Category: Television

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Cell Phone Jammer Foolishness

Last weeks edition of The McLaughlin Group had the stupidest debate ever.

Chatter Zapper.

Is it a new wave of technology, or is it an anti-wave? They’re called cell phone jammers, capable of voiding any conversation within 20 feet. This combative technology has been called “revenge tech” or “design noir” or “annoyance tech.”

We’ve all been there. You’re sitting on a sold-out train, a crowded bus. It starts with a cell phone ring, some zany, cacophonous sound. Then the person sitting next to you picks up her cell phone. The agony begins; first the retelling of her day, then it is a round of “He said, she said,” then what’s for dinner.

Unobtrusively you reach over and take out your “revenge tech” device — zap. That takes care of that.

I think it’s a pseudo-problem. It’s a pseudo- problem, because technology will now devise a jam-proof telephone or the chatter will not work.
-John McLaughlin

The reason I call this the stupidest debate ever on the show is that jammers are illegal, period. They have been illegal my whole lifetime and they will remain illegal as long as humans want to have usable radio technology. This is not a new technology, as long as there has been radio there has been radio jamming technology. They are confusing a new product with a new technology and ignoring the reality of the FCC rules.

In case you don’t think jammers will get you into deep trouble, here’s the FCC penalty.

Fines for a first offense can range as high as $11,000 for each violation or imprisonment for up to one year, and the device used may also be seized and forfeited to the U.S. government.

For more information and the rules for other countries see this Wikipedia article.

**** UPDATE ****

More information at this newer post

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The War Starts Sunday

No we aren’t invading Iran this weekend, Ken Burns latest documentary “The War” starts this Sunday evening on PBS. Here’s a brief description from the web site:

THE WAR, a seven-part series directed and produced by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, tells the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four quintessentially American towns. The series explores the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history. a worldwide catastrophe that touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America, and demonstrates that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

Ken Burns has been my favorite documentary filmmaker, ever since Brooklyn Bridge debuted in 1982. If you haven’t seen that Academy Award nominated film you can see it on PBS 10/21. I’ve watched and enjoyed all his work so, I’m really looking forward to seeing his take on WWII.

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Final Joost update for me

Well I’ve been playing around with the newest Joost version, it rarely ever plays for more than a minute or two. Also the multi-monitor support has not improved and the image quality is not very exciting compared to downloadable video or cable TV, so I’m giving up on it. For now I’ll just keep using Instant Media for IPTV.

If anyone wants an invite to try out Joost for themselves let me know and I’ll get you one ASAP.

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Nick Gillespie talks about Roger Williams

On this weeks Bill Moyers Journal there was an interview with Reason Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie.

BILL MOYERS: You know, there’s an anomaly. I have to come back to this. You you– have strong opinions about politics, parties, elections. You’re registered to vote but you don’t vote. You feel stateless? You feel lost in America?

NICK GILLESPIE: You know, it’s been so long since I’ve had political heroes that I don’t worry. I was thinking about watching the piece about Regent University and the discussion about the role of religion and the state. One of my great heroes is Roger Williams, who is, like Pat Robertson, was a Baptist.
This was– the guy who– he was kicked– he was a– trained at Cambridge during the great Puritan years in the 17th century. He was a classmate of John Milton. He came to America to preach. Got kicked out of Massachusetts Bay Colony because he said, “You guys are mixing– the Lord’s work with secular government.”
And he ended up founding– he got kicked out, founded Providence, bought land from the Indians– you know, which is almost unheard of then. Created the– — colony of Rhode Island. Got a royal charter for that as a place for religious tolerance.
He came up– and this is a Baptist, who, like Pat Robertson, in his heart of hearts, thought that the pope was the antichrist– or a werewolf. You know, in the popular prejudices of the days. But articulated the absolute need to have a secular government where your religious faith was a private concern that the state could not control but it also couldn’t compel any individual to worship in a particular way. And it seems to me, you know, Roger Williams may be my last political hero.

I’m so pleased to see this on a nationally distributed TV show. Since my posts for the Blog Against Theocracy blogswarm, here and here , I’ve wondered why there isn’t more mention of Roger Williams‘s influence in the anti-theocracy movement. Williams used the Bible to show that government with absolute freedom of religion, including non-belief, is the the only just form of government.

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New version of Joost

I’ve installed and am trying out the new Joost beta version “Friends Edition 0.10.2”. The new designation “Joost beta – Now For Friends” marks the unlimited availability of invites to hand out.

I had gotten some invites a couple weeks ago and gave them out to readers who asked for them. So, if any reader wants a Joost invite leave a comment and I’ll send you an invite. To send an invite Joost requires your first and last names plus an e-mail address. To make sure the whole internet doesn’t see your e-mail address, simply put it in the e-mail address field of the comment submission form, that way only I will see it.

Launching version 0.10.2 for the first time I found it to be about the same as the previous version. The UI is changed slightly and I did get to watch a few minutes of video (previous record for length was about 15 seconds). My guess is that the only play for a short time problems are simply server overloads that will be corrected soon. It still has some quirks when on my secondary monitor, tray icon menu disappears, choppy playback in full screen mode but, other non-beta applications I use (e.g. MS Media Center, Adobe Reader) have annoying quirks on my secondary display too.

Overall Joost shows much promise and I intend to keep playing with it for a least a few months. In the meantime I can still get my fix of IP TV like DL.TV and Cranky Geeks automatically via Instant Media.

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The latest news on Joost

I finally succeeded in getting Joost setup, they released a new beta and modified their servers. It is certainly a very pretty program but so far due to the beta nature of the system, I haven’t gotten to watch more than a few seconds of a program. I suspect the problem is adjusting their servers to handle the higher load from increased beta testers.

They have stopped accepting applications for the limited beta program but, they have promised that everyone who previously applied will get their invitation to join in the next weeks. They also appear to have stopped issuing invitation credits to current beta users (I get none). They expect to move to open beta testing for all people soon.

Once I get to watch some whole programs and play around with the features I’ll post a review.

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Joost update

I wrote about Joost a couple of times back in January, see them here and here. Today I finally got invited to try out the Joost Beta, although it looks like they’ve made the beta public now.

The download and installation went fine but, when I try to run Joost I get this error message.

An error occurred!
Unable to connect with the network
Please visit http://www.joost.com for more information or email support@joost.com

Checking the Joost forums I see that many others are having the same problem. Oh well, I’ll try it again later, for now I’ll just watch cable and Instant Media .

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Can't get Joost? Try Instant Media

I haven’t yet been accepted to try out the Joost system. In catching up on netcasts this week I heard that the Podfather, Adam Curry hasn’t either so at least I’m in good company.

I don’t think I’ve written about the Instant Media program before, It’s an IP TV aggregator program that I use to get DL.TV, Cranky Geeks and Vintage Tooncasts. The IM program is for Windows XP only but that covers most of the worlds broadband internet users. I have been using this program for a long time now and I like it!