This is what is left of a type of electrical fuse called a “cigar”. It exploded doing its job and led to a full day of dirty, dusty work for me. A sub [sandwich] store opened next door. The proprietor installs six large meat coolers without check to see if the electrical system can handle it. Then he slaps on the main breaker. When the fire department finally left, Fred had lost his laser printer and several smaller items. Up in smoke.
The good news is this forced me into the shop long enough to take care of a backlog. First of all, I took along the tape duplicating equipment to discover there was not enough space on my main C: drive to perform the operation. Upon closer examination, the drive is half full of iTunes. This means that weird lady with the iPod has been downloading to my hard drive despite clear instructions that customers are not to do that. Pasted on the wall of every cubicle. This broad is weird, this is the one I’ve told you about who takes forever to do simple things and then complains about the cost. Then wants to pay later. Every one recognizes the old “I want you to do it for me” scenario but she is far too old and heavy set for that to work for her like it used to.
I wound up taking a spare 20 gig drive off another unit an installing it. Then came the discovery that the new Pinnacle software does not like to copy to a remote drive. I’m going to clone the drive day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, something happened that I am kind of glad came along. The network crashed. Years ago I worked with a guy (Gary LeBlanc) who constantly claimed he was good at repairing things. He was, but once you’d been around the guy long enough, it became obvious he was indirectly causing the damage.
The network runs from Fred’s cable modem to three separate LANs in the shop. One to Mike in the back, Fred’s and one to the front area where my computers are set up. If you’ve been here a while, you’ll recall that the network problems only seem to occur when Mike is working on-line. Like Gary, you could not directly point to anything he does wrong, but you know there is a correlation. All my computers drop off the Internet at the same time, so of course I’m going looking for the common point.
Only to discover that Mike’s computer is also off-line. This coincidence has been around for quite some time, so I did what I should have done many moons ago. I borrowed Fred’s stepladder and ran a separate LAN cable through the dirty dusty ceiling space behind the acoustic panels. Down the hallway, past Fred’s office and along the west wall, where it cannot be easily “borrowed” even for testing. Not only is it now on a separate network, it works blindingly fast. I was impressed. Now, let us see if the problems recur, and if they do, are they confined to a certain network. I’m just curious.
I did some reading on the new Internet video surveillance systems. The market share is growing and taking away from CCTV, yet there are no specialty stores in this part of the world. Don’t mistake the new system with those old “TV” tapes of that same guy who seems to rob every convenience store. The new system is crystal clear and you can easily see a license plate across the parking lot.
All of this research led to a very informative article (by a guy with the unlikely name of Bill Van Winkle). I learned the new system is called an IP camera. As an eye-opener, the author points out that the first public CCTV camera was installed in a London train station in 1961. In true English fashion, it must be the other person’s fault when things go wrong or if they don’t like you, so video-tape them. If they’d only learn to do things your way, they’d be happy, but they just don’t get it. I learned the IRA “unrest” has since resulted in one video surveillance camera for every 14 people in England and the “average Londoner is ‘surveilled’ over 300 times per day.” Yes, per day.
That means when IP cameras make their appearance in America, it will be 14 cameras for each person and you’ll be recorded 3,000 times per day. It is just how we do things here. Of course, there will be a small but vocal minority who will accuse anyone who objects as “having something to hide” which is akin these days to calling them a child molester. The American system will be tied into your credit report, the medical information database and your local police station. Scratch where it itches and you may be one step closer to the docket.
I view the IP camera system [in America] as inevitable. One or two high-profile crimes get solved and the business community will clamor for their own installation. Take my advice and go see a demo of these things so you won’t think I’m overstating the case. Trust me, you won’t believe it at first. The cameras are tiny and feed over the Internet to a central location. Unlike the old CCTV cameras in Las Vegas where the operator had to punch channels to follow you around, these cameras each have a separate feed that records everything. You don’t stand a chance.
Furthermore, the equipment is dropping in price. If it follows the same direction as computers, before long you will be able to buy the setup at a dollar store. The video is captured on your computer hard drive and I think the smallest one they even make today is 80 gigs. I’ve seen an ad for equipment in the terabyte range for less than $500. To me, the issue is not secrecy, but privacy. Without privacy, you cannot have freedom, because somebody will instantly abuse any conceivable right to keep files on others. When that somebody is the government, goodbye freedom.
Given time, I will look further into these systems. Trivia for today? National Geographic says you can get the temperature at the South Pole at www.spole.com. They lied. Also, here is a picture of that flower that blooms most of the time. One day, I’ll look that up, too.