Shin's Blog

Films

2011-02-15T00:54:00.007Z

Social Network: great film, fascinating insight, amazing dialogue. Dramatically a big plus, not a huge pull emotionally - unsurprisingly. 8/10

True Grit: beautiful, wonderful, delightful. Fantastic performances all round, doesn't put a foot wrong. A couple of nice Coen moments (yes, the bear head, but also the complete random chance encounter with Chaney). Makes you love Westerns again. 9/10

Tangled: nice, marred only slightly by the bang-up-to-date dialogue. Not a classic Disney, but good fare. 7/10

The King's Speech: lovely, lovely, lovely. A charming delight of a film, 90 minutes spent in excellent company. Unsung hero - Guy Pearce. Probably not a timeless classic, but good. 8/10.

Tron Legacy: dire, boring, drivel. 3D where I saw it was shocking - too dark to make anything out. Will only go to 3D if I feel confident about the cinema e.g. Imax. 3/10.

127 Hours: Danny Boyle fails, once again, to make a dull, ordinary movie. Visually a treat, performance is great (and I wasn't a De Franco fan before so will be interesting to see where he goes next). I'm not sure Boyle could be unexciting if his life depended on it. 8/10.

Never Let Me Go: chilly, tragic, haunting. Makes me want to read the book, and appeals to the side of me that likes going to sad places. 3 leads were excellent. Charlotte Rampling was as icy as ever. Films like this are strange - they feel like wearing a comfortable blanket of sadness that you don't want to take off, but know that the place they put you isn't really good for living a day to day life. Something to wallow in. 7/10.

The Expendables: bad, in every way it's possible to be bad. Will waste no more of my life thinking or talking about it. 1/10.

How To Train Your Dragon: favourite animated film of recent years, even more than Toy Story 3. Just a charming flight of fantasy with astonishing action and just really, really, really good story-telling. 9/10.

Catfish: utterly over-rated. There is no mystery. Ordinary and predictable. 5/10.

Unstoppable: straightforward, non-post-modern, thrilling action. By the master of this stuff. Chris Pine's career is only just beginning and he will be huge. About as enjoyable as straight-out action can get. 8/10.

The Kids are All Right: given I have a man-crush on Mark Ruffalo, this film didn't fail to deliver. Charming and witty, by today's standards. 7/10

Buried: frustrating and ultimately, pointless. Sometimes the end does justify the means. In this case, the ending undermined the entire film. 5/10

Made in Dagenham: super film. I think we're only allowed a good British working class film every 5 years or so. This was this half-decade's. 8/10

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: inventive and original. Very funny at times. And clever. So it flopped. Sigh. 8/10

Book of Eli: as awful as it is distasteful. End of the world and we still give a shit about religion. That truly is a depressing vision of post-apocalypse humanity. 3/10.

Inception: yes, it's great, but a timeless classic? Up there with the Godfather, Star Wars, Alien, Blade Runner? Probably not. Still, 9/10.

Invictus: so enjoyable, brim full of pathos. Matt Damon, you are a megastar. 9/10.

The Adjustment Bureau: rounding off the Matt Damon series, a really enjoyable mind-bender. 8/10.

13 Assassins: for what it is - a modern production value and sensibility samurai action film - it's good. Nothing more than that. 7/10.

Tsunezo Kanaoya

2011-01-31T22:51:00.001Z

So, my grandfather died today. He was 94. Ultimately, I didn't know much about him. He was born during WW1. He lived through WW2. He had one son, 2 grandchildren. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he wasn't a bad man. He lived a life and then died.
I'm in a strange state. I feel obliged to feel that this is a big deal for us, but because I wasn't that close to him emotionally, I'm left wondering how to feel. You shouldn't really have to direct your emotions. Anyway, he was my grandfather, he had a great innings, and now he's gone.
RIP
Tsunezo Kanaoya
October 11th 1916 - January 31st 2011

Design Talk

2010-03-16T12:22:00.001Z

http://kotaku.com/5479125/points-for-toothbrushing-the-gaming-speech-everyone-is-talking-about

Amusing, alarmist claptrap? Or a vision of society sleep-walking into bondage?

2009-10-14T16:28:00.001+01:00

Free To Pray

2009-10-13T12:43:00.003+01:00

It seems that everyone's trying to figure out freemium in online games. Certain people make it work, like Zynga, others struggle to get people to pay up. 2 things that the freemium model reveal about us as consumers: 1) we get addicted to progression for progression's sake and 2) ease of use is paramount. Zynga apparently have a bible that they call the Zynga Playbook, that allegedly was handed over to the their rival Playdom, when the latter hired 4 of the former .

This Playbook might as well have been called the bible, for it contains all the secrets to creating a highly monetizable freemium service. I assume in there is contained the sum total of their knowledge, which you can probably glean a lot of if you play through their games and dissect. Ease of access, tying into an existing userbase and the users' network, viral growth techniques, progression ramps, monetization barriers, etc. This Playbook clearly works. Farmville has 54m uniques per month, Mafia Wars has something like 25m. Assuming an attach rate of maybe 10%, and an ARPPU of $20 per year (which probably isn't too far from the truth given they are reported to be near $100m in annual sales), they're making a very pretty penny on games that must cost peanuts to develop (relatively, compared to a AAA console title). I'll be first in line at the IPO.

However, all that's really happening here is technology enabling something in an overtly commercial way that religion has been doing for centuries. All of these games are free to play - all religions are free to play (some aren't, like Scientology, but let's think of those as offering a premium service - more like a subs-based MMO). Most religions benefit from having a huge engaged community (in 2002, there were 2 billion Christians in the world), low cost base (most relgions are exempt from paying taxes AND their infrastructure costs were largely paid off centureis ago), and incredible reach through viral marketing (faith schools and religious education). They also have the most sought after product in the world: The Answer. No wonder they continue to thrive despite all the progess of science and reason.

The big question mark, for me, is their attach rate to purchase. If a standard freemium service ranges from 1-10%, I'm guessing that religion is even higher. Think about collections at services and buying religious items (The Bible is still the best-selling book the world has ever seen), not to mention that they have an amazing B2B business (the Catholic church is a huge landowner). One thing you never hear - a religion folding due to lack of funds.

So, there's a lot we can learn from religion to create a great freemium service:

Have a great service (church services, community) with a great consumer promise (heaven, absolution, forgiveness).
Go after the largest userbase possible (the whole world), with the lowest min-spec (a brain).
Have a great launch marketing campaign (martyrdom) or an existing userbase (the religion in question).
Grassroots and viral marketing (faith schools and relgious education, indoctrination).
Low-barriers to entry (free to pray).
Low cost base (zero taxes, volunteers).
Monetization barriers (buying a bible, donations in church).

It seems that religion *does* have the answers.

Assisted Suicide

2008-10-02T01:00:00.003+01:00

Here we bloody go again:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7644094.stm
Love this quote:
But Dr Peter Saunders, of Care Not Killing, said: "It's not against the law to commit suicide - but assisting suicide is a crime. "
So you have the right to do it, but if you're incapable, tough. Huh, we should get rid of all disability access then. Sure you have the right to get into this building, but if you can't, tough. Funnily enough, those people needing assistance to commit suicide, are driven to that point due to a disability so debilitating that it removes the ability to do it unassisted. It should be a fundamental right to do what you want with your own life. It should also be a principle that if you can't do something yourself, that is legal, then assistance is permissible.
Evolve. Now.

Ellie Wellie

2007-05-31T14:58:00.000+01:00

A few quick pics of Ellie. Next time you see her, ask her to do her pirate impression.

Look ma, no hands!

2007-05-31T14:51:00.000+01:00

Such are the amazing early powers of our second-born, at 3 days old, she is already able to feed herself with no assistance from mum.

More Chloe!

2007-05-30T23:08:00.000+01:00

Some better pictures of our latest and greatest.

2005-07-24T13:46:00.000+01:00

Susan with 5 day old Lottie.

2005-06-24T21:50:00.000+01:00

Nearly at the end of the detox and I've lost 3/4 of a stone. Who knew you could weigh pleasure.

2005-05-31T22:33:00.000+01:00

Had our sumptuous evening meal - vegetable quinoa. It opened my eyes to a whole new level of blandness. Blandness so bland, you can actually taste it.

2005-05-31T08:44:00.000+01:00

Started the detox program this morning. The smoothie tastes like dying, but the muesli was nice. And I feel stuffed. Stuffed full of death.

Free Holiday!

2005-05-30T19:30:00.000+01:00

Susan got a call tonight saying we'd won a "free holiday". The name of the company is GVC Travel. One quick look on Google and:
http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/travel-agents/the-grand-vacation-club-gvc/reviews/dd/
You gotta love these people.

2005-05-29T12:03:00.000+01:00

Me at E3. Ceci n'est pas moi.

2005-05-29T08:59:00.000+01:00

While at E3, I also ran into Alex Trowers, demoing his game, City of the Dead. He spent all 3 days in this booth, not seeing any of E3. That's probably the best way to experience it actually...

2005-05-29T08:57:00.000+01:00

So I was at E3 this year for my product, Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. While wandering around the EA stand, I saw Ken "Mr. Playstation" Kutaragi. Being the Sony fan-boy that I am, I got a picture with him. No booth babes for me, give me a short, rich Sony exec any day.

Getting back into blogging...

2005-05-29T08:33:00.000+01:00

...because someone cares what I have to say? Doubtful. Because I like the sound of my own typing? Definite.