Month: June 2005

bookmark_borderLate Night Research Part 2

Posted on by PaulaO

Why do I do this to myself? Why am I still awake? Would you believe I was awake and out of bed at 7am this morning? Me!

So why am I still awake?

‘Cause I am looking into other stuff for projects. Lessee, I gathered some puns that were appropriate for one project. I surfed the ‘net for different terms for another project. Nothing as deep and mind consuming as last night though.

My bookmark file is huge – 1.6MB. I need to do some serious housecleaning in there. But it’s dark and creepy in some places. I need to find a program that uses biometrics so that when I croak, certain parts of my hard drive is deleted. Not all of it, just stuff like bookmarks and cheap ebook downloads.

At any rate, I was busy today cleaning house. You know how some folks have ‘dust bunnies’? We have dust groundhogs or dust beagles. There is a door that we rarely move, several doors actually, and it is always, well, interesting when we move the door to sweep behind it. I didn’t move a door today, but I did empty and move some boxes. Found some missing rolls of film, a handful of pencils and pens, three 3.5 floppies, and a cassette book titled How to Eat Fried Worms. Still haven’t found my radio yet though.

Tomorrow I move the couch. While not as scary as what’s behind Door #2, it can still be an adventure.

bookmark_borderLate Night Research

Posted on by PaulaO

I was busy doing research, and revisiting prior research results, late last night in Wikipedia.

Arcology, Symbiosis, and yes, Tesla.

Didn’t dream about it though. Which is good since that would have been very strange.

I am still debating on how to handle the SF book I got in my head. It is more fun leaving it there, since whenever I try to write it down, it comes out really…bad. A true yawner if I ever wrote one.

I got a little bit of research done for the next lezbo romance I have started…several times…with no success. Again, the story is there and really wants to come out, but for some reason I can’t get beyond page 30. I am tempted to start in the middle and write to the end, filling in the beginning later. Wonder how legal that is? Will the Lezbo Romance Readers’ Association come after me? Will they suspend my Dyke Card? Again? Without it, I can’t get my proper credit toward my next toaster oven.

If you haven’t a clue what I just said, never mind. Leave the humor for others to deal with.

I have family coming into town Sunday. WhooHoo! It is the Karate Kids and their parents (for some reason, the parents insisted on coming with them. sheesh!)

I am thinking of preparing some posts on Saturday and date them to appear later. That way, y’all can still get yer Paula fix. Come on, I know you’re addicted to me. It’s the humor, right? (I am probably talking to an empty room, but hey, I brought my own podium)

bookmark_borderHam Essay

Posted on by PaulaO

ARRLWeb: 25 Years Ago

I clearly remember working an HS0 on 20 CW for an all time new one, late, when the band was closing. He was so faint, and no one answered his CQ. I threw in my call and heard it come back, not in tones but in barely detectable changes in the noise level. For a minute I thought I imagined it, but no, there it was again, and the card came in the mail. Happy Dance time. Over the years, my wife has grown used to, let’s say, “interesting behaviors” on my part and no longer even blinks, no matter what I do.

This is a cool article, and very funny! True, most of it looks like alphabet soup, but I’ll try to straighten it out for you.

CW – morse code (continuous wave)
CQ – shorthand for ‘anyone out there?’
HSO – gotta look that one up.
QSO – on the air contacts
PL-259 – the round doohickey at the end of the cable, just like the one that most likely goes into your cable box
FCC – Federal Communications Commission

bookmark_borderCheap words?

Posted on by PaulaO

Quoting (vs stealing) from Georganna again:

Peanut Pay – In my never ending quest to find the best resources for writers, I lurk in the shadows of job listings, trying out the free services, taking advantage of trial memberships. You see few mentioned, for good reason. Last week I was invited to bid on a job that pays four cents a word, or as the employer liked to phrase it “$1 for 25 words”. The writing desired was quite specialized and called for unique skills and equipment. With this particular employment service, being invited meant the potential employer had read my resume and asked specifically if I would work for peanuts. It reminded me of an anonymous posting to the “writing jobs” section of Craig’s List…

I have had several ezine articles published. I am fine with them being free or very low cost. Yesterday I received my check of $6.19 for my second Vision article and my essay in Muscadine Lines is online. My articles for EDSToday are done in exchange for a free subscription.

What these publishings have done for me is I get to see my work out of my reach, exposed to everyone else, and it makes the errors glaringly obvious. Amazing what you think of or the errors you see just after you hit the ‘send’ button on the email with your article attached.

bookmark_borderBoth sides of The Pond

Posted on by PaulaO

On this side of the Pond:
BBC NEWS | Americas | Canadian MPs back gay marriages

Canada’s parliament has approved a bill to legalise same-sex marriage, despite opposition from conservative MPs.

And on the other side of the Pond:

MPs narrowly back ID cards plan

Ministers have won a Commons vote over their controversial ID cards plan but their majority was cut from 67 to 31.

Then back to this side:

Bush says Iraq sacrifices ‘vital’

US President George W Bush has said that the sacrifices being made to fight insurgents in Iraq are vital to the future security of the United States.

Speaking at an air force base in North Carolina, he urged Americans to stand firm on “the latest battlefield in the war against terrorism”.

He said the only strategy to tackle militants was to “defeat them abroad before they attack us at home”.

Sacrifices were vital? Tell that to the families of all the dead soldiers, GW Shrub.

And doesn’t he have that ‘Golden Rule’ thing a little backward? Isn’t it supposed to be ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?’

My Way News

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Bush of demonstrating a
willingness “exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is
no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.”

bookmark_borderMorse Code on Cell Phones?

Posted on by PaulaO

Slashdot | Morse Code on Cell Phones?

An anonymous reader writes “In a recent showdown, veteran Morse coders were able to send SMS messages faster via Morse than the fastest thumb-typists. What about embedding support for Morse code directly into handsets? This article on O’Reilly Network floats the idea of using Morse code to compose text messages, as well as tapping commands (i.e. answer call, forward to voice mail, etc) in hands-free mode by tapping on the handset case.”

Now this would be an add on even I would appreciate!

73 de KG4VPY

bookmark_borderInsanity

Posted on by PaulaO

In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the book not the movie, they went to visit an insane man about something. This man lived on the beach in an inside out house. He says he is the only one sane in the world. He came to this conclusion after seeing the instructions on a box of toothpicks. Only an insane world would need instructions on how to use a toothpick.

And, along that line, only an insane person would say in public, then defend in public, what Tom Cruise has said recently. And, according to my online bud PODZ, so does the American Psychiatric Association. I don’t follow stardom news and the only way I knew about this was an article on My Way News site.

I have a book project in mind that deals with someone who is deeply depressed and/or insane. I touched on it briefly with BGCDA but not to the degree this other project might. How to present depression in a linear format is going to be interesting.

bookmark_borderBP and Drug Companies

Posted on by PaulaO

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: New blood-pressure guidelines pay off – for drug companies

For years, doctors considered 120/80 to be ideal and anything under 140 to be OK. But a change took place in May 2003, when American doctors got new advice from a government-sanctioned medical panel called the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure.

It’s enough to raise your blood pressure! I take Toprol, at a cost of $56 a month or about $1.25 a pill. I was once on another BP med for about 8yrs that rose in price from $0.50 a pill to over $2.