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Buried on page 25 of the 2019 budget proposal for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), under the heading "Fundamental Measurement, Quantum Science, and Measurement Dissemination", there's a short entry that has caused plenty of debate and even a fair deal of anger among those in the amateur radio scene:
NIST will discontinue the dissemination of the U.S. time and frequency via the NIST radio stations in Hawaii and Ft. Collins, CO. These radio stations transmit signals that are used to synchronize consumer electronic products like wall clocks, clock radios, and wristwatches, and may be used in other applications like appliances, cameras, and irrigation controllers.
The NIST stations in Hawaii and Colorado are the home of WWV, WWVH, and WWVB. The oldest of these stations, WWV, has been broadcasting in some form or another since 1920; making it the longest continually operating radio station in the United States. Yet in order to save approximately $6.3 million, these time and frequency standard stations are potentially on the chopping block.
Source: https://hackaday.com/2018/08/20/what-will-you-do-if-wwvb-goes-silent/
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Monday August 27 2018, @10:19AM (25 children)
Phone [navy.mil] (US), (Australia) [smh.com.au] or NTP [ntp.org]?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:02AM (14 children)
Do we really want to connect these devices to the internet? Besides the fact that all existing devices that are dependent on these radio stations will cease to function properly, do we want clocks and irrigation systems connected to the internet?
Are we doing this to save money (and by save money, I mean pay for golf outings, parades for our illustrious leader, etc)?
(Score: 5, Informative) by MostCynical on Monday August 27 2018, @11:09AM (1 child)
About one year of the Secret Service's Mar-a-lago costs..
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-mar-lago-airfare-cost-taxpayers-6-million-2017-according-report-758877 [newsweek.com]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:23AM
ublox ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-blox [wikipedia.org] ) claims
I bought a few on ebay for about $10.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:12AM (6 children)
GPS time is accurate to a few nanoseconds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:22AM
We're going to get a Space Force partially because of threats to GPS. Woohoo!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:45PM (4 children)
So, do we retrofit all the existing devices to support GPS? And isn't GPS overkill for a device that does not need to keep track of its own location?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:35PM (1 child)
No. All gps is is extremely accurate time keeping/receiver + a small computer that solves a set of linear equations to determine where where you are based on time.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:22PM
Oh ... so yes, it is overkill.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Monday August 27 2018, @04:23PM (1 child)
No, there's really no such thing as "too accurate", but GPS doesn't each into all the locations that the HF signals coming from these stations do, so it's less functional overall. Plus it can't replace the functionality in existing devices that depend on the HF signals, of which there are many.
I consider terminating these services to be a very poor decision.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Monday August 27 2018, @09:06PM
...but GPS doesn't
eachreach into all the locations...Double-damn not being able to edit posts. 💩 !!!
(Score: 5, Informative) by martyb on Monday August 27 2018, @11:43AM (2 children)
There are literally millions of devices still in use, and still on sale, that make use of WWVB.
For example, here is a selection of radio-controlled watches from Seiko USA (Javascript required) [seikousa.com] and Citizen USA (91 models!) [citizenwatch.com]. New models are still being released. I don't know about you, but if I just dropped several hundred dollars on a new watch, which kept perfect time through synchronizing with the atomic clock signal broadcast on WWVB, and that time source went away, I'd be very unhappy.
Or, the watch that I bought a few years ago, and that has been keeping perfect time ever since, suddenly became inaccurate? Yeah, not a happy camper.
Let's hope it is just push back from the NIST selecting the most obvious, outcry-inducing candidate for a budget cut target so that they are able to resist having their budget squeezed.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ShadowSystems on Tuesday August 28 2018, @04:07AM
I couldn't agree more or more strongly.
Being that I use atomic-signal-synching talking clocks to keep time, I'd be left with a house full of clocks that were suddenly rendered inaccurate & eventually worthless.
I'd be rather displeased if I have to go back to trying to manually setting clocks again, especially now that it takes so much freakin' longer to set each one.
=-\
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 20 2018, @02:59PM
Cynical career bureaucrats doing this again, you mean:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @05:56PM (1 child)
Complain all you want. I don't think you will change Vladimir's mind on this.
Everything in the US must be connected to the internet.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:12AM
Yup... all our eggs in one basket? Cool!
We are at a time of relative peace in the world right now... or at least peace in the view that no-one's taking potshots at USA.
I think we will be leaving ourselves awful vulnerable to a ton of pea gravel launched into an elliptical polar orbit should some small nation decide to "level the playing field" by rendering space useless to everyone... aka "poisoning the well". This is not a new paradigm...
I believe in redundancy. ( And my post may well be just that, as I haven't read the rest of 'em yet! ).
6 million? Hell, around here, Disney's gonna spend 100 million on a parking lot!
I will throw my hat into the ring on this one too.... Keep WWV on the air! There are way too many things out there which need it, and it serves for backup just in case something in space wipes out satellites as we know it... as I know good and well we get "meteor showers" every once in a while, who knows when we may encounter, in our travels through space, should we encounter a cloud of tiny particles from an ancient asteroid collision, or we be an unwilling target of a coronal ejection?
As important as time sync is these days, I don't wanna risk it to something that requires too complex of infrastructure. If we are ever faced with having to rebuild from the ground up, I want as much technology as possible to survive whatever it was that happened.
Our technology is the only thing thats gonna keep us from reverting to the stone age again.
For if we lose that, its only a matter of time before that which our fathers made deteriorates, and no one knows how to fix. You know, the meme of countless science fiction stories.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by drussell on Monday August 27 2018, @11:18AM
They also have very precise carrier frequencies that can be used as frequency standard references.
Yes, a GPSDO can provide you a great, stable reference, and you can get an accurate time synch from GPS but removing the broadcast time standards is a terribly silly thing to do to save a few bucks.
(Score: 5, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 27 2018, @02:07PM (8 children)
The whole point is that these are a wireless reference, no infrastructure required.
GPS would also be a very good argument as a replacement tech, but why cut off this very different redundant method to save the cost of a fraction of a GPS satellite?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:37PM (1 child)
Use Canada's broadcast then.
(Score: 3, Informative) by drussell on Monday August 27 2018, @05:39PM
I would hope that Canada will step up and start broadcasting on the old WWV frequencies if the USA decides to make the bone-headed move to discontinue their time service. CHU has always intentionally used different frequencies to not interfere with the operation of WWV.
Just saying "use the Canadian station" doesn't help the millions of installed devices that rely on WWV's current frequencies. CHU is also only broadcast from Ottawa and is not generally able to be received in a large part of western Canada and up north, even though the signal is intended to be able to reach worldwide.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:01PM (5 children)
The whole point is that by making you get the time signal from the intarweb tubes, they will have your IP address. Which probably is an IoT device. With the kind of security you've come to expect of IoT devices.
Using a shortwave transmission doesn't let the government know:
* how many people connect
* how often they connect
* where they are
* what kind of device is connecting
* what other devices are on your local network
* what can be seen from the various webcams in your home
* what color skin you might have
* whether that color is in fashion with the current administration
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 27 2018, @07:41PM (4 children)
Contrary to popular opinion, nobody can track you when you're using GPS.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Monday August 27 2018, @09:09PM (2 children)
...but they can track you using a GPS stuck to your whatever. Just saying.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @09:47PM
Even if you stick GPS to a different part of your body they can still track you.
Isn't GPS receive only? You would actually need GPS stuck to a device that then transmits your GPS location -- such as a cell phone. Or a module with both Iridium satellite transceiver AND GPS receiver, for instance.
Others here made a couple excellent points. Even a pure-GPS receiver may not work well or at all indoors, such as a household clock. A GPS receiver, even minimalist, is likely to not be capable of running for long periods, let alone skipping and jumping, on only a single AA battery.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday August 27 2018, @09:50PM
While true, in practice this is a lot less accurate than you would wish. If you've got an unlimited power source, then it can be pretty accurate most of the time, but the low power solutions have some serious granularity issues. Even "high accuracy" mode on a cellphone isn't much to brag about - you know the general area the person is in, but it's not like you could actually catch them on foot (at least not quickly or directly) with the info given by phone trackers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @01:06AM
I would not make it so sure. I was reviewing datasheets and modern GPS chips are falling into these 3 categories:
1. Blatantly informing about GSM modems in it,
2. Being versions of chips from point 1 with modem functions "reduced" what is marked in datasheet.
3. Being GPS-only for first sight, but then you find that company makes a very similar chip with point 1.
So, generally, I would assume that someone who knows what is in these chips and how to launch it, can track.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @10:34AM (3 children)
The what?
(Score: 5, Informative) by drussell on Monday August 27 2018, @11:13AM
NIST is defined at the beginning of the first paragraph.
WWV, WWVB and WWVH aren't acronyms. They are the radio station identifiers for the time standards.
WWV broadcasts on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 MHz from Colorado.
WWVB broadcasts on 60 kHz long wave, also from Colorado.
WWVH broadcasts on 5, 10, and 15 MHz from Hawaii.
It would be silly to shut them off, they're still incredibly useful for a variety of purposes.
Canada also has a time signal station called CHU, been in operation since 1923 which operates on 3.33, 7.85 and 14.67 MHz which can be used for some of the same things as WWV, but any things like automatically synchronized clocks that use the WWV frequencies for their timebase would cease to function without significant modifications to the receivers.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:49PM (1 child)
WTF? Did you RTFA? IMO it was very obvious, but YMMV. LOL
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:06PM
MP3, USB, HTML, PHP
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by suburbanitemediocrity on Monday August 27 2018, @10:42AM (7 children)
Actually I'll probably get it from someone else's gps.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dindustrial&field-keywords=gps+clock [amazon.com]
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gps+master+clock [ebay.com]
Looks like there are even nerd kits
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=gps+clock+kit [ebay.com]
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Monday August 27 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)
I've always been confused why GPS clocks aren't used in consumer devices. When I'm near a timezone border GPS should know both my location and GMT, so my phone should not need to ask a cell tower what time it is where I am.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @08:54PM
Well, go inside a building and find out why.
(Score: 3, Informative) by doke on Monday August 27 2018, @02:20PM (3 children)
GPS doesn't work indoors. The GPS radio signal isn't strong enough to go through roofs. The WWVB signal is at a lower frequency, which goes through walls much better. Where I live, in Delaware, on the east coast, the signal is pretty weak, but you can still get it in a second floor room.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LVDOVICVS on Monday August 27 2018, @03:28PM (1 child)
I live in Michigan and you can get the signal in a basement. I do on a daily basis. The only time I don't get it is when it's stormy but it's available probably 95% time regardless.
Now if the guy above can explain how I can get GPS time, then produce a signal that will keep my several clocks synced that'd be great. And it's important to make sure to stay legal with the FCC since the time signals at their proper frequencies aren't available for broadcast to amateurs that would help, too.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Monday August 27 2018, @09:15PM
Wouldn't take much at all to accomplish that; in fact, many GPS receivers are equipped with a precision 10 MHz reference output that can be (and often is) used to stabilize an SDR or other hardware. It would be the work of just a few hours to talk to a smart GPS receiver (these already exist) and synthesize the WWV(B) format, which is hardly complex, then tack it on a frequency-stabilized transmission at low power, which would allow your local devices to synch up. You could even add a nice synthesized voice of your choice. :)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @06:49PM
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:09PM
Try disinfecting the gps first.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 27 2018, @11:28AM (10 children)
Utterly fail to notice? I have absolutely nothing that uses any of the above stations for time adjustment and never have.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:50AM (4 children)
Look a little deeper, oh powerful and self-satisfied raptor.
For example, here is one list of users,
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/radio-stations/wwv/manufacturers-time-and-frequency-receivers [nist.gov]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 27 2018, @12:30PM (3 children)
Yep, but I'd never had anything whatsoever that self-adjusted its time until things started doing it over ntp.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 27 2018, @10:09PM (2 children)
We have one. The main clock in the living room.
My wife doesn't realise that it's not actually receiving correctly, and I adjusted it to three minutes ahead, to reduce tardiness.
I'm less worried about the end of WWVB, than about her paying attention to the discrepancy with the time on her phone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:19AM (1 child)
> My wife doesn't realise that it's not actually receiving correctly, and I adjusted it to three minutes ahead,
From experience, I don't think the deception of your wife is necessary to generate the desired result (less tardiness).
At college a wall clock I used frequently (in a common room area) had a sign under it "10 minutes fast" and it was set as described. But even knowing that it was advanced, looking at it (too lazy to make the mental subtraction?) and seeing that I was about to be late was enough to get me moving. And then the extra 10 minutes to walk across campus was handy...
My suggestion is to come clean and then go for a bigger offset, 5 or even 10 minutes.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:14AM
She sets the kitchen clock 11 minutes ahead, and her car clock 12 minutes ahead ... yet is still late.
*sobs*
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:25PM
You might not, but many other people do. I did a count just now and I have three in my home that update based on WWVB. It's an easy and useful way to have a very accurate clock.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday August 27 2018, @05:15PM (3 children)
Luck you. But if you want a wall clock that keeps accurate time there really isn't another option unless you got to design the place and arrange for an outlet behind the clock. Anything that you can stick a AA battery in and be good is going to either sync to WWVB or be wildly inaccurate.
What other options exist? GPS, even a reduced function version that doesn't attempt calculating position, will consume a lot more power and be unusable in most commercial settings.
NTP might be possible though, now that I ponder it a bit. Do it like the Amazon Dash buttons, super reduced functionality. Put one button on it to engage WPS to obtain the WiFi signal, it does DHCP and if it gets an NTP server that way it uses it, otherwise a built in list of defaults out on the Internet. Wake up daily just long enough to get the time and sleep, as it disciplines its clock wake up less and less often. Upgrade to a TCXO (Temp COMPENSATED Crystal Osc in this case instead of Temp Controlled. Ovens and batteries don't mix.) for the internal clock to make it easier to keep accurate. If the DS3232 can run on a coin cell, AA power is also an option. Still probably taking about a pair of AA batteries and a hell of lot more electronics in a "dumb" wall clock.
Another option that might be viable. Can your receive and decode a cell tower without a SIM card enough to at least extract the cell tower ID and time? Since any phone must be able to call 911 even without service, I'd guess yes. So again, wake up daily just long enough to learn time. Not a solution for remote hunting cabins, but would work most places.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:09PM (2 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quartz_clock [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday August 27 2018, @07:31PM (1 child)
Like I said, wildly inaccurate. Expecting an off the shelf consumer grade clock to maintain minute per month accuracy is overly optimistic. Being more accurate than most mechanical clocks is a low bar and a lot of the crap on the shelves barely clear it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 27 2018, @08:57PM
Right but I don't care about a wall clock losing/gaining a minute per month. To the nearest quarter hour is granular enough for most things and for those it's not there's my phone or any of the other Internet connected devices I own.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @11:30AM (24 children)
On another site, a poster produced a reasoning that at least the WWVB signal that millions of consumer goods listen into for "auto-clock-setting" features likely won't go silent due to typical "political posturing".
The reasoning went something like this:
This very well may be just what we are seeing here.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Monday August 27 2018, @12:55PM (18 children)
Like when I talk about cutting taxes the first thing out of peoples' mouths is firing the police, fire department, and road crew. Yeah I totally mean cutting critical infrastructure first.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday August 27 2018, @01:59PM (17 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:12PM
The NSA wiretap budget? I'm sure you could save a lot of money that way.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:42PM (3 children)
Police, fire, public schools.
Everything that is 'so important' that the government will literally come to your house and seize everything you have and/or shoot you if you don't pay for them. It's called "property tax".
If I don't want to pay a road tax, I can stop driving. If I don't want to pay sales tax, I can stop buying stuff. If I don't want to pay for police, fire, and public schools...they show up and *force* me to pay for them.
(Score: 2) by vux984 on Monday August 27 2018, @03:54PM (1 child)
"It's called "property tax"
If you don't want to pay property tax, don't own property.
"the government will literally come to your house and seize everything you have and/or shoot you if you don't pay for them."
Oh grow up; they'll only shoot you if you get violent in your confrontation. No one has ever been shot simply for refusing to pay taxes. You can get shot for speeding too, if instead of stopping when caught you decide to try to use the vehicle to run people down to get away... but then even in that case, you aren't being shot for speeding are you? No, its for the attempted murder.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday August 27 2018, @04:23PM
You're right, sort of. One wouldn't get shot directly for refusing to pay taxes. First they come to take ones things, to evict one from ones property, or perhaps even for the purpose of kidnapping. Then, if one resists, one is shot. Not for refusing to pay taxes. For resisting.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:19PM
There must be a tiny island somewhere that would suit your unique tastes. Or a remote cave somewhere.
Humans have always formed governments. Taxes are at least as old as recorded history.
It is possible to stop paying taxes. They won't force you to pay them. They will eventually take you to a place with: No driving. No buying stuff. No need for police, fire or public schools.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday August 27 2018, @05:53PM (9 children)
Too many things to list. For every line item ask a few questions:
1. Is this level of government even authorized to do this? Hint: the List of Enumerated powers for the Fed Gov is really short. Most of what it currently does is not on the list. 9th and 10th Amendment time. States vary a lot but unless they go back and specifically amend to permit, a good part of what they do isn't authorized either.
2. Is this function something that government is best suited to doing? Must it actually do it or can it privatize it?
3. Does it need doing at all? Even if the government is best suited to do it, does it need doing? Most times this question is never asked. Or it was worth doing at some point in the past but government programs tend toward immortality.
4. How much money is being wasted on this? Almost any government program could cut 10% and not reduce end point functions.
So lets look at government schools and apply these guidelines. Not listed as an enumerated power so eliminate the Dept of Education entirely. Any statistical aggregation or other vestigial functions can be absorbed into other Depts. If a State or local government wants to run K12 schools it probably can. But look at the waste. The ratio of employees to students has dropped greatly over the last hundred years as all manner of useless functionaries have been stuffed into schools while student performance has dropped by every measure applied to the subject. Obviously throwing money and headcount at the problem did nothing to help and almost certainly made things worse. So cut. Now look how much money is wasted on athletic programs that are mostly prestige ops for the school and alumni along with a free farm team system feeding the NCAA and NFL/NBA. If somebody else wants to raise money and build the lavish stadiums, gymnasiums, field houses and other crap then let them. But no more taxpayer subsidies. If the PE coach wants to run a team on a truly amateur level against other local schools it can be done on a lot less budget.
Policing? Well I have heard a local mayor say they would have dis-incorporated a long time ago had it not been for a short strip of US Highway running along the edge of the city limit that pays all of the expenses of maintaining a town. Taxation Without Representation, since they never write tickets on locals who can vote against it. So that entire police force should not exist since it exists to raise the taxes to allow it to exist to raise..... While not all are on that level, most "police" spend at least half their work day as tax collectors running the same basic scam. If a good chunk of em were cut to part time public safety would not be impacted at all. But the residents of a town would be forced to actually pay for the level of police it wants to have instead of taxing passers by. Then they bitch when they get nailed as soon as they leave town and fail to realize those greedy bastards in the town next door are doing exactly the same thing as they are.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:23PM (8 children)
Privatize the fire department.
It can be paid by fire insurance. Sort of like healthcare.
Oh, we can't start fighting the fire yet. Your policy doesn't kick in until at least 1/6 of your home is destroyed.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday August 27 2018, @07:26PM
Read a history book. First fire departments WERE created by the insurance industry. If you sell enough premiums in an area it pays to build a fire station to reduce claims so they did. Eventually the government took it over. Did cost / benefit improve or decline? Once you can answer that you can decide whether government should continue running them or explore other options. I remember when the ambulance company around here ran subscription drives. Members got close to free use, anyone else would of course be served but you got a hefty bill and most health insurance balked at covering it. Think most insurance just covers ambulance service now because there aren't membership drives anymore. But they aren't government agencies either so there is your example of private emergency services in action in $current_year.
Remember, just because government should not do something does not mean it should not be done. We used to have a wide ranging set of interlocking charities helping the poor and unfortunate. Mutual aid societies, churches, charitable foundations and trusts, etc. Now all that has been almost entirely replaced with a vast set of interlocking government agencies even when the final end point is a "private" charity in a "public / private partnership" where a private entity hands out government money. Did things improve? Has the poverty rate moved? Which is sort of a trick question since the official metric used to measure poverty incorporates a mechanism to assure a fairly unchanging percentage of the population will officially be "in poverty" regardless of presence of lack of material want that would impair health or the basics of living. Talk about job insurance. When obesity is the number one health issue for "the poorest" it is obvious we solved any actual problem that can be solved by throwing money at it generations ago. What is left is a self licking ice cream cone called the "poverty industry."
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:59AM (6 children)
Volunteer fire depts. often work on a subscription basis: either you pay the fee that keeps the dept. running (mainly paying for equipment maintenance), or when your house catches fire, they let it burn (to whatever degree doesn't endanger other property) -- because otherwise pretty soon everyone is a freeloader.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @12:55PM (5 children)
Interesting.
It sounds like insurance. Or a protection racket. But maybe I'm being redundant.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:08PM (4 children)
Yeah, same principle, just done on a purely voluntary basis. It's not like they go around setting fires in houses that don't pay up.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:17PM (1 child)
That is a good thing.
But doing so would strongly encourage everyone to pay up.
Insurance companies still haven't picked up on this technique to increase revenue.
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 28 2018, @04:19PM
Good point.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday August 28 2018, @06:55PM (1 child)
Not as a general practice, no. Of course, there are individual criminals in any group.
There have actually been quite a few known cases where people who were firefighters or associated in some way engage in essentially random arson. John Leonard Orr, for instance, was an arson investigator and former fire captain who was tried and convited of serial arson. Currently serving a life sentence.
All the examples I can think of were associated with public departments though, not volunteers. Not that it couldn't happen; in fact I bet it has, I just can't think of an example off the top of my head.
But yes, that's clearly criminal behavior that's not tolerated when it's detected.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday August 28 2018, @08:09PM
Well, yeah, there will always be a few nuts who descend from professed altruism into criminal behavior....
...and I don't doubt that in the days of private protection rackets that preceded state-run police, the occasional staged robbery encouraged everyone to pay up.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday August 27 2018, @06:26PM (1 child)
SLS -- Senate Launch System
When trying to solve a problem don't ask who suffers from the problem, ask who profits from the problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:55PM
Senate Lunch System
Fixed that for you!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 27 2018, @02:46PM
3. Agency proposes cuts to extremely useful services for millions.
4. Politicans calculate it will not cost them votes nor financial support from important industrial complex backers, and may in fact gain votes with the "we don't care about science only our jerbs" crowd. (None of whom are employed by the companies/sectors involved). Politicians say "fuck it."
5. Agency gets to decide if it really needs the service and what else it could sacrifice instead and then go begging hat-in-hand to restore lesser funding.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @03:10PM
But, in most cases there's no point in making those 10% cuts as most of those agencies aren't being allocated enough money to be a real problem. In this case, that's $6.3m, which for an individual is a lot of money, but for a hundred people, that would be enough to buy most of them houses. Not a large amount of money when you consider how much money is being spent by the government.
The real budget problems never get addressed because they're supported by powerful special interest groups, the defense budget and those asinine tax cuts for the rich are nearly the entire budget problem. We don't need over $700bn for our military, that's more than we were spending at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with all the funding, you better believe their going to find a war that will necessitate further increases.
Likewise with the tax cuts for the wealthy, the only thing it's succeeded in doing there is throwing fuel on the stock market and moving the upcoming market correction closer. The poor will wind up losing out and the rich will use that as an opportunity to secure even more wealth and buy weaker companies at a discount, further concentrating the power in the hands of a small number of people, just like they did during the last recession.
And yet, the cuts we're likely to get are going to be to social programs that benefit normal people and the tax hikes are ultimately on the normal people as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:18PM (1 child)
Came here to post the same speculation: it sounds like the budge hoopla usually around cutting national/state parks services.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @08:59PM
I think the problem is that Congress feels safe doing this, knowing the public won't organize and start raising all sorts of ruckus over Congressional retirement plans, medical plans, and double-dipping.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday August 27 2018, @06:09PM
Agency proposes cuts only to extremely popular services,
If the only people complaining are HAM people then I'm pretty confident that it's not actually an extremely popular service.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by urza9814 on Monday August 27 2018, @02:12PM (3 children)
Same thing I will do if it doesn't -- not notice.
Given how long these stations have been around, I've gotta assume that it shouldn't be too difficult to set up a short range replacement transmission that syncs to GPS/NTP. Maybe you'll only get the signal while you're home, but if your watch/clock can't manage a few hours/days without going out of sync then it's probably well past time for a new one anyway.
Perhaps there's legal issues with doing it for that specific frequency...but generally I'd think someone could sell a $20 WWVB transmitter hat for a Raspberry Pi if there's any real demand for that functionality...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @02:53PM (2 children)
Sure. I'm sure setting up dozens (hundreds?) of smaller transmitters will cost less than two large ones. And all existing devices lose calibration if they're not receiving the sync signals on the proper shortwave frequencies. And "manage a few hours/days without...".... reveals you don't understand. Once receiving the sync signal regularly they correct themselves automatically without intervention and effectively never go out of sync. (Unless you meant taking the time to resynchronize your device every few days to make it accurate again, which again shows you don't have the point.)
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @02:39PM (1 child)
It might; this is probably a $100 device, so you could build tens of thousands of the suckers. And if they're actually needed in that volume the price could certainly be reduced. Perhaps more importantly, then the cost will be paid by the minority that actually uses the service rather than being paid mostly by people who couldn't care less if it shuts down. The point isn't that this is a good replacement; the point is that it's a reasonable way to bridge the gap for the few people who might still have a legitimate need for that service (as well as the geeks who want to have it just because). If you personally have a single clock using this method of sync, it's probably better to just buy a less obsolete clock; if you have a school with a radio synced clock in each classroom then it's probably worth it to pay a couple hundred bucks to keep them synced.
Right. Same thing happens to my PC if it loses NTP sync. But that doesn't happen instantly, it happens over days/months/years depending on the build quality of the clock. And you can still set it manually if building your own transmitter is too much effort; alternatives are mostly going to be of use for organizations with a large deployment of these clocks.
I think I was pretty clear about what I meant there in the first place...maybe you missed it:
The idea is that if you build your own transmitter, it's going to be a short range device. It'll cover your home or an office building, but it won't cover the entire friggin' world. So if your watch syncs to that small transmitter, and you leave the transmitter range, your watch will start to drift. But again, it won't instantly forget what time it is; it will slowly drift over the next few days/months/years. Probably worst case if you built one of these in your home, then you go to work and your watch drifts so by the time you go home it's off by a few seconds, but then you get home and it re-syncs and you're good to go for the next day.
Back when I was in elementary school you could buy a wristwatch for under $20 that would keep time for years using only a single coin cell battery and could go more than a year with at most a minute or two of drift. And here we are decades later and you expect me to believe that clocks need to be synced to an external source every single minute just to keep accurate time? Just get a better clock already and stop expecting the rest of us to pay the upkeep for your old tech.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 28 2018, @03:41PM
Apparently it's already down closer to $3 -- someone linked below to an article from HackADay showing how to build a transmitter which can overpower and replace the existing clock sync signals using a total of three parts: a $1 ATTiny chip, a length of wire, and a battery. That only broadcasts a pre-programmed time though, so you'd likely want to add either a USB-to-serial interface so it can sync from a computer that syncs through the internet (and then you can remove the battery too and get power from USB) or a GPS receiver. But in the end you could probably sell such a device retail for $20-$30, meaning every year that the transmitter is inactive would save enough money to buy about a quarter million of them.
(Score: 5, Informative) by linuxrocks123 on Monday August 27 2018, @02:15PM (3 children)
https://hackaday.com/2014/03/22/build-your-own-radio-clock-transmitter/ [hackaday.com]
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 27 2018, @02:59PM (2 children)
Good. Now find the article on how to hack together a caesium clock and we're in business. (No points for substituting other reference signals based on cesium.) Yah, I spelled it both ways - sueth me. ;)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:01PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 28 2018, @11:59AM
https://hackaday.com/2016/09/25/rubidium-disciplined-real-time-clock/ [hackaday.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Knowledge Troll on Monday August 27 2018, @03:19PM (1 child)
I use WWV, among other things, as a reference for calibrating my ham radio transceivers. The difference between the oscillator in the radio and WWV can be measured and then the radio frequency corrected to be more accurate. This is pretty common - in the absence of the official WWV signal I'm not sure how I'll do that step.
I'm listening to WWV on 10mhz now:
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 27 2018, @06:19PM
It makes for a rough-and-dirty propagation check as well when you monitor them regularly, too.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @04:09PM
All those collectable GC-1000s become doorstops.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @07:23PM
To keep them around, present them in terms of terrorism: if terrorists take down large portions of our infrastructure, these may be the only viable time-keeping mechanisms. It's one of the arguments used to keep Amtrak. Deregulation-oriented political groups also tend be sensitive to terrorism-related issues for some reason.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday August 27 2018, @08:00PM (1 child)
The same people who preach American exceptionalism also try to save money by finding pennies in the couch cushions. What's wrong with this picture?
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday August 27 2018, @10:15PM
That raise for the Pentagon, and the Trillion-dollar-deficit tax cuts, have to be offset somehow ...
Let's start with few million from NPR, NIST, and Planned Parenthood. Yep. Good work. Done.