Happy Birthday to O6

[Dominic]

I do not know if I should be glad that the forced change was to a piece of fairly unimportant infrastructure, or if I should be sad about what it says about our priorities.

Dom
-hands off my radio.

[Onslaught Six]

I think, if anything, it shows that our priorities are probably in better condition than most of the masses. Truthfully, at this point, I could easily live without ever turning my television on again--except to play my GameCube, which is only because I don't think there's a decent GameCube emulator out there.

[Dominic]

By "our priorities", I mean "our priorities as a country". We mandate digitial TV, but not....I dunno, reliable internet for every man woman and child. Yes, I know certain groups wanted digitial TV for various reasons. But, where is the call for universal net=access?

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

Yeah, it's 2009, and one of my friends still has dialup. This is unacceptable.

[BWprowl]

What the hell is dialup?

Interestingly, I'm moving into my new place in the coming week, and while I have a television, and a PS2 to play games and DVDs on, I have no interest in getting cable/sattelite service for it, or even seeing if it can receive a basic digital signal. About all I watched on TV was on Cartoon Network (TFA, Batman B&B, Bleach, Code Geass) and all of these are easily obtainable on DVD or via the internet. I'm not about to pay more money for a premium service just to get access to ONE channel with three or four shows I want to watch on it. It's insane.

Also, the sheer amount of anime DVDs I have yet to watch will keep me occupied, as far as viewing pleasures go, for quite some time.

So yeah, I still watch TV. Just... not on TV.

[Onslaught Six]

As an experiment, I have not had my television on until at least 10:30 every day this week. So far I haven't noticed the difference.

[Dominic]

It is amazing how quckly you can adjust to that.

Dom

[Onslaught Six]

Half the reason I even turn it on is because I need something to put my focus away from while I listen to mellow music and try to sleep.

[onslaught86]

Every so often I catch a bit of one of the police shows. It is always fun when the internet is mentioned. For some reason, TV writers are not happy with a medium that takes bread off their table. Remember, there are perverts on line. And, if you go online, the perverts will steal you identity, and do things. To. You.

I can forgive mispronouncing words like emu or emo. (For all you know, the announcers are mispronouncing "emo", and teaching the wrong lessons to the viewers.) What I cannot forgive is a primitive, ignorant outlook in the 21st Century. You may not know how to spell/say "internet" or "emo", but the fear of the unknown, (or even what should objectively be known), is astounding, and infuriating.

"PayPal is dangerous, because it is online. It is not like those safe, solid banks like I know. Nothing computerized there. There is a little man in the ATM that reads my (not at all electronic, magnetic strip), card and passes out money. No remote computers there, no siree....."

"Pitbulls are dangerous because TV says so, and the statistics are in no way skewed by greater of reporting of anything involving the breed. No, they are bad dogs."

"Dogs are dangerous."

"Blacks/Whites/Spanish/Asians/uh...Arabs, yeah Arabs sure, whatever, are meaningfully and morally different at a basic level. Those brain dissections are faked. And, it does not matter that mixed-race kids are biologically stabile and fertile, meaning both parents are of the same species.... They look different, so they are."

"The goverment, (or building security), is watching us...because we are that interesting and important."

I am tempted to ask some of these people if they hang garlic from their windows at night. Seriously.


Dom

People who fear change to that extent should be spayed for being useless to the gene pool. In all seriousness, though, I agree wholeheartedly, and not just because I work in customer service.

As I mentioned, I spent ten years without television reception. I rented videos, and had grandparents tape TV shows for me to watch (And rewatch, and rewatch..and build castles out of. I had so many shows recorded on video that I used the videos as building blocks). Now, I could get reception. I could get cable should I so wish, hell, I sell people cable TV. But I don't choose to watch any television at all, and I try to stay away from news that does not directly affect me.

This is in part due to simple apathy: I don't care about things that don't affect me directly.
This is also a statement against unavoidable media bias and snap-frozen opinions: At the end of the day, some individuals are governing what is and isn't pushed as news, and I do not believe those individuals would judge the importance of said news in a fair and reasonable fashion. After all, people have to 'buy' the paper, they need a catchy headline.
Who cares if lots of brown people died, a little white girl is missing. I care about neither of these things, but my apathy is equal and only increases relative to the amount of times the media repeats itself; I will care less if they talk about it more.

Also, how many times do people want to appear faux-intellectual by regurgitating an opinion from an editorial or a news reading as their own, or as fact? "I heard" this, or "Reliable sources" that. While there's certainly plenty of conspiracy theory nutjobs out there, far too many seem content to accept everything they're presented with. I prefer to go one further and not let myself be presented with it directly. If people want to discuss current events with me, they become something affecting me personally, and I am interested. If a newsreader stares at a camera and talks, I do not wish to know.

The internet has replaced television for me, everything I sought from the TV is now available in a much better form. I can choose what's on, I can choose who I share it with, and most importantly, I can choose to interact with it and change it as it in turn changes me. Watching a TV show is a passive activity, and no matter how much you care and get emotionally involved with the fates of its characters, it will never be changed by you, only you by it. It's sad.
It's not like a book, which by sheer stimulation of the imagination crosses the barrier and becomes personal. By removing the specifics (To paraphrase Waking Life, a man walks into a bar and sees a dwarf), you fill the gaps in yourself, and thus are limited only by your own consciousness, not by any budget/marketing team/timeslot/any other factor of a regular TV show that makes it less than entertaining.

The future, boys and girls, lies in Everything On Demand. I'm currently experiencing what I feel to be the start of a new wave of crossover between communication technology and entertainment, because when I do end up watching TV, I like to look up what I'm watching on my pocket PC. Watching a movie while reading its IMDB page and Wikipedia article is a fascinating thing.

[Onslaught Six]

The future, boys and girls, lies in Everything On Demand. I'm currently experiencing what I feel to be the start of a new wave of crossover between communication technology and entertainment, because when I do end up watching TV, I like to look up what I'm watching on my pocket PC. Watching a movie while reading its IMDB page and Wikipedia article is a fascinating thing.

Very much so. I like to bust out random trivia for movies I've never seen before 'as I watch them with people.'