The Day I Got my Dual Standard...
on
Best BBS Memories?
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Had to be the day I signed for the package containing my USRobotics HST Dual Standard modem.
The 9600/14.4 modem retailed for almost $1500 in the late Eighties, and there was a sysop's discount of 50%. It took me months to save up that $795 plus shipping. I had them ship it to my office so I wouldn't miss being there to receive it. Fortunately my immediate boss (who also operated a BBS) had an appreciation of the finer things in life, and we spent half the afternoon looking at it, reading its large and content-filled manuals, and going over what I would need to do to to get it to function with my Fido/Opus BBS setup.
I well remember stopping by Baynesville Electronics to pick up my 16550/AFN UART, and as well the new driver chips. These were quickly installed, and I set to work after supper configuring the system and the modem. It had a wonderfully rich and complex set of registers and commands; you could get it do do just about anything you wanted. Friends passed around prized init strings the way church ladies pass around prized recipes, and I received several "Heard you got your modem. How's it going?" phone calls that evening. I had it up and running by midnight. Most fun was to watch the mail transfers running along at warp speed. The final touch: Adding that prized "HST" to the BBS's tag line. Noblesse oblige, and I became a mail point with the next Nodelist update.
I mostly remember two things:
First, I enjoyed and greatly miss the sense of community among most of the BBS sysops of that net--Net-261. Knowledge was shared freely, help was forthcoming, and the group was an extended family. I formed friendships that are still valued almost twenty years later. We often got together personally, and our families got to know one another as well.
Second, there's never been a piece of hardware as much fun to work on as a modem that's intended to drive a BBS.
Anne The Keeping Room: Opus 1:261/1055 HST Gone these many years, but never forgotten
They used to call these "vanity presses," and there was and is a stigma attached to them. Think about it carefully, because you could be tossing aside your chances ever to be picked up by an agent and publisher.
They work better for non-fiction pieces; for example, if the Ladies' Guild at the First Self-Righteous Church decides to collect and publish their recipes, self-publishing is the way to go. In the non-Slashdot part of my real life, I refer to self-published books on dealing with esoteric "How to do this" subjects related to my art. No major publisher would ever pick that type of book up, but there are audiences, and such books do very well when self-published.
Have a look at Stephen King's surprisingly good "On Writing." He has a whole section on getting published.
I spent a lot of time traveling in and out of Louisville, home of the legendary Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Trouble is, you can't buy one and carry it home on the airplane with you. You can ship it and acquire one of the miniature airport-approved Louisville Slugger miniature baseball bats. However, on vacation in Montreal I purchased a large umbrella that read "Merde. Il pleut." No problem at all bringing it home; the airline supplied a nice, oblong cardboard box for it.
If I'm ever on a plane with a bad guy, I'll beat him to death with my umbrella.
A couple of years prior to 9/11, the man standing ahead of me in line tried to walk off with my laptop at security in the Memphis airport. It was the classic--cause a delay as you're walking through and grab whatever you can on the way out. He was helped by the idiot-woman running the scanner, who picked the computer up, batted her eyes at him, and said, "Is this yours, sir?" He smiled, nodded, took the computer, and began to walk away. I made a slight disturbance by following him and saying 'THAT'S MY LAPTOP' and put my hand on it. A supervisor was called, and I was able to produce a company ID badge with my picture, the company name and logo, and my employee ID number--which happened also to be the property tag number of the computer. There was no doubt he had attempted to steal it, no chance at all it was a mixup, yet he wasn't detained at all.
The truly bizzare end of the story was that not a half-hour later, a man got through that same security area with a weapon and they cleared the entire airport--sent us all out of gate areas to mill around in the main terminal and outside. I was five hours late getting home, but my laptop was with me. During that chapter of the fiasco, their public-address system didn't work, various officials gave conflicting instructions, and many planes took off without passengers who were still waiting to get back inside.
I believe there's less chance of theft happening now, as at our airport (BWI) they place all your belongings in a plastic basket, and they move people through very slowly. But it can still happen, and I'll bet it still does. It might be even more difficult now to do what I did--make a fuss--as the security people are into such a rigid routine.
My under-educated guess is that the post-9/ll security at Memphis is probably still bad, since they obviously had entrenched incompetence higher-up. I'm guessing security at Baltimore is probably pretty good, since they seemed to have an efficient culture among the security people there before 9/11.
If I ever have to pass through Memphis again, I'll walk.
. . . that I have never seen such an original cube decoration. My hat's off to you.
It's too bad you can't wait til after the holidays and replace the Christmas wrap with some kind of sound-dampening material. Then you'd have peace and quiet to add to your elegant decor.
Even so, every cube-dweller and former cube-dweller should salute your ingenuity and festive spirit. And only $34 (before returns)?
Ahem. Where I live, it's as easy as paying your bill. In fact, they slip a special envelope in with the bill. Do we donate? Yes, annually, even when we're not having such a great year ourselves. It seems to be a better use of funds (not to mention energy) than garish, fuel-consuming lights that nobody will remember when the season is over.
THE FUEL FUND OF MARYLAND FACT SHEET
Mission: The Fuel Fund supplements resources for those experiencing hardship with essential home energy needs.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland, Inc. has been in existence since 1981.
Last year, the Fuel Fund served almost 5,000 families with an average energy grant of $181. Leveraged funds on behalf of clients increased to $324 per household.
The Fuel Fund operates in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard Counties.
The Baltimore City Fuel Fund, now known as the Victorine Q. Adams Fuel Fund, was the first Fuel Fund in the nation solely dedicated to helping poor families with their energy needs.
The Fuel Fund provides emergency assistance for low-income families who cannot pay their gas, electric or oil bills, as well as assistance with wood, kerosene, and propane when needed. Based on the circumstances, the Fuel Fund may assist needy families regardless of their income.
The Fuel Fund receives 60% of cash contributions through a combination of Fuel Fund Envelopes distributed in BGE bills, corporate support and foundation grants.
BGE customers make available $1 million in utility credit matches each year that families do not have to repay..
The families served have an average annual income of $13,000 for a family of 3.
Elderly, retired and working families constitute about 70% of the households served. The other 30% usually are facing some kind of crisis which prevents the wage earner from working, such as a job layoff, disability or medical emergency.
Children represent over 50% of the individuals served.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland is committed to distributing $700,000 to local agencies for FY 2001-2002.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland provides supplemental assistance for poor families - meaning a family must pay 1/3 of their bill on their own. The Fuel Fund provides assistance with another 1/3 of the bill and the remaining 1/3 is covered by credits made available by BGE customers.
My first instinct when I saw the website was that it would be wonderful if even half of all that electricity could be used instead to provide light, heat, and cooking to a family whose power has been turned off due to inability to pay. Every year in the city where I live, we have at least one terrible fire caused by a family using candles or an antiquated, non-working kerosene heater. Sadly, it seems that babies or young children are the ones who die in these fires.
Whether we observe a religion or have a more secular mindset, the season is about light. We may be celebrating the birth of one who brought light, or observing the light of freedom from oppression, or noting the lengthening of days. It's certainly appropriate to decorate our homes or personal spaces. But I think it would make a more joyful and appropriate celebration to see the literal bringing of light to darkened homes and lives.
I invaded L.L. Bean this year for gifts for geek and non-geek alike. Rather than gadgets or DVD's, I decided to look for comfort, and I think I succeeded. The family is numerous and mostly technical, and I decided that even the most hardcore boy-geeks might enjoy donning soft chamois shirts in non-retarded plain (as opposed to plaid) colors, while the several girl-geeks might enjoy things made of merino wool or wool and cashmere. Of course we live where it's cold, but I think these things will be welcome.
Side benefit: I called their 800 information number about something, and the woman who answered my call did so in an accent that was pure New England. I understood her, she understood me, and it dawned on me that they've kept their helpdesk operation right there in Freeport, Maine as opposed to some foreign shore.
They've implemented (without fanfare it seems) a "report this as spam" procedure. Apparently if you take the time/trouble to send them your spams by clicking on the pulldown menu provided, they'll add the spammers to whatever filtering system they use now. Like you, I went from 100+ a day down to only one spam today. It's downright refreshing.
A technician who is near and dear to me (my son, actually) happened to be standing by a substandard rack when it gave away under the stress of having an HP server pulled out in preparation for being worked on. "Collateral" damage included a dislocated shoulder, bruised ribs, and a knee injury. I've never been sure what, precisely, became of the rest of the equipment on the rack; the server in question was undamaged because its fall was cushioned.
In a true family room (kids, assorted household impedimenta, pets, whatever) I'd really think twice about building something. Our entire assortment of household networking equipment sits nicely on an open, table-high shelf from IKEA. If young 'uns presented a problem, the entire assortment could go on a higher shelf--of course with adequate weight towards the bottom.
Interesting. I actually spend what there is of my spare time writing a murder mystery, and I think the best rule in any fairly mainstream genre (whether it's a thriller, a mystery, sci-fi, or a "serious" novel) is that "If you're going to put in sex, that's fine. But it has to be about sex and something else."
Heinlein's attempts at interjecting sex were, to me, just plain weird. Not kinky, but weird. From the casual nudity (It's about 28 degrees here, and the house is freezing. I can't imagine anything less "natural" than going around with no clothes on. I wish I had furs!) to the parent/child attractions, I just never thought he got it. Lay the politics on top of that, and my eyes start to glaze over.
The sad part about it is that when it comes to golly-gee-whiz technology, space explorations, aliens, and flat out adventure, there's hardly anyone better.
FWIW, I don't think your question is all that off topic. There are several ways to go because he was such an amazingly prolific writer:
He wrote quite a series of "books for young people" (Tunnel in the Sky, Podkayne of Mars, Farmer in the Sky). All have the classic "brash young dreamer rebelling against his olde pharte parents" theme. Worth reading because they are just plain fun.
"Starship Troopers," considered by some to be his defining work. A lot of his political and personal ideas are expressed here, but it's an incredibly good and entertaining read. Ditto "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
"Stranger in a Strange Land." I mention this as a possible start only because it was something of a manifesto for the, umm, previous generation. It also happens to be the first Heinlein book I ever read. Ever wonder why they call it "Groklaw?":)
The Lazarus Long series. It went on, and on, and on, and on. My forgetful memory says start with "Time Enough for Love." I read all these, but they weren't my favorites. This is not intended as attempted censorship, but he seemed to me to be sliding into advocacy of father/daughter sex and a number of other ideas many people (self included) can't get their heads around. It was as though the stories served as thin coatings for whatever points he wanted to get across.
Whatever from this list appeals to you, you owe it to yourself to read at least a few of his works. (Another idea: Heinlein is my husband's favorite sci-fi author. He's busily and happily re-collecting as many books as possible from second-hand bookshops, where they are both cheap and readily available. Many are also still in print.)
How cocky are you feeling now, Mac elite? Hmm. Suddenly it's gotten pretty quiet around here.
I switched to the Mac after almost twenty years of working with PC's when I started my own business. I took (and still take) an awful lot of grief from former colleagues who have the exact attitude of the writer of that column. It's a knee-jerk thing; it spouts (or spews) out of their mouths in a sort of unthinking reflex that never quite has a firm basis in fact.
I'm not a member of anybody's elite; my experiences are: 1) I design graphics, I design for the Web, and I design jewelry. I often need to process large numbers of images and photographs quickly and efficiently. 2) As an artist, my subjective impression has been that the Mac renders for me a better color impression of the actual world. When I was a "Sunday painter," it didn't matter. Now it does. 3) I think I followed good practice in selecting the applications I needed, then selecting the best platform on which to run them. Actually, I think more people ought to do this. 4) I don't mind being in a niche. I still run virus updates, I still watch for alerts. If I'm too insignificant for the invaders to exploit, it's a side bonus, not something worthy of bragging rights. 5) The only major inconvenience I've experienced is that I'm on the East Coast, my accountant is in Denver. I'd like to be able to use QuickBooks Online, but it'll never be developed for the Mac. It's not a catastrophe. Oh, and I was forced to finally replace my elderly Palm III.
I've pretty much learned to filter out articles like the one mentioned. People who say "Here's what I have, here's what I use, and here's why..." are almost always worth listening to. People who spout party lines without quite knowing why are almost always safe to ignore.
The overwhelming amount of spam I get now involves the advertising (and presumably selling) of a controlled substance--a prescription drug that is deemed a narcotic. The prescribing of this drug (and a few others in the spams) by legitimate physicians, and its dispensing by legitimate pharmacies are strictly regulated in some kind of effort to prevent the abuse of the drug--an abuse that is rampant in many areas of the US.
I keep waiting to hear that the Federal authorities have taken some action in this regard. If you've ever been through US Customs (and especially if you're young, not white, or in any way "unusual" looking) you'll know that they make a great show of looking through everybody's sneakers and dirty laundry on the hunt for "illegal drugs." Even in these times of terrorism, it's their chief claim to fame.
The potential for abuse seems enormous and growing to me. It also seems to me that a lot of the spams advertising this stuff originate in, or pass through, the U.S. If somebody in our town hung out a sign saying GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION NARCOTICS HERE--NO PRESCRIPTION REQUIRED, my guess is the police would take an interest. But we seem to have virtual open-air drug markets operating undisturbed.
If anyone wonders how spammers make money, this is certainly one possible way, and I suspect it's incredibly lucrative.
The reason I say "open your mind" is that the book is about Nordstrom's, the upscale department store. They have survived, and they thrive, because they have empowered each and every employee to offer the highest level of service to everyone who walks into one of their stores--including people who "have no business" being in such an exalted atmosphere.
Their model can be applied to all kinds of enterprises and to businesses both large and small, old or just starting out. It's an interesting concept if it is wholeheartedly embraced. What doesn't work is paying it "lip service."
Anyway, a good book for anybody just starting up a business.
I had the pleasure of sitting down for two hours with Jason Scott while he was in town to interview Dr. Vint Cerf. While I suspect my own interview wasn't particularly interesting, the DVD's will be a "must-have," just because those long-ago days were so important to my own formation.
I'm glad you pointed this out. Now I'll know when to look for the release.
Is this not yet another band-aid we're trying to apply to our very sick public education system? Give 'em all computers and maybe some of the real problems (such as our distressingly low international rankings in math and reading) will magically disappear. The kinds of skills children need to learn in grammar school aren't very amenable to computers. How to read and retain effectively what's been read, the mysteryious workings of numbers, even the construction of a blobby salt map of the Roman Empire--all these are best left in the hands of a skilled teacher. A computer can't see the perplexed look on the face of a child in the back row.
It seems to me that computers can be added to the curriculum as they are required, and used for their logical and reasonable purposes. When kids start doing "reports" in the middle grades, computers become tools for research. Later on, they can serve many purposes, with those kids who show interest and aptitude learning to write programs, while everybody learns the basic word-processor/spreadsheet/database triad that keeps the office world going.
It seems to me that simply throwing them into an already-troubled system simply robs kids of "face time" with their teachers while lulling the rest of us into thinking all's well in our schools. All's decidedly not well.
I've been doing it for over two years now, and I have found several problems and a few remedies:
1. "She's not really working." I get this from everybody from family members to the UPS guy (who expects me to take in packages from everyone on the street). You just have to keep on hitting them all until they apologize.
2. Office space. Not a problem now, but it was. We live in a house, and my first "office" was the upstairs hallway. I claimed the bedroom of the first kid who moved out. If you have a small apartment, by all means set aside an area! Otherwise, any balance between work and your actual life will erode until you can't tell the difference.
3) Human interaction, etc. This was a problem with multiple facets for me--until it began actually affecting my health. I'd find myself still in pj's when the rest of the family arrived home from work, and the numerous pounds I put on during the first year only exacerbated things. Get out of the apartment. Take a walk, go to the bar, grab a sandwich somewhere. Do a major outing at least once a week. (If you happen to be religious, it could be religious services--otherwise, a movie, a museum, Office depot for supplies, anyplace.) This doesn't seem to be important, but it is.
Why am I sitting here working on a holiday and still in my pajamas?
Although I enjoy owning and handling paper books, I suspect that works in digital format can be made to survive longer. Library holdings (for example) are often crumbling to dust because nobody during most of the 19th and 20th centuries gave a thought to the acid content of papers and inks then in use.
I'll also admit that my Palm has been a good companion on long, tedious business trips; a book housed on a PDA means one less item to be lugged through airports.
I've wondered what would happen if each of us kept, within the sanctity of our journals (of course) lists of wearisome spam sites, particularly annoying open relays, gross offenders (like the asshole who keeps writing to me on behalf of "irs.gov" via my own freaking email server...).
Has consisted of forwarding massive quantities of penis-enlargement spam to the perpetrators, signing them up for various loans, and otherwise innocently trying to fill up their mailboxes.
This is much better. I wish I had nerve to try it.
This needs to be a very much past due wake up call for people (read taxpayers) in Maryland. We've had our collective pockets picked time and time and time again by totally inept state procurement processes when it comes to information systems. I started to cite examples in this reply and realized that it would soon become article-length. But I am thinking of school systems and our motor vechicle administration among others. Our records weren't even protected from August's virus onslaught.
It's time to make the fraud potential of these voting systems known to the general taxpaying public--in Maryland as well as in other places. We just have the misfortune to have feather merchants in charge of most IT here where we need smart, tough-minded computer people who know how to ask the right questions and to make themselves heard by the pols.
I have no clue what I can do as an individual, but I'm going to start by assembling what I've read here on/. (especially the comments) into a letter to the editor of the Baltimore "Sun." There are good technology companies here, and there are good people working in them. Perhaps if a few more of us did the same, it might attract the bloodhound interests of whoever's in charge at the Sunpapers these days.
Also, and on another topic: JUST BECAUSE ADOBE DECIDES TO USE ATROCIOUS GRAMMAR IN ONE OF THEIR ADS DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. PLEASE GO LOOK UP THE DEFINITION OF "TO BEG THE QUESTION." (sorry).
Funny you should mention it. Ordinarily I would say that in my case, where most of the businesses I work for are quite small, the opportunity to use such tools doesn't come up much. But two very small verticals have shown up in the past two weeks, both in the area of transportation. While very diverse, they require similar online applications. Three of us are going to talk about them this coming Saturday when we will all have time, and I suspect we'll be looking at Cocoon or something like it. I remain a sincere appreciator of the open-source movement that enables me to have access to tools without locking myself into costly, proprietary systems. If I want to spend the time on study, the tool is mine to use.
Possibly because there aren't any standards out there for the job. Every rockstar or TV show fan with a "site," every business owner's sociopathic 16-year-old nephew, every church minister's wife is a Web designer or developer. The numbers grow with great regularity in June when school lets out and shrink again in September when the kids return to class. Been eking out my daily bread and margarine doing this as my own boss since 2000, and that's been my experience. Even our local art school, which is nationally prestigious, has a lousy Website and an impossibly pompous and chichi list of impractical course offerings.
I like WITI (Women in Technology International) for the collegiality, but there is a gender requirement. I steal my son's ACM goodies since he has a student membership. I read Slashdot over my morning coffee and again over my evening toddy. I make sure I visit A List Apart once a week. (Read the articles there but don't bother with the forums.) I have a long list of sites I visit frequently just to see what people are doing with PHP, PERL, and other things I find the need to keep up with. I have another list I visit less frequently to see what's up in terms of design.
I nurture a few very active correspondences with designers, developers, programmers, and network people I've met over the years. It's kind of like a secret society. You encounter people online. You quietly check out their chops, they quietly check out yours, and you cultivate the correspondence. Sometimes the e-mails actually develop into warm friendships. Sometimes you find people you can team with.
But professional associations just aren't out there.
Replace one sluggish bureaucracy with another one that's even larger and more sluggish. Then stand back and watch the fights about funding and budgetary contributions. That should be very helpful.
Slashdot Mirror
Had to be the day I signed for the package containing my USRobotics HST Dual Standard modem.
The 9600/14.4 modem retailed for almost $1500 in the late Eighties, and there was a sysop's discount of 50%. It took me months to save up that $795 plus shipping. I had them ship it to my office so I wouldn't miss being there to receive it. Fortunately my immediate boss (who also operated a BBS) had an appreciation of the finer things in life, and we spent half the afternoon looking at it, reading its large and content-filled manuals, and going over what I would need to do to to get it to function with my Fido/Opus BBS setup.
I well remember stopping by Baynesville Electronics to pick up my 16550/AFN UART, and as well the new driver chips. These were quickly installed, and I set to work after supper configuring the system and the modem. It had a wonderfully rich and complex set of registers and commands; you could get it do do just about anything you wanted. Friends passed around prized init strings the way church ladies pass around prized recipes, and I received several "Heard you got your modem. How's it going?" phone calls that evening. I had it up and running by midnight. Most fun was to watch the mail transfers running along at warp speed. The final touch: Adding that prized "HST" to the BBS's tag line. Noblesse oblige, and I became a mail point with the next Nodelist update.
I mostly remember two things:
First, I enjoyed and greatly miss the sense of community among most of the BBS sysops of that net--Net-261. Knowledge was shared freely, help was forthcoming, and the group was an extended family. I formed friendships that are still valued almost twenty years later. We often got together personally, and our families got to know one another as well.
Second, there's never been a piece of hardware as much fun to work on as a modem that's intended to drive a BBS.
Anne
The Keeping Room: Opus 1:261/1055 HST
Gone these many years, but never forgotten
They used to call these "vanity presses," and there was and is a stigma attached to them. Think about it carefully, because you could be tossing aside your chances ever to be picked up by an agent and publisher.
They work better for non-fiction pieces; for example, if the Ladies' Guild at the First Self-Righteous Church decides to collect and publish their recipes, self-publishing is the way to go. In the non-Slashdot part of my real life, I refer to self-published books on dealing with esoteric "How to do this" subjects related to my art. No major publisher would ever pick that type of book up, but there are audiences, and such books do very well when self-published.
Have a look at Stephen King's surprisingly good "On Writing." He has a whole section on getting published.
Hee!
I spent a lot of time traveling in and out of Louisville, home of the legendary Louisville Slugger baseball bat. Trouble is, you can't buy one and carry it home on the airplane with you. You can ship it and acquire one of the miniature airport-approved Louisville Slugger miniature baseball bats. However, on vacation in Montreal I purchased a large umbrella that read "Merde. Il pleut." No problem at all bringing it home; the airline supplied a nice, oblong cardboard box for it.
If I'm ever on a plane with a bad guy, I'll beat him to death with my umbrella.
A couple of years prior to 9/11, the man standing ahead of me in line tried to walk off with my laptop at security in the Memphis airport. It was the classic--cause a delay as you're walking through and grab whatever you can on the way out. He was helped by the idiot-woman running the scanner, who picked the computer up, batted her eyes at him, and said, "Is this yours, sir?" He smiled, nodded, took the computer, and began to walk away. I made a slight disturbance by following him and saying 'THAT'S MY LAPTOP' and put my hand on it. A supervisor was called, and I was able to produce a company ID badge with my picture, the company name and logo, and my employee ID number--which happened also to be the property tag number of the computer. There was no doubt he had attempted to steal it, no chance at all it was a mixup, yet he wasn't detained at all.
The truly bizzare end of the story was that not a half-hour later, a man got through that same security area with a weapon and they cleared the entire airport--sent us all out of gate areas to mill around in the main terminal and outside. I was five hours late getting home, but my laptop was with me. During that chapter of the fiasco, their public-address system didn't work, various officials gave conflicting instructions, and many planes took off without passengers who were still waiting to get back inside.
I believe there's less chance of theft happening now, as at our airport (BWI) they place all your belongings in a plastic basket, and they move people through very slowly. But it can still happen, and I'll bet it still does. It might be even more difficult now to do what I did--make a fuss--as the security people are into such a rigid routine.
My under-educated guess is that the post-9/ll security at Memphis is probably still bad, since they obviously had entrenched incompetence higher-up. I'm guessing security at Baltimore is probably pretty good, since they seemed to have an efficient culture among the security people there before 9/11.
If I ever have to pass through Memphis again, I'll walk.
. . . that I have never seen such an original cube decoration. My hat's off to you.
It's too bad you can't wait til after the holidays and replace the Christmas wrap with some kind of sound-dampening material. Then you'd have peace and quiet to add to your elegant decor.
Even so, every cube-dweller and former cube-dweller should salute your ingenuity and festive spirit. And only $34 (before returns)?
Ahem. Where I live, it's as easy as paying your bill. In fact, they slip a special envelope in with the bill. Do we donate? Yes, annually, even when we're not having such a great year ourselves. It seems to be a better use of funds (not to mention energy) than garish, fuel-consuming lights that nobody will remember when the season is over.
THE FUEL FUND OF MARYLAND FACT SHEET
Mission: The Fuel Fund supplements resources for those experiencing hardship with essential home energy needs.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland, Inc. has been in existence since 1981.
Last year, the Fuel Fund served almost 5,000 families with an average energy grant of $181. Leveraged funds on behalf of clients increased to $324 per household.
The Fuel Fund operates in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard Counties.
The Baltimore City Fuel Fund, now known as the Victorine Q. Adams Fuel Fund, was the first Fuel Fund in the nation solely dedicated to helping poor families with their energy needs.
The Fuel Fund provides emergency assistance for low-income families who cannot pay their gas, electric or oil bills, as well as assistance with wood, kerosene, and propane when needed. Based on the circumstances, the Fuel Fund may assist needy families regardless of their income.
The Fuel Fund receives 60% of cash contributions through a combination of Fuel Fund Envelopes distributed in BGE bills, corporate support and foundation grants.
BGE customers make available $1 million in utility credit matches each year that families do not have to repay..
The families served have an average annual income of $13,000 for a family of 3.
Elderly, retired and working families constitute about 70% of the households served. The other 30% usually are facing some kind of crisis which prevents the wage earner from working, such as a job layoff, disability or medical emergency.
Children represent over 50% of the individuals served.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland is committed to distributing $700,000 to local agencies for FY 2001-2002.
The Fuel Fund of Maryland provides supplemental assistance for poor families - meaning a family must pay 1/3 of their bill on their own. The Fuel Fund provides assistance with another 1/3 of the bill and the remaining 1/3 is covered by credits made available by BGE customers.
My first instinct when I saw the website was that it would be wonderful if even half of all that electricity could be used instead to provide light, heat, and cooking to a family whose power has been turned off due to inability to pay. Every year in the city where I live, we have at least one terrible fire caused by a family using candles or an antiquated, non-working kerosene heater. Sadly, it seems that babies or young children are the ones who die in these fires.
Whether we observe a religion or have a more secular mindset, the season is about light. We may be celebrating the birth of one who brought light, or observing the light of freedom from oppression, or noting the lengthening of days. It's certainly appropriate to decorate our homes or personal spaces. But I think it would make a more joyful and appropriate celebration to see the literal bringing of light to darkened homes and lives.
Anne
I invaded L.L. Bean this year for gifts for geek and non-geek alike. Rather than gadgets or DVD's, I decided to look for comfort, and I think I succeeded. The family is numerous and mostly technical, and I decided that even the most hardcore boy-geeks might enjoy donning soft chamois shirts in non-retarded plain (as opposed to plaid) colors, while the several girl-geeks might enjoy things made of merino wool or wool and cashmere. Of course we live where it's cold, but I think these things will be welcome.
Side benefit: I called their 800 information number about something, and the woman who answered my call did so in an accent that was pure New England. I understood her, she understood me, and it dawned on me that they've kept their helpdesk operation right there in Freeport, Maine as opposed to some foreign shore.
They've implemented (without fanfare it seems) a "report this as spam" procedure. Apparently if you take the time/trouble to send them your spams by clicking on the pulldown menu provided, they'll add the spammers to whatever filtering system they use now. Like you, I went from 100+ a day down to only one spam today. It's downright refreshing.
A technician who is near and dear to me (my son, actually) happened to be standing by a substandard rack when it gave away under the stress of having an HP server pulled out in preparation for being worked on. "Collateral" damage included a dislocated shoulder, bruised ribs, and a knee injury. I've never been sure what, precisely, became of the rest of the equipment on the rack; the server in question was undamaged because its fall was cushioned.
In a true family room (kids, assorted household impedimenta, pets, whatever) I'd really think twice about building something. Our entire assortment of household networking equipment sits nicely on an open, table-high shelf from IKEA. If young 'uns presented a problem, the entire assortment could go on a higher shelf--of course with adequate weight towards the bottom.
Interesting. I actually spend what there is of my spare time writing a murder mystery, and I think the best rule in any fairly mainstream genre (whether it's a thriller, a mystery, sci-fi, or a "serious" novel) is that "If you're going to put in sex, that's fine. But it has to be about sex and something else."
Heinlein's attempts at interjecting sex were, to me, just plain weird. Not kinky, but weird. From the casual nudity (It's about 28 degrees here, and the house is freezing. I can't imagine anything less "natural" than going around with no clothes on. I wish I had furs!) to the parent/child attractions, I just never thought he got it. Lay the politics on top of that, and my eyes start to glaze over.
The sad part about it is that when it comes to golly-gee-whiz technology, space explorations, aliens, and flat out adventure, there's hardly anyone better.
FWIW, I don't think your question is all that off topic. There are several ways to go because he was such an amazingly prolific writer:
:)
He wrote quite a series of "books for young people" (Tunnel in the Sky, Podkayne of Mars, Farmer in the Sky). All have the classic "brash young dreamer rebelling against his olde pharte parents" theme. Worth reading because they are just plain fun.
"Starship Troopers," considered by some to be his defining work. A lot of his political and personal ideas are expressed here, but it's an incredibly good and entertaining read. Ditto "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."
"Stranger in a Strange Land." I mention this as a possible start only because it was something of a manifesto for the, umm, previous generation. It also happens to be the first Heinlein book I ever read. Ever wonder why they call it "Groklaw?"
The Lazarus Long series. It went on, and on, and on, and on. My forgetful memory says start with "Time Enough for Love." I read all these, but they weren't my favorites. This is not intended as attempted censorship, but he seemed to me to be sliding into advocacy of father/daughter sex and a number of other ideas many people (self included) can't get their heads around. It was as though the stories served as thin coatings for whatever points he wanted to get across.
Whatever from this list appeals to you, you owe it to yourself to read at least a few of his works. (Another idea: Heinlein is my husband's favorite sci-fi author. He's busily and happily re-collecting as many books as possible from second-hand bookshops, where they are both cheap and readily available. Many are also still in print.)
Anne
How cocky are you feeling now, Mac elite? Hmm. Suddenly it's gotten pretty quiet around here.
I switched to the Mac after almost twenty years of working with PC's when I started my own business. I took (and still take) an awful lot of grief from former colleagues who have the exact attitude of the writer of that column. It's a knee-jerk thing; it spouts (or spews) out of their mouths in a sort of unthinking reflex that never quite has a firm basis in fact.
I'm not a member of anybody's elite; my experiences are:
1) I design graphics, I design for the Web, and I design jewelry. I often need to process large numbers of images and photographs quickly and efficiently.
2) As an artist, my subjective impression has been that the Mac renders for me a better color impression of the actual world. When I was a "Sunday painter," it didn't matter. Now it does.
3) I think I followed good practice in selecting the applications I needed, then selecting the best platform on which to run them. Actually, I think more people ought to do this.
4) I don't mind being in a niche. I still run virus updates, I still watch for alerts. If I'm too insignificant for the invaders to exploit, it's a side bonus, not something worthy of bragging rights.
5) The only major inconvenience I've experienced is that I'm on the East Coast, my accountant is in Denver. I'd like to be able to use QuickBooks Online, but it'll never be developed for the Mac. It's not a catastrophe. Oh, and I was forced to finally replace my elderly Palm III.
I've pretty much learned to filter out articles like the one mentioned. People who say "Here's what I have, here's what I use, and here's why..." are almost always worth listening to. People who spout party lines without quite knowing why are almost always safe to ignore.
The overwhelming amount of spam I get now involves the advertising (and presumably selling) of a controlled substance--a prescription drug that is deemed a narcotic. The prescribing of this drug (and a few others in the spams) by legitimate physicians, and its dispensing by legitimate pharmacies are strictly regulated in some kind of effort to prevent the abuse of the drug--an abuse that is rampant in many areas of the US.
I keep waiting to hear that the Federal authorities have taken some action in this regard. If you've ever been through US Customs (and especially if you're young, not white, or in any way "unusual" looking) you'll know that they make a great show of looking through everybody's sneakers and dirty laundry on the hunt for "illegal drugs." Even in these times of terrorism, it's their chief claim to fame.
The potential for abuse seems enormous and growing to me. It also seems to me that a lot of the spams advertising this stuff originate in, or pass through, the U.S. If somebody in our town hung out a sign saying GET YOUR PRESCRIPTION NARCOTICS HERE--NO PRESCRIPTION REQUIRED, my guess is the police would take an interest. But we seem to have virtual open-air drug markets operating undisturbed.
If anyone wonders how spammers make money, this is certainly one possible way, and I suspect it's incredibly lucrative.
Open your mind way, way up and go find and read the following book:
"Fabled Service: Ordinary Acts, Extraordinary Outcomes" by Bonnie Jameson, Betsy Sanders.
The reason I say "open your mind" is that the book is about Nordstrom's, the upscale department store. They have survived, and they thrive, because they have empowered each and every employee to offer the highest level of service to everyone who walks into one of their stores--including people who "have no business" being in such an exalted atmosphere.
Their model can be applied to all kinds of enterprises and to businesses both large and small, old or just starting out. It's an interesting concept if it is wholeheartedly embraced. What doesn't work is paying it "lip service."
Anyway, a good book for anybody just starting up a business.
Anne
I had the pleasure of sitting down for two hours with Jason Scott while he was in town to interview Dr. Vint Cerf. While I suspect my own interview wasn't particularly interesting, the DVD's will be a "must-have," just because those long-ago days were so important to my own formation.
I'm glad you pointed this out. Now I'll know when to look for the release.
Regards,
Anne
Is this not yet another band-aid we're trying to apply to our very sick public education system? Give 'em all computers and maybe some of the real problems (such as our distressingly low international rankings in math and reading) will magically disappear. The kinds of skills children need to learn in grammar school aren't very amenable to computers. How to read and retain effectively what's been read, the mysteryious workings of numbers, even the construction of a blobby salt map of the Roman Empire--all these are best left in the hands of a skilled teacher. A computer can't see the perplexed look on the face of a child in the back row.
It seems to me that computers can be added to the curriculum as they are required, and used for their logical and reasonable purposes. When kids start doing "reports" in the middle grades, computers become tools for research. Later on, they can serve many purposes, with those kids who show interest and aptitude learning to write programs, while everybody learns the basic word-processor/spreadsheet/database triad that keeps the office world going.
It seems to me that simply throwing them into an already-troubled system simply robs kids of "face time" with their teachers while lulling the rest of us into thinking all's well in our schools. All's decidedly not well.
Anne
I've been doing it for over two years now, and I have found several problems and a few remedies:
1. "She's not really working." I get this from everybody from family members to the UPS guy (who expects me to take in packages from everyone on the street). You just have to keep on hitting them all until they apologize.
2. Office space. Not a problem now, but it was. We live in a house, and my first "office" was the upstairs hallway. I claimed the bedroom of the first kid who moved out. If you have a small apartment, by all means set aside an area! Otherwise, any balance between work and your actual life will erode until you can't tell the difference.
3) Human interaction, etc. This was a problem with multiple facets for me--until it began actually affecting my health. I'd find myself still in pj's when the rest of the family arrived home from work, and the numerous pounds I put on during the first year only exacerbated things. Get out of the apartment. Take a walk, go to the bar, grab a sandwich somewhere. Do a major outing at least once a week. (If you happen to be religious, it could be religious services--otherwise, a movie, a museum, Office depot for supplies, anyplace.) This doesn't seem to be important, but it is.
Why am I sitting here working on a holiday and still in my pajamas?
Anne
Although I enjoy owning and handling paper books, I suspect that works in digital format can be made to survive longer. Library holdings (for example) are often crumbling to dust because nobody during most of the 19th and 20th centuries gave a thought to the acid content of papers and inks then in use.
I'll also admit that my Palm has been a good companion on long, tedious business trips; a book housed on a PDA means one less item to be lugged through airports.
Anne
I hope this isn't a quintuple-redundant posting.
I've often marveled at the slashdot effect.
I've wondered what would happen if each of us kept, within the sanctity of our journals (of course) lists of wearisome spam sites, particularly annoying open relays, gross offenders (like the asshole who keeps writing to me on behalf of "irs.gov" via my own freaking email server...).
Thursdays are kind of boring.
Has consisted of forwarding massive quantities of penis-enlargement spam to the perpetrators, signing them up for various loans, and otherwise innocently trying to fill up their mailboxes.
This is much better. I wish I had nerve to try it.
This needs to be a very much past due wake up call for people (read taxpayers) in Maryland. We've had our collective pockets picked time and time and time again by totally inept state procurement processes when it comes to information systems. I started to cite examples in this reply and realized that it would soon become article-length. But I am thinking of school systems and our motor vechicle administration among others. Our records weren't even protected from August's virus onslaught.
/. (especially the comments) into a letter to the editor of the Baltimore "Sun." There are good technology companies here, and there are good people working in them. Perhaps if a few more of us did the same, it might attract the bloodhound interests of whoever's in charge at the Sunpapers these days.
It's time to make the fraud potential of these voting systems known to the general taxpaying public--in Maryland as well as in other places. We just have the misfortune to have feather merchants in charge of most IT here where we need smart, tough-minded computer people who know how to ask the right questions and to make themselves heard by the pols.
I have no clue what I can do as an individual, but I'm going to start by assembling what I've read here on
Also, and on another topic: JUST BECAUSE ADOBE DECIDES TO USE ATROCIOUS GRAMMAR IN ONE OF THEIR ADS DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD. PLEASE GO LOOK UP THE DEFINITION OF "TO BEG THE QUESTION." (sorry).
Anne
Funny you should mention it. Ordinarily I would say that in my case, where most of the businesses I work for are quite small, the opportunity to use such tools doesn't come up much. But two very small verticals have shown up in the past two weeks, both in the area of transportation. While very diverse, they require similar online applications. Three of us are going to talk about them this coming Saturday when we will all have time, and I suspect we'll be looking at Cocoon or something like it. I remain a sincere appreciator of the open-source movement that enables me to have access to tools without locking myself into costly, proprietary systems. If I want to spend the time on study, the tool is mine to use.
Possibly because there aren't any standards out there for the job. Every rockstar or TV show fan with a "site," every business owner's sociopathic 16-year-old nephew, every church minister's wife is a Web designer or developer. The numbers grow with great regularity in June when school lets out and shrink again in September when the kids return to class. Been eking out my daily bread and margarine doing this as my own boss since 2000, and that's been my experience. Even our local art school, which is nationally prestigious, has a lousy Website and an impossibly pompous and chichi list of impractical course offerings.
I like WITI (Women in Technology International) for the collegiality, but there is a gender requirement. I steal my son's ACM goodies since he has a student membership. I read Slashdot over my morning coffee and again over my evening toddy. I make sure I visit A List Apart once a week. (Read the articles there but don't bother with the forums.) I have a long list of sites I visit frequently just to see what people are doing with PHP, PERL, and other things I find the need to keep up with. I have another list I visit less frequently to see what's up in terms of design.
I nurture a few very active correspondences with designers, developers, programmers, and network people I've met over the years. It's kind of like a secret society. You encounter people online. You quietly check out their chops, they quietly check out yours, and you cultivate the correspondence. Sometimes the e-mails actually develop into warm friendships. Sometimes you find people you can team with.
But professional associations just aren't out there.
Regards,
Anne
Replace one sluggish bureaucracy with another one that's even larger and more sluggish. Then stand back and watch the fights about funding and budgetary contributions. That should be very helpful.