30 Years of Mac

I have no big theories or thoughts here. Only a recollection:

In 1984, my parents bought a Mac. This was the very first model, Macintosh 128k--except we just called it a Mac back then because it was the only kind. We had no games to start with, only MacPaint and MacWrite, which were more than enough for me. I probably used MacWrite to write stories; and I used MacPaint to learn about cause and effect. That is, to this day, 30 years later, I remember some of the special, strange features.

For instance: there were a lot of silly patterns (instead of colors), so I learned to make unbroken lines so that I could fill in spaces with a silly pattern--and try to keep it from spilling out. For another example, MacPaint had a mirroring function, where you could make your cursor action mirrored by another across various axes. (For instance, you could set it to mirror horizontally--turning one mark into two--and vertically--turning those two into four. And then you could go to town making snowflake like patterns.)

It couldn't do much, but man, I loved that computer.

Netflix, Kickstarter, and New Hollywood

I confess: I'm not a professional movie or television maker. And yet, that hasn't stopped a lot of people from commenting on Netflix's recent foray into television production with House of Cards or the use of Kickstarter to raise capital for Veronica Mars: The Movie. (Dollars to donuts, the movie is going to involve rape or attempted rape in some capacity.)

But I did study the history of Hollywood once, so, I'll be honest: we've seen these sorts of fundamental shake-ups before. In the 00s, it was adding narrative to film, in the 30s, it was the Hays Code and the introduction of sound; in the 50s, it was competition with television and the introduction over various -scopes to compete; in the 60-70s, it was the American New Wave, like Scorsese, Coppola, etc. and the special effects revolution and the creation of the blockbuster and the tie-in (Jaws, Star Wars, etc.); in the 90s, it was the indie movement. Things change, things stay the same, especially if your name is "Woody Allen."

I was thinking of this recently when listening to an episode of Scriptnotes, a podcast with John August and Craig Mazin where they discussed Kickstarter. Putting aside for a moment that Craig Mazin doesn't seem to understand Kickstarter (he doesn't understand the reward tiers and that investors get something back--that, in many cases, supporting a project on Kickstarter is a lot like pre-ordering an item, not donating money to a corporation), I don't think he's wrong when he says there's some potential for waste, fraud, and abuse in Kickstarting intellectual property that belongs to corporations. That is: there's potential. Why does the WB need help funding a Veronica Mars movie if they wanted to make one? Will Kickstarter just be a way to publicly fund ventures that are privately profitable? Will studios turn to the public, hat in one hand and gun to the head of a beloved show in another?

Eh, all things are possible in the future, but I don't see this potential for abuse becoming a major factor in creative ventures. We long ago entered a new phase of entertainment where something that dies can be revived, whether tv-to-movie (Firefly to Serenity), tv-to-tv-following-cult-popularity (Futurama, Family Guy--both revived after cancelation due to excellent DVD sales and rerun ratings), or tv-to-something-else (comic book continuations of Angel and Buffy, Netflix reviving Arrested Development). And all of these revivals had less to do with Kickstarter (fans ponying up cash up front) than with the corporate forecasting that said fans would line up for these later. If Kickstarter takes some of the worry out of this equation by letting fans pre-order tickets, that won't radically change the way things are done.

To further address one of Mazin's worries, that corporations will use Kickstarter as blackmail ("fund this season or we kill your favorite show"), I'm afraid that doesn't really make sense. Fans have always had ways of making their commitment known--before Kickstarter there were letter-writing campaigns. And any corporation that ignores viewers seems to be working against their own interest: if I'm already watching your show, you're making money off of me through advertising revenue. Trying to squeeze more out of your viewers will just make you enemies.

Now, will Kickstarter help accelerate second lives for cancelled intellectual property? That's the real shift here that may happen in the future, though as I noted, this sort of thing has been happening more even without Kickstarter. And as we saw with the attempt to Kickstart an Inspector Space Time show (a Doctor Who-esque show within the Community universe), sometimes corporations like to hold on to their IP even when they're not using it.

Digital (Reading) Planning

I didn't think I would, but I've gotten a lot of use out of my iPad: word-processing, gaming, emailing, checking maps, etc. I've also gotten a lot of use out of my iPad as an e-reader that is free from any specific store. That is, I have a Kindle app, so I can buy from Amazon; but I also have Kobo, Nook, iBook, and Overdrive apps. What's nice about that is that I can shop or browse or borrow from many different sources (including public libraries).

But there's one problem with using the iPad to read. There's no physical reminder of what you're reading (or should be reading).

I might be the only person with this problem. But it's very easy for me to start a book in one app, go check my email or the weather, put the iPad down--and the next time I go to get back to reading, it's easy to open up a different app and start a new book. Well, OK, it's not that easy--I remember that I was reading a book. But there's not the same sense of urgency and duty that one gets (right?) with a physical book.

Which is another way of saying that I have slowed down my reading of Paolo Bacigalupi stories because I got interested in reading other things. In this case, I just finished reading the long comic series Transmetropolitan. And I have thoughts about that--but you'll have to wait until Wednesday when I update my webcomic blog at Voyagercomicsonline.com.

How will you feel in a driverless car?

Did you hear that Google's driverless car was involved in a five-car accident?

There's some question over whether this particular accident is the fault of the car's computer or the human who may have been attempting to drive; and in all this excitement, I hope we don't miss the priceless information that this crash involved three Priuses and two Accords.

I don't think this incident will become a rallying point for anti-driverless car activity, if only because the driverless car isn't too visible at the moment. (Now, if that driverless car started reading your emails and mining your personal data, that would be a different story.) I also assume that the future could include driverless cars that our descendants live with peacefully--descendants for whom the notion of "driver" seems a little archaic. ("Isn't that the software that runs my 3D printer?")

But I am looking forward to the convulsions between now and then, when people who are used to driving are confronted with the loss of that experience. (Will we lose that experience? If human-driving turns out to be less safe than computer-driving, then insurance rates will be higher for human drivers, and only the rich will afford to drive themselves. That seems as or more likely than laws against human driving, but we end in the same place: average Joe will take a computer to work.)

What will that be like, to be cargo in the vehicle that has come to be synonymous with self-determination and independence? I'd like to think that a lot of the bad behavior we see on buses and planes has to do with crowding; but part of me wonders if some that bad behavior comes from panic over one's own agency.

So, will driverless cars increase or decrease road rage? My guess: increase, unless we figure out some way to make "driving time" a lot more like "leisure time."