[quote]The National Broadband Map exists to comprehensively map New Zealand's Broadband landscape and provide information and tools to aid in demand aggregation and infrastructure planning. The National Broadband Map can be accessed and consumed in... (more in the full post)
Review: Norton Internet Security 2009 security software - Computeractive
Google lets users search like it's 2001
Company provides access to a 2001 version of the Google search index
Great Minds of History: Nikola Tesla (Никола Тесла)
I thought I would deviate today from my regular ramblings and do a bit of a tribute post to a man I consider to be one of the greatest minds in history.
Nikola Tesla,
Nikola Tesla is not referred to as often as Edison, and doesn't equate the level of fame of guys like Einstein, there are many reasons put forward for this, but it could perhaps be due to many of his greatest visions and inventions not coming to fruition.
-However- this is not to say he isn't well known and remembered,
According to wikipedia:
"Contemporary biographers of Tesla have regarded him as "The Father of Physics", "The man who invented the twentieth century"[3] and "the patron saint of modern electricity."[4]"Nikola Tesla was born in Smiljan, Lika, Croatian Krajina region the then Austo-Hungarian Empire, To a Serbian Orthodox Priest father, and a Mother who invented Household appliances.
He moved to America in 1884, with an introduction letter from Charles Batchelor to Thomas Edison,
Charles Batchelor was a close a associate of Thomas Edison, and grew up in Manchester England, he himself is still regarded as a great inventor and was an early executive of the General Electric Company.
Thomas Edison is a very-well known inventor (in-part no doubt to the American ability to Celebrate their Heroes - which I think is really good and other countries should celebrate their historical heroes as much, however ironic that Edison was born a Canadian) most definitely his fame comes from his most well known invention, the long-lasting, practical Electric Lightbulb (no he didn't actually invent the lightbulb - infact a majority of his inventions were improvements on prior patented inventions). other inventions include the Phonograph and the Carbon Microphone.
The letter had more in it, but a common quotation from the letter is
" I know two great Men, One is you (referring to Edison) and the other is this young man (referring to Tesla)"
Nikola Tesla then productively spent the next 59 years living in New York.
Telsa's first work was setting about improving Edison's line of dynamos whilst working in Edison's lab, This is when the historically discussed disagreement with Edison began, over direct current versus alternating current. this initial "divergence" culminated in a "war of the currents".
Tesla felt that the use of direct current was inefficient, as he view all energies as being cyclic, so he felt that rather than sending direct current, one should build generators that would send electrical energy first one way, then another, in multiple waves using the polyphase principal.
Edison's preferred DC had a severe disadvantage in that it could not be transported more than two miles due to its inability to step up to high voltage levels necessary for long distance travel, as a result a DC Power station was required at two mile intervals.
Tidbit: Direct current flows continuously in one direction, alternating current changes direction (usually 50 or 60 times per second)
the common term for this is hertz which is a measure of frequency, loosly defined as the number of events per second.
the formal definition as defined by the international system of Units (SI) is as defined as follows from Wikipedia:the hyperfine splitting in the ground state of the caesium 133 atom is exactly 9 192 631 770 hertz, ν (hfs Cs) = 9 192 631 770 Hz.[1]. Equivalently, 1 Hz = 1⁄9,192,631,770 ν (hfs Cs). This definition is derived from the SI definition of the second. The base unit for hertz is s-1 (also called inverse seconds, reciprocal seconds). As hertz
is commonly used to measure rotational speed, the base unit is sometimes represented as cycle/s.
Whilst working as a manual laborer Tesla continued his various pieces of research, and in 1887 he constructed the first brushless AC induction motor, which he then demonstrated at the American Institute of Electrical engineers
- an organisation still around to this day, but known as IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) - www.ieee.orgas part of his paper titled "A New System of Alternating Current Motors and Transformers", a copy of his paper is available online
here It is quite facisinating reading, if you enjoy historical inventions at a rather technical level, in it he states
" I will now proceed to show how this result was accomplished."
Highly recommended if you enjoy technical reading.
One of the people that Tesla managed to significantly impress was a rather well known (and partially well known to this day) was George Westinghouse, inventor and industrialist - whose name lives on today in everything from kitchen appliances to laundry appliances and more!
purportedly around February 1882; Tesla discovered the rotating magnetic field, which is of course fundamental to many aspects of physics and a neccessary required basis to all alternating current devices,
The brilliant thing that Tesla achieved, was the adaption of his discovery of the rotating magnetic field into the construction of the AC induction motor.
The AC Induction motor is used everywhere in the world, it is considered by many to be a cornerstone of the industrial revolution at the turn of the century and to this day a majority of electricity is generated, transmitted and converted thanks to the Inventions of Tesla.
However, whilst regarded as his greatest and most world changing, His Polyphase Alternating Current system is by no means his only invention.
His inventions were wide and numerous, and utterly brilliant and there is quite a lengthy list, some of the inventions you are using right now as you read this (as i have already discussed), and other work he performed whilst not the inventor, took various fields to a whole new level,
some of Telsa's Inventions and discoveries include:
- The Tesla Coil (fairly obvious that one)
- Alternating Current, Polyphasic etc.
- First Hydroelectric powerplant at the Niagara falls in 1895
- The Fluorescent Light
- Laser Beams
- Wireless Communications (big disputes between Marconi and Tesla with both having held the patent / credit for radio,)
- In 1896 Tesla patented the basic system of radio, his publish schematics, diagrams and descriptions, provided all the details of the basic elements of a radio transmitter, which was later used by marconi.
- So after a decision in the US Supreme court (1943) Marconi's most significant patent was deemed invalid stating Telsa's contribution was more significant in the invention of Radio Technology. (Tesla and Marconi were not the only inventors / discoverers nor the only legitimate patent holders there is a whole lot that was involved)
- Wireless Electrical Energy Transmission
- Remote Control (first demonstrated to
- Robotics
- A variant of the X-Ray tubes
- Significant advances in robotics
- Bladeless steam turbine (based on a spiral flow principal)
- Super-high temperature pump.
- Discovered the Resonant frequency of the Earth (Confirmed in 1950 as the resonant frequency of the Earth's ionospheric cavity - within this range at least, this is known as the Schemann resonance)
- Terrestrial Stationary Waves (Tesla considered this his most significant discovery)
He proved that the Earth itself was able to be used as a conductor and was highly sensitive and responsive to electrical vibrations of particular frequencies,
Part of proving this he produced artificial lightning with (according to Wikipedia) discharges consisting of millions of volts and up to 135 feet long!
Wikipedia also states that reproductions of Tesla's receivers and coherer circuits show an unpredicted level of complexity.
it is during this time Tesla states that he observed stationary waves.
Tesla found ways to transmit power and energy, wirelessly, over some very long distances (we are definitely not talking about across a room here)
some via transverse waves, but more via logitudinal waves.
He successfully transmitted via the ground as well as through the Kennelly-Heaviside Layer.
Not only did tesla successfully transmit to specialised detectors, he demonstrated lighting his light bulbs from a long distance without any wires, via the tesla effect
the tesla effect is defined in various sources as: "..term for an application of a type of electrical conduction. Through logitudinal waves, an operator uses the tesla effoct in the wireless transferl of energy to a receiving device."
Around this time is when things went a bit awry (or at least many of the things are yet to be proved in the way Tesla predicted)
Whilst Tesla was in his lab in Colorado he observed unusual signals that he later thought may have been evidence of extraterrestrial radio communications coming from Venus or Mars.
Part of this were repetitive signals form his receiver that were totally different from the signals he had noted from storms and background earth noise.
Tesla makes mention of this event in many of his writings and many times he mentions his thoughts that his inventions could be used to talk with other planets.
Many people claim that he invented a Teslascope for this purpose, there are many people out there who have claimed to have built one and listened to cosmic rays (ok, totally believable, there is an abundance of radiation out there, and nothing wrong with converting it into audible signals) others claim to use it to converse with Aliens and strongly believe Tesla did so. (Ok, I'd love to believe. give me some PROOF)
Although many people have discussed it, perhaps Tesla's invention was in some forms merited - as many of his other discoveries were considered foolish, or even impossible until he demonstrated it, and he never demonstrated the Teslascope, however it did receive much publicity in Time Magazines July 20, 1931 issue which when celebrating Tesla's 75th birthday Tesla stated:
[I have conceived] a means that will make it possible for man to transmit energy in large amounts, thousands of horsepower, from one planet to another, absolutely regardless of distance. I think that nothing can be more important than interplanetary communication. It will certainly come some day and the certitude that there are other human beings in the universe, working, suffering, struggling, like ourselves, will produce a magic effect on mankind and will form the foundation of a universal brotherhood that will last as long as humanity itself.
—Nikola Tesla,
The Fantastic thing about the internet and World Wide web?
The full article is available to read on the Time Magazine website here
To be honest there is a big part of me that gives Tesla the benefit of the Doubt, he was an undeniable genius, and managed to discover and invent many things that were thought not possible (in fact some of proven his inventions many people to this day think dont actually exist or aren't real!!)
Unfortunately while Tesla was a Genius inventor, he wasn't good with money, he left colorado, and his lab was torn down and contents sold off to cover debts,
however Tesla was already looking ahead to his next great project.
the Wardenclyffe Tower,
Unfortunately this tower was torn down for scrap during World War One.Wardenclyffe Tower (1901 – 1917) also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower designed by Nikola Tesla and intended for commercial trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, broadcasting, and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wires.[1][2] The core facility was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. ...(from wikipedia - the rest of the article here
Tesla did not have good fortunes, in 1904 the US Patent Office reversed its decision and Awarded Guglielmo Marconi the patent for radio starting a battle that did not finally get resolved until a deciscion in 1943 by the US Supreme court who awarded it back to Tesla.
Tesla went on to demonstrate his various turbines, in 1906 he demonstrated his 150kW 16,000 rpm bladless turbine.
and durning 1910 - 1911 several of his bladeless turbine enginse were tested at 74 to 3,728 kW
in 1917 some of Telsas goals for the Wardenclyffe tower were achieved at his newer tower the Telefunken Wireless Station in SAyville, Long Island.
unfortunately this was torn town by the Marines in 1917 because it was suspected it could be used by german spies.
At his Death Tesla held (and still holds) around 112 US Patents,
29 British Patents,
6 Canadian patents,
1 argentinian patent,
5 australian patents,
4 austrian patents,
21 in belgium
2 in Brazil
1 in cuba
3 in Denmark
19 German Patents
26 French,
1 in india
11 in italy,
1 in japan and
7 in hungary.
That is not by any means an exhaustive list.
Not only were many of Tesla's inventions very real, Tesla theorized, planned or claimed to have invented:
* Electric Submarine
* Telefore
* Death Ray
* Mechanical Oscillator
* Free Energy (- renewable from existing sources, not a perpetual motion machine)
* Earthquake machine
* Force Field
* Anti-Gravity Aircraft
* Thought Camera.
Dr. Nikola Tesla was without a doubt one of the most brilliant minds in history, and that is why I'll not totally write off some of his proven Ideas, because so many of his proven ideas were so fantastic.
(that said, I'm not necessarily going to believe them without evidence!)
How Telecom's new business broadband plans stack up
New business plans put company back in the game
Wigram NOTAM
Just noticed that the following NOTAM was published start of this month. It appears therefore to restrict operations at Wigram to specific prior approval effective back on the 1st of September (the AIP will be updated 20 Nov, but the changes read to be in effect 1 Sep). I guess that's what Ngai Tahu meant by "closed to traffic from September".
A1272/08 FROM: 31 AUG 2008 12:00 TO: 19 NOV 2008 11:00
AIP PAGE NZWG AD 2-52.1, WIGRAM OPR DATA DATED 15 FEB 07
REFERS.
DELETE ALL SUPPLEMENTARY DATA WITH EXCEPTION OF OPR DETAILS.
ADD NZWG AD UNAVAILABLE FOR GENERAL USE WITHOUT PRIOR APV OF OPR.
AIP WILL BE AMENDED 20 NOV 08.
Also NOTAM'd at the moment is the following, I guess they are surveying for the pending slice and dice.
A1763/08 FROM: 14 SEP 2008 19:00 TO: 19 SEP 2008 05:00
DAILY 1900 TO 0500
ENGINEERS ON FOOT AND WITH QUAD BIKE EQUIPPED WITH FLASHING
LIGHT OPR ON AD
A1811/08 FROM: 17 SEP 2008 19:00 TO: 19 SEP 2008 05:00
GRASS AREA IN FRONT OF NR 4 HANGAR AND NR 5 HANGAR CLSD DUE
WIP
Talk About, Slot Music, Talk About
New York, Paris, London, Munich
Everyone’s talking about, Slot Music.
At least, it finally hit the NZ Herald today . Beaten by downloads affecting retail store sales, major record companies inlcuindg Sony BMG, Warner and EMI have decided to make their music more accessible by putting it on 1GB Micro SD Cards.
They plan to still put them into CD cases and say that with the extra space, they can include the liner, liner notes and other information. They will be DRM free and you can even play your music on your computer by using the Micro SD Card with a dongle. The music will be in MP3 format at 320kbps they say on the info site, which they say is very high quality music. Really?
The say that hundreds of millions of phones, Personal Computers and in the future lots of car entertainment sytsms will be able to listen to this music.
Well hello! Do you think we consumers are thick? Let’s go back to the future and do a different thing in the same way and charge a premieum for convenience.
So here’s the thing. Back in the day we had audio casettes and vinyl. Audio casettes were cheap because they weren’t going to last long, especially on cheap walkman units that stretched the tape if they got dropped, got hot or for lots of other reasons. Vinyl was great, you got big liner art and photos, quite often big inserts with lyrics, interviews and more photos.
Then came the CD, which they said had far greater sound and extra space to put more information on. In the future, they said, they could include music videos, interviews, games, photos and much more. Of course we had to pay more for this amazing technology but it was going to be worth it. In many cases the quality was superior, even the nice ambience of the needle was no longer there.
But the extras? Well they are the exception rather than the rule. In most cases we got less liner information, because of the size. Inserts happened sometimes but not very often and the additional material? Sometimes there was a hidden track, that was fun. Occassionally someone would add a music video and a few like BB King, put out a CD ROM with interviews, games and lots more. I still have mine, it was cool. Of course I don’t play it any more, but I felt I got my money’s worth and was chuffed that an old timer like The King could do something so modern.
So here’s my take on this. I have large quantities of CD’s and DVD’s pressed, not of my music unfortunately, but for car navigation. I also have large quantities of SD Cards duplicated, also for car navigation. Firstly, even at volume pricing SD Cards are much more expensive than CD’s or DVD’s.
Universal Music is going to release about 30 ‘Slots’ to start with, from their eLabs Digital Music Unit. Sounds more like a test to me, but anyway, I do applaud them for trying new technology. I think it’s a good idea to try new technology, given that CD’s are losing ground rapidly to downloads.
Will they add extra information to the SD Cards? Maybe for some of those first 30, but then it wil be the same old story, new media for a premium price (for the convenience) and nothing more. If they had listened to people like me 10 years ago (Netguide wouldn’t publish my opinion), they could have reinvented a format giving loads of extra value, far more than people could afford to download and created a whole new generation of fans and collectors. But no, they just wanted to increase cash flow and profit. After all, they knew far better than we consumers, what was good for us.
In my humble opinion, they created the monster we have today where people download and share music for free. And it is a monster friends, because what is happening is people are downloading music for free and the poor songwriters and performers are getting ripped off. Sure there are big bands making truckloads of money for themselves and their promotors, but they are the minority. Most of the people in your favorite bands have to work a day job in order to be able to write and perform music at night. This might not be the case if they got fair remuneration for their work.
I ask you this. Do you work for free? Do you expect to go to work and build widgets or whatever you do and expect other people to reproduce them for peanuts and give them to your mates? Will you accept a 90% reduction in your income because people have found a way to clone your products? I didn’t think so.
Anyway, after that minor digression, this is a storm in a slot. Sure they will make some of these. Then they will cry foul when people copy them (if they can be bothered). They will weep when these cards don’t get sold, except on eBay, Craig’s List or Trade Me after people have copied the music onto their computers and shared them with their mates.
I love new technology, but when I can go to iTunes and for a couple of dollars, buy the only song as a track that I like (because I am happy for the band to make some money from it), why would I buy a little SD Card that I will probably lose.
In my humble opinion, the music industry got this one wrong. Can they redeem it? Only if they figure a way to genuinely add value. They want to offer the music on iGB SD Cards. (Interesting that I struggle to even buy 1GB SD Cards anymore.) Why not do something smart and offer us real value. Do what you should have done years ago and you might find a couple of years of legs in this yet. Use 4GB cards. Load it with the music, the live performance video, the interviews, the music video, lyric sheets (the mechanical rights people can still get a share) and a personal spoken message from the band or artist. You could sell that for a premium and create collectors items that people will want to keep.
Of course when real broadband arrives, people are no longer going to buy music in hard copy. I’m sorry but they won’t. Why would you. The other day I sat down in front of YouTube an had a great afternoon watching videos and listening to music of my favourite bands of the past and the present. All it cost me was a bit of internet access (and I do have ADSL 2 from Orcon so speed wasn’t an issue.
I think the future will be:
New York, Paris, London, Munich, Nobody’s talking about Slot Music.
Fake popup study: Users are idiots? I don't think so...
The Psychology Department of North Carolina State University has conducted a study, in which they tested how likely it was that users clicked on fake pop-ups. Those fake pop-ups are often associated with exploits and the installation of malware on yo... (more in the full post)
TelecomOne un-conference day 1
Today is day 1 of the first TelecomOne unconference event and it was full of interesting - and surprisingly open sessions.For me the day started with an interesting session led by Brenda, who guided us through discussions on open source mobile platforms. At some point an interesting idea came from the participants: why not create a non-prod enviroment for people that are interested in playing with new mobile technologies to do it safely on a sandbox?
The idea is not as crazy as it sounds - and got lots of support from the audience.
I led one of the following sessions, talking about community feedback - how does Telecom capture feedback, and how does the company respond to it. This include public and internal processes, on-line community participation.
The third session was a very interesting discussion about the missing bits on the network - what people think should be there to better serve the community, developers - and ultimately their customers. And the first thing was "love". All you need is love!... Seriously though the discussion touched on lots of technical topics, processes and ideas.
No comments:
Post a Comment