The Boat that Rocked/ Good Morning England

Today I just watched “Good Morning England”. It’s a good comedy about Radio Rock, a pirate station which broadcast from a boat crowded by DJ. However they come into conflict with the British governement because of their provocative ideas. 50 years back (not so long) , England government could censor silently any source of  media, it’s such a hard thng to imagine for a democratic country .  It reminds me of China where wordpress.com is blocked , I hope in the next 5 decades China freedom will improve.

PS: the title in French is “Good Morning England” which I think is stupid to translate an English title by another.

Low budget Lord of the Rings : the Hunt of Gollum

This morning on TV, I learnt about a fan Tolkien made movie : ‘The Hunt of Gollum’  for a budget 3000 £ . 160 people were cast on the  40-minute story I think it’s mind-buggling how much can be done for so few means.

With a budget of £3,000, the film cost somewhat less than Peter Jackson’s trilogy, but that doesn’t mean this fan-film looks like it was put together with cardboard and string.The trailer promises a lavish production that models itself closely on Jackson’s vision of Middle-earth – with North Wales, Epping Forest and Hampstead Heath doubling for Tolkien’s orc-infested lands.

For more information http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8022623.stm

The trailer is available on youtube.

Eureka

Yeah I found it : yesterday I was looking for how to add tab on the upper page ( or tabbar) like on this blog

tabbar

Not sidebar, there is a plenty of non sense plugin, javascript and so which add your page on your side bar. The solution : in wp-admin Pages> add a new page. Of course depending on the theme you use, the theme must display it. Everything is in the theme.

I was nearly switching to Joomla to own the  tabbar. Now just one thing I still don’t know how to a post to under a certain page

Youtube edu

Who said YouTube is just for entertainment ? I just read the Times from April about universities classes going online. I myself subscribe to stanforduniversity . What is the goal ?  Promotion, gain international exposure, attract potential students, degrade élite degrees . After all watching these classes doesn’t give you a diploma or gain access to alumni network.

http://www.youtube.com/edu

The Art of “Invest less, Get more”

I just came across an article from TIME.

How do you get started? All that’s required is a great idea for a product that will fill a need in the 21st century. These days you’d do best if your idea either makes people money or saves them money.

The term ramen profitable was coined by Paul Graham, a Silicon Valley start-up investor, essayist and muse to LILO entrepreneurs. It means that your start-up is self-sustaining and can eke out enough profit to keep you alive on instant noodles while your business gains traction.

I love this term LILOs, for “a little in, a lot out.” With economic crisis, VC are less willing to invest in high risk start up. Nonetheless some entrepreneurs turn to find cheaper developers through rentacoder.com or eLance.com.  It’s getting cheaper and cheaper to start a company :

  • hardware cost less, servers are affordable
  • cheap developers in rising countries are available
  • open source technology are free, no high licence fee

For me the new wave of entrepreneurs who will go through the crisis are the ones who can monetize instantly their projects. I think getting a load crap of users then selling ads/their personal info is not a business model. Rather it should be ‘freemium’ : free to register, pay for additional services (WordPress, Flickr …). Think of it a decade ago Jeff Bezos needed 300k$ to launch Amazon.  Now one lonely guy can run plentyoffish and generate revenues. Here is a VC’s view on Open Source

Guy Kawasaki on Startups using Open Source