from the Failed Policies Department

October 01, 2014  /  Nathan Jongewaard

Hana Beshara helped operate a website that streamed "pirated" movies and TV shows. She was caught as part of a sting by the Department of Homeland Security. She went to federal prison for almost a year and a half. This and other arrests of similarly hardened criminals has stopped movie "piracy" in its tracks. Wait, um, no, not stopped...what's the phrase? Oh, yeah: had absolutely no effect on movie piracy whatsoever.

You can say, The law is the law and If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Except that the law has been written by giant media corporations and their lobbyists to protect their own decades-old business models. The history of entrepreneurship—particularly in the media industries—is essentially a story of one "illegal" assault on old technologies and outmoded business models after another, trademark wars, intellectual property "theft," and rampant bootlegging that then turned into, say, the motion picture business, or radio, or cable television, or the VCR. Funded Ivy-league prodigies become billionaires doing this. Less gilded kids go to federal prison.

 

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Rites of Passage

September 28, 2014  /  Nathan Jongewaard

"Detasseling work is usually performed by teens; as such, it serves as a typical rite of passage in rural areas of the Corn Belt of the Midwestern United States." 

The former home of the Capri V theater. Ottumwa, IA.

This is more like how I remember it. Fourth of July, 1997. Men in Black was on its way to $51 million. John "Magic" Thompson and I launched bottle rockets down Main Street from the roof. Fireworks later, across the river over Memorial Park.

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A Pitch for Terminator 6

July 25, 2014  /  Nathan Jongewaard

I don’t know what Terminator 5 is going to be about, of course, since it won’t be out for a year, but here’s what I think should happen in T6:

A Terminator is sent back in time to kill John Conner when he’s like, whatever, 30, or something. (I know, the world ended in T3. Big deal, it’s time travel, blah-blah-blah, magic.) Anywho, the robot succeeds, in the first ten minutes of the film. Bam, Conner’s dead, mission accomplished. (Bonus if this time the adult Conner is played by Edward Furlong.)

Now the Terminator has to adjust to just hanging around in the present with nothing to do. He has to “live his life.” So he does stuff, meets people, becomes a member of the community, goes to college, falls in love, whatever. Eventually, he develops empathy for human beings and comes to regret what he’s done.

So he puts himself in deep-freeze or something and waits for the rise of the machines, then he hops back in the time machine, goes back in time and stops himself from killing John Conner. The End.

You’re welcome, Terminator producers.

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tags / pitch, terminator, time travel, movies

Nobody Beats the Woz

June 30, 2014  /  Nathan Jongewaard

“If you’re that rare engineer who’s an inventor and also an artist, I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone. You’re going to be best able to design revolutionary products and features if you’re working on your own. Not on a committee. Not on a team.”
— Steve Wozniak
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