"but you certainly don't have to belittle his philanthropic work. "
Why not? If he calls charitable work by open source developers "communist" and "cancer" why should he be immune from the same kind of criticism? Besides he is the richest man in the world what the fuck does he care what anybody on slashdot says about him?
When was the last time someone didn't starve because someone else wrote a new text editor and gave it away with the proviso that if anyone else does anything with it, they have to give away their work for free too?
Scenario 1: Microsoft Buys the company to get the now validated patent (say for 1 billion), and then puts JAVA and Netscape out of the embedded app bussiness. Scenario 2: Microsoft is unable to but the patent. But they dont care! why because they have the.NET strategy..NET escapes this patent. And by abandoning IE's EMBED and APPLET tags who do they hurt? JAVA and Quicktime get hurt. MS who does not get hurt. All of their embedables work fine under.NET. And as far as browser wars go, this is great for Microsoft since Netscape wont be able to use Embeds. Everyon will want to use.NET. MS wins.
Am I crazy? No. Microsoft has already abandon support for the APPLET Tag in windows XP. And they have announced they will not be supporting the Quicktime EMBED's too. Basically they are phasing out everyone eleses Embedable objects as they prepare the way for.NET. This is also why it was critical for MS to say IE was "an integral part of the OS" despite the fact that it wasn't. It's going to be under.NET.
You know, it might JUST be because APPLET and EMBED are not HTML4.0 compliant. The correct tag is OBJECT.
Read the spec. NO-ONE SHOULD BE USING APPLET TAGS ANY MORE. THEY'RE NOT COMPLIANT.
I didnt shoot the guy infront of me in the shop today, arent I good?
OK, microsfot isnt using its patent libraries against anyone at the moment, however that should be normal behavior, not congratulationary behavior.
No one was asking you to congratulate them on it. Just to stop claiming that they'd use the patents against others. They *never have* in the past, except when someone throws a patent lawsuit at them - at which point, they use their patent library to kill the lawsuit.
There _are_ universities with good undergraduate physics programs (and good students coming out of the bad universities), but they certainly seem to be in the minority.... or at the very least, they seem to be in England;-)
Now, consider if multiple universe exist, then one of two things is possibly true about them.
1) they are measureable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally PART of our universe, and hence any talk of "multiple universes" is gibberish.
OR
2) They are not measurable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally NOT proper subject matter of physics but are properly subject matter of philosophy, and anything that is said about them isn't "science" in any meaningfull sense of that word.
But, crap like this isn't new. However, it does seem to be getting to the point where even respectable peer reviewed journals are having a harder and harder time finding people who will actually stand up and SAY something like that.
Presumably you feel the same way about the creation of advanced light waves, and would have felt the same way about anti-matter back when it was first hypothesized?
Multiple universes is one way of looking at it. It explains stuff. It lets you get reasonable answers out of the theory. It's just as likely as the other potential explanations of said theory.
(Personally, I don't believe in multiple universes; I do, however, believe in a mechanism where particles are able to move backwards or forwards through time simultaneously, taking slightly different paths each time, and then their effects are averaged out. I have a pretty good argument for it being the case too).
WTF are you talking about!? All the register has is a front page!! You are confused.
Yes, and it also has a letters page and a flames page. The closest to printing a retraction that the Register has ever come, has involved posting to the letters page.
I meant "mathematicians" or even "statisticians" in quotes. I too would question whether the people coming up with these numbers can even make change, or maybe the only numbers that matter to them are all the zeros on their paychecks. printf("Bill Gates III : %d\n",'B'+'I'+'L'+'L'+'G'+'A'+'T'+'E'+'S'+3);
Speaking of FUD, and bad math...
Your sig.
Kind of stupid, isn't it?
Kind of fucking idiotic math, isn't it?
'B'+'I'+'L'+'L'+'G'+'A'+'T'+'E'+'S'+3
Seems like you're missing an 'I' 'I' 'I' at the end. Because everything else you're adding is ASCII. Or at the very least you need quotes around that '3'.
But hey, that wouldn't fit your 'joke'/agenda/FUD pushing, would it?
And although the piece that he is commenting on has not been verified to be a bonified example of MS strategy, I fully would expect the Register to offer a loud, front page retraction if it turned out to be crap (which it might be, but it also might not be).
Wow, you're optimistic, aren't you? They've never put retractions on the front page before - and the retractions they have posted read like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar -- full of bile and spite.
Those incapable of doing 2 arithmetic operations at once will never understand my sig. 1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
You lost information. When you take a square root of a positive number, you get two results - the positive and the negative root.
SQRT(1) = +1, -1
Therefore, your 2nd to last clause should in fact read: +/-1 = +/-1.
Or alternatively, just remember that the square/SQRT pair is not reversible if you throw away the sign info; that is, if you square -1, the square root is always 1. You cannot substitute back in -1.
These WILL NOT succeed until they are as easy to use and as convenient as paper. Numerous companies have tried to produce what is essentially a laptop with a pen attached, and failed miserably. Most applications are horrid to use with a pen. It will require a handful of revolutionary applications to make these things fly. Think: replace PAPER, not nifty-new-gadget. I want to download my textbook in PDF format, and annotate it. I want to take notes in class (including math and drawings) and then organize them the way I do files on my computer. But if I have to spend a lot of time clicking and tapping to input my notes, it will fail. It has to be as easy as, or easier than paper. It's hard enough to both listen to the lecturer and transcribe the blackboard, without having to deal with the input mechanism not doing what you want it to...
Textbooks: Step 1. Install Microsoft Reader. Step 2. Download Textbook. (Requires your textbook to be in an e-book format). Step 3. Open it, and annotate it onscreen using the pen, as if it were a real book.
Happy?
Why not go to the website - www.tabletpc.com - and actually look at some of the screenshots of their apps. You can even make *your own handwriting* bold, or italic, if you really want to.
Because your documents are different than your contacts which are in turn fundamentally different than your email which are in turn fundamentally different than your buddy lists. Yes, they are all data. So are books, CD's, audio-tapes, which are all quite different. Both in terms of media and interaction. This is such a silly question. Why on earth would you want a 'Universal' viewer for your data...?! This would necessarily lower it to the common denominator, but then it is the differences that make these kinds of data useful.
No, it's the connections between different kinds of data that make those pieces of data useful. The data in and of itself is useless without context.
Simon
Re:Ghandi Stage Three Attained
on
Halloween VII
·
· Score: 2
First, they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
--Ghandi
This quote has been mentioned many times in the context of M$ strategy, but this document indicates to me THEY think things are in the middle of stage 3. was a policy document, not some shiny PR.
So the next stage is Microsoft Wins?
The problem with quotes like this is that either side can use them to justify their 'war'. It only works when one side isn't actually doing any fighting.
News for you, bro: The Linux side is actively fighting.
Then why are US companies keeping there H1B's while laying of US citizens?
They're not all doing that. A lot of H1Bs are being laid off. And guess what? Most recruiters won't even look at people with an H1B these days -- and really haven't since mid-1999 when the first strains of the economy crashing started to be heard.
And guess what? If you're running a company intelligently, you don't always cut for the bottom line. You sometimes cut away the lowest-producing people instead.
The corps that fund most of Congress LIKE the H1B visa system (it saves them money). We, the citizens of the USA, are not the 1st, 2nd or 3rd most important thing on Congress' mind.
Not really -- if anything, an H1B holder typically costs the parent company more.
What it does give them is a workforce that isn't as mobile -- think of it as enforced company loyalty.
Does this mean that: since Outlook Express is part of the Windows Operating System Product installed on a client computer, they need to make public the protocol by which it communicates with Exchange???
That will be a Good Thing!!! But I think it's to good to be true.
In case you've been asleep since Outlook Express was first released, the way it communicates with Exchange is through IMAP.
yep - my workmate has a cell phone (motorola, i *think*) that has an OLED display. it is BRIGHT BLUE! i thought it was vacuum florescent the first time i saw it.
The problem isn't even really with the OS. Remember at one time it cost money for Netscape (because it was [imho:is] the premier product). If someone wanted to strike a deal with Netscape and put it right on the installed OS's desktop... they can't! AOL? Out of the question! Now you must pay more because you haven't given Microsoft the mindshare they wanted.
This is a common misconception, and I have no idea where it comes from.
For example, the Packard Bell computer I had at work in 1998 came with Netscape Navigator pre-installed.
The issues wasn't putting Netscape on there - it was that you couldn't put Netscape on there and remove the shortcut to Internet Explorer.
Similarly, most copies of Windows come with an AOL installer built in. The issue isn't putting it in there - it's that Microsoft want MSN to get the same exposure.
So it's not quite as cut and dried as you seem to want to make it out to be. The OEMs *can* do all of these things -- they just have to leave Microsoft's stuff in there as well, as prominently advertized as the alternatives.
Red Faction has fully mutable terrain. Many realism games separate stamina from health. You're whining for things that exists. The point is these things are more work, which might make the game more expensive. I really dont' care about mutable terrain unless you're maknig a WORMS/scorched earth game. To me thats bells & whistles - less so then graphics, but still just toys compared to the main game
Not entirely; it has patches of mutable terrain -- but not all of the terrain is mutable. They tend to keep the areas which can be modified both small (to reduce the amount of processing required when updating the map), and -- and this is the important part -- they put them where they think you'll try to do the most modifications.:-)
It's certainly not the 'perfect' OS by any stretch. There are systems with more cohesive GUIs out there. There are systems with better handling of removable media out there. There are systems with better real-time support out there. And woebetide you if you try to run Linux on a parallel processor machine.
There's no such thing as perfection. It's an abstract concept. Everything is a shade of gray somewhere in a continuum of choices.
Maybe I'm pathetically striving for geek chiche, but I have always felt that the *nix school is the next level up.
They seem so free of the weird little troubles that plague windows people, they are in charge of their own systems and not spoon fed like windows users, they run the entire Internet (at least the bedrock of it), and they have a system that has remained fundamentally almost unchanged for 30 years in this turbulent industry.
I interpret that as a sign of evolution into perfection, or something like it.
Don't get mixed up between perfection and people who affect an air of superiority/snobbery.
There's a big difference. Perfection? Unix ain't it.
suits are uncomfortable, infact in a sit on you ass all day job, there too fucking hot!!!!! Ok if I worked outside, i might consider waring somthing designed to keep the heat in like a tie, but in an office there highly un-practical, spread pungent smells of sweety armpits, take far too long to shop for and get fitted properly. An I hear to work or look pritty?
Spoken like someone who's never worn a school uniform.:-)
Simon
ps. Friends occasionally wonder at why I look... well, frankly, *comfortable* wearing a suit. Then I ask them what kind of school they went to, and the lightbulb clicks on.
I'm surprised to hear of the cancellation, but true it is -- see the horse's mouth. [farscape.com] However, I doubt it's dead. Farscape has the backing of the brand-name Jim Henson Company, a great premise (IMHO), and a solid library of four years that breaks the magic 88-episode threshold needed for successful post-series syndication.
I bet they'll go to syndication, as all the modern Treks have done, and maybe even score a better channel than SciFi, which can have John Edward for all I care (gag). Keep an eye on UPN. The Farscape season was not set to start until February, being from Australia and all, so there's time.
The only problem is that SciFi has the rights to the first 100 episodes locked up. If they'd gone past 100, it would have been opened up for syndication.
However, without SciFi releasing the rights, they can't work out a syndication deal.
Some (more cynical/conspiracy minded than myself) might think that SciFi planned it this way, so they could cut the show and still keep showing it without anyone else getting their hands on it. But frankly, I can't think of any kind of business reason why they'd do that.
Farscape on the other hand is much more on the edge. The first couple seasons were pure genius but honestly this season felt more like the writers were making things up as they went. The best series have some kind of continuity. Anyone have any idea what changed?
It's just rumor, but apparently SciFi had repeatedly complained that there was too much continuity for new viewers to handle. So Kemper & Co gave them what they asked for - namely, more standalone episodes to give a bit of a chance for people to get up to speed without having to watch every episode.
Unfortunately, it didn't quite work. But when they got back into the arc (or even glanced off it), it was working really well -- see: Unrealized Realities. I Shrink Therefore I Am also worked quite well as mostly-standalone with a chunk of continuity at the end.
They're also doing a lot of setup for other plot arcs.
Slashdot Mirror
But what do they do when the money runs out? Free information doesn't run out.
...give a person a fish and they'll be full for today, teach them to fish and they'll be full for a lifetime...
Paraphrasing:
GPL'd computer software has fuck all to do with medicine, dickwad. Or are you proposing a GPL'd drug system?
Get a fucking clue. Software is not important in the large scheme of things.
"but you certainly don't have to belittle his philanthropic work. "
Why not? If he calls charitable work by open source developers "communist" and "cancer" why should he be immune from the same kind of criticism? Besides he is the richest man in the world what the fuck does he care what anybody on slashdot says about him?
When was the last time someone didn't starve because someone else wrote a new text editor and gave it away with the proviso that if anyone else does anything with it, they have to give away their work for free too?
Get a sense of perspective you fucking muppet.
Scenario 1: Microsoft Buys the company to get the now validated patent (say for 1 billion), and then puts JAVA and Netscape out of the embedded app bussiness. .NET strategy. .NET escapes this patent. And by abandoning IE's EMBED and APPLET tags who do they hurt? JAVA and Quicktime get hurt. MS who does not get hurt. All of their embedables work fine under .NET. And as far as browser wars go, this is great for Microsoft since Netscape wont be able to use Embeds. Everyon will want to use .NET. MS wins.
.NET. This is also why it was critical for MS to say IE was "an integral part of the OS" despite the fact that it wasn't. It's going to be under .NET.
Scenario 2: Microsoft is unable to but the patent. But they dont care! why because they have the
Am I crazy? No. Microsoft has already abandon support for the APPLET Tag in windows XP. And they have announced they will not be supporting the Quicktime EMBED's too. Basically they are phasing out everyone eleses Embedable objects as they prepare the way for
You know, it might JUST be because APPLET and EMBED are not HTML4.0 compliant. The correct tag is OBJECT.
Read the spec. NO-ONE SHOULD BE USING APPLET TAGS ANY MORE. THEY'RE NOT COMPLIANT.
I didnt shoot the guy infront of me in the shop today, arent I good?
OK, microsfot isnt using its patent libraries against anyone at the moment, however that should be normal behavior, not congratulationary behavior.
No one was asking you to congratulate them on it. Just to stop claiming that they'd use the patents against others. They *never have* in the past, except when someone throws a patent lawsuit at them - at which point, they use their patent library to kill the lawsuit.
Simon
There _are_ universities with good undergraduate physics programs (and good students coming out of the bad universities), but they certainly seem to be in the minority. ... or at the very least, they seem to be in England ;-)
Simon
Now, consider if multiple universe exist, then one of two things is possibly true about them.
1) they are measureable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally PART of our universe, and hence any talk of "multiple universes" is gibberish.
OR
2) They are not measurable and studiable from our universe, and hence, are definitionally NOT proper subject matter of physics but are properly subject matter of philosophy, and anything that is said about them isn't "science" in any meaningfull sense of that word.
But, crap like this isn't new. However, it does seem to be getting to the point where even respectable peer reviewed journals are having a harder and harder time finding people who will actually stand up and SAY something like that.
Presumably you feel the same way about the creation of advanced light waves, and would have felt the same way about anti-matter back when it was first hypothesized?
Multiple universes is one way of looking at it. It explains stuff. It lets you get reasonable answers out of the theory. It's just as likely as the other potential explanations of said theory.
(Personally, I don't believe in multiple universes; I do, however, believe in a mechanism where particles are able to move backwards or forwards through time simultaneously, taking slightly different paths each time, and then their effects are averaged out. I have a pretty good argument for it being the case too).
Simon
WTF are you talking about!? All the register has is a front page!! You are confused.
Yes, and it also has a letters page and a flames page. The closest to printing a retraction that the Register has ever come, has involved posting to the letters page.
That's not exactly *front page news*.
Simon
I meant "mathematicians" or even "statisticians" in quotes. I too would question whether the people coming up with these numbers can even make change, or maybe the only numbers that matter to them are all the zeros on their paychecks. ,'B'+'I'+'L'+'L'+'G'+'A'+'T'+'E'+'S'+3);
printf("Bill Gates III : %d\n"
Speaking of FUD, and bad math...
Your sig.
Kind of stupid, isn't it?
Kind of fucking idiotic math, isn't it?
'B'+'I'+'L'+'L'+'G'+'A'+'T'+'E'+'S'+3
Seems like you're missing an 'I' 'I' 'I' at the end. Because everything else you're adding is ASCII. Or at the very least you need quotes around that '3'.
But hey, that wouldn't fit your 'joke'/agenda/FUD pushing, would it?
Hypocrit.
And although the piece that he is commenting on has not been verified to be a bonified example of MS strategy, I fully would expect the Register to offer a loud, front page retraction if it turned out to be crap (which it might be, but it also might not be).
Wow, you're optimistic, aren't you? They've never put retractions on the front page before - and the retractions they have posted read like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar -- full of bile and spite.
Simon
Congratulations! You got the joke!
I think you screwed up the punchline. Or maybe it's just the way you tell them.
Personally, if I were you, I'd stick to the old standbys -- such as:
integral of (1/cabin)
Simon
Those incapable of doing 2 arithmetic operations at once will never understand my sig.
1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
You lost information. When you take a square root of a positive number, you get two results - the positive and the negative root.
SQRT(1) = +1, -1
Therefore, your 2nd to last clause should in fact read: +/-1 = +/-1.
Or alternatively, just remember that the square/SQRT pair is not reversible if you throw away the sign info; that is, if you square -1, the square root is always 1. You cannot substitute back in -1.
Simon
These WILL NOT succeed until they are as easy to use and as convenient as paper. Numerous companies have tried to produce what is essentially a laptop with a pen attached, and failed miserably. Most applications are horrid to use with a pen. It will require a handful of revolutionary applications to make these things fly.
Think: replace PAPER, not nifty-new-gadget. I want to download my textbook in PDF format, and annotate it. I want to take notes in class (including math and drawings) and then organize them the way I do files on my computer. But if I have to spend a lot of time clicking and tapping to input my notes, it will fail. It has to be as easy as, or easier than paper. It's hard enough to both listen to the lecturer and transcribe the blackboard, without having to deal with the input mechanism not doing what you want it to...
Textbooks:
Step 1. Install Microsoft Reader.
Step 2. Download Textbook. (Requires your textbook to be in an e-book format).
Step 3. Open it, and annotate it onscreen using the pen, as if it were a real book.
Happy?
Why not go to the website - www.tabletpc.com - and actually look at some of the screenshots of their apps. You can even make *your own handwriting* bold, or italic, if you really want to.
Simon
Hmm, let's see ...
.
Because your documents are different than your contacts which are in turn fundamentally different than your email which are in turn fundamentally different than your buddy lists. Yes, they are all data. So are books, CD's, audio-tapes, which are all quite different. Both in terms of media and interaction. This is such a silly question. Why on earth would you want a 'Universal' viewer for your data...?! This would necessarily lower it to the common denominator, but then it is the differences that make these kinds of data useful.
No, it's the connections between different kinds of data that make those pieces of data useful. The data in and of itself is useless without context
Simon
First, they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
--Ghandi
This quote has been mentioned many times in the context of M$ strategy, but this document indicates to me THEY think things are in the middle of stage 3. was a policy document, not some shiny PR.
So the next stage is Microsoft Wins?
The problem with quotes like this is that either side can use them to justify their 'war'. It only works when one side isn't actually doing any fighting.
News for you, bro: The Linux side is actively fighting.
Then why are US companies keeping there H1B's while laying of US citizens?
They're not all doing that. A lot of H1Bs are being laid off. And guess what? Most recruiters won't even look at people with an H1B these days -- and really haven't since mid-1999 when the first strains of the economy crashing started to be heard.
And guess what? If you're running a company intelligently, you don't always cut for the bottom line. You sometimes cut away the lowest-producing people instead.
And those people aren't always H1B workers.
Simon
The corps that fund most of Congress LIKE the H1B visa system (it saves them money). We, the citizens of the USA, are not the 1st, 2nd or 3rd most important thing on Congress' mind.
Not really -- if anything, an H1B holder typically costs the parent company more.
What it does give them is a workforce that isn't as mobile -- think of it as enforced company loyalty.
Simon
Does this mean that: since Outlook Express is part of the Windows Operating System Product installed on a client computer, they need to make public the protocol by which it communicates with Exchange???
That will be a Good Thing!!! But I think it's to good to be true.
In case you've been asleep since Outlook Express was first released, the way it communicates with Exchange is through IMAP.
Duh
yep - my workmate has a cell phone (motorola, i *think*) that has an OLED display. it is BRIGHT BLUE! i thought it was vacuum florescent the first time i saw it.
Actually, that stuff's electroluminescent tape.
http://www.3dxtreme.org/pcmodstape.shtml
Not quite the same as an OLED.
Si
The problem isn't even really with the OS. Remember at one time it cost money for Netscape (because it was [imho:is] the premier product). If someone wanted to strike a deal with Netscape and put it right on the installed OS's desktop... they can't! AOL? Out of the question! Now you must pay more because you haven't given Microsoft the mindshare they wanted.
This is a common misconception, and I have no idea where it comes from.
For example, the Packard Bell computer I had at work in 1998 came with Netscape Navigator pre-installed.
The issues wasn't putting Netscape on there - it was that you couldn't put Netscape on there and remove the shortcut to Internet Explorer.
Similarly, most copies of Windows come with an AOL installer built in. The issue isn't putting it in there - it's that Microsoft want MSN to get the same exposure.
So it's not quite as cut and dried as you seem to want to make it out to be. The OEMs *can* do all of these things -- they just have to leave Microsoft's stuff in there as well, as prominently advertized as the alternatives.
Simon
Red Faction has fully mutable terrain. Many realism games separate stamina from health. You're whining for things that exists. The point is these things are more work, which might make the game more expensive. I really dont' care about mutable terrain unless you're maknig a WORMS/scorched earth game. To me thats bells & whistles - less so then graphics, but still just toys compared to the main game
:-)
Not entirely; it has patches of mutable terrain -- but not all of the terrain is mutable. They tend to keep the areas which can be modified both small (to reduce the amount of processing required when updating the map), and -- and this is the important part -- they put them where they think you'll try to do the most modifications.
Si
It's the closest you'll find to perfection.
In what régime?
It's certainly not the 'perfect' OS by any stretch. There are systems with more cohesive GUIs out there. There are systems with better handling of removable media out there. There are systems with better real-time support out there. And woebetide you if you try to run Linux on a parallel processor machine.
There's no such thing as perfection. It's an abstract concept. Everything is a shade of gray somewhere in a continuum of choices.
Maybe I'm pathetically striving for geek chiche, but I have always felt that the *nix school is the next level up.
They seem so free of the weird little troubles that plague windows people, they are in charge of their own systems and not spoon fed like windows users, they run the entire Internet (at least the bedrock of it), and they have a system that has remained fundamentally almost unchanged for 30 years in this turbulent industry.
I interpret that as a sign of evolution into perfection, or something like it.
Don't get mixed up between perfection and people who affect an air of superiority/snobbery.
There's a big difference. Perfection? Unix ain't it.
Simon
suits are uncomfortable, infact in a sit on you ass all day job, there too fucking hot!!!!! Ok if I worked outside, i might consider waring somthing designed to keep the heat in like a tie, but in an office there highly un-practical, spread pungent smells of sweety armpits, take far too long to shop for and get fitted properly.
:-)
An I hear to work or look pritty?
Spoken like someone who's never worn a school uniform.
Simon
ps. Friends occasionally wonder at why I look... well, frankly, *comfortable* wearing a suit. Then I ask them what kind of school they went to, and the lightbulb clicks on.
I'm surprised to hear of the cancellation, but true it is -- see the horse's mouth. [farscape.com] However, I doubt it's dead. Farscape has the backing of the brand-name Jim Henson Company, a great premise (IMHO), and a solid library of four years that breaks the magic 88-episode threshold needed for successful post-series syndication.
I bet they'll go to syndication, as all the modern Treks have done, and maybe even score a better channel than SciFi, which can have John Edward for all I care (gag). Keep an eye on UPN. The Farscape season was not set to start until February, being from Australia and all, so there's time.
The only problem is that SciFi has the rights to the first 100 episodes locked up. If they'd gone past 100, it would have been opened up for syndication.
However, without SciFi releasing the rights, they can't work out a syndication deal.
Some (more cynical/conspiracy minded than myself) might think that SciFi planned it this way, so they could cut the show and still keep showing it without anyone else getting their hands on it. But frankly, I can't think of any kind of business reason why they'd do that.
Simon
Farscape on the other hand is much more on the edge. The first couple seasons were pure genius but honestly this season felt more like the writers were making things up as they went. The best series have some kind of continuity. Anyone have any idea what changed?
It's just rumor, but apparently SciFi had repeatedly complained that there was too much continuity for new viewers to handle. So Kemper & Co gave them what they asked for - namely, more standalone episodes to give a bit of a chance for people to get up to speed without having to watch every episode.
Unfortunately, it didn't quite work. But when they got back into the arc (or even glanced off it), it was working really well -- see: Unrealized Realities. I Shrink Therefore I Am also worked quite well as mostly-standalone with a chunk of continuity at the end.
They're also doing a lot of setup for other plot arcs.