If it only ran on 64-bit-capable systems, why is there a 32-bit version of Win 7 at all?
This isn't about dropping support for 32-bits in the OS (yet). It's an incentive to get more hardware vendors shipping 64 bit systems. Those not showing the compatible sticker in a retail environment will likely be seen as dated, as they should be.
Beyond their initial round of Intel machines in 2006, everything from Apple has been 64-bit since. Why should PC vendors be so far behind?
At this point why even bother releasing a 32bit installer at all?
I'm not sure who could justify retail pricing, but some running running 32-bit Vista could use some of its' fixes. After all, Win 7 essentially is the beleaguered Vista bundled with a new service pack (and a new name to try and shake off some of the disgust the former release earned). At least with the tighter official compatibility requirements those buying new machines should have the OS work as expected.
While some old Pentium 4 series machines will run it, given the low value of those machines compared to the OS time/install costs Win 7 doesn't make much economic sense. Additionally, the energy consumption of the faster clocked Pentium 4/D series machines is so high tha those using them heavily (like frequent torrent P2P and PVR users for example) could pay for something like a Core 2 CPU and board just with the energy savings over a couple of years. (For comparison, my 3 year old Core 2 desktop only uses 85 Watts). Where I am cost works out to about $1 per month for every 10 Watts eaten continuously.
Older machines with usage patterns that see too frequent of viral grief with XP and that are likely to be incompatible or sluggish with Vista/7 are probably best either sent off to the recyclers or given a new life with something like Ubuntu. Having less bloat and no overhead from antiviral software really helps performance of less powerful machines making Ubuntu a refreshing experience. Ubuntu 9.10, due at the end of October features significant enhancements and faster booting. A beta is available now. Of course Ubuntu is very worthy of newer hardware too, which really invites enabling some great optional GUI features/candy.
RAM is probably the one paid-for upgrade that makes sense for many of the older machines.
With a few updated products due and it being a time with more PC users thinking about new hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple adds a slightly lower-priced offering or two this month...
There is HD AM Radio and HD FM Radio. When making claims, you should specify which you're talking about. They're very different due to differing bandwidth constraints and different types of signal interferrence at the frequencies used. Certainly "HD" doesn't mean High Definition or even CD-quality in either case. It is misleading marketing to even call it HD since most people will not realize what they're actually getting.
HD radio requires a fraction of the bandwidth of analog. That's certainly not true for HD AM, and no FM spectrum is released for other licensees or services. For practical purposes a U.S. A.M. broadcast channel is 20 kHz bandwidth, and F.M. channel 200 kHz. Obviously more is possible on an FM channel. HD Radio can't even manage stereo (2 channels) or extended frequency-response on AM, and the bandwidth used is wide enough that HD Radio must operate at well below the licensed analog power level because of excessive interference to any second-adjacent analog station (two channels sway in either direction) While HD FM does allow more programming per transmitter, each station still has the same licensed channel bandwidth/spacing so no frequencies are freed up. HD radio won't help people hoping for a free channel to license in a congested area. (The digital tv transition didn't reduce bandwidth per license/transmitter either, they just decided to take away a group of channels for other uses)
HD radio is capable of CD-quality sound.
Even if some people agree that HD-FM can sound good, it's lossy compression. At its' best it'll never reach CD quality. CD's don't use data compression. A few years ago the website of the company behind this had the nerve to post simulated audio clips comparing AM/FM analog and digital. They were NOT actual recordings of functioning broadcast equipment!
Beyond that, I find the radio quality issue to be something of a bad joke. Nowdays the bulk of music broadcast by radio stations does not come directly from CD. It's generally stored in a computers using lossy compression. Additionally, stations use complex audio processing equipment that among other things maximizes loudness while controlling waveform peaks to meet requirements of the transmission system. This greatly increases distortion and reduces dynamics. Try feeding an FM tuner into a tape deck... the VU meters will practically sit still at one level. If one hears artifacts on analog FM radio that sound like a poor quality MP3 (or MP2), it's NOT the fault of the transmitting system. Of course considering the amount of advertising many stations carry, it's a wonder that anyone can tolerate commercial radio for music at all. Radio has far worse problems than the limitations of wideband FM.
Most radio listeners would appreciate is broadcasters that acted like they really cared about quality. With huge corporate out-of-town owners, like Clear Channel, operation best suited for the local communities is very unlike. We should pressure the F.C.C. to tighten ownership requirements, limiting the number of stations owned and requiring many more local owners with ties to the community served.
U.S. ATSC "HD" TV uses A/52 a.k.a. Dolby AC3 audio compression (codec efficient like AAC, but with multichannel support). All main and subchannel DTV broadcasts I've seen used sampling at 48 kHz at a 384 kbps data rate. You claim CD-quality, just what are the sampling and data rates for "HD" radio???
HD radio requires a fraction of the power of analog.
Consumers are supposed to buy new equipment to save the broadcasters energy? Although the transmitter digital power levels are lower than the analog, the transmitters handling hybrid digital and analog run far less efficiently and consume MORE POWER. I don't see ANYONE saving power.
Another thing... Digital service can ideally function at a signal level closer to the noise floor without degrading. But because the digital signal may drop out completely during a fad
In 1995 Video for Windows became an issue in a lawsuit Apple filed against Microsoft, Intel, and the San Francisco Canyon Company, regarding the alleged theft of several thousand lines of QuickTime source code to improve the performance of Video for Windows
Windows can't burn ISOs out of the box (or XP can't) and he likely doesn't know what a "ISO" is anyway.
It may be easier to find a Mac user than to get/install a trial version of Nero or something for XP.
Any Mac OS X user should be able to burn a bootable Ubuntu disk using the included Apple "Disk Utility". Pick "Burn" from the "Images" menu, select the image file (free download, links from Ubuntu site), insert blank disc and click button as per prompt...
Should? It started some time ago. Government teams have previously established that of the bird-pig co-conspirators, suicide-attack birds have worked in teams to clog aircraft engines. Pig involvement is still under investigation. There are some rumors that pigs in Colorado may have been behind the creation of "Lite" beer.
That's not what the article says. It looks like it might be able to transmit person to person, which is unusual for swine flu, but there's no evidence it's easy.
The eight new cases in New York were students that had been on a trip to Mexico. Odds are good that they were just out and about seeing sights and around people. It's not like the case with a family member, partner or care-giver spending considerable time in close proximity to someone that's ill.
Channel-flipping a bit ago I noticed Telemundo network running a soccer game. Usually the stadiums are packed for these, so it was a bit shocking to a just-for-tv (the seats empty). Considering the economic effects of shut-down events and lost tourism, things must have looked very bad for the Mexican government to take the actions we've seen.
If you can show me a laptop that can handle -40C to 85C, high levels of humidity, draws no more than 5W of power, needs no fans for cooling, and reasonably gracefully handles transients associated with lightning strikes for less than $1500, I'll gladly buy it.
One of these should hold up very well. For added lightning resistance you might want to order a version opting for some ceramic or bone components. (Bone may be a "greener" choice where you are)
So where can we buy batteries that are better than 99.9% efficient?
The battery isn't that efficient. IIRC lead-acid batteries are around 50%. But the battery is used so little that what it doesn't give back doesn't impact the overall power consumption. The efficiency they're talking about is that of electronics (and maybe wire) associated with the inclusion of UPS functionality. They way they designed things, there is probably nearly nothing extra there to waste power. It's what a UPS wastes all the time that adds up to real costs. There may be a few parts associated with limiting charging current, maybe a fuse for faults, possibly something to force a tidy shutdown when the voltage falls off...
I'd love to see motherboards like they used made widely available. Being set up to run on a single input voltage it'd be fairly easy/cheap to have solar-boosted computing for people that'd like to offset some of the energy their perpetually-on PVR/torrent boxes use. Being able to dump some power right into a computer from a small panel would avoid the complex/expensive/and regulatory issues that go with converting power to dump back into the A.C. mains. And its more efficient too!
This is the ideal solution. Running a device off of the human metabolism is an excellent way to ensure that it functions for the life of the patient.
People will come up with many applications for this technology. Powered tracking chips for the kids could have much greater range than RFID...
I was a bit surprised to see this be real on April 1st. I was expecting something more along the lines of tech that makes the likes of Ted Stevens into biofuel. Phase II??
The programmers of Slashdot are ready for multiple cores and threads. There is no problem.
When performing a number of operations in parallel the key is to simply ignore the results of each operation. For operations that would have used the result of another as input simply use what you think the result might be or what you wish it was.
The programmers of Slashdot already have the needed skills for such programming as the mental processes are the same ones that enable discussion of TFAs without reading them.
Someone who fails to realize that there is no effective internet penetration into what is satellite radio's major market: automobile listening.
Even without a live internet connection, devices holding music largely purchased or obtained over the net certainly cut into what would have been a much bigger market for satellite radio otherwise.
The XM satellite radio service was officially launched on September 25, 2001 The iPod launched October 23, 2001
Certainly the business and technical planning for satellite radio predated the iPod.
Certainly many of the music-listening people who might have gone to satellite as an alternative to the small playlists, excessive advertising, poor audio quality, or limited coverage area of conventional radio have found the iPod attractive. And more recently some interested in other types of programs have found podcasts a way to carry along content on the the road and elsewhere when away from home/office net connectivity.
Of course in this era of heightened debt-awareness, many simply see subscription services as costs to avoid. Some of the same people who avoid the radio because of what Clear Channel and others have done to it avoid satellite radio on general principle since Clear Channel has a stake in that.
With reallocation of tv spectrum, services providing net access in the car might be more likely too...
The situation varies from station to station, so specific claims like triple power etc are generally wrong. See the post below and follow the FCC link for details in your area: (You'll see call letters of your stations listed more than once because of entries for both analog and digital, and for licensed operation as well as that with construction permits. Note that the X.Y format channel numbers displayed on digital gear generally are NOT the channel actually carrying the signal)
With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?,/i>
Mac OS X doesn't run natively on all PCs, so Microsoft doesn't have anything to be afraid of. Plus Microsoft has software already developed for the Mac, so they could still make money even if Macs dominate PC sales.
Yes, and it's Linux, not OS X, that is the current most-viable legal option to Windows for both OEM customers (new machine builders) and the upgrade-what-I-have PC market. Ubuntu would certainly meet the OS needs of many, spare them the time/cost of dealing with most malware, and provide an impressive array of bundled or trivial to load applications. No doubt some would also appreciate that Ubuntu is essentially free too!
OS X and Apple machines are great and will continue to get a growing share, but it's Linux that could suddenly convert a big share if OEMs defected in a major way and got behind Ubuntu with some marketing. Perhaps some OEMs could even show some ability to innovate and do some development for Ubuntu...
Who really cares that it's lower bandwidth, since we watch cable anyway? Even if we watched over the air TV, how does the station using less bandwidth help the viewer?
1) Lower bandwidth means better quality and/or more content per 6 MHz tv channel. Some stations can now carry more than one network. P.B.S. stations can do things like have kids programs, regular adult informative shows, foreign language programming, and some reruns all going at once.
2) Giving up some of the spectrum (channels 52-69) makes 102 MHz available for other uses. a) more frequencies for emergency services etc (claimed needed after 9/11) b) other commercial/public use. Spectrum was auctioned off. Plenty of lobbying there I'm sure. Will it bring us some wonderful fast (cheap? free???) wireless services? Time will tell.
cable/satellite services are trying to do so much that they're pushing per-program data rates way down. There don't seem to be any regulations limiting how bad it can get. Broadcast DTV is generally better video quality.
Commercial broadcast tv is pretty annoying. One would think that tv broadcasters would have noticed all the ads on radio, and all of the people that are listening to iPods instead. 18 minutes or so of ads in an hour tv show? It used to be more like 11 or 12. Of course we were told deregulation was good, and marketplace forces would serve the public interest. Worked great for the banks, didn't it?
The economy isn't the only reason many haven't bought big new televisions for the transition. Most of what's on tv isn't worth expensive hardware. Thank (insert deity of choice) for PBS. The industry almost deserves to die. The public needs diversity in news sources. Democracy requires knowledge and the free flow of information to function. Infrastructure for tv that works well technically is great. Now how about some reforms that'll lead to better programming with fewer ads? That's the kind of help most viewers want.
>>"some stations to take up their final digital frequency assignments..."
>What are you talking about.
>Television doesn't work that way.... The actual spectrum reassignment will take place in *minutes* since the mapping of content to spectrum is completely arbitrary to begin with.
The digital program content format in a tv studio and the modulation method for putting that information onto a radio-frequency signal are two different things. The television frequency ranges associated with channels 2-69 (soon to be only 2-51) are the same whether a digital or analog transmission is used. If a "station" is broadcasting digital and analog, it is using two channels and two transmitters to do it. Running both analog and digital at once has required some temporary channel assignments for DTV. Shutting down channels 52 and up completely, and shutting down the full-power analog transmitters will free channels allowing the digital stations to use their final assignments and power levels. The channel number (with a decimal) displayed by a digital tv is a number picked by the broadcaster for display purposes only. It does NOT have to match the actual broadcast channel used. In most cases broadcasters have chosen to display their (analog) channel number before the decimal since that is the number viewers already know.
To learn about how the digital content for an ATSC broadcast is put onto the radio-frequency signal, read about 8VSB modulation.
Moving the digital transmission between two different channels (actual frequency change, not display change) is a big deal. It generally involves a different antenna. We're talking about something large and expensive, generally way up on a tower, often on a mountain top. In many cases it also involves a new transmitter, depending on the power levels and frequencies involved. Moving isn't like setting some encoder setting in software or with dip switches. Since some stations bought digital equipment which they can't use after the transition date, some are planning on buying/selling equipment from each other at that time. So the schedule of one may affect another... Turning off an analog transmitter is easy enough, but there's more going on in many cases.
well we have a decent antenna mounted about 20 feet up in the air connected to low-loss coax...i havent thought of a preamp...i will have to go take a look at that one...we have aimed the antenna right using a air plane compass and the coordinates we got from the fcc database (i just helped so i really dont know exactly where we got the coordinates) at about 60 miles we get most of the channels except for ABC 13 and PBS 8...which is odd..becuase they are all at the same location...
It looks like the PBS 8 KUHT station is temporarily doing digital on channel 9 (will still would show up as 8 dot whatever on a digital tv), with a CP (construction permit) to go back to channel 8 with more power than they have on 9 when the analog gets turned off. The ABC 13 KTRK station appears to be licensed with a bunch of power for digital on channel 32, but it too looks temporary since there is a construction permit for digital on 13. Since 32 appears to be only temporary for them, they might have decided not to invest in as powerful of a transmitter as they were licensed for. Some of the things in the FCC database aren't actually operating at all or as licensed yet, and there may be extra entries for stations if they're making more changes or just changing their minds on what to go with. Stations that are already on the digital channel they'll use are much more likely to be running full power. (Even then some can't yet because of stations that have not shut down or moved from the same channel yet being vulnerable to interference in other cities... it's a bit complicated)
Many viewers are using UHF-specific antennas for DTV. Most UHF specific antennas outperform the UHF section of combined UHF/VHF antennas. Since the stations you are having trouble with appear to be destined to be digital on VHF, you might not have a suitable antenna. A UHF/VHF splitter or a two set splitter can be hooked up backwards to combined the output of two different antennas to one cable if needed. (make sure anything outside is weatherproof). They're using less power on VHF, but since VHF antennas have to be bigger (to be a certain fraction of a wavelength) they're capturing energy over a bigger area and get more signal.
(a 13 db gain antenna at UHF takes up a smaller wedge of the sky than the same gain antenna at VHF) VHF is less affected by terrain and cable losses than UHF. To help compensate for different conditions at higher frequencies, the FCC maximum power limits for analog were set at 100,000 Watts on channels 2-6, 316,000 on 7-13, and 5 million on UHF. (some of the extra on UHF was also to allow for lower performance tuners... things have improved since the early days of UHF tv). In theory a digital signal doesn't have to be as far above the background noise to look perfect, so less power should work. But I've seen people watch viewable VHF analog signals beyond the purple areas of the coverage maps. Stations that moved to digital on UHF will almost certainly not reach those people. It seems most of the remaining VHF stations will be on channels 7-13, probably because antennas are smaller than for 2-6, and because in the stronger areas UHF antennas may still pick up enough on 7-13 to work. Some companies used to sell antennas made specifically for 7-13. It'll be interesting to see if UHF antennas optimized for 14-51 appear. There's no need for the shorter elements to support up to 69 (or up to 83 in the pre-cell-phone era).
You might want to wait until after the transition to work on those two stations. If you'd like to laugh at what happens to coverage in more mountainous areas, try looking at something like KCOY in tvfool...
Looking at the FCC TV database, it seems Houston has or will have a number of DTV stations operating at effective power at or near a million Watts, and with pretty fair effective antenna height (500 meters or so). Coverage looks pretty good compared to what many see in more mountainous areas.
Coverage also depends much on terrain. You can get a pretty good idea what to expect from the tvfool coverage maps which take terrain into account. If you're out in the blue it takes more work...
I looked at a couple of the Houston signals and its seems they're generally really strong out to about 50 miles. You didn't say what kind of installation you have at 60 miles. A decent roof-mounted antenna with a preamp at the antenna (remotely powered) and modern low-loss coax cable will probably work well. It is important that the antenna be properly aimed. I've had good results with the mast-mounted preamp Radio Shack sells (about $60, about double what I paid for a medium sized antenna). Increasing antenna height can help, especially when there is clutter nearby. Some indoor preamps I've tried made matters worse instead of better. (most were around $20). They had both poor gain and were more prone to overload problems. The Radio Shack outdoor preamp has a gain adjustment on the indoor power supply. It is easiest to check reception on analog signals while adjusting the gain. If there is an overload problem from strong signals nearby, the best reception will be below the maximum gain setting. Equipment is more prone to signal overload near transmitters and when there are many signals nearby. Interference is far easier to spot on the analog signals.
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Win 98 also runs fine in VirtualBox, OSS free for personal use from Sun.
If it only ran on 64-bit-capable systems, why is there a 32-bit version of Win 7 at all?
This isn't about dropping support for 32-bits in the OS (yet).
It's an incentive to get more hardware vendors shipping 64 bit systems.
Those not showing the compatible sticker in a retail environment will likely be seen as dated, as they should be.
Beyond their initial round of Intel machines in 2006, everything from Apple has been 64-bit since. Why should PC vendors be so far behind?
At this point why even bother releasing a 32bit installer at all?
I'm not sure who could justify retail pricing, but some running running 32-bit Vista could use some of its' fixes. After all, Win 7 essentially is the beleaguered Vista bundled with a new service pack (and a new name to try and shake off some of the disgust the former release earned). At least with the tighter official compatibility requirements those buying new machines should have the OS work as expected.
While some old Pentium 4 series machines will run it, given the low value of those machines compared to the OS time/install costs Win 7 doesn't make much economic sense. Additionally, the energy consumption of the faster clocked Pentium 4/D series machines is so high tha those using them heavily (like frequent torrent P2P and PVR users for example) could pay for something like a Core 2 CPU and board just with the energy savings over a couple of years. (For comparison, my 3 year old Core 2 desktop only uses 85 Watts). Where I am cost works out to about $1 per month for every 10 Watts eaten continuously.
Older machines with usage patterns that see too frequent of viral grief with XP and that are likely to be incompatible or sluggish with Vista/7 are probably best either sent off to the recyclers or given a new life with something like Ubuntu. Having less bloat and no overhead from antiviral software really helps performance of less powerful machines making Ubuntu a refreshing experience. Ubuntu 9.10, due at the end of October features significant enhancements and faster booting. A beta is available now. Of course Ubuntu is very worthy of newer hardware too, which really invites enabling some great optional GUI features/candy.
RAM is probably the one paid-for upgrade that makes sense for many of the older machines.
With a few updated products due and it being a time with more PC users thinking about new hardware, I wouldn't be surprised if Apple adds a slightly lower-priced offering or two this month...
Or whether your last session originated from a Mac or not?
Along the lines of OS, here's a quote from a couple of years ago...
"Running OS X on unauthorized hardware is a bit like giving the Dell dude a sex change to get a girlfriend"
There is HD AM Radio and HD FM Radio. When making claims, you should specify which you're talking about. They're very different due to differing bandwidth constraints and different types of signal interferrence at the frequencies used.
Certainly "HD" doesn't mean High Definition or even CD-quality in either case.
It is misleading marketing to even call it HD since most people will not realize what they're actually getting.
HD radio requires a fraction of the bandwidth of analog.
That's certainly not true for HD AM, and no FM spectrum is released for other licensees or services.
For practical purposes a U.S. A.M. broadcast channel is 20 kHz bandwidth, and F.M. channel 200 kHz.
Obviously more is possible on an FM channel. HD Radio can't even manage stereo (2 channels) or extended frequency-response on AM, and the bandwidth used is wide enough that HD Radio must operate at well below the licensed analog power level because of excessive interference to any second-adjacent analog station (two channels sway in either direction)
While HD FM does allow more programming per transmitter, each station still has the same licensed channel bandwidth/spacing so no frequencies are freed up. HD radio won't help people hoping for a free channel to license in a congested area. (The digital tv transition didn't reduce bandwidth per license/transmitter either, they just decided to take away a group of channels for other uses)
HD radio is capable of CD-quality sound.
Even if some people agree that HD-FM can sound good, it's lossy compression. At its' best it'll never reach CD quality. CD's don't use data compression. A few years ago the website of the company behind this had the nerve to post simulated audio clips comparing AM/FM analog and digital.
They were NOT actual recordings of functioning broadcast equipment!
Beyond that, I find the radio quality issue to be something of a bad joke. Nowdays the bulk of music broadcast by radio stations does not come directly from CD. It's generally stored in a computers using lossy compression. Additionally, stations use complex audio processing equipment that among other things maximizes loudness while controlling waveform peaks to meet requirements of the transmission system. This greatly increases distortion and reduces dynamics. Try feeding an FM tuner into a tape deck... the VU meters will practically sit still at one level. If one hears artifacts on analog FM radio that sound like a poor quality MP3 (or MP2), it's NOT the fault of the transmitting system. Of course considering the amount of advertising many stations carry, it's a wonder that anyone can tolerate commercial radio for music at all.
Radio has far worse problems than the limitations of wideband FM.
Most radio listeners would appreciate is broadcasters that acted like they really cared about quality. With huge corporate out-of-town owners, like Clear Channel, operation best suited for the local communities is very unlike. We should pressure the F.C.C. to tighten ownership requirements, limiting the number of stations owned and requiring many more local owners with ties to the community served.
U.S. ATSC "HD" TV uses A/52 a.k.a. Dolby AC3 audio compression (codec efficient like AAC, but with multichannel support). All main and subchannel DTV broadcasts I've seen used sampling at 48 kHz at a 384 kbps data rate.
You claim CD-quality, just what are the sampling and data rates for "HD" radio???
HD radio requires a fraction of the power of analog.
Consumers are supposed to buy new equipment to save the broadcasters energy? Although the transmitter digital power levels are lower than the analog, the transmitters handling hybrid digital and analog run far less efficiently and consume MORE POWER. I don't see ANYONE saving power.
Another thing... Digital service can ideally function at a signal level closer to the noise floor without degrading. But because the digital signal may drop out completely during a fad
Only a 3 megapixel camera?
I wonder how many realize that 1080i or 1080p HDTV is only TWO megapixel? (1920*1080)
That's the way it's worked since MS had the idea of VFW plugins
That's a bit comical considering that one of the things plugged into VFW was code stolen from QuickTime!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_for_Windows
In 1995 Video for Windows became an issue in a lawsuit Apple filed against Microsoft, Intel, and the San Francisco Canyon Company, regarding the alleged theft of several thousand lines of QuickTime source code to improve the performance of Video for Windows
Where does Joe get his Ubuntu Live CD?
Windows can't burn ISOs out of the box (or XP can't) and he likely doesn't know what a "ISO" is anyway.
It may be easier to find a Mac user than to get/install a trial version of Nero or something for XP.
Any Mac OS X user should be able to burn a bootable Ubuntu disk using the included Apple "Disk Utility". Pick "Burn" from the "Images" menu, select the image file (free download, links from Ubuntu site), insert blank disc and click button as per prompt...
Nothing like disk caching and virtual memory that'll fight each other while eating up the RAM and disk space.
ME could be thought of as the Retarded Cannibal Edition... the cannibal that eats itself.
The apparent overreaction/misunderstanding affecting on the pork industry is even worse in some other places.
Egypt plans to kill about 300,000 pigs
Should? It started some time ago. Government teams have previously established that of the bird-pig co-conspirators, suicide-attack birds have worked in teams to clog aircraft engines. Pig involvement is still under investigation.
There are some rumors that pigs in Colorado may have been behind the creation of "Lite" beer.
The eight new cases in New York were students that had been on a trip to Mexico.
Odds are good that they were just out and about seeing sights and around people.
It's not like the case with a family member, partner or care-giver spending considerable time in close proximity to someone that's ill.
Channel-flipping a bit ago I noticed Telemundo network running a soccer game. Usually the stadiums are packed for these, so it was a bit shocking to a just-for-tv (the seats empty).
Considering the economic effects of shut-down events and lost tourism, things must have looked very bad for the Mexican government to take the actions we've seen.
One of these should hold up very well.
For added lightning resistance you might want to order a version opting for some ceramic or bone components.
(Bone may be a "greener" choice where you are)
The battery isn't that efficient. IIRC lead-acid batteries are around 50%. But the battery is used so little that what it doesn't give back doesn't impact the overall power consumption.
The efficiency they're talking about is that of electronics (and maybe wire) associated with the inclusion of UPS functionality. They way they designed things, there is probably nearly nothing extra there to waste power. It's what a UPS wastes all the time that adds up to real costs.
There may be a few parts associated with limiting charging current, maybe a fuse for faults, possibly something to force a tidy shutdown when the voltage falls off...
I'd love to see motherboards like they used made widely available. Being set up to run on a single input voltage it'd be fairly easy/cheap to have solar-boosted computing for people that'd like to offset some of the energy their perpetually-on PVR/torrent boxes use. Being able to dump some power right into a computer from a small panel would avoid the complex/expensive/and regulatory issues that go with converting power to dump back into the A.C. mains. And its more efficient too!
http://eztv.it/ has been through something of a transformation too...
People will come up with many applications for this technology. Powered tracking chips for the kids could have much greater range than RFID...
I was a bit surprised to see this be real on April 1st. I was expecting something more along the lines of tech that makes the likes of Ted Stevens into biofuel. Phase II??
The programmers of Slashdot are ready for multiple cores and threads. There is no problem.
When performing a number of operations in parallel the key is to simply ignore the results of each operation.
For operations that would have used the result of another as input simply use what you think the result might be or what you wish it was.
The programmers of Slashdot already have the needed skills for such programming as the mental processes are the same ones that enable discussion of TFAs without reading them.
Someone who fails to realize that there is no effective internet penetration into what is satellite radio's major market: automobile listening.
Even without a live internet connection, devices holding music largely purchased or obtained over the net certainly cut into what would have been a much bigger market for satellite radio otherwise.
The XM satellite radio service was officially launched on September 25, 2001
The iPod launched October 23, 2001
Certainly the business and technical planning for satellite radio predated the iPod.
Certainly many of the music-listening people who might have gone to satellite as an alternative to the small playlists, excessive advertising, poor audio quality, or limited coverage area of conventional radio have found the iPod attractive. And more recently some interested in other types of programs have found podcasts a way to carry along content on the the road and elsewhere when away from home/office net connectivity.
Of course in this era of heightened debt-awareness, many simply see subscription services as costs to avoid.
Some of the same people who avoid the radio because of what Clear Channel and others have done to it avoid satellite radio on general principle since Clear Channel has a stake in that.
With reallocation of tv spectrum, services providing net access in the car might be more likely too...
The situation varies from station to station, so specific claims like triple power etc are generally wrong. See the post below and follow the FCC link for details in your area:
(You'll see call letters of your stations listed more than once because of entries for both analog and digital, and for licensed operation as well as that with construction permits. Note that the X.Y format channel numbers displayed on digital gear generally are NOT the channel actually carrying the signal)
http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1107595&cid=26644469
Maybe they could sell cheap leather shoes? They could bring in Bill to do his stand-up routine.
They were a little off the mark with the shoe thing...
To draw crowds, their stores should be places for throwing shoes
With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?,/i>
Mac OS X doesn't run natively on all PCs, so Microsoft doesn't have anything to be afraid of. Plus Microsoft has software already developed for the Mac, so they could still make money even if Macs dominate PC sales.
Yes, and it's Linux, not OS X, that is the current most-viable legal option to Windows for both OEM customers (new machine builders) and the upgrade-what-I-have PC market.
Ubuntu would certainly meet the OS needs of many, spare them the time/cost of dealing with most malware, and provide an impressive array of bundled or trivial to load applications.
No doubt some would also appreciate that Ubuntu is essentially free too!
OS X and Apple machines are great and will continue to get a growing share, but it's Linux that could suddenly convert a big share if OEMs defected in a major way and got behind Ubuntu with some marketing. Perhaps some OEMs could even show some ability to innovate and do some development for Ubuntu...
Who really cares that it's lower bandwidth, since we watch cable anyway? Even if we watched over the air TV, how does the station using less bandwidth help the viewer?
1) Lower bandwidth means better quality and/or more content per 6 MHz tv channel. Some stations can now carry more than one network. P.B.S. stations can do things like have kids programs, regular adult informative shows, foreign language programming, and some reruns all going at once.
2) Giving up some of the spectrum (channels 52-69) makes 102 MHz available for other uses.
a) more frequencies for emergency services etc (claimed needed after 9/11)
b) other commercial/public use. Spectrum was auctioned off. Plenty of lobbying there I'm sure.
Will it bring us some wonderful fast (cheap? free???) wireless services? Time will tell.
cable/satellite services are trying to do so much that they're pushing per-program data rates way down. There don't seem to be any regulations limiting how bad it can get.
Broadcast DTV is generally better video quality.
Commercial broadcast tv is pretty annoying. One would think that tv broadcasters would have noticed all the ads on radio, and all of the people that are listening to iPods instead.
18 minutes or so of ads in an hour tv show? It used to be more like 11 or 12.
Of course we were told deregulation was good, and marketplace forces would serve the public interest. Worked great for the banks, didn't it?
The economy isn't the only reason many haven't bought big new televisions for the transition.
Most of what's on tv isn't worth expensive hardware. Thank (insert deity of choice) for PBS.
The industry almost deserves to die.
The public needs diversity in news sources. Democracy requires knowledge and the free flow of information to function. Infrastructure for tv that works well technically is great. Now how about some reforms that'll lead to better programming with fewer ads? That's the kind of help most viewers want.
>>"some stations to take up their final digital frequency assignments..."
>What are you talking about.
>Television doesn't work that way. ... The actual spectrum reassignment will take place in *minutes* since the mapping of content to spectrum is completely arbitrary to begin with.
The digital program content format in a tv studio and the modulation method for putting that information onto a radio-frequency signal are two different things. The television frequency ranges associated with channels 2-69 (soon to be only 2-51) are the same whether a digital or analog transmission is used. If a "station" is broadcasting digital and analog, it is using two channels and two transmitters to do it. Running both analog and digital at once has required some temporary channel assignments for DTV. Shutting down channels 52 and up completely, and shutting down the full-power analog transmitters will free channels allowing the digital stations to use their final assignments and power levels.
The channel number (with a decimal) displayed by a digital tv is a number picked by the broadcaster for display purposes only. It does NOT have to match the actual broadcast channel used. In most cases broadcasters have chosen to display their (analog) channel number before the decimal since that is the number viewers already know.
To learn about how the digital content for an ATSC broadcast is put onto the radio-frequency signal, read about 8VSB modulation.
Moving the digital transmission between two different channels (actual frequency change, not display change) is a big deal. It generally involves a different antenna. We're talking about something large and expensive, generally way up on a tower, often on a mountain top. In many cases it also involves a new transmitter, depending on the power levels and frequencies involved. Moving isn't like setting some encoder setting in software or with dip switches. Since some stations bought digital equipment which they can't use after the transition date, some are planning on buying/selling equipment from each other at that time. So the schedule of one may affect another... Turning off an analog transmitter is easy enough, but there's more going on in many cases.
well we have a decent antenna mounted about 20 feet up in the air connected to low-loss coax...i havent thought of a preamp...i will have to go take a look at that one...we have aimed the antenna right using a air plane compass and the coordinates we got from the fcc database (i just helped so i really dont know exactly where we got the coordinates) at about 60 miles we get most of the channels except for ABC 13 and PBS 8...which is odd..becuase they are all at the same location...
It looks like the PBS 8 KUHT station is temporarily doing digital on channel 9 (will still would show up as 8 dot whatever on a digital tv), with a CP (construction permit) to go back to channel 8 with more power than they have on 9 when the analog gets turned off.
The ABC 13 KTRK station appears to be licensed with a bunch of power for digital on channel 32, but it too looks temporary since there is a construction permit for digital on 13. Since 32 appears to be only temporary for them, they might have decided not to invest in as powerful of a transmitter as they were licensed for. Some of the things in the FCC database aren't actually operating at all or as licensed yet, and there may be extra entries for stations if they're making more changes or just changing their minds on what to go with. Stations that are already on the digital channel they'll use are much more likely to be running full power. (Even then some can't yet because of stations that have not shut down or moved from the same channel yet being vulnerable to interference in other cities... it's a bit complicated)
Many viewers are using UHF-specific antennas for DTV. Most UHF specific antennas outperform the UHF section of combined UHF/VHF antennas. Since the stations you are having trouble with appear to be destined to be digital on VHF, you might not have a suitable antenna.
A UHF/VHF splitter or a two set splitter can be hooked up backwards to combined the output of two different antennas to one cable if needed. (make sure anything outside is weatherproof).
They're using less power on VHF, but since VHF antennas have to be bigger (to be a certain fraction of a wavelength) they're capturing energy over a bigger area and get more signal.
(a 13 db gain antenna at UHF takes up a smaller wedge of the sky than the same gain antenna at VHF)
VHF is less affected by terrain and cable losses than UHF. To help compensate for different conditions at higher frequencies, the FCC maximum power limits for analog were set at 100,000 Watts on channels 2-6, 316,000 on 7-13, and 5 million on UHF. (some of the extra on UHF was also to allow for lower performance tuners... things have improved since the early days of UHF tv).
In theory a digital signal doesn't have to be as far above the background noise to look perfect, so less power should work. But I've seen people watch viewable VHF analog signals beyond the purple areas of the coverage maps. Stations that moved to digital on UHF will almost certainly not reach those people. It seems most of the remaining VHF stations will be on channels 7-13, probably because antennas are smaller than for 2-6, and because in the stronger areas UHF antennas may still pick up enough on 7-13 to work. Some companies used to sell antennas made specifically for 7-13. It'll be interesting to see if UHF antennas optimized for 14-51 appear. There's no need for the shorter elements to support up to 69 (or up to 83 in the pre-cell-phone era).
You might want to wait until after the transition to work on those two stations.
If you'd like to laugh at what happens to coverage in more mountainous areas, try looking at something like KCOY in tvfool...
Looking at the FCC TV database, it seems Houston has or will have a number of DTV stations operating at effective power at or near a million Watts, and with pretty fair effective antenna height (500 meters or so). Coverage looks pretty good compared to what many see in more mountainous areas.
Coverage also depends much on terrain. You can get a pretty good idea what to expect from the tvfool coverage maps which take terrain into account. If you're out in the blue it takes more work...
I looked at a couple of the Houston signals and its seems they're generally really strong out to about 50 miles.
You didn't say what kind of installation you have at 60 miles. A decent roof-mounted antenna with a preamp at the antenna (remotely powered) and modern low-loss coax cable will probably work well.
It is important that the antenna be properly aimed. I've had good results with the mast-mounted preamp Radio Shack sells (about $60, about double what I paid for a medium sized antenna).
Increasing antenna height can help, especially when there is clutter nearby.
Some indoor preamps I've tried made matters worse instead of better. (most were around $20). They had both poor gain and were more prone to overload problems. The Radio Shack outdoor preamp has a gain adjustment on the indoor power supply. It is easiest to check reception on analog signals while adjusting the gain. If there is an overload problem from strong signals nearby, the best reception will be below the maximum gain setting. Equipment is more prone to signal overload near transmitters and when there are many signals nearby. Interference is far easier to spot on the analog signals.