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I could see comfortable shoes being helpful...at night or whenever you get a break - you don't want to wear boots 7x24, mosquito spray, sun tan lotion with a severe SPF factor, crank radio (listed in Wired before), a hat (even a baseball cap) - depending upon your age. Now that my hair is thinning pretty good, I have to remember to wear a hat in the sun. If you irritate your scalp, it'll cause the hair to fall out faster. This is not to mention getting a sunburn on your scalp.

I can't donate anything, but I've tried to be creative in generating funds.

You aren't wrong. If the search were a bit more powerful, it'd be easy to dredge up how many there are. I don't even know if it's even every year. By now, there should already be landsharks who have won plenty of $$$ duking out the patents for this.


A new form of Hurricane Rita Relief

Comment from a member of the Smart Sensor team:
Go IRV! ...(countdown in milliseconds to the race)


Last year, most of the entrants died in the first 100-200 yards. There was even a motorcycle entry which went about ten feet. It's supposed to be back this year. This year's race will definitely be interesting.


A novel form of hurricane relief

Actually, that's something I was discussing with one of the local news directors the first time there was a challenge in Indiana, which has tighter restrictions than the Feds. I said someone should confront one of the people fighting the list on camera and ask them if an opt-in list - "it's okay to call me" - would be better. But I also told her their response would be, "Of course not, no one would sign up." (my respose? "exactly.")

I'd put it in the same league as Jerry Cerasale, from the DMA (Direct Marketing Association), the group which largely wrote the U-CAN-SPAM legislation: Cerasale said, a federal requirement that consumers opt-in instead of opt-out of bulk e-mail is unacceptable. "We think the opt-in creates a true noneconomic model," Cerasale said. "We don't believe you get a viable economic model in opt-in."

As long as there are people who seem to think the resources we are paying for (either privately, or if we own a business) must be accessible to them for their business practices, they've got their priorities out of whack. The sad part is when they are able to convince legislators to write laws giving them permission to use our resources for their benefit, we're the ones who hear the call of BOHICA: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again.

There used to be a phone service which provided free calls (and perhaps free long distance?) but you had to listen to an ad first. That's fine if someone's agreeing to a that deal up-front. But it's my phone, sitting in my sandbox, my rules. And if they don't like it, they can send junkmail, where they can invest money in any way they see fit to attempt to attract my attention to their services.


A Novel Method of Hurricane Relief

I've got enough stuff plugged into mine I'm not certain I even trust 500W to power everything (for fear a power drop will hurt something). Of course, it might help to offload all of the old HDs and combine them onto a single modern one, etc.

In-store tip: if you buy a power supply someplace such as CompUSA, open the box before you go to the cash register. A couple of years ago, I picked up a power supply (600? 750?) and popped the box open. Inside was 200W. Someone switched the boxes' contents to get a near five-finger discount.


A new approach to hurricane relief funding.

Once.

Then you tell them to remove you from their database.

I had to turn someone (radio preferences) here (Indiana) because I started receiving calls on consecutive days despite their claims they'd removed me from their database each time. I think violators (in general) are spanked $11k per violation in Indiana. Several banks got together and tried to challenge the DNC in court a few weeks ago and were told to pound sand. They wanted the right to call their customers to offer additional services. Why don't they just spend the money for junk mail like everyone else? ;) When the State AG had a campaign on TV about the suit, I sent a note and told him to take out a 1/2 page ad in the paper with snailmail addresses for the banks in question (along with a list of banks which aren't in the lawsuit), telling everyone to tear it out, fill out the relevant data telling the bank they didn't want to hear from them and if they won the suit, they'd transfer existing assets & business to one of the other banks listed on the page. My explanation was that they'd have to have someone open every envelope, even if it's a temp, because they wouldn't know if it was real bank business or not. If they were supposed to send email (as was suggested), it would all be routed to Dave Null.

My idea was ignored. I think the AG was in one of those sticky situations where he had to show the people he was continuing to follow through with the actions he'd pushed in the last two campaigns, but he didn't want to p%ss off the suits|execs at the banks because those are going to be the ones who make election contributions in the form of checks with lots of zeroes on the left side of the decimal point. (or someone he'd have to remain connected with when he leaves office and needs a cushy job).

I did take greate delight about a month ago when a local real estate person called who purchased a lead from a spammer and once I got all of the info I needed (above & beyond caller-id), I let them know they could expect a $11k dent in their sales. (I swear I had nothing to do with it.) I think he was about to cry, claiming the guy he bought the leads from said they were clean (never, ever trust a spammer).

A new form of hurricane relief