Let me rephrase the first sentence, because I made the same mistake I believe others did and described Episode 1 as "The Pilot".
Whedon rejected the original episode that was going to be Episode 1. (Fox rejected the idea of doing a pilot.) Initially, Whedon changed it to Episode 2, and made a new Episode 1, then he canceled the now-Episode 2 completely.
So that's partially why some of the first few episodes are... well, not very good. Thus far, only the actual Episode 2 was any good, with Episode 4 being OK.
On July 22, 2008, Joss Whedon announced that the first episode shot, "Echo", would be pushed to be the second, while a new episode would become first, saying that this "idea to do a new first episode wasn't the network's. It was mine."
(The quote is sourced.)
It's not the case that Fox decided not to air "the actual pilot" so much as there wasn't one, as Fox didn't commission a pilot. The first few episodes of any new series tend to be hit or miss, and it looks to me like that, and Fox's initial involvement, are the major issues with Dollhouse's first few episodes. And they haven't been universally awful, I'd watch Episode 2 again.
Back when T:SCC was good, it was easy to forget that the first two or three episodes of that stunk too, with episode one being utterly, utterly, abysmal.
My understanding is that thus far the shuffling has been largely done by Whedon, despite a lot of claims to the contrary. Whedon rejected the pilot, for example, as it just didn't fit together. The major issues with Dollhouse are that Fox has been, apparently, very heavy handed with the first few episodes (and given thus far we've had one good one, one OK one, and two dreadful ones [2, 4, 1 and 2, respectively], it's safe to say they've not done so to the show's credit. Supposedly Ep6 or 7 is where it starts getting "good".
BTW, does anyone else have problems with the notion that Fringe is "Sci-fi"? To my mind, paranormal investigations are anti-sci-fi. But, whatever. I hope Fringe dies. And T:SCC, well, I think Friedman's entirely to blame what happened to it, not scheduling. The show has been utterly awful this season, seventeen shows (well, minus that cool one with Cameron spending her evenings in the library investigating the robot from the 1920s) of utter, unrelenting, depression. Unfortunately, I can't see how this could have turned out better, given that if Fox or WB had decided to take it over, we'd probably have a Ted McGinley terminator chasing the Connors by now, with the Connors defending themselves using their hilarious new canine terminator.
MPEG-3 was going to be HD MPEG until they found they could get it out of MPEG-2. Hence there is no MPEG-3.
MPEG-2 was used by the bulk of cable and satellite broadcasters until relatively recently for HD content. It is currently the core (and only) video codec for the ATSC television standard. It is the primary means of transporting content to cable and satellite providers, although for bandwidth reasons they'll recompress the streams to lower bitrate H.264 streams. Even early Blu-ray discs were encoded with MPEG-2.
Usage of H.264 and VC-1 is restricted to the following at the moment: (1) Most cable and satellite companies use them for the "last mile" link, in order to squeeze as much as possible into limited bandwidth links. (2) Online downloads tend to use these codecs. (3) HD DVD, and newer Blu-ray, discs used/use these codecs, again to maximize use of available space and bandwidth.
MPEG-2 is as unsuited for HD content as it is SD content. Newer codecs are better, but they're also better than MPEG-2 when it comes to SD or even LD content. On a technical level, the major disadvantage of MPEG-2 is more bits for the same quality, and at higher bitrates, the difference between MPEG-2 and H.264/VC-1 quality is relatively minor.
What you're saying - that MPEG-2 is unsuited to HD content - makes little sense and is unsupported by real world usage. MPEG-2's simplicity and fifteen years of being able to optimize compression algorithms means it can be a great choice for many applications. And while there's some criticism of ATSC's noise handling (unrelated to codecs), when the data gets to the receiver without issues the picture is generally very high quality with few visible artifacts, despite the use of real time, difficult to optimize and correct, compression.
Yes, newer codecs are better. But MPEG-2 isn't bad. And it's completely ridiculous to claim it's "unsuited" to HD, as if it can't actually do a decent job.
Re:A good review from a non fanboi
on
Watchmen Watched
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· Score: 1
So Ebert and O'Hehir think it was teh awesome? But both seem to also have an annoying tendency to like stuff that I find fake, like Dark City, and conversely hate anything by Terry Gilliam. (Tideland aside, how can anyone who appreciates moving pictures dislike Gilliam?)
the VC-1 codec is currently the only DRM'd solution that the movie studios see as being viable
VC-1 has nothing to do with DRM. Silverlight happens to use VC-1, and Silverlight happens to have DRM, but the two are as unconnected as, say, MPEG2 and CSS, or H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2 and AACS.
And with a Nokia Internet Tablet you get eight hours of battery life and a much smaller screen, as opposed to eight days of battery life and a fairly decent sized screen.
I have an N800, I love it, but a Kindle it is not. If the Kindle were cheaper, I'd probably get one to complement my N800, not to replace it. They're different products aimed at different applications, and what the Kindle is designed to do is something I don't believe the N800 is a particularly good match for.
I wouldn't say we're winning anything. A combination of (willful?) ignorance and the lack of a market means things are definitely going to get worse in the short and medium term, and the only possible escape route I can see right now is that somehow in the future Hollywood will suffer a massive financial crisis, be forced to make movies that cost a few million each, and find themselves in the same situation as the recording industry.
My favorite example of how we're losing is Blu-ray. Just over a year ago, the consensus amongst geeks were that HD DVD and Blu-ray were both "evil" compared to regular DVD, and both equally evil, and both needed to be boycotted. The exception, for the most part, were PS3 owners who didn't much care anyway.
The problem was that this was false. HD DVD had a number of advantages over DVD (lack of region encoding for a start, and theoretical support for Managed Copy though this still needed a DRM framework in which to operate, but it was at least a loosening of the chains), whereas Blu-ray had one show stopper that should have concerned everyone: In Blu-ray, DRM is mandatory.
That means that if you're part of the non-DRM supporting community, you can't play in the Blu-ray sandbox at all. It means public domain content, widely available on DVD in CSS-free discs for a dollar or two a pop, is going to be locked down and uncopyable - under penalty of law - in high definition form on Blu-ray.
Let me repeat this, because many people don't get it. If you want to distribute content on a widely supported format in high quality high definition, you have to do so with DRM, because the one format left requires it.
We're definitely going backwards here. It's one thing to say "Ok, let's have a community that respects copyright law but eschews DRM because it impedes both on fair use content usage, and damages the public domain", but if the industry says "No, sorry, that community is not going to be allowed to exist, we're actually going to actively prevent that community from even supporting one another", then yes it damages us.
The DRM-free options are being taken away. How is that not a loss?
The rest of your post is non-sense as it is based on incorrect assumptions.
What part is "non-sense"? The "en-tire" post is about the fact that only software from software "au-thors" who "re-fuse" to allow their software to run in an "unlock-ed" "en-vi-ron-ment" is affected. Are you seriously saying that it matters how the consent of those authors is determined?
I hope this isn't true; the unlocked G1 looked like a pretty cool phone, especially (being unlocked) for travel to countries where pre-paid SIM cards are the norm.
It's still a cool phone. You're banned only from using apps where the apps are only available from the Google store, and which cost money. It's not as if you're banned from developing apps, or using free apps, or using apps you've installed via alternative means, or anything like that.
Essentially, any developer who insists on payment and who insists on using only the Google avenue for distribution will find they're not making a lot of sales to users of free (as in freedom) phones. That's a choice they make, just as those who develop paid apps for Windows that insist upon using copy prevention techniques also lock themselves out of other markets. You've not going to run that software under GNU/Linux.
This is a website where a significant number of people have chosen to use Free operating systems, and where even the non-free software that most of us use under those Free operating systems has been made in an environment in which the authors have made a conscious decision to allow the software to install on an environment they have no control over. You and I know it works. You and I know that those of us using distributions like Ubuntu are having a much more relaxed, friendly, and productive time than we do using the non-free platforms, despite some developers boycotting - consciously or otherwise - our platform and not making their software available for it.
If you want a G1, there's no good reason to let this news stand in the way of you doing so. Do it. Add yourself to the numbers of those with unlocked phones. Make developers choose between locked down and free, rather than making them choose locked down by default.
Well, SNL is a poor example. You have to remember that it really cycles. It started off fairly funny, then it kind of ran out of ideas for a bit, and lumbered on, and people watched it but said it wasn't as funny as it was, but then they brought in some fresh talent, and it started to be really funny again, and it became fairly popular, until it started to go downhill and have a whole bunch of really unfunny shows, and everyone started talking about how it was better originally but perhaps it's time it got some fresh talent, and it carried on that way until they obviously brought in some new writers because it started to be hilariously funny again.
Which is why it got renewed for the second season.
Ho ho. Actually, I'm pretty sure one of the hosts made the same joke. Just like SNL I suppose...
But, in any case, SNL gets to re-invent itself on a regular basis, refreshing the cast and writers, so while it usually has periods of stale, unfunny, comedy, it still comes up with a gem every now and again, and every few seasons has a really, really, great season.
The problem with dramas - and that includes sitcoms and animated sitcoms, Futurama being one - is that they have less space to reinvent themselves. They're having to work against a fixed dynamic, with a fixed character set where you can't just swap out old characters for new ones unless you're extraordinarily careful. Yes, somehow they introduced Ted McGinley into Married With Children, but he's a (somewhat ironic, given Ted's usual role of helping with shark jumps) rare exception.
I think some of Futurama's problems have to do with running out of ideas, but some of it has to do with the combination of the break and the movie-length new series episodes. They forgot what the dynamics were, and would have had difficulty making them work in a movie anyway.
None of this is irrecoverable. Other shows have managed to deal with massive gaps between seasons, just look at Family Guy. Groening needs to be a little more active controlling and restricting the show to match the original vision, just as presumably MacFarlane did.
In fairness, you have. Thus far, the plot has been pretty close to La Femme Nikita, with the "brain wiping" thing mixed in. Girl with a criminal past is forced to join ultra secretive and amoral agency which she cannot leave and where she performs various missions. Even the agency has the same archetypes, the father figure mentor, the ruthless boss, etc.
If the series continues down that road, then it'll be a problem. But I think they've already started to show, at least with the second episode, that the show is going to ultimately get out of the Dollhouse, and thus out of that dynamic. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until the end of the first season based upon that second episode. No, it wasn't perfect, but it set in motion a lot of arcs, and it'll be interesting to see where they lead.
Ok, well, whatever it was, the first episode they aired was fairly dire. And the second was fairly good. I await the next few episodes to see which was a fairer reflection of the show itself...
Futurama ran for four seasons before Fox dropped the axe, it was a good show and deserved to continue, but it's hard to put its cancellation in the same basket as the ones fans really complain about, where Fox commissions a show and then either drops it right away before it has time to develop, or demands so many changes that it doesn't stand a chance.
It's going to be interesting to see what's done with Dollhouse. The ratings thus far have been abysmal, and the pilot was very poorly received, but most viewers seem to have been much more positive about the second episode, and that might mean it'll pick up viewers over the next few months. I wouldn't count it out right yet, and if Fox is serious about making Friday evenings a science fiction thing (rather than them just shoving two shows they're uncomfortable with to the death slot - but why commission Dollhouse in the first place?), then I could foresee them dropping T:SCC and replacing it with Futurama and some other show next season, with Dollhouse continuing to be given a chance to prove its viability.
On the other hand, if Ep 2 was a fluke, and Dollhouse is as awful as the pilot suggested, then...
Yeah, but they're fairly predictable. They all just start their cars, put on the blinker - so it makes that clicking noise to remind them they're driving a car, and then get on the highway and steer into the left lane. Stay out of the left lane, and you're fairly safe.
Tough call. My guess would be Fox canceling a promising new sci-fi series.
Interestingly, I suspect that such a story will be appearing soon, probably with news they'll be canceling an unpromising going-nowhere sci-fi series at the same time.
I'm not imagining anything. I'm KNOWING you're the kind of asshole who posts on every Slashdot article about someone's homebrew project whining that it isn't "useful" in some arbitrary utilitarian sense and therefore is pointless. I'm knowing you do this, because like the others you have no imagination, no desire to learn, and no empathy with those who do.
Oh, and it was you who raised Linux, in what appeared to be some kind of ironic "You're criticizing me, but I run Linux! Linux I tell you! Therefore I am cool!" defense against the suggestion you might actually be a wannabe geek. You do know that Linux wasn't utilitarian once too, right?
That's fascinating, but has nothing to do with your original point, which questioned why someone would find it fun and a positive learning experience building something that isn't the most powerful computer on Earth.
It's jolly nice to hear that "Linux" is useful to people who have no imagination or desire to better themselves though.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me rephrase the first sentence, because I made the same mistake I believe others did and described Episode 1 as "The Pilot".
Whedon rejected the original episode that was going to be Episode 1. (Fox rejected the idea of doing a pilot.) Initially, Whedon changed it to Episode 2, and made a new Episode 1, then he canceled the now-Episode 2 completely.
So that's partially why some of the first few episodes are... well, not very good. Thus far, only the actual Episode 2 was any good, with Episode 4 being OK.
(The quote is sourced.)
It's not the case that Fox decided not to air "the actual pilot" so much as there wasn't one, as Fox didn't commission a pilot. The first few episodes of any new series tend to be hit or miss, and it looks to me like that, and Fox's initial involvement, are the major issues with Dollhouse's first few episodes. And they haven't been universally awful, I'd watch Episode 2 again.
Back when T:SCC was good, it was easy to forget that the first two or three episodes of that stunk too, with episode one being utterly, utterly, abysmal.
Did you watch two and three in the wrong order? Or do you just watch Dollhouse for the scantily clad chicks?
'cos Ep 3 was awful. Almost as bad as 1. And Ep. 2 was the best of the season thus far. Rich and complex with a decent amount of drama and humor.
My understanding is that thus far the shuffling has been largely done by Whedon, despite a lot of claims to the contrary. Whedon rejected the pilot, for example, as it just didn't fit together. The major issues with Dollhouse are that Fox has been, apparently, very heavy handed with the first few episodes (and given thus far we've had one good one, one OK one, and two dreadful ones [2, 4, 1 and 2, respectively], it's safe to say they've not done so to the show's credit. Supposedly Ep6 or 7 is where it starts getting "good".
BTW, does anyone else have problems with the notion that Fringe is "Sci-fi"? To my mind, paranormal investigations are anti-sci-fi. But, whatever. I hope Fringe dies. And T:SCC, well, I think Friedman's entirely to blame what happened to it, not scheduling. The show has been utterly awful this season, seventeen shows (well, minus that cool one with Cameron spending her evenings in the library investigating the robot from the 1920s) of utter, unrelenting, depression. Unfortunately, I can't see how this could have turned out better, given that if Fox or WB had decided to take it over, we'd probably have a Ted McGinley terminator chasing the Connors by now, with the Connors defending themselves using their hilarious new canine terminator.
Someone give Friedman some anti-depressants.
MPEG-3 was going to be HD MPEG until they found they could get it out of MPEG-2. Hence there is no MPEG-3.
MPEG-2 was used by the bulk of cable and satellite broadcasters until relatively recently for HD content. It is currently the core (and only) video codec for the ATSC television standard. It is the primary means of transporting content to cable and satellite providers, although for bandwidth reasons they'll recompress the streams to lower bitrate H.264 streams. Even early Blu-ray discs were encoded with MPEG-2.
Usage of H.264 and VC-1 is restricted to the following at the moment: (1) Most cable and satellite companies use them for the "last mile" link, in order to squeeze as much as possible into limited bandwidth links. (2) Online downloads tend to use these codecs. (3) HD DVD, and newer Blu-ray, discs used/use these codecs, again to maximize use of available space and bandwidth.
MPEG-2 is as unsuited for HD content as it is SD content. Newer codecs are better, but they're also better than MPEG-2 when it comes to SD or even LD content. On a technical level, the major disadvantage of MPEG-2 is more bits for the same quality, and at higher bitrates, the difference between MPEG-2 and H.264/VC-1 quality is relatively minor.
What you're saying - that MPEG-2 is unsuited to HD content - makes little sense and is unsupported by real world usage. MPEG-2's simplicity and fifteen years of being able to optimize compression algorithms means it can be a great choice for many applications. And while there's some criticism of ATSC's noise handling (unrelated to codecs), when the data gets to the receiver without issues the picture is generally very high quality with few visible artifacts, despite the use of real time, difficult to optimize and correct, compression.
Yes, newer codecs are better. But MPEG-2 isn't bad. And it's completely ridiculous to claim it's "unsuited" to HD, as if it can't actually do a decent job.
Didn't he also like The Phantom Menace?
So Ebert and O'Hehir think it was teh awesome? But both seem to also have an annoying tendency to like stuff that I find fake, like Dark City, and conversely hate anything by Terry Gilliam. (Tideland aside, how can anyone who appreciates moving pictures dislike Gilliam?)
I'm going to say this is probably an awful movie.
Meh, then you're limited to 2^(#bits in length count) characters per string.
I've always used my own custom string implementation, which uses linked lists of characters...
VC-1 has nothing to do with DRM. Silverlight happens to use VC-1, and Silverlight happens to have DRM, but the two are as unconnected as, say, MPEG2 and CSS, or H.264/VC-1/MPEG-2 and AACS.
And with a Nokia Internet Tablet you get eight hours of battery life and a much smaller screen, as opposed to eight days of battery life and a fairly decent sized screen.
I have an N800, I love it, but a Kindle it is not. If the Kindle were cheaper, I'd probably get one to complement my N800, not to replace it. They're different products aimed at different applications, and what the Kindle is designed to do is something I don't believe the N800 is a particularly good match for.
I wouldn't say we're winning anything. A combination of (willful?) ignorance and the lack of a market means things are definitely going to get worse in the short and medium term, and the only possible escape route I can see right now is that somehow in the future Hollywood will suffer a massive financial crisis, be forced to make movies that cost a few million each, and find themselves in the same situation as the recording industry.
My favorite example of how we're losing is Blu-ray. Just over a year ago, the consensus amongst geeks were that HD DVD and Blu-ray were both "evil" compared to regular DVD, and both equally evil, and both needed to be boycotted. The exception, for the most part, were PS3 owners who didn't much care anyway.
The problem was that this was false. HD DVD had a number of advantages over DVD (lack of region encoding for a start, and theoretical support for Managed Copy though this still needed a DRM framework in which to operate, but it was at least a loosening of the chains), whereas Blu-ray had one show stopper that should have concerned everyone: In Blu-ray, DRM is mandatory.
That means that if you're part of the non-DRM supporting community, you can't play in the Blu-ray sandbox at all. It means public domain content, widely available on DVD in CSS-free discs for a dollar or two a pop, is going to be locked down and uncopyable - under penalty of law - in high definition form on Blu-ray.
Let me repeat this, because many people don't get it. If you want to distribute content on a widely supported format in high quality high definition, you have to do so with DRM, because the one format left requires it.
We're definitely going backwards here. It's one thing to say "Ok, let's have a community that respects copyright law but eschews DRM because it impedes both on fair use content usage, and damages the public domain", but if the industry says "No, sorry, that community is not going to be allowed to exist, we're actually going to actively prevent that community from even supporting one another", then yes it damages us.
The DRM-free options are being taken away. How is that not a loss?
That's the spirit!
What part is "non-sense"? The "en-tire" post is about the fact that only software from software "au-thors" who "re-fuse" to allow their software to run in an "unlock-ed" "en-vi-ron-ment" is affected. Are you seriously saying that it matters how the consent of those authors is determined?
It's still a cool phone. You're banned only from using apps where the apps are only available from the Google store, and which cost money. It's not as if you're banned from developing apps, or using free apps, or using apps you've installed via alternative means, or anything like that.
Essentially, any developer who insists on payment and who insists on using only the Google avenue for distribution will find they're not making a lot of sales to users of free (as in freedom) phones. That's a choice they make, just as those who develop paid apps for Windows that insist upon using copy prevention techniques also lock themselves out of other markets. You've not going to run that software under GNU/Linux.
This is a website where a significant number of people have chosen to use Free operating systems, and where even the non-free software that most of us use under those Free operating systems has been made in an environment in which the authors have made a conscious decision to allow the software to install on an environment they have no control over. You and I know it works. You and I know that those of us using distributions like Ubuntu are having a much more relaxed, friendly, and productive time than we do using the non-free platforms, despite some developers boycotting - consciously or otherwise - our platform and not making their software available for it.
If you want a G1, there's no good reason to let this news stand in the way of you doing so. Do it. Add yourself to the numbers of those with unlocked phones. Make developers choose between locked down and free, rather than making them choose locked down by default.
Well, SNL is a poor example. You have to remember that it really cycles. It started off fairly funny, then it kind of ran out of ideas for a bit, and lumbered on, and people watched it but said it wasn't as funny as it was, but then they brought in some fresh talent, and it started to be really funny again, and it became fairly popular, until it started to go downhill and have a whole bunch of really unfunny shows, and everyone started talking about how it was better originally but perhaps it's time it got some fresh talent, and it carried on that way until they obviously brought in some new writers because it started to be hilariously funny again.
Which is why it got renewed for the second season.
Ho ho. Actually, I'm pretty sure one of the hosts made the same joke. Just like SNL I suppose...
But, in any case, SNL gets to re-invent itself on a regular basis, refreshing the cast and writers, so while it usually has periods of stale, unfunny, comedy, it still comes up with a gem every now and again, and every few seasons has a really, really, great season.
The problem with dramas - and that includes sitcoms and animated sitcoms, Futurama being one - is that they have less space to reinvent themselves. They're having to work against a fixed dynamic, with a fixed character set where you can't just swap out old characters for new ones unless you're extraordinarily careful. Yes, somehow they introduced Ted McGinley into Married With Children, but he's a (somewhat ironic, given Ted's usual role of helping with shark jumps) rare exception.
I think some of Futurama's problems have to do with running out of ideas, but some of it has to do with the combination of the break and the movie-length new series episodes. They forgot what the dynamics were, and would have had difficulty making them work in a movie anyway.
None of this is irrecoverable. Other shows have managed to deal with massive gaps between seasons, just look at Family Guy. Groening needs to be a little more active controlling and restricting the show to match the original vision, just as presumably MacFarlane did.
In fairness, you have. Thus far, the plot has been pretty close to La Femme Nikita, with the "brain wiping" thing mixed in. Girl with a criminal past is forced to join ultra secretive and amoral agency which she cannot leave and where she performs various missions. Even the agency has the same archetypes, the father figure mentor, the ruthless boss, etc.
If the series continues down that road, then it'll be a problem. But I think they've already started to show, at least with the second episode, that the show is going to ultimately get out of the Dollhouse, and thus out of that dynamic. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until the end of the first season based upon that second episode. No, it wasn't perfect, but it set in motion a lot of arcs, and it'll be interesting to see where they lead.
Ok, well, whatever it was, the first episode they aired was fairly dire. And the second was fairly good. I await the next few episodes to see which was a fairer reflection of the show itself...
Futurama ran for four seasons before Fox dropped the axe, it was a good show and deserved to continue, but it's hard to put its cancellation in the same basket as the ones fans really complain about, where Fox commissions a show and then either drops it right away before it has time to develop, or demands so many changes that it doesn't stand a chance.
It's going to be interesting to see what's done with Dollhouse. The ratings thus far have been abysmal, and the pilot was very poorly received, but most viewers seem to have been much more positive about the second episode, and that might mean it'll pick up viewers over the next few months. I wouldn't count it out right yet, and if Fox is serious about making Friday evenings a science fiction thing (rather than them just shoving two shows they're uncomfortable with to the death slot - but why commission Dollhouse in the first place?), then I could foresee them dropping T:SCC and replacing it with Futurama and some other show next season, with Dollhouse continuing to be given a chance to prove its viability.
On the other hand, if Ep 2 was a fluke, and Dollhouse is as awful as the pilot suggested, then...
Yeah, but they're fairly predictable. They all just start their cars, put on the blinker - so it makes that clicking noise to remind them they're driving a car, and then get on the highway and steer into the left lane. Stay out of the left lane, and you're fairly safe.
Are you sure about that? Y'see, I once knew a girl from Nantucket...
.
(Bonus points for completing this comment...)
Why do you assume I assume any of that? Lighten up.
Tough call. My guess would be Fox canceling a promising new sci-fi series.
Interestingly, I suspect that such a story will be appearing soon, probably with news they'll be canceling an unpromising going-nowhere sci-fi series at the same time.
I'm not imagining anything. I'm KNOWING you're the kind of asshole who posts on every Slashdot article about someone's homebrew project whining that it isn't "useful" in some arbitrary utilitarian sense and therefore is pointless. I'm knowing you do this, because like the others you have no imagination, no desire to learn, and no empathy with those who do.
Oh, and it was you who raised Linux, in what appeared to be some kind of ironic "You're criticizing me, but I run Linux! Linux I tell you! Therefore I am cool!" defense against the suggestion you might actually be a wannabe geek. You do know that Linux wasn't utilitarian once too, right?
No, you're not cool. You're an ass.
That's fascinating, but has nothing to do with your original point, which questioned why someone would find it fun and a positive learning experience building something that isn't the most powerful computer on Earth.
It's jolly nice to hear that "Linux" is useful to people who have no imagination or desire to better themselves though.
If that were the case, then Lindows wouldn't have needed to change its name.