OMG. Aliens don’t know that MJ is dead, who’s winning “So You Think You Can Dance,” and are not going to see Glee this fall on FOX!! And it’s all the U.S. governments fault for not selling DTV converter boxes in space. Damn you government.
A senior astronomer at the SETI Institute writes that there may be “zillions of viewers who might not have a converter box or a digital-ready TV–namely, the aliens.”
That’s right: extraterrestrials who might be picking up our analog broadcasts could miss out. Ever since the Second World War, television signals (as well as FM radio and radar) have served as Homo sapiens’ emissaries into deep space. High-frequency, high-power broadcasts have filled an Earth-centered bubble more than 60 light-years in radius with signals. If there are any aliens nearby, they would have been hard-pressed to find trilobites, dinosaurs, or even the Greeks and Romans. But, thanks to “I Love Lucy,” they could find you – or at least your parents.
This is a serious matter. However, we now all know who voted for Sanjaya on American Idol a few years back and who was watching King of the Hill all these years.
via Space.com