Category: ideas

“Ever felt you’re missing the point with some of our biggest cultural heroes? Admit it – everyone can name at least one hip, wildly praised band, album, film, TV show or author that they’ve never really rated.” Critics have their own lists of overrated stars, too: could James Brown’s legendary performances be nothing more than “brass-driven aerobics workouts, over which he barks claims of his own magnificence”? Is Neil Young’s famously distinctive voice really “the exact timbre of a continental dial tone”? Is U2 an overrated trio of self-important rockers whose greatest talent is in the thieving of other bands’ ideas? (Okay, that last one isn’t exactly a secret.)

Western society is overwhelmed with celebrities these days, and the obsession with fame has given rise to an odd sub-category of celebs: people who are famous more for just being famous than for any actual accomplishment. But this celebrity for its own sake isn’t really a new concept. In fact, one of history’s greatest painters may have originated the concept.

Internet archivists have lost a case in American courts challenging recent copyright laws. “”The plaintiffs claim that removing registration and renewal requirements and expanding the term of copyright have made it virtually impossible for works to enter the public domain. Now, out-of-print albums and books — many of which are not commercially viable — are simply rotting away unused, but are still protected by copyright.” The activists promise to appeal.

“Literary dystopias have this in common: They are imagined societies in which the deepest demands of human nature are either subverted, perverted, or simply made unattainable. Not that it is necessarily bad to say “no!” to human nature. When it comes to certain inclinations, such as violence or extreme selfishness, there is much to be said for defying the promptings of biology. But when society presses too hard in ways that go counter to natural needs, the result can be painfully unnatural, which is to say, dystopian.”

“At just the moment when the technologies of borrowing, sharing, repackaging, and reinventing — technologies such as blogs, wikis, peer-to-peer file sharing, full-text searching, digital video, and off-the-shelf music mixing software — have become so powerful as engines for creative expression, copyright law permits, in effect, nothing at all. Just when the future of creative expression looks so promising, argues Lawrence Lessig, the claims of the past have been shored up, and they block the way.”

There’s something creepy about the digital realism of thre computer enhanced movie “Polar Express.” But why? Perhaps things in the movie look too real? Or are they not real enough? “Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human “look” . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete.”

New research on the brain suggests that our brains behave differently when we’re telling a lie than when we’re telling the truth. Lying makes the brain work harder. “There may be unique areas in the brain involved in deception that can be measured with fMRI. There may be unique areas in the brain involved in truth telling.”

To hear some “pro-family” groups and government regulators tell it, you would think that America’s television screens had recently been hijacked by a marauding band of pornographers, and that the future of the republic depended on their being beaten back. Frank Rich has had it with the so-called “moral values” crowd and their false piety, especially since even a cursory investigation reveals that no one seems to get exercised about TV smut until they’re instructed to do so by well-funded professional outrage groups. Even worse, the supposed stacks of complaints received by the FCC regarding certain televised “incidents” have been grossly exaggerated, and usually consist of dozens of carbon copies of the same professionally generated complaint letter.

As viewed from Canada, America’s new morality crusade is not only pathetic and wrongheaded but maddening. “Religious right. Moral majority. Family values. Pick a catchphrase and behold the stupefying ascent of the shrill and pathetic, the petty and disconnected, the scolding band of castigators hellbent on telling others what they can watch and hear and even think… Who are these snivelling whiners? These self-righteous, holier-than-thou grumblers who have programmed ‘FCC’ into their speed dial?”

A group of Dartmouth researchers have developed software they say can detect whether artwork is authentic or not. “There are properties in an artist’s pen and brush strokes that aren’t visible to the human eye, but that are there nonetheless. And we can find them, through mathematical, statistical analysis.”