I should have commented sooner on the FCC ruling requiring VoIP providers provide E911 service to their users. The chatter on the Asterisk-Biz mailing list pretty much sums it up. In essence: if you depend on your cable service for telephone service, you depend on your cable provider for 911 services. If your experience is like most and your cable service goes out when it rains within a thousand miles, are you really dumb enough to think that VoIP phone will work when you have an emergency?

Most VoIP-savvy people aren’t that naive. That’s why they keep a landline handy. Or a cellphone or two, at least. Requiring VoIP providers to offer 911 service is putting lipstick on a pig. VoIP is still a pig, Commissioners!

How about mandating 99.999% uptime for cable providers while you’re at it? Maybe you could rule that UDP packets, upon which VoIP is based, must guarantee delivery? Or, on a more practical level, why not require incumbent telcos to maintain 911 service on ALL existing residential lines, hooked up to your service or not?

VoIP gurus like Jeff Pulver opine that this is a sneaky move by the incumbent carriers to put the brakes on VoIP competition. As the FCC ruling isn’t really going to make people any safer, one has to wonder if Pulver is right.

VoIP changes the game. There is no longer any such thing as a permanent location of a phone. It’s time to find other, more creative methods of getting help where its needed.

I just discovered that Ben Pitzer really does have a blog! Hurray!

I’m looking forward to checking it on a regular basis. Stop by and say “hey.”

I’ve been daydreaming a lot lately about beaches and coasts. New Bern, Garden City, Lake Gaston, Outer Banks: I’ve seen them all float past my mind like a dragonfly on a lazy breeze.

I woke up from one of the best nights of sleep I’ve had in a long while and felt for all the world that I was in some beachhouse, without a care in the world.

Vacation is a state of mind.

There are plenty of funny people around. Lucky for us, a sense of humor isn’t a precious commodity. Lurking among every crowd of comedians, though, are a few who are laugh-out-loud funny. The kind who can connect the barest threads of semblence to a topic and come up with a joke. Ambush jokes: the kind you never saw coming. Here are a few of those individuals I’ve had the pleasure to have worked with.

Rusty Potter, USS Elliot. The military is full of smart alecks, but my old division – the OZ Division of the USS Elliot – had some of the sharpest. Rusty could hold his own with just about anyone. His relentless humor could drive you up the wall. Rusty specialized in sarcasm, which got old at times. When he was in his element, though, he’d easily have you rolling in the aisles.

Scott Severson, USS Elliot. Another OZ Division lunatic. A Scott versus Rusty matchup would be the irresistable force versus the immovable object. Scott showed no mercy when it came to off-the-wall comments. I’d rank him up with Robin Williams on improvisational skills. On a ship loaded with funny guys, Scott was responsible for more spewed coffee than anyone else.

Bill Nealis, Indelible Blue. Indelible Blue was a fantastic place to work, mostly because of people like Bill. He had one of the driest senses of humor I’ve ever been around. Many days I’d be at my desk shaking my head and wondering why he didn’t have his own syndicated radio show. Last I heard, he was in Chapel Hill somewhere. Hopefully onstage.

Wade Minter, Netraverse. Back in his “young buck” days at Netraverse, Wade used to drive me crazy. Stubborn as hell! Fortunately, I soon realized just how sharp a noggin that boy has. He sharpens that already razor-sharp wit by moonlighting as a comedian – at ComedyWorx.

Shane O’Donnell, Oculan. What’s really funny about Shane is that the first time I went with him on a business trip, I watched him absolutely mangle a familiar joke in front of the audience. The joke was on me, though, since Shane is at his best when he’s unscripted. It was great working with him because you never knew what you’d hear that day.

Justin Ley, Oculan. Justin’s humor tends towards more of the droll. He savors his jokes, and tells them like they’re as much for his benefit as yours. He wouldn’t try to make you laugh for the sake of a joke, but instead had a knack for quick reaction. Given an opportunity, he’d pounce with a zinger which always was a perfect fit the situation. Having Justin and Shane in adjoining cubicles made for the funniest dialogue. I’d leave work with my face aching, I’d laughed so hard. I’ve always thought Justin is another guy who should take his show on the road.

There are many others that could go on this list, of course. Look for a second edition soon.

I should refrain from commenting on N.C. State athletics. State’s baseball team got smacked 12-2 by Virginia yesterday, the same day I was bragging about Brackman. Clemson could knock us out of the tournament today. I don’t need to give them any help.

Move along. Nothing to see here. 🙂

Is two-sport NCSU star Andrew Brackman amazing, or what?

On the Leno show the other night, Jay held a contest. Two men were to send a message using two radically different methods: one used SMS and the other used morse code.

The code jockeys smoked the SMS team. Not bad for a communications method that’s a hundred and sixty-seven years old!

Watch the contest here.

73,
N4JMT

Journalists love to knock bloggers, claiming they aren’t journalists because most don’t write their own stories. They can’t be journalists, they argue, because all they do is read what others have written, occasionally adding their own comments.

So, then, what kind of journalists are TV news anchors?