FRINGE: Not X-Files Clone ... More Like "Mutation"

I completely dismissed FRINGE when it first came out as I thought it looked like an X-Files rip-off. It both is and it isn't.

FRINGE has grown and the producers and writers did learn one valuable lesson from X-Files: Mythology Episodes keep the audience involved. The last half of the second season is gripping. The last two episodes function as a FRINGE movie.

Some questions have been answered and some questions have been added. Don't read any further if you haven't seen the first two seasons.

Although they have the same initials and we never saw one of the two characters during the first season, Walter Bishop and William Bell are two different people. Leonard Nimoy was William Bell and worked wonderfully with John Noble as Walter Bishop.

John Noble's rendition of the insane Walter Bishop is definitely the main reason I keep tuning in to the show. For those who don't know, FRINGE is a show about a Mad Scientist (literally), his estranged son, working with the FBI to solve "fringe science" related events. Astral Projection, mutants, weaponized genetic experiments, teleportation, shape shifters, and most importantly, alternate universes. One in particular is a near duplicate of our universe ... but their technology is at least a decade ahead of ours.

Overall, the central story that strings the series together and happens to have created or been the beginning of all the fringe events, is the story about a man's love of his son.

Everyone in the series makes morally-compromised decisions to save what is either important to them or to save people they love. Throw in a good amount of fantasy, science fiction and monsters and I'm hooked.

One of the lead characters is now a prisoner in an alternate universe. Cross between universes too often, and you become an atom bomb, as William Bell discovered. You suspect William Bell for at least a season, but he turns out to be the ultimate patriot, or perhaps he simply has (had) a deep love or respect for his former scientific partner. One mad scientist is dead. One young man is wanted by fathers in two universes. One mad scientist is incomplete ... and one mad scientist is completely and unabashedly evil. This last scientist, the alternate Walter (or Walternate) seems like he might kill his own son to destroy our universe, or perhaps he would destroy his own world to get back his son. A determination matched only by the younger Walter Bishop of our world.

Our Walter was probably just as evil, or perhaps had the potential to be just as evil, but he had sections of his own brain cut out by his dearest friend in order to save the world, to prevent knowledge of how to cross between universes from getting into enemy hands. Our Walter and his friend William Bell experimented on children to create an army to fight the other universe. Then, Walter was committed to an insane asylum for 17 years.

Walternate (Walter Alternate, get it?) has all the intellect of our Walter, but unencumbered by brain surgery. He has risen to Secretary of Defense of the USA of his world. He tortures his prisoners, or at least subjects them to prolonged seclusion in absolute darkness. He has used technology that rapidly encases and freezes whole cities in a kind of plastic in order to halt the destruction of his world. Thousands have "died" due to his technology. And of course, Walternate is planning the destruction of our universe.

Walternate claims to have written the manifesto that proclaims the end of the world in his universe (ZFT) while our Walter claims the ZFT manifesto was written by his old friend William Bell.

I speculate that a delicate cross on a chain will lead to the capture of Alternate-Olive (Olivinet?) but that our Olivia will suffer major changes due to her captivity, especially after proclaiming her love for another major character in the final episode of season two.

There is so much more to comment on, including some outstanding creature design, and some flops in design. Expanding story lines, alternate comic book covers, alternate coins (Richard Nixon silver dollars), alternate twenty dollar bills, advanced technology and alternate versions of cities we live in are all intriguing.

So, check out FOX's show "Fringe" if you haven't done so already.

Syfy? Syfy? What the ...

There used to be a television channel that played science fiction. It was a terrific thing! They had Star Trek and Space:1999 and I kept hoping my family would get cable television so that I could watch my favorite genre on television.

Later, when I could afford it on my own, I got cable, mainly for the SciFi channel.

Now it's gone. Introduce SYFY.

I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise and perhaps it is time for the SciFi channel to Rest In Peace. They mainly play wrestling, fantasy and cheap "reality" shows where people chase ghosts and UFO's. Where's the science fiction?

Their highest rated and most acclaimed program was Battlestar Galactica but that's over. They didn't learn that there is a world-wide audience that is hungry for well-produced, intelligent science fiction based drama. They canceled Stargate Atlantis and have nothing really to take its place.

Last night they were playing one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I guess I'll have to make my own SciFi channel. Thank goodness for DVD.

Palin Quits, Says "I am not a quitter"

I want to make sure I get this correct: She quit, right?

Palin: 'I am not a quitter; I am a fighter'

Headline News

It has been weeks and STILL the headline news is: Michael Jackson.

CNN has become the Michael Jackson channel with his music as the fade out or between stories. I cannot understand why this weird pop singer with a fetish for youth and self-mutilation via surgery holds the media's (and presumably) most of America's viewer's interest.

Will they finally bury the story when they bury his body?

Virtual PC

I started having trouble with IT at work and it was predictable, completely foreseen, since I use Windows Vista at home. My choice was due to the fact that so many of my customers were getting Vista on their new PCs. I wanted to have experience with the OS in order to help them continue using the PACS system at work ... that is only supported with Windows XP or Windows 2000.

So, I could either format my hard drive or install a virtual PC. Time was not a critical factor as I found another way (I talked the user through the problem over the phone) and either would be fine. The virtual PC would allow me a dry run at "down-upgrading" my PC anyway and I could delete the thing if it was not successful.

So, virtual PC it was.

I haven't tried vmware yet and virtual PC seemed easy enough. I just downloaded and installed the software from Microsoft and pulled out a couple of CDs for the installation.

I have a couple of versions of Windows XP, both Professional and Home versions that I have purchased over the years and I grabbed one of my XP Professional discs. I also did a quick Internet search for the Windows XP version of the driver controllers for my Hitachi hard drives. I figured that was the minimum I would need and perhaps I could add other drivers later.

The install was almost exactly the same as installing Windows XP on a PC, and boy was it sweet!


After that, I booted up the virtual PC ... all in a window!


Best of all, if I call for support and they want a screen cap, all they're going to see is Windows XP Professional.

Sweet.

Old Home Movie (JibJab)

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Oh Lord, I'm in a Jib-Jab

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This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.

My Dad sent me an email. He had a problem with Outlook after he had installed, then uninstalled Firefox 3. Then he reinstalled Firefox 2 and started getting an error when he clicked on a link in Outlook.

--- Original Message ---
After reloading Firefox, when I click a link in Outlook I get an error message stating: “This operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator.” I've looked at what I know to do but that's little regarding this message. What do you think?
--- End Message ---

I found the answer on a family blog!

The Luebbes: A Family Blog

The fix is really fairly simple. (Too bad I didn't know what to do! LOL!)

In XP: Start - Control Panel - Add Remove Programs
On the left side of the Window, choose Program Access and Defaults.
Open the currently selected and change the default web browser selection to another web browser.

Click OK.

Open Outlook and click on a link. It should open just fine.

Next ... Autorun.inf and USB Drives

Apparently it requires a bit of a change from the autorun.inf files you've been creating for CDs.

More later ...

9021Oh No

I heard yesterday that television has hit a new low. They are bringing back 90210. I guess I shouldn't concern myself. It was such a lousy show that I couldn't watch it the first time around, what are the odds that the regurgitation would be worth watching now?

Teach Yourself Programming

Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days, Third Edition by Jesse Liberty

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Very educational and easy to understand.


View all my reviews.

Vista and Vaio

My boss wanted a new, lighter, faster laptop.

Hey, I can’t blame him! His was a few years old, not enough RAM for what he does and heavy to carry around. Compared to today’s notebooks, his old laptop was like carrying around a desktop computer.

He showed me specs on a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ460E and asked if it would do the job for voice dictation, viewing PACS images (he’s a radiologist) and the other dozen functions he needs to do while on the road. I noted that the thing was being sold with Vista and that he might want to ask if they had any flavor of XP, since that was compatible with our software in the Health System and that Vista was not.

They weren’t selling XP with this laptop.

“Don’t worry,” I told him. “We can always pick up a copy of XP Professional and just wipe the drive. No problem.”

I lived to regret that promise! It was nowhere near as easy as I had supposed.

Well, eventually my boss found that the notebook was slow and sluggish. For a computer with 3 GB RAM and 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo T8100 processors, this seemed very odd but I had already had experience with how much RAM Vista gobbles up. Even on a clean installation, you’ll only have about a half Gig of RAM free.

So, I took my boss’s licensed copy of XP Professional that he purchased over the Internet and grabbed the notebook and took them home for a quick, over-night formatting.

It took me at least 3 days.

Laugh if you will but Sony does not make XP drivers for any of the equipment online. Support told me that I would have to obtain the drivers from the component manufacturers.

The first night I partitioned the drive and tried to install XP for a dual boot. I failed pretty miserably.

The second day, I went and bought myself a USB floppy drive and some floppy disks since to add additional drivers you need a floppy disk.

Well, the first drivers to get were the Hitachi drivers for the hard drive. Without the hard drive, you can’t perform an installation.

Hitachi did not make any XP drivers available for XP. Vista only.

Okay, so I started Googling for alternate drivers and found a website. Unfortunately for me, Google informed me, “Your search - HTS542525K8SA00 xp drivers - did not match any documents.”

Not to be discouraged, I found the Open Drivers website.

I grabbed the hard drive drivers, floppy drive and my install disk and … the installation still didn’t work … so I took a break and played a game of Vector TD2. Sometimes I get ideas if I concentrate on something else other than the work.

About ten minutes into the game, I thought of looking for the drivers for the hard drive CONTROLLERS. Ah! My first good idea. I found the drive controller drivers Intel(R) 82801HEM/HBM SATA AHCI Controller Driver here.

NOW I was able to format the hard drive. It was about 12:45 AM by this time, so I turned in and let the install finish while I slept.

The next day was devoted to tracking down the drivers for the Ethernet adapter. Once I found those, I went to DriverAgent.com. I love these guys. They’re worth every penny.

I searched, downloaded and updated the drivers for every component on the notebook. The only one I couldn’t get to function was the driver for the on board camera. The driver for that would ONLY run in Vista.

I spent the last day setting up the laptop’s secure access for work, remote access to two 3D image manipulation platforms (complete with username and password instructions), the same version of Microsoft Office as work, Microsoft Access and the teaching file system that I had built so that he might keep an eye on what his students are doing at any time.

So, I learned my lesson. Even though I had rebuilt over a dozen computers over time, that did not mean that the next experience was going to be easy. I think it also means that Microsoft carries considerable clout for influencing manufacturers to not make XP drivers available for customers.

Installing XP for Dual Boot on a Vista Computer

Ugh.

I could just leave it at that. Installing Vista on my old XP PC was simple by comparison.

Tonight's Odd Turns

I don't know about you but I often start off looking at something or engaged in one activity and then wind up so far off the track having run across amazing stuff I never knew existed.

Tonight is one of those nights.

Don't drink milk when you read the next question because I don't want to be responsible for you wheezing milk out of your nose:

Have you ever heard of "Scud the Disposable Assassin"?

It's a comic created by Rob Schrab about a vending machine assassin. That's right, you plunk in your quarter and you get a robot assassin who takes care of the job and then explodes. Hence, disposable assassin.

I started out on YouTube for some reason searching out some old fan film favorites of mine while I was talking to my brother on the cell phone. I was talking to him about Grayson and Batman: Dead End before I started my usual generic "animation" search.

I ran across a "4 Minute Film School" episode hosted by Rob Schrab! I had seen some of this guy's animation of (well, basically junk) puppets. Real Robot Chicken kind of stuff or fast Saturday Afternoon Cartoon stuff where they use puppets against a green screen. It was informative and fun but when I hunted down Rob Schrab and Scud the Disposable Assassin, I found Pat Grubb's animation tests of his 3D animated Scud test renders. I originally thought they were professional animation tests!

Pat Grubb aka Neuropolis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iik7zo4UgfA

This kid just finished animation school and was looking for work. While being bored and waiting for the 3D money to roll in, he decided to make a 3D version of his favorite comic character, Scud. He sent some renders to Rob Schrab and Schrab supposedly LOVED them and he said he wanted to see Scud animated.

Pat found out about the Scud the Disposable Assassin short film contest and has decided to enter the contest. This thing (contest) started at the beginning of May and has to be finished by the end of July. He (Grubb) has modeled two of the three characters he is going to need and is well along the way to finishing the third.

The very short animation test has a MARVELOUS sound track that I had to hunt down. It turns out to be "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters. This is one of those songs that when I hear it, I wonder aloud, "Why did no one tell me about this song?" So, I bought it off of iTunes immediately.

Then I listed to Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" for a bit and wound up typing this while watching "Burn Notice".

This day has been just all over the place.

End of the Rainbow

I always wondered where the rainbow ended.

Who knew it was the parking lot at work?

I was confronted with this bit of beauty walking out of the office yesterday.

Traffic This Morning

Now THAT'S a line of traffic. This line extended for a couple of miles. Thank goodness it moved. It moved slowly, but it moved.

Better Dental Health

Here's one for you: I like my dentist.

He's ... nice.

In fact, the whole office is composed of kind people.

I have lent them a hand with their computer on a couple of visits and spoke to a software vendor on their behalf. It is the kind of thing that I enjoy. It was fun.

My dentist sent me a generous gift certificate for a restaurant in gratitude!

My wife and I had an appointment with my dentist yesterday and while my wife was having her checkup, I chatted with the dentist's wife about their website. Although they have a couple of pages, there is very little content.

It turns out that they pay for all sorts of online content that is not reflected on their website. So, this morning I threw together a four page site, added some images and kept most of the content they already have while adding in some content from their auto-email services. So I zipped it together and sent it off in an email as something to consider.

Perhaps this is odd. Do most people create speculative websites for the dentist that they like?

I hope they like it.

Unexpected Visit

I got a call a little after 10 AM today. My father was at Philadelphia International Airport on his way home!

We got together and had some lunch.

When I walked out to my car on the parking deck, I took a moment to look out at the moving traffic. The images don't do it justice but they're all I could grab with my camera.




I should have taken a shot of my Dad.

Strange Tomatoes

My wife and I went shopping and we found this:



It looked like a pretty big tomato brain. I asked my wife, "When they started selling Chernobyl Tomatoes?"

Then I realized that name probably would not sell and the store must have come to the same conclusion, so they sell them with a different name:



Someone should tell them that tomato beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Fog in the Morning

Today was one foggy day!



Man, when it's this foggy and dark in the morning, you almost want to turn tail and run home!



And I'm not even in Florida ...