OK, let's get one thing straight about me and Macs. I own an Apple assembled dual 2.5Ghz G5. Further I freelance as an editor and as such am specifically familiar with about ten other G5's around Birmingham Alabama. Some of those G5's were home assembled. Others assembled by video post houses some by Apple Computers. I can say with some authority that I know the G5 architecture and OSX pretty well. After staying awake all night trying to track down a 'strangely missing file' problem for about the third time, I have come to the following conclusion. A Mac is a toy.

Let me clarify. A Toy is something which offers hours of amusement. Something that helps build and strengthen the imagination. Something that performs or behaves differently with each subsequent use. It is this last sentence fragment that I am expounding upon this morning.

Macs do something different each and every time you use them. they are unpredictable. they are given to wild flights of fancy. Let's take the horrors of this past evening as an example.

I had a rather long Mpeg 2 export que for my current project. Wholly eight fifteen minute videos with accompanying aif (or aiff if it's a Tuesday) audio files. I cue up the sequences and set them to render. After babysitting the first two segments (sometimes Final Cut will abort a render claiming that the project in question has unrendered video especially when there is in fact NO unrendered video and only a reboot can satisfy its lust for chaos and human misery) I was reasonably satisfied that all eight were going to go down so I went to the gym. I come back after working out and a trip to Walmart at 2 a.m. only to find that the render que aborted just moments after I left the house. Fine. I que up the remaining six and take a three hour nap (based on the estimated completion time). I awaken to find that all eight have rendered successfully.

Ok, here it gets fun. Although the files rendered, they are not in the project folder. I check the export settings to be sure I sent them to the correct folder and lo, I have! Still no files in the export folder. Odd. I try to do a file search.

OK, here even the most brain-washed and zombified Mac purest probably just grimaced because they know as do I that Mac OSX HAS NO file search function. At least not one bound to any natural law. You see, Mac doesn't have file types per se...it has kinds. And file kinds aren't strictly bound to any specific trait or application. In fact, you can have file kinds that contadict the file extension and you can have two identical file types (mpeg 2, for example) which are identified as different file kinds by OSX. Even though - and I can't make too fine a point about this - both individual kinds are opened and run by the same application. An mpeg 2 may be called by OSX an 'MPEG MOVIE' or an 'MP2' or an 'M2V' or an 'Mpeg LAYER 2' file. All run in Final Cut. All are the same type of file. All were created by the batch export of Final Cut Pro using the same settings.

OK, suppose now you want to search for said file. And keep in mind that it could be anywhere. It could be nowhere. Yet when I searched for 'MPEG MOVIE' it only returned a handful of files even though I knew of directories with literally hundreds of 'MPEG MOVIE' files in them.

Now don't send me an email telling me to check which drives were selected or to make sure I had spelled MPEG correctly. You should simply assume - as is actually the case - that as unto a God, I was operating infallibly at this point.

And while I'm at it, 'MPEG MOVIE' while being OSX's favorite kind of mpeg 2 is NOT in the pull down menu in the search by kind option. Oh no, you must ENTER that kind by hand - even though - and I hasten to add - making DVDs is supposed to be what owning a Mac is all about.

Ok, to summarize:

1) file types and kinds may or may not be different things...unless they are the same things...unless maybe they aren't or may or may not be...depending.

2) search function may or may not return the file of type or kind or flavor or spin or what have you even if you know the evil thing to be there and in a particular folder eating ice cream at that very moment.

3) file search engine actually asks you to enter the kind by hand rather than having the complete list of kinds which the operating system knows damn well exists in a handy pull down menu.

Clear enough? So I use the file search utility to try to find every mp2, mpeg 2 m2v and 'MPEG MOVIE' file on my drives and it won't even pull up all the files that I know and can verify to be there. Hell, it sometimes pulls up three of a total of four 'MPEG MOVIE' files which all reside in the same folder. I have to assume that there is some form of random number generator attached to the file search utility. maybe it rolls for activation on each file. Hell, I dunno. Suffice to say that hit-or-miss literally describes the process at work here.

Fine.

So the damn operating system is going to be no help. What next? Re-render. I must simply re-render these files for a second time. Fine. Group select...settings...quality...destination folder...export. "Error: a file of the same name already exists in that directory"

What?

I look in the folder. Nope. Those files are not there. Export. "Error: a file of the same name already exists in that directory" I rechecked everything and soon discovered that the ghosts or phantoms of those files somehow existed in that folder although they could be perceived in no human way. A reboot did not help. Diskwarrior did not help. Ultimately, I had to render the new files into a new directory and copy them into the proper directory overwriting the old files (yes, a dialog box open asking me to confirm this) which could be neither seen nor touched by human hand.

OK, by now I'm actually shopping Amazon.com for the exact weight and length of bat to take with me to Seattle for a face to face with Mr. Jobs. I've been awake for 30 hours. I have had files evaporate, move, take on vague aspects and generally not cooperate. All this and I'm on a Mac. Worse, this isn't localized to MY Mac. Crap like this happens on every G5 I use, operate or borrow. My fellow video slaves all report similar stories: files vanish, renders abort, drives fail to mount. Yet why do we stay with Final Cut Pro? Because Macs are more reliable.

See in Apple parlance reliability is all about the operating system. So long as OSX doesn't go into kernel panic, it is considered more reliable than Windows. I can't remember the last time a file went missing in Windows. I can't remember the last time I had a file vanish from a folder (in front of my very eyes no less) just because. I can't remember the last time I had a Windows 2000 application (program) hang or (poof!) unexpectedly quit. Yes my Windows 2000 box does get the odd blue screen of death but never when I use it. I will come back to it after hours of neglect only to find the blue screen staring back at me as if to say 'your absence has driven me to this sad state'.

* EDIT This behavior was later diagnosed as the onset of a physical drive failure...said diagnosis being that the drive did in fact, fail EDIT*

But Windows 2000 does not simply delete files just to piss me off. No, that is the soul bailiwick of Apple.

So even though I put up with an operating system that can, on occasion, go belly up for no good reason with Windows. I much prefer that injustice to the actual obfuscation, corruption and deletion of my life's blood (files). Look, I like the look and feel of brushed metal as much as the next guy. I obviously felt strong enough about the power and sophistication of a Mac to shell out nearly four thousand dollars to own one. But I will not accept the pandering, fawning, exaggeration and outright lies put forth by the Mac community. Your fecal matter also has an oder most foul (as this last 64-point OSX mega security patch can attest). OSX has a lot of repair work coming to it and I'd like to see Apple provide more than its usual best effort to the problem. That is before Leopard drops and all of us G5 users find ourselves left once again out in the cold. Unless of course we choose to buy yet another four thousand dollar machine from Apple.

* EDIT This last comment was made in the face of potential incompatibility for power Mac users with Leopard. Apple so far states that Leopard will run on my Mac G5 EDIT*

Lately we've heard two major opinions about ethanol. One by the automotive industry one by ethanol opponents. We've been told over and over by the Big Three (that is the three makers of the world's worst automobiles - GM, Ford and Chrysler) that ethanol i s THE definitive answer to our foreign oil woes. We've been told by ethanol nay-sayers that we have neither the capacity nor the money to switch entirely to ethanol for our domestic fuel supply. Both assertions at their base are patently false. Both assertions are based on the self interests of the parties involved.

OK, fist off, a quiz: who uses 61% of the US domestic corn yield?

The answer: Cattle growers.

The main opponents to the high price of corn and ethanol are cattle growers. They are a huge lobby in the US - bigger than tobacco and almost as influential in Washington as big oil. Trouble is, the beef industry in the US is on its way out. It doesn't know it yet but Americans aren't crazy for beef per se. If it were not for the fast food industry, beef and chicken would be consumed in nearly equal quantities. Currently beef uses a massive media campaign to spur its lagging sales. It's still king by a long shot but ask any beef marketing lacky, sales have been better.

Eventually as competing fast food interests take hold in US markets, beef will loose its strangle hold on Washington. Until that day however, they will oppose any industry that competes for its share of the US corn yield. Still the beef growers would have you believe that ethanol competes with the corn that US citizens eat. The truth is that if you took beef off of the corn menu, we would be swimming in corn and eventually have to pave our highways with it just to keep it from smothering our nation.

Consider also that the planned source of ethanol is not corn but switchgrass. Now switchgrass ethanol technology is an emerging technology but frankly, a dedication to ethanol production in the US is still ten or more years away. We can and do make ethanol from switchgrass today. We will have a viable production process within a few years. When we commit to ethanol, switchgrass will be ready.

The other big assertion that is patently false is that ethanol is THE definitive answer for our fuel needs. It will help. It may even put the US back on the path to internal reliance upon fossil fuels. What it won't do is end our dependence on petroleum completely and reduce our emissions of harmful toxins into our air (let's forget the argument about global warming for a moment). Ultimately our vehicular energy consumption lies in a non-combustion future. Yes, I'm talking electric. I won't even worry about swaying the anti-electric crowd. Electric motor technology simply wins over internal combustion/cam-driven technology in every way. Electric's single drawback is recharge time and recharge infrastructure which - by a strange coincidence - is the reason the Big Three love ethanol so much.

The Big Three want ethanol because switching to ethanol would mean almost no change to their business model. Ethanol is a liquid with similar handling characteristics to petroleum. The same gas stations that pump your fuel now would pump ethanol with little or no modification. Basically Ford, Chrysler and GM want to enter the future by doing nothing. Ethanol is their way out of the alternative fuel conundrum. It appeases the greenies while allowing the Big Three to produce the same substandard product they have produced for over a century. That is their sole interest in and involvement with ethanol. It means business as usual. If you knew what I knew about GM, for example, you would understand that this more than any other imperative drives the US auto industry. Make more, don't change, avoid fourth quarter losses at all costs.

So my point? The information about ethanol being reported at the moment is flat out wrong - from every side.

1) There is no corn shortage, there is a vast beef surplus.

2) Ethanol won't solve the US energy problem, it will only put off a final solution to the matter.

3) Ford GM and Chrysler should not be basis for choosing our next generation fuel.

What America needs to do is look at what it has available and base its decision on abundance and technology. The one drawback to a liquid fuel economy is that you consume much of your product supporting distribution. Refineries, ships and trucks all burn the same fuel that they carry. Ultimately we need to think about energy that requires no wheels to move.

Just a thought.

So, Vista has Zero-Day exploits. So, OSX Tiger just got a 64-point critical security megapatch. It seems like every add-on and accessory to our operating systems of choice brings with it security issues, viruses and program errors. How can Windows and OSX keep up?

The answer, of course is simple. They need to stop.

While I was disabling Dashboard on my Mac the other day something occurred to me. An operating system is a shell used to manage files. It opens, executes, renames, deletes and locates your files. The fact that OSX can't locate all of the files on it's attached hard drives actually means it doesn't meet the minimum requirements for being an OS. For the love of GOD, if an operating system can't access or show you all of the files recorded on your storage devices, what exactly is it doing?

Operating systems have become - both for Apple and Microsoft - an ever growing mutant abomination of music players, image utilities, web browsers and disk utilities. Each added doodad brings with it an unavoidable reduction in speed, security and reliability. Linux has several really sleek and powerful operating systems, Red Hat among them. Yet the reason that these operating systems seem sleek and powerful has little to do with LINUX. It is the fact that these operating systems are young, simple and have a small footprint that makes them seem powerful. Ever wonder what Windows 3.11 would run like on my 3.3Ghz PC? Files would open so fast that my computer would actually go back in time. 3.11 was small and text based. It used little memory and had few extras - unless you count Mine Sweeper.

Both Microsoft and Apple have seen the increase in processor power and memory size as license to pull all the stops on their OS footprint. OSX is larger than almost any application I can purchase for the Mac. Want to run Maya? Have enough memory to run Maya AND Tiger? What Vista and the nascent Leopard have become is not so much an operating system but an appliance. That's right, Apple and Microsoft are desperately trying to turn our computers into VCRs.

Ask yourself this: how many freeware or shareware applications that you use daily actually reproduce some function already available to you on your PC or Mac? Let me make a partial list for you: Winamp, WinDVD, Audion 3, filebuddy, CuteFTP, Amp Calendar, Atomic Clock. I could go on but the internet is a crowded place already. Given that our operating systems already play music, organize our files and FTP (sorry Tiger) why do we resort to these third party applications? Because our operating systems don't play music, organize our files or FTP worth a damn. The operating system which is supposed to be a front end portal to our files is now designed to replace our third party files. The logical outcome is to simply manufacture a machine that has no software other than the OS and the OS does everything. Only problem, it would - by design - suck.

Given that applications exist that perform a given task better than the OS ever could and given that we prefer our own applets to the appendices provided by Apple and Microsoft and given that these included applets reduce or degrade our operating system's ability to function, why not simply leave them out? It is clear that the current hodge-podge makes boot times interminable and in the case of OSX prevents it from performing even the most basic fetch functions. It is time that we said - enough!

We need to scale our operating systems back to a point where they can, well, operate. Then we can load our machines with all the silly applets we want. Hell, we already treat our favorite applets like pets. Microsoft and Apple should obviously still produce all manner of gizmos like iTunes, Windows Media Player and Dashboard. They just should load at boot. Imagine a world where that spiffy new Gojillion Ghz machine actually performed the way you imagined a 3.3ghz computer with four gigs of ram actually should. Your only trouble then would be coping with the sonic booms created by applications opening on your desktop.

So, Vista has Zero-Day exploits. So, OSX Tiger just got a 64-point critical security megapatch. It seems like every add-on and accessory to our operating systems of choice brings with it security issues, viruses and program errors. How can Windows and OSX keep up?

The answer, of course is simple. They need to stop.

While I was disabling Dashboard on my Mac the other day something occurred to me. An operating system is a shell used to manage files. It opens, executes, renames, deletes and locates your files. The fact that OSX can't locate all of the files on it's attached hard drives actually means it doesn't meet the minimum requirements for being an OS. For the love of GOD, if an operating system can't access or show you all of the files recorded on your storage devices, what exactly is it doing?

Operating systems have become - both for Apple and Microsoft - an ever growing mutant abomination of music players, image utilities, web browsers and disk utilities. Each added doodad brings with it an unavoidable reduction in speed, security and reliability. Linux has several really sleek and powerful operating systems, Red Hat among them. Yet the reason that these operating systems seem sleek and powerful has little to do with LINUX. It is the fact that these operating systems are young, simple and have a small footprint that makes them seem powerful. Ever wonder what Windows 3.11 would run like on my 3.3Ghz PC? Files would open so fast that my computer would actually go back in time. 3.11 was small and text based. It used little memory and had few extras - unless you count Mine Sweeper.

Both Microsoft and Apple have seen the increase in processor power and memory size as license to pull all the stops on their OS footprint. OSX is larger than almost any application I can purchase for the Mac. Want to run Maya? Have enough memory to run Maya AND Tiger? What Vista and the nascent Leopard have become is not so much an operating system but an appliance. That's right, Apple and Microsoft are desperately trying to turn our computers into VCRs.

Ask yourself this: how many freeware or shareware applications that you use daily actually reproduce some function already available to you on your PC or Mac? Let me make a partial list for you: Winamp, WinDVD, Audion 3, filebuddy, CuteFTP, Amp Calendar, Atomic Clock. I could go on but the internet is a crowded place already. Given that our operating systems already play music, organize our files and FTP (sorry Tiger) why do we resort to these third party applications? Because our operating systems don't play music, organize our files or FTP worth a damn. The operating system which is supposed to be a front end portal to our files is now designed to replace our third party files. The logical outcome is to simply manufacture a machine that has no software other than the OS and the OS does everything. Only problem, it would - by design - suck.

Given that applications exist that perform a given task better than the OS ever could and given that we prefer our own applets to the appendices provided by Apple and Microsoft and given that these included applets reduce or degrade our operating system's ability to function, why not simply leave them out? It is clear that the current hodge-podge makes boot times interminable and in the case of OSX prevents it from performing even the most basic fetch functions. It is time that we said - enough!

We need to scale our operating systems back to a point where they can, well, operate. Then we can load our machines with all the silly applets we want. Hell, we already treat our favorite applets like pets. Microsoft and Apple should obviously still produce all manner of gizmos like iTunes, Windows Media Player and Dashboard. They just should load at boot. Imagine a world where that spiffy new Gojillion Ghz machine actually performed the way you imagined a 3.3ghz computer with four gigs of ram actually should. Your only trouble then would be coping with the sonic booms created by applications opening on your desktop.

.com
Hot on the heels of Sony's half-assed entree to the HDV market (the sad, sad HDR-FX1 and the equally silly HVR-Z1U) Sony seems determined to take the Gold Medal in the corporate Bad Decision Olympics. They have announced the price point for their Playstation 3 and the damn thing is $600 US.

In the interests of full disclosure, there will be a $500 version with some reduced feature options but even that seems a bit beyond the price point acceptable to and even attainable by almost every gamer on the planet. Most gamers are driving CARS worth less than $600. Most gamers work more than three weeks to earn $600. Yet Sony expects to see sales topping the Xbox 360 out of the gate. Really.

In their defense, the PS3 will be powered by the "cell" CPU which makes the system "35 times more powerful than the Playstation 2" The graphics and physics simulation are said to be unmatched. Of course, thus far every piece of in-game footage from Sony has turned out to be render-ware. Still, I have no doubt that the PS3 will be able to produce awe-inspiring in game graphics. Graphics nearly as impressive as most home PC's.

And there in lies the problem.

At $500 to $600 US the PS3 is priced above many respectable computer systems. If you consider that the PS3 won't ship with an HD monitor, you can actually build an impressive PC for $600 with a native vertical resolution well above 1200. In fact, spokesperson Kim Otzman states that the PS3 is "a computer system. It can be expanded using adapters on the market." If true, how the heck do they justify the $600 price tag? The 'features' listed include "[support for] blu-Ray storage devices, which hold significantly more data than today's DVDs, as well as seven wireless controllers, and has outputs for two high-definition televisions (HDTVs)".

...wow...

My PC has had better specs than the PS3 for nearly two years. Sony adds that there will be a free online network...I fear this simply means that the PS3 will log onto the internet.

Look, the PS3 will be a beautiful system. No doubt about that. The problem is that we already live in a game market where the console has to work very hard to justify it's existence next to the standard PC. Pushing your price point above $500 US actually places your console in direct competition with the PC market...and at that price, you need to have some pretty sharp enticements. The Sony PS3 just doesn't shine next to my Elder God (3.1Ghz, 1GB RAM, over 300GB storage, twin monitors running well beyond the remedial HDTV resolution, and access to well over 10,000 games). And, oh yes, Elder God has access to a free online service too. The final straw is the PS3's apparent compatibility with most off-the-shelf PC technology. Even worse, Sony "...was relying on the assumption that buyers would be able to use those through their home networks..."

I find myself asking why would I want a $500- $600US machine that can't play movies, edit video, download TV episodes, run excel or photoshop. Why not just spend $700-$800 and get an Alienware machine that puts the PS 3 utterly to shame? Or build one yourself. That way you can have as many graphics cards as you want and you decide what color to paint the case.

Look, the PS3 rocks. It does. At $400, I'd have one. No doubt.

As it stands, I'm going to wait two years and grab one from Ebay or a garage sale. I figure after the first wave hits the market, it's only a matter of time before those buyers realize that there are lots of really important things one can buy for $600US.

Gasoline comes to mind.

Piracy is the uncompensated act of distributing illegal copies. It's bad, immoral and even a crime...but it does not effect media sales. This has been proven in the marketplace again and again.

Bootlegging, on the other hand, is the illegal duplication and SALE of copyrighted media. That is a source of revenue loss and was a big problem in the US. I say was because, thanks to a market model known as 'sell-through' DVD prices are set at a point that is so low that only giant manufacturers can produce DVD's faster and cheaper. Back in 1996, the US almost put Chinese Laser Disk bootleggers out of business because $40.00 was about as low as they could go. In the US movies cost about HALF that.

The truth is that movies are so cheap to own that piracy isn't a factor. How could it be? I routinely pay $15.00 for a good sandwich here in America. Dropping $13.99 at Wlamart for a double-disk set of Pirates of the Caribbean just doesn't affect me. It's pocket change.

If box office dollars are being lost, look to Amazon.com or Walmart. They sell movies - THE ACTUAL MOVIES - for less than the average ticket price here in the US. How can a highly compressed DivX file compete with that? Even if it IS free?

The reason that box office dollars are low this summer movie season is because, more than not, the movies offered were horrible. Stealth? I paid money to see it. Thank god, because it is so godawful that I wouldn't waste the bandwidth to download that smoldering turd. It was ALMOST as bad as Batman and Robin...and that's saying a lot!

The reason music sales were low (by the music industry's estimations not the Wall Street Journal's interestingly enough) was because the major labels were putting out garbage. Worse yet, the music industry has chosen to demonize mp3 file sharing on college campuses when the DVD burner was the actual enemy. Why would anyone spend time file sharing an mp3 when they could get a copy from the guy next door in half the time? The RIAA and the music industry refuses to admit that an album is worth less to the average consumer than a movie. They routinely price albums above movies and the market is just unwilling to pay. No artist alive is worth $22.00 for thirty minutes of music. Drop albums to around $7.00 US and you'll triple your sales and double your money. Sell-through: a proven model for media sales since Top Gun.

Guys, piracy is wrong. I've never made any bones about that. But don't take the junk economic excuses and thug-arm legal tactics bandied about by the powers that be. Their plan is to create a world where we will literally pay per view - each and every view - for their media property. Such plans are on the table, believe me. I just want to know when I can stop paying for a movie or CD that I already own. I pay for Dish, movie tickets and DVD's. By the time The Two Towers (box set with bookends) arrived on my shelf, I had invested well over $200.00 in the damn thing. Don't you think that by now, if I wanted to download another copy while I was on the road, I'd be allowed to do so?

You tell me.

But before you get all upset with my flagrant misuse of copyright law, let me clarify what I mean by this. Ok, I actually do mean that I will download an illegal copy of Serenity. I will and I will watch it on my homemade video entertainment computer. Why am I being so brazen about admitting my piratic intentions (is piratic even a word?)? Because I intend to give Serenity every dollar it is humanly possible to give. Let me provide a step by step breakdown of how this works:
1) I already paid in excess of $60 to own the box set of Firefly.

2) I paid $24.00 for me and two friends to go see Serenity the Motion Picture

3) Find and download Serenity the moment I can find it online

4) I currently pay about $60 a month in Dish and Premium TV fees. Serenity will be available for pay per view or on HBO or somesuch within 60 days.

5) When the DVD comes out, I will buy at least one copy - 2 if there is anyone I know who needs one.

6) When the special collectors Box Set with additional nurnies comes out, I will damn well buy that one too.

So, why did I bother to pirate the marginal copy of the film while Serenity was still in theaters? Because I want it now. I want the DVD now, but that's not available. And unless a pirate copy becomes available with all the little extras that we have grown to expect from our DVD's, I'll still want the DVD (frankly, even if such a pirate copy were available, I'd still get the DVD legally - it'll be $14.99 for crying out loud). So the bottom line is - for me, the pirate copy is a stop gap until the cheap, high-quality original becomes available.

Now I tell you this because I don't think that my habits are any different form other DVD and movie enthusiasts. I don't believe that anyone views a pirate copy of a film as a substitute for the actual DVD and CERTAINLY not a substitute for seeing a film in theaters (bad films are another matter entirely). DVD's are so cheap now that piracy is only a threat to films in areas where the DVD prices are kept artificially high. In the US, piracy is a way for the major studios to convince us that dwindling box office takes are due to factors other than crappy movies and inflated ticket prices.

Ask yourself this. If ticket prices are $15.00 in Los Angeles and if DVD sales prices for the same move are $13.99, what is the average consumer going to do when deciding between the two methods of seeing any given film? Rent or own? Hmm... The simple fact is that since DVD's have become so affordable, piracy hasn't been a credible threat to American film production for years. When the studios went looking for the force driving away ticket sales at the box office, they neglected to include their very own DVD's in the equation. Also, the dirty secret in the music industry is that albums traded illegally as mp3's sell better than those successfully kept off of the net.

Add to this little scenario the FACT that each copy of intellectual property illegally distributed does not represent a lost sale. It has been a proven fact that most pirated movies were obtained by people unwilling to buy the property in the first place. Put another way, when faced with a choice of either buying the property or not owning any copy at all, most pirates choose not to own any copy at all. This choice is usually made because the pirate in question cannot afford the copy and hence has chosen to pirate the media, q.e.d...

Further, most people who pursue pirate copies either already own at least one copy of the item in question (most mp3's I download are from albums I already own) or pay into a distribution source which makes the item in question already available (I downloaded the three Lord Of The Rings movies yet with dish, I was already paying to get all three movies into my home morning, noon and night).

So, the question becomes, what harm is piracy doing - REALLY? Well, piracy on a large scale is a threat. Piracy on a large scale typically doesn't affect US sales, as DVD's here are so inexpensive and available so quickly. Most large scale piracy happens off-shore and floods markets in the Far East and Asia. Piracy does short-circuit distribution and head-off markets where a distributor would like to delay a release. Piracy can also ruin the fun of a surprise as we experienced with Return of the Sith and Harry Potter.

But more than this, piracy is trying to tell the film industry that there is no harm in releasing a product all at once. There is no evidence that the simultaneous release to Theaters, DVD and pay movie channels would change the way people view their films. Quite to the contrary, evidence is mounting that more money could be made by releasing a film on all media simultaneously.

The moral is, I'm afraid, piracy is wrong and illegal. It is NOT the profit drain that the entertainment industry would have us believe - as a degree holder in economics I can tell you that assertion holds no logical merit whatsoever. Yet the manufacturers of intellectual property reserve the right to distribute or withhold their property in any manner they see fit. It is their right. Still, when piracy is a prevalent as it is, the manufacturers need to sit up and take notice. This media is INTENDED FOR US. When the media is offered for consumption, WE BUY IT. So when they hold to outmoded retail models because they are either to old or two frightened to change, THEY DO SO AT THEIR OWN PERIL.

So kids, don't pirate movies - it's wrong...and Hollywood, get that stick out of your ass and sell us your movies - it's profitable.

as usual, I've said too much...

(images copyright Nintendo Inc.)

A TV remote? A freaking TV remote? Shigeru Miyamoto, you are an undeniable genius but even given the impressive true space technology hidden in your controller, it's still a TV REMOTE! Let me iterate why this control design causes me so much angst.

First, I already have a table full of TV remotes. They are all clumsy, uncomfortable and ergonomically backward in design. It is THIS ergonomic design that I detest and fear in the Revolution's wireless controller. When I'm flying my Devastator in Crimson Sky's - when I'm maneuvering the Master Chief around Covenant ambush - hell, when I'm locking onto Metroid Targets in an abandoned space platform I don't want to feel like I'm flipping channels. I want to feel like I'm gripping alien hardware. I like the Cube, Xbox and PS2 controllers because they don't feel like the other clumsy, ugly and blunt human interfaces I'm forced to deal with in my day to day life. Even the much maligned 'canned ham' of the Xbox helps put me in the mood by feeling like a hefty control interface one might find inside of a Mech. I'm sure the Revolution controller is an intuitive marvel to hold and operate. I just don't want my game experience to feel like I'm using an electric tooth brush.

(images copyright Nintendo Inc.)

Second, Why go to all the trouble of making a wireless controller if you then design such a remedial interface for accessories? Look, I get it. Japan won't produce anything unless they can also devise bizarre attachments, accessories and add-ons to sell me later. Fine. But given that the controller is wireless (an issue in itself) why are the add-ons WIRED and CLUMSY? Make everything blue tooth and be done with it!

As for wireless controllers, the issue lies with battery life. Wireless controllers work fine till the batteries die then you get your ass fragged while you scrounge the house looking for another remote from which to rob a set of double-A or triple-A batteries. Wireless controllers should recharge either on the console itself or in a charger base JUST LIKE A HANDS FREE TELEPHONE. Batteries just DO NOT WORK . EVER . PERIOD .

Look, I love the Nintendo Revolution as a platform. I'll buy one. I just don't like the fact that I'll have to wait for a decent after-market controller before I do. When I play games, I play games. A TV remote is not for having fun. It's a necessary inconvenience I endure to operate my home electronics. We all know that Sony had the right idea when they opted NOT to require a wireless remote to operate their DVD functionality. The Xbox remote is one of the worst ideas in gaming history. Hell, I'd LOVE to use my Xbox controller with ALL my electronics. The joystick and trigger are just more effective than stabbing semi-responsive rubber bumps on a stick.

(images copyright Nintendo Inc.)

So now look at the Nintendo Revolution. Think about all the time spent screaming at your DVD menu because you couldn't select the right audio track on your House Of Flying Daggers DVD. Do you want to be reminded of that feeling every time you pick up the Nintendo Revolution remote? I sure don't. When I slide my fingers around the grip of a game controller, I want to instantly be reminded of the speed, power and exhilaration these new systems provide. Flying an X-Wing should never feel like pausing Star Wars Episode IV to go to the bathroom.

Nice try Shigeru Miyamoto but give me something FUN!

Last night, I was listening to some am talk - something I do not infrequently - and I heard one of the hosts voicing something I've been hearing a lot of recently. Look, I'm worried overall that America is not graduating enough engineers and scientists to compete with the world market. Worse still, America isn't producing enough engineers and scientists to keep up with its own internal demand. We can discuss education and values but I feel the real problem lies in the very attitude the host exhibited on that syndicated talk show.

Lately I've seen the argument put forth that science is a belief system. While I honestly believe that this issue is largely born of misunderstanding, bad grammar and semantics, there remain those who honestly don't see any difference between their beliefs and science. Let me make clear that this is an issue that will literally, if followed to its ultimate conclusion, force me to leave my country (America) and never look back. I can forgive a host of evils readily embraced in my country today. A backslide into dark-ages barbarism is not among them.

Let me explain the problem.

First let me highlight some obvious differences between science and belief systems for the sake of clarification. First, science is a process, not a codex. Science isn't what you read in books, it's the engine used to test the veracity and accuracy of data, theorem and methodology. Science is the process by which those things you read were discovered or proven - but not those things in of themselves. Belief systems typically, in whole or in part, are codified. They are a list of things accepted as true. Yes, belief systems can take the form of a process similar to a methodology but usually the process is secondary to the core belief that guides such a process. In either case, a belief system places parameters on accepted truth a priori of any examination of the facts. I make these clarifications not as criticism but as points of definition.

Science is, by manner of execution not a belief system. This is demonstrated simply by stating that any rule or fact established by science can be disproved. Indicate any inaccurate data or fallacy in the methodology and science changes its conclusions to follow the facts. As a citizen of the 21st Century, it has been my privilege to witness neck-snapping turnarounds of cosmological importance. Nearly everything I was taught in high school and college astronomy has been proven wrong by more recent exploration and observation of the universe. Even from the point of abstract mathematical extrapolation, I have seen black holes pass from supported hypothesis to accepted theory to "look, there is one in the center of our galaxy!" When the bird in question is proven not to be a swan as previously accepted but in fact, a duck. Science reprints thousands of textbooks and simply moves on.

And don't talk to me about politics. Yes, there are politics in the scientific community. Yes there are emotional impediments to change. Yet science is a process of peer review. Just as we are all flawed and biased we are also burdened with different flaws and bias. Hence when subjected to extensive peer review, any individual's flaws and bias are easily placed in their own context. The conclusions of that individual can be criticized from outside those flaws and bias.

Belief systems, by contrast are not based on a system of criticism and review. Yes beliefs can and do change but not from external examination. This is the difference between belief and knowledge. This is not to say that belief is wrong or somehow unimportant. Belief is a powerful and fulfilling inner strength. But belief does exist in the absence of testing or critical methodology.

Now it is my belief that the host I listened to last night was trying to say that science is a belief system directly comparable to a religious belief system. He never made this explicit assertion but that was the argument I understood the man to be making. If so, then the contrast becomes even more obvious.

A religious belief system is by definition improvable. By its very nature, religious belief is not scrutinized by means of scientific testing. Religious belief systems are supported by the inner strength of the person who holds them. This is faith. Their value is based on assumed intrinsic truth. Quite often when evidence to the contrary is encountered, the reaction from adherents can be quite strong.

So it boils down to this. Belief is a something held to be true. Science is a process for examining evidence and models. Belief systems exist typically without proven evidence. Science requires proven evidence to assert anything. Belief systems - especially religious belief systems - cannot be disproved either by their design or the actions of their adherents. Science constantly adjusts or rewrites entirely what has been previously accepted as true based on better data, accurate criticism or improved methodology.

I have beliefs. I have faith. I recognize that both exist quite in spite of the day-to-day behavior of our universe. I am a man of science. Science is the tool that has for these past, brief two hundred years best deconstructed and predicted the behavior of our physical universe. Often my belief system clashes with my science. When this happens, science can only look back at me without concern. "The rocks are what the rocks are. I cannot change them..." it tells me. When I turn to my beliefs, I get an answer that is at once more compassionate yet far less satisfying. "If what you believe cannot exist in the light of scientific evidence then perhaps the problem lies neither with science nor your faith. Perhaps the problem lies with your ability to understand what is true." Yes, as with all other areas of experience in my life, when I arrive at a conflict in cosmology, I always suspect user error. To date, this methodology has been sound.

Before seeing War Of The Worlds with the much-maligned Tom Cruise, I have to admit that I had kept my hopes down. Reviews were poor to middling and alien invasion movies like ID4 had left a really nasty taste in my mouth. When I eventually made the afternoon showing with friends (not in the death grip of cynicism) I was surprised - moved in fact. This was not the film I had expected at all. Well, let me qualify that. This is WOTW, after all - there are no real narrative surprises. This is the H G Wells novel beginning to end. Both prolog and coda are voiced masterfully by Morgan Freeman. Surprisingly little was changed from the original text.

Still, the film that unfolds within the framework of this classic prose is, in a word, unsettling. I've described it to friends as Saving Private Ryan with aliens. It's a no-holds-barred exploration of man-meets-unstoppable-alien-menace and they are both unstoppable and menacing. Independence Day (ID4) was so full for spectacular pyrotechnics and whoopla that it was difficult to associate the fantastic light show with the toll in human life. Here, with WOTW, we see human tragedy meted out, person by person, by means of a meandering disintegration beam. It makes human beings go 'pop'. Neat, clinical and utterly, utterly revolting.

My favorite image from the movie has to be Tom Cruise and his panicked neighbors fleeing the tripod menace amidst a gentle, drifting shower of the torn clothing previously worn by disintegrated victims. The full scale of the catastrophe and Cruise's terror become clear when we encounter a surviving news crew. After a full day of wading through the wreckage and destruction of the Jersey Tripod, Tom sees taped footage of attacks on Washington and Los Angeles. Tom's only comment is "There's more than one?!"

WOTW is filled with both adaptation of and allusion to both the book and the classic film. Throughout, Director Steven Spielberg drives home the point that we are at the losing end of an extremely asymmetrical conflict. There is literally nothing we posses which can address the seamless power of the alien war machines. "When the tripods start moving, there's no more news from that area..."

We follow Cruise from town to town as he and his children flee the coalescing alien menace. We see the US military make an awesome stand against the alien war machines but to no avail. We wind up in the same farmhouse that served as the focus of the George Pal film's third act. Through it all we are only allowed to see as much and as little as one man would have been able to see himself. The ending of the film arrives exactly as expected and is no less satisfying for the certainty. It actually comes as a sort of relief.

There is one satisfying moment that celebrates the value of human tenacity wherein beleaguered soldiers get a crack at an unshielded tripod. While the scene seems somewhat tacked on and perhaps a bit patronizing, it is certainly a moment well earned by an audience held witness to two hours of wholesale human extermination on a personal level. While the closing moments of Spielberg's WOTW lack the whitewash scenes of churchgoers mobbing cathedrals like a Tokyo subway at rush-hour, Wells and Mr. Freeman are there to remind us of God's roll in our deliverance from alien extermination.

By the end of the film, I was spent. What I had seen was, in a word, unsettling. I felt just as I had after watching the fall of Baghdad for six hours straight. I had to keep reminding myself that the world was still intact and that the Teamsters at the Jersey docks had not lost even a day of work. Spielberg had taken my hand and walked me through a personal tour of all but total human annihilation. The toll, according to Mr. Freeman (with apologies to H G) was over a billion souls.

I can't say that this was a 'good film' in the sense that films of substance and importance often are. What I can say is that WOTW is a moving film in exactly the way that 'good films' often fail to be. WOTW for its part did remind me how fragile our world is. And how little it would take to rip its interlocking systems asunder. I was recently asked to hit WOTW for a second viewing. There is no doubt; I'll have to see this one again. But at the time I was asked, I wasn't ready. I needed a little more time in the sunlight with the world as it is before revisiting the dark and relentless cautionary of what it could so easily become.

Recently, Scott McCloud completed his internet theory of everything. Corollary to this is the apparent fact that anyone who speaks ill of him or his cronies is obviously an establishment ass. It's funny to me how Mr. McCloud could be so right but for all the wrong reasons. As you may or may not know, Mr. McCloud is the father of the stillborn concept of micropayments. A system of paid access to internet content guaranteed to make us all rich solely with the contents of our respective sofa cushions. The problem is, no matter how I view his plan, it amounts to a form of defacto zero-sum income redistribution. The end result would be that we'd all pay each other our sofa change - and in the end all have the same amount of sofa change. It's like a micro pyramid scheme.

What actually happened in the world of open internet art and comics was that those with the will and determination found ways of bending more conventional means of commerce to their their will. As such, many folks find themselves earning a living with their sites without having to invent new forms of fractional commerce.

But in all this silliness, Mr. McCloud missed what has to be the ultimate point to this often tiresome exercise. The entire purpose of this internet mechanism you kids are so crazy about is free expression. It's access to ideas, albeit often ill informed and apocryphal, but ideas nonetheless. The freedom for Gabe and Tycho to rib, jab or insult the makers of an antique documentary about webcomics created in the year of our lord 2002 is the very crux of the biscuit.

Tricking an easy mark out of their money one quarter at a time seems somewhat less honorable pursuit by comparison.

Yes, I saw the latest Star Wars installment. Yes, it was better than the last two. Yes it was quite good. Putting aside the documentary like slumber fest that was Phantom Menace and the Comedy Pie Fight that was Attack of the Clones, Return of the Sith almost makes me forgive Lucas for sitting through those two former atrocities. The effects were...great. The story was...there. The acting was...mostly good. The dialog was frequently less dreadful than it has been for episodes I and II. And best of all, Jar Jar makes but a single, stoic appearance looking suitably guilty for the havoc wrought by his single deciding vote in the Senate one movie ago.

While an astounding improvement in every way, Sith still managed to stir up some uncomfortable moments with clumsy dialogue. The first is an odd scene between Amidala and Anakin in which Anakin proclaims that Amidala is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Amidala tells Anakin he is simply blinded by love. The Abbot and Costello exchange that follows leaves you wondering who's on first and is it possible for somebody to be struck by another person's beauty if they were blind to begin with?

The second, and my favorite, is an exchange between Palpatine and Anakin in which the young Jedi is gently encouraged to try the 'Dark Side' of the force as an alternative to his more parochial education. Anakin considers this advice in spite of the fact that the alternative discipline is actually called 'The Dark Side'. It's not like Palpatine is asking him to try the Cold side of the Force or the Dark Chocolate side of the Force. It's called the 'Dark Side'. That's a fairly prosaic descriptor right there. Not much left to the imagination with that one. "So...are there any draw backs to this...'Dark Side'?" Heavens no my lad. Don't mind the yellow irises...

Still, all in all it was a hoot. True geeks will be gratified to see mechanical artifacts from West End Game's Imperial Handbook (the D6 system) fully realized for the silver screen. I was just happy to see Peter Mayhew back in costume. Also, this was the biggest thrill I've had since hearing James Earl Jones voice 'This is CNN...'

See Sith. Have fun.

Look, folks. FOX news continued use of the pseudo-term "homicide bomber" is just silly. It basically shows that their desire to appear politically proactive is far greater than their desire to be accurate, let alone "fair and balanced".

Without going into the politics of the matter, a little over three years ago Donald Rumsfeld announced that he "felt" the term "suicide bomber" gave to much "credibility" (his words) to terrorists who employed suicide tactics. For that reason, he announced this administration would henceforth use the term "homicide bomber". Ok, I'm all about discrediting terrorists. I'm also somewhat open to the idea of making political statements against groups who support or carry out terrorist activity. But I have to draw the line at Orwellian Doublespeak in daily briefings to the press. In a word, that would be ungood.

Worse still, the one news organization that claims to stand on the single pillar of objectivity, chose to adopt this verbal non-entity and to this day uses it in its daily broadcasts. Rumsfeld is a politician. I'll give him a pass on making silly statements. I'm used to that. But FOX is a news and information service. Why does this bother me? Because "homicide bomber" is at best redundant and at worst devoid of any informative context.

If a bomber is taken to mean "one who bombs" or more accurately "one who employs an explosive device in an effort to destroy or kill" then "homicide bomber" is embarrassingly redundant. It is the equivalent of calling Jack The Ripper a "homicide stabber". By that definition, Timothy McVeigh is a "homicide bomber". He did bomb a building in Oklahoma. He did commit homicide. Show me any contradiction there, I dare you.

Folks, the "suicide" in "suicide bomber" is to set aside those who blow themselves up in the process of blowing up others from those who merely blow things up. It is important that, when a bomber kills our soldiers in Iraq, that I know whether the bomber took his own life in the process or - as is often the case - the bomber detonated an I.E.D. from a safe distance and escaped possibly to kill again. Using the meaningless term homicide bomber actually deprives me of critical contextual information I need form opinions about events around the globe.

So, I would ask that in the interest of objective and accurate reporting that the FOX news network stop its use of the imaginary term "homicide bomber" and employ words found in Webster instead. That would only be the fair and balanced thing to do.

"You get the same problem with lightbulbs. Why innovate and makes better ones when the current ones burn out often enough to keep you in buisness?"

Why indeed?

Because mass production doesn't SELL items, demand does.

Six years ago, I purchased 15+ compact fluorescent bulbs to light my new apartment. Since then, my monthly electric bill has been consistantly $25 lower than it was with incandescent bulbs. Those bulbs have yet to burn out and they have moved with me twice - all fifteen, all still working to this day. The oldest one is actually seven years old.

Yet compact fluorescents have hit the market big time and LED lighting was introduced last year and will overtake florescent sales easily by 2015. Remember, the market is driven by demand. We demanded compact fluorescent bulbs and the incandescent manufacturers came through with white efficient bulbs that last 5-12 years. We now demand LED interior lighting and most premium lighting outlets sell LED sets for indirect lighting fixtures. GE has an 'Edison' socket LED lamp that will hit the market this year. GE predicts sales to be in the millions of units. Those units are pricey now but so were compact fluorescents when they first shipped.

The market is driven by demand, not greed. If consumers show a willingness to buy something, manufacturers will produce that product. If there is low or no demand, that product isn't produced no matter how wonderful. The myth of a gas-controlled economy is easily debunked by the fact that the oil industry long ago diversified away from petroleum. If oil stopped being pumped today, Exxon would be (and is already) in the ethanol or H2 market tomorrow. Chrysler is going to introduce their first fuel cell vehicle this decade should hybrid demand stay elevated - and all indications are that it will. Also keep in mind that Ford is one of the top electric vehicle manufacturers worldwide and plans to keep that dominance in the face of climbing petroleum prices.

Look people, there are 6.6 billion people on earth. If Auto manufacturers produced a popular electric car that lasted 20 years or more, it would take decades for that demand to be fulfilled. By then the first cars would be wearing out and even more efficient models would be on the way. Even today, Detroit doesn't sell new cars because old ones wear out. Detroit sells new cars because people get tired of their cars after 2- 5 years. My Honda has 219,000 miles on it (original engine) and runs quite well. All I ask for is a car that runs that same 200,000 miles without having to gut the engine. Someone will still sell me new seats, mud flaps and cup holders.

Still need proof that there is no conspiracy to keep consumer items unreliable? Ask yourself this: when was the last time you bought a new refrigerator. My last one was a GE and came to me already 20 years old and still lives and breathes in Highland Park, CA. My Whirlpool washing machine is 30 years old and has survived two generations of my family. My GE dryer was given to me by a friend and no electrician alive can recognize the make and model of the door switch. The market is driven by demand. You can't sell items people won't buy.

And that is why.

Ok, I am an environmentalist.

Let me qualify that.

I am in favor of creating a sustainable technological society. I am NOT a Luddite. I love technologies that create tools, which are at once more efficient and less wasteful. LED lighting is one example. Brighter than incandescent, they use far, far less power (milliamps) and LED's don't, as a rule, burn out. The higher cost will go down with mass production.

So it is with electric cars. From a strictly mechanical standpoint, electric vehicles are faster than internal combustion engines, are far more efficient and rarely if ever wear out. An internal combustion engine it is often said - as far as space heaters go, makes a passable form of transportation. Gas engines are at best around 40% efficient from the standpoint of energy used to power generated. The worst electric motor is about 60% efficient. There will come a day when we all drive roomy, incredibly fast electric vehicles which last on average 15 years without any major maintenance. We will then look back on the clunky, slow, needlessly complex gasoline precursors and ask ourselves "what the heck were we thinking?"

To that end, America has become increasingly enamored with Hybrids. Hybrids take the edge off of IC automobiles by assisting an IC motor at key moments of low efficiency - acceleration, braking, long, sustained travel at high speed. Basically, the worst enemy of IC motors is the inertia of its own internal components. Well, that and heat waste.

So Hybrids made a fantastic entree to the US auto market overcoming concerns of early consumer adoption and price and utility factors. People LOVE them. As consumer demand increased, I guess it was only a matter of time before the first Bogus Hybrid Come-On hit the market.

Enter the 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid. Look at the Mileage:

29 mpg City and advertised 32-mpg highway...

Ok, let me get this straight, the standard Accord gets 21 to 30 MPG city/highway and costs a base $24,000. For $30,000 I get a measly 9mpg boost for city driving with no appreciable increase of highway efficiency?

By way of comparison, my 2002 Celica GTS gets 27/32 city/hwy and those are ACTUAL recorded mileage figures based on MY two years of ownership. Why does my 3.8-liter engine run faster, accelerate more rapidly and run on less gas overall than a Honda HYBRID 4.0-liter engine with electric assist? Even my 14-year-old 91 Honda Civic Si hatchback STILL gets 28/31 ! Clearly Honda was so eager to enter the hybrid sedan market that they assumed that consumers would by anything with a gas/electric sticker on the window.

Do yourself a favor, save $6,000, buy the gas Accord, get the same mileage and tell Honda that unless they are serious about expanding the gas/electric hybrid market they need to get out of the way. Let those who ARE serious get the job done. Remember; unless we say otherwise, auto manufactures always assume that we are morons.

Prove them wrong.

In other news a friend sent me the link to THE LORD'S GYM. I assure you it is no hoax. I am assailed by a torrent of feelings here. Granted it should no longer surprise me the lengths that fundamentalists will go to avoid contact with anyone holding a differing view on cosmology...but classes on Yo-God? Christ doing pushups under a cross? I'm not exactly a regular church goer but even I'd be afraid of working out there for fear of being struck by lightning! This has to be the closest thing to a brick-and-morter self-contradiction I have ever seen. On the other hand, man that Jesus is ripped!

I want to make clear that I *love* the new Battlestar Galactica. I am even coming to terms with Katee Sackhoff in the roll of Kara Thrace (Starbuck). I at first felt her miscast in the roll - not because of her gender - but because she just didn't seem to fit the writing. Now that the series is underway, I think both writers and actor have found the center of Trace. Anyway, I'm liking what I see now. I like the fact that she may be the only character who can make Lee Adam (Apollo) laugh.

Anyway, I am having a blast pulling the UK aired series off bittorrent and watching them again (that's right Mr. Ronald D. Moore) as they air here in the US. I just hated Universal deciding to take the old Galactica premise and just start again. My opinion is that Mr. Moore - as fine a job as he and the creative team has done with the current Galactica - would have done far better taking his story and just telling it as it obviously wants to be told without the fetters of the rusting hulk of the old Galactica. And it is obvious that fans of the old Galactica (which I enjoy for its camp charm) have no reason whatsoever to watch the new one. If old fans do enjoy the new Galactica they do so based on the quality of the series and the merit of the writing NOT because of any carryover from old to new - cause believe me, there isn't any carryover of substance.

Every carryover that does come to mind takes the form of an inside joke. Well, except for the use of the original alpha shuttle in the opening sequence of the new miniseries. For those of you who caught it - that was not a CG shuttle.

So again, I'm opposed to the process of re-imagining. I'm surprised and delighted that this new series is some really good science fiction. And I'm man enough to admit when I was wrong (I predicted disaster). But I still insist that Mr. Moore would have done better if left entirely to his own imagination.

By the way, as one who saw the trailer that Richard Hatch co directed with Jay Woelfel, I can tell you it was good -damn good. It would have made an incredible series as well.

I'm not too worked up about the new series. I have to admit, the pilot was good. The problem I have with it is this term 'reimagined' which has been tossed around by its 'creators' - like 'reimagining' was some kind of legitimate creative process. Well...as a writer I have some tough news for you. If it's easy to reimagine an old show then it should have been child's play to imagine a new one. In fact, why waste time using the husk of the old Galactica if your new ideas are so damned hot in the first place? The entire process seems like a fool's errand to me. Either a sequel to the original Galactica is good enough to air on Sci Fi or the new idea and story are good enough to stand on their own. Pick one!

The fans of the old want the old and will only be happy with the old. People drawn in by your 'new' imaginings will enjoy your new imaginings - even without the husk of the original franchise to prop them up. Bottom line: no matter how well produced this new Galactica is, our 'creators' only wanted the name 'Galactica' to make money. If they really had a top shelf new series, that treatment would have sold Sci Fi all by itself.

As it stands, we risk creating another Alien 3 - that is, Universal figuring out how valuable their property was AFTER these creative carpetbaggers ran rough shod over the franchise. By then, this 'creative' team will be long gone, Universal's money spent.

I know that you can't please everybody...true. But the new Galactica looks like a sure fire plan to piss off everybody - old fans and new viewers.

Did I watch the miniseries? Yes. I liked it quite a bit. Will I watch the series? I'll give it a shot. But I'll never help feeling like there was another, better show here. Maybe it was a fitting sequel to a Galactica - the one we all remember fondly. Maybe it was an original science fiction series not hobbled by an aging studio property. Either way, we will never know. Either way I find it difficult to support a television series that these people don't entirely support themselves. Somehow it will never entirely seem free from the bitter taste of plagiarism. But maybe that's just me.