The Myths of Innovation is now out in paperback. There’s a bunch of cruft that has built up around ideas and how they are generated. Most of it is garbage. The book outlines how innovations actually occur, and how to go about getting and developing ideas. A great read, especially if you work with ideas (or want to).

It comes with the Rodeo Stamp of Approval^(tm) (and that isn’t just because my name is printed in the acknowledgements).

Here are two free chapters to whet your appetite. Then once you’ve read those, you can grab the rest here: http://bit.ly/mythspb

RodeoClown: like a mole, digging in a hole.

This is my lunch-box, take notice of it’s nifty red colouring, and the plasticy speed-lines that help it open faster. You probably can’t feel the fancy fabric, or smell the lingering aroma of garlic chicken (although you may be able to see the discolouration).

It does its job of transporting foodstuffs admirably.

This is my lunch-box’s stupid slogan:

*

This slogan bothers me every time I eat lunch. I don’t really want my lunch-box to have attitude, I want it to have lunch. And that ellipsis, it just screams “unfinished sentence!“…

Do you have any everyday items with stupid slogans?

RodeoClown: really just wanted to show off his nice lunch-box.

*If the image didn’t show, it reads “It’s about attitude…”

Go read Crimson Dark.

It looks great, reads great, and is even made by a passing acquaintance of mine (which I didn’t realise until I had been reading the comic for a while).

The story is really starting to pick up now (it’s up to chapter four), but it makes the most sense if you start from the beginning. It’s got a bit of a Firefly feel to it, which makes it worthy of reading by itself, but add pretty explosions, witty banter, and a willingness to treat the readers as real human beings with real human brains makes it a real treat.

Do yourself (and David) a favour, and go read it.

RodeoClown: I mean it! Go read it! (Anybody want a peanut?)

Wednesday I went and checked out Nintendo’s new console – the Wii (pronounced ‘we’).

Very small. Very cool.
That remote in the pictureis what you use to play the games, it is motion-sensing, and you can also use it as a pointer on the screen. It’s a lot heavier than I was expecting.

The demo unit had Wii Sports running, a game that comes with the system including Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing. I tried out bowling and tennis.

Bowling consists of holding the remote in front of you – holding the trigger on it’s underside – and bowling, releasing the trigger when you want to let go of the ball. If you twist your arm as you bowl, it puts spin on the ball. Just like real bowling. Neat, but my shots always spin to the left… have to work on that.

Tennis is just hitting the ball, your little character (a ‘mii’) runs all by him/herself to the ball – you just swing the remote to hit the ball at the right time. Again, spin is put on the ball by twisting the remote as you ‘hit’. I played versus some random guy and lost because I wasn’t swinging like a real racquet. As soon as I did that, I got a sweet rally happening.

Super fun.

They are also releasing a new Zelda game at the same time, increasing my wanting this even higher.

One final benefit is that it plays all the old GameCube games as well, which would be fantastic as I discovered today that my GameCube died in a recent electrical storm (along with our microwave), meaning I have a dozen games sitting unplayable in our entertainment unit right now.

RodeoClown: wishes he had a spare $400.

I thought this quote was fantastic.

Brown spends so much of his time repeating the phrase “sacred feminine,” “sacred feminine” as if a religious mantra — which, of course, it is. It’s almost enough to make me want to head right out and punch a girl just for spite.

Read the review.

RodeoClown: unlikely to bother (with the book, not the review).

I thought it was pretty good, definitely didn’t treat Christianity in a light manner.
My knowledge of Luther is not that extensive, so I don’t know if it got all the details right, but it made him look right and justified in what he did.

I didn’t like the ending, which states that Luther “brought religious freedom” to Germany. I don’t think that is what he was after at all, he just wanted the corrupt church to stop being corrupt. No mention is made of him wanting people to believe what ever they want, only that he wanted what they believed to be true.

It felt like a cop-out, feel-good blurb on a movie that didn’t need it.

Also, they didn’t need to say how many Christians there are in the world that aren’t Catholic. That is also beside the point.

So, to sum up: good movie, worth watching, next time don’t put text before the closing credits.

RodeoClown: would like a monk’s robe.

Worth a watch.

While we were talking in a classroom, we all got rounded up and sent to a space station. A Sydney Swans puddlejumper came to rescue us, but a super soldier smashed the door in before we could leave.

We got away somehow, and I think there may have been a dance sequence lined up, but I was woken by a crying child.

Oh well.

Plenty of Crazy Linkage in there for you

RodeoClown: dream weaver.

We were trying to decide what side dish to order with our drinks, garlic bread or chips? After a long period of indecision, I made the call – garlic bread.
Shortly thereafter the waiter (not the one who took our order) came out with our garlic chips…

Yep, the original waiter had misheard, and the chef had made our fancy-sounding, not-on-the-menu order.

We told him that we’d take them any way. And they were delicious, absolutely fantastic. I guess the chef put garlic butter on the wedges and cooked them that way, they were served with a small dish of aioli, and that just perfected the small meal.

RodeoClown: wants more.

Magical green rocks.
Kryptonite.

Superman Returns was an OK movie. I enjoyed watching it and, contrary to what everyone else said, it wasn’t too long. It is two and a half hours, but takes it’s time and uses it well. We get to know who Superman is (the same guy he always was, and I agree with Bill, Clark Kent is definitely the costume) and see what happened to Lois Lane (she shacked up with Cyclops and had a kid*).

We don’t really see why he left and what state the world was left in without him. A brief text introduction imforms us that some astronomers found Krypton (exploded) and Superman left (in a hurry) to check it out and see if there were survivors (there weren’t). No time for goodbyes**, not even for his (dream) girl…

Kevin Spacey is a great Lex, and Brandon Routh could be mistaken for Christopher Reeve (who’s desire to kill unborn babies to try and walk again made me think a lot less of him). Kate Bosworth was acceptable as Lois, and whoever it was that played Kitty, seemed like she’d just stepped out of the original movies.

There is no doubt catching aeroplanes and launching space shuttles looks awesome. Walking into a minigun firing 900 rounds per second without flinching and then taking a bullet to the eyeball is trés cool. But when the only thing that can hurt Superman is Kryptonite***, it’s hard to generate much empathy for the character. Spiderman is just a kid, and although he’s pretty tough, when he jumps in front of a train to try and save everyone on board, I know that it’s really going to hurt. When Batman gets punched and stabbed and generally beaten up, I know what it feels like (thanks Callum). But I have no frame of reference as to what it feels like to fly through lava and blink off bullets. There’s nothing in common with my experience.

Smallville’s Clark generates a lot more empathy, not because we can relate to his super powers (cool as they are), but rather because we know what it’s like to love someone who doesn’t love you back, and what the death of someone close means. Keeping secrets is hard. What do you do when your best friend does something wrong?

It’s the small things that we can relate to, not picking up really, really big rocks.

I liked the movie, but it doesn’t come close to Batman Begins and the Spiderman movies in terms of comic conversion greatness. Superman is just too alien and I didn’t ever get the sense of him being one of us, but just a bit faster/stronger/smarter. As much as wanted to, I can’t relate to Bryan Singer’s Superman.

RodeoClown: not so super.

*De facto relationships are OK now. Really. The movies told me so. Despite the fact that Lois seems to have jumped into bed with a guy the same day that Superman left and now has a kid and hates her life and took up smoking, it’s cool to live and sleep with people you haven’t married. At least until someone better comes along.
If you haven’t noticed I really hate that common culture says this is now acceptable.

**Also, why is it that no-one notices that Clark and Superman have both
been gone for 5 years, and then both appear on the same day?
Fortunately for humanity’s future, at least one kid notices that Clark and Superman are quite obviously THE SAME PERSON. Unfortunately for him, a spontaneous asthma attack stops the secret being revealed. Forever apparently.

***Also also, it would seem that 90% of Krypton landed on Earth after exploding. Sucks to be allergic.

…RodeoClown: I am indeed.