How trivial is it, really? These are spread spectrum devices that could have very sparse duty cycles. If you sending only millisecond bursts a couple of times an hour, for telemetry and whatnot, it would seem pretty hard to get a good fix, especially when moving. I haven't analyzed lora traffic, so just talking out of my ass.

LoRa uses chirping which are much longer than milliseconds. You can clearly see them in a spectrum display. It's a very slow protocol. Not as slow as WISPR or JT8 but still slow. The flip side is that it's robust (the chirping provides a lot of interference protection against fixed-frequency interference for example)

With a couple of GPS-synchronized receivers stationed in an area, child's play. LoRA airtime is extraordinarily long for common spreading factors.

Sdrs are super cheap these days. It wouldn't be hard.

Note: did things in .mil

And here I was firmly believing I’d never hear of Data Becker again …

Should have named it “bot formerly known as Moltbot” and invented a new emoji sigil :)

I hate to be that guy, but why not use pscal ?

It has all you want, plus moon phases!

It's admittedly harder to find these days, and someone should rewrite it in a decent language, but here it is:

https://www.panix.com/~mbh/pscal/

And I also hate to be that guy but pscal...

> someone should rewrite it in a decent language

was coded in BAGS (bash, awk, grep, sed) and Postscript circa 1987 [1], and it's still working almost 40 years later in 2026 !

Perhaps it was in fact coded decently. And licensed decently as well. ^_^

[1]

    AUTHOR:
        Patrick Wood
        Copyright (C) 1987 by Pipeline Associates, Inc.
        Permission is granted to modify and distribute this free of charge.

Well, I sort of agree, it’s a thing of beauty;) and yes, still works like a champ.

It’s hard to maintain though unless you really know your BAGS well.

Before vibe coding, I had tried to rewrite it in python, I believe, and it turned out not to be easier to read at all… but then I got sidetracked and put the project aside.

In my defense, pcal is a rewrite in c and seems horribly complex in comparison.

Maybe I should try to finish it. I hope Pat Wood won’t mind.

My experience has been that the transcriptions are way more detailed and correct when doctors use these scribes.

You could argue that not writing down everything provides a greater signal-noise ratio. Fair enough, but if something seemingly inconsequential is not noted and something is missed, that could worsen medical care.

I'm not sure how this affects malpractice claims - It's now easier to prove (with notes) that the doc "knew" about some detail that would otherwise not have been note down.

I agree the UI on the screenshot is not very accessible. I'm also think that language and tone choice matter a lot when delivering (even constructive) criticism.

There is a fun German word capturing this: “Deutungshohheit”

Not a military wonk, but it’s not entirely clear where these will be useful. This will probably be super useful in Ukraine, where U.S. troops have a solid foothold via NATO allies. But elsewhere, you need to have a solid base, which you may not have, for instance defending Taiwan during an invasion. Also, 750 units produced per months is probably dwarfed by production in Russia or China.

But still, these look impressive and scary.

The USMC is a largely expeditionary force that has to work without much (or any) fire support/big artillery. Their gear has to be tailored for lightweight, mobile and high speed operations; drones make a good fit for this work.

Not sure if these would do well in Ukraine, or scale to larger forces in the first place. Anduril's reputation abroad is pretty low and not much better at home.

I wonder how steam baths, saunas etc compare.

Those would be more similar to hot steam humidifiers, which tend to leave any minerals or impurities behind as deposits inside the machine. That said, I'm not buying the original premise here that water-soluble minerals are in inhalation hazard. Our lungs have robust systems for cleaning out stuff we inhale, it's the exceptions where this doesn't work that get a lot of attention.

I would add "The Tao is silent" by Raymond Smullyan to this list. It's not a translation, or even a rendition, but I should guess anyone with a real interest in the Tao will find that book interesting as well.