|
Wordle 603 3/6*
🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜
⬜🟨🟨🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
And ... either a major crash or a milestone tomorrow:
Played: 374
Win %: 100 (Nope - a rounding error)
Current Streak: 299
Max Streak: 299
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
|
|
|
|
|
Wordle 603 5/6
🟨⬛⬛🟩⬛
⬛⬛🟩🟩⬛
⬛🟨🟩🟩🟨
🟩⬛🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
|
|
|
|
|
Wordle 603 3/6
⬛⬛⬛⬛🟨
🟨🟩🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Jeremy Falcon
|
|
|
|
|
Wordle 603 3/6
⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟩🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
|
|
|
|
|
...Mrs. Buster Boy! ![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif) ![Beer | [beer]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/beer.gif) ![Jig | [Dance]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/jig.gif)
/ravi
|
|
|
|
|
Where even is he these days? Haven't seen a message from him in...years?
I genuinely miss his contributions.
|
|
|
|
|
I contribute to LVGL ( LVGL - Light and Versatile Embedded Graphics Library[^] ). Your "smart" shopping cart with the little screen on it quite possibly uses LVGL to draw the text and the little buttons and such on the display, just as an example of where it might pop up. A redbox style rental unit would be another area you might see it used. Anywhere you have a little computer with a display, often a touch display there's a fair chance it's LVGL powered.
I wrote some code to bring TrueType support to more devices under LVGL. It already supported TrueType but only on a narrow set of devices. TrueType is anti-aliased vector fonts - nice looking text basically. Now you can run it on quite a few different chips, even "lesser" chips that normally couldn't handle something like that.
The other day, months after I contributed it, someone found an intermittent problem with my font code crashing their device, but only sometimes, and only when used from MicroPython, which I do not use.
I was completely stumped and have been helping another developer try to run this down. Today I get the best message I could have received:
"I found the problem, and it's not in your code"
Woo hoo. They still haven't managed to fix it yet, but it's out of my hands, thank heaven. Some problem with the virtual filesystem thing they wrote for micropython returning inconsistent data from file reads.
I've been losing sleep over this because it was completely stumping me, and since I don't have a MicroPython environment handy, nor any experience with it, I was basically tag teaming remotely with a developer who did have those things. We weren't getting anywhere and I was just about out of moves.
Made my day to hear the bug wasn't mine.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Are there still active AM broadcasters in the US of A?
For digital broadcasting, DAB was rejected in favor of HD Radio, for a number of reasons, one of them that HD could make use of the old transmitters, and you could simulcast digital and analog. How did HD come out? Did it knock FM out, leaving digital-only HD transmission? Or do people still buy FM radios, expecting them to pick up all stations in the area? If so, do the broadcasters still care to offer HD?
Or have listeners in the US of A stopped listening to AM/FM radio broadcasts, going completely to internet based listening?
|
|
|
|
|
Does AM still exist? I dislike broadcasts of any form.
In my car I listen to MP3 files.
But when I'm in my wife car, it's FM.
|
|
|
|
|
I don't listen to Financial Media (FM) or Ad Media (AM), it's commercial with a smattering of music and news thats run in a loop. Music that I didn't like then and care even less for now.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - An updated version available!
JaxCoder.com
|
|
|
|
|
Yes.
850 KOA Conservative talk radio Rockies and Broncos broadcasts
AM 670 KLTT Christian talk radio
Both serve the Denver metro area but I get em via skip and also from an app up here in the mountains west of Denver.
|
|
|
|
|
I live in South Dakota. My car can receive both AM and FM radio and there are stations broadcasting all up and down the frequency dial. There are a lot of different stations so there must be enough people listening in to make them pay.
I tend to think that it'll eventually die out though. I think the younger generations will just use their phones to stream whatever they want. Since it connects to both their home and the car's entertainment systems or just to their ear buds they can listen to their preferred stuff wherever they are. Why bother with a radio that may not be available when farther from home?
I personally don't listen to the radio or to streamed media - except when using power tools in the garage or outside. Then I will listen to music streamed from my phone thru noise canceling headphones. I haven't listened regularly to the radio since I retired in 2018. Then that was only on my daily commute in my car.
I'm quite possibly out of touch with the mainstream. Music is not and has never been even a small part of my life. The only time an audio system is used near me is when I'm driving a longer trip with my wife so she can stream her podcasts. I don't think we even have a way to listen to a radio station in our house.
|
|
|
|
|
AM and FM exist and are currently used in most places in the United States.
Most new cars have some sort of Sirius XM or similar offering for music, albeit a free limited subscription at first purchase.
I have a paid subscription to SiriusXM and mostly listen to that or my iTunes linked to car radio via bluetooth.
|
|
|
|
|
Both you, FreedMalloc and PIEBALDconsult refer to "FM". Are you then talking about "real" FM, in the old analog sense? Or has HD Radio taken over, but people refer to it as "FM" of old habit?
|
|
|
|
|
No, it’s just the good old FM. BTW, in Canada we have the same selection, in case you wonder.
Mircea
|
|
|
|
|
As I understand it an HD radio station simulcasts the analog FM as well as the HD version. My car (2015 Mazda 3) can switch between the HD & analog signals. The station is listed under the standard FM frequency registered with the FCC, the HD signal is transmitted on a side channel slightly off that of the analog frequency.
My car can pick up AM, FM and HD. HD is the default until I hit the button to turn it off. I would guess that more rural areas might have mostly analog FM with fewer HD choices. Like anything, more people = more money = more choices.
When I scan the radio spectrum in my car there are a dozen or more stations to choose from in either AM or FM. But I didn't pay attention to whether or not they were HD. That's here in rural-ish Yankton, South Dakota. Lots more when I'm close to a larger city, like Minneapolis / St. Paul in Minnesota.
|
|
|
|
|
I did a little more searching and found articles stating that HD radio is dying out, at least in the US. The reason being that it takes an HD capable receiver and consumers aren't buying them. I also saw a mention that GM was no longer putting it in their cars.
This could be a sign that rather than getting new hardware for a digital signal people will just use their phones. Everyone has ear buds/headphones and no one is taking Bluetooth out of their cars.
|
|
|
|
|
I'm in Minnesota. I listen to the AM band in the morning while working from home. I restored Grandpa's 1936 Pilot Radio -- it receives AM and 2 different shortwave bands.
|
|
|
|
|
There are still a lot of FM & AM stations around the Great Lakes.
There's an AM station in Detroit that plays Arabic music and news during the week, and Irish music and news on the weekend. There are those Sunday morning polka shows too.
I listen to SF audiobooks, so I rarely listen to radio.
|
|
|
|
|
trønderen wrote: DAB was rejected in favor of HD Radio,
Perhaps but far as I can tell from a brief look at google, consumers don't care. Which means any switch is pointless.
trønderen wrote: Or have listeners in the US of A stopped listening to AM/FM radio broadcasts
Googling suggests that is not even close to true. Although most sites are associated with broadcast radio so it must be presumed they might be exaggerating. But since radio stations are not shutting down, someone must be listening and someone must be paying.
|
|
|
|
|
jschell wrote: Perhaps but far as I can tell from a brief look at google, consumers don't care. Which means any switch is pointless.
It is certainly true that radio listening is declining, regardless of technology. Still, I do not think that it has fallen so low that we just as well could turn it off tomorrow, Feb. 14th 2023. For quite a few people, that would be a serious loss.
Yet, I think that 2023 is too late establish any new, digital radio broadcasting network. In Norway, and most European countries, the situation is somewhat different: Norway has had digital radio broadcasts since 1995, starting in the small with one digital channel, gradually growing until digital took over completely 6 years ago. (With a minor exception in tiny community radios, essentially the 'husband-and-wife-radio' style with the owner either about to retire, or having been retired for some time. Those notably bigger have gone digital.) I don't think any other country has completely quit analog radio, but the number of digital channels with 100% population coverage has been steadily growing for more than ten years.
One significant reason why Norway was first going all-digital is that we were very late going from AM to FM. While the population coverage was starting to pick up in the early 1970s, the geographical coverage was still quite limited. The main transmitters were in place, but several hundred repeaters came in place during the 70s and early 80s. So when other countries, having established FM in the 1950-60s in the 80s and 90s were replacing their 30-35 year old transmitters, the Norwegian transmitters were still "fairly new". In the early 2000s, the were no longer: They were out of production, to find spare parts, Telenor had to buy and dissect discarded transmitters on the used market.
So a major choice was made: Either to go digital, with a single transmission network providing fifteen nationwide channels, or to build fifteen new nationwide FM networks with modern transmitters. The choice was not a difficult one ... Noone was seriously considering to build fifteen new networks, though; going for FM would imply far fewer channels. Today we have two national digital networks, and in most areas a third one carrying those community radios that have gone digital, so the total offering is 30+ channels in most areas.
Nowadays, lots of European countries are in the same situation that Norway was in, 20 years ago: Their FM networks are aging seriously, about to break down. Noone seriously considers a complete modernization of their FM transmitter networks, so the alternatives are either to quit broadcasting altogether, or build a digital network that can be shared among 12-20 radio channels. Quite a few of them do not consider lying down to die a viable option, especially not public channels (of which there is a fair number in Europe). In most countries, DAB networks have been in operation for years, so when FM transmitters start failing, one by one, there is something to take over.
One result of my car radio providing 36 channels to choose from is that I never miss the cassette player of my old car. I used to have a CD player, too, with 6-CD magazines; I planned to move it when I switched cars, but never got around to. The radio offering is good enough. Sound quality is excellent. I have access to extra services, such as traffic information and public warnings. Coverage is at least as good as the best FM channel ever was (and most of them had limited coverage), for all 25-30 nationwide channels. The community networks have greatly expanded coverage; this is because a number of formerly very local radios with a single transmission point now buys capacity in a local DAB network that must cover all the former areas of all their customer, and this coverage applies to all the channels.
So, because we were that early in adopting digital broadcasting (because we "had to"), we have an excellent offering, with excellent coverage. Listening is slowly declining, but if we hadn't decided to go digital 20 years ago, it would have dropped like a stone.
I am happy that we did. Especially the Norwegian Public Radio (NRK) has had a reputation for quality comparable to BBC. I would say it has declined significantly today (maybe BBC has as well!), but they still produce newscasts, commentaries, concert transmissions, reports from festivals and the like, and lot more really great listening stuff.
|
|
|
|
|
trønderen wrote: It is certainly true that radio listening is declining, regardless of technology. Still, I do not think that it has fallen so low that we just as well could turn it off tomorrow, Feb. 14th 2023. For quite a few people, that would be a serious loss.
Since my post probably was not clear....
In the US people that listen to the radio, the majority of those, do not consider digital worth it to switch. So they continue to listen to the non-digital signal. (Although I believe many stations transmit both.)
I did not look into whether the market was declining. But it still is robust.
|
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
