Meltdown

[snyprrr]

Hey! Prices for big screen TVs will be cheaper in 2011!

Hey! Prices for electronic bullshit will be cheaper in 2011!

Hey! Prices for things like food and shelter will... be...

[Coopmv]

Hey! Prices for big screen TVs will be cheaper in 2011!

Hey! Prices for electronic bullshit will be cheaper in 2011!

Hey! Prices for things like food and shelter will... be...

That is life.  People have to eat and need shelter.  Big screen TV is not a necessity in life.  I have no plan to go for a flat screen TV until I have to - converter box is no longer available or becomes too pricey ...   

[snyprrr]

That is life.  People have to eat and need shelter.  Big screen TV is not a necessity in life.  I have no plan to go for a flat screen TV until I have to - converter box is no longer available or becomes too pricey ...

you mean,... by law???

[Coopmv]

you mean,... by law???

Ths US law mandated 100% digital broadcast signals for TV as of last February but converter boxes are available so people can continue enjoying their old analog TV's ...

[Florestan]

Ths US law mandated 100% digital broadcast signals for TV as of last February

The reason being... ? 

[Lethevich]

The reason being... ? 

From what I have gathered:

1. Digital is cheaper and more flexible to broadcast
2. Corrupt politicians are lobbied by electronics firms, because it means that many must replace their television sets

In the UK analogue is gradually being phased out over the coming years, one region at a time.

[mc ukrneal]

The reason being... ? 

The short answer is that it freed up bandwidth/spectrum. Here is more information about that if you are interested: http://www.dtv.gov/consumercorner.html

[Coopmv]

The reason being... ? 

Not sure.  Perhaps it wanted US companies to cash in on the new digital broadcast technologies.  But lo and behold, there are no US companies left to make TV's or broadcasting equipments ...

[drogulus]

     Analog is old tech. It's being "disappeared" in an orderly manner. All the old TVs will continue to work with cable, satellite or cheap converter boxes for OTA. Rat Shack has the box for ~$60. So, it macht nichts.

[Florestan]

     Analog is old tech. It's being "disappeared" in an orderly manner. All the old TVs will continue to work with cable, satellite or cheap converter boxes for OTA. Rat Shack has the box for ~$60. So, it macht nichts.

Nichts... except that a government dictates which technology is old and which is new, which TV sets are ok and which are not, punishing pecuniarily those who can't / won't bend to this "relentless cult of progress". 

[Szykneij]

     Analog is old tech. It's being "disappeared" in an orderly manner. All the old TVs will continue to work with cable, satellite or cheap converter boxes for OTA. Rat Shack has the box for ~$60. So, it macht nichts.

In the case of television broadcasts, analog was better. The range of analog transmissions was much greater, so more over-the-air stations were available. And with digital, any type of interference either freezes or makes the signal disappear altogether. With analog, you could still watch a broadcast with a little snow or double image if the reception wasn't perfect.

[Coopmv]

Nichts... except that a government dictates which technology is old and which is new, which TV sets are ok and which are not, punishing pecuniarily those who can't / won't bend to this "relentless cult of progress". 

And I refuse to give these government bureaucrats the satisfaction by fully embracing the digital broadcast technology ...   

[drogulus]

Nichts... except that a government dictates which technology is old and which is new, which TV sets are ok and which are not, punishing pecuniarily those who can't / won't bend to this "relentless cult of progress". 

     Government didn't cause the transition, it created the rules by which it was done in a non-chaotic manner so people wouldn't be left out (and to reapportion goods, like the broadcast spectrum). It's like "free markets", an invention of government to provide for efficient and relatively fair competition. Government sees a change and helps it happen better than it would in a state of nature. Conservatives always imagine that markets work on their own, but you will never see this in weak states. Markets grind into stasis as they are quickly captured by the strongest players, who then capture the state itself. It takes a strong liberal state to make conservative economics work. Conservative economics, as I see it, is a lobotomized version of liberal economics.

     There are things you have to try really hard not to understand, things like how we got where we are. After more than 2 centuries of state and private cooperation on huge projects that created the greatest economy in the world, conservatives still babble on about the evils of government. The Republican Party has become the home of amnesiac economics.* They've forgotten that Abraham Lincoln created a continental empire and fought a civil war at the same time.

     Progress isn't a cult, it's a process that grinds to something close to a halt if it isn't eased along. Conservatives fear it so much that they don't notice that it can't be reversed the way they want. It just gets uglier and dirtier as the problems pile up.

     In the Meltdown thread people on both the right and left say the world is coming to an end because of an accumulation of irreparable errors, both forced and unforced. Meltup types like me might reply that the world is always coming to an end (easy to see from"no privileged position"). Why not make the best of it and bring on the new?

     

      Alexander Hamilton is the author of the point of view I express here. Without his influence this country might well have been the poor agrarian paradise of Jefferson and the plantation owners. They wanted land to be more important than money and manufacture (because they had land in abundance. Money and manufacture made them poorer while the country got richer). It took the Civil War to decide once and for all that the future would belong to capitalism, science and industry.

     _{* Liberals are also amnesiacs, though they aren't intellectually opposed to broad understandings. They see the alliance of government and big business as bad because business corrupts government, while conservatives see the alliance as bad because.....government corrupts business! I see the alliance as inevitable and potentially fruitful, one that must be regulated to give us what it can deliver.}

[drogulus]

In the case of television broadcasts, analog was better. The range of analog transmissions was much greater, so more over-the-air stations were available. And with digital, any type of interference either freezes or makes the signal disappear altogether. With analog, you could still watch a broadcast with a little snow or double image if the reception wasn't perfect.

     Yes, better in that way, T. Last night I switched from cable to rabbit ears to see what I could get on my little Samsung bedroom TV. The strong stations looked fantastic (you know, 2-4-7-25-38), waay better than the HD cable box. The weaker stations just froze into a blocky mess. Digital is a change with mixed results. I have to change with it to get the best result for me.

     If I want to be a granny with no cable and a 25 year old CRT I can get the converter and watch all the digital stations that come in strongly, or get a basic cable package that will give me a much better range of options. In fact, I'm a quasi-granny with a fake old-fashioned CRT with an ATSC tuner connected to HD cable, while I have full HD digital in the other room. If you want to move slowly you can do option 1 with an old TV and a digital converter. You hook up basic cable for a few bucks a month and an antenna if you want to fool with that, too. Or use the antenna and switch to basic cable when you've had enough.

[snyprrr]

So, how long before the bottom falls out? I think I hear creaking.

[Coopmv]

So, how long before the bottom falls out? I think I hear creaking.

Who knows?

[Todd]

So, how long before the bottom falls out? I think I hear creaking.

Before the bottom falls out from below what? 

[Scarpia]

Well, the point is people keep wondering when the recession will end, but there is no recession.  This is the new economy.   I suspect that US has entered a period of long-term economic decline and the only question is whether it will be smooth or bumpy. 

[Coopmv]

It does not require the mind of a rocket scientist to realize the US is in a long-term irreversible decline.  When our kids cannot even rank in the top twenty in math and science on a wordwide basis, the US faces an extremely bleak future.

[Coopmv]

Aside from death, nothing is irreversible, least of all an economy.

Hundreds of billions dollars have been spent over the last 30 years in an attempt to arrest the decline in science and math in the US with little to show.  Go check out the math and physical science departments at most graduate schools and you will realize the majority of their PhD candidates are foreign students from Asia.