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Slashback: Drivers, Bodycomputing, Farscape
Maybe customer service isn't dead. On November 28th, we posted a report that OEM cards using ATI chips had trouble with the official drivers from ATI. Terry Makedon (Senior Product Manager, Software for ATI Technologies) writes "Last week we posted a set of unified Linux drivers. These drivers were only loading up on 'Built by ATI' cards. Through our various feedback mechanisms we have determined that there is a large community of 'Powered by ATI' Linux users that did not benefit from our Linux drivers. At this point we are happy to announce an update to our Linux driver (ver. 2.5.1) which will work on both 'Powered by' and 'Built by.' ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness and we greatly appreciate the feedback our Linux users have provided. Please use http://apps.ati.com/linuxDfeedback/ for a direct feedback line to ATI.
Thanks again for the feedback."
But what if we put the show into this Interdimensional Fungubulon, and then jumped through this here "wormhole"? xagon7 writes "David Kemper, the producer/writer of Farscape, mentioned that it would be theoretically and legally possible for a group to set up a non-profit organization for fans to donate money to, in order to finance an episode and make Farscape all that much tastier to Sci-Fi for the 5th season. They have done just that. They have $200,000 worth of pledges and only need $800,000 total....I hope this gets Slashdotted. Read the story here and you can pledge here."
You're getting less happy to see me? man_of_mr_e writes "Check out MIThril, the next generation research platform for context aware wearable computing. It's been about 18 months since this was last talked about here on Slashdot, and it's kind of cool to see how far the technology has come since then. For those that aren't aware of what it is, it's essentially a project to prototype human wearable computers, complete with schematics, pictures, and a cvs repository for software. Now you too can be like that guy in the IBM commercials trading stock while feeding the pigeons."
Flattening the slope to entry. Catskul writes "You don't need the libwine hack, mentioned in the previous news entry. Just follow the New QT Howto, download the codecs and start MPlayer."
Don't look at me in that tone of voice! 1010011010 writes "On Nov. 26, you ran a story on SpeechView, 'software that translates the voice on the other side of the line into a three dimensional animated face on the computer.' The North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science's 'Voice IO Group' is also working on that problem. Their software looks like it might be better. Read about it here. Includes quicktime movies of the results."
Victory, or a reprieve? A non moose cow writes "Just noticed that a couple of my favorite "Killed by the RIAA" webcast stations are back... like Soma-FM and Monkey Radio (get the streams at Shoutcast). The saving grace came via the recent passage of HR5469 [PDF] by the US Legislature. Thank you to all that sent letters and/or money to fix this problem. If you have been yearning for the resurrection of your favorite stream, go check, it might be back. If you would like to trace the chronology of this mess, check out the Soma-FM news page."
Irregardless, maybe they could take it a step further and have an entirely fan-financed Farscape where the shows are shipped commercial-free on DVD to donors. I.E., some point to donating besides making what was already a very sweet deal sweeter for SciFi.
Save Farscape was created for the explicit effort of saving Farscape. I sure hope it is saved, since it's probably one of the best sci-fi shows in existence. Pretty much all I watch for TV shows are Junkyard Wars, Farscape and Enterprise.
I hope this gets Slashdotted.
Are you some kind of computer sadist?
The great advantage of having a reputation for being stupid: People are less suspicious of you.
The worst thing about that show was that it had so much potential. I swear that the writers for that show were the same people who write gay Star Trek slash fiction!
I read somewhere that they sold out the little stations so that they could make it with this new bill. Not much to cheer about there.
Michael Loves Me!
And while you're donating $800,000 so a bunch of guys 'n gals can run around in rubber and vinyl while stuff blows up around them, why not donate a few bucks to charity so a few kids can eat for a year?
:)
No, seriously.. you'll feel better about yourself.
You must be thinking of LEXX
I wear pants.
I must agree. I prefer the excellent writing of star trek: enterprise (and voyager before it) to fill my need for good original sci-fi.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
However, if this actually takes off, I believe it will not set a good precedent (AFAIK this is not being done anywhere else, unless I'm mistaken, please feel free to correct me).
Think about it - the SciFi channel is not free. I already pay ~$50 for cable... and in order to enjoy a show I like I have to pay even more??? What's next? Viewer-supported Buffy The Vampire Slayer? Does anyone think low-life TV execs (which are no better than record company ones) are not going to see this and go oooohh! Let's threaten to cut Zim The Invader and start raking up the dough!!!
It's a noble cause, assuming I can pick it up using an antenna. Otherwise it's a bad idea.
Rant off.
Yes, that's the show I want brought back on the Spice channel. The whole damn show was a tease.
I read the internet for the articles.
The final eleven episodes of Farscape begin in January of next year.
Very cool examples. Except, none of them show a tounge! There were portions of the speech where the lips weren't moving, and the tounge would have been.
Once a tounge is added to the render, this tech will be sweet for games. Imagine playing someone in UT and seeing their mouth move properly as they talk to you. Cool for sure.
http://plf.zarb.org/
The win32 package has the QT codecs.
I don't think its so much a troll because the intention of the post is not to garner a heated response. I kind of understand the redundant part since its obviously a first post, and had I cared to, I would have written a more intelligent comment. Sad as it may be, getting that first post is the most exciting thing I've done all day.
JunkYard Wars??? How can you watch that err... Junk???? lol
Is television really THAT important? I mean, farscape is entertaining and all, but that's all it is. Entertainment. Aren't their more important things to worry about? I'm not saying it's impossible to care about a tv show, just that there's things out there that matter a lot more. You know, like that group of people that lives in your house and pays all your internet and cable bills and feeds you coffee and pixie stix all day? That's your family, give them money, they deserve it more than hollywood.
Everyone has priorities. Your logic is headed down a very slippery, liberal slope.
Before you suggest that we have a responsibility to donate to the lowest/needest rung, think for a second on what a race to the bottom looks like. If you're having trouble, read Atlas Shrugged.
-R
yea i know its spelled wrong /rant /rant
1) space above and beyond was the best scifi show there was. yea it got into drama but its castrated morons and idiots who prefered the hollywood version of the future ( star trek ). these people odviosly dont understand scociology or science. i dont think that anyone who is actually inteligent likes star trek the future is more like saab than st.
2) far scape was pretty good but why do people with advanced tecknowlogy need some backwards guy. in realyty they would have mugged him left him out in space and used his chip for scrap.
3) what no one has asked
a) if we donate and pay for a farscape episode. can we decide what its about.
b) if it airs will it have commercials.
c) if it does have commercials and makes allot of money then wouldnt our donation then become an investment. and who gets the dividens.
d) follow the money.
how about space above and beyond wearing mithrial duking it out against farscape using opensource spaceship controlls. he he i would donate for that.
I'll have my TiVo ready to capture every delicious episode until the final season comes out on DVD.
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your media conglomerate.
And how does this fund help those of us that are too cheap to buy cable?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I don't know about y'all, but for me "only" and "$800,000" don't come in the same sentence. (Except maybe "If I only had $800,000...") And I thought pay-per-view was steep!
... maybe that was not USD. For our non-American audience, $800,000 is real money. I think you can buy a cruise missile for that much -- which I note might be much more persuasive to those SciFi twits. You know, call a meeting, then appear on the videophone with your demands....
I had heard the episode price was closer to $1.7 million
Ambitious project! Damn! Farscapers are making us Mac zealots look pretty tame -- at least when we send Cupertino a couple thousand we get back a computer and a couple window stickers.
Since EVERY article appears to get several "first posts", I would consider ANY of them very "redundant". And does it really matter WHY a post was modded down? Any modding down is effectively because the moderator thinks the poster is an idiot; which category of idiot is an afterthought.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "a race to the bottom?" I haven't gotten around to reading Atlas Shugged yet.
If you feel like making your own non-instrusive wearable, one that DOESN'T make you look like a dork, and doesn't require specialist hardware, please check out http://riot.com.au/
Disclaimer: this is one of my projects.
So... how many of those pledges are going to fall through when it comes time to pay up? Yeah...
On second thought, never mind. I love that show. I'll pledge the other $600,000!
everyone has priorities, and that's part of the problem.
....if st:enterprise were to get pulled i might get pretty riled.
we have become so entrenched in our own lives we often forget to place ourselves in a larger context. spend 5 minutes behind the wheel and you'll see what i mean.
people are so afraid of each other they forget that some of us need helping hand. the world would be a better place if each of us donated a a few dollars to a local charity, instead of throwing it away to a commercial pursuit (that may have its artistic merits)
i like a good sci-fi tv show as much as the next guy
Americans spend 100 times more on pet food than they do on feeding the poor, but you don't see anybody feeding their pets to the poor, do you? Perhaps other people's priorities are different then yours. Either get used to it, or become an evil scientist with a scheme to become world dictator.
Hey - if you are effectively paying for the episode, shouldn't they also let you vote to influence the storyline?
If so, I hope they axe Buffy soon... I have a few plot ideas.
Boy did that go over my head!
I'll translate: Do both doofus.
We are all selfish at some point, choosing our comfort over that of someone less fortunate. I've just slotted this quandary into the general principle of all things in moderation.
"Before you suggest that we have a responsibility to donate to the lowest/needest rung, think for a second on what a race to the bottom looks like. If you're having trouble, read Atlas Shrugged."
And then, once you realize what the lowest rung looks like, donate to the charity that's doing something to eliminate that absolute bottom, that lowest of the low, from society. Donate to the Reform or Kill All Objectivists Fund today!
But immagine how much better citizens those children could be if they could only watch Farscape!
...so what makes you think you'll take any better care of this one? Sorry honey, mabe in a few more years when you're older.
Until then, how's about some nice cheesy poofs?
Charities eat money. If you actually give a shit (I'm quite happy not giving a shit) get off your arse and spend your money helping yourself help others. It will go a lot further.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
I popped over to mplayerhq.hu, read the stuff, downloaded the CVS version of MPlayer, AND all the codecs they are providing from their site and I watched the Return to Castle Wolfenstein trailer, for the first time, under linux.
One player to play them all: MPlayer.
One stop for all your movie needs: mplayerhq.hu
I hope I don't wind up in jail for violating the DMCA and whatever else.
Way to go, MPlayer folks.
These guys are doing speech to animation. It is being used in phones. No, I don't work there, though I used to work with one of the people there (a long time ago).
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I click into this story to see what geeks are saying about the update to ATI's drivers and I see lots of comments but not a single one about ATI.
Does this mean it's too late for ATI? Has the entire Linux crowd already gone Nvidia?
The Bud Light site has had a similar feature to this for a while. They call it "making faces" and you can look at it here: http://veepers.budlight.com/
You can upload your own picture and make it say anything you want, it will animate your face for you and looks pretty passable if you use a good picture.
The company that makes this technology is Pulse Entertainment and they are located at http://www.pulse3d.com/ in case you wanted to check them out too.
Where do we send thank-you cards or fruitbaskets? Emails, too, of course, but it's important to let the folks at ATI know that we appreciate their support of the Linux community, and somehow fruitbaskets seem to speak louder than electrons.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Chuckle. Just to clarify, I'm not an Objectivist, I just think that AS is an excellent critique of the sort of thinking that the original poster appears to be espousing.
-R
Wearable computing, huh? Could be interesting, but imagine the social snafus that become possible:
You're out on a date and your Cyber-sex mistress instant message's you. How embarassing.
It sounds to me like you just want everyone else to accept your priorities. Funny though, they haven't landed you in a very tenable position, so I'd think they'd be some of the last for society to adopt as a whole.
Some people need a helping hand, but the epidemic is not at such a level as to begin to decry any spending which does not have immediate and obvious charitable effects (the net effect of your initial post). Even accepting your ethos, you're forgetting that there are hundreds of people who will be losing their jobs if Farscape is canceled. Not just overpaid actors, but average Joe set builders &c.
Your worldview is too narrow. I don't think your initial post was well thought out. If you still hold by the tenets put forth there, then I don't think I have the power or desire to continue to show the error of your ways.
-R
That's the dream, anyway. I'd love to see it happen, but I'm sure you've all got a thing or two to say about blind idealism right about now.
My deviantArt site
Yes, good point, and their begathon comes every year! Meanwhile the number and wordiness of thank-yous to corporate sponsors has been growing. (I mostly listen to NPR -- same problem.) Yet membership accounts for only 25% of revenue, so "viewer supported" is true but misleading. One-fourth supporting.
I went to the trouble of looking this up on the CPB site, so feast your eyes. Their financing is complex to say the least. The item "CPB Appropriation" appears to represent the federal government's $300 million share -- a pittance if you compare it to the $800,000 they want here for one episode of one show.
The point is probably just to get the pledges, to make an impression on SciFi whose bottomline motivation is money.
I predict if the OS for MIThril is Microsoft based and becomes popular there will be plenty of odd looking people walking around cursing and it won't be because they have Turret's Syndrome! Imagine if you can, that they were able to tie the brain in into this MS based computer and it had to reboot constantly (I suppose that might be better than crashing constantly).....It would be the beginning of a true MS Borg. You too can be assimilated...by your own choosing.
"You helped our nation celebrate its bicentennial in 17 -- 1976." --George W. Bush, to Queen Elizabeth, Wash
Lesse, they "cancel" the show, causing millions of fans to FINANCE the show, on a network that costs EXTRA to see!
management: 800,000
public: 0
You, um, seem to be under the misapprehension that everyone here is 15 and lives at home. Lay off the "coffee and pixie sticks" diet.
;-)
Anyway, the group of people that lives in my house is a bunch of leeches. Especially the kids. And I'm not too impressed with the cat, either.
Ain't that some shit. Thanks, dude.
I think my universal translator is broken. I read this paragraph a dozen times and I don't know what the hell you're trying to express. I don't need the libwine hack? What libwine hack? What did I have the libwine hack for?
Just installed the ATI drivers for the 8500LE on Redhat8 and it worked just fine...now which are some of the good open GL games in Linux?
Tat Tvam Asi
in other words,
"Let them eat cake"
Great way to loose your head in the next revolution.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So, how many homeless people have you invited to move in with you?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
As I do not yet own anything better than a Radeon 7500 these driver updates do not directly benefit me. Nonetheless, a big thank you to ATi for listening to those of us in the linux community and acting accordingly.
Whatever the equivalant of 'kudos' is to those who don't believe in karma, that to the people of ATi for their support of us linux users.
It would be great to see other hardware manufacturers showing this level of support.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Time I made a Gates Foundation Pledge, such as the one made by Jnr Gates last months in India. I pledge $50,000,000 (Thats right. $50mil US Dollars) to farscape... ... balance to be paid by 2093 ;)
Until the money ran out and the mouths got hungry again, the needy wouldn't need as much. You're completely correct. You premise that we'd be helping people by feeding them, however, is completely flawed. That money would buy a lot of food, but when I thought of how much that million was, I thought it would buy a lot of tools and education and basic agricultural reform.
I won't dontate money to "needy" charities unless I know the money goes towards things which help build a less needy future, not non-sustainable, stopgap measures. For exmple, I'd give to "Feed the African Children", or whatever, only if I knew the money was going towards improving farming methods, animal husbandry skills, education, water supply improvement, birth control and reproductive education, etc. rather than just plain food (which is usually just stolen and sold anyway). I all I continue to give is just food, when will I be able to stop? When will the people I feed get to the point where they no longer need my help and can provide for themselves?
Yeah, there are grey areas here (it's a shame the US destroys perfectly good crops to keep prices balanced, for example), but by and large terminally hungry people could use the ability to make food as opposed to merely food. Has Sally Struthers helped anyone get out of poverty and become self-sustaining? Have those "adopt a kid" programs gotten to the point where they've run out of kids? I'm not being cynical or contrary; I just can't help but think of it as the orgnic system it is. Energy is constantly flowing into it, but energy demand only increases as more flows in (probably due to unsustainable growth). Rather than building any sort of foundation, all the food does is create a positive feedback loop of needing more food. The hungriest nations are not going to get less hungry if we continue to feed them. They need to know how to help themselves. Looked at one way, one caould say that we're almost doing them a disservice by helping them. Metaphorically speaking, we're putting phosphates in the pond and complaining that all the algae don't have enough to eat. We're not part of the solution.
I know you need to have the basics first, and that there will always be the itinerant and/or temporarily hungry, but the handout mentality really needs to shift towards helping people help themselves or the needy will be forever needful. IM(H)O.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
befriend me if you support free speach [slashdot.org]
Befriend me if you can spell!
There is one distinction here -- Farscape is an *investment* -- I don't know how they plan to work it but I damn well wouldn't give a significant amount without knowing where revenues and royalties were going to go. I think the show is more than good enough to pay for itself and then some, and the SciFi Channel is not my idea of charity (more like war criminal at the moment). Once that's done, donate the principal+earnings and everyone's happy! Heck, maybe I'll give Tiny Tim an advance.
Where were all these people when the _best_ show on the SciFi channel ("The Invisible Man") was being cancelled?
well, this is really weird. i guess i will just sit here and type some more. duhhhhhhhhh...
The obvious solution to the problem of the mainstream rejection of sci-fi is to create your own.
But you can't use the Farscape(tm) space-opera universe. And you can't use any universe remotely similar to any existing space-opera universe. Creating your own universe from scratch is a tall order, and few space-opera authors can pull it off successfully.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You're out on a date and your Cyber-sex mistress instant message's you. How embarassing.
But imangie how interesting it would be if you had that text to face software also talked about in here ;-)
or, you could just read "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish".
Pretty good summary right there, I think.
It can play it if you can download the whole .mov file (two towers trailers - WOOOHOOO) but it doesn't seem to handle those stupid mov files most of the new trailers are using, which seem to be some kind of reference file to other files which make no sense. Anyone gotten that to work?
Anyway, I can confirm that this compiles, runs and rocks, including audio. Thanks Mplayer Team!
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
If you're having trouble, read Atlas Shrugged.
Now you have more trouble. Not to mention a hernia.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
You must be thinking of LEXX
Holy whack! That's a tv show? I thought that they were just airing the Rocky Horror Picture Show every morning at 2:00AM.
I do like Farscape, but it was starting to drag a bit recently, IMO. I've been thinking about it, and if the SciFi channel only has a limited amount of funds for original productions, I'd rather see them work on a few *really* good movies or miniseries, rather than dragging Farscape out even further.
:)
They did an excellent job with Dune (much better than that David Lynch abomination with -- gah -- Sting). And the recent miniseries version of Mists of Avalon was excellent, too. (Ok, it was done by another network -- but it proves that there are people out there who can do good screen adaptations of good SF/Fantasy works. If only they had the money.)
Granted, most of the recent SciFi channel original production movies have sucked -- but then, they've been pouring money into Farscape....
There's a lot of good F&SF out there that could be adapted. I'd love to see a miniseries based on Amber or Ringworld or the Vorkosigan series. If it was even halfway decently done, I'd much prefer it to yet another recycled plot in yet another episode of Farscape.
"ATI's driver and software strategy is firmly based on responsiveness"
Oh really? So when thousands of older-ATI-card Macintosh owners(basically, any Macintosh released from about 1998 to about 2000) BEGGED Apple and ATI for drivers(even signing a massive petition), I suppose ATI listened intently, and then released drivers for MacOS X? Hahahaahaha.
For those who don't know, Apple and ATI passed the issue back and forth like a hot potato, and eventually, Apple released rather half-assed(read: you could finally bear using the system in more than 16bit color) drivers for older systems like the iMacs and Powerbook Lombard/Pismo, rolled into a system update; you had to edit a config file buried in the system to even get the driver to load!
I have a Powerbook Lombard, G3/400mhz, and I can't watch movie previews under MacOS X because the thing can't push a frame rate higher than maybe 10-15fps. Text scrolling is slow as molassis and 3D is -completely- unaccelerated. Apple's advice, for taking me back +5 years in graphics performance, is to take me back +10 years in graphics technology: "set it to 16 bit color for better performance."
Folks, this is pure marketing BS/backpedalling(ie, "oops, oh shit, we just screwed a large customer base. Quick, someone do something!") I believe the expression is "knowing which side your bread is buttered on." It has NOTHING to do with warm fuzzy feelings for penguins. I cannot STAND companies that tout how they "listen to the customer"...
mplayer.c:2899: insn does not satisfy its constraints:
(insn 16703 17382 19207 (parallel[
(set (reg:SF 8 st(0))
(if_then_else:SF (ge (reg/v:SF 9 st(1) [1501])
(reg:SF 8 st(0)))
(reg:SF 8 st(0))
(reg:SF 9 st(1))))
(clobber (reg:CC 17 flags))
] ) 624 {*minsf_nonieee} (insn_list 17382 (nil))
(expr_list:REG_UNUSED (reg:CC 17 flags)
(nil)))
mplayer.c:2899: Internal compiler error in final_scan_insn, at final.c:2556
Please submit a full bug report,
with preprocessed source if appropriate.
So let me get this straight- we have a record # of homeless people in the US, food pantries are empty, massive budget cuts for the poor(social services, medicare, etc.)...
...but a bunch of people donated $200,000 to go towards paying to make A TV EPISODE, for a FOR PROFIT cable network?
Time for a SERIOUS priority check.
(nevermind the fact that advertisement revenue is what drives programming decisions; if it wasn't profitable for a season, it's not going to be profitable for season-1 ep.)
Since we're always complaining about copyright, if we donate a ton of the money needed to keep farscape going, do those few people own part of it? Do they get any revenue off of it? It's not like they're the exclusive people who are seeing it. If they were, they would be paying to see it. But to me it seems like they're paying to make it so they and others can see it. Therefore, shouldn't they own part of it?
Well, people donate money for software when they can just buy the damn stuff, what's the difference?
Fight the Troll Blacklist
But if you loose your head, you can just retighten it; however, if you lose your head, then you are out of luck.
I wouldn't go as far as saying that it is an excellent critique. It is more like an endless sermon. The first few hundred pages are refreshing, but by the time you pass the 1000 page mark you just want the pain to stop, but you feel obligated to finish lest you appear as one of the unwashed unread masses.
I don't see "Redundant" as only applying to the current story. In some cases I think that if it is an obvious common rant/praise/whatever, then it may be applied, especially if it is made by the same person.
I won't dontate money to "needy" charities unless I know the money goes towards things which help build a less needy future, not non-sustainable, stopgap measures.
Are we still talking about Farscape, or starving africans? I agree, farscape is needy because there aren't enough fans to justify the expense of production, and africans are starving because there are so many of them living in a desert. neither is going to change by giving them $1Mil.
Sometimes it's better to just let it go. It's not politically correct to point out but starvation is natural. population is balanced against available resources and equilibrium is reached. Should we drop protein reseqeuencers on a hungry primitive planet? no, even though it's hard to watch people suffer, it's still the wrong thing to do.
should we fund a sick show that's been earmarked for extinction? sorry, I like farscape but it's time to say goodbye.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
> If this does work, I think the precedent will
> be that fans are willing to pool together and
> pay a LOT of money to get the quality content
> they want. Groups could form to fund their own
> content, which they could release into the
> public domain. P2P could distribute them.
I think that you may have a bit too much experience with the hacker open-source community. From a sociological perspective, I don't think your hypothetical model could ever take off. The problem is that even if all these people were willing to go into this project with no thought of profit, simply to make something wonderful, once it was done, you would see a lot more resistance than you might expect to releasing it into the public domain.
In the end, things that cost resources to produce end up belonging to someone because of the "Why should they get it for free when I had to pay for it" mentality.
Just some return food for thought.
lysergically yours
There is no goal set for the campaign. Those numbers on the ipetitions page are only examples. The goal is to get as much as possible. The best bet for this to work is for "The Viewer Consortium" to act as an additional investor in the series.
For example, the cost of the series averages to $1.5M per episode. Sci-Fi was picking up half of that, 750k. That's $16.5M for a 22 episode season. Assuming all the funding that was there still is, that is the only deficit to make up. (As an aside - Sci-Fi is paying up to 3 TIMES that much for "Taken")
Take 1M as the average weekly viewership in the US. If 10% of the people who watch Farscape in the US gave an average of $25 each, the cost per episode could be reduced by over $100k. That could go a long way to helping Henson and Sci-Fi, or any other network for that matter, reach an agreement. Money from all the viewers worldwide only makes the deal better.
Also, the number quoted as already donated is suspect. That ipetitions page is, I think, the original one from when the news first broke. It asked only hypothetically, "what would you give if you could save Farscape?". It needs to be restarted, asking "What WILL you give?", and a more definite payment system instead of "pledges" needs to be established.
They are also looking into direct sales to viewers - perhaps DVD sales, or even pay-per-view. The numbers for this are even more daunting, but not, in my opinion, completely impossible. With advertising getting more and more difficult to sell and the impact of tivo-like devices rendering ads useless, this may be a distribution model considered more often in the future. Instead of paying $50 a month to your cable Co. for a collection networks, in the future you might pay $50 a month only for the shows you want to watch. The cable companies have alot of installed bandwidth and are itching to find more uses for it, like video on demand. Farscape could be offered as a test case to see how well the idea is accepted.
May I ask -- "who are you?"
You seem to have more than a passing involvement in Farscape's fate -- both in knowledge and the single topic of all 3 of your posts -- for which I am grateful.
How can this not get modded +5, Funny? Anyone? Mod points? (Note: I am not the poster.)
Ok, blatant flamebait
For a real slippery slope to the bottom, try rock surfing in the Ohlone pools Maui north. Almost ended my honeymoon...
Thou hast damnable iteration, and art indeed able to corrupt a saint - Henry IV, Act I scene II
After a tedious email exchange with ATI support their final position is that the serial number from CD is insufficient proof of purchase. I need to supply a number which is located on the card and unreadable without reopening the case, dismantling the AGP support bridge and pulling the card. You would think they might mention "Write this number down before installing in case you need support later" somewhere in the installion instructions.
I told them if I had to pull the card out to get replacement drivers from them, then I might as well put the card back in the box it came in and exchange it for a Matrox. Screw ATI.
Can I buy an ATI card to play UT2, Doom3 and Quake3 on linux, or do I need to buy an Nvidia card? That is, with these drivers and a 9700, am I going to constantly be tempted into dual booting b/c card faster in Windows, or might gaming in linux actually be slightly faster than same games in windows as it is with Nvidia cards -- this makes all the difference in the world to me.
I'm looking at a new system for HTPC purposes. Since the mplayer/freevo/xmame/zsnes combo is such a killer ui-wise (been trying it on my desktop to evaluate), linux seems the way to go.
However, the problem becomes TV-out. Now it looks like nVidia, Matrox, and ATI have decent TV-out capabilities.
Matrox 3D is unacceptable, so I've discounted that (some pretty neat GL visualizations on xmms wouldn't look as good), so I'm left with ATI and nVidia. Researched nVidia and within two minutes saw that TV was fully supported in the binary-only drivers. On ATI's side of the fence.... they neither seem to have TV-out support in any binary form nor are willing to release specs (or else face the wrath of ??AA for providing a path for Macrovision to be disabled), so the only TV-out support is through using an unaccelerated framebuffer, completely unacceptable.
ATI's efforts seem to be less comprehensive than nVidia's, both in terms of scope (only 8500 and 9700?), and in terms of functionality. All of this stuff should not be exclusive with respect to each other. I would love to see this happen, as there are a couple of decent motherboard's with built in TV-Out that use RV100 chips...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Okay, so the Germans were bad in 1940, and ATI were bad in 2000. Now guess what? It's year 2002, almost 2003. Germany changed, and from the look of it ATI changed too. Enough as to acknowledge a small market that won't bring them any significant money anyway. They've been churning out driver releases steadily, immediately correcting the pointed out problems (lack of support for 3rd party boards), correcting bugs, improving speed. Oh my God, actual customer support! Of course customer support is pure marketing. That doesn't mean it's any less good for us. Linux has little to NO economical weight in the high-end 3D board market, so giving us an actually good driver is pure PR -- something that won't bring in any immediate money. In other words, ATI is actually showing long-term thought here! That's good!
And as for Mac drivers, alright, they SHOULD have been made. And Apple SHOULD have requested them! Who put the ATI card in your Powerbook in the first place? Yet I don't see you blaming the computer builder. If I bought a PC that didn't come with the driver for its own freaking video card I'd be very upset at whomever designed and sold that PC.
Now of course if you bought the ATI card as a 3rd party upgrade, it's different, alright, but from your post I gather it's not the case.
Anyway. ATI support was shitty, now it has improved considerably. That's commendable, but it will only go on if we send positive feedback. So let's keep the misdirected bitterness in check, and give ATI a chance to redeem themselves before we flame, hmm?
And, BTW, yes, I've owned a Radeon 8500 for months, and yes, I was very angry when it turned out there was little to no support for my primary OS, so I know about the bitterness. It still doesn't mean I shouldn't rejoice and send positive feedback when the situation starts improving dramatically. Heck, even 2D support is significantly faster with the latest version of the driver!
If the trend goes on, maybe I'll even consider making my next video card another ATI. We'll see if they deserve it.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
I understand your plight with all of this, but you must understand that some people simply cannot be helped. It is not in them to feed themselves. I should know, I am a reporter, and I see that reality every day on the mean streets of America, where the poor clamour for a handout, but not a hand up.
People say it is education, and what they have been taught. Well, what they have been taught does not work. It does not feed them, EVEN IN A PLACE LIKE AMERICA, where they throw away close to 40% of the food out there. Keep in mind that I am not talking about the elderly who cannot work anymore and are caught in an inflation trap. I am talking about people who grow up on a system that allows them to never, EVER think about their future. I cannot tell you how much special help comes into those schools to help poor kids where I am, it is amazing. I honestly don't think that any of this is working at all. If they kept giving me that kind of help, I'd be the freakin' overlord of the planet by now.
This is the greatest example ever: When I have a story to do at 1pm in the poor neighborhoods, I can always get an interview. Why? Because no one has a job. No one is working. That is why they are poor. Not because of some secret government crap or ridiculous excuse. The same time in a suburb? I can bet you that I can't find anyone. And I mean anyone. THEY ARE WORKING. That is why they are not poor. *GASP* They actually have to something they may not like for, *GASP*, MONEY!
Mostly, after hearing all of the rhetoric from all of the charities in the world I have come to this conclusion (and trust me, I do at least 4 charity stories a month): Most charity workers are great people, and the people they serve are duplicitous liars that give you the sad puppy dog eyes, and then take your food or money and sit on their asses and do NOTHING. Just like they did before. Nothing has changed. You just gave them a better coat that they won't take care of. You just fed their hungry mouths another day in a nation where you can easily get all the food you want. Whenever I do a story about these poor people, I hear the words "disabled." No, YOU'RE NOT. Because I know disabled people in wheelchairs that are at WORK RIGHT NOW... grinding away on a keyboard. Working like little ants. You are complaining about your back.
Honestly, why do we need to have soup kitchens when soup is 50 cents a can and I can get that by bumming vending machine money off of people for that? A wiper and some Windex will get you a weeks worth in 15 minutes. Oh, but two hours worth will get you a bottle of Jack Daniel's. Once again. Your choice.
These examples work for all things. Why are the Arab nations (IMHO IMHO IMHO) worthless? They can't get their act together. Why are there people starving on the streets? They never got their act together. Why are these nations ass over teacup with starvation? They never got their act together.
Look around you. It is the 21st Century. Tell these people to either party like its 1499, or stay quiet. AS a citizen of the world and a human that lives in America and works very hard JUST TO GET BY... tell them to sit down and shaddup.
Hopefully those donations to save Farscape will do less to support the MPAA than would the movie tickets.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Your comments about your father made my whole day.
Honestly, I'd love to meet him. I assume that his mind is a steel trap, and probably has a sense of humor that is so select that if you didn't listen you would miss it all. He's "one of those guys" that you see every now and then.
Isn't it amazing what pressure does to some people? Some people avoid pain and suffering all of their lives to become worthless, and others have so freakin' much that it becomes irrelevent to what they want to accomplish. I am going out on a limb here, but the pain is obviously debilitating, but as far as his achievements are concerned, it is probably as irrelevent as the air conditioner sound in the back of the room right now.
What did all of that stuff do to stifle his success? Absolutely nothing.
It comes down to this with me: I think that all people, ALL HUMANS have within themselves two basic spirits... the ape, and the enlightened man. The ape is angry, lazy, lustfull, disaffected and greedy. The man is in a word, wonderful. The struggle is to see who is in charge. It is truly that simple.
Tell your dad to ROCK ON for me. Good luck. God speed.
-Alex Lucas
...that title of the next episode is Kansas.