In the spirit of this thread (I am not flaming the community here) I really think it is becoming fashionable to have sheer contempt towards government policies, even if it means losing objectivity.
Is it fashionable in government to craft legislation that contradicts 60 years of common sense and technological policy?
Besides that, when does the government ever got the policies right for the first time?
How about The Communications Act of 1934? That was the act which created the Federal Communications Commission. It also defined policies which are widely respected today, such as "Radio Secrecy" (not the "Radio Privacy" foolishness you find in the ECPA).
I have very little patience with legislators who craft laws with no basis in common sense, practicality, past policy, or even future trends.
Courts profess that "ignorance is no excuse for the law." Well, in the case of legislators: "Ignorance is no excuse for an impractical or poorly crafted law." If we are to continue building an honorable and productive society, the law needs to make sense, be enforcable, and it needs to respect everyone's rights. Clearly the ECPA fails that smell test on all counts. The DMCA is yet another that fails the smell test.
I don't stand for this kind of treatment from my government and neither should anyone else.
Free software has no problem complying with such regulations... [such as the ECPA]
One of the recent modifications to 47CFR15 (FCC part 15 regulations on receiver coverage among other things) concerns making receivers difficult to modify so that they can't receive cellular telephone calls. Specifically see part 15.23, and part 15.121.
I don't know how you can call a snippet of code like this a reasonable prevention.
Please don't misunderstand me, I think these regulations are utter balderdash. Unfortunately, I see no reason to think those regulations are unconstitutional, despite the stunning ignorance and stupidity behind them. I don't understand how Eric and company can work on a project of this sort without violating these regulations and thus I don't see how the GNU copyleft can remain in force.
Doesn't anyone see a conflict here? And if not, why?
The boxed software will never substitute for proper engineering, but it may lead to eventual brain death among engineers.
Sigh. What we have here is a rosey-eyed view of the past. The view that todays crop of students are worse than those of yesteryear was documented at least as far back as the Roman Empire.
The difference is experience. Once you have been there and learned from the school of hard knocks, it's awfully hard not to think bad things of those who get those problems solved automatically. Experience can make some real codgers out of ordinary folk. No school can teach experiences and understanding. Thus, the illusion that "today's kids have it too easy." Never fear, they'll have problems of thier own to solve.
The engineering projects we remember today are mostly the survivors of the past. We remember them because the worked well. It's like those wonderful peices of Antique furniture. The reason antiques look so good is that they were worth keeping from the very first day they were purchased. If the furniture was shoddy, it didn't survive long enough to become an antique.
Thus, few bother to remember short sighted problems with the Ford Edsel. Few look back at the many rail bridges that failed in the early days before steel construction techniques were well understood. Likewise, few think much of the ubiquitous regenerative radios that used to be so common in the 1930s and '40s. Few of these cars, bridges or radios survive to this day because they were crap. Yes the engineers of yesterday could put out some pretty awful crap too.
Having software available to standardize engineering is a good thing, as long as the users of the software understand where the edge of the limits are. Nobody uses NEC to model antennas without considering the accuracy issues of that model. Nobody uses SPICE to model a circuit for production without considering a monte carlo analysis using real-world component tolorances. Future software users will find ways of using multiple software modeling techniques to check their own work.
I think Lucky is lost in his memories. He remembers the smells of a lab that is no longer needed so much. In his day, engineers got their feel for the real world by actually being technicians as well. He laments that we can do so much simulation in computers that we don't need to build nearly as many prototypes. That's like lamenting that pilots who fly complex airliners on instruments have no need of knowning how to fly by the seat of their pants. Who cares? We're working on different stuff now. Get over it.
However what if you press the wrong button? Suddenly you have the wrong answer and don't know it. You should always have an idea of what the right answer would be.
And what if you added two numbers incorrectly in your head? Suddenly you have the wrong answer and don't know it.
Unless I'm missing something, all you're talking about is having some method of cross checking your calculations. Whether that's another computer program, or another approach to the problem, is irrelevant.
It's all about understanding the problem at hand. Doing it in your head is a luxury that many of us simply can't afford any more. I think your concerns can be addressed very nicely by simply saying "check your work."
The fraud in his reporting bothers me. Mendel's experiements in genetics could have been on that list too, had it not been for his intellectual dishonesty.
Aside of the simplicity of the experiment, one of the criteria should be not having to fudge or lie about anything in the results.
I think Michaelson and Morley's experiment with interfereometrics in search of the elusive Ether is so much more deserving than this selection. They had the guts to come forward and say that despite the controls they introduced, they could not find any evidence of an electromagnetic ether.
Their experiment was well constructed, and they reported their results honestly, even despite the conflict with what they thought it ought to look like. Millikan fudged his data. It may have been innocent, but it was still a fudge. Which experiment would you hold up as an example of good science?
I wonder what cops would think of those who use binoculars to find front door locks that are inadequate and who leave chalk marks on the sidewalk indicating which buildings or houses can be easily broken in to.
You have to admit, warchalking is bad citizenship, if nothing else. Bandwidth is not free. Just because someone is sloppy about setting up their 802.11b network doesn't mean they deserve to have bandwidth stolen from them.
Nokia has a point. There may not be a specific law against warchalking, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
First, I think you're oversimplifying. Second, many ignorant policy wonks assume that science at the edge of discovery is a matter of fact. It's not. For a scientific discovery to reach "fact" it has to be repeated in various experiments and forms.
Further, sometimes peer review breaks down. And what was first thought to be a well controlled experiment isn't.
Thus, when you make science policy, it's hardly unreasonable to assign your own private set of values to an area where the science is thin. Environmental "science" (Richard Feynmann would argue that it isn't) is one of those areas. We don't have the ability to conduct a controlled experiement. So most discoveries bear the mark of what Feynmann liked to call "Cargo Cult" science.
I don't blame a politician for being skeptical of some discoveries, particularly those on the environment. I don't agree with all that the Bush 43 Administration is doing, but I don't fault them for having values any more than I fault the Clinton administration for having theirs.
Discovering new things through research is science. Making policy from these discoveries is politics.
Likewise, determining who gets public money to perform what scientific research is a political decision; performing and reviewing that research is science.
The Washington Post is writing about the issues of those who make policy from science, not those who discover new things. They're talking about advisory boards to politicians. How is advising the executive branch of US Government on science policy anything but a political function?
What use will demodulating a data signal do? I guess if everything is sent en-clair in ASCII text without a lot of heavy archaic or proprietary protocol overheads, you could get a lot out of old style MDTs. Most modern police mobile computers (palmtops, laptops, etc.) integrate at least rudimentary encryption[...]
Until a few years ago, many on rec.radio.scanner used to talk about reading MDT transmissions, so there must not be as much encrypted traffic as you seem to think.
Ever wonder how that car to car MDT traffic from the Rodney King trial became public?
Many police forces are switching to APCO-25 thinking that will keep the scanner nuts out. I'm scared of such behavior because when the likes of your local police think that nobody is looking over their shoulders, there's no telling what they might do. After all, they're only human. I don't begrudge police forces a point to point encypted link here and there, but when the police central dispatchers switch to a proprietary digital system that probably meets the definition of a private modulation scheme, I think there is reason to be concerned.
Well, there have always been limits on where you can transmit, what modulation you use, and on what freqencies. However, the not-so-recent legislation on what you can receive (ECPA) are about as ill advised as recent legislation on what you can copy (DMCA).
First, the old saw about "Don't say anything on the air that you wouldn't want the whole world to hear" has basically been discarded by the Cell Phone industry. They got Congress to put up legislation ensuring that the police need a warrent even to monitor your cordless phone. This is universally regarded as a dumb idea by most people who know what a radio is.
Second, they got certain modulation techniques declared off limits. It is illegal to demodulate an FM subcarrier without permission from the originator of the signal. Again, if I were monitoring SCA broadcasts from an FM station, how would they ever know?
Just as Open Source is driving copyright owners and licensing contract lawyers nuts, so too is Software Defined Radio. It basically brings all modulation techniques back within easy reach of the average Joe radio listener. No more of this nonsense of saying that demodulating police MDT transmissions is illegal.
My question for Eric Blossom is whether challenging the ECPA was one of the motivating factors behind this project. If not, are they the least bit interested in adhering to the ECPA's various prohibitions, or is that also irrelevant?
Mr. FAA Certified Gold Seal Flight Instructor, have you NEVER encountered a malfunctioning AWOS or ASOS? When you get an AWOS reporting 3000 scattered, did it ever tell you WHAT that 3000 scattered was?
I've never met a pilot I was willing to fly with who thought those things were reliable. A web cam may not tell you much, but it can provide a valuable cross check to verify that the ASOS or AWOS are giving realistic readings.
If that's not worthwhile then I don't suppose you think cross checking instruments is worthwhile, either.
Don't expect me to let you act as Pilot In Command of anything I fly.
...because any pilot who has ever used AWOS or ASOS knows the ceiling and visibility estimates are often wrong.
Alaska used to have flight service stations all over. Budget cuts forced many to close. Keep in mind how vast the state of Alaska is (yes, it's bigger than Texas!). They can easily have entire weather systems contained in one corner of the state. And as sparsely populated as this state is, it's not hard for those weather systems to go almost unnoticed.
Further, in mountains, you have weather that can go from CAVU (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited) to 0/0 in just an hour or two. Current and reliable weather information is not just a convenince, it's survival.
For those of you who are wondering why the readings are often misleading, an AWOS reports from a ceiliometer that tells you what's directly above the station. When it says 3000 scattered, it may be seeing the edge of a thunderstorm or it may be a few harmless stratus clouds.
Sometimes these stations read gloom and doom when everything is fine. Insects frequently make their homes in the ceiliometer and visibility instruments and often make the station indicate readings which are much worse than they really are.
How can you tell what's what? Until now, we had no cross check. That's what the web cam is for. Some day maybe someone will find a way to get that data directly to the aircraft in an economical fashion.
Anyhow, I think this is a very good idea. And for you who doubt this, keep in mind that even pilots like me who fly the lower 48 states take the AWOS and ASOS readings with a healthy dose of doubt. Thankfully, its unusual when those are the only sources of weather information at the destination. In Alaska, they often don't have that luxury.
I heard this interview this morning. What he said was not encouraging. He wants "security professionals" to do the hacking --not programmers or kids down the street. He wants them to reveal the exploit without offering code demonstrating it, and he wants to keep it all secret. He made no mention of any time limits before one should give up and go public with this information.
So let me see where this puts us. Phred Programmer discoveres a buffer overflow that crashes IE. He tells his security professional about his discovery. Our "security professional" says "what's a buffer overflow?" and the whole thing falls on the floor.
Wait, let's try this again. Phred Programmer discovers a buffer overflow problem that crashes IE. He puts on his "security professional" hat and calls Microsoft. Microsoft says "So what? It crashes. BFD. We'll fix it on the next major release."
Phred Programmer waits until the next major release and the mess is still there. Remember, he's not supposed to write code to demonstrate this problem, or the potential harm, so Microsoft has no idea whether they've really fixed this problem.
So Phred Programmer calls the feds. They respond with "Huh? What's the big deal?" "Well, you could exploit this and hack with full administrator priviliges", says Phred Programmer. "Sounds far-fetched" say the feds. "But just in case you're right, I don't want you writing any code. Why don't you post your notions with Microsoft?" "But I already have and they promised a fix by the next major release", complains Phred Programmer.
"Hmm. We'll have to take it up with them."
And so, another major release goes by and still nothing. Meanwhile, somebody else figures out the breeched security and because the don't live in the US, they post a script for the kiddies to use.
Back to the present: Somebody explain to me why this scenario is not likely. Restricting this information to "security professionals" seems to me like an effort to sweep security problems under the rug.
Richard Clark's ideas suck, IMNSHO. He clearly has no concept of how bugs are discovered, demonstrated, and how the repair of those bugs is prioritized by software companies. Does anyone here really think Microsoft would have fixed those buffer overflow problems if no-one had written an exploit and published it? Does anyone here think that users in other countries will have any respect for stupid US policy (never mind the law)? Sheesh.
Wave flying to these kinds of altitudes takes a Lot of planning, and a LOT of weather-related luck. You can't just pick a day and go, you get to try and try and try and try again, until allll the conditions align and up you go. Not a very good plan if you want to try and schedule a launch.
Compared to what? The space shuttle? "Oops, found a cracked fuel line, we'll have to try again next month."
In any case, mountain wave behavior is well known at least to Flight Level 400. Beyond that, we don't have much data because nobody's willing to develop better gear and take the risks proving that it can work.
Steve Fossett's exploration may prove the viability of that approach. And it may also turn out to be a complete boondoggle. We'll never know until he tries.
First, it's unusual to get anything to fly above Flight Level 600 (barometric altitude of 60,000 feet), powered or not.
Second, this is as good a reason as any to develop new light weight space suits for space travel.
Third, there is still a hell of a lot of meterology that remains unknown at those altitudes. Sailplanes have made it up to roughly Flight level 450, but they had to stop climbing because the pilots weren't equipped to go much higher. Nobody really knows how high mountain waves can take us.
This is a better exploration for Steve Fossett than his balloon stunts. If he's successful not only will he have made new discoveries, but he may also have found a way to get humans in to orbit very inexpensively.
When you think about all the stupid things people waste their money on, I think one can excuse Steve Fossett for actually planning and executing an aviation Nerd's fantasy trip.
The SR-71 engines are turbojets with an afterburner and a ramjet bypass which opens up as speeds build. At full cruise speed the turbojet continues to run, but it only provides about 40% of the thrust. The other 60% comes from the ramjet/afterburner structure.
The engine inlet design is a big deal for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft. However the real limitations for hypersonic flight are actually material science issues. Somewhere between the brute force approach taken by the space shuttle design and the ingenious "leave cracks in the airframe so it'll handle the expansion from the heat" approach of the SR-71 is a more economical solution.
It's nice to see the Australians build a prototype that appears to work. I'll be more impressed, however, when I hear of it surviving to fly above Mach 3 for an extended time.
Why does patent law allow this? JPEG has been around for YEARS!
Umm, look at the date on patent 4,698,672. It's from October 6, 1987. It refers to other patents going all the way back to 1981.
I say, if you have a patent on something, you have a limited amount of time to claim infringement after the infringement is discovered.
Who cares what YOU think. What matters is what the courts think. If you don't like it, contact your favorite congresscritters. By the way, unless you have money, I doubt they'll care much about what you think either.
In any case, it seems most readers of this thread have not bothered to look up the actual patent itself. If you had, you'd have noticed that it's a patent for a video compression scheme --not a still image.
Forgent's press release was clearly not written by anyone who knows what JPEG is. So go ahead, rest easy, use lots of JPEGs and if Forgent decides to hire a legal team to sue the common joe, they can expect many howls of protest.
Folks, I always remind my congresscritters that just as ignorance is no excuse for the law, ignorant legislators have no excuse for stupid laws. This cuts both ways. A law must make sense if we are to build a society on it. Anything less is demagoguery.
Re:Telstar 1 communication frequencies??
on
Live Via Satellite
·
· Score: 1
Marconi himself used to experiment with high power troposcatter at around 1 or 2 GHz around 80 years ago. In fact, during the 1950s and 60s the military and the phone company made extensive use of microwave troposcatter technology. They knew very well how to generate lots of microwave energy.
Yes, they used tube technology including travelling wave tubes and Klystrons. We don't use them much these days because their lifetime is limited, they require high voltages and a heater, and they're not particularly efficient or low noise.
Still, even today, when you need high power, many applications still use travelling wave tubes.
That's the real bottom line behind the Open Source Movement. You want Microsoft software, you're going to pay for it. You want Microsoft support, you're going to pay for it.
But if you want Open Source Software, well, you're going to have to think for yourself a bit. That's the primary reason why it's so inexpensive.
When you reduce the Anti-Microsoft flames down to a cogent argument, one of the points you'll find is that all too frequently, software support under warranty is poor to non-existent.
I wish this guy well in his search for stability, ease of use and performance on the desktop. The problem with Microsoft software these days is most of all, issues of outrageous terms in the EULA and expensive pricing.
With Microsoft, it's hard to tell what you get for what you pay.
Note to moderators: the parent message is hardly troll fodder. He asks a reasonable question: Should our government step in to remedy the situation or should an industry be allowed to fall flat on its face?
Radio is losing popularity. The music is getting too similar and whole genres are getting cut out. Yes, part of what happened is that organizations like clear-channel were allowed to form as the earlier limits to the number of radio stations one entity could own were deregulated.
I haven't heard anything on the air in months that motivated me enough to buy the CD. But I have heard stuff on MP3 tracks that was interesting enough to follow up at the local Border's music.
Personally, I think the RIAA and the mega broadcasters deserve each other. They're all middlemen. As 3G Internet services become more popular, they'll both lose. I predict that some day in the next five years or so, their business models will start to come apart. The only question is whether anyone will still think enough of the broadcasting business to pick up the pieces.
So the answer to the question is a question: "Should it be allowed to happen?" And I ask "What's worth saving?"
Conventional industry such as automobile manufacture discovered in the 1980s that Q/A inspections don't work. You have to build it in from the start.
The problem is that the architects of the code are often sloppy. Programmers working under inefficient or unstable architechtures write sloppy or broken code. Why is this so much of a surprise? The reason the open source community often does better is because they have a far more precise view of their objectives; and they're not telling others how to write code, they write it themselves.
Another reason open souce often does better is the same reason that small businesses can often run circles around larger businesses: There is less organizational inertia, there are very few sacred cows, and only those who have a good understanding of what they're doing get to participate.
I'm an instrument rated private pilot. Folks, a screwed up ATC system is nothing new. I've had my instrument flight plans fall on the floor while being handed off from one sector to another. I've been stuck in holding patterns waiting for traffic to get through. And yes, I've been turned away from areas due to emergencies of one sort or another. It's not fun, but we all have procedures for handling this.
In addition, large passenger aircraft are required to carry a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) on board. This system interrogates transponders of other aircraft and issues emergency instructions should one aircraft get too close.
With good adherence to procedure, you'd be amazed just how many pilots can land at an airport without any ground-based traffic management facilities. I flew in to Tangier Island, VA one year (it was the Holly Run) with over 50 other aircraft. We all were safely on the ground in about a half an hour. There was no air traffic management of any kind other than our own aviation radios and navigation equipment.
All an air traffic management system needs to do is be more reliable than what it replaces and I think everyone, Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, and passengers alike will be happy.
Having purchased military surplus myself, I can honestly say that these folks have very little idea what they're working with. They're not paid enough to know that much.
Add that to the fact that these miscellaneous boxes of stuff were lost in a warehouse to begin with, and, well, what do you expect? The real guilty parties were the ones who didn't track down the original boxes when they were lost. After all, they could easily have fallen in to the wrong hands back then.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it fashionable in government to craft legislation that contradicts 60 years of common sense and technological policy?
How about The Communications Act of 1934? That was the act which created the Federal Communications Commission. It also defined policies which are widely respected today, such as "Radio Secrecy" (not the "Radio Privacy" foolishness you find in the ECPA).
I have very little patience with legislators who craft laws with no basis in common sense, practicality, past policy, or even future trends.
Courts profess that "ignorance is no excuse for the law." Well, in the case of legislators: "Ignorance is no excuse for an impractical or poorly crafted law." If we are to continue building an honorable and productive society, the law needs to make sense, be enforcable, and it needs to respect everyone's rights. Clearly the ECPA fails that smell test on all counts. The DMCA is yet another that fails the smell test.
I don't stand for this kind of treatment from my government and neither should anyone else.
One of the recent modifications to 47CFR15 (FCC part 15 regulations on receiver coverage among other things) concerns making receivers difficult to modify so that they can't receive cellular telephone calls. Specifically see part 15.23, and part 15.121.
I don't know how you can call a snippet of code like this a reasonable prevention.
Please don't misunderstand me, I think these regulations are utter balderdash. Unfortunately, I see no reason to think those regulations are unconstitutional, despite the stunning ignorance and stupidity behind them. I don't understand how Eric and company can work on a project of this sort without violating these regulations and thus I don't see how the GNU copyleft can remain in force.
Doesn't anyone see a conflict here? And if not, why?
Sigh. What we have here is a rosey-eyed view of the past. The view that todays crop of students are worse than those of yesteryear was documented at least as far back as the Roman Empire.
The difference is experience. Once you have been there and learned from the school of hard knocks, it's awfully hard not to think bad things of those who get those problems solved automatically. Experience can make some real codgers out of ordinary folk. No school can teach experiences and understanding. Thus, the illusion that "today's kids have it too easy." Never fear, they'll have problems of thier own to solve.
The engineering projects we remember today are mostly the survivors of the past. We remember them because the worked well. It's like those wonderful peices of Antique furniture. The reason antiques look so good is that they were worth keeping from the very first day they were purchased. If the furniture was shoddy, it didn't survive long enough to become an antique.
Thus, few bother to remember short sighted problems with the Ford Edsel. Few look back at the many rail bridges that failed in the early days before steel construction techniques were well understood. Likewise, few think much of the ubiquitous regenerative radios that used to be so common in the 1930s and '40s. Few of these cars, bridges or radios survive to this day because they were crap. Yes the engineers of yesterday could put out some pretty awful crap too.
Having software available to standardize engineering is a good thing, as long as the users of the software understand where the edge of the limits are. Nobody uses NEC to model antennas without considering the accuracy issues of that model. Nobody uses SPICE to model a circuit for production without considering a monte carlo analysis using real-world component tolorances. Future software users will find ways of using multiple software modeling techniques to check their own work.
I think Lucky is lost in his memories. He remembers the smells of a lab that is no longer needed so much. In his day, engineers got their feel for the real world by actually being technicians as well. He laments that we can do so much simulation in computers that we don't need to build nearly as many prototypes. That's like lamenting that pilots who fly complex airliners on instruments have no need of knowning how to fly by the seat of their pants. Who cares? We're working on different stuff now. Get over it.
And what if you added two numbers incorrectly in your head? Suddenly you have the wrong answer and don't know it.
Unless I'm missing something, all you're talking about is having some method of cross checking your calculations. Whether that's another computer program, or another approach to the problem, is irrelevant.
It's all about understanding the problem at hand. Doing it in your head is a luxury that many of us simply can't afford any more. I think your concerns can be addressed very nicely by simply saying "check your work."
Aside of the simplicity of the experiment, one of the criteria should be not having to fudge or lie about anything in the results.
I think Michaelson and Morley's experiment with interfereometrics in search of the elusive Ether is so much more deserving than this selection. They had the guts to come forward and say that despite the controls they introduced, they could not find any evidence of an electromagnetic ether.
Their experiment was well constructed, and they reported their results honestly, even despite the conflict with what they thought it ought to look like. Millikan fudged his data. It may have been innocent, but it was still a fudge. Which experiment would you hold up as an example of good science?
You have to admit, warchalking is bad citizenship, if nothing else. Bandwidth is not free. Just because someone is sloppy about setting up their 802.11b network doesn't mean they deserve to have bandwidth stolen from them.
Nokia has a point. There may not be a specific law against warchalking, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea.
First, I think you're oversimplifying. Second, many ignorant policy wonks assume that science at the edge of discovery is a matter of fact. It's not. For a scientific discovery to reach "fact" it has to be repeated in various experiments and forms.
Further, sometimes peer review breaks down. And what was first thought to be a well controlled experiment isn't.
Thus, when you make science policy, it's hardly unreasonable to assign your own private set of values to an area where the science is thin. Environmental "science" (Richard Feynmann would argue that it isn't) is one of those areas. We don't have the ability to conduct a controlled experiement. So most discoveries bear the mark of what Feynmann liked to call "Cargo Cult" science.
I don't blame a politician for being skeptical of some discoveries, particularly those on the environment. I don't agree with all that the Bush 43 Administration is doing, but I don't fault them for having values any more than I fault the Clinton administration for having theirs.
Likewise, determining who gets public money to perform what scientific research is a political decision; performing and reviewing that research is science.
The Washington Post is writing about the issues of those who make policy from science, not those who discover new things. They're talking about advisory boards to politicians. How is advising the executive branch of US Government on science policy anything but a political function?
Until a few years ago, many on rec.radio.scanner used to talk about reading MDT transmissions, so there must not be as much encrypted traffic as you seem to think.
Ever wonder how that car to car MDT traffic from the Rodney King trial became public?
Many police forces are switching to APCO-25 thinking that will keep the scanner nuts out. I'm scared of such behavior because when the likes of your local police think that nobody is looking over their shoulders, there's no telling what they might do. After all, they're only human. I don't begrudge police forces a point to point encypted link here and there, but when the police central dispatchers switch to a proprietary digital system that probably meets the definition of a private modulation scheme, I think there is reason to be concerned.
First, the old saw about "Don't say anything on the air that you wouldn't want the whole world to hear" has basically been discarded by the Cell Phone industry. They got Congress to put up legislation ensuring that the police need a warrent even to monitor your cordless phone. This is universally regarded as a dumb idea by most people who know what a radio is.
Second, they got certain modulation techniques declared off limits. It is illegal to demodulate an FM subcarrier without permission from the originator of the signal. Again, if I were monitoring SCA broadcasts from an FM station, how would they ever know?
Just as Open Source is driving copyright owners and licensing contract lawyers nuts, so too is Software Defined Radio. It basically brings all modulation techniques back within easy reach of the average Joe radio listener. No more of this nonsense of saying that demodulating police MDT transmissions is illegal.
My question for Eric Blossom is whether challenging the ECPA was one of the motivating factors behind this project. If not, are they the least bit interested in adhering to the ECPA's various prohibitions, or is that also irrelevant?
Hey, people listen to tube amplifiers because they like the way it distorts. Distortion or the lack thereof is not the same as "sounds good."
Mr. FAA Certified Gold Seal Flight Instructor, have you NEVER encountered a malfunctioning AWOS or ASOS? When you get an AWOS reporting 3000 scattered, did it ever tell you WHAT that 3000 scattered was?
I've never met a pilot I was willing to fly with who thought those things were reliable. A web cam may not tell you much, but it can provide a valuable cross check to verify that the ASOS or AWOS are giving realistic readings.
If that's not worthwhile then I don't suppose you think cross checking instruments is worthwhile, either.
Don't expect me to let you act as Pilot In Command of anything I fly.
Alaska used to have flight service stations all over. Budget cuts forced many to close. Keep in mind how vast the state of Alaska is (yes, it's bigger than Texas!). They can easily have entire weather systems contained in one corner of the state. And as sparsely populated as this state is, it's not hard for those weather systems to go almost unnoticed.
Further, in mountains, you have weather that can go from CAVU (Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited) to 0/0 in just an hour or two. Current and reliable weather information is not just a convenince, it's survival.
For those of you who are wondering why the readings are often misleading, an AWOS reports from a ceiliometer that tells you what's directly above the station. When it says 3000 scattered, it may be seeing the edge of a thunderstorm or it may be a few harmless stratus clouds.
Sometimes these stations read gloom and doom when everything is fine. Insects frequently make their homes in the ceiliometer and visibility instruments and often make the station indicate readings which are much worse than they really are.
How can you tell what's what? Until now, we had no cross check. That's what the web cam is for. Some day maybe someone will find a way to get that data directly to the aircraft in an economical fashion.
Anyhow, I think this is a very good idea. And for you who doubt this, keep in mind that even pilots like me who fly the lower 48 states take the AWOS and ASOS readings with a healthy dose of doubt. Thankfully, its unusual when those are the only sources of weather information at the destination. In Alaska, they often don't have that luxury.
So let me see where this puts us. Phred Programmer discoveres a buffer overflow that crashes IE. He tells his security professional about his discovery. Our "security professional" says "what's a buffer overflow?" and the whole thing falls on the floor.
Wait, let's try this again. Phred Programmer discovers a buffer overflow problem that crashes IE. He puts on his "security professional" hat and calls Microsoft. Microsoft says "So what? It crashes. BFD. We'll fix it on the next major release."
Phred Programmer waits until the next major release and the mess is still there. Remember, he's not supposed to write code to demonstrate this problem, or the potential harm, so Microsoft has no idea whether they've really fixed this problem.
So Phred Programmer calls the feds. They respond with "Huh? What's the big deal?" "Well, you could exploit this and hack with full administrator priviliges", says Phred Programmer. "Sounds far-fetched" say the feds. "But just in case you're right, I don't want you writing any code. Why don't you post your notions with Microsoft?" "But I already have and they promised a fix by the next major release", complains Phred Programmer.
"Hmm. We'll have to take it up with them."
And so, another major release goes by and still nothing. Meanwhile, somebody else figures out the breeched security and because the don't live in the US, they post a script for the kiddies to use.
Back to the present: Somebody explain to me why this scenario is not likely. Restricting this information to "security professionals" seems to me like an effort to sweep security problems under the rug.
Richard Clark's ideas suck, IMNSHO. He clearly has no concept of how bugs are discovered, demonstrated, and how the repair of those bugs is prioritized by software companies. Does anyone here really think Microsoft would have fixed those buffer overflow problems if no-one had written an exploit and published it? Does anyone here think that users in other countries will have any respect for stupid US policy (never mind the law)? Sheesh.
In any case, mountain wave behavior is well known at least to Flight Level 400. Beyond that, we don't have much data because nobody's willing to develop better gear and take the risks proving that it can work.
Steve Fossett's exploration may prove the viability of that approach. And it may also turn out to be a complete boondoggle. We'll never know until he tries.
Second, this is as good a reason as any to develop new light weight space suits for space travel.
Third, there is still a hell of a lot of meterology that remains unknown at those altitudes. Sailplanes have made it up to roughly Flight level 450, but they had to stop climbing because the pilots weren't equipped to go much higher. Nobody really knows how high mountain waves can take us.
This is a better exploration for Steve Fossett than his balloon stunts. If he's successful not only will he have made new discoveries, but he may also have found a way to get humans in to orbit very inexpensively.
When you think about all the stupid things people waste their money on, I think one can excuse Steve Fossett for actually planning and executing an aviation Nerd's fantasy trip.
The SR-71 engines are turbojets with an afterburner and a ramjet bypass which opens up as speeds build. At full cruise speed the turbojet continues to run, but it only provides about 40% of the thrust. The other 60% comes from the ramjet/afterburner structure.
The engine inlet design is a big deal for supersonic and hypersonic aircraft. However the real limitations for hypersonic flight are actually material science issues. Somewhere between the brute force approach taken by the space shuttle design and the ingenious "leave cracks in the airframe so it'll handle the expansion from the heat" approach of the SR-71 is a more economical solution.
It's nice to see the Australians build a prototype that appears to work. I'll be more impressed, however, when I hear of it surviving to fly above Mach 3 for an extended time.
In any case, it seems most readers of this thread have not bothered to look up the actual patent itself. If you had, you'd have noticed that it's a patent for a video compression scheme --not a still image.
Forgent's press release was clearly not written by anyone who knows what JPEG is. So go ahead, rest easy, use lots of JPEGs and if Forgent decides to hire a legal team to sue the common joe, they can expect many howls of protest.
Folks, I always remind my congresscritters that just as ignorance is no excuse for the law, ignorant legislators have no excuse for stupid laws. This cuts both ways. A law must make sense if we are to build a society on it. Anything less is demagoguery.
Yes, they used tube technology including travelling wave tubes and Klystrons. We don't use them much these days because their lifetime is limited, they require high voltages and a heater, and they're not particularly efficient or low noise.
Still, even today, when you need high power, many applications still use travelling wave tubes.
That's the real bottom line behind the Open Source Movement. You want Microsoft software, you're going to pay for it. You want Microsoft support, you're going to pay for it.
But if you want Open Source Software, well, you're going to have to think for yourself a bit. That's the primary reason why it's so inexpensive.
When you reduce the Anti-Microsoft flames down to a cogent argument, one of the points you'll find is that all too frequently, software support under warranty is poor to non-existent.
I wish this guy well in his search for stability, ease of use and performance on the desktop. The problem with Microsoft software these days is most of all, issues of outrageous terms in the EULA and expensive pricing.
With Microsoft, it's hard to tell what you get for what you pay.
Radio is losing popularity. The music is getting too similar and whole genres are getting cut out. Yes, part of what happened is that organizations like clear-channel were allowed to form as the earlier limits to the number of radio stations one entity could own were deregulated.
I haven't heard anything on the air in months that motivated me enough to buy the CD. But I have heard stuff on MP3 tracks that was interesting enough to follow up at the local Border's music.
Personally, I think the RIAA and the mega broadcasters deserve each other. They're all middlemen. As 3G Internet services become more popular, they'll both lose. I predict that some day in the next five years or so, their business models will start to come apart. The only question is whether anyone will still think enough of the broadcasting business to pick up the pieces.
So the answer to the question is a question: "Should it be allowed to happen?" And I ask "What's worth saving?"
The problem is that the architects of the code are often sloppy. Programmers working under inefficient or unstable architechtures write sloppy or broken code. Why is this so much of a surprise? The reason the open source community often does better is because they have a far more precise view of their objectives; and they're not telling others how to write code, they write it themselves.
Another reason open souce often does better is the same reason that small businesses can often run circles around larger businesses: There is less organizational inertia, there are very few sacred cows, and only those who have a good understanding of what they're doing get to participate.
I'm an instrument rated private pilot. Folks, a screwed up ATC system is nothing new. I've had my instrument flight plans fall on the floor while being handed off from one sector to another. I've been stuck in holding patterns waiting for traffic to get through. And yes, I've been turned away from areas due to emergencies of one sort or another. It's not fun, but we all have procedures for handling this.
In addition, large passenger aircraft are required to carry a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) on board. This system interrogates transponders of other aircraft and issues emergency instructions should one aircraft get too close.
With good adherence to procedure, you'd be amazed just how many pilots can land at an airport without any ground-based traffic management facilities. I flew in to Tangier Island, VA one year (it was the Holly Run) with over 50 other aircraft. We all were safely on the ground in about a half an hour. There was no air traffic management of any kind other than our own aviation radios and navigation equipment.
All an air traffic management system needs to do is be more reliable than what it replaces and I think everyone, Pilots, Air Traffic Controllers, and passengers alike will be happy.
Add that to the fact that these miscellaneous boxes of stuff were lost in a warehouse to begin with, and, well, what do you expect? The real guilty parties were the ones who didn't track down the original boxes when they were lost. After all, they could easily have fallen in to the wrong hands back then.