# The Quantum History Channel is On The Air! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 2, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986 "2008-01-02T14:15:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/1 "2008-01-02T14:15:44Z")
Recently I have been appointed the Program Director for the Quantum History Channel, which specialized in historical programs from nearby alternate and/or parallel dimensions. So, what programming would you suggest? For my first coup, I’m rebroadcasting The Royal New York Opera’s Bicentennial performance of Death of a Rebellion, in which the rebel army of George Washington is destroyed in the fall of 1776, trapped in New York by the Royal Navy and Army. I need some more suggestions though to fill out the schedule. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/2 "2008-01-02T14:21:38Z")
I think “Mithramas Through the Ages” would be a good offering at this time of year. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/3 "2008-01-02T14:53:55Z")
What if… Orsen Wells’ War of the Worlds broadcast, Martians did attack, but nobody believed it? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/4 "2008-01-02T15:33:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Orsen Wells’ War of the Worlds broadcast, Martians did attack, but nobody believed it? Then we’d have **Buckaroo Banzai**. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/5 "2008-01-02T16:04:04Z")
How about Carter’s _Thirty Years Later_? That’s the one where they posit that the US completely ignored the lessons of the first Oil Crisis. In it, by 2010, the US is a quasi-fascist police state with border controls and internal passports like the Soviet Union had, the media are propaganda outlets that serve more to distract people from their problems or foment rumours of endless war rather than to actually educate and inform, dissent is muffled and ignored, dissidents who persist get ‘disappeared’, and the middle class has been hollowed out, leaving a hyperrich ruling class and a vast number of relatively-poor proles. Bankers and corporate leaders are just _raking_, of course. And of course, the whole thing is still running on oil that’s getting harder and harder to find. As the program ends, the last oil tanker reaches New Jersey and the transport network–still running on oil-fueled trucks and trains, mind you–starts to fail. There’s rioting in the streets as people can’t get heat or food. But by that time, it’s too late. It’s not realistic. I’d say someone had been reading Clive Sinclair’s _It Could Happen Here_ and listening to _Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina_ a little too much, and combined it with the worst doomer propaganda from the Seventies. I look out at our walkable cities, our easy access to electric transport, and our locally-grown food supplies, and I realise that there’s no way Americans could be that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/6 "2008-01-02T17:19:42Z")
I’d like to see Buzz Windrip’s inauguration. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/7 "2008-01-02T18:02:44Z")
In which everybody gets their power bills from Consolidated Tesla. Twenty-five years ago, with the money General Motors spent trying to do things the Japanese way, they could have bought Toyota lock, stock, and barrel. What if that had happened? What if capitalists, instead of communists, had overthrown the corrupt government of Cuba? What if Stalin had been sane? Is there any way communism could have worked? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ASAKMOTSD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/919ad9/32.png) [@ASAKMOTSD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASAKMOTSD)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/8 "2008-01-02T18:39:07Z")
What if Al Gore won? Oh wait… Never mind… ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/9 "2008-01-02T18:40:25Z")
I’ve just been handed “Adolph: A Life in Oil.” Which depicts the life of Adolph Hitler, the founder of Vienna’s fin-de-siecle New Wave art movement, and patron saint of Austrian artists for the last 100 years. Any series out there? EDIT: This edit brought to you by the letter ‘s’. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2008, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/10 "2008-01-02T19:10:17Z")
I’d like to see a New Year’s eve show from the Mars colony from the big, wheeled orbiting space station, and from Luna City. Thank Og Nixon didn’t trash the space program after Apollo. ---
**Author:** ![Civil\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d78d45/32.png) [@Civil\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Civil_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/11 "2008-01-03T04:02:50Z")
There aren’t likely to be any shows about disasters that never happened, are there? So I suppose we should pick up the documentaries on disasters that did happen in those other dimensions: “When LA Was South of San Francisco: Before the Great California Quake” “The Yellowstone Eruption: When Summer Ended” ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/12 "2008-01-03T05:01:45Z")
What about the day in late 1944 when the Nazis dropped an atomic bomb on New York City? Followed a few days later by a bomb dropped on Leningrad? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/13 "2008-01-03T05:21:08Z")
How about some history of technology shows? [ul] [li] **Where Wizards Rule: The Lambda Corporation and Richard M. Stallman’s Meteoric Rise** : The story of how Richard M. Stallman went from unknown geek crashing at the MIT AI Lab to the philanthropist and global raconteur at the head of a multi-billion-dollar corporation supplying advanced hardware and software to the world.[/li][li] **Digital Horizons: Gary Kildall and the Microcomputer Empire** : How Gary Kildall parlayed his successful CP/M operating system into ownership of the WordStar and VisiCalc brands and unsurpassed dominance of the IBM PC-compatible microcomputer universe.[/li][li] **Life on Mars: Foonly and the Seven Dwarves** : The history of the super-minis and ultra-minis as seen through the second era of the 36- and 72-bit architectures spun off of DEC’s PDP-10 by the Foonly corporation and the clonemakers that followed. Includes Foonly’s buyout of DEC’s hardware division and the creation of its Hacks Lab out of the ruins of Symbolics and the MIT AI Lab.[/li][li] **Silicon Graphics: Atari, Amiga, and Beyond** : The story of how the struggling Atari and Commodore corporations merged to take on the clonemakers, defeat Apple, and usher in powerful audio-visual hardware and software for the masses.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/14 "2008-01-03T16:01:07Z")
Mark Twain’s _Travels In Nippon_, based on his travel letters from his trip to Japan, just a few years after it was opened to the World. Sly, humorous & insightful, Twain captures a culture in transition, from the Medieval to the Industrial Eras. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/15 "2008-01-03T20:26:36Z")
I have problems with the programming on the Quantum History Channel. For instance, the act of observing a program changes it. Whenever I ask someone if a certain show is good or bad, they say, “Both. You won’t know which until you watch it.” Worst of all, the TV guide will tell me either what a show is about or when it is playing. Not both. ---
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/16 "2008-01-03T20:42:43Z")
[QUOTE=Hypno-Toad] I have problems with the programming on the Quantum History Channel. For instance, the act of observing a program changes it. Whenever I ask someone if a certain show is good or bad, they say, “Both. You won’t know which until you watch it.” Worst of all, the TV guide will tell me either what a show is about or when it is playing. Not both. [/QUOTE] That whole post is covered in Awesome Sauce. I think a show detailing the unlikely success of the CSA, especially how the massive mysterious fires that started in the Egyptian cotton fields seemed to spark recognition of the rebellious state. ---
**Author:** ![lalenin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@lalenin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lalenin)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/17 "2008-01-04T14:09:37Z")
[QUOTE=AskNott] What if capitalists, instead of communists, had overthrown the corrupt government of Cuba? [/QUOTE] Capitalists did, Fidel Castro was vehement during his first two years in power that he was not a communist, that his government was not communist, and that he had no intention to turn to communism. Then in December 1961 declare Fidel declared that he was a Marxist-Leninist and that Cuba was adopting communism. ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/18 "2008-01-04T15:31:21Z")
Speaking of alternative history, the Googly ad says, in big print, “Undo Circumcision Damage.” A good match, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![IAmAMeatPopsicle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@IAmAMeatPopsicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IAmAMeatPopsicle)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/19 "2008-01-04T15:58:12Z")
How about the mini-series “Toilet training Schrodinger’s cat” ? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2008, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986/20 "2008-01-04T16:03:31Z")
> [@](#): > > How about the mini-series “Toilet training Schrodinger’s cat” ? So the cat doesn’t definitely poop or not poop until you look in the box? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-quantum-history-channel-is-on-the-air/431986.md?page=2)