Slashdot Mirror

So, you're watching Halt and Catch Fire too? ;-)

Also, I would strongly suggest to not refer to females close by as a "Skankaty Skank Skank."

More like kablammmmmmmmmmmm. And Walter White shows that all you need is a squeegee.

"What he thought he was buying was Series 5 not season 5."

Nope. The source, AMC, refers to them as "seasons." A "series" is all the seasons. Your attempt to be pedantic fails.

On a show called Talking Bad Vince Gilligan said at one point (paraphrasing) ... in part 2 of series 5 that is how our lawyers say we should call it ...
To me this means several things in the way it was worded.
1) For the creators it is series 6. Mr. Gilligan did not seem to agree with it being season 5 part 2.
2) For the legal department it is series 5
3) It has already been discussed (at least internally) on a legal level

For all I know some parties might have asked to turn it into separate seasons, so they can sell it twice instead of once. That has been rejected for some reason.

Well, if you go to the AMC website, you'll find videos from the second half labeled "Season 5, Episode 13" and such.

The "HOW" part isn't that hard... They could switch to a video on demand model allowing you to choose only the individual shows you want, when you want them and available worldwide at the same time. The problem isn't "how" to compete, it's the realization that they have to compete... that's the part they haven't got to yet.

AMC is trying their darndest to do this with Breaking Bad. Episodes available on their website the same day of broadcast release, worldwide simultaneous release on broadcast networks, behind-the-scenes videos, full catalog of all seasons available for free watching, etc. They are even pushing same-day episode discussions on their website to try to make watching the episode the same day it is released more desirable (pushback against timeshifting). It is difficult for me to think of anything reasonable they could do to make their product more easily accessible.

What do they get for all this trouble? Breaking Bad is still one of the most pirated TV shows. I can't check ThePirateBay from work, but I think it may even be #1 most pirated.

We really need to re-evaluate the definition of pirated.

Breaking Bad ..

"Not some mystery benefactor, singular. That would raise too many questions. However... stay with me here... Zombies. I got a guy who knows this guy who knows this Rain Man-type. He lives with his mother in her basement in Belarus. So good luck extraditing his fat Russian ass. Wait. He's a hacker-cracker extraordinaire. This guy can hijack random desktops all around the world, turn 'em into zombies that do his bidding. For instance, he can make it so, 20 or 30,000 little donations come in from all over the U.S. and Canada. 10, 20, 50 bucks a pop, all paid in-full, nice and neat, untraceable, from the good-hearted people of the world to Mr. Walter H. White, Cancer Saint." -- Saul Goodman, Breaking Bad, Phoenix.

Your argument is weak. They do own or control most of the funding for those peer reviewers.

What? NSF and DoE provide 90% of my group's solar research funding, and we've never heard a peep about which papers we've rejected or recommended. I mean, I guess it's POSSIBLE that my boss is overwriting my recommendations when I email them to him, and he's spending Big X's kickbacks on blow instead of replacing his eight-year-old Aztek (amusingly, it's the same model, and almost the same color (the stock gold) as Walter White's). But when I review a paper, it's based on the science, not whether or not it agrees with my worldview. It's actually one of the best ways to learn in higher education, reviewing others' work for scientific inaccuracy and logical fallacies, and researching concepts you aren't familiar with. Anyway, NSF and DoE grant approval is too decentralized for Big X to be able to affect like they do with Congress - they can't be bribing thousands of scientists every year AND keeping track of which reviewers are following their dictates.

Let's try arguing Thomas Gold's theories. Why was he the only one to predict oil underneath Siberian rock? What make you so sure he wasn't given something 10 years before to cause heart disease because he was getting too close to popping the big lie?

You sound like a shill for big oil.

Gold was just as big of a problem as the people who disagreed with him. He absolutely refused to admit that oil POSSIBLY could have migrated down from the surface, while arguing that the oil on the surface had migrated up from 100 km or whatever depth. Meanwhile, his detractors argued that oil couldn't POSSIBLY have migrated up to the surface, while arguing that it had migrated down. Both sets of idiots argued that the mantle was impenetrable except under their very special circumstances. This, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with science - people get attached to their ideas, and refuse to accept that anything else could also be accurate. Abiological production of larger hydrocarbons does occur, as does biological production - we've done both in laboratories. It's certainly possible that BOTH occur in the wild, and BOTH are responsible for oil deposits that we've found. We see this all the time in biology, it's called convergent evolution, two completely independent species evolve to the point where they have functionally identical adaptations.

As to his death, nothing makes me sure that he wasn't given something to cause his heart disease when he was 75, except that we currently have nothing to cause heart disease that isn't based on french fries. But maybe Big X has developed injectable NanoFries (TM), and just hasn't told us yet.

And as to being a shill for Big Oil, I guess I'm just lucky they don't know my $22K/year stipend is paid for by a DoE grant for photocatalyzed water splitting, or I'd be really screwed when they up and cancelled my funding. How would I buy my ramen packs then?!

But that's okay, you sound like a shill for Big Aluminum Foil.*

*Get it? For hats? To keep your brainwaves safe from my ramen-providing benefactors? Nuts to this, I've been booed off better shows than this!

"I dislike the feeling of being taken advantage of, manipulated, bought, sold and generally given an ear-tag with a number on it. Anybody who fell for this campaign is a giant sucker who deserves to be treated like cattle."

Thanks, AC. Although I guess that is the nature of social pressure as herd movements. Does anyone really want to get left totally alone or, alternatively, trampled?

Your comment reminds me about the original "Prisoner" series, which used to be online over at AMC, but they seem to have taken it down? I only see stuff about the remake here now:
    http://www.amctv.com/shows/the-prisoner

Also related (but spoilers as complete episode guides):
    http://www.theprisoneronline.com/

At least everyone in Cuba have access to medical care.
    http://www.hr676.org/

On your points:

"Go to work,"
http://www.whywork.org/rethinking/whywork/abolition.html
http://www.basicincome.org/bien/aboutbasicincome.html

"send your kids to school."
http://www.newciv.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.holtgws.com/

"Follow fashion,"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-consumerism
http://www.alternativeratreatments.com/eat-to-live.html

"act normal."
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/11/the_war_on_the.html
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

"Walk on the pavements,"
http://www.bluezones.com/makeover-about (shows how unusual that is)

"watch T.V."
http://www.turnoffyourtv.com/
http://www.tvturnoff.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml

"Save for your old age,"
http://knol.google.com/k/paul-d-fernhout/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2009/02/social-collapse-best-practices.html

"obey the law."
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/402
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/47
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

"Repeat after me: I am free."
http://www.amctv.com/videos/the-prisoner-1960s-video/
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199710--.htm

Any more? :-)

Feature film is too limiting of a medium? For the love of god... that's a baseless statement. A feature film is a format. It's usually between 90 and 150 minutes.

There are many stories that take far longer to tell properly than 150, or even 240 minutes: Dune, The Lord of the Rings, Roots. I'd hate to see what reducing Breaking Bad to a feature film would do to it.

Great! So next time I'm in Albuquerque, I'll look up a guy named Heisenberg.

Just make everything illegal and be done with it. Stick the whole country in jail. Karaoke: Did you get permission to perform the work publicly? I don't remember ever signing any such contract. Forward a funny email, or one of those "virus" warnings? Sorry, the email is copyrighted material and is not a legal document, so any mention of copying therein does not constitute a contract granting permission to copy. Make a mix tape (oops, CD): jail time. Rip a song onto your MP3 player? Slammertime! Time shift Breaking Bad? No soup for you! Quote a Seinfeld episode...?

Seriously, it is getting far too easy to make a living by suing people than to produce legitimate content in the first place. This applies to copyright laws, patent laws, etc. We're going to go through the whole mess yet again when 3D printers and automated milling machines become more common.

No, no, Apple is an aging crimelord, who people mistake for an pitiful old man. Sort of like Don Salamanca on Breaking Bad.

Microsoft is more like an active crimelord, who really should be watching out for Don Salamanca, but just thinks he's cute with his bell ringing... ...that is until the Cousins come along and cut off Microsoft's head.

Yeah, yeah, I know... "inconceivable!"

Forgot to mention - it is easy and even fun to find truthful information about methamphetamine.

If you'd like to learn about methamphetamine from a well-produced television drama that has won multiple Emmy awards, there's always Breaking Bad. The depiction of methamphetamine's effects on the human body, as well as the nature of the illicit methamphetamine market, is surprisingly accurate.

If you'd prefer a more scholarly source of information about methamphetamine (and just about any other recreational drug out there, including some real weird ones like Bromo-Dragonfly), Erowid is your place.

Better ask Paul. (see sig)

Better call Saul.

What I want to know is if there is a Half-Life connection. I mean, looking at their posters in the downloads section, Ian McKellen sure does look like he could be the G-Man. Is Number Six going to be seen crawling in vents with a crowbar in hand?

By the way.. just as collectivism and state worship has never been stronger in America.. AMC is re-running "the Prisoner" on it's website.

http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner-1960s-series/

"Just accept life in the Village, Number 6.. go along with the program.. it's for your own good.."

That or an unlicensed game taking the plot from Breaking Bad. Hey kids, want to cook some crank today?

How many workplace comedies are they going to throw out on the airwaves? First there was the British version, then the yanks adopted it with their own cast and stories. Now AMC has an 'office' set in the early sixties called "Madmen." What does Adobe think they're going to bring to the table? Will Ferrell, perhaps? That, I think, is the only thing that could establish Adobe's Office as a competitor to the Steve Carell show.

Seth

But thanks to McCain-Feingold,

Which is exactly what we were saying when the "Campaign Finance Reform" debate was going on.

We were called paranoids. The media are neutral. The only report facts. It's stupid to think that they might try to help the candidates that they prefer.

Now that it's law, what we said would happen is happening. Hollywood liberals are producing propaganda films and portraying them as documentaries.

There's even a Documentary on AMC about how Republicans in Hollywood are blacklisted, like Communists in the McCarthy Era.

LK

The league of Extraordinary Gentleman was a Comic written by Alan Moore (at least for some time, I haven't read it myself though I've heard about it).
Basically it consists of pulp heros and villains, like alan quartermain (as in Alan quartermain and the lost city of gold, which i have seen, No imdb but plot synopsis here. )
Basically Moore rewrites the characters of british pulp mythology in ways reminiscent of The Watchmen.
The Invisible man has sex with girls at a boarding school. It's that kind of comic I guess.