08:09 – I see the interest rate on subsidized federal student loans doubled yesterday, from 3.4% to 6.8%, bringing them in line with the rates charged on non-subsidized loans since 2007. Yet another failed federal program. As usual, it started with the best of intentions–making sure that qualified students could afford to attend college–and, also as usual, it quickly degenerated into a hopeless, expensive mess. The worst effect of this student-loan mess is never mentioned: it’s hugely increased the cost of a college education for everyone, including those of us who pay for it themselves.
One of the fundamental laws of economics is that when you subsidize something you get more of it. And, boy, have we gotten more college graduates out of this deal. The problem is, most of them aren’t qualified to do anything more than counter work at McDonalds or Starbucks, jobs that obviously don’t require a college education in the first place. These kids could have saved themselves a lot of time, money, and heartache by skipping college and going straight to work in the dead-end jobs that are all they’re qualified for anyway. And they wouldn’t have had tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to pay off.
The solution to this problem is easy, and should have been obvious all along. No taxpayer tuition subsidies and no federally-guaranteed student loans for students who choose to major in non-rigorous subjects. If you want to major in science or accounting or medicine or engineering or nursing or agriculture, fine. The taxpayers have an interest in maintaining an adequate supply of people qualified in these fields. If you want to major in English literature or sociology or European history or women’s studies, fine. Pay your own way. Don’t expect the taxpayers to pay for your four-year vacation, either directly via taxes that support state universities or indirectly by taxes that support federally-guaranteed student loans.
We have a HMV store in town, and I know that all the employees there have art degrees, and if they’re anything like the manager (I know his father, the source of my knowledge), they’re all carrying at least $25K in student loan debt. The mavens that created this situation in Canada have made it that you can’t default on a student loan. Not even bankruptcy eliminates it.
I’m not sure that using taxes only for STEM courses would work out like you think. Arts programs would dwindle, which would be better, but the costs for STEM courses would sky-rocket, especially if the student pays nothing. After all, no-one latches onto the country’s teats like Academia can.
There is a growing movement to move Canada over to a fully socialized education system, similar to Sweden’s program. Only, we’re not Swedish! Far too many cooks who can and will spoil the broth. IMHO the only thing worse than a tax payer subsidized Arts program is a tax payer subsidized universally free education, as I think you get exactly what you pay for. A free program has no worth.
“If you want to major in science or accounting or medicine or engineering or nursing or agriculture, fine. The taxpayers have an interest in maintaining an adequate supply of people qualified in these fields.”
Arguably even these shouldn’t be subsidized. I was surprised to see an anarcho-libertarian advocating this. I agree we have far far too many non-rigorous graduates.
We in the United States have made a false assumption. We have assumed that since most successful people have a four year college degree and own their own home, that if we subsidize college education and home ownership that everyone will be better off. What makes people successful is not that they are college graduates or home owners but the ability to set a goal and accomplish it.
I have a friend who went to college for the maximum number of semesters and took the maximum loan each semester to get a Political Science degree. Now he’s more deeply in debt than the friend who went to law school, and obviously less able to make the payments. The last time I heard a student loan payment from him, it was larger than my mortgage. At least for our monthly payment we get a place to sleep.
As bad off as my friend is, at least he finished his degree. What about all those people who don’t finish their degree? There is now over $1,000,000,000,000 of US student loan debt. What ever happened to the principle of above all do no harm?
Our politicians today are arguing interest rates where the real problem is the principal. We’re going to have a generation of people with no future because they’ll have student loan debt hanging over their heads for the rest of their lives.
I’m not advocating it. If it were me, there’d be no taxpayer subsidies because there’d be no taxes. I’m merely saying that this would be a step in the right direction.
Received in the US Mail yesterday an advertising flyer from Dell. After viewing many newspaper ads from Fry’s, Best Buy, etc., showing only PCs and laptops with W8, I was surprised to see that Dell still offers machines with W7 installed.
I recalled a cartoon from the Occupy era of a year and a half past showing a protester with a sign: “…$19,000 (or whatever) for a UCLA degree in Black, Hispanic, Gay, Lesbian and Transgender studies and I can’t get a job…”
I remember a photo of a young lady at an Occupy rally holding a sign saying that she had borrowed over $100,000 to get a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Public Health Administration and she can’t find a job. I for the life of me can’t figure out what one does with that degree? Work at the health department?
To sum up here; anything involving public education and the government that is going to be overseen and managed by that government is immediately doomed to utter failure, as has been the case now for many decades. And as we know, based on our common experience here over lifetimes, taxation is theft.
I don’t know what this makes me, as I consider myself a paleoconservative with some libertarian sympathies, but I’d (after breaking up the country into a confederation) only raise taxes to provide for a common defense and a “safety net” for the most vulnerable and defenseless among us, temporarily. Everything else would be up for grabs in the private sector. We’ve tried the other systems; let’s try this one for a while.
High 70s here today and overcast with showers and t-storms rest of the week; pier on the Bay remains underwater, morning fog still out there; can’t see the island or the Adirondacks. Just a few miles south was the Battle of Plattsburg during our War of 1812, apparently unknown to both touristas and locals here:
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/navalbattles1800s/p/War-Of-1812-Battle-Of-Plattsburgh.htm
OK Chuck. I have done more research and actually contacted a person that does video production for other entities. He is also an installer and seller of video switching products.
He (Dave) recommended the BlackMagic (http://www.blackmagicdesign.com) line of products. I was able to download the manuals and like what I see. Dave also indicated that Ross Video was considered on the trailing edge of stuff and was so-so in the quality department.
The BlackMagic switcher is cheaper than the Ross by half and supports 8 video sources to the Ross’ 4 video sources. You can also install software on any PC on the network and control the switcher from the PC. There is also a control board that connects via ethernet to the switcher. Pretty slick.
There is also a Photoshop plugin that will allow the controller to access graphics done by Photoshop as soon as the graphic is created. The PS plugin sends the graphic to the switcher for access by the upstream or downstream keyer.
The device does not support streaming but with a couple of added modules streaming is accomplished by capturing one of the video outputs onto a PC. We also have to add a component for tally designation for the cameras.
All of this can be had for less than our budget of $20K with enough left over to purchase an HD camera. That includes installation and training. Ross was going to be $20K just for the switcher.
Graphics are limited to what I can create in Photoshop. My graphics needs will be simple and my limited skills in PS will certainly be enough to create the graphics I would want to use.
I meet with Dave tomorrow to show him our obsolete (but still usable) equipment so that Dave can put together a proposal with costs. He is local in the town which will make support easier.
No matter what monetary support is given to students, the end result is the same, tuition, room and board, and other fees simply rise to offset the support. In South Carolina we offer a series of scholarships based on academic performance funded by lottery money (tax on the mathematically challenged). Colleges and Universities simply raised their prices at a rate well above inflation to completely offset this money in just a few years.
Yes, it’s a nice little racket the colleges have for themselves. Time to close down about 90% of them, permanently. And totally dismantle the publik skool cabal.
“A milestone: Windows 8 market share passes Vista”
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/07/a-milestone-windows-8-market-share-passes-vista/
“In June, Windows 8 gained .83 percent to hit 5.1 percent share of the OS market, making it No. 3 among Windows OSes. No. 1 is Windows 7 at 44.37 percent, followed by Windows XP, still creaking along at 37.17 percent. Vista is now at 4.62.”
At that rate Windows 8 will hit around 40% when M$ has come out with Windows 10. And Ubuntu 14 will look just like it.
Don’t expect the taxpayers to pay for your four-year vacation, either directly via taxes that support state universities or indirectly by taxes that support federally-guaranteed student loans.
I believe that it is six years nowadays.
We need a federal balanced budget amendment, bad!
In South Carolina we offer a series of scholarships based on academic performance funded by lottery money (tax on the mathematically challenged).
In TN we have a lottery and participate in the power ball. The chances of winning are billions to one so I don’t play. That makes my odds of winning even worse.
To get the lottery installed the state insisted the money from the lottery would be sent to the school systems. And it was indeed. But the state used funny math to accomplish their goal.
Let’s say a school system was receiving a million dollars from the state each year. Now the state has lottery money that will go to the school in the amount of $500K. So what the state does is reduce their funding to the school by $500K, and then make up the difference with the lottery money. The school still just gets $1,000K, just from different pots.
The politicians win because the money from the lottery is indeed going to the schools. The transactions support that 100%. But the state reducing funding was never mentioned while the lottery was being debated and voted. The state effectively increased the money from taxes in their coffers by doing funny accounting and just moving money from one bucket to another.
The lottery is nothing but a tax on the stupid. Buy your beer and cigarettes at the same time you buy your lottery tickets. Jump in your pickup, snap open a brew, scratch your lottery ticket and your ass (order does not matter), then head home to your mobile home to get your welfare check out of the mailbox while your live in partner feeds the youngen’s high quality food you bought with your food stamps.
“Microsoft said its advertisers will be able to target users not just on Web search results pages but directly inside Windows Smart Search”
As if we needed another reason to hate on Microsoft…
Well, there can be value in a BS degree in fluffery regarding job acquisition, after all. A HR rep at a dept store chain was asked why a Help Wanted ad required a BS for a clerk in the men’s underwear dept.
Response: “For applicant privacy, do I want to shred 60 applications or 600?”
And it may ensure a minimal ability in the 3 Rs. In LA, and most similar cities I suspect, the high school diploma is awarded for four years of meeting minimal attendance requirements. Adequate scores in completing standardized tests to demonstrate 3R ability are not required.
Getting a college degree no longer requires basic literacy or numeracy.
Another guy arrested for filming the cops. Also, “Your fucking music is too loud.”
COP BONUS!!! They shoot and kill his dog! I’m surprised they all didn’t empty their mags into the poor pup. Don’t these guys carry a night stick or taser or something rather than blasting anything that makes them “feel threatened.” Maybe they could have just had the guy get his dog. Fuckers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2353347/Police-shoot-kill-Rottweiler-street-dog-runs-owner-arrested-obstruction-justice.html
jim C wrote:
“No matter what monetary support is given to students, the end result is the same, tuition, room and board, and other fees simply rise to offset the support.”
In 1974 the Australian Government abolished fees at universities and such, and started paying an allowance called TEAS to everyone (it was means tested, my father’s salary was about average and I got very little financial support.) They also paid an “incidentals allowance” of $100 pa that was to cover student union fees (compulsory, of course), books and so on. What did the student union do? They doubled their fee so there was nothing left over for books. (My parents paid for the books, and I was living at home, fortunately.) For a few years we had voluntary student unionism but the current government brought back compulsion, the bastards.
“In South Carolina we offer a series of scholarships based on academic performance funded by lottery money (tax on the mathematically challenged). Colleges and Universities simply raised their prices at a rate well above inflation to completely offset this money in just a few years.”
What percentage get the scholarship? Bummer if you don’t get one but have to pay he higher fees.
“Getting a college degree no longer requires basic literacy or numeracy.”
HEY! I resemble that… 🙁
Ray wrote:
“The lottery is nothing but a tax on the stupid.”
Good. Taxes on the stupid are the best type. Taxes on smokers are uber good too, I’d rather the government have the money than the suckers.
The rottweiler.
There should be a bounty on them and pit bulls.
“The rottweiler.”
A cat lover I presume.
On another front, Obummer pledges $7 billion to expand electricity across Africa. WTF? He can’t even keep tours open at the White House. How about helping out the families of the dead fire fighters in Arizona. Or a million other causes in the US.
So, in the era of the worthlessness of the big city school district high school diploma, we have the BS degree in Fluffery as its functional replacement. At least there is a greater possibility of minimal literacy and numeracy.
I am, in fact, a cat guy, and don’t much care for dogs, but if I was gonna get a dog it would be a rottweiler, American Pit Bull Terrier or a German Shepherd. Thank you. And I would be, of course, a responsible owner of them, just as I am with other tools at the OFD homestead.
Blue-shirt thugs now tase and shoot people at the slightest provocation and I am given to understand that it’s somehow part of their training these days; comes under the rubric of “self-protection” at ALL costs. This is probably one reason for the semi-auto full magazines of ammo, the spray-and-pray tactic, and the utter lack of concern for “collateral damage” to other people. We have the same thing in place, evidently, for our military, to a point. Thus the mega-tonnage of armor to tote around in 110-degree heat, the robot helmets and gear, and the blasting anything that moves. And total lack of concern for innocents who get in the way or just happen to be around if you’re pissed off and had a bad day. We had the same shit in SEA going on, but at least we didn’t have to haul around all that junk with us.
I’m happy with my BA in English Literature Fluffery and additional grad study; I have earned a living otherwise for the past two decades anyway and I am one very literate and history-minded IT drone. Can’t program in C## but I can recite Elizabethan and Petrarchan love sonnets and wax explanatory on them at the drop of a hat.
I detest cats actually, but rots and pits do get very bad press. I give them a wide berth.
Yesterday Google ended support for the RSS feed management tool. I had set up Feedspot and configured it a few weeks ago, and it seemed like a marginally adequate substitute. On my second full day the verdict isn’t so good. For one, when a blog is too wide to display it simply truncates the right-hand side instead of giving a horizontal scroll bar. There are other issues I won’t go into unless requested.
So I throw out my question to everyone… is there a tool you like for RSS feed management? I’ve got about 130 feeds, some active (like the ones here for our host’s messages and the replies), many dormant. Some are read daily, some occasionally, some hardly ever. My idea answer runs in a browser as Google did and Feedly does, but I’m ready to try anything that can get through on Windows 7. The feeds are mostly blogs, or corporate publicity pages, with a few news items.
Thanks!
I’d also be interested in a response to Roy’s question with pretty much the same criteria; as it is I visit the same sites daily, others less often.
“…but rots and pits do get very bad press.”
They get a bad press for two reasons, mainly; one, because of asshole owners who don’t take proper care or responsibility for fairly high-maintenance animals. And two, because the usual lefty media loves sensationalism and will latch onto any negative stories they can. For every tattooed shaved-headed gangbanger or low-level dope dealer who keeps one chained in his yard, and for every dog-fight asshole, there are hundreds of responsible and caring owners who will never be featured in any positive media stories.
Semi-automatic rifles get a bad press, too, and we know the reasons why; they magically become “assault rifles” and have 100-round magazines whose only purpose is to slaughter schools full of children. Their generic “pit bull,” which might be any one of four or five actual breeds of dog or mixed dogs, are, of course, ravenous and ferocious beasts from Hell who, again, chew on small children and attack our sterling heroes of law enforcement, etc., etc.
Work at the health department?
Yes. I have a friend that is an MD/PhD in public health, but he recently retired from a teaching position.
Screw you. Strong letter to follow.
(ref, except that I’m being all polite n shit.)
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds also recommends putting the university or college on the hook for students who default on their student loans. That would give the college some incentive to only grant loans to people who probably have an ability to repay them.
Shut 90% of them down completely, forever and close out the entire publik skool monstrosity. Your kids wanna learn something? Pay a tutor in that subject to teach them. Want them to learn half a dozen subjects? Pay half a dozen tutors. Work out a home-schooling and/or community-based schooling contract with a group of tutors. Whatever. But get Leviathan’s beak out of that trough; the Left has been successful in this country largely through their Long March infiltration and conquest of our educational systems and media.
Replacement for Google Reader…
I’ve been using Feedly; I have about 150 sites I follow, some active only monthly, some active several times a day. Right now I’m using it as a backend for IOS apps, but it works OK from a browser. I’ve seen several articles about replacements for Reader – you might do some searches concentrating on recent dates (last week or so).
I will say that I’m seeing a lag of about 3-4 hours between Bob’s post and when it appears in Feedly; I think it’s all a matter of how often they check his feed. Seems like they check his feed only 3-4 times a day, but other feeds much be checked several times per hour.
If I understood what I was seeing when I looked yesterday, there were 36 people who subscribed on Feedly to Bob’s feed.
Found a link to one article:
http://tidbits.com/article/13858
Here’s what I use for reading RSS feeds:
http://yarchive.net/blog/computers/web/rss_reader.html
But I haven’t figured out how to package it for ordinary users (as in, people who don’t know how to install Perl modules from CPAN).
My wife does a lot of work with dogs as a hobby, and sees all kinds from all sorts of backgrounds. According to her, dogs like Rotweilers or Pitbulls can be train to be vicious attack dogs more easily than other kinds, but – and this is the point – you still have to train them to be that way. Dogs have certain instinctive behaviors, and these can be taken in whatever direction the owner chooses. Just as example, one of our dogs (a mutt) is a herding dog from both parents. He is totally obsessed with frisbees, and hasn’t got the least bit of interest in livestock.
It’s a bit circular, but the reason that these dogs have their reputations is…because they have their reputations, which leads people to buy them who want to have an attack dog. Makes sense, since they can be trained that way, but the rest of us then see them being used and trained that way and think the whole breed is automatically vicious. A bit unfair – they’re just dogs like any other.
Anyhow, to the cops: One does wonder what kind of training cops get nowadays. Maybe its the news coverage, splashing rare incidents all over the blogosphere, but there sure do seem to be a lot of trigger happy incidents. Really, not only was there zero reason to arrest this guy, there was less than zero reason to shoot his dog. The excuse that they were protecting *him* from his own dog is extraordinarily pathetic.
From what I’ve read, the “spray and pray” philosophy really began in WWI, with mass conscript armies. You just don’t have time to train millions of conscripts to be real marksmen, and lots of them don’t have the aptitude and perhaps not the mental ability to deliberately aim and and kill another person. Even in WWII, the majority of the soldiers apparently never deliberately took another person into their sights and pulled the trigger. This got worse in Korea and especially Vietnam, when lots of the kids didn’t believe in the war they were fighting. No surprise that this has also gotten into the police forces, which seem to be wannabe armies anymore…
– – – – –
On a totally different subject, education: There was a talk show on Swiss TV yesterday about gifted kids. The ostensible subject was a nine year old who has just finished his college prep math examinations, and is now sitting in on college lectures. They had a panel of guests discussing the situation.
The father of this mathematical prodigy receives letters saying what a horrible parent he is, he must be stealing his son’s childhood, blah, blah, blah. He did find a supportive high school that took his son into math classes at the age of 8, but he hasn’t found any other external support or mentoring for the boy. The father’s point: This is what the boy wants to do, it’s what he is interested in. If he wanted to spend his free time being an amazing athlete or violinist, few would complain. It happens that he is fascinated with math; why should this be a problem?
One person on the panel picked this point out and put it into words: If a kid is a super athlete, playing incredible tennis or doing wonderful gymnastics, that’s great! Musical prodigy? Wow! All of these kids are well-received, and receive all sorts of offers of support. So…why is the reaction to intellectual gifts so negative?
I paid $312 a year tuition in 1964 in my freshman year studying electrical engineering at a large state university in Michigan. Last week’s alumni newsletter said the planned charge for 2014 was $11,500 a year. And, it devoted half a dozen pages to argue that it was the most cost effective large public university in Michigan, which I suspect is actually true.
That’s just shy of 40:1 increase in 50 years. The BLS’s “CPI Calculator” says that based on “official” CPI numbers, $312 in 1964 has the same “buying power” in 2013 as $2344.
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
Now if university tuition had increased only at the CPI rate (leaving aside the moment that the CPI numbers are cooked low) nearly anyone could afford to pay tuition of $2300 a year. But, $11.5K a year is more of a stretch.
Smart people are resented by many people of average or lower intelligence because they know they aren’t and never will be smart. They believe, correctly, that just about anyone who works hard enough at it can do well at sports or music. Perhaps not become a superstar, but do it much better than average. But they believe, also correctly, that one can’t teach calculus to a horse, and they hate being horses. It offends their notions of equality, because they’ve twisted the idea that everyone should have equal rights and opportunities to the gross idea that everyone is “equal”. That’s clearly not true, and raw intelligence rubs their faces in the fact that they aren’t and never can be equal in that respect.
“But, $11.5K a year is more of a stretch.”
It’s a racket. It’s theft, pure and simple. I saw it up close and personal twenty years ago and it has only gotten worse. There is a lot of administrative bloat in universities and as far as I’m concerned the humanities and social “science” departments are worthless. They all figure they can charge whatever they want to warehouse and babysit our children, which is all that is going on there, like it was going on for the previous twelve years of the child’s “education.”
A total racket.
Yes, they are, and they should be eliminated. I remember back in about 1972 having this discussion with one of my chemistry professors. His position was that history, languages, and so on were not rigorous subjects and were not appropriate for college-level education. Time and resources that were being allocated to them should instead have been allocated to rigorous subjects. Anything where the correct answer was a matter of opinion or received “wisdom” shouldn’t be taught. I agreed then, and I agree now. As he said, “This is stuff that students should be reading and mastering on their own.” As to foreign languages, I loved his take: “Babies learn them with no problem, so why are we teaching them here?”
Way back in the day when I worked at a gas station that sold lottery tickets I used to have a couple of lines I’d use on people who spoke poorly of the lottery. Not because I am a lotter proponent, but because I was trying to sell the tickets and I like to be contrary:
1. You don’t pay $1 for a decent chance to win millions. You pay a dollar for the dream. From the time you buy that ticket until the time they do the drawing you get to daydream about what it would be like to win. So, the $1 is for the dream. 🙂
2. The chances of someone who plays the lottery winning that lottery are infinitely better than the chances of someone who doesn’t play. That is, 1 in 175,223,510 (Powerball Jackpot) is better than 0.
Yes, a probability of 0.000000006 is higher than 0.000000000, but not by much.
I prefer to look at lotteries in terms of expected value per dollar invested. Obviously, payout rates vary between the states, although I’m sure all states have lower payout rates than the mob. So, assuming a payout rate of 30%, that means your $1 investment returns, on average, -$0.70. Or, as I said to Kim the other day, if you’re going to spend $10 on lottery tickets, it’s much easier and just as effective to burn a five and two ones and put the $3 back in your wallet.
The odds of committing a successful felony are greater than the lottery odds, I reckon. Takes a little planning, the right gear, the right frame of mind, etc., but there it is.
As to lottery tickets…
There’s a small chance of a big payoff and and (so long as you don’t buy too many tickets) no chance of beggaring yourself, so it’s not that stupid. When I was at work I was a member of a lotto syndicate and paid $3 per week. $3 is peanuts, less than I spend on a cappuccino, but the (small) chance of a big payout attracted me. From an expected value viewpoint it didn’t make sense, and “systems” that involve spending a lot of money on tickets are a poor investment, but on a small scale it’s pretty harmless.
@Ray. Sorry again for the delay. I was out in a boat on Lake Monroe near my alma mater most of the day yesterday (2nd), and spent today (3rd) catching up. Just now getting to the Internets (as the Europeans say).
Your friend’s solution sounds good. It is moving away from hardware to more software-oriented solutions, but that is the trend. People with only computers are coming up with some pretty amazing stuff on YouTube. And just like moving from analog editing with multiple physical tape machines to editing video that plays on a hard drive, that is where things are moving.
I like the idea of using PhotoShop as a creation tool. Wonder if Gimp can be supported?
Overwhelmingly, people in my industry opposed moving on to new technology. We used to manually set type in a hot press and stamp white foil onto flat black construction cardboard for the lower-third name superimpositions over various newsmakers during news programs. Then somebody invented a big vertical drum that you taped black foil to, after having used an IBM “Secretary” typewriter with a special typeface. A fluorescent backlight passed through the black foil, lighting through the now cleared void where the black foil had been typed off. Then along came Chiron, a computer that some guy in New Jersey came up with in his garage, and lower-thirds were not only as easy as typing, but calling them up was a lot easier than rolling that big damned drum around.
Then somebody invented how to store pictures one frame at a time, and film slides became a thing of the past. Anything we could create through the video chain could be saved as a still frame in memory. That included the lower-third supers and full screen elements, like Siskel & Ebert’s thumbs up or thumbs down.
I loved all these new technologies but most people resisted and hated them. Except top management—who often did not understand anything about technology, but—loved them and forced my compatriots to implement because the managers thought it was going to save big money.
Biggest hurdle was moving from analog tape editing to non-linear digital. There was no bigger hate for change than that one. I used to have to find guys straight out of college, who loved new technology to work with me. In the editing houses in Boston, every one of them had a room outfitted for non-linear editing, but when I would press them, they would all say, ‘Oh, we don’t ever use that. Lots of problems.’ No, the only problems were the techs who wanted to continue using the big old tape machines and CMX or Ampex editing controllers. (CMX ran on a little rack strip with DEC Unix in it, going to a serial terminal, and some custom-built hardware interfaces to the Ampex tape machine hardware. Once in a blue moon, a guy from Maynard would have to drive out to Chicago to fix something in that rack strip. We had the very first CMX computer editing unit outside of Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”, for whom it was invented. There were typically between 60 and 300 edits in that hour-long show—originally made with razor-blade cuts to 2-inch videotape.)
In analog computer editing, you built shows from top to tail (start to end); the thing very few people understood (and many still don’t) is that non-linear editing works best working backwards from ending to beginning. That requires a lot of pre-planning and a good Edit Decision List. Some people in my line of work are not capable of doing anything but making it up as you go along. Thus, the double-resistance of techs fighting it, along with producers and directors who refused to do pre-planning. But nowadays, I’ll bet finding a linear hardware editing suite would be darned near impossible—the exact opposite of even 10 years ago.
Having a graphics computer was also a quantum leap over constructing artwork on paper, to be shot on camera as a still. We started out with Quantel, made in the UK, then moved to DaVinci, which was a CBS Labs product. Modern-day equivalent would be PhotoShop or Gimp—all with Wacom tablets.
Keep us posted on how it works out. It is going to mean you will likely approach the work differently, but that is good, IMO. What wasn’t good when I worked actively in control rooms, was pushing more work—like calling up or advancing still frames and Chirons—from tech types onto me or my AD—or any of the producer’s staff. My producer friends still working in the news field, tell me that they have done away with engineering staff who did video editing, and have pushed that function onto producers, who now do it themselves at their desks, with a pair of headphones on. Talk about overwork. I could always get additional other work done while the editor was spending 5 or 10 minutes getting some edit transition to work out well. That would now be impossible if you had to run the controls yourself and spend all your thinking time on how you will make somebody like George Zimmerman say something he didn’t actually say.
Well, really, Chad hits it on the head. It’s not about the chance of winning, it about dreaming. I expect that is true of every single person who buys tickets, even if they don’t see it that way. Heck, I’ve gone to casinos a couple of times and had fun, even knowing that I’m going to lose money. I’m paying for the pleasure of playing.
I see lotteries are an ethical problem, because they take advantage of people who may not be aware of what is going on. The more desperate they are, the more they need the dream, so the more they play. Really, if anyone should be upset about lotteries, it should be all of the people who complain about regressive taxation.
Even left wing governments, who are supposed to care about the working class, shamelessly use gambling as a revenue raiser. In South Australia poker machines (aka one armed bandits, aka “slots” in US parlance) were introduced as a revenue raiser (“for schools and hospitals”, of course) and have been insanely successful. Many venues have cheap meals, and give large amounts of change in $1 coins, to encourage playing. To me it defines boredom but some play hour after hour. Now governments are dependent on the revenue and it’s the “Battlers” who get milked the most.
Your friend’s solution sounds good. It is moving away from hardware to more software-oriented solutions, but that is the trend.
I knew that a software solution was the way to go. I saw the equipment. Simply amazing. 19 inches wide, 4 inches tall, 1 inch thick. That is the total switcher. Supports 8 sources, multiple outputs, analog or digital (HD also). The module is $2.5K and can be controlled by up to 5 PC using Ethernet. The control surface is $6K and connects via Ethernet, same as a PC. You can do the graphics on a PC, post them to the switcher immediately, and then display them. All while the director/switcher is doing their thing independent of what is happening on the PC.
The price quote came in at $15K with training and installation, two PC’s (one for graphics, one to stream), tally module, and digital recording and playback using SSD slots (price also included two SSDs). A 32 inch display with virtual screens that can be rearranged and each display can it’s source changed to any of the inputs. The control surface has programmable button legends and can be changed on the control PC.
I was blown away by what they have been able to accomplish with current technology. The system is markedly cheaper than Ross and does more.
But there is good news and bad news. I got the Ross switcher working again. I traced down the wiring from the switcher and found a hidden rack of digital to analog converters that had blown a fuse. So now my Ross functions and I am back to where I was. Whether the individual who committed to fund the new system will still do so is unknown.
I do know with this equipment I could take the Sunday morning live broadcast to a level that no other church in this area can accomplish. And we are the only live broadcast in the area all others being delayed broadcast. These other churches provide a DVD to the station and the station plays it. We send a live feed from our studio. Being able to do graphic overlays that look great is going to be the biggest improvement.
The ability to stream will also be added. Many churches are going to streaming broadcasts rather than buying airtime from local stations. The prices are climbing too high as the local stations try to stay afloat. People that are cutting the cord, getting their content from other locations, TIVO skipping of commercials are all causing ad revenue to drop. The stations recover that loss of revenue by hiking their prices.
Interesting effect. Higher prices driving content deliverers to find other alternatives which drops the station revenue which cause prices to go higher driving more providers to more alternatives………….
Many churches are going to streaming broadcasts rather than buying airtime from local stations. The prices are climbing too high as the local stations try to stay afloat. People that are cutting the cord, getting their content from other locations, TIVO skipping of commercials are all causing ad revenue to drop. The stations recover that loss of revenue by hiking their prices.
Interesting effect. Higher prices driving content deliverers to find other alternatives which drops the station revenue which cause prices to go higher driving more providers to more alternatives………….
There is a weekly lunch of broadcast people (mostly radio) that has been going on at one of the restaurants in Indy for the last quarter century. We often discuss this seeming conundrum. Fact is, our conclusion (confirmed by those still holding management jobs in the industry) is that ownership is fully aware of what they are doing. It is not by accident, lack of information, or stupidity that they are doing this. They are doing it intentionally, because they see the end of the road coming. Between now and then, they are going to extract as much money from their properties as the market can possibly bear—maybe more.
I was driving to a job in Indy recently, and had my usual radio station for traffic reports on. When I switched the radio on, they were already in the middle of a commercial set. From the time I tuned in, there were 12 more minutes of back-to-back commercials before they got to other program elements. That is really outrageous. For those of us who have loved and worked in the medium, it is being burned at the stake and buried in useless oblivion. Even the on-air personnel today are not performers or communicators. They have nothing useful to say, and certainly are not riveting, like the DJ’s who were our constant companions back in the ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, who were witty, subtle, and hip. I learn nothing from the useless air talent on stations today. The fact that their wages compete with McDonalds to find out who can get away with paying the lowest, does not help.
The time to get a station to cut their rates, is when some other church pulls out completely. Then confront the station and tell them if they don’t halve your rate, you are pulling out, too. Believe me the behind the scenes consternation will be considerable. Maybe they won’t lower the rate to half, but at least that will start some negotiations. Or go to one of their competitors and negotiate something more realistic. Or form some kind of consortium with other churches to get some clout in negotiating with the broadcasters. Or form your own streaming consortium. As audiences decline, broadcast air time becomes worth less. All those half-hour program-length commercials are NOT paying the expenses for stations to stay on the air. Many of them are PI’s (per inquiry) where they are paid something like 50¢ for each call they get to an 800 number that identifies that station as the motivating source of the call. Fifty cents a call ain’t much money for running a half-hour program. My broadcast management teacher at my alma mater told us decades ago that we should never run PI programming or do trade-outs, because it cheapens the rates you can charge. And he is right. If the station you are on, runs PI-type programming, use that as leverage to lower the rates they charge you in similar time slots. Believe me, in this day, EVERYTHING is negotiable—even if they say it isn’t. And if they get away without negotiating, I guarantee you that the fool who caused that income to be lost and plunge to $0, will be fired.
Any time they see a ‘live one’ coming along, they will try to recoup their losses by overcharging to make up for the per-inquiry stuff they run. And the only reason they run that long commercial stuff is because it costs them to buy their own programming that does not pay them anything, and in which they cannot sell commercials for love nor money.
My advice is to start streaming alongside the broadcast and see how you do. Stream both video AND audio. And make those TV bastards SELL you on why you should stay with them. What do they offer for the money you pay? Guaranteed audience reach? Promotion of your program outside the air time? Listing in their program schedule with church contact information? You ought to be getting all those things. Make them work for that money you pay them—or go somewhere else. Times are too tough for TV stations to take the money and run. The money-pump days are over.
In fact, there is a good argument that they should be paying you to produce religious programs, the running of which makes them look good to the FCC at license renewal time.
Stream both video AND audio.
Do you have recommendation for a streaming provider? This is uncharted territory for me and I am doing a lot of guessing.
We use an outfit called Centova for audio streaming on the radio project. Audio is pretty simple. We use Edcast as the program to send audio from the transmitter to the stream server. Edcast is no longer in development, nor is it supported, but works for us. A lot of people are turning to LiquidSoap, which apparently is hard to set up, but just works once you get it right. Icecast and Darkice are fraught with problems and are being abandoned all the time. Neither is in development or supported anymore. Lots of programs out there are being completely abandoned these days.
Jack,—the virtual jack panel that can connect various software programs, routing inputs and outputs around,—seems to cause trouble for those who run production 24/7. If you run a recording studio, and arrange things differently for each session, then Jack seems to work fine, but if you are a radio operation that never shuts down, Jack seems to just quit after a few weeks.
Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about video streaming, even though I have done freelance gigs where the final produced product was live-streamed. That part was usually done by a completely different division (IT). We just sent them a program feed, and they took it from there.
But I imagine your hardware supplier can steer you in the right direction.