It appears the Right is using the same tactics used by the Left to silence those they disagree with. Mann has been found innocent of any wrong doing and the data is valid *twice* now, yet they continue to to to prosecute him. As some one in a different thread commented to me; If you go far enough either tot he right or left you will find yourself on the other side. OTOH I do consider the Left's stated tactics to be a bit more violent.
It'll be interesting about the time they use one on some one wearing a pacemaker or defibrillator. You can't even go through the X-Ray machine or let them use a wand on you in airports. A lot of younger people do have these devices now days.
The price of Silicon went down some months ago to some where IIRC in the $60USD per Kilo range from over $400, or they expect to see it settle around $60. It's unlikely to go much lower. It's reached the point where it's time to thin out the manufacturers again. For some time there were 3, and then 2 manufacturers of poly crystal Silicon. Demand and capacity rose to drive the price to well over $400 USD/Kg. At that point the business was quite profitable so there were many new comers getting in.
Hemlock Semiconductor (The world's largest producer) has doubled their capacity at least 3 times if not 4 and last I knew had a Billion dollar expansion under way again. They have also opened a second production facility, I believe in Kentucky.
The Poly production industry has always been feast or famine. Back in the early days as demand rose and production struggled to keep up the price rose to something like $60/Kg IIRC. Then as new technology increased capacity and purity I think poly hit a low of close to some where between $6 and $12/Kg.
Early production rods were only about 3/4" (1961) in diameter and 16" long. 20 years ago they had progressed to rods larger than 2 men could carry. The purity of the Poly had reached the point where it was of a higher purity coming right out of the reactor than we could get from multi pass zone refining 30 years prior to that.
To point out how simple things can make major changes: About 40 years ago we developed a method of sawing wafers with only half the loss we had been getting. This meant the available silicon doubled almost overnight (the time frame was actually about a week) with no real increase in production cost. That simple move put the industry on its knees because there was suddenly twice as much silicon available for the same demand. It caused industry wide layoffs and some companies went under.
As to solar panels, we are reaching a point where the support structure, inverters, storage (if used), and installation are becoming the major portion of the cost of implementing any system. So there are two areas of interest and competition. Building the cells where the cost of competing materials is significant, and the cost of implementing the solar array where the cost of the cells may be a minor portion of the system cost. As the Silicon industry in other countries is highly subsidized that can make building cells on an economically viable basis somewhat problematic. We are reaching the point where making the cells less expensive has much less impact on the cost of implementing a complete system.
Hmmm..I think I heard about it a couple weeks back. I heard about it some months back. He heard about it the same day the agent was killed. This isn't lying? Also he is responsible for something of this magnitude, so he had better be in charge of those in charge and he best be well informed.
That means Holder either lied to congress multiple times and/or he is guilty of not doing his job.
Guilty either way.
I'm glad you said, "Probably", although we'll probably never know. However he has surrounded himself with a staff consisting of radicals and even convicted terrorists (fire bombers) and those who are openly anti-American. Some so anti American and outspoken he had to get rid of them.
Don't confuse the issue with details that most of us are familiar with already:-))
Ah, what the Hell...
It takes very little to find quite a few "green" companies and particularly solar that Obama gave millions to that failed within a year from when he gave the money. In solyndra's case, even his own advisers told him they were very risky and not to do it. He ignored them. It just so happens that major investors in a number of these companies were also major campaign contributors to Obama, and/or the Democratic party.
It's not abnormal for businesses to fail, but when the president personally picks them out for gigantic stimulus contrary to his advisers , some over half a billion dollars, but with a total of well over a billion dollars, and then they fail with in a year, or even a couple of months, something smells.
First, I'm not a Republican, but with Obama's record of indecision, installing convicted fire bombers and other anti American radicals to his staff, alienating our allies, and comforting our enemies, broken campaign promises, and crony capitalism, it becomes very easy to become anti-Obama.
As for the birther, that's a non issue. He's already admitted his father was never a US citizen so he does not qualify as a "natural born citizen" and should not be allowed on the ballot. As for the campaign contributions That CEO *and* one of the major investors (Falcone) of the company still has a history of giving to the candidate and party. Unfortunately for him, as some one else pointed out, he just wasn't big enough to play with the "high rollers" . However look up how much Falcone gave to Obama and the party in addition to the CEO.
As for LightSquared, giving them preferential treatment endangered the navigation system used not only by airlines, but general aviation and the military as well. All instrument flying in the future will be based on GPS (another problem) while the NDB and VOR based systems along with the ILS are going away within just a few years. LightSquared's interference to these systems could easily endanger thousands of lives. Just think of a large airliner landing at a major hub during a storm. If they lost instrument reference at a few hundred feet above ground when coming in to land it could result in a disaster.
LightSquared's history on this project is one of spin and fraud. They purchased spectrum reserved for weak signal satellite receivers and tried to get away with repurposing it to use tens of thousands of high powered, ground based transmitters running 45 thousand watts each according to one of their earlier documents. With the FCC violating their own rules to fast track LightSquared's implementation there is something deeply fishy about the FCC's actions that makes a person wonder who else had their fingers in the pie with enough power to influence the FCC's decision making process to the point of violating their own rules.
Not me! I'm expensive. Many IT project consultants make that (or more) in a week. OTOH I am retired, so the 8 grand does sound pretty good. If we didn't have SS and I could have invested all they took out of my paycheck, I'd be rich and with all that money from everyone in the economy we'd probably still be in good shape.
Only a week after the report? The contributions to Obama and the Democratic party were known and made public the same week the FCC *did fast track the application*. At least they attached the provision that they had to prove they would not cause interference, but when independent studies showed they did create substantial interference they denied it while trying to make it appear those tests were biased and rigged. Then they blamed the design of the GPS equipment which was never meant to compete with high powered terrestrial signals as they were in a band dedicated to lower power satellite signals.
The whole thing smells from the FCC's end with them violating their own regulations to fast track the implementation of LightSquared's hardware, to the political contributions, to the denying they were responsible for the interference. "sarcasm on"Of course the administration's goal of broadband for everyone was never a consideration."sarcasm off" Sounds a lot like Solyndra with their political contributions and then leaving the real investors out in the cold when they folded, or "fast and furious" implemented for political gain and more control as admitted my Holder. At least we didn't end up giving LightSquared hundreds of millions in subsidies..."that we know of"...yet. Then there was bailing out the auto industry, giving the unions money, and again leaving those who had invested in the companies, high and dry.
I can't say as I've ever had a lot of faith in politicians but this administration has set the bar to a new, record low for honesty, Chicago style politics, "pay to play", lack of transparency (remember his campaign promise), and sticking it to the working man (and woman). It's been an example of crony capitalism at it's best or rather worst. I'm all for the free market and capitalism, but keep politicians out of Industry and industry out of politics. (IOW no Lobbyists going directly into government jobs) Maybe a 5 or 10 year prohibition against retiring politicians and government workers from going to work in any arm of industry to which their job was originally related.
Best we stay alert, because there are many in congress as well as the administration that want to tax the Internet, control the Internet, censure free speech on the Internet, monitor the Internet, and even put a kill switch on the Internet. The UN treaty would give other governments, that have far more restrictive controls over the Internet, that same control over the Internet here.
It's not just the Internet. Read title 21 which reads like a complete shift to socialism with the elimination of private property, the effect on the Internet, Usurping our Constitution. Go to Wiki and look up UN title 21. It makes for some scary reading.
As far as I can see the US has absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose with the UN treaty.
We already pay 60% of the bill, provide 60% of the materials, and 60% of the manpower. I think it's time to tell the UN and Clinton to take the treaty and stick it where the sun don't shine.
When I was a computer systems project manager for a large multinational corporation, we used what were called "Project Charters". These described the project, it's priority, and the criteria that determined when the project was finished. To change anything required that *all* those involved (who signed off on the project to begin with) had to meet, change the charter, and sign off just as if it were a new charter.
Anyone could could come to me and ask for additions or deletions, but no matter how large or small the changes the charter had to be rewritten and again signed off. This added enough work and spreading the responsibility for lowering the priorities (few wanted to be openly responsible for changing the priority of some one else s project) on other projects that it was very rare for a charter to be changed and corporate policy was absolutely nothing could be changed without going the whole development route. Project creep, or feature creep became almost non existent after we adopted this approach.
In the day-to-day stuff, if some one came in and wanted something, my usual response was, "I'd be glad to, but you pick which other project will have to wait". All of our resources are tied up so something will have to wait. I was far enough up "the food chain" that this did not create any problems for me. Also even had I not been that far up the food chain I'd have still asked them which project did they want to replace as I was already working 12 to 16 hour days and teams were already assigned on the high priority stuff and no way was I going to have a corporate team do some one's pet project. Never over extend yourself trying to please those above. You are likely to end up behind on everything and look like a poor performer in the process no matter how hard you work.
About the only answer to AGW is to stop putting green house gasses into the atmosphere, but to do that comes down to the individual. Eventually we will develop renewable fuels, but that has to be done without raising the price beyond the ability for the average person to pay. Unlike Europe which consists of many, small countries with high population density, the US is large and with a low population density on average. Mass transit has not worked well here except in a couple of locations. People just don't want to give up the freedom of driving. Fly coast to coast at 3 to 5 thousand feet above ground level (AGL). From the East side of the Appalachians to the West side of the Rockies there are just a hand full of large population centers separated by nothing but miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles and small communities. Shipping and traveling takes tremendous amounts of fuel and surprisingly our fuel use is the lowest in over a decade. In the cities there are many who don't own or drive a car, but most of us commute to work. Add to that countries like China and India that are modernizing with almost unbelievably large populations. In the next decade or two, India will have more people with degrees (mostly in science) than the entire population of the US (man, woman, and child).
Cap and trade? Now how do you enforce something like that, or use it without adding substantial cost for the average individual when the economy is in the crapper.
Days, weeks, months, years, or minutes. We purchase stock to make money. There is no real dividing line between high frequency and long term except for the person who purchase a stock for one reason or another and just puts it aside without bothering to monitor its value. It may be easier on their nerves, but they are still expecting to make a profit. That being the case, what difference does it make if they hang onto it for 30 years, or sell it 3 days later when the price spikes.
It still takes a lot of study, a good financial adviser, luck, or any combination of the three to make money in the market.
There's GPS and then there's GPS. First, stat phones are also low power. Then there's a huge difference between the little unit on or in the dash of a car compared to the one that is part of a flight management system in an aircraft instrument panel. Difference in quality and a huge difference in price and an even greater difference in safety. The FCC is not concerned about the ones in cars and trucks, or the one you carry in a back pack when hiking, or the one built in your cell phone. A few of the ones they are concerned about are the ones used to position aircraft for reduced separation (vertically and horizontally) or taking the place of an ILS, or part of an "auto land" system. They are also concerned about survey equipment. These are the pieces of equipment that do not have a part 15 warning about having to accept any interference. It's illegal to interfere with any of these precision devices. These receivers cost thousands of dollars and they are the ones used in tests to prove whether LightSquared's signals caused interference to GPS. BTW even the portable units can run $3,000 or more. The panel mounted ones get expensive.
Ground based augmentation is permitted in this spectrum, but they are low powered stations. LightSquared had announced they would be running many thousands of stations running on the order of 40 to 45KW which is a long way from low power. IIRC Typical cell phone towers run about 10 watts per transmitter, but that transmitter has many channels so the power per channel is well less than a watt compared to LightSquared's 45,000 watts.
Basically, LightSquared tried to bend the regulations and use the "ground augmentation stations" at far higher power than normal and they would be their primary stations. IOW they tried to compete with the big boys on the cheap, by cheating the system.
IF AT&T sells *Unlimited" contracts they they should be held legally to providing *unlimited* service. IF OTOH they do not have the capacity to provide it then selling such is false advertising. If I *pay for* unlimited then I expect to be able to run 24 X 7 eve though it would be almost impossible for me to do so. IOW if they can't provide it then they are breaking the law by selling it any way.
As individuals, if we advertised like that we'd most likely end up in jail because we have to deliver what we advertise.
The paperless society is a myth. My degree is in CS, I worked in Industry, a large multinational corporation, and I've had my own computers since 1980. We digitized everything, *BUT* we physically archived all important papers. Some papers you need to keep for a year, some for 3, some for 10 and some for life. The multinational corporation was life of the company plus 10 for some. Digitization is great (when used with a proper naming convention) as it allows you to find things. OTOH I've never known any one who hasn't lost a record or two. Some times it's hundreds or more and you may need those.
It's not just scanning, but records retention, naming conventions, and back up. No one knows how long CDs and DVDs will last in storage. All we have are accelerated aging and projected results, but they are beginning to develop a pretty good track record. Just don't go cheap. One thing though is they are fragile. Sometimes you look at a DVD and wonder how it's still working and other times just a couple of light scratches render one useless. The Cloud, data integrity and security? I wouldn't use the cloud on a bet for business and personal data storage and it's been my profession. It just gives the hackers a better target. Also nothing is truly secure if it's connected to the Internet. If the wrong folks want to see it, they will! If the Feds want to peruse through the data base looking for "things", they will! You'd likely never know they'd been there. Remember that likely some one has a back door key to virtually anything on the net or in the cloud. Add to that storage going out of business. Huge amounts of data have been lost that way.
Data integrity. I've done a lot of photography. I've found that every time I review files I find at least 3 or 4 (some times more) images that have become corrupt. Hard drives are probably the poorest form of storage for data integrity when it comes to images. However with the mass of data I keep I have noticed a marked improvement in HDs, particularly over the last 10 years. Of course it could be the OS and not the HDs. I've never lost a text record, but I can plan on having to restore a few images and particularly those saved as JPGs every time. OTOH that not too bad for many Terabytes of images saved as JPGs.
All businesses that I know of, not only digitize, but they physically archive the original documents. In many cases the only legal document is that original. Generally, Wills, Deeds, and *signed* Contracts must be kept in physical form. Please note I said generally. Laws, regulations, and convention vary from location to location.
If you really want to digitize everything *AND* throw out the paper, talk to a lawyer (from your area) who specializes in business law. He/she will tell you what you have to keep and how long and the risks if you lose the data. It may turn out not to be much...then again like the medical industry going paperless? There is a paper backup of every record. To top it off...most of them... All I've seen, are still using XP Pro as do the corporations I worked for and retired from nearly 20 years ago.
It's much like an ISO audit, but more is riding on it. You have to document what you do and do what you document and do so thoroughly BUT NEVER offer any information you were not asked for or show them anything they didn't ask to see.
Software even used to store information about devises must be validated to an FDA standard. I was a project manager installing Laboratory Information Management Systems or LIMS. We had to start with the log in, valid name and PW, print screen, hit [enter], and print screen again. Then it was valid name and valid PW + 1 character, print screen, hit [enter] and print screen, valid name - 1 character etc for *every single operation of the system including data entry/test results.
The list of testing was about 1" thick. When we finished we had a stack of printouts over 4 feet tall and this was a relatively simple system.
Any routines added or modified as well as hardware had to be proven the same way. All hardware on the network had to be tested and tracked. Changes had to be recorded AND once a month data transfer over the network had to be validated. That validated is not the validation of a project charter as in engineering to say this shows the project is complete...although we had to do that as well.
The article said "accidental overdose" so to that means they did not follow the directions on the prescriptions. The same thing happens with Tylenol and other pain killers which are over the counter.
Although they say they only took down 137 sites intentionally they ended up disabling 87,000 for which they are not even held responsible. IOW they are immune for prosecution for the loss of revenue from the 186,863 sites they took down by accident.
Also the entertainment industry is now in the position of using the federal government "at our expense" to do their policing for them. Brick and mortar stores have to hire guards, but the entertainment industry now uses the feds with us paying the costs. Something needs fixing here.
Looks to me as if there are a lot more domains missing than on the list. Getting the ones selling counterfeit is one thing, but they apparently don't dare about "collateral damage". Many of the regulatory agencies work that way.
Those washing machines (disk drives) would jump around like a washing machine with the load all on one side during back ups and several other operations. I was amazed that the heads didn't strike the platters the way those things jumped around. All heads moved in unison during these operations and at that speed they had a lot of momentum.
A bit of searching on the net and the major drive manufactures are saying, "It's only going to get worse" with with WD and others saying they will not be producing any drives until some time in the first quarter of 2012. They are forecasting the shortage will last through this coming year. Then they once caught up they still have all the demand that was missed. Also with Windows 8 allegedly coming out in 2012 there will be another spike in demand.
Recommendations are: If you buy or build a new computer, use the smallest HD you can get away with. 120G SSDs are still around $200 +/- so it might be a good time too move the system drive to an SSD. Some are saying, buy now while the prices are still cheap? Cheap? and they've gone up between 3 to 4 times.(sigh)
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It appears the Right is using the same tactics used by the Left to silence those they disagree with. Mann has been found innocent of any wrong doing and the data is valid *twice* now, yet they continue to to to prosecute him. As some one in a different thread commented to me; If you go far enough either tot he right or left you will find yourself on the other side. OTOH I do consider the Left's stated tactics to be a bit more violent.
It'll be interesting about the time they use one on some one wearing a pacemaker or defibrillator. You can't even go through the X-Ray machine or let them use a wand on you in airports. A lot of younger people do have these devices now days.
The price of Silicon went down some months ago to some where IIRC in the $60USD per Kilo range from over $400, or they expect to see it settle around $60. It's unlikely to go much lower. It's reached the point where it's time to thin out the manufacturers again. For some time there were 3, and then 2 manufacturers of poly crystal Silicon. Demand and capacity rose to drive the price to well over $400 USD /Kg. At that point the business was quite profitable so there were many new comers getting in.
Hemlock Semiconductor (The world's largest producer) has doubled their capacity at least 3 times if not 4 and last I knew had a Billion dollar expansion under way again. They have also opened a second production facility, I believe in Kentucky.
The Poly production industry has always been feast or famine. Back in the early days as demand rose and production struggled to keep up the price rose to something like $60/Kg IIRC. Then as new technology increased capacity and purity I think poly hit a low of close to some where between $6 and $12/Kg.
Early production rods were only about 3/4" (1961) in diameter and 16" long. 20 years ago they had progressed to rods larger than 2 men could carry. The purity of the Poly had reached the point where it was of a higher purity coming right out of the reactor than we could get from multi pass zone refining 30 years prior to that.
To point out how simple things can make major changes: About 40 years ago we developed a method of sawing wafers with only half the loss we had been getting. This meant the available silicon doubled almost overnight (the time frame was actually about a week) with no real increase in production cost. That simple move put the industry on its knees because there was suddenly twice as much silicon available for the same demand. It caused industry wide layoffs and some companies went under.
As to solar panels, we are reaching a point where the support structure, inverters, storage (if used), and installation are becoming the major portion of the cost of implementing any system. So there are two areas of interest and competition. Building the cells where the cost of competing materials is significant, and the cost of implementing the solar array where the cost of the cells may be a minor portion of the system cost. As the Silicon industry in other countries is highly subsidized that can make building cells on an economically viable basis somewhat problematic. We are reaching the point where making the cells less expensive has much less impact on the cost of implementing a complete system.
They did know and Obama's advisers told him not to do it as the company was not healthy. Some one even predicted to the week when they would fail.
Hmmm..I think I heard about it a couple weeks back. I heard about it some months back. He heard about it the same day the agent was killed. This isn't lying? Also he is responsible for something of this magnitude, so he had better be in charge of those in charge and he best be well informed. That means Holder either lied to congress multiple times and/or he is guilty of not doing his job. Guilty either way.
I'm glad you said, "Probably", although we'll probably never know. However he has surrounded himself with a staff consisting of radicals and even convicted terrorists (fire bombers) and those who are openly anti-American. Some so anti American and outspoken he had to get rid of them.
Don't confuse the issue with details that most of us are familiar with already:-)) Ah, what the Hell... It takes very little to find quite a few "green" companies and particularly solar that Obama gave millions to that failed within a year from when he gave the money. In solyndra's case, even his own advisers told him they were very risky and not to do it. He ignored them. It just so happens that major investors in a number of these companies were also major campaign contributors to Obama, and/or the Democratic party. It's not abnormal for businesses to fail, but when the president personally picks them out for gigantic stimulus contrary to his advisers , some over half a billion dollars, but with a total of well over a billion dollars, and then they fail with in a year, or even a couple of months, something smells.
Hey, Your are right. There is something good about Obama. He makes Bush look really good! :-))
First, I'm not a Republican, but with Obama's record of indecision, installing convicted fire bombers and other anti American radicals to his staff, alienating our allies, and comforting our enemies, broken campaign promises, and crony capitalism, it becomes very easy to become anti-Obama. As for the birther, that's a non issue. He's already admitted his father was never a US citizen so he does not qualify as a "natural born citizen" and should not be allowed on the ballot. As for the campaign contributions That CEO *and* one of the major investors (Falcone) of the company still has a history of giving to the candidate and party. Unfortunately for him, as some one else pointed out, he just wasn't big enough to play with the "high rollers" . However look up how much Falcone gave to Obama and the party in addition to the CEO. As for LightSquared, giving them preferential treatment endangered the navigation system used not only by airlines, but general aviation and the military as well. All instrument flying in the future will be based on GPS (another problem) while the NDB and VOR based systems along with the ILS are going away within just a few years. LightSquared's interference to these systems could easily endanger thousands of lives. Just think of a large airliner landing at a major hub during a storm. If they lost instrument reference at a few hundred feet above ground when coming in to land it could result in a disaster. LightSquared's history on this project is one of spin and fraud. They purchased spectrum reserved for weak signal satellite receivers and tried to get away with repurposing it to use tens of thousands of high powered, ground based transmitters running 45 thousand watts each according to one of their earlier documents. With the FCC violating their own rules to fast track LightSquared's implementation there is something deeply fishy about the FCC's actions that makes a person wonder who else had their fingers in the pie with enough power to influence the FCC's decision making process to the point of violating their own rules.
Not me! I'm expensive. Many IT project consultants make that (or more) in a week. OTOH I am retired, so the 8 grand does sound pretty good. If we didn't have SS and I could have invested all they took out of my paycheck, I'd be rich and with all that money from everyone in the economy we'd probably still be in good shape.
Only a week after the report? The contributions to Obama and the Democratic party were known and made public the same week the FCC *did fast track the application*. At least they attached the provision that they had to prove they would not cause interference, but when independent studies showed they did create substantial interference they denied it while trying to make it appear those tests were biased and rigged. Then they blamed the design of the GPS equipment which was never meant to compete with high powered terrestrial signals as they were in a band dedicated to lower power satellite signals. The whole thing smells from the FCC's end with them violating their own regulations to fast track the implementation of LightSquared's hardware, to the political contributions, to the denying they were responsible for the interference. "sarcasm on"Of course the administration's goal of broadband for everyone was never a consideration."sarcasm off" Sounds a lot like Solyndra with their political contributions and then leaving the real investors out in the cold when they folded, or "fast and furious" implemented for political gain and more control as admitted my Holder. At least we didn't end up giving LightSquared hundreds of millions in subsidies..."that we know of"...yet. Then there was bailing out the auto industry, giving the unions money, and again leaving those who had invested in the companies, high and dry. I can't say as I've ever had a lot of faith in politicians but this administration has set the bar to a new, record low for honesty, Chicago style politics, "pay to play", lack of transparency (remember his campaign promise), and sticking it to the working man (and woman). It's been an example of crony capitalism at it's best or rather worst. I'm all for the free market and capitalism, but keep politicians out of Industry and industry out of politics. (IOW no Lobbyists going directly into government jobs) Maybe a 5 or 10 year prohibition against retiring politicians and government workers from going to work in any arm of industry to which their job was originally related. Best we stay alert, because there are many in congress as well as the administration that want to tax the Internet, control the Internet, censure free speech on the Internet, monitor the Internet, and even put a kill switch on the Internet. The UN treaty would give other governments, that have far more restrictive controls over the Internet, that same control over the Internet here.
It's not just the Internet. Read title 21 which reads like a complete shift to socialism with the elimination of private property, the effect on the Internet, Usurping our Constitution. Go to Wiki and look up UN title 21. It makes for some scary reading. As far as I can see the US has absolutely nothing to gain and a lot to lose with the UN treaty. We already pay 60% of the bill, provide 60% of the materials, and 60% of the manpower. I think it's time to tell the UN and Clinton to take the treaty and stick it where the sun don't shine.
When I was a computer systems project manager for a large multinational corporation, we used what were called "Project Charters". These described the project, it's priority, and the criteria that determined when the project was finished. To change anything required that *all* those involved (who signed off on the project to begin with) had to meet, change the charter, and sign off just as if it were a new charter. Anyone could could come to me and ask for additions or deletions, but no matter how large or small the changes the charter had to be rewritten and again signed off. This added enough work and spreading the responsibility for lowering the priorities (few wanted to be openly responsible for changing the priority of some one else s project) on other projects that it was very rare for a charter to be changed and corporate policy was absolutely nothing could be changed without going the whole development route. Project creep, or feature creep became almost non existent after we adopted this approach. In the day-to-day stuff, if some one came in and wanted something, my usual response was, "I'd be glad to, but you pick which other project will have to wait". All of our resources are tied up so something will have to wait. I was far enough up "the food chain" that this did not create any problems for me. Also even had I not been that far up the food chain I'd have still asked them which project did they want to replace as I was already working 12 to 16 hour days and teams were already assigned on the high priority stuff and no way was I going to have a corporate team do some one's pet project. Never over extend yourself trying to please those above. You are likely to end up behind on everything and look like a poor performer in the process no matter how hard you work.
About the only answer to AGW is to stop putting green house gasses into the atmosphere, but to do that comes down to the individual. Eventually we will develop renewable fuels, but that has to be done without raising the price beyond the ability for the average person to pay. Unlike Europe which consists of many, small countries with high population density, the US is large and with a low population density on average. Mass transit has not worked well here except in a couple of locations. People just don't want to give up the freedom of driving. Fly coast to coast at 3 to 5 thousand feet above ground level (AGL). From the East side of the Appalachians to the West side of the Rockies there are just a hand full of large population centers separated by nothing but miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles and small communities. Shipping and traveling takes tremendous amounts of fuel and surprisingly our fuel use is the lowest in over a decade. In the cities there are many who don't own or drive a car, but most of us commute to work. Add to that countries like China and India that are modernizing with almost unbelievably large populations. In the next decade or two, India will have more people with degrees (mostly in science) than the entire population of the US (man, woman, and child). Cap and trade? Now how do you enforce something like that, or use it without adding substantial cost for the average individual when the economy is in the crapper.
Days, weeks, months, years, or minutes. We purchase stock to make money. There is no real dividing line between high frequency and long term except for the person who purchase a stock for one reason or another and just puts it aside without bothering to monitor its value. It may be easier on their nerves, but they are still expecting to make a profit. That being the case, what difference does it make if they hang onto it for 30 years, or sell it 3 days later when the price spikes. It still takes a lot of study, a good financial adviser, luck, or any combination of the three to make money in the market.
There's GPS and then there's GPS. First, stat phones are also low power. Then there's a huge difference between the little unit on or in the dash of a car compared to the one that is part of a flight management system in an aircraft instrument panel. Difference in quality and a huge difference in price and an even greater difference in safety. The FCC is not concerned about the ones in cars and trucks, or the one you carry in a back pack when hiking, or the one built in your cell phone. A few of the ones they are concerned about are the ones used to position aircraft for reduced separation (vertically and horizontally) or taking the place of an ILS, or part of an "auto land" system. They are also concerned about survey equipment. These are the pieces of equipment that do not have a part 15 warning about having to accept any interference. It's illegal to interfere with any of these precision devices. These receivers cost thousands of dollars and they are the ones used in tests to prove whether LightSquared's signals caused interference to GPS. BTW even the portable units can run $3,000 or more. The panel mounted ones get expensive. Ground based augmentation is permitted in this spectrum, but they are low powered stations. LightSquared had announced they would be running many thousands of stations running on the order of 40 to 45KW which is a long way from low power. IIRC Typical cell phone towers run about 10 watts per transmitter, but that transmitter has many channels so the power per channel is well less than a watt compared to LightSquared's 45,000 watts. Basically, LightSquared tried to bend the regulations and use the "ground augmentation stations" at far higher power than normal and they would be their primary stations. IOW they tried to compete with the big boys on the cheap, by cheating the system.
IF AT&T sells *Unlimited" contracts they they should be held legally to providing *unlimited* service. IF OTOH they do not have the capacity to provide it then selling such is false advertising. If I *pay for* unlimited then I expect to be able to run 24 X 7 eve though it would be almost impossible for me to do so. IOW if they can't provide it then they are breaking the law by selling it any way. As individuals, if we advertised like that we'd most likely end up in jail because we have to deliver what we advertise.
The paperless society is a myth. My degree is in CS, I worked in Industry, a large multinational corporation, and I've had my own computers since 1980. We digitized everything, *BUT* we physically archived all important papers. Some papers you need to keep for a year, some for 3, some for 10 and some for life. The multinational corporation was life of the company plus 10 for some. Digitization is great (when used with a proper naming convention) as it allows you to find things. OTOH I've never known any one who hasn't lost a record or two. Some times it's hundreds or more and you may need those. It's not just scanning, but records retention, naming conventions, and back up. No one knows how long CDs and DVDs will last in storage. All we have are accelerated aging and projected results, but they are beginning to develop a pretty good track record. Just don't go cheap. One thing though is they are fragile. Sometimes you look at a DVD and wonder how it's still working and other times just a couple of light scratches render one useless. The Cloud, data integrity and security? I wouldn't use the cloud on a bet for business and personal data storage and it's been my profession. It just gives the hackers a better target. Also nothing is truly secure if it's connected to the Internet. If the wrong folks want to see it, they will! If the Feds want to peruse through the data base looking for "things", they will! You'd likely never know they'd been there. Remember that likely some one has a back door key to virtually anything on the net or in the cloud. Add to that storage going out of business. Huge amounts of data have been lost that way. Data integrity. I've done a lot of photography. I've found that every time I review files I find at least 3 or 4 (some times more) images that have become corrupt. Hard drives are probably the poorest form of storage for data integrity when it comes to images. However with the mass of data I keep I have noticed a marked improvement in HDs, particularly over the last 10 years. Of course it could be the OS and not the HDs. I've never lost a text record, but I can plan on having to restore a few images and particularly those saved as JPGs every time. OTOH that not too bad for many Terabytes of images saved as JPGs. All businesses that I know of, not only digitize, but they physically archive the original documents. In many cases the only legal document is that original. Generally, Wills, Deeds, and *signed* Contracts must be kept in physical form. Please note I said generally. Laws, regulations, and convention vary from location to location. If you really want to digitize everything *AND* throw out the paper, talk to a lawyer (from your area) who specializes in business law. He/she will tell you what you have to keep and how long and the risks if you lose the data. It may turn out not to be much...then again like the medical industry going paperless? There is a paper backup of every record. To top it off...most of them ... All I've seen, are still using XP Pro as do the corporations I worked for and retired from nearly 20 years ago.
It's much like an ISO audit, but more is riding on it. You have to document what you do and do what you document and do so thoroughly BUT NEVER offer any information you were not asked for or show them anything they didn't ask to see.
Software even used to store information about devises must be validated to an FDA standard. I was a project manager installing Laboratory Information Management Systems or LIMS. We had to start with the log in, valid name and PW, print screen, hit [enter], and print screen again. Then it was valid name and valid PW + 1 character, print screen, hit [enter] and print screen, valid name - 1 character etc for *every single operation of the system including data entry/test results. The list of testing was about 1" thick. When we finished we had a stack of printouts over 4 feet tall and this was a relatively simple system. Any routines added or modified as well as hardware had to be proven the same way. All hardware on the network had to be tested and tracked. Changes had to be recorded AND once a month data transfer over the network had to be validated. That validated is not the validation of a project charter as in engineering to say this shows the project is complete...although we had to do that as well.
The article said "accidental overdose" so to that means they did not follow the directions on the prescriptions. The same thing happens with Tylenol and other pain killers which are over the counter.
Although they say they only took down 137 sites intentionally they ended up disabling 87,000 for which they are not even held responsible. IOW they are immune for prosecution for the loss of revenue from the 186,863 sites they took down by accident. Also the entertainment industry is now in the position of using the federal government "at our expense" to do their policing for them. Brick and mortar stores have to hire guards, but the entertainment industry now uses the feds with us paying the costs. Something needs fixing here.
Looks to me as if there are a lot more domains missing than on the list. Getting the ones selling counterfeit is one thing, but they apparently don't dare about "collateral damage". Many of the regulatory agencies work that way.
Those washing machines (disk drives) would jump around like a washing machine with the load all on one side during back ups and several other operations. I was amazed that the heads didn't strike the platters the way those things jumped around. All heads moved in unison during these operations and at that speed they had a lot of momentum.
A bit of searching on the net and the major drive manufactures are saying, "It's only going to get worse" with with WD and others saying they will not be producing any drives until some time in the first quarter of 2012. They are forecasting the shortage will last through this coming year. Then they once caught up they still have all the demand that was missed. Also with Windows 8 allegedly coming out in 2012 there will be another spike in demand. Recommendations are: If you buy or build a new computer, use the smallest HD you can get away with. 120G SSDs are still around $200 +/- so it might be a good time too move the system drive to an SSD. Some are saying, buy now while the prices are still cheap? Cheap? and they've gone up between 3 to 4 times.(sigh)