Well, honestly, I ask because about the only measure you've given me for whether or not a given work is good or bad or worth the cost is if it's original. Originality is apparently the wellspring from which creativity and social commentary and everything else flows from.
And again, I pose the question to you: how do you separate the origins of a given work from the measure of it's originality? How is one irrelevant from the other?
No matter what the answer, you'll claim it isn't original, and will probably once again claim there are only 37 plots in all of literature, a statement that is as absurd as claiming there are only eight colors in all of art.
Nice straw man you got there. Is it Guy Fawkes day already?
The point is it isn't original, and by spending millions on it, really original productions are ignored.
Your point may be that the lack of originality has somehow robbed us of some other, more worthy art, but my point is that there are far better tests of a production's value than a simple question of whether or not it's original.
Have you ever seen some of the original movies that Sci-Fi shows on Saturday nights? These movies may be "original" by your measure, but tend to have, at the very least in comparison to BSG, poor acting, poor direction, and poor characterization. Do you mean to suggest that some of these made-for-TV movies are in some way superior to The Magnificent Seven or Yojimbo?
Origin and originality are two different things, however subtle the difference may be.
How are they significantly different, especially in the context of the debate over the value of originality in a televised work? Since you're continuing to accuse me of presenting an irrelevant topic (the origins of Hamlet) "in order to divert attention from the original issue," how do you separate the origins of Battlestar Galactica from the measure of its originality? In my estimation, you cannot separate the two--one is intrinsically tied to the other.
When the top grossing movies are based on theme park rides and television shows from the 1960s and the most ambitious television projects are based on television shows from the 1970s, it's time to ask if any of these companies plan on making anything original.
I'm curious--what was, in your eyes, the last original production you saw, television or otherwise?
And again, putting your hyperbole aside, did you watch the mini-series?
In a discussion debating the lack of originality of a given work, a black letter red herring could be introducing how hollywood lawyers adversely affect the quality of the work. Look it up.
Since you consider it to be "one of the most famous works of literature in the history of civilization," and obviously a work of value when measuring "creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture or literary achievement," Hamlet and the non-Shakespearean origins of the story are certainly germane to your objections to the origins of the latest Battlestar Galactica.
Let me put it to you another way:
There should be little difference in evaluating a retelling of Norse legend and criticizing a retelling of a retelling of Mormon mythology, whether it's in television, film, or theater, especially in when one of the litmus tests is making "something original."
A remake, by definition, is not original.
Nor is a retelling.
Hollywood complains at exhausting length about how expensive and risky it is to make these stumbling multi-million dollar white elephant productions, yet they absolutely refuse to hire even one writer to make even one original script that isn't designed by a marketing formula.
Putting aside your hyperbole for a moment, honestly, I have to ask--Did you even watch the mini-series?
People are sick and tired of remade, reconstituted crap. The low television ratings are proof.
Your suggestion that a work has an apparent lack of "creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture or literary achievement" simply because it's unoriginal and/or has apparent financial motivations would eally eliminate much of the media we have available to us, including your vaunted Shakespeare, who wrote many of his plays for mass-appeal from other source material.
There should be little difference in evaluating a retelling of Norse legend and criticizing a retelling of a retelling of Mormon mythology, whether it's in television, film, or theater, especially in when one of the litmus tests is making "something original."
If you're going to condemn a given production because of it's lack of originality, then you might as well avoid any and all new media, because, frankly, it's all been written--one way or the other. Name any "original" production, be it dramatic or prose, and there are likely numerous prior works which have influenced it in some way.
On the other hand, you're welcome to give a criticism of the work itself and the way the writer/director/actors have presented the story.
Well, I was going to go see a showing of Hamlet at the local theater, but after finiding out that it's an unoriginal play based on Norse Legends, I'll have to find my creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture, and literary achievement elsewhere...
Pioneer's new DVD Recorder with TiVo allows you to use the PVR functions of the TiVo without paying a monthly fee. Of course, you don't get the Season Passes, Wishlists, or Home Media Option, etc, but you do get digital recording, no tapes, 3 days of guide data, and a DVD-Recorder (a new level of service called "TiVo Basic"). All this for about the price of a mid-range PC (900 dollars or so).
You can upgrade to the actual service if you so desire.
By the way, RTV even has a secret code (at least before the 55xx models) that, instead of commercial skip, skips content, so you can see ONLY the commercials. Super Bowl, anyone?:)
That's rather nifty. Too many friends come up to me saying "Have you seen that commmercial..."
Hey, I'm just going by what I read in the news (and when I say "current" I mean currently available for sale, namely the 5500 series).
Honestly, I don't estimate there's a significant difference between automatic commercial advance and TiVo's 60x fast forwarding. I can still get through an hour-long show in just about 40 minutes, plus I can stop and re-watch all the Victoria Secret ads...
The dot com age is over. At my company most of those coders have been let go or moved out of programming.
According to Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap. That goes for television shows, books, usenet posts and computer programs. It also goes for programmers, both employed and unemployed.
Even with the crumble of the dot-com era, companies are still interested in using Internet and Internet technologies for business, which means a lot of "interactive design" firms (and yes, they're still around) have the opportunity to sell websites and applications. I could show you code from currently employed programmers that would make your inner coder vomit (check my latest Slashdot journal entry for one example).
With the speed by which many new shows are coming out on DVD, I don't really feel the need to keep everything that I record. While I might enjoy watching an hour of 24 every week, I don't feel the need to keep it beyond that week, unless there is a really compelling scene or plot development.
About the only things I've kept for more than two to three months on the TiVo have been key episodes of Firefly, the Buffy musical "Once More, With Feeling" and finale "Chosen," and the 2003 World Series of Poker (which I later archived to tape).
It also helps that a lot of shows, like the 2003 WSoP, are pretty much no-action, I record them at Basic Quality vs. Best Quality.
Using your PVR as a means for permanent archiving seems to me to be nothing short of a Sisyphean task.
Point of information: If you're using a DirecTivo, the subscription fee is $4.99 on top of your existing satellite service, with no fee if you subscribe to Total Choice Premeire.
Otherwise, the $12/month fee is for standalone TiVos. I opted to pay for lifetime service back when the rates were 10/month and $200 lifetime, and my standalone unit has lasted for over three years, well over the 20-month break-even point.
Ah, you've already got the signal going through the multiswitch... You might be able to get away with grabbing a high frequency splitter like the one described in the thread (0-2GHz) and adding that to the basement line to get two lines into the Dtivo. If not, you should be able to use the 2x4 multiswitch...
Slashdot Mirror
So you can tell me what it's based on?
Well, honestly, I ask because about the only measure you've given me for whether or not a given work is good or bad or worth the cost is if it's original. Originality is apparently the wellspring from which creativity and social commentary and everything else flows from.
And again, I pose the question to you: how do you separate the origins of a given work from the measure of it's originality? How is one irrelevant from the other?
No matter what the answer, you'll claim it isn't original, and will probably once again claim there are only 37 plots in all of literature, a statement that is as absurd as claiming there are only eight colors in all of art.
Nice straw man you got there. Is it Guy Fawkes day already?
The point is it isn't original, and by spending millions on it, really original productions are ignored.
Like what? Farscape I will grant you, but how exactly is the Sci-Fi channel contributing to the downfall of society by spending money on BSG?
Your point may be that the lack of originality has somehow robbed us of some other, more worthy art, but my point is that there are far better tests of a production's value than a simple question of whether or not it's original.
Have you ever seen some of the original movies that Sci-Fi shows on Saturday nights? These movies may be "original" by your measure, but tend to have, at the very least in comparison to BSG, poor acting, poor direction, and poor characterization. Do you mean to suggest that some of these made-for-TV movies are in some way superior to The Magnificent Seven or Yojimbo?
Origin and originality are two different things, however subtle the difference may be.
How are they significantly different, especially in the context of the debate over the value of originality in a televised work? Since you're continuing to accuse me of presenting an irrelevant topic (the origins of Hamlet) "in order to divert attention from the original issue," how do you separate the origins of Battlestar Galactica from the measure of its originality? In my estimation, you cannot separate the two--one is intrinsically tied to the other.
Therefore, when comparing the value of originality between two works (or, more specifically, when sarcastically requesting that the studios make a work, any work, whose originality is unlike the one you're talking about) the origins of both, indeed all, works are relevant.
When the top grossing movies are based on theme park rides and television shows from the 1960s and the most ambitious television projects are based on television shows from the 1970s, it's time to ask if any of these companies plan on making anything original.
I'm curious--what was, in your eyes, the last original production you saw, television or otherwise?
And again, putting your hyperbole aside, did you watch the mini-series?
In a discussion debating the lack of originality of a given work, a black letter red herring could be introducing how hollywood lawyers adversely affect the quality of the work. Look it up.
Since you consider it to be "one of the most famous works of literature in the history of civilization," and obviously a work of value when measuring "creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture or literary achievement," Hamlet and the non-Shakespearean origins of the story are certainly germane to your objections to the origins of the latest Battlestar Galactica.
Let me put it to you another way:
There should be little difference in evaluating a retelling of Norse legend and criticizing a retelling of a retelling of Mormon mythology, whether it's in television, film, or theater, especially in when one of the litmus tests is making "something original."
A remake, by definition, is not original.
Nor is a retelling.
Hollywood complains at exhausting length about how expensive and risky it is to make these stumbling multi-million dollar white elephant productions, yet they absolutely refuse to hire even one writer to make even one original script that isn't designed by a marketing formula.
Putting aside your hyperbole for a moment, honestly, I have to ask--Did you even watch the mini-series?
People are sick and tired of remade, reconstituted crap. The low television ratings are proof.
Well, obviously...
Nice red herring
Since you brought up the notion of "something original," suggesting that my argument is a red herring doesn't apply here.
But, here you go: here's a production of Hamlet which cost 18 million dollars to produce.
Your suggestion that a work has an apparent lack of "creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture or literary achievement" simply because it's unoriginal and/or has apparent financial motivations would eally eliminate much of the media we have available to us, including your vaunted Shakespeare, who wrote many of his plays for mass-appeal from other source material.
There should be little difference in evaluating a retelling of Norse legend and criticizing a retelling of a retelling of Mormon mythology, whether it's in television, film, or theater, especially in when one of the litmus tests is making "something original."
If you're going to condemn a given production because of it's lack of originality, then you might as well avoid any and all new media, because, frankly, it's all been written--one way or the other. Name any "original" production, be it dramatic or prose, and there are likely numerous prior works which have influenced it in some way.
On the other hand, you're welcome to give a criticism of the work itself and the way the writer/director/actors have presented the story.
Well, I was going to go see a showing of Hamlet at the local theater, but after finiding out that it's an unoriginal play based on Norse Legends, I'll have to find my creativity, social commentary, meaningful culture, and literary achievement elsewhere...
This Galactica's FX team also worked on Firefly...
Matrix/Terminator rip-off that never needed to happen.
That you're objecting to a work's ripping off (among other things) The Matrix and Terminator smacks of the most delicious kind of irony.
I've got to give props to a mini-series that has the wrinklies to kill a baby in the first installment, and a little girl in the second.
The FX team was the same as Firefly, where they used similar zoom-techniques.
In fact, if you pay attention to the first installment, you can catch a glimpse of the Serenity flying in Caprica City.
Pioneer's new DVD Recorder with TiVo allows you to use the PVR functions of the TiVo without paying a monthly fee. Of course, you don't get the Season Passes, Wishlists, or Home Media Option, etc, but you do get digital recording, no tapes, 3 days of guide data, and a DVD-Recorder (a new level of service called "TiVo Basic"). All this for about the price of a mid-range PC (900 dollars or so).
You can upgrade to the actual service if you so desire.
Lifetime subs are 300 now.
By the way, RTV even has a secret code (at least before the 55xx models) that, instead of commercial skip, skips content, so you can see ONLY the commercials. Super Bowl, anyone? :)
That's rather nifty. Too many friends come up to me saying "Have you seen that commmercial..."
Hey, I'm just going by what I read in the news
(and when I say "current" I mean currently available for sale, namely the 5500 series).
Honestly, I don't estimate there's a significant difference between automatic commercial advance and TiVo's 60x fast forwarding. I can still get through an hour-long show in just about 40 minutes, plus I can stop and re-watch all the Victoria Secret ads...
Replay has disabled Commercial skip in the current and future versions of their products.
Hell I still boot up the old Atari 2600 so I can use a large orange box with a sword to kill a dragon that looks like a duck on crack...
How do you use the box? I always used the arrow (either that or used the big purple square brackets to trap them in walls).
Watch, as I fire upwards through our own shield!
The dot com age is over. At my company most of those coders have been let go or moved out of programming.
According to Sturgeon's Law, 90% of everything is crap. That goes for television shows, books, usenet posts and computer programs. It also goes for programmers, both employed and unemployed.
Even with the crumble of the dot-com era, companies are still interested in using Internet and Internet technologies for business, which means a lot of "interactive design" firms (and yes, they're still around) have the opportunity to sell websites and applications. I could show you code from currently employed programmers that would make your inner coder vomit (check my latest Slashdot journal entry for one example).
Sure if it was coded by former vb guy w/o a clue.
Welcome to the Real World.
Not really. It's a bulky winter coat, but she still looks like major jailbait.
Then you should rent Beautiful Girls.
Big bulky winter coat included...
I can see them redubbing English voices, but if they get rid of the little-girl-singing-compelling-lyrics* songs, I'll refuse to see it.
*compelling lyrics: "La, la la-la la la la. La, la la-la la. / La, la la-la la la la. La-la la-la la la la."
With the speed by which many new shows are coming out on DVD, I don't really feel the need to keep everything that I record. While I might enjoy watching an hour of 24 every week, I don't feel the need to keep it beyond that week, unless there is a really compelling scene or plot development.
About the only things I've kept for more than two to three months on the TiVo have been key episodes of Firefly, the Buffy musical "Once More, With Feeling" and finale "Chosen," and the 2003 World Series of Poker (which I later archived to tape).
It also helps that a lot of shows, like the 2003 WSoP, are pretty much no-action, I record them at Basic Quality vs. Best Quality.
Using your PVR as a means for permanent archiving seems to me to be nothing short of a Sisyphean task.
Point of information: If you're using a DirecTivo, the subscription fee is $4.99 on top of your existing satellite service, with no fee if you subscribe to Total Choice Premeire.
Otherwise, the $12/month fee is for standalone TiVos. I opted to pay for lifetime service back when the rates were 10/month and $200 lifetime, and my standalone unit has lasted for over three years, well over the 20-month break-even point.
BTW, the "Exalt the New God" shirts are no longer for sale--cafepress hit me with a cease and desist for the parody image of the TiVo logo...
Ah, you've already got the signal going through the multiswitch... You might be able to get away with grabbing a high frequency splitter like the one described in the thread (0-2GHz) and adding that to the basement line to get two lines into the Dtivo. If not, you should be able to use the 2x4 multiswitch...