Blogarithms
Doug Kaye's thoughts on web services, web hosting and managed services.
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No Man's Land. I think this is the first U.N film I've ever seen. Well, it's not really a U.N film, but this story that takes place during the Bosnian wars is a production of France, Italy, Belgium, the U.K., and Slovenia, and it does include U.N. soldiers. When I tell you that the Serbian border guards say (in Croatian), "Uh, oh...here come the Smurfs!" you'll get a hint of how this violent film also contains its share of humor. (The U.N. Troops have all-white vehicles and wear Smurf-blue helmets.)
It's an anti-war satire about men on opposite sides who are trapped in a trench halfway between (and within mortar range) of both the Bosnian and Serbian lines. If one leaves the trench, his side will attack the trench, so neither man can allow the other to leave. The ensuing drama is very human, and emphasizes the ironies and absurdities of war in general, and the concept of a temporary ceasefire in particular. The U.N. is particularly a target of the satire, and the Frenchman who plays the U.N. Sargeant is as superb as the two Slovenian leads. This film received a best-screenplay award and a standing ovation at Cannes, and it deserves it. Two thumbs up.
Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 5:41:22 PM 
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e-dreams. As a veteran of four dot-com startups, there was no way I was gonna pass up this film at the Mill Valley Film Festival. e-dreams is Wonsuk Chin's documentary about the rise and fall of Kozmo.com. Would I recommend it? Not for everyone, but if you are/were involved with Internet startups, or have/had a significant other or close friend who is/was, then it's a must-see.
This film is better than last year's Startup.com that similarly covered the also-defunct govworks.com. It focuses on founder Joseph Park and the roller coaster ride he shared with the rest of the Kozmo.com management team and 4,000 employees. Having been there and done that, I can report that it doesn't show what's really happening (e.g., there's never a scene in a Board of Directors meeting), but it's entertaining nonetheless.
Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 5:30:19 PM
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Talkies. Mark Paschal writes:
10/14/01 23:33 CEST. Cory Doctorow loves audiobooks, especially unabridged audiobooks read by the author. And he's an author. So it makes perfect sense for him to offer free audiobooks on the Internet, starting with To Market, To Market, the Branding of Billy Bailey. Kick. Ass.
I've only listened to one complete book on audio, but I love MP3s for shorter pieces. I download things I want to hear into my Intel MP3 player, and take it to the gym. I hate working out, but sitting at a keyboard all day will kill me (literally), so I force myself to go 2-3 times a week and justify it by listenting to good stuff.
What do I listen to? I'm working on a book about content delivery, so one source is CDN Week from Startust.com. They have a feature called TalkRadio, consisting of downloadble MP3 files. I've also worked my way through their archives of conference proceedings.
Hey, content syndicators: How about an extension of RSS that supports the "publishing" of audio files? Maybe no extension is necessary. Maybe they could be handled as attachments using the existing protocol. .
Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 5:10:27 PM
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More Time. In reply to my posting about Atom Time, Steve Webster from iPost writes:
At iPost we use an NTP-compatible utility called "K9" on our PCs for
timesync. Rather than contacting an outside timeserver like AtomTime, K9 listens for NTP-format timesignal broadcasts on the local network. We use standard "xntpd" on a Linux box to emit the timesignal, and the Linux box gets its time via NTP from a collection of outside hosts. This architecture has the advantage of making sure all hosts on the LAN are in sync with a common time, even if they can't get to the outside world.
K9 has no UI at all, it just runs at Windows startup and does its thing. A version with a UI that also can broadcast timesignals of its own is call "Tardis." K9 and Tardis are shareware, and available at http://www.kaska.demon.co.uk/tardis.htm.
Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 11:38:45 AM
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Tourist Guy. I can't explain it. It just cracks me up. Thanks to Cam for posting links to two sites that have sprung up to capture it. TouristGuy.com and TouristofDeath.com. And while you're at it, Nikke Lindqvist has a collection of the Bert/bin Laden photos and stories.
Posted Sunday, October 14, 2001 10:30:08 AM
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