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Thursday, December 29, 2005

More Christmas Lights



Bill Foley's display in Olympia Washington has 35,000 lights controlled by a 180 channel Light-O-Rama system. Wire frames, many with two to four animations each and covered rope lights fill the yard.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Christmas Lights Done Right


Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio has synchronized over 16,000 Christmas lights to music that he broadcasts over low-power FM. Below are videos of his display for two of the songs that he sequenced last year:

Wizards of Winter

Jingle Bells

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Computer Network Speeds

Here's a handy reference on maximum computer network speeds from http://www.bandwidthplace.com


Dial-up
An analog modem using twisted pair (phone) copper lines.

56k 0.06 Mbit/s (56 Kbit/s)
ISDN 0.13 Mbit/s (128 Kbit/s)


Cable
Uses coaxial copper cable.
Average 2.00 Mbit/s
Maximum 10.00 Mbit/s
Upstream avg* 0.50 Mbit/s (500 Kbit/s)


DSL
Digital Subscriber Line. Uses twisted pair (phone) copper lines.
IDSL 0.13 Mbit/s (128 Kbit/s)
UADSL 1.50 Mbit/s
UADSL up* 0.51 Mbit/s (512 Kbit/s)
HDSL 1.50 Mbit/s
SDSL 2.00 Mbit/s
RADSL 7.00 Mbit/s
RADSL up* 1.00 Mbit/s
ADSL 8.00 Mbit/s
ADSL up* 1.00 Mbit/s
VDSL 51.64 Mbit/s
VDSL up* 19.20 Mbit/s


Trunk
Usually delivered by fiber optic or microwave, although T1 may use twisted pair (phone) copper lines (HDSL).
T-1 1.54 Mbit/s
T-3 44.74 Mbit/s


Optical Carrier
Fiber optic backbone.
OC-3 155.52 Mbit/s
OC-12 622.08 Mbit/s
OC-48 2,488.32 Mbit/s
OC-96 4,976.64 Mbit/s
OC-192 9,953.28 Mbit/s
OC-255 13,219.20 Mbit/s


Ethernet
Used for LANs.

10 10.00 Mbit/s
100 100.00 Mbit/s
1000(Gigabit)1,000.00 Mbit/s


Wireless
May be fixed or mobile.
HomeRF 1.20 Mbit/s
802.11a 54.00 Mbit/s
802.11b 11.00 Mbit/s
802.11g 54.00 Mbit/s
802.11n 100.00 Mbit/s
CSD 0.01 Mbit/s (9.6 Kbit/s)
CDMA 0.01 Mbit/s (14.4 Kbit/s)
iDEN 0.02 Mbit/s (19.2 Kbit/s)
CDPD 0.02 Mbit/s (19.2 Kbit/s)
1XRTT 0.14 Mbit/s (144 Kbit/s)
HSCSD 0.06 Mbit/s (56 Kbit/s)
CDMA 2.5G 0.06 Mbit/s (64 Kbit/s)
GPRS 0.17 Mbit/s (171.2 Kbit/s)
EDGE 0.38 Mbit/s (384 Kbit/s)
3G 0.38 Mbit/s (384 Kbit/s)
UMTS 2.00 Mbit/s
3G1xEV-DO 2.40 Mbit/s
3G1xEV-DV 5.00 Mbit/s


* Some connections are asymmetrical, they download faster than they upload.