...we'd vote ourselves into homelessness if there needed to be a house tax.
There is a "house tax". It's called "property tax". It is what is keeping some folks from owning them.
High tax bills just never get passed here, especially on the local level.
Not quite true. Taxes pass in both Portland Metro and Benton County (Oregon State Univ) areas quite well. Multnomah County just passed itself an income tax for the schools -- and will those people be pissed when the state increases their taxes even more to pay for everyone else's schools!
Benton County is almost sure to follow the example of the big city folk. The only really organized oppostion is from people who live in the county but whose schools are in the next county over.
And Oregon is the marvelous state where the state pays cities to rip up perfectly good street corners -- and the cities don't have the balls to say "no thanks, use the money for something important."
To paraphrase a jurist I heard on the radio recently, the 2nd Amendment isn't our great bulwark against tyrany, the 1st Amendment is.
He's wrong. The 1st amendment is how we are supposed to keep from needing the 2nd, but without the 2nd, the 1st is toothless.
The upcoming stealth FCC media consolidation deregulation poses a far, far greater threat to democracy than the most rabid gun control advocate.
The "most rabid gun control advocate" is no threat to democracy at all, but he is a threat to those who want to take it away from him, such as those people who are mis-led by media misreporting exacerbated by limited viewpoints being heard.
Briefly, a contract is a legally enforcable promise between two people.
So, briefly, when Qwest promised to sell me DSL service which included 8 static IP addresses for $43.90 per month, and then after installing the DSL told me that the 8 static IP addresses would cost an additional $14.95 per month, they were in breach of contract and had committed fraud?
Re:Similar product ($12 or $36) already available.
on
TiVo For Radio?
·
· Score: 1
Similar product available for free.
Plug radio into line input on sound card.
find a copy of lame.
crontab whatever recording schedule you want.
???
Profit!!!
Really. It isn't that hard. Add a computer-programmable radio (like Icom PCR-1000) and you can even change stations automatically. Of course, at that point, it's not really free, but it's sure convenient.
I've had my SGI recording Rush, Art Bell, Prarie Home, What Do You Know, and Dr. Demento automatically for a couple of years now. The only muss and fuss is burning a CD or DVD now and then to archive it all.
Since most of it is talk, I can use mono and low bitrate recording, so it takes about 3.5Mb per half hour.
My only problem with the latest US versions is the Radio Shack "product placement". A "Radio Shack" confessional a'la Real World, and some piece of junk with a big Radio Shack sticker on it behind Tyler as he segues into commercials. Ick!
Yep. And I remember when the Internet was about 1000 sites big, and if someone was using more of your resources than you
wanted them to, you would ask them to stop and they actually would. And those who did use your resources might actually
have something they would share in return.
Now it's millions of script kiddies and people with nothing but their hands out demanding more of whatever it is you have,
telling you to either allow them access to everything they want as much as they want or get the hell off the net because 'the
net is about sharing' (not that they've done any sharing themselves).
Or they're "probing" you, trying to find any means they can to get around the access controls you have put on your systems,
thinking that if it's on the net, it's theirs for the taking.
Here's a story. Once upon a time, I had a web server, using freeware, that provided tide predictions. It took about 30 seconds to calculate each page. Along came a spider which happily followed the "next day" and "next month" links, asking for tide predictions -- every 15 seconds. You do the math. Can you say "100% CPU" and "wasted cycles"? The response from the indexer running this abusive spider was "it's on the net, we have the right to access it."
Which is so much easier than just walking on board with weapons - right?
The statement I am replying to had nothing to do with how hard some action was, it was a claim that searching passengers was one way to eliminate the threat of hijacking. Searching passengers does not eliminate anything, except the 4th amendment. In fact, if you care to recall, there were plenty of people who actually got onto airplanes carrying pointy things, even after being searched, and they weren't even trying to sneak things on, they were just ignorant or forgetfull -- neither of which makes them a threat as a hijacker. If so many people can get by a search so easily, then a determined hijacker certainly could. Now, tell me again, what did these searches eliminate?
Don't you think there would be more hijackings if we did not have these security measures...
Once again, the statement was that searches ELIMINATED the threat. That's patently absurd, and is the kind of statement made by ignorant people who are happier as sheep than as reasoning adult humans.
And no, I don't think there would have been more hijackings if Grandma hadn't been searched. Once the passengers figured out that they could beat the shit out of any potential hijacker, and were much better off beating the shit out of them than sitting passively waiting to be released, the game was over for the hijacker. Until, of course, the feds stepped in and disarmed every honest passenger of every possible defensive weapon.
...or have there been none in the US since 9/11 because we ran out of bad guys?
There were none in the US before 9/11 for a very long time -- even without the level of security we
are suffering under now. Think about it. Four airplanes in ten years or so. That's not a bad record. It's not perfect, but it is pretty damn good, considering the number of flights that took place over that time.
And no, the fact that there haven't been any since the draconian policies went into effect doesn't prove the draconian policies prevented anything.
If you don't understand why that's true, try this thought experiment. I'll assume you don't rob banks, but if you do, think of someone who doesn't. Now pretend that you lock that person up in a maximum security prison. Gee, locking him up prevented him from robbing a bank, didn't it? No, he wasn't going to do it anyway. Locking him up didn't prevent anything, it just took his freedom away unnecessarily. Do you understand now?
There are, for example two ways to eliminate the threat of hijacked aircraft, and thus achieve security. You can limit privacy by searching passengers,
Sigh. Excellent argument, except for the fact that searching passengers doesn't eliminate anything but the privacy of a few passengers. It does not eliminate the threat of hijacking. For example, you can strip search every passenger, but if I manage to bribe the caterers they can get weapons on board using the food carts.
Or, for example, I can fabricate a pretty good representation of a knife from a pop can and some tape -- the former I get on the plane, the latter would get through any search unquestioned.
... or you can limit liberty by making comercial aviation illegal.
Ahh, so only criminals will be able to fly the planes? Yes, that would certainly eliminate legal flight commercially, but nothing to eliminate hijacking or other illegal use of aircraft.
Is this really that different from downloading music for which you have not paid?
Yes. Considerably much so.
Were I to download music for which I have not paid, I would not be acting from a position of trust, I would be a casual user. There is also a reasonable expectation that what I was allowed to download was provided by someone who had the rights to distribute what I downloaded.
On the other hand, this moron was working indirectly for a legal firm where there is a strict code of ethical behaviour concerning distribution of a client's information. There is NO reasonable expectation that the material he was handed was free for further distribution. (And given the comment about P4 data being printed on special paper to begin with, there isn't even an unreasonable expectation.)
Now, if you wanted to argue whether there is a difference between the fellow who knowingly MAKES illicit copies of music for someone to download and this moron, you'd have a good argument. You'd still have to get around the difference that the former is working, usually, from a legal copy, and has the right to make personal copies, and the latter, who has no right to make personal copies at all.
It's obvious you don't work for Microsoft. If you read the article about moving Mount Fuji, you'd know that the next letter in the sequence O T is actually T.
And as for them damn seals, I say club'em when they are babies and you don't have no problems with them when they grow up to be adult wing seals.
Are there really any genes "alien" to any species? Are you forgetting the theory that everything evolved from the slime millions of years ago?
You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information.
I have current information, but I also don't throw away the past just because it doesn't create fear, uncertainty or doubt anymore. The fact remains that genetic engineering has been going on for a long time and we're still here to see it. The sky hasn't fallen.
...most of the negative senerios have already happened.
Right. Billions of people have died because we are growing hardier, more productive corn plants and rice that can live in salt-water. Billions more have died because chickens have been bred to produce more, bigger eggs. Even more billions of people have died because tomatoes have been engineered to stay fresh longer. Oh, the humanity!
It's why Europe has banned most GM products.
No, Europe has banned most "GM" crops because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt being spread about them, by people who don't want to see US corporations profiting for any reason whatsoever. People who cannot separate their hatred of successful corporations from real science.
The food allergy issue is still a major concern.
To whom? People are allergic to all sorts of things. Should Mendel have stopped just because someone might be allergic to peas? I think not.
... and it's a new science.
No, it is not. You claim I need "more current information", as if that allows you to ignore the past. It doesn't. This is not new.
Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries.
They have been crossing plants for centuries. Where the hell do you think the tangelo came from?
Despite all your fearmongering, this is simply not new stuff.
You might be right.
You know it, you just want to spread more FUD, for whatever reason you have. You keep ignoring the past, so maybe it's just ignorance. Is that why?
Wrong. Massive difference between selective breeding and crossing species with genetic engineering.
Wrong. Difference of method only, but not the intent and not the result.
We are talking foreign genes.
Well, now I am convinced to oppose this stuff -- I don't want no damn Iraqi genes in my American foods!
You've just demonstrated that those who are most opposed to this are those who don't have the clue. It isn't "in it's infancy", it's been going on for CENTURIES, and it is why Malthus was proven wrong.
If you don't want to eat it, fine, starve. Just stop spreading FUD.
Shortly after the first field tests geneticly enhanced grain is in wide spread use.
Son, genetically enhanced grain has been in use for thousands of years. Gregor Mendel hypothesized the existance of genes (as in "genetics") while trying to further improve pea plants. Today's corn plants are so much improved over the initial corn-like stuff that you'd probably not realize by looking at the two that they were related at all.
That goes for all current crops, and farm animals as well.
It's time to stop being afraid of the food you've eaten all your life.
I've found it not too bad. I'm streaming audio from Iraqi radio now. The only problem is there are occasional very loud booming noises. Does anyone know what is wrong?
Why would someone load up the story, see the joke they were planning to make had been posted ten times already, and then post it anyway?
For the same reason that Gore apologists see all the repeated claims that Gore didn't say what so many people heard him say and still post yet another claim that he didn't say what everyone heard him say.
It wasn't a misquote, as one apologist claims. It was said on live television, and the words came out of His Highness' own mouth. "Creating the Internet" took place before Gore was ever elected, which makes it impossible for him to "take the initiative" to create it. Period.
The most important thing is a "reference receiver" nearby - One whose location is precisely known.
Actually, the only requirement is that the reference receiver isn't moving. It needs to know only approximately where it is -- a stand-alone fix, even with SA turned on, is more than adequate. You can then measure the apparent position of other known points to correct for the error in reference receiver position later.
Well made and tuned equipment can eliminate any chance of interference...
Unfortunately, this is not true.
Suppose a city has two stations, one on 1600 kHz and one on 900 kHz. Let's add a station on 700 kHz, ok? Let's put him near the 1600 kHz station, since we don't want these damn antennas cluttering up the whole city. No problem with "well made equipment", right?
Now consider that near to both the 1600 and 700 antennas is a large, old, steel-framed building, containing tens of thousands of rivets and metal-to-metal joints. Some of these joints have some corrosion. Consider that there may be several such buildings. Why is this a problem?
Each joint is a potential non-linearity. Each joint is capable of taking the 1600 and 700 signal and creating the sum and difference signals and re-rediating them. The sum is 2300 kHz, outside the AM broadcast band. The difference is... 900 kHz. The same frequency as an existing station.
Now consider if you live inside one of these buildings. You used to listen to the station on 900 kHz. Now you hear a wonderful mixed babbling of both the 1600 and 700 kHz stations -- and your radio has nothing to do with creating the problem.
Let's go one step further. These same non-linear conductors will cause sum and difference issues with single-frequency signals, too. The new station on 700 kHz will sum with itself and cause a signal on 1400 kHz. And it's even worse. The actual result will be signals on every multiple of 700 kHz well up into the shortwave bands. (If the non-linearity created a perfect square wave, you'd get only the odd harmonics, but these aren't perfect and you get even harmonics, too.)
Can't happen, you say? Yes, it can, and does. I've lived with this problem for the last 4 years from two nearby stations. It has finally gone away, since one of them moved their antenna location a mile further away, but before they did that, they made a lot of the spectrum useless here.
I see a tragedy of the commons [dieoff.org] waiting to happen.
I see several issues with this. First of all, the article is semantic tallywhacking. Who cares if the "photons" of radio don't interfere until they get to the receiver, if they interfere at the receiver, there is interference. (And the statement that they don't interfere until they get to the receiver is questionable, since any nonlinearity will cause mixing -- even if it is something as simple as corrosion in the transmitting antenna.)
Thinking of 770kHz as "Forest Green" is ridiculous. 770kHz is at least a quantitative statement, while "Forest Green" is completely subjective.
Second, it may apply to certain parts of the spectrum and users, but certainly not all. I doubt that it applies to broadcasters, since they will NOT want thousands of little broadcasters interfering with their signals. And yes, if you transmit your signal on "Forest Green" from your house nextdoor, it will interfere with the signal from the currently licensed used of "Forest Green".
And the most scary part of this plan is the "cooperative" nature of the suggested radios. Creating a worldwide infrastructure without considering the security holes is negligence. How nice, the signal you receive will contain a URL to tell you how to download new software for your radio. And if that signal is from an illicit source telling your radio to start relaying spam back onto the net?
You missed the point. Of course I can explain why I bought what I bought. It's the administration of the system to keep track of everyone who has to justify such purchases that is the nightmare.
To enact the law, every software purchase would have to go through the purchasing department to make sure all the required justifications are provided. I could no longer take ten minutes to solve a problem, I'd have to fill out forms and wait until the right people approved the transaction, and THEN I'd get to solve the problem. Then we'd have to figure out how all those vendors who currently happily sell me other things would know they couldn't sell me software, and what happens if I do buy software from them anyway. I like being able to walk into a local computer store and get what I need to get my job done, and making that process harder is going to cost time, and thus money.
Right now, the only time I must justify a specific order is when it is both over $5000 and I want to avoid putting the order out for bids. Imagine dropping the limit to $0 and making it apply to any software purchase. What a nightmare!
And if you don't think the Uni would enact such rules, you don't understand Uni administration very well. The Uni recently discovered that there were a large number of laptop computers that did not have "loan agreements" on file for them. The assumption is, of course, that laptops are used by specific people so they can take work home. Well, the rule was made that all laptop purchases must have a loan agreement signed in advance. I found this out while trying to purchase a $300 used laptop that I was going to send out to the beach to collect data -- a system I knew would be destroyed in the process. It didn't matter. Someone had to sign the form.
Imagine a professor who does not do any computing for himself,...
If he does no computing, it is unlikely any of his grants contains equipment money for computers. However, if they do, then he's the one who decides how it is spent. It's a shame that the grad student who still has a '286 doesn't work for a PI with money to properly equip him, but that's something he needs to discuss with his PI, and telling the monied professor that he cannot buy a computer because someone else's grad student doesn't have one is just not how things work at universities. It is the responsibility of the PI to support his students, and if he doesn't do it properly, he doesn't get results, and he doesn't get papers, and he doesn't get grant money.
While this bill sounds great, it goes one step too far. It does not just suggest or require consideration of open source, it requires justification when open source is not used.
In other words, if I walk down to the University computer store and buy a copy of Endnote, because everyone here uses Endnote and everything I want to work with is already in Endnote format, I will have to explain why I didn't use "jreferences". That's ridiculous.
...cut the hilt off so that the key will go in too far to work.
This is still too dangerous, since they can see that you cut off the hilt and they can just compare your key to theirs (if they have a master of their own.)
Much better to cut the key backwards -- that is, the cut normally at the end appears next to the hilt, etc. Unless the master is symmetrical, they won't be able to compare it to theirs, and it won't work when they try it.
Of course, you'll have to insert it from the back of the lock to use it, but that's a minor inconvenience compared to prison time.
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There is a "house tax". It's called "property tax". It is what is keeping some folks from owning them.
High tax bills just never get passed here, especially on the local level.
Not quite true. Taxes pass in both Portland Metro and Benton County (Oregon State Univ) areas quite well. Multnomah County just passed itself an income tax for the schools -- and will those people be pissed when the state increases their taxes even more to pay for everyone else's schools!
Benton County is almost sure to follow the example of the big city folk. The only really organized oppostion is from people who live in the county but whose schools are in the next county over.
And Oregon is the marvelous state where the state pays cities to rip up perfectly good street corners -- and the cities don't have the balls to say "no thanks, use the money for something important."
He's wrong. The 1st amendment is how we are supposed to keep from needing the 2nd, but without the 2nd, the 1st is toothless.
The upcoming stealth FCC media consolidation deregulation poses a far, far greater threat to democracy than the most rabid gun control advocate.
The "most rabid gun control advocate" is no threat to democracy at all, but he is a threat to those who want to take it away from him, such as those people who are mis-led by media misreporting exacerbated by limited viewpoints being heard.
So, briefly, when Qwest promised to sell me DSL service which included 8 static IP addresses for $43.90 per month, and then after installing the DSL told me that the 8 static IP addresses would cost an additional $14.95 per month, they were in breach of contract and had committed fraud?
Really. It isn't that hard. Add a computer-programmable radio (like Icom PCR-1000) and you can even change stations automatically. Of course, at that point, it's not really free, but it's sure convenient.
I've had my SGI recording Rush, Art Bell, Prarie Home, What Do You Know, and Dr. Demento automatically for a couple of years now. The only muss and fuss is burning a CD or DVD now and then to archive it all.
Since most of it is talk, I can use mono and low bitrate recording, so it takes about 3.5Mb per half hour.
Why buy something that is so easy to do already?
My only problem with the latest US versions is the Radio Shack "product placement". A "Radio Shack" confessional a'la Real World, and some piece of junk with a big Radio Shack sticker on it behind Tyler as he segues into commercials. Ick!
That's why many of the .mil and .gov sites one accesses these days display explicit disclaimers stating that the systems are for official use only.
Yep. And I remember when the Internet was about 1000 sites big, and if someone was using more of your resources than you wanted them to, you would ask them to stop and they actually would. And those who did use your resources might actually have something they would share in return.
Now it's millions of script kiddies and people with nothing but their hands out demanding more of whatever it is you have, telling you to either allow them access to everything they want as much as they want or get the hell off the net because 'the net is about sharing' (not that they've done any sharing themselves).
Or they're "probing" you, trying to find any means they can to get around the access controls you have put on your systems, thinking that if it's on the net, it's theirs for the taking.
Here's a story. Once upon a time, I had a web server, using freeware, that provided tide predictions. It took about 30 seconds to calculate each page. Along came a spider which happily followed the "next day" and "next month" links, asking for tide predictions -- every 15 seconds. You do the math. Can you say "100% CPU" and "wasted cycles"? The response from the indexer running this abusive spider was "it's on the net, we have the right to access it."
Yeah, I remember the good old days.
The statement I am replying to had nothing to do with how hard some action was, it was a claim that searching passengers was one way to eliminate the threat of hijacking. Searching passengers does not eliminate anything, except the 4th amendment. In fact, if you care to recall, there were plenty of people who actually got onto airplanes carrying pointy things, even after being searched, and they weren't even trying to sneak things on, they were just ignorant or forgetfull -- neither of which makes them a threat as a hijacker. If so many people can get by a search so easily, then a determined hijacker certainly could. Now, tell me again, what did these searches eliminate?
Don't you think there would be more hijackings if we did not have these security measures ...
Once again, the statement was that searches ELIMINATED the threat. That's patently absurd, and is the kind of statement made by ignorant people who are happier as sheep than as reasoning adult humans.
And no, I don't think there would have been more hijackings if Grandma hadn't been searched. Once the passengers figured out that they could beat the shit out of any potential hijacker, and were much better off beating the shit out of them than sitting passively waiting to be released, the game was over for the hijacker. Until, of course, the feds stepped in and disarmed every honest passenger of every possible defensive weapon.
There were none in the US before 9/11 for a very long time -- even without the level of security we are suffering under now. Think about it. Four airplanes in ten years or so. That's not a bad record. It's not perfect, but it is pretty damn good, considering the number of flights that took place over that time.
And no, the fact that there haven't been any since the draconian policies went into effect doesn't prove the draconian policies prevented anything.
If you don't understand why that's true, try this thought experiment. I'll assume you don't rob banks, but if you do, think of someone who doesn't. Now pretend that you lock that person up in a maximum security prison. Gee, locking him up prevented him from robbing a bank, didn't it? No, he wasn't going to do it anyway. Locking him up didn't prevent anything, it just took his freedom away unnecessarily. Do you understand now?
Sigh. Excellent argument, except for the fact that searching passengers doesn't eliminate anything but the privacy of a few passengers. It does not eliminate the threat of hijacking. For example, you can strip search every passenger, but if I manage to bribe the caterers they can get weapons on board using the food carts.
Or, for example, I can fabricate a pretty good representation of a knife from a pop can and some tape -- the former I get on the plane, the latter would get through any search unquestioned.
Ahh, so only criminals will be able to fly the planes? Yes, that would certainly eliminate legal flight commercially, but nothing to eliminate hijacking or other illegal use of aircraft.
Yes. Considerably much so.
Were I to download music for which I have not paid, I would not be acting from a position of trust, I would be a casual user. There is also a reasonable expectation that what I was allowed to download was provided by someone who had the rights to distribute what I downloaded.
On the other hand, this moron was working indirectly for a legal firm where there is a strict code of ethical behaviour concerning distribution of a client's information. There is NO reasonable expectation that the material he was handed was free for further distribution. (And given the comment about P4 data being printed on special paper to begin with, there isn't even an unreasonable expectation.)
Now, if you wanted to argue whether there is a difference between the fellow who knowingly MAKES illicit copies of music for someone to download and this moron, you'd have a good argument. You'd still have to get around the difference that the former is working, usually, from a legal copy, and has the right to make personal copies, and the latter, who has no right to make personal copies at all.
And as for them damn seals, I say club'em when they are babies and you don't have no problems with them when they grow up to be adult wing seals.
Are there really any genes "alien" to any species? Are you forgetting the theory that everything evolved from the slime millions of years ago?
You keep referring to what's been done for centuries. You need to get more current information.
I have current information, but I also don't throw away the past just because it doesn't create fear, uncertainty or doubt anymore. The fact remains that genetic engineering has been going on for a long time and we're still here to see it. The sky hasn't fallen.
Right. Billions of people have died because we are growing hardier, more productive corn plants and rice that can live in salt-water. Billions more have died because chickens have been bred to produce more, bigger eggs. Even more billions of people have died because tomatoes have been engineered to stay fresh longer. Oh, the humanity!
It's why Europe has banned most GM products.
No, Europe has banned most "GM" crops because of fear, uncertainty, and doubt being spread about them, by people who don't want to see US corporations profiting for any reason whatsoever. People who cannot separate their hatred of successful corporations from real science.
The food allergy issue is still a major concern.
To whom? People are allergic to all sorts of things. Should Mendel have stopped just because someone might be allergic to peas? I think not.
No, it is not. You claim I need "more current information", as if that allows you to ignore the past. It doesn't. This is not new.
Also people haven't been crossing spiders with goats for centuries.
They have been crossing plants for centuries. Where the hell do you think the tangelo came from? Despite all your fearmongering, this is simply not new stuff.
You might be right.
You know it, you just want to spread more FUD, for whatever reason you have. You keep ignoring the past, so maybe it's just ignorance. Is that why?
Wrong. Difference of method only, but not the intent and not the result.
We are talking foreign genes.
Well, now I am convinced to oppose this stuff -- I don't want no damn Iraqi genes in my American foods!
You've just demonstrated that those who are most opposed to this are those who don't have the clue. It isn't "in it's infancy", it's been going on for CENTURIES, and it is why Malthus was proven wrong.
If you don't want to eat it, fine, starve. Just stop spreading FUD.
Son, genetically enhanced grain has been in use for thousands of years. Gregor Mendel hypothesized the existance of genes (as in "genetics") while trying to further improve pea plants. Today's corn plants are so much improved over the initial corn-like stuff that you'd probably not realize by looking at the two that they were related at all.
That goes for all current crops, and farm animals as well.
It's time to stop being afraid of the food you've eaten all your life.
I've found it not too bad. I'm streaming audio from Iraqi radio now. The only problem is there are occasional very loud booming noises. Does anyone know what is wrong?
For the same reason that Gore apologists see all the repeated claims that Gore didn't say what so many people heard him say and still post yet another claim that he didn't say what everyone heard him say.
It wasn't a misquote, as one apologist claims. It was said on live television, and the words came out of His Highness' own mouth. "Creating the Internet" took place before Gore was ever elected, which makes it impossible for him to "take the initiative" to create it. Period.
Actually, the only requirement is that the reference receiver isn't moving. It needs to know only approximately where it is -- a stand-alone fix, even with SA turned on, is more than adequate. You can then measure the apparent position of other known points to correct for the error in reference receiver position later.
Unfortunately, this is not true.
Suppose a city has two stations, one on 1600 kHz and one on 900 kHz. Let's add a station on 700 kHz, ok? Let's put him near the 1600 kHz station, since we don't want these damn antennas cluttering up the whole city. No problem with "well made equipment", right?
Now consider that near to both the 1600 and 700 antennas is a large, old, steel-framed building, containing tens of thousands of rivets and metal-to-metal joints. Some of these joints have some corrosion. Consider that there may be several such buildings. Why is this a problem?
Each joint is a potential non-linearity. Each joint is capable of taking the 1600 and 700 signal and creating the sum and difference signals and re-rediating them. The sum is 2300 kHz, outside the AM broadcast band. The difference is ... 900 kHz. The same frequency as an existing station.
Now consider if you live inside one of these buildings. You used to listen to the station on 900 kHz. Now you hear a wonderful mixed babbling of both the 1600 and 700 kHz stations -- and your radio has nothing to do with creating the problem.
Let's go one step further. These same non-linear conductors will cause sum and difference issues with single-frequency signals, too. The new station on 700 kHz will sum with itself and cause a signal on 1400 kHz. And it's even worse. The actual result will be signals on every multiple of 700 kHz well up into the shortwave bands. (If the non-linearity created a perfect square wave, you'd get only the odd harmonics, but these aren't perfect and you get even harmonics, too.)
Can't happen, you say? Yes, it can, and does. I've lived with this problem for the last 4 years from two nearby stations. It has finally gone away, since one of them moved their antenna location a mile further away, but before they did that, they made a lot of the spectrum useless here.
I see several issues with this. First of all, the article is semantic tallywhacking. Who cares if the "photons" of radio don't interfere until they get to the receiver, if they interfere at the receiver, there is interference. (And the statement that they don't interfere until they get to the receiver is questionable, since any nonlinearity will cause mixing -- even if it is something as simple as corrosion in the transmitting antenna.)
Thinking of 770kHz as "Forest Green" is ridiculous. 770kHz is at least a quantitative statement, while "Forest Green" is completely subjective.
Second, it may apply to certain parts of the spectrum and users, but certainly not all. I doubt that it applies to broadcasters, since they will NOT want thousands of little broadcasters interfering with their signals. And yes, if you transmit your signal on "Forest Green" from your house nextdoor, it will interfere with the signal from the currently licensed used of "Forest Green".
And the most scary part of this plan is the "cooperative" nature of the suggested radios. Creating a worldwide infrastructure without considering the security holes is negligence. How nice, the signal you receive will contain a URL to tell you how to download new software for your radio. And if that signal is from an illicit source telling your radio to start relaying spam back onto the net?
To enact the law, every software purchase would have to go through the purchasing department to make sure all the required justifications are provided. I could no longer take ten minutes to solve a problem, I'd have to fill out forms and wait until the right people approved the transaction, and THEN I'd get to solve the problem. Then we'd have to figure out how all those vendors who currently happily sell me other things would know they couldn't sell me software, and what happens if I do buy software from them anyway. I like being able to walk into a local computer store and get what I need to get my job done, and making that process harder is going to cost time, and thus money.
Right now, the only time I must justify a specific order is when it is both over $5000 and I want to avoid putting the order out for bids. Imagine dropping the limit to $0 and making it apply to any software purchase. What a nightmare!
And if you don't think the Uni would enact such rules, you don't understand Uni administration very well. The Uni recently discovered that there were a large number of laptop computers that did not have "loan agreements" on file for them. The assumption is, of course, that laptops are used by specific people so they can take work home. Well, the rule was made that all laptop purchases must have a loan agreement signed in advance. I found this out while trying to purchase a $300 used laptop that I was going to send out to the beach to collect data -- a system I knew would be destroyed in the process. It didn't matter. Someone had to sign the form.
Imagine a professor who does not do any computing for himself, ...
If he does no computing, it is unlikely any of his grants contains equipment money for computers. However, if they do, then he's the one who decides how it is spent. It's a shame that the grad student who still has a '286 doesn't work for a PI with money to properly equip him, but that's something he needs to discuss with his PI, and telling the monied professor that he cannot buy a computer because someone else's grad student doesn't have one is just not how things work at universities. It is the responsibility of the PI to support his students, and if he doesn't do it properly, he doesn't get results, and he doesn't get papers, and he doesn't get grant money.
In other words, if I walk down to the University computer store and buy a copy of Endnote, because everyone here uses Endnote and everything I want to work with is already in Endnote format, I will have to explain why I didn't use "jreferences". That's ridiculous.
Most people are honest, it's just the cost of the bad ones outweighs the value of the good ones.
OTH, out-of-state Walmart warehouse, local Walmart. State line involved. No tax. And none was applied.
From The US Constitution:
If they send it to you across state lines, it has been exported from that state. Simple concept, this Constitution.
This is still too dangerous, since they can see that you cut off the hilt and they can just compare your key to theirs (if they have a master of their own.)
Much better to cut the key backwards -- that is, the cut normally at the end appears next to the hilt, etc. Unless the master is symmetrical, they won't be able to compare it to theirs, and it won't work when they try it.
Of course, you'll have to insert it from the back of the lock to use it, but that's a minor inconvenience compared to prison time.