Actually, MANY recounts were performed. One by USA Today, one by Washington Post, another by Wall street Journal, and so on.
They all agreed that Gore simply did not have enough ballots according to Florida legal standards (where hanging chads are called null votes). They all agreed that Bush won Florida State.
I'm all for progress (like HD radio). But not when it breaks current technologies & makes them unusable, and that's what will happen when people's Ipods start broadcasting overtop existing TV channels.
>>>The arrogant one is you... because you might not still receive an analog television signal via antenna
My channel 5 is digital you dope. Don't assume. AND YES I object to the blocking-out of channels 2 to 51 (even if it's accidental) just because somebody wanted to wirelessly surf for porn. Those of us who still enjoy watching television news, weather, et cetera have ALREADY given-up channels 52 to 83. Enough is enough. If my area becomes polluted with these white-space Wifi gadgets, to the point where I can't receive television via antenna, what am I suppose to do??? I don't have cable in this remote area, and satellite is ridiculously expensive.
And it's not just about me. There are ~50 million other people in the same boat - relying upon over-the-air television. You have no right to cut them off from TV with your interfering web-widgets.
Not with Comcast throttling Internet-TV connections, I won't.
(If you are watching a NBC video for 15 minutes, comcast deems you to be using "excessive bandwidth" and moves you to the lowest-priority tier behind other users. In effect, disrupting your NBC video stream.) Reception via antenna is still the best way to serve millions of people with minimal expenditure or disruption.
>>>They found that "the scanner in the device had been damaged and operated at a severely degraded level" which explained the FCC unit's inability to detect when channels were occupied.
P.S.
Yet another reason these devices should not be allowed. We all know electronics degrade with time, partly through age, but mostly through user abuse (dropping it on the floor; letting it sit out in the rain, etc). If my neighbor has one of these devices, and its "scanner has been severely degraded" to a threshold of -60 dBm, it won't just be blocking-out long distance stations, but also all the strong local ones as well:
Hello channel 8 from just 20 miles distance..... neighbor turns-on degraded white-space gadget..... goodbye channel 8. The whole idea of broadcasting overtop of reserved television channels is stupid.
>>>Microsoft engineers showed results that "detected DTV signals at a threshold of -114 dBm in laboratory bench testing with 100 percent accuracy, performing exactly as expected." >>>
Unacceptable. Channel 5 in D.C. falls well below that -114 dBm threshold (at my location). But I have a powerful antenna with 25 dB gain, which still manages to pull-in the station. I don't want some Mickeysoft white-space gadget deciding "Oh, channel 5's not in use" and then start broadcasting a bunch of garbage overtop of my favorite station!!!
The arrogance of these Microsoft engineers is unbelievable. Actually, on second thought, that's pretty much par-for-the-course: Microsoft comes first, and the other companies better move aside or be trampled (ref: Netscape, Sun, Opera). Gates, et al don't care if their devices block my reception of channel 5 or other long-distance stations. They don't know how to play nice, or even how to cooperate.
I hope the FCC does its job and says, "No. These frequencies are RESERVED for television, not other gadgets. We already gave you UHF channels 52 to 83 - we're not giving you any more."
>>>The real issue here is the fear of traditional broadcast of new technology in genera
No, as I stated in my last message, my fear is that one of my neighbors will turn-on their white-space gadget, and block my reception of channel 5. Due to the its seventy-mile distance, the reception is already marginal with some pixelation. A white-space device would create destructive interference and essentially cut-me-off from watching channel 5.
I don't want to lose my access to D.C. news, traffic, and weather reports just because some "dude" wanted to play with a wireless mic or wireless web widget on channel 5's frequency. I'm all for embracing new technologies, but not stupid ones that break current technologies like over-the-air television reception.
>>>this test was designed to see if allowing broadband internet applications unlicensed use of white spaces would interfere with current hardware,
I object because just because the white space gadget can't "see" a station does not mean it's not in use. Take channel 5 in Washington D.C. for example. It's 70 miles distant from my house in Pennsylvania, but still watchable with my giant antenna. ----- Now somebody turns-on a white space gadget & starts using channel 5, because the gadget falsely believes that space is "white"/empty. That destructive interference will block-out my reception.
This example is just off-the-top of my head, but I'm sure there are many similar examples where a gadget will mistakenly tag a TV channel as "unused" even though it's actually active, albeit weak in power.
Every single channel in the U.S. has some station assigned to it. Whether that station is 1 mile away or 150 miles away, it has reserved that channel for itself, and somebody will be watching it. These white-space gadgets will create interference & destroy the ability of long-distance viewers (like me) to tune-in those stations.
$70 or $170 - it's still too high, and the companies are being greedy. I'd rather just go to isohunt.com and download thee graphic cards for free, until these companies set FAIR and reasonable prices. Think of it as a silent protest.
(tongue firmly planted in cheek) (yes I'm making fun of the entitlement generation) (stop being so darn cheap - $70 or $170 is a GREAT price for a graphics card. I remember paying twice that amount just to buy a freakin' 2.4k modem)
Well if "everyone" got a free car that would be fine because it's "for the COMMON welfare" (i.e. benefits all), but in practice we'd all have to BUY our cars, and the only people who get the free cars are the poor. ----- Same way that the free housing and free food operates. You only get that stuff if you are poor......or the CEOs of failing banks, in which case you get a 700 billion blank check. Now if that's not theft, I don't know what is.;-)
>>>you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message.
P.S.
It worked for Socrates and Plato, and we still study these guys ~2500 years later. Why can't I use the same "argument via dialogue" methodology?
>>>libertarian
No. Jeffersonian. I follow the thoughts and writings of Thomas Jefferson, the guy who founded the Democrat party. He certainly would not have supported paying taxes to government, just to hand-out free cars to the needy. He too would have considered it theft and a violation of his property rights.
>>>then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply
You just provided the short definition of Socialist! (or communist). Congrats!;-) Okay yes some socialists are highly-intelligent, but not the average guy on the street. Almost every socialist I've ever talked to can NOT put together a logical argument. As Winston Churchill said,
"The strongest argument against Democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter." Hence why we have a Republic (rule of law, not rule by majority).
>>>Replace "cars" with "universal health care", "mortgage bailouts", or "for the children" and you'll get the idea. >>>
Ding. Ding. Ding! Or "hearts", "lungs", "kidneys". My uncle has smoked all his life; he has lung cancer and wants to get a new lung. Now I feel sorry for my neighbor, but why should I have to pay his bill (via medicare) to get a lung? HE made the mistake; HE should pay for the cost himself. Not me.
Besides he's over 80 years old. If he can afford a new lung, bully for him, but if he can't.... well, he's had a good long life. Death is nothing to fear.
No it's still fairly applied, even for people using public transport. It might be an indirect tax, for example through the bus fare, but the gasoline/road tax is still being paid by the riders.
Similarly, even renters pay property tax, albeit indirectly.
Since a firefighter provides for the common welfare of ALL homes within his jurisdiction, including mine, then no I have no objections to paying for his salary. Tax away.
What I object to is if that firefighter protected just ONE home and ignored everyone else's home. THAT is theft; that is enslavement to the "master" whose house is being protected. No way! If that guy wants a firefighter dedicated to just his own home, and nobody else's home, then let HIM pay the bill, not me.
If you think a car-less person "needs" to have a free car provided by government, then I guess you don't mind if Congress passes a law requiring YOU to pay for it. (Yes all $20,000 of it; collected via taxation of your paycheck.)
Do you still think such a law is not stealing? Not immoral?
No?
Okay. Well maybe I didn't convince you, but I'm sure most of the people here recognize that such a law violates your most basic human rights. Forcing you to work, sweat, and labor to buy somebody else's car is basically slavery.
The grandparent must have got a 100 on his English SAT. Clearly I was talking about a *defensive* action to protect myself against Apple. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I'm not going to self-censor myself either just because of "non disclosure agreements" that I never signed.
>>>Apple's going to have a hell of a time showing that they were materially damaged by someone saying that their app got rejected.
Precisely why I would not hesitate to say publicly why my application was rejected. (And also because I don't think an unsigned or shrinkwrapped NDA is valid. A customer should not bound to an NDA simply because he/she buys a product.)
As for the term "civil disobedience", I used that term because I tend to think of corporations as being quasi-governments in nature. Apple lacks police power, but it can still pound the average citizen into the ground via sheer weight of monetary expenditure (lawyers and lawsuits). So I view any resistance against an over-reaching corporation as resistance against a petit-tyrant and/or defense of my individual liberty.
Ya know, I'd be thrilled to work just 30 hours a week (i.e. four days) if the boss would let me. It doesn't even matter to me that I'd have a smaller weekly paycheck.
But too many of the managers are tied-into the "must work 40" groupthink.
Most U.S. TV station had repeaters/translators in the upper UHF band. For example my local station WGAL-8 broadcast channel 78, via repeater, to the mountain communities ~100 miles distant.
But when the Congresscritters took-away channels 70 to 83 and sold them to balance the budget (cough), the fullpower stations lost their long-distance repeaters. Now they stations are switching to DTV, and they'll experience even more shrinkage in their audience.
>>>"Some people will tolerate a crappy picture and incomprehensible audio rather than pay for subscription service - Those people have now switched from poor video/audio to no video/audio and are upset." >>>
Ding. Ding. Ding! Were you peeking into my house? You described my TV habits. I won't watch incomprephensible audio, but I will watch a long-distance station that's degraded to black-and-white. Hey. It's FREE so why not?
The problem is that now I *can't* watch that long-distance station, and I've lost access to my Baltimore Ravens station, and my Philadelphia Eagles station (both 50 miles distant), and all ym DTV tuner shows me is a blank screen. No joy.:-(
>>>an NTSC video signal is roughly the equivalent of 640x480 pixel frames at 30 frames per second.
It's actually much smaller than that. With a 4 megahertz bandwidth (for the black-and-white half), NTSC actually produces 420x486 visible dots on the screen overlaid with a 160x486 chroma image. ATSC boosts that to 1920x1080 with 960x540 chroma sampling. Originally the FCC tried to tackle this upgrade via analog transmission, the same way that Japan did it, but Japan's version required approximately 3 channels to carry just 1 station (and has serious flaws with moving images creating shadows).
So the upgrade was postponed until digital technology advanced, and now we have MPEG2 squeezing approximately 50 times more information into the same bandwidth as previously.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, MANY recounts were performed. One by USA Today, one by Washington Post, another by Wall street Journal, and so on.
They all agreed that Gore simply did not have enough ballots according to Florida legal standards (where hanging chads are called null votes). They all agreed that Bush won Florida State.
P.S.
I'm all for progress (like HD radio). But not when it breaks current technologies & makes them unusable, and that's what will happen when people's Ipods start broadcasting overtop existing TV channels.
>>>The arrogant one is you... because you might not still receive an analog television signal via antenna
My channel 5 is digital you dope. Don't assume. AND YES I object to the blocking-out of channels 2 to 51 (even if it's accidental) just because somebody wanted to wirelessly surf for porn. Those of us who still enjoy watching television news, weather, et cetera have ALREADY given-up channels 52 to 83. Enough is enough. If my area becomes polluted with these white-space Wifi gadgets, to the point where I can't receive television via antenna, what am I suppose to do??? I don't have cable in this remote area, and satellite is ridiculously expensive.
And it's not just about me. There are ~50 million other people in the same boat - relying upon over-the-air television. You have no right to cut them off from TV with your interfering web-widgets.
Not with Comcast throttling Internet-TV connections, I won't.
(If you are watching a NBC video for 15 minutes, comcast deems you to be using "excessive bandwidth" and moves you to the lowest-priority tier behind other users. In effect, disrupting your NBC video stream.) Reception via antenna is still the best way to serve millions of people with minimal expenditure or disruption.
>>>They found that "the scanner in the device had been damaged and operated at a severely degraded level" which explained the FCC unit's inability to detect when channels were occupied.
P.S.
Yet another reason these devices should not be allowed. We all know electronics degrade with time, partly through age, but mostly through user abuse (dropping it on the floor; letting it sit out in the rain, etc). If my neighbor has one of these devices, and its "scanner has been severely degraded" to a threshold of -60 dBm, it won't just be blocking-out long distance stations, but also all the strong local ones as well:
Hello channel 8 from just 20 miles distance..... neighbor turns-on degraded white-space gadget..... goodbye channel 8. The whole idea of broadcasting overtop of reserved television channels is stupid.
>>>Microsoft engineers showed results that "detected DTV signals at a threshold of -114 dBm in laboratory bench testing with 100 percent accuracy, performing exactly as expected."
>>>
Unacceptable. Channel 5 in D.C. falls well below that -114 dBm threshold (at my location). But I have a powerful antenna with 25 dB gain, which still manages to pull-in the station. I don't want some Mickeysoft white-space gadget deciding "Oh, channel 5's not in use" and then start broadcasting a bunch of garbage overtop of my favorite station!!!
The arrogance of these Microsoft engineers is unbelievable. Actually, on second thought, that's pretty much par-for-the-course: Microsoft comes first, and the other companies better move aside or be trampled (ref: Netscape, Sun, Opera). Gates, et al don't care if their devices block my reception of channel 5 or other long-distance stations. They don't know how to play nice, or even how to cooperate.
I hope the FCC does its job and says, "No. These frequencies are RESERVED for television, not other gadgets. We already gave you UHF channels 52 to 83 - we're not giving you any more."
>>>The real issue here is the fear of traditional broadcast of new technology in genera
No, as I stated in my last message, my fear is that one of my neighbors will turn-on their white-space gadget, and block my reception of channel 5. Due to the its seventy-mile distance, the reception is already marginal with some pixelation. A white-space device would create destructive interference and essentially cut-me-off from watching channel 5.
I don't want to lose my access to D.C. news, traffic, and weather reports just because some "dude" wanted to play with a wireless mic or wireless web widget on channel 5's frequency. I'm all for embracing new technologies, but not stupid ones that break current technologies like over-the-air television reception.
>>>this test was designed to see if allowing broadband internet applications unlicensed use of white spaces would interfere with current hardware,
I object because just because the white space gadget can't "see" a station does not mean it's not in use. Take channel 5 in Washington D.C. for example. It's 70 miles distant from my house in Pennsylvania, but still watchable with my giant antenna. ----- Now somebody turns-on a white space gadget & starts using channel 5, because the gadget falsely believes that space is "white"/empty. That destructive interference will block-out my reception.
This example is just off-the-top of my head, but I'm sure there are many similar examples where a gadget will mistakenly tag a TV channel as "unused" even though it's actually active, albeit weak in power.
Every single channel in the U.S. has some station assigned to it. Whether that station is 1 mile away or 150 miles away, it has reserved that channel for itself, and somebody will be watching it. These white-space gadgets will create interference & destroy the ability of long-distance viewers (like me) to tune-in those stations.
$70 or $170 - it's still too high, and the companies are being greedy. I'd rather just go to isohunt.com and download thee graphic cards for free, until these companies set FAIR and reasonable prices. Think of it as a silent protest.
(tongue firmly planted in cheek)
(yes I'm making fun of the entitlement generation)
(stop being so darn cheap - $70 or $170 is a GREAT price for a graphics card. I remember paying twice that amount just to buy a freakin' 2.4k modem)
Thanks. That cleared that up. He really does sound like a loose cannon, rather than a professional.
Well if "everyone" got a free car that would be fine because it's "for the COMMON welfare" (i.e. benefits all), but in practice we'd all have to BUY our cars, and the only people who get the free cars are the poor. ----- Same way that the free housing and free food operates. You only get that stuff if you are poor. .....or the CEOs of failing banks, in which case you get a 700 billion blank check. Now if that's not theft, I don't know what is. ;-)
>>>you describe him as hesitating and playing for time in a written message.
P.S.
It worked for Socrates and Plato, and we still study these guys ~2500 years later. Why can't I use the same "argument via dialogue" methodology?
>>>libertarian
No. Jeffersonian. I follow the thoughts and writings of Thomas Jefferson, the guy who founded the Democrat party. He certainly would not have supported paying taxes to government, just to hand-out free cars to the needy. He too would have considered it theft and a violation of his property rights.
>>>then portrayed him as a stuttering simpleton who hasn't given any thought to his views and is unable to write a coherent reply
You just provided the short definition of Socialist! (or communist). Congrats! ;-) Okay yes some socialists are highly-intelligent, but not the average guy on the street. Almost every socialist I've ever talked to can NOT put together a logical argument. As Winston Churchill said,
"The strongest argument against Democracy is a 5-minute conversation with the average voter." Hence why we have a Republic (rule of law, not rule by majority).
>>>Replace "cars" with "universal health care", "mortgage bailouts", or "for the children" and you'll get the idea.
>>>
Ding. Ding. Ding! Or "hearts", "lungs", "kidneys". My uncle has smoked all his life; he has lung cancer and wants to get a new lung. Now I feel sorry for my neighbor, but why should I have to pay his bill (via medicare) to get a lung? HE made the mistake; HE should pay for the cost himself. Not me.
Besides he's over 80 years old. If he can afford a new lung, bully for him, but if he can't.... well, he's had a good long life. Death is nothing to fear.
No it's still fairly applied, even for people using public transport. It might be an indirect tax, for example through the bus fare, but the gasoline/road tax is still being paid by the riders.
Similarly, even renters pay property tax, albeit indirectly.
Since a firefighter provides for the common welfare of ALL homes within his jurisdiction, including mine, then no I have no objections to paying for his salary. Tax away.
What I object to is if that firefighter protected just ONE home and ignored everyone else's home. THAT is theft; that is enslavement to the "master" whose house is being protected. No way! If that guy wants a firefighter dedicated to just his own home, and nobody else's home, then let HIM pay the bill, not me.
If you think a car-less person "needs" to have a free car provided by government, then I guess you don't mind if Congress passes a law requiring YOU to pay for it. (Yes all $20,000 of it; collected via taxation of your paycheck.)
Do you still think such a law is not stealing? Not immoral?
No?
Okay. Well maybe I didn't convince you, but I'm sure most of the people here recognize that such a law violates your most basic human rights. Forcing you to work, sweat, and labor to buy somebody else's car is basically slavery.
Yes.
The grandparent must have got a 100 on his English SAT. Clearly I was talking about a *defensive* action to protect myself against Apple. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I'm not going to self-censor myself either just because of "non disclosure agreements" that I never signed.
>>>Apple's going to have a hell of a time showing that they were materially damaged by someone saying that their app got rejected.
Precisely why I would not hesitate to say publicly why my application was rejected. (And also because I don't think an unsigned or shrinkwrapped NDA is valid. A customer should not bound to an NDA simply because he/she buys a product.)
As for the term "civil disobedience", I used that term because I tend to think of corporations as being quasi-governments in nature. Apple lacks police power, but it can still pound the average citizen into the ground via sheer weight of monetary expenditure (lawyers and lawsuits). So I view any resistance against an over-reaching corporation as resistance against a petit-tyrant and/or defense of my individual liberty.
Ya know, I'd be thrilled to work just 30 hours a week (i.e. four days) if the boss would let me. It doesn't even matter to me that I'd have a smaller weekly paycheck.
But too many of the managers are tied-into the "must work 40" groupthink.
Okay:
I'm no fan of this guy, but what exactly did he do that was worthy of debarment? I'm not aware of any illegal activities?
Most U.S. TV station had repeaters/translators in the upper UHF band. For example my local station WGAL-8 broadcast channel 78, via repeater, to the mountain communities ~100 miles distant.
But when the Congresscritters took-away channels 70 to 83 and sold them to balance the budget (cough), the fullpower stations lost their long-distance repeaters. Now they stations are switching to DTV, and they'll experience even more shrinkage in their audience.
>>>"Some people will tolerate a crappy picture and incomprehensible audio rather than pay for subscription service - Those people have now switched from poor video/audio to no video/audio and are upset."
>>>
Ding. Ding. Ding! Were you peeking into my house? You described my TV habits. I won't watch incomprephensible audio, but I will watch a long-distance station that's degraded to black-and-white. Hey. It's FREE so why not?
The problem is that now I *can't* watch that long-distance station, and I've lost access to my Baltimore Ravens station, and my Philadelphia Eagles station (both 50 miles distant), and all ym DTV tuner shows me is a blank screen. No joy. :-(
>>>an NTSC video signal is roughly the equivalent of 640x480 pixel frames at 30 frames per second.
It's actually much smaller than that. With a 4 megahertz bandwidth (for the black-and-white half), NTSC actually produces 420x486 visible dots on the screen overlaid with a 160x486 chroma image. ATSC boosts that to 1920x1080 with 960x540 chroma sampling. Originally the FCC tried to tackle this upgrade via analog transmission, the same way that Japan did it, but Japan's version required approximately 3 channels to carry just 1 station (and has serious flaws with moving images creating shadows).
So the upgrade was postponed until digital technology advanced, and now we have MPEG2 squeezing approximately 50 times more information into the same bandwidth as previously.
ATSC-TV does indeed have error-correction.