1

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

George Conway is a Trump-voter and a Republican (so, highly untrustworthy) who expressed remorse for voting Trump in 2016 and has dedicated his life to calling out Trump's lies and crimes since 2018 (so, interesting to listen to, but be cautious). Conway takes the view that New York State made a good deal in making sure to get at least $175 million out of Trump (if Trump can pay it).

George Conway wrote:

If I were the NYAG’s office, I’m not sure I wouldn’t be pleased with the Appellate Division’s order cutting back Trump’s bond to $175 million.  The reason is that if Trump can actually bond that much of the judgment, then the State of New York is guaranteed the ability to collect at least that much if it wins the appeal—without having to send lawyers around the country chasing Trump’s assets down, which would be a time-consuming, costly, and difficult process.

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trumps- … ay-1883315

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcrWc0cJho0

Yeah, when typing up Wade's, I looked up the LinkedIn page for Robin Torme and I was astonished and impressed by the many, many things she's been in her life: an animal welfare activist and rescuer, anti-human trafficking advocate, a journalist, a private detective, a championship surfer, a swimsuit model, an undercover investigator. I have this suspicion that Robin is a former espionage agent who retired from active duty to focus on animal rescue.

I will finish Rembrandt's eulogy this weekend!

3

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Letitia James has a busy Monday ahead of her, starting with identifying Trump's bank accounts.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/2 … e-00148587

4

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Trump's Truth Social money isn't going to help him out of his well-deserved legal consequences.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/22/cashes … on-penalty

Could he wriggle out of his staggering financial penalties? He has before. But past performance is not always an indicator of present and future results.

5

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

The State of New York is preparing to seize Donald Trump's assets on Monday.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-legal- … 56935.html

I've been watching HD versions of EVERWOOD and the original FRASIER series. It looks like 16mm film because the image is so grainy.

It looks very authentic and textured. Some people may not like the aged look, but anyone can turn on the denoise filter on their TV if they want a cleaner picture. Of course, I'm sure the heavy grain levels is because the studio or distributor couldn't be bothered to reprocess the image beyond reassembling the film and getting the audio and colour correction back in place.

Some HD releases of shows like CHARMED had a very selective approach of noise reduction, applying different levels of noise filtration for closeups, medium and wide shots, and allowing a very light level of grain in the final image. And that's really nice, but I think it would be fine to skip that for these older titles.

Well, that's just speculation. QL2.0's renewal will be dependent on NBC's schedule and if they have pilots they think might do better than QL2.0.

Erin Underhill, President, Universal TV:

The way that they wrapped that up is it could be a satisfying ending but they also could continue on so I think we’re going to be waiting to hear feedback from NBC as we approach the May upfront as to what the status is. Like always, I think it’s going to depend on their development and how they’re feeling about the pilots that come in and where Quantum would potentially go on the schedule. But I think everyone has a lot of support for that show and big fan base in terms of that being a major library title for us. So we’re optimistic but we won’t know anything with certainty until I think probably April.
https://deadline.com/2024/02/universal- … 235838979/

But will it merge and reweave the mismatched field-frames? :-D

9

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor wrote:

Reagan was an ACTOR!  Not a particularly good one, but he was known as the "Great Communicator" for a reason.

Reagan was an excellent performer and all a great wit who could come up with hilarious turns of phrase and absurd observations and remarks off the cuff.

And as actors go, Reagan successfully convinced a generation of Americans that he was a warm, affable, earnest, loving friend to all Americans as opposed to a ruthless, racist plutocrat whose political career consisted of union busting, deregulation, hacking apart social safety nets, eviscerating student loans, and pushed Americans from needing one income to two to have a home and eventually led to a society where one could work full time and still not be able to pay for housing and food and health care.

But I'll never question Reagan's gift for rhetoric and extemporaneous speaking. Joe Biden, at least these days, often needs a speechwriter. For example, recently at the Gridiron dinner, he delivered some great (but scripted) zingers.

Joe Biden: It’s great to be here at the Gridiron dinner, though it’s six hours past my bedtime.

... it was tough to see Mitch McConnell announce he’s stepping down as GOP leader. I hate to see a friend give up in his prime.

I’ll keep my remarks just a few minutes less than my State of the Union. I crushed it. Granted, your expectations were so low, I just had to show up and remember who the president is.

Kamala and I and the members of the administration here tonight are proud — proud of our accomplishments on behalf of the American people: record job growth, wages rising, rigging the Super Bowl for Taylor Swift.

We know not everyone is feeling the progress we’re making. We’re committed to helping the little guy. Ron DeSantis, though, won’t take our calls.

Our big plan to cancel student debt doesn’t apply to everyone. Just yesterday, a defeated-looking man came up to me and said, “I’m being crushed by debt. I’m completely wiped out.” I said, “Sorry, Donald, I can’t help you.”

A strong union can make a corporation quiver, at least that’s what Jeff Bezos has been telling me at dinner.

I heard House Republicans were going to do a skit tonight, but they couldn’t get a speaker.

Republicans would rather fail at impeachment than succeed at anything else.

Of course, the big news this week is two candidates clinched their parties’ nomination for president. One candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other is me.

Look, I’m running against the same guy that I beat in 2020. But don’t tell him. He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama.

And another big difference between us: I know what I value most. I’m Jill Biden’s husband, and I know her name.

In the coming months, Kamala and I will be making the case how Americans are better off than four years ago, how we got so much through the pandemic, turned around the economy, reestablished America’s leadership in the world. All without encouraging the American people to inject bleach. All without destroying the economy, embarrassing us around the world, or — or itching for insurrection.

Look, I wish these were jokes, but they’re not.

As I said in my State of the Union Address, we live in an unprecedented moment in democracy, an unpre- — and an unprecedented moment for history. Democracy and freedom are literally under attack.

10

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

Trump continues to lead in a lot of the polling, but a ton of his support evaporates if he's convicted of a crime.  Whether a conviction can even happen in any of these cases before November is very much still in the air, but that's huge.  Even if something happens in the hush money case, I think it could be one of those situations where it could hurt him with average Americans who don't have the time or interest to follow this stuff day to day.  Right now, people might be siding with Trump based on "gut feeling" that things were good pre-Covid (so Trump) and bad post-Covid (so Biden).  But if that can be wrangled into "Trump is a criminal" that's pretty big.

Given how Democrats and fundraising keep outperforming the polls, I think we can safely say the polls are off. But how off?

I cannot pretend to understand the average American voter beyond speculative armchair psychoanalysis. But wouldn't most Trump supporters be aware that Trump is a criminal and vote because they think his criminality is in their favour? Why would a conviction shake their conviction that another Trump presidency is to their benefit?

A former member of this community clearly supported Trump because Trump validated his belief that Caucasian men should always reign supreme. A criminal conviction isn't going to change his mind.

A number of Trump voters chose Trump as a protest vote. They voted Trump to express frustration at how Democrats had failed to alleviate their poverty. They voted Trump to sabotage a system of politics and government that had failed to be there for them. A Trump conviction isn't going to change their desperation and anger. A Biden presidency has not helped enough of them out of poverty or brought enough of them the health care they need.

What could anyone possibly say to them?

Barack Obama:

I understand why many Americans are down on government. The way the rules have been set up and abused in Congress make it easy for special interests to stop progress. Believe me, I know.

I understand why a white factory worker who’s seen his wages cut or his job shipped overseas might feel like the government no longer looks out for him, and why a Black mother might feel like it never looked out for her at all.

I understand why a new immigrant might look around this country and wonder whether there’s still a place for him here; why a young person might look at politics right now, the circus of it all, the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories and think, what’s the point?

Well, here’s the point:

... those who benefit from keeping things the way they are – they are counting on your cynicism.

They know they can’t win you over with their policies. So they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter.

That’s how they win.

That’s how they get to keep making decisions that affect your life, and the lives of the people you love. That’s how the economy will keep getting skewed to the wealthy and well-connected, how our health systems will let more people fall through the cracks. That’s how a democracy withers, until it’s no democracy at all.

We can’t let that happen. Do not let them take away your power.

Don’t let them take away your democracy.

Barack Obama:
Whatever our backgrounds, we’re all the children of Americans who fought the good fight.

Great grandparents working in firetraps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust. Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told to go back where they came from.

Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshipped. Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged. Spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters.

Beaten for trying to vote.

If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work, and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors.

They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth. And yet, instead of giving up, they joined together and said: "Somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words, in our founding documents, to life."

Barack Obama: Democracy was never meant to be transactional. "You give me your vote; I make everything better."

It requires an active and informed citizenry. So I am also asking you to believe in your own ability – to embrace your own responsibility as citizens – to make sure that the basic tenets of our democracy endure.

I cannot stress enough that the politics of ireactions and Barack Obama are not the consensus politics of Sliders.tv.

11

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I admire nothing about Reagan. Except his wit.

Ronald Reagan:

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.

Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it's in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.

It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?

Status quo, you know, is Latin for 'the mess we're in'.

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last, but eat you he will.

Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.

I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

The taxpayer - that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They're just braver five minutes longer.

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it.

And despite my opposition to Reagan, I would have loved for him to write an episode of SLIDERS.

12

(151 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Of course Temporal Flux knew that The Spinning Topps were based on The Four Tops. :-) And TF's theory on HOF that The Four Tops on Earth Prime had their place in history occupied by The Spinning Topps is intriguing and challenging because Rembrandt is too young for The Four Tops' history to apply to him without significant revision.

The Four Tops formed in 1953 and had the bulk of their career from 1953 to 1988, with their stardom achieved in 1965 ("I Can't Help Myself"), only to have lesser success by 1967 after the departure of songwriter/producer Holland–Dozier–Holland from Motown, but they had a resurgence in 1972 during a period with ABC-Dunhill Records, and continued to have hits from 1972 to 1977 and then 1981, 1983, 1985 and 1988. Their mark on music and culture was indelible and eternal.

But Rembrandt, according to the Season 4 Online Slide, was born in 1955. "Into the Mystic" says his last performance with the Topps was in 1986, "As Time Goes By" says he was 17 when he was singing with "The Shandells" and referred to as "Little Rembrandt", which would be 1972 or 1973.

Did The Spinning Topps, at some period between 1972 - 1986, achieve everything that The Four Tops did between 1953 and 1988?

This may or may not be the cause of the error that Temporal Flux notes in his Online Slide comments on HOF: The Online Slide says that "Can't Help Myself" was written by The Temptations, a 1960s-originating group. TF points out that song was actually written by The Four Tops, whose place in Earth Prime is presumably occupied by The Spinning Topps.

But The Spinning Topps, given Rembrandt's birth year in 1955, could not have written a 1965 hit song as Rembrandt would have been 10 years old and he's never been presented as that much of a prodigy.

One theory to which I'm partial but which doesn't work for the timeline is that The Spinning Topps achieved equivalent achievements to what the Four Tops did between 1986 to 1994 -- after Rembrandt had left them.

But it's unlikely that The Four Tops' 60s - 70s hits would have had the same impact in the late 80s and early 90s. It makes more sense to put achievements similar to The Four Tops into the late 70s for The Spinning Topps and put them between the late 70s to 1986.

I have been working on writing Rembrandt's eulogy for Tracy Torme. While the Professor, Quinn and Wade had a very metatextual perspective on honouring their creator, Rembrandt's eulogy is instead going to be a story about how he met Tracy Torme in the early 1980s, and how a twentysomething Tracy inspired Rembrandt to do something new with his talents, and how Tracy Torme changed Rembrandt's life forever and created a bond of friendship between them for which Rembrandt has always been grateful.

I know nothing about music, so I have been doing a lot of research and reading to better understand Rembrandt's life: he was born in 1955, according to the Season 4 Online Slide. But where was he born? What was his first encounter with music that made him embrace James Brown soul and R&B but also Beethoven, Mozart and Tchaikovsky and the other classical greats? What was his inspiration to drop out of high school and join the band The Shandells as under the diminutive stagename of "Little Rembrandt"?

How did the Topps first meet and form? What were their first successes? And why did Rembrandt leave them?

Searching for similar figures in real life history is where I learned what most people probably knew already, that The Spinning Topps are a reference to The Four Tops.

Being able to use the real life history of The Four Tops and Levi Stubbs has been both help and hinderance because The Four Tops started decades before The Spinning Topps could have even met. But it also shows how music is such an integral part of Rembrandt Brown, Cleavant Derricks and Tracy Torme, and how much Tracy Torme loved music and Rembrandt to attach Rembrandt to musical history in this way.

13

(151 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I always thought Charlie was the one mocked for the "injured duck" run. I don't remember Jerry having it. I do remember fans noting that Charlie's body double in "The Unstuck Man" mimicked Charlie's run perfectly.

**

Did you know that the Spinning Topps were based on a real life band called The Four Tops? I did not, but maybe you all did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Tops

14

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

District attorney Fani Willis will stay on the Trump case so long as she cuts all ties with Nathan Wade.
https://www.salon.com/2024/03/15/georgi … ultimatum/

I'd take that deal if I were her.

Was it wrong for Fani Willis to date Nathan Wade? Not legally, the state of Georgia allows lawyers on opposing sides of the same case to be married, so lawyers dating on the same side of the same case should also be fine. But it was foolish and unprofessional because the optics make the lawyers extremely vulnerable to nuisance motions like what Trump's lawyers have unleashed. Trump's lawyers have capably engineered a whole crisis scandal over this, and the simplest solution is to send Nathan Wade out of public law and back to the lucrative world of private legal practice.

15

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor, I don't mean this to be a rebuke, but when first reported, a handful of Robert Hur quotes had you declaring that Joe Biden should quit and give up, so clearly, Robert Hur's words instantly convinced you:

Grizzlor wrote:

It's over.  Biden has to step aside.  The special counsel describes him as effectively an old geezer who soon will forget his own name.  I do not know what other RED flag is needed at this point???

It's rather disingenous to denigrate others for having the precise reaction you yourself had to short extracts from Hur's report. You yourself declared that Hur's comments about Biden's memory were critical and relevant to the case.

Grizzlor wrote:

The special counsel had every "business" evaluating Biden's mental state.  It's what every prosecutor in the country does as part of any pre-trial preparation.

But even a cursory review of Hur's report shows they were neither critical nor relevant, and the transcript shows that Biden is clearly not having memory issues and Hur lied.

Again, this isn't a rebuke. Hur targeted you (and the general public) with his report and he is a highly calculating, manipulative personality who knows exactly how to provoke someone into thinking what he wants them to think. He tricked you. He fooled you with his faux-rationality and air of reason. He does that professionally and has made a lot of money and friends that way, so there's no shame in falling for it.

That's why he's a successful lawyer and why Trump appointed him as the US Attorney for Maryland. And, like all Trump appointees, he uses his power to attack his party's political enemies while elevating his political allies. That's the personality profile of the people Trump appoints. They're all Logan St. Clairs and Colonel Rickmans.

But to me, chastising you for taking extracts from the Hur report as fact would be like me saying Biden should have known better than to appoint Merrick Garland. Garland seemed like a great choice in 2021. Merrick Garland tricked me too. He fooled me with his grave demeanor and solemnity.

From my perspective, Merrick Garland is absolutely the problem from Hur to the Jack Smith case. Garland took two and a half years to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Trump's crimes. A competent attorney general would have had Trump's cases in trial by 2022 at the latest. Garland was astonishingly slow in assigning Jack Smith to the job, and Judge Aileen Cannon is clearly determined to stall the case.

Garland also selected Robert Hur to investigate Biden despite Hur being an obvious partisan hack appointed by Trump himself; Garland made no effort to see Hur's report confined to the facts and avoid irrelevant editorializing.

16

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Well, Democrats did not select Robert Hur as the special counsel. The US Attorney General selected Hur, and the US Attorney General is neither a Democratic nor Republican office of government. The attorney general is the people's lawyer, not the incumbent's lawyer. Except... they often have been the incumbent's lawyer, so unfortunately, there's a contrast between the way things should work which is often not the way they actually work.

Biden selected Merrick Garland as the attorney general. The attorney general is supposed to operate with full independence from the president. However, under Trump, AG William Barr was blatantly Trump's enabler and lawyer, manipulating every potential prosecution for Trump in Trump's favour. Biden selected Merrick Garland who had been Obama's pick for a Supreme Court justice, who had a reputation for being a strident person of integrity, honour and commitment to the rule of law. Garland vowed that he would be a lawful and non-partisan lawyer for the people.

In practice, Garland has been timid and hesitant. He did not pursue charges against Trump's obvious crimes and lower level prosecutors have been the ones to do the work. Garland's determination to seem 'non-partisan' has instead made him turn a blind eye to treason and left him so weak that Republicans can walk right over him, making him a Republican-enabler whom Biden now regrets appointing.

And in this case, Garland's commitment to being 'non-partisan' had him select a Trump appointee to seem 'impartial'. But Garland's efforts and non-partisan impartiality invariably have him weighting things in favour of corrupt Republicans. Hur, to what should have been no one's surprise, used investigating Biden as a chance to curry favour with Trump and smear the Democrat president.

Merrick Garland is unfortunately fearful and weak, and by all accounts, the Biden administration is frustrated and furious with him. They are outraged that he didn't prosecute Trump's obvious crimes; they are appalled that he had so little standard of evidence for Hur's assertions about Biden's memory.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/02/0 … s-00140813

Hindsight is always 20/20. In the year 2021, Merrick Garland seemed like a great choice for the attorney general. And regardless of how inept and inactive he's been from 2021 - 2024, Democrats didn't select Robert Hur. Merrick Garland did. And yes, Democrats chose Garland -- but they had no idea how spineless he'd turn out to be.

That said, it's possible they should have, but I read a bit about Merrick Garland in 2021 and I thought he was a good hire. So I was wrong too.

17

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Why did Robert Hur smear Biden in such an obvious and deceitful way? Slate takes the view that he wants Trump to promote him should Trump win the election, and should Trump lose the election, Hur would still have a well-paying legal career.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 … -lies.html

18

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I'm suspicious of the idea that Joe Biden should be above being questioned or criticized.

His support for Israel's continued military attacks on civilians and fueling this ongoing assault on an unarmed population is shocking. The Hamas attack on Israel was an abomination, but the Israeli military response has done little to circumvent Hamas while harming even more innocent lives. It's possible that Biden sees the arms sales and support as a means of maintaining some position of influence or negotiation to conclude an Israeli military response that he saw as inevitable, but Biden is unquestionably complicit in a moral horror subsequent to the original atrocity of the Hamas attack on Israel.

Then there's Biden dismissing Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Biden bumped fists and made friends with an unrepentant murderer. There may be practical and diplomatic reasons for doing that too; Biden may have determined that the US was in no position to find justice for Khashoggi and had economic and strategic advantages for declaring MSB immune as a head of state that would save more lives while pursuing justice for Khashoggi would have been unattainable and endangered more people. I'm not sure. But the idea that Biden can't be criticized is not something to which I would ever subscribe.

But Robert Hur's portrayal of Biden's memory was deceitful and flat out false.

19

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

In other news, the full transcript of Robert Hur's interview was released, and Hur's claims of Biden's poor memory have turned out to be lies.

Transcript:
https://d.newsweek.com/en/file/469686/j … ript-1.pdf

Article summarizing Robert Hur's lies:
https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/3/12/ … den-memory

20

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Biden is better when he yells.

**

I got a booster today for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. Measles seems to be making a comeback.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-we-kn … d-in-2024/

21

(151 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor wrote:

Plenty of "nerds" or "geeks" who excel in engineering or math have huge sports passions.  It's usually something that is passed down from father to son or daughter.  Professional sports today have become dominated strategically by math wizards who analyze metrics and statistics.

Well, this is enlightening. Maybe, in 2024, a version of Quinn who never created sliding is a sports commentator.

Grizzlor wrote:

My feeling was that Torme viewed Quinn's childhood as fairly routine for suburban Americans of the 1980s.  That would have included sports playing and watching.

I'm glad to learn this. Sports are just lost on me. I'm very interested in fitness and nutrition, but I once went to a baseball game with my mother when I was 11 and my mother insisted that I bring a sweater and the sweater was too thick for such warm weather and I tied it around my waist and it fell to the ground at the train station and my mother screamed at me to pick it up and I screamed at her that I hadn't wanted to bring it in the first place and my mother screamed at me that if I didn't pick it up that there would be no baseball game for me and I screamed at her that it wasn't much of a threat because sports are boring and... I can't remember if we actually made it to the game.

Sorry, where was this going?

Grizzlor wrote:

At some point, he becomes highly interested and excels in subjects like mathematics and physics.  Tracy often mentioned that Quinn's brilliance came naturally, easily, and that he often took it for granted.  This annoyed Arturo, a highly intelligent man, yet more of a bookworm than possessing unique analytical gifts.

My personal opinion, shared by maybe nobody, is that Quinn was not actually smarter than Arturo. It's just that Quinn was willing to make leaps of logic and take guesses that sometimes turned out to be right and express guesses with more certainty than was warranted and improvisationally correct on the fly.

Arturo, however, did not like to make leaps and was a more methodical, deliberate and calculated thinker, which Arturo mistook for being slow or foolish when it was in fact more cautious and less reckless. Arturo would never have gotten everyone lost in the multiverse. Quinn was a daredevil and a gambler. Arturo wasn't dumber or smarter; he just had different strengths.

Grizzlor wrote:

I don't know that sports necessarily did much to/for the Quinn character.  I think it was something that interested him far more as a child/teenager than now, where his intense study and experimentation seemed to take place of all over interests.

Well, Quinn has to exercise at least as much as Jerry O'Connell, and the sports justified why Quinn clearly did some running and weightlifting every day.

Thinking about it now, I imagine that Quinn's interest in sports, strategies, game theory, and how to throw a football, hit a baseball and sink a basketball led to his interest in mathematics, physics, engineering and quantum mechanics.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

Do they ever mention sports outside of the fact that Rembrandt is signing the national anthem at a Giants game?

Yes, Quinn's bedroom in the Pilot is filled with sporting items and includes hockey, basketball, football and surfing equipment and merchandise. Wade "Summer of Love" and "Fever" have Quinn specify that he was a football player, a quarterback, and that he has a knee injury from the game. "Eggheads" draws on Quinn's background in football for playing Mindgame.

Quinn's baseball card collection is a key plot point in "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome". Arturo is familiar with football in "Summer of Love" but claims to have only seen his first game in "The Guardian". "The Guardian" also establishes outright that Quinn is a boxer.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I would think one of the sorta fun aspects of sliding would be to see how my teams performed from Earth to Earth.  Was I lucky to be from my Earth (where at least my teams won sometimes) or was I seriously unlucky (and my teams won way more on all other Earths).

ireactions, I could've helped with the sports references smile

Well, I'm still converting SLIDERS REBORN to ePub, and once I get it all into Google Docs, you're welcome to take a pass at it.

Wade's eulogy for Tracy Torme at his funeral. Not written by AI.

WADE
I appreciate being asked to speak today at Tracy's funeral. I gotta admit, at first, I was confused. I'm not real? I'm fictional? The person who created me is dead?

And also, he only wrote me for about the first two years' worth of slides, a very small fraction of the third year, and everything after that was a lot of other people?

I thought I was losing my mind.

I don't know if anyone else here has ever been lost in the interdimension. But in addition to that, I was erased from reality, shifted into an alternate timeline where I was... uh, mutilated. And turned into the jukebox from the movie BIG. Then I was rewritten back into my initial timeline with my original memories, then I had my my original and alternate memories recombined...

A lot of that has been less-than-great for my mental health. Even now, years later -- sometimes, I need to take a second to make sure I'm not losing it.

But aside from the interdimensional homelessness, none of that is Tracy's fault. He left the show before all that; he's not responsible for my screwed up life. Tracy's the one who gave me life. He created me.

And the fact that I'm the product of his imagination... actually explains a lot about why my personality and my hair took some twists and turns over the years.

I'm 53 years old. From what I understand, Tracy's only responsible for what happened to me from age zero to 25. And primarily, Tracy's attention on my life was from when I was 22 to 25. The first two years of sliding and a few months of the third year.

Looking at my life and those years as a TV show: I'm the only woman in a cast of four. Three men, one woman. Tracy could explore writing men in three distinct ways with Quinn, Rembrandt and the Professor. But Tracy had only one female character.

So everything he had to say about women, he said through me. What did he say?

Tracy started with me working the floor in sales at a computer store; studying prose and poetry at community college. He made me 22 in retail and not even working towards a bachelor's degree; that's in contrast to Quinn who was 20 and already in grad school, in contrast to Quinn who takes computers apart to fix them while I just sell 'em.

Seems diminutive, right? I'm not as well-educated as Quinn and also not as smart; I'm not his equal, I'm just someone who crushes on him and he either doesn't notice or he's ignoring it. I'm just the girl. The shy, undereducated, unassertive, underprivileged, lovesick girl.

Except even then, Tracy seemed to make me more. My intro has me telling a bunch of men not to spend their money at my store just yet; to come back in a few months and spend more money on computers that aren't out yet but will be then, that'll be better than what they could buy today.

Tracy made me someone who could turn down good money now for big money later; he also showed me earning confidence and trust from men -- professionally -- for what I know technologically. Poetry and prose? Was that just me killing time in college or was that me learning language and creative expression for my career?

And then my crush! Quinn and I talk computers. I'm aware that Quinn looks like a football player -- Quinn, wipe that smirk off your face -- but my crush is clearly about our meeting of minds. And then there's our first slide. A world where the Russians conquered America. Quinn and the Professor end up in chains. Rembrandt ends up in a gulag. But I end up leading the revolution. And when we're trying to get off this world and get home and a watchman tries to stop us -- I'm the one who kicks him in the face.

On the slides after that, Tracy saw me become an influencer, renewing the spark of an anti-war movement. Tracy saw me take point in another resistance against a dictatorship, and then become a key strategist in a mayoral re-election campaign.

Tracy saw me land on an Earth that was going to be destroyed by an asteroid. And everyone was panicked and scared. But I felt serene. I wanted to make the most of my last days. Tracy saw me act on how I felt about Quinn -- but then he saw me step away from that; he saw me build something different with Quinn where we were allies and partners and friends who trusted each other with our lives, but where I had so much more to offer the multiverse than just being Quinn's love interest.

Tracy seemed to see me as so much more than just the girl.

I'm not saying that Tracy's take on me was always perfect, because it wasn't. There were a number of situations in the second season where I didn't have a big part, where Quinn, the Professor and Rembrandt were in focus -- and in those stories, my job seems to be the one who gets scared and shrill. But there was still enough besides that to make it the exception instead of the rule.

Tracy saw me take the lead again on restoring the US Constitution to an American that had lost it. And Tracy saw me making pretty much every plan and strategy when the boys all got captured for a male breeding program and I had to save them. Tracy saw me get home and build a career as a writer only to lose it all and slide again.

Tracy commissioned one story with another really good person and writer, Jon Povill, where a precognitive telepath named Derek fell in love with me and read my mind to make me happy -- and I called Derek out for what that was: an intrusion and a violation that didn't have any respect for my consent and autonomy and privacy.

I stood up for myself and my boundaries, and knowing now that Jon wrote that and Tracy approved it -- I'm just so grateful.

In the third year of sliding, something in me suddenly changed: I was suddenly the computer hacker of the group. Before, Quinn always seemed to be the one breaking into databases and digital infrastructures. Suddenly, I was the one getting through computer security, copying camera footage, rerouting datastreams, destroying debt records.

I know Tracy signed off on this, and it's interesting. On one level, me being promoted to hacker extraordinaire didn't track. I barely did anything technological before. But it actually connected right back to my first scene in the show when I knew about computers that hadn't even been released yet.

I didn't totally understand what was happening, but I knew what it meant: I now had a position of expertise and authority in the group. I was the computer expert where Quinn was the engineer, Arturo was the mathematician, and Rembrandt was the artist. Tracy always treated me as an equal part of the friend group. But with this upgrade, he made me an equal partner in the adventure.

This was the life that Tracy wrote for me. So who am I? Who did he make me?

Wade looks through the reception hall at the people gathered to celebrate the life and achievements of Tracy Torme. She looks across all the female friends in Tracy's life who have come today.

She looks at Torme's sisters, Melissa, Daisy and Carrie. She looks at Nan Hagan and Janet Saunders who worked with Torme on SLIDERS.

Wade looks at one woman in particular, Robin. Robin is an animal welfare activist and rescuer, anti-human trafficking advocate, a journalist, a private detective, a championship surfer, a swimsuit model, an undercover investigator. Among all those things, Robin was also Tracy Torme's wife.

Tracy made me an egalitarian encapsulation of what he saw in women. Everything he thought we were. Everything he thought we are. Everything he thought we could be.

He saw that we could be revolutionaries and leaders who could inspire systemic and societal change in politics and business, in battlefields and boardrooms.

He saw us capable of defending ourselves and taking action to guard and protect. He saw us as strategists who could think and reason against a war or a disaster or a political campaign or a psychic who could predict our every move.

He saw that we could be experts in sales and data management, and actually, in any field of science, mathematics, engineering and technology. He saw us as emotionally resilient people who could face danger and death with courage. He saw us as influencers who could steer our world through conflict.

He saw us as friends who weren't restricted to being his love interests or girls to be saved and protected. He saw that romance was a facet of a woman but not what defined our lives. He saw us as his partners and comrades; he saw that we could be the teacher just as often as we might be the student. He also saw us being kind of shrill at times, but he saw us as his equals.

I can tell you that he loved all the women in his life very much. I know that he loved you all as his family, as his allies, as his influences, as his leaders, and as his friends.

And I know that because I know me. Tracy wrote me to be everything he admired and respected about women.

Tracy made me a representation of all of you. He made me a reflection of all the women in this room and in his life.

Thank you.

When you finish it, my questions will be this:

  • How well did the writing capture the speech patterns and narrative tone of the show?

  • Did the descriptions capture the visual storytelling language of the show? Or did they offer an analogous storytelling language within the format of prose?

  • Did the writing change the show, characters or style in order to fit the format of prose or the writer's own preferences? How?

  • Did the story address "Mirror Image" and make it more acceptable? Or did it fail? How?

  • Considering the studio constraint of being only permitted to write a prequel to "Mirror Image", how well or poorly do you feel the writer told the story with that handicap?

  • If the restriction on post-"Mirror Image" stories had not been in place, would this story have been served by post-"Mirror Image" content or best replaced with a different story entirely?

  • Is "Mirror's Edge" a strong story regardless of its QUANTUM LEAP connections?

  • Is "Mirror's Edge" a strong QUANTUM LEAP story?

  • Is "Mirror's Edge" a satisfying conclusion?

These are all the things I have wondered since Temporal Flux wrote about it in 2000.

24

(151 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I've written a lot of dialogue for Quinn Mallory over the years in fanfic. And I like to think that I understand the character, but one thing eludes me: I do not understand Quinn's love for professional sports. I didn't realize this when writing SLIDERS fanfic, but looking back: I have habitually avoided sports in how I wrote Quinn.

I've written three scripts and one novella for the early-20s Quinn ("Slide Effects", "Net Worth: The Quinn and Wade Edition", SLIDERS REBORN 1 & 4) and five scripts and a novella for the version who is in his mid-40s (SLIDERS REBORN 2 - 3, 5 - 6). I've gotten some nice compliments on how my version of Quinn sounds like Jerry O'Connell, particularly in how I insert breaks and pauses and points of emphasis, and I also capture Quinn's body language and the way Torme wrote Quinn's improvisational heroism and nature as social crusader. And yet...

There is not a single sports reference in any of Quinn's dialogue in my stories. There are only two references to fitness: in the first SLIDERS REBORN script, Quinn says he had to quit drinking because it was making him put on weight (just like Jerry O'Connell); in the fifth SLIDERS REBORN chapter, Quinn says he had to quit caffeine because it kept triggering flashbacks of "Strangers and Comrades".

Part of this is because I myself do not understand or have any interest in professional or amateur sports. I have zero interest in soccer, football, hockey, rugby, badminton, tennis, wrestling. I just don't care. My utter disinterest in sports is best summed up by Garfunkel and Oates' hypersardonic three minute comedy song, "Sports Go Sports":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fraSdN-PG8

Garfunkel and Oates wrote:

Sports go sports!
This is the most important thing that's ever occurred
The vicarious fulfillment of your dream that got deferred
You had aspirations as a kid but you didn't have the skill
So you watch genetically superior people do the things you never will
Sports go sports

May the hours you spend watching post-match pontificators
Amplify the thrill of being a witness
And better your predictive aptitude
For your squad's future physical fitness
Sports go sports

Watching able-bodied millionaires play with each other
Watching less agile millionaires talk about it on TV
Sports go sports

At the same time, I wrote my 44 year old Quinn as basically being Tom Cruise in the latest MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies and my dialogue for him indicates that Quinn does work on his fitness and health, and sports must be a part of that in same way, but in a way that I didn't explore at all in my writing.

While I have zero interest in sports, I feel that sports are clearly an important part of the Quinn Mallory character, albeit one that I didn't understand. As conceived and presented by series co-creator Tracy Torme, sports are one of Quinn's obsessions, just as Torme himself loved surfing and football and hockey. Torme used a pan across Quinn's bedroom to establish Quinn shared Torme's interet in athletics.

I don't see the appeal of sports, so I fail to grasp what Quinn likes about them or why they matter to him or whether or not he plays them. But it is clearly an important part of the Quinn-character, and a part that I have edged around, dodged, evaded and downplayed, not because it doesn't matter, but because it's a handicap for me. A handicap so engrained that I honestly never thought about it until recently, when Torme passed away and a number of posters talked about how much Torme loved sports and how Torme gave that same trait to Quinn.

What is the appeal of watching professional sports? A web search tells me that the appeal is enjoying physical peak performance in human bodies, the strategy and tactics of a game, the drama and unpredictability of a competition, the emotional investment in a team, the social aspects of being a spectator.

Is there a scientific angle to why Quinn likes sports? It might be Quinn's fascination with statistical analysis, physics of trajectory and aerodynamics, game theory strategy, and also nutrition and fitness as Quinn clearly cares about working out and being physically active and agile.

I never got into it. I never touched on it. People like my Quinn Mallory a lot and I'm very proud of how well I wrote him. Tom of REWATCH PODCAST remarked that he could always hear Jerry O'Connell's voice in his head when reading my SLIDERS stories, and I think that my ability to pastiche the way Jerry delivers Quinn's dialogue with weight, contemplation, (performative) improvisation, intellectual delight and inspiration would often obscure how some key facets of Quinn were missing.

I frequently drew on "The Guardian" in the scenes where Quinn is mentoring his younger self, and speaks with both gentleness and forcefulness, and that inner confidence and emotional vulnerability matched with scientific knowledge defines Quinn to the point where capturing that makes any discrepancies seem trivial or non-existent. I am at the point where Quinn seems to write himself and I just document what he would have to say. More truthfully: I ask myself what I think Quinn would say or do and then try to find the words that present that, but that presentation can be limited by my own perceptions, interests and limitations. And sports is one of those limitations for me.

My interpretation of Quinn often used performance and pastiche to hide its failings, and I find my aversion to sports to be a very interesting flaw in my work on the character.

I brought in Nigel Mitchell to help me create parallel Earths for SLIDERS REBORN, but I probably should have also found someone to help me write sports references for Quinn. :-)

25

(30 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

My memory is terrible.  My dad died when I was younger, and I essentially erased all the memories of him when I was younger.  Instead of doing that, I basically erased *everything*.  Not only is most of my childhood just completely gone, but I have trouble remembering tons of stuff that happened afterward.

No need to feel sorry for me - I had a great childhood regardless.  I only say that to illustrate that I have a handful of memories from that time in my life.  And one I can remember *very* clearly is sitting in the office of my mom's boss while she worked late certain nights.  I had a McDonald's fried chicken sandwich (which I can almost taste), and I was watching TV on one of those old TVs.

I was watching Sliders.  I don't remember which episode but it would've been season 1.  I was blown away by the concept, and I thought it was so much fun.  I can't remember many birthdays, trips, or stuff like that.  But burned into my memory is eating a McDonald's chicken sandwich in an office "late" on a weekday, watching Sliders.

What kind of chicken sandwich was it?

I was eating one last night and thought of you.

26

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Interesting video on what may be skewing the polls from Farron Cousins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4F5HTBcwPc

27

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Some people say that Biden's calm in the ATLANTIC interview is insane and ridiculous.

What do you say?

28

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Well, Biden feels calm and confident.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024 … t-campaign

I didn't write those, the Professor and Quinn sent those in. Wade says she's going to be sending something in shortly, Rembrandt tells me his is on its way. Mail between dimensions can be a bit slow.

30

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

And so begins the sequel that no one (except maybe Kyle) wanted to a movie that nobody (aside from Kyle) could stand to watch the first time.

Oh God.

I have a request for QuinnSlidr.

The first time I ever heard of QUANTUM LEAP was through Temporal Flux back on the old Sci-Fi Bboard. I suppose it makes sense as QL was TF's show before SLIDERS.

Temporal Flux posted about how the "Mirror Image" finale of QUANTUM LEAP had seen a mixed reception among fans. However, there was some news: the QUANTUM LEAP novels published after the show's cancellation (published at a rate of 2 - 4 a year) were coming to an end, but their 17th and final original installment would come in February 2000 with a novel called "Mirror's Edge":

Mirror's Edge, by Carol Davis with Esther D. Reese
The last leap... ?

It's 1999 -- five years after the Leap that started it all. It's 1999 -- for Sam Beckett who has leaped into Joe Powell, one of the richest men in America, a potential presidential candidate, and a man who is used to getting his way.

It's 1999 for Al Calavicci, for Donna Alessi-Beckett, for all the people at Project Quantum Leap who know that Sam is in their present, home but yet not home. But the holes in Sam's Swiss cheese memory are starting to fill, the man in the Waiting Room is strangely, disturbingly calm, and Ziggy is dispensing information that can hardly be believed. Something is about to happen.

Something that will change Sam's life and the lives of those who love him -- forever.

"Mirror's Edge": the conclusion to the thrilling adventures based on the hit TV series.

The novel hit the shops shortly after SLIDERS had aired its series non-finale. Some Slideheads who were also Leapers thought "Mirror's Edge" might take the sting off with a post-"Mirror Image" story.

In the many, many, many years since then, I have always remembered this posting about a media tie-in novel that I never read regarding a TV show that I never watched.

The reason I've always remembered it: "Mirror's Edge" was the first time I had ever seen an unresolved live action story being addressed in another format. That fascinated me, and I later discovered STAR TREK novels that resurrected Captain Kirk, DOCTOR WHO novels that resumed the TV show storyline during the DW hiatus from 1987 to 2005, and wrote my own tie-in stories for SLIDERS. "Mirror's Edge" remains a beacon of media tie-ins in my personal, anecdotal experience.

However, I later did learn: some QL fans expressed frustration with "Mirror's Edge" for what they called false advertising. Despite being billed as a "conclusion", that turned out to just be referring to how this 17th book was to be the last. "Mirror's Edge", like every QUANTUM LEAP novel before it, takes place before the series finale of QL1.0. It is not a sequel to "Mirror Image".

However. While "Mirror's Edge" is set before "Mirror Image"; it is set at the very edge of "Mirror Image"; it is in fact a prequel seeking to offer context to the series finale that is either new or retconned. It tries to make "Mirror Image" more of a finale, retroactively, by telling a story set before it that attempts to better explain it.

Some fans were furious with the publisher and the authors. Primary author Carol Davis spoke with fans on fan forums and explained: due to diminished sales, the publisher had elected to end the QL book series and commissioned a final story. However, the licensing agreement with Universal had a stipulation: the publishers were not allowed to produce any novels set after the QL series finale. The studio didn't want a novel to potentially step on any territory to be left open for a potential TV movie or series revival.

Davis and the publisher were caught between the need to produce a concluding novel and the studio declaring that Davis' typewriter wasn't to produce a single page set after "Mirror Image". Davis came up with a solution. Her solution -- a prequel to "Mirror Image" -- is either tactical brilliance that would make a lawyer weep with joy or a weak gesture that is grossly inadequate.

I've always wondered what a QL fan unhappy with "Mirror Image" would think of "Mirror's Edge". would think of it if they read the book. "Mirror's Edge" is out of print, but here is a PDF and an ePub from Archive.org:

PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zTRVtW … sp=sharing
EPUB: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t32dIK … sp=sharing

Will you read it and tell me what you think of it?

I would have asked Tom of Rewatch Podcast, but Tom actually likes the finale story that is "Mirror Image". "I like it, it made me feel good with the series ending where it did," he told me. "I know a lot of people don't like it, but I do. I will die on that hill!" I didn't think him the right person to read "Mirror's Edge" and tell me if it resolves his dis-satisfactions with "Mirror Image" because he wasn't dis-satisfied.

I've started running a new round of conversions using pneumatic's script for SLIDERS 1.02 - 1.09. However, this time... while I'm using pneumatic's script to reweave the files and reduce the jagged, flickery lines and add some of his sharpening -- well, I've elected to just output 720x540 files, albeit at the 23.97 film framerate. The reason for this: upscaling these faded videotape files to 720p or 1080p has only led to disappointment and nitpicky distraction.

For every crisp shot, there's a blurry, fuzzy one that Topaz and nnedi3 just can't improve. It's too schizophrenic and it's taken up way too much time to output upscaled files and then review them and by hyperaware of how the neural network or selective algorithms did a great job with this shot but not that one.

Christopher McQuarrie talked about how in the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE film DEAD RECKONING, he was initially keen to use digital deaging on Tom Cruise for a flashback scene, but then he realized he kept focusing on whether or not the deaging looked good rather than the scene itself, and even when the deaging was good, he was fixating on the quality of the effect rather than the quality of the story. He elected to just shorten the flashback to a brief sequence of Cruise shot under dim lighting.

I feel like when the content looks as bad as a Season 1 episode of SLIDERS, even a well-upscaled sequence is undermined by the poorer scenes around it.

I think 720x540 files will at least be consistent in what they are: substandard videotape edits that were fit for cathode ray tube broadcast but lacked even a 480i level of image data, but slightly sharpened and with the jagged edges toned down thanks to pneumatic.

33

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

In other news, HP wants to stop selling bubble jet printers and start renting them to customers at about $36 a month for 700 pages and charge you $270 if you want to cancel your two year subscription. Wade Welles would advise that you skip this deal and buy a laserjet.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/2/24088 … nstant-ink

34

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Well, that is the kind of store that is clearly also not existing in Canada, certainly not as a chain. Why wouldn't it exist in the US?

In terms of why it no longer exists in Canada, there are clearly a number of factors. Factory Direct bought refunded-returned items from Best Buy and Amazon and Staples and whatnot for pennies on the dollar (an exaggeration), engaged in cursory inspection, discarded any items that were clearly too broken to sell, and put the rest on the shelves. A $800 smartphone retailed for $400, and went down by $50 a year, and Factory Direct made a good profit on that for a long time.

I personally never had a bad experience, but some Factory Direct customers reported that their products were defective and had to be exchanged repeatedly to get a working item. I suspect that Factory Direct's inspections of their inventory were limited, and they relied on customers exchanging defective items rather than pre-sale quality control.

For a long time, their sales were strong enough to withstand it, but Factory Direct may have built a bad reputation if too many customers had too many exchanges to the point where customers started paying more money elsewhere so that they wouldn't need to do repeated exchanges.

In 2020, Factory Direct probably saw increased sales of electronics due to people staying home, and may have overpurchased in anticipation for rising sales in 2021 - 2022 only for inflation to hit hard in 2023.

There's the fact that Factory Direct couldn't really raise their prices very much. If refurbished products go up in price, then the value of buying refurbished versus new is eliminated. Also, in 2023, Factory Direct's main customers were probably shopping there less. People on already low budgets who were now finding anything from Factory Direct now too expensive for them and viewed Factory Direct as a luxury.

People with more disposable income had probably always bought the full-priced latest and greatest. People who were tech-savvy enough to see Factory Direct for the great deals that it had may have also preferred to buy their items from online retailers who shipped products directly to buyers' homes and didn't require an in-store visit.

The people who once turned to Factory Direct for affordable tech were probably not buying any tech at all. In addition, Factory Direct didn't own its locations; it was renting those properties, and the rent against diminished profit led to an unsustainable situation.

Personally, I think Factory Direct offered amazing value, selling 2 - 4 year old smartphones that were so powerful that they wouldn't really suffer in terms of performance, while admittedly missing out on the latest screen refresh rates and low light camera lenses of newer technology. What could Factory Direct have done to survive?

They might have considered ending their existence as a bricks and mortar shop and taken their business entirely online, although it would have required more extensive review of their refurbished goods to avoid wasting shipping costs on exchanges.

They might have been able to focus exclusively on phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Factory Direct was probably wasting its shelf space and time on selling blenders, coffeemakers, kettles and ice cream makers.

In a world of $2,000 smartphones, laptops and desktops, Factory Direct might have been able to carve out a niche in offering $300 - $800 prices on phones, tablets, laptops and desktops that were refurbished, 2 - 6 years old, not the latest and greatest, but affordable and good enough to run the latest and greatest software and apps even if the hardware was a little aged.

I wonder where I'll go now to find refurbished items.

35

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor wrote:

I've already "warned" that Trump has no designs on paying those penalties.

And as you've been informed, if Trump doesn't pay, his assets will simply be seized.

On the other stuff, I'm not sure, but I find your thoughts compelling.

The Supreme Court schedule has been viewed as Trump-support, conservative anti-Trump lawyer George Conway has said that the court may actually have some relevant things to add about whether or not a president can have immunity from using his office to assassinate political opponents and civilians for personal gain. Conway is a former Trumpist and very much a conservative (albeit not a non-MAGA conservative), so I take his stuff with a grain of salt, but it's interesting.

Conway on the Supreme Court's scheduling not actually being good for Trump:
https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court- … ay-1875325

Polls are severely off, but are they off to the point where reality has a different winner than polled? I don't know, but it's very interesting. (By very interesting, I mean anxiety inducing.)

SPOILERS FOR THE S2 FINALE OF QUANTUM LEAP

























I hope it's not the end, but if it is, it is lovely.

https://i.ibb.co/TPDm2RX/the-end.jpg

37

(742 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

One of my favourite stores, Factory Direct, is closing down. This 14-store operation filed for bankruptcy. They sold refurbished computers, phones, tablets and other electronics, and they were always my first-preferred retailer because you could get terrific hardware at significantly discounts.

Their lightly-used/refurbished TVs, smartwatches, laptops, desktops, tablets, blenders, coffeemakers, kettles, ice cream makers, toaster ovens, garment steamers and air fryers were just as good as what you would buy new.

In a world where smartphones can cost an absurd $2,000 USD, my preference was always to go to Factory Direct and buy a phone for about $200 USD. I bought my Samsung S7, S9 and S10e at Factory Direct; these phones were refurbished, had been flagships 2 - 3 years' previous, but aside from a mild scuff easily covered by a case, they were in great shape. Most importantly, if I broke it, it didn't cost that much to replace at Factory Direct.

I went to their liquidation sale today. I was astonished at how professional and pleasant all the retail staff were as they sold off the remaining inventory. I don't know how I could have gone into work under such circumstances. I felt terrible being there, picking out scraps from their shattered business. I didn't want to go, but I realized that with the liquidation, I could buy my mother a giant-sized iPad (an older model) at a low price that I would never see again. I don't know where I will go now to find a refurbished $200 USD flagship phone from 2 - 3 years' previous.

I'm shocked that the Canadian customer did not recognize the value of a retailer that sold this kind of refurbished hardware and this kind of price.

I am glad to get my mother a giant iPad, the last Factory Direct purchase I am ever to make. I am deeply saddened by the demise of the store and I hope the staff land on their feet. They deserved better.

I'd certainly agree that no studio considers it a financial success for a show to only run two seasons. However, that's two seasons with a strong conclusion. If QUANTUM LEAP 2.0 is cancelled on Addison and Ben's joyful reunion and running off into a new adventure, then QUANTUM LEAP 2.0 joins a number of other short-lived shows that had an adequate and reasonably passable conclusion: FAKING IT, FREAKS AND GEEKS, TRINKETS, AWAKE, BRISCO COUNTY JR., MANTIS, LIFE UNEXPECTED, PUNKY BREWSTER REBORN and SAVED BY THE BELL REBORN.

It is a far more forgiving fate than being shot and blown up, being sent to a rape camp and being transformed into the jukebox machine from the movie BIG and being exploded, getting merged with another person and 'lost', and being sent into an unstable vortex, fate unknown, and ending on a cliffhanger.

If this is the end, I feel that the final scene is quite beautiful and perfect in its way. Addison and Ben are reunited. Then we see Addison's little smile as an explosion in the distance goes off, signaling threat and danger. Addison smiles because she isn't afraid, but instead delighted to be with Ben and to be adventuring with him now. They run off into this latest leap.

They have found their way back to each other. They are together. And they are going to be just fine.

If we compare QL2.0's "Against Time" to "The Exodus" and "Genesis" and "The Unstuck Man" and "Requiem" and "The Seer", I feel we should be grateful.

39

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

What will Trump's campaign be like given that his financial penalties and legal fees are much higher than his fundraising and more than what the Republican National Party can provide him?

QUANTUM LEAP 2.0 is a creative success. As someone who is not a fan of the original show, QL2.0 demonstrated the potent power of the show's peculiar blend of empathy, science fiction, social justice and its wit, charm, and humour. QUANTUM LEAP brought a 1989 concept into 2022 and onward with inventiveness, drive and vision: a diverse cast, a love story across time, gorgeous visual realizations of different periods and settings, superb performances, and scripts filled with daring and charm.

If Season 2 is indeed the end, QUANTUM LEAP 2.0 ends on a moment of triumph, relief, reunion and adventure. I would love to see more, but I do not think brevity is a reason to think poorly of a show that offered a strong note of closure. I would love to see a grand finale with more final notes on Ian, Jen, Magic and Janis and also Sam Beckett, but Season 2 leaves me very satisfied with both its conclusion and the way that last shot hints at so many wonderful adventures for Addison and Ben.

41

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Every time I see the name "Desantis", I think, "Is that a typo? Isn't it spelled DeathSantis?" Then I realize what QuinnSlidr has done to me.

42

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I don't think Elon Musk actually has that kind of money to spend. Yes, Musk owns assets that put his net worth at $200 billion, but that's in shares of his companies (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter), and he acquires cash by using company shares as collateral to get loans; his shares increase in value which allow him to keep borrowing more money to pay his expenses. I doubt he would put up the shares to acquire a $455 million loan on someone else's behalf; he would only do that for himself.

Trump doesn't seem to have any financial aid from any billionaires right now because his lawyers are trying to get out of posting the $91 million bond for the E. Jean Carroll judgement needed to file an appeal. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-e … al-1873668

They've offered nonsensical reasons for why Trump shouldn't have to post bond, and if Trump can't pay or secure a bond for $91 million to appeal that case, he probably can't secure the $500 million bond needed to appeal the New York judgement on his businesses either.

My thinking: Ben's superhero identity is as the Scarlet Spider, and the Scarlet Spider costume is a torn and ripped up hoodie on a makeshift bodysuit. It looks like Ben stole clothes to throw the outfit together. If Sony made a SCARLET SPIDER movie, maybe Ben Reilly wouldn't be a clone of Peter Parker or have any connection to Peter at all. Instead, he's a homeless man who encounters a Spider-Verse style 'glitch' and a box of damaged Spider-equipment falls into his hands along with a damaged Spider-costume.

The equipment and costume let Ben use spider-powers through the technology of the suit. The homeless Ben uses the equipment and costume (with stolen clothes to make up some of what's missing) to try to steal food from a closed bakery only to accidentally uncover and expose a money laundering operation from a criminal gang called the Sindicate, with his spider-agility and stingers and spider-strength. Ben finds a list of Sindicate safehouses and tries to steal enough money to get a motel room while he figures out his next move, but ends up destroying them and becoming infamous to the underworld as the Scarlet Spider scourge of the Sindicate and its operations, while also being hunted by police for vigilantism.

The entire city thinks Ben is some sort otherworldly force of violence and superhuman power... but the Scarlet Spider is a fragile, troubled, traumatized homeless man who does not have a family home for sanctuary or an Aunt May to take care of him or an Uncle Ben to model morality for him or a science background to guide him. He isn't Peter Parker. He is not Spider-Man. He may not even have what it takes to be the Scarlet Spider. Can he rise to the occasion?

My thinking is to look at the aesthetic of the Scarlet Spider costume and make Ben Reilly the homeless superhero.

44

(27 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

*finishes eating a Dave's Double with bacon from Wendy's*

So... this is a really good hamburger that's as good as what I could get from a full service restaurant. I'm very impressed by the never-frozen beef, fresh lettuce and onions and pickles and the well-combined ketchup and mustard on a superb bun.

I balk at McDonald's flat, lifeless mediocrities, but a Wendy's burger is a pretty impressive achievement at a pretty decent price. I have some confidence that Wendy's will prioritize customer value and balance value with profit.

But. I am always ready to change my mind.

Grizzlor wrote:

The rising star was Sydney Sweeney, who was not the lead and probably should have been.

I've only ever seen Sydney Sweeney in the cancelled-on-a-soft-cliffhanger EVERYTHING SUCKS where she was very much playing the blonde bombshell: flirty, ostentatious, glamourous, hypersexual, but with a lot of hidden depths. Basically a female Jerry O'Connell. I was fascinated to see Sweeney cast as a very restrained, geeky, nerdy, internally-oriented character in MADAME WEB. It's interesting to compare Sweeney and Jerry's approaches to playing a geeky character when they themselves are not geeky.

Jerry's approach was to play Quinn as highly excitable regarding engineering and science, and highly aloof and uncertain when dealing with human vulnerability. Jerry gives Quinn a hyperanalytical presence in the face of danger and problem solving and a certain world weariness in his body language.

Sydney Sweeney has an interesting and equally valid approach: she lets the costuming do all the acting for her. Sweeney in MADAME WEB is wearing a reddish-brown wig that is so heavy on her head that it's clearly weighing her down and adding an unbalanced awkwardness to her body language. Sweeney is wearing non-prescription glasses in the role and they dim Sweeney's eyes and she seems to peer through them uncertainly. Sweeney is wearing a buttoned up to the neck shirt, a hoodie and knee-high stockings and they seem to restrict her arms and legs and force her into very enclosed and guarded postures.

I guess that's one way.

I don't know what it says about me, but I finally got around to watching MORBIUS and I was grudgingly entertained. Once I accepted that Spider-Man wasn't in this movie, I found the entire film sufficiently compelling. I was drawn in by Jared Leto's performance in a man whose weakness of body is shored up by an unwanted monstrosity. I liked Adria Arjona's vivid screen presence. I enjoyed Daniel Espinosa's fluid, dynamic visual direction.

Matt Smith and Jared Leto had a really sweet and tragic friendship. The movie is a convincing indictment of ableism and voices tremendous outrage at how the sadistic prey upon people with disabilities. I thought it was entertaining and at times a little moving.

Like VENOM and VENOM II, this is a situation where Sony hired some excellent actors, an interesting director, an awkward intellectual property... and to me, the results are kind of okay. I'm in the minority on that. As with Joss Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE, the world and superhero fan community completely rejected a film that I thought was adequately enjoyable and at times rather good. I thought it was, like VENOM and VENOM II, a fairly well-made B-movie monster adventure. I'm surprised the majority of the people who saw it loathed it so.

The only thing I really did not like: I thought Matt Smith's performance was too similar to his performance as the Eleventh Doctor on DOCTOR WHO. Given how iconic and recognizable Smith's Doctor is, I would have advised that Matt Smith's Milo character never be clad in a business suit or a collared shirt; that he grow stubble; that his hair be shaved off rather than keeping the lengthy style of the Doctor; that he adopt an American or Scottish or Irish or German accent; that his superpowered character adopt the body language of a boxer rather than a gangly dancer, and that he drop all of the Doctorish-characteristics and disappear into a very different role.

47

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Trump's legal team made a "notice of appeal" about the $455 million fraud judgement... but they didn't post a bond or provide the money for an escrow account. Unless they secure a bond for the money or transfer it to escrow, the appeal can't go forward.

They're probably having a lot of trouble finding a bond company that would take Trump as a client or a lender that would trust Trump to pay them back or they don't have the collateral needed for a bond or a loan.

It's like Sony has two alternate personalities. The first personality wants to make high quality, culture-redefining work like INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE and ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE, two epic animated films. The second personality wants to make glorified direct to streaming filler for release schedules and doesn't really care about the content as long as it maintains some hold on the film rights.

I think Sony has made two Spider-Verse films featuring Miles Morales and has no reason to undermine or dilute his brand with a live action film when the animated features are so successful.

I think Ben Reilly is too convoluted for a general audience, but VENOM, VENOM II, MORBIUS and MADAME WEB have pretty baffling plots. My sense is that while Sony had some care and concern for the Venom films, MORBIUS and MADAME WEB were just hacked out for Sony to maintain the film rights to Spider-Man in case the next Marvel film runs late (which it is) and the next Spider-Verse movie is delayed (which it is).

I don't think Sony really cares if their live action Spider-Man-adjacent films are successful. They're just making them to keep the Spider-Man film rights.

I was very impressed by how the QUANTUM LEAP Season 2 finale ended the year on a note that serves as a pleasant end-note should the show be cancelled, but still creates a springboard for Season 3.

50

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

My guess is that the poll sample sizes are biased towards people who have landlines and answer calls from unknown numbers.

Jim_Hall wrote:

When I put the first disc in, the audio was higher in pitch. Something was wrong. Everything seemed just a little bit faster. I decided to check the timecode of the episodes and sure enough the videos are shorter in length.

This is probably due to the NTSC to PAL conversion. Turbine received the PAL masters which they used as PAL is the standard in Europe and they're a German company. PAL is a 25 frames per second format, whereas NTSC is 30 frames per second. With fewer frames, the episode running lengths will be shorter; the speed up also alters the pitch of the audio. Some players will have automatic pitch correction, but some won't.

It looks like the results I've gotten on my Samsung blu-ray player are due to my player being able to handle PAL playback well. My player also has other peculiarities, as pneumatic noted, where it deinterlaces video in BWDIF style where any in-motion elements are played in 240i instead of 480i which makes poor NTSC video look worse and poor PAL video look better, which is why the Turbine blu-ray looked better than Universal on my TV.

Because you like Amanda the Jedi, my opinion of you just went up by several notches.

The idea that Dakota Johnson didn't realize a Sony superhero movie wasn't a Marvel Studios movie seems too ridiculous to be true... except Johnson, after completing filming on MADAME WEB, fired her agent. There's a rumour that she held her agent responsible for not knowing the difference between Sony and Marvel.

53

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor wrote:

He won't ever pay, so there will be a protracted legal fight over those assets.

ireactions wrote:

What a strange remark. If Trump doesn't pay the fines, the state of New York will simply take his assets and sell them.

Grizzlor wrote:

For 99.9% of the population.  Not for a Trump who's plan is always to litigate and delay.  Yes, eventually the AG will likely seize but he'll still try to block it.  Again, he knows he will lose but delaying buys him time to maneuver.  The Judge was alerted again that Trump Org tried to transfer assets to Florida.  I don't know what he has up his sleeve but this is his career, litigation.  I know this sounds counterintuitive but Trump has operated this way for 50 years.  He's beaten numerous bankruptcy courts just like this.

Well, this isn't bankruptcy. This is a civil penalty for financial fraud, and there is no blocking asset seizure for this fine except by putting the money in an escrow account or acquiring a bond with a lender in exchange for sufficient collateral.

54

(27 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Would any of us survive an AI war of autonomous drones?

https://www.salon.com/2024/02/24/swarms … d_partner/

No one should watch MADAME WEB, but I love this YouTube summary of it from Amanda the Jedi.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OsGrR1tc8

56

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Grizzlor wrote:

He won't ever pay, so there will be a protracted legal fight over those assets.

What a strange remark. If Trump doesn't pay the fines, the state of New York will simply take his assets and sell them.

57

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Thank you for voting, Slider_Quinn21.

I agree with QuinnSlidr that we must never minimize the evil that Nikki Haley represents. Since 2020, I've taken the view that voting is not about choosing your standard bearer. It is about choosing your opponent.

There is a Hong Kong movie called THE LUCKY GUY (in Chinese, it's called EGG TART PRINCE) where an egg tart deliveryman runs afoul of a martial arts studio and its students who challenge him to single combat and tell him to choose his opponent. The deliveryman, a grown man, tries to choose to fight the smallest little boy in the class. It doesn't go well our egg tart man.

I have now lost track of what my point was.

58

(27 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

That's very true, Grizzlor. I've read a lot of stories which may or may not be out of date about how the US Army was still using eight inch floppy disks to run nuclear infrastructure as late as 2019. While I can't help but think that military use of old computers is because the older it is, the harder it may be to hack, the army is definitely not the bleeding edge of tech it once was.

59

(2,572 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I too, cannot stress enough in the name of Wade's Season 3 hair dye and Quinn's Season 3 highlights that the views of ireactions are not the consensus views of Sliders.TV.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr98dRjx-NM&t=28s

Okay I watched this video.  I think he's right, but the assumption is based on the idea that 1) we'll get a Trump trial and b) Trump will be convicted.  I think he's right that if Trump is convicted, he'll shed enough independent voters (and probably a decent amount of republicans) that Biden should be in good shape.  I also think that the more people hear Trump talk, the more people will remember why they didn't like him in the first place.  It's probably been 3+ years since most people have heard him speak.

I do think Farron cherry picked the good poll that Biden got on that particular day, but the rest of his thesis is solid.

Yes, it did strike me as Democratic fan fiction/wishful thinking over a more nuanced reality.

QuinnSlidr wrote:

Make no mistake. Nikki Haley is just as bad as Trump. Even if Trump loses, and Nikki wins, you're basically getting the female version of Trump.

I'm going to politely disagree with the view that Haley is as bad as Trump. Nikki Haley is not the national security risk that is posed by one Donald John Trump.

Trump is in serious financial trouble. Trump owes over 400 million in financial penalties for fraud and libel; that adds up to over $1.7 billion in loans and financial penalties. While estimated to be worth 2.6 billion on paper, Trump has claimed to have $400 million in actual funds; the real number is therefore significantly lower.

His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, does not think Trump can afford to pay his $453 million in legal fines which increase with $87,000 in daily interest until Trump pays it. And to appeal, Trump has to pay the money to be held in a escrow account while he appeals the judgements. If he doesn't pay it, the court will seize his assets and sell them.

Trump will likely have to provide his assets as collateral or sell them just to appeal as few if any lenders will touch him now. Even if he somehow sells off enough real estate to pay his fines, the ongoing rental income will stop. He is barred from doing business in New York City for three years.

With his businesses crippled by the New York judgement and with few lenders being willing to go near him, Trump's $1.3 billion in business and personal debt will become unmanageable. Trump will be desperate for money.

As a re-elected president, Trump's debt would make him a national security risk. Any and every hostile power willing to pay his debts would be able to control his office, dictate his policies and acquire state secrets. Trump's debts would make him servile and compliant.

QuinnSlidr and I have basically the same politics, and Nikki Haley offends and outrages me. But Nikki Haley isn't $1.7 billion in debt. Nikki Haley isn't a delinquent debtor whom hostile powers and rogue nations can easily control by tossing her a line of credit.

Trump is now for sale to anyone who will settle what he owes. And he will take any buyer.

60

(27 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Jim_Hall wrote:

I think the main objective is that it can be used as a tool for misinformation.

I agree that AI content generation can be used for that. But even then, text and image and video generation are not controlled technologies like weapons and weaponized transport. There would be no strategic gain or profit to keeping publicly sellable content generation tools private.

Content generation tools might demand hardware and resources unavailable to the average person; for example, I don't have the hardware to run certain content generation tools because my Nvidia GTX 1050 Ti is not up to the job. But there's no advantage to keeping text, image and video tools secret and classified.

There's plenty of reason to keep weapons and armaments secret. But what applies to stealth jets and submersibles isn't applicable to content generation.

Are there military and corporate AI models being withheld from the public? Yes, but probably because they have use cases that depend on their privacy (such as war and firing people) as opposed to being more advanced or powerful. Not every AI is a content generator.