At least this test didn't wake me up in the middle of the night like most of the Amber alerts.
The odd part was that right after that, the oil refinery across the street from where I work tested their alert sirens. But that was just a coincidence - they do that every month on the first Wednesday.
Or even worse, car emissions standards. There's been Low Emission Vehicle, (was there Super low?), Ultra Low Emission Vehicle, Partial-Zero Emission Vehicle, and probably others I don't remember. Then there's "tiers". I doubt anyone knows what it means except regulators and their victims.
As for USB I wish they'd just get rid of everything older than USB3, or at least restrict it to mice and keyboards and other stuff that needs only a tiny throughput.
I was pretty disappointed that I could only pick up a couple of channels from very nearby.
Maybe I'm fortunate in the urban jungle I live in. I get dozens of channels when I have my TV re-scan. Of course, the majority of them are foreign languages, home shopping networks, religious stations, etc. It takes a long time working the TV's preferences to whittle it down to the ~30 I might ever actually watch.
I haven't bothered with TV much at all since then, because watching terrible network broadcast stuff isn't worth my time now that I'm older.
Thanks to low signal-to-noise ratios, find I usually can't stand watching much other than live sports (the ones I want to watch are rarely on now, thanks to "business issues") or public TV shows.
Of course the DTV switchover really fucked a lot of people and made the situation even better for affiliates. Anyone intelligent knew that 8VSB was going to be a horrible choice for modulation; granted OFDM wasn't ready when they developed the standard...
I don't know about the "business" issues (you're probably right about that) but I read that 8VSB was going to be overly vulnerable to multipath distortion, and my experience seems to show that. I'm in a strong signal area with many transmitters, but I get dropouts all the time from trucks driving by, airplanes, police helicopters, etc. With analog, the video would get ghost images and audio would usually be unaffected. Now the video pixelates (OK) and the audio frequently drops out (unacceptable). They should have at least left audio as analog...
Heck, if you're traveling with the same company and have a late incoming flight connecting to an outbound spoke they might hold the gate for you a few minutes. On approach I've been told the connecting gate, walked straight to it and boarded as the last passenger, grabbed a seat and a few minutes later we're in the air. That doesn't happen at a major hub, if you're late you missed it.
I had that happen once at Denver several years ago. My first flight left late (from LAX - big surprise). As we were approaching the gate, they asked everyone who wasn't connecting to another flight to stay seated a minute. We walked up the jetway and fortunately just across the concourse to the next gate, where one of the pilots was waiting for us and followed us, closing the door behind him.
Must submit to full background and security clearance check.
No, those usually require already having a Top Secret security clearance, with special compartmentalization authorization for that proprietary hardware.
Also that non-flexible work schedule is probably graveyard shift.
I figured they were on their way out when I saw them on display at the car wash cash register.
And near the registers in every CVS.
I first noticed these things when I was traveling in UK last month, and I saw them in shops everywhere. I'm glad I didn't bother getting a couple as silly gag gifts while I was there, because I'm noticing them here (USA) now too.
I sent in a mail-in / absentee ballot, which was much like filling out a Scan-Tron form for a test in school. Choosing which circles to fill in was a bit tricky though. (Fill in #92 to vote yes on Proposition 33; fill in #97 to vote no on Proposition 34; etc.) I triple-checked everything.
An interesting bit was I got a call from a 'bot at the Los Angeles County Registrar's office Sunday. It more or less said "If you've already mailed in your ballot, disregard this message. If you haven't mailed in your ballot, it's too late. Drop it off at a polling place."
Also on the radio this morning it said that 51% of voters in CA are mail-in for this election.
Horizon Airlines, apparently even though Alaska Airlines assimilated them. I got a good winter seasonal beer on one of their flights a couple years ago.
As much as I remember, the last "rocket" Flight with a human Payload onboard before the Shuttle was Apollo 17. There was a "Human Spaceflight Gap" for a few years then as well as much as we have right now, only not as bad..
No. Apollo 17 was the last flight on a Saturn V. Apollo-Soyuz, in July 1975 on a Saturn 1B, was the last NASA manned spaceflight before the first space shuttle flight, in April 1981. There were also three manned flights to Skylab in between those.
yeah but it literally took more energy to *take them down* than it took to leave them there.
Unless they had to remove them to repair/replace the roof anyways. I know of several houses where this happened and they didn't put the solar panels back up when the re-roofing was finished.
You can see satellites almost any clear night ANYWHERE on Earth.
GPS satellites are low and cover every point on Earth.
GPS satellites aren't low, they're roughly 20,000 km above ground. Too faint to see, AFAIK.
If you look towards the equator, then up, there are hundreds of geostationary satellites for TV, communications and other things about 22,000 miles up. As a reference, the diameter of the Earth is about 6500 miles (I didn't look it up).
True, but they're usually too faint to see without techniques similar to astronomical photography. Sometimes they can be seen with binoculars when sunlight reflects from solar panels or other surfaces just right. (a "flare")
The Space Shuttle orbits around 140-180 miles up so it is barely out of atmosphere - some would say it isn't out.
Something that big and close, on the other hand is very easy to see. I even once saw the shuttle through a (thin) overcast of clouds, it was so bright. The space station is even bigger and brighter.
Have you forgotten the "Y2K Crisis Center" (or whatever they called it) with Sam Donaldson, on watch over the transition? All of the newspaper articles in early 1999 about how the End Was Coming?
Funny you mention newspapers. The primary Y2K bug I saw was all the web pages which on new years day said "January 1, 19100." Somewhere I still have a screenshot of the New York Times' web page like that.
I think I heard of one embedded system that broke due to Y2K, but I've seen many more over the years that got confused over leap years. The year 2000 was especially good for that because that wasn't a leap year even though the common, oversimplified, every-4-year rule says it should have been.
So I have cable with a QAM tuner TV. The guy at Circuit City said I could get digital cable without having to rent a box from the cable company with it.
Turns out, the only digital channels I get are the ones that come in over the air.
I've seen the same thing as you, on (Cox) basic cable. They're heavily pushing their digital cable service. I had it briefly, and with their box I had a great many additional channels which my new TV doesn't find with its own tuner / decoder.
I've also heard that a new TV can pick up all of digital cable, except for goodies like online TV guide, convenient pay-per-view, and other interactive features. I don't believe it - some other trickery is going on.
(I went back to basic cable, because after their promotion for digital cable ran out, it was very expensive.)
If you have your converter, you won't notice. No confusion. If you don't then you may seem some stations go away.
It's not that easy. TV stations in the VHF-High band (channels 7-13) are currently transmitting the digital version of themselves in the higher UHF channels. After they stop their analog transmissions, they'll move their digital transmissions to their VHF-High channels.
Thus many major stations (4 out of the 7 big VHF stations here) will move around after the transition. Now that transition will be gradual and not so predictable. Stations will be moving around, and we'll have to keep rescanning or otherwise updating our tuners, either in converter boxes or new TVs.
I'll have to remember not to go shopping if I'm ever there. I set those damn things off all the time. I think something in my wallet does it, but I've never isolated it.
Having obnoxious sound clips attached to every event you can think of was the epitome of the early 90s.
Or every "someone you know just came on or left {Yahoo,AOL,MSN} messenger" event. On some people's computers I constantly hear meowing cats, slamming doors, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
At least this test didn't wake me up in the middle of the night like most of the Amber alerts.
The odd part was that right after that, the oil refinery across the street from where I work tested their alert sirens. But that was just a coincidence - they do that every month on the first Wednesday.
Or even worse, car emissions standards. There's been Low Emission Vehicle, (was there Super low?), Ultra Low Emission Vehicle, Partial-Zero Emission Vehicle, and probably others I don't remember. Then there's "tiers". I doubt anyone knows what it means except regulators and their victims.
As for USB I wish they'd just get rid of everything older than USB3, or at least restrict it to mice and keyboards and other stuff that needs only a tiny throughput.
I was pretty disappointed that I could only pick up a couple of channels from very nearby.
Maybe I'm fortunate in the urban jungle I live in. I get dozens of channels when I have my TV re-scan. Of course, the majority of them are foreign languages, home shopping networks, religious stations, etc. It takes a long time working the TV's preferences to whittle it down to the ~30 I might ever actually watch.
I haven't bothered with TV much at all since then, because watching terrible network broadcast stuff isn't worth my time now that I'm older.
Thanks to low signal-to-noise ratios, find I usually can't stand watching much other than live sports (the ones I want to watch are rarely on now, thanks to "business issues") or public TV shows.
Of course the DTV switchover really fucked a lot of people and made the situation even better for affiliates. Anyone intelligent knew that 8VSB was going to be a horrible choice for modulation; granted OFDM wasn't ready when they developed the standard...
I don't know about the "business" issues (you're probably right about that) but I read that 8VSB was going to be overly vulnerable to multipath distortion, and my experience seems to show that. I'm in a strong signal area with many transmitters, but I get dropouts all the time from trucks driving by, airplanes, police helicopters, etc. With analog, the video would get ghost images and audio would usually be unaffected. Now the video pixelates (OK) and the audio frequently drops out (unacceptable). They should have at least left audio as analog...
Heck, if you're traveling with the same company and have a late incoming flight connecting to an outbound spoke they might hold the gate for you a few minutes. On approach I've been told the connecting gate, walked straight to it and boarded as the last passenger, grabbed a seat and a few minutes later we're in the air. That doesn't happen at a major hub, if you're late you missed it.
I had that happen once at Denver several years ago. My first flight left late (from LAX - big surprise). As we were approaching the gate, they asked everyone who wasn't connecting to another flight to stay seated a minute. We walked up the jetway and fortunately just across the concourse to the next gate, where one of the pilots was waiting for us and followed us, closing the door behind him.
Must submit to full background and security clearance check.
No, those usually require already having a Top Secret security clearance, with special compartmentalization authorization for that proprietary hardware.
Also that non-flexible work schedule is probably graveyard shift.
I figured they were on their way out when I saw them on display at the car wash cash register.
And near the registers in every CVS.
I first noticed these things when I was traveling in UK last month, and I saw them in shops everywhere. I'm glad I didn't bother getting a couple as silly gag gifts while I was there, because I'm noticing them here (USA) now too.
Sierra Madre !
Upgrades?
We don't need no steekin' upgrades!
(Still running Mavericks.)
I sent in a mail-in / absentee ballot, which was much like filling out a Scan-Tron form for a test in school. Choosing which circles to fill in was a bit tricky though. (Fill in #92 to vote yes on Proposition 33; fill in #97 to vote no on Proposition 34; etc.) I triple-checked everything.
An interesting bit was I got a call from a 'bot at the Los Angeles County Registrar's office Sunday. It more or less said "If you've already mailed in your ballot, disregard this message. If you haven't mailed in your ballot, it's too late. Drop it off at a polling place."
Also on the radio this morning it said that 51% of voters in CA are mail-in for this election.
Horizon Airlines, apparently even though Alaska Airlines assimilated them. I got a good winter seasonal beer on one of their flights a couple years ago.
Neither SpaceX nor Orbcomm have commented about the snafu.
Orbcomm has in it's latest press release: Orbcomm Launches Prototype OG2 Satellite. OG2 satellite's insertion orbit lower than expected.
" ...the rocket did not comply with a pre-planned ISS safety gate to allow it to execute the second burn."
I haven't read anywhere exactly what that means.
As much as I remember, the last "rocket" Flight with a human Payload onboard before the Shuttle was Apollo 17. There was a "Human Spaceflight Gap" for a few years then as well as much as we have right now, only not as bad..
No. Apollo 17 was the last flight on a Saturn V. Apollo-Soyuz, in July 1975 on a Saturn 1B, was the last NASA manned spaceflight before the first space shuttle flight, in April 1981. There were also three manned flights to Skylab in between those.
And a "follow us on Facebook" icon. As well as 6 other similar icons.
yeah but it literally took more energy to *take them down* than it took to leave them there.
Not when they had to take them down anyways for roof repairs anyways.
I thought I could edit my previous comment after I found this article, but it seems I could only post another one.
yeah but it literally took more energy to *take them down* than it took to leave them there.
Unless they had to remove them to repair/replace the roof anyways. I know of several houses where this happened and they didn't put the solar panels back up when the re-roofing was finished.
Dr Stupid's Laboratory - Build a (back yard) Nuclear Reactor (on page 29)
You can see satellites almost any clear night ANYWHERE on Earth.
GPS satellites are low and cover every point on Earth.
GPS satellites aren't low, they're roughly 20,000 km above ground. Too faint to see, AFAIK.
If you look towards the equator, then up, there are hundreds of geostationary satellites for TV, communications and other things about 22,000 miles up. As a reference, the diameter of the Earth is about 6500 miles (I didn't look it up).
True, but they're usually too faint to see without techniques similar to astronomical photography. Sometimes they can be seen with binoculars when sunlight reflects from solar panels or other surfaces just right. (a "flare")
The Space Shuttle orbits around 140-180 miles up so it is barely out of atmosphere - some would say it isn't out.
Something that big and close, on the other hand is very easy to see. I even once saw the shuttle through a (thin) overcast of clouds, it was so bright. The space station is even bigger and brighter.
Have you forgotten the "Y2K Crisis Center" (or whatever they called it) with Sam Donaldson, on watch over the transition? All of the newspaper articles in early 1999 about how the End Was Coming?
Funny you mention newspapers. The primary Y2K bug I saw was all the web pages which on new years day said "January 1, 19100." Somewhere I still have a screenshot of the New York Times' web page like that.
I think I heard of one embedded system that broke due to Y2K, but I've seen many more over the years that got confused over leap years. The year 2000 was especially good for that because that wasn't a leap year even though the common, oversimplified, every-4-year rule says it should have been.
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/places/royal-observatory/meridian-line/
What's your number? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Story.crash.sequence.jpg
s/ICBM/cruise missile/
So I have cable with a QAM tuner TV. The guy at Circuit City said I could get digital cable without having to rent a box from the cable company with it.
Turns out, the only digital channels I get are the ones that come in over the air.
I've seen the same thing as you, on (Cox) basic cable. They're heavily pushing their digital cable service. I had it briefly, and with their box I had a great many additional channels which my new TV doesn't find with its own tuner / decoder.
I've also heard that a new TV can pick up all of digital cable, except for goodies like online TV guide, convenient pay-per-view, and other interactive features. I don't believe it - some other trickery is going on.
(I went back to basic cable, because after their promotion for digital cable ran out, it was very expensive.)
Not really.
If you have your converter, you won't notice. No confusion.
If you don't then you may seem some stations go away.
It's not that easy. TV stations in the VHF-High band (channels 7-13) are currently transmitting the digital version of themselves in the higher UHF channels. After they stop their analog transmissions, they'll move their digital transmissions to their VHF-High channels.
Thus many major stations (4 out of the 7 big VHF stations here) will move around after the transition. Now that transition will be gradual and not so predictable. Stations will be moving around, and we'll have to keep rescanning or otherwise updating our tuners, either in converter boxes or new TVs.
I'll have to remember not to go shopping if I'm ever there. I set those damn things off all the time. I think something in my wallet does it, but I've never isolated it.
Bummer, those two Mac versions only work on Intel Macs (not PowerPC G5 like mine).
Having obnoxious sound clips attached to every event you can think of was the epitome of the early 90s.
Or every "someone you know just came on or left {Yahoo,AOL,MSN} messenger" event. On some people's computers I constantly hear meowing cats, slamming doors, etc.