I had the same question as Evan and found this article:
http://io9.com/5890789/the-trouble-with-string-theory
― anonanon, Friday, 14 March 2014 00:19 (ten years ago) link
also this xkcd posted in comments there:
http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17hipu0tf2q1spng/original.png
― anonanon, Friday, 14 March 2014 00:20 (ten years ago) link
Before I jump into that article... How did they stumble on that initial idea?
Was it really a (mostly) random conclusion they're working backwards from?
― Evan, Friday, 14 March 2014 00:24 (ten years ago) link
Saw the stream of the new episode 1. The music is the least of the problems here; at best, I want to believe that its depthless tone is an intentional choice to reach a much larger audience than Sagan did with version 1. I want to support the project, I hope it does well, I might make it through one or two more episodes, but I also want to believe that even the most CGI-saturated 8 year old would still prefer the original show, even today, I just do.
― Milton Parker, Friday, 14 March 2014 17:34 (ten years ago) link
Your probably wrong. 8 year olds would like neither.
― Jeff, Saturday, 15 March 2014 01:36 (ten years ago) link
whoever just ilxmailed me, the answer is kinda. i work in astrophysics.
― caek, Saturday, 15 March 2014 01:38 (ten years ago) link
I much prefer NDT to the simpering contemptible shit Cox, he is very likeable and doesn't make me want to kick the tv.
i am on record as having issues with cox but dear god ndt is irritating.
the crap effects didnt help him.
― treeship's assailing (darraghmac), Saturday, 22 March 2014 00:06 (ten years ago) link
I find it difficult to dislike ndt, sure he isn't for everybody but he is more of a working presenter than Cox who seems like an overindulged solipsistic little shit, gurning away at himself in a mirror for a good living.
― xelab, Saturday, 22 March 2014 01:03 (ten years ago) link
http://i62.tinypic.com/2wegmz8.gif
― StanM, Saturday, 22 March 2014 11:59 (ten years ago) link
Daughter's initial skepticism was overcome within 5 minutes so I am into this
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, 22 March 2014 16:40 (ten years ago) link
Her first comment: "why isnt he wearing a spacesuit?"
― How dare you tarnish the reputation of Turturro's yodel (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, 22 March 2014 16:41 (ten years ago) link
i thought i was watching a science show. and then he got into a space ship.
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, 22 March 2014 17:05 (ten years ago) link
it's an imagination ship
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Saturday, 22 March 2014 17:15 (ten years ago) link
right. that does make more sense because i was watching it on my imagination tube.
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, 22 March 2014 17:36 (ten years ago) link
when he called it that, this was all i could think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTn7xtVsE6U
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, 22 March 2014 17:37 (ten years ago) link
How could you not like NDT? The man is a national treasure.
― Jeff, Saturday, 22 March 2014 18:13 (ten years ago) link
call it an exchange rate issue so
― treeship's assailing (darraghmac), Saturday, 22 March 2014 18:17 (ten years ago) link
the dizzying intellectual heights of NdGT
http://storify.com/erinleeryan/monday-night-aas223
― caek, Saturday, 22 March 2014 19:40 (ten years ago) link
this is def aimed at kids right? and adults who like kids shit of course.
― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Saturday, 22 March 2014 21:26 (ten years ago) link
also that is the terriblest powerpoint by NDT altho i a gen a fan of his i guess?
― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Saturday, 22 March 2014 21:29 (ten years ago) link
it's aimed at ppl who fucking love science
― balls, Saturday, 22 March 2014 21:59 (ten years ago) link
And imagination-based spacecraft
― Porto for Pyros (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Sunday, 23 March 2014 00:54 (ten years ago) link
it's cute that you guys have so much confidence in the average adult's scientific knowledge in 2014
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Sunday, 23 March 2014 01:01 (ten years ago) link
i dont mean in terms of content! a lot of the stuff i saw in the evolution episode was like cliff notes and cool efx version of some intro college classes i remember. i mean more in presentation, it definitely seems like "what are we gonna do to hook tweens man, SPACESHIP"
― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:04 (ten years ago) link
i haven't seen it but i can't imagine there's any amount of dumbing down and spazzing up they could do to this thing that wouldn't have it blow my mind this thing is on network tv in 2014
― balls, Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:08 (ten years ago) link
however briefly
i think its def cool that its on too! i just think its target demo is older kids and their parents m/l.
― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:15 (ten years ago) link
idk i think the spaceship is cool, it's just a clever means of getting ndt and the audience from the outer reaches of space and down to the molecular level w/o it coming off dry. they could have made it way cornier; it's not like ndt is hunched over a command console saying "activate science boosters" or anything
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:32 (ten years ago) link
btw i am not a tween
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
yeah this whole endeavor is m/l Science + Wonder 101 but hats off to fox for producing it, even if it was likely just part of seth macfarlane'a contract negotiation
― Clay, Sunday, 23 March 2014 03:38 (ten years ago) link
Uh you guys know the spaceship was in the original, right?
And wasn't the spaceship actually the little flower that Carl Sagan is admiring and lets go into the wind and it flies up into outer space? Or am I making that part up?
― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, 23 March 2014 16:36 (ten years ago) link
Yeah, I was wondering if anyone complaining about the ship had remembered there was one in the original.
― Johnny Fever, Sunday, 23 March 2014 16:39 (ten years ago) link
I mimed that scene to caek last night... was kinda drunk already
― chinavision!, Sunday, 23 March 2014 16:46 (ten years ago) link
has anyone else been pronouncing it Prince-a-PEE-a for all their lives? anyone? anyone at all?
seems to be a good deal of flexibility (prin-SIP-ee-uh in the US, prin-KIP-ee-uh in the UK, prin-CHIP-ee-uh for those to kick it old school) on the "correct" pronunciation, although i'm sure people occasionally get together and demand that their own regionally accepted way of pronouncing it is the only true way
― love and light (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 26 March 2014 14:03 (ten years ago) link
wasn't the spaceship actually the little flower that Carl Sagan is admiring and lets go into the wind and it flies up into outer space? Or am I making that part up?
Sagan is holding a dandelion tuft while narrating the intro and that "becomes" the ship of the imagination, yeah
cannot believe people are complaining about it if they've decided to reuse the idea
― instant wrinkle filler (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 26 March 2014 14:11 (ten years ago) link
i hadn't the last few months of this thread until just now because i didn't get around to watching the first three episodes until last night, but anyone who is making fun of the ship of the imagination can go straight to hell
― love and light (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 26 March 2014 14:20 (ten years ago) link
High five.
― Jeff, Wednesday, 26 March 2014 14:21 (ten years ago) link
the music is a little disappointing, but i can see why they did it. it's just kind of your standard cinematic imax style, seemingly designed to be ignored. that's the modern, focus group-approved way, i suppose. but i miss the 1980 gutsy approach of trying to make a memorable theme that you can hum along to - the Cosmos song!
― love and light (Karl Malone), Wednesday, 26 March 2014 14:26 (ten years ago) link
xxxxxxxxxxp I always thought it was prin-kip-ee-uh, though I may have just got that from In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. But I don't think there's ever been a time in my life when I had to pronounce it and I doubt there ever will be.
― ruth rendell writing as (askance johnson), Wednesday, 26 March 2014 15:30 (ten years ago) link
I loved how he came out of the gate last night with a smackdown of young earth creationism. I almost heard half the nation changing the channel at the same time.
I'd never (or don't remember having) heard it put so succinctly: if the earth and the universe are only 6000-ish years old, and we have calculated the speed of light, how come we can see things that are further than 6000-ish light years away? The fact that we can means "all of creation" is at least as old as the most distant thing we can see.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 31 March 2014 16:28 (ten years ago) link
having come from a Young Earth background when I was 15, the weirdest thing is they don't merely rely on the Bible for that nonsense. Our youth group leader showed us a video of a Christian scientist (don't remember their specialty, possibly biology), who taught us the following nonsense:
*About an inch of dust collects on the moon every thousand years. Because of this, they were expecting much more dust on the moon during our first moon landing, and there wasn't much there at all!
*Organic objects get worse over time - if you leave an orange on the table for too long, it will rot and grow moldly. Evolution tells us organic objects get BETTER over time! That is obv absurd, amirite?
*The sun gets smaller every year - if the world was 6 billion years old, the sun would have been too gigantic at its genesis for other planets to survive (or something, I can't remember the exact nonsense he spouted)
Also my church's preacher claims to have disproven Evolution using a slime mold experiment. Yes, a grey-haired, Allman Brothers loving Georgia preacher did what scientists could not during a retreat in Alabama.
― Neanderthal, Monday, 31 March 2014 16:38 (ten years ago) link
I kind of admire but am also frustrated by the restraint and good taste they had in not having Patrick Stewart's animated character played up for laughs. Maybe in the James Burke Connections reboot...
― Philip Nunez, Monday, 31 March 2014 16:38 (ten years ago) link
xp I grew up in the chuch too, but I don't remember a bunch of creation vs. evolution instruction. I do remember having it grilled into me that pre-marital sex was DANGEROUS AND HORRIBLE, though.
― Johnny Fever, Monday, 31 March 2014 16:40 (ten years ago) link
there were some folk in my youth group who took that to the next level and said sex itself was 'bad' and acted as if they'd only reluctantly participate when they got married.
meanwhile the guys in the group just whacked off a lot and lied about it
― Neanderthal, Monday, 31 March 2014 16:47 (ten years ago) link
I'm quite enjoying these! They seem to be mixing in more live action stuff w the animated as the show goes on. Also the animation style in some of these really reminds me of South Park, with the 2d cutouts w paper textures. Tho that might just be the standard way to animation things these days...
― ▴▲ ▴TH3CR()$BY$H()W▴▲ ▴ (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 21:06 (ten years ago) link
the second episode on evolution was flat out wonderful, and brought me around the focus of the new series. My patience is still tried by the animated historical segments, but that's nothing. Looking forward to every episode now.
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 1 April 2014 21:25 (ten years ago) link
http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2014/03/25/3418425/creationism-is-getting-a-lot-of-time-on-cosmos/
its the best animation seth mcfarlane has ever produced
― °ㅇ๐ْ ° (gr8080), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 21:26 (ten years ago) link
how come we can see things that are further than 6000-ish light years away?
We can't, we've just been fooled into thinking we can. That's the standard response, right?
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 1 April 2014 21:29 (ten years ago) link
I think it will be the Blues For a Red Planet episode next week, so I can't wait for that one.
― xelab, Tuesday, 1 April 2014 21:30 (ten years ago) link