The Mathematics of Futurama

mclearn writes "Did you know that the writers of Futurama have a collective set of degrees that would rival most think tanks? Here is a hilarious site on the mathematics of Futurama -- specifically this article (pdf). The same authors have also researched the mathematics of the Simpsons, mentioned on Slashdot long ago."

Comments

my lead pipe hurts!

[Anonymous Coward]

well, it's put to good use ;)

Re:my lead pipe hurts!

[Cthefuture]

That's my favorite Futurama episode. I like the ones where Fry kicks ass (the Devil's Hands one is good too).

What a great show. It had a bad time slot and was probably too geeky for mainstream. In fact, I was part of the problem. I didn't even watch it very much when new shows were coming out. I had this "Simpsons wannabe" attitude and thought the show was OK, but nothing special. It was only years later that I discovered how great the show actually is.

3D animation, technical references galore, very funny.

I almost fell out of my chair when on that one episode there were a bunch of aliens (invaders or something?) coming out of a spaceship making all sorts of arcade references and such, then one goes "All your base are belong to us!"

Re:my lead pipe hurts!

[Enigma_Man]

That's normal, Next Patient!

-Dr. Zoidberg

One of my favorite scenes from the series that pops into my head is when they all visit Dr. Zoidberg's planet, but he's too much of a loser to mate with anybody, and Fry ends up fighting Zoidberg in that big arena, and they play their national anthem. It's a very ferocious song, and also happens to be the oldschool Star Trek fight music I believe :D

-Jesse

Re:my lead pipe hurts!

[pappy97]

"I had this "Simpsons wannabe" attitude and thought the show was OK, but nothing special. It was only years later that I discovered how great the show actually is."

You discovered that you would like the show, not that it is great. Futurama is for geeks. It is smart in a "Geek" sort of way. The Simpsons is smart, but you don't have to be a Slashdotter to get the stuff.

Face reality: You were right the first time, sort of. I wouldn't call it a Simpsons wannabe, but rather "Simpsons in the Future" or

"Slashdot Simpsons."

There is nothing special unless you are a geek. That's why Futurama won't come back. It *only* appeals to geeks (like "Firefly," but better).

Re:my lead pipe hurts!

[CaptainAvatar]

Not so. My non-geeky siblings love Futurama. In fact, my sister was initially put off by the sci-fi geekiness, but after listening to me rave about it she gave it a chance and became a fan. It's not ALL geek jokes. Yes, geeks will the most out of it, but that's similar to the Simpsons, where you have to be an adult to get a lot of the jokes and references. A lot of them fly over my youngest brother's head (he's 16 now), but that's never prevented him from enjoying it. The best cartoons are written on different levels like this, IMHO.

Re:my lead pipe hurts!

[Lotharjade]

If only everyone had something like a Tivo DVR. A few years back I knew I liked Farscape, but never got to see it due to its timeslot. I got a DVR, a season pass to the show, and that all changed. It is now in my top ten shows (Futurama is no. 1 tho).

Wouldn't it be nice if the timeslot crap disappeared from the fate of a show. sigh...

BRING BACK MY FUTURAMA DAMMIT! SLUUUuuuRRRRMMM!!! (startrek 2 voice)

Smart?

[SpanishInquisition]

Smart enough to NOT get cancelled?

Re:Smart?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, it was more like "too smart to stay on the air." See, American television viewers don't like television shows that make them feel stupid. Instead of watching intelligent, well-written shows like Futurama, they instead watch unintelligent pablum like "American Idol."

It's things like this that make me turn to the Internet, great liberator of properly smart programmes that were cancelled before their time.

Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Doesn't Own Television

Re:Smart?

[Cereal Box]

Instead of watching intelligent, well-written shows like Futurama

Is this the same Futurama where the lead character went back in time and had sex with his grandmother?

Re:Smart?

[Seek_1]

if only I had mod points.. :) (funny!!)

Re:Smart?

[tdemark]

I think you mean "did the nasty in the past-y".

- Tony

Re:Smart?

[LighthouseJ]

I was going to expend some mod points on this discussion, but this deserves a reply instead.

You can use those relative titles ("niece", "uncle", "sisters-brother", etc...) and prove that you are your own grandfather. I don't know exactly the way to prove it, I can't seem to quickly find information through Google, but I know it's been done. It's a flaw in the whole relative title system. It just shows that him going back and becoming his own grandfather is another proof of Futurama's quality writing.

Re:Smart?

[Cereal Box]

I think you're giving the writers a bit too much credit. The episode had nothing to do with "title flaws", I mean, the guy literally went back in time and had sexual intercourse with his grandmother. The show is intelligent, sure, but that particular plotline is not what I would consider the height of intelligent writing.

Re:Smart?

[LighthouseJ]

That's Fox's fault. Futurama kept on being pre-empted by sports, moved around and basically becoming a programming ragdoll for Fox. The same thing happened to Family Guy, they had less episodes made (50, compared to Futurama's 75) and they are coming back on the air. Some buzz is going around that Futurama could share in the same fate, it's possible because Fox doesn't own the rights to Futurama like they do with Family Guy. Groening and Co. just made episodes and Fox paid them to show them on Fox.

I've watched extensive hours of The Simpsons, Futurama and Family Guy and I've come to this conclusion...

The Simpsons is the series with the biggest environment. Have you seen the picture with about 200 people from The Simpsons on it? They mix humor with a wide spectrum of different characters and get a great show.

Futurama has the best writing, hands down, no question about it. You listen to the commentary of why certain elements were in it, and you think to yourself "wow, that's pretty sneaky". Plus, the seamless blend of computer animation and hand-drawn animation by Rough Draft Korea makes it the best animated series.

Family Guy has the best jokes IMO. Family Guy doesn't hold punches when they lay down jokes. The Simpsons has their funny jokes, Futurama has smart jokes, but Family Guy has gut-busting jokes that go to new heights. The only thing I'd change is put Lacey Chabert back as the voice of Meg, when I hear Mila Kunis' whiny voice, I think of Jackie, not Meg.

Re:Smart?

[LighthouseJ]

yes, I've seen the episode. Maybe it was that way to setup the later episode where the Nibblers tapped Fry to save mankind from the Brains and needed some reason to seperate him out from everyone else. Remember the delta brain waves, humans and some plants have it but Fry doesn't, because he is his own grandfather? If anything, the fact that he did sleep with his grandmother is nothing more than a gross-out plot, it by no means undermines their writing.

Re:Smart?

[NatasRevol]

Twisted relationships

Re:Smart?

[Mr. Slippery]

The episode had nothing to do with "title flaws", I mean, the guy literally went back in time and had sexual intercourse with his grandmother.

The "grandfather paradox" (what if I went back in time and killed my grandfather - thus my father would never be born, thus I would never exist, thus I couldn't go back in time and commit the murder, so my grandfather would live, so my father would be born, so...) is a sci-fi cliche. Their take on it was great!

Fry, trying to protect his "grandfather", ends up killing him, only to be seduced by his grandmother (believing, in his half-witted way, that since his "grandfather" is dead, his grandmother can't really be his grandmother) and becomes his own grandather. It's gross, it's ironic, it's funny.

Re:Smart?

[mcmonkey]

The only thing I'd change is put Lacey Chabert back as the voice of Meg, when I hear Mila Kunis' whiny voice, I think of Jackie, not Meg.

Ug no! Lacey was horrible. Her episodes are dreadful. They're just not funny. I don't know if there was a coinciding turn-over in writers or what, but I can't even watch the Lacey episodes.

Mila's episodes are all hilarious. The Jackie connection doesn't bother me. Maybe the writers gave one better material over the other, but when I hear Lacey I change the channel; when I hear Mila I laugh.

Re:Smart?

[SengirV]

Is this the same Futurama where the lead character went back in time and had sex with his grandmother?

Why yes, yes it is

V
V
V
V

Re:Smart?

[DjMd]

is not what I would consider the height of intelligent writing.

And yet on that very episode's DVD commentary (yes I admit I am a fan), they put forward the mathamtical question of is the % break down of Fry's DNA.
A normal person could be considered a 1/4 product of each of their grandparents.
If Fry supplied his own DNA then what is his DNA %...? So it wouldn't be 1/4 because he is one of those contributors...

Re:Smart?

[Vertex Operator]

By symmetry each of his grandparents (not
including himself) must have contributed 1/3
of his genetic information.

And that be the way it 'tis.

Re:Smart?

[Thud457]

The proper phrasing is "how many toes does your sisteraunt have?"

Re:Smart?

[gnu-generation-one]

"American television viewers don't like television shows that make them feel stupid"

Another theory is that American television viewers who agree to track their own TV usage for the ratings don't watch intelligent TV shows...

Re:Smart?

[CyberDruid]

That is pretty clever, but possibly wrong. Since Fry only has sex with one of his grandmothers the relationship is not perfectly symmetric. They are looking for a steady-state solution and I am not convinced that your solution satisfies that.

Re:Smart?

[Surt]

Not to mention farnsworth's brilliant double meaning line at the end referring to 'our degenerate friend fry here'.

That was a great episode.

Re:Smart?

[numark]

The episode with the brains ("The Day The Earth Stood Stupid") came before the one with Fry being his own grandfather ("Roswell That Ends Well"). Oddly enough, however, it was "Roswell That Ends Well" that won the only non-technical Emmy that the show ever received.

Re:Smart?

[GrimReality]

Instead of watching intelligent, well-written shows like Futurama

Is this the same Futurama where the lead character went back in time and had sex with his grandmother?

I don't know if it was meant to be that way, but in the Hitchhiker's 'Trilogy', there is this character called Zaphod Beeblebrox the First, whose grand-grand parent is Beeblebrox the Fourth said to be the result of time travel and ...

Also, I don't think the poster to whom you responded, meant 'intelligent, well-written' to mean it literally. And, when compared to 'American Idol', it is well-written (and from what I have heard a lot more expensive to make than American Idol --I am not sure about this bit).

Re:Smart?

[The Analog Kid]

Not only that but they kept switching it's time slot so no one knew when it was on, and it could not develop a large enough fan base.

Re:Smart?

[LighthouseJ]

Yes, but the writers could have planned the two being linked before both episodes were written. Isn't it conceivable that they could have used the fact that Fry is his own grandfather earlier, then detailing how Fry became his own grandfather later?

Re:Smart?

[LighthouseJ]

I would be very interested in comparing the two side-by-side if they voiced the same episode. You can't blame Lacey on the writing and directing she was lending her voice to.

To me, the Lacey episodes (first production season), the crew was kind of feeling around the dark, finding what jokes work with the audience, how the people involved in production work together, et al. I have season 1 of The Simpsons on DVD, and they were just about the worst episodes only because they are starting up, the writers were getting comfortable with the material, characters, feeling out the series, and they didn't change any voices. Sure, the voices matured over the years but the voice actors stayed the same.

I can't help but wonder why they replaced Lacey with Mila, was it because the show was becoming more popular, that they wanted a more familiar voice on Meg? Did Lacey just not like filling that role, so they plucked Mila from That 70's Show? I'd like to know.

Re:Smart?

[Bloomy]

It's been a while since I've taken math, so I can't remember if symmetry as used above deals with infinite series, which is how I looked at it.

Fry is 1/4 of each of his grandparents. Since one of his grandparents is himself, who is 1/4 of his grandparents, that makes an additional 1/16 contribution from each of his grandparents. Keep substituting Fry's grandparents for Fry, and each non-Fry grandparent's contribution is the sum of the series of (1/4)^n (n starts at 1), and that is 1/3.

Re:Smart?

[Tree131]

There's actually a song called "I'm my own grandpa" that is based on this story or maybe it's the other way around. I heard it back in HS at least 10 years ago in my Genetics class. We were offered extra credit to figure out how it works and draw a family tree.
Here w/ music.

Re:Smart?

[Chmcginn]

But it's not necessarily symmetric. In fact, it's definitely not - you receive 23 chromosomes from each parent, that's true. But there's no sure way to know what percentage of that 23 comes from each of their parents (with the exception of X or Y chromosomes) without doing an in-depth genetic analysis.

Really, it's technically possible (although extremely unlikely) that I have no chromosomes from my father's mother. Although, since I'm male, I must have at least one from my father's father...

A vision of the future....

[Anonymous Coward]

So this may mean that Futurama is a comedic view of the future? Scary....

Re:A vision of the future....

[ConceptJunkie]

Actually, they were wiped out by aliens. This was mentioned in a number of episodes.

But of course, we all know that the Earth of the future was wiped out by something far more insidious, a force even more dastardly than the giant brains, the giant anti-brains at Fox. If it doesn't have bitch-slaps, gratuitous cleavage or people being humiliated, it's not for Fox. Of course this doesn't explain "24" and "Malcolm in the Middle", two other good shows, but it does explain most of them.

Re:A vision of the future....

[mog007]

Aliens wiping out the earth was in the pilot episode. When Fry is in the cyro tube it shows the world being destroyed by flying saucers, then being rebuilt to around a bronze age and being destroyed again. I think it was mainly a satire of The Time Machine.

Re:A vision of the future....

[Anonvmous Coward]

"I think it was mainly a satire of The Time Machine."

I saw something a little different in that joke. Man is defeated by aliens, man rebuilds, man is defeated by the same aliens again. Couldn't tell you if that was a time machine gag or not, but I did enjoy the "Oh yeah, we didn't exactly 'win' that battle, did we." I watched it thinking "Yeah, here's what ID4 2 would really look like."

Re:A vision of the future....

[_xeno_]

I loved the commentary for that part of the pilot though. Paraphrased:

- Hey, why didn't the building Fry was in get destroyed?
- Um...
- Uh...
- Because... Shut up!
[ all laugh ]

I can't remember exactly who said what, but it was really amusing listen to them nitpick thier own show.

Re:A vision of the future....

[ConceptJunkie]

There was another reference in the episode about the stock market (where "that guy" takes over Planet Express) where Fry was sitting in with the Cryogenic support group when someone mentions when he was frozen giant carrots ruled the world.

I also seem to recall a reference to some powerful alien being elected President of Earth and his statue being in the Lincoln memorial or something like that.

Degrees?

[kneecarrot]

Let me guess... masters degrees in folklore and mythology?

Re:Degrees?

[GregChant]

Nah, letters.... and philosophy. /ducks

Re:Degrees?

[finkployd]

Well, executive producer David Cohen has a B.S. in computer science from U.C. Berkeley, and a B.A. in physics from Harvard.

Finkployd

Re:Degrees?

[ZX-3]

> executive producer David Cohen has a B.S. in computer science from U.C. Berkeley

In one of the DVD commentaries, he talks about an Apple ][ videogame he programmed in assembly.

Re:Degrees?

[Fahrenheit 450]

Yep. He was a roommate of my old PhD advisor when he was at Berkeley.

Re:Degrees?

[kneecarrot]

No kidding. You'd think people would get a relatively well-known Simpson's reference. Sheesh.

Re:Degrees?

[pyros]

One time I had a Simspons quote modded as redundant, I believe. So I replied complaining about the mod, and how it was an obvious Simpsons quote. The complaint was modded +5 funny. the quote made it up to funny eventually too, but still.

Re:Degrees?

[Dr. Smeegee]

I was once part of an ill-fated theatre group, that had the misfortune of having a director with a Bachelors degree in Folklore from (yes) harvard.

He was remarkably like the owner of the Android's Dungeon, except drunker and more into the Dead.

He actually used the word "tripsidaisical" in a conversation with some financers. They were charmed until he pulled a beer from his coat pocket and opened it during the 10:00 am meeting.

Re:Degrees?

[hackstraw]

There should be a wrong -1 mod option.

This link has an interview with David Cohen and it says that he got a bachelor's degree in physics (I don't think you can get a BA in physics, but maybe I'm wrong) and a masters degree in cs from Berkeley.

Re:Degrees?

[Rura Penthe]

You can get a BA in Physics from many universities, but its worth is certainly questionable. ;)

Re:Degrees?

[wuice]

Someone jibed in one of the commentaries that this show has more PhDs in mathematics on their staff than any cartoon ever. Besides, what self-respecting nerd can't appreciate a show where the characters drink Olde Fortran?

Re:Degrees?

[rjforster]

I thought Oxford awarded a BA in Physics, uniquely among British Universities (or at least nearly unique, the rest award you a BSc). At least this is what I was told by the guy in my PhD research group who had done his first degree there. As one of Britain's and indeed the worlds finest Universities I wouldn't question the worth of a degree from Oxford.

Re:Degrees?

[Theatetus]

I don't think you can get a BA in physics, but maybe I'm wrong

Depends on the schools. A lot of universities that run their physics program out of their college of arts & sciences give BA's. I guess the implication is it's a more broad-based curriculum than the physics degree you'd get at another university's school of physics or school of applied sciences or whatever, but YMMV.

I certainly wouldn't knock an AB in physics from Harvard, however. They've got a great lab.

Re:Degrees?

[Apiakun]

Which one? There are over 20 universities (27? 29?) that are part of Oxford.

Re:Degrees?

[cellocgw]

You can get a BA in Physics from many universities, but its worth is certainly questionable. ;)
Hey, I've got an AB in Physics you insensitive clod!
Seriously: my AB is from Colby; I went on to get an ABD from Brown. While Brown is not in the top 10 for grad physics or anything, those of us w/ AB degrees were as well trained and qualified as those with BS (heh) degrees.

Re:Degrees?

[clarkcox3]

I was more taken by the "Klein" beer (it was "in" a klein bottle).

Re:Degrees?

[Lebannen]

Incorrect. There's over 20 Colleges, if that's what you mean. Each college deals with supervisions (very small group tutelage), housing, and extracurricular affairs; however, the University deals with lectures and practicals, and your degree is actually from the University.

It does look pretty complicated, now that I've written it. Think of the colleges as halls of residence with tutors attached.

Re:Degrees?

[wass]

You can get a BA in Physics from many universities, but its worth is certainly questionable. ;)

I hope that smiley means you are being sarcastic.

At my alma mater (University of Pennsylvania) all undergraduate degrees in the 'natural sciences' are awarded as BA's. So I got a BA in physics, along with all other graduating physics majors, chemistry majors, biology majors, etc.

There was no option of getting a BS in physics. The aforementioned departments are all part of the school of "Arts and Sciences" and by nature the school only offers BA's for those fields. BS's are only awarded for graduates of the engineering school.

Re:Degrees?

[finkployd]

There should also be a "wrong about parent poster being wrong -1" mod option :)

He has a BA in Physics, which you can get from many institutions.

Finkployd

Re:Degrees?

[JonathanBoyd]

Most people do an MPhys at Oxford, but there is a 3 year BA course for those that aren't quite good enough for the MPhys or, like me, decide that Physics is not want they want to pursue longer term.

Re:Degrees?

[wuice]

That I've missed. I've only seen the first two seasons though. That's so awesome. Futurama is the nerdiest cartoon ever.

Re:Degrees?

[ParisTG]

I guess that explains why Bender is based on the 6502 cpu!

Re:Degrees?

[CaptainAvatar]

OK ... maybe you can clue me in here, how is an AB different from a BA? I've wondered about that before. And what's an ABD??

Re:Degrees?

[Rangsk]

Ok, you've got me... what does "tripsidaisical" mean? I tried google, I tried dictionary.com, I tried asking friends. Nothing.

Re:Degrees?

[Alexei]

UC Berkeley gives out BAs in both Math and Physics, and those departments are no slouches.

Re:Degrees?

[cellocgw]

about the only difference between an AB and a BA is Latin, "Ars Baccalaureus [sp]" vs English "Bachelor of Arts." The diff between BS and BA typically is the number of non-tech courses -- a BA has several language, social/econ/history, etc. requirements.

An ABD is "All But Dissertation," for those of us who passed the Qual Exam but bailed before blowing off 2 years of slavery to get the PhD :-)

Further study

[Anonymous Coward]

... into the thermodynamics of melting web servers.

Set of degrees that would rival most think tanks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: One of the writers has a bachelors in political science.

/.'ed already.

[Stitch_626]

Bed they didn't calculate that!!!

sorry....

Re:/.'ed already.

[Stitch_626]

I meant "BET".

Darn Fat Fingers(tm)

Re:/.'ed already.

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Another application of the uncertainty principle. How do you know if the site is /.ed if don't click the link. But when you click the link you chance the process, since your click might be the one that caused the /. effect.
Now how do I get that damn cat hooked up?

Re:/.'ed already.

[nharmon]

So what you are saying is that by measuring the /. effect, you are changing it (by contributing to it)?

Re:/.'ed already.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm sorry, your fingers are too fat to type. If you wish to order a special dialing wand please mash the keyboard with your palm... now"

Re:/.'ed already.

[Mac Degger]

Schrodinger would be proud, and Heisenberg would tell you something about the speed of a /.-ing happening and the therefore uncertainty in the location of aforementioned webserver :)

Re:/.'ed already.

[Rei]

Tour guide: "And now we have entered Heisenberg's bedroom. Over in the corner is his bed. We know that he slept right there, although we don't know just how fast asleep he was."

Re:/.'ed already.

[jcoleman]

Schroedinger's Cat is not an illustration of the uncertainty principle, nor is your example.

Re:/.'ed already.

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

Schrödinger's Cat was a thought experiment to demonstrate that the uncertainty principle could have macroscopic effects.

The uncertainty principle dictates that you can't measure something without influencing it (e.g. a thermometer's reservoir doesn't have the same temperature as the liquid you're measuring and therefore will change the temperature a little bit).
My example means you can't (remotely) "measure" if a webserver is still operating, without sending a datapacket to it. If the server was already at the very edge of its capabilities, your ping could push it over the edge and /. it. Doesn't that qualify as influencing your "measurement"?

Re:/.'ed already.

[jcoleman]

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle says that you can know either the position or velocity of a subatomic particle, but not both. Further refined, the better you estimate velocity, the worse your estimate of position and vice versa.

Schroedinger's Cat, however, illustrates the wavefunction of a quantum particle...the cat is either alive or dead, but you can't know which until you check. Whether you look or not doesn't influence the cat's mortality rate. You can say that it's the measurement (opening the box) that causes the cat to live or die, but the cat already was in that state when you checked. That is the essential problem raised by this thought experiment.

Check this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%F6dinger%27s_c at

and note that the word "uncertainty" does not appear. Of course, it might appear on the page, and it might not...you won't know until you click on it. ;)

So your analogy holds between the webserver and the cat, but the uncertainty principle is not involved. That is what I'm trying to clarify.

(BTW, this is a stupid argument. Clearly we are both bored at work.)

Re:/.'ed already.

[jeremyp]

Schroedinger's Cat was a thought experiment designed to illustrate the philosophical problems of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantume mechanics i.e. the act of observation collapses the wave function. What is an observer etc.

The Uncertainty Principle states that the product of the uncertainty in position and momentum can never be smaller than some value (h/2pi I think). It's important to note that this does not just mean that we cannot measure a particle's position and velocity exactly, but that it doesn't "know" its position and velocity exactly.

Re:/.'ed already.

[FooAtWFU]

Schroedinger's Cat is not an illustration of the uncertainty principle, nor is your example.

Perhaps not THE Uncertainty Principle (Heisenberg's, deals with quantam stuff) but it certainly is *AN* uncertainty principle. Perhaps we should name it after the poster. (I'm too lazy to look up the name... :)

proof

[Andorion]

Maybe they can put those degrees to good use and write a proof on the Slashdot Effect? They should have collected plenty of data right about now...

~Berj

Re:proof

[JaffaKREE]

The Math of AppState.Edu network: Everything looks normal, hey what's this slashdot posYAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH !!

SLURM

[livhan28]

theres nothing like a tall glass of SLURM while your waiting for a /.'ed page to load.

Re:SLURM

[aslate]

How about going to the Google Cache whilst you enjoy your alien-worm excrement!

Re:SLURM

[CableModemSniper]

And here is a link to the cache of the PDF itself, for the truly lazy

/.ed a university already?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAH.

Of course, appstate.edu ranks up there with Zeb's College of Learnin'.

honorary

[millahtime]

The question is how many of them are honorary? I mean, I would give the simpsons writers honorary degrees for all the times i laughed my ass off.

It was obvious to me...

[scorp1us]

Since Farnsworth said at the horse track when his horse lost in a photo finish:
"No fair! you changed the outcome by measuring it."

It was that day that I knew that Futurama was for me, since I figure the vast majority of casual viewers watching it would not have a clue. The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference out there that would be above 99% of the viewers told me this show was different, and it was for me. It takes balls to do jokes that the majority of people won't get. And that earns my respect...
That and the numerous Rush references...

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Rhubarb Crumble]

...about from this point:

"Here. Take my +1 Mace."

Re:It was obvious to me...

[destinedforgreatness]

'The Farnsworth Paradox' is proof that Futurama is too good for mainstream viewing.
An work of genius unappreciated by an audience forever presented with reality tv nobrainer shows.
"I've been as dumb as Fry"
"No I'm doesn't!"

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Maudib]

The fact that they thew a quantum computing reference

Quantum computing? Sure I guess quantum computing may take advantage of such properties, but this phenominon is part of quantum mechanics writ large, not just computing.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Yewbert]

OK - those quotations settle it for me: I'm buying the DVD sets. I hadn't decided before, but I'd forgotten how many sweet geek-jokes were buried in there,...

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Mr. Bad Example]

Heh. One of my favorites was the one where they were on the moon and there's a farmer who warns Fry that it gets really cold when the sun goes down. I'm paraphrasing here:

"It gets down to 200 degrees below zero."

"Celsius or Fahrenheit?"

"First one, then t'other."

Re:It was obvious to me...

[devorama]

The gang goes to visit the edge of the universe. It's one of those tourist activities that you never get around to. There is a telescope looking out into the empty expanse. Fry looks into the telescope and sees a mirror image of his entire group, except everyone has a beard, as in Star Trek's evil Spock. Fry asks who they are, and Prof. Farnsworth tells him it's another universe.

Fry: "Are there an infinite number of universes?"

Prof. F.: "No, just the two."

Re:It was obvious to me...

[iocat]

You have to figure, though, that there are scores of jokes in Futurama that you don't get, or even notice, because they target different groups on the nerd/pop-culture spectrum.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[CrazyTalk]

One of my favorites (paraphrased):

Why, thats over 200 atmospheres of pressure!

How many atmospheres of pressure can the ship withstand, Professor?

Well, its a spaceship. So anywhere between zero and 1.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[October_30th]

Prof. F.: "No, just the two."

On the commentary track someone, don't remember who, points out that while there are only two parallel universes there is actually an infinite number of perpendicular ones.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Dr. Smeegee]

That and the numerous Rush references...

The highly intelligent, prog-rock trio or the pill-scarfing Bloat-O-Pundit?

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Hrdina]

Why did they have Beck's head in a jar rather than Geddy's?

Re:It was obvious to me...

[sp0rk173]

depending on who you idolize, pill-scarfing will always seem like intelligence.

Not that there's any doubt that Rush [the band] was drug free.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[hchaos]

The highly intelligent, prog-rock trio or the pill-scarfing Bloat-O-Pundit?

But Alex Lifeson is a member of Rush!

Oh, wait....

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Scrameustache]

Fry looks into the telescope and sees a mirror image of his entire group, except everyone has a beard, as in Star Trek's evil Spock.

Cowboys, not evil goatees.

Bender "Lets go, I'm sick of cowboy Bender lording his hat over me!" ;-)

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Nopal]

Quantum computer reference? When did this happen? If I remember that episode correctly, the announcer says that the race was decided in a quantum finish , not a photo finish, hence the professor's comment.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Blakey Rat]

What about when he used his super X-Ray gun (I forget what it's called...) to look inside of Bender's head and it showed a 6502 CPU?

To quote this site:

The key component of the NES system is the MOS 6502 CPU. This is the main processor where the game's code is executed. This CPU was very popular in the 1980's where it was used in some of the first personal computers including the Commodore 64, Apple II, and the Atari systems.

I thought that was hilarious, but most others I've spoken to have completely missed the joke, even if they did see the "6502" number.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[forkazoo]

My favorite Futurama moment was even subtler than the race track (though that was a damn fine one!). In the episode with Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, Nichelle Nichols, and the super computer, Fry gets thrown into a school bus. That bus is labelled:

Grand Unified School District.

99% of the potential audience wouldn't even have known there was a joke involved. I was laughing so hard I almost caughed up my slurm. If you can't see the joke, just remember that Hawking was in the episode. :O)

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Scorchio]

Good call... that was the scene that got the show added to my "must watch" list!

Re:It was obvious to me...

[ArsSineArtificio]

For me, it was when they took Nibbler to the vet and somebody else had a pet rust monster.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[DjMd]

AHHHH!
You forgot Gary Gygax!
"It's a ...", rolls dice "pleasure to meet you".

How is that not a geek freindly show??

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Gauchito]

Damn! I laughed so hard at that one I fell out of my chair. You win again, gravity!

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

"It takes balls to do jokes that the majority of people won't get."

Not really, because the majority of people wouldn't have realized that the geek-joke even existed.

But that also highlights the sophistication of their jokes because the jokes are not only selective in who-gets-it, but also who-hears-it.

To the ones who don't get it, it's just filler-dialogue, which is smart since it wont alienate or insult the intelligence of viewers who don't get-it.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Ricardo Lima]

Geddy's head in jar? Man, don't you think his head is scary enough where it is?

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Hatta]

Don't forget, Bender runs on a 6502 :)

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Jagasian]

That was an extremely popular CPU back in the 70s and 80s. The poor man's RISC.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[fenix down]

What the hell is with Adult Swim and Rush, anyway?

"The office terror alert level has been raised from blackwatch plaid to the cover of the seminal Rush album, Moving Pictures."

And for the record, both Rushes suck. Although, the fat one is a living demonstration of the maxim that he who takes the most drugs is always the superior musician.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Ukonu]

Making a joke obscure and about technology doesn't make it sophisticated.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[orkysoft]

"Hey, it didn't hurt the second time."

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Viking Coder]

I was just going to post this one. I laughed until I cried.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I preferred the slightly subtler DnD joke a bit earlier, during the introductions:

"Hi, I'm Gary Gygax. I'm...."

rolls dice and checks result

"... pleased to meet you."

Re:It was obvious to me...

[CaptainAvatar]

That's E. Gary Gygax to you, chum.

Yeah, that bit always cracks me up too!

Re:It was obvious to me...

[toby]

Commodore 64, Apple II, and the Atari

And, outside of the US, many others including the innovative BBC Microcomputer and earlier Acorn systems.

Re:It was obvious to me...

[forkazoo]

I just marked you as a slashdot friend for reminding me of that. :)

Google Cache

[amembleton]

The site seems to be slashdotted.

Here is Googles' Cache.

More math here

[vijaya_chandra]

Some one find out the rate of change of

the counter on the page
For wicked /.ers who derive pleasure viewing the counter running like a formula 1 car's odometer

counter

Re:More math here

[vijaya_chandra]

Damn me
forgot to select html mode
The counter

-

10 SIN

[FerretFrottage]

20 GOTO HELL

The show made me hurt with laughter so many times while the wife looked at me like I'm an ID10T. Well maybe I am, but the show made it clear why you shouldn't use GOTO statements.

Re:10 SIN

[Rune Berge]

I agree. That is one of my favourites!
Bender also had the following framed on the wall in one episode:
10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10

Re:10 SIN

[aslate]

There's a lot of debate about that though as it'll give:
HOME
SWEET
HOME
SWEET
HOME ...

Should it read:
10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 HOME
40 GOTO 10
But that makes it less funny.

Re:10 SIN

[caitsith01]

Let's not forget Bender's nightmare...

Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two."
Fry [comforting]: "It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two."

Who would've thought they could make a show with lots of binary jokes in it and still make it the funniest thing on TV?

Re:10 SIN

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

On a similar note, but a bit more subtle is Bender's apartment number: 00100100

(that's a '$', for the non-ASCII literate)

Re:10 SIN

[cynical]

10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10

My wife actually made one of these samplers for our house -- it is displayed proudly on our entryway wall.

Re:10 SIN

[sp0rk173]

Who would've thought they could make a show with lots of binary jokes in it and still make it the funniest thing on TV?

Clearly you never watched Family Guy. And if you did, then that statement shows you clearly have no taste. And I'm not just talking about not taste in relation to my frame of reference, I mean in the universal sense. Oh, Family Guy, too, made binary jokes.

Re:10 SIN

[Darthnice]

The commentary track for that scene mentions that the serial stream of 1s and 0s spell out "GET A LIFE" in ascii (not sure if in 7 or 8 bit, and I haven't verified it myself).

Re:10 SIN

[Have Blue]

Even better- if you step through the dream on a DVD player, there really is a single 2 in there.

Re:10 SIN

[wurp]

01111110 woulda been a far better #, IMO.

Re:10 SIN

[LarsWestergren]

Is that from the Bender-werecar episode? It was loaded with geek jokes. On the wall with the paintings of Bender's ancestors there is a robot in a naval uniform named Commodore LXVI.

When the hauntings start, there is an eerie version of the Windows 95 startup sound, and bender is chased by a flying toaster and a flying Windows logo.

The gypsy fortune-teller machine reads a manual - "How to exorcise were-cars: for Windows 98"

And this dialog:

Robot villager: "Bah, with all your science, are you any closer to unravelling the mystery of how a robot walks, or talks!?"
Prof. Farnsworth: "Of course you idiot, your diagram is printed on your chest plate!" [opens robot's chest, and sure enough, a circuit diagram on the inside]
Robot villager [closes chest angrily]: "I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe!"

Oh, and on the Fear of a Bot Planet episode, Bender is reading robot porn, and you see a split second of circuit diagrams on a center foldout. Anyone who is good at electronics who paused and could tell us if it is anything meaningful you can build using the diagram?

Re:10 SIN

[ChristianBaekkelund]

Everyone's forgetting the best math joke in the series...at one point when Fry and Amy were making out in the broom closet, behind them are two books:

"P" and "NP"

Re:10 SIN

[Otto]

I see the joke, but if you're going for that joke you might as well go with 01011110.

Re:10 SIN

[wurp]

Hmm... ~ is the standard symbol for "home" in *nix. ^ is the regex for beginning of line... is there some other use for ^ of which I'm unaware?

Re:10 SIN

[Otto]

Ahh.. I got a different joke. I thought you were going for the bent line.. Bender? Get it? Ahh, nevermind. ;)

Re:10 SIN

[wurp]

Ah, not bad.

Not good, but also not bad ;-)

Re:10 SIN

[NaugaHunter]

From "The Honking":

[Bender gasps and points at some blood-red numbers appearing on a wall. Leela and Amy turn around.]

Leela: (reading) 0101100101. (talking) What does it mean?

Bender: It's just gibberish. [He turns and gasps as he sees the numbers reflected in a mirror à la The Shining.] (reading) 1010011010?!

[He screams and runs out of the room.]

Re:10 SIN

[SamSim]

Best is in that haunted house, when he sees that someone has written a number in blood on the wall.

"01011100101? What does it mean, Bender?"
"Nothing, it's gibberish. [catches sight of the mirror image and screams] 1010011010?! Ahhhhhh!"

1010011010 being 666 in binary. I also seem to recall him being pursued by a flying toaster and the Windows logo as he flees in terror.

Re:10 SIN

[Shanep]

is there some other use for ^ of which I'm unaware?

XOR in C and doesn't it also mean "to the power of"?

Re:10 SIN

[grassy_knoll]

Or the were-car episode which starts off in the haunted castle.

The portrait of a robot dressed in a vaguely naval uniform entitled "Commodore LXIV".

Same episode had Uncle Vladimir's nephew Tandy wearing a t-shirt that said eruo-TRaSh-80.

I laughed, I cried, I wet my pants.

Re:10 SIN

[wurp]

Yeah, sorry, I should have been more specific: some meaning that would make it appropriate for Bender's room # that I should be aware of :) I figured "beginning of line" could also be called home.

Mirror

[Rufus211]

holy crap that was fast. Site's basically dead after 10 comments. I'm trying to get a mirror up at:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~pnelson/www.mat hsci.appstate.edu/%257Esjg/simpsonsmath/futuramama th/
So far I have the index page and a few pictures, but they'll go up as I get them.

Re:Mirror

[mahbidness]

The meat is in the PDF. Here's a freecached link hosted on my old school account.

Re:Mirror

[GeckoX]

Wow, you so smart!
Can you teach me more about the inter-web?

Harlem Globetrotters

[sleepnmojo]

You mean they are the harlem globetrotters here to use their genius to save the world?

google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

link to PDF
-=no karma whoring=-

Maths & magic

[doodlelogic]

This all reminds me of the old saying that at its most advanced, mathmatics is indistinguishable from magic.

All those lovely Escher pictures similarly show the ways in which selective use of mathmatics & physics can create imaginary worlds that, while they could not necessaily occur in reality, "feel" realistic.

Another magical view of the future was the original Futurama Exhibit at the World's Fair .

Re:Maths & magic

[geoffspear]

That was technology, not mathematics.

Re:Maths & magic

[SamSim]

"Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ~ Arthur C. Clarke. Of course, even the quadratic formula or a simple integral looks like magic to most people...

Re:Maths & magic

[Zardoz44]

One of the most famous imaginary worlds was created by a mathematician, independant of him being a possible pedophile.

Site is already dead

[AmigaAvenger]

dead on an .edu server? should make for some happy admins.

here is my own .edu sacrifice to this great subject!

FuturaMath

My favourite show

[Progman3K]

And it got cancelled. Typical.

If the creators of Futurama decided to strike out on their own and sell episodes of the show on the Internet, I'd definitely buy them.

I can only hope.

Re:My favourite show

[GTRacer]

Ummm, it's cancelled. There are no new episodes in production. CN is showing quite a few "rerely-seens" in the AS block mostly because Fox kept pre-empting the last season or so with football (or "football" for our European friends).

There is talk that Family Guy may return to production since its AS reruns are scoring so well. As Bender said, "There's always hope...AHAHAHA!"

GTRacer
- CGEF

Re:My favourite show

[Progman3K]

Cancelled meaning they are no longer producing new episodes.

Unless you know something I don't (entirely possible).

I know there were talks about some other network picking up the show, but I don't know what became of it.

I've bought the first three seasons on DVD, and this is AFTER downloading all the episodes on the Internet!

The DVDs have better picture quality, of course, and bonus material, most of which I loved the commentaries; it must be the best job in the world to work with that crew!

Re:My favourite show

[ari_j]

Yeah, I have all the episodes downloaded, but I want to buy the DVD's, mostly to get rid of the Dutch subtitles on How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back and give me consistent color. Oh yeah, and the commentaries.

Although I may have to make some sort of metaphorical deal with the devil to afford them all. And, by devil, I mean Robot Devil. And, by metaphorical, I mean get your coat. Time to go to work. ;)

Re:My favourite show

[linzeal]

Well we would have to pump up the purchasing of DVDs a lot to win back the col black hearts of television executives. There was a rumor for awhile that Futurama was in the same boat as Family guy and even Slashdot picked up on it, but who knows?

Anyone heard any newer information on that?

Re:My favourite show

[Crimson Midget]

It's more than just talk, Family Guy is returning. The only question was whether or not FOX was still interested in airing episodes, or just selling them to CN. But it's been announced Family Guy will air on FOX in June 2005.

Alex Borstein talks about her first day back on her website: http://www.alexborstein.com/pages/1/

CN was interested in Futurama as well, but it's a very expensive show to produce, and Matt & Co. weren't willing to compromise the quality.

Re:My favourite show

[Fweeky]

Amazon and Play tend to do half price offers on box sets every so often; think I got the whole of Family Guy and Futurama for 60% off - keep an eye out :)

Re:My favourite show

[ari_j]

Where's the moderation option for "+1: Frugal"? Thanks. :)

Re:My favourite show

[Finuvir]

Definitely worth it. The commentaries are often as godd as if not better than the episodes themselves. I've watched every episode with and without commentary at least two or three times and I haven't given up yet.

Re:My favourite show

[ari_j]

We'd often put a Futurama episode on my 20" monitor full-screen in the ACM office instead of going to class, throughout my last year of college. On my 21st birthday, once we closed down the bars we came back to the office and put the entire series up to that point on shuffle and drank until we forgot they were going. Or at least I drank until then. But when push comes to shove, you've gotta do what you love, even if it's not a good idea.

I watch at least an episode or two every night. I have my favorites, and I have others that I hardly ever watch.

Futurama - painstakingly drawn in front of a live audience.

Re:My favourite show

[Finuvir]

I do get a little disturbed when I turn on the TV only to see the end credits and think "Damn! I missed Futurama!" Then I realize I have every episode available to watch whenever I like and I still think "but if I had seen that one, I could still watch any of the others now."

Re:My favourite show

[whereiswaldo]

Damn, WTF! I still want Seinfeld to come out on DVD. Anyone got an inside scoop on this? Will it ever happen?

The problem

[Digitus1337]

With all of the smart people making the show it only leaves dumb people to cancel the show!

Re:The problem

[Strange Ranger]

My money is on the endless number of dumb marketing departments and ad agencies that didn't get the jokes, couldn't figure out the target audience, and thus wouldn't pay to advertise.

I can just hear those conversations... "This was supposed to be like the SIMPSONS! What is this crap? I watched 3 episodes and didn't laugh and didn't even see a character I could relate to! Call us back when Homer is in it."

Re:The problem

[strike2867]

I'm current wearing a t-shirt that says: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

Re:The problem

[sckeener]

With all of the smart people making the show it only leaves dumb people to cancel the show!

IMHO I believe they think they know what the majority want. After all, they probably feel it takes a dumb person to truly understand the needs of other dumb people.

Just look at the president.

Easy

[Sebby]

Take 1 great show
+ Run it a few years
+ At the height of it's popularity: cancel it
---
= Fox Network

Re:Easy

[Space_Nerd]

No no no
This is slashdot, so you must phrase that as a cliche.

Here, ill do it for you:
Step 1: Take one great show
Step 2: Run it a few years
Step 3: At the height of it's popularity, cancel it
Step 4: ????
Step 5: More profit for Fox Network

There, that's better now isn't it?

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the first step -- "take one great show"

Re:Easy

[phaze3000]

Quite frankly I wish more shows did this.

IMO there's nothing worse than a show which is long past its prime being flogged like a dead horse. All the great comedy series are great because they stopped before they got bad - Fawlty Towers, Seinfeld, The Office.

Re:Easy

[schapman]

the ??? is easy to figure out: 4: Release dvd sets of all the seasons and generate renewed interest in show then bring back on air!

Re:Easy

[Anonvmous Coward]

"= Fox Network"

Well that's just about any network. Fox's specialty is playing musical time slots so nobody can find the show. I think the original Battlestar Galactica withstood a similar fate.

Re:Easy

[Nephilium]

Then of course there's the times when they change a great show and destroy it...

Why did they change it? Why?
Nephilium
Man is certainly stark mad: he cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen. -- Michel de Montaigne

Re:Easy

[jayhawk88]

Close, but this is more accurate:

1. Take one Great Show that will have a built-in initial audience because of who's creating it, and stick it in the Time Slot Of Doom.
2. Watch Great Show continually get pre-empted by NFL football, but do little to nothing to ensure that Great Show can be seen by fans at a regular day and time. Bounce Great Show around in your schedule like a pinball.
3. Totally ignore the creator of Great Show, who's Previous Great Show almost single-handedly saved your network in it's early years.
4. Wonder why Great Show just can't seem to get any ratings. Cancel Great Show because it's cheaper to run Previous Great Show reruns in the Time Slot Of Doom.

The hell with Fox. There was a time that they were a pretty kick ass network, but like every other network they've fallen into the pit of Reality TV. Futurama deserves to be on Cartoon Network.

Re:Easy

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Yeah, they're pretty dumb. Isn't it an amazing coincidence that they're as successful as the other major networks which have been around much longer?

Come on. I loved Futurama and I loved Firefly, and I'm pissed that they were canceled, but I can't paint it as a bad business decision. This very article (about the advanced math in the show) makes the point that it didn't really appeal to the mainstream viewer. "Mainstream" may translate to "those slack-jawed idiots who can't even code in C" in your mind, but in the coffers at a TV network "mainstream" means "the main stream of our revenue - large numbers of people who like the same stuff". And I don't think that "the height of its popularity" was ever that high. It's a big hit with geeks, but most of the non-geeks I know aren't interested or don't seem to "get it".

Personally, I think the problem is that there is no way for people to pay different amounts for shows. When you watch network TV, you're paying with your eyes. Number of viewers determines their advertisers, and that's where they make the money. That means that a mediocre show, which will mildly appeal to everyone, is more profitable than a show which will be deeply loved by a small group of people. If the compensation was somehow better differentiated, I think we'd get better shows.

No, I don't actually have a good system of differentiated compensation to propose, short of buying the canceled shows on DVD. Sorry.

Re:Easy

[amnesty]

IMO there's nothing worse than a show which is long past its prime being flogged like a dead horse. All the great comedy series are great because they stopped before they got bad - Fawlty Towers, Seinfeld, The Office.

While that may be true (Friends was long past its due) the poster you are replying to was talking about the Fox network. Fox has murdered many excellent shows long before their due.

Firefly?
Wonderfalls?
Futurama?
The Tick?
Family Guy?

Justin.

Re:Easy

[StalinsNotDead]

Greg the Bunny?

"you mean like that surprise party you threw for me and empty the liquor cabinet?"
"Warren, that wasn't a surprise party. That was an intervention."

Re:Easy

[SamSim]

Perhaps more to the point, Cartoon Network deserves Futurama. It's the only American TV network I've yet to hear anything bad about. Man, if CN got the Simpsons too, you'd never have to change channel.

Re:Easy

[MagicDude]

Fawlty Towers only had 12 episodes. I'm all in favor of not producing crap episodes, but by any measure, 12 episodes is nothing. There are daytime miniseries on mother/daughter/cancer issues which are longer than 12 episodes. I think 20 would have been a good number of episodes for the wit of John Cleese.

Re:Easy

[Xtifr]

Cartoon Network? You mean the Pokemon Channel!? I think I might be able to find some reasons to change the channel occasionally! :)

At the risk of offending the hard-core Anime fans, I think they show a lot of bad Anime even on Adult Swim, although they occasionally have a good one (and several that are so-so).

I'm also really annoyed with the Cartoon Network for running Futurama against the Daily Show ("When News Breaks, We Fix It!"), which means I never get to see it (Futurama) unless A) the Daily Show is a rerun, or B) I stay up for the 2AM reshowing.

Re:Easy

[Dastardly]

which means I never get to see it (Futurama) unless A) the Daily Show is a rerun, or B) I stay up for the 2AM reshowing.

That is what Tivo is for...

Re:Easy

[Sebby]

Hey! I learned a lot of math from the show!

And that's where I learned how rock-paper-scissors worked (seriously!) *embarrased*

Re:Easy

[boy_afraid]

But, they decide to keep "King Of The Hill"???

WHAT THE PHUK!?!?!?!?!

Re:Easy

[clambake]

And I don't think that "the height of its popularity" was ever that high. It's a big hit with geeks, but most of the non-geeks I know aren't interested or don't seem to "get it".

Unfortunately nobody ever took a couse in economics or marketing over there. Who has lots of disposable income and is more than willing to spend it on expensive new toys? Geeks! But do they get advertised to? Never. This shouw could have been a perfect opportunity to sell expensive commercials to people who rarely buy commercials, like mp3 player manufaturers, think-geek type places, etc.

Re:Easy

[Geoff-with-a-G]

Who has lots of disposable income and is more than willing to spend it on expensive new toys? Geeks! But do they get advertised to?

Of course, geeks also tend to view advertising as an assault on their soul, doing everything they can to avoid it. They'll be the ones with TiVos (be they store-bought or homemade) skipping the commercials.

I'm not saying the Fox execs considered that, maybe they did and maybe they didn't. But it's not really their job, it's the advertisers. If advertisers were beating down Fox's door to get access to Futurama's 100k viewers instead of American Idol's 10M, then maybe the programming execs at Fox would have taken it more seriously. They just obey their advertisers.

google cache

[Anonymous Coward]

A google.com cache link.

Take care.
K3n.

Masters in Math

[smartiq2]

If I recall correctly, one of the main writters had a masters in mathematics.

It is interesting to listen to the commentary tracks on the dvd's. For example, in "Roswell that ends well", Fry (one of the main characters) ends up going back in time and accidently kills his grandfather. While consoling his grandmother, he ends up in bed with her and thus becomes his own grandpa allowing the future to remain "intact".

On the commentary tracks, they get into this large discussion about how they tried to find the steady state solution for the amount of DNA in Fry that was pure, and they ended up working on it for quite some time. In the end, they give an email address and ask the public for the solution.

Then they got into a large discussion on the causality of time and how they should only time travel forward.

Good stuff.

Re:Masters in Math

[SquadBoy]

It's true I did the nasty in the pasty.

Another cool thing about it is that there is actually a bit of a story arc. I've gotta get a tivo so I can watch it before 11 at night. :)

Re:Masters in Math

[Trigun]

How the hell does a Tivo do that?

Did you get the Tivo Time Travel option?

Re:Masters in Math

[Anonymous Cow herd]

hehe... one of my fave quotes (and email .sig) comes from that episode...

"Oooh... A lesson in not changing history from Mr. I'm-my-own-grandpa!" - Professor Farnsworth

Re:Masters in Math

[canavan]

David X. Cohen, a writer for and the other executive producer of Futurama besides Matt Groening has degrees in physics and computer science.

Re:Masters in Math

[SquadBoy]

What?

1. Get Tivo.
2. Tell Tivo to record Futurama.
3. Let Tivo record Futurama while I sleep.
4. Watch Futurama at a better time.

The nast in the pasty part was there to show how unlike most cartoons Futurama has a bit of a story arc.

Re:Masters in Math

[calypso15]

Ken Keeler has a PhD in Applied Math and a Masters in Electrical Engineering.
David Cohen has a bachelors in Physics and a Masters in Computer Science.
Bill Odenkirk has a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry.
Jeff Westbrook has a PhD in Computer Science.
J. Burns has a bachelors in Mathematics.

Ryan

Re:Masters in Math

[poot_rootbeer]

I'm time-travelling forward RIGHT NOW!

(At a steady rate of one second per second.)

Re:Masters in Math

[Trigun]

I've gotta get a tivo so I can watch it before 11 at night

Well, in lines of me being a pedantic asshole, you're watching it after 11, unless your Tivo can record the future.

Just to test, can you record this weekends lottery numbers and post them? I want to cover all bases here.

Re:Masters in Math

[Angry Toad]

That really is one of my favourite episodes as well - Fry blithely annoucing "Well, I killed my grandfather", Zoidbergs's "Are you coming on to me?", plus the many subtle and not-so-subtle UFO mythology gags (ie, Harry Truman sneaking into the Roswell base in a crate). I'm sure it has to be one of the top five episodes.

Re:Masters in Math

[gabbarbhai]

(At a steady rate of one second per second.)

Don't be too sure of that. Grin!

Re:Masters in Math

[SeanAhern]

As long as you aren't in motion, that is...

Re:Masters in Math

[bucky0]

Is one second per second a unit? Does it not cancel itself out?

Re:Masters in Math

[Log from Blammo]

Perhaps that should be one subjective second per objective second?

Re:Masters in Math

[Rich0]

There is no such thing as an objective second. There is only time it takes a Cesium atom to vibrate umpteen-bazillion times.

(By the way, umpteen-bazillion is a highly scientific term...)

Re:Masters in Math

[cardshark2001]

While consoling his grandmother, he ends up in bed with her and thus becomes his own grandpa

Ahem. Lazarus Long. *Cough*.

Re:Masters in Math

[cardshark2001]

In "By his bootstraps", Lazarus becomes his own grandfather (or considers it a possibility). It's been a while, but I think he wasn't called Lazarus in the story. In a later story, it's revealed that the character was lazarus, under one of his many aliases. I need to go back and read that stuff.

Re:Masters in Math

[cardshark2001]

Oops, I was confused. It's Slipstick Libby that was his own grandfather.

Re:Masters in Math

[orkysoft]

Dave Lister became his own grandfather too, in Red Dwarf, the British sci-fi comedy series.

Re:Masters in Math

[wjsteele]

That all depends on the denominator's reference... is it in relation to the author or in relation to you... or just some fixed point?

Bill

Re:Masters in Math

[SeanAhern]

Doesn't matter. In all cases, time is relative. And if there is motion, then time changes as well and it's probably not "one second per second."

Re:Masters in Math

[Poeir]

No, Dave Lister became his own father. That's why the crate had the Ouroboros on it; it symbolizes infinite continuation.

Re:Masters in Math

[j_w_d]

Check out All You Zombies by Heinlein. If you can't find it in print, there is a text of it at the URL below. Libby's story was really a little more straight forward. Grandfather, hah!

http://moshkow.rsl.ru/koi/HYNLINE/zomby.txt

Re:Masters in Math

[meringuoid]

I'm time-travelling forward RIGHT NOW! (At a steady rate of one second per second.)

Maybe in your inertial frame of reference...

Re:bit torrent?

[JamesO]

Buy the DVDs, cheapskate. Lots of people worked hard to make Futurama happen, and you want a freebie. How can you justify that?

Re:bit torrent?

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderators: please mod parent as Flamebait *grin*

Mathematical significance of 1729

[Tree131]

1729
When Srinivasa Ramanujan, the great Indian mathematician, was ill with tuberculosis in a London hospital, his colleague G. H. Hardy went to visit him. Hardy, trying to initiate onversation, said to Ramanujan, "I came here in taxi-cab number 1729. That number seems dull to me which I hope isn't a bad omen."

"Nonsense," replied Ramanujan. "The number isn't dull at all. It's quite interesting. It's the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways." (Ramanujan recognized that 1729 = 13 + 123 as well as 93 + 103.)

Copied from here
I guess it was worth the 5 minutes I spent searching for it.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[lukewarmfusion]

Here's another, more detailed description of the 1729 thing. I didn't understand that one, so I looked it up too.

It's one of the things I look for in great TV/movies - stuff that flies over your head the first time but that you catch as you get smarter (or waste more of your time).

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[SamSim]

Erm, neither 13, 123, 93 or 103 are cubes. What you mean is 1729 = 1000 + 729 = 1728 + 1, or 1729 = 10^3 + 9^3 = 12^3 + 1^3.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[Tree131]

ack! should have pasted as HTML instead of plain text... oh well...

Yeah, there are carats missing as you have pointed out.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[Kredal]

When he copies and pasted, the superscript "3"s got turned into everyday normal threes, so 9^3 turned into 93, etc etc..

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[cyberlemoor]

The 3's were supposed to be exponents, that's all.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[elrick_the_brave]

I think you mean.. two PRIMES...

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[skifreak87]

No idea if this was implied by poster or not but 1729 is also a carmichael number (or pseudoprime) defined, IIRC, as an odd composite number that satisfies Fermat's little theorem (for all a that are relatively prime to n, a^(n-1) = 0 mod n, or equivalently n divides a^(n-1) for all a relatively prime to n). For you cryptos out there, that's a big part of the math behind RSA (how you get the decrypted message w/ a different key than used to encrypt it and how to generate these keys so it's possible).

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[Rupert]

Erm, what you missed is that slashcode eats unprotected carets. Undoubtedly what Tree131 meant to post was

(Ramanujan recognized that 1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 as well as 9^3 + 10^3)

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[clarkcox3]

Um, no, if he meant two PRIMES, then 4 would be the number in question (1+3 or 2+2). Besides, any integer (greater than 1) raised to the power of three cannot possibly be a prime number.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[JadeNB]

Besides, any integer (greater than 1) raised to the power of three cannot possibly be a prime number.

No integer cubed is a prime number: Neither 1 nor 0 is prime. (Imagine what would happen to unique factorisation if 1 were a prime number ....) Accordingly, sadly, the smallest such number is 10 = 3 + 7 = 5 + 5.

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[sacremon]

I believe he was refering to the fact that 1729 is the product of two primes, which additionally are comprised of two digits in reversed positions.

1729 = 19 * 91

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[blazin]

It's true that 19 * 91 = 1729, and they are mirrored versions of each other, but 91 isn't prime. Sorry.

7 * 13 = 91

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[clarkcox3]

Since when is 91 a prime number?

Re:Mathematical significance of 1729

[vsage3]

I must be the saddest 18 yr old ever if I knew the significance of 1729 for a few years. I guess that's why I'm majoring in EECS -_-;

mod parent up!!!

[CoffeeJedi]

its a Simpsons joke! sheesh!

Re:bit torrent?

[geoffspear]

You get Cartoon Network for free?

Re:bit torrent?

[slaker]

I hate to be a twit, but in this one case I'm gonna say it:
Buy the DVDs!

The show was funny and deserves the support of its fans.

Man, I'll copy DVDs of crappy Hollywood movies I get from Netflix all day long, but those TV Show boxed sets I buy the day they come out. 20 or so hours of entertainment for $50 (or $20 on ebay). They seem like a pretty good deal to me.

I've come to the conclusion that the only way that anyone will make more TV I'd actually like to watch is if I spend money on the things that have been produced already. They wouldn't keep making Star Trek crap if people weren't buying the old stuff.

All that said, I see at least the entire first season on suprnova.org right now.

Speaking of math....

[Anonymous Coward]

Bender: I need a calculator.
Fry: You are a calculator.
Bender: I need a good calculator.

did the network give a reason

[nighty5]

why they killed off the show? was is something to do with loosing focus with the cash cow that is the simpsons....?

Re:did the network give a reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Simplye math on the part of Fox

Simpsons = Fox owns completely

Futurama = Groening owns (mostly? completely?)

That is, Fox did not have as large a stake in the show as with the Simpsons.

Couple that with the crapload of pre-emptions for football, etc. and Fox probably figured they could get the same ratings Futurama got by swinging a dead cat of thier own rather than Greonings'

Others can probably fill in more detail here but that's about the gist of it...

Re:did the network give a reason

[DRue]

loosing focus

Damnit - Just one day - ONE DAY - is all I ask without having to read the word loosing! Idiot!

Re:did the network give a reason

[Guignol]

What do you mean ? I'm loost...

Re:did the network give a reason

[gfxguy]

Sorry, but it had to be done:

Me lose brain cells? Ha ha ha ha.... why I laugh?

Re:bit torrent?

[Jerf]

You get Cartoon Network for free?

No, I have to watch ads. (Or at least fast-forward through them with TiVo, but the money still flows.)

1729

[Strange Ranger]

> "Well, sure. For example, Bender's serial number is 1729, a historically significant integer to mathematicians everywhere; that "joke" alone is worth six years of grad school, I'd say."

For us non-math-geeks here's a bit on 1729

Among other things "It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways."

Re:1729

[NaugaHunter]

From that site:
{Some math facts about 1729}

Bizarre tacked-on fact:
The number of consecutive plays of the rock musical Hair on Broadway.

Two Names

[Luminous]

Kristin Gore (Al Gore's daughter who worked on Futurama) and Rupurt Murdoch (Right Wing shill).

It's ParaBOX

[caitsith01]

But yes, what an amazing episode.

One of my favourite scenes is the hippie universe:

Freakworth: "Dig it! All of you fitting in this box is like, seriously freaked up."
Farnsworth: "Nonsense! Why, there's a whole universe in there."
Freakworth: "Dude. There's a universe in all of us."
Freak Amy: "Right on, professor Freakworth."
[Professor Freakworth proffers a flower to Professor Farnsworth]
Farnsworth: "Get a job!"

WHY FOX WHYYYYY?????

There are murmurs that Matt G is trying to resurrect Futurama on the Cartoon Network... let us pray that it is so.

Re:It's ParaBOX

[Have Blue]

The problem with resurrecting it on Cartoon Network is that Futurama's 2D-CG hybrid style is very, very expensive to produce (at least several million per episode). CN doesn't have that kind of money; just look at most of their homegrown shows. The only thing they've done that matches Futurama's quality is the Clone Wars cartoons, and that was a single half-hour of animation and almost certainly done with Lucas's financial backing.

Re:It's ParaBOX

[ePhil_One]

The problem with resurrecting it on Cartoon Network is that Futurama's 2D-CG hybrid style is very, very expensive to produce (at least several million per episode).

That just seems amazingly doubtful. The pilot might have cost that much, to develop the style, etc., but to wrap simple cartoon textures on 3-D objects sounds pretty cheap these days. Far cheaper than paying animators to hand paint, arrange, and photograph thousands of animation cells...

Re:It's ParaBOX

[beebware]

I wonder if it could be cheaper to "outsource" it to SouthParkStudios and get them to do it in Myra etc. IIRC the hardest part the animators on SP have is trying to get it looking like "paper cutouts".

Re:It's ParaBOX

[Threni]

> WHY FOX WHYYYYY?????

Because it's viewing figures sucked. Because it's not very funny. I only watched the first 4 or 5 episodes because I really wanted to like it, because the Simpsons is one of the best TV shows ever. But nerdy/sci-fi jokes aren't funny - just nerdy.

Fox wants to make money, and while it probably wasn't losing money showing it, getting rid of it frees up the airwaves to show something more popular.

Re:It's ParaBOX

[LSD-25]

One of my favourite scenes is the hippie universe: ...

That was Universe 420.

Re:It's ParaBOX

[Anonymous Coward]

Get the hell off of our website!

Lesson This Teaches

[istartedi]

Get an advanced degree in mathematics or physics, and you will come up with the idea to put "St. Pauli Exclusion Principle" on a six-pack of beer in a cartoon, and only a few geeks who like to stay up and watch Adult Swim last night will get the joke.

Re:Lesson This Teaches

[Wildcat J]

Another beer reference like that was in the first episode, when Bender was drinking a 40 of "Olde Fortran" malt liquor. It's that sort of attention to detail that made the show so amusing.

Re:Lesson This Teaches

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Klein's" reference was classic too :)

Re:Lesson This Teaches

[Jerf]

Stay up? I'm geek enough to TiVo it.

(Actually, it's even worse: I'm up when Futurama is on but for most of the last week, I've been using that time to code my open source project, instead! Geek geek geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek....)

Re:Lesson This Teaches

[SamSim]

Personally I'm more partial to that Old Fortran liquor.

Quote from the Simpsons

[T-Keith]

teen: Why did they cancel Futurama?!

Re:Quote from the Simpsons

[kannibal_klown]

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

I never laughed so hard during the Simpsons as when I heard the guy say that.

For a recap, they're talking about how a certain cliff is popular for being used in suicides. And a geek (sounded like the Krusty-Burger fry cook shouts as he's leaping: "Why did they Cancel Futuramaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!?????"

I think that was a good dig by Groening. Fox really shafted them from the beginning. I think he even said so much in an interview.

Man, I miss Futurama. I think I'm gonna watch the DVD's again when I get home tonight.

Easy...

[Animaether]

Same way they could justify it for :
1. Linux distros
Whether they only use a small part of their bandwidth, or the whole thing, their ISP bill isn't going to get any higher. So might as well download the thing for free rather than getting the boxed set CD / DVD in the mail ... which costs money. Of course the hundreds of users doing so may drive up the bandwidth bill at the distro's server end, but hey.. not their problem.

2. FOSS
Same thing - how many of you have even dropped a penny into a paypal account for a FOSS project ?
Hey, it reads 'free' right ? Why bother paying them anything ?

3. Non-free copyrighted MP3s/OGGs -(feeble karma whoring attempt) /DIVX's
1 & 2 were legal. This one, just like ripped Futurama episodes, isn't (save the ol' "I have it on DVD, but my dog at the DVD, so I just want to download what I had already paid for"-argument).
But nevertheless, people do download MP3s/etc. of non-free copyrighted works off of services without payment to the copyright holders. Yes, I know, there's ITMS and whatnot, but the amount of users there (who are not the subject of this post) pales to the amount of users on 'alternative' services.

So, really, what did you expect ? More to the point, what makes you think they feel any need whatsoever to justify it at all ?

IP 'theft' is rampant, and though I may not agree with those who partake in it, I'm not naive enough to think that some words of ethics/wisdom are about to change these practices.

I convinced a friend of mine not to download the leaked MS source code. First I appealed to his ethics - no luck. Then I explained how it could taint his coding practices - that worked. Gee, who'd've thunked.

Eh. End rant. Could go on and on about this :)

Re:Easy...

[sp0rk173]

(feeble karma whoring attempt)

I love it when people who announce attempts at karma whoring, or even that their post, "will probably get modded down" actually are modded down (rather, not modded up). It makes my day happy! =D

Re:Easy...

[Animaether]

*grin*

I wholly agree ;) It was a mockery at all the posts about OGG support in products from people who have don't understand it makes very little business sense to support OGG at this time :)

Re:Easy...

[sp0rk173]

Yeah, I actually have my Karma bonus modifier set to -1. No one should get extra points just because they're well-liked.

Re:bit torrent?

[October_30th]

Indeed.

I have bought all four Futurama seasons on DVD and I've never regretted it. The commentary tracks alone are worth it. Absolutely hilarious!

I have also heard (can't find the link, but I'm pretty sure I'm right) that Futurama DVDs have sold so well that there has been talk about reviving the series on Comedy Central.

What the Internet is all about

[October_30th]

you can get all the ed2k links on here

"You can't shut us down! The Internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas!" - Nappster nerd in I dated a Robot-episode.

Re:bit torrent?

[GarfBond]

There's more to this than one realizes. DVDs are almost the sole indicator to the distributor of how much demand there is for a TV show. Ever wonder how/why Family Guy is being brought back? It's because the DVD sales of that show were phenomenal. All those sales said to Fox "maybe this show actually *is* popular."

If you like Futurama enough to want to see it come back, then buying the DVD is basically the only way to prove to Fox that it's worth it. It tells them a) you love the show and b) you love the show enough to spend good money on it. That last one is probably the more important bit.

Personally, I think the slightly geekier audience of Futurama vs Family guy didn't help its dvd sales; geeks are probably more willing to search out for Bittorrents/kazaa/emule/gnutella of a show, while the mass market is content with dvds.

1729

[marksilverman]

The article refers to 1729 being "a historically significant integer to mathematicians everywhere". If you're not a mathematician, 1729 is Ramanujan's number -- the smallest natural number that can be written as a sum of cubes in two different ways:

1^3 + 12^3 9^3 + 10^3

Re:bit torrent?

[October_30th]

Comedy Central

Oops. My bad. That should be Cartoon Network.

If you want an obscure reference - Samurai Jack

[Anonymous Coward]

In a Samurai Jack episode, a town folk is telling Jack there's two roads ahead of him.

Jack: "Which road leads to the Dragon's Lair?"
Town folk: "The left one."
Jack: "Where does the other road lead?"
Town folk: "Space Ace."

If THAT ain't obscure I don't know what is.

I was still laughing 15 minutes after that, though. :-)

P.S.: If you didn't get that one, the keyword here is "laserdisc games".

Re:If you want an obscure reference - Samurai Jack

[paulcammish]

Jack: "Where does the other road lead?"
Town folk: "Space Ace."

Oh god, no...

I just recovered from laughing at that for six months, and now youve started me off again! AGGGGGHHAHAHAHAH!

Maybe they can tell me

[buddhaunderthetree]

How many pounds in a gallon.

Re:Maybe they can tell me

[pommiekiwifruit]

The size of a gallon depends on if you are using English units, US units or the other US units.

OTOH I think it is just under a pound for a litre at the moment (sterling, petrol).

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[Dr. Smeegee]

RTFA, please.

David X. Cohen, Batchelors in Math, Harvard; Masters ComSci, Berzerkeley
Ken Keeler, PhD in Applied Math and Masters in EE
Bill Odenkirk, PhD in Inorganic Chem
Jeff Westbrook PhD in ComSci
J. Stewart Burns, Batchelors in Math, Harvard; Masters in Math Berkeley

Perhaps a bit more hard-sciency than the PolSci asshats that populate the average Think Tank.

Re:bit torrent?

[glazed]

Watching it on television...with commercials.

Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good news everyone, we're getting 500 visitors per second!"

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[Dr. Smeegee]

...aaaand I'm a choad and totally missed your joke. Glad I could post that in the blinding fog of my unearned self-regard.

Aleph-null plex

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite reference was when the gang went to the movies, and it was an "Aleph-null plex". That is, the number of movie theaters was countably infinite. How horribly dorky!

--
Gary

You forgot one part of the equation...

[Gadgetfreak]

+ Run "Sunday Afternoon Football" Half an hour late and not air the episode that was skipped.

That one's a Fox trademark... complain nobody watches your show, even when you don't air it.

Re:You forgot one part of the equation...

[/dev/trash]

I'll wager that NFL Football brings in tonnes more money than....anything.

Re:You forgot one part of the equation...

[Shadarr]

No kidding. The NFL Draft got way better ratings than the NBA playoff game it was up against. The freaking draft! It's just a bunch of people sitting around talking while teams make trades and pick players.

Let the quotes begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite futurama quote of all time:

Fry: Oh my god!
Bender: Oh your god.

Re:Let the quotes begin!

[Scrameustache]

Farnsworth: Great zombie Jesus!

Re:Let the quotes begin!

[Blakey Rat]

They blanked that on Adult Swim. "Great zombie _____" I was pissed, especially since Fox *didn't* blank it when they showed it *early in the evening!* So Fox, a *broadcast* network plays this phrase at 7:30 PM, and Cartoon Network a *cable* network blanks it at, what, 11:30 PM? That makes no damn sense.

I guess it's due to the FCC's new enforcement.

Re:Let the quotes begin!

[Anonymous Coward]

No need. Slashdot includes a Futurama quote with every single page served (in the HTTP headers).

Re:Let the quotes begin!

[Chewie]

It's like Comedy Central bleeping "homo" in the Excuses, Excuses, Excuses, Excuses 98 commercial. Was fine to play on Fox, but not on basic cable (on the network that allows South Park to say anything they want).

Re:Let the quotes begin!

[bckrispi]

(Pardon me if I paraphrase)

Bender: When will you humans realize that all races are equally inferior to Robots?

No no no...

[Cyno01]

They didn't all have beards, although that would have been great, they were all dressed in cowboy garb.

Re:No no no...

[CoffeeJedi]

yeah, south park did the "evil spock beard" thing

If they're so smart...

[Black Jack Hyde]

why didn't they calculate the /. effect on their servers beforehand and load-balance appropriately?

Re:bit torrent?

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Lots of people worked hard to make Futurama happen, and you want a freebie."

Yeah!! Somewhere I wrote down all the Pepsi commercials I had to endure to keep that show alive.

Pounds in a Gallon....

[arfonrg]

8.345 roughly
That is if you use water as the reference substance.

And that is also assuming that you are speaking of weight on Earth. Otherwise it's 8.345pounds mass of water.

Re:How big is the Slashdot number

[SWroclawski]

How is this redundant? No one else noticed it was down until I did. There wasn't even a mirror available yet!

links dead

[Angry Black Man]

Link has been Slashdotted...

Here is the Google cache of the PDF in HTML format.

Re:bit torrent?

[geoffspear]

Ok, but Fox hasn't shown Futurama for quite some time, so you can no longer see Futurama for free.

Plus there's the fact that Futurama and Family Guy both may be coming back with new episodes because the strong DVD sales showed the idiots that there's an audience who wants to see them, and that Futurama's low ratings had a lot to do with the fact that they preempted the show in half the country to show football postgame just about every week. If everyone just traded the old episodes online, there'd be no chance at all of them coming back ever.

geeks

[DarkHelmet]

I knew the very first episode that these people were geeks when Bender was drinking liquid FORTRAN.

Re:geeks

[Dachannien]

More specifically, Olde Fortran malt liquor.

Re:bit torrent?

[realdpk]

Futurama isn't coming back, but it could tell Fox that their audience enjoys funny "mature" cartoons (mature as in not kid stuff, but not XXX either).

Of course, nobody should buy any DVD expecting it to count as a "vote" for their favorite show. Buy it if you want it. Don't expect something to come of it. :)

And its not THAT old

[BayBlade]

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Its a quote from Arthur C Clarke, who, at the time of posting is still alive.

see, your math degree...

[dekeji]

is worth something after all.

Funniest moderation ever : )

[Scrameustache]

10 HOME
20 SWEET
30 GOTO 10

(Score:0, Redundant)

Redundant indeed ;-)

Re:geeks (Olde Fortran)

[Nonillion]

I would love to see this brew avaliable in the stores. I had mentioned this to ThinkGeek once but never got a responce :(

Re:Not too funny...

[CoffeeJedi]

nothing is ever good...

Furturama Comes on every night...

[TheTeej]

For those interested you can watch Futurama every night, and Family Guy almost every night on Cartoon Network during Adult Swim (Of course all the episodes are reruns). Here on the east coast it starts at 11:00pm.

I think the Adult Swim website has the show schedule and the episode names.

www.adultswim.com

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[colmore]

I believe that was a joke making fun of "Think Tanks."

There is a video for it on archive.org

[linzeal]

Check out, the video from archive.org on the Futurama exhibit. They have 100's of video of all world fairs and the like if you want to waste an afternoon viewing them.

Correction

[LarsWestergren]

Bah, I meant "Commodore LXIV" of course. Sorry!

PDF file kills Preview.app on OS-X 10.3.4

[rthille]

Gotta love reproducable bugs.

Re:PDF file kills Preview.app on OS-X 10.3.4

[Altus]

didnt happen for me

Re:PDF file kills Preview.app on OS-X 10.3.4

[rthille]

Yeah, not sure what's going on. I think the copy I got was corrupted.

Bender's nightmare and the 2

[Jtheletter]

Let's not forget Bender's nightmare...

Bender: "Ahhh, what an awful dream. Ones and zeroes everywhere... and I thought I saw a two."
Fry [comforting]: "It was just a dream, Bender. There's no such thing as two."

If you pay close attention to all the 1s and 0s popping up in his nightmare, just before he wakes up they actually do throw a 2 in there. Brilliant.

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[Gabrill]

I would if I could see throught the magic smoke that was their server!

I am my own grandpa

[jmuzic1]

http://users.cis.net/sammy/grandpa.htm I remember when my teacher in high school played this while we were studying genetics.

Graffiti

[pommiekiwifruit]

An artist asked me for something for him to write as grafitti on the wall of a game (I can't remember if it was released) so I suggested "squeamish ossifrage". Hey, this reference lark is easy!

Re:Futurama and geeks.

[neelm]

1/2 the jokes are for the smart, the other 1/2 are for those who grew up in the 80's. If you don't fall into either, I can see how you would miss alot.

One of my favorite 80's refernces is when Fry hides his lucky clover in the Breakfast Club Soundtrack, because no one would ever look there =).

Mike

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[WombatControl]

Don't knock having a batchelors in political science! It could be worse, it could be a B.A. in philosophy (AKA the "would you like fries with that?" degree)

This from someone with a degree in political philosophy...

Re:bit torrent?

[Thud457]

"Ok, but Fox hasn't shown Futurama for quite some time, so you can no longer see Futurama for free. "

It's called "time shifting" and was ruled fair use by the US Supreme court in the Sony vs Universal Cities Studio case. /snark

(Devils' advocate: see, here's a case where DRM could work to everybody's benefit. If we had a viable open DRM standard, the Futurama production company could produce new episodes, with commercials that can't be removed / skipped, and distribute them via bittorrent. Phuck Faux!)

That's my professor's page.

[Scorpion_1169]

I've got her for Linear Algebra this summer.

Re:bit torrent?

[queler]

See now that's not true at all. Look how geeked geeks get for things like letterboxing. They are exactly the people who buy DVD's rather then get a crappy looking free copy

Re:defeating the purpose

[Grrr]

Well, I can ridiculously overanalyze that joke in _twelve_ statements.

(Uh, I just don't feel like doing it right now.)

<grrr>

Nah, Tivo it..

[Otto]

I watched it at lunch today. The Klein's Beer was more entertaining though. :)

check out Cambridge Starbucks

[peter303]

Thats where all those MIT and Harvard slackers work.

Re:check out Cambridge Starbucks

[cgenman]

Thats where all those MIT and Harvard slackers work.

I think you mean, that's where all those MIT and Harvard slackers drink. I worked at the Starbucks nearest Harvard Law for a few months, and there wasn't a single Harvard or MIT kid on the staff. Mostly they were from Berklee, Smith, or that Massage School in Watertown.

The 'Dennis Miller Ratio'

[maddog2o_2o]

On the Simpsons when Lisa sees Comic Book Guy's TShirt

C:\Dos
C:\Dos\Run
Run Dos\Run

LISA:Ha, only one person in a million would find that funny!
COMIC BOOK GUY: Yes, we call that the "Dennis Miller Ratio."

MST3K is much the same of course - references whizzing past your ears through the whole show, some you get and some you don't. And some ... well some just stun you with how perfect, and yet how obcure they are. It's like a little gift from the writers to you. :)

Kevin

Re:Futurama and geeks.

[Zcipher]

Remind me again why Richard Nixon is funny?

I think a more pertinent question is why Richard Nixon is *NOT* funny ^_^ Seriously, the man's appearence, cadance, and general, overall "image" is friggin' hilarious.

On a more serious note, yes, a non-insignifcant percentage of the humor is low-brow and celebrity driven. But it's still *FUNNY* much more often than it has any right to be.

Lucy Liu-bot: "I'll never forget you, Fry! *MEMORY FILES DELETED*"

Problem is that they don't give the shows a chance

[Otto]

There's been a number of good shows that never really had a chance at gaining an audience.

Take FOX's main revenue stream: The Simpsons. It didn't have a whole lot of eyeballs it's first couple of seasons. But FOX was new, and didn't have anything better to try out. It also put the Simpsons on in arguably the best time slots there could possibly be for a new show, with no heavy hitters up against it on other channels. Simpsons eventually drew the crowd. All the news propaganda and churches denouncing the show (highly controversial stuff at the time) didn't hurt either, I admit.

Now take Futurama. They put it in possibly the worst position they could: After NFL games, pre-empted a number of times with no repeats. Heck, even my Tivo couldn't figure out when it was airing half the time. 6 or 7 of the episodes I saw for the first time was when it aired on Cartoon Network, and I loved the show! Family Guy was pretty much the same way, with the same results. They didn't give it much of a chance.

Recently, they did the same to the show Wonderfalls. A very good show.. Produced a whole season, put it in a bad time slot, showed 4 episodes, then pulled it. That's not even a geek humor show, they just killed it dead.

Firefly aired for what, 3 episodes? Maybe 4? And out of order as well? And I believe it was up against ER or something with equally ridiculous high ratings draw too.

Shows have to build an audience. You don't get an instant hit overnight, or even over one season. The success of so many of these shows on DVD shows a couple of things:
a) TV execs are morons who have no idea how to build a fanbase.
b) Brilliant shows do have a large fanbase despite the total BS numbers that Nielsen provides.

More than anything, the fact that shows like Firefly, which didn't even air a whole season, are selling so many DVD copies should show the inaccuracy of the Nielsen system in the first place.

Ha! It's THAT David Cohen!

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the very early days of alt.tv.simpsons (circa 1992), one of the regular contributors was a Dave Cohen. Already knowing that he contributed to National Lampoon ('baby elephant walk...'), I've always wondered if Futurama's D.X.C might have been him.

(Of course, doing a Google now confirms it. I've been out of the loop for too long...)

Cue the remark about fans becoming too involved with a favourite show... :-P :-)

--
Chris Baird,,(a.t.s FAQ maintainer 1992-1993)

Re:Ha! It's THAT David Cohen!

[ZX-3]

In the DVD commentary for Futurama Season 1, David Cohen explains why he is David X. Cohen in the credits: Screen Actors Guild regulations specify that you cannot have duplicate names in the credits. There was already a David Cohen on the staff of Futurama when he joined, so he had to do something to make his name different.

Re:bit torrent?

[Exatron]

Don't be so sure. People said Farscape wasn't coming back and it's coming back as a miniseries. They said Family Guy wasn't coming back, but enough tasteless idiots bought the DVDs that Fox decided to make more episodes.

There is a chance Futurama could come back. It reportedly costs about the same amount per episode as Family Guy, Cartoon Network would like more episodes, it has been selling well on DVD, the show's writers would like to make more episodes, and a rabid pack of fans want more episodes. The only obstacle to getting more episodes is Fox.

Re:Set of degrees that would rival most think tank

[Dr. Smeegee]

Batchelor: portmanteu word signifying an unmarried mainframe coder.

Another ultra-obscure cartoon joke

[Indomitus]

From 'Pinky & The Brain'

Brain: Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Pinky: Oh, I think so Brain, but SNOBOL for Windows?

SNOBOL is an early-60s era programming language. The only reason I caught that joke was one of my professors mentioned it offhand the day I saw that episode. I am forever impressed by the writers of P&tB because of this quote.

Re:Another ultra-obscure cartoon joke

[clarkc3]

I caught when I saw it because one of my professors in college joked about the fun they would have with SNOBOL programs. Apparently, almost anything you wrote would compile, so once they finished their projects and compiled them, they would shuffle up the punchcards and then recompile that as well and take bets on what they thought it would do.

Re:Another ultra-obscure cartoon joke

[Sj0]

Pinky and the Brain look on at thousands of protestors: "People without jobs, Pinky. People without jobs."

That was THE best line in a TV show. Ever.

Re:bit torrent?

[geoffspear]

Yes, if you watch episodes you already taped, that would be time shifting. I'm not sure what Court ruling you're referring to, but I'm guessing they didn't rule that redistributing programs over the internet is also fair use.

As for the DRM comment, that just seems really pointless. If anything, they'd be more likely to distribute the new, ad-supported DRMed content on a website they control, so they can show the advertisers exactly how many downloads their ads are getting.

I'm also extremely skeptical in general that ad support based on the TV model would work even with a sufficient DRM technology; I don't think the ability to skip ads in a non-DRM'ed version is what would be stopping advertisers from shifting to a new medium. If you look at the relative amounts of money thrown into advertising on TV vs. the web, and consider how many more orders of magnitude of content there is on just the ad-supported websites vs. the amount on TV, it seems pretty unlikely a high-budget show like Futurama could ever support itself on such a model.

First Episode

[Jbrecken]

Recently, CN reran the first episode, and I noticed that you could actually see Nibbler's shadow before Fry falls into the cryochamber.
If anyone has the first episode as originally aired, was the shadow always there, or did they edit that into the scene for syndication after they did the episode with the brains?

If it was always there, I'm seriously impressed with the planning that went into the story arc.

Re:First Episode

[max cohen]

It was always there.

Wonderful, isn't it?

Re:First Episode

[chuonthis]

I have the Region 1 DVDs and the shadow is there. In fact, it is referenced in the audio commentary with shouts of "SECRET!"

I'm Not alone, I hope!!

[doublebackslash]

I just wanna know if I was the only one that did the caculation of Fry's intrest on his 93 cents? (on a Ti-83 none the less, they used a palm, wusses)
Also, who else here was the only one in the room cracking up hen the professor complained about the quantum finish?

Those little things that go into futurama are what make it worth my time to watch, and that is sying a lot.

--
Honor system DDos. Please "ping -f 24.247.68.40&"

OT: What does your sig mean?

[reverendG]

As close as I can figure, it means "Others hate SQL" . Is that right?

Re:OT: What does your sig mean?

[ArsSineArtificio]

ceteris paribus - "all else equal"

odi - "I hate"

Re:OT: What does your sig mean?

[reverendG]

aha, thanks for the reply. let me know if you need help with that :)

Re:bit torrent?

[CyberDruid]

No the biggest obstacle is that the crew has moved on to find other jobs. They said so themselves in the final Futurama DVD audio commentary. Do you think Fox just put all the great writers, actors and directors in a closet and said "wait here we might need you in a couple of years"?

A better explanation

[Loadmaster]

Let's see, how can I explain this without blowing your mind? Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle tells us that at a specific curvature of space knowledge can be transferred into energy. Or, and this is key now, matter.

It doesn't?

Well, some people struggle with Heisenberg.

Look, here's a toy. It goes up and down on a string isn't that fun?

This is, of course, all according to Dr. Meatwad

Good show=Cancellation

[The Meshback]

In college I took a 'Film 101' class which was basically a class showing movies that upped the ante as far as movie-making goes. At one point, the professor, a complete smart ass, informed the 300 person class of mostly frat boys and sorority sisters that, (I'm paraphrasing) 'You need a sledgehammer to beat any idea into the viewers' head'. This was right after his ranting about 'Titanic' and I highly doubt that a 1/3 of the people in there got it. Most people do not understand subtlety. Hence the reason that great shows like Futurama have been cancelled.

At least Fox takes a chance on these shows, but unfortunately, they tend to get cancelled after the first or second season. It's not that the average TV viewer is an idiot. It's just that when they get home from work, they want to turn on the tube and not think. TV has become an escape and to watch 'reality' bs only offers people a greater escape from themselves. Expect more of the same.

Just my thoughts...

Re:Halloween episode, binary reference

[tadmas]

When 0101100101 appears on the wall in blood, everyone asks Bender what it means and he say's it's just gibberish, then he looks at it in the mirror and screams.

But do you know why? 1010011010 is 666 in binary.

I also remember something from the DVD commentary about the number on the door of Bender's apartment. IIRC, it was 00100100, which looks nice just on the face of it, but David Cohen said specifically that it meant something in ASCII. Sure enough, when you convert it, it's '$'

My favorite, for no apparent reason, has got to be when Bender had a dream in binary.... "I think I saw a 2!" Fry: "Don't worry - there's no such thing as 2." Classic.

Sum of two cubes

[Loozrboy]

By odd coincidence, it was just a couple days ago that I was watching "Lesser of Two Evils" and got inspired to write a little program to determine whether Bender and Flexo's serial numbers really were expressible as the sum of 2 cubes (although I didn't doubt for a moment they were... just to ruin everybody else's fun, the answers are 119^3 + 119^3 = 3370318 and 952^3 + (-951)^3 = 2716057). Astonishingly, this anecdote failed to impress a job interviewer who asked me what kinds of things I did to keep my programming skills sharp. As if I want to work somewhere that doesn't appreciate a nerdy Futurama fan!

Sum Of Two Cubes

[tadmas]

From the activity sheet:

Bender: Hey robot, what's your serial number?
Flexo: 3370318.
Bender: No way! Mine's 2716057.
[They both laugh. Then Fry laughs, but stops and looks confused.]
Fry: I don't get it.
Bender: We're both expressable as the sum of two cubes.
Flexo: Woooh!

In the DVD commentary, David Cohen goes on to say that it's tricky to find the cubes. Well, he's right. Here's the trick, in case you were interested:

3370318 = 119^3 + 119^3
2716057 = 952^3 + (-951)^3

No one ever said the cubed numbers had to be positive.... and yes, I'm a dork for working this out!

Tom Georgoulias, Austin, TX,

[tralfamador]

i so totally know this guy

The best explanation: Schroedinger's Fridge

[sbszine]

The best description I've read explains things in terms of a fridge full of beer.

Show Smart People Dumb

[Ms.XingTianCai]

Fox is only doing what makes them money. Our society has become so wrapped up in reality TV crap that we refuse to relax and let the funny in. Futurama is absolutely one of the best shows ever made and that's the only reason it lasted as long as it did. Fox held on to it even without the ratings, yes, pushing it around and screwing up its time slots, but held on none the less. If the veiwing audience would be less obsessed with crappy singers and stupid "whats-the-grossest-thing-I-can-eat" shows, we could continue to enjoy intelligent programming in the form of humor. Regardless of the form this humor comes in, Simpsons, Family Guy, or Futurama, it is being rejected by those viewers who refuse to acknowledge a more "realistic" look at society exists in the subtle and intelligent jokes in these shows than silly "reality" shows.

Its never coming back

[gad_zuki!]

Keep hoping. The animation quality on that show does not come cheap. Do you remember the ill-fated return of The Critic in Flash? It was terrible. If you cant afford good animators you can't afford good writers. You need x amount of capital to get the ball rolling and I believe Fururama was VERY expensive, moreso than the Simpsons.

Time is also against the Futurama fans, whatever "synergy" the creative team had has changed. Its simply not feasible to expect them to suddenly do high-quality work again from such a long hiatus, and thats assuming you can even get all the people.

Production is a very odd thing, when there's a good team they do good work. There are probably two to three episodes of Futurama which I think are low quality and the rest are really just gems. The problem is the network idiots didn't know they were holding a diamond and wouldnt give them a consistant timeslot.

Ideally, the Simpsons should have been cancelled after the first season of Futurama and Futurama would have taken its place. There's only so much you can do with the Simpsons and its simply been done, over and over. Futurama would have given Fox a new platform to create comedy and sell lots of commercials

They dropped the ball, and here we are. Expect the Simpsons to become a horrible shell of what it used to be (many will say its already happened) and a sad "had it coming" cancelation instead of a proud exit.

obviously they weren't that good with math

[emorphien]

So with all that math knowledge they still couldn't count there way past 72.

Episodes that is.

Damn sad it was cancelled.

Re:obviously they weren't that good with math

[emorphien]

errr... there should be their

need sleep

Heinlein short story, Re:Smart?

[j_w_d]

I believe that Robert Heinlein actually capped this long ago in a short story titled - IIRC - All You Zombies. If you have not read it, I won't spoil it by telling the paradox that RAH came up with.

Re:Heinlein short story, Re:Smart?

[hicksw]

Heinlein also wrote "By His Bootstraps" -- no grandfather in this one IIRC, but another kind of time loop.

Re:Halloween episode, binary reference

[Lotharjade]

A "2" is how a robot attains TRUE enlightenment.
OOOHHHHMMMMMM....