Reading this in conjunction with numerous other articles regarding MS and their role in forcefeeding DRM hardware and software to the public, it occurs to me that the X-Box does a great deal more than provide yet another revenue source for MS. It also provides a great deal of raw data in terms of how to design and market a product that incorporates not only software that is in their minds still legally the property of MS, but now a hardware product that is bound to its parent in the same fashion.
They get to see in a relatively small marketplace just how intrusive they can be before even the dullest customer gets irked by their paternalistic attitude, while at the same time they get to scrutinize very closely those rebellious souls amongst us who will always find a way to subvert that paternalism by hacking the system... and they can see how they do it; both how they attack the problem, and what technology they bring to bear on the solution. We advertise our successes in all their glory across a hundred thousand websites every day, complete with photos which show every step in surgical precision.
For them it's a win/win situation; they've sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 million units, generating some 30-odd million dollars in revenue, not counting the games... but even if they GAVE the X-Boxes away, that 30 million dollars and the 10 million or so spent developing the X-Box would still be a bargain to them.
They'll walk away with the knowledge of how to sew up the Digital Entertainment industry in their little DRM bag, and by the time an unsuspecting public realizes what they've done MS will once again be the de facto standard of yet another invasive industry that impacts their daily lives. By then, the notion of buying a computer that has many of it's major features locked away behind a firewall against its "owner" will seem perfectly sensible, and Big Brother will get another toe inside the door.
I'm impressed. Not only have they managed to run one of the biggest marketing experiments ever imagined; one which may very well place them at the forefront of the newly emerging Digital Entertainment industry... They got the subjects of the experiment to pay for it themselves.
Mnem "Fear is good - Keep that, but travel light. Forget the hate."
Mmmmm... fan, perhaps. To a limited extent. Stupid, absolutely not. You are comparing apples and eggs. Win2K is still a swiss cheese, file permissions are only as good as an administrator's diligence in maintaining proper limitations on resource access. Active Directory is in itself a security hole big enuf to drive a truck through, and when I was still in school for Win2K we discussed numerous patches regarding the very issue in question here - processes and users vying for control of specific file permissions.
Don't confuse relative inexperience with stupidity.
So this is why the Fed is giving massive grants to help US companies develop overseas production of nearly everything you can imagine? Hmmm... It all becomes so clear now... hidden costs=hidden payoffs.
Welcome to the GOBN, spearheading a new millenium of "The Same As It Ever Was."
Mnem
... which might work in Apple Computers' favor... as iMusic pays royalties to the RIAA (Or is it ASCAP? I can't remember), and Apple Music gets a piece of that. Unless Apple Music has been returning those checks, (which I higly doubt) then legally that may constitute at least a tacit agreement. With the huge popularity of iTunes, Apple Computer may actually have the upper hand here - they can use that distribution channel as leverage against Apple Music as well.
Only time will tell if Apple Music is dumb enuf to shoot themselves in the foot that way.
Amen! I've been a long time user, lover, and abuser of the Kensington TrackBalls... going all the way back to my First ExpertMouse, which I've had for almost 15 years and STILL provides one of the smoothest feels of any pointing device you'll ever use. Over the years I've replaced the original cue with a Brunswick composition 8-ball, and had to replace the bearings a couple times, but I've gotten used to it, and so to me its worth it.
I have a Turbo Mouse on the big box cuz the old lady uses that and she likes the quicklaunch buttons. She also loves her Ergo Keyboard, I tried to put a normal KB on it and she threateened to wake me up one night by yanking out a fistful of pubes... So my old machine sits in the spare bedroom, and when I want to use a desktop, that's where I go. It still has my old ExpertMouse, and one of those 20 lb IBM/Lexmark tactile click keyboards that feels like a Selectric II TypeWriter... I love the feel of that board and it really is sad that you can't buy a modern board like it anymore, even if you are willing to pay for it.
*Sigh*
Sometimes, newer is not necessarily better.
Mnem
Mmmm... it sure does. And on the flip side, it makes a lovely diversion from the actions of Congress as they systematically gut our Constitution and Bill of Rights...
Mnem "Errors have been made. Others will be blamed."
Bring all your most dangerous products... you know, the ones you canned because your wussy legal department said you couldn't afford to release them on the market because well, it might chop off an arm or a leg... or blow little Timmy's face off... yeah, all those products! For the right price, we'll slap our Homeland Security Seal on it, and little Timmy can go pound sand! Sell your ill-designed, poorly thought-out, or just plain dangerous product with IMPUNITY!(And not just in the Third World anymore!)
That ought to give our economy the shot in the arm it needs!
Mnem "It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off."
Re:I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!
on
Back To SCO
·
· Score: 1
"73,000 empty lies of code" - Freudian typo?
Ummm... no... that WAS deliberate... LOL
I meant "Sonna" and "mabe"... Ghaaaahhh... even when I screw up I can't win for losing.
That does it. The next time someone asks me what they should do to make their WinBloze PC secure, I'm going to hand them a sledgehammer.
Crap on a crutch. As least LINUX tells the customer they're installing a Beta...
Mnem "...It's kinda like Pro Wrestling... Part reality, part illusion, part bullshit, all mixed with big scary guys from parts unknown in dire need of psychiatric care." Agent Franklin Cappella - The Art of War
... so they're taking it out on the guy who's trying to show them how to fix their own abysmal lack of security.
I realize this is a matter of laws and such; but really... if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else, and they'd STILL have the same expenses once anyone who knew what they were doing got into the system, even if it was only a new head of IT Security. All Adrian did was to save them from hiring a headhunter.
Those fraudulent charges to LexisNexis will be refunded as a courtesy to such a large customer as the Times, and probably along with them will be refunded a reasonable number of legitimate searches for Adrian Lamo. This will net them a profit in the long run.
So the ultimate end here is that The Times looks like a bunch of jerkoffs, and even if Adrian goes to jail all it will do is boost his street crit thereby improving his saleability as a consultant, perhaps even leading to a job with our own government. It's really a win/win situation for Adrian, and if the Times weren't such a bunch of weenies, they'd realize it was for them too.
... can I try a slice with green eggs instead of my usual ham?
A good victory though... even though I still feel like Sysyphos pushing that boulder every time I open my Inbox...
Mnem "Hold my beer and watch this!" - Anonymous Texan
Re:I'm Gonna Sue SCO!!!
on
Back To SCO
·
· Score: 1
Oh gawd... look at the typos...
I'm gonna sue my own fingers for incompetence!!!
Mnem "To make something foolproof is impossible. Fools are just too damned inventive."
I'm Sonna Sue SCO!!!
on
Back To SCO
·
· Score: 5, Funny
I have in my possession an 8" floppy containing 73,000 empty lies of code, borrowed from my desk during negotiations with SCO for my CP/M floppy disk defragging utility! NO! You can't SEE the disk! Well, mabe a picture of it...
It is true that it is easier... and it has the added bonus of keeping their name in the news. Any press is good press, and the RIAA won't get much publicity out of busting that bootlegger.
But... they really don't implement any of those other models very well... Look at the endorsement angle. The last musician (I know... I use the term very loosely here) I can remember seeing endorsing any product was J-Blo, selling her own breed of body scent. Though I've seen a dozen athletes endorsing products today alone.
And look at that swag... the NFL has merchandising done right... from specialty stores to placement in every department store you can think of to a website that is a model of online capitalism... Meanwhile, if you want a Who t-shirt, you'll probably have to order from a specialty music shop, or search for it online and hope what you buy isn't bootleg. Of course, the prices they expect to get for their merch are ridiculous, as you say... when you buy a Starter warmup shirt, you get a decent quality collared shirt with a stitched logo for your 25 bux... but when you buy that Stain'd shirt for the same 25 bux, you get a two-tone silk screen on a 99c Hanes second. No wonder even senseless teenagers would rather make their own with materials they can get from Wally World. For that 25 bux, they can make their own in less than an hour, as well as 4 more to save or share with friends.
As you say - greed. But rather than bow down to the forces of supply and demand, they'll fight tooth and nail to keep a market position that is doomed anyhow. Two words come to mind...
This is simply more proof that these models for profiting from media have long outlived their usefulness. Technology has outstripped the marketing, the distribution network they cling to will soon go the way of the 8-track.
There ARE other models... other ways to make a profit from a popular artist. Take for example the sports industry - a popular franchise (and its popular players) makes 1000 times more money through endorsements and sales of authorized merchandise than they do from from actual ticket sales - (We'll have to ignore the massive profit made from broadcasting rights, there really isn't currently an equivalent in the music industry... though, if they got their heads out of their butts, that could work as well) yet the RIAA would have you believe that there is no other way to make sure an artist gets paid for their work than the Pay-For-Play model that has been around since the days of Shakespeare.
You can't download a genuine Starter Steelers Jersey, and bootleggers are a lot easier to bust.
... I really think it is unacceptable to take this scattergun approach to controlling any kind of illegal activity. I was fortunate enough to be a victim of AOL's blockage of YahooMail, and as I use a YahooMail account in my eBay business, it disrupted communications for several auctions I was involved in. Now true, this is a relatively minor inconvenience, but it did cost me potential profit. I can only imagine what it must be like for a legitimate business that relies on their website for advertising and revenue generation... or say the possible small website devoted to preventing Child Abuse that could as easily share that ISP. It's like they're saying "Kill them all, let God sort 'em out..."
A 1 rating? Good lord... what do I have to do around here to get better than a 1?
Ahhh... I know...
*Sets up a striptease pole and turns on the music*
Dah duh duhduh duhhhh...dah duh duh...
*Ratchety sounds and twirling undergarments*
Mnem
*Goggles at the error message he just got*
-ERROR 1313- Your request could not be processed. Requested process *GET A LIFE* has caused an invalid page fault in MODULE:INTERNET at address 3NO:HELLNO
Jeez... compare this to Micro$haft's vision of the future of digital media... wherein they create a firewall within a user's machine against the user himself...
M$ - "It's NOT yours! You paid for it, you built it, you use it... But it's really OURS! How DARE you think otherwise!!!"
As for the ban on list-generating software... Even the most legitimate list generating software I've been exposed to tends to use some pretty intrusive means of gathering and biasing personal information. I don't believe this is am extreme measure... If I want to sell my wares to someone, I have to spend my own money and use my own resources to do it. Why shouldn't every other company, even legitimate ones, be forced to build their own damn database full of ONLY potential customers who have previously contacted them ASKING about their product, instead of buying my private eMail address for.001c and wasting MY precious resources to deliver advertising I never wanted? Even SnailMail spammers have to pay the Post Office to deliver their unwanted solicitations, I don't directly pay their postage for them, and phone spammers still have to pay their own damn phone bills.
Mnementh
"...So we asked the computer what should we do,
but it just kept giving this insane advice -
"Oh, you need teeny little eyes
for reading teeny little print
just like you need teeny little hands
for milking mice..."
...can perhaps be best explained by the phenomenon of the recently (Well, a year ago, or 6 months ago.... depends on whose version you believe) cancelled space opera FARSCAPE. This was a show that was intelligent, witty, original, and just plain fun... all the earmarks of great television. Yet, at the height of its popularity, the SciFi Channel chose to cancel (in a most underhanded fashion) what was then it's flagship show... In favor of such fantastic (sic) programming as Crossing Over, Tremors, Scare Tactics, and regurgitated episodes of Stargate SG1, a show its own creators had decided had outlived it's usefulness.
This seems foolhardy... until you realize why. Before SciFi was bought out by media conglomerate Vivendi, they were a niche network which catered to a relatively small market who were by nature usually intelligent and educated - hardcore Science Fiction fans. The market they were born in was that of clear-broadcast satellite TV - by nature outside the channels even considered by that great equalizer of average stupidity, the Nielsen rating. Somehow they still managed to sell advertising without the Nielsens... and eventually grew large enough to become a target for acquisition. Once they came under the hand of this mainstream media conglomerate, of course the only means of valueing a show became the Nielsens... and soon they began the process of dismantling one of the greatest SciFi lineups ever created.
The real kicker there is that they have been rewarded for this abhorrent behavior; by presenting drivel that is accessible to those gifted with the Nielsen box (Notoriously known to be placed in regions with the lowest possible average IQ) they find themselves syrocketing in ratings, which of course means the only thing important to entertainment executives - advertising revenue. And there is a reason for that too... advertisers know that these are the types of viewers who, no matter how little they are really interested in a product, will eventually buy that product if you bludgeon them enough times with repetitve advertising. So once again, intelligent viewers are left in the cold... and we produce yet another generation of pablum TV to keep the mooing masses mollified. Pitiful.
So, the demise of Science Fiction in the popular media is not hard to understand. It's just another aspect of the same old dog and pony show... There is not enough profit in making people think for their entertainment.
Slashdot Mirror
Reading this in conjunction with numerous other articles regarding MS and their role in forcefeeding DRM hardware and software to the public, it occurs to me that the X-Box does a great deal more than provide yet another revenue source for MS.
It also provides a great deal of raw data in terms of how to design and market a product that incorporates not only software that is in their minds still legally the property of MS, but now a hardware product that is bound to its parent in the same fashion.
They get to see in a relatively small marketplace just how intrusive they can be before even the dullest customer gets irked by their paternalistic attitude, while at the same time they get to scrutinize very closely those rebellious souls amongst us who will always find a way to subvert that paternalism by hacking the system... and they can see how they do it; both how they attack the problem, and what technology they bring to bear on the solution. We advertise our successes in all their glory across a hundred thousand websites every day, complete with photos which show every step in surgical precision.
For them it's a win/win situation; they've sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 million units, generating some 30-odd million dollars in revenue, not counting the games... but even if they GAVE the X-Boxes away, that 30 million dollars and the 10 million or so spent developing the X-Box would still be a bargain to them.
They'll walk away with the knowledge of how to sew up the Digital Entertainment industry in their little DRM bag, and by the time an unsuspecting public realizes what they've done MS will once again be the de facto standard of yet another invasive industry that impacts their daily lives. By then, the notion of buying a computer that has many of it's major features locked away behind a firewall against its "owner" will seem perfectly sensible, and Big Brother will get another toe inside the door.
I'm impressed. Not only have they managed to run one of the biggest marketing experiments ever imagined; one which may very well place them at the forefront of the newly emerging Digital Entertainment industry... They got the subjects of the experiment to pay for it themselves.
Mnem
"Fear is good - Keep that, but travel light. Forget the hate."
Mmmmm... fan, perhaps. To a limited extent. Stupid, absolutely not. You are comparing apples and eggs. Win2K is still a swiss cheese, file permissions are only as good as an administrator's diligence in maintaining proper limitations on resource access. Active Directory is in itself a security hole big enuf to drive a truck through, and when I was still in school for Win2K we discussed numerous patches regarding the very issue in question here - processes and users vying for control of specific file permissions.
Don't confuse relative inexperience with stupidity.
Mnem
You want somethin to drink with that crack you're smokin'? Maybe a little kerosene?
Learn a little more about the file structures yer dissin' before you compare them to a frelling swiss cheese like Win2K.
Infant.
Mnem
So this is why the Fed is giving massive grants to help US companies develop overseas production of nearly everything you can imagine? Hmmm... It all becomes so clear now... hidden costs=hidden payoffs. Welcome to the GOBN, spearheading a new millenium of "The Same As It Ever Was." Mnem
... which might work in Apple Computers' favor... as iMusic pays royalties to the RIAA (Or is it ASCAP? I can't remember), and Apple Music gets a piece of that. Unless Apple Music has been returning those checks, (which I higly doubt) then legally that may constitute at least a tacit agreement. With the huge popularity of iTunes, Apple Computer may actually have the upper hand here - they can use that distribution channel as leverage against Apple Music as well.
Only time will tell if Apple Music is dumb enuf to shoot themselves in the foot that way.
Mnem
Amen! I've been a long time user, lover, and abuser of the Kensington TrackBalls... going all the way back to my First ExpertMouse, which I've had for almost 15 years and STILL provides one of the smoothest feels of any pointing device you'll ever use. Over the years I've replaced the original cue with a Brunswick composition 8-ball, and had to replace the bearings a couple times, but I've gotten used to it, and so to me its worth it. I have a Turbo Mouse on the big box cuz the old lady uses that and she likes the quicklaunch buttons. She also loves her Ergo Keyboard, I tried to put a normal KB on it and she threateened to wake me up one night by yanking out a fistful of pubes... So my old machine sits in the spare bedroom, and when I want to use a desktop, that's where I go. It still has my old ExpertMouse, and one of those 20 lb IBM/Lexmark tactile click keyboards that feels like a Selectric II TypeWriter... I love the feel of that board and it really is sad that you can't buy a modern board like it anymore, even if you are willing to pay for it. *Sigh* Sometimes, newer is not necessarily better. Mnem
Now I can play Vectorman 2 on my PS2!!!
Hmmmm... When the giant snails explode, will it make the controller vibrate?
Oooohhh... vibrating is gooooood...
Mnem
" I'm a little teapot short and stout, here is my handle and here is my.....other handle..... OH GOD I'M A SUGARPOT!!! "
Mmmm... it sure does. And on the flip side, it makes a lovely diversion from the actions of Congress as they systematically gut our Constitution and Bill of Rights...
Mnem
"Errors have been made. Others will be blamed."
Bring all your most dangerous products... you know, the ones you canned because your wussy legal department said you couldn't afford to release them on the market because well, it might chop off an arm or a leg... or blow little Timmy's face off... yeah, all those products!
For the right price, we'll slap our Homeland Security Seal on it, and little Timmy can go pound sand!
Sell your ill-designed, poorly thought-out, or just plain dangerous product with IMPUNITY!(And not just in the Third World anymore!)
That ought to give our economy the shot in the arm it needs!
Mnem
"It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off."
"73,000 empty lies of code" - Freudian typo?
Ummm... no... that WAS deliberate... LOL
I meant "Sonna" and "mabe"... Ghaaaahhh... even when I screw up I can't win for losing.
Mnem
"I am a living experiment in Murphy's Law."
That does it. The next time someone asks me what they should do to make their WinBloze PC secure, I'm going to hand them a sledgehammer.
Crap on a crutch. As least LINUX tells the customer they're installing a Beta...
Mnem
"...It's kinda like Pro Wrestling...
Part reality, part illusion, part bullshit, all mixed with big scary guys from parts unknown in dire need of psychiatric care."
Agent Franklin Cappella - The Art of War
... so they're taking it out on the guy who's trying to show them how to fix their own abysmal lack of security.
I realize this is a matter of laws and such; but really... if it hadn't been him it would have been someone else, and they'd STILL have the same expenses once anyone who knew what they were doing got into the system, even if it was only a new head of IT Security. All Adrian did was to save them from hiring a headhunter.
Those fraudulent charges to LexisNexis will be refunded as a courtesy to such a large customer as the Times, and probably along with them will be refunded a reasonable number of legitimate searches for Adrian Lamo. This will net them a profit in the long run.
So the ultimate end here is that The Times looks like a bunch of jerkoffs, and even if Adrian goes to jail all it will do is boost his street crit thereby improving his saleability as a consultant, perhaps even leading to a job with our own government.
It's really a win/win situation for Adrian, and if the Times weren't such a bunch of weenies, they'd realize it was for them too.
Mnem
... can I try a slice with green eggs instead of my usual ham?
A good victory though... even though I still feel like Sysyphos pushing that boulder every time I open my Inbox...
Mnem
"Hold my beer and watch this!" - Anonymous Texan
Oh gawd... look at the typos...
I'm gonna sue my own fingers for incompetence!!!
Mnem
"To make something foolproof is impossible. Fools are just too damned inventive."
I have in my possession an 8" floppy containing 73,000 empty lies of code, borrowed from my desk during negotiations with SCO for my CP/M floppy disk defragging utility!
NO! You can't SEE the disk! Well, mabe a picture of it...
*Cackle*
Mnem
It is true that it is easier... and it has the added bonus of keeping their name in the news. Any press is good press, and the RIAA won't get much publicity out of busting that bootlegger.
But... they really don't implement any of those other models very well... Look at the endorsement angle. The last musician (I know... I use the term very loosely here) I can remember seeing endorsing any product was J-Blo, selling her own breed of body scent. Though I've seen a dozen athletes endorsing products today alone.
And look at that swag... the NFL has merchandising done right... from specialty stores to placement in every department store you can think of to a website that is a model of online capitalism... Meanwhile, if you want a Who t-shirt, you'll probably have to order from a specialty music shop, or search for it online and hope what you buy isn't bootleg. Of course, the prices they expect to get for their merch are ridiculous, as you say... when you buy a Starter warmup shirt, you get a decent quality collared shirt with a stitched logo for your 25 bux... but when you buy that Stain'd shirt for the same 25 bux, you get a two-tone silk screen on a 99c Hanes second. No wonder even senseless teenagers would rather make their own with materials they can get from Wally World. For that 25 bux, they can make their own in less than an hour, as well as 4 more to save or share with friends.
As you say - greed. But rather than bow down to the forces of supply and demand, they'll fight tooth and nail to keep a market position that is doomed anyhow. Two words come to mind...
Buggy whips.
'Nuff sed...
Mnem
This is simply more proof that these models for profiting from media have long outlived their usefulness. Technology has outstripped the marketing, the distribution network they cling to will soon go the way of the 8-track.
There ARE other models... other ways to make a profit from a popular artist. Take for example the sports industry - a popular franchise (and its popular players) makes 1000 times more money through endorsements and sales of authorized merchandise than they do from from actual ticket sales - (We'll have to ignore the massive profit made from broadcasting rights, there really isn't currently an equivalent in the music industry... though, if they got their heads out of their butts, that could work as well) yet the RIAA would have you believe that there is no other way to make sure an artist gets paid for their work than the Pay-For-Play model that has been around since the days of Shakespeare.
You can't download a genuine Starter Steelers Jersey, and bootleggers are a lot easier to bust.
Frelling Dinosaurs.
Mnem
Wow... that must have been the hiccup I saw in my Inbox between 07:08 and 07:11 while pouring cream into my coffee...
Mnem
"It takes a special man to water his lawn with an eyedropper."
... I really think it is unacceptable to take this scattergun approach to controlling any kind of illegal activity.
I was fortunate enough to be a victim of AOL's blockage of YahooMail, and as I use a YahooMail account in my eBay business, it disrupted communications for several auctions I was involved in. Now true, this is a relatively minor inconvenience, but it did cost me potential profit. I can only imagine what it must be like for a legitimate business that relies on their website for advertising and revenue generation... or say the possible small website devoted to preventing Child Abuse that could as easily share that ISP.
It's like they're saying "Kill them all, let God sort 'em out..."
Mnem
Now this response I can understand... a little sarcasm is not necessarily a bad thing. At least s/he doesn't assume I'm a complete idiot.
Why was this moderated down as "100% Overrated" ?
Mnem
*Baffled*
If the issues I presented weren't still issues, I'd have nothing to gripe about.
And I guess MS-bashing is only funny around here when one of the chosen few does it... I'm so sorry for adding my little bit of fuel to the fire.
I've been spanked now... shall I stand in the corner, or may I return to my seat like a good little boy?
Mnem
Talk about heavy handed. Frell.
A 1 rating? Good lord... what do I have to do around here to get better than a 1?
Ahhh... I know...
*Sets up a striptease pole and turns on the music*
Dah duh duhduh duhhhh...dah duh duh...
*Ratchety sounds and twirling undergarments*
Mnem
*Goggles at the error message he just got*
-ERROR 1313- Your request could not be processed.
Requested process *GET A LIFE* has caused an invalid page fault in MODULE:INTERNET at address 3NO:HELLNO
OMIGAWD ! I BROKE THE INTERNET!!!
Jeez... compare this to Micro$haft's vision of the future of digital media... wherein they create a firewall within a user's machine against the user himself...
.001c and wasting MY precious resources to deliver advertising I never wanted? Even SnailMail spammers have to pay the Post Office to deliver their unwanted solicitations, I don't directly pay their postage for them, and phone spammers still have to pay their own damn phone bills.
M$ - "It's NOT yours! You paid for it, you built it, you use it... But it's really OURS! How DARE you think otherwise!!!"
As for the ban on list-generating software... Even the most legitimate list generating software I've been exposed to tends to use some pretty intrusive means of gathering and biasing personal information. I don't believe this is am extreme measure... If I want to sell my wares to someone, I have to spend my own money and use my own resources to do it. Why shouldn't every other company, even legitimate ones, be forced to build their own damn database full of ONLY potential customers who have previously contacted them ASKING about their product, instead of buying my private eMail address for
Mnementh
"...So we asked the computer what should we do,
but it just kept giving this insane advice -
"Oh, you need teeny little eyes
for reading teeny little print
just like you need teeny little hands
for milking mice..."
...can perhaps be best explained by the phenomenon of the recently (Well, a year ago, or 6 months ago.... depends on whose version you believe) cancelled space opera FARSCAPE. This was a show that was intelligent, witty, original, and just plain fun... all the earmarks of great television. Yet, at the height of its popularity, the SciFi Channel chose to cancel (in a most underhanded fashion) what was then it's flagship show... In favor of such fantastic (sic) programming as Crossing Over, Tremors, Scare Tactics, and regurgitated episodes of Stargate SG1, a show its own creators had decided had outlived it's usefulness.
This seems foolhardy... until you realize why. Before SciFi was bought out by media conglomerate Vivendi, they were a niche network which catered to a relatively small market who were by nature usually intelligent and educated - hardcore Science Fiction fans. The market they were born in was that of clear-broadcast satellite TV - by nature outside the channels even considered by that great equalizer of average stupidity, the Nielsen rating. Somehow they still managed to sell advertising without the Nielsens... and eventually grew large enough to become a target for acquisition. Once they came under the hand of this mainstream media conglomerate, of course the only means of valueing a show became the Nielsens... and soon they began the process of dismantling one of the greatest SciFi lineups ever created.
The real kicker there is that they have been rewarded for this abhorrent behavior; by presenting drivel that is accessible to those gifted with the Nielsen box (Notoriously known to be placed in regions with the lowest possible average IQ) they find themselves syrocketing in ratings, which of course means the only thing important to entertainment executives - advertising revenue. And there is a reason for that too... advertisers know that these are the types of viewers who, no matter how little they are really interested in a product, will eventually buy that product if you bludgeon them enough times with repetitve advertising. So once again, intelligent viewers are left in the cold... and we produce yet another generation of pablum TV to keep the mooing masses mollified. Pitiful.
So, the demise of Science Fiction in the popular media is not hard to understand. It's just another aspect of the same old dog and pony show... There is not enough profit in making people think for their entertainment.
Oh yeah... the brilliant part.
As for the antisocial part, well... Mark Twain said it best:
The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.
BTW, my dog is a complete assh*le.
Mnem