TechBite by Steve Bass: Newsletter #20
Online Scanners:Listen In
I started to write about ways to glean info in a national disaster. I'll get to that in another newsletter, because as I dug around, I discovered live scanner feeds. You know the kind -- police, fire and rescue, forest service, emergency services -- and I wiped out an afternoon glued to the broadcasts.I listened to the Newcastle, Australia police struggling with a jaywalker and then handling a robbery attempt; later heard the Thurston County, WA police nab a parole violator; and finally downloaded a clip from a recent pursuit of a guy shooting at a Snohomish County, Washington, sheriff deputy.
Fascinating stuff, indeed.
Some of the links will lead you to sites where you can listen to scanners across the nation (and even overseas). For instance, the Icecast Directory lists about 100 scanner sites all over the United States. Choose a scanner and click on the "M3U" link to listen in Windows Media Player. Dig around and you'll be able to listen to the Irvine, California fire department, San Bernardino County Sheriff, or the Houston, Texas police.
The Incident Broadcast Network does a good job of helping novices figure out how to listen to scanner broadcasts. When you get to the site, you'll immediately hear a scanner; the broadcast changes daily. I heard the Thurston County, Washington feed. (Turn it off by clicking the Pause button on the player in the upper left "Welcome to IBN" box.) The site also has clips from some of the more exciting feeds you can download, such as the Monroe, Washington Pursuit with Shots Fired or a San Diego, California Foot Pursuit.
RadioReference.com has a listing of foreign scanning Web sites. It's where I found Newcastle, Australia (not very active, but a hoot when it was broadcasting; I couldn't understand half of it...).
In a future newsletter, I'll pick up where I left off, with tech tips for hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, and other disasters. In the meantime, I've gotta go. There's a cat in a tree in East Yuhupitz, Montana and the fire department's rolling.
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Time Wasters
Super gargantuan muscle PCs, shouting at your hard drive, Guess the Dictator, and more stuff to entertain you.
I love these NFL Fantasy Files: The Best Players videos. Sure I know what's up, but they're still terrific. [Thanks, John D.] It happens all the time. You land on a page and get a 404 error message. Too bad they're not all as good as this one. [Thanks to chuck Snyder.] And then there's Dilbert's creator, Scott Adams, who is so often so, so on target. Even his 404 makes me LOL.
If you're a computing kinda person and always wanted to build a mega-mega PC, you'll LOL -- lots -- when you watch Samsung's SSD Awesomeness. They gave the job of promoting their solid state drives (SSD) to Paul, their IT guy, instead of the marketing department. Six terabytes of storage using 24 SSD drives strung together with RAID, two 1000 watt power supplies, 800-MHz RAM, and you're getting the idea... [Thanks to Jon B.]
Some people say the image below is a speed control device that's much cheaper than speed cameras. And it's very clever, especially if it's moved around each day. As you can imagine, people slow down and try to straddle the hole, and then breathe a sign of relief when they've completely cleared it. Too bad it's not real. Read the details.
Now Listen to This Scream
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