marypcbuk

Why did Steve Jobs use the passive to talk about the patent threat to Ogg and what does that ahve to do with HTML 5 and Flash?

Anyone who's worked on any title with me knows that I exchew the passive voice; the passive voice is to be avoided. Over on our ZD blog I enjoy dissecting an superb example of why it's not as clear as the active voice and when that can be an advantage.

EDIT: This time with the content that Semagic ate



I <3 Bird & Fortune

Now that it turns out the iPod packaging video was an internal training exercise to help avoid all the flashes, splashes and checkboxes that splatter so much Microsoft packaging (although I still like the sleek Mac Office case), I can't quite make up my mind if http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/~sallyjo/ms_screen_res.pdf is a real Microsoft advert from New Zealand or a spoof. sethops, micheinnz - have you seen it for real?

Huw Collingbourne is heroically exhuming the videos we did together for the cover discs on PC Plus. I really can't describe this one any better than Huw does. "This was our fabulously wonderful pop video Heavy Metal tribute to Village People. Accompanied by my trusty companion and one-time Features Editor, Mary Branscombe (seen here in hard hat and whiskers), we recreated all that was best about the 1970s music scene."

Production notes: we got some more mileage out of the stick-on moustache, complete with Simon's plaid shirt and Huw's leather jacket.

* Well, Huw played the biker because he was already wearing the leather jacket...

Heavy Metal Village People Real Media (1.75MB) streaming
Heavy Metal Village People Real Media (1.75MB) non-streaming download - better quality

... that I have done (or had done to me) and you probably haven't:
I can claim a couple of Simon's ten as well ;-)

- I'm certainly not the only person to have hair extensions, but I might be the only person to have gone to a business meeting with Microsoft with hair extensions judging by the enthusiastic curiosity that greeted them

- interviewed Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Donna Dubinsky - not all at the same time! (And Niklas Zennstrom of Skype last week; they're going to be as big as Apple soon at this rate).

- had a photographer reduced to tears by Terry Pratchett's enthusiastic refusal to take off his hat for a photo

- reconstructed an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson entirely from memory in a semi-fugue state after the tape failed

- taken tea with Charles de Lint

- rubbed Ponds Cocoa Butter After-Sun Lotion onto Neil Gaiman's (sunburned) back

- proofread scripts and pages for Bryan Talbot's award-winning comics

- been stopped by Red Army soldiers for playing ice football in Red Square at midnight

- impersonated Dr Watson, Mrs Peel, Dana Sculley, Bonnie Langford, Kiri Te Kanawa and every member of the Village People except the one in the leather jacket in the Rants & Raves videos with Huw Collingbourne (some of that might end up at www.rantsandraves.co.uk at some point).

- proposed marraige on a BlackBerry