Re: Recently deceased celebrities

David Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
rkshullat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Or an early-to-bed-early-to-rise sort... I'd never have known who
he was if I hadn't watched The Tonight Show as a teenager.

My mother knew who McMahon was, which was surprising to me, as she's
definitely always been a morning person.

On the other hand, she agreed with me that it seemed odd that
Jackson's death got more publicity than Fawcett's.

If it's true that most people these days have cable or satellite, and
access to hundreds of channels, that should put an end to the brief
few decades when we had something like a single common popular culture.
Good riddance.

I don't own a television and haven't watched television in my home
for (I'm guessing) over thirty years.

I got rid of my three large TVs -- one of which sort of worked -- at
the digital transition a couple weeks ago. I had been meaning to fix
the other two for a while. You can judge how long a while by the
fact that they were both tube (obUK: valve) sets, and one was black
and white. (I removed and saved all the tubes, as they may be of
value to audiophiles or hams.)

I still have a portable black and white set. I'm keeping it partly
because it doubles as an AM/FM radio and partly in case I ever want
to watch any VHS or Beta tapes. Anyhow, it's small, so discarding
it wouldn't free up much space, unlike the other three TVs.

I can still get channels 4, 5, and 22 on it, but all they're showing
are the "analog nightlight" program, explaining, over and over again,
in English and in Spanish, how to get and install a converter box.
That is scheduled to continue for two or three more weeks.

A few days ago, I borrowed a converter box out of curiosity as to
whether I can get any digital reception in my basement apartment. I
can get channel 4 (NBC) badly, 5 (Fox) well, 9 (CBS) very badly, 20
and 30 well, and 66 badly. No 7 (ABC) at all.

By "badly" I mean with frequent freeze-ups, everything turning blocky,
and the sound cutting out. (I wonder why they didn't make the sound
a little more robust. It takes less bandwidth, and it's easier to
follow a program when the picture cuts out than when the sound does.)

By "very badly" I mean I would occasionally get a few blocks of
picture rather than nothing at all. Channel 9-2 shows a weather
radar, and a usable picture gradually assembled itself over several
minutes (!) as I watched that subchannel, thanks to how slowly the
content changed.

This was with an inpromptu antenna made of alligator clip leads. I
could probably do a little better if I were to really work at it.

One good thing about that particular converter box was that it had a
mode where it would show you the signal quality in real-time. That's
useful for adjusting an antenna.

I still think the digital conversion was a stupid idea. It's true
that there's no longer any snow or ghosting. But the new signal
degrades far less gracefully. If it was true that the airwaves belong
to the people, then this never would have happened, since the number
one use people make of the airwaves is watching TV.

I'm still trying to figure out how to fix up my mother's setup so that
she can record one program while watching another, as she could before
this transition.

ObSF: It's a common trope that aliens may be watching our historical
records^H^H^H^H TV shows. I have little doubt that they could quickly
figure out NTSC, PAL or the other analog formats (except that they may
have left and right swapped). But I think there's little chance that
they could ever figure out the digital formats. When they get that
"analog nightlight" broadcast, they're going to be very frustrated.
Maybe in addition to English and Spanish explanations of how to get
a black box at Best Buy, the "nightlight" could give the complete
technical spec in some formal language or Drake code? Is that too
much to ask?

I find both arguing with people online ... to be more interesting
ways of wasting time than watching TV.

Likewise, though I'll make an exception for some of the people here.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
.

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