Monthly Archives: July 2012

* I wonder how many other places this occurs. I have not noticed this before … but no doubt anything as big as Google Earth, in a grand attempt to map with satellite imagery and street view imagery, is a patchwork of images. It’s stitched together very well in most places. But it’s possible for the imagery to be out of date, but also for the dates of imagery to vary even in what you are seeing today. And since the Google vehicles have to drive the streets to get the Street View imagery … no doubt that is not all done (Rome wasn’t built in a day) in one day or one week even.

At the coordinates: 26°12’46.86″N by 80° 9’23.25″W … if you zoom in to Street Level View … zoom all the way down until it starts showing actual panoramic view photography … Ok. Now you should be at the corner of Gateway Drive and Powerline Rd. (a.k.a. “845″). Make sure you have the compass adjusted so that you are facing EAST. You may already see a Duncan Donuts tractor trailer truck at the intersection on “845″ at the light facing NORTH. This is even curious by itself because I believe he is in the left had turn lane and right down the street is a Duncan Donuts – BUT it is still under construction in this time line? Is he delivering them stuff before they open?

Use your mouse and grab the center of the picture and pull the picture to the left – you will be panning towards the right. Now in this “Timeline” (let’s call it) the restaurant CHECKERS is open. The sign is there with promotional stuff for their food products. The American flag is flying proudly.

Checkers is Open (Google Earth Street View)

Turn your view again back to where you are facing EAST. You can use your mouse to move fowards and backwards. Move forward … further … further … the Duncan Donuts truck will get bitter then will disappear as you are warped out of that timeline and into another one. You will notice the picture quality changes – it gets a bit clearer – darker – and sharper. Use your mouse again and turn the view to the right … you are almost turning around completely because you are further away from the corner where the CHECKERS resteraunt is. The sign is gone out of the frame of the sign structure. The American flag is not flying. CHECKERS is closed! As in went out of business.

Checkers is Closed (Google Earth Street View)

But if you go back to that other timeline you will see that it’s open for business. You can also use your mouse wheel to roll down that timeline going WEST and you will see that the Duncan Donuts facility … is under construction. It’s not open for business yet. So that begs the question of where the Duncan Donuts tractor trailer truck was going (in this timeline) turning left to go WEST right by it.

Duncan Donuts (Not Open) Under Construction

You can get into a certain spot by the Duncan Donuts facility where you can roll forward and backward (it’s kind of East and West but my compass has me looking SSE at a nice angle where I can see the side of the building. At that spot I can jump across timelines and instantly see the old Under Construction Ducan Donuts and the new Open for Business Duncan Donuts.

Duncan Donuts Open

Duncan Donuts Open #2

So using Google Earth you CAN sometimes warp the fabric of space time. Jump the space-time continuum. Or maybe it’s just in the stitchwork where the old images are along one path (timeline) that a google vehicle drove. It hasn’t been replaced with newer imagery, and the newer imagery is where they did update it with a new drive-by and new imagery. In this case it seems to be separated by the EAST and WEST sides of Gateway Drive.

Anyway in Google Earth they do have the ability for users to go back to historical, older, imagery from the satellite view. But I don’t know if they have the ability … or care about the ability to put such a history “slider” control into the Street View part of the program. Or if it even matters.

* From the movie Deja Vu: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0453467/faq

Why all the talk in the movie about not being able to change the past?
All the talk in the movie about not being able to change the past is just a red herring to throw the audience off track. Obviously, Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) WAS able to change the past since he saved the ferry. Also discussed in the movie was that when a person goes back in time they would create a new timeline that either would continue parallel to the original timeline or the original timeline would cease to exist. If the timelines were to continue parallel then people in the original timeline would not experience any change of events. So in theory no one can change their own past. They can only create a new timeline for another version of themselves.
 

* What’d he say? what’d he say? They can only create a new timeline for another version of themselves. Well that’s worth $10 billion right there…

Agent Pryzwarra: Say we do create this new branch. What happens to the old one to this one?
Denny: [referring to Shanti] … Ask the radical!
Shanti: Well, it might continue parallel to the new branch. Most likely, it ceases to exist.
Denny: The idea is we cease to exist, alright? Or this version of us, anyway. Umm, we never came here, we didn’t meet Doug, we don’t remember it ever happening.
Agent Pryzwarra: Well, that’s worth 10 billion right there.

* Another favorite part of that movie …

Doug Carlin: Is she alive or is she dead?
Denny: Alright: Life, like time and space, is not merely a local phenomenon.
Doug Carlin: [Screaming] Oh Alright! Am I asking a hard question?
Denny: [Muttering] Looks like I picked a bad week to stop snorting hash.
Doug Carlin: I’ll tell you what: I will speak slow so that those of you with Ph.D’s in the room can understand. Here, look. Here’s a monitor, right?
 [Throws a chair against the monitor, breaking it]
Doug Carlin: Now the monitor is broken. It’s dead. It’s not temporarily transitioned to another state of entropy, it’s *dead*. Right. Now is *she* alive or is she *dead*?
Denny: She’s alive.
Doug Carlin: Alright. Now we’re getting somewhere.

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net – http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

*On Monday July 23rd (*My Birthday) the Motor Yacht Stampede rescued the pilot of a small plane that went down in Block Island Sound in the ocean just south of Rhode Island. Congratulations and Good Job on the part of M/Y Stampede Captain and Crew.

http://www.dockwalk.com/Essentials/DockTalk.aspx?g=posts&t=48550&page=-1

I got the story from Dockwalk.com (link above) – but there are more details elsewhere online. Block Island is about 9 miles south of the nearest connecting mainland, Charelestown Rhode Island. For Ham Radio Operators this is about 67 or 68 miles southeast of the ARRL Headquarters not far from Hartford, CT. in Newington, CT. Marthas Vineyard (famous politically) is around 50 some miles east of there.

This link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2178842/Mark-Simmons-Pilot-plane-crashed-Block-Island-Sound-flies-day-marriage-proposal-banner.html has a lot more pictures related to the story, but is the one that confused the hell out of me. I would be thinking that the GUY that proposed Marriage was flying his own plane and went down trying to propose marriage. But it wasn’t him, supposedly he was pacing back and forth on the beach. The Pilot was another guy … so you have MARK SIMMONS – PILOT and MIKE FLYNN the guy that commissioned the banner to be flown on his behalf (by another guy, THE PILOT), that said “Michelle, Will You Marry Me? Mike”.

Got that? Mike didn’t crash, Mark did. Don’t know if Mike has a son? Mark does … and was reportedly  talking to his son on the radio when he had engine troubles. His engine on his Piper Pawnee small plane apparently QUIT and apparently could not be restarted. Further according to the reports MARK is ok and flew again the very next day to deliver that aerodynamic marriage proposal banner. The proposal got accepted and everyone lived Happily Ever After. The End.

Ok, Ok as an added bonus … MARK took off from Westerly Airport … we can find that on Google Earth, and when he was rescued near Ninigret Pond adjacent to Charlestown, R.I. But what is this? At coordinates: 41°21’59.37″N by 71°39’54.55″W … the remnants of what looks like it was surely an AIRPORT of some sort. Wow! It has a history … So in continuing interest of things like “Life after People” (I’m Not looking that up right now, but it was a Television Series) here we go … somehow I can’t leave this one alone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Auxiliary_Air_Station_Charlestown

History
 
Atlantic Airport, as it was then known, was founded around 1931. In 1942, the site of the Atlantic Airport was reused by the Navy to construct Charlestown NAAS. It was constructed with three runways. It then became a satellite of the nearby Quonset Naval Air Station. Former US President George Herbert Walker Bush aviation trained here before going to Japan in World War II and named his airplane Barbara for his girlfriend Barbara Walker who became his wife Barbara Bush. The airport was used for the Navy Air Navigation Project, which developed & tested navigation aids & traffic control systems. It was host to a CASU (Carrier Aircraft Service Unit) and later to a NACTU (Night Aircraft Training Unit. The runways were used for drag racing between 1958 and 1959. In 1974, the base was disestablished. It probably closed in conjunction with Quonset Naval Air Station, which closed around the same time that it did.

Reuse as a Park

Looking down former Runway 4/22 which is part of an ongoing native grasslands restoration project (Picture on Wikipedia)

In 1976, there was talk of using the site for the first nuclear power plant in Rhode Island. This idea was shot down by local residents and it remained unused until it was incorporated into the nearby Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge. Until the 1980s, the hangars remained at the airport. In the late 1990s, the runways and taxiways were torn up and native grasses and plants were planted. Recent aerial photos show a track for bicycle racing and time trials at the northern portions of runways In 2002, a memorial was built at the site commemorating the use of the field. According to a recent New York Times article,
 

A parcel of 172 acres (0.70 km2) of the deactivated Charlestown Naval Auxiliary Air Station on the South County coast, complete with a freshwater pond, it was opened as a park by the town of Charlestown in 1983 and forms a gateway to the older wildlife refuge and the barrier beach beyond. The park is to be developed with bathhouses but for now it remains rugged and inviting.[2] To keep motorists from going in hopeless circles on vast runways, routes of sorts were denoted by sweeping furrows plowed into the tarmac, an almost perfect enactment of the biblical notion of beating swords into plowshares. At a certain point on the runway, most people park their cars and go walking in the company of wildlife, wind off Block Island Sound and the whisper of tall grasses.

Westerly Airport – R.I. (original story in this post)

Charlestown, R.I. Airport (remnants of…) – I happened to be surfing Google Earth while following the story (above) and while coming close to Ninigret Pond - on the coast near Charlestown, R.I., I noticed what looked like a ”Life after People” story in the making … Overgrown airport runways … something that used to be … something from a bygone era. How could I resist???? 

* The historical imagery feature of Google Earth might be kind of fun to play with. In 1995 it seems like the runways (asphalt) may have still been there. There are more “X”‘s on the runways than there are on the next timeline photography in 2001. On the East / West (ESE?) the parking lot doesn’t appear to be there in 1995.But I’ll leave the viewing of that historical imagery as an exercise in Google Earth for the reader. If you want to? 

More historical photography and information is located here: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/RI/Airfields_RI.htm - It appears that the time to visit this site was around 1980 or earlier. Nothing historical seems to remain – other than the pattern that used to be the runways.

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom and WiFiyacht.net

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

* A little “Light Reading” …

http://www.informationweek.com/news/galleries/hardware/handheld/232602971

* Someone commented …

“Yes, as with PCs, any application which requires serious processing power, memory or storage will reside on the server. The application will be processed on the server and the data will be stored on the server. If the internet doesn’t exist, iPad is going to be worthless. If the internet continues to exist, it won’t be a problem.”

(Of course read the article:

“8 Things Tablets Still Can’t Do

Jeff Bertolucci  03/22/2012 Have we really entered a post-PC world? The new Apple iPad and its tablet rivals still come up short on a few important measures.”)

* Does anyone remember a time when the Internet didn’t exist? We’re starting to have people who were born so recently that the Internet always existed. The newer portable devices such as Smartphones and Tablets depend heavily on The Internet being there. Sure there are things the can do without it … play some games … play some music … play recorded (stored locally) videos … but you had to get those things from somewhere in the First Place. “The Cloud” which really just means “The Internet” is used more and more to store “stuff” that won’t fit on a portable device. People use a lot of Internet “content” wether commercial or privately created. The Tweet and Facebook and Youtube for their friends and families content. But I’ll venture to say that a lot of them don’t create anything. They don’t create any content. I find a lot of people commenting on my own Youtube videos that their account has No Videos at all. Anyway back to the storage … 16 or 32 Gigabytes on a portable device is HUGE compared to the past where PC’s for awhile didn’t even have that much storage space. (I remember working with only Floppy Disks and having No Hard Drive and during some early periods pre-Internet – having no Internet either.) But with todays portable devices … Smartphones and Tablets or “Pads” it’s very easy, as many of us have found out, to fill up the onboard storage and get to the point of a Storage Space Crisis. But there is always Desktop “Syncing” … with the requisite software on a Desktop – storing things on the Desktop Computer. This allows to swap out certain things for “Day Trips” depending on your need on a particular day. If you don’t need music to go to work … often my situation … then you can dump the music for most days, and even the download TV Shows and other Videos. In fact I shoot videos and upload them to my Desktop and delete them off the portable device. That way I have plenty of room to shoot and store more videos. With the Internet speed offerred on 3G (iPhone) it often takes too long to upload a video … sometimes even allowing my device to go to sleep and abort the upload. Syncing (and other methods to transfer to the Desktop) is a bit faster. So if anything the Desktop has a life for *some* time as a Storage Server. I have bigger YouTube upload permission (bigger video sizes) than the apps on the iPhone will allow anyway – so the Desktop gets used to upload the longer / bigger videos to YouTube.

* The article gets more into other issues with Tablets / Pads – one of which is Typing. Has anyone besides me noticed that email responses from people on Smartphones or Tablets are very short. Grammar and spelling and even puctuation are no longer important to a lot of portable users. They are great, however, for keeping track of your important emails on-the-go. They are great for whipping out a quick reply letting someone know you got their message. I will often just acknowledge an email and offer to send a more detailed response once I get back to the “office”. (The Desktop.)

http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/business/240004353

* I still haven’t bit the bullet and purchased a Tablet. I do have an iPhone which I got after borrowing someone elses iPhone for awhile and then getting a 4th Gen iPod Touch. I decided that it was enough of a “Little Computer” (I’ve had a few Palm Pilots from the old beginning days of those devices including a Color one) to be worth carrying around. The “apps” were quite intriguing especially when one of those devices are Jailbroken. I did a lot of playing around with products and one of them that I was seriously considering was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. And so the Apple and Samsung Tablet wars was an interesting thing to me … probably will be interesting to a lot of people.

(Read: Link above:

Apple Vs. Samsung Trial: What’s At Stake
The smartphone giants have been preparing for this IP battle, which kicks off July 30, for more than 14 months. Here’s what they want.
1 Comment | Eric Zeman  | July 26, 2012 08:35 AM)

“Apple and Samsung together own 54% of the worldwide smartphone market in terms of device sales, and 90% of the profits. The financial devastation that can be wrought on either or both companies is significant. If Apple wins based on its trade dress and design complaints, it could impact other trials that are yet to get underway.
With billions of dollars in sales up for grabs, Apple and Samsung both want their share, no matter the cost to their competitors.”

* You would think another anti-trust situation, like what Microsoft has faced, was forming on the horizon … where the federal government or high courts will have to step in and tell these guys that Neither one of Them can be allowed to be THAT BIG. That they have to play nice and they have to have healthy competition in order to be really LEGAL. Neither one of them, nor Al Gore, took the initiative in inventing the Internet! Neither one of them invented portable touch devices either. They might have to say something like BASF:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASF

“we don’t make a lot of the products you buy. We make a lot of the products you buy better” — BASF Commercial

* Snapple … Like Snapple: https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=snapple+better+stuff&oq=snapple+better+stuff&gs_l=serp.3..0j0i30l3.2659.9885.0.10106.34.21.6.7.7.2.363.3638.0j14j5j1.20.0…0.0…1c.xO1WJ878qAY&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=d2f09d28f845734f&biw=1920&bih=883 

and Apple (why do they rhyme?) … View: Movie: Pirates of Silicon Valley … “We’re better than you, we’ve got better stuff”.

“Steve Jobs: What is this? This is like doing business with a praying mantis. You get seduced, and then eaten alive afterwards?
Bill Gates: Get real, would ya? You and I are both like guys who had this rich neighbor – Xerox – who left the door open all the time. And you go sneakin’ in to steal a TV set. Only when you get there, you realize that I got there first. I got the loot, Steve! And you’re yellin’? “That’s not fair. I wanted to try to steal it first.” You’re too late.
 

* So now maybe the Tablet giants are also fighting over who stole the “Tablet Stuff” first … and who is supposedly TOO LATE. (Which is why they’ve gotta say who has Better Stuff.)

“Steve Jobs: We’re better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill Gates: You don’t get it, Steve. That doesn’t matter!”

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net – http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

http://www.fort-lauderdale-marine-directory.com/news/t/29584.php?u=a2_351 - I got my Fort Lauderdale Marine Directory email … and found these things. Lobster Mini-Season starting, a beautiful Fort Lauderdale Beach Sunrise today … and look at all those lobsters!

http://broadcast.dockwalk.com/absolutenl/t.aspx?n=412&l=10362

* In the Dockwalk email – the subject was: Is yachting prepared for the consequences of lethal force?

* Over in the blog article it was: “Stand your ground” on shaking ground?

(The link is above…)

* I posted a comment at the bottom of the article:

Stand your ground kind of losing power with the Zimmerman case in Florida. I was going to mention the USNS incident but someone already did. Like Stand Your Ground on land it looks like they are going to make it difficult to Stand Your Spot in the oceans as well. It looks like in both cases the Indian Fisherman are not too smart with their methods and actions. So real threat boats will “dress up” even more to look like innocent Indian Fishing Boats … and any marine vessel will be afraid to fire upon them. (“Don’t fire until fired upon” … Top Gun, the movie.)

http://www.hark.com/top-gun/hes-got-missile-lock-on-me-do-i-have-permission-to-fire




Welcome to the “Danger Zone” …

Getting close with a little boat will no longer be a reason or an excuse. Forget about the basic navigation practices of signaling your intention so that vessels can agree on what type of meeting and passage they will make to avoid collisions. There ought to be maritime law that puts some kind of responsibility on these fishing boats to signal their intent … or they should be charged and/or fined for improper navigation practices?

I may be a little rusty. Old Navy sailor with a few ocean crossings to the Med. We had run across a sailing vessel in very bad weather seeming to be in distress – which told us to piss off – they were ok. And a Libyan Sub that followed us at periscope depth. But nothing like this current terrorist and pirate stuff that you have to worry about back then in 80′s.
Posted by: Alan Spicer( Visit ) at 21/07/2012 22:23

—

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom / WiFiYacht.net

http://blog.marinetelecom.net (leads to my other sites via left navigation bar/buttons.)

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

* Seen in the comments on the Gogo6 Forum: http://www.gogo6.com/forum/topics/large-scale-nats 

We’ll very soon have TWO separate internets: the Internet v2, accessible only to those users that have a pure end-to-end conectivity in IPV6, and the Internet v1 that will be fragmented very rapidly to to the impossibility to provide interoperability with IPv6-based Internet v2, but also with other parts of the IPv4-based Internet v1.

All that it means is that Internet v1 (on IPv4) will soon become a series of private islands. I can easily see these islands already forming in Asia, then in Europe in 2-3 years (about 2013-1014), then everywhere else (starting 2015).

The internet v1 is almost dead. Be prepared.

* It was part of a discussion on IPv4 to IPv6 transition tactics and indicated that IPv4 space was going to continue to be used up despite IPv6 being available and Turned-ON by ISP’s and such.

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom

http://www.marinetelecom.net and http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

http://gcaptain.com/titanic-ii-plans-revealed/

Australian billionaire and political-hopeful Clive Palmer on Tuesday offered the first glimpse into his Blue Star Line’s Titanic II replica project and the design is so authentic that it even comes with space for steerage passengers and a special space for the correct amount of safety equipment.

The design, developed by Finish-based Deltamarin, comes fully equipped with nine decks reminicent of the original, included with the famous black hull, four smokestacks and, of course, the Grand Staircase.  Also included, is an added ‘Safety Deck’ to house the required number of lifeboats and other safety equipement otherwise missing on the first addition.

(more information at the link above.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

* Alan’s Note: I didn’t see any mention of the communications equipment on board this new Titanic. The communications history is interesting as well as the voyage and disaster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CQD

The need for ship and coast radio stations to have and use radiotelegraph equipment, and to listen to a common radio frequency for Morse encoded distress calls, was recognized after the sinking of the liner RMS Titanic in the North Atlantic in 1912.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Maritime_Distress_Safety_System

 * See also:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/titanic-ii–nothing-on-earth-could-stand-between-palmer-and-the-prow-of-a-prank-20120718-229uz.html

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom and WiFiYacht.net

http://www.marinetelecom.net – http://www.wifiyacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

There’s going to be a movie about “Steve Jobs” called “JOBS”. (everyone should Get a J0b!) well maybe not. Well he should know about the 70′s since he was in “That 70′s Show”. I haven’t been alive that long so I can’t tell you anything about life before I was born in 1960. It is, according to what I’ve seen causing a big stir at Steve Jobs original “Apple” location where they did Apple I and such.

“The film crew working on the movie about the first four decades of Steve Jobs’ life, called jOBS, started setting up at the home today where Apple’s co-founder grew up in Silicon Valley.

The modest ranch-style home in Los Altos, California, already a mecca for tech tourists who journey to visit the garage where Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple, is getting “staged” so that it looks as it would have in the ‘50s – ‘70s during Jobs’ formative years, a member of the production team said today.”

* From – http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2012/06/05/on-location-steve-jobs-the-movie-comes-to-town/

* Maybe Forbes can make some money out of this? and get that yacht that I worked on one time moving again?

* They got a shot of Ashton Kutcher out there …

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/entertainment&id=8699247

hopefully he can do better than he is at “Two and Half Men” replacing “Winning!” – Charlie Sheen:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_and_a_Half_Men

* But who cares about all of that media politics? Who started the Microcomputer revolution? And the answer is … A lot of people. Standing on the shoulders of giants as they say. The Pirates of Silicon Valley as some say. It was a lot of (supposedly) magical things … but it was lot of Good Luck on the part of the supposed pirates. “In the right place at the right time” dot com. And apparently taking the right actions.

* I started looking at this whole thing again … because I continue to try and be vigilant regarding the new IPv6 thing and I’ve been looking again at my methods of brushing up on Hexadecimal and such … and I keep going back to my little bit of work on the Z80pack – Imsaisim – Imsai 8080 Sim for Linux and what I did in re-writing Lawrence Wright’s program for that Sim in z80 (vs original 8080) to be re-loadable on that sim. I did a lot more with that – not on the level of Bill Gates or Paul Allen or the guys at Apple in the day or now … but enough to get my brain warm with Hex and such and core programming. A little respect … for what those that have gone before have done. (I did this also in my younger days a little bit with Atari 800/XL assembly language programming)

Anyway I want to appreciate what we’ve got, how we got here, and hopefully know how to go forward (Including IPv5 coming out live now) and be able to handle next-generation networks onboard sail and motor yachts – as well as the occasional project on land.

—

73 de KA4UDX,

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom and WiFiYacht.net

+1 954 683 3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

A question came up on Youtube.com – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDGYIUZMbuY about why the old Imsai 8080 Computer used a big power transformer and beer can sized capacitors in its power supply.

Before answering that comment I went looking for Computer Power Supply History and found this:

http://www.arcfn.com/2012/02/apple-didnt-revolutionize-power.html

This seems to be a very good article on Computer Power Supply History even though it starts out countering claims by Steve Jobs that the Switching Power Supply in the Apple II was revolutionary. It goes on to explain that switching power supplies have been around for a LONG TIME … but the bottom line being that the jump to transistors that could handle the Line Voltage (110vAC?) directly without a power transformer was the biggest.

The comments below the article were also interesting (including one back from the article author) – I liked #4 comment about Power Waste as Heat and Efficiency … complete with the pertinent calculations.

—

Alan Spicer

Alan Spicer Marine Telecom and WiFiYacht.net

+1 954-683-3426

communications @ marinetelecom.net

“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics. Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and sciences, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.”

%%% Steve Jobs, from Walter Isaacson’s biography.

 * Alan says: That quote from Steve Jobs is interesting to me because of similarities to myself. I had a photo of myself tagged (written by hand on the back or was it the front? I’ve got to find that photo again) by my mother for me as being “A politician”. I don’t remember what got written for my two brothers … but it was supposed to be sort of a prediction of what her sons would become. That picture was probably 30 years ago.

I also liked electronics and communications, and especially electronics that facilitated or performed the function of communicating. I was inspired by my grandfather who had been in the electrical field (Edison Electric Co. Chicago) and radio field (supposedly had his own radio shop and built radios, though I never saw that in person.) My grandfather did give me the radio “bug” and he showed many radio and communications things to me and my brothers. We were fascinated by his reel-to-reel tape recorder among other things. My grandfather gave me an old shortwave radio – it was a tube type receiver with the “XX Meter Band”‘s marked on it. I remember listening to HCJB - Quito, Ecuador among other signals such as VOA – Voice of America. I went in the Navy at 17 as a Signalman (Flags, Semaphore, Morse Code by Light) and also qualified on my own as a Radioman. I did perform a health-and-welfare communications role onboard ship during my last year by activating a SSB Radio based system (Navy MARS) that allowed Radio-Telephone “Patch” Calls for the officers and crew. But I don’t know if I did that more as a humanities thing or for the pure enjoyment of being able to operate the ships powerful radio transmitter and receiver equipment. I did enjoy both the human goodwill and the radio – electronics part of it.

I like to think of myself as a person that, through my work in computer and communications consulting, brings down to earth (in laymans terms)the technologies involved in computers and communications (ala “The Internet” and “Voice Telephony” these days.) I have a love for providing documentation and learning and knowing how stuff works and passing that on to friend and customers. I like to know at least a moderate if not a great deal about how computers and communications devices work. I also like fashioning better ways of doing things, easier to use, and to my benefit easier to support. Anyway I’m not Steve Jobs … but I am Alan Spicer.

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[end]