Monday, October 7, 2002

I am in the editorial board of JMLR. JMLR is on its second Web-based review-management system, and it's already obvious that it won't be great. The problem is that Web+email are not good tools for event-based task management. That's not new, it is the reason for systems like Groove. Groove looks very interesting, but unfortunately it is tied to Microsoft operating systems and application suites, which are not universal in academic circles. What we need are open protocols for request, notification, synchronization, and group management, implemented by multiple developers on multiple platforms. I don't care whether the implementations are open, I just care that they speak the same protocols, interoperate, and connect to popular editing tools through scripting (including Microsoft's, of course). 9:08:32 PM

Claude Chabrol's Merci Pour le Chocolat, with a shiver-inducing performance by Isabelle Hupert, mastery in youth as manipulation by Anna Mouglalis, and excellent support by Jacques Dutronc and Rudolphe Pauly as the self-deluding male side. We know from the beginning that not all is well, but the change from darkish comedy of manners to psychopathology is never rushed, paralleling the development of Liszt's Funerailles that are the foundation of the plot. Easy access to movies of this quality is one of the delights of city life. A few weeks ago, Manoel de Oliveira's I'm Going Home, with a deep, emotionally draining performance by Michel Picolli, reminded us gently that there is no avoiding the destructions of age and chance around us. Sooner or later, the show cannot go on. 8:53:29 PM