You can't have it both ways. Either stations don't have enough money to fund sufficient news and public affairs programming, or they have so much money that they can afford to give away airtime to anyone who is running for office. That "free" airtime you want isn't really free. The transmitter and station and staff cost money.
Locally sold advertising funds the station operations, hopefully including news, and unlike ads on satellite, may help local non-chain businesses reach customers too.
I see a lot of local ads on my cable system, even on the satellite-fed channels. Non-chain, local businesses. Cable isn't the boogeyman.
Now, I suspect that pure satellite services like Dish or DirecTV don't have as many, if any, local-avails, but they do carry the local stations and thus more people can see the ads than if they didn't have the service. That helps the local businesses, too.
There's no reason they couldn't fairly allocate an amount of that time of their own choosing for candidate statements, debates, community comments or other appropriate programming to inform the public before elections.
Other than the fact you state that they don't have enough money coming in from ads because the cable and satellite systems are stealing the advertising dollars. Which is it? Plenty of money so they can donate all the airtime necessary, or not enough to run the shop as it is?
And then, of course, once "free" airtime becomes the law, there will have to be a return to the "fairness doctrine" laws, too. If you give thirty minutes to candidate A, you need to give thirty minutes to candidate B and C and D and...
Ideally more local station ownership, and fewer stations consolidated under a common owner in a market,...
So a whole pocketful of regulation instead of less. Ok.
and now with the so-called freedom of speech of corporations,
Of the people who make up the corporation. They still have rights.
FCC changes could go a long way to solve this serious problem.
Free speech is a serious problem? Being able to donate money to your preferred candidate to help him get elected is a serious problem? I'd say forcing corruption and graft under the table would be a much more serious problem than having every donation documented so it can be watched.
More of the dollars people spend should stay in their local economies.
People should have the freedom to spend their money where and how they see fit, even if that means sending it to Arkansas or Mexico. It's their money, not yours.
Even if cable or satellite carries your local stations, they generally won't carry all of them, and all of the digital sub-channels.
Generally? Only if the station opts out of must-carry. They can, but they are stupid to do so. Maybe some have. It was their choice.
National account ad sales on satellite tv, or across networks are efficient for the huge chains, but put local businesspeople at a serious disadvantage.
Unbundle the endless parade of commercials and then maybe I would be interested.
The only commercials the cable company has control over are the local-avail spots, and if those aren't used by the local cable company they are filled by commercials from the programming provider. The cable company could do away with ALL of their commercials and you'd still see just as many commercials.
There's no way you are ever going to get the local broadcast channels to stop using ads, nor will you see any of the non-premium satellite services drop them. Cable companies will never have enough clout to get that to happen.
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
Will that price cover the costs of fixed plant and personell? You know, those fixed costs that are irrespective of the number of channels you get? Will it cover the rental of converters and such?
Considering that HBO is a premium channel that is on the order of $10/month to start with, that leaves $5 to cover SyFy and FN and all the fixed costs. I doubt that you'll be paying such a small amount for any cable connection anytime soon.
That's a bit of double-talk since one could call any frequency regulated by the government a government frequency.
I guess I wasn't clear. When I said "government spectrum", I meant those frequencies used by the US Federal Government, Inc. Not those frequencies used by local, state or commercial users. So no, there is no double-talk involved. The NTIA manages the spectrum allocated for federal users and YOU aren't going to be using any of that (unless you are a federal user, or that spectrum is dual-allocated and the FCC also issues licenses there.).
Government agencies (police etc) license through the FCC.
Sigh. Not all of them. FEDERAL government agencies are authorized via the NTIA, not the FCC. ALL federal agencies go through the NTIA, even those that perform police functions. The differentiation is not function but level.
The NTIA is part of the Department of Commerce, so they really function more like lobbyists/advocates for business...
Right. They don't deal with commercial radio users. That's the FCC. Commercial radio users can't buy spectrum from the NTIA.
The NTIA is certainly not pushing for any spectrum the public could use directly for free or nearly so.
Because the public isn't the federal government. Talk to the FCC about public use. That's the outfit that regulates that.
Very little was needed for emergency communications, a narrow-band application.
Yes, until you have an emergency and then you don't have enough. That's a very common planning failure for modern trunked radio systems. Why yes, for normal ops, five channels can serve forty agencies. No problem, until the "big one" hits, or there's a major fire or earthquake, and then all forty agencies have hundreds of users all trying to talk at the same time and getting nowhere.
As for "narrow band", I hate to remind you that data is a vital resource during an emergency, too, and the ability for emergency services people to get accurate data fast can save lives. Video of a disaster site can tell a lot more than an email.
Perhaps you are being confused by the NTIA/FCC narrowbanding mandate? That doesn't mean that all frequency needs for all users of the spectrum are going to be narrow bandwidth, it means that specific uses in specific bands must use narrow bandwidth signals. While the local cops are changing their radios to deal with narrowband voice signals, they have also installed MDTs using broadband UHF or SHF to transmit data around the place.
And they've been piling other commercial users into tv spectrum. (white space etc)
Spectrum managed by the FCC.
Paid political ads in broadcasting should be terminated.
And yet those ads provide a huge amount of money in election years. And they serve the public by allowing access to media that is critical for any significant use of the First Amendment rights the public has.
The funds raised to pay for them are a primary source of corruption.
I have yet to hear of corruption in the local TV station because they run paid political ads.
Free community service time can be provided to candidates.
First you decry the loss of ad revenue to cable systems, and then say that broadcast stations should be handing out free airtime. Which is it?
Regarding the ads, yes, that is exactly the premise cable companies launched their service with. You paid a monthly fee and got ad-free programming.
That's nonsense.
Cable companies grew out of the need in cities for a way to provide local broadcast channels to lots of people who were living in little boxes called apartment buildings. Rabbit ears on the telly didn't cut it when you live in a steel-girder box. The first systems were called MATV, for Master Antenna TV, or CATV for Community Antenna TV, where the antenna was on the roof and the "cable system" ran just throughout the building.
Smart entrepreneurs formed companies to do this wiring for the landlords. Smart landlords, or cheap ones who owned lots of buildings, started linking buildings to save money. Then larger companies stepped in and an industry was born.
Note that the prime reason for these systems was to redistribute the commercial TV already being broadcast. You paid your monthly fee and got a good signal for the AD SUPPORTED commercial TV channels without needing to put out your own antenna.
A few microwave services popped up to deliver premium content without wires, but those were doomed to failure as soon as cable companies started carrying premium content.
So no, the premise cable companies started with was NOT to provide premium services (because those content providers didn't exist when cable got started) it was to provide a good signal for the existing ad-supported TV for money.
I remember very well the launch of what the local cable company was calling "The Q Channel", which was really HBO before HBO was well known under that brand. The cable system had been in place for a decade before that.
If you want to charge for access to the channels, those channels shouldn't be double-dipping and showing commercials as well....
Your local newspaper has been doing this for decades. Yes, a few community papers do manage to pay for everything with ads, but most major full time papers are both subscriber and ad supported. Why would a video program provider be much different?
The problem is if you charge the advertisers the full fare, then you'll have fewer advertisers and probably won't have enough money. If you charge the subscribers the full fare, you won't have enough subscribers and won't have enough money. Charge both and you can charge less to both and still have the money to produce programs. Yeah, HBO etc. go fully subs, but I expect they will be having serious difficulties in the future from cable on-demand or Netflix, if not already.
If you are going to look at utilities, don't forget cable and satellite companies.
Satellite services don't use the public right of way. They deliver the signal via airwaves, which is a different right of way that isn't mappable.
It is also worth examining how the revenue siphoned off by them may reduce resources at local news operations.
Huh? How does paying a cable company for service "siphon off" any money the local "news operation" would have? Do you imagine that if you didn't pay the cable company you'd somehow be giving that money to the local TV station? Explain, please.
There's more than the F.C.C. involved with spectrum
For civilian spectrum, they're the player. They have to work within the ITU treaties, of course, but the ITU isn't the one selling spectrum. The NTIA controls government spectrum, which you aren't going to be using anyway.
That being said, IMHO if female coworkers were routinely commenting on the size of your nose or your waist line, that would very definitely be unprofessional behavior on their part.
That would be talking about specific co-workers.
And if a female programmer named her constants things like "TINY_DICK_LOSER," I'd count that as sexism.
That would be derogatory and insulting.
A variable named "BIGBOOBS" is neither specific nor derogatory or insulting.
That makes it different. Unless, of course, a woman is offended by something, then that makes it harassment no matter what it is or who said it.
Saying wither will get you disciplined/fired at work.
Really?
In this part of the country we have the Susan G Kamen outfit that has something to do with breast cancer research. Every year, the women's gymnastics team has a "pink out" night where they hand out pink tee shirts and highlight the issue of women's breast cancer.
Some of the things they hand out have the phrase "I (heart) Boobies." This is on a campus that is a bastion of modern social thought, including "inclusion" and "diversity" and making the entire place a comfortable place for everyone at all times. In other words, political correctness run amok.
It seems like the word "boobies" passes the political correctness test. That includes perhaps two dozen college aged frat boys in the stands with a large banner that has the word, with seven of them painting one letter each on their bare chests, displayed to four gymnastic teams made up of women. Perhaps the issue you see is with the word "BIG"?
Knowing how code is structured doesn't automatically mean you know where bugs are.
Didn't say it did. Nothing is automatic. But it does mean you should know the coding style and how the program is organized. You should know the data flow and the processing steps. If you see something wrong, you should have a better idea of where to look than anyone else does.
Having a personal project doesn't mean you don't have contributors - It means that you are the only main contributor.
Oh, sorry. That's a different meaning for the word "personal" than we use on planet Earth.
In addition, having a public bug tracker helps your users know what to expect when they use your product.
Which means it isn't a personal project anymore. Perhaps you're thinking of "hobby"? You can program a publicly usable project as a hobby in your personal time, but that's different than a personal project. You can turn a personal project into a public one, but then it's not a personal project anymore.
That works great - when you only have a few hundred lines of simple code. However, when you have 200k lines, a couple hundred different files, and some very complex functionality, you need a more complex system.
No, you don't. You wrote the code. You should know how it is structured. You're going to have to fix the bug anyway, why not just do it when it is fresh in your mind and keeping you from using the code anyway?
In addition, how do you manage multiple contributors?
This is a personal project, he said. What multiple contributors?
It's an entirely different thing to fix bugs in 200k lines of non-deterministic code that runs on 3+ platforms.
If your code is nondeterministic, then you have more problems than just how you keep track of the bugs.
That wooshing sound is the point going over your head.
The point is not whether you like cable or not, or what you think of programming, or how great your antenna systems works. Or that you can predict how well it will work here, because on that point you are dead wrong. I get the PBS signal over the air. That's it. Everything else is wiped out by multipath from the local mountain.
Why is it that in every discussion about cable or television, there are people who jump in and start bragging about how they don't watch it and think it's all crap, as if that somehow adds to the discussion of the real topic? So what if you don't like it? That's nice, but how does that impact any discussion about Viacom and DirectTV and legal/contractual/ethical issues of what they are doing?
The point is that Comcast is telling me with one face that there will be no service charge for additional digital equipment they are offering me, and with the other that there will be a $1.99 a month charge. And both in the same letter.
The second point is that they are ignoring must-carry laws and switching us to a distant PBS station instead of the one that is so close that even multipath can't keep me from picking it up OTA.
It's your project, you have the source. Why not fix them when you find them? Make a comment in the code if you think it warrants it so you don't go back and do the same mistake again in the same place.
If this was something where other people were telling you at arbitrary times that "I found a bug" and you didn't want to bother with it until later, that's one thing. If you're using your own code and it isn't working, you can either fix it now and use it now, or write down there was a bug and not be able to use your own code.
People have to pay for them because they are being charged for them as part of the packages they are being sold.
That's not "as premium channels".
They are forced down your throat because they are interspersed with the content channels and as I said you have to setup a custom guide to not have to look at them everytime you bring up the guide.
The guide shows you the channels that are available, not the channels you have to watch. Don't watch them.
They could segregate them all in one area of the guide but they don't because they want to force people to see them.
By that argument, the cable or dish provider is forcing all kinds of channels that you cannot watch down your throat, too. But they really aren't forcing the channels down your throat, they're simply showing you the channels in the guide. You don't see the channel; the sales pitches don't enter your eyes unless YOU choose to tune to that channel.
Yes, it is a stupid marketing trick to show people listings of channels they don't get so they can say "gee, I really would like TCM, I think I'll order it...", but that's not forcing TCM down anyone's throat. You don't see it or buy it unless you want to.
No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic -
Yes, my name is read. Just my first name, but there is only one person in this office with that name. Clearly identified.
The name of the provider AND the name of the doctor are both provided. It is trivial to go online and find out what specialty that doctor has.
As for "generic instructions", when a urologist calls and says to show up with a "comfortably full bladder", you can be pretty sure that there is some urological issue that is being treated. I consider the fact that I'm SEEING a urologist to be personal information that the urologist and clinic should NOT be telling anyone not involved in the treatment.
I've also had a pharmacy call here with the message "your prescription is ready" (no name, no identification of the pharmacy, and no other information at all). What a useless message. Which of the 8 does that message apply to? That means it has to be spread to everyone just in case.
But I don't think they'd get away with charging their early termination / deactivation fees.
The clause says "may" apply. You would have a good case for not being charged an early term fee in the hypothetical case you propose. I think that clause is there more for the folks who would claim that they wanted out of the contract because they wanted out of the contract and the provider just happened to do something like move channels around or add a channel. Both are changes; neither are significant changes.
And since they are all loaded with ads, why do people even have to pay for them like they are premium channels.
People don't have to pay for them as premium channels, at least not on any cable system I've gotten. MTV, COM, VH1 are the ones I am talking about, of course. The '2's are in advanced tiers.
Viacom charges the cable and dish providers for them because they can.
Of course I imagine the shopping channels are paying them to force their channels down the throats of their customers so. ..
Cable carriers used to get a cut from the sales. I don't know if that's true still. But nobody is forcing those channels down your throat. Just don't watch them. Problem solved.
What's a more annoying problem is what the morons at Comcast/xfinity are doing now, which is programming the DTA (dumb digital adapter) to be able to tune to channels you aren't subscribed to (displaying a "XXX isn't currently in your programming package. Call 1800COMCAST for info" message), and the useless music channels. So now, instead of being able to surf from one channel to the next easily, there are a full 70 channels of "no you may not" in between the top viewable channel and rolling over to the lowest. Scum.
...since they had contractually obliged to deliver these channels to their clients?
You can bet there is a thirty-day change provision in the DirectTV contract that allows them to change the lineup with a month's notice. Just like cable.
Speaking of that, Comcast/xfinity customers in my town have just gotten a letter telling them that C/x are dropping ALL analog services on Aug 14. They're really helpful in telling people that they'll need to add digital adapters to any analog TV, and even say that there will be no monthly service charge for those adapters. They list the standard desktop box, the DTA, and CableCard as possibilities.
Then in the next paragraph they say there will be a $1.99 monthly service charge for any device that is added.
I hope my state AG will discuss this with them. Probably won't.
The same letter tells us, indirectly, that we are losing all the Portland network stations (being in the middle, we currently get Portland and Eugene markets.) And we're losing the PBS station that is IN THIS TOWN, and will be getting the one from Eugene instead.
Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information". The fact that this patient HAS health information is something nobody else needs to know, as far as I'm concerned.
What you say is the same thing that the "local profit health" organization said when I complained about a letter from the diabetes councilling office arrived, with my name on the front, and hand-written at the top "diabetes". "Oh, that's not patient information", they said. "Nobody could figure out who the patient is and what the current health information is". I think someone would have to be dumber than those people are not to be able to figure it out.
Additionally, this is being done all over the country by the exact same methodology, by organizations which have similarly reviewed it for compliance.
Yeah, saving money at the expense of patient privacy is a no brainer for any health organization. It would take someone with a bit of money to actually sue them, so they aren't scared. And if you sue your doctor or "local health organization", at least in this town, you wind up without a doctor or local health organization.
I work for a large non-profit health system in the midwest. We implemented "robocalls" to serve as appointment reminders. Our patients seem to like and appreciate them.
My "large profit health system" implemented the same thing. Didn't bother telling me ahead of time. I do not appreciate a robocaller calling my office (where several people work) and not bothering to ask for me, it just starts spouting that I "have an appointment with..." and the details and any special instructions to whoever happens to pick up the phone. I consider it a violation of HIPAA to do that. Some of the details are pretty specific, and there is no way to be sure I'll ever get the message.
They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out.
I've been trying to opt-out ever since they started doing this and they simply cannot do it. I was told today that it was not possible to opt-out. The only option is to give the system a different number where it is almost impossible to reach me, but at least they aren't dumping my medical information to anyone else.
These calls save time and money,
Yes, because we all know how important it is to save a phone operator in a medical office "time and money", compared to obeying federal law and patient requests.
So, not all robocalls are bad.
You used a very poor example of a good one. At least the credit card scammers aren't spreading private information around after being told not to.
I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
Uhhh, yes, sending them the "invalid number" tones is more effective than ignoring them if you put a value on being able to use your phone for what you want instead of it being used by them.
If you ignore them, they keep calling. They don't care, it's a MACHINE. The machine has been told to call your number. If you don't answer your number stays on the list. Automatic. No person is ever involved in that process. It's not a waste of their time because you are still a potential customer. Whoever they are being paid by to make calls will still pay them.
CSing it seems the only way to defend against this. playing back a beep sequence is not going to work enough to justify it...
Don't know what "CSing" it means, but yes, the SIT tones are the system defined way of detecting "invalid number". It really is a waste of their time to call invalid numbers, since invalid numbers can never be a customer.
but NOT passing them thru will certainly waste their time a little bit
Nope. Nobody will ever know. It's a machine. The machine will call you over and over and over again without tiring of it. The only way it will stop is when the contract ends, and then you'll just get on the next list for the next contract.
While you may think it's good that it "ties up their machine", you have to remember who has the hardware and who doesn't. They have digital trunks that can handle a huge volume of calls, you have a single wire. They can be making tens or hundreds of other calls at the same time they are calling you; you can make NONE while they are calling you, and worse is that nobody can call you -- they get a busy signal.
I'd use a car analogy, but I have a better one. It's like saying that the SETI software that you are allowing SETI to run on your computer in the background is wasting your time. It's happening in the background, you are still using the computer. You've lost nothing. The robocallers lose nothing.
Everyone has their own set of values. Letting them keep calling you because you think they are going to get tired or annoyed and stop is, well, your decision, but it's not based on facts.
"Well, it's a good thing that nothing exists that is scientifically provable, then..."
That's a true statement. Once you realize that everything you believe you have seen or heard has come through your alleged sensory apparatii, which may or may not actually exist in anything but your imagination or hallucination, you'd know that it is impossible to prove that you've been able to prove anything.
Would you claim that Christianity charges you to "read their book" because Amazon has bibles on sale? Is this $35 really a charge from the scientologist church to read the book, or a $35 charge for a physical copy of said item?
Why didn't you say they charge $23.16 (Amazon new hardcover), or $12.82 (Amazon new paperback), or $0.01 (many many sellers, used, add $3.99 shipping for a total of $4)?
and of course if you actually join the church it costs thousands to hundreds of thousands to advance in it.
Hey, clearing engrams isn't cheap. You can't just have a tape recorder repeating "run it again".
Even heroin/cocaine/meth/crack dealers give away the first hit, to lure in new customers. Scientology knows a good marketing technique when it steals it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's both.
You can't have it both ways. Either stations don't have enough money to fund sufficient news and public affairs programming, or they have so much money that they can afford to give away airtime to anyone who is running for office. That "free" airtime you want isn't really free. The transmitter and station and staff cost money.
Locally sold advertising funds the station operations, hopefully including news, and unlike ads on satellite, may help local non-chain businesses reach customers too.
I see a lot of local ads on my cable system, even on the satellite-fed channels. Non-chain, local businesses. Cable isn't the boogeyman.
Now, I suspect that pure satellite services like Dish or DirecTV don't have as many, if any, local-avails, but they do carry the local stations and thus more people can see the ads than if they didn't have the service. That helps the local businesses, too.
There's no reason they couldn't fairly allocate an amount of that time of their own choosing for candidate statements, debates, community comments or other appropriate programming to inform the public before elections.
Other than the fact you state that they don't have enough money coming in from ads because the cable and satellite systems are stealing the advertising dollars. Which is it? Plenty of money so they can donate all the airtime necessary, or not enough to run the shop as it is?
And then, of course, once "free" airtime becomes the law, there will have to be a return to the "fairness doctrine" laws, too. If you give thirty minutes to candidate A, you need to give thirty minutes to candidate B and C and D and ...
Ideally more local station ownership, and fewer stations consolidated under a common owner in a market,...
So a whole pocketful of regulation instead of less. Ok.
and now with the so-called freedom of speech of corporations,
Of the people who make up the corporation. They still have rights.
FCC changes could go a long way to solve this serious problem.
Free speech is a serious problem? Being able to donate money to your preferred candidate to help him get elected is a serious problem? I'd say forcing corruption and graft under the table would be a much more serious problem than having every donation documented so it can be watched.
More of the dollars people spend should stay in their local economies.
People should have the freedom to spend their money where and how they see fit, even if that means sending it to Arkansas or Mexico. It's their money, not yours.
Even if cable or satellite carries your local stations, they generally won't carry all of them, and all of the digital sub-channels.
Generally? Only if the station opts out of must-carry. They can, but they are stupid to do so. Maybe some have. It was their choice.
National account ad sales on satellite tv, or across networks are efficient for the huge chains, but put local businesspeople at a serious disadvantage.
And the local avails tilt the advantage back.
Unbundle the endless parade of commercials and then maybe I would be interested.
The only commercials the cable company has control over are the local-avail spots, and if those aren't used by the local cable company they are filled by commercials from the programming provider. The cable company could do away with ALL of their commercials and you'd still see just as many commercials.
There's no way you are ever going to get the local broadcast channels to stop using ads, nor will you see any of the non-premium satellite services drop them. Cable companies will never have enough clout to get that to happen.
I'm willing to pay $15/month for HBO, SyFy, and the Food Network.
Will that price cover the costs of fixed plant and personell? You know, those fixed costs that are irrespective of the number of channels you get? Will it cover the rental of converters and such?
Considering that HBO is a premium channel that is on the order of $10/month to start with, that leaves $5 to cover SyFy and FN and all the fixed costs. I doubt that you'll be paying such a small amount for any cable connection anytime soon.
That's a bit of double-talk since one could call any frequency regulated by the government a government frequency.
I guess I wasn't clear. When I said "government spectrum", I meant those frequencies used by the US Federal Government, Inc. Not those frequencies used by local, state or commercial users. So no, there is no double-talk involved. The NTIA manages the spectrum allocated for federal users and YOU aren't going to be using any of that (unless you are a federal user, or that spectrum is dual-allocated and the FCC also issues licenses there.).
Government agencies (police etc) license through the FCC.
Sigh. Not all of them. FEDERAL government agencies are authorized via the NTIA, not the FCC. ALL federal agencies go through the NTIA, even those that perform police functions. The differentiation is not function but level.
The NTIA is part of the Department of Commerce, so they really function more like lobbyists/advocates for business ...
Right. They don't deal with commercial radio users. That's the FCC. Commercial radio users can't buy spectrum from the NTIA.
The NTIA is certainly not pushing for any spectrum the public could use directly for free or nearly so.
Because the public isn't the federal government. Talk to the FCC about public use. That's the outfit that regulates that.
Very little was needed for emergency communications, a narrow-band application.
Yes, until you have an emergency and then you don't have enough. That's a very common planning failure for modern trunked radio systems. Why yes, for normal ops, five channels can serve forty agencies. No problem, until the "big one" hits, or there's a major fire or earthquake, and then all forty agencies have hundreds of users all trying to talk at the same time and getting nowhere.
As for "narrow band", I hate to remind you that data is a vital resource during an emergency, too, and the ability for emergency services people to get accurate data fast can save lives. Video of a disaster site can tell a lot more than an email.
Perhaps you are being confused by the NTIA/FCC narrowbanding mandate? That doesn't mean that all frequency needs for all users of the spectrum are going to be narrow bandwidth, it means that specific uses in specific bands must use narrow bandwidth signals. While the local cops are changing their radios to deal with narrowband voice signals, they have also installed MDTs using broadband UHF or SHF to transmit data around the place.
And they've been piling other commercial users into tv spectrum. (white space etc)
Spectrum managed by the FCC.
Paid political ads in broadcasting should be terminated.
And yet those ads provide a huge amount of money in election years. And they serve the public by allowing access to media that is critical for any significant use of the First Amendment rights the public has.
The funds raised to pay for them are a primary source of corruption.
I have yet to hear of corruption in the local TV station because they run paid political ads.
Free community service time can be provided to candidates.
First you decry the loss of ad revenue to cable systems, and then say that broadcast stations should be handing out free airtime. Which is it?
Regarding the ads, yes, that is exactly the premise cable companies launched their service with. You paid a monthly fee and got ad-free programming.
That's nonsense.
Cable companies grew out of the need in cities for a way to provide local broadcast channels to lots of people who were living in little boxes called apartment buildings. Rabbit ears on the telly didn't cut it when you live in a steel-girder box. The first systems were called MATV, for Master Antenna TV, or CATV for Community Antenna TV, where the antenna was on the roof and the "cable system" ran just throughout the building.
Smart entrepreneurs formed companies to do this wiring for the landlords. Smart landlords, or cheap ones who owned lots of buildings, started linking buildings to save money. Then larger companies stepped in and an industry was born.
Note that the prime reason for these systems was to redistribute the commercial TV already being broadcast. You paid your monthly fee and got a good signal for the AD SUPPORTED commercial TV channels without needing to put out your own antenna.
A few microwave services popped up to deliver premium content without wires, but those were doomed to failure as soon as cable companies started carrying premium content.
So no, the premise cable companies started with was NOT to provide premium services (because those content providers didn't exist when cable got started) it was to provide a good signal for the existing ad-supported TV for money.
I remember very well the launch of what the local cable company was calling "The Q Channel", which was really HBO before HBO was well known under that brand. The cable system had been in place for a decade before that.
If you want to charge for access to the channels, those channels shouldn't be double-dipping and showing commercials as well....
Your local newspaper has been doing this for decades. Yes, a few community papers do manage to pay for everything with ads, but most major full time papers are both subscriber and ad supported. Why would a video program provider be much different?
The problem is if you charge the advertisers the full fare, then you'll have fewer advertisers and probably won't have enough money. If you charge the subscribers the full fare, you won't have enough subscribers and won't have enough money. Charge both and you can charge less to both and still have the money to produce programs. Yeah, HBO etc. go fully subs, but I expect they will be having serious difficulties in the future from cable on-demand or Netflix, if not already.
If you are going to look at utilities, don't forget cable and satellite companies.
Satellite services don't use the public right of way. They deliver the signal via airwaves, which is a different right of way that isn't mappable.
It is also worth examining how the revenue siphoned off by them may reduce resources at local news operations.
Huh? How does paying a cable company for service "siphon off" any money the local "news operation" would have? Do you imagine that if you didn't pay the cable company you'd somehow be giving that money to the local TV station? Explain, please.
There's more than the F.C.C. involved with spectrum
For civilian spectrum, they're the player. They have to work within the ITU treaties, of course, but the ITU isn't the one selling spectrum. The NTIA controls government spectrum, which you aren't going to be using anyway.
That being said, IMHO if female coworkers were routinely commenting on the size of your nose or your waist line, that would very definitely be unprofessional behavior on their part.
That would be talking about specific co-workers.
And if a female programmer named her constants things like "TINY_DICK_LOSER," I'd count that as sexism.
That would be derogatory and insulting.
A variable named "BIGBOOBS" is neither specific nor derogatory or insulting. That makes it different. Unless, of course, a woman is offended by something, then that makes it harassment no matter what it is or who said it.
Saying wither will get you disciplined/fired at work.
Really?
In this part of the country we have the Susan G Kamen outfit that has something to do with breast cancer research. Every year, the women's gymnastics team has a "pink out" night where they hand out pink tee shirts and highlight the issue of women's breast cancer.
Some of the things they hand out have the phrase "I (heart) Boobies." This is on a campus that is a bastion of modern social thought, including "inclusion" and "diversity" and making the entire place a comfortable place for everyone at all times. In other words, political correctness run amok.
It seems like the word "boobies" passes the political correctness test. That includes perhaps two dozen college aged frat boys in the stands with a large banner that has the word, with seven of them painting one letter each on their bare chests, displayed to four gymnastic teams made up of women. Perhaps the issue you see is with the word "BIG"?
Knowing how code is structured doesn't automatically mean you know where bugs are.
Didn't say it did. Nothing is automatic. But it does mean you should know the coding style and how the program is organized. You should know the data flow and the processing steps. If you see something wrong, you should have a better idea of where to look than anyone else does.
Having a personal project doesn't mean you don't have contributors - It means that you are the only main contributor.
Oh, sorry. That's a different meaning for the word "personal" than we use on planet Earth.
In addition, having a public bug tracker helps your users know what to expect when they use your product.
Which means it isn't a personal project anymore. Perhaps you're thinking of "hobby"? You can program a publicly usable project as a hobby in your personal time, but that's different than a personal project. You can turn a personal project into a public one, but then it's not a personal project anymore.
That works great - when you only have a few hundred lines of simple code. However, when you have 200k lines, a couple hundred different files, and some very complex functionality, you need a more complex system.
No, you don't. You wrote the code. You should know how it is structured. You're going to have to fix the bug anyway, why not just do it when it is fresh in your mind and keeping you from using the code anyway?
In addition, how do you manage multiple contributors?
This is a personal project, he said. What multiple contributors?
It's an entirely different thing to fix bugs in 200k lines of non-deterministic code that runs on 3+ platforms.
If your code is nondeterministic, then you have more problems than just how you keep track of the bugs.
The point is not whether you like cable or not, or what you think of programming, or how great your antenna systems works. Or that you can predict how well it will work here, because on that point you are dead wrong. I get the PBS signal over the air. That's it. Everything else is wiped out by multipath from the local mountain.
Why is it that in every discussion about cable or television, there are people who jump in and start bragging about how they don't watch it and think it's all crap, as if that somehow adds to the discussion of the real topic? So what if you don't like it? That's nice, but how does that impact any discussion about Viacom and DirectTV and legal/contractual/ethical issues of what they are doing?
The point is that Comcast is telling me with one face that there will be no service charge for additional digital equipment they are offering me, and with the other that there will be a $1.99 a month charge. And both in the same letter.
The second point is that they are ignoring must-carry laws and switching us to a distant PBS station instead of the one that is so close that even multipath can't keep me from picking it up OTA.
If this was something where other people were telling you at arbitrary times that "I found a bug" and you didn't want to bother with it until later, that's one thing. If you're using your own code and it isn't working, you can either fix it now and use it now, or write down there was a bug and not be able to use your own code.
Is it deliberate that the page I'm reading this story on has an ad for DirectTV at the top?
People have to pay for them because they are being charged for them as part of the packages they are being sold.
That's not "as premium channels".
They are forced down your throat because they are interspersed with the content channels and as I said you have to setup a custom guide to not have to look at them everytime you bring up the guide.
The guide shows you the channels that are available, not the channels you have to watch. Don't watch them.
They could segregate them all in one area of the guide but they don't because they want to force people to see them.
By that argument, the cable or dish provider is forcing all kinds of channels that you cannot watch down your throat, too. But they really aren't forcing the channels down your throat, they're simply showing you the channels in the guide. You don't see the channel; the sales pitches don't enter your eyes unless YOU choose to tune to that channel.
Yes, it is a stupid marketing trick to show people listings of channels they don't get so they can say "gee, I really would like TCM, I think I'll order it...", but that's not forcing TCM down anyone's throat. You don't see it or buy it unless you want to.
No names are read, and neither is the name of any provider. Any instructions provided are generic -
Yes, my name is read. Just my first name, but there is only one person in this office with that name. Clearly identified.
The name of the provider AND the name of the doctor are both provided. It is trivial to go online and find out what specialty that doctor has.
As for "generic instructions", when a urologist calls and says to show up with a "comfortably full bladder", you can be pretty sure that there is some urological issue that is being treated. I consider the fact that I'm SEEING a urologist to be personal information that the urologist and clinic should NOT be telling anyone not involved in the treatment.
I've also had a pharmacy call here with the message "your prescription is ready" (no name, no identification of the pharmacy, and no other information at all). What a useless message. Which of the 8 does that message apply to? That means it has to be spread to everyone just in case.
But I don't think they'd get away with charging their early termination / deactivation fees.
The clause says "may" apply. You would have a good case for not being charged an early term fee in the hypothetical case you propose. I think that clause is there more for the folks who would claim that they wanted out of the contract because they wanted out of the contract and the provider just happened to do something like move channels around or add a channel. Both are changes; neither are significant changes.
And since they are all loaded with ads, why do people even have to pay for them like they are premium channels.
People don't have to pay for them as premium channels, at least not on any cable system I've gotten. MTV, COM, VH1 are the ones I am talking about, of course. The '2's are in advanced tiers.
Viacom charges the cable and dish providers for them because they can.
Of course I imagine the shopping channels are paying them to force their channels down the throats of their customers so. . .
Cable carriers used to get a cut from the sales. I don't know if that's true still. But nobody is forcing those channels down your throat. Just don't watch them. Problem solved.
What's a more annoying problem is what the morons at Comcast/xfinity are doing now, which is programming the DTA (dumb digital adapter) to be able to tune to channels you aren't subscribed to (displaying a "XXX isn't currently in your programming package. Call 1800COMCAST for info" message), and the useless music channels. So now, instead of being able to surf from one channel to the next easily, there are a full 70 channels of "no you may not" in between the top viewable channel and rolling over to the lowest. Scum.
...since they had contractually obliged to deliver these channels to their clients?
You can bet there is a thirty-day change provision in the DirectTV contract that allows them to change the lineup with a month's notice. Just like cable.
Speaking of that, Comcast/xfinity customers in my town have just gotten a letter telling them that C/x are dropping ALL analog services on Aug 14. They're really helpful in telling people that they'll need to add digital adapters to any analog TV, and even say that there will be no monthly service charge for those adapters. They list the standard desktop box, the DTA, and CableCard as possibilities.
Then in the next paragraph they say there will be a $1.99 monthly service charge for any device that is added.
I hope my state AG will discuss this with them. Probably won't.
The same letter tells us, indirectly, that we are losing all the Portland network stations (being in the middle, we currently get Portland and Eugene markets.) And we're losing the PBS station that is IN THIS TOWN, and will be getting the one from Eugene instead.
I love Comcast.
Legal (which is outsourced to a large firm) examined it and declared it not to be in violation of HIPAA so long as no patient identifiers and no PHI is presented.
Well, my name is a patient identifier, I suppose, and when the instructions for what to do prior to visiting are explicit, combined with the doctor's name, that's a pretty good indication of what the medical condition is. Gotta love those acronyms. PHI? The fact I'm visiting a doctor with specific information about what to do prior is a good bit of "patient health information". The fact that this patient HAS health information is something nobody else needs to know, as far as I'm concerned.
What you say is the same thing that the "local profit health" organization said when I complained about a letter from the diabetes councilling office arrived, with my name on the front, and hand-written at the top "diabetes". "Oh, that's not patient information", they said. "Nobody could figure out who the patient is and what the current health information is". I think someone would have to be dumber than those people are not to be able to figure it out.
Additionally, this is being done all over the country by the exact same methodology, by organizations which have similarly reviewed it for compliance.
Yeah, saving money at the expense of patient privacy is a no brainer for any health organization. It would take someone with a bit of money to actually sue them, so they aren't scared. And if you sue your doctor or "local health organization", at least in this town, you wind up without a doctor or local health organization.
I like to think I'm the exception.
We all do.
Not me, I'm an exception. I never think I'm an exception.
I work for a large non-profit health system in the midwest. We implemented "robocalls" to serve as appointment reminders. Our patients seem to like and appreciate them.
My "large profit health system" implemented the same thing. Didn't bother telling me ahead of time. I do not appreciate a robocaller calling my office (where several people work) and not bothering to ask for me, it just starts spouting that I "have an appointment with ..." and the details and any special instructions to whoever happens to pick up the phone. I consider it a violation of HIPAA to do that. Some of the details are pretty specific, and there is no way to be sure I'll ever get the message.
They are not opt-in, but a person can opt-out.
I've been trying to opt-out ever since they started doing this and they simply cannot do it. I was told today that it was not possible to opt-out. The only option is to give the system a different number where it is almost impossible to reach me, but at least they aren't dumping my medical information to anyone else.
These calls save time and money,
Yes, because we all know how important it is to save a phone operator in a medical office "time and money", compared to obeying federal law and patient requests.
So, not all robocalls are bad.
You used a very poor example of a good one. At least the credit card scammers aren't spreading private information around after being told not to.
I don't want to pick up their calls and no signal I could send would really be as effective as ignoring them.
Uhhh, yes, sending them the "invalid number" tones is more effective than ignoring them if you put a value on being able to use your phone for what you want instead of it being used by them.
If you ignore them, they keep calling. They don't care, it's a MACHINE. The machine has been told to call your number. If you don't answer your number stays on the list. Automatic. No person is ever involved in that process. It's not a waste of their time because you are still a potential customer. Whoever they are being paid by to make calls will still pay them.
CSing it seems the only way to defend against this. playing back a beep sequence is not going to work enough to justify it...
Don't know what "CSing" it means, but yes, the SIT tones are the system defined way of detecting "invalid number". It really is a waste of their time to call invalid numbers, since invalid numbers can never be a customer.
but NOT passing them thru will certainly waste their time a little bit
Nope. Nobody will ever know. It's a machine. The machine will call you over and over and over again without tiring of it. The only way it will stop is when the contract ends, and then you'll just get on the next list for the next contract.
While you may think it's good that it "ties up their machine", you have to remember who has the hardware and who doesn't. They have digital trunks that can handle a huge volume of calls, you have a single wire. They can be making tens or hundreds of other calls at the same time they are calling you; you can make NONE while they are calling you, and worse is that nobody can call you -- they get a busy signal.
I'd use a car analogy, but I have a better one. It's like saying that the SETI software that you are allowing SETI to run on your computer in the background is wasting your time. It's happening in the background, you are still using the computer. You've lost nothing. The robocallers lose nothing.
Everyone has their own set of values. Letting them keep calling you because you think they are going to get tired or annoyed and stop is, well, your decision, but it's not based on facts.
"Well, it's a good thing that nothing exists that is scientifically provable, then..."
That's a true statement. Once you realize that everything you believe you have seen or heard has come through your alleged sensory apparatii, which may or may not actually exist in anything but your imagination or hallucination, you'd know that it is impossible to prove that you've been able to prove anything.
Nope, 35$ to read their book.
Would you claim that Christianity charges you to "read their book" because Amazon has bibles on sale? Is this $35 really a charge from the scientologist church to read the book, or a $35 charge for a physical copy of said item?
Why didn't you say they charge $23.16 (Amazon new hardcover), or $12.82 (Amazon new paperback), or $0.01 (many many sellers, used, add $3.99 shipping for a total of $4)?
and of course if you actually join the church it costs thousands to hundreds of thousands to advance in it.
Hey, clearing engrams isn't cheap. You can't just have a tape recorder repeating "run it again".
Even heroin/cocaine/meth/crack dealers give away the first hit, to lure in new customers. Scientology knows a good marketing technique when it steals it.