Comment of the Week

Here are this week's contenders:

Comment #1: a new comment on your post "BLACK BOX THEATER":

The first two shows on this article seem particularly interesting to me. The first because what the modern mindset is about planes and the cockpit is different than the mindset that existed about them 30 years ago. The original audience didn't live through 9/11, the landing in the hudson, and the various stories that have filtered through the internet of pilots who sleep and have little concern for passenger safety. It'd be interesting to see how a modern audience will react to how people acted in the cockpit in years prior. The second show described is interesting to me because I find the technological and generational split fascinating. Living on this college campus, it's so beneficial to be "linked in" to all the wireless capabilities around. I can check my e-mail on my phone if I don't have my computer with me, and I can communicate verbally and visually with my friends on my laptop. How do the people on campus who are older handle this? Do they "link in" as well? Are they as familiar with the technology? How about the ones who choose not to use this technology? A play that contrasts those who rely on this technology with those who refuse to touch it is truly a social commentary that many people need a wake up call to.

Comment #2: a new comment on your post "Preview: STREB founder has an appetite for action":

Despite the fact that this sounds like an incredibly breath-taking show to watch, I was a little taken aback by Streb's statement that actors are often hurt in the middle of performances and need to be replaced without missing a beat.
If there is a known precondition to your work that may cripple an actor, how difficult must it be to find actors that want to work for your company? Is the company forgiving when you are out or work for weeks with cracked ribs, or broken limbs? Who is paying for all of those hospital bills, and are the actors being compensated in some way for being hurt on the job for what seems to be accident-prone choreography?
There is pushing the body to the limits, and then there is actively putting yourself in harm's way. I may be extrapolating that statement a bit farther than it was intended, but if the audience is gasping and putting their hands over their eyes (and peeking through when they think it might be safe to) for 95 minutes in fear of the actors' safety, I'm hesitant to say that this danger is justifiable. Being awestruck is one thing, being in panic is another.

Comment #3: a new comment on your post "The Truth About Being "Done" Versus Being "Perfect...":

I cannot think of another article that is so applicable to theatre and film/television. Living fast paced enables people to spit out ideas at record speeds and run with them, letting them grow and develop, but it is never a good idea to sit on something for too long. Ideas tend to become stale when people do this. It is so invigorating and inspiring to see all of these new companies coming up with such dynamite ways to lead and function. I think "Done is better than perfect" is a great slogan because it buys into the idea that perfectionism kills, and that perfectionism is what can cause a company to work too long and hard on a project that could have been developed in a third amount of time and be released as more fresh and relevant than waiting to work on it longer and then releasing it. This does not mean going with your first idea: it just means get a product out their simply and efficiently and don't stress about whether or not it is perfect.

Comment #4: a new comment on your post "What Public Domain? Why A Letter Written In 1755 I...":

I feel like I say this a lot on this blog and in conversations I have about copyright and IP law: The copyright, patent, and IP Law system is extremely broken. It was never meant to enter the digital age without being updated, and is currently prohibiting innovation. This article just continues to support that case. It points out that copyright just plain doesn't make sense! ("If you digitized books from 1912, you could infringe on a copyright from 1935. That is not a functional system.")
This article points out one example that I think it particularly relevant to theatrical artists: the sale of the first Star Trek episode. The copyright for that didn't kick in until the first sale, not the broadcasting. That can cause some potentially interesting problems or requirements for those of us working in TV, and I'm interested to find out what the current TV industry is doing about it.

Comment #5: a new comment on your post "A Record One-in-Five Households Now Owe Student Lo...":

College is terrible.
1. It is now societally made out to be something one needs to achieve any success at all, regardless of industry. Whether or not this is true is a separate argument. However, a quarter of a million dollars (coughcoughCMU) is a hell of a large number for something many view as mandatory.
2. Sure, financial aid is great, and grants exist. But they only cover a fraction of the cost. The rest of it just gets messy after graduation.
3. I will owe approximately $100,000 in student loan debt beginning in 2.5 years. Would those other four in five households like to divvy a little of that up for me? Now accepting applications.

Leave your vote in this post's comments!

Worth a Look

Here are some articles from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time:

A Broadway Mystery Worthy Of 'Rebecca'

NPR: There's a new mystery on Broadway — one about the musical Rebecca, based on the Daphne du Maurier novel. You can't see it yet on the New York stage. In fact, it hasn't even started rehearsals. That's because the production is short $4.5 million after one of its investors died before he could hand over the money. But as Patrick Healy reports in The New York Times, some are now wondering if this investor ever existed. Healy spoke with NPR's Melissa Block about whether this show really will go on.

Posted by David at 10/05/2012 05:49:00 PM

PA Convention Center Loses $15 million Over a Cordless Screwdriver

Professional tool reviews for the average Joe: We're not out to alienate unions or make any specific commentary about pro- or anti-union affiliation, but a recent occurrence in Philadelphia reinforced the importance of common sense and clear lines of communication when union issues are involved. Pennsylvania's Convention Center recently underwent an overhaul to bring its total usable floor space to just over two million square feet. And when we say "overhaul" we mean to the tune of 3/4 of a billion dollars. That's a very big deal. So you'd think that with expansion of that type, the convention center would do all that it could to encourage business and convention use and traffic and bring in new organizations to recoup the costs.

Posted by David at 10/03/2012 04:29:00 PM

The Truth About Being "Done" Versus Being "Perfect"

Fast Company: In 2010, a small California-based company opened its doors for business. They didn’t have much capital but, with a staff of only four, they did have a singular vision--to outdo Kodak. Even through the rosiest of glasses, this would not appear a feasible proposition. It’s a scenario that makes David versus Goliath look like a fair fight. But 18 months later, the company of four, which had become a company of 13, was sold to Facebook for $1 billion.

Posted by David at 10/03/2012 04:37:00 PM

Hot Set

Technical Direction Tidbits: SyFy has a new series out called Hot Set. I caught the first episode, and thought that it was interesting. I have always thought that the similarities and differences between theatre, tv & film were interesting. The froth packs (AB foam) is something that we use & is a good technique for scenery.

Posted by David at 10/07/2012 04:49:00 PM

What Public Domain? Why A Letter Written In 1755 Is Still Covered By US Copyright Law

Techdirt: If you ever done any research about the public domain, you've probably come across this awesome chart from my alma mater, Cornell, that tries to explain how you can figure out if something is or is not in the public domain in the US. I've relied on the chart many times (and linked to it a bunch as well). Now, Peter Hirtle, one of the people behind that chart, has an equally fantastic and frustrating article detailing how difficult it is to determine if something is actually in the public domain (and the fact that so little enters the public domain in the US any more). Hirtle kicks it off by recognizing the importance of the public domain, including the fact (often ignored, it seems) that all copyrighted works must enter the public domain at some point. He then goes into a series of seven reasons why it's so incredibly, ridiculously difficult to ever figure out if something is in the public domain.

Posted by David at 10/07/2012 04:57:00 PM

You Can't Count on Anything

One would hope I really am not old enough to be thinking "kids today" but in my gig the chances of it are high and only seem to get higher each passing year. The latest example turned out to be about computer programming.

I got my first introduction to computer programming when I was in 6th grade. I was in a "special math" class, which sounds like it ought to be remedial but was just the opposite. As part of that course we were introduced to programming in BASIC on TRS-80 Model 1 computers. They had a whopping 16K of memory and stored their programs on cassette tape. My recollection is that the screen had maybe 64 pixels across (might have been less) and when we needed hardcopy output we used an electro-static printer than printed on metallic paper that looked like register receipts.

I used Model 1's and then Model 3's (somehow we missed the Model 2 - it was an office model I think). Before I got to high school I had a Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer. The CoCo had "high resolution" graphics: 256 pixels across. I moved up from thermal paper to tractor feed bond and ditched the tape drive for a 5.25" floppy disc drive. By this time we'd started to see Apple 2 computers and IBM PCs - both of which were really the death knell for the TRS 80.

The thing that was most different about these machines from computers we get now is that their primary purpose was to be programmed. They booted up in basic and then you told them to do things. There was commercially available software, mostly games, but a user was just as likely to write their own procedures as to buy something. I even had at least two "pocket computers" which were more accurately programmable calculators that also ran BASIC.

To this day I still have habits learned on those Tandy machines. Programming in BASIC the computers had this function where if you pressed backspace with the shift key it would erase the whole line. I still find myself making for damn sure to have my finger off the shift key before I press backspace. I lost way too much code to that particular feature over the years to unlearn it now.

Somewhere along the way the introductory programming language went from BASIC to a graphic based language LOGO. I want to say LOGO had a "turtle" that made patterns on the screen based on programming. Logo was a gateway to PASCAL. When I was in college I took 15-111 Computer Programming and in that course we used PASCAL.

And then I became a theatre student and that was the end of my programming experience. I got off the road just before C++. I think since it made me more confident writing spreadsheet macros or putzing around with HTML, but I haven't done any real programming in a very long time.

Since I had computer programming in junior high, high school, and college; and since I went to school so long ago I guess I just figured that people coming through our program would have had even more computer experience than I did.

And maybe they did. They've probably had computers in their homes as long as they can remember and in all likelihood have had computers in their classrooms since grade school. But... it doesn't seem as if anytime along the way they have had to learn to program. It makes sense. Even when I was in college computers stopped booting up in BASIC and become more creatures of purchased software than custom programming.

Why does this come up now? The last two years I've included an ARDUINO unit in my Technical Direction 3 class. ARDUINO is an open source embedded electronics platform. About half of the work here is electronics craft (and whether these kids had "150 in 1 Electronics Kits" in their past would make for another post) and half of the work is coding, coding with all of the inherent nuances of syntax and structures of any other programming language.

In class the other day we were blazing through some introduction to ARDUINO programming and we kept having to go backward and suddenly it became clear that not one student in class had ever had computer programming anytime in their prior education.

I don't often find myself thinking "what are they teaching kids these days?" Couldn't help myself.

Ellipses...

At work watching the Steelers game, becoming a bit of a routine... I read an article today that suggests that people now believe they are entitled to their own facts as well as opinions. The beginning of the end... Trying to monitor progress on the TV Project, but the lighting folks have made it difficult... No real point watching the fantasy team in real time, my QB doesn't play until the night game... Working on this project for work, that everyone asked for but now nobody seems to want... I think maybe the Obama debate performance was scripted. I also think it came off worse than they planned... Coming up to mid-semester. Always seems to sneak up on me... Still a little worried I won't be allowed to vote. My hard license has a previous address but I have a state issued paper license with the correct address but that has no picture. Good thing they overturned that law... Proposing a solution that won't work for a problem that doesn't exist. I've been better... After long consideration I've come to the conclusion that High School should have no social promotion and be much, much more difficult... If by doing nothing the rate will be higher than if you do something, I would call that something a cut... Doing Arduino training concurrent with FTSI Axis I/O training turned out to be a happy convergence... It seems much more difficult than it should be to post a video from the tablet onto Facebook... Really I think Mrs TANBI and I need to make some DVR decisions... We've lit the pilot light on the fireplace. I guess that's it for the warm weather. Sometimes I really miss living in Vegas... Going to have to skip ahead on a couple of my syllabi. I must be dawdling in class... Should we be teaching more fluid power? Doesn't seem like it has much penetration... Sitting trying to decide what to do with the old laptop. Maybe a media server... If sodastream syrup comes from Isreal, does that negate any environmental savings from not buying domestic soda? Seems like it should...