Yeah it’s really a shame that the track point wasn’t adopted globally (I’m assuming for patent reasons, but surely any patents must be expired by now).
For years I used a Trackpoint external keyboard plus a mouse. The track point is great for small movements when you’re primarily typing, and the mouse is great for when you are primarily moving the cursor.
Do you have some examples? Because honestly I put Firefly very high on my list of shows I like.
The setting is great, the writing is top-notch, and the acting is wonderful. The characters have great chemistry. It's funny.
The general universe is well done too. It lacks endless implausible human-shaped aliens and is light on space magic, which is nice. Overall it feels lived-in and there is some interesting history.
Honestly it's hard to think of another space-western style series that I'd rate so highly. I guess parts of the Mandalorian fit the bill, but I wouldn't rank it up there with Firefly.
> Lets be real - Firefly was very good. But the reason it holds "magic" status as far as series goes is mostly because of its rarity, and the final movie where a major likable character was killed off, with everyone wishing for a sequel.
Strongly disagree. The Firefly series was always exceptional. I watched it on DVD around the time it came out (maybe just after it was cancelled) and waited for the movie. The movie was actually a net negative, in my opinion, for killing off Wash (Tudyk), who was essential to the chemistry they had going.
I actually think the movie killing him off (and to a lesser extent, killing Book) hurt the momentum for further movies or other follow-ups.
> If they would have done Season 2,3, and so on, it wouldn't be held in such a high regard as it is now.
It's always possible that it could have gone off the rails. But the original Star Trek only ran for three seasons and spawned countless other shows and movies. I think if it had gone for two more seasons with the same cast, crew it, and general quality level it could potentially have been another Star Trek.
I never got the impression there was much momentum for any more sequels anyway, Serenity felt like the bone they were willing to throw. This was a time before show revivals (rather than remakes/reboots e.g. BSG) were common, it was very surprising when they did it for Family Guy.
Firefly has a rabid fan base, but it's not very large. The movie did... okay. Enough to pay for itself, but not enough to interest anyone in making more content in that universe.
When the show was first released it was cancelled after half a season because it was expensive to make and couldn't compete in the ratings with slap-dash, almost free to produce "reality TV".
I agree with you. Star Trek TOS only had two good seasons. Season 3 was widely panned. And it still spawned a massive franchise.
Plus there have been dozens of one-series sci-fi shows (Almost Human, Terra Nova, Space:Above and Beyond, etc.) and none have the same pull as Firefly.
Interesting that all those you specifically named aired on Fox, which is where Firefly aired.
Other science fiction shows Fox killed after not more than one season were The Lone Gunman, Harsh Realm, Minority Report, Second Chance, and John Doe.
Others did make it past the first season but not past the second, such as Dark Angel and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
Even shows that make it longer often have trouble on Fox. Futurama for example was put in terrible time slots that often got preempted by sports which made it hard to grow its audience, and most of the time the creators had no idea if the current season was going to be their last. They had to keep trying to write season finales that would also be good series finales if they got cancelled between seasons.
They also do this to shows in other genres. Lucifer for example got cancelled after 3 seasons, with season 3 having ended on the biggest possible cliffhanger there could be for that show. That was very annoying.
My rule has now been for a long time that I will not watch any new scripted series on Fox that has any kind of ongoing story. If there are enough good reviews and word of mouth to make me want to watch it I'll wait until complete seasons are available on streaming, and then only if there exists some N such that if I watch to episode N and stop there won't be any cliffhangers or important ongoing story arcs open.
We can't really rate any art something as exceptional, because beyond good it all comes down to personal preference. For example for music, people can agree that some composition, whether its rock or dubstep is well produced, but individual style and preference will make someone either like it or not like it.
Beyond that, its called hedonistic adaptation, and its a real effect. If you get something good in a small amount, you are going to inflate how good it is. If you get that good thing in larger amounts, its going to seem less good.
There is also the question of whether ships even make sense right now, when a multi-billion-dollar ship full of sailors is at huge risk from a swarm of drones costing 1/1000th as much, and we have not yet mastered drone defenses.
I think ships make a lot of sense - particularly much cheaper ships built in larger quantities. Think WWII era destroyers and frigates that can be mass-deployed by the dozens for air and sea coverage. Obviously updated quite a lot with cheap point defense, and of course some more expensive ballistic missile defense systems. The fact we can't send 100+ warships out there to create an integrated air and sea defensive screen for not even drone swarms - just a few dozen drones at at time at best - is pretty embarrassing.
The question is if the US is even capable of building such a thing these days? My bets are on no, since we can't seem to build much of anything at an industrial scale for any cost. But that can turn relatively quickly so long as there is emergency of existential scale and time enough to do it.
> A good example is this, car companies don't make cars for the most part, they make loans. Financial companies first, car companies second.
I get that this is true from a certain point of view. But car companies clearly compete in a very healthy way on features and quality.
In fact, cars are a great example of a market where the companies clearly care about making the product, and the competition between them has driven that products to incredible heights. Cars these days are vastly better than they were in the past.
Agreed. I have several windows gaming PCs for my kids. One of them occasionally decides it’s in California and has to be corrected. Why? I have no idea.
Every single Mac, iPad, and iPhone gets this right with zero configuration.
UO was such a big part of my life back then, it’s great to hear that it’s still going. Maybe I’ll set up a server to play with my kids - although they’ll never be able to get the full experience with player killers, trolls, scammers, people hawking their stuff at the bank, dragon trainers, etc.
I've been tinkering with the same thing -- wanting to set up a little server so that we can all play together as a family. We've enjoyed Diablo 2, Minecraft, and Terraria as a family, but I feel like it would be fun to set up a little UO server. I'd really like to find a good tutorial for how to set up a chill / casual-friendly server (I like there to be some grind, but I don't want it to feel like "stock" UO) -- so something with accelerated skill gains and whatnot.
I don't know if there are "family-friendly" presets for such things, but so far Copilot has been reasonably helpful at helping me along -- I just don't have it all working yet. If you have any resources you come across, I would be interested in comparing notes. :)
There are several PvE UO servers, which are heavily against griefing. So I would say, pretty safe environment to play there with your kids and still with other people.
That's a great idea, UO is honestly perfect for playing with kids. The crafting, housing, exploring dungeons together. And who knows, maybe you become the dragon trainer this time around!
reply