h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

kea said: "and i hate living in a culture that wants to spend our precious resources on what is essentially humanity eating itself."

I'd pay to watch that! An interesting spin on the Survivor concept. They could add a "Sudden Death" round.

In the UK and NZ and probably many other countries we have to pay for our TV. If I had to pay nearly £10 a month and all I got in return was asinine tripe like "Big Brother", "Survivor" and "Help, I Used To Be A Celebrity, Please Kill Me" then I would be quite miffed.
Hang on, that's exactly what I *do* get for £10 a month...

But if they used my money towards unethical enterprises that I was actively horrified about, I think I would be rather upset, and at this point calls to the TV stations would be in order.
If you're unhappy about the shows, pick up your phone, fire up your email client, or fish a pen out of the back of the sofa, and let your TV stations know. Unless you're one of the very, very few whose TV habits are being recorded then simply not watching will not be enough.

in nz we don't pay individually anymore, its all through the tax take.


there has been a big debate here in the past year because the govt is introducing a charter to make the state owned tv more socially responsible eg more local content etc (for some years its been treated as a revenue generating device). its quite weird because lots of people in the media have been slagging off the govts' move (the dippy minister of broadcasting didn't help). i would have thought journalists in general would be behind such a move.

while i agree in principle with viewers' responsibilities and contacting the tv stations, unfortunately here phoning tvnz is worse than phoning the tax department.



kea

It would be better if they did the Big Brother thing in a large community. People would have strict rules of conduct and anyone who broke them would be removed by the thought police. Would be a useful experiment if done on a place the size of a whole country.

Sadly this would make people behave too well and wouldn't make interesting TV.

I think they may be actually doing this in the UK *right now*. It would explain so much.

I don't think I called advertising/TV a democracy. I think I referred to the watching of TV as a PART OF democracy. IE : the majority rule, but you have a choice whether or not to partake TV culture.

Ah. Misunderstanding on my part. I thought you meant democracy in how programming was chosen.

Oh no. In the watching. The WATCHING!!



Last year, I had the misfortune to get ill during the second week of Big Brother. I consequently got addicted (DAMN that red button to Hell) and it was only when the series ended (big sigh of relief) was I allowed to see what a truly dire and pathetic bunch of people get involved in it. It's like...I *knew* they were awful people...but I couldn't see an examples. Never again will I watch it. Stupid ness...

Don't documentaries technically count as reality TV? And the news? Just a thought...

Hmm. Depends on what you want to define reality TV as, I suppose. If it's something that reflects real human life and interactions with no safety nets, then what we normally call reality tv doesn't even fall under that category.

But I'd define "reality" tv as an attempt at getting away with pretending Heisenburg's uncertainty priciple doesn't exist - what we study/intrude upon/video tape and market we also change. The very thing that I think defines reality tv is the fact that it is manipulated reality, whereas documentaries and news, though they are biased and fed through researchers and news reporters, are still [arguably] close to the truth of what happened. I'm not sure if I'm showing the line clearly. The uncertainty principle is applied *during* in a reality tv show, and after the fact with news and documentaries.

I think.

Ok. But then the term *Reality TV* is incorrect. It implies that what we watch is reality. When it isn't. REAL reality is the type of media we saw on 9/11...and that was a very short lived one and very violent.

Maybe it is better being unreal?

Perhaps.

But there is a difference between fictional dramas and comedies like ER and Just Shoot Me (to name two off the top of my head) and shows like Survivor and Joe Millionaire.

Hmm... perhaps we'll just stick with Reality TV being a misnomer?

Amy, can you state Heisenburg's uncertainty principle for me ?

or paraphrase it again separately.


kea.

As I understand it, at least part of The Heisenburg Uncertainty principle is the fact that we will change anything we study - our influance will be part of anything we observe.

The full principle, I think, actually has to to with quantum physics (mechanics? can't remember which) and estimating the position of electrons circling a nuculus. If I remember correctly, the basic idea is that we can never truly find out where those electrons are, partially because we will influance the readings.

Or something. I'm no chemist or physicist.

i was thinking something like that. i didn't know what it was called.

wasn't it that when they try and observe a single particle they can't because to observe it they have to have light, and the light particle interacts with the observed particle therefore they can never see the observed particle independant of and unchanged by it being observed.

i'm no physicist either

i'll go look up the principle though, cos i think you are right about its relevnace to this thread.

Yeah - that's what I thought. I can't remember precisely how it's applied in quantum physics/mechanics, but it's something similar to that. I didn't listen much during that chapter of chemistry.

The scary thing is that I know more about the Heisenburg Uncertainty principle from Jurassic Park 2 than from any course I've taken.

i'm not sure it is the heisenberg principle. i got started on a google search and then my computer had a melt down.

will let you know what i find later.

i know what you mean about movies. i learned a lot about history from movies, which is why it p*sses me off when history is portrayed inaccurately.

History has always been corrupted by playwrights - look at Shakespeare.

The uncertainty principle is that you can never be sure if what you are recording is unaffected by your observing it, and therefore any conclusions drawn from said observation are potentially flawed. (Paraphrasing wildly.)

Someone was touting a program of clips from the CCTV cameras that populate our city centres nowadays - obviously they only intended to show sex and violence. Potentially there is an opportunity for a social awareness programme in studying these films, but I'm not sure whether it would be entertainment, unless there was lots of sex and violence.

I love the Geographic channell, but rarely get time to watch it, my kids conned me into buying E4 (new Friends - New ER, please Dad) Then I find out its doing 24hr Big Brother.

"History has always been corrupted by playwrights - look at Shakespeare."

yes, and oral history changes with each storyteller. its more the gross deliberate inaccuracies i object to. the xena and hercules tv series are a good/bad example, because they mixed up genres, stories, characters holusbolus. there will be a whole generation of people who grow up thinking they know something about greek, roman, and anything else the producers could get their hand on mythology. but they won't.


"Someone was touting a program of clips from the CCTV cameras that populate our city centres nowadays - obviously they only intended to show sex and violence."

this is so bizaare.

I know what you mean - I had to get my kids reading my Greek Myths and Legends to end the arguements because I found I was mixing up Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology. (The mind goes first) They were using Xena to support their arguements.

RichardIII is my big bug-bear

"RichardIII is my big bug-bear"

the movie or the play ?

and why ?

Because Shakespeare and everyone since depicts Richard III as a hunchback.

Richard's favoured weapon in battle was the great axe - because of this the muscles in his right arm were over developed. Because of this his armour had an enlarged right shoulder to allow him full movement to swing his axe.

Richard has been depicted as being the killer of the Prince's in the tower, but was a fond uncle to the boys, though it is likely someone murdered the boys, thinking to gain favour with him.

At the battle of Bosworth Richard was eventually slain at Sandy Ford, the last English King to fall in Battle, his loss was mainly due to the perfidy of Stanley. He was dragged from his horse and hacked at by the common soldiers, unable to cross the river in armour - thus A horse, a horse etc.

Shakespeare was writing for a Tudor monarch, Elizabeth - Richard was defeated by the first Tudor monarch Henry VII.