Who was Harry Nyquist?

Dear Members and constituents,
Ever wonder why a T-1 has 1,536 Kilobits per second of capacity? Why not a round number? Even if you were to use Kilobytes per second you'd come up with 192 KB per second. In case you were wondering, it all comes down to the dawn of digital voice communications. In order to reconstruct a sound, the samples taken can be no less than half of the frequenc

y of the sound we are trying to represent. In normal conversation the human voice seldom exceeds 16 KHz and therefore sampling it 8,000 times per second would be sufficient for both sides to understand each other. They also decided 256 levels (8 bits) per sample provided sufficient information. Of course 8,000 samples per second at 8 bits per sample provide us with 64,000 bits per second, the bandwidth of a phone call. That is, of course, why your voice on a phone conversation sounds a little "tinny" and does not have quite the quality of, say, a CD. You take 24 of these together and, voilà, you have a DS-1.

Lately I have been wondering what the energy capacity of a dozen donuts is and how you would express it. I like the idea of expressing it in Kilobites, however that would probably be a measure of how filling a dozen donuts is, not exactly a measure of energy potential. I'm sure you coud take the mass of each donut and multiply it by the calories per mass unit and then add it up… then again, perhaps some things are better left unquantified. Speaking of quantities, due to their reputation for having a smaller size, Mr. Bagnato has proactively brought in five dozen Krispy Kreme dounts. In looking at the selection he made for this his debut, I think we can expect many good Fridays from Jim.

Happy Friday!

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Donut Doodle Dandy

Dear Members and Constituents, In trying to figure-out Wednesday’s cool-looking Google Doodle ( Jorge Luis Borges’ 112 th birthday ), I stumbled across a list of Google Doodles you’ll never see. This, and a Rockies game later that day, were sufficient inspiration to get my head spinning around what other doodles Google might never noodle? I’m sure you’ll probably have a few ideas of your own, but I was able to come-up with a couple. How about a former Colorado Rockies player whose unfortunate encounter with a moth put him in the news this week? The Matt Holliday doodle might look something like this… Another item which, surprisingly enough, has not been made into a doodle are donuts. Although I was slightly taken aback to find this delicious pastry has not been featured, after the initial disappointment, I decided to take matters into my own hands and take a stab at one (perhaps Google can use it next year for national donut day )… or to celebrate Greek police having “ blown a ho...

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Enchanted Donuts

Friends, Mix equal doses of isolation, adaptation, and time. Add a pinch of random stowaway life forms. Remove predators. The result? An eclectic collection of surprising plants and animals known as the Galápagos Islands. Here, iguanas swim and dive for food, the largest members of the sunflower family grow into 45 foot tall trees, and boulder-sized tortoises blow past the century mark with ease. Frigatebird throats of red, boobie feet of blue, moth-pollinated flowers of white. And, having been granted constitutional rights , sea lions own most park benches in town. Surrounded by an ocean teeming with fish of all shapes and sizes, the only downside of spending time in this remote Ecuadorian province appears to be the complete absence of donut shops. I suppose I too can adapt. Happy Friday!

Friday Donuts

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