Author: Daniel

Spectrum Sharing – A Few Thoughts From My Experiences at the October Workshop

I posted a few weeks ago about the Spectrum Sharing workshop that I was going to help facilitate.

The problem that the Federal Government is wrestling with is the increased use of wireless technologies, not just wireless phones and tablets but things like wireless insulin pumps and cars.

BTW, I was at a Cybersecurity Conference run by the wonderful Bob Gourley earlier this week where it was pointed out that someone who had a wireless insulin pump (or some other wireless medical device) will enter an area of conflicting policy when he or she has to work in a secure SCIF (an issue almost no one had on their intellectual radar even a few years ago).

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Two Kid’s Movies This Week

This last week was, among other things (like seeing Fleetwood Mac), a week for watching “young person’s” movies.

Our entire family went to the theater to see The BoxTrolls.

The BoxTrolls is a stop-motion film about, well, trolls who wear boxes, live underground, and raise an orphaned human boy called Eggs. The bad guy, voiced by Ben Kingsley (there are lots of great voice talents who speak with English accents) plots to get rid of the BoxTrolls in order to advance in society (it’s complicated). Eggs attempts to stop the plot, gets involved with Winnifred, the daughter of a cheese eating surrender monkee free market capitalist who wants to buy cheese rather than invest in schools (no unnecessary economic stereotypes in Hollywood), and (spoiler alert) saves the day in an not always easy to follow fashion.

The BoxTrolls drags a bit in the beginning, is pretty strange (for those put off by films that are pretty strange), but has really great stop motion effects and, at least, for me was a very enjoyable time. For those who see (or rent it) make sure you also see the added scene after the initial credits. It is absolutely hilarious as well as provide insights into how hard it is to do stop motion films. B+

At home, my last film I just finished was Dear Lemon Lima. When one has an almost 500 film queue, I often forget why I added a film, a question I wondered about and still am unsure of. Dear Lemon Lima’s audience is evidently tweens, which I suspect is not my age group, though in some sense aren’t we all tweens between one status and another? It tells the story of Vanessa, a girl growing up in Alaska, who is shot down by her one true love, Philip, and ends up being a captain for her school’s Snowstorm Survivor competition. Her team consists of Breakfast Club candidates (if the Breakfast Club had been made for tweens) and her journey is complicated by her missing native Alaskan father and somewhat new-age mother. Except for long-time character actress, Beth Grant, the film, written and directed by first-time film maker Suzi Yoonessi (isn’t Google wonderful), the film had no recognizable (to me at least) stars which actually made the film more fun to watch.

Like Napolean Dynamite, which had a somewhat similar ‘vibe’, the climax of the film is dependent on a dance by the lead, representing a big step in the film’s journey. It was a bit of a dark comedy in places (including the death of one of the young characters), but even so I enjoyed it and was glad that I selected it for whatever the reason I did. B

 

Fleetwood Mac

It never ceases to amaze me that the reason we were at our second Fleetwood Mac concert in recent years is because our daughters have demanded that we go.

Well, have demanded that we go so we can buy tickets for them to go.

Fleetwood Mac!!

This is a band I listened to when I was in college (Stevie Nicks!! who is 1 month and 13 days older than me). That has been apart more than together over the years and remarkably even though the members currently in their 60’s and early 70’s are still going strong.

Having said that with the recent re-addition of Christine McVie the band for the second of the two concerts we went to, the first one was without her, is actually now much improved. It was a remarkably entertaining and musical concert. Take out the completely unnecessary lengthy drum solo by Mick Fleetwood toward the end of the evening and everything else was great. Surrounded by a combination of aging baby boomers, children and grandchildren of baby boomers, and two really strange women to my right in the row in front of us who looked like they were trying to play every instrument in the band during almost every song, it was a great evening.

I was asked by my younger daughter what song I most wanted to hear. It turned out they played it to start the concert. For your listening and viewing pleasure the 1979 version of The Chain.

 

Ruby Sparks plus a Discovery

I finished watching Ruby Sparks this morning.

Ruby Sparks is a ‘cute’ rom-com (romantic comedy) about a lonely author with writer’s block who writes about his perfect, albeit imaginary girl friend, Ruby Sparks. After doing so, suddenly she is there in his apartment.

What seems like a perfect situation, perfect only because of the limited male imagination I guess, turns out not to be so much. Buried somewhere in the film are life lessons about opening yourself up and learning to care about people for what they are not what you might imagine them to be, blah-blah-blah.

As usual, Holly wood ensures that the character’s back story is sufficiently like the viewers so we can identify with those lessons. Or at least that would be true if you wrote a novel in your teens that caused everyone to compare you to J.D. Salinger and had Annette Bening as your mother and Antonio Banderas as her current lover who live on a palatial estate in Big Sur. I was going to remark that at least the film illustrated that not-particularly attractive male Hollywood movie characters were able to have relationships with really cute female Hollywood movie characters until I read that the female lead, Zoe Kazan, and the male lead, Paul Dano (great in Little Miss Sunshine), are in fact girlfriend and boyfriend in real life. How great is that for Paul Dano, not only does he have a cute girlfriend, but since she also wrote the script for Ruby Sparks, she writes stuff for him to star in; almost like he made that situation all up …

I would give the film a B-. I thought the film was fun to watch but no great shakes, and the ending was a bit too ‘neat’.

Now for my minor discovery, it turns out that Netflix has a limit to the size of its queue, 500 films, which I reached last week. Based on my current rate of going through movies/TV shows I should get to the end of the queue in about nine years, unless of course at some point during that nine-year period I decide to add to the queue.

 

The Spirit of the Beehive (El Espiritu de la Colmena)

This morning I finished watching the Spanish movie, The Spirit of the Beehive.

Made in 1973 and directed by Victor Erice, the film is set in 1940 in a small Spanish village. It tells of a girl Ana, and her sister, Isabel. The two girls go to a mobile cinema which plays Frankenstein. Ana for the rest of the film is fascinated with the creature in the film. When she meets an escaped Republican solider, Franco has just won the Spanish civil war, who is shot by the police.

She also lives with her older father who tends bees, thus the name of the movie, and her younger mother, who writes letters to a former lover.

This is one of those films that I know has lots of levels that I just completely miss, after all it had a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating and according to the write-ups of it, is considered one of the truly great Spanish films. After the film finished, I thought back to when in college I saw Fellini’s Satyricon, where I understood little of the implications, assuming there were implications, but found some of the scenes interesting; here too, I found the film entertaining and beautifully done, but suspect I missed the point, assuming there was a point.

The two sisters, especially the younger Ana, were remarkable. The actress Ana, played by Ana Torrent, has gone on to a lengthy film and acting career; the younger sister Isabel, played by Isabel Telleria, seems to have been only in this one film.

My Top Three Articles Relating to the Federal Government From Last Friday

On Friday, October 24, I was on the Federal News Countdown, hosted by Francis Rose, along with Jenny Mattingley, director of government affairs for Shaw, Bransford and Roth. You can hear the show, and see a picture of an old, bald guy standing next to Jenny, here.

The format of the show is each guest talks about their third most important article, then their second and finally their most important article of the week. Both guests will comment on each other’s second and top articles.

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A Reminder That My Father-in-Law is a Very Smart Guy

Ellen’s parents, David and Bobbie Elow, visited us this weekend.

I am very lucky to have had such great people enter into my life when Ellen and I were married. In addition to important personal and business advice I received at times when I needed such advice, I have learned much about being a good parent and a good person from each.

The fact that my kids have such alert, loving, and special grandparents in their lives is truly a blessing.

Having said that, I was told by Ellen (confirmed by her parents) of a birthday for Ellen’s sister Jane when they were both very young and lived in a house in New Rochelle. My father-in-law, to entertain the children, decided to play some games. The first one was a contest to see which child could pick the most yellow flowers. After the party, he was able to admire his dandelion free yard.

Counting Down

I’ll be on the Francis Rose hosted Federal News Countdown this coming Friday at 4pm, on WFED, 1500 on your AM (yes, they still broadcast on AM) dial.

The format of the show is two people “select three news stories they think are most important in the world of government.”

So my next step is to pick three important stories. If you have any suggestions post a comment or send me an email, dmintz@esemconsulting.com.

Sharing Is Not Always An Easy Thing – Federal-Commercial Spectrum Data Workshop

I have been asked to facilitate a workshop which will attempt to move the dialog along about spectrum sharing.  The workshop will be all day October 21st at the National Science Foundation

It is one of the action steps that resulted from President Obama’s Memorandum on “Unleashing the Wireless Broadband Revolution”, further discussed in a report produced by the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in July, 2012.

Over the last few months I have been meeting with members of the Wireless Spectrum Research & Development Senior Steering Group (WSRD SSG) to help plan the workshop. It has been a pretty exciting opportunity for me to work with such a talented and smart group of people. In addition I have learned much about the issues that need to be dealt with to make more spectrum available.

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