sanjiallblue's comments

I don't think the current generation of Simpsons writers would be the best group of writers to put this comparison to, but rather to the writers of shows like Futurama (which as I'm sure many devotees will know, consisted of a staff of mathematicians that actually developed proofs for plot continuity and one-offs).

Though, I don't think mathematicians really is the ideal here (hell, I'd even go one further and put magicians ahead of mathematicians). I prefer Conan O'Brien's observation that comedy is most similar to music and how musicians often make good comedians (and why stand-up comedy is inundated with musical comedians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_musical_comedians). Because comedy is about character, point of view, timing and rhythm more than it is about formula.

There are plenty of comedians out in the world that make a living having read their share of formulaic stand-up books, tell their lazy formulaic jokes, get their easy laughs, collect a paycheck and burn out into obscurity or languish in D-List infamy. Or more relevantly, write mediocre episodes of an animated sitcom that stopped being funny 12 seasons ago aimed at a fan-base that watches out of habit.

Mathematics can provide the latter, but the former takes an approach that goes beyond the mathematical. That isn't to say that great mathematics can't produce great material, but like the mathematics of the Eulers, the Pythagorians, the Euclids, The Turings, and so many others, it takes subverting the problem at a slightly different angle.

Interesting design aesthetic. This still doesn't justify the price and Apple's going to be taking a hit now that so much of the entertainment industry has turned away from Final Cut.

Look, I'm going to start this off by agreeing with you that the author has improperly associated all of Islam with these kinds of hatred and bigotries and it is a very peculiar article to be posted to this website.

The next part here gets tricky. Firstly, all Islam is not the same, but far-right fundamentalist Islam is pretty the same across the board and is hard to distinguish whether or not it's in the minority or the majority.

Given that the majority of the world's Muslims live in Southeast Asia, it's hard to distinguish Islam's cultural lean worldwide. So it makes much more sense to limit the issue to the kind of Islam our original poster is discussing (and indeed the kind most are discussing when breaching this issue), which is clearly Middle Eastern fundamentalist Islam.

Fundamentalist Islam is dangerous, just as the other fundamentalist Abrahamic faiths are of course. After all, according to the FBI there were more domestic terror attacks over the last decade in the United States separately by extremist Latin, Jewish and White terror groups than there were from all combined Muslim groups. The dangers from such extremism should be, and generally are, taken seriously in every Western nation.

Now, the encroaching push of Islamic values into Western society is largely a bogeyman. Speaking from a purely statistical standpoint, the West is becoming more and more secular and Islam isn't really doing anything to change that fact.

The general scare tactic used by Islamaphobes is the "birth-rate" of Muslims would increase therefore increasing the Muslim population in Europe (a non-issue for America). However, the Pew Research Center conducted a study that found the Muslim birth-rate is actually decreasing in Europe and will drop from the current 2.2 to 2.0 by 2030, while the non-Muslim population is expected to increase from 1.5 to 1.6 in that same time-frame. When you factor in the secularization that naturally occurs in Europe's religious population, then you're looking at the very most, a 1-1.5% increase in the practicing Muslim population in Europe by 2030, with an even smaller portion than that (less than 30%) holding onto the culture maladies of fundamentalism.

Now, long-term we can establish that it is very unlikely that Islam will have much, if any, impact on Europe in the long-run. There will be no "Islamification" of Europe (and especially not America since the numbers stateside are significantly lower than that of Europe combined with a significantly lower tolerance level for Islamic fundamentalism culturally and politically).

With that being said, this does not discount the threat a vocal minority to pose to any larger population that refuses to address its discriminatory practices. I don't take this young man's anecdotes as any form of evidence beyond what they are, anecdotal. But it bears asking the question of the place religious fundamentalism deserves to hold in the public square. Should their beliefs be met with xenophobia and bigotry? Of course not. But every European and American citizen is well within their rights to question the validity of both their beliefs and the methods by which fundamentalists wish to impose said beliefs.

To your point about defamation and rumor spreading being a "sin" in Islam. There is an insidious justification that fundamentalists use when engaging in defamation and backbiting. The Quran specifically states that if a person is guilty of the actions for which they are being defamed and slandered over, then it is not a sin in the eyes of God. Now, there is supposed to be a precondition under which the person spreading the rumor is supposed to do so only to clarify what is true and/or false, but in the eyes of these fundamentalists they've already judged the victim party guilty. This judgement is then verified in their gossipy clique of other fundamentalists. It's an Ouroboros of hatred and judgement that sadly is thrust mostly on women.

Now, this isn't a problem with "Islam" per se, but rather a problem with fundamentalism and specifically Middle Eastern cultural fundamentalism. The groups discussed in this young man's article certainly exist in Europe. It should be fairly obvious that outside of one corner of this one University there is little to no effective power these groups have as they're enjoying the protection afforded by a University clearly desperate to avoid controversy.

Of course, because of the original author's unwillingness to identify his University, there isn't much in the way of affirming any of this, so the best we can do is address the groups that do in fact exist. The best way to deal with such groups is to meet them with a firm secular humanist stand that encourages assimilation with the cultural norms of the country while respecting their freedom of religion (which stops the second it seeks to limit the freedom of others in America and most of Europe).

Those groups that do exist can pose a real threat, but it is unlikely they pose any more threat than any other extremist group. There are always the nuts and the disadvantaged being used and using others to accomplish the bizarre machinations of a deluded hive mind. But this isn't when fear should be entertained, but rather courage and an enduring passion for the dignity and improvement of all humanity.

At least, those are the lofty ideals I think the majority of us cosmopolitan youths wish to aspire toward. It's just important to remember that confirmation bias in situations of race and religion tend to get manifest quickly and on a subconscious level. Doing our best to mitigate how we let those biases affect our rational minds is probably the best we can wish for on a mass scale.

It should also be noted that there's pretty much zero evidence that piracy actually hurts the sale of a game. Any research done by third-parties on the subject has shown that piracy generally helps the sales of the products being pirated due to:

A) Raising awareness of the product and giving the product exposure to a larger group of fans raising awareness of the product and studio responsible for the production.

B) Converting a minority of pirate-based customers with limited financial resources into paying customers for current and future projects.

C) Establishing in the player community's mind that the media being pirated is a worthwhile competitor to other forms of entertainment.

D) Finally, the most important factor: The majority of pirates pirate material because they are the highest-paying and most discerning group of purchasers of media (Source: http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Another-Study-Pirates-Are...).

So fighting against piracy is a losing battle. DRM punishes paying customers and sure, some games might suffer as a result of piracy. It's just that if more people are pirating your game than buying it, then nine times out of ten, your product probably wasn't worth purchasing to being with, which is a cold reality that the data supports that indie studios really don't want to hear. No one wants to be told their baby sucks, especially when they see what they perceive to be a "large number" of people playing it.

I think this blogger isn't understanding a fundamental reality of corporate structure that has little to do with some pie-eyed plan for what Google thinks the web "needs".

This behavior isn't indicative of any design to "improve" the web, which I think could be said that a fair majority of programmers desire on a personal level and indeed what most laymen would admit to wanting as well.

This has to do with Google focusing on brand homogenization. This is marketing, not web fundamentals. It's a company trying to extend, homogenize and monetize its brand and the services its brand can offer under those circumstances.

I also thinks this differs in nature from the path Microsoft took with its OS strategy, though there are certainly some similarities.

Is corporatism infesting Google? Of course it is! That's what happens when a corporation grows to the size Google has over the past decade. Now, this is in no way meant to be in any way a defense of corporate culture or an argument against lobbying tech companies to do what's best for the web. We generally want to see the web evolve in a positive way.

However, if you're expecting that from a major corporation that at the end of the day has responsibilities to shareholders... well, to say the least you're going to be disappointed.

Positive evolution will generally come from non-profits, because they can take risks. I defy any programmer to point to one of these tech giants and say they "definitively moved the web in a positive direction". Google's the absolute closest you could get using such a narrow criteria and that's largely due to their innovations in search that stem from their less profit-focused days and their more recent Google Fiber efforts. Even then, Google Fiber is an extension of Google's long-term corporate goals.

The only point I want to argue is that we need to look at this situation through a realistic lens. When we lose sight of the realities of Corporate America and its relationship with technology, that's the point when we start engaging in counterproductive hyperbole.

Wordpress isn't very well-known by the general public. I mean hell, it's not even in the same ballpark compared to Wikipedia.

Once 3D printing tech gets off the ground, same-day delivery could end up becoming common or even the standard.

I feel like people like you complained when the first computers were invented because they were slow. This is haptic technology progressing and just the fact that it's getting major media attention is amazing since on-demand haptic feedback is the biggest presence missing from digital technology. Touch is just such a fundamental part of the human experience that anything that advances the technology that gets us to that implementation should be celebrated and here you are declaring it annoying?

It boggles the mind...

The start menu had to go because Windows 8 is Microsoft's big gamble to jump into the tablet market. A start menu doesn't make much design sense on a tablet or smartphone and they're clearly trying to out-design Apple with Windows 8.

I started off agreeing with you and then things kind of veered off in the other direction.

Yes, the "post-PC" world is what Microsoft is betting on right now. Though I think it should be kept in mind that the launch window between Windows 8 and the Windows 8 tablet isn't going to be very large and while the there will plenty of rancor in the tech industry over the transition, a large percentage of (and maybe even the majority) of casual PC users' first experience with Metro and Windows 8 will most likely be on a tablet (just so we're clear, casual users are people who use computers to mostly go on the internet, check email, do non-tech related small business work like word processing, listen to music and game). It feels to me that this is a very important distinction.

Those who have been afraid to make the jump to an iPad due to the unfamiliarity of the concept will now have a mid-ground to bridge that gap. They have a familiarity with Windows bridged by a new "tablet-like" interface. These people didn't do much work under-the-hood work on their computers, even in the simplest terms, so the lack of familiar control panel mechanisms won't be an issue. So long as the tablet version works, they'll be cool with it.

I also want to add that Microsoft can't follow what Apple has done because they aren't a hardware company. Apple has become what they are based purely on the merits of their hardware manufacturing capabilities, methods, models and the genius/lucky vision of a handful of men. Microsoft doesn't have this luxury and really that is the greatest risk facing Windows 8, because they're going to have a hard time putting together a tablet that's financially competitive with the iPad. Especially with the iPad 2's rumored price drop for the holiday season.

Why comment so condescendingly on a subject when you don't understand what happened? Does it play to your own personal sense of delusional superiority to think people overreacted to the ending "they didn't want"? You need to grow out of that childish mentality.

What happened was that Bioware had long promised an ending that would reflect your decisions across 100 hours of gameplay. They promised relationships would be explored and closure would be brought to the series. They promised it would not be an A-choice, B-choice, C-choice cookie-cutter ending, and it was quite literally exactly that. This wasn't a product where people expected some la-dee-da happy ending, they expected the same level of care and quality writing to be carried through to end the series, and it all falls through in what is the last 30 minutes of the game (that is not an exaggeration, the game de-rails in the final segment completely).

To better understand this issue, you can watch videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E

It's not just that the ending was bad, it was because it was insultingly offensive on every level as a fan and as a consumer of the medium.

Did you not see the article linked directly after that statement?

I hate the morning with virulent passion. The noise, the distraction and the forced hellos. The only really positive thing about the AM is coffee smells that much better. I've always preferred to go to bed somewhere between 4 and 6AM, wake up between 11AM and 1PM and relax until the sunsets so I can actually get work done.

Although, I feel I should add, in all its arrogance, to the article that more intelligent people also tend to be night owls. In all seriousness though, peruse the article and take from it what you will, as I got a can of the all-new hit beverage SMUG (SMUG should not be taken with friends, significant others, parents of significant others, bosses or llamas): http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/smart-peop...

I disagree with your assertion as I was pretty plainly addressing YCombinator itself and, more specifically, its declaration.

I also fail to see how the mere existence of the tech industry somehow should mandate that studio executives understand how IT architecture works. In fact, I find that downright baffling how you could believe such a thing.

Your assertion that "they fired the first shot" is really the kind of rhetoric I was condemning as this isn't some kind of malicious attack born from intelligent observations of reality. Instead, it is misinformation born from overzealous and irresponsible legal analysis, a point which I detailed in my post and you aren't exactly addressing.

The final line is emotional and irrational and doesn't deserve a response.

Okay, so some ruminations:

To create a film/television show you are generally going to need these things:

Script

Time

Reliably Available Crew

No matter what you do, you will always need money to accommodate these three needs to produce a project in any kind of time frame that could allow such productions to ever turn a profit and allow you to keep making films. Even if everything is going to be CG and you don't need a locked location, crew doesn't need to be driven, and no one is Union, people still have needs that can't always be interrupted. Usually, that is the need to eat and drink to perform their tasks reasonably (and filmmaking can be some fucking grueling, albeit fun, work.) The rest of the time, it's making a living. Money allows you the freedom of time. If you're making a low-budget feature, that's generally going to take between 15-30 days of principal photography alone. Trying to schedule that kind of a production around your actor's shift at the Quik-Stop is a fucking nightmare.

So finding a way to finance these smaller productions gives the cast and crew the freedom they need both financially and chronologically.

It seems the best way to do that would be some form of microfinancing infrastructure similar to Kickstarter. There's been some marginal success on Kickstarter itself for film production, but I'm not aware of anything that's actually managed to gain traction. So a service that was actually completely specific to film projects that could match scripts, with time/location and reliably available crew (pre, principal and post) would be a wildly powerful tool for filmmakers (that could potentially eliminate the need for a centralized physical location like "Hollywood" as the technology has pretty successfully caught up).

Okay, the next big problem is going to be equipment rentals. They're expensive, it sucks, but it's a reality of production. An equipment rental service that caters specifically to low-budget next-generation film production that ships all over North America from multiple warehouses with helpful and reliable customer service is necessary to decentralize production.

Focusing a little more narrowly on what YComb readers could help with, scheduling and budgeting. Collaborative scheduling and budgeting tools are extremely expensive, particularly services that exist in the Cloud. Drafting a set of scheduling/budgeting tools that can be collaborated with online without the crazy charges other companies have would be a game changer. I think the only kind of open source project attacking this problem is CeltX and they don't have a budgeting component. If anyone is interested, the industry standard tools for this have generally been EP (Entertainment Partners) Budgeting and Scheduling, with cloud-based services gaining popularity over the last two years or so.

Each of these three ideas could be expanded upon radically, so I would love to have some discussion on them.

It's an interesting proposition to kill Hollywood, but I don't exactly think it's going to be killed so easily, or that it's anywhere remotely resembling close to being "dead". Just examining the profit margins from this year alone paints a picture of a vibrant and healthy industry and overall employment in the industry is actually doing quite well considering the state of the economy. Although, full disclosure, I do work in production as a media producer (reality TV, variety TV, single-camera, digital magazines, games, social media, features, etc.). I was also very fortunate to be mentored by one of the former ranking executives of MGM.

That mentor taught me a great deal, but one of the most fascinating things I learned was that these executives do not understand how the internet works, at all. Their days are scheduled down to the letter so they simply don't have time to figure this kind of shit out. So they pay their lawyers to figure it out for them and that's the source of the cancer of misinformation in Hollywood studios, Copyright/IP lawyers. Their jobs have evolved to depend solely on finding 'infringement' wherever they can and then making it seem as terrifying as possible to the execs that employ them. These are the people responsible for outright lies such as "100 billion in lost revenue".

This misinformation eventually became the dogma of the entertainment industry. I can't tell you how many people I've worked with in the industry, wildly intelligent people, that honestly believe piracy is the single greatest threat to the entertainment industry. What's worse is that they conflate basic concepts like file-sharing with the selling of boot-leg DVDs in some back-alley market in Calcutta. The disconnect with fact and reality is just truly astounding.

That's why the first line of defense should be to open a dialogue with Hollywood. Before we vote any Congresspeople out and before declaring "War on Hollywood" there needs to be an open campaign to combat the lies that are pervasive in Hollywood itself. Because honestly, after all we've been through in the last 10 years, do we really need more wars? Is that the lesson we're going to take away from Iraq and Afghanistan?

The people who work in Hollywood are fellow humans and fellow Americans. They aren't malicious invaders, they're people who are just irrationally scared for the future of the industry they love. If you declare "Let's Kill Hollywood", you immediately become part of the "Them" to Hollywood's "Us". You fire the first shot of a War that you never had to fight in the first place and one that will only hasten the urgency with which even more draconian legislation would be pursued. All of which could be easily avoided.

Creating effective channels for communication between the informed members of the tech industry and Hollywood should be the first priority of any initiative that was realistically and maturely seeking change to the kind of legislative agendas being advocated by groups like the MPAA (the RIAA is a different story, that's a case of rats on a sinking ship trying to prevent anyone else from getting on the ship so that they can make money off of the glass-botton tours.)

That being said, I'm not against (in any way) the idea of funding start-ups to explore exciting new maxims of entertainment or helping to shrink the cost of production for film/television/gaming. That's brilliant and deserves praise for being supported. However, it's the call the War I find so very unsettling.

I think I've made those points clear enough so I'll follow-up this post with some ideas to kick around that would help bring production costs down for smaller-scale film/television production along with some notes concerning certain realities surrounding the different aspects.

EDIT: Grammar

Okay, you started out very sensible and then took a pretty sharp left turn with targeting CAA and SAG. I was hoping to ask if you could elaborate on your thought process to help us better understand your viewpoint.

I really hope they re-open the grounds. That's one of those reminders that needs to stay fresh in the memory of humanity.

Zipcar isn't prevalent in the US outside of major cities. But I've used it and it is similar to what I'm talking about, just imagine that but fully automated and run by fewer hipsters.

Back when I went to public school I tested in the gifted categories for both reading and math. However, once I got to algebra my education fell apart. "Higher math" just didn't make sense to me. However, I switched to homeschooling in Middle School and ended up going to a homeschool co-op where a Japanese teacher was teaching both a Japanese language class and the math classes.

In three months I learned more about the logic behind mathematics, and by extension more about math period, than I learned in the previous 14 years in public school. I took one math class from here years and years ago and I can still do calculus. The Japanese method for teaching math is just simply amazing (it helped that she was ranked number one in the nation (Japan, not the US) when she was in high school, this woman was seriously brilliant, she just got knocked up by an American and ended up having to quit Todai).