Culture

Film, Format, Fiascos, and the Future

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People hated "The Last Airbender" for many reasons.  I'm not going to argue any of them, as I've seen it (with Rifftrax) and it was mind-numbingly bad in a way that actually beat my incredibly low expectations.  But among the things people say about the film adaption of the beloved franchise – the hate of the actors, the plot, the acting, the direction, the story, the intermittent attacks of slow-mo -  there's one thing I rarely hear brought up.

Why a film anyway?  I mean let's assume that you have some driving reason to turn "Avatar: The Last Airbender" into some other media form, why a film?

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Those Powerful Christmas Gifts

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(Some of this was covered in a past podcast, but I wanted to revisit the idea).

What do the Kindle, the iPad, and Smartphones have in common with Gift Cards?

If you answered "flat and I'm sick of hearing of them as gift options" you're close, but I think you're missing the larger picture.  Though I too nearly burnt out on Kindlepadphone news over Christmas, despite my high news-capacity (news is mental jello to me), I believe there is something important about the sales of the Kindle, iPad, and Smartphones over the holiday.  In fact, I think there's a trend here that is worth exploring as it's going to affect technology use, and sales, and any jobs related to them.

We've all heard how Amazon's Kindle sales have been awesome. (I did my part in contributing to them as you saw).  Of course it seems that iPads are selling like crazy(at least in estimates) and have been doing well since the beginning.  Smartphones appear to be hot gifts.  So what is this trend beyond "technical stuff sells" that I'm all worked up over?

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Christmas, Economics, and The Holiday Spirit

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It seems that in this Holiday Season, a lot of people I know didn't feel very much Christmas Spirit.   When I talked to them they said not only they didn't much "sense of the Holiday", but neither did many of their friends.  This seeming lack of a Yuletide enthusiasm had me curious, as such things appeal to my psychologist-side, but I couldn't find an answer  – until a talk with a  co-worker helped clear things up for me.

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