On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:07:25 -0800, Rich Grise
wrote:

Denis G. wrote:

This week?s NOVA is about micro-technology including something about
pill-cameras (recently discussed here). It is the second show of the
4-part ?Making Stuff? series (Stronger, Smaller, Cleaner and
Smarter). Next week's show features Jay Leno, his collection of cars
and new car and energy technology. A local PBS radio show, I follow,
interviewed the show?s host, David Pogue (a NY Times science
correspondent). He mentioned one funny thing about the pillcam that
was probably an aside to the TV broadcast (I haven?t seen it yet).
Doctors instruct patients that when the pill-cam completes it?s
?journey?, they don?t have to worry about it and can flush it down the
toilet. Yet when they review the video, they will often see a hand
fishing it out of the toilet and fingers busily washing the camera off
with soap and water. gross, but funny

I was a lot more disappointed with that show than most people probably
were. Even more so than I expected to be.

NOVA and Nature (George Page's baby, RIP sniffle) used to be much
better shows. Political correctness and less intelligence crept in.


Early in the show, they're doing a bit on wris****ches. He does a brief
thumbnail history of the pendulum, which he calls an "oscillator," and
when you see a close-up of an escapement, he's still calling it the
"oscillator." Then, he segues into making clocks not need a pendulum,
and he says the answer was a "mainspring."

Well, that's just crap. The revolutionary thing wasn't the "mainspring,"
they'd been running stuff off springs for decades if not centuries! The
_real_ revolution in chronometry came with the _hairspring_ and the
balance wheel, which didn't even get mentioned!

At that point, I thought, man if they're that stupid this early in the
show, how credible is anything else he tells me?

Hey, they have to dumb it down so everyone who didn't graduate from
what they graciously call "schools" here now could understand it.


And when they got to the segment about silicon chips, after about the
third time the guy said, "siliKAHN" I wanted to strangle him.

Um, silicon is pronounced "silikahn" while silicone is pronounced
"silicone". Silicon (chips) is elemental while silicone (rubber stuff)
is a manmade compound. Pronunciation differs. Whassamattayou?


Thanks for the opportunity to vent; I feel much better now. :-)

Heavier now, I presume?

--
Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come
alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs
is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman