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Comment Promises, Promises (Score 5, Funny) 574

She also set a goal of installing half a billion new solar panels within her first term

Come on, even working four years straight there's no way she can install that many solar panels!

On the other hand, if she's doing that there's no way she has time to screw up the country like past presidents... OK, i'm in, as long as she keeps her promise to just install solar panels.

Comment Just mobile? (Score 2) 259

After years of abuse, I just instantly close a website now if it decides an interstitial ad is needed. Regardless of where I am browsing.

No content is worth the suffering, no video can have enough cats to justify the anguish.

I have no idea if my own droopy matters at all, but I like to think window closure after interstitial presentation is a metric tracked and at least I am increasing it.

Comment Would you not? (Score 1) 149

There is likely more radiation is food grown in various parts of America than from Fukushima.

In fact if you eat bananas at all from anywhere, you are absolutely getting way more radiation than from any produce grown in Fukushima.

There are so many natural sources of radiation you deal with every day, including the sun...

It's really a shame people can't be at all rational around radiation and apply the same kind of one-drop rule that racists use to justify their own crazy statements and thoughts.

Comment Re:Even More Sanity (Score 0) 272

Far, far more people are injured and killed by balls used in sports than R/C models.

Well that sure seems like a bold statement to make with no links. Can't help but notice you have links for everything else...

Although it agrees with what I said about baseballs and common sense, so thanks for that.

That's the difference - common sense. People playing in a park are not using the velocities those balls reach during sports.

Drones though are just one mechanical failure away from lethal force given the height and mass they generally have during operation, all without any effort. To move a ball with enough force to hurt someone requires conscious action.

Your comparison of drones to balls is absolutely absurd.

I imagine that significantly more people have been injured and killed by kites than R/C models.

Common sense... *sigh*

Comment Even More Sanity (Score 0) 272

Presumably, you also think that kites should be treated the same way?

I'm not sure why anyone would think that given how much less mass they have, and the fact they are almost entirely physically controlled. If a string breaks they flutter to the ground, not plummet.

And baseballs, footballs, soccer balls?

These objects basically hug the ground and don't have the ability to rapidly change course, nor are they generally operating at speeds that can cause much harm. Note however that baseballs ARE dangerous enough that people batting generally confine themselves to specific areas for that purpose, because they could in fact hurt someone.

When's the last time you saw someone playing baseball (with a bat, not throwing) in the middle of a festival or crowded park? You are basically saying you would do that if given a choice?

If drone operators had 1/10 the common sense the average baseball players had you wouldn't see regulations like this.

Comment Re:Morse Code (Score 1) 620

Oh, wait, you didn't need to pass a test for that.

I'm just trying to think how that would have been possible. I think back then there was a medical exception you could plead for. I didn't. I passed the 20 WPM test fair and square and got K6BP as a vanity call, long before there was any way to get that call without passing a 20 WPM test.

Unfortunately, ARRL did fight to keep those code speeds in place, and to keep code requirements, for the last several decades that I know of and probably continuously since 1936. Of course there was all of the regulation around incentive licensing, where code speeds were given a primary role. Just a few years ago, they sent Rod Stafford to the final IARU meeting on the code issue with one mission: preventing an international vote for removal of S25.5 . They lost.

I am not blaming this on ARRL staff and officers. Many of them have privately told me of their support, including some directors and their First VP, now SK. It's the membership that has been the problem.

I am having a lot of trouble believing the government agency and NGO thing, as well. I talked with some corporate emergency managers as part of my opposition to the encryption proceeding (we won that too, by the way, and I dragged an unwilling ARRL, who had said they would not comment, into the fight). Big hospitals, etc.

What I got from the corporate folks was that their management was resistant to using Radio Amateurs regardless of what the law was. Not that they were chomping at the bit waiting to be able to carry HIPAA-protected emergency information via encrypted Amateur radio. Indeed, if you read the encryption proceeding, public agencies and corporations hardly commented at all. That point was made very clearly in FCC's statement - the agencies that were theorized by Amateurs to want encryption didn't show any interest in the proceeding.

So, I am having trouble believing that the federal agency and NGO thing is real because of that.

Comment More Sanity (Score 5, Informative) 272

How is it not sane to think that the people who could be potentially hit by your craft would have something to say about it flying over them?

I find this a perfectly reasonable law. Don't forget it means that could could fly on private property NEXT to the public property and film from there, as long as you are not directly over the public area...

Comment The crisis was always over (Score 0) 174

Organic honeybee producers never had much of a real problem, it was really only large scale agricultural bees that had issues - it never really was at the point of crisis, like everything else these days it was just being used to scare you for someone else's gain.

Lots of government money happily funneled to useless bee research...

As an aside honey is really good for you, you should have some when you can - it's great to replace sweeteners in things like tea or cereal. It has lots of health benefits and never goes bad. Believe it or not it also relieves pain from bee stings when a bit is applied topically to the stung area (I know that that sounds absurd but all I can say is that it works and works quickly).

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