rxdxt

On Vox: Very sick....

So I've been sick, VERY VERY sick, like sick puking, unable to rise from bed sleeping 20 hours a day sick.  I had the aforementioned sinus infection, no biggie, quite workable once I got drugs, THEN my daughter caught a gastro influenza, Vomitted all night. I held her hair, that's what dads are for.

Then my wife got it Sunday night.. and I new I was toast. Tuesday it started... next thing I know its thursday.

I've missed an unbelievable amount of work  - for me. Have read no emails and didn't even get a tan in an exotic location to show for it.

Being sick sucks, thank God it only happens like twice a year for me.. (lucked out with the constitution.)

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com

On Vox: Why the BBC is important..

So I was chatting with a new chap at the BBC, where I'm working currently and we got onto the subject of metadata, the BBC, it's archive and why it is important. Upon reflection, I said the following to him:

"In 100 years when people want to know what media, particularly television was like in the latter 20th century was like, it is my hope that, if we all do our jobs well and get this metadata thing right, the place they will be able to go, quite probably the ONLY place they could go, to get a real - accurate as history will allow - perspective of what it was like will be the BBC.  The rest of the worlds content will have been sold, resold and have eventually deteriorated under the un-watchful eye of its most neglectful owner and we will be left with the BBC's archive, protected by history, tradition and the British television license fee."

"We," I said to him "work at the 21st century's Alexandria Library...

Sounds a bit pompous, but the more I think about it, I actually think its true. The reason I've become so strangely passionate about the BBC is because it is important; more important than your usual Yank really considers...

Though we really should do something about that homepage..... oh wait, We are! (shhhhhh)

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com

On Vox: Ubiquity

There's a great interview in Rolling Stone with one of my favourite authors of all time, William Gibson (Neuromancer, coiner of the term Cyberspace and his newest Spook Country (which I'm reading now).  Here's a quote:

"Ubiquitous computing?

Totally ubiquitous computing. One of the things our grandchildren will find quaintest about us is that we distinguish the digital from the real, the virtual from the real. In the future, that will become literally impossible. The distinction between cyberspace and that which isn't cyberspace is going to be unimaginable. When I wrote Neuromancer in 1984, cyberspace already existed for some people, but they didn't spend all their time there. So cyberspace was there, and we were here. Now cyberspace is here for a lot of us, and there has become any state of relative nonconnectivity. There is where they don't have Wi-Fi.

In a world of superubiquitous computing, you're not gonna know when you're on or when you're off. You're always going to be on, in some sort of blended-reality state. You only think about it when something goes wrong and it goes off. And then it's a drag."

This essentially frames an argument/discussion I've been having for quite a while at the BBC. The web is no longer a place to be visited, a languid information ("super") highway akin to route 66 where you stop in for a donut or a soda every few miles at yahoo or ask for directions at Google.   I actually bought a copy of a wall sized "Map" of the internet in 1996 which I stillstill have to be framed one day.

The net today is a thing we can only take brief momentary snapshots of, like photos out of a moving vehicle - in fact that's really what widgets are are special cameras which allow us to capture some of the data running around the net into a single, momentary user experience.  

The world is moving to a dynamic, context driven, xml & atom feed universe where content is living breathing organic matter.. we cannot contain it we can simply offer a prism or a lens through which to momentarily view it.  Something often described as a widget...

Neuromancer

William Gibson

Spook Country

William Gibson

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com

On Vox: Green Tomato

So I've been living in London for about a year now. We truly love it. My daughter last night, while trick or treating, turned to me and said, Daddy I love London. Now maybe it was the candy talking, but from a family and quality of life perspective this is one of the best places we've ever lived.

I'm viewed by the British people who surround me alternately with loving admiration and polite tolerance, often noting that we (my wife and I) are quite eccentric "for Americans".

Eccentric ? You ask? Well yes, first of all we move all around the world, seemingly on a whim. We make movies, I start tech companies, no wait I used to be a roadie, wait we lived in Romania.... Most Brits are born and die within a few miles of the same place.

Oh yes, and we don't own a car. Ok Californians, stop gasping, yes we are car-less, in addition to the obvious carbon reducing benefits, it has helped my waistline tremendously. But, of course, one needs to get around. So - we use - Green Tomato. Think of it like a car service (the ones in ny with big black towncars) except these are prius' and biodeisel limo's - with Green Tomato decals all over them.

You see, I ran the numbers. When you add car payment, insurance, parking, congestion charge and carbon offset, I'm saving about 100 quid a month! and someone drives me so I can talk on the phone (particularly useful for calling the states in the evenings on the way home from the bbc.) And the carbon footprint is even lower as, in addition to being a plug in hybrid (1/2 the consumption of a regular prius) I'm sharing it with up to 20 other people!

The rest of the time we take the tube, rail or even, gasp a bus.

Lifestyle and social accountability. A perfect 10 in my book.

Originally posted on rxdxt.vox.com