Saturday, December 10, 2011

Assortment

Good news for Boeing and South Carolina: the National Labor Relations Board has dropped its complaint against Boeing.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: poster ruminant for the anti-bullying crowd.

Two crony-capitalism scandals in one!

This is our last chance to save the world (not to be confused with all those previous last chances).

Tim Blair offers some valuable advice on Christmas-party decorum.

Oh, crap! I thought you said Packard stock! Hey, everybody: I am now taking offers.

Steve at the Pub reports on the adventures of an antipodean policeman.

Obama’s minions begin channeling Wyatt Earp.

TimT on the "old sock theory of television presenting."

4 comments:

Yojimbo said...

Channeling Wyatt Earp, you must be joking.

"Wyatt Earp, Wyatt Earp
Brave, courageous and bold"

Just what part of that does he presume to meet?


For all you young whippersnappers and people of a foreign bent, that was the opening lines of his theme song for the television show starring Hugh O'Brien.

JeffS said...

I like how LightSquared announced there were no problems at all detected during the testing. Then, two days later, a draft proposal is leaked, saying exactly the opposite.

On the one hand, shameless lying and blustering. On the other hand, a classic "Suck it, dude!" from someone on the analysis team. Heh!

Anonymous said...

Can I just say, as regards the lightsquare thing, you people who can keep it all straight, who fucked what...

Maybe that's the problem. Use the word fucked more often, and maybe I'll get it.

JeffS said...

Anon, if I read you rightly.....

Anon wants to tap into the wireless service industry. This is a HUGE money maker -- just look at all of the smartphones and iPads coming out. All of them depend on the electromagnetic spectrum for success.

Alas, the electromagnetic spectrum is finite. And that subset of the electromagnetic spectrum which is commercially viable for wireless providers is even more finite. So they are always looking for ways to share the spectrum.

This is doable, but only in a very limited fashion. But the people who invest in these deals really don't care about the physics, or the practical applications of physics. They are constantly trying to work their way into other portions of the spectrum, whether it works or not.

The GPS satellites broadcast on frequencies very close to the wireless frequencies, for the same reasons: transmitting that much data needs considerable bandwidth. So the Lightsquared idiots figured they'd just move over, and use the GPS segment. Regardless of the impacts. And used their political connections to get the new frequencies.