/* *************************************************************************** ** *************************************************************************** ** The Non-Sequitur Express ** Published at random intervals by Phillip Thorne ** Volume 3, Issue 8: Tuesday, 14 August 2001 ** http://nsx.underbase.org/ ** ** A rolling boil gathers no unguent, but Kate Moss in a teakettle is watched. ** *************************************************************************** ** ************************************************************************ */ OBSERVATIONS & C: Banner ads, golden dollars, Superman as warden. ERRATA & O+A+A: TV listings, clouds. TECH ON WEB: NEC Versa DayLite, Transmeta Crusoe, video modes. UPCOMING: SFC, TCN, Nick, Fox, WB, Disney. plus Legalese, acknowledgements and opt-in/out instructions. http://nsx.underbase.org/ - back issues http://nsx.underbase.org/index_plus.htm - synopses, reviews, analyses, etc. http://nsx.underbase.org/tv/ - Philadelphia TV listings http://www.underbase.org/ - additional databases /* *************************************************************************** ** OBSERVATIONS & COGITATIONS ** Of course banner ads are ignored ** Legal to refuse the golden dollar? ** Superman's Fortress of Toxic Waste ** ************************************************************************ */ Web industry commentators were predicting the demise of the banner ad, as a viable revenue source, at least as early as 1997. They're still around, though diversified functionally into Flash applets, animated GIFs, form-equipped HTML and the occasional (annoying but non-porn) pop- up; in the shapes of badges, sidebars, and blobs crammed into the middle of articles. Regardless, the click-through rate remains disappointingly low -- well, of course! Look at space.com: adorned with mostly x10.com and IBM. How many times can you expect a *repeat* site visitor to click through an *unchanging* ad? Either he does so once, decides he might buy, say, a wireless X10-protocol camera, and thereafter visits the advertiser directly for new products; or he decides he's not in that market and subsequently ignores the ad. The only other alternative is clicking for loyalty: "I must support this site." If the ads don't change, the audience must. When buying a cup of baccio-flavored gelato the other day, I tried to pay with golden Sacajawea dollars -- and was refused. Is that legal (I wonder), for a vendor to not accept a species of legal tender? I can accept the rationale to refuse piles of pennies, because of the labor and delay-to-subsequent-customers in counting them then-and-there. I've encountered vending machines that don't take dollar coins, backwards- compatible new or old Susan B. Anthony (let alone Eisenhower); the completist coin acceptors no doubt cost more. But why accept N dollar bills but not N dollar coins? Was there no appropriate slot in the cash drawer? *** In the "Superfriends" cartoon of the mid-'80s, the more popular DC Comics heroes band together to fight the newly unionized villians, organized by Lex Luthor. Each side establishes a clubhouse (the quasi-classical urban Hall of Justice versus a flying Darth Vader helmet that skulks in a swamp, when it's not siphoning petrol pipelines), but the members still maintain their individual lairs. (Since, in the show, none ever bother with their civilian "secret" identities in public, they probably need refuges to relax in sweats and T-shirts. 24-hour Spandex. Itchy.) Superman, for instance, has his icy Fortress of Solitude, somewhere in the arctic -- complete with private prison facilities for the worst funky-looking alien criminals of the galaxy. Now I ask, under exactly what authority does the Last Son of Krypton imprison these perps? Is he solo judge and jury, do his Justice League pals pitch in, or is the Fortress merely a cosmic Yucca Mountain for the storage of hazardous sentient waste to which the civilized worlds say, NIMBY? How does Earth-as-Nevada feel about this? And since this *is* his fortress of *solitude*, who watches them when Kal-El is away? Who feeds them? What about a breakout? If the hot water goes out, to whom do they complain? (When Superman gives tours of the facilites, the inmates stand inertly within their glass-fronted cells. I forget if this is due to cryonic suspension, cheap animation; or if they were merely "front porches" -- the hasty explanation given by writer JMS to explain the station's zoo- like "alien sector" seen in the first "Babylon 5" telemovie.) (In the "Men in Black" cartoon, based on the 1997 SF-comedy film, MiB coordinates with other galactic police agencies. Offworlders are held only temporarily in the secret sub-Manhattan facilities, then transferred by prison ship. Prison ships with big glowing engines that no one ever notices, but hey...) /* *************************************************************************** ** ERRATA & OMISSIONS, ADDENDA & ADMISSIONS ** TV only ** Clouds that touch the ground ** ************************************************************************ */ Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies... publish no issues, and I'll make no mistakes. Hmmm... over five weeks this time, with an intervening convention (BotCon 2001, mid-July), and I still haven't fully covered Balticon 35 (late May), Katsucon (mid-February), or Philcon (last November). For a goodly supply of errors and oversights, please see my TV listings. And on the continuing debate of "do any non-fog clouds ever visibly touch the ground?" the answer is: yes. Of course, it's not particularly prudent to linger and admire a tornado funnel. /* *************************************************************************** ** TECH ON THE WEB ** ** The NEC Versa DayLite laptop, with Transmeta Crusoe CPU ** Polymer batteries ** The Crusoe, as found in other laptops ** Laptops with various bizarre video modes ** ************************************************************************ */ THE NEC VERSA DAYLITE LAPTOP (WITH TRANSMETA CRUSOE)... The major selling points of the new NEC Versa DayLite laptop are its dual-mode LCD screen, usable both indoors and in full sunlight; and its long runtime (derived from double batters, thrifty Transmeta Crusoe CPU and reflective screen). The TFT LCD screen has dual modes, illuminated (indoor) and reflective (sunlight); it measures 10.4-inches, at XGA (1024x768) res, driven by an ATI Rage Mobility chipset with 4MB VRAM. The CPU is a Transmeta Crusoe TM5600 at 600-MHz. 20-GB HD, modem and LAN are internal; CD and FD are external USB. RAM is 128- upgradeable to 192-MB, consisting of 64- MB/125-MHz SDRAM (SODIMM) onboard, plus a 125-MHz slot, 64- upgradeable to 128-MB. It has two batteries, a lithium-polymer behind the screen, plus a removable lithium ion pack; they provide 7.5-hours nominal. Dimensions are 10.4x8.3x1.3-inches at 3.3-pounds without externals. [From _Popular Science_ and www.neccomp.com] (Lithium ion batteries are lightweight, but bulky. Lithium polymer is a malleable substance that can be crammed into the odd corners of a portable form factor. Experimental polymer batteries are flexible, contain no toxic metals, suffer little recharge degradation, and perform regardless of temperature. Some such plastics can even serve as structural material. See: http://www.osti.gov/accomplishments/macdiarmid.html http://www.jhu.edu/~newslett/11-22-96/Science/They_keep_going_and_going....html ) THE TRANSMETA CRUSOE TM5600 PROCESSOR... The Crusoe microprocessor from Transmeta is designed to conserve power (60-70%), vital in mobile applications. The "Code Morphing" software translates Intel x86 instructions to Crusoe, then schedules (rearrange- optimizes) them in software; this uses fewer transistors. The TM5400 (533-MHz) and TM5600 processor (533-, 600-, 667-MHz) is now found in servers and embedded devices, plus internet appliances by FIC, Frontpath, Gateway, Innolabs, Hitachi, NEC, and Sewoo. It's also in the following ultra-light notebooks: Make Model Screen Weight Note --------- ---------------------------- ------------- ------- ---------- Casio Fiva 206 ( 8.4" SVGA, 2.0#) Casio Fiva 206E ( 8.4" SVGA, 2.2#) Fujitsu FMV-Biblio Loox T (10.0" SXGA, 3.3#) Fujitsu FMV-Biblio Loox S ( 8.8" 1024x512, 2.2#) Fujitsu LifeBook P-1000 ( 8.8" 1024x512, 2.2#) Hitachi Flora 220TX (10.4" XGA, 3.2#) Hitachi Flora 220TXT (12.1" XGA, 4.4#) Microsoft Tablet PC (prototype) (10.4", 2.9#) NEC LaVie MX (10.4" XGA, 3.1#) NEC Versa UltraLite (10.4" XGA, 3.1#) NEC Versa DayLite (10.4" XGA, 3.3#) PaceBlade PaceBook tablet (12.1" XGA, 3.7#) Sharp Mebius (10.4" XGA, 3.2#) Sony VAIO Picturebook PCG-C1VN ( 8.9" UWXGA, 2.2#) Sony VAIO Picturebook PCG-C1VSX/K ( 8.9" UWXGA, 2.2#) Sony VAIO Picturebook PCG-C1VRX/K ( 8.9" UWXGA, 2.2#, Bluetooth) Sony VAIO Picturebook PCG-C1VP ( 8.9" UWXGA, 2.2#, Bluetooth) Sony VAIO GT1 PCG-GT1 ( 6.4" SXGA, 2.4#) Toshiba Libretto (10.1" SXGA, 2.4#) --------- ---------------------------- ------------- ------- ---------- [From www.transmeta.com ] HISTORICAL AND CURRENT VIDEO MODES... Mode Typ Wide High Hues Desc ----- --- ---- ---- ---- ---------------------------------------------- MDA chr 80c 25l (IBM, monochrome display adapter) MGA pix 720x350 (Hercules/IBM mono graphics adapter, aka HGC) CGA 1 pix 640x200 2 CGA 2 pix 320x200 4 (color graphics adapter) CGA 3 chr 640x200 16/8 (fg/bg) EGA 1 pix 640x350 16 (enhanced graphics adapter) EGA 2 pix 640x350 64 VGA 1 pix 640x480 16 VGA 2 pix 320x200 256 (aka MCGA) SVGA pix 800x600 16 (super VGA) XGA pix 1024x768 256 (IBM) SXGA pix 1280x600 UWXGA pix 1024x480 ----- --- ---- ---- ---- ---------------------------------------------- [Assembled partially from Phil Storr's PC hardware book at: http://members.iweb.net.au/~pstorr/pcbook/book3/videstan.htm ] /* *************************************************************************** ** UPCOMING TV SERIES ** SF and ANIMATED ** ** Sci Fi Channel: B5, Now & Again, Farscape, Wing Commander... ** Cartoon Network: Mobile Suit Gundam, Samurai Jack, Time Squad... ** Nickelodeon: The Fairly Oddparents, Invader Zim... ** FoxKids: Mon Colle Knights, Medabots, Digimon S3 ** WBKids: Cubix ** Disney: The Legend of Tarzan, Team Atlantis ** ************************************************************************ */ In the following descriptions, "season N" (meaning the Nth year of production-and-broadcast of a particular series) is abbreviated "SN". THE SCI FI CHANNEL The Sci Fi Channel (SFC) is still airing "Babylon 5" weeknights (MTWRF) at 19:00, and is working on an original two-hour B5 telemovie, "Legend of the Rangers". Last week they began stripped repeats of "Now & Again" at 21:00 and "Earth: Final Conflict" at 22:00, both MTWR. The first is the one-season CBS 2000 SF-drama about an overweight insurance agent killed by a train, whose brain is stuffed into a secret government artificial superbody; he's forced to renounce his former life and family. The second is the Tribune-syndicated 1997 series based on notes by late "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, about supposedly benevolent aliens (the Taelons) and the human Liberation that seeks their true motives. New episodes of the SFC original series "The Invisible Man" (S2), "Farscape" (S3), and "The Chronicle" (S1) continue to air, along with "The Outer Limits" (S7) and Canadian-British absurdist-SF import "Lexx" (S4). "First Wave" has just finished; Roger Corman's "Black Scorpion" and "The Secret Adventures of Jules Verne" finished a while ago. The film "Wing Commander" (1999) airs sun-19-aug. Based on the series of PC space combat games, which also spawned the animated "Wing Commander Academy" (1996) (with Mark Hamill and Malcolm McDowell reprising their roles from the games' video segments). THE CARTOON NETWORK The Cartoon Network (TCN) has finally altered its Toonami (weekdays 16:00-18:00) and Midnight Run (weeknights 00:00-01:00) anime lineups. "Big O" (13 eps) returned briefly alongside "Tenchi" (13+26+26), then was replaced by the return of "Outlaw Star" (26). (That choice was made by viewers in a week-long online poll; the other options were the non-anime "Superman", "Batman", and "ReBoot".) "Tenchi" itself was soon replaced by the premiere of "Mobile Suit Gundam", the revolutionary 1979 space- robot war-politics drama-opera directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino. One of its many spin-offs, "Gundam Wing", was a long-time Toonami resident; another, "Eighth Mobile Suit Team", is now airing at 00:00. It's followed by "Outlaw Star" again (with a different phase from the 17:00 airing); the two replace "Dragonball Z", which has moved to WBKids' own anime block. "Samurai Jack" is the latest from Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of "Power Puff Girls" and "Dexter's Laboratory". (You might call them "deconstructionist anime" -- they take all the tropes, add absurd premises and original character designs, then have fun.) The premise: sometime in the future, a samurai fights a powerful shapeshifting world- dominating wizard called Aku, who casts him adrift in time; he then trains with all of history's greats. The style: it *flaunts* its cartoon-ness, with 2D effects rarely seen outside experimental art films. The backgrounds are hand-painted, and the characters completely lack black outlines. Airs mon-20:00 and fri-19:00. "Time Squad" is a comedy about a force of temporal agents who yank history's greats onto their proper course. In the first timeline, for instance, Eli Whitney invented not the cotton gin, but a flesh-eating robot. Airs fri-21:00. NICKELODEON Nickelodeon's (Nik) Friday night has for the past several years been dominated by unconventional animation, and the newest Nicktoons carry the tradition well. "The Fairly Oddparents" features a boy with a short attention span, his rich but neglectful parents, his evil babysitter, and his two eccentric fairy godparents. They masquerade as goldfish, and happily grant any wish he makes -- with variously over-literal, incompetent, or unexpected results. In one ep, he has to do a school report on the wonders of the tiny world, so they create a shrinking suit (which can't re-enlarge) and he gets stuck inside his sitter's body (while they're taking the boat tour with some tourist bacteria). In another, frustrated by the bombastic superior neighbors, he wishes everyone were exactly alike. The world's residential streets turn grey and boxy, populated with indistinguishable grey blobs -- and fairy HQ is soon full of godparents exploding from unrelieved wish-buildup. Airs fri-20:30. "Invader Zim" is about an alien who's so full of his own martial prowess he doesn't realize he's been exiled to a world off the starcharts, his only help an insane robot made of junk; he thinks he's privileged to infiltrate the natives of Earth to prepare for invasion. The best place for this is, of course, school; and the only human who realizes the new green boy is abnormal is his classmate, a high-strung conspiracy theorist whom everyone ignores. Full of imaginative tech and over the top dialogue, partilly animated with cel-shaded CG. Airs fri-21:00 and sat- 13:30. Six eps of "Invader Zim" have aired since March. A seventh premieres at fri-17-aug-21:00. FOX KIDS AND WBKIDS FoxKids and WBKids are gradually rolling out their fall weekday and Saturday morning lineups. Fox has "Mon Colle Knights", Yet Another Anime Monster Import (YAAMI), featuring a wacky solo scientist (standard anime character type #1), his grade-school daughter and her friend, and their interdimensional flights to the monster-filled Mon World; he wants to gather six magical items that can merge the two worlds, for the benefit of mankind. They're opposed by a foppish aristocrat and his two teenage assistants (angry redhead, type #14, and glasses-wearing lavender-hair, type #15-b), who wants the monsters for his own despotic ends. Also this fall: "Digimon" S3, "Medabots" (1-sep). "Action Man" (Mainframe CGI) airs TWRF-15:00, with new S2 eps on Fridays. WBKids has "Cubix: Robots for Everyone", a CG-series about a town used as a testing ground for a major robot manufacturer, the tech-saavy kids who live there, and a vengeful former employee and his evil robots. A decent-enough premise... but the town's called Bubbletown and the robots are bulbous cartoony things. --Obviously for kids, who might otherwise hurt themselves on sharp plot edges. The title refers to a discarded prototype robot built of cubes, capable of arbitrary functional shapeshifting, repaired by the male protagonist. (For *real* reconfigurable robots, search on terms like "modular reconfigurable robot", "metamorphic robot", "fractal robot", and "polypod". Next issue I'll present my results.) Still on the schedule are "Jackie Chan Adventures", "X-Men Evolution", and the anime "Pokemon" (YAAMI), and new eps of "Cardcaptors" (derived from "Cardcaptor Sakura"). The WBKids weekday schedule has absorbed "Dragonball Z" from TCN. "Men in Black" has ceased production, but the four seasons air weekday mornings. "Batman Beyond" airs weekdays 15:00 (and sometimes also 16:30). "Max Steel" (Foundation CGI) airs fri-07:30. All WBKids repeats are shown in random order. DISNEY ANIMATION Coming mon-3-sep-2001 to UPN from Disney Animation: "The Legend of Tarzan", sequel series to the 1999 Disney feature, probably the most *kinetic* adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's 1912 novel (whatever you may think about talking terracotta-colored elephants). The 39 eps (35 first run, 39 second) have a specific order and will have some continuing stories (but not a B5- or even "Roughnecks"-level arc). Tarzan, Jane and Prof.Porter will encounter many of the characters and venues introduced in ERB's later novels, including Queen La, Tublat, the Leopardmen, the friendly Waziri tribe, Opar, and the inner world Pellucidar. It's a kid's show, but the producers claim efforts to maintain the feal of the film and the sophistication of the source material. It was animated in widescreen, but only Australia in will it air that way. *Not* coming spring 2002: "Team Atlantis", sequel series to this summer's Disney feature. Although voice recording was complete on many eps and one had been shipped (production notes below), disappointing box office returns (usually blamed on a lackluster marketing campaign) were one factor in its demise. Most of the film's voice cast had returned, except for Michael J. Fox (Milo Thatch), the late Jim Varney (Cookie), James Garner (Rourke, dead) and Claudia Christian (Helga Sinclair, dead). One plot was a crossover with "Gargoyles" (1994-6), with an appearance by that show's immortal gargoyle Demona (voiced by Marina "Deanna Troi" Sirtis). [The inside scoops on "TLoTarzan" were posted to rec.arts.disney.animation by producer Steve Loter, and for "Team Atlantis" by designer Tad Stones.] Now, why isn't "TLoTarzan" on a Disney channel (ABC's One Saturday Morning, the Disney Channel, or Toon Disney), and why was "Team Atlantis" dropped altogether? Because in each case, they couldn't agree on a shape for the show. Contrary to conspiracy theories, The Walt Disney Company does not operate as a monolith; each of its divisions is a "profit center" responsible for its own financial performance. Each Disney TV outlet is a separate entity, and none are willing to sacrifice part of their perceived audience for a show that doesn't fit the existing lineup. (Similar schizo-management beset the fifth season "Babylon 5": produced by Warner Bros. and aired on TNT, both divisions of Time-Warner; but while WB left creator-writer-producer JMS undisturbed, the TNT execs insisted on meddling.) (Japanese cartoons are filmed, then dubbed by the voice actors (or /seiyuu/). American cartoons follow the opposite route: script, storyboard, recording, time-marking the storyboard to match the utterances; this is pre-production. The "ship date" is when those boards are sent overseas for filming. This is one reason American animation have a production pipeline of six to nine months.) /* ************************************************************************ ** Legalese ** Acknowledgments ** Opt-in/out Instructions ** *********************************************************************** */ The set of creative works herein reviewed and analyzed, including the subset {books, movies, TV shows, toys}, are the property of their respective copyright holders. No infringement or endorsement is expressed, implied or intended. The original reviews and analyses are themselves copyright 2001 by Phillip Thorne. In this issue, certain data (possibly not otherwise acknowledged) have been obtained, aggregated and synthesized from: Animation Chronicles animationchronicles.com Epguides.com epguides.com Excite TV tv.excite.com The Internet Movie Database imdb.com The Internet Science Fiction Database sfsite.com/isfdb/ The Sci-Fi Channel scifi.com Sci-Fi Wire scifi.com/scifiwire/ Star Trek Continuum startrek.com Usenet rec.arts.animation Usenet rec.arts.disney.animation If you're receiving this newsletter, you've probably intentionally subscribed to it, or possibly you're interested in special topical coverage, or maybe I've sent you a teaser issue. To subscribe, email nsx@underbase.org with the words "SUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR" in the subject line and/or body. To unsubscribe, use the same address but the phrase "UNSUBSCRIBE NON-SEQUITUR". Capitalization and punctuation are irrelevant, since there's still absolutely no automation behind the subscription process. Newsletter: nsx@underbase.org (human-managed) Discussion list: nsx-l-subscribe@underbase.org (to subscribe; blank subject) nsx-l (list posting) nsx-l-unsubscribe (to unsubscribe) /* *************************************************************************** ** *************************************************************************** ** The Non-Sequitur Express ** http://nsx.underbase.org/ ** Volume 3, Issue 8: Tuesday, 14 August 2001 ** Copyright 1999-2001 Phillip Thorne, nsx@underbase.org ** *************************************************************************** ** ************************************************************************ */