image by Randall Pugh

When the media was only a handful of channels, only the most significant of stories would find their way to us. Massive life changing events that could only be described with, “Oh the humanity.”

The everyday stories. The things that we tell each other over a drink or at the evening dinner. The little anecdotes that we experience. Those were always too small to reach the media save in drips and drabs. The disease of the week. The consumer advocacy tale. The plucky little kid that started a bottle drive. The elderly gent blowing out the candles on his hundredth birthday. But really they were just fillers. Noise to fill the air between commercial breaks because not every day was an “oh the humanity” day.

These stories and happenings would be just memories to the few people who witnessed, and those witnesses may share the tale when the context was right or when trying themselves to fill the time with a prior more interesting event. And once you’ve relayed the tale to those that you know and they’d heard it once, twice, a dozen times too many, it would simply become a memory. And then it would be gone.

Take a moment to watch this video.
And then read Heather Skye’s own words recounting the event. And then finally watch this last video.

The advent of digital media and the ability to distribute it through social channels is freeing these stories from their temporal and geographical and anecdotal limitations. You did not need to be in Houston last weekend in order to catch this particular moment. You did not have to be a friend of one of the people, and happen to have mentioned Star Trek or X-Men, sparking the “did I tell you about the time I saw Sir Patrick Stewart” story. I caught this tale on Facebook, from a friend Mike Wood. Mike had seen the story on Gawker and posted it. The author of the post on Gawker picked it up from GeekoSystem. None of these people were in Houston this weekend and none of them are friends of Heather. But the author on GeekoSystem found the YouTube video, shot by Oswald Vinueza and posted by Heather.

Through that video and Eugene Lee’s photos and Heather’s words the moment was preserved.

Heather was never at the book launch for ‘Created Equal’, where the actor spoke quite movingly about his own personal experience with domestic violence. But someone from Amnesty captured the moment on video and posted it to YouTube in 2009. Heather only came across the video a couple of months ago but says, “After seeing Patrick talk so personally about it I finally was able to correctly call it abuse, in my case sexual abuse that was going to quickly turn into physical abuse as well. I didn’t feel guilty or disgusting anymore. I finally didn’t feel responsible for the abuse that was put upon me. I was finally able to start my healing process and to put that part of my life behind me.”

People opine about the disconnection that our devices and networks create. People talk about living the life through the viewscreen of a smartphone or tablet instead of in the moment. Would they really choose the world in which these were words and moments that none of us would have had the opportunity to share in? Too small for the evening news and unlikely for Heather’s words to find their way into any magazine or paper. Trapped in the minds and photo albums of the few who happened to have been there in that room, at that moment.  Would they be happier for these moments to be transient experiences, fleeting and then gone?

The people who tweet and instagram and film and live blog and check-in or status update aren’t missing out on the moment. They are preserving it and sharing it and making it more than just a memory.  I think that Heather’s life is better for having been able to share the moment from that book launch from 2009. I know that I’m glad to have been able to share in Heather’s moment with Sir Patrick Stewart. I hope that you’re all enriched a little bit from my having shared these moments and that you go on to share across your own platforms and networks.  Thanks to social media we are all of us unstuck in time and space and able to experience this together whether it was before, or now, or still to come.

The post Patrick Stewart and the Tralfamadorian Greeting appeared first on The Elusive Fish.

Even Bowie noticed and tipped his hat in the Commander’s direction. Praise indeed to catch the notice and approval of the artist you’re covering.

CHRIS HADFIELD SINGS SPACE ODDITY IN SPACE!“Hallo Spaceboy…”Commander Chris Hadfield, currently on… fb.me/24sZNW5ly

— David Bowie Official (@DavidBowieReal) May 12, 2013

Now, obviously Hadfield wasn’t sent into space to jam. During his time on the station he engaged in 130 different experiments, and even helped set a station record for over 71 hours in a week devoted to scientific experimentation. During his free moments, Commander Hadfield was gracious enough to reach out to those of us on Earth and share what life is like in a little tin can floating far above the world. We got to learn how a zero gravity environment impacts simple biological aspects of life like crying, or trimming our nails or eating dinner. He shared his amazing view through hundreds of thousands of photographs. And in his offtime he played the guitar.

Tokyo harbour and Mt Fuji – humanity and nature visible from space. twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/…

— Chris Hadfield (@Cmdr_Hadfield) May 7, 2013

Now a brief word about the instrument. The guitar was a $100,000 payload, back when it was delivered into space in 2001, it’s purpose to provide a creative outlet for the astronauts to aid in their psychological well-being. All work and no play…

But the Space Oddity video being the most publicised aspect of the Commander’s journey has raised the same questions that have dogged the space program since before President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University declared, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Why go to space? Why waste billions of dollars to dump new garbage up into orbit or learn that there are rocks on Mars? There is no shortage of problems on Earth that need our dollars to solve so why fritter those dollars away when there are so many in need? In short: what good is a space program when there are empty bellies and injustice here on Earth?

Perspective.
That is what the space program has given us.
Perspective and context of who we are in this existence.

That ten minutes of revelation is easily worth a half trillion in expenditure.

But dollars and cents are the root of the argument against a space program so let’s get down to dollars and cents.

The US space program has averaged an annual expenditure of 9 billion dollars over the past 50 years. But billions are dollar amounts that start to get too abstract to keep a view on for the average person, so let’s break it down to the average person. The annual cost for the average American to keep the space program going is $28.67. Just under $30 a year.

Just under $30 a year has put a man on the moon, allowed us to view the furthest regions of the cosmos with the Hubble, sent probes to each of the planets and beyond our solar system and peppered our orbit with devices giving us communications with the most distant edges of the globe and providing us with a wealth of data about our world.

Now compare to the many other ways an average American spends their money in any given year…

$2,260 per person on military spending
$490 per person on alcohol ($305 of that being beer)
$372 per person on fast food
$209 per person on handguns and rifles
$206 per person on pop
$162 per person on pets (which includes $1 for halloween costumes to dress the pets up in)
$107 per person on alternative medicine
$80 per person on going to professional sports games
$35 per person on bottled water
$35 per person on coffee
$32 per person on romance novels
$13 per person on perfume
$7 per person on tattoos
$5 per person on flowers for Valentine’s day
$0.83 per person for total ad spend on Super Bowl
$0.08 per person for daily fireworks displays at Walt Disney World

Now it also needs to be pointed out that there was $947 per person in charitable donations. This isn’t an either/or situation. It is possible to spend money on space exploration and spend money on addressing societal problems. But if we’re to raise the question of priorities, I think it is quite clear there is a long line of frivolities and luxuries that could fall by the wayside long before we get around to the space program. America could set aside their harmless indulgence in “Fifty Shades of Grey” and other bodice rippers and be able to fully fund the space program and have enough left over for a latte.

Of course, that’s treating the space program as if it were a consumption. As if we’re just firing these things into the air for the spectacle of it all. Money piled into a rocket and then fired into the heart of the sun. But the money spent on a space program isn’t actually spent in space. It’s spent here, on Earth. That money leads to jobs, thousands of them and many in highly specialized and technical fields. Those jobs provide a need for industry and infrastructure. All of which, in turn, provide taxes and spending that benefit local and regional economies.

The things we fire up into space are not just deadweight. They’re designed to actually do something. Some are feeding us back detailed information about our own planet. Time was weather analysis was a roll of the dice as you were limited to the data within your line of site. Now we can model the entirety of the Earth, we can track every shift and change in conditions and even have three dimensional views into the very heart of a storm. All of which provides better understanding of our planet and allows us to generate predictions with increasing reliability days, even weeks in advance. We can’t control the weather yet, but we can much better manage our lives around it and mitigate the damage it does to property and life.

The GPS that’s standard in almost every phone and vehicle is a product of our space program, but more than just a means of keeping you from getting lost it has allowed for a level of efficiency from industry that would have been impossible a few decades ago. Every shipment of inventory can be located around the globe with a precision of a metre or two. The time of arrival predicted to within minutes. Where businesses had to devote significant capital investment into maintaining an inventory, the world has moved to a ‘just in time’ level of operation where the inventory is ordered as required and timed to reach the factory or store only at the moment it is needed.

There was a time when communication was limited to line of site or required the laying of cables. Satellites now cary a tremendous amount of the world’s communications.

There are immediate benefits to the space program, but the program continues to deliver benefits years later as the advances in technology required to achieve the goals of the space program are spun off into Earth-bound applications. Firefighters have lighter breathing equipment resulting in fewer injuries. School busses have stronger chassis from lightweight material resulting in safer travel without sacrificing fuel efficiency. Non-invasive diagnostics to improve the early detection of cataracts, Alzheimer’s, damage from radiation, environmental toxicity and diabetes. Digital imaging and sensory technology that was developed to detect extremely faint objects in space is now applied to mammography, providing much more accurate and earlier detection than analog x-rays allowed. Microgravity environments allow cell cultures to grow in homogeneous distribution, allowing more accurate study of the growth of cancerous cells and a better understanding of which treatments are more effective. Anyone receiving cancer treatment today is very likely seeing the side benefits from an 80′s shuttle mission and NASA research.

Not everything will have an immediate practical application. Some knowledge we gain may never have a practical application. But every mission and every probe and every piece of equipment we send into space increases what we know of our universe and ourselves. Again, that perspective and context that may not give us a new gizmo or doodad but enriches our lives and lends us meaning and understanding.

But again, when we get down to pure dollars and cents, for every dollar put into the space program, there is an $8 return to the economy.

But if the economic argument fails to convince and the quest for knowledge is not considered valid enough, then all else aside, the argument for a space program is quite literally falling from the sky. Meteors. Asteroids. Nature’s way of asking, “How’s that space program coming along.”

Sources: American Pet Product Association, Beverage Marketing Group, Brewer’s Association, Consumer Reports, Congressional Research Service, Fast Food Marketing, Franchise Direct, INC., NASA, National Soft Drinks Association, National Retail Federation, Romance Writers of America, WR Hambrecht, and when in doubt – Wikipedia

The post Should Have Sent A Poet: A Word In Favour Of The Space Program appeared first on The Elusive Fish.

Brands would do well to take note of the dust-up between large network FOX and Jonathan Coulton.

Glee is a musical comedy-drama about a high school glee club. The characters of the show are often at the bottom of the pecking order among the student body, being tossed into dumpsters or having slushies thrown in their face are frequent occurrences  Key themes of the show are overcoming bullying and choosing to do the right thing despite all adversity. The show features covers of songs across a wide range of musical genres, and often features covers of mashups or a cover of a cover.

Jonathan Coulton is a singer and songwriter whose music is primarily about geek culture and has made use of the Internet to build an audience. If you’ve heard his work it was likely in the end credits to the Portal games or one of his thing-a-week songs like Code Monkey or Re: Your Brains or his unique cover of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s Baby Got Back. And it is that cover where Jonathan and Glee cross paths.

Jonathan learned that episode 4×11 of Glee would be featuring a cover of his Baby Got Back. It would seem more than a cover, though, as the timing and instrumentation of Glee’s version seems to mirror Coulton’s almost exactly; suggesting that the original recording was appropriated. The song aired and FOX through the Glee Facebook page began promoting the sale of the music on iTunes where, collectively, Glee track sales are in the millions of dollars. It’s important to note that outside of any question of financial compensation, Jonathan was never contacted and although one report has the script actually saying “Jonathan Coulton’s Baby Got Back” there has been no credit on the show or public acknowledgement by Fox that the arrangement was Coulton’s. Without any credit or even a link pointing to his site, Jonathan is told through back channels that he should just be happy with the exposure he’s getting.

Now, FOX is within their legal rights to have used the song, and there was no legal obligation to involve Jonathan in any way. there is a question as to whether the recording is Jonathan’s or not. In all likelihood it is, but the time, expense and aggravation of going toe to toe with the stable of lawyers make it an unlikely pursuit for an indie artist. So effectively FOX is on firm legal grounds. The legal department would be rubber stamping this as completely kool and the gang. But the actions were not that of a good citizen. The actions did not reflect the brand of the show. FOX played the role of large burly jock throwing a cold slushy into Coulton’s face.

FOX has been taking a keep quiet and ride it out approach, but Coulton’s fans are not forgetting. Posts to the Glee Facebook page calling for recognition and apologies to Coulton continue. Coulton himself has shown himself to be a class act. First by calling for restraining by his fans, and insisting this not be a war between his audience and Glee’s. Second, by releasing a Baby Got Back (In the Style of Glee), a cover of Glee’s cover of his cover on iTunes, with a promise to donate the proceeds to charity. The story reverberates through the geek and Internet press and is filtering its way into the mainstream.

FOX can hope to ride out this media cycle and hope that it’s forgotten, but there are a number of events that will keep this story recurring. Jonathan has not yet determined if he is going after FOX legally for the appropriation of the recording. It’s my hope that he doesn’t, because we’re all better off with Coulton making and recording songs as opposed to wasting away hours in meetings, depositions and hearings. But whichever choice he makes dredges the story back to the forefront. Then there are the results of his clever cover of the cover of the cover. If it surpasses the Glee recording in sales, if it makes any significant amount of money, it becomes a story with further amplification by way of the charities being supported. FOX is painted as the money grubbing thief and Jonathan as the hero artist. It’s a David and Goliath story to fill empty column inches pretty much any point. Never mind what will happen if this season features another legally appropriate but ethically sketchy use of an artist’s work.

FOX may try to issue a non-apology. We’re sorry you’re offended but we didn’t do anything wrong. That works when you’re on a firm foundation of trust with your intended audience and are standing with the angels, and I don’t know if either is the case when we’re talking about FOX. In this case it will merely fan the flames.

You can be legally right in a court of law, but it won’t help you in the court of public opinion. And at the end of the day, it is that court of public opinion that is the make or break for a brand. A brand is nothing save for the perception of what it represents.

What should FOX do? If I were driving the ship, here is what I would recommend:

• Issue an apology. A real apology that acknowledges that what was done in the past was wrong, and will not be repeated. This apology should be issued not just to Coulton but to all artists whose works have been pulled into the show. Make it clear that while within the legal rights to act as it has, the show has a responsibility to do more than just the minimum legal requirement. 
• Show how things will change. I would make it a written policy that all artists permission is sought before the use of a cover, that credit is given both in the show itself and on the tracks via song title or other metadata, and include base financial compensation.

In my opinion those are the only moves FOX can take that will do away with the stream of displeased fans who are having trouble reconciling the brand of their favourite show with the behind the scenes actions. What’s more it will completely win over those who have turned away and possibly win over new fans.

The post Legally Right isn’t the Same as Ethically Right: Glee and Jonathan Coulton appeared first on The Elusive Fish.

Screen capture of theelusivefish.com circa 2003

I’ve been sharing my thoughts and opinions online since 1997, through USENET and forums, blog posts and comments, tweets,  status updates and various social gestures. But my first real addition of content came way back in 2001 with a tripod site from which I used to post illustrations and short comics. But when tripod folded their Canadian domains, I got the shove I needed to carve out my own little slice of the Internet and The Elusive Fish became a dot com.

June of 2003 was the first blog post to my own domain. That post detailed the lead-up to the site’s launch; the hard drive crash that ate several months of illustrations, stories and site designs. At the time my site was very much a hub for sharing my art and the occasional rant in essay format.  The majority of my blogging was reviews of other’s works, personal musings and discussion of my craft.

screen-capture of theelusivefish.com circa 2004

By 2005 I had taught myself the basics of PHP and the site made it’s first major shift; from a hub for my stories and illustrations to a promotion of my creative services. I’d been moonlighting as a web designer and work was picking up. There was a definite shift from personal musings to business punditry in my blogging.  In 2006 I shifted from my Blogger template to WordPress and made what would be the last public overhaul of the design.

screen capture of theelusivefish.com circa 2006

The blog template was designed so that I could incorporate a sketch into each post. The idea was to keep me active in my illustration work at a time when most of my energies were being devoted to coding websites and toiling in the PowerPoint mines. Unfortunately the need to have an illustration with each post ended up acting as a mental roadblock. When I didn’t feel I had a clever idea for an illustration or the energy to throw another couple of hours drawing something, I would skip posting anything.

2009 I had begun the process of converting my entire site to a custom-built wordpress template. I’d started a repository of ever-green illustrations so that the blog could still serve as that impetous to illustrate but not serve as a block if I fail to put pen to paper. But then it was all pushed to the back burner, and then pretty much shelved as personal issues overwhelmed my hours outside of work.

unpublished theme for theelusivefish.com circa 2009

I made a number of attempts over the years to pull it together but rarely had more than enough time to review the code I’d put together before some new event distracted me from creating anything new.

I finally realized that the site had become an exercise in shaving the yak. I couldn’t blog until I finished the template and I couldn’t finish the template until I patched and updated what had changed in the intervening months and I couldn’t do that until, and then not that until, until until until. Always something standing in the way.

I was still commenting, updating and kibitzing on various social networks, but I had ceased to be a creator and had become just a talkative member of the audience. The only thing to be done was a fresh start.

I’ve wiped all previous code and files clean and I’m starting from a fresh, blank canvas. A fresh install of WordPress 3.5 and the barebones twentytwelve theme. I’m launching myself into the air with a mess load of parts and will build the plane mid-flight. So this site will be nothing to look at for the time being, but there will be content. And over time I will cobble together the theme and add in bells and whistles. But for now you’re getting words. Thoughts. Ideas. Concepts.

This is my website. I made it mostly on my own. It is small, and broken, but still good.

Yeah. Still good.

The post I’m no longer the ninety-nine per cent appeared first on The Elusive Fish.