rare pattern thoughts in a blog

I never had the opportunity to see this film in a theatre, and the existing video versions were pretty murky when it came to the shadowy dark scenes. This movie is very unusual and requires some patience to settle into its pacing, but once you do, you're in for a ride. But with those murky scenes before, you'd get kicked right out of the story and wonder what the heck was going on.

No longer. This Blu-ray transfer is excellent. My only complaint is that the color saturation seems a bit washed out. Some of the stills in the extra features have the saturation you'd expect. But this is a minor quibble. Maybe David Bowie's orange hair would get all blown out in full saturation.

That brings me to David Bowie, who is really quite wonderful in the film. Enigmatic, androgynous yet masculine, and very other-worldly. If you're not old enough to remember Bowie, he was a star back then, and still pretty fresh off of startling the media world with his oddity. He had some very big hits, and yet you really couldn't quite peg what kind of music he was making. It was truly original.

This was his film acting debut, and he's really good! Very compelling, and totally convincing. You never have what you might expect, a cringe moment where see the rock star instead of the character.

Maybe it helps that his character is totally bizarre anyway. But he's right there in character, in the reality of the moment always.

This Blu-ray is worth getting, most definitely.

Resolution time. It's the occasion to institute changes. Or at least resolve to change. It doesn't always work out, does it? The diet gets dropped. The fingernails get bitten. The cigarettes get smoked. The exercise gets blown off. And that's that. Right?

Maybe not. If you've ever had trouble shaking an addiction or behavior that ends up not serving your needs, you might find some hope (and results) in this analysis of addictive behavior, courtesy of Hyrum Smith, founder and creator of the Franklin planning system.

This post isn't about planning or time management. It's about the five-step cycle that drives our behavior.

I know I know, you probably believe this is just a bunch of hokum. (We'll get to beliefs and how they affect behavior in a minute.) But I'm not prescribing anything here. This is just a look at how behavior happens. I think it's empowering.

(These notes are drawn from a Franklin videotape called "Gaining Control." As far as I can tell, it's long out of print. And since then, the Franklin Institute became Franklin-Covey, and Hyrum Smith has gone on to other things. If you find this interesting, there are some links at the bottom of this post to some tape and book resources where you can learn much more on this.)

"The Reality Model"

According to this analysis, there are five steps to human behavior. Here's the breakdown.

1. Human Needs

We each have four basic human needs.

1. To live.
2. To love and be loved.
3. To feel important.
4. Variety.

If we are lacking any one or more of these needs, we may end up trying to fill them in.

File this away. We'll get back to it.

2. Belief Window

We all have beliefs, principles, convictions that determine how we interpret the world.

In the tape, Hyrum uses an example, "Men are better than women." Another might be, "My self-worth is dependent upon never losing an argument."

3. Rules:

These are "If...then..." statements, using the principles in the Belief Window has the premise.

Following on Hyrum's example: "If I get in an argument, then I must win."

4. Behavior Patterns:

These are the actions that result from the Rules. Thus, in the example case, "I" can never back down in an argument.

5. Results:

Here's the question: Will the results meet my needs over time?

If "I" never back down in an argument, never compromise, never acknowledge someone else's point, then is that making my life better?

Natural Law:

Hyrum Smith then makes these interesting points:

1 - If the results of your behavior do not meet your needs, then you have an incorrect principle on your belief window.

Your actions are the results of your principles on your Belief Window.

2 - Results take time to measure.

Sometimes it takes years. Look at smoking. Or heavy drinking.

3 - Growth is the process of changing principles on your belief window.

You can't change the behavior if the principles causing that behavior are not addressed. If you believe, "I can't stick with exercise programs," then you can try starting a workout regimen but you probably won't have much success sticking with it. If you believe, "Older women cannot be attractive," and you feel old, then dressing up will feel like an exercise in despair.

4 - Addictive behavior is the result of deep and unmet needs.

This is the one where I think Hyrum really hit on something. We haven't talked about those Human Needs since they were listed. But this is where they come into play. When one of you needs is not being met, all your energy goes to filling that need. And if you have a principle on your belief window that is not serving your long-term interests, then odds are good that it's a result of an unmet need.

"I'm unlovable" could lead to a lot of self-destructive behavior. "I'm ugly," "When people get to know me, they won't like me," "If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself".... All of these are principles that could be resulting from unmet needs. And thus the behavior resulting from those principles will not change unless the principles in the Belief Window change.

How to translate New Year's Resolutions into actions

So drawing from the behavior loops identified above, here's how to change:

1 - Identify the behavior.

2 - Identify possible principles driving the behavior.

3 - Predict future behavior based upon those principles.

4 - Identify alternative principles.

5 - Predict future behavior based upon new principle(s).

I would add this: Make sure your basic human needs – survival, to love and be loved, to feel important, and variety – are being met. Because that's the foundation of those principles.

This doesn't mean it's easy.

Just identifying the principles can be tough. Figuring out how to change them? That is more work than you can do in one afternoon. Sometimes it takes years. Sometimes it takes one day at a time.

One of the principles on my belief window is that if I understand something, I can change it. I think it's true. And now that I've blogged it (which helps me feel important and gives me an avenue to share a little love), I'm going to start putting this reality model to work in my life.

Resources

Hyrum Smith goes into all this much more. This blog post is just a thumbnail. Perhaps the closest available items where Hyrum covers this are:

Check out the book on Google.

Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki (Japanese title)

*** mild spoilers ***

He's not ready with the witty verbal quips – just the opposite, actually – but Detective Azuma is otherwise not all that unlike Dirty Harry. He slaps teenage punks around, would rather beat up than arrest drug dealers, and doesn't hesitate to run down a cop killer.

The plot eventually becomes about Azuma's investigation of a drug syndicate and how it's controlling more than it seems. But I have to warn Dirty Harry fans: This is no Magnum Force. In some ways, the Dirty Harry films are fairy tales compared with this movie. They are also much more sharp and focused in the western cinematic tradition. Violent Cop is very Japanese in understatedness of plot.

For those who like to see other cities, other cultures, like I do, there are lots of scenes on the streets of what might be Kyoto. (Filming location info is not currently found on Wikipedia or IMDB.) Much of the story takes place during the daytime, so there's much to see. (City streets at night could be almost anywhere.)

Interestingly, the movie was originally conceived as a comedy. IMDB:

The original script was a comedy. Kitano was then very concerned about the audience recognizing his acting skills and he didn't feel that a comedy would allow him to act nor allow the audience to abstract from his comic TV personality. So he rewrote the script, removed all comedy and turned it into a drama.

One wonders what elements of the final film could have been comedic in another context.

This movie is interesting. Very dry. Very understated, for all the violence. Beat Takeshi Kitano directed this movie, his first outside of Japan.

(If you don't know Beat, you may still recognize his face.)

Wikipedia currently remarks:

Brother (2001), shot in Los Angeles, had Kitano as a deposed Tokyo yakuza setting up a drug empire in L.A. with the aid of a local gangster played by Omar Epps. Despite a large buzz around Kitano's first English language film, the film was met with tepid response in the US and abroad....

Between the disappointing response to Brother and Dolls [another movie he directed], Kitano became a punching bag for the press in the United States, who wondered if he had lost his ability to make a good film. Criticism was less severe in Europe and Asia though many commentators were not as lavish with their praise as they had been with previous Kitano films.

To my own taste, I prefer Brother to Violent Cop, Kitano's first movie as director. For one thing, you get to know why Beat's character Aniki is the way he is. In Violent Cop, Azuma is more of a cipher.

That said, Aniki is not quite as transparently purposeful or ambitious as the Wikipedia description would have you believe. He's a guy who doesn't back down. Ever. And that leads to some interesting reactions as he makes his acquaintance of the LA drug gang world portrayed in the film. What makes it all hold together are the flashbacks that tell us why he's in LA in the first place. Enough said about that.

For anyone interested in gangster movies, I'd say this is probably worth seeing. But for me it's the Kitano-style Japanese touches in the story and some characters that puts this movie in the yes column. Omar Epps is a likable presence, too.

Hancock probably could not be considered anything more than a halfway decent scifi/fantasy movie if it weren't for Will Smith. The concept is interesting enough, but the storyline ends up falling a bit short, even compared with your basic superhero movies. Yet with Will Smith's performance, you almost don't notice.

Without spoilers, I feel safe noting the premise of the movie: Hancock (Will Smith) is a sloppy, careless guy with superhero powers. Smith makes this guy truly compelling, though. He's tragically lonely and hates his life so much he drinks heavily just to blot out the clear perception of it all. At times you almost want to cry for him. And that's all Smith.

In fact, I'd say that Will Smith's performance is more key to this movie than Robert Downey, Jr.'s performance is to Iron Man. There's plenty of humor in the story, but Smith actually plays it straight ... which of course makes it all the funnier.

Now I'll take a moment to note that Charlize Theron is one of my favorite actresses, so it should not surprise for me to say that she brings some fun to the movie. Charlize Theron is one of those actresses who brings a lot to even the smallest role. And yet she never tries to upstage anyone ... which of course makes her all the more compelling.

The Blu-ray is high quality. I didn't poke around much at the extras. If you're a Will Smith fan, then this is one to see. He does not disappoint.

I've been watching The Godfather on Blu-ray, and have been rather disappointed just how muddy the image is.

Credit where credit's due: the rich high-contrast nature of Gordon Willis' astounding cinematography is well captured for the most part. The shadows are as black as they were in the theatre. You can really appreciate the control of light, especially as characters emerge from darkness and disappear back into it.

But the high definition image resolution just isn't there. The details end up fuzzy. The sharpness doesn't seem up to par for a 35mm negative, that's for sure.

Other films from the period, including The Wild Bunch, haven't suffered so badly. What has The Godfather done to be treated so disrespectfully?

Given that Francis Coppola's company authors DVDs, I had to assume that the Blu-ray result on this film is testament to the poor quality of the surviving film elements available. I can only imagine what they had to work with for the opening wedding sequence, in which the outdoor shots seem very blown out – blown out in a video sense more than a film sense. No amount of restoration is going to put back resolution that has been lost.

As it turns out, that's precisely the problem. Stephanie Argy writes in American Cinematographer: Post Focus:

Widely regarded as an American classic and a landmark achievement in cinematography, Paramount Pictures’ The Godfather (1972) is identical to most films of its era in one respect: it was not properly preserved. Paramount, like most Hollywood studios, did not create a preservation program — “asset protection” in industry parlance — until the home-video boom of the 1980s proved film libraries could have indefinite, lucrative lives. Before that awareness took hold, original negatives were typically used as printing negatives, which meant the original negatives for popular pictures took a lot of abuse. The Godfather was not only popular, it was Hollywood’s first blockbuster, and over the years, “the neck of the golden goose was certainly wrung out,” says the film’s cinematographer, Gordon Willis, ASC, with typical candor.

This really is heartbreaking, that a cinema classic such as this is left with a Blu-ray that looks more like an upconverted standard DVD.

On Amazon, Reviewer Wayne Klein claims...

"The Godfather" was meant to look grainy so those of you who hate grain will probably wonder why they didn't eliminate it. That's because to do so would have required altering the look of the film not restoring it and the usual result of eliminating film grain is that you lose detail.

The problem is that you get some grain, but only in the most underexposed scenes where the lab had to push the image more than otherwise. This is nothing like the well-used print I saw years and years ago in a revival house in LA, which was scratched and broken in places but had some fine cinematic detail. One of the appeals of Blu-ray is that it can actually present much of that rich detail. But The Godfather does not showcase that.

Back on Amazon, reviewer Kieth Paynter writes:

If you are looking for a "wow" disc to show off your Blu-ray home theater sound and video, this is not it. If you are looking to experience modern American Gangster cinema in its 1970's glory, this is as close as you are ever likely to get, muted sepia-esque color, film grain and all.

These were not done exclusively for the home market. The priority was that they were restored for theatres, because that is where they would be judged the most critically, and all indications are that they do not disappoint. Never watch these films in your living room with the lights on. Watch them like you do in the theater, lights out, to appreciate the effort that went into these films.

That's excellent advice. You can't appreciate the rich blacks in the compositions with the room lights on.

The Godfather is still one of the greatest movies of all time, and if you have never seen it, put that on a must-watch list. This Blu-ray is not going to get you the cinematic experience, but at least it has the richness. And all of the story is there, as vivid and compelling as ever.

Perhaps of interest: An American Cinematographer article on The Godfather restorations done some time ago.

So I bought two seats of Parallels a week or so ago. I couldn't resist: It was buy one, get one free. (And still is through December 31st.) Now my desktop Mac at work and my MacBook Pro drive the latest versions of OS X Leopard, Windows Vista and Ubuntu Linux, all from the same desktop, running in ... parallel. Who needs to choose between Mac and PC when there's Parallels?

The online world changed for me this year. I discovered the handheld — or rather what the handheld promises to be. I had a Palm 700p before. It was a good phone. Qwerty keyboard. Great reception. Worked just about anywhere. But after more than 2 years with the Palm, I just had to try the iPhone, the multitouch interface, the motion sensor. But I had no idea what worlds would be opened up over the months since — mostly not by Apple directly, but by the creative minds creating some applications that strike me as almost mind-blowing.

I almost didn't go for it. For many months I resisted. I'd had AT&T service before, and did not want to go back. But that GUI tempted me.

It's a good GUI, and even the awkward keyboard laid out for 9-year-old fingers is saved by the rather smart active spellcheck.

But ever since firmware 2.0, the iPhone has been something else.

Apps.

Some are amazing. Some unexpected. Some just pretty cool. Here are a few.

[Breaking: Microsoft releases its first iPhone app: Seadragon... a game-changer? Doesn't look like it at first glance.]

Shazam

This app is amazing. Hear a song you like? Start up this app and let it listen for a few seconds, and it'll find it for you. This screenshot shows the result of a song I heard in the end-titles of an episode of True Blood, when I was introduced to a new band.

It's hard enough to be exposed to new bands in this day and age when radio sucks and the music studios don't want anyone to share their favorites with others. You gotta be able to grab it when you hear it. Shazam!

Google app

You expect Google to come up with some good stuff, but this app tops expectations, again using sound. Start the app. Speak. And Google gives you search results. Nice!

Apparently Google technically broke Apple's API rules with this app. But it's Google, and Google and Apple are friends. And so innovation happens.

OneTap

Want to take in a movie? Start the app, and it finds the movies playing in the nearest theatre by you, with upcoming showtimes and ratings. All at literally one tap.

If you want to exert yourself and go for a second tap, you can read a (very) little synopsis, or watch a trailer. Nifty!

Ocarina

Ocarina is a musical instrument. You actually blow into the mic and touch your fingers on the screen. It's like an electronic flute! And it takes practice to produce anything sounding musical.

Bloom

Bloom is another instrument. This time it's easier to make pleasant sounds, because you're leveraging the creativity of Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers. It's like a musical loop. You tap on the screen, and it chimes depending upon where you tap, and after a configurable amount of time it starts to loop back on you, while you continue to tap. There are some variations on tone and mood that you can also set. Very cool.

Asphalt4

What's a gaming assortment without a fast-car racing app? This one is cool. It takes advantage of the iPhone's built-in motion sensor to make the handset itself a controller, like a Wii. To steer, you tip the phone right and left.

The graphics are outstanding for a little handheld app, and outdo many XBox and PSP apps in that department. Shiny!

Twittelator

There are a few Twitter apps out there, but this one is the one I keep firing up.

I especially like the hot-topics search feature. This app is truly Twitter tops in my book. Tweet!

Twitterfon

If the tweets in Twittelator take up too much space for you, a stripped-down Twitter app is this one. Clean, lean, lightweight. Tweet and run!

WeatherBug

Every day starts with my reaching to the nightstand for my iPhone, and firing up WeatherBug. (Okay, I might check Twittelator first.) I want to know what the weather is looking like for the day.

And yes, it was -3 degrees this afternoon. Colder at my house. Brrr!

Maps

Apple does alright in the app development department. Maps comes pre-installed, and it is really one useful app, melding maps and search into a handy interface to find what you need and where it's at. The pin marks the spot. Doink!

HoldEm

I confess I find this one totally addicting. I love poker now! The computerized opponents are pretty tough. And they bluff!

I prefer the eye-in-the-sky view. The action is faster. All in!

Links

• lexie reviews her favorite apps.
• Bootleg Betty on the Pocket Closet app, which helps you figure out what to wear.
• Stacey Higginbotham's review from last June gives a rundown of a completely different list of cool apps.
• Top 10 Apps Worth Jailbreaking your iPhone to Get.
• BlogHer's Elisa Camahort on how Twitterfon led her into an adventure in Twitter's unfortunate API and security.

2009?

Who knows? There are many new handhelds coming out next year, or are out now. And some will be running Android, Google's open source handheld operating system, which will put some pressure on Apple to open up a little.

Maybe we'll see some effective leveraging of handhelds in social media. Aside from Twitter, the offerings have been underwhelming. But the interest is out there. And every change that makes a device more entertaining to use and useful to have around starts to change how we live our lives.

A year ago I was living in Palm world. Now that's behind me, and while it's not so easy to make a phone call, I wouldn't go back. Not on a bet!

This post is also posted on BlogHer.

I just put up a new editor post on BlogHer about Change.gov. This one was a bit different — an assignment that took me a bit off my tech & web beat just a bit into the political realm. At least we're post-election, so I don't feel I need to take a shower.

Every morning I reach for my iPhone to get the latest news from Bloomberg. (I'd probably go to the NY Times first, but their app is still far too unstable and slow to be of much use.) This morning, one headline jumped out at me:

Twitter Shuns Venture-Capital Money as Startup Values Plunge

Well I had to read that article. And it seems to hint at the piercing of the Silicon Valley Bubble -- not a floating bubble leading to a crash, but rather the isolation bubble, like Bubble Boy. What? Silicon Valley is Bubble Boy?

Evan Williams raised $22 million in funding for Twitter Inc., a Web site used by everyone from Britney Spears to Starbucks Corp. to Barack Obama. Sales? Those could come later -- that was, until the economy tanked.

Twitter may charge companies for access to its users so it doesn't have to ask venture capitalists for more cash, said Williams, the company's chief executive officer. As the value of Internet companies plunges this year, investors are asking for a bigger chunk of the startups they invest in.

"The VCs have the money, but they'll just negotiate harder," said Williams, who sold his previous venture, Blogger, to Google Inc. in 2003. "I want to manage things so I don't have to raise money in 2009."

In the rest of the tech world, and in the business world in general, making money is the first goal. No matter what else you are trying to achieve with your business, you need to make money so you can do the other things you want to do.

Which brings me to the Bubble. Silicon Valley has been this odd duck in the business world: An entire metropolitan region driven largely by R&D. In the Silicon Valley Bubble, the demands upon most businesses regarding sales revenues are largely removed from the environment. The dominant business model? Raise capital, then burn that capital in development of the FooBar Widget (as an imaginary example), hoping you get bought by Google or Microsoft before you run out of money. The real product is not the FooBar Widget, it's the company itself, and the targeted buyer is a new media or tech corporation with deep pockets and a hunger for new ideas.

It's a wonderful sub-economy, this Bubble, if you think about it. And necessary to cultivate many kinds of innovation.

Matt Marshall is blunt:

Last time, circa 2001, the entire VC industry got a “get-out-jail-free card” after the Internet bubble burst. That’s because the scores of new firms created in the late 1990s argued they should be forgiven for any poor performance — it was the bubble’s fault, and everyone was affected. Their investors — chief among them, the elite university endowments –agreed, and gave the VC firms more money to invest again. With most VC funds lasting for ten years, this ensured the VCs a very long life indeed.

He predicts that half the VCs will go under in the current economic turndown.

Barak Rabinowitz has an interesting post on how this paradigm shift is happening in the face of an un-tapped market.

There’s an elephant in the room of online advertising. An elephant in the shape of 400 million social networkers creating and consuming content, clustering around shared interests and activities — all who have yet to be tapped in any major way by web marketers.

Determining how to best reach these people is an ongoing struggle, one complicated by the soaring rate of user-generated content. For the first time, advertisers accustomed to the leading edge are now running to catch up. The conversation is no longer about display ads vs. text ads. Rather, the burning question has become: Who is going to profit from the opportunity presented by social networks, and how are they going to do it?

Some people will perhaps disagree, but my sense is that there hasn't been nearly enough thought put into this aspect as there might of been had the venture-backed Valley economy not been so comfortable in its Bubble. (Call it my reality-based bias as an entrepreneur whose company and clients always need to look to the bottom line.)

The challenge now, Barak points out, is that the end-users of these social network ventures aren't likely to take kindly to big changes to their user experiences, especially when those changes are motivated by revenue generation strategies. What's more:

The bad news for all social networking sites — video portals especially — is that users generally don’t have the mentality to view and click on ads when they are on these platforms. This is why search continues to be the most lucrative advertising strategy. Users are specifically seeking information in that arena. On social networks, people are primarily concerned with communicating with their friends, not looking to buy items or services.

Now with the Bubble deflating under the pressure of the bursting of that bubble of another kind, the investment banking bubble, maybe we'll start to see more innovation in ways to monetize social networks.

The case of Twitter is a good example of that challenge. Whither Twitter now?