The Underlying Blog

Lex Luthor is Bald Again

Moviehole has a great review of Superman Returns, which you can read here.  I think the Lex Luthor character is better without hair, which Kevin Spacey appears to be okay with (unlike Gene Hackman in the Christopher Reeve films).  For that matter people put too much emphasis on having hair (took in the hilarious George-gets-a-toupee episode of Seinfeld recently), and I'm hoping much like the popularity pugs enjoyed after the Men in Black films, baldness will be cool after Superman Returns.

Personally, as I bald over the years, I'll go Lex Luthor before I go comb-over ;).

Handbrake....Wow!

In a previous post, I put forth my theory that people would be ticked when they found they couldn't rip their DVD's onto their computers, which would result in either a massive surge in online piracy or the emergence of a streamlined ripping technology.  Well, I recently had the pleasure of seeing part of a movie on a Mac that had been ripped/converted from a DVD using a technology called Handbrake (oddly, it's not available at present time for Windows). Even without the Windows crowd as users, it's safe to say it's the first technology with the potential to go mainstream because of its ease of use and brilliant output.  I can't overemphasize how beautiful the ripped DVD looked on the gorgeous Mac display- and the size of the file was only 2 GB!  Further, with the popularity of the Ipod, Apple users have a perfect device on which to watch their ripped DVDs.

Even though it could look a bit bleak for Hollywood (especially if a technology for ripping DVDs in Windows goes mainstream), I think there is a massive opportunity for the studios to sell movies in digital format at the 2 GB approximate size.  Yes, they're selling TV shows on Itunes, but until I can buy Scarface on my Pocket PC, I won't be satisfied.

I Want to Rip My DVDs

Okay, I've had it: It annoys me to no end that movies I paid money for can't be ripped onto my hard drive (legally at least). It's not that big of a deal right now while most people work on laptops with 40-80 GB hard-drives and desktops of 100-200 GB hard drives. If the DVDs were compressed down to, say, 1 GB each, you could only comfortably put about 10 DVDs on a laptop or 70 on a desktop (I'm assuming space for work, pictures, music, etc.). But in 2 or 3 years, when laptops are packing 200 GB hard drives and desktops come equipped with terabyte drives, some of us users are going to be seriously miffed that the DVD collections we've spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on can't make the transition with us to a disc-less digital media library.  I can just see the extreme media buffs out there when they discover they can't rip their 1000+ DVD collections onto their new media PCs.  And if you think I'm paranoid in my view, just picture what would have happened 4 years ago if the early adopters of the Ipod had come home to discover that their entire disc-based music collections were encrypted and couldn't be placed on their computer or Ipod.  It would be different if we wanted to take something analogue like a record and rip it onto our computers, but we're talking about something that is already in digital form.

Hollywood doesn't appear to realize it yet, but they could be headed for some piracy from places they wouldn't normally expect it. After all, how much would you begrudge someone a downloaded or ripped copy of their favorite movie if they already owned it on DVD? Yes, technically it would be illegal to break the protection encryption, but from a publicity perspective (and publicity is how they must wage the fight against intellectual property theft as they can't chase down even a fraction of a fraction of those with ill-gotten content), I could see public opinion very much in the corner of the person who simply wanted access to what they already own.

And yes, I know some of you are saying, "Can't I just bring my favorite DVD's with me to Boise?" Believe me, if it's a big deal to people to bring one beautiful, Zen-like pearl rectangle with them to hold their music collections, it'll be a big deal to never have to get up and change DVDs again.  Want to watch Home Improvement, click the button, want to watch Lost, click the button, Sopranos, click the button.  You get the point.  6 years ago, people would have asked why you would want something like an Ipod since CD Discmans were so convenient (and cheap) - where are they now (on a train with white sprouts coming out of their ears)?  And I know movies are 2 hours long, but can you imagine flipping from the Blimp reading "The World is Yours" in Scarface to Sam Neil finding brachiosaurs on an island off "the coast of Costa Rica" to the scene in the First season of the Sopranos in which Tony gives his "I came in at the end" narrative?  All without having to "switch discs"!

Maybe this won't be a big deal, but I think it will be.  I have to think people with video Ipods are already ticked (and some are already ripping movies to the Quicktime format).  I'm pretty sure Hollywood may have outsmarted itself with its unconditional disc encryption.  I predict that once user hard-drives are big enough to hold most home DVD collections, it is likely that an underground DVD "crack- rip-watch" technology will gain mass acceptance (it's really only early-adopters right now), and/or old fashioned file-sharing of movies will flourish like never before.  Any way you flip it, it's dangerous to deny people access to what they already own.

Mark Hollander: Best Practices for Business and Happiness

100 Days

Over the past several months, I've had the pleasure of getting to know New York-based Executive Coach, Mark Hollander.  For a fascinating mix of business and philosophical topics, check out Mark's blog. He assists clients in both the strategic and operational realms using 100-Day Plans he develops with them.  Think about it: 100 days to get things going, unstuck or structured.  I love it because it's long enough to experience significant progress, but a short enough time-frame so you can get Results quickly.  A longtime mindmapper, Mark has recently incorporated the Gyronix System into the 100-Day Plan as an ongoing means of tracking Projects, Tasks and Relationships contained in MindManager maps, a development I'm very proud of.

5in500

And I should point out Mark is hard at work on an artistic pursuit that is of a world-changing nature.  When I first encountered Mark, I learned of a film project he is pursuing called 5in500.  The goal of the project, quite simply, is to discover what happiness truly is.  To accomplish it, Mark is interviewing 500 people, with the hope of selecting the 5 best answers for inclusion in the film.  It's a great idea to go after because we're all pursuing happiness in one way or another, but even more it's Mark's approach that made me think the root of happiness is finally going to be exposed.  It's because in talking to Mark, you'll notice his raw enthusiasm for finding best practices in everything, which really ratchets up my excitement for 5in500.  I love it: find the best practices for achieving a feeling of contentment and peace!  Wishing to contribute to Mark's pursuit, I decided to write up my own version of happiness, which you can read here.  Keep an eye on Mark's 5in500 project as I think it's completion will represent a cultural milestone.