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> I love learning about pre-internet ways of transferring data on the back of other things

See Minitel from France and Telidon from Canada as other examples of data systems riding on analogue TV and/or POTS telephone systems.


The same author dabbled in a similar project, so maybe there's a Teletext over ham radio tie-in possible?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/run-a-meshtastic-bbs


Author of the OP article here: Yes, you could 100% send teletext frames over meshtastic: if you're using the unlicensed bands you could even send full carousels with many pages, which is something that isn't really kosher under my reading of the FCC regs for amateur radio, which is why I stuck to a single page SSTV replacement in the article!

I'm familiar with the author's past work on ieee.org and have a sense that he likes to write to/for both hobbyist and professional camps:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/u/stephen-cass


You have me pegged correctly :)


"When you're out of Bud, tough Schlitz"

Since you are comparing Canada and the U.S.A., let's look at some popular phrasing from each's Constitutions:

U.S.A. ''life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness''

Canada ''peace, order, and good government''

Those are fundamental to the identity of each nation's people. Are they core beliefs of the majority of their citizens? Probably. Are Canadians ready to fight a civil war over Alberta separatism? Not at this point, even slightly.


A huge amount of academic research into ''western alienation'' has been, and continues to be, researched at Canadian universities. The concept is bedrock to studies of Canadian history and political science.

I understand this. I lived there, I heard the "Onterrible" jokes and wore them with grace.

The concept of an independent Alberta as an identity is a fringe matter, not equivalent with generalized notions of alienation and grievances related to equivalence within confederation on a policy level.


Wow, I'm not sure where you're going with that. Read up on the ''Brandy Parlit'' debates and you'll see that genocide of indigenous people was never at play in early Quebec. The relationship between European colonists in New France/Lower Canada/Quebec and First Nations has always been frought, but not genocidal.

> One of the "separatist" leaders is hiding from the law in Texas

Which one is that?

One of the separatist leaders was found guilty of misappropriating more than 1.3 million CAD from his elderly aunt and uncle’s bank accounts:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/dennis-modry-misappropriated-...


Apparently more than one are in hiding, TIL. Seems appropriate for the kind of folk that do this.

A related issue is whether, or to what extent, a seceded entity can itself be subject to secession. This concern came up in Quebec when Cree and other groups suggested they'd drop out of post-separation Quebec and ''rejoin'' Canada. Quebec separatists were outraged at the thought of First Nations and pro-Federalist geographical areas turning their new entity into ''Swiss cheese''. It is highly likely that Alberta separatists would face the same challenges and take an equally dim view.

Another case: when Brexit happened, IIRC some people in Scotland were suggesting secession from the UK post-Brexit so they could rejoin the EU.

In a parallel universe - UK never left EU as Scotland, Northern Ireland, and City of London kicked out England and Wales out of UK, and saved everyone years of turmoil.

/sarcasm


With strong justification, as one of the reasons their earlier bid for secession from the UK was squashed was the argument that secession from the UK would also automatically kick them out of the EU.

That is still in play as the failure of Brexit solidifies. They can follow the lead of Ireland and the arrangements for the land crossing with N.I.

>That is still in play as the failure of Brexit solidifies.

To be fair, the failure is on the UK governance itself, not on Brexit. Other major EU economies like France and Germany have seen similar economic trajectories since 2020 as the post-Brexit UK, despite them still being in the EU. The post-2020 Covid and Ukraine crisis are difficult to isolate from Brexit to know if it's just Brexit alone or the world economic situation fucking everyone regardless since then.

Sure, Brexit probably didn't help, but looking at where Germany is now, I feel like UK handled the cold-turkey exit from the union far better than anyone expected.


Sure, the country didn't go back to be a developing nation, but "similar economic trajectories" leaves a lot of margin for how much better or worse it could have been. Purely economically, about 2-5% of GDP growth seems to have been left on the table, and in terms of human cost it's really hard to say anything positive about closing international borders between similar and allied countries

Every single one of the predictions of the Brexiters has been exploded: migration, taxation, funding the NHS, better public services etc.

The cost of implementing customs controls ALONE amounted to more than the sum total of UK contributions to the EU budget from day 1 of the UK joining the common market. The losses to the UK economy have been staggering -- up to 8% of GDP on a recurring basis. And no the UK didn't have a cold-turkey exit from the EU, that would have been a "no deal" exit.

But... but... splutter Brexiters, "look at Germany". Always looking at growth rates and cherrypicking data. Germany has had a massive increase in energy costs, far greater than experienced in the UK.

Go on: tell us Brexit is a mere "flesh wound"

Brexit has been a bone-crushing failure and repeated polls show a majority of the electorate knows it. A toxic minority of older voters, the UK's MAGA cohort, is ready to double down, and all they will achieve if they get anywhere near govt is the breakup of the UK, wihch of course many younger non-English voters support. Either way it's been a quite boon to the EU.


>Every single one of the predictions of the Brexiters has been exploded: migration, taxation, funding the NHS, better public services etc.

Every single one of those went downhill in all of major EU economies since 2020 too. Considering UK had Brexit on top, the fallout seems pretty well managed.

>Always looking at growth rates and cherrypicking data.

We need to be looking at numbers we can somewhat objectively measure to compare. GDP number is cold and soulless, it doesn't care if you GDP went down because of a flood and your neighbor's because of a hurricane, it's still gonna be GDP vs GDP regardless of who fucked up what.


> Quebec separatists were outraged at the thought of First Nations and pro-Federalist geographical areas turning their new entity into ''Swiss cheese''. It is highly likely that Alberta separatists would face the same challenges and take an equally dim view.

This is complicated by the fact that First Nations themselves are highly stratified. They receive billions in dollars from the federal government with zero oversight so corruption is rampant.

So what happens if a majority of First Nations people want to separate but the chiefs in charge of a particular band don't?

It's like the pipeline issue in British Columbia... Bands and their elected officials voted to allow pipelines, then some "hereditary chiefs" associated with environmentalist groups convinced courts that their opinion carries the same weight as elected chiefs and the court blocked pipeline projects.

In Canada there's layers of un-elected government officials and activist judges who seem more concerned with getting federal funding (aka. kickbacks aka. bribes) than any sort of democratic notions.


un-elected government officials and activist judges

Does "activist judge" mean the same thing in Canada that it does in the United States: "Any judge who rules against my position?"

Also:

dismalaf

Name checks out.


That's not what it means, but go off. Although yes it is generally used pejoratively, and if you are using the term, its for a rhetorical effect.

> In Canada there's layers of un-elected government officials and activist judges who seem more concerned with getting federal funding (aka. kickbacks aka. bribes) than any sort of democratic notions.

Citation needed. Good luck


> So what happens if a majority of First Nations people want to separate but the chiefs in charge of a particular band don't?

It seems you're implying something here that is comically ridiculous. Like some sort of crocodile-tear for natives who are unheard, but thankfully you've got their back.

Natives overwhelmingly reject both Quebec and Alberta separatism. Quebec is old news so I'll ignore that, so instead lets stick to Alberta.

The Alberta separatism movement (~30%, which is about the same as the MAGA base in the US, and they are largely interchangeable and driven by the same racism and stupidity, and the MAGA base is hugely the reason this is all happening, grotesquely interfering in Canada) is overwhelmingly filled with right-wing, racist, backwards hicks. The idea of being dragged along with the goals of those people is utterly orthogonal to the best interest of natives, for blatantly obvious reasons.

>Bands and their elected officials voted to allow pipelines, then some "hereditary chiefs" associated with environmentalist groups convinced courts that their opinion carries the same weight as elected chiefs and the court blocked pipeline projects

You mean the pipeline that is currently fully built and operating at triple capacity? THAT pipeline? Or the many other pipelines that have been built, where resource extraction is higher than it has been in history?

Or maybe you're talking about the coast to coast pipeline that would have been built under the national energy program that Alberta not only rejected, but they use as the basis of their rage to this day (while simultaneously bashing their fists about not having a coast to coast pipeline).


[flagged]


> Your comment is nothing more than a broad ethnic slur

Have you considered that it may not be an insult but legitimate criticism?

The official government stat is 1.05M FN members. They have been targeted by over 200B$ in federal wealth transfers alone excluding tax incentives, provincial and municipal funding since 2015. That's almost 20K$ per person per year, more than what most Canadians pay in taxes each year and yet many FN communities don't have running water.

I think to ask about potential corruption or at least gross mismanagement is absolutly legitimate.


Interesting that you use the term ''ask'' when the person did not ask any question when making the broad ethnic slur.

I've put up some basic numbers in another comment that foreshadow what a futile exercise this is likely to be for the separatists.

If they force their opponent to chew through all their available resources leaving them unable to respond in other areas, was it really futile?

they arent that smart - they're burning through their own resources responding to trolls from their other policies like easy recall petitions

the resources for anti-separatism while trump is around are endless, and you dont need to spend time convincing or anything.

theyve really gotten their opposition more organized, and say, working on more ambitious projects like corb lunds anti-coal petition


I'm not following your comment. How do you envision what you're suggesting, in real world terms?

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