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Underfunded NSA Suffers Brownouts
An anonymous reader writes "Almost ten years after the an internal report, and a year after a Baltimore sun story warned that the electrical system at the fort Meade NSA HQ couldn't keep up with the growing electricity demand ... the problem has got worse. The 'NSA has had to resort to partial, rolling brownouts at its computer farms and scheduled power outages and some offices are experiencing significant power disruptions'. NSA director Alexander testified to congress about this problem. It is suggested he wanted to add more than $800 million to the 07 budget. A recent public powerpoint presentation suggested 70% of of all intelligence spending goes to contractors. It also included a graph, without numbers, of this spending. It suggests that US intelligence spending is around $60 billion. An internal survey that showed NSA employees have problems trusting each other."
There is no such thing as an intentional rolling brownout.
A brownout is usually caused by a short or a transformer melting down which results in an under-voltage leading to a blackout. A brownout is when you still have electricity but it's not at the required voltage or power level.
I think they mean rolling blackouts.
First, the sum trumpeted by Sen. Grassley in 1983 for the "toilet seat" was $640, not $40,000. Second, it was not a seat but a shroud for the toilet assembly, made corrosion-resistant because it was designed for Navy airplanes that are used near salt water -- in other words, it was a complete airplane bathroom enclosure. Not a bad price.
Oh, and the actual seat was included.
rj