Category: Video

Henry Cohen of Production Radio Rentals, This One is For You

No Comments

I’ve posted occasionally on the FCC’s rules process on white space, space between channels that is currently unused, or more accurately unallocated.

A number of people, including me, feel that if this bandwidth should be made available to unlicensed users, much in the same way that Wi-Fi is, because it promises better bandwidth, greater penetration, and better range.

The complicating factor is that it has been used, largely almost completely illegally by the wireless microphone industry.

As a result, I’ve attracted the attention of the above mentioned gentleman, who deals in said microphones, and we had a bit of discussion on the matter.

He mentioned that, “There are no handheld military RF communication devices that do what he [Telco Expert Harold Feld, who is a friend] claims.” (emphasis mine)

By what he claims, he means using “sense and avoid” to avoid interfering with other devices sharing the spectrum.

I find his argument complete bullsh^%, because I have personal knowledge of vehicle mounted communications systems in various stages of test and deployment, JTRS comes to mind because I had to package components when I worked a military contract, but he was insisting on “hand held.”

Well, Mr. Cohen, I have your handheld right here. It’s not just a handheld, they’ve got the system on a chip:

Researchers here are developing new, handheld, wireless radios fitted with a single processor chip that is embedded with algorithms for compressing as many as 5 simultaneous, stealthy conversations into the same time and frequency slot and then, on arrival, untangling them.

Equally importantly, while in transit messages and data packages are seemingly hopelessly mixed – to the point of sounding like static. The chance of intercepting even the digital gibberish is unlikely since foes or potential adversaries don’t have the receiver technology to sort through such high levels of interferences.

….

They also are working to discover what’s necessary and what’s not, allowing them to take computing short cuts and use new techniques to increase performance and efficiency. Such advances in signal processing have allowed researchers to reduce the amount of “overhead” or needless digital instruction in the protocol that is not voice traffic. “Protocol overhead” as part of the total message has decreased to 20% from 50%. That is a key strategy for freeing room for more transmissions. Phase three is to conclude in June with demonstration of up to a 20-radio network. By the end of 2010, researchers expect to have completed design and implementation of a full-waveform protocol and hardware for a brick-size radio.

It’s from the minds of DARPA, and it’s here, it’s real, and it’s on a chip, and here is a video: (4:24)

Tom Friedman, Suck on This

No Comments

Tom Friedman, the New York Times Columnist, and blithering idiot, who is always suggesting that we should give the Iraq War, “Another 6 Months,” is having financial difficulties.

You see, he married into money, a lot of money. His wife is an heir to the General Growth Properties fortune, and since September, the value of the stock in the company in which the family wealth is held has fallen in value from a high of $51/share to 35¢ a share (See stock chart below), taking the value of the family fortune from $3.6 billion to $25 million.

In fact, GGP is warning of a potential bankruptcy.

As to my saying, “suck on this,” I am actually quoting Thomas Friedman, who, in an interview with Charlie Rose, suggested that it was imperative that we invade some Arab country to show that we were serius:

We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big state right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.

…

What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, “Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?” You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna to let it grow? Well, Suck. On. This.

(emphasis mine)

This places him in exactly the same position as the Rwandan radio broadcasters who were convicted of crimes against humanity, and any misfortune that he suffers for his continuing advocacy of an invasion that has cost hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians renders me incapable of feeling the smallest bit of sympathy.

I guess it makes me a bad person, but I haven’t had a hand in killing nearly a million Iraqis….Scratch that…We all had a hand in that as Americans, because it was done in our name, but he was cheer leading from his position atop the most respected news paper in the nation.

Here is the vid of the interview. Look at it, because this is what evil looks like.

Youtube Vids of Talk on Su-30MKI at Red Flag

No Comments

It was a talk given by a Colonel Fornof, the Director of the Requirements and Testing office at Nellis AFB and an F-15 pilot.

There is nothing here that is particularly sensitive, though it is very interesting.

The bullet points, or at least the ones that surprised me:

  • The pilots in the Su-30MKI’s did not use thrust vectoring well, so when they used it, they got hosed.
  • The French showed up, after having changed aircraft, from the Mirage 2000 to the Rafale, and were there for the electronic signals. They were sucking up radar data from that IAF, and did not tend to engage much.
  • The Indians had real concerns with foreign object damage with their aircraft, which surprises me, as the USSR designed its aircraft for austere basing, though it might have been because the engines had to go back to Russia if there was any damage…Something that the Indians might want to discuss with the manufacturer.
  • That for both the Su-30MKI and the F-22, if they go into post stall maneuvering with thrust vectoring, it provides an opportunity, which seems to give an answer about thinks like the Cobra maneuver: They are flight show BS, at least most of the time.
  • That the IAF’s upgraded MiG-21s are formidable aircraft, not bad for a roughly 50 year old design.
  • His admission that he does not think that the F-22 carries enough missiles

Links here, here, here, and here, and the videos are below.


Part 1


Part 2


A compare/contrast airshow demonstrations Su-30 vs F-22

This is very funny.

No Comments

There have been any number of Youtube mashups of the scene in the Downfall (Der Untergang), where you hear the original German dialogue, and you see English subtitles about something different (the one about being banned from the XBox network was prize).

Well, Barry Righoltz found this on Youtube, and it’s very funny, at least it’s funny if you do not know German, which I don’t.