This guy’s crimes were nasty, but he’s one hot dude.
Category: Local
KPOV To Go “Full Power”, KWAX to Change Frequency
Bend community low-power radio station KPOV has been awarded a full-power FCC license. Congrats to them, as they’re a great bunch of folks and it’ll be great for them to get their station out there more. When they get everything all built up, they’ll be broadcasting on 88.9 FM instead of their current 106.7.
Why does 88.9 sound familiar? As I’ve mentioned before, 88.9 is used by KWAX — a University of Oregon-based classical music station — as a local translator. Since KPOV was awarded this license, KWAX has to quit broadcasting on that frequency when KPOV goes live on the new channel. KWAX already broadcasts locally on 88.5 out of Redmond and 90.1 out of Sunriver, but neither of those translators came in as good as the 88.9 out of Bend (I’m a classical music guy, and like KWAX’s programming).
So I e-mailed the folks at KWAX, and asked them what their plan was for the Bend translator. Their response:
We have one more application to get through the FCC and will then have permission to build the identical facility we have now, but on 98.9. You should notice no difference in the quality or coverage of the translator after the frequency change. We hope to have it completed by the end of the summer, well in advance of the new station beginning operation.
Good to hear they’ll still have a good solid Bend translator, and congrats to the KPOV folks!
Worried You’re Going To Go Over Your BendBroadband Bandwidth Usage?
July is the first month that BendBroadband is capping your Internet bandwidth at 100gb/month and will be billing for overages (read up on the whole mess that ensued after the announcement here). Since I don’t think the usage-based bills have been sent out quite yet, there hasn’t been any reaction quite yet (don’t think there will be much of one since they did raise their cap). But if you’re concerned about going over, and want to make sure you don’t, a local programmer has created a monitoring PHP script that will e-mail you your usage numbers whenever the script runs. You can read up on bbbUM here.
I really have an urge to make this a public service where people can submit their user/pass, it’d be encrypted and can then email them their usage on a daily basis, but I really don’t have that kind of free time on my hands.
In The Story That Just Won’t Die…
…Bend “Pregnant Man” Debuts his baby in People Magazine. And apparently the family earned a cool $300,000 from People for exclusive picture rights (because “you don’t go on the cover of People magazine for free honey!”)
I’m sure (I guess, I hope) they’ll make good parents (despite their love for the spotlight), I just feel bad for the daughter and the therapy sessions she will probably need as she gets older.
So How Did Bend Officials Do With Their 4th of July Enforcement?
Back before the 4th of July, I talked about how I hated the holiday and how the local police were trying to make an effort to cut down on use of illegal fireworks locally with a large advertising campaign and media blitz. I predicted they’d give out less than 10 fireworks-related citations. That number ended up being far less. Read on…
Be Safe Today
I’ve mentioned before how much I love the Fourth of July.</sarcasm>, but no matter your thoughts on it (I’d enjoy it if I didn’t fear my house would burn down), just be safe today. Hopefully they’ll actually enforce the illegal fireworks ban like they promise.
But if you are looking for something to do today (before they burn up the Butte), Jon has you covered.
In Case Anybody Gives A Rip…
Bend’s pregnant “man” has reportedly given birth to a girl.
Anybody Want To Make Any Bets…
…on how much they’re actually going to enforce the fireworks laws locally, especially after making a point to tell everybody they’re going to?
As everybody knows, the 4th of July is one of my least favorite holidays, as I live about two blocks from Pilot Butte, which they set on fire around this time every year. Which means I’m right in the middle of where everybody goes to party, get drunk, and shoot off a crapload of illegal fireworks. Generally speaking, I don’t mind the illegal fireworks, if they are used safely and properly (meaning not in the middle of a dense residential neighborhood). But who does that, minus the folks shooting them off the Butte (and even they catch acres of land on fire)? Nobody is safe — they’re too beered-up. I spend the entire evening watching bottle rockets and other flying projectiles land in my yard, worrying that they’ll catch something on fire. Considering how dry this area is, and how fires are already burning up around eastern Oregon, I won’t be surprised at all to see a fireworks-caused fire this year.
But sadly, I don’t envision their newfound willingness to enforce actually changing anything. These laws have been on the books for years, and they haven’t stopped anybody in my neighborhood at all, nor have I ever seen a law enforcement presence (and yes, I have called before when I feared fire).
So, anybody want to make any bets on how many fireworks citations they’ll give out this year? I’m willing to bet it’ll be less than 10.
BendBroadband Cap Protest Planned
(If you have no idea what folks would be protesting, read up here)
The folks at FixBBB are planning to protest the BendBroadband bandwidth caps this weekend. Right now, I’m in the boat where while I don’t like the caps (which have been raised) I’m below the 100GB limit and it’d be a hassle to move everything to a new ISP right now. I’m also far enough away from the Qwest downtown office where the speeds would be quite a bit slower than what I have now if I were to move to DSL.
I won’t be able to attend (nor was I really planning to, as I’m not one for protesting publicly — I protest with my wallet, personally), nor do I personally expect it to do a whole lot of good. Not only is the foot traffic in and out of the BendBroadband office probably really low (especially on a Saturday) but drive-by traffic is pretty minimal by their front door (if the protest is behind their offices, facing Empire, that might be more effective).
Speaking of boats (I was — lookup a few lines) it’s free fishing weekend, so that will undoubtedly take some traffic away. Or not. I have no idea, I just wanted to throw a stupid joke in there.
BendBroadBand Changes Mind, Still Caps ‘net Usage, But Raises The Cap
(If you haven’t been following the BendBroadband bandwidth cap update, read up here first which links to the few entries that follow this whole mess. Most of the discussion has happened here.)
BendBroadband announced today that they’ve dropped their tiered-bandwidth-cap for the upcoming service change in July, in favor of an across-the-board residential 100GB cap. The pricing differences will now be because of the speed differences and the Platinum Plan that was created during this whole discussion has been dropped.
Just the same, Comcast still gives you a higher cap.
The press release (full text after the jump) also mentions their business plans that are coming soon. It was originally thought and mentioned that these would be uncapped, but it appears that the cap will be set at 150GB for all but the high-end plan (no details on pricing has been released — which I’m still a bit miffed about and have been all along). As was mentioned before, the cap on business plans might hurt Bend as a destination for new technology entrepreneurs. Experimentation with technology can sometimes be an expensive and stressful endeavor if you have to worry about caps.
And there is still is my problem with the overnight downloads/uploads that I do (for backup/security purposes). Again, they shouldn’t count against me, but they’re going to, even though they’re going to hurt nobody. While I’m not over the 100GB limit, there are times where I easily could be. And I can’t consider a business plan as they still haven’t released them.
So an improvement? Yes. Completely fixed? Nope. Are people still going to complain? You bet. Will the usage graph be fixed? As of May 7th, it say it is on the site, but who knows if it’ll break again.
I just don’t think people will realize the impact this could potentially have on their bill. While the cap is much higher than before, with Summer coming and the kids being at home and discovering torrents and iTunes video and such, I just have a feeling there will be more outrage to come.
Full press release after the jump, feel free to comment below.
Update: FixBBB is all over it as well.