So, I've been kind of kicking this around in the back of my head for a while, and it seemed like a good time to finally get around to writing it down (I think I first started contemplating this in, like, mid-October, or something). Anyways, all I hear in the tech press is how someday (in the near, but not too near, future) we're going to be moving away from physical media and digital distribution is going to be the way of the future. Now, personally, I think this is crap.
Before I begin, I would like to point out that I am in no way whatsoever qualified to make any sort of judgment about this at all, so feel free to take this with a couple grains of salt (of course, I'm not sure I've written a post that I was qualified to pass any sort of judgment on, so that should probably be a general tip for reading this blog, but back to the subject at hand). The only reason I can provide for why my opinion is worth listening to is that I'm one of the people who is actually going to be buying this content, so I might have something to say about what I'd want to be buying.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of an entertainment whore. I go through multiple Netflix DVDs and Blu-ray discs a week. I bought a PS3 and am averaging a new game purchase every 2-3 weeks. I even buy additional content through the little Playstation store thing. I thought the iPod was the coolest thing I'd ever heard of from the moment Steve Jobs announced it (but I didn't convince my dad to buy me one until the 3rd generation...obviously, it took a significant amount of bugging him). I've downloaded music both legally and illegally, while the vast majority of the music on my iPod is content I ripped off of CDs I've bought. I've copied movies and TV shows to my iPod illegally and I've bought music and TV shows from the iTunes store (and I've even downloaded a legal copy of Night of the Living Dead to my iPod since it isn't protected by copyright). I regularly download anime fansubs, but I also buy anime DVDs and I also rent them from Netflix (both on Blu-ray and on DVD). I watch TV shows when they play on TV and I'll go to the network websites to catch up on episodes I've missed (but I don't illegally download those). I buy trade paperbacks of comics and I also read webcomics online (and I've even bought trade paperback versions of webcomics I read online).
In other words, I'm a major consumer of this industry. I absorb media in a huge variety of forms and I am willing and able to do it both physically and digitally, as well as legally and illegally (although I try to prefer the legal strategy whenever possible). So, the important thing to recognize is that whatever the future of entertainment distribution turns out to be, it will be people like me who have to be sold on it. And, right now, I'm not really seeing how people are going to sell me on digital distribution.
Most argument about digital distribution are simple: it's already happening to music and sort of starting to happen with TV shows and so therefore it will eventually translate into similar models for movies and video games. End of story.
If they want to make it sound extra-convincing they'll talk about the cost reduction of not having to product physical media and eliminating the middle man like GameStop and Best Buy or WalMart or whatever.
But, I don't think video games and movies are necessarily going to go the way of music, and it's not even clear that TV shows necessarily are going to truly go that way, either. Music is very well-suited for digital distribution. For one, the buyer is likely intending to experience this media many times in a variety of situations (as background music around the apartment, while jogging, in the car, at work, whatever). So, not having to carry around a physical version of this media is useful (I really noticed this when I went to college with my entire music collection in my pocket).
Compare this to movies and video games which are typically going to be experienced at a limited number of places (your TV, or the TV of someone you know). They don't need to travel conveniently, and they especially don't need to travel together (if I'm taking a copy of Serenity over to a friend's place to convince him that Firefly is amazing, I don't need to bring everything else with me).
In the future, this will supposedly be dealt with by providing a set-top box on the TV, much like an Xbox360, or PS3, or AppleTV. Since the media is very nearly stationary, having a stationary box for it (as opposed to the transportable iPod) should be an effective compromise.
But, this solution creates a new problem: space. Movies and video games take up a lot more space than music. A compressed music file takes up not much more than a megabyte per minute of music. A dvd quality movie takes up closer to 30 megabytes per minute of video. For those counting, that's an order of magnitude more space. Of course, a high definition movie costs closer to 600 megabytes per minute of video (note that this is another order of magnitude).
Now, clearly, the files can be compressed some, but we're still dealing with a situation where I will need two orders of magnitude more space for growing my video collection than my music collection. For comparison, my music collection on my iPod only takes up about 15 gigabytes, which in this day and age is not much more than spare change. On the other hand, I just counted and I own over 100 DVDs (most of these are collections, and over half of them are due to the fact that I own the entire X-Files TV Series). So, we can estimate that as costing about 500 gigabytes of space. Now, these days 500 gigabytes is nothing to scream about, but that is starting to create some storage concerns. Here's where it starts getting scary, though. Since I bought the PS3, not much more than 2 months ago, I've bought 5 games for it. Assuming 50 gigabytes per disc, that's 250 gigabytes of storage. In less than 3 months.
As for PS2 games, just for comparison purposes, I own approximately 20, but that's my collection on a student's budget. I wouldn't be surprised if I had bought well over 30 games for my PS3 by the end of it's life cycle (if not 50...hopefully not 100, because that would be a lot of money spent on video games). So, in short, if I wanted to store the video I currently own in a standard definition format on my set-top box connected to TV, I would probably want a minimum of 1 terabyte, but more likely I'd prefer more than 2 terabytes, unless the cost was completely unreasonable. And that's standard definition.
Now, as a consumer of said future digital media, there is no way I would even consider buying something in standard definition. It would be a waste of my time. I spent a significant amount of money on a glorious 42 inch TV. My purchasing decision is pretty much HD or bust (and, admittedly, due to the cost of HD stuff, I often opt for bust, but that is neither here nor there...or rather, that's what Netflix is for). And, if I wanted to store a digital collection of content in high definition, I would probably need a set-top box with storage capacity closer to 10-20 terabytes at minimum (and assuming there's some major compression going on).
Now, there's two ways to deal with this problem. The first solution is to say: well, large scale digital distribution won't be feasible for at least 5 or 10 or 15 years, so by that time we'll be knee-deep in terabytes and people will be talking about exabytes or whatever and it won't be an issue anymore since a typical hard-drive will have more than enough space for all the movies and video games you could ever want to download. The second solution is to say: we'll store it on the server side and either stream it to the users on demand or allow them to download it at will and watch it and delete it at their convenience.
Both of these solutions provide the next point of challenge: getting the content to the consumer. We're talking about distributing file sizes that are in the 10s of gigabytes. Currently, I'm ecstatic when I'm pulling down just 1 megabyte per second on my broadband line (at that rate, I can download 1 gigabyte in just over 15 minutes). So, downloading a dvd quality movie is going to take about 4 times that long, or about an hour, which is long, but not unreasonable. Now multiply that by 10. That should be closer to the file size for the high definition version. For the record, 10 hours is getting to be a long time to download something.
Obviously, this can be remedied by speeding up internet connections (if we can get average transfer rates up to 10 megabytes per second in 5 or 10 or 15 years, than the high definition version won't take any more than an hour). However, how exactly do you go about speeding up internet connections? You do that by convincing ISPs that they want to build out new connection technologies with faster data transfer rates. Maybe in 15 years somebody'll make that happen, but it's not going to happen fast. That kind of extensive build out is costly as all get out, and there isn't really a clear way for the ISPs to benefit from it (besides attracting additional customers...and then price gouging them, which I'm not necessarily a supporter of, by the way).
Also, content providers will have to actually create, support, and maintain the infrastructure to maintain servers to distribute the content to the consumers, long after the customer has purchased the content. This is the case for both instances of digital distribution, but it will be much more intense if the second solution is used (that is, if we don't continue along the exponential growth curve for hard drive size and so people can't obtain multiple terabyte hard drives in a couple of years down the road, and I'll admit that it's a toss up for whether we can actually maintain the growth rate for hard drives, but I imagine there must be a limit sometime). The second solution puts a huge amount of burden on the servers to be able to serve all the customers their content on demand, which would probably necessitate it to become a subscription service, rather than a single payment (think of Xbox Live, where you're paying for the service and the content). Now, personally, I'm not interested in a subscription service, and don't really intend to ever be (aside from Netflix, which is kind of a special case...and digital cable, I guess I subscribe to that as well...and, well, I guess I'm an internet subscriber too, but that's totally not the point).
In any case, I don't really like the idea of paying someone to store my stuff. I especially don't like the idea that if I stop paying them, I won't get to keep my stuff (which is the same reason I'm not interested in subscribing to any music services). That second strategy for digital distribution sounds a little bit too much like that kind of future, and I can't imagine that this would succeed. There's too many people who are like me and want to be sure that they own what they bought, and they don't just own the right to download it so long as the service is running.
So, that's the situation. In order for digital distribution to really be feasible, there needs to be major progress in two industries that don't have much of anything to directly benefit from changing between physical and digital media (aside from selling more of their services if digital distribution becomes the norm, of course, which is hardly nothing).
On the other hand, I see little reason why Blu-ray discs shouldn't be the culmination of physical media for video, kind of like how CDs are for music. CDs contain the uncompressed audio in detail that far surpasses the human ear's capabilities to distinguish. We can compress the files significantly (as in down to mp3) and most people still can't hear the difference, but the trained ear can (to at least some extent...note that I'm hardly one of those trained ears). Similarly, unless TVs start getting a whole lot bigger (which I'm kind of doubtful they'll do), 1080p is pretty much the limit that the human eye is going to be able to distinguish the details from as well. So, there should be no reason for us to ever need higher definition video, but once we've seen HD video, it's very hard for us to go back to standard definition.
So, I think Blu-ray discs are going to be hanging around for a long while. At least as long as CDs hung around before digital distribution kicked them to the curbside (although I still prefer to buy a CD and rip it to my iPod over downloading the CD from iTunes directly). And, well, maybe I'll even buy one someday (and stop just renting them). Also, for the record, the idea of renting HD videos, which would eliminate both the ownership challenge as well as the client-side space problem still faces the download time/infrastructure challenge. Admittedly, right now I'm waiting two days between rentals of my Netflix movies, so if they were to find a cost effective way to provide HD digital rentals, it's possible I might start sniffing around (considering that 10 hours is already a lot less time than 2 days). The challenge, though, is that it would have to be no more expensive than Netflix (but, it would be okay for it to be a subscription service...I guess).
That is all.
Francis
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apple. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Sunday, November 4, 2007
I Am Legend, Trailer 2
So, maybe I'm a little obsessive. It's not my fault. Anyways, a day or two after I wrote about 30 Days of Night and proceeded to pin all of my hopes for the future of awesome vampires movies on I Am Legend, they released a new trailer for it. This trailer was a little unusual in that it basically gave the entire plot of the movie from start to finish. For this reason, I'm not going to link it in case you didn't want to know what was going to happen.
Besides, it's like the second hit on Google, so if you want to, you can find it easily enough (although you have to click an additional link if you want to watch it in HD instead of crappy Flash Player).
Anyways, this trailer surprised me. A lot. It took me more than a week to organize my thoughts about all this.
So, before I go any further, I want to just throw out one of those SPOILER WARNINGS things (although you ought to be pretty well warned, considering I'm talking about something I've already described as full of spoilers). However, you should probably take these spoilers with a grain of salt, since I haven't seen the movie yet (I've only read the book). But then again, I've seen the trailer, and you might not have yet.
So, if you haven't bothered to go watch the trailer, now would probably be a good time, since that's what I'm going to be talking about. But if you want to go into the movie fresh, stop reading this post and don't go find the trailer on Google and don't go see any upcoming Warner Brothers movies or horror movies in general because you might be exposed to the spoiler filled trailer against your will. Upcoming Warner Brothers movies are: Fred Claus, August Rush and One Missed Call (which is also a horror movie, so that one's almost certain to have the trailer ahead of it). Current Warner Brothers movies that might have the trailer on it are Michael Clayton and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Also, probably don't accidentally read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which can be found new at Amazon for 7.99.
So, now I'm actually getting to the post.
First of all, the trailer is kind enough to finally show us the vampires. This is a good thing, since we all really wanted to know how they were going to turn out. Personally, I had been ever-so-secretly hoping for the vampires to all be wearing white make up, like in The Omega Man, just so that it would be the last black against a world taken over by whites. I would have found that awesome. I'm not sure what anyone else would think.
But, well, these vampires aren't just people wearing white make up, which is probably actually a good thing. These babies are definitely scary looking. I appreciate the naked, hairless, veiny, but-still-wearing-pants look. I also like that they all seem to look well over 6 feet tall in the trailer. That's totally cool. The sheer massive number of them that we see is nice as well.
On a side note, at Comic Con this past summer, Warner Brothers was distributing a free little comic book collection of short events leading up to the events of I Am Legend (primarily during the society crashing down part). One of them was even written by Richard Matheson. Anyways, I guess that gave me my first glimpse of what the vampires were going to look like, so their reveal wasn't as big to me as it possibly could have been.
On a barely even related side note, if you didn't happen to go to Comic Con and pick up this free little collection, Apple Trailers has animated versions of at least one of them (listed as I Am Legend: The Awakening). This is done in that same cheap, flash animated style as a pseudo-internet sensation that nobody's ever heard of called Broken Saints. Personally, I hate that style, because it's incredibly boring. You can literally read the entire little free comic book in about the same amount of time it takes them to do the single selection they picked. This isn't surprising because reading the comic books doesn't take very long, but slowly moving little paper cut-out looking characters and narrating it apparently takes forever. But, whatever. Feel free to check it out and agree with me. In either case, the original little free comic book was actually pretty good. Broken Saints and stuff that's done in the same style pretty much isn't.
Okay, back on track. So, they show us the vampires. Awesome. And we like, them. Cool. But, really, did they have to show us the dog dying? I mean, really, that's totally unnecessary. Obviously, we knew the dog was going to die (what else is going to get him to start changing his pattern after three years? Unless, they're actually keeping the girl he meets in the book, and they've just been keeping it a surprise). But, why show it? It's not going to make me want to see it more (like that's possible). It'll probably even turn some people off because some people like watching people die more than watching animals die (but at least the animal is getting well-mourned). So, yeah, unnecessary.
Lastly, and I'm serious on this one, why show him captured by the vampires? I mean, we're talking last 5-10 pages of the book here. It really feels like they decided to just give me the entire movie in that trailer. I mean, I totally still want to see it, but that was still too much. Just the scene of the mass of vampires in the distance coming at his car would have been good enough to make me start thinking about it all the time and planning my December schedule around the release date.
So, instead, now I'm in a similar situation as I was in a couple of summers ago as War of the Worlds was approaching. I was excited and stuff and I thought it would totally be cool. But, I got even more excited when I read an interview saying that they were really excited about the ending because it was totally different from the book and blah, blah, blah. So, I came into the movie really excited because I wanted to see just how it would end (the end of the book was totally cool and clever back when HG Wells wrote it, but that was a while ago, and it needed a fresh perspective). And, well, apparently quoting the end of the book as you use the same ending is considered a totally different ending than the book (I mean, the book can't quote itself, that would be way too meta to even contemplate). So, yeah, I was disappointed with the end. I thought the movie was pretty good, but the end really let me down.
So, flash forward to I Am Legend. Technically, I don't know how the movie is going to end. But here's the situation, the trailer is basically yelling out: "We're following the book!" The title is also shouting to everyone who can read: "This one is going to be like the book!" But then the question becomes: do they have the balls to follow through with that promise? And, well, I'm not sure they do.
I mean, Francis Lawrence is directing it. And, well, I'm willing to put a fair amount of faith in his first name, but not everything. And I actually liked Constantine, but he totally wussed out of letting Constantine die (admittedly, that's at least probably because he was hoping to turn that into a franchise, and franchises don't usually work when the title character dies...Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't count because Jack Sparrow's name isn't in the title and, besides, Jack can do whatever he wants in my book). So, that's what we've got. I'm pinning my hopes on the balls of a former music video director named Francis (admittedly, things could be worse, but they're definitely not good enough).
I've also been more than a little confused by selection of the release date. It's kind of hard to make sense of that choice. Less than two weeks before Christmas, they're releasing a "Will Smith against the vampires" movie, and it's not supposed to end well. I guess they want it to be this year's King Kong, but that doesn't seem like the best goal (I was always under the impression that it under-performed...and was just okay anyways). But, I guess December might give it better odds of not taking the easy, and by easy, I mean stupid, crowd-pleasing, ridiculous, way out compared to being released in July (where humanity is required to win, no matter the odds, and it better be at least as patriotic and uplifting as Independence Day). But, whatever, I just want it to come out sooner (I hear October is a good month for horror movies, even ones whose titles don't start with Saw and end with a number...and well, November probably isn't too shabby either).
So, yeah, I'm excited and so I'm thinking about this way too much. That is all.
Francis
PS - SPOILER WARNING: I didn't want to go into the ending in case you hadn't finished accidentally reading I Am Legend over the course of the post, but by this point, I've probably gone on long enough for you to catch up, assuming it was accidentally purchased with one-day shipping. The question I can't help but ask is whether, after being captured by the vampires, Will Smith is going to find out that they have started building their own society and that they consider themselves to be the humans and him to be the monster. Every morning, they go to sleep afraid that he might find and kill them, even as he goes to sleep each night afraid that they will do the same. Equally important, is the question of how he is going to come to this realization and bravely face them and their execution, knowing that he will be immortalized in their fear and loathing of him (the book concludes with this realization and the very last line is, in fact, "I am legend", which is why I'm excited they're actually using the title).
Unlike with War of the Worlds, I don't want this ending to be modernized. I would love it if it finishes by quoting the book.
Okay, that really is all.
Besides, it's like the second hit on Google, so if you want to, you can find it easily enough (although you have to click an additional link if you want to watch it in HD instead of crappy Flash Player).
Anyways, this trailer surprised me. A lot. It took me more than a week to organize my thoughts about all this.
So, before I go any further, I want to just throw out one of those SPOILER WARNINGS things (although you ought to be pretty well warned, considering I'm talking about something I've already described as full of spoilers). However, you should probably take these spoilers with a grain of salt, since I haven't seen the movie yet (I've only read the book). But then again, I've seen the trailer, and you might not have yet.
So, if you haven't bothered to go watch the trailer, now would probably be a good time, since that's what I'm going to be talking about. But if you want to go into the movie fresh, stop reading this post and don't go find the trailer on Google and don't go see any upcoming Warner Brothers movies or horror movies in general because you might be exposed to the spoiler filled trailer against your will. Upcoming Warner Brothers movies are: Fred Claus, August Rush and One Missed Call (which is also a horror movie, so that one's almost certain to have the trailer ahead of it). Current Warner Brothers movies that might have the trailer on it are Michael Clayton and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Also, probably don't accidentally read I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which can be found new at Amazon for 7.99.
So, now I'm actually getting to the post.
First of all, the trailer is kind enough to finally show us the vampires. This is a good thing, since we all really wanted to know how they were going to turn out. Personally, I had been ever-so-secretly hoping for the vampires to all be wearing white make up, like in The Omega Man, just so that it would be the last black against a world taken over by whites. I would have found that awesome. I'm not sure what anyone else would think.
But, well, these vampires aren't just people wearing white make up, which is probably actually a good thing. These babies are definitely scary looking. I appreciate the naked, hairless, veiny, but-still-wearing-pants look. I also like that they all seem to look well over 6 feet tall in the trailer. That's totally cool. The sheer massive number of them that we see is nice as well.
On a side note, at Comic Con this past summer, Warner Brothers was distributing a free little comic book collection of short events leading up to the events of I Am Legend (primarily during the society crashing down part). One of them was even written by Richard Matheson. Anyways, I guess that gave me my first glimpse of what the vampires were going to look like, so their reveal wasn't as big to me as it possibly could have been.
On a barely even related side note, if you didn't happen to go to Comic Con and pick up this free little collection, Apple Trailers has animated versions of at least one of them (listed as I Am Legend: The Awakening). This is done in that same cheap, flash animated style as a pseudo-internet sensation that nobody's ever heard of called Broken Saints. Personally, I hate that style, because it's incredibly boring. You can literally read the entire little free comic book in about the same amount of time it takes them to do the single selection they picked. This isn't surprising because reading the comic books doesn't take very long, but slowly moving little paper cut-out looking characters and narrating it apparently takes forever. But, whatever. Feel free to check it out and agree with me. In either case, the original little free comic book was actually pretty good. Broken Saints and stuff that's done in the same style pretty much isn't.
Okay, back on track. So, they show us the vampires. Awesome. And we like, them. Cool. But, really, did they have to show us the dog dying? I mean, really, that's totally unnecessary. Obviously, we knew the dog was going to die (what else is going to get him to start changing his pattern after three years? Unless, they're actually keeping the girl he meets in the book, and they've just been keeping it a surprise). But, why show it? It's not going to make me want to see it more (like that's possible). It'll probably even turn some people off because some people like watching people die more than watching animals die (but at least the animal is getting well-mourned). So, yeah, unnecessary.
Lastly, and I'm serious on this one, why show him captured by the vampires? I mean, we're talking last 5-10 pages of the book here. It really feels like they decided to just give me the entire movie in that trailer. I mean, I totally still want to see it, but that was still too much. Just the scene of the mass of vampires in the distance coming at his car would have been good enough to make me start thinking about it all the time and planning my December schedule around the release date.
So, instead, now I'm in a similar situation as I was in a couple of summers ago as War of the Worlds was approaching. I was excited and stuff and I thought it would totally be cool. But, I got even more excited when I read an interview saying that they were really excited about the ending because it was totally different from the book and blah, blah, blah. So, I came into the movie really excited because I wanted to see just how it would end (the end of the book was totally cool and clever back when HG Wells wrote it, but that was a while ago, and it needed a fresh perspective). And, well, apparently quoting the end of the book as you use the same ending is considered a totally different ending than the book (I mean, the book can't quote itself, that would be way too meta to even contemplate). So, yeah, I was disappointed with the end. I thought the movie was pretty good, but the end really let me down.
So, flash forward to I Am Legend. Technically, I don't know how the movie is going to end. But here's the situation, the trailer is basically yelling out: "We're following the book!" The title is also shouting to everyone who can read: "This one is going to be like the book!" But then the question becomes: do they have the balls to follow through with that promise? And, well, I'm not sure they do.
I mean, Francis Lawrence is directing it. And, well, I'm willing to put a fair amount of faith in his first name, but not everything. And I actually liked Constantine, but he totally wussed out of letting Constantine die (admittedly, that's at least probably because he was hoping to turn that into a franchise, and franchises don't usually work when the title character dies...Pirates of the Caribbean doesn't count because Jack Sparrow's name isn't in the title and, besides, Jack can do whatever he wants in my book). So, that's what we've got. I'm pinning my hopes on the balls of a former music video director named Francis (admittedly, things could be worse, but they're definitely not good enough).
I've also been more than a little confused by selection of the release date. It's kind of hard to make sense of that choice. Less than two weeks before Christmas, they're releasing a "Will Smith against the vampires" movie, and it's not supposed to end well. I guess they want it to be this year's King Kong, but that doesn't seem like the best goal (I was always under the impression that it under-performed...and was just okay anyways). But, I guess December might give it better odds of not taking the easy, and by easy, I mean stupid, crowd-pleasing, ridiculous, way out compared to being released in July (where humanity is required to win, no matter the odds, and it better be at least as patriotic and uplifting as Independence Day). But, whatever, I just want it to come out sooner (I hear October is a good month for horror movies, even ones whose titles don't start with Saw and end with a number...and well, November probably isn't too shabby either).
So, yeah, I'm excited and so I'm thinking about this way too much. That is all.
Francis
PS - SPOILER WARNING: I didn't want to go into the ending in case you hadn't finished accidentally reading I Am Legend over the course of the post, but by this point, I've probably gone on long enough for you to catch up, assuming it was accidentally purchased with one-day shipping. The question I can't help but ask is whether, after being captured by the vampires, Will Smith is going to find out that they have started building their own society and that they consider themselves to be the humans and him to be the monster. Every morning, they go to sleep afraid that he might find and kill them, even as he goes to sleep each night afraid that they will do the same. Equally important, is the question of how he is going to come to this realization and bravely face them and their execution, knowing that he will be immortalized in their fear and loathing of him (the book concludes with this realization and the very last line is, in fact, "I am legend", which is why I'm excited they're actually using the title).
Unlike with War of the Worlds, I don't want this ending to be modernized. I would love it if it finishes by quoting the book.
Okay, that really is all.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
NBC Online
So, a couple months ago, NBC announced that Apple sucks and that they were going to be doing their own thing with digital media, specifically movies and TV shows. I thought this was a little stupid at the time, because NBC shows have been a huge success on iTunes and I would assume that NBC would want to at least keep that in place until they already had an alternative in place that was doing well. But, well, apparently they weren't happy with the money they were making from selling shows on iTunes and so just wrote it all off while working out their own online strategy.
Their new strategy has two key parts, of which I've only used one (the other is in a private beta right now). The part I haven't used is called Hulu and it's a joint venture with Fox to create a YouTube competitor. This seems pretty inherently stupid and I assume it will suck in a major way (largely because I can't really imagine it being any good). Obviously, the plan is to give it a leg up on Youtube by populating it with much of their own original content, which they are working hard to keep off of YouTube. They'll make lots of money by populating their original content with ads (and I'm sure they'll be plenty of other ads on the webspace as well). They'll even try to create an online community and allow users to share videos, and it'll probably be quite interesting to see how they decide to protect their content (as well as other IP owners content) within that ecosystem. But, so yeah, there doesn't look to be any real reason for Hulu to ever become relevant. Also, it's called Hulu for goodness sake. I don't even want to know how or why they picked that name.
The second part of their strategy is to allow the viewing of recent episodes on their official, NBC.com webspace, via an ad-supported Flash player. Due to the fires in southern California, I missed much of my recent NBC watching, so I've been using that to catch up. The experience is...interesting. When it's working, it's not a terrible way to watch a TV episode. They break the episode up into bits at the same points where there would be ads if you were watching it on TV anyways (which I think is fair). The main difference, and the only thing I like, is that during these ads there's a countdown letting me know when the show is going to come back on. This is really convenient, because it means you can be working on a blog entry and just be checking the countdown until it's time to come back. Very nice. It would be awesome if they were able to implement something like that on general television as well.
The rest of the experience, however, pretty much sucks. Well, actually, I should be nicer than that. It's hardly the worst way to watch TV. I imagine that watching TV in black and white on a 6" screen would be worse. I'm sure watching TV when the power is out is worse (because then you can't even be working on a blog entry).
Here's what it was like, for me. I find NBC's website. No problem. I struggle to navigate this busy and complicated website, but find the link for watching full episodes of Chuck, so I click it. This instead takes me to their Chuck website, which is also busy and complicated. There's many different things that say "Watch a full episode of Chuck online!", but I'm struggling to actually find that precious link that takes me to these full episodes. Soon, though, I figure it out and I'm watching Chuck. I quickly notice that the video quality sucks. This is not especially hard to notice, unless you're not looking at the screen. But, hey, the load time was pretty much nonexistent, so it would hardly be fair to complain (this is kind of the mindset you need going in: I will make excuses for all the things that suck about this because it's free).
Then we get to an action sequence. Now, the frame rate drops to nonexistent. Luckily the dialogue is still going, except this action sequence featured characters speaking Chinese, which I'm not capable of understanding without the aid of subtitles, which, as it happens, tend to be more viewable when you're seeing each frame you're supposed to see, instead of every 24th. But, whatever, the action ends and things get back to normal (and I don't even complain because action sequences in Chuck are stupid anyways...see more excuses). Now, though, I'm onto a new problem. The newest episode seems to crash at the same point every time I try to watch it. This is disappointing, because I don't really appreciate having my browser crash, over and over again.
Another complaint would be that the ads must be significantly larger files, because they basically start and stop and junk around a lot (which means that watching ads is actually more painful than normal, even when they're happening in the background while I'm writing a blog entry).
And, well, the list of complaints goes on. Maybe it's just slow today, but I finally gave up on watching the newest Heroes online (crashing starts to get old after a little while). I know someone who lives about 25 minutes away and TiVos Heroes. I think it'll be faster to just drive over there and watch it with them (in HD, by the way).
So, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see when I get around to doing another NBC Mondays post, but catching up is apparently harder than I would have liked.
That is all.
Francis
Their new strategy has two key parts, of which I've only used one (the other is in a private beta right now). The part I haven't used is called Hulu and it's a joint venture with Fox to create a YouTube competitor. This seems pretty inherently stupid and I assume it will suck in a major way (largely because I can't really imagine it being any good). Obviously, the plan is to give it a leg up on Youtube by populating it with much of their own original content, which they are working hard to keep off of YouTube. They'll make lots of money by populating their original content with ads (and I'm sure they'll be plenty of other ads on the webspace as well). They'll even try to create an online community and allow users to share videos, and it'll probably be quite interesting to see how they decide to protect their content (as well as other IP owners content) within that ecosystem. But, so yeah, there doesn't look to be any real reason for Hulu to ever become relevant. Also, it's called Hulu for goodness sake. I don't even want to know how or why they picked that name.
The second part of their strategy is to allow the viewing of recent episodes on their official, NBC.com webspace, via an ad-supported Flash player. Due to the fires in southern California, I missed much of my recent NBC watching, so I've been using that to catch up. The experience is...interesting. When it's working, it's not a terrible way to watch a TV episode. They break the episode up into bits at the same points where there would be ads if you were watching it on TV anyways (which I think is fair). The main difference, and the only thing I like, is that during these ads there's a countdown letting me know when the show is going to come back on. This is really convenient, because it means you can be working on a blog entry and just be checking the countdown until it's time to come back. Very nice. It would be awesome if they were able to implement something like that on general television as well.
The rest of the experience, however, pretty much sucks. Well, actually, I should be nicer than that. It's hardly the worst way to watch TV. I imagine that watching TV in black and white on a 6" screen would be worse. I'm sure watching TV when the power is out is worse (because then you can't even be working on a blog entry).
Here's what it was like, for me. I find NBC's website. No problem. I struggle to navigate this busy and complicated website, but find the link for watching full episodes of Chuck, so I click it. This instead takes me to their Chuck website, which is also busy and complicated. There's many different things that say "Watch a full episode of Chuck online!", but I'm struggling to actually find that precious link that takes me to these full episodes. Soon, though, I figure it out and I'm watching Chuck. I quickly notice that the video quality sucks. This is not especially hard to notice, unless you're not looking at the screen. But, hey, the load time was pretty much nonexistent, so it would hardly be fair to complain (this is kind of the mindset you need going in: I will make excuses for all the things that suck about this because it's free).
Then we get to an action sequence. Now, the frame rate drops to nonexistent. Luckily the dialogue is still going, except this action sequence featured characters speaking Chinese, which I'm not capable of understanding without the aid of subtitles, which, as it happens, tend to be more viewable when you're seeing each frame you're supposed to see, instead of every 24th. But, whatever, the action ends and things get back to normal (and I don't even complain because action sequences in Chuck are stupid anyways...see more excuses). Now, though, I'm onto a new problem. The newest episode seems to crash at the same point every time I try to watch it. This is disappointing, because I don't really appreciate having my browser crash, over and over again.
Another complaint would be that the ads must be significantly larger files, because they basically start and stop and junk around a lot (which means that watching ads is actually more painful than normal, even when they're happening in the background while I'm writing a blog entry).
And, well, the list of complaints goes on. Maybe it's just slow today, but I finally gave up on watching the newest Heroes online (crashing starts to get old after a little while). I know someone who lives about 25 minutes away and TiVos Heroes. I think it'll be faster to just drive over there and watch it with them (in HD, by the way).
So, yeah, we'll just have to wait and see when I get around to doing another NBC Mondays post, but catching up is apparently harder than I would have liked.
That is all.
Francis
Friday, October 19, 2007
On Zombies and Vampires
Well, I was initially planning on titling this post "In Loving Memory of Zombies". But, well, I'm happy to report that I don't think zombies are dead yet (on a completely unrelated note, I take no responsibility for any and all of the stupid, entirely intentional puns contained in this post).
For the past couple of months, I've been telling anyone who'll listen that vampires are going to be the new zombies (not surprisingly, no one has listened yet). I've been predicting this because the number of really cool upcoming zombie movies has dropped to zero (Resident Evil: Extinction doesn't count, trust me, I saw it). At the same time, there are/were two cool upcoming vampire movies (30 Days of Night and I Am Legend). Now, admittedly, it's a well known fact that it actually takes 3 movies to call it a trend, and there are some cool zombie-ish movies coming in the distant future (the independent movie The Signal and Eli Roth's next project, Cell, would be two examples).
However, what is further contributing to my belief that vampires are the new zombies is that 30 Days of Night is very similar to the movie that started the whole zombie craze, 28 Days Later (I'm going to call the similarity of the names a coincidence, though).
28 Days Later was directed by popular indie film maker Danny Boyle, who had directed the popular Trainspotting. He created an extremely cool, very atmospheric zombie movie that redefined what a zombie could be. For one, he made them fast. Equally important, though, he made turning into a zombie really fast. In exchange, he got rid of that whole "Shoot them in the head!" thing. The result was a very different kind of fear where you didn't have time to say goodbye to your loved ones once they were bitten. Also, thankfully, this got rid of the stupid requirement for close quarters with lots of doors, because that's the only way a zombie can take someone by surprise (since zombies are fast now, they don't need to be conveniently hiding where the camera can't see them).
Obviously, this was a huge hit and I swear it was barely a year later that we saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which continued the fast zombie tradition (but kept "Shoot them in the head!"). This was also a very decent hit and so the fast zombie tradition was born.
Now, skip to 2007. 30 Days of Night was directed by popular indie film make David Slade, who had directed the popular Hard Candy. He created an extremely cool, very atmospheric vampire movie that redefined what a vampire could be. For one, he made them really fast. Equally important, though, he made turning into a vampire fairly slow. In exchange, he added this whole "Chop off their heads!" thing. The result was a very different kind of fear, where vampires are actually kind of scary. Also, thankfully, this got rid of that whole seduction thing where the victims willingly give themselves to the vampires (since vampires are fast now, they don't need to be conveniently ridiculously good-looking for the camera).
Okay, so maybe they're not that similar, but there's definitely a lot of similarities (like the name). But seriously, this movie really intended to de-romanticize vampires and actually turn them into something scary. I swear, it often seems like the servants of the vampires are scarier than the vampires themselves in most vampire movies. Vampires only real source of scariness comes from their ageless wisdom and power. And the fact that they typically steal your cute girlfriend and send her to seduce you, which sucks. And so, their ageless wisdom and power makes them arrogant and so typically the scrappy group of heroes manages to defeat the vampire (in case your curious, that would pretty much be the plot of Dracula, the book).
Now, personally, I've never found that especially scary (which is a little weird, because in book form, it is pretty decently scary). Also, this is hardly the first attempt to de-romanticize vampires. The Blade Trilogy immediately comes to mind, but maybe that's just because I'm weird since those are stupid action movies and don't count for the same reason that Resident Evil doesn't count. On the other hand, Guillermo del Toro's work with vampires has attempted to redefine vampires, but in a very different way (he actually directed Blade II, which was easily the best, which obviously isn't saying much). In Blade II, he created super crazy awesome vampires that feed off other vampires and they were totally crazy cool (their mouths had multiple breaks so their mouths opened into multiple parts which could easily fit an entire head into the mouth...which is just a little bit cooler than necking...you might have to see it to understand). In Cronos, he reimagined vampirism as a way to achieve immortality, but at a terrible price (drinking blood).
Now, that I've actually seen 30 Days of Night, I can honestly say that I was really amazed at how heavily influenced it was by zombies. This honestly felt more like one of the new generation zombie movies, than a vampire movie. In fact, almost every complaint I might have about it, arises from the fact that we're dealing with vampires, when it feels like we should be dealing with zombies.
This movie portrays vampires, most of the time, as little more than unthinking, hungry animals that tear their prey apart as they consume the blood (which, obviously, spills a massive amount of blood, but apparently the vampires aren't too worried about that). They kill the vast majority of the town in the first night (of 30, remember, not 28), in a massive rampage. And, personally, I think that's a really interesting way to treat vampires. I thought that made them a lot scarier and more violent, and well, evil. I like them as hungry creatures that have found the perfect hunting grounds.
In fact, if I we're making this movie, I would have set the town as the formerly second northernmost town of Alaska, after a mysterious accident destroyed the farthest one last year. I mean, why not let the vampires be experienced in the cold? Have the movie start with news crews at the wreck of that town (and introduce Ben Foster as the only survivor). Boom! We've already got a better opening.
But, this theme of vampires as animals is only skin deep, because for some pointless reason the vampires have their own language and they use it to say pointless stuff and make fun of humans. I swear, every scene of the vampires talking would have been better without the subtitles (in fact, I wonder if we might be able to check that option in the DVD version, that would be cool). I like the vampires portrayed as animals, but, as a general rule, animals don't get to have their own language and make fun of humans, unless the movie is rated PG or below and is animated (this movie is disqualified on both counts). At the same time, I loved the things they said in English, which gets spoiled in the trailer, but whatever.
So, I'm disappointed to say that 30 Days of Night is no 28 Days Later. This treatment of vampires was really interesting (and very zombie like, which I like). But, the movie itself wasn't very good, which is too bad. On the other hand, I Am Legend will definitely be good (I don't think it will be possible for that movie to be bad). Also, Richard Matheson's vampires are another very interesting take on vampirism. I don't know how closely the movie is going to follow the book (considering The Omega Man, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was: not very), but Mr. Matheson did not write an especially romantic last man on earth against the vampires book (which is, in all honesty, a very zombie like theme if you think about it). Of course, assuming they're keeping the title because they plan to follow his themes, then these vampires will be very human (a fun middle ground between the not scary vampires of the past and the vampires of 30 Days of Night).
So, yeah, vampires could still be working towards becoming the new zombies, but they're not there yet. But, I'm excited. 30 Days of Night was really fun...almost as much fun as 28 Days Later, and I've never encountered a vampire movie I thought was as fun as a good zombie movie.
That is all.
Francis
For the past couple of months, I've been telling anyone who'll listen that vampires are going to be the new zombies (not surprisingly, no one has listened yet). I've been predicting this because the number of really cool upcoming zombie movies has dropped to zero (Resident Evil: Extinction doesn't count, trust me, I saw it). At the same time, there are/were two cool upcoming vampire movies (30 Days of Night and I Am Legend). Now, admittedly, it's a well known fact that it actually takes 3 movies to call it a trend, and there are some cool zombie-ish movies coming in the distant future (the independent movie The Signal and Eli Roth's next project, Cell, would be two examples).
However, what is further contributing to my belief that vampires are the new zombies is that 30 Days of Night is very similar to the movie that started the whole zombie craze, 28 Days Later (I'm going to call the similarity of the names a coincidence, though).
28 Days Later was directed by popular indie film maker Danny Boyle, who had directed the popular Trainspotting. He created an extremely cool, very atmospheric zombie movie that redefined what a zombie could be. For one, he made them fast. Equally important, though, he made turning into a zombie really fast. In exchange, he got rid of that whole "Shoot them in the head!" thing. The result was a very different kind of fear where you didn't have time to say goodbye to your loved ones once they were bitten. Also, thankfully, this got rid of the stupid requirement for close quarters with lots of doors, because that's the only way a zombie can take someone by surprise (since zombies are fast now, they don't need to be conveniently hiding where the camera can't see them).
Obviously, this was a huge hit and I swear it was barely a year later that we saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead, which continued the fast zombie tradition (but kept "Shoot them in the head!"). This was also a very decent hit and so the fast zombie tradition was born.
Now, skip to 2007. 30 Days of Night was directed by popular indie film make David Slade, who had directed the popular Hard Candy. He created an extremely cool, very atmospheric vampire movie that redefined what a vampire could be. For one, he made them really fast. Equally important, though, he made turning into a vampire fairly slow. In exchange, he added this whole "Chop off their heads!" thing. The result was a very different kind of fear, where vampires are actually kind of scary. Also, thankfully, this got rid of that whole seduction thing where the victims willingly give themselves to the vampires (since vampires are fast now, they don't need to be conveniently ridiculously good-looking for the camera).
Okay, so maybe they're not that similar, but there's definitely a lot of similarities (like the name). But seriously, this movie really intended to de-romanticize vampires and actually turn them into something scary. I swear, it often seems like the servants of the vampires are scarier than the vampires themselves in most vampire movies. Vampires only real source of scariness comes from their ageless wisdom and power. And the fact that they typically steal your cute girlfriend and send her to seduce you, which sucks. And so, their ageless wisdom and power makes them arrogant and so typically the scrappy group of heroes manages to defeat the vampire (in case your curious, that would pretty much be the plot of Dracula, the book).
Now, personally, I've never found that especially scary (which is a little weird, because in book form, it is pretty decently scary). Also, this is hardly the first attempt to de-romanticize vampires. The Blade Trilogy immediately comes to mind, but maybe that's just because I'm weird since those are stupid action movies and don't count for the same reason that Resident Evil doesn't count. On the other hand, Guillermo del Toro's work with vampires has attempted to redefine vampires, but in a very different way (he actually directed Blade II, which was easily the best, which obviously isn't saying much). In Blade II, he created super crazy awesome vampires that feed off other vampires and they were totally crazy cool (their mouths had multiple breaks so their mouths opened into multiple parts which could easily fit an entire head into the mouth...which is just a little bit cooler than necking...you might have to see it to understand). In Cronos, he reimagined vampirism as a way to achieve immortality, but at a terrible price (drinking blood).
Now, that I've actually seen 30 Days of Night, I can honestly say that I was really amazed at how heavily influenced it was by zombies. This honestly felt more like one of the new generation zombie movies, than a vampire movie. In fact, almost every complaint I might have about it, arises from the fact that we're dealing with vampires, when it feels like we should be dealing with zombies.
This movie portrays vampires, most of the time, as little more than unthinking, hungry animals that tear their prey apart as they consume the blood (which, obviously, spills a massive amount of blood, but apparently the vampires aren't too worried about that). They kill the vast majority of the town in the first night (of 30, remember, not 28), in a massive rampage. And, personally, I think that's a really interesting way to treat vampires. I thought that made them a lot scarier and more violent, and well, evil. I like them as hungry creatures that have found the perfect hunting grounds.
In fact, if I we're making this movie, I would have set the town as the formerly second northernmost town of Alaska, after a mysterious accident destroyed the farthest one last year. I mean, why not let the vampires be experienced in the cold? Have the movie start with news crews at the wreck of that town (and introduce Ben Foster as the only survivor). Boom! We've already got a better opening.
But, this theme of vampires as animals is only skin deep, because for some pointless reason the vampires have their own language and they use it to say pointless stuff and make fun of humans. I swear, every scene of the vampires talking would have been better without the subtitles (in fact, I wonder if we might be able to check that option in the DVD version, that would be cool). I like the vampires portrayed as animals, but, as a general rule, animals don't get to have their own language and make fun of humans, unless the movie is rated PG or below and is animated (this movie is disqualified on both counts). At the same time, I loved the things they said in English, which gets spoiled in the trailer, but whatever.
So, I'm disappointed to say that 30 Days of Night is no 28 Days Later. This treatment of vampires was really interesting (and very zombie like, which I like). But, the movie itself wasn't very good, which is too bad. On the other hand, I Am Legend will definitely be good (I don't think it will be possible for that movie to be bad). Also, Richard Matheson's vampires are another very interesting take on vampirism. I don't know how closely the movie is going to follow the book (considering The Omega Man, I wouldn't be surprised if the answer was: not very), but Mr. Matheson did not write an especially romantic last man on earth against the vampires book (which is, in all honesty, a very zombie like theme if you think about it). Of course, assuming they're keeping the title because they plan to follow his themes, then these vampires will be very human (a fun middle ground between the not scary vampires of the past and the vampires of 30 Days of Night).
So, yeah, vampires could still be working towards becoming the new zombies, but they're not there yet. But, I'm excited. 30 Days of Night was really fun...almost as much fun as 28 Days Later, and I've never encountered a vampire movie I thought was as fun as a good zombie movie.
That is all.
Francis
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
On Dealing with Gifted Students
So, this morning, I made myself cereal like normal. Except it wasn't normal at all. I ran out of Cheerios yesterday and haven't gotten around to refilling my supply. This means I was eating an alternative cereal, stolen from my little brother, with about 2-3 times as much sugar as the Cheerios I know and love. Needless to say, I was doing my morning reading on a bit more of a sugar high than normal.
Speaking of brothers, I came down the stairs this morning and found a bum sleeping on our couch. I was a little confused by this, but then I realized that it was just my brother, who had apparently arrived at the house late last night and crashed there. Not that any of this is related to anything.
So, back to my normal morning (which apparently was not normal at all, but that's not the point). I was eating breakfast and reading Time magazine again. Apparently, I can't avoid it. So, yeah, the cover article is all about what America should be doing about the fact that we treat our smartest kids like crap. Or, at least that's what they claim the article is about. Really, it seems mainly focused on this school in Reno called the Davidson Academy. But, it's the first topic that I'm really interested in, so that's what the post is about.
Now, before I start bashing the article, the author, the politicians, the children, and whatever else comes to mind, I just wanted to say that the school sounds pretty cool. I can totally imagine wanting to go to a school like that when I was about that age (which I think is between 10 and 18, but they weren't too specific). I'm sure they're doing a really good job with the kids that go there (although the article makes it sound like there's only 45 kids or so), and that it's very impressive.
Also, I'm pretty sure that when I actually was that age, I did qualify as gifted by the standards they were using in the article (top .1% of the population on certain "gifted" tests, although I didn't take the same tests they call out, but we'll just assume that the gifted tests I took are equivalent, alright). So, when I relate my own experiences and opinions of the situation the gifted students face, just trust me that it's coming from a qualified background (whoo for asking for trust over the Internet!). Also, I make no claims whatsoever about my "gifted" status anymore (and I'm pretty sure this blog is evidence against said status).
For one, I more or less totally agree that the school system doesn't really have a response for the kids who learn quickly (and those top .1% kids are capable of learning really quickly). At the same time, I believe there are pockets of really interesting and intelligent strategies that already exist. To start, here's what I believe is the most important part of any strategy: that the system ensures that the gifted kids get to meet and interact with each other. I was disappointed that the article did not value this nearly as highly.
This is why I'm inherently suspicious of home schooling. This is also why I immediately know that the Davidson Academy is doing something right. Gifted kids really need to meet and interact with other gifted kids. Until they do, they will struggle to value their "giftedness" and consider themselves weird. The most important thing public schools (from here on, simply called: the system) can teach them is that their intelligence is something fun and exciting which they can use and enjoy.
The article, when it wasn't lavishing praise on the school, argued that advanced students should just be pushed forward through the system. The author seemed to think that if a kid is learning faster than those around him (or her, I swear I'm not sexist...), he should just be pushed on to the next grade, as if that will solve the problem. It doesn't, though. Admittedly, the author did provide a rather underwhelming study that followed about 40 different gifted students, some of whom skipped grades and others that didn't and many of the ones who skipped grades came out better. Personally, I didn't find it convincing.
The problem with skipping grades is that the gifted student is still interacting with non-gifted students (we're pretending, for the sake of argument, that the older students would interact with the younger, gifted student at all) and the classes are still moving way slower than he is capable of learning. In the short term, it seems effective, because the gifted student is challenged to catch up, but once he's caught up, then it'll be time to skip another grade, or leave him unchallenged again. It's not too hard to imagine an instance when a really smart 10 year old is finishing up high school (which is bad, not because he's finishing high school, but bad because he's become completely isolated from anything even remotely like his maturity level, assuming that boys mature at all, of course).
Basically skipping grades is not a way to solve the problem, but rather a way to avoid the problem. The kid shuts up about not being challenged for a little while and hopefully gets sent off to college quickly so the system doesn't have to deal with him anymore. The only thing the system did for him was help him to get out of the system, which shouldn't count as a positive (although, I suspect that's basically what the study got as positive).
No, the buzz word that needs to be applied to dealing with gifted kids is "self paced learning". From the description, I'm pretty sure the Davidson Academy does it, which is good. Interestingly, the advantages of this strategy can come out of a simple thought experiment.
Imagine this: You've got a group of motivated, intelligent (perhaps even gifted?) kids together, with a single intelligent, young teacher. What happens? Well, the teacher has to meet certain requirements so she (okay, I am sexist, I'm making the teacher female and student male, what can I say?) starts trying to teach the required subjects (math, English, history, science, whatever). English and history are easy for her; she just has to pick topics, promote discussions, grade papers, and maybe do simple tests to ensure that the students are keeping up and prepared for discussions.
Math and science are harder. At the beginning of the year, the kids all start out together, but quickly some students start getting stuck at points (we're assuming that whatever math they're learning is at least a bit beyond what any of them have done before... maybe an introduction to Algebra without wasting everyone's time with Pre-Algebra sort of thing). She has to slow down for some of the students, but the other students are still interested in moving forward.
So, she says, "Okay, you kids who think you're SO smart, can just read ahead in the book. I'll be looking extra close at your homework and if you're still doing everything right, I'll let you keep going forward. In the meantime, I'll be helping these ones try to catch up with you, and I promise to dedicate some time to answering any questions you have." And, boom, self paced learning just naturally arises out of the situation (I heart Steve Jobs, by the way).
Obviously, there's many places for the plan to fail, but the trade off is the opportunity to let the kids that want to advance actually advance. You'll need a good textbook, the teacher will need to be willing to grade a variety of homeworks, it will have to be made clear that going the pace of the class is not a bad thing, and the list goes on. But, and I swear this is true, it's actually really achievable. You know why? Because the kids will help you.
Let's say there's one kid that really just doesn't get it. He's struggling (because of course all the students are male, because I'm sexist) and everyone else is ready to move on. Now, the teacher could try to do something like set aside one-on-one time or just stop the class to help him out. But, there's another option. Find a volunteer from the group that's pulling ahead to sit down and work with him for awhile (ha, volunteer, I crack myself up sometimes...). This both reinforces the learning of the volunteer and frees the teacher to keep working with the rest of the class.
Obviously, there will need to be a significant number of groundrules set for the classroom. We don't really want instances of individual students pulling ahead of the class, but some other number, probably between two and five (if it's more than five, you're looking at a significant portion of the class looking to go faster, which means it might be time to examine the curriculum). This is because the goal is not only to allow individual students to excel, but to still encourage the group learning that helps to reinforce and support each student's learning.
It's worth pointing out that I was put in this type of environment on multiple occasions in my public schooling. As a sixth grader, I was in a 20 person class of gifted students. In that class, the teacher's goal was not so much self paced learning, as super accelerated learning. The result was the I initially found myself falling behind (in my defense, all the other students had been doing that curriculum for a couple years). The teacher would never have considered slowing down for me, but he did have a classmate sit down and help me. Pretty soon, I was caught up and going along with the rest of class, no problem. So, it's not outrageous to expect the kids to be able to help each other.
Also, my high school actually really valued the idea of self paced learning and tried to apply it to all the students. But, it totally failed. Not because it's a bad idea, mind you. It failed because they tried to use it for the entire population and not just the "gifted" population.
They thought that by making it possible for slow learning students to take their time, they could improve their learning experience as well. Of course, it is not very easy to tell the difference between lazy students and true slow learners, so the end result was that lots of students basically made no progress in subjects like math because they were going at "their own pace."
However, there was a segment of the school's population that really benefited from the self paced learning (I'll give you two guesses, and no, lazy students not having to do any work don't count as having benefited). That's right, the "gifted" students that were motivated and excited about learning. We got to fly through the math program, in little groups of two or three (helping each other along the way), as the teachers spent more time with the slower (read: lazier) students. The end result was that my little group completed 2 years of high school math our freshman year and then went on to take AP Calculus our sophomore year. In my personal group of two, both of us got fives, although we were sort of outliers on that one (I think most of the groups got threes, although my group had the advantage that we finished a couple weeks before most of the others and spent that extra time preparing).
You can compare this to my experience in seventh grade, where I was forced to retake Algebra because the eighth grade Geometry class was full (what was especially frustrating at the time was that there was a test to get in and I pretty much dominated it, while an eighth grader just barely passed, and he got priority over me when a space opened up...).
Anyways, that's my view on how public schools can help gifted students to rise to their potential. Implementing the ideas wouldn't be all that hard. There's already programs that help to recognize gifted students and create classes specifically for those students. This would just require changing the classes so that they're actually useful. And, yes, in the end it would probably be helping to move the gifted students out of school earlier (and, well, they probably should be getting out of school earlier), since we're expecting their pace to be above average. But then at least they're doing it with peers, instead of on their own.
That is all.
Francis
PS - In case you're curious, this post was just over 2100 words. Wow, the primary advantage of blogging: infinite page length. Whoo!
Speaking of brothers, I came down the stairs this morning and found a bum sleeping on our couch. I was a little confused by this, but then I realized that it was just my brother, who had apparently arrived at the house late last night and crashed there. Not that any of this is related to anything.
So, back to my normal morning (which apparently was not normal at all, but that's not the point). I was eating breakfast and reading Time magazine again. Apparently, I can't avoid it. So, yeah, the cover article is all about what America should be doing about the fact that we treat our smartest kids like crap. Or, at least that's what they claim the article is about. Really, it seems mainly focused on this school in Reno called the Davidson Academy. But, it's the first topic that I'm really interested in, so that's what the post is about.
Now, before I start bashing the article, the author, the politicians, the children, and whatever else comes to mind, I just wanted to say that the school sounds pretty cool. I can totally imagine wanting to go to a school like that when I was about that age (which I think is between 10 and 18, but they weren't too specific). I'm sure they're doing a really good job with the kids that go there (although the article makes it sound like there's only 45 kids or so), and that it's very impressive.
Also, I'm pretty sure that when I actually was that age, I did qualify as gifted by the standards they were using in the article (top .1% of the population on certain "gifted" tests, although I didn't take the same tests they call out, but we'll just assume that the gifted tests I took are equivalent, alright). So, when I relate my own experiences and opinions of the situation the gifted students face, just trust me that it's coming from a qualified background (whoo for asking for trust over the Internet!). Also, I make no claims whatsoever about my "gifted" status anymore (and I'm pretty sure this blog is evidence against said status).
For one, I more or less totally agree that the school system doesn't really have a response for the kids who learn quickly (and those top .1% kids are capable of learning really quickly). At the same time, I believe there are pockets of really interesting and intelligent strategies that already exist. To start, here's what I believe is the most important part of any strategy: that the system ensures that the gifted kids get to meet and interact with each other. I was disappointed that the article did not value this nearly as highly.
This is why I'm inherently suspicious of home schooling. This is also why I immediately know that the Davidson Academy is doing something right. Gifted kids really need to meet and interact with other gifted kids. Until they do, they will struggle to value their "giftedness" and consider themselves weird. The most important thing public schools (from here on, simply called: the system) can teach them is that their intelligence is something fun and exciting which they can use and enjoy.
The article, when it wasn't lavishing praise on the school, argued that advanced students should just be pushed forward through the system. The author seemed to think that if a kid is learning faster than those around him (or her, I swear I'm not sexist...), he should just be pushed on to the next grade, as if that will solve the problem. It doesn't, though. Admittedly, the author did provide a rather underwhelming study that followed about 40 different gifted students, some of whom skipped grades and others that didn't and many of the ones who skipped grades came out better. Personally, I didn't find it convincing.
The problem with skipping grades is that the gifted student is still interacting with non-gifted students (we're pretending, for the sake of argument, that the older students would interact with the younger, gifted student at all) and the classes are still moving way slower than he is capable of learning. In the short term, it seems effective, because the gifted student is challenged to catch up, but once he's caught up, then it'll be time to skip another grade, or leave him unchallenged again. It's not too hard to imagine an instance when a really smart 10 year old is finishing up high school (which is bad, not because he's finishing high school, but bad because he's become completely isolated from anything even remotely like his maturity level, assuming that boys mature at all, of course).
Basically skipping grades is not a way to solve the problem, but rather a way to avoid the problem. The kid shuts up about not being challenged for a little while and hopefully gets sent off to college quickly so the system doesn't have to deal with him anymore. The only thing the system did for him was help him to get out of the system, which shouldn't count as a positive (although, I suspect that's basically what the study got as positive).
No, the buzz word that needs to be applied to dealing with gifted kids is "self paced learning". From the description, I'm pretty sure the Davidson Academy does it, which is good. Interestingly, the advantages of this strategy can come out of a simple thought experiment.
Imagine this: You've got a group of motivated, intelligent (perhaps even gifted?) kids together, with a single intelligent, young teacher. What happens? Well, the teacher has to meet certain requirements so she (okay, I am sexist, I'm making the teacher female and student male, what can I say?) starts trying to teach the required subjects (math, English, history, science, whatever). English and history are easy for her; she just has to pick topics, promote discussions, grade papers, and maybe do simple tests to ensure that the students are keeping up and prepared for discussions.
Math and science are harder. At the beginning of the year, the kids all start out together, but quickly some students start getting stuck at points (we're assuming that whatever math they're learning is at least a bit beyond what any of them have done before... maybe an introduction to Algebra without wasting everyone's time with Pre-Algebra sort of thing). She has to slow down for some of the students, but the other students are still interested in moving forward.
So, she says, "Okay, you kids who think you're SO smart, can just read ahead in the book. I'll be looking extra close at your homework and if you're still doing everything right, I'll let you keep going forward. In the meantime, I'll be helping these ones try to catch up with you, and I promise to dedicate some time to answering any questions you have." And, boom, self paced learning just naturally arises out of the situation (I heart Steve Jobs, by the way).
Obviously, there's many places for the plan to fail, but the trade off is the opportunity to let the kids that want to advance actually advance. You'll need a good textbook, the teacher will need to be willing to grade a variety of homeworks, it will have to be made clear that going the pace of the class is not a bad thing, and the list goes on. But, and I swear this is true, it's actually really achievable. You know why? Because the kids will help you.
Let's say there's one kid that really just doesn't get it. He's struggling (because of course all the students are male, because I'm sexist) and everyone else is ready to move on. Now, the teacher could try to do something like set aside one-on-one time or just stop the class to help him out. But, there's another option. Find a volunteer from the group that's pulling ahead to sit down and work with him for awhile (ha, volunteer, I crack myself up sometimes...). This both reinforces the learning of the volunteer and frees the teacher to keep working with the rest of the class.
Obviously, there will need to be a significant number of groundrules set for the classroom. We don't really want instances of individual students pulling ahead of the class, but some other number, probably between two and five (if it's more than five, you're looking at a significant portion of the class looking to go faster, which means it might be time to examine the curriculum). This is because the goal is not only to allow individual students to excel, but to still encourage the group learning that helps to reinforce and support each student's learning.
It's worth pointing out that I was put in this type of environment on multiple occasions in my public schooling. As a sixth grader, I was in a 20 person class of gifted students. In that class, the teacher's goal was not so much self paced learning, as super accelerated learning. The result was the I initially found myself falling behind (in my defense, all the other students had been doing that curriculum for a couple years). The teacher would never have considered slowing down for me, but he did have a classmate sit down and help me. Pretty soon, I was caught up and going along with the rest of class, no problem. So, it's not outrageous to expect the kids to be able to help each other.
Also, my high school actually really valued the idea of self paced learning and tried to apply it to all the students. But, it totally failed. Not because it's a bad idea, mind you. It failed because they tried to use it for the entire population and not just the "gifted" population.
They thought that by making it possible for slow learning students to take their time, they could improve their learning experience as well. Of course, it is not very easy to tell the difference between lazy students and true slow learners, so the end result was that lots of students basically made no progress in subjects like math because they were going at "their own pace."
However, there was a segment of the school's population that really benefited from the self paced learning (I'll give you two guesses, and no, lazy students not having to do any work don't count as having benefited). That's right, the "gifted" students that were motivated and excited about learning. We got to fly through the math program, in little groups of two or three (helping each other along the way), as the teachers spent more time with the slower (read: lazier) students. The end result was that my little group completed 2 years of high school math our freshman year and then went on to take AP Calculus our sophomore year. In my personal group of two, both of us got fives, although we were sort of outliers on that one (I think most of the groups got threes, although my group had the advantage that we finished a couple weeks before most of the others and spent that extra time preparing).
You can compare this to my experience in seventh grade, where I was forced to retake Algebra because the eighth grade Geometry class was full (what was especially frustrating at the time was that there was a test to get in and I pretty much dominated it, while an eighth grader just barely passed, and he got priority over me when a space opened up...).
Anyways, that's my view on how public schools can help gifted students to rise to their potential. Implementing the ideas wouldn't be all that hard. There's already programs that help to recognize gifted students and create classes specifically for those students. This would just require changing the classes so that they're actually useful. And, yes, in the end it would probably be helping to move the gifted students out of school earlier (and, well, they probably should be getting out of school earlier), since we're expecting their pace to be above average. But then at least they're doing it with peers, instead of on their own.
That is all.
Francis
PS - In case you're curious, this post was just over 2100 words. Wow, the primary advantage of blogging: infinite page length. Whoo!
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Oh my God!
Wow. I just saw what the font looks like on PCs. Here I'd been reading all these blogs about the differences in font rendering styles between Macs and PCs. Up until now, it was totally theoretical to me since I basically just use a Mac. I would look at the little picture differences and think to myself: "Whatever". Now, though. It just hit home. And, apparently, Windows sucks. I can't believe how terribly it treats my beautiful little fixed width Courier font. The lower case m's are just blobs, for goodness sake. I purposely bold my font so it doesn't look all thin, but that's not good enough for Windows. It still looks thin, but now it looks gross too. Sigh.
And don't even get me started about that title. It looks like something that came out of a Lite Brite set. It's literally, like 10 block sized pixels trying to make up each of my letters. What's the deal? What happened to anti-aliasing and ClearType and all that jazz? I write long posts and I want a nice serif font. But, I guess that's too much to ask for. I don't want to have to settle for Times. I hate Times.
In all honesty, I think my Mac and my PC are reading Blogspot's definition of Courier as two different fonts (as in, I'm seeing Courier New on my Mac and Courier on the PC, which is just weird).
So, yeah, I'm going to have to change all the font appearances so they don't look like complete crap. Wish me luck.
That is all.
Francis
PS - Whoo for posting during my lunch hour!
And don't even get me started about that title. It looks like something that came out of a Lite Brite set. It's literally, like 10 block sized pixels trying to make up each of my letters. What's the deal? What happened to anti-aliasing and ClearType and all that jazz? I write long posts and I want a nice serif font. But, I guess that's too much to ask for. I don't want to have to settle for Times. I hate Times.
In all honesty, I think my Mac and my PC are reading Blogspot's definition of Courier as two different fonts (as in, I'm seeing Courier New on my Mac and Courier on the PC, which is just weird).
So, yeah, I'm going to have to change all the font appearances so they don't look like complete crap. Wish me luck.
That is all.
Francis
PS - Whoo for posting during my lunch hour!
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