Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Editor disses copper, praises fiber, makes me mad*

First let me say this: I have a high degree of respect for my colleague Stephen Hardy, editor-in-chief and associate publisher of Lightwave. Now that those pleasantries are out of the way, please allow me to launch into a tirade of disgust and anger over some comments he recently made at a corporate meeting held here at the offices of PennWell in Nashua, NH.

Actually you can hear, and see, the comments for yourself by watching this video of Stephen's presentation to our co-workers.

As you may know, the Lightwave franchise includes a Web site, magazine, newsletters, live and virtual events - all focused on fiber-optic technology. The video clip is Stephen's explanation to a "lay" audience what Lightwave is and what it does. To no one's surprise, he focused on the capabilities of fiber-optic technologies. But much to my surprise, he did so by ridiculing copper-based cabling technology. Check out what he says and does between 0:57 and 1:07 of the video. In 10 brief seconds, Stephen Hardy manages to completely and utterly dis copper cabling.

You may say, "So what? Everything he said is true." Perhaps. But here's my major gripe: That cable he holds up, and then trashes, between 0:57 and 1:07 is an armored fiber-optic cable that I loaned him to use in his presentation. That's right, I 1) have fiber-optic cables hanging around my desk and offer them to anyone who asks (or doesn't ask, but that's another issue); and 2) saw my colleague Stephen Hardy take the prop I had given him in good faith, and use it to misrepresent the copper/fiber dynamic.

I don't know how I'm going to get even with him, but I will. If you have any suggestions, please pass them along.

*I'm not really mad. Just having a little fun at Stephen's expense. And I thought you might enjoy his "Sham-Wow"-style presentation. We here at the office sure did.

2 comments:

Sue said...

I saw the presentation with my own eyes. I had no idea there was a controversy brewing behind the scenes! There is also a rumor circulating that you two are going to duke it out in the office parking lot after work.

John Barkworth said...

OK ... great video and a laymans explaination of how cool fiber optic technology is. A not so humerous but informative video can be seen at www.cabledresser.com that has a You Tube video link that demonstrates how how the Cable Dresser tool bundles 24 and 48 cable bundles rather than hand dressing. The "White Paper" on the site explains why this tool is designed to duplicate hand bundling or dressing cable bundles and why it is different form the other tools now available for this task. This tool is great and is the only tool that can add cables to existing bundles, dress through Riser Closets etc. I wish the Video was more humerous and more entertaining but alas it is not, but still important to watch!