visions

Here we go:

A technology writer for Time Magazine, after being shown 15 minutes of [the upcoming Avatar by James Cameron], posited the movie’s 3D action had set off actual “memory creation.”

“I couldn’t tell what was real and what was animated–even knowing that the 9-ft.-tall blue, dappled dude couldn’t possibly be real. The scenes were so startling and absorbing that the following morning, I had the peculiar sensation of wanting to return there, as if Pandora were real,” he said.

The New York Times interviewed him later.

“It was like doing some kind of drug,” he said, describing a scene showing Sam Worthington running around “with this kind of hot alien chick,” and being attacked by jaguarlike creatures. He was sprinkled with sprites that floated down, like snowflakes. “You feel like the little feathery things are landing on your arm”.

In the same New York Times article, Dr. Mario Mendez, a behavioural neurologist at the University of California, said it is entirely possible Cameron’s 3D technology could tap brain systems that are undisturbed by conventional 2D movies. An inner global-positioning system that orients a person to the surrounding world, was one example he gave.

“Three-D demonstrably creates a space that triggers this GPS; it’s really very stimulating”.

…Cameron himself told Time Magazine that 3D viewing “is so close to a real experience that it actually triggers memory creation in a way that 2D viewing doesn’t.” Cameron also believes that stereoscopic (3D) viewing uses more neurons, which would further heighten the impact of 3D.

things

social imagination

John Carpenter’s “They Live” is thrilling despite limited special effects because it exploits our social imagination.

Its scariest scenes consist of seeming strangers secretly communicating with one another. The stuff of paranoia.

We recognize threats to our body visually. Threats to our identity are socially coded.

Carpenter’s movies – including “The Thing”, “Halloween” and “Escape From New York” – draw us into madness and are all the scarier for it.

We can’t imagine what dismemberment feels like but we’ve always already known the terror of losing our selves.

ideas

torture

If we want America to stop torturing detainees, we must ask that America stop torturing its own citizens.

We will one day recognize the use of isolation in our super-max prisons as a violation of our own constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Only we’ve made the use of isolation so casual that it is no longer unusual – just cruel.

What’s worse: inflicting isolation does not work. It neither diminishes violence inside prisons nor does it reduce recidivism. As has happened in lesser civilizations, we have been wounded morally by some of the punishments we inflict and have gone slightly mad, in the process. Torture is madness – a seeming logic that is, in fact, unhinged from reality.

The more we torture, the more insane we become.

people

slack

From an interview with David Simon of The Wire:

The fact that these really are the excess people in America, we– our economy doesn’t need them. We don’t need ten or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones that are undereducated, that have been ill served by the inner city school system, that have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy. We pretend to need them. We pretend to educate the kids. We pretend that we’re actually including them in the American ideal, but we’re not. And they’re not foolish. They get it.

people

conversely

The Colbert Report:

On his web site, [Republican Senator Richard Lugar] says “The unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of bringing democracy to the Cuban people.” Maybe, but it has been very effective in bringing Cuban people to Democracy.

cuban_tiki_truck-lg

people

swarmy

OG responds to my open email to NPR’s Morning Edition on their misuse of the Dow Jones Industrial Average:

You suggest that the DJIA is not relevant to understanding the “reaction” to Obama’s address on auto industry restructuring. The DJIA is certainly not an “expert.” However, as you note, it is “an indirect representation of millions of trades and a considerable number of motives if not insights.”

The DJIA’s “reaction” or “analysis” of the Obama’s plans (if we can attribute “reaction” or, even less tenable, “analysis” to the swarm mind of the Dow) will certainly not necessarily be “correct” (whatever that may mean here) or enlightening. But it is certainly a relevant factor in trying to gauge reaction to Obama’s plans. No one knows exactly why the Dow does what it does, but we can draw some conclusions from its inflections after certain news (see, e.g., the Dow’s reaction to Geithner’s several iterations of his bank plans). What we are drawing conclusions about is the general trend of the Dow swarm, and how the complex/simple swarm mind feels about certain news. In some ways, the swarm mind is stupid (see, e.g., wild swings on each word of Bernanke). In some ways, it can be incredibly “intelligent” (pricing in anticipated bad news, immediately absorbing and responding to new data, etc.)

The Dow (or stock markets generally) should certainly not be the only factor in an analysis or a “self-explanatory observation.” But the Dow, if only because of its size, must be considered — as part of a broader analysis.

As you note, the value of GM bonds are also relevant; but it would be a mistake to see the value of GM’s bonds — also arrived at through thousands of transactions of purchase and sale — as a wholly different species from the value of the Dow. I think it’s impossible to try to find anything “concrete” underpinning either the value of the Dow, GM’s bonds, or the price of gold. These things are simply manipulated stand-ins for other needs, wants, beliefs, etc. There likely is no “correct” value for the Dow, GM’s bonds, or Google stock.

I, too, am fascinated with the wisdom of crowds but it’s hard to quote a crowd. (The bigger the crowd, the harder it is to quote it.) Journalists owe their audience proper attribution and context. We don’t yet know enough about “swarm minds” to give them an unqualified citation – the gist of my complaint to NPR.

I cited GM’s bonds as a counterpoint because they’re a far more direct and discrete response to the fate of GM than the DJIA. Yes, bonds are also priced by market forces but by a much smaller set of traders using a much smaller set of data. (You could use the DJIA to monitor the global reaction to an outbreak of avian flu. But if you monitored, instead, the stock of pharmaceuticals or airlines you’d probably be closer to the truth.)

News outlets would do better to conduct polls of Wall Street traders than to cite the DJIA. But, polls are expensive to conduct. The DIJA is freely distributed.

ideas/journalism

Windowing

I became a fan of 30 Rock, which I now watch on Netflix Instant Play, by watching Hulu.com. The show continues to air on broadcast television.

As my relationship to the show changed, so did the way I wanted to consume it. If most audiences go through similar phases, it may be possible to provide simultaneous access to the same show via different platforms without depressing demand on any one platform. The files may be the same but the audiences are different.

people

optimism

Is The Oprah Winfrey show ever a downer? I don’t think so. Even when it tackles the toughest of topics, the show manages to be optimistic. That optimism is most likely the secret to the show’s longevity. (For example, I was introduced to The Road by Michael Chabon but millions more were introduced to the post-apocalyptic novel by Oprah.)

The same could be said for The Daily Show which exudes righteous optimism. Most of its humor comes from the ridicule of faulty logic and disingenuous advocates. By ridiculing willful ignorance, it affirms that the world can be understood, that progress is not only possible but natural. It’s not a coincidence The Daily Show is how many young Americans get their news.

On the dramatic series The Wire, the plots are tragic (murder, suicide and, perhaps, worse) but the staging is so masterful it, too, evokes optimism. By making sense of a complex world, The Wire proves the most persistent problems have a knowable structure. If they can be understood, they can be solved.

things

Steely Dan

What Steely Dan get right in Aja is mood. It’s rare to hear music that is both sunny and cool. The instrumentation and the lyrics may become dated but the album itself is relatively timeless because its affect – smart, expansive – is so effectively conveyed.

things