• Gone quiet here

    From Brian Gaff@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 1 10:49:27 2017
    Nothing since the bits of news.
    Does the iss have any capability to 'see' radio transmissions on the ground
    so that their point of emmination can be determined. Could be good for
    looking for sources of interference.
    Brian

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  • From Jeff Findley@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jul 1 07:49:33 2017
    In article <oj7r7c$an6$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    Nothing since the bits of news.

    Just waiting for the next SpaceX launch. I think it's coming up this
    Sunday. That will make three launches in less than two weeks.

    Does the iss have any capability to 'see' radio transmissions on the ground so that their point of emmination can be determined. Could be good for looking for sources of interference.

    Not that I know of. The "spooks" have signal intelligence satellites,
    but I'm not sure how good they are at pinpointing the direction of the
    source. I get the impression they are more of a "dragnet", pulling in
    as many signals as they can get.

    Jeff
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    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

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  • From Brian Gaff@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 2 10:49:59 2017
    It has been mentioned in chatter I've heard that some of the spooks sets
    which are also so called earth resources sats that a problem with sat
    receivers in Japan has made looking at that country at certain wavelengths
    hard as these receivers are now so sensitive they pick up leakage through
    the lnb to the dishes if the sat is in line with the broadcast sat.
    I would have thought that a home dish was far too small even for a milliwatt transmission to be seen in space myself, but what else could it be?



    I understand there is also great concern that the gentleman's agreement that authorities around the world will not use critical radio astronomy
    frequencies may be out the window as frequencies are being squeezed for
    mobile data use.

    Even people like myself who used to enjoy listening to stations around the world directly on a radio are now finding that switch mode psus, internet
    over the mains cable devices and sundry unscreened heaps of junk being
    churned out are making it almost impossible unless you embark on a field
    trip to some place well away from civilisation!
    RF pollution is here and probably hear to stay.
    Brian

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    Blind user, so no pictures please!
    "Jeff Findley" <jfindley@cinci.nospam.rr.com> wrote in message news:MPG.33c156551a5b56698997f@news.eternal-september.org...
    In article <oj7r7c$an6$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    Nothing since the bits of news.

    Just waiting for the next SpaceX launch. I think it's coming up this
    Sunday. That will make three launches in less than two weeks.

    Does the iss have any capability to 'see' radio transmissions on the
    ground
    so that their point of emmination can be determined. Could be good for
    looking for sources of interference.

    Not that I know of. The "spooks" have signal intelligence satellites,
    but I'm not sure how good they are at pinpointing the direction of the source. I get the impression they are more of a "dragnet", pulling in
    as many signals as they can get.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Findley@21:1/5 to All on Sun Jul 2 10:02:58 2017
    In article <ojafk8$5mt$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    It has been mentioned in chatter I've heard that some of the spooks sets which are also so called earth resources sats that a problem with sat receivers in Japan has made looking at that country at certain wavelengths hard as these receivers are now so sensitive they pick up leakage through
    the lnb to the dishes if the sat is in line with the broadcast sat.
    I would have thought that a home dish was far too small even for a milliwatt transmission to be seen in space myself, but what else could it be?



    I understand there is also great concern that the gentleman's agreement that authorities around the world will not use critical radio astronomy frequencies may be out the window as frequencies are being squeezed for mobile data use.

    Even people like myself who used to enjoy listening to stations around the world directly on a radio are now finding that switch mode psus, internet over the mains cable devices and sundry unscreened heaps of junk being churned out are making it almost impossible unless you embark on a field
    trip to some place well away from civilisation!

    Cool. I was always interested in amateur radio when I was young. But,
    I was never able to get into amateur radio when I was younger due to the
    very high cost. Instead, I got a Commodore 64 computer when I was about
    15 years old. Turns out it was the "wave of the future". I never got
    into the BBS scene, but later on I did use it in college to dial into
    the university computer network where I could read Usenet News
    (sci.space of course). Much more convenient than having to trek a
    couple of miles to a "computer lab" where I could use a dumb terminal to connect to the Unix mainframe. ;-)

    Over the years, I spent a crap ton of money on that computer system.
    Somewhere around $3500 by my estimation (using an Internet inflation calculator). Today you can buy a smartphone, a really good laptop, and
    a color printer for about 1/2 of that.

    RF pollution is here and probably hear to stay.

    You're absolutely right about that. And with LEO communications
    networks looking like the next "hot thing", it will only get worse.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Brian Gaff@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 3 18:30:01 2017
    The thing is you tell young uns about radio stations being received from
    across the planet and they wave their I phones at you and sneer.
    To me there is still something magical to know that the same photons that
    left the aerial in New Zealand have reached a bit of wire in your garden and you can hear the results. I guess I'm just being too romantic.
    With regard to computers, well when I could see I buit the zX81 kit and it worked. That is a pretty amazing thing as is learning to actually write software on it. Next came the Spectrum, and a Memotech, a sam and an Atari 8 bit etc. but really the poor folk these days do not get so excited about computers as they never get their hands dirty unless they learn it at
    school. there is something good about learing it at your own speed.
    it all went weird when C came along with its abstract concepts. I didmanage
    to get a compiler for many older languages running on the old Spectrum.
    C Modulo 2 Forth, Fortran, and many others. Python seems to be the thing
    for the home right now, but I seem to have a hard time with syntax now I
    cannot see as the indenting and all the extra quotes, and other symbols are hard to rember.



    Brian

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    This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
    The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
    briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    Blind user, so no pictures please!
    "Jeff Findley" <jfindley@cinci.nospam.rr.com> wrote in message news:MPG.33c2c71ca6046102989980@news.eternal-september.org...
    In article <ojafk8$5mt$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    It has been mentioned in chatter I've heard that some of the spooks sets
    which are also so called earth resources sats that a problem with sat
    receivers in Japan has made looking at that country at certain
    wavelengths
    hard as these receivers are now so sensitive they pick up leakage through
    the lnb to the dishes if the sat is in line with the broadcast sat.
    I would have thought that a home dish was far too small even for a
    milliwatt
    transmission to be seen in space myself, but what else could it be?



    I understand there is also great concern that the gentleman's agreement
    that
    authorities around the world will not use critical radio astronomy
    frequencies may be out the window as frequencies are being squeezed for
    mobile data use.

    Even people like myself who used to enjoy listening to stations around
    the
    world directly on a radio are now finding that switch mode psus, internet
    over the mains cable devices and sundry unscreened heaps of junk being
    churned out are making it almost impossible unless you embark on a field
    trip to some place well away from civilisation!

    Cool. I was always interested in amateur radio when I was young. But,
    I was never able to get into amateur radio when I was younger due to the
    very high cost. Instead, I got a Commodore 64 computer when I was about
    15 years old. Turns out it was the "wave of the future". I never got
    into the BBS scene, but later on I did use it in college to dial into
    the university computer network where I could read Usenet News
    (sci.space of course). Much more convenient than having to trek a
    couple of miles to a "computer lab" where I could use a dumb terminal to connect to the Unix mainframe. ;-)

    Over the years, I spent a crap ton of money on that computer system. Somewhere around $3500 by my estimation (using an Internet inflation calculator). Today you can buy a smartphone, a really good laptop, and
    a color printer for about 1/2 of that.

    RF pollution is here and probably hear to stay.

    You're absolutely right about that. And with LEO communications
    networks looking like the next "hot thing", it will only get worse.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Findley@21:1/5 to All on Mon Jul 3 14:15:38 2017
    In article <ojduup$t9u$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    The thing is you tell young uns about radio stations being received from across the planet and they wave their I phones at you and sneer.

    Exactly. The complexity and cost has been moved away from the user's
    radio and moved to cell towers, fiber, and communications satellites. Consequently, the cost of entry into the global telecommunications
    "system" has gone *way* down.

    To me there is still something magical to know that the same photons that left the aerial in New Zealand have reached a bit of wire in your garden and you can hear the results. I guess I'm just being too romantic.

    Perhaps, but there is still a need to maintain these systems. They're
    often the only means of communication during major disasters (e.g.
    earthquake, hurricane, and etc.) which quite often takes down the communications systems needed for cell phones.

    With regard to computers, well when I could see I buit the zX81 kit and it worked. That is a pretty amazing thing as is learning to actually write software on it. Next came the Spectrum, and a Memotech, a sam and an Atari 8 bit etc. but really the poor folk these days do not get so excited about computers as they never get their hands dirty unless they learn it at
    school. there is something good about learing it at your own speed.

    This is somewhat true. But there are things happening like FIRST
    robotics competitions and cool cheap computers (with actual GPIO
    interfaces!). I've got a Raspberry Pi, a Pi 2, two Pi 3, and a Pi Zero.
    All of them cost $25 to $30 except for the Zero which sells for a mere
    $5. This credit card sized single board computer is aimed squarely at education, but it's also a hardware hacker's dream because of its
    computing power, wealth of hardware interfaces, and its low cost.

    The best part is that it's a non-profit so any money they make goes
    towards building Raspberry Pi computers to send overseas to areas of the
    world where computers are too expensive for schools to buy.

    https://www.raspberrypi.org/

    it all went weird when C came along with its abstract concepts. I didmanage to get a compiler for many older languages running on the old Spectrum.
    C Modulo 2 Forth, Fortran, and many others. Python seems to be the thing
    for the home right now, but I seem to have a hard time with syntax now I cannot see as the indenting and all the extra quotes, and other symbols are hard to rember.

    I went from Basic to Fortran 77 to C to C++ with a bit of Java at one
    point.

    C++ is still a huge industry standard (that's what I use every day at
    work). Python is a great "scripting" language and is supposed to be
    easy for new users to learn. But in general I understand jumping from
    language to language can be a pain due to different required syntax.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Brian Gaff@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jul 4 12:44:21 2017
    One of the things I find hard are the new lamps for old object orientated
    basis of many of them. The fact of the matter is that objects are just multi dimensioned arrays with various differently specified elements.
    I suppose its easier to use object than arrays as you do not need to
    remember abstract addresses of the various dimensions and coordinates of the data inside.

    Brian

    --
    ----- -
    This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
    The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
    briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    Blind user, so no pictures please!
    "Jeff Findley" <jfindley@cinci.nospam.rr.com> wrote in message news:MPG.33c453d715fd6fc7989983@news.eternal-september.org...
    In article <ojduup$t9u$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    The thing is you tell young uns about radio stations being received from
    across the planet and they wave their I phones at you and sneer.

    Exactly. The complexity and cost has been moved away from the user's
    radio and moved to cell towers, fiber, and communications satellites. Consequently, the cost of entry into the global telecommunications
    "system" has gone *way* down.

    To me there is still something magical to know that the same photons
    that
    left the aerial in New Zealand have reached a bit of wire in your garden
    and
    you can hear the results. I guess I'm just being too romantic.

    Perhaps, but there is still a need to maintain these systems. They're
    often the only means of communication during major disasters (e.g. earthquake, hurricane, and etc.) which quite often takes down the communications systems needed for cell phones.

    With regard to computers, well when I could see I buit the zX81 kit and
    it
    worked. That is a pretty amazing thing as is learning to actually write
    software on it. Next came the Spectrum, and a Memotech, a sam and an
    Atari 8
    bit etc. but really the poor folk these days do not get so excited about
    computers as they never get their hands dirty unless they learn it at
    school. there is something good about learing it at your own speed.

    This is somewhat true. But there are things happening like FIRST
    robotics competitions and cool cheap computers (with actual GPIO interfaces!). I've got a Raspberry Pi, a Pi 2, two Pi 3, and a Pi Zero.
    All of them cost $25 to $30 except for the Zero which sells for a mere
    $5. This credit card sized single board computer is aimed squarely at education, but it's also a hardware hacker's dream because of its
    computing power, wealth of hardware interfaces, and its low cost.

    The best part is that it's a non-profit so any money they make goes
    towards building Raspberry Pi computers to send overseas to areas of the world where computers are too expensive for schools to buy.

    https://www.raspberrypi.org/

    it all went weird when C came along with its abstract concepts. I
    didmanage
    to get a compiler for many older languages running on the old Spectrum.
    C Modulo 2 Forth, Fortran, and many others. Python seems to be the thing
    for the home right now, but I seem to have a hard time with syntax now I
    cannot see as the indenting and all the extra quotes, and other symbols
    are
    hard to rember.

    I went from Basic to Fortran 77 to C to C++ with a bit of Java at one
    point.

    C++ is still a huge industry standard (that's what I use every day at
    work). Python is a great "scripting" language and is supposed to be
    easy for new users to learn. But in general I understand jumping from language to language can be a pain due to different required syntax.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jeff Findley@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jul 4 09:23:12 2017
    In article <ojfv2n$b7e$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    One of the things I find hard are the new lamps for old object orientated basis of many of them. The fact of the matter is that objects are just multi dimensioned arrays with various differently specified elements.

    That's merely the beginning of what object oriented encompasses. Yes,
    object oriented puts behavior (virtual function tables) where it
    belongs, conceptually on the objects themselves. But, it's far more
    than that. OO is the foundation of modern interface driven software
    design. Polymorphism, multiple inheritance, and memory management of
    these objects are also key features of the language. Add other bits
    like the C++ Standard Template Library and you've got yourself a
    powerful language.

    Most all of what I've written over the last 20+ years is OO implemented
    in C++. Done the right way, it's easy to maintain and extend. Roles
    and responsibilities can be clearly assigned to various classes. So
    when a bug pops up or an extension needs to be made, it's clear what
    needs to be "touched". This is simply not as easy to do with procedural
    code, which tends to evolve into "spaghetti code" over the years and any
    change tends to involve "touches" all over the system making it brittle.

    I suppose its easier to use object than arrays as you do not need to remember abstract addresses of the various dimensions and coordinates of the data inside.

    That and so much more. OO languages add constructors and destructors so
    that initialization and clean-up are *always* performed. It's too easy
    to miss stuff like that in a procedural language.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Brian Gaff@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 5 15:20:24 2017
    Hmm, Its hard though when you learn one way to try to keep the bits you do
    know and connect them to the new concepts.


    Still for most of the things I need on a daily basis I never need to go down that road.

    One of the issues that seems to occur now is that a writing environment
    often exists that people use and that is fine if it respects standard APIs
    for accessibility. Take for example Revo uninstaller. the previous version
    was very accessible in Windows, the current one is completely unaccessible though to the sighted it just looks more modern, what is missing are the
    events to trigger access tech to know where buttons are when its a list and what position you are in the lists etc.

    Brian

    --
    ----- -
    This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
    The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
    briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    Blind user, so no pictures please!
    "Jeff Findley" <jfindley@cinci.nospam.rr.com> wrote in message news:MPG.33c560cac5832136989986@news.eternal-september.org...
    In article <ojfv2n$b7e$1@news.albasani.net>, briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
    says...

    One of the things I find hard are the new lamps for old object orientated
    basis of many of them. The fact of the matter is that objects are just
    multi
    dimensioned arrays with various differently specified elements.

    That's merely the beginning of what object oriented encompasses. Yes,
    object oriented puts behavior (virtual function tables) where it
    belongs, conceptually on the objects themselves. But, it's far more
    than that. OO is the foundation of modern interface driven software
    design. Polymorphism, multiple inheritance, and memory management of
    these objects are also key features of the language. Add other bits
    like the C++ Standard Template Library and you've got yourself a
    powerful language.

    Most all of what I've written over the last 20+ years is OO implemented
    in C++. Done the right way, it's easy to maintain and extend. Roles
    and responsibilities can be clearly assigned to various classes. So
    when a bug pops up or an extension needs to be made, it's clear what
    needs to be "touched". This is simply not as easy to do with procedural code, which tends to evolve into "spaghetti code" over the years and any change tends to involve "touches" all over the system making it brittle.

    I suppose its easier to use object than arrays as you do not need to
    remember abstract addresses of the various dimensions and coordinates of
    the
    data inside.

    That and so much more. OO languages add constructors and destructors so
    that initialization and clean-up are *always* performed. It's too easy
    to miss stuff like that in a procedural language.

    Jeff
    --
    All opinions posted by me on Usenet News are mine, and mine alone.
    These posts do not reflect the opinions of my family, friends,
    employer, or any organization that I am a member of.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)