Today I had a brief reminiscing with some fellow engineers about having to deal with the local news crews at former jobs and told a few tales of the regular stampede of useless, re-hashed content, multiple yet pointless liveshots and how they were more funny than informative.
I believe that local news bloopers are one of [...]
All across the nation there are TV stations headed toward the analog shutdown mandated by congress on February 17th, 2009. At which point, only the station’s high power digital transmitter will be authorized to stay on the air along with the Class ‘A’ and low-power TV stations and their low-power translators (for the moment).
So, [...]
I’m a dedicated Capitalist. I work for money. Money pays my mortgages and rent, keeps my fridge full, and house warm in the winter. Obviously, money is important and I want to earn as much of it as I can before I decide I’ve had enough of this “work” thing.
That said, there [...]
They don’t watch TV. Mostly. Get it?
OK, I’ll repeat myself. Broadcaster’s (and many cable networks) are not relevant to young people most of the time. This is not news any longer, however it bears repeating, because thick-headed, narrow field-of-view TV execs, GMs and news directors keep fooling themselves into believing they [...]
For a little something out of the ordinary, today we went down to San Jose and visited the Body Worlds exhibit on display at The Tech Museum.
For those that haven’t gone to see it or know what it’s about; essentially it is a traveling display, which is the brainchild of Gunther von Hagens, consisting of [...]
I have been a big fan of Sushi for years and when my wife and I were living in South San Jose we were very close to a very good (in our opinion) sushi restaurant where we consumed mass quantities of fish on rice.
When I was first introduced to sushi years ago I really liked [...]
For those of you that recognize the ‘Heathkit’ reference you get a cookie. Well done.
Unlike the Heathkits of yore I”m using some nice, mostly modern test gear here and servicing a fairly modern transmitter (circa 1998). This is one of those occasions where broadcast engineers get to leave the desk, the whiny news department [...]
I remember the day I lost any faith in local or national news. It wasn’t when the Colombia Space Shuttle exploded and CNN put this erroneous ‘factoid’ on the air:
A few years ago I was sitting in a department head meeting when the news director piped up about a story of significant public safety [...]
It’s a new year and as of the first of the year every Sally-Shopper and Johnny-Bag-O-Donuts is eligible for their two free coupons good for $40 towards the purchase of a set-top DTV converter box. Too bad it’s $30 short of the retail price of the box when it becomes available in mid February…
Although [...]