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Discussion before making a modern period romance

Discussion before making a modern period romance

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Karolina Żebrowska knows a ton about historical clothes. Sadly, she has to put up with largely ignorant modern period showmakers who make incorrect accusations about sexism of women’s fashions from the past. Here she re-enacts what happens when writers/self-styled designers try to bully experts like Karolina by (as one person put it) ‘basically wanting to produce a slightly altered fanfic they wrote when they were 13.’

Definitely check out her other videos on how modern sensibilities, including many modern gender commentators, actually get what was going on in the past completely wrong. But can you blame them? After all, almost none of those gender and similar degrees actually study the actual history, design, or the societies they are denouncing. They just study the criticisms of them.

Going to Disney – from Home

Going to Disney – from Home

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Covid has changed things. Even in 2023, international travel still muted and people have been doing more domestic travel. That means open US attractions are somewhat overrun. There’s been a lot of bad press that Disney theme parks are terribly overcrowded, dropping the annual pass and switching to a much maligned Genie Pass system (dropping a functional but much mutated Fastpass) and have gigantic wait times (with averages for some rides over 130 minutes).

All of this has caused lawsuits and the ousting of previous Disney president Bob Chapek who is largely seen as badly handling most of these problems. It appears that the new/returning Disney president Bob Iger is restoring annual passes and seen as righting the struggling Disney ship.

Now what about avoiding those 2 hour wait lines? Filming is still allowed in the parks and Youtube channels like Attractions 360, DocumentDisney, WDW and others have created amazing 4k ride videos of just about every ride at every single Disney park – in the world. Many even have multiple copies that include seasonal theming. So now only can visit and ride your favorite ride whenever you want – and each of the other versions in other countries. Though some of those other countries have modified the rides in interesting cultural ways.

Here’s a good example. The Haunted Mansion (a personal favorite) is in 4 different locations: California Disneyland, Florida Disneyworld, Tokyo Disneyland, and Paris Disneyland. I prefer these because there is no commentary or cheesy music. You hear everything including everyone is saying – which is just about the same experience as being there.

Not that one? How about the one in Florida.

Not that? How about the Tokyo Disney Haunted Mansion.

Oh, not that one? Then How about the Paris Haunted Mansion?

Touring Egypt from your living room

Touring Egypt from your living room

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I love to travel, but during Covid that was not really a thing. Even if you did travel, it was a very muted experience as most places you would visit were closed, severely restricted, and (my personal real goals) of interacting with local culture/food/people severely curtailed. Even in 2023 many cities are nothing like what they were pre-Covid, and I suspect that travel and tourism is going to look very different as we come back out of Covid.

Even with that, like many, I turned online. I have been amazed how many YouTube channels have 4k and higher video quality visits to just about anywhere in the world: Disneyland in Tokyo, Palace of Versailles, Assisi, St Petersburg Russia, inside the Great Pyramids, Chongquing cave shopping, etc. If you can imagine a place, someone has almost certainly done a very high quality 4k video walkthrough of it – or ride through of it.

Recently I started watching the various Sound and Light shows of the various Egyptian locations. I was inspired by a scene in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me which features the famous show at the Great Pyramids.

Philae, Temple of Osiris:

Karnak Sound and Light Show:

Great Pyramids:

Scoppio del Carro, Florence

Scoppio del Carro, Florence

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The Scoppio del Carro (“Explosion of the Cart”) is a folk tradition of Florence, Italy.

On the morning of Easter Sunday, the 30-foot-tall antique cart (in use for over 500 years), moves from the Porta al Prato to the Piazza del Duomo. It is hauled by a team of white oxen festooned with garlands of the first flowers and herbs of spring. The cart is escorted by 150 soldiers, musicians, and people in 15th century dress.

Meanwhile, a fire is struck using the historic flints from Jerusalem at Chiesa dei Santi Apostoli. It is then carried in procession to the cathedral square by members of the Pazzi family, clerics, and city officials.

The cart is loaded with fireworks while a wire, stretching to the high altar inside the cathedral, is fitted with a mechanical dove (the “colombina”). Shortly thereafter, at the singing of the Gloria in excelsis Deo during Easter Mass, the cardinal of Florence lights a fuse in the colombina with the Easter fire. It then speeds through the church to ignite the cart outside. It ignites the cart, then speeds back inside the church. During all of these stages, the bells of Giotto’s campanile ring out.

The complex fireworks show from the cart lasts about 20 minutes. A successful display from the “Explosion of the Cart” is supposed to guarantee a good harvest, stable civic life, and good business.

Elements of Creativity

Elements of Creativity

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“Inspiration is for amateurs – the rest of us just show up and get to work.” – Painter and printmaker Chuck Close

In this GDC talk, Raph Koster explains what science tells us about creativity – what it is, and what it isn’t. Contrary to popular belief, creative work is not best arrived at by connecting with some ethereal muse, being a tortured, moody arteeest type, nor just sitting around waiting for inspiration. Creativity is also not just adding a very simple mechanic to something that already exists or re-skinning something in a new way.

Instead, the data tells us that creativity is something that can be developed, is a fairly straightforward process, and you can cause to happen when desired. I agree with him, and would also say even further: working in your field every day has connected me with some of my most interesting creative ideas – ideas that have payed me well and won awards. It was boring, everyday work that showed me what people were interested in, and then my curiosity lead me to new connections.

Favorite points from his talk:

  • Creativity is most well defined as mixing of traditionally unrelated things in new ways. It is not mysterious, there are proven simple habits to assist your brain to start making connections between different subjects and being more creative.
  • “Personal expression” is not creativity. It might be, but don’t mistake the two – they have different goals.
  • Ensure you get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Cognitive ability declines measurably with even small sleep shortfalls – creativity (primarily a thinking activity) provably suffers.
  • Classic brainstorming with no criticism generates just a few ideas per hour, but studies show allowing criticism during brainstorming generates MORE ideas per hour.
  • Positive attitudes and happiness are more strongly correlated with successful creative ideas than the angsty creative trope. Yes, you may have had traumatic experiences in life, but pretty much so has everyone.
  • Get regular exercise and take care of yourself – it has proven positive mental and creative effects. Taking a nap often solves a problem.
  • Creativity is often a measure of imagination. Measuring the creativity of person is often done by having a visualization exercise. More creative types ‘see’ more details of the thing they are visualizing right off.
  • Creative leadership is often NOT a winning formula
    • Creative people are usually perceived as worse leaders.
    • It is usually second movers/fast followers that end up defining the genres and really cashing in. They usual execute better and game styles are not well protected under IP law.
    • Creative approaches are more risky than known genres – you MUST expect a high failure rate
  • Creativity does buy you a following – which is critical in the current market where people now follow the game makers/personalities more than the game or studio itself.
Returned Lost Wallet Experiment

Returned Lost Wallet Experiment

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Mark Rober did a fairly scientific self-run experiment where he sent 200 wallets around the country to be dropped in various cities then collect data on who returned them (if possible). He controlled for age, big cities vs small city size, gender, poor/rich, etc.

Summary: 2/3 of the wallets were returned, and of those 96% still had the money inside. He got lots of other interesting data, but I thought his summary was the most impressive:

Lately it seems like so much of what you see online is meant to stoke outrage at some group of people versus ourselves because that’s what gets shared. That begins to warp our perception that the only good people out there are those within our own group. But this data shows that across any age or gender or socio-economic background, across the whole religious spectrum through middle America and along the coast there are lots of good people everywhere.

Not only that, but they constitute a [very clear] MAJORITY. They didn’t call for some reward or Facebook likes or because they knew someone was watching. They did it because it was simply the right thing to do and I think that’s pretty cool and something worth remembering.

Things that didn’t seem to make a difference:

  • Gender – pretty much equal return rate after slightly method change.
  • Rich or poor areas – same return rate
  • Age – average age of person that returned the wallet was 36, which is pretty much the average age in the US. (Would be interesting to dig into the average age of persons who walk in these areas vs driving/etc. Old people probably don’t walk as much, kids under 7 probably don’t walk alone either. But I agree this is probably a fair representation.)
  • Religious* – 60% were returned by people who were religious vs 40% who were not. This largely matches the average city population, so he didn’t consider it statistically meaningful.

Things that did make a difference to at least some degree:

  • Small cities averaged better return rates than big cities
  • City itself – huge difference

Here’s the city results in order from best to worst:

  • Perfect (10/10 returns): Chicago, Salt Lake City
  • Good (9-7 returns): Nashua, ID, Hill City, SD, Portland, Parma, ID, Las Vegas
  • Middle (7-5 returned): San Francisco, Winnipeg, Washington DC, Huntsville, New London, Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Edmonton
  • Worst cities for return rate (4 or under): Detroit and NYC
Riffusion

Riffusion

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Riffusion (Riff-fusion) is a music AI that you type in prompts and it generates music for you. It’s not going to win any awards anytime soon but it does seem to handle smooth and electronic tunes pretty well. Honestly, if I heard some of this in an elevator, I doubt I would notice.

One more step towards our automatically generated content future.

Possessions that don’t own us

Possessions that don’t own us

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Abbot Agatho frequently admonished his disciples, saying: Never acquire for yourself anything that you might hesitate to give to your brother if he asked you for it, for thus you would be found a transgressor of God’s commandment. If anyone asks, give to him, and if anyone wants to borrow from you, do not turn away from him.

Abbot Agatho – 4th century Christian Saint and Abbot
Project Offset

Project Offset

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It’s always interesting when the media covers projects that you worked on. Even more entertaining is to read the wildly incorrect sweeping generalizations that people make when commenting on news. This is a good reason you should just steer clear of comments sections and social media posts online. Instead, go to trusted, well respected, and reviewed sites with actual industry experts.

Incidentally he mispronounces the name Larrabee (as Laura-be). It is pronounced more like Lair-a-bee.