New Science Cable Channel

[Raug]

Read the story here.

Most people will find it boring to the point of coma-inducing, I'm sure, but I thought a few of you might be interested in it. I like the concept, and America could certainly do with more things like this.

[Jeff V]

Read the story here.

Most people will find it boring to the point of coma-inducing, I'm sure, but I thought a few of you might be interested in it. I like the concept, and America could certainly do with more things like this.

Great, in 20 years, maybe worthless Comcast will consider carrying it.

They just started carrying the SciFi channel about a month ago.

I still remember the day when The Discovery Channel had science programs. I can't even remember now the last time they had anything worth watching.

[Kraken]

It's a great idea, but I'll bet it quickly gets dumbed down for audience share. Discovery Channel is a good example.

[EngineNo9]

Read the story here.

Most people will find it boring to the point of coma-inducing, I'm sure, but I thought a few of you might be interested in it. I like the concept, and America could certainly do with more things like this.

Great, in 20 years, maybe worthless Comcast will consider carrying it.

They just started carrying the SciFi channel about a month ago.

I still remember the day when The Discovery Channel had science programs. I can't even remember now the last time they had anything worth watching.

I'm not sure where you live (obviously "nowhere I want to be") but in my area Comcast has carried Sci-Fi for as long as I've been here (5 years).

[Zathras]

I get adelphia, and it's doubtful that it will be added to their lineup anytime soon. If it does they'll stick it somewhere in their digital cable lineup, which I don't get at the moment.

That won't happen unless I hear that the new Dr Who is going to be carried on BBC America.

[The Meal]

It's a great idea, but I'll bet it quickly gets dumbed down for audience share. Discovery Channel is a good example.

Discovery Channel is an *excellent* example of what I hope this new station does not become. I seriously doubt that the type of science channel I'd enjoy watching could ever bring in enough advertising revenues to be self-sustaining. There are too many doors which advertisers would prefer science not open (and here I'm thinking not only tobacco, alcohol, the food industry {watched Supersize Me this weekend - very entertaining in the pseudo-documentary way that is becoming popularized lately}). As I'm growing older I am becoming less and less hopeful that there is a good match for a free-market capitolistic system and science to overlap. Science is a good fit for the government expendatures (if one believes that the government isn't just in the mega-corporations' pockets, of course).

Now *technology*, there's an excellent fit for our FM/Cap system.

Too bad so much of one is needed to accomplish the other. The checks-and-balances of our system amost ensure too much friction in the system to keep us advancing science at anywhere close to an optimal rate. Eddy X, is there room for me on your pinko commie anarchistic boat? Oh wait, you're not just a pinko-commie -- that blasted anarchy part would torpedo my advancement of science about a hundred percent more effectively.

Gah! Back to Rise and Rule for me...

~Neal

[LordMortis]

Too bad so much of one is needed to accomplish the other. The checks-and-balances of our system amost ensure too much friction in the system to keep us advancing science at anywhere close to an optimal rate. Eddy X, is there room for me on your pinko commie anarchistic boat? Oh wait, you're not just a pinko-commie -- that blasted anarchy part would torpedo my advancement of science about a hundred percent more effectively.

I gots to part ways with you here. I hear this all of the time, but I can't understand why the lack funding of scientific curiosity is any worse than the lack of funding for the arts or any other not profitable intellectual pursuit. If resources were inifinate and available on demand, I'd be all about it, but they aren't.

That said, I also miss the more scientific (and humanities) days of the discovery/science channel. The days of James Burke on that channel were really the days when it was at it's peak, IMO. I also miss the same thing from PBS. Nova and Cosmos used to totally rock. What youse guys need to do is come up with dynamic personalities to sell your shows, that others can be made to see the pleasure at what you find as inately pleasurable. This is whey Burke and Sagan were the whipshit. Not because, of their genius, per se, but because they could make you empathize with their passion and actually see the beauty of the puzzle through their eyes.

[The Meal]

I gots to part ways with you here. I hear this all of the time, but I can't understand why the lack funding of scientific curiosity is any worse than the lack of funding for the arts or any other not profitable intellectual pursuit. If resources were inifinate and available on demand, I'd be all about it, but they aren't.

I don't know that we're parting ways. Science and Art are lumped together in the same College at every University I've ever heard of. And while the two soothe different itches within my brain, they're both accomplishing the same thing for humanity.

~Neal

[LordMortis]

I don't know that we're parting ways. Science and Art are lumped together in the same College at every University I've ever heard of. And while the two soothe different itches within my brain, they're both accomplishing the same thing for humanity.

The parting of ways is, that while I am big supporter of the arts (and give what I can) and think it is a shame that they are not funded in such a way as to let them flourish, I also don't think they aren't so important for public funding when compared sanitation, the police, or even things I am less likely to support like helping the homeless get to a better situation in life or nationalized heath care. There simply isn't enough to go around.