Gary Barnett's Blog

You’ll probably have seen one or more “Hitler Parody” videos on you tube, in which a short clip is taken from the German-language film “Downfall” and the subtitles replaced for comic effect.

This morning Glyn Moody retweeted this article, it seems that  maker of “Downfall” , Constantin Film Distribution has taken steps to oblige the likes of YouTube to take these parodies down on the grounds of copyright infringement.

First, I’ll have to admit that part of me is little uncomfortable about a film extract depicting a man directly and indirectly responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people being used for comedy purposes. But I’ve had it pointed out to me that, culturally, it might actually be part of the healing process to depict this evil evil creature in a darkly comic light. Besides, there’s plenty more publically accessible content that is a whole lot more distasteful out there.

Next I’d add that I don’t think these clips do infringe, since in most cases they represent less than 2% of the original I would say that they represent fair use. But I am neither a Lawyer nor a Texan judge, so my views on IPR law aren’t overly special.

Whatever the law, and whatever the dubious tastefulness of these parodies, Constantin film is making a mistake in blocking these parodies. If Constantin were smarter, they’d have promoted them, hell if I were the company I’d have found a developer to build an app that made it easier to create the parodies and hosted it on my website.

This bad call on Constantin film’s part neatly presents the division between the people that “get” the notion (and power) of the creative commons and those that don’t.

Evidently Constantin film is a “don’t”.

This is a fascinating video of a 2 year old’s first expeirence with the iPad. See the blog entry by the little girl’s dad here

Todd Lapin acknowkedges that his little’un is already iPhone savvy – but still… I found this video awesome.

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(Gary Barnett 4.00 AM 30/March/2010)

Today, Apple’s home page contains only one item, a tribute to Jerome B York. Mr York was, by all accounts, an extremely successful man whose career spanned CFO roles with Chrysler and IBM, the CEO’ship of Micro Warehous and an investment fund. In addition Mr York was a director of Apple.

This morning Apple’s homepage looks like this :-

Apple's home page on 18th March 2010

This is a powerful and touching tribute, and one that says something to me about Apple too.

I’d like to express my condolences to Mr Yorks family and friends.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

Oh yes, my blog was hacked. So, an afternoon of trying to figure out what happened has culminated in a frech install and a restore – Thank goodness for backups eh!

This is a very quick post but I had do, given my earlier post on Android vs iPhone.Eric Raymond has posted this blog and if I disagreed a little with the earlier blog entry, this one has me really quite irritated.

Essentially :-

• It is silly to equate the PC market with the handset market
• Err… So “Unix” won did it? Now I thought Linux wasn’t Unix….
• So windows was successful because it provided a platform for other people to make money..and Apple has provided a way to help developers make money, and ensures consumers don’t install rubbish on their phones and that’s bad?
• WinMo isn’t comparable to Android – but Java is and that hardly created an exciting apps ecosystem
• Oh and Symbian is open sourced because its backers know it’s dead

Read the rest of this entry »

Glyn Moody tweeted about this blog post by Peter Wayner of  Infoworld. I’d encourage you to read the blog entry, it’s a typically well written and well positioned post. But, I do differ with Peter on a number of points and this is my typically less well written and less well thought out response.

Oh I should add that I am an iPhone fanboy, and proud to be so

So, here’s the short version:-

• iPhone vs Android isn’t coke vs pepsi, it’s coke vs virgin cola
• It’s disingenuous to say that the iPhone is for “Play” and the Android for “Work”
• Today the iPhone strikes a much better balance between the desires of consumers vs developers
• Consumers don’t care about “open” they care about “now”
• Multiple Android distros is BAD for Android, not good
• Flexibility and choice are attractive to developers but often a nightmare for consumers
• Multiple formats and screen sizes represent too much choice
• I’m not sold on “Open Google” in the way that many commentators are
• Its just not clear which will win, but right now iPhone is still well ahead

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The Guardian commented here on Jonathan Schwartz’s resignation tweet which came in the form of a Haiku..

“Financial crisis,
Stalled too many customers
CEO no more,”
he wrote.

The article encouraged readers to come up with their own haiku, and here’s mine…

Absent strategy,
customers will leave
time to get hair cut

If you’re in a hurry -

• Employee morale is at a deeply low point across Europe
• This is a far cry from Bill Thomas’s vision of Fun, Impact and Operational Excellence
• It is not to0 late but HP has got to work hard to re-engage with European Employees
• My advice – close the chapter, re-engage, retain some of the old EDS values while blending them with HP’s

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I’m at Lotusphere 2010 in sunny Orlando, Florida. It’s day one, and I’m already having lots of fun. Here’s my take on the main tent session this morning.

If you’re in a hurry;

• Overall the session ticked pretty much all of the boxes
• Guest speaker William Shatner did a nice job of talking about collaboration
• IBM’s approach to partners gets better and better
• IBM understands the value and importance of “Open” – even if there is still plenty to do
• But There wasn’t enough talk about how consumable lotus services are by other apps
• Project Vulcan offers a view into the future of the Lotus offering

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