March 30, 2009 9:01 pm

"Frost/Nixon": Best DVDs of April 2009

What it is: A retelling of the real-life interviews that took place between British TV host David Frost and fallen President Richard Nixon, resulting in a David vs. Goliath battle of wits. Michael Sheen (The Queen, Underworld) and Frank Langella (Dave, Superman Returns) reprise the roles they played in the original Broadway play on which the movie is based, Langella winning a Tony for his portrayal of Nixon.

Why It’s Significant: Frost/Nixon was nominated for five Oscars, including the top categories of Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actor (Langella). It was an also-ran in all its categories, but that doesn’t mean it should be missed. Langella greatly overcomes his little physical resemblance to Tricky Dick with an inside-out performance that is far from impersonation. Typically the film’s premise would position a viewer to root for Nixon to get his comeuppance, but Langella shows you that there’s not much to root against; Nixon had already had his defeat, he just wanted closure. The film’s fine supporting cast includes Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell as Frost’s political research team, Kevin Bacon as Nixon’s handler, Matthew MacFadyen as Frost’s TV producer, and Rebecca Hall as Frost’s girlfriend. --Ellen

March 30, 2009 9:01 pm

"Doubt": Best DVDs of April 2009




What it is: Doubt is a
mesmerizing, suspense-filled drama with riveting performances that
will have you pinned to the edge of your seat. Sister Aloysius Beauvier
(Streep), the rigid and fear-inspiring principal of the Saint Nicholas
Church School, suffers an extreme dislike for the progressive and
popular parish priest Father Flynn (Hoffman). Looking for wrongdoing in
every corner, Sister Aloysius believes she’s uncovered the ultimate sin
when she hears Father Flynn has taken a special interest in a troubled
boy. But without proof, the only thing certain is doubt.

Why it’s significant: Boasting an A-list cast of Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, Doubt, had five Academy Award nominations and Meryl Streep won the SAG Best Actress award for her role. Doubt is based on the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, that may take some back to their Catholic school days. The film holds you on the edge of 
your seat, not knowing if Sister Aloysius’ accusations are baseless and just plain vicious, or if Father Flynn is trying to get away with inappropriate behavior. 
–Meredith

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

Everybody's Talking About Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned


I’ve been meaning to do a longish post on Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower’s new debut story collection, but life keeps getting in the way. But now I’m under the gun, for two reasons: a) it’s becoming the book of the moment, at least if the New York Times is any guide, with a rave from Kakutani this week and a cover rave coming from Edmund White in this Sunday’s Book Review (also see Sam Anderson’s excellent piece in New York magazine); and, more importantly, b) my wife is going away for a week on Sunday and I’ve grudgingly agreed to let her take our copy of the book with her. So here’s a shorter post than I’d planned, which is probably all to the best.

Speaking of short, here’s the micro review I wrote when I put ER,EB in our Seven on the Side list on our Best of March page:

Best Set of Misfits: Bitter, dissolute, and funny, funny, funny: Tower’s first story
collection bristles with the lonely havoc wreaked by stepdads, carnies,
and Vikings.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’d get it any better than that if I had any more words to work with. And speaking of the Best of the Month, I had a tough time making my pick for March. It came down to two story collections, ER,EB and Mary Gaitskill’s Don’t Cry. I actually read them at the same time, alternating a story from each. I thought that would make the comparison easier, but it didn’t: my main reaction was, wow, these two can bring it. Both made me laugh and shake my head throughout, both ended with long title stories that stretched their craft in ways I did not come close to expecting. I ended up choosing Don’t Cry as my main March pick, and I’m not even sure why I did–it could have gone either way. Gaitskill had a couple stories that didn’t work for me, while Tower’s were more consistent, but when Gaitskill’s at the top of her game, I feel like she is peeling back about 17 layers from the face of humanity.

But now, a month or so later, maybe it’s just that everybody’s talking about it, but Tower’s stories are the ones that are living in my head a little more vibrantly. For one thing, the reason my wife is running off with the book is that I’ve read this opening paragraph from the first story, “The Brown Coast,” to her more than once, because it just keeps getting better:

Bob Munroe woke up on his face. His jaw hurt and morning birds were yelling and there was real discomfort in his underpants. He’d come in late, his spine throbbing from the bus ride down, and he had stretched out on the floor with a late dinner of two bricks of saltines. Now cracker bits were all over him–under his bare chest, stuck in the sweaty creases of his elbows and his neck, and the biggest and worst of them, he could feel lodged deep into his buttock crack, like a flint arrowhead somebody had shot in there. Yet, Bob found that he could not fetch out the crumb. He had slept wrong on his arms, and they’d gone numb. He tried to move them, and it was like trying to push a coin with your mind. Waking up for the first time in this empty house, Bob felt the day beginning to settle on him. He shuddered at the cool linoleum against his cheek, and he sensed that not far below, not too far down in the sandy soil, death was reaching up for him.

See? You’d want me to let you take the book too…  And then there’s the paragraph that I read aloud at the family dinner table the other night, to a giant guffaw from my nine-year-old:

He watched a mouse walk out from behind the soda machine. It was eating a coupon.

I don’t think I need to say anything else, except that Tower pretty much keeps this level of concrete hilarity and fine-tuned (but somehow open-hearted) misery going throughout the entire collection. For your weekend viewing, here is a short animated adaptation of the title story, an outlier in the collection in subject, if not in language or attitude toward life:

Enjoy. –Tom

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

2009: The Year Print-on-Demand Goes Mainstream

“2009
is the year that print on demand goes mainstream.” – Warren Ellis




We are
living in an incredible time, both as consumers and creators. As consumers,
whatever entertainment we want, whether it’s television, music, movies, games
or books, is easier and faster to get than ever before. As creators, the
barriers between us and our audience are falling faster and more easily than
ever before, the time between creation and release is shrinking, and thanks to
the Internet we can reach more people with less effort than we could as
recently as a decade ago.




Earlier
this week, I came across a post in my blog archives from September of 2002
where I said:




Remember
how so many readers have been telling me to write a book? Well, I listened.
Watch this space for details on how you can get it in about a week or so, maybe
two.

 


		

I was
talking about my book Dancing Barefoot,
which was created from material I cut out of Just A Geek.
I looked at that post and felt a little nostalgic, because that’s where my
journey as a published writer and champion of indie publishing began. 




In
2002, I was just another struggling actor and fledgling blogger. I figured
that, since I was having such a hard time getting work as an actor - where I
had a huge resume and a lifetime of experience - it would be nearly-impossible
to sell my books to a publisher. I did some research, figured out that I was
able to reach a few hundred thousand people with my blog, and decided to reject
the “traditional” publishing route in favor of self-publishing.




I
needed an education in self-publishing, and read two books that made all the
difference: The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing and The Self-Publishing Manual. They were both
filled with great advice, like the importance of hiring and respecting an
experienced editor, a good designer, and putting together an intelligent
marketing plan. I’m not sure what the current versions of the books say, but in
2002, they both warned authors away from using print on demand, largely because
the per-unit costs were unreasonably high, and when you held a POD book in your
hands, it really felt like you were holding a POD book in your hands.




My, my,
my, how the times have changed. The prejudice against POD persists, but
that tactile difference in quality has vanished, and after a couple of my friends used print on demand from Lulu to
release their books, I decided to give it a try myself. I wrote in my blog:




If this
works the way I think it will, it’s going to be super awesome for all of us as
I release books in the future: You don’t have to worry about me screwing up
your order, I don’t have to invest in a thousand books at a time, you get your
book in a few days instead of a few weeks because I’m not shipping it myself,
and I can spend more time creating new stories while remaining independent.
Best of all, I’ll have the time to write and release more than one or two books
a year.




Just
one month after releasing print and digital versions of my chapbook Sunken
Treasure, as well as a short audio book, my only complaint is that
I didn’t use POD sooner. The whole experience has been so overwhelmingly
positive, I don’t think I’ll ever use a different publishing method again.
If you’re a writer, you owe it to yourself to examine the self-publishing and
POD opportunities you have available to you right now, keeping in mind the
advice in those books I mentioned: if you want people to take you seriously,
you have to invest in a good editor and designer, and you have to be willing to
listen to them both. This is the fundamental difference between someone who is
a self-publisher, and someone who is a vanity publisher.




As a
creator, I have an unprecedented opportunity to use POD technology and Internet
distribution to take more chances and release more material with less risk than
ever before. Before POD, I never would have even considered a wide release of
something like Sunken Treasure; it was just too risky to invest
thousands of dollars into something that I was unsure would sell the quantity I
would need to order from a traditional printer. But with access to print on
demand technology, and using the Internet as a means to market and distribute
the book, there was no good reason not to give it a try. So far, it’s
working out really well. Reviews are good, sales are good, and I’ve really
enjoyed every step of the process.




I know
I’m just one guy with a very small operation, and my way of doing things isn’t
for everyone, but I believe that this is the future of publishing, 




Last
week, there was a significant change in the institutional prejudice against
print on demand. It’s not in book publishing, but in DVDs:




Warner Brothers
is putting their DVD back catalog into a POD service: Warner Bros on Monday became the first studio to open its film vault
to “made-to-order” DVDs, as it sought new revenues in a slumping DVD
market by making it possible for fans to buy decades-old films.


Warner
Bros, owned by Time Warner Inc, made an initial batch of 150 titles available
for purchase online at www.WarnerArchive.com, including 1943
comedy-romance “Mr. Lucky” starring Cary Grant and the 1962 release
“All Fall Down” with Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint.




The
on-demand service allows Warner Bros. to avoid the risk of manufacturing too
many copies of old or obscure titles and shipping them to retailers because
customers directly order only the titles they want to buy.




The
Warner Bros film archive has 6,800 titles. Since it entered the DVD market in
1997, the studio has released only around 1,200 of those titles from the vault.
By comparison, the company expects by the end of the year to have more than 300
titles available via the DVD-on-demand service.




I completely
agree with Warren Ellis (who, full disclosure, is a friend) that 2009 is the
year print on demand goes mainstream. It just makes so much sense; why
waste warehouse space, shelf space, and limited-investment capital on something
nobody’s interested in, when it’s just as easy to show them the entire menu and
let them pick out what they want? All of the elements that we need are
lined up and ready to work together: decentralized distribution online, long
tail publishing, high-quality on-demand products, and creators who
have enough direct contact with their audience to make giving huge portions of
their profits and their rights away to publishers totally unnecessary. 




I hope
that Warner Bros. has success with their POD publishing, and that it encourages
other publishers, creators, and music labels to do the same, because I believe
that this is the future, whether you’re an indie creator like me, or a giant
powerhouse like them.




–Wil Wheaton would love to change
the world.

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

"Doubt": Best DVDs of April 2009




What it is: Doubt is a
mesmerizing, suspense-filled drama with riveting performances that
will have you pinned to the edge of your seat. Sister Aloysius Beauvier
(Streep), the rigid and fear-inspiring principal of the Saint Nicholas
Church School, suffers an extreme dislike for the progressive and
popular parish priest Father Flynn (Hoffman). Looking for wrongdoing in
every corner, Sister Aloysius believes she’s uncovered the ultimate sin
when she hears Father Flynn has taken a special interest in a troubled
boy. But without proof, the only thing certain is doubt.

Why it’s significant: Boasting an A-list cast of Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams, Doubt, had five Academy Award nominations and Meryl Streep won the SAG Best Actress award for her role. Doubt is based on the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play, that may take some back to their Catholic school days. The film holds you on the edge of 
your seat, not knowing if Sister Aloysius’ accusations are baseless and just plain vicious, or if Father Flynn is trying to get away with inappropriate behavior. 
–Meredith

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

"Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" Gameplay Leaks out of GDC via Roma

So, how many PS3 owners are waiting with baited breath for Uncharted 2: Among Thieves? Pretty much all of them. With a tentative October drop date, it will be a while, but thanks to the ambitious editorial staff at Italian gaming site Multiplayer.IT you can take a look at what the game look like now. I’m sure that it is nothing that wouldn’t soon be making the rounds anyway, but I’m also sure that Sony would have liked to be the one releasing it. I wonder if Sony will hold a grudge. Anyway, that is an Italian problem, not yours. Check out the video below.

–Hobson’s Choice

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

Onlive.com Looking to Make 'Cloud Gaming' a Reality by End of Year

Since the glory years of PlayStation 2 and the limited challenges to its dominance by the first generation Xbox, action in the gaming world has been made up of the “console wars” on one side, and PC gaming, in a seemingly ever-diminishing role in the other. It wouldn’t be long before the money making juggernaut that is World of Warcraft would come along and make it clear that barring technical limitations or excessive game system requirements, millions of gamers all over the world would not only game on their PCs and Macs, but would be willing to pay to do so on a monthly basis. That was great news for Blizzard, and a few other developer/publisher teams, but the fact was that in very large part the tremendous growth that the gaming industry would experience would be based on the horsepower of gaming consoles.

Fast forward a few years. The broadband revolution on which online gaming services like Xbox LIVE, PlayStation Network and to a much lesser extent the channels of the Wii platform were built on were also helping to further cloud computing technologies. No need for ultra powerful computers if your applications actually live in a data warehouse somewhere. Again, no change to a burgeoning gaming industry focused on competition between the big three hardware players. Then a funny thing happened. At the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) this week in San Francisco, exhibitor Onlive dropped a bombshell. They are projecting to have a ‘cloud gaming’ service up and running by the end of the year and they already have a lineup of game publishers on board pledging simultaneous availability of games on the service as they hit retail, and they have an initial list of confirmed titles. Through their service players with sufficient bandwidth (1-5Mbps) will be able to rent or buy games, which run on Onlive’s ultra low latency servers, that are playable on entry level PCs or Macs, or TVs and HDTVs via a mini console device. The result at GDC was a mix of excitement, disbelief and a fair bit of worry in some parts of the console and PC gaming sectors. This was a HUGE claim, with so many caveats: feasibility of a ‘there-and-back’ signal even at 5 Mbps, features, pricing, continued cooperation by the publishing industry, possible lack of game modding ability, and much more. Is this deal for real? Well, their Beta is scheduled to start this summer in preparation for a holiday launch. My name is already in the hat for it. There will be A LOT of eyes on this, and if it succeeds, even partially, there could be huge fallout in the industry. I though that PC gaming would experience a resurgence this year, but not in this way.

I glazed over a lot of this stuff, much of which will rightly give naysayers a lot to point to. In the end though it will work or it won’t. There are two videos below featuring Onlive CEO Steve Perlman. He fills in a lot of the gaps I left and is pretty convincing. Check these out and take a look at the Onlive site as well.

Part 1

Part 2

–Tom Milnes

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

Almost Astronauts: Inspiration for Aspiring Girls This Weekend on Book TV

Children’s nonfiction author Tanya Lee Stone will be on C-SPAN2’s Book TV this weekend to tell the story of the “Mercury 13,” a group of accomplished woman pilots who trained to become astronauts in the early 1960s but never made it into space, and the subject of her recent book Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream.

When I first saw the movie and read the book The Right Stuff, back when I was around 12 or 13, I totally geeked out on memorizing the names of the astronauts and the extreme physical tests they had to endure–the isolation tank, the altitude chamber, the Dilbert Dunker (description from Almost Astronauts):

“Above a pool, at the top of a steep ramp, is a metal cockpit. You are loaded down–suited up in full flight gear, helmet, parachute. You climb into the contraption and are buckled in. The door clangs shut. The metal cage then hurtles down the ramp, slams into the pool, flips upside down, sinks to the bottom, and fills with water.”

It’s amazing to me, then, that I didn’t know that a woman, Jerrie Cobb, went through all the same tests, or that 12 other women pilots passed the first round of tests, but never even got the chance to try the Dilbert Dunker. Stone’s book tells the whole story, with brief profiles of each of the women and a detailed account of the obstacles that kept them from their dream of space. It’s disheartening but inspiring, too. They basically paved the way for Sally Ride and all the astronauts who came after her who just happened to be women.

The program, in which Stone presents the book (which is targeted for readers ages 10 and up) to a group of students at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., airs Saturday at 8:45am and repeats at 9pm, Sunday at 4pm, and Monday at 4am.–Heidi

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

The 'Conficker/Downadup' Worm Could Be No Joke this April 1


In technology circles the first day of April, that is ‘April Fools Day,’ is generally not the best day for jokes, and version.09 will be no different. Sure we will doubtless see a few phantom products and/or stories spring out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. There is no harm in that necessarily, but then there is the annual worry about computer viruses. This year the concern making the rounds is over the Conficker, or Downadup worm. 

This particular bug, in an earlier form has been around since late last year, spreading to many millions of mainly corporate computers around the world via a hole in windows. To date Microsoft has noted four different variants. The latest as recent as March 3. They are reportedly designed to spread from an infected computer to those it is networked to and visa versa, and apparently can also spread through file sharing and USB drives (the worm adds a file to the removable drive so that when the drive is used, the AutoPlay dialog will show one additional option). It has been found that once a host is infected the virus buries itself, possibly disabling or altering the workings of anti-virus software and keeps itself updated through a system which generates random domain addresses to contact for further instructions. According to Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA, a New York-based IT and
software company in an interview with CNN.com/Technology, the infections that have happened so far haven’t spawned many symptoms, but according to a piece of code found, on April 1 a master
computer is scheduled to gain control of the infected machines in a master/zombie scenario. Nobody really knows what will happen April. It could be that the date is a decoy or trick. It could be that this now huge network of machines could work together to trigger an intentional denial-of-service attack designed to bring down websites. Either way Microsoft is taking this very seriously.

They have offered a 0,000 reward for information leading to the worm’s creator and aided in the organization of the Conficker Cabal, an ad hoc partnership of industry leaders and academia that are working toward mounting a global response to the worm. You can read more about Microsoft’s efforts, Conficker Cabal and the worm here. Regardless, as the end of the month draws near you might want to wash your hands and ensure that your virus software is up to date.

–Tom Milnes

March 29, 2009 4:01 pm

"The Reader": Best DVDs of April 2009

What it is: “The Reader“, the Oscar-nominated film from The Weinstein Company, is based on the 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink. It details the passionate love affair between teenager Michael Berg and the older Hanna (Kate Winslet). When she suddenly disappears, Michael is left without answers, at least for the next eight years. When she is finally back in his life - it is hardly how he expected. As a defendant on trial for war-crimes, Hanna’s past is revealed and Michael struggles with reconciling the details of the past eight years with the love he discovered as a teenager.

Why it’s significant: Many people’s dark horse for Best Picture, The Reader is a gripping film that is still gaining notoriety and basking in Kate Winslet’s Oscar for Best Actress. For a film that was originally slated to come out in 2009 (and was therefore a bit rushed in its release), The Reader has done surprisingly well. In addition, it was also the final film for producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom died during production. Although it did not win for Best Picture (as Harvey Weinstein predicted), it is certainly deserving of our attention and will be remembered as one of the truly inspiring performances of Kate Winslet. –Tim




Rats score early, then falter against front-running Hartford

ALBANY — Artem Anisimov and Mark Bell scored two goals apiece and Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau added a goal and two assists as the Hartford Wolf Pack overwhelmed the Albany River Rats 5-1 tonight at Times Union Center.

The Rats led 1-0 on Tomas Pospisil’s goal 1:45 into the game, but it was all Hartford after that. The Wolf Pack, who lead the Atlantic Division, led 2-1 after one and 3-1 after two, then added a pair of power-play goals in the third, including Anisimov’s 32nd of the season.

Albany, whose magic number for playoff elimination was reduced to four points, returns to the Times Union Center on Saturday night to face the last-place Springfield Falcons.

Tanya Memme Pictures

Earth Day at Tahoe

"It's a misconception that plastic will break down eventually in a landfill," says green businessman Erik Taylor. "What happens is that it degrades and breaks into smaller and smaller pieces, but the individual molecules never go anywhere. Every bit of plastic that has ever been made still exists."

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Images

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A scary thought to contemplate as you polish off some fast food and dump the container and throwaway utensils in the trash. But if you visit Lake Tahoe's Earth Day celebrations in April, you'll be able to bypass the guilt as you learn about conservation and alternative energy while munching food served in containers made of vegetable-based material. Even the plastic-looking knives and forks will be made from potato starch, cornstarch and other compostable materials says Taylor, a partner in Green Tahoe Inc. of Truckee, brokers of biodegradable products.

Taylor's bio-packaging is just one element of the festivals being held April 18 at the Village at Squaw Valley and April 25 at the MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa in South Lake Tahoe. Earth Day is April 22.

Started eight years ago by the nonprofit Tahoe Earth Day Foundation, the events are designed to provide information about global climate change, recycling, water conservation, sustainability, energy production, composting, trash reduction and carbon footprints. The programs will tell you how you can help protect and improve the environment, says Suzanne Wilkins, chairwoman of the Squaw Valley event. But to make it fun and to celebrate the earth in a positive way, she says, musical and other entertainment will be offered as well.

Contests and activities for children and dozens of booths focused on the environment will be part of the festivities. Organizations sponsoring displays will include government agencies, public utility companies, water districts, environmental nonprofits, and commercial vendors offering recycling and conservation products and services. Exhibits and entertainment venues will fill the central courtyard at the Village at Squaw Valley, a chalet-style condominium and shopping complex.

Ecology-themed entertainment at Squaw Valley will include a Trashion Show and vaudeville, Wilkins says. Haute Trash, a Nevada City artists group, will present a runway fashion show featuring garments made from recycled materials. Pacifica's EarthCapades will perform variety shows with a message.

At the South Lake Tahoe festival, exhibitors will be housed in large tents in the casino parking lot and vendors will offer food and beverages. Electricity will be provided by solar panels and biofuel generators. According to Shelly Barnes, who is in charge of the South Lake Tahoe event, children's activities will include crafts and costume making. Five musical groups will offer continuous entertainment.

Two film festivals (April 17 and 24) preceding the events will look at environmental issues from different perspectives. Excerpts from the Patagonia Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival will screen in Olympic Village at Squaw Valley. In South Lake Tahoe, the EarthDance Film Festival, says Barnes, "will feature short films, from 30 seconds to 30 minutes, that are fun, funny and provocative ... to make you laugh and celebrate your relation to the natural world." The EarthDance films will be shown at Lake Tahoe Community College.

Admission to the Earth Day festivals is free; the north and south Tahoe film showings are $12 and $7, respectively.

"Earth Day reminds people of the natural beauty that surrounds us and focuses on preserving and protecting," Barnes says. "It led to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which changed the way cities function."

Armed with biodegradable food containers, Tahoe event organizers hope their festivals will have only a limited effect on the environment. Waste station volunteers will separate trash. Most of the trash generated by the Squaw Valley event last year was recycled or composted - only 7 percent when into landfills.

Lake Tahoe Earth Day: April 18 at the Village at Squaw Valley, 1750 Village East Road, Olympic Valley. April 25 at MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa, 55 Highway 50, South Lake Tahoe. Hours for both: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free. (530) 542-8366, www.southlaketahoeearthday.org; (530) 584-6266, www.tahoetruckeeearthday.org.

Smithsonian Kite Festival Celebrates

The 43rd Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival will be held Saturday, March 28, on the grounds of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (rain date: March 29). This free, public event organized by The Smithsonian Associates and the National Air and Space Museum features kite displays, demonstrations and handmade kite competitions.

This year’s festival will explore how using natural resources can be a fun and fulfilling experience. Participants are encouraged to create environmentally and thematically “green” kites from renewable resources such as bamboo and recyclable goods such as paper and cloth.

Elements of this year’s festivities include kite making activities for kids, special guest kite makers and kite flyers from Switzerland and the Czech Republic, kite trick demonstrations by Revolution Kites and several sponsored activity tents focused on the concept of “green.” Among other presenters, the West Indian American Kiters Association and Tobago Flying Colours will demonstrate how to make kites with recycled material, the Embassy of Sweden will present a living green exhibit and the Department of Energy’s Wind Powering America program will educate spectators about wind power.

Featured every year is the handmade kite competition in which awards are given in categories for children, adults and master kite makers. Kites must be created by the participant and capable of flying at a minimum of 100 feet for at least one minute and will be judged on design, appearance, construction and performance. A special award is given for the kite that best interprets the festival theme. Teams may also compete in two exciting events: the traditional Rokkaku Challenge, in which flyers attempt to bring down their opponents’ kites, and the Smithsonian Hot Tricks Showdown, which allows kite flyers to demonstrate their skills with trick kite moves. Registration for all competitions will take place from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Children and adults are welcome to fly noncompetition kites throughout the day. While participants are encouraged to bring their own kites, 1,000 free kites will be distributed to children on a first come, first served basis.

The 43rd Annual Smithsonian Kite Festival is sponsored by the National Cherry Blossom Festival, the Embassy of Sweden and Family Magazine.

Founded by aviation pioneer Paul E. Garber (1899-1992), the Smithsonian Kite Festival features kite fliers from across the United States and around the world. The festival will take place on the grounds of the Washington Monument at 15th Street and Independence Avenue and is accessible from the Smithsonian or Federal Triangle Metro stations or Metrobus routes 30, 32, 34, 35 and 36.

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

Almost Astronauts: Inspiration for Aspiring Girls This Weekend on Book TV

Children’s nonfiction author Tanya Lee Stone will be on C-SPAN2’s Book TV this weekend to tell the story of the “Mercury 13,” a group of accomplished woman pilots who trained to become astronauts in the early 1960s but never made it into space, and the subject of her recent book Almost Astronauts: Thirteen Women Who Dared to Dream.

When I first saw the movie and read the book The Right Stuff, back when I was around 12 or 13, I totally geeked out on memorizing the names of the astronauts and the extreme physical tests they had to endure–the isolation tank, the altitude chamber, the Dilbert Dunker (description from Almost Astronauts):

“Above a pool, at the top of a steep ramp, is a metal cockpit. You are loaded down–suited up in full flight gear, helmet, parachute. You climb into the contraption and are buckled in. The door clangs shut. The metal cage then hurtles down the ramp, slams into the pool, flips upside down, sinks to the bottom, and fills with water.”

It’s amazing to me, then, that I didn’t know that a woman, Jerrie Cobb, went through all the same tests, or that 12 other women pilots passed the first round of tests, but never even got the chance to try the Dilbert Dunker. Stone’s book tells the whole story, with brief profiles of each of the women and a detailed account of the obstacles that kept them from their dream of space. It’s disheartening but inspiring, too. They basically paved the way for Sally Ride and all the astronauts who came after her who just happened to be women.

The program, in which Stone presents the book (which is targeted for readers ages 10 and up) to a group of students at Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington, D.C., airs Saturday at 8:45am and repeats at 9pm, Sunday at 4pm, and Monday at 4am.–Heidi

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

The 'Conficker/Downadup' Worm Could Be No Joke this April 1

In technology circles the first day of April, that is ‘April Fools Day,’ is generally not the best day for jokes, and version.09 will be no different. Sure we will doubtless see a few phantom products and/or stories spring out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. There is no harm in that necessarily, but then there is the annual worry about computer viruses. This year the concern making the rounds is over the Conficker, or Downadup worm. 

This particular bug, in an earlier form has been around since late last year, spreading to many millions of mainly corporate computers around the world via a hole in windows. To date Microsoft has noted four different variants. The latest as recent as March 3. They are reportedly designed to spread from an infected computer to those it is networked to and visa versa, and apparently can also spread through file sharing and USB drives (the worm adds a file to the removable drive so that when the drive is used, the AutoPlay dialog will show one additional option). It has been found that once a host is infected the virus buries itself, possibly disabling or altering the workings of anti-virus software and keeps itself updated through a system which generates random domain addresses to contact for further instructions. According to Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA, a New York-based IT and
software company in an interview with CNN.com/Technology, the infections that have happened so far haven’t spawned many symptoms, but according to a piece of code found, on April 1 a master
computer is scheduled to gain control of the infected machines in a master/zombie scenario. Nobody really knows what will happen April. It could be that the date is a decoy or trick. It could be that this now huge network of machines could work together to trigger an intentional denial-of-service attack designed to bring down websites. Either way Microsoft is taking this very seriously.

They have offered a 0,000 reward for information leading to the worm’s creator and aided in the organization of the Conficker Cabal, an ad hoc partnership of industry leaders and academia that are working toward mounting a global response to the worm. You can read more about Microsoft’s efforts, Conficker Cabal and the worm here. Regardless, as the end of the month draws near you might want to wash your hands and ensure that your virus software is up to date.

–Tom Milnes

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

"The Reader": Best DVDs of April 2009

What it is: “The Reader“, the Oscar-nominated film from The Weinstein Company, is based on the 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink. It details the passionate love affair between teenager Michael Berg and the older Hanna (Kate Winslet). When she suddenly disappears, Michael is left without answers, at least for the next eight years. When she is finally back in his life - it is hardly how he expected. As a defendant on trial for war-crimes, Hanna’s past is revealed and Michael struggles with reconciling the details of the past eight years with the love he discovered as a teenager.

Why it’s significant: Many people’s dark horse for Best Picture, The Reader is a gripping film that is still gaining notoriety and basking in Kate Winslet’s Oscar for Best Actress. For a film that was originally slated to come out in 2009 (and was therefore a bit rushed in its release), The Reader has done surprisingly well. In addition, it was also the final film for producers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, both of whom died during production. Although it did not win for Best Picture (as Harvey Weinstein predicted), it is certainly deserving of our attention and will be remembered as one of the truly inspiring performances of Kate Winslet. –Tim

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

Everybody's Talking About Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

I’ve been meaning to do a longish post on Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Wells Tower’s new debut story collection, but life keeps getting in the way. But now I’m under the gun, for two reasons: a) it’s becoming the book of the moment, at least if the New York Times is any guide, with a rave from Kakutani this week and a cover rave coming from Edmund White in this Sunday’s Book Review (also see Sam Anderson’s excellent piece in New York magazine); and, more importantly, b) my wife is going away for a week on Sunday and I’ve grudgingly agreed to let her take our copy of the book with her. So here’s a shorter post than I’d planned, which is probably all to the best.

Speaking of short, here’s the micro review I wrote when I put ER,EB in our Seven on the Side list on our Best of March page:

Best Set of Misfits: Bitter, dissolute, and funny, funny, funny: Tower’s first story
collection bristles with the lonely havoc wreaked by stepdads, carnies,
and Vikings.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’d get it any better than that if I had any more words to work with. And speaking of the Best of the Month, I had a tough time making my pick for March. It came down to two story collections, ER,EB and Mary Gaitskill’s Don’t Cry. I actually read them at the same time, alternating a story from each. I thought that would make the comparison easier, but it didn’t: my main reaction was, wow, these two can bring it. Both made me laugh and shake my head throughout, both ended with long title stories that stretched their craft in ways I did not come close to expecting. I ended up choosing Don’t Cry as my main March pick, and I’m not even sure why I did–it could have gone either way. Gaitskill had a couple stories that didn’t work for me, while Tower’s were more consistent, but when Gaitskill’s at the top of her game, I feel like she is peeling back about 17 layers from the face of humanity.

But now, a month or so later, maybe it’s just that everybody’s talking about it, but Tower’s stories are the ones that are living in my head a little more vibrantly. For one thing, the reason my wife is running off with the book is that I’ve read this opening paragraph from the first story, “The Brown Coast,” to her more than once, because it just keeps getting better:

Bob Munroe woke up on his face. His jaw hurt and morning birds were yelling and there was real discomfort in his underpants. He’d come in late, his spine throbbing from the bus ride down, and he had stretched out on the floor with a late dinner of two bricks of saltines. Now cracker bits were all over him–under his bare chest, stuck in the sweaty creases of his elbows and his neck, and the biggest and worst of them, he could feel lodged deep into his buttock crack, like a flint arrowhead somebody had shot in there. Yet, Bob found that he could not fetch out the crumb. He had slept wrong on his arms, and they’d gone numb. He tried to move them, and it was like trying to push a coin with your mind. Waking up for the first time in this empty house, Bob felt the day beginning to settle on him. He shuddered at the cool linoleum against his cheek, and he sensed that not far below, not too far down in the sandy soil, death was reaching up for him.

See? You’d want me to let you take the book too…  And then there’s the paragraph that I read aloud at the family dinner table the other night, to a giant guffaw from my nine-year-old:

He watched a mouse walk out from behind the soda machine. It was eating a coupon.

I don’t think I need to say anything else, except that Tower pretty much keeps this level of concrete hilarity and fine-tuned (but somehow open-hearted) misery going throughout the entire collection. For your weekend viewing, here is a short animated adaptation of the title story, an outlier in the collection in subject, if not in language or attitude toward life:

Enjoy. –Tom

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

2009: The Year Print-on-Demand Goes Mainstream

“2009
is the year that print on demand goes mainstream.” – Warren Ellis

We are
living in an incredible time, both as consumers and creators. As consumers,
whatever entertainment we want, whether it’s television, music, movies, games
or books, is easier and faster to get than ever before. As creators, the
barriers between us and our audience are falling faster and more easily than
ever before, the time between creation and release is shrinking, and thanks to
the Internet we can reach more people with less effort than we could as
recently as a decade ago.

Earlier
this week, I came across a post in my blog archives from September of 2002
where I said:

Remember
how so many readers have been telling me to write a book? Well, I listened.
Watch this space for details on how you can get it in about a week or so, maybe
two.

 

I was
talking about my book Dancing Barefoot,
which was created from material I cut out of Just A Geek.
I looked at that post and felt a little nostalgic, because that’s where my
journey as a published writer and champion of indie publishing began. 

In
2002, I was just another struggling actor and fledgling blogger. I figured
that, since I was having such a hard time getting work as an actor - where I
had a huge resume and a lifetime of experience - it would be nearly-impossible
to sell my books to a publisher. I did some research, figured out that I was
able to reach a few hundred thousand people with my blog, and decided to reject
the “traditional” publishing route in favor of self-publishing.

I
needed an education in self-publishing, and read two books that made all the
difference: The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing and The Self-Publishing Manual. They were both
filled with great advice, like the importance of hiring and respecting an
experienced editor, a good designer, and putting together an intelligent
marketing plan. I’m not sure what the current versions of the books say, but in
2002, they both warned authors away from using print on demand, largely because
the per-unit costs were unreasonably high, and when you held a POD book in your
hands, it really felt like you were holding a POD book in your hands.

My, my,
my, how the times have changed. The prejudice against POD persists, but
that tactile difference in quality has vanished, and after a couple of my friends used print on demand from Lulu to
release their books, I decided to give it a try myself. I wrote in my blog:

If this
works the way I think it will, it’s going to be super awesome for all of us as
I release books in the future: You don’t have to worry about me screwing up
your order, I don’t have to invest in a thousand books at a time, you get your
book in a few days instead of a few weeks because I’m not shipping it myself,
and I can spend more time creating new stories while remaining independent.
Best of all, I’ll have the time to write and release more than one or two books
a year.

Just
one month after releasing print and digital versions of my chapbook Sunken
Treasure, as well as a short audio book, my only complaint is that
I didn’t use POD sooner. The whole experience has been so overwhelmingly
positive, I don’t think I’ll ever use a different publishing method again.
If you’re a writer, you owe it to yourself to examine the self-publishing and
POD opportunities you have available to you right now, keeping in mind the
advice in those books I mentioned: if you want people to take you seriously,
you have to invest in a good editor and designer, and you have to be willing to
listen to them both. This is the fundamental difference between someone who is
a self-publisher, and someone who is a vanity publisher.

As a
creator, I have an unprecedented opportunity to use POD technology and Internet
distribution to take more chances and release more material with less risk than
ever before. Before POD, I never would have even considered a wide release of
something like Sunken Treasure; it was just too risky to invest
thousands of dollars into something that I was unsure would sell the quantity I
would need to order from a traditional printer. But with access to print on
demand technology, and using the Internet as a means to market and distribute
the book, there was no good reason not to give it a try. So far, it’s
working out really well. Reviews are good, sales are good, and I’ve really
enjoyed every step of the process.

I know
I’m just one guy with a very small operation, and my way of doing things isn’t
for everyone, but I believe that this is the future of publishing, 

Last
week, there was a significant change in the institutional prejudice against
print on demand. It’s not in book publishing, but in DVDs:

Warner Brothers
is putting their DVD back catalog into a POD service: Warner Bros on Monday became the first studio to open its film vault
to “made-to-order” DVDs, as it sought new revenues in a slumping DVD
market by making it possible for fans to buy decades-old films.

Warner
Bros, owned by Time Warner Inc, made an initial batch of 150 titles available
for purchase online at www.WarnerArchive.com, including 1943
comedy-romance “Mr. Lucky” starring Cary Grant and the 1962 release
“All Fall Down” with Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint.

The
on-demand service allows Warner Bros. to avoid the risk of manufacturing too
many copies of old or obscure titles and shipping them to retailers because
customers directly order only the titles they want to buy.

The
Warner Bros film archive has 6,800 titles. Since it entered the DVD market in
1997, the studio has released only around 1,200 of those titles from the vault.
By comparison, the company expects by the end of the year to have more than 300
titles available via the DVD-on-demand service.

I completely
agree with Warren Ellis (who, full disclosure, is a friend) that 2009 is the
year print on demand goes mainstream. It just makes so much sense; why
waste warehouse space, shelf space, and limited-investment capital on something
nobody’s interested in, when it’s just as easy to show them the entire menu and
let them pick out what they want? All of the elements that we need are
lined up and ready to work together: decentralized distribution online, long
tail publishing, high-quality on-demand products, and creators who
have enough direct contact with their audience to make giving huge portions of
their profits and their rights away to publishers totally unnecessary. 

I hope
that Warner Bros. has success with their POD publishing, and that it encourages
other publishers, creators, and music labels to do the same, because I believe
that this is the future, whether you’re an indie creator like me, or a giant
powerhouse like them.

–Wil Wheaton would love to change
the world.

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

Seeing the iForest for the Trees

Found this one on a Trendcentral email from The Intelligence Group.

 Nothing like jumping on the Green/Social Networking/iPhone App bandwagons simultaneously.

From the iPhorest.com website:

“Once you download the app, you can virtually grow your tree

• You dig a hole by creating a digging motion until your seedling appears
• Plant the seedling
• Shake your phone to create a storm and when the sun comes your tree begins to grow
• Repeating this will allow your tree to reach full growth
• Share your tree growth at any stage with others by pressing the share button to email them a picture
• Go up to Forest, where you can reset your growth.
• Go up to see all of the other iPhorest users. Help green the Earth - the app places a dot where you first launch iPhorest.

Tree planting services are provided to iPhactory by The Conservation
Fund. For each virtual tree planted, The Conservation Fund will plant a
native tree in real life - starting with restoration of vulnerable
wildlife habitats along the Gulf Coast in the United States. They will
work with the nation’s leading public natural resource agencies to
ensure the long-term protection of each iPhorest.” Learn more.

Have a happy spring weekend and Earth Hour this weekend ya’ll.

~Amazon Green Scene

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

Game Developer's Conference Swag (Freebies) Video

In my experience, gaming conferences are definitely a choice and generally enviable assignment, especially if you have the freedom to play, chat and hang out, but even if you are saddled with doing actual work the assumption is that attendees souls will be soothed by the freebies companies fill your bag with; that is the "swag." Unfortunately, the other truism is that not all swag is created equally. For proof of this just take a look at the Destructoid produced video below featuring a couple of the guys from their editorial staff at GDC in SF this week. In it they do the usual walk around the floor collecting swag from booths.

I’m tempted to think that maybe this is a tongue-in-cheek piece since
the stuff they show on camera is pretty lame: soap bubbles, badge
holders and yes, pens. They say that they are going to give the stuff
away via a contest on their site. Hmmm? Maybe they are keeping the good
stuff for themselves? Maybe they are holding on to it as a reward for
readers who actually check out the blog for the GDC wrap-up? Maybe the
whole thing is a commentary on the state of the industry? I don’t know,
but when a sad little cowbell is the highlight of the experience it might be time to get your notes together, upload your pieces for publishing and catch the next flight home.

–Hobson’s Choice

March 28, 2009 1:22 am

Bites from the Apple: Tango and Cash

Apple took a bit of a break this week from its long march of product and iPhone OS rollouts during the month of March, with just an announcement of the dates for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8-12 in San Francisco. But of course, an announcement from Apple isn’t just an announcement–it’s a vehicle for speculation, rumor mongering, etc. Will Steve Jobs show up (even though he’s not scheduled to return from his leave until the end of June), perhaps to announce his retirement? Will the new Snow Leopard version of Mac OS X be ready for prime time and shipping by autumn? Will there be new iPhone hardware?

On that last point, Apple and AT&T are remaining fairly mum, but it’s looking more and more likely that we will indeed see a new iPhone this summer, as we’re seeing signs that Apple is trying to move through current inventory. This week, AT&T started selling non-contract iPhone 3G units (one per customer) and Apple joined in by selling non-contract models at its Apple retail stores (with no limit per customer). You’ll have to pay 0 (8 GB)/0 (16 GB) for the non-subsidized versions; you’ll still have to use the AT&T network (unless you go the jailbreaking route), but at least you won’t have to sign up for a 2-year commitment. And AppleInsider reports that AT&T is loosening the rules (on a case-by-case basis) for getting the upgrade, subsidized price for the iPhone 3G. Additionally, The Boy Genius Report was able to wrangle some mongering out of a high-placed AT&T source, who said that iPhone would be out in June and would be faster (potentially able to access AT&T’s 7.2Mbps HSDPA 3G network).

As for Snow Leopard, AppleInsider reports that, contrary to the originally stated purpose of it being a release meant to clean up code and make things run smoother, the new OS could have a “significant UI overhaul” with a darker Marble theme replacing the current Chrome interface. Currently, those UI changes haven’t been released to developers and AI surmises that Apple is holding them close to the vest for a big splash presentation at WWDC. Ars Technica adds that this could broaden the commercial appeal of the OS X refresh.

• Last week, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer decried the Apple tax–i.e., the extra money one shells out for Apple products–and this week Microsoft further opened up against its rival with a new ad where they promise perky Lauren that they’ll buy her a laptop that meets her requirements (17-inch screen, speed, comfy keyboard) for under 00–which she finds in the HP DV7-1245dx from Best Buy (very similar to this one). To add insult to injury, she even opines that she’s not cool enough to be a Mac person after visiting an Apple Store and discovering that 00 would only get her a 13-inch MacBook.

  As you might expect, the gadgetosphere has been in full-throated commentary mode over this, with some agreeing that our current economic times demands better value while others point out that though the HP machine isn’t crap, it’s underpowered when compared to what Apple offers–even on the 13.3-inch entry-level unibody Macbook (which sells for about 0 more than Lauren’s price requirements). As my wife pointed out to me after I showed it to her, many people would be very satisfied with the power of the selected HP, and that’s very true. But a goodly number of people (certainly not a majority) would be frustrated by its limitations (both in hardware and in software operability), and that’s the niche that Apple excels at selling to. If you’ve got some thoughts, bang ‘em out in the comments.

• GigaOm reports that a Skype iPhone app may be released as early as next week (in conjunction with the CTIA Wireless confab). In other app news, Electronista reports that a SlingPlayer app has been submitted to Apple for approval in its App Store, which would allow you to view TV content playing through your home Slingbox
• Ars Technica reports (with graphs) that the next version of the Mobile Safari web browser in iPhone 3.0 provides an average 300 percent speed increase in JavaScript performance.
• In a bit of a corollary to Aric’s post on the five best sources of free web entertainment, Christopher Breen at Macworld lists out his alternatives to paying a cable company to get his TV requirements (Hulu, Netflix, iTunes Store and MLB.com).
• The end of exclusive 99¢ tracks at the iTunes Store will be coming to an end as of April 7, when Apple flips on the variable pricing scheme it promised/threatened at this year’s Macworld keynote. While some newer, hotter tracks will increase to .29, many older catalog tracks will sell for as little as 69¢ (via Technologizer).
• One of my blind spots on the Mac is using the command line-based Terminal to bend it to my will, but my tech writing hero Joe Kissell has just released the Take Control of the Mac Command Line with Terminal ebook, which from an initial scan looks to be a great way for nervous intermediate users to get all jiggy with some Unix.
• An “aha!” moment came to me earlier this week when I was contemplating how best to keep my mother abreast of our child’s growing library of books. Since she’s really good at (and really enjoys) picking out children’s books, my wife and I are having her send our son a book each month. But we wanted to make sure she didn’t double up on new books that we bought ourselves (for instance, I made a snap purchase of Where the Wild Things Are after seeing the new trailer). And this got me thinking about the Delicious Library cataloging software, which I never really put too much stock into (I can see my library on the shelves… why do I need to spend time cataloging it on my Mac?). But the newest version of Delicious Library now enables you to publish your library (entire contents or just a selection) to your MobileMe web pages via iWeb. I did a quick test, and it’s easy peasy, so it looks like I’ve got a weekend project ahead of me.
• And finally… Steve Wozniak suffered another injury (this time to his hamstring), but was able to carry on with the dancing (which included a bit of breakdancing worm move). And he keeps dancing for another week, thanks to enough viewer votes to keep him going while ousting Denise Richards. Next up for Woz: the tango. In other Woz news, it seems his iTunes library is on the fritz; let’s hope it’s been resolved so he can study up for next week’s tango.

–Agen G.N. Schmitz