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LoL, no such thing. We're still trying to figure this out and even had an electrician come in and meter peak usage. No changes since the last time (when the bill was less). There was a recent rate increase (but not double or even close), so next we are trying to get an idea of whether there's some new idiotic method (of billing) they are doing things that may be causing this. Our power usageis generally consistent every hour of the day (we run a stack of always on servers - same stack for years, same server loads), so maybe a "residential" increase that's "only a few percent" could be affecting our more business-like current draw.

Regardless of our current power usage though, companies like BGE have been found to "mis-bill" multiple times, including "verified" readings for empty buildings not connected to anything. So, maybe LIPA is on the up and up, but with such bad experiences with BGE, one (we) tend to wonder when we see such odd discrepencies.

Here's one news report on BGE's billing idiocy and the problems it has created. Voice

Note how much effort it takes to fight their "errors" and the 40% refund granted. Most people there dont know how to fight the errors or have the time to survive long enough to do so (without power, etc).

And an interesting reading about how (as of 2005) BGE gets away with not paying for power generated by self-sufficient homes (ie: solar powered, etc): http://www2.citypaper.com/printStory.asp?id=10295

And even more complaints "aired" by a local Baltimore TV station: http://wjz.com/local/bge.bills.2.944635.html

Makes it hard to trust any utility company.

Two guys peeing off a bridge. "The water's cold!" says the first. "And deep..." says the second.

Give credit where it's due - that's a Richard Pryor joke.

It's a long article, but worth a read, IMHO, because it links in a very diverse sample of opinions on the topic of chemical/environmental links to autism. (mercury in particular)

Of interest to me are these anecdotes (direct quotes from the article):

• It is remarkable, in retrospect, that none of the children were seen in Kanner's first 12 years of practice [at Hopkins], and all 11 were born after 1930, when, as it happens, mercury-containing vaccines were first used in this country.

• In 1972 thousands of people in Iraq ate bread made from grain treated with methyl mercury fungicide that was intended for planting, not human consumption. Hundreds died. A follow-up study on children whose mothers ate contaminated bread after giving birth and who were exposed only through their mothers' breast milk showed problems including language delay that led one parent to describe the children as "needles blunted by the poison."

Thought-provoking to say the least. Makes me wonder if there may be a complex genetic propensity that causes only some children to develop autism in response to mercury.

Reminds me of this old column by Joab Jackson:

Say you want to date a system administrator, or sysadmin for short. (And why wouldn't you? They rake in the phat bux for maintaining office computer networks.) The choice is clear: Go for someone specializing in Unix, not Windows. The Unix sysadmin may be slothful and go missing for entire weekends on a Dungeons and Dragons binge. But it's the Windows sysadmin who'll unwittingly hose you with a dangerous virus. And that's far worse.

What, you might ask, could the operating system a person chooses to spend time with possibly reveal? Everything...Windows is designed for people who don't want to spend a lot of time fooling with their computers. It simplifies tasks, giving us pretty boxes to point and click at.

...

Think about these qualities for a sec. Which would you rather have in a lover? Who would you rather have as an intimate -- someone who takes time to understand your quirks thoroughly, or someone who merely pushes your buttons whenever you malfunction? I'm not saying all Windows NT people are obedient, shallow half-wits driven only by desire for material gain. I'm just saying that if you want to fish a decent specimen from the dating pool, you might be better off starting on the Unix side.

Indeed they proved that dead people did vote in that election and clearly fraud had been comitted in those heavily Dem areas.

There were incidents of fraud but they were not significant. Several of the alleged "dead" voters turned out to be not just alive, but to have voted for Sauerbrey. An FBI investigation turned up no sustaining evidence of significant fraud.

Maybe I should have brought up Washington State's clear violation of law

I don't claim to be familiar with that case, but did you read the article you linked to? "The judge found that the Republicans failed to prove that Gregoire received one illegal vote among those improperly cast. In fact, he said, the only "clear and convincing" evidence he saw was the statements of four felons who said they voted for Rossi and one who said he cast a ballot for a Libertarian candidate."

Also keep in mind that most states, if not all states, it is illegal to not have a photo identification on your person if you are over 16 years of age

I do not believe that to be true. Cite, please. A qucik LexisNexis search of Maryland law turns up nothing relevant.

It is not really a checksum, something to ensure it is one vote, authentic and not a copy.

I think the word you're looking for is "watermark."

Ideally I would like to not hear whining after the next election from the looser, whoever that is.

Casting votes on watermarked paper does very little to help with that. The problems are seeing that only people permitted to vote are allowed to vote, and coversely that everyone permitted to vote is allowed to vote. You can have the voters etch their ballots into special platinum-iridium tablets under the watchful eyes of the Dali Lama and the Pope, but it doesn't resolve the issue of whether the guy doing the etching is authorized to vote or not, or of denying access to people who are authorized.

Maybe you are insecure? Afraid of the man? It doesn't show how you voted, just the fact that you did. Here in the US I have more respect for those who actually do vote.

I choose to tell people that I voted; heck, I choose to tell them who I voted for and why they should vote the same way. :-) That doesn't mean that such disclosure should be forced. With such a marker it would be very easy to cruise a neighborhood full of "undesirable" ethnic/socioeconomic types and beat the hell out of any of them that dared to vote.

It is even a matter of public record, along with information on your house, marriage and other information.

Voter registration is a matter of public record. Whether you go to the polls or not is, AFAIK, not, and should not be.

So, what... do we declassify everything every two years just to make sure> it's all completely benign by everyone's standards, everywhere?

Two years no, but ten years sounds about right.

And it's not like they get one big bank transfer every year... their funds are approved/disapproved on a project-by-project basis.

The "black budget" gets very little oversight.

So, I trust my city and county governments with some somewhat more localized secret stuff. I have to.

You don't "have" to trust them, and you shouldn't. Read up on the Rampart scandal, or the current epidemic of false arrests in Baltimore, or just skim Google for police scandals.

Also, if you write something that could sound a little strange out of context (paintball, for example), you could end up with some big hassles because you seemed a bit "suspect".

Yep. A friend of mine was detained for several hours, and under increased police surveillance for at least a few days, after someone at Kinkos' didn't get the joke of a "newsletter" he was photocopying. (Story here, and more details here.)

Also, if you write something that could sound a little strange out of context (paintball, for example), you could end up with some big hassles because you seemed a bit "suspect".

Yep. A friend of mine was detained for several hours, and under increased police surveillance for at least a few days, after someone at Kinkos' didn't get the joke of a "newsletter" he was photocopying. (Story here, and more details here.)

Having a protest march the streets must be blocked off and the access is limited so in this case you are clearly limiting access.

You're blurring the notion of "access". The state can regulate time and manner of speech; it can block off the streets in order to create a venue. But it cannot restrict content - it must provide equal opportunity access to that venue. Obviously, to create a useful venue, access must be divided either by space or by time, so the access may be granted at different times; but it still must be granted fairly - you can't say that the Democrats get to use the town square on Election Day and the Republicans have to wait until the day after. Or the Christians get to use it for December but the Pagans have to wait until January.

Putting up Christmas decorations doesn't give only one group access. Other groups could very well be allowed to put up decorations as well.

Is it theoretically possible for a city to grant non-discriminatory access to multiple groups to decorate its city hall? Yes. Is that likely to happen? No. Imagine the outcry when the Satanists demand their equal opportunity. Or the agnostics put up their question mark. Or their athiests their "There's no god like no god" billboard. Or the Pastafarians do their thing. Heck, it would be hard enough to let the Muslims have their say. It would be a heck of a lot more practical to avoid the issue - and save the city a few bucks that could be put to better use - by leaving the building unadorned. Or stick to a simple, tastefull, pretty, inclusive, string of colored lights.

The one thing that we already made clear is that it is NOT in any way illegal for any individual or group to speak in favor it it's religion.

...on that person/group's own time and own behalf and own private property, sure. There's a difference (both legal and ethical) between what the mayor can say when he's acting in his official role in city hall, and what he says at home.

It is also not illegal for any business to use the term Christmas or make reference to Christ in advertising.

Modulo the concern that businesses over a certain size may be bound by laws against religious discrimination, correct. Your company can choose to send out customer-alienating "Have a Blessed and Holy Christmas or burn in Hell you heathens" card, or an inclusive "Happy Holidays" one. (The first might be fine if your business is, say, Bible printing, but for most businesses I'd recommend the second.)

The Baltimore City Paper also has a very interesting Review of Quake IV. They even talk about the Linux port, and give helpful tips with the installation. Definately worth a look!

The Baltimore city paper has a very nice article about this on its front page. Actually, they wouldn't need to pay up that much ads to make the service free!

To start, they used open records requests to get the details of people who recently voted, and details of those who recently died.

The goal was to find people who continued to vote after they died, which may sound funny, but is still happening.

The data the government data gave us was on magnetic reels. The data on the reels was stored in a fixed-width EBCDIC format. Talk about a dead format!

It turned out the local college still had a working magnetic reel reader, and was able to help me get the data out of EBCDIC into ASCII, but the project was cancelled anyway.

Btw, isellsurplus has currently a happy hour with extra cheap prices. Buy while supplies last!

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

A few months ago, a friend of mine was detained by B'more County's finest for four hours for photocopying a satirical newletter (and because the cops thought his washtub bass might be a WMD). Now this. I can only conclude that IQ's at the BCPD are dropping sharply. Hope it's not contageous.

I recall that when a housemate of mine was being stalked by a deranged ex-boyfriend, it took weeks for the BCPD to get around to arresting the guy. But make politically incorrect photocopies, or defy a large corporation by paying with inconvenient currency, and bam! they're right on top of it.

Sure makes me feel secure...

For Baltimore County police, said spokesman Bill Toohey, "It's a sign that we're all a little nervous in the post-9/11 world."

A few months ago, a friend of mine was detained by B'more County's finest for four hours for photocopying a satirical newletter (and because the cops thought his washtub bass might be a WMD). Now this. I can only conclude that IQ's at the BCPD are dropping sharply. Hope it's not contageous.

I recall that when a housemate of mine was being stalked by a deranged ex-boyfriend, it took weeks for the BCPD to get around to arresting the guy. But make politically incorrect photocopies, or defy a large corporation by paying with inconvenient currency, and bam! they're right on top of it.

Sure makes me feel secure...

Extinction of the dinosaur, what really happened was...

That answers that. Anyone who tries to make a concrete "interpretation" of that is bound to be a little fruity.

By "interpretation" I mean a English version prepared by someone not a translator, but working from several different translations. Le Guin is not expert in the Chinese language; she consulted several scholarly translations and prepared from them an English text.

It's not unusual, Stephen Mitchell just did this with Gilgamesh

That could have disastrous consequences!

I *personally* am willing to give up what you would call "certain freedoms" and "public-privacy" to aid law enforcement if their plans/implementations of technologies are sound.

You are free to give up your freedoms, if you're naive enough to think you can trade liberty for security. You are not free to make that bargain with the devil on my behalf.

Want to aid law enforcement in catching people who pose a threat? Stop having them waste time chasing down drug users, prostitutes, and other people engaging in consensual activity. We'd have more law enforcement resources than we knew what to do with.

(In Baltimore, it would also help if we had police interested in catching bad guys, rather than arresting bicyclists for no reason. But that's beside the point.)

And I can't believe no one has posted the link to the Internet Relay under discussion! Feel free to try it yourself...

The link cited in the story lead points to the current City Paper feature. The stable url is: Out of Africa

If you, like me, tried to read the linked article and found out that it had absolutely nothing to do with the write-up, then you realized that the person that posted this used a link that was only valid while the feature was "current" on the site. Shame on you.

A permanent link, for the archives and anyone that reads this past the first week, is below.

http://www.citypaper.com/2004-04-14/feature.html

Please, check your links before submitting.

I found it hard to find good pages about this. Most of the news stories are woefully imprecise, not even mentioning if the case is civil or criminal.
Here are two decent ones: this and this Scientology case.
Both involve US Marshals because the matter is federal.

But I remember reading about Sheriff's deputies enforcing orders from state courts. It's one of the steps in collecting bad debt, for example.
So I guess the keywords are: raid, "court order", marshals, plaintiff, lawsuit, -charged, -indicted (attempting to find civil rather than criminal cases.)
Let me know if you find the actual law.

I mean, hell, you want friends, it helps to have something in common with them. Personally, I was a military brat, and the military folks tend to be much more welcoming of any new person, as they're used to being the new person themselves, but most people aren't so used to getting thrown in a new place every few years.

If you're in any professional/hobbyist/whatever organizations, look to see if there are any chapters where you're going...for those geeks, maybe a linux users group, perl mongers, whatever. There might be a lego users group, or something else where you can meet people, if that's what you're trying to do. Of course, there's also the chance that these people are obsessive freaks.

Do some research before you go... for all you know, you have relatives living in that same town, or friends from high school or college who are only an hour or two away from where you're going. Ask your friends if any of them have been there, any maybe they have recommendations on things to do, places to go, whatever. Check online ... look for a local newspaper, and see what sort of things there are going on in the town. If it's a big city, look for an independant newspaper, like the Baltimore or Washington City Papers. You might also check colleges in the area, and see what sort of events their student papers have listed.

You can also check out DMOZ by region, and you might be able to find something of interest. You might check the local phone book for independant bookstores, comic book / game shops, whatever sparks your interest.

Without knowing what sort of people you're trying to meet, it's hard to give any useful suggestions as to where to find them.

http://www.citypaper.com/2001-01-31/feature.html

Didn't we also have a story about a year ago that described a watch that was worn by the user (instead of this pager device) that did the exact same thing? I can't find it at all.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

Is it catching an inaudible identifier in the radio signal and making a little electro-note of it?

...The PPM ["Portable People Meter"] works by detecting an inaudible code that can be embedded in any broadcast signal. Fifty-four radio and TV stations in the Philadelphia market are already including such codes in their broadcasts or are capable of doing so, and Arbitron hopes to have more than 70 signed up by the time the test gets under way. By the end of February, there will be 300 meters in use in Wilmington, Del., which Arbitron considers part of the Philly market. That number will be expanded to 1,500 throughout the greater Philadelphia area by the end of the year, company spokesperson Thom Mocarsky says.

Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/

I long ago gave up on the local daily paper (the Sun ) not just because it's been surplanted by the Web and CNN but because it sucks. The lack of competition among local papers (Baltimore had three dailies when I was a kid) allowed quality to slide. While I'll pick one up if it's lying around, I haven't bought a copy in two or three years - I even forgot to pick one up when they had a big photo of me and an interview in their "Plugged In" section. (This was about the OLGA/Harry Fox Agency copyright battle.)

However, I find the local "alternative" weekly City Paper to be useful; local news, event calendars, etcetera. Unlike the daily, it's not full of sections I have no interest in (sports, travel, "society", and the like). And when I'm done reading, the dogs get to pee on it.

The future? I'd like to see customizable newpapers. Assuming better quality than today's dreck, I might subscribe if I could say "Send me the comics, world news headlines, local news, and don't bother burying me in dead trees for the rest - I don't give a damn who won the football game and I get my tech news from /. so don't bother with you wimpy little PC column. Oh, and something above an eighth grade reading level, please."