And the Red Light Was My Mind

I don’t generally concern myself with what other people are working on in this building. We’re busy enough around here and the last thing in the world I want is to get pulled into a room to look at a rough cut three times a day. So, I’ve come up with a strategy where I call people by the wrong names in order to foster an atmosphere of unapproachability. And for the last few years, it’s served as a successful way to get through the day with minimal effort.

But a few months ago, I began to hear rumblings about some new “Experience Lab” on the other side of the building. It involved something called “augmented reality” which sounded utterly ridiculous and the guy who was working the most on it was this young kid Garrett, who I’d been calling “Günther” so I wouldn’t have to talk to him.

But then I came across this video on the internet.

That specific piece wasn’t done at T2, but apparently this is the type of devil work that Garrett and the rest of the back room kids have been into.

I have enough trouble making a cup of tea without having to wade through a sea of floating banner ads. In the past, when people talked about “ad creep”, I used to laugh, because I secretly like the idea of an entire society being driven to madness by a constant barrage of urgent messages. But now that I see it in practice, I don’t like it at all.

When they portrayed this exact same thing in Minority Report, it was still dystopic, but at least it was pretty.

So, Günther. Or Garrett. Whatever your name is, please make your floating devil videos look more like the Spielberg version rather than the tea making example. If I’m going to have to submit control to talking 3D billboards, at least give me something to look forward to.

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We are back and by “we,” I mean not just me.

TweeWelcome to the re-launch of the T2blog!  For those of you who had bookmarked our old blog at t2weblog.com, my apologies for letting it die a slow (but painless) death.  When I hijacked the original T2blog a couple of years ago, I enjoyed subjecting random strangers to whatever would pop into my head at a given moment.  It filled me with a sense of self-importance and power until it developed into a narcissistic personality disorder so severe, even my dog Rex started to hate me.

But Rex is dead now and I have a new dog.  His name is Ole (rhymes with Stoli) and he never knew the old, unlikable Pete.  He’s not as smart as Rex was and I like it that way.  With Ole, a tennis ball is just a tennis ball.  A treat is just a treat.  Things do not “represent” other things.  He is just a regular puppy and he is my friend.

Yikes.  There I go again, already jabbering on and on about the minutia of my life. Which is exactly why we’re starting this blog again, this time with more contributors. The kind of contributors who know how to stay “on track.”  Professional people who see the world in a sensible manner and possess a deep inner maturity so they won’t fall into the trap of making every topic an excuse to talk about themselves. Colleagues who can speak to the state of our industry with a keen eye to the future, imparting their hard-earned wisdom in concise, insightful posts.

But I’ll still contribute, too.