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Ironically, Dr. Phlox says it best:

Elizabeth Cutler:
They don't have movies where you come from, do they?
Phlox:
We had something similar a few hundred years ago, but they lost their appeal when people discovered their real lives were more interesting.

Reminds me of the Red Dwarf books. (source: https://reddwarf.fandom.com/wi...)

"In the novel Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, Nova 5 is an American vessel owned by "The Coca-Cola Company" which was sent on a mission to induce the supernova of 128 super giant stars in order to create a five-week-long message in the sky visible even in daylight, reading "COKE ADDS LIFE!" Kryten causes Nova 5 to crash after cleaning the sensitive computer terminals with soapy water. After the Red Dwarf crew finds the wreck it is brought aboard and repaired in order to utilize its Duality Jump engine, which could get the crew back to Earth within three months. However, although the ship is successfully repaired, circumstances prevent them from ever going through with it."

You're responding to a copypasta...

No... no... Me stay home.

It was awesome.

Seriously, though, I'm from the start of GenX, we kids had to wait to even have crappy arcade games at home. I even had a Japanese exchange student try to explain Space Invaders to me back in 1978.

Nermal dolls might be better. Odie is simply klutzy. Nermal, however, is known as Garfield's main and direct nemesis.

Storage played a key supporting role in ST:TNG "11001001".

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/11001001_(episode)

So do we end up with Larry the Guy, Nathan the Guy, and Chip the Guy?

Infinitely many, but then again I'm designing a robot system that's specifically designed to kill humans.

But, like Octillion Killbots, Boeing 737 MAX planes have a preset kill limit. The only way to defeat them is to throw wave after wave of passengers at them ...

First, I had to double-check my calender that it isn't April 1st. Then I double-checked NASA's website to make sure Apollo 18 never happened. I also RTFA, just to make sure it says "Apollo 18", and it sure does. Not sure just who to attribute this FAIL to; NYDN or Slashdot.

NASA better be careful, that bag is probably full of moon spiders.

Who wants to play the same map every game?

de_dust much? Or in Tetris, who wants to play with the same 7 pieces every game?

Pink

I think you'll find that they're called Mimmoths

I'm looking forward to https://futurama.fandom.com/wi... personally. This is a step in the right direction. If we could only enforce steroid consumption, maybe modern day baseball will be worth the while to watch...

Yes there was a Star Trek TNG episode called 'Relics' where Scotty was frozen in a transporter that crashed into a Dyson Sphere. Was a good episode.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://memory-alpha.fandom.co...

Yes, it was called Zem and lived in the swamps of Sqornshellous Zeta. Many of them are slaughtered, dried out, and shipped around the galaxy to be slept on by grateful customers. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Mattresses

Yellow pony is best pony. (warning: MLP)

https://southpark.fandom.com/w...

Biologically engineered super viruses used offensively in acts of war?

Some asshole unleashing Samaritan?

Mandatory electronic tracking of everyone by government agencies? (GPS locator in skull, cellular modem enabled microphone / camera in ear / eyes, Telescreens in every room style.)

Kitchens bursting into flames because of hacked IoT stoves? (Yes, that's a video game reference for those who can tell.)

There's plenty of ways it can get bad. But what are you trying to achieve here by asking this question? To create some sort of way to measure the severity of an incident? To demand change? To find out every possible way a hack might bite you in the rear? This question is rather pointless without an objective.

Severity measuring is difficult with this issue because humans don't consider what happens to others as a "bad" thing they should help prevent. Especially when they are not directly impacted.

If you're looking to list every possible avenue of attack, good luck. New ones are created each and every day, and the exact way it can harm anyone is dependent on a variety of factors including, but limited to: integration with society, integration with other systems, trust, accessibility, prevention measures taken, hardware used, etc.

Demanding change is about the only realistic use of this question, but the act of demanding change is a problem in and of itself. Because anything short of reeducating the general public on proper use, changing their expectations, and a move away from the "it's an appliance" mentality is not going to make much of a dent. If you're waiting for some "they destroyed a city" level of BS before actually considering making serious commitments to change, you'll be waiting for a good while longer due to the above. Put simply, demanding change is difficult when the public is apathetic to the issue.

If it's not any of these, then what is the purpose? Please enlighten us.

...this is the most ambitious machine learning project ever.

Wait until RealDoll perfects the small-talk subroutines for their A.I.-equipped "companionship" dolls. Simulating female bitchiness such as being able to make crazy links between totally unrelated events is going to require massive amounts of processing power.

Solving the problem of creating crazy links between disparate ideas has been solved for over a decade.

Or The Orville's "Majority Rule" https://orville.fandom.com/wik...

And this is the actual reason why people don't like systemd. It's quality is bad and when it crashes the kernel panics.

I don't see what you're getting all worked up about. Take your meds, and chill out.

First post, and who'll be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

This sounds quite similar to the Shoe Event Horizon storyline from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

It's quite possible that in the (very near) future, the only companies on the planet that will be able to manufacture anything will be the ones that also have software services associated to their own hardware. We're already almost at that point with Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft.

I think maybe astrophysicists have been watching too many Marvel movies because what they're talking about is basically gravitonium.

TFS refers to both the Nike shoe company and the book- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Well, right there Nike can save a small fortune by simply reading that book. It predicts the future of the shoe industry as revealed by our favorite SciFi writer:

"The Shoe Event Horizon is an economic theory that draws a correlation between the level of economic (and emotional) depression of a society and the number of shoe shops the society has.

The theory is summarized as such: as a society sinks into depression, the people of the society need to cheer themselves up by buying themselves gifts, often shoes. It is also linked to the fact that when you are depressed you look down at your shoes and decide they aren't good enough quality so buy more expensive replacements. As more money is spent on shoes, more shoe shops are built, and the quality of the shoes begins to diminish as the demand for different types of shoes increases. This makes people buy more shoes.

The above turns into a vicious cycle, causing other industries to decline.

Eventually the titular Shoe Event Horizon is reached, where the only type of store economically viable to build is a shoe shop. At this point, society ceases to function, and the economy collapses, sending a world spiraling into ruin." https://hitchhikers.fandom.com...

The Firesign Theater had their own thoughts on the economics of shoes:
"Shoes for Industry! Shoes for the Dead! Shoes for Industry!
        HI! I'm Joe Beats.

Say, what chance does a deceased returning war veteran have for that good payin' job, more sugar, and that free Mule we've all been dreaming of?

Now take off your shoes.

Now you can see how increased spending opportunities, mean harder work for everyone, and more of it, too! So, do yourself a favor, Joe. Join with millions of your friends and neighbors, and, TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!

"For INDUSTRY!"

Because.... SPACEFORCE!

(Go ahead and down rank me. I deserve it. Sorry.)

You know, you may have a point. There is about a 1/3 of the population that I believe would be strong enough, smart enough, and knowledgeable enough of the real news to take on the exciting and courageous challenge of establishing America First on Mars.

It's the kind of story that has been written before. link

Let's face it, even if you somehow get travel cheap enough, the only way your going to convince mass amounts of people to live on Mars is the same way you convinced them the caravan is going to come and get us.

I don't know about what happened in Luxembourg--I wish I'd heard about this pre-con, so I could have asked him about it--but the rights thing over Galactica is such a huge mess that, if it was more than a couple years ago, I'm not surprised, and I really wouldn't blame Richard for it. Apparently Glen Larsen discovering that he had some residual rights to some elements of (but not all of) the show via the episodes he wrote knocked the whole thing into a cocked hat, and nobody knew exactly who had what rights anymore. Hatch has been trying the best he can to get the whole thing ironed out, and it will be interesting to see what comes of this new wrinkle. One thing's for sure--Hatch's fans can swing a lot of letter-writing power. Call it a "snail-mail Slashdot effect." The Sci-Fi channel abruptly dropped their plans for a Galactica update last month--though I'll admit it might have been due partly to Singer's sudden interest in the franchise.

As far as creative vision is concerned, Hatch is clearly no duffer. He's actually written--and I don't mean Shatnerly-ghost-written, I mean written--a trilogy taking Galactica into the future, and the storyline of that trilogy is roughly the way the new show would go.

The trailer is really slick, with some great footage (albeit perhaps a bit of overacting), a special appearance by Lorne Greene, and CGI done by volunteers that looks incredibly polished. There's one shot of a Viper zooming through an open tunnel in one side of a starship and out the other that never failed to elicit gasps of awe from the audience. It's amazing how slick and polished it looks--you'd swear it was from a finished product. Hatch tells stories of screening it to studio execs who were sort of embarrassed going in, expecting to see someone's home video, and then had to pick their jaws up off the floor when it showed.

There are some still frames from the trailer on the BattlestarGalactica.com website, but due to SAG rules (having to do with the actors actually having to be paid and stuff), they can't put the whole thing online or otherwise make it available. So they screen it at cons.

Hatch has always expressed a willingness to work with whoever got the rights--even Larsen, though Larson rebuffed him (and Larsen's involvement with the Singer version doesn't give me a whole lot of hope). Hatch can also swing most of the still-alive original cast--even the reclusive Dirk Benedict. All he wants is to ensure that the new series has the same things that kept people watching the old series--the original cast in their original roles. All the other proposed BSG projects have been planned to focus elsewhere--on other elements in the BSG universe. Hatch can understand that the studios might prefer to swap in new faces, but all he wants is that there should be a segueway from the old to the new, with more than lip service paid to the original. One of his great fears (and mine, too) is that they'll do a recast and remake, a la the Lost in Space movie that Bill Mumy lobbied for and was then shut out of.

The problem with Hatch, as I imagine the "suits" in charge of studios see it, is that he's a starry-eyed dreamer, with a Vision. That so overshadows the other aspect of him--his business sense, and ability to make much out of limited resources--that it's no wonder the suits get scared. After all, other dreamers with creative vision in the past have made major holes in studio pocketbooks--just look at Kevin Costner.

Still, the open letters and interviews posted to the BSG site lately do give me hope, especially the fandom.com interview with DeSanto in which he says he respects and admires Hatch for keeping the fandom alive and would like to see his trailer. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

(Another trailer Hatch showed at the con was his new project, The Great War of Magellan . This one is also an unfinished teaser, but the storyline looks promising and it has quite a few interesting faces in it--Hatch, Jason Carter, Brad Dourif . . . have to wait and see what develops there, too.)
--

Maybe they can band together into a larger organization themselves!

Oh, wait.. They already had that in mind when they created this..

Fandom, Inc
2644 30th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Voice: (310) 581-2488

Fax: (310) 581-8308

General inquiries: info@fandom.com

Media inquiries: Hillary Atkin hatkin@fandom-inc.com

Fandom, Inc
2644 30th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90405

Voice: (310) 581-2488

Fax: (310) 581-8308

General inquiries: info@fandom.com

Media inquiries: Hillary Atkin hatkin@fandom-inc.com

The Fandom.com web site (http://www.fandom.com)

Fandom.com's dead trademark on Fandom Note:Dead May 01, 2000

Fandom.TV's Trademark Status Note:Application Oct 31, 2000

Fandom.com's suprisingly new trademark on Fandom Note:Application Nov 14, 2000

Most interestingly though from Merriam-Webster the word

FANDOMMain Entry: fandom Pronunciation: 'fan-d&m Function: noun Date: 1903 : all the fans (as of a sport)

The word is in the dictionary and it appeared around 1903, why is this word even allowed to be trademarked???!!!

Science has nothing to do with it. Everybody knows that missing socks can be attributed to Underpants Gnomes

Right now, Star Trek is at pretty much its lowest point since the 70s, when there was no series at all. The last movie was a disappointment, both critically and commercially, Voyager ratings are a pale shadow of what they were in early seasons (they're stable compared to last year, but that's only because they really can't go down very much more). Hell, today came the news that Kate Mulgrew's fan club has shut down. Granted this seems to be for personal reasons on the part of the founders, but the symbolism is profound. The fan club of the actress who plays the captain on a Star Trek show- noted for the dedication of its fans- is no longer. Pathetic.

Birth of the Federation sounds to me like an unbelievably stupid idea. Anybody who knows about Star Trek already has a pretty good idea of what happened back then. And frankly, we don't really care. Brannon Braga has never been noted for his dedication to consistency within the Star Trek universe, so now he's going to bring in a time-travel guy so he can fuck things up. We all know what this is going to mean- more weird-ass vortexes, more mindless fights, more anomalies-of-the-week, and probably more women in catsuits. The Baywatch-ization of Star Trek will be complete. But hell, even if they want more of an action focus, the Special Forces concept would be cooler than this.

I think it's time for Paramount to realize what alot of other people already have: the time has long since come for Braga and Berman to move on. The franchise needs a break. Finish Voyager, then just let it sit for a bit. Then call in some fresh blood, or some veteran blood that knows what it's doing. Ronald D. Moore's recent articles on Fandom show that he is a man who understands the franchise's problems and he has a pretty good idea how to fix them. He is one of the key people responsible for one of Star Trek's few recent successes, the final season of Deep Space Nine, which was brilliantly done. Moore would be the perfect candidate to resurrect Star Trek.

Obviously I haven't seen Birth of the Federation so I can't make any final judgments. But I'm definitely not optimistic. Having a Star Trek series cancelled in its first season would be a huge embarrasment and the biggest insult yet to a franchise that's already been largely stripped of its dignity. But having it die might be the only way to save it in the long run.

WETA is Peter Jackson's special/vfx that he's using in the ubercool upcoming "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The shooting location for those movies is in New Zealand, so that's where they're working right now, but I'm unsure of where their permanent base of operations are.

For the trilogy, at least, I've read that the special fx are not really Matrixish, but still damn cool. They have a software program called MASSIVE which will be largely responsible for creating and animating in a true-to-life manner armies of 400,000+ orcs in complex battle scenes. WETA is also creating a character for the movie -- Gollum -- and all reports say that Gollum is the most lifelike, unfake pure fx character yet. Furthermore, they're using CGI to shrink the actors playing hobbits to half their normal size or so. Finally, they're altering the filmed landscape in subtle ways to make it more magical.

For more info, see:
Ringbearer.org
The Official Movie Site with preview stills