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I watch a show to be entertained, not educated.

Maybe if you watched some quality science fiction you could get both.

This one doesn't seem to be in the catalogue of Start Trek Particles...

At least not yet.

Since the main one seems to be down, I've put up a tracker on my server. Here's the .torrent file.

If people don't like Star Trek references, then how 'bout B5/JMS? Quoting from The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5:

Reporter: "After all that you've just gone through, I have to ask you the same question a lot of people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back, forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home?"
Sinclair: "No. We have to stay here, and there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics - and you'll get ten different answers. But there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on: whether it happens in a hundred years, or a thousand years, or a million years, eventually our sun will grow cold, and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us, it'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-tsu, Einstein, Maruputo, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes - all of this. All of this was for nothing, unless we go to the stars."

...

jms speaks

...

Sinclair's final speech there is the simplest truth about space exploration that I can think of...and the most compelling..and the most overlooked. As Henry Kissinger once said, "It has the added benefit of being true."

I guess it really comes down to a simple question for each person to consider: "Should the human race grow, or die out?"

The second season episode "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum" features the creation of an earth government agency called "the Ministry of Peace (nicknamed "Minipax" by its employees,) with the alleged goal of helping reduce internal tensions among the EA's [Earth Alliance] populace. Its first visible action was to establish a program called the Night Watch, paying people 50 credits a week to wear black armbands and report suspicious people to the authorities so that troublemakers can be reformed before they disrupt the peace." (quote from above link).
I was watching that particular episode last night, and the quiet, subtle way it was introduced and promoted scared the shit out of me. I can't help seeing parallels between the Night Watch and this new "US Home Guard".
"The shadows have come. The shadows have come for us all..."
(Mod -1 Babylon 5 fanboy)

If you are in los Estados Unidos and have cable, you can see it on Sci-Fi channel at 9 AM. (Or, more accurately, you can tape it and watch it insead of Enterprise. ;) If you can start tomorrow (15 Apr) do it. "Believers" is an episode which will kick you in the head.

Otherwise, probably your best bet is to look up The Lurker's Guide, and IIRC they have a guide to where it is elsewhere in the world.

I've had PC HD cards for several years. Currently, I'm using a Telemann HiPix with the user modified software from a dedicated group of hackers from the AVS Forums. But processor speeds have reached the point where one can playback HD transport streams solely in software using a tool like DVHSTool and the MPEG2 decoder from a software DVD player.

"Continuing storylines are often used as a replacement for decent writing - the writers get lazy, I guess."

Sorry, but that's just nuts. You think maintaining complicated continuity, dozens of ongoing subplots and backstories, planning threads that don't pay out for years, is a sign of LAZINESS?

JM Straczynski has said that his work on Babylon 5 took enormous tolls on his health. He writes for 10 hours a day, every single day of the year except for Christmas and his birthday.

Check out this page, and look at seasons 3 through 5. Notice anything interesting about the writing credits? They're ALL Straczynski (except for one ep. in s5 by sci-fi author Neil Gaiman). Nobody in television history, AKAIK, has written an entire season singlehandedly, much less three in a row. And B5 has exceptional writing, and the awards and critical praise to prove it.

B5 is a masterpiece of interwoven, dynamic, rich, epic storytelling. Would you accuse novel writers of laziness because you can't just jump into any chapter and enjoy it fully without reading the previous ones? If you prefer anthologies to novels, that's great, I'm sure lots do in today's world of ever-dwindling attention spans. But saying that long-term writing is a sign of laziness, just strikes me as disrespectful and downright offensive.

None of the RPTVs are certified for 1080p... only the $30k+ front projector CRTs are.

They're not anywhere near $30K if you buy them used. I have one (hence my interest in 1080p) and it didn't cost me more than a top-end HD RPTV. Of course, the room to put it in, that's a different story, but while that's underway it also works fine in my living room pointed at a white wall.

And I beg to differ about a 2GHz PC having enough horsepower -- that's absolutely true for simple 3:2 pulldown detection, but not for some of the more sophisticated motion-compensation algorithms that provide good results on video material such as 1080i sports broadcasts.

HD DVD is still in a blue-laser MPEG-2 vs. red-laser MPEG-4 fight, but digital VCRs already exist and do let you record high definition programming.

It's called D-VHS. D-Theater is a standard on top of that that adds tough encryption for distribution of Wacky Jack V.'s movies so they'll be hard to back up.

The limitation of D-VHS in recording is that you're depending on a tuner to give you signals. 8VSB-broadcast-only (OTA or "over the air") tuners may never be DRM-crippled by the proposed broadcast flag, but satellite and combo HD-OTA/sat tuners are subject to nasty firmware upgrades with Digital Restrictions Managed. It's possible that even OTA-only tuners will be upgraded with MPEG private section data, but that reqires cooperation of broadcasters.

There are also OTA-only HD tuner cards for PCs. Whether there are backdoors for "upgrading" the DRM if the broadcast flag flies is left as an exercise (try SoftICE). The streams that at least one of the cards captured are not "in the clear," which gives you an idea of the mfg.'s intentions. There are no open source drivers for any of these cards working yet. The Telemann "independent developer" project for HiPix requires an NDA to get source access. Teralogic who makes the chip on that board has been bought by Oak, BTW.

About the HiPix card: It's software is top notch because its written and supported by card owners on the forums at that site.

Seconded! I have a HiPix and I use the AVS version of the software. The current version is solid and I use it every day. I can hardly wait for the next version, as I know that they'll add even more useful, user requested features (as opposed to the usual practice of piling on crap). The DVHS playback feature alone saved me a couple of hundred dollars on a component to RGB converter. Another tool developed by a Forum member is DVHSTool, which lets me archive HiPix (or other DTV card files) to and from tape.

However, if this happens, their profit model will immediately face a new menace: "virtual copyright infringment". Some hackers will create/modify a software MPEG player so that it applies a simple EDL (Edit Directive List) to the video as it plays.

Certainly!

Check out the this B5 history guide for more info:

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/history.html

Um... no. There was a plot bible and the story arc was plotted out before they started the show but there was not 5 years worth of scrip written before they started filming. Check here.

(Yes, I've tried posting to the Mozilla newsgroups, but this is exactly the kind of request that gets ignored by everyone there.)

I was never a fan of Michael O'Hare's or Claudia Christian's acting, but you have to admit that Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik did an amazing job, even through all of the makeup and given the occasionally bad dialog that plagued the "off" episodes of the first season.

Take a look at Signs and Portents, Chrysalis and The Coming of Shadows for examples of just how good television can be when the likes of these actors team up with the likes of JMS at his writing peak.

I was never a fan of Michael O'Hare's or Claudia Christian's acting, but you have to admit that Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik did an amazing job, even through all of the makeup and given the occasionally bad dialog that plagued the "off" episodes of the first season.

Take a look at Signs and Portents, Chrysalis and The Coming of Shadows for examples of just how good television can be when the likes of these actors team up with the likes of JMS at his writing peak.

I was never a fan of Michael O'Hare's or Claudia Christian's acting, but you have to admit that Mira Furlan, Andreas Katsulas and Peter Jurasik did an amazing job, even through all of the makeup and given the occasionally bad dialog that plagued the "off" episodes of the first season.

Take a look at Signs and Portents, Chrysalis and The Coming of Shadows for examples of just how good television can be when the likes of these actors team up with the likes of JMS at his writing peak.

However, Tom Ridge - the head of the government's soon-for-real Big Brother department - looks almost exactly like Babylon 5's dictator president Clark.

Before you listen to Zathrus about worker safety, consider what he looked like at his last physical.

Oh, wait ...ZathrAs? Are they related?

If Dickens were alive today, he'd probably use a "shitty fab plant" as a setting for a novel!

"Copyright Trial Continues in Bookzap Flap: Books Downloaded Directly into Brain: Who Owns Them?" --headline seen Universe Today in And The Sky Full Of Stars

Exactly. The banal face of evil. You look at most of the guys who ran Treblinka, or Bergen-Belsen, and they're largely ordinary looking guys, who could be accountants or repair men or car salesmen. They're *us*...and this was designed to remind us of that. The evil, mustache-twirling villain is too easy, and too far from the truth of it.

This was one of the elements that made the episode interesting for me; most SF tends to ignore the darker sides of the common person. They deal with the big bad guys, the evil federations and Darth Vaders and all the other major forces out there, but all too often the real damage is done not by the single Evil Leader, but by the ten million people who *follow* him, the bookkeepers who track the bodies and the trains and the pain by placing the right figures in all the right columns, who make the trains run on time, who run the gulags, who build the new state empires that will be built with slave labor, any or all of whom could say, as many have, "I was just doing my job."

Not so much "following orders," we've heard that before, applied to the military...but just "doing my job." To the interrogator, he was simply doing his job, and doing it to the best of his ability. It is something he does, then he goes home to his wife and kids, and has dinner, and sits out on the porch trying to forget what he does because he thinks he *has* to do it...assuming he thinks about it at all.

And one of the people there, who had been with SDI and the Space Program for 12 years, currently a top-level NASA consultant, pulled me aside and said that after seeing the line about the gravity not letting the body get very far . . . he said he sat down to do the math required to come up with the actual MASS of B5, starting with the 2.5 million tons of actual structure, plus likely vegetation, quarters, occupants, ships docked inside...and when you add it all up, it came to about the same mass as a fairly small moon...and IT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO KEEP THE BODY FROM -- AS STATED IN THE SCRIPT -- GETTING VERY FAR. The body would drift from the station a bit, get pulled back, hit the hull, bounce, drift a bit, and be pulled back. Or go into a slow elliptical orbit. (He mentioned that in the history of the Apollo program, little bits of debris that would flake off the outside of the ship would remain in proximity to the ship, just on the basis of ITS mass and gravity, and it's not very big.) A couple of other high-level engineers backed him up, and said that it was quite reasonable.

I guess this one doesn't count then?

A psych journal dedicated to "failed" experiments. With psi as the 'icon'. Is this some wierd cover p by the Corps and Mr. Bester. Where's Lyta Alexander when you need her?

Yeah, I do get it. Psi, Psych, Psychology. No coverup here.

Wait? Is that silent approach of the Black Helicopters?

If you want a fun way to learn about incremental loss of freedoms, if you want to see how to make people glad that you are creating a police state, watch Seasons 2 & 3. (Well, watch the whole 5 Season series[+ movies!], but that's more for fun than the current exercise.) Look for the "Ministry of Peace", "Nightwatch", anything to do with PsyCops (watch the PsyCop advertisement in slow-motion ;), and the general change in tone of everything having to do with politics.

I'm a casual student of human nature, and of politics/history, so seeing the things that I knew about manipulation and power-building played out in front of me was incredible, like reading about a sport and then getting to see it played in person by professionals. It was so cool, and so scary. "We arrest because we care."

OK, it's been a couple years now and I'm fuzzy on the details. But Crusade sucked because the TV executives wanted more action, less thinking. JMS was against this, he wanted to tell his typical stories. But the Powers That Be wanted gunfights. And it showed, big time. You could tell what was JMS, and what was some clueless executive, as you watched the show.

I suspect details are at The Lurkers Guide

And FWIW, I'm one who wishes it were on a regular network also. I don't get Showtime, and won't be subscribing just for 1 show. So I guess I'm either stuck with the edited version on regular TV in a year (like Outer Limits), or I can rent the DVDs a year after the fact (Sopranos, Sex and the City).

snotnose

I have YET to find "Rabbit of Seville" so the kids can understand why I sing Rossini whilst washing their hair.

In any sane society, Chuck Jones would be canonized. He leaves behind a great legacy...I agree with JMS that two hundred years from now people will still be watching "Duck Dogers in the 24th and 1/2 Century!"

Thanks, Chuck. You will be remembered, most fondly.

Ahhhh, the sheer elegance of simple set design. These days it would all be several hundred hours of CGI dev time, depending on where you were going

From the "This is War" article. " We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

If it wasn't so horrible, this would almost be funny. Apparently "Thou shalt now kill" has been amended "unless you're at war." You'll find extremists preaching violence on both sides.

I think Mark Twain summarized the hypocracy of war in the name of religion best in "The War Prayer".

To really do it right, requires strong AI.

I wouldn't trust any non-intelligence to keep from filtering out "fake" commercials such as the Psi Corp Commercial in And Now For a Word, The Simpson's "Canyonero", Saturday Night Live's "Colon Blo", etc. It would requires contextual understanding, appreciation of humor, and other qualities.

Well, this brings to mind the fact that Amigas and the NewTek Toaster/Lightwave 3D were used to render Babylon 5 when it first appeared on the scene. Now they use Macs, DEC Alphas, and 12 Pentiums to do the job. Ahhh, the good old days ;-)

I love the story writing of B5 - JMS has proven that taking a well thought out plot and universe can be done before a single episode is produced! I love using Star Trek: TNG episodes as MST3K fodder :) The Ultimate B5 Guide

Thank you for the amazing breakdown. I myself am a Huge Fan of this series, and was watching since GROPOS. It's a must-see. Infact, the only series to actually come close to its glory has been Farscape, but still has not beat it just yet.

Some good sites to go to for Babylon 5 information and discussion:
The Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5. A great reference source. It has THE most comprehensive episode guide for the series, it's movies, and its spinoff, Crusade. They Include a Synopsis, Notes, Comments from JMS, and other related information. The site also includes a B5 term encyclopedia, which can be beneficial for those who don't understand a term.
B5 Tech Reference. This site, while containing large amounts of fictional information, is a decent reference for anyone seeking information on the spacecraft of Babylon 5.
FirstOnes.com. While this is a shameless plug, If you want to talk with other babylon 5 fans, go there and visit the forums. You'll meet some interesting people from around the world. While it's primary mission has been abandoned (to raise the Babylon 5 Space Combat Simulator, Into the Fire, from the dead), it is being transformed into a source for everything Babylon 5. (well, that's the plan, at least =) )
Hyperspace Ship Guide. Another great reference page for the spacecraft of babylon 5. This has less fanfiction than Babylon 5 Tech, but less information as a whole. It has some great images, though.
The Down Below Sound Archive. This Page has a sound bite of just about anything you could want from this show. It's a great place to go if you want something along those lines.
Babylon 5: The place to be. This is another great site, loaded with 3D art and the models to make your own! Check it out sometime.
The Music of Babylon 5.. This is another great Babylon 5 Resource. It's webmaster posts various soundtracks from Babylon 5 on a regular basis. Most recently, the site had put up Battle Sequences A-F, the Sampler tracks for the music in Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Take a few minutes and listen to it.
The Shadow Information Office. A great page dedicated to correcting the popular belief that shadows are evil monsters. Rather, it shows that they have a very incolved culture, and exist for the sole purpose of assisting the other races. Check it out.

I hope these links are put to good use. There is a lot of information on the web. most of it bad. This should clear up some of that. Sanfam Out.

• Dark Angel. No, not because Jessica Alba is a hottie. It has wonderful continuity, good interplay between the major characters, a truly despicable villain who nonetheless isn't just a one-dimensional cliche, and a visual style that isn't like anything else on TV right now (even if it's maybe not entirely original). It also makes a decent attempt to be plausible in the science department, most of the time anyway.
• Futurama. Continues to do a hilarious job of skewering sci-fi cliches.
• Andromeda. Again, good continuity with a sense of a larger story being told (as a B5 nut this scores lots of points with me), interesting characters, good effects, and story concepts we haven't seen done a million times before.
• Lexx. This brings me back to my college days of watching videotapes of awful old sci-fi movies on Saturday nights. Last season kind of dragged on but this year is a hoot so far.

Stargate is just below my threshold -- not bad and I catch it pretty often, but I feel like I watch enough TV as it is so I don't follow it religiously.

B5 was by far the best sci-fi on TV for several reasons.

The effects: The budget per episode for B5 was a tenth of what ST:TNG cost, and by the time B5 reached the 5th season the effects were just stunning. Quite possibly the best space battles ever in a sci-fi show.

The story: While you could watch most B5 episodes as a seperate entity, the dedicated viewer was rewarded by one of the best stories I've seen in any medium. I won't even try and encapsulate it here, but it ranged from great comedy (some of the Londo/G'Kar scenes, plus various comments from other characters, particularly Ivanova.) to tragedy (no spoilers here. Suffice to say the show has it's fair share of tragedy.) Unlike shows like Voyager or Next Gen, B5 started a story, and ran it to it's conclusion. There were changes from the creators vision along the way (JMS is a genius!) for various reasons, but the description "a novel for television" was used, and fairly so.

Characters: No annoying robots or cute kids. Every character was believeable. Every character had flaws. The characters evolved. B5 could and should be used as a teaching piece on character development. Another thing I liked was the fact that you never felt any character was indispensible. In TNG, you know damn well Picard, Riker etc... aren't going to snuff it. In B5 I always felt like no character had a free pass. That added immeasurably to the show.

Realism: Unlike the shiny happy universe of Star Trek, B5 had real problems. Homeless people aboard the station for example. JMS (I won't even attempt to spell his surname) made a believable universe by including such elements.

The music: The show was great, but Christopher Franke's (ex of Tangerine Dream) music moved the show up a level. There are scenes which just rip your heart out, the music is so poignant. (Again, no spoilers.)

The alien races: While most were humanoid (not all) I think the aliens designed for B5 were FAR better than the blindingly obvious "human under makeup" aliens of Trek. The Pak'Mara for example looked amazing, and while the main players are the standard "human under makeup", the diversity of the portrayed alien cultures was amazing. Oh, and not all of them breathed oxygen. The station has section for non oxygen breathers.

For all your B5 needs, go check out The Lurkers Guide.

In closing, Babylon 5 is the best sci-fi there has ever been on TV. I look forward to the new "Legends of the Rangers" but I can't see, in all honesty, how it can possibly live up to Babylon 5 itself.

Besides, you have to love a show that blasts a teddy bear into space:)

Well, if we're doing B5/Tron connections, it should be noted that David Warner himself appeared in B5, as Aldous Gajic in the episode "Grail".
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Now, the only problem with THIS is that it was the Mimbari who gave [the triluminary] to Sinclair, who then went back in time and gave it to the Mimbari, so they could give it to him...

No. The triluminary and the Chrysalis device came from Epsilon 3. It went back in time on B4, where Valen gave it to the Minbari, who gave it to Delenn, who still has it. JMS has acknowledged that the shot of Zathras bringing it on board was underplayed and should have been better emphasized.

As for the pilot, of course they are going to try to pretend it all fits, even though some of the key elements of the pilot (mere chemicals being able to be injected via contact to a being of pure energy) are in direct conflict woith the actual series.

I think the series has fairly firmly established that even energy beings have a degree of physicality and can be affected by physical things. Consider, for instance, the energy being in "The Long Dark", who was killed by mere PPGs.
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Erm, you mean like the fundamental plot hole introduced in the pilot? You remember, the one where a normal being was able to apply a poison to Kosh by injecting it into him through his encounter suit?!

Nice try, but that one is long since resolved. In the words of the producer: "Remember, they do have a certain physicality about them, even in that form, and the nature of the poison was such that it would affect that kind of life form using a crystalline base (note in the pilot the screen reads analyzing crystalline structure, and you filter light or refract or distort it using a crystalline structure)."

(don't get me started on that whole Valen/Sinclair thing - a major flaw in there if you look),

Where? You were aware that that was part of the arc from the very beginning, yes?
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• To those who've heard the news already, and those just now finding out...the SciFi Channel today announced that we have a new Babylon 5 TV movie going into production that will also serve as a pilot for a likely new series.
  
  
• The movie (and the series) is under the heading of BABYLON 5: THE LEGEND OF THE RANGERS. The specific title for the 2-hour movie's story is "To Live and Die in Starlight."

The TV Guide article is here.

The place I got these links as well as the repository of all B5 info is here.

Check out the episode of Babylon 5 that Joe Straczynski had to delay for a year (Passing Through Gethsemane), or the novel Marion Zimmer Bradley was unable to publish (couldn't find a link), then ask how much is Sturgeon's Law and how much is justifiable paranoia.

some form of artificial gravity. I don't see the big deal here - just spin the damn space craft.

You can't rotate quickly or everyone will get motion sickness. Studies I've heard of indicate a rule of thumb is one revolution per minute maximum.

Do the math. To provide 1 G of rotational accelleration at 1 RPM , you have to have a radius of about 900 meters.

w = (1 / 60) * 2 * 3.1416 = 0.105 radians / second

a = w^2 * r

1 G = 9.8 meters / second^2

9.8 = 0.105^2 * r

r = 894 meters

If you're unsure of paying for a pre-fab solution, you could use Un-CGI. It's free and it takes care of all the really boring de-URLencoding stuff. Then can use scripts in whatever language you want-- shell, Python, C, whatever.

Art At Home

I assume these scientists were inspired by watching Babylon 5. Mass drivers can be fun!

It reeminds of of that Babylon 5 Episode where Molari angered someone he should not have, and wound up having his quarters and his life ruined not by a virus, but by a holodemon program.

The Lurker's Guide has this:

Londo is in his quarters, having considerable difficulty, when Vir enters. Londo explains that a holodemon has possessed his data system. It is eating up files, records, and buying stocks he would never purchase for himself, in addition to playing painful Narn opera continually. Vir suggests that Londo apologize. Londo refuses at first, but when his computer suddenly reports that he is the new owner of 500,000 shares of Fireflies Incorporated, then blacks out the entire room, Londo agrees.

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

just in case you don't get the parent, it's a parody of the opening monologe of the first season of Babylon 5.

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call - home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5. - Commander Sinclair

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/universe/setting-1.h tml

there's also an ac sibling in here that's a parody of the season 3 opening

just in case you don't get the parent, it's a parody of the opening monologe of the first season of Babylon 5.

It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal, to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call - home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5. - Commander Sinclair

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/universe/setting-1.h tml

there's also an ac sibling in here that's a parody of the season 3 opening

Do you mean this particle site?