OTA DTV hits ONE%

"Matthew Vaughan" wrote in message
...
"Nick Danger" wrote in message
...
I have a feeling this is another Y2K crisis in the making - lots of panic
over something that's going to be largely a non-event.

On this point, I've always found this point of view a bit silly. While Y2K
might never have been the mass disaster some suggested it would be, I do
think the primary reason it only caused minor problems was because so many
businesses spent so many millions of dollars in advance to make sure that
didn't happen. This was a lose-lose situation for businesses: be laughed
at afterward for wasintg boatloads of money "for what turned out to be
nothing", or be eviscerated for failing to prepare properly for a problem
they should have foreseen.

The biggest threat from Y2K (which actually did happen in numerous cases)
was that webpages, statements, forms, etc. would print the year as 19100. In
the format that computers use to represent dates, the year 2000 has no
special significance. The overreaction to Y2K had a much more profound
effect on the US economy (as well as other western countries). The surge in
demand for programmers to deal with this "looming crisis" led to a shortage
of qualified programmers and gave various third-world countries (especially
India) a chance to get a foothold. Now 2000 has passed and hundreds of
thousands of programmers have been laid off, but the software industry is
hooked on low wage programmers, so they are continuing the practice that
served them so well in 1999: whining about the shortage of programmers and
insisting that they need to export jobs and issue visas to bring in cheap
programmers from other countries. Now that the programming jobs have moved
overseas, other knowledge jobs are being targeted as well.

Anyway, getting back to Y2K - it never was a threat, but there is a date
that has potential to cause havoc: January 19, 2038. That's when the 32-bit
counter that stores the time wraps back to zero - which in most software is
January 1, 1970. But even that is not likely to cause planes to fall out of
the air or nuclear power plants to melt down. I wouldn't want to be an
accountant on that date though.

Nick Danger wrote:

"Matthew Vaughan" wrote in message
...
"Nick Danger" wrote in message
...
I have a feeling this is another Y2K crisis in the making - lots of
panic over something that's going to be largely a non-event.

On this point, I've always found this point of view a bit silly. While
Y2K might never have been the mass disaster some suggested it would
be, I do think the primary reason it only caused minor problems was
because so many businesses spent so many millions of dollars in
advance to make sure that didn't happen. This was a lose-lose
situation for businesses: be laughed at afterward for wasintg
boatloads of money "for what turned out to be nothing", or be
eviscerated for failing to prepare properly for a problem they should
have foreseen.

The biggest threat from Y2K (which actually did happen in numerous
cases) was that webpages, statements, forms, etc. would print the year
as 19100. In the format that computers use to represent dates, the year
2000 has no special significance. The overreaction to Y2K had a much
more profound effect on the US economy (as well as other western
countries). The surge in demand for programmers to deal with this
"looming crisis" led to a shortage of qualified programmers and gave
various third-world countries (especially India) a chance to get a
foothold. Now 2000 has passed and hundreds of thousands of programmers
have been laid off, but the software industry is hooked on low wage
programmers, so they are continuing the practice that served them so
well in 1999: whining about the shortage of programmers and insisting
that they need to export jobs and issue visas to bring in cheap
programmers from other countries. Now that the programming jobs have
moved overseas, other knowledge jobs are being targeted as well.

Anyway, getting back to Y2K - it never was a threat, but there is a date
that has potential to cause havoc: January 19, 2038. That's when the
32-bit counter that stores the time wraps back to zero - which in most
software is January 1, 1970. But even that is not likely to cause planes
to fall out of the air or nuclear power plants to melt down. I wouldn't
want to be an accountant on that date though.

Some of the point you raise are rooted in languages other than the main
business language, COBOL, and its data representations. 2000 would most
likely be represented by those programs as 1900. In fact, many school
districts sent out kindergarten notices to people over 100 years old in
the run up to 2000.

The only serious problems I heard about vis 2000 were in Japan. They
miscalculated the leap year in some cases (2000 was a leap year, 2100
will not be, so stay tuned), which caused a fair bit of turmoil.

As far as blaming Y2K for the collapse in programmers salaries, I
heartily disagree. Lots of hairdressers, mechanics and art history
majors became "programmers" during the .com bubble. The collapse was
caused by the .com bubble bursting. When that happened, silly wages were
wrung out of the system. One of my former colleagues had a college
student daughter who was pulling down $10,000 a month as a web designer
in mid 2001, long after Y2K.

Matthew

--
"All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of
people". Alexander Bullock ("My Man Godfrey" 1936):

"Larry Bud" wrote in message
...
Lots of good reasons for OTA. So why are broadcasters not telling the
public about them?

Because Bob, nobody ****ing needs to watch TV over the air. I don't
know one person that doesn't have cable or satellite, HD or not.

===========================
I know several people, in addition to me, that only watch OTA!
Why not?
It is free and it is all HD in prime time.

Paying for it is silly.

On Dec 18, 2:02 pm, "Richard C." wrote:
"Larry Bud" wrote in message

... Lots of good reasons for OTA. So why are broadcasters not telling the
public about them?

Because Bob, nobody ****ing needs to watch TV over the air. I don't
know one person that doesn't have cable or satellite, HD or not.

===========================
I know several people, in addition to me, that only watch OTA!
Why not?
It is free and it is all HD in prime time.

Paying for it is silly.

I'm another OTA only, and I know a number of OTA only viewers. So,
I'd say "nobody needs to watch TV from cable or satellite, HD or
not". On the other hand, I'd also disagree and say that paying
*isn't* silly, provided the payer receives something he wants which
isn't available OTA. Now I have a friend who gets *really* basic
cable for a low cost. We compared channel line-ups. In the Chicago
market, I actually get *more* choices plus HD, while he only gets
analog cable. Now *that* doesn't make sense. To pay less and get
more with OTA is the only reasonable choice. I expect him to convert
when he gets his first HD/ATSC TV.

Dan (Woj...)

The real losers are the cable people who can't tell that they're
watching Squishy-vision.

On Nov 15, 1:44 pm, Bob Miller wrote:
NadCixelsyd wrote:
Sounds like you agree with me that free OTA is dead.

Bob Miller

What about me, Bob. All my TV is OTA, digital, ATSC, 8VSB, and I
LOVE
IT because it's FREE. I don't even have a VHF antenna. Yes, I
would
appreciate having more channels, but I'm unwilling to pay $800
per
year. The 8 ATSC stations within 50 miles of my house are quite
adequate (19 if you include duplicate network affiliations,
shopping
channels and foreign language stations which I exclude.)

I've asked you many times, but you ignore the question. ATSC is
the
law, so what do you expect me to do about it? Do you expect me
to
give up my FREE television?

And why does my local NBC/ABC/FOX/CBS/CW/PBS affiliate broadcast
ATSC
if only 1% are watching it? What's their motivation? Surely, my
cable company would carry those stations even without the "must
carry"
rule.

BTW how many people do you know have and use OTA DTV who have cable
or
satellite also or are OTA only?

Bob Miller

That would be me. The wife wants TCM and the kids want Nickelodeon but
that is the only video reason for cable. The internet is on cable
which is the REAL reason it's there. All the HD at our house comes
through the HTPC and its 2 networked 'cousins' with ATSC tuners. Love
those 500 gig USB drives fro HDTV.

GG