From The Weblog: Lost using the Cloud Atlas
Last night, I posted the following comment to Facebook:
Thoughts on "Cloud Atlas": it's a beautiful film, but I think that the filmmakers' incomplete application of karma as a narrative element weakens the overall story. The lack of karmic consequences & closure (I'm intentionally trying to be vague) combined with an inconsistent use of the cast took what was probably an exceptional story and diluted it significantly.
I felt compelled to elaborate on those comments. Below follows a brief discussion that probably contains spoilers. If you're worried about that kind of thing, close the browser now. For the rest of you, I'm going to assume that you saw the film so I don't plan on laying a lot of groundwork to get you up to speed.
About Me
July 2009. I am a software developer and small business owner in Chicago. I founded Audacious Software in late 2008, and I continue to operate the business by creating new software products and providing general IT consulting services.
Prior to becoming an entrepreneur, I worked as a software developer for Northwestern University's Academic Technologies (2002-2006). After leaving Academic Technologies, I completed a master's degree in Media, Technology & Society at Northwestern University's School of Communication (2006-2009). While completing that degree, I was a member of the Collabolab, where I designed and implemented context-aware software and assistive technologies.
Prior to my employment (and later education at Northwestern), I received a bachelor of arts degree in computer science at Princeton University (1998-2002). My senior thesis research produced a decentralized system for storing, sharing, and aggregating geographic data (not unlike Google Earth).
When I am not busy writing software, I enjoy practicing piano, reading books, and expanding my collection of X-Men comic books. I've been known to play the occasional video game, and I am a fan of Blizzard's World of Warcraft. I am also an amateur scholar of the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I am particularly interested in the history of the ownership and rights to his fiction and mythos.
Recent Updates
Current Projects
Audacious Software: Audacious Software is commercial venture that I am building into a software development and technology consulting business.
Pennyworth: Pennyworth is the central component of my context-awareness research. Pennyworth provides a platform for building adaptive applications by providing a rich set of sensors and machine learning that users train to recognize their activity, location, and social context. I record more general context-aware musings at the Context Blog.
H.P. Lovecraft Copyright Research: This is a project that began when I started to investigate the copyright status of Lovecraft's fiction. Since then, it's grown into a larger endeavor researching the history of Lovecraft's colleagues and successors.
Publications & Other Work
July 2005. Free software and digital rights management: Bitter enemies or strange bedfellows? Free Software Magazine, No. 6. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc. Republished in Satish, D. (ed.). Digital Rights Management: An Introduction. Hyderabad, India: The Icfai University Press. 2007. pp. 26-34.
Apr. 2005. Promoting free software on non-free platforms: Why developing free software for proprietary platforms benefits the free software community. Free Software Magazine, No. 3. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.
Mar. 2005. Poking at iTunes: A developer's guide to the iTunes platform. Free Software Magazine, No. 2. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.
Feb. 2005. Mac OS X: Welcome to the jungle. Free Software Magazine, No. 1. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.
Retired Projects
Books: I created Books in 2003 for managing collections of books and other printed materials. The application featured an extensive plug-in architecture and was highly regarded by its users.
Chicagoist: For two years, I worked the interview beat for Chicagoist, a local weblog. During my time, I had the good fortune to chat with a variety of interesting local folk, including Peter Sagal and Mr. T.
The House Theatre of Chicago: For several years, I worked with the House to bolster their online presence using weblogs, podcasts, and other online media.
Diversions
World of Warcraft: Adenadar, Cutiepi
Online Services: Facebook, del.icio.us, Flickr, LibraryThing, Comic Book DB
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