Slashdot Mirror

The editor there has commented that someone from the TV side of the network used to review the stories for possible adaptation, but that they stopped a while ago (probably right around the time that SciFi started actually making TV movies by the truckload).

Your wish is partially granted:

Schedule

Type "firefly" into the search box and hit return. The signal returns this coming Friday - in order, even *grin* but they aren't airing all the DVD episodes, apparently. (why I don't know) :-D

SB

I nominate Snakehead Terror as the first one for Tom Servo & friends to review.

Chip H.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately given what's happened to the rest of the film adaptations of Alan Moore's stuff), the plug has been pulled on the Watchmen film, at least for now. http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=0&id=31145

Incidentily, have any of you Smith fans ever read Harry Harrisons parodies ?
IIRC
"Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" ( really, really funny) Skylark Parody
"Space Rats of the CCC" (Cosmic Camel Corps) A sorta parody of "Space Hounds of the IPC"

A fun short story.

Unfortunately, true. Science-positive, forward-looking science fiction is still being published, but it tends to be the exception by far. Why should science fiction focuse solely on the cautionary tale? Why should that be considered better, as by the Mundanes? I got a great review at scifi.com for my first novel, and got credit for avoiding a bleak future:

By setting his tale five centuries from now, and positing another 500-year transition awaiting his explorers, he implicitly sets up a timeline of never-ending change, a Utopia explosion. As Stearn says, life just keeps getting "better and better. ... And it'll be better still in the future." This kind of radical optimism is what once drove the core of SF, and it's refreshing to see this narrative engine flaring once more.

I guess the last sentence is basically your point, which I agree with.

Make sure they know the fans care about this move and that we want more please!

NOTE: There is an extra dot in feedback email links after "@" i.e. "feedback@.scifi.com". I already told them, but fix them yourself when you mail.

What you said flatly contradicts the story, as well as news posted on scifi.com itself saying the episodes will air on fridays, starting July 22nd. So somehow I doubt you're correct.

Sci-Fi channel did buy the exclusive rights from Fox though!

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?id=31 260

SCI FI Channel 7/22/2005 7:00 p.m. ET/PT

The Sci Fi Channel airs Firefly, Joss Whedon's cult-fave space opera series, and the basis of the upcoming Serenity feature film. The 15 episodes will air on Fridays before new episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and Battlestar Galactica.

firefly

Wow. When I read this article, all I could think of was "Blebs! They're making effing blebs!"

If you haven't read it already, And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon is a really great short read by up-and-coming sci-fi author Paul Di Filippo.

Gads. Forget the diamond age. It appears that we're intering the age of blebs.

The GameSpot article has a factual error as a result of a typo:

First, the two studios requested that Microsoft relinquish its demands and that the Halo movie strictly follow a Bungie-penned "bible,"

The "bible" demand comes from Microsoft, not from the studios. One reference: http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=0&id=31144

...until this becomes another SciFi?

...until this becomes another SciFi?

...until this becomes another SciFi monster movie of the week?

...until this becomes another SciFi monster movie of the week?

...until this becomes another SciFi monster movie of the week?

...until this becomes another SciFi monster movie of the week?

Honestly I don't know why they don't just broadcast simultaneously. They should have learned from last season.

I'm not sure how BSG's rank works - in the US Navy, Commander (O-5) is lower than Captain (O-6). The USMC have an O-3 Captain but do not have the rank of Commander.

A bit of googling shows the rank structure listed 1/2 way down this page: http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2005/02/

So it's a mixture of Navy and Army ranks..

If you're talking about the character portrayed by Edward James Olmos. That's Commander Adama.

Captain Adama's his Viper pilot son, aka Apollo. Check out the character list over at Scifi.

Because there are only 20 episodes of the original? SciFi would have two choices: either run the episodes once a night every night or once a week for twenty weeks.

After you've run the episodes, then what? Repeat them?

Also, if you'll notice along the left side of the page I linked, right below the picture of Darren McGavin, there is a link from October of 2004 which says that ABC is in the process of remaking the Night Stalker series. Oh wait, that new series will be showing this fall.

Perhaps you missed the Night Stalker marathon on May 18th? (bottom of the page)

So if they change all the actors, the writers and the style of the show, is it still Star Trek?
Sure, it'll have some of the same races and politics, but these are only ever used as plot devices.

Did we not learn anything from John Crichton, a second-generation IASA astronaut with a doctorate in theoretical sciences???

You would have thought that after the four seasons that we spent aboard Moya, that we might have at least learned that wormholes are unstable...

No, wait..... I spent the my time fantasizing over Officer Aeryn Sun!!!! opps.....

FARSCAPE LIVES!!!!!

http://www.farscape.com/
http://www.scifi.com/farscape/

The Outer Limits did a good story once about the more likely form of teleportation. Some dinosaur-looking aliens made contact with earth and they had the technology.

Before Sci-Fi Channel adapted it into an episode of The Outer Limits, it was on their Seeing Ear Theater. I believe it is based on the book of the same name.

Why? What's to boycott? Isn't "Star Wars" good old fashioned sci-fi? Harmless fun? Some people call it "eye candy" -- a chance to drop back into childhood and punt your adult cares away for two hours, dwelling in a lavish universe where good and evil are vividly drawn, without all the inconvenient counterpoint distinctions that clutter daily life.

Got a problem? Cleave it with a light saber! Wouldn't you love -- just once in your life -- to dive a fast little ship into your worst enemy's stronghold and set off a chain reaction, blowing up the whole megillah from within its rotten core while you streak away to safety at the speed of light? (It's such a nifty notion that it happens in three out of four "Star Wars" flicks.)

Anyway, I make a good living writing science-fiction novels and movies. So "Star Wars" ought to be a great busman's holiday, right?

One of the problems with so-called light entertainment today is that somehow, amid all the gaudy special effects, people tend to lose track of simple things, like story and meaning. They stop noticing the moral lessons the director is trying to push. Yet these things matter.

By now it's grown clear that George Lucas has an agenda, one that he takes very seriously. After four "Star Wars" films, alarm bells should have gone off, even among those who don't look for morals in movies. When the chief feature distinguishing "good" from "evil" is how pretty the characters are, it's a clue that maybe the whole saga deserves a second look.

Just what bill of goods are we being sold, between the frames?

• Elites have an inherent right to arbitrary rule; common citizens needn't be consulted. They may only choose which elite to follow.
• "Good" elites should act on their subjective whims, without evidence, argument or accountability.
• Any amount of sin can be forgiven if you are important enough.
• True leaders are born. It's genetic. The right to rule is inherited.
• Justified human emotions can turn a good person evil.

That is just the beginning of a long list of "moral" lessons relentlessly pushed by "Star Wars." Lessons that starkly differentiate this saga from others that seem superficially similar, like "Star Trek." (We'll take a much closer look at some stark divergences between these two sci-fi universes below.)

Above all, I never cared for the whole Nietzschian Übermensch thing: the notion -- pervading a great many myths and legends -- that a good yarn has to be about demigods who are bigger, badder and better than normal folk by several orders of magnitude. It's an ancient storytelling tradition based on abiding contempt for the masses -- one that I find odious in the works of A.E. Van Vogt, E.E. Smith, L. Ron Hubbard and wherever you witness slanlike super-beings deciding the fate of billions without ever pausing to consider their wishes.

Wow, you say. If I feel that strongly about this, why just a day-long boycott? Why see the latest "Star Wars" film at all?

Because I am forced to admit that demigod tales resonate deeply in the human heart.

Before moving on to the fun stuff, will you bear with me while we get serious for a little while?

In "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," Joseph Campbell showed how a particular, rhythmic storytelling technique was used in almost every ancient and pre-modern culture, depicting protagonists and antagonists with certain consistent motives and character traits, a pattern that transcended boundaries of language and culture. In these classic tales, the hero begins reluctant, yet signs and portents foretell his pre-ordained greatness. He receives dire warnings and sage wisdom from a mentor, acquires quirky-but-faithful companions, faces a series of steepening crises, explores the pit of his own fears and emerges triumphant to bring some boon/talisman/victo

Oh come on, it's obviously a Viper Mark VII. Compare the image with the one on http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/ships/

Or, in other words, "the Guild does not take orders from you!"

The makers of Battlestar Galactica are aware that free content helps boost viewing figures. While I doubt that they'd condone P2P, they actually made the first episode available for free download from their official site/a.

They've taken it down now, unfortunately, I think because it was re-run recently. But there's still lots of other stuff, including deleted scenes and episode commentaries (as mp3 podcasts) --- basically, all the stuff that would normally (and undoubtedly will) be included on the DVD release.

That strange 3D-rendered film became the show "Tripping the Rift" on the Sci-Fi Channel. It lasted a single season, then fizzled out.

Takes me back to the first time I read Rocketship Galileo

His way is the right way, since it's his creation.

Normally I'd agree with you, but in this case I'm going to have to differ.

Because Mozilla.org did the right thing and (mostly) ignored the vocal people in the community, and did what's best for Firefox, and not for the people who shout the loudest.

The mozilla foundation made a browser that was faster, simpler and slimmer. All of those things the community was clamoring for. What was it that moz.org did that went against the grain?

He can't "listen to the fans", because "the fans" is really millions of people with different opinions!

Well, there are consensus out there. Jar Jar was almost universally reviled, Han shot first, midiclorians (or whatever the hell those were), etc. Don't get me wrong, he is a fantastic visual artist. It's just that as a director he's suppose to make dialogue come out, move the story, motivate the actors, and in general make the movie come alive. And not use clumsy plot devices. The series is rife with those.

It seems as though (and this is not the first supposition) he thinks he is the be-all-end-all and is always right. His moving making skills have not seen an improvement or big change in 30 years. Look at how other directors evolve with their work. They'll tell you that there's always work to be done, and you never know enough. George seems to be content with the way he runs movies.

It's a shame because when he was establishing himself, he did some really cool stuff. When he was in school a lot of his stuff was remarkable, and it was about *content* not visuals. What has he *really* done since 89? Why doesn't he apply that same zest to the news Star Wars that he did to Indiana Jones?

Why not listen just a little bit to the vast masses, a la Ron Moore and the ecellent Battlestar Galatica? Why turn deaf ears and whine, "it's mine I'll do what I want!". Fine George, you go do that, it's your perogative. But you've fallen amoungst critics and die-hard fans alike.

the Quantum Leap in eyecandy bloat?

There is a wonderful Howard Waldrop story that addresses this called "Ugly Chickens". The story can be found here on the SCIFICTION Website.

For an excellent story dealing with this scientific topic, check out Bob Shaw's "Light of Other Days".

...made according to the BoBo the Dark Clown standard, or something different?

A buncha "D" cells. Yes, a buncha "D" cells. What do you think are in some of those nifty sealed battery packs, anyway, these days?

http://www.thomas-distributing.com/cta-d-rechargea ble-batteries.php

has rechargables, Ni-MH "D" cells rated at 12 amp-hours; yes, 12,000 milliamp-hours each, if you hafta be Green. However, the Real Deal, eTanium(TM) is rated at 21.5 AH each:

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/x95.pdf

and even your buy-them-at-three-AM-from-7-11 variety alkalines develop 20.5 AH

http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/e95.pdf

Buy once, run down, throw them away. Cheap, cheap, cheap. You don't need a gauge; your spendy laptop has one.

Add two of these
http://tinyurl.com/4m6my

a little soldering, the right length of cord & the right-sized connector tip
http://tinyurl.com/5x4om

an Bob's Yer Uncle.

Don't add more than you need, and jump across the contacts if you only need seven cells to make the optimal voltage, instead of going over your laptop's rated voltage by more than a volt. The voltage regulator would just have to step down the power, which makes extra heat in your laptop, which slows down your processor, and accelerates battery drain.

Seven of the el cheapo "D" cells plus a jumper wire give me 20.5 AH for $10, plus $2 in parts and the connector I scrounged off a blown power supply. That's 10.7 times the capacity of the standard battery (2 hour run time) on my Fujitsu Lifebook. Geez, fly to Oz on those suckers. Then, I can go to a 7-11 there, buy another set of "D" cells, and have juice for the flight home.

If you're neither handy nor handsome, Mouser
http://tinyurl.com/6wq7g
has every power connector in the Twelve Colonies,
http://scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast
everything the Lords of Kobol ever designed. Or, pay $10 to The Shack for the aforementioned iGo tip, cuz, well, iGo tips are right there in the store, where the rest of your parts are.

Too bulky? You can downsize it to "C" cells, or even "AA" cells, as seven "AA" batteries exceed the capacity of my spendy, storebought factory battery pack by 50%.

But, then, I'm a ham, one of the crash test dummies of the electronics world, and we do these things so you don't have to.

Next Time, Everyone Wins!

If anyone is interested, there's also a new behind the scenes video.

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=2&id=30212
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=2&id=30357

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=2&id=30212
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?categ ory=2&id=30357

• SCIFI banner
• "click to watch" banner
• "exclusive podcast" banner
• space
• mini/classic series banner

• SCIFI banner
• "click to watch" banner
• "exclusive podcast" banner
• space
• mini/classic series banner

It's one guy, talking. And he's boring. This isn't Mystery Science Theater 3000. It's more like "shut up, I'm watching the show".

Incidentally, if you're shipping out voice recorded with one microphone, both channels are the same and there's no reason to send it in stereo. Just bloats the file.

Isn't it great when somebody actually get's it...unlike some people.

Pterry? Sounds like a Pokemon.

If you haven't already, read Pyramids. Pteppic, Ptraci, and other Pt* names.

Or, even better, a faithful recreation of Dune!

Personally, I found the SciFi Channel's treatment of Dune (and Messiah and Children) to be remarkably true to the books.

Use its feedback (feedback@www.scifi.com) and tell them your compliments and rants.

I wrote to tell the folks to make a higher video quality, downloadable version, etc.

I just realized that I hate Battlestar Galactica because I've only seen Galactica 1980. Just reading a summary of episodes makes me queasy. It makes the later seasons of Sliders seem great.

Wrong reference.