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It has taken about five years, but members of my family have, this week, become Permanent Residents of Canada. The transition was clean, friendly, and an incredible if long-in-the-making relief.Our immigration lawyer regards all his client families as long-term friends, and although each case is different they all take more time than everyone expects them to take. No doubt our application had complications that other families do not encounter; and, no doubt, there were circumstances that we did not have to face...thank goodness!The whole transition from the West Coast of the US to Vancouver Island began with concern for our daughter's education. The schools in Oregon - at least in our area at the time, and I suspect in general - are an abysmal failure from Middle School on. No doubt our daughter would have been at the top of the academic pile through High School and, probably, through the Oregon University system. That is not what we wanted for her and, it seems, it is not what she expects of herself.We were ...

On a drive last weekend through New England's scenic White Mountains we stopped at a rest area at a beautiful waterfall on the headwaters of the Saco River. I've been visiting the White Mountain National Forest since 1962, and know quite a few strikingly eye-catching places that are easily accessible, and this was one of them.%IMG_left_full_793%Unfortunately, just about every place we parked required that we pay a user's fee, even if we stopped for just a few minutes. Since 1997, the White Mountain National Forest has collected these so-called recreation fees. Hikers must pay up before hitting the trails. Passes are demanded at trailhead parking lots and day use facilities.Yes, the fees are ostensibly used to maintain facilities, and are lawfully charged under provisions of the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act. According to the White Mountain National Forest folks, almost all of the proceeds are used for area improvements. That is well and good, but some people resent paying to visit a public park. Fe...

It was lots of fun helping organize Vitesse’s VScope Design Challenge contest (Introduced here in connectivityZONE this February), but the real work began when we took our last entry a couple of weeks ago and the process of picking a winner began. Selecting a grand champion between the two finalists was tough because both entries embodied very innovative and practical ideas that went well beyond any application that Vitesse had originally intended for their chips.In the end, the judging team awarded first place to the entry titled Circuit and Algorithm for using VScope to Identify the Sources of Crosstalk and Noise Coupling Induced Jitter in Data Communication Systems, written by Dr. Cosmin Iorga, founder and president of NoiseCoupling.com. The paper describes an innovative method for identifying the sources of deterministic jitter in data communication systems.Second place honors were awarded to Mr. Fadi Daou, CEO of MultiLane SAL, who submitted an entry entitled XFP Module with VScope Capability....

When I was a much younger man, and unused – in many respects – to the sheer crookedness of the world, I was told by my boss to do something that I thought seemed rather wrong: to over-invoice a client in an overseas operation. It was a matter of some tens of millions of US Dollars with an open, confirmed, letter of credit in place that had on it not just the sale prices of the shipments that were to be made but also the freight costs. Except that the freight costs were exaggerated to the tune of 500%.With five shipments of product required, the five invoices would also include one-fifth of the agreed freight costs. That was three million plus excess Dollars on each invoice compared to the true cost of shipping and insurance. Each of those three million dollops of money were handily divided between one of my boss’ accounts in the Caymans, the contact in the country of origin of the LC (which happened to be Nigeria) was credited in his account in London, and there was a small pay-off to the co...

Unbelievable as it seems, the United States has just gotten serious about Smart Grids. Barring a failure of political or economic support, there’s a good chance that we’ll have a solid plan for upgrading our aging, fragile one-way power delivery grid by the end of this year. If the joint effort between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) succeeds, it will produce a blueprint for a new grid system that allows the US to cut its reliance on imported fossil fuels while reducing our national carbon footprint. When complete the Smart Grid spec will also provide our electricity supply with better security against malicious tampering, and fault containment capabilities that should make it more resistant to the massive cascading blackouts that have rocked North America several times in the last decade. While there are no major technical obstacles to deploying a Smart Grid, the sheer size of the project and the large number of stake...

The announcement by US Supreme Court Associate Justice David Hackett Souter that he would retire at the end of the present session (June 2009) came as a complete surprise to the nation. He was mugged while jogging in DC at 9 PM a few years ago and he reportedly once told friends that he “had the world’s best job in the world’s worst city.” So presumably, at the tender age of 69, he wants to enjoy some of his years, while he is able, back in his beloved New Hampshire.Now President Obama has the awesome task of nominating a new Justice.We know that this appointment will be politicized to excruciating detail. What tiny things are in the nominee’s background will be blown up out of all proportion to delay confirmation – and to show that the conservative right feels that it is still relevant after elections said that they are not. Due diligence on the nominee must show that all the usual traits that are decried. And he/she must – please – not owe taxes, or have hired...

As I write, the A-H1N1 virus is spreading around the world. The Swine Flu arrived here in Maine today with a small number of recorded cases. As this news reached me, I was struggling with another type of virus. This one was Win32/Cryptor, and it was wreaking havoc with my trusty Windows XP PC.The insidious aspect of Win32/Cryptor is that it's seemingly benign. In fact, if you don't scan for it, you'll probably not know it's there, but an astute PC user may see some OS quirks from time to time. One of the obvious things Win32/Cryptor does is completely prohibit the operation of anti-spyware programs such as Spybot Search And Destroy. Any way you cut it, Win32/Cryptor is a nasty piece of unwanted code. It restricts Windows functions and permits the installation of other, potentially more dangerous, malware onto a machine.When I performed my daily routine AVG scan and discovered a half dozen instances of Cryptor I was heartsick. Prior to this invasion, my PC has been clean and flawless in operation for quite a...