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Why don’t the networks take a page from the pr0n handbook: lots of free, older stuff to get you… um… interested while you have to pay for the good stuff? If you have to pay for it, perhaps then network TV could take a page from HBO, Showtime, etc and become more edgy, sexy, intelligent (ie, everything network TV rarely is). Imagine Dexter on ABC. Imagine Fox not canceling Firefly. Imagine no more erection and diarrhea commercials!!!
For more than 60 years, TV stations have broadcast news, sports and entertainment for free and made their money by showing commercials. That might not work much longer.
The business model is unraveling at ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and the local stations that carry the networks’ programming. Cable TV and the Web have fractured the audience for free TV and siphoned its ad dollars. The recession has squeezed advertising further, forcing broadcasters to accelerate their push for new revenue to pay for programming.
That will play out in living rooms across the country. The changes could mean higher cable or satellite TV bills, as the networks and local stations squeeze more fees from pay-TV providers such as Comcast and DirecTV for the right to show broadcast TV channels in their lineups. The networks might even ditch free broadcast signals in the next few years. Instead, they could operate as cable channels — a move that could spell the end of free TV as Americans have known it since the 1940s.
This should come in handy when [insert catastrophe here] happens.
Springing from the legendary scouting, tracking, wilderness survival skills of Apache warriors, onPoint Tactical offers superior training for modern-day professionals and civilians who require or desire advanced outdoor skill sets to survive and thrive in today’s demanding world.
[…]
onPoint Tactical offers professional certification in Scout, Tracker, and Wilderness Survival disciplines. Course topics include Urban Escape and Evasion, Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) training; Search & Rescue (SAR) tracking, primitive wilderness survival, winter survival, scout reconnaissance, animal trapping, booby traps, sniper fieldcraft, camouflage, off grid medical care, force protection, combat and pursuit tracking, counter and anti-tracking, animal tracking, hostile environment training, and land navigation.
From their Urban Escape & Evasion Course:
While on an international business trip, you are kidnapped and held for ransom. Or, a terrorist attack closes the business district of your city and you find yourself in a dangerous, chaotic fix. How do you stay alive? How do you get to safety on your own?
[…]Topics covered include covert movement (day vs. night), the judicious use of caches, understanding urban baseline movement and urban awareness training, the use of disguises and false papers/identification, lock picking, escaping from unlawful custody, obtaining and driving local transportation, the use of “specialized” urban gear, and instruction on how to develop urban escape and evasion go-bags.
[…]
Saturday’s exercise will begin at 8:30 am and involve putting your new skills and mindsets to the test in a real-life scenario lasting most of the day until around 5:00 pm. You will be “kidnapped”: hooded, cuffed and taken somewhere dark and uncomfortable to start your day. You will be expected to escape, find your own transportation legally using your social engineering skills, and make your way to the first cache location, where directions for a series of tasks using all your new skills await.Meanwhile, expert trackers will be hunting you down, and if they catch you, you will have to start again from a more distant location.
I wish the congressman would have said f you, Stein.
Who’s in charge over there, guys?
A peculiar website notice suggests that AT&T may be blocking New Yorkers from ordering iPhones online because New York isn’t “ready for the iPhone,” though the device currently remains available from brick-and-mortar stores. To make matters worse, AT&T seems to be dancing around the issue without offering a clear explanation for the decision.
The story started with a reader contacting the Consumerist, claiming that AT&T’s website would not let him buy an iPhone when he entered a New York area ZIP code for his location.
[…] A customer service representative verified that this was the case, explaining that the network couldn’t handle the iPhone.
“Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone,” the AT&T customer service rep told Consumerist. “You don’t have enough towers to handle the phone.”
They later posted this update:
It appears that the restriction on ordering iPhones online for New York ZIP codes has been lifted just as mysteriously as it appeared this past weekend. We tried a few ZIP codes ourselves just to be sure, and we weren’t able to get the warning that was being generated earlier today.
Some of the Iranian police are apparently defecting… this is great.
You can check Youtube for some great real-time video coverage of the revolution.
This is sick, but Alex Jones is still kinda nutty.
[The system did fail miserably.] And that’s why we are asking a lot of the same questions I heard you asking before this interview. How did this individual get on the plane? Why wasn’t the explosive material detected? What do we need to do to change perhaps the rules that have been in place since 2006 for moving somebody from the generic database to more elevated status. All of that is under review right now. – Janet Napolitano
The government is clearly trying to associate the crotch bomber with Yemen, which leads me to think that some sort of invasion or attack on the region is coming.
Here’s what I’m talking about:
Somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war. – Joe Lieberman
Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the Nigerian suspect who tried to ignite explosive chemicals with a syringe sewn into his underwear, may have been equipped and trained by an al-Qaeda bombmaker in Yemen. He […] made that claim to FBI agents after his arrest. – “U.S. authorities”
Update: Apparently John and Adam talked about this on the latest edition of No Agenda.
A Pennsylvania Walmart Supercenter videotaped employees and customers in a unisex bathroom, several former and current Walmart employees alleged in a lawsuit filed this week. Seven former and current employees from the Tire and Lube department at the Walmart in Easton, Pa., filed a lawsuit in county court against the Arkansas-based corporation and four local managers Dec. 21.
Several employees discovered an “off-the-shelf” video camera in a store bathroom March 31, 2008, according to the court filing. The unisex bathroom, which also served as a changing room, was used by employees and customers. Customers and employees were not notifed of the surveillance, according to the court filing.
“I am incredulous that anyone would think that it’s appropriate conduct for any reason to photograph people in a changing room and bathroom,” said Erv McLain, the plaintiffs’ attorney. The company declined further comment.
Why anyone would patronize this Anti-American cesspool just baffles me. Oh, I forgot, cheap crap made from slave labor in China…… great.
Today’s Guests:
- Sebastian Rupley, Editor, GigaOm.com
- Rafe Needleman, Editor, Webware.com
- Daniel Brusilovsky, Writer, TechCrunch
The Topics:
- Florida Lawyers, Judges Must Unfriend
- Office 2010’s Prospects
- Windows 7 Spreads Out
- Oracle Plays Hardball With Euro Regulators
The CrankyGeeks Theme Song Remix Contest!
Remix or remake the CrankyGeeks Theme Song and, if we choose your song, we’ll include it in the new face of CrankyGeeks in 2010, along with a little something special, personalized from the Head Crank himself! Download the file here and then e-mail us your version (or a link to it) at crankygeeks@mevio.com to enter!
Parents threaten suit. — Wow, these a-holes are really amazing at this school.
The mother of a 10-year-old girl suspended for bringing peppermint oil to her Commack, N.Y., school Monday says she is considering legal action if school officials don’t apologize and revoke her daughter’s suspension.
Sara Greiner, 10, a fifth-grade student at John Mandracchia-Sawmill Intermediate School, was suspended for one day after bringing organic peppermint oil to school and putting several drops in her water bottle and several classmates’ water, said her mother, Corrine Morton-Greiner, 46.
The Commack School District posted a news release on its Web site saying a student was suspended for “bringing, and then distributing bottled peppermint oil to other students.”
“Peppermint oil is an unregulated over-the-counter drug,” the release reads.
The principal is Michelle Tancredi (shown above).
Found by Aric Mackey.
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This Episode’s Executive Producers: Steven Pelsmaekers and Daniel Rudolf
Associate Executive Producer: Micky Hoogendijk Listen to show by clicking ► Direct link to show. |
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