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Comment by daveslash | Hacker News Reader

I've made this comment here on HN before, but this reminds me of a tweet that I saw last year in which someone said:

"In breaking news moments like this, there should be a type of podcast you can listen to in real time, easily accessible for free."

To which someone replied: "Radio. You're thinking of radio."

https://twitter.com/jodyavirgan/status/1234998790139940865

It's always nice to see this technology (and the community) lean in to support disasters like this.

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In case it didn't come through, the original tweet was sarcastic.

Ha! I never caught that before.... but now that you point it out, I can see it. I appreciate that you pointed that out. That said, I could also honestly see someone saying that in earnest.

I thought governments had stuff like that? During the pandemic, when I got into my car, I got a Radio message delivered by the police. Not sure if phones support stuff like that but the government can collaborate with network providers to send SMSes.

Radio does have the downside of being limited in range. I suppose it's alright because most breaking news is localized.

You’re thinking of typical radio broadcasts. Hams use radio for intercontinental communication all the time.

Radio France allegedly covers 99+% of the population and the emitters are backupped. There is provisions to allow a single announcement to be broadcast by the 5 national and 44 local stations at the same time.

unlike in the good old days no englisch or spanish language spoken

Many hand-cranked emergency radios can receive on the shortwave band (2-22MHz), like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Raynic-Emergency-Portable-Flashlight-...

Note that all portable multiband radios will have an antenna optimized for 87-108MHz. If you want to receive shortwave better you'll need to add a couple dozen feet of wire to the antenna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_broadband_antenna

couple alligator clips and a slinky toy will do in a pinch. although it is possible to construct a jam-proof and noise-reducing antenna for shortwave with a few strips of aluminum foil and some paper or wax paper (ideally). It lays flat on a floor or bed, and you "tune" it by moving the "frame" shape closer or further apart. there's a book involved.

It was used to have secret, covert, etc radios. It's believed to be used by assets in the field to receive numbers stations, especially when there's a lot of man made noise in the area.

During the outbreak of the Ukraine war, this role was taken up by Twitter Spaces.

Twitter Spaces... perhaps for people in the West with intellectual curiosity about the play by play.

For people on the ground it was Telegram groups and channels. "TG" is huge in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

It's really odd that people on HN see the world as west vs. Slavic countries.

The world is MUCH bigger than that, and telegram has much wider spread than that. But yes, twitter spaces is tiny fringe space even in the "west"(a term that always bothered me given how the world is round, and how Australia, New Zealand, and Japan are somehow part of "the West").

I suppose that's because they are heavily influenced by western European countries. Two of the countries you mentioned are part of the British Commonwealth.

> British Commonwealth.

Does that make India and Nigeria part of the West? Also, Commonwealth of Nations is the preferred contemporary term.

Nigeria is West Africa, so...

For what it's worth, when I hear "the West" I think of what would on a global, historical scale be known as the "far west", i.e. mainly north and western Europe. (The "near west" would be the cultures just to the east of the Mediterranean, I suppose.)

I would never bunch Oceanic or Asian cultures in there.

I'm surprised to hear other people use it in a broader sense. At some point one is talking about cultures that are so different it's no longer meaningful to generalise across them.

in political context, "the West" is referring to the concept of "Western democracies"

Yeah, Twitter spaces is a tiny niche. I know nobody who has used them for anything, but almost everybody uses Telegram. And I'm "In the West".

  > a term that always bothered me given how the world is round

Historical quirks of language are everywhere. Atheists still say Good Bye (God by with you) when they part, and say Bless You when you sneeze.

I have substituted "gesundheit" ("health") for "bless you" for this very reason.

Likewise. It's pretty amazing how widespread a German word such as this managed to become.

Well if any German word isn't kaputt we should definitely borrow it into English.

At some point gesundheit made it into the zeitgeist and I feel schadenfreude for the people who said it wouldn't.

Why not simply say "Health" then? How is cultural assimilation any better than a phrase that has not had religious connotations for a century and a half?

Sounds like a shortened "Your health!" which as a toast should be accompanied by all present having a charged glass in their hand.

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