cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/16316509

TiddlyWiki is a “non-linear personal web notebook,” as well as an exemplar project in the open source community. It can be a note-taking or information-ordering system in a similar vein to Obsidian or Notion, although TiddlyWiki was launched back in 2004. It can also be thought of as producing a wiki with interactive components.

However, as I discovered to my cost, TiddlyWiki has never had a strong “start here,” because it is not tailored to one specific task. Obsidian, by comparison, has the advantage of a clear vision of what it does. TiddlyWiki bewilders you with options at first because it hasn’t been designed to be sold. The community focus is on adapting it to different use cases.

So I’m going to take the advice in this explainer and use TiddlyDesktop while mentioning that there are plenty of other arrangements. It is, after all, just HTML and JavaScript. Let’s get started…

Scratch a digital capitalist and you’ll find a technological determinist – someone who believes that technology drives history. These people see themselves as agents of what Joseph Schumpeter famously described as “creative destruction”. They revel in “moving fast and breaking things” as the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, used to put it until his PR people convinced him it was not a good vibe, not least because it implied leaving taxpayers to pick up the broken pieces.

Tech determinism is an ideology, really; it’s what determines how you think when you don’t even know that you’re thinking. And it feeds on a narrative of technological inevitability, which says that new stuff is coming down the line whether you like it or not. As the writer LM Sacasas puts it, “all assertions of inevitability have agendas, and narratives of technological inevitability provide convenient cover for tech companies to secure their desired ends, minimise resistance, and convince consumers that they are buying into a necessary, if not necessarily desirable future”.

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How refreshing it is, then, to come across an account of what happens when the deterministic myth collides with democratic reality. It takes the form of “Resisting technological inevitability: Google Wing’s delivery drones and the fight for our skies”, a striking academic paper soon to be published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, ie a pukka journal. Authored by Anna Zenz and Julia Powles of, respectively, the Law School and Tech & Policy Lab of the University of Western Australia, it relates how a big tech company sought to dominate a new market, regardless of societal consequences, using a shiny new technology – delivery drones. And how alert, resourceful and determined citizens saw off the “experiment

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10963743

In response to Bray’s toot, Evan Prodromou — one of the creators of ActivityPub, who is currently writing an O’Reilly book about the protocol — noted that this “is also the argument for using the ActivityPub API.” He described the API as “an open, extensible API that can handle any kind of activity type — not just short text.”

This gets to the nub of the issue. The fact that I can’t use my Mastodon identity to, for example, sign up to Pixelfed is not actually an ActivityPub issue — it’s because the two applications, Mastodon and Pixelfed, each require you to create an account on their respective products. What Prodromou is suggesting is that, technically, you can use the ActivityPub API for account access.

In response to Bray’s toot, Evan Prodromou — one of the creators of ActivityPub, who is currently writing an O’Reilly book about the protocol — noted that this “is also the argument for using the ActivityPub API.” He described the API as “an open, extensible API that can handle any kind of activity type — not just short text.”

This gets to the nub of the issue. The fact that I can’t use my Mastodon identity to, for example, sign up to Pixelfed is not actually an ActivityPub issue — it’s because the two applications, Mastodon and Pixelfed, each require you to create an account on their respective products. What Prodromou is suggesting is that, technically, you can use the ActivityPub API for account access.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10934427

EXCLUSIVE: The new 28 Years Later trilogy from director Danny Boyle and Sony Pictures is gaining momentum, and some serious star power. Sources tell Deadline that Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes have boarded the first pic, a sequel to the original 28 Days Later.

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Deadline recently broke the news that the studio has already tapped Candyman director Nia DaCosta to helm the second part of the trilogy, and that the plan is to shoot both films back to back. As for the three newest cast members, the studio is clearly showing it means business, adding star power instead of going the lesser-known-actor route like in previous installments

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10893967

While U.S. distributors continue to complain about its low commercial prospects, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” has been picked up by Le Pacte in France. French newspaper Le Point confirms the film has also set a late September release in France.

Le Pacte is the same distributor as last year’s “Anatomy of a Fall.” No word yet on how much they paid to nab the rights to “Megalopolis,” but I can’t imagine it being that high given that Le Pacte isn’t necesarilly a studio known to dish out an inordinate amount of money for a film.

The early word we’ve gotten thus far is that Coppola’s self-funded $120 million epic is a perplexing film. It’s been described as “batsh*t crazy.” “baffling,” “downright confounding,” “undefinable,” “fit for a museum” and the “work of a madman.”

Last month’s, THR takedown of “Megalopolis,” a nasty piece of writing, surely didn’t help anything. What the report basically stated was that “Megalopolis” studio execs believed the film to be “too experimental” and “not commercial enough” to acquire.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/10503609

Alex Garland is expected to write the scripts for all three of the 28 Years Later movies, but apparently didn’t want to direct them. Danny Boyle will only be directing the first one. For the second film, possibly titled 28 Years Later Part 2, he’ll be passing the helm over to Candyman and The Marvels director Nia DaCosta. Production on DaCosta’s sequel will begin immediately after Boyle wraps filming on his. They wanted to have the sequel director signed on before filming on the first movie begins, as they want to “make sure each director is on the same page in regard to the story while also having time to bring their own vision to life.”

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While doing the press rounds for Oppenheimer last year, Murphy told Collider, “I was talking to Danny Boyle recently, and I said, ‘Danny, we shot the movie at the end of 2000.’ So I think we’re definitely approaching the 28 Years Later. But like I’ve always said, I’m up for it. I’d love to do it. If Alex [Garland] thinks there’s a script in it and Danny wants to do it, I’d love to do it.“ Despite the fact that Murphy is willing to reprise the role of Jim and is on board 28 Years Later as an executive producer, we still haven’t heard confirmation that he’ll actually be in the movie. While talking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast a couple months ago, Murphy said (with thanks to Coming Soon for the transcription), “It’s for (Danny Boyle and Alex Garland) to speak about, I suppose, but I think it’s been brewing for a while. The first movie was so important for me, as an actor. I love working with those guys. Alex has an idea. And Danny directing is just huge. Watch this space.”

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While we wait to hear for sure if Cillian Murphy is or isn’t in the movie, other casting rumors have been floating around. According to industry scooper Daniel Richtman, Jodie Comer (Killing Eve) and Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy) are in talks to play the lead roles. Details on the characters they might be playing are, of course, being kept under wraps.

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There was a bidding war over the distribution rights to the 28 Years Later trilogy, with Warner Bros. and Sony emerging as the final competitors – and Sony taking the win in the end. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Each movie will have a budget in the $60 million range but it’s unclear how goalposts or compensation may have changed during the high-stakes negotiations. A theatrical release was of great import to the filmmakers.” Sony had an edge in this race due to the fact that it’s headed up by Tom Rothman, who used to be at Fox and worked with Boyle on eight different movies there. Release dates have not yet been announced.

Despite investing $120 million of his own money into the project (via Screen Rant), Coppola's dream Megalopolis release may fall at the final hurdle after a screening of the film failed to secure interest from potential distributors. As confirmed by The Hollywood Reporter, the consensus was that the film was simultaneously too niche to be a financial success for a major studio and too big for a smaller, independent company to support. As a result, Megalopolis currently sits stranded in a precarious purgatory, with the film's future uncertain.

Even after the distributor screening, details about what actually happens in the movie are limited. However, what is known about the film's supposed blend of Ancient Roman politicking within a post-apocalyptic New York setting, combined with the consensus from major studios, suggests that it is not intended to have mass commercial appeal. From a financial perspective, it's easy to see why this approach would be off-putting to potential investors and augur poorly for the film's future. However, there is precedent from Coppola's filmography to suggest that the situation is more exciting than it seems.

In some ways, the behind-the-scenes turmoil affecting Megalopolis is reminiscent of the chaos that surrounded some of Coppola's best-loved movies. Like Megalopolis, The Godfather and Apocalypse Now had substantial issues off-camera, with The Godfather's history being dramatic enough to warrant its own limited series, The Offer, and Apocalypse Now going down as one of the most notorious productions in movie history. However, despite these issues, the two films demonstrate Coppola's undeniable ability to overcome adversity and suggest that Megalopolis can still be a success.

Comparisons between Megalopolis and Apocalypse Now in particular have been noted by the veteran director himself. When asked to comment on the negativity around the picture by The Daily Beast, Coppola responded that "this is exactly what happened with Apocalypse Now 40 years ago," adding, "There were very contradicting views expressed, but the audience never stopped going to see the film, and to this day Apocalypse Now is still in very profitable distribution." It remains to be seen whether such a comparison is warranted. Nevertheless, Coppola is correct to suggest that his movies have historically been capable of exceeding expectations.

Francis Ford Coppola, director of the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, has been planning his next movie, Megalopolis, since 1979. The story, a sci-fi thriller about an architect who wants to rebuild New York City as a utopia following a devastating incident, has been evolving over decades, and anyone asked about it seemed to describe a grand, sweeping masterpiece that feels impossible to make. But that didn’t stop Coppola from holding table reads with all-star casts.

Finally, in 2019, Coppola decided not to wait on funders to take a chance on such risky material. Megalopolis became the ultimate creative project, self-funded, written, and directed all by Coppola himself, boasting a cast including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and Nathalie Emmanuel. Five years later, the movie was finally screened for potential buyers last week, and reactions were both exciting and confusing.

Sources told Puck’s Matthew Belloni that one attendee said the movie had “zero commercial prospects, and good for him,” and another said it was “unflinching in how batsh*t crazy it is” while Deadline described it as “crackling with ideas that fuse the past with the future, with an epic and highly visual fable that plays perfectly on an IMAX screen.”

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/9212466

The ZX Spectrum Vega+ was supposed to be the perfect way to experience classic ZX Spectrum games on the go, but after a botched crowdfunding campaign, ropey hardware and the collapse of the company behind it, Retro Computers Ltd, it has gone down as something of a disaster.

The bad taste left by the Vega+ hasn't deterred another firm, Elmar Electronic, from having a stab at the concept, though. The ZX Touch is a portable take on Sir Clive Sinclair's classic home computer which boasts a 7-inch touch display, WiFi, SD card support and a six-hour battery life.

Elmar Electronic is "a small company with more than 40 years of history and twenty dedicated employees" which specializes in "the development and manufacturing of industrial and telecommunication equipment". One of its co-owners, Goran Radan, has a deep affection for the Spectrum, which led him to create the ZX-VGA-JOY project. The ZX Touch is his next Sinclair-flavoured venture.

22 games come built-in, all of which are included with the permission of the original developer or rights holder, but you can load up other titles via an SD card.

Both the hardware and software are entirely bespoke; there's no OS included, as the software inside is "pure c/c++ code running on embedded high-performance ARM Cortex-M7 480Mhz MCU" according to the manufacturer.

It's not quite the end of Tumblr, but when management is supposedly sending memos with the Lord Tennyson quote about having "loved and lost," it doesn't look like there's much of a future.

Internet statesman and Waxy.org proprietor Andy Baio posted what is "apparently an internal Automattic memo making the rounds on Tumblr" to Threads. The memo, written to employees at WordPress.com parent company Automattic, which bought Tumblr from Verizon's media arm in 2019, is titled or subtitled "You win or you learn." The posted memo states that a majority of the 139 employees working on product and marketing at Tumblr (in a team apparently named "Bumblr") will "switch to other divisions." Those working in "Happiness" (Automattic's customer support and service division) and "T&S" (trust and safety) would remain.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/4190955

Somehow arriving perfectly in between the numerous months when “Barbenheimer” was all that anybody wanted to talk about on the internet, and Oscars season, which will inevitably revive the conversation surrounding the accidental double feature—really landing in a sort of perfect lacuna of interest—B-movie master Charles Band has announced that he’s making an actual Barbenheimer movie of his own. The Puppet Master co-creator—who has now made nearly 400 films, most of them some flavor of terrible, and almost all of them some flavor of cheap—publicized the upcoming mash-up idea at the American Film Market this weekend.

The movie, unsurprisingly, will focus on living dolls, who go out into the real world, find out how we treat our playthings, and decide to invent their own nukes to exact retribution. And if you want to gauge the level of comedy at play here, please contemplate the tagline “D-Cup, A-Bomb,” and the fact that the main characters will be “Dr. Bambi J Barbenheimer” and her boyfriend, “Twink Dollman.” Truly, Charles Band has become death, destroyer of subtext.

Ironically, the most charming thing about the whole endeavor is how shameless Band himself is about what he’s up to, telling THR that “It’s 100 percent true,” that he’s trying to capitalize over this summer’s obsession with Barbie and Oppenheimer.“But it’s also,” he adds, “An opportunity to have fun with the bizarre coupling of these two movies and the combination of Barbie’s vibe and the darkness of Oppenheimer. You mix that together and you have such an opportunity for dark humor.”