Dominic wrote:Toys are a wholly discretionary item that can be lived without. People need to be convinced that they want them. I am not going to credit a store with being magical because they sell toys. I went to Boston's FAO more than once. Yeah, their big bronze teddy bear was a land mark. But, aside from a madness inducing song ('welcome to our world of toys..." emanating from a disturbing sun looking clock), they were like any other toy store...but with higher prices.
Sounds like the issue is about your outlook.
Advertising and marketing consist of more than just paid commercial spots and the like. It is about cultivating an image and a brand. FAO did a good job of presenting themselves as a high-end toy shoppe of the sort kids imagined and heard about in the halcyon days of cities, where even urban squallor had a patina of glamour.
FAO did not pay for ad spots. But, they certainly had a brand and an image. But, utlimately, they were a toy store, in the business of selling toys for money.
And you're assuming that's what they did, not that people covered the brand through entertainment because of their appreciation of the store. Again, this is about your outlook, you see what you want to see - you want to see an ugliness and assume the worst in the matter with next to no proof of it, then chalk it up to your so-called "experience" which in this case is the same as any other layperson.
In the most idealistic, food or medicine or shelter are exchanged for money so that the people who provide food and medicine can procure shelter or other necessary goods. Those are social and communal products. But, wholly consumer goods, such as toys are a different story.
So just avoid my point about archeological finds, huh? That kids will have toys no matter if they're bought, made, or handed down which elevates them above a mere consumer good to a necessity of the childhood experience dating back thousands of years?
You really are coming off like someone with their head up their ass right now, just arguing for the sake of being an internet troll. Guess what? FAO never advertised in Southern California.
I am pointing out that, aside form the economic damage and job loss caused by *any* company going under, the end of FAO was not a great tragedy. Frankly, given their practice of over-pricing everything, it is hard for me to be upset about them going under. (Objectively, I have not problem with a free market. They had the right to price toys as they saw fit. But, it irked me to see it dressed up as anything other than exercising free market rights.)
It's a jaded response that takes all the humanity out of the company, boiling it down to mere economic transactions, but there are more things to life than just balance sheets.
What cost is too great for Sisko once he sanctions the killing of others for his side's betterment? It's not un-Trek-ish to set up scenarios where the good guys have to make tough moral choices, it's un-Trek-ish to have them give in to the weaknesses of amorality as the answer.
It was not a question of weakness. It was a question of necessity. Sisko consistently tried to look out for the Federation and others he was responsible to. Part of DS9 was to take Federation officers out of paradise. Sisko did not have the resources of the Federation at his disposal. But, he still had a job to do.
It absolutely is a weakness. It compromises the ethical and moral centers of their society, and this claim of it being a necessity is only based on your limited experience in today's world - that we must kill and manipulate and lie to ensure peace, even though those actions often lead to heavy repercussions down the road. DS9 "taking the federation out of paradise" into a war is not a Trek answer, it's a now answer and a TV one at that.
Advertising and commerce pay the bills.
Not really, advertising is a fairly new concept in our society and already one that is crumbling - the reason for bigger and more expensive ads every year is because the impact of advertising is withering as it grows too large. Advertising is a helpful tool for commerce, but it is not necessarily one in the same. Commerce in the western world got along fine before the 20th century's push to make advertising ubiquitous.
Advertisers could support better shows if the system targeted specific audiences better, but instead they play the big bureaucracy game
Fair point. But, target ads are also particularly intrusive when done wrong.
"When done wrong" is true of any advertising.
-interesting that we touch on the human condition in a "Star Trek" thread.
That's the point of Trek, to explore the human condition.
Sparky Prime wrote:We'll have to not see eye to eye on that, I found Voyager fairly insipid and not at all a good show, beyond production values; it LOOKED like Trek, but the writing was pretty bad and the directing was generally poor, leading to stilted acting.
How much of Voyager did you watch?
Every second of it, all during its original run. And I was even taping it for a friend who lived in Vegas and didn't have UPN there, so many episodes I had to watch twice to make sure they were taped properly. I also followed it in the Star Trek Communicator and online, I remember when the writers were still deciding whether or not to give The Doctor a name and they had chosen Dr Zimmerman, and then backed out at the last second. I remember during season 2 or 3 there was an article that said they were thinking of having the ship come back to Earth during the later seasons but not the last season, and have Voyager deal with the changes from the Dominion War - I wanted to see how 7 of 9 would deal with the return to Earth but the showrunners ultimately went a different way and entirely robbed us of that sort of payoff.
He might be content with it, but I would say he's still dour about it. There's no real cheer in his voice as he says they're throwing the Romulans a 'welcome to the war party'. He sounds sarcastic as he says it, faking the enthusiasm for it. He's happy for the support the Romulans give them in the war, but he's still pissed at how they got it.
Aw, Sisko's always dour about everything, that doesn't count. Listen to him at the end as his mood changes when he is wrapping up the log entry, the shadow over him parts and he definitely cheers up IMO.
The episode is "Deadlock", not "Dreadlock".
It's a typo, deal with it.
It's a typo once, but every single instance you've referred to it in this thread has been the same, so I wasn't sure if you knew or not.
With #3, duplicate or not, they still possessed the memories and personalities of the real crew, to the point they were indistinguishable. And it was Janeway's decision they should keep headed toward Earth, even after they'd realized they weren't the real crew. Chakotay spent a great deal of time arguing with her on that decision. So yes, it is her fault Voyager was destroyed in that episode. If they'd turned around sooner, maybe they could have returned to the Demon planet before they all died. Or found the real Voyager sooner to get their help.
Except nothing happened to the real Voyager, they were just photocopies that disintegrated - the damage was already done by their weird warp drive, going back might not have solved anything. I remember it as FauxJaneway trying to get the warp drive design to the real Voyager though, not to get to Earth.
And #5, Braxton blamed Janeway for ruining his life. Not exactly something she could control, but it's still a consequence of some of her decisions.
Braxton was the actual cause of his life's troubles, taking sweeping action against Voyager for something that his own rash actions ultimately were the source of. Had Braxton done a better job investigating the original cause of the destruction of Earth in the 29th century, he wouldn't have tried to destroy Voyager which wouldn't have caused their retaliation which ultimately led to Henry Starling getting ahold of Braxton's ship and trying to use it which was the true cause of Earth's destruction. He wouldn't have spent decades in the 20th century and suffered mental breakdowns. So it's not a consequence of Janeway's decisions but of Braxton's psychotic inability to take responsibility for his own decisions.
Shockwave wrote:Because not everyone has a main tv capable of that. The one I have in the living room is really big, really old and the words "HDMI" and "USB" weren't even invented when it was built.
But RCA was, and there are HDMI to RCA cables, and if the computer doesn't have an HDMI-out video card, there's S-video to RCA and DVI to RCA as well.
Onslaught Six wrote:I don't have a desktop. I only have a cruddy Vaio laptop that's like six years old or something at this point, and doesn't have HDMI out. Plus, my TV is an old archaic piece of shit and only has coax in--I have to use an RF converter just to use the 360. (I'm looking into buying a new TV in the winter.) So that's not a realistic solution at all.
How old is your TV that it doesn't have RCA-in? That's a port that's been around longer than you've been alive, dude!
I was able to hook my now-6-year-old Compaq laptop via its video Serial port into my old tube TV, and the cable had a standard 3.5mm jack for audio as well, but that TV had more than just coax.
Plus, then I can't use my TV and laptop at the same time--I'm using two devices to do the job that one could do. (You could argue that if I'm watching a show with the 360, then I can't play any games on it, but there's only two people who live here and if we're watching a show, it's usually together. Besides, if I wanted to watch a show and she wanted to play the 360, or vice versa, you could just use the laptop to do so. The only reason we even use the 360 to pump it to the TV is because it's easier for both of us to watch it then.)
Yeah yeah, ok, I see your point. Get better equipment!
I wish I could get past my hate of the Kardashians.
Wah wah! Still, Kim Kardashian is hot as hell.
Shockwave wrote:Anyway, I've continued my DS9 watching and was surprised to see that "The Search" was so early in Season 3. I really thought that came later. I also found it interesting that there were mentions of the dominion from as early as Season 1, so it seems like they may have been planning the whole thing from the start. It does kind of make me wonder though: Sisko's mission in being assigned to DS9 was to get Bajor to join the Federation. I can't help wondering if he ever succeeded. I do recall seeing several of the last episodes with Kira in a Starfleet Uniform but I didn't ever see what lead to that and I'm wondering if that was it. Guess I'll find out.
Yeah, they did have it in mind very early. Another one like that is the disappearance of the Romulan and Federation starbases at the end of season 1 in TNG that was supposed to be the Borg before Q Who.
