This series of shots records our approach into the Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport (SJU) of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The final two images are of planes which are part of one of the ultra modern Caribbean fleets.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Islands overflown
This morning, my flight from Atlanta to San Juan passed over a string of small islands which I just happened to notice out the window. Maybe you can tell me their name(s)?
Thursday, July 26, 2007
My short Arecibo video ...
Below is a short video panning along the access catwalk to the 900 ton platform. The triangular frame of the upper platform holds a circular track on which the azimuth arm turns. The azimuth arm is a bow shaped structure 328 feet long. The curved part of the arm is another track, on which a carriage house on one side and the Gregorian dome (installed in 1996). Inside the Gregorian dome two subreflectors (secondary and tertiary) focus radiation to a point in space where a set of horn antennae can be positioned to gather the signal.
The reflector "dish" is 305 m (1000 feet) in diameter, 167 feet deep, and covers an area of about twenty acres. The surface is made of almost 40,000 perforated aluminum panels, each measuring about 3 feet by 6 feet, supported by a network of steel cables strung across the underlying karst sinkhole. There is space between the cables and the ground surface for workers and vehicles. The "dish" is a spherical (not parabolic) reflector .
A few hours at Arecibo Observatory, Puerto Rico
On Saturday, 22 July 2007, I drove from San Juan to Arecibo in Puerto Rico. At Arecibo, I turned inland for a drive along ever-narrowing roads curving around and up & down the mountains. I arrived at the security portal to be waved through by the security person and found the public parking. A 500-step climb alongside the access road got me to the Visitors' Center and access to the largest radio telescope in the world. I hope you enjoy my photos.
For more information, see http://www.naic.edu/.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
From somewhere on the Internet ...
To: Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster
From: Coxrid, IT director, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
Re: My resignation
Headmaster:
I regret that I must resign my position, effective two weeks ago, at least.
It is simply impossible under these conditions to create a modern, integrated, flexible IT architecture aligned with the school's educational mission and objectives.
Deployment of the OC-3 fiber backbone met insuperable difficulties, as you know, when the cabling crew was attacked repeatedly by Dementors. Cabling staff rarely are effervescent people in the best of times, and having their life force sucked through their faces by cloaked, shadowy horrors as they lay paralyzed in icy terror is a serious de-motivator.
I may say that your presumably jocular suggestion that the Cisco Certified Network Professional training be modified to include instruction in casting the Patronus Charm was not well received.
As you know, it was considered impractical to deploy CAT5 cable in most areas because of the prevalence of solid granite walls, floors and ceilings and your adamant refusal to consider installing drop-down ceilings - not to mention the difficulties imposed by randomly moving staircases.
But attempts to deploy a wireless LAN have been frustrated by first-form students removing the antennas from the access points, in the conviction that these make superior wands. A conviction that proved immune to a very rigorous, indeed educational, outreach program by the school's able caretaker, Argus Filch.
Of course, this obstacle was dwarfed by the so-called magical-interference problem. Reluctantly, at your request, I did raise this issue in a series of phone calls with Cisco Technical Support.
It quickly became clear that magic was not an issue with which Cisco Tech Support was familiar, even when escalated to the highest level. I patiently explained that, of course it was not magical spells per se that were causing interference, but the transmission of the wizard's (or witch's) energy, via the wand, occasioned by the spells. This explanation was met, variously, by expressions of confusion and outright disbelief and not infrequently, by ridicule.
"This sounds like a spectrum-regulation issue for the FCC," said one Cisco employee, nearly choking in laughter at his own leaden attempt at humor.
A supervisor finally confirmed that Cisco had no plans to modify its radio-frequency management software to detect and compensate for magic, but that I could file a request for change through my Cisco account representative. In retrospect, I believe this, too, was intended as humor.
Even usually mundane issues proved burdensome. Just one example will suffice. One of the main wiring closets was to be the rarely used second-floor girls' bathroom, which when renovated would be an ideal location. Except, of course, for the ghost. Moaning Myrtle's initial flooding of the bathroom resulted in the loss of switches and associated equipment worth in excess of 18,000 galleons. Negotiations proved fruitless in the face of her unceasing moaning and crying, and the project was abandoned.
Also abandoned was a plan to create a wireless mesh network to cover the outlying Quidditch pitch, when beaters on both teams repeatedly used the mesh nodes as practice targets for their bludgers.
Despite all this, one could have persevered (IT professionals are uncommonly stubborn, which is often mistaken for thickheadness) , but for the quite unexpected and even more stubborn resistance by Hogwarts faculty to the introduction of modern technology into the classroom.
I made a thorough and elaborate PowerPoint presentation on the benefits that an online learning management system would deliver for faculty and students (Professor Snape's contemptuous dismissal of it as the work of a "PowerPoint wizard" was uncalled for).
In vain did I describe how online courses could increase the school's revenue stream and achieve profitability goals; the greater flexibility, not to mention safety, of using 3-D online simulations of boggarts instead of the shape-shifters themselves; the desirability of an online potions catalog, cross-referenced with the Ministry of Magic's database of potential side effects; an interactive, voice-automated Parseltongue translation system; a Defense Against the Dark Arts curriculum based on next-generation gaming software; a digital library to replace the heavy, often musty tomes of incantations; and an information security infrastructure to block access by He Who Must Not Named.
Yet when Professor of Divination Sybill Trelawney said the proposed IT architecture was "insensitive to theInner Eye," I realized my efforts were hopeless.
I have done all I can, Headmaster. I'm afraid that despite my best efforts, Hogwarts' IT communications infrastructure will remain dependent on owls, talking letters, the use of Floo powder and a fireplace network, and of course, divinations, dreams and visions.
I am returning (once the full moon is past) to the Muggle world of cellular data services and high-tech IPOs. They at least, appreciate the true magic of information technology.
Your obedient servant,
Coxrid
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