I dunno -- SVU is less a spin-off than just an additional airing of Law and Order each week.
Consider how much of the cast for SVU came from the original Law & Order, how the production and "feel" of the show is really similar and how the writing and etc. feels almost the same. It's like they took 50% of the scripts from Law & Order, adjusted the names and shot them with a different cast -- like how "Airwolf" used to have two casts, just with fewer plot holes. (Disclaimer: I don't like SVU).
ST:TNG can rightly be called a spin-off of TOS, but DS9 and Voyager both had a really TNG feeling to them -- similar casts, similar writing, similar production and directing. There's no distinct *feel* of the show; it's almost just they just turned over the cast, tweaked the transporter effects and changed one important plot point. DS9 got away from this towards the end and almost made a mark as a new, grittier Trek, but my that time few people were watching.
I mean, remember how half the crew of Voyager started out being blood enemies of the other half? I sure don't; it took maybe three episodes to completely resolve all those years of bitter armed conflict (maybe we ought to lock Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat away on the ISS for a week and let them resolve all their differences). Instead, the whole crew just lapsed back into the same happy operating life as Picard had going on the Enterprise (or as RMS would insist we call it, the Enterprise-D, so as not to confuse it).
Anyhow, it's worth remembering that for every Frasier, there are a dozen AfterMASHes, Michael Richards Shows and other doomed-before-they-started drek.
The problem with really great supporting characters is that they're really great supporting characters -- you usually just can't give 'em enough to do on their own. Think of all those spin-offs that failed horribly; the only ones I can think of which succeed are complete departures from the original premise (for example Fraiser is technically spun off from Cheers, but is in all important respects completely unrecognizable as a derivative).
The Lone Gunman were barely enough to pull off an episode that was mostly them (the DefCon Vegas convention epp, and even that one had a lot of help from Scully).
I saw some program on the Discovery Channel a while ago that new software in ground-based telescopes using adaptive optics allowed them to more or less completely filter out the effects of the atmosphere.
Given that, they should easily be superior to the Hubble, since they have larger mirrors, right?
Then why are all of the really cool pictures of space crap from the freakin' Hubble? Is it a PR thing, trying to justify the cost of a space telescope when the ground 'scopes actually do a better job now? Or did the Discovery Channel (gasp!) misinform me?
Obviously, I'm not an astronomer. Obviously, one of you must be. Help me out.
You know, I can't go back to my favorite Dim Sum place now because I "only" tipped the waiter 7% (I asked 6 times for water and never got any), and *man* did he get mad. We went back two weeks later and were getting the evil eye the whole time -- I was afraid to eat-drink anything that I couldn't pick out from a group at random.
I didn't say that "hate crimes" deserve special punishment.
What I was trying to say is that a concentration of hate crimes in an area is an awfully good reason not to live there, especially if you fall into one of the catagories for which people are victimized.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
> they're just Napster users, they probably did something bad, right?
Well, duh. 99.99% of Napster users use Napster to locate copyrighted information and download it in a fashion illegal under current copyright law. A very small minority of these people don't; they're either really honest, trying to make some political point that nobody'll ever care about or are doing something worthwhile like trying to get their own music out there.
It's one thing to think that you ought to be able to share music, but I tire quickly of Napster users trying to pretend like they're legally in the right on this one; the self-rightousness of it makes me gag. Face it: more than likely, you're sharing music illegally. If you can't deal with that, don't do it.
Disclaimer: I get my music illegally. I do it because it's convenient and I'm cheap.
Of course, the reason you should personally be concerned about "hate crimes" is that you're open to becoming a completely arbitrary victim.
Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
Does anyone else find it just a little odd that these guys would put all this effort into creating the Grand Queen Mother of all geek discussion forums and then never post?
I think I've only seen 1-2 posts from any editor of Slashdot (not counting Katz), and that was waaay back in the day.
Accomplishments from the fetchmail project aside, does anyone think that ESR still has a credible voice in the community? For me, he stopped having credibility shortly after the flurry of Linux-related IPOs. I, along with a lot of other people, interpreted his statements as arrogant, thinly-guised, and frankly insulting bragging (the exact stuff we love Linus for *not* doing).
In any event, it seems to me that his role as a community mouthpiece has been largely taken over by the CEOs of the Linux companies, who I see on TV all the time (TechTV and the various financial networks).
I know this is marginally off-topic, but I need to know if I'm alone amongst the serious/. inhabitants in not wanting to hear from this guy again (I already know what the trolls think), or am I just being too hard on a guy who still has something worthwhile to say despite letting the dollar-signs go to his head at one point?
yeah. this is a service company where the employees services are sold for profit. therefore they will have less employees to make more profit.
Right. I'm sure that getting rid of Malda's personal masseuse really hurts the bottom line.
Look, start-ups have a nasty tendancy to hit a point where they're suddenly overstaffed. It takes a lot of people to get things going, but there comes a point when things are up and running. Suddenly, the business finds that it can operate just fine with less staff -- the intranet is set up, the docs are written and just need small changes, the server farm is chugging away just dandy...
It's not fair or pretty, but it's true. Besides, what good will it do anyone if VA Linux doesn't trim their fat? It's just stupid business, especially in a day where computer vendors have to struggle to stay alive (this isn't the market of 2-3 years ago).
Okay, so this means that one out of every four VA employees is getting the axe.
So, as a responsible and long-time member of the Slashdot community, I feel it is my duty to open nominations for which of the Slashdotters should be going -- voted off the island, if you would. I figure they owe VA one sacrifice after they issue a pink slip to the obvious choice (coughKatzcough).
I would like to place my vote for jamie, because he's got the same name as my ex-girlfriend (who dumped me rather painfully, I might add). That'll teach ya.
Actually, your quotation is from the game Alpha Centauri by Sid Meier. It may sound like Toquville, but in reality I think it was (somewhat ironically, based on current right-wing conspiricy theory) ascribed to the leader of the UN faction.
The whole quotation is worthwhile:
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free access to information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
The once chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information will soon burst with freedom and vitality, while the free nation gradually constricting its grip on free discourse was begun its rapid slide in to despotism.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Yeah, but residence halls in particular are notorious for not taking consistant action.
For example: In the halls at my U (UW-Eau Claire), a first underage drinking incident is handled internally -- the hall director would assign some set fine, but the cops would not be called. Any time someone was suspected of smoking pot, on the other hand, the cops would be called immediately. You know, 'cause one form of illegal drug use is less serious than the other, being that one is a socially accepted drug and all.
Anyhow, remember: Most people who run residence halls do so either because they have no career prospects or because they can't bear the thought of moving on from college life (or, often, a combination of these two). Expecting intelligent action is expecting too much.
Okay, so on this Kent State thing, some or all of the Starcraft clan's web site info somehow ended up on a school server. Nobody knew how it got there, but some residence hall director decided to call the police. Despite the fact that nobody knew how the data got on the server, the police obtained a *search warrant* and confiscated the kid's computer.
Oohkay. So, there's no real evidence that a crime has been committed (maybe someone logged onto the server, fired up IE, and the pages ended up in the cache), but the judge is quick to hand out a search warrant and the police have the right to hold the kid's computer for up to a year.
So, if I were to find a beer can in a dorm trash can, would the judge grant a search warrant to confiscate the dorm fridge of every resident (despite the fact that some residents might be overage, or that a visitor might have desposited it, or whatever)? After all, a crime might have been committed.
In my opinion, this case was never important for any free speech implications: It's the unreasonable search and seizure you should be concerned with. Even in a case where it the police don't know a crime has even been committed, they can easily obtain a warrant to suspect a suspect's civil liberties.
If the government tries to regulate guns, special interests swing into action. If the government tries to stop someone from saying anything, Slashdot goes nuts. Why isn't this just as bad, if not worse?
Are you indicating that when it comes to web surfing, you're unable to get past superficialities?
Well, no. I'm indicating that antialiased fonts tend to be easier on the eyes, and the various UN*X web browsers tend to be particularily big offenders.
I'm lazy -- that's why I like UN*X. If something is easier to do, read, maintain or whatever, I'll take it.
Oh, Thank God. I know that a lot of bitheads have a tendancy to rate visual appeal nuances low on the "importance" totem pole.
Moreover, I can't argue that scalability, reliability, efficiancy and the like are more important than having fonts with smooth edges. Still, for my surfing dollar, Windows has been my platform of choice precicely because of the smooth edges on the fonts.
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
But hey, silly first impressions count for a lot. People buy iMacs because they look cool. People spend thousands to make their cars look faster with body kits and the like. And people think that Windows is more advanced because it looks cleaner. It's not logical or fair, but it's true.
Anyhow, kudos to the Gnome crowd for getting this done. Now if only "Gnome" didn't automatically remind me of that "Scary Indian Fakir with No Legs and the Squeaky Cart" episode of the X-Files a few weeks back (shiver)....
Yeah, you're right. That's why I'm going to turn myself in.
See, when I was playing Risk last night, I invaded Poland. I deserve to go away for war crimes.
Slashdot Mirror
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Consider how much of the cast for SVU came from the original Law & Order, how the production and "feel" of the show is really similar and how the writing and etc. feels almost the same. It's like they took 50% of the scripts from Law & Order, adjusted the names and shot them with a different cast -- like how "Airwolf" used to have two casts, just with fewer plot holes. (Disclaimer: I don't like SVU).
ST:TNG can rightly be called a spin-off of TOS, but DS9 and Voyager both had a really TNG feeling to them -- similar casts, similar writing, similar production and directing. There's no distinct *feel* of the show; it's almost just they just turned over the cast, tweaked the transporter effects and changed one important plot point. DS9 got away from this towards the end and almost made a mark as a new, grittier Trek, but my that time few people were watching.
I mean, remember how half the crew of Voyager started out being blood enemies of the other half? I sure don't; it took maybe three episodes to completely resolve all those years of bitter armed conflict (maybe we ought to lock Ariel Sharon and Yassir Arafat away on the ISS for a week and let them resolve all their differences). Instead, the whole crew just lapsed back into the same happy operating life as Picard had going on the Enterprise (or as RMS would insist we call it, the Enterprise-D, so as not to confuse it).
Anyhow, it's worth remembering that for every Frasier, there are a dozen AfterMASHes, Michael Richards Shows and other doomed-before-they-started drek.
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Oh, I am so dead. My girlfriend is gonna whack me -- Big Pussy had it easy last season in relation to what's in store for me.
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The problem with really great supporting characters is that they're really great supporting characters -- you usually just can't give 'em enough to do on their own. Think of all those spin-offs that failed horribly; the only ones I can think of which succeed are complete departures from the original premise (for example Fraiser is technically spun off from Cheers, but is in all important respects completely unrecognizable as a derivative).
The Lone Gunman were barely enough to pull off an episode that was mostly them (the DefCon Vegas convention epp, and even that one had a lot of help from Scully).
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Given that, they should easily be superior to the Hubble, since they have larger mirrors, right?
Then why are all of the really cool pictures of space crap from the freakin' Hubble? Is it a PR thing, trying to justify the cost of a space telescope when the ground 'scopes actually do a better job now? Or did the Discovery Channel (gasp!) misinform me?
Obviously, I'm not an astronomer. Obviously, one of you must be. Help me out.
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What I was trying to say is that a concentration of hate crimes in an area is an awfully good reason not to live there, especially if you fall into one of the catagories for which people are victimized.
You know, for a group of people who seem to think that high school bullies deserve the death penalty, Slashdotters are sure quick to defend the rights of people who pick on others for non-clique related reasons.
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Well, duh. 99.99% of Napster users use Napster to locate copyrighted information and download it in a fashion illegal under current copyright law. A very small minority of these people don't; they're either really honest, trying to make some political point that nobody'll ever care about or are doing something worthwhile like trying to get their own music out there.
It's one thing to think that you ought to be able to share music, but I tire quickly of Napster users trying to pretend like they're legally in the right on this one; the self-rightousness of it makes me gag. Face it: more than likely, you're sharing music illegally. If you can't deal with that, don't do it.
Disclaimer: I get my music illegally. I do it because it's convenient and I'm cheap.
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Of course, being straight, white, middle-upper class protestant males, we really don't need to worry about that kind of thing, so it doesn't matter, right?
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So far the best place is on S. Bascom near the Pruneyard; I forget the name.
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I think I've only seen 1-2 posts from any editor of Slashdot (not counting Katz), and that was waaay back in the day.
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I'll give it a try. Bless you.
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In any event, it seems to me that his role as a community mouthpiece has been largely taken over by the CEOs of the Linux companies, who I see on TV all the time (TechTV and the various financial networks).
I know this is marginally off-topic, but I need to know if I'm alone amongst the serious /. inhabitants in not wanting to hear from this guy again (I already know what the trolls think), or am I just being too hard on a guy who still has something worthwhile to say despite letting the dollar-signs go to his head at one point?
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(Checks wallet) I bid $14.
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Right. I'm sure that getting rid of Malda's personal masseuse really hurts the bottom line.
Look, start-ups have a nasty tendancy to hit a point where they're suddenly overstaffed. It takes a lot of people to get things going, but there comes a point when things are up and running. Suddenly, the business finds that it can operate just fine with less staff -- the intranet is set up, the docs are written and just need small changes, the server farm is chugging away just dandy...
It's not fair or pretty, but it's true. Besides, what good will it do anyone if VA Linux doesn't trim their fat? It's just stupid business, especially in a day where computer vendors have to struggle to stay alive (this isn't the market of 2-3 years ago).
----
So, as a responsible and long-time member of the Slashdot community, I feel it is my duty to open nominations for which of the Slashdotters should be going -- voted off the island, if you would. I figure they owe VA one sacrifice after they issue a pink slip to the obvious choice (coughKatzcough).
I would like to place my vote for jamie, because he's got the same name as my ex-girlfriend (who dumped me rather painfully, I might add). That'll teach ya.
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The whole quotation is worthwhile:
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free access to information is the only safeguard against tyranny.
The once chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information will soon burst with freedom and vitality, while the free nation gradually constricting its grip on free discourse was begun its rapid slide in to despotism.
Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
----
For example: In the halls at my U (UW-Eau Claire), a first underage drinking incident is handled internally -- the hall director would assign some set fine, but the cops would not be called. Any time someone was suspected of smoking pot, on the other hand, the cops would be called immediately. You know, 'cause one form of illegal drug use is less serious than the other, being that one is a socially accepted drug and all.
Anyhow, remember: Most people who run residence halls do so either because they have no career prospects or because they can't bear the thought of moving on from college life (or, often, a combination of these two). Expecting intelligent action is expecting too much.
----
Oohkay. So, there's no real evidence that a crime has been committed (maybe someone logged onto the server, fired up IE, and the pages ended up in the cache), but the judge is quick to hand out a search warrant and the police have the right to hold the kid's computer for up to a year.
So, if I were to find a beer can in a dorm trash can, would the judge grant a search warrant to confiscate the dorm fridge of every resident (despite the fact that some residents might be overage, or that a visitor might have desposited it, or whatever)? After all, a crime might have been committed.
In my opinion, this case was never important for any free speech implications: It's the unreasonable search and seizure you should be concerned with. Even in a case where it the police don't know a crime has even been committed, they can easily obtain a warrant to suspect a suspect's civil liberties.
If the government tries to regulate guns, special interests swing into action. If the government tries to stop someone from saying anything, Slashdot goes nuts. Why isn't this just as bad, if not worse?
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Well, no. I'm indicating that antialiased fonts tend to be easier on the eyes, and the various UN*X web browsers tend to be particularily big offenders. I'm lazy -- that's why I like UN*X. If something is easier to do, read, maintain or whatever, I'll take it.
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Moreover, I can't argue that scalability, reliability, efficiancy and the like are more important than having fonts with smooth edges. Still, for my surfing dollar, Windows has been my platform of choice precicely because of the smooth edges on the fonts.
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
But hey, silly first impressions count for a lot. People buy iMacs because they look cool. People spend thousands to make their cars look faster with body kits and the like. And people think that Windows is more advanced because it looks cleaner. It's not logical or fair, but it's true.
Anyhow, kudos to the Gnome crowd for getting this done. Now if only "Gnome" didn't automatically remind me of that "Scary Indian Fakir with No Legs and the Squeaky Cart" episode of the X-Files a few weeks back (shiver)....
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