Fringe Blows

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I had a sudden burst of inspiration for the following rant:

Fringe has officially jumped the fucking shark as of Season 1, Episode 12, as far as I'm concerned.
In rapid succession, I have just heard a data forensics expert rattle off a series of statements that are deeply insulting to my intelligence as an informed viewer.

A quick breakdown of what just happened, in under a minute:

Peter: "I have two hard drives, both of which recently downloaded the same file. I need to know where it came from."
Hakim plugs in a single hard drive. Not both. Just one. Furthermore, he only makes one plugging motion, so he either plugged in the bus or the power source, but not both, and only on one drive.
Hakim's computer starts up and loads an X display before it evens loads the BIOS, with three or four terminals popping up and disappearing sporadically containing text flashing across them. It's not possible to read any of the output, and Hakim hasn't even touched the keyboard yet, so it's not like he mounted the thing, but he can already tell details about the ~600 MB file Peter is talking about.
Let's not forget that other files the two hard drives have in common are, like, the entire fucking operating system, basic layout of the directory tree structure, and common cached content from whatever browsers they were using. But no, it takes half a second to scan the entire hard drive without mounting it or even plugging in the bus, comparing it to the contents of a drive that's not even in physical contact with any part of the machine (although also without mounting it), using some built-in AI to infer from some imaginary context that the file they were looking for was the one it should examine, and magically projecting this information into Hakim's brain, as there is nothing on his screen whatsoever that could possibly be telling him this. Oh, and it does this without any input on Hakim's part, because he's maybe made two keystrokes at the very most by this point.

Hakim: "This is a very sophisticated piece of technology. Integrated audio and video..."
Whoop-de-fucking-do! Integrated audio and video? You don't say! It's almost like the program could bear the revolutionary concepts implemented in, I don't know, ANY STANDALONE MEDIA PLAYER WRITTEN SINCE 1990. Writing something this "sophisticated" is a good first project for a freshman computer science student, if not a high-school age hobbyist.

Hakim: "Part of this isn't even computer code."
Peter: "Is that even possible?"
Although we are in no way looking at anything at all resembling source code or an assembly or hex dump on Hakim's screen, Hakim is describing the structure of the program. Not that it actually matters, because of two major issues:
1) If the program did anything besides sit as an inert, effectively random array of bytes on the hard drive and utterly fail to do a damned thing, instructions are being fed to the processor, which means it IS becoming machine code. Because it ran on that computer, it was obviously understood by it, and therefore it MUST have been written in some manner that the processor clearly and unambiguously understood.
2) Even if the program itself was the product of Enlightened Science, the people running it on their computers very probably did not have computers capable of comprehending it. One of the computers was in a frackin' car dealership, for crying out loud, so unless Dell made an effort to widely distribute affordable quantum machines hot off the Technocratic Union assembly line to simple home users in the late 90's, or whenever the dealership probably bought their one computer for the decade, that computer will only run things within that computer's limits. And for that matter, so will Hakim's.

Hakim: "It downloaded from ten times the normal number of sources."
So... ten? Would it be ten sources, then? Cuz ten times one is ten.
Again without examining anything that looks like a log or packet dump, Hakim determines that the file was sent through a distributed peer-to-peer network. The major question here is, how the hell does Hakim know how many nodes is typical for downloading this thing? When you're downloading a file over a distributed P2P network (e.g. BitTorrent), the number of nodes is going to be a completely arbitrary number. A movie, game, mp3, what have you, can have a tremendous variation in the number of seeders and peers providing it to you; in other words, there is no such thing as a "typical" number of nodes for any file transfer other than a direct one (in which case there'd be one node).

Hakim: "It's being downloaded now, at this address..."
This entire time, Hakim has maybe made five or six keystrokes in total. And without pulling up anything remotely resembling a connection to a tracking server, Hakim identifies another peer who is downloading the file. And without looking up the IP in any way whatsoever, he pulls a street address from it.

Keep in mind this happened in a single bewildering 30-second assault on my sensibilities. I am already completely stunned at having witnessed this, but the worst only comes after the fact.
I am right now looking at a paused frame of the episode that shows that the new IP address downloading the file is... are you ready?
456.262.736.462
Nope, no typos there. Four-FUCKING-HUNDRED fifty six, two-hundred-SIXTY-TWO, a mind-blowing SEVEN-HUNDRED thirty six, and another four-THE-FUCK-HUNDRED and sixty two. None of those are legitimate numbers for an IP. Zero of them. Oh for four, Fringe writers. Oh for four.

It is also worth mention that I leapt up and hit pause as soon as I gathered my wits about me, so I don't actually know what other horrors may come next. Maybe they're about to "launch a firewall at him" or "Download the JavaScripts. / Which ones? / ALL of them!"

I'm scared.

Attempting to enjoy this show has so far been a struggle because of its blatant concessions of intellectual integrity for... mass appeal, I can only guess, although I can't see how saying sensible things could make a show lose an audience any more than this alternative they've decided on.
I've been watching Dr. Whathisface repeatedly mention that things are "only theories," and otherwise show an almost hilarious disregard for the scientific method. I have still not seen him do anything that actually shows the scientific method in action; he only stabs randomly at ideas in utter darkness and pulls an experiment out of his ass that works gloriously on its inaugural run. But the 30 seconds I've just watched have broken the camel's back, shattered its lower body under its weight, formed a crater at the impact site, and has now begun to tunnel to the Earth's core. This is wildly beyond excusable.

I mean come on, the show clearly has a large budget, so would it be too much of a problem to grab absolutely ANYONE in the sciences to give the script a look before shooting? Anyone at all? Even if it's an uncle of one of the cast members or something?

I'm going to wrap up Season 1 to scrounge as many ideas as I can for a potential Mage game, and then I'm done with this show forevermore.

[SlappyMcGee]

Tsukatu, there is little that I agree with your post about outside of the title. This is because Fringe, in fact, does blow. But it has not jumped the shark.

In order to even qualify to jump the fucking shark, you have to have a baseline of quality. Ed Wood's career never jumped the shark, but then again, Ed Wood never produced the absolute dogshit that is an always has been Fringe. The premise is boring and not just bordering retarded, but actually so deeply plunged in retard it would be like diving head first into an orgy going on at a Naruto convention. Furthermore, I'm basically positive they found the leads by looking for extras in Bloodrayne and worked backwards from there. The show has relied on gimmicks from the beginning, and just like Chuck Cunnigham or ANY CAMEO BY A STAR TREK ALUMNI, they will wander away when they realize they're not there to do intellectual work, but rather to emphasize the "LLZ SPOCK" factor of the show.

The plots are hackneyed and borrowed displaying the kind of science that isn't even acceptable at an Adam West/Burt Ward reunion. Even the setpieces, which should be awesome because FOX keeps on throwing money at this show and certainly isn't getting anything back on the production end, suck ass. The entire show looks like it's taking place on the stage of a Midwestern high school.


And all of this is merely compounded by the fact that you have to miss America's Next Top Model to watch it. Ass show.

[Donfuy]

I seriously laughed out loud at the four-FUCKING-HUNDRED. Made my day.

[Mute Monk]

You know, if you think about it, pretty much any show (not including educational-style shows, such as found on the National Geographic channel or others of that sort) completely defies reality when dealing with the sciences.

Take CSI for example: I watch it almost solely to laugh at the resolution apparently possible in video taken from a weak-ass security camera. At night.

"Oh yes, we'll simply magnify the image, and pull the suspect's face from the reflection in that car window. Then his license plate number from the reflection in his sunglasses." All this from a 90's era camera...Bullcrap.

They seem to take extra liberties when dealing with electronics, because they apparently assume their entire audience suffers from techno-fear, rather than techno-joy. Thank you Eddie Izzard.

As a rule, I never take such shows seriously. Never.

[capt_weasle]

[Mute Monk]

Wow...I just laughed so hard I actually started to cry.

Win.

[Kablizzy]

I really, really hope you made that, capt.

[Spawn of Yanni]

I really, really hope you made that, capt.

Unfortunately not. But who needs exaggerations, right?

[capt_weasle]

Unfortunately I cannot claim ownership, only a mere finders fee.

[Kablizzy]

I could only sit through 2 minutes of that last video, Yannerz. I had to vomit blood from my arse.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Fringe is awesome, (Just had it down here in NZ). Though it does get a bit out of hand sometimes, I think that is where I get some of my joy from it. The pure (or dirty) fiction of it creates a supernatural kind of feeling that I enjoy. I guess it would be okay to have it completely correct, science wise, but then wouldn't a lot of the fun be shaved off?

No, absolutely not. For most viewers (the ones who don't have a chance at understanding what's being said), they'd just be swapping out gibberish for other gibberish; they wouldn't notice. But for us viewers who have had a high school education, they have a chance to get us hooked, and we wouldn't publicly lambast the show.

Do you know why The Matrix was particularly awesome, to me? Because Trinity used nmap and sshnuke to hack into the power station, and it showed that. Lo and behold, they actually consulted someone. You saw it as gibberish, but the demographic that would make for the most diehard fans may very well have creamed themselves. The Cohen brothers have guaranteed themselves a substantial increase in fandom and sales of DVD's and merchandise.


Otherwise, have a CSI parody courtesy of Red Dwarf.
...and this might be the most depressing thing I've seen lately.

[a happy song]

Only helps strengthen my belief that Dexter is the only thing worth watching on TV right now.

[Mute Monk]

The Cohen Wachowski brothers have guaranteed themselves a substantial increase in fandom and sales of DVD's and merchandise.

Sorry, I'm not one of the "most diehard fans", but I do quite like the Matrix series...I just felt a bit of correction was needed.

And I too appreciated that scene.

[Spawn of Yanni]

In terms of IP retardation, I suppose they don't like to use real IPs for the same reason that they use designated disabled telephone numbers in movies - so some random, real person doesn't somehow have his personal information available.

I could only sit through 2 minutes of that last video, Yannerz. I had to vomit blood from my arse.

I did watch it in three separate sections, yeah.

[Mute Monk]

I get what you're saying, but why do they have to put the numbers in the thousands? It's like making "804-599-310-662-906-732-957-330-641" a fake phone number in a movie. People just don't believe it and it doesn't make sense.

[Skyling]

Wait, people still watch Fox?

[otters~1]

You know, if you think about it, pretty much any show (not including educational-style shows, such as found on the National Geographic channel or others of that sort) completely defies reality when dealing with the sciences.

Like in National Treasure 2 when Nicholas Cage holds up whatever sacred thing he's dealing with and a camera at an intersection takes a picture of it right before he throws it in a fucking river so the bad guys who're up his ass don't get it! Oh and I forgot the best part. He quickly hacks into the traffic camera using a laptop, retrieves the image, magnifies it, and FINDS GOLD UNDER MOUNT RUSHMORE.

We could really make a thread out of this.

(And, cap't, that was ... good.)

[capt_weasle]

Wait, people still watch Fox?

The only show I watch on television these days is House, which is on Fox. If I;m hanging out with my girlfriend - who watches enough tv to account for about six people - we'll watch Glee, which is surprisingly well thought out and entertaining.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

The Cohen Wachowski brothers have guaranteed themselves a substantial increase in fandom and sales of DVD's and merchandise.

Sorry, I'm not one of the "most diehard fans", but I do quite like the Matrix series...I just felt a bit of correction was needed.

Oh, my God. I don't know how I made that mistake. My bad.

[SlappyMcGee]

The Cohen Wachowski brothers have guaranteed themselves a substantial increase in fandom and sales of DVD's and merchandise.

Sorry, I'm not one of the "most diehard fans", but I do quite like the Matrix series...I just felt a bit of correction was needed.

Oh, my God. I don't know how I made that mistake. My bad.

It's not as bad of a mistake as it would have been without the H. With the H, you're likely talking about Joel and Robert Cohen, Simpsons staff writers.

[unoriginal name]

Wait, people still watch Fox?

The only show I watch on television these days is House, which is on Fox.

Skyling, I'm sorry, but fucking QFE.

[Tanner]

The first two posts in this thread were fantastic.

[Luminaflare]

I enjoy fringe but ever since I watched die hard 4 I've kind of just turned my brain off when it comes to science or technology in anything mainstream ever.

[Geti]

Do you know why The Matrix was particularly awesome, to me? Because Trinity used nmap and sshnuke to hack into the power station, and it showed that.

Huh, someone else noticed that.

Ontopic, is it possible that they're doing it deliberately? Like, trolling their informed viewers? I haven't seen any of it, but it could be a subtle punch at everyone who cares about doing it right.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Ontopic, is it possible that they're doing it deliberately? Like, trolling their informed viewers? I haven't seen any of it, but it could be a subtle punch at everyone who cares about doing it right.

Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."