It’s been at least six years since I last took a CPR class. Going through recertification (at 8am this morning, no less), it’s amazing how much I remembered.
YOU! CALL A CODE AND GET A CART!
Heard: “I can pass the baby around if anyone wants to practice.”
Parsed as: “I can pass the bong around if anyone wants to practice.”
(It’s still strange to me how I can enter the lobby of UPMC Montefiore and be on the seventh floor of the building… and where the hell did floors three and below disappear to?)
will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore will you take us to Mt. Splashmore
Hot dogs, fries, wings, and beer at The ‘O’ were pretty damned satisfying, but I think I’d take good ol’ Vienna Beef at Chipmunks any day.
“How do you install something in Linux? In Windows, you download the program, double-click on the icon, and away you go.”
“Yes, that’s why we had to reinstall Windows on your laptop twice.”
(“Yeah, I reinstalled Windows on his laptop again.” “He seems to get into a lot of trouble with his computers… what do you think we should do?” “Install Linux, get him VMWare with WinXP, and don’t give him the root password.”)
“I think it’s about time to buy another computer.” Here, take my laptop and buy me a PowerBook pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease
can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad can we have a pool Dad
Surreal moment of the day: waiting for a bus at 7am with Saint Etienne piping through the earphones. For best effect, must have woken up an hour prior after three and a half hours of sleep.
ra-di-oh
Slashdot has an article about the first (or one of the first) Linux-powered handheld software radio. Most of those commenting are right on target, highlighting the world of opportunities software-defined radios open up. By interfacing a computer to a generic RF transceiver, one can pretty much do anything they can think of doing. Some, though, don’t really understand what’s going on, imagining instead computers that are turned into glorified FM radios that are already cheaply available. A bit of education is necessary at this point.
Traditionally, wireless is done mainly through hardware, from the simple Heathkits of yore, to homebrew radios and commercially-available radios that cost hundreds of dollars and use internally-developed ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) for processing. Building such transceivers (I use the term ‘transceivers’ to further clarify that this is NOT something like writing a program to function as a mere broadcast-FM receiver) from scratch can become an expensive task and requires a lot of knowledge of practical electrical engineering.
In contrast, there are tons of software programmers out there, and all the knowledge they need is an understanding of the protocols that encode useful information on an electromagnetic wave. Proven digital-to-analog converters (DACs) are freely available, as well as the hardware to transmit and receive an RF signal. Coming up with applications to take advantage of them is as “easy” as writing a program to do the encoding.
Most radios are built to handle only certain types of communication, such as FM/AM broadcast, FM two-way communications, or digital CDMA/GSM communications such as what can be found on your typical mobile phone. Technology is progressing rapidly–analog wireless communications has been replaced by digital protocols, and of the digital protocols, the prevalent mode is determined (at least in the United States) by market forces. Changing carriers from, say, Verizon to AT&T (which is a switch between communication protocols) requires you buy a completely new phone, which only through the grace of subsidies doesn’t hit your wallet as much as it potentially could. Any switch or upgrade requires new equipment, which means more cash down the drain.
Imagine, then, if switching were as easy as downloading a firmware update. That is one facet of the promise that software-defined radios offer. The whole package becomes modular, and what’s more, each module is accessible to the consumer. Replacing an obsolete module doesn’t require purchasing a completely new package.
For those of us who like to tinker, this allows us to do much, much more than we could before. We now become limited only by the transceiver hardware. Any mode of communication is theoretically possible. All we need is a computer. Debugging projects become a whole new ballgame–it now becomes a matter of tracking down coding errors instead of isolating faults in circuits (did I solder that component correctly? did I accidentally shock that chip? did I read the schematic correctly?) and you don’t need an oscilloscope or network analyzer to debug your project (though they are certainly useful).
Already, people are exploring the potential of software-defined radio. For amateur radio enthusiasts, there is the Flex Radio and a 2-meter transceiver kit. The GNU Radio Project is putting together an HDTV receiver for your computer.
Hey, the sky’s the limit. Just bring your coding skills and a book on communication theory (appropriate transceiver hardware extra), and you can make anything from a simple FM receiver to even a Wi-Fi device.