Category: Miscellaneous
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2 Days Left To Comment to FCC About Ham Radio Usage In Emergency Communications
Continue Reading: 2 Days Left To Comment to FCC About Ham Radio Usage In Emergency CommunicationsTo all my friends and readers who use amateur (ham) radio, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is seeking comment on the use of Amateur Radio in emergency communications such as disaster response.THE DEADLINE FOR COMMENT IS TOMORROW – May 17, 2012.
As the FCC public notice states:
the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau seek comment on the uses and capabilities of Amateur Radio Service communications in emergencies and disaster relief. As set forth below, comment is sought on issues relating to the importance of emergency Amateur Radio Service communications and on impediments to enhanced Amateur Radio Service communications. Stakeholder entities and organizations, including the Amateur Radio, emergency response, and disaster communications communities, are particularly encouraged to submit comments.
The public notice goes on to pose a series of questions around the importance of amateur radio in emergency communications – and a series of questions around the impediments to enhanced amateur radio communications.
Later in the document it explains the filing process, including the manner in which comments can be filed electronically over the Internet.
I’m not a ham radio user myself, although I’ve always had an interest…
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My MacBook seems to be stuck in “Borg emulation mode” (red light) with no access to the built-in speakers
Continue Reading: My MacBook seems to be stuck in “Borg emulation mode” (red light) with no access to the built-in speakersSo it seems I’ve done something to mightily mess up my new MacBook Pro. The other night while in my hotel room at AstriCon, I was using my headset for some Skype calls and then had it in when I started to play some music. Wanting to listen on the built-in speakers, I just pulled the headset out and was then surprised to hear no audio. If I plugged the headset back in, I could hear audio fine. Remove it, no audio. It was about then that I noticed the red light coming out of the side of the MacBook Pro. I didn’t know what this was and tried several other things before finally just forgetting about it.
The next day at AstriCon, I was on the IRC backchannel when someone else in the same physical room as I was figured out who I was and then asked why my MacBook had a red light coming out of the side. In further discussions with others on the channel, it turns out that Apple has done something that on one level is rather cool. They’ve overloaded the functionality of the headphone jack so that it is both a regular…
