Follow-Up

There are 521 posts filed in Follow-Up (this is page 52 of 53).

UNC-TV back at full power!

I wrote UNC-TV today to ask when their antenna upgrades would be completed. It turns out the job was done just this past Friday evening!

Here’s the word from Gary Coble, Transmitter Site Supervisor at UNC-TV:

At 7:19pm on Friday August 21 WUNC-TV Channel 4 began full power maximized operation. The operation is at 1 Million Watts on the top mounted main antenna. For those viewers using outside antennas please aim your antenna towards the transmitter site in Northern Chatham County, just Southwest of downtown Chapel Hill and rescan your converter box or digital TV tuner. Thank you for your patience and thank you for watching UNC-TV!

After rescanning my channels, I can report the signal is coming in better than ever. I’m glad to have my PBS back!

New media scoops old media again

Here’s another case of new media scooping old media. From the Los Angeles Times:

At 5:09 a.m. Pacific time, nearly an hour before the official news releases went out, “American Idol” host and celebrity interviewer Ryan Seacrest hinted on Twitter that something big was about to go down: “Some biz ent news going to break this morning that will impact shows and stars. It will have impact one major network immediately.”

Twelve minutes before NBC e-mailed reporters the news about the departure of Silverman, who is launching a new production company with IAC/InterActive Corp. Chief Executive Barry Diller, Seacrest reported on Twitter: “guy that runs nbc- put office biggest looser [sic] etc on is leaving to launch a new studio. Bringing together most creative stars and producers.

“This means better shows from our favorite stars in u.s. and around the world. Ben Silverman just filling me in. This is big news in hwood.”

It was another example of how Twitter is fast becoming the go-to news site of the new media age.

Lance and team still fuming about Alberto Contador

220px-Alberto_Contador_Paris-Nice_2007Looks like things aren’t settled between Alberto Contador and his Astana teammates. Contador has amazing legs and an ego to match. He has thumbed his nose at his team throughout the race.

Says Lance Armstrong on Twitter just now:

Seeing these comments from AC. If I were him I’d drop this drivel and start thanking his team. w/o them, he doesn’t win.

hey pistolero, there is no “i” in “team”. what did i say in March? Lots to learn. Restated.

Lance then quoted Axel Merckx, who said:

A champion is also measured on how much he respect his teammates and opponents. You can win a race on your own not a grand tour.

More swarm streaming systems

I’ve discovered a few more swarm streamers for broadcasting multimedia to potentially millions of viewers: Coolstream, PPLive, and SopCast.

SopCast seems promising as it has a contributed Linux interface for the SopCast player, called (duh) sopcast-player. I’m still trying to figure out how to “broadcast” with this system, whether from Linux or Windows.

Coolstream looks interesting but not yet fully-baked. The website keeps insisting I log in, and none of the supposedly-active video streams appear to be working for me.

PPLive appears to have active users, but the channels using it as listed on the PPLive iKan site are all in Chinese. The other channel listing site, PP.tv, is also in Chinese. Clicking around seems promising but it’s hard to know what I’m looking at. And some of the clips seem to be blocked here.

There’s another service called TV Ants but the company’s website isn’t coming up for me. That is one of the biggest drawbacks to creating a channel with one of these groups. In order for any of this to work, you need to have at least one server to help seed the stream. If the company hosting your channel goes out of business then all of the channels that company hosts vanish as well.

S1004 reportedly gutted

Jay Ovittore has been following the broadband backwater fight and reports that the N.C. Senate version of the bill, S.1004 was gutted yesterday.

Says Jay:

S1004 will be in the Public Utilities Committee tomorrow and for the first time I don’t have to worry about it. The Senate used a procedural rule to gut the bill and replace all text with new text that allows Progress Energy to convert some of it’s Coal fired plants to Natural Gas.

The is not a mere mention of cable, municipalities, Time Warner, none of it.

HB1252 is still alive and I will track it as always.

For now we can all claim another victory against Big Cable!

Fantastic news.

H&R Block has spammed me yet again!

After unsubscribing a half-dozen times from every H&R Block email list and talking at length to an H&R Block customer service rep, I thought I had seen the last of the H&R Block emails.

But, no. A new one came in today with the subject of:

July Digits: Are you making the most of your home?

Time to black hole H&R Block. Enough is enough.

Update 7 July 2009: Mike at H&R Block swiftly showed up and has pledged to take care of the problem. Thanks, Mike!

Raleigh talks about car-sharing

After I just blogged about the need for a car-sharing program here in Raleigh, Triangle Transit announces a forum to discuss just that. Coincidence? I think not.

See the announcement below.

(h/t Urban Planet, by way of Bob Geary)

Triangle Transit, in cooperation with the City of Raleigh and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance, invite you to join us for an exploratory, interactive discussion about car-sharing potential in downtown Raleigh.

Thursday, June 18, 2009
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
At the Raleigh Urban Design Center
(light refreshments will be served)
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