Poisson arrivals

http://www.breakingviews.com/less-not-more-better-for-new-england-utilities/1614096.article

"Measuring Broadband America presents the results of the first nationwide performance study of residential wireline broadband service in the United States. The study examined service offerings from 13 of the largest wireline broadband providers using automated, direct measurements of broadband performance delivered to the homes of thousands of volunteers during March 2011." The raw data can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america/raw-bulk-data-2011 More information is at   http://www.fcc.gov/measuring-broadband-america   (This is also informally known as SamKnows data; a paper related to this topic was published at SIGCOMM 2011 by some of the participants.)

While most of us are involved in organizing conferences in some way, we probably do not pay too much attention to the organizational model of these events. This is somewhat surprising, given that conferences are probably the most visible activity of most professional societies, and also entail significant expenditures of money and volunteer labor. While the local pigeon racing club with a $500 annual budget probably has bylaws and statutes, most conferences with hundred thousand dollar budgets operate more by oral tradition than by formal descriptions of responsibilities. In almost all cases, this works just fine, but this informality can lead to misunderstandings or problems when expectations differ among the volunteers or when there is a crisis. Thus, I believe that it is helpful to have clearer models, so that conferences and volunteers can reach a common understanding of what is expected of everybody that contributes their time to the conference, and also who is responsible when th...