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One of those carpenters is Paul Tyma, the author of Talkinator.

I have written about Paul before in his role as author of Mailinator, another novel web service. That column is among this week's links. Mailinator is an e-mail system that requires no sign-up. The idea is brilliant: if you don't want people to know your real e-mail address, just make up a mailinator address (stinkyface@mailinator.com, for example). Mailinator addresses are useful to give when you don't want to be data-mined and bombarded with offers as the world discovers you are interested in pre-Columbian art or original pictures of Betty Page. Anyone can check messages for stinkyface, but most Mailinator mail is never read because it is spam. The business model here is both simple and modest: show ads to the one percent of Mailinator users who actually DO check their mail.

In order to make money with this business model you need a LOT of traffic, which Mailinator fortunately gets. According to Paul, the Mailinator server receives about 12-15 million messages or 28 gigabytes of mail per day, 99 percent of which is never read. The one percent that IS read means there are at any moment about 150 active users on mailinator.com. The volume of mail coming in has hit as high as 2,000 messages per second.

There is an important lesson in Web 2.0 economics here. Mailinator runs on ONE server. That server is in a rack at Serverbeach and would cost under $100 per month if Paul actually paid for it. But by running a link for Serverbeach on the Mailinator page, Paul gets free service whenever one of his users becomes a Serverbeach customer through that link. His traffic volume is so high that the referrals mean he will never pay a cent for that Mailinator server. So the server is free, the traffic volume is HUGE, and even with that one percent duty cycle the site makes good money from AdSense ads alone.

So why aren't there more Mailinator competitors? There are plenty, but they come and go. The reaso

Diesel propulsion vs. electric power

The Sprinter system's DMU railcars (see photo, below) are manufactured by the German carbuilder Siemens Transportation Systems. Each car is propelled by two 440-horsepower Mercedes diesel engines beneath the floor of the passenger cabin. The maximum permissible speed of the trains is 55 mph. Each car seats 136, with room for 90 standing passengers; and on most trips, the transit district plans to couple two cars together. Through multiple-unit controls, the driver has control of all four diesel engines in a 2-car train. The car body is made of aluminum integral construction; the empty weight is 67 tons. Every car has three different braking systems. When running below 15 mph, the vehicle uses the regular wheel brakes (air brakes). When the train is moving above 15 mph, the cars are slowed by an engine retarder, not by the regular brakes. The third braking system is an electromagnetic track brake (using three electromagnets) located in the trucks (bogeys). When the train goes into emergency braking, all brake systems are applied at once. The initial fleet consists of twelve vehicles provided by Siemens at a cost of $52.2 million. ...
...actual capital investment costs for the project, pushed higher by inflation, delays, and unexpected problems, reached $484.2 million. Operating costs are projected at about $11 million per year. ..
In 1987, the project was included in TransNet, the countywide 0.5% sales tax for transportation projects. In 1990, the NCTD board of directors voted to build the line between Oceanside and Escondido. At that time, the project was projected to cost $60 million and begin operation in 1999. In 1991, the plans were revised to include a new stretch of track, a 1.7-mile double-track alignment to California State University San Marcos, for an additional $25 million. And in 1992, as already mentioned, the existing railway line was purchased. ....
it is questionable whether DMUs – despite eliminating the e

Arsenic Treatment Technologies for Soil, Waste, and Water
EPA 542-R-02-004, 1 Volume + 2 Appendices, 2002
Contact: Linda Fiedler, fiedler.linda@epa.gov
Appendix A: Literature Search Results (367K/PDF)
Appendix B: Sites with Arsenic as a Superfund Constituent of Concern (137K/PDF)

This report summarizes information on 13 technologies used to treat arsenic: in situ soil flushing, solidification/stabilization, vitrification, soil washing/acid extraction, pyrometallurgical treatment, electrokinetics, and phytoremediation for soil; precipitation-coprecipitation, membrane filtration, adsorption, ion exchange, permeable reactive barriers, and biological treatment for water.

www.processimpact.com/goodies.shtml)

"It is what the sailor holding a tight course feels when the wind whips through her hair....It is what a painter feels when the colors on the canvas begin to set up a magnetic tension with each other, and a new thing, a living form, takes shape...."

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These words, written by American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (Mee-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee), describe the state of "flow." It's a condition of heightened focus, productivity, and happiness that we all intuitively understand and hunger for.

For example, here are the list of recommendations for writing problem statements (UDE's - undesirable effects, in the TOC lingo):

Express in a single sentence, present tense
Exists in current reality
It is an effect (not a cause, absence of a solution, or an obstacle)
It is clearly negative (quantified or�qualified)
It is a single effect without conjunctions or explanations.� (Multiple problems deserve multiple statements.)
It's a problem that is valid in the current situation.� (It affects your ability to achieve the goal.)
No blame
Do NOT include perceived reasons for its existence (no names,�no "because ...")
Not the absence of a solution (that others have argued for)
With obstacles (to an implementation), there are a similar set of checks, with an emphasis on "does the obstacle actually exist."

BCG matrix