In a world where you might be working with people from the EU in the morning, on your own code all day, then passing off to Korea/China in the evening, distributed development teams are everywhere.
Unfortunately, distributed teams are also very difficult to manage and keep wellbeing and moral high. Google has some tips for you and your team:
http://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/distributedworkplaybooks.pdf
I’ve written about this growing trend before and there are indications it is happening in other countries.
In Japan, half a million people live isolated in their bedrooms, unable to face the outside world. These modern-day hermits are known as the hikikomori. Since April 2018, the Japanese government has been conducting a nationwide study in a bid to fully understand this strange phenomenon.
There are finally some fruits of this studies and some programs that are really working. It appears many of those suffering from this condition remain so because of fear that compounds to the point they are afraid of the outside world. Afraid to meet others. Even afraid of speaking.
I, however, take issue with the reporter that cause this all ‘disturbing’ or ‘frightening’. These are sick people that need help for sure, but what they crave is a sense of belonging and human contact without the skills or help to know how to do it.
I personally believe the proliferation of technology that replaces genuine
human contact with simple online presence are creating gulfs in our human need for real belonging, connection, and meaning. As evidence of this, it’s usually not until those suffering are connected with a real human being to help them out.
Seoul, Korea’s Cafe 연남동 239-20 has a nifty design aesthetic. The entire place is done up in a black-and-white line art style that gives everything an illustrated 2D look. No detail was overlooked, from the chairs to the coffee mugs.
It’s no secret that I love the movie Clue. Besides the movie, there were also some books written by the screenwriters. Unfortunately, the movie wasn’t a big commercial success so the books were quickly discontinued and forgotten. Getting your hands on one of them is rather difficult – and expensive.
Thanks to an inter-library loan, however, I recently acquired a copy of Clue: The Storybook and did a page by page scan. I then combined the scans into a convenient PDF. The book provides a very abbreviated and thin read of the movie proper. The in-book pictures weren’t particularly good quality (very grainy prints), but there were some pictures I had not seen in any other sources nor in the movie itself.
The most interesting part of the book is that it reveals a secret 4th ending that had been rumored at, but supposedly never filmed.
Where can you get your hands on a copy? How about downloading the scanned copy I made right here so you don’t have to pay hundreds of dollars. Enjoy!
Download a PDF copy of Clue: The Storybook here!
Clue: The Storybook
by Ann Matthews (Storybook Adaptor), Johnathan Lynn (Screenplay), John Landis (Story)
Published Dec 1, 1985
ISBN: 0671618679
ISBN13: 9780671618674
Oct 2023 Update:
It looks like someone took my scans and then put them together up on the Internet Archive!
Clue is one of my favorite movies of all time. I discovered it when I was younger, and was immediately captivated.
Now, the folks over at It Looks So Fake productions are dong a Clue movie documentary called Who Done It.
They are going through an interviewing most of the original cast and crew – and it’s starting to look really promising. While development seems to be going very slowly, I’m excited to see what they come up with.
The cult classic Beetlejuice is coming to Broadway! Besides being a wild ride to score, it presents a unique challenge for the set design as workers must morph the traditional country home of the recently deceased Maitlands, to the kitsch taste of the Deetzes, and then finally into a demon-infested haunted play land.
Set designers came up with an ingenious design that makes room for puppetry, special effects, quick changes, and dance numbers.
Read more about the process and designers here.
Now, this is pretty neat.
This 9 episode series, first aired in 1990, recently appeared on Netflix. After a re-watch, I am now convinced more than ever it is one of the best documentaries of all time.
It is so unlike the politically-charged and biased ‘documentaries’ that flood out these days. I think it’s also a great demonstration of what documentaries used to be and what GOOD academics looks like. Based before all else on impartial reporting of facts, source material from all angles, and gives little interpretative judgement.
Today, it seems, we get so wrapped in our current highly politicized re-interpretation of the past/current events that we forget that those events often had altogether different meanings and different reasons than we like to put on them. Today’s documentaries all too often white-wash the actions of the past to a single opinion as seen through the lens of one or two directors. They push the documentarian’s opinion and blast over material with today’s arrogance and biases. Ironically, actually losing the most important lessons those events have to teach us.
I have seen this documentary twice now. Once in my teens, and once now in my adult years. I understood far more this time than before as I could relate to each of the players more fully now – from the lowly soldier to the struggles of Lincoln’s decisions.
I heartily recommend a re-watch and sharing this with your kids. If for no other reason than to understand this kind of high quality academics is what used to be considered the norm.
Skalar is a massive audio-visual sculpture – a collaborative piece by light artist Christopher Bauder and musician Kangding Ray. The combination of kinetic mirrors, perfectly synchronized moving lasers, a changing color palette, and a sophisticated multi-channel sound system triggers sensory and psychological reactions and offers a truly innovative experience.
The series ‘Smarter Everyday’ did a great discussion of the problems of social media – with the actual engineers of Facebook and those researching it. And it is essential people realize the scope and breadth of how manipulated everything you read on social media is. And that outrage and polarization are the key tools they are using to do it.
Facebook: “We delete more than 1 million fake accounts a day.”
“You can go to a company that sells upvotes/downvotes, followers, comments, and views via bots. This one company’s bots were manipulating the upvotes and posting comments for politicians in 2 different countries, a fitness coach, a hair clinic, a rap artist, an immigration company, and the posts relating to the future of shapeware. We see both political and commercial manipulation.
The comments themselves were written by the purchasers and the bot will then upvote/downvote and post them as hundreds of different viewers to the posts. The services are delivered within 15-60 minutes, cost under $10, and are very difficult to detect. You basically have no idea whether the people following, commenting, nor upvoting a post are real or bots.”