Come on, between a key demand of the Writer’s Strike being the regulation of AI in screenwriting and some of my other posts about AI this year, did you really think I wouldn’t share this half-hour comedy screed from Adam Conover? It may be foul-mouthed, but it is funny. However, if you’re looking for a TL;DR one might sum it up as such: And did I mention it’s foul-mouthed? Beware around kindern and co-workers who…
So the not-quite-a-week-old writers’ strike is still on my mind, in part because much of the online forums I visit are full of, well, writers. So here’s a few more resources that I feel give you a bit more context about what’s being demanded, how the studios usually respond and what is officially on the table. First up, an 8 1/2 minute video from Nerdist that sums up the strike: If you’ve been following other…
Some of you may recall an article I linked to back in February which documented how there’s now a business model, most evident in the technology sphere, that has been optimized without the customer in mind (well, assuming the customer doesn’t want a crap experience). Well, turns out the Cory Doctorow article is part of an overall book called Chokepoint Capitalism, and he talks about some of the findings in the book with fellow disenchanted…
I am interested in technological progress (not just fun with machine learning bumbling into the creative sphere). And it’s usually about progress and how we might want to examine our societal decisions about how fast we’re going. So imagine my surprise when I read this article in Wired by Charles Platt about how analog computing is making a comeback. Oh, this is giving me story ideas…
Finding time to read, or catch up with films, seems all the more difficult these days, so I pored over this list from various critics at The Guardian, who apparently are annoyed at the increasing length of films and heft of novels and have a slew of suggestions of how to get all the artsy goodness you want in a smaller package. I haven’t seen all the films nor read all the novels listed. In…
I was all ready with another post for today when this popped into my inbox yesterday afternoon: You can learn more about the decision in these articles in The Hollywood Reporter, Gizmodo, and Reuters among others. Even though this decision makes perfect sense –I guess there have to be less than 2 million of us red envelope cinemaniacs left– it’s quite the bummer. For almost all of those 25 years, I have been the recipient…
So, I’m clearly not in tune with all fandom news because then I would have realized that the trailer I shared for the latest volume of Star Wars: Visions on Wednesday was but one output of a massive Star Wars marketing shindig last week (aka Star Wars Celebration 2023). There’s numerous articles about the various announcements made at the event, but I found myself interested in one 19-minute interview with showrunners Dave Filoni and John…
I know. For a blog that has quite a lot of posts about Star Trek, what am I doing talking about magical space wizards? Because magical space wizards are fun. As with plenty of other Gen Xers, Star Wars was a big part of my childhood. I also grew up with a lot of samurai films and anime (something else shared by plenty of Gen Xers I’ve met.). So when Disney announced they were releasing…
Based on several standing meeting cancellations and trip pics on social media, I have deduced that Spring Break is in the air for many people. And Spring Break often means travel. And travel often means reading material. And such reading material is often… pulpy. So thanks to Open Culture, I now know that the Internet Archive has thousands of issues of the pulp magazines available for your reading pleasure. And now so do you. Use…
A few years ago, writer, media consultant, and avid Stoic, Ryan Holiday, decided to open a bookstore with his wife. What with being a writer who is very into philosophy and how one lives one’s life (seriously check out some of his books), he decided to share some thoughts about what he learned from running the bookstore. The 23 lessons are on the shorter side, but are thought-provoking and often link to longer pieces that…