Phi > Pi

Somehow my complement on production values turned into a criticism of topic. I have not been a Topic Criticiser in the past and I am not now a Topic Critic.

The political discussion was interesting and entirely appropriate.

Being on the front page of DIF gives my life meaning. That is one shiny page.

Later, as a direct result of jeremiah4226's comment, executives conclude that DIF should have a laugh track.

I really don't agree with Dorkman's comment on The Big Bang Theory being "geek blackface". My best guess is that he's only seen some of the episodes from the first season where the writers and actors were still figuring out their characters. For sure they started with stereotypes, but the show really improved once they added some dimensions.

There's an article about how Penny started out as an object of male gaze on the show but then developed into a real person. I suspect Dorkman latched on to the same thing, but with the male characters.

Also, any show with cameos from George Takei, Steve Wozniac, Summer Glau, Wil Wheaton (recurring), etc. deserves some geek credibility.

Edit/sidebar: The term "geek blackface" itself is hilarious. I am determined to use it in a conversation some day.

Describe each panelist without saying what they look like, what they wear, their professional role, or backstory.

Would it be possible to get the show notes in the thread as well as in the file? I remember at least one or two things I wanted to check out that were mentioned but can't remember the names or time codes now.

I'm not a big  fan of Serenity, probably mostly because they killed off Wash.

I get that it's the Serious Business cue, but it just messed with my impression of the characters in the wrong way. The way I saw it, Wash was one of the few things holding Zoe together, and Zoe was one of the few things holding Mal together. That and the ship, which was also trashed.

Which leaves us with bitter angry characters becoming even more bitter and angry. I'm not very interested in that character arc, myself.

If we have to kill someone off, kill Zoe off in some heroic way and have Wash grow up a bit. It still sucks, but I would have been slightly more with the movie until the end.

The "stolen" Flickr photo in the opening montage wasn't actually stolen at all, and there definitely wasn't any suing, but it's still a cool story (bro).

Iron Man, creative commons, and a photo of the VAB

Regarding the whole "genetic degradation clone trope", I actually assumed that he was suffering from plain old radiation sickness that anyone could get. In fact, I figured that's why they had clones in the first place and switched every three years. Use one for three years until he's nearly dead from radiation sickness, then replace him with one stored underground. Presumably the original Sam Bell didn't have a three year contract, just a few months.

They really put a lot of up front investment in, though. That was a lot of backups...

Wait, you guys have an RSS feed? Or just the iTunes feed thing. I jumped through hoops to get the iTunes feed to work without iTunes, but now it seem to only be downloading the .m4a versions, which don't work on a Fuze.

I'd be fine with things only affecting one level down, otherwise you'd just have to kick from the top, but I'm pretty sure that they noticed the van hit the railing even in the snow world. Maybe there's a strong muting effect. They were at .95 gravity so you couldn't tell

It's just that they specifically mentioned that the drugs they were using left the inner ear entirely unaffected. Why bother say that explicitly? (Not that falling in dreams has much to do with the physical inner ear, but whatever)