Minh’s Notes

After I introduced the HeadSprout back in April, several people asked me how I came up with the idea of a bike- and head-mounted digital television system. The best answer I could give was that a TV antenna and a bike helmet found themselves both in my field of vision at the same time.

The other day, I read a BBC Magazine article asking a teenager to trade his iPod for a Walkman for a week. Feeling nostalgic as I always do, I went rummaging through a drawer at home and found my old Sony Watchman. Slightly before my time, portable TV gadgets were all the rage. At some point, my family purchased an FD-250 model, probably at Sears, and it became my favorite toy growing up.

The Watchman FD-250 has the size and weight of a small book, but the antenna extends well over a foot.

The Watchman was my poor-man’s introduction to DXing. Whenever my family took a summer road trip, I’d bring the device along with me and tune in to various stations along the way, collecting their call letters as we entered large metropolitan areas. On the way to New Orleans, I would pick up numerous Louisville, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Birmingham stations this way.

It still works, after you pop in a fresh battery or two. The first thing you notice is how much consumer electronics have changed within just twenty-odd years. Get it? Watchman, Walkman? You know, Walkman, predecessor to the CD player? Like large MP3 players? Um, before iPods?

The Watchman’s screen is angled downward and pincushioned inward. Shown here is some old movie on channel 38. Even if you watched it on a state-of-the-art digital TV, it’d still be in black-and-white, so no loss here.

This particular Watchman model had a black-and-white CRT display. Actually, to give the device a less awkward form factor, the screen is just a mirror, angled to reflect the image produced by the CRT tube (below the screen in the photos). The fact that the screen is black-and-white shouldn’t be that surprising: in the early 1990s, you could still find plenty of full-size, black-and-white TV sets at family-run electronics stores (another relic of that decade).

Since nearly all Cincinnati-area stations stopped broadcasting in analog sometime last month, the Watchman can only receive three stations: WLWT 5, the Cincinnati NBC affiliate; WKEF 22, the Dayton ABC affiliate; and WBQC 38, an independent station in Cincinnati that airs kung-fu movies and similar fare. As a low-power station, WBQC isn’t required to give up their analog signal yet, while the other two are airing nothing but DTV infomercials in a federally-mandated loop. The reception isn’t spectacular in any case – unidirectional VHF antennae never work well this far out from the city – but the Watchman was built for mobility, not kung-fu movies.

If I had the right cables, I could restore the Watchman to full working condition by hooking a converter box up to its A/V In jack. Then I could watch digital TV in glorious black-and-white, and it would be plenty more convenient than HeadSprout. But that’s a project for another day.

Entry №2191, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 8:59 AM | Edit | Permalink
Categories: Gems, Television | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (1)

For the past three months, I along with five partners have toiled in stealth mode to build a disruptive product that will revolutionize media consumption as we know it, by synergizing television watching with bicycle riding. Leveraging unparalleled loyalties to both recreational activities, it is our intent to forge a new market based on mobile multimedia and capitalize upon emerging opportunities.

In short: we have developed the HeadSprout, the world’s first fully-integrated bike- and head-mounted digital television system.

Continue reading "Introducing the HeadSprout" »

Entry №2079, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 9:30 PM | Edit | Permalink
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Up-front values: At least Conservapedia makes no attempt at hiding its colors. (Based on Wikipedia logo under fair use for non-profit commentary.)

A new free, online, collaboratively-written encyclopedia – sound familiar? – claims that Democrats have “a true agenda of cowering to terrorism [and] treasonous anti-Americanism”. At least it did last Sunday.

Conservapedia describes itself as an answer to the “increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American” Wikipedia. You’ll notice that its front page features a red, white, and blue color scheme. Guided by six commandments – “I give you ten – six, six commandments!” – the project takes hard-line stances on pressing issues like the use of BC and AD (as opposed to BCE and CE) and American English (as opposed to the Commonwealth varieties). Wikipedia has more of a “status quo” guideline, suggesting the use of whatever is already being used or whatever makes sense for the topic.

The project’s description of Democrats is somewhat less provocative now, framing cowardice and anti-Americanism as claims by “right-wing critics”. Wikipedia would advise against the use of such “weasel words” unless “accompanied by a citation that supports the claim”. Well, at least there are citations. Conservapedia backs up its claim of “cowering to terrorism” with a link to an Associated Press article about opposition to the TSA’s passenger databases:

For four years, the government has used a computerized system to give a risk assessment to nearly everyone entering or leaving the country by land, sea or air. Homeland Security intends to keep the files for 40 years.

Leahy is also outraged that people on the list have no way of knowing they’re on it, can’t see the information, and can’t challenge it. Leahy said there need to be privacy safeguards in place.

Its claim of “treasonous anti-Americanism” cites a CNN transcript about the party’s opposition to tax cuts. Nowhere in either of these articles are cowardice or treason mentioned, much less alleged; these articles are used merely as “examples”. At least they recognize the legitimacy of CNN.

My hope is that Conservapedia will remain nothing more than a novelty. There’s no problem with creating a fork of Wikipedia, but you can’t eliminate bias by promoting the opposite bias. That just gets you two equally biased, equally wrong, and equally disgusted camps. Calling themselves an “encyclopedia you can trust”, the project’s creators believe they’re doing students a favor, by educating them. But if a part of that service consists of convincing a student that China’s One-Child Policy is fundamentally Communist support of abortion, what they’re doing is a travesty.

Thanks to Neil Turner, who got the scoop from The Guardian.

Entry №1099, posted by Minh Nguyễn at 5:20 PM | Edit | Permalink
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