🚀 go-pugleaf

Outta Here! wrote:
> 
> ...<SNIP>
>
> No, there isn't.  There may be to you, but to most of us free-thinking,
> freedom-loving Americans, we think it's a pretty damn good idea to
> be able to own our own equipment rather than burn our money each month
> paying a huge, money-grubbing, unresponsive, unrelenting, fee-raising,
> service-cutting, and just downright Evil company to use theirs.
> It's the same reason why You and I buy a phone rather than rent one
> from the phone company.
> 
> --
>                Paul T. Brown    buckweat@ecst.csuchico.edu
> Chico State Computer Science    http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~buckweat
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

The following comment is a little off topic and purely IMHO, YMMV, Void Where 
Prohibited, etc.

It amazes me to see how many people become hysterical when something might 
interfere with their TV viewing.  TV is a drug.  Measure the time spent on 
adverts, logos, intros and trailers compared to the actual program content time 
(the last time I measured it, it was 25 minutes of non-program to 35 minutes of 
program in a one hour show).  Most commercials assume the viewers are morons.  
The shows are even worse.  A generalisation, of course.  But nevertheless, by and 
large, true (again IMHO).

Look at the local news shows.  How much dumber can they be?  There is absolutely 
NO skeptical questioning of anything.  They don't question the absurdity of a 
statement like "the bicycle helmet law has already started saving lives" the day 
it is enacted in Austin.  How often do you see them interview local political 
figures without ever taking issue with even their most absurd statements?  They 
carry on about pornography on the Internet as if it's pouring out of the computer 
screen (I believe because increasing computer use is biting into their 
viewership).  What was the headline news a few days ago (here in Austin)?  It's 
raining!  My goodness, I hadn't noticed that, had you?  Sure we had a drought, 
but headline news???

National News shows are slicker, but just as brain dead when you look at them.  
About the only exception (IMHO) is the Lehrer Newshour.  At least that team goes 
into some detail when asking questions.  They also ask awkward questions and have 
people with opposing viewpoints face off.

Then there's the OJ thing.  How many GigaJoules of energy were spent broadcasting 
that crap?  Why would anyone want to watch it?  How about when the bastards find 
some poor soul who's just found out/watched the death of a loved one and zoom up 
onto their distraught faces until you can see the pimples?  Why would anyone want 
to watch that?  The melodramatic, gullible, inaccurate distortion fed the viewing 
public is little short of evil.

The worst of it is this - how many people use the damned thing as an automatic 
babysitter/pacifier?  Talk about poisoning young minds.  They can't ride a bike 
without a helmet, but they can watch Baywatch, Geraldo (sp?), Hard Copy, Power 
Rangers and reruns of the A-Team.  Weird.

In my opinion, the best thing that could happen to society is the cable TV 
companies, broadcast companies, etc. start charging (or charging more) for their 
swill.  More people could then wean themselves from the idiot box, start thinking 
for themselves and start doing more productive things, like pursue hobbies, talk 
to their families, exercise, learn to play music, write, whatever.  When you 
spend a whole evening/day watching the damned thing, don't you feel like you've 
just thrown away that piece of your life and have achieved nothing?

Even with the high quality education shows - how much can you remember from them, 
compared to reading about the same subject?  In my case, reading about it makes 
it stick much more than watching it on TV.

Am I weird and everything else is normal?  Perhaps I've the wrong end of the 
stick.  Perhaps the TV crap is not a cause, but a symptom of the breakdown of the 
education system.

Take my word for it, I was one of the zombies.  I broke fixation after the cable 
company raised my rates once too often while feeding me more commercials and 
dumber shows.  I've been off it now for about three years.  My hobbies have 
expanded quite dramatically.

All in my humble opinion.

Chris (who watches about two hours a week now).