Caltrops - Peter Molyneux's The Movies





	[quote name="Tansin A. Darcos (TDARCOS)"]Comcast likes to run a "weekly required" test of the Emergency Alert System, the successor to the Emergency Broadcast System, but it seems like their "weekly" EAS test occurs every other goddam day! And the worst thing about it they don't either tailor the event to a reasonable time so as not to interrupt normal programming, or perhaps use a warning or knowledge of a commercial break to cut in with the test. Oh no, it's got to be in the middle of the fucking program! At least when TV stations ran an EBS test, they did it between programs, they didn't simply break the program, insert an EBS test, then go back to the program having blacked out two minutes of the show! Plus it's like the claim from the 1960s <i>The Outer Limits</i>: [quote]There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. [/quote]Maybe it's only two minutes, but when Comcast runs an EAS test, it probably <i>feels</i> like it's an hour; the test consists of a blank screen and nothing else, the only reason you know it's an EAS test and not that the cable has gone into some sync lock or some failure is that if you look at the cable box you can see the channel number is "EAS". Plus, since it's an emergency system you can't change channels, which wouldn't matter anyway because when EAS is activated, it replaces everything on every channel on the cable system and you can't change the channel until they let you go. Plus this interferes with recognition of serious non-test events when they want to tell you something, because the EAS tests are so commonplace and so irritating that they're liable not to get noticed. About ten minutes after the EAS test they did a day or two they ran a <i>second</i> EAS transmission not as a test (but still with no audio), in which an EAS announcement was ordered by WTOP-FM radio, the local news station, to announce a tornado watch or warning for Prince George's County, MD. Now, that, I could understand, that's a serious and important announcement, but because all it consisted of was a text screen - Comcast never runs the alert tone - I suspect it's likely to be ignored, which, when it's not a test like that one, that is the absolute worse thing that could happen. Maybe it's the best thing Maybe it's the best thing For you But it's the worst that could happen To me - <i>The Brooklyn Bridge</i> [/quote]