Week 12: Clear: Telecommunications

This week seemed a lot like an A+ Certification class.  I remember going over this several times while in the Army.  How TCP and IP sent data from one location to another.  TCP would break it up into packets, IP would send the packets across the network, and the TCP would collect the packets and rebuild them in the correct sequence.  How UDP was much faster, but less efficient and that's why your webcam feeds are always stuttering.

It's always good to get a refresher on them, though, just so you know you haven't forgotten your stuff.  I believe the thing I found the most interesting, though, had nothing to do with Telecommunications and everything to do with William Kamkwamba.  I find it amazing what type of people there are out there.  I know this wasn't really a part of the class, but the ability for a young man of 14(!) to build a windwill to create electricity for his family all from reading a book is ASTOUNDING to me.  I like to think I'm a smart person, but I could never, EVER do something like that. EVER!  This young man is a real genius and I have to at least put a small paragraph in here in respects to this man's genius.

Moving back to telecommunications, though, I find it to be a great way to learn about the Internet and how it works.  I've known for a long time that IPv4 was going to be going to the wayside (since 2003, to be exact), but I'm still amazed that I've only seen a few devices that use the new IPv6.  I'm sure there are probably several devices around my person right now that use it, but I have no way of finding out (or, to be more honest, I've yet to look up how to find out their IP addresses).

I also found the image of breaking the Internet down into numbers to be rather impressive.  5 million terabytes of information... I can't even comprehend that.  I've owned three different types of Terabyte hard drives.  One was a RAID drive, with four separate slots.  It weighed roughly 70lbs and had 8 separate hard drives that you plugged into it.  The next one was an external hard drive.  It was about 8 inches tall, 6 inches wide, and 6 inches long.  It was significantly smaller than the RAID and could fit on a desk.  It weighed about 5lbs.  The final one I owned is now what most people see in Best Buy: about two inches wide, 5 inches tall, and 5 inches long.  It weighs about 2lbs and I have it hidden behind my monitor.  To imagine 5 MILLION of any of those items... that's incomprehensible.   The number is too large to actually visualize.

I now present you with a picture of a parrot for my visual aid:

Image created by Chris Guderian