Well, that'll only work if Bush and Ashcroft succeed in pushing through their police state. Otherwise, there are enough thinking people in the USA that the scenario you described won't happen, or won't last very long if it does.
Besides, Linux is a much bigger deal for businesses these days than it is for consumers. Amazon, Google, customers of Sun's new boxes will be rather miffed when they're told they can't connect to the net.
I suggest you go read Shockwave Rider by John Brunner and cheer yourself up (unless you're actually rooting for compulsory DRM, in which case read it and weep). We may be entering a 1950's-style era right now, but these things don't last.
What the KB doesn't say is that you can trigger this out-of-resources situation in a long-running session, just by running and exiting many applications over time, with IE being particularly guilty. Once you hit the limit, even quitting everything and yes, killing the desktop-controlling Windows Explorer process doesn't completely resolve the problem - it returns much quicker, once a few applications have been loaded. Because of this, there's a limit to how long a Win2K workstation can remain running before needing a reboot.
Since many people turn their machines off daily, it isn't a problem for them in practice. Others have experienced this without knowing the cause - since it usually silently prevents new applications from being loaded, or may prevent e.g. menus from being selected or dropped down, people simply shrug and reboot.
The KB claims that this essentially arises as a consequence of 32-bit addressing, but you can run the same test side by side on a 32-bit Linux box without a problem.
sure one mcse can do it all, if his solution to everything is "reboot the server", after the wizard he used to do his 'troubleshooting' didn't provide an answer.
A wonderful quote, thanks! Going in my quotes file.
sure, they've got their mcse, but they can't seem to tie that knowledge into how things work on their platform of choice. bizarre.
The GUI makes people dumb. If most of their interaction with the machine is through a GUI, they never gain any insight into the underlying system - only to the particular layout of dialogs etc. that they have to use to get something done. Imagine if you had a friend who was most comfortable speaking baby talk. How well could you get to know that person? You'd learn their behavioral patterns, but your understanding of their motivations and thoughts would be limited. Same kind of thing.
You need to have more of a clue to be able to dig through a complex.conf file, for example, but it has subtle and not-so-subtle benefits that have far-reaching ramifications.
This gave me a laugh. Of course you're right, no "consumer" on the planet today is going to be downloading and installing Linux.
But think foward a bit. Linux, and open source in general, has been gaining enormous momentum in the last few years. In some respects, it has changed almost beyond recognition - I have a Red Hat 5 box here to prove it.
Fast forward another four or five years or so. Given greater broadband penetration, faster broadband, and an even friendlier Linux desktop, it's not inconceivable that a distro could be downloaded by a consumer in a seamless click-and-run process. There might be some good reasons for consumers to want to do this, too - access to unrestricted media playing capabilities might be one example.
So, perhaps that poor pathetic soul is in fact more of a visionary...
Having to do the kills and restarts of explorer, which you mentioned, based on normal, but long-term use, doesn't qualify as "stable" in my book. Besides, killing explorer doesn't fix the issue I'm talking about, which has to do with kernel memory. There's an MS KB related to this, which I'll dig up if you like.
Cost of ownership has nothing to do with performance benchmarks, but I was talking about reliability, stability, and the need to reboot. A big part of the cost of ownership is the amount of time that has to be put into maintaining a machine. Rebooting, patching, and dealing with problems all adds to that time. In that sense, reliability and TCO are very closely related.
it isn't stable and can't do "real" computing is just a fallacy.
No, it's a matter of opinion. You can make excuses for Microsoft all you want, but in the end they're just excuses. My experience, based on supporting clients running all kinds of boxes, is that the Windows boxes are regularly and conspicuously a bigger PITA, and call attention to themselves in one way or another, much more often. The original issue I responded on, that they require reboots more often, is still true in practice and could probably be demonstrated via Netcraft etc.
Did they run as well as the BSD machines? no, of course not, but they ran at around 87% as well.
You're contradicting yourself, and making my case. Maybe you're happy with 87% (and I would push that percentage down a bit once you factor in the various TCO-type issues), but what is the point of compromising? Let me see, Microsoft is more expensive, lower quality, less secure, less stable... I must be missing something here. Oh yeah, it's got a point and click GUI for amateur adminstrators.
Downloading 8MB over a modem is not a big deal. It's not as though you have to do it all the time. I live in the boondocks with no broadband, and I regularly download files of 30+MB (software development stuff, mainly).
Besides, Opera is only now becoming compliant with current W3C/DOM standards; before the latest version, it was the least compliant browser around. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the 3.4MB figure quoted was for the older, non-compliant version. If not, props to Opera, but I still don't think a few MB either way is a huge deal for a graphical web browser.
Your experiences are based on having low traffic, and running Apache instead of IIS, and still you give examples of the exact problems I was referring to:
It has now been up for 4 and a half months and the last reboot was to install SP2.
Contrast that with the most recently rebooted Linux server I deal with - 300 days uptime, rebooted because of a power failure due to storms, which outlasted backup power.
You say you installed SP2 - what about the post-SP2 hotfixes, or SP3? The countdown to your next reboot has begun... Luckily, you may not have to worry about those as much in your case, because some of the security problems affect IIS, and you're running Apache. So yes, by staying away from Microsoft server products, you do achieve greater uptimes, which is my whole point.
Your 410,000 hits a month is very low traffic. Some of the servers I work with routinely serve that much in a day, and they're not the busiest by any means. But ability to handle load is not really the issue at this point - since about Win2K, Windows has done much better at this (NT4/IIS4 was pretty pathetic at that, also due to memory leaks).
I'm not saying longer uptimes can't possibly be done, but compared to real operating systems, Windows requires more reboots in practice, because of the number of mainly Internet-related security problems it's had over the past few years.
I work with both Windows and Unix machines doing software development and consulting on administration issues, so I have plenty of direct experience with administering Windows boxes. I've worked with WindowsNT/2K/XP since the betas of NT 3.1 in around '91. In my experience, there's just no comparison between the two in terms of security, stability, and ability to run for truly long periods without reboots. If you think otherwise, my guess is it's just because you haven't had much experience with Unix.
yes kids, Win2k and XP can stay on for months without a reboot..
That's true if the machines aren't connected to the Internet, and if they're not heavily utilized workstations, etc.
In practice, a connected server needs to be rebooted more often than that, if only to apply the latest security patches.
Heavily utilized WinNT/2K/XP workstations need to be rebooted regularly to overcome kernel memory leaks and the like.
If you'd like to see this for yourself, try this test: load enough copies of IE that you run out of kernel memory or other resources. You'll know you've reached that point because it will silently refuse to open another window. Now close all the windows you've just opened. Carry on using the machine and see how long it is before you find that new applications can't be run, that menus don't drop down, etc. To get some sense of what's happening, monitor the numbers on the performance tab of the task manager while you're doing all this, particularly kernel memory - it goes up, but mostly doesn't come down. That might be fine if it was reusing the allocated memory, except that it doesn't - it ultimately cripples the machine.
The bottom line is that Win2K/XP is fine for light-duty use and applications not connected to the Internet. For serious computing, though, you need a real operating system.
Yeah, but based on the principle that 95% of everything is crap, there are really only 600 movies worth watching. (Hint: none of them star Adam Sandler.)
I think that the Christian attitude towards Israel may predispose the U.S. towards a pro-Israel policy, but I think that the specifics of the policy, and the degree to which it is has been carried out by administration after administration, are heavily influenced by Jewish-Americans and their lobbyists and political representatives. I live in the New York metro area, and it's hard to miss the signs of this sort of thing.
By contrast, the political representation of Arab-Americans in the U.S. is very small. It's not surprising that U.S. Israeli policy is skewed.
As for religious injunctions to protect Israel, I think the U.S. would do a better job of protecting Israel, and itself, if it had a more balanced policy.
Re:English is open source...
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Tiny Boxen
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I doubt that I'm a citizen of whichever "this country" you're talking about. Presumably it's not the United States of America, which legally protects freedom of expression and does not require its citizens or residents to speak a specific language. Of course, Americans do not actually speak English, but rather a dialect thereof which has degenerated from the original, complete with simplified spellings.
The Jargon File is already "legitimized wholesale" - as I said, its terms are used by a subculture. Dictionary.com recognizes that.
BTW - if I may be permitted to use an acronym, and for that matter to use the word
'acronym' in its common-usage sense rather than based on its original definition - the term 'boxen' was invented by Americans, and is primarily used by Americans.
What was your point again?
Re:English is open source...
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Tiny Boxen
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I was just being silly with my open source comparison.
But frankly, the boxen issue is dead. It's a legitimate jargon/slang word in a subculture. It can be found in multiple references on the web (jargon file, dictionary.com). Personally, I find it a little trite, but then I didn't grow up with VAXen and it doesn't have any nostalgia or other sentimental attraction for me. If I don't like a word, I don't use it.
Afaik, "fair use" is a right that individuals have, not a right that businesses enjoy when they're selling or renting (i.e. profiting commercially from) copyrighted material. So no, this does not fall under fair use.
Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be an American. I'm an Army brat who was raised across the US and the Middle East and loves her country. But taking away the rights that makes this country great and alienating the citizens who make it so wonderful is not the way to go about saving it.
It's not just citizens that get alienated - or, for that matter, who make it wonderful. There are plenty of aliens, both legal and illegal, living and working in the U.S., many of whom have the kind of backgrounds that are likely to throw up red flags in a system like this.
Alienating the aliens may actually be a worse strategy than many people are willing to acknowledge, in the long run. Aliens in this country tend to provide a lot of feedback to people in their home countries, and can influence attitudes around the world. If America thinks it is "hated" now, wait until policies like CAPPS II have been in effect for a few years.
This kind of thing isn't just limited to poor immigrants from third-world countries, either. As a sort of reverse example of what I'm talking about, look at America's almost irrationally strong pro-Israel policy. That is ultimately driven by a powerful Jewish constituency in the U.S. (Not trying to be anti-anything, someone please let me know if you think I'm wrong.)
The same sort of thing can happen in reverse. If the unambiguous and unvarying message coming from aliens in America is that it is a country where it sucks to be an alien, where its much-vaunted human rights are selectively applied to those who are "rooted in the community" etc., that is going to influence attitudes, and will be bad for America in the long run.
The Bush administration's policies have already led to some unusual international reactions. For example, Germany has recently taken the position that it will not help the U.S. in a war against Iraq, even if U.N. approval is obtained. The reason for this essentially seems to be unhappiness with U.S. unilateralism - not consulting its allies, including those in NATO, before embarking on a course which could create major international conflict.
The Germans have a point. If the U.S. decides that it doesn't need goodwill from anyone else in the world - including the aliens within its borders - it will soon find out that it only has 5% of the world's population, and that it can't simply invade everyone else.
But... the IRS isn't a branch of the gov't. Its a civilian company contracted to handle the collection of the Federal Income Tax.
You figured it out! Also, you don't have to pay your income tax because the "United States" consists only of the D.C. and other federal territories, so as long as you don't live in any of those places...
Moron.
In case you're even remotely serious and not just a troll, you might want to check out this list of tax scams. The one you referred to is covered here, and the one I mentioned is here.
These IRS scams are the next best thing to Nigerian 419's - and likely to be more dangerous to your financial health, if you try to follow through on them.
English is open source...
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Tiny Boxen
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The English language has no ultimate authority comparable to the Royal Academy of the Language in Spain, or its equivalent in France. So making up words in English is quite easy, and legitimacy comes to them with wide usage. No need for the latest official dictionary to be published.;-)
So you're saying that unlike French or Spanish, which have a restrictive license, English is an open source language, which anyone can extend.
The source code is available in various forms (online, book form etc.) In fact, the design of the language makes it hard to hide the source code, although the postmodernists have had some success with their obfuscation project.
Whoa - mod points per word - Slashdot record??
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Tiny Boxen
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Congrats on achieving the highest mod points to message words ratio I ever remember noticing on Slashdot. Your post, including subject line and excluding sig, contained 6 words (and one of them was "a"). As I write this, you have 12 mod points:
...which means you earned 2 mod points per word. At that rate, a post like mine (this one) ought to get at least 140 points. Moderators, get cracking!!
That's easy, I got modded down because someone who still likes Farscape got mod points.;)
I can't get too excited about Firefly yet, although there were a few good scenes, including the one you mention, plus some excellent CGI.
But I thought John Doe (which aired on Fox right after Firefly) had much more drama and tension, and while a little corny perhaps (and a total Bourne Identity ripoff in the beginning), at least didn't have such obvious setups of plot elements.
Later, I saw part of an SG-1 episode on the scifi channel, and that too seemed much more taut than Firefly. Firefly just seemed too relaxed, chatty, even boring in parts. I guess these episode one setups are tough to do, though, especially with so many characters to introduce, so it may improve.
Having just watched the first episode, the Outlaw Star similarities are hard to miss.
I'm curious as to how you got so hot on Firefly. Is the pilot better than the first episode? Here's my synopsis of the first episode: cowboy movie in space, to the max; cartoon-level bad guys, clownishly scary but not particularly amusing; entire plot telegraphed ahead of time in the most obvious ways; mystery set up for future episodes like a clay pigeon shoot. I guess I could do with a little less obviousness.
Some of the CGI was nice though, and it was well-produced overall. There didn't seem to be any actual plot holes, which is always a bonus. But in general, I got more of a kick out of the PS2 commercial that aired near the beginning of the episode, than the show itself. I'd say it's watchable, if you're not expecting too much. I wouldn't be raving about it.
Actually, I'm having more fun watching the show after it, John Doe. At least the whole plot hasn't been given away yet, 20 minutes in.
You're 100% correct. Star Trek is only appealing to the people who grew up on it, and weren't exposed to anything more sophisticated. As science fiction, it's incredibly naive, predictable, rehashed, and often plain bad.
I think you're absolutely right in saying that Star Trek is Joe Sixpack scifi. It would be hard to explain its popularity otherwise. Logic and science are like afterthoughts. Star Wars did much better in this regard (in the first trilogy), although to be fair, Star Trek's episodic nature made it difficult to achieve what Star Wars did.
Keeping those episodes going is a problem: Star Wars lost me at "midichlorians". Seems like a Star Trek writer got involved in the plot there...
Despite all the (valid!) criticism of the original Star Wars episodes, as honest mass-market scifi it still does a much better job than most of Star Trek.
C'mon, Farscape has worn out any originality or interest it had when it started. It was fun for a while, but lately it's just been phoning it in (or at least, last I checked).
Let Farscape go. Something better will come along. Maybe even something without muppets.
Slashdot Mirror
Besides, Linux is a much bigger deal for businesses these days than it is for consumers. Amazon, Google, customers of Sun's new boxes will be rather miffed when they're told they can't connect to the net.
I suggest you go read Shockwave Rider by John Brunner and cheer yourself up (unless you're actually rooting for compulsory DRM, in which case read it and weep). We may be entering a 1950's-style era right now, but these things don't last.
What the KB doesn't say is that you can trigger this out-of-resources situation in a long-running session, just by running and exiting many applications over time, with IE being particularly guilty. Once you hit the limit, even quitting everything and yes, killing the desktop-controlling Windows Explorer process doesn't completely resolve the problem - it returns much quicker, once a few applications have been loaded. Because of this, there's a limit to how long a Win2K workstation can remain running before needing a reboot.
Since many people turn their machines off daily, it isn't a problem for them in practice. Others have experienced this without knowing the cause - since it usually silently prevents new applications from being loaded, or may prevent e.g. menus from being selected or dropped down, people simply shrug and reboot.
The KB claims that this essentially arises as a consequence of 32-bit addressing, but you can run the same test side by side on a 32-bit Linux box without a problem.
A wonderful quote, thanks! Going in my quotes file.
sure, they've got their mcse, but they can't seem to tie that knowledge into how things work on their platform of choice. bizarre.
The GUI makes people dumb. If most of their interaction with the machine is through a GUI, they never gain any insight into the underlying system - only to the particular layout of dialogs etc. that they have to use to get something done. Imagine if you had a friend who was most comfortable speaking baby talk. How well could you get to know that person? You'd learn their behavioral patterns, but your understanding of their motivations and thoughts would be limited. Same kind of thing.
You need to have more of a clue to be able to dig through a complex .conf file, for example, but it has subtle and not-so-subtle benefits that have far-reaching ramifications.
This gave me a laugh. Of course you're right, no "consumer" on the planet today is going to be downloading and installing Linux.
But think foward a bit. Linux, and open source in general, has been gaining enormous momentum in the last few years. In some respects, it has changed almost beyond recognition - I have a Red Hat 5 box here to prove it.
Fast forward another four or five years or so. Given greater broadband penetration, faster broadband, and an even friendlier Linux desktop, it's not inconceivable that a distro could be downloaded by a consumer in a seamless click-and-run process. There might be some good reasons for consumers to want to do this, too - access to unrestricted media playing capabilities might be one example.
So, perhaps that poor pathetic soul is in fact more of a visionary...
Having to do the kills and restarts of explorer, which you mentioned, based on normal, but long-term use, doesn't qualify as "stable" in my book. Besides, killing explorer doesn't fix the issue I'm talking about, which has to do with kernel memory. There's an MS KB related to this, which I'll dig up if you like.
Cost of ownership has nothing to do with performance benchmarks, but I was talking about reliability, stability, and the need to reboot. A big part of the cost of ownership is the amount of time that has to be put into maintaining a machine. Rebooting, patching, and dealing with problems all adds to that time. In that sense, reliability and TCO are very closely related.
it isn't stable and can't do "real" computing is just a fallacy.
No, it's a matter of opinion. You can make excuses for Microsoft all you want, but in the end they're just excuses. My experience, based on supporting clients running all kinds of boxes, is that the Windows boxes are regularly and conspicuously a bigger PITA, and call attention to themselves in one way or another, much more often. The original issue I responded on, that they require reboots more often, is still true in practice and could probably be demonstrated via Netcraft etc.
Did they run as well as the BSD machines? no, of course not, but they ran at around 87% as well.
You're contradicting yourself, and making my case. Maybe you're happy with 87% (and I would push that percentage down a bit once you factor in the various TCO-type issues), but what is the point of compromising? Let me see, Microsoft is more expensive, lower quality, less secure, less stable... I must be missing something here. Oh yeah, it's got a point and click GUI for amateur adminstrators.
Besides, Opera is only now becoming compliant with current W3C/DOM standards; before the latest version, it was the least compliant browser around. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the 3.4MB figure quoted was for the older, non-compliant version. If not, props to Opera, but I still don't think a few MB either way is a huge deal for a graphical web browser.
It has now been up for 4 and a half months and the last reboot was to install SP2.
Contrast that with the most recently rebooted Linux server I deal with - 300 days uptime, rebooted because of a power failure due to storms, which outlasted backup power.
You say you installed SP2 - what about the post-SP2 hotfixes, or SP3? The countdown to your next reboot has begun... Luckily, you may not have to worry about those as much in your case, because some of the security problems affect IIS, and you're running Apache. So yes, by staying away from Microsoft server products, you do achieve greater uptimes, which is my whole point.
Your 410,000 hits a month is very low traffic. Some of the servers I work with routinely serve that much in a day, and they're not the busiest by any means. But ability to handle load is not really the issue at this point - since about Win2K, Windows has done much better at this (NT4/IIS4 was pretty pathetic at that, also due to memory leaks).
I'm not saying longer uptimes can't possibly be done, but compared to real operating systems, Windows requires more reboots in practice, because of the number of mainly Internet-related security problems it's had over the past few years.
I work with both Windows and Unix machines doing software development and consulting on administration issues, so I have plenty of direct experience with administering Windows boxes. I've worked with WindowsNT/2K/XP since the betas of NT 3.1 in around '91. In my experience, there's just no comparison between the two in terms of security, stability, and ability to run for truly long periods without reboots. If you think otherwise, my guess is it's just because you haven't had much experience with Unix.
That's true if the machines aren't connected to the Internet, and if they're not heavily utilized workstations, etc.
In practice, a connected server needs to be rebooted more often than that, if only to apply the latest security patches.
Heavily utilized WinNT/2K/XP workstations need to be rebooted regularly to overcome kernel memory leaks and the like.
If you'd like to see this for yourself, try this test: load enough copies of IE that you run out of kernel memory or other resources. You'll know you've reached that point because it will silently refuse to open another window. Now close all the windows you've just opened. Carry on using the machine and see how long it is before you find that new applications can't be run, that menus don't drop down, etc. To get some sense of what's happening, monitor the numbers on the performance tab of the task manager while you're doing all this, particularly kernel memory - it goes up, but mostly doesn't come down. That might be fine if it was reusing the allocated memory, except that it doesn't - it ultimately cripples the machine.
The bottom line is that Win2K/XP is fine for light-duty use and applications not connected to the Internet. For serious computing, though, you need a real operating system.
Hmm, come to think of it, the USA elected George Bush. I'm starting to see the connection...
Yeah, but based on the principle that 95% of everything is crap, there are really only 600 movies worth watching. (Hint: none of them star Adam Sandler.)
Substitute the Bush/Ashcroft "tag team of evil" for Hoover, and you'd have a point.
By contrast, the political representation of Arab-Americans in the U.S. is very small. It's not surprising that U.S. Israeli policy is skewed.
As for religious injunctions to protect Israel, I think the U.S. would do a better job of protecting Israel, and itself, if it had a more balanced policy.
The Jargon File is already "legitimized wholesale" - as I said, its terms are used by a subculture. Dictionary.com recognizes that.
BTW - if I may be permitted to use an acronym, and for that matter to use the word 'acronym' in its common-usage sense rather than based on its original definition - the term 'boxen' was invented by Americans, and is primarily used by Americans.
What was your point again?
But frankly, the boxen issue is dead. It's a legitimate jargon/slang word in a subculture. It can be found in multiple references on the web (jargon file, dictionary.com). Personally, I find it a little trite, but then I didn't grow up with VAXen and it doesn't have any nostalgia or other sentimental attraction for me. If I don't like a word, I don't use it.
Afaik, "fair use" is a right that individuals have, not a right that businesses enjoy when they're selling or renting (i.e. profiting commercially from) copyrighted material. So no, this does not fall under fair use.
It's not just citizens that get alienated - or, for that matter, who make it wonderful. There are plenty of aliens, both legal and illegal, living and working in the U.S., many of whom have the kind of backgrounds that are likely to throw up red flags in a system like this.
Alienating the aliens may actually be a worse strategy than many people are willing to acknowledge, in the long run. Aliens in this country tend to provide a lot of feedback to people in their home countries, and can influence attitudes around the world. If America thinks it is "hated" now, wait until policies like CAPPS II have been in effect for a few years.
This kind of thing isn't just limited to poor immigrants from third-world countries, either. As a sort of reverse example of what I'm talking about, look at America's almost irrationally strong pro-Israel policy. That is ultimately driven by a powerful Jewish constituency in the U.S. (Not trying to be anti-anything, someone please let me know if you think I'm wrong.)
The same sort of thing can happen in reverse. If the unambiguous and unvarying message coming from aliens in America is that it is a country where it sucks to be an alien, where its much-vaunted human rights are selectively applied to those who are "rooted in the community" etc., that is going to influence attitudes, and will be bad for America in the long run.
The Bush administration's policies have already led to some unusual international reactions. For example, Germany has recently taken the position that it will not help the U.S. in a war against Iraq, even if U.N. approval is obtained. The reason for this essentially seems to be unhappiness with U.S. unilateralism - not consulting its allies, including those in NATO, before embarking on a course which could create major international conflict.
The Germans have a point. If the U.S. decides that it doesn't need goodwill from anyone else in the world - including the aliens within its borders - it will soon find out that it only has 5% of the world's population, and that it can't simply invade everyone else.
You figured it out! Also, you don't have to pay your income tax because the "United States" consists only of the D.C. and other federal territories, so as long as you don't live in any of those places...
Moron.
In case you're even remotely serious and not just a troll, you might want to check out this list of tax scams. The one you referred to is covered here, and the one I mentioned is here.
These IRS scams are the next best thing to Nigerian 419's - and likely to be more dangerous to your financial health, if you try to follow through on them.
So you're saying that unlike French or Spanish, which have a restrictive license, English is an open source language, which anyone can extend.
The source code is available in various forms (online, book form etc.) In fact, the design of the language makes it hard to hide the source code, although the postmodernists have had some success with their obfuscation project.
Offtopic=1, Troll=2, Insightful=5, Informative=1, Overrated=3, Total=12.
I can't get too excited about Firefly yet, although there were a few good scenes, including the one you mention, plus some excellent CGI.
But I thought John Doe (which aired on Fox right after Firefly) had much more drama and tension, and while a little corny perhaps (and a total Bourne Identity ripoff in the beginning), at least didn't have such obvious setups of plot elements.
Later, I saw part of an SG-1 episode on the scifi channel, and that too seemed much more taut than Firefly. Firefly just seemed too relaxed, chatty, even boring in parts. I guess these episode one setups are tough to do, though, especially with so many characters to introduce, so it may improve.
I'm curious as to how you got so hot on Firefly. Is the pilot better than the first episode? Here's my synopsis of the first episode: cowboy movie in space, to the max; cartoon-level bad guys, clownishly scary but not particularly amusing; entire plot telegraphed ahead of time in the most obvious ways; mystery set up for future episodes like a clay pigeon shoot. I guess I could do with a little less obviousness.
Some of the CGI was nice though, and it was well-produced overall. There didn't seem to be any actual plot holes, which is always a bonus. But in general, I got more of a kick out of the PS2 commercial that aired near the beginning of the episode, than the show itself. I'd say it's watchable, if you're not expecting too much. I wouldn't be raving about it.
Actually, I'm having more fun watching the show after it, John Doe. At least the whole plot hasn't been given away yet, 20 minutes in.
I think you're absolutely right in saying that Star Trek is Joe Sixpack scifi. It would be hard to explain its popularity otherwise. Logic and science are like afterthoughts. Star Wars did much better in this regard (in the first trilogy), although to be fair, Star Trek's episodic nature made it difficult to achieve what Star Wars did.
Keeping those episodes going is a problem: Star Wars lost me at "midichlorians". Seems like a Star Trek writer got involved in the plot there...
Despite all the (valid!) criticism of the original Star Wars episodes, as honest mass-market scifi it still does a much better job than most of Star Trek.
Let Farscape go. Something better will come along. Maybe even something without muppets.