Not entirely abruptly. The downfall was seen back in 2018. I, like most listeners, simply didn't believe the transmission would end. Like a warm security blanket the signal has been a presence in my life since my earliest days.
"NRC ... spokesperson Orian Labrèche said CBC installed HD radio transmitters in 2018, which caused a delay of up to nine seconds in broadcasting the time signal. The council proposed several solutions and worked with CBC to solve the delay, but "ultimately, CBC/Radio-Canada made the decision to stop broadcasting the NRC's official time signal"
I am sad that the actual ending came with a whimper rather than a full-on cross-nation bang. A party to rival that of the final Tragically Hip concert. It certainly should have been handled better. A nation-wide listening party would have been monumental.
A 9 second delay for a radio channel? So they can't do some interactive things like phone calls without a 9s delay anymore either?
It really seems modern tech doesn't care about delay at all, while personally I do care about it. Modern tech should be better, but on the delay it's getting worse instead. Bluetooth audio is another example, with top tier headphones no longer supporting lower latency bluetooth codecs like aptx, and GPU's being ok adding delay to insert some "AI" frames, and delay between moving a camara and seeing the updated image on screen. Plus this love that designers have for "long-press" on/off buttons rather than immediate clicky ones.
Delay is something I imagine isn't regulated by much. For example, in the US all cars have to have reverse facing cameras so when you put the car in reverse, you can see if you are about to back over someone.
If I turn my Jeep on, it has such underpowered infotainment hardware that I can easily shift to reverse, disengage the parking brake, back down my driveway, shift into drive and start cruising down the street before it FINALLY turns on the reverse camera, which then displays me driving forward. That's also if the Accept button lets you press it, which it ignores a lot.
At what point should regulated functionality ALSO have some level of regulated performance?
So they can't do some interactive things like phone
calls without a 9s delay anymore either?
These were almost never truly live. They have to build in a delay in case you start spewing obscenities or something. There were are also various latencies involved anyway. That's why they always tell you to shut the radio off when you're on the air.
I recently switched from smart lights that used a cloud service to local ZigBee lights controlled via Home Assistant. One of the first things I noticed was just how snappy they are. You tap the button and they immediately turn off, almost like you're just killing the power with a physical switch. Plus they're more secure & private to boot!
That's one of the things that immediately turned me off much "smart" home things. Not only is a round trip to a server completely unnecessary, it makes the functionality significantly worse (to say nothing of security/privacy).
In the US, many “live” call ins are actually recorded off air (like during commercial breaks) and then played back later.
This gives time to censor, edit or cancel the caller completely. They can also tell the caller to turn off the radio to eliminate noise on the call, but can still hear themselves come on after the call is over.
the talk radio I'm aware of generally runs on a 10 second delay - short enough to be considered live, but still enough delay that if someone swears (illegal in the US) they can hit the beep button afterwards and overwrite the bad words. I've heard someone call in the next room and that is how it was, plus at various times the host has talked about this.
Things like sports games are generally fully live, but they don't have call in portions and a trained host can be trusted to use clean language.
What's actually keeping that beeping thing still alive in the US? Just inertia of the existing law with no reason to perform the work needed to remove it, or are there people who genuinely feel actual emotional pain upon hearing such language in the US and they are the majority voters?
I think this is the biggest one, particularly if you're listening in the car and just scanning up and down the dial— it's easy to stumble across whatever station and not really be aware what it is or who is talking.
If there was a way to send "ratings" metadata then that would change a lot, as you could trivially configure your car radio to just skip those channels (same as how the playstation profile my kids use unsupervised hides M-rated titles).
> If there was a way to send "ratings" metadata then that would change a lot, as you could trivially configure your car radio to just skip those channels.
I image that it should be possible. Many channels already send song information, perhaps that same functionality could be used.
But there's no such law in European countries, yet radio/TV is not a continuous swear-fest. Bleeps don't exist (except when on purpose making it look like the US, or imported). I'm sure there are some guidelines here too, but the US system just gives such condescending impression and the bleep, if anything, draws more rather than less attention to it
One of the biggest ironies is how puritanical we Americans are regarding swearing and the naked body, but extreme violence such as showing people brutally murdered, that's fine.
I'll be that person. There are no top-tier bluetooth headphones, only mid-tier at best, and they're grossly inferior to wired mid-tier headphones in terms of acoustics. (Which is obvious, when you spend 80% of the budget on processors, batteries and electronics, that you're spending less on audio hardware at the same price point).
With such disposable mediocre technology replacing such a superior predecessor, I really do think I get what I deserve when I buy them.
I often wonder what chromecast is doing in the 10 seconds it takes to start streaming something. Especially on hardware and software developed by google.
Buffering and waiting for TCP slow-start to get up to speed. While the amount of buffer time needed can be debated, given that in a long stream it is likely that a packet will be lost and resent via normal TCP (or just sent via a different route and so arrive late), you should have a few seconds buffer, and that means a few seconds at the start before the stream starts. It is a technical thing.
You don't have to implement things as above. For live video you probably should use UDP and design your protocol so that you can handle a few missed packets - that is have your video become fuzzy in those cases. This is a lot more complex to design though and so not would you should do first. Even if you have Google's engineers, the first solution is better for not-live video since a few more seconds of delay mean you can keep clear video.
That delay is mostly predictable and so you can account for it. You still will be off by a few (I'm not sure what unit, but fraction of a second) as the speed of light in the atmosphere is not a constant. You can figure out the current speed of light in the atmosphere, as well but that requires a lot of complex hardware.
TekSavvy is one of the only major wholesale-based ISPs left. I was a happy customer for years but they are wholly dependent on the big providers for the pipes which meant that I had to go with one of the big names to improve my network speeds. If the CRTC forced proper access I would have never left.
The 2023-56 proceeding has seen hundreds of comments in favour of access to FTTP facilities by individuals. Out of all of the comments my helper evaluated there were only 2 against providing access to incumbent FTTP -- one was a comment by a Rogers director, while the other was an incoherent rant that seemed completely misdirected.
The CRTC now has to rebuild competition from scratch. Absent that, they will have to go back to regulating retail prices as was the case back in the 1980s. Nothing beats 15 years of policy failure.
My own company is in a hard place. Our first 3 big builds were failures due to permit shenanigans. Now I'm stuck out in the cold waiting for Hydro One to get its act together, which is increasingly looking like it's not going to happen. My only hope is that the CRTC actually takes action this time.
On an Intel Mac Mini I've got 4.0 Beta 2 installed the Check Updates doesn't detect anything and on the website there is only an Apple-based Mac option listed. Did they drop Intel support or is that coming later? Or does it matter and it is really a universal package with a poor name choice (and failed update check)?
Putting aside the linked content I'd just like to marvel at the speed of the site - near plain text, minimal markup, basic JS. And even a dead link to a guestbook in the source.
A few modern enhancements would be a nice addition to fix the overly wide width and font selection but they certainly aren't required.
Ah, 1999. A simpler web. Transporting the build of those simpler times to the world of today would deliver instant gratification.
Well, the overly wide width can easily be mitigated by resizing your viewport; this is truly responsive web. Your font (size) preference is also easily applied, and nothing breaks when you scale the information to your preference.
Both are very rare nowadays, and have been for quite a while, where "responsive" means "one of X configurations, and _we_ choose which" and scaling text often has the effect of breaking the visual appearance, and thus, in a visual-first mindset, the UX, and more often than not also the functionality in general.
> Well, the overly wide width can easily be mitigated by resizing
> your viewport; this is truly responsive web.
I've been arguing this for years. "The web" is device agnostic - the agent of the user sets the width, text size, font, and other properties as needed.
All these websites that work on X*Y screen size of J, K, and L devices are the result of "web developers" who have a J, K, or L device with an X*Y screen trying to make a flyer. And I work in the industry, albeit on the server side.
I mentioned this point on HN once or twice in the past, and the response has been pretty much "nobody's going to do that, learn to live with our fixed width articles, you outdated dinosaur!" :)
I read your comment and I found myself having an annoyed feeling in response.
I tried to dig into my own emotions to figure out why, and I realized that I am annoyed by the fact that the second-most comment (at my time of viewing) was completely unrelated to the content, and drew attention towards some details of the presentation that do not really have a lot of value.
I worry that this opinion will not be broadly accepted here at HN, but I am annoyed by the upwelling of opinion that a web experience is only valuable if it is presented in an experience that meets the observers definition of "performant" or "fast" or "JavaScript-free".
Is this really necessary? "xxx is a George W. Bush appointee. xxx also a Bush appointee, and Barack Obama appointee xxx joined xxx opinion."
Perhaps when discussing items of moral importance and life or death judgments it may be of historical/cultural reference but a copyright conflict seems rather out of bounds for such detail.
In this case it's probably superfluous to include under which president the judge was appointed, but there is merit to including the information generally.
The Circuits ordinarily hear cases in 3-judge panels (occasionally cases are heard en banc, where more/all of the circuit judges will hear the case). The outcome of a large number of cases can be predicted based upon the composition of the panel.
So where "conservative" judges make up 2/3 or 3/3 of the panel, you tend to see "conservative" (read: pro-business, pro-prosecution) outcomes and vice-versa with "liberal" judges.
It could be coincidence, but as someone who has followed circuit opinions for years, the panel composition has corresponded with the ultimate outcome a surprising number of times. (N.B. it would be interesting to statistically track the panel composition/outcome metric to see how often the correlation actually exists).
That seems somewhat wrong...? I mean these judges are supposed to be impartial, but if outcome is mostly based on who gets picked, then that isn't the case.
I think it comes down to how both sides view impartiality. There's definitely confirmation bias when the president nominates a judge - often the candidates come from the same party so they share some broad ideological positions.
Most judges I think do see themselves as impartial jurists even if the results tend to skew toward political outcomes.
Agree it seems a bit wrong. Worth bearing in mind that cases which go to higher courts are usually ones which lower courts think aren't clear, or different courts disagree.
funny, that was the main thing I noticed and appreciated about the journalism. why would you not want this made clear in the context of judges doing the very thing we're thinking about when they're appointed (ruling on stuff)?
imho, this is the "rubber hits the road" context. if we want our opinions of appointments to be grounded in... well... reality, then we should maybe care less about appointments when they're abstractly happening and we're horse-betting, and think MORE about them when they're ruling.
Frankly, I'm confused how you're thinking about this, such that you would think someone WOULDN'T appreciate having this inline. Do you think politics are some dirty thing that we should become amnesiac about as soon as someone is executing their duties...? Sorry, I'm just confused. Can you explain the foundational belief underpinning your comment?
Many people (including myself and I assume the original commenter) feel that judging is supposed to be an apolitical duty. So saying "Randy Smith, also a Bush appointee," sounds problematic to me in the same way as "Randy Smith, also male" would: it's not false, but the mindset where it matters is deeply concerning.
The problem is that emphasizing the details also feeds back into the politicization. It would be like responding to political bias at the DMV by having every clerk wear a little badge saying which party they are: there might be a few people who will use that information to better investigate and detect bias, but a lot of people are going to see the political labelling and conclude it's just a deliberately political function of government.
And I don't think this is an abstract hypothetical; I've seen an increasing number of people in recent years dismiss even the aspiration to a nonpartisan judiciary as silly and naive.
I don't agree -- I highly value our being humbled by how often a judge from "the other side" votes our way -- but genuinely appreciate hearing how you're thinking about it. Thanks for the words
That's my reading: a defense of the party impartiality of the judiciary more than any attribution to a partisan group.
Of course they could still be biased say, in favor of those with power and capital. But since in practice, both political parties bow to capital with effectively equal deference, such a bias wouldn't surface by merely listing out which president appointed whom.
> Perhaps when discussing items of moral importance
The scope of free speech protections (and, on the other side, the scope of personal property rights as well) is a matter of moral importance, moreover the scope of free speech protections is a matter on which there is particularly active current controversy in which a sharp partisan divide on the issue is part of a central political narrative, and this is a significant factor in modern American politics.
Yes, it is. In fact, I missed that last paragraph while skimming for the link to the decision and went straight to wikipedia to check the details on the three justices involved. It's nice to imagine that we shouldn't attribute partisan lean to our courts, but in the real world we all know there is one in many cases. And it's important to know when evidence cuts against that trend as much as it is when it confirms our priors.
Very necessary, it validates how impartial the court is to some people.
There are people that would question a court's validity more if some midwestern appeals circuit had 3 Trump appointees reversing an opinion, just like there are other people that would raise an eyebrow at anything the ninth circuit rules.
I was about to say the same thing... It is really completely amazing how wide the gap is between standard, cheap ink jet and cheap Brother laser. Seriously do yourself a favour and just switch. Your sanity will thank you.
It's that Japanese engineering shit... my Brother label makers were a gift from a hackathon and one of them was a used on that had like 30,000 pages run through it. Powered it up, paired it through bluetooth, ran a perfect page through it.
I absolutely hate how YouTube music doesn't understand that I am using it for music... not music videos.
"Hey Google, play my music" on a Nest Hub in the kitchen so I can listen to something while cooking used to play music - now it often (but not always) insists on running whatever crazy video it found for my tunes.
I simply don't watch music videos. I have no interest in them. I don't like that they joined together my music and misc YouTube clicks together.
I'm now looking for an alternative. I just want what I had before. Listen to music and skip the videos so I can cook in peace.
I don't really like paying extra on a streaming service I'm already paying for. However, I'll be really, really upset if this is a easy-click-to-purchase system that my kids can select. I have profiles for the kids set up but who knows if that'll save me.
I have no interest in paying for this and certainly don't want to deal with this being splashed all over just baiting me (or the young ones) to click.
And yes, he's absolutely correct. Some advertisers such as the big Canadian banks aren't even hiding it now switching from announcing a boycott to a limited-time withdrawal: "Participating brands will suspend all advertising on the platform for the month of July."
Nobody was ever hiding that the boycott is for July; the call for the boycott says so in the first line. Some companies decided to go for more than a month but that's their choice.
> On June 17, Color Of Change along with the NAACP, ADL, Sleeping Giants, Free Press, and Common Sense Media called on Facebook’s advertisers to hit pause on ad spending for July 2020
That's actually very well played. You know that companies want to hit pause because of lower sales and less consumer confidence, so you give them an easy out that will look like a moral stance, and you wisely limit the duration so that nobody feels too committed and can return to business as usual if Covid-19-related slow downs come to an end by the end of July.
> Or, they could just stop the advertising because of budget issues.
Oh, certainly. My point isn't that they're doing it because of principles. The companies do it because they want to save money. But offering them an out that allows them do press pause but not say "we have bad sales" and gets them lots of good will in important media circles, that's a good play imho.
Especially the very limited length looks like that to me. Had they said "to boycott Facebook ads", no large business in their right mind would've gone through with it. Even with "boycott FB for a year", I don't think so. But for a month, while business has slowed down significantly and you're happy to cut back in spending? That's an easy yes.
And for the organizers it's a win as well, as they can say that they got some large companies backing their cause. It's a smart play.
It wouldn't particularly surprise me if none of the vast majority of the public, HN commenters or the companies that signed up for it had actually read the boycott documentation so that might not be as important as it seems.
It’ll continue beyond July. This quote may have changed everything. If he’s trying to become the silicon trump he is certainly getting there. Unsurprisingly both are clearly sociopaths.
In a way, they _do_ have a limited-time discount. Facebook's ad prices are set by an auction. If there are less advertisers competing during the boycott, the prices will be lower.
Ad rates are down, and I know several publishers, whose ads are monetizing well, are using this opportunity to increase FB spending . Like, buying hand over fist
I can see the rationale for this. Companies that publicly boycott Facebook harm Facebook's reputation (which in turn hurts Facebook's bottom line). These companies now pose a higher risk (given past behaviour) of publicly boycotting Facebook in future. So Facebook should insure against this risk by charging a 'boycott risk premium' (through higher advertising rates) for companies that are a proven public boycott risk.
A more interesting question is what if advertisers did not come back? Does Facebook have a "Plan B" for how they would sustain themselves?
What would happen if advertisers pulled out and Facebook fell on hard times? Would someone else acquire every detail of your life that you shared with Facebook? What happens if Facebook fails? Do they send your data back to you with a note saying "Thanks for the loan"?
> What would happen if advertisers pulled out and Facebook fell on hard times?
This is very unlikely, as Facebook has more money than it knows what to do with and will easily weather this storm.
Don't get me wrong, I'm the last person to defend the company, but this is the reality: Companies who say they are boycotting Facebook are only doing it as a PR stunt. Give a few months, and you'll see their ads back on your News Feed.
What I meant was not this particular instance but the future. Long term not short term. Is Facebook immortal? Companies, even the biggest ones, usually have a shelf life.
"NRC ... spokesperson Orian Labrèche said CBC installed HD radio transmitters in 2018, which caused a delay of up to nine seconds in broadcasting the time signal. The council proposed several solutions and worked with CBC to solve the delay, but "ultimately, CBC/Radio-Canada made the decision to stop broadcasting the NRC's official time signal"
I am sad that the actual ending came with a whimper rather than a full-on cross-nation bang. A party to rival that of the final Tragically Hip concert. It certainly should have been handled better. A nation-wide listening party would have been monumental.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/cbc-stops-broadcasting...