For the amount of it that we use and because of how it just works ™ on the user experience side you would think GPS or wifi or cell communications must be fairly simple to setup and design and not be all that fickle in principle.
You’d be wrong though, I think. Theres like 50 layers of redundancies, the communication methods are sometimes very complicated, and even then antenna systems are fickle and have to be calibrated, etc
Honestly the fact that GPS exists is a massive feat of human ingenuity, of course, but the fact that it’s a banal is what’s really impressive, you’d think that it’s so complicated that you’d be actively involved or aware of the process and like,,, nope. Just hundreds of thousands of people knowing their location in real time, at the same time, communicating over the same band of frequencies, all from a computer/computers in space, no fucking sweat, actually, it’s going to run in the background! Cool. Nobody even has to think about that.
There are fucking Galois polynomials and spreading codes and encryption and linear time shift filters and whatever the fuck going into space, most of it looking like total noise until the satellite uses the correct code and pulls the real signals up about 30db in gain to make a clear signal and then it’s being processed and inferenced and disassembled and reassembled or whatever and shot back down right at you… and you, the user, all you had to do was press a fucking button that turns it on. That’s magic baybee!
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#proud citizen of The Future
Brinens and Things 