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November 22, 2004

Supersize Me

So I just got done watching the documentary "Supersize Me" where the perfectly healthy guy decides to live off of just what he can buy at McDonalds for 30 days to see what happens to his health. As we can probably expect, his health went down rather rapidly and his weight went up quickly. He put himself in danger of a couple life-threatening diseases by taking his eating habits to the extreme, and to prove a point. At the same time he brought up some other items that are wrong, and I'll just take a moment to comment on them (along with my rather drastic methods of fixing them).

Lobbyists. What are they good for? They tell our representatives what they think is right for us, but who are they really looking out for? Apparently not us. Why is it legal for some company to pay someone to go to DC and hound (and sometimes give hand-outs for) someone that's supposed to represent me to do what he wants, which is what some large powerful (money=power) corporation wants?
So let's make lobbying illegal. Sure it'll cut out those few "good" lobbyists that want what's good for us in general, but aren't they still just working for another corporation or organization with their own ideas that just happen to be good overall? But oh no where will our representatives get their information from? How will they know how to vote on various bills? Where will the basis for their thought process come from? Hmmmmm... well how about using that platform they got voted on as a basis for once? Or how about going back to hometown A or polling city B to get a idea of what the general, real American public really wants? Of course this means Americans will have to be up on what's really going on with these bills and such and might have to do some reading of their own. But is it really that bad to have some insight and involvement in this large governing body that is deciding what you can and can't do and how to go about doing it?

Corporations. They get what they want (see Lobbyists). Who keeps them in check? Well besides the laws they're supposed to follow (and occasionally ignore) hopefully they could keep themselves in check. Apparently this is a hard job and nobody wants to do it. I read an article last week from the wife of an EA Games employee who is a software programmer. Apparently he is a salaried employee who expected to have an enjoyable job making what anyone would think is exciting: sports video games. Apparently the EA work ethic borders on slavery though. Being forced to work what was somewhere near 80 hours per week and getting no compensation for his extra 40 hours of work, he expected to either keep showing up or quit. The only difference between slavery and this job is that he can actually leave. But then of course being unemployed doesn't help much, especially when he must be so exhausted that a couple weeks of sleep is probably required before he can even think about looking for another job. Is this how they got the price per game lowered by about $10? If it is, I think I'll keep paying the higher price for the sanity of the software engineers out there.
But there is a trend lately, largely in the software and gaming industry where small companies just don't cut it anymore and large corporations either buy up or shut down the small studios. Then what we end up with is 2 or 3 major corporations all competing in the same arenas with roughly the same ideas which are also driven by the media. So what happened to the innovation? In the last month I can think of three major games that have come out, all by a different group. Halo 2, Doom 3, and Half Life 2. All first person shooters with basically more interactive play and better graphics. Variety? In Halo 2 I shoot aliens and zombies. In Doom 3 I shoot dead things (zombies?). In Half Life 2 I shoot...? I'm not sure since I haven't played it yet. Looks like people and robots from what I have seen though.
Variety anyone? Look elsewhere. This also goes for the rest of the entertainment industry. In an attempt at being creative I've seen my childhood cartoons bastardized into CGI representations of Scooby Doo, Garfield, and from what I hear possibly Fat Albert in the future too. Don't get my wrong CGI can be cool, but animation is another thing, and the way these movies are marketed it seems like there's an attempt to squeeze every penny out of these images I grew up with having no ambition to go buy the Garfield soundtrack or Happy Meal or whatever other silly thing they stamp these icons' names on today. Innovation? Not in re-inventing old cartoons. Not in reproducing old 70's shows in the form of movies either. You know what I mean. The first couple were OK, but now it's getting monotonous....

Alright, a lot of complaining and not a lot of solutions there. That's never a good thing. Guess I need some cheese with that wine. So here's your cheese. Let's have the major corporations fund smaller studios rather than assimilating them into the mega-conglomerate. Break up these mega-giants into smaller, more innovative groups. Sure there'll be resistance, but what's new there. If you're used to getting up at 8:30am and someone says you have to be up at 8:15 from now on sure you'll complain too. It's a little more work at first, but after a little while 8:15 is a way of life. It's the new you. Get used to it.
One good example (though amazingly so) is AOL. I heard that they are actually breaking up into three or so smaller groups in order to become more focused on their various markets. I'm not sure about the more focused part, but the ability to split up allows them to have a somewhat separate identity and possibly think in different ways to benefit each group. A step in the right direction.

Technology. For those who know how to use it, great stuff. For those who don't, oh man this is totally a tough time and it'd be easier to just say no to allowing any use of it that doesn't seem right to me, since I can't figure out a way to make this work for both of us. If industry acted this way throughout history we'd never manage to get electricity in all our homes, telephone service, TVs, radios, vehicles, and so on. So why is there this strong resistance for large corporations to accept technology for what it is today?
First there is this problem in defining exactly what software is. Software isn't something you can wrap your arms around. It's not something you go to the shop and get fixed when it gets dented. It's not something you paint another color when you're tired of the current one. Software is this abstract thing. When boiled down to the fundamental level software is a set of mathematical formulas created to operate within a specific set of machinery to perform specific functions. The mathematical formulas are the program code itself, which is developed and created by someone from their ideas. So it's someone's ideas in action within this machine. So can you patent it? The US government seems to think so. Thus what I will call the Intellectual Property Wars of the early 21st Century have begun. It's now boiled down to "I came up with idea X and implemented it first so now it's MINE" patent system. But there's only so many ways to add 1+1, and when things get abstracted to the point of patenting a process where boxes are connected with "wires" to define a system in software then we're going to have maybe 2 or 3 flowchart programs total available if everything software-based is patented (NI Labview vs. MATLAB Simulink). So maybe this whole patent thing is going too far. What did historical mathematicians do when they discovered the latest greatest formulas and theorems. From what I can tell in many math texts they are made available to the public, and many are well know for their contributions in this field. So why can't the world of "applied math through software" be the same? Instead of coming up with a way to solve your problem, abstracting it, and then patenting your abstraction so no one can do something similar, why not share some ideas with the world in order to better serve the general public? Sure you may lose a little money because person X didn't pay you for having a similar idea, but I'm sure if your idea is really that great people will buy enough of your product to put food on the table and maybe even afford that new plasma TV you've been working so hard for. This would also benefit these small companies who are 1. not making as much money, 2. can't afford to spend time and money patenting everything, and 3. are afraid to put out any new software for fear of being sued for breaching upon a large corporation's patents which they didn't even know existed. Is this really happening? You betcha.

Alright. So now that there's some things to chew on I should probably get going on my mound of work that's waiting for me. Maybe next month I'll have an update that doesn't involve thinking about things that need fixed in the "real world."

Posted by Plocmstart at November 22, 2004 8:47 PM

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