Wow. You do realize it's supposed to be fiction don't you?
I have imagination and an active curiosity and I enjoy "Fringe" a lot. Sure the "science" part of the "science fiction" can be pretty preposterous, but I'm capable of distinguishing between that and reality. The good characters and good actors who play them, twists and turns of the story arc, good suspense, and imaginative ideas (especially for a TV show) are what makes it good. I could drive a truck through the plot holes based on the "science" mythology they have created, but I don't mind because I like the stories.
I also prefer it to the "X-Files" which was often a great show, but dragged out an incomprehensible story arc for so long I eventually didn't care any more, whereas with "Fringe" things started moving along early on and kept up a good pace.
I'll see you and raise you "Stoke Me A Clipper"... and "Tikka To Ride". Season 7 was a different style, one that didn't work as well for Red Dwarf, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some great material there, and some great episodes.
That happens to me a lot... laughing long before everyone else at a movie. Sometimes I'm afraid it might be distracting but like you said sometimes the setup is enough to telegraph the joke and it's _still_ funny. Of course, I've watched hundreds of hours of MST3K, etc, so I've been known to bust out laughing for no outward reason when I think of something that would make a great riff. It's worse with my kids... that show has taught them to talk constantly during movies... it's a lot of fun for the right kind of movies, but some movies I just want to watch.
A "land where soap operas receive more respect than science comedies" sounds a lot better than the U.S.A., where mouth-drooling "reality" shows trump both.
There's always been crappy TV, but there are actually more good shows the last few years then there have been for a while, IMO. You just need to ignore most of what's popular and find them.
Well, you're closer than you think. The American pilot (which mercifully never aired) had Terry Farrell playing Cat (i.e., tall hot chick from another Start Trek show). The other cast members were totally forgettable except for Robert Llewelyn. Hey, Dude needs to eat... at least the show would have had a good Kryten.
Although I must say, Jane Leeves playing Holly worked for me. I know that's blasphemy to some...
Burns: Smithers I've said too much, get out the mind eraser device. Smithers: You mean the revolver, sir? Burns: Precisely, and when you're through, make sure you erase your memory, too.
My favourite seasons were 1 and 2, which most people think were the worst.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to the first 2 series as anything but the best, so I'm sure you're in the majority there.
I agree that the early series were better, but I've liked them all. My 14-year-old son is rabid Red Dwarf fan, and my other kids like it too, which makes watching it lot more fun. There were definitely things about Seasons 7 and 8 that made them not as good (e.g., no audience), but there was still a lot of great stuff about them. And I don't care what anyone says, "Stoke Me A Clipper" was one of the best episodes of the show.
OK, well then you can adopt the saying, "That's an invalid comparison, like comparing apples and eschatology." or "But the comparison is not apt, as with comparing the Mohorovicic Discontinuity and oranges."
p.s. I tried pasting in the diacriticals, but/. ate them. I guess it's still 1998 in/.-land.
Those plans won't be created because there's no way to trick people into being outrageously overcharged.
But with an "unlimited*" plan you can set some limit... it doesn't even have to be secret or anything, because there's generally no convenient way to know how much bandwidth you are using on a phone, and then charge something ludicrous like 3 cents a kilobyte once the user exceeds that limit.
It happened to me and I figured that, very conservatively, the bandwidth I was using on my phone was 4 orders of magnitude more expensive than by FIOS connection.
I don't suppose you saw the Zogby polls showing how utterly ignorant Obama voters were.... and they specifically selected for college graduates, not the woman who thought he was going to pay her gas and mortgage.
Actually those games are nothing like Civilization and only superficially like Sim City. There is really no strategy at all, it's basically a matter of putting in the time to get the levels. If you work at it, there's no way you can "lose" because you can always continue with a little more time and effort (or take a shortcut with money).
You're assuming a "fun" game is a "successful" game. Zynga's games aren't that much fun... they use some pretty nifty psychological tricks to get you hooked, kind of like WoW and EverQuest, only for a more casual audience. The design of the games is extremely clever, not from a game-design point of view, but from a B. F. Skinner point of view. They are designed to make you want to play not because they are fun, but despite the fact that they really aren't all that fun.
Zynga figured out how to drill right down to our hunter-gatherer instincts in a way I've never quite seen before. I mean, the MMORPGs did a pretty good job, but Zynga managed to figure out how to snag "non-gamers" and cause them to not only stick with the game, but relentlessly promote to everyone they know (on FB anyway) and are now something like 6 times the size of EA. Making level-grinding tedious and then offering you to buy your way up is another great idea to rack up the scratch.
Of course EA has been around for some 30 years or more. I doubt Zynga will last more than 5 years, but I could be wrong. By 2016, they might be bigger than Microsoft.
Slashdot Mirror
No one wants to watch a scifi show where people do nothing but solve complicated math problems on a chalk board for 45 minutes.
Meek, lone voice in the back of the room: I do.
But you're absolutely right. I read physics and math for fun, but I also love hard SF and not-so-hard SF and I also love "Fringe".
Wow. You do realize it's supposed to be fiction don't you?
I have imagination and an active curiosity and I enjoy "Fringe" a lot. Sure the "science" part of the "science fiction" can be pretty preposterous, but I'm capable of distinguishing between that and reality. The good characters and good actors who play them, twists and turns of the story arc, good suspense, and imaginative ideas (especially for a TV show) are what makes it good. I could drive a truck through the plot holes based on the "science" mythology they have created, but I don't mind because I like the stories.
I also prefer it to the "X-Files" which was often a great show, but dragged out an incomprehensible story arc for so long I eventually didn't care any more, whereas with "Fringe" things started moving along early on and kept up a good pace.
I'll see you and raise you "Stoke Me A Clipper"... and "Tikka To Ride". Season 7 was a different style, one that didn't work as well for Red Dwarf, but that doesn't mean there wasn't some great material there, and some great episodes.
That happens to me a lot... laughing long before everyone else at a movie. Sometimes I'm afraid it might be distracting but like you said sometimes the setup is enough to telegraph the joke and it's _still_ funny. Of course, I've watched hundreds of hours of MST3K, etc, so I've been known to bust out laughing for no outward reason when I think of something that would make a great riff. It's worse with my kids... that show has taught them to talk constantly during movies... it's a lot of fun for the right kind of movies, but some movies I just want to watch.
Kryten might even end up the next Justin Bieber.
Thanks for humorous, yet emotionally-scarring mental image you just created in my head.
Filter error: Don't use so many apostrophes. It's like BEING STUPID.
Ditto with exclamation points and pointless profanity. Just sayin'.
I haven't watched them all the way through but from what I've seen some of the things they did in the "remastering" makes Lucas' stuff look reserved.
Cool! Does he play any Rastabilly Skank?
You're right, but I still think the popularity "Two and A Half Men" must involve some kind of secret mind-control ray.
A "land where soap operas receive more respect than science comedies" sounds a lot better than the U.S.A., where mouth-drooling "reality" shows trump both.
There's always been crappy TV, but there are actually more good shows the last few years then there have been for a while, IMO. You just need to ignore most of what's popular and find them.
Well, you're closer than you think. The American pilot (which mercifully never aired) had Terry Farrell playing Cat (i.e., tall hot chick from another Start Trek show). The other cast members were totally forgettable except for Robert Llewelyn. Hey, Dude needs to eat... at least the show would have had a good Kryten.
Although I must say, Jane Leeves playing Holly worked for me. I know that's blasphemy to some...
Burns: Smithers I've said too much, get out the mind eraser device.
Smithers: You mean the revolver, sir?
Burns: Precisely, and when you're through, make sure you erase your memory, too.
My favourite seasons were 1 and 2, which most people think were the worst.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to the first 2 series as anything but the best, so I'm sure you're in the majority there.
I agree that the early series were better, but I've liked them all. My 14-year-old son is rabid Red Dwarf fan, and my other kids like it too, which makes watching it lot more fun. There were definitely things about Seasons 7 and 8 that made them not as good (e.g., no audience), but there was still a lot of great stuff about them. And I don't care what anyone says, "Stoke Me A Clipper" was one of the best episodes of the show.
I'd watch it with Rifftrax.
OK, well then you can adopt the saying, "That's an invalid comparison, like comparing apples and eschatology." or "But the comparison is not apt, as with comparing the Mohorovicic Discontinuity and oranges."
p.s. I tried pasting in the diacriticals, but /. ate them. I guess it's still 1998 in /.-land.
Hey, I've been driving a Floopmobile for several years now, and aside from numerous rubber-band replacements, I'm quite happy with it.
Ford did some great things for American business and industry, but our society could have lived without his politics.
"Literally crying buckets"?
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Those plans won't be created because there's no way to trick people into being outrageously overcharged.
But with an "unlimited*" plan you can set some limit... it doesn't even have to be secret or anything, because there's generally no convenient way to know how much bandwidth you are using on a phone, and then charge something ludicrous like 3 cents a kilobyte once the user exceeds that limit.
It happened to me and I figured that, very conservatively, the bandwidth I was using on my phone was 4 orders of magnitude more expensive than by FIOS connection.
But the OS you need to run it isn't.
I don't suppose you saw the Zogby polls showing how utterly ignorant Obama voters were.... and they specifically selected for college graduates, not the woman who thought he was going to pay her gas and mortgage.
Actually those games are nothing like Civilization and only superficially like Sim City. There is really no strategy at all, it's basically a matter of putting in the time to get the levels. If you work at it, there's no way you can "lose" because you can always continue with a little more time and effort (or take a shortcut with money).
Oh, there's a God all right. The problem (if you want to see it that way) is that He gave us Free Will.
Any problems with the system are our own fault.
You're assuming a "fun" game is a "successful" game. Zynga's games aren't that much fun... they use some pretty nifty psychological tricks to get you hooked, kind of like WoW and EverQuest, only for a more casual audience. The design of the games is extremely clever, not from a game-design point of view, but from a B. F. Skinner point of view. They are designed to make you want to play not because they are fun, but despite the fact that they really aren't all that fun.
Zynga figured out how to drill right down to our hunter-gatherer instincts in a way I've never quite seen before. I mean, the MMORPGs did a pretty good job, but Zynga managed to figure out how to snag "non-gamers" and cause them to not only stick with the game, but relentlessly promote to everyone they know (on FB anyway) and are now something like 6 times the size of EA. Making level-grinding tedious and then offering you to buy your way up is another great idea to rack up the scratch.
Of course EA has been around for some 30 years or more. I doubt Zynga will last more than 5 years, but I could be wrong. By 2016, they might be bigger than Microsoft.
My religion doesn't say that. You must have it confused with another.
Gee, you sound like the President.