Jesus and Paul
I think this country is getting hung up on Jesus. There have been at least two television programs, a brand new movie, and a whole host of older movies about Jesus recently. There even was a tabloid story! ("The 13th Apostle was an Idiot!") The latest was a program hosted by Peter Jennings tonight on Jesus and Paul. I get the impression that Paul caused most of the problems with Christianity. Jesus said, “Turn the other cheek”. Paul said to turn back the heathen. Jesus sought to heal people. Paul said that unless one followed a life of Jesus, one will go to Hell, thereby turning God into the Devil, as if there is such a thing as evil, then certainly sending souls to Hell is evil. Eventually the corrupt Roman Empire took over the religion, and when it did so it promptly split in half. So this was a deal that went off the wrong foot the moment that Jesus hung from the cross. Peter Jennings did a good report, but we should be focusing on things like the ill effects of the War on Iraq, global warming, the upcoming oil shortage, and the Bush administration’s assault on civil liberties instead of what someone did or did not do about 2000 years ago.
I will go even further. This fixation on Jesus is a sign that our society is still in the Third Turning; that the Fourth Turning has not arrived yet. It is an example of the unraveling of our society.
A Journey through Blogrealm
Blogtrek
Blogtrek
2004/04/05
SAP causes problems
I have heard of SAP, the arrangement on TVs and cable companies by which a TV show in English can be shown with a Spanish track. Today I found out about a misuse of this feature by a PBS station, WXXI in Rochester, New York, Channel 21, or 11 on a local cable system (might as well call it WXI). We tried to tune into the MacNeil-Lehrer report tonight, 2004 April 5 1900, but could not get it properly. The picture of MacNeil-Lehrer came out OK, but the sound was that of NPR, National Public Radio, instead! They did not even go well with each other. One was about Iraq, the other about biological viruses. This caused us to go to all sorts of measures to try to correct the problem. I called the station only to find out it was closed, but they give an option 6001, in which a recorded voice on the phone told how to correct the problem. Do this, and then do that, and then do this other rigmarole, and so forth. It was so voluminous and fast that it was useless; I could not digest it fast enough. So I went to their Web site and found a comment at the bottom of one page that said that if this happens, you may have SAP or MTS set. Actually they said that to get the NPR AM station, 1370 KHz, on the TV, set SAP or MTS. So I went to the TV and banged around. I found that pressing “settings” gives a menu item that said "disable SAP". So I did that. That corrected the problem.
The problem arose initially because on 2004 April 3 we could find absolutely no way of setting the VCR and TV clock to daylight saving time. Timer and date showed up in the menus, but no clock. In banging around for how to set the time, I must have accidentally set SAP.
So I found not one but two user-unfriendly features of both the cable system and PBS. PBS should have simply said, "turn off SAP". Not disable SAP. When I leave a room, do I disable the light, huhh? I could have found that. Further, these systems should allow the user to set DST. This is what users expect. If the system does it all for us (I call this McDonald’s Syndrome), then we will be searching endlessly for how to do it for ourselves, a waste of time. These systems need to be clearer about these items. They should allow you to set the time to what you want, and SAP should be restricted to its original purpose. Use it for Spanish, not for AM radio.
I have heard of SAP, the arrangement on TVs and cable companies by which a TV show in English can be shown with a Spanish track. Today I found out about a misuse of this feature by a PBS station, WXXI in Rochester, New York, Channel 21, or 11 on a local cable system (might as well call it WXI). We tried to tune into the MacNeil-Lehrer report tonight, 2004 April 5 1900, but could not get it properly. The picture of MacNeil-Lehrer came out OK, but the sound was that of NPR, National Public Radio, instead! They did not even go well with each other. One was about Iraq, the other about biological viruses. This caused us to go to all sorts of measures to try to correct the problem. I called the station only to find out it was closed, but they give an option 6001, in which a recorded voice on the phone told how to correct the problem. Do this, and then do that, and then do this other rigmarole, and so forth. It was so voluminous and fast that it was useless; I could not digest it fast enough. So I went to their Web site and found a comment at the bottom of one page that said that if this happens, you may have SAP or MTS set. Actually they said that to get the NPR AM station, 1370 KHz, on the TV, set SAP or MTS. So I went to the TV and banged around. I found that pressing “settings” gives a menu item that said "disable SAP". So I did that. That corrected the problem.
The problem arose initially because on 2004 April 3 we could find absolutely no way of setting the VCR and TV clock to daylight saving time. Timer and date showed up in the menus, but no clock. In banging around for how to set the time, I must have accidentally set SAP.
So I found not one but two user-unfriendly features of both the cable system and PBS. PBS should have simply said, "turn off SAP". Not disable SAP. When I leave a room, do I disable the light, huhh? I could have found that. Further, these systems should allow the user to set DST. This is what users expect. If the system does it all for us (I call this McDonald’s Syndrome), then we will be searching endlessly for how to do it for ourselves, a waste of time. These systems need to be clearer about these items. They should allow you to set the time to what you want, and SAP should be restricted to its original purpose. Use it for Spanish, not for AM radio.
Abilene Paradox
Something that has caught my interest recently is the Abilene Paradox. This is the story about a foursome who were taking it easy on a hot Texas afternoon when they got the idea of going to Abilene to eat, and each of them thought the others wanted it so they went along, but actually none of them did! This is a failure of communication. If you ask a woman to dance with you because you think you should and the woman accepts to please you even though she does not want to dance with you, then you are dancing with her to Abilene. If you agree to a suspense date with someone else at week even though you don’t think it can be made, and the other people agree so as not to seem odd even though they don’t think they can make it either, then the deadline will be in Abilene. It is a gross miscommunication. My idea so far has been to avoid dealing with people who take me to Abilene.
I suppose the way to deal with it is to double down with others and tell what you really want regardless. That is hard to do.
Something that has caught my interest recently is the Abilene Paradox. This is the story about a foursome who were taking it easy on a hot Texas afternoon when they got the idea of going to Abilene to eat, and each of them thought the others wanted it so they went along, but actually none of them did! This is a failure of communication. If you ask a woman to dance with you because you think you should and the woman accepts to please you even though she does not want to dance with you, then you are dancing with her to Abilene. If you agree to a suspense date with someone else at week even though you don’t think it can be made, and the other people agree so as not to seem odd even though they don’t think they can make it either, then the deadline will be in Abilene. It is a gross miscommunication. My idea so far has been to avoid dealing with people who take me to Abilene.
I suppose the way to deal with it is to double down with others and tell what you really want regardless. That is hard to do.
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