I keep on seeing it everywhere, but when I’m in the position to defend my nerdy watch all of those bad ass examples slip my mind. I will start it now and will keep updating for my own sake.
Walt Whitman on Breaking Bad
Sarah Conner on Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles
Marty McFly on Back to the Future
James Bond on The Spy Who Loved Me
It looks like it could be worth watching though the trailer is rife with bad acting, all except for Gustavo from Breaking Bad! I will check it out, so I thought I’d share!
http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1401464
Working in both industry and academia has helped me understand some major differences between academic and industrial research. For instance, in industry some goals of a research scientist are profitability, efficiency and novelty. If a product or method is novel but not profitable, it will not find a home in industry. In academic research, however, novelty will at the very least produce a paper regardless of how profitable or applicable the science really is. Applicability will generate public interest and hopefully grant money, which also must be a goal of a research scientist in academia, but it may or may not be the main goal.
Often times (but not all), the scientific discoveries that industry fuels are eventually patented or kept as company secrets in order to hold the monopoly in that given area until some new invention replaces it. Many people look adversely on this process and believe scientific discoveries should be public knowledge so that all can benefit. Without industry, however, those scientific discoveries would most likely never reach a consumer market as academia hasn’t the manpower nor the machinery necessary for large scale operations.
On the surface it may seem like industry prioritizes money while academia prioritizes the simple pursuit of discovery, but in reality both are looking to make a buck, its just not as obvious in academia. If a research group in academia is not attracting grant money, it will cease to exist. Much of a graduate student’s life in research is spent learning the art of selective wording so that they can present research in an alluring way and tell the truth of a project’s shortcomings without making the errors seem unintentional so they may receive funding. In other words, a graduate student is trained to be a skilled illusionist, and a Ph.D. means one has mastered it. Is the practice deplorable? Since the goal is to tell the truth and still come away with a grant, I suppose not. Constantly teetering on the edge of a lie may make it easier to wander a little too far, and many certainly have fallen off the edge and have found themselves in worlds of trouble for it… at least those who were caught.
You will not find the same song and dance in industry, as the science simply must work. The goal in industrial research is to make a profit, and weak science will not produce this result.
More clout tends to accompany a scientist in academia as opposed to those in industry, and the only solid reason for this is that scientists in academia publish their findings and receive public attention and credit for their discoveries. A scientist in industry may produce hundreds of more useful ideas and discoveries in contrast to his academic counterpart, but the world will most likely never know it.
The greatest lure for any lover of science is the ability to create freely and have ownership of his or her work. Academia answers this where industry most often cannot. Sometimes, though, it is more important for a scientist to have a greater impact on the world and facilitate the development of more scientific achievements than any individual could hope to accomplish on his or her own. Industry answers this where academia most often cannot.
Who is to say which is more important?
And the video I was referring to:
My very ill constructed, unscripted response.
I recently purchased a movie light via auction to use for studio lighting. It is bright as hell, and looks pretty neat :P
That’s right… you heard me. Don’t worry, I’m ready to defend my position. We’ll begin with the biggest reason why SGU is better than BSG: the writing. BSG is plagued with a gaping whole in its long, emotionally tiresome plot… I will give you a hint as to what that is:
*Ahem* Plan. The Cylons have a plan. That was the biggest hook throughout the entire series… and then the series ended, and that plot line faded into obscurity as if we would just forget it was ever mentioned. The movie addressed nothing, and was released FAR too late anyhow. The diagnoses: BAD WRITING. The writing is so bad that it is analogous to LOST (a similarity we will revisit shortly).
Aside from the plot blunder, the series seems to have been written for people who are constantly emotionally compromised. Sci-fi plot writing fail #2 — too much pansy, too little badass. Yes, the battle scenes were cool… but I still can’t ignore the fact that the crew was primarily running on teenage hormonal emotion the entire time. Toward the end of the series, Adama was reduced to a pathetic pile of drunken mush that would have drowned in his tear puddles had Lee or the Exo not pulled him out. He would flail his whiskey induced plastic-like limbs, knock all the shit off his desk, throw himself on a wall and bawl like the kid you want to punch at a grocery store. He belonged in a sorority, not a space ship. And how dare those writers reduce an actor as badass as E.J. Olmos to a little girl.
I could pick apart the other actors/actresses as well… such as how one-dimensional they were, save Exo and Six (sometimes). The president eventually budded into a psychotic religious zealot who had no right to be glorified, yet for some reason the show had to appeal to the kids in bible study. Yes, I could go on and on… but lets just cut to the last, real problem with BSG: it turned itself into a “fracking” fantasy. Same blunder as the anticlimactic LOST series end… the explanation behind the entire show? Starbuck was an angel and led them to the holy grail planet. They could have just made Starbuck fall through a wormhole or get lost in a time dilation bubble… but no. The kids at bible study need a stupid angel. /End show.
I’ve heard Stargate Universe referenced as BSG 90210. Not even close. At least the characters have some dignity and don’t cry when a fly falls in their food rations. At least the plot line is cohesive, and at least Stargate never tried to reduce their hero (RDA) into a sniveling piss-ant. Oh, and at least the Stargate series treats religion as it should in any good sci-fi: its plays a role in psychology, but NEVER offers an explanation to natural phenomena. If I wanted to watch fantasy writing with sci-fi jargon, I’d watch the Left Behind series, or this nonsense:
There are a few major similarities between SGU and BSG, such as the cinematography technique used and the heavy drama. It is a new twist for the Stargate series since we’re used to witty quips from Shepard, Ronan, O’Neil, Jackson, etc. The most likely explanation for the change in writing is that there are far too many people who enjoy the low caliber writing style of BSG and producers of SGUwanted to emulate the drama (and revenue).
In conclusion, BSG fans ruined it for everyone and lowered the quality of sci-fi writing all around. SGU failed faster than the other series because it didn’t stay true to Stargate fans, and didn’t lower standards enough for BSG fans to come on board ( it still lacked the Days of Our Lives component that BSG had). It was still, however, better than BSG.
Time, sort of. Time to do and try things I’ve not been able to for some years since school began. Nevermind the hours I’m working, which are more than I’ve really ever done for an extended period of time in my life, but the hours before, between and after will be mine. I have plans. Looking forward to seeing Monday come. Hope I won’t regret that thought by Tuesday.
Sincerely,
-M.
