Comments on: Let your TV set go black on Friday

By: Il n’y a pas de crise des médias ?

Il n’y a pas de crise des médias ? — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:50:34 +0000

[...] J’utilise le Kindle le matin avec mon café pour me tenir au courant des principaux titres, les informations de masse. Ça détend. Cela prend à peu près quinze minutes. Plus tard dans la journée, si je conduis, j’écoute NPR dans la voiture. Cela représente la totalité de ma consommation de médias « mainstream » à travers leur canaux de distribution classiques. Je ne possède pas de télé. [...]

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:26:51 +0000

I’m destroying my page layout, as I see.

Troy/Greece: I was just teasing you. But yes, in theory, the Iliad was the epic that “made the Greeks Greek”, ie that defined Greekness. The world ‘Hellene’ never appears in it. Instead, it’s the Achaeans, Argives, and so on. But by implication, the Trojans in “Asia” (Minor) were not Greek (though they appear to have spoken Greek). Hence this might have been the beginning of our East-West worldview.

Subplot: The Romans (Virgil) wanted to tie themselves to the same grand epic, but distinguish themselves from the effeminate Greeks. Hence Aeneas, a Trojan survivor, becomes the Ur-Roman.

I always, always wondered why they named the condoms after them. Pun on the horse? I never got it.

By: Cheri

Cheri — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:20:48 +0000

OK. As one of your readers called it, I’ve done some “wart preening.” The Trojans or Troy weren’t in Greece at all, but rather in what is now Turkey. The Spartans were in Sparta, the Greeks were in Greece, and so on. And when you finish the book, I will be curious to know if your opinion of Socrates changed.

By: Cheri

Cheri — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:17:37 +0000

Glad to hear it. I hate writhing myself. The Trojans weren’t Greeks???

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:29:23 +0000

And have you noticed how hotel rooms are designed? The bed is always facing a huge flat panel TV. As if that’s where that thing needs to be.

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:28:05 +0000

Well, you got me. First time I hear about them.

Since I do enjoy seeing you writhe: If they are indeed “men of Troy”, they can’t also be … Greeks.

BTW, absolutely LOVING The Trial of Socrates that you recommended!

By: Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:22:24 +0000

I'd like to reply to myself: Cheri, were you thinking when you said that the Greeks took to the field for a ball? No, I wasn't. ( Try to come up with something clever here to disguise your error..) OK: I meant the Men of Troy at USC Those Greeks.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:07:50 +0000

What hotels or motels don’t provide, or at least those I’ve stayed in, don’t provide, is adequate lighting for reading books. Those bedside lamps are useless for reasons obvious to anyone who tries to read a book in a hotel or motel room.

This may, though, all be a cunning plan on the part of hotel and motel owners, who, by deliberately withholding adequate lighting, discourage their patrons reading, so that they’ll instead watch the TV, thereby earning for the hotel and motel owners, kickbacks from the TV advertisers and programmers.

By: Ocean L.

Ocean L. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:42:23 +0000

It comes with a quite thin cable which links the piece to a small, telescopic antenna.
Here is a picture.
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/tuner/DTT/product2/viewProduct/00/elgatoContent2columnLeft/01/image_en/int_dtt2_bild1_071009.jpg

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:23:13 +0000

It amazes me that all hotel provide free TV but not all provide free WiFi.

If I do that thing in a hotel room for more than 5 minutes I get a headache.

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:21:39 +0000

That’s a lot of money for very few trysts.

By: andreaskluth

andreaskluth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:21:02 +0000

wow. Never heard of it, but I have a Mac and this looks great.

It’s not clear from the site whether you need to attach that dongle to rabbit ears. Do you?

By: Mr. Crotchety

Mr. Crotchety — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:14:07 +0000

Maybe there could be a TV show about our sort. “Tonight on Fox: Society’s Most Vulnerable.” Like a circus side show. I’ll smoke a cigarette using my feet.

I’ve done that thing in a hotel room. Watch TV, that is. I can watch TV for hours without watching any one channel for more than 20 seconds continuously. The Missus wonders when I have time to see so many movies.

I’ve asked to have my TV removed from my hotel room a couple times. I think you have to be a rock star to have your TV removed (then, I guess you could throw it out the window).

By: Ocean L.

Ocean L. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:08:35 +0000

I’m not a big fan of most TV stations and programs. But network TV as a media still has qualities others cannot easily replace.
As Brooke Gladstone, the co-host and editor of the public radio program On The Media, puts it: “What TV had, and what only TV has, is the power to create the moment everyone could share.” She made the observation during the ’08 election night.

http://onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/11/07/01

If one still wants to “share the moment”, but doesn’t want a TV, or Cable subscription, here’s a good option.

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/hybrid09/product1.en.html

I use it on my Mac. I get all the major network channels, plus 5 PBS channels, many in High Definition, on my home computer screen.

With it, I used my laptop as a TiVo to record “the moment” on ’08 election night. So I not only “shared the moment”, but also, to some extend, kept it

By: Cheri

Cheri — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:39:54 +0000

My television hissed at me the other night. He’s ticked off and to inflict hurt, told me I don’t turn him on any more.

His pimp, Direct TV, charges me 75.00 per month for his services but the only ones I use are in the fall when, like the Greeks, men take to the field and compete for a ball.

As for your prediction: a return to literacy and culture would make my work life much easier.