"How useful is steamboat Mickey to Disney anymore other than to use as filler on an overpriced DVD?"
That's part of the reason to keep copyrights short. Encourage more diverse growth. Why invent a new character when you have a monopoly on the one you've got?
" If OUR Marty and Doc went back to Biff's paradise (which was a separate timeline), why weren't their other selves there, Marty's anyway."
They were. Biff got the Doc labeled as insane and locked away in an asylum. I forget exactly what happened to Marty, but that was explained too. Biff didn't realize he was from the original timeline.
"Also, is time traveling the only way to create separate timelines. If so does each time traveler (or to simplify here, group of travelers) get to create one? One where the Borg win and one where Our Heroes do? Plus the original?"
Maybe that's how Time travel would work. I dunno. The problem is that if you travel through time, you can create a paradox. One way to prevent paradoxes from being destructive to the universe would be if it were to have some redundancy to it. Again, I don't know. It's not like we're working from proven temporal mechanics today.
"What would be the point in the borg messing with the past if it didn't affect their specific future in their own timeline? "
That's a good point. You have me pretty much cornered there. I doubt I can give you an answer that'll make you nod your head and say "yeah, he's right" but I can give you some food for thought. The Queen was along for the ride. Kinda strange, isn't it? The leader of the Borg would personally oversee this mission? What if the whole reason there was for her to conquer that time-line where she stands a better chance now that the humans are incapable of resistance? Maybe there were problems with the Borg the first time around and she wanted a do-over.
There are flaws in what I just said, though. The Queen's existence is strange. She was supposedly destroyed shortly after Wolf 359. Normally that would be explained as "Well, that was just a body for her." but then she makes that damn "You humans think in such 3-dimensional terms" comment. Maybe the humans wipe out the Borg down the road? (Voyager sort of hints at that, but it's hard to believe that they were thinking that far ahead at the time FC was made.) I dunno. Maybe it's as simple as Commander Data making a mistake. Though I don't remember the line literally, I'd be willing to bet that Data says that the chroniton wake seems or appears to be protecting them from changes to the timeline. Maybe what he was observing was that the Earth was assymilated, but his view of history didn't reflect that. Maybe the Borg were intentionally spawning a new time-line to exist in. Maybe they want to conquer every time line, not just their own. For that to work, somebody has to get the ball rolling.
Anyway, please take my response as food for thought, not as an argument to what you're saying. I think you poked a pretty good hole in my PoV there.;)
" Ahem - the big, startling clue here is that the Enterprise never met these MARKETING people before. I betcha there was a round-table on this ("But 'nX' sounds so much more cool than just 'n', and we want that demographic") "
I know you're trying to be funny. (And it is funny to the uninitiated.) But I might as well show off my Trek knowledge that's kept me GF-less until about a year ago. The 'x' stands for eXperimental. The NX-01 is the first warp five ship bla bla bla. Remember the Excelsior from Trek 3? That had an NX registry also because it had the first 'trans-warp' drive. Then, when the Defiant came along in DS9, it also had an NX registry because it was an experimental war ship.
Okay, I'm sorry I sucked the fun out of your joke there, but I hang out on a 3D forum that likes Trek a lot. They have those discussions all the time and I participate in the debates once in a while. Heheh:)
"I understand what you're saying... you mean that from the point of view of Archer and crew, the past has not yet been sullied by the intrustion of the Borg and Picard"
No, I'm saying that the timeline that Archer exists in, Picard and the Borg *have* changed the time line. The big startling clue here is that the NX-01 was named Enterprise, yet the NX-01 was never mentioned in any of the other series. This wouldn't be a big deal except the ready room on the Enterprise-D depicts all of the ships named Enterprise starting with the aircraft carrier in service today.
" I'm not really sure what difference that makes though, since it's been established that Picard and co "fixed" the past so that it was close enough to what had originally occured that there were no significant differences."
Not really. We're missing a key bit of information here: Did the Enterprise-E return to the timeline it originally came from, or did it show up in the post-FC timeline? That isn't clear, and the method of travel used makes the answer to that question a bit fuzzy. We (the audience) don't know for sure what happened right after that.
"That being the case, then why does it matter if Archer is in the same timeline or not? It's a given that the future can be changed... we've seen that again and again. So anything that happens to Archer has ramifications for all subsequent events. But if Berman was so bold as to say that events had become so messed up that all of the things in previous shows didn't happen, wouldn't we then have to form a mob and KILL him?"
The point I was making is that STTNG, TOS, DS9, even VOY took place happened before the time-line was polluted. Archer exists in the polluted time-line. That means that no matter what happens in Enterprise, the original series would be completely in tact. Confusing? Watch Back to the Future 2. That movie explains what I'm talking about better than I can here on Slashdot. There'd be no reason to get mad at Berman over it, they found a unique way to tell a new story. It'd be boring if we saw a documentary of passing references over 24 seasons of Star Trek.
"The Federation had bigger fish to fry back in Kirk's day. The Ferrengi probably never established themselves as a significant race until the TNG timeline."
I think you make a good point here. To expand on it a bit, I'd like to point out that it's ridiculous to take everything that a character says as fact. In real life, people make mistakes all the time. For example, I referred to Nazi Germany as being Communist once. Boy did I get my butt chewed here over that. Why can't characters in a TV show be that flawed?
"I suppose when the repeats start I'll have to pay attention, but here is the kicker. You get stuck in a loop, if one show sucks you think the same thing for the next episode. And you judge it as such, 3 or 4 episodes in a row...and you don't hold faith when you get a slow moving chunk of crud comes your way."
I agree with you here. The show could do a little more to be more entertaining. The last few eps weren't very memorable.
I think if you caught the last 15 minutes of the repeat you'd find it more satisfying, but I warn you that it's more babble. No real action.
It's a bummer because the season started off really well. Give Enterprise a little credit, though, at least not every episode is about the ship being in immediate danger.
"Given the fact that First Contact introduced the first Earth warp ship, bar none, wouldn't you say that's pretty well established already? "
No. That ship happened before the Enterprise went back in time. The reason that the Enterprise-E was involved with repairing (not building) that ship was because the Borg Sphere attacked it.
B'sides, most of the people I've heard bitching about the continuity of Enterprise don't seem to recognize the time-line is different, even though you're pretty much beaten over the head with the Temporal Cold War that was introduced in the pilot. Either people just like to bitch or they're just plain non-observant.
"Wait a minute! They can't meet the Feringi, Picard first met the Feringi! WTF?! Damn Brannon and Berman!" -- I've seriously heard that stupid comment. They can remember a passing detail in an old ep of TNG, but they can't remember the Temporal Cold War, First Contact, or the that the NX-01 left space dock several days earlier than planned. Heh.
Okay, that rant was pretty geeky. I just find it startling that people can be beaten over the head with information and still not get it.
"Isn't this kind of like saying that iD shouldn't push the boundaries of computer graphics with Doom 3 because it 20 years time it will look really dated?"
No, it's not. We're talking about TV shows that will live in reruns for the forseeable future, not a flash-in-the-pan game that'll be played for maybe a year or two before it's forgotten.
"How many people are going to be playing it, or in the case of Star Trek/Dr Who, how many will be watching them 20 years after release anyway?"
Dr. Who is still being watched today, and it started in the late 60's. 2007 will be STNG's 20th's anniversary, and it'll more than likely still be on the air in reruns and people will likely still be buying DVD's for it.
That's why Trek invests so much money into intricate sets and lighting etc. You should read "The Art of Star Trek" if you'd like more insight into what goes in to making a series intended to last a while.
"Bah...it's turned into a "PC our morality is always right" and your is always wrong show. Last nights episode was a good example."
Err did you watch to the end of that episode? "Morality" caused somebody to commit suicide. Not only did this episode illustrate why the Prime Directive is more important than human morality, but it also showed (again) that the Enterprise really fucked up. It's startlingly different from STNG or Voyager where everything ends better for the good guys.
What I particularly liked about the end of this episode was the chewing Trip got over the whole situation he caused. It was evident that some serious damage was caused between Archer and his First Officer. If this carries over into future episodes, we could have a heck of a story arc.
I agree that Enterprise has been a little stale in recent episodes, but last night was a surprisingly good one. The catch is that you have to really pay attention to what's said in the end to enjoy it. Turn it off early and the whole ep is wasted.
"It would be nice if they'd use cgi to create some real alien aliens rather than just creating a different shaped latex mask for a human. "
The problem with doing that is that Star Trek tries to maintain a style that doesn't degrade much over the years. For example, there's very little in STNG (post season 3) that makes people wince today like Dr. Who does. That's one of the reasons that they stick with the 'bumpy head' approach. Okay, it's not so 'alienesque' but it does stand the test of time longer than other approaches, plus the actors can act with them.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'd be on the side of surprise if they did do that. Still though, I'd prefer it to muppets.
"Just somehow bring the Borg into an episode. That'll sell it. Oh wait, they're already doing that.... "
Even if this ep bombs, there's still some potential here. (Note: I'll never forgive Voyager for pussifying the Borg.)
What this episode proves (assuming a rumor I read is true...) is that Enterprise takes place after the Enterprise-E visited Earth in First Contact. There are a few ramifications here. This closes up most of the continuity holes that people keep bitching about, which means that Enterprise isn't locked any particular chain of events. Earth could go into a bloody war with the Vulcans.
The potential here is that the future of the Federation could be rewritten. Anybody remember "Yesterday's Enterprise" where the Enterprise-C jumped into the future and altered the timeline?
Even more interesting, what if we're watching the chain of events that caused the Federation to behave more like an Empire in the paralell universe that Kirk found himself in due to a transporter accident?
In any case, it's up to to the B&B team to actually make good use of this. I'm not ready to bet money yet. I can say, though, that last night's episode had a rather startling ending. If that's a sign of things to come, then we might start to see DS9's style of drama percolating up to Enterprise. That'd be a welcome evolution for this series. It is a little on the sterile side.
"OT: did any subscribers see the "Microsoft DVD standard" article that was posted in TMF? It caught my eye and I refreshed the main page and it was gone, replaced by this article. Do the editors revoke certain articles before they go live? Was there a major factual error or something? "
OMG! Are you saying they actually took down a dupe?!
"I am no expert but I think these worms must be tolerant to high temperatures because the space shuttle gets really hot when entering the Earth's atmosphere. God know what else are they tolerant to? "
They never complain about dupes or lack of Ogg support. Bet that's makin a lot of you feel pretty low right now.
" Therefore, a strong argument could be made that the website is not infringing on the patent, but the web browser's rendering is."
The only way that argument could work is if an error in rendering the HTML made by a browser not targeted (i.e. if the error happened in IE, the author is s.o.l.) caused a patent violation to happen.
However, since this patent appears to be about design instead of literal function, I'd say that's not likely. The author is still responsible.
Just so it's clear, I'm not for this at all. I just think the argument is faulty. Want to make it work? Try something like this: "You can't patent use of a feature for its intended purpose. There's prior art. Etc."
"Lynx renders frames just fine without violating the patent. It asks you which frame you want to see (you can only see one at a time). "
Irrelevant. The author makes the pages with a goal in mind. He has the ability to test them. He's responsible for his content. You can't sue Mozilla because kiddie porn showed up on somebody's browser.
"Sure it is. They're manipulating a monoply in one field (cable TV) in an attempt to corner an independant field (broadband internet). Pretty straightforward monopoly abuse. "
No, they're refusing to let their service be used to aid their competition. I mean seriously, would you give a ride to a guy who's on his way to date your girlfriend?
The only way this could be considered 'straightforward monopoly abuse' is if Comcast was the only way you could advertise in that area. It's not. You can advertise anywhere, cableTV is just one stop.
Slashdot Mirror
... but he muttered something about how he was too depressed to accept the award and *whissh whisssh*'ed away.
"How useful is steamboat Mickey to Disney anymore other than to use as filler on an overpriced DVD?"
That's part of the reason to keep copyrights short. Encourage more diverse growth. Why invent a new character when you have a monopoly on the one you've got?
" If OUR Marty and Doc went back to Biff's paradise (which was a separate timeline), why weren't their other selves there, Marty's anyway."
They were. Biff got the Doc labeled as insane and locked away in an asylum. I forget exactly what happened to Marty, but that was explained too. Biff didn't realize he was from the original timeline.
"Also, is time traveling the only way to create separate timelines. If so does each time traveler (or to simplify here, group of travelers) get to create one? One where the Borg win and one where Our Heroes do? Plus the original?"
Maybe that's how Time travel would work. I dunno. The problem is that if you travel through time, you can create a paradox. One way to prevent paradoxes from being destructive to the universe would be if it were to have some redundancy to it. Again, I don't know. It's not like we're working from proven temporal mechanics today.
" We don't want to firewall off P2P applications completely, we just want to get the RIAA off our backs."
Find out who the ISP(s?) is(are?) for the RIAA and block them with the firewall.
(Yeah, I know it won't work, but man that'd sure feel good.)
"What would be the point in the borg messing with the past if it didn't affect their specific future in their own timeline? "
;)
That's a good point. You have me pretty much cornered there. I doubt I can give you an answer that'll make you nod your head and say "yeah, he's right" but I can give you some food for thought. The Queen was along for the ride. Kinda strange, isn't it? The leader of the Borg would personally oversee this mission? What if the whole reason there was for her to conquer that time-line where she stands a better chance now that the humans are incapable of resistance? Maybe there were problems with the Borg the first time around and she wanted a do-over.
There are flaws in what I just said, though. The Queen's existence is strange. She was supposedly destroyed shortly after Wolf 359. Normally that would be explained as "Well, that was just a body for her." but then she makes that damn "You humans think in such 3-dimensional terms" comment. Maybe the humans wipe out the Borg down the road? (Voyager sort of hints at that, but it's hard to believe that they were thinking that far ahead at the time FC was made.) I dunno.
Maybe it's as simple as Commander Data making a mistake. Though I don't remember the line literally, I'd be willing to bet that Data says that the chroniton wake seems or appears to be protecting them from changes to the timeline. Maybe what he was observing was that the Earth was assymilated, but his view of history didn't reflect that. Maybe the Borg were intentionally spawning a new time-line to exist in. Maybe they want to conquer every time line, not just their own. For that to work, somebody has to get the ball rolling.
Anyway, please take my response as food for thought, not as an argument to what you're saying. I think you poked a pretty good hole in my PoV there.
" Ahem - the big, startling clue here is that the Enterprise never met these MARKETING people before. I betcha there was a round-table on this ("But 'nX' sounds so much more cool than just 'n', and we want that demographic") "
:)
I know you're trying to be funny. (And it is funny to the uninitiated.) But I might as well show off my Trek knowledge that's kept me GF-less until about a year ago. The 'x' stands for eXperimental. The NX-01 is the first warp five ship bla bla bla. Remember the Excelsior from Trek 3? That had an NX registry also because it had the first 'trans-warp' drive. Then, when the Defiant came along in DS9, it also had an NX registry because it was an experimental war ship.
Okay, I'm sorry I sucked the fun out of your joke there, but I hang out on a 3D forum that likes Trek a lot. They have those discussions all the time and I participate in the debates once in a while. Heheh
"I understand what you're saying... you mean that from the point of view of Archer and crew, the past has not yet been sullied by the intrustion of the Borg and Picard"
No, I'm saying that the timeline that Archer exists in, Picard and the Borg *have* changed the time line. The big startling clue here is that the NX-01 was named Enterprise, yet the NX-01 was never mentioned in any of the other series. This wouldn't be a big deal except the ready room on the Enterprise-D depicts all of the ships named Enterprise starting with the aircraft carrier in service today.
" I'm not really sure what difference that makes though, since it's been established that Picard and co "fixed" the past so that it was close enough to what had originally occured that there were no significant differences."
Not really. We're missing a key bit of information here: Did the Enterprise-E return to the timeline it originally came from, or did it show up in the post-FC timeline? That isn't clear, and the method of travel used makes the answer to that question a bit fuzzy. We (the audience) don't know for sure what happened right after that.
"That being the case, then why does it matter if Archer is in the same timeline or not? It's a given that the future can be changed... we've seen that again and again. So anything that happens to Archer has ramifications for all subsequent events. But if Berman was so bold as to say that events had become so messed up that all of the things in previous shows didn't happen, wouldn't we then have to form a mob and KILL him?"
The point I was making is that STTNG, TOS, DS9, even VOY took place happened before the time-line was polluted. Archer exists in the polluted time-line. That means that no matter what happens in Enterprise, the original series would be completely in tact. Confusing? Watch Back to the Future 2. That movie explains what I'm talking about better than I can here on Slashdot. There'd be no reason to get mad at Berman over it, they found a unique way to tell a new story. It'd be boring if we saw a documentary of passing references over 24 seasons of Star Trek.
"The Federation had bigger fish to fry back in Kirk's day. The Ferrengi probably never established themselves as a significant race until the TNG timeline."
I think you make a good point here. To expand on it a bit, I'd like to point out that it's ridiculous to take everything that a character says as fact. In real life, people make mistakes all the time. For example, I referred to Nazi Germany as being Communist once. Boy did I get my butt chewed here over that. Why can't characters in a TV show be that flawed?
"-Restil "
Ooo Red Dwarf fan.
"First Officer? What did T'Pol have to do with it?"
Yeah yeah, sorry. I was distracted by my girlfriend.
"I suppose when the repeats start I'll have to pay attention, but here is the kicker. You get stuck in a loop, if one show sucks you think the same thing for the next episode. And you judge it as such, 3 or 4 episodes in a row...and you don't hold faith when you get a slow moving chunk of crud comes your way."
I agree with you here. The show could do a little more to be more entertaining. The last few eps weren't very memorable.
I think if you caught the last 15 minutes of the repeat you'd find it more satisfying, but I warn you that it's more babble. No real action.
It's a bummer because the season started off really well. Give Enterprise a little credit, though, at least not every episode is about the ship being in immediate danger.
"I wonder what it would take to make you shut the hell up, nano boy."
I wonder what it'd take to get you to repeat that with your registerred nick, chicken-boy.
"Given the fact that First Contact introduced the first Earth warp ship, bar none, wouldn't you say that's pretty well established already? "
No. That ship happened before the Enterprise went back in time. The reason that the Enterprise-E was involved with repairing (not building) that ship was because the Borg Sphere attacked it.
B'sides, most of the people I've heard bitching about the continuity of Enterprise don't seem to recognize the time-line is different, even though you're pretty much beaten over the head with the Temporal Cold War that was introduced in the pilot. Either people just like to bitch or they're just plain non-observant.
"Wait a minute! They can't meet the Feringi, Picard first met the Feringi! WTF?! Damn Brannon and Berman!" -- I've seriously heard that stupid comment. They can remember a passing detail in an old ep of TNG, but they can't remember the Temporal Cold War, First Contact, or the that the NX-01 left space dock several days earlier than planned. Heh.
Okay, that rant was pretty geeky. I just find it startling that people can be beaten over the head with information and still not get it.
"Isn't this kind of like saying that iD shouldn't push the boundaries of computer graphics with Doom 3 because it 20 years time it will look really dated?"
No, it's not. We're talking about TV shows that will live in reruns for the forseeable future, not a flash-in-the-pan game that'll be played for maybe a year or two before it's forgotten.
"How many people are going to be playing it, or in the case of Star Trek/Dr Who, how many will be watching them 20 years after release anyway?"
Dr. Who is still being watched today, and it started in the late 60's. 2007 will be STNG's 20th's anniversary, and it'll more than likely still be on the air in reruns and people will likely still be buying DVD's for it.
That's why Trek invests so much money into intricate sets and lighting etc. You should read "The Art of Star Trek" if you'd like more insight into what goes in to making a series intended to last a while.
"Bah...it's turned into a "PC our morality is always right" and your is always wrong show. Last nights episode was a good example."
Err did you watch to the end of that episode? "Morality" caused somebody to commit suicide. Not only did this episode illustrate why the Prime Directive is more important than human morality, but it also showed (again) that the Enterprise really fucked up. It's startlingly different from STNG or Voyager where everything ends better for the good guys.
What I particularly liked about the end of this episode was the chewing Trip got over the whole situation he caused. It was evident that some serious damage was caused between Archer and his First Officer. If this carries over into future episodes, we could have a heck of a story arc.
I agree that Enterprise has been a little stale in recent episodes, but last night was a surprisingly good one. The catch is that you have to really pay attention to what's said in the end to enjoy it. Turn it off early and the whole ep is wasted.
"It would be nice if they'd use cgi to create some real alien aliens rather than just creating a different shaped latex mask for a human. "
The problem with doing that is that Star Trek tries to maintain a style that doesn't degrade much over the years. For example, there's very little in STNG (post season 3) that makes people wince today like Dr. Who does. That's one of the reasons that they stick with the 'bumpy head' approach. Okay, it's not so 'alienesque' but it does stand the test of time longer than other approaches, plus the actors can act with them.
I'm not saying it can't be done, but I'd be on the side of surprise if they did do that. Still though, I'd prefer it to muppets.
"Just somehow bring the Borg into an episode. That'll sell it. Oh wait, they're already doing that.... "
Even if this ep bombs, there's still some potential here. (Note: I'll never forgive Voyager for pussifying the Borg.)
What this episode proves (assuming a rumor I read is true...) is that Enterprise takes place after the Enterprise-E visited Earth in First Contact. There are a few ramifications here. This closes up most of the continuity holes that people keep bitching about, which means that Enterprise isn't locked any particular chain of events. Earth could go into a bloody war with the Vulcans.
The potential here is that the future of the Federation could be rewritten. Anybody remember "Yesterday's Enterprise" where the Enterprise-C jumped into the future and altered the timeline?
Even more interesting, what if we're watching the chain of events that caused the Federation to behave more like an Empire in the paralell universe that Kirk found himself in due to a transporter accident?
In any case, it's up to to the B&B team to actually make good use of this. I'm not ready to bet money yet. I can say, though, that last night's episode had a rather startling ending. If that's a sign of things to come, then we might start to see DS9's style of drama percolating up to Enterprise. That'd be a welcome evolution for this series. It is a little on the sterile side.
I wonder what it'd take to use 3 lasers, a couple of oscillating mirrors, and a timing circuit to make a full color projector.
"OT: did any subscribers see the "Microsoft DVD standard" article that was posted in TMF? It caught my eye and I refreshed the main page and it was gone, replaced by this article. Do the editors revoke certain articles before they go live? Was there a major factual error or something? "
OMG! Are you saying they actually took down a dupe?!
"if you're wintel-based, you could set up webcams and MS NetMeeting to accomplish some of this."
Play your cards right, and you can get a faster internet connection out of it too.
"Well, we have the cameras, but now we need many many megabits of bandwidth. The good news, though, is that we can still do it for half the price!"
"I am no expert but I think these worms must be tolerant to high temperatures because the space shuttle gets really hot when entering the Earth's atmosphere. God know what else are they tolerant to? "
They never complain about dupes or lack of Ogg support. Bet that's makin a lot of you feel pretty low right now.
"Your Mom" = 36,231 Chinas
That explains why I rear-ended your mom. I didn't have enough gas to go around!
"Right genius, that's why they charge royalties on PLAYERS and not MP3 FILES.
Pay attention... "
Not true. It's the encoders that have royalties, not the decoders.
Pay attention.
" Therefore, a strong argument could be made that the website is not infringing on the patent, but the web browser's rendering is."
The only way that argument could work is if an error in rendering the HTML made by a browser not targeted (i.e. if the error happened in IE, the author is s.o.l.) caused a patent violation to happen.
However, since this patent appears to be about design instead of literal function, I'd say that's not likely. The author is still responsible.
Just so it's clear, I'm not for this at all. I just think the argument is faulty. Want to make it work? Try something like this: "You can't patent use of a feature for its intended purpose. There's prior art. Etc."
"Lynx renders frames just fine without violating the patent. It asks you which frame you want to see (you can only see one at a time). "
Irrelevant. The author makes the pages with a goal in mind. He has the ability to test them. He's responsible for his content. You can't sue Mozilla because kiddie porn showed up on somebody's browser.
"Sure it is. They're manipulating a monoply in one field (cable TV) in an attempt to corner an independant field (broadband internet). Pretty straightforward monopoly abuse. "
No, they're refusing to let their service be used to aid their competition. I mean seriously, would you give a ride to a guy who's on his way to date your girlfriend?
The only way this could be considered 'straightforward monopoly abuse' is if Comcast was the only way you could advertise in that area. It's not. You can advertise anywhere, cableTV is just one stop.