http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:10:18 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/01/201018.php Will PateBy request, here follows my review of The Passion of The Christ. As a disclaimer, I am a Christian of over slightly more than one short year and am no expert. Instead, I count on God working within my heart to guide me in all things, this review included.In the months leading up to the release of The Passion, I had serious doubts about Mel Gibson's ability to portray God properly. With the reports of his serial infidelity, hurtful comments about a former business partner, his father's various controversial stances on religion and politics; I was concerned that Gibson would use the movie to open old wounds or advance his own flavor of Pre-Vatican II Catholicism. While no longer a practicing Catholic in the exclusive sense, I consider myself Christian and therefore a member of what's referred to as the body of Christ which extends beyond any specific banner. Because of this I see the Vatican II as a major breakthrough in the spiritual development for my brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church.In the end, regardless of my trepidations about Mr. Gibson, I had to forego judgment of him as a person and leave my opinion to rest solely upon his art. Christ came to help those that could see their own sin, not those that thought they didn't need his help; and if he decided to use this man to touch the hearts of people then who am I to argue? I sincerely hope that making the movie was a rich spiritual exercise for all involved, and that it brought them closer to God.So on to the movie itself. When my church purchased a theater for Saturday morning and sold tickets for five bucks a piece, I signed up for two tickets in the hope that I could encourage someone that wanted to know more about Jesus to come with me. I've got friends with questions about Christianity, and as a baby Christian I feel insufficient in my ability to speak to them properly about something so important. My hope was that the movie would speak with power and insight to the hearts of people that knew little about Jesus, enticing them to start their own personal study. In the end it turned out that my Dad joined me and I was just as happy to have his company.The main problem with previous movies I've seen that portrayed Jesus was that they were largely factual recountings of him as a historical figure. He went here, did this miracle, said that teaching. The man's stated purpose was to win our hearts to him, it's only fitting that an artistic representation of him should try capture us emotionally. It is this aspect of the movie I'm most interested in.The greatest accomplishment of The Passion of The Christ was its portrayal of the character of Jesus. I'm absolutely fascinated by this man who had such character as to convince droves of critical humans, even his own brother, that he was the son of a living God. At the start of the movie, we see Jesus struggle with his fate, but not his desire to do God's will. Even though Satan stands by him and taunts him while Jesus prays to God, he does not question his Father's wisdom and sovereignty over him. Once sure of his mission, he rises and crushes the snake that Satan has put beside him. With a stern look in his eyes, we see a Jesus that is rarely portrayed in retellings of his life: confident and determined.Throughout the movie, Jesus speaks powerfully with his eyes. When he healed the solider, you could see that he was setting straight inside him more than the sinew that held the flesh of his ear to his head. The mixture of distaste for the sins of Mary Magdalene and compassion for her shines through. Even a short glance at one of King Herod's guards brings the man to shame at his sin. Each time I felt a volume of communication coming from those eyes that could not be said with words. Perhaps that was an artistic license taken by Mr. Gibson, but it served the story well. Jim Caviezel did an excellent job of speaking with his eyes, I'd say without insult the best part of his performance.Often while reading thinly pressed pages of printed word, I forget about the integrity of Jesus. This part of the movie really jumped out at me. He was a man who not only said meaningful things about how we should relate to God and each other, but when he lived them. He was a man of his word, an outstanding example of integrity, whether you believe him to be the son of God or not. He didn't just pontificate, he lived his teachings right to the very end. Jesus didn't have any scandal, he didn't have any caveat - a quality sorely lacking from our current leadership.In the end, I think The Passion of The Christ is a great movie. If anything, it leaves me wanting a prequel. It should give all interested in Jesus a better understanding of what he was like. We live in a time where I think most Christians would agree that the biggest problem facing us as a body is knowing with our heads and not our hearts. When we make our worship or our prayer routine, we can miss the essence of the holy spirit. Gibson got us talking about Jesus, what we do with the discussion is up to us.I think we all owe Mr. Gibson a big thanks for putting himself on the line to try and bring that spirit back into our lives. For trying to bring the message of Jesus to people that don't know him, only God can reward him properly. I hope he, and all those that worked on the movie, make it through the pearly gates to meet scores of people that he helped open their hearts to Christ. Video13300@blogcritics.org Mon, 1 Mar 2004 20:10:18 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/01/30/131954.php Will PateMake no mistake about it, 2004 is setting up to be the year of social networking. Blogs have secured their foothold on the web landscape, now it's time for centralized services to claim their space. If Google and the venture capitalists like Bob Kagle that backed Friendster are right, people are going to flock to these services hoping to make better quality contacts, easier.If the web has one main thread, one overriding characteristic that outshines all others; it's empowerment. The internet has given individuals and organizations alike tremendous powers of access to information. Now it's about to take its next step and provide us better access to each other. That's what social networking is all about: empowering us to find each other better.Take This Job and Blog ItTraditional professionals from every field are offering quick and general tips on their websites (and increasingly weblogs), but very few are giving fully detailed instructions as to how they perform their jobs. We now have a free flow of information necessary to understand what kind of experts we need. We still need experts, in fact as the world becomes more complex we need them more than ever. People are starting to figure out that if you need to do business globally (and increasingly you do), you'll need help outside of your pool of talent.Until now it's taken web or socially savvy people to find each other, the barriers have been lowered but the methods are still crude. Trolling a gaggle of weblogs, static websites, newsletters, forums and newsgroups is to find a good professional is too much work for the average person. The big social networking sites still have a long way to go, but they are on the right track.The Challenge for Social Networking SitesThey've got a big market, big dreams and big opportunities: three conditions that usually spell big challenges. After kicking the tires on some social networking sites, and I've got a few thoughts.The easiest thing that could go wrong is that they will grow too fast. Bloated services don't make it easier to find people, they just add another layer to the information overload that most people experience on a daily basis. Better categorization and more advanced searching methods would go a long way.If social networking really does become the boom technology of 2004, cleaning up their backend should be a top priority. Friendster lag times are well known; hopefully with their recent cash infusion they can streamline the code and get better servers (assuming their problem is a combination of both). Orkut's written in Microsoft's ASP, probably not the best choice. These sites have access to a plethora of talented web developers and designers; utilizing them will improve the sites dramatically and prove to every user that social networking can bear good fruit.Focus, focus, focus. It's tempting for sites like Ecademy to offer every feature to every user right away, but this is a big mistake. Tim Bray has found that successful technologies do one or two things well. The big sites need to set clear, realistic goals based on critical functions. Think when management hires consultants to make people interview for their own jobs: if a function can't justify its own utility, cut it. Hire a good usability analyst to make their sites drop dead easy to use. Remember, ye who opens the door to the web layman has shall reap users that other websites cannot.Syndication is sorely lacking. Let users publish RSS feeds from their sites, saving them from copying and pasting. The jury's still out on FOAF and XFN, but they have huge potential and sites should be allowing users that know how to use them to intergrate. LinkedIn has the right idea when they allow you to search for contacts via an uploaded export file from popular contact management software like Outlook or Palm Desktop.The Challenge for Social NetworkersThe biggest hurdle for social networkers is using centralized services effectively, particularly while they're still in the beta stages. As we can see, the big players still have a fair bit of work to do before social networking is as easy to navigate as the local chamber of commerce mixer.We need to do some recruiting and invite the best and brightest we know to use these services. Ecademy seems to be heavily weighted with UK members right now, which creates a civil atmosphere and some delightful language usage, but they need more worldwide membership. In the end, it's a matter of personal responsibility for members to tap people that could benefit from the group and be of benefit themselves.For sites that allow contribution, content quality should be kept to a premium. It would be a terrible shame to see these sites reduced to little more than another place for brash and crass commercialism. Utilize this new opportunity to provide meaningful relationships that have value outside of a pay-for-knowledge construct. We set the bar by raising the bar, so aim high.My 2004 Social Networking ChallengeThis year, I'm going to do an experiment. Call it the Will Pate 2004 social networking challenge. I've already signed up on Ecademy, LinkedIn, Ryze and Tribe.net. I'm going to do three things for one year, and see what the results are:1) Contribute and be an active participant where I can help others. 2) Find out the scoop on social networking. Subscribe to RSS feeds, find articles and try to be well read on the subject. If anyone has any resources to suggest, I would greatly appreciate it.3) Try to raise my profile. I want to expand my network and be a trusted source for others. Sci/Tech12188@blogcritics.org Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:19:54 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/01/29/224619.php Will PateIn these days of an over-corporatized music industry, it's harder and harder to find great music. Poor music aims only to sell, good music achieves its aim to be highly listenable, but great music excells at communicating the human condition. Great music is probably the most successful humanistic art form, surpassed emotionally only by great poetry. With such potential being diverted away from worthwhile direction, I must admit that it breaks a little bit of my heart. I grew up on music, and I've probably learned more from lyrical subtext and interpretation than any class or book could teach - because it taught me how to emptathize. I'm not a cold hearted person, but I do have a natural tendency to be insular, forgetting the rest of the world while obsessing over some mental task. Great music says to us "walk a mile in these traveller's shoes, you'll find they fit"As popular music has gone from crap to stinky crap, I'll admit to having sought refuge in the eclectic. I've often been heard saying that if an artist sounds like something I've heard before, I'm not interested. I've found some good music for sure, but until this morning I can say that these ears have been want of truly great music.So what's got me blabbing on like this? Po Girl, and they make great music. CBC Radio 3 has a great piece on them in this week's issue (2.20). They've got a wonderful mix of folk sound, classically trained musical sensibility and soulful voices that match equally soulfull lyrics. This is music to play when you're at the cottage, when all your defenses and pretenses are left back in the city. Music to play on a mix tape in a beatup pickup as you make your break across the praries. Music for when you miss your lover. Music12159@blogcritics.org Thu, 29 Jan 2004 22:46:19 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/12/08/015316.php Will PateOnce in a while a small app comes along worthy of review. While there is an increasing shift toward turning desktop applications into web services, some functions are better suited to the local environment. Password storing and generation, for obvious security reasons, are one of those functions.We use passwords to keep our data secure. Web sites we register with fluxuate in owership, databases get corrupted, and are even hacked themselves sometimes. As use of web services proliferate, password fatigue looms and the need for a good way to store and generate secure passwords rises. More and more data becomes stored online, and we now use these services to build distributed online identities. The old standby of using one or a few passwords for everything leads to the risk of one password loss becoming full out identity theft. That's a price that none of us wants to pay.But would you be willing to pay $30 bucks USD to secure all that private information? I'd call that a pretty cheap insurance. Actually, I'd call it a wise investment.A few months ago, I stumbled across SoloKeep, developed by Brad Pineau aka the Bloggerman. It's a nifty program with everything I've wanted in a password storing and generating utility for a long time. Each password is stored as an entry. You can generate passwords of up to 15 characters; with options to use uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and miscellaneous symbols. Simply click "Generate Password" and "Use Password" and it's automatically saved to the entry. You can even save the URL and go there with just another click. The most useful feature I've found is the comment section, where you can add little notes about whatever you wish. The comments are very useful if you're managing different accounts on more than one site - a webmaster's wish come true.You can use SoloKeep to store an infinite amount of passwords for an infinite amount of users. That is, unless you use the trial version, which allows 2 users and 20 passwords per user. Your entries are shown on a grid, which can toggle whether to show the password or not: nice if you work around people with wandering eyes. The grid can be sorted alphabetically by title, username, password, url or comments. If you're really hard up, you can use the search feature on any combination of those fields.Each user has their own encrypted and password protected file, which can be exported for backups.So if you're like me, and have more passwords than you know what to do with, try SoloKeep. Sci/Tech10750@blogcritics.org Mon, 8 Dec 2003 01:53:16 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/02/005407.php Will PateEvery once in a while something comes along that dramatically changes the way we blog - add TypePad to that list.You gotta give the team at Six Apart credit. They don't just make great tools, they make them at the right time in the right place. The web is undergoing a proliferation of weblogs, and weblog publishing tools to match. TypePad provides the flexibility and power of their last successful offering, Movable Type and makes it as easy as pie.For a small monthly fee you can have a weblog just as powerful as the widest read and respected bloggers on the internet, with a great support community and oodles of features.Today Robert Patterson and I setup a weblog to watch our upcoming provincial election, PEI Election Watch. I got to see the brilliance of TypePad first hand, and the trick is that it comes in layers.Often the beginner weblog publisher can find it difficult to understand the all the details of web page publishing: coding a layout, text formatting and the like can be intimidating. Unless you're a web designer, you're often in the dark.The great thing about TypePad is that it not only lets you create a snazzy design (with a smart drag and drop feature) with lots of neat little widgets you can add to your page, but encourages you to explore some of the more intermediate aspects of designing your page. It's not just weblog software, it's a learning tool!So the question remains, how will TypePad dramatically change the way we blog as I first claimed. It's going to bring people to blogging that never would have given it a second look before and make them matter in the public discourse. Most importantly, what it's going to do is accelerate what weblogs have been doing all along: widening the definition of "we". Sci/Tech8014@blogcritics.org Tue, 2 Sep 2003 00:54:07 EDT