Yeah, as others mentioned, you can get cheaper data plans depending on the monthly data you need.
However, one of the interesting properties is that, unlike with phones, there is no restriction on the number of pagers that can listen to your assigned RIC. You can use one subscription to communicate with as many pagers as you would like, and each individual pager can be programmed using text filters such that one can implement their own sub-address system.
Woah! A new term for biology textbooks. Xenopary. That's really really cool! Thanks for sharing.
Hahaha, didn't mean to send a message 😆
Whether it "spoils" is a matter of perspective, this guy has a recipe on making a Shaggy Ink Sauce: https://foragerchef.com/shaggy-mane-ink/
It reminds of huitlacoche. I am curious if it equally delicious. I have only foraged them once and ate them fresh, but next time I want to try out this recipe.
Yes, you did!! 😀
I think this was the photo that I sketched on top of:
LoRA is sort of a slower version of wifi and as such, you should assume Meshtastic is monitored, at least for traffic metadata. The actual messages are encrypted though.
LoRa is great in that it gives us direct control and ownership over the infrastructure. One can participate in the network without their identity being known. But, yes, traffic metadata specifying the sender and recipient identifiers are plain text and can be easily logged.
Default configurations will have your device broadcasting often to contact new neighbors and will re-broadcast incoming messages. Since the device is quite active, and the chirped signal signal so characteristic when seeing via an SDR, someone who is actively tracking a Meshtastic device can do so very effectively.
Still, the fact that you own fully the device and have total control over it opens up a lot of possibilities. To give one example: if the mesh around here were strong, I could make use of a device configured for Rx only as a meshtastic pager. I might set up my Raspberry pi to inject a message from a randomized sender via MQTT in response to an XMPP message. Then, I would not use any radio transmitter at all.
For regular peer-to-peer chatting, yes, the default properties are very leaky, but we can change some of what we don't like.
There is actually still such a thing as a satellite pager, a receive-only device that can get pages that cover regions as big as small countries. They stopped making the receivers quite a while back, but some are still around and the subscriptions are still available, though expensive. This info is itself some years old so maybe they are all gone by now.
That is very interesting. When I looked into satellite devices I only found two way devices, like the GARMIN inReach. I figured that it made sense that satellite comms would be 2-way because broadcasting all over the world seems rather extreme.
I have searched for these now and found the Iridium 9501 from Motorola. It is pricey, ~$680 for the device and either $90 (150 messages) or $150 (unlimited) per month for the subscription. In the description it says that you do need to program three 'Message Delivery Areas' as the messages are not broadcast globally, but I think this is acceptable.
Thanks for pointing that out. $90/month is pricey.... But it is cool enough that I would seriously consider it if I would travel a lot for work.
POCSAG pagers still exist in the US too, though again, they are quite expensive compared to cell phones. Their main attraction is supposed to be higher reliability, so e.g. doctors can get paged even with the mobile phone network is out. I don’t know if that advantage still exists. In the more distant past there was something called ARDIS which I think is gone now. That was quite a robust signal, so you could get paged even in sub-basements of buildings and places where mobile phones didn’t work. Repair technicians who worked in those places often carried them.
I think that the advantage might still exist, especially in buildings with thick walls and underground floors. While looking into pagers I found discussions about them being phased out in many hospitals and replaced with 'EPIC secure chat' and with sharing private cellphone numbers.
In the Netherlands there is also the P2000 system, which is considered to be very reliable. That network makes use of FLEX to send messages to emergency services. It is possible to easily capture those too using SDR, or to see a live dump of these messages in sites like this one: https://p2000-online.net/alleregiosf.html
I’ve followed this stuff slightly as it’s interesting for the reasons you say, but I’d have to say it’s not really cost effective for most of us. POCSAG in particular only works in relatively localized areas like single countries. I know a guy who would want something like it, but only if it worked pretty much everywhere, since he travels a lot.
Yea, I can see that. So, that guy might like the satellite pager, but probably will not like the price tag.
Thanks for your reply!
Some of these terms I am not yet familiar with, so I will need to do some reading. I'll save this comment and come back during the week. It seems like you are very knowledgeable about display technologies! Very cool
Why not RGBW with some interesting wavelength response of the white subpixel?
Hmm, I'm not really sure. A monochrome pixel would be much more sensitive, but without a neutral density filter it might saturate when the RGB pixels are well-exposed. With a neutral density filter I think it could resolve better the variation of light intensities of very small features.
Same with LCDs. It wouldn’t take much change in the manufacturing process much to create a WWW or YWB 1080p LCD that has less or no color but passes way more light, allowing less backlight or even a reflective mode, while still being driven with conventional electronics
So, would the WWW be a monochrome LCD? Wouldn't these be similar to the ones sometimes used in small electronic displays like this one:
I am not sure of what the YWB would do.
These could be used in public transport signage etc. In some cases, a monochrome LCD with RGB backlight could also come in handy.
I am also interested in the use of the 'E-Ink' displays for public signage in well-illuminated places. I found a few examples online:
Also not really related but it infuriates me that Samsung turned the Bayer filter 45°, halved the pixel count and patented it as an OLED pattern so nobody can make similar displays.
I am not familiar with this... I looked it up and I think it is this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenTile_matrix_family
I'll look into it. Interesting!
Interesting examples, we’re really splitting hairs here.
Haha, maybe 😜 I did some reflection about why the term 'artificial' in the context of photography made me want to jump into the conversation in the first place. I think that the reason is that the term 'artificial' implies that there is a boundary between what corresponds to a 'natural' photograph and an 'artificial' photograph.
Thanks for responding to those examples and giving a definition, I think now I better understand what you mean when you say 'artificial'. I was interpreting it from a universal point of view of 'natural/artificial', but I see now that you meant it in the sense of the camera's nature. So, if one simply takes a photo with the camera, it is 'natural' in the sense that the camera's nature was enough to capture that image. When a human uses a technique that creates an image cannot be captured by the camera itself, then it is 'artificial'.
No need to continue discussing the semantics of 'artificial', I think we both know what each other means now 😄
Still, always to chat more about these things as I enjoy talking about techniques. I am actually considering getting a monochrome industrial camera to create some color images manually. I already have filters from UV to the near-IR. Like what I mentioned in example 4. I am curious about whether I can capture noticeably better luminances throughout by using the filters manually. I'm also keeping an eye for an affordable camera with this sensor type: https://www.sony-semicon.com/en/products/is/industry/multispectral.html ...
Ah, alright! My reason for describing the details of the process was primarily to emphasize the parallels along the processing chain between different techniques.
I am curious about how you draw the line between 'artificial' and 'not artificial', hope you don't mind me asking.
It is not about colorspace conversion. Most color cameras today use a Bayer filter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayer_filter . The camera captures 3 almost-overlapping images, one green, one blue, one red. Using data from these three images, it calculates the red,green,blue values for each pixel. This combines a physical technique (the Bayer filtering) with digital software algorithms to produce the final image.
In focus stacking, one generates a set of overlapping images while scanning the focal plane. Software is then used to combine the in-focus slices to produce an image that is in focus over a wider depth of field. So, again, we combine a physical process (movement of the focal plane) with a digital processing method.
In the first case you have a technique that has been implemented at the hardware level by camera sensor engineers. The second is a technique that is implemented at the photographer level. I see both techniques as equally 'artificial'. In the first case the filters scan through colors. In the second case the focal plane is scanned. In the first case the people who developed the camera firmware did the work of automated processing, in the second case the photographer needs to do the processing themselves.
I don't mean to debate your definition, I just wanted to jump in and share my perspective.
I understand where you are coming from, but I think that - perhaps without realizing it - you are using a definition of 'artificial' that practically categorizes all photography as 'artificial'.
For example: Camera sensors and also the older types of photographic film usually do not discriminate color directly. Techniques are used to combine multiple layers of color data together in order to replicate colors as we see them. Inside of modern a digital camera, for example, this is generally done my using a variable color filter grid on top of a monocromatic pixel array and then applying an algorithm to smooth out color data. Many camera users today may completely oblivious to this kind of processing, but the camera is making a lot of different choices for them and performing different kinds of processing. There are also other built-in features to removing aliasing, optical aberrations, color correction, etc...
Old school photographers would also need to combine filters or different material films together to create color renditions. It is just that, today, the camera does it for us. But photography involves a lot of these 'artificial' methods to capture an image.
Focus stacking is a technique in which one expands the range of an optical system by capturing multiple slices and combining them optically together to recreate a larger depth of field. This is technical photography.
So, when you call this 'artificial', well... The act of projecting an image into some kind of film and then somehow preserving that image either directly on the film or as a digital representation is an artificial process. All photography is artificial.
AMSTERDAM TRIP: 52.37952717594758, 4.898731163397595 -> 52.373726213381254, 4.8991743688343785 -> 52.37307624236834, 4.892481840346751 -> 52.375235597713356, 4.883881824117286 -> 52.364346142549444, 4.882779439603186 -> 52.358151346039655, 4.868920785661565 -> 52.36032825423474, 4.885688072103288 -> 52.38899110197864, 4.8381014035210965
This scanner is for 2-factor authentication in the case that one does not want to use a phone app. When you try to log in, or pay online, the browser displays a unique QR code that the scanner is able to decode.
You would enter your pin into the scanner, scan the code, and the scanner displays a number. You then type that decoded number into a field under the QR code and your are let through.
It can be ordered for free here in the NL: https://www.ing.nl/particulier/digitaal-bankieren/mijn-ing/scanner
So, with this scanner as a 2FA method, the app is not needed. One can pay offline with a card, online with a scanner, and check account balances through any browser using the scanner to log in.
I love this!!! That's a very cool technique and you draw very well! 😄