Linked List: September 18, 2007

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Complete Archives of ‘Siskel & Ebert’ and ‘Ebert & Roeper’ From 1986 to Present 

Via Kottke, the complete post-1986 movie reviews from Siskel, Ebert, and Roeper’s show. Gene Siskel, we miss you.

Watch Siskel hand Ebert his hat in their review of Full Metal Jacket from 1987 — Siskel calls it a “near masterpiece” and nails it with regard to the dual emotions evoked by the combat scenes: thrill and terror. Ebert, on the other hand, seems to have watched some other movie, and his repeated comparisons to Platoon seem utterly irrelevant 20 years later.

Another classic, this one they both get right: GoodFellas in 1990.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 

Upcoming Wii game lets you use the controller as a lightsaber. As if demand for Wiis weren’t high enough already.

David Maynor Releases Details of Wi-Fi Exploit Report From August 2006 

Details available in this paper.

Only app I know of with a logo that isn’t used at all as part of its icon or about box. Sort of reminds me of the old PBS logo. (Thanks to Neven Mrgan.)

Double-Tap Home Button Preference in iPhone 1.1.1 OS 

iPhones running the 1.1.1 release of the OS were on hand at today’s event in London; this screenshot from Engadget shows the new options available for double-tapping the Home button: Home, Phone Favorites, or iPod. (Plus, you can optionally set it to invoke heads-up display playback controls if audio is currently playing, which is what double-tapping Home does on the iPod Touch.)

Good call by Steven Berlin Johnson back in July.

iTunes to Be Exclusive Distributor of Ed Burns’s New Movie 

This AP profile of filmmaker Ed Burns ends with an interesting nugget:

Next month, Burns’ new romantic comedy, “Purple Violets,” will become the first featured film to be released and distributed by iTunes.

I looked for more information about this, and found this excerpt of an interview with Burns from PremiumHollywood:

Burns: So, we’re gambling and we’re gonna be the first film that is released exclusively through iTunes. It’ll be available for four weeks exclusively, and the idea is we’ll promote it the same as you would a theatrical release and we’ll see what the numbers are. If the attendance, if the downloads, which we expect to be a much higher numbers than the attendance, I think it’ll be the way I would go in the future for small movies like this. […]

Reporter: When did you say it would be available?

Burns: Um, October 9th.

Reporter: Is iTunes promising you a huge amount of promotion for doing this?

Burns: Huge is a relative term. We’ll have to see, but they’re promising promotion. I hope it’s huge.

New Promotional Site for Mac Office 2008 

Whole thing is done in Flash.

The D/Objective-C Bridge 

Michel Fortin on his newly-released D/Objective-C Bridge.

Candid Camera: The Cult of Leica 

Anthony Lane in The New Yorker:

The Leica is lumpless, with a flat top built from a single piece of brass. It has no prism, because it focusses with a range finder—situated above the lens. And it has no mirror inside, and therefore no clunk as the mirror swings. When you take a picture with an S.L.R., there is a distinctive sound, somewhere between a clatter and a thump; I worship my beat-up Nikon FE, but there is no denying that every snap reminds me of a cow kicking over a milk pail. With a Leica, all you hear is the shutter, which is the quietest on the market. The result — and this may be the most seductive reason for the Leica cult — is that a photograph sounds like a kiss.

The Talk Show, Episode 10 

“I hear a pussycat.”

iToner Still Works 

So yesterday’s iTunes 7.4.2 update breaks all the known workarounds for freely adding custom iPhone ringtones via file-extension renaming and AAC metadata hacking. But Ambrosia’s $15 iToner still works like a charm. (iToner doesn’t go through iTunes, it communicates directly with your iPhone, so I think only an iPhone software update could affect iToner, not an iTunes update.)

Jeffrey Zeldman: ‘Facebook Considered Harmless’ 

Thank goodness Zeldman joined Facebook; gets me one step closer to my goal of being the last person on the web who has not.

Big Sale at Freeverse 

30 percent off Freeverse’s games and apps, through September 20.

Presentations Added to Google Docs 

Doesn’t work with Safari (including version 3). Otherwise, seems like a reasonable web-based presentation editor.

Apple Chooses O2 as Exclusive Carrier for iPhone in U.K. 

Apple:

iPhone is scheduled to go on sale on November 9 and will be sold exclusively in the UK through Apple’s retail and online stores, O2 and The Carphone Warehouse’s retail and online stores. iPhone will be available in an 8GB model for £269 (inc VAT) and will work with either a PC or Mac. Three new great value iPhone tariffs will be available from O2 starting at £35, which all include unlimited anytime, anywhere mobile data usage and, in a market first, free unlimited use of the UK’s largest single public Wi-Fi network, covering over 7,500 cafes, restaurants, airport lounges, pubs and other locations across the UK.

The free access to a large network of Wi-Fi hotspots sounds great; I wish AT&T had something to offer like that.

European Court of First Instance: Microsoft Abused Its Dominant Position 

David Charter reporting for The Times Online:

The judges in Luxembourg supported a fine of €497 million and confirmed the Commision’s ruling that by bundling up Windows Media Player with its Windows operating system, Microsoft had damaged rival media players’ ability to compete. They also upheld an order by the Commission in 2004 that Microsoft supply technical information to other companies, such as Sun Microsystems, so that they can make their servers compatible with Windows-based software.

Gary Vaynerchuk on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Thursday 

Set your TiVos to record: Gary tells me he has a bet with one of Ellen’s producers that he can generate a 15-percent spike in TiVo recordings for the show.

The Truth Hurts 

The Boston Herald:

Griffin Whitman, a 10-year-old Red Sox fan from Swampscott, was excited to attend his first Yankees vs. Red Sox game Friday night. The young autograph-collector was even more thrilled to score Yankees outfielder Shelley Duncan’s signature before the game. That is, until Griffin read the message from the 27-year-old rookie: “Red Sox suck! Shelley Duncan.” […]

Griffin’s mother, Karen, blasted the Yankees slugger’s bad manners.

“This is someone who wears the Yankee uniform and is on the payroll and should be setting an example for 10-year-olds,” she said.

Jesus, they really bleed the sense of humor out of Red Sox fans from a young age. Maybe they’re just born joyless and miserable. When I was 10 I would have laughed my ass off if some player from the Red Sox had given me a “Yankees suck!” autograph.