I need to get my Advanced one of these days - now that it's just a test and doesn't require 13 WPM code,
Good luck finding an advanced test anywhere. That license class is now a grandfathered class, meaning you skip right from General to Amateur Extra if you are taking tests.
NOW, the rule explicitly defines the "mode" as "1A0", and explicitly says it has to be "plain text". It doesn't quite go as far as stipulating morse code, but I think I read a non-binding FCC opinion someplace where they basically said occasional adhoc prosigns are OK as long as they're published SOMEWHERE and your intent isn't to conceal what you're sending, but hex-encoded UTF8 and any kind of binary-encoded file is absolutely beyond the pale.
You are quite incorrect.
In the definitions: (1) CW. International Morse code telegraphy emissions having designators with A, C, H, J or R as the first symbol; 1 as the second symbol; A or B as the third symbol; and emissions J2A and J2B.
Nowhere does it say it has to be "plain text". There are restrictions on the code used (International Morse Code, 5 level Baudot, etc...), and restrictions on the content, but "plain text" is not one of them. Perhaps you are thinking of 97.113(a)(4) which prohibits: "(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification; "?
UUencoding is not an encoding for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of a message. If you encrypted those files before uuencoding, then you would be breaking the rules, but otherwise, no.
As for sending binary files being "beyond the pale", sorry, still incorrect. There is an international network of packet and pactor based systems that do this on a regular basis, using an encoding that is much more obscure and complex than UUencoding. It's called Winlink 2000. It is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of email to ham radio, and you can send doc and pdf and all kinds of binary files as attachments to those email messages. There is no FCC rule prohibiting this.
As for your recollection of the old rules, I recall nothing that would have been a hot-button issue for the FCC in sending files via computer-generated CW, as long as the control op was sitting there controlling it.
In a way, I can see why they clamped down a bit. At the time I didn't have the RF or digital electronics background to know it, but I now know that turning a carrier on and off is neither instantaneous nor consequence-free, and when you do it fast enough, you're basically bit-banging de-facto AM via PWM and square-wave artifacts that's going to splatter over a MUCH wider chunk of spectrum than a carrier being slowly turned on and off by a straight key.
What you call "splatter" is what we technical people call "bandwidth". Yes, a 200 wpm CW signal has a higher bandwidth than a 10 wpm signal, but I don't seem to find any limit to the CW speed being used. I do find a limit of 300 bauds for data, but I don't believe that applies to CW. There were, and probably still are, people who manage 60 to 80 wpm manually. There is a woman who has a record more than 1700 wpm using software.
As for how fast the carrier is turned on and off, that is a function of the TR switching in the transmitter. You can have bad key clicks at 5 wpm, too.
I know people balk at more tests, but aren't you supposed to know this stuff cold anyways?
No.
First, there is a lot of stuff on the exams that cover things you are not interested in and will probably never do. It's there because you have the privilege to do it, not the responsibility to do it. You don't need to know it at all because you aren't going to do it at all.
Second, what is there is incomplete and insufficient to actually use some of the modes you are supposed to know "cold". If I ever want to do heilscrieber (sp?) I'll need to know more than how many lines per minute or what it is. Ditto satellite (U/V, V/U modes?) or almost anything else esoteric on the advanced tests. And I can't tell you the last time I calculated the phase angles of an inductive circuit with a resistor of X and an inductor of Y. Oh, wait, I can, because it was on the test I took many years ago.
but I don't know of a state with any significant barrier to driver's license renewal).
How many people might die if I have failed eyesight or don't remember what a stop sign means and I get out on the highway, compared to the vast number of deaths and excessive carnage if I forget that SSTV runs at 240 lpm and turn on the box that does it for me and transmit a piccy?
A library's goal is to provide knowledge to those who seek it, regardless of means.
Regardless of means does not mean regardless of type.
"What does it feel like to take a hit of cocaine?" is not a type of knowledge that a library is intended to provide. If you are going to argue that you mean "legal knowledge", then let's change that to "what does it feel like to kick a winning goal at a soccer match?".
That points out the difference between "book larning" (for a very very broad definition of "book") and physical practice.
If you think that "physical learning" is a library's intended purpose, then why don't libraries have soccer fields attached? And then expand that to football (oblong ball) fields. And basketball courts. And handball courts. And automotive shops. And chemistry labs. And racketball... well, I think you get the point, I hope.
Physical practice in how to build something is NOT the purpose of a library, and it never has been. "Here's the information, go out and use it" is. It has nothing to do with the means of the patron.
Or perhaps by scared people of means who also want to keep the poor in their place - how dare they try to improve their lot and possibly compete.
If you are going to put words in other peoples' mouths, then you aren't really looking for a discussion, are you?
Not expanding the public library into a place for every kind of activity anyone might possibly want to engage in has nothing to do with "keep the poor in their place". It has to do with intended function and reasonable goals. Not wanting fully-functional welding and machine shops at every public library doesn't mean that public facilities like those don't have a place or function, somewhere. Even feeding poor kids whose parents cannot afford to has a place, but it isn't the library.
Personally, I'd love to have a machine shop I could rent time in (and no, I don't expect it to be free, and I don't expect the taxpayer to pay the rent, because the use would be for a more limited audience and the costs for maintenance would be much higher) to do simple things. I just don't think the library is where it belongs. There is no argument that doesn't start from incorrect assumptions that results in a requirement that it be at the library.
The argument that "libraries are supposed to spread knowledge and anything they do that furthers that is good" is erronious. It leads to nonsense like "well, a well rested person learns better, so let's provide cots and three hots for free..." or "driving to the library helps people get there to learn, so let's loan out cars...". Or the unsupportable "we'll give you anything you need to learn anything you want."
Libraries, even at their most busy, are more like meditation gardens, where everyone tries to be quiet and pretend the other people aren't there. There's no community, no familial bonding or corporate learning. Certainly no communal worship.
you've missed the last ten years of "library science", then.
The library cannot be just a library, it must be a communal meeting center and day care and internet service provider and whatever social function is popular in an area. If an area has a need, the library will try to fulfill it. In our fine city, the public library is a place for kids to get free lunches during the summer. Not just poor kids, any kid that walks through the door will be fed for free. Well, at taxpayer expense, I should say.
You see that in the librarian's quote: "Libraries are a place for social transformation."
Maybe that's a side effect of librarians thinking that libraries are becoming obsolete because of the Internet and they have to create some new market for their services. Maybe that's human nature trying to make a mundane part of life more excititing. Maybe being a center for information isn't enough anymore. "Social transformation" is the requirement.
I saw this article in the latest Make asking this question. I immediately thought "oh, please God, no".
As material printers and CNC devices become ubiquitous, people will want to be able to access designs and plans of things that they can make. Libraries are an ideal source of these designs and plans.
The Internet is an ideal source for those plans and designs. Nothing says that a library is the only access to the Internet.
There is no reason that a library has to be all things to all people. It has a function: a repository of knowledge in many different forms for societal history. That's not the same as "a place to play with high-tech toys" or "to build stuff".
Please libraries, keep doing your intended function well and stay out of the "societal change" business. That's not your job.
So which is it? Are the brakes four times stronger than the engine, or can the engine overpower the brakes?
Today's words are "chronic" and "acute".
If you push on the brakes hard enough, they will stop the car. The acute usage of the brakes can overpower the engine.
If you ride the brakes, thus both wearing them down and heating them up, the chronic application of braking will eventually cause them to fail and they will no longer overpower the engine.
However, I don't believe that the appearance of ABS has been considered in this claim that they will overpower the car. If the ABS says "no", they will override the four-times-overpower and you'll have a lot less.
Lets face it, when they are putting out advisories actually advertising that one of the FBI's "Most Wanted" is some dude who blew up a package at a building, in the middle of the night, injuring noone, just so he could make some statement about "Animal Liberation".... you really have to wonder what the hell these people actually do for a living anyway.
You don't think that someone who would go to that extent to make that kind of statement is dangerous to the rest of us?
People who plant bombs and blow things up are dangerous. Period. The fact that he managed not to kill anyone the first time he tried doesn't mean he won't the next. Even if he's not trying to blow people up, it happens. He can't know that an anaimal caretaker isn't visiting a sick animal that night, or doing some late night cleanup, for example. Maybe he screws up the timer and it goes off at 10 AM instead of 10 PM. The bomb doesn't know "I'm not supposed to kill anyone I explode close to".
I'd say that someone who has already gone that far over the line is much more dangerous than your typical bank robber who uses a rubber gun to rob a bank. Not more dangerous than a robber who blows up a bank (like here in Oregon), but they've been caught so they won't be on the Most Wanted list. They're on the "waiting to be executed" list.
However, many industrial control systems need to report information over the internet.
Maybe over AN internet, but not over THE Internet. "Report information" is not the same as "allow incoming control or information."
This can be as simple as a Lantronix XPort (or equivalent) tied to a serial port TX line on a secure machine, allowing telnet connections to read the serial data coming out but not send anything back. Or any terminal server with the RX lines cut.
What you need to be careful of in the planning of this system is that the information coming out of the secure system isn't being fed back into the system as the result of an external control. I.e., "Water level low in reactor 5" as outbound information cannot cause an "increase water flow to reactor 5" command from outside.
For all the ills of Europe, they seem to have a pretty good grip on freedoms which are eroding in USA and Australia.
Yes, because there certainly is no need for anyone to be able to discuss the National Socialist Party or any recent revivals of same anywhere in Europe, or to allow discussion of the founder of Islam, or any such stuff that we can do over here. Certainly no need for that at all. And God knows that British bans on info on celebrities are certainly required in these uncertain times.
Please, Europe isn't the Bastion of freedom any more than the US is.
That's odd, my $100 Motorola is the best phone I've owned, and I've had phones since the rotary days.
You young whippersnapper. I remember when you had to pick up the earpiece and tap the hanger a couple of times to get Madge's attention down at central and then you'd ask to be connected.
And before that if you wanted to talk to someone at the other end of town you walked over and did it in person. Good for your health, less stress. You wanted to talk to someone in the next city over, you waited until they invented the telegraph and sent one of those newfangled things.
But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week
Billions? Millions maybe, if the entire runway is replaced, but billions?
You forget that those smaller airports also serve the communities in other ways than just flying a senator's buddies in to go hunting. Businesses make use of them for transport, air cargo, training of future pilots, search and rescue operations, etc.
There aren't many small airports that service only two flights a week. Certainly not any that have gotten millions of dollars in federal money.
I do agree that Hugh Laurie would be a great Doctor. I'd pay eight bucks to see that.
I accept cash, check, or money order. Now tune to Fox on Friday night, or USA (check your local listings).
Would he still have a limp and an irascible attitude if he plays a Time Lord doctor? Will he denegrate and insult his companions and pit them against each other in a battle to find the right answer? Will he still have an oxy addiction, and will his "best friend" be an oncologist?
But Ghod forbid that this companion business should in any way be sexualised. It's not like all those sixties and seventies and eighties companions included any hot babes.
Mmmmm, Nissa. Yummm.....
And Leila -- shall I kill him now?
And Sarah Jane. Always Sarah Jane.
Please Hollywood, realize that the US market doesn't support Dr. Who and drop the project. The US TV version had what little success it had only because US Whovians didn't realize how bad a US adaptation would be and they watched it for free on the telly, even when it truly was "a penguin on the telly" level of quality.
Of course, if they make it in 3-D, I'd watch it twice.
Funny how stories about that 'panic' don't tell people that it was announced to be a fictional story at the beginning, and then again later.
Funny, but every account of that incident I've heard has been quite clear in saying that the announcements were made, and that extra announcements were being made specifically because there was a panic.
this linking of all of the systems is new, not decades old.
You are wrong. There is no other way to put it.
I know that yo want to try to chalk this up as a failure for some self serving political reason,
Wrong again. A failure is a failure. It wasn't a success because it was a test.
Please listen to those of us who know how engineering works...
I'm sure you think you are the only person who knows how such a complicated system could possibly work, but you are wrong yet again.
The federal EAS (and earlier EBS) has been around for decades. I don't care what politician you think this is tied to, it wasn't a political failure. As for "knowing how engineering works", well, that's just puffery.
There's no way this should be marked insightful. An EAS style system for the internet is so unnecessary it's almost comical to think about.
What you forget is that the Internet is designed to route around failure, and a static radio-linked system is not.
I think it would be rather forward-thinking to make the alerts use the existing internet, and allow open development of systems to decode and notify people. That way, when Eugene, for example, fails to process the EAS messages and trigger their alert, the rest of southern Oregon isn't left with their thumbs up their ass ignorant of the incoming aliens or whatever the feds think we ought to know about.
You chose to opt-in when you didn't vote at the town hall meeting on the issue,
There was no vote. And even had there been, someone else voting 'yes' is not the same as me opting in.
I know, I know, you're one of the 99% who thinks lazy bitching works to change the world rather than actually participating in your governmental processes.
I know, I know, you are one of those people who thinks that jumping down someone else's throat is the correct response to any statement you don't like, and thinks they know everything there is to know about the other person and their involvement in "government process". Stop being an asshole.
You freaked out like they were ruining your life because they bothered you so much...
No, asshole, I made a very calm and reasoned call to a company that thought it had the right to get paid to use my phone for their purposes. Kinda like telemarketers.
You're just a douche. What will be funny as shit...
You're just an asshole. What will be funny as shit will be when the next disaster strikes and my phone will be busy receiving this useless and unwanted recorded message and the local emergency manager won't be able to get through to let me know my help is needed and where to report... see, my being on a first callout list for emergency services is just one of the things you don't know about me or this situation, but it sure didn't stop you from flapping your face like a moron.
The national alert system is a product in development.
Incorrect. It is a system that has been in place, in one form or another, for decades. Broadcast stations are regularly inspected to verify the existence and operability of their equipment, and state and local testing of this system has been ongoing for decades. While parts have changed, the concept has not.
This is not a "development system", it is a full blown production environment and it has never been tested as a whole. Now it has. And it failed.
You can simulate and test individual pieces all you want, but until you get the opportunity to test the entire system, you have no idea what links in the chain are broken.
Which changes nothing about the fact that they system truly did fail, and trying to wave it off as "development testing" is just ridiculous, or that it wasn't a failure because this was "just a test" is even more so.
We've had the opportunity to test the entire system for a very long time. Decades, at least. What's the excuse for not testing it ten years ago?
I sure did. A national alert system is not only useful for national alerts, but also local ones.
Nonsense. There is no need for an alert sent to people in the northwest that the hurricane that the news has been reporting on 24/7 for the last week finally made landfall in North Carolina. If you care, you're already watching the news. If you don't care, you don't need to know about it right this very minute.
Ditto someone flying a plane into the Chicago Sears Tower. If you live in Chitown, then yeah, you need to know. But not only do I not need to know about it right this minute out here in Oregon, there is nothing I can do about it right this minute anyway. The US postal service will take a day or two to get my additional check to the Red Cross. Any local Red Cross critical volunteers already have their own alerting system. If the phrase "Red Cross" confuses you, replace it with DMAT or any other crisis reaction team.
In the event of a disaster, you're more likely to have a working radio than a working cell phone.
In the event of a national alert, you're more likely to be listenting to your iWhat or cell phone mp3s than to a broadcast station, and by the time you figure out there was an alert (by seeing many of the people around you starting to panic) you'll have missed it.
In the event of a disaster on the other side of the country, or even in the middle of the country, I'm more likely not to be impacted by it, and most likely not able to do anything about it or need to do anything about it, anyway. Even if I had relatives in the impacted area, there is nothing I could do for them right this minute that would require instant notification of the event.
Now, if something happens in this region, yes, there is a chance I might need to know. A tsunami alert for the coast, for example. That's why the regional and state-level alerts are valuable, and that system is tested already. We don't need Daddy Obama or Mommy FEMA issuing a nationwide alert telling us that a hurricane has hit Florida or an earthquake has hit SF. Or even that a tsunami is headed for Oregon.
Face it, the Cold War is over, the threat of the Ruskies lobbing a few hundred MIRVs our way is gone, and the best means of notifying people being a national alert system using broadcast is over. Regional disasters require regional, not national, systems.
We should leave emergency notifications to the free markets! You want to know about disasters and what to do? Well, just subscribe to a disaster notification service.
You may think you were being sarcastic, but this is exactly what many localities are doing. There are companies that exist to provide emergency notification services. They will happily call every phone in a municipality and deliver a recorded message. The city or whatever hires them and then makes a great deal of noise advertising how they are protecting the citizens. These are, however, not opt-in systems, and they have no opt-out.
Right after our local city crowed about how they could annoy everyone all at once at their whim, I called the company they said they had hired. The people there had absolutely no clue what I was talking about when I told them to remove my number from their system and never call it.
Testing for something and finding that the test didn't pass is NOT a failure of a system. It's exactly what it said - a test.
And when the test fails, it is, indeed, a failure of the system as a whole. What was the intended outcome? (A nationwide alert.) Was the outcome achieved? (No.) This is almost a "by definition" kind of concept, you know. You test something and it doesn't work, that means IT FAILED.
The only way this test didn't fail "because it was a test" is if you think the important operational criterion is the ability to test, not the ability to notify people in an emergency. Or maybe you are confused by the use of the word "test", and are thinking of how when a student takes a test and doesn't pass it doesn't mean the system failed. Well, in this case, the test wasn't applied to students, it was a direct test of the system as a whole and yes, it did, really, overall, fail miserably.
Now they know where the faults are they can work on fixing them.
Now they know where some of the faults are and can work on fixing them. If you don't get a successful test of the entire system, then the parts that didn't get tested may still have faults that weren't detected. If a major switch somewhere failed, you can spend a lot of money fixing it and then feel safe, without realizing that every leaf node that it fed would have failed had it gotten the alert.
There is no question that we are going to need another test, after a significant period of time. And then another. And another. Soon we will be getting tired of the testing and it will take place at 3AM like the regular regional tests already do.
The important, unasked question is just why do we still need a national alert system? Is there someone out there ready to plop 100 nukes into all our major cities all at once? Unlikely. Would notifying all those people all at once really have much positive effect? We already have localized alerting systems that are tested on a regular basis, and we have better means of distribution -- NOAA weather radio. Do we need to fix this system, or should we just pull the national plug and let the regional ops continue?
As for the original article mentioning that Comcast switched to QVC before the test message, yeah, so what? That's how the system is designed. It is much easier for a cable system to send the "everyone change to channel X" command downstream instead of trying to insert the alert message into every digital stream. Or insert the alert into one digital stream and then copy it to all the other streams. Of course, the ANALOG channels need to have individual alerts for those people who use analog TVs, but all the digital subs who have digital cable boxes can get by with one channel for the alert.
I was listening to local AM radio -- not a peep. The news story leading the 11AM (2PM EST) report? "If you can hear me now, the test failed."
If those low income earners then reduce their carbon footprints (get rid of the second fridge, buy the now-cheaper goods with a lower carbon footprint), then they come out ahead.
yes, because SO many of the poor have two or more fridges, and of course, the increase in costs of production based on taxing the largest companies will automatically cause the prices of everything else to go down.
The only way there would be "now cheaper goods" is because you are comparing the prices of those goods to the now more-expensive ones, not to the current prices of those goods. In absolute terms, prices will go up for everything as costs to manufacture them go up.
In simple terms, a loaf of "now cheaper" cheaper bread that cost $1.89 today will cost $2.25 tomorrow, but the bread made by one of the "top 500" companies will go from $1.89 to $2.50. Most people would say "I'm paying $0.36 more". People who try to piss on your leg and tell you it is raining will say "you're saving $0.25!"
The modelling of increased cost of living, which takes into account increased grocery prices, electricity prices, etc, comes out at $10 per week for the average household.
And in Magic Land known as Oz, everyone will get a $40/month pay raise to offset that cost. Fairy dust and unicorn horn for dinner tonight, children!
Slashdot Mirror
And you just proved his point.
I need to get my Advanced one of these days - now that it's just a test and doesn't require 13 WPM code,
Good luck finding an advanced test anywhere. That license class is now a grandfathered class, meaning you skip right from General to Amateur Extra if you are taking tests.
NOW, the rule explicitly defines the "mode" as "1A0", and explicitly says it has to be "plain text". It doesn't quite go as far as stipulating morse code, but I think I read a non-binding FCC opinion someplace where they basically said occasional adhoc prosigns are OK as long as they're published SOMEWHERE and your intent isn't to conceal what you're sending, but hex-encoded UTF8 and any kind of binary-encoded file is absolutely beyond the pale.
You are quite incorrect.
In the definitions: (1) CW. International Morse code telegraphy emissions having designators with A, C, H, J or R as the first symbol; 1 as the second symbol; A or B as the third symbol; and emissions J2A and J2B.
Nowhere does it say it has to be "plain text". There are restrictions on the code used (International Morse Code, 5 level Baudot, etc...), and restrictions on the content, but "plain text" is not one of them. Perhaps you are thinking of 97.113(a)(4) which prohibits: "(4) Music using a phone emission except as specifically provided elsewhere in this section; communications intended to facilitate a criminal act; messages encoded for the purpose of obscuring their meaning, except as otherwise provided herein; obscene or indecent words or language; or false or deceptive messages, signals or identification; "?
UUencoding is not an encoding for the purpose of obscuring the meaning of a message. If you encrypted those files before uuencoding, then you would be breaking the rules, but otherwise, no.
As for sending binary files being "beyond the pale", sorry, still incorrect. There is an international network of packet and pactor based systems that do this on a regular basis, using an encoding that is much more obscure and complex than UUencoding. It's called Winlink 2000. It is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of email to ham radio, and you can send doc and pdf and all kinds of binary files as attachments to those email messages. There is no FCC rule prohibiting this.
As for your recollection of the old rules, I recall nothing that would have been a hot-button issue for the FCC in sending files via computer-generated CW, as long as the control op was sitting there controlling it.
In a way, I can see why they clamped down a bit. At the time I didn't have the RF or digital electronics background to know it, but I now know that turning a carrier on and off is neither instantaneous nor consequence-free, and when you do it fast enough, you're basically bit-banging de-facto AM via PWM and square-wave artifacts that's going to splatter over a MUCH wider chunk of spectrum than a carrier being slowly turned on and off by a straight key.
What you call "splatter" is what we technical people call "bandwidth". Yes, a 200 wpm CW signal has a higher bandwidth than a 10 wpm signal, but I don't seem to find any limit to the CW speed being used. I do find a limit of 300 bauds for data, but I don't believe that applies to CW. There were, and probably still are, people who manage 60 to 80 wpm manually. There is a woman who has a record more than 1700 wpm using software.
As for how fast the carrier is turned on and off, that is a function of the TR switching in the transmitter. You can have bad key clicks at 5 wpm, too.
I know people balk at more tests, but aren't you supposed to know this stuff cold anyways?
No.
First, there is a lot of stuff on the exams that cover things you are not interested in and will probably never do. It's there because you have the privilege to do it, not the responsibility to do it. You don't need to know it at all because you aren't going to do it at all.
Second, what is there is incomplete and insufficient to actually use some of the modes you are supposed to know "cold". If I ever want to do heilscrieber (sp?) I'll need to know more than how many lines per minute or what it is. Ditto satellite (U/V, V/U modes?) or almost anything else esoteric on the advanced tests. And I can't tell you the last time I calculated the phase angles of an inductive circuit with a resistor of X and an inductor of Y. Oh, wait, I can, because it was on the test I took many years ago.
but I don't know of a state with any significant barrier to driver's license renewal).
How many people might die if I have failed eyesight or don't remember what a stop sign means and I get out on the highway, compared to the vast number of deaths and excessive carnage if I forget that SSTV runs at 240 lpm and turn on the box that does it for me and transmit a piccy?
A library's goal is to provide knowledge to those who seek it, regardless of means.
Regardless of means does not mean regardless of type.
"What does it feel like to take a hit of cocaine?" is not a type of knowledge that a library is intended to provide. If you are going to argue that you mean "legal knowledge", then let's change that to "what does it feel like to kick a winning goal at a soccer match?".
That points out the difference between "book larning" (for a very very broad definition of "book") and physical practice.
If you think that "physical learning" is a library's intended purpose, then why don't libraries have soccer fields attached? And then expand that to football (oblong ball) fields. And basketball courts. And handball courts. And automotive shops. And chemistry labs. And racketball... well, I think you get the point, I hope.
Physical practice in how to build something is NOT the purpose of a library, and it never has been. "Here's the information, go out and use it" is. It has nothing to do with the means of the patron.
Or perhaps by scared people of means who also want to keep the poor in their place - how dare they try to improve their lot and possibly compete.
If you are going to put words in other peoples' mouths, then you aren't really looking for a discussion, are you?
Not expanding the public library into a place for every kind of activity anyone might possibly want to engage in has nothing to do with "keep the poor in their place". It has to do with intended function and reasonable goals. Not wanting fully-functional welding and machine shops at every public library doesn't mean that public facilities like those don't have a place or function, somewhere. Even feeding poor kids whose parents cannot afford to has a place, but it isn't the library.
Personally, I'd love to have a machine shop I could rent time in (and no, I don't expect it to be free, and I don't expect the taxpayer to pay the rent, because the use would be for a more limited audience and the costs for maintenance would be much higher) to do simple things. I just don't think the library is where it belongs. There is no argument that doesn't start from incorrect assumptions that results in a requirement that it be at the library.
The argument that "libraries are supposed to spread knowledge and anything they do that furthers that is good" is erronious. It leads to nonsense like "well, a well rested person learns better, so let's provide cots and three hots for free..." or "driving to the library helps people get there to learn, so let's loan out cars...". Or the unsupportable "we'll give you anything you need to learn anything you want."
Libraries, even at their most busy, are more like meditation gardens, where everyone tries to be quiet and pretend the other people aren't there. There's no community, no familial bonding or corporate learning. Certainly no communal worship.
you've missed the last ten years of "library science", then.
The library cannot be just a library, it must be a communal meeting center and day care and internet service provider and whatever social function is popular in an area. If an area has a need, the library will try to fulfill it. In our fine city, the public library is a place for kids to get free lunches during the summer. Not just poor kids, any kid that walks through the door will be fed for free. Well, at taxpayer expense, I should say.
You see that in the librarian's quote: "Libraries are a place for social transformation."
Maybe that's a side effect of librarians thinking that libraries are becoming obsolete because of the Internet and they have to create some new market for their services. Maybe that's human nature trying to make a mundane part of life more excititing. Maybe being a center for information isn't enough anymore. "Social transformation" is the requirement.
I saw this article in the latest Make asking this question. I immediately thought "oh, please God, no".
As material printers and CNC devices become ubiquitous, people will want to be able to access designs and plans of things that they can make. Libraries are an ideal source of these designs and plans.
The Internet is an ideal source for those plans and designs. Nothing says that a library is the only access to the Internet.
There is no reason that a library has to be all things to all people. It has a function: a repository of knowledge in many different forms for societal history. That's not the same as "a place to play with high-tech toys" or "to build stuff".
Please libraries, keep doing your intended function well and stay out of the "societal change" business. That's not your job.
So which is it? Are the brakes four times stronger than the engine, or can the engine overpower the brakes?
Today's words are "chronic" and "acute".
If you push on the brakes hard enough, they will stop the car. The acute usage of the brakes can overpower the engine.
If you ride the brakes, thus both wearing them down and heating them up, the chronic application of braking will eventually cause them to fail and they will no longer overpower the engine.
However, I don't believe that the appearance of ABS has been considered in this claim that they will overpower the car. If the ABS says "no", they will override the four-times-overpower and you'll have a lot less.
Lets face it, when they are putting out advisories actually advertising that one of the FBI's "Most Wanted" is some dude who blew up a package at a building, in the middle of the night, injuring noone, just so he could make some statement about "Animal Liberation".... you really have to wonder what the hell these people actually do for a living anyway.
You don't think that someone who would go to that extent to make that kind of statement is dangerous to the rest of us?
People who plant bombs and blow things up are dangerous. Period. The fact that he managed not to kill anyone the first time he tried doesn't mean he won't the next. Even if he's not trying to blow people up, it happens. He can't know that an anaimal caretaker isn't visiting a sick animal that night, or doing some late night cleanup, for example. Maybe he screws up the timer and it goes off at 10 AM instead of 10 PM. The bomb doesn't know "I'm not supposed to kill anyone I explode close to".
I'd say that someone who has already gone that far over the line is much more dangerous than your typical bank robber who uses a rubber gun to rob a bank. Not more dangerous than a robber who blows up a bank (like here in Oregon), but they've been caught so they won't be on the Most Wanted list. They're on the "waiting to be executed" list.
However, many industrial control systems need to report information over the internet.
Maybe over AN internet, but not over THE Internet. "Report information" is not the same as "allow incoming control or information."
This can be as simple as a Lantronix XPort (or equivalent) tied to a serial port TX line on a secure machine, allowing telnet connections to read the serial data coming out but not send anything back. Or any terminal server with the RX lines cut.
What you need to be careful of in the planning of this system is that the information coming out of the secure system isn't being fed back into the system as the result of an external control. I.e., "Water level low in reactor 5" as outbound information cannot cause an "increase water flow to reactor 5" command from outside.
For all the ills of Europe, they seem to have a pretty good grip on freedoms which are eroding in USA and Australia.
Yes, because there certainly is no need for anyone to be able to discuss the National Socialist Party or any recent revivals of same anywhere in Europe, or to allow discussion of the founder of Islam, or any such stuff that we can do over here. Certainly no need for that at all. And God knows that British bans on info on celebrities are certainly required in these uncertain times.
Please, Europe isn't the Bastion of freedom any more than the US is.
That's odd, my $100 Motorola is the best phone I've owned, and I've had phones since the rotary days.
You young whippersnapper. I remember when you had to pick up the earpiece and tap the hanger a couple of times to get Madge's attention down at central and then you'd ask to be connected.
And before that if you wanted to talk to someone at the other end of town you walked over and did it in person. Good for your health, less stress. You wanted to talk to someone in the next city over, you waited until they invented the telegraph and sent one of those newfangled things.
Now get off my lawn.
But this doesn't explain the millions if not billions spent on rural airports that service 2 flights a week
Billions? Millions maybe, if the entire runway is replaced, but billions?
You forget that those smaller airports also serve the communities in other ways than just flying a senator's buddies in to go hunting. Businesses make use of them for transport, air cargo, training of future pilots, search and rescue operations, etc.
There aren't many small airports that service only two flights a week. Certainly not any that have gotten millions of dollars in federal money.
I do agree that Hugh Laurie would be a great Doctor. I'd pay eight bucks to see that.
I accept cash, check, or money order. Now tune to Fox on Friday night, or USA (check your local listings).
Would he still have a limp and an irascible attitude if he plays a Time Lord doctor? Will he denegrate and insult his companions and pit them against each other in a battle to find the right answer? Will he still have an oxy addiction, and will his "best friend" be an oncologist?
But Ghod forbid that this companion business should in any way be sexualised. It's not like all those sixties and seventies and eighties companions included any hot babes.
Mmmmm, Nissa. Yummm.....
And Leila -- shall I kill him now?
And Sarah Jane. Always Sarah Jane.
Please Hollywood, realize that the US market doesn't support Dr. Who and drop the project. The US TV version had what little success it had only because US Whovians didn't realize how bad a US adaptation would be and they watched it for free on the telly, even when it truly was "a penguin on the telly" level of quality.
Of course, if they make it in 3-D, I'd watch it twice.
Funny how stories about that 'panic' don't tell people that it was announced to be a fictional story at the beginning, and then again later.
Funny, but every account of that incident I've heard has been quite clear in saying that the announcements were made, and that extra announcements were being made specifically because there was a panic.
And gas goes bad if you leave it sitting for too long.
Yes, when I'm sitting too long my gas goes bad, too. That's why I recycle it as often as possible.
this linking of all of the systems is new, not decades old.
You are wrong. There is no other way to put it.
I know that yo want to try to chalk this up as a failure for some self serving political reason,
Wrong again. A failure is a failure. It wasn't a success because it was a test.
Please listen to those of us who know how engineering works ...
I'm sure you think you are the only person who knows how such a complicated system could possibly work, but you are wrong yet again.
The federal EAS (and earlier EBS) has been around for decades. I don't care what politician you think this is tied to, it wasn't a political failure. As for "knowing how engineering works", well, that's just puffery.
There's no way this should be marked insightful. An EAS style system for the internet is so unnecessary it's almost comical to think about.
What you forget is that the Internet is designed to route around failure, and a static radio-linked system is not.
I think it would be rather forward-thinking to make the alerts use the existing internet, and allow open development of systems to decode and notify people. That way, when Eugene, for example, fails to process the EAS messages and trigger their alert, the rest of southern Oregon isn't left with their thumbs up their ass ignorant of the incoming aliens or whatever the feds think we ought to know about.
You chose to opt-in when you didn't vote at the town hall meeting on the issue,
There was no vote. And even had there been, someone else voting 'yes' is not the same as me opting in.
I know, I know, you're one of the 99% who thinks lazy bitching works to change the world rather than actually participating in your governmental processes.
I know, I know, you are one of those people who thinks that jumping down someone else's throat is the correct response to any statement you don't like, and thinks they know everything there is to know about the other person and their involvement in "government process". Stop being an asshole.
You freaked out like they were ruining your life because they bothered you so much ...
No, asshole, I made a very calm and reasoned call to a company that thought it had the right to get paid to use my phone for their purposes. Kinda like telemarketers.
You're just a douche. What will be funny as shit ...
You're just an asshole. What will be funny as shit will be when the next disaster strikes and my phone will be busy receiving this useless and unwanted recorded message and the local emergency manager won't be able to get through to let me know my help is needed and where to report... see, my being on a first callout list for emergency services is just one of the things you don't know about me or this situation, but it sure didn't stop you from flapping your face like a moron.
The national alert system is a product in development.
Incorrect. It is a system that has been in place, in one form or another, for decades. Broadcast stations are regularly inspected to verify the existence and operability of their equipment, and state and local testing of this system has been ongoing for decades. While parts have changed, the concept has not.
This is not a "development system", it is a full blown production environment and it has never been tested as a whole. Now it has. And it failed.
You can simulate and test individual pieces all you want, but until you get the opportunity to test the entire system, you have no idea what links in the chain are broken.
Which changes nothing about the fact that they system truly did fail, and trying to wave it off as "development testing" is just ridiculous, or that it wasn't a failure because this was "just a test" is even more so.
We've had the opportunity to test the entire system for a very long time. Decades, at least. What's the excuse for not testing it ten years ago?
I sure did. A national alert system is not only useful for national alerts, but also local ones.
Nonsense. There is no need for an alert sent to people in the northwest that the hurricane that the news has been reporting on 24/7 for the last week finally made landfall in North Carolina. If you care, you're already watching the news. If you don't care, you don't need to know about it right this very minute.
Ditto someone flying a plane into the Chicago Sears Tower. If you live in Chitown, then yeah, you need to know. But not only do I not need to know about it right this minute out here in Oregon, there is nothing I can do about it right this minute anyway. The US postal service will take a day or two to get my additional check to the Red Cross. Any local Red Cross critical volunteers already have their own alerting system. If the phrase "Red Cross" confuses you, replace it with DMAT or any other crisis reaction team.
In the event of a disaster, you're more likely to have a working radio than a working cell phone.
In the event of a national alert, you're more likely to be listenting to your iWhat or cell phone mp3s than to a broadcast station, and by the time you figure out there was an alert (by seeing many of the people around you starting to panic) you'll have missed it.
In the event of a disaster on the other side of the country, or even in the middle of the country, I'm more likely not to be impacted by it, and most likely not able to do anything about it or need to do anything about it, anyway. Even if I had relatives in the impacted area, there is nothing I could do for them right this minute that would require instant notification of the event.
Now, if something happens in this region, yes, there is a chance I might need to know. A tsunami alert for the coast, for example. That's why the regional and state-level alerts are valuable, and that system is tested already. We don't need Daddy Obama or Mommy FEMA issuing a nationwide alert telling us that a hurricane has hit Florida or an earthquake has hit SF. Or even that a tsunami is headed for Oregon.
Face it, the Cold War is over, the threat of the Ruskies lobbing a few hundred MIRVs our way is gone, and the best means of notifying people being a national alert system using broadcast is over. Regional disasters require regional, not national, systems.
We should leave emergency notifications to the free markets! You want to know about disasters and what to do? Well, just subscribe to a disaster notification service.
You may think you were being sarcastic, but this is exactly what many localities are doing. There are companies that exist to provide emergency notification services. They will happily call every phone in a municipality and deliver a recorded message. The city or whatever hires them and then makes a great deal of noise advertising how they are protecting the citizens. These are, however, not opt-in systems, and they have no opt-out.
Right after our local city crowed about how they could annoy everyone all at once at their whim, I called the company they said they had hired. The people there had absolutely no clue what I was talking about when I told them to remove my number from their system and never call it.
Testing for something and finding that the test didn't pass is NOT a failure of a system. It's exactly what it said - a test.
And when the test fails, it is, indeed, a failure of the system as a whole. What was the intended outcome? (A nationwide alert.) Was the outcome achieved? (No.) This is almost a "by definition" kind of concept, you know. You test something and it doesn't work, that means IT FAILED.
The only way this test didn't fail "because it was a test" is if you think the important operational criterion is the ability to test, not the ability to notify people in an emergency. Or maybe you are confused by the use of the word "test", and are thinking of how when a student takes a test and doesn't pass it doesn't mean the system failed. Well, in this case, the test wasn't applied to students, it was a direct test of the system as a whole and yes, it did, really, overall, fail miserably.
Now they know where the faults are they can work on fixing them.
Now they know where some of the faults are and can work on fixing them. If you don't get a successful test of the entire system, then the parts that didn't get tested may still have faults that weren't detected. If a major switch somewhere failed, you can spend a lot of money fixing it and then feel safe, without realizing that every leaf node that it fed would have failed had it gotten the alert.
There is no question that we are going to need another test, after a significant period of time. And then another. And another. Soon we will be getting tired of the testing and it will take place at 3AM like the regular regional tests already do.
The important, unasked question is just why do we still need a national alert system? Is there someone out there ready to plop 100 nukes into all our major cities all at once? Unlikely. Would notifying all those people all at once really have much positive effect? We already have localized alerting systems that are tested on a regular basis, and we have better means of distribution -- NOAA weather radio. Do we need to fix this system, or should we just pull the national plug and let the regional ops continue?
As for the original article mentioning that Comcast switched to QVC before the test message, yeah, so what? That's how the system is designed. It is much easier for a cable system to send the "everyone change to channel X" command downstream instead of trying to insert the alert message into every digital stream. Or insert the alert into one digital stream and then copy it to all the other streams. Of course, the ANALOG channels need to have individual alerts for those people who use analog TVs, but all the digital subs who have digital cable boxes can get by with one channel for the alert.
I was listening to local AM radio -- not a peep. The news story leading the 11AM (2PM EST) report? "If you can hear me now, the test failed."
If those low income earners then reduce their carbon footprints (get rid of the second fridge, buy the now-cheaper goods with a lower carbon footprint), then they come out ahead.
yes, because SO many of the poor have two or more fridges, and of course, the increase in costs of production based on taxing the largest companies will automatically cause the prices of everything else to go down.
The only way there would be "now cheaper goods" is because you are comparing the prices of those goods to the now more-expensive ones, not to the current prices of those goods. In absolute terms, prices will go up for everything as costs to manufacture them go up.
In simple terms, a loaf of "now cheaper" cheaper bread that cost $1.89 today will cost $2.25 tomorrow, but the bread made by one of the "top 500" companies will go from $1.89 to $2.50. Most people would say "I'm paying $0.36 more". People who try to piss on your leg and tell you it is raining will say "you're saving $0.25!"
The modelling of increased cost of living, which takes into account increased grocery prices, electricity prices, etc, comes out at $10 per week for the average household.
And in Magic Land known as Oz, everyone will get a $40/month pay raise to offset that cost. Fairy dust and unicorn horn for dinner tonight, children!