What do a bunch of anarcho-capitalist lapdogs and religious nutjobs have to do with protecting the Constitution and defending Liberty?

If it's still MS only, who gives a shit?

That is essentially what they are proposing; not a crypto free-for-all, but allowing encryption in specific situations where it is essentially mandatory (HIPAA information, satellite control, etc). I actually think they should go further, perhaps allowing crypto as a matter of course in certain bands with plaintext station ID wrappers.

A $30 raspberry pi is pefectly capable of performing crypto. Any soundcard provides your ADC/DAC capable of any narrowband mode. In this day and age, digital hardware is cheap and plentiful... the flakiest and most unreliable part of any radio system is going to be the RF hardware, specifically the PA... Which you need for any transmission, analog or digital. Oh, and this idea that analog can get through RF conditions that kills digital modes is outdated; Given a particular bandpass channel, thanks to modern FEC like turbo codes and LDPC, a well designed digital system is more robust and resistant to noise and interference than analog. And there may be reasons to fall back to analog, but you never gave that up to add digital modes in the first place.

73,
KE4SCQ

Well, you could manuever a sniper into a position to shoot him. Or fastrope some riflemen from a helicopter to shoot and/or beat him senseless.

The problem with solutions like that, though, is they don't do any good helping to justify why you need billion-dollar weapon systems to fight a bunch of dirt farmers with Kalashnikovs and RPGs but no planes, helicopters, armor, or anti-aircraft capability to speak of.

Except the phone is "paid off" the moment it is purchased. We all know two-year contracts are effectively installlment plans for $600 phones, but at the point of sale, I own the phone outright. There is nothing in the contract about an installment plan. There is no "carrier lien" on the phone. If they want to have that leverage, then they can explicitly finance phones with secured debt the way every other industry does it.

And even in that case, there's not much leverage. I finance my truck, and the bank requires me to carry insurance and keep it legally roadworthy, but I am free to re-paint it, modify it, repair it, or smash it up with a sledge hammer "for that weathered look" if I feel like it.

Because they are far, far less standardized and more integrated into the systems of the car itself than tradition stereo DIN head units.

Being able to avoid sales tax in many cases is certainly beneficial to online retailers, but anybody who believes that sales tax is the primary force moving retail transactions online simply has not been paying attention. If all 50 states suddenly started collecting sales tax on Amazon sales today, Amazon would take a hit, but they would not suddenly collapse.

You say that like the existing mobile carriers aren't already doing that kind of bullshit. Remember Carrier IQ? Verizon/AT&T complicit in warrantless wiretapping?

Oracle is nobody's friend... And Larry Ellison doesn't even seem to try to hide it.

Campaign to get your pro-drug-war dickbag congressman, or even your county sheriff, out of office? I know, I know, it's wishful thinking, but maybe if enough people overcome their own cynicism we can make for some incremental change?

Amphetamine salts were first synthesized in the 19th century, and have been used therapeutically since the 1930's. They are among some of the most well understood and thoroughly studied drugs in use. Many instant-release ADHD meds have been around so long that they have been generic for DECADES. Yes, they have a tremendous potential for cardiac complications and other significant side-effects, but we've known about that for half a century. The chances of unforeseen side effects of amphetamines suddenly coming to light are about as likely as suddenly finding out that aspirin causes brain tumors.

There is a pretty wide disparity between "Luxury" and "Basic human right."

I'd hardly call indoor plumbing, 99.9% uptime electricity, or interstate highways to be "basic human rights," but they're pretty much essential for an modern, industrial society/economy.

I am also an RF engineer, and that was my first thought too: This is far too small to be any kind of steerable/smart antenna array. I don't know if there is some crazy, cutting edge hocus pocus out there, but I've always understood that antenna arrays need at least 1/2 wavelength spacing between elements. Same thing for diversity/MIMO antennas. At 2100 MHz, that's roughly 6cm. For 700LTE, we're talking 20+ cm. You're getting 2 elements in a mobile handset at best... good for maybe 3dB of gain over a single element?

Fancy smart antenna arrays probably have a strong future in base station towers, but mobile handsets are just too damn small.

As far as antenna efficiency goes, I was under the impression most handsets used (notoriously inefficient) electrically short microstrip antennas? You certainly can make an antenna arbitrarily smaller than a half-wavelength, it's just going to have very low radiation resistance and not be very efficient.

Actually, BMX stunt cyclists and serious downhill mountain bikers tend to wear full-face motocross helmets precisely because bicycle helmets provide crap protection. As far as cost and practicality, they're really not that heavy or awkward (watch what freestyle BMX guys can do wearing them) and a quality, name brand DOT certified motocross/dirt helmet can be had for under 100 USD.

Hardcore speed/fitness guys will never wear them because they're poorly ventilated and hot compared to bicycle helmets, but due to my experiences as a motorcyclist, if I were riding a bicycle in a busy urban environment with a lot of automobile traffic, I'd choose to wear a motocross/dirt style helmet.