tingilinde

repurposing

The old Bell Labs facility at Holmdel  (and for a short time, Lumon)

on ingenuity

tom baker's scarf

The BBC published instructions back in the day.

 

It turns out I have one thanks to Sukie

 

 

on the influence of adversiting

In Montana's Senate race

snip

...

Everyone knows those stakes—and the money pouring in from across the country to this gorgeous state reflects that. The battle for Montana has become one of the most expensive statewide races ever, expected to stand at at least $315 million when the dust settles.

But there’s a peculiar quirk to campaigning here: Montana may be the country’s fourth-largest state by area, but it’s only the 44th largest by population. There are a mere 650,000 active registered voters spread out across 147,000 square miles, an area roughly the size of California with one-fortieth the number of people. So, sure, volunteers knock doors and phone-bank and do rallies. But in a rural state with a libertarian ethos where homes are often spread far apart, in a country with unlimited campaign spending, that isn’t really how campaigning works. Instead, the final prairie Democrat’s last stand is being waged not on the high plains or the snowy ridges of the eastern Rockies but on the peaks and troughs of the airwaves. It is being fought on television.

According to AdImpact, from Super Tuesday in early March to mid-October, Montana has played host to an astronomical 387,000 political ads, second only to Pennsylvania’s 399,000. But Montana, unlike Pennsylvania, is not a swing state. It is not in play for the presidency: Trump won it by 20 points in 2020, and few things are more certain than the fact that he will win it again. It has a Republican governor (not competitive); both House representatives here are Republican; a two-thirds-Republican supermajority holds the state Legislature. There are a couple of ballot props to fight over, and, as of very recently, one of those House races has gone from “impossible” to “a reach” for Democrats. But almost all the money and attention is focused on Tester vs. Sheehy. It is a besieging of the commercial breaks of historic proportions.

...

 

 

an apology for 'the apprentice'

It comes far too late. 

snip

...

To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.

In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.

Trump may have been the perfect choice to be the boss of this show, because more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns. He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true.

At NBC, we promoted the show relentlessly. Thousands of 30-second promo spots that spread the fantasy of Trump’s supposed business acumen were beamed over the airwaves to nearly every household in the country. The image of Trump that we promoted was highly exaggerated. In its own way, it was “fake news” that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm. I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House.

I discovered in my interactions with him over the years that he is manipulative, yet extraordinarily easy to manipulate. He has an unfillable compliment hole. No amount is too much. Flatter him and he is compliant. World leaders, including apparently Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, have discovered that too.

I also found Trump remarkably thin-skinned. He aggressively goes after those who critique him and seeks retribution. That’s not very businesslike – and it’s certainly not presidential. This week, he threatened to use the National Guard against Americans who oppose him, calling them the “enemy from within.”

I learned early on in my dealings with Trump that he thought he could simply say something over and over, and eventually people would believe it. He would say to me, “‘The Apprentice’ – America’s No. 1 TV show.” But it wasn’t. Not that week. Not that season. I had the ratings in front of me. He had seen and heard the ratings, but that didn’t matter. He just kept saying it was the “No. 1 show on television,” even after we corrected him. He repeated it on press tours too, knowing full well it was wrong. He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either.

...

 

subscription jumping

Unsurprisingly common given the expense 

snip

...

Americans are getting increasingly impulsive about hitting the cancellation button on their streaming services. More than 29 million — about a quarter of domestic paying streaming subscribers — have canceled three or more services over the last two years, according to Antenna, a subscription research firm. And the numbers are rising fast.

The data suggests a sharp shift in consumer behavior — far from the cable era, when viewers largely stuck with a single provider, as well as the early days of the so-called streaming wars, when people kept adding services without culling or jumping around.

Among these nomadic subscribers, some are taking advantage of how easy it is, with a monthly contract and simple click of a button, to hopscotch from one service to the next. Indeed, these users can be fickle — a third of them resubscribe to the canceled service within six months, according to Antenna’s research.

...

 

for dr who fans

Noted by  serious fan Dewayne - a history of the sonic screwdriver

dr who music

a tip of the hat to Dwayne<br.

 

pay per view tv 75 years ago

Zenith had a proposal for "pay as you look" television with their Phone Vision system.

 

a strike victim

Amazon cancels Peripheral despite having renewed it. Many others, particularly the expensive ones, will probably follow.

a tip of the hat to John