NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

Mitch Pirtle wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 1:06 PM, David Krings <ramons at gmx.net> wrote:
>> That is the part that I still don't get as a foreigner. Why is most of the
>> infrastructure here in the US in such a bad state?
>
> Simple things to a European, but totally tomorrow-land stuff to an
> American. We may have invented TV and radio over here, but we also are
> stuck supporting the caveman-era technologies that were rolled out
> when they were first invented.

Uhm, TV in the sense we'd consider it today was invented by Paul Nipkow, at 
least the technology for serializing images with an electromechanical camera 
(the serialization of images in dots was invented by Bain, which makes fax to 
predate the phone). The first full electronic camera was invented and built by 
Manfred von Ardenne. The cathode ray tube was already known by then as 
Ferdinand Braun invented it in 1897. Also, the Reichspostministerium installed 
the first cable TV network for the 1936 Olympic Games, which also was the 
first sporting event to be broadcast live (albeit entirely for propaganda 
reasons). So TV wasn't invented here, but in Germany. Nevertheless, here 
(meaning explicitly the Electric City) had the first commercial TV station 
(still exists as WRGB CBS6 in Niskayuna) and among the first TV broadcasts, 
namely a conductor at the GE plant directing an orchestra at Proctor's via TV 
link.
Radio was mainly invented by Nicola Tesla, a Croatian who was brought to the 
US by Edison. After inventing all kinds of stuff for Edison Tesla asked for 
the promised payment and Edison laughed at him saying "Welcome to America!". 
Tesla then went on to work for Edison's arch rival Westinghouse who pulled the 
same scam.
And phone was invented by Johann Philip Reis, who demoed it as a geek's gadget 
where Bell saw it and eventually copied the idea making money with it. The 
first sentence spoken over telephone was "Das Pferd ißt keinen Gurkensalat." 
(The horse does not eat cucumber salad).

The Teletext was invented by the BBC and is one of the most awesome additions 
to TV. I have no clue why it never ever even got introduced in the US market. 
Probably someone bought the patent rights and wanted wayyyy too much money for 
it to make it viable for TV makers and stations.

RDS (Radio Data System) was thought out by ARI in Germany. It was available, 
but it never became that popular, mainly because the displays on radios aren't 
that big.


> For Brooklyn, the problem is that the original cabling was hung from
> poles going behind all the houses. Say you are Verizon, and you want
> to do the Right Thing by putting in modern facilities. You are going
> to have to contact every tenant for every residence to get permission
> to go out back and replace that cabling. Let me know when you are
> done, assuming I live that long.

Ah, that explains it...and then again it doesn't. Apparently, they were able 
to pull that off at some point, because otherwise they wouldn't have had the 
cable where it is now. It should be possible to keep the UTP for the short 
haul and still get decent bandwidth, at least for phone and internet service. 
If it fits 500 HDTV channels is something I don't know. I just wonder how 
other countries manage to do that. I recall when Schwarz-Schilling rolled out 
broadband cable across Germany the folks from the phone company dug up 
people's front yards and screwed the access box on the outside of the house 
and if possible they even drilled through the foundation and put it straight 
into the basement. It was an act of congress to do that and the funding came 
from the government. I have to point out that at that time the phone and cable 
service was provided by a federal telecom agency, similar to how USPS is 
operating here.

Seems to be more that Verizon just doesn't want to put the effort in and still 
makes enough money with the POTS and less so with the PANS.

This is plain crazy. Folks manage to fix a minivan sized space telescope in 
orbit, but putting fiber into Brooklyn is impossible?

Sorry, but having an apprenticeship as radio- and TV technician, having 
studied communication technology, and having worked as broadcasting engineer 
for TV stations makes me get so passionate about this stuff.


David