television
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Moon Hoax again on public TV
Posted by Michael on 10 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: italy, space, television
I’ve covered this topic before but it looks like there’s no end to the shameless audience hunting by means of sacrificing culture, perpetrated by the italian public service television, RAI.
Once again, I borrow the words of my friend and science communicator Paolo Amoroso, on his blog.
“RAI neglects science for the sake of audience”
[…]
“A waste of public money for shows that deny the genuinity of the Apollo lunar landings”
[…]
“In the march 3rd episode of the show ‘Voyager’ RAI gives free speech to the conspiracy theory ramblings”
[…]
“Roberto Giacobbo (hosts) Voyager, a TV show for everything misterious….for a 8 years old child!”
But there’s more. A friend and fellow partecipant in the italian Forum “Forumastronautico” noted and commented on every error and misconception presented in the shameful show, an impressive display of ignorance (or, more likely, lucid exploitation of the public ignorance) that totals an astounding rate of one error every 36 seconds of show. Enjoy (in Italian, sorry)
Makes me even happier for not owning a TV .
Stay tuned, more to come.
Vinton Cerf on future of TV and the Internet
Posted by Michael on 27 Aug 2007 | Tagged as: software, television, stumblings, video
Although non really tecnhical, this is a good example of what it’s like to be the “father” of a technology that changed our life and having a “vision” of the future.
I like what Vint says about TV. My family can confirm, having heard me saying the exact same thing over and over in the last few years, since I got a broadband access in my apartment. TV as we know it is nearly dead technology. When you realize that 85% of TV programming is NOT LIVE, it suddenly seem SO stupid that you have to sit on your couch at a predetermined time, for a defined amount of time, to watch something that is been recorded, edited, postproduct, and stored on digital media.
You must have the option to watch it when you can and want. And don’t “you already had the VCR” me. It’s not the same, even if that was a first step in the right direction.
To be coherent with my opinions, I ditched TV at home since January this year, and haven’t regretted it for a minute.
News? I can read them online, or listen them on the radio. Even better, radio on the web! And most tv news are streamed from the tv website on demand. Still regular TV, but the way it should be.
As for sports (yeah,of course, soccer. Is there something else in Italy? ;-) ), instead of paying a yearly subscription or a enormous fee of 5€+ per game, I grab my bike, head to the bar, have a beer and chat with other supporters. You know… socialize. Scary uh? :-)
Want a peek of what TV will become if things go the way they should? Check out www.joost.com
And if you need a beta invitation, feel free to ask in the comments. I don’t know if I got unlimited invitations, if not, first come first served.
I’ll blog about Joost in the future, so as always…
…Stay tuned, more to come.
Moon Hoax on public TV in Italy (shame on us)
Posted by Michael on 30 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: space, television
Yeah, like I needed something else to be ashamed of.
First of all I want to introduce to you the comment that my fellow Forumastronautico.it user and scientific divulgator Paolo Amoroso put on his blog. Sorry, it’s in Italian, but I guess the topic allows it :)
I encourage you to check out the Paolo Attivissimo (colorful) minute by minute chronicle of the shameful broadcast.
Instead of doing what a History TV program should do, that is, presenting historical truth with professional competence, this issue of “La storia siamo noi” (we’re the history) focused on presenting a collage of the childish “proofs” that some people made up to say that “geez, we never landed on the Moon!”.
Needless to say that the main reason that drives these people to insult the effort o the thousand of NASA employees and contractors is… private earning, selling books.
You can find a plethora of bibliographies on the argument, and I’m not going to help you find them because they don’t deserve a bit more of the publicity they already get.
True, RAI saved a bit of face by mildly “debunking” some of the conspirational theories, but the whole concept of the show (the title, “Apollo 11, The dark side of the Moon”, to begin with) gives too much credit on the stories told by a bunch of idiots.
Moreover, this is NOT what we pay MANDATORY subscription for. But this is part of the reason because I gave up TV at my place since early this year.
