JMS and Wachowskis Teaming Up for New Netflix Funded Scifi Series

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JMS and Wachowskis Teaming Up for New Netflix Funded Scifi Series

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday March 27, 2013 @02:13AM from the thank-kosh dept.

Via Engadget, comes a press release that might bring joy to fans of science fiction dismayed by years without any new scifi shows: "Continuing its quest to sate subscribers' appetites with a flow of original content, Netflix has announced a new original series, Sense8. Due in late 2014, it's being developed by the Wachowskis of The Matrix, V for Vendetta, Cloud Atlas and Speed Race fame, as well as J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5. Details are thin, but the press release promises a gripping global tale of minds linked and souls hunted with a ten episode run for its first season." Hopefully it'll end up available on DVD eventually, for us poor GNU/Linux users who are not worthy enough for Netflix (or: to any Netflix engineers reading, make it work).

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Re:Real topic: by rotaryexpress · 2013-03-27 02:24 · Score: 5, Insightful

You might want to read the news... http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/03/16/1836233/netflix-to-start-creating-original-content House of Cards was the first series and is top notch. Amazon is doing the same thing (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417007,00.asp), as is Youtube (http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/2043252/original-content-coming-to-youtube) and Hulu (http://blog.hulu.com/2013/01/08/2013-original-and-exclusive-series-preview/). This is one of the most exciting trends in video entertainment today.
Netflix works on linux by h4rr4r · 2013-03-27 02:25 · Score: 4, Informative

Netflix has been working in wine for quite a while.
http://www.iheartubuntu.com/2012/11/netflix-on-ubuntu-is-here.html
Way to be out of date slashdot.
1. Re:Netflix works on linux by sl4shd0rk · 2013-03-27 03:07 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Netflix has been working in wine for quite a while.
  4 months of "working" is still Alpha/Beta stage in FOSS time. WINE is great and a lot of blood, sweat and tears has been put into the effort but in the end, it's a recipe for disaster if you have read incantations from the Necronomicon (wget+curl+./configure+make+make install|patch -p1|at>cron|bash -x /bin/sh|blah blah blah...) just to get it working. On other platforms, it's click+download+install+watch movie. If it's this way on that (godforsaken) Boxee-Box, why is it not this way for Linux?
  Yes, there's a PPA to do all the heavy lifting for you but the first kernel/library update that comes along is going to leave your Netflix with a bleeding head wound until someone can get around to hacking things together again. Don't get me wrong, it's great that we have people willing to put the time and effort into this stuff but having a hacked-together-binder-twine-duct-tape solution is a piss-poor reason to not strive for native platform integration. I'd really like to hear the reasons why Netflix (and Amazon prime and Hulu for that matter) seem to be too braindead to figure out a viable Linux platform solution. No talent? Can't get the DRM right? Flash too screwed up? Can't figure out permissions? Prefer backslashes?
  
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2. Re:Netflix works on linux by jedidiah · 2013-03-27 03:34 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  ...yes, quite.
  A $60 appliance will get you Hulu+, Amazon, & Netflix. So you don't really have to fixate over whether or not desktop Linux supports Netflix.
  It's not 2005 anymore.
  
  --
  A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Straczynski and the Wachowskis? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · 2013-03-27 02:26 · Score: 4, Funny

Huh, that's going to be one seriously polished series.

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Ezekiel 23:20
Uh oh... by Daetrin · 2013-03-27 02:27 · Score: 3, Interesting

So just going from past history...

JMS = doesn't really start to hit his stride until the second season.

Wachowskis = each part of an episodic thing they work on is worse than the one that came before

So either the strengths of one will compensate for the weaknesses of the other, or it's going to start out as on okay show with some promise but a lot of problems to overcome and then go downhill from there.

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This Space Intentionally Left Blank
1. Re:Uh oh... by CTachyon · 2013-03-27 07:46 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  So? they are genetically male. self identification is bullshit. You don't go changing definition because it suits you. It's left over pop psychology form the 70s. It's OK if you want to surgically change you gender, I don't care about that. but don't go around changing terms and definitions.
  What does "genetically male" mean? 46,XY? Congratulations, you just excluded men with 47,XXY (Klinefelter syndrome) and 47,XYY (XYY syndrome) as "not male". Presence of a Y chromosome? Congratulations, women with 46,XY who lack the SRY gene (Swyer syndrome) are now "male". Presence of the SRY gene? Congratulations, 46,XY women with SRY but non-functional testosterone receptors (CAIS, complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) are now "male". And those are merely some of the conditions that are diagnosed by hormones and genitalia, without even looking at the giant ball of complexity that is the brain.
  Self-identification of gender isn't bullshit 70's pop psychology. It's a practical consideration: science doesn't currently know what triggers male versus female identity in the brain. We know there's a surge of prenatal testosterone in the male fetus, followed by another testosterone surge a few weeks after birth, and that these two surges seem to trigger changes in the brain, but beyond that... hell if we know. We don't even know to what degree male identity is controlled by those testosterone surges versus direct action of SRY, or how many specific biological components there are in the brain that need to be affected. We don't know which circuits in the brain control self-identity ("I am a man/woman") versus proprioception ("my mental body map expects to receive sense data from male/female genitals") versus presentation ("other people see my behavior as feminine/masculine") versus orientation ("I am attracted to women/men"), if there are other categories than the ones I listed, where the lines are between these categories, or how blurry those lines are. Given how stable they are, we can infer that they're hardwired, which means that they must be phenotypes set during development; yet, the easiest way for a doctor to find out how genotype became phenotype in any particular patient is for the doctor to ask that patient to say their own gender identity.
  
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Want some cheese with your whine? by damn_registrars · 2013-03-27 02:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

Who still watches netflix on their computers, anyways? At least half the blu-ray players on the market today can play netflix out of the box. Every major game console can as well. Quite a few TVs have it built-in now, too. Why on earth would you want to watch it on your computer?

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Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
1. Re:Want some cheese with your whine? by geekoid · 2013-03-27 04:52 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Man solves problem by telling other people where to spend their money.
  Let me guess, consultant?
  
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  The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Can't Wait by FuzzNugget · 2013-03-27 02:43 · Score: 3, Interesting

Honestly, it sounds ... well, it has potential anyway. I seriously enjoyed three of the four movies mentioned (let's just play pretend and say that fourth one never happened, mmmkay?)
Fringe is over after a good run, V was canceled just as it was getting really good and there's not much else out there I can find with as much character depth.
Bring it on!
Re:linux ppl love to sell out by The+Mighty+Buzzard · 2013-03-27 02:43 · Score: 4, Informative

Even worse, look at the editor bitching about Netflix not working on Linux when it's a solved problem.

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Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
Re:so 95% of the world by interval1066 · 2013-03-27 02:55 · Score: 3, Funny

First our hands are in every pocket, now we're isolationists. Fuck you.

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Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Re:JMS... by lister+king+of+smeg · 2013-03-27 03:12 · Score: 3

Do you also complain when people say RMS, or ESR?

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---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Re:JMS... by PortHaven · 2013-03-27 03:35 · Score: 4, Informative

JMS was JMS before Java Messaging Service. And probably has more internet acclaim than java messaging does as well.
Dang, JMS was on GEnie yes, before the world wide web was even popular. Hell, JMS predates Java itself
Sorry your failed at your nerdiness...
Re:Real topic: by gothzilla · 2013-03-27 03:46 · Score: 4, Funny

Wait....did you just say you're interested to see if they can do better than Jersey Shore and Honey Boo Boo? Seriously?
Re:Real topic: by CastrTroy · 2013-03-27 03:56 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think the great thing about House of Cards is that it's the first TV Series I've seen that didn't have to go through all the censors or ratings boards whatsoever. I think this allows them to make it more true to life. There's swearing, drugs, violence, and even some brief nudity. Also, because it wasn't made for TV, each episode is exactly as long as it needs to be. It rarely seemed like they added content simply because they needed to make the episode longer.

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Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Re:linux ppl love to sell out by JackieBrown · 2013-03-27 04:38 · Score: 4, Informative

If by "solved" you mean that a software engineer grad student and his pocket protector stand an even chance of knocking it out in a spare weekend then yes my good sir, that problem is solved.
Assuming most people can copy/paste, it is extremely easy.
Open a terminal from the menu and paste "sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio" Enter your password when prompted. Then "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop"
It is now installed in your programs menu.
I really don't see how this is more difficult then installing in windows.
Re:"Souls hunted"? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-03-27 04:48 · Score: 3, Informative

JMS is an atheist from what I can tell in the various things he's posted on the internet (he's done a lot of online discussions). I think he included relgious and metaphysical stuff in B5 to show how people latch onto religious ideas and values and use them to guide their actions because that is a real phenomenon regardless of whether you believe in the reality espoused by a given religion. Religious ideas have a hand in driving all sorts of conflicts in the real world (and conflicts are important elements of stories).
Re:Poor GNU/Linux Already Watching Nefllx by cyber-vandal · 2013-03-27 05:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

iOS I can understand but in what way is Mac OS X a walled garden?