Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed for August 11, 2022

You have no idea how right you were.

In Europe there’s lots of free content from satellites and you don’t need a disk that big to receive it. Don’t they have that in the US, or was it just back then?

Yeah. It’s called abortion.

Somehow back when, I used aluminum foil to get HBO badly. Broke down and paid for it after a few times.

The more things change, the more things stay the same.

From the old “You might be a Redneck” series: “You might be a Redneck if you put your satellite dish out front because it costs more than your trailer.”

Idea was the cable netwrks beamed their channels back to earth for rebroadcast by all the local cable networks. Little did they know that small “startups” would find a way to make earth stations relative cheap, and homeowners snapped them up. Once they started scrambling the signal, the thing with Oliver and his dad was a real.

“Just desserts”? Is he pirating the Food Network?

Theft has often been the basis of economies. Ransom works, too.

This is the 1980’s. You want to talk about fascism, wait about 30 years. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

We are constantly surrounded by frequencies: radio; tv; cell phones; radiation; etc. I’ve always felt that if I can somehow build a device that let’s me see / hear / visualize these frequencies that bombard me, more power to me. I guess that puts me philosophically among the ‘pirates’.

Funny way back then, funny now!

Republican Christian Anarcichists?

People spent a lot of money on planned obsolescence.

In those early days, people could get raw feed from sporting events and things. So during the commercial breaks, you’d just hear the announcers just talking among themselves. A guy at work had a big dish, he lived way out in the country. He subscribed to a newsletter (back when such things were sent by mail) with the latest descrambling tips and equipment diagrams and such.

It doesn’t get any better, Oliver. Just more expensive….