[svlug] DTV transition, and SVLUG [rant]

[James Miller]

Thanks Chris and Daevid, you raise various points that sadly I cannot express any personal opinions on--but thanks for the bay area welcome!! :)_
 
I can respond to one point you raise, asking who should care about DTV outreach.  
 
Even before I was a lawyer while working in here in Mountain View, friends and I would gather up junk pc's, get them working and then distribute and help people out getting comfortable using them.  I expect there's probably alot of folks  in the SVLUG also doing alot of these same things helping people out in need by sharing a little time and expertise.  Congress, the FCC, NTIA and others have determined that indeed outreach is especially needed to prepare people most vulnerable in the transition, such as seniors, people living in tribal and rural areas, people with disabilities, individuals with low-incomes, and non-English speakers.  Not surprisingly often times it's the same folks who might most appreciate a refurb PC and someone's help using them.  So if you're doing volunteering in the community the folks you're helping out may be interested.
 
What I'd like to mention on Wednesday is when you're doing volunteering with someone, ask them if they're set of the transition, and if not take a few minutes and explain the steps to getting prepared.  A current focus in the FCC's outreach efforts are on helping people get signed up for coupons and understanding the issues surrounding use of analog converter boxes.  I'll be at the Oakland Technology Exchange on Wednesday at 3 doing a training discussion with volunteers there if anyone would be interested in attending.  Otherwise anyone volunteering with groups on the peninsula please feel free to contact me.  I'm happy to come out and speak to group about the FCC's outreach efforts and goals.
 
Naturally, alot of the issues seem clear and easy--particularly to us who hang would out and want to talk about esoteric topics of UNIX administration--but even simple things have shown to have an impact with the DTV transition and it does make a difference to alot of folks in need.  
 
--
James Miller
Attorney Advisor
FCC, OET, SPD RM 7A222
+1(202)418-7351

________________________________

From: Chris Miller [mailto:lordsauronthegreat at gmail.com]
Sent: Mon 2008-12-01 21:17
To: Daevid Vincent
Cc: svlug at lists.svlug.org; James Miller
Subject: Re: [svlug] DTV transition, and SVLUG [rant]



On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 4:54 PM, Daevid Vincent <daevid at daevid.com> wrote:
> [rant]
> Okay, maybe James (or someone else) can explain to me why I am bombarded
> with all these damn TV commercials every hour about this switch (from
> Comcast, DirectTV, Tivo, and everyone else it seems). Who f'n cares?! It's

Certainly not me.

> TELEVISION. How tragic that middle America won't be able to get the latest
> Simpson's episode if their TV goes dark. Or watch some stupid "reality" show

How tragic that they won't be bombarded by the commercials the
corporations pay millions to put on TV!

> (which are completely scripted anyways). OMG, whatever will they do?! Jeesh,

The screaming and shouting and whining of 100+ million is enough to
make me just want to give them $40 of their own tax dollars to shut
them up.  Or rather, the fear of the whining of a multitude of
potentially stupid people is enough to make me want to avoid the
situation entirely.

> just fork over the $30-$60 for a converter box if you really don't have
> cable TV by now (welcome to the 80's). Problem solved. Why is so much money
> and time being invested to "inform"? The media doesn't spend this much time
> informing us about corrupt politicians and disastrous presidents who rape us
> of our God given rights and wipe their ass with the Constitution! Maybe if

In Journalism class they teach you the three basic things that make
something newsworthy.  Keep in mind that if it doesn't include at
least one of these things, it is not newsworthy and not worth
reporting:

Newsworthy Item 1: <three letter word for "promiscuous activity">
Newsworthy Item 2: Violence
Newsworthy Item 3: Drugs

And as an honorable mention, for the past eight years we've had
another item added:

Newsworthy Honorable Mention 1: Stupid Things Bush Has Done

And as an honorable mention, for the next eight years we'll get:

Newsworthy Honorable Mention 2: Christlike Things Obama Is Doing*

* though obviously without any mention of religious figures...  after
all, anything having to do with religion is now politically incorrect
and goes against the new State-sponsored Holy Church of Irreligion.
Religious people, prepare to be marginalized!

> some of those people that truly can't afford cable TV, stopped watching so
> much television and their 5 basic channels of crap/reality shows/sitcoms,
> and actually got jobs or read a book and educated themselves they could
> someday save up the $30/month it takes to switch over to cable. And if

Would you like flying pigs with that?

> they're desperately that poor then perhaps TV is the least of their
> worries...

They have come to a sad realization.  They pressed "Cancel."

> When the computer industry switched from CGA to VGA then to SVGA I don't
> recall anyone giving me a free video card? When the floppy drive became
> obsolete, I checked every day in my mailbox for my free zip drive and CD-ROM
> which never came. My Dell i8200 notebook has a "removable" nVidia card, but
> good luck if I can replace it as they don't make anything else that size.
> Every year or so it seems that AMD/Intel change their formats from slots to
> chips with various number of pins. You buy a motherboard that claims that

The real reason is because they change the specification and the data
transfer speeds for that particular socket.  My socket AM2 board can
support something crazy like 16GiB/second in raw data transfer.  My
socket 754 can only go do something like 8GiB/second, and poor little
socket A (anyone remember the Athlon 1400?) can do something nice like
2GiB/second.  As chips get faster, you need a bigger pipe to get
information to them.

Why someone hasn't invented something like USB for CPU slots that can
clock down on both ends is beyond me.

> you can upgrade in the future, but a few months later, the new chips are a
> different bus speed or form factor or something, so you just buy a whole new
> computer anyways. I have a grip of old VHS tapes and when DVD came out,
> ain't nobody tryin' to give me a DVD player. Why is it the taxpayer's burden
> to make sure EVERYONE can watch TV? This should be a consumer problem, not a
> government one. I wanted to watch HD as there were all these channels on
> Comcast that I could HEAR but not SEE... Comcast didn't buy me a HDTV, nor
> did the government, *I* saved my pennies and one day went shopping.

There is some group of liberals (I haven't met one yet, but they have
to be out there somewhere, 'cause of all the piss-head stuff that
keeps going on) that is Majorly Confused about what is a
responsibility of government and what is a responsibility of the
citizen.  Personally, TV and other forms of entertainment are totally
a citizen's responsibility.  But apparently they're the government's
responsibility according to someone, because now there's tax dollars
going towards this and God-knows what else.

> My problem with this is that it feels like the government cares more about
> the sheep out there being good little consumers and watching their insipid
> commercials than it does about REAL matters. I've read estimates that this

You have come to a sad realization.  Cancel or Allow?

> conversion will cost anywhere from $1.2 to $22 BILLION dollars. How about
> putting that money into some health-care or education or "stimulus packages"
> or paying off some of our debt to China? Why does it matter if a TV station

Or perhaps fixing some of our failing infrastructure, building more
public transportation, or a national electricity coordinator to try
and combat those annoying rolling blackouts that only happen on a
local level?

> continues to broadcast in analog anyways? The infrastructure is already in
> place and I'm sure has been paid for many times over (it is 60+ years old).
> Where does it say in the Bill Of Rights "We the people shall all have
> digital television"? Was this an 11th commandment, "Thou shalt watch DTV,
> forsaking all analog"? Why is Congress involved -- at all!? Seriously, don't

Do your part: don't vote for the incumbent.  The re-election rate for
congressmen is something like 96%.  We keep telling them "you're doing
a good job, keep it up" when what they're doing is WRONG.  Can we
really blame them when the voters aren't voting responsibly?

> they have countries to get us out of (or invade)? Don't they have recessions
> to solve? Is ensuring digital television really such a concern? And don't
> even get me started on the cost to the environment of even a portion of
> these 73 MILLION "old analog" TV's being dumped into land-fills, leaking
> toxins.
>
> This reminds me of the whole bank bailout debacle. John Stewart said it
> best, "It seems we've privatized their profits, but socialized their
> losses". Why is Bobbie-Jean Backwoods' or Roger Refrigeratorbox's inability
> to watch "the new digital" television anyone else's problem but her/his own.
> I've lost my job several times do too 9/11 and the recessions and each time
> to cut expenses, I canceled my cable tv service... I survived just fine. I
> even made some new friends and got in shape from working out with my new
> free time. The unemployment office didn't say, "here's your weekly UI check,
> and here's a little somethin' extra for your cable bill".
>
> Sorry, but this whole thing is really infuriating because in my head I know
> it boils down to $$$$$. When I'd like to think the government is really FOR
> THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE and OF THE PEOPLE. But the reality is the
> government is FOR THE CORPORATIONS, BY THE LOBBYISTS and OF THE
> POLITICIANS...

You could make a lot of money selling bumper stickers.

> BTW, my problem isn't with digital TV at all -- I think it's great and look
> forward to the new clarity and content. I also get that the FCC wants the

The content isn't getting any better.  They'll just look better being
more stupid in the future.

--
Registered Linux Addict #431495
http://profile.xfire.com/mrstalinman | John 3:16!
http://www.fsdev.net/ | http://lordsauron.wordpress.com/