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Slashback: Futurama, Shattering, Footage

Posted by timothy on Mon Aug 12, 2002 06:59 PM
from the rolling-roadkill dept.
Slashback
Slashback items tonight include a hopeful picture of the Futurama future, good news for Ziff-Davis fans worried about bankruptcy, video-release updates for two films reviewed on Slashdot, and more -- read on for the details.

This would be reason enough to have cable. MrChubble writes: "Seems that futurama isn't as dead as previously believed. Here is a quote from a someone's experience at ComicCon: "Julie Schwartz Slide Oddball Comics Show (Hilarious as usual), and at the FUTURAMA panel they showed a preview of a forthcoming episode in which Fry, Leela and Bender become super-heroes. One thing they didn't mention at the panel, was the news that FUTURAMA would be joining Cartoon Network's ADULT SWIM in the near future." Is this too good to be true?"

We have semi-successfully identified a potential security problem ... Jim Driggers writes: "You guys recently had an article on how to escalate one's security status on a Win32 machine. The article included a link to a download called shatter.exe. My Norton antivirus says it contains the beavuh virus. I don't have IIS 5, so it is not a worry for me, but I thought you guys should know."

Actually, it shouldn't be a worry for anyone: apparently, the shatter.exe file triggers some anti-virus software, but according to several readers this is a false alarm.

How to win friends and influence people. In response to this posting ("Congress to Ashcroft: Go After Song Swappers"), Declan McCullagh writes: "FYI I've placed the congressional letter to Attorney General Ashcroft here: Also see this analysis from last summer on why P2P piracy violates the federal No Electronic Theft act: 'Duncan Frissell on why Napster users are federal felons'."

Up against the wall (of videos). An anonymous reader writes "Looks like the film Revolution OS finally makes it to a small screen near you. First copies available at HP booth at LinuxWorld, San Francisco.

It includes footage from LinuxWorld '99 in San Jose where Stallman accepts the "Linus Torvalds Award" from the hand of Linus and proceeds to talk about why Linux should be called GNU/Linux". This is a treasure."

In addition, for the skateboard-inclined, note that Dogtown and Z-Boys is finally out on DVD, too.

Slimmer and trimmer like I ought to be. prostoalex writes "The rumors of Ziff Davis filing for Chapter 11 can just stay rumors, as company claimed it achieved a compromise with bondholders on financial restructuring. Recently ZD has been shutting down a sleuth of print publications including Yahoo! Internet Life, Family PC, Expedia Travels, Interactive Week, eShopper and Smart Business. It is still a publisher of eWeek, PC Magazine, CIO Insight, ExtremeTech and other computer and gaming magazines."

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  • Speaking of skateboards... (Score:5, Informative)

    by wiredog (43288) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:03PM (#4058159) Journal
    The Washington Post Sunday Magazine has an article [washingtonpost.com] on the corporatization of boarding.

  • I mean, having a computer in the bathroom, just ISN'T sanitary.

    .

  • What!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ucblockhead (63650) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:09PM (#4058200) Homepage Journal
    You mean that the wild, unconfirmed rumors about Futurama were untrue!?

    If we can't trust wild, unconfirmed rumors, what can we trust?

  • Futurama (Score:5, Informative)

    by frovingslosh (582462) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:11PM (#4058210)
    /. seems to have completely overlooked this, but Futurama showed up on Fox's Fall schedule a couple of months ago.

    • Re:Futurama (Score:5, Informative)

      by Flynnhustler (312289) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:19PM (#4058265)
      Futurama has stopped production, but thanks to constant pre-empting they have an entire season worth of episodes in the can.

      Think of Futurama as a dead star, whose light is still reaching us across the vast reaches of space.
      -g

  • Thank {insert deity of choice} for Cartoon Network (Score:3, Insightful)

    by blackcoot (124938) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:14PM (#4058234)
    I don't usually usually go around invoking any powers-that-bes' names (well, unless I'm debugging, but that's a different story ;-)), but yet again, CN has won my devotion --- I mean, Dexter, PPG, Samurai Jack, and now Futurama *bliss* The only thing that could make this any better is if I could figure out how to get the sattelite feed into my WinTV card so I can watch while I'm "working". Hrm... sounds like an Ask /. question....
    • The only thing that could make this any better is if I could figure out how to get the sattelite feed into my WinTV card so I can watch while I'm "working"

      You can buy one of those cablebox/satellite remote-control adapters for your system, like the ones that snapstream (www.snapstream.com) offers to go with their scheduled recording software.

      Also, it would be TONS better if TOON would pick up Invader Zim and made new episodes. Except I don't want to see little retarded "guest appearances" on Space Ghost or whatever. I hate it when they do that.

  • Futurama RERUNs (Score:5, Informative)

    by jimmcq (88033) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:15PM (#4058246) Journal
    Apparently [gotfuturama.com] Cartoon Network said that there are negotiations going on between Fox and Cartoon Network for the reruns of Futurama, not new episodes. We can hope that if the reruns do well, that they might produce new episodes, but that is not what they are currently talking about.
    • I don't think CN has enough ratings & money to justify the expense of producing a full Futurama episode. Those are expensive - it isn't like making a powerpuff girls or aqua teens episode. :)

  • Futurama rumors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anotherone (132088) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:19PM (#4058266)
    Not a chance... in TV guide a while ago it said that the cartoon costs Fox around $1,000,000 an episode. And Cartoon Network recently shitcanned Mission Hill due to $400,000 an ep figures. They like cheap shows like Sealab and Aqua Teen Hunger Force (two of the best shows on TV right now IMHO) better.


    Rumors are usually just that, rumors... remember that Invader Zim/Hot Topic thing a while back? More bullshit. Why does /. even publish this stuff, I'm thinking that a single email would clear it up.

    • With Mission Hill, the 19 episodes were already in the can before it was cancelled off UPN and before CN got it. Same with Baby Blues (recently pushed off ASwim, but all 13 eps shown a few times each before).

      In addition, the use of Home Movies on ASwim got the show revived, and new eps are showing now; these aren't as cheap as ATHF, Sealab, or the others, but not overly expensive either (as I understand it, they're using Flash as their animation medium, thus cutting out a lot of tweening work. However, I've not been able to confirm this).

      Mind you, if the team has sufficiently dispersed by then, it may be hard to put it back together (see how Ren and Stimpy died after John K. was ousted). But, I'd rather see CN do a much better job of handling reruns than FOX seems to be doing right now. (Hint: you'll be missing much of Futurama until Feb if you live on the East Coast).

    • Not a chance... in TV guide a while ago it said that the cartoon costs Fox around $1,000,000 an episode. And Cartoon Network recently shitcanned Mission Hill due to $400,000 an ep figures.
      Actually, to me, that sounds very encouraging. I thought the difference would be much greater.

      I don't know much about the TV business, but I'm sure that "Futurama" is much more marketable and mainstream than "Mission Hill". I'm also sure that the "Futurama" people could shave quite a bit off that budget, if they're willing. (Groening calls "Futurama" a "gift to animators"... You can tell just by looking at it that it's a flashy show, but they could cut 80% of the flash, and the average viewer wouldn't even notice.)

      IMO, CN should pony up the money to start making new episodes on a more reasonable budget, and make it the anchor of their whole Adult Swim block. It would be the best decision for all parties concerned. (Except maybe Fox, but screw 'em.)
    • depends on how much they make, not how much it costs.

      • I'm gonna go ahead and say that Fox makes more selling advertising than Cartoon Network. If Futurama's ratings can't bring in the advertising dollar to justify new episodes on Fox, I don't think they'll do it on Cartoon Network. What does make money on Cartoon Network, however, are reruns. They're cheap and they bring in ratings that are excellent for cable.

        Even cheaply made shows like ATHF only warrant a handful of episodes a year. You just can't cut Futurama to ATHF's level. And if Fox couldn't make it profitable, why can CN?
  • I hate to promote this, but I live in Upstate New York (like in the state, not the city.) Revolution OS will be coming to my city...errr...well...probably never.

    So, how 'bout someone posting a link to a Divx version of it?

    -Pete

  • Ahh.. Happy Ending for Futurama (Score:5, Funny)

    by finny (107762) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:25PM (#4058312)
    I think that Dr. Zoidberg said it best when he emoted:

    "As the candy hearts poured into the fiery quasar, a wonderous thing happened, why not? They vaporized into a mystical love radiation that spread across the universe, destroying many, many planets - including two gangster planets and a cowboy world. But one planet was exactly the right distance to see the romantic rays, but not be destroyed by them - Earth. So all over the world, couples stood together in joy. And me, Zoidberg! And no one could've been happier, unless it would've also been Valentine's Day. What? It was? Hooray!"

  • ACK! Glad I don't do napster (et al)... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by killthiskid (197397) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:26PM (#4058316) Homepage Journal

    Taken from http://www.politechbot.com/p-02305.html [politechbot.com], posted there by Duncan Frissell.


    The $1K limit applies to the retail value of the product. Let's apply the law to Napster as an over reaching prosecutor might.


    1. The average CD costs $12 and contains 18 songs (assumed for illustrative purposes). Each song is therefore worth $0.66.
    2. One thousand dollars divided by sixty-six cents equals 1515 songs.
    3. If one values songs by the price of CD singles, it takes even fewer songs (500) since those go for about $2/song.
    4. So any Napster user who made 1515 (or perhaps fewer) songs available was knowingly infringing copyright law and trafficking in copyrighted materials with a retail value of more than 1000. As the US argued in its AMICUS CURIAE in A&M v. Napster "When a Napster user makes the music files on his or her hard drive available for downloading by other Napster users, he or she is distributing the files to the public at large." See http://www.loc.gov/copyright/docs/napsteramicus.ht ml
    5. Likewise, a Napster user who just downloads songs is arguably "distributing" copyrighted works (to himself) since it is his command, generated by his computer, that grabs the song. So once he passes 1515 songs in 180 days, he's (arguably) a felon.

    Time for a new slashdot poll: How many slashdotters are fedral felons due to their file sharing activities? The person closest to guessing the correct quantity without going over wins a get out of jail free card, curtousy of John Ashcroft! Yeah!

    • I think they'll have to deal with two points though, as this isn't like stealing a car. Who's copying the files, the man with them or the man downloading them? If you say the man sharing them, then you have to prove that he intended for people to download them that didn't own the CD. What if you don't get all the file from one person? Point 2 is the backup factor. You are entitled one backup copy, and they will have to PROVE that you don't own them before they can get a warrent. There is no method of proving that you do or don't if you claim you are using your backup copy because you lost the original in a fire.
        • So even though there is no 'charging' going on,
          the value of the product still changes hands.

          While someone who distributes unauthorized copies of copyrighted works over a P2P network _might_ download copyrighted works of similar value, it is perfectly ok to take and never give, or to give and never take. There is no contract or bargain, which is what the law is clearly aimed at. Only on a P2P network with some sort of BBS-style "upload quotas" would the NET law apply.
  • Oh please. This is been non-news for anyone who bothered to check out FOX's lineup for the coming Fall season:

    http://www.fox.com/schedule/schedule_2002.htm

    BUT! You'll notice Family Guy is conspicuously absent from that lineup. And they didn't even bother to leave us with a finale! Just sort of vanished halfway through last spring.

    Time to fire up the ol' useless web petition.

    - JoeShmoe

    .
    • This is news. If you consider the fact that Futurama *is* cancelled [gotfuturama.com] (hasn't been renewed to be super accurate), but had 1 - 1.5 seasons worth of episodes to show before they're done. Fox has also stated their intentions of not renewing the show and this has been doubly confirmed by Groening and Cohen in interviews. Absolutely.

      Moreover, it is definitely news that they could be joining Adult Swim, which is fast becoming a big part of my Sunday night viewing diet.
    • According to that website, Futurama is still on at 7PM on Fox on Sundays in Fall 2003.

      It also says Family Guy is not renewed if you click on FAQ #3 on http://www.fox.com/community/askfox/
  • The letter to Ashcroft states that '[t]he copyright industries account for 5% of our gross domestic product.' Anyone have any thoughts on where this figure might have come from? My BS detecter is beeping.
    • High-velocity pizza delivery... Is Snow Crash really ten years old? While we really need to have Uncle Enzo arrange to have somebody take care of Ashcroft, if you count software, movies, music, Muzak, videos, books, web pages, and anything else that involves people writing or performing text or songs or other things with original thought, or anybody taking those things and packaging and marketing them, it sounds like it could easily be 5% of the GNP. Ignore whether copyright is actually relevant to the business models (Ashcroft probably does) - since the US joined the Berne Convention, just about anything is born copyrighted.

  • but according to several readers this is a false alarm.


    Well, I'll just start running this right now then.

  • The anti-virus alarm (Score:3, Informative)

    by hayden (9724) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:49PM (#4058463)
    Is triggered because it does contain the virus code (or enough of it for the scanner to recognise it). You have to inject code into the other programs address space and the virus code does something useful. On *nix you would use something that opened up a shell (which would now have root priveleges) but under Windows a shell is about as useful as a one legged man in an arse kicking competition so he used something else.

    <bitch>
    Of course if you'd read the article (specifically the only bit in red, I know it's hard to miss) you'd know this.
    </bitch>

    • Yep, in addition to what's been said above, here's full scoop from the original paper [tombom.co.uk].

      PLEASE NOTE: Some virus scanners are alerting people to the presence of a "Win32/Beavuh" virus within the sploit.bin file in the Shatter zipfile. This is not a virus. The scanner is correct in flagging it - the code in this file is designed to open a command shell and bind it to a network socket. This is a bad thing to do in general, so the scanner is correct in generating an alert. This code is designed to be malicious in terms of its functionality, but the scanner is incorrect when labelling it as a virus.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 12 2002, @08:12PM (#4058565)
    "Julie Schwartz Slide Oddball Comics Show..."

    Proper noun, proper noun, verb, adjective, noun, noun...

    What the FUCK would this be in English?

  • The "problem" with Futurama (Score:3, Interesting)

    by geekoid (135745) <dadinportland.yahoo@com> on Monday August 12 2002, @10:11PM (#4059141) Homepage Journal
    is that it is subtle, very subtle. I'm surprised at the number of post that don't find it funny.

    It is completly nerdsville, and I love.
    they make programming reference, engineering references, sci-fi references, and modern culture references.
    How many people would have the guts to put this on the air:
    "that happened in 2506...just after the second coming of christ"?
    I paraphrased the year.
    in the last episod I saw it had:
    A marriage between Iron chef and Soylent green.
    A styx reference(group not river)
    Homophobic reference from a robot.
    Wraith of Kahn joke.
    poisoning
    revenge
    a frame up
    destruction of a ship(in a bottle)
    secret code(granted, they're in every episode)
    Its one of the few shows that I don't understand why it is NOT 'embraced' by slashdot, yet Buffy is.

    I suspect its because the first generation gamers/video game players/star wars people are getting old, and this generation is trying to glom onto anything they can call a product of there generation.

    I guess I'll have to start all my conversations with "Back in my day..." ;)

  • I saw Groening speak 3 weeks ago... (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheTomcat (53158) on Monday August 12 2002, @10:21PM (#4059177) Homepage
    Matt Groening spoke in Montreal a few weeks ago, and he specifically stated that Futurama has "at least one more season" he was hoping for more, and that he also "has a few projects up [his] sleeve"

    I'm looking forward to said sleeve-projects.

    S
    • Well, if he had not phrased it in a way to give people hope, he would have been lynched.
      And he knew it ;- )

      But the thing is, once you've laid-off all your talented people, they'll find new jobs, and won't be available to come back if you try to recussitate the show, and the then it'll suck, and people will say "see, it sucks now, they were right to cancell it". : (
  • ZD are definitely doing this the right way. Other companies could learn from their actions if they near bankruptcy.

    If McDonald's starts to go under.. it can close all of its outlets and stop buying supplies! No more costs, the business can get back on its feet.

    If Walmart starts to go under.. it can just close all of its stores. No more stock to buy, no staff to employ, costs will be through the floor, with profits sure to rebound.

    Really, I'm thinking the best way for a multi-billion dollar company to make money these days is to shut down its main operation, accumulate the billions in a high interest bank account, and then dabble in risky investments.
    • No, you're quite alone on this one, Chester. In fact, you may have just sealed your fate.
    • Greg the bunny? I sure hope you're being sarcastic.


      • > I thought the same thing first time I saw Futurama. It was nothing special, sometimes just boring, and Simpsons seemed so much better. I never watched Futurama after the first few episodes. Then, a few years later I saw it and watched it, and for some reason I found it very funny and have watched it whenever I had the chance.

        I guess I'm a sort of half convert. My initial reaction was the same as yours. I do watch it now and then now, but I would only rate it as "amusing" for most episodes, and I still find a few of them dull enough to turn off in the middle.

        It's not bad considering the other crap that establishes par these days, but I can't see being a fan over it. The Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon series beats it hands down for humor, IMO.

      • I watched KotH way back when it first came out... when it was actually funny.

        I'm not sure how American's perceive King now, but IMHO it's the most painful, unfunny cartoon to watch, ever. I'd rather be forced to watch 5 hours of that grindingly tedious Dr Katts than 30 minutes of KotH.

        Mind you, I never found Beavis and Butthead funny either, so it could be Mike Judge failing at comedy through animation, yet again.

        Futurama is fantastic, on-par with the Simpsons in many places. Family Guy is also extremely cool.

      • I think Futurama sucks.
        When people don't get the "in" jokes, they blame the show, not their ignorance ;- )

        I'll be happy to see it (Futurama) go to cable, so I won't see it anymore.
        What? And you're seeing it NOW? How do you do that? I try to watch futurama and I can't! It seems to be on a random time slot...once in a while I get it on sunday at 19:00, but never more than twice in a row.

        I guess its like cats: They are naturally drawn to people who are allergic to cats...maybe if I pretend to hate futurama, it'll show up on tv...

    • Re:Bleah (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ConceptJunkie (24823) on Monday August 12 2002, @07:23PM (#4058293) Homepage Journal
      Short answer:

      Fox sucks.

      Long answer:

      It seems that they had it out for this show and were determined to kill it by giving it the crappiest time slot on their schedule (short of the middle of the night). When you are pre-empted by football through 80% of the season, people won't see you. Then they started showing it at different times... I got to the point where I didn't even know when it would be on next.

      Meanwhile, they keep puking up more and more profoundly stupidly shows that last all of 6 episodes (if that) because anyone with a room temperature IQ (which doesn't seem to include Fox programmers) won't watch them.

      To me, "Futurama" is "The Simpsons" freed from its format and need for consistency with 13+ years of history. There is much more room for experimentation and therefore, to me, the show seems fresher. Still, I enjoy both greatly, but obviously Fox wanted Futurama to fail. Otherwise why would they move it to 7 and keep firing crapppy show and after show at us at 8:30 (they got lucky with Malcolm, almost every other show that followed the Simpsons was pathetic (anyone remember "House of Buggin'"?).

      So long answer:

      Fox sucks.

      • Re:Bleah (Score:4, Funny)

        by glwtta (532858) on Monday August 12 2002, @08:12PM (#4058562) Homepage
        anyone with a room temperature IQ (which doesn't seem to include Fox programmers) won't watch them.

        Celcius of Farenheit?

      • I read your post and thought, wow a bored of the rings quote, cool.

        I don't think they want it to fail, if they didn't want it, they would just pull it. Thney don't really have to answer to anybody about whats on the schedule.

        I think there to afraid to mess around with what they percieve to be there money makers. They know futurerama is a money maker, what they have forgottenm is that they need to bite the bullet and take some risj so they can invest in long term growth, instead of sudden success.
        They used to know how to do that, but then they got big enough to get serious sports.
        In conclusion, Fox Sucks Now.
      • To me, "Futurama" is "The Simpsons" freed from its format and need for consistency with 13+ years of history.

        If anything, the Simpsons is pretty far from consistent. Watch the earlier seasons and compare them to now - characters completely changed, gone, etc. Never mind the fact that the characters haven't aged one day in 13 years on the air - I don't think continuity issues are terribly important (hell, just last week Homer pointed out that he's had something like 75 different jobs :)

        I don't catch as much Futurama as I'd like, but have they ever done anything remotely CLOSE to the 'Treehouse of Horror' episodes?

        • To the casual observer, it's difficult to tell the difference between gross incompetence and internal sabotage.

          I'm not sure which one it is. The decisions made by Fox's programming efforts seem to point to the fact that they were making a conscious effort to kill the show. As I'm sure you well know, those Hollywood types are often more concerned with their egos then anything else. Groening (sp?) may have just pissed off the wrong executive.

          Or, you're right; they could have made the programming decisions because they are morons. I'm not a big time network executive, but I know that if a show is good you probably want to get people to watch it. After all, it worked for the Simpsons.

    • My question: will it be encrypted with CSS? Will it also have region coding or will it be a region-free DVD?

      Time to walk the talk. Make Revolution OS a truly OPEN DVD. Do the right thing.

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