Not if you had actually been keeping track over the years. Jeorg is my almost neighbor and loose friend. I would gladly stand him to a brew on a chance meeting. He has been discussing the reception problems for years. Where have you been?
Wierd. So there are supply problems of these ATSC boxes then?
But the government has the right to licence frequency allocations inside its borders. It is theirs to do with as they like. No need to bribe the electorate (with their own money). And by the time you count in the all admin it probably costs $100 to give back a $70 voucher. And the effect of it is only to keep prices excessively high and product out of stock.
Oh. I know. But it is fun to have the first of new things to play with even if you have to accept that sometimes you guess wrong. Or get a complete dud.
I bet on the early NEC 7220 graphics accelerator which was essential in Japan storming the western market (incorrectly the world chose crappy slow IBM EGA). The 7220 was a stunning little chip - way ahead of its time. On a good day in 1982 it could do up to 1024x1024 256 colour graphics if you could afford to populate the memory and buy a suitable monitor. Most were used with two pages of 640x480 and 16 colours. Block fill, line and arc were all hardware assisted.
My friend had one of the first professional betamax cameras. And once again technical superiority did nothing for its market share.
Regards, Martin Brown
** Posted fromMartin Brown wrote:.
Sure China is pumping out higher profit items, and they know that if they frustrate people enough, they will just buy a new TV.
There are NO $70 vouchers. The voucher are $40 and each can only be used once. They appears to do an electronic funds transfer, and they are not available everywhere. Only large retailers, and a few online companies handle them. When the program was being developed, only a couple retailers were interested in participating, because of the low profit margin.
-- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Sporadic E is the Earth\'s aluminum foil beanie for the \'global warming\' sheep.
All good products and government programs need a good acronym. This time, it's CECB (Coupon Eligible Converter Box):
You get one or two bank cards to use. Note that for the $990 million available for the program, $100 million is for "administration". Like all good government programs, I expect that they'll probably cost overrun the $100 million.
Here's a tolerable list of CECB boxes:
The external links at the bottom of the page are worth trying.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Yes, there is.
It belongs to the people and it is not a good thing for an electorate to become pissed because that has serious repercussions during the next election. Even if the switch is timed for right afterwards, if the "miff factor" was too high people will remember years later and campaigns will pounce on that. Something along the lines of "these guys are who dunnit".
Same with the Blue Ray stuff. It's sometimes best to wait and see what shakes out.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
That was not true, at least back in February. The money was split into two pools, one with no eligibility requirement, the other half requiring that you'd not subscribed to a service for [?] months.
I've not checked the web site to see if that money has run out...
Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
Thanks for the advice, Jeff.
Yeah, I use ZipLoc bags for small parts and storage. The commercial variety can be had anti-static and in a fairly wide assortment of sizes. The supermarket variety arrive in pint, quart and gallon sizes, with thickness measured in "storage", "sandwich", and "freezer". I determined experimentally that the freezer variety were sufficiently anti-static to use with most devices, but the odd manner of specifying the sizes left me wondering. I can't think of any useful application where I would want to store a gallon of something inside a Ziploc bag. Why would they measure it that way? And, why no thickness on the package?
It was about 1999, when I suggested to a friend that she have her 6th grade(?) class measure the capacity of the common supermarket bags and see if they really do hold a pint, quart, or gallon. Like all simple things, the project exploded well beyond my original intentions.
The first problem was getting 11 year olds to successfully fill a Ziploc bag with water, close the seal to make sure it holds the water, and measure the contents in a simulated graduate cylinder. I had originally thought, but not specified, that a small team would be assigned to do the filling, but the teacher wanted the entire class to have the experience of making measurements. Everyone brought in an assortment of bags, tried to fill them in the school bathroom, and dumped much of the contents on the floor, in the hallways, and in the classroom. It's not as easy as it would seem. I just tried filling and sealing a pint size Ziploc bag with water and not spill any. I failed.
Measuring was another problem. The skool doesn't have gallon size graduate cylinders, or gallon kitchen measuring cups. The typical kitchen pint size measuring glasses were used, resulting in more water on the floor.
Of course, the full bags closely resembled a water balloon, which promptly precipitated a impromptu water filled Ziploc bag fight. Fortunately, nobody was hurt or soaked. Also fortunately, they decided to do it outside.
I avoided the school janitor, who was rumored to be actively seeking my execution. Of course, I incurred the wrath of the administration, who lectured me sternly, but did nothing.
I'm also good at creating problems where none had previously existed. The teacher asked the class to tabulate the measurements they had made during this exercise. That's when I noticed a slight anomaly. The older Ziploc bags had only one seal line. The newer ones had two. When Ziploc added the 2nd seal line, they did not expand the bag size to accommodate the loss in volume. The old bags would hold the specified volume. The new bags were slightly short.
I decided that the student should have a suitably printed copy of what was their first formal reports. So, I took it upon myself to write up the whole experiment, produce graphs, run some stats on the results, insert some pictures, print about 100 copies, and pass them around. There was some grumbling about the photos of the mess, but no real problems.
Then, I cleverly decided to send a copy to SC Johnson, the new owners of Ziploc. Major mistake. They noticed the part about the undersized capacity and went into panic mode. Most employees were good natured about the issue and agreed that some production changes will need to be made to slightly increase the size of the double seal bags. Unfortunately, one phone call from their attorney was not so good natured.
So, for storing my mice, would you like a pint, quart, or gallon size mouse?
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
Only in Joerg's neighborhood. I suspect we're subsidizing the digital conversion on the other side of the border with Mexico.
Mark Zenier snipped-for-privacy@eskimo.com Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)
I use the sandwich sized commercial (Food service) packaged Ziplock bags from Sam's club. So far I have bagged a couple hundred mice, and keep finding more of them. I think that they breed, at night.
I use the same in the gallon size for some cables and manuals. There is an industrial packaging supplier that has the heavy gauge bags in about 100 different sizes and gauges, packed 1000 to the box. I think they have some antistatic, as well.
-- http://improve-usenet.org/index.html If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm Sporadic E is the Earth\'s aluminum foil beanie for the \'global warming\' sheep.
I read the report hosted here some years ago:
-- The THERAC-25 was a radiation machine used for treating cancerous tumors; it was designed by AECL and deployed during the late 1970s and 1980s
-- It was based off of earlier successful models, but had much more of the safety control and interlocks implemented in software rather than hardware (motivated by cost reductions and -- at least at some level -- a belief that the software approach could improve safety).
-- Due to software bugs, the THERAC-25 provided fatal doses or radiation to six individuals; some of them having rather painful deaths.
-- The THERAC-25 software was known for exhibiting slightly flaky and non-intuitive behavior (error codes were usually give as numbers, but originally the operators' manual didn't list what the various numbers meant), so many operators didn't take "weird" misbehavior as seriously as they should have initially; this arguably led to delays in AECL being contacted about problems.
-- The direct cause of the deaths was due to software not always detecting overdose levels and shutting off the radiation generator quicky enough, as well as sometimes only indicating a "minor" problem (recovered from by pressing a single key) when overdoses were detected.
-- The case of the machine inadvertently attempting to overdose in the first place was due to bugs allowing the *displayed* dose parameters to potentially be different than the *programmed* dose paramters: There was an 8 second "window" while the control software was performing other tasks based on a mode change wherein, if all the control parameters were changed on-screen and "sent" the software wouldn't actually notice this fact and would keep using whatever old parameters had previously been set... including dosage parameters that were allowable when used in different modes with different attenuators/scanning/etc., but deadly in the new mode.
-- AECL did extensive testing but initially was unable to reproduce the deadly behavior that occurred in hospital settings; this was largely due to the different usage patterns by test engineers at AECL vs. technicians at hospitals (who, as regular/expert users, would enter data very quickly and fall prey to the "8 second window" trap). As such, early on AECL firmly denied that their machine could have been at fault for causing the deaths, stating that "It [is] not possible for the THERAC-25 to overdose a patient." Eventually one machine operator was able to cause the THERAC-25 to malfunction repeadtedly at will, which caused AECL to change their tune.
-- Over time up until 1987, AECL made numerous software and hardware changes (including adding hardware interlocks) to improve reliability and greatly reduce the likelihood of it being a hazard to humans.
The report linked above points out that summaries like the one I just wrote often suggest that the causes were more freestanding and simplistic than they really were -- hence the suggestion to read the entire article. (One of the things I identify with here is how you need to test with Real Users and not just your internal techs/engineers -- Real Users are often far better at exposing bugs, both initially when they "don't know what they're doing" and try to do "non-sensical" things to your software, as well as later once they become "expert users" and run through the software much more quickly/cavalierly than internal testers usually do.)
---Joel
Similar experience here. After a few minutes it catches back on. Sometimes.
Sometimes it's zero degrees because pilots can waive the noise-abatement approach along Hwy 50 if they deem it not safe enough. Then they lumber in right over our building. There is a lot of ruckus about the noise but I don't get it. It never bothers me. People expect their Fedex packages to arrive tomorrow but go full NIMBY when the aircraft carrying that very package actually come in.
And I can't blame Fedex for the FCC selecting a standard that is sub-par when it comes to multipath, it's not their fault. Plus they were there first. Just like I won't blame our foxes for occasionally knocking over a stack of wood.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
Joerg -- the only ATSC tuner you have is the one built into your... Vizio TV, right? Have you tried any of the standaline boxes? I'd be curious to see how well both the cheap (coupon eligible) converter boxes work as well as spendy ones.
---Joel
Yep, got the boxes as well. Insignia brand. My observation is that the Vizio holds up a smidgen longer but nothing to write home about. IOW you get 1-2 seconds more, then both show a frozen picasso followed by the blue "no signal" screen.
Once I accidentally had the TV on CATV channel search and it picked up a movie that was running on DTV, from the rather leaky cable system around here. However, they transmitted it analog and the chroma carrier didn't quite make it. Then came the striking event: Their reception fell apart about the time ours fell apart.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
OK. I have a Zenith DTT901 which has the same LG chipset as your Insignia, so it probably performs the same.
If you're interesting in trying out a fancier standalone receive, I can send you a Samsung DTB-H260F to borrow for a bit (review:
---Joel
Thanks, Joel, but I'll just stay with what we've got. The chip set in the Vizio is supposedly pretty top notch and it still has a hard time. It does perform better on DTV signals that come in from the fringes at lower SNR.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/ "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam. Use another domain or send PM.
I have had a similar experience. Did not need memtest though. Just did the rearrangement.
My worst experience was that i had to read my comments to another engineer before they could understand them. The experience was disgusting, the other engineer had a PE license. Functional illiteracy is rampant, as is innumeriacy.
You are basically looking at the very visible difference between 8-bit digitization and 10-bit digitization.
Not illiteracy. The problem is that different people have different ways of learning things. Some do best if they read it from a book. Some of today's computer addicted kids only learn when delivered via a CRT or LCD. Some people have to have hands on experience or it doesn't sink in. Others have to have it lectured to them. Still others get it best via videos (infotainment). I've seen some that will not believe anything, unless it came from someone with substantial credentials and proven credibility. It varies considerably and can also change over a personal professional lifetime.
I have customers that are quite intelligent and probably have a correspondingly high IQ. However they often just can't read instructions on a computer screen. I find myself reading the manual or the screen to them on the phone. Sometimes, I walk them through what most would consider a simple ritual (such as copying digital photos from the camera to the drive to the DVD). I've previously attempted to "educate" them in different ways of learning new things, and have always failed. My guess(tm) is that once you've developed a preferred method of information transfer, all other atrophy into uselessness.
Incidentally, I've been told that about 90% of tech support questions are answered in the documentation or web pages. That implies the 90% of the customer base has some form of written or on-screen learning or communications problems.
Kinda reminds of a project manager that could only communicate via written (or emailed) memos. In person, he was a disaster.
Incidentally, one of the better tech writers I dealt with, had a serious speech impediment (stuttering) and required that everything he heard be repeated exactly once. He never got it the first time as he had to be deliberately paying attention. Yet, his writings and apparently his readings, were superior.
-- Jeff Liebermann jeffl@cruzio.com 150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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