Actually, that's exactly what HAS happened. Software engineering starting salaries have jumped dramatically in recent years. Shit, in the SF Bay Area smart grads can make $80-100k or more right out of college. It's one of the highest paid fields for a *qualified* new college grad (that said, just like PhDs, apparently, there are a lot of really unqualified CS NCGs who really need to find another field).
Having been a postdoc and also having been lucky enough to land a faculty position I don't see that this is a new problem at all.
Their point is it that it's gotten WORSE. A constant surplus is one thing (and could be manageable) but an increasing surplus can in fact make it a whole new problem. Something is messing with traditional supply and demand. Rate of change increasing, you know, dx/dy and all that? Or maybe economics and math wasn't your PhD focus
It's simply much easier to get a PhD these days
The real question isn't about whether it's easier to *get* a PhD, it's why it's easier to get a PhD *paid for*. It's 5 extra years of education, usually paid for with a grant from *somewhere*. I guess you could consider of the last couple years a fairly low-paid lab tech and/or TA with a lot of education - but maybe the university systems should stop spending so much money on subsidizing PhDs that will never go anywhere and start figuring out how to make top-rate undergraduate education cost less than $50k a year...
Hmmm... As to women, you're talking about the religious evangelicals. That faction is their own distinct kettle of fish.
No, unfortunately for moderate Republicans they are not only in the same kettle, they are running the kettle. Apparently a large majority of Congressional Republicans and apparently about half of the Supreme Court conservatives is of that "faction".
Cite something they did. I dare you.
I'm not going to bother citing since it's so trivial to search, but you can look up a whole bunch of voting regulations intended to suppress minority voting while pretending to address a completely non-existent "voter fraud issue". And there have been leaked political memos, etc talking about how it will reduce minority turn out in some districts, so it's pointless to try to argue otherwise.
Also, opposing affirmative action in education. Clearly there is a debate on the topic, but there is no question the intent was to give a boost to a population which had been denied the same opportunities white males have had in college education. I think everyone hopes that will become unnecessary in the future but a couple of centuries of social and financial discrimination can't just be fixed in a couple decades.
Also, he LGBT community is clearly in the same position African Americans were in the 50s-60s, and being treated just as badly by conservatives. It's pretty clear once the old ones die off the more tolerant next generation will be more accepting, though. It's already happening, luckily, and my guess is gay rights will be a non-issue in 10-20 years. Doesn't mean Republicans haven't been fighting it as much as they can...
And as for both minorities and immigrants - 221 members of the House Republicans voted to defund the DREAM Act and work to deport aliens who were babies when brought into to the US illegally, and often didn't even know they were not citizens. Crack down on illegal immigration when it happens, I agree, but don't kick people out who didn't even know they were illegal and have been here since before they could speak any language, let alone their *native* English...
... what was actually going on here. The republicans are against lots of government regulation. They just don't like it in general.
Definitely true in corporate and financial interests. Not as true for women, minorities, and immigrants.
Actually, in the '60s and '70s all of that was Saturday morning fare. It was bundled up into an hour long show with a small bit of newly done 'glue' to hold it together. It was re-runs, but all new for the audience they targeted. The various cartoons came and went, but the Warner toons were a constant.
The Flintstones and Jetsons were both originally prime time animated sit-coms in the early 60's. Later they were either moved to morning or syndicated in re-runs and re-made as basically totally different kid-centric shows.
And all of the early Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc (Hannah Barbara) cartoons were created for and first shown in the theater as shorts. Not only that, the first appearance of Bugs Bunny, etc on TV (which was the old cartoon with some new "glue", as you said) was an ABC *prime time* show called "The Bugs Bunny Show".
Sure, they were eventually syndicated, then even later remade for kids, and moved to Saturday mornings. But the point is these "great Saturday morning cartoons" everyone is talking about were NOT at all created as such. Which is probably why they were so good. Generally entertainment created specifically for kids is awful, since the adult writers don't write "for" them, they write "down to" them. And kids are much more perceptive than they think, so they notice it.
I guess another way to think of it is the "Era of Saturday Morning Cartoons" is not just recently dead as the article states, it's just recently *buried*. It limped into the 90's and died at some point in that decade after they cancelled the last few smart generation-spanning shows like The Tick, X-Men, Animatiacs, Pinky and the Brain, etc.
As far as their original content, seems like Netflix has had the perfect combination of risk-taking, intelligent choices, and a bit of luck.
I read an interview with Kevin Spacey where he said after pitching House of Cards to all of the network and cable channels with lukewarm reception, Netflix jumped all over it. Not only that, when they said, "ok, we'll go film a pilot", Netflix said, "pilot? Forget that, here's $100M, go film a full season. Oh, and we won't mess with your creative vision, we trust you."
Just like more and more traditional "movie" actors are doing TV because HBO, Showtime, AMC, etc have allowed TV to be smart and edgy (and the filing schedules and promotions are mud mrs relaxed, etc), if you give producers and actors support and creative freedom they are going to start experimenting a lot more with streaming original content.
Then again, Netflix has basically stated they want to be the next HBO (and HBO is becoming a significant streaming service). Wouldn't be surprised if 5 years from now you couldn't tell the difference between the two - $10-15/mo subscriptions with a mix of original and licensed content...
Well, there are a *lot* of problems with this model, not saying it's great, just the way it currently works
Though there are still a lot of titles out there which aren't available just because they have not yet been remastered for digital streaming, or they have not sorted out all of the various licensing and copyright agreements. Amazingly, streaming often requires getting completely different licensing/royalty agreements from all involved parties like the musical score, poster artwork, screenwriters, actors, etc. It's pretty insane. And even more insane is that often has to be done separately for EACH country it's released in.
So if I were to point to the #1 cause of content not being available, it's studio shortsightedness (they don't realize they can make more money in volume by making things cheaper) and massive licensing/copyright bureaucracy.
Yep. Just goes to show you the best and most enduring children's/young adult entertainment is usually when adults don't specifically try to "write for" children (which usually means "write down to" them). Just as true now (Harry Potter novels, Pixar movies) as it was back then...
created for Saturday Morning Cartoons
No it wasn't. *From* the Wikipedia page: "The show premiered on September 30, 1960, at 8:30pm, and was an instant hit.".
Sept. 30, 1960 was a Friday. And 8:30pm isn't what most people would call "morning".
What you were watching was reruns or remakes, not the original Flintstones. So I think my point still stands. The original was targeted to adults in the early 60's (they even had the cartoon characters advertising cigarettes!) which may be why kids didn't really understand it that well. And the remakes/etc, were mostly crap spewed out for kids (with none of the more mature references or Honeymooner parodies), but that shouldn't detract from the original.
Tom & Jerry's violence would never be shown today, too much violence in them.
Eh, maybe not on Saturday morning, but have you ever watched the Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc? It's still there...
But I agree and am saddened by the loss of the true Saturday morning cartoon today. Hell, even after I was beyond-college-age I still liked to drag my ass out of bed on Saturday in the 90's to watch The Tick, X-Men, Pinky and the Brain, and the few other cartoons that kept the faith.
Why does everyone keep using the Flintstones as an example of (good or bad) Saturday morning cartoons!?
Flintstones was a prime time ABC show in the early 1960's. If you think of it in *that* context is was a trend-setting and brilliant forerunner to the current (and mostly over the hill) prime time family-unit cartoons like The Simpsons and Family Guy...
I would *still* be willing to sit down for a morning of road runner, bugs bunny and crew, daffy duck, foghorn leghorn, jetsons, flintstones, pepe le pew, and so on.
Most of that was never actually Saturday morning cartoon fare (except occasionally in reruns). So I'm not sure how qualified you are to comment on it
But I agree that the Internet did not kill Saturday morning cartoons. It was a coincidental two-pronged attack of 24-hour kids/cartoon cable channels and the horribly sad but true fact that Saturday morning informercials just paid better.
The issue is with studio contracts and provider risks. The studios want $4-6 per rental of their new releases and aren't willing to negotiate a (reasonable) flat rate to subscription providers. Netflix wants to keep their costs down and isn't willing to take the risk of offering a more expensive service and hoping customers don't abuse it.
People who are expecting this situation to eventually get sorted out are going to wait a LOOONG time. The fact is the studios have a model that is designed to pay for their $200M+ production expenses: theatrical release, premium VOD and Blu-Ray release, HBO/premium cable release, and finally (possibly 2+ years later) library release to subscription services. Negotiating flat-rate for the movie just isn't going to happen until it's at the end of that pipeline...
This subthread is really about eating their own species. Chimps [animalplanet.com] have been observed doing so and it's common knowledge that lions will kill and eat offspring that isn't theirs. Just killed (wah) your first two points.
No, you haven't really. Well, my "absolutely", statement sure, that was obviously silly, but it's pretty obvious there is an evolutionary instinctual element to many species not preferring to eat their own. That's why all of these anecdotes are so "shocking" (i.e. why the media covers it in "nature" specials) and why the pack-oriented species are still around...
"The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy." -- Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards
