Man on a Mission

A while back I bought a new baby computer as I thought I was going travelling.  The baby computer is only 26 cms wide or 10¼" in the old money.  At the same time I bought a prepaid wireless modem so that I could connect to the internet while travelling.  By travelling, I mean the kind of journey one has to make when one lives in the middle of a continent where most high-tech services are located on the coast. The picture I had in mind was of myself travelling to a hospital in the big smoke to have some kind of surgery on one of the few conditions this gray bearded tjilpi has acquired.  I wasn't sure which condition I was going to opt for being treated first but I thought something would had to be done. I envisioned myself painfully, but paradoxically comfortably ensconced in a hospital bed, in the big smoke, with my internet access intact, even if my dignity weren't.  Have you tried wearing a hospital gown lately? I mean one of those which do up at the back and inevitably leave a wide open gap?

So, with thoughts of gaps in the back of gowns hovering incessantly, I decided I didn't need to go travelling to faraway hospitals and instead I would stay at home, as I have a few missions to undertake right here.

Not going to hospital means that I can concentrate on the important things in life - such as getting my ham radio hooked up to a computer and my baby computer hooked to the internet via landline rather than via its prepaid modem.  I want to have a go at communicating with other hams using PSK31.  PSK31 is short for Phase Shift Keying at 31 Baud.  Don't worry - I didn't know that either, until the middle of last week.  PSK31 became my obsession last Wednesday night when  I stayed up all night after downloading some free software and got to watch typing inch its way across my computer screen after it had been sent through the ether by hams from all four corners of the globe.  PSK31 is a bit like radio teletype of yore.  Telegrams used to be sent that way when I was a kid. 

I can hear somebody saying: It's easy to download typing from the Internet - what's so exciting about PSK31? Well, a simple answer is that it's the kind of thing which allows one to understand a little more about how it is possible to download typing from the internet.  Using PSK31 is something like catching an email out of thin air, and then being able to reply to the person who sent it. So there!

In the photo [above, on the left] baby is sitting precariously atop a cassette radio CD player. I have written about that set before, and yes, I have yet to install the new rubber bands on its tape deck.  Hey, even if I am not working at present, there still isn't enough time in a single day to get everything done which needs doing.  That's why I have to pull all-nighters just to keep up with myself.

The immediate mission with baby was to stop using the credit on its prepaid modem and swap to using the excess internet capacity I have on the landline. My desktop/laptop connects to the internet via the phone line and Teltstra allows me 12 Gigs per month internet access on that. I only ever use about 6 Gigs of the 12 Gigs so I figured that baby should be using up the spare 6. They will only end up in the bit bucket at Telstra if I don't use them.  Imagine, I said to my self: "Self, imagine what it would be like if you got baby to stream music from the internet and put its output through the same amplifier you use to amplify signals from records on the turntable.  Now that you have the turntable firmly wired up to the amp, wouldn't it be nifty to add another source of music?  It wouldn't be a clash of technologies: just an apposition of the old and the new."

So I got my self to work, and after about 48 hours of fiddling with the mysteries of WiFi networking, I managed to get baby to talk to the desktop/laptop and the desktop/laptop to talk to the internet on baby's behalf. From baby's point of view, baby is talking directly to the internet and now brings me the latest technology in getting ones choice of music into the house.  I simply grab free stuff off the web from a place called Grooveshark. If I want to listen to Slim Dusty, I type 'Slim Dusty'. If I want to listen to Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, op 85 played by Jacqueline Du Pre, I type that. Baby finds the music and streams it into the amp.

No longer do I need bits of musical "stuff" in the house - you know, the kinds of things which need sorting, cleaning and general molly-coddling.  Gone are the days of fussing with records, record sleeves and covers, tapes and breakages, CDs with their fiddly containers and scratchable surface. 

I learned a lot by setting up the WiFi network myself. And I saved a packet as well. Salesmen were pointing me in the direction of $600 worth of wireless adapters and wireless modem routers to do what I finally ended up doing without any add-ons. I was so happy when I got my wireless network going at 2 am I just had to turn up the volume on the amp.  Elgar at 2 am can be very striking.  I hope I didn't disturb the dog next door too much.

This morning I took things one step further.  Baby came to bed with me last night, and this morning I was able to watch Doc Martin streaming in on TV from the ABCs iView.  I like watching Doc Martin.  I think I need to adopt more of his attitude.  Although he doesn't give me the impression that he would have any interest in PSK31 or streaming music and TV into the bedroom.  Maybe he would be less grumpy if he were on a mission too!

Comments

[Jude]

Baby sounds good, but I don't think it beats my iPad. I run it at home via our ISP, but have an account with Telstra to use while travelling, or when I'm out and about. There's no keyboard and no mouse - and it's small enough to slip into my handbag so I can check my email while out having coffee ... or call up a map if I happen to get lost. And it also takes great photos that can be emailed anywhere instantly!

[Tjilpi]

Ah, Jude, will your iPad allow you to download and open the DigiPan program for PSK31 and also let you interface it with something like this small mobile radio: http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/hamhf/1817.html

No?

In that case I'd get rid of the iPad and get a real computer. Baby does fit in my handbag, which is really a bicycle bag made to slide onto a rack fitted on the bicycle seat post. Many people mistake the bag for a small doctors bag - but I haven't seen a small doctor anywhere near it lately.

Oh, and if I you do happen to get lost without your iPad you could always do what Tjilpi does - follow a songline!

[Slartibartfast]

I often chuckle when in a cafe surrounded by people drinking coffee while plugged in to their personal Internet portals. I guess they are 'being social', on facebook with Steve in Botswana and Joanne in Montreal, but to the real world that immediately surrounds them they are seemingly oblivious - except when the next non-maskable-interrupt interferes with the matrix and they interface with the real world to reach for the next sip :-)

Now if everyone had to build their own psk31 modem and interface it appropriately - *that* would be a reasonable communications challenge over a brew of the finest java, and far more useful than the clacking of the 'Superior Mode' loved so much by those who embrace neo-luddism. Of course, you really need to have a couple of thermionic valves somewhere in the build, even if it is just to impress the natives ...

[kim]

right. I truly admire smart people. anyway.

I have an mp3 player with a 30 gig hard drive and a $15 monthly subscription that lets me drag that much (nearly) music wherever I go. Mingus, Monk and Miles, plus also Gaga, Madonna and Amamda Palmer. yes, Bach, Beethoven and Bobby Bland, too.

my net is unlimited, so the same source (Rhapsody. think it my be USA only) can blast all day and into the wee am hours.

it'd be nice to do all the geeky techy things, but for us dullards it's good enuf that we can still have fun w/o so much effort.

[Tjilpi]

hi kim. it's all your fault. you put me onto Grooveshark. I think you might be able to tell that it's really the geeky bits i enjoy, probably more than the music; but not more than letting the dog next door have an earful of Elgar at 2 am.

although i think one should keep in mind that it was a buncha geeky Germans who came up with the mp3 audio codec.

[Yesterday, i told my friend 'The Gardening Specialist' that i had to go home to write a blog article on what i had done the previous night. He said: "You're not stirring people up again on the internet, are you?"]

[Ludwig]

Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent. Nice to hear you in full cry.

[Tjilpi's Daughter]

Dad, I counted three grammatical errors in this post.

1.
"I wasn't sure which condition I was going to opt for being treated first but I thought something would had to be done." This should read "...have to be done."

2.
"I envisioned myself painfully, but paradoxically comfortably ensconced in a hospital bed, in the big smoke, with my internet access intact, even if my dignity weren't." This should arguably read "...even if my dignity wasn't." Dignity is singular, surely?

3.
"From baby's point of view, baby is talking directly to the internet and now brings me the latest technology in getting ones choice of music into the house." This should read "...getting one's choice of music into the house."

Also, not once have I ever known you to listen to Slim Dusty.

Love and hugs Daddy, your Editor Daughter x

[Tjilpi]

That's good pet. I'm glad you discovered them. I'm not quite so punctilious as I was once was. Regarding 1] That comes from too much editing. The 'had' was in a previous version, I missed changing it. 2] Weren't isn't plural. I think the tense is future imperfect, as in "If I were to jump over the moon tomorrow". The thought of my dignity not being intact was a past thought with a future implementation. Somebody will correct me if I am wrong. 3]I'm over apostrophes. Jude agrees with me about apostrophes despite her being an iPad person.

But, did you see my comment about the four corners of the globe? I ask, does a globe have corners?

My love of Slim Dusty began in the Camooweal Pub in 1966. There was nothing else to listen to. I have tried to keep it a secret but somehow I've outed myself.

[Ludwig]

Future imperfect? I would have thought subjunctive, as your example suggests, and therefore mood not tense. Still correct of course.
Apostrophes are indeed overrated. But I'd be concerned that without it here, it might be confused with the plural of "one", which really is barbaric.
If a lion could speak we would not understand it. (Note politically correct retranslation.)

[Tjilpi]

Thanks Ludwig. I was hoping someone would come back on that one. I don't know much about grammar but I do know how to speak proper. I was going to put subjunctive but then had a change of heart. Or should that be: a change of mood.

Why didn't I Google it? I Google everything else!

Anyway, my belief is that Grammar with a big G is simply language with a big stick.

Y'no whad'i mean, punk?

However, I am of the opinion that the big stick is necessary in a social group if there is to be any form of coherence.

And that is my argument for living the life of a hermit like Lion King!

We Lions don't have to speak to anyone, but if we do, we are rarely misunderstood.