If the channels fill up, then we can institute rules to remove useless ones.
I don't think that's fair. Once a company has paid big bucks to buy a frequency at auction we can't/shouldn't just take it back from them. Even if we did this under some sort of eminent domain principle it would only be right if they were compensated for their loss.
Well, first of all, the idea that television frequencies are ideal for cell phones are kinda silly.
Just one of two examples I've given where more frequencies are needed. If television frequencies are useful for more of a receive-only setting, then fine. There is still plenty of need for receive-only uses.
As for wireless internet...a great idea, assuming you don't try to use it as a return. Of course, you only need one frequency for that, analog television channels are so wide they could comfortable hold thousands of users.
Using it for receive only isn't so bad, the send bandwidth doesn't need to be very large (and besides there are a lot of potential uses for receive only internet broadcasts), but in any metropolitan area you're quickly going to fill up those thousands of users. Especially if the frequency itself only costs $500/year, which I believe is what the television stations pay for it. The point is, I think we're restricting ourselves too much here saying that it needs to be an unencrypted television signal that uses those frequencies.
So there's no reason at all to start reducing the number of channels, because we're about to get half of them back.
Not sure how soon it's going to be, I mean, we were supposed to be switched over by now and we're not even close, it seems like every HDTV I've seen costs at least $1000.
(I think a better idea would be operating a 'spewing' server...send out newsfeeds, ISOs, whatever, and just let people collect them.)
It may very well be. I say we auction off the frequencies and let the free market figure it out.
Even if you do come up with an ideal thing to do with a television-like frequencies, we apparently have those laying around.
And as soon as we are allowed to use them, we will.
So using television ones is an extremely silly idea.
It seems to me you're saying there are plenty of frequencies, because we're wasting the ones we have by not letting anyone use them. But it seems that is a silly argument.
WRT non-profit uses...we don't need rules like that, because we're not short at all. We need less rules.
We're not short because we have the rules. If we dropped the rules, we'd have no more free television. The broadcast television companies clearly want to encrypt their broadcasts, and I think we should let them, once they've bought the frequencies at auction let them do whatever they want with them. But at the same time, I don't think we should kill free television completely. Keep around 2 or 3 stations and require them to be broadcast in the clear. While you're at it, why not require the broadcasters to be non-profits? I don't like that the television broadcasters are being profit off the use of public property without paying any reasonable fee to the government (just a small regulatory fee which probably doesn't even pay the salaries of the regulators).
Building my own TV without the broadcast flag may be fun, but the real point of this exercise is building a recording device without the broadcast flag.
They were BOUGHT by those companies in the EXACT SAME WAY that a terrestrial radio or TV station BOUGHT their frequencies. I ought to know - I've bought a few.
Broadcast radio stations pay $500/year as a regulatory fee to the government. XM radio paid over $90 million at auction for its frequencies, and it pays hundreds of thousands a year in licensing fees. It's not the EXACT SAME WAY. Not even close.
Airwaves are airwaves - the law does not concede "ownership" of them... only exclusivity in transmit rights. Big difference.
Exclusivity in tranmit rights, on a permanent basis, including transferrability of those rights, is ownership. It might not be the same as ownership of chattel, but it's almost identical to the ownership of real property. What does it mean when I say I own my backyard? It means I have exclusive rights to that backyard. It's precisely the same thing as how XM Radio owns the frequencies which they bought at auction. The exclusive rights that KYW has over its frequency on the other hand is quite transient. They are completely dependent on the FCC renewing its application every year. They don't own the frequency, at best they lease it.
I don't think we're so short of frequencies we need to start letting random things be broadcast on television ones.
I know it costs $60/month for two cell phone lines. It costs $80/month for unlimited wireless internet access. We're definitely short on frequencies, because if we weren't I could come up with a much cheaper solution for these things.
And certainly nothing that requires a hardware investment, because the minute the FCC decides that broadcasting the History Channel is more useful than broadcasting cell phone signals, eight thousand people will scream bloody murder that their cell phones do not work.
I never said we should give cell phone frequencies to television stations. Cell phone frequencies were already won at auction by the cell phone companies. They should be allowed to keep them (and if they choose to use them for something else, well, it's their customers that will get pissed off at them).
Anyway, there are plenty of unused frequencies out there that are not in VHF and UHF range, and I think it makes sense to use those before using channels that televisions can tune in.
What are they? I mean, there are lots of frequencies that aren't being used, an infinite number I suppose, but are you talking about frequencies that can actually be used for sending data over maybe 10-20 miles?
We can always use UHF and VHF once we run out of others, where we cannot easily decide to 'unuse' channels if the base using them is large.
I believe UHF is where HDTV is being broadcast, and the idea is to eventually free up VHF for other uses. In any case, there is already a plan to free up some of the TV spectrum. I'm not sure why they'd do this if there is pleny of unused space so readily available.
As for auctioning...we already do that with most of them. I think it's good to have a set of frequencies that are explicitly designated as 'for useful use'.
Sure, but I think those frequencies should be only usable for non-profit purposes, and at that point we've got too much bandwidth allocated to it.
First of all, if you don't know the classic double-slit experiment, read Double-slit experiment at Wikipedia. In the classic experiment, we send something (a photon, an election, whatever) through two slits, and plot the number (of photons, electrons, whatever) vs. the position. Now due to the uncertainty principle we know that Delta x*Delta p>=h-bar/2, where Delta x is the uncertainty of position, Delta p is the uncertainty of momentum, and h-bar is a constant (see Planck's constant for more info). So we can derive the formula lambda/s=x/D, where lambda is the wavelength (of the photon, or the de Broglie wavelength of the electron), s is the slit separation, x is the fringe width, and D is the distance of the slits from the screen.
Now in this new experiment, we send a photon which has a wave consisting of two maxima and one minimum into a cloud of atoms. An electron may be emitted from the cloud and sent to the screen, and we measure the time it arrives at the screen. This electron could have been emitted from the first maxima or the second maxima (ignore the minimum as those electrons get sent to the other screen). If we plot the number of electrons vs time, we should see the exact same interference pattern as with the plot of number of electrons vs. position that we see in the classic experiment. And the uncertainty principle can also be expressed as Delta E*Delta T>=h-bar/2, where Delta T is uncertainty of energy and Delta T is uncertainty of time. So now we should find that E/s~x/D (I'm not sure if this is right, and not sure if I'm missing some constants so I used proportional rather than equal here). E is the energy of the photon, s is now the difference in time between the two maxima, x is still the fringe width (though it's now measure in units of time), and D is still the distance between the screen and the (in this case cloud), but I suppose you have to measure the distance in time (the time it takes the electron to travel that distance).
Anyway, this is all a guess, since the actual experiment doesn't seem to be found. If someone sees a glaring problem, feel free to flame.
I have quite a lot of empty stations on my UHF dial.
The rules could be like ham radio, where you have to broadcast a 'television signal', you have to have station identification, etc.
I think you've thrown out any usefulness of the unused UHF band by restricting it to television signals. Maybe there would be a bit more demand for television broadcasting if the decency standards were removed, but even then I don't see much demand for one shot TV broadcasts on the spur of the moment, and that demand is usually filled by public access television (which is much cheaper than setting up a television broadcasting station in your home for a one-shot program). If there's significant demand in this area, you can easily get your own TV station, and non-profits pay a very low annual fee if any at all for licensing. Of course, you've still got to abide by the decency standards...
But, I must point out that 'useful', while that is what the FCC should be checking, is not the same thing as 'not indecent', and that is where the FCC thing has fallen apart.
I agree with you here, but the thing is, much if not most of the public does not (and based on the last election, it might very well be most).
News footage! News was the defination of 'useful' when TV came out. We have news footage that blurs out people shooting the bird! It's decent, but is it useful?
Actually in this case I'd argue that blurring out the picture is probably more useful, just because it sends the same message in a way which is acceptable to more people.
Personally my biggest beef is that it's for-profit companies that are given the decision of what to broadcast using the public frequencies. I'd rather have the government say what can and can't be broadcast than NBC. At least I have a vote for members of the government. If it were up to me I'd reserve 2 or 3 (maybe 4) stations for non-profits who could run under a somewhat relaxed version of what we've got now. Then just auction the rest off to the highest bidders and let them do whatever they want with it as though it's private property (i.e. they could broadcast any type of signal which doesn't interfere with other frequencies, if they want to use it for TV, fine, if it's internet, fine, if it's cell phone calls, fine). Of course this is just for the TV frequencies. I'd do the same in other freqency ranges (since each freqency range has its own best uses due to the physics of how you can propagate a signal through it).
The problem of radio frequencies is quite similar to the problem of land. I don't see why we treat it so differently. Just auction it off as a one time deal, and charge property taxes on an annual basis to ensure that someone doesn't sit on a frequency forever without putting it to good use. I can use my land for pretty much whatever I want (though zoning laws are one of the biggest infringements of that right). I certainly can curse in my home or charge money to access it. Of course, I'd need the government's permission to run a nudie bar. So even real property laws aren't perfect.
So then you say the requirement to avoid censorship would be that the provider has to put up a minimal barrier to the average person? Such as a window shade or encrypted signal?
Broadcast television stations and AM/FM radio stations aren't allowed to encrypt their signals (signals must be broadcast "in the clear"). C'mon, you think if NBC could start encrypting their signal and charging a fee they wouldn't? They desperately want to, but the FCC won't let them. Instead they've reached a compromise, instituting a "broadcast flag" [1].
So where does your private property end and your next door neighbor begin? Currently it only considers airwaves but XM, Sat tv all go over airwaves also. The main difference is the expectation that the viewers are "participants" by their willingness to pay for the service instead of being "innocent bystanders".
That's not the difference. The difference is that XM Radio paid $90 million in an auction to buy exclusive rights to the frequencies it uses. FM broadcasters pay just $500/month to cover the cost of regulation. XM's frequencies are private property in much the same way as your backyard.
I agree that the FCC needs to "regulate" frequencies. And I think there needs to be an annual fee to cover the administration costs, only.
That's it. No indecency fines or any other moronic behavior like that. No control over content. If the Islamists take over our airwaves, then we should have gotten to them years ago; it's our own fault.
Let me understand this. If you charge little enough so that virtually anyone can afford to have a broadcast station, and you don't do anything to control the content, how do you decide who gets to use the frequencies and who doesn't? Because, if I can get a frequency for $500/year and I can do whatever I want with it, you can bet I'm going to take that deal and use it. I can get rid of my cell phone, and use the Anthony frequency for all my calls. I can have wireless internet access available anywhere. Just that alone is worth the fee. Of course, 5 million other people are going to want to do the same thing, and there isn't enough room in the radio spectrum to accomodate us all.
So there are really two choices here. Either auction off the frequencies like they do with cell phone and satellite frequencies, and let people do pretty much whatever they want with it, or make the rates affordable like they do with AM/FM and broadcast television, and regulate the content to ensure that only the people actually broadcasting something useful use the frequencies.
I used to listen to Opie and Anthony back when they were on FM radio. It was OK, but Howard Stern was much funnier (just not on in the afternoon).
Then a couple months ago I subscribed to a free trial of XM radio, and I once again listened to Opie and Anthony. The program absolutely sucked. Howard Stern has gone somewhat downhill in the last few years too, but O&A was complete crap, it was like they were just being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious.
I think Stern will probably get better when uncensored, but I think that's 'cause he's got more to his show than just being offensive.
It makes sense that the federal government regulates airwaves as a "channel of commerce." This is fairly straightforward since the airwaves are generally considered publicly owned "space." Cable, however, runs over private property in a physically limited location.
As was pointed out to me in another story, the way the content providers send their content to the cable companies is through satellite communication, in other words, through the airwaves.
The difference is, the satellite companies paid lots of money to buy the frequencies they used. Thus satellite frequencies are no more "public property" than your backyard. Broadcast stations on the other hand never had to pay for the frequencies they use. They pay a small regulatory fee, but that's more an application fee than a fee for the frequencies themselves. They have no right to the frequency, and for instance they are not allowed to sell the frequencies to someone else like the satellite companies can.
Regardless of the quality of the thing being promoted? If you advertised piss, people would buy it and drink it? I don't think it's quite that simplistic. In the case of coke vs. pepsi maybe it makes a difference (although maybe not, you've gotta realize that not every decision made in the company is done solely to benefit the company, sometimes companies waste money, either due to stupidity or due to conflicting interests (my friend owns an ad agency so I throw some money his way, I think it'd be cool to say I designed a superbowl ad, etc). And then, of course, there's the fact that a good deal of the public is just plain stupid when it comes to making the decision of what product to choose.
To prevent reading without physical access to the passport. The key is printed on some page of the passport and is read via OCR. So you have to open the passport to get the key to decrypt the RFID data.
Ah, I see what you're saying. Youe meant litterally "print" the decryption key. Yeah, good idea, that'd solve the problem (though perhaps not in the most efficient way, now that someone else has mentioned it why not just use a mag stripe? I assume they can hold enough data).
I'd give part of the band to non-profits under essentially the same rules as they have now, and auction off the rest to the highest bidder (and charge an annual fee somewhere around 2% of that bid). Then let the winners of the auction do whatever they want with the frequencies. If they want to broadcast internet over them, go ahead. If they want to broadcast subscription radio, fine. If they want to go with free radio, that's fine too.
I doubt people would have paid for radio to begin with. It would have died right away, just like I'm sure TV would have.
Perhaps, but now the vast majority of people do pay for TV.
The fact is that people ARE willing to pay for radio and TV; they prove by paying for sat. radio and cable TV.
Sure, I'm not saying this would fail. Some people would pay for it. Most probably wouldn't, though. Radio just isn't as important as television to most people.
Besides, why wouldn't things happened just as they did with advertising supported radio?
Because broadcast television and radio are required by law to be broadcast unencrypted (there have been some relaxations of this for HDTV recently, but for the most part the broadcasters are still required to provide free television). That's part of the deal the broadcasters make when they get to use the frequencies. Another part of the deal is that they have to broadcast at least three hours per week of educational and informational programming for children. Another part of the deal is that they can't broadcast profane or indecent material between the hours of 6AM and 10PM.
No, I wasn't in the least, I really would like to know how DRM is usefull to the FOSS community, other than driveing the victims in our direction.
It doesn't seem very useful to those who would use the GPL, as the GPL requires all derivatives to be distributed with source code, and if you have the source code it is trivial to defeat any DRM.
I suppose if you release something under the BSD license DRM would allow someone to release a derivative which is DRM protected. That could be useful I suppose, as it would be a way to make money off your enhancements without resorting on copyright law.
The fact is without the ability to fine, you WOULD hear 'objectionable' content on radios.
And here I thought I had the choice not to listen.
If thats true, I should be able to hear the Nerve from rochester NY here in VT. But I can't.
I'm sure you could with a good enough receiver, and VT is not the only state near rochester (parts of PA are closer). And most importantly, the fact that there are other stations talking louder over top of the Rochester one. The Rochester station may not come in clearly, but it's still interfering with stations in other states.
You allow the FCC to license the use of the airwaves, most likely on a first come first serve basis.
First come first serve doesn't work. There is already more demand than supply in many areas. And it's not fair anyway. Why should some company get eternal rights to a frequency just because it was there first?
But the CONTENT of said broadcasts should not be the concern of the FCC.
If the content of the broadcasts were not the concern of the FCC, just know there wouldn't be free radio. It'd be encrypted, and you'd have to pay for it. And all the money for subscriptions would go to Clearstation, just because they got there first.
It matters when you get into an accident. Even if it would have been considered your fault, if the other driver was driving illegally (unlicensed, no insurance, not registered, whatever) then it's automatically his or her fault.
This is how the law works, but why does it matter? If you want to restrict driving to a certain age, why do you have to issue licenses to people of that age? Just have a law that you have to be a certain age to drive. If you get into an accident, and you're younger than that age, then it's automatically your fault. No need to register your identity with the government, who can then issue numbered plates so they can track your every move.
No one is a perfect driver - everyone gets pulled over at least once in their driving career, most likely for speeding or going through a red light/stop sign. If you're unlicensed when that happens, get ready to use your argument of "my car still starts without a license" and see what the response is.
In both New Jersey and Florida (the two states I know of), driving without a license is a very minor offense compared to driving without the ability to have a license (either suspended license, or under age, etc). Anyway, you seem to be missing the point of my question. My question was what is the point of forcing people to get licenses. I have my answer, the point is to track the public and register people. It has nothing to do with driving.
If you wanna read a non-RFID passport, you have to take it from the owner and open it. This usually involves the owner willingly giving it to you.
Well, there are certainly technologies other than RFID which can transmit over distances, but I think I know what you mean and can agree with you here...
The security degradation that the conversion from non-RFID to RFID implies is that you now don't need consent from the passport owner to read it, and actually the owner won't even notice you reading it.
OK... I still agree...
Thus, you don't need to distribute the decryption key for encrypted RFID at all. You just print it (in a machine readable way) into the passport.
If anyone with a machine reader can read the decryption key, what's the point of encrypting anything?
And what happens if you buy something, and the DRM prevents you from using it as you intended.
It's never happened, and I suspect it never will.
Can you then take the product back and get your money back, after breaking the shrinkwrap in order to test to see if it works?
Damn right I can.
No known retailer on this planet that I'm aware of allows that, so you are out the cost of that product.
That's when I call up my credit card company and tell them to reverse the charges. After all, anything I buy on my credit card has a 30 day money-back guarantee.
But this is a nonexistent scenario. I don't buy products without knowing what they are and how they work.
Then how do you legally acquire the music you listen to, other than writing it yourself, and then finding sufficiently talented mu$icians, who usually like to be paid, to perform it so you can personally make a recording of it?
I used to just download it. Nowadays I don't really listen to music in the home (although my girlfriend does so I suppose I do listen to music of hers when she plays it). In my life I've bought 3 CDs, and they were all bought from indy artists at their events, really more of a donation than a purchase.
Where DRM is most promising is with regard to free products.
That is an application of DRM I hadn't considered, please explain how it applies to free products such as linux which is released under the GPL and is already freely copyable, at least for the stuff thats included in the freely downloadable iso images to do that install.
I meant free as in beer, of course, I suspect you realized that and were just being coy.
Yes but if you have to advertise to the masses, it is much more.
I exaggerate a bit when I say a $5 website, but it doesn't cost that much to let people know you're running and who you are. Opening up at least one debate to a broad spectrum of candidates would go a long way.
Otherwise you're only going to get people specifically searching for something in your content viewing your page.
That's not true at all. There are already sites out there that list all the candidates and their websites. If you want to know who you can vote for it's relatively simple to find out.
There's no excuse for not knowing enough to make an educated choice of who to vote for, not on the national level anyway.
I feel the Supreme court is wrong because they ignored the first amendment.
Read the cases again, they certainly didn't ignore the first amendment. They discussed it in length.
Few radio station broadcasts cross state lines.
All of them do.
Even so, regulating so that each station doens't try to overpower its competitors by boosting power is quite different then saying what content is allowed over the band.
How do you pick which competitors are allowed to use the frequencies in the first place, then?
Would you care to elaborate how you can restrict speech without violating the first amendment?
We have all kinds of laws restricting speech. Copyright laws, trade secret laws, harrassment laws, spam laws, fraud laws, disturbing the peace laws, false advertising laws, etc. Are they all unconstitutional?
I don't care about whether or not I hear the speech.
Then why do you care what they are broadcasting?
I'd like them to broadcast something useful.
So you're saying then that it is ok for the gov't to censor and violate the first amendment?
It's OK for the government to censor if the entity enters into an agreement to be censored. It's not OK to violate the first amendment.
Do you fail to see that maybe other people disagree and feel that the stations are ALREADY using the band for public benefit?
Of course not. If you think listening to fart noises benefits the public, feel free to write to the FCC and say so.
And most of the public is fine with Stern, or what happened at the 2004 superbowl half time.
I'm sure most of the public is not fine with Stern, and I doubt most of them are fine with the Superbowl half time either.
Broadcasting Christain rock or howard stern still 'interferes' the same way.
Sure, but broadcasting NPR doesn't.
Then are you in favor of eliminating all FM band broadcasts?
It'd be better than the system we've got now.
If your issue is the bands then you have another gripe that has nothing to do with content.
I don't have a gripe with the content. I have a gripe with FM broadcasters who want exclusive rights to the bands and no restrictions on content, all for just $500 a year.
Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in China, where the gov't does control broadcasts?
Between the government controlling broadcasts and Clearstation controlling them, I'll take the government. At least I get to elect government officials.
So get the fees changed.
I have no power over the fees. Haven't I told you already, I don't work for the FCC.
Funny how i've setup point to point wireless internet without paying a cent for the spectrum.
It's possible. 1) Maybe you're not in the US. 2) Maybe it's a really slow connection using MURS. 3) Maybe you've got a ham license. 4) Maybe you're breaking the law.
YOU are saying that you don't believe its in the public good, others disagree.
I have said no such thing.
What exactly are the 'lies' you're talking about? Did they promise 'clean wholesome fun for the family?'
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But "one minima--passed through an argon gas" is not acceptable.
One last comment.
If the channels fill up, then we can institute rules to remove useless ones.
I don't think that's fair. Once a company has paid big bucks to buy a frequency at auction we can't/shouldn't just take it back from them. Even if we did this under some sort of eminent domain principle it would only be right if they were compensated for their loss.
Well, first of all, the idea that television frequencies are ideal for cell phones are kinda silly.
Just one of two examples I've given where more frequencies are needed. If television frequencies are useful for more of a receive-only setting, then fine. There is still plenty of need for receive-only uses.
As for wireless internet...a great idea, assuming you don't try to use it as a return. Of course, you only need one frequency for that, analog television channels are so wide they could comfortable hold thousands of users.
Using it for receive only isn't so bad, the send bandwidth doesn't need to be very large (and besides there are a lot of potential uses for receive only internet broadcasts), but in any metropolitan area you're quickly going to fill up those thousands of users. Especially if the frequency itself only costs $500/year, which I believe is what the television stations pay for it. The point is, I think we're restricting ourselves too much here saying that it needs to be an unencrypted television signal that uses those frequencies.
So there's no reason at all to start reducing the number of channels, because we're about to get half of them back.
Not sure how soon it's going to be, I mean, we were supposed to be switched over by now and we're not even close, it seems like every HDTV I've seen costs at least $1000.
(I think a better idea would be operating a 'spewing' server...send out newsfeeds, ISOs, whatever, and just let people collect them.)
It may very well be. I say we auction off the frequencies and let the free market figure it out.
Even if you do come up with an ideal thing to do with a television-like frequencies, we apparently have those laying around.
And as soon as we are allowed to use them, we will.
So using television ones is an extremely silly idea.
It seems to me you're saying there are plenty of frequencies, because we're wasting the ones we have by not letting anyone use them. But it seems that is a silly argument.
WRT non-profit uses...we don't need rules like that, because we're not short at all. We need less rules.
We're not short because we have the rules. If we dropped the rules, we'd have no more free television. The broadcast television companies clearly want to encrypt their broadcasts, and I think we should let them, once they've bought the frequencies at auction let them do whatever they want with them. But at the same time, I don't think we should kill free television completely. Keep around 2 or 3 stations and require them to be broadcast in the clear. While you're at it, why not require the broadcasters to be non-profits? I don't like that the television broadcasters are being profit off the use of public property without paying any reasonable fee to the government (just a small regulatory fee which probably doesn't even pay the salaries of the regulators).
Building my own TV without the broadcast flag may be fun, but the real point of this exercise is building a recording device without the broadcast flag.
They were BOUGHT by those companies in the EXACT SAME WAY that a terrestrial radio or TV station BOUGHT their frequencies. I ought to know - I've bought a few.
Broadcast radio stations pay $500/year as a regulatory fee to the government. XM radio paid over $90 million at auction for its frequencies, and it pays hundreds of thousands a year in licensing fees. It's not the EXACT SAME WAY. Not even close.
Airwaves are airwaves - the law does not concede "ownership" of them... only exclusivity in transmit rights. Big difference.
Exclusivity in tranmit rights, on a permanent basis, including transferrability of those rights, is ownership. It might not be the same as ownership of chattel, but it's almost identical to the ownership of real property. What does it mean when I say I own my backyard? It means I have exclusive rights to that backyard. It's precisely the same thing as how XM Radio owns the frequencies which they bought at auction. The exclusive rights that KYW has over its frequency on the other hand is quite transient. They are completely dependent on the FCC renewing its application every year. They don't own the frequency, at best they lease it.
I don't think we're so short of frequencies we need to start letting random things be broadcast on television ones.
I know it costs $60/month for two cell phone lines. It costs $80/month for unlimited wireless internet access. We're definitely short on frequencies, because if we weren't I could come up with a much cheaper solution for these things.
And certainly nothing that requires a hardware investment, because the minute the FCC decides that broadcasting the History Channel is more useful than broadcasting cell phone signals, eight thousand people will scream bloody murder that their cell phones do not work.
I never said we should give cell phone frequencies to television stations. Cell phone frequencies were already won at auction by the cell phone companies. They should be allowed to keep them (and if they choose to use them for something else, well, it's their customers that will get pissed off at them).
Anyway, there are plenty of unused frequencies out there that are not in VHF and UHF range, and I think it makes sense to use those before using channels that televisions can tune in.
What are they? I mean, there are lots of frequencies that aren't being used, an infinite number I suppose, but are you talking about frequencies that can actually be used for sending data over maybe 10-20 miles?
We can always use UHF and VHF once we run out of others, where we cannot easily decide to 'unuse' channels if the base using them is large.
I believe UHF is where HDTV is being broadcast, and the idea is to eventually free up VHF for other uses. In any case, there is already a plan to free up some of the TV spectrum. I'm not sure why they'd do this if there is pleny of unused space so readily available.
As for auctioning...we already do that with most of them. I think it's good to have a set of frequencies that are explicitly designated as 'for useful use'.
Sure, but I think those frequencies should be only usable for non-profit purposes, and at that point we've got too much bandwidth allocated to it.
First of all, if you don't know the classic double-slit experiment, read Double-slit experiment at Wikipedia. In the classic experiment, we send something (a photon, an election, whatever) through two slits, and plot the number (of photons, electrons, whatever) vs. the position. Now due to the uncertainty principle we know that Delta x*Delta p>=h-bar/2, where Delta x is the uncertainty of position, Delta p is the uncertainty of momentum, and h-bar is a constant (see Planck's constant for more info). So we can derive the formula lambda/s=x/D, where lambda is the wavelength (of the photon, or the de Broglie wavelength of the electron), s is the slit separation, x is the fringe width, and D is the distance of the slits from the screen.
Now in this new experiment, we send a photon which has a wave consisting of two maxima and one minimum into a cloud of atoms. An electron may be emitted from the cloud and sent to the screen, and we measure the time it arrives at the screen. This electron could have been emitted from the first maxima or the second maxima (ignore the minimum as those electrons get sent to the other screen). If we plot the number of electrons vs time, we should see the exact same interference pattern as with the plot of number of electrons vs. position that we see in the classic experiment. And the uncertainty principle can also be expressed as Delta E*Delta T>=h-bar/2, where Delta T is uncertainty of energy and Delta T is uncertainty of time. So now we should find that E/s~x/D (I'm not sure if this is right, and not sure if I'm missing some constants so I used proportional rather than equal here). E is the energy of the photon, s is now the difference in time between the two maxima, x is still the fringe width (though it's now measure in units of time), and D is still the distance between the screen and the (in this case cloud), but I suppose you have to measure the distance in time (the time it takes the electron to travel that distance).
Anyway, this is all a guess, since the actual experiment doesn't seem to be found. If someone sees a glaring problem, feel free to flame.
I have quite a lot of empty stations on my UHF dial.
The rules could be like ham radio, where you have to broadcast a 'television signal', you have to have station identification, etc.
I think you've thrown out any usefulness of the unused UHF band by restricting it to television signals. Maybe there would be a bit more demand for television broadcasting if the decency standards were removed, but even then I don't see much demand for one shot TV broadcasts on the spur of the moment, and that demand is usually filled by public access television (which is much cheaper than setting up a television broadcasting station in your home for a one-shot program). If there's significant demand in this area, you can easily get your own TV station, and non-profits pay a very low annual fee if any at all for licensing. Of course, you've still got to abide by the decency standards...
But, I must point out that 'useful', while that is what the FCC should be checking, is not the same thing as 'not indecent', and that is where the FCC thing has fallen apart.
I agree with you here, but the thing is, much if not most of the public does not (and based on the last election, it might very well be most).
News footage! News was the defination of 'useful' when TV came out. We have news footage that blurs out people shooting the bird! It's decent, but is it useful?
Actually in this case I'd argue that blurring out the picture is probably more useful, just because it sends the same message in a way which is acceptable to more people.
Personally my biggest beef is that it's for-profit companies that are given the decision of what to broadcast using the public frequencies. I'd rather have the government say what can and can't be broadcast than NBC. At least I have a vote for members of the government. If it were up to me I'd reserve 2 or 3 (maybe 4) stations for non-profits who could run under a somewhat relaxed version of what we've got now. Then just auction the rest off to the highest bidders and let them do whatever they want with it as though it's private property (i.e. they could broadcast any type of signal which doesn't interfere with other frequencies, if they want to use it for TV, fine, if it's internet, fine, if it's cell phone calls, fine). Of course this is just for the TV frequencies. I'd do the same in other freqency ranges (since each freqency range has its own best uses due to the physics of how you can propagate a signal through it).
The problem of radio frequencies is quite similar to the problem of land. I don't see why we treat it so differently. Just auction it off as a one time deal, and charge property taxes on an annual basis to ensure that someone doesn't sit on a frequency forever without putting it to good use. I can use my land for pretty much whatever I want (though zoning laws are one of the biggest infringements of that right). I certainly can curse in my home or charge money to access it. Of course, I'd need the government's permission to run a nudie bar. So even real property laws aren't perfect.
So then you say the requirement to avoid censorship would be that the provider has to put up a minimal barrier to the average person? Such as a window shade or encrypted signal?
Broadcast television stations and AM/FM radio stations aren't allowed to encrypt their signals (signals must be broadcast "in the clear"). C'mon, you think if NBC could start encrypting their signal and charging a fee they wouldn't? They desperately want to, but the FCC won't let them. Instead they've reached a compromise, instituting a "broadcast flag" [1].
So where does your private property end and your next door neighbor begin? Currently it only considers airwaves but XM, Sat tv all go over airwaves also. The main difference is the expectation that the viewers are "participants" by their willingness to pay for the service instead of being "innocent bystanders".
That's not the difference. The difference is that XM Radio paid $90 million in an auction to buy exclusive rights to the frequencies it uses. FM broadcasters pay just $500/month to cover the cost of regulation. XM's frequencies are private property in much the same way as your backyard.
I agree that the FCC needs to "regulate" frequencies. And I think there needs to be an annual fee to cover the administration costs, only.
That's it. No indecency fines or any other moronic behavior like that. No control over content. If the Islamists take over our airwaves, then we should have gotten to them years ago; it's our own fault.
Let me understand this. If you charge little enough so that virtually anyone can afford to have a broadcast station, and you don't do anything to control the content, how do you decide who gets to use the frequencies and who doesn't? Because, if I can get a frequency for $500/year and I can do whatever I want with it, you can bet I'm going to take that deal and use it. I can get rid of my cell phone, and use the Anthony frequency for all my calls. I can have wireless internet access available anywhere. Just that alone is worth the fee. Of course, 5 million other people are going to want to do the same thing, and there isn't enough room in the radio spectrum to accomodate us all.
So there are really two choices here. Either auction off the frequencies like they do with cell phone and satellite frequencies, and let people do pretty much whatever they want with it, or make the rates affordable like they do with AM/FM and broadcast television, and regulate the content to ensure that only the people actually broadcasting something useful use the frequencies.
I used to listen to Opie and Anthony back when they were on FM radio. It was OK, but Howard Stern was much funnier (just not on in the afternoon).
Then a couple months ago I subscribed to a free trial of XM radio, and I once again listened to Opie and Anthony. The program absolutely sucked. Howard Stern has gone somewhat downhill in the last few years too, but O&A was complete crap, it was like they were just being obnoxious for the sake of being obnoxious.
I think Stern will probably get better when uncensored, but I think that's 'cause he's got more to his show than just being offensive.
It makes sense that the federal government regulates airwaves as a "channel of commerce." This is fairly straightforward since the airwaves are generally considered publicly owned "space." Cable, however, runs over private property in a physically limited location.
As was pointed out to me in another story, the way the content providers send their content to the cable companies is through satellite communication, in other words, through the airwaves.
The difference is, the satellite companies paid lots of money to buy the frequencies they used. Thus satellite frequencies are no more "public property" than your backyard. Broadcast stations on the other hand never had to pay for the frequencies they use. They pay a small regulatory fee, but that's more an application fee than a fee for the frequencies themselves. They have no right to the frequency, and for instance they are not allowed to sell the frequencies to someone else like the satellite companies can.
Regardless of the quality of the thing being promoted? If you advertised piss, people would buy it and drink it? I don't think it's quite that simplistic. In the case of coke vs. pepsi maybe it makes a difference (although maybe not, you've gotta realize that not every decision made in the company is done solely to benefit the company, sometimes companies waste money, either due to stupidity or due to conflicting interests (my friend owns an ad agency so I throw some money his way, I think it'd be cool to say I designed a superbowl ad, etc). And then, of course, there's the fact that a good deal of the public is just plain stupid when it comes to making the decision of what product to choose.
To prevent reading without physical access to the passport. The key is printed on some page of the passport and is read via OCR. So you have to open the passport to get the key to decrypt the RFID data.
Ah, I see what you're saying. Youe meant litterally "print" the decryption key. Yeah, good idea, that'd solve the problem (though perhaps not in the most efficient way, now that someone else has mentioned it why not just use a mag stripe? I assume they can hold enough data).
What do you propose then?
I'd give part of the band to non-profits under essentially the same rules as they have now, and auction off the rest to the highest bidder (and charge an annual fee somewhere around 2% of that bid). Then let the winners of the auction do whatever they want with the frequencies. If they want to broadcast internet over them, go ahead. If they want to broadcast subscription radio, fine. If they want to go with free radio, that's fine too.
I doubt people would have paid for radio to begin with. It would have died right away, just like I'm sure TV would have.
Perhaps, but now the vast majority of people do pay for TV.
The fact is that people ARE willing to pay for radio and TV; they prove by paying for sat. radio and cable TV.
Sure, I'm not saying this would fail. Some people would pay for it. Most probably wouldn't, though. Radio just isn't as important as television to most people.
Besides, why wouldn't things happened just as they did with advertising supported radio?
Because broadcast television and radio are required by law to be broadcast unencrypted (there have been some relaxations of this for HDTV recently, but for the most part the broadcasters are still required to provide free television). That's part of the deal the broadcasters make when they get to use the frequencies. Another part of the deal is that they have to broadcast at least three hours per week of educational and informational programming for children. Another part of the deal is that they can't broadcast profane or indecent material between the hours of 6AM and 10PM.
No, I wasn't in the least, I really would like to know how DRM is usefull to the FOSS community, other than driveing the victims in our direction.
It doesn't seem very useful to those who would use the GPL, as the GPL requires all derivatives to be distributed with source code, and if you have the source code it is trivial to defeat any DRM.
I suppose if you release something under the BSD license DRM would allow someone to release a derivative which is DRM protected. That could be useful I suppose, as it would be a way to make money off your enhancements without resorting on copyright law.
The fact is without the ability to fine, you WOULD hear 'objectionable' content on radios.
And here I thought I had the choice not to listen.
If thats true, I should be able to hear the Nerve from rochester NY here in VT. But I can't.
I'm sure you could with a good enough receiver, and VT is not the only state near rochester (parts of PA are closer). And most importantly, the fact that there are other stations talking louder over top of the Rochester one. The Rochester station may not come in clearly, but it's still interfering with stations in other states.
You allow the FCC to license the use of the airwaves, most likely on a first come first serve basis.
First come first serve doesn't work. There is already more demand than supply in many areas. And it's not fair anyway. Why should some company get eternal rights to a frequency just because it was there first?
But the CONTENT of said broadcasts should not be the concern of the FCC.
If the content of the broadcasts were not the concern of the FCC, just know there wouldn't be free radio. It'd be encrypted, and you'd have to pay for it. And all the money for subscriptions would go to Clearstation, just because they got there first.
It matters when you get into an accident. Even if it would have been considered your fault, if the other driver was driving illegally (unlicensed, no insurance, not registered, whatever) then it's automatically his or her fault.
This is how the law works, but why does it matter? If you want to restrict driving to a certain age, why do you have to issue licenses to people of that age? Just have a law that you have to be a certain age to drive. If you get into an accident, and you're younger than that age, then it's automatically your fault. No need to register your identity with the government, who can then issue numbered plates so they can track your every move.
No one is a perfect driver - everyone gets pulled over at least once in their driving career, most likely for speeding or going through a red light/stop sign. If you're unlicensed when that happens, get ready to use your argument of "my car still starts without a license" and see what the response is.
In both New Jersey and Florida (the two states I know of), driving without a license is a very minor offense compared to driving without the ability to have a license (either suspended license, or under age, etc). Anyway, you seem to be missing the point of my question. My question was what is the point of forcing people to get licenses. I have my answer, the point is to track the public and register people. It has nothing to do with driving.
If you wanna read a non-RFID passport, you have to take it from the owner and open it. This usually involves the owner willingly giving it to you.
Well, there are certainly technologies other than RFID which can transmit over distances, but I think I know what you mean and can agree with you here...
The security degradation that the conversion from non-RFID to RFID implies is that you now don't need consent from the passport owner to read it, and actually the owner won't even notice you reading it.
OK... I still agree...
Thus, you don't need to distribute the decryption key for encrypted RFID at all. You just print it (in a machine readable way) into the passport.
If anyone with a machine reader can read the decryption key, what's the point of encrypting anything?
And what happens if you buy something, and the DRM prevents you from using it as you intended.
It's never happened, and I suspect it never will.
Can you then take the product back and get your money back, after breaking the shrinkwrap in order to test to see if it works?
Damn right I can.
No known retailer on this planet that I'm aware of allows that, so you are out the cost of that product.
That's when I call up my credit card company and tell them to reverse the charges. After all, anything I buy on my credit card has a 30 day money-back guarantee.
But this is a nonexistent scenario. I don't buy products without knowing what they are and how they work.
Then how do you legally acquire the music you listen to, other than writing it yourself, and then finding sufficiently talented mu$icians, who usually like to be paid, to perform it so you can personally make a recording of it?
I used to just download it. Nowadays I don't really listen to music in the home (although my girlfriend does so I suppose I do listen to music of hers when she plays it). In my life I've bought 3 CDs, and they were all bought from indy artists at their events, really more of a donation than a purchase.
Where DRM is most promising is with regard to free products.
That is an application of DRM I hadn't considered, please explain how it applies to free products such as linux which is released under the GPL and is already freely copyable, at least for the stuff thats included in the freely downloadable iso images to do that install.
I meant free as in beer, of course, I suspect you realized that and were just being coy.
You wouldn't be in Florida, by any chance?
Sure am.
Yes but if you have to advertise to the masses, it is much more.
I exaggerate a bit when I say a $5 website, but it doesn't cost that much to let people know you're running and who you are. Opening up at least one debate to a broad spectrum of candidates would go a long way.
Otherwise you're only going to get people specifically searching for something in your content viewing your page.
That's not true at all. There are already sites out there that list all the candidates and their websites. If you want to know who you can vote for it's relatively simple to find out.
There's no excuse for not knowing enough to make an educated choice of who to vote for, not on the national level anyway.
I feel the Supreme court is wrong because they ignored the first amendment.
Read the cases again, they certainly didn't ignore the first amendment. They discussed it in length.
Few radio station broadcasts cross state lines.
All of them do.
Even so, regulating so that each station doens't try to overpower its competitors by boosting power is quite different then saying what content is allowed over the band.
How do you pick which competitors are allowed to use the frequencies in the first place, then?
Would you care to elaborate how you can restrict speech without violating the first amendment?
We have all kinds of laws restricting speech. Copyright laws, trade secret laws, harrassment laws, spam laws, fraud laws, disturbing the peace laws, false advertising laws, etc. Are they all unconstitutional?
I don't care about whether or not I hear the speech.
Then why do you care what they are broadcasting?
I'd like them to broadcast something useful.
So you're saying then that it is ok for the gov't to censor and violate the first amendment?
It's OK for the government to censor if the entity enters into an agreement to be censored. It's not OK to violate the first amendment.
Do you fail to see that maybe other people disagree and feel that the stations are ALREADY using the band for public benefit?
Of course not. If you think listening to fart noises benefits the public, feel free to write to the FCC and say so.
And most of the public is fine with Stern, or what happened at the 2004 superbowl half time.
I'm sure most of the public is not fine with Stern, and I doubt most of them are fine with the Superbowl half time either.
Broadcasting Christain rock or howard stern still 'interferes' the same way.
Sure, but broadcasting NPR doesn't.
Then are you in favor of eliminating all FM band broadcasts?
It'd be better than the system we've got now.
If your issue is the bands then you have another gripe that has nothing to do with content.
I don't have a gripe with the content. I have a gripe with FM broadcasters who want exclusive rights to the bands and no restrictions on content, all for just $500 a year.
Perhaps you'd be more comfortable in China, where the gov't does control broadcasts?
Between the government controlling broadcasts and Clearstation controlling them, I'll take the government. At least I get to elect government officials.
So get the fees changed.
I have no power over the fees. Haven't I told you already, I don't work for the FCC.
Funny how i've setup point to point wireless internet without paying a cent for the spectrum.
It's possible. 1) Maybe you're not in the US. 2) Maybe it's a really slow connection using MURS. 3) Maybe you've got a ham license. 4) Maybe you're breaking the law.
YOU are saying that you don't believe its in the public good, others disagree.
I have said no such thing.
What exactly are the 'lies' you're talking about? Did they promise 'clean wholesome fun for the family?'
They promised to follow the FCC regulations.