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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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So... let me get this straight. If your TV ran Linux would you spend more time watching TV? ;)
Spending so much time in front of the computer is baaad. Watch some TV, get some culture, it'll be good for ya.
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 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, in France and the UK we still have quality television.
Dude, France has about 600 broadcast TV stations. The UK has about 250.
The United States of America has more than 2,000, and that's just over-the-air stations. We also have over 9,000 local cable TV systems.
Do the arithmetic. The United States of America broadcasts over 96 million hours of television programming every year. There's enough room in America's cultural output for greatness and crap and everything in between, in volumes that would blow your narrow little mind.
A friend of mine just moved to the US from Australia. Not a small country, Australia. Twice the size of Europe. He and his family are bewildered by the sheer amount of everything we have in this country. Took him to a grocery store the other day. Our city is nowhere near a coastline, but we get seafood by the ton flown in every morning. The produce available in our markets comes from every corner of the world, and it's all fresh and unbelievably cheap.
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.
This is, of course, a good and righteous thing. Manifest Destiny is no myth, my friends.
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!
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
Truth is, the only people that have the moral high ground in this whole thread are the ones who aren't participating in these inane conversations of country/continental superiority. As far as I'm concerned we're all being idiotic assholes. So don't pretend you're any better than everyone else just because you presume to have a leg to stand on. You're still country bashing with the best of 'em.
That being said, anyone worth his salt knows that great inventions/discoveries have been made in European nations and in the United States. I, being American, don't believe that we're the fount of all wisdom and invention, but I think that we do some neat things sometimes. And some stupid things sometimes. So does wherever you live, I'm sure.
Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll skip the looking in the mirror suggestion in your post, because I'm not a particularily handsome person. Oh yeah, and, um, get bent.
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"