TIL: the hulk is real, and he will show himself when angry.

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net...ab&oe=5DC9815D

https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net...26&oe=5E118DB3

Old, but still amusing. :)

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...72e51b1c7e.jpg

--Ian

^ It's aged well.



Network humor:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0912def46a.png

What is the difference between Cat 5 and Cat 6?

Googled it: While Cat 6 consists of four pairs of twisted copper wire just like Cat 5 cable, it can handle twice the bandwidth. Cat 6 contains an extra component that prevents crosstalk between the pairs of wire. The resulting performance boost allows Cat 6 to handle up to 250 Megahertz.

Interestingly, not all CATx cable is 4 pair. That's certainly the most common (because RJ-45) but you can also get it in 1, 2, 3 and 25 pairs.

Back in my radio days, we used tons of 1 pair for audio interconnects. Gepco 5100.

https://www.quabbin.com/sites/defaul...tandard/38.jpg


And 25 pair, terminated at a 50 pin RJ-21 connector (same as the old SCSI connectors) used to be extremely common in telephony applications. Since a common 66 block has 50 rows, a single RJ-21 plug was enough to connect one complete block to a PBX.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...25d4cd1f8c.png
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5ba91f6cd2.png

I am inspired by this.

Provided that it causes no danger, it amuses me to put silly things in serious spaces.

A few years ago, I constructed a motorized base to slowly rotate a papercraft grumpy cat, and mounted it in the engineering office:





More recently I was inspired by a warning sign I saw at a tool & die place, so I made something similar for our machine room. (I think I posted this already.)

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6d94e39b76.png

I would love to visit your office, find that particular room and recite this therein, just to spite you:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1b08204078.jpg

Nice.


It occurs to me that I should have taken a photo of the alignment ducks. I'll try to remember to do that on Monday.

One of the interesting things about robotic cameras is that if you move their pedestals (which are on wheels) around while they're not aimed in the home position, it's easy to lose track of which way is "front" in terms of the alignment of the head in the pan (azumith) axis. A few years ago, I bought a 50 pack of miniature rubber ducks from some random ebay vendor, and now, each camera pedestal has a little duck epoxied to it indicating the 0° position. What's even better is that the stagehands have totally embraced this, and write "DUCK" on a piece of tape on the floor at every marked camera position, indicating the direction in which the duck is to face.

When I was at Cisco I worked on the cat4k, we used to make a 48-port 10/100 linecard (this was a while ago -- 1000baseT wasn't a thing yet) with four RJ-21s on it.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/g0kAA...lv/s-l1600.jpg

--Ian

Was a card like that available for the Catalyst 6500 family as well?

I could swear that I've seen something very much like that card, but I'm struggling to place it in time and space...




Totally unrelated:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...f3&oe=5DFE1E67

Very likely, although I couldn't tell you the model #. The RJ-21 config was moderately popular with customers and the difference between that card and the 48xRJ-45 one was pretty small, so it didn't cost much to offer both options.

--Ian

Interesting.

We still use lots of RJ-21 stuff. Just today I was documenting a new hookup to our RTS ADAM intercom matrix, which is fulled fanned out to 66 blocks in their own dedicated closet:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/5g...=w942-h1935-no

These particular blocks are very interesting. The right side is a single RJ-21, the left side is eight three-pair (6P6C) RJ-12s, and of course everything comes out to 2/2 66 punch terminals in the middle, with the usual bridging clips. So on the left side, you can either use a single modular plug per logical port (if connecting to an intelligent terminal in which all three pairs (audio TX, audio RX, and bi-directional data) are needed), OR you can punch the TX and RX separately if you're splitting the port into separate and unrelated Send and Receive lines.

I'd like to take credit for this clever idea, but it predates my presence at this station by by quite a lot.









Unrelated, this is the weirdest thing I've seen in a while:

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net...aa&oe=5DFECF30

Yes, that is a Honda Odyssey. And yes, it's actually competitive.

Yes, Marcus raced at Road Atlanta with the Odyssey last weekend and posted on-track videos. Flier129 is his username. Odyssey walked away from him on the straights.