TED Community » Chris Hollander

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• +3

  A comment on Talk: Daphne Bavelier: Your brain on video games

  Nov 29 2012: This talk is just the latest example here on TED describing the benefits of gaming and debunking the crotchety common knowledge that says games are bad for mental and physical health. I would like to ask that we start to take this debate forward, move past the antiquated good or bad debate, and discuss the responsibility society has for designing better and more enthralling games. I don't simply mean slicker graphics and bigger worlds, but games that have been designed to incorporate the best aspects the medium has to offer. To attempt to put this question into context I point out that print media for example, during its long history has been co-opted by society and rules have been established and certain things are expected from its use- information distribution, public discourse ect.
  
  What can be expected of video games in the future? What are some principles that can be worked towards? Here I've heard discussion about including artists, musicians and actors in the production of games, but what about also incorporating historians, educators, neurologists during the design process?
• +2

  A comment on Talk: Don Tapscott: Four principles for the open world

  Jul 11 2012: This dude gets it...

• A reply on Talk: Carl Schoonover: How to look inside the brain

  May 17 2012: It's pretty clear as he references evolution in his lead up to the statement, "greatest engineer of all" that he is in fact NOT referencing a deity, he is talking about nature and selection.

• A reply on Talk: Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod

  Mar 20 2012: All I can say is we may agree more than thought;
  
  I'm down to let the "megaliths" crumble. I only want to ensure innovation still occurs. I think that it is likely that the massive systems we put in place for investment and research are likely holding us back instead of really spurring growth. So on those grounds, down with the company.
  
  Have you heard of Venus project? I think in that kind of society we could do away with the monoliths and still maintain innovation and creativity, and frankly live happier lives doing it. But then again, I am still hopeful for the future and think great change is possible, check back with me in 10 yrs xD !!!

• A comment on Conversation: Shall We Pity the Entertainment Industry?

  Mar 19 2012: Ok so, I think many of my political and economic ideas, at least in part, essentially boil down to -
  How do I keep big brother/The fuzz, off my back?
  
  I envy anyone who gets to live without the military arm of the government (cops) breathing down their neck all the time, but know that not everyone has that pleasantry. (PS I get pulled over like once a week cause I have red tinted windows and apparently its legal but confuses cops a lot). lol!
  
  How do we, in reality, keep the government from stepping in and enforcing laws like MPAA and new ones lke SOPA 2.0?

• A reply on Conversation: Shall We Pity the Entertainment Industry?

  Mar 19 2012: Well that said Mark, because as we know this isn't just a problem for the entertainment industry, intellectual property rights span everything from farming to medicine, what is the way forward with copyright?
  
  Share and crowd source models?
  Do we need to revamp economic basics?

• A reply on Conversation: Shall We Pity the Entertainment Industry?

  Mar 19 2012: Kevin,
  Thank you for sharing your valuable experience here in this forum. I think given all that has happened in the industry and your attempts to maintain a level of professionalism in it you are due a level of appreciation.
  
  I would like to propose to you a historical analogy and delve deeper into your comment, "If music is free (worthless) now, then we'll all eventually get what we pay for in the end."
  
  Music has played so many different roles in human society for as long as we could communicate. Flutes and string instruments go back thousands of years and have many different and often elaborate variations. In ancient Greece, some cults believed that notes and tonal distributions maintained divine purpose. In fact they nearly worshiped the idea of sound and music! Many stories and myths we know today originated as songs and only much later were transcribed as books or poems. Later in the European renaissance, some astronomers believed that the planets themselves had different tones and if witnessed at the right time would create a symphony that was downright godly. Today, oral tradition, as anthropologists call it, is the practice of passing down one cultures to the next generation through story and song. It happens to be one of the most important but least documented sources of history around.
  
  I mention these things because, during all these periods (most of human history), the only way anyone ever made money from music was playing it live as a jester or actor and yet, so much importance was put on music that it was societies textbook, source of philosophy, scientific motivators, entertainment, advertisements ect. Music was hugely important and there were people who were famous for being brilliant at it.
  
  Given all of this, what is the point of music today? A place for famous people to dance around? I hope we do get what you say, "what we pay for" because I want music that values things that we cannot buy - Knowledge, culture, history and respect 4 people!
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod

  Mar 16 2012: Mitch,
  I understand your point, however I doubt you could walk into a design career at Adobe, Avid, Microsoft ect. ect. with only 6 months of training. So there is a sliding scale here, I don't just mean games, or some trade software designed in a few days to perform a specific task. There are pieces of software that require massive amounts of time, creativity and investment: Creative Suite, Pro Tools, Final Cut Studio, as well as some games. And I also don't mean to belittle artists or the amount of time it takes to become a good musician. But I think it has been pretty well established that who we're talking about is the media companies that are claiming massive losses and spend most of their time marketing and other business odds and ends.
  
  As to who the real pirates are we could go all day but I would rather focus on who the parasites are because they are the ones causing all the trouble. The parasites/real pirates are the businesses that make massive profits and don't reinvest in their creators. The music industry, my favorite punching bag, makes profits and could care less how an artists fares as long as they make hits or whatever. They are the ones who attempt to manipulate the market by having government step in and it just so happens this time we have a way around it, "piracy." So outside of that, I hope you can agree that we are talking about an industry that stopped caring about the artists a long time ago. Artists can share their music in more ways than has ever possible if their interested in just playing music. If they want to make money they should become stock brokers I guess.
  
  Where I don't see any clear solutions again is high end software and perhaps some forms of publishing. I personally am trying to figure out in my work how to self publish and still be able to make enough money to pursue my research. Do all things need to go open source? If so, how can open source projects maintain levels of needed investment?

• A reply on Talk: Hans Rosling: Stats that reshape your worldview

  Mar 15 2012: Really? Funny you'd put so much effort into spamming
• +1

  A reply on Talk: Rob Reid: The $8 billion iPod

  Mar 15 2012: I seriously could have done another 5, heck 10 minutes of this one xD It's nice he didn't have to get too political because this seems to be after the SOPA blackouts, correct?