Monday, January 28, 2008

In the Know #26

January 30, 2008


Dictionary.com's Word of the Day

canorous \kuh-NOR-us; KAN-or-uhs\, adjective:
Richly melodious; pleasant sounding; musical.


In the news:

- George W. Bush delivers his last State of the Union address.

- Indonesia reports its 100th death from bird flu.


Today in History, according to Wikipedia:

1835 - Richard Lawrence attempts to assassinate President Andrew Jackson.

1933 - Adolf Hitler is sworn in as Chancellor of Germany.

1948 - Mohandas Gandhi (pictured) is assassinated by Nathuram Godse.

1968 - The Tet Offensive is launched by the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam, a.k.a. Viet Cong.

1972 - Bloody Sunday in Ireland: British Paratroopers attack civil rights marchers in Northern Ireland.

1976 - George H. W. Bush becomes the Director of the CIA.


Today's Famous Births:

1882 - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States.

1912 - Francis Schaeffer, American Evangelical theologian and pastor

1930 - Gene Hackman, American actor

1941 - Dick Cheney (pictured), 46th Vice President of the United States

1951 - Phil Collins, English musician, "In the Air Tonight"

1957 - Payne Stewart, American golfer, PGA Champion and two-time U.S. Open Champion

1962 - King Abdullah II, reigning King of Jordan

1974 - Christian Bale, Welsh actor, Equilibrium and Batman Begins


Trivia
Today's Category - per request, Uranus...the planet, not your anus, hahaha...


~ Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun, located beyond the asteroid belt and is one of four Jovian planets, the gas giants.

~ Uranus' circumference is 4.0 times bigger than Earth's with 63.1 times more volume, but it is only 14.5 times as massive as Earth.

~ A year on Uranus lasts 84 Earth years.

~ A day on Uranus lasts only 14-17 Earth hours.

~ Mean temperature is between 49K (-371F) to 76K (-323F) depending on altitude.

~ The atmosphere of Uranus is composed mostly of hydrogen and helium.

~ The apparent magnitude of Uranus varies from 5.9 to 5.2 at its brightest, making it difficult to see with the naked eye.


I always wondered...
...how WiFi works...


Wireless networks use radio waves to transmit data. A computer's wireless adapter translates data into a radio signal and transmits it using an antenna. A wireless router (pictured) receives the signal and decodes it. It sends the information to the Internet using a physical, wired Ethernet connection. The opposite is also true with the router sending information to the computer's antenna.

The transmitters utilize 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequencies. These frequencies are higher than cell phone and television radio signals, allowing higher data transfer rates. The technical protocol for wireless routers is the 802.11 networking standard. There are several different versions of 802.11 technology utilizing the different frequencies and boasting varying transfer rates.

A wireless router consists of (1) a port to connect to your cable or DSL modem, (2) a router, (3) an Ethernet hub, (4) a firewall and (5) a wireless access point. This router has a service set identification (SSID) name, which is the manufacturer by default, but can be changed by the user. 3 types of security are available in a wireless network: (1) Wired Equivalency Privacy and (2) WiFi Protected Access (WPA), which both use passwords, and (3) Media Access Control (MAC), which locates a physical address that is unique to a certain computer located in a list of safe computers.

["How WiFi Works" reference: How Stuff Works]
[All references from Wikipedia.org unless otherwise noted]

1 comment:

Palmer the Pirate said...

Brady i love you....