The only criticism I can think of for those who want to retain VHF for rural viewers is the fact that I can't remember a time in our pre-cable television viewing experienced when all 13 channels had content on them. I believe we had CBS on 2, NBC on 4, Local on 5, ABC on 7, Local on 9, Local on 11, and PBS on 13.
So we weren't using 3, 6, 8, 10, or 12. That's 5 channels that could be used.
Just because your rabbit ears or roof antenna can't pick up anything outside the 5 boroughs (you DO live in NYC with that rotation, yes?) doesn't mean 3, 6, 8, 10 & 12 don't have a presence within the NYC Metro area.
Head across the Lincoln Tunnel and down the NJ Turnpike and take a look at what you'll find on those channels less than 45 minutes outside of NYC.
3: KYW, 100 kW, Philadelphia, CBS affiliate 6: WPVI, 40 kW from Philadelphia. ABC affiliate 8: WNJB, 4.5 kW, New Brunswick, NJ, PBS
WTNH, 175 kW, Hartford, CT, ABC Affiliate 10: WCAU, 191 kW, Philadelphia, NBC Affiliate 12: WHYY, 309 kW, Phila/Delaware, PBS
WPIX-DIGITAL, New York City
Get the picture?
It's not feasible to allocate these guard-band channels in the NY metro area because of the inevitable interference problems that would unquestionably arise. Lets say you put LMR (Land Mobile Radio) on Channel 6 in NYC. All of a sudden, you get one killer inversion happening and users in that whole 6 MHz allocation get clobbered. Ooopsie! There goes the local sheriff's office off the air. And the viewers in Philly who who can't get a clear picture to watch General Hospital in the afternoon won't take too kindly to the hearing the "Engine 8, Ladder 12 respond to the Bus Depot for a report of smoke" either.
This is actually done on the lower end of the UHF broadcast channel rotation..shared with LMR in what's called the T-Band allocation. On those rare days that there's propagation in the 470-512 MHz region (rare but it happens), it can get messy.
In the near-term spectrum space will be at a real premium since, at least in major metropolitan areas, each regular over-the-air broadcaster will have two allocations, not one...NTSC and their digital signal. To wit, Channels 11 and 12 in NYC, as well as CBS 2 and 56 (D), Fox 5 & 44, etc.
Thanks to one and all for your suggestions, and I'll certainly take a few to heart.
At 41 (without a degree) and having been out of the IT workplace for 2+ years, I don't have the time or money to go the full college route, and I neither need nor want to take English, Philosophy, basket weaving or anything else right now. I need to quickly bolster my skills in areas that are directly relevant to the end of the market I wish to re-enter, namely systems or network administration.
I worked as a contractor since '94 (home users, SoHo, etc), got NT in '97 and worked 3 years in the PHB-world (and loved every minute of it). When I moved to the US from Canada in 2000 it took 9 months to get work status here, and by then the dotcoms were falling one-a-minute and nobody was hiring. Then 9/11 came up and I've not even gotten more than 2 nibbles after that. Huge resume gaps are just not in demand any more, alas.:)
I finally found a great looking tech school for Cisco (TCY Technologies in Manhattan). Lots of eBay'ed routers--one dedicated per student--small classes, motivated and intelligent teachers and fellow students that could just as well be my co-workers or bosses (I mean that in a good way). In other words, not Lowest Common Denominator "what's a subnet" career-changers or UI voucher recipients. I'll take the advice of many posters here and take my Solaris training directly from Sun rather than through a school.
I've decided to take A+ and Net+ on my own, and try for the following certs: CCNA, CCNP, CSS-1 and Solaris Admin I & II. I also want to fill in the gaps of my Winblows knowledge with 70-210, 215 and maybe 216, but I still haven't found a decent M$ school for these yet.
I also took to heart what many have said about there being something with my resume that's raising flags, and if anybody's any good with resumes and is willing to assist, I'd gladly take comments and suggestions.
I really enjoy SA/network admin work, I don't mind staying till 2AM to check on a critical process, work weekends to ensure backups are complete or go under desks and pull Cat5. Heck, I don't even mind dealing with (l)users day to day. I'm good at what I do and I want to do more of it. I have no interest in coding whatsoever (more power to ya, and less competition from me!).
My favourite tactic with these cretins is to grind up their snail-spam in my cross-cut shredder, stuff the resultant shreddies in the postage-paid return envelope and send it on its merry way back to the sender.
Yes, I *do* have a lot of spare time on my hands...how did you know?
..that Empire the only really good Star Wars movie was the only one not directed by Lucas.
Wrong you so are, Hmmmm?. Return of the Jedi was directed by Lawrence Kasdan.
Personally, I think Lucas listened too closely to Yoda and was seduced by the Dark Side. "Once you stride down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will."
Well, just remember... you can never go home again...
and it'll never be 1977 again, with your easily impressioned pre-teen brain being permanently changed by every laser blast... feeling pure joy at every slash of a light saber...
Unlike many posters here, I was 17 when A New Hope opened, and the first trilogy helped shape my early-adulthood rather than my teenaged years. This film changed me in just about every way imaginable, for both better and worse. I becam a SF/Fantasy fan from it and I became so fascinated with movies that I worked in the industry as a projectionist and sound technician for over 19 years. Persuing and understanding THX standards turned me into somewhat of an audiophile. I gained a passion for technology that led me into IT and got me my ham radio license.
What the original, Empire and about 2/3 of RotJ had was a fun story and characters that I could relate to, and in whose shoes I could and would gladly walk. Sure it told a classic good-versus-evil tale but it did so interestingly and without talking down to me.
Starting with the Teddy-Bears-From-Hell-Saving-The-Galaxy and continuing with My-Favourite-Gungan, SW has been about nothing more than merchandising and target-marketing without going through the bother of film-making--or in this case, video making.
When "A New Hope" opened, it was possible to go more than 5 feet and not get bombarded with really awful merchandising tie-ins (sure, they came later)--Yeah, I bought the book, the soundtrack (wore the vinyl out playing it--fostering my love for classical music today, may I add) and a couple of action figures, but that was it. Whole universes of "collectables" weren't yet lurking around every corner with the sole intent of separating me and my money. Toy stores still had more bikes and GI-Joes and dolls and footballs than Darth Vader masks and plastic lightsabres (I made mine from an old flashlight and a golf club protector tube).
Episodes IV-VI were more about telling an interesting story than purely generating incredible amounts of money. Tell me a good story and I'll flock to see it, hear it, read it or absorb it through osmosis anyday.
I don't particularly despise the new title, BTW, but it certainly does give parodists and critics something to twist into a headline if, as is widely expected, this turns into another execrable pre-packeged and sanitized kiddiefest.
I'll second Webwasher as one of the best pieces of anti-junk ever to hit the Web. I prefer a paid competitor called AdSubtract personally (I think it's about $30, but I like its interface a bit better). Either will rid you of pop ups, pop-unders, ads in general and all sorts of other shyte (including JavaScript and referrers) on a general basis or site-specific. I can't recommend either product strongly enough.
Add a great little freebie app called Ad Aware to that list, which tells you if some spyware has made it through your defenses, and gives you the option of cleaning it off your system.
Using the Web is actually a pleasant experience with these wondrous little apps.
As more sites refuse to serve content unless they can set and read back a cookie, the part of the web you'll be able to surf is going to get mighty small soon. It's happening already.
When I want to access that kind of site today, I momentarily un-block the cookies with AdSubtract, let the page load and immediatley delete the cookies and other crap.
And it'll get even smaller when content only loads after the successful playback of a 30-second animated commercial, enforced by more cookies and some scripting to render the content itself.
Good riddance. I don't mind paying good hard money for what I want or need. Napster is a perfect example. I love older comedy and "Dr. Demento style" music--much of which is not commercially available. The Napaster we all grew to love gave me what I wanted, WHEN I wanted it. I'd have easily paid $20 or even $50 a month for that flexibility and content. Now their model gives me nothing that I want so guess what? I ain't buyin'.
I would gladly pay for Slashdot, Fuckedcompany.com, The Register and a few other indespensible sites. Anything else? If I want it I'll pay for it. I won't suffer through ads for it, I'll tell you that!
If youre running windows, a nice solution is Popup Killer. Works great, combined with AdSubtract
You don't need Popup Killer if you're running AdSubtract 2.11. You can configure it to kill anything on either a global or per-site basis, including popups, java applets, javascript, animations, cookies, background images, auto-refreshes, background sound, referrers and of course, ads of all shapes and sizes. I think I've seen two X-10 ads in the last months and maybe 10 odd-sized banner ads and that's it. The 'Net is actually usable again with AdSubtract! (No, I don't work for them or have any financial interest in them--other than the $29 or whatever it was that I paid them for it). There's a German product called WebWasher that's free, but a little trickier to configure.
Sympatico gives very fast DSL (have you seen the speeds in the US?) at a very low price (have you seen their prices?). You would almost think that some DSL providers in the US are trying to give the same price per Kbps as a modem, but I get 1.5Mbps dn/384Kbps up for 45$ a month.
Unless they've changed their policies in the last year and a half, however, you're stuck with PPPoE if you go with Pathetico--at least in the Toronto area. I was on Rogers Cable for broadband and got 1.5/384 with a static IP for $40 CAD.
Now I'm "living" in Queens, New York City. I pay $79.95 USD for 1.5/384/Static aDSL with Covad as my provider...a company likely to be gone within 6 months, leaving me up the creek. Most DSL and cable here is DHCP or PPPoE at less than 640 down and less than 256 up.
I can't wait to get the hell back to Canada! I'll trade Hillary and Ghouliani for Doris--er--Stockwell Day and Mega Mel's Mouth anytime.
I'm an American living in Canada, and while Canada is in general a pretty nice place to life, Canada Post is pretty scary. Think of all the jokes we Americans have about the US Postal Service. Compared to Canada Post it gives good service
I'm a Canadian living in the United States, and I gotta concur with the above. The US Post Office is one of the best parts of my daily life down here. I sell mail-order, and dealing with USPS people is a dream compared to the drugstore clerks back home working the postal counter (Canada has gotten rid of most of its post offices. Retail postal sales and pickups are done through local businesses--often Shoppers' Drug Mart in the Toronto area).
As to Canada Post's internet venture, perhaps their definition of "lifetime" is the same length of time that Canada Post takes to deliver a letter from Toronto to Brampton.
Good ol' Jeppesen E6B flight computers. I've got one that's about 15 years old. Tough as nails and works well too. Actually, I'd be surprised if most airline pilots didn't carry these for backup.
I still regularly use my Jepp E6B for flight planning even though electronic means are at my disposal. I also have a flight computer slide rule on my Citizen wristwatch that I have also used while in flight. All it is is a C/D scale slide rule with a few extra fixed references for fuel and oil weight, unit conversion, etc.
I have a close friend in Ottawa who loves slide rules of all kinds. I fondly remember him demonstrating some of the more rare and obscure ones at a science fiction convention a couple of years ago. My favourite was the one that calculated the damage/blast range for nuclear weapons!
I gotta go with two. The best is from the Hugo-winning episode Severed Dreams:
"Only one human captain has ever survived battle with the Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!"--Delenn
That and "No boom today. Maybe a boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow" --Ivanova
I use keyboard sequences for less-secure (i.e. non-root) situations. Pick a rememberable repeating pattern of keys such as 4z5x6c7v; all I have to remember are the first two characters and the last.
Slashdot Mirror
The only criticism I can think of for those who want to retain VHF for rural viewers is the fact that I can't remember a time in our pre-cable television viewing experienced when all 13 channels had content on them. I believe we had CBS on 2, NBC on 4, Local on 5, ABC on 7, Local on 9, Local on 11, and PBS on 13.
So we weren't using 3, 6, 8, 10, or 12. That's 5 channels that could be used.
Just because your rabbit ears or roof antenna can't pick up anything outside the 5 boroughs (you DO live in NYC with that rotation, yes?) doesn't mean 3, 6, 8, 10 & 12 don't have a presence within the NYC Metro area.
Head across the Lincoln Tunnel and down the NJ Turnpike and take a look at what you'll find on those channels less than 45 minutes outside of NYC.
3: KYW, 100 kW, Philadelphia, CBS affiliate
6: WPVI, 40 kW from Philadelphia. ABC affiliate
8: WNJB, 4.5 kW, New Brunswick, NJ, PBS
WTNH, 175 kW, Hartford, CT, ABC Affiliate
10: WCAU, 191 kW, Philadelphia, NBC Affiliate
12: WHYY, 309 kW, Phila/Delaware, PBS
WPIX-DIGITAL, New York City
Get the picture?
It's not feasible to allocate these guard-band channels in the NY metro area because of the inevitable interference problems that would unquestionably arise. Lets say you put LMR (Land Mobile Radio) on Channel 6 in NYC. All of a sudden, you get one killer inversion happening and users in that whole 6 MHz allocation get clobbered. Ooopsie! There goes the local sheriff's office off the air. And the viewers in Philly who who can't get a clear picture to watch General Hospital in the afternoon won't take too kindly to the hearing the "Engine 8, Ladder 12 respond to the Bus Depot for a report of smoke" either.
This is actually done on the lower end of the UHF broadcast channel rotation..shared with LMR in what's called the T-Band allocation. On those rare days that there's propagation in the 470-512 MHz region (rare but it happens), it can get messy.
In the near-term spectrum space will be at a real premium since, at least in major metropolitan areas, each regular over-the-air broadcaster will have two allocations, not one...NTSC and their digital signal. To wit, Channels 11 and 12 in NYC, as well as CBS 2 and 56 (D), Fox 5 & 44, etc.
Thanks to one and all for your suggestions, and I'll certainly take a few to heart.
:)
At 41 (without a degree) and having been out of the IT workplace for 2+ years, I don't have the time or money to go the full college route, and I neither need nor want to take English, Philosophy, basket weaving or anything else right now. I need to quickly bolster my skills in areas that are directly relevant to the end of the market I wish to re-enter, namely systems or network administration.
I worked as a contractor since '94 (home users, SoHo, etc), got NT in '97 and worked 3 years in the PHB-world (and loved every minute of it). When I moved to the US from Canada in 2000 it took 9 months to get work status here, and by then the dotcoms were falling one-a-minute and nobody was hiring. Then 9/11 came up and I've not even gotten more than 2 nibbles after that. Huge resume gaps are just not in demand any more, alas.
I finally found a great looking tech school for Cisco (TCY Technologies in Manhattan). Lots of eBay'ed routers--one dedicated per student--small classes, motivated and intelligent teachers and fellow students that could just as well be my co-workers or bosses (I mean that in a good way). In other words, not Lowest Common Denominator "what's a subnet" career-changers or UI voucher recipients. I'll take the advice of many posters here and take my Solaris training directly from Sun rather than through a school.
I've decided to take A+ and Net+ on my own, and try for the following certs: CCNA, CCNP, CSS-1 and Solaris Admin I & II. I also want to fill in the gaps of my Winblows knowledge with 70-210, 215 and maybe 216, but I still haven't found a decent M$ school for these yet.
I also took to heart what many have said about there being something with my resume that's raising flags, and if anybody's any good with resumes and is willing to assist, I'd gladly take comments and suggestions.
I really enjoy SA/network admin work, I don't mind staying till 2AM to check on a critical process, work weekends to ensure backups are complete or go under desks and pull Cat5. Heck, I don't even mind dealing with (l)users day to day. I'm good at what I do and I want to do more of it. I have no interest in coding whatsoever (more power to ya, and less competition from me!).
My favourite tactic with these cretins is to grind up their snail-spam in my cross-cut shredder, stuff the resultant shreddies in the postage-paid return envelope and send it on its merry way back to the sender.
Yes, I *do* have a lot of spare time on my hands...how did you know?
..that Empire the only really good Star Wars movie was the only one not directed by Lucas.
Wrong you so are, Hmmmm?. Return of the Jedi was directed by Lawrence Kasdan.
Personally, I think Lucas listened too closely to Yoda and was seduced by the Dark Side. "Once you stride down the Dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will."
It [using chapter titles] harkens back to the sense of pure fun, imagination and excitement
Let's make that "immolation and excrement" in this case.
Well, just remember... you can never go home again...
and it'll never be 1977 again, with your easily impressioned pre-teen brain being permanently changed by every laser blast... feeling pure joy at every slash of a light saber...
Unlike many posters here, I was 17 when A New Hope opened, and the first trilogy helped shape my early-adulthood rather than my teenaged years. This film changed me in just about every way imaginable, for both better and worse. I becam a SF/Fantasy fan from it and I became so fascinated with movies that I worked in the industry as a projectionist and sound technician for over 19 years. Persuing and understanding THX standards turned me into somewhat of an audiophile. I gained a passion for technology that led me into IT and got me my ham radio license.
What the original, Empire and about 2/3 of RotJ had was a fun story and characters that I could relate to, and in whose shoes I could and would gladly walk. Sure it told a classic good-versus-evil tale but it did so interestingly and without talking down to me.
Starting with the Teddy-Bears-From-Hell-Saving-The-Galaxy and continuing with My-Favourite-Gungan, SW has been about nothing more than merchandising and target-marketing without going through the bother of film-making--or in this case, video making.
When "A New Hope" opened, it was possible to go more than 5 feet and not get bombarded with really awful merchandising tie-ins (sure, they came later)--Yeah, I bought the book, the soundtrack (wore the vinyl out playing it--fostering my love for classical music today, may I add) and a couple of action figures, but that was it. Whole universes of "collectables" weren't yet lurking around every corner with the sole intent of separating me and my money. Toy stores still had more bikes and GI-Joes and dolls and footballs than Darth Vader masks and plastic lightsabres (I made mine from an old flashlight and a golf club protector tube).
Episodes IV-VI were more about telling an interesting story than purely generating incredible amounts of money. Tell me a good story and I'll flock to see it, hear it, read it or absorb it through osmosis anyday.
I don't particularly despise the new title, BTW, but it certainly does give parodists and critics something to twist into a headline if, as is widely expected, this turns into another execrable pre-packeged and sanitized kiddiefest.
I'll second Webwasher as one of the best pieces of anti-junk ever to hit the Web. I prefer a paid competitor called AdSubtract personally (I think it's about $30, but I like its interface a bit better). Either will rid you of pop ups, pop-unders, ads in general and all sorts of other shyte (including JavaScript and referrers) on a general basis or site-specific. I can't recommend either product strongly enough.
Add a great little freebie app called Ad Aware to that list, which tells you if some spyware has made it through your defenses, and gives you the option of cleaning it off your system.
Using the Web is actually a pleasant experience with these wondrous little apps.
As more sites refuse to serve content unless they can set and read back a cookie, the part of the web you'll be able to surf is going to get mighty small soon. It's happening already.
When I want to access that kind of site today, I momentarily un-block the cookies with AdSubtract, let the page load and immediatley delete the cookies and other crap.
And it'll get even smaller when content only loads after the successful playback of a 30-second animated commercial, enforced by more cookies and some scripting to render the content itself.
Good riddance. I don't mind paying good hard money for what I want or need. Napster is a perfect example. I love older comedy and "Dr. Demento style" music--much of which is not commercially available. The Napaster we all grew to love gave me what I wanted, WHEN I wanted it. I'd have easily paid $20 or even $50 a month for that flexibility and content. Now their model gives me nothing that I want so guess what? I ain't buyin'.
I would gladly pay for Slashdot, Fuckedcompany.com, The Register and a few other indespensible sites. Anything else? If I want it I'll pay for it. I won't suffer through ads for it, I'll tell you that!
Advertising people can be such A**holes sometimes.
Sometimes? You're in marketing, aren't you?
I'm convinced that advertising people exist only so that lawyers can have someone to despise.
If youre running windows, a nice solution is Popup Killer. Works great, combined with AdSubtract
You don't need Popup Killer if you're running AdSubtract 2.11. You can configure it to kill anything on either a global or per-site basis, including popups, java applets, javascript, animations, cookies, background images, auto-refreshes, background sound, referrers and of course, ads of all shapes and sizes. I think I've seen two X-10 ads in the last months and maybe 10 odd-sized banner ads and that's it. The 'Net is actually usable again with AdSubtract! (No, I don't work for them or have any financial interest in them--other than the $29 or whatever it was that I paid them for it). There's a German product called WebWasher that's free, but a little trickier to configure.
Coke won't make you happy.
Speak for yourself, bucko! You don't want to be within 50 feet of me until my morning Coke kicks in.
Oh, I get it-you're referring to that American crap masquerading as real Coca Cola. Canadian Coke, made with sucrose not high fructose, rules!
Sympatico gives very fast DSL (have you seen the speeds in the US?) at a very low price (have you seen their prices?). You would almost think that some DSL providers in the US are trying to give the same price per Kbps as a modem, but I get 1.5Mbps dn/384Kbps up for 45$ a month.
Unless they've changed their policies in the last year and a half, however, you're stuck with PPPoE if you go with Pathetico--at least in the Toronto area. I was on Rogers Cable for broadband and got 1.5/384 with a static IP for $40 CAD.
Now I'm "living" in Queens, New York City. I pay $79.95 USD for 1.5/384/Static aDSL with Covad as my provider...a company likely to be gone within 6 months, leaving me up the creek. Most DSL and cable here is DHCP or PPPoE at less than 640 down and less than 256 up.
I can't wait to get the hell back to Canada! I'll trade Hillary and Ghouliani for Doris--er--Stockwell Day and Mega Mel's Mouth anytime.
I'm an American living in Canada, and while Canada is in general a pretty nice place to life, Canada Post is pretty scary. Think of all the jokes we Americans have about the US Postal Service. Compared to Canada Post it gives good service
I'm a Canadian living in the United States, and I gotta concur with the above. The US Post Office is one of the best parts of my daily life down here. I sell mail-order, and dealing with USPS people is a dream compared to the drugstore clerks back home working the postal counter (Canada has gotten rid of most of its post offices. Retail postal sales and pickups are done through local businesses--often Shoppers' Drug Mart in the Toronto area).
As to Canada Post's internet venture, perhaps their definition of "lifetime" is the same length of time that Canada Post takes to deliver a letter from Toronto to Brampton.
Good ol' Jeppesen E6B flight computers. I've got one that's about 15 years old. Tough as nails and works well too. Actually, I'd be surprised if most airline pilots didn't carry these for backup.
I still regularly use my Jepp E6B for flight planning even though electronic means are at my disposal. I also have a flight computer slide rule on my Citizen wristwatch that I have also used while in flight. All it is is a C/D scale slide rule with a few extra fixed references for fuel and oil weight, unit conversion, etc.
I have a close friend in Ottawa who loves slide rules of all kinds. I fondly remember him demonstrating some of the more rare and obscure ones at a science fiction convention a couple of years ago. My favourite was the one that calculated the damage/blast range for nuclear weapons!
I gotta go with two. The best is from the Hugo-winning episode Severed Dreams:
"Only one human captain has ever survived battle with the Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, BE SOMEWHERE ELSE!"--Delenn
That and "No boom today. Maybe a boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow" --Ivanova
I use keyboard sequences for less-secure (i.e. non-root) situations. Pick a rememberable repeating pattern of keys such as 4z5x6c7v; all I have to remember are the first two characters and the last.