Me, personally, I think it's great and had to be done.
With respect, I disagree that it had to be done. This was a lot of effort, time, and money on the part of millions of people for little-to-no gain by them. From what I understand, each station had 6 MHz of bandwidth before the transition and 6 MHz after. They may have moved channels around to make contiguous unused space, but they could have mandated these moves *without* going digital. I'll admit, going digital allowed the stations to split their 6 MHz up into multiple (lower quality) subchannels if they desired (8.1, 8.2, 8.3...). But to counter the OP's points: I live within a major TV market and there are no 24-hour movie channels. Retro channels existed before the transition, and some of these retro channels are STILL being transmitted in analog (try it!) as the FCC allowed low-power analog stations to continue operation. Foreign channels are useless to the majority of Americans as they don't speak Chinese, Polish, nor Korean.
And whatever was gained does not counteract the fact that shows cannot be viewed when the video freezes repeatedly for seconds at a time (with muted audio for good measure). One can see through static; one cannot see through black. Even with a high, powerful, amplified antenna, the signal on all my stations wildly varies hour-to-hour depending on the incoming weather (even when the rain isn't here yet) and the interference of passing vehicles(!). These problems did not exist before the transition, and I am well within the viewing area.
And when she records it, she can only do one channel at a time as that's what the DTV box has to be set on since her VCR can't control digital signals.
I sincerely feel for your grandmother. If she's mentally capable (to set it up), try getting a DTV converter that has a channel timer built in--it can change channels based on the time-of-day for multiple recordings over multiple channels.
The best such story I have: I was in a video rental store when I came across a guy talking on his cell phone while he was looking at videos. He proceeded to take the video boxes one by one and hold them up to the store's front window. Curious, I watched what he was doing as he kept walking to and from the window, each time with a new video box in his hand. Turns out he was showing his friend each video box one at a time--his friend was sitting 20 feet away, outside in a car, while on his own cell phone! They were talking to each other about every video box to decide which one to rent!
When I left the store, I noticed their car was running the entire time, so maybe they had a bad starter or something...
Comments like yours are comical to me. I know VCRs are not for everyone, but:
A) They're cheap.
B) When the media wears out, it, too, is cheap.
C) You can freely back-up whatever you want, whenever you want, forever, regardless of who's lobbying Congress.
D) There's no monthly fee, ever.
E) Media storage size in infinite.
F) You can watch a show or movie in seconds versus the 20 seconds of an unskippable DVD FBI warning screen and studio previews.
G) The media is reusable, unlike landfill-destined DVD burns.
H) (My favorite) You can freely lend or borrow recordings (TV, home movies, etc.), versus whatever is on YOUR DVR is mostly stuck on YOUR DVR.
And *I'm* tired of people thinking that we should all hold hands under a rainbow, singing "Kumbaya" while everyone shares their hard-earned dollars with everyone else for whatever dumbass purpose people come up with, whether you want to or not.
I like video games but don't want the libraries to turn into "Fun Zones", that's what arcades are for. I am not fond of the fact that they have movies either, that's what Blockbuster is for. Where do we draw the line? Certainly before VIDEO GAMES... Hell, I want libraries to give me all the free sheet music I could ever want. And I want them to provide me with picture puzzles, and electronics kits, and battery-operated board games, VR entertainment, borrowable laptops, etc., etc. Gimme an f'ing break...
I think it is wasteful to try to "attract" people/kids to the library. Libraries should be for intellectualism, not teenie-bopper hangouts and disguised day care. When you folks leave your parent's basement and start actually paying property taxes, then I'll consider your opinions on us becoming everyone's entertainment subsidy. In the meantime, I'm reading that my local libraries are running Mario Kart tournaments(!) when they are already complaining that their facilities are too small and want more taxes to build new structures. Isn't it obvious, handling MORE things/media costs everyone MORE money?
Does anyone think ahead anymore? Does anyone want to keep any of their own money to protect their own future anymore? Or are they just planning on getting it from the library?
No, he didn't take 1s and 0s. But people use the word "stealing" because it is the simplest, closest, and quickest to understand. The average person is not a lawyer. We don't say "pedestrian crossing against a traffic light", we say "jaywalking".
On the other hand, copyright infringement often involves stealing one's formerly sole right to copy the 1s and 0s; and that pilferage is usually undoable. I think the word "stealing" is accurately descriptive and appropriate.
Has any study or scientist ever contemplated this with regards to the
superposition principle
? RF energy is of course affected by this physical rule. Since trillions of oscillations are occurring each second, in all kinds of environments, sharing space with all kinds of other intentional EM radiators, I would think there would be constant wave interference, both negating and additive. Isn't it possible that these interactions could once in a while be significantly high and focused, even if for an instant? That sounds plausible to me.
Copyright infringement is not stealing; it's copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is theft of permission. It takes away the copyright holder's ability to control any copying. So yes, it is stealing; not of the "product" per se, but of the holder's right of control. That cat doesn't go back in the bag.
I am not a Linux guy, but I learned vi using Watcom C/C++ under Windows. Now that that tool has gone open source, it seems there is a Linux version. Will this work?
I'd be cautious about the the voltage conversion issue. I bought a cheap, Radio Shack 240-to-120 VAC converter to use with my electric razor in the U.K. A week and a half later, the shaver stopped working. Upon opening it at home, I found the solder that was holding the AC wires to the PCB had melted away...
I tell you what though, I never had a faster shave than during those 10 days!
The issue that won't show up on such surveys or studies, which is ubiquitous and hence affects us all, is the resulting slower traffic. To make up for their inattention and longer reaction time, they typically leave large gaps between them and the car in front of them, thus allowing less cars to get through a given intersection during a light change, etc. It seems they also tend to drive more slowly, backing up traffic behind them, which in turn, makes everyone's commute that much longer (times the # of cell phone drivers ahead of you), every single day, twice a day. I've seen this behavior alone cause road rage in others as people try to get around these cellphone drivers.
I have personally been run onto the shoulder twice at high speeds as they've drifted into my lane, oblivious to my honking. I shudder to think what would have happened if I were an elderly person presented with that situation.
To the discussion, I cannot believe agencies are so dense that they are searching for a soft technical solution to something that is just as criminal as drunk driving. Start scanning the highways and arresting people. I'm not allowed to drive 46 mph in a construction zone that has concrete walls protecting the workers, but Susie 20-something can take people's lives and time into her hands.
I agree wholeheartedly. I had an elderly neighbor for 25 years who
developed emphysema, which significantly reduced his mobility and physical
flexibility. His family connected him to the Internet, which generated a
tons of questions for his computer-savvy neighbor, me. I taught him the
basics of windowing, email, spyware, etc., over time.
At one point he was having computer troubles, which turned out to be a
really nasty, intermittent, hard drive failure. It was taking a few days to
sort it all out, during which he was sans a computer. I visited him to give
an update when he said, 'You know, 102 cars pass our houses between 6 and 7
a.m.?' That saddened me; the poor guy didn't have much else he could do
without his click machine with which to read silly joke emails from his
friends and play solitaire. So, I dragged my old 486 over there so he could
at least play solitaire, which he greatly appreciated.
I got his computer all back to exactly where it was. He was visibly
thrilled. A few days later, he passed away.
At the funeral, there was more than one person there who, including his
priest, knew me as, 'the guy who fixed the computer'. This outlet meant so
much to my neighbor, that he was discussing it with all those around him.
To me it was just "another thing to fix". To him it was a critical part of
his life.
If you have a senior in your life, seriously consider this as something that
may give them unexpected joy. I wouldn't force it on them, but all involved
may be pleasantly surprised.
And as an open note to the web-based email hosts: don't change layout of your home page because you think users want to see a "new look" or something. Nobody cares what your home page looks like, except you. It only confuses older people, who may already have trouble finding the email button, especially with failing eyesight. Heck, that's one of the reasons I migrated to Google so many years ago.
I'd argue that CFLs offer no savings at all during colder months (when one's heat is on); incandescent "waste" heat is useful and desired. That's half of the year, where I live.
First of all, some (all?) of the cheaper $40 boxes have weaker tuners which make the trademark digital picture/sound hiccuping and freezing worse. Secondly, they have less "features": for example, if your converter box doesn't have a change-channel timer in it then your VCR can no longer record more than one show (on a different channel) while you're away from home. Thirdly, shipping for any box is going to be $10 each these days (Circuit City is gone and Best Buy had exactly one brand of converter when I looked). Fourthly, most homes have MORE than one television receiver and each one would need this $75ish box; that could be a problem for someone who's already not making ends meet.
You want to see a waste of spectrum? Try over-the-air DTV.
I installed a kick-ass antenna setup (large antenna, new coax, attic amplifier, the works) in my folks house many many years ago. They received analog channels so clear, visitors were surprised to learn they didn't have cable, etc. (They live 35 miles from a major US city.) In anticipation of the switch, I bought a bunch of DTV boxes. Now, instead of an split-second static blip across the screen here and there, the DTV audio mutes and the picture freezes or washes out in that classic blocky digitized pattern. At times it is impossible to continue viewing a given show (especially during weather events). The digital "hiccups" are terrible, and calling them "distracting" is just being kind.
Further, don't be uninformed, the $40 converters have weaker tuners than the $70+ versions, I've found. And, if you want your VCR to record 2 different channels while your away, you'll need to pay more to get a box that changes channels for you since, as I described to my parents, 'all of your TVs and VCRs will forever be on channel 3'. Oh, and the picture-in-picture TV I bought for father's day will be instantly turned into a plain TV on the 18th.
This was a bad decision by the powers that be in my judgement. Did they consider EMI (interference) when considering this change? There is electrical noise and signal degradation everywhere, each of which can freeze a TV program for a second or two, or worse. Why didn't they just move the existing analog channels around and THEN sell off the remaining contiguous bandwidth, leaving eveything else be?
My gandmother passed away and I'm glad she didn't have to try and deal with this in her late 90s; I'm confident she wouldn't have been able to figure out these remotes.
My first guess would be that one can more easily ignore the passenger, and, as mentioned above, the passenger usually "gets why". A strong second: if one is on the cell phone in the first place, they WANT to be in that conversation because they either answered the call or placed it. If I'm carpooling with someone, we will have little to say after the first few weeks, whereas every call is "new" and to a different person.
And from my experience, drivers with passengers ALSO drive poorer than those without, and hence are quickly passed by me.
I've lived in the same house (U.S., Midwest) for 24 years. We noticed this year that we hardly had a single acorn when usually they coat the driveway... I personally haven't come across one yet. Along the same lines, we have very few black walnuts too. I'd say less than a few percent of what is normal. So, after a quarter century of these same trees producing the same quantities, this year was a real surprise. Also to note: we have our first-ever gray squirrel hanging around our property. All of our squirrels have been light brown, decade after decade.
Slashdot Mirror
Me, personally, I think it's great and had to be done.
With respect, I disagree that it had to be done. This was a lot of effort, time, and money on the part of millions of people for little-to-no gain by them. From what I understand, each station had 6 MHz of bandwidth before the transition and 6 MHz after. They may have moved channels around to make contiguous unused space, but they could have mandated these moves *without* going digital. I'll admit, going digital allowed the stations to split their 6 MHz up into multiple (lower quality) subchannels if they desired (8.1, 8.2, 8.3...). But to counter the OP's points: I live within a major TV market and there are no 24-hour movie channels. Retro channels existed before the transition, and some of these retro channels are STILL being transmitted in analog (try it!) as the FCC allowed low-power analog stations to continue operation. Foreign channels are useless to the majority of Americans as they don't speak Chinese, Polish, nor Korean.
And whatever was gained does not counteract the fact that shows cannot be viewed when the video freezes repeatedly for seconds at a time (with muted audio for good measure). One can see through static; one cannot see through black. Even with a high, powerful, amplified antenna, the signal on all my stations wildly varies hour-to-hour depending on the incoming weather (even when the rain isn't here yet) and the interference of passing vehicles(!). These problems did not exist before the transition, and I am well within the viewing area.
And when she records it, she can only do one channel at a time as that's what the DTV box has to be set on since her VCR can't control digital signals.
I sincerely feel for your grandmother. If she's mentally capable (to set it up), try getting a DTV converter that has a channel timer built in--it can change channels based on the time-of-day for multiple recordings over multiple channels.
The best such story I have: I was in a video rental store when I came across a guy talking on his cell phone while he was looking at videos. He proceeded to take the video boxes one by one and hold them up to the store's front window. Curious, I watched what he was doing as he kept walking to and from the window, each time with a new video box in his hand. Turns out he was showing his friend each video box one at a time--his friend was sitting 20 feet away, outside in a car, while on his own cell phone! They were talking to each other about every video box to decide which one to rent!
When I left the store, I noticed their car was running the entire time, so maybe they had a bad starter or something...
Comments like yours are comical to me. I know VCRs are not for everyone, but:
A) They're cheap.
B) When the media wears out, it, too, is cheap.
C) You can freely back-up whatever you want, whenever you want, forever, regardless of who's lobbying Congress.
D) There's no monthly fee, ever.
E) Media storage size in infinite.
F) You can watch a show or movie in seconds versus the 20 seconds of an unskippable DVD FBI warning screen and studio previews.
G) The media is reusable, unlike landfill-destined DVD burns.
H) (My favorite) You can freely lend or borrow recordings (TV, home movies, etc.), versus whatever is on YOUR DVR is mostly stuck on YOUR DVR.
I don't continue getting paid for it 70 years after I'm dead...
How would you know?
And *I'm* tired of people thinking that we should all hold hands under a rainbow, singing "Kumbaya" while everyone shares their hard-earned dollars with everyone else for whatever dumbass purpose people come up with, whether you want to or not.
I like video games but don't want the libraries to turn into "Fun Zones", that's what arcades are for. I am not fond of the fact that they have movies either, that's what Blockbuster is for. Where do we draw the line? Certainly before VIDEO GAMES... Hell, I want libraries to give me all the free sheet music I could ever want. And I want them to provide me with picture puzzles, and electronics kits, and battery-operated board games, VR entertainment, borrowable laptops, etc., etc. Gimme an f'ing break...
I think it is wasteful to try to "attract" people/kids to the library. Libraries should be for intellectualism, not teenie-bopper hangouts and disguised day care. When you folks leave your parent's basement and start actually paying property taxes, then I'll consider your opinions on us becoming everyone's entertainment subsidy. In the meantime, I'm reading that my local libraries are running Mario Kart tournaments(!) when they are already complaining that their facilities are too small and want more taxes to build new structures. Isn't it obvious, handling MORE things/media costs everyone MORE money?
Does anyone think ahead anymore? Does anyone want to keep any of their own money to protect their own future anymore? Or are they just planning on getting it from the library?
No, he didn't take 1s and 0s. But people use the word "stealing" because it is the simplest, closest, and quickest to understand. The average person is not a lawyer. We don't say "pedestrian crossing against a traffic light", we say "jaywalking".
On the other hand, copyright infringement often involves stealing one's formerly sole right to copy the 1s and 0s; and that pilferage is usually undoable. I think the word "stealing" is accurately descriptive and appropriate.
Has any study or scientist ever contemplated this with regards to the superposition principle ? RF energy is of course affected by this physical rule. Since trillions of oscillations are occurring each second, in all kinds of environments, sharing space with all kinds of other intentional EM radiators, I would think there would be constant wave interference, both negating and additive. Isn't it possible that these interactions could once in a while be significantly high and focused, even if for an instant? That sounds plausible to me.
Copyright infringement is not stealing; it's copyright infringement.
Copyright infringement is theft of permission. It takes away the copyright holder's ability to control any copying. So yes, it is stealing; not of the "product" per se, but of the holder's right of control. That cat doesn't go back in the bag.
Lets be a little more precice, can we?
How embarrassing for you. ;)
I am not a Linux guy, but I learned vi using Watcom C/C++ under Windows. Now that that tool has gone open source, it seems there is a Linux version. Will this work?
http://openwatcom.org/
If I'm off, my apologies...
I ran the numbers; for 35+ years my POTS line has been up 99.99999986953% of the time. Tell me what else comes close to that kind of reliability.
Have they resolved that horrible delay that's ever-present in the digital cellular phones? Will home phones have that lag?
And a point to note: The POTS lines that are sometimes staticy now during bad weather will be UNUSABLE if they go digital.
So that was you I was stuck behind on my way to work this morning?
I'd be cautious about the the voltage conversion issue. I bought a cheap, Radio Shack 240-to-120 VAC converter to use with my electric razor in the U.K. A week and a half later, the shaver stopped working. Upon opening it at home, I found the solder that was holding the AC wires to the PCB had melted away...
I tell you what though, I never had a faster shave than during those 10 days!
The issue that won't show up on such surveys or studies, which is ubiquitous and hence affects us all, is the resulting slower traffic. To make up for their inattention and longer reaction time, they typically leave large gaps between them and the car in front of them, thus allowing less cars to get through a given intersection during a light change, etc. It seems they also tend to drive more slowly, backing up traffic behind them, which in turn, makes everyone's commute that much longer (times the # of cell phone drivers ahead of you), every single day, twice a day. I've seen this behavior alone cause road rage in others as people try to get around these cellphone drivers.
I have personally been run onto the shoulder twice at high speeds as they've drifted into my lane, oblivious to my honking. I shudder to think what would have happened if I were an elderly person presented with that situation.
To the discussion, I cannot believe agencies are so dense that they are searching for a soft technical solution to something that is just as criminal as drunk driving. Start scanning the highways and arresting people. I'm not allowed to drive 46 mph in a construction zone that has concrete walls protecting the workers, but Susie 20-something can take people's lives and time into her hands.
They hated it so much that they got high scores playing something they couldn't stand to play.
That is true only with a manual transmission...
Allow me to sum this up with a car analogy... Oh, wait a second...
Both may charge 10 grand to "fix" the Flux Capacitor.
Yes, when we all know that you don't fix a flux capacitor, you just replace it.
I agree wholeheartedly. I had an elderly neighbor for 25 years who developed emphysema, which significantly reduced his mobility and physical flexibility. His family connected him to the Internet, which generated a tons of questions for his computer-savvy neighbor, me. I taught him the basics of windowing, email, spyware, etc., over time.
At one point he was having computer troubles, which turned out to be a really nasty, intermittent, hard drive failure. It was taking a few days to sort it all out, during which he was sans a computer. I visited him to give an update when he said, 'You know, 102 cars pass our houses between 6 and 7 a.m.?' That saddened me; the poor guy didn't have much else he could do without his click machine with which to read silly joke emails from his friends and play solitaire. So, I dragged my old 486 over there so he could at least play solitaire, which he greatly appreciated.
I got his computer all back to exactly where it was. He was visibly thrilled. A few days later, he passed away.
At the funeral, there was more than one person there who, including his priest, knew me as, 'the guy who fixed the computer'. This outlet meant so much to my neighbor, that he was discussing it with all those around him. To me it was just "another thing to fix". To him it was a critical part of his life.
If you have a senior in your life, seriously consider this as something that may give them unexpected joy. I wouldn't force it on them, but all involved may be pleasantly surprised.
And as an open note to the web-based email hosts: don't change layout of your home page because you think users want to see a "new look" or something. Nobody cares what your home page looks like, except you. It only confuses older people, who may already have trouble finding the email button, especially with failing eyesight. Heck, that's one of the reasons I migrated to Google so many years ago.
God bless you John.
Well I'm close...
I'd argue that CFLs offer no savings at all during colder months (when one's heat is on); incandescent "waste" heat is useful and desired. That's half of the year, where I live.
Too late:
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/ideas/AudioHomeRecordingAct.html
First of all, some (all?) of the cheaper $40 boxes have weaker tuners which make the trademark digital picture/sound hiccuping and freezing worse. Secondly, they have less "features": for example, if your converter box doesn't have a change-channel timer in it then your VCR can no longer record more than one show (on a different channel) while you're away from home. Thirdly, shipping for any box is going to be $10 each these days (Circuit City is gone and Best Buy had exactly one brand of converter when I looked). Fourthly, most homes have MORE than one television receiver and each one would need this $75ish box; that could be a problem for someone who's already not making ends meet.
"...ending a massively wasteful use of spectrum."
You want to see a waste of spectrum? Try over-the-air DTV.
I installed a kick-ass antenna setup (large antenna, new coax, attic amplifier, the works) in my folks house many many years ago. They received analog channels so clear, visitors were surprised to learn they didn't have cable, etc. (They live 35 miles from a major US city.) In anticipation of the switch, I bought a bunch of DTV boxes. Now, instead of an split-second static blip across the screen here and there, the DTV audio mutes and the picture freezes or washes out in that classic blocky digitized pattern. At times it is impossible to continue viewing a given show (especially during weather events). The digital "hiccups" are terrible, and calling them "distracting" is just being kind.
Further, don't be uninformed, the $40 converters have weaker tuners than the $70+ versions, I've found. And, if you want your VCR to record 2 different channels while your away, you'll need to pay more to get a box that changes channels for you since, as I described to my parents, 'all of your TVs and VCRs will forever be on channel 3'. Oh, and the picture-in-picture TV I bought for father's day will be instantly turned into a plain TV on the 18th.
This was a bad decision by the powers that be in my judgement. Did they consider EMI (interference) when considering this change? There is electrical noise and signal degradation everywhere, each of which can freeze a TV program for a second or two, or worse. Why didn't they just move the existing analog channels around and THEN sell off the remaining contiguous bandwidth, leaving eveything else be?
My gandmother passed away and I'm glad she didn't have to try and deal with this in her late 90s; I'm confident she wouldn't have been able to figure out these remotes.
My first guess would be that one can more easily ignore the passenger, and, as mentioned above, the passenger usually "gets why". A strong second: if one is on the cell phone in the first place, they WANT to be in that conversation because they either answered the call or placed it. If I'm carpooling with someone, we will have little to say after the first few weeks, whereas every call is "new" and to a different person. And from my experience, drivers with passengers ALSO drive poorer than those without, and hence are quickly passed by me.
I've lived in the same house (U.S., Midwest) for 24 years. We noticed this year that we hardly had a single acorn when usually they coat the driveway... I personally haven't come across one yet. Along the same lines, we have very few black walnuts too. I'd say less than a few percent of what is normal. So, after a quarter century of these same trees producing the same quantities, this year was a real surprise. Also to note: we have our first-ever gray squirrel hanging around our property. All of our squirrels have been light brown, decade after decade.