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'Potty parity' -- AA to open up first-class toilets to all fliers
In a move the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (free registration)
brands as "potty parity," American Airlines today will scrap its rule
that requires passengers to stay in their class of the cabin when using
the lavatory. That means that coach customers can now venture into the
first class cabin if they have to use the bathroom.
"It was difficult to explain to customers sitting in the forward
section of coach why they couldn't walk a few feet away and use the
lavatory," American spokesman Tim Wagner tells The Associated Press.
AA first instituted the rule in 2003. And though other airlines enforce
similar rules on some flights, AP says American was the only carrier to
apply the rule on all of its flights. Per federal laws, however,
passengers on all international flights that take off from foreign
airports still must stick with the bathroom in their part of the
plane.
Cushcraft Corporation acquired by Laird Technologies
Cushcraft Corporation,
a manufacturer of antennas for Amateur Radio, commercial and industrial
applications has been acquired by Laird Technologies. A February 26
announcement put the purchase price was $89.75 million. Headquartered
in St Louis, Laird Technologies designs and manufactures antenna
systems, electromagnetic interference shielding products and wireless
systems, among other products. "This purchase broadens Laird
Technologies' breadth of antenna products for infrastructure
applications," a Laird news release said. Statements from Laird
Technologies and Cushcraft do not mention Cushcraft's Amateur Radio
antenna product line. Cushcraft has design and manufacturing centers in
New Hampshire, California and Utah.
Missing laptop found in ET hunt
The Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, has signed up more than 1 million volunteers worldwide in a search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They've found no aliens yet, but they have at least turned up one missing laptop.
The Berkeley effort, better known as SETI(at)home, uses volunteers' computers when they go into screen-saver mode to crunch data from the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. The computers are trying to spot signals in the radio noise from space.
One volunteer, James Melin, a software programmer for a county government agency in Minnesota, runs SETI(at)home on his seven home computers, which periodically check in with University of California servers. Whenever that happens, the servers record the remote computer's Internet Protocol address and file it in a database that people running the SETI software can view.
One of the computers on which Melin installed SETI(at)home is his wife's laptop, which was stolen from the couple's Minneapolis home Jan. 1.
Annoyed -- and alarmed that someone could delete the screenplays and novels that his wife, Melinda Kimberly, was writing — Melin monitored the SETI(at)home database to see if the stolen laptop would "talk" to the Berkeley servers. Indeed, the laptop checked in three times within a week, and Melin sent the IP addresses to the Minneapolis Police Department.
After a subpoena to a local Internet provider, police determined the real-world address where the stolen laptop was logging on. Within days, officers seized the computer and returned it. No one had been arrested as of Wednesday and the case remains under investigation, said Lt. Amelia Huffman of the Minneapolis Police Department.
Kimberly's writings were safe, and the thieves didn't appear to have broken into her e-mail or other personal folders. But the returned computer contained 20 tracks of rap music with unintelligible lyrics, possibly from the person who stole the computer or bought it on the underground.
"It's really, really horrid rap," Melin said. "It makes Ludacris look like Pavarotti."
Kimberly was more enamored with Melin's detective work.
"I always knew that a geek would make a great husband," she said. "He always backed up all my data, but this topped it all. It became like Mission: Impossible for him, looking for hard evidence for the cops to use. ... He's a genius -- my hero."
| April, 2007 | |
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