January 2016

Dear Client,

Hope your holidays were enjoyable and relaxed.  We had a very quiet but nice time.

So did the servers this last few weeks.  No hiccups to speak of.  Next weekend we will be doing some maintenance on one piece of equipment that will take all our servers offline for about 20 minutes.  This will be done between midnight and 2 am, either this coming Saturday or Sunday morning.

In the “Captain Obvious” department, since the FCC started taking complaints about companies, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T have topped the scales on their complaint system. 

Way outside what I normally report on is a company who has done some outstanding innovation in ceramics manufacturing.  Ceramics are used in tens of thousands of applications, and one limiting factor is the manufacturing process can leave slight imperfections in the part being built.  This company has developed techniques to make virtually perfect parts that are much lighter than normal and can withstand very high temperatures.  This could be a real plus in areas such as jet engine design.  They did this with a variation of a 3-D printer that has become commonplace these days.

A bumbling would-be jihadist bomber in the UK has more guts than brains.  He used Twitter for a show of hands as to which target he should pick.   And named them.  No, I’m not making this up.  Seriously.  He will now have a very long time to consider his options.  Sigh…

On a personal note, our winter garden is in full swing.  We have many vegetables coming along nicely—carrots, garlic, shallots, kale, scallions, chives, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and several types of lettuce are ready for picking.  This is one of the best seasons for growing stuff in the greater Phoenix area.  And the fruit on the citrus trees are also ripe on many trees.  Time to break out the juicer.

Sincerely,

Ben Conner