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Author Topic: The Billion Dollar Idea Department  (Read 4876 times)

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pmcd9

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #15 on: August 07, 2007, 09:39:09 pm »

ok, so, I am not sure what I was saying in that post that wasn't the same as what Paul was saying.

To restate what I was saying, they remake movies all the time, this is not a revelation, but Cyrano De Bergerac is such a perfect fit for a story about internet dating that I'm surprised it hasn't already been done.  They are probably looking for a script right now.
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #16 on: August 07, 2007, 10:10:47 pm »

My experience with recent movies is that lack of a script is not an insurmountable obstacle.
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #17 on: August 10, 2007, 01:50:52 am »

This is my main question about the magic world - what would they do in the information age? Would they still use owls?

The Internets is the one tool we could use against Voldemort.

If Harry Potter was real.
I was under the impression (having never read any of the books and having only seen part of one of the movies -- Goblet of Fire, I think?) that the Harry Potter novels are set in the present day, and according to Wikipedia, "the main action of the story takes place from 1991 ... to 1998".  So I guess they could have computers and the Internet, but as Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic -- whence, perhaps, the wizarding world's aversion to anything higher-tech than trains and gramophones.

Man, that was really kind of a stretch just to make that joke.
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littlefallsmets

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #18 on: August 10, 2007, 05:57:52 am »

What disturbed me about the Harry Potter books is the ending...

And this isn't spoiling much for anyone but in the last book, there is a flash-forward to the children of the characters who... uhm... survive the last book, being sent off to wizardschool, maybe in twenty years time and...

What bugs me is that "the muggle world" that they were exiting seemed pretty much the same.

It really BOTHERED me.

I'm not... exactly sure why.

I guess I read too much science-fiction and I read too much of, oh, y'know, the news but... I'm not so entirely certain that the future is gonna be all that damn pat.

Cast yer i-Ching sticks into the winds of the zeitgeist and foresee terrible troubles.

Too many people want an End of the World for things to have not... uhm... at least not be really shaken up from the process of STOPPING them from ending the world. Super religious types, the super rich, the crazy, the hopeless, the bungled, the botched... they're all doing their best to cash in their chips on...

Maybe not The Damned Human Race, so to speak, or This Island Earth but... what we know as post-Enlightenment Western Civilization is definitely down for a shake-up between now and when those magic kids would be read for school.

Is it just because it's ultimately a kids book and you can't admit these things in kids books?

Is it because the author is richer than God and Hitler put together and hence she's insulated by The General Thrust of History?

I dunno. It bugged me.

I'd get if the magic people were all protected from it and so on, they've got goddamned magic after all... but the "normal" world looking more or less the same, I don't buy it.

Flesh-eating mutants, nuclear apocalypse, Christofascist police state, flying cars, something.

Something!

Y'know?
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Lister

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #19 on: August 10, 2007, 06:19:54 am »

The Great Rule of the Future is twofold:

  • More will happen in two years than you think will happen.
  • Less will happen in twenty years than you think will happen.

Ray guns?  Nope.  Portable, ubiquitous, commoditized, networked communications devices?  Yeah, with glue-on rhinestone accessories and the ability to play advertisements as ringtones.  Flying cars to escape urban blight?  Nope.  Satellite-linked mapping devices that feature realtime traffic avoidance?  Sure.

Evolution's way more prevalent than revolution.
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #20 on: August 10, 2007, 06:31:22 am »

So the talking animals, wizard school, and flying broomsticks... thats fine. But the absence of world revolution in a single generation, that's whats tripping you up?
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theinevitable

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #21 on: August 10, 2007, 07:35:38 am »

also, I mean, that part was like 5 pages. How are you so sure that everything was the same? All I got was "this is a vague hint that things carry on, etc."

someone might want to somehow tag LFM's post as a spoiler?
HARRY POTTER SPOILER SUDDENLY MID-THREAD! WATCH OUT!
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #22 on: August 10, 2007, 12:04:19 pm »

Quote
Final Harry Potter Book Blasted For Containing Spoilers

July 27, 2007 | Issue 43•30  The Onion

NEW YORK—Harry Potter fans throughout the world were shocked, disappointed, and outraged to learn last week that J.K. Rowling's 750-page novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, blatantly answers every looming question in the 10-year-long saga, even going so far as to divulge what happens to key characters 20 years into the future.

"The whole experience is completely ruined for me," said 25-year-old fan Ethan Clay, adding that the book builds up suspense, and then, without warning, gives away vital, plot-altering information. "The least [Rowling] could have done was put a spoiler alert or something on the front cover."
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #23 on: August 10, 2007, 02:28:22 pm »

In defense of some of my wee-hours postings while visiting my parents in New York...

I am, like the rest of the species, not quite sane at night.
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pmcd9

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #24 on: August 10, 2007, 05:35:34 pm »

Wombat, was that news story on The Onion?
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CortJstr

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #25 on: August 10, 2007, 05:40:25 pm »

Wombat, was that news story on The Onion?

It was a cover story in last week's paper issue. The one with the Onstad interview.
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #26 on: August 10, 2007, 06:31:44 pm »

Wombat, was that news story on The Onion?

Quote
July 27, 2007 | Issue 43•30  The Onion
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pmcd9

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #27 on: August 10, 2007, 06:59:42 pm »

Dammit!
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Lister

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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #28 on: August 11, 2007, 08:27:59 am »

Turns out I was wrong about the ray guns, even though they're only used for cleaning.  For now. 

Also: I need to win the lottery so I can travel in one of these.
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Re: The Billion Dollar Idea Department
« Reply #29 on: August 11, 2007, 11:30:07 am »

If I had a dirigible like that I'd land it on my old high school in an outfit resembling mr.monopoly.
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