"In "Can't Get You Out of My Head," Curtis plays a long montage of talking heads on U.S. cable news repeating the phrase "the walls are closing in," during the final days of the Mueller investigation. He accuses media organizations, including the Times and magazines like this one, of profiting from the frenzy and uncertainty of the past four years, obsessing over Trump's personal corruption and mendacity rather than the alienation and anger that brought about his Presidency in the first place."
The question I have of Curtis is whether he starts with a premise and then finds video to support it, or whether he derives his ideas from watching random archive video, or both. It would be fascinating to watch a "making of" documentary that shows how he finds the right archival footage.
Ideas like the above about MSM are the easy, obvious ones. It may reinforce what we already feel we know.
But his films are also filled with deeper reflections that are less obvious, which he can illustrate with obscure, memorable visuals.
If his films did not touch on the obvious ideas they might be too alienating, more like avant-garde art film.
If they only addressed obvious ideas the films might be too boring, more like documentaries on Netflix.
He somehow finds the right balance.
But I think these overarching general theories tying all these disparate clips together that he presents via voiceover... the "leaps" as this article describes them... these are what make his films worth the watch.
He has a true talent for that. He stretches but is careful not to go too far. That is what make his films unique, IMO.
His "general theories" are similar in effect to conspiracy theories perhaps. They can be very appealing to certain receptive audiences.
The big difference is the former seem to be designed to make you think while the latter (along with political correctness) seem to be designed to relieve you of thinking and appeal straight to emotion. His films always seem to suggest we cannot remove ourselves as factors in any outcome. We have to take some amount of responsibility. We cannot view ourselves as pure victims nor others as sole culprits.
As for this article, he reveals no overt objection to populism.
The title of this film is an homage to the author of "Bullshit Jobs", a self-described anarchist.
I was refering to Google's reliance on online advertising. The media unlike Google does have something to sell: journalism. The media relies in part on advertising, but not greater than 90%, as Google does. I never mentioned the concept of value or the media's dirty tactics. I am refering to operating as a middleman and having a nearly 100% dependence on advertising. As far as I know, those are facts.
You say you disagree with the last paragrah but you did not offer any argument against any of the assertions in the last paragraph. The asserions were factual, having to do with the need for advertisers. Unless you can claim Google does not need advertisers and offer arguments in support, then you have not disagreed with the last paragraph. Instead you changed the subject. Something about capitalism and Wal Mart. Has nothing to do with whether or not Google relies on advertising to survive.
At this point, I would not even bother using Google to find news from Australia, whether Google pays or not. Just go to the Australian media websites. How hard is that.
"I don't get why Google should pay news sites for promoting them and helping them make money."
Because Google pays massive fees to be the "default search" on millions of computers. Why would they pay so much for that. They insert themselves between then computer user and the path to finding the media sources. Nerds may know how to get past middlemen if they need to, but most people using computers do not know how.
Oil companies pay a living wage. At least they used to, before "Big Tech".
People used to care about environmmental degradation. It used to be a headline issue in the 1970s.
It is depressing to think of how much energy is required to keep Google alive. That is no small amount of oil.
Google's mission is to keep online advertising alive. Without it, they cannot sustain the high life they are living. They serve only advertisers. To do this, they need massive amouts of data, more than any single media publication could collect. People using Google search and Android are just ad targets. At least the media employs journalists, and they have a purpose to inform. Google's purpose is just to collect personal data and serve advertisers, including political campaigns.
For a lot of folks reading HN, who are trying to excise Google from their lives, if they were in Australia, this would be a dream come true. How do you make Google go away? Force them to pay.
The product, i.e., the Australian media, is already in the country. There is nothing to import. As for "legally operate in the country" that makes little sense either. If those companies want to open offices in Australia, they can. They can sell whatever they want. Of course, they do not sell anything. They are leeches.
The telecom infrastructure that Google and Facebook must utilise to conduct surveillance and collect data on the Australian readership, does not belong to Google or Facebook. What are these companies bringing to the country. Nothing. They are leaches. They want data on Australians.
Any country can create their own localised social network and search engine. If Google and Facebook want to charge fees to Australians to use their websites, then can. They will never do that. Why is that.
Again, "what is really happening" in Australia is not how I am looking at this dispute. I am looking at this as a general question of whether a country, any country, can protect its media industry from Google and Facebook. Other countries want to do this, too. This could be a test case.
Given that Australia now has a FTA with the US, the leverage is too great. So don't worry, Australia will back down.
But not every country is like Australia with its political grandstanding and Murdoch media. Not every country has a FTA with the US. Making Facebook and Google pay is not a crazy idea.
Australia is probably not a great example to use. The political landscape there is a problem in and of itself. Plus Murdoch, etc. They have their own problems to deal with. Google PR wants you to focus on Australia's insane politics. It distracts from the larger issue.
But. If you look at this in principle, without focusing on the specific country, then it is difficult to argue in Google's favour. Countries may want to preserve their media institutions, unlike the US. They may not want to watch journalism die at the hands of Facebook and Google.
The way Facebook and Google "decimate" is by being middlemen and extracting the lion's share of online advertiser revenue. They are positioned to collect larger amounts of data by being middlemen for all online content and thus can offer more value to advertisers than any single media publication.
These two companies have plenty of cash. If a country asks them to pay, they can. After all, neither produces any content.
That is the issue as I see it. Not Australia in particular but whether a country's media institutions can ask Facebook and Google to pay.
"The US government is concerned that an attempt, through legislation, to regulate the competitive positions of specific players in a fast-evolving digital market, to the clear detriment of two US firms, may result in harmful outcomes." - US trade representatives Daniel Bahar and Karl Ehlers
Competitive. Competition. In Australia. Who "competes" with these "specific players". No other websites even come close.
This is a sad display of US financial leverage in favour of two companies that need no such help. If anything they need to be reigned in as they decimate foreign media.
Trump must have some grudge against Australia to allow this pressure.
Because I the user am running a forward proxy to encrypt all outgoing HTTP requests, I do not have to rely on "HTTPS-only" on the server side. I enforce "HTTP-everywhere" on the client side. That's the theory anyway.
To be honest there are still some sites that do not, and will probably never, offer HTTPS and I have to account for those with the proxy setup. For these websites I might assign them a different local IP that does not add encryption.
In running this setup there are some times where I find that for one reason or another "HTTPS-only" on the server side has failed to catch every instance where http:// should be https://. I use many different clients, the least of which is the modern browser which may have some whizbang features to try to enforce "HTTPS-everywhere". The clients I use more are simpler, less complex and do not have such features. Instead of relying on the modern browser, I rely on an extensive proxy configuration to make sure everything gets encrypted (when appropriate).
Analogies (such as leasing data center and commercial real estate) should probably account for the availability/lack of viable alternatives. For example, how much choice, what options does the consumer have in selecting its "service providers".
With respect to the fact of the existence of an agreement being confidential information, usually an NDA will only apply to information that has not already become public through no fault of either party.
The question I have of Curtis is whether he starts with a premise and then finds video to support it, or whether he derives his ideas from watching random archive video, or both. It would be fascinating to watch a "making of" documentary that shows how he finds the right archival footage.
Ideas like the above about MSM are the easy, obvious ones. It may reinforce what we already feel we know.
But his films are also filled with deeper reflections that are less obvious, which he can illustrate with obscure, memorable visuals.
If his films did not touch on the obvious ideas they might be too alienating, more like avant-garde art film.
If they only addressed obvious ideas the films might be too boring, more like documentaries on Netflix.
He somehow finds the right balance.
But I think these overarching general theories tying all these disparate clips together that he presents via voiceover... the "leaps" as this article describes them... these are what make his films worth the watch.
He has a true talent for that. He stretches but is careful not to go too far. That is what make his films unique, IMO.
His "general theories" are similar in effect to conspiracy theories perhaps. They can be very appealing to certain receptive audiences.
The big difference is the former seem to be designed to make you think while the latter (along with political correctness) seem to be designed to relieve you of thinking and appeal straight to emotion. His films always seem to suggest we cannot remove ourselves as factors in any outcome. We have to take some amount of responsibility. We cannot view ourselves as pure victims nor others as sole culprits.
As for this article, he reveals no overt objection to populism.
The title of this film is an homage to the author of "Bullshit Jobs", a self-described anarchist.