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Netscape Code Rush Documentary on PBS
Vux writes "PBS is airing a show involving the Netscape team. Quoted off the PBS website sectio about the show:
"The year is early 1998 and a small team of Netscape code writers frantically works to reconstruct the company's Internet browser. The fate of the entire company may well rest on their shoulders. Facing new competition, sales for Netscape's once world-changing browser have sunk to zero. If this gambit fails, their company, their community and their vision of the future might not survive. Welcome to the epicenter of the new American Dream. Welcome to Silicon Valley."
I don't agree with some of the propaganda for the documentary, but it should be an interesting hour flick to watch. " The documentary, according to the PBS site, is airing this evening, through the US. Check local show times and such on the site.
My local PBS station isn't showing it either. Instead, we'll be treated to Adventure Divas - Cuba: Paradox Found . Must see TV! Not.
PBS blows.
slashdot broke my sig
Well I just saw it. Living here in the valley, less than 5 miles from Netscape, and having been around their campus at SVLUG meetings (not to mention commutting past it daily), it really hit home.
The pace of the documentary is very odd. It starts out at a very important time in Netscape's lifecycle, but even at the beginning you get the sense Netscape is past its peak here, though it still feels like a startup. The focus is very much on something that is (oh, thank god!) becoming foreign to me, and is generally not such a big deal in the free software world: the rush to release on time. Lots of detail on all nighters, the rush to fix bugs and rewrite code, the usual things you'd expect near a release.
Although I always had the impression they just grep -v'd for profanity, excised third party code, and made a tarball, there was actually a lot of work there, including pulling in third party linux people to try to build it before release and bugfixing.
After the release is chronicled, it's all downhill, and the story skips forward faster. Before you know it, it's discussing people leaving the company, the buyout by AOL, etc.
Throughout, I was very pleased with JWZ's pointed comments on life in the valley. I also enjoyed the segment on Pavlov, since I know him vaguely from IRC and was suprised to realize this was the same person.
Oddly, there is no single establishing shot of a full netscape screen. Either they assume you know what it is, or it's meant to be a mysterious, incomplete entity. A great deal of screen time is given to extreme closups of scrolling code on linux boxes, and people typing (what are supposed to be) crypic commands into shells. Loads of fun, although it can be annoying to try to keep up with what the programmers are doing and try to listen to the narrator at the same time. Video of a shell prompt being typed at is hypnotic to me..
There's a tiny glint of hope at the end -- will Mozilla be released successfully at long last? Of course, this we don't know. Here's hoping.
--
see shy jo
It was cool seeing places I know. I drive by the Netscape buildings nearly every day on my way to work.
Yeah, same here, I ride light rail by there. Seeing your effective home town on TV is an interesting experience. Also recognized shots of 4th and Market in SF.
--
see shy jo
This aired, I think, earlier this month on my local PBS station (channel 54, in the silicon valley...PBS on channel 9 sucks...no anime on sunday nights like 54 ;) )
KTEH (channel 54) probably should be declared The Official TV Station Of Slashdot Anonymous Cowards -- it's quite an achievement being the first to show in US Ayanami Rei Naked and Petrified (not an official translation of the episode title but quite adequate description) ;-)
No, I have nothing against them, UY or Doctor Who -- the most annoying part is that their transmitter sucks, and in San Mateo it's barely visible with my antenna.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I mean really, there are at last count, what, 6.02 X 10^23 TV channels out there.
...mostly owned by AOL, Microsoft and other people with wild fantasy yet poor taste...
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
As usual, those of us who live in New Mexico will have to be behind everybody else on this. According to my Ventana (member's TVGuide for KNME, our PBS affiliate) we won't be seeing this show until April 24th. grrrr.
I wonder if this is because KNME is a poor station and can't afford to buy the first-run shows? I know that's how some movie houses have to do things, does anybody know if buying PBS shows works like this also?
I get GPTV out of Atlanta - no Code Rush tonight at ten. But, what's this instead? Elvis, the Beginning. Great. Fuck Elvis. The show must have aired earlier 'cause I didn't see any listing for it through April 6. Too bad.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
It's on at 2am here.
Try Yahoo TV. As long as you know the zip code where you're gonna be it should hook you up. I use it all the time.
Search first, ask questions later.
anyone make a mpeg video capture of this one -- since many pbs stations did not/will not air this?
-- adraken
Detroit area viewers can't see it on WTVS, either.
But, it will air 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday morning and will also air Saturday at (I think 4 a.m.) on WFUM (UofM-Flint's PBS TV station). Most cable systems have this (its channel 22 on Time-Warner).
My journal has hot
Actually, it's already BEEN aired...
:)
It basically explains how at the time Netscape was in big big trouble and covers the open-sourcing of Mozilla... It culminates with the AOL-Time Warner deal...
It has interviews with numerous Netscape employees -- including then-employee Jamie Zawinsky (blue hair/nails and all...) -- and tells which ones quit and roughly why...
I enjoyed it quite a bit... Made my parents sit through it -- especially the interview with Pavlov's parents...
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
It's early 2000 now... does it really take that long to make a documentry?
PBS generally does a good job
If you can get past the liberal propaganda and PC nature of their programs, yes they are generally well done.
Still PBS's time has come and gone... what a waste of my tax money, a big freakin' ad for a failed company.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Good, if taxpayer funding is such a small portion of their budget they shouldn't miss it then.
I mean really, there are at last count, what, 6.02 X 10^23 TV channels out there. Does the government need to subsudize TV?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Saddly neither of Chicago's PBS stations WTTW nor WYCC is going to show it tonight, nor next month.
Ironically the PBS station I grew with back in "the sticks" of Southern Illinois WSIU (and the station I support) is running it tonight (mar 30)/tomorrow (mar 31) at 4:00 am CST.
Have to get my mom to tape it.
I just checked my local listing and I'm not going to be able to see it. It appears that there are others who will not be able to see it either. I just hope /. will do a follow up so people like me can at least a taste for it.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
Since I live in the valley, I guess I caught a sneak preview of this late one Sunday on the local PBS station (KTEH, who also co-produced the documentary). Normally we get re-runs of documentaries (usually Nova) at that time, so I didn't think it was a special preview.
Reading through the description of the show on the PBS site gave me more information about the people in the documentary than I remember getting from the show (e.g. I don't remember seeing that Michael Toy home schools his children. Maybe I just forgot...). It seems like we saw the start of many stories, but not the end. Somehow it felt incomplete. But then, maybe that was the point. Some of the internal views on the AOL merger were interesting, though. And there was a funny/sad part, when they were trying to drum up publicity for the Mozilla announcement and it seemed like they were getting a lot of ``Netscape who?'' responses.
It was cool seeing places I know. I drive by the Netscape buildings nearly every day on my way to work. They also showed University Avenue and I think it was Fiesta Del Mar where they had a going away party.
I think it was interesting but not compelling television. Because the whole story of Mozilla is not yet done, it just felt incomplete. Maybe it's a little early for this story.
gene
Hey, I live in Ithaca, NY, 14850, and /neither/ of the PBS stations' schedules mention Code Rush. Anybody my way that knows when it's on?
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
People: you need to remember that your local PBS station may be broadcasting it later. Just because your schedule doesn't show it for tonight doesn't mean it won't be shown. Personally I was discouraged after finding that KTCA wouldn't be playing it this week, but after doing a search on "code rush", I found two dates in April when it will be broadcast:
-JD
I checked listings for all PBS stations in Los Angeles (28, 50, and 58), and New York City (13, 21, 25).
It's not listed.
The only showing I can find is the national PBS feed available to sat owners like DirecTV and DishNetwork. The national feed is delayed one day (to encourage you to support local PBS?), so the show is on Friday at 10pm Eastern (7pm Pacific).
Of course the PBS.ORG listings can't be searched....
Actually I thought that too but then I looked at the link in the article which says in parenthesis (check local listings). That takes you to a page where you input your zip code. Then they give you a list of stations that are in your area. Then below one of them is a link that shows the evening's programming. To the left of this is a little input box that says search listings of something like that.
:)
I found that the show was going to be shown on 2 dates that are rediculously late but I guess if your not busy coding or sleeping you can watch the show (it's about an hour).
Hope this helps
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I will find myself in the MST timezone when might I watch this? Is there a good site for local/regional television listings?
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
If you can get past the liberal propaganda
Oh please. They're funded mostly by large corporations...at worst they make democrats look like radicals.
Channel 44 tonight at 10PM. The link also lists repeat times, in case your VCR/TiVO/Replay are acting up...
-- Ever notice that fast-burning fuse looks exactly the same as slow-burning fuse? I didn't... (Edgar Montrose)
Not on in my area (WI) tonight or this weekend. This is exactly the sort of show that would do well on iCrave if only they were still in existance and assuming it would be broadcast in Toronto (is it on in TO?). Perhaps if iCrave handled broadcasting of select shows from many different markets where it paid the people with the rights to the programming for a liscence to re-broadcast they might have a business model that works (as in legal in the states). They could start by collecting old technology centric shows and make them available in streaming format on demand (I would pay to see Triumph of the Nerds again). Many of these would be from PBS and I assume they would be resonable in their rates as it would only add to current revenues for shows that have already aired.
Anyway, I'm bummed not to be able to even findout for myself if it was a good show or not.
no sig.
I've always used ClickTV and the great thing is that it supports Canada too!!!
(Of course, I probably wouldn't use ClickTV if it didn't have Canadian listings to begin with...)
Wiwi
--
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
I will be on at 10:00 PM Here is the entre from tvguide.com Silicon Valley code writers struggle to meet a deadline to debug Netscape's ?source code? for browsing the Internet in this documentary, taped in 1998 and '99 (around the time of the company's acquisition by AOL) at Netscape's offices in Mountain View, Cal. The task, says narrator Jim Pappademas, is ?a precarious balance of science and art.? And energy helps. As one staffer puts it, he and his colleagues ?don't need food and don't need sleep.? But, he adds wryly, ?they'll take pay.? Rating: TV-G Category: Other, documentary Release Year: 2000 Date Time Channel Thu 30 10:00 PM PBS PBS Good it will not interfere with my star trek (11)
xxx
Oh puhleeze. PBS wants to lay some sob story on us about Netscape's failures and then trump out some Silicon Valley Heros valiantly trying to save their company. What a farce. The fact of the matter is that Netscape drowned in it's own spoils, tripped over it's own fat, and foolishly underestimated their competition. Then two years later they go crying to the Justice Department and sell out to AOL so that they can support their rich techno-geek tribe. Seriously, who really cares? I hope Netscape 6/Mozilla is a decent product but Netscape is a pillaged, empty shell of it's former self and the only people to blame for that are those who actually created it.
Well, there's bad news and good news for us folks who get public TV through KET (the Kentucky Network, the statewide PBS system here in Kentucky). I'll give the bad news first as it makes the good news sound better:
The Bad News:
1) Apparently KET does its own scheduling, so you can't find its schedule through PBS's pages; rather, try ket.org.
2) On the main KET network, apparently they aren't showing "Code Rush" at all. :( Damn those grandmas paying for "Mystery" (though I can't say much--a big part of it too, at least in Kentucky, is also people paying for KET to show Britcoms and the Red Green Show, so I guess all of us who like Red Dwarf and Keeping Up Appearances are just as much at fault...).
The Good News:
In those areas that get KET2 feeds (yes, Kentucky actually has two separate networks run by KET--the second one consisting of the non-KET PBS affiliates that got bought up en masse by KET a few years back), they're showing "Code Rush" on April 11. Check yer local listings and times, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah TV Scene blah blah Courier-Journal blah blah. :)
More Bad News (ok, I lied):
As far as I know, KET2 extends to Louisville and that's it (did I mention, offhand, that there was all of ONE non-KET-affiliate PBS station in Kentucky before KET bought them out?). If one hasn't got cable, Louisville is about the only place that one can see it (at least if you don't live in Covington--no idea what Ohio's public TV network has planned).
More Good News (at least according to KET's website):
If one does have cable, it looks as if darn near the entire Insight network in the Louisville-surrounding-area up to around Frankfort and Elizabethtown carries KET2. (No, I do not know what to tell you if you live in Lexington, except maybe you ought to move to Louisville seeing as Lexington seems to be populated mostly by snobs related to the horse-racing industry and nearly everyone I know who lives there loathes it. :) Those of you in the rest of the state might be able to get someone in a KET2-enabled area to videotape it for you, or you could probably buy it on cassette off KET's website come June or so.
-Windigo The Feral (NYAR!)
yeah yeah yeah... we're not exactly a hotbed for technology, but I can't imagine that:
10:00pm Mystery!, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates 3--All Stitched Up, ()
is going to have the masses rushing to their tv's.
sigh...
. . . here. They must have a lot of faith in it, huh?
darren
Cthulhu for President!
(darren)
It did a great job of showing the crazyness around the whole process along with the Netscape/AOL stuff going on in the background (some of the engineer's comments about AOL just as it was announced are interesting :-).
It also follows what happend to various people as they burn out and leave
I like these shows, PBS generally does a good job, unlike the rest of hollywood with crap like the pirates of silicon valley. I had the opportunity to work on a project like this with the Discovery channel and a telecom doing a 1/2 hour peice on cracking and phreaking. All in all they did a good job for not being involved with the technology on a daily basis. I'll watch tonight when it shows in my area. I like the fact that in the primer on their web site, they speak to the open source model. Every little bit helps.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Please post a follow up on this discussion about the documentary on PBS some time after the show has aired. That way we can discuss what the show was about without this discussion getting in the way.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
I can talk a bit about non-coffee caffeine sources... There are three I feel are worth considering..
The cannonical caffeine drink, made by Wet Planet Beverages, based in Rochester, NY. It's not sold everywhere but every major population center should have one or two grocery stores that stock it. It's a cola, more bitter than Coke. Caffeine content: 75 mg / 355 ml (1 12 oz. can)
This is imported from Germany, and it's elegant bottles sport the warning "Keine vergnügen ohne gefahr" - No pleasure without danger. It's a cola as well, but has a tangier (spicier?) flavour than other colas, and is less strongly carbonated. It's a bit more expensive (Local retailers pay about $.90 / bottle). I've had good luck finding this at coffeeshoppes. Caffeine content: 100 mg / 330 ml (1 11.15 oz bottle).
Bawls is not a cola at all, but a fruity soft drink. Flavoured with the juice of the small red (naturally caffeinated) Guarana fruit of Brazil, it tastes like a cross between ginger ale and an Orange Julius. It's bottle is a deep blue with bumps on it. Right after the ingredient list, it says "Warning: This product contains high levels of caffeine". I believe this to contain 100 mg / 296 ml (1 10 oz bottle), though I am not sure on this. I bought mine from a coffeeshop, though I believe Copyleft also sells this product (as well as other caffeine bearing products, like Penguin mints)
For reference, Coke contains about 35 mg of caffeine per 355 ml (12 oz can), and a cup of coffee has around 75 (though this can vary by as much as 400% depending on an arbitrillion factors, like the kind of beans, how you brew it, et cetera). The free sample Vivarin sent me came in 100 mg pills.
Conclusion: I haven't slept since 1982.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!