I'll stand by my original assessment. The only evidence Hart offers to suggest that Lucas "jumped all over Campbell's explanations" is (1) a quote by Lucas saying he wanted the movie to be fun, and (2) the filmmaker's lack of earlier comment on the issue. That's it.
Is it possible for a work of art to be fun and manipulate myths? Sure. No need to look any farther on the bookshelf than that Chronicles of Narnia box set. Does early silence on an influence mean that influence held no sway? Of course not.
Here's what the article boils down to: Hart is expressing disgust that basic pulp entertainment -- and I'll be the first to admit that SW is certainly that -- has been elevated to the level of seriously considered art via certain structuralist and post-structuralist criticisms that have come into vogue over the past couple of decades. Doesn't pedigree play a role, he asks? This is a #%$@ space opera, for god's sake!
Whereas the whole point of some of these theories was that the value of a thing can be found in its underlying structures and relationships -- regardless of whether it's Shakespeare or a dime-store romance.
Looks like someone doesn't like Campbell...
on
Star Wars as Pulp Sci-Fi
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
After reading the article, it seems like the author's gripe is less with Lucas -- inspiration's hard to quantify, after all -- and more with Campbell and his theories (or more precisely, how they're applied in popular culture). Take a gander at this bit from the article:
Campbell's ability to generate whirlwinds of cross-cultural references makes his chatter sound tremendously erudite [...] but once the dust settles it's hard to grasp the point of it all.
Dare I say it, this Steven Hart fellow looks to be using the Lucas/Star Wars aspect as a cheap hook to gain a wider audience for his anti-Campbell viewpoints.
And as thousands of/.ers bang on Salon's servers, you gotta admit -- it worked.
The People of Afghanistan: Thank you for your wonderful open-source software. Can we... eat it?
Score 0: Bad '70s Reference
on
GeekPAC
·
· Score: 5, Funny
Corporate Membership: $500.00 minimum donation - Corporate members will receive a framed and signed certificate of membership, the monthly newsletter, and the right to name a member of our Advisory Board.
So I'm confused, how exactly does this relate to the 1st? Freedom of the press?
(IANAL but...) freedom of speech has traditionally been interpreted as protecting a dialog of ideas (as opposed to a monologue). In other words, not only are your rights to express an idea protected, but also your right to receive ideas lawfully expressed by others. (Otherwise, the government could simply say: "Freedom of speech? Sure, talk all you want. Just step into this soundproofed room first.") Freedom of expression without reasonable freedom of channels of expression is more or less useless.
In this case, it seems the court found that, among other things, the warrant placed an undue burden on the bookstore in its role as a channel of constitutionally protected speech.
Actually, that wasn't a quote from Justice Bender. He was exerpting from the Supreme Court opinion in the case of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. Still, it's a pretty encouraging sign that the quote made even a guest cameo in his decision.
Okay, no surprise here: game graphics have gotten a heckuva lot better over the past couple of decades. (Makes you want to run up and give Moore's Law a big ol' hug, don't it?) But I honestly don't think we're in danger of things veering so far into realism that they're no longer any fun.
Think about it. At heart, games are escapist entertainments. They offer us experiences that are markedly different from our own (or those of most other people). Exaggeration is one of the keys in making that break between our world and that of the game. Character design, laws of physics, color palette -- whatever. To borrow a line from Verant -- hey, I'm entitled to something for that extra $3 per month -- "You're in our world now." Even games that claim to be ultra-realistic revel in these small, deviant details. (Think Max Payne: high polys and crisp textures move it closer to realism, but things like bullet time move it firmly back into the realm of gaming.)
Trust me -- total realism will never eclipse escapist fun; the extremes of the two are mutually exclusive. Or to put it another way for you film geeks out there: When was the last time you saw a big-budget Dogma 95 action flick?
Rather, it sounds as if they have jurisdiction over business transactions that take place entirely in the US of A. To quote the article (quoting the ruling):
Payments were directed to, and received by, an entity in the United States.
While I don't agree with the underlying legal assertions of the case, the decision on jurisdiction strikes me as reasonably sound.
from companies I like (glenmorangie [glenmorangie.com] whisky for one)
Actually, I'm not surprised you had a good experience with those whiskey emails. As someone who has worked on a bunch of direct e-mail campaigns for liquor comapnies (all of which shall remain nameless here), I can tell you that the brands are incredibly responsible with their lists, making sure that everyone on them (1) wants to be there, and (2) is a verified person living in a verified place with a verified age.
Why? Simple. They don't want the government scrutiny of their online marketing that would come from a whole bunch of 12-year-olds getting spam from brand XXX gin (or whiskey or whatever).
As a result, liquor companies (and tobacco for that matter) were forced into the opt-in marketing model... but it hasn't done badly for them at all. With a qualified and willing audience, they're able to deliver content that really enhances the brand, as opposed to "cold-calling" with cheap gimmicks to try and drum up business.
Twelve kids, each making $900,00 a year? Let's see... that's $10.8 million?!?! Hell, what company wouldn't want to target that 60-year-old woman with its banner ads?
...the Nigerian government... setup a web site to combat the common email scam.
And in a burst of inspired irony, their first order of business was probably the purchase a 5,000,000 name e-mailing list to tell people about this new anti-spam site. =)
You know, this whole thing could end up as a great Twilight Zone / Burgess-Meredith-weeping-in-the-rubble kinda moment...
TEST SUBJECT: Wow, I get to spend weeks locked in a Tilt-a-Whirl with nothing to do but mess around on a game-filled laptop. This is so cool.
DOCTOR (closing the door): Did we mention it's Windows? And the only games are Tresspasser and something by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?
*slam*
TEST SUBJECT: Noooooooooooooooooo!
If you build it (well), they will roleplay...
on
The Future of MMORPGs
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Roleplaying Genre needs to focus more on roleplaying
I'm going to disagree, but not for the reasons you might think.
The true jump in quality won't come from masses of gamers deciding in unison that, yes, I feel like pretending to be a sweaty dwarf named Argus McGinley of the Axehandle Clan today -- or whatever one's idea of traditional role playing might be.
Rather, it'll arrive when these online worlds become immersive/enjoyable enough that you don't even have to think about role playing. Not consciously, at any rate. That is to say, as these games evolve and their in-game mechanics grow to be more fluid and natural (instead of the hundreds of little annoyances -- zone loads, clipping bugs, slash commands -- that constantly remind us of a game's limitations), a majority gamers will begin to act more naturally within them.
Setting influences behavior, in a sense.
Re:Your chevy in battlebot mode
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 1
*sigh* Now you've gone and got me all nostalgic for the best car I've ever owned: 'an 86 Volvo station wagon, painted that weird periwinkle blue that all Volvos were back then. God, that thing was a tank. (And it had electric seat warmers!)
"Let me out! I'm not done making my wookies!"
on
The Future of MMORPGs
·
· Score: 5, Funny
...the creators of EverQuest, Asheron's Call, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, Anarchy Online, and others in the same room together?
Wow. Throw some heavy-duty padlocks on that door and you'll have just increased geek productivity by about 800%.
And if they start asking for food and water, just tell 'em to/petition it...
Nowhere do they seek permission to alter other software... but I did get a good laugh out of this last line (emphasis mine):
"Any use of this software in conjunction with any hardware, device or apparatus to surreptitiously intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications may violate state and federal laws, so there."
This is a trojan horse, plain and simple.
on
Spy v. Spy
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
you can't blame a company for pulling this kind of tactic if it's the easiest way to do it.
Sure you can. Watch. I'll do it right now. =)
Without warning the user, WinWhatWhere disables another piece of software for which that person has paid good money. That's like IE deleting Netscape if it detects it on your system. That's like your trusty Chevy switching to Battlebots mode every time it detects a Honda in the highway.
It's destruction of property. (Or, since we're talking about software here, illegally depriving someone of their licensed usage of a product.)
...the idea that technologies are our only feasible response to the profoundly changed geopolitical reality that Osama Bin-Laden created last fall.
On the other hand, last fall's events could also suggest a shift *away* from technology is our only feasible response. It all depends what particular trends you want to find in a given situation.
For example, my apartment is within a stone's throw of the old WTC site. On the morning of the attack, almost *everything* went offline; it was next to impossible to get a cell or landline out, transportation was shut down, broadcast antennas were gone, etc. (Heck, you couldn't even see more than a few blocks because of all the dust and smoke.)
As a result, many of us were reintroduced to the actual communities in which we live, as opposed to the virtual ones we'd created for ourselves. No longer able to rely upon the technology to which we'd grown so acustomed, we were forced to go out and interact with one another in more traditional ways. I spent a good part of that morning up on my roof, meeting neighbors I'd had no reason to talk to before, watching events unfold. Word of mouth was pretty much the only way to learn what was happening.
And now, more than half a year later, I'm finding that some -- not all, but some -- people are a lot less willing to put their entire faith in technology anymore. Not the way they used to. The friend who used to run her entire life via Palm has now gone back to the old-fashioned day planner. Old pals who once relied upon email as an easy way of keeping in touch have begun returning to phone calls and mailed letters again. The local community -- we're talking on a block-by-block level here -- has begun to reassert itself.
Am I suggesting this is a national trend? Or even noteworthy? Of course not. It's a local and probably fleeting phenomenon. The point is, you can take a series of events and make them mean almost anything you want. Katz wants to see it as a technological boom waiting to happen? Well, bully for him. Doesn't make it so, any more than what I just wrote suggests things are heading for a technological bust.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer the "printed" word for in-depth exploration of most issues. Once you put people in front of a video camera, intelligent discussion seems to give way to buzzwords, soundbites and bears (oh my). Heck, I've even foresworn that old standby "The NewsHour with Jim Leher" ever since it turned into a non-stop parade of talking heads. (Formula: take a topical issue, get someone from the left and someone from the right, let them spout the party line and provide absolutely no meaningful insight into anything. Repeat.)
What's more, the proposed outlay of effort and bandwidth here doesn't really seem worth the end result. Would the TV show really add enough value to Cringely's intellectual content to justify a weekly 80MB video download as opposed to an 18KB HTML file? For what: so we can see a few animated infographics?
Hate to say it, but sounds like more of the same. Ever get the feeling that just about any concept could get cookie-cuttered to death by the Blizzard tank-rush mentality? =)
"Slashdot was lucky enough to get a beta copy of Blizzard's upcoming Chutes and Ladders: Vertical Assault. So, CmdrTaco and Hemos locked me up beneath a stairwell and forced me to play for the last week..."
"This time you have a choice between two races: Chutes or Ladders. Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army of chutes (or ladders) with which to climb to the top. Or in my case, get climbed over."
Slashdot Mirror
Is it possible for a work of art to be fun and manipulate myths? Sure. No need to look any farther on the bookshelf than that Chronicles of Narnia box set. Does early silence on an influence mean that influence held no sway? Of course not.
Here's what the article boils down to: Hart is expressing disgust that basic pulp entertainment -- and I'll be the first to admit that SW is certainly that -- has been elevated to the level of seriously considered art via certain structuralist and post-structuralist criticisms that have come into vogue over the past couple of decades. Doesn't pedigree play a role, he asks? This is a #%$@ space opera, for god's sake!
Whereas the whole point of some of these theories was that the value of a thing can be found in its underlying structures and relationships -- regardless of whether it's Shakespeare or a dime-store romance.
Campbell's ability to generate whirlwinds of cross-cultural references makes his chatter sound tremendously erudite [...] but once the dust settles it's hard to grasp the point of it all.
Dare I say it, this Steven Hart fellow looks to be using the Lucas/Star Wars aspect as a cheap hook to gain a wider audience for his anti-Campbell viewpoints.
And as thousands of /.ers bang on Salon's servers, you gotta admit -- it worked.
I think my /. subscription's broken. I just read a feature-length ad for ZapMedia.
The People of Afghanistan:
Thank you for your wonderful open-source software. Can we... eat it?
Okay. Here's $500. And your name is Flounder.
(IANAL but...) freedom of speech has traditionally been interpreted as protecting a dialog of ideas (as opposed to a monologue). In other words, not only are your rights to express an idea protected, but also your right to receive ideas lawfully expressed by others. (Otherwise, the government could simply say: "Freedom of speech? Sure, talk all you want. Just step into this soundproofed room first.") Freedom of expression without reasonable freedom of channels of expression is more or less useless.
In this case, it seems the court found that, among other things, the warrant placed an undue burden on the bookstore in its role as a channel of constitutionally protected speech.Actually, that wasn't a quote from Justice Bender. He was exerpting from the Supreme Court opinion in the case of McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission. Still, it's a pretty encouraging sign that the quote made even a guest cameo in his decision.
Greenpeace immediately responded by running simulations of anti-nuke protests on an old 486 sitting on a card table outside Lawrence Livermore Labs.
Think about it. At heart, games are escapist entertainments. They offer us experiences that are markedly different from our own (or those of most other people). Exaggeration is one of the keys in making that break between our world and that of the game. Character design, laws of physics, color palette -- whatever. To borrow a line from Verant -- hey, I'm entitled to something for that extra $3 per month -- "You're in our world now." Even games that claim to be ultra-realistic revel in these small, deviant details. (Think Max Payne: high polys and crisp textures move it closer to realism, but things like bullet time move it firmly back into the realm of gaming.)
Trust me -- total realism will never eclipse escapist fun; the extremes of the two are mutually exclusive. Or to put it another way for you film geeks out there: When was the last time you saw a big-budget Dogma 95 action flick?
Hey... how else are the young techies of the world supposed to get the plum jobs and read /. all day? =)
Payments were directed to, and received by, an entity in the United States.
While I don't agree with the underlying legal assertions of the case, the decision on jurisdiction strikes me as reasonably sound.
Well, things could be worse; at least the letters "a" and "p" were in that last sentence...
Actually, I'm not surprised you had a good experience with those whiskey emails. As someone who has worked on a bunch of direct e-mail campaigns for liquor comapnies (all of which shall remain nameless here), I can tell you that the brands are incredibly responsible with their lists, making sure that everyone on them (1) wants to be there, and (2) is a verified person living in a verified place with a verified age.
Why? Simple. They don't want the government scrutiny of their online marketing that would come from a whole bunch of 12-year-olds getting spam from brand XXX gin (or whiskey or whatever).
As a result, liquor companies (and tobacco for that matter) were forced into the opt-in marketing model... but it hasn't done badly for them at all. With a qualified and willing audience, they're able to deliver content that really enhances the brand, as opposed to "cold-calling" with cheap gimmicks to try and drum up business.
Twelve kids, each making $900,00 a year? Let's see... that's $10.8 million?!?! Hell, what company wouldn't want to target that 60-year-old woman with its banner ads?
And in a burst of inspired irony, their first order of business was probably the purchase a 5,000,000 name e-mailing list to tell people about this new anti-spam site. =)
TEST SUBJECT:
Wow, I get to spend weeks locked in a Tilt-a-Whirl with nothing to do but mess around on a game-filled laptop. This is so cool.
DOCTOR (closing the door):
Did we mention it's Windows? And the only games are Tresspasser and something by Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?
*slam*
TEST SUBJECT:
Noooooooooooooooooo!
I'm going to disagree, but not for the reasons you might think.
The true jump in quality won't come from masses of gamers deciding in unison that, yes, I feel like pretending to be a sweaty dwarf named Argus McGinley of the Axehandle Clan today -- or whatever one's idea of traditional role playing might be.
Rather, it'll arrive when these online worlds become immersive/enjoyable enough that you don't even have to think about role playing. Not consciously, at any rate. That is to say, as these games evolve and their in-game mechanics grow to be more fluid and natural (instead of the hundreds of little annoyances -- zone loads, clipping bugs, slash commands -- that constantly remind us of a game's limitations), a majority gamers will begin to act more naturally within them.
Setting influences behavior, in a sense.
*sigh* Now you've gone and got me all nostalgic for the best car I've ever owned: 'an 86 Volvo station wagon, painted that weird periwinkle blue that all Volvos were back then. God, that thing was a tank. (And it had electric seat warmers!)
Wow. Throw some heavy-duty padlocks on that door and you'll have just increased geek productivity by about 800%.
And if they start asking for food and water, just tell 'em to /petition it...
You obviously haven't seen my kitchen sink recently. Those chore-loving Sims are high fantasy, far as I'm concerned. =)
Yup, here it is.
Nowhere do they seek permission to alter other software... but I did get a good laugh out of this last line (emphasis mine):
"Any use of this software in conjunction with any hardware, device or apparatus to surreptitiously intercept wire, oral, or electronic communications may violate state and federal laws, so there."
Sure you can. Watch. I'll do it right now. =)
Without warning the user, WinWhatWhere disables another piece of software for which that person has paid good money. That's like IE deleting Netscape if it detects it on your system. That's like your trusty Chevy switching to Battlebots mode every time it detects a Honda in the highway.
It's destruction of property. (Or, since we're talking about software here, illegally depriving someone of their licensed usage of a product.)
On the other hand, last fall's events could also suggest a shift *away* from technology is our only feasible response. It all depends what particular trends you want to find in a given situation.
For example, my apartment is within a stone's throw of the old WTC site. On the morning of the attack, almost *everything* went offline; it was next to impossible to get a cell or landline out, transportation was shut down, broadcast antennas were gone, etc. (Heck, you couldn't even see more than a few blocks because of all the dust and smoke.)
As a result, many of us were reintroduced to the actual communities in which we live, as opposed to the virtual ones we'd created for ourselves. No longer able to rely upon the technology to which we'd grown so acustomed, we were forced to go out and interact with one another in more traditional ways. I spent a good part of that morning up on my roof, meeting neighbors I'd had no reason to talk to before, watching events unfold. Word of mouth was pretty much the only way to learn what was happening.
And now, more than half a year later, I'm finding that some -- not all, but some -- people are a lot less willing to put their entire faith in technology anymore. Not the way they used to. The friend who used to run her entire life via Palm has now gone back to the old-fashioned day planner. Old pals who once relied upon email as an easy way of keeping in touch have begun returning to phone calls and mailed letters again. The local community -- we're talking on a block-by-block level here -- has begun to reassert itself.
Am I suggesting this is a national trend? Or even noteworthy? Of course not. It's a local and probably fleeting phenomenon. The point is, you can take a series of events and make them mean almost anything you want. Katz wants to see it as a technological boom waiting to happen? Well, bully for him. Doesn't make it so, any more than what I just wrote suggests things are heading for a technological bust.
Call me old-fashioned, but I still prefer the "printed" word for in-depth exploration of most issues. Once you put people in front of a video camera, intelligent discussion seems to give way to buzzwords, soundbites and bears (oh my). Heck, I've even foresworn that old standby "The NewsHour with Jim Leher" ever since it turned into a non-stop parade of talking heads. (Formula: take a topical issue, get someone from the left and someone from the right, let them spout the party line and provide absolutely no meaningful insight into anything. Repeat.)
What's more, the proposed outlay of effort and bandwidth here doesn't really seem worth the end result. Would the TV show really add enough value to Cringely's intellectual content to justify a weekly 80MB video download as opposed to an 18KB HTML file? For what: so we can see a few animated infographics?
"Slashdot was lucky enough to get a beta copy of Blizzard's upcoming Chutes and Ladders: Vertical Assault. So, CmdrTaco and Hemos locked me up beneath a stairwell and forced me to play for the last week..."
"This time you have a choice between two races: Chutes or Ladders. Your race really doesn't matter in multiplayer mode; winning basically comes down to building everything up quickly and creating a massive army of chutes (or ladders) with which to climb to the top. Or in my case, get climbed over."