So, I've just finished summarising my training for last week over at www.judocoach.com where I have shared what I did last week along with some of the periodisation thinking behind what I am doing.

So, why am I blogging my training, there are a bunch of reasons. Many of which stem from the positive outcomes of blogging my experiences at University of Bath and also from being such a fan of the "blogging conversation" idea.

By blogging my training I hope to share what it is like for a 30 something unfit former Judo player to try and regain a level of fitness and prepare for a competition. This is not an "Elite" athlete's blog, I am far from that.

Hopefully however, someone out there will find it interesting perhaps. And anyway... it's handy for me as I find typing things out helps me crystalise my thinking and think it through.

So there you go, thats why.

Lance

LOL... this is great, its from http://www.hakatv.fr/ apparently. Though I found it here: http://www.iphon.fr/post/2007/09/08/Les ... -un-iPhone

I am participating in this challenge, running for the NZ team of course.

...and yes I do suspect the French of cheating. :)

I went to the cinema on Friday and sat through a full 20 minutes of advertising before getting to the anti-piracy messages, before getting to the film. Grrrr....

Which meant I missed the IT Crowd, luckily it is not illegal to videotape/PVR TV shows (yet) so I got to see the excellent show. The video above is the parody at the start about piracy... it's awesome!!!

It wouldn't be so bad if the cinema was cheaper or a majority of films much much better. (we went to see Run fatboy Run, which is excellent and worth paying to see by the way!)

I HATE all the anti piracy messages, especially as per this spoof, on DVDs. Which again are over priced, given the money they cost to produce and the money they have already made at the cinema.

Worse nowadays is the fact that DVDs are getting worse. You get the piracy message of course, plus often a bunch of adverts... especially on kids Disney DVDs. (Which I must say is atagonising your customer. If I am putting on a film my kids want to watch, do you know how grumpy they get as I try and get past the anti-piracy then trailers?!?!?!!)
Also.. where did the DVD booklets go? I bought a "Special Edition" DVD the other week and it was one disk with nothing but advertising material inside the box, where is the booklet?

Now the other thing that gets me about these anti-piracy things is they try and tell you that the quality will be awful on pirated DVDs. What a load of cobblers! I have watched pirated material (of course I didn't buy it, I disagree with piracy) and nine times out of ten the quality is fine. Especially if it is free over the web as opposed to from Hong Kong and bought.

The movie industry needs to realise that we (the people that keep them in their jobs) hate the anti-piracy message. It says to us we are a criminal, just after we have spent money to buy their over-priced product! We know how many millions you make on films, so how about you make a little less cash and make it cheaper for us?
Or maybe make the experience better? I love going to the movies, but I find the 20 minutes of adverts and the anti-piracy message along with the overpriced snacks objectionable.

It's all about balance between supply and demand, cost and benefit.

I am happy to pay to go see a good film in a cinema if the experience is positive. But increasingly I just think I'll wait till it comes on TV or I might get a pirated copy, because even though the quality may be slightly worse (and I do mean slightly) I don't have to be told I am a evil pirate and a criminal. I can watch it at home and when I want to, I can make my own popcorn for pennies not pounds, etc etc.

Those messages... man they make me mad!!!
It's not like when you start your car in the morning it tells you not to steal cars!!! Please movie industry don't treat us like criminals, treat us like valued customers, the maybe we will act like valued customers and not like pirates.. arrr!

I was playing tonight with the Plazes API again (not having done so since Hackday London). It appears that something has changed as my code no longer works. :(

Which is a shame.

I like Plazes, I am user 3465 I believe and i want it to succeed.

This is because I like the idea of location being tied to presence. I like the new traces feature which is kinda like twitter/jaiku/etc.

Lots of the conversation nowadays seems to be about presence, attention and context. I think that contaxt can be derived a majority of the time from location, so plazes location awareness SHOULD give it a headstart on the others.

I'd love to be able to use Plazes for example to manage my online status for work and personal contacts. For example, when I am in the office, put me as online for my work contacts and offline (maybe "at work") for my personal contacts.

Later when I arrive home, plazes could reverse the situation.

If (and hopefully when) a J2ME or similar client comes out, it'd be great if Plazes worked out I was say at the pub. Maybe it could then ping my friends in plazes nearby and tell them where I am?
This would work well with the future plazes function they now have.

And for me, I'd love for plazes to be able to pop up and tell me when someone I know (from facebook or AIM or twitter or wherever) is nearby. For it to tell me what they are up to (traces) and maybe help me ping them a message to meet up.


I've hacked scripts to post my current Plaze to twitter etc and there is a facebook app (thanks Andy) but I'd like to see it do more, be more, help more.

Mainly I'd like to hear more about what is going on over there in Germany at Plazes HQ.