Epic -- a flash movie
 

I wasn't sure where to put this. It's too serious and relevant for Nonsense, but... I dunno. Just watch it. It really made me think.

http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/randommirror.php

Interesting thought. I must confess that I will now be watching webolution a little more carefully.

slavakion... onus is on you the thread starter to start the discussion...

you said it made you think... what did it make you think about?

That was really interesting. It definitely made me think about it, and I think it did this because it seemed possible. None of that was too far fetched, and it all seems like it would tie in with the evolution of google, which has been amazing so far, and doesn't look like it's going to stop anytime soon. I was a little confused about the last part though, where it said that EPIC was only reliable to the elite and to the rest it was trivia. I wish I could get it as an mpg or something so I could rewind it. I guess I'll go watch it again. Thanks Slavakion, interesting find. On another note, I love the logo for EPIC :p

Well, I didn't want to give away what the flash was all about, that's why I was vague.

But it makes you think about growing businesses, especially Google. Right now, they're our best friend, giving us a pantload of email space, an awesome search engine, and more. I was too young to know anything at the time, but wasn't Microsoft the same when it started? Friend to technophiles everywhere? Now look; MS is reviled by the masses for its business practices and for its products. Corporations everywhere (at least in America) are merging to form super-corporations. Bank of America, Time Warner, Verizon. Is an all-encompassing Borg like EPIC really hard to imagine? And then the fallout, the result of EPIC: news reduced, mixed, edited down to insipid trivia meant to placate the masses. I had flashbacks to the seashells from Fahrenheit 451. I had flashbacks to the vid-screens from 1984.

What did it make me think of? Too much to articulate properly.

Thanks Slav...

I watched many things happen in my lifetime things that I never thought would happen.

the breakup of AT&T, the change of Utility and Cable TV from protected monopoly to free market.

The world is fickle...but it is something to remember, companies come and go, people live and die.

Viacom used to be a part of CBS and 20 years later after the FCC said that CBS could no longer have Viacom as part of it's holdings, Viacom bought CBS.

Southwestern Bell Corp which was spun off from AT&T is in talks to rebuy it's parent.

Companies ebb and flow because of profitability.

As far as EPIC is concerned...this would only apply to news media.

The rest of the media contect is protected by copyrights, and copyright holders defend those copyrights vigorously. So while news can be filtered and aggragated via EPIC, episodes of Friends, Alias, LOST, XFiles, Everyone Loves Raymond, Survivor will not.

Crazy to think about, whats crazier is its only like 10 years away that this flash is based on.

if 20 years ago we didn't even really have computers and today we have ones that can do most anything, what will they do in 20 years?

Type /food and you get your nutrient shot for the day?
Type /Exercise and your chair turns into a bike?

Really makes you worry because eventually something is gonna break and its gonna fall down like a stack of dominos missing a piece and since computers control most everything in the world now, really makes it sorta scary.

I'd really love to see this but it won't open....

Yeah this was pretty cool. I liked trying to imagine the personalized news...

"Thousands killed in tsunami, but no jazz clubs were destroyed. The scene remains strong in Indonesia. As well, several prominent Dungeon Masters spoke out, comparing the tragedy to something that might only happen on the Abyssal Plane..."

I also had to laugh at the name "GoogleZon."

I don't think things will quite turn out like EPIC. News truly personalized to one's interests wouldn't really broaden anyone's knowledge. Isn't that what news is about? I mean, isn't news essentially telling us something we didn't know already that often lies somehwere outside our immediate interests?

whoa that stuff was pretty weird. It was interesting though

People want entertainment. They want immediate gratification. If a newspaper can be distilled into trivia fluff, I can see it happening with many people.

Why would we still be typing? I'm gonna have one of them jacks from the matrix in the back of my head :)


Am I worried about this? Nope, the content still has to come from somewhere eventually. Anyway, Amazon fucks up my recommendations all the time - it should know when my wife is driving...

The ability to tailor-make news and advertisments is nothing new, and the kind of thing that the makers are talking about is sharply double-edged, but there's another dimension to it.

With such a tightly-tailored information stream, your preferences have to be known. How long before your credit ratings, social details, indeed the many things that one holds private are available <I> on demand </I> to those that control the filters? The more you give up in terms of privacy, it seems the more you get in terms of exposure to tailored news sources. It's happening right now. Signup for any major news service and they'll want things like your telephone number, maybe even your street address. They aren't compulsory fields - for now.

The other issue is one of "media creep". As the presentation shows - and is already being proved correct - mass media, made for the masses by a cunning media presence who feed off basic, egocentric, reactionary public opinion, will eventually become so distorted in the name of public opinion and interests that news itself will become what people want to hear. Look at Fox News in the US. In-depth analysis? Don't make me laugh. Look at The Sun and the red-banner press in the UK - alarmist, shallow and pandering to our most basic urges - sex, fear and social cohesion in the form of popular sports. Media creep will become so incredibly amplified that voices of reason and intelligence - not knowledge, intelligence - in this new sea of editors risk being lost. But it's been happening, is happening and will continue happening on an exponential scale. And what of our ability to cross-reference? As a student of International Relations I now cross-reference news stories in order to obtain the most accurate picture of events possible. What happens to that ability once something like EPIC goes on-line? The competition is forced out, we lose our other sources... popular opinion in the form of billions of editors prevails, the majority view is applied to the facts of any reported case and suddenly you have the perfect tool for disseminating any message you want provided the populous can be made to believe it. Events are watched 24-hours a day with no chance for independent analysis and majority views and values are impressed upon most readers - Mill's Tyranny Of The Majority finally comes viciously into effect. The elite, now riding a populist machine, have no alternative but to hang on. Press and public enter a perpetual feedback loop of information with no way out. Each affects the other.

1984, anyone?

I've seen this before, and it scares the crap outta me.

It's a really good prediction, but I doubt it will happen that soon.
Everyone said we'd have hover cars by now, and we don't even have a mainstream electric car.

i really like the part "epic is what we wanted" and then goes on to say stuff like sensationalist, shallow, etc...

as long as media of this type is consumed, it will continue to be produced. and profitably.

don't reward sensationalism (you and the other 6 billion like you) and this will not happen.

I don't think things will go down like that vid shows. I guess I'm the only one that thinks this is a little far fetched.

I watched this off Total Fark a while back, almost considered linking it here. I found it pretty far fetched for a variety of reasons. That being said, I liked it. People never really consider where google is heading. We often celebrate the free lunch given out by internet companies (see google, e.g. gmail) without thinking about their for-profit motive. The personalization of advertising has always disturbed me to an extent, and it will only get more accurate and prevalent in the future.

I do think the makers of "epic" are on to something when they describe people's desire to personilize their news sources. Think about where you get your news; I check cnn.com,foxnews.com, fark, tfp and the daily show. I probably listen to the most editorial content from the least qualified sources, e.g. tfp, fark and the daily show. People like being involved with their news, and blogging offers a level of interaction not offered in mainstream media.

On an unrelated note doesnt this movie's vision of the furture remind you of the system described in Orson Scott Card's books?

And this is why news should be paid for.

I have no problem with the AP cutting off access to news feeds starting this year, unless you pay for them. No more free news for Yahoo and Google without paying the AP for the information.

And that's the way it should be. Journalists work hard to write the news stories and do the resereach. Right now their work is devalued in the market. This needs to change or things will look grim.

In another thread I spoted someone stating "I don't have to buy the newspaper, news is free online!"
Wrong attitude. That's the attitude that brings about this.

I do think that the Wall Street Journal has the right online approach. I will always be willing to buy the newspaper. And I won't be willing to buy "digital paper". That's just creepy.

Hey,

I'm trying to save the entire flash video onto my hard drive, via wget, and seem to be running into problems.

I'm using this code, btw:

Thanks for any help,
keyshawn

[maybe I should post this in the computer forum ?]