Rennaissance: If Blade Runner Wasn’t Drawn By Frank Miller

There are 3 reasons to watch cyberpunk animated film: the story, the animation, the gear. Christian Volckman’s Rennaissance is all about the gear.

Rennaissance starts very slowly. The first 45 minutes are all backstory, with just enough cool tech gear to keep you wondering when the story will actually get interesting. It does, at the hour marker. And the Frank Miller-esque stark black and white animation – often too dark to make out what’s going on – makes it a struggle to reach that point.

In fact, just watch the last 45 minutes, you’ll end the movie with some ethical issues to discuss. Not just happy that it’s over and wondering why it took so long.

Baby Talk Less

“The most important fact to come from this study is there is no clear evidence of a benefit coming from baby DVDs and videos, and there is some suggestion of harm” – Frederick Zimmerman, University of Washington

While I’d like more info on the study methodology (phone interviews with 1K families in MN & WA) – it follows – when time with real, live, talking people is replaced with mumbling, sound-effect-laden non-sense, smaller vocabularies result.

HomeMade Pizza Company coming to Minnetonka and Wayzata

One of the things I still miss from our time in the Central Street neighborhood in Evanston is the HomeMade Pizza Company take-n-bake pizza. Clean, open storefronts, amazing ingredients. Cooked up in the comfort of your own home.

My favorites are the Spinach Pie and the Savory Pie. Both are so much tastier than Davanni’s par-bake or the nastiness that is Papa Murphy’s.

Jen just called, reporting a citing of a bus ad for HomeMade, and their site confirms locations opening soon at Hwy 7 & Hopins Crossroad in Minnetonka and 830 East Lake in Wayzata.

Sure, it’s not in walking distance from my house (or I would’ve known sooner), but it’s here and will make the occassional trips to those neighborhoods so much better.

Systems Don’t Inherently Change Behavior

“One of the things I find most vexing is the implicit idea that acquiring a system is all you need to take care of a problem….that you’re going to be more organized because you have a PDA.” – Merlin Mann

MP3 of Merlin Man’s Inbox Zero Talk @ Google

And from the Q & A session:

“Everytime you start worrying about taxonomy, do 3 tasks.”

For my money, that’s a fantastic information architecture tip.

Elsewhere

“I’ve spent a lot of my life engaged in devising careful taxonomies that I end up never using.” – Sam Buchanan

Wanted: An iTunes Alternative

iTunes just asked me if I wanted to update to v7.3.2. Knowing the update is to “improve stability and performance” of features I probably don’t use, I started thinking about my ideal media player.

Features of the iTunes alternative:

    Things it can do:

  • Play mp3, aac, mov
  • Create ‘smart’ playlists – based on multiple attributes of a file
  • Create delete files from the library from playlists – ‘smart’ or otherwise
  • Read and write files and their attributes on the iPod 1
  • Applescriptable
  • Special bonus points for being either: open source or having a price tag on it.
    Things it can’t:

  • Play streaming audio
  • Rip or burn CDs
  • Sell music, movies, TV shows, or games
  • Download and manage podcasts

1. including the Nike+iPod workout data, though a separate app would be better.

VillageFest 5k – 28:20

A light, refreshing rain started with the VillageFest 5k this morning. The course was a nice tour of the south-western corner of the Village, with a few more zigs and zags than I’d like.

Even in the rain, a few fellow citizens – including Jen and C – stood on the corners to cheer everyone on. Thank you and thanks to the police officers blocking street traffic for the duration of the race.

While the first 2ks went really well (4’48 k/mn & 5’02 respectively), I spent the third (5’30) struggling to find a pace. There was a golden retriever just ahead of me and we took the 4th k together (5’03), when he found a squirrel. I took that opportunity to shoot ahead finishing (5’03) with a sprint I didn’t know was left.

After that we all headed up to the community center for the pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, and the entire purpose of VillageFest – the helicopter ping pong ball drop.

Unfortunately, Bush is in town to checking out the remains of the 35W bridge. So, in addition to the increasing showers dampening the festivities, the Village airspace is restricted grounding the ball drop. Totally not worth having the POTUS in town.

What a bust.