Game: November 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007

Week 29: Pageant of the Transmundane

Hello from Bana City, Osea. *cough* It has been a long week here at Culture Kills, but as always, I am committed to

This week's winning entry comes from the blog Creative Juice.

Now, I have to say, there is quite a bit at this particular blog that could have won an award this week, from deep fried spiral cut potatoes, tea cup hedges and some strange photo sculpture, but I am a man of particular tastes and well, I couldn't resist awarding the prize to a video of a Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas mod with a very peculiar character set. And I have to say that the fools getting blasted in the video, well, they sort of have it coming as well.

And since this week's prize is Grand Theft Auto related, well, this created image from a YTMND user VomitingKermit seemed the most appropriate for the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award.

Congratulations to the unnamed proprietor of Creative Juice. Huzzah!

The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogosphere to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Google Data Ideathon

By Stephanie Liu, Google Data APIs Team

The Google Data team is holding a local event for developers Thursday, December 13th, 5:00pm-10:30pm at the Googleplex (Mountain View, CA). It'll be part hackathon, part unconference, part user group, part food, and part fabulous prizes.

Besides a short kick-off session, everything else will be up to you. We'll provide the wi-fi, power and food, and you can utilize the time however you want -- whether it's to pick the brain of someone on the GData team, meet other local developers, hack away on your current project, sit in on impromptu sessions about things like GData + Gears and GME, or hold your own lightning talk about the project you're working on.

Head over to the GData blog for the full announcement and the event page to RSVP and for more info.

Hope to see you there!

Gamespot ED Fired Because of Bad Review?

A story is emerging that really angers me as someone who works peripherally in the reviewing business.

The editoral director of Gamespot, Jeff Gerstmann was fired, but the rumored reason is the part that gets my blood up. You see, as part of his job, he reviewed the game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men earlier this month and gave it low average scores. The company behind the game, Eidos Interactive had spent quite a bit of money promoting the game at Gamespot, and when the review wasn't positive, it is rumored that they applied considerable economic pressure to have Gerstmann ousted.

Now, I've spent a lot of time over at Gamespot, and this decision really rubs me the wrong way. If the decision was indeed made based on the demands of an advertiser, then all the reviews that follow are now suspect, because the rest of the staff is likely going to be looking over their shoulder every time they sit down to write down their opinion about a less than stellar game. And this apprehension will likely not just be confined to the Gamespot offices, because now that a company has successfully influenced a reviewing site to make a personnel decision based on a negative review, I am sure that when another high profile but substandard game is reviewed poorly, similar economic pressure may become the option of first choice by quite a few of the larger companies. I am sure that a company like Electronic Arts, Take Two or even Sony/Microsoft could indeed use their considerable financial resources to try to force the companies that review their games to alter their work or change personnel. Do I think they would do so? At this point, I can't be sure.

In any case, it is a troubling development for the integrity of video game reporting and reviewing in general, because movie studios and television networks also have some mighty deep pockets and advertising budgets that could be used to punish media outlets that write reviews they don't like, and they have used tactics like that in the past.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Google Gadgets going cross-platform

By Mike Pinkerton, Software Engineer

For about two years now, people have been writing gadgets for Google Desktop on
Windows and for iGoogle on the web. Today, with the announcement of Google
Gadgets for Mac OS X, Google Desktop users on the Mac can now run the same
Windows and web-based gadgets in Apple's Dashboard with zero (or very few)
changes. Check it out for yourself.

Google Gadgets for the Mac uses WebKit's JavaScript engine inside Dashboard, so
the majority of gadgets just work if they're written properly. The rest can be
fixed by following a few guidelines:

Use JavaScript, not JScript

WebKit is case-sensitive, JScript is not, which can lead to problems if you assume can you do things like interchange SetTimeOut() and setTimeout().
Avoid JScript-only features like collections and ActiveX.

Avoid IE-specific DOM extensions, just as if you were writing a multi-browser web application.

Avoid Windows-specific APIs

You shouldn't assume ActiveX or certain DLLs are available. Neither WebKit nor Mac OS X supports ActiveX, so these gadgets must be rewritten.
Avoid Windows-only APIs such as Google Talk. These APIs are not (yet) available on Mac OS X.

Understand how Dashboard is different

The Dashboard environment is very different from a web page or the Desktop sidebar on Windows in that it comes and goes as the user activates it. Don't rely on your gadget always being visible. Your gadget won't run or update when Dashboard isn't in the foreground.
Don't rely on access to the file system. The security model for Dashboard doesn't allow arbitrary file access to the hard disk, although your gadget does have access to files in its own archive. Things like file pickers won't work. Note that while restricted file system access is a departure from how gadgets work on Windows, it's consistent with Dashboard's security model and the behavior of other widgets developed for Mac OS X.

For more details, see Writing a Cross-Platform Gadget, part of the Desktop Gadget API documentation.

If you're interested in developing your own gadget, visit the Gadgets API homepage. If you're already a gadget developer, download the beta today to test your gadget and ensure that it works correctly.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

My favorite football call this year

I laugh every time I watch this call. It pleases me.

And as an history lesson, here is where that call comes from.

Chronoscope: 2 + 2 = 5 with GWT and Android

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

Timepedia has released Chronoscope, an open source charting and visualization library, built using GWT.

It features:

Canvas abstraction for drawing vector graphs
Graph Style Sheets abstraction for configuring the look-and-feel of charts
Scalable multiresolution rendering supporting up to tens of thousands of points
Zoom and pan at interactive frame rates, from centuries to milliseconds
Auto-ranging, auto-layout of chart axes and ticks.
Auto-legend, and mini-chart Overview
Add pushpin markers, domain and range markers, and overlays like Google Maps
Bookmarkable chart state, works with Back button
JS interopability. GWT API can be used by pure Javascript programmers
Microformat support. Charts can be configured without programming.
Server-side Font assistance. Render rotated text.
Portable, Chronoscope is not tied to GWT, can be used to render from servlets, applets, or other environments.

What is particularly interesting is how the Chronoscope team was able to take their existing Java source code, add 8 hours of Android exploration, and ended up with the same charting and visualization library that works on Android using their graphics support.

This is one area that GWT truly shines. The fact that you write your code in the Java programming language means that you can reuse it in other places where Java runs. Being able to write one application and quickly have it run on Android and the iPhone is pretty compelling.

Here you can see it running:

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

It's here: the Google Highly Open Participation Contest

By Leslie Hawthorn, Open Source Team

The Google Summer of Code program has been a joint labor of love between Google and the open source community for the past three years, and the results have been spectacular: hundreds of college students have been introduced to open source software, thousands of people across the globe have begun development together and millions of lines of open code have been produced, 4 million last year alone. We've been particularly proud of this program and how much it has helped the community and we've spent a lot of time thinking about ways we can continue helping open source projects find even more contributors. Today, we're pleased to announce the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, our new effort to get pre-university students involved in all aspects of open source development, from fixing bugs to writing documentation and doing user experience research.

While we're very excited about many aspects of the contest, the best part is that everyone can participate. Contestants must meet the eligibility requirements, but anyone interested in helping out can simply suggest a task to be included in the contest. Our contestants have a chance to win t-shirts, cash prizes, and a visit the Googleplex for a day of technical talks, delicious food and a photo with our very own Stan T. Rex.

Want to learn more? Check out the contest FAQs and tell your favorite pre-college students to pick a task or two to complete. You can always visit our discussion group to get help or share your thoughts.

Update: Fixed the broken links.

A 24-related T-Shirt that got my Attention

As you know, I am not that political here at Culture Kills, but someone sent me something political that had some pop cultural juice to it to, so I knew I just had to run with it.

You see, my love for 24 is widely known, and as such, I guess someone wanted me to see their t-shirt design.

David Palmer is my favorite 24 character EVER so I think that is a kickass shirt. I don't know if Barack Obama is anything like the fictional David Palmer, but man, as a Canadian, I sort of want to find out now, even though I can't vote in 2008.

ZXing 1d/2d Barcode decoding source code released

By Sean Owen, Google Print Ads Team

Recently in the New York Times, we placed a small graphic as part of a Google Print Ad. You aren't looking at one of those eye focus games (It's a sailboat! Or a shark!) but a two-dimensional barcode. Those of us who already know what it is pulled out our phones and "clicked" it with the camera, and were connected to the advertiser's web site. "Wha?", you say? See http://www.google.com/printads/barcode. While this kind of thing has been a common sight in Asia for years, this ad is one of many signs that the technology is arriving in Europe and North America.

But Advertising is only part of the story here. Engineering is also involved and we want to improve the quality and availability of barcode reader software available to developers and end users. So today I would like to announce the "ZXing" (from: "zebra crossing") project, an open-source, Java, multi-format 1D/2D barcode reader which can be built into a reader application for Java and Java ME -- and later, Android.

This project began as a 20% project and is not yet complete, so opening it up is a bit of an experiment. It's not yet the Best Barcode Reader Ever, but it's looking pretty good. For now we want to find those those who can make use of and help improve what's here, so that those good ideas are shared to all developers and everybody wins.

Developers can find the ZXing project on Google Code, and we hope you'll join us on our Google Group and tell us about what you like and don't like about the code.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Journeyman: It was nice knowing you

While it isn't official, numerous sources are speculating that the NBC series Journeyman is 1-3 episodes away from being cancelled.

But I for one think that NBC has some rather unreasonable expectations. I mean, they put the series on in the Monday 10PM slot, which puts it into some murderous ratings crossfire between CSI Miami and The Bachelor. And despite that opposition, the show was still fetching ratings which were comparable to the ratings that the network's Thursday night "hits" are receiving.

But the network has apparently given the show an ultimatum: if the two part episode that concludes tonight doesn't receive improved ratings, the show is on the fast track to cancellation. Of course, considering the first part was against the finale of a reality show, it does seem like NBC is setting up a no win situation.

Kevin Falls, the series creator, also believes that the show doesn't really have a chance to get an additional order for episodes after the first 12, and really, I think he is in the right place to make such a determination.

If the writers strike continues, I would have thought that the wisest course of action for the network would have been to revive their old summer slogan about if you haven't seen it, it is new to you and I am sure they could lure at least a few hundred thousand viewers over from CSI Miami reruns every week and start to build a following for a show they've already paid to produce. But I do remember that I mentioned that with the writers' strike going on, it seemed unlikely that a show would be cancelled with remaining episodes, and with the writers going back to the table to try to hammer out a deal, perhaps this whole Journeyman mess is like the canary in the coalmine when it comes to the length of this strike, because a cancellation threat seems to me to indicate that the network is confident that a deal may be reached soon.

But the network should also remember that when Cheers premiered, it finished number 77 out of 77 shows and yet by sticking with it, the series ended up becoming a huge hit and Seinfeld had similar early fortunes, and I think that allowing the show to find an audience may be in their best interests. Then again, I like the show, so my opinion isn't exactly unbiased.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Jesus Schools a Follower: A Culture Kills Comic

Well, it took a bit longer, but once again there are Culture Kills Comics in the house. *raises the roof*

Thanks Stripgenerator, thanks.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Week 28: Pageant of the Transmundane

I must preface this week's award ceremony with an anecdote. Earlier in the week I encountered a rich, steaming cup of nastiness that was certainly transmundane, but at the same time, I felt that it would not be appropriate to award the hardware to that particular entry as I did not want to be responsible for the cascading consequences of doing so.

Anyhoo, with that in mind, it is time to hand out the hardware this week.

Before this week, I understood the world of letter delivery to be one of the most mundane and straightforward things around.

That is, until I read a particular entry on DavidXC.com which was comprised of two images and a single word.

Check it out and see what I mean, as that is a unique way of getting a letter delivered for free without using that whole "return address, no stamp" scam.

And because this week's winning entry is mail related, well, it seemed appropriate that an image featuring something similar was fitting, and once again, the fine work of Last Exit to Springfield has provided just such a picture for this week's Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award.

Congrats David on bringing something bizarre (and not stomach turning) into my consciousness this week.

The Unrated Live Free or Die Hard: Good Stuff!

Last night, I rented the fourth installment of the Die Hard series, Live Free or Die Hard and was able to watch it the way the director had originally filmed it: ample use of the word fuck and an increased use of visible and audible violence including squibs on both actors and inanimate objects and a generally darker experience... you know, all the stuff we expect from a Die Hard movie and it has much to recommend it as it is a great action movie much in keeping with the style and intensity of its predecessors.

Then I watched it again with the audio commentary, which featured Bruce Willis, director Len Wiseman and the man who edited the footage into a PG-13 movie, Nicolas De Toth. And I have to tell you, the commentary is also very revealing, as it makes the end product that much more surprising, as it truly seems like they were writing the movie as they were filming it. I don't mean they were changing it to try to make getting it a lower rating, rather whole action sequences seemed to develop organically while the principals were on set while others were discarded just as quickly, and the accompanying plot point along with them. And because it is a very stunt-intensive movie with a minimum of CGI, the difficulty in developing such sequences on the fly as it were and the fact that the filmmakers were nonetheless able to pull it off is stunning to me. The end product doesn't really feel like it is improvised, and I think a lot of other movies would have fallen apart under similar circumstances, but somehow the movie came together quite well.

And as suspected, those involved did indeed start production making an R-rated Die Hard, and it wasn't until much later that they were made aware that the studio was angling for a PG-13, so they basically had nearly an entire R-rated movie filmed at that point, so this unrated version is pretty much the movie that they had wanted as the final product, so again, I think the unrated version is a must see for any fan of action movies, and a requirement for Die Hard fans.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Somehow this picture seemed to convey the appropriate message today without needing a turkey:

And if you want to contrast how much differently I dealt with the American holiday last year, you could always read my Katamari Thanksgiving post, which is a little bit longer and in keeping with my "classic" period when I was a little bit more introspective.

Hitman movie gets whacked by the critics

Well, this seems like it is pretty much official: The Hitman movie is getting smacked hard by the critics. As one reviewer put it, it is Uwe Boll bad. So far, Rotten Tomatoes has it pegged at 13% fresh, and that number is likely to not improve to much as the days and weeks go on and once again, the unwarranted perception that the narratives of video games don't have depth or emotional content.

Last year, I wrote about the reasons why video game movies generally fail, and I came up with 5 general guidelines studios and producers should use if they want to make a successful stand alone film from a video game property.

1) Choose games that are plot-driven, but not extremely long.
2) Ban Uwe Boll from getting near another game-based movie.
3) Cast your movies well.
4) Spend the money on getting a good script before going further.
5) Make sure people outside of the gaming demographic would want to see it as well.

Now Number 5 is of tantamount importance here, as those involved would actually have to put in the time and effort to actually make something a bit more universal in appeal and not just something that is all explosions and no story.

But I realized that there should really be a number 6 on this list, and I think it is perhaps the most damning problem of them all: the involvement of people who are intensely interested in getting a particular vision on the screen.

After all, you have to admit that a lot of good adaptations are the result of the director and screenwriter (amongst other people) having true passion for the work they want to film, and I don't think very many of these video game based projects (barring Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), start with that level of commitment. I don't believe that the people involved want with every fiber of their being to tell these stories, and tell them well. When you set out with crass intentions, well, you shouldn't be surprised when the end product has those same hallmarks.

As someone who has played and loved the Hitman series, I know that if someone who had that same love for the series had written or directed that movie, a good movie would have been made, because there was indeed enough quality narrative material in the games to do so.

And I remember when there was a time when a good movie based on a Marvel comic seemed like an impossibility. Someday there will be someone who can actually manage to translate a great game into a great film, but I don't think that will be for quite a while. And just a friendly warning: in the next two or three years, there are certainly going to be a lot of attempts, but I am not very optimistic about their chances.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Avoiding bag eggs

A story today that babies can sort out the good sorts from the bad and potentially avoid trouble. Well, at least the research is suggestive of that.

It is consistent with our experience. Our eldest, before the age of 1, had worked out which other kids might take toys or otherwise annoy here. Her strategy was to scream loudly whenever they came within a metre of her. That proved quite effective in getting the attention of adults and scaring those children away.

Our son, on the other hand, would simply avoid them. If one of those children came towards him he would drop the toy and move away. This concerned me somewhat but then I noticed that the child usually lost interest in the toy about a minute later and my son would swoop back in and pick it up without the other child noticing. He worked completely under the radar and clearly had worked out that toys were not lost forever.

I didn't observe any such things with our third child. Going on chances, for all I know, she might be one of the troublesome ones. Although she is by far the most social of our children so it is hard to tell what this means.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A funny thing happened at Youtube

A funny thing happened to me on my way through Youtube today.

You see, a few days ago I was watching the long video for Kraftwerk's Autobahn, and there was this comment: "yech...what the hell is this music?!"

And I left a comment saying that it was Krautrock, which is what that genre of music is called.

Unfortunately, I think some people took my use of the term "Kraut" in that term as an insult to Germans, because my comment received some thumbs down, but I didn't invent the term, and in any other context, I don't refer to Germans by that term. It is just that terms is the most accurate and inclusive one for a certain kind of music from a certain time period.

Put it this way, if the music of the British Invasion had been called Limeyrock, I wouldn't get offended by that, and I think it was strange that it happened to me. It also makes me wonder

Monday, November 19, 2007

A Deleted Scene that should have been in the movie

Have you ever been watching a particular deleted scenes from a movie, and you really question the artistic vision of the person who edited the film because that scene would have made the movie in question much better?

I had this experience recently after I bought a copy of that Vin Diesel masterpiece, xXx and watched the extras. You see, there was a particular scene that director Rob Cohen decided was slowing down the plot and detracting from the flow of the story, but to me, that same scene improves the entire movie.

The deleted scene, which in the movie would have played out between Xander Cage agreeing to do Augustus Gibbons' (Samuel L. Jackson) bidding and his arrival in Prague, takes place on a commercial jet, with Cage sitting at the very rear of the plane, next to the bathrooms.

A teenage boy sees Xander going over his mission briefing on a laptop and thinks he is playing a video game. Cage goes along with this, and sort of explains his mission in this context, and as exposition goes, it isn't a bad way to go, and while providing information for us the viewers, it also gives Vin Diesel's character a little more heart and depth and showed him dealing with someone who for all intents and purposes, was basically good. And when you look at his other interactions in the movie, it does provide a nice contrast. After all, Xander is the same guy that said: "You know what we do to bad men? We punish 'em."

However, Rob Cohen didn't like the fact that there was actually a scene in his movie which wasn't action oriented or where Xander Cage wasn't a total asshole badass, so he cut it.

And he was wrong. He was so wrong.

Then again, I shouldn't be surprised that I disagree with the artistic vision of the director behind Stealth and The Skulls.

Makes me wonder if there was a deleted scene that you've seen that you think should have been in the movie as it was released?

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Sunday Night Video: Memory Loss

By now, most of you have probably seen the infamous Blow Job Girl video made by the geniuses over at Derrick Comedy, and over the past week or so, I've basically watched all their videos, and found a couple I thought everyone else would enjoy.

This little gem is called Memory Loss.

Next week I will post another one of my favorites.

Friday, November 16, 2007

Week 27: Pageant of the Transmundane

This week's winning entry flew right into the Culture Kills sweet spot as it involves a couple of subjects I have tags for here, so this works out quite well, all things considered.

You see, this week's winner is Bits Bytes Pixels and Sprites, a blog I've been reading for a while, mainly because former Pop Culture Supreme Court Justice and Transmundanity Triple Crown Winner Jim Squires is a writer and podcaster for the site.

The Pirate-in-Chief of the site, Dan Zuccarelli was mystified by the most recent marketing misstep that Sony has made when it comes to advertising the Playstation 3. And I can see why. The thing is some strange surreal vision that leaves me thinking about a lot of things, video games not being one of them. I want to watch some Michel Gondry videos and buy some Kraftwerk albums, but really, it doesn't inspire a huge desire to get a Playstation 3.

Of course, there are so many seminal video game related moments on the Simpsons, but I think the first season sparring of Bart and Homer in a boxing game from the first season best exemplifies this week's Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award.

Congrats to Dan and the crew of the BBPS for this distinction.

Doesn't take a genius

You don't have to know much to 'get' this blog:

Hitman movie is Restricted though you'd never know it

OK, I have to say that it is merely coincidence that the entries for the last 3 days have to do with 20th Century Fox properties in one way or another, but that's how it has come down the pike, and in a strange twisted way, this is going to come full circle.

Back in July, I wrote an article about how Hitman had a shot at being one of the first video game movies that was actually, you know, good. It wasn't a huge chance, but there was still that possibility.

But last month, after principal photography was completed, there was a rumor that Fox had taken the movie away from director Xavier Gens and given the editing duties to Nicolas De Toth, the man who edited Live Free or Die Hard from its original R-rated roots down to a PG-13 so that Hitman would also be cut as a PG-13 movie.

But Fox denied that this was true and that they were fully committed to a bloody, R-rated version of Hitman, and that the director was still involved in the editing process with De Toth and in recent days, those statements has indeed proved to be true as more than one gaming site has confirmed that the movie is going to be Restricted.

However, I've been seeing commercials for the movie on television, and I just found it rather unusual that at the end of the ads, there was no mention of the rating even though it comes out next Wednesday. To me, it seemed like the studio was trying to have its cake and eat it too... like they are trying to hype the movie while at the same time, avoid getting getting a beating in the press from people like Jack Thompson. I think that may be the reason why that rumor got started. I mean, it seems like a perfect pump fake to get the anti-gaming groups off the studios back.

If that was the case, it was a nice end-around. If it wasn't, then I can think of no explanation for the tactic.

Weekly Google Code Roundup: The Androids are openly social

By Dion Almaer, Google Developer Programs

I just have to take a breath as I start this posting. The last couple of weeks have been a real trip as we first announced OpenSocial and then Android, both announcements that have drawn a lot of interest.

Let's start with Android. We started out announcing the Open Handset Alliance and made sure people realise that this effort is bigger than a Google Phone. It is a mobile platform, with many phones to come! After some of the initial surprise we released the part that you, as a developer, care about: Android SDK.

We have been astonished at the response. We now have over three and a half thousand messages on the Google Group with four thousand members. The discussion has been all over the map, from initial Eclipse setup, to discussing the sample code, to working on how to write native applications on the platform.

We have plenty of material for you to absorb, but a great way to start it:

We are so excited to see the developer interest, and can't wait to see the applications that win money from the $10M prize pool.

Finally, to show how open platforms propel themselves, we got to release open drivers for the QualcommMSM7K.

It's the social

Just before the Android launch, we unveiled the group that worked together to create the OpenSocial APIs.

We have only just begun here, and the current API is a baby 0.5 release, but it is contagious to see the container and social developers work together. Patrick Chanezon sat down and chatted with us about the new APIs and the Campfire One announcement shows you a lot.

To enable developers to get containers going quickly we have put out an opensource container sample and have also seen the beginnings of Apache Shindig, another potential container.

The container partners are coming online quickly. We have already seen the hi5, Ning, and Plaxo sandboxes go live and more are coming.

To get a feel for the various containers and applications that have already been developed, check out video interviews that tell the story nicely.

And in other news...

Android and OpenSocial are not the only bits of news out there. Let's have a quick roundup:

Gmail got a backend facelift and we announced a new email migration API.

There are a couple of fun new open source projects announced: AxsJAX aims to make accessible Ajax applications more possible, and nsscache is an open source named services system.

We put together a nice piece on a spider's view of Web 2.0 which discusses SEO principles and how Web 2.0 practices affect, or do not affect them. What about Web -1.0? That is discussed in this great tech talk on the Web that wasn't. A nice history lesson.

I got to host my first tech talk at Google. I was lucky enough to pull in Steve Souders, Chief Performance Yahoo!, to discuss High Performance Web Sites and YSlow. If you want to make sure your sites run well, check out his core principles.

Oh, and one other thing. The Google Code team did a huge amount of work in revamping Google Code which coincided with the major launches. We believe that the site is a lot cleaner now, and gives us a base to work on as we move forward to do a better job at serving all developers out there. Thanks for joining us so far.

As always, check out the latest tech talks, subscribe to the Google Developer Podcast and visit the Google Code YouTube channel.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Each and every email

By Ryan Propper, Google Apps Team

With hundreds (if not thousands) of popular email clients and mail servers out there, importing email into another service can be challenge, especially when you consider the troves of old email most people save. To ease this pain, we created the Google Apps Email Migration API.

This new API is available in Google Apps Premier, Partner, and Education Editions, and you can use it to migrate your existing email from anywhere into Google Apps. Let's say, for example, you want to import email from your Obscurix Email Server v2.0001715. Just write some parsing code and use our simple API to upload that email into the desired mailbox. For convenience, you can authenticate to the API not only as the end user of the destination mailbox, but also as a Google Apps administrator, and target any mailbox in the domain. This API uses the Google data API protocol, which means there are a host of client libraries to make importing even easier.

LimitNone (one of our Enterprise Professional partners) has already built a migration utility that works with calendars, email and contacts.

For more info, check out the Google Enterprise Blog, or just dive right into the developer's guide. And please, let us know what you think!

Pain acting

Children can fake being in pain or distress. Makes it hard to sort out the truth from the rest. In my experience, a bit of incentives goes a long way here. Steve Levitt thinks so too:

Apparently, they have figured out how to make needles thinner and sharper, so they slide in and out with minimal pain. At least, that’s what the nurse who gave me the shot told me. Nonetheless, my kids still cry when they get shots — at least, they do when it’s my wife’s turn to bring them to the doctor. When I’m there, I promise them a box of Nerds if they don’t cry. Lo and behold, there are never any tears. They are amazed to hear that Nerds (the candy version, that is) didn’t exist when I was a kid. Yet another example of the miracles of technology.

It is all just an application of mechanism design.

The 24 Hiatus

As most of you have likely heard, Fox has put the new season of 24 on hiatus until next season as the producers feel that it wouldn't be fair to fans of the show to produce a shortened version of the series this year due to the writers' strike and likely, such a shortened series would likely also be detrimental to the ratings, as there are many people, myself included, who were disillusioned with the show during and after its sixth season.

Of course, the thought that occurred to me is that because there have been episodes of the series already filmed and because of the show supposedly takes place over a single 24 hour period, I wonder if the producers will refilm those episodes or if they don't, if there is perhaps a clause in the contracts of those involved that they cannot change their appearance... say if they were offered a part on the stage or in a movie in the interim. Such a clause would have made perfect sense under the tight shooting schedule the show originally had, but with the right decision to postpone the seventh season until what is likely going to be January 2009, I wonder if any of the major players are going to be in a bind now, as they have other work that they do when the show is not in production and if they are constrained by such a contract stipulation in this situation, well, they are basically screwed. Hopefully an arrangement can be made to work around such a potential problem for those who work in live theatre, performance art and stand up comedy outside the show

In the absence of 24 this season, I thought I would present this "unaired" pilot of 24, courtesy of College Humor, just to hold us fans over.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The Right and Wrong way to Deal with Fans

A few months ago, I found this catchy little song by Guyz Nite about John McClane of Die Hard fame, and I posted it back in mid-July, and I hadn't really thought about it much since then.

That was until I was watching football on Sunday and a commercial for the upcoming DVD release of Live Free or Die Hard featuring the song. Suffice it to say, I was floored.

I mean, in many, many, MANY cases, when a movie studio finds out that someone is using their copyrighted materials, even if the use is very flattering to the properties involved, well, lawyers get involved and cease and desist letters are sent.

But that isn't what Twentieth Century Fox did. No, they ran with it, and I am surprised I actually about to utter this line, more studios should do what Fox did. I mean, think about how much positive publicity a fan base in this Youtube age can generate with their labors of love. I think more media companies should adopt this kind of policy, and I would like to congratulate the members of Guyz Nite because of all the exposure their work is likely to receive now.

It should also be an object lesson for artists like Prince who recently has been going after a lot of the fan sites dedicated to him and his work. His representatives are demanding these sites remove all photographs of him and his album art, his lyrics, or any images inspired by him, including tattoos and license plates. Now that is really disrespecting the people who love you the most. That's cold, that's so cold. And there are also discussions about compensation for damages... from his fans?!?

I understand why Prince would go after some of the file sharing sites, but to unleash lawyers on fan sites, that seems to be a really bad move karmicly speaking. Granted, I am not famous enough to truly understand the hardships of being so exalted that people are willing to permanently show their love for me by getting tattooed with something about me. But from where I sit, I wouldn't drop trow and take a big old dump on those same very same people, which in essence is what Prince's representatives are doing.

In short, I think these actions are a mistake on so many levels.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

The Blogger Burnout Advisory System

During my time off, I had time to ruminate on blogger burnout, especially after USA Today's Angela Gunn posted an article about burnout last week. There, I at first jokingly suggested that I would make a chart akin to the Homeland Security Threat Level which would reveal the level of burnout a blogger was experiencing based on strangely enough, pork. It isn't kosher mind you, but it did seem to fit.

So I give to you, the Blogger Burnout Advisory System:

Piglet (Green): A.A. Milne's Piglet is the perfect analogy of the novice blogger. You're wide eyed, you are a little timid, but you slog through your initial fears and discover the wonders of blogging. Also, your blogging audience is usually rather small at this point and many of the key features your blog is going to have are not yet present.

Whole Hog (Blue): You are a little more savvy and you have made some friends in the community and you absolutely love blogging (thus you are Whole Hog into it). In addition, most of the things you are going to do in blogging, you are likely already doing. You've found your niche in the blogging village and you are generally happy with where things are going.

Raw Bacon (Yellow): Of course, once you become bacon (or get to code yellow), well, you can never really go back to being a whole hog again which means that getting back to green is out of the question, and generally speaking, I don't think there are any pigs that are happy to be bacon, no matter how tasty it is. Of course, raw bacon when it is cured and stored in the right conditions can last for a long, long time which means you can keep going back to and putting more in the pan without it going bad. It is flexible, supple and really hard to break... it takes quite a bit of trauma before breaking, and most bloggers at this stage have those same qualities. They can roll with the punches and it takes a lot to make them want to stop blogging.

Crispy Bacon (Orange): At this point, you are far less flexible and less able to deal with changes both in the way you do things and in dealing changes in the blogging village. In short, you are getting fried, and once you get here, well, you are approaching burnout. For bacon, it takes just a few minutes to go from this stage to stage 5, but with bloggers, well, it may take a little longer. If you put crispy bacon into like a soup or other liquid, it softens and takes on more of the qualities of Raw Bacon, especially the flexibility, but like bacon, it does retain the memory of being crispy and it still have some brittleness.

Charcoal (Red): You are totally burnt out, and at this point, it is hard to find anything resembling bacon in this mess, so it takes a lot of time to recover. There are other things you can do with charcoal, like draw or heat your house, but going back to blogging with just charcoal may take a lot of effort. In the end, it may be better to start over with some fresh bacon.

--

And after this bit of navel gazing, I don't think I will discuss blogger burnout very much, though I would like to note that I am currently at Code Yellow.

EDIT: I've made a couple of different sizes of the above graphic available for use at Flickr if you want it, and I can do a few more sizes if need be.

Introducing AxsJAX -- Access-Enabling AJAX

Posted by Charles L. Chen and T.V Raman

As the developer behind Fire Vox I've always wanted to make AJAX web applications truly usable for the blind and visually impaired. The challenge is that these users have to deal with a much higher learning curve than sighted users. Instead of simply learning the controls for a web application, they have to also learn how to get their assistive technology of choice to go to the interesting parts of that application to find out what is currently there.

When I started as a Noogler, I was extraordinarily impressed with the tools that T.V. Raman had built into Emacspeak for efficiently performing specific tasks. An insight that I gained from watching him use Emacspeak is that the application should just say the right thing in response to user actions; users should not have to do an action in the application and then use their assistive technology to go hunting around the screen to figure out what happened.

In my first week at Google, I discovered Google Reader a highly optimized feed reader with very good keyboard support. For my starter project at Google, I decided to access-enable this application using W3C ARIA. Using Greasemonkey, I could inject JavaScript code to add the needed ARIA bits to make Google Reader say the right things at the right time.

Connecting The Dots

Based on the experience of access-enabling Reader, we have now refactored the code to come up with a common JavaScript framework for enhancing the accessibility of AJAX applications. This framework is called AxsJAX, and it was refined in the process of access-enabling Web Search.

We're now excited to open-source this framework since we believe that there is nothing Google-specific in the techniques we have implemented. We invite the Web developer community to help us collectively define a robust framework for rapid prototyping of accessibility enhancements to Web 2.0 applications.

The ability to rapidly prototype end-user interaction has led to an explosion in the number of AJAX applications; until now, visually impaired users have been left behind in this process. We hope that the AxsJAX framework encourages the Web community to bring the power of Web 2.0 development to solving the problem of accessing rich Web interaction in an eyes-free environment.

Monday, November 12, 2007

My take on the Writers strike

While I was gone, well, there was a disturbance in the Hollywood force. As predicted, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and a lot of shows with short lead times have gone off the air.

Now, the Writers have often been presented as these millionaire babies who are just being greedy, but in looking at the situation, I think they have some legitimate grievances and management comes off really badly, especially given history.

You see, the Guild members receive a residual of 2.5 cents on the dollar every time one of their shows or movies airs on television. However, to help the major media companies launch the home video revolution in the 1980's, the Guild agreed to take a far lower rate on those products(about 0.2 cents per dollar) with the understanding that when video took off, the rate would be bumped up. Alas, that hasn't happened. That is roughly 4 cents on a 20 dollar DVD. So naturally, the writers aren't happy their generous concession has been taken advantage of for so long.

Now, the writers aren't even looking for 2.5 cents/$ on those sales that they might have enjoyed once. No, they just want the rate to go up to about 0.4 cents and the producers are still balking at that, which is insane when you consider how much revenue they stand to lose because of the strike. Literally, they are willing to lose vast sums of money over a few fractions of a penny on the dollar. It is madness.

The other sticking point is the fact that writers don't receive compensation when their material is distributed electronically... not one cent because such use is deemed to be "promotional" and thus not subject to the conditions of the Writers Guild Contract, and if you believe some of the executives, no money is being generated by these views, despite the fact that ads are shown, and I doubt that the sites presenting this material are showing those ads out of the goodness of their hearts. No, they are making money on the work of the Writers Guild(and its associated Guilds).

Of course, these are the same people who want the federal government to set up an Executive branch position for the express purpose of policing Intellectual Property, which again makes me believe that there is a lot of money to be had in this area that the producers don't want to share with those who actually do the work. And if the producers relented and rightly compensated writers for their work, they would likely find that they had rather strong allies in the Guild because they really would have something to lose from piracy. As it stands now, if people are watching their work over at a major network site, from iTunes or from a Bittorrent site, it doesn't matter because they receive the same amount of money from all three of the above: zero dollars and zero cents.

I know that the producers are afraid of giving in on these two points because it will set a precedent for the upcoming contract negotiations with the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild, but really, I think they are being absolutely Scrooge-like here.

The list of issues the Guild is working on for this new contract can be found here, and there are some other noteworthy issues mentioned. For instance, the Guild is fighting for writers who work on animated series and movies to be treated the same as those who work on live action projects.

Android SDK, MSM7K kernel patches and blog now available

Posted by: Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager

Many of those subscribed to this blog have heard our recent announcement about the Open Handset Alliance, and we thought we'd bring everyone up to date. Today, the team released an early look at the Android SDK for developers interested in building applications for Android.

By the way, we've released more than just the SDK. Those of you who follow the development of the Linux kernel on ARM may have seen that we released our initial patches that provide kernel support for the QualcommMSM7K. This release means that support in the Linux kernel is now available for the on board serial, i2c, timer, NAND flash controller, MDP/MDDI framebuffer, gpio controller, and high speed USB client controller. This code also provides access to the baseband features of the chip. The announcement to the kernel developer community can be found on the ARM Linux mailing list. Like all proper Linux kernel code, these patches were released under v2 of the GNU GPL. Stay tuned for more open source related details.

We're really excited about all of these developments and can't wait to see what results. To help get things started, we've also announced the Android Developer Challenge, a $10 million challenge to reward developers for working with the platform. Head over the Android Developers blog to find out more about this exciting mobile platform.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

I'm BACK!

To paraphrase the late (and great) Russell Casse:

Ha-ha-ha! Hello, everyone! I'm back!

Granted, I almost came back earlier in the week because the prospect of Rosie O'Donnell having a program on a news channel was almost too horrifying to contemplate, but I was able to resist the urge, and maintain blog silence. Thank god nothing came of it.

Of course, I missed a week of commenting on pop cultural phenomenon, but I don't think the world was unduly influenced by that, because in that state I was in, I don't think even if I uncovered something amazing, I couldn't have done it justice.

What I ended up doing on my blogging vacation:

1) I actually went outside (I am as shocked as you are!). Luckily, there wasn't really any sun so no one got blinded by the light reflecting off my paleness.
2) Saw a couple of movies I had always put off watching before. (Really, how could I call myself a blogger in this field having never seen This is Spinal Tap... it was a travesty of justice really)
3) Got a good night's sleep. That, that I really needed.
4) Devised something which I will likely show you on Tuesday.
5) Came up with a varied list of things to actually blog about when I final came back.
6) Thought about the movie Real Genius with the cast of NBC's The Office, and laughed and laughed, especially when Jim, Pam and Ryan filled Michael Scott's house with popcorn while Dwight Schrute was inside.

But most importantly, I really recharged my creative batteries, which means that blogging doesn't seem so hard anymore. Woohoo!

Friday, November 9, 2007

Week 26: Pageant of the Transmundane

As promised, there is an award ceremony this week. Huzzah!

In the past, I've recognized a steampunk rendition of an ordinary, everyday item for this award, and this week, once again, that motif has carried the day.

You see, SamuraiFrog was sent a particular image and he happened to post it this week over at Electronic Cerebrectomy, and it just caught my fancy.

I have never been a huge fan of the series, Dr. Who, however, when I saw this darling little version of a Deadly Dalek, done up as a 19th century contraption, how could I say no?

And because it is steampunk, well, the Homer Simpson as a Victorian image seemed the most appropriate.

And of course, there is the customary badge to go along with this win.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Baby bonus blues

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the Minister for Family and Community Services, Mal Brough, thinks it’s a good thing that I am not an obstetrician. Actually, technically, I have delivered two babies (of my own) but there was a trained specialist at my side. That is, of course, another story.

But he has a point. If I were an obstetrician, it is unlikely that I would have spent the last week looking at ABS birth statistics. Instead, being an economist, my ANU colleague, Andrew Leigh and I seized upon them. The reason was to see whether the government had done it again. By poorly implementing the baby bonus had they caused potential disruption to maternity wards?

It turns out that the answer was, “yes and in a significant way.” Last year, we studied the introduction of the $3,000 baby bonus on the 1^st July, 2004. That introduction made that day the biggest birthday in Australian history and the only day to have over 1,000 births. Indeed, statistically, 1167 births were shifted from June to July that year. It is also the case that the babies born were larger. Not surprisingly, we were concerned given that the bonus was to rise again on 1^st July, 2006 by $834.

So Mal Brough may think it unseemly to think that parents would put the life of their unborn baby at risk. I think so too. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Moreover, it is not the delay of one birth I am worried about but the cumulative impact of this as maternity hospitals become unnecessarily congested. I happen to believe that the goal of health policy is to keep economics out as much as possible from health decisions. Certainly, governments shouldn’t put it there for no reason.

We raised concerns directly with the government in June last year and then, when we were ignored, released the paper publicly calling for a phased-in increment to the baby bonus. We weren’t the only ones. The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists approached the government but were similarly ignored. And so, in 2006, the baby bonus increased.

There was always some hope that the smaller jump would mean less disruption. Perhaps parents wouldn’t care about $834? It turns out that hope is naïve. This is no small amount of money to parents just about to get an income shock. Statistically, just under 700 have shifted their births from the last week of June to the first week of July, 2006. (Here is a link to our research).

In July 2008 it is all scheduled to happen again when the baby bonus jumps to $5,000. The policy response is clear. If you need to increase the baby bonus (and it is unclear why that would be the case), do it gradually. If the jump was over the course of a few weeks, the extra outlays for the government would be a couple of million dollars. That may seem like a lot but in the context of over a $1 billion in payments every year on the baby bonus alone, it is a drop in the ocean.

It is the role of an economist to look for potential problems even if we don’t like to think they are there. Parents avoid having babies on the 1^st April and 29^th February seemingly because they are worried about awkward birthdates for their children. That is statistical fact. Similarly, in June, 2004 and July, 2006, they delayed births if they could to get extra cash. The government dangled the carrot on that occasion and parents responded. Perhaps there were no adverse health outcomes but I don’t think it is worthwhile for governments to role that dice for no gain.

I have written about the 2004 and 2006 events on his blog. See also Andrew Leigh.