The Exigent Duality
Talent Going Backwards - 13:10 CST, 12/28/20 (Sniper)
Hit the 1992 "Computer Bowl" episodes, and for that year's event they had a live satellite feed to Xerox PARC, a second live satellite feed to Microsoft's headquarters, ear piece communication to Stewart Cheifet, plus more than a dozen microphones, all working at the same time, with zero delay in getting them working initially, and continuous, flawless, uninterrupted functioning for well over an hour-- all of which was simultaneously being broadcast on television.

Can you imagine them trying to do that with today's technology? "Can you hear us? No? Check your microphone, is it muted? Ok, we still can't hear you. Oh oh, the feed just dropped, let's see if they can reconnect. What happened over on this other screen now? Video feed two just went dark, are you there? Sorry, now it got all garbled, I couldn't make out your answer."

It's sort of like the constant battles I've been waging with HDMI over the past ten-plus years: sometimes the handshake doesn't work, or there are bugs in television firmware, or who knows what else. S-video from my Sega Saturn, by contrast? Always works. Or how about modern phones, with their insistence on employing touch screens, versus the reliability of physical keyboards? I once read that a new American aircraft carrier uses a touch screen on its bridge, and I will not be at all surprised if it winds up launching missiles at its own allies by accident, or drives into a barrier reef.

In other news, apparently the State wants to send me another thousands of dollars, I think it's over four grand now. Imagine people on an island, where no one is producing food, but the king keeps shoveling them money: what are they supposed to eat, the paper? At this phase I have more cash than I even know what to do with, but a country socially, economically, and politically collapsing around me. This is how Zimbabwe went: at least with this new money I'll be all set with toilet paper for awhile, even if it does turn my butt green.