Posts of the Week
|
Jimmy Stewart, R.I.P. Jor-El - 02:13pm Jul 8, 1997 PST (#19 of 29)
Viewed through the prism of nostalgia, everything old looks better: The Golden Age of TV was much better than today's fare; Sports heros were much better than today's lazy, fat-cat players; Movie actors of yesteryear were much more dedicated to their craft than today's brand of brat-pack, mail-in-the-performance actors. In reality, today's actors probably work as hard and are as dedicated to their craft as yesterday's actors. In fact, I'd say they are much better than their counterparts. For every Jimmy Steward, I'll give you a Tom Hanks. For every Kirk Douglas, I'll give you a Michael Douglas For every Bette Davis I'll give you a ..... um, did I mention Tom Hanks? Mars exploration--who needs it? Kieran Healy - 01:22pm Jul 8, 1997 PST (#49 of 74)
winston sez: The scientists pulled this off on pocket change. Quite an accomplishment. Compare, for example, the Pathfinder budget to the cost of the B-1. Why should we compare it to that? It still cost $360 million, for God's sake. And what do we get? Some nice photos and some soil analysis that's going to tell us... well, what we know already: nothing's happened on Mars for a billion years. I've been getting annoyed at NASA saying "This cost 10% of the Viking landers, therefore it's cheap". Well, sure it did: back in the 70s and 80s NASA was like the Pentagon when it came to spending money. It's no virtue to be cheaper than some grossly expensive pointless project, be it Viking landers or the B-1 bomber. What if we said "Pathfinder cost three times as much as it would cost to vaccinate a million children against typhoid"? Of course, then you get the 'irresistable march of science' people complaining that you're a barbarian, as if science dictated the path of research all by itself. You choose what to find out about, science doesn't tell you anything about your priorities: Martian 'exploration' is a waste of money. There are plenty of things -- interesting, dangerous or just plain mysterious -- that we don't know anything about, crying out for research money, right here on Earth. Why fly to a cold, dead, arid, red ball of rust? In Search of People Who LOVE Their Work George Bronner - 10:25am Jul 6, 1997 PST (#51 of 53)
I love my work. I'm an advertising copywriter (15+ years). I currently do a great deal of work for technical/industrial business-to-business clients, but I cut my teeth on heavy-duty retail. I get to learn about new things all the time. Every project is different; I've worked on everything from electrical tape to prosthetic heart valves. I get to be analytical, yet creative. I deal with marketing issues, psychology, demographics, etcetera. It's problem-solving at its best. And that's the most important thing to me -- my work requires me to think. In fact, it requires me to think extremely hard, to be extremely thorough, to focus and yet explore every possible avenue. When you walk into a boardroom full of people who have a very different idea of how a project should unfold, you'd better have your ducks in a row. And that's another part of the work I really enjoy -- the interpersonal side. I get to present my work, to argue its merits and take an active role in negotiating changes. It's a little bit of sales, a little bit of showmanship and debate, and a lot of preparation. As a final note, I'm not one of those frustrated writers who works in advertising until their novel or screenplay is finished. I don't think I could write a novel or screenplay to save my life. I enjoy communications and can't imagine doing anything else. I also cannot imagine ever retiring, although my wise ol' in-laws swear that will change. |
Salon front page | Posts of the Week Issue No. 71 | 70 | 69 | 68 | 67