Re: [telecom] Cell-phone generation increasingly disconnected [Telecom]

Seems to me the same claims were made regarding prohibiting smoking in airplanes, bars, restaurants, and stores.

obtelecom: the fumes, ash, and particulates from cigarette smoke dramatically raise the maintenance requirements at any central office using step-by-step switches.

-- _____________________________________________________ Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key snipped-for-privacy@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

It's OK, nicotine and cell phones are both addictive.

Bill

On Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:17:06 -0400, danny burstein wrote: ........

.........

And both are banned (well, the smoking method of infusing nicotine anyway) when people fly, so they can do without both "addictions" if required.

The argument is really about the rights of those in one environment to control the behaviour of those who *choose* to enter that environment.

As long as people have a (reasonable) choice/alternative to go (and get their fix) elsewhere, then it really shouldn't be a problem.

-- Regards, David.

David Clayton Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a measure of how many questions you have.

ISTM that it's about a lack of consensus as to what is and is not polite behavior in the electronic age. When pagers were invented, they were first used by physicians: "everybody" agreed that a doctor's time and expertise was so valuable that we could tolerate occasional interuptions in concert halls, restaurants, etc. With the camel's nose under the edge of the tent, Moore's law took over.

Unfortunately, the body politic doesn't get to say "no more" once we've said "just this once", and the rest (as they say) is history.

Bill Horne Moderator

And probably at electronic offices, also. Eighteen years ago, when I was volunteering at the Public Television studios in Durham, NH, there were signs prohibiting smoking in the building. The explanation was: "to protect the electronic equipment in the station."

They do the same thing to airliner equipment. One thing the mechanics did miss when smoking was first banned...were the nicotine stains on/about the doors/seals/vents/etc that indicated a pressurization leak. These weren't any kind of bad leak, just kind of a 'heads-up' that this area is needing some attention before it gets too bad; but aircraft mechanics are an obsessive lot. :))

According to Spider Robinson ("The Crazy Years"), the airlines got smoking banned aboard aircraft for a completely different reason: it meant they could slow down the air circulation systems in aircraft cabins by a factor of two or three (to save energy and money for the airline) without the fact being visible. The stagnant air that passengers now have to breathe as a result is almost certainly more of a health hazard than the slightly smoky air it replaces.

Sorry, that doesn't make sense. Jet aircraft have so much spare power that air circulation is never a problem: the engines provide pressurized air for free, so moving air through the cabin is very easy to do.

In any case, it doesn't pass the common-sense test: why risk offending passengers when the aircraft has all the ventilation anyone could ever want?

But it does. You steal bleed air from an engine, or the system runs from AC from same. In either case, TANSTAAFL applies; their fuel costs go up.

I've see the controls on a Airbus that allowed running one or both "pack"... With both, there was more air injected, hence more expelled.

You forget just how cheap airlines are! Bleed air costs real money because it reduces engine efficiency. It's not free, you have to burn petroleum to get it, and in an age where passengers are being nickeled and dimed for every item of luggage it's not surprising that reducing bleed air use is of paramount concern.

--scott