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75th Anniversary of Television
SpiceWare writes "In the summer of '21, Philo T. Farnsworth was struck by an inspiration after plowing a field. He transmitted the first television image six years later on September 7, 1927."
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you wonderful box whos warming glowing warming glow i bask in almost as much as this crt in front of me right now
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
In school we were always taught that John Logie Baird inented the TV.
Ho hum.
1) make crt
2) ???
3) profit!!!
Isn't that replaced by the internet now? I spend about 10% of CRT time infront of the Television, and probably 90% infront of my computer.
The fall of society... :)
Oh cmon, you can agree!! There's NO reason the wayans brothers should have got that sitcom for christ's sake!!
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Could it be a certain professor from a certain brilliant TV show that no longer IS on TV. Hmm, the irony, the irony...
But seriously, TV must be one of the most influencial inventions in ages. It opened up to a whole lot of things, good and bad.
2 years younger than my dad.
keanmarine.com
The Yuropeens will be in here claiming that a Yuro invented the tv. They like to revise history to take credit for any and everything, so don't take it personal. It's a kind of socialist history.
Slashdot has become a haven for defensive Yuros over the last couple of years. It's a shame. This place used to be up for some interesting discussions. Now, if it isn't politically correct or Yuro-left leaning, prepare to be modded down.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
it was "one channel, and nothing good on."
Things haven't really changed since then.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Well, TV has given us some nice moments. But in between all those nice moments has been a high-volume sewer hose of cultural sludge. So my personal goal today is to convince everyone to not watch TV at all, at least for this day. Let's remind the Content Cartel that there are other options...
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
The Baird/Nipkow electromechanical system was publicly demonstrated in 1926.
Smart lad to replace the cumbersome mechanicals with electronics - the story of the C20 really.
I'm only grateful for CRT. I hate TV. Of course we'd all be more grateful if LCD was invented first because then we could all have lovely 30" LCD screens that only cost a few hundred dollars and ran super high resoulutions. Eh?
Because it is so. John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird is remembered as the inventor of mechanical television, radar and fiber optics. Successfully tested in a laboratory in late 1925 and unveiled with much fanfare in London in early 1926, mechanical television technology was quickly usurped by electronic television, the basis of modern video technology.
Your Farnsworth guy got to invent electron beam scanning television, but J. L. Baird got "television" first.
Now go prepare your missile sheilds. I hear you'll be needing them in a few days time.
75 Years past. and now with 500 channels there are times of the day there nothing to watch! Thank goodness for Tech TV!
On January 26, 1926 Baird demonstrated a fully working prototype of mechanical television to members of the Royal Institution at 22 Frith Street, Baird's residence and laboratory. This was the world's first demonstration of true television because it showed moving human faces with tonal gradients and detail. Far from perfect, the images flickered quite a bit, but the individuals on screen were fully recognizable.
Despite CRT's downsides, there are significant reasons that an individual might prefer or even be required to use a CRT rather than an LCD display.
1. Accurate Color Matching. Sorry, you just can't do this on an LCD. I understand that Plasma is a little better, but you can't beat CRT for color matching.
2. Multi-resolution Display. LCD's have a 'Native' display resolution for which their displays are best suited. Other display resolutions, if you can get them to work, just don't look right.
3. Brightness. LCD will *never* be as bright, nor have the brightness control of CRT. CRTS are also not prone to angle-washout-syndrome like LCD monitors are. CRTS have the same brightness regardless of which direction you're looking at them from.
In many cases... most probably... an LCD display is preferrable to a CRT. In my line of work, as a graphic artist, I'd sooner lop off a pinky than part with my big, beautiful, heavy, radiation-emitting CRT.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"In many cases... most probably... an LCD display is preferrable to a CRT. In my line of work, as a graphic artist, I'd sooner lop off a pinky than part with my big, beautiful, heavy, radiation-emitting CRT. "
You don't have to lop it off. It'll fall off of it's own accord.
... at the University of Leeds in the UK demonstrating his video recorder and his stereoscopic television (3D TV to you and me).
Baird's recorder used an alumin(i)um disc rather like an LP running at ~80rpm to record the images. The machine, like his television, was an electro-mechanical affair build from bits including old hat boxes and bicycle parts. His machinery is exhibited at The National Museum of Photography, Film and Television a short way away from Leeds, in Bradford.
Whilst researching the links I found the NMPFT's TV heaven page and top ten list of requested television programs from the archives. The August list is below:
This says something about the visitors although you have to account for it being the school vacation.
The best way to look at this is not "who was first" - but to look at the parallel lines of thought and development in various countries.
Baird gave his first public demo in Jan 1926. Campbell-Swinton had come up with the concept of television scanned, synchronised and displayed by electronic means in 1908. Baird's implementiation was very low cost in engineering terms - when the BBC used it for broadcasts they were able to use their audio transmitters. The BBC actually broadcast using Baird's system from 1932 to 1935. Mechanical scanning was based on Nipkow's ideas (a German - around 1884)
Baird was also the first to record television (on a wax disk). I think he also had a colour system. Mechanical scanning was not ideal, but it was all that could be done at the time and worked well enough for the BBC to broadcast using it. He can't just be written out of history.
The Farnsworth article makes much of the claim that the idea ocurred to him when he was 14 (no evidence is offered - and what was needed was not the ideas - they were in place but the electronics to practically apply them) as it concedes that practical application postdated Baird's demo.
Nick
Hey, all Yuropeans arnt bad, just the French. keeping terrorists from justice, dissallowing use of their airspace, completely IGNORING NATO AND THEIR CONTRACT when the time comes to hand over terrorists, but NOOOOO, we have the DEATH PENALTY so those guys cant be RELEASED TO US even though they killed 3-4000 people! britian is our brother in arms, ireland is, well, they got good whiskey, France just plain sucks.
The funny thing is how the mechanical aspect of TV came back.
http://www.buyplusdirect.com/site/papers.html
What's old is new again.
The united states/UK will be remembered like the first roman slaughter of the goths. Now look who comes over yonder hill be it visigoths ?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
This strikes me as being much like celebrating on the anniversary of Hiroshima, considering that tv was pretty much a cultural nuke. Ugh.
LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
hey, in France and the UK we still have quality television.
How come the US doesn't ??
get out of that one, disneyworlders...
personally I found this even more interesting http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/fusion/vassi latos.html
This space available.
How it sprung from one Man's imagination, and now is dominated by blood-sucking corperations who's only intention is to make money.
I bet if you would ask one of those TV Producer drones "Wasen't Philo T. Farnsworth great?" they'd reply with "Who??".
It will be interesting to see if there are any dedications to him today on TV. If not, that's pretty sad.
And to celebrate this new year, each one of us should slaughter a Jew. Where's Ralph JewHater Nader when you need him?
and in the Blessed name of Elvis, I let it blast.
My TV lay in pieces right at my feet
and they arrested me for disturbing the almighty peace..
Judge, there was fifty-seven channels, and nothing on.
Granted, using firearms on home electronics is sometimes frowned upon. Henry Lightcap shoots a refridgerator and is considered (at best) badly misanthropic. Imagine if he'd shot the Fount of Wisdom in the living room instead!
(Yes, I own a TV. It only gets turned on when someone wants to watch a video.)
Philo, the resident mad scientist of U-62, in Weird Al's movie "UHF" was named after the inventor of the electronic television.
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
The word is "Annaversary" not Anniversary.
Use "ANNU*A*L" to remind you
Most of the threads on this topic consist of Europeans posting that the TV was really invented by Logie Baird, and Americans insulting the Europeans.
It seems like one year on the Americans have learnt precisely nothing about why they are regarded with dislike to outright hatred by the rest of the world.
This mixture of arrogance and bullying behaviour displayed towards any group who even dares suggest that Americans are not the fount of all wisdom and invention parallels exactly it's behaviour on a global scale to any country which does not agree with it's geopolitical views.
It's that sort of behaviour which has almost completely drained the great well of sympathy we all felt for your country after 9/11.
Your nation seriously needs to take a mirror to itself before it really gets into trouble by stomping over the rest of the globe.
======
"if in a sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often to baffle the military and political mind. " - Ian M Banks
"I am willing to love all mankind, except an American." (Samuel Johnson. In Boswell's Life, 15 April 1778)
Just an interesting thought about the legacy of broadcast television...
TV is nothing but a mindfuck. I am dead serious when I say there are psychologists working for the marketing firms. People think they're invincible to the stuff and just keep watching.
Google search:
"consumer psychology" television
For, a related topic:
"social marketing" insurance
A bunch of institues and non-profits will show up. When you go to the pages, have a look at their client lists, sponsors lists, and partner lists. I can't put my finger on it. Kind of a webbing of organizations that transfer things to and from the government and the people they aren't supposed to be directly associating with, all wrapped up in a media mindfuck wrapper. Did I mention pseudoscience? Yep, that too. Need to have a "study" *wink-wink* if you're to convince people there is something important they aren't doing, that you want them to do!
Check out the science that drove the nations police to adopt "Click It or Ticket", if you can find it!
According to this , both Farnsworth and Baird were shown up Paul Nipkow, who patented television in 1884!
Oh, sure, smart people will point out that Farnsworth invented the device that became modern television, but Baird had a working television (of a completely different technology) before that, and that Nipkow's device wasn't really practical. Logical folks will realize that there is nothing new under the sun and all inventions are built upon the shoulders of giants.
But this is the internet, so forget smart and logical! Instead, I see a lot of people arguing without facts, a lot of name calling, and people blowing perceived slights against their country into calls for war. Blech.
In October 1925 he succeeded in transmitting full television in his small attic laboratory in Soho, London.
Logie Bairds Scanning Disc Televisions sold for a number of years in the UK, and similar ones were sold in the States pre 1935.
Baird managed to refine the quality as the years went on, but swapped over to CRT round about 35.
It's interesting to note that Baird also demoed color television (demonstrated in 1928); big screen TV; and open air projections for large audiences.
I'm a Baird fan because I live 20 minutes from where he was born and lived.
you don't use flouridate water. not everywhere. almost everyone over there has fucked up discolored teeth.
I don't remember anyone in Britain claiming that fluoride made your teeth actually look better. Stronger, maybe. I thought the idea was supposed to be you got them bleached at the dentist.
Anyway, too much fluoride leaves white marks all on them. Why are you so proud of fluoridated water anyway? Poisoning everyone's water supply with that carcenogenic shit for the benefit of a small minority of children whose parents won't look after their kids' teeth?
Sure, there are assholes over here trying to force-feed us that medication too. But wanting it in the water supply like that sounds pretty un-American to me.
I think the reasons are the same in both countries- `health benefits' for the `people' on the cheap.
and your fag ass PM will be running the show for quite some time. well, GW will actually be running the show.
Well, you're right there. But if Blair is the fag ass doing whatever GW wants, then you're saying that GW is also a fag? Your words, not mine.
"Man, I have way too much free time on my hands if I'm out doing something boring like plowing a field. I think I'll stop and build a magical box that does nothing but consume the excess time with which people are burdened."
Makes me wonder about the inspiration for a lot of other things. Beer, curling, AOL...
> But this is the internet, so forget smart and logical! Instead, I see a lot of people arguing without facts, a lot of name calling, and people blowing perceived slights against their country into calls for war. Blech.
Welcome to slashdot!
I know, it's sad isn't it?
Nikola TESLA
A lot of things wouldn't exist without the help of this very first 'hacker'.
{{.sig}}
'Nuff said.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
The lower they fall down. Quote : "I think you foreign types often fail to grasp just how big and how affluent this country is. Our culture dominates the world not because it's better or worse, but because there's just so much of it."
I think you US type often fail to grasp the long and old culture most country in the world has, and how BIG the world is outside the US. Your *Media* dominate the world not because it is better, worse or there is more, that is because it is CHEAPER. But your culture don't dominate the world, that is unless you count media/Mac-donald restaurants as a culture. Most people don't take consumer-society as being a culture. Only the US do that.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
As far as I can tell, 8 people can claim to have invented the TV. So if you ask me no one person invented TV; they all invented it. They were the pioneers.
But every time someone mentions an invention it becomes an excuse to fight a patriotic war of words. Who invented the computer? Who invented the TV? Who did this, who did that.
Well I don't care. TV was an invention whose time had come. And it took people from all over the world to make it work. So let's celebrate the work of all the pioneers of the TV, and let's celebrate what we can acheive if we work together. And let's stop belittling the efforts of all the unknown helpers by attributing inventions to the efforts of just one man.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
Who Invented Television
by
R. J. Reiman, Historian
Inventors anticipated the public demand for television before the advent of radio broadcasting. So many participated in the development that it is impossible to answer the question "Who invented television?", but a few were so important as to be recognized as pioneers.
Paul Nipkow proposed the first practical mechanical scanner in Germany in 1884. The scanner was a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral around its edge. Light passing through the holes as the disk rotated produced a rectangular scanning pattern or raster which could be used to either generate an electrical signal from the scene for transmitting or to produce an image from the signal at the receiver. As the disk rotated, the image was scanned by the perforations in the disk, and light from different portions of it passed to a photocell. The number of scanned lines was equal to the number of perforations and each rotation of the disk produced a television frame. In the receiver, the brightness of the light source would be varied by the signal voltage. Again, the light passed through a synchronously rotating perforated disk and formed a raster on the projection screen. Mechanical viewers had the serious limitation of resolution and brightness.
John Logie Baird, a Scottish engineer-inventor, successfully promoted a television system based on the Nipkrow principle, received backing and sold transmitters and receivers. Laboratories in the United States and Great Britain worked to develop an all-electronic system. In Britain, the Electric and Musical Industries, Ltd., provided a system along with Baird's, and these were experimentally used to broadcast television programs by the BBC in November 1936. The EMI system won overwhelmingly. An American inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins, followed with a rotating ring whose thickness varied and increased around its circumference, forcing a rotating prism. By using two rings overlapping at right angles, a beam could be made to scan both horizontally and vertically, which unfortunately produced small, dim and fuzzy images. Jenkins' system, like Baird's, failed on the basis of poor quality.
AT&T first demonstrated a television system developed by one of Bell Lab's scientists, Herbert Ives, again based on the Nipkow disks. GE also demonstrated a mechanical system developed by Ernst Alexanderson. David Sarnoff, however, would turn to research for a successful electronic system.
In the 1920's, Alan A. Campbell-Swinton, a prominent electrical engineer in London, proposed a system that would use CRT's displaying the picture at the receiver, with electromagnetic scanning to form the raster. His transmitter tube, using a chamber filled with gas which could conduct electrons, was not suitable. Credit for the first practical TV signal-generator of pickup must be shared by Vladimir K. Zworykin and Philo T. Farnsworth, who invented the iconoscope and the image dissector respectively. Successful electronic TV would follow.
For more info on the CBC TV's 50th anniversary...
You're such a fucking homo. Go home and suck some more cock, gayboy. Or hey, suck mine. Taste a real man. Go on, take it bitch.
I know this has been mentioned.. but Baird pretty much came up with the idea (maybe it was someone before, but certainly not Farnsworth) of transmitting moving pictures. The CRT was invented by 'some Russian/Ukrainian guy' as far as i know, and radio by several other people. He didn't really come-up with the idea of scan-lines, either, since Baird's system worked on that principle, although mechanically. So Farnsworth's job was really just sticking various different things together. While that's still a pretty big task, it's not as amazing as people credit him for.
Who invented the electronic camera btw?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
That seems sort of misleading. Philo used wires to transmit his horizontal line, not radio waves.
The first image transmitted over radio waves (from a commercial television station or demonstration) was Felix the Cat in 1946.
No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness. --Aristotle
While Baird may have demonstrated the first practical TV system, his ideas sadly were a technological dead end because it required mechanical spinning discs.
The Farnsworth system was all electronic, which meant no moving parts and much more easily adapted to mass production. Farnsworth is truly the father of TV as we know it today.
It seems to me the actual invention ot television, the idea of translating an image into a sequential electrical signal by scanning and converting it back at the receiver, dates back to Nipkow in the 19th century. Baird, Farnsworth, and Zworykin's are elaborations on this basic idea, using early 20th century technology.
In the first picture of that link shows Lucille Ball in a clip from I Love Lucy. This is not possible because I Love Lucy aired in 1952 if i recall.
Jonahweb.com has stuff.
RCA and Sarnoff have a lot to apologise for, and the treatment of both Farnsworth and Tesla are prime examples of a power-mad dictatoral CEO using the legal system and his companies might to muscle these men out of their patents.
What? You still think Marconi invented Radio? Shame...
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the childish US vs Europe vs Everyone Else posting on this thread entirely depressing?
:(
I thought this was supposed to be a forum for technical discussion, but as time goes by, it's being dragged into the gutter by immature, xenophobic, shit heads (of all nations).
I don't really give a rats ass who invented TV. No doubt, like most technological revolutions TV was 'invented' due to the convergence of many ideas and the efforts of many individuals of many nationalities.
I'm beginning to find the atmosphere here more than somewhat toxic. Maybe it's a result of the US government's (*not* necessarily US citizen's) isolationist, I'm ok Jack, fuck-everyone-else stance.
Whatever
He started of the demonstration with, "Great news, everybody!"
Lowmag.net
and the American vs British discussion on general hygiene and the genetics of height was quite interesting.... how in the hell did that happen over a posting on the 75th anniversary of TV, anyway???
...we are from the government - we are here to help...
Very much noise is being made about this and little of the loudest noise is making any sense. Many facts can be disputed, much credit can be spread to different people, though we need to examine the ultimate end of the contributions to see where the inventor fits into the scheme. Baird brought to light that mechanical devices could transmit pictures (grainy, but pictures). This did lead to greater acceptance of other ideas. Philo first discussed his ideas with the teacher at his one-room school house in rural Utah and court records show that this man testified to discussing these things with him when Philo was a teenager. Admittedly this man said he didn't really understand what Philo was talking about because he was a generalist with everything (he taught k-12) but it provides a look at the beginnings of what Philo was invlved in. Did he have the only ideas? Was there other information and research that he worked with? Certainly. The only scientist to ever work in a complete vacuum would be that mythical guy who first picked up a thigh bone and whacked his neighbor over the head (although Cain did have Satan coaching him on the overall deal). The point being, Philo made the pertinent 'leap' forward that allowed the area to move forward. Others have improved on what was done by him and will continue to do so. I believe that Philo made the comment late in his life that he wished that he had never had anything to do with the television for all that it had brought him his whole life was trouble. He spent most of his life fighting with RCA over the patents. This seems to be a common result with anything that might be worth money in the patent arena. He was a religious man and he viewed this invention as a method for allowing his church to communicate more effectively. In fact, the Mormon church would have been one of the first to use TV to broadcast services. They also are one of the first (if not the first) to use satellite TV for the broadcast of services throughout the world and having for a while the most extensive system of satellite reception in the world. This is the legacy that it seems that Philo would appreciate the most.
Where's the other 25 years??? I betcha people in Canada are saying...
"Television - teacher, mother, secret lover!"
-- Homer J. Simpson.
Hmmm. Wonder if the futurama character is actually based on the real Dr. Farnsworth.
If it weren't for the depression and the communications act of 1934, we'd still only have NBC (RCA) and CBS
Oh, and Edwin Armstrong, who invented FM, killed himself after Sarnoff ruined him.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
Yeah, It's always strange how people in other countries copy people from the USA, before things are really invented (in the USA).
:-)
I had one guy try to tell me that Henry Ford invented the motor car.
No doubt someone will tell me that his combination of European industrial processes and European motor cars constituted invention of the car.
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
...the more things stay the same.
100 years ago it was John D. Rockefeller & Standard Oil.
70 years ago it was David Sarnoff & RCA.
Now it's Bill Gates & Micro$oft.
Dictatorial businessmen, all.
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.
The outside is a big place, and most people are too busy going from place to place to be a great source of culture, and the rest, well they're not exactly the greatest source of culture either...When I hear of culture, I think of libraries and museums. Anyways, it would seem a great deal of culture is overrated.
Besides, how do you soak up real people.
As a Yank, I have to say that's an embarrassing, bigoted and ill-informed post.
Your use of the phrase "foreign types" represents a racist labeling of everyone and anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen. It's evidence of your inability or unwillingness to see the world as it really is. I don't give much credence to fears of U.S.-inspired
globalization efforts (much of that seems to be an effort to ensure that the poor and underdeveloped stay poor and underdeveloped) but your thoughts serve as evidence for those who do.
Likewise your approving reference to "Manifest Destiny", a discredited and equally racist concept that, in a contemporary context, would support U.S. seizure of territory beyond it's current borders.
As I am sure others will point out, Australia is not twice the size of Europe. Australia is smaller; indeed, it is the smallest continent. And, compared to Europe. it is largely unpopulated.
The variety and quality of programming on U.S. television is determined by the number and independence of the production companies creating that programming, not by the number of individual stations broadcasting that programming. This reflects the nature of the U.S. television industry. There is good programming on U.S. TV, but there is also an increasing surfeit of cheap tabloidesque programming that exists only because it increases the profit margin of that particular corporation. I haven't lived in France, but I have lived in the UK. On average, UK programming is more varied and interesting than U.S. programming precisely because the UK TV industry is not a mirror image of the U.S. industry.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Your opinions, in combination with the idea that the Euro is a little agreement (Hello UK) away from providing a realistic alternative to the US$ in international money markets, allowing other countries to pull out the foreign capital that has been propping up the ridiculously overvalued US$, tends to suggest that the US could decline without serious international problems.
People in countries with now destroyed economies are starting to notice the tendency of America's business sector (NOTE NOT AMERICANS, I have the utmost respect for most of them and their beliefs) to 'encourage' their politicians to remove social DEMOCRATIC governments that have the interests of their people at heart, and replace them with authoritarian regimes that have the interests of American corporations and themselves at heart.
No I am not talking about a conspiracy. Read the business press, and look at old freedom of information stuff from the Whitehouse and other places. It's not a secret outside the USA. It's not a secret inside the USA.
The world doesn't REALLY hate Americans. It dislikes what their country does. Hopefully if it did loose a little clout (and Europe didn't get too much, their_.govs aren't much better), then the developing world might have a chance to stop acting as service countries and develop themselves.
I apologise to anyone I may have offended. This is my opinion (Refer: Free Speech)
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
It was developed much, much, much earlier than that. See, for example, roman mosaics and murals. If you are talking about motion pictures, various forms of cinematography came well before television.
The 75th anniversary of Philo T. Farnsworth's first demonstration of electronic television is this Saturday, September 7th.
There will be a commemoration of the event starting at 10:00AM on that day at 202 Green Street, San Francisco, the actual site of the Farnsworth laboratory on that fateful day.
Your use of the phrase "foreign types" represents a racist labeling of everyone and anyone who isn't a U.S. citizen.
Actually, it represents a tongue-in-cheek, mocking labeling of everyone and anyone who isn't a US citizen. Which everybody else on Slashdot obviously understood. I'm stunned that you didn't pick it up from the "Manifest Destiny" remark, if nothing else.
As I am sure others will point out, Australia is not twice the size of Europe.
And as I've pointed out, the mistake was mine for not being more clear, but I wasn't wrong. The US is roughly 2-1/2 times the land area of western Europe, and Australia is slightly smaller than the continental US. The figure of "twice the size" stands; I accidentally omitted the word "western," which changed everything. My source is the CIA World Fact Book, but I'm still too lazy to link. Ain't I a stinker?
The variety and quality of programming on U.S. television is determined by the number and independence of the production companies creating that programming, not by the number of individual stations broadcasting that programming.
And what do you think determines the number of television production companies? The size of the market, you idiot. A bigger market obviously means more providers trying to serve that market. Somebody has to fill those 96 million hours a year. Obviously a lot of it is going to be junk. But there's a huge amount of great and wonderful stuff. Even if only one percent of one percent of that is worth watching, that's still nearly 10,000 hours every year of quality stuff.
On average, UK programming is more varied and interesting than U.S. programming
Nope. It's just that there's less programming in the UK, by a factor of about 30. You can find quality TV programming any hour of the day and night in the US, if you're willing to take the time and trouble to look through a thousand channels. Or, if you're clever, if you program your TiVo to do it for you.
1)the telephone: it was a Canadian invention
2)basketball: again, it was a Canadian invention.
But they have more people, so they must be right.
Americans invented the television commercial.
90% of everything is crap. Including Slashdot comments!
Get off my lawn.
I was going to say that.
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
You are a prime example of the ugly side of the American psyche and an embarrassment to intelligent Americans. Why don't you put your gun back into the rack, get into your pickup truck, go back home to your cousin that you married, drink a little shine, kick the chickens out of the way, chaw a little tabacky and spit into the dirt on the floor.
LMFAO. Yeah, I suppose Russia or China (the only other nations on earth, besides the U.S., that actually MATTER) are going to nuke us for finishing off the Republican Guard and handing Iraq to the Kurds. Your general anti-Americanism is clouding your rationale, but what else is new?
Or maybe you think Iraq has somehow magically created a multi-stage ICBM, and Clinton somehow had Loral sell them the same guidance system that they sold to the Chinese. Mm-hm. Even more delusional, even considering Clinton.
Regardless, let the "missiles" come, and the world gets the rude shock of discovering that the missile shield you so loathe, is already there. The public discussion is just a polite way of letting you know beforehand, should the necessity to rail-cannon a lift vehicle in first stage ever arise.
Then, of course, the world also gets to find out about our Aurora-class orbital bomber. Mach 8-16 in-atmosphere, stealth (not that it needs it), horizontal launch to orbit. Drops out of orbit, precision delivers 9 megatons, back into orbit without ever being noticed. Thirty minutes to annihilate any capitol on earth. No Distant Early Warning. No defense.
Do you have any idea how close Baghdad and Tehran came to being nuked on September 11th? When Bush flew to the Nebraska shelter, that wasn't him "hiding" or being "cowardly," as the Eurotrash and American liberaltrash seem to religiously believe. Air Force One had become The Looking Glass, and U.S. satellites were busy tracking every military movement on Earth, picking targets. One false move from any real player, and we'd have stopped their clock.
That's why you hate us so.
Nipkow, a German physicist, invented and patented the first electromechanical television system in 1884. That beats Baird by 42 years.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
ATSC HDTV, if it ever gets rolled out completely, will allow the reclaimation of a large chunk of UHF spectrum for other uses. Each station still uses 6 MHz of bandwidth, but they can be packed more tightly together than with analog NTSC television.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
This chap managed to play back Baird's 1927 recordings (which is more than Baird ever did)
(Baird did some of his initial experiments in the Park in my hometown in England - there was a plaque on the building)
And nutcase Britons are still at it
Here's a gadget to convert modern TV to 30-line Baird
>> ...represents a tongue-in-cheek, mocking labeling of everyone and anyone who isn't a US citizen...
"Mocking" and "labeling" anyone because they aren't U.S. citizens is a classic example of racism in my book.
Quality TV is in the eye of the beholder. My experience has been that the ratio of "good" to "rubbish" is higher on UK television than it is in the U.S. I attribute this to a production model that is not as tied to advertising revenues as is the U.S. model. I'm not ignoring the fact that much UK TV is supported by advertising, nor am i ignoring that fact that some U.S. programming is not supported by advertising. I am, though, taking note of the fact that BBC programming is supported by license fees, not advertising. That, and the fact that they are not married to the 13- 0r 26-show production run allows them to take risks with programming that commercial and public TV in the U.S. won't take. In the U.S., if the show doesn't sell product or new cable subscriptions, it disappears.
The size of the market might attract more people trying to make money from TV, but, as in most profit-driven media, the trend will be to copy other programming that is already makeing money for its advertisers. Thanks to that, we have multiple shopping channels, multiple informarcials, multiple cop shows, multiple "reality" shows, etc.,etc.
By the way, sorry you had to resort to the gratuitous "idiot" insult. Its use is in keeping, at least, with your admitted sloppy writing.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
)the telephone: it was a Canadian invention
Total lie.
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scot. He was born in Scotland and lived there for the first 23 years of his life. He then moved to Canada (for a total of one, count 'em, ONE motherfucking year), then went to the United States and invented the telephone there. He became a US Citizen in 1882. He retained his US citizenship until he died.
He did have a retirement home in Canada, but that doesn't make the telephone a "Canadian" invention any more than retiring to (say) the Bahamas makes everything the retiree did Bahamian inventions.
Summary: The telephone was invented in Boston, Massachusetts, by a Scot, who later became an American.
Canadians like to make fun of the United States for our presumed ignorance of history, but they're no better.
Interestingly, Farnsworth was supressed by a monopoly led by an arrogant meglomaniac who tried everything (lawsuits, nuisance patents) to crush Farnsworth. Sounds like MacroTheft, doesnt it?
"Mocking" and "labeling" anyone because they aren't U.S. citizens is a classic example of racism in my book.
Get someone to proof read your book then, being a U.S. citizen does not denote being any particular race. There are black u.s. citizens, asian u.s. citizens, and white u.s. citizens all living within 100 yards of me at this very moment. If anything the earlier poster was being nationalistic not racist.
How ironic that the anniversary of the Television coincides with World Literacy Day...
"I like to wear big boy pants."
Oh, what's that, Saudi Arabia? You going to hit us with an oil embargo? Oh, okay then - FUCK you, we'll just kill half your population and TAKE your shitty country, and rename it Exxonia. Beg us nicely and we might let Mecca and Medina continue to exist.
More cases in point: Europe, Russia, China and the rest of the planet trade with Cuba hand-over-fist, and they're STILL shit-poor, donkey-eating, disease-ridden serfs, SOLELY because WE don't. Same deal with Iraq. WHAT sanctions? WE'RE the only nation that actually FOLLOWS them, and it's STILL, what, half-a-million Iraqis dead from starvation since '92?
Bottom line, the rest of the world keeps telling us to fuck off because they know that if we actually DID, it'd be the end of modern life for them. Harbors resentment. If the United States were to pull up stakes, divest totally from the rest of the planet, build a fifty-foot wall around her borders and become a TOTALLY ISOLATED economy, the rest of the world would collapse into poverty and despotism within a generation.
Yeah, sure, India and China - just trade with Europe. I'm sure your standard of living will go through the roof, then. Sure, Malaysia - there's plenty of people in France to buy shoes from you. I'm sure your people will still be able to afford their daily gruel. Oh, and let's not forget you, EU - I'm absolutely positive that the rest of the world's market for your wine, cheese, cell phones, overpriced cars and other measly industries would be MORE than adequate to keep propping up your absurd cradle-to-grave Socialist economies, especially with that collapsing birthrate of yours. Who NEEDS the worthless U.S. economy full of happy, healthy, wealthy "disney-fied" imbeciles?
Hey Europe, last time you were licking our boots clean, you missed a spot on the heel. Do a better job next time.
Irrelevant. By lumping all non-U.S. citizens under the single rubric of "foreign type". the poster was telling us that the only attribute they possess that merits his attention is that they are not U.S. citizens. By doing so, he is willfully ignoring the history, culture and contributions of the rest of the world. Whatever those may be, he is saying that the only thing that matters to him is that they are "foreign". That's racism, just as much as "mocking" and "labeling" everyone born with a particular skin color.
In any case, the difference between nationalism and racism is so small it's almost invisible.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Are you sure Philo T. Farnsworth invented television? Jeff Bezos said that he invented television and it is covered under his "one-click" patent because everyone clicks on their remote controls.
Al Gore also claims this invention because without it, there would be no Internet and we all know that Al Gore invented the Internet.
Per the CIA world fact book
If we take some of the countries in the EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) and look at their area and GDP it comes to 2m sq km and $7 trillion in total. If we look at the US it comes to 9m sq km and GDP of $10 trillion. We are ignoring Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, Austria etc etc...
Yes the US is both larger and wealthier than any one European country the EU is comparable in economic might as a whole. What I'm saying here is you can say anything with statistics.
..."Well, Slashdot has given us some nice moments. But in between all those nice moments has been a high-volume sewer hose of cultural sludge."
Hey, you're right! It works for everything!
Hmm... the obvious solution, then, is to watch television at +3.
Is it also irrelevant that when he said 'mocking labeling' he clearly meant just that, not two separate labels of 'mocking' and 'labeling?' He wasn't mocking or labeling foreign types, he was making a mocking label in jest. Get a sense of humor. Moreover, the only thing that was important in this particular discussion was the U.S. vs. The Rest of the World, so the only thing that does merit attention is a difference in nationality. Even moreover, it's a discussion about quality TV programming, not racial heritage. It's people like you that abuse the term racism to a point where people like me liken it to crying wolf. Geez.
And don't try to defend your semantics argument by saying that nationalism and racism are almost the same thing. That's absolutely absurd and you know it. Idiot.
First off I must say I am deeply concerned by the comments posted by people (from both sides of the pond.)
After reading through some posts and through the article, which I see most people did not read. Farnsworth's invention used no mechanical parts, while Baird's did. According to a link posted by one insightful European poster:
"However, Baird's mechanical system was rapidly becoming obsolete as electronic systems were being developed, chiefly by Marconi in America. Although he had invested in the mechanical system in order to achieve early results, Baird had also been exploring electronic systems from an early stage. Nevertheless, a BBC committee of inquiry in 1935 prompted a side-by-side trial between Marconi's all-electronic television system, which worked on 405 lines to Baird's 240. Marconi won, and in 1937 Baird's system was dropped."
Who is Marconi? I have no idea and I really don't care to look it up.
But I think the point of the 75th anniversary of television article was not the invention of television it's self but the method used to create the picture on the screen. Does anyone here have a mechanical TV?
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
Where in the samhill is it? I've never seen it. (no, I don't always post anonymously...)
The phrase "foreign types" stood alone in the original post. He only told us he was "mocking labeling" in his second post. I can't read his mind. Again, he wasn't referring to "foreigners" to distinguish them from U.S. citizens. He was making a generalized statement about the behavior of "foreign types" based solely on their status as "foreigners". I consider the phrase itself just as racist as "white types", "black types", "Asian types", "American types", etc.
Natinalism is not patriotism. Racism can be defined as believing in the inferiority of others who do not share your racial or ethnic components. Nationalism can be defined as believing in the inferiority of others who do not share your nationality.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Wrong! The telephone was invented by Philipp Reis, a German science teacher in the early 1860's (he began work in 1860 at the age of 26). And he was inspired by an 1854 paper by a Frenchman named Bourseul. Reis's phones (which worked but were somewhat unreliable) were demonstrated in Europe and in Scotland in 1863, while Bell was there visiting his father. There is no proof that Bell saw it, but it's one heck of a coincidence.
In the 1870s, Bell competed with another inventor, Elisha Gray who also worked on a version of an improved telephone. Both men allegedly rushed their respective designs to the patent office the same day and Bell won the footrace.
So in truth, Bell can only be credited with improving the telephone and being the first to PATENT the telephone (and maybe with being a fast runner).
What this and the disagreement on the invention of television all really demonstrate is that inventions are most often evolutionary (not spontaneous events) that tend to happen "when the time is right".
Canadians like to make fun of the United States for our presumed ignorance of history, but they're no better.
And Americans have to learn that there is more to world history than what happened inside their borders. Especially before trying to assert bragging rights.
(* The trick is that several different people where working on getting pictures through the air. Baird had one that never worked out. *)
It appears that *many* people and institutions had worked on the idea for several decades.
While there were many barely-working prototypes from everybody and their dog, the biggest obsticle seemed to be making it practical and relatively clear.
Farnsworth made some important improvements, but his stuff alone was not sufficient. (He had the best camera ideas IIRC, while RCA had the best TV tube ideas.) It took a combination of a lot sub-inventions and lots of tuning and fiddling to finally make it practical.
There was an article linked to by slashdot a year or so ago that talks about how lack of cooperation between those people with with best know-how probably slowed its progress. It seems eveybody wanted the whole pie for themselves rather than cooperate.
Table-ized A.I.
nationalism Pronunciation Key (nsh-n-lzm, nshn-)
n.
Devotion to the interests or culture of one's nation.
The belief that nations will benefit from acting independently rather than collectively, emphasizing national rather than international goals.
Aspirations for national independence in a country under foreign domination
Feel free to check the link for any references to beliefs in inferiority. The definition you gave of racism is accurate enough, though. Doesn't it bother you that you're the only one who saw the sin committed against humanity the grand-grand-grand-etc.-parent poster made with that phrase? Is it possible that just maybe you're overreacting? This is such a ridiculous argument.
(* The produce available in our markets comes from every corner of the world, and it's all fresh and unbelievably cheap. *)
What is readily available are things which are easy to transport around (food, VCR's, toys). However, many things are rather costly in comparison with such shippable items. For example, housing and medical care are quite costly in many places in the U.S. relative to store-shelf goods.
Table-ized A.I.
Paul Nipkow proposed the first practical mechanical scanner in Germany in 1884. The scanner was a rotating disk with holes arranged in a spiral around its edge. Light passing through the holes as the disk rotated produced a rectangular scanning pattern or raster which could be used to either generate an electrical signal from the scene for transmitting or to produce an image from the signal at the receiver. As the disk rotated, the image was scanned by the perforations in the disk, and light from different portions of it passed to a photocell. The number of scanned lines was equal to the number of perforations and each rotation of the disk produced a television frame.
I have read that France had fax machines in the mid 1800's using a line-by-line scan process. I wonder how much of this influenced TV attempts. TV is essentially "fast, repeated faxing" in concept.
Table-ized A.I.
Any relation to Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth? Oh, and wasn't this cancelled?
Slashdot Eds Link Anonymous Posts With Logged Posts
They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Kind of like Slashdot posters.
It's great to go away from Slashdot for a few hours only to find that one or more AC's has been holding your end of the argument in your absence. That's so cool.
He was making a generalized statement about the behavior of "foreign types" based solely on their status as "foreigners". I consider the phrase itself just as racist as "white types", "black types", "Asian types", "American types", etc.
That's the kind of wooly-headed liberal thinking that leads to grandmothers being patted down at airports. Making sound, well-informed decisions based on experience means observing trends. If I burn my hand on three ovens in a row, I'll learn to be afraid of ovens. Likewise, if (for example) people of Arab extraction blow up three buildings in a row, I'll learn to keep a closer eye on people of Arab extraction. That's racial profiling, and it's very controversial. It's also smart. It's very easy to look back on events like the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940's and shake our heads, but don't conclude that just because people went to unreasonable extremes then that their motivations were flawed.
People fall naturally into groups. There are old people, young people, white people, black people, tall people, short people. Within a group, you often-- not always, but often-- find trends of behavior and personality. I find that people who aren't from American tend to have certain opinions and beliefs in common. So I'm going to note this, and use this information.
Don't like it? Fine. Call me a racist. Doesn't bother me a bit, because I know better.
Seems like the minute they find out you're a "European" they go right on the defensive, talk about "superiority complexes" and other bollox.
Listen - Americans: don't do this. It just makes us feel even more superior, and worse, slightly sad for you that you react in this way.
If anything, it's Europeans that need to feel inferior to Americans isn't it? The largest economy in the world, the most powerful currency, king of computing, king of pop, whatever.
Right now, I can't think of anything that's not massivly American and totally dominant.
"Superiority complex" - bollox.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
From the posted (top level) article:
"Without Farnsworth's ingenious, seminal contributions, there might still be no television or video today."
Actually inventions are always a product of their time and place, and integrate the contributions of thousands of people over history. Saying that any one person invented anything, and especially saying that it would not have been invented without them, is short sighted and sensationalist.
My favorite example is special relativity, which is always attributed to the genius of Einstein. Actually virtually all of the work was done by Michelson and Morley (including the mathematics); in a sense Einstein simply stated the obvious, which prior interpreters were afraid to do. If Einstein hadn't, certainly someone else would have.
Ditto with the electromagnetic raster scan of a cathode ray. And to an even greater extent, ditto to all software and algorithmic inventions. Some people say that the purpose of hardware patents is to protect investments in manufacturing plants, which may make some sense. But the notion should not be used to extrapolate divinity onto the holder of the patent.
And it's amazing how so many people here post dictionary definitions as if that's the arbiter of actual human behavior.
I don't have any problems with the first and third bullets in that definition. But, consider the number of people killed in the name of nationalism by those who appropriate the word for their own political ends. In line with the second bullet, it's historically been easy for thugs with guns to wrap themselves in nationalism.
So, when I hear someone described as a nationalist, I'm more likely to think of them as a "thug with a gun" than as a legitimate patriot.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
So, when I hear someone described as a nationalist, I'm more likely to think of them as a "thug with a gun" than as a legitimate patriot.
I guess that's your hang up, but fair enough, I can agree that nationalism has been associated with some bad characters. I'll admit that when I first read the word the first thing that came to mind after 'proud of being from my country' was Hitler. But I'm certain that you don't think of a racist as 'a thug with a gun,' do you? I was simply contending that racism and nationalism aren't anywhere near the same, not that nationalism (as is practiced, not defined) is a Good Thing. The only thing they seem to have in common is that they're both labels usually slapped on ignorant motherfuckers. Now can we just agree on that and be done with it? I should've just logged in to begin with so I could've kept track of this stupid conversation. I've never been a part of such a stupid lengthy meta-meta-thread. Entertaining.
Coinceidentally, I personally believe that dictionary definitions are substantially more accurate than a definition made up by someone. I suppose that's my hang up, though. Oh well. We've all got 'em.
... it's that all great things are built on the shoulders of giants. In other words, many brilliant people contributed to the early development of television. But, due credit must be given to the one person who had that 'something extra' to produce a real breakthrough. A relevant quote:
;-)
The creative inventor takes ideas out of their original contexts and uses them in new contexts. He turns bread-mold into penicillin, coal into electricity - or, I suppose, lead into gold - because he isn't constrained to keep each thought in its own container."
-John Lienhard
There's no doubt that Farnsworth's work doing drew on the state of the art at the time - from Baird, Zworykin, and others. However, it was Farnsworth who first put it all togther in an all-electronic system by developing not just the critcial piece - the image dissector tube - but also many technical details that we take for granted such as sync pulses, linear sweep and retrace - - all Farnsworth's inventions. (we have Vladimir Zworykin to blame for interlace
Taken together, this all-electronic system was nothing short of a sea-change, a fact that most other workers in the field were quick to recognize (especially Zworykin, who after visting Farnsworth's lab in 1930 quickly set about using the ideas gleaned there to improve his Iconoscope.)
Much of the flamage here is some jingoistic rabble about Logie Baird vs. Philo Farnsworth as the presumed "Father of Television". Baird, like Farnsworth, was a brilliant, tireless engineer determined to make television work. Both men were hackers, in the best sense of that shopworn term. But, Baird stayed stuck on mechanical scanning, which ultimately saw use for telecine. Telecine is an important development but relatively invisible compared to imaging tubes.
If there's someone that deserves to be trashed, it's the meglomaniacal David Sarnoff and his well-funded PR machine determined to rob everyone else in the field of due credit.
- dvd_tude
TO HELL WITH TV!!
Laws are for people with no friends.
I can't believe I missed this the first time through.
Likewise your approving reference to "Manifest Destiny", a discredited and equally racist concept that, in a contemporary context, would support U.S. seizure of territory beyond it's current borders.
You're damn right! Sovereignty is a privilege, not a right. Look at Germany after World War II. Did we just hand the keys over to the German people again and pack out? Hell, no. Five years of occupation by the US, along with the UK and France, resulted in the formation of the Federal Republic, which has become one of the strongest, most modern countries on Earth. Essentially the same thing happened between '45 and '52 in Japan.
Let's compare this to a recent sequence of events. We smashed the oppressive and illegitimate Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Where were our occupation forces? Where were the parades through Kabul? Who's the provisional governor of Afghanistan? Where's Douglas MacArthur when we need him?
Nope. Instead of occupation and support, all they got was a loya jirga. Now, less than three months later, they're back to assassination attempts and bombings. There's no political system in Afghanistan, because nobody has taken the time to build one. Countries with no tradition of democracy can't just be handed a get-out-of-oppression-free card and expected to build their own country with it. They have to be taught.
That's why I oppose the proposed invasion of Iraq. If my country would go all the way with it-- marching into Baghdad, removing Hussein from power, and setting up a provisional occupation government for a period of not less than five years-- I'd be all for it. But I'm afraid that's not what's going to happen. Crushing the Hussein government without building a strong new government in its place would just destabilize things even further.
If we did it right, occupying whole swaths of the Third World would be the best thing for everybody concerned. There are countries where corruption and lawlessness are the rule, not the exception. These kinds of societies can't possibly be expected to govern themselves in any effective manner. As I've said many times before in this forum, democracy can't work without a universal respect for and observance of the law. In countries where there is no law-- only anarchy or dictatorship-- the seeds of democracy will find no purchase.
Get in there with a hundred thousand troops armed with M-16s, MREs with the little packages of M&Ms in 'em, and copies of the Declaration of Independence. Force 'em to live under the strict rule of martial law for a few years, then gradually give them the ability to govern themselves. In fifty years, we'll all be buying expensive stereos and luxury cars imported from that economic superpower, Afghanistan.
Bet your ass I'm for the seizure of territory outside our current borders. Somebody's gotta show these people how it's done. I don't see the French rushing to do it. Do you?
The 1936 Olympics carried Hitler's opening address on TV as anyone who has seen the movie Contact has been reminded.
Let us stop trying to reinvent history.
I read somewhere that the inventor of the telegraph also tried a system to send simple images by pixelated switches and displays. This also resembles the idea of "fax".
Farnsworth did an all electronic scanner & display, which became the norm.
I saw a program a few years ago on this guy. He apparently had a prototype colour television up and running way before anyone else, but was kidnapped by the NKVD (forerunners of the KGB). Has nyone got any more info than that? A quick search on Goole doesn't come up with much, and they always talk about the Theremin and brush past the colour telly.
Brief history here