Stream of Consciousness will go dark from January 18, 2012 at 8:00 am Eastern US time through January 18, 2012 at 8:00 pm to protest SOPA/PIPA and Internet Censorship. You can learn more here.

The FrameAlbum website and frame feeds will NOT go dark and will continue normal operations.

Much has been written on how obscenely bad this legislation is to the health of the internet, and our Freedoms in general. I won’t bore you with my weak attempts where others have done so well. I encourage you to read for yourself and to contact your congress critter and let them know that this is hinders innovation, destabilizes the internet, is NOT effective and damages our Freedoms.

I recognize that I’ve been posting exclusively about FrameAlbum here recently but the title of the blog is ‘Stream of Consciousness‘ so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

I received a comment today where the person thanked me for being a ‘straight talker’.  I took it as a complement.

I’m an engineer; in my world there is ‘the truth’ and then “that thing that isn’t the truth”.  If something is ‘red’ then tell me it’s ‘red’; don’t tell me “it’s a very dark, complex shade of pink with overtones of blue but if you see it in just the right light it’s orange” because you think I don’t like red.  Frankly, I can’t bring myself to say ‘something is x‘ when clearly the opposite is true, regardless of the audience.

Unfortunately in today’s political arena ‘straight talk‘ has come to mean ‘dumbing it down for consumption by the masses so that it appeals to their emotions rather than thoughtful reasoning‘.

Most every sound bite I’ve heard that was labeled as an example of ‘straight talk’ was such a brain-numbingly obvious platitude that I couldn’t help myself from throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

“I’ll make Government more efficient!” – Really?  Do you honestly believe that in ~235 years of having a go at this democracy thing that we haven’t reached some sort of efficiency equilibrium?  No, really, I prefer inefficiency and would vote against anyone who supports increased efficiency

“We will take Our Government back!” – Back from whom, exactly?  Last time I read the Constitution it said that ours was a government of ‘We the People’.  One must be a citizen, therefore an American, to vote.  So we’re taking it back from the American People to give to… the American People?  I’m confused…

“I’ll make the tax code simple!” – I don’t even know where to begin on this one.

In every case the candidate is simply saying what the audience of the moment wants to hear. Have we, as a Nation, become so afraid of the truth that we’ll vote for no one that dare speak it? When a candidate does dare veer off message and a bit of truth leaks out it’s labelled a gaff and the blathering Punditry goes into high-gear claiming that the candidate just committed political suicide.

No, I fear that something even more distressing is true; that we are not willing to vote for someone who is not 100% in agreement with our views. I don’t think (most) politicians are stupid; in fact I believe most of them are quite intelligent.  So intelligent in fact that they have figured out that to get/stay elected they can’t possibly take a solid position on anything as it would give some group a reason to vote for ‘anyone else’.  Have you ever tried to get a Yes/No answer from a politician?  I have — I believe that if you look in the dictionary under ‘futility’ the entry reads ‘that overwhelming urge you get to smack something when you ask a politician a Yes/No question.’

If you want to earn my vote give direct, clear, unequivocal answers to questions.  When someone asks you “Which part of an Oreo is you favorite?”  You had better say “I love the rich creamy filling!” or “I love the crispy chocolate wafers!“.  If you respond “I like them both equally and here are 4,000 words about why you are an idiot if you don’t agree with me.” you are dead to me.

Give me the straight facts about what you believe — I will not agree with you 100% of the time but at least I’ll respect you and I might even vote for you.

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

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]

Link

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.

Link