First people-torturer John Yoo, now dog-torturer Mike Vick. Where will it end? Where is the outrage? What’s next, plant torturers? The Philadelphia Enquirer has no shame!
Month: May 2009
Time Shifting
I don’t remember hearing the phrase “time shifting” before VCRs and DVRs. I now appreciate the value in being able to capture something while I’m doing something else and then view the capture later when I think I’ll have more time. With digital photography I can easily and sloppily capture my world and shift the difficult task of composition and editing to a later time. (Like, after I’m dead maybe.) I thought I learned in economics that land was the one universally limited resource, but I think that finite time is far more significant. Any tool that helps me shift time is valuable.
Painful Kindlization
Well, with the help of my esteemed collaborator and amanuensis the bon vivant man-about-town Gary Gray, I’ve put up a kindle book version of The Pains over on the website of the borg Amazon.com. IMHO the kindle version is not as cool as the paper version–among other lossage, the illustrations are all gray scale, not luminous color (or colour, as Sir Cheeseburge Brown, the illustrator, would have it) but on the other hand, at $4 a pop it’s not a bad deal.
If you have a kindle and are feeling flush, why not buy a copy? You’ll help a struggling (and I do mean struggling) genius, and also get a fun book, for less than the price of whatever you can get for $4.01.
Check it out here.
FCC Begins Inquiry Into Arbitron Portable People Meter
Sometime back back, I noted the flap over the Arbitron Portable People Meter and the Petition by the Minority Media Telecommunications Council (MMTC) for the FCC to take action. The FCC put the Petition out on public notice last September, and has now issued a Notice of Inquiry on the matter.
As always, the questions are (a) why do we care about this? and (b) Even if we care, does the Commission have authority to do anything? In answering this last time, I observed: (a) we care because the entire economics of the radio industry are driven by ratings, and the FCC’s own rules rely on Arbitron ratings for a number of purposes, and (b) the FCC can always investigate anything related to its areas of jurisdiction. At worst, it provides a good forum for debate and an opportunity to tell Congress “Yo! this is important, somebody needs to do something about this for these reasons.” these are pretty much the conclusions the FCC comes to in its Notice. After observing in footnote 1 that it has broad powers to investigate, the Commission frames the questions as:
This NOI investigates the impact of PPM methodology on the broadcast industry as well as whether the audience ratings data is sufficiently accurate and reliable to merit the Commission’s own reliance on it in its rules, policies and procedures.
I am hopeful that we see a good, robust debate here although I don’t expect anything in the way of Earth-shattering revelations. There is an interesting problem of what information Arbitron will reveal about its processes, and whether the Commission will provide some assurances that it will keep proprietary information out of the public record. If it does, it makes it much harder for those who say the process is unfair to respond. But if it doesn’t, it’s analysis is going to be incomplete.
Mind you, it’s not at all clear what authority the FCC has over Arbitron directly. But the FCC can take certain actions if it doesn’t like what it sees, giving Arbitron incentive to play and try to resolve concerns. The FCC can declare Arbitron unreliable and no longer rely on it for regulatory determinations. That’s not exactly the kind of publicity you want if you make your living based on the accuracy of your ratings system. Alternatively, if the FCC doesn’t see anything wrong, it can always conclude that Arbitron remains acceptable for the FCC’s purposes. That will be of enormous assistance to Arbitron in removing any cloud over its rating system.
Bottom line, the NOI is a smart move by the Copps FCC on multiple levels. It doesn’t assert any authority, it doesn’t prejudge, and it services an important Democratic constituency. Hopefully, Arbitron and its critics will use the FCC as a neutral forum to develop an mutually acceptable solution.
Stay tuned . . . .
True and False
The world as we know it is a fictionalized version.
Today’s papers carry the obituary of Hubert Van Es. Apparently, after shooting the famous photo of the last helicopter out of Saigon, this van-dyke wearing Dutch photojournalist was a fixture in the Hong Kong press-club bar for the next 30 years, complete with Hawaiian shirt and floppy press-corp hat, cursing away in accented English. It seems the most clichéd of what we consider fiction really does capture something true. But what of the things we consider fact? The photo of the throngs lined up to board the helicopter is remembered as being on the roof of the US embassy. According to the Washington Post obituary, an editor mis-captioned what was actually an apartment building. But dig some more and it is said that the building was the home of the CIA station chief and his officers, and that the people turned away were employed by the US. So reality is close to the truth. Maybe close enough, maybe correct in a way but not precisely accurate.
Wherein I Succumb to My True Nature and Review The Latest Trek Film
Regular readers will not be surprised that I consider the release of the new Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams as infinitely more important than the usual subject matter of this blog. Unable to resist my true Trek nature, I will indulge myself in venting an unfavorable, spoiler-laden review below. For those who get the reference (and therefore have the level of “nerd cred” necessary to enjoy this), I can’t help but thinking of this as “Crisis of Infinite Enterprises.”
I promise to get back to hardcore policy next time.
Spoilers below . . .
What We Learn From the VZ-Frontier Deal
Verizon is selling 5 million access lines to Frontier. I expect the deal will go through — after all, a dominant carrier is getting smaller, there is no place where VZ and Frontier compete, etc., etc. What makes the deal interesting is what it tells us about the problem of relying on ILEC/Cable competition to drive broadband. Briefly, (a) we will be perpetually without fiber in a lot of places if we are going to wait for cable and ILECs to meet our needs; and (b) the real problem for is not just the high cost of deployment, but the need to show high rates of return to keep Wall St. happy. It is this latter that will keep telecom policy a very unhappy and complicated place unless we get out of our usual silos and start thinking about some holistic solutions.
More below . . . .
CellAntenna Still Plugging Away on Cell Phone Jamming — And Why They Must Not Succeed.
I’ve been following the adventures of CellAntenna, the company that wants to sell cellphone jamming devices in the U.S., for awhile now. As lots of folks would love to jam cell phones — from hotels that hate losing the revenue from charging for use of their phones to theater venues that want customers to enjoy the show to schools trying to tamp down on texting in class — you would think there would be lots of these jammers on the market. The problem, of course, is that Section 333 of the Communications Act (47 U.S.C. 333) makes cell phone jamming illegal. Just in case anyone missed this rather straightforward statutory prohibition, the FCC officially clarified that Section 333 means “no cell phone jammers” in 2005.
Enter CellAnntenna, determined to sell cell phone jammers legally. If you are going to develop a legal on something illegal, you either need something real clever (like magic cellphone blocking nanopaint), or a strategy for changing the law coupled with the sort of stubbornness that does not mind slamming into a brick wall 99 times because you might dent it on the hundreth time. CellAntenna has apparently followed this later strategy — and may be making some headway.
CellAntenna initially tried to get courts to declare Section 333 unconstitutional. So far as I can tell, that’s going nowhere. Next, and far more successfully, CellAntenna has recruited prisons to push the idea that only cellphone jammers can resolve the problem that prison security sucks rocks. This has prompted a bill to create a “prison waiver” exception to Section 333 (House version here) and a raft of credulous stories like this one that prefer to ask “isn’t it awful that we can’t jam cell phones” rather than ask “what the $#@! do you mean we can’t secure our ‘maximum security’ prisons?”
I explore the issues, and why I think creating an exception to Sec. 333 would be a big mistake, below . . . .
One *trillion* dollars for Dr. Evil Hank-Tim Paulson-Geithner
It’s Goldman Sachs’ country. Give them your money, swear your allegiance, and just be happy if they don’t taze you, bro.
You’ll know that the other shoe has dropped and we’re in Pynchon/Illuminatus territory for good when they name Dick Cheney to their board of directors.
Leg Locked
At the age of 55 I decided to become a volunteer firefighter. I’m 56 now. So I’m taking training along with guys from all over the island who are young enough to be my sons–or grandsons, I suppose. A few weeks ago on a crisp Sunday morning I had to pass my practicum in ladders. How to: carry, set up and take down ladders of various sizes in one man, two man, three man teams; place & climb a roof ladder; carry a 105 lb. dummy down a ladder. And, demonstrate a leg lock:
Per the internets, the Vancouver fire department defines a leg lock thusly:
A leg lock is a way of hooking a leg onto the ladder so that a firefighter can work safely from the ladder with his/her hands free while eliminating the danger of falling.
If a leg lock is not used, a firefighter must have at least one hand free to hold on to the ladder beam. No exceptions.
To perform, say, a right leg lock, you:
- step your left leg up one rung higher than you want to be
- put your right foot through the opening
- bend your right leg back and through the opening below and
- hook your right foot around the right rail
- step down one rung with your left leg
and Bob’s your uncle.
From another fire department on the internets, we get this explanation of the ladder climb evaluation:
Ladder Climb
Purpose: to assess the applicant for fear of heights.
A 40 firefighting PFRS ladder will be erected in a safe and secure location. A department member will demonstrate a climb to a point half way up the ladder, do a leg lock and return to ground level.
Each applicant will be warned to stop if they experience difficulty when doing the exercise. Each applicant will then don a department turnout coat and SCBA (no face piece), climb the ladder to the same point as in the demonstration, do a leg lock and return to ground level.
The applicant will be rated “pass/fail”. PFRS evaluators will note any hesitation or difficulty of the applicant in performing the task.
Our test was a little different. We had to climb with an axe, do a leg lock, and pantomime using the axe to smash a window.
During my evaluation, I got into a scary situation.
-
Time Shifting
I don’t remember hearing the phrase “time shifting” before VCRs and DVRs. I now appreciate the value in being able to capture something while I’m doing something else and then view the capture later when I think I’ll have more time. With digital photography I can easily and sloppily capture my world and shift the difficult task of composition and editing to a later time. (Like, after I’m dead maybe.) I thought I learned in economics that land was the one universally limited resource, but I think that finite time is far more significant. Any tool that helps me shift time is valuable.
Painful Kindlization
Well, with the help of my esteemed collaborator and amanuensis the bon vivant man-about-town Gary Gray, I’ve put up a kindle book version of The Pains over on the website of the borg Amazon.com. IMHO the kindle version is not as cool as the paper version–among other lossage, the illustrations are all gray scale, not luminous color (or colour, as Sir Cheeseburge Brown, the illustrator, would have it) but on the other hand, at $4 a pop it’s not a bad deal.
If you have a kindle and are feeling flush, why not buy a copy? You’ll help a struggling (and I do mean struggling) genius, and also get a fun book, for less than the price of whatever you can get for $4.01.
Check it out here.
FCC Begins Inquiry Into Arbitron Portable People Meter
Sometime back back, I noted the flap over the Arbitron Portable People Meter and the Petition by the Minority Media Telecommunications Council (MMTC) for the FCC to take action. The FCC put the Petition out on public notice last September, and has now issued a Notice of Inquiry on the matter.
As always, the questions are (a) why do we care about this? and (b) Even if we care, does the Commission have authority to do anything? In answering this last time, I observed: (a) we care because the entire economics of the radio industry are driven by ratings, and the FCC’s own rules rely on Arbitron ratings for a number of purposes, and (b) the FCC can always investigate anything related to its areas of jurisdiction. At worst, it provides a good forum for debate and an opportunity to tell Congress “Yo! this is important, somebody needs to do something about this for these reasons.” these are pretty much the conclusions the FCC comes to in its Notice. After observing in footnote 1 that it has broad powers to investigate, the Commission frames the questions as:
This NOI investigates the impact of PPM methodology on the broadcast industry as well as whether the audience ratings data is sufficiently accurate and reliable to merit the Commission’s own reliance on it in its rules, policies and procedures.
I am hopeful that we see a good, robust debate here although I don’t expect anything in the way of Earth-shattering revelations. There is an interesting problem of what information Arbitron will reveal about its processes, and whether the Commission will provide some assurances that it will keep proprietary information out of the public record. If it does, it makes it much harder for those who say the process is unfair to respond. But if it doesn’t, it’s analysis is going to be incomplete.
Mind you, it’s not at all clear what authority the FCC has over Arbitron directly. But the FCC can take certain actions if it doesn’t like what it sees, giving Arbitron incentive to play and try to resolve concerns. The FCC can declare Arbitron unreliable and no longer rely on it for regulatory determinations. That’s not exactly the kind of publicity you want if you make your living based on the accuracy of your ratings system. Alternatively, if the FCC doesn’t see anything wrong, it can always conclude that Arbitron remains acceptable for the FCC’s purposes. That will be of enormous assistance to Arbitron in removing any cloud over its rating system.
Bottom line, the NOI is a smart move by the Copps FCC on multiple levels. It doesn’t assert any authority, it doesn’t prejudge, and it services an important Democratic constituency. Hopefully, Arbitron and its critics will use the FCC as a neutral forum to develop an mutually acceptable solution.
Stay tuned . . . .
True and False
The world as we know it is a fictionalized version.
Today’s papers carry the obituary of Hubert Van Es. Apparently, after shooting the famous photo of the last helicopter out of Saigon, this van-dyke wearing Dutch photojournalist was a fixture in the Hong Kong press-club bar for the next 30 years, complete with Hawaiian shirt and floppy press-corp hat, cursing away in accented English. It seems the most clichéd of what we consider fiction really does capture something true. But what of the things we consider fact? The photo of the throngs lined up to board the helicopter is remembered as being on the roof of the US embassy. According to the Washington Post obituary, an editor mis-captioned what was actually an apartment building. But dig some more and it is said that the building was the home of the CIA station chief and his officers, and that the people turned away were employed by the US. So reality is close to the truth. Maybe close enough, maybe correct in a way but not precisely accurate.
Wherein I Succumb to My True Nature and Review The Latest Trek Film
Regular readers will not be surprised that I consider the release of the new Star Trek directed by JJ Abrams as infinitely more important than the usual subject matter of this blog. Unable to resist my true Trek nature, I will indulge myself in venting an unfavorable, spoiler-laden review below. For those who get the reference (and therefore have the level of “nerd cred” necessary to enjoy this), I can’t help but thinking of this as “Crisis of Infinite Enterprises.”
I promise to get back to hardcore policy next time.
Spoilers below . . .
What We Learn From the VZ-Frontier Deal
Verizon is selling 5 million access lines to Frontier. I expect the deal will go through — after all, a dominant carrier is getting smaller, there is no place where VZ and Frontier compete, etc., etc. What makes the deal interesting is what it tells us about the problem of relying on ILEC/Cable competition to drive broadband. Briefly, (a) we will be perpetually without fiber in a lot of places if we are going to wait for cable and ILECs to meet our needs; and (b) the real problem for is not just the high cost of deployment, but the need to show high rates of return to keep Wall St. happy. It is this latter that will keep telecom policy a very unhappy and complicated place unless we get out of our usual silos and start thinking about some holistic solutions.
More below . . . .
CellAntenna Still Plugging Away on Cell Phone Jamming — And Why They Must Not Succeed.
I’ve been following the adventures of CellAntenna, the company that wants to sell cellphone jamming devices in the U.S., for awhile now. As lots of folks would love to jam cell phones — from hotels that hate losing the revenue from charging for use of their phones to theater venues that want customers to enjoy the show to schools trying to tamp down on texting in class — you would think there would be lots of these jammers on the market. The problem, of course, is that Section 333 of the Communications Act (47 U.S.C. 333) makes cell phone jamming illegal. Just in case anyone missed this rather straightforward statutory prohibition, the FCC officially clarified that Section 333 means “no cell phone jammers” in 2005.
Enter CellAnntenna, determined to sell cell phone jammers legally. If you are going to develop a legal on something illegal, you either need something real clever (like magic cellphone blocking nanopaint), or a strategy for changing the law coupled with the sort of stubbornness that does not mind slamming into a brick wall 99 times because you might dent it on the hundreth time. CellAntenna has apparently followed this later strategy — and may be making some headway.
CellAntenna initially tried to get courts to declare Section 333 unconstitutional. So far as I can tell, that’s going nowhere. Next, and far more successfully, CellAntenna has recruited prisons to push the idea that only cellphone jammers can resolve the problem that prison security sucks rocks. This has prompted a bill to create a “prison waiver” exception to Section 333 (House version here) and a raft of credulous stories like this one that prefer to ask “isn’t it awful that we can’t jam cell phones” rather than ask “what the $#@! do you mean we can’t secure our ‘maximum security’ prisons?”
I explore the issues, and why I think creating an exception to Sec. 333 would be a big mistake, below . . . .
One *trillion* dollars for Dr. Evil Hank-Tim Paulson-Geithner
It’s Goldman Sachs’ country. Give them your money, swear your allegiance, and just be happy if they don’t taze you, bro.
You’ll know that the other shoe has dropped and we’re in Pynchon/Illuminatus territory for good when they name Dick Cheney to their board of directors.
Leg Locked
At the age of 55 I decided to become a volunteer firefighter. I’m 56 now. So I’m taking training along with guys from all over the island who are young enough to be my sons–or grandsons, I suppose. A few weeks ago on a crisp Sunday morning I had to pass my practicum in ladders. How to: carry, set up and take down ladders of various sizes in one man, two man, three man teams; place & climb a roof ladder; carry a 105 lb. dummy down a ladder. And, demonstrate a leg lock:
Per the internets, the Vancouver fire department defines a leg lock thusly:
A leg lock is a way of hooking a leg onto the ladder so that a firefighter can work safely from the ladder with his/her hands free while eliminating the danger of falling.
If a leg lock is not used, a firefighter must have at least one hand free to hold on to the ladder beam. No exceptions.
To perform, say, a right leg lock, you:
- step your left leg up one rung higher than you want to be
- put your right foot through the opening
- bend your right leg back and through the opening below and
- hook your right foot around the right rail
- step down one rung with your left leg
and Bob’s your uncle.
From another fire department on the internets, we get this explanation of the ladder climb evaluation:
Ladder Climb
Purpose: to assess the applicant for fear of heights.
A 40 firefighting PFRS ladder will be erected in a safe and secure location. A department member will demonstrate a climb to a point half way up the ladder, do a leg lock and return to ground level.
Each applicant will be warned to stop if they experience difficulty when doing the exercise. Each applicant will then don a department turnout coat and SCBA (no face piece), climb the ladder to the same point as in the demonstration, do a leg lock and return to ground level.
The applicant will be rated “pass/fail”. PFRS evaluators will note any hesitation or difficulty of the applicant in performing the task.
Our test was a little different. We had to climb with an axe, do a leg lock, and pantomime using the axe to smash a window.
During my evaluation, I got into a scary situation.