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Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#311

Post by account42 »

macspoofing wrote: post #247
bluGill wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't use your 25 year old phone for more than a snake game. most 2g towers have been turned off to make room for 4g and 5g.

That's not a good example of 'planned obsolescence'. 2G wasn't 'planned' to be obsolete, it was superseded by better technologies. Also because 2G is a *service* and not a product, it was a business decision to sunset the *service* since there is a maintenance cost to 2G *service*, as well as an opportunity cost in not being able to reserve 2G radio frequencies for 4G and 5G networks.

2G is not just a service or a business but it is infrastructure.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#312

Post by account42 »

tomcam wrote: post #306
eru wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine devices that don't have built-in obsolescence, or licensing that expires, [...] You can buy long lasting stuff just fine, if you are willing to pay. You can get eternal licenses (or an outright sale of rights), if you are willing to pay. It's all about trade-offs, and many people have priorities that are different from 'last as long as possible'. Eg many computers from the 1980s are still perfectly usable t…

> You can buy long lasting stuff just fine, if you are willing to pay. Where do you recommend I buy long-lasting refrigerators, washers, and dryers?

Right, "willing to pay" is not enough. You also need to know which products will actually last a long time and which products are just the regular crap sold at a high markup. Often this is impossible to tell if you are not an expert in the field.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#313

Post by tomcam »

account42 wrote: post #312
tomcam wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can buy long lasting stuff just fine, if you are willing to pay. Where do you recommend I buy long-lasting refrigerators, washers, and dryers?

Right, "willing to pay" is not enough. You also need to know which products will actually last a long time and which products are just the regular crap sold at a high markup. Often this is impossible to tell if you are not an expert in the field.

That’s what stymies me

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#315

Post by macspoofing »

account42 wrote: post #311
macspoofing wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a good example of 'planned obsolescence'. 2G wasn't 'planned' to be obsolete, it was superseded by better technologies. Also because 2G is a *service* and not a product, it was a business decision to sunset the *service* since there is a maintenance cost to 2G *service*, as well as an opportunity cost in not being able to reserve 2G radio frequencies for 4G and 5G networks.

2G is not just a service or a business but it is infrastructure .

You're being overly pedantic. But OK, 2G is a bunch of infrastructure that is then rented out creating a cell service. Everything else holds true in that there is a maintenance cost and an opportunity cost.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#316

Post by account42 »

macspoofing wrote: post #315
account42 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2G is not just a service or a business but it is infrastructure .

You're being overly pedantic. But OK, 2G is a bunch of infrastructure that is then rented out creating a cell service. Everything else holds true in that there is a maintenance cost and an opportunity cost.

The point is that it has been around so long that so many things depend on it. That makes sunsetting it a public policy decision and not just a business decision.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#317

Post by bdcravens »

makmanalp wrote: post #298
bdcravens wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also helps to have $4.5B (in 2024 dollars) to spend on a project. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/voyager-spacec...

It's not apples to apples of course but that's well within the ballpark of what spacex spends mostly just shooting stuff into orbit in a year: https://spacenews.com/spacex-and-the-categorical-imperative-... Especially for a first time in all of humanity type of mission, half a century ago, which yielded brand new data on faraway objects we'd never had, and considering it's still going and reporting data, it's arguabl…

I 100% agree on the value of it.

My point was the comparisons that are often made, to things like consumer electronics, really aren't apt.

Re: Voyager 1 breaks its silence with NASA via radio transmitter not used since 1981

#318

Post by lostlogin »

concerndc1tizen wrote: post #300
labster wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Normally I assume that privatization is always bad, but can you honestly look at Artemis, Orion, and the fucking Lunar Gateway and think, oh yes more of that please? Commercial space produced almost all successes of the past decade. (That said nationalizing Boeing might be an improvement, but then I’d worry about Lockheed buying America with America’s money.)

You misunderstood: The problem isn't private enterprise, it's organized crime. It's the conversion of public property for pennies on the dollar. It's theft and graft, except it will be legitimized by the government and supreme court. And you'll never get it back, because that would be considered "nationalization" of private property. It was Putin's playbook after the collapse of the (orchestrated?) collapse of the So…

> Putin was democratically elected

Was he? And even if he was, what the story with the bombings that greatly boosted his position? That man is as dirty as they get.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Russian_apartment_bombi...

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