I wonder what ever happened to Q. Why they did not make him the bad guy for a movie. They could do anything with him as the baddie.
I mean look at what he did to them
1. He was the first villian in the show.
2. He introduced the Enterprise to the Borg. Until then, the Borg were at the outskirts of Federation space in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Now, they were on the way to Earth. All Q's fault.
3. He was the villian in countless other stories.
4. He was the final villian in TNG's finale.
Or if not Q, work Q in with him running to the Enterprise for help again. The only trap such a story holds, is how to create a threat with someone so powerful and not have a plot device, etc to save the day in the end (I believe that is called a McGuffan or something).
But the TNG writters have already delt with that issue before. They'd have to expand it, just do it carefully.
I wonder how well that might have worked though. I love B5 and almost everything JMS has written since. However, good or bad, when he doesn't get his way, he will walk away from a project. He likes to be in full creative control.
After Crusade was killed by TNT's influence, I think JMS took a lesson from that. He had a great comic series called Rising Stars. He said in the same place as the above comments, that the final issues would be finally out later this year. It took so long because he and Top Cow were having contract and money issues and he wouldn't finish until it was settled.
He also recently left Showtime's Jeremiah over creative differences.
Fortunately, he has been happy with Marvel and now the B5 movie (TMOS or The Memory of Shadows) is being made.
I would have loved to be a fly on that wall though when Paramount came to him to help. I wonder if they talked ideas, etc. Interesting that Enterprise chose to do a season long story arc for this season. Something B5 did with lots of success (hell, it was a 5 season long arc, well 4).
I was in Seattle a few years back during the late fall, on a business trip. The first day I was there it was clear, but drizzled a little that night. The next day was nice, then the next it rained. After a day of rain it cleared up. Mostly the rain was not heavy, but it was cold.
Then the last day, when I was heading to the airport, it snowed. It snowed a lot. I grew up on Long Island, spent 4 years in State College, PA, and live in Baltimore. While I'd seen more snow, I've never seen it just come down so heavy before. It wasn't windy, the flakes where just heavy and it all stuck. Within a few hours there was a good 6 inches or so.
The car service I had would not even drive in the snow. I had to take a taxi, and I tipped him a whole lot for getting me to the airport in reasonable time. Oh, also
About 5 miles outside the city on the way to the airport there was nothing. Weird weather....
I used to pick up several graphic novel series. The problem was, that it got really expensive.
I like my graphic novels like I like my anime. I'll purchase small series, where a few DVDs and I've got all it need (series like Trigun, Excel Saga, Cowboy Bebop are like this).
I used to buy both the graphic novels and anime for Ranma 1/2. Now I've got dozens of video tapes and a bunch of DVDs sitting around (though I've recently been selling them off). I probably spent nearly $1,000 on that one series. Sure, I enjoyed the stories, but that is just too much money.
I think maybe a rental service or an on demand TV series for anime might be the thing. A lot of anime is also available online on various sharing tools (not that I would ever do such a thing!) with fan subtitles.
I've never gotten a montly comic (Manga) itself. I've always stuck to the graphic novels.
Also, some Manga's and Anime series tend to be very very close in story (Ranma being one) so only 1 of the two need be purchased.
I would highly recommend getting the Akira manga collection. It is only the base for the movie and a much different story. I found it absolutely incredible and is one of the few series I am glad I spent the money on. Most of the rest, I'll probably try to ebay sometime.:)
Space.com has an article on it. The next time is in 2012.
"The next transit is on June 6, 2012 and will be visible from northwestern North America, northern Asia, Japan, Korea, eastern China, Philippines, eastern Australia, and New Zealand, according to NASA. Portions of the 2012 event will be visible in parts of North America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa."
My SO actually had a playstation herself before we met. So now we've got 2. I've thought about selling on and getting an X-box or something, but every once in a while we need two.
Typically I play on weekends. With 2 playstations, I can play on the big screen, or move up to another TV if she wants to watch TV or play games herself.
This way, when she is otherwise occupied, I can play, when she isn't, we can do something together.
I've found that having the 2nd machine other than on the main TV works great, since that is the TV she'll most likely be watching, especially as that is where the Tivo is.
I went to the film to see the story. In the first few minutes I was amazed to see how much they've come along in the animation. The rain and water scenes where incredible. There was a bit of flash in there, where you can tell a toss of hair, etc was done just to play with animating it, but overall the animation was spectacular. Story wise, I found that it wasn't a good as the first movie, but entertaining enough with some good laughs along the way.
What I think the discussion of Pixar vs. Dreamworks misses on is just looking at how much they both improve from film to film. In just a few years they've development new ways to animate the films that make the previous ones seem almost silly.
For a techinical discussion, I think it would be more interesting to look at what they have done to improve the animation than whose is better. There is nothing like a good competition to keep this moving too. Shrek 2 shows that Dreamworks is keeping up and making sure to push Pixar.
I wonder what we'll get to see when Shrek 3 or the next Pixar after incredibles comes out. Remember, this are animated movies. Realism isn't the goal, hell, Shrek stars an Ogre, a talking Donkey, Cat, and Gingerbread Man amoung others.
How long until someone breaks the system and is able to write a paper that is nothing more than keywords, etc that the grading program look for.
Until there is true AI, essays are simply too complex for computer anaylsis. Different people use different writing techniques to get to points and make conclusions, how is software going to be able to predict all the possibilities.
I'm not saying this isn't a neat idea, I'd love to know some of the specifics behind the logic in the software, but right now I see this a something can be broken badly as essays start being written for a computer audience and not a human one.
Thought I guess at least the computer won't get tired and blurry eyed while grading. Nothing like hoping your good papers where the ones read first and those late nighters were left until the poor TA grading the paper had been through several hundred papers and couldn't tell a load of BS from real work... not that I even BS'd a paper (or my thesis, no, never)....
Personally I have not been able to get as into the Prequels as I am into the originals. Why? I wouldn't say it was strickly a quality issue...
I've read all the novels staring the original characters, buying them in harcover even, the NJO, and even the comic books, yet since the transition of the stories to mostly Prequel Era tales, I've stopped collecting the comics, I only picked up the newest novel in paperback because I had nothing else new to read, and I just can't get excited about these new, old characters.
The key is nostalgia. While I can barely remember seeing Jedi in the theather (after waiting hours in line) at 9 (born in '74 for the more mathmatically challenged) the original movies and characters are rooted in my childhood. From the movies to the toys to playing starwars with legos, I spent much of my time as a kid emersed in Star Wars. That is why as an adult, I still enjoyed reading stories about the original characters. Hell, one of the first times I met a now good friend he asked me "Han or Luke"? For such a random question at the time, it took me only a second to choose because even in my 20's the movies were still there (mostly thanks to the Special Edition re-release and playing the Star Wars drinking game). I chose Luke, much to his dismay, though in that group, the numbers are pretty even.
Anyway, I digress. The key here is childhood. Star Wars is a story mainly for kids. It is a good versus evil, white hat, black hat story. It is simple and fun.
Just look at how much the kids today enjoy the toys and movies from the Prequel. Sure, the story's are simple, the acting too, but that is all Lucas is trying to achieve.
Look back at ANH and you'll find poor acting and dialog. Same in Jedi. Only Empire really seemed to strech out of this, which is why, amoung adults now, it is the favorite. It appeals to a more grown up audience and so has kept better over the years, more so than any other of the films, even though it is actually the lowest grossing of all of them.
I recall an interview with Gary Kurtz, the producer of Empire (and Star Wars, and Raiders I believe) where he described his efforts to keep Lucas away from the film as much as possible, to allow it to be darker, more grown up. Lucas' reaction to this was Jedi, without these same people that made Empire more adult.
Lucas has a vision of the movies as he wants to make them and he has the power and money to do that. His vision simply isn't what we, as the now adult fans of the films, want. We want movies for us and he makes movies for kids.
That isn't to say we don't sit in lines and munch on popcorn while watching a cool space battle, but just look at the kids in the theater with their toys and big smiles and you'll see where the key target for the films is.
So, instead of trying to fix the movies, etc. just enjoy the stories we've got. Without Star Wars, we wouldn't have had Indiana Jones, or any number of Sci Fi films that have been out since then.
As they get older, it will be interesting to see how much the movies stand up and how much the kids that are fans today stick with the films. I think that only time will tell what the lasting quality is for the Prequels and that will tell if the movies are as good as the originals in the minds of the kids today or not (as the originals have still lasted, just see what DVD is the big selling on amazon).
Personally, I've seen PM a few times, AOTC once, and each of the originals dozens of times. I'd consider myself a bigtime SW geek and I'll buy the DVDs when they do come out, Greedo shooting first be damned (I can't imagine he'd remove it, though it begs to be fixed).
However, I won't be watching the Prequels time and time again. That doesn't make them worse, just different, and not for me.
I'll see EpIII in the theaters when it comes out, probably opening weekend, and probably only once. I'll hate the bad dialog and Jar Jar and enjoy the big fight between Obi Wan and Anakin and that is all. At least I'll be able to go home and watch the originals by then as many times and I need to.
One summer, years ago now, maybe 10 or more, I worked at a research lab at Brandeis Univesity (high school summer program). They did research into the perception of motion and had a grant from NASA. They had a large room, about 10' in diameter that rotated. At the time I left, they were planning an experiment that would put several people into this room for something like 100 or more days while it rotated contantly to see what the long term effect of this would be for a trip to Mars.
I have not idea of they did this experiment, though I have no reason to think not. I wonder now, if the results are published and available on the net.
In the forward to the first of the new prequels, Brian Herbet states that he tried to do a new novel first. Using his fathers notes, but there wasn't enough.
I think the one thing I've really liked in the prequels is that he took where Frank Herbert was going with this mysterious force and defined it. I imagine based on the notes he found.
I'm actually looking forward to seeing what knowing this will having when I get to the later novels again.
KJA jumps into other franchises, does his thing, and typically leaves then at best, no better than before.
The Jedi Academy was ok, but had one major major problem. KJA kepts mentioning the resurected emperor. This was a plot from the Dark Empire comic series and not something that Zahn used as cannon in his books. So here you have something that took place a while ago, doesn't exist in the trilogy before, and now KJA adds it.
This made Zahns stuff odd to have this missing, or KJAs addition of it nonsense.
And why do you ask does he do this? Well, KJA was involved in the comic series, so by putting stuff from there in the novels, he drew attention to the comics he was also writing and therefore sales (the background of the Jedi Academy series is details in comics for example).
Most people's problem with KJA and Star Wars is that after him, things kept going downhill, after the wonderful start by Zahn. The novels because predicible, derivative, and no one major ever died. They were Leia's kids get kidnapped, a new threat to the galaxy shows up, Luke and Han save the day. Etc etc etc etc....
This is why the New Jedi Order was done. Notice, the NJO is under a new publisher. The old publisher let Zahn come back and 1. set up the NJO and 2. explain away the resurected emperor crap and bitch slap KJA (yay!) by making it just a clone.
Then, Stackpole, Zahn, and others got together and came up with the NJO pitch to the new publisher with the idea of a long, many novel storyline. And, the first thing they did, was to kill off a major characer. To wake up the reader. (Alas Chewie, we all miss you)
I won't go into the quality of NJO, but compared to the crap started by the work of KJA in Star Wars, well. "Acclaimed" is a word I have a lot of problems associating with KJA.
I'm a fan of Dune. The movie, the mini-series, and the novels (managed to read 'em all). When I saw the new "prequels" with KJA's name assocated I was very skeptical to the quality.
Simply, they are not deep, but they can be entertaining. Fortunately there is only so much KJA could mess with, seeing as he has to get to the place where Dune started.
I've heard some bad reviews of this new novel, in fact horrible ones. I might pick it up in paperback sometime, but that is it.
For what he does, KJA can be said to be succesful. I don't think people will look at him as a literary genius, but maybe that isn't his goal. He certainly has a decent number of novels to his name. Most of them sell because they are associated with a series and not his name. Before calling him a "hack" though, I'd like to see what the sales of his own novels are.
However, I know that when I see his name on a book, it counts as a negative for me, only the name Dune got me to buy the prequel novels. I wouldn't touch anything of his own.
Of course, first you need to look at the environments. How much do you like who you work with, do you know anyone at the new job, etc. Benefits and other, non-dollar, factors are a part of it.
However, for the sake of this discussion, look at it as a pure money thing. I see little reason to not accept a counter offer. You get the money you wanted (which is prob why you were looking in the first place) and you don't have to start over.
Are far as being fired, looked at as trouble, etc. Well, companies don't have loyalty to the employees, they are about profit, so who cares. If they are going to lay-off people, they won't keep you because they like you, it is all about the bottom line. So, of course if you take a counter, you are making more and more likely to get let go then you were (with the same skill set, but costing more). They keep you if your skills are important to the work the company has.
You personal relationships with your immediate management has little to do with being let go or not. These choices typically come from much higher up. It doesn't matter how much they like you, but how much your skills are worth to the company.
I've been at 3 jobs in 5 years and they have all been fairly similar (one as an infrastructure IS guy and 2 as a programmer). You make friends, get to be confortable, etc. They all have politics, problems, and a mix of happy and unhappy people. If you change jobs, you won't find some glorious perfect place to work, you'll find a place where you need to rebuild the relationshps you had.
Of course, this is all moot, because you rarely change jobs because of pure money. Often people change because they are unhappy with other factors (stress, kind of work, etc). Then you have to ask, how much is that worth to you, because these things won't go away with more money at your current job.
Of course, these things exist at all jobs. Last time I changed jobs, I didn't even look for a counter (would've gotten one I was told later). And I took a small pay raise to get away from a place I didn't like. While I would've never taken the counter. I should've at least gotten it and come back to the new place to let them big over me. It is all about the money in the end, one company is much like another (small to big, I've worked for a 30 person to a 15,000 person company).
-T
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder what ever happened to Q. Why they did not make him the bad guy for a movie. They could do anything with him as the baddie.
I mean look at what he did to them
1. He was the first villian in the show.
2. He introduced the Enterprise to the Borg. Until then, the Borg were at the outskirts of Federation space in the Romulan Neutral Zone. Now, they were on the way to Earth. All Q's fault.
3. He was the villian in countless other stories.
4. He was the final villian in TNG's finale.
Or if not Q, work Q in with him running to the Enterprise for help again. The only trap such a story holds, is how to create a threat with someone so powerful and not have a plot device, etc to save the day in the end (I believe that is called a McGuffan or something).
But the TNG writters have already delt with that issue before. They'd have to expand it, just do it carefully.
I wonder how well that might have worked though. I love B5 and almost everything JMS has written since. However, good or bad, when he doesn't get his way, he will walk away from a project. He likes to be in full creative control.
After Crusade was killed by TNT's influence, I think JMS took a lesson from that. He had a great comic series called Rising Stars. He said in the same place as the above comments, that the final issues would be finally out later this year. It took so long because he and Top Cow were having contract and money issues and he wouldn't finish until it was settled.
He also recently left Showtime's Jeremiah over creative differences.
Fortunately, he has been happy with Marvel and now the B5 movie (TMOS or The Memory of Shadows) is being made.
I would have loved to be a fly on that wall though when Paramount came to him to help. I wonder if they talked ideas, etc. Interesting that Enterprise chose to do a season long story arc for this season. Something B5 did with lots of success (hell, it was a 5 season long arc, well 4).
I wonder how JMS would've gotten along with them. IIRC he originally tried to sell the B5 concept to Berman and co. and was told no
Surprise surprise, DS9 came out soon after.
I was in Seattle a few years back during the late fall, on a business trip. The first day I was there it was clear, but drizzled a little that night. The next day was nice, then the next it rained. After a day of rain it cleared up. Mostly the rain was not heavy, but it was cold.
Then the last day, when I was heading to the airport, it snowed. It snowed a lot. I grew up on Long Island, spent 4 years in State College, PA, and live in Baltimore. While I'd seen more snow, I've never seen it just come down so heavy before. It wasn't windy, the flakes where just heavy and it all stuck. Within a few hours there was a good 6 inches or so.
The car service I had would not even drive in the snow. I had to take a taxi, and I tipped him a whole lot for getting me to the airport in reasonable time. Oh, also
About 5 miles outside the city on the way to the airport there was nothing. Weird weather....
I used to pick up several graphic novel series. The problem was, that it got really expensive.
:)
I like my graphic novels like I like my anime. I'll purchase small series, where a few DVDs and I've got all it need (series like Trigun, Excel Saga, Cowboy Bebop are like this).
I used to buy both the graphic novels and anime for Ranma 1/2. Now I've got dozens of video tapes and a bunch of DVDs sitting around (though I've recently been selling them off). I probably spent nearly $1,000 on that one series. Sure, I enjoyed the stories, but that is just too much money.
I think maybe a rental service or an on demand TV series for anime might be the thing. A lot of anime is also available online on various sharing tools (not that I would ever do such a thing!) with fan subtitles.
I've never gotten a montly comic (Manga) itself. I've always stuck to the graphic novels.
Also, some Manga's and Anime series tend to be very very close in story (Ranma being one) so only 1 of the two need be purchased.
I would highly recommend getting the Akira manga collection. It is only the base for the movie and a much different story. I found it absolutely incredible and is one of the few series I am glad I spent the money on. Most of the rest, I'll probably try to ebay sometime.
Space.com has an article on it. The next time is in 2012. "The next transit is on June 6, 2012 and will be visible from northwestern North America, northern Asia, Japan, Korea, eastern China, Philippines, eastern Australia, and New Zealand, according to NASA. Portions of the 2012 event will be visible in parts of North America, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa."
My SO actually had a playstation herself before we met. So now we've got 2. I've thought about selling on and getting an X-box or something, but every once in a while we need two. Typically I play on weekends. With 2 playstations, I can play on the big screen, or move up to another TV if she wants to watch TV or play games herself. This way, when she is otherwise occupied, I can play, when she isn't, we can do something together. I've found that having the 2nd machine other than on the main TV works great, since that is the TV she'll most likely be watching, especially as that is where the Tivo is.
I went to the film to see the story. In the first few minutes I was amazed to see how much they've come along in the animation. The rain and water scenes where incredible. There was a bit of flash in there, where you can tell a toss of hair, etc was done just to play with animating it, but overall the animation was spectacular. Story wise, I found that it wasn't a good as the first movie, but entertaining enough with some good laughs along the way. What I think the discussion of Pixar vs. Dreamworks misses on is just looking at how much they both improve from film to film. In just a few years they've development new ways to animate the films that make the previous ones seem almost silly. For a techinical discussion, I think it would be more interesting to look at what they have done to improve the animation than whose is better. There is nothing like a good competition to keep this moving too. Shrek 2 shows that Dreamworks is keeping up and making sure to push Pixar. I wonder what we'll get to see when Shrek 3 or the next Pixar after incredibles comes out. Remember, this are animated movies. Realism isn't the goal, hell, Shrek stars an Ogre, a talking Donkey, Cat, and Gingerbread Man amoung others.
How long until someone breaks the system and is able to write a paper that is nothing more than keywords, etc that the grading program look for. Until there is true AI, essays are simply too complex for computer anaylsis. Different people use different writing techniques to get to points and make conclusions, how is software going to be able to predict all the possibilities. I'm not saying this isn't a neat idea, I'd love to know some of the specifics behind the logic in the software, but right now I see this a something can be broken badly as essays start being written for a computer audience and not a human one. Thought I guess at least the computer won't get tired and blurry eyed while grading. Nothing like hoping your good papers where the ones read first and those late nighters were left until the poor TA grading the paper had been through several hundred papers and couldn't tell a load of BS from real work... not that I even BS'd a paper (or my thesis, no, never)....
Personally I have not been able to get as into the Prequels as I am into the originals. Why? I wouldn't say it was strickly a quality issue... I've read all the novels staring the original characters, buying them in harcover even, the NJO, and even the comic books, yet since the transition of the stories to mostly Prequel Era tales, I've stopped collecting the comics, I only picked up the newest novel in paperback because I had nothing else new to read, and I just can't get excited about these new, old characters. The key is nostalgia. While I can barely remember seeing Jedi in the theather (after waiting hours in line) at 9 (born in '74 for the more mathmatically challenged) the original movies and characters are rooted in my childhood. From the movies to the toys to playing starwars with legos, I spent much of my time as a kid emersed in Star Wars. That is why as an adult, I still enjoyed reading stories about the original characters. Hell, one of the first times I met a now good friend he asked me "Han or Luke"? For such a random question at the time, it took me only a second to choose because even in my 20's the movies were still there (mostly thanks to the Special Edition re-release and playing the Star Wars drinking game). I chose Luke, much to his dismay, though in that group, the numbers are pretty even. Anyway, I digress. The key here is childhood. Star Wars is a story mainly for kids. It is a good versus evil, white hat, black hat story. It is simple and fun. Just look at how much the kids today enjoy the toys and movies from the Prequel. Sure, the story's are simple, the acting too, but that is all Lucas is trying to achieve. Look back at ANH and you'll find poor acting and dialog. Same in Jedi. Only Empire really seemed to strech out of this, which is why, amoung adults now, it is the favorite. It appeals to a more grown up audience and so has kept better over the years, more so than any other of the films, even though it is actually the lowest grossing of all of them. I recall an interview with Gary Kurtz, the producer of Empire (and Star Wars, and Raiders I believe) where he described his efforts to keep Lucas away from the film as much as possible, to allow it to be darker, more grown up. Lucas' reaction to this was Jedi, without these same people that made Empire more adult. Lucas has a vision of the movies as he wants to make them and he has the power and money to do that. His vision simply isn't what we, as the now adult fans of the films, want. We want movies for us and he makes movies for kids. That isn't to say we don't sit in lines and munch on popcorn while watching a cool space battle, but just look at the kids in the theater with their toys and big smiles and you'll see where the key target for the films is. So, instead of trying to fix the movies, etc. just enjoy the stories we've got. Without Star Wars, we wouldn't have had Indiana Jones, or any number of Sci Fi films that have been out since then. As they get older, it will be interesting to see how much the movies stand up and how much the kids that are fans today stick with the films. I think that only time will tell what the lasting quality is for the Prequels and that will tell if the movies are as good as the originals in the minds of the kids today or not (as the originals have still lasted, just see what DVD is the big selling on amazon). Personally, I've seen PM a few times, AOTC once, and each of the originals dozens of times. I'd consider myself a bigtime SW geek and I'll buy the DVDs when they do come out, Greedo shooting first be damned (I can't imagine he'd remove it, though it begs to be fixed). However, I won't be watching the Prequels time and time again. That doesn't make them worse, just different, and not for me. I'll see EpIII in the theaters when it comes out, probably opening weekend, and probably only once. I'll hate the bad dialog and Jar Jar and enjoy the big fight between Obi Wan and Anakin and that is all. At least I'll be able to go home and watch the originals by then as many times and I need to.
One summer, years ago now, maybe 10 or more, I worked at a research lab at Brandeis Univesity (high school summer program). They did research into the perception of motion and had a grant from NASA. They had a large room, about 10' in diameter that rotated. At the time I left, they were planning an experiment that would put several people into this room for something like 100 or more days while it rotated contantly to see what the long term effect of this would be for a trip to Mars. I have not idea of they did this experiment, though I have no reason to think not. I wonder now, if the results are published and available on the net.
In the forward to the first of the new prequels, Brian Herbet states that he tried to do a new novel first. Using his fathers notes, but there wasn't enough. I think the one thing I've really liked in the prequels is that he took where Frank Herbert was going with this mysterious force and defined it. I imagine based on the notes he found. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what knowing this will having when I get to the later novels again.
KJA jumps into other franchises, does his thing, and typically leaves then at best, no better than before. The Jedi Academy was ok, but had one major major problem. KJA kepts mentioning the resurected emperor. This was a plot from the Dark Empire comic series and not something that Zahn used as cannon in his books. So here you have something that took place a while ago, doesn't exist in the trilogy before, and now KJA adds it. This made Zahns stuff odd to have this missing, or KJAs addition of it nonsense. And why do you ask does he do this? Well, KJA was involved in the comic series, so by putting stuff from there in the novels, he drew attention to the comics he was also writing and therefore sales (the background of the Jedi Academy series is details in comics for example). Most people's problem with KJA and Star Wars is that after him, things kept going downhill, after the wonderful start by Zahn. The novels because predicible, derivative, and no one major ever died. They were Leia's kids get kidnapped, a new threat to the galaxy shows up, Luke and Han save the day. Etc etc etc etc.... This is why the New Jedi Order was done. Notice, the NJO is under a new publisher. The old publisher let Zahn come back and 1. set up the NJO and 2. explain away the resurected emperor crap and bitch slap KJA (yay!) by making it just a clone. Then, Stackpole, Zahn, and others got together and came up with the NJO pitch to the new publisher with the idea of a long, many novel storyline. And, the first thing they did, was to kill off a major characer. To wake up the reader. (Alas Chewie, we all miss you) I won't go into the quality of NJO, but compared to the crap started by the work of KJA in Star Wars, well. "Acclaimed" is a word I have a lot of problems associating with KJA. I'm a fan of Dune. The movie, the mini-series, and the novels (managed to read 'em all). When I saw the new "prequels" with KJA's name assocated I was very skeptical to the quality. Simply, they are not deep, but they can be entertaining. Fortunately there is only so much KJA could mess with, seeing as he has to get to the place where Dune started. I've heard some bad reviews of this new novel, in fact horrible ones. I might pick it up in paperback sometime, but that is it. For what he does, KJA can be said to be succesful. I don't think people will look at him as a literary genius, but maybe that isn't his goal. He certainly has a decent number of novels to his name. Most of them sell because they are associated with a series and not his name. Before calling him a "hack" though, I'd like to see what the sales of his own novels are. However, I know that when I see his name on a book, it counts as a negative for me, only the name Dune got me to buy the prequel novels. I wouldn't touch anything of his own.
Of course, first you need to look at the environments. How much do you like who you work with, do you know anyone at the new job, etc. Benefits and other, non-dollar, factors are a part of it. However, for the sake of this discussion, look at it as a pure money thing. I see little reason to not accept a counter offer. You get the money you wanted (which is prob why you were looking in the first place) and you don't have to start over. Are far as being fired, looked at as trouble, etc. Well, companies don't have loyalty to the employees, they are about profit, so who cares. If they are going to lay-off people, they won't keep you because they like you, it is all about the bottom line. So, of course if you take a counter, you are making more and more likely to get let go then you were (with the same skill set, but costing more). They keep you if your skills are important to the work the company has. You personal relationships with your immediate management has little to do with being let go or not. These choices typically come from much higher up. It doesn't matter how much they like you, but how much your skills are worth to the company. I've been at 3 jobs in 5 years and they have all been fairly similar (one as an infrastructure IS guy and 2 as a programmer). You make friends, get to be confortable, etc. They all have politics, problems, and a mix of happy and unhappy people. If you change jobs, you won't find some glorious perfect place to work, you'll find a place where you need to rebuild the relationshps you had. Of course, this is all moot, because you rarely change jobs because of pure money. Often people change because they are unhappy with other factors (stress, kind of work, etc). Then you have to ask, how much is that worth to you, because these things won't go away with more money at your current job. Of course, these things exist at all jobs. Last time I changed jobs, I didn't even look for a counter (would've gotten one I was told later). And I took a small pay raise to get away from a place I didn't like. While I would've never taken the counter. I should've at least gotten it and come back to the new place to let them big over me. It is all about the money in the end, one company is much like another (small to big, I've worked for a 30 person to a 15,000 person company). -T