Month: December 2014

It is really cold as I type this, right now the temperature has been struggling to get above 25, and there is 15 or so inches of snow on the ground after a surprise storm hit yesterday and overnight last night..

There is no use crying over spilled ice, the winter has just begun and the cold times ahead are coming..

But a huge number of stores crying today, I actually had the day off from work and decided to go to a few different shopping venues .. My prime objective of the day: finish Christmas shopping for some, start for others.

I did not get too far, I walked the in the various stores, struggled to find the perfect item for anyone, and for the most part left each place empty-handed and frustrated.

While regrouping, I downloaded the Amazon.com app–I know I’m behind the times.

Let me first say this: a friend summed my Internet life up this way: I was ahead of the curve until the year 2004, became stagnant, and now have fallen way behind. He’s right! I think about it, lamenting malls as they die and hoping for retail to make a comeback, and realize now that it won’t. It is beyond unrealistic to assume that any positive news will come out of this year’s shopping seen for retail stores ..

The jig is up, the writing is on the wall, the end is nigh.

I realized that today. I saw the writing clear, I saw Christmas decorations from the late 20th century still hanging. I heard antiquated Christmas music playing over loudspeakers, being broadcast to empty malls with eerie echoes cascading through the large caverns of retail hell–infernos where no one burned, but boredom killed.

Indeed it is over.
Today, a day which will live in infamy. I am leaving the retail shopping scene..

It’s frustrating to think that you travel for miles to get to a location which was once the central point of shopping. Now you’re lucky to be able to get tacky crafts or pointless momentos. Things that no one wants, things that no one really even appreciates or needs. Just crap. And not much of a choice of crap, but a bare bones minuscule sampling it.

Yes indeed, this is what retail has become. It cannot be supported anymore, the future is not right for it, online is how it will be.

I think I fully understand now why brick and mortar stores are being vacated. They are abhorrently pointless.. They are time consuming and, when you know you can find the exact thing you want with just one click an a speedy delivery, they have became antiquated and tiresome..

I am half sad letting retail go, have liberated.

I held in too long. It’s 2014, and I still had this nostalgic belief that malls could make a return to fame, take possession of a new generation, and become relevant again.

Instead I saw shoppers–smaller than any year previous–appearing like bored zombies as they struggled to find a gift. They were oping for nonsense over substance, because that’s what happens when you are oven good options or fiber products.

I welcome my online consumption.
I mays ever consider getting groceries delivered by drone when that can happen.
Meanwhile ..
Goodbye retail. It was real.
Now it’s virtual.
Goodbye.

CBS announced that May 20, 2015, will be David Letterman’s final show on the network..

This will be a milestone for the country. I really mean that.

Letterman may not be really all that funny anymore, but he was once so cutting edge that he was sharper than new knives. He was inventive and ironic..

I was at a taping of the LATE SHOW in the early 2000s.. Not impressed completely by that but still amazing to be in the Ed Sullivan theater.

I grew up watching Letterman. Ever since, as a kid, I read the Frank Miller DARK KNIGHT I was inspired to figure out who the pop culture icon was featured in the comic:

I fondly recall Friday nights, staying up late, watching LATE NIGHT and then LATE SHOW when he switched networks..

I also had a secret in school. Not many other kids really knew who Letterman was, so I would set my VCR each night to record his show. The next morning, before school, I watched his skits and copied some of the humor off of it, doing the same types of things at school that day. No one ever knew.

Until now.

Regardless, the whole thing changes on May 20 next year. Letterman will ride off into the sunset, and become the next biggest talk show host since Carson to leave television. Will Bette Midler kiss him, too?

I am not so sure about Stephen Colbert.. the jury is out.

But on Letterman, my decision was that he redefined late night comedy.

Now someone has to redefine it again. I don’t think it’s Colbert.

I personally have always believed whichever network chose a woman to host a late night comedy show was going to be the one that redefined it. And that has yet to happen..

The other day, while I explaining to my mother some of the best parts the future has to hold due to technology, she espoused the common belief among her age group: “I hope I’m dead by then.” Mixed in that sentiment: The fear of the future, and the regretfullness at the same time of not learning everything about the internet that she wants to.

But she is not the only one who fears upcoming upheaval. I do, too. Technology’s advancements and human beings’ changes are occurring mighty quickly lately. No more slow drips of progress.. these days we are printing in 3D everything from houses to lungs and the future, oh that future, appears to be muddled in some kind of puddle transhumanism/eternal health and happiness.

Regardless of the niceties to come, there are reasons to fear.. When certain governments use progress to hurt society that is awful. When corporations hate their customer and worker, that is equally unfair..

In a sense, robotic advancements on their own are neither moral or immoral. A robot lacks a soul, it lacks the consciousnesses of life.. We think at least. But let’s go with the idea that they do.. When human beings, rife with more good and evil thoughts, get a hold of the robot, bad things can happen.

A robot can be used to build a house.
Or destroy an entire village of women and children in a war.
Take you pick.

On the fear concept, we are hearing from Google’s Eric Schmidt. He says to embrace the brave new world of the artificial future..don’t fear the reaper.

WIRED reports in more detail. Issie Lapowsky writes,

According to Schmidt, people have been concerned about machines taking over the world for centuries. “Go back to the history of the loom. There was absolute dislocation,” he said, “but I think all of us are better off with more mechanized ways of getting clothes made.” Plus, he argued, in the past economies have prospered the more they adopt these new technologies. “There’s lots of evidence that when computers show up, wages go up,” he said. “There’s lots of evidence that people who work with computers are paid more than people without.”

The real threat, he believes, is that education systems around the world aren’t teaching their students the skills they need to work together with these increasingly intelligent machines. “The correct concern,” Schmidt explained, “is what we’re going to do to improve the education systems and incentive systems globally, in order to get people prepared for this new world, so they can maximize their income.”

Lapwosky goes on to write of how Schmidt thinks that technology is much more primitive than people think. I agree with him on that. I do not think we are quite ‘there’ yet as far as the real rapid fire changes that society is going to have to adapt to. I do disagree with him, too. I think humanity is not ready for robots to replace their jobs. Government is not ready, either.. businesses may not be either!

Robots are doing everything from picking apples in farms to making cars to serving food at restaurants. All things have a mechanical element. Even the idea of bureaucrats pushing paper for hours a day in theory could be replaced by a robot doing the same—and perhaps more efficiently without office gossip or smoke breaks to boot.

People used to be freaked by Google. Remember about ten years ago when Gmail was introduced? Millions of people are shocked to learn that Google would be able to scan personal email to use it as product placement and ad generation. (and much much more, we just don’t talk about that) .. Then millions of people signed up and all was forgotten.

Same will occur here. Everything is eventual. And technological advancements are as well..

But for the betterment of society? Only society’s response in years will tell us the real tale of what good or bad effect it had..

I can say this, though: We need to start preparing now for a majority of people not working, not having the ability to compete with robots, and signing up for government benefits.

Maybe the idea of the wage floor will make sense to a society in the future.

Maybe that future is coming very, very soon..

Now we know..
Thanks to the Guardians of Peace, the hacking group that may have worked on behalf of NORTH KOREA and decimated the personal information of Hollywood stars and threw Sony’s entire business operations into the public eye.

And apparently lots of folks really dislike Angelina Jolie. Including producer Scott Rudin.

According to some newly leaked emails from the information dump from the GOP, Rudin is on record saying that Jolie is a “minimally talented spoiled brat.” .. and another: “YOU BETTER SHUT ANGIE DOWN BEFORE SHE MAKES IT VERY HARD FOR DAVID TO DO JOBS.”

VARIETY has the full story..
As does the group GUARDIANS OF PEACE.

But there is even more to this whole mess, as the Washington POST expands on,

Beyond the gossip about movie stars and failed projects, Sony now faces real-world financial and business threats. Leaked health information, Social Security numbers and other personal data about employees and actors could invite lawsuits under California’s strict laws on data protection. Data on employees’ and actors’ pay could be used in labor disputes and may ripple across the industry. Just last week the hackers, calling themselves “Guardians of Peace,” sent threatening e-mails to Sony employees.

But perhaps the most damaging will be harm to Sony’s reputation. With only a small portion of the documents — some reports put it at more than 100 terabytes — now online, the drip-drip-drip of revelations could continue for months or years.

Even politics of the Washington D.C. kind is showing its face in the Sony emails–clearly the Hollywood Washington connection is alive and well. But this time, though Hollywood may have swooned over President Obama for 6 years now, the mocking took place in emails for the entire world to read. BUZZFEED has more,

In what has become the latest embarrassing email uncovered in a trove of messages leaked by hackers who attacked Sony, Pascal wrote Rudin: “What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?” She was referring to a breakfast hosted by DreamWorks Animation head and major Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Rudin, a top film producer responsible for films like No Country for Old Men andMoneyball, responded, “Would he like to finance some movies.” Pascal replied, “I doubt it. Should I ask him if he liked DJANGO?” Rudin responded: “12 YEARS.” Pascal quickly continued down the path of guessing Obama preferred movies by or starring African Americans. “Or the butler. Or think like a man? [sic]”

Rudin’s response: “Ride-along. I bet he likes Kevin Hart.”

The drops of information is now becoming a deluge.

The GOP hacked.
The truth is whacking people over the head at SONY.

Among the billions of posts and GIFs online right now, there are a few little creepy ones that stand out for me.. They all come from the Tumblr account for the upcoming January 2015 film THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2 . The site is http://womaninblack2.tumblr.com/.. you can find gems, like the one I feature with this post, and others including an arm reaching out to a woman from a baby carriage, freakish images of people screaming, and clever other ways the movie makers are getting their message out on social media.

But I see these THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2 images being shared more than any others online in some time. Perhaps it’s because the there second clips are macabre and downright creepy—as the one featured here .. No matter how many loops over again it makes, each time I see it I still stop and get just a bit of a chill at the face on my screen..

And that is smart for THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2 . People like GIFs.. the online community enjoys quick laughs and even quicker scares.. The movie is drumming up interesting simply by users freely passing around GIFs and other images with #SheNeverLeft as the tag…

And that is how marketing is now.. A chimp with half a brain and an empty wallet can do it. But to do it effectively, you need to know your audience, your platform, and the style of people who would share images like those being given out by the makers of THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2 ..

I remember a time when images online had copyrights and those copyrights mean something.. Big studios would sent out directives to websites —like mine—demanding a cease and desist on the publication of certain movie images.. But now? Now things are quite the alternate. Now studios and Hollywood executives are fine with their movie stills being shared. They even help. They upload to platforms hoping that users ‘reblog’ and make them go viral—all free, all fast. And all effective.

Those cease and desists are long gone. Now we are encouraged to steal those images and post away—knowing the end result will add to the word of mouth advertising.

Everything I just said is common sense and has been so for years. But i still get a little impressed when I come across a TUMBLR site or media site as effective as the one for THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2 .

The movie has another thing going for it: It’s being released in January, it’s PG-13, and it comes after the Christmas season ends.. I personally think that January releases for horror are a good thing. By that point, we have had it up to our mistletoe in Christmas cheer and happiness. We want to be scared again.. and teenagers, those who will most likely make up the vast majority of the PG-13 release crowd on January 2 in the wide box office open for THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2, will eat this horror up.

The distributor is RELATIVITY.. No word yet officially on the number of theaters the film debuts in. But it’s a wide release. And an even wider TUMBLR world of image sharing..