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Links to interesting things
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
one of the best written shows on TV.
How many other shows have made stars of their writers?
Sad day.
The shortsighted lawyers at Fox have forced the closure of the Buffy Shooting Scripts Site.
That site did more to heighten interest in this extraordinary show than any other site I have seen. Rayne, who managed that site did so for free, out of her admiration for the writers of that show. She posted many of the scripts on her website and basically created a public awareness of how wonderful they really are.
Have Fox wondered why Buffy, alone among the small number of exceptionally well written TV shows, has a market for its scripts bound as books?
Rayne, more than anyone else, created that market! She made hundreds of thousands of people aware that reading the sripts was a special joy... more than that, she continually sharpened that interest in all those people. And she has always been respectful of efforts to sell the scripts -- as soon as a book came out containing some Buffy scripts she removed those from her site and promoted the book, which could be bought from Amazon via a link right there on her site. Before closure her site had more than 750,000 visitors!!
How much would it have cost Fox to maintain such highly targetted and effective advertising? They had it for free, but threw it away... and left their audience feeling that Fox have only contempt for them. Audiences have come to expect that behavior from such as Paramount, but for a time, Fox had seemed to understand the benefits of the information age better... clearly not, though.
While I still love the show, a lot of my enthusiasm seems to have faded after losing my regular updates from the wonderful community that sprang from Rayne's site. I have to admit I'm quite surprised at that.
The VRA (Virtual Reality Association) is a free association of people interested in Virtual Reality.
From 1996 to recently we have been meeting each month on the 4th Tuesday. Lately those meetings have become less regular, but nevertheless still occur. When general enthusiasm for VR swells again undoubtedly VRA meetings will again attend to that interest.
The VRA meetings cover a number of topics. Here are some of the things discussed.
Spaced
Out is a science fiction club for gay guys, lesbians, and
friends.
ESEUG is a small computer club, though we discuss anything, not just computers.
Michael Green has some interesting thoughts which you will find here.
SETI@home
Become part of an historic project by the people at SETI (the Search
for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) to sift through all the radio telescope
data gathered by them. The intention is to harness the most powerful computing
network on the planet -- all our computers on the internet.
You might be the one to find ET out
there!!
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First though, see how Penny Patterson already talks with another
species
right here on Earth
Koko is an amazing gorilla who speaks using sign language.
Visit Koko.org or www.gorilla.org
where you can
watch videos, learn about Koko in particular or gorillas in general,
read about her imminent move to a Hawaiian mountaintop.
Buy books and other merchandise to help the Gorilla Foundation.
They are working to increase understanding of gorillas and
hopefully end the destruction of these cool beings.
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I try to revise and add to these pages, however in recent years all but the front page have been allowed to gather virtual cobwebs.
I had to take the simple email link out of here because of the flood of spam from the bastards who harvest email addresses off websites and are currently destroying the best communication system ever developed. I get more than 100 per day -- and those are just the ones that make it through my ISP's spam filters!
Please email me at
dontSpam_miriam@werple.net.au
(removing the "dontSpam_" part of the address)
ensuring that the subject is "Miriam - link:".
The subject needs to be there so that I can see it buried amongst all the spam.
Sorry about the complication.
Blame the spamming sociopaths and the spineless politicians who couldn't be bothered doing anything about it.
Here is a useful piece of work for those of us trying to coordinate
around the world.
Jeff Sonstein's
world clock