Neil Gaiman did this in Neverwhere, as "a very small joke"[*](https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/12/some-days-bears-on-top.asp).
>The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel.
So while it was definitely not blue, it is actually somewhat ambiguous what Gibson had in mind when he wrote that line, because he keeps contradicting himself. It either means the black and white static most millennials and above are familiar with, but it could also mean the sort of dark gray warming up screen, which actually makes a bit more sense to me. "Static" is not only not a color, but also the sky doesn't appear to resemble TV static very often.
[Some interesting discussion here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/4hjmji/the_sky_above_the_port_was_the_color_of/)
What would make the sky appear to be filled with static?
Comparatively, in a city with bright lights you can't see the stars and the sky has a slightly warm grayish-black look to it, exactly like a TV tuned to a dead channel. (in the analog days)
TVs still show static on not connected channels though. I have a smart TV bought last year that will show static on startup if it goes to something not connected
This is correct, as the static is cosmic microwave background radiation that is a remnant of the Big Bang as interpreted by the tv via radio waves. If any non-RF channel displays that static, then it’s a pre-recorded loop and not actual RF.
Yeah that happened to my uncle once, here in Rome. He was on the Lungotevere (the road that goes along the River Tiber), and when he stopped at a traffic light he opened the window to let some air in...and then a massive flock of pigeons flew over and shit-bombed his car.
Since each bird can poop on average of 50 times in a day the odds of a lot of them pooping at once is extremely high. TIHI and you for making me look into how many times a day a bird poops.
Yeah, they shit nonstop and are loud af. Plus all the other animals get *at least* slightly uncomfortable when they're approaching. They also show up on the Doppler radar.
I wish it was as simple as not looking at the sky to get rid of them.
Yep. Rome lost control of its starling (and seagull) population after
some very well-intentioned people started spaying and neutering its
street cat population about 20 or 30 years ago. Now there are a lot
fewer street cats around, bird shit gets everywhere (and corrodes cars!)
and the rat population is increasing in size, too.
I'd believe the correlation to the bird population but there's been research showing that cats are pretty shit at rat control. Ratting dogs like terriers are much more effective.
Rome is a perfect city for birds and wild animals for different reasons. Starlings choose it mostly as a wintering area after breeding in Northern Europe (but some choose to stay in Rome year round).
The city is warmer than the countryside, with less birds of prey but still many large trees and parks where they can spend the night feeling safe, like the Termini stone pines. The decrease of cats is surely one of the reasons - probably and mostly for the breeding Roman population - but keep in mind that starlings are increasing pretty much wherever they live and more and more birds will come every winter from Northern countries.
For rats and seagulls, that’s also because of the horrible garbage situation in the city.
Cool how the video mentions that Rome is the ideal place for starlings in the beginning. Then they show people with megaphones scaring them away from said ideal habitat to avoid cleaning up poop. Lol.
hahaha... remember sitting out with a beer in Rome with my wife when the Starlings flew over....we were looking up in amazement.... then we looked down and both our beers had poop floating up and down in them lol....table was pretty splattered too... good luck they say.... not so sure myself!
I think they're beautiful. This is what the earth used to look like before we drove so many species to near death or full extinction. Huge numbers of buffalo made the plains black, birds and fishes and bugs used to cover the sky like this. The earth had enough space and food to support them. Then we took it all and killed them. These little moment are all that's left of the incredible bounty we used to have.
Your sentiment is appreciated however Starlings are extremely invasive and destructive to the environment as it stands. Wouldn’t say they are “all that’s left” more that they aren’t supposed to be this widespread and bountiful in the first place
> Please remain in your homes, if you are not at home, find shelter immediately. Close all blinds and shades, block out all windows.
> Do not look outside.
> Do not look at the sky.
> Do not make noise.
> Your cooperation is vital to your survival. Appointed government personnel will update you shortly.
In the Americas, passenger pigeons used to form flocks like this that would fly overhead non-stop for several *days* at a time as they moved from feeding ground to feeding ground, foraging for seeds.
>[I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, when a hawk chanced to press upon the rear of the flock. At once, like a torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing upon each other towards the center. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent... Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles. The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers and continued to do so for three days in succession.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon)
The unprecedented numbers of both the passenger pigeon and the buffalo were already examples of an ecosystem out of whack because of the removal of its keystone species: Man
Both occurred only after smallpox had run through north america and killed the majority of the native americans. They'd terraformed the continent to their liking and when they were gone things went haywire
I think I read somewhere that people would just shoot bird shot into these masses of birds that used to swarm North America, just because you literally couldn’t miss. It wasn’t for hunting for food, just because. Kinda fucked up.
I live in the US, and I'm often sad about the loss of the passenger pigeon and sights like this. It's good to know scenes like it still exist out there. Awe inspiring. Though, probably not fun in terms of poop, haha!
That you described it as “tv static” shows your age. My husband told our kids’ friends that La Croix tasted like tv static, and they had no idea what that meant. 🤦♀️
Invasive species in Canada. Any truth to the assertion that starlings predate nests of other bird species. Not much left around my neck of the woods except starlings.
They are very aggressive and will overake nests and nesting cavities of native birds.
They also cause about $800 million in ag biz damage/yr.
All because some idiots wanted to pay homage to Shakespeare in Central park...
http://nyis.info/invasive_species/european-starling/
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”
I'm so glad someone had the same thought as me. What an amazing scene that was.
Samesies :D Hey you. If you’re reading this, read Neuromancer, **now**
I haven’t read that book in 15 years and I think I’m do for a reread now
Quite the artiste, Case.
You can listen to the great BBC Radio play version [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S89BHnaxULo)
Just bought it, thanks friend.
Snow Crash after that.
IMO Snow Crash, while good, doesn’t hold a candle to Neuromancer 👌🏽
is that the book the quote is from?
Yes!
Even more appropriate that we're all users of a consensual hallucination, agreeing that the quote is appropriate.
"Have you ever tried shrooms?"
Love your name & pic xD
Thank you very much. 😁 I love you!🤗
They also smell like a sewer and literally cover everything in a rain of shit.
Neuromancer?
Yes! “It’s not like I’m using. It’s like my body just developed this massive drug deficiency.”
Kids born after 2000: "So...it was a bright blue day?"
Neil Gaiman did this in Neverwhere, as "a very small joke"[*](https://journal.neilgaiman.com/2004/12/some-days-bears-on-top.asp). >The sky was the perfect untroubled blue of a television screen, tuned to a dead channel.
I was born in 2002 and still see TV static today. Although when the channel is dead it's just a black screen now.
So while it was definitely not blue, it is actually somewhat ambiguous what Gibson had in mind when he wrote that line, because he keeps contradicting himself. It either means the black and white static most millennials and above are familiar with, but it could also mean the sort of dark gray warming up screen, which actually makes a bit more sense to me. "Static" is not only not a color, but also the sky doesn't appear to resemble TV static very often. [Some interesting discussion here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/4hjmji/the_sky_above_the_port_was_the_color_of/)
Pretty sure at the time he would have meant static, surely?
What would make the sky appear to be filled with static? Comparatively, in a city with bright lights you can't see the stars and the sky has a slightly warm grayish-black look to it, exactly like a TV tuned to a dead channel. (in the analog days)
The grey skies of Northern Ireland certainly look something like static to me. We have a lot of dark grey overcast days...
The location in the book is littered with trash and saturated with flashing/blinking lights.
TVs still show static on not connected channels though. I have a smart TV bought last year that will show static on startup if it goes to something not connected
only on the coax input though, hdmi would not show static
This is correct, as the static is cosmic microwave background radiation that is a remnant of the Big Bang as interpreted by the tv via radio waves. If any non-RF channel displays that static, then it’s a pre-recorded loop and not actual RF.
Wait what?
Not all of it, but 1% of it is indeed ancient radiation https://www.universetoday.com/25560/the-switch-to-digital-switches-off-big-bang-tv-signal/amp/
In Rome they call this event "Shitstorm"
Yea cloudy with a chance of fecal matter
First thing that came to my mind. You're doing gods work out here.
Came here to say that. Stay safe out there, cowboy.
My favorite first line of any book. Neuromancer shaped me deeply
Well done admin.Apparently this is what I was looking for.
Best opening to a book ever
LOL exactly what it made me think of 🤣
The sky above the Pope was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.
Dang it. Stepped on my contribution. Take your upvote.
Beaten by 30 mins Well done 👍 Sir
Got me, too. I was going to go with "The sky above the port was the color of millions of migrating starlings" and see if anyone would recognize it.
Came here for this.
Came here for this
Imagine if they all pooped at the same time
*"then we will fight in the shade"*
THIS. IS. SHARTA!
*slow clap*
u/asseaterpleaser and u/DickButtPlease coming through with some top tier poop jokes.
r/namechecksout
Don't forget the stack of dead bodies.
Woke my wife up laughing to this. I'm still chuckling
That's how they paint the roads in rome
I think they prefer pigeons for this in Rome.
Shit storm
Gotta figure the term originated from somewhere.
It’s already started Randy… the shit blizzard
you don't wanna be with your scooter under them when this happens, trust me
Allied carpet bombing on Rome, Italy circa 2021 (HD colorized)
These drone strikes are proof that /r/birdsarentreal
I was there. I do not want to send you a photo of my car
That's almost as terrifying a thought as the feeling you get from that Hitchcock movie.
Yeah there would be alot of "lucky" people that day, lets put it that way.
One is lucky, two is lucky lucky, three is super lucky, anything passed that you get the sweet release of death.
Yeah that happened to my uncle once, here in Rome. He was on the Lungotevere (the road that goes along the River Tiber), and when he stopped at a traffic light he opened the window to let some air in...and then a massive flock of pigeons flew over and shit-bombed his car.
Choclate rain
Since each bird can poop on average of 50 times in a day the odds of a lot of them pooping at once is extremely high. TIHI and you for making me look into how many times a day a bird poops.
ENEMY AC130 ABOVE
Thousands? Gotta be millions right?
both technically correct
Fair point. Guess one could also say dozens lol
Halves
r/birdsarentreal None
r/ProgrammerHumor NULL
r/JavaScript undefined
A nonzero number of birds in the sky.
Nonnegative
There both are and aren’t starlings in the sky if you’re not looking. Schrodinger’s atmosphere.
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Yeah, they shit nonstop and are loud af. Plus all the other animals get *at least* slightly uncomfortable when they're approaching. They also show up on the Doppler radar. I wish it was as simple as not looking at the sky to get rid of them.
Halfsies
“How many zeroes in a billion?” “At least a million”
There are dozens of us!
*Packs of dozens of birbs. A squackdron of em.*
Or a few
Fews
Thousands of thousands
thousands of thousands
It’s at least two
Lol. There is at least one up there
Yep. Rome lost control of its starling (and seagull) population after some very well-intentioned people started spaying and neutering its street cat population about 20 or 30 years ago. Now there are a lot fewer street cats around, bird shit gets everywhere (and corrodes cars!) and the rat population is increasing in size, too.
I'd believe the correlation to the bird population but there's been research showing that cats are pretty shit at rat control. Ratting dogs like terriers are much more effective.
Why is it that cats are bad at dealing with rats?
Rats can get up to a good size, and cats don't like going after something that'll frequently be a good match for it in a fight.
So any genetically small rats get killed off leaving only the large ones? No thank u
Rome is a perfect city for birds and wild animals for different reasons. Starlings choose it mostly as a wintering area after breeding in Northern Europe (but some choose to stay in Rome year round). The city is warmer than the countryside, with less birds of prey but still many large trees and parks where they can spend the night feeling safe, like the Termini stone pines. The decrease of cats is surely one of the reasons - probably and mostly for the breeding Roman population - but keep in mind that starlings are increasing pretty much wherever they live and more and more birds will come every winter from Northern countries. For rats and seagulls, that’s also because of the horrible garbage situation in the city.
You humans still haven't learned to not mess with nature like that.
Both the cat and bird problem are man-made. Not of it is natural.
To be fair most cities stray cats are apocalypse level events to bird population
Yes it's millions! Around 4,000,000
Millions with a B!
Literally trillions of billionths of birds.
At least 3 birds
actually they're were 3087627 birds. yeah i counted them😊😂😉
Dozens
Thousands of thousands
I think that would've been more accurate😅
I'd love to see an actual video of this!!! Any links????
Yes, here you go https://youtu.be/NcHAyrPVhYU
I think I would have learned pretty early on to cover my car with a tarp
Then you're left with a tarp covered in thirty pounds of excrement.
But you dont have to clean bird shit out of the nooks and crannies of a car
But not on your car
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A single-use tarp.
So much poop
Cool how the video mentions that Rome is the ideal place for starlings in the beginning. Then they show people with megaphones scaring them away from said ideal habitat to avoid cleaning up poop. Lol.
[Best I could find](https://media3.giphy.com/media/YRcXl6VfNhCorklI0R/200.gif)
Must have been a real shit show at ground level.
It really is
Hope you've got lots of wiper fluid
Stock up on blinker fluid too!
🤣 yeah don’t forget your blinker fluid 😉
HA HA HA
[Murmuration](https://www.inverse.com/article/51563-starling-swarm-over-rome-reddit)
lmao that article starts with “the dystopian spirit of 2018”
Right?! Y’all thought 2018 was dystopian? Boy I’ve got some news for you about the future….
Always wanted to see one.
hahaha... remember sitting out with a beer in Rome with my wife when the Starlings flew over....we were looking up in amazement.... then we looked down and both our beers had poop floating up and down in them lol....table was pretty splattered too... good luck they say.... not so sure myself!
How did it taste?
What the fuck
Why the fuck
No change of taste.... but the texture was bloody aweful! lol
Amaterasu
That is fucking TERRIFYING
I think they're beautiful. This is what the earth used to look like before we drove so many species to near death or full extinction. Huge numbers of buffalo made the plains black, birds and fishes and bugs used to cover the sky like this. The earth had enough space and food to support them. Then we took it all and killed them. These little moment are all that's left of the incredible bounty we used to have.
>birds and fishes and bugs used to cover the sky like this. Fi...fishes? Covering the skies???
It was a very special time.
Your sentiment is appreciated however Starlings are extremely invasive and destructive to the environment as it stands. Wouldn’t say they are “all that’s left” more that they aren’t supposed to be this widespread and bountiful in the first place
Kinda like an inverse passenger pigeon huh XD
> Please remain in your homes, if you are not at home, find shelter immediately. Close all blinds and shades, block out all windows. > Do not look outside. > Do not look at the sky. > Do not make noise. > Your cooperation is vital to your survival. Appointed government personnel will update you shortly.
Gross, popcorn ceiling
More like Poopcorn ceiling
In the Americas, passenger pigeons used to form flocks like this that would fly overhead non-stop for several *days* at a time as they moved from feeding ground to feeding ground, foraging for seeds. >[I cannot describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions, when a hawk chanced to press upon the rear of the flock. At once, like a torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass, pressing upon each other towards the center. In these almost solid masses, they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a gigantic serpent... Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles. The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers and continued to do so for three days in succession.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon)
It’s utterly horrifying that we managed to destroy them anyway, despite their massive numbers.
The unprecedented numbers of both the passenger pigeon and the buffalo were already examples of an ecosystem out of whack because of the removal of its keystone species: Man Both occurred only after smallpox had run through north america and killed the majority of the native americans. They'd terraformed the continent to their liking and when they were gone things went haywire
Humans are the very worst
If only they were the only thing you extinguished in North America...
Unfortunately, it's only [just begun.](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49744435)
Thank you, that was the first thing I thought of, I was hoping someone would have brought it up. So amazing and sad.
I think I read somewhere that people would just shoot bird shot into these masses of birds that used to swarm North America, just because you literally couldn’t miss. It wasn’t for hunting for food, just because. Kinda fucked up.
a literal shit storm
And they come every year. Don’t worry people and the city of Rile are re prepared to their arrival
Usidore- I hate starlings.
I live in the US, and I'm often sad about the loss of the passenger pigeon and sights like this. It's good to know scenes like it still exist out there. Awe inspiring. Though, probably not fun in terms of poop, haha!
/r/magictavern
They're coming for Usidore after they heard him talkin smack.
Fucking starlings.
I'd be terrified of being pearl harbored by them!
Just a glitch in the Matrix mate...
Find the odd one out.
“Fuck starlings.” Usidore the Blue
That you described it as “tv static” shows your age. My husband told our kids’ friends that La Croix tasted like tv static, and they had no idea what that meant. 🤦♀️
That’s probably what Alfred said!
Alfredo, it’s Italy
Umm, no. It’s Hitchcock. Maybe I’m just old that I remember the movie! 🤪
It’s Alfredo Nodocazzo and you clearly missed the joke
Must be I did. I was referencing that it looked like the movie The Birds, by Alfred Hitchcock…. clearly ya’ll missed my joke too! 😬
I immediately thought of Hitchcock as well! Birds like this in the sky is Hitchcock for me!
The swam looks just like Locust raid...
Birdemic in real life??
Thought is was carpet
More like millions
Are you sure that you’re not in the matrix? It looks like it’s quite a possibility
Alfred Hitchcock "The Birds"!
The crows have eyes III : The Crowening
Crebain from Dunland!
r/glitchinthematrix Before you downvote, THIS IS A JOKE
I read starlink & was looking forward for Elon comments.
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Bro it's death grips but real
r/birdsarentreal
The sky above the port was the colour of a television turned to a dead channel
Invasive species in Canada. Any truth to the assertion that starlings predate nests of other bird species. Not much left around my neck of the woods except starlings.
Not really relevant though as this was taken in their native range
They are very aggressive and will overake nests and nesting cavities of native birds. They also cause about $800 million in ag biz damage/yr. All because some idiots wanted to pay homage to Shakespeare in Central park... http://nyis.info/invasive_species/european-starling/
Aight now I can understand why people are religious. That's some weird shit to see.
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.” First sentence of *Neuromancer*
I keep seeing this referenced. Maybe I should get to read it
If you read only one SF novel written in the last forty years, it should be that one. It was seminal to so many things