CULTURE: Twin Palms-- errr, I mean Wild Palms.
Mark A. DeLoura
Well, now that the first episode of Wild Palms has finished showing
(at last, on the East Coast), I'm really curious to hear about
what people thought of it. More than that, though-- what effect
do you think it will have on how our technology (culture?) is viewed?
A lot of us thought major changes were afoot when Lawnmower Man came
out, but things didn't change too much.
I personally feel as if this is rung number 2 on the 3-step ladder
before a big wave of interest hits-- I expect the third step will be taken in
December, when Sega VR hits. Maybe then it'll be easier to make a living
working in the VR industry. :)
Opinions, thoughts?
Looking forward to an interesting discussion,
---Mark
===============================================================================
Mark A. DeLoura del...@cs.unc.edu U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
John Costella
> Well, now that the first episode of Wild Palms has finished showing
> (at last, on the East Coast), I'm really curious to hear about
> what people thought of it. More than that, though-- what effect
> do you think it will have on how our technology (culture?) is viewed?
> A lot of us thought major changes were afoot when Lawnmower Man came
> out, but things didn't change too much.
I was wondering if someone in the US could summarise what the hell
Wild Palms actually is! :-) A few Net friends have already asked me
what I thought of it---to the reply, ``Buggered if I know.'' :-)
Also, if it's a movie, could someone tell us who distributes it; or
if it's TV, which network has it, and who sells rights to it; or if
it's a magazine, who publishes it. This should tell us how likely it
that other lands will be fertilised with Wild Palm seeds. :-)
Thanks,
John
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John P. Costella School of Physics, The University of Melbourne
j...@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au Tel: +61 3543-7795; Fax: +61 3347-4783
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
avi bar-zeev
Well, Wild Psalms just finished on the west coast. What did
I think? Well, if VR turns out to be as linear, didactic, and dull
as the show, no one will buy into it. With LawnmowerMan, we had VR
sex. Now we have VR mind control and possibly eternal life. The only
thing left is using VR to avoid paying taxes...
Seriously, after the first episode, I have mixed feelings about
the impact. One the one hand, it may help make VR seem more legitimate
to some people, or at least more inevitable. That could be good. On
the other hand, working VR does take place in the future, implying
that the technology is not yet mature (which is a debate I don't wish
to get in to). On the positive side (IMHO), they depicted VR with and
without goggles. The without-goggles (Augmented Reality, if you prefer)
is, unfortunately, rarely depicted in the media. I say unfortunately since I
believe that Augmented Reality is more palatable and suitable for many
applications, especially business-related ones. That's just my opinion.
On the other hand, they didn't show any business related apps - just
Televirtuality and entertainment so only the really clever business
people might walk away from the first episode saying, "gee, I bet I
could use this stuff to consolidate corporate visualization, planning,
and communication."
The with-goggles was kind of bland to me but probably better for non
VR people than Lawnmower's funky graphics. The best aspect of it was
the guy who could walk in Cyberspace but not in real life. Good job
Brenda Laurel! I'd imagine that global televirtuality was eye-opening
to viewers though it's old hat to We Who UseNet. (My grandma got all
teary-eyed when I explained it to her a while back - "Oy vey," she said)
Oh well, enough rambling for now. Lets see the rest of the episodes.
Avi
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avi Bar-Zeev [Clever sig line omited due to temporary
a...@worldesign.com lack of personality. come back tomorrow]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Veronica Pantelidis
I agree with Mark DeLoura. This is rung number 2. I think the TV
industry industry is softening up the mass audience for the introduction
of rung 4 (maybe it's a 5-step ladder? :-) ) which will be "3-D TV" or
"VR TV" or "TV VR", however it comes to be called, to differentiate this
type of entertainment from "RR" or "real reality" (my term for our non-TV
existence of the near future :-) ).
Things are definitely getting interesting!
Veronica
Leland Woodbury
In article <1t8i3c...@news.u.washington.edu>
j...@tauon.ph.unimelb.edu.au (John Costella) writes:
>I was wondering if someone in the US could summarise what the hell
>Wild Palms actually is! :-)
>...
>Also, if it's a movie, could someone tell us who distributes it; or
>if it's TV, which network has it, and who sells rights to it; or if
>it's a magazine, who publishes it.
It's hardly worth the bandwidth, especially in this newsgroup, but
I'll justify it in order to put the discussion in perspective for
those who suffer the dubious misfortune of being denied access.
"Wild Palms" is a television mini-series (four episodes, the first of
which aired last night (Sunday)). It's produced by Oliver Stone (of
'JFK', 'Wall Street', and 'Platoon' fame) and Bruce Wagner, and
written by the latter, loosely based on a comic strip series he did
for Details magazine. Stars James Belushi, Robert Loggia, and some
other people I can't identify. There's been a huge amount of hype and
other publicity for it here in the States. Critics mostly think it's
crap, though John J. O'Connor likes it in his review today's New York
Times, suggesting that it's a fitting warning about technology run
amok. IMHO, it's very derivative of David Lynch's Twin Peaks, though
not nearly as clever, with few likable characters. VR features
interestingly and prominently in the plot.
If you want to know more than that, you can probably find it in
rec.arts.tv (et al.). I bet there's a discussion going on in there
about it.
Leland Woodbury
INTERNET: lel...@cs.columbia.edu
USENET: ...!columbia!cs.columbia.edu!leland
BITNET: leland%cs.colu...@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
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[MODERATOR'S NOTE: I thought it WAS David Lynch's work, until I
realized how many "jokes" were ending badly. -- Bob Jacobson]
Robert Grant
In article <1t8i6j...@news.u.washington.edu>, Veronica Pantelidis
<LSPA...@ECUVM.CIS.ECU.EDU> writes:
I just hope the powers-that-be don't call the "rung" number! :-)
Sorry!
Robert.
JOH...@ids.net
Well this will probablye put us in the same light that HAL did.
Getting the general public to fear mind control from VR. Well either
way this is going to give VR publicity, maybe people will start to
realize the posibilities for this technology in virtually everything
we do.
[MODERATOR'S NOTE: As they say in politics, "It doesn't matter for
what they remember you, so long as they remember your name." Same
for us? -- Bob Jacobson]
David Ray
Just saw part 2 of 4 last night. Missed part 1. But I didn't feel like
I had missed any crucial part of the plot.
The movie has Oliver Stone written all over it. More violent and less sex
than Lawnmower Man (as you would expect for American TV.)
I thought that if the show could cause me to have nightmares, what impact
would it have on other people who don't have any real understanding of VR.
I thought it had good acting, good story line, and I want to kill Oliver
Stone for making it so senselessly shocking and violent.
One of the things I like about te story (independent of my feelings about
Stone) is that it shows the public's addiction to the media (TV,etc) as
the downfall of American society. It shows people's lives being completely
controlled by the "new science".
Whenever there is a new technology that changes peoples lives, like
electricity, medicine, man on the moon, there are always people who
shun the new technology as evil. There are people who believe that
putting a man on the moon caused the "downfall of humanity". There are
people who won't watch TV because they believe it is evil (not because
TV programming sucks). The same can be said now about VR.
Maybe this means that VR *will* change people's lives profoundly.
Hopefully in a good way.
-dave
--
| David Ray Space Sciences Lab, UCB |
| dav...@well.sf.ca.us (510) 643-7736 w |
| da...@sunspot.ssl.berkeley.edu (510) 527-9010 h |
Larry Brader - contractor
Wild Palms = Twin Peaks +a twist of Hollywood + a heavy seasoning of Gibson + a
sprinkling of
VR with of buzz words + special effects.
Who's doing the special effects for the show?
Mark A. DeLoura (del...@cs.unc.edu) wrote:
> Well, now that the first episode of Wild Palms has finished showing
> (at last, on the East Coast), I'm really curious to hear about
> what people thought of it. More than that, though-- what effect
> do you think it will have on how our technology (culture?) is viewed?
the show none. VR more then we can imagine.
> A lot of us thought major changes were afoot when Lawnmower Man came
> out, but things didn't change too much.
Not surprising. Lawnmower Man and other VR theme movies are just introducing
the basic concepts to people.
> I personally feel as if this is rung number 2 on the 3-step ladder
> before a big wave of interest hits-- I expect the third step will be taken in
> December, when Sega VR hits. Maybe then it'll be easier to make a living
> working in the VR industry. :)
I think you need a bigger ladder :*)
I wouldn't worry about making a living with VR. It's coming well
within the next 10 years to the home. Look at the deal with Times
Warner & (what cable company??) hooking up fiber optics to peoples
house to get 2way 500 channels. On CNN Money Line last night they
(presidents of Times Warner & the cable company) talked about spending
$5B to hook it up to everyones house within 5 years.
ATT has supposely bought 20 % of the game company Sierra On-line for
interactive entertaiment on the new fiber nets being installed. A
friend of mine went to NBA (National Broadcast Association) meeting a
couple of weeks ago. The various baby bells and multimedia (his
speciality) figure the on-line interactive market to be worth over $1T
per year within the next 10 years. The big players sense some serious
money.
personally I think we're just at the beginning of this industry and it will
change the world... But humans will still be humans..
The three first question I get about VR :
1. What is it ?
2. What can you do with it?
3. Can I have sex in it?
Sad but true...
Larry Brader
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my thoughts and only my thoughts . At least I think so.
Jason Blue Barile
Wouldn't you know it, the press has struck again. Tuesday night in Nashville,
after Wild Palms, the 10:00pm news showed part 3 of their "Virtual Reality"
series. In the grand old "jump on the bandwagon" style, the report featured
teenagers saying "I'm addicted" while showing people blow up in Virtuality and
had a few students at Georgia Tech saying that "somebody will find a way to
abuse VR just like we've abused television."
My question is this, if the general public gets this kind of double-dose intro
to VR (Wild Palms and violent video games) what kind of future does VR have in
the home or workplace? I'm fairly ticked that the press feels free to bend the
nightly report to go along with the ideas in WP (VR is bad, etc...) and that
they think they can sway the public. Maybe it was just bad reaearch on their
parts, but even so, what chance will VR stand if we keep letting people who
really don't know that much about VR introduce it to the public?
-Jason Barile
Ronald J. Logsdon
Well it's over, "Wild Palms" that is. Maybe a new name could be "Wild Bombs"
Like many of you I was intrigued that ABC was willing to do a series around VR.
I loved the complexity and intrigue of the first two episodes. The complex
interleave of VR, conspiracy, cult power and mass media had the potential to
be a powerful classic work. I loved the artistic delivery of topics, and if
you read between the lines, it had a lot more to say.
With ALL the potential this mix had, why oh why did they give it a standard
Hollywood ending??? NO imagination at all!!! Did Oliver Stone go home
after part two? Did this Mini series fall pray to the same old movie
investor formula - "Murder everyone and will will give you the money to do
the film, murder sells you know!"
Its like the story was told be two different humans - the first two parts by
an imaginative artist wishing to convey a deep powerful message; the last
two parts to by some media executive trying to mold it into the same old
sh-- there rating machine (or the fathers) tells him sells.
I will be soooo glad when imagination, optimism a true creativity regain the
media from the murder minded apes running the show now.
The bottom line is with VR we can create a new world the feed the best
humanity has to offer - or - continue mindless murder media.
- Chant -
Channel 3 will never be - Channel 3 will never be - Channel 3 will never be -
Ronald J. Logsdon
JIM GRAHAM
In article <1teb16...@news.u.washington.edu>, jbba...@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (J
ason Blue Barile) writes...
>
>Wouldn't you know it, the press has struck again. Tuesday night in Nashville,
>after Wild Palms, the 10:00pm news showed part 3 of their "Virtual Reality"
>series. In the grand old "jump on the bandwagon" style, the report featured
>teenagers saying "I'm addicted" while showing people blow up in Virtuality and
>had a few students at Georgia Tech saying that "somebody will find a way to
>abuse VR just like we've abused television."
The same thing happened with our local news channel.
I am concerned that the press will continue to depict VR as a "negative"
"opiate of the masses", if you will.
I'm not sure I entirely disagree with their "concern" that it will become
the drug of the 21st century, but is that all that bad?
OAN: I saw only one "mistake" in Wild Palms during one of the VR scenes.
Grace and Harry's daughter, Dierdre (sp?) was shown, as a hologram, talking
to Grace, behind a curtain. We saw Dierdre's(sp?) shadow or silhouette.
I really don't think holograms have shadows.
Jim Graham
-> ->Disclaimer: I do not speak for my company. <- <-
Neither do they speak for me.
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Dan D. Gutierrez
TWIN PALMS
I personally sat through it "glued to the screen" waiting for the VR
stuff. I thought it was great. I specially liked the William Gibson
appearance. It was great that he was used in this mass media exploration
as the person who first coined the term "Cyberspace." I also enjoyed the
"glasses" scene where the 2 gentlemen entered the room of the guy who was
"jacked in" to the matrix, kind of sitting there twitching.
Interestingly, on Nightline with Ted Kopel later on, Jaron Lanier was
interviewed on his thoughts of where VR is heading. I was surprised to
hear that he believes that VR will never be "too" realistic and that it
will always be somewhat "computerish looking." I don't agree with this
assessment. It all depends of technology. I mean TV looks pretty
realistic now, but didn't in the beginning. I think technology will
eventually support any level of realism desired.
_ddg
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JOH...@ids.net
Jason... It will be fine what will probably happen is the
government..ie military will get the best in simulators....suplied by
us, then everything will trickle down to the general public. There is
no way to kill a technology like this once it is started. But we must
be carefull 8)
Erich Schneider
In article <1thg1v...@news.u.washington.edu> "Dan D. Gutierrez" <73317.646@Co
mpuServe.COM> writes:
>Interestingly, on Nightline with Ted Kopel later on, Jaron Lanier was
>interviewed on his thoughts of where VR is heading. I was surprised to
>hear that he believes that VR will never be "too" realistic and that it
>will always be somewhat "computerish looking." I don't agree with this
>assessment. It all depends of technology. I mean TV looks pretty
>realistic now, but didn't in the beginning. I think technology will
>eventually support any level of realism desired.
Do you have a reason for believing technology will eventually support
any level of realism desired, other than "well, technology has always
improved a lot"?
I think the analogy with TV is a poor one. Like photography, TV is
_primarily_ "mimetic" (note the qualification, all of you conceptual
video artists can put down your pitchfoks!). TV achieves a
representation of "nature" by taking an example of "nature", feeding it
into a black box, transmitting the resulting signal, feeding the
signal into another black box, and out pops the end product. The trick
is to fine-tune the transformations in the black boxes so as to
preserve the necessary aspects of the original "natural model". Note
that the difference between early TV and modern TV in terms of how
"realistic" it looks is far smaller than the same difference between
today's VR and "real reality".
VR, as described today, is more like painting that photography; more
specifically, painting things for which one has no available model.
The quest for realistic, interactive VR involves simulating physics
"from scratch" rather than letting physics do most of the work and
then performing a transformation on the end product.
--
Erich Schneider er...@bush.cs.tamu.edu
"The Hierophant is Disguised and Confused."
Bob Pendleton
>From article <C7C1J...@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>, by gra...@venus.iucf.indiana.
edu (JIM GRAHAM):
> I really don't think holograms have shadows.
How do you know the shadow wasn't part of the holographic projection? :-)
Bob P.
--
Bob Pendleton | As an engineer I hate to hear:
bo...@hal.com | 1) You've earned an "I told you so."
Speaking only for myself. | 2) Our customers don't do that.
<<< Odin, after the well of Mimir. >>>
Antonio Fabiano
Hi everybody!
I`m following the list since a couple a weeks and I found it really
interesting. I have not yet enough knowledge to get on technical
topics, but I think "Twin Palms" is something we (italian)
should not miss.
I heard ABC ask for too much $$$$ for releasing these four episodied,
so we probably will not see it (at least in the short)....
Is there someone who recorded the "event" willing to snail-mail a
tape to me ??? (Of course I will pay for everything)
Talk to you soon,
Antonio.
>>>>> fab...@sia.cise.it <<<<< ***** CISE S.p.A.******
Tel: (Off.) +39-2-21672299 *Via Reggio Emilia, 39*
(Home) +39-2-4158045 *20090 Segrate, Milano*
Fax: +39-2-21672620 ******- ITALY -********
Ronald J. Logsdon
Mike Hollingsworth
> From: Mark A. DeLoura <del...@cs.unc.edu>
> Subject: CULTURE: Twin Palms-- errr, I mean Wild Palms.
> Date: Sun, 16 May 93 23:22:04 -0400
>
> Opinions, thoughts?
I think that no matter how good/bad the series ends up being, it's encouraging
that the networks believe there is enough general public interest to take up
four night of prime time TV to show Wild Palms.
It was good that the local news did a little segment on the current state of VR
that not only showed the entertainment side of VR (Dactyl Nightmare) but also
the use of it in medical areas as well. I think it helped to show how the
technology portrayed on the show is not as far out of reach as some people may
think.
Do you think that Wild Palms is also meant to show (yet again) how technology
can be used by the powerful and corrupt to dominate/control society? All of
the books and movies that I seen/read seem to warn about the possible misuse of
a technology such as VR/cyberspace. I suppose though that when one has a
technology with as much potential as VR that you must tread carefully.
Comments?
Michael Hollingsworth (mhol...@mail.stx.com)
P.S. Was that really William Gibson in the show?
John Costella
From: bo...@hal.com (Bob Pendleton)
> > I really don't think holograms have shadows.
>
> How do you know the shadow wasn't part of the holographic projection? :-)
Hey Bob, do you have a secret `shadow-ray' technology? :-)
Jim W 'GrimJim' Lai
In article <1thg1v...@news.u.washington.edu> "Dan D. Gutierrez"
<7331...@CompuServe.COM> wrote about Twin Palms' aftermath:
>Interestingly, on Nightline with Ted Kopel later on, Jaron Lanier was
>interviewed on his thoughts of where VR is heading. I was surprised to
>hear that he believes that VR will never be "too" realistic and that it
>will always be somewhat "computerish looking." I don't agree with this
>assessment. It all depends of technology. I mean TV looks pretty
>realistic now, but didn't in the beginning. I think technology will
>eventually support any level of realism desired.
To a point. I don't think television looks all that realistic. It's
not wide-screen enough to fill my field of vision (although that may
change in the not too distant future). The advanced television
proposals generally don't offer me an 80 frame/sec refresh rate to
maximize realness. And the sound... well, it's no Dolby(tm) digital
stereo.
In short, our concept of what is considered realistic will also change
with technology. However, a lot of people still watch television on
black and white sets with tiny screens...
Richard Ottolini
In article <1tuvv9...@news.u.washington.edu> jwt...@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Jim
>To a point. I don't think television looks all that realistic. It's
>not wide-screen enough to fill my field of vision (although that may
>change in the not too distant future). The advanced television
>proposals generally don't offer me an 80 frame/sec refresh rate to
>maximize realness. And the sound... well, it's no Dolby(tm) digital
>stereo.
I agree. I saw a vivid example of how far digital imagery has to be
improved when viewing the Camera Obscura at the Cliff House in
San Francisco. This device, invented by DaVinci, projects the surrounding
imagery on a table in a darkened room. The texture of *full* resolution
light, color, and motion is absolutely amazing. TV and film pales in
comparison.
Technically Sweet
stg...@st.unocal.COM (Richard Ottolini) writes:
>I agree. I saw a vivid example of how far digital imagery has to be
>improved when viewing the Camera Obscura at the Cliff House in
>San Francisco. This device, invented by DaVinci, projects the surrounding
>imagery on a table in a darkened room. The texture of *full* resolution
>light, color, and motion is absolutely amazing. TV and film pales in
>comparison.
How long did you watch it?
This is not an idle question.
--
Lance Norskog
thi...@netcom.com
Data is not information is not knowledge is not wisdom.