I've been in the water SCADA industry for 10 years. What I'm seeing lately are water operators, IT people, and system integrators who are overzealous when it comes to connectivity and all the "neat" things that can be done remotely via technology. It's the standard human foible when it comes to technology, writ dangerous: they consider what can be done versus whether it should be. The water industry isn't that exciting, so when flashy tech. comes along, and the taxpayer is footing the bill, I can see where they say "Yes!" And who is the salesperson to refuse this order?

I'm all for automation, and crying out when a system is in trouble. But I haven't yet seen where humanized remote control is critical. Hackers aside, it's probably better if it's not.

I enjoy all of those you insensitive clod!

"So where should I send it to make it known by people on the respective fields and be taken seriously?"

Why don't you use your fancy schmancy algorithm and locate that yourself!

>He actually believed that Lamo was an ordained minister,

Lmao!

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.

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.

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 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.

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...