Insight

A trend ongoing since the creation of print is for niche markets.  Target audiences though small, become very specific.  When only several television stations were available, there could not be a history channel; no gardening or news stations-and especially not music television.  The net takes this growth to unheard of levels.  The difficulty is with providing content.  As production costs decrease, as demand and expection is lowered to the point where hobbyists can entertain-niche markets will grow exponentially. 

This is one reason that I believe censorship is not needed.  There is no need to worry about prime time programming using sex and violence when there is no limit to prime time programming.  Mass media and advertisers may wish to limit market access so as to have a generalized audience to target, but this will not always be possible.  Eventually programming can be accessed on demand on very specific levels.  This is especially true when copyrights run out (if the FCC ever stops extending protection for unused media) and we can host streaming media from the 50’s-70’s via our webpages/servers. 

Either standards viewers demand is lowered, or the tools necessary to produce good content become affordable and easy enough; the end result will be the end of mass media-and the birth of niche media.

Todays world and technology come with a host of challenges to advertisers.  Tivo allows people to skip commercials altogether, the net poses an entertainment alternative that is not always easy to market products on.  Current solutions are posting little advertisements on popular web pages, and now product placement is making a come back.  Personally I don’t mind product placement when it’s not overdone, but unfortunately shows will be forced to point out the product to the audience.  Simply drinking a coke or driving a Jetta won’t be enough.

People fight technology.  Industries do not want to change with the time, for it means an overhaul of the business structure and often some initial investment.  It is a risk when one fits into a market already and is forced to find a new niche. 

The solution I believe is that today it is becoming as (relatively) cheap to generate content as it is to sponsor content.  Rather than seeking to create commercials, companies today should try to release virtual goods and services with their logo on it.  Certain companies have gotten into the game a bit with offering free music downloads via digital money that is on candy wrappers or beer boxes.

Eventually companies will have to go a step further.  They can sponsor small net projects such as games, cartoons, mp3’s and comics.  Advertisers can release mp3’s from known bands with a quick sponsored by Pepsi or a logo on the screen.  The player and the mp3 can be packaged together to make it more difficult to crack, though this would probably be undesirable to most users.  Small games can be released on the net with corporate logo’s on it.  Net cartoons can be made, probably for about the same cost of advertising on a popular show-that carries the products information.  Many techniques are available, the face of the entertainment world is changing; this allows for many niche markets that may not have a large target audience-but also won’t have as large a cost to advertise too.  At the end of the day, generating content will drive advertising.  It could be as simple as five minute downloadable comic sketches or music videos.  The corporate site could release digital version of novels and games.  Content is the solution, why force product placement into a show when creating the media itself is just as cost effective?

There is a lot of discussion (in certain circles) as to why Star Trek Enterprise failed as a show.  This is to be the last season and despite admirable efforts at raising the 50 million necessary to give the show one more year, I do not believe UPN will go for it.  There is talk about Sci Fi Channel (unlikely) and Spike TV (more talk of it) picking up the series, but I don’t think UPN wants to part with the liscense. 

UPN wanted the best sci-fi show on t.v.  They kept the show on Friday nights, even though Sci-Fi channel had much higher rated shows on during that time slot.  One thing that UPN could have done to cause the show to flourish, would have been to give up the friday nights and choose another day of the week.  However that isn’t the biggest reason the show failed in my opinion.  What has gone wrong with near every star trek series since Star Trek The Next Generation is they have too many multi-part episodes.  Season Two of Enterprise may as well have been one long episode.  You miss one, you’re out of the loop.  UPN I think did this intentionally to try to pressure fans to watch it constantly.  However it totally turned off the casual star trek fan.  Voyager at least incorporated the mission home throughout the series in such a way that each episode was independent.  I’m glad I’ve been able to get Deep Space Nine on DVD, because it had the same problem (though not as bad as Enterprise)-I couldn’t keep up with the series and eventually didn’t worry about watching it.  Each show should be a self contained episode as much as possible.  There is a whole misguided marketing idea based on season finales being half of a two part episode to ensure viewers being watching it again the next season.  They took that concept and extended it to running multi-part episodes within a single season.  That is why Star Trek Enterprise failed, not just because Sci-Fi channel had a better line up with Star Gate, Star Gate Atlantis, and Battle Star Gallatica.

Todays viewing public are all A.D.D.  We are hit with stimuli from all over, people use the net more than they watch television.  Reality T.V. shows bloom, demanding an audiences attention for a limited period of time-and end.  Expecting to hold an audiences attention by a television show versus reality t.v. programs is rediculous.  UPN constantly has been making this mistake.  Their simple comedy shows make it because they aren’t demanding on the audience.  People don’t have to tune in every week, but nor are they likely to be reward winning shows.  The powerhouses that UPN has presented have all failed because UPN kept trying to expect the same level of audience that had before the net and reality t.v.  I enjoyed the New Twilight Zone, more than the attempt back in the early 90’s that also ran for one season.  I finally got into Jake 2.0, only to have that show cancelled as well.

Television stations have to adapt and stop trying to force people to watch a show without missing a single episode.  What ends up happening is people who do miss that one episode can’t get back into the program.  Watching shows should be entertainment, not work.  I liked Enterprise, wasn’t the best series but it really began picking up.  I especially enjoyed learning more about Vulcan mysticism.  So long as UPN expects too much from their programing, using serial episodes (like soap operas) to ensure an audience-their potential hits are going to fail.  The same goes with Fox.  Arrested Development might be cancelled because it only has an average audience of 6 million people.  The show does depend on what has happened in previous weeks and would be very hard for someone to get into who has never seen it before-or has missed a number of episodes.

At any rate that’s my rant.  Eventually I hope that being able to sell DVD box sets of a show will cover cost of production, then it doesn’t matter if you have a 10 part episode or not.  I don’t think with Enterprise it was so much the story had to be told over several parts, I think it was an intentional ploy by UPN execs to make their audience watch the show-to work at watching the show; just like how having a two part season finale has people tune in for the next season.

Though I do not think Intelligent Design is appropriate to use in a science class, nor do I agree with whose Intelligence the belief is referring to-I do think there is some merit to the idea.  The focus is on intelligence.  From the few courses I’ve taken, and journals I’ve read, the role of intelligence is understated in most theories on evolution.  Near everything seems to suggest that evolution is primarily driven by cause and effect.  External stimuli and competition.  Intelligence, no matter how small, plays a great role I believe in evolution.  Understanding how human beings can evolve in such a relatively short time (or even other animals), merely due to reactions from their environment does seem to be a large time.  However if human beings selected their mates along those same lines, the time it would take to evolve is dramatically reduced.  It seems that most theories of evolution have the animals behaving as mindless bacteria, and in such a setting you would think evolution would take more time.  Yet if the animals, on even an unconcious level, actively promoted the selection of those traits it would not take as much time.  Not to mention that even the role of play in younger animals, would have an impact on their ability to fight as they are older.

Too often I find that people break human beings and other animals down into merely complex machines.  We respond to stimuli, our environment shapes us.  Some people may say that humans can shape their environment, but it seems to be rarely applied to animals.  Choices in life, from the smallest animals to human beings, have an impact on evolution and the rate of evolution.  I think the role of an animals intelligence does have an impact on the rate and type of evolution.

In previous posts, [see original thought], I have questioned whether there is such thing as original thought.  Perhaps I should seperate simple from complex thought.  Flight or fight is a simple thought.  It is a direct response to the environment.  Planning on a fight, or a flight is a complex thought.  It is not directly stimulated by the environment, but is a mixture of past experience and awareness of ones abilities.  Complex thought may not be original at root, but nor is it a direct response to environmental stimuli.

This is not a friendly nor poetic meaning of life by any stretch.  It is one small part science, one giant part assumption.  Simply stated, the purpose of life (well at least to the universe) is to allow various elements to co-exist in smaller spaces than would otherwise be possible.  A micro-cosm representative of the elements of the universe on a much smaller scale.  If several rocks of different elements collided in space, you would still have relatively large spaces between them.  Chemical reactions are better, but are limited to the number of interacting elements.  In a super compressed space, such as a black hole, the elements would be destroyed.  In life however, we allow small portions of different elements to interact from a single cell to more complex animals and human beings. 

I haven’t given it as much thought as I would like, mainly because it isn’t as grand as a meaning of life to discover self awareness or to be at one with the universe on a conscious level.  However I think there is some merit to this hypothesis/theory.  It could be applied perhaps to try to understand how the first life formed, if we were to approach it as what allows the most elements to exist in the smallest space (relative to the universe at large) possible.

Personally, I’ve given some odd thought to protocellular material.  Taking advantage of natural occuring cells, such as bubbles in a pool of ammonia or perhaps a denser material.  This material would take advantage of these bubbles as a slight defense to the surrounding environment, confering perhaps a small but a real advantage.  Several biologists I have spoken with are of the mind that DNA predated other microcellular material but I am hestitant to agree.  I think DNA originally was a method of sharing resources amongst colonies of advantage cells (those that use natural bubbles to serve as a cell wall).  There could be ‘locks’ on the original strands of DNA to prevent competing pre-cell types from accessing materials necessary in reproduction/food.  Eventually, cells began to act as a more cohesive unit and further down the road to create their own cell walls.  I’m not a biologist, so there could be a number of flaws with these ideas-I hardly think bio 101 and chem 100 qualify me as novice.   

I’ve started a new project a few days ago.  Building a Pond.  I would like to start off saying it’s a lot harder work than I originally thought.  The cost also for any decently sized pond can increase quickly, without plants I have overshot my target of $250 by a hundred dollars.  I may have overdone it a bit, but I felt that more was better than less.  There were preset kits, either a mold or PVC for a free form design.  However the kits seemed generally smaller than what I wanted.  My design is a 3×6 foot pool slightly higher up that trickles into a 7×10 foot area.  At the base is a bench.  At the far side I’m only digging down 4 inches for an approximate 5 inch platform to allow for a place to put plants that root underwater.  There is special soil for that.  The final depth for the bottom pond area will be around 18 inches but curved slightly at the sides.  The top holding pool will probably end up only a foot deep, I wanted to have a slight trickling effect leading to the bottom pool for soothing sounds.  I’m not using it for fish/snails because there is too much wildlife around.  Only plants which hopefully they won’t eat, I may need to put a small fence around the pond later.

My first step was to pick out a suitable area far enough away from tree roots, that gets a mixture of shade/sun during the day (for good plant growth), and a lower depressed area relative to the rest of the yard.  I dug down a bit to make sure that I could, though the soil is VERY rocky so often I need to use a pick axe to turn the soil before using a shovel.  I use an ordinary wheelburrow to move dirt a suitable distance away, but close enough to place around the edges of the pond later.

Second, I made a sketch of what type of pond I want.  It doesn’t have to be exact.  I used a tape measure (allowing for the fact that I need to have the PVC material along the edges a good 3-4′ inches out).  I wrote on the sketch where I want fountains to be.

Finally I went to the store and bought all the parts I needed.  I picked up a beckett medium sized pond water pump/filter.  The pump is necessary to keep the water from being stagnant.  The filter helps to keep the pond clean.  Pumps can be purchased seperately to accompish various tasks, around $20-30.  You can either attach a tube of a specific size (donated on the box) to run the water up a slight incline (a major incline/distance needs a stronger pump, you can usually tell on the boxes how many feet it can push water)-you can also simply attach a special head to the pump to make different fountain patterns.  Each of these use a normal 3 pronged plug.  I picked up a 75 ft outdoor extension and a outdoor 3 plug splitter to serve until I get around to calling an electrician out.  I also made sure to get an extension water hose cord to make sure I could reach the pond, since in the summer time I occasionally will need to add water.  I picked up 3 bags of sand to cover the bottom of the hole to prevent rocks from ripping into the pvc when it’s first settling (from being filled with water).  I also picked up some colored rocks for decoration.  There are underlying pads you can use also under the PVC water holding layer but I decided to go with sand.  I went with a 12×12 foot PVC sheet, it’s not cheap and from home depot was sold approx $8.50 for 12×1 feet strips.  The Beckette water pump/filter ran approx $120.  A second pump to create a fountain was approx $20, various heads to create different water spray patterns were only maybe $5 and can always be changed later if you want to try a new look.

Once I finish digging the hole, which is progressing slowly.  I will coat the bottom and sides with layer of sand.  When filling in the pool it is important to go slowly while creasing out any edges to get a proper fit.  The extra amount of PVC hanging over the edges can be held down with rocks and dirt or even nails.  I’m going for a more natural look so will probably ring it with rocks on my yard.  A general rule of thumb is to wait 7 days after filling the pond before adding any plants of fish.  Tap water often contains a lot of additives such as chlorine which can be poisonous at first.  7 days allows much of these additives to evaporate.

I’ve still got a ways to go, I’m not used to this type of work so am taking it slow.  I’m sure it will be rewarding and is a nice change of pass from heavy school work and finals.  Ideally I will have the pond in the ground and filled before this coming Friday, about 5 days.  I will post a picture when it is completed and again when I get some flowers and floating lillies in the pond.

I’ve had this conversation on a few occasions, I believe that the defining factor that seperated human beings from other mammals was the creation of the Beta Male.  The Beta Male represents he who may exceed in a certain respect though is not technically leader of the entire group.  Division of leadership allowed for a number of advantages that could not be found in an alpha dominated tribe.  Primarily, the death of the alpha male no longer created as great a power vacuum.  It is possible that real complex language would not even be a requirement until there was some division of authority.  What the alpha wanted, occured.  Now, there could be more complex disagreements that were not necessarily a power struggle.  The hunter may have to convey to the leader that there was food to be had, a sentry may have to communicate to the alpha that there was trouble to be had.  Over time the rate of communication would have to increase.  The sentry would not only have to say, ‘threat’-but would also have to communicate the level of threat.  The hunter would no longer just say,’food’, and wait for the Alpha to determine whether it was a valid hunt.  Individuals increasingly had to think on their own and had to communicate these more complex original thoughts.  Leadership became shared. 

Some, including myself at one time, believe that it is possible to be all things at one time.  That we could create the perfect man or women who is supreme at all tasks.  I do not, I believe that division of authority/labor is a fact of nature and of our lives.  I used to believe that it would be great if each person could know how to construct a television set, fix their own plumbing, build a computer, improve their cars performance-etc,etc.  Yet with such multitasking would come an overall limit to how much we can achieve.  Insects can often be drafted to perform other tasks, but the overall complexity of each task is quite limited. 

It is my opinion that the emergence of the beta male in the pre-human species allowed for the first branch from the animal kingdom to modern humanity.  That without him we would not have developed a complex language, we could not have formed societies without a division of power, invention would be primitive at best as there would be no individual specialization- and social growth/new ideas would be much harder to emerge in society as they would have had to come through the few tribe leaders rather than within a random element of the tribe itself.

Today, along with a prescription for pill-I also got one for religion.  I’m not sure how I should feel about that, or where to begin worrying about that.  Do I have something the doctor doesn’t want to tell me about, does my doctor spend his weekends going door to door converting people, maybe modern medicine is merely big business and truly does no good.

The point was to find myself.  I didn’t want to interrupt and state that the closest I’ve come to finding myself was several years ago.  I was quite stoned and remember hearing the trees singing.  Several birds found it odd that I could hear it as well, thankfully they didn’t pull a Hitchcock on me.

More seriously though, the problem is I ‘think’ about religion and life far too much.  I can’t just accept it at face value.  And I don’t think they’ve perfected electro-shock therapy to the point it will do to my mind what a strong enough magnet will do to my computer.  I get numerous religious emails daily, I enjoy all of them to some point.  Christianity focuses too much on Parables and Judism too much on laws but I try to find some measure of enlightenment every day. 

On an intellectual level, I’m not even sure that original thought [see original thought] actually exists.  If original thought doesn’t exist, then what does that say about my existence?  I’m a thinker, even if I’m probably wrong with 9 out of 10 semi-original view points-I can’t get around that.  It’s difficult for me to take anything at face value, though I see that all people need faith at some point [see my religions views?], for anything with importance I give it thought.  Faith to me is blind.  I regularly engage in blind faith on basic issues, like a door opening; or that the sun will rise.  I’m not sure if it’s possible for me to have blind faith on anything with importance or meaning.  I often see religion as something that emerged out of humankinds need to explain the world around them.  How horrifying would it be to instantly become a conscious being, a rock couldn’t be a rock, it would be an unknown.  Clouds were not clouds, they are unknowns.  If consciousness suddenly emerged (probably not) in humanity-those first human beings must have been patently insane.

Damn I wish McCain would run for president in 2008! (he’s on hardball), makes me feel happy about calling myself a republican.  Maybe if I find myself via politics heh, then finding myself via religion would come easier.

I’ll probably try some Yoga and maybe look harder at finding either a Universal Unitarian or Ba’hai group that seems more serious about it.  I want the freedom of accepting all religions, but the structure on how we go about understanding the meaning of all religions.  Hard to find something that is very free when it comes to the source but very serious when it comes to the meaning.

Religion to me is often a loaded subject.  There are many problems with religion in the world today and in the past.  Howeve I accept that all people need some form of belief in their life.  From my first blog I stressed the notion that belief is a daily occurrence, that we have to accept some things as truths in our lives and not have to go through the scientific reasons for them constantly (such as opening a door or turning on a computer).  At the suggestiong of a sociology/anthropology professor I know I’ve looked into Ba’Hai.  Ba’hai promotes personal spiritual growth and an acceptance that all faiths have something to offer to your personal spiritual growth.  I haven’t been able to find a good Ba’Hai local group that seems as much more than social clubs, but it seems to fit my ideas better than Universal Unitarianism does.

I was raised Christian, namely Methodist-and I still hold the trusts I have gathered from that close to my heart.  Today I receive buddhist, hindu, muslim, christian, and jewish teachings in my inbox from beliefnet.  I normally try to read them but find the buddhist, hindu and muslim teachings better because they seem more concise and to the point.

I often get into arguments on christianity because of how I choose to believe and express my view points.  The trinity, in my opinion, represents three paths to the Way or God.  The father represents society and law, the son represents interpersonal relationships and individuals impact on our lives, and the ghost represents the spiritual and the ritual (like prayer).  It is common for me to hear that God chose to go amongst us as a person via Jesus, whereas I normally believe that the only way most of us can truely commune with God is through the flesh of another.  The trinity equalizes these three approaches to God, each has a distinct flavor to it, none invalidates another.  It is true (to me) that we can bring each other closer to God.  In that respect I believe each of us brings Christ into us, as we serve as an agent of God when we better (or worsen) the lot of our fellow man.  If I have a problem, I can discuss it over with a friend, I can pray, or I can seek to bring about some social awareness/change.  Each accomplishes the same goal as making me more aware of the problem and hopefully closer to the truth.  I take a more gnostic [gnostics were hunted down following the writing of the bible for refusing to accept it] approach to biblical teachings, believing more on the spiritual and metaphysical truths of biblical stories than on any historical accuracy.  The fact of what Jesus did is not as important to me as the impact of his actions as a truth apart from the action.  The action to me was merely a method of communicating it such that we could understand. 

I try to benefit from as many religions as possible.  For example lately I’ve puzzled over a Muslim teaching which described why people could only pray 5 times a day.  It was established that most people could not commune with God for a longer period of time, and five was the number that a human being could handle in a day.  I also give a great deal of thought to why, under budhism, both joy and sadness can hamper our perception of the way.

It is the literal truth of religious texts that I think causes the most social problems.  If we could only find the truth as it is, and how it relates to our life, I think we would be less concerned with having someone agree with us verbatim, and more concerned with our own roles in the world.

I am pro-choice but I believe the issue has been confused by an argument over what life is.  Most people involved in the debate would never give a second thought to the definition of life if it were not for abortion.  Throw out questions such as, is a virus alive?  Would proto-celled material be a live?  Could a computer or robot be alive?  Usually (in my experience) responses will be from ‘what difference does it make’ to simply ‘no idea’.  Sometimes a person has given it more thought, but I find it to be a rare occurrence.

The main complaint I have over the debate is it muddies the water.  Abortion is the symptom of an underlying problem in society.  If we prevented undesired pregnancies in the first place, the issue of abortion would be mute (it would still occur probably but at an insignificant rate for most people).  If both parties would work more on prevention, spend as much money on prevention, I believe the problem would already be solved.

I personally can accept that at some time, before birth the fetus should be considered alive.  However, not at the moment of conception.  Near 90% of all fertilized eggs fail to develop to term.  Usually this goes totally unnoticed as the egg fails to attach to the uterine lining.  Second most often the egg is not symmetrical and fails to develop into a viable fetus.  The symmetry of an unfertilized egg is the most important part to a child coming to term, not merely being fertilized.  Also, in a purely natural regard (a step away from as God intended), many more children would die before birth.  One reason for such high childbirth rates earlier in our nations history was because 1 in 4 would die before the age of 5 (another would be in farming communities where children were a source of labor).  Clearly the death of a fetus is not so far outside the norm as to be greatly impacted by abortion rates.

I would lend a lot more credence to pro-life arguments, if they focused on some period of time where the fetus should be protected from abortion (outside of special circumstances such as the mothers death), then having the most outspoken members of the prolife groups suggesting that birth control and morning after pills are also forms of abortion.  This ties into my beliefs on stem cell research, if permitted I highly doubt they would ever abort intentionally to get stem cells.  It would be far easier to grow them in petri dishes.  It could even be possible to select eggs that would never have the potential for creating a child to produce the stem cells.  To me that is no more alive than flakes of my skin.  Flakes of skin have a chance at creating life, albeit not without the aid of science and technology.  Yet the same would hold true to numerous children being born today, they could not do so without the aid of science.  And again, we could select only eggs that have less chance of producing a child, than random genetic information taken from my hair by cloning.