Oddly enough, we're neighbors! I'm at N Dekum and Concord, and I'm using a roof-mounted antenna. Everything but channel 10 (nee channel 27) comes in fine.
I suspect that there's some other issue. The analog signal comes in fine. I'm crossing my fingers hoping that when the cutover happens and the ATSC signal switches back to channel 10, my PBS problems will disappear.
I think the point is moot, really. The vast majority of the population lives within the strong-signal zone, and only a small percentage of those people are rigging up a new antenna.
While I "feel" for the 1% who are going to have these issues, I don't think it's going to be as widespread of a problem as you think it is, and to "blame" antenna manufacturers and consumer electronics retailers for this is a bit misguided.
So, you buy a high-gain UHF antenna with "30-mile" range, that has little, if any, VHF gain.
Let's think this through.
First off, "no gain" means just that: you won't get any electrical gain from the antenna. But, it will still receive the signal, right?
Most of the reasons for high gain UHF antennas is to compensate for FEED LINE LOSSES in the coaxial cable. At UHF frequencies, the feed line losses in RG-59 coax is considerable. 8dB of loss (@100 feet) is what Belden claims for their RG-59 cable, and I'm sure the crap most people are buying at RadioShack is probably worse than that. At VHF frequencies, that feedline loss comes in to between 2-3dB. That's considerably better.
Secondly, we also need to remember that atmospheric losses of UHF are considerable, especially in the 500-600 (and higher) MHz regions. This is why conventional analog UHF stations often are permitted a 1000kW for their video signal, whereas most VHF stations get by with 300-400kW.
We are still in the "true trial" period. All you need to do is connect your new "HDTV antenna" to a conventional analog TV, and see how clear you get the analog signal for the stations that are staying on VHF post-transition. If you get a clear signal with no "ghosting" or "snow" with your UHF-only antenna, I'd be confident that your ATSC signal will be fine.
Personally, I've been against this forced shift to digital only broadcasting ever since making the move to satellite from cable. Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
Satellite is subject to "rain fade" because of the frequencies it is on, and the distance the signal has to travel to get to your dish. This will not be a serious problem for ATSC signals: they are using the same frequencies we've always used for analog television.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, and while I live in a "strong" signal zone (urban Portland) rain is certainly not a measurable factor in signal quality.
For example, what happens in a state of emergency where many of the population can't receive a complete digital signal as disaster is bearing down on them? All of those efforts to warn people ahead of time will be for nothing... especially for those who can't afford to upgrade to the fancy digital converters.
The same thing that happens now. Not everybody is watching television all the time, you know. Yet, strangely enough, people seem to find out about emergencies.
The EAS (Emergency Alert System) does not intend to get a message to every man, woman, and child in an emergency. It is intended to get a statistically significant percentage of people that message, and depends on human behavior ("Gee, everybody's packing up and leaving! What's going on?") to make sure the message is received.
Besides, it isn't television that is the preferred communications method in an emergency. Remember those disaster kits we're supposed to all have ready? I don't recall TV being on the list, but you can bet a good-quality AM transistor radio is.
Those "fancy digital converters" cost $50, with a coupon available to give you $40 of that. If you can afford the electricity to power a TV, you can afford a $10 converter.
Second, what becomes of the electronic waste that will be generated when TVs lacking the capability of being upgraded (especially portable sets) are suddenly trashed at the same time? Has there been a plan put in place specifically to collect these obsolete sets that won't involve them being dumped onto a 3rd world country?
This is actually the only problem you mention that's worth discussing, really. And it's a big one.
Finally, there's the question of the intent behind this transition. Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means? Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
Take off the tin-foil hat. The boxes are simple receivers, they have no capability to "phone home" whatsoever. There's millions of them in the pipeline, and millions have already been sold. They cost $50, and there are no weird screws needed to take them apart.
No conspiracy, move along.
The stated reason for this transition has been discussed for ten years, out in the open. The US Federal Communications Commission is arguably one of the most open Federal-level agencies around. Between amateur radio operators, "mom-and-pop" businesses with two-way radios, and their intersection with the computer industry (not only because of the Internet, but because of the "unintentional radiator" clause that brings all computational equipment under their purview) enough people watch the FCC on a daily basis that the Commissioner can't fart without it being reported, analyzed, blogged, being bottled and subjected to chromatographic analysis (He had Mexican for lunch! What could that possibly mean?), and the results of all of the above poste
While it is true that VHF and UHF have different "properties" (read: VHF is longer in wavelength), the fact is most of the UHF "reflector-style" antennas being manufactured like you describe will receive VHF signals adequately enough to work properly post-transition.
While I don't have a properly calibrated meter to test this, I theorize that because of the reduced atmospheric loss of VHF signals, the higher power levels typically permitted by VHF stations, and the reduced feedline losses of VHF signals even though a UHF antenna might not be a very efficient antenna at VHF frequencies it will be more than adequate if you live in the "yellow" or "green" zones on AntennaWeb. My own anecdotal experience with a RadioShack UHF antenna verifies this theory: even the VHF-High band NOAA Weather Radio stations are recievable with this antenna as far away as Eugene, OR from my rooftop antenna in Portland (some 120 miles), and a neighboring NOAA broadcast is enough to desense the receiver in question (that's more the fault of the crappy receiver, but it does demonstrate the antenna's resonating, if inefficiently, at 162 MHz).
I think the issue is people who are going to be trying to use marginal antennas on the fringe. But I don't think anybody who lives in a good-quality signal zone will experience any problems using a UHF antenna on the roof to get VHF ATSC.
I live in Portland, Oregon about 5 miles from the ridge that houses most of the TV broadcasters transmit from. I have a rooftop antenna (a reasonable quality UHF Yagi). All the analog stations, even the VHF ones, come in nearly perfect. The antenna is pointed properly according to the NAB/CEA's AntennaWeb site.
Since installing an HDTV tuner on my primary set, I can get every channel perfectly.. EXCEPT the PBS station. The PBS station according to my receiver has "poor" signal strength.
The analog signal is on channel 10, the "transitional" channel is 27. However, post-transition, they will be back on VHF channel 10.
So, I suspect the problem is here that the "transitional" HDTV channel is either a low-power signal, or isn't broadcasting from the same place as the analog channel (or there's something else going on, like co-channel interference, that's only affecting channel 27).
It makes me wonder on Feb. 17 if I'll be able to get PBS or not. Presently, I can't unless I view the analog feed.
Last half of that comment disappeared somehow. Should have used "preview".
According to many press articles on the subject, VW's TDI engines that they are making for the 2009 model year produce significantly less emissions than comparable gasoline engines. "BlueTec"/"clean diesel" diesel engines across the board produce more torque, burn less fuel, and produce fewer emissions than any gasoline engine.
It's also worth noting that diesel-powered cars last longer, are easier to maintain high efficiency, and as a rule require fewer oil changes and other routine maintenance. Lastly, they don't have a trunk-full of heavy metals that will need to be recycled or disposed of safely.
My employer pays huge text messaging bills, mostly because they view the 10 cents a text message costs to be a non-starter. Even with the average user sending 100-200 messages, that only tacks on $20 to the average cell phone bill.
And believe me, at my company, each phone is easily a $150/month bill.
When you're billing out engineers at $200/hour, another $20 on the monthly bill is nothing. I'd guess that the average high-volume cell user is typically not watching the nickels and dimes on the statement.
While the term "fair use" may only be a US legal term, the concept exists in international copyright law, and perhaps more importantly, as a moral concept.
Stop being so itchy on the "filthy American" trigger finger. As you even pointed out, there is a similar concept in British law.
Is it different than pirating a game? Perhaps. "Pirating" a game to play it for a half-hour to see if it's any good: probably not. Pirating a game and playing it forever: quite different.
First, personal attacks are not needed and detract greatly from the debate. Second, I too, come from a farming family and in my family it is not BS. And, try to look at farming families across the world, they work very, very hard and very, very long hours. That is why so many farming families lost people to working in the cities for regular jobs.
I'm one of them. I could have taken over the family farm years ago, but I instead chose to work in IT/telecom.
I never once said the work wasn't "hard", which is why I choose not to do it. However, to say that it is all 16-hour days and drudgery is completely inaccurate, at least for the farm in my family. Yes, most of the year they wake up with the sun and don't finish "work" until sunset. However, realistically it's not all "work" all day. There's lots of time during the day when they are running "errands": heading into town to go shopping, see movies, etc. My uncle probably reads the farming equivalent of Slashdot for about the same amount of time I read similar sites. I don't consider that "work", and I don't think he does either.
My family's farm is profitable, and doesn't generally take gubmit money (I believe they did take out an interest subsidized loan for infrastructure improvements one year). They are "certified organic" for many of the crops they produce, and stay on top of all the latest trends. In fact, we were one of the first farms (thanks in part to their then-young electronics whiz nephew) to use telemetry monitoring of the fields to intelligently water and fertilize.
Sure, a good chunk of the day-to-day "labor" on the farm is done by hired help. And, administering a large farm does require diligence. However, at least in California's Central Valley, it's not 16-hour days and drudge work every single day. It's comparable to how my workday goes: some days, not a lot is going on and I'm just babysitting the "help".. other days there's a lot of heavy lifting and physical work.
I come from a farming family, and the "working sun-up to after sundown" bit is pure BS.
For about six weeks, yes, my aunt and uncle work from 5 am to around 6 pm: about four weeks in the beginning of the season and about two around harvest time. The remainder of the year they probably work an average 8 hour day just like everybody else. In winter, there's a couple of weeks that they aren't doing anything and often take a vacation.
There's nothing wrong with the American work ethic. It's boneheads like you that live to work, not work to live, that need to figure it out. Most Europeans don't work nearly as many hours as the average American in the same job.. and who's currency is getting trashed right now?
Computer programmers, systems administrators, computer analysts, and engineers are on the "exempt" list.
As a rule, the IT profession gets screwed by the "exempt" status. We're "professionals", yet we don't have the same level of autonomy as most of the "professional" classes (lawyers, doctors, etc).
Working an occasional 60-hour week when things are rough / deadlines are slipping is expected in this business. Working 60 to 80-hour weeks all the time is not only abusive, it's counterproductive. There's only so much brainpower one can engage: and I'd bet that the vast majority of that 60-hour week is unproductive time anyway.
That still would require some significant changes that the original code is probably not designed to do, and it involves storing another collection of variables (if even for a moment while batching the check) and iterating over it twice.
Have you ever coded in COBOL on a early 1970s mainframe, like an IBM System/360, that is likely running this application? To us, in the modern era, it sounds simple enough. But, given the programming language (COBOL) and the likely system it is running on (old and busted, with no modern database), it is likely not that simple.
Those of you saying "how hard can it be to write a couple of lines of COBOL" are probably underestimating the problem.
If all they had to do was just lower people's salary to $6.whatever per hour, that wouldn't be the issue. The problem is they have to account for the ACTUAL salary the person should be making, because once the budget is passed they will have to pay all those people back for the salary that's owed.
So, there's a big issue here. They have to calculate their salary like they would anyway, and then pay them minimum wage for the number of hours actually worked (because I'd guess a number of State employees are "exempt"), remember how much they SHOULD have been paid and how much taxes SHOULD have been taken out, record that information, and then print out a check.
In a modern programming language with a modern relational database, no problem. In COBOL with an obsolete non-relational DB, perhaps even one with 80-column mindset? Yeah, right. Good luck with that.
It is, to a very large extent however, calling the lawyer's bluff.
It is highly unlikely that Craigslist would be held "accountable for wasting the court's time" simply because they didn't attend a hearing. Craigslist's policies regarding personally identifiable information is clearly outlined on their website. They simply do not collect any other information except the person's E-mail address and potentially the IP address. If the lawyer is asking for information Craigslist does not collect, and Craigslist provides all the information they have and cooperates completely with the default judgment to the best of their ability, the worst that can likely happen in the Ninth Circuit is another hearing.
Craigslist's lawyer will attend that hearing, and clearly state to the judge that the reason for Craigslist not attending the previous hearing was not out of contempt with the court, but because Craigslist had no rebuttal to the charges, and chose instead to simply allow a default and to comply with the judges' wishes. ("Judicial expediency" is what this is called.)
Craigs is the defendant. It is viewed as permissible in many courts for the defendant to not appear and accept a default judgment. We do this in the United States for many petty crimes all the time (when you "pay a traffic ticket", you are in most states posting bail and accepting the default judgment of the court), and in many civil courts as well (such as in landlord-tenant disputes and small-claims). It is likely a hearing was never even called: when no defendant or counsel-for-defendant registered in the morning with the clerk, it was likely not even put in the judge's in-box for the day, and was just quietly signed in the back of the court office.
IANAL, but I think the way this works is like this.
1. Lawyer shows up at Craigslist (either physically or by phone/mail/etc.) and politely asks for the information. Gets told to buzz off. 2. Lawyer files lawsuit demanding the information, serves Craigs with the lawsuit. 3. Craigslist knows something the lawyer doesn't about the information they're seeking: that the only information Craigslist likely has is an E-mail address, and MAYBE an IP address. Craigslist decides that it isn't worth the lawyering money to fight the lawsuit, because either of those pieces of information really doesn't do much to establish identity without the Academy going up against Somebody Else's Lawyers. 4. Craigslist will hand the information over with a smirk, knowing that now it is Google's (because, in all likelihood, it is a gmail.com address they have on file) or Comcast's lawyers who will take this up.
Here's a thought. Maybe Craigslist intentionally didn't show, because lawyers cost money and they knew that dragging this out in a courtroom would cost them thousands with a fairly large likelihood that they'd lose anyway.
This way, when the lawyers come to collect the data, they can just hand over the gmail.com address and say "that's all the information we have", and the Academy still has to subpoena Google to get the guy's real identity (maybe).
Sounds like a good legal strategy to me: make Google's lawyers pay for it.
If I was an investor right now, I'd argue AAPL is more successful than MSFT.
MSFT has a gazillion bucks, but the ROI for their stockholders has suffered recently. Whereas AAPL under Jobs just keeps making stockholders money. Good money. If you bought AAPL and MSFT one year ago, you would have made 24% on AAPL, and lost 10% of MSFT.
Funny. This would almost make it seem like Apple is a very profitable company, who's investors seem quite pleased at the ROI they get from owning stock.
In fact, in almost every category that would define investor confidence AAPL outperforms MSFT, and leaves DELL and HPQ in the dust.
I fail to see any lost sales and profits in this equation. If I was a shareholder in AAPL, I'd be happy as punch right now.
Actually, as a common carrier it is legally safer to cast the net as wide as possible. There is no legal or administrative requirement that Usenet servers carry the alt.* hierarchy. The fact that they are blocking both alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen-sluts and alt.plastic.utensils.spork.spork.spork gives them an automatic defense in court of their common-carrier status. "We're not censoring, we just lack the technical ability to maintain the hierarchy properly." End of case.
That is why they are probably legally safe from just not carrying the entire alt.* hierarchy.
Common carrier does not necessarily demand you service anybody. A common-carrier truck line can only service two major cities (say, Portland OR and Seattle WA), or only be able to provide services with a 14-foot van.
Similarly, Verizon can choose to not carry a wide swath of net.news, provided their reasoning for not carrying it fills a technical requirement. All they have to say in front of a judge is that it is increasingly difficult to operate and maintain a news server to carry those groups, and any potential lawsuit is over.
If it even sees the inside of a courtroom. Last I checked, Verizon subscribers are tied to binding arbitration.. so good luck with this ever being seen by a judge.
Slashdot Mirror
Oddly enough, we're neighbors! I'm at N Dekum and Concord, and I'm using a roof-mounted antenna. Everything but channel 10 (nee channel 27) comes in fine.
I suspect that there's some other issue. The analog signal comes in fine. I'm crossing my fingers hoping that when the cutover happens and the ATSC signal switches back to channel 10, my PBS problems will disappear.
I think the point is moot, really. The vast majority of the population lives within the strong-signal zone, and only a small percentage of those people are rigging up a new antenna.
While I "feel" for the 1% who are going to have these issues, I don't think it's going to be as widespread of a problem as you think it is, and to "blame" antenna manufacturers and consumer electronics retailers for this is a bit misguided.
So, you buy a high-gain UHF antenna with "30-mile" range, that has little, if any, VHF gain.
Let's think this through.
First off, "no gain" means just that: you won't get any electrical gain from the antenna. But, it will still receive the signal, right?
Most of the reasons for high gain UHF antennas is to compensate for FEED LINE LOSSES in the coaxial cable. At UHF frequencies, the feed line losses in RG-59 coax is considerable. 8dB of loss (@100 feet) is what Belden claims for their RG-59 cable, and I'm sure the crap most people are buying at RadioShack is probably worse than that. At VHF frequencies, that feedline loss comes in to between 2-3dB. That's considerably better.
Secondly, we also need to remember that atmospheric losses of UHF are considerable, especially in the 500-600 (and higher) MHz regions. This is why conventional analog UHF stations often are permitted a 1000kW for their video signal, whereas most VHF stations get by with 300-400kW.
We are still in the "true trial" period. All you need to do is connect your new "HDTV antenna" to a conventional analog TV, and see how clear you get the analog signal for the stations that are staying on VHF post-transition. If you get a clear signal with no "ghosting" or "snow" with your UHF-only antenna, I'd be confident that your ATSC signal will be fine.
Personally, I've been against this forced shift to digital only broadcasting ever since making the move to satellite from cable. Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
Satellite is subject to "rain fade" because of the frequencies it is on, and the distance the signal has to travel to get to your dish. This will not be a serious problem for ATSC signals: they are using the same frequencies we've always used for analog television.
I live in the Pacific Northwest, and while I live in a "strong" signal zone (urban Portland) rain is certainly not a measurable factor in signal quality.
For example, what happens in a state of emergency where many of the population can't receive a complete digital signal as disaster is bearing down on them? All of those efforts to warn people ahead of time will be for nothing... especially for those who can't afford to upgrade to the fancy digital converters.
The same thing that happens now. Not everybody is watching television all the time, you know. Yet, strangely enough, people seem to find out about emergencies.
The EAS (Emergency Alert System) does not intend to get a message to every man, woman, and child in an emergency. It is intended to get a statistically significant percentage of people that message, and depends on human behavior ("Gee, everybody's packing up and leaving! What's going on?") to make sure the message is received.
Besides, it isn't television that is the preferred communications method in an emergency. Remember those disaster kits we're supposed to all have ready? I don't recall TV being on the list, but you can bet a good-quality AM transistor radio is.
Those "fancy digital converters" cost $50, with a coupon available to give you $40 of that. If you can afford the electricity to power a TV, you can afford a $10 converter.
Second, what becomes of the electronic waste that will be generated when TVs lacking the capability of being upgraded (especially portable sets) are suddenly trashed at the same time? Has there been a plan put in place specifically to collect these obsolete sets that won't involve them being dumped onto a 3rd world country?
This is actually the only problem you mention that's worth discussing, really. And it's a big one.
Finally, there's the question of the intent behind this transition. Does it even have anything to do with improving quality at all, or is it about getting all forms of broadcast into a digital form so that it can be controlled, monitored and classified by external means? Are these "converters" going to phoning homing in some manner to tell some authority figure what exactly we're watching and when as a means of monitoring our interests and assess us as potential threats?
Take off the tin-foil hat. The boxes are simple receivers, they have no capability to "phone home" whatsoever. There's millions of them in the pipeline, and millions have already been sold. They cost $50, and there are no weird screws needed to take them apart.
No conspiracy, move along.
The stated reason for this transition has been discussed for ten years, out in the open. The US Federal Communications Commission is arguably one of the most open Federal-level agencies around. Between amateur radio operators, "mom-and-pop" businesses with two-way radios, and their intersection with the computer industry (not only because of the Internet, but because of the "unintentional radiator" clause that brings all computational equipment under their purview) enough people watch the FCC on a daily basis that the Commissioner can't fart without it being reported, analyzed, blogged, being bottled and subjected to chromatographic analysis (He had Mexican for lunch! What could that possibly mean?), and the results of all of the above poste
While it is true that VHF and UHF have different "properties" (read: VHF is longer in wavelength), the fact is most of the UHF "reflector-style" antennas being manufactured like you describe will receive VHF signals adequately enough to work properly post-transition.
While I don't have a properly calibrated meter to test this, I theorize that because of the reduced atmospheric loss of VHF signals, the higher power levels typically permitted by VHF stations, and the reduced feedline losses of VHF signals even though a UHF antenna might not be a very efficient antenna at VHF frequencies it will be more than adequate if you live in the "yellow" or "green" zones on AntennaWeb. My own anecdotal experience with a RadioShack UHF antenna verifies this theory: even the VHF-High band NOAA Weather Radio stations are recievable with this antenna as far away as Eugene, OR from my rooftop antenna in Portland (some 120 miles), and a neighboring NOAA broadcast is enough to desense the receiver in question (that's more the fault of the crappy receiver, but it does demonstrate the antenna's resonating, if inefficiently, at 162 MHz).
I think the issue is people who are going to be trying to use marginal antennas on the fringe. But I don't think anybody who lives in a good-quality signal zone will experience any problems using a UHF antenna on the roof to get VHF ATSC.
I live in Portland, Oregon about 5 miles from the ridge that houses most of the TV broadcasters transmit from. I have a rooftop antenna (a reasonable quality UHF Yagi). All the analog stations, even the VHF ones, come in nearly perfect. The antenna is pointed properly according to the NAB/CEA's AntennaWeb site.
Since installing an HDTV tuner on my primary set, I can get every channel perfectly.. EXCEPT the PBS station. The PBS station according to my receiver has "poor" signal strength.
The analog signal is on channel 10, the "transitional" channel is 27. However, post-transition, they will be back on VHF channel 10.
So, I suspect the problem is here that the "transitional" HDTV channel is either a low-power signal, or isn't broadcasting from the same place as the analog channel (or there's something else going on, like co-channel interference, that's only affecting channel 27).
It makes me wonder on Feb. 17 if I'll be able to get PBS or not. Presently, I can't unless I view the analog feed.
Last half of that comment disappeared somehow. Should have used "preview".
According to many press articles on the subject, VW's TDI engines that they are making for the 2009 model year produce significantly less emissions than comparable gasoline engines. "BlueTec"/"clean diesel" diesel engines across the board produce more torque, burn less fuel, and produce fewer emissions than any gasoline engine.
It's also worth noting that diesel-powered cars last longer, are easier to maintain high efficiency, and as a rule require fewer oil changes and other routine maintenance. Lastly, they don't have a trunk-full of heavy metals that will need to be recycled or disposed of safely.
Most Volkswagen TDI-equipped cars will get 40+ MPG at highway speeds.
If I drive 60 MPH with the cruise control, I can consistently get high-40's in my 2004 VW New Beetle TDI.
"Because we can."
My employer pays huge text messaging bills, mostly because they view the 10 cents a text message costs to be a non-starter. Even with the average user sending 100-200 messages, that only tacks on $20 to the average cell phone bill.
And believe me, at my company, each phone is easily a $150/month bill.
When you're billing out engineers at $200/hour, another $20 on the monthly bill is nothing. I'd guess that the average high-volume cell user is typically not watching the nickels and dimes on the statement.
Only Seattle could spend $250 million and NOT build a monorail.
While the term "fair use" may only be a US legal term, the concept exists in international copyright law, and perhaps more importantly, as a moral concept.
Stop being so itchy on the "filthy American" trigger finger. As you even pointed out, there is a similar concept in British law.
See: Fair use.
Is it different than pirating a game? Perhaps. "Pirating" a game to play it for a half-hour to see if it's any good: probably not. Pirating a game and playing it forever: quite different.
Sloppy and ethically challenged, perhaps.
First, personal attacks are not needed and detract greatly from the debate. Second, I too, come from a farming family and in my family it is not BS. And, try to look at farming families across the world, they work very, very hard and very, very long hours. That is why so many farming families lost people to working in the cities for regular jobs.
I'm one of them. I could have taken over the family farm years ago, but I instead chose to work in IT/telecom.
I never once said the work wasn't "hard", which is why I choose not to do it. However, to say that it is all 16-hour days and drudgery is completely inaccurate, at least for the farm in my family. Yes, most of the year they wake up with the sun and don't finish "work" until sunset. However, realistically it's not all "work" all day. There's lots of time during the day when they are running "errands": heading into town to go shopping, see movies, etc. My uncle probably reads the farming equivalent of Slashdot for about the same amount of time I read similar sites. I don't consider that "work", and I don't think he does either.
My family's farm is profitable, and doesn't generally take gubmit money (I believe they did take out an interest subsidized loan for infrastructure improvements one year). They are "certified organic" for many of the crops they produce, and stay on top of all the latest trends. In fact, we were one of the first farms (thanks in part to their then-young electronics whiz nephew) to use telemetry monitoring of the fields to intelligently water and fertilize.
Sure, a good chunk of the day-to-day "labor" on the farm is done by hired help. And, administering a large farm does require diligence. However, at least in California's Central Valley, it's not 16-hour days and drudge work every single day. It's comparable to how my workday goes: some days, not a lot is going on and I'm just babysitting the "help".. other days there's a lot of heavy lifting and physical work.
I come from a farming family, and the "working sun-up to after sundown" bit is pure BS.
For about six weeks, yes, my aunt and uncle work from 5 am to around 6 pm: about four weeks in the beginning of the season and about two around harvest time. The remainder of the year they probably work an average 8 hour day just like everybody else. In winter, there's a couple of weeks that they aren't doing anything and often take a vacation.
There's nothing wrong with the American work ethic. It's boneheads like you that live to work, not work to live, that need to figure it out. Most Europeans don't work nearly as many hours as the average American in the same job.. and who's currency is getting trashed right now?
Computer programmers, systems administrators, computer analysts, and engineers are on the "exempt" list.
As a rule, the IT profession gets screwed by the "exempt" status. We're "professionals", yet we don't have the same level of autonomy as most of the "professional" classes (lawyers, doctors, etc).
Working an occasional 60-hour week when things are rough / deadlines are slipping is expected in this business. Working 60 to 80-hour weeks all the time is not only abusive, it's counterproductive. There's only so much brainpower one can engage: and I'd bet that the vast majority of that 60-hour week is unproductive time anyway.
That still would require some significant changes that the original code is probably not designed to do, and it involves storing another collection of variables (if even for a moment while batching the check) and iterating over it twice.
Have you ever coded in COBOL on a early 1970s mainframe, like an IBM System/360, that is likely running this application? To us, in the modern era, it sounds simple enough. But, given the programming language (COBOL) and the likely system it is running on (old and busted, with no modern database), it is likely not that simple.
Those of you saying "how hard can it be to write a couple of lines of COBOL" are probably underestimating the problem.
If all they had to do was just lower people's salary to $6.whatever per hour, that wouldn't be the issue. The problem is they have to account for the ACTUAL salary the person should be making, because once the budget is passed they will have to pay all those people back for the salary that's owed.
So, there's a big issue here. They have to calculate their salary like they would anyway, and then pay them minimum wage for the number of hours actually worked (because I'd guess a number of State employees are "exempt"), remember how much they SHOULD have been paid and how much taxes SHOULD have been taken out, record that information, and then print out a check.
In a modern programming language with a modern relational database, no problem. In COBOL with an obsolete non-relational DB, perhaps even one with 80-column mindset? Yeah, right. Good luck with that.
It is, to a very large extent however, calling the lawyer's bluff.
It is highly unlikely that Craigslist would be held "accountable for wasting the court's time" simply because they didn't attend a hearing. Craigslist's policies regarding personally identifiable information is clearly outlined on their website. They simply do not collect any other information except the person's E-mail address and potentially the IP address. If the lawyer is asking for information Craigslist does not collect, and Craigslist provides all the information they have and cooperates completely with the default judgment to the best of their ability, the worst that can likely happen in the Ninth Circuit is another hearing.
Craigslist's lawyer will attend that hearing, and clearly state to the judge that the reason for Craigslist not attending the previous hearing was not out of contempt with the court, but because Craigslist had no rebuttal to the charges, and chose instead to simply allow a default and to comply with the judges' wishes. ("Judicial expediency" is what this is called.)
Craigs is the defendant. It is viewed as permissible in many courts for the defendant to not appear and accept a default judgment. We do this in the United States for many petty crimes all the time (when you "pay a traffic ticket", you are in most states posting bail and accepting the default judgment of the court), and in many civil courts as well (such as in landlord-tenant disputes and small-claims). It is likely a hearing was never even called: when no defendant or counsel-for-defendant registered in the morning with the clerk, it was likely not even put in the judge's in-box for the day, and was just quietly signed in the back of the court office.
IANAL, but I think the way this works is like this.
1. Lawyer shows up at Craigslist (either physically or by phone/mail/etc.) and politely asks for the information. Gets told to buzz off.
2. Lawyer files lawsuit demanding the information, serves Craigs with the lawsuit.
3. Craigslist knows something the lawyer doesn't about the information they're seeking: that the only information Craigslist likely has is an E-mail address, and MAYBE an IP address. Craigslist decides that it isn't worth the lawyering money to fight the lawsuit, because either of those pieces of information really doesn't do much to establish identity without the Academy going up against Somebody Else's Lawyers.
4. Craigslist will hand the information over with a smirk, knowing that now it is Google's (because, in all likelihood, it is a gmail.com address they have on file) or Comcast's lawyers who will take this up.
Here's a thought. Maybe Craigslist intentionally didn't show, because lawyers cost money and they knew that dragging this out in a courtroom would cost them thousands with a fairly large likelihood that they'd lose anyway.
This way, when the lawyers come to collect the data, they can just hand over the gmail.com address and say "that's all the information we have", and the Academy still has to subpoena Google to get the guy's real identity (maybe).
Sounds like a good legal strategy to me: make Google's lawyers pay for it.
"Success" can be relative.
If I was an investor right now, I'd argue AAPL is more successful than MSFT.
MSFT has a gazillion bucks, but the ROI for their stockholders has suffered recently. Whereas AAPL under Jobs just keeps making stockholders money. Good money. If you bought AAPL and MSFT one year ago, you would have made 24% on AAPL, and lost 10% of MSFT.
Funny. This would almost make it seem like Apple is a very profitable company, who's investors seem quite pleased at the ROI they get from owning stock.
In fact, in almost every category that would define investor confidence AAPL outperforms MSFT, and leaves DELL and HPQ in the dust.
I fail to see any lost sales and profits in this equation. If I was a shareholder in AAPL, I'd be happy as punch right now.
"I quit. Find another IT guy."
That's really the only pervasive argument you have.
Actually, as a common carrier it is legally safer to cast the net as wide as possible. There is no legal or administrative requirement that Usenet servers carry the alt.* hierarchy. The fact that they are blocking both alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen-sluts and alt.plastic.utensils.spork.spork.spork gives them an automatic defense in court of their common-carrier status. "We're not censoring, we just lack the technical ability to maintain the hierarchy properly." End of case.
That is why they are probably legally safe from just not carrying the entire alt.* hierarchy.
Common carrier does not necessarily demand you service anybody. A common-carrier truck line can only service two major cities (say, Portland OR and Seattle WA), or only be able to provide services with a 14-foot van.
Similarly, Verizon can choose to not carry a wide swath of net.news, provided their reasoning for not carrying it fills a technical requirement. All they have to say in front of a judge is that it is increasingly difficult to operate and maintain a news server to carry those groups, and any potential lawsuit is over.
If it even sees the inside of a courtroom. Last I checked, Verizon subscribers are tied to binding arbitration.. so good luck with this ever being seen by a judge.