Star Wars'n Stuff – Page 50 – Art, Life and Video Games

“I Saw Earth And Moon In A Single Glance” An interview with Apollo 15 Astronaut Al Worden, on the 45th anniversary of his epic voyage to the Moon.

https://medium.com/learning-for-life/to-see-earth-and-moon-in-a-single-glance-89d094f6d40f#.yz0a6xudq

Avi: What made the Apollo program a success?
Al: Back in the late sixties and early seventies there was no bureaucracy at NASA. We had a goal of getting to and back from the Moon and everybody worked to it. Everybody was focused on the goal and nobody was trying to protect their job — they were all trying hard to get the job done even beyond the highest standards, no matter how “small” their role in the program. Most of the people working in the Apollo program were young, with a average age of 28, and that helped a lot in overcoming all sorts of engineering challenges, because they did not “know” that something was impossible.

Videos from the article:

– About von Braun and his rockets. I feel ambivalent about this..

– Management Lessons of the Moon Program (Andrew Chaikin)

– Apollo 15 Crew Departure Preparations

Saturn V:

Andrew Stanton, who wrote and directed WALL-E, talks about the clues to a great story

Film, Great Stories, R2-D2, Robots, Sci-Fi

“Drama is anticipation mingled with uncertainty.”
― William Archer

A tourist is backpacking through the highlands of Scotland, and he stops at a pub to get a drink. And the only people in there is a bartender and an old man nursing a beer. And he orders a pint, and they sit in silence for a while. And suddenly the old man turns to him and goes, “You see this bar? I built this bar with my bare hands from the finest wood in the county. Gave it more love and care than my own child. But do they call me MacGregor the bar builder? No.” Points out the window. “You see that stone wall out there? I built that stone wall with my bare hands. Found every stone, placed them just so through the rain and the cold. But do they call me MacGregor the stone wall builder? No.” Points out the window. “You see that pier on the lake out there? I built that pier with my bare hands. Drove the pilings against the tide of the sand, plank by plank. But do they call me MacGregor the pier builder? No. But you fuck one goat … “

The clues to a great story transcript:
https://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story/transcript?language=en

Wall-E was in part inspired by R2-D2 (1:50):

More on WALL-E: WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008) — Humanity and Dysfunctional Robots:

Yet throughout the film, robots express much more emotion than the humans. Almost all of the robot characters, from WALL-E to AUTO to MO have personalities, feelings, desires, and prerogatives outside of their simpler tasks. Even simpler robots, like the typing bot outside the Captain’s quarters are shown to have personality and desires, although they might be latent or ignored in favor of their pre-determined purpose. The human characters, on the other hand, are portrayed as dull and almost lifeless; they do nothing for themselves, are perpetually bored, and exhibit none of the creativity or connections that supposedly characterize the human race. They become almost robotic: they have a singular purpose, behave in repetitive ways, and rely on external input to change their actions. In a way, the robotic characters are far more human that the actual human beings because they do exhibit genuine emotions. The “dysfunctional” robots in the ward, for example, seem to feel real relief when WALL-E frees them, and even help her in the ensuing revolution aboard the ship.

http://filmtank.org/forum/forum/film-development/films/23040-wall-e-andrew-stanton-2008-humanity-and-dysfunctional-robots

Best of… Gary the stormtrooper (Robot Chicken)

*Seriously, Star Wars

The Force

My Books

May 27th 2016 (transcription of a recording I made in May)

Yesterday I was watching a video on youtube and the video was about the Force, is the Force real.
The guy looked at various forces in nature like electromagnetism, and gravity, and trying to find similarities with the Force as George had conceived it.

The reason I am looking at this video is because this guy is wrong. He missed the mark on what the force is.

So what is the Force? Well, look around you. Look at the floor you stand on, is it wood, is it concrete? Is it some sort of hardwood floor that has been laminated,.. ceramic tiles? What are you sitting on? Is it a chair, or a couch? What surrounds you.. walls?

How did this come about? Did these walls just conjure themselves? Not really, somebody built them. But before somebody built them – someone thought them up, right? They didn’t just say, hey, let’s just put a wall here, put a wall there. First somebody had an idea.. that we need some sort of separation from the elements. You can easily.. very very easily see these, the very seeds, the germination of that idea .. where a guy does primitive technology on youtube. Here you can see the very very beginnings of the desire to be separated from the elements. The guys just builds stuff out of twigs and mud. His channel is basically an expression of the Force.

The very nascent expression of the Force.

Somebody had a desire to be separated from the elements… and all very well could have been done with that right, they successfully separated themselves from the elements and they said .. well. How is it we make it better, better insulated, we make it work through all seasons, we make it indestructible. So somebody sat down the thought about it.

They basically conjured, they had ideas. They had ideas in their heads and they were contemplating reality.. and said, well we understand this reality and all the variables, we can try to do this and that. And if you follow this train of thought all the way to modern times look at everything around you – it is artificial. And not only it is artificial, it is very very complicated and usually a result of very very complex process.

Like the glass panes on you window have undergone tremendous transformation, it was just minerals in ores, and somebody conjured the technology .. somebody thought about how to make a transparent pane out of these minerals. And somebody worked on that to fix it, maybe over centuries.. they had this drive to perfect a thing… A glass pane doesn’t have to be perfect, it could have a smudge here and there and imperfections.. however we strive to remove these imperfections to make the glass panes more beautiful, more transparent, maybe decorated.

So what is behind all this – the Force – yeah? This is the force where you conjure new stuff out of thin air. Isn’t that incredible?. You can basically get up in the morning and probably build a chair in a day.. Right – just kind of find some wood in the attic and get some nails together, get a little hand saw, and just cut up some pieces and put together a chair by the end of the day, or a table. Ain’t it the Force?

You conjure something out of nothing.. well – it’s not instantaneous but you know in the grand schemes of things it is nothing it’s like a second, a rotation of Earth. This is the Force.

And The Force is all around us – anyone can do it. The blind could conjure thoughts and can write books and inspire millions. You do not need sight to be seen. take Helen Keller for example. She could move millions. you can move millions with your words. Isn’t that the force?

Let’s take.. martin luther king for example, we are not bound by kinship, we are not bound by any other bonds. However, i can hear and read his words and can be inspired and his words can move me, reaching across from back in the 60s out into today in the 21 st century, when i am sitting and I am having my morning coffee. This person could inspire me to have dreams. To dream up stuff. hey, this person with their words with the simple expression of opening their mouth with an intent, could inspire millions of people across the centuries.

You can say, hey, i have a dream. It really is an odd dream but hey I have a dream and you should dream too.

Words are also the force. It doesn’t have to be a physical, it doesn’t have to have any physical manifestation. Although it does have, you have to voice your stuff.. but.

So the Force is all around us – so, who is the jedi then? Why would you need a jedi? When the Force is all around us? Sure, the creator is the jedi. if you are not a creator, if you are just a consumer you are just another cow chained to a couch instead of to a .. a little feeding stall. When you are a creator, you are in charge of the force. And you are the jedi. And the more influence you have on the world as a creator – the jedier you are. This is the Force and this is how it works.

George Lucas: To feel the true force of ‘Star Wars,’ he had to learn to let it go

George, Star Wars

As with everything – read between the lines of this article – it is in the”lifestyle” section after all. But the truth is here is George who made billions of dollars empire… that enthralls half of the planet including myself. It started with a one page treatment – grew into a full-scale space opera, which grew into a fledging company that started a whole new world of computer graphics, which snowballed into what we have today where everything is in one way or another “touched” by CG. Although a lot of quality filmmakers no longer employ computer graphics and digital visual effects – computer generated imagery has changed us forever. The rooms we walk into have probably been first designed on a computer, the cups we drink from are probably a result from a digital design process, the screens and paper we look at are transformed most likely digitally. George was a pioneer in all of this and a lot of what is in star Wars was a “first ever”. When I occasionally read on forums .. complaints about Star Wars or George.. I am like – really, i am sorry what is the issue here? lots of people don’t get Picasso either and a lot of my painter friends think Van Gogh was a lousy painter. yet – I go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and into one of my favorite rooms and i see adults of all shapes and sizes pondering the paintings of Van Gogh, reveling in the simple flowers – it is one of the most crowded rooms and it is never empty.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/george-lucas-to-feel-the-true-force-of-star-wars-he-had-to-learn-to-let-it-go/2015/11/27/d752067a-8b1f-11e5-be8b-1ae2e4f50f76_story.html

Are we Happy and Effective? We are now programmed for perfect happiness

Film, George, Robots, Sci-Fi

Just run into the latter movie and immediately thought of one of my favorite movies, George’s THX 1138. George wins here big time because he doesn’t try too hard, you don’t have to try too hard when you are inventing a genre. Movies today do not hold back as they have the genre worked out already for them and all they have to do is fit the script with an appropriate visual.

Here is the original trailer and clips from George’s movie which i find superior in every respect:

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A new attempt at the same themes – the movie is Equals (2015), with bigger smart screens but much less subtlety. A trailer ( can’t stand trailers to be honest but whatever ) and a clip:
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Which reminds me to share with you my favorite sci-fi movie of recent –

Even if you are not fond of their grandiose schemes – you must admit the Wachowskis are a visual institution, the Matrix started the 21st century culturally and put whatever was in their minds – in the minds of millions of people. The blue and red pills, the streaky hallways, the bullet time – these grandmasters made the geeky weird mainstream. If you have ever sat in front of a computer 16+ hours you must know that feeling – my setup at Lucasfilm consisted of 3 computer screens and 3 televisions, 3 consoles, 2 computers and several other devices, including a Wacom tablet and various controllers. When I get off at the end heading to Chestnut street – I would see polygons and wireframe triangles everywhere, my brain would process and dismember all into visual components and put it back together in the next frame.

When you are a creator – you are in control

My Books, not Sci-Fi

Steve Jobs once said that the computer is going to be like a bicycle for the mind, Joseph Campbell called the inside of a PC a hierarchy of angels.

This is an insight into the meaning of tools and technology in our lives from an Indian teacher. He says machines are Yantras, deities that enhance what we already are, we are an enhanced beings:

So what is the problem with technology? People often complain and the media propagates this spiritless image of humans mindlessly staring down into phones and devices. We are bored already after a playlist or two, and surely fatigued with pictures of french fries stacked against stadiums..

But can you imagine Steve Jobs (rip) or Elon Musk scratching themselves on the back of their heads with their phones, bored out of their minds? That is what it means to be a creator, to use technology to be in control. You are only in the driver’s seat when you create, when you generate output. It is a one-way street, it is a drainpipe with one-way flow – you are either on the intake or you produce.

I had the privilege of teaching very little and very bright kids recently, and when kids are super bright there’s no hiding, all is reduced to a string of truths. I tell them that no matter what software they learn or what sort of science they master – they need to be aware of the fact that the only true power in the world is the power to create. When you are a creator – you are in control.

When you are mere consumer you are at the mercy of what has been generated for you. When you are the creator, whether you create objects of the mind or make cakes – you are in charge of the content and the process. You can use your faculties to get better at either. Software is just a tool, the computer is just a tool, once you have learned how to use couple of different software products – you get clarity on the principle and you can quickly grasp any other.

To be a creator requires a lot of mental and physical energy, it is a lifestyle and it can’t be done just a little bit. I remember Lessig’s AMA on Reddit where he said he wanted to be a part-time president… Can you imagine being 50 percent in control 50 percent of the time of the most powerful nation? How about being 50 percent in control 50 percent of the time of the most powerful intelligence on earth?

Recently had to put together a little awning for the top floor of my house, the old one was reduced to rags by strong winds, and had to find something quickly as guests were coming to stay in a few days. I have a great Brother machine back in the States and have only used it to make some canvas pieces and wearables for my installations. Sewing is otherwise boring and repetitive and I can’t stay with it for longer than the quick completion of a project.

At the house there is this absolutely incredible piece of German engineering – my grandma’s 1904 Singer sewing machine. Naturally, the machine manual was online and someone had already figured out how to thread it on youtube. I found a large piece of fabric and also some lost stretches of ethernet cable laying around.. It took 10 minutes of youtubing and 50 minutes of trial and error and these magical devices came together on my green drawing table to help me make a little wobbly but otherwise perfectly reasonable awning.

Yeah, it was a lot more fun than shopping, it was probably more time consuming as it took me awhile to put together the awning with lots of bobbin winding and battles with seas of fabric late at night. I affirmed the usefulness of a forgotten tool which later served me for more projects around the house, I saved tons of cash, I learned german engineers from 110 years ago knew more about ergonomics than I would have thought. This incredible piece of technology that is grandma’s Singer worked out of the box without a hitch.. knowing that no one had probably touched it in 20 years. High five to the creator who perfected it!

Oops! And how can I possibly forget about zip ties, such a simple thing but imagine trying to tie down my awning with rope?! It will take several experienced sailors! The short version, for those who are just browsing to kill some time at work and don’t really care is this: someone realized that it would be useful, and they invented it.