And God invented "quoting" so you could quote the things that you are replying to, so that context would not be lost when parent articles are not easily tracked. Being explicit in what you are replying to is a skill, I know. Slashdot does very poorly at showing parents that are below threshold, and that should be considered, too. Sometimes parents are never shown, and are almost never shown in proper relationship when they are.
So don't buy a car then. There's a lot of people that don't own cars, and for those of us that live in large cities we shouldn't need to.
Is this an implicit claim that within 10 years the entire state of California will be one, huge, densely populated large city environment? That's what it would take to convert the huge amounts of California that aren't currently viable for public buses and trains into the kind of place where "bike" and "walk" are sufficient for everyone.
If the last 50 years has shown us, personal car ownership in any level of density urban area doesn't work.
And it has shown us that personal car ownership in any other environment is almost a requirement.
Face it, Governor Moonbeam has wangled himself a fuzzy feel-good regulation making him look good for cutting emissions by an impossible amount, and now he's got to try coming up with a solution that doesn't make him look like a complete environmentalist wacko suckup. Banning gasoline engines in the state is a "solution" that matches perfectly the "solution" of impossible cuts in emissions.
The whole ethos of the IETF and the internet has always been for net neutrality.
Not the way it is being used today. The whole ethos of the IETF is ENGINEERING a network that can provide service in a timely and efficient manner. That might include prioritizing certain kinds of traffic. And gosh if there isn't a flag in every internet packet that deals with that.
But at the same time, if they are providing some parody of the internet, then it is proper that they not mislead their customers.
That's why they define speeds as "up to". And it is not misleading for them to claim a speed "up to" that is not met because there is a bottleneck of all traffic at a border gateway. It is not misleading when they claim an "up to" speed that is not met because the source cannot meet it.
The next time you hear someone demand that their email or web page traffic be given exactly the same priority as a service that requires low latency to be effective, keep in mind that the Internet does, indeed, include provisions for such prioritization and that this demand is NOT what is meant by "net neutrality" in any practical sense.
You don't think the U.S. should investigate crimes against the U.S. just because they were committed abroad?
When there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, why waste time? We aren't going to extradite the Russian government or anyone involved in buying the ads, the Russians aren't going to put them in prison. We're even less likely to get any action from anyone but the US press over tweets that Russians made -- and even that will be limited to faux outrage and foot stomping. And it is even a question whether we can make subjects of citizens of other countries while they live in other countries.
Do we silently accept other countries trying to enforce their laws against our citizens? What do you imagine the reaction would be were Germany to make it illegal for US citizens living in the US to tweet disparaging things about Merkel?
Don't know why you keep going on about beheading.
It's called "reductio ad absurdum". It means taking an argument to the absurd to show how absurd it is.
The penalty is a fine.
Oh, well then, let's fine the world for violating our laws. It is our Manifest Destiny to fine anyone in the world who breaks laws we create here. (Remind me, didn't we fight an entire war over the concept of 'no taxation without representation'? Is "legislation without representation" any better?)
And there is an exception in this law for journalism.
11 CFR 110.20(a)(3) defines "foreign national" before using it in listing what they are prohibited from doing, and it does not exclude "journalism" in that definition.
What I meant was it doesn't matter for the purposes of deciding Russian culpability.
Oh my God, the Russians are culpable! Let's behead them. Oh, wait, they're Russians living in Russia... been there, done that.
Of course, if Trump or his campaign was involved it matters as far as his culpability goes.
Trump cannot be involved in violation of the law we are discussing because he is not a foreign national prohibited from donating money to his own campaign. The law also does not cover "electioneering communications" when prohibiting what a US citizen is prohibited from knowingly accepting or soliciting.
It isn't free to them. They have to pay the networks to provide it to you.
And to put the blame for that where it belongs: it could be free to Comcast IF the network affiliates did not invoke their exemption to the must-carry rules and demand payment. You see, there is a law that says that cable operators must carry locally available broadcast signals (with certain limits on size, IIRC) without having to pay the broadcaster anything, UNLESS that broadcaster opts out. If they opt out, they can demand payment for retransmission rights.
Right now in my area Comcast is displaying a CG page for one of the network stations we used to get. That broadcaster has opted out of must-carry and is refusing to grant retransmission rights. Comcast claims they demand too much money; the broadcaster claims Comcast isn't offering enough.
And the irony of this is, it is the broadcasters who originally demanded the must-carry rules. They were afraid that cable would choose to carry a different source of the network material and exclude the local stations, or simply not carry a signal that most people could get OTA (freeing up a channel for some other programming). In the former situation, viewers would get the network programs with national or other-region advertising. In the latter, viewers would be less likely to switch from cable to OTA to get that channel. Both situations cost the broadcaster advertising revenue. For the channel that is currently a stationary graphic, they've lost all viewers and all ad revenues from this area, a lose-lose for them. Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, I think the phrase is.
If the Russians bought ads that mention the names of either or both candidates for the purposes of supporting one of the candidates then they have broken the law.
Oh my God, Russians living in Russia have broken US laws. Behead them. Oh, wait, they are Russians living in Russia. Doesn't matter, let's make sure US law is applied to everyone on the planet, it is, after all, our Manifest Destiny. To control the planet. Isn't it?
On the other hand, Facebook knowingly accepted the money for those ads, but they seem to still have their heads. Does taking the money for an illegal act and then giving the congress copies of the illegal ads let them off the hook?
And then, what do we do with all the foreign press that carried articles and other material either beneficial or detrimental to specific candidates? Do we behead the newspaper editors and publishers for violating US law? My goodness, how can we be decent people and allow all this lawbreaking to take place all over the world?
It doesn't matter if Trump's campaign was involved or not.
Of course it matters if the Trump campaign was involved or not. Here: "11 CFR 110.20(g) Solicitation, acceptance, or receipt of contributions and donations from foreign nationals. No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b) through (d) of this section. " "Knowingly" is a pretty relevant word there. And note that "electioneering communications" (i.e., ads) are prohibited by (e), while the prohibition on receiving "donations" covers only (b) through (d). It is thus not even a question whether Trump's campaign "knowingly" accepted the ads since they are not prohibited from doing so.
I'm wondering exactly what you expected the Trump campaign to do when Russians "bought ads" or tweeted stuff. Should the campaign be subject to prosecution for acts they do not and cannot control? Should someone in the campaign go to prison for things that they may never even see, much less have done?
As I said, the "want" part is not illegal. The purchasing of campaign ads and providing material support to the Trump campaign is illegal.
That's what I said.
That was the "this" in his question, "why does this matter?"
It is pretty clear that the antecedent was intended to be "Russians want you to vote for a certain candidate", because that is the only thing that appears in the quote, both when you quoted it and when I did. I cannot assume mysterious invisible antecedents apply when there is a perfectly good one right there in the first clause of the sentence.
And when you argue with me about what I said and then claim that's what you said originally, you only highlight the problem. Why are you arguing with me if what I said is what you thought you said?
Some people live in low-lying areas and can't get a signal,
My signals have improved from "just four channels of OPB" to a handful of others after installing an outdoor antenna, but I still don't get any CBS affiliates and NBC varies from day to day.
It sounds like the channels being offered are the must-carries or contract-carry broadcast (that Comcast has a contract to carry on cable) plus the profit-making shopping channels. C-SPAN is often (is in my area) the hub for the EAS system*, so that's why it is there.
I'd also assume that if it is an Internet offering, that it is available to Comcast customers via other ISPs, like Fox Sports Go and NBCSN.
* C-SPAN carries the video/audio for the alert, and all the set-top boxes are instructed to tune to that channel for the duration. That's how it used to work, anyway.
Having separate frequencies makes sense, but what purpose is there to having them this far apart?
This is standard for satellite operations.
There is one overriding technical goal in creating a working repeater. The receiver must not be swamped by the transmitter, which has a much stronger signal than anything it will hear from Earth.
Earth-based repeaters (which this basically is) have physical isolation that is based on the wavelengths of the signals. A VHF duplexer, as it is called, is about 3 feet tall and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and there are usually four or six used. The physical cavity allows for very sharp notches and passbands that are applied to both transmit and receive. The receive duplexers selectively pass the receive signal and notch the transmit. The transmit duplexers selectively pass the transmit signal and notch the receive. The antenna end of the duplexer chain (e.g. three in series from the transmitter, three in series to the receiver) is simply tee'd together. This setup works when the signals are 600kHz apart.
You can build smaller duplexers, such as those used for ancient mobile telephone systems, or for some current repeater systems, but these require a minimum of 5MHz separation between transmit and receive, and support lower power transmitters. There is only 4 MHz in the entire amateur 2M band (2MHz in some countries), so this separation is not possible within that band.
It is VERY easy to build an LC (coil/capacitor) duplexer for considerable amounts of power when the frequencies are 300 MHz apart. Like VHF (146MHz) and UHF (440MHZ). This can fit in a package smaller than a pack of cigarettes. And it is much lighter (pun intended).
That's why amateur satellite operations use widely-split duplex. If it is UHF uplink and VHF down it is referred to as U/V mode, opposite is V/U mode (or vice versa. I don't do satellite ops.)
From the link: "In addition to limiting the size of contributions to candidates and political parties, FECA also requires campaigns and political committees to report the names, addresses, and occupations of donors of more than $200."
The last time I checked, a tweet costs exactly $0, and as such cannot be considered a donation to any campaign.
Should we also try to claim that it is illegal for any foreign press to publish any information that is detrimental (or supportive) of any US political candidate? It costs them a LOT more than $0 to do that, and if a free tweet is illegal, then a front page article in the Suddeutsche Zeitung must certainly be, as well. Does US campaign finance law apply to foreign companies and agencies operating outside the US? Wow.
But campaign finance is a lot more than just a Russian wanting someone to vote a certain way.
If Russians want you to vote for a certain candidate, why does this matter?
Because it's been illegal for almost half a century.
Uhhh, no, it has never been illegal for any Russian to want me to vote for a certain candidate, any more than it has been illegal for any German or Brit or Canadian or South African or...
It may have been illegal for that Russian to donate to specific candidates, or to buy advertising for specific candidates, but that's a lot more than just him wanting me to vote a certain way. And it is still a more than him tweeting his electoral preferences.
The twitter accounts that were deleted weren't buying twitter advertising, at least nothing like that was claimed in the summary. They were connected to Facebook accounts that may have bought Facebook advertising, but were any of those ads in violation of campaign finance laws? Isn't Facebook then liable for that violation, knowing those campaign finance laws exist?
Here's the kicker in this story: "Twitter also shared information on Russian news outlet Russia Today, or RT, which has ties to the Kremlin, according to U.S. intelligence agencies."
This is often hard for US residents to understand. We have VOA operated by the US government, but VOA is prohibited from operating within the US (as is Radio Marti aimed at Cuba). Other than that, there is no government operated radio or television (government funded, yes, but not operated). Other governments DO use radio and television as a way of spreading government propaganda on a regular basis.
It should be no surprise that Russia Today is a voice of the Russian government, as was Iraqi State TV, and many, if not all of the other "state TV" operations in the world. I swear, there were people during the lead up to the Iraqi operations that saw Iraqi TV and thought it was a true representation of the thoughts of the Iraqi people and not just the thoughts of Saddam.
Android phones in Europe use the earphone socket cable as an antenna - No external antenna
Most Android phones use the earphone ground as an antenna cable, which certainly is an external antenna. The fact that it is also the shield on the earphone audio doesn't mean it isn't also an antenna.
I could not agree more about what unclearchannel consolidation has done to homogenize our community media.
If a community doesn't support its local radio station to the point that the station needs to sell out to a national chain in order to exist, then was it truly community radio to begin with? Is it better for the station to close down and have the equipment removed, or to be in place so that it can be used do disseminate emergency information when necessary? Why does it matter what it plays at other times?
At least we do have NPR with real engineer, tech and talent that knows the phone numbers for local resources.
Our "NPR" tech/engineer works in the big city 60 miles away and has the numbers for resources 60 miles away. That's not local. There are places where that 60 miles is more like 180 and a four or five hour drive.
The fact that the handset vendors are selling $k phones without such a simple, basic lifesaving resources as an FM receiver + weather radio (~162 MHz) is criminal.
For those to be "lifesaving", they need to be listened to. Most people don't know about NOAA radio, and even most of those that do don't listen on a regular basis. How many people have a properly configured and working weather radio where they are? I have one and I have yet to hear it alert on anything, including the alleged regular tests. It's basically useless.
I don't understand why people want the buzzing, crackling, and volume-swaying experience of FM instead of the crisp, clear, consistent experience of BlueTooth.
Because I can pick up FM stations from 50 miles away, and the bluetooth signal fails at 50 feet. And that "consistent" bluetooth "experience" has failed while walking around the campus here, where 2.4GHz wifi is swamping everything else on the band. The phone is about 8 inches from the headset and it drops out. But you're comparing apples and oranges.
Even AM radio is better-quality than FM.
Wow. It must be radio hell where you live for AM to be better than FM.
The signal has better reach and better power;
"Better reach" is a side-effect of the frequency band being used and depends a lot on time of day. "Better power" is a function of the transmitter, not the receiver.
NextRadio demands to know where you are so it can... "look up" local radio stations, before it will allow you to use the tuner to find your own. It makes you go through two opt-out pop-ups just to keep it from tracking you using GPS, and then sits at a "zip code" entry page with no way past.
It is probably not a good choice for FM tuner in an emergency, since the network will be down and it won't be able to look up stations for you.
The only way this works (financially) is if they can publicize well enough, "DDOS against Cloudflare won't work, they have too much bandwidth," and people stop trying.
No, that's not enough. They either also have to become the host to every website on the planet, or convince everyone who would attempt a DDoS that they are and thus shouldn't bother trying.
That's what ""something you only read about in the history books" means. It never happens.
Of course, to be financially beneficial to Cloudflare, all it takes is this, from TFA: "Cloudflare has even protected the websites of DDoS perpetrators, while selling services to mitigate them." Yes, when you sell mitigation services against attacks from people you also sell network services to, it is a win-win for you. Not so much for anyone else.
What's scary is that this guy keeps talking about "Now every website will be able to fight back against DDoS attacks for free." Fighting back is not the same as mitigating damage from.
Does your city not have water fountains available for the public?
I don't know, actually, since I don't wander about the city looking for water fountains. I have better things to do with my time. And the city doesn't provide maps of them, either. I know of none, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Or laws that required places that serve alcohol to also serve water for free?
Irrelevant. I rarely go to bars, and when I do it isn't to drink water. I can drink water at home. Why would I go to a bar to drink just plain water?
it didn't occur to me that some western cities don't actually provide water to people.
I don't know why you think that it is the city's responsibility to provide water everywhere people might me.
I do know, I am not going to leave the event I am at, which I usually pay to get into, to go find a free water fountain if any might exist close by. And when I am in a strange place and have the choice between knocking on doors begging for water or paying a street vendor standing right in front of me, I'll pay the vendor because it is still more convenient.
Those are all good reasons for the capability to be there, but not for it being mandatory and incapable of being disabled.
Uhhh, yeah. You're riding with your friend in his car. There's an accident where he's incapacitated and you're bleeding out. You grab his phone and dial 911. You aren't sure where you are, and he has disabled the magic E911 location system. How wonderful for you.
You really can't think of a scenario where someone might want to call 911, but not themselves be tracked?
Of course I can. That's why I told you how to get ahold of the non-911 numbers for emergency services, and said that you should use one of those if you need help from 911 but don't want them to know where you are automatically. Sheesh, read the whole thing before replying, ok?
garden hose outside the restaurant, but none of the patrons could tell the difference.
Yeah, the ability of humans to detect many pollutants just by taste is pretty limited. "Garden hose" is certainly a great source of pure potable water, isn't it? That hose filters out all kinds of things, like chlorine, lead, arsenic, bacteria, etc, doesn't it?
You know, when people buy bottled water in a restaurant they aren't always doing so because they are snooty and think they need to drink Perrier for the social status, it's because they know the tap water in their city is not the best and they want to avoid the contaminants. Like people living in Flint might want to avoid "garden hose" water.
I've watched and listened to P&T, and they are arrogant enough to think that serving chlorinated, unfiltered water to people who paid for better is funny and those people just deserve to be ridiculed. There are ways of testing whether people can detect the difference, by using volunteers, and giving people junk water when they paid for good is not it.
This is the next problem. This E911 law needs to be more easily and automatically circumvented by default, if we can't get it repealed.
No.
First, if you need to call 911 for help, you want your phone to be able to do it even if you are in a place where your carrier has no service.
Second, if you don't want public safety to know where you are so they can come help you, don't call them. Or don't use the 911 number if you do. Use the regular numbers. If you are someone who doesn't want cops to know where you are but want them to come help, then I don't know how they are going to be able to help. Why bother calling in the first place?
One of the biggest hindrances to getting help to people who need it is that they are quite often unable to provide a good location. They may be unfamiliar with the area, or they may be disabled or agitated and just unable to think clearly. Sometimes they are someplace that has no address or clear way of identifying their location, especially if they are lost. (If they could identify where they are, they wouldn't be lost, now would they?)
It's ambiguously bad, and that's enough to keep it forever.
No, it is unambiguously good, and that's why it will stay forever.
What is the downside? The cops learn where you are when you call 911. Well, don't call 911. Problem solved. There are other numbers you can call. If calling 911 is a problem for you, then you can look up and program the numbers in advance. For example, if you are in Oregon, here is a list of all of the public safety answering points (PSAP), or 911 centers, in the state. I'm not going to waste time looking up other states, but I bet you can find them if you look.
Nor is it news that stupid people will pay again for something that already comes out of their bathroom taps or falls from the sky for free all the time.
Unfortunately, many times that I am in need of water I am neither in my bathroom (or even in my house at all), nor is it raining.
Yes, you could claim that it is stupid for people not to carry a refillable bottle of water with them at all times, but you'd be wrong. It's called "convenience", and everyone pays for convenience. Even if you don't use the convenience (and pay for it) of getting a bottle of clean, drinkable water when and where you need it, you pay for the convenience of having someone else make your clothing, build your cars, create your electricity, and almost certainly growing your food. Sometimes, I bet, you even pay for the convenience of not having to prepare your own food or not having to carry it around with you all the time so you can eat it when you need to.
Calling people stupid because they make use of modern conveniences, despite it costing more than doing everything themselves, is just arrogance.
Yeah, maybe using bottled water in your own home is overkill, but maybe it isn't -- if you live in Flint, for example. But using bottled water when you're at some event where it would be INconvenient to carry a water bottle is not.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why God invented threaded conversations.
And God invented "quoting" so you could quote the things that you are replying to, so that context would not be lost when parent articles are not easily tracked. Being explicit in what you are replying to is a skill, I know. Slashdot does very poorly at showing parents that are below threshold, and that should be considered, too. Sometimes parents are never shown, and are almost never shown in proper relationship when they are.
Maybe Moonbeam's next suggested ban will be on couples having more than one child? China did it, why can't California?
So don't buy a car then. There's a lot of people that don't own cars, and for those of us that live in large cities we shouldn't need to.
Is this an implicit claim that within 10 years the entire state of California will be one, huge, densely populated large city environment? That's what it would take to convert the huge amounts of California that aren't currently viable for public buses and trains into the kind of place where "bike" and "walk" are sufficient for everyone.
If the last 50 years has shown us, personal car ownership in any level of density urban area doesn't work.
And it has shown us that personal car ownership in any other environment is almost a requirement.
Face it, Governor Moonbeam has wangled himself a fuzzy feel-good regulation making him look good for cutting emissions by an impossible amount, and now he's got to try coming up with a solution that doesn't make him look like a complete environmentalist wacko suckup. Banning gasoline engines in the state is a "solution" that matches perfectly the "solution" of impossible cuts in emissions.
The whole ethos of the IETF and the internet has always been for net neutrality.
Not the way it is being used today. The whole ethos of the IETF is ENGINEERING a network that can provide service in a timely and efficient manner. That might include prioritizing certain kinds of traffic. And gosh if there isn't a flag in every internet packet that deals with that.
But at the same time, if they are providing some parody of the internet, then it is proper that they not mislead their customers.
That's why they define speeds as "up to". And it is not misleading for them to claim a speed "up to" that is not met because there is a bottleneck of all traffic at a border gateway. It is not misleading when they claim an "up to" speed that is not met because the source cannot meet it.
The next time you hear someone demand that their email or web page traffic be given exactly the same priority as a service that requires low latency to be effective, keep in mind that the Internet does, indeed, include provisions for such prioritization and that this demand is NOT what is meant by "net neutrality" in any practical sense.
You don't think the U.S. should investigate crimes against the U.S. just because they were committed abroad?
When there is absolutely nothing we can do about it, why waste time? We aren't going to extradite the Russian government or anyone involved in buying the ads, the Russians aren't going to put them in prison. We're even less likely to get any action from anyone but the US press over tweets that Russians made -- and even that will be limited to faux outrage and foot stomping. And it is even a question whether we can make subjects of citizens of other countries while they live in other countries.
Do we silently accept other countries trying to enforce their laws against our citizens? What do you imagine the reaction would be were Germany to make it illegal for US citizens living in the US to tweet disparaging things about Merkel?
Don't know why you keep going on about beheading.
It's called "reductio ad absurdum". It means taking an argument to the absurd to show how absurd it is.
The penalty is a fine.
Oh, well then, let's fine the world for violating our laws. It is our Manifest Destiny to fine anyone in the world who breaks laws we create here. (Remind me, didn't we fight an entire war over the concept of 'no taxation without representation'? Is "legislation without representation" any better?)
And there is an exception in this law for journalism.
11 CFR 110.20(a)(3) defines "foreign national" before using it in listing what they are prohibited from doing, and it does not exclude "journalism" in that definition.
What I meant was it doesn't matter for the purposes of deciding Russian culpability.
Oh my God, the Russians are culpable! Let's behead them. Oh, wait, they're Russians living in Russia ... been there, done that.
Of course, if Trump or his campaign was involved it matters as far as his culpability goes.
Trump cannot be involved in violation of the law we are discussing because he is not a foreign national prohibited from donating money to his own campaign. The law also does not cover "electioneering communications" when prohibiting what a US citizen is prohibited from knowingly accepting or soliciting.
It isn't free to them. They have to pay the networks to provide it to you.
And to put the blame for that where it belongs: it could be free to Comcast IF the network affiliates did not invoke their exemption to the must-carry rules and demand payment. You see, there is a law that says that cable operators must carry locally available broadcast signals (with certain limits on size, IIRC) without having to pay the broadcaster anything, UNLESS that broadcaster opts out. If they opt out, they can demand payment for retransmission rights.
Right now in my area Comcast is displaying a CG page for one of the network stations we used to get. That broadcaster has opted out of must-carry and is refusing to grant retransmission rights. Comcast claims they demand too much money; the broadcaster claims Comcast isn't offering enough.
And the irony of this is, it is the broadcasters who originally demanded the must-carry rules. They were afraid that cable would choose to carry a different source of the network material and exclude the local stations, or simply not carry a signal that most people could get OTA (freeing up a channel for some other programming). In the former situation, viewers would get the network programs with national or other-region advertising. In the latter, viewers would be less likely to switch from cable to OTA to get that channel. Both situations cost the broadcaster advertising revenue. For the channel that is currently a stationary graphic, they've lost all viewers and all ad revenues from this area, a lose-lose for them. Cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, I think the phrase is.
If the Russians bought ads that mention the names of either or both candidates for the purposes of supporting one of the candidates then they have broken the law.
Oh my God, Russians living in Russia have broken US laws. Behead them. Oh, wait, they are Russians living in Russia. Doesn't matter, let's make sure US law is applied to everyone on the planet, it is, after all, our Manifest Destiny. To control the planet. Isn't it?
On the other hand, Facebook knowingly accepted the money for those ads, but they seem to still have their heads. Does taking the money for an illegal act and then giving the congress copies of the illegal ads let them off the hook?
And then, what do we do with all the foreign press that carried articles and other material either beneficial or detrimental to specific candidates? Do we behead the newspaper editors and publishers for violating US law? My goodness, how can we be decent people and allow all this lawbreaking to take place all over the world?
It doesn't matter if Trump's campaign was involved or not.
Of course it matters if the Trump campaign was involved or not. Here: "11 CFR 110.20(g) Solicitation, acceptance, or receipt of contributions and donations from foreign nationals. No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign national any contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b) through (d) of this section. " "Knowingly" is a pretty relevant word there. And note that "electioneering communications" (i.e., ads) are prohibited by (e), while the prohibition on receiving "donations" covers only (b) through (d). It is thus not even a question whether Trump's campaign "knowingly" accepted the ads since they are not prohibited from doing so.
I'm wondering exactly what you expected the Trump campaign to do when Russians "bought ads" or tweeted stuff. Should the campaign be subject to prosecution for acts they do not and cannot control? Should someone in the campaign go to prison for things that they may never even see, much less have done?
As I said, the "want" part is not illegal. The purchasing of campaign ads and providing material support to the Trump campaign is illegal.
That's what I said.
That was the "this" in his question, "why does this matter?"
It is pretty clear that the antecedent was intended to be "Russians want you to vote for a certain candidate", because that is the only thing that appears in the quote, both when you quoted it and when I did. I cannot assume mysterious invisible antecedents apply when there is a perfectly good one right there in the first clause of the sentence.
And when you argue with me about what I said and then claim that's what you said originally, you only highlight the problem. Why are you arguing with me if what I said is what you thought you said?
Some people live in low-lying areas and can't get a signal,
My signals have improved from "just four channels of OPB" to a handful of others after installing an outdoor antenna, but I still don't get any CBS affiliates and NBC varies from day to day.
It sounds like the channels being offered are the must-carries or contract-carry broadcast (that Comcast has a contract to carry on cable) plus the profit-making shopping channels. C-SPAN is often (is in my area) the hub for the EAS system*, so that's why it is there.
I'd also assume that if it is an Internet offering, that it is available to Comcast customers via other ISPs, like Fox Sports Go and NBCSN.
* C-SPAN carries the video/audio for the alert, and all the set-top boxes are instructed to tune to that channel for the duration. That's how it used to work, anyway.
Nobody said it was illegal for them to "want" you to vote for Donald Trump.
Reread what you replied to, including the quotes.
Having separate frequencies makes sense, but what purpose is there to having them this far apart?
This is standard for satellite operations.
There is one overriding technical goal in creating a working repeater. The receiver must not be swamped by the transmitter, which has a much stronger signal than anything it will hear from Earth. Earth-based repeaters (which this basically is) have physical isolation that is based on the wavelengths of the signals. A VHF duplexer, as it is called, is about 3 feet tall and 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and there are usually four or six used. The physical cavity allows for very sharp notches and passbands that are applied to both transmit and receive. The receive duplexers selectively pass the receive signal and notch the transmit. The transmit duplexers selectively pass the transmit signal and notch the receive. The antenna end of the duplexer chain (e.g. three in series from the transmitter, three in series to the receiver) is simply tee'd together. This setup works when the signals are 600kHz apart.
You can build smaller duplexers, such as those used for ancient mobile telephone systems, or for some current repeater systems, but these require a minimum of 5MHz separation between transmit and receive, and support lower power transmitters. There is only 4 MHz in the entire amateur 2M band (2MHz in some countries), so this separation is not possible within that band.
It is VERY easy to build an LC (coil/capacitor) duplexer for considerable amounts of power when the frequencies are 300 MHz apart. Like VHF (146MHz) and UHF (440MHZ). This can fit in a package smaller than a pack of cigarettes. And it is much lighter (pun intended).
That's why amateur satellite operations use widely-split duplex. If it is UHF uplink and VHF down it is referred to as U/V mode, opposite is V/U mode (or vice versa. I don't do satellite ops.)
If Russians can't donate directly, and they want to, they WILL find a work around...
If nothing else, they'll simply send Buddhist monks to Washington and throw an "outreach event".
The last time I checked, a tweet costs exactly $0, and as such cannot be considered a donation to any campaign.
Should we also try to claim that it is illegal for any foreign press to publish any information that is detrimental (or supportive) of any US political candidate? It costs them a LOT more than $0 to do that, and if a free tweet is illegal, then a front page article in the Suddeutsche Zeitung must certainly be, as well. Does US campaign finance law apply to foreign companies and agencies operating outside the US? Wow.
But campaign finance is a lot more than just a Russian wanting someone to vote a certain way.
If Russians want you to vote for a certain candidate, why does this matter?
Because it's been illegal for almost half a century.
Uhhh, no, it has never been illegal for any Russian to want me to vote for a certain candidate, any more than it has been illegal for any German or Brit or Canadian or South African or ...
It may have been illegal for that Russian to donate to specific candidates, or to buy advertising for specific candidates, but that's a lot more than just him wanting me to vote a certain way. And it is still a more than him tweeting his electoral preferences.
The twitter accounts that were deleted weren't buying twitter advertising, at least nothing like that was claimed in the summary. They were connected to Facebook accounts that may have bought Facebook advertising, but were any of those ads in violation of campaign finance laws? Isn't Facebook then liable for that violation, knowing those campaign finance laws exist?
Here's the kicker in this story: "Twitter also shared information on Russian news outlet Russia Today, or RT, which has ties to the Kremlin, according to U.S. intelligence agencies."
This is often hard for US residents to understand. We have VOA operated by the US government, but VOA is prohibited from operating within the US (as is Radio Marti aimed at Cuba). Other than that, there is no government operated radio or television (government funded, yes, but not operated). Other governments DO use radio and television as a way of spreading government propaganda on a regular basis.
It should be no surprise that Russia Today is a voice of the Russian government, as was Iraqi State TV, and many, if not all of the other "state TV" operations in the world. I swear, there were people during the lead up to the Iraqi operations that saw Iraqi TV and thought it was a true representation of the thoughts of the Iraqi people and not just the thoughts of Saddam.
Android phones in Europe use the earphone socket cable as an antenna - No external antenna
Most Android phones use the earphone ground as an antenna cable, which certainly is an external antenna. The fact that it is also the shield on the earphone audio doesn't mean it isn't also an antenna.
I could not agree more about what unclearchannel consolidation has done to homogenize our community media.
If a community doesn't support its local radio station to the point that the station needs to sell out to a national chain in order to exist, then was it truly community radio to begin with? Is it better for the station to close down and have the equipment removed, or to be in place so that it can be used do disseminate emergency information when necessary? Why does it matter what it plays at other times?
At least we do have NPR with real engineer, tech and talent that knows the phone numbers for local resources.
Our "NPR" tech/engineer works in the big city 60 miles away and has the numbers for resources 60 miles away. That's not local. There are places where that 60 miles is more like 180 and a four or five hour drive.
The fact that the handset vendors are selling $k phones without such a simple, basic lifesaving resources as an FM receiver + weather radio (~162 MHz) is criminal.
For those to be "lifesaving", they need to be listened to. Most people don't know about NOAA radio, and even most of those that do don't listen on a regular basis. How many people have a properly configured and working weather radio where they are? I have one and I have yet to hear it alert on anything, including the alleged regular tests. It's basically useless.
I don't understand why people want the buzzing, crackling, and volume-swaying experience of FM instead of the crisp, clear, consistent experience of BlueTooth.
Because I can pick up FM stations from 50 miles away, and the bluetooth signal fails at 50 feet. And that "consistent" bluetooth "experience" has failed while walking around the campus here, where 2.4GHz wifi is swamping everything else on the band. The phone is about 8 inches from the headset and it drops out. But you're comparing apples and oranges.
Even AM radio is better-quality than FM.
Wow. It must be radio hell where you live for AM to be better than FM.
The signal has better reach and better power;
"Better reach" is a side-effect of the frequency band being used and depends a lot on time of day. "Better power" is a function of the transmitter, not the receiver.
I use the free NextRadio app
NextRadio demands to know where you are so it can ... "look up" local radio stations, before it will allow you to use the tuner to find your own. It makes you go through two opt-out pop-ups just to keep it from tracking you using GPS, and then sits at a "zip code" entry page with no way past.
It is probably not a good choice for FM tuner in an emergency, since the network will be down and it won't be able to look up stations for you.
Photos or it didn't happen.
The only way this works (financially) is if they can publicize well enough, "DDOS against Cloudflare won't work, they have too much bandwidth," and people stop trying.
No, that's not enough. They either also have to become the host to every website on the planet, or convince everyone who would attempt a DDoS that they are and thus shouldn't bother trying.
That's what ""something you only read about in the history books" means. It never happens.
Of course, to be financially beneficial to Cloudflare, all it takes is this, from TFA: "Cloudflare has even protected the websites of DDoS perpetrators, while selling services to mitigate them." Yes, when you sell mitigation services against attacks from people you also sell network services to, it is a win-win for you. Not so much for anyone else.
What's scary is that this guy keeps talking about "Now every website will be able to fight back against DDoS attacks for free." Fighting back is not the same as mitigating damage from.
Does your city not have water fountains available for the public?
I don't know, actually, since I don't wander about the city looking for water fountains. I have better things to do with my time. And the city doesn't provide maps of them, either. I know of none, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Or laws that required places that serve alcohol to also serve water for free?
Irrelevant. I rarely go to bars, and when I do it isn't to drink water. I can drink water at home. Why would I go to a bar to drink just plain water?
it didn't occur to me that some western cities don't actually provide water to people.
I don't know why you think that it is the city's responsibility to provide water everywhere people might me.
I do know, I am not going to leave the event I am at, which I usually pay to get into, to go find a free water fountain if any might exist close by. And when I am in a strange place and have the choice between knocking on doors begging for water or paying a street vendor standing right in front of me, I'll pay the vendor because it is still more convenient.
Those are all good reasons for the capability to be there, but not for it being mandatory and incapable of being disabled.
Uhhh, yeah. You're riding with your friend in his car. There's an accident where he's incapacitated and you're bleeding out. You grab his phone and dial 911. You aren't sure where you are, and he has disabled the magic E911 location system. How wonderful for you.
You really can't think of a scenario where someone might want to call 911, but not themselves be tracked?
Of course I can. That's why I told you how to get ahold of the non-911 numbers for emergency services, and said that you should use one of those if you need help from 911 but don't want them to know where you are automatically. Sheesh, read the whole thing before replying, ok?
garden hose outside the restaurant, but none of the patrons could tell the difference.
Yeah, the ability of humans to detect many pollutants just by taste is pretty limited. "Garden hose" is certainly a great source of pure potable water, isn't it? That hose filters out all kinds of things, like chlorine, lead, arsenic, bacteria, etc, doesn't it?
You know, when people buy bottled water in a restaurant they aren't always doing so because they are snooty and think they need to drink Perrier for the social status, it's because they know the tap water in their city is not the best and they want to avoid the contaminants. Like people living in Flint might want to avoid "garden hose" water.
I've watched and listened to P&T, and they are arrogant enough to think that serving chlorinated, unfiltered water to people who paid for better is funny and those people just deserve to be ridiculed. There are ways of testing whether people can detect the difference, by using volunteers, and giving people junk water when they paid for good is not it.
This is the next problem. This E911 law needs to be more easily and automatically circumvented by default, if we can't get it repealed.
No.
First, if you need to call 911 for help, you want your phone to be able to do it even if you are in a place where your carrier has no service.
Second, if you don't want public safety to know where you are so they can come help you, don't call them. Or don't use the 911 number if you do. Use the regular numbers. If you are someone who doesn't want cops to know where you are but want them to come help, then I don't know how they are going to be able to help. Why bother calling in the first place?
One of the biggest hindrances to getting help to people who need it is that they are quite often unable to provide a good location. They may be unfamiliar with the area, or they may be disabled or agitated and just unable to think clearly. Sometimes they are someplace that has no address or clear way of identifying their location, especially if they are lost. (If they could identify where they are, they wouldn't be lost, now would they?)
It's ambiguously bad, and that's enough to keep it forever.
No, it is unambiguously good, and that's why it will stay forever.
What is the downside? The cops learn where you are when you call 911. Well, don't call 911. Problem solved. There are other numbers you can call. If calling 911 is a problem for you, then you can look up and program the numbers in advance. For example, if you are in Oregon, here is a list of all of the public safety answering points (PSAP), or 911 centers, in the state. I'm not going to waste time looking up other states, but I bet you can find them if you look.
Nor is it news that stupid people will pay again for something that already comes out of their bathroom taps or falls from the sky for free all the time.
Unfortunately, many times that I am in need of water I am neither in my bathroom (or even in my house at all), nor is it raining.
Yes, you could claim that it is stupid for people not to carry a refillable bottle of water with them at all times, but you'd be wrong. It's called "convenience", and everyone pays for convenience. Even if you don't use the convenience (and pay for it) of getting a bottle of clean, drinkable water when and where you need it, you pay for the convenience of having someone else make your clothing, build your cars, create your electricity, and almost certainly growing your food. Sometimes, I bet, you even pay for the convenience of not having to prepare your own food or not having to carry it around with you all the time so you can eat it when you need to.
Calling people stupid because they make use of modern conveniences, despite it costing more than doing everything themselves, is just arrogance.
Yeah, maybe using bottled water in your own home is overkill, but maybe it isn't -- if you live in Flint, for example. But using bottled water when you're at some event where it would be INconvenient to carry a water bottle is not.