things keep getting cheaper... isn't that deflation? that's bad. companies keep slicing their profits smaller and smaller, prices go down, profits shrink, then we're like japan...
here in sf we just got a rent reduction on our apt, which was rented at a discount from what it was before. rents have bowed to market pressure, thank goodness. buying a home, sadly, has not, maybe that's the other shoe to drop.
If this trend of outsourcing continues maybe products will become cheaper, if the labor used to produce everything is cheaper. that would be interesting to see. but then wouldn't we start running into the problem of deflation?
I'll just toss a couple of tidbits your way. I'm well over thirty. The company I WORKED for went under and is being investigated by the SEC. The CEO is under investigation for cooking the books. This is not simply attributible to class envy.
Next, as for unions, without unions this nation would never have gotten out of the great depression. I come from the angle that a balance must be struck between free markets for businesses and government regulation. Because without government regulations, there would be no minimum wage, no child labor laws, no 40 hour work week, no overtime, because businesses would rape your mom and sell you her hymen if it would earn them a profit. So hey, I see a place for unions in certain industries where workers are being exploited, like say you work at Burger King or WalMart. And you have to agree that many companies are anti-union because, frankly, they don't think their workers deserve to be paid more, just as they're against raising the minimum wage.
and thats the basic stereotyped difference between dare i say it, democrats and republicans. dems generally feel people who have fallen on hard times need help, need programs to get them on the right track, and the government has a responsibility to provide welfare. And on the other side of the coin, the republicans generally feel people who are down on their luck need "tough love"... if they really want to get back on their feet this nation provides everyone with enough opportunity to make it so long as they work hard. So people who are stuck on welfare are just lazy and would benefit from LESS welfare coddling because when faced with the spectre of dying in poverty, they'd get off their duffs and get to work.
I'm really getting annoyed with business in America. Not only do the companies in this country generally not care about creating jobs or providing valuable services, the quality of products is going downhill, the quality of tech support and services are going downhill, the number of choices is evaporating, as bigger companies get bigger and monopolize everything. I wouldn't buy half the crap out there if i didn't have to, and when I do, the choices are fewer and fewer. What I mean by that is, pretty soon we'll all be shopping at WalMart and HomeDepot, buying our necessities all made overseas. Yeah, the products will be hella cheap, but that's about all the good you can say about it.
Problem is, the "have-nots" have been carefully divided up so that not many of them are pissed at any one time. Right now, it's the tech workers' turn to be pissed. Meanwhile, the blue collar manufacturing workers are just saying, "well, now it's your turn". There's no solidarity bridging the classes and occupations.
.... which is what they've been doing for the past three years and propping up our sagging economy. Just whip out the credit card and charge it. And if your cards are all maxed out? Refinance your home. Consumer credit debt is at an all time high. Heck who needs a job? Just give everyone a charge card and everyone's happy!
a bit off topic, but just to let people know how far you have to fall in order to get food stamps in california, you have to earn less than 10K a year, and you cannot have any assets worth more than 3,000 dollars. Meaning, if you are broke but still have a car that's worth 3,000 clams or more, or you have a pile in the bank or in retirement funds, no food stamps for you.
This nation expects you to be practically destitute before giving you any food aid. Now I know a lot of us have never had / nor will have to deal with extreme poverty, but from what I've seen, there's not much of a safety net if you fall from the comforts of middle class. Being on welfare and food stamps doesn't mean you're doing well, at all. It's shocking to think people still assume people would actually WANT to be on welfare because they're too lazy to work...
democracy is generally unkind to the uber rich once the masses think they're getting the shaft. the goal of the uber wealthy is to try to maintain the status quo as long as possible so they can enjoy the high life and pass the money down to their kids. there's been a lot of deft posturing in the past decades, pointing fingers and convincing workers that free markets are great for everyone (when it really means free markets for corporations to move their jobs overseas), stock options are a great way of giving everyone ownership in the company (when it really means giving the execs ten million options priced at 10 cents and the workers a few thousand priced at 60 dollars... and you tip your exec buddies when to dump your shares before everyone else)... basically the corporations have figured out ways to get the government to ease regulations and let them do whatever they want. Being American is equivalent with letting companies and the rich that run them do whatever it takes to turn a profit, without regulations. The problem is corporations and the rich have convinced everyone that Freedom in the American sense = free markets and business without regulations.
well, traditionally instead of a maximum wage the gov. just taxes the bejeezus out of the highest income earners. I think the taxes for the rich should be much, much higher.
The problem is, ultimately, all these people who can't make a living doing whatever they are doing are going to have to be supported by society. Meaning, they'll go on welfare or low income medical care, etc. So it would make sense that efforts should be made to keep a large percentage of the population in jobs and earning money and staying in the economic system instead of dropping out and living off the government. The winners obviously need to outweigh the number of losers by a large number.
Of course I don't think it's easy. But do I think it's fair that a CEO gets paid on the average, 200 times what their workers beneath make? That they get paid in the tens of millions while their companies are run into the ground? No, certainly do not think running a business is 200 times as hard as what the average cubicle dweller is doing. 10 times, maybe, but 200 times is ridiculous.
But no, I don't see this trend ending anytime soon. I see America turning into a nation where there's a tiny super wealthy upper class, a small middle class, and a huge underclass of impoverished workers, on welfare... not unlike Britain.
A lot of the fighting the Labor Unions did after the great depression, sadly, has been destroyed at tech companies. Tech workers are rarely unionized. We were told we'd be fairly compensated in other ways, namely, stock options. Now as we all know, the wool was largely pulled over our eyes. Many companies give their CEOs and execs options in the millions and the average worker would get tens of thousands. And guess what, a lot of those stock options are underwater, worthless, or not worth anything compared to what they once were.
I mention options because they were used as compensation... to say that "everyone was sharing ownership in the company" and "if the company improves, then the stock goes up and everyone benefits". They were made out to be this big equalizer of wealth. And unions were touted to be terrible for competition... they would keep costs up and keep companies from being flexible. Instead of a guaranteed wage or job, options will solve everything.
Bull shit.
So in exchange for these "big equalizers of wealth" many people didn't notice when we were handed "at will" employee contracts, and when unions vanished. Who needed a union? If you got laid off you could always live off your stock options...
So now we have the situation we're in now, where tech workers still think unions are bad for competition, and the CEO's laugh all the way to the bank with their insider options.
Its obvious a lot of what you say is right on. the only difficulty is that the areas of biggest job growth for the foreseable future is going to be in service industry type jobs. You can't outsource the car repairman, the person who pours your latte, the waitress who gets you your steak, or the orderly that busses your urine sample. Oh, and of course the owners and execs of all these companies are going to keep giving themselves bigger paychecks. The problem I see is largely a social one: typically these jobs are not very high paying and a lot of people have a stigma about doing service industry type jobs... their parents sent them to college so they supposedly wouldn't have to do that kind of "blue collar" work. It's a class thing. So a lot of people will be kicking and screaming in the future and bitching all the way to their new careers.
There's a short list of subjects that anybody could rattle off that someone who calls him/herself a "geek" would be interested in.
Computers.
Science fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix)
Fantasy (Lord of the Rings, D&D)
Video Games.
Comic Books.
Find me a self-described geek who claims they have no interest in any of the above, (has never used a computer, seen the Matrix, rolled a 12 sided die or played a video game) and I would dare say you've got a liar...:)
The genre needs some more great works... I mentioned in another thread how the industry needs it's own "harry potter" or "sims". Look at how harry potter singlehandedly revitalized the whole children's books arena. Who would have thought kids would be reading books of all things, before Harry Potter?
Right now all the comics industry has going for it are movie adaptations. Which counts for something, but still, people are experienceing the movies and I doubt a lot of 'em are becoming comic fans because of them. They more likely become more interested in movies.
Scott McCloud's books, Understanding Comics, tries to answer your question. One big historical situation was back in the 40's and 50's when there was a genre of comics dealing with crime... they would depict sex, drugs, grisly murders. There was a huge backlash and the "comics code" was created which basically censored the crap out of comic books in America. So, along the way, comics couldn't talk about "adult" subject matter, and due to all the media coverage, a lot of people were told that comic books were evil, brain washing, exploitative, etc.
Frankly you could see some parallels there and with what some people say about videogames today. Just imagine what would happen if the government decided to crack down on video games... and all we were left with were Mario and Dance Dance Revolution etc....
Anyhow during the 60's a whole underground movement started which did a lot to revitalize the "adult" nature of comics... starting with Crumb... Spiegleman is a direct offshoot of what Crumb started with his autobiographical comics style.
But I would dare say the underground comics movement at least in it's inception, over compensated for all the censorship. They went far left, delving into drugs, nudity, sexual hangups, racism. So you get comics that are all about superheroes on one hand and alienated losers on the other, and not a whole lot inbetween.
The inbetween is what I think needs to be filled out.
In Japan they've got everything covered. There are comics for kids, adults, women, jocks, pervs, working class people. It is socially acceptable to read a comic. Nobody thinks you're a deviant, a perv or a stunted adolescent as they seem to in the States. And a lot of this stereotype has to do with the history, and the inability of the comics makers to breach the social walls with some truly mainstream material.
I'm thinking, American comics needs a "Harry Potter" or "Sims" equivalent.
I really wish comics were more popular than they are in America. The reasons why have been hashed out ad nauseum but I think it boils down to a bad stereotyped image... that comics are for kids and mostly center around superheroes in spandex, muscles, with a hugely breasted babe on each arm. It's because companies like Marvel and DC saturate the market with their corny superhero escapades, leading people to assume that's all comics can be and all they're about.
There's a lot of great stuff there, but in order to truly break through the aformentioned kiddie / funny / superhero / alienated loser stereotype something more mainstream and substantial needs to come out of the comics world. My primary gripe is not about the art. The art is great and wonderful things are being done every day. It's the subject matter and the writing.
The handful of comics folks I really admire these days are Chris Ware, Posy Simmonds and Dan Clowes. Chris Ware's stuff transcends narrative and writing. Posy Simmonds' "Gemma Bovery" is a re-telling of Madame Bovery with a really complex merging of novel and art. It doesn't look that great at first but there's subtle patterns to when it lapses into comic and back to novel. Dan Clowes I mention because he's done comics that read more like films and his latest 8ball, frankly, blew me away with it's genere hopping and Altmanesque interweaving story lines.
I've been hopeful as of late as finally we got to see Ghost World, American Splendor, heck even Road To Perdition which are great examples of films based on comics that do not have the aforementioned superhero complex. For better or worse, it's hard to tell they in fact were comics to begin with. Now don't get me wrong, I still enjoy X-Men and Hulk, but I don't think these films are doing anything to break down the stereotypes of what comics are.
Frankly, we need more boundry-breaking artists than Stan Lee, who keeps rehashing the same old archetypes. Otherwise we'll just continue with the situation we have now, where comic book stores go under, fewer people can make a living at it, and the comics section is delegated to some far corner of the bookstore near the porno mags...
here's another solution, that looks hard from the start but would make a pile for whomever could figure it out, you sell a simpler box where security is the primary factor. A lot of grandmas and older people might go for something that only does AOL, mail, web browsing and maybe printing and digital photos. I know little appliances like the Audrey failed but it could stand another go-round in a few years (just like how Newton failed, but pdas took off the second time around).
interesting example, I'll bite. How about instead of spamming to grannies who have AOL, a little targeted marketing? Like banner ads on adult sites, or get a mailing list of people who subscribe to said sites and spam them.
I mean, look at other media. You don't flip through newsweek and see an ad for a penis pump. You don't get porn junk mail in your mailbox either. But if you buy Hustler or suscribe to it at home, hey, you just might get some in your mailbox or see an ad.
I just don't get how it's gone from having some restraint to this spam your grandma situation we have today.
I think what I'd like to see one of these columnists talk about is the state of the advertising industry today. Why is it that some companies feel the need to advertise is such obviously offensive manners such as spam, junk mail or telemarketing? Whatever happened to producing a quality product, advertising in responsible ways and having sales generated based on a great idea or product? Is this kind of "traditional" advertising not working any more?
I think in some ways, the old ways aren't working as well as they used to. People already feel like they're being over advertised to and we tend to tune out tv ads, just flip over magazine ads, ignore banners. But that's not our fault, it's the fault of the industry for shoving it down our throats at every turn.
But at the same time if the ads are for a product that people generally like we do notice the ads, like say for the Lord of the Rings movie or Apple. Too many companies seem to not understand that advertising a product very few people want is going to make your product better. Not every product is worthy of advertising.
So it seems to me that companies with shitty products look at their crappy sales and think they need to go ballistic with Spam, and just through basic odds they'll get some responses and people buying their products. But do they not realize they may be getting a small amount of sales and a much larger amount of customers never to buy their product because they pissed them off with their spam?
Your parallel makes sense, but remember that we are in the early days of the video game industry. Take a look back at movie making early this century, when it was just about to go mainstream. There was a long period when the big studios monopolized all movie making and stars, directors, etc. all had to sign with a major studio. We're at the beginning of that phase in the videogame industry. The posts above referring to how technology recently has made movie making accessible to the mainstream, is right on, but I'm afraid we're several decades shy of that happening in the video game industry. Right now I think we're on the verge of a huge power grab where a few major video game studios (EA, Sony) monopolize the whole industry, get totally loaded, and compete to get talent (stars). Budgets will go sky high, video games will become mainstream entertainment, we'll see a huge golden age.
Many singers are not always in tune. Go back and listen to some old Beatles albums like Revolver... the auto-tuner would have a field day fixing all the slightly out of tune instruments and vocals. But would it make an obvious classic album more classic? Quite the opposite.
Part of the charm of vocals is that they are organic, even more so in a day and age where every single instrument can be synthesized and manipulated. Being in tune is overrated. You can't "fix" a Johnny Rotten scream. There's no point in auto-tuning rap music. Listen really carefully to some of your favorite singers. Not everything is a matter of being in tune. Some of it's confidence, "presence", knowing how to convey emotion through subtle details.
The worst thing that can happen as a result of auto-tuning is people start preferring cookie cutter, perfectly in tune vocals. That they start thinking N'Sync and Britney and Shania Twain are the apex of pop music. Thankfully I don't see this happening.
The turning point for me began with the fighting games like street fighter, where in order to do some special move you had to enter in some insane key combo. I was never good at those kinds of games. Soon after that, the controllers started coming with tons of buttons, multiple joysticks. I guess this is why I've played more PC strategy type games that aren't so trigger happy. Like Warcraft, Diablo, The Sims... all have a much kinder learning curve. You don't get plowed under in the first few seconds because you don't know some crazy key combo or can't figure out what button does what.
well for starters, I'd wait to see whether the child rearing abilities of women is increased proportionatly... right now it's best for women to have a kid before 40. If this age is extened even until 100 years old, well, I would expect huge society changes. Already people wait longer to get married and have kids. If there's no rush, then people might stay in college until 30, slack off for thirty years, then get married for the first time around 60, have a kid or two, get divorced at 150, remarry at 200...
I unfortunately think, that a big reason why people get anything done in this society is because of the impending doom of death. So many people work their asses off NOW because they're thinking of retiring at 69, or plan to have a kid when they're 29 so they won't be old and decrepid by the time they become a grandparent etc. I see life expectancy throwing all of this planning for the future out the window.
Second I would expect the divorce rate to skyrocket. I simply can't imagine any person being willing to put up with any one person for hundreds of years.:)
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things keep getting cheaper ... isn't that deflation? that's bad. companies keep slicing their profits smaller and smaller, prices go down, profits shrink, then we're like japan ...
here in sf we just got a rent reduction on our apt, which was rented at a discount from what it was before. rents have bowed to market pressure, thank goodness. buying a home, sadly, has not, maybe that's the other shoe to drop.
If this trend of outsourcing continues maybe products will become cheaper, if the labor used to produce everything is cheaper. that would be interesting to see. but then wouldn't we start running into the problem of deflation?
I'll just toss a couple of tidbits your way. I'm well over thirty. The company I WORKED for went under and is being investigated by the SEC. The CEO is under investigation for cooking the books. This is not simply attributible to class envy.
Next, as for unions, without unions this nation would never have gotten out of the great depression. I come from the angle that a balance must be struck between free markets for businesses and government regulation. Because without government regulations, there would be no minimum wage, no child labor laws, no 40 hour work week, no overtime, because businesses would rape your mom and sell you her hymen if it would earn them a profit. So hey, I see a place for unions in certain industries where workers are being exploited, like say you work at Burger King or WalMart. And you have to agree that many companies are anti-union because, frankly, they don't think their workers deserve to be paid more, just as they're against raising the minimum wage.
and thats the basic stereotyped difference between dare i say it, democrats and republicans. dems generally feel people who have fallen on hard times need help, need programs to get them on the right track, and the government has a responsibility to provide welfare. And on the other side of the coin, the republicans generally feel people who are down on their luck need "tough love" ... if they really want to get back on their feet this nation provides everyone with enough opportunity to make it so long as they work hard. So people who are stuck on welfare are just lazy and would benefit from LESS welfare coddling because when faced with the spectre of dying in poverty, they'd get off their duffs and get to work.
I'm really getting annoyed with business in America. Not only do the companies in this country generally not care about creating jobs or providing valuable services, the quality of products is going downhill, the quality of tech support and services are going downhill, the number of choices is evaporating, as bigger companies get bigger and monopolize everything. I wouldn't buy half the crap out there if i didn't have to, and when I do, the choices are fewer and fewer. What I mean by that is, pretty soon we'll all be shopping at WalMart and HomeDepot, buying our necessities all made overseas. Yeah, the products will be hella cheap, but that's about all the good you can say about it.
Problem is, the "have-nots" have been carefully divided up so that not many of them are pissed at any one time. Right now, it's the tech workers' turn to be pissed. Meanwhile, the blue collar manufacturing workers are just saying, "well, now it's your turn". There's no solidarity bridging the classes and occupations.
.... which is what they've been doing for the past three years and propping up our sagging economy. Just whip out the credit card and charge it. And if your cards are all maxed out? Refinance your home. Consumer credit debt is at an all time high. Heck who needs a job? Just give everyone a charge card and everyone's happy!
a bit off topic, but just to let people know how far you have to fall in order to get food stamps in california, you have to earn less than 10K a year, and you cannot have any assets worth more than 3,000 dollars. Meaning, if you are broke but still have a car that's worth 3,000 clams or more, or you have a pile in the bank or in retirement funds, no food stamps for you.
This nation expects you to be practically destitute before giving you any food aid. Now I know a lot of us have never had / nor will have to deal with extreme poverty, but from what I've seen, there's not much of a safety net if you fall from the comforts of middle class. Being on welfare and food stamps doesn't mean you're doing well, at all. It's shocking to think people still assume people would actually WANT to be on welfare because they're too lazy to work...
democracy is generally unkind to the uber rich once the masses think they're getting the shaft. the goal of the uber wealthy is to try to maintain the status quo as long as possible so they can enjoy the high life and pass the money down to their kids. there's been a lot of deft posturing in the past decades, pointing fingers and convincing workers that free markets are great for everyone (when it really means free markets for corporations to move their jobs overseas), stock options are a great way of giving everyone ownership in the company (when it really means giving the execs ten million options priced at 10 cents and the workers a few thousand priced at 60 dollars ... and you tip your exec buddies when to dump your shares before everyone else) ... basically the corporations have figured out ways to get the government to ease regulations and let them do whatever they want. Being American is equivalent with letting companies and the rich that run them do whatever it takes to turn a profit, without regulations. The problem is corporations and the rich have convinced everyone that Freedom in the American sense = free markets and business without regulations.
well, traditionally instead of a maximum wage the gov. just taxes the bejeezus out of the highest income earners. I think the taxes for the rich should be much, much higher.
The problem is, ultimately, all these people who can't make a living doing whatever they are doing are going to have to be supported by society. Meaning, they'll go on welfare or low income medical care, etc. So it would make sense that efforts should be made to keep a large percentage of the population in jobs and earning money and staying in the economic system instead of dropping out and living off the government. The winners obviously need to outweigh the number of losers by a large number.
Of course I don't think it's easy. But do I think it's fair that a CEO gets paid on the average, 200 times what their workers beneath make? That they get paid in the tens of millions while their companies are run into the ground? No, certainly do not think running a business is 200 times as hard as what the average cubicle dweller is doing. 10 times, maybe, but 200 times is ridiculous.
But no, I don't see this trend ending anytime soon. I see America turning into a nation where there's a tiny super wealthy upper class, a small middle class, and a huge underclass of impoverished workers, on welfare ... not unlike Britain.
A lot of the fighting the Labor Unions did after the great depression, sadly, has been destroyed at tech companies. Tech workers are rarely unionized. We were told we'd be fairly compensated in other ways, namely, stock options. Now as we all know, the wool was largely pulled over our eyes. Many companies give their CEOs and execs options in the millions and the average worker would get tens of thousands. And guess what, a lot of those stock options are underwater, worthless, or not worth anything compared to what they once were.
I mention options because they were used as compensation ... to say that "everyone was sharing ownership in the company" and "if the company improves, then the stock goes up and everyone benefits". They were made out to be this big equalizer of wealth. And unions were touted to be terrible for competition ... they would keep costs up and keep companies from being flexible. Instead of a guaranteed wage or job, options will solve everything.
Bull shit.
So in exchange for these "big equalizers of wealth" many people didn't notice when we were handed "at will" employee contracts, and when unions vanished. Who needed a union? If you got laid off you could always live off your stock options ...
So now we have the situation we're in now, where tech workers still think unions are bad for competition, and the CEO's laugh all the way to the bank with their insider options.
Its obvious a lot of what you say is right on. the only difficulty is that the areas of biggest job growth for the foreseable future is going to be in service industry type jobs. You can't outsource the car repairman, the person who pours your latte, the waitress who gets you your steak, or the orderly that busses your urine sample. Oh, and of course the owners and execs of all these companies are going to keep giving themselves bigger paychecks. The problem I see is largely a social one: typically these jobs are not very high paying and a lot of people have a stigma about doing service industry type jobs ... their parents sent them to college so they supposedly wouldn't have to do that kind of "blue collar" work. It's a class thing. So a lot of people will be kicking and screaming in the future and bitching all the way to their new careers.
There's a short list of subjects that anybody could rattle off that someone who calls him/herself a "geek" would be interested in.
Computers.
Science fiction (Star Wars, Star Trek, The Matrix)
Fantasy (Lord of the Rings, D&D)
Video Games.
Comic Books.
Find me a self-described geek who claims they have no interest in any of the above, (has never used a computer, seen the Matrix, rolled a 12 sided die or played a video game) and I would dare say you've got a liar... :)
The genre needs some more great works ... I mentioned in another thread how the industry needs it's own "harry potter" or "sims". Look at how harry potter singlehandedly revitalized the whole children's books arena. Who would have thought kids would be reading books of all things, before Harry Potter?
Right now all the comics industry has going for it are movie adaptations. Which counts for something, but still, people are experienceing the movies and I doubt a lot of 'em are becoming comic fans because of them. They more likely become more interested in movies.
Scott McCloud's books, Understanding Comics, tries to answer your question. One big historical situation was back in the 40's and 50's when there was a genre of comics dealing with crime ... they would depict sex, drugs, grisly murders. There was a huge backlash and the "comics code" was created which basically censored the crap out of comic books in America. So, along the way, comics couldn't talk about "adult" subject matter, and due to all the media coverage, a lot of people were told that comic books were evil, brain washing, exploitative, etc.
Frankly you could see some parallels there and with what some people say about videogames today. Just imagine what would happen if the government decided to crack down on video games ... and all we were left with were Mario and Dance Dance Revolution etc....
Anyhow during the 60's a whole underground movement started which did a lot to revitalize the "adult" nature of comics ... starting with Crumb ... Spiegleman is a direct offshoot of what Crumb started with his autobiographical comics style.
But I would dare say the underground comics movement at least in it's inception, over compensated for all the censorship. They went far left, delving into drugs, nudity, sexual hangups, racism. So you get comics that are all about superheroes on one hand and alienated losers on the other, and not a whole lot inbetween.
The inbetween is what I think needs to be filled out.
In Japan they've got everything covered. There are comics for kids, adults, women, jocks, pervs, working class people. It is socially acceptable to read a comic. Nobody thinks you're a deviant, a perv or a stunted adolescent as they seem to in the States. And a lot of this stereotype has to do with the history, and the inability of the comics makers to breach the social walls with some truly mainstream material.
I'm thinking, American comics needs a "Harry Potter" or "Sims" equivalent.
I really wish comics were more popular than they are in America. The reasons why have been hashed out ad nauseum but I think it boils down to a bad stereotyped image ... that comics are for kids and mostly center around superheroes in spandex, muscles, with a hugely breasted babe on each arm. It's because companies like Marvel and DC saturate the market with their corny superhero escapades, leading people to assume that's all comics can be and all they're about.
There's a lot of great stuff there, but in order to truly break through the aformentioned kiddie / funny / superhero / alienated loser stereotype something more mainstream and substantial needs to come out of the comics world. My primary gripe is not about the art. The art is great and wonderful things are being done every day. It's the subject matter and the writing.
The handful of comics folks I really admire these days are Chris Ware, Posy Simmonds and Dan Clowes. Chris Ware's stuff transcends narrative and writing. Posy Simmonds' "Gemma Bovery" is a re-telling of Madame Bovery with a really complex merging of novel and art. It doesn't look that great at first but there's subtle patterns to when it lapses into comic and back to novel. Dan Clowes I mention because he's done comics that read more like films and his latest 8ball, frankly, blew me away with it's genere hopping and Altmanesque interweaving story lines.
I've been hopeful as of late as finally we got to see Ghost World, American Splendor, heck even Road To Perdition which are great examples of films based on comics that do not have the aforementioned superhero complex. For better or worse, it's hard to tell they in fact were comics to begin with. Now don't get me wrong, I still enjoy X-Men and Hulk, but I don't think these films are doing anything to break down the stereotypes of what comics are.
Frankly, we need more boundry-breaking artists than Stan Lee, who keeps rehashing the same old archetypes. Otherwise we'll just continue with the situation we have now, where comic book stores go under, fewer people can make a living at it, and the comics section is delegated to some far corner of the bookstore near the porno mags...
here's another solution, that looks hard from the start but would make a pile for whomever could figure it out, you sell a simpler box where security is the primary factor. A lot of grandmas and older people might go for something that only does AOL, mail, web browsing and maybe printing and digital photos. I know little appliances like the Audrey failed but it could stand another go-round in a few years (just like how Newton failed, but pdas took off the second time around).
interesting example, I'll bite. How about instead of spamming to grannies who have AOL, a little targeted marketing? Like banner ads on adult sites, or get a mailing list of people who subscribe to said sites and spam them.
I mean, look at other media. You don't flip through newsweek and see an ad for a penis pump. You don't get porn junk mail in your mailbox either. But if you buy Hustler or suscribe to it at home, hey, you just might get some in your mailbox or see an ad.
I just don't get how it's gone from having some restraint to this spam your grandma situation we have today.
I think what I'd like to see one of these columnists talk about is the state of the advertising industry today. Why is it that some companies feel the need to advertise is such obviously offensive manners such as spam, junk mail or telemarketing? Whatever happened to producing a quality product, advertising in responsible ways and having sales generated based on a great idea or product? Is this kind of "traditional" advertising not working any more?
I think in some ways, the old ways aren't working as well as they used to. People already feel like they're being over advertised to and we tend to tune out tv ads, just flip over magazine ads, ignore banners. But that's not our fault, it's the fault of the industry for shoving it down our throats at every turn.
But at the same time if the ads are for a product that people generally like we do notice the ads, like say for the Lord of the Rings movie or Apple. Too many companies seem to not understand that advertising a product very few people want is going to make your product better. Not every product is worthy of advertising.
So it seems to me that companies with shitty products look at their crappy sales and think they need to go ballistic with Spam, and just through basic odds they'll get some responses and people buying their products. But do they not realize they may be getting a small amount of sales and a much larger amount of customers never to buy their product because they pissed them off with their spam?
Your parallel makes sense, but remember that we are in the early days of the video game industry. Take a look back at movie making early this century, when it was just about to go mainstream. There was a long period when the big studios monopolized all movie making and stars, directors, etc. all had to sign with a major studio. We're at the beginning of that phase in the videogame industry. The posts above referring to how technology recently has made movie making accessible to the mainstream, is right on, but I'm afraid we're several decades shy of that happening in the video game industry. Right now I think we're on the verge of a huge power grab where a few major video game studios (EA, Sony) monopolize the whole industry, get totally loaded, and compete to get talent (stars). Budgets will go sky high, video games will become mainstream entertainment, we'll see a huge golden age.
Many singers are not always in tune. Go back and listen to some old Beatles albums like Revolver ... the auto-tuner would have a field day fixing all the slightly out of tune instruments and vocals. But would it make an obvious classic album more classic? Quite the opposite.
Part of the charm of vocals is that they are organic, even more so in a day and age where every single instrument can be synthesized and manipulated. Being in tune is overrated. You can't "fix" a Johnny Rotten scream. There's no point in auto-tuning rap music. Listen really carefully to some of your favorite singers. Not everything is a matter of being in tune. Some of it's confidence, "presence", knowing how to convey emotion through subtle details.
The worst thing that can happen as a result of auto-tuning is people start preferring cookie cutter, perfectly in tune vocals. That they start thinking N'Sync and Britney and Shania Twain are the apex of pop music. Thankfully I don't see this happening.
The turning point for me began with the fighting games like street fighter, where in order to do some special move you had to enter in some insane key combo. I was never good at those kinds of games. Soon after that, the controllers started coming with tons of buttons, multiple joysticks. I guess this is why I've played more PC strategy type games that aren't so trigger happy. Like Warcraft, Diablo, The Sims ... all have a much kinder learning curve. You don't get plowed under in the first few seconds because you don't know some crazy key combo or can't figure out what button does what.
well for starters, I'd wait to see whether the child rearing abilities of women is increased proportionatly ... right now it's best for women to have a kid before 40. If this age is extened even until 100 years old, well, I would expect huge society changes. Already people wait longer to get married and have kids. If there's no rush, then people might stay in college until 30, slack off for thirty years, then get married for the first time around 60, have a kid or two, get divorced at 150, remarry at 200...
I unfortunately think, that a big reason why people get anything done in this society is because of the impending doom of death. So many people work their asses off NOW because they're thinking of retiring at 69, or plan to have a kid when they're 29 so they won't be old and decrepid by the time they become a grandparent etc. I see life expectancy throwing all of this planning for the future out the window.
Second I would expect the divorce rate to skyrocket. I simply can't imagine any person being willing to put up with any one person for hundreds of years. :)