False advertising

I really wish the government would crack down on electronics stores that are misleading people about HDTV and digital television. Maybe the people that work at the stores are just ignorant. I was talking to my parents last night and they told me that they bought a special digital TV antenna. I nearly spit out my drink. It's bad enough that people assume HDTV means digital when it really just refers to the resolution. Digital versus analog describes how the signal is decoded. The antenna doesn't really know so you don't need a fancy one; just one that can receive the new frequencies. It's possible that an amplified antenna may need to be optimized for digital signals, but I'm not sure. If you want to receive digital TV then you need a digital tuner. For people with new TV's, that's not a problem, but a lot of folks will need the converter box.

Fortunately, for my parents, their old antenna was pretty junky so it's not a big deal. Indoor antennae are also fairly cheap.

Another sore point is infomercials advertising products that target specific muscles to reduce fat at the location. Bullshit. There is no such thing as spot reduction. I am living proof that you can get strong without losing fat. Your fat loss is determined by your sex, your body type and your genetics. Most guys put on weight around the middle. That's the first place it goes and the last place it'll come off. I read that, from an evolutionary perspective, fat around the middle is desirable because it provides energy storage without disrupting the center of mass. You would get eaten pretty quickly if you put on weight on your extremities.

Anyone telling you to do crunches to lose abdominal fat is full of it. Eventually, you will lose fat there, but most likely not right away.