Hmm. Role of media, eh?

'The Crazies' has a bit of that, though not too much. I did really like the satellite views at the start of the film, and you need to watch a bit of the credits to pick up an extra scene.

And Pontypool. Don't forget that one.

I'll add Blindness to the list. It is spooky.

Testament (was released in '83) is more dark and horribly depressing than scary, but it's one of the classic eighties era nuclear war films.

And I'll throw Saw and Saw 2 out there (a friend of mine is a producer for all of the Saw movies).

Paranormal Activity for the win!

We watched this movie last night and it does everything right that The Fourth Kind does wrong, on the principle that less is more: next to no explanation; strict adherence to the "amateur footage" point of view (much like Blair Witch Project); minimal production values; maximal concept. Some have criticized it as "gimmicky" but the gimmick works, at least for me. It deserves the adjective "Lovecraftian."

I'm too nervous to see Paranormal Activity 2 in theatres. I need to be able to turn the lights on when it gets scary (and that's saying something...I like a good, scary movie). After I watched the first one, I had to stay up for a while and read something soothing.

Hi Mark,

What I find both fascinating and mind-boggling is that "Big Media" hasn't learned anything from the software development industry, which went through this same process about ten years ago.

Just over ten years ago, the US patent office, almost accidentally began granting patents for software. The immediate result was a large rush to the patent office, and years of patent-infringement litigation. Costs for software development skyrocketed, because now software development companies had to figure in all their legal costs for filing patents and defending against lawsuits over and above all the costs for programmers and hardware. Software development slowed to a crawl, and many small, innovative companies disappeared. Only large companies could afford the legal costs, and they were very conservative about development.

Now, ten years later, commercial software development is pretty much dead - only video game development has any real activity (even Google, arguably the most innovative IT company in the US right now doesn't offer software products so much as software services). Pretty much all the innovation happening in software right now is in Open Source, General Purpose License software - the IT equivalent of Creative Commons copyright.

I strongly suspect that Big Media will follow the same pattern. The more they try to lock down access to their IP, the higher they will make the costs, the more conservative they will be about production, and the more irrelevant they will become. Which will drive the innovative, engaging producers of cultural products to Creative Commons, and Big Media will eventually become as non-existant as the Big Software Companies.

This has already happened to newspapers. They just haven't admitted it, yet.

This is maybe the most optimistic feedback on this topic I've fielded yet. Thanks! It certainly adds support to the sense I share with you about Big Media's future diminishment in pop culture. (I'm not ready to declare its "irrelevance" yet though.)

One question I'd have is whether the pressure is really off software developers? I keep hearing about this on the peripheries of copyfight debates right now. (Efforts to "enclose the commons" of opensource, and so on.)

"...most optomistic?" Really? And here I thought I was being kind of cynical...

No, the pressure isn't off software developers yet. My husband was telling me today (he's a software development guy, in the MScIS program here at AU) that Sun Microsystems and their Java IP was recently bought up by Oracle, and they (with support from IBM) want to make it all commercial license, instead of Open Source. Java is a very significant Open Source environment, and that could have a very big negative impact on the whole movement. There's still a great deal of resistance from "traditional" IT people to the whole Open Source approach.

And yes, I wouldn't call Big Media irrelevant yet, either, but unless they change their approach significantly over the next years, they will become so. I loved Clay Shirky's bit in his blog where he says that when Rupert Murdoch says that consumers just have to used to the idea of paying for the content in order to get quality stuff, what he actually means is that Big Media has no idea how to produce without a very large budget, and likes to think that it isn't possible to create quality product without that big budget, even though there have been a great many small independant producers that have shown that it is possible...

Because in the end, Darwin was wrong about survival of the fittest - it's actually survival of the most adaptable. That's why the big, strong, fierce Bengal Tiger, top of it's food chain, is only not extinct because of the huge artificial input of conservationists, and the small, agile, highly adaptable fox is thriving to the point of being a pest, with absolutely no help from humans.

To extend the metaphor, ACTA and other provisions is very much like creating a wildlife sanctuary for Bengal Tigers (not that I'm opposed to conservation of tigers, just opposed to conservation of institutions, structures and companies that are going - and should be - extinct). It keeps them for going extinct in the short term, but the reality is that barring a huge extinction event among humans, tigers will never be the Lords of the Jungle they once were. Neither will the Big Media companies.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now...

Hi Mark,

What I find both fascinating and mind-boggling is that "Big Media" hasn't learned anything from the software development industry, which went through this same process about ten years ago.

Just over ten years ago, the US patent office, almost accidentally began granting patents for software. The immediate result was a large rush to the patent office, and years of patent-infringement litigation. Costs for software development skyrocketed, because now software development companies had to figure in all their legal costs for filing patents and defending against lawsuits over and above all the costs for programmers and hardware. Software development slowed to a crawl, and many small, innovative companies disappeared. Only large companies could afford the legal costs, and they were very conservative about development.

Now, ten years later, commercial software development is pretty much dead - only video game development has any real activity (even Google, arguably the most innovative IT company in the US right now doesn't offer software products so much as software services). Pretty much all the innovation happening in software right now is in Open Source, General Purpose License software - the IT equivalent of Creative Commons copyright.

I strongly suspect that Big Media will follow the same pattern. The more they try to lock down access to their IP, the higher they will make the costs, the more conservative they will be about production, and the more irrelevant they will become. Which will drive the innovative, engaging producers of cultural products to Creative Commons, and Big Media will eventually become as non-existant as the Big Software Companies.

This has already happened to newspapers. They just haven't admitted it, yet.

This is maybe the most optimistic feedback on this topic I've fielded yet. Thanks! It certainly adds support to the sense I share with you about Big Media's future diminishment in pop culture. (I'm not ready to declare its "irrelevance" yet though.)

One question I'd have is whether the pressure is really off software developers? I keep hearing about this on the peripheries of copyfight debates right now. (Efforts to "enclose the commons" of opensource, and so on.)

"...most optomistic?" Really? And here I thought I was being kind of cynical...

No, the pressure isn't off software developers yet. My husband was telling me today (he's a software development guy, in the MScIS program here at AU) that Sun Microsystems and their Java IP was recently bought up by Oracle, and they (with support from IBM) want to make it all commercial license, instead of Open Source. Java is a very significant Open Source environment, and that could have a very big negative impact on the whole movement. There's still a great deal of resistance from "traditional" IT people to the whole Open Source approach.

And yes, I wouldn't call Big Media irrelevant yet, either, but unless they change their approach significantly over the next years, they will become so. I loved Clay Shirky's bit in his blog where he says that when Rupert Murdoch says that consumers just have to used to the idea of paying for the content in order to get quality stuff, what he actually means is that Big Media has no idea how to produce without a very large budget, and likes to think that it isn't possible to create quality product without that big budget, even though there have been a great many small independant producers that have shown that it is possible...

Because in the end, Darwin was wrong about survival of the fittest - it's actually survival of the most adaptable. That's why the big, strong, fierce Bengal Tiger, top of it's food chain, is only not extinct because of the huge artificial input of conservationists, and the small, agile, highly adaptable fox is thriving to the point of being a pest, with absolutely no help from humans.

To extend the metaphor, ACTA and other provisions is very much like creating a wildlife sanctuary for Bengal Tigers (not that I'm opposed to conservation of tigers, just opposed to conservation of institutions, structures and companies that are going - and should be - extinct). It keeps them for going extinct in the short term, but the reality is that barring a huge extinction event among humans, tigers will never be the Lords of the Jungle they once were. Neither will the Big Media companies.

Ok, I'll get off my soap box now...

Will do, Mark. I'll be teaching Grade One in Feb. so I'll be using it with parents' help, which will help with the rules and regs and establish it as technique to increase engagement with text ( the practice can grow with the kids). Should be interesting!

I wonder if you could use Twitter as a model for a bulletin board - with little bird cutouts? Kids could 'tweet' their responses visually with a drawing and a few sentences and stick them to the wall.

A great idea, Heather. I'll try that too. Anything to get them reading, responding and discussing.

I can't resist this...in no particular order

1. U2, Actung Baby

2. DJ Shadow, Endtroducing...

3. Godspeed You! Black Emporer, f# a# oo

4. Daft Punk, Homework

5. Liars, Drum's not Dead

6. Howie B, Turn the Dark Off

7. The Knife, Silent Shout

8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, No More Shall We Part

9. Portishead, Dummy

10. Pulp, Different Class

11. Supergrasss, I Should Coco

12. Sigur Ros, Ágætis byrjun

13. Tricky, Pre-Millenium Tension

14. Boards of Canada, Music Has The Right to Children

15. Oasis, Definitely Maybe

MARK - BUT I DO LOVE THE XX, ALBUM COULD CLIMB ITS WAY UP MY LIST

Great list, Josh -- on account of the entries I recognize, and equally on account of how many I don't. Between records I don't know by artists I dig (Nick Cave), and those by artists i'm just discovering (The Knife), you've given me some listening research here.

Thanks for indulging my campaign to infuse the Landing with its fair share of social frivolity.

Here are mine, in order of character length of description, so it makes a nice curve

-- Xx, The Xx
-- SBTRKT, SBTRKT
-- Homework, Daft Punk
-- Beautiful Tomorrow, Blue Six
-- Off The Wall, Michael Jackson
-- Loveless, My Bloody Valentine
-- Workers Playtime, Billy Bragg
-- Psychocandy, Jesus and Mary Chain
-- Lost in Translation (soundtrack)
-- Dig Your Own Hole, Chemical Brothers
-- Unlock Your Mind, Doc Martin (dj mix)
-- In Her Gentle Jaws, Depreciation Guild
-- Movement, New Order (toss up w Power, Corruption + Lies)
-- Leonard Cohen (anything at all by him - literally ANYTHING)
-- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

- Bobby Kim