There is just something really amazing about being able to communicate directly between two points on the planet by bouncing EM waves off layers of the atmosphere. Like, imagine two people hundreds of miles apart are shining flashlights (or torches, if you prefer) at the distant sky, just above the horizon, and seeing the sky glow from each other’s beams signaling each other. At the right frequencies and with the right conditions, certain atmospheric layer boundaries become reflective, like the boundary between air and water, so imagine that distant sky looks a little glossy up there, like water’s surface reflecting your beam.

But then run that light source through a machine that does that flickering signal fast enough to encode your voice in the pattern of flickering that’s glowing in the sky over someone else’s horizon.

That’s pretty closely analogous to what amateur (“ham”) radio operators are doing when they play with the HF range of the radio spectrum. The electronics are less sophisticated than cell phones, but our usual gadgets rely on many other devices to relay info across the Internet (which is also amazing, in a different way). Ham radio, on the other hand, is like a fancy version of talking through two cans on a string, sometimes up to thousands of miles apart, but using fast flash lights instead of string and cans.

Username checks out.

The inherent problem with that is how few there are. Don’t get me wrong–yes, let’s do that, too.

I reported a comment for basically saying that men are the only violent sex, and they temp-banned me for abusing the reporting system. The explanation message (canned, I’m sure) said that abusively reporting people is a form of harassment or bullying, or something like that.

Eat shit reddit, and fuck spez.

edit: Based on my experience and what others are saying, I have to wonder, were they trying to burn it down from the inside?

What about “Cheeto chopper”?

One of us!

Not just proficient users, but old users. 3rd party apps were all Reddit had, at first (besides the site itself, of course). The official app was the newcomer to the apps scene.

It seems obvious to me now.

Many US states are now requiring age verification for adult sites. VPN companies will benefit if that requirement expands. The Republican party’s pearl-clutching politics are what can make that happen.

And I can only imagine how they feel when empty.

It’ll be just like 2020: react after the damage is done and pretend they weren’t complicit.

You’ve been waiting for this moment…

One of the best feelings I ever felt was laying in bed the night after a car accident earlier in the day. It was enough of an accident that I was glad to reflect on it not being any worse, but it also wasn’t bad enough to injure anyone.

When I climbed into bed that night, I was seriously doing that thing dogs do when you take them outside and they flop and wallow around on the grass with their feet flailing carelessly in the air. That bed felt so damn good that night, and I try often to remind myself that it’s the same comfy and safe bed now that it was that day.

I want someone to project that map onto a globe to illustrate how ridiculous it was. The elegantly circular arcs of the north sides of those storms would look bizarrely teardrop-pinched, if I’m not mistaken.

blancat

And primaries are the “real” elections to get us there. General elections will continue to be major party A vs. major party B, with a “this is the most important election ever” backdrop, while primaries are where we have to try to get our important issues (like election reform) carried by generally electable candidates to get those issues injected into the parties.

And the amount of money spent on primaries confirms how influential they are capable of being.

Yeah, good point, but that article isn’t talking about what’s in this picture.

Store-bought sandwich bread usually can be kept in the fridge without much change in texture. That’s because it often contains additives and preservatives that keep it fresh longer.

Hot take? This should have been a major version update.

https://semver.org/

Is the joke that they didn’t waste any time arming with the new tech?