Messages

1636

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Dish Network to drop TWC from 214, carragie dispute

« on: May 28, 2010, 11:03:35 PM »

Honestly, weatherscan seems boring to me. I'm all for a separate channel for only weather, but having OCMs walk the viewer through along with local forecasts every few minutes is just fine.

Some might argue the latter is boring too. Well you can't always have your cake and eat it too. WeatherScan is the cheapest and easiest solution to everyones problems in this scenario

I completely agree.

1637

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Dish Network to drop TWC from 214, carragie dispute

« on: May 28, 2010, 11:03:06 PM »

Haha true. Its already crowded up there

When was it... just last year?... when an American and a Russian satellite actually did collide?  And we keep adding even more space junk up there!

Perhaps this is the legacy of shortsightedness.  Way, way, way back in the day, no one imagined that satellite overcrowding could be possible, so no means whatsoever was designed to do something about expired satellites other than to just keep them orbiting until they either fell back to Earth in an uncontrolled reentry or (if they were positioned properly) moved out of Earth's orbit altogether (a rare event).

Sputnik fell back to Earth, but one of America's earliest artificial satellites is still circling the Earth after 40-some years, taking up valuable real estate.

In my opinion, it is downright irresponsible for satellites to be launched these days without a means of propulsion to send them farther away from Earth or send them in a controlled burn into the atmosphere when their missions are over.  To just let them keep orbiting and orbiting ad nauseum as lifeless metal hunks is just going to be an invitation to disaster, especially since we keep launching more and more, not to mention the collision danger they pose to manned spacecraft.

1638

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Bright House to drop TWC?

« on: May 28, 2010, 10:58:34 PM »

You know, this is getting very old very quickly.  Cable network A wants more money from cable company B.  Occasionally, even broadcast network C will do the same thing.  The two of them squabble and haggle, pull the plug occasionally, and more often than not the channels are eventually restored, but sometimes they're not.

Unfortunately, I think this is only the beginning of a new trend, not just another "isolated incident."  There have been too many "isolated incidents" recently.

Audience behaviors are changing, the entire mass media environment is changing, but the industry itself is finding itself either wholly unwilling or wholly unable to keep up, and this is the kind of result we should learn to expect, sadly. 

1639

General Discussion / Re: Congrats to the 2010 Seniors!

« on: May 28, 2010, 10:55:54 PM »

Congratulations to the graduates!  Good job!   

My 10-year high school reunion is this year.  Time really does fly.  I still remember the graduation ceremony like it was yesterday.  Heck, I still remember my first day of kindergarten in 1987 like it was yesterday. 

1640

Everything Else TWC / Re: General TWC Discussion

« on: May 26, 2010, 11:49:49 PM »

I can't believe Kim just said a "chance of tornadoes in the philadelphia area".

I experienced several tornado-producing thunderstorms in the Philadelphia area growing up.

1641

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Dish Network to drop TWC from 214, carragie dispute

« on: May 26, 2010, 11:49:10 PM »

They could try to launch a satellite for each city like what they did with the local brodcast stations.

Thats not how it works

Just imagine if that's how it actually was... satellites would be so crowded they'd be crashing into each other about every tenth of a second.

1642

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Dish Network to drop TWC from 214, carragie dispute

« on: May 26, 2010, 07:25:12 PM »

They could try to launch a satellite for each city like what they did with the local brodcast stations.

Yeah, that won't eat into the profits at all. 

1643

Weatherscan Discussion / Re: Music on WS

« on: May 25, 2010, 10:14:33 PM »

Why are all plans on hold?  Are they thinking of discontinuing it?

In my opinion, it would be a great disservice if Weatherscan were to be cancelled, but, on the other hand, NBC realizes that you can't show movies on Weatherscan. 

1644

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Comcast Sucks.

« on: May 20, 2010, 09:08:14 PM »

Did I use enough smileys in that message? 

That's a few too many to be honest, so please don't go too wild with them.  Only one or two is plenty as stated from Martin's post in the Site News.

How is it possible to teach an old dog new tricks?

1645

General Discussion / Re: I finally got a job!

« on: May 20, 2010, 09:06:03 PM »

After a year of trying and six interviews, I finally was accepted to be a meteorologist at the Blacksburg, VA NWS office!   I'll be starting around the first week of July, which means I'll be moving over the next several weeks and may not be around here as much during that time.  Thank you for all your moral support as it's been a long journey for me.

Congratulations! 

1646

Hurricane Central / Re: Tropical or subtropical trouble in the Atlantic

« on: May 20, 2010, 09:05:36 PM »

To me, it looks possible, though not probable.  Yes, it is in the Gulf Stream, but it's still a rather out of the ordinary place for a storm to form in May.  Stranger things have happened, but my guess would be, at the absolute maximum, a weak tropical depression.  And that's the absolute maximum.

1647

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Comcast Sucks.

« on: May 20, 2010, 01:32:12 AM »

Well, does anybody utilize the Moto DTA 100? Comcast sent me a few for the digital transition. Nice little things to me... if only my DCT2000 had a nice finish like that thing 

Yes, my parents have a small box very similar to the DTA 100.  Without it, a TV plugged directly into the wall cable jack would get nothing but the broadcast and local access channels.  The living room and a couple of the bedrooms have the DCT2000, but all the other rooms have to "make do" with the DTA 100.  It actually saves a little money, since we're allowed to have up to 3 small boxes for free, whereas we have to pay a monthly rental fee for each DCT2000.

<sigh> I miss the days when you could record one show and watch another.  Unfortunately, with the teeny-tiny cable box-free channel lineup, the only way that's possible now is to actually have two cable boxes in the room - one for the TV and one for the VCR.  Not at all worth it, but, still, it's a feature I miss.    Even worse, the DCT2000 doesn't have a program timer like the older cable boxes did.  With those, you could set the cable box to turn on to the proper channel at the necessary time to record something.  Now, you have to make sure you leave the cable box on the channel ahead of time, and you simply can't record a show on a different channel later unless you intervene yourself before the next show starts.  That's a big disappointment.

Then again, the only show I record when I'm at work, or otherwise away, is Judge Judy , which is on the same channel that the morning news is on, and I keep the cable box set to that for the TV to wake me up, so... I'm all set. 

Did I use enough smileys in that message? 

1648

Contributions / Re: Weatherstar Jr, anyone?

« on: May 20, 2010, 01:25:04 AM »

Yeah, but apparently his apartment complex also has a TWC feed with a Junior on it in addition to the DISH feed.

I don't believe that at all. A few reasons include...

• The Junior requires a raw TWC data/video feed, which is fed into a IRD or VideoCipher.
• I don't think Dish would allow them to demodulate their feed and re-modulate it. I think, personally, it would be considered tampering or a theft of service. (Don't hold me to this one...)
• They can't run a TWC feed to a ton of different receivers.

It's likely that his apartment complex has it's own headend, which uses some Dish channels and some localized channels. All of the Dish channels come in and they're modulated down into the cable system along with local channels and TWC (with the Jr). My school does a similar thing. We have DirecTV service on our "cable system" along with a few local school-run channels. Nobody needs a DirecTV receiver because all of the channels on the cable system.

My school had (probably still has) a similar system.  We had quite a bit of equipment in the A/V room... and I was in charge of running it all.    Actually, during my study hall periods, I'd go in there and turn on random satellite channels.  I've watched more Middle Eastern, Indian, and Chinese television than I can shake a stick at! 

1649

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Comcast Sucks.

« on: May 19, 2010, 09:46:43 PM »

Please accept my apologies for such a grossly inaccurate and misguided guess! 

1650

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: Comcast Sucks.

« on: May 19, 2010, 12:50:38 AM »

When I had US Cable back in Colorado (Woodland Park, near Colorado Springs), they gave us 2 ancient Pioneer set top boxes. they were the oddest things, but hey, they had a digital clock

This kind?