Americans: be prepared for your cell phone to scream Wednesday at about 2:20pm EDT

FEMA is going to be broadcasting an emergency alert test to every cell phone in the USA. I have no idea if this will bleed over to Canada or Mexico, hopefully it won't. I expect it to be kind of annoying, I should put an alert on my phone to go silent for 10-15 minutes around that time tomorrow.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/emergency-alert-test-october-4-2023-fema-fcc-cellphones-tvs-radios/

Dish TV issued a $150,000 fine for failing to park a dying satellite properly!

This is a first. And since the Bloomberg article is potentially behind a paywall, I'll quote the Slashdot summary:

Todd Shields and Loren Grush reporting via Bloomberg:
Dish Network Corp. was fined $150,000 by US regulators for leaving a retired satellite parked in the wrong place in space, reflecting official concern over the growing amount of debris orbiting Earth and the potential for mishaps. The Federal Communications Commission called the action its first to enforce safeguards against orbital debris. "This is a breakthrough settlement, making very clear the FCC has strong enforcement authority and capability to enforce its vitally important space debris rules," Loyaan A. Egal, the agency's enforcement bureau chief, said in a statement.

Dish's EchoStar-7 satellite, which relayed pay-TV signals, ran short of fuel, and the company retired it at an altitude roughly 76 miles (122 kilometers) above its operational orbit. It was supposed to have been parked 186 miles above its operational orbit, the FCC said in an order (PDF). The company admitted it failed to park EchoStar-7 as authorized. It agreed to implement a compliance plan and pay a $150,000 civil penalty, the FCC said.

Now, this is fine and dandy for the FCC fining an American corporation, and I'm for it: we DO NOT need more space junk! But they don't have regulatory power over foreign corps. Will this encourage satellite corps to register companies in, say, the Bahamas to handle certain operations to avoid fines like this? I guess we'll see.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-02/dish-dealt-first-ever-space-debris-fine-for-misparking-satellite

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/10/03/000254/dish-dealt-first-ever-space-debris-fine-for-misparking-satellite

In 2015, Apple released gold Apple Watches for $10-17,000. They are now orphans.

As of the end of September, they will no longer receive OS updates. They can no longer be repaired: no parts, no support, no nuthin'. They are gold-plated worthless paperweights, truly monuments to conspicuous blingy consumption.

And owned by Beyonce and Karl Lagerfeld, Karl apparently never set his up.

$10-20,000 will buy a heck of a nice real mechanical watch that will keep accurate time and will hold its value, if not appreciate. And can continue to be serviced 50+ years from now. I have a friend in Mexico who can rebuild French carriage clocks that are two hundred years old! An Apple Watch that's eight years old? Sadly, now rubbish.

Still, slightly better than that Google watch with the all-glass face that has no parts available for it.

Shortly after the gold Edition was released, a Ceramic and then a Titanium version released. And they'll hit the same end of life wall since they have old electronics in them. It's a sad and inevitable state of affairs creating more ewaste. No idea how recyclable these things are, I wonder how thick the gold plating that a $17,000 watch has. I'm pretty sure gold has increased in value in eight years: strip out the battery and electronics, melt it down, filter out the other metals and you might be able to recover a few thousand bucks.

I have no idea if Apple is still doing these special Edition Watches, I don't keep an eye on their product line that closely.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/the-10000-plus-golden-apple-watch-is-now-obsolete-according-to-apple/

ANOTHER Disney Visual Effects Unit Unionizes!

This is not a repeat post!

A few weeks ago, the Marvel VFX unit unionized. NOW, a unit that DIRECTLY works for Disney and did animation for the live-action remakes of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King has unanimously voted to unionize!

I am sure Bob Iger is supremely unhappy, not to mention the undead head of Walt Disney in the sub-sub-basement under Cinderella's Castle is probably spewing profanities that it's a good thing it's so far underground!

https://gizmodo.com/disney-vfx-union-iatse-vote-hollywood-labor-strikes-1850895304

Matt "I like 'em young" Gaetz gets his wish and the U.S. House now has no leader

Gaetz, who is under investigation by both the FBI and a House committee, carried out his threat to file a motion to remove Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House of Representatives today and the Democrats backed the Republicans who wanted him out, resulting in Kev getting punted on a 216-210 vote with eight Republicans joining the Dems to oust him.

This is going to be interesting. It took a very unusual fifteen rounds to get Kev elected Speaker, and he had to make a lot of compromises to the hard-core fringe of his party. One of those compromises is what cost him his gavel - the ability for ANYONE to call for his removal. No one knows who will be the next Speaker, it'll certainly not be Gaetz. The Speaker is #2 in line to replace the President should he be incapacitated or otherwise removed from office and something were to happen to the Veep. It is entirely possible that the Democratic Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, could become Leader with only a few Republicans getting tired of the fringe of their party jerking the House around.

Thus far, this is THE WORST House for passing legislation. Despite all the posturing, they are not passing bills. Which happens to be their job.

And they have fewer than 45 days until they must get a budget or continuing funding bill passed or the government will shut down and the possibility of the nation's credit rating taking yet another ding happens.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/kevin-mccarthy-voted-out-house-speaker-1234838540/