green
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Posts posted by green
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New to the series person again. Introduction and fleshing out of Crixus which is our other historical gladiator. The rest are new characters to me. Writers have a lot of leeway the more ancient the history and the less real names and characters known as such. Look forward to seeing what they do with them.
I like the actor that plays Batiatus. Worthy to be Peter Ustenov's successor which is a tall order. And in both cases he seems written into a gray area of neither being good nor bad (given the times) but shows some of both (no matter the times making a profit on people killing each other is not cool) from what I've seen so far.
And I actually had no idea Lucy Lawless was his wife until I caught the credits the first time. So she is doing her job well that I didn't even recognize a "name" but just saw her character.
Right now I find them the two most interesting characters. Yes, sympathies towards Spartacus and so forth but they have a nice, complex, interesting relationship and political / social climbing scenario starting already which bodes well for many an intrigue and self-inflicted trouble ahead.
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New to the series and posted it in the re-watch thread. Nice to have a new to me series to get into about everyone's favorite Bulgarian. (Well more of ancient Thrace corresponds with modern day Bulgaria then any other current country so I'm just sayin', heh).
The negative: I'm not a big fan of over the top comic style "300" historical fictions so there is that "minor" (hah) problem. But since this is a long series I will have to set that aside and just go on the ride and take this for what it is because there is no escaping that genre here.
The positive: History, in any form, is my drug of choice. And Roman history is an especially favorite era for me. So I'm hooked.
Interesting to see the writers worked in the historical bit about Spartacus being a Roman auxiliary. They didn't use that in the Howard Fast novel / Stanley Kubrick film back in the day. But one interesting parallel to the film is that this series had the Roman commander named Glaber. In the 1960 film they had a character named Glabrus. That version had him as a rather inept commander who owes his position to the fact that he is the son-in-law of Crassus. Here it looks like he is trying to ride the coat tails of his non-Crassus but still a senator father-in-law.
Of course film Glabrus doesn't figure into the "commanding" bit until the rebellion since the film starts -- except for a brief prelude where Spartacus is introduced as being punished for attacking a guard in the mines where he is already a slave -- right off in the gladiator school at Capua. A TV series has so much more space to operate in.
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WAHOO!!!! Starz has ALL three seasons or is it four? on Demand, so I can watch 'em there, instead of the edited scify, thus also avoiding commercial breaks!
As for Andy, I think he hit it out of the park on all levels and all emotions--anger, rage, depression, cunning, sadness...I'll admit, I am biased. That said, I tried to give Liam a chance; I did, but, like Raymond Burr was is Perry Mason, to me Andy Whitfield was Spartacus.
I take from the above statements the lead actor died in the middle of the series? Was he sick? An accident? So they hired another actor to have to step into the role to finish it out? That must have been awkward. Also it is going to be weird watching the lead actor here knowing he didn't live out the TV series. On the whole I think I like knowing this going into the show.
Anyway, I'm brand new to this show here cause I be one of the poor folk that can't afford the premium pay channels especially one that usually has nothing on it.
Until now my only knowledge of Spartacus is from the actual real history and, of course, the historical fiction of Howard Fast's novel turned into the classic blockbuster 1960 film with Kirk Douglas and John Ireland as Spartacus and Crixus (and Laurence Olivier of course when Crassus eventually shows up). So it will be interesting to see a TV series 21st century re-telling of the history/legend and how their fictional components either parallel or depart from the 1960 film since only so much is known of the real Spartacus so it's a treasure trove to spin/texture the character into pretty much anything a writer wants to. And a film with compressed essence is going t differ from a TV series with tons of screen time to add all sorts of stuff.
And I get this is a "300" type of thing from the first few episodes so it won't have the more naturalistic feel I prefer. But hey, I like anything historically-based so I'm in anyway. Need this to hold me until Vikings returns. Is the series over? Is SyFy showing all of it?
BTW, if I read the episode threads will there be spoilers regards this version? I mean I assume the historical facts are cool to talk about but this series' future episodes won't be talked about in the threads until that episode pops up? Cause I'm sure I'm not the only one seeing this for the first time. I'll probably look anyway but would be nice if series spoilers about series created characters didn't pop up from the get go.
Okay, off to read the first five threads since I caught up via the marathon Monday night.
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... but really... they programmed the Giant to ... tell an end-user they have nice manners?!? With 1983 tech? On the extremely realistic, I'm sure, chance that people were going to be thanking it? Yeah right...
They programmed it to run down a very simple check list for certain terms including "please" and "thank you" so yeah it was quite possible to do that back then. And yes, people did say please and thank you to human like prompts back then cause it was just such a relief NOT so see the fraking C Prompt blinking at you with menace and evil intent.
So to sum up this episode:
Gordon: "I'm getting the band back together and we are going to Comicon ... errr, that other thing."
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Being as Katee Sackhoff is the only reason I started watching this show in the first place, I was glad to see a Vic storyline as I feel she's badly underutilized. I do enjoy the show but this season has gotten WEIRD, though not necessarily in a bad way.
Me too. She will always be Starbuck for me.
Also thanks to Babalooie for mentioning my favorite totally insane Viking above. I'd love to see a modern day Floki type running around loose in this show. Or just about any show.
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A series where they battle something like what a real life pandemic would be like = scary. What happens within the REAL CDC with misplaced smallpox/anthrax you name it stuff = really REALLY scary. 1950's cornball crap = not scary and totally boring. If it was a send-up, maybe ... for the giggles. Nay, not even then.
Lead guy is typical factory issued ego tripper flavor of the year anti-hero dummy cause writers these days are scared/clueless how to write about a decent person any more. I thought the other CDC "hero" on that other show I've already forgotten the name of that took place somewhere near the North Pole was bad. This guy is worse.
And I thought that first CDC guy story was bad but at least if had a good villain bug I could root for. These bad guys are just silly. Guy that turned the dude's head into goo looked like the creature out of the cult "The Attack of the Vegetable People" from the 1950's. Well except without the tossed salad look. But costume was just as corny.
Got to be the worst series of the summer. Total waste of time. I shall NOT return.
(And will someone cast "Rudy" "Samwise" in something cool again. Hate to see him wasting his talents in this piece of poop. Especially as a supporting character. Guy should have the lead in something but Hollywood is locked into herd-think that leads must be 6 foot whatever lookalike actors I can't tell apart).
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How did the Russians know Chloe was at the docks and managed to mobilize and kidnap her in minutes ?
They were tipped off by the series writers who then helped them manage the logistics in no time. Literally, no time..
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Actually, Merriam Webster, pretty much the standard in the academic and publishing world, says both ways of saying nuclear is correct. I say ˈnü-klē-ər.
The episode: Like someone upthread said, Audrey's muscle was useless. They probably would have failed but they did not even try. Also, local law enforcement is just as useless. I am liking this season, but if I think too hard about it things start going to pot.
Yep there is no way to pronounce anything "wrong" ever but I even officially pronounce it "right" according to the grammar police. How about that. Not that there is such a thing as grammar police in reality but anyway this was cool to know. Thanks for posting this on behalf of myself and, more importantly, half the characters in this episode, hah.
Hopefully next week's episode will involve a small stream so we can find out if Bauer says creeek or crik.
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Great posts on the technical myths vs. realities, Scowl, ganesh and annlaw78.
One thing HACF is getting right, for me, is the question of how to position a PC and its brand back in this time of its infancy (and it's the thing that makes me most nostalgic as I was in college during this period, and working in tech/computing for several years during and after). The show does show the conundrum well -- the idea is great -- everyone should have a computer! -- but the fact is that especially back then, they were confusing to navigate, very un-user-friendly, and one wrong command could lead to total catastrophe for a neophyte.
So I like that the show is capturing the core conflict of branding -- that people creating/selling computers wanted them to be seen as appliances, as ubiquitous, but that there was this significant hurdle that they simply weren't button-push appliances, they weren't all that accessible, and they did require some pretty decent learning and training even to do basic things. A more accessible OS was the difference between widespread success and failure, and Bill Gates, for instance, capitalized on that and changed everything. (The Mac was always easier and friendlier but it was also badly priced and marketed for years).
So Cameron's obsession with the OS makes sense here, and I really like that she's addressing this because it brings up topics that are very relevant today ...
Just wanted to say I totally agree 100% here. The inability of the techie crowd back then to see that 99% of people did NOT want to stare at a C prompt in holy terror was one of the biggest if not the biggest mistake of those early days. They should have been clued in by the fact that about the same 99% of people still had the 12:00 flashing on their VCRs.
I think the engineering crowd kind of secretly liked the fact everyone else couldn't use their machines. They liked to go around saying stuff like, "It really is so easy anyone should know how to use it" which translated into a self-aware put down of everyone else. It was their external validation in life that they knew their way around a C prompt. But no one else was impressed by their techie version of superiority. They just showed themselves clueless and tone deaf to what a PC was about. It took Windows and the internet to save the PC from itself.
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The colonel was probably suppose to be the military attache at the US embassy in London where they all are. Any bigger brass with gray hair would be in the US playing golf, err, at the Pentagon.
I say new-que-ler. And I'll continue t say it. Everyone I knows says it that way too. Language is by nature fluid and pronunciations change. Fortunately we have no English version of the French Academy of Language Police to try and stop the natural flow of a language and the way words change in both spelling, usage and pronunciation. Thus any pronunciation is just fine by me. Po-ta-to, po-tot-to.
The Chinese leader was the only logical and rational guy in the whole show cause he was the only one who didn't buy the TV writers' totally crazy plot-line for one second.
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If you were to read about young Steve Jobs. Joe would seem like an amateur sociopath and asshole. Young Jobs used and abused people, especially the very talanted, on a massive scale.
This times a million!!! This show hasn't even dug into half the crap Steve Jobs pulled yet. Much more material for them to purloin.
And I read that the writers did indeed base (were "inspired" by?) the character of "Joe" on Steve Jobs with Gordon as the "good Steve" (Wo), his faithful sidekick and the real engineering brains of the two who was somewhat blinded by him and tended to rationalize away a lot of the shit as a result. They just fictionally transplanted them to the PC side of the fence to probably avoid any possible lawsuits.
Footnote: Interesting that the poster right above mentioned the Apple Lisa. And indeed Jobs did steal the crucial material from Xerox during his visit there. He even mentioned filling a whole roll of toilet paper with hurriedly scribbled notes there in a Xerox bathroom writing down all he had seen and learned before he forgot it. He turned the roll over to Wo and Wo turned it into the first GUI used commercially.
And Job named the machine -- Apple Lisa -- after his daughter after threatening his ex-wife or whoever she was (Lisa's mother anyway) with cutting off all child support to his daughter if mom refused to sign legal papers allowing him to exploit the name Lisa and the "endearing " little story he made up of naming his new line after his "beloved" daughter. Given the Steve Jobs material they have to work with, Joe here hasn't even gotten warmed up yet.
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Excellent News!
TURN renewed for Season 2 - 10 episodes in total.
http://www.tvfanatic.com/2014/06/amc-renews-turn-for-season-2/
Season 2 will air Spring 2015. (ugh, so far away...I guess they have to write and film them. Also I think it will once again take over for The Walking Dead).
If by "it" you mean Abe then that seems about right. Can't tell him apart from the walking dead at this point anyway. I mean man what a totally boring character he might as well be shambling around dead. Of course I don't think walking dead are into as much self-indulgence and pissing on their family not having any any more.
OT: Why is this still in the active FORUM as well every other show on hiatus but Vikings has been "disappeared" into the backlot of long ago cancelled/past shows? Yeah I harp on this but Vikings deserves better.
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I wonder exactly which Charles he's playing.
Charlemagne has been mentioned by that name on the show, so I don't see why they would start calling him just Charles now. He also doesn't look old enough to have been a mentor figure for Ecbert.
The producers have mentioned the Siege of Paris, which tool place under the reign of Charles the Bald.
Well TPTB are making historical fiction, not a historical documentary and they already have fudged some things like making Bjorn Lagertha's son instead of Aslaug's. And Rollo (who wasn't even born yet) a brother to Ragnar who himself is thought by some historians to be a composite of several people.
So I guess to get Ragnar to Paris while still alive they have to snip out some French royal clutter. So it looks like they are are quickly offing Charlemagne who died in 811 so he was about to croak soon anyway, then snipping out his successor, Louis the Pious, and skipping directly to Charles the Bald so the Vikings can like hurry up and raid Paris already. Heh.
But on the whole they really know how to weave the fictional drama well into the historical fabric making the best of both. Love the writing.
And again, powers that be here, pretty please re-activate this show into the regular forum. Every other non-cancelled show on hiatus is there. The Northmen are being discriminated against by this action and they don't take slights kindly. See Eagle, Blood. :-)
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... Abe has been forced to move into Whitehall, his father's place. Abe, Hewlett, his father and Mary are all under the same roof eating together and sleeping in the same house. I think that's going to create a more "Downton [Abbey]"-y kind of tension.
If there is a Season 2 and this is it count me O-U-T !!!
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(1) The girl looks and acts just like Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, which I couldn't stand because of Starbuck. (Plus I hate science fiction. That said, when the Pie Maker had his shirt ripped off, I said, "He's a cyborg?!")
Ah that finally explains why I LIKE the woman here. Starbuck is one of my top 10 characters ever on one of my top 10 shows ever. And I love good sci fi (as opposed to "the bug of the week" invasion type shows).
But at this point it would take the arrival of the real Starbuck as well as Gaius frackin' Baltar and half the Cylons lead by Six to save this show.
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It seems like that's what the show is aiming at with all that genius stuff Cameron scratched on her whiteboard. Yep, that stuff is gonna make a computer run twice as fast at half the price.
The only thing I can remember that made IBM PCs go faster was avoiding the BIOS whenever possible.
Well they also did mention a portable computer with "handles" too so if Compaq beat them to the big punch I suppose they could go with inventing the first laptop earlier then real life on this show thus creating the "mobile revolution" instead.
Man this show is so slowwww. I kept looking at the clock and it looked like it was frozen in time. Not a good sign for me to keep watching.
Also I usually basically hate business types with a passion but this show is so bad I too am rooting for the old, white, conservative Texas owner trying to save his company from both Mr Arrogant in house and Big Blue.
Okay I still get to hate one business since IBM and their silly conservative dress code guys are still around in this series lurking in dark corners. I recall back then IBM guys were NOT allowed even slightly long hair or facial hair of any kind or even short sideburns. We are a free country ... but not at work where it is totally dark ages uber ruler "business look" sheep herd think. I'm sure they probably even would have had a ban on cool chick's natural armpit hair if they even thought about it but that would have been so outside of their box it would have exploded their mind. Die, bastards, die! (Ah yes that felt better).
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Okay so they killed off the nicest character in the show and have him killed off by the so-called "hero."
Abe and Anna are the two most petty, self-indulgent people in all of history. Neither Mary nor Selah deserve the pain they are putting them through. Wish Simcoe had shot Abe and wish Anna died in the one foot of water she was struggling through at the end there.
Simcoe goes totally whacko. Didn't see that coming. Thought he was more cleverly evil then to unhinge like that. Guess it was the revenge of Bucephalus' ghost.
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This. Exactly. Every time I watch this show, I feel like I immediately need to come here so someone can explain it to me. I think this show might have benefited from having an outsider who knows nothing about computers be part of the main cast of characters. Not that I want tedious labored explanations every five minutes, but SOME explanation would be helpful.
I think the writers of HACF have a difficult task. Too much tech explanations and the audience gets bored. Too little and they get confused. So far, I don't think they have figured out the right balance yet.
And this is why all tech manuals are totally boring and non-understandable. Why controls and prompts and stuff make no sense to the end user most of the time. Tech people have an absolutly horrible time conveying their world to the rest of us. Of being able to design interfaces that make sense to us. I've said for years they needed real life, non-tech people to vet their work before it ever appears on the market.
But techies tend to like to keep to their world to perhaps feel a rush of superiority over those not initiated into their realm maybe. Lots of people do weird things seeking self-validation for their lives. Being able to speak/work/function in a totally different universe then most seems to be a techie trademark for many of them.
And this show follows the same pattern as the tech industry's biggest flaw. I find this highly ironic because I would assume most film makers are more your right brain types because communicating to people via their art is what they do after all. Yet this whole series feels like it was put together by a bunch of zonked out tech people instead. Fun for the insider view and jokes I guess but losing the general viewership quickly.
Who are the people who made this and why can't they translate techno-speak into a TV show that people will want to watch outside of the tech industry?
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Why is Cameron so poor that she has no apartment and has to shoplift her clothes? She negotiated her salary up by something like 100%, right? She couldn't have negotiated an advance? And was she in school before, or did I misunderstand? If so, she wasn't living on the streets then, was she?
I don't think she is meant to be "poor" as in homeless. Not rich for sure as she is worried about a job. But not ultra poor either. I got the feeling she just likes to shoplift to make her a "rebel." Also for the thrill of it.
As for sleeping at work that was pretty much the standard operating mode for most hot shot programmers and engineers back in the day. People would throw in a bean bag couch or old mattress into the area they worked and lived on high caffeine level colas and pizza and worked until they passed out, woke up, worked some more and crashed etc. It was the feeling of living on the exciting new frontier and high power tech types that took to that life style were looked up to and considered the trailblazers.
If you just always remember that programmers and engineers are the left brain equivalent of writers and painters you will get it on this show. Just as some of the great writers and painters and composers etc often went off on creative working jags for several weeks at a time until they satisfied their muse then crashed dead drunk for several more weeks "recovering;" so too their left brain counterparts, high tech types. Both types push the envelope and usually live off the boring 9 to 5 grid the rest of us are trapped in and inhabit instead a far more exciting and stimulating world inside their heads. If you remember that you will understand these characters on the show better.
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^ LOL.
Hey I just got Season 1 of Vikings on DVD (yeah I'm still a technology behind, no Blu-Ray for me). Which made me think some (ouch that hurts). When is Season 2 due out? Anyone know?
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I don't know how you find the shows, green, but I have a big blue MY SHOWS button that list all the shows I follow on this site. Once I find the forum for a show I like I follow it and it goes into MY SHOWS...
There is also a search bar on the top of the forum list that should pull up any show you're looking for, if a forum exists for it.
I know about MY SHOWS. It's the only reason I could find this forum again. But it is the only show I use that feature for. I usually just bookmark FORUMS period since I find that the handiest page to use on this site. So I was pretty surprised Vikings had gone walkabout. It seemed weird that Vikings was the only non-golden oldie or non-cancelled show to go missing whereas all the other shows were still there. Makes it hard for a new person arriving on site here to even know Vikings is included here period. Even more odd since filming is beginning so the show stuff is very active right now.
Also I know about how to track a show down but it is an extra click step to find it. I just find the SHOWS page weird and avoid it like the plague period and if I want to see anything about a particular show outside the frum for that series, I get to that series' "shows" section via the forum for it. Like I said, FORUMS just has every other single show I know of listed. Only Vikings is missing. Found that very bizarre.
And Babalooie, I think the real reason you are reading the tweets is to keep up with your family. How's your great-great-great whatever Ivar the Boneless doing these days anyway? Pillage anywhere this past week?
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I think I got that. The thing with the lights was essentially figuring out what the code did right? So to put it very simply, if you could figure out how to make the lights do the same thing on your own, with your own unique code, it wasn't a violation of the patent. I guess I don't know enough about patents because I thought when you filed one, you basically had to disclose everything about how your invention worked, because that was the only way to prove that it hadn't already been invented. And once you did that all of that information became public domain (although protected by your patent).
No, patents don't "out" the secrets to the public domain at all. If it did the China hackers would be out of work immediately. And you just gave Coca-Cola a near attack at your even suggesting that, hah.
The thing with the lights was measuring the voltage output on the legs of the chip to decode the binary output of each of the legs. Binary code (just 1's and 0's - on and off basically) was then converted into Hex code which was what was printed in the binder. Hex is a base 16 number system switching to the letter A for 10 through 15 = F. Which makes dealing and storing the binary easier if you can believe that, hah. (Hey it's somewhat easier then split octal anyway).
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^ That is what the hiring of the young woman is suppose to be I think. The "second group" that then builds the clone. Someone not accidentally (legally) "tainted" with what the first group knew/did thus an outsider. Which I think they do to show that "anyone" can build an IBM off-the-shelf clone thus IBM's patent stuff is nonsense. Something vaguely like that. But in this show you don't need no stinking second "group" when you have Wonder Woman who can do it in her sleep.
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Why did Vikings get moved to the hidden zone that no one ever finds? (It really really isn't clear where these shows are. There should be a big, colored button that says "look here" or something for the simple minded like me).
Anyway Vikings isn't cancelled and the filming is either beginning or about to begin for Season 3. I mean if every show was removed during the summer shouldn't stuff like old network shows like all the NCIS: Whatevers or fellow cable shows like Bates Motel or reality shows like The Amazing Race and Survivor be moved too?
Now I don't want all these shows moved into The Black Hole of Great Hiding. Just want Vikings returned to the land of the living (non-cancelled) is all. Because otherwise, you know, Ragnar could get upset. Very upset. And just ask Jarl Borg if that is a good idea. Just sayin', heh.
All Episodes Talk: S01 Blood And Sand
in Spartacus [V]
I just posted something similar in the episode 2 thread. And since Peter Ustenov played him in the 1960 film I am impressed they found someone who can also hold his own by neither copying NOR running away from the Ustenov interpretation.
So many actors playing a role -- even if written in a different format like this one from the 1960 film -- would still try TOO hard to run away from the first actor's interpretation. Those actors usually are so on an ego trip to prove themselves better then a previous actor that they screw up things totally and show themselves pretty bad actors. This actor has the confidence to neither copy nor run away from the film's version. That bodes well for him making the role his own.
Anyway, kudos to him. Still liking him the best in the cast so far. Not that I dislike any of the other cast. Just that this guy really stands out to me.