I liked that one. It's just that about halfway into the book you get this run of pieces on and interviews with producers and artists I've little interest in and who've completely disappeared ten, fifteen years later.I'm rereading the slow cancellation of the future.
Not sure about this analogy. It implies a focus group is made up of loads of crazy mavericks who, if left to their own devices, would each steer the ship in a totally random direction at an equally random speed, it is only by combining these creative geniuses together that they end up cancelling each other out and the ship travels steadily and boringly in the right direction.Which makes me think of Stan's rhetoric, which I like and I find illuminating in all sorts of ways
Imagine some kind of mechanical satellite drifting through space, and there are several dozen thrusters around its perimeter-sphere. Each one, individually, moves in a unique direction, quality, and exerts a certain force, quantity. And yet, these thrusters can be harmoniously programmed to steer the satellite - by having many adjacent thrusters activate simultaneously, their averaged direction is where the satellite moves. By activating a thruster that is aimed against that average direction, we can program for resistance of deceleration.
Has there ever been a good old days? I guess if you were an aristocrat or something then there might have been, but for the rest of us? He makes the point himself that the good old days always seem to be the ones you were just too young to be around for.