Television Channels of the World

[Trollio]

This may be of no interest to anyone whatsoever, but I cannot wait for the day when the television channels of the world are offered to all consumers in the same way one can buy cheese.
 
 With today's technology there is no reason why we can't just go up to the TV and call up any channel we want, anywhere in the world. (Resolution issues are pretty much a thing of the past with digital conversion.) The signals are all there, all the time, available to the giant dish at your cable company. Why should that company "package" something for you that you can just as easily choose for yourself?
 
 (the answer is the existence of a labyrinth of domestic and international contractual agreements that would make a bird's nest look like a straight line, but that's bound to change at some point)
 
 500+ channels of pap are no different really than 1000 channels which would include the opportunity to watch some truly amazing things, even if you don't understand the languages.
 
 That's my issue for the day.  

[weird al]

It would be a real kick to be able to watch Donald Duck in Japanese. On acid. And other, more serious things too, of course.

[Sportsdude]

just give me the bbc world news, all the british programming, all the canadian channels and maybe some austrailian channels and I'll be fine.

[Trollio]

An example of what I mean:
 
 When I was in Africa, there was a sitcom about a man who was trying to find a way to fix the overhead light in his aluminium shack. That was it. Thirty minutes about this damned shack with a power problem. But that's not the best part. After that, the commercial that followed was for a "doctor" who, in a respectable shirt and tie, offered up a steaming potion in a goblet to patients as a cure for all sorts of ailments.
 
 If I had not seen it myself, I would have thought it was something out of a cartoon.
 
 The world is full of gloriously strange things.