In a stationary mount, you don't have to worry about gyroscopic affect
Not completely accurate. The rotation of the Earth will cause a stationary gyro to put some torque on its bearings, depending on your latitude, just as a Foucault pendulum veers over time. It's not a big effect, but there are no "small effects" when we're talking about gigawatts of kinetic energy:)
I'm not saying Microsoft is right or wrong, just giving an objective analysis. I think even "stupid cheap" people would generally avoid this kind of product, because, at least in the US, there's a strong negative societal pressure against a "eat all you want" product transitioning into a "taxiometered" one.
More broadly, even if this offering does overcome this, Microsoft would just be selling an inferior product to a downscale and shrinking demographic, essentially selling the Zenith TV or Cadillac of computing applications, bought only by those with brand loyalty or are sufficiently ignorant. Now, this worked for Zenith and GM for at least a few decades, but there was a reckoning.
So, you're saying it'll be just like every cellular company today
Yeah, but the cellular companies now have quasi-monopolies because of the way the US mobile industry is (not) regulated. Tariffs or tolls are a way you exploit a monopoly position, not how you build or establish one.
Oh Goodie. My post has become the "important" one that other people latch onto with non-germaine observations in the hope that they'll get higher placement.
I grant that. I'm pretty sure my grandma was still renting her phone up until the day she died, even though the rules requiring this were reformed in the 1970s.
But you can't make long money on ignorance, particularly if we're talking about people that are ignorant of alternatives. I think if this were to catch on, Apple (or lets just call it "Commodore" to keep emotions out of it) would instantly start a "we don't tax you" ad campaign, and the Wal*Mart would start selling boxes of OpenOffice for $20 (that is legal, remember). And I'm sure Google would have something to add to all this as well.
I guess this would be successful, but it pretty much guarantees that all of your customers will hate you, even as they pay you. So really, it's a horizontal move for Microsoft.
As long as computing is as desperately cheap as it is, with $300 computers and free office suites, it's hard to see how they could make this work as a business model.
True. I wasn't placing Snyder in the same league (or indeed, in the same sport) as Gilliam, but rather pointing out that there are ways of letting a film out without going through the proper channels.
Not in a way that makes any money, and it's not like Alan Moore is in the driver's seat on this show in the way that Gilliam and Arnon Milchan were when Brazil showed. Besides, the USC Norris screening was aborted (they never showed the movie there), and the CalArts screening the next day only went off because they kept it a secret from anybody who'd want to see the film. The
"Hirschfield pool house screening" for the LA Film Critics was probably the more important screening. In all these cases, it was a scant few people that saw the picture, usually select groups, and really the screenings were just en passants in the broader turf battle between Milchan and Sheinberg, and not really "exhibition" in the sense I think we're talking about. We're also pre-supposing that The Watchmen is actually worth leaking, which I admit is a little questionable right now.
I went to USC and wrote a paper on The Battle, so don't get me going:) In any case, I remind you that the end result of this is that Brazil was still re-edited by Terry for the US, and both him and Milchan's careers were both essentially ended by the Battle and its aftermath (yeah I know Terry kept making movies, but the bloom was off the rose and his reputation has never recovered). Zach Snyder knows how to play ball and wouldn't consider such a thing, and they've succeeded in isolating the dangerous creative types, like Alan Moore, from the decision-making.
Zack Snyder is no Terry Gilliam, I think that is certain. Mr. Snyder is a good stylist, but after 30 Days of Night I think it's pretty clear he never heard a studio note he didn't like.
It may help if you make a high-pitched sound. (at least high-pitched sounds are easier for me)
The higher the pitch, the closer the wavelength, and at the distances we're talking about (centimeters to meters) you're auditory system will be doing localization with phase differences and wavefronts instead of actual "echo," since the time delays on echo are pretty hard to pick up on so close to the listener (believe it or not, but your ears-brain loop is extremely sensitive to phase differences between the two ears).
By this method, you cannot detect objects or features smaller than the wavelength of the sound, so you'll need a wavelength at least as short as you are wide, in order to avoid hitting something that would stop you, and this comes out to about 1 kHz (34 cm). 3 kHz is ideal, since we have a natural sensitivity there (the speech band that allows us to hear consonants), and that's about 11cm (about the size of your head, conicidentally). Above that, you get better imaging, but your ears get less sensitive, so you need the tone to be louder.
How can you hit a target of 2mm when your finger is a centimeter across?
I would hate to have to use an interface that actually relied on having this level of accuracy from the inputdev. even if they can extract a really good model of where you apply the pressure to the screen, it's not exactly trivial, or even possible, to turn that into an "intended point" or path.
Surface was kind of a stunt, an amalgam that demos superbly doesn't really have any broad application. I notice it gets major placement in the new Day the Earth Stood Still, and they even use the object-recognition when they place objects on the tabletop (though, in the movie as in real life, this is simulated and doesn't actually work without a lot of cheating.)
Sorry, missed a point, and really a critical one...
I feel far more confident to negotiate for myself to handle my personal case then I would ever feel pitching in with a bunch of other folks.
A distorting factor in this is that, in the film industry, you can find people that will do any job, literally, for free. Movies are weird, and make stupid people agree to stupid things. Now, we can argue that it's a person's right to work on a film for free, or a pittance let's say, but the end result of such a system, as is the case in low budget non-union films, is that the only people doing the work are newbies and very frustrated old farts.
There is an issue of quality, and you will eventually find people who will do the job for a pittance sufficiently, but you could never have people who do the work professionally. I'm a "Sound Editor." The job requires a lot of experience and, like a lot of creative jobs, most people don't care about the difference between a "great" job and a "sufficient" job (if you doubt this I can give you a lot of examples). "Sufficient" work will have it's place, but "sufficient" work could never have created The Matrix, or Star Wars. The Walchowsky brothers were able to call up their producers and say "get the best sound design team you can," and were confident that they'd get people that had worked decades doing good sound effects, and didn't ever have to do bartender shifts at Barney's Brewery in order to make ends meet.
Now, there is absolutely a "picking of the winners" here, and the system has strong hints of "patronage" in the old medieval sense of the word. The union, based on the producer's general specifications, has decided to protect this special island of skillsets called "sound editor," so that people who proved their worth through experience (the union initiation process is a whole other conversation) are able to get a salary necessary to dedicate their lives to this particular kind of commercial art. I think, and this is an artistic judgement, that they've probably made the right call and that this particular island of skillsets has really improved movies. (Now we just have to get to work on the producers and executives...)
My point, and I apologize for the long digression, is that the collective power of the union has bent the whole next-quarter-proftisim of the film industry towards an independent standard of QUALITY, and towards founding and supporting a professional class of people.
In a certain sense, by a libertarian standard, it's unfortunate. But, all traditional professions, the Doctor, the Lawyer, and the Teacher, are protected by government or self-organized boards that exert their force upon Management, wether it be a Medical Board, a Bar, or a Teachers Union or School Board. All true professions require an standard established outside of the motive for profit, at least, that's what I believe.
I apolgize for any errors, I am buzzed on Remy Martin. Good times here in LA!
I appreciate your response. I think unions in general have really dropped the ball over the last few decades, but that certain movements lately, particularly the Change to Win coalition of unions and its program of membership expansion, as opposed to workforce protectionism, like the mainline AFL-CIO unions, might offer a way forward that average never-met-a-union-they-liked people could get behind.
I'd absolutely never join an organization that felt compelled to negotiate my compensation or health benefits.
Why not? Is it a matter of autonomy, or are you concerend you could get a better deal on your own? The latter is pretty unlikely. The former is a respectable position, and a union does cause you to lose some autonomy, but you can get a lot back.
I, personally, never encountered a situation in my non-unionized life where my job benefits were a "negotiation" in any sense of the word. It was "take it or leave it," and my union makes "take it" a lot better than "take it" outside of the Contract. Also, just a personal thing, I don't like negotiations; just tell me my call time and the start date, and the hourly rate and my guarantee. Mangement like it too; the whole process is very simple and transparent, and they never have to admin a health plan or pension, it's all abstracted away from the hiring transaction.
I'd never join an organization that insisted folks not be fired.
Yeah, I agree with this, I've never seen the IA fight to keep someone working unless they though the firing was specifically a reprisal (which is occasionally is, but it's pretty rare, since an IA strike will utterly stop a film). I think the main difference between my union and others is that it's completely focused on Projects. You work on a show for a few months, and then you're laid off. If the union strikes a film, the film is effectvely toast, but there's always a bunch of films, so there's enough fudge factor that you can get by until the next job comes along. You are really a "just-in-time" commodity.
I'd even contemplate purchasing unemployment insurance for myself (personally I'm more likely to just save a rainy day fund, but only because I realize insurance is not cost effective once you make it past a certain point without making a claim).
I live in a state that socks it away for me (about $9 a week). The fact that they lop it off without my permission makes it pretty easy for me to draw unemployment benefits with a clear conscience.
I told my boss the other day, I'd much rather work a place that I know fires people. We had three guys fired the other day. They didn't do their jobs.
Yeah, there are people like this in all kinds of situations, there's unions, and then there's 25 year old MBAs with the CEOs last name. I can only say that in my line of work, if you do a shit job, you'll finish the show, but you'll get a bad rep. Sometimes I think everybody should be laid off a few times a year and sent out to other places in their town that need their skillset. It really teaches you the value of your work, and you tend to see the bosses as, not exactly equal, but you do see them as partners.
Terrible post. Having been a union sound editor for about 6 years, that pretty much ignores how every high-skilled-labor and service labor union (IATSE, SEIU, IBEW, Carpenters) works today. They would rather work with management to find a good solution for theirs and their employees problems than see management destroy their pool of skilled labor with poor wages and benefits, which would transform their labor forces into semi-skilled itinerants. I've seen it and lived it first hand. The union makes my job worth working.
Why is it everyone keeps putting "secret ballot" in quotes?
They put "secret ballot" in quotes because though the actual ballot may be anonymous, there is nothing remotely approaching a "free and fair vote," and anti-union corporations use the "secret ballot" issue as a smoke screen to somehow assert that because the ballot is secret, it follows that the vote must have been fair.
Of course, it's impossible to hold a fair vote when everyone who speaks openly in favor of the union has their name written down by management, and the employees can be forced to attend "education" meetings where the employer tells them in so uncertain terms that if they vote for the union, the company will close their department. This along with a helpful smattering of anti-union propaganda and a screening of "On the Waterfront.":)
You try to cast this as "we need to remove the secret ballot to prevent pro-union people from being harrassed" but thats just silly. There already are laws preventing this from happening.
These laws are not enforced, and when they are it can take the NLRB years to settle the issue, in which time the management can build a paper trail and rotate out the troublemakers, and then pay a slap on-the-wrist fine. It's MUCH cheaper for a union to break and be caught breaker labor laws than for it to allow a union to form. Note this recent case involving CNN: they broke the law by conducing reprisal firings against union employees in 2003, and they've been forced to rehire the fired folks... in 2008. This, sadly, is the norm.
Let me add as well, overtime is a marvelous thing. If the producers didn't have to pay overtime, they'd work us 16 hours a day/365 a year.
And there are people out there who would do the work gladly; the best thing about the union, in my industry at least, is that it keeps the "human charnal house" aspect of young dumb kids destroying their lives trying to "get into the movies" to a minimum.
I guess there are some people out there that would argue that it's some kid's right to work 16 hours a day for ten years for scraps and have nothing to show for it on the other side, but I suspect this would have certain negative... externalities.
I'm a white collar worker, a sound designer, (I'm on a deadline this morning so I'll be brief) and the entire film industry is unionized, at least everywhere in the US that matters w/r/t film production, LA, NY and Chicago. I think that a union can be a very good thing for white collar workers given a certain configuration of the benefits, and I think our industry is a pretty good example of how it can work.
Some points
My union is IATSE, and my particular classification is under the jurisdiction of Local 700, the Motion Picture Editor's Guild. All of the different jobs in film production are essentially under one gargantuan union (except for electricians, but this is minor). It never strikes against the industry as a whole (unlike some jerk unions I could mention), just against individual productions or producers that break the rules.
Our retirement benefits and health plan are union benefits. But UNLIKE the UAW arrangement, the health plans and retirement bennies are administered by a half labor/half producer board of directors, and there is no continuing liability to the producers. In short, once the producer pays the fringes on my weekly salary, they're never liable for another dime. The money goes into a trust and the trust pays for the health and retirement. Production companies and studios can go bankrupt left and right, but our benefits (and their liabilities) are insulated through the trust fund mechanism
Because most of the people in the film industry are freelancers, or because production companies and studios tend to do a LOT of hiring and firing on a just-in-time basis, my benefits follow me wherever I work in the business, as long as I work for a studio that's a signatory to the guild's collective bargaining agreement. I can work 5 months at Sony, 3 months at Disney and a month for an independent company, and as long as I work a minimum number of weeks every year I'll keep my benefits and stay up on my pension.
The system is not without its problems: I rarely ever go to union meetings, I don't really know people that are Big Into The Union and a lot of us complain about some of its weird work rules. Many of the people in the union are very tight with management, and many people in management used to be, or are currently in the union, so there are lots of conflicts of interest and going through the formal grievance process can be politically... fraught. But the benefits, particularly the health, are excellent, completely portable, and I make a very good wage (which is important if you're trying to live in LA).
It could be a model for IT folks if they find that suddenly the truly talented ones among them are being hired and fired in flocks and shipped across the country like cattle, which is about where the film industry was in the 1930s.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh I see..
In a stationary mount, you don't have to worry about gyroscopic affect
Not completely accurate. The rotation of the Earth will cause a stationary gyro to put some torque on its bearings, depending on your latitude, just as a Foucault pendulum veers over time. It's not a big effect, but there are no "small effects" when we're talking about gigawatts of kinetic energy :)
I'm not saying Microsoft is right or wrong, just giving an objective analysis. I think even "stupid cheap" people would generally avoid this kind of product, because, at least in the US, there's a strong negative societal pressure against a "eat all you want" product transitioning into a "taxiometered" one.
More broadly, even if this offering does overcome this, Microsoft would just be selling an inferior product to a downscale and shrinking demographic, essentially selling the Zenith TV or Cadillac of computing applications, bought only by those with brand loyalty or are sufficiently ignorant. Now, this worked for Zenith and GM for at least a few decades, but there was a reckoning.
Is that like when your valet is trying to clean your spats, but they're so covered in schmutz...
Yeah, but the cellular companies now have quasi-monopolies because of the way the US mobile industry is (not) regulated. Tariffs or tolls are a way you exploit a monopoly position, not how you build or establish one.
Oh Goodie. My post has become the "important" one that other people latch onto with non-germaine observations in the hope that they'll get higher placement.
I grant that. I'm pretty sure my grandma was still renting her phone up until the day she died, even though the rules requiring this were reformed in the 1970s.
But you can't make long money on ignorance, particularly if we're talking about people that are ignorant of alternatives. I think if this were to catch on, Apple (or lets just call it "Commodore" to keep emotions out of it) would instantly start a "we don't tax you" ad campaign, and the Wal*Mart would start selling boxes of OpenOffice for $20 (that is legal, remember). And I'm sure Google would have something to add to all this as well.
They have some moxie, don't they?
I guess this would be successful, but it pretty much guarantees that all of your customers will hate you, even as they pay you. So really, it's a horizontal move for Microsoft.
As long as computing is as desperately cheap as it is, with $300 computers and free office suites, it's hard to see how they could make this work as a business model.
True. I wasn't placing Snyder in the same league (or indeed, in the same sport) as Gilliam, but rather pointing out that there are ways of letting a film out without going through the proper channels.
Not in a way that makes any money, and it's not like Alan Moore is in the driver's seat on this show in the way that Gilliam and Arnon Milchan were when Brazil showed. Besides, the USC Norris screening was aborted (they never showed the movie there), and the CalArts screening the next day only went off because they kept it a secret from anybody who'd want to see the film. The "Hirschfield pool house screening" for the LA Film Critics was probably the more important screening. In all these cases, it was a scant few people that saw the picture, usually select groups, and really the screenings were just en passants in the broader turf battle between Milchan and Sheinberg, and not really "exhibition" in the sense I think we're talking about. We're also pre-supposing that The Watchmen is actually worth leaking, which I admit is a little questionable right now.
I went to USC and wrote a paper on The Battle, so don't get me going :) In any case, I remind you that the end result of this is that Brazil was still re-edited by Terry for the US, and both him and Milchan's careers were both essentially ended by the Battle and its aftermath (yeah I know Terry kept making movies, but the bloom was off the rose and his reputation has never recovered). Zach Snyder knows how to play ball and wouldn't consider such a thing, and they've succeeded in isolating the dangerous creative types, like Alan Moore, from the decision-making.
IMHO
Zack Snyder is no Terry Gilliam, I think that is certain. Mr. Snyder is a good stylist, but after 30 Days of Night I think it's pretty clear he never heard a studio note he didn't like.
Why yes, my head was shrunk by a tribe on the Solomon Islands, you insensitive clod!
The higher the pitch, the closer the wavelength, and at the distances we're talking about (centimeters to meters) you're auditory system will be doing localization with phase differences and wavefronts instead of actual "echo," since the time delays on echo are pretty hard to pick up on so close to the listener (believe it or not, but your ears-brain loop is extremely sensitive to phase differences between the two ears).
By this method, you cannot detect objects or features smaller than the wavelength of the sound, so you'll need a wavelength at least as short as you are wide, in order to avoid hitting something that would stop you, and this comes out to about 1 kHz (34 cm). 3 kHz is ideal, since we have a natural sensitivity there (the speech band that allows us to hear consonants), and that's about 11cm (about the size of your head, conicidentally). Above that, you get better imaging, but your ears get less sensitive, so you need the tone to be louder.
I'd rather just take your word for it :)
It's just been revoked!
Report to Homeland Security immediately, you terrorist!
I don't think all the computer screens were running Vista, as much as Vista does it's best to look like computer screens in the movies...
How can you hit a target of 2mm when your finger is a centimeter across?
I would hate to have to use an interface that actually relied on having this level of accuracy from the inputdev. even if they can extract a really good model of where you apply the pressure to the screen, it's not exactly trivial, or even possible, to turn that into an "intended point" or path.
Surface was kind of a stunt, an amalgam that demos superbly doesn't really have any broad application. I notice it gets major placement in the new Day the Earth Stood Still, and they even use the object-recognition when they place objects on the tabletop (though, in the movie as in real life, this is simulated and doesn't actually work without a lot of cheating.)
Photosynth is slick though.
Sorry, missed a point, and really a critical one...
A distorting factor in this is that, in the film industry, you can find people that will do any job, literally, for free. Movies are weird, and make stupid people agree to stupid things. Now, we can argue that it's a person's right to work on a film for free, or a pittance let's say, but the end result of such a system, as is the case in low budget non-union films, is that the only people doing the work are newbies and very frustrated old farts.
There is an issue of quality, and you will eventually find people who will do the job for a pittance sufficiently, but you could never have people who do the work professionally. I'm a "Sound Editor." The job requires a lot of experience and, like a lot of creative jobs, most people don't care about the difference between a "great" job and a "sufficient" job (if you doubt this I can give you a lot of examples). "Sufficient" work will have it's place, but "sufficient" work could never have created The Matrix, or Star Wars. The Walchowsky brothers were able to call up their producers and say "get the best sound design team you can," and were confident that they'd get people that had worked decades doing good sound effects, and didn't ever have to do bartender shifts at Barney's Brewery in order to make ends meet.
Now, there is absolutely a "picking of the winners" here, and the system has strong hints of "patronage" in the old medieval sense of the word. The union, based on the producer's general specifications, has decided to protect this special island of skillsets called "sound editor," so that people who proved their worth through experience (the union initiation process is a whole other conversation) are able to get a salary necessary to dedicate their lives to this particular kind of commercial art. I think, and this is an artistic judgement, that they've probably made the right call and that this particular island of skillsets has really improved movies. (Now we just have to get to work on the producers and executives...)
My point, and I apologize for the long digression, is that the collective power of the union has bent the whole next-quarter-proftisim of the film industry towards an independent standard of QUALITY, and towards founding and supporting a professional class of people.
In a certain sense, by a libertarian standard, it's unfortunate. But, all traditional professions, the Doctor, the Lawyer, and the Teacher, are protected by government or self-organized boards that exert their force upon Management, wether it be a Medical Board, a Bar, or a Teachers Union or School Board. All true professions require an standard established outside of the motive for profit, at least, that's what I believe.
I apolgize for any errors, I am buzzed on Remy Martin. Good times here in LA!
I appreciate your response. I think unions in general have really dropped the ball over the last few decades, but that certain movements lately, particularly the Change to Win coalition of unions and its program of membership expansion, as opposed to workforce protectionism, like the mainline AFL-CIO unions, might offer a way forward that average never-met-a-union-they-liked people could get behind.
Why not? Is it a matter of autonomy, or are you concerend you could get a better deal on your own? The latter is pretty unlikely. The former is a respectable position, and a union does cause you to lose some autonomy, but you can get a lot back.
I, personally, never encountered a situation in my non-unionized life where my job benefits were a "negotiation" in any sense of the word. It was "take it or leave it," and my union makes "take it" a lot better than "take it" outside of the Contract. Also, just a personal thing, I don't like negotiations; just tell me my call time and the start date, and the hourly rate and my guarantee. Mangement like it too; the whole process is very simple and transparent, and they never have to admin a health plan or pension, it's all abstracted away from the hiring transaction.
Yeah, I agree with this, I've never seen the IA fight to keep someone working unless they though the firing was specifically a reprisal (which is occasionally is, but it's pretty rare, since an IA strike will utterly stop a film). I think the main difference between my union and others is that it's completely focused on Projects. You work on a show for a few months, and then you're laid off. If the union strikes a film, the film is effectvely toast, but there's always a bunch of films, so there's enough fudge factor that you can get by until the next job comes along. You are really a "just-in-time" commodity.
I live in a state that socks it away for me (about $9 a week). The fact that they lop it off without my permission makes it pretty easy for me to draw unemployment benefits with a clear conscience.
Yeah, there are people like this in all kinds of situations, there's unions, and then there's 25 year old MBAs with the CEOs last name. I can only say that in my line of work, if you do a shit job, you'll finish the show, but you'll get a bad rep. Sometimes I think everybody should be laid off a few times a year and sent out to other places in their town that need their skillset. It really teaches you the value of your work, and you tend to see the bosses as, not exactly equal, but you do see them as partners.
But I concede, my business is very strange.
Is that 4200 pounds to LEO or geostationary?
Terrible post. Having been a union sound editor for about 6 years, that pretty much ignores how every high-skilled-labor and service labor union (IATSE, SEIU, IBEW, Carpenters) works today. They would rather work with management to find a good solution for theirs and their employees problems than see management destroy their pool of skilled labor with poor wages and benefits, which would transform their labor forces into semi-skilled itinerants. I've seen it and lived it first hand. The union makes my job worth working.
They put "secret ballot" in quotes because though the actual ballot may be anonymous, there is nothing remotely approaching a "free and fair vote," and anti-union corporations use the "secret ballot" issue as a smoke screen to somehow assert that because the ballot is secret, it follows that the vote must have been fair.
Of course, it's impossible to hold a fair vote when everyone who speaks openly in favor of the union has their name written down by management, and the employees can be forced to attend "education" meetings where the employer tells them in so uncertain terms that if they vote for the union, the company will close their department. This along with a helpful smattering of anti-union propaganda and a screening of "On the Waterfront." :)
These laws are not enforced, and when they are it can take the NLRB years to settle the issue, in which time the management can build a paper trail and rotate out the troublemakers, and then pay a slap on-the-wrist fine. It's MUCH cheaper for a union to break and be caught breaker labor laws than for it to allow a union to form. Note this recent case involving CNN: they broke the law by conducing reprisal firings against union employees in 2003, and they've been forced to rehire the fired folks... in 2008. This, sadly, is the norm.
Let me add as well, overtime is a marvelous thing. If the producers didn't have to pay overtime, they'd work us 16 hours a day/365 a year.
And there are people out there who would do the work gladly; the best thing about the union, in my industry at least, is that it keeps the "human charnal house" aspect of young dumb kids destroying their lives trying to "get into the movies" to a minimum.
I guess there are some people out there that would argue that it's some kid's right to work 16 hours a day for ten years for scraps and have nothing to show for it on the other side, but I suspect this would have certain negative... externalities.
Just throwing this out there...
I'm a white collar worker, a sound designer, (I'm on a deadline this morning so I'll be brief) and the entire film industry is unionized, at least everywhere in the US that matters w/r/t film production, LA, NY and Chicago. I think that a union can be a very good thing for white collar workers given a certain configuration of the benefits, and I think our industry is a pretty good example of how it can work.
Some points
The system is not without its problems: I rarely ever go to union meetings, I don't really know people that are Big Into The Union and a lot of us complain about some of its weird work rules. Many of the people in the union are very tight with management, and many people in management used to be, or are currently in the union, so there are lots of conflicts of interest and going through the formal grievance process can be politically... fraught. But the benefits, particularly the health, are excellent, completely portable, and I make a very good wage (which is important if you're trying to live in LA).
It could be a model for IT folks if they find that suddenly the truly talented ones among them are being hired and fired in flocks and shipped across the country like cattle, which is about where the film industry was in the 1930s.