Sunday, November 23, 2008

Your Childhood for Only $19.95!

I was at Costco yesterday, and noticed a strange pattern. In the book & DVD section, everything there that I was interested was just repackaged & complete/extended/special edition of things from my childhood. Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert, All the Peanuts , Ruldolph & Frosty Christmas specials. Every MASH episode & the original movie, Get Smart (so not just my childhood, my parent's early adulthood too). If Grandpa was still alive, he could finally understand every possible reason behind the war that he survived.

This stuff is all on my Amazon wishlist, but I think there's something inherently insidious and distracting about all of it. Will my path to greater understanding and potential enlightenment be derailed by the continual consumerization of my past?

Do any of these products enable me to relive my past? And even if it did, doesn't that mean I'm no longer living in the present? No longer connected to my family and my daughter's development? And speaking of her, what will she be nostalgic for when she gets older? Her first iPhone?

Frank Zappa once said that the world will end not from any war, but from nostalgia. People will take two steps, miss the first one and be immobilized until they die.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

What Happened to Elemental Motion???

Does it look like your favorite outdated Motion Capture & Motion Graphics website has been hijacked by some random note writing fool? Not to worry, the old site still exists.

I've been meaning for some time now to switch this domain over to a personal, non-work related site. Tonight seemed like a good time.

If you came to this blog via www.troymcfarland.com, you may have been looking for my old (and now defunct) business website, Elemental Motion. It can still be found at www.elementalmotion.com

And, you can find my video work at www.youtube.com/tmc27. I might even add a Vimeo page one day soon.

Cheers,
T

A little late.

Welcome to my new blog, a place to write down random ideas & predictions. Feel free to steal ideas and make millions! (Just kidding. Seriously, if you want to run with an idea, please at least contact first, k?)

A little late as in, the deadline was October 20th. I'm referring to the contest that Google is sponsoring, project10tothe100.com

Anyway, I had an idea that I sent their way. It's probably already been done, but if not, I would think that the good folks at Google could develop it pretty quickly. The idea is below.


Hi,
I know the contest is over, but sometimes ideas don't fall within deadlines. Also, since it's over I don't expect to be even entered in the contest, but just wanted to share an idea with you.

I know that websites exist to rate charities (such as http://www.charitynavigator.org/), but are there any sites or systems put in place to enable charities to work together more effectively?

I think that if there was an open, free & easy to use way non-profits, charities and other service organizations to work together, that everyone would benefit. There would be less repeated effort. More established groups could help mentor new groups, helping them avoid the pitfalls they faced.

I hope that other people have thought of this and are working on a solution, but if not, just thought I'd share it.

Thank you for your time,
Troy McFarland