Mother of invention
So, I'm driving into work and I caught sight of a government billboard advocating being ready to combat terrorism if and when it hits American again. And I'm thinking, "No way in hell can we ever honestly be ready for someone unleashing anthrax in the New York subway system or detonating a nuke in downtown Seattle or opening a bag of sarin in your favorite airport the day before Thanksgiving." Forget it. Government agencies will be reduced to playing cleanup, finding the dead and dying and closing off parts of an already crippled infrastructure. You can't fully prepare against the anarchic nature of terrorism; that's its beauty. That's its simple, elegant truth. Damage from terrorism is unpredictable at best, and a horrific Cassandraesque nightmare to those that think about protecting our borders.
However, I was curious about planning for the worst on a citywide level. It makes the most sense to revamp whole downtown canyons and major road systems to a) deliver emergency containment crews to the scene and b) allow people in other parts of the city a fast way out of town. You would need to station first responders in different parts of your major downtown zones and give them unfettered access to hospitals, water and power pipelines or, god forbid, city dumps.
And then it hits me.
SimCity.
For those of you not in the know, SimCity is a widely popular video game where you take on the seemingly unsexy role of a city planner/authority figure/unelected mayor and try to develop your little patch of land into a thriving metropolis, complete with suburbs, office areas, parks, roads and industry while trying to meet the needs of your citizenry without too much crime, pollution and traffic jams. Like chess, the concept is easy to get, but will take years to master as you try to balance the needs of your people with want you can do. Around since the 1980s, it's a game that has helped launch the "God" gaming genre, where you are in total control, and has led to a zoo of other Sim titles, from SimEarth (run a planet) to SimAnt (run an ant colony) to The Sims (run...er, yourself).
So, I'm thinking that the makers of the SimCity series could cash on the whole "be ready" craze (or at least point out how futile it is to think we can minimize an attack) by creating a modified version (a.k.a. "mod") of SimCity to incorporate terrorism into the spate of disasters that can befall your city. In SimCity, players can find themselves coping with the aftermath of an earthquake or a leaky nuclear reactor or rioters, so why not the hell on earth of a dirty nuke?
I'm not saying terrorism is a game, although the makers of first-person shooter Counter-strike had no problem putting you in the shoes of a terrorist. Why not seriously give city officials a special version of SimCity to help them run scenarios of terrorist attacks? If the Army can get off licensing a first-person shooter that simulates you as a soldier, then the best we can do is make a portable engine of SimDestruction to get our town leaders ready for carnage.
Maybe there'll be a "WarGames" moment for the elected leaders. As in the 1983 Matthew Broderick movie, it became apparent that when NORAD's master computer was simulating nuclear war (inspired by real software that is used to run horrific "what-if" scenarios) that the only way to win this game was not to play. If a machine can piece that together, then possibly some elected official will too, and maybe we'll figure out a new, smarter way to win this war on terror.
Friday, July 11, 2003
Sunday, July 06, 2003
Thoughts on the Experience Music Project
Things I observed from a recent visit to the music museum in Seattle
1) It's a great thing that it has venues for classes and live performers because the museum itself is as interesting and as organized as some obsessive rock fan's closet full of goodies. Note to museum founder Paul Allen: We get it that you really, really, really like Jimi Hendrix and we also agree he could play some smoking guitar. Side note: The museum is really damn small. I have no idea how this place is going to thrive or grow. They boxed themselves with Frank Gehry's metallic hemorrhoid structure...very little room to colonize for new space. It's not worth the $20 admission when you can chug through it in an hour. Contrast: It costs less to get into the Louvre, and you can spend the day in there and not be close to seeing it all. It's the Disneyland of art.
2) The museum's Tricorder-purse audio guide needs to be shrunk down and severely put on a diet. It's an unwieldy box that looks like a funky Geiger counter but is a pain in the ass if you are my mom (or any female) who was balancing a purse on one hip and the audio guide on the other, making any female look like a pack mule. I understand it's a remote connected to a fat Discman, but this is the age of MP3s. Make the tour files digital and don't make the device that you use to guide yourself through the exhibits look like a TV remote on steroids. Take a tip from the elegant tour wands from the Roman Bath tours in Bath, England or the slim and lighter self-tour devices from the Louvre or the Tate. Also, don't subject your patrons to "surprise" sound bursts when they pass into a new exhibit. It's startling and cheap, a techie's idea that you have to be inundated with sound when you enter a room, akin to "smart" houses designed by uber-techies that play riffs from their favorite songs as they go from room to room. Stop it. Stop trying to reinvent the whole concept of a museum, where people enter new exhibit in near-silence, gazing upwards to soak in the displayed items. Give them a moment to get their bearings, to feel the room, to see where the corners go, or wait for slower members of their party. Please see any major room in the British Museum for better illustration. Finally, employ people to be living, breathing tour guides. Don't rely on the self-guides all the time. Have people talk about certain special items or go for audience interaction by asking questions.
3) This isn't the museum's fault, but I caught sight of the Fattest Man in the World wearing a shirt spoofing a popular clothing brand saying "Grababoobie and Pinch,' and I'm thinking, "You, sir, are a pervert and physical assault is probably the only way you are ever going to get some action."
4) As a museum that's trying to be all cutting edge and hip, its music section in its gift shop is way poor. This is all very terrible, considering there's a Tower Records a block away. There’s not even a collection of "Live at EMP" when local bands or larger acts played the museum (It's not that hard and pricey to create on-the-spot CDs of live performances). You can get CDs of your own personal performances in the museum's DIY lab, but then again, you can get the same thing at the "Make Your Own CD" kiosk at the mall.
5) I wish DVDs of video collections by an artist would also carry the audio tracks of the songs on the DVD in a special pocket on the disk. I mean, a collection of videos is already a "greatest hits" beast to begin with, so how much sense would it make to press a straight-audio version onto a DVD?
6) This, like #3, doesn't apply to the EMP, but I saw this in the parking lot. You know how you see all those window decals with Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes taking a leak on some other rival product (a Chevy, another college, Islam, etc.)? Well, I have to ask, where is Hobbes in all this because the stuffed tiger would never little the precocious child Calvin be a urine vandal. For that matter, Calvin wouldn't let himself do it either. He's probably use his imagination to turn into a dinosaur, stomping his toy cars...or maybe use a snowball in some fashion. He would never get caught up in a stupid brand war. Stop it. Leave Calvin alone.
7) If this museum is so with it when it comes to music and music history, where's the exhibit about file sharing over the Internet?
Two devices that will make anyone a trillionaire
1) A TV remote that will let you know the plot up to now (including taking into account backstories and hidden in-jokes, incredibly valuables for newbies to The X-Files, Buffy or 24). The device can also allow you to zap at any character onscreen and tell you what else he or she has been in.
2) A device of some kind that will, once you have seen the movie (or agreed to see the movie when it comes out), never ever expose you to another ad for the movie, whether it be TV, radio, Web or whatever.
The next voice you hear
A couple weeks ago I auditioned to be a reader to the blind in my community, including reading books to tape or reading the local newspaper live over a radio signal. I went in and filled out all the paper work and read a selection of items for analysis. Stumbled over three words and got a little dry mouth here and there, but I was okay, I thought. I hadn't done broadcasting work since high school (and I wasn't that good at it back then either, come to think of it). Thursday, I got a call back from Linda, a very sweet lady who keeps the place running with my verdict.
The nicest thing she said was, "You sounded nervous." She offered to let me come back in and audition again, but I was already crestfallen. This may be a bit petty, but I don't wan to try again. I gave it my best and trying again would remind me how crappy I did the first time around. I'm sure it would drag down my performance. I was offered a position as an audio monitor, someone who would sit around listening to other people's reading for errors and such. Again this may be petty, but to me, that's a consolation prize, along with rubbing it in my face that I failed being a public speaker. I wish them luck, but I think my time is best spent writing letters for Amnesty International.
It's quiet. Too quiet
I've been noticed a slowdown in the postings on the diverse tiramisu of blogs I visit throughout the day. Some are toning down for the summer, but some, like me, are facing a kind if ennui about this, getting tried about having to post, like it's a chore...a duty to be fulfilled. Tom Tomorrow in his blog recently said it best about taking more time to contemplate than instantly slapping up text. (He put in a good riff on the absurdity of the self-regarded blog titan, Instapundit.) There's wisdom in Tom's words, and it's something I've been feeling growing in myself for a while: Blogs are starting to lose their luster, being the digitally amped-up attention junkies they are. You have to start reassessing where you want to put your time. I love this blog and all, but here's the pecking order of my life as it stands, ranked greatest to least.
1) Family and friends. Top of that list is my wife and cats
2) My creative stuff
3) My job (this is a distant third)
4) Household chores
5) My latest video game addiction (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic coming July 15)
6) This blog
7) Deleting pornspam from my email accounts
8) Watching American reality TV
So, there will be fewer postings here because I don't have the time or the attraction to keep this garden in shape. If it looks slothful that I don't have fresh content daily or hourly, well, that's my cross to bear, I suppose. Blogs are great, but they waste far too much time when you have a novel to write or a wife to admire.
That said, I want to leave this entry with a note about me having a running e-mail conversation with author Zoe Trope, who you may not know about now, but will in the fall, when her book "Please Don't Kill The Freshman" invades your local Corporate Bookstore. She is not even 17, and she has a book coming out. Very cool, I think, and it makes me want to get writing more myself.
I'm working on the novel, as always, but also been doing a lot of reading on graphic novels. If you are at all interested in getting into the genre, I heartily endorse this book, "Writers on Comics Scriptwriting" by Mark Salisbury. It's packed full of interviews with Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller, Peter David and Garth Ennis, and if you don't know those names and are trying to get into the business, then you got some homework to do, chum.
Things I observed from a recent visit to the music museum in Seattle
1) It's a great thing that it has venues for classes and live performers because the museum itself is as interesting and as organized as some obsessive rock fan's closet full of goodies. Note to museum founder Paul Allen: We get it that you really, really, really like Jimi Hendrix and we also agree he could play some smoking guitar. Side note: The museum is really damn small. I have no idea how this place is going to thrive or grow. They boxed themselves with Frank Gehry's metallic hemorrhoid structure...very little room to colonize for new space. It's not worth the $20 admission when you can chug through it in an hour. Contrast: It costs less to get into the Louvre, and you can spend the day in there and not be close to seeing it all. It's the Disneyland of art.
2) The museum's Tricorder-purse audio guide needs to be shrunk down and severely put on a diet. It's an unwieldy box that looks like a funky Geiger counter but is a pain in the ass if you are my mom (or any female) who was balancing a purse on one hip and the audio guide on the other, making any female look like a pack mule. I understand it's a remote connected to a fat Discman, but this is the age of MP3s. Make the tour files digital and don't make the device that you use to guide yourself through the exhibits look like a TV remote on steroids. Take a tip from the elegant tour wands from the Roman Bath tours in Bath, England or the slim and lighter self-tour devices from the Louvre or the Tate. Also, don't subject your patrons to "surprise" sound bursts when they pass into a new exhibit. It's startling and cheap, a techie's idea that you have to be inundated with sound when you enter a room, akin to "smart" houses designed by uber-techies that play riffs from their favorite songs as they go from room to room. Stop it. Stop trying to reinvent the whole concept of a museum, where people enter new exhibit in near-silence, gazing upwards to soak in the displayed items. Give them a moment to get their bearings, to feel the room, to see where the corners go, or wait for slower members of their party. Please see any major room in the British Museum for better illustration. Finally, employ people to be living, breathing tour guides. Don't rely on the self-guides all the time. Have people talk about certain special items or go for audience interaction by asking questions.
3) This isn't the museum's fault, but I caught sight of the Fattest Man in the World wearing a shirt spoofing a popular clothing brand saying "Grababoobie and Pinch,' and I'm thinking, "You, sir, are a pervert and physical assault is probably the only way you are ever going to get some action."
4) As a museum that's trying to be all cutting edge and hip, its music section in its gift shop is way poor. This is all very terrible, considering there's a Tower Records a block away. There’s not even a collection of "Live at EMP" when local bands or larger acts played the museum (It's not that hard and pricey to create on-the-spot CDs of live performances). You can get CDs of your own personal performances in the museum's DIY lab, but then again, you can get the same thing at the "Make Your Own CD" kiosk at the mall.
5) I wish DVDs of video collections by an artist would also carry the audio tracks of the songs on the DVD in a special pocket on the disk. I mean, a collection of videos is already a "greatest hits" beast to begin with, so how much sense would it make to press a straight-audio version onto a DVD?
6) This, like #3, doesn't apply to the EMP, but I saw this in the parking lot. You know how you see all those window decals with Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes taking a leak on some other rival product (a Chevy, another college, Islam, etc.)? Well, I have to ask, where is Hobbes in all this because the stuffed tiger would never little the precocious child Calvin be a urine vandal. For that matter, Calvin wouldn't let himself do it either. He's probably use his imagination to turn into a dinosaur, stomping his toy cars...or maybe use a snowball in some fashion. He would never get caught up in a stupid brand war. Stop it. Leave Calvin alone.
7) If this museum is so with it when it comes to music and music history, where's the exhibit about file sharing over the Internet?
Two devices that will make anyone a trillionaire
1) A TV remote that will let you know the plot up to now (including taking into account backstories and hidden in-jokes, incredibly valuables for newbies to The X-Files, Buffy or 24). The device can also allow you to zap at any character onscreen and tell you what else he or she has been in.
2) A device of some kind that will, once you have seen the movie (or agreed to see the movie when it comes out), never ever expose you to another ad for the movie, whether it be TV, radio, Web or whatever.
The next voice you hear
A couple weeks ago I auditioned to be a reader to the blind in my community, including reading books to tape or reading the local newspaper live over a radio signal. I went in and filled out all the paper work and read a selection of items for analysis. Stumbled over three words and got a little dry mouth here and there, but I was okay, I thought. I hadn't done broadcasting work since high school (and I wasn't that good at it back then either, come to think of it). Thursday, I got a call back from Linda, a very sweet lady who keeps the place running with my verdict.
The nicest thing she said was, "You sounded nervous." She offered to let me come back in and audition again, but I was already crestfallen. This may be a bit petty, but I don't wan to try again. I gave it my best and trying again would remind me how crappy I did the first time around. I'm sure it would drag down my performance. I was offered a position as an audio monitor, someone who would sit around listening to other people's reading for errors and such. Again this may be petty, but to me, that's a consolation prize, along with rubbing it in my face that I failed being a public speaker. I wish them luck, but I think my time is best spent writing letters for Amnesty International.
It's quiet. Too quiet
I've been noticed a slowdown in the postings on the diverse tiramisu of blogs I visit throughout the day. Some are toning down for the summer, but some, like me, are facing a kind if ennui about this, getting tried about having to post, like it's a chore...a duty to be fulfilled. Tom Tomorrow in his blog recently said it best about taking more time to contemplate than instantly slapping up text. (He put in a good riff on the absurdity of the self-regarded blog titan, Instapundit.) There's wisdom in Tom's words, and it's something I've been feeling growing in myself for a while: Blogs are starting to lose their luster, being the digitally amped-up attention junkies they are. You have to start reassessing where you want to put your time. I love this blog and all, but here's the pecking order of my life as it stands, ranked greatest to least.
1) Family and friends. Top of that list is my wife and cats
2) My creative stuff
3) My job (this is a distant third)
4) Household chores
5) My latest video game addiction (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic coming July 15)
6) This blog
7) Deleting pornspam from my email accounts
8) Watching American reality TV
So, there will be fewer postings here because I don't have the time or the attraction to keep this garden in shape. If it looks slothful that I don't have fresh content daily or hourly, well, that's my cross to bear, I suppose. Blogs are great, but they waste far too much time when you have a novel to write or a wife to admire.
That said, I want to leave this entry with a note about me having a running e-mail conversation with author Zoe Trope, who you may not know about now, but will in the fall, when her book "Please Don't Kill The Freshman" invades your local Corporate Bookstore. She is not even 17, and she has a book coming out. Very cool, I think, and it makes me want to get writing more myself.
I'm working on the novel, as always, but also been doing a lot of reading on graphic novels. If you are at all interested in getting into the genre, I heartily endorse this book, "Writers on Comics Scriptwriting" by Mark Salisbury. It's packed full of interviews with Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Frank Miller, Peter David and Garth Ennis, and if you don't know those names and are trying to get into the business, then you got some homework to do, chum.
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