Kibbles & Bytes Blog

My daughter Autumn and my granddaughter, Gracie have been visiting this week. Jezebel has been in heaven playing with Gracie and they have quickly bonded. I’ve tasked Gracie with teaching her to “roll over” and she is making progress.

Gracie celebrated her 13th birthday down here. She is a leap year baby so we celebrated both on the 28th and March 1st. They went off kayaking while I work today.

My feed is full of Cubs spring training news even while the Boston Celtics are finishing up the season and gearing up the the post season. I love this time of the year!

Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!

Your Kibbles & Bytes team,

_Don, Emily & Hadley_

As far back as the late 19th century, the visionary Nikola Tesla was predicting fantastic ideas and technologies that wouldn’t come into widespread use until over 100 years later. Tesla was a pioneer in research on radio and wireless communications. In 1898 he built and demonstrated a remote-controlled model boat. This was only a few years after Guglielmo Marconi had successfully sent the first wireless radio communication. Tesla was fond of pointing out that the transmission was only accomplished by using several of his own patents.

In those early days, the atmosphere would’ve been relatively devoid of human-generated radio waves (there are still plenty of natural causes of radio waves). Today we are bathed in radio waves almost everywhere we go. Our cell phones, our wifi, our bluetooth headsets…it’s all possible because of radio. When we talk about radio though, we’re talking about a very specific subset of a much larger spectrum called electromagnetic radiation.

Electromagnetic radiation refers to the waves of the electromagnetic field that propagate from sources of electromagnetic energy. The entire grouping of all electromagnetic radiation is called the electromagnetic spectrum. Because it is composed of waves we classify electromagnetic radiation based on its frequency. The lowest frequencies (and longest wavelengths) include things like ELF (Extremely Low Frequency) waves that are used to communicate with deeply submerged submarines. ELF waves have a frequency of 3-30Hz and a wavelength between 100 megameters and 10 megameters. As you increase in frequency, you start to encounter what we commonly refer to as radio waves (AM/FM broadcast radio as well as broadcast TV). These waves range in frequency from about 300kHz to 300MHz. Wavelengths are significantly shorter now too ranging between one kilometer and one meter.

For wifi, cellular and other modern wireless communications we use higher frequency radio waves which are often also referred to as microwaves (because their wavelengths are so short). If you have a wireless router at home, you might have seen it can transmit the signal and either 2.4GHz or 5GHz. Cordless telephones also transmit in roughly this frequency range. Cell phones transmit in discrete bands ranging from about 800MHz to almost 2GHz. It’s less common today, but cell phones used to be categorized as being tri-band or quad-band phones. Almost all cell phones made today are capable of accessing all common bands available in the market for which they are designed.

What many people don’t realize is that visible light (ROYGBIV) is also part of the electromagnetic spectrum. After microwaves we get into infrared just below the bottom of the visible light spectrum. The frequencies of these waves are now much higher with infrared ranging from 300GHz to 430THz (that’s terahertz). The visible spectrum starts at around 430THz and goes up to 790THz and has wavelengths ranging from about 400 to 700 nanometers. Red colors will have the lowest frequencies and the blue and violet colors will have the highest.

Just beyond the visible spectrum we have ultraviolet which starts to really peg the frequency scales at 790THz to 30PHz (petahertz, 10 to the 15th power). Beyond ultraviolet still we first encounter x-rays (between 30PHz and 30EHz, exahertz, 10 to the 18th power) and finally, at the top of the scale, with wavelengths less than 0.01 nanometers and a frequency above 30EHz we have gamma rays.

Still with me? One of the things some people wonder about is if all of this radiation is bad for us. X-rays and gamma rays certainly are. X-rays will penetrate soft tissue but not bone (hence why we use them to look for broken bones). They can damage cellular structures including DNA, which can result in health risks. This is why medical staff will wear some kind of dosimeter to know how much of this kind of radiation they’ve been exposed to. Gamma rays will generally penetrate a human body completely, easily causing major cellular damage and DNA degradation. X-rays and gamma rays aren’t typically found on earth’s surface and those rays originating off the planet are mostly blocked by the earth’s magnetosphere and atmosphere. When people talk about radiation exposure after a nuclear blast or from nuclear waste, they’re typically talking about the damage done by gamma radiation emitted as the result of radioactive material. It’s radioactive because it decays and emits gamma rays in the process.

The lowest energy electromagnetic radiation that can hurt you is ultraviolet. This is what causes sunburns. Lower energy electromagnetic radiation cannot cause major harm to humans because it cannot penetrate cellular membranes. However, lower energy radiation can cause damage in other ways. For example, so-called directed-energy weapons have been tested that use microwaves to actually heat the target just like a microwave oven. These devices are often declared to be “non-lethal” but that’s just a matter of degree. Research is also being conducted into possible negative effects from ELF waves. Common radio and even microwave radiation are not typically considered harmful as they are unable to penetrate cellular membranes (such radiation would be termed non-ionizing). However, research in this area is highly contentious and concrete answers on safety are hard to find. That said, you’re more likely to injure yourself from superheated water in a microwave oven rather than the radiation itself.

Bonus mind-blowing fact: Quickly unrolling a roll of ordinary scotch tape inside a vacuum will actually generate x-rays.

I use my Apple TV for a lot of things. I find that I am watching more entertainment on Apple TV, I play some games, I shop, I check out “how-to” videos on YouTube and I have quite a few Apps but I think that the most useful feature I have found is using the Apple TV as a HomeKit hub.

Making your home smart with HomeKit accessories is great but if you cannot control it remotely you haven’t really automated that home yet. In the past, each smart home accessory had their own “hub” connected to the Wi-Fi network to allow remote access. Before I started switching to HomeKit gear I had a hub for my Kevo locks, one for my Hue lights, one for my Savant remote and the Nest thermostat also served as a hub. I still have the Hue hub but I have been able to eliminate all of the others with the combination of my Apple TV and Apple Home-Kit compatible accessories.

You must have a 3rd or 4th generation Apple TV to utilize it as a hub, however, a 4th generation is highly recommended because you need that to create automations and user permissions. You can also use an iPad but this article will just cover how to set up your Apple TV to act as your HomeKit hub. The Apple TV must be on your Wi-Fi network and powered on (do not set the preference for it to sleep).

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**Step one**

Turn on two-factor ??authentication??. If you have two-step ??verification?? on now is the time to turn that off, it is different!

**On the Mac**

* In System Preferences, open up iCloud
* Select “Account Details”
* Click “Security”
* Click “Turn on Two-Factor Authentication”

**On your iOS Device**

* Open Settings
* Tap on your iCloud account
* Tap on “Password and Security”
* Tap “Turn on Two-Factor Authentication”

**Step Two**

Turn on iCloud Keychain

**Step Three**

On the Apple TV

* Open “Settings”
* Open “Accounts,” and make sure that you are signed into the same iCloud account
* The Apple TV automatically sets itself up as a HomeKit hub!

To check the status of your home hub, go to Settings > Accounts > iCloud and look under HomeKit to see if your home hub is connected.

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**Managing Users**

If you set up your Apple TV as a home hub, you can manage remote access and edit permissions for people that you invite to control your home. If you don’t have a home hub set up, they can only control your accessories while they’re at your home, connected to your home Wi-Fi network, and within range of your HomeKit accessories.

To manage remote access and change permissions for a person, invite the person to control your home thru the Home App.

Then follow these steps:
* Open Home and tap the arrow in the upper right.
* Tap the person that you want to edit permissions for.
* Set the following access levels for your user:
* Allow Remote Access: Turn on to allow users to control your accessories from any location. Turn off to allow users to only control your accessories while they’re at your house.
* Allow Editing: Turn on to allow them to add and remove accessories, scenes, and other users.

If you want to remove a person, tap the arrow again, tap the user, then tap Remove Person.

Troubleshooting the Apple TV as Home Hub

# Make sure that your Apple TV is connected to the Internet and on the same Wi-Fi network as your other iOS devices during set up.
# Make sure it is updated to the latest version of tvOS.
# Make sure you are signed in to iCloud with the same Apple ID with two-factor authentication enabled.
# Make sure that you can control your accessories in the Home app on your iOS device. Open the Home app and turn on a light or change the temperature.
# Check to make sure that your device is set up as a home hub:
On your Apple TV, go to Settings > Accounts > iCloud and make sure that your Apple TV shows HomeKit as Connected. If you don’t see HomeKit, then your Apple TV isn’t connected as a home hub.

_Dear Friends,_

Wow, it is March already! The weather in Vermont seems to swing from spring back to winter this time of the year and I guess mud season is a bit early. It is sugar-making time with maple trees waking up from hibernation and shooting that sweet sap up to the buds. I don’t want to create too much of a controversy but there is maple syrup then there is real Vermont maple syrup, clearly and unequivocally the best in the world.

Apple stock hit an all-time high flirting with $140 a share. Less than a year ago it was floundering at $90 so this is a big run-up. And it is not without reason, as Apple not only has a very strong business as it is but also has tremendous potential with new products. Their services businesses continue to expand and Macs are the computer of choice in more and more work and creative environments. As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the iPhone in June, I will never forget that day when Steve Jobs came on stage and introduced the new iPhone. And of course, the hour after that when Apple told its reseller channel that they would not be able to sell it.

Nevertheless, it is amazing just how the iPhone has changed our lives. Regardless of the patent battles and the unscrupulous copiers the iPhone made a fundamental change to our lives, putting the power of a computer in our pockets and doing everything from entertaining to scientific research to automating your home. While we dream of self-driving cars, trips to the moon and Mars we do have to give the nod to Steve Jobs and the iPhone for changing the world.

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