Who is this Thurrott guy anyway? Ballmer's cousin?
Re:Is Apple or Microsoft forcing HP to do this?
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No WMA for HP iPod
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· Score: 1
They're a monopoly on making cool-looking overpriced hardware;)
It is cool-looking, and it may be overpriced, but they have a monopoly on one thing: Elegant computing with well-thought-out software that anyone can use.
Apparently there are enough people who think that it's worth the money.
I work for a CBS-owned TV station. Last spring we broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament, and on several evenings we carried four games simultaneously in standard-def on our DTV channel. We were one of the few stations in the country that had the equipment and expertise to pull it off. You'll be seeing more of that sort of thing in the near future, because it's possible to make more money selling ads on 4 program streams than on one (hidef) stream.
Is there a Tivo like device for normal FM or AM radio?
You could use your Tivo and just feed the output of a radio tuner into its audio input. I'm not sure it cares whether or not there is video (but if it did, you could always get a cheapie color bar genny, or just plug in a VCR's output).
I use my analog VCR for recording radio shows. You can get eight hours without changing tapes, which is more than you can say for audio cassettes. And the quality is better if you use a HiFi VCR.
And by getting rid of the users who are above average, they are causing the average to creep lower and lower, thus placing more of their customers in the "above average" category. Eventually they will have no customers at all, which is what they apparently deserve.
This page has links to MPEG video showing the effects of BoPL on HF communications, from field tests conducted by The American Radio Relay League's engineering lab as well as the Austrian Amateur Radio Society.
I've suffered 3 area code splits in 20 years, all without moving.
My area code has changed 3 times in the last 10-12 years, along with a change in my zip code, also without moving.
IMHO, the telcos have really mangled the way all these code splits and dialing rules have been put in place. Used to be you dialed just the seven digits for a local call, a "1" for a toll call (which originally did connect you to a toll switching center, back in the step switch days), and adding the area code for outside your area. Now we have to remember rules about dialing local numbers within the same area code, local numbers in a different area code, and long distance numbers, and whether you need to dial the "1" even if it's a local call. Plus there are probably different rules on whether to dial the "1" or the area code for your office PBX and for your cell phone.
Telephone consultant Linc Madison has a very interesting website for phone techies, and has come up with a proposal for expanding to 12-digit phone numbers, which would do for telephony what IPv6 promises to do for internet addressing, e.g. make it possible for your coffeepot to have its own phone number.
Fountain pens rule. I currently use a Cross for general writing and have used a Waterman as well. In high school I always used those inexpensive Sheaffer fountain pens with the colored plastic translucent barrels. Red was my favorite. I also find technical pens (Rapidograph, point size 0) to be good for detail writing, such as in log books and for taking field notes. They are messy though if you don't keep them cleaned and inked.
Non-fountain pens I like include my Waterman rollerball and a commodity Bic rollerball pen. You can get some decent pens like that for under $1.
Someone mentioned pencils. My utter fave mech pencil is the Sanford Titanium. Cushioned grip, plenty of eraser. Beats the others hands-down. (I'm sure there's a pun in there somewhere.)
Once you've used RPN it becomes natural and logical, and anything else (like a conventional algebraic calculator) is cumbersome. Kind of like having to twist your brain to think about how to do something under Windows when you're most comfortable in the GNU/Linux world.
Seems like scores of cash-strapped public libraries and public school systems should scrap Dewey in favor of LC then. Oh wait, these are the same cash-strapped public school systems that just threw out thousands of perfectly good Macs (that the teachers and students really liked) and installed millions of dollars worth of "free" Microsoft software (M$'s valuation, not mine), not seeing the train wreck down the road when they are forced to upgrade...
When I was a tender nerd of only 7 I categorized the books on the bookshelf in my bedroom according to the Dewey(tm) Decimal System. Does this mean I owe 20+ years of triple my lifetime income for having done so?
WiFi operates on a frequency band (2.4-2.5 GHz) that is very susceptible to rain fade. That's why microwave ovens operate at 2.45 GHz -- it's the resonant frequency of the water molecule. It's called the "garbage band" because there are so many unlicensed services operating there since it's useless for anything that's supposed to be reliable.
The Novice license is no longer available. Existing Novices can continue to operate.
The Technician license grants nearly all privileges above 50 MHz, but Techs are only allowed to operate HF (below 30 MHz) if they've passed the Morse Code test, and then only Morse Code at low power (and one phone allocation on 10 meters) in a few small slices of spectrum.
General class licensees have some privileges on all amateur bands, including voice, data, and video where it's allowed. Extra Class operators have full privileges.
Should have been modded Insightful, not merely Funny.
CW (Morse code) is often the only way to get a message through when all other methods fail. All you need to be able to do is switch a carrier on and off. And it can be done with very low power.
I really should charge them $150,000 for each time my eyeballs have been forced to scan their vile initials in yet another "news article" their flacks churned out and some clueless editor printed verbatim, but if they pay me $50,000, I'll say no more about it.
In a battle of museum pieces, I used to use a model 15-KSR as the printer on my TRS-80. I wrote a little program to operate the cassette start/stop relay to generate the pulses required by the five-level Baudot code for each character. The relay in turn keyed a transistor to break the 20 mA current loop to the TTY's magnets, so that the delicate relay in the TRS-80 did not end up being welded shut from the arc-back. It was quite impressive to watch it work. I put the hookup away when I saved up the $300 cost of an Epson MX-70 seven-pin dot-matrix printer and found a parallel-printer adapter that plugged into the 80's expansion port.
When not connected to the computer, it was switched over to a homebrew TD (transmitter-distributor, sort of an early modem) to copy teletype transmissions on 2 meters. A carrier-operated relay would turn on the loud, rumbly 1/3-HP motor just before the machine would chatter to life with a message forme or one of the other hams in town, then shut itself down at the end of the transmission. Boot-up time was a remarkable one-half second, with the only hiccup being an occasional random character that was typed as the power was coming up and the selectors were settling in on the camshaft.
Sadly, I had to abandon the machine when I moved, but I got around ten years' use out of it. I got good at dismantling it, straightening out bent rods, tightening and greasing gears and changing typearm slugs (it came to me with a British pound symbol instead of the dollar sign, so I replaced that one, and a couple others). These skills also came in handy servicing the receive-only Model 15s from UPI and AP in the newsroom of the radio station where I worked back then.
Impressive yes, but typical of what ham radio operators do all the time. (Many of the ASL team members are hams, as was mentioned in the story.) We're always building equipment out of such mundane stuff as tuna fish cans and coat hangers, and making contacts around the world.
By the same token I'd like to be able to enter SMS messages in Morse using one of the phone's keys rather than having to use the clumsy way you have to 888-999-7-33 your message in now.
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Who is this Thurrott guy anyway? Ballmer's cousin?
They're a monopoly on making cool-looking overpriced hardware ;)
It is cool-looking, and it may be overpriced, but they have a monopoly on one thing: Elegant computing with well-thought-out software that anyone can use.
Apparently there are enough people who think that it's worth the money.
I work for a CBS-owned TV station. Last spring we broadcast the NCAA basketball tournament, and on several evenings we carried four games simultaneously in standard-def on our DTV channel. We were one of the few stations in the country that had the equipment and expertise to pull it off. You'll be seeing more of that sort of thing in the near future, because it's possible to make more money selling ads on 4 program streams than on one (hidef) stream.
Is there a Tivo like device for normal FM or AM radio?
You could use your Tivo and just feed the output of a radio tuner into its audio input. I'm not sure it cares whether or not there is video (but if it did, you could always get a cheapie color bar genny, or just plug in a VCR's output).
I use my analog VCR for recording radio shows. You can get eight hours without changing tapes, which is more than you can say for audio cassettes. And the quality is better if you use a HiFi VCR.
And by getting rid of the users who are above average, they are causing the average to creep lower and lower, thus placing more of their customers in the "above average" category. Eventually they will have no customers at all, which is what they apparently deserve.
More goodies under $100 for Mac folks listed on Mike Wendland's mac blog.
This page has links to MPEG video showing the effects of BoPL on HF communications, from field tests conducted by The American Radio Relay League's engineering lab as well as the Austrian Amateur Radio Society.
I've suffered 3 area code splits in 20 years, all without moving.
My area code has changed 3 times in the last 10-12 years, along with a change in my zip code, also without moving.
IMHO, the telcos have really mangled the way all these code splits and dialing rules have been put in place. Used to be you dialed just the seven digits for a local call, a "1" for a toll call (which originally did connect you to a toll switching center, back in the step switch days), and adding the area code for outside your area. Now we have to remember rules about dialing local numbers within the same area code, local numbers in a different area code, and long distance numbers, and whether you need to dial the "1" even if it's a local call. Plus there are probably different rules on whether to dial the "1" or the area code for your office PBX and for your cell phone.
Telephone consultant Linc Madison has a very interesting website for phone techies, and has come up with a proposal for expanding to 12-digit phone numbers, which would do for telephony what IPv6 promises to do for internet addressing, e.g. make it possible for your coffeepot to have its own phone number.
Fountain pens rule. I currently use a Cross for general writing and have used a Waterman as well. In high school I always used those inexpensive Sheaffer fountain pens with the colored plastic translucent barrels. Red was my favorite. I also find technical pens (Rapidograph, point size 0) to be good for detail writing, such as in log books and for taking field notes. They are messy though if you don't keep them cleaned and inked.
Non-fountain pens I like include my Waterman rollerball and a commodity Bic rollerball pen. You can get some decent pens like that for under $1.
Someone mentioned pencils. My utter fave mech pencil is the Sanford Titanium. Cushioned grip, plenty of eraser. Beats the others hands-down. (I'm sure there's a pun in there somewhere.)
Is poor penmanship genetic?
Not necessarily. I write neatly. (Not just my own opinion -- other people tell me that.) My kids write scribble-scrabble.
I think it's because not enough time is spent in elementary grades stressing penmanship. There is so much else to learn these days.
Maybe he's anonymous cos he's a grease monkey himself.
Once you've used RPN it becomes natural and logical, and anything else (like a conventional algebraic calculator) is cumbersome. Kind of like having to twist your brain to think about how to do something under Windows when you're most comfortable in the GNU/Linux world.
Seems like scores of cash-strapped public libraries and public school systems should scrap Dewey in favor of LC then. Oh wait, these are the same cash-strapped public school systems that just threw out thousands of perfectly good Macs (that the teachers and students really liked) and installed millions of dollars worth of "free" Microsoft software (M$'s valuation, not mine), not seeing the train wreck down the road when they are forced to upgrade...
When I was a tender nerd of only 7 I categorized the books on the bookshelf in my bedroom according to the Dewey(tm) Decimal System. Does this mean I owe 20+ years of triple my lifetime income for having done so?
It's called Google.
Last time I was at the library the librarian couldn't find the book I wanted in the online catalogue, so she went to Amazon.com to look it up.
This is one reason why MS-Word is not a document exchange format even if both parties are using some flavor of MS-Word.
WiFi operates on a frequency band (2.4-2.5 GHz) that is very susceptible to rain fade. That's why microwave ovens operate at 2.45 GHz -- it's the resonant frequency of the water molecule. It's called the "garbage band" because there are so many unlicensed services operating there since it's useless for anything that's supposed to be reliable.
Even a light bulb can be used to make contacts around the world.
The Novice license is no longer available. Existing Novices can continue to operate.
The Technician license grants nearly all privileges above 50 MHz, but Techs are only allowed to operate HF (below 30 MHz) if they've passed the Morse Code test, and then only Morse Code at low power (and one phone allocation on 10 meters) in a few small slices of spectrum.
General class licensees have some privileges on all amateur bands, including voice, data, and video where it's allowed. Extra Class operators have full privileges.
Here is a good summary of the license classes and operating privileges.
Should have been modded Insightful, not merely Funny.
CW (Morse code) is often the only way to get a message through when all other methods fail. All you need to be able to do is switch a carrier on and off. And it can be done with very low power.
And to think the ITU now allows countries to do away with the Morse requirement for operation under 30 MHz. (There are petitions before the FCC to do this in the US.)
I really should charge them $150,000 for each time my eyeballs have been forced to scan their vile initials in yet another "news article" their flacks churned out and some clueless editor printed verbatim, but if they pay me $50,000, I'll say no more about it.
In a battle of museum pieces, I used to use a model 15-KSR as the printer on my TRS-80. I wrote a little program to operate the cassette start/stop relay to generate the pulses required by the five-level Baudot code for each character. The relay in turn keyed a transistor to break the 20 mA current loop to the TTY's magnets, so that the delicate relay in the TRS-80 did not end up being welded shut from the arc-back. It was quite impressive to watch it work. I put the hookup away when I saved up the $300 cost of an Epson MX-70 seven-pin dot-matrix printer and found a parallel-printer adapter that plugged into the 80's expansion port.
When not connected to the computer, it was switched over to a homebrew TD (transmitter-distributor, sort of an early modem) to copy teletype transmissions on 2 meters. A carrier-operated relay would turn on the loud, rumbly 1/3-HP motor just before the machine would chatter to life with a message forme or one of the other hams in town, then shut itself down at the end of the transmission. Boot-up time was a remarkable one-half second, with the only hiccup being an occasional random character that was typed as the power was coming up and the selectors were settling in on the camshaft.
Sadly, I had to abandon the machine when I moved, but I got around ten years' use out of it. I got good at dismantling it, straightening out bent rods, tightening and greasing gears and changing typearm slugs (it came to me with a British pound symbol instead of the dollar sign, so I replaced that one, and a couple others). These skills also came in handy servicing the receive-only Model 15s from UPI and AP in the newsroom of the radio station where I worked back then.
Impressive yes, but typical of what ham radio operators do all the time. (Many of the ASL team members are hams, as was mentioned in the story.) We're always building equipment out of such mundane stuff as tuna fish cans and coat hangers, and making contacts around the world.
should have been 8-999-7-33. See what I mean? How many times have I sent "balk md"?
By the same token I'd like to be able to enter SMS messages in Morse using one of the phone's keys rather than having to use the clumsy way you have to 888-999-7-33 your message in now.