Radio nerditry: getting Medi-1, Nador Morocco on 171 KHz(!) loud and clear right now. Because radio is still magic sometimes.
And also BBC Radio-4 on 198 KHz (weaker but entirely readable).
Medi-1 Morocco on 171 KHz booming in amazingly loud and clear on the east coast of the US again tonight. French and Arabic programming.
FYI, I'm using an unnecessarily good receiver (R&S PR100) with a modest amplified loop antenna (a Wellbrook). You have a good shot at receiving this with any receiver that covers the longwave broadcast band with a decent built-in antenna.
Radio Algeria-3 on 252 KHz also readable right now, albiet weaker. Looks like a good week for transatlantic longwave radio in the northern hemisphere.
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This would be a great move for Indian science. Though part of me understands scientific journal subscription fees the same way I understand paying ransomware.
For those not in science: authors and their institutions aren’t paid for their papers (sometimes it’s even the other way around). The journals don’t support the research in any way, but they insist on copyright transfer. Subscription fees are just pointless rent-seeking.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to see a nice (if largely cosmetic) improvement, but until they add urgently needed capacity to the tunnels, rail travel into NYC is still going to be a mess.
That said, after 9 months of this pandemic, I'd practically kiss the ground of even the old Penn Station if I could travel again.
There are genuine weaknesses in some of the voting tech used in the US, which is why experts advocate for things like risk-limiting audits. But this is not by itself proof that any election was "rigged", an extraordinary claim that requires specific, persuasive evidence.
I am not aware ANY credible evidence of technical flaws being exploited to alter the outcome of any race in the 2020 elections for any candidate, regardless of party. Beware of self-promoting charlatans (across the political spectrum) making alarming claims without evidence.
Trump and his supporters are getting a lot of attention (and have been doing a lot of damage) with claims like this, but they are by no means the only people trying to use the mere existence of vulnerabilities to cast doubt on election outcomes they don't like.
Christmas cryptography: In “A Christmas Story”, Ralphie is shown with what appears to be a 1940 edition of the official Orphan Annie decoder badge, which would be appropriate for the time in which the film is set. The prop used appears to be an original badge. 1/
I know this because I have one in my collection (Enigma machines being too rich for me). Unfortunately, this is where things go a bit off the rails, cryptographically speaking. 2/
These decoder badges had two rings, one with the numbers 1-26, and the other with a permutation of the 26 letters of the alphabet. The badge could be set to one of 26 offsets (a keyspace of under 5 bits) by rotating one ring with respect to the other. 3/
I need to do slightly complex audio/video editing just infrequently enough that I have to re-learn the ten thousand magic incantations to make the tools work every single time.
I’ve really optimized this for maximum inefficiency.
If you want an example of how awful this is (merely representative - there are a zillion others), google “how to connect a microphone to Pro Tools”.