Nothing is going to measure pencil marks perfectly, but scantron technology is decades old. Sloppy pencil usage wouldn't inhibit manual inspection of paper ballots, e.g. during a recount, but one does have to define some expected threshold of competency for voters using the ballots.
Indeed touchscreen voting machines have well documented security flaws, but the article mentions optical-scan machines by ES&S. That is, machines that scan paper ballots. Paper ballots would be reviewed by humans during recounts, or if doubts arise over the tallies, but maybe not if election officials have no reason to be doubtful.
This installation gives a better intuitive sense of field strength, e.g. emissions still strong enough to cause fluorescence dozens of meters away. I'm curious how Sturgeon's visualizations would appear around household appliances with (relatively) high-amperage induction motors like vacuum cleaners.
Mark Kurlansky's rather fascinating book "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" asserts Basque fisherman were working the banks off North America possibly even before Vikings began their exploration. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/review-of-cod-a-...
Indeed the 24GHz and 60GHz gear has its unique rain fade issues not shared by 5.8GHz. Increased atmospheric attenuation of higher bands is the general trade-off for higher throughput and more compact physical isolation requirements. UBNT 24GHz gear is being using for ~10km links, but looks like the ~5km is the preferred limit. My original comment would have been better written to stress need to prove out the signal path over all intended bands, e.g. primary link over (near) optical and fallback over whatever RF band proves viable.
The decreased propagation time through air vs glass likely wouldn't yield latency improvement in relevant orders of magnitude. The primary benefit is cost reduction. Erecting a few towers with optical relays over high points in terrain would be cheaper overall to install & maintain than either aerial or trenched fiber. If a 3rd party builds something in your way, just relocate the tower whose line of sight becomes obscured (on the assumption tower sites are solar-powered and self-standing).
Fallback to other unlicensed bands like 24GHz or 60GHz would probably work better. The higher frequencies at least retain a compact dish size, smaller fresnel zone, and sharper directionality. That is, imagine hanging several of these optical devices + 5GHz fallback at ~1 meter vertical spacing on a pole. A weather event triggering failover on all optical links could lead to enough 5.8GHz self-interference to kill the fallback links as well. 5.8GHz devices that aren't synchronized in phase with each other often call for 3meter+ separation, eating up tower real estate.
If the FCC publishes rules intended to repeal NN and Title-II regulations, as is expected, will your office petition Congress to invoke is powers via the Congressional Review Act, to consider overturning said rules? Thank you.
Here is the form the NY AG published. Once the FCC search results finally load (may take a couple mins, or more), you'd need to click on your name under the "Top Filers" box to the left. The first batch of search results don't appear to be fully filtered against the name you entered into the NY AG form. https://ag.ny.gov/fakecomments
You can get a good idea of the signal path to the antenna mounts with the photo provided, especially the photo visible via the underlying link to dx.com. Trace width would be set to match desired impedance (e.g. 50Ohm), generous spacing from adjacent ground plane for isolation, and big radii on corners to minimize self-capacitance. The 45deg component mounting is unusual, especially since the equivalent (?) PCB on dx.com doesn't have it. Perhaps this board was fabbed in low enough volume that optimizing pick & place to only do multiples of 90deg wasn't needed.
Indeed, my understanding is that neither iOS or Android provide reasonable access to adhoc or 802.11s modes on their wifi chipset. I gather MeshKit is deploying its mesh topology through tunnels, somewhat abstracted from whichever phy.
Yikes, their case study showing a map with pinpoints for DNC protestors in Philadelphia is an alarming illustration of the capacity for these peer-to-peer comms apps to be abused. I wonder if the FireChat participants at the time were aware of the location tracking.
https://www.opengarden.com/case-studies.html
VPN tunnels that go over port 443 SSL are difficult to throttle w/o affecting other services. They'd have to throttle by destination address, which can be more complex when available VPN endpoints are geographically distributed.
The reasoning I understand is that it enables the sort of monopolistic practices that historically have been restricted. Offering $20/mo "Facebook only" or $10/mo "Just email for Grandma" plans has providers competing more on what destinations they (don't) restrict in their Internet access, and less on actual speed/latency of the service. Larger providers could then roll out near-$0/mo "Email-only" plans at below cost, specifically to squeeze out the smaller providers previously trying to eek by on their equivalent $10 plans, and then retire those plans once competition is gone. Selling at below cost to kill competition is predatory pricing, which has spawned antitrust claims in the past in other markets.
The licenses tradesmen carry also tend to be paired with some sort of insurance or bond to back up the fitness of their work. Were it my plumber's license and liability coverage, for example, I'd be hesitate to approve a sweated pipe weld just from video footage. And the market for cheap sonar/magnetic gadgetry or whatever for laypersons to inspect the welds on bathroom plumbing probably just isn't there.
A substantial factor in licensed tradespersons' ability to collect the wages they get is that many situations require the work be done by a license holder. For example electrical or plumbing repairs done to satisfy a building code violation are often expected to have permit paperwork documenting the repair. License = ability to pull permit.
Thank you very much for this perspective from a smaller ISP. Regulation specifically written to address the worst practices of the largest actors in a market can indeed place disproportionate burden on the smaller players. I.e. regulation is always imperfect, especially when lawmakers become zealous about issuing only minimal regs, neglecting nuance. My question, tho, is what sort of regulation in broadband service would you see as beneficial? If you're a WISP, your wire-line competitors hang their service on publicly funded utility poles for attachment fees that don't really share the burden of maintenance. Just ask electric customers experiencing consistently rising bills. Those competitors will continue to depress the level playing field to tilt towards them, which can dramatically stifle innovation too.
I had the fortune to see Wes Jackson from the Land Institute give a presentation about his research breeding prairie grass attributes back into cereals. He explained the goal of developing perennial hybrids that could make agriculture somewhat less dependent on energy-intensive annual crops. He also brought in a tuft of 1 meter tall grass, showing how its ~3 meter deep root system would do wonders to retain water and reduce flooding on Mississippi downstream.
I read that particles in the radiation belts have been observed with large concentrations in the in keV range, peaking into MeV range. Impacting particles from the sun can be orders of magnitude higher. https://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wenpart1.html
The transmission facilities that broadcast VLF to submarines do so in the 100-1000 KW range, with the facilities' actual power consumption likely being at least 150% that value. On the assumption most of this power is derived from fossil sources, such facilities may still retain a carbon footprint.
Besides the reasons already explained why (moisture-resistant) paper still works better for the location than electronic pads, I'm guessing refinement would still be welcome in more cheaply/quickly printing new paper diagrams on demand.
This article focuses on inventive ways to replace mechanical plants typical to large multi-story structures. It overlooks the mechanized power that would still be needed to grow and deliver food necessary to sustain that population density. Vertical gardening on the scale required is not at the same level of maturity as the human-power techniques the article describes.
As mentioned in the below comment, the author buried the probable lede: most of the time transmission is a placeholder to discourage others from using the band. During exceptional circumstances (as defined by the station's operator), it will transmit coded messages to global/regional operatives. E.g., to coordinate espionage when conventional communications are offline.