Culture

Kinect Hacks, Microsoft, And Consumer Experimentation

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So how many ways can people do bizarre and unusual things with the Kinect?

The Kinect seems to be getting hacked left and right.  Yet, it seems beyond some of the pornographic elements, Microsoft is saying very little about this.  This leads me to two conclusions I'd like to discuss.

(And, yes I could joke about a Microsoft product being hacked, but that's serious low-hanging humor fruit).

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Review: Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization

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Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization
By Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright
# ISBN-10: 0061251305
# ISBN-13: 978-0061251306

PROS:

  • Provides a researched system of classifying organizations and businesses as "tribes" that is easy to apply.
  • Has useful ideas for helping people "tribe up" and improve their relations and improve organizational relations.
  • Very readable and understandable.
  • Doesn't pull punches on some of the conclusions.

CONS:

  • Some historical interpretations are arguable.

SUMMARY: Buy this book and read it unless you have no interest in community, leadership, and business.  In that case you're probably not even reading this blog.

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Film, Format, Fiascos, and the Future

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People hated "The Last Airbender" for many reasons.  I'm not going to argue any of them, as I've seen it (with Rifftrax) and it was mind-numbingly bad in a way that actually beat my incredibly low expectations.  But among the things people say about the film adaption of the beloved franchise – the hate of the actors, the plot, the acting, the direction, the story, the intermittent attacks of slow-mo -  there's one thing I rarely hear brought up.

Why a film anyway?  I mean let's assume that you have some driving reason to turn "Avatar: The Last Airbender" into some other media form, why a film?

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