Technology Corner #2

Today I'll be addressing a subject I get a lot of questions about, the likes of which I'm tired of answering individually.

High Definition - Why is it Important to Spend Your Money on It?

There are many things America does better than other countries: cars, electronics, healthcare, everything. But there are a few things that America does much better than other countries: television, action movies, and commercial radio. Throughout the history of their existence these three forms of American entertainment were a glorious privilege to enjoy, but within the past twenty years the falling costs of consumer electronics made it possible for just about anyone with a ratty knit-cap and a week’s-worth of food stamps to buy a television or radio and enjoy the cherished media past-times of the wealthy. Fortunately some of the most educated and maladjusted of this country – engineers – have been hard at work coming up with ways to make the media we already love even better and – more importantly – costlier. Enter High Definition.
High Definition (abbreviated HD) is a term that describes a variety of things. Most commonly known is its application to television (HDTV), but DVD’s and radio both have HD improvements available for those with discerning tastes and American Dollars. I won’t bore you with precise technical details, as their relevance to this particular article is limited, but suffice it to say that by adding High Definition to any given form of media its overall quality is vastly improved. Sounds get louder, visuals get more vivid, and those with the assets to invest in the equipment necessary to enjoy these improvements are rewarded for their contributions to the economy and for their successes in the Game of Capitalism.
High Definition Radio is probably the least-known of all the high definition options available to rich consumers. Basically, HD Radio is like the radio that poor people listen to, except its audio fidelity is much higher and you won’t accidentally stumble on any troublesome Spanish-only stations because they don’t exist on HD Radios, and I think we all know why. HD Radio broadcasts are all-digital, and require special HD Radio capable equipment in order to be enjoyed. Personally I’ve never taken the time to listen to HD radio, because I am a purist and will only enjoy music if it’s coming from something that was pressed on 180 gram vinyl, but I’m sure for radio-enthusiasts the Higher Definition is the only way to really enjoy the sounds of the (expensive) airwaves.
DVD’s have also received HD upgrades, but at the moment there is a bit of a catch to the whole affair: two different kinds of High Definition DVD media have emerged: Sony’s Blu-Ray format, and Toshiba’s HD-DVD. Both offer better picture quality and greater capacity for data storage than traditional DVD’s, and both require more expensive equipment in order to be utilized. As to which is better, well, that remains to be seen. Sony, in a valiant attempt to lock the unwashed out of the luxury of HD, decided to include Blu-Ray in their most recent and admirably-priced videogame console, the PS3. However, due to Sony’s decade of dominance in the videogame console market there is a large amount of brand loyalty to be found among the lower-income gamers of this country, a fact that’s soiled the perception that both the educated and the wealthy have of Sony. It’s for this reason that I support HD-DVD, with the added benefit that America’s Best Company also backs this format, ensuring that no ill will come from its adoption.
Finally, there’s High Definition Television. HDTV is, without a doubt, the most important thing to happen to the entertainment industry since movies started to talk. HDTV is like regular TV, but better in every imaginable way. HD replaces the antiquated and mathematically uncomfortable 4:3 aspect ratio of standard definition (SD) television with God’s Intended Widescreen (aspect ratio 16:9) and ups the resolution of the image viewers see by a significant amount.
You might be uncertain as to whether or not the improvements offered by High Definition justify the costs one has to pay in order to enjoy them. Here’s a hint: stop wondering, start buying. If you can’t afford the luxury of enjoying The Shield in glorious 1080p then I don’t want you taking up bandwidth that could be better used by somebody of Means by reading this blog.

The U.S. Military - Who is its Target Demographic?

Recently, the Grimary Gource was attending a screening of the film Ocean's Thirteen (the Gource has attended every movie that's preceded by a trailer for Die Hard Day's Night). While waiting for the telltale sounds of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (and ninth-best, as far as the Gource is concerned), I was forced to sit through an ad for the U.S. military. Here are some screenshots:



"Like playing video games?"










"Unable to afford college?"















"Join the army, do stuff that's sort of like playing a video game..."








"...We'll pay for college."



















"There's strong, then there's..."












This is, of course, appalling. This sort of mass-marketing is designed to appeal to the ignorant and the underfed. That is not the sort of person we need defending our borders from terrorist Mexicans. What we need is an army made up of brilliant young people who are also extremely strong and aerodynamic. Here I am thinking of an army of Jack Bauers.
Like many other like-minded and strong persons, the writers (and readers) of the Gource avoid contact with simpletons and the poor. The best way to attract the Gource type is to push away those who would be easily influenced by advertising. So, once again, the Grimary Gource has the solution: a mass advertising campaign designed to make the military look unappealing. Here is the premiere of the best possible recruiting poster:

Strength for now, a coffin for later.

Illnesses - Why Do We Tolerate Them?

Once, when I was a youth, I had chicken pox. I was out of school for some time, and missed a great deal of my first-grade education. When I returned, Gax Gravitz, a plucky boy who has since grown up to develop military-themed video games and other wastes of time (why not just join the military and get paid to shoot at things?) was far ahead of me in his schoolwork; I wouldn't catch up to him until the summer between first- and second-grade, when he taught me what negative numbers were (along with parallel parking, this proved to be information that I would never find useful outside of the educational sphere).

The lesson I learned from this experience was that illness is a fairly disastrous thing to experience; I was never sick again. My body also learned to fight off sickness: I spent a great deal of time around people with chicken pox in the years that followed, but my immune system refused to accept any germs (just as The Gource refuses to accept the germ theory).
We should demand the same from all Americans. When I read recently that there was an international panic related to the travels of a man infected with tuberculosis, I could only shake my head in shame. First of all, this man should not have tuberculosis. It is a disgusting, vile disease that infects only the morally questionable and discarded weak.
That notwithstanding, now we have a man who has a disease, and there's nothing that we can really do about that. My initial question was: why are people with diseases allowed to travel? Why do they hold jobs alongside upstanding, TB-free citizens? How did the HIV containment policies of the 80's go awry? The Gource was ready to recommend a series of privately-funded "hospitals," which would operate more like prisons in the sense that nobody would be allowed to leave or come in contact with the outside world.
This thought only lasted for a moment. With the way illegal immigrants are claiming every available unoccupied spot of land for their own welfare receiving needs, we really do not have the space to build these "hospitals." Furthermore, why would Americans want people with diseases (The Gource calls them "sickfaces") in our country at all?
So The Gource is, as always, ready to help out and offer a clean and easy solution. First, our national tourism boards should start heavily advertising foreign travel for sickfaces ("Other Countries Have Free Health Care for Tourists!" [actually, Michael Moore's upcoming travesty should serve this purpose nicely]). Once all the sick people have left the country, we close our borders completely. This will keep out sickfaces, illegal immigrants, and sick illegal immigrants (by far, the lowest type of person that exists on earth). In short, America will once again be the strong, proud, Healthy nation our forefathers created.