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What Has Fox Got Against Its Own Sci-Fi Shows?
brumgrunt writes "Dollhouse. The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Fringe. Three science fiction shows that Fox commissioned, put on the air, and — in the case of at least one of them — has won rave reviews. But why does it seem that Fox is trying to kill some of its own shows with crazy scheduling decisions? How can Fringe survive after being pulled for two months, and what hope is there for Sarah Connor and Dollhouse on a Friday night?"
I haven't been watching much TV now that I've started working on my Master's again (nor did I had time to upgrade my MythTV box before the DTV switchover). What do you guys think of Dollhouse so far?
re: you sig
That's why I always drive at least 20+ mph more than the speed limit. I don't want to have to go 8 miles to save one minute!
"But this one goes to 11!"
psssh and why I save 3+ hours on a 1500 mile trip as well by going 75+ instead of 65. You do the math. xD
Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
Can you remember the last time you stayed at home to watch some tv program?
Last night. I watched The Who live from the Isle of Wight.
Why would I want to watch a crappy torrent of a great concert on my 20" computer monitor that takes a few hours to download with my tiny plastic speakers sitting on hard office furniture, when I have a 52" HD TV and $5000 in Paradigm/Yamaha audio equipment in the living room and can sit on plush living room furniture?
Interesting trend I've been noticing on /. - so many of the left slanted posts are modded up while the dissenting one are modded down (like the parent of this, as flamebait). I guess I overestimated the community here...
Any one who thinks Fox and NBC offer balanced news need to get their heads examined.
(I never know whether to reply to people commenting on my sig, but here goes...)
You prove my point; you did the math for your trip. I read somewhere (probably years ago) that the average highway trip was eight miles. Then, recovering math teacher that I am, I cooked the speeds so that the time came out to just under a minute.
In any case, the lesson stands: Take a few seconds to figure out how much time you'll save and see if it's worth the risk (and passing always incurs some risk). And if passing one guy just puts you behind the next one doing 65, what's the point? (LOLBuddha: "Do not want!")
At the very least, you'll help your blood pressure knowing you're only losing a minute or so if you end up stuck behind someone for a few miles.
BTW, how many 1500 mile trips do you make? If I'm going from NY to Dallas, I fly.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
It is easier to dodge something coming at you from the front than from behind. If you are going faster than the other traffic, this becomes true (until your speed difference compared to the other traffic becomes significant).
- Sig
"(and passing always incurs some risk)."
Of course passing a vehicle incurs some risk; that doesn't stop the fact that sitting behind the offending vehicle often involves many others passing you. The ones who don't pass end up just forming a train of vehicles, which is what causes so many multi-car pile-ups.
I know the "weave" driving style, which requires someone to constantly change lanes in order to keep up their speed; it's insanely dangerous and not worth the risk. Unfortunately there's 10 times the drivers who won't pass at all, even where that's what is necessary for safety.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I have a PS3. I can't get streaming video to work. Also, I'm dubious of the sound quality I'll get with a torrent downloaded .AVI/.mov/.whatever file. I've yet to get one that has surround sound encoded, but maybe I'm doing it wrong. The closest I've come to Internet-to-TV is simply hooking my Macbook up to the TV and to the stereo, but that's not a very elegant solution (and before anyone suggests it, Apple TV is only 720p, right?) I'm open to easy, free solutions that incorporate my existing PS3 and Mac OSX setup.
You are misconstruing my position, although probably unintentionally. So be alert--rant ahead!
<rant>
I in no way indicated that the lead vehicle is traveling at an excessively slow rate of speed, only that it is slower than I wish to go. I in no way indicated that I am tailgating, which is what really causes so many multi-car pile-ups (piles-up? like mothers-in-law?). I don't see how passing itself can be "necessary for safety"; not tailgating is what's necessary, and often passing is the best way to not tailgate! Leaving a good following distance also gives you room to accelerate to the speed of traffic in the next lane so you can change lanes, when you get the chance, with less risk of causing a pile-up in the passing lane.
I have followed huge trains of semis down the highway (in the '70s, we called them "convoys"), with none of them passing each other, yet amazingly, there wasn't a huge pile-up of semis. Is it really possible that none of them desired to go faster than the leader?
A hundred cars traveling 65 mph, each with a two-second following distance (conveniently, two seconds is just about one yard per mph), is a "train of vehicles" a bit under four miles long. Inserting a new vehicle somewhere in that train reduces two of the following distances to one second each. As these two vehicles (the new one and the one behind that) relax their speed briefly to increase to a new two-second following distance, that "bump" should smoothly propagate back to the end of the train.
The following distance is not just your reaction time! It's your reaction time plus the time to make your speed change smoothly, so it doesn't incur a slam-on-the-brakes from the vehicle behind you, etc. That's the mistake many people make. They tell themselves, "I'm paying attention and I can slow to avoid anything this guy does." But the next person, or the next, sees a chain of brake lights and reacts in a hurry. If cars are too close together, even though everyone has time to react, the braking becomes more violent, until eventually someone has to slow to a crawl (or stop), and that's one of the ways traffic jams form when there's no apparent cause.
The only way to break the cycle is to leave enough room to react slowly, with a quick tap of the break (to alert the driver behind you) and hopefully simply coasting until you can accelerate again. Sure, someone's going to pull in front of you; but they'll probably pull out again soon, if they're weaving for advantage. Give way, relax, and wait until the risk of passing is acceptably low given the time you expect to save.
</rant>
Thank you for your time.
P.s. The genesis of the sig came from personal observations on a long weekly commute down a two-lane U.S. highway through farm country that had about ten miles between towns. The road would widen to four lanes in the towns, and I could easily pass. After one or two close calls with oncoming traffic, and many instances of frustration when I simply couldn't pass for whole minutes on end, I started calculating how much time it would cost me to just staying behind the slower traffic until the next town, versus passing and going my preferred speed. I then had a basis for determining how much risk I would accept in attempting to pass. Ninety seconds? It had better be almost no risk. Twelve minutes (stuck behind a combine)? I'd take the first reasonable chance.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
And if passing one guy just puts you behind the next one doing 65, what's the point?
If you enjoy driving, you'll know that sometimes, being at the steering wheel is much like holding a video game controller. You want continue without braking in an elegant ways, and want to use your nerdy driving knowledge to solve a "problem" -- overcoming an obstacle on the road. Thats all, if you have to speed up to overcome this obstacle, so be it.
FreeBSD bounties
I think it's because not a single thread goes by where some butthurt Republican doesn't take a dig at Obama. No one thinks it is insightful or interesting, at least no one who isn't already getting the "information" *snort* presented from Rush Limbaugh.
Posts that dig at Obama, while actually presenting some civil discussion as to WHY the person is against one of Obama's positions get modded up to +5 faster than NYCL posts in an RIAA thread.
Read the post you're defending. It offers nothing, and isn't even funny. Not even a little. The only humor I could see being squeezed out of that turd is a smug chuckle from someone who is desperately hoping Obama will fail horribly in turning us toward a better path. If you pay close attention, you can almost hear how nervous that chuckle really is...
I did the math and that 59 seconds/8 miles just on my way to and from work would save me about 20 days worth of time over my working lifetime (30 years). Seems like a pretty good idea to me!
It is easier to dodge something coming at you from the front than from behind.
On the other hand, if someone hits you from behind, its usually their fault for not dodging out of the way. The way I see it, if you hit me from behind, I might thank you, since you probably paid for the repairs to my car as well as your own.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I have a program called "Media Server" by Twonky. The PSP3 "sees" all the media on my Mac(s), it just won't play them. I have the usual run of media stuff; aac, mp3, avi, mov--none of it plays on the PS3. I think it's a PS3 issue and not a Mac one, but who knows. If it takes more than 10 minutes to setup and configure, it isn't worth my time.
[laughing] I've done the same math. Two minutes more or less isn't the end of time. And as a general rule, my destination isn't going to get up and run off.
A small observation of my own, while we're on this side topic (which sounds suspiciously like bridge crew on the Enterprise arguing about whether they need to dodge some incoming obstacle):
You trust your fellow man. In fact, you trust him with your very life. -- Don't think so? You drive on two-lane roads, don't you??
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
except it doesnt really work like that, does it?
after saving 2 minutes a day, five days a week for a year, you'd have saved 520 minutes, or nearly nine hours.
But you could only use those hours in one block if you were now leaving and arriving home from work nine hours earlier than you had been before.
You're more likely to just waste that extra minute in minutae at the beginning / end of the day.