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I'd be more worried about this sort of thing.

I seem to remember the BBC barely acknowledged 1 and 2 existed when it came to repeats for years.

No, series 2 was definitely repeated early on- I started watching halfway through series 2, then saw what I thought was a new series... then they got to the episodes I'd already seen and I realised it was a repeat.

AFAIK, series 1 on the other hand definitely wasn't repeated for quite a number of years, but that was at the creators' request. "At the insistence of the creators, Red Dwarf II broke with BBC tradition and was shown without a repeat of Series I. Feeling let down by so much of the first series, Grant and Naylor shot straight in with the brand new season". I personally didn't see it until (IIRC) they repeated it in 1994.

I assume that by that point it was safe to repeat it, as the show's identity had been established and a fanbase built up.

Series 1 does feel a bit different. I don't know if that's because I didn't see it when it first went out. (*) But the "last man alive" sense of isolation- probably combined with the horrible grey set- gives it a more claustrophobic and downbeat feel. Some aspects which appear in it are less prominent or absent altogether in subsequent series (and some later features aren't included here). I'd also say that while the later series don't seem as old as they are, the first one *does* feel like a show that's well over 20 years old- slightly older if anything, reminiscent of late-70s/early-80s BBC sci-fi production values. Not awful, just more dated. (**)

Anyway, IMHO series 2 is still where it came together properly, and much closer to subsequent series than it is to the first.

(*) IMHO, if you first see something when it first went out, you remember and judge it that way, when it was fresh, and that stays in your memory when you re-watch it. If you see something a few years later, out of context, it's possible that it doesn't get the same "free pass". It's notable that I saw series 2 to 6 all in order when they went out, and series 1 *after* that, not when it- and the show- was new.
(**) Again, this could be bias on my part, not having seen it when it first went out.

they usually have a few passages that they conveniently claim to mean something that they don't really, then they repeat those parts over and over to drown out anyone who contradicts them.

Would that include the first page, which says "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental"?

I thought the creating a cat person was resolved years ago. Just send a mining ship through space a few million years and the cat evolves into Felis Sapiens.

You use a transmogrifier.

Just be sure to have some lager around.

we all know that parakeets are directly descended from T. Rex thanks to Red Dwarf:

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/index.cfm?frameset=deck0 3/deck_fs.html&page=season8.html

click on pete part 2 link (needs realplayer -grrrrr)

-I'm just sayin'

This guy has just ripped off the 'Hudzen' android from Red Dwarf series 3 "The Last Day"!!!

Hudzen http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/deck06/images/image_bank /3-7l.jpg
Trojan http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/images/hs/hs15587 62_1.jpg

Red Dwarf aside, I've never seen a cat that could be confused with a human. When your cat or dog starts to interact with your starship's computer's AI verbally, let me know.

Evolution from one species to another, substantially different species does not happen within a generation. No accepted theory of evolution allows for it. So the time to concern ourselves with a dog or cat's descendents becoming sufficiently genetically similar to humans that we can interbreed and produce fertile offspring is when those descendents happen to reach that point. The likelihood of dog-descended humanoids or cat-descended humanoids ever becoming that close to our ape-descended selves is another matter entirely, since it is nearly nil.

JFK Shot himself Here is the proof :-)

Isn't that how Lister heated his vindaloo?

Talkie Toaster was a toaster from Crapola Inc with inbuilt AI that tried to destroy humans with its inane pursuit of its ultimate reason for being 'I toast therefore I am'. From Red Dwarf.

Hurricane Wilma was (at its peak), the most intense hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic Basin. In all probability, Wilma Flintstone is the most desirable woman who ever lived. Coincidence? No. They both have large electromagnetic fields, which causes dielectric stress (Energetically speaking).

For all those confused by this quote, it is on topic, and comes from the British Comedy show Red Dwarf. http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/

RedDwarf ,Cult Sci-fi comedy from the UK ;) out on DVD and VHS and most likely other places and ways

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/

Will apple use this to make crazy iPod's...

Ever try to plug a firewire cable into a cow?

To paraphrase Kryten: "Now, I presume that, uh, when an iCowPod wants to recharge they do it much the same way mechanoids do. Indeed, I have located what I presume to be the recharging socket, but for some strange reason it doesn't appear to have the standard six-pin adaption. Now, do I have to use some kind of special adaptor? Because no matter what I do, the lead just keeps falling out".

Yaz.

Looks like it could be a job for the "Boys from the Dwarf" and the Jupiter Mining Corporation...

To my mind, Red Dwarf presents the only worthwile treatment of a robotic futures. 'Talky', a sentient bread obsessed toaster so cheerfully irritating as to be unbearable, that's where we're heading.

Programmers will love this language. It's the Python of spoken languages!

... in a proper fashion. :)

Red Dwarf... the "Holly Hop" episode, I believe.

I feel oddly sad that I recognized it so fast.

Personally, I liked Good Omens, but then again, I also like British comedy in general. If you aren't a fan of that genre, I can see how some people might not have cared for it. [personally, I think it still ranks as my favorite book to date, but then again, I also love MPFC, Red Dwarf and the like].
[not directly a reply to you, but to some of the others in this thread]

As for Neverwhere, the problem is that you read the book. This is one of those cases where the book didn't come first. [ie, it's like reading the book adaptation of a movie... it's going to suck, so don't bother]. It was decent, but it wasn't nearly as good as the BBC mini series, that Neil Gaimen did with Lenny Henry [whom most Americans would only recognize from Chef! if their PBS station carried it]. The current anticipated release date for it in the US is June 2003. [See the Jan 17th entry]

It was shown in the US, however, as a promotion through the release of the book in the US by Borders, which is when I saw it. [Personally, I know it's sick, but I liked the frog scene]. Oh...and although it was done 6 years ago, and US standards were low, it had that gritty 'Dr. Who' production budget feel to it, but it was still good TV.

I've heard this argument quite a bit over the years and while it certainly is true that life can survive in extremely hostile conditions, it does not necessarily stand to reason that life could develop equally well in such conditions.

Colder conditions are necessarily going to have fewer of the chemical reactions that lead to the bottom of the chain that is life. Hotter conditions are likely to have so much entropy that life either never develops initially or is wiped out over and over again.

The whole question, however, may be moot. As Zubrin points out in Entering Space, Earth-originating bacteria has possibly already reached other star systems. So as the unmitigated greatness of Red Dwarf posits, it's possible that life evolves nowhere else in the universe than Earth and things are still pretty interesting.

...if those who no longer find their PDA's useful actually use paper-based organisers. My hypothesis is that those who are organised (or anally retentive enough) to write To Do lists, put all appointments in a diary, and colour code their revision timetable, will actually use their PDA's for those functions.

As ever, technology must meet an actual need if it is to be used. Anything else is cool for the first month or so, then sits in the bottom of a drawer gathering dust.

Robert Llewelyn is not of Scrapheap challenge fame .. although that's a great program .. he's of Red Dwarf fame.

Maybe I'm being picky but I'm sure he's better known for his role as Kryton than any other.

It's unfortunate that Red Hat has not offered this service sooner. I moved my home systems to FreeBSD only last week as it's much easier to upgrade to the latest release version (or even to the latest CVS version) or to get a package of a recently-released application. Similar benefits can be obtained from Debian GNU/Linux as well. Both can be upgraded at no cost.

From my experience of Red Hat, even if I did want to upgrade to a more recent version of Red Hat Linux, I wouldn't trust it to an automated system. I upgraded a Red Hat 6 production server to Red Hat 7 last year, and so many things broke I was quite disappointed.

I guess this service will be useful for those home users who want to automatically pull down the latest security patches, tho.

(For those who don't know, the quote is from Red Dwarf, a British comedy.)

Doesn't sound like anything I've ever seen on tv before . I'm amazed by this guy's ingenuity.

Lister and Holly(Craig Charles and Hattie Hayridge) where the husband and wife prison wardens in the episode P4X

Disguised Aussie accents in Farscape ? Lister's accent sure beats the smeg out of it. Food replicators in Star Trek ? small potatoes compared to cow vindaloo. Data the android ? how about Kryten the 3000 series mechanoid ? and 790 the robot head is really ugly compared to Holly.

http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/

However, anyone can tell you -- Red Dwarf is not considered SciFi as much as a sitcom set in space.

I do, however, have every episode on VHS, including the two bloopers tapes, and am hoping that they released the original versions on DVD, and not the 'remastered' ones where they took out the model shots and replaced them with CG. [There's just something classic about the models slamming into everything]

The Official Red Dwarf site has a good interview with them about staring on LEXX - Prison Wardens.

The Official Red Dwarf site has a good interview with them about staring on LEXX - Prison Wardens.

Those of you in the UK can look forward to a new season soon, and most of us in the US can catch reruns of the first 8 seasons on our local PBS station.

I saw Robot Wars UK, last week for the first time, it comes on at 10:30 PM EST on our public television station MPT There are no sports casters (yeah!) The host is Craig Charles of whom many of you may know from the UK sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf When I watched the show they went through maybe 6 matches, of course this was on Public Television (no commercials!) and last 30 minutes. The game runs a bit differnet than battlebots, there are 'House' robots in the corners, and if you are pushed or happen to wander into there area you are free game, or if your bot has been incapacitated they will take you out and dump you in the pit, yes there is a pit you fall into. ROBOT WARS UK

Robot Wars (entering its fifth season) has been rebroadcasted in the United States for many years on scattered PBS stations (including WCNY). Hosted by Craig Charles (best known as Red Dwarf's intergalactic space traveller Lister), the twenty-five minute program (no commercial interruption) is just plain, ungimmicky fun. The format is fairly simple; a series of elimination bouts, mostly involved with running some kind of guantlet. Have no fear, each show culmnates with a no-holds-barred bashing match between the survivors and the house robots. No macho BS, no WWF announcing... Robot Wars is just good British entertainment.

"The British guy from Junkyard Wars has been replaced by some bloody idiot from the States! DANGIT..."

I've only seen it once, but that guy you are talking about is ( I think ) Robert Llewellen, also known as Kryten the Android from Red Dwarf. A bril-smegging-iliantly funny guy, and a high-sterically funny show :-)

Yes indeedy. It was a blatant plug for our good friend Listy and the show Red Dwarf.

When discussing AI, especially when combining it with self-replicating machines, several questions/comments emerge.

OK, so the computer is artificially intelligent. But is it smarter ?? (i.e. more adaptable, able to produce insights, or able to produce useful results from systems that don't model well mathematically)

I recall a book, late 70's/early 80's, by James Hogan, called "The Two Faces of Tomorrow". It started with a problem-solving computer being asked to help remove a small hill on the Moon, as the on-site crew lacked the equipment to remove it (forgot the basic reason). However, lacking, for want of a better word, "Common Sense", it removed the hill. . .by arranging a mass-driver-launched ore packet to impact on the site, "excavating" it meteor-fashion. Sort of like burning down a house to rid it of fleas: the technique is effective, but tends to have far too many unwanted side-effects. Hence the question: if the computer is Artificially Intelligent, does it also have a Articifical Experience Base to base solution evaluation criteria on ???

Number of computing-capable units only gives a brain, whether it be wetware or hardware, a certain information-processing capability. It's the software that really makes the difference.

So, to steal from Red Dwarf, it doesn't matter if the computer has an IQ of 6000, if it doesn't have the overall programming to effectively interface with the external universe...

This show is hosted by Robert Llewellyn (yes, he of Kryten in Red Dwarf fame) and basically is a day long race between 2 teams to use anything they can find in a London scap heap to build machines to then compete against each other in a pre-set challenge.

It's actually even better than it sounds, and accessable to geeks like me, and my 4 and 6 year old kids alike - we can't get enough of this show!

Actually, I haven't yet found any dish service in the US that runs Red Dwarf. There are a few that run 'BBCA' which is 'BBC America', which although it doesn't have Red Dwarf, does have other British comedy.

See http://www.bbcamerica.com/genre/britc oms.html for more information. Also, for a list of the PBS stations in the US that have Red Dwarf season 8, see http://www.reddwarf.co.uk/news/march99/