You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Technology’ category.
Argh-h-h…! I can’t believe it’s only a week until Christmas. Where does time go?
Our Christmas tree went up a few days ago, and when the tree is being decorated we need Christmas music. Well, I need Christmas music — so I can dance a bit or conduct my imaginary orchestra with my air baton while the girls (yah, I’ve got enough years on them that I can still call them that) put up the decorations. (They do such a great job.) The music. I streamed it from the Internet.
Back twenty or more years ago, when I was part of the early growth of the cable and satellite TV industry, the new concept was narrowcasting. With all the new cable and satellite channels available, instead of “broadcasting” programs suited for a wide audience of all ages and interests, it had become feasible to “narrowcast” specialty programs to small slices of audience — people with special interests. Cooking channel, auto racing channel, selling-your-home channel — they are all so common now. With the Internet, the concept exploded.
So, back to music for decorating the tree.
I remember years ago when I first ran across an “all Christmas, all the time, all year long” music site on the Internet. Revolutionary then but, wow, has that concept blossomed.
This year we’re listening to AccuRadio’s Christmas offering. Among the several hundred channels of music from this Chicago-based streaming service (hey, there are eight Canadian music channels), for Christmas they offer almost 50 choices!
There’s traditional, classical, jazz, Broadway, rock, R&B and gospel. Wherever your tastes runs. There are channels that feature just a single song — many versions of it though: Joy to the World, Chestnuts Roasting, or themes like snow or jingling.
The tree is done! I’m having so much fun flipping (clicking?) through the music choices. I’m glad we still have a lot of listening time left this holiday season.
Merry Christmas to all of you, dee-dee-dum, tra-la-la.
When Margaret got home from northern BC, she came back with a big box of goodies. It seems that Terrace is one of the world’s premier garage sale shopping locations. Especially if you have an experienced local guide.
In the box of goodies was a gadget or two. Now, I’ve had my share of tribulations with gadgets. But the apple gadget I pulled out had to be something special. I mean, look at it. No batteries needed. No plastic parts to break. No wires to fray. Just good solid, er, Taiwanese engineering.
Now to try it out. We were low on apples but a run to the local market got us restocked.
After a couple of false starts, I was on a roll. Look at this baby go! Just like in the picture on the box. Turn the crank and it peels it, pushes it out through a little round blade to core it, and slices it into a fat apple spiral. What fun! I’ll bet you could hook up one of those little steam engines to run it.
The test was a success. My faith in gadgets has been restored. I met my daily fresh apple quota.
Now, what to do with the rest of the test apples? Fortunately, I’m rarely short of brilliant ideas.
A while ago I wrote about the clutter in my life. Have I conquered it? No-o-o.
Unfortunately, I love gadgets. I am always amazed at the products they sell on TV. They work so well. They are so-o-o easy to use. I always want to buy them all. I need them. I could order them all.
But there’s a problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Blee-eep!
I looked down at the panel to the right of the steering wheel.
“Please depart now”
It was time to get the bus on the road. I loaded the last few passengers, closed the doors, and pulled out into the traffic. The disembodied voice of the computer announced the location of the next stop.
“One-thir-tee-four-Av-en-yoo”
It knows where I am even if I don’t, and will tell me if I get off-route. Read the rest of this entry »
At one time I was very involved in leading edge technology. The bleeding edge. Managing and promoting it was my life. University research. R&D at fast-paced high-tech companies. Secrets. Patents. Whirlwind visits to high-security government labs where some people were nervous because I was a… well, Canadian.
So what happened in my own life? Over the years my techy toys have backed away from the being the newest, latest, and greatest to where I’ve now become a user and a champion of trailing edge technology. There are many reasons for this but I’m sure that a significant one is because I’ve become cheap more frugal.
Take the TV antenna on our motor-home, for instance. We don’t have one. We don’t usually watch much TV when we travel. Many of the places we like to stay don’t have great TV reception. If we feel like watching something, we make do with the rabbit ears attached to the TV.
During this trip to southern California we picked up a digital converter because over-the-air channels throughout the US are all switching to digital. This means that, without a digital converter, our little TV will only pick up snow and hiss. Not good. With the digital converter we can get a lovely picture – if we can pick up a decent digital signal. That’s where our new antenna comes in. Read the rest of this entry »
Margaret was standing and looking back and forth between me and the stereo in the motorhome, her CD case in one hand, her MP3 player in the other.
We’re on vacation, and one of the very important must-haves when one is on vacation, settled into reclining deck chairs, ice cubes tinkling in the citrus adorned beverage (ah-h-h, limes go with so many things) is good music. Problem is, our motorhome is of the vintage that its state-of-the-art sound system is designed to play cassettes. OK, that’s slightly more modern than an 8-track player, but even cassettes are getting increasingly more difficult to find and play. (That reminds me of a story about a guy who is building his ‘legitimate’ music collection by scouring garage and yard sales for 8-track tapes and players, which he then digitizes to MP3′s…. but I digress.)
I concede, it’s time to upgrade our music system. I already have the CD player but, unlike with newer vehicles, I can’t just pop out the old player and pop in the new one. I think very briefly about just getting a new motorhome, one that already has a CD player, a nice 40-foot diesel pusher with a bumper sticker (“Spending our kids’ inheritance.”) but first I’d actually have to save an inheritance for the kids. No, I have to be practical. Off to Wal*Mart for a Car/Truck/SUV Stereo Dash Install Kit (Wiring Connector sold separately). Yep, this baby can deal with any GM vehicle built between 1982 and 2005. I even spring for the wiring connector. I mean, how hard could this be? Read the rest of this entry »
Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a device that let you see things in another part of the world? You’d probably be more amazed if you were asked that question 125 years ago.
As the story goes, in Victorian London (during the 1890′s), an eccentric engineer named Alexander Stanhope St George conceived of the idea and developed the plans for a Telectroscope, a strange-looking powerful optical machine made up of mirrors and lenses that would allow people on one side of the world to see people on the other side through a tunnel that stretched from one side of the world to the other.
St George managed to raise the necessary financing and other resources to start construction of his Telectroscope. A London to New York tunnel was started but, tragically, the project came to a halt as the ocean breached the excavations and several lives were lost. St George tried unsuccessfully to get the project going again, and he went from frustration to disappointment and eventually to insanity. Both he and his project came to an end in an asylum in 1917.
St George’s great-grandson, artist Paul St George, discovered his plans and papers in a dust-covered trunk in his grandmother’s attic. From these long-missing notes and drawings (not to mention the benefit of over 100 years of technological development) Paul constructed a Telectroscope. From May 22 to June 15, 2008, thousands of people lined up both in New York and London to peer and wave at people on the other side of the earth.
St George’s story encapsulates the drama of bringing any innovation into the world: the spark of an idea and a person with undying obsessive faith in it; the enthusiasm and perseverance needed to find financial backers and workers willing to build on the dreams of a genius…, or crackpot; the setbacks and failures that invariably appear along the way; the dark, darkest moments; the eventual breakthrough of something whose time has finally come; then perhaps fame and fortune, or maybe only the ability to say, “I told you so.”
Does art imitate life, or is it the other way around?
Find out more about the Telectroscope project at: http://www.tiscali.co.uk/telectroscope/home.php
