Media

A Game Of Chicken

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Well, OK, Chick-Fil-A is having some medieval-themed “Date Knight” event. This event encourages sons to take their mothers out to Chick-Fil-A. It appears to be something to encourage family bonding via a kind of knights-and-damsels themed event.

OK, so look I’m not going to bring up Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay issues, though I can criticize that. I could critique their food, but let’s face it they never claimed to be healthy. Date Knight isn’t a half-bad core idea, encouraging some fun family connections.

Except, as noted in this rant at i09 it’s incredibly creepy.

In fact one of the creepiest things about it is also a prime example of why you need Geeks On Staff to evaluate your cultural impact and choices. You need people who dig deep into culture-focused, technology-enabled culture.  You need people aware of far-flung memes and trends.

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Fear Of A Checklist Planet (Or Universe)

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The Fan To Pro gang often chats about various issues, and one issue that came up as Serdar and I discussed the Marvel adaptions that sometimes it felt like Marvel was checking off boxes on what to do.

This isn’t to say that Marvel hasn’t done some good stuff.  I consider “Captain America” to be a fine piece of filmmaking with a great central actor, “Iron Man” to have managed to inject old-school charm into high-tech adventure, and “The Avengers” to have done the seemingly impossible with style and heart.  Frankly, the studios and staff are to be commended for making actual, good, movies.

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Home Theater PC Speculations

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So last week I detailed my experiences with a sort-of Home Theater PC (HTPC), namely a laptop where I got experimental.  I noted that I would discuss their place in the economy and the career implications.  This of course, is that column because hey, I promised.

And here’s the answer: Not yet because there are way, way too many possible use cases and no real settled technologies, and what comes eventually will be gradual.

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