Really enjoyed the film "V for Vendetta", made by the Matrix's Wachovski brothers.
Natalie Portman and John Hurt are great in a complex and grim futuristic drama that's very original but a bit like mixing Phantom of the Opera with 1984.I found the anarchistic moral of the story and veiled references to current politics as nazi-like very questionable. Yet the film and story are presented in such a provocative and stylistic way that I was intrigued throughout the film.
How would you like it if, after you turned 21, the federal government cut you a check for $10,000, every year, for the rest of your life? Murray's idea is Provocative.
Over at O'Reilly's blog there is an excellent discussion about the nature of biz in a Web 2.0 world (why does the term Web 2.0 BOTHER so many people? Get over it!)
Doc Searls seems to suggest that old style biz is selfish where new style is generous, sharing resources in a virtually unrestricted way. One poster suggests, I think wrongly, that generosity comes after affluence. Based on my experiences I'm often surprised that when I share ideas openly and honestly I build trust with people and that trust leads to opportunity *for everybody in the equation*. Sure there is a *chance* that somebody will nab your idea, implement it better than you can, and do great thing. But that is:
1) OK because ideas, even great ideas, are not a key component of change. The key is a fully implemented great idea and is a much taller order.
2) unlikely, because they are probably working on a new angle or different idea or implementation anyway. At MashupCamp I was pleased and surprised how few people were even interested in doing some of the things I thought would make "great mashups" in the travel space. Why? Because they were busy with THEIR vision of the next big thing. Cool, and the best part is that the collective intelligence in such a group, or in the internt community at large, leads to a sort of *collective* expanion of horizons and creation *even better* stuff than without the open exchanges. I'd note that MSN's traditional failure to understand and harness this power may be their biggest impediment to moving ahead successfully in the new Web world.
What one should seek in the new "generous" internet are relationships and mechanisms (e.g. blogs, websites, wikis, wifi, free computers, etc, etc) that foster bigger and better ideas which in turn will foster bigger and better improvements to the global web, still a very immature system.
Joe Duck 