Just saw #HungerGames and really enjoyed it; I had no preconceptions (only a vague idea of the story) though. Think of Battle Royal meets Fifth Element meets Brazil and Dr Zeus … And some romance? I even got a fright. Oh and interesting fashion, some funny Movie OS interactions and blue wigs.
Interesting article on the state of innovation today compared to the pre-google, innovative and ambitious world that launched human beings into space. Well worth a read. I thought this quote particularly interesting.
“…Most people who work in corporations or academia have witnessed something like the following: A number of engineers are sitting together in a room, bouncing ideas off each other. Out of the discussion emerges a new concept that seems promising. Then some laptop-wielding person in the corner, having performed a quick Google search, announces that this “new” idea is, in fact, an old one—or at least vaguely similar—and has already been tried. Either it failed, or it succeeded. If it failed, then no manager who wants to keep his or her job will approve spending money trying to revive it. If it succeeded, then it’s patented and entry to the market is presumed to be unattainable, since the first people who thought of it will have “first-mover advantage” and will have created “barriers to entry.” The number of seemingly promising ideas that have been crushed in this way must number in the millions.
What if that person in the corner hadn’t been able to do a Google search? It might have required weeks of library research to uncover evidence that the idea wasn’t entirely new—and after a long and toilsome slog through many books, tracking down many references, some relevant, some not. When the precedent was finally unearthed, it might not have seemed like such a direct precedent after all. There might be reasons why it would be worth taking a second crack at the idea, perhaps hybridizing it with innovations from other fields. Hence the virtues of Galapagan isolation…”
Nokia’s head of design says he doesn’t see why phones need any external connectors…
Electric environment is the total absence of secrecy.
“All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects.”
Aldous Huxley, ‘Brave New World’ (1932)
When Huxley created Soma, he probably didn’t realise his contribution to making drugs such a ubiquitous part of science fiction. Mind altering substances have always been a part of human culture, and their inevitable existence in dystopian societies will doubtless influence man’s ability to coexist and meet the challenges of a hostile future. What Brave New World is really telling us is that civilisation will only run smoothly if everyone is cheerfully wasted.
