lovehatethings

Is the 3D experience really any better than the 2D - hell no! Sure it's different, but if 3D was the "shit", why they hell wouldn't all films go there? At one point the 3D film was a fad, and a production company could bank on a certain percentage of box office just because the film was in 3D. Now it's de rigeur. And your brain may get tricked for the first five minutes into believing that Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Pancakes is really a blast of syrupy goodness, but your brain quickly works out the effect and soon it's pretty much nullified.

There is only one reason to push the 3D experiment to redundancy in film and soon in television: piracy. While 3D certainly won't stop piracy, it may give pause to a certain percentage of the movie-going public that want to have the full experience of seeing a film. I know this is going to sound ironic because if someone wanted a full "film experience" why would they download a pirated copy anyway? Quite simply the growth of the home television screen, and the balance of having to deal with the general idiocy of the public, starts to balance out the fan that is willing to watch the leaked DVD screener of a new film versus going to see a 2D version of it.

If, however, you've convinced yourself that the film just HAS to be seen in 3D, you're pretty much SOL in terms of a pirated copy you can watch on your home system. The movie industry is moving towards 3D not out of any artistic sensibility, but instead out of plain protectionism. And I suppose I don't blame them, but they are sticking themselves between the Scylla and Charybdis. They know that if they release a film ONLY in 3D, box office will suffer. On the other hand, if they release a 2D version, the odds of piracy go way up.

If you've somehow convinced yourself that 3D is truly a better experience than 2D, you've been led astray. I'm not saying it's worse; I'm just saying it's different. Your brain does an amazing job of filling in the gaps and your imagination will overcome flaws in production, environment and often even direction. There are plenty of people in this world who still own black and white televisions or whose color TVs have 14 inch screens. Are they necessarily missing out on an "ideal" experience? Can't I enjoy content whether on my iPod screen or my 67" LCD DLP?

We've forsaken music and still claim to enjoy it. We used to listen to scratchy ceramic cones with no fidelity and eventually grew through vinyl, 8 track, cassette, and compact disc to a level of fidelity that became consistently better and clearer. Yet now we choose 128kb mp3 files that sound like crap compared to a CD or wav file because it sounds "good enough". It's the same reason some people have no trouble downloading films, because to watch even an inferior copy is "good enough". And it's the reason that 3D is really unnecessary from an artistic perspective as the mind's eye can create far richer and vaster conceptions that ever a pair of 3D glasses will be able to construct.

When will Hollywood realize that content is king? When will the focus be put back onto plot and character development with original dialog and concepts that weren't even dated to Shakespeare? I'd rather watch The Godfather on a Casio Wristwatch than watch My Bloody Valentine 3D in an IMAX arena. You don't remember a 3D film or 2D film any differently. Sure you may recall a "cool" scene or two, but is that what a director should be going for - to shock you out of your disbelief for the purposes of thinking "dude that was cool". I loved the film Up, but I don't think back on it in 3D. I simply think back to the story.

If 3D doesn't really add another dimension to films, and does little to improve my memory of them, I suppose the only real value is negative in the cost of an extra 3Dollars out of my pocket to get plastic Chinese factory glasses so that I look like Buddy Holly or Elvis Costello - what a DDDeal!

“Madness is badness of spirit, when one seeks profit from all sources” - Aristotle

For the past week the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission has been listening to ISPs press for the ability to regulate internet bandwidth based on their ability to soak every last penny from end users/customers across Canada. While I understand that the minutae of such hearings in an Ottawa committee room may not be of tremendous interest to anyone outside of Canada then I would urge you to reconsider. These considerations are not just national because the money that is backing much of the anti-net neutrality debate is coming from multi-national music and film conglomorates that don't only seek to enact such restrictions in Canada, but world-wide.

The end run of film and music lobby groups is in no small part responsible for a press to throttle the internet. If ISPs are allowed to eliminate your computer's throughput because you're downloading a video or music file using a bit torrent protocol, the hope, on the part of the studios is that you'll eventually stop doing it. But what about legal files shared through bit torrent technology? If I had a CD or independent film to offer up for free (or pay-what-you-want), the bit torrent protocol would likely be the only way I could afford to pursue such a practice, yet ISPs and studios want to shut it all down.

If there's one thing I've learned over more than 20 years of 300 baud dialups to BBSs to highspeed surfing through social networks, recommendation engines, and news aggregators, it's that the net is REALLY good at self-regulating. I'm not denying the illegal activities that go on with file-sharing, but where were all of these lawsuits against people making mixtapes 25 years ago?

Data are clusters of ones and zeros having no more or less intrinsic value than an ascii text string. To assume by the method which I choose to acquire data, that somehow it's automatically illegal, is idiotic. It analogous to saying that, because speed boats are used more often than canoes to smuggle cocaine, anyone who uses a speedboat can go no faster than those in the canoe or they must be cocaine smugglers.

I pay for high speed internet. Let's repeat that: I PAY FOR HIGH SPEED INTERNET!

I don't pay for high speed web page surfing or Youtube watching or email sending or podcast listening. I pay for bandwidth. I pay the same amount as anyone else pays with my provider. They have every right to use their bandwidth to its fullest potential. To imply that my downloading habits adversely affect someone who is choosing to use even less doesn't make sense. My basic cable and telephone subscription packages are a flat rate no matter how much I use them. Does this mean that if I watch less television, I should get a rebate? Should get a cut rate telephone bill if make only half the calls that my neighbour does while on the same package? To sell an upload/download speed and then throttle back the advertised speed I purchased, without telling me when or why, is an unfair business practice that is probably actionable... though I am far too lazy to hire a lawyer.

To put it in a completely exaggerated way, ISPs are participating in their own form of Neo-McCarthyism. It's like the great "Red" scare: "Have you downloaded or watched, or have you consorted with anyone who has downloaded an illegal copy of a Harry Potter film?" If we allow ISPs and media conglomorates decide that it's okay to punish those who use a TYPE of program they don't like, what's next: The Great Throttlewall of Canada?

Fight for your right to an open internet. And if anyone has the gumption to start up a class-action lawsuit for ISPs throttling my bandwidth without telling me, I'll sign up.