Procrastination is something (most) everyone experiences. On vacation it’s a positive, but at work, well, it’s just a bad habit.
Several years ago when experimenting with GTD to help clear my desk I came across Kevin Chiu’s white paper on the topic. I recently found myself procrastinating again and rediscovered his paper (ironically while dodging an expense report.) Chiu has made an interesting study of procrastination, arguing basically that people innately postpone tasks percieved as either too hard to monotonously boring and instead complete tasks they think they can achieve or are interesting.
His conclusion is we must raise our personal game; train ourselves to take on increasingly difficult tasks piecewise while steeling ourselves to power through the mundane and get them over with.
It’s very good advice and an interesting read. Now, about that expense report … think I’ll visit YouTube for a few minutes first.
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I’ve followed with interest the development of DVB-RCS over the years, including some interesting work Intelsat and Cisco. Unfortunately, despite the claims in the linked article, DVB-RCS has not succeeded in establishing itself as a global standard. There are hundreds of thousands of vendor-proporietary satellite modems and little economic incentive for inter-operability.
As examples, Wildblue uses Viasat Sufbeam based on DOCSIS, HughesNet uses their own IPOS (Ku) and RSM-A (Spaceway). Eutelsat adopted Viasat’s Surfbeam for their Tooway system and SES Astra, the most ardent proponent of DVB-RCS outside of ESA, adopted Newtec proprietary modems in Astra2Connect service.
It’s hard to believe that ESA has the market power to successfully promote a DVB-RCS without a low cost, mass market modem ready to ship. This seems unlikely at best.
The unfortunate fact is that satellite market forces have created scant incentive for inter-operability while rewarding proprietary, incremental increases in bandwidth efficiency.
Some say that market forces are waning a Government-sponsored broadband network requiring open-standard equipment may now lead the way. Can you say JIPM.
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Recently studying bridges and came across this amazing piece of engineering.
THE MILLAU VIADUCT is part of the new E11 expressway connecting Paris and Barcelona and
features the highest bridge piers ever constructed. The tallest is 240 meters high and the overall height will be an impressive 336 meters, making this the highest bridge in the world.
References:
Summary of a field test report about co-channel interference in C-Band. It would be interesting to see this method of analysis applied to TV Band white spaces.
Background:
Several national administrations around the world have designated portions of the frequency band 3.4 – 4.2 GHz for use by terrestrial wireless applications such as WiMAX and future mobile services. Commonly referred to as C-band, these frequencies are already used by satellite services, radar systems and microwave links.
The sensitivity of C-band satellite receiving systems makes them particularly sensitive to disruptions by mobile terrestrial frequencies in immediately adjacent bands.
The Test:
Early in 2007, the Global VSAT Forum (GVF) coordinated an effort to confirm whether WiMAX systems would cause interference to satellite systems operating in an adjacent frequency band.
A side-by-side occurred in November 2007, the results of which showed that WiMAX transmission could cause significant problems to a digital satellite receiver in excess of 12 km away. Calculations based on measured data implied a required separation distance of 278 km.
Results and Recommendations:
FSS antennas cannot co-exist with WiMAX systems using the same frequencies within a radius from between 50 and 200 km, dependent upon the local terrain and WiMAX power output levels.
Comments:
The test setup is designed to illustrate worst case interference. However, in the real world satellite up and downlink signals are polarized, plus Industry and the IEEE are working on 802.11 y (radio beacon) & k (signal measurement) to help WiMAX radios and networks detect and avoid licensed incumbent services.
It would be interesting to also see adjacent frequency and co-channel opposite-polarization interference analysis.
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