7 ms·

I’m not sure there’s anything specific about France here. The UK’s bombers operate similarly, and I can’t see any reason anyone else’s wouldn’t. My father wor

by soneil 7y ago

I’m not sure there’s anything specific about France here. The UK’s bombers operate similarly, and I can’t see any reason anyone else’s wouldn’t. My father worked aboard one, and we got to send a weekly “familygram” message - a short, telegram-style message where you put one word in each box until you’re out of boxes, and then mail it off to the Navy. You weren’t allowed to even hint at any bad news - not even that the dog had died - and we were told that any bad news would be removed from the message. And receiving a too-short, redacted, or no familygram at all would probably be more worrying than not being told at all. The reality of it is that if you’re half-way through a 10-week patrol, there’s nothing about this pandemic that’s remotely useful to you. Nothing you can do, nothing you can say, no way you can benefit from this information. It’s 100% useless mental overhead. And to be honest, I think I’m a little jealous right now. I don’t think 100% news saturation is good for us either.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> there’s nothing about this pandemic that’s remotely useful to you Surely it's a planning consideration for the commanders? I think they get world news so that they can inform their decision if they need to decide for example where they go if they can't contact London.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  The article notes that the commanders are likely aware.
  - sgt101 7y ago
    How? The ULW comms network was decommissioned years ago! How would they know?!
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines Radio and satellite comms on the periscopes, among other things.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
      Satellites, and surfacing to periscope depth (or enough to otherwise deploy an antenna) at predetermined, randomized and secret intervals?
      - sgt101 7y ago
        Risky - home base would have to know, and you know what The Hell's Angels say about secrets...
      - pdonis 7y ago
        The satellites don't have to know when the subs are going to come to antenna depth to receive messages. They just broadcast them continuously, and subs receive them when they decide to.
        mywittyname 7y ago
        An always broadcasting satellite may give away position.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Of the satellite, not the sub, and that's not an issue.
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        People know where satellites are anyway - you can literally see them in the sky. You can't hide them!
        mywittyname 7y ago
        Obviously tracking an individual satellite would not provide you with any information, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect my comment to mean that. The major countries all have thousands of merchant vessels traveling in every major shipping lane all over the world. My thinking is navies would be worried about these ships being equipped with sensors that analyze satellite signals looking for what could be intended for submarine communication. Eaves droppers wouldn't even need to break the encryption of the signal, they'd only need to be aware of a signal is being broadcast to only a specific region of the the ocean and that bears other attributes associated with military communication.
- arethuza 7y ago
  The rather quaint processes used by the Royal Navy apparently include checking whether BBC Radio 4 is transmitting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I guess keeping broadcasting Radio 4 no matter what has very significant priority in Her Majesty's Government's crisis plans. You can use Radio 4 to reach the whole country if needed, with I guess just a few generators.
    - soneil 7y ago
      Just for anyone wondering why Radio 4 in particular - it’s the only BBC station we have on Longwave (198? kHz), so you get over-the-horizon service from a single tower. (which is why carries the shipping forecast, and why it’s of particular interest to submarines in the Atlantic too). So using it as a “sign of civilization” (one of multiple) sounds quaint, but with a perfectly logical reason behind it.
  - sgt101 7y ago
    The funny thing is that The Archers is extremely likely to go off the air in the very near future (they can't record any at the moment and they only have a couple of weeks in the can). Since the availability of The Archers is the key sign of life for the UK we better all pray that the Boomer on duty changes shift soon! (or this whole radio 4 thing is utter bollocks)
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Why aren't they recording at home? My understanding was the many of the characters record individually anyway. At least the child actors definitely did, so it must be possible to act and edit together this way. I think cartoons all record individually. You only need a half-decent microphone. You could do it on a bad microphone if you wanted! The Archers is a timeless part of the background noise in many family kitchens in the UK. Seems a shame not to fight through this little piece of calm for normal families in this time of crisis.
lbeltrame 7y ago
> I don’t think 100% news saturation is good for us either. I agree. In Italy basically all the news are just about the coronavirus and nothing else, plus a lot of sensationalism ("we're all gonna die" style), and the Big Brother style press conference every day with the reports of daily numbers of cases, deaths, and recoveries. It's so aggravating and anxiety inducing that I only check a news roundup in the morning and I shut myself away from any other news sources. Not ideal, but at this point it's the only way to make sure I'm not consumed by the constant stream of bad news.
- foxtacles 7y ago
  Similar situation in Germany with regards to the news, I believe. I wish we'd talk more about the effects of the media's reporting style on psychological health. Do we really need headlines and reports about individual deaths every day, live tickers, and an unending amount of notifications and newsletters regarding the same? For people with anxiety disorders it can be total hell right now (talking from experience), and it's much less because of the virus itself than the reporting.
- mmastrac 7y ago
  > Great Brother Curious about this term - is that the back-translated version of "Big Brother" from 1984?
  - lbeltrame 7y ago
    Sorry, I meant Big Brother (and yes, I back translated it from Italian). And I meant the (trash) TV show, rather than 1984.
- airstrike 7y ago
  I've just stopped following COVID-19 news entirely, and leave it to family and friends to unavoidably inform me of the latest stats they feel compelled to share. So I learn enough through osmosis without having to read how 911 is overwhelmed in NYC and see pictures of hospitals flooded with people. There's a limit to well I can self-isolate, and I'm sure I'm already taking every possible precaution. Being more anxious will accomplish nothing.
michaelt 7y ago
Your description reminded me of the British WW1 postcards [1] where, if you were admitted to hospital the messages allowed were "hope to be discharged soon" and "am going on well". [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BRITISH_FIELD_SERVICE_POSTCARD,_FIRST_WORLD_WAR_MH34058.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BRITISH_FIELD_SERVIC...
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  Well, you were allowed to cross that out.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dehrmann 7y ago
> there’s nothing about this pandemic that’s remotely useful to you I've been a little overloaded by metric in tech for the past several years to the point that I sometimes call out metrics getting added as unactionable. There's a cult of metric collection because we can, not because there's anything meaningful there.
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
For no particular reason, I'm imagining a secret code one could use to conceal news that would normally get filtered. Something more subtle than "There's totally NOT a global pandemic right now. Grandma is totally NOT dead. Wink wink."
- KarlKemp 7y ago
  I’d guess people wouldn’t want this news. At least in the abstract, the policy isn’t absurd. The test for Huntington’s (a genetic disease that is 100% fatal and usually starts in your 30s or 40s) might be a good analogue. You’d think everyone would want to know (50% chance if one your parents has it). But IIRC, less than 50% get the test.
smartstakestime 7y ago
You could always turn off the TV.
dragonsngoblins 7y ago
Surely not allowing any bad news would backfire? If I knew that all bad news was being redacted it'd make me worry about whether or not there was bad news I just wasn't being told about constantly.

by soneil 7y ago

chrisseaton 7y ago

> there’s nothing about this pandemic that’s remotely useful to you Surely it's a planning consideration for the commanders? I think they get world news so that they can inform their decision if they need to decide for example where they go if they can't contact London.

ceejayoz 7y ago
The article notes that the commanders are likely aware.
- sgt101 7y ago
  How? The ULW comms network was decommissioned years ago! How would they know?!
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_with_submarines Radio and satellite comms on the periscopes, among other things.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
    Satellites, and surfacing to periscope depth (or enough to otherwise deploy an antenna) at predetermined, randomized and secret intervals?
    - sgt101 7y ago
      Risky - home base would have to know, and you know what The Hell's Angels say about secrets...
    - pdonis 7y ago
      The satellites don't have to know when the subs are going to come to antenna depth to receive messages. They just broadcast them continuously, and subs receive them when they decide to.
      - mywittyname 7y ago
        An always broadcasting satellite may give away position.
        ceejayoz 7y ago
        Of the satellite, not the sub, and that's not an issue.
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        People know where satellites are anyway - you can literally see them in the sky. You can't hide them!
        mywittyname 7y ago
        Obviously tracking an individual satellite would not provide you with any information, so I'm not sure why anyone would expect my comment to mean that. The major countries all have thousands of merchant vessels traveling in every major shipping lane all over the world. My thinking is navies would be worried about these ships being equipped with sensors that analyze satellite signals looking for what could be intended for submarine communication. Eaves droppers wouldn't even need to break the encryption of the signal, they'd only need to be aware of a signal is being broadcast to only a specific region of the the ocean and that bears other attributes associated with military communication.
arethuza 7y ago
The rather quaint processes used by the Royal Navy apparently include checking whether BBC Radio 4 is transmitting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I guess keeping broadcasting Radio 4 no matter what has very significant priority in Her Majesty's Government's crisis plans. You can use Radio 4 to reach the whole country if needed, with I guess just a few generators.
  - soneil 7y ago
    Just for anyone wondering why Radio 4 in particular - it’s the only BBC station we have on Longwave (198? kHz), so you get over-the-horizon service from a single tower. (which is why carries the shipping forecast, and why it’s of particular interest to submarines in the Atlantic too). So using it as a “sign of civilization” (one of multiple) sounds quaint, but with a perfectly logical reason behind it.
- sgt101 7y ago
  The funny thing is that The Archers is extremely likely to go off the air in the very near future (they can't record any at the moment and they only have a couple of weeks in the can). Since the availability of The Archers is the key sign of life for the UK we better all pray that the Boomer on duty changes shift soon! (or this whole radio 4 thing is utter bollocks)
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    Why aren't they recording at home? My understanding was the many of the characters record individually anyway. At least the child actors definitely did, so it must be possible to act and edit together this way. I think cartoons all record individually. You only need a half-decent microphone. You could do it on a bad microphone if you wanted! The Archers is a timeless part of the background noise in many family kitchens in the UK. Seems a shame not to fight through this little piece of calm for normal families in this time of crisis.

lbeltrame 7y ago

> I don’t think 100% news saturation is good for us either. I agree. In Italy basically all the news are just about the coronavirus and nothing else, plus a lot of sensationalism ("we're all gonna die" style), and the Big Brother style press conference every day with the reports of daily numbers of cases, deaths, and recoveries. It's so aggravating and anxiety inducing that I only check a news roundup in the morning and I shut myself away from any other news sources. Not ideal, but at this point it's the only way to make sure I'm not consumed by the constant stream of bad news.

foxtacles 7y ago
Similar situation in Germany with regards to the news, I believe. I wish we'd talk more about the effects of the media's reporting style on psychological health. Do we really need headlines and reports about individual deaths every day, live tickers, and an unending amount of notifications and newsletters regarding the same? For people with anxiety disorders it can be total hell right now (talking from experience), and it's much less because of the virus itself than the reporting.
mmastrac 7y ago
> Great Brother Curious about this term - is that the back-translated version of "Big Brother" from 1984?
- lbeltrame 7y ago
  Sorry, I meant Big Brother (and yes, I back translated it from Italian). And I meant the (trash) TV show, rather than 1984.
airstrike 7y ago
I've just stopped following COVID-19 news entirely, and leave it to family and friends to unavoidably inform me of the latest stats they feel compelled to share. So I learn enough through osmosis without having to read how 911 is overwhelmed in NYC and see pictures of hospitals flooded with people. There's a limit to well I can self-isolate, and I'm sure I'm already taking every possible precaution. Being more anxious will accomplish nothing.

michaelt 7y ago

Your description reminded me of the British WW1 postcards [1] where, if you were admitted to hospital the messages allowed were "hope to be discharged soon" and "am going on well". [1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BRITISH_FIELD_SERVICE_POSTCARD,_FIRST_WORLD_WAR_MH34058.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BRITISH_FIELD_SERVIC...

tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
Well, you were allowed to cross that out.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dehrmann 7y ago

> there’s nothing about this pandemic that’s remotely useful to you I've been a little overloaded by metric in tech for the past several years to the point that I sometimes call out metrics getting added as unactionable. There's a cult of metric collection because we can, not because there's anything meaningful there.

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

For no particular reason, I'm imagining a secret code one could use to conceal news that would normally get filtered. Something more subtle than "There's totally NOT a global pandemic right now. Grandma is totally NOT dead. Wink wink."

KarlKemp 7y ago
I’d guess people wouldn’t want this news. At least in the abstract, the policy isn’t absurd. The test for Huntington’s (a genetic disease that is 100% fatal and usually starts in your 30s or 40s) might be a good analogue. You’d think everyone would want to know (50% chance if one your parents has it). But IIRC, less than 50% get the test.

smartstakestime 7y ago

You could always turn off the TV.

dragonsngoblins 7y ago

Surely not allowing any bad news would backfire? If I knew that all bad news was being redacted it'd make me worry about whether or not there was bad news I just wasn't being told about constantly.