A Woman of Leisure

[wednes]

My new meds are making me feel like ass. We know this, this is not a surprise. I doubled the dosage per the docs instructions and everything got exponentially worse. Fie! Then I Emailed work to let them know I wasn't coming in, thinking they'd be pretty peeved. Instead of peevery, they offered me next week off as well. I took them up on it, almost drooling at all the writing and reading I'll be able to accomplish in that amount of time.

I've decided to work on my Serial Killer novel, and have changed the theme to a religious one. The narrator is no longer trying to kill Mikey, but to lead him to salvation. Dami may get to live, because Chandra may become a little less impulsive. Maybe not though...Anyway, I have some swell ideas that will hopefully fall into place once I give this thing a good going over, which I intend to do as soon as I finish rereading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Half Blood Price was just as sad as I remembered it. But I always knew Snape would turn out to be good.

I've been thinking a lot about sattelites lately. There must be zillions of them floating around up there, since so many things are sattelite dependent. I was reading about how the Monterey bay aquarium let another Great White Shark go, and that every time it's dorsal fin breaks the surface it sends a signal to a sattelite. Doesn't that mean that the scientists launched it's own sattelite? And all the phone companies and whatever else that use sattelites, do they all have their own or do they share? And what else do those sattelites do? Are they keeping an eye on us? I bet they are.
It's enough to make you want to wear a foil hat.

Comments

[the-hag.livejournal.com]

yea...but it' such a good look, who wouldn't want to wear it?

**runs away giggling**

[wednes.livejournal.com]

LOL

not a satellite expert

[anathon.livejournal.com]

I was recently explained to that many satellites share work. Some have certain time periods designated for certain tasks while others are designed to pick up certain signals whenever the pop up. While still many others are solely for one purpose. So there are less than zillions but a crap load still.

Re: not a satellite expert

[wednes.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I wonder if there's like, an air traffic controller for sattelites?

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I've often wondered about that, ever since seeing that movie actually (it's from Signs, in case you didn't know).

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

I don't get out much, so It's safe to assume that if the movie came out in the last 20 years, I probably haven't seen it. So, no, I didn't recognize the image.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

It's an M Night Shymalyn movie, which means it's a good one and has an amazing twist. It's also got invading aliens in it.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

What kind of fool builds an antenna into their tinfoil hat?!?!? It defeats the whole purpose of keeping the signals from the Aliens or CIA or Alien-dominated CIA from reaching your brain!

Er, I mean, tinfoil hat. Heh, heh. Some people are nuts. Yeah. That's it.

[hellamama.livejournal.com]

Sorry you feel like crap. How do we know they aren't watching us through our Tivo or something like that?

[wednes.livejournal.com]

Ha! I don't have a Tivo.

Actually, I used to date a guy who was certain the government was watching people through thier cable boxes. He still had cable, but he taped up the front of his box where the "camera" was supposed to be.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Communications satellites tend to have hundreds or thousands of transponders, which are the reciever-transmitter relay doodads. I would doubt that one shark, or even one research institution would even have its own dedicated transponder; it certainly wouldn't have its own satellite.

There is actually a physical limitation on the resolution of a satellite photographing the earth. I did the calculations once, and the biggest satellite that can fit into the rockets available can theoretically reolve down to about 4 inches or so. Enough to see individual people, but not to recognize them. Enough to see a newspaper, but not to read the headline. And a satellite that orbits low enough to do that only can view a spot once or twice a day.

According to there were probably just under 600 functioning satellites in orbit in 2000, and probably about the same number now, assuming they are launched at the same rate that they break down or reenter. That includes commercial communications satellites, military communications satellites, spy satellites, weather satellites, earth resource satellites, scientific satellites, and even interplanetary spacecraft.

That page also indicates about 5000 satellites had been launched by year 2000. It doesn't say what fraction of the 4300 dead satellites are still orbiting, and what fraction have reentered.

700: Zillion or Buttload? You decide.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

Transponders, eh? I had no idea. Well, I guess I had a vague idea about transponders just because of shark shows and scifi movies. ;-}

I'm glad to know it's less than a zillion. I still worry about so-called SPY sattelites. Even if they can't tell what I'm reading, I still don't want them keeping tabs. I bet I'd be easy to recognize from space...

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Eh, spy satellites pretty much work at a real estate level. Finding your secret cabin in the woods. Nobody's gonna spy on you with a satellite. Realistically, they'll spy on you with a video camera bolted to a lampost or utility pole. Better resolution, contiuous coverage, and a lot cheaper.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I've seen those, they creep me out.

[maxverbosity.livejournal.com]

There are tens of thousands of orbiting objects, but only about 600 or so satellites intended for communication, defense, tracking, etc... A great majority of what is in orbit is actually debris from the uncounted launches of probes, satellites, shuttles, rockets and the like. There are also non-operational components orbiting in their useless state, many of which will eventually disintegrate in the atmosphere upon unpowered re-entry.

Scientific grants account for some of the launches, yes. There are fixed and mobile systems for voice, data and other communications, and of course, satellites used for research, like the one tracking sharks in the Pacific. As for sharing, they do share - satellites generally respond to frequencies and are meant to cover regional or worldwide communications depending on the nature of the equipment and programming of the orbiting device.

Sorry if this got involved - I could go on, as scary as that sounds :-)

[wednes.livejournal.com]

That's totally cool. I figured if I asked about sattelites somebody would explain it to me. Luckily I have people like you and peteralway to fill my head with fun facts.

[maxverbosity.livejournal.com]

Yeah, many of them, particularly those meant for worldwide communication, are basically huge relay clusters - the orbiting version of the old phone exchange, if you will.

[wednes.livejournal.com]

See, that's facinating to me.

[maxverbosity.livejournal.com]

I find it fascinating too.

To think, even 20 years ago, cell phones were clunky, inefficient and expensive (and worked on conventional radio frequencies to boot), therefore still uncommon, although long distance calls were beginning to find themselves facilitated by satellites. Many people still had the classic AT&T phone despite the 1983 "Ma Bell" breakup, and only the one phone at that. Computers were in relatively few homes, and even fewer of those people had one of the few Internet services which existed commercially - data communication which used satellites was more the domain of business, science and government still. Television was making extensive use of satellite communication, but then, not as many people had cable and more people still had a conventional antenna on their home (which means, around here, you were picking up signals from several large broadcast towers strategically placed in the area between about Evergreen and Greenfield and Nine and Ten Mile).

The load placed on orbiting communications platforms since those simpler times not too long ago is incredible.

[gifgal.livejournal.com]

what!! i want a free week off offered to me :) im jealous---but hope things get worked out regarding the meds!!

annnnnd. i thought of you when i saw this shirt--its only up for today so check it out!

http://shirt.woot.com/

[wednes.livejournal.com]

I'm sure things will be fine. I talked to my doc today and am most reassured.

That T-shirt is wicked awesome.