The reason is that your old analog CRT TV now has a negative value.
Yes, I know you paid “good money” for it, but that was then and this is now.
These days it’s worth less than zero.
That’s why you put it out on the sidewalks of the Western Addition PJ’s, right?
So if you want to tell tout le monde that your obsolete device still functions, don’t use any exclamation points.
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That is all.
Oh, and where’s the remote?
Well, here it is, your brand new PG&E SmartMeter opt-out option.
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David R. Baker was on the scene at the big CPUC meeting yesterday, actually engaging with the crazies, so check that out if you want.
And if you think that a SmartMeter has ANYTHING AT ALL to do with your health (and, oh yes, you yourself are somehow particularly affected by infinitesimal amounts of additional non-ionizing radiation in your life, I hear what you are saying) you’re barking up the wrong tree. People who don’t tell you that are just patronizing you, just saying.
Now here’s what PG&E has to say. Enjoy:
“SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 1, 2012 — Residential electric and gas customers who have concerns about wireless technology can now choose either a new SmartMeter(TM) or a traditional analog meter, following the final decision today by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) supports the CPUC’s decision and will respond quickly to customers who opt-out of the utility’s SmartMeter(TM) program.
“We know personal choice is important to our customers when it comes to the meters on their homes,” said Helen Burt, PG&E’s Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer. “This final decision in support of analog meters is a positive step forward for those who have concerns over wireless technology. We understand some customers have been waiting for this decision, and we are actively reaching out to those who have expressed their desire for a SmartMeter(TM) alternative.”
PG&E is installing digital, wireless SmartMeters(TM) throughout its service area in Northern and Central California as part of a statewide effort to help customers save on their bills by offering them more control over their energy usage, improve reliability and customer service, and conserve natural resources to help the environment. As part of a global effort to modernize the energy grid and transform it into a digital network that will deliver more reliable power to homes and businesses, similar metering programs are now underway at utilities throughout the country and around the world. To date, PG&E has installed nearly nine million gas and electric SmartMeters(TM), on its way to about 10 million meters in 2012.
Independent studies repeatedly have affirmed the safety and accuracy of SmartMeters(TM). However, in response to comments from some customers, PG&E in March 2011 proposed offering them a choice to turn off the radios in their SmartMeters(TM), and then provided customers with the option to delay the installation of new SmartMeters(TM) pending the CPUC’s final decision. In December 2011, PG&E asked the CPUC to approve analog meters as another alternative to receiving a SmartMeter(TM), which was the central element of the CPUC’s decision today.
Burt added, “The vast majority of our customers are already seeing the many benefits of SmartMeters(TM). By choosing to stay with our program, our customers will continue having control by seeing where they can save energy throughout the course of the day and making simple but effective changes around the home to save money.”
PG&E customers who want to opt-out of the SmartMeter(TM) program can submit their request online at www.pge.com/smartmeteroptout or call 1-866-743-0263. PG&E plans to remove the gas and electric SmartMeters(TM) from the homes of those opt-out customers who already have SmartMeters(TM); those customers who still have analog meters will be able to keep them.
The CPUC’s final decision requires customers who opt-out of the program to pay a $75 initial setup charge and a $10 monthly charge. This will cover the costs of manual meter-reading and associated operational and billing issues. Income-qualified customers will pay a $10 initial setup charge and $5 a month.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation’s cleanest energy to 15 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit http://www.pge.com/about/
SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company”
I’m not exactly sure what you people are worried about with the new SmartMeters from our corporate overlords at Pigs, Giraffes, and Elephants. One issue is radiation. Really? Can a frequency make you sick?
“Hart says the electromagnetic frequency, the EMF, which is used to remotely send information from the SmartMeter on the side of your home to PG&E can make people sick.”
I don’t think so, pardner. Anyway, concerns persist over the electromagnetic fields surrounding these rigs. So, PG&E is taking steps today to make sure you get all the paliative cliches you can handle. Read all about what they’re going to do after the jump.
Now, the other issue people seem to have is meter accuracy. So, get ready for the Old vs. New side-by-side test results.
Some Californians have two meters metering just to prove that SmartMeters work:
Seems pretty close to me but, as always, You Make The Call:
Data ending 8/10/2010
Data ending 8/3/2010
Data ending 7/27/2010
Data ending 7/20/2010
View results archive
All right, all the deets of SmartMeter Best Practices after the jump.
I’ll tell you, I worked at a bank back in the day, back in the pre-digital camera era, and I’ll tell you, there’s no way a typical analog camera would get this kind of image of an alleged bank robber. Particularly since the old-school cams had to be tripped manually when the time came, owing to the expense of film.
But these days, digital cameras is everywhere.
Anyway, if I were this fellow, I’d leave town, for a while anyway.
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All the deets straight from the SFPD FB:
SAN FRANCISCO POLICE SEEK PUBLIC’S HELP IN LOCATING SERIAL BANK ROBBERY SUSPECT (10-039)
San Francisco police are seeking the public’s help in locating a bank robbery suspect who has robbed four downtown San Francisco banks since March 22. In three of the incidents, the suspect approached a bank customer already at the teller window and placed a knife to the customer’s throat. While holding the knife, the suspect demanded and was given currency from the teller. The suspect then fled the bank. In one of the three incidents, the hostage victim suffered a non-life-threatening knife wound.
The first incident on March 22 occurred at Citibank, 1801 Van Ness Avenue. There was no customer threat or weapon used in this incident. Two days later, on March 24, the suspect entered the East West Bank at 743 Washington Street and held a knife to the throat of an Asian male customer at the teller window. On April 2, the suspect went into the Wells Fargo Bank at 1160 Grant Avenue and again held a knife to the throat of a customer, an Asian male. This was the incident in which the customer was injured.
On April 5, the suspect entered City National Bank, 150 California Street, stood behind a 90-year-old Hispanic female customer at the teller window, and held a knife to her throat. After demanding and receiving currency, the suspect fled the bank. The victim was not injured.
The suspect is described as an African-American male, 30-40, 6’, 175 lbs, black hair with mustache and goatee. The suspect wore a dark baseball cap in each incident. Surveillance photos of the suspect accompany this press release.
Anyone with information regarding the suspect is urged to contact Inspector Phillip Wong, Criminal Investigation Unit, 553-1201, to call the Confidential Tip Line, 415-575-4444, or to use Text-a-Tip by typing TIP411 or 847411 in the “To” field and “SFPD” in the text field.
For more information, please contact the Media Relations Unit, 553-1651
Like these guys.
It would take forever to make it up the stairs to the top of controversial landmark Sutro Tower, so a swaying elevator car is the preferred method.
Click to expand to get a closer look at a sunnier, more colorful San Francisco:
Take the tour.
Not that you’d really be able to tell, though. Sutro Tower Inc. has just finished a project that had some of the digital TV broadcast antennas (not “antennae” – that plural term is only used for bugs in our silly English language) gaining a higher altitude.
Not much howver, maybe a seven-percent increase, max. Does that make a big difference? No, not for most people, but at least STI is trying.
Here’s the antenna of KPIX-TV (OMG, that’s the home of Eye on Blogs – big ups, Brittney Gilbert!) a way up top, like 1700 feet above sea level. Now Channel 5 is as high as possible:
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The Future is Now, and what’s labeled “CURRENT” is history:
From this:
To this:
Well, they were still wrapping the KPIX, KRON, KTVU antenna assembly, but you get the idea.
So it looks like we’re all set with the Great Digital TV Conversion of 2009. As long as Sutro Tower doesn’t get hit by a shooting star….
…we’ll be all right.
Well this is how some massive support columns are now decorated at the University of California, San Francisco medical school these days.
As seen from Parnassus Avenue:
It looks to be a collection of shots of students from over the past hundred years – could it be the Student Photo Project? Maybe, but the S.P.P. goes on about “the three primary colors*, red, yellow and blue” that they were going to use and this installation is just black and white.
Anyway, it looks great. Keep up the good work, students of UCSF.
Old school! The way it looked back in 1908:
*Yes, I remember first grade as well, but it was all a lie – red, yellow and blue are not “the” primary colors, they are just one group of primaries, and they aren’t so hot in that role, anyway. Or, as Wiki so diplomatically opines, the RYB color model “predates modern scientific theory.” Harsh. Harsh but fair.
San Francisco’s famous Sutro Tower (owned by Sutro Tower, Inc., the buyer-offer and $hutter-upperof San Francisco’s mid-town NIMBYs) has a new look for Fall.
Here’s Before (a way back in August 2009)…
…und jetzt After, the way it looks these days (when being buzzed by a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-700 NG heading to El Lay, camera right, see it?)
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Très chic! Non?
Now, she’s all set for the next meteor shower:
Courage.
Well here’s this scene this morning up on Mount Sutro (former home to the SF-89C Mount Sutro Nike Missile Control Station, don’t you know.) Can you see what’s missing?
Sutro Tower is losing antennas (that’s right, not antennae or antennea or anything else) and getting other updates all in the name of Our Digital Future. Get some deets here at the Burrito Justice.
The West Stack appears all nubbed out these days, no? Click to expand.
Make your necessary adjustments and your Wheel will come in just fine every evening, as per usual.
How can it be.
Believe me
All right, you already know about Sutro Tower, right? Well, here’s an update. Digital TV is here, not that you care, cause you get cable from the Comcast monopoly.
But, just in case you’re struggling with a free digital to analog converter box you just got from the govmint, there might be some good news coming in a few months when they lift the digital antennas up higher on the tower.
So, do you see this vertical array in the middle of this photo? Them’s the digital antennas:
Click to expand.
Kind of an afterthought, they were, so there was a big fuss about getting them up there. They weigh a ton (or rather 10 tons, actually). I’m a little hazy on all the deets of high-def and digital and whatnot, but whatever, this 125-foot long array is not long for this world. Check it:
See? All the “DT” antennas are going up all the way to the top (and losing the DT suffix). Match up the chart with real life here:
So what this all adds up to is that there’s a chance your reception will improve in a few months. No promises, however. Most of the people who are bummed with DTV are still going to be bummed with DTV, but it’s a Worthy Effort. Listen to a KQED Forum podcast from Scott Shafer and Glenn Phillips, field agent for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
And, as always, re-scan if you run into trouble. What’s that? You still can’t see Wheel and all your stories? Sorry.
Oh, and what about the Not In My Back Yard millionaires who never cottoned to Sutro Tower in the first place? Well, they’ve been bought off for peanuts.
Check it:
a. $ 3,000.00 per year to the Midtown Terrace Home Owners Association. The initial contribution payable prior to December 31, 2008. Subsequent contributions to be made on or before July 1 of each year.
b. $ 4,500.00 one time contribution to the Twin Peaks Improvement Association for an open space improvement project.
c. $ 6,000.00 one time contribution to the Forrest [sic] Knolls Neighborhood Organization to replace the Forrest Knolls [sic again - Run Forrest Run!] entrance sign.
d. $ 10,000.00 one time contribution for the benefit of the surrounding area to purchase two drinking fountains one each at the walking paths around two area reservoirs. The contribution will be payable only when the fountains are approved by the appropriate agencies and actually purchased.
How’s them apples?
Anyway, hang your antenna high and hope for the best.
