Slashdot Mirror
National TV Turn Off Week
beforewisdom writes "Next week (April 19th - 25th 2004) is National TV Turn Off Week in the USA. Among the many benefits claimed by tvturnoff.org is that 90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff Week successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently."
I mailed that link (subscriber) to people at work and some friends. Already the replies have been:
"Great in theory, but there's a new Friends episode on Thursday. [...]"
[group reply to above] "Yeah, great...in theory...."
My sister, who hasn't replied back yet, will undoubtedly mention Trading Spaces or another of those TLC shows. Another friend will complain about missing NASCAR or Monster Garage or whatever...
How the hell can the kids have a hope at reducing viewing, or dumping TV altogether, when the adults around them come up with excuses to not give up the idiot box for just one damn week?
Trolling is a art,
...is it being televised?
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
According to this previous slashdot article, we are watching less TV anyway. Especially now that the summer is getting close, TV viewing will drop even more. I guess soon enough somebody will start a National turn off the Internet Surfing week. I could turn off the TV a lot easier than staying off the web.
--
Retail Retreat
National TV Turn Off decade?
I don't watch nearly the amount of TV that everyone else seems to. When I moved to Minnesota in November of 2002 I didn't get cable. Comcast gets enough of my money being that they are the only broadband ISP that is economically feasible... Without watching TV for 80% of my daily free time I have found that:
1. I enjoy the outside more than ever. I even have become accustomed to Minnesota winters and don't really mind when it is -10 or warmer.
2. I have a lot more free time to keep my apartment clean, cook better and more interesting dinners, and enjoy the company of REAL PEOPLE. Remember, Fahrenheit 451 is getting closer and closer every day with the advent of more and more time/brain sucking material on the TV.
3. I have found a lot of other interests that I normally wouldn't have. Currently those include reading, geocaching, and drinking. I think I get more out of those activities than listening to terrible singers make terrible renditions of terrible songs.
4. I have $50/month more to spend on other things that I enjoy to do (i.e. food, drinking, girlfriend, etc).
5. The knowledge that I am not wasting away, in my apartment, for five hours a night being fed with push content by large conglomerates that have only the size of their pockets to worry about.
As I have mentioned before, my favorite part of TV is that the government has mandated (with our tax dollars) HDTV to be used. Forcing it to be placed into sets in the future so that we can all double pay for it. Now they realize that we are all fat because we sit on our dead, dying, asses and watch TV. So get out and do something but make sure you pay more taxes to support better TV signals!
I am looking forward to advocating that others I know do this. Perhaps, if we try, we can get rid of the Reality TV non-sense and promote a healthier lifestyle (physically, mentally, and socially). It's unlikely but at least we can try.
And so we can spend more time slashdotting sites!
if I just Tivo everything this week and watch it all next week?
Why watch TV? *fires up CoH Beta*
Does this include watching episodes of the Simpsons I downloaded off BitTorrent?
But I think what most slashdoters (Including myself) need is a turn off cumputer week...
Please don't turn off your PVR, I still need to be able to download next weeks shows. Thanks -
And 100% successfully reduce the amount of tv they watch that week.
:)
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I never turn on that cathode ray tube anyway.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
I'm guessing not.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It doesn't just reduce your television usage for one week for those who participate? Imagine that...
Do I have to stop tivoing too? It' would be more like "national watch it next week" ... week.
Turning off the TV will be easy! Turning off the PS2, X-box, DVD player, not to mention the PC, will thus be a challenge.
"Would you rather be right, or happy?"
I'd probably get more done if I had a turn-off slashdot week.
-- Mein Systemadminstrator hat einen großen schwarzen Moustache.
But I still believe that it's gay mariage that is endangering families the most.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
Does TV abstinence include abstaining from using a TV with a composite input as a monitor for computerized exercise machines such as Konami's Dance Dance Revolution? Or does it refer only to passive entertainment received from a terrestrial, cable, or satellite broadcast or from a VHS or DVD video?
And wind up spending that time online, perhaps?
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
I did and started saving $80 dollars a month in cable bills too. Didn't miss it a bit, thanks to Netflix.
Then about 8 months ago I moved in with my girl and now we have a Tivo-like cable box, now I still watch very little TV but I watch what I want, when I want. Very liberating and very cool. By the way, HBO and Cinemax On-Demand kick ass, if you know what I mean.
...why would I want to watch less TV? I enjoy watching TV.
Its great! I dont get fud fed into my living room. I dont have to watch stupid weightloss ads and feel bad about my flab and I get to do things outside!
The organizers are obviously not hockey fans!
The More Reading, Less TV (MRLTV) classroom program motivates school children to put down their remote controls and pick up books.
In other words, stop watching Discovery Channel, read a Hustler instead.
This sounds like another correlation vs. causality fallacy: is it not at least as likely that those who are willing to turn off their TV sets for a week are likely to be those who have already gotten sick of TV? Why the addiction implication?
[ home ]
How will I know who to vote for on American Idle?
Has this anything to do with the shutdown of the adult film industry?
LOL at parent.
=)
In any case I tend to play video games more than I watch TV on my TV. I also watch a lot of anime DVDs. When I do watch TV I generally watch channels like Discovery, TLC, HGTV, History Channel, Animal Planet & Discovery Health. There's just not enough stuff worth watching on TV to justify being a couch potato, at least IMHO.
I haven't watched TV in about 2 months, It'll be another month before I do again. Don't have the time with school, and while difficult at first, its positivly blissful how little commercial crap I have to deal with.
Douglas P. Price
Just get rid of the TV. I've been TV-less for a few years now, and I really don't miss it. I get all my news on-line, I can watch DVDs on my fairly-large computer screen, and all the quality TV series come out on DVD these days, so for those (very few) shows I can pick them up too. Who needs a TV?
Laugh at stupidity: mod idiots +1 Funny.
It just means that the load on slashdot will be higher than average for that week.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
I can turn off the TV whenenver I want.
Maybe later...
But what will we do when an annoying family member tries to talk to us?
Vote for new mod!!! Score:-2,Imbecile
Which means, of course, that advertisers don't give a flying fuck about them.
sulli
RTFJ.
All the good shows are coming back from hiatus. Why couldn't they have scheduled it for last week when nothing good was on?
Why bother turn it off?
Just as long as it starts on Sunday at 9pm and stops at 7pm on Sunday. Gotta watch the Simpsons and King of the Hill. :)
TV? I read slashdot when I'm bored. . . just think of the other things you could buy with that money.
Can I be a Luddite too?
Give it a try - you may never turn back. I stopped watching 2 years ago when my free cable got shut-off. Haven't watched more than 12 hours since. With the TV off you'll find lots of additional free time to indulge in more worthwhile pursuits. TV was the opium of the 80s it's time to kick the habit.
Let's just hope that NCTOW and NTTOW don't coincide or we'll all be left with nothing to do. ;)
Wooohooo!!!!!
More TV for me!!!
TowerDave
What about American Chopper??
This "censor it"! attitude is from the same mindset that brings us book-burning.
If you don't want to expand your mind, smash your own radio and burn your own books.
"It's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day. --Homer Simpson "
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
How can I survive without my Consumer Brainwashing Apparatus?
This must be a joke, right?
.sig
sometime around April 1st when /. causes more /.ers stress due to the content. perhaps then we can get back to work!
...
-PHB
stay tuned next week for a note about turn off pr0n week, so we can get back to work!
damn i'm not good at that marketing thing, thats the whole thing for next week... oh well.
Been without a TV since 87. If it's worth watching, :-)
it's worth getting up and going somehere else.
One less excuse for not communicating.
Less marketing drivel in the home.
Mind not put on standby.
Kids actually have to use their minds (or find
other ways to avoid it) when they play.
You really don't miss important news...
"I learn everything I need to know about the
world in slashdot..."
I don't own a tv.
National Act Like a Pompous Ass Who's Better than Everyone Because You Don't Watch TV Week
To be followed by National Act All Superior Because You Are So "Liberated" That You Don't Own a Cell Phone Week
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
The new episodes of Enterprise are just coming out!
kyjello is too damn smooth to make a signature.
They picked a lousy week to try to go without TV. It's the playoffs.
I don't watch TV other than that anyway....
It's not just entertainment that you'll be missing out on if you participate in thie 'Blackout'. Lots of news, current events, sports, and informational programs will be lost due to this turnoff. Do these organizers realize that? Yes, you can read newspapers to get by, but having moving pictures in your home is one of the greatest inventions of all time. Why would you want to abstain from it for some enlightend purpose?
These people just need to get a life. It's just like that don't-buy-anything blackout. Some people don't like the choices others make, and try to bust your chops to be like them.
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
One school has even taken this week long program, and streched it out to cover the entire school year. Check out http://www.tvturnoff.net for their story & results. This program has been statistically proven to raise students test scores, and has been so successful with the students that this year a majority of the entire school is participating in this program.
When's National Mind-your-own-business week?
>90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff
>Week successfully reduce the amount of television
>they watch permanently.
The stuff currently available to see on my TV viewing device made me permanently reduce the amount of TV I watch...
There are a variety of news shows for information. There are great educational channels like Discovery and National Geographic channel and HBO has some great shows like The Sopranos.
Last week I saw a great show about the Muslim pilgrims on their visit to Mecca. My local PBS stations has good programming. CNBC has halfway decent business news. And they have all kinds of reality shows that my wife likes to watch after a day of struggling with hospotal patients.
Just because you don't like most of the shows doesn't mean there is nothing good on for other people.
If I turn off my tv... where do I turn?
My Computer!
Well, Slashdot is just the same old stuff, so I'll have to see something new, so then I'll DOWNLOAD some copyrighted material off the net.
The the MPAA will be after my ass.... All because you wanted me to turn off my TV and not watch HBO and pay-for-view porn.
It's like being in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) and having an "Get Drunk Every Night Week"...
It just leads me back to my life a crime!
(Come on Laugh.. it's funny!)
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I got a 36" Sony XBR and a Tivo and got sucked in. Sopranos, HBO boxing on Saturday nights, started watching the NHL playoffs (last year). I knew it was bad. I knew I was going down the "joe six-pack" road. Started laying off the bike and gym to play a little Xbox and watch a game. It was keeping me from my SANS studies. I knew I needed a plan.
I saw this article on CNN last year, and went out and got that stuff. Sold the Sony, sold the integrated tuner/Tivo. Hooked it up to a low cost DirecTV tuner only and dish.
I started watching TV in a window on my computer. Slowly, I started backgrounding the window, and would IRC, and then code a little, and then slowly, started using it less and less. The software still gave me the Tivo function, so I could take a break and still FF through commercials.
I highly recommend this approach. Get the fucking big box out of the house. Re-arrange your furniture. Spend the money on a good monitor, 21" or larger, non-plasma. Get the tuner card. Wean yourself off. If you have a family or SO that enjoys "movie night" - do them and yourself a favor. Go to the cinema. Get the hell out of the house.
But I don't even have a TV to turn off you insensitive clods!
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Let me get this straight. These people claim that the typical American is chained to their television and has somehow become incapable of scheduling meaningful activities? So, instead of the television having control, they are going to take it upon themselves to determine what my value structure should be and make those decisions for me?
If I feel that my time spent watching a television program is worthwhile and that somehow has less intrinsic value to you... well, piss off. I don't care what you do on your time. If it's my time, I'm perfectly capable of allocating it to activities, including watching my television, without your input.
Then we'll see how many people (especially /. readers) think this is a good idea.
/.
Let's see, a whole week sans computer, what would you miss:
1. 3 reposts of the same story on
2. 100 Windows security updates
3. Update of linux keneral to 2.6.1000
4. 1000 music downloads
5. 10 C & D letters related to sourceforge projects
what wouldn't you miss: SCO
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
"[...] reduce the amount of television they watch permanently."
Should we also have a national "Don't read that book Week"?
This sounds like dumb crap from people who believe they're "special" because they don't watch TV. The only thing "special" about them is their pompus belief that not watching TV makes them better.
I'd support a "think about what you watch" campaign, but not this.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Whenever I see a running TV I must flip channels for hours with no rhyme or reason. This was the main reason to get rid of cable 5 years ago and leave just the TV + DVD + Netflix/BlockBuster combination. All I can say - it kicks ass! No more crap, no more brain overload with flashy guano, no more sudden urges to get up and buy that Mc-Pizza right away.
;-)
I strongly recommend you do the same. Netflix + a few DVD-RWs (so you can work-around the famous now Netflix mail delay) can give you all TV fun for $20 that you can ever imagine without crap and commercials. Also, you do not watch what is given, you select stuff yourself.
P.S. And you have more time to browse all pr0n you need!
You mean I gotta live off only video games, and the Internet for a week? I'll go crazy!
but theres a new south park this week..
They want me to miss series 2 of the NHL playoffs? I don't think so... Especially not when my beloved Calgary Flames are doing so well :).
Among the people I know and work with, it seems that those who spend lots of time on the Internet (or working/gaming on their computers) spend much less time watching TV than they did 10 years ago (pre-mainstream Internet).
Among the people who still see computing/the_Internet as an appliance, are the ones still watching TV, an age group whose average age is increasing as more and more youths leave television to embrace the Internet and Internet-connected devices.
Personally, the only time I watch TV now is the few minutes it takes in the morning to catch the weather on the news.
Coffee, weather, Slashdot.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
Or perhaps "National Porn Dedication Week".
-=[ gold cannon ]=-
I'm sorry, but there's no way I'm missing Friends.
If I had a PVR, this wouldn't be a problem, though.
My first thought was that they would be running more reality programming, which I find has already lessened my television watching substantially. However, I do find that since getting a Netflix subscription I watch more of what I want at more convenient times. I gather others have the same experience with PVRs. I just watched Joss Whedon's unfortunately cancelled Firefly series thanks to Netflix and I'm looking forward to the entire Prisoner series, followed by Fawlty Towers. I tend to pop in a DVD at my convenience, watch something I really enjoy and then turn it off. Of course any time saved is probably spent reading slashdot:). Note: I don't work for or own stock in Netflix. I had a .sig around here somehere...
People who claim holier-than-thou that they watch "almost no tv" are full of it. Scratch a little deeper and find out people watch moe than they claim.
So many slashdotters act like everyone should be on some crusade to stop TV. Just because they aren't entertained by TV means nobody else should be.
Forget the 20-100+ hours you spend a week in front of computers (especially if you work with them). The entertainment industry is one of the biggest industries in the US (if not the biggest). People get bored, and people want something to do. So what if their little TV shows give them something to look forward to in the evening or on a Saturday afternoon? Is that any worse than the obsession of reading internet news sites?
Quit acting like you need to help people cope with their addiction to television. Ironically people who use this argument are often recreational illegal drug smokers. It's all about entertainment folks, don't judge people for the kind they like best.
I agree, but I thought that the regular pap that's served on TV already made it a turn-off nation-wide :-)
I'll just set my DVR to record all my TV shows for the week, and watch them all the week after..
Check out the best P2P sharing website: MEDIACHEST.COM
TiVo is your friend here, just like Nicorettes!
Instead of completely shutting off the tube for a week - just don't view anything for a week!
Leave the TiVo to grab those shows you actively choose to watch at a later time of your own choosing rather than the broadcasters'.
Watching less TV will decrease the stress in your life and that anxious feeling that there is never enough time.
Spend time talking to friends and relatives, reading classic books and in-depth analysis of current events, gardening, cooking from raw ingredients, or quiet time walking through natural settings.
You'll feel a lot less like an electrified monkey in a Skinner's box and much more like a human being.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
By Bill Watterson:
...It means Karl Marx hadn't seen anything yet...
Calvin: : It says here, "Religion is the opiate of the masses."...What do you suppose that means?
TV:
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
If you have Tivo record the shows you miss, and you catch up with them next week? I usually have just 2 shows I care about - The Daily Show (which if you miss it, 2 days later it loses the oomph since current events have passed) and Clone Wars. Maybe South Park if I remember.
So if you record the shows for later, is that kosher? Because I think I can talk my wife into this, but she's certainly in the "But I'll miss Friends!" camp. Heaven forbid she shouldn't find out if Ross and Monica are finally going to get together.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It should be renamed "National Hurt the Economy" Week, less viewers = less advertising $$$
Ohh and all the electricity people will safe across the US? Enron's replacements could really use that money!
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
I found after 1st year university, I watched way less television. I didn't have one in my room (the people who did could only get maybe 1 channel with rabbit ears - no cable). The only way to watch was to go to the TV room on the floor, and we really didn't do that much.
After I moved back home, I just didn't watch that much TV anymore, because I was used to not watching.
Of course, my watching of movies went up dramatically, but what can you do.
Speak before you think
I don't understand things like these. It's just common sense that tells you that anyone who compains about the 'crap' on tv, or who just doesn't have certain shows that they watch all the time are going to be the people who participate. Those people may just be looking for an excuse to stop watching tv altogether. And that's fine with me. But I don't see how this will have any affect on the vast majority of us who actually enjoy watching tv, and cannot even fathom the phrase "successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently". Yes, I watch a fair amount of television (generally 3-4 hours a day). I watch some sitcoms, drama, crime investigation shows, and lots of movies. I don't have any desire to watch less tv, and I don't see any reason why some group sees the need to push their own agenda's through trying to get me to watch less tv. TV itself is not evil. Stupid people who do nothing other than sit on the couch and watch tv, or those who watch none at all and claim it rots people's brains are the ones that are evil.
Bah, a week is nothing. I had no TV for almost 2 years, and I read a lot of books (like the entire Dune series, including prequels) - Now, I'm sucked back in watching reality TV ... bah .
You are proud that you have shut yourself off from a source of information? Don't tell me: you burned your books in 1988 and you are so proud of that too!
a turn off computer day?
:-)
should we leave the server on
From Erik of oldmanmurray (may it RIP):
"People who don't watch TV love to mention it and never fail to pair that statement with the fact that they read books too. But as long as they're patting themselves on the back for simply not doing something, it seems to me that there are lots of worse things you could be taking credit for not doing. For instance, next time someone decides to lord over you the fact that he doesn't watch TV, go ahead and tell him "Good for you!" Then while everyone around you is reflecting on his massive intellect, up the awful-things-you-don't-do ante by mentioning that you don't rape people and then add that you watch lots of television instead. Not only does that make you a better person - after all what kind of psychotic jerkoff wastes his time not watching TV when he could be busy not commiting violent sex crimes? - but it gives you sort of an air of barely suppressed operatic rage, which makes you more like Batman."
linkified.
I used to watch a lot of TV, I'd even watch shows I hated, just because nothing else was on. Then my wife and I had kids. We never had time to watch shows we liked, so we essentially stopped watching. I couldn't even find time to watch the Simpsons anymore.
The strange thing is, now that our kids are older and I can watch TV again, I still never do. Even shows I used to like are excruciatingly boring. It's like I've left Plato's cave and realized that TV is nothing but tedious and annoying shadows.
Nowadays I'd much rather do almost anything to avoid TV. The idea of just sitting and being bombarded with crap is utterly unappealing to me. If you watch even more than two hours of TV a week, I strongly suggest you destroy it and start living your life again!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
The murder rate peaks around the April 23rd mark.
No TV and no beer makes Homer something something.
Yeah, if they want to make people watch TV, they should have national free bradband week :).
Weird.
I disconnected the cable line going into my TV last night because it was screwing up my broadband connection.
my roommate took his tv home about 2 or 3 weeks ago, too many people were just hanging out here playing gamecube or watching tv...i have been pretty much tv free this whole time... too get an idea of what the people who were hanging out here, please refer to urbandictionary.com, a gumch and paradouch...ahh college...good times in other news, i cant wait for my tuner card to arrive in the mail any day now...
insert generic
I've found that since I got my TIVO my TV watching has declined enormously. I used to plan my schedule so that I'd be home in front of the TV for the three or so shows I liked to watch. Invariably I'd end up watching something before and after "my" shows, and start following those shows as well, even if they weren't that good.
Now with TIVO, TV is not a part of my schedule anymore. I only watch TV for exactly three hours a week, and each of those hours take up 40 minutes real-time (no commercials).
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
This is great. Just think of how much more Everquest I'll be able to play with no TV.
This is probably the most important week to fight obese people.
Get off your lazy asses and and get some exercise. Reality TV is shitty and you know it. Stop trying to play it off as if it's good.
Pathetic when you have to watch someone's life to try to get some sort of enjoyment. Pathetic.
ogg
Black cat, searing pain, flames...? I must be in Heaven! - Homer Simpson
In related news, in an attempt to gain new viewers Fox will be broadcasting it's lastest special. Celebrity drunken midgets beat up little kids in a boxing ring with oversized novelty boxing gloves.
...to give up amphetamines.
I saw that shot more than a few times back when Starbuck was a man. ~ lucabrasi999
Huh? It seems like there's something on TV every week that turns me off.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
when you pry it from my Cold... Dead... Hand!
My TV goes for weeks at a time without ever being turned on. When it is, it's usually to watch a video.
There is simply NOTHING offered on TV these days that is worth watching -- that can't be obtained on-line. I was glued to the NASA TV web site during the recent Mars landings. And I'm a news addict on Election Night. But all that can be watched on line these days.
If people want to rot their brains, let them do it. It isn't anybody's business anyway. All of these busybodies worrying about whether this or that cultural phenomenon is sending us to Hell -- well, they need to go visit a brothel, or get an enema, or do something to get over their g*****n anal fixation with other people's personal choices.
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I'll just TiVo everything for the week, and catch up the week after!
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
I wonder how much electricity it will save too!
The side effect is that I dont live in quite the same world as everyone else, and I am totally not influenced by televised events, so I often do not have the same reaction to things as my co-workers. I never saw the images from 9/11 until weeks afterward. Life was the same for me, before and after, but everyone else around me adopted new postures on life. It was wild. Nothing in their life had changed either, but they went mental. The iraq war did more to change actual life instead of virtual life, becuase some of them have kids over there. Thats reality.
This reality TV, this Trump thing going on - it has precious little impact on me. I know it's going on but I dont watch it, I dont see the ads, the companies paying for that ad time dont get me.
I hate TV becuase I consider it to be a tool of government and corporate control and I dont want to be affected. So I dont have a TV in my house and I dont watch. I live a different life becuase of that and my choice I've made.
On second thought, keep on watching. Watch to your heart's content. The bike paths are already crowded enough, and I shudder to imagine what some of your kind would talk about around the water cooler if it weren't for "Survivor".
What nobody seems to realize is that the world needs mindless drones--lots and lots of mindless drones. I don't want a deluge of sensible, enlightened, productive non-TV watchers. For one, it'll wreak havoc with my sense of superiority. What's more, it'll mean that I'll face stiffer competition both in the workplace and in my pastimes as more and more people wake up and become thoughtful, productive individuals. What, you think I want more competition for that promotion?
If you stop watching TV, you won't be able to roll your eyes at me and my freakish, elitist, hippie lifestyle. Similarly, I'll be unable to fire off snide insults about your sedentary, mindless lifestyle. Why ruin the fun for both of us?
I encourage you to watch as much TV as you want, and to share that time in front of the tube with your children, as well. You'll be happier, I'll be happier, and everything will work out wonderfully.
Hugs 'n' kisses, AAiP
(hint: tongu_ in ch__k. Buy a vowel...)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
sarcasm ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm)
n.
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
I don't have a TV, you insensitive clod!!
Every week is National TV Turn Off week!
(like the entire Dune series, including prequels) - Now, I'm sucked back in watching reality TV ... bah .
Tonight on the Arrakis Broadcasting Company (ABC): "The Kwisach Haderach". 220,000 originally applied, but tonight only one will by chosen by Trump-Gesserit as the Kwisach Haderach. Tune in and spice up your life!
Over on Tech TV, yet another panel discussion about how Tech TV will survive once the Butlerian Jihad reaches its completion. Quote from Leo LaPorte: "A Vic-20 does not count as a thinking machine, does it?"
Over on the other network, there is Fear Factor. Yet another worm-swallowing episode. I doubt the typical outcome with the worm swallowing all the contestants in one gulp will ever be altered.
Also, on CBS (Caladan Broadcasting System), there is "Survivor". Find out who survives when the royal family is dumped on a harsh desert planet.
On CNN, an interview concerning the ongoing search for Shaddam IV's weapons of mass destruction.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Instead of watching a little TV, you're now spending more time and money on the Internet, drinking, and women.
Sounds like you've got the solution everyone's been looking for. "Be exactly like me or you're stupid!"
By the way, HDTV is not mandated by the government. You're confused with Digital TV (DTV). The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) standard will now be used instead of the National Television System Committee (NTSC). This really has little (if anything) to do with pricing. If you want it high-definition, then you can fork out the money.
I'll do it - and I'll unplug my ReplayTv as well.
The weather is going to be BEAUTIFUL out next week.
I might even forget to plug it all back in.
I'm a 2000 man.
Why no turn off your refrigerator week? I can stare at that damn light for hours.
National TV Turn Off Week
Linguo: Bad... grammar... overload. Error! Error!
I feel like: this
See, I'm moving, and I won't have cable hooked up at the new place for at least a week. I know, I'm obeying the law but not the spirit.
Interociter
-=What do I want? I'm an American. I want more.
the CNN article mentions SnapStream software for $60...
What about MythTV?? for free!
Now my family won't have inthing special to do for the holiday week. I guess we need to turn the TV back on for now so it will mean something then.
Seriously though, I was hoping this was more of a boycott movement over the bad programming, overpriced networks, program length commercials and useless channels we are overwhelmed with. Ya ya, health is nice. But even us gluttons have reason to rebel.
Oh, and I was being serious about turning it off starting this week. TV has been right awful for quite some time now and we didn't feel the need to turn our children's brains to mush for it. My three year old son likes TV, but even he doesn't want his brain to turn to mush. I don't think he even knows what his brain is yet.
In the third week of januaray 2004, it's reported that there is an unusual increase in % child birth...
... turning off your TV?
I cancelled my TV subscription when I moved house about 4 years ago, and have resisted getting a TV in ouir new home. My wife took about 3 months to adapt, but survived. I rediscovered my evenings.
TV is very close to a drug. I guess it provides many people with a virtual social exposure with no interaction: sitting still, getting bombarded with faces and voices is kind of bizarre when you think of it. Since program makers can't increase the amount consumed (limited hours in a day), they increase the dose by making TV ever more intense.
Turning of my TV was hard, very much like stopping drinking coffee or alcohol, but worthwhile for me.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
If these idiots think I'm going to miss Iron Chef America: Battle of the Masters for their little protest, they've got another thing coming.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
...and no plans to get it. Life is definately richer. The only things I kinda miss are the Simpsons, a few things on the Discovery or History channels, and the News. I usually read the news in the paper and on the web. The Simpsons episodes will eventually be out on DVD...
Mommy. What's a karma whore?
I don't think that the idea behind this is to stop adults from watching TV for a week. Adults should already be aware that there is more to life than TV and if they arent, that's just sad. I honestly think it's too late for the current generation of adults. Sure, it may help to change a few people's minds, but I dont think it will have a tremendous effect.
I beleive the main idea of TV Turn Off Week is to get the next generation, the kids in elemntary and middle school to pry their eyes away from the television and read or play outside or do something that requires thought. I'm a Freshman in High School and am absolutely astonished as to how many kids in my class watch more than 5 hours of TV a day. That's why I'm teaching elemantary students in my school district about Media Literacy and encouraging them to participate in TV Turn Off Week.
Perhaps if we get children thinking now, we won't have as many apathetic, ignorant burn outs by the time they reach my age.
God is a comedian playing to an audience to afraid to laugh - Voltaire
How the hell can the kids have a hope at reducing viewing, or dumping TV altogether, when the adults around them come up with excuses to not give up the idiot box for just one damn week?
Actually, I think that kids should be much better at turning off TV then adults. First of all, adults have settled into TV habits that they have formed over the course of decades. A lot of times people just watch TV because they have some gut feeling that that's what "they are supposed to do." Second, adults are pretty tired by the end of the day. Even if your job entails just sitting on your duff and typing on a computer all day, it's not unusual to come home and want to do nothing for a few hours. Kids, on the other hand, have tons of energy. It's really a waste for them to watch TV because they have the ability to do so much more.
So I disagree with your claim that somehow adults ought to be better about reducing their TV than kids. Quite frankly, I think kids ought to be very good at giving up TV, provided someone gives them some ideas how to use their time and energy.
GMD
watch this
Actually the majority consider gay marriage to be bad and I don't really understand how you think it can be beneficial to families?
Has anyone actually sat down and thought about how pointless this is?
I don't understand why they'd care who watches TV or not, as if it's bad for you. This sounds like a bunch of old geezers who still believe that TV "rots your brain" sitting around a table trying to get people to listen to them.
It's entertainment, like anything else. What are the alternatives? Pick up a book and read it? Go out for a walk? What concern is it of theirs what I do in my spare time?
Why not have something more important and relevant, like Do Not Smoke Week or Do 10 Good Things for People Week.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I don't have a television this big to NOT watch it. If people are worried about their children being affected by television, then maybe they should participate in more positive, out-of-home activities with them. It seems a major problem is that parents want to let the television babysit their children, and then when the children age, they are adapted to the television lifestyle.
I believe that this is the major issue here. Another issue is actually the opposition of homosexual marriages, as I noted someone oppose it, though I could not tell if it was sarcastic or serious as it was an unjustified, last-line statement. If homosexuals want to marry one another, then they should be allowed this freedom for several major reasons:
1.) Their obligatory marriage is highly likely to end in divorce, potentially splitting up a family that may have been inappropriately started.
2.) There may be a violent relationship if a homosexual is married to someone of the opposite sex, because they may not be truely happy.
3.) There is no reason to restrict the lifestyle of another person based on their sexual preference. If that is the way someone chooses to live their life, then they should be allowed to do so.
4.) Because of the lack of happiness in a "heterosexual marriage", the homosexual partner may live their life more maliciously, violently lashing out against people through internal anger, or may keep their feelings trapped inside and eventually get pushed "over the edge," and do something he/she will ultimately regret.
Well, it appears that DirecTV felt the same way about TV so they shut off the HU stream.
No more free tv for lots and lots.
"Where is my mind?"
After 30 years without a TV, I just can't get into it. Too many commercials. Movie rental is fine, but TV is just too irritating.
(54)T-Dub, that crack about gay marriage really did not come across as sarcasm.
;)
Winking while typing just doesn't work, you have to be in person.
One of their leaflets was used as the subject matter for one of the GCSE English papers a few years ago. (GCSEs are national exams taken by all 16 year-olds here in the UK, after which they may either leave school or continue on to further education.)
What if I don't actually watch any TV shows, but spend my customary 30 hours a day on the GameCube?
Computers are far more mentally stimulating than television. A computer allows one to, through creative processes, mold a custom and parallel "virtual existence;" computers are especially engaging and educational for those who program or design in some capacity.
But you'll still get fat.
Well that's the excuse I use if anyone mentions the smell.
This is, in my opinion, a stupid cause looking to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Why bother protesting TV by not watching?
1.) Your TV time may be reduced permanently? If I want to watch less television, I will You don't have to stop watching for a week to make a plan to stop watching as much and stick to it.
2.) TV may cause ADD in children. Excellent point, let's make movement then to only allow children to watch a set amount of television on a weekly basis. Get government behind it to mandate television manufacturers allow restrictions be placed on the amount of television watched by using a passcode system or just give the children a special remote and have the hours tracked that way. Let the parents of course choose how many hours per week they're allowed. Remember, shutting your television off for a week isn't going to make anyone else a better parent, some people just make bad parents.
3.) Less TV time means kids ask for fewer toys. See #2.
4.) Kids gain weight by wathcing mroe TV. See #2.
5.) Kids spend more time watching TV than studying. See #2, be a good parent, enforce restrictions.
6.) TV news alienates kids, lacks details. This one is just silly, the site complains that the kids are staying up on national events and that kids complain the news lacks details and they want more information. So the TV not only teaches about hte current events, it inspires them to do independent research... how is this bad?
7.) Kids absorb and mimic televised violence. See #2, give the parents the tools to limit what their children watch. If the parents don't care to limit it, they have bigger problems than just what they're watching, they have parents who don't care... lots more risks invovled in that.
8.) Television and Childhood Injuries: Is There A Connection? -- Their argument here is that because the children watch TV their reaction time, etc is impaired and it causes them to get hurt more often. My answer: Let's compare the number of injuries sustained while playing on a playground or in a park or any team sport to those sustained while watching television. I rest my case. Kids get hurt, there are a lot more dangerous things that are OKAY for kids but TV is bad because it's been linked VERY INDIRECTLY by one study to making children more accident prone? Here's an idea, make them play some video games to get their reaction speed and coordination up... or wait, is that against the rules too?
9.) TV Re-inforces sex roles and stereotyping -- TV doesn't re-inforce sex roles and stereotyping, sex roles and stereotyping re-inforces sex roles and stereotyping. Again, go to the government, mandate a 'sex roels and stereotyping' flag just like the other codes used to rate TV and films and then go back to answer #2, and set limits on what you and your children watch.
10.) Less TV means less aggression. *SIGH*I Grow tired of the "GUNS KILL PEOPLE" approach. more AGGRESSION means more AGGRESSION. Set limits on your television or stop watching it. Talk to your children, explain violence is not okay.
Alright enough of this. my point: TV IS Technology. It is not the problem. Turning it off is not going to solve any of your problems except maybe lowering your power bill and disabling your babysitter long enough that you maybe TALK TO YOUR CHILDREN.
I can count to 1023 on my hands. Ask me about #132.
I hate statistics like this. Which way does the correlation go?
Does participating in this mean you are going to watch less TV?
Or do people that have the guts to stick through this tend to not watch as much TV anyway? People who can't go a week without TV aren't going to reduce their habits.
I watch about 3 hours of 'Live TV' (actually recorded on my PVR) every week (CSI's and Angel) w/ the number about to drop to 2 (after Angel ends). I watch 1 episode of Anime each day (25 min) and a movie on Friday (1.5-2hr). During the summer I don't watch regular TV at all (short of the occasional History Channel documentary). At the end of summer I have the cognitive dissonance of remembering that some TV programs are not in Japanese.
TV has really hit the tipping point in which there is no worthwhile programming coming from American sources. My 'Home Theater' is just that, a place to watch movies because my schedule makes going to a theater impossible.
I need to go check the listings for next week to see what to watch & tape. Let's see... new episodes of Smallville, NYPD Blue, Touching Evil, ER (tho I wish they'd just kill that show off already)... Wonderfalls is gone (bummer)... not to mention A's and Giants games next week.
What's that? You want me to turn the TV off??? Yeah right.
Travis
If /. was somehow TV-based (I'm stretching, just follow), I would be on a lot more. Better for your mind you say? We can debate that, on /. of course.
Some people like Friends. I sometimes take a moment to wonder why. Of course, I'm sure they've been wondering what the hell I'm doing reading this website about "news for nerds" all the time. To each his own.
What's important is that you make the choice, not the companies that run television and that you make the right choice (i.e. don't give up more important things for TV like kids).
watching TV... :)
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
For those that participate and manage to deprive themselves of their precious idiot box programming, let me bring you up to speed on what you'll be missing:
... DID YOU KNOW NORTHERN BATH TISSUE IS THE SOFTEST?
* Soaps: Wife secretly sleeps with husband's brother who's being blackmailed by their chauffer who is actually a
* Talk Shows: All this week: Crack Whore Makeovers on Jenny Jones, plus a special appearance by... AMAZING NEW WEIGHT LOSS PILL!
* Survivor: This week contestants swim through shark-infested waters with dead fish in their mouths; winner receives one sock and... TRY NEW CREST CHEESECAKE-FLAVORED TOOTHPASTE!
* Saturday Night Live: Woman with nice boobs hosts; cast members create skits so they can cop a feel; musical guest... THE NEW NISSAN XTERRA HAS A V8 AND FIVE (YES FIVE) CUPHOLDERS!
* News: War going bad; war going good; one guy says other guy will tax everyone into poor house; some dude in Peoria is suing Wal-Mart for $5B for... ISN'T IT TIME YOU TRIED VIAGRA?
* American Chopper: Paul Sr. continues to abuse Paul Jr.; Mikey explodes after all-night twinkie binge; OCC scapes the bottom of the barrel looking for politically-correct bike themes with their new chopper commemmorating the lawyers who set up the 911 Red Cross fund. Special appearance by... HALLIBURTON.. SUPPORTING OUR TROOPS.
* Monster House: Team of dysfunctional contractors install a 12' bong and jacuzzi filled with Patchoulli in new "Hippie House"; owners are stunned when they peek in and discover... CHEVY, AMERICA'S TRUCK
* Talk Shows: Jay Leno's special guest: Billy Bob Thorton; tonite on Conan: Billy Bob Thorton; tonite on Late Night: Billy Bob Thorton. Check out Billy Bob's new movie about... HIENEKEN BEER - IT'S ALL ABOUT THE BEER
CHAPEL HILL, NC--Area resident Jonathan Green does not own a television, a fact he repeatedly points out to friends, family, and coworkers--as well as to his mailman, neighborhood convenience-store clerks, and the man who cleans the hallways in his apartment building.
v ision.html
"I, personally, would rather spend my time doing something useful than watch television," Green told a random woman Monday at the Suds 'N' Duds Laundromat, noticing the establishment's wall-mounted TV. "I don't even own one."
According to Melinda Elkins, a coworker of Green's at The Frame Job, a Chapel Hill picture-frame shop, Green steers the conversation toward television whenever possible, just so he can mention not owning one.
"A few days ago, [store manager] Annette [Haig] was saying her new contacts were bothering her," Elkins said. "The second she said that, I knew Jonathan would pounce. He was like, 'I didn't know you had contacts, Annette. Are your eyes bad? That a shame. I'm really lucky to have almost perfect vision. I'm guessing it's because I don't watch TV. In fact, I don't even own one."
According to Elkins, "idiot box" is Green's favorite derogatory term for television.
"He uses that one a lot," she said. "But he's got other ones, too, like 'boob tube' and 'electronic babysitter.'"
Elkins said Green always makes sure to read the copies of Entertainment Weekly and People lying around the shop's break room, "just so he can point out all the stars and shows he's never heard of."
"Last week, in one of the magazines, there was a picture of Calista Flockhart," Elkins said, "and Jonathan announced, 'I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. Calista who? Am I supposed to have heard of her? I'm sorry, but I haven't.'"
Tony Gerela, who lives in the apartment directly below Green's and occasionally chats with the 37-year-old by the mailboxes, is well aware of his neighbor's disdain for television.
"About a week after I met him, we were talking, and I made some kind of Simpsons reference," Gerela said. "He asked me what I was talking about, and when I told him it was from a TV show, he just went off, saying how the last show he watched was some episode of Cheers, and even then, he could only watch for about two minutes before having to shut it off because it insulted his intelligence so terribly."
Added Gerela: "Once, I made the mistake of saying I saw something on the news, and he started in with, 'Saw the news? I don't know about you, but I read the news."
Green has lived without television since 1989, when his then-girlfriend moved out and took her set with her.
"When Claudia went, the TV went with her," Green said. "But instead of just going out and buying another one--which I certainly could have afforded, that wasn't the issue--I decided to stand up to the glass teat."
"I'm not an elitist," Green said. "It's just that I'd much rather sculpt or write in my journal or read Proust than sit there passively staring at some phosphorescent screen."
"If I need a fix of passive audio-visual stimulation, I'll go to catch a Bergman or Truffaut film down at the university," Green said. "I certainly wouldn't waste my time watching the so-called Learning Channel or, God forbid, any of the mind sewage the major networks pump out."
Continued Green: "People don't realize just how much time their TV-watching habit--or, shall I say, addiction--eats up. Four hours of television a day, over the course of a month, adds up to 120 hours. That's five entire days! Why not spend that time living your own life, instead of watching fictional people live theirs? I can't begin to tell you how happy I am not to own a television."
Source: http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/doesnt_own_tele
I can't tell you the last time I watch TV (or cable) programming. I do use my TV for video gaming and watching anime from DVDs. Technically, I can say I don't watch TV, but I'm sure as anything not going to give up my games and anime. :P
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
We haven't had cable for ~2 years. We still have a small TV (by todays standards) and watch movies (netflix) and old simpsons episodes, but on average this ends up being 1 hr a day (one movie every couple days).
The the remaining free time I climb, brew beer, read, clean, etc.
Not trying to be self-righteous, but now that I think about it....how did I *ever* have the time to watch +3 hrs a day of TV?
Seriously, try disconnecting the cable for a year. Its hard for the first 6 months, but then you lose all interested in the current programming (I have no idea what's playing and don't care). Get your news on line or on the radio in the car.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
"For those that participate and manage to deprive themselves of their precious idiot box programming, let me bring you up to speed on what you'll be missing"
If you choose to, you can come up with examples of printed works at least as bad as the "worst of TV" you chose to list.
Have you burned your books yet?
I have 24 (episode 18 this Sunday night because of Bush's speech last Tuesday night -- see http://www.fox.com/24/), Alias, The Simpsons, Smallville, and Star Trek: Enterprise. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is probably what a few addicts are thinking.
What is Apprentice?
Actually I never saw Surviver. Did he make it?
The last reality show that I saw was the Real World in San Francisco.
I watched an episode of Nova that we taped a couple of weeks ago. My wife watched an episode of Mythbusters with them. My kids are getting examples of how the scientific method actually works, and having a great time. This morning my older son was playing with his home-made electromagnet.
I cant turn it off this week because there is too much hockey to watch! Maybe Im just a hoser, but Hockey Night In Canada is just too important to me!
spend money here
What's it going to hurt? If a gay couple treat their significant others the way that they would want, then it's a far closer thing to marriage than what is practiced between men and women in some parts of the world; and even here in the united states for that matter.
Besides we do not discriminate against any other group in the United States (in theory); why start/countinue now?
I'm not gay and as such don't particularly give a **** what they do as long as it does not hinder my pursuit of happiness. And if you really feel the need to hate people like I do, hate everyone equally.
...since it's also National Library Week.
I'm all for turning off the TV, but I think the 90% figure is misleading.
People who participate in this event have probably already decided or at least desired to reduce their television viewing, and are merely using this as a catalyst. They are self-selected: you couldn't expect a 90% success rate with a random group.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
Just don't watch re-runs. I only watch three or four shows anyway, refusing to watch re-runs cuts even that down tremendously. ~:D
Subject says it all.
... telling everyone how you are participating in this ... attending TAA (television addicts anonymous) meetings ... pushing buttons on the remote without turning the TV on ... downloading and watching the programming you're missing on the computer (it's not "TV") ... posting on /. about how stupid this whole thing is ... posting on /. about how needed this is ... twitching and developing other obsessive-compulsive behaviors
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
I didn't watch any TV last week, either.
I think a lot of the TV viewing habits come simply from the "water-cooler" effect. At work or at the pub, we hear our peers talking about this and that show and we feel the need to watch the same shows in order to not get left out, same goes with movies etc. One way to watch less TV is to hang out with people who watch less of it too.
Compare those statistics with computer usage over the last years and you might be surprised how fast things are keeping up. Before you say, "Well the computer can be used for educational purposes", so can TV. There are more than just reality shows on. The Internet doesn't hide children from violent crimes either, in fact it has no censorship AT ALL. Children can access anything once they learn how to use the browser... porn, violence, the Anarchist's Cookbook, you name it. Sure there is software to prevent it, but there's also monitoring your children and a little thing called the VChip.
The world is changing and the omnipresent media shows it to us with little filtration. Don't blame TV for kids seeing bad things, blame the parents' lack of involvement and monitoring.
why do we need to watch less tv? just for the sake of watching less? are there any known direct harm done by watching too much tv?
what we need is a "be more personally responsible" week. if i decide to watch a lot of tv but also accept any possible negative consequences of such action, i don't see the problem with watching a lot of tv.
i believe many problems in the US can be deal with effectively if we held ourselves to be more responsible instead of spreading blames to genetics, fastfood chains, TVs, etc.
I propose that this week also be "National Turn Off Your Computer Week." I'll go first.
::
::
:: walks over to server farm. Unplugs it.
:: whistles a merry tune as the sound of wailing and teeth-gnashing fills the air.
:: walks back to desk. Unplugs *&#^*@sd---[NO CARRIER]
Does a projector count as a TV? I don't own a "TV" anymore. Not that it really matters since I haven't watched anything except DVDs in the last 3 weeks.
I thought Lemmings was just a video game, now it appears it is a reality show.
Now we just need a National No News Slashdot week and I'll might actually get work done. How many people would die from not reading slashdot for a whole week? Maybe it should be a slashdot poll! :)
This space is not for rent.
"TV viewing makes adult men fatter."
But if you read the study:
Notice it says "associated with" and not "causes". Maybe this can explain it:
Well, duh. They like to watch television because they're fat. Not the other way around. It hardly supports "TV viewing makes adult men fatter." TV viewing just doesn't make them thinner.
And this: "Watch less TV; prevent violent acts."
But from the study on their own web page:
Again, correlation but not necessarily causation. Maybe violent kids are attracted to violent television programs.
So no studies before this one have actually determined that watching less TV reduces violent behavior, the results of this study are not on the web page, and the study doesn't show up anywhere in a Google search except on their web page. Some proof.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
...can be found here.
--
Cain.
Am I the only one that watches TV only when visiting family? I never watch live TV now. I watch TV 5-6 times a year depending on how often I visit my mother-in-law or my mom.
At home, I play PS, read, and play PC games. O.k. I also run around after my kids making sure they don't things to get me in trouble with the wife such as spilling baby oil infront of every doorway in the house.
I usually don't watch a lot of tv, or at least I didn't until last night. I just got a new satellite dish, with so many channels I don't know what to do with them all. Today's my last day at work, and I'm off next week, so I was planning a week-long tv-watching marathon, watching nothing but movies, sports, Chinese newscasts, home shopping channels, cartoons, infomercials, Hungarian soap operas and maybe even a little bit of porn...
Give up TV for a week? Sounds like a great reason to finally buy a Tivo or build a MythTV box. Or buy a new computer game. Or not feel guilty about spending more time on the internet.
I do security
If they expect anyone in Canada to go along with this they sure didn't plan it well.
TV turn off during the NHL playoffs? Give me a break!
I can't say I much enjoy many of the popular programs (The Apprentice, American Idol, Friends, etc.), but I do relish certain programs like MythBusters, The Simpsons (well, reruns of older episodes, at least), Family Guy, Frasier, Futurama, and The Sopranos. (And, of course, Yankees games.) It's not about being proud of watching TV: I am neither proud nor ashamed of it. I simply like certain programs, and am not going to stop watching them because some sanctimonious, teetotaling, neo-prohibitionist, self-denial-is-good crowd has decided that TV Is Bad(TM) along with lots of other things.
You know what? I like beer. I like farting. I like trucks, and (gasp!) SUV's. I like Slashdot (which, incidentally, seems much less intellectual than your average 2003 episode of The Simpsons). And I fucking like TV. If you don't like it, don't watch it: I don't judge you as stupid simply because you don't like TV. But don't tell me I'm somehow missing out on life or an inferior bag of mostly water because I spend an average of 2 hours a day watching TV. I know what I like better than you do, and watching TV is a welcome respite from work, home renovations, and ice hockey.
[ home ]
Now if you'll excuse me, I've spent far too much time not looking directly at the TV. It gets angry when I only watch it out of the corner of my eye.
--
"Sit in the snow with Daddy and let us all bask in television's warm, glowing warming glow."
- Homer Simpson
Next week is also National Astronomy Week, with National Astronomy Day scheduled for Saturday, April 24th. Dust off those old scopes and binocs and get outside!
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
Didn't decided to do without one ... my computer with the tuner card broke, and since I didn't have a regular tv and just a laptop for spare, I didn't have much choice but not watch tv. Then I forgot to bother fixing the computer.
:-). Get some exercise? Yeah - right! Like that's ever going to happen. And besides - what's on tv between five and six pm? Childrens shows?
I miss it, but mostly when I'm bored out of my skull. Yes, I've read some more books, but I doubt I wouldn't have read them if I still had tv.
Sure, it could be great watching Friends again (we're way behind here in Denmark), but it's not like I'll die if I don't.
Some people say "well, now I have more spare time to do more meaningfull stuff!" Yeah - like what? Read books? Did that. Now I'm out of unread books at home and the local library only has technical books
Then there are saturday nights. These are exactly like they were before my tv went out. Saturday night has to be THE!!! crappiest night of the week when it comes to television. "Night of the Living Hollistic Hair Dressers". Reality shows about boring regular people put in extremely unreal situations. They are roughly as realistic as the textures in Commander Keen (but that's just one mans oppinion). Sure - it might be fun to see wether or not Sheila manages to convince Kurt to have sex with her even though they're stuck on a deserted island (never mind the television crew), that Kurt's girlfriend is on another deserted island (never mind the television crew) where she's busy fending off more dick that you see in two weeks of alt.binary.* posts, all the while trying to see if they can manage to eat the eyes out of a live tarantula, who has (just for the occasion) been dressed in a fabulous sweater by Dior, trousers by le Pen and eye liner by L'Oreal all done by the Fabulous Five. Hope I didn't leave out any reality shows.
I do miss tv. I also miss having sex. And they aren't related as far as I know.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
I just recently moved into a new apartment. When I did, I chose to get only the basic cable service. That is, the $9 package (first 15 channels, plus some of the 70's). I previously had the UberPackage (dvr's, every movie channel, etc). Since I work close to my home, I eat lunch in the comfort of my own place. This is the only time I watch tv. As I've found in the past few weeks, 90% of the time I'm watching C-SPAN. Very informative television in most cases and I feel like I'm learning something.
So, I won't be giving up tv for a week (otherwise I'd be staring out the window while I eat my lunch). However, I feel I've already effectively reduced my tv watching to almost nothing.
DirecTV made last week my "TV Turn-off week" - I tried to tell them it was *this* week, but they insisted it was going to be whenever they felt like it unless I paid that bill. Blah.
All the people posting:
[best george carlin voice]
I don't OWN a TV
[/voice]
Or yapping about how this turn your tv off for a week is "Such a great idea", yet the same fools are sitting here, reading slashdot and are glued to their computers 14 hours a day, at work, at home, downloading movies and porn.
But THEIR better then the rest of us, because THEY don't own a TV. As if the rest of us just sit there glued to the damn thing.... I watch the news, and maybe a show on the history channel.
But according to them, I'm inferior.
Whatever.... Go protest the killing of a spotted turtle up in Alaska or something.... Just get away from me,
[best Cartman voice]
Damn Hippies
[/voice]
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
Noooooo! It's not fair. My 2000-inch TV was installed this morning. I haven't even been home to see it yet.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
...television turns ME off!
So if you record the shows for later, is that kosher? Because I think I can talk my wife into this, but she's certainly in the "But I'll miss Friends!" camp. Heaven forbid she shouldn't find out if Ross and Monica are finally going to get together.
Generally speaking, anyone who uses a PVR to pick-n-choose is already ahead of the game because you've put yourself back in control of your schedule. And you're not sitting there veg'd in front of the TV watching 4 hours straight as you channel surf in an attempt to find something to watch.
The real question is what do you do when you don't have anything recorded? Do you channel surf?
Wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?
What is harder is not giving it up. It is much harder to use it an apropriate amount (not reloading Slashdot / BBC / re-checking email) than it is to step away completely. My internet usage is never excesive when I'm only using it as an asside to another activity - like looking at overhead photos to find nice ways to bike out of the city or looking up documentation when coding.
And TV does NOT rot your brain. Watching Nova on PBS makes me smarter (perish the thought!)
That CSS file that blocks ads
I wish no one watched tv because I'm sick of "did you see that Seinfeld episode" as relating to any topic during the day. Friends is also used in that capacity as relating to real life. I'm so sick of hearing about the last year of this show. NBC is trying to pull at people's heart strings and equivacate the ending of the show with a life changing event. It's a fucking sitcom, those aren't real people, and if you're saddened by the end of the show then you need to get a fucking life!
If anything I might have the tv on for the news in the background while I'm doing other things and when I go to bed I put in a dvd to put me to sleep but other than that I don't watch any tv.
I refuse to watch reality tv because if my life is so boring I have to voyeur in on someone else's life I want to take 50 bullets to the head. TV is such a waste of time. Now being on a computer isn't because at least you're using your brain and you can be doing contructive things like downloading mp3's, movies, programs, and tons of pr0n:) Computers are about freedom and free shit!:D
I work all day long as an IT guy and I do other work at home but I go to the gym, race sports atv's, play a lot fo other sports, go camping, and just stay busy. If I get into a game way too much I make myself do other things because real life needs to be concentrated on much more than my "virtual" life. It's about priorities and working towards a constructive life.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
I'm willing to bet that if I participate in national tv turn off week it will not affect my tv viewing habits in any way... seeing as I don't even have a tv.
Directv hackers will be turning off their TV's,
Directv is terminating the HU (P3) video authorization packets and and channels are dropping like flies.
If you don't have a legit P4 access card you ain't watching Directv no mo...
The Onion | Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television:
v ision.html
http://www.theonion.com/onion3604/doesnt_own_tele
0xfeedface
Sorry, not going to give up Adult Swim and the Daily Show. Not everything on TV is crap, and people who watch reasonable amounts are not brain-dead addicts.
TV... Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover
But but but! I already paid for the NHL hockey package! I've got to find out who wins the Leafs/Senators series! My life depends on it!
I consider watching CBC and TSN broadcasts of hockey games as positive credit towards learning about another culture. Without these broadcasts, I never would have learned about Don Cherry, Tim Horton's, and Canadian Tire.
-sharv
When I see all the people who are obsessed with a book that they have read or are reading, it's about time for a National Don't Read a Book Week ;)
Try four. I didn't realize how long commercial breaks had gotten until I got my MythTV box running. Hitting the right arrow on my remote fast-forwards thirty seconds at a time.
1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8 or so ticks and I'm finally back into the program I wanted to watch. Now I know why I can't get involved in anything I watch anymore. If my brain has to sit on the sidelines for four minutes before the program resumes, then I quit, and I'm taking the ball home with me.
Good grief.
Note to self: ::set TVIO to record all next week::
Two wrongs don't make a right - but two do's make a dodo
Since the stuff on television either is not that entertaining and the SciFi isn't what I can get by reading the collected short stories of Arthur C. Clarke et al., I decided to have cable modem but not cable TV.
So far I found it much harder to prevent me from playing silly games too often than watching tv.
But the hardest thing is to go out, aw - how do you do that and find that interesting. Maybe I sign up for another french class, not the same as going out but interesting.
"90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff Week successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently"
I didnt need this program to reduce the amount of TV I watch, all that was needed was the cancellation of: Family Guy, Titus, Dark Angel, The Tick, and about a dozen other shows I used to enjoy... all bets are off come football season however
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
No problem - it's already off!
to get off the treadmill of watching and buying.
/. :-)
I find it leaves me with more time for
Turn off the tube and you'll have a life...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Hustler now features pictures of naked wildlife.
Finally one slashdotter truthful about not watching TV ;-)
Ross and Monica are brother and sister.
If people didn't watch TV, then they wouldn't watch political commercials. Those are expensive to put on. What would happen if money became less useful in politics? What would happen if the guy who sold you out for a million dollar campaign contribution, didn't thereby gain a competitive advantage over his opponent?
We reward them for hurting us. The harder they fuck us, the more votes we give them. Killing mass media might be a way to disrupt this cause-and-effect relationship.
If you don't give up TV, at least filter out the ads. You don't need any campaign-finance-reform laws for this; you just need a fast-forward button.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I have been successfully participating in this 'Week' of no TV for the better part of a year now. With the exceptions of my occasional remembering that on Sat Night, the local PBS plays Red Green / Red Dwarf / Dr Who in a block, I would not have any change in my life if I did not own a TV at all.
I do not watch television outside of the afforementioned three shows, and I'm lucky if I remember once a month. I have never watched "Survivor", I had no idea "Apprentice" ended, nor do I really care what other crap is being shoved at me over airwaves I do not listen to.
I have never seen "The Sopranos", "Seinfeld" or even "Friends". Even when I watched TV, I never watched outside of Cartoon Network/Boomerang or one of the "TLC/Discovery Channel" Use Your Brain channels. Those channels never -once- insulted my intelligence. Yes, Cartoon network used to try and convince me my life was meaningless unless I was breathing Scooby Doo, so I just turned -that- off too.
Am I missing out? No. The only real reason I have a TV anymore, is to connect to my DVD player|PS2|XBox and if I had a decent VGA box for the latter two, I'd not need more than my monitor. (Except I have a 17" monitor and a 29" TV and a better home theater than my computer's audio....) (Yes, I know I can use a vga converter, but I'm a zealot. Ever played a Dreamcast on VGA? Lord love a duck, there's no comparison.)
If I wish to catch up on something that I might have missed, that a co-worker/friend/some-putz-on-irc things I -NEED- to see, oddly enough, there's Torrents and shares of practically any broadcast TV show now these days, if you know where to look.
If you cannot give up something, even for a mere -week- then you are addicted, and should seriously take the time to to a self check on if thats good, or bad.
Is to start driving slower
You can tell its not a Canadian idea, cause they wouldn't choose to hold it during the NHL playoffs (essentially the only TV I still watch).
Go LEAFS!
TV is evil! I don't own a TV, and I'm infinitely better than everyone else!
TV is good! I watch 1 million hours of TV a week!
TV sucks! I [timeshift or equivalent recording device] all the quality shows!
TV sucks! I buy/rent/steal all my DVDs at [favorite DVD outlet]!
TV is okay! I just watch a handful of the channels. You know, the good ones: [channel1], [channel2], and of course [channel3]!
TV is okay! I just watch a handful of shows. You know, the good ones: [show1], [show2], and of course [show3]!
90% of the people who participate in a TV Turnoff Week successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently.
True, haven't watched in over a year, and don't miss it at all. However, my Slashdot viewing time is up by 1000%!
-Fred
... like when there isn't anything on TV?
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
because it's NHL playoffs time !!
Go Sens !
It's the NHL playoffs - why on EARTH would I turn off my TV?
:)
Maybe when baseball season's in full swing . . .
-- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
First thing's first. Get a ReplayTV or a TiVo, and only watch stuff that you've intentionally recorded. Just watching whatever's on is going to be a mistake. Anyone watching TV without a PVR is doing it wrong.
The problem I have with the "I don't have a TV, go read a book" crowd is that it's not like books are inherently better than TV. Sure, in general, the quality may be a bit higher and the degree to which you're being imaginative is probably greater, but there's plenty of tripe being published, just as there's plenty of crap being shown on TV.
Also, who says that "good TV" can't simply be entertaining? I watch a number of shows that aren't "challenging" to any degree, but make me laugh and leave me in a good mood, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Hell, I even watch American Idol -- with ReplayTV each episode is between 15-20 minutes -- simply because watching competitions and being your own judge is entertaining, and I refuse to let some holier-than-thou zealot make me feel bad about myself for doing so.
I regularly watch Six Feet Under, Carnivale, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Daily Show, Scrubs, Arrested Development, Alias, Gilmore Girls, and The O.C., and sure, some of those are more fluff than others, but I am watching for entertainment, so I watch what entertains me.
For the record, I also have a healthy NetFlix subscription, I rock climb, geocache, play tennis and softball, play card games, board games, video games, and do some side programming projects. There's no reason TV can't live alongside all those other activities.
"There IS no off-switch."
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
..and now I have become unable to even understand why everybody's watching that infernal box. As it is, the day fails to contain sufficient hours for me to learn and do all the neato things I wanna learn and do (yup, that even includes a bit of time for /.), and the concept of blocking out HOURS, for learning and doing NOTHING, has become abhorrent to me. I find myself in people's houses and they're staring mindlessly into that thing and I'm UNABLE to fathom their hypnotism. I like me better, now that I've become this way, although certain others like me less. So it goes.
Is it fascism yet?
Watch television - bad
Bootleg movies from theatres - good
Was there ever a playbook on this thing?
as my television just died this week. I suppose it's getting ready for the its holiday.
At least it's still under warranty though... phew.
Killing mass media might be a way to disrupt this cause-and-effect relationship.
No good ever comes from censorship. Ever. If you don't like the political ads, ignore them..
I _hate_ it when people say they "downloaded it off BitTorrent" like it's a kazaa style P2P. It just gives the program a bad reputation when people say such things. Don't clump it with all those things right-wingers would consider "evil". It has so many more, better applications.
... successfully reduce the amount of television they watch permanently
... by one week.
well, yeah
Well, the site appears to be /.'ed, but the claim seems to be remarkably self-apparant. Who's going to take part in a TV-turnoff week? Ignoring those of you who plan to cheat with your TIVO and binge the next week, it's generally going to be people who want to watch less TV. It would seem that driving up their participation (especially via cheating) will simply make their "90% of participants watch less TV afterwards" figure drop like a rock.
Meanwhile, the flight of intelligent consumers from the TV market will give "content" producers even less reason to produce quality product, as their market will have left. Overall, this project sounds like a bad idea for everyone involved except those who've already resolved to quit TV anyways. If that's you, why are you waiting for Quit TV week?
for me with the cancellation of all of the good shows. Is this week necessary any longer?
You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.
Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be right back after a message
bbout a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
My wife teaches first grade, and says that the kids have zero imagination. Halfway through one of their stories, she realizes that they are just regurgitating a movie or TV show. When she asks them to use their imagination, they think that are...
One of the students wrote a story about how a new kid moved into the neighborhood named "Legoras".
That's when we decided our kids will have omish toys--big blocky wooden stuff with wheels. Or maybe Legos. If they want to have fun, they'll have to invent it.
I will leave you with a quote from Howard Beale, an overstressed news anchor turned mad street prophet, from the movie "Network":
Network is simply one of the best movies ever made about TV and the News. I highly recommend it. Despite 70s dress and equipment, it manages not to be dated. All the issues it deals with are still relevant, from how sensationalism taints objectivity and values to how quickly idealists can sell-out when given the opportunity.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
National TV Turnoff Week.
a.k.a.:
National Monitor Turnon Week
National TV Tuner Card Install week
Through my TV I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. Without TV, all those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.
Had the cable tv turned off too.
I have a one year old and my desire to raise my children in a non-tv-addicted way was greater than my desire to watch it, so we had to get rid of it. It's just a big f'ing waste of time, time suck anyway.
We listen to more music now...
Ignoring them (by voluntarily not watching TV or filtering your ads) is exactly what I was talking about. Not censorship by a third party. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I have a TV, but I don't get any channels. I can't get cable, and there's nothing on TV worth paying satalite for.
But I have a butt load of DVDs!
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
turn off TV = turn on intarweb
See Sig! See Sig Zig! Zig Sig Zig!!!!!
In my work life, television lays down a good basis of conversation with my office mates. Talking about last night's episode of [fill in trendy show here] provides a good basis of non-work related conversation. The people who don't watch television frequently feel left out of the conversation, particularly if they have that "television rots your brain and I'm so much more sophisticated than all of you" attitude.
But in keeping with the spirit of turn off your tv week, I will cut back on my viewing habits. However, I hope the world is prepared for "everyone veg out and watch your recorded shows" week coming up in two weeks.
"TV-Turnoff Week Works!
According to hundreds of responses to our TV-Turnoff Week follow-up surveys, 90 percent of responding participants reduced their TV-viewing as a result of participating."
Who's going to go to the bother of responding to the survey to say how the whole exercise was a waste of their time? This isn't even an attempt at a scientific poll and should have been reviewed with more scrutiny by the editors.
National Medical Laboratory Week, so give props to the lab geeks!
Now we can get back to smoking and drinking to pass time.
*Whew* good thing for this holiday or whatever it is. Television was about to kill us all and rape our wives. I'm glad we so narrowly managed to escape it.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
I think we'd lose a useful communication tool if we were to give it up entirely, but I agree with the concept as an attempt to get people to reduce television viewing, get off their fat asses and give their minds a taste of non-scripted, non-contrived reality.
A few years ago, after being disgusted with a $100+ cable bill (or at least disgusted with myself for having a $100+ cable bill), I called and told Comcast to turn off everything but my internet service. They said I should keep at least the "limited basic" service, since I would be paying for it anyway with the "non-cable-tv-subscriber-surcharge". So I did, and now I pay around $55-$60 (internet, limited basic, and Hi-Def).
The interesting part is that I'd thought I'd really miss things like SciFi, TLC, Discovery, etc., but I don't. If DSL were a viable option for me, I'd dump cable altogether and put up an antenna. With over-the-air digital becoming more prevalent, there's less reason to have cable service.
No one cares.
I hate TV becuase I consider it to be a tool of government and corporate control and I dont want to be affected.
Maybe if you watched a little television, especially non-fiction stuff about the world in general, you wouldn't have such a childish viewpoint.
I don't own a TV you insensitive clod. ...I spend all my free time on /. and surfing for pr0n.
Can I still use my TV tuner card in my PC? My television will still be off.
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
Will webtv run without*click*
I'll turn off the TV for a week, it won't bother me at all!
Then, the next week, my TiVo will be loaded to the gills and I'll gorge myself on 3 heaping helpings per day of brain-drain.
Gotta cut this post short. Have to go to 9th tee and buy a 180 GB drive to hold the extra content!
Yeah right, I'm going to stop watching TV right in the middle of the only thing I watch all year long - the hockey playoffs.
Couldn't they find a better week? Perhaps calling off TV for the week of Christmas when all those stupid specials take over the world would be more fitting.
I gave up tv several years ago.
My Mom, unfortunately, bought me a set for Christmas when I moved into an apartment. I say "unfortunately" because my wife is now addicted to tv, and I can't stand the thing, personally.
After the Army, everything changed for me. I had been there, done that in a very big way. After college, I became aware of how positively assinine the programming was:
Television really doesn't offer me anything anymore.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I don't believe it.
What does she do with her life?
I don't read or respond to AC posts
EOM
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
Just think of all the awful things you've never done:
"Have you ever ordered, or yourself committed, genocide?" "That's clean." "Have you ever annihilated a population?" "That's clean." "Have you ever upset an ecology?" "That's clean." "Have you ever practiced terrorism?" "That's clean." "Have you ever bred bodies for degrading purposes?" "That's clean." "Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?" "That's clean." "Have you ever made a planet, or nation, radioactive?" "That's clean." "Have you ever caused a planet to disappear?" "That's clean." "Have you ever torn out someone's tongue?" "That's clean." "Have you ever blinded anyone?" "That's clean." "Have you ever smothered a baby?" "That's clean." "Have you ever participated in a sexual relationship between a doll body and a human body?" "That's clean." "Have you ever made love to a dead body?" "That's clean." "Have you ever tortured another with electrical, or electronic devices?" "That's clean." "Have you ever been a professional executioner?" "Clean."
Have you ever enslaved a population?, part of The Road to Xenu, the story of a woman caught up in Scientology.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
After all, what will I have to talk about will hanging on a beutifull womans cube wall.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
Just make sure your Tivo is on, and then watch twice as much TV the following week...
... if I can leave the TiVO on recording it for consumption the following week!
This week DirecTV pulled the plug on the HU stream, ending 'Free' TV for hundreds of thousands, after years of successful hacking.
Guess they heard about TV Turn Off Week, and wanted to help...
Whining about the losers who are addicted to TV and how liberating life is without a TV is hipocracy if you smoke dope. And I am willing to bet a fairly high percentage of these people are all dope smokers.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Remember that just because you are not paranoid doesn't mean you are not being followed.
Just ask Martha
Help fight continental drift.
... my sexual activity would be gone for a week too. I don't see THAT working out very well...
I've got tivo
I am gross and perverted
I'm obsessed 'n deranged
I have existed for years
But very little had changed
I am the tool of the Government
And industry too
For I am destined to rule
And regulate you
I may be vile and pernicious
But you can't look away
I make you think I'm delicious
With the stuff that I say
I am the best you can get
Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin' out
From your TV set
You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we don't need you
Don't go for help...no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold
That's right, folks.. Don't touch that dial
Well, I am the slime from your video
Oozin' along on your livingroom floor
I am the slime from your video
Can't stop the slime, people, lookit me go
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"I never saw the images from 9/11 until weeks afterward ...(snip)"
"I hate TV becuase I consider it to be a tool of government and corporate control and I dont want to be affected. So I dont have a TV in my house and I dont watch. I live a different life becuase of that and my choice I've made."
Exactly...and you have now relegated yourself to being an "uninformed" citizen, for the most part. I mean, I hate the corp/gov influence as much as you do but don't you see that TV does have SOME positive influences? It's not ALL negative. People went mental about 9/11 --- because it was and still is a big f*cking deal! Perhaps the biggest deal to happen to this country in the last 50 years. The fact that you didn't go mental was not because you were informed and decided that you wouldn't go mental, rather, it was because you didn't even know in the first place. Big difference, my friend.
... you insensitive clod!
In the course of every project, it will become necessary to shoot the scientists and begin production.
I find television now has three uses.
1) watching the Canuck playoffs
2) watching the latest massacer from Iraq
3) watching "reality shows"
I couldnt care less about #'s 2 and 3 (due to their constant repitition), and the score for #1 is 3 vs 2 (Flames vs Canucks respectivly) is discouraging.
Oh, wait. Every now and then I will sit infront of a good episode of Spongebob Squarepants. But other than that, I'm on my computer or enguaging in outdoor activity.
check out the following for your daily entertainment and/or use:
slashdot.org - News for nerds, Stuff that matters.
homestarrunner.com - simply the best internet cartoon.
bash.org - the most entertaining IRC conversations.
ebay.ca - search ebay as a canadian
oldversion.com - because newer isnt always better.
thinkgeek.net - buy useless crap, and feel good about it!
suprnova.org - bittorrent site. (tip: if you must watch tv, download it.)
google.ca - the best search engine on the web, now for canadians!
You are confusing me with someone who cares.
Ok, thanks...
Slam the guy with English as a second language.
How many do you languages do you speak and write perfectly you insensitive clod?
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
I especially noticed when 'Road to Perdition' with Tom Hanks came out, and suddenly there was a 'Bosom Buddies' marathon, and a selection of Tom's movies like Splash, Forrest Gump, Big, You've Got Mail, and WTF?! MAZES AND MONSTERS (arguably his best/worst).
I said, WTF? What's with the Tom Hanks Super Exposure Week? I then realize I'll be seeing ads for the new Tom Hanks movie anytime.
Comedy Central is especially good/bad at this, as they do it often, but it is more obvious.
Next time you notice a strange movie on TV, and think "Why this flick? Odd...", make a note of the star of the film. Chances are there will be trailers for the new 'feel good romp of the summer'.
Just remember, nothing on the Tube is left to chance. Always ask yourself, 'Why am I seeing this?' and 'Who are they marketing to?' and you'll be surprised how subtle/evil/disturbingly tied-in the entertainment industries are.
Oh sure, pick the week to be during hockey playoffs! C'mon... let's turn our TV's off during the world series or something.
If you like initiatives like the TV turnoff week, make sure to check out adbusters
thats what TiVo is for........silly silly...
-Rob
I don't watch TV, but not because I think it makes me a better person. Like most people here mention, there's just not that much good content on. Sitting down and reading a book, watching a movie, or playing video games is just as much a waste of time as watching TV is.
But for the price of cable, I can get a video game each month. And I enjoy it more. For the few shows I do watch, it's cheaper to buy the DVD sets for the season. Then you also get the cool commentary.
I do have skills I can be working on: drawing, glass etching, sculpting. But I'm too lazy. I may not sit around and watch TV, but I sit around and play games.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
because it includes so much: VCR, DVD, Gamecube. And while we are at it, to make it effective, the Gameboys have to go off, and the computer also! So no TV, no Slashdot! But then who will really miss it? Go out and soak up the rays, oh they feel so nice after winter.
I will not by choice but by necessity as next week is dead week before finals... besides, I don't watch it by far as much as I used to (but I sit in front of another radiation emitting box)
It just means I'm going TV that week and watch twice as much TV the next week.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
"virtually everybody who drives an SUV is a victim of this, there is no practical reason to want one other than because the TV told you to." Actually, just about everyone who has an SUV needs one. Just because you personally do not need one does not mean that you can say "others don't need what I need, so they are wrong". "The scary part is, most of these people have no idea just how much of their opinions, wants, and desires are influenced (even created) by television" This smells like the lame "brainwashed" theory. SUVs are necessary because of "CAFE". The "CAFE" standards have forced auto makers to make tiny flimsy dangerous cars that few want. Thanks to a loophole (may it never close), auto makers are able to try and satisfy the public's auto needs by making SUV's.
When 9/11 happened, my wife called to me from her computer, asking if I heard anything about NY. She had been in a chat room when people where talking about it. It wasn't until about 1:00 when she first heard about it and we turned on the TV. We only got broadcast channels, but KING came in well, so we watched it then.
Today we can't even get broadcast, and we won't pay for satalite, so if it happened again, I'd only be able to get my news from the internet. (no radio in the house, and my truck doesn't get very good reception)
But it has me curious. How did you go for a week of internet use without hearing about NY? Or didn't you have internet access at the time?
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
Why does an organization like this want $30 for me to join? Wouldn't donations have been more appropriate? I can just not watch TV and not tell them-- they'll probably sue me for something though.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
I was never a TV junky, but did, at one time watch my fair share. I live in a basement apartment at the bottom of a hill. One day a couple years back, I had a flood. The water was close to two feet deep, so I had to pick and choose what I kept. My TV was already lofted, so it was saved by default. I did, however need to send a lot of my things to store at my parents house while I was homeless (funny one thing I refused to store there was myself!!). So, I sent them my TV. By the time the dust settled and I moved back in (after they repaired the piping that allowed it to occur in the first place), I had gone close to three weeks TV free. I actually didn't want it back. I didn't miss it. My parents now own my TV. I don't own one. I don't like TV (when I'm not watching it). Interestingly enough, I have found my self more skeptical of things I read. I am not always aware of the latest crazes and trends. I only heard three weeks ago about Donald Trumps TV show. I really think in advertantly it has made my mind stronger, and to myself, my own opinions on what I see and hear show through. We all know we are spoon fed thoughts. That's not only something that happens via a television set. It happens everywhere. But TV, I think is the 'big one'. I always knew this, but now it is more obvious to me. I will have a TV in my home again, of course, lest I choose to live alone forever! But, I don't see myself channel surfing the way I used to. Egad... I am becoming queezy just thinking about it.
I cant get thru one day at work without someone parroting some viewpoint not of their own making becuase some show said something about a topic. [...] I never saw the images from 9/11 until weeks afterward.
Uh, you don't read Newsweek, Time, Rolling Stone? The New York Times or Chicago Sun-Times or any fucking newspaper in the country? 9/11 was the biggest news story we've had since the election, and you couldn't turn around without seeing it on newspapers, magazines, or hearing about it on the radio. You just seem like a naive guy who wants to proclaim that you're better than the unwashed masses who are amused by television shows (such as Donald Trump's "The Apprentice") portrayed strictly as entertainment. And many are entertained, and many are informed.
I hate TV becuase I consider it to be a tool of government and corporate control and I dont want to be affected.
Newsflash: Slashdot is owned by OSDN, a publicly-owned corporation. Winamp is owned by AOLTW. Your computer parts, your bedsheets, your iPod... Who are you rebelling against, and why?
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
Not that anyone else cares, but I sometimes go a week without turning on the TV -- I'll watch the news if it's on, and if there is a science fiction show or Simpson's episode I'll turn it on, but I'll watch on average 3-4 hours of TV per week.
The computer, on the other hand, is more like 3-4 hours per day -- I'll watch DVD's on it, play games, write stories, download Trek episodes I've missed, email and IM friends, and otherwise play on the Net. It's a lot more fun than 95% of the TV shows out there.
Adbusters is rather repugnant: an overall intolerance of free speech coupled with the invalid far-left ideology of Marxism. Never, ever trust a group that is based on intolerance of freedom of expression.
You, sir, are an class-A troll. Like the RNC itself, your strength comes from honest hypocrasy. Your bio is especially hilarious. Please continue the good work of making righties look truly imbecilic.
That once you've bought a DVD of a show, you don't seem to care whether or not it is on anymore?
... worse, you tend not to watch it because you can always watch it "some other time?"
T.V. sucks and it doesn't have to.
I hate TV becuase I consider it to be a tool of [the usual suspects of nonexistant conapiracies. A hint: TV looks better if you are wearing a tinfoil hat. Then you can actually see the strings and the green men pulling them to control Dan Rather. "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
Big deal.
I rarely watch TV anymore. The only thing my TV set is used for is an occasional DVD or VHS movie and if I remember, The Simpsons and King of the Hill on Sunday right. I forget more often than I remember, so it's possible that I go for a few weeks without turning it on.
I would have a problem if it was a week without the Internet. :)
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
if you watch a tv news program (most of whichis junk anyways) you dont have time to think about what you've seen and the opinions you have heard, so often one will accept it, when you read something in the newspaper or in a book you can stop and think about it, and formulate your own opinion in the matter.
I've been living in Southern Mexico for the last 9 months with a TV and DVD player, but no satellite or cable (effectively, nothing but DVDs since there are no broadcast stations where I live). I'm moving back to the U.S. next week and high on my list of things to do is veg in front of a TV for a few days. Sorry, but I'm going to pass on participation in this ridiculous exercise.
TV is what you make of it. There's tons of crap and if you watch a lot of crap, that's what you're filling your brains with. I watch a pretty good mix, including a great deal of time on news only channels and science and nature programming. Sorry, but I like that stuff and there's some education to be taken from them.
How about a "Don't watch crap on TV week," particuarly geared towards what kids are consuming. Or how about this? Take MTV off the air for 6 months out of the year. That would go a long way to improving the situation.
I'm happy to see that quite a few folks here don't watch TV. I haven't had TV for nearly 10 years, and don't miss it one bit. Ditch the TV, and you will be given a gift of time. The unmediated life is the way to go!
I turned off my television 2 years ago. The only time I was tempted to turn it back on was the Nova mini series by Brian Greens. They ended up putting thos on the web and so I have not missed anything.
Turn it off. You'll be glad you did
A nasty thunder storm moved thru last week and for whatever reason, knocked out my DirecTV. I don't yet have a ladder to go up to see what the problem is, everything looks good from the ground.
Interesting thing is that my kids don't seem to mind. It's me going thru HGTV, FoodChannel and Spike withdrawl.
True friends are hard to come by... I need more money. - Calvin
Joey: I play Dr. Drake Ramoray.
Sarah: I'm sorry, I don't own a TV.
Joey: You don't own a TV? What's all your furniture pointed
"Why most people think Central Amerika means Kansas" who is he to talk, he can't spell America correctly. "Socialism means unamerican" Not only that. It is unhuman. It is hard to get worse.
What? What are you looking at me like that for? Hey, sometimes it helps to give the brain a rest, you know... if I watched TV less, I'd just play video games more. If I wanted to do something productive, I'd work on the house. The point is that when I watch TV, I'm actively choosing to *not* be productive. If anyone has a problem with that choice, they need to get a new hobby outside of worrying about what I'm doing with my time.
Now that I have Tivo, I can more efficiently spend my unproductive time being entertained rather than watching commercials and bad shows "because nothing else is on", but I'm still *choosing* to be unproductive... kinda like right now...
Reading a book or listening to some music instead. And no, the latest oh-so-trendy indie garage techno hip-hop band doesn't count. Listen to some real music for once - it'll make you smarter!
Now, convincing people who live in a country where the USA Today is the number one selling newspaper to consume anything longer than three minutes with no eye candy . . .
... watching TV on plasmas and TFTs? Since they don't form a picture by updating one dot at the time, you would by your idea be less prone to advertisement?
National Turn off the TV week vs. Season Finalies? For some reason I think that this effort would have been more successful had it been scheduled to take place during the Summer reruns...
How about an optional logout for one week? or even better - a National 404 Not Found week - all websites shut down!
please change me. - sig
sarcasm ( P ) Pronunciation Key (särkzm) n. 1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound. 2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
I propose a week where people mind their damn business, and stop whining about how other people watch tv (or what they watch). Also, for the duration of the week, the self-righteous "I don't have a tv crowd" is banned from speaking, so we don't have to listen to how morally superior they are just because they don't have a tv. Shut the Hell Up Week pt. 2 will follow, in which people are forbidden from talking about non-educational programming, so we don't have to waste all those hours in those heated "Which Survivor candidate is cutest" conversations.
Just like sugar, cigarettes and crack. While you're on it, you think all-in-all everything's ok. Sure, you know it'd be better to stop, but heck you deserve to enjoy yourself and you work too hard to take on another 'project'.
But stop and think about it objectively for a minute. What do you *really* get out of seeing each and every A-Team/Friends/Night Rider/Buffy episode? Doesn't it seem pathetic when you realize most of your cable viewing consists of hours of watching something mildly interesting for 3 minutes, flipping, repeat?
And let me promise you, if you do stop, the world seems like a different place. You'll actually enjoy TV more when you watch it, say, at a hotel. You'll realize how TV more or less recycles the same storylines and junk because after years of not watching, you really won't have missed much.
The strangest thing is that you'll realize how much you are talked down to by commercials and the news. Wonder why people in classic movies talk with sophistication while adults today sound like junior high dropouts of the past? It's because we rise or lower ourselves to our environment, and TV has become in a twisted way our primary interface to reality.
Don't even get me started if you have kids...unless you want them to turn out to be just like all the other illiterate, overweight, short attention span, "can't compete with Indian kids after $80k of eduction but knows every Simpson's/Sponge Bob episode by heart" losers.
So...do what I do. No broadcast TV. No cable. Take it out of your house. Like a drug, the only way to really kick it is to quit completely and keep it out of sight. Don't even connect the antenna. There are plenty of Movies and DVDs to keep you occupied.
Does it hurt to hear them lying? Was this the only world you had?
Lame idea by people who think they are so great with their complicated shoes.
Don't these folks have any better crusades than trying to steal the warming glow of my TV? After all, I was raised on TV and I turned out TV.
Besides, if you want to literally kill your television, what better place to do it? (As long as you're playa-friendly, of course!)
But, uh, don't take it from me. Don't go. You wouldn't like it. It's so over. It was better last year. It's just a rave. Too many people. Too hot. Too many drugs and naked freaks.
Band of Brothers doesn't end until the 19th. Oh yeah, and Thursday's out too because Kingdom Hospital is on.
Gabriel Ricard
You've got to cancel your cable, period end of story. Thenthe healing can begin!
**>>BELCH
I have to give props to the parent. It seems that alot of people get off by saying "I dont watch tv" anymore, like they want a medal or somthing. I only watch maybe an hour tops on the weekdays, little more on the weekends, but some people make it out like thats a drug problem or somthing. Again most of TV is crap, yet i am into sports, and love watching sports on TV, and it sure as hell beats watching a Buffalo Bills game on TV rather then travel to the dismal city and sit in the stands freezing my nuts off. Gotta love The daily show w/ Jon Stewart also. Im with parent on this one, i also plan on watching more TV because of this gay idea.
"Insert Sig Here"
I had a job at a poor public tv station back in 1976 to 1978. They could barely afford equipment; in fact they only had black and white cameras.
When I quit the job, I gave them my tv as a going away present and they put it in the employee lunch room.
I have since bought a sewing machine.
That was in 1978.
You can look at www.clearplastic.com for the results.
Cleara
Some events happening in and around NYC during TV turnoff week are listed here, among other places.
* * *
It is a dada story -- it has no moral.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Right you are! Re-elect Bush in 2004!
Unless you die soon, Bush raised your taxes!
My taxes are down this year! Should I be worried? I think not. (Less flame, more facts, pepito!)
Do you seriously think this is somehow better? Some of the most socially introverted people alive are addicted to computers, they are far more addicting than TV, due to their interactive nature.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
I turn the TV off multiple times EVERY day already.
-pyrrho
I don't mean to be rude, but your questions indicate an utter vaccuum in your life.
I'm another one of these kill your television types, so chances are you won't believe me, but you have been programmed to view your television as the only way to spend your downtime.
Can you talk through the commercials? Sure. Should you arbitrarily limit your conversation with your WIFE to 20 minutes in a 1 hour slot, broken into 2.5 minute segments? I shouldn't have to answer that.
How does a family read together? Use your imagination. It involves sitting down together, and periodicals. Wine may or may not be involved. Some substitute tea, or coffee. It doesn't have to be reading either! Do a crossword puzzle! Go for a walk! Listen to a radio program! Paint a room that needs painting! Re-wicker a chair for heavens sake.
aren't your lives and days pretty much the same everyday?
Is my life the same every day? NO! Even though I do many of the same things day in and day out, there are constant variations on the theme, not unlike a sitcom.
I don't begrudge you your television programs, but your post is the singular most depressing thing I've read in a while. When you're on your deathbed, you won't be thinking about that episode of Scrubs where they mix up 2 patient's bloodtypes, with hilarious consequences. For your own good man, re-read your post. It does not sound like you know what to do with your free time if the activity doesn't involve television. I beg of you, do it. Go one week without TV, just to spite me, and prove me wrong.
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
So what did I do with all that time?
- finished Neverwinter Nights : Shadows Of Unrentide
- shopped for stuff online
- beat Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance II in Extreme mode with a necromancer.
- experimented with new (to me) technologies that I may want to use for my brother's web site.
- read more of the Wheel of Time series (book 8 of 10)
- Updated to a new version of
Audacity
- Updated to the latest
Gaim version
- Improved my Photoshop skills
There's lots of things to do beside watch reruns!You can lose something that is loose, so tighten the loose item so you don't lose it.
I guess the simple explanation for why I don't watch TV (as opposed to my extended 'subversion manifesto') is because I just really don't give a shit what a handful of self centered primadonnas in LA and NYC are doing at any given point in time. I wasn't born for them. For some reason I just plain outgrew that vicariousness when I moved out from under my dad's roof. Just left it behind. No idea why--oh wait, yes I do--because it's unnatural and evil 20th century stupidity. Remember kids, every week bash televisions with a sledgehammer week. http://boole.org/breakshit/Breakshit_Versus_SOAD.a vi
Why is it anti-TV? Why does everything have to be anti-something? Why do we need a scapegoat for the ills?
One of the flyers says
This just shows that TV-turnoff is a solution in search of a problem. Why not pro-flower-picking week? Or national Read A Book Week? How about promoting the positive instead of pissing on what is seen as a negative?And why in the world pick on a given medium of communication? You might as well have National Anti-Email Day, or The Great Week Without Magazines. You can't compare content on The Apprentice to the Powerpuff Girls to NOVA to Wall Street Week to Trading Spaces. TV is just a medium.
This whole thing smells like a lot of people who want to get together to tell the world how much better they are than everyone else.
HBO's Sopranos and Deadwood - Drama for grown ups. Both explore the dark side of the American myth with intelligence and wit.
HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm - Larry David is the funniest misanthrope alive. Reminiscent of, but better than, Seinfeld.
Comedy Central's Daily Show - The Onion on TV. The pinnacle of televised satire in the US. So good it could drive SNL's writers to suicide.
News World International - Sick of corporate US news produced by and for good little robots? For $5 extra per month, get your TV news from Europe and Canada instead; their journalists are allowed to think. (Hurry: this gem is up for sale thanks to the Vivendi meltdown. Expect it to be bought and ruined some time this year.)
PBS' NOW with Bill Moyers - Catch the remaining appearances by this cultural icon, who, better late than never, has developed a passionately critical outlook on society and government. Watch Moyers make up for lost time spent serving the establishment.
G4 - Guilty pleasure time: Rediscover your misspent youth watching video footage of arcade classics. Ah, you were going to be young forever, weren't you... ;-)
i don't watch tv for over a year now. cable with more than 50 channels... using that "idiot box" for computers, consoles, vhs... why still got cable? because of the internet. i get all my information and entertainment there. i even work there... :-)
Since just about EVERY program on TV nowadays is total crap, every week is "Turn off MY TV Week". The only problem I have is talking with people at work; all they have to talk about is Survivor or who Donny Trump fired.
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
Broadcast entertainment and mass media were not invented by people I know, they are not run by people I know, and the people who DO participate in that subculture could give a shit whether I live or die. I have to say that it is most certainly in my nature to return that same favor of apathy toward their lives. This is not revolutionary, this is innate. I'm not looking for a life filled with a subliminally seeded, one-way administration of reality at the hands of a few people who have hoarded communications channels and slowly made ubiquitous their own free time standards and folkways...these are all activities which I personally never asked for or agreed to. And yet people act like you're insane when you think this way, as if the act of reducing subversive stranger influence in your life is some sort of blasphemy or coup, instead of something natural and protective of one's own mind, and one's RIGHT. What fascinates me is that people are born without this "apathetic reciprocity" gene I possess, or else they must suppress it. They lack the ability to overcome their self-subjugation by this pseudo-zeitgeist, or to live as authentically as possible. Telvision doesn't map into an authentic life. In the final drill, you will not have an identity. Who am I? You will say. And you will never know, because you have been stripped of it by those who desired to co-opt the products of your body and mind and add them to their personal wealth. Sheep. Bleat. The bottom line is that you are the product, and when you strip away all of the suspicious memories, laughs, and entertainment, the extract which remains consists only of your most emotionally vulnerable moments being devoted to the subliminal impression management of a band of depersonalizing, ruthless "cheshire cat" strangers, and on the whole I think our 21st century world would be better off without this outdated, condescending undirectional TV nemesis. I love to break them with hammers.
And I don't want one. 99% of the stuff on TV is garbage anyway. I used to watch a lot of TV. I would encourage everyone to shut it off. You won't miss it a bit. You'll have way more time for important things. At least cancel your cable and use it only for movies. Since ditching TV, I have even gotten a GIRLFRIEND! Yes, it can happen to slashdotters! So just ask yourself, would you rather be watching TV or going rollerblading by the ocean with a cute girl?
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
I feed my computer video card output into the tvio and automatically script a scroll through the posts.
/. article back on tv, tvio skipps all of the troll / lame posts....
This gets recorded to tvio's disk.
Later, when I watch the
Area Man Constantly Mentioning He Doesn't Own A Television
CHAPEL HILL, NC--Area resident Jonathan Green does not own a television, a fact he repeatedly points out to friends, family, and coworkers--as well as to his mailman, neighborhood convenience-store clerks, and the man who cleans the hallways in his apartment building....</snip>
You are annoying.
I guess I could turn it off and just bittorrent the tv shows.
http://tvt.milfclan.com/
http://www.torrents.co.uk/
Phillip
>Support our troops: Elect a responsible president!
Right you are! Re-elect Bush in 2004!
That's what makes that comment so fun. It's true no matter what side you are on.
Most people don't think Bush has been responsible with the lives of american troups though. A lot of dedicated patriotic people join the military to defend their country. We owe it to them to not elect someone who will get so many of them killed for so little.
Unless you die soon, Bush raised your taxes!
If you increase spending you are either increasing taxes now or later since all spending is paid for by taxes. Since he didn't increase them now, he essentially increased them later.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Indeed, why become a slave to the idiot box most of the time when you can instead have the truly interactive Internet coming to you at very fast speeds when you have broadband?
What is happening nowadays is that with the proliferation especially of pre-recorded videos of movies and (ironically) TV shows on DVD people are watching a lot less TV then they used to be. And viewers are much more discriminating on what they do watch.
If you're read Alvin Toffler's prophetic book The Third Wave he predicted that as communications technology improves the audience for television will severely fragment; with today's broadband Internet, 60-plus channel cable TV systems, 200-plus channel satellite TV systems, and modern means to store prerecorded videos on videocassette and DVD, no wonder why people aren't slaves to TV schedules anymore.
Thats not a problem at all - TV SUCKS!
Fuck that, two new episodes of 24 and a new episode of Smallville.
No way in hell my TV is getting turned off for those.
Trent Polack
www.polycat.net
I watch two or three shows a week, at most. Obviously it's not the most productive thing I could be doing with my time, but uh.. anyone that's trying to maximize their productivity 24 hours a day is going to drop dead in 5 years. I'm not going to stop watching the shows I want to watch because of some internet campaign. It's just another group of people trying to control you, except they're worse than TV because they claim to be saving you from something evil.
I spent four years at a boarding high school. There were TV's only in the common areas meaning most of the time one could not watch what you wanted to watch.
It was hell.
Fortunately it was a co-ed campus and there were a lot of classes to keep us busy.
What if you don't LIKE your family? How many teens want to sit down with their family after dinner instead of hanging out with their friends? What if your marriage isn't brilliantly stimulating? I'll garuntee you if you keep talking to your wife a lot you'll be divorced it will lead to divorce. TV has probably saved more marriages than anything else. If one person can't take the lack of attention it just proves they were incompatible. Couch patatoes should marry other couch potatoes and busy bodies should marry other busy bodies. BTW most commercial segments are a lot longer than 2.5 minutes, sometimes its as long as 5 minutes. Crossword puzzles are boring. Walking without a destination is boring. Radio talk shows are mostly boring. I hire painters I don't do that myself. Ok so you want someone to re-wicker a chair instead of watching a TV program? What have we regressed 100 years or something? When I am on my deathbed, I want my TV ON and my remote in my hands!
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
As well as tortious interference with pre-existing contract. I'm quite sure that consumers watching tv is the basis for the business model of TV networks. Telling people to not watch their TVs interferes with that business model. Clearly those who buy TVs have an implied contract to watch them (and the commercials). Since interference with a business model when electricity is somehow involved (e.g. electronic devices) is a DMCA violation, this is a DMCA violation. Also, tortious interference with contract. Let the lawsuits begin. Sadly I'm only half kidding.
Stupid people make stupid things profitable.
I'm sad to see that so many posters are slaves to their mediums. I can think deeply about all the content which I receive, regardless of how it was transmitted. I have the ability to examine the mother-daughter relationship in Gilmore girls (TV), or the glass menagerie (live theater), or the scarlet letter (novel). I have seen/read all of the above and I have the ability to examine the differences.
As one other poster stated, you can drift off doing anything. I don't see this as being either good or bad but it is true.
Active or passive engagement in any activity is at the sole discretion of the person engaging in it. You could sit watching NYPD Blue or Taking Lives and just wonder what will happen and await the conclusion, or you could actively engage your mind in figuring out the end. Further, you could watch football and just wonder when the home team will go back on offence and if they will throw or run this play or you could actively consider the game and put yourself in the coaches place. Slowing down the process by using a slower way of transferring data doesn't make the data worth more.
If not for commercials, most people would not know that there was a bow-flex or a ginsu knife. This does help promote consumerism.
The jury's of 50 years ago would have no concept of what was going on in the courtroom around them. just a lot of long words and what not. Thanks to Court TV, OJ Simpson, and Law & Order, people at least have an idea of what is going on beyond what is actually told to them. Do you think that the jurors you served with chose the best ending for the story or did they choose what they thought was right? I don't think that educating the populous is such a bad thing.
Does that happen when someone is doing something while watching TV, or is it only when the person is just watching TV and doing nothing else? I use a video capture card and have my shows in the corner of my computer screen while I am surfing the net, posing on slashdot, ect. I keep myself engaged while watching TV.
All misspellings and grammatical errors in the above post are intentional and part of my artistic expression.
My wife and I have not had cable for nigh upon 5 years now; we have a TV, but it's got a DVD, VCR and Gamecube hooked up to it.
Netflix has allowed me to watch TV shows that I'm interested in at my pace. A couple of episodes of Smallville here, some Stargate SG-1 there, etc. etc. We're also getting caught up on the movies that we missed in the theaters (mainly stuff that appeals to her than to me...) Other than that, the TV isn't on. I get my news from the radio, the local newspaper and Google News.
Instead, I read. And surf the net. And use Safari to "check out" books on subjects I'm interested in, to see if I want to buy them.
There are all sorts of things you can do if you're not sitting in front of the TV. For every amazing new TV show that's out there, there's probably an equally amazing comic, or novel, or movie. (And don't get me started on the crap that some people feel like wasting precious hours of their lives on...)
Jay (=
The funny thing is, the way the picture is displayed seems to hypnotize people. Scientific studies have shown that, within about 10 seconds of watching TV, the brain slips out of alpha waves and into beta waves (like you're sleeping).
You've got that backwards. TV engages alpha and theta wave patterns. Reading a book engages beta waves. Alpha waves tend to indicate dreaming and sleep. Theta waves tend to indicate strong emotional and intuitive responses. Together they do contribute to intelligence and creativity, but when the left brain is disengaged, they basically equal a passive, trance state. Beta waves are indicative of concentration and activity. Excessive theta and minimized beta is common in sufferers of ADHD when they're being distracted.
The assertion that alpha/theta wave activity increases is based on research done by Dr. Thomas Mullholland back in the 70s. He expected to see an oscillation between alpha and beta wave activity as kids watched their favorite shows but found no beta waves at all. Kids stayed spaced out through an entire show. Their minds resembled that of someone in a hypnotic trance.
One last thought. Advertisers have been aware of this for years and are even now funding more research into neurosciences for the purpose of "building strong brand loyalty" -- in other words, brainwashing.
TV is sleep teaching.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you want to have an impact, do it when it matters. Otherwise, what's the point?
It just sat there. I think I played a couple video games on it once or twice. I was busy with work, reading, and of course, computer stuff.
/. isn't about this, so giving it up for a week probably means giving up the couple shows that, for whatever reason, you deem fit to watch.
I now watch about two shows a week (Smallville and Enterprise), usually taped and watched later so I can blaze through commercials.
I didn't really notice a great deal of anything when I gave up TV, except that I had more free time. Sometimes I had a better use for the time, sometimes not.
I guess this would be really helpful for the sorely addicted, who watch show after show because they are there- but much of
I also watch a lot more TV when I hang around with friends, because normal people tend to leave it on as a constant background to their activities (as constant as the whir of my computer fan).
I dunno, when I was young I would watch TV for hours. It would suck the day away sometimes.
Crap, the next episode of Enterprise is finally airing that week ... you think I'm going to miss finding out if the ship is destroyed, or if Archer is gay or whatever because of some arbitrary week? Luckily the new Simpsons where Matt Groening guest starts for the first time is on the 18th ... Friends is also on after a long break ... and there's all that other coverage of the ....
;-)
Hmmmm.... maybe I do need a week off from the tube. Point taken.
odd... didn't see that reported on the news tonight... I'll watch again at 10, maybe it'll be on the late news.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
I never watch TV, and I can't say I regret it. The internet is far more intellectually stimulating (discounting Discovery, History channels, et al)
Men believe what they want. - Caesar
How I spend my time doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, but the last thing I need is a time sink just for the sake of wasting time.
[javac] 100 errors
Going to be easy for a no tv week since Directv is shutting down all service to the HU card!
RIP HU
d
I used to defend television. But as the years pass I notice more and more great shows that don't make it off the ground before being canceled. Replaced by the absurdly titled "reality" TV. There are still great shows that surpass the cinemaplex every week, but they are few and far between.
But I still get a laugh everytime I read about someone giving up their TV only to discover all this magical free time in their lives. Giving up your TV will tell you exactly one thing, "do I have self control?" Give up your TV for a month. If you love it, great, now put the TV back in your living room, set the remote control on the coffee table, and don't watch *any* TV for another month. If you can do that, feel free to watch as much TV as you want, you don't have a problem. But if you can't do that, if removing the television from your home is the only way you can keep from watching it, you have serious problems that go far beyond being a couch potato. The problem isn't the TV, the problem is you.
I can't stop watching TV for a week, my Tivo doesn't have that much memory!
making it that much more of a challenge.
Hmm... might have to arrange a little malfunction...
The weather's going to be great. Time for a Geocaching marathon!
So turn off your outdoor lights, too.
I haven't watch TV in weeks. Inevitably, though, someone will ask, "Did you see *** last night?" I say, no, so they proceed to tell me all about it. To think we'd have nothing to talk about otherwise...
That's the last time I run code posted in somebody's sig...
There is nothing wrong with television. It is simply an entertainment medium, which proves entertainment to millions worldwide. If you don't like what you see on it, use your right to change the channel, or turn it off.
When I end up writing I usually just put an initial for the characters names until I can think of something that really fits. If I in my years of creative wisdom can't come up with something I'm certainly not suprised that a 6 year old is using tv characters
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
For those television addicted visual freaks adbusters have a much better designed turn off your tv week web site. you have to hand it to the adbusters mob, when it comes to the anti-commericalism crowd they take the cake in design and creativity.
In fact I didn't watch much TV during that time. Now we're down to the last 5 episodes of Angel...
I'm not missing that.
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
There's an organisation dedicated to turning off tv called White Dot. Unfortunately the web site is a bit naff, but the reason I mention them is they managed to broadcast a very powerfull half hour show on the bbc promoting their cause.
Respect copyright - the GPL relies on it.
Did you put the commercials in all caps because of their volume? I don't watch much TV anymore, but when I do I've noticed that the commercials are sometimes louder than the programs. The program's audio will be kind of dull, and then the commercial comes on with BLARINGLY LOUD, bright, in-your-face audio. It doesn't help that the spoken words are increasingly shrill. I know TV didn't used to be that way. Has anybody else noticed this change? Maybe it's only during certain programs or on certain stations.
Dont forget programming horribly half assed shit fucking sequals to great games!
You fucking loser.