If you know what to do you can certainly hijack many TV broadcasts even today, and thanks to destaffing and automation they won’t be noticed or blocked for a long time.
The Max Headroom Incident
91–100 of 208 posts
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
As someone who was online in 1987, I've found the internet significantly less enjoyable as it has become filled with "regular people", hoping to share the knowledge they don't have with people who didn't ask for it in the first place. While I get what you're saying, there was also a time and place where you could wonder aloud how to do $technical_thing_x on $platform_y and get a knowledgable, competent response from…
or go to HN, and ask.
don't ask, simply answer the question you have wrong.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#93It's always fascinating seeing the internet catalog and consolidate knowledge, especially regarding events that occurred pre-internet. Back when these events happened, a blurb appeared on TV news and in papers, but there was no easy way to get the big picture as the investigations evolved.
I love that the Internet allows closure on pre-Internet mysteries that might not have been practically solvable before.
I recently managed to track down some people online and between us we solved a late 90s mystery that would have been very annoying to solve back then and had bugged me for over 20 years. Closure is such a beautiful thing.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're really reaching here. The prank was awesome, and you're generalizing pranks to being an asshole. If you're embarrassed by a prank like this as an adult that doesn't make you mature; it makes you boring. Nobody got hurt so how was anyone an asshole?
For one, the parent alluded to pranks they did in the past, of which we know nothing about and I expect many of which were more asshole than they were awesome. The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused…
I fear that I will reach retirement never having had a day at work that will be as memorable or interesting as the one some of these TV people had.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I could not care less about people having their TV programming interrupted, and everybody has had shitty days at work Yet you feel it is somehow contributing to the world to intentionally create shitty days at work and not give a shit about people trying to enjoy what they're watching? > I think we're just two people that would hate each other in real life and leave it at that Yeah, I generally don't like people wh…
And I don't like pearl clutchers who shit on others for having fun because they don't know how to have it themselves. Jesus dude, develop a sense of humor. You'll enjoy life more. The part you're failing to understand is that from my perspective you are the person making the world a worse place. I understand why you don't like me, but you don't seem to understand why some people don't like you. Anyway, like I said be…
I could ask the same of you: develop some empathy and shame, but it would seem that you don't really care about others so long as you are entertained. More charitably, I imagine that you care at least a little bit, you just think the entertainment value to you outweighs any inconvenience it caused others to the extent that no one should feel at all embarrassed by having behaved that way. I disagree.
> you don't seem to understand why some people don't like you.
Dude, I don't even like me, so I get why people don't. Most of them I do not begrudge. My problem with you specifically is that what you don't like is that I refuse to say it is ok to mess with people you don't know for fun.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
For one, the parent alluded to pranks they did in the past, of which we know nothing about and I expect many of which were more asshole than they were awesome. The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused…
I fear that I will reach retirement never having had a day at work that will be as memorable or interesting as the one some of these TV people had.
Trust me, after a few "interesting" days at work you will think differently.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#97Of all the conspiracy theories out there, this one, to me, has the highest coverage-to-interestingness ratio. It just seems like a teen hacked an AV system and did a goofy presentation. I'm surprised that type of thing isn't more common, and I'm befuddled as to why this one gets so much attention.
It's a fair question. I find it fascinating just because of how freaking weird the videos are. If it was just some boring "Joe Sucks" message, it wouldn't be interesting, but instead it's a bunch of dumb random stuff, with the surreal VO and swirling background (corrugated metal?!) and flyswatter and... what? I just want to know what they were /trying/ to do. What was their beef with WGN? There's quite a lot of inten…
The rotating corrugated metal was a clever practical simulation of the CGI background the character from the TV show was composited on top of.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fear that I will reach retirement never having had a day at work that will be as memorable or interesting as the one some of these TV people had.
Trust me, after a few "interesting" days at work you will think differently.
Well, with less than 20 years of my working life left, I'd like to have one
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
For one, the parent alluded to pranks they did in the past, of which we know nothing about and I expect many of which were more asshole than they were awesome. The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused…
Well, it didn't happen in the middle of the night, so nobody got woken up in the middle of the night. You need more joy in your life if you see this as an asshole move.
11:15PM is not the middle of the night? I know I'm old and all, but that's not exactly the middle of the work day either.
> You need more joy in your life if you see this as an asshole move.
Everybody seems to think I'm joyless because I think people need to be more considerate of the negative externalities of fucking pranks. No wonder the world is going to shit.
Re: The Max Headroom Incident
#100Anything new here from the hundred other posts? Some previous discussions: 2 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611551 6 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038 4 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16816663
It's almost like we running out of stuff to talk about?