Postman gets shot by pellets. Back at the post office the nitrates in the fertilizer sets off bomb detectors. Postman desperately tries to explain about a farmer shooting him with fertilizer pellets during the cavity search. The 300lb security guard for some reason doesn't believe his. Homeland Security declares victory in war against terror and sends the Postman to Gitmo where's he's forced to convert to Islam and winds up being deported to Iraq. On the bright side the farm is looking really green this year.
I had already disabled everything you can, the TiVo suggestions and such. TiVo plead ignorance but the joke was a TiVo log came up proudly anouncing that they were switching me to special content or some such thing, I was scrambling for the remote at the time. They absolutely were doing it from there end. It never showed up in the To Do List and the weirdest thing was eventhough the recording light was on it didn't show up in the now playing. All I can think is I got caught up in a stealth test market of a feature to switch you to paid infomercials. Everyone is denying it but that's twice this week at exactly the same offhour time. I told them flat out one more time and I cancel my service. It's definately not a normal recording and it's very hard to stop. As soon as I can aford to I'll build out a Linux box. Just don't have the time and money right now.
Twice now this week at 1am my TiVo prompted me about a program to record. The first time I let it assuming it was a season pass I had set up. It switched to an infomercial. It wasn't a normal recording and I had a time switching it back to the channel I was watching. Last night it happened a second time exactly the same way. When it prompts to change it doesn't tell you what it's switching to just it's some kind of TiVo extra. I couldn't find my controller in time and wound up going through the same nightmare switching back. I called up TiVo and after an hour wait was told it wasn't them doing it. I think the agent was sincere but I question that some one at TiVo central isn't test driving passively recording infomercials. They are definately doing it since all sorts of TiVo logos come on while it's switching. I told them flat out if I can't block it the third time it happens I cancel my service period. It's going to cost a bundle to set up a PC based system but I'd rather do that than pay TiVo $13 a month to record infomercials. Sad to see TiVo go down this road. It was fun while it lasted but I'm sick of being sold to 24/7. I already turn off the sound routinely during commercials because they boost the sound during commercials. Yes some guy going for a beer will still hear it but I never hear them at all so you can try to sell to the guy in the kitchen. Obnoxious advertising doesn't work. People just shut down after awhile and the solution isn't more advertising.
The issue with oil is that once it runs out we'll have to compensate with other sources. Coal can be converted to other fossil forms of fuel or turned into electricity for electric cars. The point isn't to abandon fusion but not depend on a questionable technology. I've heard many government officials refer to fusion. It seems a lot of people expect fusion to save us in the end. If you look at the projections it simply isn't going to happen. We should focas on methods that can see us through the next hundred years and let fusion take the the time it needs to mature.
Unfortunately fusion promises some of the same problems as oil. The hydrogen component may be availible but helium 3 would have to come from a source like the moon. Once again our economy will depend on a fuel source that is controlled by a tiny number of companies that can reach the moon and mine it. They will control the pricing and I seriously doubt the promise of cheap and abundant energy will be realized. We need sources that can't be controlled by star chambers. You say the government will control it? Wrong. If you're paying attention you'll notice that the government is backing down on space travel and supporting corporations take on commercializing space. Mining the moon will be expensive so corporations will be free to charge whatever they want for the helium 3 and who are we to question the true expenses. By then we'll be even more energy dependant and willing to accept any price they set. The corporations controlling the mining of the moon will once again have a strangle hold on energy and there will be nothing we can do about it. At least now there are dozens of companies and countries involved in oil. Imagine that was reduced to two or three players? Better we focas our efforts on answers that can benefit us today. Perhaps if it takes the additional time to develope the expense of mining the moon will become a non issue. In a hundred years space travel will be commonplace and cheap robots can mine the moon. Trying to force fusion into a short term solution promises to be at best a questionable solution or at worse an economic disaster that will still leave us at the mercy of big corporations.
After all the years and all the hundreds of millions spent you have to wonder if fusion is a practical answer. It appears that a commercial reactor is fifty to a hundred years off. By all accounts we have maybe fifty years before our energy needs hit a critical point with things starting to go down hill in another twenty. No one has yet proven that a reactor can function at better than break even. Should the efforts be redirected at existing technologies? Solar, wind and methane solutions exist now. Isn't it better to solve our short term problems before counting on long term solutions that can't be implemented in time to avoid disaster. Won't this force us to resort to coal and nuclear when oil runs out or is that the plan?
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Postman gets shot by pellets. Back at the post office the nitrates in the fertilizer sets off bomb detectors. Postman desperately tries to explain about a farmer shooting him with fertilizer pellets during the cavity search. The 300lb security guard for some reason doesn't believe his. Homeland Security declares victory in war against terror and sends the Postman to Gitmo where's he's forced to convert to Islam and winds up being deported to Iraq. On the bright side the farm is looking really green this year.
I had already disabled everything you can, the TiVo suggestions and such. TiVo plead ignorance but the joke was a TiVo log came up proudly anouncing that they were switching me to special content or some such thing, I was scrambling for the remote at the time. They absolutely were doing it from there end. It never showed up in the To Do List and the weirdest thing was eventhough the recording light was on it didn't show up in the now playing. All I can think is I got caught up in a stealth test market of a feature to switch you to paid infomercials. Everyone is denying it but that's twice this week at exactly the same offhour time. I told them flat out one more time and I cancel my service. It's definately not a normal recording and it's very hard to stop. As soon as I can aford to I'll build out a Linux box. Just don't have the time and money right now.
Twice now this week at 1am my TiVo prompted me about a program to record. The first time I let it assuming it was a season pass I had set up. It switched to an infomercial. It wasn't a normal recording and I had a time switching it back to the channel I was watching. Last night it happened a second time exactly the same way. When it prompts to change it doesn't tell you what it's switching to just it's some kind of TiVo extra. I couldn't find my controller in time and wound up going through the same nightmare switching back. I called up TiVo and after an hour wait was told it wasn't them doing it. I think the agent was sincere but I question that some one at TiVo central isn't test driving passively recording infomercials. They are definately doing it since all sorts of TiVo logos come on while it's switching. I told them flat out if I can't block it the third time it happens I cancel my service period. It's going to cost a bundle to set up a PC based system but I'd rather do that than pay TiVo $13 a month to record infomercials. Sad to see TiVo go down this road. It was fun while it lasted but I'm sick of being sold to 24/7. I already turn off the sound routinely during commercials because they boost the sound during commercials. Yes some guy going for a beer will still hear it but I never hear them at all so you can try to sell to the guy in the kitchen. Obnoxious advertising doesn't work. People just shut down after awhile and the solution isn't more advertising.
The issue with oil is that once it runs out we'll have to compensate with other sources. Coal can be converted to other fossil forms of fuel or turned into electricity for electric cars. The point isn't to abandon fusion but not depend on a questionable technology. I've heard many government officials refer to fusion. It seems a lot of people expect fusion to save us in the end. If you look at the projections it simply isn't going to happen. We should focas on methods that can see us through the next hundred years and let fusion take the the time it needs to mature.
Unfortunately fusion promises some of the same problems as oil. The hydrogen component may be availible but helium 3 would have to come from a source like the moon. Once again our economy will depend on a fuel source that is controlled by a tiny number of companies that can reach the moon and mine it. They will control the pricing and I seriously doubt the promise of cheap and abundant energy will be realized. We need sources that can't be controlled by star chambers. You say the government will control it? Wrong. If you're paying attention you'll notice that the government is backing down on space travel and supporting corporations take on commercializing space. Mining the moon will be expensive so corporations will be free to charge whatever they want for the helium 3 and who are we to question the true expenses. By then we'll be even more energy dependant and willing to accept any price they set. The corporations controlling the mining of the moon will once again have a strangle hold on energy and there will be nothing we can do about it. At least now there are dozens of companies and countries involved in oil. Imagine that was reduced to two or three players? Better we focas our efforts on answers that can benefit us today. Perhaps if it takes the additional time to develope the expense of mining the moon will become a non issue. In a hundred years space travel will be commonplace and cheap robots can mine the moon. Trying to force fusion into a short term solution promises to be at best a questionable solution or at worse an economic disaster that will still leave us at the mercy of big corporations.
After all the years and all the hundreds of millions spent you have to wonder if fusion is a practical answer. It appears that a commercial reactor is fifty to a hundred years off. By all accounts we have maybe fifty years before our energy needs hit a critical point with things starting to go down hill in another twenty. No one has yet proven that a reactor can function at better than break even. Should the efforts be redirected at existing technologies? Solar, wind and methane solutions exist now. Isn't it better to solve our short term problems before counting on long term solutions that can't be implemented in time to avoid disaster. Won't this force us to resort to coal and nuclear when oil runs out or is that the plan?
Have you ever considered jumping the fence and Writing and Directing for a change?