It was announced today that Fox would not be bringing Dollhouse back after its second season. It’s better than what they did to Whedon’s Firefly a few years back. Firefly was canceled mid-season for low ratings that were Fox’s fault. Dollhouse is being allowed to finish its second season and Whedon was warned before hand so he can prepare an actual ending for the show. Dollhouse‘s finale will air January 22, 2010.

Fox will not actually die today. They have till the end of the season to prepare. Till then there will be uproar about it but on that day they will fall.

Dollhouse isn’t the first scifi show Fox has canceled this year. In Spring they canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That show they didn’t even give a chance to end itself, it just stopped in the middle of the storyline. Firefly released a movie after its cancellation to finish up the series and the unaired episodes were released on dvd.

Fox is trying to avoid another Firefly incident. Well, you cancel a good show and guess what happens, people get pissed. Whether or not it’s the second good show from the same writer you’ve canceled. Fox was never that great, it’s just big, and they are going down the drain, fast. After this they will probably lose almost all scifi fans, especially the cult ones as viewers. Alienating their viewers is them hurting themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the viewers and ex-viewers need to hurt them a bit too.

The following are the personal opinions of one Fizzzard. Sir Benjamin personally has no idea what to make of these things because he doesn’t own the book, and quite frankly probably won’t anytime soon.

As you know or will know by the end of this sentence xkcd released its first book on Tuesday, entitled xkcd: volume 0. Personally I ordered my copy as fast as I could. I did not however pay $17 extra, almost the same amount as the book itself, to get it signed. They said to allow 1-2 weeks for shipping so I was quite happy when it arrived only 4 days after I ordered it.

However, once I opened the box I noticed an immediate problem. Though it had been shipped with some packing paper as protection against harm the paper was all crammed to one end of the box, not protecting the book. Dented books are not cool, at least not when they’re dented before I get them. The book also appears to be somewhat warped, I don’t know why, it just is.

The choice in strips to include is a bit weird. The first to entries of the journal series are included but none of the ones after Megan takes his hat are. On the other hand some of the not so good comics are included, including the ferret in a plane, Donner party of four, and the Penny Arcade parody.

In the blag post announcing the book’s release it was said that there was going to be extra comments in the margins of the book. Well there are, but only on about a third of the pages, and some of the ones that are there are in some sort of code or other that makes no sense to me.

Oh and to top it off there are several misprints through out the book. There’s a red dot in the middle of one of the comics. There a some small red lines across some white space the probably shouldn’t be there. Oh and one of the scroll-over comments has the lower half of its text to the left of the upper half of the text.

I’ll probably buy volume 1 if it’s released but mostly only because it exists. Unless you have money to spare don’t bother buying the book, just read the comics online.

Currently I want to ask one out. Well I’d rather not do it in front of a group. So she needs to be separate from the group. When does that happen? Well to figure that out exactly would require stalking, and stalking doesn’t go over well. So take a guess, maybe when she is at her locker after school. Say that works. I finally have a chance, but what do I say? “Hi, I’m the guy that sits in the corner of your 7^th period who never talks, want to go out sometime?” Well maybe that would work but it’s a little risky to try. Maybe: “Hi, you know me right? Would you like to go out sometime?” Well that sounds okay, I guess I’ll go with that.

What she said yes? Hurrah! Hmm, where to go….. um…..

This is gonna be so much fun….

-Fizzzy

Limits to Cultures

I believe there are no limits to cultural relativism because if there are limits then it is not cultural relativism anymore, at some level there is a logical reason for everything, and a lack of a thing that would determine limits if there were limits.

Dictionary.com defines cultural relativism as a noun meaning “the concept that the importance of a particular cultural idea varies from one society or societal subgroup to another, the view that ethical and moral standards are relative to what a particular society or culture believes to be good/bad, right/wrong”. By that definition it is impossible for cultural relativism to involve any limits while still continuing to be cultural relativism. However if that definition is believed to allow limits in another culture then there might be some conflict because by that definition they are allowed to think that way and can’t have limits imposed on it. If this definition is looked at as a fact though then there is no way to impose limits on a culture for whatever reason.

Some cultures kill a twin baby. They do this for a reason unbeknown to me, but there is a reason for it. Now it’s fairly likely this reason is also not acceptable within our culture. However if you keep looking at the reasons behind the reasons you’ll almost surely find a reason that is also a reason for something in our culture. How odd we find them killing that baby is how odd they find us not killing that baby.

Nothing exists that would determine limits if they existed. One culture can’t determine limits because all cultures have the same rights. To impose limits on a culture the imposer must be better than the culture and according to the definition of cultural relativism no culture is better than another and therefore can’t impose limits on another.

I have stated my reasons for there not being limits on cultural relativism. There are many other reasons for and against there being limits. None of these beliefs are right or wrong, everyone has their reasons for what they think, and deep down the reasons are all similar. I believe my way, you believe your way, and Bob believes something entirely different.

-Fizzzard

There’s a certain flow in all things. It makes the stuff continue to happen. It’s the world’s habits. Habits need to be broken, though. You know what will happen if you go with the flow, the exact same thing that happened yesterday, which also happened the day before that. In fact it’s probably the exact same thing that’s happened everyday since the environment it’s in.

But what happen if you don’t go with the flow? Well the outcome can go two different ways. It can stop the flow completely and completely shatter everything in the environment. More likely though a few people will notice, not care, and the flow will adjust to the change. Like a bend in a river.

The worst thing that can come from not going with the flow is you learn to go with that part of the flow and not try to change it. Best if the change in the flow sticks and ends up causing something that might not have happened otherwise.

So go change the flow a little, you never know, something great might happen.

-Fizzzard

P.S. This is a message meant for anyone who is debating whether or not to ask a girl out: Ask her out, the worst that happens is she says no and nothing happens, best, well I’ll let you think of that one yourself.

Editor’s Note: Alternatively referred to a “WTSTTTMBGMTA.” Rolls off the tongue better… the following was submitted by a guest contributor who expressly requested that I not add much of a comment here at the start other than, “If you would like to contribute something to the STP blog, then email it to me at qandc@sttimmypro.com.” I will almost certainly post it… And without any further ado, WTSTTTMBGMTA by the one and only Fizzzard (the next italic-y text was written by him too).

This essay was written for a homework assignment. The assignment was to write a five paragraph essay about what you needed to do before the semester ended to achieve the grades you wanted. Well as you will soon learn, I didn’t much like the topic and quickly changed my interpretation of the assignment to tailor what I felt like writing about it. The teacher I submitted this to has this website’s address so he may very well show up and comment.

Fizzzard
1/7/09
Period 7

“What I Must do to Get Good Grades for the Semester” Essay

According to the title this essay is supposed to be about what I need to do to end the semester with good grades. Now if I wrote an essay about that it wouldn’t get farther than “I need to do my overdue English homework.” So rather than turn in a one line essay, I’m going to write one about why writing an essay about the thing I don’t feel like typing out again, is not really possible. I believe that writing an essay about the thing I’m not gonna type out again is not really possible and if written does not produce a good essay.

The supposed to be topic of this essay fits better as a journal entry than a full five paragraph essay. Actually, one of my teachers had the class write a journal entry about basically the same topic. As shown in the first paragraph I can use one sentence to tell what I need to do to end this semester with grades I like. One sentence is probably less than a journal entry actually*, so it is definitely not enough for an essay. So maybe toss in the spare sentence “I should probably do my best in French to get the best grade I can.” but that isn’t so much something I can control as it is something determined by what happens in the class. So there we have two sentences, enough for a short journal entry**. Most likely one written while in a rush or about to go to sleep.

It is good to know what you need to do and by when but this is a history class. It seems more like something that would be done in a study hall or similar class. I think we only do all this non-history stuff in History because it’s a community class and someone thinks that freshman are too stupid to know how to get decent grades. Okay admittedly a decent number of freshman are stupid, most of them even know what they need to do. Whether they do it or not is debatable, but that doesn’t matter, they still know what they need to know, they just might not actually do what they need to. So to Mr. Self-Acclaimed Smart Guy, most of us don’t need this “help” and it just takes time from actually important stuff we could be doing. By all means help the people who need it, but that is a minority, not all of us.

The point of this small task-turned-essay is supposed to get us to do our work and get good grades. Good grades are important, but personally the more I’m told to do something the less likely I am to do it. A slight reminder of when the semester ends interjected into announcements to a class are more likely to have an effect on the listeners. I’m not the only person who hates being told to do stuff over, and over, and over again. Interesting fact, the time taken up writing this essay could’ve been used to do some of the overdue homework.

So the topic of this essay which I refuse to type out after that first time because it’s annoying to does not make a good essay. It’s barely a journal prompt at best. A journal prompt best fit in a class that isn’t History. Even in a journal in another class it still might make someone less likely to actually do the work and get the good grades. So I wrote this essay, which technically does include what I need to do to get good grades, to point out the flaws in the whole idea off writing essays about things that could not possibly be stretched far enough to make a decent essay.

This essay shall be posted on http://sttimmypro.com/ as soon as the person who needs to give me posting rights gets onto Gmail. All comments can be posted there where I will reply to them within twenty-four hours. While you’re there also feel free to read any of the other posts. I highly recommend “Wisdom VS Knowledge” located at http://sttimmypro.com/blog/?p=80 and “Are We Afraid of Technology” located at http://sttimmypro.com/blog/?p=99.*** Oh and if you wanted this double spaced the explanation for why I don’t will most likely be posted on above website whenever I am next asked by a teacher to double space something.

So long and thanks for all the fish. (Sadly forgot that line when I printed the essay and you will learn in a later post of mine why I did not just reprint it.)

Editor’s Footnotes:
*It’s enough for a tweet!
**Or two tweets!
***Also, check out the humorous and thoroughly well-researched “The Straw That… Killed the Humans” and the just as well-researched “I Am.”

Also, I would like to say that my personal opinion is that people aren’t nearly afraid enough of technology. That shizz is gonna come back and destroy us when we’re least expecting it, and everyone’s all gonna be up in here, like, “whoa, look at that cool iPod with a laser!”

Bang. Dead. Because no one was afraid of the little iPod.

But you can get enough of that in my previous blog post, The Straw That… killed the humans.

Ahem. And now without further delayance….

Are We Afraid of Technology?

Ever notice how people never upgrade their technology? Why is that? The upgraded version is almost always better and easier to use, so why do they keep using the same old technology? The school district here uses Windows 2000. Now I won’t go into why they should be using Windows yet, but that version of Windows is almost 9 years old. Some of the schools got new computers last year. They came with Windows XP on them: finally an upgrade. They immediately downgraded them to Windows 2000.

Why is it that they insist on using Windows 2000? Money could be a reason to not upgrade but doesn’t explain why they downgraded those computers. No, it’s not money, it’s their refusal to learn. If they upgrade the computers they have to learn all the security and the entire operating system again. So why don’t they want to learn? It would be better, wouldn’t it? It would be better but they’re afraid of it. Afraid that they won’t understand it. Afraid they’ll make a mistake. Afraid they’ll let us see something we shouldn’t. Afraid they’ll lose their jobs. Afraid we’ll know it better than them. Afraid of giving us power. Afraid of looking weak. Afraid of not being the expert. Afraid.

Windows became the most popular operating system because its computers were mostly used in offices, and Windows has Microsoft Office. While they still are the most popular it’s only because people haven’t tried others. At this point there’re many free office applications, some of which are better than Microsoft Office, which must be paid for. There are even operating systems which are free. The many forms of Linux are usually free, and contain programs like OpenOffice which is one of those free office applications. So if it’s money stopping people from using a better operating software then why don’t they use a free one? Simple they’re afraid they won’t understand how to use it.

So are we afraid of technology? No. Well not because it’s technology. We are afraid of change. Afraid to change from what we’re used to. Why change to something better if what you have works okay? Logically you should because, well, it’s better. So why don’t we? Because we don’t want to learn the new software, even if it is better once we do.

No, We are Afraid of Change.

-Fizzzard

And now, without further delayance, “Wisdom v. Knowledge” (I think that was in the supreme court at some point).

Without Knowledge or Wisdom

Those who won’t nor can go anywhere. They are truly nothing. What good is it to know nothing nor be able to learn it? It’s no good at all. In fact it wastes other people’s time. No matter how hard you try, it is impossible to help these people. They will drift through life having absolutely no affect on anything.

Knowledge without Wisdom

The type of person viewed as smart who really isn’t. Let’s say wisdom is the ability to learn, which part of it is. What good is telling someone something if they don’t know what that something is or what to do with it? It’s pointless. There is no reason to put time and effort into explaining something to someone who can’t understand. So if a person doesn’t have the wisdom to use the knowledge they possess, they can’t cause any good — but neither can they cause any wrong they wouldn’t have caused anyway. One doesn’t need wisdom only to do good, they also don’t need it to do bad.

Wisdom without Knowledge

This is a fairly uncommon occurrence, as those who are wise have a hard time not accumulating knowledge. These people are sometimes those who think themselves to great to be taught by people with less wisdom. This can be a common occurrence within schools where the student who is smarter than the teacher knows so and refuses to be taught by that teacher. Once these people are taught by an equal or greater, they quickly ascend to have wisdom and knowledge.

Wisdom with Knowledge

The elite. Possessing everything they could possibly need in a non-material world. They are those who truly have potential to go somewhere in their life. These are the people who should be put on a higher level than others. They should be running countries and businesses. They could very easily be viewed as gods among men. They can do anything, anything at all.

That which is

Knowledge can be acquired at any time with varying levels of difficulty. Wisdom, however, is in the other hand, the left hand. Wisdom cannot be obtained like knowledge. You must be born with wisdom to ever possess it. Those who say wisdom comes with age or that it can be obtained in some way are those with very little or none themselves.

Congratulations if you have some wisdom in you.

If you don’t at least be glad you read all the way to here.

-Fizzzard