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Also, the ham bands as a whole cannot be used for profit-motives or any financial gain. People often forget this rule. Not to mention the (kind of absurd, IMO) rule against any form of encryption.

Encryption is permitted for remote control of space borne systems.

Repeaters may use any method to limit access and control to authorized users.


I forgot about that one use case. But it's not allowed for most practical purposes in the U.S. at least.

However, I don't believe there's a rule against steganography.

In the US, there certainly is. The rule doesn't mention encryption specifically, it just prohibits "encoding for the purpose of obscuring meaning". The intent is what matters not the method.

would oblivious transfer qualify as OK? if the sender provably doesn't know what's transmitted, will the law rule it a form of obscuring meaning?

You're thinking criminal court standards, like beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction.

It's a procedural thing. The FCC will tell you did it & tell you the penalties. Your options are zero.


Yes, the FCC would (theoretically) just revoke your license to prevent you from doing it again if they so wanted.

Do they also prohibit sarcasm?

I have one too, and it gives off tons of spurious emissions (RF interference).

I pretty much only use it for experimentation and receive.


Did you actually see the spurious emissions on a spectrum analyser?

The old Baofengs had that problem, not Quansheng which are actually clean and the harmonics are within FCC specs.


Another issue is people were “testing” them using an RTLSDR which very easily gets overloaded and shows harmonics where there are none. Even my local FM station shows up on my SDR at frequencies I know they’re not actually transmitting on.

I admit that I have not. But I have used it near other equipment and it causes interference. My Kenwood HT does not.

Ah, ouch. I have two Baofengs as well, I think they're a bit better, but probably not too much better.

Nah. The real one to use is Librewolf.

https://librewolf.net/


LibreWolf is indeed very good.

One of the previous posts mentioned that it changes for them frequently, and I'm pretty much the same way. But for right now:

Fiction: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Non-Fiction: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance


To be clear, both are fiction, it’s just that one is fantasy and the other is set in modern reality.

Hmmm I don’t believe so? Zen is at least portrayed in its conclusion as a true, autobiographical story (with obviously dollops of philosophical musings).


I'm sure you meant, both are non-fiction.

> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Probably one of the few books (the series that is) I could read on repeat and still laugh out loud from.

I agree it's one of the best books out there.


I haven't allowed any mobile app permissions to access my contact list since the option became available to selectively disallow permissions on iOS.

Why would I subject my friends to extra spam/data mining? I never thought this was a good idea.


Apple ][ for me, but essentially the same game.

https://archive.org/details/hitchhiker-guide-to-galaxy-manua...

I tried so damn hard to beat the game...but in the end, I needed the Invisiclues guide. I was also 9 years old, but I got pretty far (missed the vector plotter puzzle and the end one with Marvin). Even so, it's one of my more proud achievements. :)


> essentially the same game

Exactly the same game. All of Infocom's text adventures ran under a bytecode interpreter, with the bytecode being shared across all platforms that a game was released on. There are a number of modern interpreters for that format, too; you don't need to emulate an Apple II to play those games (unless you really want to, of course).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-machine


I totally forgot about this Taco Bell. I used to go there with my dad in the late 80's/early 90's (I grew up in that area).

I don't recall them selling alcohol in those days (I was also much too young to drink then) but it was pretty cool even back then.


> Does AI cheating in school matter much? The primary party that loses out from the cheating is the cheater because they will fail to learn

Sure, I suppose. But the secondary effect is that others with the same Uni degree now have their degree valued less in the eyes of whomever hires the cheater and they fail to do their job right.

Or, much worse, the cheater gets someone hurt or killed. Tech can kill people--just ask Boeing (guess who has large hiring events at my Uni!).

> Universities will not confirm or deny if a particular party got a degree

Hmm. I've had several jobs in the past which, as a contingency of being hired, must show proof of a Uni degree via official transcripts. Mine charges $12 for the privilege of printing out your record on "official paper", stamping it, and mailing it to your presumptive employer (or grad school) on demand.


> Or, much worse, the cheater gets someone hurt or killed. Tech can kill people--just ask Boeing (guess who has large hiring events at my Uni!).

Do you think cheating was a major factor there? Or has Boeing just been prioritizing things like cost over other considerations?

For life critical engineering roles it would be entirely reasonable to test candidates. If an org like Boeing fails to do so, it has to be because they just don't prioritize the candidate's capability.

Of course someone could cheat some but otherwise study and still pass the test, but I think those candidates will already be pretty job performance indistinguishable from people who didn't cheat. A degree only means so much at best.

> I've had several jobs in the past which, as a contingency of being hired, must show proof of a Uni degree via official transcripts.

I'm aware of that practice, though I've never experienced it first hand and you're only the second person who has told me that they've experienced it. In any case, it's easily faked if you're willing to be bold about it, particularly where you've enrolled previously (even briefly) -- get a transcript sent to yourself, make a duplicate that says what you want, send that in. Even if your forgery is not very good it is extremely unlikely to get a careful inspection because faked credentials are not currently recognized to be a widespread problem.

In practice this kind of validation is rare, so even if you're unwilling to go the master-forger route you're just limited somewhat in your hiring pool.

Somewhat ironically, hiring hoops seem to be more common for lower tier position. If your fake degrees aren't working, fake some more and apply as CEO. :D

Even in court I've had difficulty dealing with a party faking their credentials via bare assertion.


Interesting, and I don't disagree that it can be faked...but that's a whole other issue.

For example sake about one of the jobs: it was for a project management position in a big old tech company with three letters.


> > Cheating is widespread because there are people in those courses who aren't interested in the material

This is only part of the issue, IMO. Students (especially CS/Engineering students) are usually overloaded with work.

I've caught otherwise motivated students cheating simply because they're stressed to perform and didn't want to fail--especially since they've usually gotten pretty far in their coursework once they get to me--and the stress got the better of them.

No excuses for them (and I fail cheating/plagarism along with my Uni policy) but lack of interest isn't always the motivating factor.

> I just think assessments should be more holistic

I'm with you on this, but aside from the time issue which I brought up in a previous response, this has been attempted at Uni before. In the 1960s, UCSC attempted to eliminate all grading and assessments and had professors write a narrative about their students. It worked from a knowledge perspective, but was absolutely lambasted in the wider media and academic circles.

https://old.reddit.com/r/UCSC/comments/wpmgax/does_anyone_kn...


Uni CS lecturer here: It's not the writing itself that is important, it's the ability to communicate ideas and express one's own thoughts.

I use writing on exams as a way to determine what the student actually knows about a particular thing. It's not a perfect metric by any stretch, but it's one of the few that we have to test knowledge of a subject (theoretical knowledge) versus a practical demonstration (project or code).


Why not use more oral exams? It'd be quite difficult for me to cheat on an algorithms examination if you and I were talking back and forth in real time. I understand time is probably a factor, but I still think such assessments could be conducted. I had foreign-language assessments and musical assessments conducted in such a manner at the university level.

Not to mention, when those students apply for many of the jobs out there, they might have gained some useful skills for interviewing, conversing with team members, etc..

I'm not opposed to some writing, but it seems like our education system believes it to be the only medium that matters.


> Why not use more oral exams? ... I understand time is probably a factor

We do this, actually. Usually in the form of project demos when students complete a longer project.

But also consider: I have ~200-250 students a semester. Even at 10 minutes a student per semester (and really...how much can I learn about a student in 10 minutes??) that's a whole lot of hours.

I also don't get paid hourly. I also don't get paid a lot. Teaching isn't exactly a high-paying job in the state Uni system.


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