A week ago, I wrote that the ongoing writers strike might accelerate the transition to Media 2.0. Several other folks think the same way and explain why much better than I have. Marc Andreessen (aka creator of Mosaic) has a fantastic post that not only explains this transition better than I can, it also helped me understand my views on unions in general.

In the post, he describes two economic models – the Hollywood model and the Silicon Valley model. The Hollywood model is highly-centralized, with a small number of huge companies (aka “big media”) owning practically everything. In contrast, the Silicon Valley model is highly-decentralized, where pretty much anyone can create a company or bring a product to market. Marc believes that the entertainment industry at large is transitioning to the decentralized model. I agree 110% – the general decentralization trend is one I highlight in my “Moving Beyond Industrial Software” presentation that I’ve been delivering recently.

Unions are a response to the dramatic power differential between an employer and individual employees. By pooling (aka centralizing) their bargaining power, the union provides a counter-balance to the power wielded by the employer(s). But in a decentralized model, unions aren’t really necessary. Marc describes the “alignment of interests between creators and financiers” as “near-perfect”. Near-perfect might be a bit on the rosy side, but it’s a model I’m much more comfortable with than mega-corporations & unions.

Some believe that the AMPTP (aka the studios) is trying to break the entertainment unions. But what if those unions decided to break the studios? I gotta think that while there are lots of quality writers out there, the best in the business are members of the writers guild. What if they just decided to stop writing for the studios and go into business for themselves? Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times wonders the exact same thing.

Most of my readers get DevHawk via the RSS feed, so I wanted to explicitly call out a new addition to my flair. If you’re not aware, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. When you buy a $20 DVD, the writer makes a measly 4 cents. When you watch an episode of your favorite show online, the writer makes nothing. This video explains the situation pretty well.

Even though I’m about as liberal as you can get, I’m not a big union guy. Neither of my parents were in a union. Neither Julie nor I are in a union. My only exposure to unions growing up was negative, typically when the Washington Opera (where my mother works) was negotiating with the musicians or stagehands. I vividly remember one musician’s strike where one of their demands was to increase the minimum call size to be bigger than the size of the orchestra pit. Needless to say, that seemed like an unreasonable demand to me (though to be fair, I only heard the management side of the story).

In the recent hockey labor dispute, I was firmly on the side of the owners since day one. And while the teacher’s union is one of the strongest bastions of democratic party support, I think the modern education system is fundamentally broken. So while I am a liberal, I’ve never been a big union guy.

However, I’m firmly with the writers union on this one. I spent several hours tonight reading a bunch of strike-related blogs, like United Hollywood. Obviously, they’re coverage of the strike is pro-writer biased, but it’s hard to argue with the idea of a fair wage for Internet delivered content. I particularly like this video which is a series of clips of media CEOs bragging about how much money their companies can make online. Yet – again, according to pro-writer blogs – they refuse to even negotiate paying the writers a percentage of the money they make for using the writer’s content that way.

And to add a Media 2.0 spin to all this, there was a fascinating post wondering if Google could/would “scoop up the entire entertainment industry“. I don’t think substituting Google for AMPTP (which includes among others “big media” like Disney, Fox and Viacom) would be a good idea – new boss, same old problems. However, the idea of bypassing the studios with direct Internet distribution is a good one. One has to wonder how much this strike will accelerate that trend. This strike seems much more risky for the distribution companies & networks than for the writers – even direct distributed content needs to be written, right?

There appear to be several posts from several blogs that have spawned from my discussion about REST with David. I’ll catch up on them and respond here in the next day or so. In the meantime…

• Saw PotC: At World’s End over the weekend, due to a fluke last minute babysitter availability. It’s gotten mediocre reviews, but I liked it. Not as much as the first two, but certainly better than Spiderman 3. June looks fairly bleak @ the box office. We’ll probably take the kids to see Surf’s Up And Ratatouille. (Remember back when there was only one kids movie per summer?) Evan Almighty might be funny and I remember reading 1408, but I think they’re both rentals. The only thing I’m otherwise remotely interested in is Sunshine.
• Speaking of storytelling, Lost and Heroes wrapped their seasons last week. While early on, it looked like Heroes was going to be the new Lost, Lost’s season finally was awesome. If you don’t watch Lost, you’re really missing out on the best show on TV right now. You have eight months to catch up before season four. Heroes may not be lost, but they’re keeping the interest up with their online comic book plus while Lost scales back to 16 episodes for each of three more seasons, Heroes is bulking up, adding six “Heroes: Origins” and bringing the total to 30 for next season.
• Larry O’Brien fantasizes about his dream PDC. Aren’t there lots of conferences about learning how to “create great applications” on and for the Microsoft/Windows Platform? What about TechEd? (which is where I’ll be next week)
• Sam Gentle continues to dig into WF, examining the various ways you can extend the WF runtime by replacing the persistence, loader and scheduler services. He’s also taking my advice to scrap ExternalDataService and work directly with the WorkflowQueuingService.
• Steve Jones compares SOA to trains and I don’t get it. I mean, his advice on the value of batch processes makes sense, but his train/car analogy seems a bit strained, esp. when he calls the railway system “event based”. Can’t a car be “event based” too? There’s just a much smaller number of people who care about a given car’s events…
• Ted Neward debated OR/M with Ayende on .NET Rocks. Based on Ted’s post, the show must have been a doozy. Sounds like Ted took some controversial positions, including advocating OO databases. Of course, “shies away from controversy” isn’t how I would describe Ted.

Last night, I got to see the final dress rehearsal of The Who’s TOMMY at the Village Theater in Issaquah. My mother-in-law got a couple of free passes because she’s working with the director on a separate project. There was no way to get a babysitter on such short notice, so that meant either Jules or I got to go. She’s not as big a Who fan as I am plus the theater is five minutes from my office, so I got to go.

Most people who know the show have either heard the album, seen the movie or both. Pete Townsend adapted it for Broadway in the early 90′s and I got to see it as it came through Washington DC on it’s way to New York. Suffice to say that the movie is very different from the stage show. It’s so different that the Village Theater specifically “does not recommend the film for previewing to gain an understanding of the stage version.”

If I had to pick, I like movie version more than the stage version. The stage arrangement of the music is orchestral, which I feels waters down the power of the music. This is most obvious on Eyesight to the Blind which was performed in the movie by Eric Clapton. The orchestral arrangement is barely recognizable as the same song in my opinion. The stage version also adds a new song – I Believe My Own Eyes – which I don’t very much.

However, if you look at it on it’s own, The Who’s TOMMY is a good show. It’s over the top, but for this show that works. Tommy’s journey from “deaf, dumb and blind kid” to “new Messiah” is even more appropriate today than it was in 1993 when the Broadway version premiered. At the time, Townsend got a lot of flak for the changes the show, but as he said “what’s actually changed is the times”.

While the show itself is over the top, this production is even more so. To quote from the flyer (which I can’t find online) everything is in nearly constant motion. Actors, set pieces and a huge video screen that dominates the stage. Again, given the show, it works. The cast was good – Michael Lee (pictured above) as Tommy was a particular stand out. There were a few rough spots in the large chorus numbers, but that’s to be expected in a dress rehearsal, right?

Bottom line, it’s a good show so if you live within driving distance of Issaquah, you should check it out. If you’re already Who fan, just be aware that it’s not supposed to be just like the movie…

After a week’s vacation, I’m back in the office. I might have left with an empty inbox and newsreader, but I returned to nearly 300 emails and over 500 news items. Actually, 300 emails for a week is actually really good – most of them are in my “low priority” folder which means they are internal mailing list emails rather than things I actually have to deal with.

Major thanks to Dale for keeping the lights on around here while I was gone. With my renewed commitment to blogging this year, I’d rather not see DevHawk “go dark” for a week while I get some R&R. If you liked what Dale had to say, go subscribe to his blog. I hope he keeps up with his daily posts, now that he’s no longer on the hook around here.

Anyway, since I have little idea what’s going on in the technical blogosphere, this is a vacation wrapup instead. Normal Morning Coffee returns tomorrow.

• We spent a week in Southern California. Two days with my brother-in-law in Santa Barbara, two days at Disneyland and two days with my uncles in Palm Springs (with travel days between). We had a blast, but that’s a lot of driving. Next vacation, we’re going somewhere we don’t know anybody and staying put the entire time.

• My brother-in-law has three kids, including a son a few months older than Patrick and a daughter a few months younger than Riley. I’ve long said I would never move back to Cali, but seeing them all play together made me think it might be worth it. I don’t have any cousins (my father was an only child and neither of my mother’s two siblings had kids) so I didn’t realize what a big deal it is. I think Patrick misses his cousin Jack more than he misses Disneyland.

• When I lived in LA, I used to have a season pass to Disneyland. But seeing it thru my kids’ eyes made it brand new again. Our two days in “The Happiest Place on Earth” were a blast, though in retrospect we should have taken a day to rest and hang out at the pool between the two days.

• Riley’s favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean (which she calls “Yo ho ho”). My friend Brooke told Jules that little kids “natural reaction” is to hold on tight during the drops, but Riley put her little hands up and shouted “Wee!” They recently added some elements from the movies (Capt. Jack Sparrow and Davy Jones) to the ride. My wife and I were worried they were going to ruin it, but the changes were fairly small and subtle and we liked them.

• Patrick’s favorite ride was Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters but the Jedi Training Academy was a close second. His Jedi training was my favorite moment at Disneyland. He got to train with a lightsaber and fight Darth Maul. Here’s a video clip of my young Padawan:

  The big problem with Jedi Training Academy is that they only pick a limited number of “younglings” every show. Patrick didn’t get picked the first time we went, and frankly I pushed him out there the second time without him officially getting picked. You could conceivably waste an entire day at Disneyland attending all six Training Academy shows and never get picked. That sucks.

• Biggest disappointment of Disneyland: Patrick being 1″ too short for Star Tours. I was bummed.

• Disney’s California Adventure is a nice adjunct to Disneyland, but as a stand alone park it pretty much blows, though Jules and I did enjoy the Tower of Terror.

• Disneyland seems to becoming Disney-Pixar Land. Pixar movies are the basis for several of the newer rides, including the new Finding Nemo ride opening this summer. There was an article in the Disneyland Pixar Evolution in the airplane magazine so I’m not the only one who’s noticed.

• After two days in Disneyland, I expected Palm Springs to be a let down. But instead it was a nice casual cool down after two hectic days in the Magic Kingdom. Plus it was great to see my Uncles, who we hadn’t seen since last summer when my brother got married.

• We flew home Saturday so we could have a casual Sunday before heading back to work and school today. We watched Phantom Menace last night, though the kids are still a bit young for it. We decided on Episode I instead of the original Star Wars because it has a little boy (i.e. like Patrick) and a fight with Darth Maul (i.e. like Patrick). But it doesn’t hold a candle to the original trilogy.