Heh, welcome to RF; there are more rabbit holes to go down in domain specialty than I think there are grains of sand on a beach. I've gone down like... two. And I'm pretty overwhelmed.
I think that's why a lot of EEs and developers wind up getting an amateur radio license, or at least running a few fun RF projects.
There are a few knockoff options too, which are not quite as nicely calibrated, but get the job done for much less than Fluke-level prices. Like the FOTRIC TD2.
Apple actually is making M-series servers for their own internal use now—but it doesn't seem like they're intended for direct sales at all, disappointingly.
As another STL resident, fireworks are illegal everywhere in the County (not sure if St. Charles as well, but probably), and our local muni PD even sent out multiple warnings about prosecution.
But our inner ring suburb was similarly full of smoke last night and the smell of many amateur fireworks shows.
Only a few in my neighborhood, but they were quite the production. I remember firing a few bottle rockets as a kid, but these were definitely a few steps above that! Sounded like mini mortars, maybe those boxes with a bunch of shells timed to go after each other.
A modern author who's fairly good in this regard is Andy Weir; the main thing is you have to do a ton of research while writing and have trusted sources (I think Clancy had many) to rely on when mulling over the details.
The tough thing is, once you get "above average" in terms of accuracy, those of us who like to be a little more pedantic will grade on a curve!
I buy physical media, and immediately rip it to my Jellyfin library.
The disc goes into a big case logic cd case, and the digital file gets backed up to two other places so there's almost an infinitesimally small chance I lose access to the content.
I do wish there were something like Oculink, but with power available over the connector. USB-C does almost everything, but it seems the chips to break out PCIe lanes for USB4/Thunderbolt for higher speed devices are still a significant cost for accessories.
Thunderbolt hubs are rather amazing now; in the past they'd either get super hot and have reliability issues, or had severe bandwidth limitations (especially if using larger displays).
The current crop has been great for my needs — a couple models have 10G Ethernet built in (CalDigit is the one I'm using now), and most now have more than one Thunderbolt port that allows a high speed storage device to be used as well (in addition to a 5K or 4K display or two!).
If your entire goal is to create a standard... it seems like giving anyone access to the materials needed to _adhere_ to said standard is prerequisite.
Unless the goal is not to create standards, but instead to control access to said standard.
The US invested $8 billion into upgrades... and then killed off the program due to tons of problems with the upgrades[1]:
> However, the program was unable to deliver needed capabilities on an operationally relevant timeline at an acceptable level of risk to meet the GPS constellation modernization needs.
Hopefully the newer equipment and incremental improvements can bridge over to whatever's next.
GPS uses atomic clocks, not sure why we'd need something more precise for a timing reference on any other satellite system, unless you wanted to get like millimeter-level accuracy using nothing but satellites (and that would require a lot more than just a better clock on the sats).