,' which is tantamount to a bovine scream."

If you haven't pieced it together yet, Raging Cow is a new line of flavored milk drinks which are currently being tested Out West Somewhere (look for them at 7-Elevens in L.A., San Diego, Dallas, Austin and Denver). The new ‘milk with attitude' is available in five yummy flavors – Piña Colada Chaos, Jamocha Frenzy, Berry Mixed Up, Chocolate Caramel Craze and Chocolate Insanity.

I feel a bovine scream coming on.

In other beverage news, Coca-Cola will soon be releasing the latest entry into the Brand Name Expansion Soda market: Sprite Remix, featuring "a tropical version of the great taste of Sprite" and "a unique treatment of the signature Sprite logo".

Personally, I think they should follow in the footsteps in the competition and release a soda called Etirps, which would be exactly the same as Sprite, except for the welcome addition of caffeine.

Updated: In my research for this post, I discovered that Odwalla (and their East Coast sister company, Fresh Samantha) is a Coca-Cola brand. This is very distressing, as whenever I drink an Odwalla orange juice, one of the first things to pop into my head is how much better it is than nasty Minute Maid swill. (Minute Maid, you may or may not be aware, is also a Coca-Cola brand.)

Moooooooo! Moooooooooo! Moooo-hooo!

It's about four months old, but Anil Dash's webzine has an interesting article about a little-known Microsoft product (SharePoint) which can be used as server-side blogging software in the vein of Movable Type and Blogger. That's not its intended purpose, but you could do it.

SharePoint Team Services (STS) is a workgroup-based or project-based intranet server, similar to what the original Pyra application was trying to be. Perhaps the best illustration of this similarity is Microsoft's inclusion of Team Services in the current version of Project Server . But even without the project management features, STS distinguishes itself with a focus on document management, contact management, and integration with Office stalwarts such as Outlook. The critical feature of STS, though, is a what's referred to as "lists".

Lists, in a word, are weblogs.

The main interest of this piece is the revelation that yes, Microsoft's server software can be made to blog, even if Microsoft has yet to acknowledge the blogging phenomenon on a consumer level. (This writer finds it funny that Microsoft's latest attempt at expanding their consumer offerings, threedegrees, combines IM and P2P music sharing -- the next big things of 2000 and 2001, respectively.)

Dash concludes that Microsoft is not at all poised to become a player in the weblogging world, and I very much agree -- SharePoint is business-oriented software with one blog-friendly feature, runs only on Windows servers and in recent years Microsoft has been so concerned with milking their enterprise cash cow for all it's worth that their ability to invent and market new consumer products is practically nonexistent.

Hell, even the last consumer version of Windows has failed to make much of an impact due to Great White's insistence on bloating the OS with features that are either unnecessary or unnecessarily complex. (That said, Windows XP is the best version of Windows yet. I just wish I could run it on my three-year-old laptop.)

And Microsoft's first foray into consumer electronics -- the Xbox -- gets mad props for being in many ways technologically superior to the PlayStation2. They said the same thing, however, about Betamax tapes. Business-wise, the Xbox is a failure that only a company as huge as Microsoft would be willing to write off, let alone survive.

Now, how did a piece about SharePoint lead me to the Xbox? My point is that the time is long over when consumers and open-source types have to worry about Microsoft invading their space. It has become clear that Microsoft is losing touch, and apart from their traditional empires (Windows and Internet Explorer), consumers are no longer impressed. This is a good thing.

Can you even tell me the name of the person who directed Chicago? Is it a man or a woman? White or black? Those questions are unfortunately easy -- the vast majority of Hollywood directors are white men. So which white man did the deed? What is his name?

You may know the answer. You may also know that it doesn't really matter; this man -- whose name, incidentally, is Rob Marshall -- will never make a truly great film so as to be remembered alongside Kubrick and Kurosawa, or even alongside Spielberg and Scorsese. He's the guy who didn't screw up. He was a nice boy who made a nice film and Harvey Weinstein has been in everyone's faces for four months saying he should win an Oscar.

Marshall took (or was taken on) the first step to actually getting that Oscar when he accepted the Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award for Best Director yesterday.

The various guild awards are the best predictors for Oscar winners because they are voted on by the same individuals who will be voting on the Oscars; they're like the dress rehearsal before the main event, and the winner of the DGA Award has almost always gone on to win the Best Director Oscar, and their film almost always wins Best Picture.

To receive this illustrious honor, Marshall beat out directors Roman Polanski (The Pianist), Martin Scorsese (Gangs of New York), Stephen Daldry (The Hours) and Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers). All but Jackson are nominated for the directing Oscar, which will be awarded during the Oscarcast on March 23.

There is still a chance that the apparent favorite for the Oscar, Martin Scorsese, can still win. The DGA award is a very good predictor, but not a perfect one: in 2000, Ang Lee won the DGA award for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but Steven Soderbergh won the Oscar for Traffic. Neither film won Best Picture; that honor went to Gladiator.

Back in 1972, even though Francis Ford Coppola won the DGA Award for The Godfather, the Oscar went to Bob Fosse for Cabaret.

We shall see.

The Guardian Online is running a profile of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the third-in-command of al-Qaida who was arrested in Pakistan this weekend, and will soon be extradited to the U.S. for his apparently very, very major role in planning September 11.

The story paints Mohammed as a playboy who enjoys womanizing, drinking, scuba diving -- not a religious fanatic like the other al-Qaida principals, but equal to them in his hatred of America and its allies.

The arrest is expected to be a major blow to al-Qaeda's operations; much of the terrorist cartel's ability to coordinate and execute massively ambitious operations like the 9/11 attacks is attributed to Mohammed's grand vision for blowing up the big stuff, and a talent for that kind of global strategy.

So sleep a little bit safer now knowing that the U.S. has captured one individual in an executive position, and now thinks that the alleged thousands of al-Qaeda worker bees who actually pull the trigger and set the explosives have just stopped dead in their tracks because their fearless leader is in a Pakistani jail...