Details From The Turbocation: All TurboTech, All The Time

Greetings from Bonefish Cay in the south Atlantic.  Think Nassau, Bahamas, fly NNW on a prop plane for an hour, land in Marsh Harbour, then take about a 10-minute boat ride.

Turbo is currently on vacation on Bonefish Cay in the Abaco Island chain in the Bahamas. However, despite being on a near-deserted island, he's not without satellite Internet and TV technology, and in terms of NCAA football, the English Premiere League, and Facebook, he's hardly missed a beat.

I’m staying with old friends, and I won’t rub in how remote and islandy this place is.  I came down for a week to visit, do a little scuba diving, maybe play a little golf, and generally speaking, just chill out.

But the winds haven’t exactly been cooperating — it’s been averaging 14-20MPH gusts since I arrived, and the temp has been in the low-to-mid 70s, so despite one trip into the water to search for some conch for dinner, we’ve mostly stayed out of the water.

Speaking of water, the island has to produce its own fresh water, so I got my first ever gander at a desalination system. The primary device is an SK HC 5,000 desalinizer, which produces 5,000 gallons of fresh water from sea water per day.  That averages out to around 210 gallons per hour.

The primary power source here is a Northern Lights 125KW diesel generator, which sends current out to 4 different inverted battery banks, to several houses located here on the island.

The Internet access here is provided by HughesNet, so as not to be completely cut off from the world.  Hey, just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean I completely gave up my ability to communicate with other humans!  And anyhow, how was I going to post all those cool pics on Facebook if I didn’t have some form of Interwebs!

So here’s how this Hughes thing works: You send a request from a Web page that the Hughes satellite dish devices sends to a satellite that’s situated about 22,000 miles up in space.

According to Hughes, at that altitude, the satellite’s period of rotation (24 hours) matches the earth’s, and the satellite always remains in the same spot over the earth. Because Internet via satellite is now so technologically advanced, this distance hardly makes a difference, even with rural Internet connections.

Next, the satellite contacts the Hughes Network Operations Center (NOC), which locates the specific Website you have requested.

Finally, the Website beams the information back along the same path to the NOC, then to the satellite, and then to your computer through the HughesNet dish and modem.

What I’ve discovered is that even though the signal travels a great distance — when’s the last time you travelled 22,000 miles in a millisecond or two — there’s only a fraction of a second delay during the transmission.

Not unlike the delay you may have experienced when you using a cell phone.

And anyhow, you’re on an island, you shouldn’t be surfing the Internet anyhow.  And if you are, you should at least have a glass of rum and coke next to your computer.

Me, I’ve never had to lean on a satellite dish for Internet access for so long, but so far I’m sold…and hey, it beats sitting around talking to a volleyball named Wilson.

If you want to have a quick Walter Mitty moment, check out my takeoff from Nassau airport. This was in a 9 passenger Britten-Norman BN-2 Islander, which has a top speed of 170MPH and a range of 874 miles.

And it’s really, really loud.  Just how I like my prop planes while on vacation.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make sure the Dish network is ready to deliver up the Dallas Cowboys/Arizona Cardinals game.  It’s now windy AND raining on the island — oh thank heaven for high technology.

New TurboTech Episode: Scott and Todd on IBMers Tweeting About Stuff IBMers Say…& The IBM 2011 Tech Trends Survey

So Scott Laningham and I haven’t seen one another lately, seeing as we saw so much of one another at Information on Demand 2011 in Vegas that, well, we probably just got plain sick of one another. Actually, that’s not true, but it makes for good drama as you try to figure out just why we hadn’t done a TurboTech episode lately.

There really was no good reason, except that we’ve just both been so busy with our “day” jobs that we hadn’t gotten in touch.  Well, that all changed yesterday, when one of our colleagues started a trending theme on Twitter called “StuffIBMerssay” that probably witnessed a $200 million productivity hit to the IBM company as hundreds of we IBMers, former and otherwise, stopped what we were doing and stared in fascination as the hilarious Tweets about being an IBMer scrolled by. I’m guilty as well, having provided several contributions.

Just use the hashtag #stuffibmerssay and I’m sure some doozies are still rolling by.

We also just haven’t had much to say, Scott and I, but with the recent launch of the 2011 IBM Tech Trends report, that all changed.  So, click on the play button below, and you, too, can lose 15 minutes of your day.

But you also might just learn something….that’s doubtful, of course, but there’s always the possibility.

TurboTech: The Flying Solo, Almost Live From Bangalore Edition

My time in Bangalore is coming to a rapid close, but I wanted to provide a quick, solo edition of “TurboTech” as I prepare to jet out of here overnight. I can’t say enough good things about my experience here this week, or about the new team I’m going to be working with here.  They’ve been a lot of fun despite the long meetings and hard work, and I expect it won’t be long before I’m back for another visit.

Meanwhile, my cricket knowledge doubles every passing day, and at least now I can honestly say I can explain the difference between a “sixer” and an “over.”  I had hoped to get a ticket to the Mumbai Indians game this evening as part of the Champion’s League T20 this evening, but they were all sold out!

Hopefully Scott and I will be able to get our social calendars linked up once I’m back to Austin, and the stopwatch will be making its return engagement.

TurboTech Podcast: Irene, AT&T v. DOJ, Fraud Detection, & Facebook v. Google+

Scott Laningham and I got together recently for Round 2 of “TurboTech,” our new video podcast focusing on all things tech and Internets.

For this week’s episode, Scott pulled out his stopwatch to time each news segment — whatsa matter buddy, you can’t just come out and tell me I’m longwinded?

I can take a hint.  You’ll also notice that Scott’s intro now also includes his famous Don Pardo-like voiceover: “It’s time for TurboooooTeeecccch!”  It’s simply classic.

On this past week’s agenda: Hurricane Irene, IBM acquisitions in the fraud detection realm, AT&T v. DOJ, and Facebook v. Google+.

Al Gore’s Smarter (and Funnier!) Planet — The Podcast Edition

Greetings.  Thx to Scott Laningham, I was able to turn my recent recap of the Al Gore keynote into a podcast.

You can click here to listen (MP3, 8:27) to the full dispatch, Turbo audio style!

SuperBad SuperBowl

You can listen in here to the podcast edition of the SuperBad SuperBowl blog post below (MP3, 4:34)