All posts by Jack

fandom, General, science fiction

Going Down?

I was checking out of the Bubonicon hotel this morning and boarded an elevator with an elderly couple. They must have both in their 70’s; he was walking with two canes.

She saw my badge and asked if the Klingons were still around. I immediately flashed back to the masquerade MC’s (Victor Milan) comment the previous evening about an older mundane couple that had that “deer caught in the headlights” look after getting onto a elevator full of Klingons. (Bubonicon is known for having a lot of hall costumers.)

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Geek Stuff, General

Let’s put on a show!

 I have heard that one of the primary problems with creating new media, either movies, TV, video, music, etc. is that once it is digitized then it spreads like wildfire across the internet and the creative people and the financial people don’t get a good return on their investment.  A legitimate concern.

Which got me to thinking.  There is this thing called microfinance.  Lots of individuals invest in small projects, where someone may only need $500 to get a fishing net or a few hundred euros for a loom. A small amount that the larger banks won’t cover, but where the collective can share the risk and the reward.

Let’s take this approach to the creative industry, especially one like movies or TV that require a lot of up-front capital to deliver a product that may or may not be worth it. Someone like Joss Whedon, a creative genius, may want to expand the Firefly universe with another season worth of shows. This will cost millions of dollars to produce. So, what if Joss put up subscription plan? If a million people put up 10 dollars each, Joss would have the startup money to get going. In exchange, the subscribers would all get digital copies of the finished product and 50% of any income associated with the project (sale to networks, etc), the other 50% goes to the talent. (I have heard about the byzantine accounting  methods in Hollywood, so there would have to be a fairly explicit contract written in support of this.)

The digital owners of the finished product may have their own incentives to share or not-share the content on the internet, but, big deal; everyone associated with the project has their primary return.

I would also consider subscribing to a Tarantino  project or a Weinstein Brothers project, or those guys that did “Fargo“.  Even if one $10 investment is bad, in the long run I would expect most to be worth the effort.

If the producer wants to develop a project and figures that it will take $200M to develop and can’t raise the $200M in subscriptions, then put it back on the shelf and give the subscribers back their money.

If you think about it a while, there may be a lot of ways to game the system. Safeguards will need to be developed with trusted intermediaries.  But this is also an approach to give support for projects  that you enjoy and that you want to see.

Just think of how much better the world would be if Mike Jittlov had the capital to do it right…

Geek Stuff, General, Liberating Thoughts, Politics

AT&T Silences Pearl Jam

AT&T Silences Pearl Jam; Gives ‘Net Neutrality’ Proponents Ammunition – Forbes.com

Almost perfect because what happened here was the act of AT&T as a content provider bleeping out content it was sponsoring and delivering—not depriving people of content someone else wanted delivered. (Yes, I know, if AT&T would do that to one of its own shows, just imagine … )

Carriers really shouldn’t be trying to bleep content.

General

Partisanship?

Jonathan Chait laments the Broderization of American politics.

Bloomberg has … become the most prominent example of what you could call partisanship scolds. These are people who believe that disagreement is the central problem in U.S. politics, that both parties are to blame in equal measure, and that rejecting party ties or ideology is synonymous with the demonstration of virtue. While partisanship scolds believe that they stand in bold contrast to Washington, they are probably more heavily represented among the Beltway elite than any other demographic.

The official lobby of the partisanship scolds is a group called “Unity ‘08″ — a collection of graying eminences from both parties who are calling for a bipartisan presidential ticket, perhaps led by Bloomberg. Their rhetoric appears to be targeted at people who enjoy kittens, rainbows, and David Broder columns. Specifically, Unity ‘08 says its ticket will run on “ideas and traditions which unite and empower us as individuals and as a people.”

And if people didn’t have sincere disagreements over policy, this approach might even have value.

From the Carpetbagger Report via

What I see in American Politics today is the outright refusal of one side to even talk with the other.As long as one side has the majority, there doesn’t appear to be any reason to discuss policy with the minority. Even though merging ideas may produce a better policy. But then you would have to admit that your original policy wasn’t perfect to start with. And that’s a b-a-a-a-a-d thing.

One of our local state representatives remarks that when he first went to Denver, one of his majority neighbors across the aisle asked why he even bothered to show up. Of course, now, his neighbor isn’t in the majority.

I think the problem isn’t politics, but the total lack of it that is causing the legislative problems people perceive.