Comment Re:I wonder if they thought this through. (Score 2) 63
The could call the whole line of apps the g-string.
How did the HOA know about the antenna (in order to force it being taken down) if no one could see it?
Good question. HOAs are unfortunately too often enablers for busybodies. My friend has a real jerk of a neighbor who has entirely too much time on his hands and goes around looking for HOA rule violations basically as a hobby. And frankly, I'm not sure how the neighbor saw the antenna. Because it really was not visible unless you were in my friend's back yard. But nobody asks about that. They just point to the rules and say take it down.
In this case, it is a real shame. My friend is a Morse code buff and to see and hear him operate is truly amazing. It is like music. He handles a set of CW paddles like Eric Clapton handles a guitar. It looks completely effortless.
This person also was the emergency coordinator in our area for the Amateur Radio Emergency Service group at one time. He is one of the guys that you would truly want to have access to a working station if something major bad happened.
I'm so glad I'm not in an HOA myself. But that is getting harder and harder to pull off. And that is why we need things like this bill.
Meaningless fodder bill in an election year.
Not at all.
This is so much better than where things stand now. For example, I have a friend who put up a wire antenna in his back yard in an HOA and was forced to take it down even though you could not even see it without trespassing on his property. How is a wire that no one can see without trespassing affecting anyone's home value? But, as things are, it can be banned. Banning a wire that no one can see certainly would not "constitute the minimum practicable restriction on such communications to accomplish the lawful purposes of a community association seeking to enforce such restriction."
Will everything immediately go smoothly and every ham operator get exactly what they want? No, of course not. Will people end up going to court to sort this out? I'm sure that will happen. But over time, an understanding of what all of this means will arise just like it has for satellite dishes and over the air antennas.
This bill certainly isn't perfect. But, it is infinitely better than where things stand right now.
Few people use enormous amounts of data; if you don't want tens of GB, you are now paying $20 more per month per line.
Bingo! I'm in that boat. I have 5 phones on a family plan and we pay about $140. Now I would have to pay $200. We don't use all of our data now. Unlimited provides absolutely no value to us. So, we'll stay with what we have until they make it impossible to do so.
Then we will explore our options.
Absolutely not. Who is sponsoring and voting on these bills? It is not the FBI. Public enemy number one is politicians that want simple solutions to complicated problems. You could also argue that public enemy number one is the public. As voters we either re-elect incompetent incumbents or 'throw the bum out' and then replace them with someone far worse.
We need:
Ending the stranglehold that the two major parties hold on the election process might be worth trying too.
Just like the average soldier wasn't the problem during the Vietnam war, the average FBI agent is not the problem today.
I hope the court realizes that the State officials are incompetent retards who created a serious security situation.
Of course they may have just purchased or licensed a serious security situation. There are a lot of poorly written applications created by the private sector and sold to the public sector.
There should be no excuse for a State though. They should have the resources to check out software and services they purchase (especially elections related software or services). When it comes to the County and City level though, many don't have the resources to do this kind of evaluation whether it is available skill sets or money to pay an expert. This is a significant problem that really needs addressing in many localities.
Florida really should drop this one. All they are doing is making themselves look worse (hey!, why just look stupid when you can also look corrupt).
Amen a thousand times over. This is the thing people are incapable of understanding. Places like Wilson, NC started their own broadband services because the commercial providers refused to work with them to improve their broadband. What they had was expensive and insufficient. How do you attract businesses to an area that does not offer a decent broadband service? Nothing changed until they decided to just implement their own. Of course, then the lobbyists convinced legislators to prevent others in the state from doing the same. Wilson is grandfathered.
It is not state governments job to prevent citizens from being served by own their local government when there is no commercial interest in providing a broadband solution. This ban on local broadband is simply ridiculous.
I think the quote went something like this:
"I do, I offer a complete and utter retraction. The proposed legislation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way competent, and was motivated purely by ignorance, and I deeply regret any distress that my comments may have caused you, or your family, and any other citizen and I hereby undertake not to submit any such nonsense at any time in the future."
Credit ... is the only enduring testimonial to man's confidence in man. -- James Blish
