There are many inexpensive clocks and watches that are described as having “atomic time”, or more-correctly  being “radio-controlled”.  The feature does not seem to be heavily advertised, so the average person seeing one of these probably has no idea what it all means.  Certainly there is not a little atomic time device inside?  Perhaps radio-controlled refers to a feature using a local radio station to set the time?

Actually, they are quite sophisticated.  The time is set by syncing to the signal of a long-wave time station.  There are several of these in the world, transmitting on frequencies in the 60-70 KHZ area.  Note that this is very low, compared to the standard AM broadcast band which begins at 530 KHZ.  The best known stations are WWVB, Boulder, Colorado, USA (60 KHz); MSF, Anthorn, England (60 KHz); and DCF, Meinberg, Germany (77.5 Khz).  Some clocks can use only one of these, depending on where they are sold.  Watches more likely can use any of the three.  The stations use cesium atomic clocks as their time standard - thus the reference to atomic time on many of the devices.

The signals travel thousands of miles, and therefore most of North America and Europe are covered.  Coverage is best at night, so the clocks and watches generally try to sync once every 24 hours beginning around midnight, depending upon their own internal time-keeping for accuracy for the next 24 hours.

After Halloween, inevitably there is the leftover candy dilemma.  If there are children in the house, they will have their stash of candy collected while trick-or-treating, much of which they probably don’t really like.  But the bigger problem is the leftover bags of candy, from over-buying to give out to neighborhood trick-or-treaters -after all,  running can be just so embarrassing…  (For more on the history of trick-or-treating see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trick-or-treating.)

All that extra candy can just be kept around the house, helping to add a few pounds at a time of year when outside activity has decreased, and other food-centered holidays are approaching.  Any nutritional value is more than offset by the amount of sugar and calories in it.  Another alternative is to bring it to work, to inflict on co-workers who welcome it with mixed feelings.

So here is a radical idea - throw it in the trash!  You will be doing everyone a favor!

An unfortunate trend on news websites is the increasing tendency to feature fluff, unimportant, or extreme issues, as the main headline stories.  CNN has become a particular offender, but they are not alone - many newspaper sites are doing the same thing. 

Very often, these stories concern doom and gloom over the economy - featuring some individual hard-luck story - a foreclosure, unusually low house sale price, job-loss, etc., and imply that the particular problem is far more widespread than it actually is.  An e-pessimist would think it is deliberately done, to keep worried readers clicking on those sites to increase the per-click ad revenues.

A plug for one very good news site, viewed more and more by the e-admin: http://www.csmonitor.com.  This is the web site of the Christian Science Monitor Newspaper- which is a not a religious site, though owned by the Church, and which does include advertising.  It features important world and US news in a non-sensational way.

Two other good sites - the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk, and National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org.

Why can’t Microsoft programmers, with full access to their tightly-controlled source code, find the vulnerabilities that the hackers can find?

And why can’t Microsoft find a way to apply most hotfixes, without a reboot? They claim to have added this ability beginning with Windows 2003, yet it seems every major hotfix is an exception…

Just an e-observation… One generally unpublicized, yet hazardous, use of cellphones is in the supermarket. The e-admin was nearly crushed last night between two shoppers pushing their carts while discussing subjects only of importance to themselves on their phones. It is interesting to see how oblivious to their surroundings some cell phone users can become. No doubt they drive their cars in a similar way - but it is much more visible to the casual observer in a supermarket. Perhaps a new acronym is in order - consider PGTH - Phone Glued To Head…

Ever find yourself waiting a long time at a traffic signal, even though no other vehicles are moving?

It seems to be a little-known fact that most traffic lights are operated by a computer system located in a nearby cabinet. The signal timing is controlled by wire loops embedded in the pavement in various locations. In the simplest configurations, there may only be loops in the left turn lanes, or only on a lightly used side street connecting to the main road. More sophisticated installations have them in every lane, plus some located several hundred feet ahead of the intersection. These inform the computer of the location and number of vehicles, and change the lights when vehicles approach the intersection, with the timing dependent on the traffic volume in each direction. There are other options, such as interconnection with other signals at nearby intersections, city-wide hookups, overrides for approaching emergency vehicles, etc., as well as some other types of vehicle sensors.

There is one big weakness in this - and that concerns damaged loops. When a local utility decides to dig a hole to access a buried pipe or cable - they may dig through one of the loops. Other damage can come from settling of the road, potholes, etc. This can fool the controller into thinking there is no traffic, or conversely a massive amount of traffic, in one lane, causing the system to adjust the timing incorrectly. The loop damage may also be detected by the system, resulting in the timing reverting to a default sequence that may not match the intersections’s demands well. Also, newly-installed lights often remain in default mode for many months until the loops are fully configured. Occasionally, the loops are badly located - and may be close enough to the curb, that they are triggered by parked cars.

So what to do? If you think one of the lights you pass daily is not working - call or email your local traffic department, city hall, etc. And keep bothering them - until they fix it. After all, you are paying for the gas wasted while waiting unnecessarily. Of course you can stop the engine, and re-start, but that puts a lot of wear on the car.

Sheriff Thomas Dart of Cook County, IL has announced he is suspending foreclosure evictions in the County, since many innocent victims, particularly renters, are being evicted by banks and mortgage companies who see them as (quote) “only pieces of paper”.  A rare case of an official with concern for the people, unlike most US politicians, Democrats and Republicans, who are far more concerned with protecting the incompetent lenders than the average citizen. 

Anyone thinking that the Democrats favor the little guy should research the history of Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden, who has consistently supported protecting banks over the public, and was a driving force behind passage of the 2005 Republican-initiated Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA), which primarily served to insure that banks would be exempt from the normal bankruptcy protections previously afforded to individuals and families with financial hardship.  Biden has long been the recipient of campaign contributions from lenders.   This is in no way an endorsement of the Republicans - just an opinion that neither party still serves the people.

Stock Markets are down worldwide, the US Federal Reserve rate is down, and the equivalent rates in several other countries are down. In the polls, McCain is down, and Obama is up, if that even matters. In August, Microsoft was granted US patent 7,415,666 for Page Up and Page Down functions. Perhaps the real good news is that gasoline prices are down …

Not much to see yet.  Red at the top, black at the bottom, and not much in-between.  But that should change soon, we hope.