A couple of weekends ago, we had the things that have been in our storage unit brought over to the house. Among the things that arrived are several boxes of my old audio cassette tapes. I have not gone through all of them by any means, but did find some old chestnuts that are reminiscent of days gone by.
So, by the magic of recorded audio, let's go back to the summer of ’79. The Susan B. Anthony dollar is introduced. Jimmy Carter directs secret aid to the anti-Soviet rebels in Afghanistan. The Shah of Iran is spending his last summer in power before the Islamic Revolution. Chrysler asks for government aid to avoid bankruptcy (some things never change). Disco was hanging on for dear life, and hip-hop was still a future phenomenon. And if you were to tune in to AM 790 in Houston, you may have heard this young, 26-year-old disc jockey on the radio. (Flash plug-in required)
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Will Cross-Ownership Save the Newspapers?
Media Daily News is reporting that FCC commissioner Robert McDowell is asking the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to quickly decide on the legitimacy of new cross-ownership rules which would allow broadcast outlets to take ownership of newspapers, given the number of papers that stand on the threshold of failure and ceasing to publish. Already this year, we have seen the collapse of several papers, notably the Denver Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Remaining papers are fighting for advertising dollars and readership, as news consumers are getting more of their news from online sources, including those run by the papers themselves.Will allowing radio and television companies the ability to buy struggling papers the answer? Broadcasters are facing some of the very same challenges that the newspaper publishers are facing. TV stations are forming market duopolies, where one company programs two stations in town, much as Denver’s KDVR-TV/DT has combined the news operations of rival KWGN-TV/DT, a CW affiliate owned by the bankrupt Tribune Company. (The mess they have made of KWGN, and the ridiculous rebranding of the station as “The Deuce” is a subject for another post.)
Yet, the Media Daily News is also reporting that FCC commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein is arguing that allowing two failing business models to combine won’t save either one. Local radio ad revenue suffered a 10% decline last year, and accelerating to 13% during the fourth quarter, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau. TV is also showing declines in revenue.
Are there any economies of scale to be found by say, combining the newsrooms of Radio/TV/Newspapers? Can synergies be found by sharing back office functions, such as accounting, sales, and editorial boards? Prior to the change in regulations in 1965, it was common. In fact, the Tribune Company, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, and owner of the aforementioned KWGN-TV/DT, also owned the WGN radio and TV stations in Chicago. In fact, it’s call letters stood for “World’s Greatest Newspaper”. The former owner of KPRC radio and TV in Houston also owned the now defunct Houston Post. KPRC represented Post Radio Company. Other cross-ownership of publishers and broadcasters was common.
The jury is still out on if such a plan will work today. I am skeptical, and I also hate to see a further concentration of editorial voices in fewer and fewer corporate hands. To me, it is a travesty that we see media companies owning hundreds of radio stations, including up to eight in one market. Back when ownership was restricted to seven AM, seven FM, and seven TV stations nationwide, we had a real diversity of local programming that, as required by the FCC, “served the public interest, as a public trustee”. Now we get the same syndicated junk from coast to coast. No longer is local radio the community voice. Nor is it the training ground for the next generation of broadcasters. We will have to keep an eye on this and see what happens next. Whatever occurs, I doubt the public’s best interest will be at the heart of any decisions.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Good Enough?
When new technology first becomes available, it is typically bleeding edge and not very user friendly. Over time, four things inevitably occur; the technology becomes more stable, more user-friendly, and features are added, and price comes down. Not all of these things are mutually compatible, as two of them are at odds with one another.
Today we see many tech gadgets beginning to bifurcate into two distinct classes. The first is the high-end, feature-rich versions that people who demand the best quality of products and output demand. The second is highly-reliable, easy-to-use versions that skimp on features in the name of simplicity and priced for mass market appeal.
We see this phenomenon time after time during product life cycles. On example of this was photography. Early photography required a whole lot of tinkering, specialized equipment, and self-processing of photographs. As the technology became more mainstream, cameras began to be made in two classes. There was the high-end, interchangeable lens models with adjustments for shutter speed and exposure time that required light meters and skills beyond the everyday user. But most people wanted a way to simply take decent quality pictures with little fuss or expense. So cameras like the once-ubiquitous Kodak Brownie brought “point and shoot” snapshots to the average weekend picture taker.
Today we see the same forces at work in the digital video and photography realm. Digital technology has continually come down in price, and yielding many advantages to the average photographer. The immediacy of the once-popular Polaroid Land Camera coupled with the ability to take thousands of shots very inexpensively has caused traditional film photography to become a niche market of hobbyists and Luddites.
Yet there are those who strive for the best quality, both in their gear and in the pictures they take. So now we see digital single-lens reflex cameras available at top dollar, with lenses that cost more than several consumer grade digital point and shoot cameras. Some of the best equipment is difficult for the consumer to justify for personal use, and remain the domain of the professional who makes a living with his or her photographic equipment.
The consumer market has benefited immensely from the market forces of competition, and once high-end features coming down in price as economies of scale in the production process, have brought sophisticated technology to the masses. Still it is not always an easy proposition for the manufacturers to combine ease of use with a plethora of features and functions.
This has led to the market for super simple, basic featured models that are gaining in popularity. Surely, the problems in the macro economy help drive this, but equally at play is the demand for something that is utilitarian and just works. Consumers are wanting products that do one or two things that cover the majority of their needs, and do those things simply and do them with exceedingly well.
In the photography realm we have been examining, the most evident example of this “simpler is better” approach is the Flip camera. This device records still and full motion video onto flash memory, in a device with a form factor not much larger than a deck of playing cards. It has a flip out USB connection to easily move photos and video to a computer, as well as software to make it easy to upload to web-based services such as YouTube or Flicker. It is also then easy to do post processing work on the computer, although the market for the Flip and similar devices are not likely to do much of that. If you are looking to make the next feature film, replete with digital effects, the Flip is not for you. On the other hand, if you like to have a camera to capture the impromptu event with no preplanning or setup required, and like to share these events with friends, family, or the general population, these are terrific cameras.
Another example is in the world of telephony. The USA had what was called the best telephone system in the world. During the days when The Bell System and an interconnected network of smaller independents provided our phone service, they were regulated and guaranteed a positive rate of return. In exchange, they used the money provided under a regulated monopoly approach to deploy rock-solid technology, whereby phone service became not only universally available, but as reliable as any technology ever devised. The simplification occurred with the rollout of things like “Direct Distance Dialing” which permitted people to bypass the long distance operator; and the technology of Dual Tone Multifrequency (DTMF) dialing, more commonly known as its original brand name, Touch Tone, which ultimately eliminated the rotary dial from our telephones.
Today, telephone service is rapidly moving off the older circuit-switched technology, where every conversation had a complete circuit connecting the call; to Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, where voice conversations are digitized and sent as data packets in many different directions, either over the Internet (as with Vonage), or on private networks as many telecom companies are doing.
Is VoIP as reliable as the older technology? In this writer’s opinion, not yet; but it will likely get there with its broader deployment. Just as cell phones still drop calls and have dead spots with no signal available, the convenience of them override the imperfections in the technology as it currently exists. People are moving in large numbers away from the reliable old landline telephone service to the cheaper, but less expensive and more mobile VoIP and cellular services to the point that traditional phone service is a shrinking market. The telcos are finding it necessary to build their future on Internet access and wireless technologies rather than the dying cash cow of traditional land lines.
Then we have music. MP3 files are definitely not high-fidelity, yet their portability and small size gives them benefits that standard CDs don't offer. The same goes for Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, which offers a large number of music and talk formats, but at the expense of audio quality, since to extract such capacity, the stations are multiplexed and highly compressed.
So while I appreciate the tradeoffs, I hope we do not become a society where good enough is always good enough. There is a place for quality over quantity or utility.
Today we see many tech gadgets beginning to bifurcate into two distinct classes. The first is the high-end, feature-rich versions that people who demand the best quality of products and output demand. The second is highly-reliable, easy-to-use versions that skimp on features in the name of simplicity and priced for mass market appeal.
We see this phenomenon time after time during product life cycles. On example of this was photography. Early photography required a whole lot of tinkering, specialized equipment, and self-processing of photographs. As the technology became more mainstream, cameras began to be made in two classes. There was the high-end, interchangeable lens models with adjustments for shutter speed and exposure time that required light meters and skills beyond the everyday user. But most people wanted a way to simply take decent quality pictures with little fuss or expense. So cameras like the once-ubiquitous Kodak Brownie brought “point and shoot” snapshots to the average weekend picture taker.
Today we see the same forces at work in the digital video and photography realm. Digital technology has continually come down in price, and yielding many advantages to the average photographer. The immediacy of the once-popular Polaroid Land Camera coupled with the ability to take thousands of shots very inexpensively has caused traditional film photography to become a niche market of hobbyists and Luddites.
Yet there are those who strive for the best quality, both in their gear and in the pictures they take. So now we see digital single-lens reflex cameras available at top dollar, with lenses that cost more than several consumer grade digital point and shoot cameras. Some of the best equipment is difficult for the consumer to justify for personal use, and remain the domain of the professional who makes a living with his or her photographic equipment.
The consumer market has benefited immensely from the market forces of competition, and once high-end features coming down in price as economies of scale in the production process, have brought sophisticated technology to the masses. Still it is not always an easy proposition for the manufacturers to combine ease of use with a plethora of features and functions.
This has led to the market for super simple, basic featured models that are gaining in popularity. Surely, the problems in the macro economy help drive this, but equally at play is the demand for something that is utilitarian and just works. Consumers are wanting products that do one or two things that cover the majority of their needs, and do those things simply and do them with exceedingly well.
In the photography realm we have been examining, the most evident example of this “simpler is better” approach is the Flip camera. This device records still and full motion video onto flash memory, in a device with a form factor not much larger than a deck of playing cards. It has a flip out USB connection to easily move photos and video to a computer, as well as software to make it easy to upload to web-based services such as YouTube or Flicker. It is also then easy to do post processing work on the computer, although the market for the Flip and similar devices are not likely to do much of that. If you are looking to make the next feature film, replete with digital effects, the Flip is not for you. On the other hand, if you like to have a camera to capture the impromptu event with no preplanning or setup required, and like to share these events with friends, family, or the general population, these are terrific cameras.
Another example is in the world of telephony. The USA had what was called the best telephone system in the world. During the days when The Bell System and an interconnected network of smaller independents provided our phone service, they were regulated and guaranteed a positive rate of return. In exchange, they used the money provided under a regulated monopoly approach to deploy rock-solid technology, whereby phone service became not only universally available, but as reliable as any technology ever devised. The simplification occurred with the rollout of things like “Direct Distance Dialing” which permitted people to bypass the long distance operator; and the technology of Dual Tone Multifrequency (DTMF) dialing, more commonly known as its original brand name, Touch Tone, which ultimately eliminated the rotary dial from our telephones.
Today, telephone service is rapidly moving off the older circuit-switched technology, where every conversation had a complete circuit connecting the call; to Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, where voice conversations are digitized and sent as data packets in many different directions, either over the Internet (as with Vonage), or on private networks as many telecom companies are doing.
Is VoIP as reliable as the older technology? In this writer’s opinion, not yet; but it will likely get there with its broader deployment. Just as cell phones still drop calls and have dead spots with no signal available, the convenience of them override the imperfections in the technology as it currently exists. People are moving in large numbers away from the reliable old landline telephone service to the cheaper, but less expensive and more mobile VoIP and cellular services to the point that traditional phone service is a shrinking market. The telcos are finding it necessary to build their future on Internet access and wireless technologies rather than the dying cash cow of traditional land lines.
Then we have music. MP3 files are definitely not high-fidelity, yet their portability and small size gives them benefits that standard CDs don't offer. The same goes for Sirius/XM Satellite Radio, which offers a large number of music and talk formats, but at the expense of audio quality, since to extract such capacity, the stations are multiplexed and highly compressed.
So while I appreciate the tradeoffs, I hope we do not become a society where good enough is always good enough. There is a place for quality over quantity or utility.
Monday, April 06, 2009
The Passing of Great Internet Citizen
You may not have ever heard the name Richard J. Petnel. But many of you use his work every day. You see, Richard has been the man updating filters for the best browser add-in ever devised...AdBlock Plus, which blocks ads from web pages.
While reading one of my very favorite blogs, John Walkenbach's J-Walk Blog, I learned of Richard's untimely death at age 56 after a brief illness. Richard's obituary is here.
John, thanks for the heads-up on this. To give John Walkenbach a plug, he has authored many Excel books, and my library holds several of them. John is also a banjo player, music afficianado, and a fellow freethinker.
While reading one of my very favorite blogs, John Walkenbach's J-Walk Blog, I learned of Richard's untimely death at age 56 after a brief illness. Richard's obituary is here.
John, thanks for the heads-up on this. To give John Walkenbach a plug, he has authored many Excel books, and my library holds several of them. John is also a banjo player, music afficianado, and a fellow freethinker.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Life is Tough All Over
This weekend, as we continue receiving April snowfall here in Colorado, the neighborhood birds and mammals are having to resort to ingenuity to survive. This evening, returning home from a run to the local Costco, I saw one of the little rabbits scrounging in the snow underneath one of our bird feeders to get seed that had fallen on the ground.This morning, another fellow was availing himself of birdseed in my next door neighbor's bird feeder. I grabbed my camera and got some incriminating pictures of the crime in progress.
This hungry squirrel had found that he could not only reach the bird feeder, but could actually open the top to get to what little bit of goodies were left inside. I watched him for a while, and thought that maybe I should put out some squirrel food.
And don't let the blue sky in the picture fool you. It is snowing like crazy again tonight.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
I Laugh at Conficker!
The Conficker computer worm is scheduled to hit infected computers running Microsoft Windows operating system tomorrow. No one really knows what havoc Conficker will wreak upon the web and individual computer users. It also could be a big nothing.
However, I have the ultimate Windows Virus protection. I don't run Windows on my personal laptop machine at all. When these things occur, I just relax, and enjoy the speed, convenience, and power that is GNU/Linux.
Not only that, but I haven't paid for software in years. There is always a free, open-source program for just about everything I need to accomplish.
So while you Windows users are checking your systems, downloading fixes, and wondering what tomorrow will bring, I will rest easy with the knowledge that my personal system is fine today, and fine tomorrow.
I will admit that I do have a Windows XP machine in the basement that rarely gets used, and the Lovely Spouse runs Windows XP on her laptop, but she is updating AVG Anti-Virus as I write this. My work PC is the responsibility of the corporate IT department, so I couldn't do anything to it if I wanted too...they have administrator rights locked down tight. (Well, I could crack in, but won't do it. Not worth it.).
Conficker, I laugh in your face!!
However, I have the ultimate Windows Virus protection. I don't run Windows on my personal laptop machine at all. When these things occur, I just relax, and enjoy the speed, convenience, and power that is GNU/Linux.
Not only that, but I haven't paid for software in years. There is always a free, open-source program for just about everything I need to accomplish.
So while you Windows users are checking your systems, downloading fixes, and wondering what tomorrow will bring, I will rest easy with the knowledge that my personal system is fine today, and fine tomorrow.
I will admit that I do have a Windows XP machine in the basement that rarely gets used, and the Lovely Spouse runs Windows XP on her laptop, but she is updating AVG Anti-Virus as I write this. My work PC is the responsibility of the corporate IT department, so I couldn't do anything to it if I wanted too...they have administrator rights locked down tight. (Well, I could crack in, but won't do it. Not worth it.).
Conficker, I laugh in your face!!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Boo Frickin' Hoo!
Mass murder co-conspirator Terry Nichols is deservedly incarcerated in prison here in Colorado for his role in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. This piece of human trash has filed a lawsuit over the food at the federal prison that houses him.The Denver Post report on this says that the lawsuit says that this scumbag "is compelled to consume daily those unhealthy dead and refined foods that are abhorrent to plaintiff's sincerely held religious beliefs causing him physical, mental and spiritual torment, and to sin against God."
WTF?? Sin against God? I guess his God is pleased with blowing up toddlers and adults in a massive truck bomb, but is very worried about Nichols getting his fiber. I'd say that Nichols is lucky to be eating anything. His victims will never enjoy a meal again.
Terry Nichols, you worthless piece of human excrement. You are fortunate that you didn't meet the fate of your buddy Tim McVeigh. So get back in your cell, bend over for your cell buddies, and thank your God you get any food to eat.
Friday, March 27, 2009
ShamWow Dude in Hot Water
Vince Shlomi, the creepy ShamWow dude is in a heap of trouble. He was arrested in South Beach, Florida for an alleged felony assault of a prostitute in his hotel room. Looks like he won't need a ShamWow to soak up his earnings. Lawyers and fines will probably do a good job of that. This reminds me of the episode when celeb bad boy Danny Bonaduce beat up a tranvestite hooker back in 1991.ShamWow always seems like just a sham to me. Why would anyone buy from such a smarmy, creepy looking dude anyway? If you want a good drying cloth, spring for a real chamois. Besides, why is a ShamWow any better than that other pretender that preceded it...the SuperShammy?
Chinooks Overhead
Sitting here in the house, I just heard a pair of very, VERY loud helicopters going by. As I ran to the door to seen them, they were very low and clearly identifiable as US Military Chinook helicopters. I got this shot of the second one, and interestingly enough, there is something visible that I have never seen before. Just above the aircraft in this shot are vapor trails coming from the rotors as they spin and compress the air. The lower white arc extends from the rotor blade, while there is another just behind it (above it in the photo) from the pass of the previous blade's pass. How cool is that?To see this phenomenon more clearly, click on the photo for a larger version.
Treecicles
On Spring 2009 Blizzard day plus one, we also have beautiful icicles forming on the branches of trees as our big, life-giving sun sends its warming rays 93-million miles across space to create a beautiful scene for us right here in Colorado, USA, planet Earth!
Play Misty for Me
One thing that I didn't see too very often when I lived other places where it snowed, was the sudden evaporation of the snow into the air. Usually, it would turn into a dirty slush, followed by melting into dirty water.While we do get some of that, our thin air at 6000 feet above sea level, coupled with the general dryness of the atmosphere here in Colorado, and we usually see something entirely different. Today, as good old Mister Sun has started warming us up after yesterday's blizzard conditions, the snow has started evaporating back into the air from whence it fell. In these photos I took while going to grab some lunch, you can clearly see the new clouds forming as the snow evaporates from the road surfaces which have been plowed and are now warming up. These "baby clouds" will rise into the air again, and bring some other place their rain or snow, as the cycle continues. It is fun to watch it in action.
Anybody Need Some Snow?
Some sun and blue sky is starting to displace the storm clouds that have moved into our neighboring states of Kansas and Oklahoma. And even though we had winds during the blizzard of up to 50 MPH, the snow still got to pile up pretty high.The snow on the driveway was as deep, and deeper in the drifts, as this on the picnic table. And it isn't our light, dry, fluffy Colorado winter snow either. This is our wet, heavy springtime snow that breaks your back to shovel. Yeah, I'm complaining. So what! One thing is pretty cool...look how the snow on the chair arm in the foreground meets that on the table.
At least we have a break until the next snows move in next Monday and Wednesday.
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