I know I'm part of a very small minority, but I'm blind in one eye. So even if this technology is a great improvement for most people, it still doesn't help some of us, and in fact it sounds like it's not even worth my time trying to watch a film being shown in "Real D".
Of course, I don't go to the movies that often anymore anyway, given the expense today, but if the studios are going to put up the killer barrier, then I suppose the choice will be out of my hands.
Actually, chances are it is not a FERPA violation. FERPA allows institutions that were using social security numbers to continue using them. Chances are, that school, like most public schools, has been using social security numbers for a long time. Also, most public schools do receive some form of federal funding, even if it's just through the free/reduced price lunch program.
I also noticed a post where people were asking about illegal immigrants. Any student without a social security number can generally be assigned a 999 (ie 999-99-9999) number in place of a ssn. That way, ever student still has a unique number in the school's system. Some schools will even allow students or parents to request a 999 number for use in place of their ssn.
If the school already has a station, you're pretty much out of luck. --No college student can afford to setup a legal station. Get a block of programming time at the station... Depending on how popular the station is this could be easy or difficult.
If your school does not have a radio station, work through them! If they have a communications department, that's an excellent place to start.
It's going to cost some money, but probably not as much as you might think. You'll have to have a survey done, but many broadcast engineers are willing to cut schools a deal on this.
Next, you're going to have to apply to the FCC. You'll probably want your school's general counsel to look this over, and if it's for a student organization or department, chances are it won't cost you a thing. Non-commercial stations do not have to pay any fees to the FCC. --None!
If there aren't many stations in your area, chances are you'll be able to get a frequency. As a general rule, the FCC does not license stations under 100 watts anymore. The only exceptions generally are grandfathered class D stations. You'd probably want to start at 100 watts, which is a Class C station.
You'll then need to put the station together... You're looking at an antennae and cabling (the cable is expensive!), a transmitter, compressor/processor, console, cd players, mics, cassette players, probably a computer or 2, a distribution amp, monitors, a modulation monitor, maybe minidisc players and turntables. Cart machines aren't necessary anymore. You'd be looking at probably 25-30K if the equipment is new, and 15-20k if the a lot of the equipment is used. Don't bother trying to find used CD players, and don't even think about going with anything less than professional grade equipment. --Bad bad bad.
After that, your monthly costs depend on how generous the school is. Most of them won't charge you for the electricity, but they will for phone lines (and you'll need at least 2, one for the studio, and one for the office).
You'll want to subscribe to CMJ and report to them. Their subscription for college stations is approximately $500 for 2 years. You'll also have to pay license fees to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. --These fees are going to depend in part on the patent office, and also how many people your station reaches. However it's significantly less than a commercial station would play.
At 100 watts you'll have to follow EAS policies, but that's fairly easy... Weekly and monthly tests and then make sure your station breaks when an actual EAS is transmitted. You'll have to designate a chief operator, but there's no operator's license required for that. --If you've got a decent EE program, you could probably find some students willing to help with that. Your DJs do not have to be licensed at all.
Other than that, well, there's a lot more. The biggest thing to be aware of is that the process of starting a station is unlikely to be finished in less than a year.
Anyway, that's a taste of what I learned in the year and a half I spent as station manager of my undergraduate university's station.
Don't know that I should be proud of that though... I went to do some maintenance on the streaming computer for IIT's radio station, and I found it was running Turbo Linux. Unfortunately it's still giving us problems, and I may yet switch over to something else. Still looking at my options, though.
On the bright side, before I had to start messing with it, it had an uptime of over 10 months!
What got to me about the movie, is I kept asking myself if I was really seeing Blade II or if we accidently went into a theater showing some sort of WWF movie.
A couple of my friends swear they were able to find a Star Wars parallel in the movie, but they couldn't really explain that afterwards. --Go figure, eh?
I am the Station Manager for a small college station in Chicago, and I just received information from SESAC (one of the three big licensing companies) regarding their fees... I was rather concerned at first, given that we have a very limited budget, however their fees for broadcasting our signal online are only $102/year. If BMI and ASCAP charge similar amounts, it'll stretch our budget, however we'll be able to manage.
Of course, who knows how it will end up for commercial stations at this point.
My university has experimented with thin clients, and has chosen to continue to use full PCs for the labs. The client boxes were nice, but they did not work as well and tended to be harder for them to keep running. Now the only thin clients they use are some Compaqs that they've placed around the school as email terminals. --These are actually very popular among students, as they don't have to fight for lab space just to check their email.
At first glance, this sounds really bad, but it might not be enough to put all college stations off the air.
I run a small college station in Chicago with a school supplied budget of $4000/year. We scrape together a few other dollars, and the school does provide electricity and legal services for free, but it's still tight...
What I'm guessing the licensing companies will try to do is going to look like this:
$0.0002/per performance + $500 or 9% of the per performance cost, whichever is greater.
I would use these numbers to estimate the per year performances for us:
If this were all, we might be able to scrape together the extra funds, however we would have to add $1500 to that cost ($500 minimum fee to each of the 3 licensing companies). That's what's going to hurt us. That doesn't even take into account trying to report all that information... We don't have to deal with nearly that much information even when we're in a reporting weekend!
I contrast, we currently pay under $1000 per year for the licenses to play the music over the air.
How much memory is on those things? --25K pixels isn't that much, but it's still decent, and 80 pictures!
It's not going to replace cameras people take while on vacation, but I could see uses for engineers or architects who don't necessarily need the best image, but good enough to spot any obvious errors.
And of course, as the picture on Casio's page shows, parents of young kids who want to capture every moment of their kid's life will love this.
I work in the housing department at a university in Chicago, and I created move in cards with barcodes instead of student IDs. This way we were able to scan the barcodes to confirm when students arrived rather than counting the cards by hand. --It made things much easier.
The radio station is also setting up a database and wants to use some to help maintain their inventory.
As I recall, though, this only protects you from the telemarketer for two years, after that they can legally take you off that list. (It might be 3 years in some places.) I suppose the idea is that if you move and someone gets your old number, telemarkters have a right to try to sell to them.
I like the waste-their-time approach when I've got time to spare, otherwise the don't call list is best.
I remember playing with Ramagons as a kid... The great thing was that you could also use legos with them, and make some very big designs.
Truth be told, though, I don't like trying to rank these toys... Legos were great for building cities (and space stations), Lincoln logs were nice for the single building/farm look, and I'm sure there was something I liked building with tinker toys, although I didn't care for them as much.
Try not to think about it...
on
Dorm Storm?
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· Score: 1
Very few people go through our CNS department at Illinois Tech... We still use static IPs, but there's absolutely no registration. We also have around 1500 available IPs for 900 students, and are probably using around 1100 on average.
Of course, they might have to start limiting bandwidth due to budget cuts... I can see it all now: "Effective immediately, every hall will have internet access for only 10 minutes every hour." And if they ever try wireless, we'll have to beat them down. --They tried DHCP 3 years ago, but couldn't keep it running.
Fellow students will always be the best help for new students.
Slashdot Mirror
I know I'm part of a very small minority, but I'm blind in one eye. So even if this technology is a great improvement for most people, it still doesn't help some of us, and in fact it sounds like it's not even worth my time trying to watch a film being shown in "Real D".
Of course, I don't go to the movies that often anymore anyway, given the expense today, but if the studios are going to put up the killer barrier, then I suppose the choice will be out of my hands.
Actually, chances are it is not a FERPA violation. FERPA allows institutions that were using social security numbers to continue using them. Chances are, that school, like most public schools, has been using social security numbers for a long time. Also, most public schools do receive some form of federal funding, even if it's just through the free/reduced price lunch program.
I also noticed a post where people were asking about illegal immigrants. Any student without a social security number can generally be assigned a 999 (ie 999-99-9999) number in place of a ssn. That way, ever student still has a unique number in the school's system. Some schools will even allow students or parents to request a 999 number for use in place of their ssn.
-Patrick
If the school already has a station, you're pretty much out of luck. --No college student can afford to setup a legal station. Get a block of programming time at the station... Depending on how popular the station is this could be easy or difficult.
If your school does not have a radio station, work through them! If they have a communications department, that's an excellent place to start.
It's going to cost some money, but probably not as much as you might think. You'll have to have a survey done, but many broadcast engineers are willing to cut schools a deal on this.
Next, you're going to have to apply to the FCC. You'll probably want your school's general counsel to look this over, and if it's for a student organization or department, chances are it won't cost you a thing. Non-commercial stations do not have to pay any fees to the FCC. --None!
If there aren't many stations in your area, chances are you'll be able to get a frequency. As a general rule, the FCC does not license stations under 100 watts anymore. The only exceptions generally are grandfathered class D stations. You'd probably want to start at 100 watts, which is a Class C station.
You'll then need to put the station together... You're looking at an antennae and cabling (the cable is expensive!), a transmitter, compressor/processor, console, cd players, mics, cassette players, probably a computer or 2, a distribution amp, monitors, a modulation monitor, maybe minidisc players and turntables. Cart machines aren't necessary anymore. You'd be looking at probably 25-30K if the equipment is new, and 15-20k if the a lot of the equipment is used. Don't bother trying to find used CD players, and don't even think about going with anything less than professional grade equipment. --Bad bad bad.
After that, your monthly costs depend on how generous the school is. Most of them won't charge you for the electricity, but they will for phone lines (and you'll need at least 2, one for the studio, and one for the office).
You'll want to subscribe to CMJ and report to them. Their subscription for college stations is approximately $500 for 2 years. You'll also have to pay license fees to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. --These fees are going to depend in part on the patent office, and also how many people your station reaches. However it's significantly less than a commercial station would play.
At 100 watts you'll have to follow EAS policies, but that's fairly easy... Weekly and monthly tests and then make sure your station breaks when an actual EAS is transmitted. You'll have to designate a chief operator, but there's no operator's license required for that. --If you've got a decent EE program, you could probably find some students willing to help with that. Your DJs do not have to be licensed at all.
Other than that, well, there's a lot more. The biggest thing to be aware of is that the process of starting a station is unlikely to be finished in less than a year.
Anyway, that's a taste of what I learned in the year and a half I spent as station manager of my undergraduate university's station.
-Patrick
Don't know that I should be proud of that though... I went to do some maintenance on the streaming computer for IIT's radio station, and I found it was running Turbo Linux. Unfortunately it's still giving us problems, and I may yet switch over to something else. Still looking at my options, though.
On the bright side, before I had to start messing with it, it had an uptime of over 10 months!
-Patrick
What got to me about the movie, is I kept asking myself if I was really seeing Blade II or if we accidently went into a theater showing some sort of WWF movie.
A couple of my friends swear they were able to find a Star Wars parallel in the movie, but they couldn't really explain that afterwards. --Go figure, eh?
-Tal
I am the Station Manager for a small college station in Chicago, and I just received information from SESAC (one of the three big licensing companies) regarding their fees... I was rather concerned at first, given that we have a very limited budget, however their fees for broadcasting our signal online are only $102/year. If BMI and ASCAP charge similar amounts, it'll stretch our budget, however we'll be able to manage.
Of course, who knows how it will end up for commercial stations at this point.
-Tal
My university has experimented with thin clients, and has chosen to continue to use full PCs for the labs. The client boxes were nice, but they did not work as well and tended to be harder for them to keep running. Now the only thin clients they use are some Compaqs that they've placed around the school as email terminals. --These are actually very popular among students, as they don't have to fight for lab space just to check their email.
At first glance, this sounds really bad, but it might not be enough to put all college stations off the air.
I run a small college station in Chicago with a school supplied budget of $4000/year. We scrape together a few other dollars, and the school does provide electricity and legal services for free, but it's still tight...
What I'm guessing the licensing companies will try to do is going to look like this:
$0.0002/per performance + $500 or 9% of the per performance cost, whichever is greater.
I would use these numbers to estimate the per year performances for us:
15 songs/hour * 30 people/song * 24 hours * 365 days * $0.0002 = $788.40
If this were all, we might be able to scrape together the extra funds, however we would have to add $1500 to that cost ($500 minimum fee to each of the 3 licensing companies). That's what's going to hurt us. That doesn't even take into account trying to report all that information... We don't have to deal with nearly that much information even when we're in a reporting weekend!
I contrast, we currently pay under $1000 per year for the licenses to play the music over the air.
But, I suppose there's still hope.
Patrick
As I remember, the law also allows ISPs to collect up to $2000 if they choose to fight the spammer, so the law covers companies as well.
-Patrick
I don't know about anyone else, but I've sworn to never buy an X10 product after the countless hundreds of popup X10 ads I've seen.
But the Proxomitron has taken care of them for now! All hail the pyramid!
How much memory is on those things? --25K pixels isn't that much, but it's still decent, and 80 pictures!
It's not going to replace cameras people take while on vacation, but I could see uses for engineers or architects who don't necessarily need the best image, but good enough to spot any obvious errors.
And of course, as the picture on Casio's page shows, parents of young kids who want to capture every moment of their kid's life will love this.
I work in the housing department at a university in Chicago, and I created move in cards with barcodes instead of student IDs. This way we were able to scan the barcodes to confirm when students arrived rather than counting the cards by hand. --It made things much easier.
The radio station is also setting up a database and wants to use some to help maintain their inventory.
Even failures can be useful!
As I recall, though, this only protects you from the telemarketer for two years, after that they can legally take you off that list. (It might be 3 years in some places.) I suppose the idea is that if you move and someone gets your old number, telemarkters have a right to try to sell to them.
I like the waste-their-time approach when I've got time to spare, otherwise the don't call list is best.
I remember playing with Ramagons as a kid... The great thing was that you could also use legos with them, and make some very big designs.
Truth be told, though, I don't like trying to rank these toys... Legos were great for building cities (and space stations), Lincoln logs were nice for the single building/farm look, and I'm sure there was something I liked building with tinker toys, although I didn't care for them as much.
Very few people go through our CNS department at Illinois Tech... We still use static IPs, but there's absolutely no registration. We also have around 1500 available IPs for 900 students, and are probably using around 1100 on average.
Of course, they might have to start limiting bandwidth due to budget cuts... I can see it all now: "Effective immediately, every hall will have internet access for only 10 minutes every hour." And if they ever try wireless, we'll have to beat them down. --They tried DHCP 3 years ago, but couldn't keep it running.
Fellow students will always be the best help for new students.