Last week I remembered an odd David Mamet remark, a throwaway line from a book of essays...




where he referred to America's true religious holidays "...the Superbowl, and the Academy Awards..."

...and this is the first year I had any sort of investment in each.

*This year's Superbowl featured my hometown team the Seattle Seahawks. They lost.

*In this year's 78th Annual Academy Awards, the category of Best Animated Feature includes nominee The Curse of the Were Rabbit

Aardman Studios co-founder Peter Lord, pictured below, honored us with a visit at our Culver City Creature Comforts USA office while he's in town to attend the Oscars.

While we hope tomorrow night he'll have an opportunity to accept one of these...




We didn't miss the opportunity to present him with our own uniquely-American special award. One of these...




I predict The Curse of the Were Rabbit will win.  

I've accepted a job writing for television, and will be living between Los Angles and Seattle for the next several months. Your TV will never be the same. Wish me luck.






CBS OK's First Animated Series in 13 Years
February 03, 2006
By Nellie Andreeva

CBS has greenlighted its first animated series in 13 years, "Creature Comforts," a U.S. version of the hit British stop-motion animated TV series.

The project hails from Aardman Animations, the creative force behind the Oscar-nominated animated feature "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" and boxoffice hit "Chicken Run."

CBS has ordered seven half-hour episodes of the project for midseason 2006-07.

" 'Creature Comforts' is a hit in the U.K. -- it's fun, distinct and unlike anything on TV right now," CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said. "We look forward to developing an American version that captures the same unique sensibilities that made it so popular overseas."

"Creature" has enjoyed great commercial and critical success in the U.K. since it launched on ITV1 in 2003 as a series of 10-minute segments. The show is based on Nick Park's 1989 Oscar-winning short film of the same name, which was co-produced by Aardman, which also spawned a series of popular TV commercials.

Aardman will produce the half-hour stop-motion animated series in Los Angeles and at its Bristol, England, studios.

"We're thrilled to be exploring the American cultural viewpoint, a concept that we've mined to popular comedic effect in the U.K.," said Miles Bullough, Aardman's head of broadcast and development.

In "Comforts," excerpts from real-person interviews are placed in the mouths of a variety of animated animals who end up "discussing" different subjects on the show.

The CBS series will be exec produced by Kit Boss (Fox's "King of the Hill"), Miles Bullough, the Gotham Group's Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Aardman's Nick Park, David Sproxton and Peter Lord.

Richard Goleszowski, the director of the U.K. version of "Creature Comforts," also will serve as supervising director of the American version.

"As a long-time fan of Aardman's work, I'm painfully aware that no matter what I say, it would be funnier coming out of the mouth of a plasticine dog with an overbite," Boss said. "I'm thrilled to be given the chance to bring (Aardman's) creatures across the Atlantic and help them to speak American."

"Creature Comforts" recently was awarded the Rose d'Or for best comedy and the Cristal Award for best TV production at the Annecy Animation Festival, as well as the Audience Award at the New York International Children's Film Festival.

CBS had little success with its two previous animation series attempts. "Fish Police" and "Family Dog" both ran for several weeks before being canceled in midseason 1992 and summer 1993, respectively.

Boss is repped by WMA; Aardman's deal with CBS was brokered by Endeavor

my new employer ¬† 

From the New York Times
 

"The Museum of Modern Art has mounted the largest, most object-oriented exhibition in its history devoted to film: a show about the runaway phenomenon of digital animation. Well, some digital animation. O.K., the digital animation of one hugely successful, pioneering company, the Pixar Animation Studios. Since its founding in 1986 by John Lasseter, who remains its creative chief, Pixar has brought forth such visually memorable if fluffy concoctions as "Toy Story" and its sequel, "Finding Nemo," "A Bug's Life," "The Incredibles" and "Monsters, Inc.," perhaps its masterpiece..." 

 

full article by ROBERTA SMITH here  

 

 

Sex, Jealousy & Violence ‚Ä®A Skeptical Look at Evolutionary Psychology 

 

from Skeptic Magazine  

 

 

Here's an item sent to me by Robert Holguin, a TV Reporter in El Paso, Texas. Like me, he'd read the book "The Evolution of Desire: Strategies for Human Mating by David M. Bus, and found it instructive. Evolutionary Psychology is not without its controversies and critics. Since its publication its Bus's findings have been challenged from several fronts. Though some of its critics are missing the point, or have a contrary agenda to peddle, overall, I think its a healthy debate. This article (thought I've not read all of it yet) appears to challenge the methodology, questions the statistics. Looks like a worthwhile read.

Robert also sent me this. Looks like they're building the Virgin Atlantic project in his backyard. Space tourism. I wish I could afford it, I'd be onboard, who wouldn't? I told him that as a representative of local broadcast media, they should offer to take him for a ride so he can report on it.

 

Business Week has a list of the Top 40 Best Products of 2005

Anything on this list you want to ask Santa for?

I don't know much about cars, but this one looks pretty cool to me.


 

 

Almost since its founding in 1976, Apple Computer has enjoyed a prominence out of all proportion to its rather modest share of the personal computer market. That prominence can be measured by the attention lavished on the company's every move as well as every attempt to analyse its strategy and tactics. 

Consider the uproar from Macintosh purists when Apple launched its brief attempt to license its operating system to other hardware companies. When Apple reversed course and opted to keep its operating system to itself, another camp bellowed just as loudly. 

Whenever a journalist suggests that Apple might be something less than the most perfect organisation in recorded history, the poor sap is deluged with emails and phone calls from self-appointed "Mac Marines." 

The general perception of Apple as an exceptional entity rather than a profit-making enterprise is no accident. Apple's leaders have assiduously cultivated the image of a corporation that is hip, stylish, humane: the maker of "the computer for the rest of us," the company whose epochal 1984 advertisement promised a machine that would liberate humankind from the tyranny of large, impersonal computer companies. 

The effort has paid off handsomely. Despite some hooting and hollering on weblogs, the majority of the business press and the buying public don't seem to object when Apple, say, takes legal action against some of the biggest fans of its products. When Microsoft, for example, is accused of bullying its customers and rivals, or reverses itself in public, it's criticised in the mainstream press, flamed on online tech forums such as Slashdot, and sometimes even sued by usually laissez-faire antitrust enforcers. 

Similar accusations regarding Apple are ignored, minimised, or laughed off, while the company's earnings soar past Wall Street's expectations and iPods fly off the shelves at a rate of more than 6 million per quarter. It's as if the entire company has ingested some magical elixir that immunises it against bad publicity. Envious CEOs can only ask, "Where can I get some of that stuff?" 

Consider the reaction to the shorter-than-expected battery life that plagued some early iPods. Forrester research notes that a mere 12 per cent of iPod owners aren't satisfied with the device's battery life. Or consider the reaction of iTunes customers when RealNetworks launched a rival service. Did customers flee to Real, which offered them the freedom to use a wide array of music players? No. They stayed with Apple and its market-leading iPod/iTunes combo, even celebrating their captivity (iTunes is built to connect only with iPods). "I already had my choice, I chose Apple, I chose iPod, and I chose iTunes," said one post on a message board set up by RealNetworks. 

Such sentiments are the mark of a true believer in the Apple story. Harvard Business School Professor David Yoffe points out that Apple's long-standing image - a valiant David who outwits the various Goliaths of the computer industry - persists even though the company controls about 80 per cent of the legal downloadable music market and about 75 per cent of the market for MP3 players. 

Apple's success can be boiled down to five simple rules that apply not just to Apple but to other companies as well. The rules aren't foolproof (for one thing, they tend to work better when Steve Jobs is running the company), but they may be useful to other CEOs who want to place their companies outside the mainstream‚Äîand out of the range of critics. Of course, your products had better be as good as Apple's too. 

1. Excellence trumps everything 

Forrester analyst Ted Schadler has a two-word explanation for Apple's hard-to-dent public image: "Great products." 

Much of the credit goes to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, says Donald Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group and former head of Apple's Advanced Technology Group: "He has always had great product taste." Even the occasional misbegotten computer, online service, or device - the Cube, for example, or the not-ready-for-prime- time Newton - only serves to reinforce the edginess that is a major element of the Apple brand identity. 

"Great designers will have great products and great failures,: Norman says. "Otherwise, they're not trying hard enough." If you want your company to mimic Apple's success, you really do have to think different(ly). Part of that is being willing to move on‚Äîfrom either a failure or a success. The Mini was the best-selling entry in the iPod line, but instead of letting the new Nano stand alongside it, Apple close to replace it. "We decided to burn the boats and go for it," Greg Joswiak, Cupertino's vice-president of worldwide product marketing for iPod, said at the Forrester Consumer Forum in New York. 

2. Decide on your story, then stick to it 

Apple's corporate narrative has key elements that resonate with consumers - and, just as important, with business journalists who need a way to dramatise the competition they cover. "People like an underdog," says Forrester's Schadler. To judge by the durability of that meme, Apple's famed "1984" advertisement may be the most effective commercial ever made. Apple paid to air it only once, during the 1984 Super Bowl broadcast. But thanks to repeated free rebroadcasts in news shows and documentaries, the "1984" ad succeeded in implanting in the business press the image of Apple as the fearless upstart fomenting revolution against the gray overlords. 

The continuing appeal of that story was on vivid display at the D: All Things Digital conference in June. Sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, D annually features sometimes confrontational interviews with moguls such as Bill Gates and Barry Diller, onstage before an audience consisting mainly of computer executives. At the 2005 session, the PC industry's top players faced tough questions from Journal staff members and the audience about marketing misfires, missed forecasts, and product shortcomings. But the rules changed when Apple CEO Jobs was in the spotlight. 

The first audience question Jobs faced had nothing to do with Apple's tie-up with Intel‚Äîthen at the rumor stage‚Äîor the company's then-recent decision to seek a restraining order against the Think Secret website, run by Apple √ºber fan Nicholas Ciarelli, to prevent it from reporting on Apple's internal deliberations and pending products. 

No, the first audience question was a solicitous inquiry into the health of Jobs, who underwent surgery in 2004 to treat pancreatic cancer. For his part, Journal technology writer Walter Mossberg, who flung high hard ones at other guests, was noticeably more gentle in his treatment of Jobs, throwing hanging curves, if not softballs. 

Since the "1984" ad, Apple consistently has claimed to be a different kind of company. Repetition pays. Judging from Jobs' reception at D, Apple's narrative of difference has firmly established itself in the minds of the press. Say what you are. Stick to it, again and again. 

3. Choose your friends well 

Part of Apple's brand identity derives not from the products themselves but from the people associated with them. Sounds elementary, but few marketers are as aggressive or audacious as Apple in claiming kinship with the celebrated. 

The list of famous Apple fans ranges from U2 front man Bono, who recently told an interviewer that the iPod is "the most beautiful object art in the music world since the electric guitar," to the makers of Sex and the City, who frequently showed the show's star clicking away on her iBook. Such endorsements are fervent, but they're a fairly ordinary gambit in the corporate image-making playbook. What's unusual to the point of singularity is Apple's chutzpah in claiming the imprimatur of notables who died before the PC existed. The "Think Different" ad campaign enabled Apple to shelter under the penumbrae cast by maverick geniuses such as Einstein and Gandhi. 

4. Choose your enemies better 

Apple has always been lucky, or smart, in its choice of enemies. The company unveiled the first Macintosh during the peak of IBM's dominance of the computer market, and its implicit portrayal of Big Blue as a tyrant convinced many individual computer buyers (though not the corporate ones). 

Likewise, in the mid-1990s, when US and European antitrust regulators were circling around Microsoft, Apple's supposed corporate attributes stood out in relief. In the context of the accusations that landed Microsoft in antitrust court, Apple's 2.5 per cent market share looked less like a sign of weakness and more like an emblem of virtue. 

5. Let your allies play bad cop 

Apple rarely bashes its competitors directly, not even Microsoft - at least not since 1997, when the Redmond, Washington, giant bought a $US150 million ($A199 million) stake in Apple and announced it would continue to develop software for the Macintosh. Why bother to attack when surrogates can do it so much more effectively? 

Although he recently bowed to commercial pressure and signed a deal with Microsoft, Sun Computer CEO Scott McNealy, a longtime Apple booster, has been cracking on Microsoft in general and Bill Gates in particular for the better part of two decades. As late as 2002 he was quipping that he couldn't retire and "leave my kid to a world of Control-Alt-Delete." Such remarks plait neatly into the narrative of Apple as a force of liberation. No need to mention Apple directly. Apple can be everything Microsoft is not, without ever explicitly claiming a difference. Show, don't tell. Let others tell. Such a strategy also keeps bad blood to a minimum, making it easier to align with Microsoft when it suits Apple's and Microsoft's strategies. 

Steve Jobs is a legendary salesperson. His ability to persuade people of, well, anything, as long as they're in his presence, even has a name: "the reality distortion field," a science- fiction term borrowed by original Macintosh OS developer Bud Tribble. Jobs and Apple's other marketers have applied their skills to pitch the Macintosh and the iPod. 

Their most effective marketing, however, may not be on behalf of a particular product but, rather, a brand. Apple has created a special place for itself in the public mind. By studying how Apple has done so, CEOs can learn a lot about the power of great design, and even more about the power of a great story. 

The 2.5 Percent Solution: Why bigger isn't necessarily better for Apple 

Hard as it is to believe today, when Apple Computer's Macintosh line clings to a mere 2.5 per cent share of PC sales, Apple machines once challenged for dominance of the PC market. In 1981, IBM PCs and clones held 2.5 per cent of the market; the Apple II, 15 per cent; the Atari 400/800s, 21 per cent; and the Radio Shack TRS-80, 18 per cent. 

Fortunately for Apple, those heady days are long gone. Mac fanciers still rue the strategic missteps by Apple's management that resulted in the rise of the Microsoft-Intel alliance and the decline of the Macintosh as a serious competitor in the corporate computing market. 

But as executives at Microsoft can attest, perceived monopoly control over the PC business isn't without its headaches. The 2001 settlement with the US Justice Department required few changes to Microsoft's basic business model, and Windows-based machines are still the PCs of choice around the world. But those machines are the prime target for viruses, worms, and other malware precisely because Windows is in such wide use. Apple machines, in contrast, have been the target of only one high-profile malicious program in more than 20 years. 

Larger market share could make the Macintosh a more attractive target to the bad guys. Besides, a 2.5 percent market share helps Apple maintain its image as the lovable upstart battling the monolith, which comes in rather handy now that Apple controls about 75 per cent of the U.S. market for MP3 players. And that share is growing. 

Harris Collingwood is an executive editor of Forrester Magazine, a publication of Forrester Research, where this article was first published. It is reprinted with permission; copyright rests with the author. 

This article isn't as good as I hoped it would be, but it does illuminate certain things about a brand of computer that gets far more attention than it should, considering it's tiny share of the market. I'd stop at rule #1, because without it, everything else doesn't matter.

The five rules of cool
By Harris Collingwood

December 13, 2005 - 12:00AM 

 

Almost since its founding in 1976, Apple Computer has enjoyed a prominence out of all proportion to its rather modest share of the personal computer market. That prominence can be measured by the attention lavished on the company's every move as well as every attempt to analyse its strategy and tactics. 

 

Consider the uproar from Macintosh purists when Apple launched its brief attempt to license its operating system to other hardware companies. When Apple reversed course and opted to keep its operating system to itself, another camp bellowed just as loudly. 

 

Whenever a journalist suggests that Apple might be something less than the most perfect organisation in recorded history, the poor sap is deluged with emails and phone calls from self-appointed "Mac Marines." 

 

note: the "Mac Marines" line made me laugh, but really, who are these annoying people? Why do these "self-appointed" morons feel compelled to display blind loyalty? Then get militant or infantile about it? These are the nuts who amplify Apple's "Cult" image, which hurts more than helps. This must drive columnists crazy, always having to qualify analysis or criticism by adding "mac fantatics, please don't bomb my inbox". We could all do without supporters like these, it's not a church, it's not a tribe, it's not a special club, it's a consumer product, okay? Subject to market forces, tastes, attitudes, and criticism--fair or unfair--just like any other product.  

--MD 

The general perception of Apple as an exceptional entity rather than a profit-making enterprise is no accident. Apple's leaders have assiduously cultivated the image of a corporation that is hip, stylish, humane: the maker of "the computer for the rest of us," the company whose epochal 1984 advertisement promised a machine that would liberate humankind from the tyranny of large, impersonal computer companies. 

 

The effort has paid off handsomely. Despite some hooting and hollering on weblogs, the majority of the business press and the buying public don't seem to object when Apple, say, takes legal action against some of the biggest fans of its products. When Microsoft, for example, is accused of bullying its customers and rivals, or reverses itself in public, it's criticised in the mainstream press, flamed on online tech forums such as Slashdot, and sometimes even sued by usually laissez-faire antitrust enforcers. 

 

Similar accusations regarding Apple are ignored, minimised, or laughed off, while the company's earnings soar past Wall Street's expectations and iPods fly off the shelves at a rate of more than 6 million per quarter. It's as if the entire company has ingested some magical elixir that immunises it against bad publicity. Envious CEOs can only ask, "Where can I get some of that stuff?" 

 

Consider the reaction to the shorter-than-expected battery life that plagued some early iPods. Forrester research notes that a mere 12 per cent of iPod owners aren't satisfied with the device's battery life. Or consider the reaction of iTunes customers when RealNetworks launched a rival service. Did customers flee to Real, which offered them the freedom to use a wide array of music players? No. They stayed with Apple and its market-leading iPod/iTunes combo, even celebrating their captivity (iTunes is built to connect only with iPods). "I already had my choice, I chose Apple, I chose iPod, and I chose iTunes," said one post on a message board set up by RealNetworks. 

 

Such sentiments are the mark of a true believer in the Apple story. Harvard Business School Professor David Yoffe points out that Apple's long-standing image - a valiant David who outwits the various Goliaths of the computer industry - persists even though the company controls about 80 per cent of the legal downloadable music market and about 75 per cent of the market for MP3 players. 

 

Apple's success can be boiled down to five simple rules that apply not just to Apple but to other companies as well. The rules aren't foolproof (for one thing, they tend to work better when Steve Jobs is running the company), but they may be useful to other CEOs who want to place their companies outside the mainstream‚Äîand out of the range of critics. Of course, your products had better be as good as Apple's too. 

 

1. Excellence trumps everything 

 

Forrester analyst Ted Schadler has a two-word explanation for Apple's hard-to-dent public image: "Great products." 

 

Much of the credit goes to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, says Donald Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group and former head of Apple's Advanced Technology Group: "He has always had great product taste." Even the occasional misbegotten computer, online service, or device - the Cube, for example, or the not-ready-for-prime- time Newton - only serves to reinforce the edginess that is a major element of the Apple brand identity. 

 

"Great designers will have great products and great failures,: Norman says. "Otherwise, they're not trying hard enough." If you want your company to mimic Apple's success, you really do have to think different(ly). Part of that is being willing to move on‚Äîfrom either a failure or a success. The Mini was the best-selling entry in the iPod line, but instead of letting the new Nano stand alongside it, Apple close to replace it. "We decided to burn the boats and go for it," Greg Joswiak, Cupertino's vice-president of worldwide product marketing for iPod, said at the Forrester Consumer Forum in New York. 

 

2. Decide on your story, then stick to it 

 

Apple's corporate narrative has key elements that resonate with consumers - and, just as important, with business journalists who need a way to dramatise the competition they cover. "People like an underdog," says Forrester's Schadler. To judge by the durability of that meme, Apple's famed "1984" advertisement may be the most effective commercial ever made. Apple paid to air it only once, during the 1984 Super Bowl broadcast. But thanks to repeated free rebroadcasts in news shows and documentaries, the "1984" ad succeeded in implanting in the business press the image of Apple as the fearless upstart fomenting revolution against the gray overlords. 

 

The continuing appeal of that story was on vivid display at the D: All Things Digital conference in June. Sponsored by The Wall Street Journal, D annually features sometimes confrontational interviews with moguls such as Bill Gates and Barry Diller, onstage before an audience consisting mainly of computer executives. At the 2005 session, the PC industry's top players faced tough questions from Journal staff members and the audience about marketing misfires, missed forecasts, and product shortcomings. But the rules changed when Apple CEO Jobs was in the spotlight. 

 

The first audience question Jobs faced had nothing to do with Apple's tie-up with Intel‚Äîthen at the rumor stage‚Äîor the company's then-recent decision to seek a restraining order against the Think Secret website, run by Apple √ºber fan Nicholas Ciarelli, to prevent it from reporting on Apple's internal deliberations and pending products. 

 

No, the first audience question was a solicitous inquiry into the health of Jobs, who underwent surgery in 2004 to treat pancreatic cancer. For his part, Journal technology writer Walter Mossberg, who flung high hard ones at other guests, was noticeably more gentle in his treatment of Jobs, throwing hanging curves, if not softballs. 

 

Since the "1984" ad, Apple consistently has claimed to be a different kind of company. Repetition pays. Judging from Jobs' reception at D, Apple's narrative of difference has firmly established itself in the minds of the press. Say what you are. Stick to it, again and again... 

 

the full article can be found here: 

 

From MediaBistro


 

Newsarama reports that the United States Postal Service will be issuing a set of commemorative DC Comics stamps sometime in the summer of 2006. The 20-stamp sheet will include portraits of ten superheroes, ranging from the Big Three (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman) to slightly less iconic (but no less beloved among the true believers) heroes such as Plastic Man and Aquaman (left), followed by ten mini-replicas of covers of some of their most famous comics. Fanboys will now argue on message boards across the nation about why the Flash cover is for "Invasion of the Cloud Creatures" rather than "Flash of Two Worlds." 

The artwork for the protraits offers an excellent cross-section of superhero comics history, from Jack Kirby's Green Arrow through a Curt Swan Superman and Neal Adams Green Lantern up to a Batman by one of today's hottest artists, Jim Lee. 

The current issue of Art News Online asks a relevant question: 

 

Why Have There Been No Great Women Comic-Book Artists? ‚Ä®With a dual-venue exhibition in Los Angeles, comics by masters such as Winsor McCay, Chris Ware, and Charles Schulz have been elevated from pop culture to fine art. But as these artists receive their due, the show has sparked debate over the rightful place of women in the comic canon... 

 

"...The appeal of ‚Äúmale‚Äù comics to women‚Äîand of ‚Äúwomen‚Äôs‚Äù comics to male readers‚Äîwas limited until the genre began to evolve beyond such distinctions, becoming more narrative and more focused on recognizable realities and emotions than on fantasies about spaceships and superheroes. It is a nice irony that Crumb, whose pneumatic women and lascivious hippies have been called misogynistic, may have inspired more women to enter the field. The ranks of well-known comic artists now include such women as Lynda Barry (One Hundred Demons and other graphic novels), Gregory (‚ÄúNaughty Bits‚Äù), Marisa Acocella (‚ÄúCancer Vixen‚Äù), Sue Coe (a former contributor to Spiegelman‚Äôs RAW) and Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who coauthored, with her husband R. Crumb, Dirty Laundry, about the travails of modern cohabitation. ‚Ä®‚Ä®There are so many women now in the field that the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MOCCA) in New York will mount an all-female exhibition called ‚ÄúShe Draws Comics,‚Äù running from May through September 2006..." 

‚Ä®
Roz Chast’s Five Minutes to Deadline, watercolor and pen on paper, 2002.
JULIE SAUL GALLERY, NEW YORK 

 

While I've neglected writing here for a while, my virtual colleagues have been writing up a storm. As a substitute for original entries here, I'll promote some of their new material instead.

Over at Ethical Software, my new favorite site, Alex has added lots of new stuff. A good place to start is How to Beat the Web Anxiety Blues. But don't stop there. Read more. It's amazing to see this new site unfold.

Burchismo also has an unexpected burst of fresh writing, among the best is this item.

I can take credit for nothing about this site except for having suggested the name for it, and having the name stick. (fair enough, because the name of mine was chosen indirectly by someone else, too, it might even have been Mr. Burch who originally coined the term dougonics) Here's a section of his post that got my attention, because I found that it directly relates--in a way he might not have realized--to the art of cartooning.

Seeing Faces. Primates have evolved both increasingly sophisticated gestural and facial expression signalling and the neural capacity to perceive and interpret that signalling, all as part of their social nature. As a result, there is the well-documented natural tendency of primates (most especially humans) to see faces in just about everything. Thus the "face of Jesus in an oil slick" or "man in the moon" phenomenon.

This is at the core of how we immediately recognize and embrace cartoon characters. We accept, without thought, or question, the simplest assembly of scribbled lines as a 'face". If these lines follow a few simple rules, we not only accept it, we have affection for it. The rule is (and this has been explained better elsewhere, probably by Scott McCloud) that baby-like features provoke a predictable response. Mainly that the head is abnormally large in relation to the body.




The Rule: we feel an involuntary empathic, protective, or affectionate sensation when we see the face of an infant, or a child, whether it's a mammal, a human, or a representation, a drawing or photograph of a baby mammal or human. Or in this case, a cartoon. It's even been suggested that the protection and survival of immature creatures is guaranteed by this evolutionary trick. Having an adorable face on a small body with a big head isn't just an advantage for getting more affection or extra candy, it's a key to getting the fundamental care required to survive into adulthood. As mature mammals, we have this automatic, hard-wired impulse, we want to love and protect it, we can't help it.

A mild version of this predictable care-and-affection response can be invoked representationally with three dots and one curved line inside a circle. That's the dirty little secret cartoonists don't want you to know. We don't have to do much work at all. With the minimal visual information, the viewer, not the cartoonist, creates the picture. The simpler the features, the more predictable the response is. It's not surprising that the most beloved cartoon characters have also been the ones that--either intentionally, or unintentionally--obey this rule.

Which begs the question: How do primates respond when presented with elementary cartoon images that obey this rule? I'm sure somebody has tried this. I'd be curious to know how gorillas and chimpanzees--if they do at all--respond to simple drawings of faces.

My observation focuses on one tiny, narrow part of the essay, it doesn't even touch on the larger themes discussed, I recommend reading the full item.

Speaking of Searching for meaning and finding God, I'd also like to again promote this book, which I'm reading (an advance copy of) now, it's killer. When it hits bookstores this February, it will rock the world.




I'd also like to take this opportunity to cross-pollinate. In a more recent post, Burchismo poses a software-related question, I recommend a good place to look would be over here, at Ethical Software, if Alex doesn't know the answer, nobody does. These two guys should read each other's stuff. Besides having more in common than they realize, they're two of the most interesting thinkers I know. Plus, their inspired burst of new material has given me an excuse to goof off, and direct visitors to their new stuff.  

Why the vague title? From past experience I've found that putting the name of this product in the title is guaranteed to draw an unbelievable amount of unwanted traffic to this site. It's a console game machine. It's made by Microsoft. My wife works in that division at MS, so we got one for free last week, the day they came out. I haven't had time to set it up yet, but I look forward to taking it for a spin. I've not been following the development of this box as closely as true gamers (I'm a console player only when I have a broken leg, am stuck on the counch, and literally can't do anything else) but I have been watching with great interest the sheer power of what's inside the box. For under $500, with its multi-core IBM G5 processor, it's arguably the fastest graphics-rendering entertainment machine on the planet. The video card alone has more speed and power than most desktop computer systems did five years ago. This monster is twice as fast as any computer in our house, and both of our cars put together. And it's not even hooked up yet.

On the downside, there's not many games available for it yet. The only game I've ever really embraced is Halo, the most popular, best-selling game on the previous edition of this multi-billion dollar game console undertaking. This one doesn't yet have a 'killer game' associated with it yet. From asking around, I understand the closest thing is Call of Duty 2, a WW2 game, which I plan to try sometime in early 2006. In the meantime, it's tempting to take this thing apart, just to look at what's inside. Fortunately, I don't have to. These guys have done it for us.




In other gadget news, I also recently got the new iPod. (my wife works at Microsoft, I work part-time at Apple, it's not surprising that in our spare time we're running a home laboratory for cool new multimedia gadgets, it's an occupational hazard)The one that plays video. Sure enough, the experience of watching video on that tiny screen is far better than I expected. Like most people, I thought "who on earth would want to watch a movie on a screen that small?" As I discovered, this misses the point. For two reasons.

One, it's not movies that will ultimately be the entertainment of choice on this device, I suspect an entirely new kind of content will emerge, one that's tailor made for this emerging medium, something that's not quite a movie, not quite a TV show, and not quite news, not as we know it now. Podcasts are a tentative experiment in the direction. It's still an immature medium, but I'll be interested to see how it develops. And with iPods selling in the millions (enriching stockholders in the process, as well as creating a whole new market for the makers of iPod accessories) we can be certain that the medium will continue to develop.

And two, even feature-length Hollywood movies are more engrossing on this small, thin, portable device than I expected, for a reason I never would have considered. A lot of what makes watching a movie a real cinematic experience isn't the picture at all. It's the sound. The best movies have great sound design. On a normal TV, unless you have a surround-sound Home Theater, most of this is richness and detail is completely missed. We rarely get the full benefit of movie sound and soundtracks are unless we're viewing them on a system that can deliver it. Watching a big-budget Hollywood on a 50" wide-screen $5000 Plasma TV with mediocre sound, I'd argue, is a less engrossing experience than watching the same movie on a teeny tiny $299-$399 screen with rich, full, finely-detailed sound. The kind of sound an iPod is designed to deliver. I know it sounds strange, but that's my impression so far.
 

My friend Alex Bunardzic (pictured here on the right) is a professional guitarist and an amateur software developer. Or is it the other way around? ...has started his own blog. I discovered this indirectly when he sent me this article and engaged me in a discussion about it. In the midst of this discussion, his secret was revealed. He started blogging this year. Welcome Alex!




Besides being a musician, developer, philosopher, humorist, and all-around-Renaissance man, he's also reported to be a damn fine baker.




I've enlisted him to teach me how to bake bread this winter. My wife Chizuko is on the left, in this photo, taken in the back yard of Alex's house in Vancouver in the summer of '04.

Another blog I've added to my blogroll this season is FLOG, the Fantagraphics blog.

Some of you may have noticed I've had mail problems. Hopefully I corrected it over the weekend, if you tried to send me a message last week and didn't get a reply, that's why.

I set up a .mac account, lemonslice@mac.com but my normal mailbox michael@michaeldougan.com should be working now, too.

Below is a hand lotion we have in our home. I've been looking for an excuse to post this image for months, but I never did find one. The name is so appealing. I have no excuse. I just wanted to include it.




I've saved the best for last. The publisher of Robert Ferrigno's new book "Prayers for the Assassin" has a unique website in development,




Bookmark it now. Stay tuned for more.  

It's been a while since I've added anything new here (flying in a B-52 is hard to beat) this humor item caught my attention.
 

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We speculate that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Read the whole thing, it's funny. 

I'm back from Barksdale Air Force Base. I managed to get in and out of Lousiana between hurricanes, Rita hit the Gulf Coast the day after I returned to Seattle. NWAFA members weren't sent to New Orleans to document the relief effort, as originally planned. AFA members from other regions did, however, get assigned there. Some were in Florida, some were in Mississippi.

Where was I? Between 4:30 p.m and 10:15 p.m, September 20th I was with the 93rd Bomb Squadron, in one of a pair of B-52s during a routine training mission, doing simulated bombing runs over Kansas, followed by an in-flight refueling at 18,000 feet. I never thought I'd ever see the inside of a B-52, much less actually fly in one as a a civilian guest. It was an unlikely turn of events, and a fantastic experience.

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The weather, oddly enough, was perfect. (not counting the 100 degree weather, unusually hot for September) The late skies were clear, and the moon was nearly full. Before sunset, in the skies above southern Kansas, the pilots even took some time to maneuver into photogenic positions while I shot video and took snapshots, before turning around and heading back to the base. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity.
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Some of my photos here and here

info on the 93rd Bomb Squadron

info on the AFA  

ORGANIZATION 

Today, management of the USAF Art Program and collection is the responsibility of the Secretary of the Air Force, Office of the Administrative Assistant. The Air Force Art Program Office handles day-to-day administration of the program. The office is charged with responsibility for the Art Program. 

I'm heading to the Gulf Coast to participate in documenting the relief effort on behalf of the NW chapter of the AFA. The location we're going to first is Barksdale Air Force Base (at the very top of this map) just outside of Shreveport Louisiana, only 60 miles from my hometown in northeast Texas. The location we hope to be going to is at the bottom of the map, to the city of New Orleans, to observe and document Air Force activities in the aftermath of the hurricane.
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I don't know If I'll have a connection while I'm there, but I expect to able to post a few photos when I'm back at my desk, which should be by the end of the week.

The NWAFA is a new brach of the AFA. Most of the artists, myself included, are new members representing this region, the NW website is so new it's only partially online. In the meantime, the link to the main AFA site has a good summary of history of the organization.

In 1951, the Air Force sponsored a tour of USAF installations for 30 cartoonists, and in 1952 the Air Force sponsored 30 artists from the Society of Illustrators (New York). The concept of an official program, designed to record the Air Force story through the medium of art was born. Responsibility for the growing collection of donated art that would document the history of military aviation and the U.S. Air Force...