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@XFilesMuseum
We are making room for new inventory so we need to clear out the old.   This is your chance to enjoy a 10% discount on all orders over $15.00  in store and online.  Sale ends 8/1/23

https://twitter.com/XFilesMuseum/status … 8177184773

Some pretty cool items:
https://xfilespreservationcollection.co … hop?page=2

is Jerry O'Connell noticably good and funny in lower decks?

His wife Rebecca is decent in the limited SNW I've seen although I guess doesn't offer anything extraordinary.  What do you guys think about her in that series?

X Files had a 30th anniversary event in Saratoga Springs, New York, home of the X-Files Preservation Collection / Musuem.   They have another planned July 5-7 in 2024.

Looks like this year's was a success despite the location being somewhat out of the way:
https://twitter.com/William_B_Davis/sta … 1607228416

Coverage:
https://twitter.com/XFilesMuseum

https://www.saratogian.com/2023/07/08/t … f-x-files/

good lord!

doah!   is it possible you might have scratched your eye in your sleep or something?  I've heard of athletes with this injury if someone swipes at the ball and accidently scratches them across the eye.

if you're looking and feeling 23 though, i'd say you are doing pretty good health wise overall!

This is an interesting article....  that  I don't yet understand

https://www.parrotanalytics.com/strateg … -pos-cons/

TV can be a heck of escape.

unfortunately, DoC is not even available on archive anymore

keep getting  error code 500.

update: archiveorg search isnt working either so probbaly a general website issue

Babylon5 just announced it was coming to blu ray

very sorry to hear about your mother's pain.  i know she has been through a lot already and you've had to deal with a lot yourself to help her navigate the issues.

UGH.  Oh I am so sorry.  What terrible news.

Good summation of the state of ai and its uses. 

Not sure how much it will change but most of my comments have been pertaining to fan projects and so I think the standards are different in terms of what is valuable and what is less so.

But agree with your assessment on the landscape.

With regard to the writers strike.  Unified labor is important. Management is always happy to f*ck over labor by exercising its leverage.  A labor force that collectively bargains to do the same is how results happen. 

Hopefully the wga is willing to go a long long time on the strike to get what they need with these issues but I am worried about the pressure of personal runway vs the significant libraries the studios have already developed.   Studios have a significant fall back.  And consumers are not necessarily craving new content when there is an abundance of programming (a million things we all haven't watched or have yet to revisit) not to mention content is being generated outside of the studio system / entertainment industry.  Like tiktok, YouTube. Media in general (e.g. news and takes on it). It's also a form of storytelling.

So I am not sure if the wga can bleed studios dry no matter how long it goes.  Even if they could hold out for two yrs, the studios may never hit a point where they are willing to give on specific issues that they see as core to the future of their business.

So I wonder to what degree even with the tremendous unification of the wga,  whether it will be a deal they ultimately reluctantly accept or conversely be happy with.

That's an older show that stopped and I think the links to the shows expired.  He was a guest on their several times and is buddies with the host Don Ecker.  Don now does a YouTube ufo show tracy was a guest on at least a couple of timds.  Of course his internet problems basically caused issues to the point where his appearances declined.  But I an pretty sure across all of the shows on both platforms his sliders remarks (including revival discussions) have been discussed on here.  On the dark matters show he did talk quite a bit about his work and the fallout with his collaborator on the ufo doc The Phenomenon which turned out to be a hit for documentary standard (and is also streaming on demand for free for Travel Channel subscribers and is also free at the moment on YouTube or tubi (can't remember which).

I've heard him in his other appearances.... if you are referring to news on a revival, there haven't been any movements (everything has already been shared in past tracy interviews on other shows). 

I  think Cleavant probably recognizes the reality of the situation from how he handled the question.  Tracy is realistic but surprisingly, I don't think he feels like the door is completely shut (even with the lack of further network discussions).  I guess that's the positive attitude we'd want.

Tracy has mentioned a bunch of projects he has been considering developing though (outside of sliders).  Travis Walton wants them to re-do Fire in the Sky and tracy has considered it.  Tracy has considered other ufo-related projects.  He mentioned also some time travel project that came to him (sounded like some offer).  I don't get the sense he is actively writing now but seems to be mulling going back to doing more writing now that his health is a bit better (i suppose he has more energy on a day to day basis).

He also was involved in something I believe called Project Titan, which was a movement to get the United Nations to get involved in the ufo issue.  Here is a summary of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md89jyOXG-Y

I thought it was important to share this interview as I don't think we have ever seen tracy and cleavant together.  After 28 years, this is historic.  Cleavant's energy as a person comes through.  No wonder he was always the heartbeat of the series.  Tracy's story about john and the stunts was hilarious.  Tracy told it was well.

You can see why the formula of Tracy, Weiss, and our four main characters worked.  If tracy had been able to do more black comedy, the series would have even proven to be *more* ahead of its time than it already was.

Series like Black Mirror would later do some of this. 

Say what you want about tracy but he is always interesting and its reflected in his work.

He'd never be a studio boss but I think if he was allowed to do more of his vision, he would find plenty of an audience for it.

Cleavant -- the man is magical.  It is too bad to hear about his brother.  It sounds like a rough thing for them to have to go through.  I am not sure how many brothers he has but I assumed it was his twin.

Also intesting that star trek prodigy was originally meant for nickolean, as someone commented in the thread.

Agree with their insinuation that network was a much better way to pull in new fans than paramount plus.

Imagine if Tracy could do season 1 style sliders, over and over again, without network pushing him out.  It may never have gotten the tv ratings to support the requirements fox needed but it would have been looked back on as one of the greatest genre (and multi-genre) series put together.  People would have appreciated it over time, and it would have had a pretty extended shelf life (e.g. 2000-2013 in syndication).

I totally understand FOX's decisions, I just feel like we were robbed of tracy's creativity on an extended run.

Interesting.

I have followed a bit on that new movie and think it's great Babylon 5 was supported by a studio in that way.

feels like the right will unite behind him and it will just help him politically.  people waved on him after the jan 6 mess but feels like they will come home now, if only to stand against what they don't like.

Today I saw a sample of a new Adobe Photoshop feature that filled out a photo to make it wider.   It improvised the information on the left and right and was scary good.

Pretty certain 4:3 video content could be turned into 16:9 in the coming decades though I am not sure there will ever be enough of a commercial market for it to be developed or be available to consumers to utilize independently.

On gaming... I've used chagpt to play text based games around sliders.  Like the old 80s games. 

It's fun and cool but ultimately after five or six times kinda loses its novelty because the games do lack originality and actually don't last long before it tells you that's it, you've won.

Agree tho it seems like it is a great use case though for aso.

I more think about it in Ready Player One / metaverse terms.

I wasn't sure if I had the Arturo death conv. right... my memory is always hazy with details of the show like that... so I knew I was entering dangerous waters by giving that example lol.

It obviously can wax poetic on quite broad concepts, and associate questions to those concepts.  Then it can draw on incredibly well articulated philosophical writing from genius humans on those concepts and stitch together a coherent, deductive response.

When it had less to draw from it's weakness gets exposed.

The future of how people engage with characters like this may be as a friend and/or mentor or even companion, or it may relate to just the in-universe storytelling. 

Like, "Arturo, tell me how you felt when you revealed to Quinn you had terminal illness. Did you prepare much before telling him.  How long did you think about it?"

@ireactions

Right so the next step would be if one were entirely focused on something like this is creating a custom AI model, which the api allows for.  The it would be feeding a lot to base it on.  And even then it's a little more complex.  Sometimes results are better with a training data set that is smaller vs. everything you can feed into it.  If one were trying to optimize the algorithm or just to reach some minimum threshold of quality.  But i guess it's clear that just off of what's been indexed by the default model, you've established it's just not enough to represent all the different dimensions of arturo.

I actually never watched House but feel it's lead character is somehow spiritually connected to arturuo.

Whohooo!!

@quinnslidr  that's great!!

I  did a bit of googling yesterday briefly and noticed how high the imdb rating was and the stills I saw of the show is very close to the 60s version.

It seems like a great project.   And not a bad comparison for the purposes of this dicussion, though not a 1-to-1 either.  There's a kirk like character... but nobody would ever think that's specfically Kirk.  Same for other cast.  Although I can totally how some fans may feel like it's well done enough to take as cannon.  Even if it's not official cannon, the fact that it is cannon to you actually goes back to the spirit of what I was asking.   If it's cannon to you, and you can enjoy it as such, then that's a yay.  It doesnt have to be cannon to all fans but if some can enjoy it as such, well then, I think that is an interesting opportunity for what AI can give those fans.

I think for me, when I think of the franchises I love... Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Sliders....  well, I would never regard any AI stuff as bttf cannon.  I could totally embrace a metaverse/vr world version of Blade Runner where you can interact with the characters as in-universe, real stuff.  VR implementation of this tech will inevitably come in decades.  That is the future of entertainment, to be able to step into the world.  That said, AI generated fan stories in 2d format for Blade Runner I wouldnt regard as cannon unless expectionally well done and feeling rather true.   The bar would be super high.

Now Sliders, since it's dead, and it's not back to the future, and it feels like property that has a never ending amount of stories and travels - anthological -- stuff that doesn't contradict or get in the way of any official cannon, well, I could accept potentially stories about worlds and the adventures our gang has taken them as cannon, under the right circumstances. I wouldnt ever accept content relating to origin stories as cannon because that  feels like something which should come from the creator.  If we are talking earth prime cannon.   Now if there was audio dramas or realistic video content of a story of the week on a world, and it was well done, and it captured the  original tone and voice of the creator?  I think I could probably embrace it as in-universe.  If the production quality felt polished and not like a fan effort, and if the tech allows for that.

The bigger opportunity may be though to take scripts that were never done, story ideas, from the creator and making it come alive.  That would feel cannon.   

Many months ago, and even last year, I think i've referenced the possibilities for the future with Sliders with regard to technology, and what it may allow.  But I never thought it was just around the corner.  Now I am seeing stories every day that make it clear, lord this stuff is close, or is certain to be a reality.  Another industry that this is relevant is the music industry.  You have Tupac rapping songs originally song by Eminem or Nas.   For fans in that space, they are torn because on one hand, some of the stuff sounds really good.  Some of them love it, and an opportunity to enjoy the artist in a different way.  And for some, it feels wrong.   Nobody will likely feel the same about this stuff.  And I am sure the same person can feel both ways. 

It will be an interesting time, and I think eventually we will see the tools to at least start being more "makers" in the Sliders universe with experiences that are more visceral than the written word.  In my opinion, that is exciting because when you put all your hope into a studio to make new material, and the corporate powers aren't gonna care that much about a niche-type property, it empowers us in a way and makes us less dependant on them.

I am not so sure that studios will ever get away with using an actors likeness or voice to create content for the market wifhout remuneration.  They may be able to get away with generating animated versions but then the studios will still have to use their voice. 

On the writing side, or even generated image side, it's all taking advantage of indexed web content.  Unfortunately we have seen copyright work plagiarized time and again well before AI and tech companies got away with it for years.  Australia put in laws so publishers would gave to get paid by search engines and social networks but that hasn't stopped the aggregation industry and it's still a huge problem writers in the journalism industry have had to combat for a couple of decades now.  It was wrong then and again tech companies leveraging creators work and not compensating is wrong now.  I believe Canada is have a back and forth with Facebook on this now?

I think when it comes to ai and the tools that become available to fans...  well fans will be able to generate story and then make content based on video and audio trained from the original shows and movies.

Studios in some cases may try to create the platforms for fans to create this content so they can then monetize engagement on what fans create.  There also will be tools available to people to use outside these official platforms. In some cases a studio may support creation for a number of their franchises they care about and then see others as too niche... And for those titles independent tools will be the only route and those works wouldn't have much reach or likely be monetized.

The question is, if we do have the ability to create realistic looking or sounding content, is that taking things a step too far. Is there something not okay about being able to do something that at the very least blurs the line between the legacy official content and the stuff fans may come out with because even if the stories aren't as good, if the production value feels comparable or looks like the original, it almost dilutes the franchise? And then secondly, if you get stories that are of high quality and do really feel like where the story should have gone, could you ever embrace such a work in your own head as cannon?   Or could anything created like that regardless of it's quality never be cannon in your head if it was unoffficial?  I think this second question matters quite a bit, because the reason official content is so enjoyable is that even though we know the storytelling is fictional, we play along and pretend as if it were real.  If we never can believe this new sort of content can be real (or cannon) then I think it doesn't come close to continuing the universe and character arcs the way official productions do and will never serve as a replacement.  Which can leave a franchise at a continued standstill if a studio never decides to continue the story themselves.

It's been very interesting to see the speed at which ai has developed as it relates to creative applications.

Already the tech exists to have speech (and even singing) be replicated for any voice there is sufficient training data for.

And Tom Hanks recently commented on starring in movies after he is gone.   Bruce Willis, with his tragic medical condition, has reportedly already agreed for his likeness to be licensed for future entertainment content.

There is currently a strike in Hollywood, and the wga is trying to limit the use of A.I.   Studios understand it may expand the industry... It's just that writers may not be the beneficiary.  Of course it's possible actors could or could not get hit hardest if fictional characters are generated by AI rather than even based on an actor who has previously initiated a role.

Open source AI is getting better and better.  Google is concerned it is approaching the quality they've been able to generate.

Undoubtedly fans will be able to use these tools to create in universe content for a property they enjoy.   Not just studios.

I am wonder how sliders fans feel about this new frontier.  In five to 10 years it's very possible we will be able to create content in a visual or audio format that is not like anything we would have ever guessed be possible a year or two ago.   Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

good god, the amount of improvement! 

i'm really floored by the change.

edit: updated for correct link