I have only one question . . .

[unixronin]

WTF are these people THINKING?

Oh.

Right.

"Network executive."

That's sort of like "Pirate."  Only much, much more stupid.

Uh ... does that even mean anything?  It's worse than "Think Different".

“We spent a lot of time in the ’90s trying to distance the network from science fiction, which is largely why it’s called Sci Fi,” Mr. Brooks said.

Trying to "distance the network from science fiction"?  You DROOLING FUCKTARD.  That's like trying to distance ESPN from sports.  The channel was FOUNDED to be an all-science-fiction channel.

Comments

[lizzibabe.livejournal.com]

"The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that"

Fuck him and the Tauntaun he rode in on. I fucking well PAID HIS SALARY, goddammit.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

No kidding. Way to give the finger to the audience you built your network on.

[n5red.livejournal.com]

How the hell do I get somebody to pay me millions to be that kind of fuckup?

[rosencrantz23.livejournal.com]

it gets better:

They chose the name "Syfy" because "that's how someone [in our target audience] would text the name to their friends on their phone."

I don't know about you, but I'd just say "SF" for my text abbreviation. Anyone I texted would know exactly what I meant.

I bet it's more because the network execs couldn't sue anyone for using the term "scifi"; they can trademark and OWN "syfy" on the other hand.

The fail is great with this story.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

Over a decade back, a science fiction channel was a temptation to actually have a television. Then I found out what programs were actually carried on the channel, and gave up. What he is saying is that he can't control the message with real science fiction, because writers that understand it are not willing to totally give in to network pressure and values.

Goose... Golden Egg... You know the rest.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Ironically, "syfy" is Polish for "zit."

[danjite.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be more like the pus from a zit? Or rather the corruption that the pus represents?

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Beats me. My Polish is weak; all I know is what I picked up during college from hanging around a quite beautiful Polish immigrant.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Either way, it seems quite appropriate for what the channel's become — the "Pretty much anything but science fiction" channel.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hmm. According to james_nicoll, 'syfy' is the plural of the Polish slang for syphilis (http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/1694020.html?thread=28191044&style=mine#t28191044).

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

That's "syf", if I recall correctly.

[http://users.livejournal.com/crossfire_/]

"Well, I wanted to be in program planning but unfortunately I have a degree." -- from a Monty Python skit

[ilcylic.livejournal.com]

They think they're in a competition with the folks at AIG for "biggest fucking idiot who still gets a paycheck".

[skellington.livejournal.com]

This is amusing:

we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.

I guess we're space aliens now.

But this is really what's driving it:

We need an umbrella brand we can attach to new businesses: Sci Fi games, Sci Fi kids. It does no use to attach ‘Sci Fi’ because there’s hundreds of sci-fi Web sites and sci-fi publications. So it’s changing your name without changing your name,” Mr. Howe said.

They need a name they can trademark, and you can't trademark "SciFi".

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think civilization will end neither with a bang nor with a whimper, but in a ceaseless and ever-growing babble of marketers, advertisers, lawyers and accountants. It'll become impossible to say anything substantive without violating some imbecile's trademarked intellectual property.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

We're already at that point.

Visa's policy for potentially fraudulent activity is to contact the cardholder ASAP via any means possible. Cardholders like this, because it lets them know Visa takes their information seriously. Visa likes this, because if they don't get a response from the cardholder in just a few minutes the odds are excellent the transaction is fraudulent.

Unfortunately, the idea of sending SMS messages to people to alert them of potentially fraudulent card activity is patented.

It is already impossible to do anything without violating patents.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I hear you. I think the root of the problem there is that for far too long, far too much has been patentable, and far too many often-trivial patents with little or no actual merit have been allowed to stand because an overworked patent examiner with only a short time to examine a patent didn't understand the subject, but was really impressed by the technical and legal language in the description. Between junk patents that should have been dismissed as immediately obvious applications or trivial modifications of an existing patent, overly broad patents so vague they don't actually patent anything more tangible than a general idea, and submarine patents that are continually revised and revised until something valuable collides with them, our patent system is a complete morass. It's no wonder many other nations don't honor US patents.

Unfortunately, I don't have any particularly good ideas on how to solve the problem (though I wonder whether part of the answer might be peer review via some kind of "distributed patent office").

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

The incentives are wrong for patent examiners. They get rewarded on applications processed. Rejecting a patent means that they get to reprocess it on appeal, but it already counts as one of their applications, so it is just a time sink later. Raises and promotions only come by getting through the requisite number of applications. That means that the bias is to grant patents. Searching for implications (or even prior art, where they were not allowed to use the internet) is beyond the time scope of even the best examiner.

[johnkzin.livejournal.com]

This whole debacle is, easily, in my top 3 or so of dumbest things I've ever heard.

The stupid builds upon the stupid.

And, we all know, in a sufficiently advanced society, stupidity carries the death penalty. Clearly our society isn't advanced enough yet.