How We View TV Today

While TV was once characterized by the medium from which it was delivered to us, a box with a tube, today that has all passed away just as the cassette and 8-track tape has for delivering us music.  The content is not what has changed, in the larger sense, it is the medium that has changed.  Today we get our music on CD’s or more often straight off the Internet from iTunes, Amazon, or some other digital service.  We don’t even have to purchase it today - we can stream it via Pandora, Spotify, YouTube, or one of the thousands of Internet Radio Stations.  Aside for the changes in genre’s our music is still… well… music — audio content.  

Content vs. Medium

In the last 10 years Television has taken a similar change from one traditionally referring to a picture tube in a box, to the content of visual information — the visual content.  Now one might still refer these two to an audio medium and a visual medium, but that is not so.  The medium is describing the means by which the content is delivered.  By definition the medium is the intervening substance through which the content comes to you.  So the visual medium is the way in which you get the content — the content does not change, the way we get it changes.

By Definition

TV is Television, by definition — Tele-Vision, Televised Vision, transmitted visual information, transmitted, transferred, delivered, via wire or wireless — delivered content to the receiver.  The term tele was first used before radio existed — telegraph.  It was transmitted via wires then wireless via radio waves.  It was a code (content) that was delivered to the receiver.  The propagation medium and the devices used in delivering and receiving that content have changed but the information or content are what has always been what we care about — not the means of delivery.  The message not the messenger is what is important.  The end game.

My Uses

I know for me, I haven’t watched a traditional TV for years, I still watch TV shows but I watch them online via the Internet.  YouTube is my major source for programming content, and I'd bet it's yours too.  Hulu, CBS, NBC, YouTube, I get it all online now.  The Internet is the new medium for TV.  It is way visual information is televised to us.  It is The New TV.

My Predictions

I foresee that the major TV networks will soon follow suit with HBO and Showtime who have followed Hulu and Netflix into the Interwebs and will have an App on your smart TV’s so that you can watch them through the Internet without cable, satellite, or terrestrial TV.  CBS has already made a major more in that direction, you can watch their programming online just like Hulu provides.  Ustream and YouTube, the pioneer of personal video content, is now more focused on video streaming and has given everyone the ability to broadcast on The New TV.

  

After all, you can reach them via YouTube.TV or Ustream.TV
You could say that they are now the first name in TV
Your Thoughts?...

Another Byte out of the Apple Issue

Adding to my last entry about Apple, Apple Takes a Stand for Our Privacy Rights...

This request of the FBI relates the same as the issue with gun control, where, when you take away the guns from people to stop the killings, all you end up with is the innocent law abiding people without guns to protect themselves and others.  The criminals will never give up their guns, therefore the criminals will be the only ones with the guns and the crime will not only continue it will escalate because they have no fear of encountering resistance from the public that they are terrorizing.

If the FBI, or anyone like them in any other situation like this, thinks that they are going to get information from the phones of terrorists by having this back-door they are mistaken.  As are those who think this idea is going to work.  They will only have a back-door into the phones of the law abiding.  The terrorists and criminals will have and use a technology that will make them evasive.  They will not use a phone or an OS on said phone that is crackable.  It’s just the rest of us who will have to be terrorized by Big Brother in our pockets.  It is always quoted at this point that, If you have nothing to hide then what does it matter.  What matters is the principal.  Realize, that’s what the Germans said when Hitler was instituting all his overloading laws.  It’s all fine until they start coming for you… and they always end up coming for you in the end.  Then there is no one left to stand up for you.  Bye.

To stand up against this (as Apple is doing) is not siding with the terrorists, it is siding with freedom — freedom against the tyranny.  The principle for which America was founded.  Remember what Ben Franklin said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  So which side are you on?  For to sacrifice your freedom (liberty) as the FBI is asking Apple to do, is to side with the terrorists that threaten us.  

Are you one of those who would lay down liberty for safety, or think that Apple should do so?

Apple Takes a Stand for Our Privacy Rights

In his Feb 16th 2016 letter, A Message to Our Customers, Tim Cook CEO of Apple takes a stand against the FBI and warns us all about the threat to our personal security.

I applaud Tim Cook and Apple for standing up against the tyranny of the FBI, who’s trying to go back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover.  No, farther than that - the Nazi's.  These are Hitler tactics that bring upon us an Orwellian world.

It's not that I'm not expecting that it's going to soon come to that — it is.  But to have a conglomerate as big and as important as Apple stand up and say no more, is refreshing.  Again, I'm not one of those patriot types, not that there's anything wrong with that, (what gets wrong in that area is the nuts that get involved in it and tip the scales).  I don't listen to or support those guys.  I do however support Apple in its products, its philosophy, and its decision to protect peoples rights.

The problem with this issue has now become the spin that it is taking.  Many are making Apple say something that they did not say.  It’s what the FBI wants them TO DO, not what they have done to help the FBI that is the issue.

So many comments by uninformed, speculating people doesn’t help clear the issue either.  I am a programmer, coder, hacker (not cracker), whatever, so I understand what is at stake here and the ridiculousness of the justification.  That our security depends upon our insecurity — that’s insane.  If this ever gets to where the government has this control and has a back-door to our phones, then the very people they demanded they have it for — the ‘terrorists’, will be using something else to get their deeds done.

Having a back-door into iOS is inviting crackers (as most wrongly call them - hackers) to do unimaginable damage that Apple will have to try constantly to patch, like Windows has to.  Perhaps the only safe way around this is for Apple to go the Open Source route, like Linux, and make their iOS completely Open Source so that all it’s ins and outs are known.  While this may sound worse, what it does, and has done for Linux, is make the Operating System (OS) more secure against attacks because programmers know any possible back-doors and can fix them.  The opposite of this is best seen in Windows where only Microsoft knows its code.  So when a cracker exploits a hole in Windows code they have to patch it.  If they had the world of programmers looking at the code, like Linux does, then us good hackers could find the problems first and fix them.

I am reminded of the 2012 case against TrueCrypt where the FBI was unable to get past TrueCrypt's encryption.  “The court then ruled that Doe's Fifth Amendment right to remain silent legally prevented the Government from making him or her do so.”  TrueCrypt was shut down on the guise that it was, “not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues” and users were instructed to move to Microsoft's BitLocker.  One has to wonder if Microsoft's BitLocker is favored and not targeted by the FBI because they already have a back-door in BitLocker?

The forgotten issue.  There’s nothing saying that there is actually any useful information on this iPhone the FBI demands to get into.  By this time there’s no information on that phone that the leads have not been burned by the terrorists.  The FBI, and other agencies, would be better served by employing some crackers rather than looking for Apple and corporate business to do their work for them.  I don’t hear the CIA asking for this kind of technology…

Back to the issue at hand.  It’s not like you can’t jailbreak an iPhone today and bypass any of this ’spyware’.  So the tech is already out there, and used, that can thwart what the FBI is trying to mandate.  Again, it’s only going to be the ‘safe’ citizens that are getting spied on.  The old adage goes that, If you’ve got nothing to hide then what does it matter?  While that may be true — as long as you can trust who’s doing the spying.  Can you?  After all, that’s how George Orwell’s word got into being.  It’s all for your protection Winston.  (I'm wondering who the real terrorists are here...)

As My Cook said, "understand what is at stake".

The Transdimensional Time Machine in Your Kitchen

So you're still using that fancy late 20th century Time Machine — the microwave oven.  You like that it has the ability to transport your food to another dimension where time moves faster or at least it somehow bends time so that you can have your eaties cooked NOW!!!

I'm not as far off as you might think on this time travel thing.  Stay with me.  You see, that microwave radio transmitter you have in you kitchen might not be changing time for your food, but it very well my be changing time for you.  Making your life end sooner!  Not from the fact that it's a dangerously high level of radio waves that are harmful to the human body that are transmitted in the near vicinity of your body.  No, it's what it's doing to your food that you're consuming that's taking time from your existence.

Is it odd how the FCC has better regulations governing human proximity to AM and FM radio antennas that are behind a locked fence than the radio transmitter in your kitchen.

A note on the microwave levels for those who think it's no big deal … ask yourself why they have to put up notices in business where microwave ovens are in use for pacemaker patients if there's nothing to be concerned about.

Microwave Oven Death

The food death health issue I'm dealing with is that microwaveing food kills many vitamins,
antioxidants, and nutrition.  I believe it also alters things at the molecular level too.  I've heard for years that plants will not live when watered with water that's been microwaved (cooled back down of course).  You can now find several people that have tired this experiment with plant death as the result.  If something as basic as water isn't water anymore, then what is happening inside that magic box, what dimension is your food going to?  If water isn't safe what is it doing to all your other foods?

Shall I continue on the female hormone estrogen that is given off from plastics when microwaved.  You know, the plastic containers that you store your food in that goes straight into the microwave oven to be warmed up.  Since I find that even people that know these plastic containers give off hazardous toxins when microwaved still do this out of connivence.  Since convenience is what this Time Machine is all about anyway.  Now these hazardous toxins might be a health hazard, or perhaps this answers some unasked questions with female problems, or our children in the last say 30 years, or the increase of homosexuality in the same time frame.  Remember we have been buzzing these magic boxes for 50 years now.

No, this isn't a shameless plug for the FlavorWave or NuWave Ovens, it's just facts.  I love my FlavorWave Oven because they are safe and healthy.  I have also found there is a NuWave Oven brand that is very similar to the Flavor Wave Oven.  These are both convection ovens (and most likely advertise on this site).  They cook with something called heat, (remember heat?  fire?) not radio transmissions.  Check out heat, it's been in use for about 7,000 years.  Pretty safe sand reliable tuff as far as cooking goes.

Here's some links to articles I've come across — you read, you decide.

Microwave oven, The Hidden Hazards

The Hidden Hazards of Microwave Cooking

-Liam

Cyber Monday Deals

While some retailers pushed up their ‘Black Friday’ deals to Wednesday, and at least Thursday afternoon.  The cyber world (think Internet) has kept its tradition of Cyber Monday, since they figured you'd be in the stores Friday and not online.

The digital door-busters abound and perhaps this will be a good year for retailers as the economy and DOW have been stable recently and gas prices are falling.  It is likely that this illusion will cause us to spend more on the things that we want and think we cannot live without.

In the tradition of the non brick-and-mortar stores, all the major retailers also have their Cyber Monday deals online, one is even having a Cyber Week.

It's no surprise that the big online retailers like Amazon, TigerDirect, NewEgg, eBay, Sweetwater, zZounds, Overstock, and Engadget have deals on Monday.  Many of them have been posting deals the week leading up to Black Friday, and some will continue throughout the week with deals.

Since every major brick-and-mortar retailer in online, stores like Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, BestBuy, Staples, JC Penney’s, and other clothing outlets all have their Cyber Monday deals going on.

Remember the game - the best deals are limited to first come first serve.  They offer outrageous deals to get you on their site but you have to be early and quick.  Let the games begin!

Happy shopping

Stop Using Internet Explorer (IE) !!!

Why are people still using IE?  I’ve said this before.  I’ve said it for years…  Quit using IE!

If you’re using IE stop now!  If you do not have another Browser - that’s the thing your using now to view this page (I feel have to say that because I’m finding that too many people do not know basic terminology as to what they are doing today).

I’d also tell you what to do and where to go to download and install another browser but there again if you’re using IE you’re not likely to understand what I’m talking about.  Fear not.  I will provide you some links (the blue colored text below) that you can click on and will take you to where you can download a safe and usable browser.

Safe - because IE is known to be to porthole for viruses and many nasty things off the Internets.

Usable - because any (real) web designer knows that IE (Internet Explorer) is THE browser that does not render pages correctly and your code has to be ’tweaked’ to make it look somewhat like you intended it to, and what every other browser shows correctly.

You design in FireFox or Chrome, then you check it in IE to see how much work you have to do to fix it, or just care less because no sane web surfer would be using IE anyway.  When you find sites that only look correct in IE it is because the web designer does not know what they are doing and was using IE.  Go sit in the corner!

Chrome - Click on the blue button in the middle.
FireFox - Click on the green button that says Windows.

It's Black Friday - RUN!!!

It’s that time of year again.  Either you love it or hate it.

At least some of the major stores have decided to reduce the madness and trampling deaths by opening their doors early.   Radio Shack thought they would outdo them all by starting on Wednesday.  Wal-Mart started the savings Thursday (Turkey Day) afternoon.  Perhaps to eliminate the masses who were full from turkey and sleeping it off.

Every year we get further from the once long awaited day of savings, which soon became a day of madness.  Not so much anymore.  Now they try to spread it out or push it up to be the first store to get you in to by their specials.  It’s become a retail race for the retailers to be each other to the starting line.

When Black Friday first started retailers were only competing with each other, now the brick and mortar stores have massive competition with online retailers and even more so because many shoppers would rather escape the madness and shop from home online.  Are you one of those?  After all, here you are on the inter-web.

Practice safe shopping.

Let the games begin!