I require it to meet the actual definition of deus ex machina, which has a specific meaning.
A deus ex machina (IPA: [ËdeÉÊOEs Éks ËmakÊÉna], literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a surprising or unexpected event occurs in a story's plot, often to resolve flaws or tie up loose ends in the narrative.
Such as Kara Thrace coming back to life, her body not being on the planet where her ship disindegrated, and then her third body just vanishing without explanation. Oh wait, there is an 'explanation': The god of the machines.
... scientists reveal that drinking clean water is better than drinking polluted water, and eating uncontaminated food is better than eating food laden with pesticides or other poisons or carcinogens.
It's this type of unintuitive research that I'm proud to sponsor with my tax dollars.
It has to be done, otherwise the only "scientific" literature on these subjects would be funded by the businesses that pollute the water, the air, and your food with their pesticides etc., and surprise surprise, their "research" would say that all of it is not only harmless, but promotes Freedom and Democracy and puppies.
I think it's similar to how Kara Thrace is supposed to lead them to their end as well - it's end as in end of the journey, rather than the wiping out of all existence.
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. Shaw: What? Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
All those alcoholics gave up liquor? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
And the smokers! It was a mystery how they managed to keep cigarettes for so long in the fleet, but once they find a place to grow tobacco... what, all the non-smoking colonials declared america the only smoking continent?
'Death' doesn't always mean the end of life, but sometimes it means a new beginning. The hybrids never spoke literally to begin with.
It LITERALLY means the end of life. And the hybrids were nice enough to point that out:
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. Shaw: What? Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
Harbinger of death to the Cylons. Remember it was always the hybrids that called her that.
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end. Shaw: What? Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
Right, and I got the impression that the show's God (since "it doesn't like to be called that" as Angel Six said) falls into that sufficiently advanced category. Perhaps an ascended survivor of a much earlier cycle of death and rebirth, who still takes interest in the process.
Oh, and also, the role that Hera plays that makes her so important is a little bit strange to me. To have her be the genetic Eve of our race kind of puts a strange importance on her. What does it mean-- being half cylon gives her the superpower of having lots of sex with various different men, having diverse offspring, I guess.
I guess I'm really asking, what does her being half-cylon half-human have to do with anything? Couldn't you make the argument that Athena is the actual genetic Eve? Is Hera actually important?
Seriously! Mitochondrial DNA is 100% maternal, so yes, Boomer/Hera is mitochondrial eve, the whole half-cylon thing was... nothing. It's pointless.
No, Deus Ex Machina requires the resolution to drop in that moment, without story support. God suddenly appears, and fixes things.
That's not at all what BSG did. BSG pre-seeded their resolutions a year or more in advance. Sure, they were miracles, but they were miracles we'd been told a year ago would happen, all the finale did was show us exactly how they happened.
You can not like the way it was resolved, but that doesn't mean it was Deus Ex Machina.
It was deus ex machina, with a long epilogue.
How many "machine" and "god" references do you need to be next to each other before you say it in latin?
While it is understandable that people are pissed over the AIG bonuses...the acts passed by the house which try to retroactively and specically target these, again, is scary and I'd think unconstitutional. If these payouts were from valid contracts signed in the past, I don't see any clear way they could be overturned.
The thing about that is that a bonus is supposed to be given to reward good performance, but they're treating them as an entitlement. And people are starting to see through their bullshit.
It wasn't a glitch, it was negligence! Cheap cost cutting measures, enabled by foolish deregulation: Trees were not trimmed around critical power lines, the lines were cut by falling branches, and then a cascading failure spread through the grid.
Seriously. Why do actors and actresses who pretend to be politicans and soldiers for tv and movies get more influence over "real world" politics like the UN than I do?
Because they have an audience larger than the population of many UN member states. Seriously.
my high school almost got in trouble for photocopying sheet music. We spent a day in the music room pulling all the copies and tossing them in the garbage.
Fair use for educational purposes didn't mean a thing to your school?
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I require it to meet the actual definition of deus ex machina, which has a specific meaning.
A deus ex machina (IPA: [ËdeÉÊOEs Éks ËmakÊÉna], literally "god from the machine") is a plot device in which a surprising or unexpected event occurs in a story's plot, often to resolve flaws or tie up loose ends in the narrative.
Such as Kara Thrace coming back to life, her body not being on the planet where her ship disindegrated, and then her third body just vanishing without explanation. Oh wait, there is an 'explanation': The god of the machines.
You're using the fallacy of necessity. I'm not buying.
No, but you're using the fallacy of naming random entries from a list of fallacies.
I see I've got a coward with mod points on my case, this week had been rich in completely unwarranted troll mods.
a contract that you get X dollars at the end of the year, with no strings attached.
Have you got any evidence that this is the case?
I'm pretty sure bonuses have strings attached.
... scientists reveal that drinking clean water is better than drinking polluted water, and eating uncontaminated food is better than eating food laden with pesticides or other poisons or carcinogens.
It's this type of unintuitive research that I'm proud to sponsor with my tax dollars.
It has to be done, otherwise the only "scientific" literature on these subjects would be funded by the businesses that pollute the water, the air, and your food with their pesticides etc., and surprise surprise, their "research" would say that all of it is not only harmless, but promotes Freedom and Democracy and puppies.
I really hate this phrase. The more I see it used, the more I'm convinced it's just people trying to sound smart.
If correlation never implies causation, then every study ever done is invalidated.
Well, maybe http://xkcd.com/552/
I think it's similar to how Kara Thrace is supposed to lead them to their end as well - it's end as in end of the journey, rather than the wiping out of all existence.
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end.
Shaw: What?
Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
All those alcoholics gave up liquor? I DON'T THINK SO!!!
And the smokers! It was a mystery how they managed to keep cigarettes for so long in the fleet, but once they find a place to grow tobacco... what, all the non-smoking colonials declared america the only smoking continent?
None of it made any damn sense ;(
'Death' doesn't always mean the end of life, but sometimes it means a new beginning. The hybrids never spoke literally to begin with.
It LITERALLY means the end of life. And the hybrids were nice enough to point that out:
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end.
Shaw: What?
Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
Harbinger of death to the Cylons. Remember it was always the hybrids that called her that.
Hybrid: Kara Thrace will lead the human race to its end.
Shaw: What?
Hybrid: She is the herald of the apocalypse. The harbinger of death. They must not follow her.
Right, and I got the impression that the show's God (since "it doesn't like to be called that" as Angel Six said) falls into that sufficiently advanced category. Perhaps an ascended survivor of a much earlier cycle of death and rebirth, who still takes interest in the process.
So... Daniel Jackson did it?
The god explanation is such a cop out.
I thought the "You know it doesn't like that name." was a nice touch
He goes by "Allah" nowadays?
Oh, and also, the role that Hera plays that makes her so important is a little bit strange to me. To have her be the genetic Eve of our race kind of puts a strange importance on her. What does it mean-- being half cylon gives her the superpower of having lots of sex with various different men, having diverse offspring, I guess.
I guess I'm really asking, what does her being half-cylon half-human have to do with anything? Couldn't you make the argument that Athena is the actual genetic Eve? Is Hera actually important?
Seriously! Mitochondrial DNA is 100% maternal, so yes, Boomer/Hera is mitochondrial eve, the whole half-cylon thing was... nothing. It's pointless.
No, Deus Ex Machina requires the resolution to drop in that moment, without story support. God suddenly appears, and fixes things.
That's not at all what BSG did. BSG pre-seeded their resolutions a year or more in advance. Sure, they were miracles, but they were miracles we'd been told a year ago would happen, all the finale did was show us exactly how they happened.
You can not like the way it was resolved, but that doesn't mean it was Deus Ex Machina.
It was deus ex machina, with a long epilogue.
How many "machine" and "god" references do you need to be next to each other before you say it in latin?
While it is understandable that people are pissed over the AIG bonuses...the acts passed by the house which try to retroactively and specically target these, again, is scary and I'd think unconstitutional. If these payouts were from valid contracts signed in the past, I don't see any clear way they could be overturned.
The thing about that is that a bonus is supposed to be given to reward good performance, but they're treating them as an entitlement.
And people are starting to see through their bullshit.
Bribe just about any good electrician
Erm... evil, maybe? :)
the lines were cut by falling branches
Apparently I had that bit upside down; it was the power lines swinging low, not branches falling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Blackout_of_2003#Sequence_of_events
And here's a piece about why regulations are good and should be enforced: http://www.ontariotenants.ca/electricity/articles/2003/ts-03i08.phtml
Similarly, the blackout of 1965 was caused by cheap cost cutting measures, enabled by foolish regulation.
No: The cause of the (1965) failure was human error that happened days before the blackout, when maintenance personnel incorrectly set a protective relay on one of the transmission lines.
It wasn't a glitch, it was negligence! Cheap cost cutting measures, enabled by foolish deregulation: Trees were not trimmed around critical power lines, the lines were cut by falling branches, and then a cascading failure spread through the grid.
I hope you understand that there are things Sailors can't talk about
We won't ask, and you won't tell.
Fair use for educational purposes didn't mean a thing to the lawyers of the sheet music company.
Your school should have educated them ;-)
Seriously. Why do actors and actresses who pretend to be politicans and soldiers for tv and movies get more influence over "real world" politics like the UN than I do?
Because they have an audience larger than the population of many UN member states. Seriously.
my high school almost got in trouble for photocopying sheet music. We spent a day in the music room pulling all the copies and tossing them in the garbage.
Fair use for educational purposes didn't mean a thing to your school?
I'm down with the hippie hate
Stop hating on the hippies, they make good brownies :)
Canada uses paper ballots.
But down south they vote on like 80 different things at once.