Is there anything more useless than the “neutral” gear of a car’s automatic transmission? It doesn’t do anything! What a waste of effort having to shift over it every time I need to get to the useful “drive” and “reverse” gears.
March 2006
AT&T To Buy Bellsouth
How can AT&T, er …I mean SBC’s purchase of Bellsouth be a good thing? Remember when there was only one phone company in town? Remember how high your phone bills were? We’re heading back to those days, thanks to a Congress that can’t say no.
Where’s Elliot Spitzer when you need him?
Countdown To Slackerdom
I was buying some things at the local grocery store last week. I saw the total was going to provide me a wad of singles so I do what I usually do: I kicked in a quarter to make my change a fivespot. You’d think this was simple math, but you’d be wrong. The slacker at the register gave me a blank look.
“Aw, man,” he sighed, fumbling with the money. “The last math I did was advanced trigonometry.”
Dust off those advanced trig skills, dude. NASA may be calling you.
Fake City Gets Front-Page Treatment
I love college basketball as much as the next guy, but does this story about a student selling a basketball ticket deserve front-page treatment in the N&O? Some enterprising Dookie economics major wanted to spend weeks living outdoors so he could sell his basketball ticket for big cash. Fine by me.
Why is the paper printing stories about Krzyzewskiville, a fake “tent city” on the Dook campus? When did this elevate to front-page news?
Maybe the N&O had to take a break from whipping up a flu frenzy.
Australia
Looks like I’ll be making a two week long visit to Australia in a few weeks. I’m going on a business trip to Melbourne and Sydney, providing training and sales support for my employer. There’s also a question as to whether the wife and kids will join me.
This will be the second visit I’ve made to Australia. The first one was in uniform, as my ship – the USS Elliot – visited Perth back in the summer of 1991. It was of course winter there at the time and rained practically the whole, three day visit.
The flight will mark the third time I’ve crossed the line, this time being the first by air. Even though I’m a trusty shellback, I would strongly doubt that airline passengers crawl through food scraps when flying over the equator. Maybe I’ll toss some peanuts across the cabin to mark the occasion or something.
The trip is work, make no mistake. My schedule is filling up more and more each day. For that reason I wonder if Kelly and the kids would enjoy making the trip with me, as they probably won’t see me for most of the day. Still, it will be nice to visit a country I enjoyed so much on my last visit and its always good to get out of the country and explore.
Study says cell phones could cause problems on aircraft
A study by Carnegie Mellon University, in conjunction with those wacky folks at the FAA, has indicated that the use of mobile phones can pose dangers to critical equipment on aircraft. Dr. Bill Strauss of the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, says his study indicates the interference from these devices is higher than expected.
“These devices can disrupt normal operation of key cockpit instruments, especially Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, which are increasingly vital for safe landings,” Strauss said.
Until the study’s results appear in the IEEE’s Proceedings, we’ll just have to wonder about a few things:
- How could they know the aircraft’s GPS receiver was affected if they were monitoring it only from a receiver in a carry-on bag?
- Did they have an independent method of determining their position like LORAN?
- Were the researchers in constant contact with the pilots?
- Are the pilots trained in GPS technology to the point they can recognize faulty behavior?
- How does one measure from an overhead bin the effect of a cabin transmitter on electronics in the cockpit?
This sounds like a sham to me. The press release is vague with details. Nowhere does the press release specifically state that cellphones were observed to affect aircraft systems. It simply states that the risk is “greater than expected.”
Show me where a properly functioning mobile phone, transmitting on the 900 MHz or 1900 MHz bands at a puny 600mW at its strongest, affected the reception of a 1575 MHz GPS signal coming in from an external aircraft antenna. Show me! Any harmonics at 1575 Mhz must be significantly weaker than the primary signal. That’s assuming such a phone is shoddy enough to cause harmonics, which is a big if since undoubtedly it never would have gotten FCC approval.
How can a device be safe to hold right next to your brain and at the same time dangerous enough to endanger an aircraft? How does this make sense?!?
It’s either one or the other, folks. Somebody’s lying to us.