The new things with next gen telescopes is not creating gigantic mirrors, but assembling a large amount of smaller mirrors together to act like a single giant mirror. Then they place actuators below each individual mirror to allow for minute adjustments, thus nullifying the effect of looking through our murky atmosphere. And if this mirror is being built near the Keck Observatories, I bet the get networked together for the gigantic interferonometry action.
So how much torture or enchanted jewlery does it take to finally get funding approved for the construction of an infernal observatory in Mordor? Me personally, I'd be sold for Mithril pajamas.
On a serious note, I've always wanted to sit under one of these bad boys and stare at the sky for a while. Stellarium just isn't enough I tells ya.
@Kaiser-Machead: Hey, if you need to build the Eye of Sauron next to a volcano, might as well build it in Hawaii. You can do a lot worse than a tropical paradise. The only reason Sauron kept going back to Mordor was the cheap real estate. It's about time he did something nice for himself.
@Lynn Marlow: Look at, yeah, since I can just look up pictures. Play in, well that requires a lot of time off of work, and a lot of money to do it all the time. :( I'll bet you live there too, playin in the beautiful landscape...smelling the beautiful flowers. I hope a bee stings you in the ass. Jerk.
Apparently it was a fairly big failure, and based on what you said probably has nothing to do with doing it a month ahead of the schedule. People simple are not going to need to do something until they absolutely have to. Yes, this thing has been planned for ages, but apparently still has not made enough of an impact to actually keep people from being cut off. And, yes, more time is not likely to fix the situation much. Still -- I am amazed that we have come down to a situation where this much money and thought has gone into this thing, and they might as well have just flipped the switch a few years ago.
In my area, all of the digital towers are up and broadcasting, but they need to increase the signal strength. Right now I can get about 2 local channels on digital.
We need a lot more in my town as well (PDX). The towers aren't even that far away and yet the reception is still shit on most days. At least with an analog signal, we could get a bit of the picture and sound in and it was easily watchable. This digital mess is unwatchable as the screen is heavily pixelated and fragmented at times, not to mention that it just cuts to a black screen often.
I imagine even when the switch goes through, a lot of people are going to find out just how shitty DTV reception is.
@Fuzz: That may be true, but digital signals still won't penetrate into buildings as well as analog (which is why they're reclaiming the analog range in the first place). If you have rabbit ears, you're screwed on two counts. One, the walls of the building will be interfering with your signal more noticably than before, and two, tuning in a digital signal without one of the new smart-antennas is an excersize in tedium, as there's no pulling in a weak signal. You either get it, or you don't, and instead of getting a snowy image that gets clearer as you tune it in, you'll have a clear image that cuts in and out randomly until you chance upon the magic sweet spot.
Just out of curiosity how has the digital switchover been publicized in the states? Here we have adverts every so often on BBC (non commercial channels) and commercial channels reminding us that we need to upgrade our tuners by 2011 or our TVs will be obsolete. Also, in all electronics stores there are still posters sayiny are you ready for the digital switchover?
@Yeebles: Always remember (and this is important):
Enough Americans are too fat and stupid to understand even the most basic of directives, such that anything of this sort will end in disaster. They could have aired on commercial or 15,000,000. It will cause mass panic and idiocy either way.
PS - I am an American, and you can put me in whichever category you want. "Churlish", perhaps. I also speak with some authority on this matter.
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On a serious note, I've always wanted to sit under one of these bad boys and stare at the sky for a while. Stellarium just isn't enough I tells ya.
07/22/09
01/19/09
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We need a lot more in my town as well (PDX). The towers aren't even that far away and yet the reception is still shit on most days. At least with an analog signal, we could get a bit of the picture and sound in and it was easily watchable. This digital mess is unwatchable as the screen is heavily pixelated and fragmented at times, not to mention that it just cuts to a black screen often.
I imagine even when the switch goes through, a lot of people are going to find out just how shitty DTV reception is.
01/17/09
From what I read they won't be bringing the towers up to full power until they shut off the analoug ones, so you won't know for sure until then.
01/17/09
That may be true, but digital signals still won't penetrate into buildings as well as analog (which is why they're reclaiming the analog range in the first place). If you have rabbit ears, you're screwed on two counts. One, the walls of the building will be interfering with your signal more noticably than before, and two, tuning in a digital signal without one of the new smart-antennas is an excersize in tedium, as there's no pulling in a weak signal. You either get it, or you don't, and instead of getting a snowy image that gets clearer as you tune it in, you'll have a clear image that cuts in and out randomly until you chance upon the magic sweet spot.
01/17/09
01/20/09
Enough Americans are too fat and stupid to understand even the most basic of directives, such that anything of this sort will end in disaster. They could have aired on commercial or 15,000,000. It will cause mass panic and idiocy either way.
PS - I am an American, and you can put me in whichever category you want. "Churlish", perhaps. I also speak with some authority on this matter.