Europe Leads the Way in Digital TV! ????

Stephanie Condon in an article at CNet http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10167007-38.html?tag=nl.e703 saw a press release where European Union  touted that it was leading the way in worldwide digital conversion - again this is a sample of how Europe plays fast and loose by redefining what it means to go digital.

 

Luxembourg switched! Yea, a nation that is 31 x 51 miles in length where a SINGLE TV station in the middle can reach everyone - but it only took them 8 years to convert - is really leading the way. There are  only 480,000 or so people in the whole nation - that number of people is just 1/3 of the number in the Portland Oregon area.

 

And on a continent where most people had only a single TV set, if that, in the US most people that at LEAST 2 and usually 3 sets - so more equipment is needed and more MONEY is needed to cover the same number of people.

 

As a comparison to cover the same amount of ground as covered by that SINGLE TV station in Luxembourg would would take 18,000 different switchovers in the USA. Europe - conveniently as always - forgets the scale of the problems that the USA faces in almost every facet of life - both modern and historical.

 

Most of the European nations are the same size as some of our counties - and most of our states are larger than the nations in Europe.

 

TV going digital is going is like the old radio stations going from AM to FM - you will lose 30% of the distance that you could transmit on the AM band going FM at the same power rating - I bet all the transmitters use more power and the range is likely still 10% less than analog. I saw this first hand in aircraft radios - 10 watts in the AM band could let you talk 50 miles while 10 watts in FM got you barely 15.

 

Maybe this is a subtle brilliant move to force everyone to cable or satellite?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Local School Policies Trump any State Law in Oregon

The local news today in Oregon was awash about a story that took place at Western Oregon University with student who was cited by Campus Police for carrying a concealed hand gun that HE HAD A VALID LICENSE for.

 

It seems that the schools believe that the Oregon legislature granted any school the right to rewrite any law about carrying of weapons that is in the Oregon Constitution and in statues passed by the Legislature - even though within the law they cite granting them rights to write rules it states that they cannot overwrite anything that is law - course they did leave out the constitutional reference of weapon carrying and the right to self defense.

 

Since around this same Oregon statute for colleges about firearms, explosives, meetings, etc there are all sorts of other statues granting schools specific rights to make laws, what other laws are the schools allowed to ignore and change to their liking by just writing a policy and posting it in an un-findable manner on their web site or in a book stuffed behind an administrative desk?

 

You could walk onto a campus and break any number of their local unique laws customized by each campus on any whim - and their is no review by the community of these policies which have the force of law. Policies are by definition made by the local school administration and can be anything they want.

 

Its nice to know that the place where there is always talk about "academic freedom" those same people are very quick to take away freedoms they don't like you having - since it was not granted by them.