sleepinginmyhead

what time is it?

This is a small deal, i'm fully aware of that, and i'm perfectly prepared for a pedants revolt, but here goes:

What's with the pips? 

By pips i mean the time beeps which feature on the radio before the news, designed to allow people to accurately set their watch. My dad used to do this every day before the 6pm news and tell us how much his watch had gained or lost since his last setting. I have noticed something recently and decided to conduct an experiment today at 3pm. I tuned in my DAB radio, an FM radio and my TV's digital tuner to the same channel, and also streamed the radio through my mac. The hourly pips were really far apart, and i'm talking around 25 seconds. They appeared in the following order:

first: FM radio

second: Internet streaming

third: DAB radio

fourth: TV

My question is: what's the point of the pips now? When the man says "it's six o'clock, here is the news", what does he actually mean? In a world where accuracy seems to be the target for all things, this amount of discrepancy seems huge. 

whisky business

 

Michael Johnson (of Johnson Banks fame) has just completed a nice project for Glenfiddich Whisky. The project centres around the periods of time which define the various 'ages' of whisky, from 12 to 30 years. Banks has taken these figures and used them in conjunction with the barrels to create his pieces. Here's a shame though, it's only on display in Glasgow. I like the work, but bring it on tour!

You can visit the Glenfiddich site for the corporate schtick, but this flickr site is probably best.

james bond's paperclip needs

I went to see Quantum of Solace last week, and to be honest i was heartily disappointed. It's really not great. Before going along, i read a few reviews which said it follows on from Casino Royale, so i decided to watch the first movie in the morning. It didn't help. Quantum of Solace is a confusing mess of a movie. That said, during the first film, i noticed something funny. Remember that scene near the end where Bond opens his VAIO laptop on the boat (another piece of excessive product placement), and sends an email to M announcing his resignation. Well the screen has a few other messages on it. There's a few 'security updates', the film equivalent of lorem ipsum i guess, but the best thing is the email he sent immediately prior to his resignation: "stationary request". Brilliant. James Bond needs post-it's. The thing is, now he's announced he's leaving, do you think he'll get them?

(click for biggie)

Also, look at some of the names, Neil Pinkawa: he was on the crew : lead screen graphics artist. Then there's David Hicks, he was lead motion graphics designer. And Chris McBride, he wasn't on this film crew, but he was a visual effects editor on Tomorrow Never Dies. I love this sort of thing...

sign here please

I awoke this morning thinking about signatures. Strange but true. I came to the conclusion that it's incredible that we still use them. This came into focus quite recently as i had to sign a few important documents for my family. The papers came from the Lake district to my parents in Derby via post. Once signed, they then sent the papers to my sister in Canada, and she subsequently sent them to me in London. I added my signature, and the papers went back to Derby, then i assume they'll go back to the Lake district. Here's the rub: i assume the people on the receiving end have never seen our signatures before, and have nothing to compare them to. Even if they had, they didn't watch us signing, so we could have spent a few hours practicing, in order to make a convincing forgery. Any kid who doesn't want to do sports will testify how easy it is to forge their own parent's signature. 

The notion that signatures are sufficient security for credit card payments is falling from favour. When shopping, I would often get my card returned to me prior to actually signing the slip, making it impossible for the cashier to verify the similarity. A friend of mine once paid for his pizza by signing 'mickey mouse' to prove a point. Chip and pin has superceded the signature when it comes to buying my groceries, but a signature is still used when i buy my house, or transfer pensions or whatever. Where's the logic in that?

A solution for a simple method of personal identification is incredibly difficult to realise. There are a few hybrids however, which whilst not solving the problem, are at least interesting. A finished signature is one thing, but the process of writing it is completely different. Warren, a friend of mine, can make a fairly good copy of my signature, but watching him write it, it's obviously not natural for him. A small selection of companies now produce electronic signature pads, which measure speed, rhythm and pressure at various points, and compare it against a reference, which adds a new level of security, and has therefore found a limited market in security markets.

This seems to be the best bet, although it takes us into the realm of digital devices, and therefore hacking, fakery and theft all come into play. What we need is something which requires no technology. This takes me into dangerous territory i understand. the only logical conclusion is a global, biometric database, which is entirely unworkable right? "Pop a drop of blood in the box, and our DNA sensitive paper will confirm it's you", that sort of thing.

So how can i prove it's really me? Well, currently I can't, but when we find a new way of accurately identifying people, via fingerprint, DNA or some other biometric data, i can't help thinking how backward we'll look, trusting a wobbly ink line to authenticate our own personal fortunes.

the dangers of cropping

Spotted in my local co-op. What a deal.

Jim Jannard

Jim Jannard is a name i should have known years ago, but he has only recently popped up on my radar. I find him fascinating. He seems to have that uniquely American ability to create a huge empire from nothing, and take on existing industry giants at their own game. I feel i should go back a little first. Jim Jannard founded oakley in 1975, selling motocross handlebar grips from the back of his van, then goggles, and i think you know the the rest. It's a true 'american dream' story, where the plucky individual creates a whole market from nothing, and makes a ton of money in the process. He has maintained full control of the company, and made almost every decision himself. He has also never had his own office, his desk sat in a corner of a room with other members of staff. Admittedly the door to that office had a sign which read "Knock, take two steps back, kneel", but he sounds like an unpretentious man. 

Here's the interesting thing though. He's into cameras, I mean REALLY into cameras. His immense personal wealth has allowed him to amass one of the largest individual camera collections in existence, both still image and cinematography. He also owns one of the very few 1200mm canon lenses in the world. He took every picture used in every oakley ad ever. EVERY one. Now a lot of really rich people have hobbies like this, where they collect something very expensive, just to have it, without really knowing what it's all for, but Jim Jannard is very different. In 2005 he sold Oakley to the holding company of Ray-Ban for a reported $2.1 billion, and founded RED, his own camera company. Without getting too technical or hyperbolic it looks like he's about to turn the camera world on it's head. His team have developed a movie camera which reproduces the depth of field previously only found on film. Usually, digital movie cameras produce really flat results. As the sensor tries to make sense of the world around it, it pulls too much into focus. That's why, even during the digital revolution, Hollywood stuck with with good old film, until now. The RED One is now rapidly coming the camera of choice for directors such as Peter Jackson and Steven Soderburgh. The quality is incredible, the camera is super portable, it's highly shock resistant, and more importantly, it's cheap. To hire a Panavision camera for a four week shoot costs about $25,000, you can buy a RED camera for around $17,500. It's a no brainer.

Here's where things get really interesting. The SLR market has been dominated by two players for years, Nikon and Canon. Their ears have pricked up recently, as Jim has announced that on November 15th, RED will launch a new product. No-one knows what this is, but speculation is that it will be an SLR with the ability to shoot HD video. Currently there are only a few teaser shots, but i'm keen to see what comes through on the 15th, and you can be sure Nikon and Canon will be too. 

So here's to Jim Jannard, for turning his hobby into a business which has the world market leaders nervously watching his every move. Watch this space.

woot

from kottke