LUX.ET.UMBRA

Image by Scott Ableman via Flickr

The FAA is still denying that cell phones are safe in the air.   While it’s true that cell phones do generate electromagnetic signals, it’s also true that the signal of the EM field dramatically drops off as you get farther away from the user.  Most do not generate any substantial field outside of the “personal space” of the cell phone user.   If you don’t believe this, go buy a EM reader and give it a shot.   It’s rather interesting on the non-linear drop.

On top of this, it was shown on Mythbusters (episode 49) a while back that cell phones do not interfere with the navigational equipment of a plane unless the plane has unshielded wiring.  And believe me, if you’re running faulty wiring, the least of your worries will be coming from mobile devices.

I will agree that banning cell phone use on a plane for sake of safety is a cop out play when in reality, the only thing that cell phones are in the air would probably be the annoyance factor.   Due to the background noise of the plane, people that talk loudly already would just raise their voices.   And the last thing most passengers want to to is to be locked in a confined space with a bunch of shouting business people that are trying to conduct business.

Fortunately, I have a solution for this.   If someone has enough change to spare that they’re willing to sign an agreement before the flight takes off to have a decibel monitor on them, and their credit card on file, then if their voice ever goes above a certain level, they’re automatically fined.  This fine is then distributed to both the flight crew, airline, and passengers on board guided by the fact that since everyone will be annoyed, you might as well be compensated for the annoyance.

This would either prevent people from calling as much on flights, or keep their voices down of which they should be doing anyways.   While policing the airwaves at thirty thousand feet isn’t something fun, use the right reasoning.   I mean, let’s be honest.   If people can use cell phones when they “touch down” on the landing, then it would also be safe to say that those EM transmissions would not effect other instruments.  Or else every time you land, you’d see a blip in your flight instruments that would be visible to the naked eye.

Tags: Cellular, Electronics, Observation, Opinion, Technology, Travel by darkmoon
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I have to say that the last two times I’ve been out to dinner with my wife, it’s been a rather strange experience. Both times, I was asked whether or not we wanted separate checks. What’s weird is that I’m getting the strange feeling that this could be the fact that we’re a mixed couple and people make assumptions that apparently that doesn’t exist in the South.

How odd is that? I can’t think of any other reason that you’d ask whether or not someone wanted separate checks. Usually, people ask, but both times at different restaurants, the waitresses offered up the option right away.

For some odd reason, I haven’t been able to justify it by any other means, and giving benefit of the doubt. It just doesn’t make any logical sense unless you throw race into play. While I know that these tendencies still exist, it’s usually strange to see it so blatantly. But really, why am I not surprised at all…

Tags: Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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I don’t know who came up with using quotes. But having analyzed much of the traffic that goes across social networks, I have to say that if you use quotes, you’re asking for trouble.

Why?

Have you ever looked the twitter bot accounts and what they post? Usually, a substantial number of them use quotes. Those that filter onto Facebook also use quotes. In fact, there really isn’t any time that those bots don’t throw in the quotes section since they want some filler that could be applicable to human interaction. And thus, those of us that actually do watch and read the traffic become extremely desensitized to quotations.

This is a lose-lose situation. First, the people that read don’t feel like there’s substance there so they skip reading your information, even if you might have some fabulous stuff later on. What can I say, the attention span of Internet users is fairly short. But also, the user of the medium that has integrated quotations also gets thrown into the bucket with the spam bots. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be in the same bucket as spam bots.

If you do use quotes, I implore you to stop. It’s not helping and the filler really isn’t useful. If you intend to keep at it though, no worries. The rest of the world is probably ignoring you.

Tags: Blogging, Facebook, Internet, Observation, Opinion, Twitter, spam by darkmoon
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I have to say that there’s some things that seem entirely like FUD because people watch too many movies. So there’s this sign that I saw while I was driving home and the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed.

Most people wouldn’t think twice about reading this sign and would just do as it said. But, think about it. Most of your 2-way radios are on the family band. This means that it’s a public channel. These channels are for use of all sorts of things (thus the word public). Private radio bands require licensing and is on a different spectrum. But regardless, you would imagine that anyone setting a wireless detonator on a public band is absolutely bonkers. I mean, there are signals at all times on those bands so that wouldn’t make any sense.

And the entire cell phone thing is silly too since the signal is on two levels. One is from the base station, and one is from your mobile. If you turn off your phone, that doesn’t mean the base station quits trying to provide coverage. So, if a cell phone signal would set off blasting, then wouldn’t you have to shield it from all cell phone signals? Including the base station? So if you use wireless detonators, you call the wireless companies to turn off their towers? What about emergency band vehicles? No more 911 calls?

Without more solid evidence that there is any reason to turn off a two-way radio or cell phone, this becomes very much like a movie based FUD action. Lovely.

Tags: Cellular, Observation, Opinion, Wireless by darkmoon
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“Seriously. What the hell, Mr. President?” , is the question I want to ask.

It’s funny how in several years, the United States will take all the progress its done and piss it all away. Truthfully, I don’t think the Republican Party could have asked for a better screw up as the health care reform, but even the consideration of VAT tax is the nail on the coffin.

Here’s the key. In living in one of the states with the highest unemployment rates, I’ve found that the government really doesn’t care about me. Or you. Or anyone else. It’s not really that crazy, all in all I believe that GOP has solidified November and will continue to grow stronger as long as they don’t open their mouths and say something stupid. That’s still a possibility, but overall the Democrats have really shot themselves in the foot with this one.

First, you don’t pass something that you know you can’t pay for. Especially in times like this. If we could pay for it, then why are we considering the VAT tax option? And second, the point of VAT is to replace the antiquated sales tax. It’s not an additional tax. I’ve been working in financial markets for long enough to know that the value-added tax is just a multi-tiered system that allows the percentage of tax to be collected at multiple levels throughout the product cycle. This ensures that the government gets more of the percentage in case someone skimps on paying sales tax instead of a all or nothing scenario which is what we have in the United States currently.

The state of government seems to be screwed up by politicians that don’t take the time to understand basic concepts before they start pushing them. Which is not only frightening but also very sad. The fact that I read last night where there was an amendment to the Whistleblower Act in 2009 from the Senate that capped compensatory damages as opposed to punitive damages just made me extremely annoyed. I mean, seriously? You don’t know which word means what and for what logic? Whistleblowers serve a purpose and capping the loss compensation basically would remove any reason to blow the whistle on bad behavior. I thought the point was to protect the little guy when the big guy is doing something inherently wrong. Guess not.

I suppose I should have known better when I myself got sick of the financial market ruin created by bad laws passed by the GOP majority. Which means this stupidity problem falls on both sides of the aisle. Politicians need to start removing their heads from wherever they are and start realizing that you actually need to know what the hell you’re talking about instead of being the salesperson. Looking good for the camera doesn’t help you when you can’t understand basic concepts that even “I” can understand. And I don’t claim to be a graduate of any Ivy League or an expert in anything legal or political. If Joe the Plumber understands that you’re screwing up somewhere, doesn’t this mean that you need to stop to think before you pass something stupid instead of gunking up the toilet? It’s time to wake up.

Tags: Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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Image via CrunchBase

This is funny as hell. I mean seriously. Does this guy even understand how power works? Less trips to the charger? WOW. Okay… a little lesson on how telecom radios work folks. It’s a really easy concept actually. A base station is usually located somewhere between one to two miles away. Ideally. Sometimes farther, sometimes closer. But the amount of power it takes to generate a signal that far is a lot more power on the forward channel than any WiFi signal. Ever.

So buying into the whole … Verizon is the best 3G network so we’re making use of their network thing is total marketing mumbo jumbo. I would know, considering I’ve worked on the infrastructure. What’s funny is that someone at Verizon made this call on banning WiFi which I have no clue about because from a telecom business perspective it makes absolutely no sense. Probably a sales guy that didn’t do his bean counting correctly.

So if you have a Verizon smart phone, you have to pay for a line and a data package. You don’t have a choice in this matter. And more than likely you use it for way more things than Skype. Believe me, the last thing I consider use for my data package for is voip. So why would you ban voip? Because some brilliant guy somewhere thought that it would decrease sales in lines, without actually thinking through who actually uses Android phones.

Here’s food for thought. The point of Skype is voip, but RF spectrum is actually expensive to run. Why not allow people to do their voip on WiFi but still pay for their data packages? You’re basically allowing more spectrum available for both actual data and voice use (depending on how the channels are configured). It’s the most optimal use of your current network from a business perspective and network perspective. Again, something else I’d know since I spent over ten years optimizing network traffic and analyzing KPIs.

It seems that Skype couldn’t break their full client in to Verizon and they didn’t know the telecom lingo to actually sell it. What’s amusing is that it makes them look bad in throwing the Skype Lite out since it really doesn’t help with those of us that run SkypeIn numbers or allow us to conduct business the way Google Voice does. Oh right, Verizon isn’t afraid of Google Voice which makes connections over the voice lines? That’s more traffic taken up for no reason when it doesn’t have to be routed as such.

All in all, both of Skype and Verizon Wireless need to revisit how their technologies work and why one thing is superseded by another when they’re two different things. I get the whole Verizon wants to make money and are afraid that they would lose subs. But come on… are you serious? Releasing a product that half par is worse than not releasing one at all. It just makes both ends look terrible from a public relations perspective and becomes a marketing nightmare. In the end, you’d spend more money trying to fight the non-existent problem instead of just letting the thing through.

Right now? I can say that as a telecom veteran, I have to say that this application might as well have been left in beta. In fact, the beta was better since it didn’t disable the wifi. That’s a little sad. There’s nothing great about the final Android version and continues to win subpar remarks because of bad decision made on both ends.

Tags: Business, Cellular, Observation, Opinion, Skype, WiFi by darkmoon
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People that know me have known that I’ve already been talking about this for the past few months, but it’s time to put it on paper. I’m calling it. Google is going to be chasing the airwaves for ad space in a couple years. Guaranteed.

Why? Pieces of the puzzle are falling into place already. Google Fiber experiment? Pulease. That’s a FiOS pull if I’ve ever saw one. And Verizon already brings television to your home. This would just give Google medium to mine all that invaluable data and run their algorithms on it to find out what you’re watching and how to target the advertisement. And we all know that Google is king when it comes to algorithmic ad targeting.

But this piece that I just found out about…. now this really puts it into perspective. Google is getting into set-top boxes. Forget Internet television. There is a real big money play being driven here, and it’s being done through the eyes of people thinking outside the box but staying within the realm of what the company is just plain good at: mathematics.

Companies like this are few and far between. Even many of the older 1990s companies have not been able to take any of their product lines outside of their general medium scopes. Google is actually buying up real estate in new mediums to try their hand at things that they have stuck with in the Internet world. And believe you me, it’ll work like a charm. Like a friend of mine told me a long time ago: it’s not the fact that you’re inventing a car, or a plane. It’s the thought that you’re building a car that can fly like a plane that is what no one else has grasped. And Google already setting up for take-off before anyone even realizes.

Tags: Advertising, Business, Google, Internet, Observation, Opinion, Technology, Television by darkmoon
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Apparently, the online tax for North Carolina hasn’t been bringing in the money that it was supposed to and the thinktank, Tax Foundation, has published a report that says that not only does it hurt the state in the short term, but it also hurts the state in the long term too.

Noooo kidddding.

Amusingly, this is basically the “I told you so” parts where the legislation made decisions on things they knew nothing about and spent budget money that they didn’t have. Again. Nothing new here, folks. Politicians that don’t understand technology and business? Like we’ve never heard that one before.

Interestingly enough, although to no avail, I had spoken about this issue time and again during the time when the “Amazon Tax” during the time period when it was passed and how our legislation thought how wonder it would be to gain some figure in the sky millions in some sort of pot of gold wish.

I mean, seriously. They still continued to budget and spend for this year as if there is this money coming in although there is nary a word from the North Carolina Department of Revenue on whether or not there actually is significant tax revenues coming in due to this tax. I suspect that there is little to nothing, considering they had targeted Amazon, and Amazon cut their ties with North Carolina affiliates and hurt the state in the process. Amusingly, the bad guy that Amazon was made out to be wasn’t so bad and in the end the politicians seemed to have stuck their own foots in their mouth if this study from Tax Foundation has anything to say about it.

From my perspective? Well, one of my businesses just didn’t carry as much revenue this year. Instead of having to pay taxes on the income, it seemed that it was more of a write off this last year. Oh well. Tough cookies for the North Carolina bare coffers.

Tags: Amazon, Law, Local, Observation, Opinion, Politics by darkmoon
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I’m really disappointed. So far, I’ve been tracking the entire deal for all sorts of cities on and off for the past week on “Google’s Infrastructure for Communities” venture. Amusingly, I had actually applied for the city of Winston-Salem long before Greensboro even knew about this venture. And with all of the cities, including Greensboro, no one has once bothered to mention that this product is specifically last mile driven. It’s to the homes of consumers. That’s right, it’s basically the same as Wilson’s Greenlight project.

FTTH – (fiber to the home).

It’s documented right there in the RFI, but everyone is trying this gimmick and that gimmick to try to get Google to come. Why not analyze what their business model has been and will continue to be? Why not actually look and see whether or not they have actually purchased dark fiber around your area? That’s information that is vital and crucial to your cause. Those that have dark fiber that has been purchased close to your locale will probably stand a better chance of becoming the venture’s pet project.

What journalists need to focus on, is not whether or not businesses or research institutions have access to high speed Internet. That’s just entirely irrelevant. So what if Google puts in FTTH. That would not effect a school, nor a law firm, or even a medical facility. What people need to find out is what sort of applications could be coming across a high speed connection to your home. Would you discontinue your cable service? Would you go with fiber based HDTV? What if Google was your provider and controlled the line and access points? Why would this be good for what they do?

I think there are many people that are not asking the right questions. Google doesn’t ever do anything for free (yes, Google does mine your Gmail. It’s in your terms of service). And it’s not like the Dell fiasco with the manufacturing plant since any job creation would be very much infrastructure related. Would your city become an instant techburg? Of course. But at what price, and do you have what it takes to do this?

Personally? I think they’re after the television content. Youtube is perhaps only the first step in the long line of things, but having been a shareholder and analyzed their corporation for a number of years, I can say that I can see many ways that they could monetize the information gathered by using similar techniques as their current search but applied in the high-definition medium.

Google is a great company and I would love for them to become a major corporate player in the Triad. But so far, what I’ve seen has been more of the whole … who can throw the biggest party and have the best food for when Google comes. Sorry, Topeka. Just. Not. Impressed. And that just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes right down to it.

Tags: Google, Internet, Local, Observation, Opinion by darkmoon
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I don’t know about you but when I was a kid, I really enjoyed the Super Bowl half time shows. But as times progressed, it just hasn’t been quite the same. In fact, these days, I don’t even bother watching it and actually go do something else. I’m going to venture the thought that this year will not be any different. I mean, “The Who”? Couldn’t they have got a better act like Daft Punk, or Black Eyed Peas?

If you actually think about it, the last five years have been acts that were in the prime like almost twenty years ago. Maybe more. When was the last time anyone really listened to Prince?

Don’t get me wrong, I like The Who but it’s not what I consider something that grabs the younger crowds. Heck, where are the singers from like the New Year’s Eve bashes? Those are the ones that are recent and the cool acts. It’s also within this decade of music history.

I think whomever schedules this for the NFL really is living in the past. Next thing you know, we’re going to bringing back the Monkees. Nothing wrong with that, but if you ever wonder why your viewership during that time has drastically dropped off? There might be a good reason for it.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the NFL needs to work with Apple’s iTunes marketing team. They find the greatest music that is absolutely catchy and often bands that no one has heard before. And that’s fresh and new, but what do I know. I don’t have billions of dollars hanging in the balance.

Tags: Observation, Opinion, Sports, Television by darkmoon
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