Geek Mode Enabled

My previous post about Analog TV, Digital TV and Its Wonders (yes, that's three categories) has prompted a number of responses, including some information a less-than-informational nature.

This is about par for the course. The newspapers have been, shall we say, not all that helpful, while TV station News departments have been largely ignoring the whole thing (ew, ick, Engineering) in the hope it would go away.

The Basics:
First off, yes, analog TV will (mostly) shut down in February 2009. (The little low-power stations have, per the most recent word, until 2012 to make the switch to digital).

Yes, that means grand-dad's fridge-sized RCA with the big, big 12" screen won't be able to pick up stations, no more than it ever was able to tune in UHF.... And there's the rub. As one commenter has already discovered, converter boxes are coming on the market. They hook up between your rabbit ears or outside antenna and the antenna input or audio-video inputs of your present TV and tune in all flavors of HDTV, converting it down to standard-resolution; while you won't get any better a picture than your TV is presently capable of giving you, you will get everything it can do, picture quality as good as you're getting from a DVD player. You're probably not getting a picture that good over the air or via analog cable right now.

So you will have to buy something to keep on gettin' free TV, and you can thank the Grand Alliance[1] of set makers, computer companies and film studios for that; but it is not a whole new overpriced Red Chinese, er, expensive, imported, um, somewhat to the high end of affordable but nifty HDTV set.

In fact, with a converter, you can even keep on recording things in 525-line standard-definition.[2] Just put the converter box ahead of your VCR or DVD recorder or video server.

Cable and satellite TV companies will also still be pumping out analog-compatible TV to to the paying customers -- also to that lowlife across the alley who hooked up his own, at least 'til they find him out.

Stations were assigned DTV power levels that gave them coverage equal to their analog coverage. In practice, since a digital TV signal is either great or gone -- and ATSC is way more so than the encoding used for satellite TV -- this means the "fringe areas" are now gonna get decent pictures.

Spectral Recovery:
Yes, the FCC will begin saving ghosts.... Or not. And the DTV/HDTV signals are exactly as wide, per channel, as the old analog ones. Oh, just barely; we have to jump up an' down on 'em to get them to fit and even at that, part of my job consists of goin' around every so often an' givin' the stuff that stuffs it all down a good, solid whack wherever it's bulging.

Howsomever, we can do a cute trick with DTV that we could not do with analog. While a cable company can use all or most the channels, 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16....99999 by dint of havin' it all in one wire where they can fuss with it[3] but channel assignment for over-the-air analog TV is one of the very darkest of Dark Arts; this is why you will often find similar groupings of channel assignments in different cities. All those "extra" channels are needed so the stations can be assigned channels in such a way as to not interfere with one another (at least on paper). This is not true of DTV; those channels can be stacked up side by side by side, without interference.

Can be and are. Some bright lad at the Grand Alliance put a bug in the ear of some bright lad at the FCC, and they worked out there were a whole lot of channels on the UHF end nobody was going to need. So no new channels were assigned up there and the stations that already were there got told not to leave anything behind when they packed up for their new DTV channels. The vacated space was auctioned off for public-safety and other two-way radio uses, including some data comms. The original plan was to clean out not only the top end of UHF but the very bottom of VHF[5] as well. This foundered on two things: low-band VHF stations (2-6) have been groovin' for years on havin' signals that could be picked up from Big City to Bugtussle (and, when the wind is right, in Far Forn Parts) , which they did not care to give up; while, conversely, no two-way user was seriously interested in such low frequencies.

So the Feds ended up "owning" (?!!!) some shiny-new spectrum, which they promptly put to work hailin' traffic on the nearest street corner. 'Course, it won't have any place to go until 2009 and the cars are backin' up, so you can see that the odds of that Feb '09 date gettin' pushed back or set aside are, well, as slim as a crack whore.

In Summation:

I. DTV picture quality and sound are really good. Even with a converter box ahead of your old TV, you'll see some improvement. (If you have really, really bad ghosting, there is a slight chance you won't see nothin' -- see, it's either there and good, or it's gone. That's digital for ya).

II. Save your Steam-Powered TVs. They can still be made to work. If you have cable or satellite, you're home free.

III. Wave bye-bye to the upper UHF channels. There was never anything good there anyway. Besides, it'll still be on the air, just at a lower number. Though your TV may lie to you about it.

IV. This was not the TV stations' idea. It wasn't even thunk up by the networks. On the other hand, the TV set market was pretty much saturated and the TeeVees were lastin' a long, long time. Something that would make people go buy new tellyvisions, h'mmm, cui bono? Yeah. Them. The spectrum sell-off was just the bait the Feds lunged for. (Look for some "buyer's remorse" posturing in Congress as the deadline approaches. Also lines like, "technological disenfranchisement," which translates into, "free TVs or converters for the people in my district whose votes I am courting." Your tax dollars at work).
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1. I'm pretty sure they helped start WW I, too.
2. HDTV standards counterpart in resolution and screen shape to what we get from 525-line analog is called, confusingly, 480i; each number refers to the number of horizontal lines per image but the older term uses the total number of 'em including the ones that are working behind the scenes to keep everything in sync while the newer term just uses the number of lines actually displayed. The "i" tells us it's knitting the picture like fancy socks, alternately sending the interlaced odd-numbered and even-numbered lines to fool your eye all the better. Other common resolutions are 720p ("progressive," all the lines of the picture one after another in order in the manner of a computer monitor), 1080i, and -- not over the air -- 1080p. Nobody could figure out how to stuff all of 1080p in the teeny little box we have to cram the pix into to get them through the air. Or at least they couldn't a decade ago.
3. They also cheat -- starting with 14, none of them are on the same frequencies as the over-the-air channels of the same number. This can lead to big fun for radio hams and other users of two-way radio when the cable system leaks signals. Which they do.
4. Most every other station has the option, come 02-2009, to stay on their DTV channel or return to their old channel in their coat of many digital colors -- and the software is set up to lull your DTV set into believing they've been on the same channel all along.
5. This terminology may irk English- or 'Strine-speaking overseas readers, who are used to thinking of TV channels as not being so very much in one "band" or another and get their local high-fidelity, frequency-modulation stereo radio signals on VHF. US terminology differs. It's all part of the fun, really.

Our Viewing Public

In the early days of the Great HDTV Forced Obsolescence Transition, I read that it was gonna be "...The same vast wasteland but in 16 x 9..."

Tam agrees. Colorfully.

...Ummm, okay; she is right but I've got bills to pay, so please be good little lemmings an' buy yer new HDTV sets or converters before Uncle Sam makes us pull the plug on coal-fired TV. Pleeze? We promise the plotless dreck, aerial coverage of car wrecks and panic-stricken whinging about the weather will be all sparkly-like!

PS: Yes, this means the TV on rabbit ears in the guest bedroom will not work after February TV-Doomsdayteenth, 2009. Unless Congress blinks.

Dinner! Half-hour Beef Stew

Stressful few days, needin' comfort food, that would mean I cooked tonight. Tam helped, seein' as how she enjoys food, too.

Beef stew, almost from scratch, starting with fake (or at least nearly-foolproof) roux:

You'll need 3 or 4 strips of good bacon, a pound of stew beef, a medium onion, a potato, one package of fresh mushrooms (I used portabellas but go with what you find) and a half-cup or so of carrots, all cut into half-inch-ish chunks; a half-cup or so of celery (sliced 1/4" thick or less); about 1/3 cup of flour, two cans of Campbell's condensed Beef Consomme, some red wine if desired (I prefer a Chianti; Gabbiano is nice), a small paper bag of the "lunch sack" size and spices as listed below.

Please know that I don't bother measuring any of this when I'm cooking. When I give measurements, take them as more of a suggestion. Food's supposed to be tasty, not a lab formula, so follow your tastebuds and imagination!

Start the bacon frying in your stew pot (shame on you if you haven't got one -- go buy one today; stainless or enamelware will do) . While it's going, cut the stew beef if needed and mix the flour, a tiny bit of salt (there's plenty in the broth) or rather more Cajun seasoning and black pepper (fresh-ground is best) in the paper bag. Drop about half the stew meat in the paper bag, give it a few good shakes, take it out and do the remainder. The bacon should be about crisp, so set it aside to drain on paper towel and drop the floured meat into the hot bacon fat and brown well. It's okay if a little extra flour comes along, but don't add too much; the meat will haul along about enough. (There will be some flour left in the bag. Toss it; it's cheap). Brown the meat well on all sides and once that's done, add the onion, carrots and mushroom and saute a bit, then toss in the celery, saute a little more (you're looking for the onion to be getting transparent) and add a splash of red wine -- maybe a quarter or third of a cup or so -- and kind of scrape the good stuff up from the bottom of the pot. (Yes, "deglazing." Oooo).

The flour won't stick to the meat much in the final result. It's just a sneaky way to do a brown roux that's difficult to get wrong.

Now add a can of consomme, not too fast, stirring as you do. Add about half a soup can of water and then the potato. Add the other can of consomme and enough water to cover. If desired, break up the bacon set aside early on and add it, too. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down, cover partially, and leave to simmer for at least twenty minutes. (Sort of "reducing." More ooo). It's done when the potatoes are soft. The broth will not be as heavy as store-bought stew but it will taste a lot better.

Serve with bread, flatbread or biscuits and butter. Home-made yum! (Tam agrees).

You can add other things to this basic start. Root vegetables work nicely but canned tomatoes, corn and/or beans will take it in a more soup-like direction. A hint of cabbage helps almost any soup, btw. Refrigerate leftovers for the next day -- a night in the fridge often improves a quick stew.

Countrywide = Ugh

So, I went to make a house payment online. Guess what? If I sign up to do that, I'm stuck with it. As in, "for the whole rest of the term of the loan." Not actually my style; when big money is on the line, I prefer actual artifacts, like statements, receipts and cancelled checks.

Kinda left the notebook with the most recent statement up at the hospital today so guess what, Countrywide? No checkie tonight. If you'd'a been a bit better about it, you'd'a got paid already. But noooooo.

An' a pleasure doin' business w'yez. Geeeeesh.

My Mom's In Hospital

...Went in yesterday afternoon with what has, thus far, proven to be a minor heart attack. Caught well in time, the blockage was completely cleared by simple (? !) catheterization and she was resting comfortably (i.e., fast asleep with good blood pressure and oxygenation) when I left her room late last night.

Quite a scare. Mom had been feeling poorly but had been chalking it up to mere fret and worry and telling herself "just get yourself in gear and get busy!" Now, at least, she and her offspring know what symptoms to watch out for.

I'll be headed back to the hospital today. She'll be in for the next three days. It helps to have someone around.

Update: Spent much of today at the Heart Center. Mom's looking a lot better, able to eat a bit, they even took her for a short walk! Quite a few vistors, too.

My thanks to everyone for the kind wishes and prayers.

The docs did put in a stent, which totally cleared the blockage. This is not a procedure they put you under to do, so Mom's kind of hazing along and the cardiac specialist is talking to his team: "Okay, here we are, h'mmm, did I get into the right artery?"
Mom from under the sheet, "You'd sure better have!"
Highfalutin' M.D., "...[stunned silence]...."
That's my Mom!

Federal PSH

Turns out the Feds have an actual PSH Bureau. More-or-less and I 'spect rather more than less.

Hey! We're Tryin' To Sleep Over Here!

The local weather channel clone has a news ticker and the results of headline-ese are sometimes off-kilter; this morning, "CALIFORNIA TO HEAR GAY MARRIAGE ARGUMENT" scrolled by, leaving me to wonder if it wasn't the same ol' old-couple bickering only with both voices in the same range, or if the pro-and-con had become so loud nobody on the Left Coast was able to shut it out.

Feh. I'm still not seein' why it's any of the gummint's business -- besides, why should anyone be spared messy, expensive, soul-searing divorces? Good luck, you wild kids, and try not to saw the cat in half when you work out who gets what.

Sheesh.

Pop! Pop! Bang!

Tam and I drove out to Pop Guns today in the Z3 (vroooom!), her first chance to shoot since hittin' town and my first since Valentine's day. I hauled along my .22 and the "laundry guns," a CZ-75B compact and an EAA Witness compact in .38SA and she had 1911 and a nice Smith revolver.

My first chance to see Tam shootin' a revolver and the first time I've shot a wheelgun since my ex X-ed out a couple years back. Lady Tam, she groks revolvers just as one would expect: DA, rapid fire, neat tiny hexagonal groups. Me? At seven yards, I can almost reliably keep 'em all on the paper with a revolver. Yeah. Also my hands had forgotten how to hold one properly for reloading -- good thing Tam's a patient teacher!

OTOH, I surprised myself with the 75B, which I had packed up some years ago under the mental note, "Pretty but I can't shoot well with it." I was gettin' close groups and it felt natural; perhaps time with other sidearms has helped me with this lighter gun. And the .38SA was as usual, shot like a .22, right where I wanted it to go -- I love everything about this caliber except the price.

All in all, a fun couple of hours. The SRO crowd at the range was once again a reminder of the value of range membership: right to the head of the line!

Inside Roberta's Brain

The wizard emerged from the back of the cluttered study, preceded by fluttering bats and holding an owl on a perch like a lantern. His eyes narrowed as he saw me and I knew a Skrying was imminent.

"What of the Foe?" I asked.

"...Be wary, small warrior!* It is known as The Obama. Forever enshrouded in self-created fog, it entices men with meaningless platitudes of Hope and Change. Change, indeed! Brave and foolish men have entered the cloud, only to emerge with the heads of of voles and shrews or the minds of insects!"

"For dinner?"

"Nay, fool! They have become the change their leader wished."

"Eeep. What, then, of the other foes, the elderly knight and the witch?"

"Oh, them? Not much, really, as long as you shut up and do as you're told."

"But O Ancient One, I kind of suck at that."

"H'mm. Bit of a problem, then."

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* Or did he say "worrier?" So difficult to know.

WAFFLE _ _ _ _ _

Tam's likely blogging along these lines, too, but this'n's worth it:

We're nattering along and she points out how the "Culinary Capital Of The World" (NYC, per a VFTP poster an' for all I know he's right, if one's got the attitude, palate an' pocketbook) has not got even a single Waffle House, adding that Waffle House is, in point of fact, the pinnacle of short-order breakfasty eats.

Me, I am agreeable, so I nod but remark, "I dunno. Waffle and Steak is better."

Tam: "What?"

"Waffle and Steak," I say, "I think they're local or regional. Way better. Serious diner ambiance goin' on. Majorly good food. Fast. Friendly."

"That is semantically null. It's like saying, 'This chair over here is better than the Platonic Ideal of a chair!"

"No, really. It's better."

"Impossible," Tam retorts, and turns back to her monitor and keyboard. Tappety, tappety, tap, tap. click. ...click. "Oh! '...Known as Waffle and Steak only in Indiana, where another firm owns all rights to the name Waffle House.' Hmm!"

Me: "You mean we're actually talking about the same place?

Tam: "Yup."

...Statistically Improbable Predilection #476, or the simple fact the place is just plain good? I dunno.

"When I Go..."

[Warning for the humor-impaired: This is dark humor. It is not real. It has no hidden meaning. Try to play along with the grown-ups].

We all know the old joke that ends, "...peacefully in his sleep, not screaming and trying to get out like his passengers...," right?

So, relaxing after a day of banking, shopping[1] and eating the very best sort of deli food (Eat at Shapiro's. Bring money and an appetite. You'll be happy), us Snark Sisters were riffin' on the theme, things like, "Enjoying a fine cigar, not panicking and trying to flee the flames like the passengers on his dirigible," and "Lost in nitrogen narcosis, not fighting over the emergency oxygen mask like the other people in his bathyscape," when we[2] hit on it:

"When I go, I wanna be happy an' fulfilled like my crazy great-uncle, not scared, duct-taped and helpless like his hostages...."

Ew.
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1. Vroom! Further, deponent sayeth not.
2. And by "we" I mean "me," in the case of the example cited; but I do, from time to time, muster the grace to blush over the manner in which I prattle on. Besides, Tam snickered. --H'mm, that doesn't actualllly dilute it any, does it?

Guts

Breda has an especially good post up anent fighting back.

She links to several other posts by other bloggers that are also well worth reading. Personal encounters with, well, Evil.

I've seen that elephant my own self. Twice at least, back when I was unarmed and most unaware; I'd tell the tale but others have done so and better. The condensed version of the worst: I ran. Bad guy caught up. I threw a bag of groceries at him. He shot and missed, closed the few feet remaining, knocked me down and got my purse and the wad of cash I used to carry in lieu of credit cards. Meanwhile back at the car, my ex was being divested of wallet and watch by the other three goblins.

Next time? I don't want a next time. My adrenaline reactions are harsh; my decision-making process becomes very rapid and very short-term. My hope and goal is to face it on my feet, resisting.

Why would anyone do anything else?