Why is my Phone Company????? - you are not going to believe this

Comcast sent me a $191 bill, which I decided was way to high,  so I started investigating other providers for the services that Comcast Provides.

The TV part of the spectrum would be provided by one of the satellite companies, but then there is the high speed Internet.

A little background - I live in what I thought was not all that rural of an area. (close to here)  The house is ~10 years old, and I switched to Vonage 5 or so years ago, and dropped my land line altogether. I used to have a DSL line before I went Cable.

I called Century Link, whom Dish Network uses to provide their Internet Connection. After quite a while on the phone with a very helpful representative it was determined that he can not provide DSL (or voice) to my address, and they were very sorry, and they did not know who did.

I called the FCC - very helpfully they refereed me to the PUCO of Pennsylvania. The  best the PUCO could do was snail mail me a list of  "providers".   Seems that some communications act allowed anybody to say they were in the phone business and to bill you for the privilege, most of these people probably are nothing more than just a phone number and a billing program..  No Luck.

The PUCO suggested that I call my local Municipal Building. The helpful person at the Littlestown Town Hall didn't have an exact name - but she shared that "Almost everyone around here uses Century link."

Talk about running around in circles. 

Think about it - Hundreds of Thousands of tons of copper pairs strung all over the country, seemingly not used by anybody anymore!

I feel like a dinosaur - my first Job was with Cincinnati Bell, planning how many people would need phone service 5, 10, and 15 years in the future. Seems that 40 years down the line no one does.

Now almost anybody under 30 only has a cell phone number.  Only old folks like me even consider a wired land line. Makes me want to build a very large hobby rocket and put up my own satellite, and give away phone service....

Interesting Nova - The Spy Factory

After I watched a few episodes of Glee on Hulu - I wandered over to the Nova programs.  I found one that the last segment was about data mining and the NSA.  The things they were talking about, as next to impossible, rocket science type of stuff, we are exposed to every day via Google.

Add Words filter a message, or search results, as to content and puts a Ad for you to possibly click on.  The concept of transcribing a voice message is run of the mill on Google voice. To think Google is having to do it with scads of off the shelf hardware . NSA has a basement full of Cray Super computers.  Think they have a little more capability?  The Nova program has quite a few of shots of Cray Cabinets lined up in the NSA.  Kind neat in a techy way.  

I think that everyone has the capability to listen to anyone, but we are all hiding in plain sight.  Just don't attract attention to yourself with phrases like "blowing up the Whitehouse" or a phrase like "biological attack"
(Hi Adam, Say hi to Josh from me next time you see him...).

Check it out - http://video.pbs.org/video/1051968443/

How to recycle Cheese Ball Container - KittenBall !!!!!

Enjoy some of the best Cheese Balls in the world.

Wash - add  one kitten.

Oil Spill

How much is a barrel of oil worth - one pelican, 50 lbs of shrimp - a months rent? Money isn't the object - corporate responsibility is. From what I read BP knew the blowout preventer was defective - had to reduce the pressure when testing, it was just a matter of time...

My feeling is - All these undersea shenanigans are more for show than anything else - prove to everyone that they are trying. PR. They really know that each one has a minimal chance at succeeding.

What they probably know, but won't admit, is that the only true probability of success is the two relief wells. All they got do is intersect a 5 ft diameter hole 8 thousand feet down rilling at a 45degree angle. What do you think, could you imagine it working.

More likely they feel if they get close enough and relieve the pressure by pumping out all the oil that the other leak will slow dow to "manageble" levels.

what a crock.....

Photoresistor provides negative feedback to an op amp, producing a linear response

Photoresistor provides negative feedback to an op amp, producing a linear response: "View as PDF AGC (automatic-gain-control) amplifiers use the nonline..."

Live Feeds from BP remotley operated vehicles (ROV)

Fascinating!!! - have been watching them rehearse for cutting off the riser pipe this morning

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/homepage/STAGING/local_assets/bp_homepage/html/rov_stream.html

CNC - a little one at least

Something i have been wanting to do for a long time, ever since I saw an instructable on home CNC was build one just for fun. Well the price of most of the materials makes it no so fun.

The pipes for the first one, would have come to 40-50$ at the local Ace hardware, so i concentrated on electronics. The board i was building in a recent post was a controller from the instructable.

I tried with drawer slides and I could never get the table square enough to do anything serious. Everything was always binding and the cheap steppers I picked up on eBay were just not strong enough to move the table without dropping pulses. The idea was still simmered in the back of my mind...

Then I ran across the Mantis 9.1. It had two secret ingredients that made it all come together. The rods/bearings idea, and the sacrificial table idea. The Rod/Bearing and match drilling made everything square up, and the bearings made everything easy to move with weak motors.

The flatness of the table was guaranteed by simply using the machine to mill the table flat relative to the spindle.

I guess the best thing about the design, was that it could be built cheap. He used 1/2" Plywood, and he evidently used a Shop Bot to cut out the basic parts. Looking over the design i kept seeing Reference line sand to here. I realized if I got a 3/4" MDF shelf it had three edges that were as square as I needed. I invested $5 on the shelf, and printed out the plans and just spray tacked them to the shelf and took after the it with a jig saw.

Couple of caveats - MDF makes a lot of dust - keep a shop vac handy and wear a mask. MDF uses up tools in a hurry. About half way through cutting the basic pieces, the cutting was slowing to a crawl. When I examined the jigsaw blade the teeth were completely worn down to nubs.

I got a cheap set of blades and kept it up. Later I realized the table saw had a blade with carbide cutting teeth, and it made short work of the rest of the square pieces.

Being the cheap person I am, :-), I wasn't about to order hardened steel bars cut to length from McMasters. I found a more than serviceable replacement in the metals bin at the local hardware store, and at Lowes. The 3/8" plated rod 36" long costs a whooping $3.69 and two is all I needed. Easily cut to length with a hack saw. The bearings cost 1.69 in brass, and 2.69 each in bronze (from two different stores).

So the initial investment in the Hardware came to all of 33$ so far. I wish the first store had more of the cheaper bearings.

The drive screw I am planning on using is standard 1/4" x 20 x 12" threaded rod I had. You have to pick over the stock to get one straight enough without nicks. I got a long nut used to join the rods and just threaded it over the selection and found one that the nut moved smoothly over the full length length.

I dry fit all the parts and took a picture. The wife took one look at it and said, "I thought it would be bigger" This mill has always been the prototype - and I don't really plan on using it for more that a try out. Refine the build, taking into account lessons learned make one for real. I'll have to make the next one bigger though - for her ;-)

Next will be finishing up the parts, mounting the electronics and trying it out. Stay tuned - film in a few weeks,