Gone quiet here

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

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!

In article ,
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.

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

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
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.

In article ,
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.

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

--
----- -
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
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.

In article ,
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.

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...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
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.

In article ,
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.

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...

Blind user, so no pictures please!
"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
In article ,
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.