Fans of the cult-hit series Firefly will be pleased to learn that the show has been picked up by the Sci Fi Channel--just two months before the release of Serenity, a Universal Pictures film based on the series.

SciFi picked up the rights to show the 1st season of Firefly, including the 3 unaired episodes. They also will be showing them in order.

This move scares me. With the movie coming out in 2 months, you'd think Fox would adopt a "wait and see" attitude about the show. Why are they selling rights to a show that could get very popular? If they had any plans to restart the show after the movie, you'd think they'd want to keep the 1st season.

[ Well, the article says nothing about whether they've acquired rights to the whole franchise. As in, this says nothing about potential future episodes. I'm glad that (hopefully) more people can be exposed to such a good show. Still, I have a feeling Fox is probably assuming they'll get more out of buyers now, when the hype is high, than if the movie's not well recieved... it's a hedge.

Anyway, I'd *love* to see SciFi run with the series. As long as the writers and actors are willing to keep it up, the production values can be lower... it was never driven by flashy SFX (even though it had them) but by rich characters and stories. Someday those gou cao de jackasses at Fox will keep a quality show around.

(and, yes, I *have* been waiting a while to use one of the chinese quotes from the show in this context... ;)

-k]

Firefly picked up by SciFi Channel

] I'm worried about my country. I love America. I think
] it's the best country in the world. But I also think
] we're not tending to our sauce. I believe that we are in
] what Shirley Ann Jackson [president of Rensselaer
] Polytechnic Institute] calls a "quiet crisis." If we
] don't change course now and buckle down in a flat world,
] the kind of competition our kids will face will be
] intense and the social implications of not repairing
] things will be enormous.

This is a great article. I've been meaning to post it once wired placed it online, but Flynn beat me to it. :)

Why the World Is Flat

]
] Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor
] Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with
] far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an
] illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly
] different ones actually exist.

This is something that Negativland has been saying for a long
time, actually...

Books: The Paradox Of Choice: Why More Is Less

Efforts to convince Muslims not to hate Americans need to be combined with efforts to convince Americans not to hate Muslims.

The Muslim Ghetto

As the global war on terrorism continues to expand and the post-Cold War security environment remains in flux, both the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. intelligence have been thrust into the public spotlight. The author advances the argument that a “Revolution in Intelligence Affairs” is needed to prepare the Intelligence Community to meet its future challenges. In this report, she presents a framework for how the United States should consider specific changes to its intelligence enterprise to improve its effectiveness.

Toward a Revolution in Intelligence Affairs

Tom Friedman's new book is in stores on April 5.

When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?

In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century

Officials said they do not believe they need to change any law, executive order or regulation to put these changes in place. They said they will continue to work with Congress as they move forward.

DoD Proposes Program to Remodel Defense Intelligence

Francis Fukuyama has written this article for the Book Review in the Sunday New York Times.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the most famous sociological tract ever written, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," by Max Weber.

In the present decade, when cultures seem to be clashing and religion is frequently blamed for the failures of modernization and democracy in the Muslim world, Weber's book and ideas deserve a fresh look.

The Calvinist Manifesto

k wrote:
] [ Lots of good statistics to chew on here and lots of
] discussion to be had... i hope everyone will read this.

I've read a lot more this last year than anytime in the last ten, but it's all non-fiction. I'll see a book that's been meme's in this forum, go over to my local library web page, and put a hold on it. They send me an e-mail when it's ready and I pick it up -- or go over to Amazon if it's not in the library. Interestingly, I actually finish more of the books that I check out of the library than the books I buy.

RE: Fewer Noses Stuck in Books in America, Survey Finds

The idea is not so much to predict the future as to consider the forces that will push the future along different paths, in order to help leaders recognize new possibilities, assess new threats and make decisions that reach much further into the future.

Seeing the Futures