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The Telecom Digest for March 22, 2012
Volume 31 : Issue 75 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords (Bill Horne)
Re: What Hath Bell Labs Wrought? The Future (Eric Tappert)
Verizon claims there's a capacity cruch coming (Bill Horne)
OSHA faults Verizon in death of Brooklyn NY Technician Douglas Lalima (Bill Horne)

====== 30 years of TELECOM Digest -- Founded August 21, 1981 ======

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Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 10:30:40 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords Message-ID: <jkcomj$c5k$1@dont-email.me> By Manuel Valdes, Associated Press | Associated Press - Tue, Mar 20, 2012 7:55 AM EDT SEATTLE (AP) -- When Justin Bassett interviewed for a new job, he expected the usual questions about experience and references. So he was astonished when the interviewer asked for something else: his Facebook username and password. Bassett, a New York City statistician, had just finished answering a few character questions when the interviewer turned to her computer to search for his Facebook page. But she couldn't see his private profile. She turned back and asked him to hand over his login information. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-seekers-getting-asked-facebook-080920368.html -or- http://tinyurl.com/6sd356l -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly) ***** Moderator's Note ***** There is a small - I hope very small - subset of HR people who conduct themselves as if they were Commissars in the former USSR. Since they can no longer dream of retiring to Moscow, whey must content themselves with having a fantasy of total control over job applicants instead. Of course, they'll ask for voicemail passwords next, and demand that job su^h^happlicants agree that all their personal email will be delivered through the company server, and that anyone coming in the door swear an oath of fealty to the leader of the corporation that deigns to consider employing him. My advice to anyone who is not both rich and a citizen of a enlightened democratic country is to destroy all records of involvement with FaceTube and similar organizations at least a year before going job hunting. I'd tell them never to open any such account in the first place, but children make mistakes, and putting their life online for all to see is one of them. Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:02:45 -0400 From: Eric Tappert <e.tappert.spamnot@worldnet.att.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: What Hath Bell Labs Wrought? The Future Message-ID: <s1rjm71hbvr678mgb0un9jpknvohc3fbij@4ax.com> On Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:38:11 -0700 (PDT), HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> wrote: >***** Moderator's Note ***** > >> The gap between the Labs and the field caused some very severe errors: >> most notably, the choice of an 8,000 Hz sample rate for the T-1 >> carrier system. Although it was Shannon's work that predicted the need >> for a sample rate of at least twice the highest frequency to be >> reproduced, the T-1 designers didn't do the field trials which would >> have revealed that sampling ambiguities at even sub-multiples of the >> "chop" rate would make 1,000 Hz test tones unusable. This is the >> reason that "Milliwatt" test tones are now slightly offset from 1,000 >> Hz - but I can only imaging the cost of rework and redesign that >> far-reaching error caused. > >Could you elaborate on this in layman's terms--particularly the >statement-- "sampling ambiguities at even sub-multiples of the >"chop" rate would make 1,000 Hz test tones unusable"? > >It would seem to me that 8,000 Hz sample rate would make sense because >it was double the voice band of 4,000 Hz. > >Thanks. > >***** Moderator's Note ***** > >I didn't write that clearly: it's not "even sub-multiples", it's >"rational sub-multiples", i.e., sub-multiples that evenly divide into >8,000 Hz. > >Bill Horne >Moderator The problem with these frequencies is that they do not toggle all the bits in the encoding, thus testing at those frequencies is incomplete. Accordingly, the test sets for digital circuits test at 1015 Hz, wihich causes all the bits to toggle in the encoding. There is nothing "magic" about 1 kHz. It does sort of correspond to the peak energy in voice (even though every voice is a bit different). Note that any sampling rate would have the same problem with frequencies that are, as Bill put it, "even sub-multiples" of the sampling frequency. I doubt that most engineers would consider this a big screw up by Bell Labs, and certainly there are lots of other cases where the impact was greater. All in all, they did a pretty good job of designing the telephone network... ET
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:29:50 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Verizon claims there's a capacity cruch coming Message-ID: <20120321232950.GA1991@telecom.csail.mit.edu> Verizon: Capacity crunch coming to big cities next year Verizon and Comcast defend their spectrum deal to the Senate, with Verizon calling for more spectrum and Comcast dismissing the notion that competition would suffer. by Roger Cheng, CNET March 21, 2012 12:33 PM PDT Verizon Communications, in justifying its planned acquisition of spectrum from the major cable providers, said today its wireless arm could suffer from a capacity shortage in its bigger cities as early as next year. "We will need this spectrum in a number of significant markets by 2013, so there is no time to lose in making this spectrum available," said Randal Milch, general counsel for Verizon, in prepared remarks. Rest at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57401834-94/verizon-capacity-crunch-coming-to-big-cities-next-year/ -or- http://tinyurl.com/87yxdlo -- Bill Horne Moderator
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:37:08 -0400 From: Bill Horne <bill@horneQRM.net> To: telecomdigestmoderator.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: OSHA faults Verizon in death of Brooklyn NY Technician Douglas Lalima Message-ID: <jkdon7$n36$1@dont-email.me> From the CWA web site: OSHA faults Verizon in death of Brooklyn NY Technician Douglas Lalima Mar 19, 2012 Verizon Hit with Maximum Fines for 10 "Serious" and "Repeat" Violations of Safety Rules Totaling $140,700 Union Cites "Culture of Indifference" that Led to Death of 37-Year-Old Husband and Father of Four NEW YORK -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced today that its investigation into the death of Verizon technician Douglas Lalima -- who was electrocuted while working on a utility pole in Brooklyn last September -- has resulted in 10 citations against Verizon and fines totaling $140,700 for serious and repeated failures by the company to abide by critical safety rules. The fines in the citation are the maximum penalties under the law for such egregious conduct. Rest at: http://www.cwa-union.org/news/entry/osha_faults_verizon_in_death_of_brooklyn_technician_douglas_lalima -or- http://tinyurl.com/7h96owb -- Bill Horne (Remove QRM from my address to write to me directly)
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