lead free solder again

Hello Graham,

I can't really rate it because we barely watch TV. Just the local news and maybe an old movie now and then. We get most our information from newspapers and the web.

I used to like "Letter from America" on BBC but unfortunately Alistair Cooke has passed away.

Yes, the Jim Lehrer news on PBS.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
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Joerg
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So it is really government enforced planned obsolescence.

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JosephKK
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Reply to
joseph2k

[...]
[...]

I wasn't suggesting that it wasn't polticians that forced California to use MTBE. I was pointing out that local (in this case democrat) politicians had asked to be allowed to do what made sense and got a refusal from the federal level politicians.

In the US, you also get form letters. If your letter happens to hit the right desk on the right day, you may see action. When Nixon was in office, there was also the posibility that you'd get a visit from the IRS if you made enough noise.

That depends on what you mean by "non-Western" Japan is about as far east as you can get.

[...]

The press is getting aggressive now, because they smell blood in the water. For about 6 years they have been cowed.

Also, the US, broadcast, press is now own by a smallish group of people. Even the "alternative" newspapers like the Bay Gardian are being bought up. Government control over the press is not the only form of censorship to worry about.

Even with a "free press" there is also the problem of a "stupid press". If they don't do a good job of reporting on technical issues, the voters will be easily misled. Most news programs on TV have had their budget for actual reporters cut.

Very few have there own technical and political experts. They go to one guy with "Dr." in front of his name and let him say what he wants and then go to "Dr." someone else and let him talk. This they call "balanced" even though one of the two is the only person on the planet with that opinion and the other holds the view of people actually working in the field.

[... story of it working ....] Its nice to hear that democracy still works.
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Reply to
Ken Smith

In article , Joerg wrote: [.. Nixon using IRS on enemies.]

Under Nixon, I believe they would burn up days of your time.

Today it is unlikely it would be the IRS that would get used for that. Its been done and everyone knows about it. Some new method of making trouble for people has likely already been invented. We just haven't heard what it is yet.

The cable TV is bundled with the internet so that it makes it cheaper to get them together than apart. There are things on TV worth watching:

"The Daily Show" Reruns of "Whos line is it anyway" "Discoveries this week" (sometimes) "Slings and Arrows" "Mythbusters" (sometimes)

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith

Hello Ken,

Today, the minute the press finds out somebody would sue them. When an agency becomes a burden without a public interest benefit to show for it something will happen. I remember some undue regulatory burden on our industry (med), a ground swell of complaints and a short time later a very high level employee there "pursued other interests".

We just had such a case locally. Undue mass strip searches at the town's jail. Sure enough they were sued and the plaintiffs won a huge award. For the 2nd time and for the very same offense! Except this time the award was several million higher. I guess it's now time for someone to resign or be fired.

That's the catch: Out here, if you want cable broadband they won't let you have it sans TV except for an exorbitant monthly fee. So the deal was not favorable at all versus DSL and I declined.

Maybe I am indeed missing something. Oh well, I don't feel deprived :-))

We do have TV but only as far as the antenna can see. When (or if?) analog TV is really switched off and all stations go digital that may be the end of it because the chosen system appears to have poor multipath performance and we live in the hills. By then hopefully the web will have taken over anyway, at least news streaming.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

The trick is not to let the press find stuff out. We don't know, for sure, who is in the Guantanamo prison. The press doesn't have access to it. That would have to be the sort of thing done today. If an adminstration like Nixon's got in place today[1], that would have to be the sort of thing to look for. I'm sure someone's already figured it out.

[1] Someone is sure to jump in and say one has.

Do you mean political burden or economic burden. The US department of Rural Electricification still exists even though their job was finished years ago.

[...]

IIRC: LA got sued for stuff like that year after year with no changes. They just added a budget item to pay for it.

[...]

We've had bad luck with DSL. I think it is because of unlucky location vs the nearest "drop".

You don't know what you are missing so you wouldn't. Jon Steward is really worth seeing. (Daily Show) the rest of the people on his show mostly suck. Its about 15 minutes a day of TV worth the electrical charges to see.

BTW: Although his show is a "fake news program". Their reporting is often better than the "real news programs". He also gets a wide range of guest on and does great interviews with some of them.

I almost expect some tricky little box to hit the market that solves the problem. It would have to impose a delay on the signal while it does its figuring. Chances are, you'd need to antennas.

.. or ..

A great idea I've had for a long time is this:

Instead of transmitting the whole show, send an electronic description of the actors and script. The TV could then generate the program from that information. I figure for most programs a K or two of data would do:

Actor 1: Tough looking private eye #37 Actor 2: Blond bimbo #54 ....

Scene 1: Dead body on office floor Sound: Bimbo scream #103 Action: Bimbo hand to mouth

.....

Scene 15: Sunset Hereo: Rides off into.

I imagine some sort of news "pull" service where you set the sort of stuff you want to hear about and it gives you those stories in detail. The other news can come in digest form.

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Reply to
Ken Smith

Hello Ken,

Today I read in the paper (Sacramento Bee) that one guy who got released has published a book about it. I guess it'll contain a lot of these details.

That's amazing. Out here, any kind of armchair operations is brought to light by organizations like taxpayer groups. Of course, they sure will miss out on some of the waste.

That would be the time for voters and supervisors to pull the plug. WRT to the prison health system that has already happened by taking away oversight and assigning a judge to do that. Quite embarrassing.

We were lucky in that they strung a fiber loop. I was one of the first to sign up.

And I am not going to plunk down over $50/month for that :-)))

I am no expert here but from what I know about the DTV standards were are stuck. The one we chose may flunk quite badly in a multipath situation, some of which (like ours) can't be remedied via antenna technology.

Know what you mean but then I might as well turn the TV into a lamp or something.

T'is already there, to some extent. My wife knows most of the news before they even show on the evening TV newscast. The stations themselves update their site pretty well (I guess because the competition does).

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Close but no cigar. MTBE provided the required oxygenation without the performance penalty of ethanol. That MTBE was the most toxic gasoline additive to date (at usage levels) was even acknowleged. What was swept under the rug early on was MTBE persistence as an environmental pollutant and the strength of its carcinogenic properties.

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JosephKK
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Reply to
joseph2k

Hi Joerg, Well, one of the things that you will soon find, is that if there IS a program you want to watch, you will probably be able to download it off the net, and not just a pirated copy. More and more programs are going to become available for download now...

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie Edmondson

[...]

It will only be what one person is telling us. Unfortunately part of how you make people talk is to isolate them from everyone but the gaurds. It is likely that no one person will be able to tell enough of the story.

Oooops I just tried to find their budget and had no luck "The administration was abolished in 1994 and its functions assumed by the Rural Utilities Service."

I guess it was part of the effort to make the federal government smaller and more streamlined that happened under Clinton.

[...]

The problem in LA is that the voters don't seem to care. Some long as the beer is cold, there's a game on or the Hummer starts, they won't get motivated.

Cool :>

I get it for free. My wife pays. :)

Bummer. It soundly like such a good idea. It was based loosely on some of what is done in seismic processing. They assume that in the long term, the signal (the rocks down there) is more or less random. They pile about

12 more assumption in the blender and out pops the frequency domain correction that needs to be done on the signal.

Finally a good use for about 50 Crays. Decoding a badly designed signal. :)

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith

Hello Ken,

The terrestrial part of the DTV deal looks like one of those hastily slapped together legislative actions. It reminds me a bit of RoHS but, of course, RoHS has a much higher potential of becoming a hugely expensive blunder. DTV, well, the folks in the mountains will just stop watching. But whoever is in office at the time analog is turned off, I don't want to be in their shoes when the constituents begin to sock it to them.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

Patriot act?

- YD.

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YD

[...]

That's more about gathering information on people than messing them about.

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kensmith@rahul.net   forging knowledge
Reply to
Ken Smith

What amazes me is the number of non digital-tuner equipped sets still on sale over here !

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

"Eeyore" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETHIS.hotmail.com...

Are the digital tuners MPEG-4 compatible yet? Why not?

Regards Ian

Reply to
Ian

Why would they need to be mpeg4 compatible ? I expect they just do whatever they need to decode the transmissions.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Hello Graham,

Same over here, for smaller sets. Almost as if nobody gives a hoot.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

I think it may be similar here.

Whilst a larger set can indeed bear the added cost of a digital tuner more easily and presumably helps get the quantities up so as to make the tuner chipsets less expensive, I fail to see the logic of not fitting them to smaller sets so *much* later.

I just happened to be browsing in the local branch of a well-known high street retail electrical chain ( Dixons for you Brits ) a while back and enquired if the DVD recorder that caught my eye had a digital tuner. The sales executive a.k.a 'new lad' had no clue. This country's doomed if we continue this way with clowns in charge.

Graham

Reply to
Eeyore

Hello Graham,

easily

less

*much*

Because they don't have to. If it costs only one cent more they aren't going to do it unless for some reason they are forced to. Some might not believe DTV is going to happen (for the US anyway). It probably will happen and I can already see the US Mail system choking on all those bags of letters going to members of our congress.

the

'new

Same with the larger companies and their "customer support" where the outsourced lads and lasses merely read out of a binder. If the answer ain't in there you ain't going to get an answer. Just had that happen on a printer. Seems they couldn't even understand the problem.

There may come a day when only engineers can have high-tech gear in their homes because you have to be your own customer support. It's also a rapidly growing business opportunity because a lot of people simply throw up their hands. I can't count how many times I had to coach neighbors through their programmable thermostats, time and again. It used to be just a round dial with the degrees on there. Now you have to press button A three times, hold button B one second, then press C and enter the desired extra-terrestrial flubberonium equation.

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Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com
Reply to
Joerg

"Eeyore" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@REMOVETHIS.hotmail.com...

Because broadcasters want to move to using MPEG-4, which will obsolete the current crop of MPEG-2 only compliant digital decoders.

Regards Ian

Reply to
Ian

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