Thanks for the RethinkDNS referral, albeit a bit of a learning curve. I had been using DDG protection for a while (out of laziness), but started to wonder if it cut the mustard.
Wouldn't an event like this potentially cause mass disruption of GPS/GLONASS satellites?
I'm surprised no one has considered this as a potential terrorist threat vector. How difficult would it be to send a balloon/large amateur rocket up to start the domino effect?
Yes I did. Here's a copy of the email for those interested:
June 23, 2025
ARRL Announces Logbook of The World® Systems Upgrade
Dear LoTW user,
ARRL’s Logbook of The World® (LoTW®) is the 2nd most popular benefit among members. It is also an extremely popular service internationally for non-members, as it is the primary means for providing confirmations for ARRL Awards, such as DXCC and Worked All States.
As a part of the ongoing modernization of the ARRL systems infrastructure, LoTW will be receiving major upgrades to the operating system it is running on, the relational database system it uses to store and access logbook and awards data, and server hosting, where it will be fully migrated to the cloud. These changes will, among other improvements, ensure LoTW performance needs can be better met based on user demand.
LoTW will be unavailable from June 27 to July 2, 2025, to complete these upgrades. We will bring LoTW back online if it is available sooner than July 2.
If you are a user of LoTW and not an ARRL member, please become a supporter of LoTW by making a $20 (or more) donation to the ARRL LoTW Fund or visit www.arrl.org/donate.
From what I gather, past insulator discoveries allowed electron flow in three or two dimensions, but this new discovery only allows flow in one dimension. I think of it like plumbing, where you have a tee, and the water (electrons) travel through the pipe in three directions (dimensions). Restricting the flow of electrons allows for better focus/flow, which makes for more precise electronic engineering methods.
An EE might be able to elaborate better than my crappy plumbing analogy.
I have noticed a similar behavior on one of my machines recently. Usually it's a video (or recently played Spotify song) that gets 'stuck' there. Have you tried opening a new instance of Firefox, playing a video, then lock the computer (win + L) to see if it- at the very least- changes/updates to the newly opened video?
