I'm an electrical engineer and I design buildings for a living. I prefer the NEMA 5-20. Chances are, the plug in your office is a NEMA 5-20. The difference is in the ampacity rating, 15 amps and 20 amps. You can tell which is which by the plug configuration. Does your plug have a small horizontal slit on the right vertical slit? If so, it's a NEMA 5-20. Several commercial cleaning and kitchen appliances require 12 amps are more so the NEMA 5-20 is preferred in those applications. Don't worry if your house only has NEMA 5-15 plugs with a 20 amp circuit breaker protecting it. Residential appliances are rated to be used with a NEMA 5-15 plug.

The government does fund research, but not always for direct projects. NIH Grants http://grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm provide funding for lots of research related things, such as laboratory improvements, new equipment, etc. One of the stimulus packages included added more funding for NIH Grants. You can see all the active ones at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/search_results.htm?year=active&scope=pa

I've actually been in an Architect's office where there was glass everywhere. Even the private offices had glass partitions. It was difficult to tell which of the glass panes were actually the door. In that environment, I'm not sure which way to go since you have no privacy either way, which is the whole point of an office right? Either way, probably makes for some funny moments watching new comers search for the door.

I use to work for one of the larger defense contractors and the information that was considered vital to system to design or classified as at least secret were usually on separate servers that were not connected to the internet. I know on several occasions when sensitive information was sent across the internet it was done on a special computer. I've also seen instances where the information was not allowed to be on a computer at all.

I have no idea why my immediate parent posted as an AC, but I agree with him 100%. I wanted to add though is that you never really know which IT people are knowledgeable until they actually do some work on your workstation. With that said, farming out the IT work makes it impossible for any client to know who is working on their workstation. At my current job, they use DameWare to assist with the quick problems and I have no issues with that, but when something even semi-major happens they send down Leroy and it's always Leroy. I like this because not only do I trust him, but everyone else around here does too because we A) know who he is B) know he gets the job done and C) will bend over backwards if we ask him to so we can make a deadline. To me, this is invaluable, especially when your hardware goes kaput one week before a huge deadline. Leroy was at my desk within 15 minutes our emergency and he had us back up in running within a half day. No way someone could have fixed that particular software problem from a remote terminal in a half a day. To answer the parent's article question, I say, getting rid of any company's or department's Leroy is a bad idea and in a way it's taking away a company benefit. Instead of farming out to remote terminals, mabe they should get a better IT manager who can effectively use 3 people to do 10 peoples jobs.