While I wouldn't be sad to see Enterprise cancelled and the franchise shelved, I don't understand people who hate the show because it is stepping all over the sacred "canon" of the Star Trek universe. The franchise is approaching forty years old; why bother tiptoeing around canon if it prevents writers from telling good stories? (Of course, the writers and/or Powers That Be prevent the stories from being anything but bland and derivative.) A show that's part of a larger canon will never get new viewers if they have to worry about four other series' worth of episodes.
Look at some long-running comic books. Many if not all of them have hit the canonical reset buttom multiple times in the hopes of attracting new fans without weighing them down with years of canon to worry about. X-Men benefitted greatly from a recent run as [i]The New X-Men[/i] under Grant Morrison.
I'd love to see a complete re-imagining of the Star Trek universe a decade or so from now. Simply start over or don't concern with audience with hundreds of previous episodes. The recent re-imagining of [i]Battlestar Galactica[/i] changed my opinion of the story as something worth telling rather than as a kitschy 1970s Star Wars wannabe; hopefully, a new Star Trek would do the same for many others.
I literally saw a job listing for a startup hedge fund in Chicago that payed over $100k but demanded that person be a jack-of-all-trades, doing everything from back-end to front-end development and system adminstration for all systems. He or she has to be on call at all times.
I'm not kidding. They could have summarized it as "New firm seeking technology b*tch."
I spoke with an acquaintance whose firm has been offshoring software development to India. He joked that his firm could create a dozen new jobs domestically just to fix the code they're getting from India.
The best bet for CS majors are small, private companies that won't be offshoring, at least until the day they are bought by a large international firm. A CS major who wants to get some roots in the financial industry should definitely pursue small hedge funds that have been around for five to ten years.
I could not agree with you more. Star Trek is not true SF. It is sci-fi, but not SF. (The late Robert Heinlein spoke of the differences between sci-fi and SF many years ago.) The sad thing is that Star Trek doesn't even cut it as space opera, fantasy, or speculative fiction. It's just a television and movie franchise that exists because of a fanbase that I'm not sure possesses the same resolve as it has in the past.
while (Hasbro == Disney) { creativity = 0; }
on
Layoffs at WotC
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· Score: 1
Following the Disney model of creating "intellectual property jerky," Hasbro could simply coast on the names of WotC's Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering properties for some time.
Regardless of what anyone might think about Decipher's take on the Star Wars universe, they had a much better, cleaner game than the one WotC has produced. It's a shame we may never get to see a Second Edition of that game, because it might well have resurrected it from the mess it had become since the Dagobah expansion.
WotC has been a one-trick pony since they published Magic. It's the one thing they didn't have to put much effort into because of its momentum, but a jolted economy has made WotC's tentpole vulnerable to woodrot. All other good games they have published has been pre-existing ones.
The inherent problems with card games are (as Burning*Cent has illuminated) the "card chase," the need to buy more and more product which is strictly a luxury to the consumers and the "critical mass," a point in time where a game becomes unweildy under the number of cards. It takes shrewd design and marketing teams to create a card game that can keep existing players happy with each expansion while maintaining an influx of new players who are unafraid of the current inventory of cards against them.
It's amazing that a show that had such a strong start and consistently kept its audience through several seasons has sunk to mimicry. Mind you, Stargate SG-1 is mimicking a series that itself has fallen from grace the past few seasons, in part because it couldn't seem to resolve any of its own core conspiracy threads.
I'm all for a good government conspiracy in the show here and there or the occassional episode where the team doesn't travel through the Stargate, but I just saw an entire episode where Jack and Mayborne track down and harass a Senator who's in on the conspiracy. Where's the fun in that? It's boring.
I think you're on the right track, wundadog. If iPod is indeed the first in many new Apple-only toys that are better than the other toys out there, this could help redefine Apple's place in the market. *When* this iPod or a better model comes along at a cheaper price, it's reasonable to assume a few persons with money to burn might invest in a cheap iMac with Firewire just to use this thing.
While I can't explain why "The Naked Now" was produced, I do recall that the first season of TNG was largely written in 1997, several months before the writer's strike.
The second season of TNG was hamstrung by the writer's strike. It contains four less episodes (hours) than any other TNG season, which always ran with 26 and it started in late October. The first episode of this season, "The Child" was taken directly from an episode written years before for the failed Star Trek: Phase II sequel series. I believe a few more episodes in that season were rehashes from Phase II scripts. And we all cringe as we remember the miserable "Shades of Grey" re-hash episode that capped off this phenomenally marginal second season.
Fortunately, TNG finally started to find its footing in the following third season.
This, much like the Urban Legend about applying long distance charges to dial-in ISP services, is intended to anger the gullible. I really don't see how the government (much less the entire infrastructure of the internet) could implement such a strategy. How would work email factor into this? And what about anonymous email addresses from free sites? Too many questions.
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Java, C++, C#, MFCs, .NET, Unix, Linux, Windows, OS/X... I don't care what it is. If they're payin', I'm codin' with it in whatever environment.
They sell "junk" and people respond by not purchasing it.
Some of the mass-marketed overhyped junk has sold really well, but consumers have grown cynical of mainstream music and broadcast music radio.
While I wouldn't be sad to see Enterprise cancelled and the franchise shelved, I don't understand people who hate the show because it is stepping all over the sacred "canon" of the Star Trek universe. The franchise is approaching forty years old; why bother tiptoeing around canon if it prevents writers from telling good stories? (Of course, the writers and/or Powers That Be prevent the stories from being anything but bland and derivative.) A show that's part of a larger canon will never get new viewers if they have to worry about four other series' worth of episodes.
Look at some long-running comic books. Many if not all of them have hit the canonical reset buttom multiple times in the hopes of attracting new fans without weighing them down with years of canon to worry about. X-Men benefitted greatly from a recent run as [i]The New X-Men[/i] under Grant Morrison.
I'd love to see a complete re-imagining of the Star Trek universe a decade or so from now. Simply start over or don't concern with audience with hundreds of previous episodes. The recent re-imagining of [i]Battlestar Galactica[/i] changed my opinion of the story as something worth telling rather than as a kitschy 1970s Star Wars wannabe; hopefully, a new Star Trek would do the same for many others.
I literally saw a job listing for a startup hedge fund in Chicago that payed over $100k but demanded that person be a jack-of-all-trades, doing everything from back-end to front-end development and system adminstration for all systems. He or she has to be on call at all times.
I'm not kidding. They could have summarized it as "New firm seeking technology b*tch."
I agree with you completely.
I spoke with an acquaintance whose firm has been offshoring software development to India. He joked that his firm could create a dozen new jobs domestically just to fix the code they're getting from India.
The best bet for CS majors are small, private companies that won't be offshoring, at least until the day they are bought by a large international firm. A CS major who wants to get some roots in the financial industry should definitely pursue small hedge funds that have been around for five to ten years.
Customers will pay full price for a glorified incremental update.
I could not agree with you more. Star Trek is not true SF. It is sci-fi, but not SF. (The late Robert Heinlein spoke of the differences between sci-fi and SF many years ago.) The sad thing is that Star Trek doesn't even cut it as space opera, fantasy, or speculative fiction. It's just a television and movie franchise that exists because of a fanbase that I'm not sure possesses the same resolve as it has in the past.
Following the Disney model of creating "intellectual property jerky," Hasbro could simply coast on the names of WotC's Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering properties for some time.
From my understanding, Hasbro saved WotC, at least in the then near-term, because WotC was running out of money quickly.
Regardless of what anyone might think about Decipher's take on the Star Wars universe, they had a much better, cleaner game than the one WotC has produced. It's a shame we may never get to see a Second Edition of that game, because it might well have resurrected it from the mess it had become since the Dagobah expansion.
WotC has been a one-trick pony since they published Magic. It's the one thing they didn't have to put much effort into because of its momentum, but a jolted economy has made WotC's tentpole vulnerable to woodrot. All other good games they have published has been pre-existing ones.
The inherent problems with card games are (as Burning*Cent has illuminated) the "card chase," the need to buy more and more product which is strictly a luxury to the consumers and the "critical mass," a point in time where a game becomes unweildy under the number of cards. It takes shrewd design and marketing teams to create a card game that can keep existing players happy with each expansion while maintaining an influx of new players who are unafraid of the current inventory of cards against them.
Okay, now I'm rambling...
With all this talk against greedy corporations in our country taking advantage of its citizenry, many are forgetting our own government.
I'm all for a good government conspiracy in the show here and there or the occassional episode where the team doesn't travel through the Stargate, but I just saw an entire episode where Jack and Mayborne track down and harass a Senator who's in on the conspiracy. Where's the fun in that? It's boring.
I think you're on the right track, wundadog. If iPod is indeed the first in many new Apple-only toys that are better than the other toys out there, this could help redefine Apple's place in the market. *When* this iPod or a better model comes along at a cheaper price, it's reasonable to assume a few persons with money to burn might invest in a cheap iMac with Firewire just to use this thing.
Maybe I'm just stupid.
While I can't explain why "The Naked Now" was produced, I do recall that the first season of TNG was largely written in 1997, several months before the writer's strike.
The second season of TNG was hamstrung by the writer's strike. It contains four less episodes (hours) than any other TNG season, which always ran with 26 and it started in late October. The first episode of this season, "The Child" was taken directly from an episode written years before for the failed Star Trek: Phase II sequel series. I believe a few more episodes in that season were rehashes from Phase II scripts. And we all cringe as we remember the miserable "Shades of Grey" re-hash episode that capped off this phenomenally marginal second season.
Fortunately, TNG finally started to find its footing in the following third season.
I live in a suburb of Chicago that has yet to be wired for @Home.. What is the competition for @Home in Chicagoland, because I'd love to know? Thanks!
Modem users will pay their fair share with this tax, and the phone companies will continue to have everyone else pay for the upgrades. You can't win.
This, much like the Urban Legend about applying long distance charges to dial-in ISP services, is intended to anger the gullible. I really don't see how the government (much less the entire infrastructure of the internet) could implement such a strategy. How would work email factor into this? And what about anonymous email addresses from free sites? Too many questions.