Digital TV Conversion Mandate

Not all TV is soaps. TV is also informative and educative. It may be a luxury but then some people say that internet access is a luxury. Yet, those without internet are becoming more and more marginalized. For example, some large employers in my state will only accept online job applications and resumes.
The internet is more useful than TV but they both serve important purposes and those who are denied one or the other or both because of economic reasons do suffer.

*smirks* I am a techie and I can't stand how dependant people are on tech. Ever notice how the more people rely on technology the worse our world gets? It IS a luxury, so is the internet, so are computers, calculators, telephones, radios ... ALL of it. Without it you live, with it you whither away and die. I love tech, but even then (if you hadn't noticed) I don't spend as much time online as many do. I love walking, trees, the sky, swimming, hunting, camping, biking much more, it's just that because of all the excessive breeding humans are doing and not enough dying I don't get to as often, thus tech is my escape from humans, not from the real world.

Here's a great story, I have always been good at math, better than most, so it's no surprise that I can do all simple math without even blinking. I was working at a fast food place, my favorite position the dish pit (oh I miss that job). Then the registers crashed, there were three of us, out of eight employees and one manager, who were still able to take the orders and make change fast enough (if at all) because everyone else was too use to using the damned calculators. Soon people won't even be able to think without a machine telling them what to think about .... oh wait I forgot we already have iPhones .... scratch that, soon people won't be able to go to the bathroom without having a machine tell them when to.

Point is, it's ALL luxury, people are just too lazy, stupid, and worthless now to remember when we didn't have all this crap and survived just fine. Tell those employers you mentioned to go to hell, I do and I am in high demand because no one else can make magic on computer networks like I can. No one else can get a scrapped server back up and running in less than triple the time it takes me. But none of them can get me via the net, because online I am off duty, it's my free time. They have to pick up the phone and dial the numbers, then they have to talk to me FACE TO FACE, because if I don't like them I won't do the job. Soon it will all be like that because ... well ... just keep in mind, most of us coders are sick of seeing our real lives ruined by people who over use these tools we made for you.
 
There's the problem that they don't tell you about. Your TV being 20 years old you will have to buy more equipment, not just the box, or spend your money more wisely and get a new TV. I recommend that if you have hi-speed internet (1.5 mbps or more) go to Hulu - Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free. or find another streaming site, then you can get your faves on demand instead of waiting for specific dates and times anyway. Hulu is 100% free and 100% legal, and they have almost all broadcast TV shows available plus a bunch of movies to.

The UVH lawsuit I have not heard of, mostly because I just don't pay much attention to lawsuits anymore since that stupid "spilled coffee on my lap" suit made me lose faith in our justice system. But you are right in the first part, well partially, it frees up a LOT of air space since our current technology has a limited bandwidth still (we need huge frequencies) which can be used for just about anything. The emergency radio part however won't actually be needed, it's a scare tactic used to push it through legislation faster. In reality even during the big disasters we still only use about half of the emergency frequencies we have available, since coordination efforts are best broadcast on the same frequency or they won't know what everyone is doing (one of the problem we had with 9-11 rescue was because everyone was on a different frequency), so technically it would be a bad thing if we did use up all the emergency frequencies we already have, it was just to scare the idiots in charge into pushing it through faster. Gore may be a greedy bastard but he's intelligent, very intelligent, and has found many ways to manipulate people, this is just one of such manipulations.
Thanks for the link and the info!
 
Thoughts:

1. Let the market take care of the shift to digital broadcasting, not the government.

2. The Government is subsidizing people to buy digital sets. If you are pro-liberty, you are against this.


Point #2 is inaccurate. They're only subsidizing the purchase of converter boxes.

Supposedly this is being done to free up bandwidth for emergency frequencies... I say meh to that.
 
Point #2 is inaccurate. They're only subsidizing the purchase of converter boxes.

Supposedly this is being done to free up bandwidth for emergency frequencies... I say meh to that.

Those frequencies belong to the people. It's highly suspect that the government would mandate that we abandon those frequencies so that they can utilize them for their own purposes.
 
Those frequencies belong to the people. It's highly suspect that the government would mandate that we abandon those frequencies so that they can utilize them for their own purposes.

Well ... that's what 'suppose' to be happening, in other words it's the excuse created by the tech corporations that sell the products for it. The thing is, and don't let anyone know I told you this secret, they could just switch their own equipment to digital and quadruple the number of channels (frequencies) they have available without having to change anything else over, thus why it's just a scare tactic.
 
Why don't we just leave it at "no constitutional authority" and call it a day.

But what ELSE is new. :rolleyes:
 
Why don't we just leave it at "no constitutional authority" and call it a day.

But what ELSE is new. :rolleyes:

It's been awhile since our government respected the constitution, and worse about as long since the majority of our citizens have as well. It's sad that the one thing our country was founded on, the one way to be truly American, is the one thing people now respect the least.
 
Well ... that's what 'suppose' to be happening, in other words it's the excuse created by the tech corporations that sell the products for it. The thing is, and don't let anyone know I told you this secret, they could just switch their own equipment to digital and quadruple the number of channels (frequencies) they have available without having to change anything else over, thus why it's just a scare tactic.
why not just upgrade the emergency stuff to a digital format

that makes more sense to me
 
why not just upgrade the emergency stuff to a digital format

that makes more sense to me

Me to, as with many old techies, but the new ones want to make more money off people and that's just not profitable to them. The whole issue revolves around money and nothing more, no conspiracy, nothing really important, and it won't benefit anyone either ... except the pockets of the tech companies that sell the products.

On a side note, the three that own the copyrights will NOT release them, so no one else can produce the products in the US.
 
Some people will always be against advances in technology.
no one in this thread is against advancement in tech, its the government mandating a change that wasn't needed


but it figures you wouldn't understand, because you NEVER understand these things
 
I haven't seen a discussion about this on the board.

What are people's thoughts on this?

well, to add to your suspicions, i just read recently on a worldwide calendar that this digital tv mandate IS GLOBAL....all countries 100% digital by 2010...soooooo, whatever the reason, it is BIGGER than the USA gvt...

do a google on it....it is being FORCED globally.

care
 
The government is collectively creaming in its pants that we're only bitching about it on a messageboard.
 
no one in this thread is against advancement in tech, its the government mandating a change that wasn't needed

but it figures you wouldn't understand, because you NEVER understand these things
:lol:wow
 
well, to add to your suspicions, i just read recently on a worldwide calendar that this digital tv mandate IS GLOBAL....all countries 100% digital by 2010...soooooo, whatever the reason, it is BIGGER than the USA gvt...

do a google on it....it is being FORCED globally.

care
...wind of that, too. Or that it was headed that way.

The government is collectively creaming in its pants that we're only bitching about it on a messageboard.
...I've thought that on a lot of things they get to enjoy our stupidity on. Only in a normal way. :) But yeah, that's nuts, I wondered why I hadn't heard anyone bring it up by now.~

It is suspect enough they do it for monetary gain. At the very least, the whole thing is a precedent-tornado of a pitfall for already corrupt lobbying practice in place and then some.--Do we have anything that could be considered precedent on this sort of thing already?
 
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