I travel a lot and find myself watching people at the airport to pass the time waiting for flights to depart. I watch them as they walk by Cinnabon and pretend not to want one. I am fascinated by how people behave — whether it’s good behavior or bad, I still find it interesting. After a canceled flight and Chicago weather, I finally made it back to Pittsburgh International Airport. If you have never been, it’s like a mall that opened up an airport. I was waiting for my luggage to come from the airplane. We are all standing around a belt that turns in one direction and carries our luggage from a down ramp. The first thing I noticed is that half of the crowd was on one side of the ramp and the other half was on the other side. So, half of these people are going to be waiting the entire trip around for their luggage and the other half are going to get their luggage first. A lady in her late forties and a scarf had an entirely different agenda. She was going to stand clear and wait for it to start turning and sidle up and grab her bag. I could see the anticipation well up as the horn and spinning light announced our bags were coming. She got up and cut right to the side the belt was turning ignoring the people who were there first. My page came out soon, but I wanted to see how it played out. The lady grew impatient and sighed with the exaggeration of a stage actor. I waited 10 minutes and nearly all of the bags were taken minus a few stragglers — a taped up duffel and flower print roller were the only ones left spinning. She stormed into the bag claim office. I took my flower print roller and headed to the parking shuttle. On the ride to my car, I thought about the events of the lady and her missing bag. She probably asked for it and had it coming.
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People Watching at the Airport
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Social Networking for My Toaster
My Toaster Twitters
That statement sounds odd. Well, let me explain. My friends would describe me as the kind of person that has a lot of time on their hands. They would be right. That time is never put to productive use, but over Thanksgiving I got the gumption to start a new project. Sometimes, I start little servo, robotic, web-based projects for my own gratification, but I get fed up with all of the time I invest just so I can impress my 3 friends that also have nothing do to over the holidays.
My friend Jason Winters has been working on an module that simplifies the connecting of projects to the internet. He sent me one of his ioBridge modules to beta test and my mind started spinning. My goal this Thanksgiving was to think of a crazy project that would be the most senseless thing someone has ever heard of before.
Again, My Toaster Twitters…
Twitter is a social networking site that allows you to tell the world your current status – kind of like a microscopic blog that gets to the point. You can write, “Hans is going to lunch” or “Hans is tired”, etc. It’s fun to follow people and see what they can do creatively with just a few characters of updates.
I use my toaster when I am home and I thought that the world may want to know when I’m toasting.
twitter.com/mytoaster
How do you make a toaster twitter?I grabbed my old bagel / toast toaster and glued a switch to the outside, so when the slider gets pressed down it triggers the switch and when it pops up, the switch opens (couldn’t be any more binary then that).
The ioBridge module has a digital input that I can hook the switch up to and monitor that state of toasting or not. Using a terminal board, a pull up resistor (1k), and some alligator clips, I hooked up the resistor from the digital input to the +5v source from the module, and clipped my clips on the resistor and the ground. A few pictures are worth more than my description.
Here is the whole system hooked together:
The Web StuffUsing the ioBridge website, I created an event widget that monitors the input state of that particular digital input. And when the input is “high”, the site sends an email to any address of my liking. And the same for the “low” state. I chose my Twitter Mail address, but really could of hit any social network, email by blog, or even UberNote.Follow My Toaster on Twitter at twitter.com/mytoaster. I think I proved empirically that I have too much time on my hands. -
New Battery or New Cell Phone?
I have a phone that’s three years old. Yes, I admit it, the phone is not smart, no “i”, or no Andriod as of yet. My mobile is a clam shell with no QWERTY keypad, so texting “I love you, too” is “444#55566688833#99966688#8666666″ while near-hitting a bridge abutment. The phone still works, makes calls, and fits into my pocket with my Moleskin.
Over the last few weeks, the battery holds a charge for 10-15 minutes. I found myself pouring over new phones, visiting the local shops, and reading about the G1 and the new Blackberry touch. I was wiling to switch carriers, since my phone was as good as dead. I had it in my mind that I was going to get a new phone. I was looking for a reason and the battery dying was the proverbial straw.
After forgetting about the battery condition for a day or two, I came back to my senses and searched eBay for a new battery. I found a vendor from NYC that had non-OEM batteries for my make and model. I am sure they were stolen, refurbed, or a fire hazard, but the battery was $6 with free shipping. I got the battery last week in a plain white envelope (now the free shipping makes sense). I popped the “hot” battery in and it held a charge for 3 full days. Three days is more than 15 minutes, so my concerns with possibly feeding the black market all of a sudden went away. I left a positive feedback and my desires for a new phone also vanished.
I am not sure what the moral of the story is, but I am sure there is a life lesson here. Maybe there are many solutions to problems in life, maybe I should save my money instead of buying new stuff, etc. Regardless, a new cell phone is pretty sweet.
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Fiber Optics Considerations
Fiber optic technology uses tiny strands of glass or plastic fibers to trap light allowing data to be carried extremely fast over long distances. Don’t look for any hype here, fiber delivers what it promises – speed, which enables high-speed internet, television services, and telephone communications. The technology is all around our lives and has been for quite some time. Recent advancements of fiber optics versus copper, reduction in deployment costs, and customer demand has brought fiber optic technology into the attention of everyone from consumers and technicians to engineers and managers alike.Passive fiber optic technology is a key advancement allowing for fiber to be deployed in the last mile, which connects communication offices to consumers directly. For example, Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) uses passive amplifiers and splitters serving housing developments off of a single strand of fiber. In a copper-based scenario, each house would be connected with a pair of copper wires or networked together using coaxial cable. In either case, the distance and speeds are limited, which further restricts the carrier’s service offerings and competitiveness. Copper is also prone to interference from other cable pairs, radio services, and power lines causing high maintenance costs and degraded services.
Lasers, LED’s, amplifiers, fiber optic cable, light receivers and all of the components that allow fiber optic equipment to operate have become very inexpensive allowing for new products and technologies to be developed and offered to carriers, business, and consumers at low or similar costs. In new housing developments and office parks, establishing fiber optic technology will be the most advantageous deployment. As the copper local loop and backhaul networks age, fiber will also be present allowing for current and future service offerings to meet market demand and carrier requirements.
The need for speed has always been a driver in the communication markets. Besides the luxury of just speed, fiber optics in the minds of consumers bring about visions of fast internet, high-definition and interactive television, and mobile multimedia features. To the carriers, fiber optics offers a world converged to one technology, multiple service offerings, increased capacity at cellular sites, and minimized maintenance expenses. Inside business networks, fiber optics will be the connections that are made between routers and switches allowing for business to handle more clients, devices, and bandwidth intensive services like Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and video conferencing.
The limitation of fiber optic technology exists only with each of us and those who will work on fiber systems. Fiber is just not installed and all of our visions come to a reality and all of our existing issues disappear. Proper design, installation, maintenance practices, and provisioning will be essential in the success of fiber optic deployments. For example, learning the proper way to clean a fiber optic connector is one skill that will mitigate several issues at communication offices, cell sites, office buildings, and residences. Engineers and managers will have to know which fiber solutions to consider and determining loss budgets, while having an understanding of terminology and fiber optic technology concepts to make proper decisions. Technicians will be responsible for installation, maintenance, and provisioning as the technology spreads quickly through their networks and sites. Critical skills that require training and practice are splicing fiber optic cables, cleaning connectors, putting on new connectors, cable section replacement, and installation of cable between devices.
Fiber optic technology introduces new infrastructure, maintenance, and testing equipment to be installed and used properly. In the Local Area Network (LAN), routers and switches will have fiber optic connections to connect fiber optic cables, store cable slack, and panduit to run cable through the premises. In restoration or installation practices, fusion splicers will be required to connect and repair fiber optic cables. Once the network is establish, testing devices such as light and power meters, light generators, Optical Time Domain Reflectometers (OTDR), fiber optic scopes, and visual fault locators will be used to determine proper levels and faults.
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The NotHans Podcast
