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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.
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.
They had the first version of the documentary finished by early '99, but some idiot deleted all the source footage and they had to recreate it from scratch . . .
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!