Thinking Chaos, Thinking Fences

Friday, June 13, 2003

Have We Counted All the Dung Beetles? I love grand ideas. The All Species Foundation is a really admirable, grand idea: The ALL Species Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to the complete inventory of all species of life on Earth within the next 25 years - a human generation. To describe and classify all of the surviving species of the world deserves to be one of the great scientific goals of the new century. In applied science, this completion of the Linnaean enterprise is needed for effective conservation practices, and for impact studies of environmental change. When technologists devise these sort of great ideas, I think that it's often because they're drawn to the technical challenges involved. How would we count all those species? How would we keep track of them? What happens if we find a new one? So, they're strong on system infrastructure, but maybe not so strong on people infrastructure. Like artists, every big-idea member of digerati needs a good manager. 4:32:14 PM        Technology The Long View

Hollywood Has Run Out of Ideas Actually, that's been true for a long time, but the point was illustrated when I saw The Italian Job this evening. I saw two trailers: one for Tomb Raider 2 and one for  Against the Ropes. Briefly, I thought the first Tomb Raider film was remarkably bad. Horrible. My favourite part was that Ms. Croft never paused to wonder, 'hey, what's with those huge demons made of rocks? Shouldn't we pause and discuss this fundamental rift in the laws of matter? Nah, I need to shower and change into something tighter.' Regardless, in the sequel, Lara Croft is apparently after Pandora's Box. The trailer shows her being asked to retrieve the box by some government agents. They examine some ancient drawings of the box's power. Lara Croft explains that, indeed, it's more than just a Sunday school story. It's apparently 'a weapon more powerful than you could ever imagine'. Is this ringing any bells with anybody? From the strikingly similar scene to another film, made in 1981:                                            INDY                      Oh yes.  The Bible tells of it level-                      ing mountains and wasting entire re-                      gions.  Moses promised that when the                      Ark was with you, "your enemies will                      be scattered and your foes fell be-                      fore you."                                  (pause)                      An army which carries the Ark before                      it is invincible. Do the producers think we've just forgotten about this other way, way bettter movie? Is our collective cultural memory that short? Then onto Meg Ryan and Omar Epps in a boxing movie. Why would you ever make another boxing movie? First, there have been so many bad boxing movies. Secondly, there are at least two exceptional ones: Rocky (1976) and Raging Bull (1980). C'mon, people, do we really think that these two listless stiffs are going to shed more light on this sport, or on human despair and triumph? This all preceded the Mini Cooper ad that is the lifeless, overly-slick The Italian Job, a remake of the film from 1969. What's more, the  only prominent song in the film is a cover of Pink Floyd's Money, originally released in 1981. Are these bastards have the audacity to want to extend copyright indefinitely? 10:31:27 AM        Movies