James McWilliams has written a fascinating piece that asks us to re-examine our horrendous treatment of animals:
I wonder what we might discover if, somehow or other, we careened over the edge and seriously explored, in the popular press, the ethics of animal exploitation. What if we discussed the moral and legal rights of animals with the same level of detail we bring to discussion about where to find the best prosciutto?
Perhaps the most intellectually jarring conclusion we might reach is that our current philosophical justification for dominating the non-human world is embarrassingly antiquated. In fact, it’s rooted in ancient ideas that ignore both Darwin and the science of genetics.
Newer elevators can do far more than you think is technologically possible:
New elevator systems and technology are making the pitch harder than ever—and upending the delicate rules of elevator etiquette. Elevators now route employees, sometimes according to rank. They can help corporations keep track of who is in the office and who isn’t. They can be programmed so that a germophobe can simply wave an ID card in front of a reader and be shuttled to the proper floor without actually touching a button. They can redirect an unsuspecting employee to a different floor at the request of the boss.
Behind the changes is an increasingly common dispatch system that the two companies that dominate the industry, Otis Elevator Co. and smaller rival Schindler Elevator Corp. have installed in about 200 mid-to-high-rise buildings around the country. Employees select their floor on a keypad in the lobby and are sent to board a specific elevator. The dispatch systems result in fewer people per car and fewer stops, and can be configured to suit a company’s particular needs.
During the next month, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Terminal will have high-quality photographic images of 50 foster children looking for homes. The NY Daily News reports:
Life-sized portraits of the kids taken by renowned photographers were unveiled yesterday as part of a “Heart Gallery” on display in hopes of enticing potential parents. Malik, 14, moved into his latest foster home in Canarsie a week ago – his sixth since he was taken away from his parents at age 6 after they left him home alone for weeks, he said. “I never found the right place,” said Malik, an eighth-grader who has had to change schools four times while being shifted among foster homes all over the city. “I don’t feel like a normal teenager. I’m hoping to find a nice family…I never felt loved by a parent before.”
The project was set up by Heartshare. The project raises a few ethical issues, the most potentially troubling of which is (what I’m guessing might be) the use of aesthetically attractive children to entice parents to adopt. That being said, any project that gets more foster children into loving homes is not something I care to take a stand against.
Less than one week after film critic Jacob Hall became Yahoo! Movies “Featured Critic,”Hall is leaving the site because they asked him to tone down a review. As John Gholson put it, “If you are the corporate overlord of a movie news/opinions website, 2011 is not shaping up to be your year.”
Remember that whole FilmPulse brouhaha from about a month ago? The guys who created it are back with a piece of video apologia (via Vic):
First of all, I’m not sure the video does the hosts any favors. It obviously eschews the glitzy production values of their actual show, but depicting them just casually shooting the breeze and reading off of hand-written notes while re-living the pilot episode doesn’t exactly instill a desire for me to take them seriously. That being said, they clearly heard the overwhelming criticism and wanted to respond in a productive fashion. That is more than I can say for many of the people in our industry (or many industries).
Mostly, though, I’m both confused and saddened by the video. First of all, why the abrupt ending? It comes out of nowhere and makes me think that I could have done a better job editing this video on my iPhone.
The guys talk about how expensive it was to create FilmPulse and how ComingSoon wanted to see if they could attract enough viewers to make it economically viable. Ultimately, despite all the controversy, they could not justify the cost of running the show.
I am a bit baffled that a) they thought this would be economically feasible in the first place, and b) that they (ComingSoon) are willing to give up after the first episode. With very few exceptions (Film Riot and its brethren come to mind), it is insanely difficult to create film-commentary media that is profitable. The only thing more insane than that is believing that you can do it after one episode. Unlike conventional weekly shows on television and the like, online shows are often additive in their attraction for new viewers because they require buy-in from listeners in the form of downloading/subscribing. In other words, shows generally become more popular over time, and constantly add to their viewership.
In the end, these guys are right: shows like FilmPulse, derided as they were, are usually labors of love. And when the whole internet takes a huge steaming dump on your labor of love, it can be reasonably taken as an indication to hang up your spurs, regardless of the economics.
As a photographer, I find Flickr incredibly useful for several functions, the most prominent of which is its ability to easily share an entire large-format slideshow using a single link. But Flickr has a ton of shortcomings on the design side, which Timoni West (via Gruber) is quick to point out:
Flickr can have a serious competitive advantage if they make photo uploads easy to see and navigate: everybody likes photos, and likes seeing themselves in photos, and it’s even nicer to see photos all arranged on a page without visual cruft like status interruptions and article links. It’s also crucial to have different ways of viewing the photos: chronological is important, but so are groupings by date and contact type.
In other words, Flickr still has the ability to kick ass in this arena. They just have to build it.
Flickr has experienced significant failures on the social side of their business. But West’s post is also a good reminder of how social strategy and design must work together, especially in an industry where competition is so fierce (see: Facebook Photos).
Emily Nussbaum has written a wonderful history of showrunners, and how their status has waxed and waned over time:
[I]t wasn’t until 1990 that TV experienced a truly cataclysmic cultural event: the premiere of Twin Peaks, a series that was described, again and again, as being “like nothing else on TV.” The show stood out not merely for its style but for the way it was made, as the product of one big, weird brain, conceived by the intimidating David Lynch, he who had directed Blue Velvet (middle-aged nudity, bug-covered ear). At this point, I’d graduated from college, and my friends and I would gather to watch, thrilling at David Duchovny in drag, retro brunettes with bruises, dwarves, cherry pie, and a general air of adult perversion. Within a few episodes, we all agreed the series had gone off the rails (a flash-forward to future TV fanhoods), but it was the first time I’d watched a show while thinking—with worship and anxiety and eventually a twinge of betrayal—about the person who had created it.