"Whats the deal with Red Dwarf anyway? I keep hearing about it here on/. as some kind of awesome SciFi show. So I went and downloaded a bunch of episodes and discover that its kind of a horribly cheesy scifi spoof comedy. Its got a freakin' laugh track! Its even got that boob from Robot Wars (or whatever the show is called over there)."
Red Dwarf is sci-fi comedy. And some of the episodes were perhaps the funniest stuff that's ever been on television (at least IMHO). So if you don't like Red Dwarf, you probably never liked any of Douglas Adams work either (if you read any of it) so you should probably stay away from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when it is released theatrically next year (or in 2006). Come to think of it, scratch "Monty Python" from your list of things to watch too.
And "that boob from Robot Wars" is on that show because of the popularity he received from Red Dwarf. As is the actor who portrayed Lara Croft's butler in the two Tomb Raider flicks (probably the only decent thing about the films beside Ms. Jolie herself), and the actor who portrayed one of the more popular vampires of 'The Blood Pact' in "Blade 2."
"Not to mention All in the Family (Til Death Do Us Part), Sanford & Son (Steptoe and Son) and Three's Company (Man about the House)."
You name off any more and we can assign blame for inflicting sitcoms on the American public to the British.
I forgot to add "The Kumars" to failed American pilots of established British shows. It was changed to "The Ortegas" with Cheech Marin starring; so instead of an Indian family like the original, you had an Hispanic family.
"It's not like doesn't have the money. Fining him 800k is like fining me 5$"
Nah. Considering his wealth, it is like a trip to the vending machine to buy a soda for you and me.
To me, it is just plain weird that his $50 billion + in wealth is based upon him owning less than 10% in stock of a company [Microsoft] that has nearly $60 billion in the bank. That translates into owning a fraction claim to that $60 billion being almost equal to that same dollar figure sitting in the bank. I think that is a paradox. But I guess that's why I wasn't an Econ major.
"DirecTV does, at least from what I've seen. Maybe you just need a better cable company."
The problem is, going with DirecTV is not a solution to broadband providers. It is a fact that cable modems are faster than DSL. IMHO, giving money to DSL providers is like throwing pearls to pigs. While I am fed up with cable companies raising their rates constantly, the fact remains that they did incur huge expenses in upgrading their pipes throughout the 1990s. The regional Bell companies (most of which are now SBC) did not. They had a technology (ISDN) that could've given the masses the internet much sooner (given that 1200 baud modems were the rage back then) than we got it but they failed to deploy it properly (my Atari 1040ST natively supported it back in '86, in the OS).
The problem with cable is that cable is its own worst enemy. They raise prices. They won't discontinue analog when they'd save a fortune if they made digital cable the standard package. If they'd embrace "a la carte" and force the content providers into it, they'd eat their satellite competitors for brunch.
What really needs to happen is large institutional shareholders like CalPERS legally challenging groups like the Roberts family who control Comcast like they were majority shareholders when in fact, they are minority shareholders but thanks to ridiculous rules they set up, they are the masters of Comcast and do what they feel like doing.
Here in the Sacramento market, we do have an upstart cable competitor. Its called Surewest Broadband (formerly WinFirst), and they deliver fiber directly to your home. They rewire your home with CAT5, and their transmission speeds are the closest you'll get to gigabit ethernet to your home in the next 5-6 years. They also bundle telephone service with it, whereas I myself have to go through Vonage over Comcast cable for VoIP because Comcast is too lazy to offer it. Granted, SureWest Broadband is bankrolled by the fees their parent company (local telephone monopoly Roseville Telephone) makes in its market, but it is serious competition in this regional market to Comcast. Unfortunately, it is not available all over the Sacramento Metro area, only in pockets. I'd also say that cable was much better when AT&T Broadband administered this area prior to the Comcast acquisition. Stupid FCC (and FTC)... Place restrictions on the AOL Time Warner merger, but play wrist slapping on Microsoft and Connect Four with Comcast...
"As alluded to above, what you're describing isn't socialism but fascism."
No. German fascism built better quality cars than the Jaguars and the MGs of the 1970s. Lumping the British experiment under the various Labour governments pre-Thatcher gives the German experiment (Mercedes-Benz, VW, BMW) a bad name if that can ever be possible (excluding all the other tidbits - war crimes and all).
"Translation: realisation that the dumb white folk from across the sea aren't here to help us at all but to exploit us. For a contempory example, see Iraq."
Not at all. If the end of colonialism proved one thing, it was the British Empire's administrative skills were better than the native populaces that it ruled for the most part. See the nuclear problem that is the India/Pakistani dilemma. India's population boomed under British rule because of the advent of Western medicine and technology. Then look at the economic slide the country took after independence and the application of Stalinist economic principles up until the tech boom and the appreciation of capitalism in the 1990s. How about in Africa? Are the people of Zimbabwe better off under Robert Mugabe than they were under British administration? What about Hong Kong under the People's Republic of China? After all, if the PRC were so good to Hong Kong, the Taiwanese populace would be demanding reunification now.
The areas the Empire "effed up" were with Palestine and the place formerly known as the British North American Colonies that is now known as the United States. Losing the colonies to the radicals known as the "Sons of Liberty" (SOL) has to be Britain's greatest cluster f*** since the SOL didn't have a leg to stand on when weighing the evidence. Palestine was a no-win situation following the discoveries of the Nazi attrocities in WWII. I'll also add the failure to adopt "Home Rule" in Ireland as the third biggest mistake and the area Benjamin Disraeli was incorrect on.
"In other words, the UK practiced lassez faire capitalism (which an astonishing number of people on/. advocate) while the US and Germany offered state support to private indistry, also known as fascism."
No. That's not what I am saying. Germany was not fascist prior to WWI. Sure, businesses tied to military procurement did do well following German unification under Bismarck, but it was not fascist. Great Britain was a free-trader at the time, but Germany preferred enacting heavy tariffs on foreign goods so that German industry would be protected. That's the textbook definition of protectionism in application. The same goes for the US during that same era. Couple both those countries with the outpouring of British capital looking for the next area to profit, and that is what created the two largest trading competitors to what had previously been known as the "factory of the world," Great Britain. That is also how the railroads of Germany and the United States were funded. It is ironic that British capital funded two of the major reasons why the British Empire no longer exists. Of course, that is what the "Little Englanders" wanted all along.
"It's in production. The executive producers are Russell T Davies (author of Queer As Folk, Second Coming and Bob & Rose), Mal Young (BBC Head of Continuing Drama Serials) and Julie Gardner (BBC Wales Head of Drama). Line Producer is Phil Collinson, Head of Casting is Andy Pryor, Script Editors are Elwen Rowlands and Helen Raynor. The thriteen, 45-minute episodes are currently being written by Davies, Paul Cornell, Steve Moffat (Coupling author), Mark Gatiss (League Of Gentlemen) and Rob Shearman."
And when the rights were with Amblin Entertainment, they had a shooting script, Leonard Nemoy signed to direct, and Donald Sutherland signed to be the lead. Hollywood production. Check out "The Nth Doctor" book on the subject. The Akiva Goldsman ("Batman & Robin") penned "Lost in Space" movie borrowed heavily from the script - the spiders and all.
As for "Spider-Man," it was in production and pre-production several times and at several production houses. At the height of the hoopla (1992-93), you had James Cameron as the screenwriter (terrible scriptment) and director, the Governator as Doc Ock, and Digital Domain were already working on the FX. But the lawsuits continued, and Sony eventually acquired all the rights and we finally got that great film in 2002. The point is, things can change.
As for what you've stated, I like what I've read. Even if the budget is less than 1 million pounds per episode, that's more than say a "Buffy" or "Angel" episode given exchange rates. And that's a lot of dough for FX which means WHO will finally have the great FX its always deserved. After all, the only times WHO ever had FX typical of American productions in the same contemporary time was with the "Trial of a Time Lord" season (and that was just with the introductory shot to the Time Lord space craft) - wasn't that 85, 86? - and the WHO telemovie of 1996 (Fox, BBC, Universal production). Interestingly enough, the shot from the "Trial of a Time Lord" was considered good enough to be used in some of Fox's promo advertisements for the WHO telemovie even though they were 10 years old at the time.
I would hope the one thing they'd bring back from the WHO telemovie was the hint of a romantic interest. Traveling 900 years in a Tardis would make the Doctor just a tad bit interested in acquiring "some." I'd love it if they cast Sienna Miller as the assistant. Paul McGann should be thrown a bone on it as well. Maybe the 8th Doctor could be the 9th's Guide or something. Or crib from the aborted "Dark Dimension" project for a single episode so Tom Baker could make an overdue appearance...
I will also drink to SciFi picking up the US rights to the relaunch.
"Getting a letter from your isp telling you have no privacy, or being accused of downloading "Walking Tall"? Geesh, if you are going to pirate movies, choose good ones. No one, but a fool breaks into a jewlery store and steals the cubic zirconium."
Restitution is much cheaper with cubic zirconium than the real McCoy. Plus, you can offload the zirconium without as much hassle from the pawn shops. Or so Frank the 6' tall bunny tells me.
I'd also imagine pirating "Hell Comes to Frogtown" wouldn't be as frowned upon as any of the "Rings" trilogy...and I really like Frogtown myself...:0
"Keep in mind, Comcast is also trying to sell you premium cable channels and video on demand. Any MGM movies obtained through p2p is potentially revenue lost to Comcast as well."
One of the things that keeps me away from PPV and VOD is the fact that rarely do the cable channels present the movies in their original aspect ratio. Until they start broadcasting widescreen, my money will go to NetFlix.
"Could it have anything to do with Comcast's (recently abandoned) bid for Disney? And Disney-MGM Studios?"
No. MGM is currently in negotiations with Sony Pictures for a buyout. MGM does this every few years or so. They'll probably go back to Time Warner because Richard Parsons (Time Warner Chairman) has been shown to be very flexible in terms of ownership structure on joint-ventures whereas Sony (Columbia) Pictures probably would not offer such a concession.
A combination of the classic MGM AND Columbia film libraries might also incur antitrust issues, at least in the European market. Again, a merger between MGM and Warner Bros. Pictures (division of Time Warner) would be the more sensible option.
Comcast is trying to be more of a good-neighbor with the content providers because it itself is jumping into the content business. They just acquired TechTV a couple of weeks ago...
"If its any consolation, they don't show Dr Who in the UK either. Presumably they believe it wouldn't get enough viewers compared to whatever they do show, Buffy etc I suppose."
Well, WHO was cancelled back in 89. That was a long time before Buffy debuted on the airwaves on either side of the Pond. If its any consolation, Buffy "borrows" heavily from WHO. Both feature a villain named "The Master." Both had characters who were actual celestial keys.
Granted, The Beeb announced WHO will be coming back in 2005, probably "re-imagined." Although I'll believe it when I see it. After all, it took well over twenty years for Spider-Man to make it to the theatres after the original announcements...:0
"WHY OH WHY are the only fuckers who realise this not resident in the UK? the public tide in this country (UK) is more anti than pro, and Labour/TB have been doing their level best to destroy the BBC's credibility*. I on the other hand am very pro-BBC. The only slight problem I have with it is that the fee is the same for everybody (i.e. a poll tax)."
Even though I do not support your political views, I will support you on the BBC license if it'll return the good Doctor on his quest to fight injustice throughout the galaxy. Iraq's WMD is in E-Space, by the way.:0
"Extracting a tax for simply owning a television set creates a captive audience and the quality of the programming suffers as a result. For every Monty Python's Flying Circus there are countless shows that wouldn't make it past the pilot phase here in the states. If the quality of programming on BBC-america is any indication, brits are being robbed."
And you think the quality of programming is better and fair? Last time I checked online, we had a great show on the WB Network that was cancelled despite increased ratings and a rabid fan base. That show was called "Angel." The American system is a joke. 6,000 homes participating in the idiotic Nielsen's system is considered more accurate (when they write things down by pencil and paper) over 1 million homes with TiVos that report even show (and commercial) watched? I would gladly pay fees to make sure my programs remain on the air instead of watching the entire TV land become the 24 hour bastion of "reality" programming. If anything, its us Americans who are being robbed.
"that is pretty good, though I have very little I like on the BBC besides their news, that is a nice thing."
Is Katie Haswell still on ITN News? Wow. What a knockout. Someone get her on CNN, please! The local PBS affiliate started showing ITN News as a teaser a couple of years ago before dumping it for the lame DW News. While Germany makes great cars, they produce the most boring English language news on the planet, IMHO...:0
*The reason why I ask is because a Google Search on her doesn't bring up many results...
"TV and teeth on demand! How the hell did they lose the empire?"
A half-century of practicing free trade while the US and Germany errected heavy tariffs on imports. Fighting two costly world wars that the United States waited until the very end to jump into. The rise of the US as a superpower. Colonial unrest. The constant flirtations with socializing industry post WWII. Sterling's collapse as the premiere world currency. James Bond's expensive STD treatments. All the Imperial Officers having British accents in the holy Star Wars trilogy. Star Trek's (TNG) IP theft of the Cybermen. Simon LeBon's yacht wreck. And Yoko Ono!
"Why should I be forced to buy HGTV when I'm an overweight fat slob who spends 99% of his day behind a keyboard? All I wanted was Tech Tv (although it's gone downhill bigtime)."
At the expense of this being labeled "Redundant" or "Off Topic," you might want to check out what Senator McCain is trying to do. He's trying to make the FCC require "a la carte" cable pricing so you only pay for the channels you want.
As for TechTV, I just became acquainted with it since moving up to digital cable. Even though Comcast now owns them, I had to pay $5 extra per month to acquire it in a package that also included Trio and BET Jazz. Because you know the typical TechTV viewer is really going to want to watch BET Jazz. Many people online are now worried that Comcast will gut TechTV in a merger with its G4 video games channel when in reality, the two channels are complementing but just as different as MTV and VH1. Its too bad TechTV and G4 couldn't be part of the basic cable package...I bet they'd have more viewers than HGTV, Animal Planet, or the Food Network.
The best show on G4 is "Icons." However, I bet only Comcast has G4. I checked DirecTV and while they have TechTV in their basic package, there's no trace of G4.
"Wouldn't this damage the existing syndication relationships that the BBC has set up."
Anything would be an improvement upon the Beeb's current foreign distribution deals. BBC WorldWide priced "Doctor Who" so high that even BBC America won't even show it (anymore). In the early 90s, the same thing happened to the PBS affiliates which caused "Doctor Who" from being shown all across America to nothing in a blink of an eye. Now all PBS seems to be able to show from the Beeb are endless repeats of "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances."
"Where do you think "The Weakest Link" and "Coupling" came from?"
And, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," "Men Behaving Badly," "Dear John," etc. Then you could add failed Americanized pilots of British shows such as "The Office," "Red Dwarf," and "AbFab." Wasn't there an American version of "Faulty Towers" too?
"And what does being called "the great" have to do with anything? There's tons of fancy gentlemen with fancy titles who are asshats just the same. Plato may have thought Solon was all that, but simply throwing out that he was called "the great" doesn't really do anything to make him other than Just Some Guy, to me."
Excuse me, but I didn't give Solon that title. That is what the Greeks gave to Solon. He was the lawgiver. Take an upper division history course at a university and that's what they call him. So take it out on the historical intelligentsia instead of attacking me on Slashdot. Its part of the "Great Men of History" view of the world. And Solon definitely fit in that mold.
"On what basis should we conclude that Plato was making stuff up when he added to the Atlantis story, but that Solon "the great" and the Egyptian Priests he got the story from were telling the truth or something like it?"
I was merely conceeding that if Plato made anything up about his tale of Atlantis that he inherited second-hand from Solon (via Aristotle) was the part about Athens being involved at all in the fall of Atlantis. From what I know, Athens does not extend to 12,000 BCE which is when Atlantis supposedly fell if you believe the account of the Egyptian priests gave to Solon. Thus I asserted that Plato fabricated that portion (and only that portion) in his story. If Athens defeated the Atlantean army with the help of Zeus's intervention, that would give primacy to the Greek Gods as opposed to whatever gods the Atlanteans supposedly worshipped and the Egyptian gods as well. Would the Egyptian priests assert that the Greek gods were more powerful than their own? No. And that's why that part of the story is suspicious to me.
"If I was this guy, I'd put off looking for Atlantis until they've found the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If he's looking to kill time, he can always join the search for Noah's ark."
Even if the ark existed, it didn't belong to a guy named Noah. The Babylonian "flood" myth predates the Hebrew account just as the Code of Hammurabi predates the Ten Commandments, and Egyptian monotheism under the god Aton predates Yeweh worship. Gotta give credit where credit is due on the primary sources...:)
"Atlantis was a didactic figure composed by Plato in order to contrast the civic values of Athens. It's hard to imagine that Plato didn't have his tongue in his cheek when he claimed to have the story third hand from some guy who knew some guy who had heard the story in exotic Egypt."
That "some guy" was Solon the Great. He was not "some guy." Solon learned of the story from Egyptian priests, and the Egyptians claimed Atlantis fell 9,000 years before them. If you look at the speculative timeline to when Antartica wasn't completely covered in ice, the time jives. The only "Puff Daddy" remixing Plato did to the "story" was that he added the part about the Atlanteans being defeated by the ancient Athenians when Atlantis tried conquering the city and Zeus punished them for it by destroying their continent.
You ever wonder why the ancient peoples of the Middle East all share a common "flood" myth? Did you bother to check out the Mayan's own origin myths? They [the Mayans] claimed their ancestors fled in boats from a continent to their east that sunk. I'll refuse to raise the von Daniken card about how the Egyptians and Mayans both had pyramids and advanced astronomy skills, but the Atlantis "myth" ties up the loose ends rather easily.
As for Santorini and the Minoans being the Atlanteans, that theory still receives a passing reference in college courses. My ancient history professor (who is Greek) mentioned it, but he took more pride in the fact that an ancient Greek people [the Minoans] invented the flush toilet thousands of years before Mr. John Crapper.
"In the future, this could lead to "digital cable ready" TVs and devices, including TiVo that won't need the assitance of a settop box. "
July 2004 is when FCC rules go into effect that you and I can go to our local Best Buy and buy a digital cable set top box. Call up Comcast Customer Service. They will confirm it. I know I did after they installed a crummy General Instrument digital set top box that had a hole in the place of an S-Video port, had a covered up SPDIF port, and didn't offer a serial port for a separate device (like my TiVo) to change the channels. If you are upgrading to digital cable before the July 2004 timeframe and you are with Comcast, specifically request that they install the Motorola set-top box. That has all of those ports. Its too bad it doesn't have component outputs though...
"would the Nielsen ratings people sue because their business model of statisical sampling is being threatened by another method with larger sample sizes?"
Nielsen will actually start to work with TiVo later this year on incorporating TiVo's aggregate data collection to spruce up their own information. Its actually a patch-job over the fact that their business model is obsolete thanks to the DVR's superior information gathering.
"I've been curious about that since I first got digital cable, which has recently been upgraded to Comcast's DVR. How do we know that the box isn't sending info back about what we watch?"
Comcast is more likely to use their DVR to spy on their subscribers to make sure people aren't "stealing" extra channels that they aren't signed up for. To my knowledge, Comcast is not offering viewer information to advertisers, although it would be an easy way for them to increase revenue or use it in negotiations when Viacom or Disney start demanding fee increases for channels that Joe Public doesn't care to watch yet is forced into the programming bundle.
Either way, Comcast's DVR does not offer the functionality that TiVo does. It is a shame that Comcast won't roll out actual set-top boxes with TiVo built in considering Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo. The same goes for Cox and Time Warner Cable. Yet none of them are deploying TiVo boxes. I think most of them believe that if they hold stock in TiVo, TiVo won't turn around and sue them over IP violations like TiVo did with Dish Network (Echostar) over the DishPlayer PVR.
However, Joe Public will have a remedy come July 2004 when FCC rules take effect that allows us all to buy our own digital set-top boxes instead of being at the mercy to rent whatever cable box is best to the cable company financials. That means we might actually see TiVo-branded digital cable set top boxes for sale at Best Buy.
The only area of concern I have for this digital jump is the lack of support for recording digital audio. I had an indepth conversation with a TiVo tech last week and he basically said the reason why existing TiVos do not offer SPDIF ports is that TiVo is afraid of being sued over DMCA violations because it would mean that the TiVo is making an exact copy of a digital audio signal from a program and archived on the customer's DVR. Perhaps they have their hands full fighting behind-the-scenes the "broadcast flag" requirements the FCC is trying to hoist on the whole industry while fighting the IP lawsuit against Echostar...
Slashdot Mirror
"I for one would rather watch "Crossfire" and "Who's gonna marry a midget" than Monty Python or BBC News."
You have my condolences if you are at all serious...
"Whats the deal with Red Dwarf anyway? I keep hearing about it here on /. as some kind of awesome SciFi show. So I went and downloaded a bunch of episodes and discover that its kind of a horribly cheesy scifi spoof comedy. Its got a freakin' laugh track! Its even got that boob from Robot Wars (or whatever the show is called over there)."
Red Dwarf is sci-fi comedy. And some of the episodes were perhaps the funniest stuff that's ever been on television (at least IMHO). So if you don't like Red Dwarf, you probably never liked any of Douglas Adams work either (if you read any of it) so you should probably stay away from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" when it is released theatrically next year (or in 2006). Come to think of it, scratch "Monty Python" from your list of things to watch too.
And "that boob from Robot Wars" is on that show because of the popularity he received from Red Dwarf. As is the actor who portrayed Lara Croft's butler in the two Tomb Raider flicks (probably the only decent thing about the films beside Ms. Jolie herself), and the actor who portrayed one of the more popular vampires of 'The Blood Pact' in "Blade 2."
"Not to mention All in the Family (Til Death Do Us Part), Sanford & Son (Steptoe and Son) and Three's Company (Man about the House)."
You name off any more and we can assign blame for inflicting sitcoms on the American public to the British.
I forgot to add "The Kumars" to failed American pilots of established British shows. It was changed to "The Ortegas" with Cheech Marin starring; so instead of an Indian family like the original, you had an Hispanic family.
"It's not like doesn't have the money. Fining him 800k is like fining me 5$"
Nah. Considering his wealth, it is like a trip to the vending machine to buy a soda for you and me.
To me, it is just plain weird that his $50 billion + in wealth is based upon him owning less than 10% in stock of a company [Microsoft] that has nearly $60 billion in the bank. That translates into owning a fraction claim to that $60 billion being almost equal to that same dollar figure sitting in the bank. I think that is a paradox. But I guess that's why I wasn't an Econ major.
"DirecTV does, at least from what I've seen. Maybe you just need a better cable company."
The problem is, going with DirecTV is not a solution to broadband providers. It is a fact that cable modems are faster than DSL. IMHO, giving money to DSL providers is like throwing pearls to pigs. While I am fed up with cable companies raising their rates constantly, the fact remains that they did incur huge expenses in upgrading their pipes throughout the 1990s. The regional Bell companies (most of which are now SBC) did not. They had a technology (ISDN) that could've given the masses the internet much sooner (given that 1200 baud modems were the rage back then) than we got it but they failed to deploy it properly (my Atari 1040ST natively supported it back in '86, in the OS).
The problem with cable is that cable is its own worst enemy. They raise prices. They won't discontinue analog when they'd save a fortune if they made digital cable the standard package. If they'd embrace "a la carte" and force the content providers into it, they'd eat their satellite competitors for brunch.
What really needs to happen is large institutional shareholders like CalPERS legally challenging groups like the Roberts family who control Comcast like they were majority shareholders when in fact, they are minority shareholders but thanks to ridiculous rules they set up, they are the masters of Comcast and do what they feel like doing.
Here in the Sacramento market, we do have an upstart cable competitor. Its called Surewest Broadband (formerly WinFirst), and they deliver fiber directly to your home. They rewire your home with CAT5, and their transmission speeds are the closest you'll get to gigabit ethernet to your home in the next 5-6 years. They also bundle telephone service with it, whereas I myself have to go through Vonage over Comcast cable for VoIP because Comcast is too lazy to offer it. Granted, SureWest Broadband is bankrolled by the fees their parent company (local telephone monopoly Roseville Telephone) makes in its market, but it is serious competition in this regional market to Comcast. Unfortunately, it is not available all over the Sacramento Metro area, only in pockets. I'd also say that cable was much better when AT&T Broadband administered this area prior to the Comcast acquisition. Stupid FCC (and FTC)... Place restrictions on the AOL Time Warner merger, but play wrist slapping on Microsoft and Connect Four with Comcast...
"As alluded to above, what you're describing isn't socialism but fascism."
/. advocate) while the US and Germany offered state support to private indistry, also known as fascism."
No. German fascism built better quality cars than the Jaguars and the MGs of the 1970s. Lumping the British experiment under the various Labour governments pre-Thatcher gives the German experiment (Mercedes-Benz, VW, BMW) a bad name if that can ever be possible (excluding all the other tidbits - war crimes and all).
"Translation: realisation that the dumb white folk from across the sea aren't here to help us at all but to exploit us. For a contempory example, see Iraq."
Not at all. If the end of colonialism proved one thing, it was the British Empire's administrative skills were better than the native populaces that it ruled for the most part. See the nuclear problem that is the India/Pakistani dilemma. India's population boomed under British rule because of the advent of Western medicine and technology. Then look at the economic slide the country took after independence and the application of Stalinist economic principles up until the tech boom and the appreciation of capitalism in the 1990s. How about in Africa? Are the people of Zimbabwe better off under Robert Mugabe than they were under British administration? What about Hong Kong under the People's Republic of China? After all, if the PRC were so good to Hong Kong, the Taiwanese populace would be demanding reunification now.
The areas the Empire "effed up" were with Palestine and the place formerly known as the British North American Colonies that is now known as the United States. Losing the colonies to the radicals known as the "Sons of Liberty" (SOL) has to be Britain's greatest cluster f*** since the SOL didn't have a leg to stand on when weighing the evidence. Palestine was a no-win situation following the discoveries of the Nazi attrocities in WWII. I'll also add the failure to adopt "Home Rule" in Ireland as the third biggest mistake and the area Benjamin Disraeli was incorrect on.
"In other words, the UK practiced lassez faire capitalism (which an astonishing number of people on
No. That's not what I am saying. Germany was not fascist prior to WWI. Sure, businesses tied to military procurement did do well following German unification under Bismarck, but it was not fascist. Great Britain was a free-trader at the time, but Germany preferred enacting heavy tariffs on foreign goods so that German industry would be protected. That's the textbook definition of protectionism in application. The same goes for the US during that same era. Couple both those countries with the outpouring of British capital looking for the next area to profit, and that is what created the two largest trading competitors to what had previously been known as the "factory of the world," Great Britain. That is also how the railroads of Germany and the United States were funded. It is ironic that British capital funded two of the major reasons why the British Empire no longer exists. Of course, that is what the "Little Englanders" wanted all along.
"It's in production. The executive producers are Russell T Davies (author of Queer As Folk, Second Coming and Bob & Rose), Mal Young (BBC Head of Continuing Drama Serials) and Julie Gardner (BBC Wales Head of Drama). Line Producer is Phil Collinson, Head of Casting is Andy Pryor, Script Editors are Elwen Rowlands and Helen Raynor. The thriteen, 45-minute episodes are currently being written by Davies, Paul Cornell, Steve Moffat (Coupling author), Mark Gatiss (League Of Gentlemen) and Rob Shearman."
And when the rights were with Amblin Entertainment, they had a shooting script, Leonard Nemoy signed to direct, and Donald Sutherland signed to be the lead. Hollywood production. Check out "The Nth Doctor" book on the subject. The Akiva Goldsman ("Batman & Robin") penned "Lost in Space" movie borrowed heavily from the script - the spiders and all.
As for "Spider-Man," it was in production and pre-production several times and at several production houses. At the height of the hoopla (1992-93), you had James Cameron as the screenwriter (terrible scriptment) and director, the Governator as Doc Ock, and Digital Domain were already working on the FX. But the lawsuits continued, and Sony eventually acquired all the rights and we finally got that great film in 2002. The point is, things can change.
As for what you've stated, I like what I've read. Even if the budget is less than 1 million pounds per episode, that's more than say a "Buffy" or "Angel" episode given exchange rates. And that's a lot of dough for FX which means WHO will finally have the great FX its always deserved. After all, the only times WHO ever had FX typical of American productions in the same contemporary time was with the "Trial of a Time Lord" season (and that was just with the introductory shot to the Time Lord space craft) - wasn't that 85, 86? - and the WHO telemovie of 1996 (Fox, BBC, Universal production). Interestingly enough, the shot from the "Trial of a Time Lord" was considered good enough to be used in some of Fox's promo advertisements for the WHO telemovie even though they were 10 years old at the time.
I would hope the one thing they'd bring back from the WHO telemovie was the hint of a romantic interest. Traveling 900 years in a Tardis would make the Doctor just a tad bit interested in acquiring "some." I'd love it if they cast Sienna Miller as the assistant. Paul McGann should be thrown a bone on it as well. Maybe the 8th Doctor could be the 9th's Guide or something. Or crib from the aborted "Dark Dimension" project for a single episode so Tom Baker could make an overdue appearance...
I will also drink to SciFi picking up the US rights to the relaunch.
"Getting a letter from your isp telling you have no privacy, or being accused of downloading "Walking Tall"? Geesh, if you are going to pirate movies, choose good ones. No one, but a fool breaks into a jewlery store and steals the cubic zirconium."
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Restitution is much cheaper with cubic zirconium than the real McCoy. Plus, you can offload the zirconium without as much hassle from the pawn shops. Or so Frank the 6' tall bunny tells me.
I'd also imagine pirating "Hell Comes to Frogtown" wouldn't be as frowned upon as any of the "Rings" trilogy...and I really like Frogtown myself...
"Keep in mind, Comcast is also trying to sell you premium cable channels and video on demand. Any MGM movies obtained through p2p is potentially revenue lost to Comcast as well."
One of the things that keeps me away from PPV and VOD is the fact that rarely do the cable channels present the movies in their original aspect ratio. Until they start broadcasting widescreen, my money will go to NetFlix.
"Could it have anything to do with Comcast's (recently abandoned) bid for Disney? And Disney-MGM Studios?"
No. MGM is currently in negotiations with Sony Pictures for a buyout. MGM does this every few years or so. They'll probably go back to Time Warner because Richard Parsons (Time Warner Chairman) has been shown to be very flexible in terms of ownership structure on joint-ventures whereas Sony (Columbia) Pictures probably would not offer such a concession.
A combination of the classic MGM AND Columbia film libraries might also incur antitrust issues, at least in the European market. Again, a merger between MGM and Warner Bros. Pictures (division of Time Warner) would be the more sensible option.
Comcast is trying to be more of a good-neighbor with the content providers because it itself is jumping into the content business. They just acquired TechTV a couple of weeks ago...
"If its any consolation, they don't show Dr Who in the UK either. Presumably they believe it wouldn't get enough viewers compared to whatever they do show, Buffy etc I suppose."
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Well, WHO was cancelled back in 89. That was a long time before Buffy debuted on the airwaves on either side of the Pond. If its any consolation, Buffy "borrows" heavily from WHO. Both feature a villain named "The Master." Both had characters who were actual celestial keys.
Granted, The Beeb announced WHO will be coming back in 2005, probably "re-imagined." Although I'll believe it when I see it. After all, it took well over twenty years for Spider-Man to make it to the theatres after the original announcements...
Doesn't UK Gold show WHO repeats?
"WHY OH WHY are the only fuckers who realise this not resident in the UK? the public tide in this country (UK) is more anti than pro, and Labour/TB have been doing their level best to destroy the BBC's credibility*.
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I on the other hand am very pro-BBC. The only slight problem I have with it is that the fee is the same for everybody (i.e. a poll tax)."
Even though I do not support your political views, I will support you on the BBC license if it'll return the good Doctor on his quest to fight injustice throughout the galaxy. Iraq's WMD is in E-Space, by the way.
"Extracting a tax for simply owning a television set creates a captive audience and the quality of the programming suffers as a result. For every Monty Python's Flying Circus there are countless shows that wouldn't make it past the pilot phase here in the states. If the quality of programming on BBC-america is any indication, brits are being robbed."
And you think the quality of programming is better and fair? Last time I checked online, we had a great show on the WB Network that was cancelled despite increased ratings and a rabid fan base. That show was called "Angel." The American system is a joke. 6,000 homes participating in the idiotic Nielsen's system is considered more accurate (when they write things down by pencil and paper) over 1 million homes with TiVos that report even show (and commercial) watched? I would gladly pay fees to make sure my programs remain on the air instead of watching the entire TV land become the 24 hour bastion of "reality" programming. If anything, its us Americans who are being robbed.
"that is pretty good, though I have very little I like on the BBC besides their news, that is a nice thing."
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Is Katie Haswell still on ITN News? Wow. What a knockout. Someone get her on CNN, please! The local PBS affiliate started showing ITN News as a teaser a couple of years ago before dumping it for the lame DW News. While Germany makes great cars, they produce the most boring English language news on the planet, IMHO...
*The reason why I ask is because a Google Search on her doesn't bring up many results...
"TV and teeth on demand! How the hell did they lose the empire?"
A half-century of practicing free trade while the US and Germany errected heavy tariffs on imports. Fighting two costly world wars that the United States waited until the very end to jump into. The rise of the US as a superpower. Colonial unrest. The constant flirtations with socializing industry post WWII. Sterling's collapse as the premiere world currency. James Bond's expensive STD treatments. All the Imperial Officers having British accents in the holy Star Wars trilogy. Star Trek's (TNG) IP theft of the Cybermen. Simon LeBon's yacht wreck. And Yoko Ono!
"Why should I be forced to buy HGTV when I'm an overweight fat slob who spends 99% of his day behind a keyboard? All I wanted was Tech Tv (although it's gone downhill bigtime)."
At the expense of this being labeled "Redundant" or "Off Topic," you might want to check out what Senator McCain is trying to do. He's trying to make the FCC require "a la carte" cable pricing so you only pay for the channels you want.
As for TechTV, I just became acquainted with it since moving up to digital cable. Even though Comcast now owns them, I had to pay $5 extra per month to acquire it in a package that also included Trio and BET Jazz. Because you know the typical TechTV viewer is really going to want to watch BET Jazz. Many people online are now worried that Comcast will gut TechTV in a merger with its G4 video games channel when in reality, the two channels are complementing but just as different as MTV and VH1. Its too bad TechTV and G4 couldn't be part of the basic cable package...I bet they'd have more viewers than HGTV, Animal Planet, or the Food Network.
The best show on G4 is "Icons." However, I bet only Comcast has G4. I checked DirecTV and while they have TechTV in their basic package, there's no trace of G4.
"Wouldn't this damage the existing syndication relationships that the BBC has set up."
Anything would be an improvement upon the Beeb's current foreign distribution deals. BBC WorldWide priced "Doctor Who" so high that even BBC America won't even show it (anymore). In the early 90s, the same thing happened to the PBS affiliates which caused "Doctor Who" from being shown all across America to nothing in a blink of an eye. Now all PBS seems to be able to show from the Beeb are endless repeats of "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances."
"Where do you think "The Weakest Link" and "Coupling" came from?"
And, "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," "Men Behaving Badly," "Dear John," etc. Then you could add failed Americanized pilots of British shows such as "The Office," "Red Dwarf," and "AbFab." Wasn't there an American version of "Faulty Towers" too?
"And what does being called "the great" have to do with anything? There's tons of fancy gentlemen with fancy titles who are asshats just the same. Plato may have thought Solon was all that, but simply throwing out that he was called "the great" doesn't really do anything to make him other than Just Some Guy, to me."
Excuse me, but I didn't give Solon that title. That is what the Greeks gave to Solon. He was the lawgiver. Take an upper division history course at a university and that's what they call him. So take it out on the historical intelligentsia instead of attacking me on Slashdot. Its part of the "Great Men of History" view of the world. And Solon definitely fit in that mold.
"On what basis should we conclude that Plato was making stuff up when he added to the Atlantis story, but that Solon "the great" and the Egyptian Priests he got the story from were telling the truth or something like it?"
I was merely conceeding that if Plato made anything up about his tale of Atlantis that he inherited second-hand from Solon (via Aristotle) was the part about Athens being involved at all in the fall of Atlantis. From what I know, Athens does not extend to 12,000 BCE which is when Atlantis supposedly fell if you believe the account of the Egyptian priests gave to Solon. Thus I asserted that Plato fabricated that portion (and only that portion) in his story. If Athens defeated the Atlantean army with the help of Zeus's intervention, that would give primacy to the Greek Gods as opposed to whatever gods the Atlanteans supposedly worshipped and the Egyptian gods as well. Would the Egyptian priests assert that the Greek gods were more powerful than their own? No. And that's why that part of the story is suspicious to me.
"If I was this guy, I'd put off looking for Atlantis until they've found the Big Rock Candy Mountain. If he's looking to kill time, he can always join the search for Noah's ark."
:)
Even if the ark existed, it didn't belong to a guy named Noah. The Babylonian "flood" myth predates the Hebrew account just as the Code of Hammurabi predates the Ten Commandments, and Egyptian monotheism under the god Aton predates Yeweh worship. Gotta give credit where credit is due on the primary sources...
"Atlantis was a didactic figure composed by Plato in order to contrast the civic values of Athens. It's hard to imagine that Plato didn't have his tongue in his cheek when he claimed to have the story third hand from some guy who knew some guy who had heard the story in exotic Egypt."
That "some guy" was Solon the Great. He was not "some guy." Solon learned of the story from Egyptian priests, and the Egyptians claimed Atlantis fell 9,000 years before them. If you look at the speculative timeline to when Antartica wasn't completely covered in ice, the time jives. The only "Puff Daddy" remixing Plato did to the "story" was that he added the part about the Atlanteans being defeated by the ancient Athenians when Atlantis tried conquering the city and Zeus punished them for it by destroying their continent.
You ever wonder why the ancient peoples of the Middle East all share a common "flood" myth? Did you bother to check out the Mayan's own origin myths? They [the Mayans] claimed their ancestors fled in boats from a continent to their east that sunk. I'll refuse to raise the von Daniken card about how the Egyptians and Mayans both had pyramids and advanced astronomy skills, but the Atlantis "myth" ties up the loose ends rather easily.
As for Santorini and the Minoans being the Atlanteans, that theory still receives a passing reference in college courses. My ancient history professor (who is Greek) mentioned it, but he took more pride in the fact that an ancient Greek people [the Minoans] invented the flush toilet thousands of years before Mr. John Crapper.
"I miss McGyver sometimes, I still remember the episode where he started his car (dead battery) by putting two plugs in a cactus :)"
You can catch episodes on SpikeTV at noon if you are itchin' to watch it.
"In the future, this could lead to "digital cable ready" TVs and devices, including TiVo that won't need the assitance of a settop box. "
July 2004 is when FCC rules go into effect that you and I can go to our local Best Buy and buy a digital cable set top box. Call up Comcast Customer Service. They will confirm it. I know I did after they installed a crummy General Instrument digital set top box that had a hole in the place of an S-Video port, had a covered up SPDIF port, and didn't offer a serial port for a separate device (like my TiVo) to change the channels. If you are upgrading to digital cable before the July 2004 timeframe and you are with Comcast, specifically request that they install the Motorola set-top box. That has all of those ports. Its too bad it doesn't have component outputs though...
"would the Nielsen ratings people sue because their business model of statisical sampling is being threatened by another method with larger sample sizes?"
Nielsen will actually start to work with TiVo later this year on incorporating TiVo's aggregate data collection to spruce up their own information. Its actually a patch-job over the fact that their business model is obsolete thanks to the DVR's superior information gathering.
"I've been curious about that since I first got digital cable, which has recently been upgraded to Comcast's DVR. How do we know that the box isn't sending info back about what we watch?"
Comcast is more likely to use their DVR to spy on their subscribers to make sure people aren't "stealing" extra channels that they aren't signed up for. To my knowledge, Comcast is not offering viewer information to advertisers, although it would be an easy way for them to increase revenue or use it in negotiations when Viacom or Disney start demanding fee increases for channels that Joe Public doesn't care to watch yet is forced into the programming bundle.
Either way, Comcast's DVR does not offer the functionality that TiVo does. It is a shame that Comcast won't roll out actual set-top boxes with TiVo built in considering Comcast is a shareholder in TiVo. The same goes for Cox and Time Warner Cable. Yet none of them are deploying TiVo boxes. I think most of them believe that if they hold stock in TiVo, TiVo won't turn around and sue them over IP violations like TiVo did with Dish Network (Echostar) over the DishPlayer PVR.
However, Joe Public will have a remedy come July 2004 when FCC rules take effect that allows us all to buy our own digital set-top boxes instead of being at the mercy to rent whatever cable box is best to the cable company financials. That means we might actually see TiVo-branded digital cable set top boxes for sale at Best Buy.
The only area of concern I have for this digital jump is the lack of support for recording digital audio. I had an indepth conversation with a TiVo tech last week and he basically said the reason why existing TiVos do not offer SPDIF ports is that TiVo is afraid of being sued over DMCA violations because it would mean that the TiVo is making an exact copy of a digital audio signal from a program and archived on the customer's DVR. Perhaps they have their hands full fighting behind-the-scenes the "broadcast flag" requirements the FCC is trying to hoist on the whole industry while fighting the IP lawsuit against Echostar...