The past week has actually seen a whole lot of interesting news items. We've seen financial figures from major software companies, Sun Microsystems was bought by Oracle, we found out about Windows XP Mode, Ubuntu 9.04 was released, and it was revealed that the judge in the Pirate Bay case was anything but impartial. This week's My Take is about Jericho, the short-lived TV series.
Post a Comment
Member since:
2005-11-11
I totally misread this sentence. Until I saw "(the Hawkins family in particular)" I thought you were saying everyone in town had the same name. I don't think I've ever seen anywhere quite that redneck
Edited 2009-04-26 23:01 UTC
Member since:
2006-01-01
Member since:
2005-08-17
Member since:
2005-07-06
1) The buying out of Sun by Oracle I have speculated about for years given the close relationship between Sun and Oracle. I do feel that in the future they'll continue to support alternative platforms but you'll find that Oracle will be able to offer big deals to large customers who go for the whole enchilada.
I can see a long term future for their x86 side of the business along with the multi-core monster they're selling (the T2/T1) but the interesting question will be where their traditional side of the business will with the Fijitsu SPARC processor being used instead of their own. I'm surprised that the move to Fujitsu's SPARC hasn't resulted in a massive cut in costs when it comes to processor design and fabrication.
What Sun needs in the long term, as their processors become more complex, is more volume to bring in the cash; maybe some investment into their UltraSPARC IIe to get it used in more embedded situations.
2) One show I quite liked was "believe nothing" with Rik Mayall - too bad there were only a couple of episodes because I thought it was pretty damn funny 
Member since:
2007-03-26
Member since:2005-07-06
Well that depends what you mean by overrated. The fans think it's great (duh, they're fans) and the network thought it sucked/didn't make enough money.
As far as I'm concerned (note that this is MY OPINION, not necessarily the truth) the 11 aired Firefly episodes were each better than any and all of the Family Guy episodes ever aired (all 126 of them).
For this tv season I'm keeping my fingers crossed for The Sarah Connor chronicles, please don't cancel 
Member since:2007-03-26
Fair point in terms of far worse on the TV schedules.
As overrated as I think Firefly was, I do think it deserved more than 1 series and that it needed a 2nd series to really get going.
Member since:
2006-02-08
Jericho also got me hooked on the show too.
The worst part of it all was the mid-season break. That was probably the single biggest reason for the decline in Jericho ratings.
The web-based tie-ins was also very intriguging - as was the morse code at the start of each episode (hopefully this isn't a spoiler).
Season 2 definitely was a mere shadow of season 1. The J&B story line can be so much more - and - at the time it echos the going-ons with the events with the big security companies in real-life Iraq.
I guess shows like this one (recorded mostly by the TiVo generation) will always get the cut based on the old model. Maybe it's time that the TV execs change their metrics
Member since:2006-01-03
Member since:
2007-06-02
It was a great release. Unfortunately GNOME disappointed me again with dumb-headed Nautilus... but in general GNOME just seems so out-dated... it's like I am seeing this same double panel for a thousand years... I tried KDE 4.2 and I am switching to Kubuntu. KDE 4.2.2 is very polished and ready to go. Please KDE guys no fiascos anymore! Now I keep waiting for all KDE applications to be ported.
Member since:2006-01-03
I really, really should not bite the bait, but... I cannot resist.
I am definitely not a Gnome evangelist I have used KDE in the past, and might be using it again in the future. But definitely, I won't be using it now.
I tried KDE 4.0 and felt alpha quality. I tried 4.1, and it felt beta, but it sort of did work. But 4.2 still does not cut it.
It is all very confusing. There is a mishmash of configuration options spread about different menus. There are unspeakably obscure options galore in any configuration menu (third level keyboard accelerator for keyboard mapping?).
The main menu is all but clear, with that sticky category selection which zooms you out of the general view (the same idea is reused in the main configuration system, although it works better there -- if only all the config options were there...)
Internal product codes or technologies tend to float to the user's view, who is confronted with ridiculous and obscure terminology all the time. "Akonadi has stopped working", "This is the notes plasmoid", "Change background -- plasma app".
The package manager sucks big time. I still don't know if it is possible to browse the packages, or I do have to have an idea of the package name I'm looking for in order to start a search.
And it all looks so ugly! I expected the much vaunted KDE4 good looks to blow my mind, but those pale blue panels look like a Java swing app.
And Konqueror has its merits, but it really is no Firefox or Safari. And installing Firefox drags in most of Gnome libraries, so I went the whole hog and went back to Gnome for the time being.
Qt4 is great tech, but KDE4 is lagging FAR behind. Unmanageable, confusing, inelegant. Is Gnome dated? I don't know why: it works, it is fast, it looks sedating, it is easy to manage. Is Qt better than GTK? Probably. Maybe with Qt, Gnome software would be a lot easier to write and maintain, but even with that barrier, Gnome programmers have done a far better job than those in the KDE side, I'm afraid.
I'll be trying KDE again when 4.3 comes, but by now I'll stay with my dated and comfy Gnome.
Member since:
2008-06-18
I no longer trust the "big three" to deliver on connected-episodal stories. Even Lost and Heroes has been on the chopping block brink a couple times.
Perhaps they need to go back to the mini-series method for shows like Surface, Jericho, etc... and I mean the REAL mini-series shows, not these wimpy 2-2hour shows they call a "mini-series" now. I'm talking where they stretch it out over seasons like Blue & The Grey, and others in the 80s were done. 2 or 3 2 hour episodes in the fall, followed by another 2 or 3 in the spring, etc...
Bbbbbbbut that would require for actors to *gasp* take a paycut and go back to being paid per episode again instead of the stupid guarenteed paychecks like the stars from Friends demanded. Those yuppies are single-handedly responsible for destroying television because now all the actors just want steady contract weekly income at exorbitant rates instead of per gig.
Until that happens I've given up on network tv because I'm sick of being left in suspense when they jerk the show just because it didn't bring in the same money as a Friends episode or worse: Biggest Loser/American Idol one.
Member since:
2005-09-28
