Really Rocket Science

Comments to FCC rule changes can be dry and lawyerish. Not this one…

Dear FCC;

Regarding recent proposed rules that implicitly endorse “internet fast lanes”,
allowing Internet providers to offer an option for web companies to pay to connect
to users at faster speeds, I would like to make the following comments:

You swines. You vulgar little maggots. You worthless bags of filth. As we say in
Texas, you couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions printed on the heel.
You are a canker, an open wound. I would rather kiss a lawyer than be seen with you.
You took your last vacation in the Islets of Langerhans.

You’re a putrescent mass, a walking vomit. You are spineless little worms deserving
nothing but the profoundest contempt. You are jerks, cads, and weasels. I take that
back; you are a festering pustule on a weasel’s rump. Your life is a monument to
stupidity. You are a stench, a revulsion, a big suck on a sour lemon.

I will never get over the embarrassment of belonging to the same species as you. You
are monsters, ogres, a malformity. I barf at the very thought of you. You have all
the appeal of a paper cut. Lepers avoid you. You are vile, worthless, less than
nothing. You are a weed, a fungus, the dregs of this earth. You are a technicolor
yawn. And did I mention that you smell?

You are squeaking rats, a mistake of nature and heavy-metal bagpipe players. You
were not born. You were hatched into an unwilling world that rejects the likes of
you. You didn’t crawl out of a normal egg, either, but rather a mutant maggot egg
rejected by an evil scientist as being below his low standards. Your alleged parents
abandoned you at birth and then died of shame in recognition of what they had done
to an unsuspecting world. They were a bit late. If cluelessness were crude oil, your
scalp would be crawling with caribou.

You are thick-headed trogs. I have seen skeet with more sense than you have. You are
a few bricks short of a full load, a few cards short of a full deck, a few bytes
short of a full core dump, and a few chromosomes short of a full human. Worse than
that, you top-post. God created houseflies, cockroaches, maggots, mosquitos, fleas,
ticks, slugs, leeches, and intestinal parasites, then he lowered his standards and
made you. I take it back; God didn’t make you. You are Satan’s spawn. You are Evil
beyond comprehension, half-living in the slough of despair. You are the entropy
which will claim us all. You are a green-nostriled, crossed eyed, hairy-livered,
goisher kopf, inbred trout-defiler. You make Ebola look good.

You are weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. You are grimy, squalid, nasty and
profane. You are foul and disgusting. You’re fools, ignoramuses. Monkeys look down
on you. Even sheep won’t have sex with you. You are unreservedly pathetic, starved
for attention, and lost in a land that reality forgot. You are not ANSI compliant
and your markup doesn’t validate. You have a couple of address lines shorted
together. You should be promoted to Engineering Manager.

Your life is one big W.O.M.B.A.T., and your future doesn’t look promising either. We
need to trace your bloodline and terminate all siblings and cousins in order to
cleanse humanity of your polluted genes. The good news is that no normal human would
ever mate with you, so we won’t have to go into the sewers in search of your git.
You are a waste of flesh. You have no rhythm. You are ridiculous and obnoxious. You
are the moral equivalent of a leech. You are a living emptiness, a meaningless void.

You are sour and senile. You are a loathsome disease, a drooling inbred cross-eyed
toesucker. You make Quakers shout and strike Pentecostals silent. You have a version
1.0 mind in a version 6.13 world. Your mother had to tie a pork chop around your
neck just to get your dog to play with you. You think that

http://www.GuyMacon.com/flame.html is the name of a rock band. You believe that
P.D.Q. Bach is the greatest composer who ever lived. You prefer L. Ron Hubbard to
Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Hee-Haw is too deep for you. You would watch test
patterns all day if the other inmates would let you.

On a good day you’re half-wits. You remind me of drool. You are deficient in all
that lends character. You have the personality of wallpaper. You are dank and
filthy. You are asinine and benighted. Spammers look down on you. Phone sex
operators hang up on you. Telemarketers refuse to be seen in public with you. You
are the source of all unpleasantness. You spread misery and sorrow wherever you go.
May you choke on your own foolish opinions. You are a Pusillanimous galactophage and
you wear your sister’s training bra. Don’t bother opening the door when you leave –
you should be able to slime your way out underneath. I hope that when you get home
your mother runs out from under the porch and bites you.

You smarmy lagerlout gits. You bloody woofter sods. Bugger off, pillocks. You grotty
wanking oik artless base-court apple-johns. You clouted boggish foot-licking
half-twits. You dankish clack-dish plonkers. You gormless crook-pated tossers. You
bloody churlish boil-brained clotpole ponces. You craven dewberry pisshead cockup
pratting naffs. You cockered bum-bailey poofters. You gob-kissing gleeking
flap-mouthed coxcombs. You dread-bolted fobbing beef-witted clapper-clawed
flirt-gills. You jetere steatopygous pilgarlick hircine whigmaleerious rhadamanthine
lintlickers. I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram.

You are so clueless that if you dressed in a clue skin, doused yourself in clue
musk, and did the clue dance in the middle of a field of horny clues at the height
of clue mating season, you still would not have a clue. If you were a movie you
would be a double feature; _Battlefield_Earth_ and _Moron_Movies_II_. You would be
out of focus.

You are fiends and sniveling cowards, and you have bad breath. You are the unholy
spawn of a bandy-legged hobo and a syphilitic camel. You wear strangely mismatched
clothing with oddly placed stains. You are degenerate, noxious and depraved. I feel
debased just knowing that you exist. I despise everything about you, and I wish you
would go away. You are jetsam who dreams of becoming flotsam. You won’t make it. I
beg for sweet death to come and remove me from a world which became unbearable when
the bioterrorists designed you.

It is hard to believe how incredibly stupid you are. Stupid as a stone that the
other stones make fun of. So stupid that you have traveled far beyond stupid as we
know it and into a new dimension of stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid cubed. Trans-stupid
stupid. Stupid collapsed to a singularity where even the stupons have collapsed into
stuponium. Stupid so dense that no intelligence can escape. Singularity stupid.

Blazing hot summer day on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one minute than
our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. It cannot be possible that
anything in our universe can really be this stupid. This is a primordial fragment
from the original big stupid bang. A pure extract of stupid with absolute stupid
purity. Stupid beyond the laws of nature. I must apologize. I can’t go on. This is
my epiphany of stupid. After this experience, you may not hear from me for a while.
I don’t think that I can summon the strength left to mock your moronic opinions and
malformed comments about boring trivia or your other drivel. Duh.

The only thing worse than your logic is your manners. Your attempt at regulating the Internet was pitiful. I mean, really, stringing together a bunch of plattitudes
among a load of babbling was hardly effective… Maybe later in life, after you have
learned to read, write, spell, and count, you will have more success. True, these
are rudimentary skills that many of us “normal” people take for granted that
everyone has an easy time of mastering. But we sometimes forget that there are
“challenged” persons in this world who find these things to be difficult. If I had
known that this was true in your case then I would have never have exposed myself to
your prposed regulations. It just wouldn’t have been “right.” Sort of like parking
in a handicap space. I wish you the best of luck in the emotional, and social
struggles that seem to be placing such a demand on you.

P.S.: You are hypocritical, greedy, violent, malevolent, vengeful, cowardly, deadly,
mendacious, meretricious, loathsome, despicable, belligerent, opportunistic,
barratrous, contemptible, criminal, fascistic, bigoted, racist, sexist, avaricious,
tasteless, idiotic, brain-damaged, imbecilic, insane, arrogant, deceitful, demented,
lame, self-righteous, byzantine, conspiratorial, satanic, fraudulent, libelous,
bilious, splenetic, spastic, ignorant, clueless, EDLINoid, illegitimate, harmful,
destructive, dumb, evasive, double-talking, devious, revisionist, narrow,
manipulative, paternalistic, fundamentalist, dogmatic, idolatrous, unethical,
cultic, diseased, suppressive, controlling, restrictive, malignant, deceptive, dim,
crazy, weird, dyspeptic, stifling, uncaring, plantigrade, grim, unsympathetic,
jargon-spouting, censorious, secretive, aggressive, mind-numbing, arassive,
poisonous, flagrant, self-destructive, abusive, socially-retarded, puerile, pinguid,
and Generally Not Good.

Please read [ https://www.eff.org/issues/net-neutrality ].

Max, is that you?

If you have a smartphone, it’s time you take your security more seriously. Use the FCC’s new tool.

Suzanne Choney sums it up nicely via NBC News…

Among the steps you can take by using the checker:

• Set PINs and passwords.
• Download security apps to enable remote locating and data wiping.
• Back up the data on your phone if it’s lost or stolen.
• Wipe the data on your old phone before donating, reselling or recycling it.
• Learn to safely use public Wi-Fi networks.
• Find out what you need to do if your phone is stolen.

The FCC worked together with the Department of Homeland Security, Federal Trade Commission, CTIA wireless trade organization, National Cyber Security Alliance and mobile security companies Lookout, Sophos and others to develop the checklist.

Section 207 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been around for a while, obviously, but that hasn’t prevented the City of Philadelphia from passing a bill last fall to limit installation of satellite dishes. As Philly is Comcast’s corporate home, I’m not surprised.

It should come as no surprise that the SBCA is preventing the law’s enforcement, according to a report by the Philadelphia Daily News:

Enforcement of a bill passed by City Council last fall to regulate placement of TV satellite dishes has been stalled due to a petition filed with the Federal Communications Commission by the satellite-dish industry.

The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association is fighting the bill, approved in October and sponsored by current Council President Darrell Clarke, prohibiting satellite-dish companies and installers from placing dishes at the front of homes unless putting them elsewhere would cause signal reduction or significant extra cost.

A petition filed in November by the association, and pending before the FCC, alleges that the bill violates a 1996 over-the-air reception-device rule that blocks restrictions of satellite-dish installations without a public-safety concern or historic-preservation justification.

“We feel that it isn’t just a matter of taste, but a matter of fairness,” said Lisa McCabe, the association’s director of public policy and outreach. “It’s a burden. It would increase the costs of doing business in the city and would ultimately fall on the users.”

The city’s two major dish companies, DirecTV and Dish Network, argue that the city uses “aesthetic concerns as a pretext to restrict consumers’ access to satellite television.”

But the city disagrees.

“There’s no consideration,” said William Carter, Clarke’s director of legislative affairs. “We simply ask that they don’t do in our community what they wouldn’t do in theirs.

“We were noticing a disparity in areas of the city inundated with satellite dishes. You don’t see this in Chestnut Hill, Society Hill,” Carter said, adding that more dishes are seen in areas with more renters.

Philly has more than 100,000 dish users and was the first city to pass such a measure.

Under the bill, dishes installed in the future must match the colors of homes, and hundreds of inactive dishes will be removed.

I doubt Philly will get its way. People simply refuse to pay higher rates for TV entertainment, and urban neighborhoods with a high concentration of new immigrants will always opt for satellite TV service and their international programming options. I’ve seen more satellite antennas in cities than ever before. You can’t argue with popular preference.

How about above-ground cables and wires strung from utility poles? Now that’s ugly!

All was well with the GPS world. LightSquared had some trouble surface last June, then the farmers were sold a load of manure. Fine. We can work this out, right?

Not really.

A draft report was leaked and promptly published by Bloomberg, concluding LightSquared will harmfully interfere with 75% of GPS devices.

Philip Falcone’s proposed LightSquared Inc. wireless service caused interference to 75 percent of global-positioning system receivers examined in a U.S. government test, according to a draft summary of results.

The results from testing conducted Oct. 31 to Nov. 4 show that “millions of fielded GPS units are not compatible” with the planned nationwide wholesale service, according to the draft seen by Bloomberg News.

“LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to majority of GPS receivers tested,” according to the draft prepared for a meeting next week of U.S. officials reviewing the LightSquared proposal. “No additional testing is required to confirm harmful interference exists.”

GPS users are the 99% here and I’m afraid the bankers have got something to worry about.

The National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Systems Engineering Forum presents its results on 14 December 2011.

Seems LightSquared has a problem on its hands, after a report (PDF) from the National PNT Systems Engineering Forum…

Key Findings:

• All GPS receiver applications impacted by proposed LightSquared Network
• Simulation of fully deployed LightSquared network of ~40,000 base stations would:

1. 1. Degrade or result in loss of GPS function (ranging, position) at standoff distances ranging from few kilometers and extending to space operations
   2. Out of band emissions due to close proximity to GPS Band
   3. Appear to be satisfactory

• No universal mitigation approach identified

Seriously, it’s not a good situation, according to Fierce Wireless…

Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel at Trimble Navigation which has opposed LightSquared’s operations as currently designed, said the tests showed that LightSquared’s network clearly cause interference with GPS.

“There is not a solution here,” he said. “In our view, it’s time to stop squandering resources on this and look for alternative spectrum for this operation. What LightSquared is trying to do is a great thing. It’s very important that we have more competition in broadband and more spectrum in broadband wireless. However, there is one place in the satellite band where this does not work,” and that is the spectrum next to GPS, he said.

It gets worse. According to the WSJ blog post by Amy Schatz, the DoD, aviation and a swarm from Congress are signaling a rough go ahead…

A bipartisan group of 66 House members asked the FCC Tuesday to protect global positioning systems from interference from wireless broadband start-up LightSquared, which is trying to launch a new network.

LightSquared’s airwaves have been knocking out some GPS systems during recent tests in New Mexico, according to unofficial reports from GPS users.

The company has acknowledged the problem but says technological fixes are available. LightSquared and GPS makers are scheduled to file a joint report to the FCC on June 15 about any interference issues.

The aviation industry, Defense Department and other government agencies are worried that the new mobile broadband network’s planned 40,000 cell towers could interfere with highly precise GPS systems used in military, aviation and homeland security equipment. Federal officials and GPS industry advocates have been lobbying Congress heavily to pressure the FCC to resolve any interference issues before letting LightSquared turn on its service.

“We request that the Commission only approve LightSquared’s waiver (to offer service) if it can be indisputably proven that there will be no GPS interference,” the lawmakers wrote Tuesday. A bipartisan group of 34 Senators wrote a similar letter to the FCC last month.

By our count, the House letter was signed by 17 Democrats and 49 Republicans, including four committee chairman: House Armed Services Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon of California, Science Space and Technology Chairman Ralph Hall of Texas, Small Business Chairman Sam Graves of Missouri and House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.

Like a challenge, rocket scientists? They’re hiring!

Via Doug Lung’s RF Report:

In some cases, it isn’t possible to install an uplink dish that meets the FCC off-axis antenna pattern envelope. In the past, the FCC allowed operation of uplinks with non-compliant antennas upon a showing by the licensee that the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) would be reduced enough to keep the energy in side lobes below the level that would have existed using an uplink with a compliant dish at maximum power. This required a detailed engineering showing that often slowed FCC processing.

In the Eighth Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration (FCC 08-246), the FCC adopted an off-axis EIRP envelope approach as one method for applicants to apply for fixed satellite service (FSS) Earth stations using small antennas operating on conventional C and Ku-band frequencies.

It states, "This off-axis EIRP approach gives earth station applicants the flexibility to reduce their power levels to compensate for a small antenna diameter. Thus, using these envelopes as criteria for licensing should enable us to license more earth station applications routinely, expediting the provision of satellite services to consumers and enhancing the types of services available, without increasing the likelihood of harmful interference to adjacent satellite operators or to terrestrial wireless operators."

The Order adopts rules that facilitate the use of elliptical C-band uplink antennas. While the new rules do not specifically state that the major axis of the elliptical antenna be aligned with the geo-stationary orbit plane, the Order notes that "that starting the off-axis EIRP envelope at 1.5 degrees off-axis within the GSO orbital plane, and at 3.0 degrees outside that plane, has the same effect as requiring elliptical antennas to be aligned with the GSO plane in most cases."

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) claimed that it is not possible to develop an off-axis EIRP envelope for analog video signals because the power density of such signals fluctuates. SES Americom opposed new analog regulations because the current rules are working well. The FCC decided to retain the current regulatory framework for analog services at this time. It dropped plans for eliminating analog video transmission over satellite entirely, noting, "The record in this proceeding has shown convincingly that requiring the transition from analog to digital video transmissions proposed in the Third Further Notice would be unreasonably expensive and burdensome."