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TV For Nerds: Cable Science Network?
Ridgelift writes "Wired is covering The Cable Science Network. New York Times science writer Sandra Blakeslee puts it best: "I cover a lot of meetings and I can just see things unfolding, but we can't cover it all in print media, so it would be wonderful to have things like talks and plenary sessions accessible to the public. There are a lot of C-SPAN junkies, and I think there would be a similar interest (in science TV) from the American public." There's also a home page for the network here."
Seems like only two months ago we discussed the possibility.
I realize I'm a professor and very well educated, but so are you guys (after all, anyone using Linux is probably in the top 3 percentile for raw intelligence).
:-p
That being said, I DON'T WATCH TV. There are so many other great things I could be doing, like playing with my kids or doing research or spending quality time with my wife or watching LOtR on DVD.
I want my science news from respectable sources (Nature, Wired, etc.), not from some silly television show based on CORPORATE INTERESTS like profits, profit sharing, etc.
This is NOT what we want. We're smart, we love science, but we prefer the Internet, a place where WE MAKE THE NEWS and are independently allowed to form our own opinions.
Plus COMMERCIALS SUCK anyway
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
We do have science channels on cable.
Discovery Channel (and it's numerous topic-specific offshoots) - Unfortunately, they are 33% infomercials and the remaining programming is usually uninteresting things like re-runs of rescue 911 and "rescue emergency" and other non-scientific things. At best, you'll get a piece of less-than-laymen's scientific programming.
The Learning Channel - unfortunately, this is really now The Ladies Channel, what with A Baby Story, A Dating Story, A Wedding Story, A Makeover Story, What Not To Wear, Trading Spaces and the dozens of other women-centric, non-learning, non-science shows.
It will be cancelled. You can't compete with sound bites.
Supposing even that there are plenty of people interested, showing conference proceedings C-Span style will fail. Conferences are too narrow for this to work. Even when I attend a conference in my area of expertise, I follow only about half the talks, and would need to read up a bit to follow the rest. To someone outside my field, they are all probably undecipherable. So even though I like the possibility of viewing conferences, I doubt enough viewers will follow it to be marketable.
As a Netflix subscriber I can make do without TV... most of the good shows eventually make it to DVD. Most everything else sucks.
A channel like this however could bring me back, however, especially if it were commercial-free, like C-SPAN.
When I had a TV I used to leave C-SPAN on all the time, and it was actually rather enjoyable, that is, until I figured out just how corrupt our government is. Then it became extremely aggravating.
I trust the same thing wouldn't happen here.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
No, TLC == The Ladies Channel
Trading Spaces
A Wedding Story
A Dating Story
A Baby Story
A Makeover Story
Rescue 911
Trauma: Life in the Emergency Room
What Not To Wear
While You Were Out
I think there would be a similar interest (in science TV) from the American public.
I think he is vastly overrating the American public. In this day and age, most people generally don't want to learn. They want to be entertained (hence gobbling down fish semen on Fear Factor). I'm not saying it's a bad idea, though. They could grab a niche market. I like the Discovery and History channels (and TLC), but too often they have "stupid" programming (weddings, babies, interior designers, etc). Also, they are not very technically oriented. You never hear anything except horsepower on most of the "good" shows. I would love it if this new deal had much more technical details in its programming, or at least went into more depth about how stuff works rather than "Look at this cool gizmo!"
If you find this post offensive, don't read it! THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING! I am what I am because of how apes behave.
Okay first of all, from the male perspective, TLC is crap because its nots about geek stuff, or science, or history, or any of those things geeks value as learning.
Now try to put yourself in the place of the average woman, stay at home or otherwise. Women learn a lot from that home decorating stuff! You might be surprised what you might learn. Also there all those medical shows which tell you about medical conditions people have and stories of what they have gone through. Your average female TV viewer, especially the stay at home mom, eats that stuff up, and its still learning!
I'm not belittling women's TV by far, I'm in fact showing that comments like the parent to this are subjective, usually based on the male or geek (or both) point of view. Learning is subjective. Just because it's not science, history, or math doesn't mean its not learning. The channel just switched tracks from men to women. Yes it was done for business reasons, switching to a better demographic, and yes I, personally, absolutely do not like, what they show now, but the discovery and history channels filled in for me quite nicely, and this science channel will help too.
I watch Queer Eye for the Straight guy (okay that's on Bravo but its the same idea), and it's decidedly a "chick show." But DAMN do you know how much stuff guys could learn from that? And I'm not talking about "learning to match clothes so you can be superficial." I'm talking about things that matter (or should matter) to geeks like:
1) Getting your house organized so you don't look like a slob and can find things.
2) Keeping and staying healthy and reasonably well groomed.
3) Learning to cook more than ramen noodles.
4) Looking and acting like a guy a woman might want to go to bed with.
5) Looking like a guy someone might want to hire.
6) keeping your girlfriend happy!!
I call that learning... maybe that's why the gender gap is still so wide, because men don't think these things that women consider learning about are learning.
Think of it this way... this is a low level sociology channel. Be fascinated by the interations of people and their living spaces!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
C-SPAN isn't about whether you want to see it.
It's about congresscritters marketing themselves to you.
It was created not because of some right to be informed, but because they want to deduct their suits and have clips of themselves being mendacious and fervent about it to show the voters back home.
Book Time is there simply because Congress forgot to allow commercial spots to be sold. Otherwise, it'd be Lifestyles of the Profligate and Incumbent.
...is that everyone is at a different level when it comes to science. Every show is either going to be too complex for some or too simple for others. Usually both. It is very hard to make a show that is deemed worthy science to someone with a graduate degree and still be understandable to a highschool student.
The key to entertainment through science is the idea that you are learning something new. Thus for the show to be entertaining it must be something you don't already know and actually be able to teach you it. This is very hard to do.
Discovery and TLC realized this and resorted to the lowest denomiator seeing as there are a lot more people without degrees.
All the other answers pretty much suck. I don't want to pay for 450 channels I don't watch and I can see any serious (long term) reason I should. Anyone with a server and enough bandwidth (and the proper licenses for the content) should be able to set up their own broadcast network. Period.
Quack, quack.
Science is cool, but there is always Drama. People pissed at one another. Hence the high impact of Reality shows and deadline shows. Every scientist has gone through some type of drama. You name it. It is always a battle. Every Science has had it's battle with Religion. You can't eliminate the Human factor out of the equation. So, it basically boils down to Drama. Drama sells.