S02.E06: 10BROAD36

[Tara Ariano]

Gordon returns to California to reconnect with his brother, Henry, as Joe uses his newfound leverage to change Wheeler's thinking about computing.

[Primetimer]

The Mutiny gang decides to trick Joe by building a fake Unix computer capable of running their games. It's a plan so crazy, it just might fail spectacularly!

Read the story

[ketose]

Tonight on HACF, the coder monkeys invent the cable modem.

Next week, Gordon makes games play on his car phone. He then uses it to pick up trashy women.

[DrSpaceman]

Wow that was an incredibly stupid and risky plan to trick Joe.

As bad as Joe was last season, just Mutiny in general is more irritating than he was.

Oh and now they invented broad band as well. First person shooter, chat rooms and now broadband, all their ideas

In five years they will be inveting the Iphone at this rate.

No idea what Gordon was doing......just talk to your wife. What a screwed up relationship.

And through it all though, this is still a better show than last season.

[ketose]

I have to say, the getting an abortion scene is a totally 80's movie staple (Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Was there really a modern song playing in the episode? Their knowledge of obscure music exceeds mine so I can't tell.

[SonofaBiscuit]

Oh, Gordon.  One week I like you...the next you're back to being a piece of crap.

 

Don't think that Cameron liked the dressing-down that Bos gave her, but I loved it.  "All Donna did is behave like you do every day!"  Truth Bos, truth.

 

What has Donna done to deserve this?  Joe is a dick, Cameron is a dick, and poor Donna is stuck in the middle.  She's incredibly smart and capable, and she doesn't need these guys, so why is she putting up with this crap?!

 

Lol at Mutiny being among the first to deal with Broadband.  Okay.

[ketose]

Donna is a straight up follower. She hooked up with Gordon because he was the closest to sharing her goals. She joined Mutiny because she likes what Cameron was about. She joined Texas Instruments because it was safe. Donna needs to strike off on her own, or at least not let people walk all over her.

[Cramps]

When was the last abortion on TV? Maude? Networks are usually afraid to go there.

[ketose]

Everwood did it.

 

I looked up 10Broad36 as a communication standard. Apparently, it was a little-used method in the 80's involving one-way only communication over a coaxial cable using a carrier wave. So, even though the terms broadband and cable were thrown around, it would be another decade before DOCSIS would be used for higher speed cable modems.

[riverheightsnancy]

I was surprised when Donna told her mom that she miscarried, because I didn't think that the show would bother to show the test kit and all and then just drop the storyline so easily. So, I found how they did "tell" it quite compelling. I really like that Cameron was there for her. I think that their relationship will be stronger because of this. Joe is a jerk, but Gordon is just as self-centered and narcissistic. He tells everyone but Donna. She is going to feel betrayed. They have enough money that they can hire a nurse to help him so that she can move forward in her career. He is already acting like he is dead. Gordon is relishing the fact that he is "sick". It gives him permission to do whatever he wants. He now has an excuse. I think Gordon will find a lot of power in being ill and hold onto that for dear life. (pun intended)

[Bort]

I feel like Gordon has gotten this "brain cloud" diagnosis and hasn't even bothered to A: get a 2nd opinion and B: find out if it's even fatal (which I'm betting it isn't).

[TC3200]

I am glad the show decided to tackle the abortion issue. And that they have a married woman get an abortion because, hey, the 2 existing children are ENOUGH. Today's climate that allowed the religious extremists to push their full-quiver agenda is a travesty. Sure, its fine to be religious and hold antiquated views and be antiabortion and choose to be a poorly educated housewife who doesn't work. BUT to force that peasant lifestyle and role model onto others, and block their access to abortion is wrong.

I enjoyed working in the '80s, when women could have careers and weren't obligated to breed and be SAHM, and nobody was discussing their religion in the workplace, and people kept their family lives private. Today's young women really annoy me. They are mama first and they are slackers at work who expect coworkers put up with constant lateness and calloffs because they always have some drama going on with their pig sty family life.

[attica]

When I saw Kevin Rankin playing Gordon's brother, I knew he'd be the worst. Devil from Justified! Well, I guess it's a step forward that Gordon's confessed his illness to somebody, anyway. 

 

I'm glad the show went the abortion route. If 1 in 3 women will have an abortion in their lifetime, it's always offended me that tv and movies ignore the reality. I thought at first that Donna had already had it when she told her mom she'd miscarried, because it was clearly a lie (and her mom knew that, I think. At least that's what I got out of AOT's performance.), but I wasn't mad we saw it play out later in the ep.

 

It surprises me that I find myself wanting to punch Lee Pace in the face (so hard, you guys) week after week: I've liked him everywhere else!

 

It's a good thing they film in Georgia, otherwise they wouldn't be able to find an actual lake to sit by in CA! 

[roomtorome]

Networks, etc are so terrified of losing sponsors that they choose to ignore abortion and they come off as seeming incredibly foolish given the rest of the crap they do show: murders, rapes, bullying, etc - the whole panacea of awful stuff but on this issue - most women miraculously decide to (1) keep the baby or (2) have the baby and give it up for abortion.  So insulting to the audience's intelligence.

 

What's with people not telling people close to them about a diagnosis?  It's another stupid tv show trope; everyone I know who has ever had a diagnosis (from benign to malignant) shares that news right away with the person/people closest to them.  It's just a lazy way of writing, I think.  But, nothing new there.

[Auntie Anxiety]

 

What's with people not telling people close to them about a diagnosis?  It's another stupid tv show trope; everyone I know who has ever had a diagnosis (from benign to malignant) shares that news right away with the person/people closest to them.

Not sure if you ever had a bad diagnosis, but I had three very serious cancer diagnoses (all different and all needed heavy duty chemo/radiation) within a four year span and I can tell you that I did not tell my closest family and friends until I had a treatment plan.  What happens is that once you tell them, you find yourself in the weird position of feeling like you have to make those other people feel better, yet you're the one who is sick.  Also, sometimes you don't want to be treated differently, and people do that all the time!  "How are you?" becomes a loaded question.  It sucks.  Trust me.

 

This show makes Mutiny seem like it's on the cutting edge of every single advance in the computer industry and it's getting silly.  And Joe knows everything there is to know about the wave of the future.  He should just get some money and invest it if he's so knowledgeable.  I might be out after this season (if there even is another season, that is).

[roomtorome]

Actually, I have had a disturbing diagnosis and no, I didn't tell everyone close to me but I did tell my partner and my sister.

 

 I didn't mean to say someone should tell all everyone someone is close to -  that would be overwhelming and demanding in a way.  

 

But, not telling one's partner who you live with would have been impossible for me (and, yes, everyone is different) and same in not telling my sister who is the only close relative I told as many things needed to be discussed beyond treatment only.   So, I do understand.  

 

I don't mind when a main protagonist (Joe, in this case) is unlikeable but I do mind when they are not interesting and he is not interesting to me - at all.  

[DrSpaceman]

several TV shows have done abortion storylines since Maude, its not that new.  Friday Night Lights, Six Feet Under, Everwood to name a few, and they do go through with them 

 

I think the difference here is most are not about Women who are married and in a theoretically stable, yet shaky due to other factors, husband-wife relationship at the time.  Most invovle teens getting pregnaent or unmarried women getting pregnaent. 

 

There is the famous Godfather II moment in the 1970s, ('It was an abortion Michael!!!, by Talia Shire), a movie yes, but thats the most similar situation to this. 

[thuganomics85]

Yeah, I've seen abortions on TV before, but I can't think of many that involved a currently married woman and her not telling her husband.  Assuming we don't get another damn swerve, I'm kind of curious to see where this is heading when she goes through with it.  This being TV, I have to think Gordon will find out at some point, and I have no idea what his reaction would be.

 

Of course, Gordon certainly was not on good behavior tonight.  Not telling Donna about his condition is one thing, but now he's going on some bizarre quest that includes sleeping with another woman.  Classy, Gordo.  Even if the woman was played by Erin Cummings.  At least she isn't playing Sura again, or Gordon would have to worry about Spartacus decapitating him.

 

Should have known Gordon's brother would be a mean drunk.  Kevin Rankin usually ends up playing darker characters.  Still fun to see him.

 

I really don't care for Joe, but Cameron, Donna, and the rest of Mutiny deserved to get outplayed by him.  I mean, he's a tool and a half, but he's not a complete idiot. They should have been prepared that he wouldn't just fall for their lame trap.  But, of course, it looks like it's all part of his plan, and now he wants Jacob to buy Mutiny.  I can't see Cameron letting that happen, so I wonder what his plan is for that.

 

John Bosworth continues to be awesome.  Loved him finally telling Cameron to quit being a brat and quit treating Donna like shit.  Again, she seemed to turn around in the end, but I still feel like this happens every week.  I wouldn't be surprised if the next disaster makes her just regress again.  At this point, I really want Donna to suck it up, and quit being Cameron's doormat.

[ketose]

One of the assy things Gordon did was to tell that woman from high school about his problem after they had sex. I'm sure he was trying to portray himself as having a good reason to cheat, instead of just wanting to relive the old days.

[ganesh]

Give me a break, Gordon. You're literally filthy rich. Find the best specialist you can and get a second opinion. It's interesting that the brother is a drunk, but we've seen last season that Gordon had issues with drinking too. 

 

Cameron was quite insufferable again with Joe. It seems like she is the only one that thinks she got stabbed in the back. No one cares and has moved on. But again, I don't think she's being OOC and the actor is ripping it up. I was laughing when Donna took her aside and explained what a negotiation was. And Donna was basically right. Cameron needs to let it go. Bos yelled at her like she was a bratty teen in front of everyone, but he was kind of right. 

 

I know it's a pain to transfer everything to UNIX, but UNIX is actually better. I don't really see Joe being that much of a jerk either. He was willing to go to 3.50/hr, and his 'benchmarks' weren't totally unreasonable. He was pointing out the product from similar companies to make them competitive. 

 

Ok, so Donna did have the abortion? Because that's what I got from the scene with her mother, but it was veiled so I wasn't totally sure. Good job, show. Seriously, good job. Go there. 

 

I'm actually really enjoying this season.

[ketose]

Cameron was quite insufferable again with Joe. It seems like she is the only one that thinks she got stabbed in the back. No one cares and has moved on. But again, I don't think she's being OOC and the actor is ripping it up. I was laughing when Donna took her aside and explained what a negotiation was. And Donna was basically right. Cameron needs to let it go. Bos yelled at her like she was a bratty teen in front of everyone, but he was kind of right. 

 

I know it's a pain to transfer everything to UNIX, but UNIX is actually better. I don't really see Joe being that much of a jerk either. He was willing to go to 3.50/hr, and his 'benchmarks' weren't totally unreasonable. He was pointing out the product from similar companies to make them competitive. 

Unix is better because it's the backbone of servers after the 80's. For a bunch of game players, an OS that doesn't have (16) colors kind of sucks. From Mutiny's (especially Bosworth's) perspective, Joe may not have been that much of a jerk, but he basically wanted to become an owner dictating their business practices. From an objective POV, Joe was a huge ass. He could have gotten Mutiny for $4, probably $4.50. He was authorized to go to $3.50 with no "benchmarks." He changed the conditions, using that $1.50 leeway to make them do what he thought was the FUTURE OF COMPUTING. Joe's act is getting tiresome. I'm guessing he will destroy Mutiny and possibly his boss' oil company by the end of the season.

[ganesh]

He is kind of right though. Mutiny isn't particularly competitive and doesn't offer much difference in the other companies. It's not like Parallax is this game taking the computer world by storm or anything. 

[scowl]

I know it's a pain to transfer everything to UNIX, but UNIX is actually better. 

 

Unix was not better in the 80's for games.

 

But, who cares? The show has now fallen into complete technical and historical nonsense. Joe talked like AT&T's 3B1 systems (usually called "The Unix PC") were going to be the next home computers. These suckers cost $5,000 each! Even IBM PC's were nowhere near becoming home computers at half that price and Donna should have laughed his prediction into the floor. AT&T were making business computers and pretty damn expensive ones. There was absolutely no sign that Unix was going to be in people's homes any time soon.

 

And the Ethernet they "invented", the one that got them free HBO? It was a piece of coax with magic on either end? And they connected Ethernet to a stupid Commodore 64? And why? They could have done their dog and pony show using a standard stupid RS232 cable since they were supposed to be on a modem anyway. AT&T''s Unix PC had over twice the screen resolution of the Commodore 64. As soon as Joe saw that blurry screen, he should have known he wasn't looking at a Unix PC, especially since they were claiming they had ported the whole thing to Unix in a day or two.

 

What happened to the 3D maze shooter from last week that was so important to the future of Mutiny?

 

I can't comment on Gordon's soap opera because I fast-forwarded whenever he was on the screen. Too bad because I've liked Kevin Rankin since he was the oversensitive RA in Undeclared. 

Edited July 7, 2015 by scowl

[Texasmom1970]

It surprises me that I find myself wanting to punch Lee Pace in the face (so hard, you guys) week after week: I've liked him everywhere else!

I love Lee Pace, but feel the same way about him in this show. He had the smarmy, asshole part if his character dialed up to 11 in this episode.

Did love Bos basically telling Cameron to stop acting like a petulant child. I really hope her going with Donna helps them having a little better relationship.

Did I miss the doctor telling Gordon he was about to kick it, because he sure is acting like he got a death sentence. Maybe a second opinion would be a good idea. And, oh I don't know how about you tell your wife!

[attica]

Ok, so Donna did have the abortion? Because that's what I got from the scene with her mother, but it was veiled so I wasn't totally sure.

 

She hadn't when she talked to her mom, but at the end Cam takes her to Planned Parenthood -- you can see the logo on the building.

[Tonypitt]

Unix was not better in the 80's for games.

 

But, who cares? The show has now fallen into complete technical and historical nonsense. Joe talked like AT&T's 3B1 systems (usually called "The Unix PC") were going to be the next home computers. These suckers cost $5,000 each! Even IBM PC's were nowhere near becoming home computers at half that price and Donna should have laughed his prediction into the floor. AT&T were making business computers and pretty damn expensive ones. There was absolutely no sign that Unix was going to be in people's homes any time soon.

 

And the Ethernet they "invented", the one that got them free HBO? It was a piece of coax with magic on either end? And they connected Ethernet to a stupid Commodore 64? And why? They could have done their dog and pony show using a standard stupid RS232 cable since they were supposed to be on a modem anyway. AT&T''s Unix PC had over twice the screen resolution of the Commodore 64. As soon as Joe saw that blurry screen, he should have known he wasn't looking at a Unix PC, especially since they were claiming they had ported the whole thing to Unix in a day or two.

 

What happened to the 3D maze shooter from last week that was so important to the future of Mutiny?

 

I'm still trying to figure out the tech on this show.  Joe is selling them off-hour compute time on a corporate mainframe.  How exactly is that supposed to help their gaming company?  Do we assume that most of their business is at night (reasonable) and that during the day they still run things on the home-based systems?  More importantly, is there a modem farm somewhere in that computer room of Joe's?  I can't imagine why they'd have that.  In the Internet era, this might make sense, but in the dialup era, it's all phone lines and modems.  I have yet to figure out how time on a mainframe is supposed to be helpful.

 

And, as noted, apparently both ends of the coax had magic on them, because there's no way they whipped up an Ethernet based network from nothing in an afternoon.

 

Joe's prescience is becoming a bit annoying.  I keep waiting for him to say something like, "In the future, people will walk around with computers in their pockets that can take pictures and connect them to everyone else on the planet."  Just once I'd like to hear him say something totally wrong.  "In the future, people will communicate with computers via talking Gerbils.  Cats will be system administrators. All large data centers will be in zoos because the animals are so good with Unix programming."

[kieyra]

This show is a lot easier to enjoy if you view it as an alternate universe, tech-wise. It seems like more stress than it's worth to do otherwise. And there are a lot of other things in the show to enjoy.

 

NPR's 'Pop Culture Happy Hour' did a piece about credulity a few months ago, and how it can be harder to enjoy fiction on a topic you know too much about, especially television. And believe me, for me this show has a lot of credulity strikes against it (I've worked in IT for twenty years, I currently work in online gaming, I was alive and online in the 1980s and used many of the services they name, blah) ... but I gave up worrying about that back in season 1. Because life is short and it's a good television show. 

 

(Although when Joe was getting all aggro, I kept waiting for him to say "Necropilots! Enact immolation protocol!")

Edited July 8, 2015 by kieyra

[dubbel zout]

NPR's 'Pop Culture Happy Hour' did a piece about credulity a few months ago, and how it can be harder to enjoy fiction on a topic you know too much about, especially television.

 

I work in publishing, which TV and movies never get right because it's so boring. So I always get a kick out of how they try to make it look sexy and exciting. 

 

But it's still frustrating not to see something resemble my real-life job.

Edited July 8, 2015 by dubbel zout

[LotusFlower]

There is the famous Godfather II moment in the 1970s, ('It was an abortion Michael!!!, by Talia Shire), a movie yes, but thats the most similar situation to this.

Diane Keaton! (Not TS).

[ketose]

About 15-20 years ago, for example, the rage was photonics and optical storage. Fiber optics is the worldwide standard for long-haul communication, but optical storage has been replaced by solid state media like flash drives and SSDs. Star Trek had people carrying around tablets with information, but they also showed little cartridges being stuck in tiny TV screens. Prognostication has limitations.

[scowl]

I'm still trying to figure out the tech on this show.  Joe is selling them off-hour compute time on a corporate mainframe.  How exactly is that supposed to help their gaming company?  Do we assume that most of their business is at night (reasonable) and that during the day they still run things on the home-based systems?  More importantly, is there a modem farm somewhere in that computer room of Joe's?  I can't imagine why they'd have that.  In the Internet era, this might make sense, but in the dialup era, it's all phone lines and modems.  I have yet to figure out how time on a mainframe is supposed to be helpful.

 

The biggest leap is that they had a bunch of multiuser stuff running on IBM PC's and they magically ported all of it to run on Joe's IBM OS370 machines as if they were pretty much the same thing. The mainframes might be connected to one of the time switching companies (Telenet and Tymnet) which usually had hundreds of modems. Interestingly Joe deflected this question in the kitchen.

 

Oh yeah, what do they do when everyone gets kicked off Joe's mainframes in the morning? That sounds like it would make for happy customers. I guess no one would be playing computer games all night.

 

 

And, as noted, apparently both ends of the coax had magic on them, because there's no way they whipped up an Ethernet based network from nothing in an afternoon.

 

Just to connect one computer to another. As if Commodore 64 computers had been Ethernet-ready the whole time. Completely ridiculous. All they really needed was a RS232 serial connection but, oh my gosh, 9600 baud would have been so unimpressive to Joe. 

[tennisgurl]

Damn it Gordon, I was just starting to like you! I hate that they had Gordon cheat on Donna, and then continue to lie to her about his illness. 

 

The plan to deceive Joe was stupid as hell. Bos, as always, was right. They should have spent all that time and energy just doing whatever dumb stuff Joe was asking for.

 

Bos chewing out Cameron was a great moment. And I like Cameron! 

 

I tend to see this show as an alternate universe, where computer technology moved at a faster rate than ours. Maybe its the mirror universe from Fringe? I don't know, but I am still really liking this season. 

[ketose]

Just to connect one computer to another. As if Commodore 64 computers had been Ethernet-ready the whole time. Completely ridiculous. All they really needed was a RS232 serial connection but, oh my gosh, 9600 baud would have been so unimpressive to Joe.

I never had a modem for my C64. Did it connect to that board header in the back? I'd say use the 6 pin disk drive port. It was designed to be daisy chained (ancient USB!) so it could transfer databack and forth.

Edited July 9, 2015 by ketose

[scowl]

I thought every peripheral on the C64 daisy chained through that painfully slow serial port and that's why the disk drives ran at modem speeds.

[DrSpaceman]

Diane Keaton! (Not TS).

Sorry...yes, Diane Keaton. Talia had a different role in the movie.

Damn it Gordon, I was just starting to like you! I hate that they had Gordon cheat on Donna, and then continue to lie to her about his illness. 

 

The plan to deceive Joe was stupid as hell. Bos, as always, was right. They should have spent all that time and energy just doing whatever dumb stuff Joe was asking for.

 

Bos chewing out Cameron was a great moment. And I like Cameron! 

 

I tend to see this show as an alternate universe, where computer technology moved at a faster rate than ours. Maybe its the mirror universe from Fringe? I don't know, but I am still really liking this season.

You know what I would like?

Just end this mess after season 2, do a spinoff around Bos, by far the best character in the show.

[Anela]

I barely paid attention, so I have to watch it again, but Grey's Anatomy had a married woman choose to have an abortion, only she told her husband beforehand. He knew she didn't want to have children, but a lot of drama happened, because he'd expected her to change her mind.

[Kel Varnsen]

But, who cares? The show has now fallen into complete technical and historical nonsense. Joe talked like AT&T's 3B1 systems (usually called "The Unix PC") were going to be the next home computers. These suckers cost $5,000 each! Even IBM PC's were nowhere near becoming home computers at half that price and Donna should have laughed his prediction into the floor. AT&T were making business computers and pretty damn expensive ones. There was absolutely no sign that Unix was going to be in people's homes any time soon.

I was really wondering about that. The first time I ever heard of unix was in the mid 1990's when I started in university. Based on that I am not sure how popular they would have been for home users a decade earlier. Which makes me wonder why they are are not trying to make a version of the Mutiny system either for IBM compatible computers (like the Giant) or something like that.

[scowl]

Which makes me wonder why they are are not trying to make a version of the Mutiny system either for IBM compatible computers (like the Giant) or something like that.

 

The IBM PC was at that point still considered a business computer, especially after the flop of the PC jr. Cheap computers like the C64 and the Atari 400/800 had hardware support for games, and the Apple II was still a popular home computer even though it really didn't have as much video hardware support for games. You could plug these computers into your TV. Monitors were expensive or seemed that way then because hardly anyone wanted to spend money on one.

 

Unix was still a huge operating system requiring tons of memory and had no support for video games. Nearly all Unix applications were character based for serial video terminals. It wouldn't have an accepted video standard until X-Windows was developed a few years later. With the way the show stretches history, it's possible that Joe saw the Mac-like graphics of X-Windows and thought he was seeing the Next Big Thing however the same argument could be made for the Macintosh which was already something of a home computer.

[Hanahope]

Grey's Anatomy had a married woman choose to have an abortion, only she told her husband beforehand. He knew she didn't want to have children, but a lot of drama happened, because he'd expected her to change her mind.

 

This is a bit of a different scenario, since in GA it was a matter of the female doctor not wanting kids at all, compared with Donna already having two kids and choosing to abort a third child because she didn't want another and/or appears to believe it will interfere with her career, even though presumably, or at least to her knowledge, Gordon would be around to help take care of the third child.

[Kel Varnsen]

The IBM PC was at that point still considered a business computer, especially after the flop of the PC jr. Cheap computers like the C64 and the Atari 400/800 had hardware support for games, and the Apple II was still a popular home computer even though it really didn't have as much video hardware support for games. You could plug these computers into your TV. Monitors were expensive or seemed that way then because hardly anyone wanted to spend money on one.

But wasn't the whole point of season 1 that the Giant was going to be an IBM compatible PC for home use? Although they changed it so many times it is hard to remember. Why not try to get Mutiny to work with that kind of system, or has Joe already forgotten about his last big dream? I mean the Giant was obviously some sort of success if some big company purchased Cardiff.

[scowl]

They suggested that maybe the Giant was going to be for home use. I'm sure they ended up in offices like all IBM PC's did at the time. They just couldn't compete with cheaper 8 bit computers. 

[ketose]

I thought every peripheral on the C64 daisy chained through that painfully slow serial port and that's why the disk drives ran at modem speeds.

I looked it up. The serial port was used for the disk drive, which made it pretty slow. But at that time I was used to cassette drives and I had an accelerator cartridge. Most of the real business was done over the Expansion Port (the header I mentioned). The would have needed a kind of serial adapter (UART) to run it, but a Commodore could certainly do serial-to-serial communication, which was old school networking. Even Windows let you direct connect through serial ports.

[Dowel Jones]

Cats will be system administrators

 

What?  That didn't happen?  I better make some phone calls.

 

What I liked best was Boz poking his head up and saying "Why don't you just make the improvements?" during the conference.  Don't pay any attention to me, I'm just the sensible guy here. 

 

I actually felt kind of good at Mutiny's attempt to snow Joe over.  He was being such a dick about it that he deserved to be stepped on.  Mutiny should go out and find another network and dump Joe & Co., as it looks like his boss was none to pleased with his perfomance.

[Scott]

With the way the show stretches history, it's possible that Joe saw the Mac-like graphics of X-Windows and thought he was seeing the Next Big Thing 

 

NeXT pun intended??  :)

[scowl]

I looked it up. The serial port was used for the disk drive, which made it pretty slow. But at that time I was used to cassette drives and I had an accelerator cartridge. Most of the real business was done over the Expansion Port (the header I mentioned).

 

I didn't know that the C64 had a real expansion port. It was effectively all the 6502 address and data lines plus some extras. It looks like it was mostly used for cartridges but could have supported advanced peripherals if Commodore hadn't used that slow serial port instead.

[KaleyFirefly]

Networks, etc are so terrified of losing sponsors that they choose to ignore abortion and they come off as seeming incredibly foolish given the rest of the crap they do show: murders, rapes, bullying, etc - the whole panacea of awful stuff but on this issue - most women miraculously decide to (1) keep the baby or (2) have the baby and give it up for abortion.  So insulting to the audience's intelligence.

 

What's with people not telling people close to them about a diagnosis?  It's another stupid tv show trope; everyone I know who has ever had a diagnosis (from benign to malignant) shares that news right away with the person/people closest to them.  It's just a lazy way of writing, I think.  But, nothing new there.

That's why I hated the movie "Juno." A completely unrealistic, overly happy view at what teenage pregnancy is really like.

[KaleyFirefly]

Sorry...yes, Diane Keaton. Talia had a different role in the movie.

You know what I would like?

Just end this mess after season 2, do a spinoff around Bos, by far the best character in the show.

He's awesome.