Educational Networks are really getting disperate (Full Version)

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jlf1961 -> Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/16/2014 5:21:02 PM)

Forget the staged "reality" tv shows like moonshiners, etc.

What I am referring to is these wonderful announcements like "there is a fault on the west coast that can cause bigger earthquakes than the San Andreas." and act like it is breaking news.

Discovery networks have done this with Yellowstone, the New Madrid Fault zone and others.

With Yellowstone they even went so far as to point out every other caldera in the US. Big deal, we know the US is number 1 (ego tells us this) so it is the right thing for the US to have the majority of super volcanoes on its continent. There is yellow stone, two in California and one in New Mexico.

And if they really think that the New Madrid fault zone is new news, geologists have been studying it for 90 years or more.

When is it going to end? Come Discovery Network, tell us something new, like understanding how women think, the cure for the common cold, a magical elixer that makes all us ugly guys transform into men with god like good looks, or the perfect answer to a woman's question, "does this make me look fat?"




MercTech -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/16/2014 8:16:20 PM)

Hey, it may be new to someone. I know the New Madrid fault was new to me when I did a report on it in the 9th grade.

Did you know that Jackson, Mississippi is built on a dormant volcano that is linked to the New Madrid Fault?




jlf1961 -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/16/2014 8:57:34 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

Hey, it may be new to someone. I know the New Madrid fault was new to me when I did a report on it in the 9th grade.

Did you know that Jackson, Mississippi is built on a dormant volcano that is linked to the New Madrid Fault?


Yup. And considering how long ago it last erupted, it is long over due, like the few in Texas... that haven't erupted in millions of years.




TheHeretic -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/16/2014 9:55:58 PM)

It's much cheaper to rehash the known, than to go looking for something new. Besides, some people really do manage to live their lives without a clue what Mama Nature has lined up under their feet, or just know a little, and will watch a few soap commercials to maybe learn a little more. The channels have to run something between the ads.

For reality, we were surfing around a while back, and I stopped for a few minutes on a reality show about the Oak Island curiousity hole. Stupid show, but the wife had never heard of the place, and likes it for background noise when she's doing homework.

Try the original series stuff on AMC

Tonght's Walking Dead, for example, was not your typical primetime fare.




ShaharThorne -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 4:55:26 AM)

I have been watching Cosmos on Fox by Neil Tyson...Mom thinks it is interesting. I happen to like the guy because he is doing this in a way that most people will understand (quit grashing your teeth, Christians).




windchymes -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 7:36:00 AM)

I don't think it's education as much as just trying to scare the bejesus out of us with sensationalism so we tune in to watch the show. Like the ad I saw awhile back for the Dr. Oz show: "You may have a ticking time bomb inside your body! On next week's Dr. Oz show!" Well, if it's ticking away, shouldn't you be telling me NOW???

I also had high hopes for the Oak Island series. I had read about it years ago and always found the concept fascinating, that pirate treasure was buried at the bottom of this pit, but it was built with so many booby traps....from centuries ago....that people have died, drowned by flooding 90 feet or so down in the pit. They've never gotten to the bottom, don't know what's really down there, if anything.

It pretty much fizzled. Even with advanced modern technology and millions more dollars, they barely found anything, only some coconut fibers that did support part of the legend, and an old coin that may have just been there by accident or planted to finally make the series interesting for a moment. I got the impression that the producers pulled the plug on the series due to lack of any real progress, since it ended kind of abruptly.





jlf1961 -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 8:00:30 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

It's much cheaper to rehash the known, than to go looking for something new. Besides, some people really do manage to live their lives without a clue what Mama Nature has lined up under their feet, or just know a little, and will watch a few soap commercials to maybe learn a little more. The channels have to run something between the ads.

For reality, we were surfing around a while back, and I stopped for a few minutes on a reality show about the Oak Island curiousity hole. Stupid show, but the wife had never heard of the place, and likes it for background noise when she's doing homework.

Try the original series stuff on AMC

Tonght's Walking Dead, for example, was not your typical primetime fare.


I am boycotting Zombie entertainment.

As for the mystery of Oak Island, I have been following it for years, although my opinion of the show is such that it did more to sensationalize on a mystery that has been going on for a couple of centuries, and did nothing to actually solve the mystery, give any back ground, and completely failed to mention that the original money pit collapsed a number of years ago, and no one has tried to re open it.

The fact that the original pit was connected to the ocean by tunnels indicate it is an engineering marvel considering when it was first discovered. Not to mention one of the coves on the island is man made, and all of this was done by hand.

Now my theory is that a guy using the online nick H*r*t*c opened a stable wormhole and took back a bunch of earth moving equipment to a point in time before there was any human habitation in the area other than Native Americans, and placed a "treasure" in the pit consisting of a water proof chest in which he placed a bunch of fast food discount coupons, two quarters, and a twinky.




Musicmystery -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 8:31:57 AM)

I think you're having trouble distinguishing news from education.

In education, the presumption is viewers don't already know.




jlf1961 -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 9:44:26 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Musicmystery

I think you're having trouble distinguishing news from education.

In education, the presumption is viewers don't already know.


So, you are not denying that you are behind this? That you took heavy dirt moving equipment back in time and set the money pit up as some insane joke to get people to sink millions into finding the chest you left behind with a twinky in it?

I know you had no way of knowing anyone would get hurt in another shaft that was not your original one.




MercTech -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 10:29:27 AM)

The last time the New Madrid fault had a major earthquake, 1811, it created the oxbow lakes in Kentucky and moved Ft. Adams Mississippi two miles inland from the Mississippi River. (Fort Adams was the farthest south and west you could go and be in the U.S. before the Louisiana Purchase)




jlf1961 -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 10:38:19 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: MercTech

The last time the New Madrid fault had a major earthquake, 1811, it created the oxbow lakes in Kentucky and moved Ft. Adams Mississippi two miles inland from the Mississippi River. (Fort Adams was the farthest south and west you could go and be in the U.S. before the Louisiana Purchase)


You forgot that it temporarily caused the Mississippi to flow backwards, caused a number of sand blows that still can be seen from the air, even after a hundred years worth of floods, and pretty much destroyed the towns in the area.

Then, while that series of quakes, over magnitude 8, were still fresh in the minds of the settlers, a bunch of people decided that turning St. Louis (which suffered extensive damage in the quakes) was the perfect place to build a major city.




TheHeretic -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 6:29:42 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

I am boycotting Zombie entertainment.



Your call. I ignored it for a long time, but there are a few real gems in the mix.

What I find really fucking funny (and pathetic) is how George Romero turns his nose up at what's coming today, believing that his work had such important satirical content that eludes the modern artists in the genre. What a shallow, ignorant, fuckwit. He had a single joke - consumerism is mindless - and he beat it to death like it was some earth shattering revelation that only he was brilliant enough to see, and just let the cavalry come riding in to give himself an ending

World War Z (the novel I suggested on another thread) and Walking Dead are using the ghouls as a much bigger metaphor. The cavalry gets their ass kicked, right off the bat, and the zombies represent the failure of the system. With that vehicle, we can really get into the human aspects of surviving when the lights don't work, the toilets don't flush, and the influence of civilization itself itself gets more optional by the day.

Last night's episode (no spoilers) brought home a gut wrenching lesson in what it means to be without any sort of support to reach out for, and the price of seeing to something yourself.

The first 3 seasons are all up on netflix, there will probably be a marathon before the season finale in a couple weeks. Whatever.

Meanwhile, from a prepper point of view, if you are ready for a plague of zombies, you ready for absolutely anything.




jlf1961 -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 7:14:33 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

I am boycotting Zombie entertainment.



Your call. I ignored it for a long time, but there are a few real gems in the mix.

What I find really fucking funny (and pathetic) is how George Romero turns his nose up at what's coming today, believing that his work had such important satirical content that eludes the modern artists in the genre. What a shallow, ignorant, fuckwit. He had a single joke - consumerism is mindless - and he beat it to death like it was some earth shattering revelation that only he was brilliant enough to see, and just let the cavalry come riding in to give himself an ending

World War Z (the novel I suggested on another thread) and Walking Dead are using the ghouls as a much bigger metaphor. The cavalry gets their ass kicked, right off the bat, and the zombies represent the failure of the system. With that vehicle, we can really get into the human aspects of surviving when the lights don't work, the toilets don't flush, and the influence of civilization itself itself gets more optional by the day.

Last night's episode (no spoilers) brought home a gut wrenching lesson in what it means to be without any sort of support to reach out for, and the price of seeing to something yourself.

The first 3 seasons are all up on netflix, there will probably be a marathon before the season finale in a couple weeks. Whatever.

Meanwhile, from a prepper point of view, if you are ready for a plague of zombies, you ready for absolutely anything.


I tend to agree with your assessment of George Romero.

As for the zombie apocalypse being a metaphor for having nothing to fall back on, again I agree.

My problem is that you cant swing a cat around your head without smacking at least ten zombie based tv shows or movies.

I found the movie contagion to be interesting, but they minimized the affects of such a pandemic.

In the movie, the mortality rate was above 50%, which would have overwhelmed the infrastructure to deal with the corpses. The only reference to that was telling the husband he had to cremate his wife and son.

Then you have the "companion" illnesses that come along with a bunch of dead bodies laying around. Cholera, diphtheria, typhus, all of those would add to the already strained health care facilities.

And strangely, the civil unrest was short lived. A few days of looting, and then everyone is calm again. Not to mention that the road blocks established to keep people from traveling were never challenged.

Ever hear about the events that lead up to the Berlin wall coming down? First a small mob showed up at a border check point, then it grew to hundreds, finally thousands. The border guard was told to let a few go across, after he saw that was not working to calm the mob, he had a choice, grab his AK and begin shooting or just open the gate and watch the tide cross to west Berlin.

He opened the gate and went home. By the way, the border guard in charge at that crossing was a Lt. Col.

Now going back to a pandemic situation, you really think that a crowd of thousand is just going to turn around because a platoon of soldiers tells them to? To go back means a good chance of catching the disease, and rushing the check point means you could get killed, but there are a lot of people wanting out, and only a few troops.

Not to mention the cliche redneck in his 4x4 truck with big tires and a grill guard made of two inch steel pipe.

Famous last words, "hold my beer while I handle this."

Now the zombies are portrayed as slow moving, walking dead, that would get run over by a wall of molasses in Maine in January. Not to mention they are not all that intelligent.

I mean, come on, how about a cannibalistic infected human that moves faster than a 110 great grandmother, and have more than a limited use of their limbs.

Remember the Omega Man?




MercTech -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 9:41:08 PM)

My, how far the zombies have come:

The introduction of zombies to American cinema. For your viewing edification, Bela Lugosi in "White Zombie"

https://archive.org/details/VictorHalperinsWhiteZombie1932

_________________________________________________________

Television is about getting your attention so they can charge for advertising. Entertainment is secondary, art very tertiary, and education only to fulfill FCC requirements.




TheHeretic -> RE: Educational Networks are really getting disperate (3/17/2014 10:03:16 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: jlf1961

My problem is that you cant swing a cat around your head without smacking at least ten zombie based tv shows or movies.



Exactly. They are trying to cash in the popularity and demand for more created by a couple really exceptional works.

World War Z, Jlf. Give it a read. Seriously. You'll have fun with it.

The thing with Walking Dead this season, and likely into the forseeable future is that the zombies have become more of a natural hazard, and the really scary players are other living people. Fast zombies have nothing on them.




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