And I dropped enough hints to name the year of Bug and the make and model of my '87 car (assuming I'm in the US). Points for naming either.
The first 12-volt Beetle was a '67. It's also considered by some to be the last "true" VW Beetle, because subsequent years had progressively more and more stuff imposed by the US government. VW finally stopped selling them in the US altogether, but continued to build them in and for other markets (like Mexico).
My brother had a '67 Beetle, and I had a '71 Ghia. Mechanically, it wasn't much different than a Beetle: front disc brakes and slightly higher gear ratios (which yielded higher cruising speeds).
So far, each bill has been filed and referred to the appropriate committee. However, the legislative session just started in January and things don't usually start happening until after the filing deadline on 2007-03-09.
I think it's GREAT that this vaccine is available, but it should NOT be mandatory.
Despite the inflammatory name on the link to the blog article, it isn't mandatory. Even the article contradicts itself in the first paragraph:
On Saturday, February 3, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order to make the newly-released human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil mandatory for all young girls before entry into the sixth grade. Starting in the 2008-2009 school year, the new bill would allow parents to opt out of the vaccination if they provide documentation of religious or philosophical opposition.
The ability to opt-out is already in Texas law, and reportedly applies to all vaccinations. When Perry announced his executive order, he added that the HPV vaccination was voluntary.
Note that I'm not defending or promoting either side of this issue. I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of misinformation being hurled around, in an attempt to influence opinions.
Unfortunately, I don't se an easy solution/resolution to this problem -- if manufacturers changed their defaults to make the routers more locked down, the average consumer is going to completely fail to use the product. They won't know how to configure their networking settings manually. It will be some strange voodoo they need to hire Nerds on Site or something.
When I switched from DSL to Verizon's FIOS, I got an Actiontec MI424WR router. By default, it was configured with a randomly generated SSID and WEP key. I've changed it to a WPA key, but if I do a hard-reset, it returns to the original values. Apparently, the boot ROM is 'tweaked' during the manufacturing process and a matching sticker is generated with the SSID, WEP key and MAC address -- which is attached to the bottom of the router.
The administration username and password were set to constant values. Unfortunately, you can login to the router as administrator via a wireless connection -- my older Linksys/Cisco router allows you to restrict administrative access to a wired port.
Dark Helmet: So the combination is one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!
President Skroob: Great. Now we can take every last breath of fresh air from planet Druidia. What's the combination?
Dark Helmet: 1 2 3 4 5.
President Skroob: 1 2 3 4 5? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage! Prepare Spaceball 1 for immediate departure!
Dark Helmet: Yes, sir!
President Skroob: And change the combination on my luggage!
I think the system would work better if all bills required 60% to pass and 45% to repeal.
We effectively have this in Texas. Every legislative session, the Texas Senate adopts a rule that 2/3rds of the Senate must agree before a bill is brought to the floor for debate. It was challenged this year by a freshman senator, but he was outnumbered 30-1.
Why would anyone poison someone with many more times the amount required to kill them with a material that is so expensive and easy to trace? There are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay easier ways to kill someone. Ways that would garner much less attention.
And that's exactly why I believe this method was used.
No individual or even group would have been able to get that much polonium, without at least the tacit approval of a government with a sufficiently advanced nuclear program. The list of potential suppliers is very short.
This was a message, which is very clear to dissenters and critics: you can't hide. We can get to you, or at least those that are close to you, no matter where you are.
Primarily it becomes an issue of volume. One call to a customer with an abusive machine will eat up the profit from that customer for months. You can't just call them and say "fix it", you have to handhold them through the process or you will almost certainly lose their revenue altogether.
Build a list of computer techs that can fix their problem (and no, I don't mean the "Geek Squad"), and refer the to customer to them. Ask the technician to drop you a line when the computer is fixed, confirming that it's safe to reconnect the customer.
As long as you offer them free support to fix their computer, they'll do it again. When they have to pay their own money to clean-up their mess, they'll modify their behavior.
If they go to someone else, good riddance. Their new ISP will either waste their profit/revenue on them or disconnect them. Eventually the customer will get a clue.
The service is to be implemented by PowerPhone which has a Press Release here: Technology delivers cell phone photos to 9-1-1 operators
I just read the article, which says:
PowerPhone's ILM system works like this: a citizen calls from his cell phone to report an emergency or suspicious activity-for example, a suspicious person dumping chemicals in a subway station. The caller dials 9-1-1 to report the sighting and says he can send a picture of the man to help identify him. The call handler sends a text message to the caller's cell phone requesting the photo. The caller then replies to this message with the photo attached. PowerPhone's ILM system stores the photo in an incident record for easy reference. The image can be forwarded to responders who are on their way to the scene.
By following this process, the 9-1-1 center ensures that photos are linked with the appropriate records of the citizen's 9-1-1 call. Even more important, this process discourages citizens from randomly sending photos into the 9-1-1 center-an arrangement that can lead to pranks and other abuses of the system.
Did they bother to check to test how many cell phones can actually do this? I just tried it with my Motorola Razr, and I don't have the ability to attach a photo to a reply.
If you only want a really basic phone, then you can buy one without a camera. But, if you want one with other features (like WAP, which I use to check my email), it's almost always bundled with a camera. I'm only seen one exception: Palm makes a "corporate" version of the Treo 650 without a camera, but it's a special order.
I don't know where you are but in my local area I've never seen this. While I do understand and know of areas where photos are banned I've never heard of anyone getting harassed in these areas for using a cell phone.
I've worked for several clients that ban camera phones on their premises. By policy (and in some cases, by law), cameras are banned -- therefore camera phones are banned.
They also enforce the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. That may address this particular problem, if it's an EFT that you (or someone you authorized) did not make.
Just last week, on a connector flight from Des Moines International Airport to Minneapolis, we came under heavy flak around Albert Lea. Don't believe what the pilot is telling you: This is NOT turbulence, it's the Terrorists with Flak 88s trying to shoot down airliners.
That wasn't flak from Albert Lea. That was SPAM from Austin (which is only a few miles east).
(Hormel's corporate headquarters is in Austin, MN).
BTW, ever read those preapproved credit card offers? Somewhere in small type you'll find it says it preapproved from a preliminary credit report but they can still withdraw the offer if they don't like your full credit report.
Technically, the company making a "pre-approved" offer hasn't actually seen your credit report. They simply ask the reporting agency to give them a list of names/addresses for people that meet a certain criteria. You give them permission to make the full inquiry when you return the application.
You can exclude yourself from the pre-screen lists at http://www.optoutprescreen.com/. I'm a bit concerned about the legitimacy of the site, but I've found multiple referrals to it from legitimate sources, including the FTC. If you aren't convinced, you can download the printed form from the site and snail-mail it to the three reporting agencies. The snail-mail method is required for permanent opt-out, anyway.
everytime someone requests your report that requests gets listed on the report. Conceivable your credit score, FICO, can be damaged with the government listed. Besides the score is negatively impacted for each request listed, each request lowers the score.
There are different kinds of credit inquiries. Looking at the inquiries for my credit file over the past 12 months, not one of them affects my score, as most are "promotional" or "account review" inquiries. The rest are "general" inquiries, reflecting the requests that I made to view it. None of them are even shown to anyone else that requests my file.
Frankly, I wouldn't expect the inquiries made by the government for this reason to even show up on a credit report. It only takes a few minutes to request your credit report from any one of several sources, and the big credit reporting agencies even offer monitoring services to warn you if someone makes an inquiry that will affect your score. Logging them on the credit report would tip off the suspect that something is up.
Dallas and its suburbs have Texas Instruments, Nortel, Ericsson, Alcatel, and a bunch of smaller tech companies that were started by people that left the bigger ones.
But why why WHY? This is basically what most people in the Office thread seemed to be bitching about, but it looks like most of them never tried the new system. "Whaaa it's now what I'm used to!!" they said, and so do you.
Disclaimer: I haven't had a chance to try the new Office 2007 interface. I'm going to wait until I can do so before I pronounce it better or worse.
If it is indeed an improvement over the old menu system, I expect I'll be able to adapt quickly. Even if it's not better, I'll adapt (albeit not as quickly), because my company's product integrates with Excel and I MUST learn how to use it. Our customers will demand it, if and when they upgrade to Office 2007.
But, while I've found that I have very little trouble adapting to new software, a much larger segment of computer users depend on the Video Professor or company-sponsored classes to learn how to use an application. An extreme anecdotal case: I once knew someone that used Excel as a word-processor, because she had been taught to use Excel and hadn't yet been taught how to use Word.
Office 2007 will cause a huge hit in productivity, until these users become comfortable with it. Frankly, I don't know what Microsoft was thinking when they completely replaced the user interface, with no way to return to the old one.
Re:US Airspace full enough already
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
MDW is not ORD. At most airports you can transition directly over the airfield, but ORD is not like most airports because of the sheer amount of traffic and the number of active runways.
My mistake. I didn't see the subject change, and thought he meant that he transited O'Hare while flying out of Midway.
Do you know why it reduces capacity? Increased separation requirements due to lack of visibility.
Capacity is reduced because LAHSO is prohibited in IMC, as stated in the FAA order that I linked in my previous posting. Actually, it doesn't say "IMC", but the ceiling and visibility requirements (1000 feet and 3 miles for air-carrier aircraft even with PAPI/VASI) preclude it. My point was to clarify your assertion that "[O'Hare'] has 3 sets of parallel runways, and on an overcast day you can bet that all of them are in use at the same time."
Have you flown much around crowded Bravo airports?
I did all of my primary and instrument flight training around MSP, and subsequently moved to the DFW area. Although I did plenty of transits over MSP (I was based at 21D) and subsequently over DAL (as I was based at ADS), I never had the occasion to even ask for one over DFW.
However, the original poster's point is still (mostly) valid: the airspace directly over the busiest airports is not in the landing and approach path, regardless of how busy the airport might be. An aircraft -- unidentified or not -- that remains in that area would not cause a conflict.
Re:US Airspace full enough already
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 1
O'Hare is not a small airport with one active runway. It has 3 sets of parallel runways, and on an overcast day you can bet that all of them are in use at the same time.
Read my post again, and then the one immediately below yours from someone that has done exactly what I described over O'Hare. I was directed to use a perpendicular runway as a point of reference, but even if it is not there, the concept is the same: the area directly above an airport is a transit corridor, but the transiting aircraft must approach and depart the area in a way that remains clear of the traffic that is landing and taking off.
I'm not intimately familiar with O'Hare's operating rules under IFR, but low overcast can significantly reduce airport capacity. Parallel ILS approaches can only be made on runways that are separated by a certain distance. I believe the threshold is 3400 feet, although that can be increased or reduced by the presence of sufficiently accurate radar surveillance equipment or approved pilot/crew training. O'Hare is also a regular user of LAHSO (land and hold short operations on intersecting runways), but FAA policy prohibits it under low overcast (less than 1000 feet) conditions.
Re:US Airspace full enough already
on
UFOs In the News
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· Score: 4, Informative
Yes- but you usually fly your pattern *around* the airport, not right smack dab over the runways, at least, not until you're ready to *land* or *take off* in which case by definition you're going to be flying *below* 800 feet, as at that time you're going to be leaving the pattern behind.
Aircraft transiting over an airport like O'Hare are vectored directly OVER the airport. When I've done it (albeit at other airports), I was directed to follow the cross-wind runway that is more or less perpendicular to the active runway(s).
This keeps the transiting aircraft directly above the aircraft ON THE GROUND, but out of the airspace used for landing and takeoff. 1900 feet is a bit low for that, but I've made the transit at no more than 4000 feet AGL.
In other words, even though it happens on every flight that takes off, and "there is no definitive instance of an air accident known to have been caused by a passenger's use of an electronic device," it must be unsafe.
If everything goes according to plan on a flight, occasional interference from a cell-phone isn't a problem. Standard radio communication and radio navigation procedures have been in place for years to deal with interference -- long before cellphones were even invented.
The problem: when things don't go according to plan. Then, interference from any radio transmitter on the plane can suddenly become a factor, and delay resolution of the deviation from the plan. If things are going bad quickly, it can be one of the many contributing factors to an accident. In commercial air travel, a significant accident is almost never caused by a single point of failure. It's typically a long series of errors that eventually boxed the pilot in and left him/her no way out. Preventing just one of them may be enough to avoid the accident.
I have a pilot's license and an amateur radio license. I understand the limitations on design and construction of transmitters and receivers, and realize that aircraft radio receivers cannot be made completely immune to stray transmissions from devices brought on-board by passengers. I also know the dangers of even momentary lapses in communication between pilots and air traffic control. It is more critical during certain phases of flight, but the issue persists throughout the flight.
The concept of a micro-cell in a plane is really cool. But, I'd prefer that we stick with the current set of regulations in the US, and let the rest of the world experiment with in-flight use of passenger cell-phones.
They claim to be neutral, but their officially stated position is not:
We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government.
Although some people will pipe in with their number crunching sever stories, are there any normal usage servers that really come in at 100% CPU usage?
For capacity planning purposes, most of my clients target 40-50% CPU utilization on servers. If it starts creeping above 60% on a consistent basis (or is forecasted to do so soon), they begin the acquisition process to either upgrade or add servers.
Queuing theory (M/M/1) shows that while the average response time doesn't increase that much, the standard deviation increases rapidly as utilization grows above 60%. Restated in simpler terms: a larger proportion of response times become significantly larger -- to the point that users start to notice and either complain or go elsewhere.
Other system components often keep you from reaching that target,
Yes, system overhead starts to increase rapidly on most systems as you approach 100% CPU utilization. In many cases, total throughput actually decreases above system utilization of about 85-90%.
most 24-7 servers I've seen do most of their work during a certain period then spend the rest of their time twiddling their thumbs.
I've looked at usage patterns for a number of systems. Whether they are public (online banking) or internal-use-only, they all seem to have the same pattern: usage peaks about 10:00 AM, with a smaller secondary peak about 1:30 PM. The second peak usually disappears on Friday afternoon.
Slashdot Mirror
The first 12-volt Beetle was a '67. It's also considered by some to be the last "true" VW Beetle, because subsequent years had progressively more and more stuff imposed by the US government. VW finally stopped selling them in the US altogether, but continued to build them in and for other markets (like Mexico).
My brother had a '67 Beetle, and I had a '71 Ghia. Mechanically, it wasn't much different than a Beetle: front disc brakes and slightly higher gear ratios (which yielded higher cruising speeds).
http://www.signalwide.com/
However, the product that you would want (the "WorkBase") has been "Coming this fall" since the middle of last year.
SB 446
So far, each bill has been filed and referred to the appropriate committee. However, the legislative session just started in January and things don't usually start happening until after the filing deadline on 2007-03-09.
Despite the inflammatory name on the link to the blog article, it isn't mandatory. Even the article contradicts itself in the first paragraph:
On Saturday, February 3, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed an executive order to make the newly-released human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil mandatory for all young girls before entry into the sixth grade. Starting in the 2008-2009 school year, the new bill would allow parents to opt out of the vaccination if they provide documentation of religious or philosophical opposition.
The ability to opt-out is already in Texas law, and reportedly applies to all vaccinations. When Perry announced his executive order, he added that the HPV vaccination was voluntary.
Note that I'm not defending or promoting either side of this issue. I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of misinformation being hurled around, in an attempt to influence opinions.
When I switched from DSL to Verizon's FIOS, I got an Actiontec MI424WR router. By default, it was configured with a randomly generated SSID and WEP key. I've changed it to a WPA key, but if I do a hard-reset, it returns to the original values. Apparently, the boot ROM is 'tweaked' during the manufacturing process and a matching sticker is generated with the SSID, WEP key and MAC address -- which is attached to the bottom of the router.
The administration username and password were set to constant values. Unfortunately, you can login to the router as administrator via a wireless connection -- my older Linksys/Cisco router allows you to restrict administrative access to a wired port.
President Skroob: Great. Now we can take every last breath of fresh air from planet Druidia. What's the combination?
Dark Helmet: 1 2 3 4 5.
President Skroob: 1 2 3 4 5? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage! Prepare Spaceball 1 for immediate departure!
Dark Helmet: Yes, sir!
President Skroob: And change the combination on my luggage!
We effectively have this in Texas. Every legislative session, the Texas Senate adopts a rule that 2/3rds of the Senate must agree before a bill is brought to the floor for debate. It was challenged this year by a freshman senator, but he was outnumbered 30-1.
More info: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legis lature/stories/01/10/10senate.html
And that's exactly why I believe this method was used.
No individual or even group would have been able to get that much polonium, without at least the tacit approval of a government with a sufficiently advanced nuclear program. The list of potential suppliers is very short.
This was a message, which is very clear to dissenters and critics: you can't hide. We can get to you, or at least those that are close to you, no matter where you are.
1 2 3 4 5? That's amazing! I've got the same combination on my luggage!
Build a list of computer techs that can fix their problem (and no, I don't mean the "Geek Squad"), and refer the to customer to them. Ask the technician to drop you a line when the computer is fixed, confirming that it's safe to reconnect the customer.
As long as you offer them free support to fix their computer, they'll do it again. When they have to pay their own money to clean-up their mess, they'll modify their behavior.
If they go to someone else, good riddance. Their new ISP will either waste their profit/revenue on them or disconnect them. Eventually the customer will get a clue.
I just read the article, which says:
PowerPhone's ILM system works like this: a citizen calls from his cell phone to report an emergency or suspicious activity-for example, a suspicious person dumping chemicals in a subway station. The caller dials 9-1-1 to report the sighting and says he can send a picture of the man to help identify him. The call handler sends a text message to the caller's cell phone requesting the photo. The caller then replies to this message with the photo attached. PowerPhone's ILM system stores the photo in an incident record for easy reference. The image can be forwarded to responders who are on their way to the scene.
By following this process, the 9-1-1 center ensures that photos are linked with the appropriate records of the citizen's 9-1-1 call. Even more important, this process discourages citizens from randomly sending photos into the 9-1-1 center-an arrangement that can lead to pranks and other abuses of the system.
Did they bother to check to test how many cell phones can actually do this? I just tried it with my Motorola Razr, and I don't have the ability to attach a photo to a reply.
If you only want a really basic phone, then you can buy one without a camera. But, if you want one with other features (like WAP, which I use to check my email), it's almost always bundled with a camera. I'm only seen one exception: Palm makes a "corporate" version of the Treo 650 without a camera, but it's a special order.
I don't know where you are but in my local area I've never seen this. While I do understand and know of areas where photos are banned I've never heard of anyone getting harassed in these areas for using a cell phone.
I've worked for several clients that ban camera phones on their premises. By policy (and in some cases, by law), cameras are banned -- therefore camera phones are banned.
FDIC insures the bank customer against bank failure (as in going out of business).
http://www.fdic.gov/about/learn/symbol/index.html
They also enforce the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. That may address this particular problem, if it's an EFT that you (or someone you authorized) did not make.
"You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant."
That wasn't flak from Albert Lea. That was SPAM from Austin (which is only a few miles east).
(Hormel's corporate headquarters is in Austin, MN).
Technically, the company making a "pre-approved" offer hasn't actually seen your credit report. They simply ask the reporting agency to give them a list of names/addresses for people that meet a certain criteria. You give them permission to make the full inquiry when you return the application.
You can exclude yourself from the pre-screen lists at http://www.optoutprescreen.com/. I'm a bit concerned about the legitimacy of the site, but I've found multiple referrals to it from legitimate sources, including the FTC. If you aren't convinced, you can download the printed form from the site and snail-mail it to the three reporting agencies. The snail-mail method is required for permanent opt-out, anyway.
There are different kinds of credit inquiries. Looking at the inquiries for my credit file over the past 12 months, not one of them affects my score, as most are "promotional" or "account review" inquiries. The rest are "general" inquiries, reflecting the requests that I made to view it. None of them are even shown to anyone else that requests my file.
Frankly, I wouldn't expect the inquiries made by the government for this reason to even show up on a credit report. It only takes a few minutes to request your credit report from any one of several sources, and the big credit reporting agencies even offer monitoring services to warn you if someone makes an inquiry that will affect your score. Logging them on the credit report would tip off the suspect that something is up.
Dallas and its suburbs have Texas Instruments, Nortel, Ericsson, Alcatel, and a bunch of smaller tech companies that were started by people that left the bigger ones.
Disclaimer: I haven't had a chance to try the new Office 2007 interface. I'm going to wait until I can do so before I pronounce it better or worse.
If it is indeed an improvement over the old menu system, I expect I'll be able to adapt quickly. Even if it's not better, I'll adapt (albeit not as quickly), because my company's product integrates with Excel and I MUST learn how to use it. Our customers will demand it, if and when they upgrade to Office 2007.
But, while I've found that I have very little trouble adapting to new software, a much larger segment of computer users depend on the Video Professor or company-sponsored classes to learn how to use an application. An extreme anecdotal case: I once knew someone that used Excel as a word-processor, because she had been taught to use Excel and hadn't yet been taught how to use Word.
Office 2007 will cause a huge hit in productivity, until these users become comfortable with it. Frankly, I don't know what Microsoft was thinking when they completely replaced the user interface, with no way to return to the old one.
My mistake. I didn't see the subject change, and thought he meant that he transited O'Hare while flying out of Midway.
Do you know why it reduces capacity? Increased separation requirements due to lack of visibility.
Capacity is reduced because LAHSO is prohibited in IMC, as stated in the FAA order that I linked in my previous posting. Actually, it doesn't say "IMC", but the ceiling and visibility requirements (1000 feet and 3 miles for air-carrier aircraft even with PAPI/VASI) preclude it. My point was to clarify your assertion that "[O'Hare'] has 3 sets of parallel runways, and on an overcast day you can bet that all of them are in use at the same time."
Have you flown much around crowded Bravo airports?
I did all of my primary and instrument flight training around MSP, and subsequently moved to the DFW area. Although I did plenty of transits over MSP (I was based at 21D) and subsequently over DAL (as I was based at ADS), I never had the occasion to even ask for one over DFW.
However, the original poster's point is still (mostly) valid: the airspace directly over the busiest airports is not in the landing and approach path, regardless of how busy the airport might be. An aircraft -- unidentified or not -- that remains in that area would not cause a conflict.
Read my post again, and then the one immediately below yours from someone that has done exactly what I described over O'Hare. I was directed to use a perpendicular runway as a point of reference, but even if it is not there, the concept is the same: the area directly above an airport is a transit corridor, but the transiting aircraft must approach and depart the area in a way that remains clear of the traffic that is landing and taking off.
I'm not intimately familiar with O'Hare's operating rules under IFR, but low overcast can significantly reduce airport capacity. Parallel ILS approaches can only be made on runways that are separated by a certain distance. I believe the threshold is 3400 feet, although that can be increased or reduced by the presence of sufficiently accurate radar surveillance equipment or approved pilot/crew training. O'Hare is also a regular user of LAHSO (land and hold short operations on intersecting runways), but FAA policy prohibits it under low overcast (less than 1000 feet) conditions.
Aircraft transiting over an airport like O'Hare are vectored directly OVER the airport. When I've done it (albeit at other airports), I was directed to follow the cross-wind runway that is more or less perpendicular to the active runway(s).
This keeps the transiting aircraft directly above the aircraft ON THE GROUND, but out of the airspace used for landing and takeoff. 1900 feet is a bit low for that, but I've made the transit at no more than 4000 feet AGL.
If everything goes according to plan on a flight, occasional interference from a cell-phone isn't a problem. Standard radio communication and radio navigation procedures have been in place for years to deal with interference -- long before cellphones were even invented.
The problem: when things don't go according to plan. Then, interference from any radio transmitter on the plane can suddenly become a factor, and delay resolution of the deviation from the plan. If things are going bad quickly, it can be one of the many contributing factors to an accident. In commercial air travel, a significant accident is almost never caused by a single point of failure. It's typically a long series of errors that eventually boxed the pilot in and left him/her no way out. Preventing just one of them may be enough to avoid the accident.
I have a pilot's license and an amateur radio license. I understand the limitations on design and construction of transmitters and receivers, and realize that aircraft radio receivers cannot be made completely immune to stray transmissions from devices brought on-board by passengers. I also know the dangers of even momentary lapses in communication between pilots and air traffic control. It is more critical during certain phases of flight, but the issue persists throughout the flight.
The concept of a micro-cell in a plane is really cool. But, I'd prefer that we stick with the current set of regulations in the US, and let the rest of the world experiment with in-flight use of passenger cell-phones.
The ACLU takes an active position against the individual-rights interpretation of the Second Amendment.
http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.ht ml
They claim to be neutral, but their officially stated position is not:
We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government.
For capacity planning purposes, most of my clients target 40-50% CPU utilization on servers. If it starts creeping above 60% on a consistent basis (or is forecasted to do so soon), they begin the acquisition process to either upgrade or add servers.
Queuing theory (M/M/1) shows that while the average response time doesn't increase that much, the standard deviation increases rapidly as utilization grows above 60%. Restated in simpler terms: a larger proportion of response times become significantly larger -- to the point that users start to notice and either complain or go elsewhere.
Other system components often keep you from reaching that target,
Yes, system overhead starts to increase rapidly on most systems as you approach 100% CPU utilization. In many cases, total throughput actually decreases above system utilization of about 85-90%.
most 24-7 servers I've seen do most of their work during a certain period then spend the rest of their time twiddling their thumbs.
I've looked at usage patterns for a number of systems. Whether they are public (online banking) or internal-use-only, they all seem to have the same pattern: usage peaks about 10:00 AM, with a smaller secondary peak about 1:30 PM. The second peak usually disappears on Friday afternoon.