Packet Switching

When cars came on the market, more people began driving to further destinations which meant that there needed to be more roads built. At a certain point, it became useless to keep expanding the roads and there was a need for more efficient transportation. In telephony, this is where packet-switching comes into the picture. With the advent of IP-based networks, Internet adoption grew rapidly; not just because the medium was new and exciting, but also because the cost to route data over these networks was almost nil. This is a very different model from telephony, where the greater the distance between callers, the higher the price you pay. Not only that, but price was also determined by when your calls were made. With all of these barriers, VoIP pioneers realized there was a great opportunity if they could figure out how to route voice calls over these networks. Whereas voice travels over the PSTN as a continuous flow of electrical signals between connection points, data travels over an IP network via a series of discrete packets. Each packet is a payload of sorts, carrying digital information, consisting of both the content being transmitted along with instructions for routing the packets.Packet-switched traffic is highly automated, and routing decisions are based on sophisticated algorithms that determine the most efficient path between two IP addresses. Instead of my PSTN call between New York and Los Angeles taking a direct path from end-to-end, a VoIP call may be routed halfway around the globe and may well traverse six different IP networks to make the same connection.

Music: One of Life's Necessities

When you are creating content management systems or creating websites, do you listen to music? Music has been around for as long as people have. It is something that society cannot live withoutand quite frankly life would be so drab and grey without it. There are two kind of emotions related to music: perceived emotions and felt emotions. This means that sometimes we can understand the emotions of a piece of music without actually feeling them, which explains why some of us find listening to sad music enjoyable, rather than depressing. Research on the effects of music during exercise has been done for years. In 1911, an American researcher, Leonard Ayres, found that cyclists pedaled faster while listening to music than they did in silence. This happens because listening to music can drown out our brain's cries of fatigue. As our body realizes we're tired and wants to stop exercising, it sends signals to the brain to stop for a break. Listening to music competes for our brain's attention, and can help us to override those signals of fatigue, though this is mostly beneficial for low- and moderate-intensity exercise. During high-intensity exercise, music isn't as powerful at pulling our brain's attention away from the pain of the workout.