Politics
Congress, can you hear me now? Work on stuff that matters!!!
Mar 18th
When I first read this I thought it was a joke and after reading it again, I’m sure; it is. But not the funny kind.
A California rep. who clearly spends way too much time watching TV has proposed a new federal law to limit, are you sitting down?… the loudness of TV commercials.
The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (“CALM-A” — Are you fracking kidding me? Who makes up this stuff?) proposes to require the FCC to “prescribe a standard to preclude commercials from being broadcast at louder volumes than the program they accompany.”.
Now before I launch into a three page discussion of how ‘loudness’ is a completely subjective concept and is dependent on the perception of the individual I’ll hold my breath, count to 10, and stifle the urge to throttle yet another well meaning but clueless legislator that is attempting to establish controls over something they are utterly unqualified to determine.
Ok, so I had to count to twenty.
I’m willing to let it pass that Rep. Eshoo feels that her having ‘grown tired of being blasted off my couch’ is a reasonable basis for new federal legistation. I’m also willing to let it pass that she is obviously trying to make some political points by addressing a popular ‘complaint’ of her constituancy.
However, I’m not willing to let it pass that she feels it’s appropriate to spend Congress’ time considering this meaningless drivel when we are faced with two wars, a World economy in the worst shape in human history, collapsing real estate market, millions of people in the street due to home foreclosure, millions more forced to choose between food and healthcare, historically high unemployment and Earth’s climate on the verge of meltdown.
It not only defies explanation, is so obsurd to be insulting to those with even a hit of wits about them, it borders on a criminal disregard for the responsibility of her office.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=135244
DTV delay: Revenge of the Luddites
Feb 9th
TVWeek has a decent overview of the reasoning behind the delay of the DTV transition.
What I would like to know is how much of the $1.5B USD that was allocated to the coupon program was wasted on ‘administration’ of the program? The coupon itself isn’t a coupon at all, it is in the form of an embossed plastic card complete with magnetic strip and hologram. A hologram? WTF!
A better approach would be to send just the number on a plasticized paper insert. I don’t even want to think about how many tons of plastic are headed for the landfill because of this poorly executed program.
[image courtesy Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FCC_DTV_Coupon_Card.png]
I want my DTV! NOW!
Jan 27th
I guess that the American people are really more stupid than anyone has guessed. After more than 2 years of public service announcements, innumerable news stores and the insufferable commentary by the talking-heads ‘We the People’, apparently, still aren’t ready for the DTV conversion. The US Senate has just passed a bill delaying the transition for 4 months. Passage by the House is expected as early as next Tuesday.
This is a load of crap — if you aren’t prepared by now 4 more months is not going to help you. It is going to be painful for some no matter when it happens. This is akin to delaying a trip to the dentist because it is going to hurt and you are not ‘mentally prepared’ to deal with the pain.
This approach rewards the procrastinators and penalizes those that planned ahead. There are very real costs to broadcasters to maintain the old analog systems, costs that were to be eliminated come February 17th.
Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service,estimates that delaying the digital TV transition to June 12 would costpublic broadcasters $22 million.
These are the same PBS stations that have seen thier public funding cut dramatically over the last few years. Where do they get a coupon to cover their costs of extending the deadline?
Where does this leave Hawaii that has already converted to all digital transmission?
Changing the rules so close to the end of the game will lead only to confusion and additional costs.
