firehose

"I'd like to order 4,000 lattes to go, please." Those were the words of Steve Jobs in 2007: the late Apple co-founder was making the first public phone call with a just-unveiled product called "iPhone." The unsuspecting Starbucks employee on the other end of the line had no clue she'd just been pranked in front of thousands of attendees at Apple's Macworld conference. Years later though, Fast Company has tracked down the target of Jobs' lighthearted joke. Ying Hang "Hannah" Zhang is still a barista at that Starbucks location and hasn't forgotten the fateful day Apple's visionary rang her up. "I feel very happy and lucky that I had a chance to actually talk to him," she said of the brief, seconds-long chat. Should her memory fade, it seems Zhang will have no trouble remembering the conversation; Fast Company reports pranksters still call with Jobs' request to this day.

• Source Fast Company
• Related Items ying hang zhang steve jobs macworld 2007 starbucks iPhone Apple

Despite a January appeals court decision that seemed to signal an end to the nearly decade-long battle for ownership of Superman, the family of co-creator Jerry Siegel still holds out hope for victory over DC Comics.

When most people think of the Mad Men opening sequence, the first thing that comes to mind is Don Draper's silhouette falling through the sky. But Gita Hall May sees something else: herself. The former model is suing distributor Lionsgate Entertainment for using her likeness without permission or compensation. May claims the photo in question was lifted from a 1960s Revlon ad without her knowledge. "At no time did she agree to allow, forty years later, her image to be cropped from the photo, in secret, and inserted as a key element in the title sequence of a cable television series."

According to the complaint (which describes May as "the top model of her time"), she was only made aware of her presence in the titles last year — May's attorneys say the delay was because Mad Men airs only on cable rather than network TV. The document describes Mad Men's opening, which won an Emmy in 2008, as "integral" to the success the AMC series has enjoyed since its debut. May's likeness has been included in the sequence for the entirety of the series thus far, and as you'd expect she's seeking monetary relief for those airings.

• Via DeadlineABC News
• Source Court Filing (PDF)
• Related Items mad men gita hall may model lawsuit title sequence amc don draper

The FCC has granted Google permission to enter a public trial with the commission to test out and continue the process of approving its white space spectrum database. The database is designed to record when and where unlicensed spectrum — particularly TV white spaces, which are unused tracts that lie in the over-the-air TV spectrum band — in order to open them up for commercial use. The purpose of the system is to avoid interference while making more spectrum available for public use, especially for last-mile wireless broadband applications. Google's 45-day trial with the FCC, which ends on April 17th, will be the next step towards getting the database certified, with the search company fielding feedback from broadcasters, spectrum holders, and others involved in the industry. Google's database, when it goes live, won't be the first: that milestone was accomplished in 2011, with the first white space network in the US going live in Wilmington, North Carolina on January 26th of last year.

• Via The Next Web
• Source Google.org blog
• Related Items white space database google.org trial fcc Google

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Wait times at Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoints at major U.S. airports have already nearly doubled since sequestration was implemented, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Monday.

Napolitano said Monday that the $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts that were officially enacted last Friday have already resulted in airport security lines that are "150 to 200 percent" longer than they normally are.

Asus has announced that its Transformer Pad TF300 will be updated to Android 4.2 Jelly Bean in the US today, making it the first device outside of Google's Nexus program to receive the software. Other regions get the upgrade, which will roll out over the air and also includes updated versions of some bundled Asus apps, later this month. There's no word on exactly which build users will receive, though it may be too soon to expect the recent bug fixes from Android 4.2.2.

Asus has a history of providing its devices with relatively speedy updates; the Transformer Pad got Android 4.1 soon after the software's announcement, for example, and the company says its helps it in this regard. Not all its products are quite so lucky, however — Asus also announced that the Transformer Pad Infinity, MeMO Pad Smart, and MeMO Pad will have to wait until Q2 for an update to Android 4.1.

• Related Items android 4.2 jelly bean transformer pad tablet update upgrade software update available release date date region ota Transformer Pad TF300T Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 (Wi-Fi) MeMO Pad Smart MeMO Pad ME172V Asus Tablets

Naama Bloom has never been quite satisfied with the way tampons are sold. "For some reason, it's just something that drives me crazy," she told The Verge. "First of all, the product packaging is wrong — if you need overnight pads, you have to buy a whole box that's going to last you all year. It seems so simple to just create a multi-pack that actually makes sense."

That’s what she decided to do. Today Bloom is launching HelloFlo, a monthly subscription service for tampons. Subscription services are getting pretty popular — there’s one for cosmetics, doggie treats, underwear, condoms, you name it — and what could be more fitting than a monthly subscription for a monthly need? A steady subscription ensures a woman is never caught without the necessary supplies. The discreet packaging also means women can receive the boxes at work, and single dads with daughters can avoid having to buy feminine products at the drugstore.

"Basically, every woman I spoke to was like, ‘oh my God, that's fucking brilliant," Bloom said. "No one actually enjoys the experience of buying tampons."

"No one actually enjoys the experience of buying tampons."

Bloom is married to a startup founder, Ordr.in CEO David Bloom, who encouraged her to take the leap into entrepreneurship. "I had this idea and I was talking about it forever, and David was like, ‘one day you're going to see in TechCrunch that someone started this business and you're going to be so pissed off.’"

Actually, that’s exactly what happened. Bloom has a lot of competition in the tampon subscription space. In September, Juniper launched for the high-end market with a discreet box of tampons, pads, pantyliners, and "indulgences" such as chocolate and tea for $28 a month. Then in November, My Cotton Bunny launched with a box of tampons or pads and a surprise gift for $13.75 a month. Le Parcel launched in January, offering a box of tampons, pads, chocolate, and a gift for $15 a month. There’s also Sent Her Way in California, Perfect Timing in New Jersey, and Trinkets in the UK.

It’s a bit surprising to see so much action around tampon subscriptions, since the mostly male venture capitalists in Silicon Valley like to fund products they can use themselves.

It’s a bit surprising to see so much action around tampon subscriptions

However, subscription startups have caught on strong among tech investors, even though it’s a relatively low-tech game. Birchbox, which sends a box of cosmetics samples every month for $10, has more than 100,000 subscribers and has raised more than $11.9 million in investment. ShoeDazzle, the Kim Kardashian-endorsed service that delivers a new pair of shoes every month, has raised $66 million.

HelloFlo’s business model is also so dead simple that it’s hard to believe it could be an entire business. Bloom only sells Always and Tampax Pearl, and each box has a combination of tampons, pantyliners, and pads, with no frills or extra gifts beyond a couple pieces of candy. It seems impossible that such a basic service could convince women to part with $14 to $18 a month. Then again, Dollar Shave Club pulled off a similar feat selling a subscription just for razor blades.

"I've certainly had some men ask me what I would sell next, as if half the world's population that menstruates once a month isn’t a big enough business," Bloom said. "There are men out there who don't think this is a very big market, but it’s $8 billion a year in the US." Ah, so that explains why women suddenly have so many options for monthly tampon delivery.

• Image Credit Naama Bloom
• Related Items juniper subscription services helloflo tampons birchbox shoedazzle

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has been resubmitted to the Australian Classification board, with this version described as "modified." CVG took note of the new classification submission, speculating it's either a reissue with the game's downloadable content included or a Wii U port.

Straight Right, the Australian developer that ported Mass Effect 3 to Wii U, is currently working on a Square Enix port for Nintendo's Wii U.

Deus Ex: Human Defiance was recently trademarked by Square Enix Europe, strongly indicating a sequel announcement is planned.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution resubmitted for classification in Australia originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By Nathan Grayson on March 4th, 2013 at 2:00 pm.

As human beings with all the normal Products of the Flesh – hopes, dreams, and a single brain split between multiple bodies, inextricably intertwined via thick, ropy cords of spinal tissue – we at RPS are quite excited about inXile’s Planescape: Torment not-quite-a-sequel. It is, however, missing a couple key ingredients: 1) Planescape lead designer Chris Avellone and 2) money. So of course, inXile’s released a video of Chris Avellone explaining why you should give them money. On Kickstarter, by the way. That’s officially a thing now. Or at least, it will be very, very soon.

The Kickstarter’s due to kick off on March 6th, which the arbitrary social constructs of our time have deemed “Wednesday.” Until then, though, we have new info to tide you over.

“In Torment: Tides of Numenera, players will have to decide for themselves the eternal question: what does one life matter? Numenera’s Ninth World is a vision of a world in which massive civilizations continue to rise and fall with only cities, monuments, and artifacts left behind to serve as reminders of their past existence. These reminders have become part of the accumulated detritus of eons and now this assortment of ancient power is there for the taking. The humans of the Ninth World call the ancient power left behind the numenera. One of these humans has discovered a way to harness the numenera to grow strong, to cheat death, to skip across the face of centuries in a succession of bodies. But he discovers an unexpected side effect: You.”

Meanwhile, everything else looks to be pretty much as you’d expect: no DRM, “deep and reactive choices,” and – of course – intrinsic ties to Monte Cook’s recently Kickstarted Numenera role-playing system.

It’s nice to hear that so many former Planescapers are present and accounted for, too. I mean, I doubt they’ll be able to recapture the wonder of Planescape: Torment, but this is a new setting and system. I’ve come to terms with that fact, and honestly, if I wanted to play the original again, I’d just, you know, go replay the original. Sure, Chris Avellone’s off working on a different pseudo-successor to Planescape, but this is still a promising lineup. Will Tides of Numenera be better than the original? That’s an almost implausibly tall order. Truth be told, I’m doubtful, if only because Planescape’s such a special thing. But I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.

By Russ Pitts
on March 04, 2013 at 10:00a

Game Info

Platform Win, Mac

Publisher Electronic Arts

Developer Maxis

Release Date 03/05/2013

Price 59.99

If addiction is a freight train, then SimCity is the roaring locomotive pulling you into the night.

You may play a hundred hours of this game without noticing, but behind the curtain, SimCity is working furiously to hook you — and keep you hooked. And in my case, it was enormously successful at both.

It started with the best of intentions. I'm old enough to have played and remember all of the various iterations of this franchise. I've built (and destroyed) countless sim cities. I've perfectly zoned my little towns, entered cheat codes, then left them to bake over night and returned, triumphant, to a pile of "simoleons," ready to reap the whirlwind.

I've been there, is my point.

So when I received the latest, I thought that I could ride that lightning and "quit any time." I was wrong.

From the pleasing sounds of every various button press, to the satisfying way various parts of your city connect, then come to life (then die and come back from the dead), every element of this game has been perfectly and patiently engineered to engender an endorphin rush of accomplishment. Even the soundtrack, which can soothe or encourage, feels painstakingly crafted to tune your emotions with what's happening on screen.

Once I saw under the hood of all that SimCity allows you to do, it was hard to restrain the urge to become a mad dictator

SimCity is more-or-less the same game it has always been. And it is, at the same time, radically new. In a nutshell, it is the heart and mind of the SimCity games of days gone by, but more beautiful, ready to seduce away your hours until you are a rotted husk of the person you used to be. If it charged by the hour, you'd sell a kidney. I wish I was joking.

What Maxis and EA have learned over the course of a long decade of experimentation with The Sims and social gaming is exactly how (and why) to push a gamer's buttons and make them click ... and click and click and click. It's "one more turn" taken to the most obsessive extreme. And it is ungodly fun.

SimCity is an exercise in providing unlimited options through limiting choice. And if that sounds like an oxymoron, then welcome to the science of engineering addiction. At the outset, you are given a tantalizingly slim number of options. You may choose what sort of generic region you would like to play in, and then, where on that pleasingly blank map space to "plop" your city. Next up, you must build a road, which will become the backbone of that city. Zone part of that road as either residential, commercial or industrial and the little sims in the machine will do the rest, building buildings with gusto — and then demanding things. This is where the mania starts.

Your sim citizens want power, water, sewage and basic social services like fire and police. Health care. How religiously you provide these things is up to you, but the more deftly you are able to satisfy the needs of your sims, the more successful your city will become and the more fun you will have.

Sims pay you in tax money (simoleons) for the space they occupy in your city, and you then use those simoleons to pay for roads and services, or more fun things like a rocket-ship themed casino, or a streetcar line that does circles around your mayoral mansion. Once I saw under the hood of all that SimCity allows you to do, it was hard to restrain the urge to become a mad dictator, flogging my sims to produce more simoleons so that I could construct edifices to my own brilliance.

In comparing my experiences in SimCity to those of my colleagues, I noticed a strange thing: The cities we'd constructed (and ruined) sounded remarkably like cities in our real world. One of my first constructions was the town of West Pittssex, which had come blessed with a preponderance of underground oil. I drilled and used the proceeds to provide my sims with every conceivable luxury, thinking, foolishly, that the boom times would never end. They did of course, and what happened to West Pittssex afterward was horrifying (and fascinating) to observe.

Rampant industrialization led to unchecked disease. Sims died in droves, then the buildings they'd inhabited became abandoned. Raising taxes caused a collapse of the housing market and created a horde of wandering homeless sims. Parks became unusable. Abandoned dwellings caught fire. Entire neighborhoods crumbled. My dwindling police and fire services couldn't keep up. My initial stimulus efforts failed. What had started as a monument to capitalism became a textbook example of urban apocalypse; a ruined shell of burned-out high-rises surrounding a hastily-constructed and un-used Expo Center, built with bond money that might never be repaid.

SimCity itself is deceptively easy to use. The user interface is intuitive enough to make finding what you need amidst a potentially complex array of options easy even at the most frenetic of times. I only very rarely felt lost for what button to press or which menu to find what service under. And while you can access fairly detailed tabulations of how much various things are costing versus how much benefit they are providing, if you don't ever want to see those things, you'll never need to. SimCity (at times annoyingly) holds your hand quite efficiently and provides alerts and advice whenever dire trouble looms. You can get into as much long-term trouble as you want - take out a bond to build a nuclear power plant in a town without an education system? OK, pal, it's your nightmare - but try to plop a road in a way that won't actually work, and the game will tell you why that can't happen.

I was eventually able to revive West Pittssex, but only after founding a new city nearby and sharing resources, then methodically rebuilding, this time more carefully minding the budget. My two connected cities (and those of my nearby neighbors) now form a region. Some cities focus on industrial efforts, others on tourism, still others on other things. And the combined efforts of these disparate towns form an interconnected whole that is stronger than its parts.

This is where SimCity's "always on" connected play shows its strength. Cities in the same region can share services like police and dump trucks back and forth and even gift resources and simoleons. These connections are even more powerful between cities that share major roadways. The fun of cooperation will, of course, vary depending on with whom you are attempting to cooperate, but at first blush the amount of benefit versus potential mischief you will be able to inflict on your neighbors appears to be slanted towards beneficence. And the ability to create near-perfect simulations of existing small cities and towns (right down to traffic patterns) is truly amazing. Even thinking about the possibilities for applying this type of simulation to solving real world problems makes my head hurt. It is as much an education in miniature on the vast interconnectedness of every facet of our modern lives as it is a game.

Later, when the zombies came, I wished they'd done more damage

It is just a game, however, and so allowances are made for simplification and fun. You can, for example, experience the thrill of alien invasion, zombie apocalypse or meteor strike. Late into the evening / early morning during one play session, I watched as fiery streaks of death slashed across my screen and flaming space rocks obliterated my city. Panic. After scrambling to dispatch fire crews and hustling to demolish the rubble and rebuild, I realized I'd never had so much fun. Then later, when the zombies came, I wished they'd done more damage.

As for how satisfying the experience is as a whole, take this example: I missed a meeting. And it was my meeting. During the course of one play session, I literally became so absorbed in the experience that I lost all track of time and played through an entire afternoon, oblivious to the fact that a meeting I had scheduled approached and then passed. When I returned to my work station many, many hours later, I greeted my overflowing email inbox and the raft of polite (but concerned) inquiries as to my whereabouts with a serene, self-possessed calm. As if, whatever troubles the world might throw at me would be of little concern next to the travails I had experienced in West Pittssex.

Then, after a brief, but furiously energized bout of desk work, I went back to SimCity and did it all over again.

On "Always Online"

SimCity demands a constant connection to the EA servers, through Origin, in order to play. This can be problematic at times, but in my experience with SimCity, it was also (when it worked) seamless.

We reviewed SimCity with pre-release code provided by EA, and played on one of their reserved servers. Server inavailability was a minor issue, at first, but after a handful of false starts over the course of an afternoon I experienced no problems.

More problematic (for me) was my home network set-up and a wi-fi router that has taken to dropping connections of late. If you lose an internet connection while playing SimCity will most likely stop and you will be forced back to the loading screen. Sucks to be whatever sims you may have been trying to help or rescue. If you do not have a connection when you try to start playing, the game will not start.

While I did have one brief experience of being able to continue playing the game offline in a private server environment with no other invited players, in all other cases (about 8 separate times, over the course of three days) the game simply halted and waited, politely, for connectivity to be restored.

While an impromptu (but costly) router upgrade solved my wi-fi problem, the server issues were beyond my control, and the lesson lingered. It remains to be seen if EA's servers will be up to the task of hosting however many simultaneous SimCity games will be played post-release. And those with unreliable internet connections may need to consider if the ability to play SimCity is worth an upgrade of either your service provider or equipment, which may be a cost too high to bear.

Wrap Up:

SimCity seems engineered to deliver maximum fun as efficiently as possible

SimCity is a near-perfect fusion of the classic simulation game with modern social and online play elements. It is in every way the fully realized evolution of the franchise and a much welcome iteration, perfectly engineered to dispense the maximum amount of fun in the most efficient way possible. It is highly addicting, but there are worse things to be addicted to. Just be sure to set an alarm.

SimCity was reviewed using pre-release code provided by Electronic Arts and Maxis on development servers. You can read more about the conditions of our SimCity review on our forums, and you can find additional information on Polygon's ethics policy here.

About Polygon's Reviews

harrymcc writes "The Desktop Factory Competition was a contest to create an open-source design for a low-cost machine capable of turning cheap plastic pellets into the filament used by 3D printers, with a prize of $40,000. The winner is being announced today — and he was born during the Hoover administration. I interviewed 83-year-old retiree Hugh Lyman — a proud member of the maker movement — for a story over at TIME.com. From the article: 'Lyman describes himself as an “undergraduate engineer” — he studied engineering from 1948-1953 at the University of Utah, but didn’t earn a degree. Though he holds eight patents, he says he’s “not educated enough to be able to do calculations of torque and so forth.” So implementing his contest entry “was trial and error. I tinkered with it and used common sense.”'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft is ending its Scroogled TV advertising campaign attacking Google's security practices. Public radio and TV station KQED reports that Microsoft's Stefan Weitz said "That part is about finished," referring to the TV ads that lambasted the search company and reminded some of political attack ads. The Scroogled website is still up, however, and Weitz's remarks do not necessarily mean that Microsoft is abandoning the tagline and the message of the campaign altogether.

Stefan Weitz did offer KQED a few more details on the origin of the attack ads, however. He says that the idea first came up from an opinion poll by Roper Center for Public Opinion Research that found seven out of ten didn't "know that this practice of scanning emails was happening, and when they found out they didn't like it." By raising awarness, Weitz continued, Microsoft hoped to make people "hit that cognitive speed bump" and at least momentarily question their use of Google's services. Ultimately, however, Weitz called Google's services "a habit... It's like smoking. It's hard to get folks to stop doing it."

• Via pandodaily
• Source KQED
• Related Items Microsoft Google

[Chris Thorpe] is a model railroading aficionado, and from his earliest memories he was infatuated with the narrow gauge locomotives that plied their odd steel tracks in northern Wales. Of course [Chris] went on to create model railroads, but kit manufacturers such as Airfix and Hornby didn’t take much interest in the small strange trains of the Ffestiniog railway.

The days where manufacturing plastic models meant paying tens of thousands of dollars in tooling for injection molds are slowly coming to an end thanks to 3D printing, so [Chris] thought it would be a great idea to create his own models of these small locomotives with 3D laser scanners and high quality 3D printers.

[Chris] started a kickstarter to fund a 3D laser scanning expedition to the workshop where the four oldest locomotives of the Ffestiniog railway were being reconditioned for their 150th anniversary. The 3D printed models he’s able to produce with his data have amazing quality; with a bit of paint and a few bits of brass, these models would fit right in to any model railway.

Even better than providing scale narrow gauge engines to model railway enthusiasts around the world is the fact that [Chris] has demonstrated the feasibility of using modern technology to recreate both famous and underappreciated technological relics in plastic for future generations. There’s a lot that can be done with a laser scanner in a railway or air museum or [Jay Leno]‘s garage, so we’d love to see more 3D printed models of engineering achievements make their way onto Kickstarter.

Filed under: 3d Printer hacks, laser hacks

Here’s what’s up in the world of TV for Monday, March 4. All times are Eastern.

TOP PICK
Switched At Birth (ABC Family, 8 p.m.): With just two episodes left in this half season—and the show’s future coverage here on the line—we’re going all in on tonight’s episode, which will be performed entirely in American Sign Language. You probably don’t even need to get all caught up! Just watch to see an American television show performed in a language other than English. Watch to support television doing things other than the same, boring old stuff! Carrie Raisler will be on the barricade. Who will be strong and stand with her?

REGULAR COVERAGE
Adventure Time (Cartoon Network, 7:30 p.m.): A new episode entitled “The Great Birdman” reminds us of that hoax video where it looked like that eagle was going ...

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tastefullyoffensive:

[via]

RSVLTS has made a sequel to its immensely popular supercut video of goats yelling like people.

via The High Definite

Bill Clinton the Lady Killer is a kick ass illustration by Californian artist Jason Heuser (aka “SharpWriter“). It shows Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, laying waste to anything and anyone who threatens to take away or destroy his guns, women or burgers. Prints are available to purchase online at Etsy and redditgifts.

images via Jason Heuser

paintdoktahwho:

doctor who series 7.2 poster

Every Fucking Website: „Title Tags are such a bunch of shit.“

[update] Aus dem Quelltext:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”some SEO bullshit, I can’t believe we paid 500 bucks for this crap, the SEO ‘consultant’ wasn’t even wearing real shoes, how did he trick us into this voodoo, we can’t even find the damn thing with search when we type in the entire front page of text into google along with the domain name”>

<meta name=”description” content=”Some crap that marketing gave us. The intern probably wrote it on a napkin while they were all out playing polo and getting drunk at 11am on a Wednesday.”>

AuroraMAX - A live broadcast of the Northern Lights from Yellowknife, Canada:

You can tune in and watch a live camera pointed at Aurora Borealis … without freezing your butt off or taking a sled-dog trip to the Arctic Circle!!

The remote camera has an HD feed too. Hey, auroras aren’t always visible at that exact spot, so it’s hit or miss … but bookmark it or keep it open and check back every so often. Maybe you’ll get lucky! AuroraMAX is also on Twitter, and they post photos of their best auroras there regularly.

ontheroadtobetterness:

feelslikesugar:

Tab Tuhin, Bangladesh 2008

This has always been, and always will be my favourite photograph. 

““The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.””

- Chuck Close

Petition to legally recognize non-binary genders in the US:

dugstruction:

inksplotched:

huskdawgzilla:

achromatiscope:

sasha-the-genderqueer:

I made this petition to legally recognize non-binary genders

Amen. SIGNAL BOOST.

BOOSTIN’

SIGNING AND BOOSTING, both are important!!!

ok seriously if you were one of those people making a huge deal about a nonbinary option in pokemon (esp. if you are binary/cis) PLEASE PLEASE SIGN AND REBLOG THIS IT IS ACTUALLY A BIG DEAL FOR US PLEASE

Snowy Bean - @haleyloklokb

MWD pays tribute to some of our favorite fans. Keep doing you.

The Bible debuts tonight on the History Channel at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Even a nonbeliever would have to admit that the Bible could make a hell of a cable miniseries. The source material, rife with dramatic miracles, violent spectacle, and the confluence of larger-than-life historical figures and the inexorable conflict of politics and faith, in the hands of and bold, visionary showrunner, and coupled with serious HBO money would pretty much redefine “must see TV.” (Am I alone in thinking David Simon would be terrific at this? Think The Wire: Jerusalem.)

Unfortunately, major broadcasting entities are unlikely to take on the task, risking as they would certain protests, boycotts, (and potential fringe violence) from those of the faithful unwilling to cede editorial control over the central text of Western religion to any mere mortal, no matter how well credentialed. Unwilling to do anything but present the most inoffensively-mediated narrative ...

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