The X-Men Origins movie destroyed the box office making $87 million this past weekend. I feel like this has a lot to say about how people feel about the movies experience. Despite the fact that this got leaked and plenty of people saw the movie prior to release, and the fact that it’s received terrible reviews, people will still dish out the money to see it. We’re in an economy crisis and many are still willing to drive to the movie theaters and spend $15 per ticket to see something they can get for free. I personally would rather go see 17 Again or Hannah Montana The Movie but if those were sold out, as they should be, I suppose I would go check out X-Men Origins on the big screen.

It goes to show that there’s something to be said about the experience of going to the movies, even when the movie to be seen gets terrible reviews and could be seen for free, it’s the experience people pay for. Watching live music is an unique experience, which is why people will pay upwards of $150 for a ticket. Same with going to the movies. However, listening to music or just watching a movie on a TV is something we get for free all the time, which is why many are very hesitant to pay money to do either.

No one wants to pay anything for a song that they just heard 5 times within the last hour on the radio for free. The record industry and movie industry need to realize the game is changing, and in order to keep up they are going to have to change their ways of doing things. It’s a sad fact but any movie out on DVD I can get for free in 5 minutes. Despite this, I wouldn’t ever pay $10 for the actual DVD, even if I couldn’t get it for free. I don’t feel I get enough for that $10.

Instead of fighting against the people who do get it for free, why not offer more to the package to give the customer a different experience than they are generally used to. Give more than just the movie and some extra bonus clips that no one even cares to see. When I see a DVD with an alternate ending I don’t look at this as added value, I look at it as the ending that wasn’t good enough for theaters, so why would I want to see it.

Nine Inch Nails has experimented with a similar idea where they gave more content for those who paid more, and the results were quite positive. It’s sad that more people in the industries haven’t adapted a similar model. Maybe the results of X-Men Origins will show them that they need to stop wasting their time fighting piracy and put more time into making me want to spend my money on something with real value.

LA Times published an article about the latest episode of South Park possibly going too far.  They even put a nice little poll at the end to let the reader give their opinion on the matter.  Well the poll says it all.  LA TIMES FAIL.

Read the entire article here.

According to stats posted by the Miniwatts Marketing Group and the annual Failed State Index, it appears that the OLPC project could help more than just the unprivileged children who receive laptops.

The Failed State Index gives each country a score off 1-10 based on 12 indicators. The higher the index score, the more unstable the country is. Comparing the index score to the penetration rate of internet usage based on population yields interesting results:

One potential argument could be that the states(countries) with low index scores are most likely states with poor economies, which would obviously effect the number of people who could even afford internet in the first place.

To test if the trend of increasing stability exists when countries with similar economies are compared, a similar chart is created using countries with I-5 indicator scores below 6. This indicator of the Failed State Index gives a score based on uneven economic development along group lines.

By comparing countries only with economies promising enough to sustain the costs of the infrastructures needed for internet, we get a better picture of how the internet truly effects ones stability.

As we can see, the upward trend still exists with countries with similar economies. Efforts by groups like the OLPC Association could end up affecting more than just the children the project aspired to help in the first place. Maybe some foreign aid should go towards building the infrastructures needed to get these failing states wired so they can stop relying on their corrupt or incapable governments and help solve critical issues themselves.

Besides, our foreign aid policy has proven not to work well in the first place, so we might as well try something new. I’m aware by simply wiring a country and allowing the citizens to have access to computers and the Internet isn’t going to magically increase their stability, but it would definitely help them in so many ways. Just think how much these technologies help us everyday and where we’d be without them. To say that this couldn’t help a failing state pick itself off the ground would be absurd.

All data used for this can be seen here