WiredPen

Have you received a fax advertising a “Florida Bahama’s Cruise” for $398 pp? If so, read on.

Under federal law (Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 47 U.S. Code 227), it is illegal to send unsolicited commercial faxes. The definition, in my opinion, is broad enough to include junk email (AKA “spam”), but IANAL and that’s beyond the scope of this post. The law makes it illegal to

(b)(1)(C) to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine

and it defines ‘telephone facsimile machine’ as equipment that “has the capacity”

(a)(2)(A) to transcribe text or images, or both, from paper into an electronic signal and to transmit that signal over a regular telephone line, or
(a)(2)(B) to transcribe text or images (or both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line onto paper.

The law allows individuals to sue the sender for $500 per violation. I am considering filing my first small claims court action due to an unsolicited fax sent to my toll-free fax number, even though the violator is in Florida. Why? The egregious nature of the fax and the company’s record of skirting the law.

Read the rest of this entry »

My cousin and I talked a long time Sunday afternoon about diet and metabolism and exercise — and the effects of (practically) zero estrogen on the female body. One of those effects is how hard it is to keep weight off the waist/hips.

Later, I was poking around the Four Hour Work Week blog and then found myself offsite at Protein Power, a site supporting books by Dr. Michael R. Eades. One thing lead to another, and I found this post: How the media disses low-carb diets II.

Because of my complete hysterectomy in 2001, I learned a lot about hormones and how superficially (and, too often, incorrectly) the media report hormone replacement therapy (HRT) research. So I wasn’t surprised to see Dr. Eades complaining about how media like ABC “misrepresents the true outcome of studies.”

But I was surprised to see just how egregious this case was: the reporting was 180-degrees off from what the study concluded. Complete opposite!

Read the rest of this entry »

I type these words with an ear worm: Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer!

Today, the UW Communications Department held its annual “Fund Run” at Green Lake. We “picnic” adjacent to the Lake, at Woodland Park Zoo. While Mike, Katie and I were walking around the Lake, we spotted a Great Dane in the water; I commented to Mike that the dog looked like Scooby Doo.

We were walking up the hill from the W Green Lake Way N (the southwest end of the Lake) to the picnic area (Area #6, by the horseshoe pit, for the locals reading this) when we spotted the Great Dane and her owner, who was talking to someone playing horseshoes. “There’s Scooby, again,” I said.

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than the dog spotted us — specifically, Katie, who was walking in front (on lead). The Dane (illegally off-lead - this is NOT the off-leash dog park!) rushed her. Katie, being an intelligent Cairn Terrier, ducked behind my legs. Scooby took me out, in flying tackle style. My legs went out from under me, and *splat* (+ “ooff”) I fell flat to the ground, face-down.

Read the rest of this entry »

With OS10.4, the only problem I had with printing with my networked (via AirportExtreme) Brother 2070N was when my G4PB would have a 10.x address instead of a 192.x address. Not so with Leopard and the new MBP. I finally got tired of walking to the office for a USB print, and Google helped me find this helpful post on LiveJournal. (tip)

The problem is that Brother printers aren’t talking “Bonjour” under Leopard — dunno if it’s Apple’s fault or Brother’s. Read the rest of this entry »

The temperature in Seattle suburbs has been 32-ish at least three days this week. And when I opened up gmail a few moments ago, I was greeted with this headline:

I Can’t Believe I’m Writing This: Snow Is Possible Friday

Eeek!

I spoke on the phone this evening with a friend from middle Georgia (the state) … who said it had been 32 there this week as well. That’s wrong, too.

I remember  a freak snowstorm during finals week winter quarter 1978 or 1979 at Virginia Tech. But VPI sits on top of a mountain where snow is a normal winter affair. And finals week was last week!

In our home network, we have an Apple Extreme network configured like this:

• Brother Laser printer - upstairs, ethernet to router
• Windows XP machine - upstairs, ethernet to router
• Hub - downstairs, ethernet to router
• Airport Express - downstairs, ethernet via hub
• Tivo (was ReplayTV ’til its ethernet card died last week) - downstairs, ethernet via hub
• MacMini - upstairs, Airport
• Powerbook - upstairs and downstairs, Airport

The Extreme allocates 192. IP addresses  and the Express 10. IP addresses. A while back, the Mini, which connects to the network via wifi, stopped printing to the Bonjour printer. So did my Powerbook, which also connected wirelessly. But the Windows machine, operating counter to type, worked. So I resorted to the sneaker net USB solution or the “mail it to myself at gmail solution” — converting everything to PDFs, of course.

Tonight — when I really did not have an hour to troubleshoot this — I got the bit in my mouth (so to speak) and I’ve figured out the problem.  The printer gets its IP address from the Extreme. The address will always start 192. because it’s hard-wired to the router; this is why it and the Windows machine are simpatico.  The Mini, on the other hand, has been known to stray to the 10. network (Don’t ask. I don’t know) … as does the Powerbook when I’m working downstairs.

And that, my friends, was the only frigging problem!

I was poking around network settings when I noticed that the Mini had a 10. address. I clicked the “renew lease” button, and the new address was a 192. one. I ran the printer scan, and this time the printer showed as configured and happy. [Earlier tonight, I uninstalled and reinstalled the printer as part of my troubleshooting; the Brother utility wasn't terribly helpful.]

Here’s hoping this little post helps some other poor soul out there!

Once-upon-a-time, when Eudora was my email client, these two quotations made their way into my signature file, depending upon my mood. Thanks to Karl Fisch for the reminder.

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.
- Alvin Toffler

In times of rapid change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
- Eric Hoffer

He also has one that’s new to me (and relevant on many different levels these days):

We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
- Albert Einstein

 Enjoy your 25-hour Sunday!

Karl Fisch, an educator who developed Shift Happens, describes the world inhabited by his seven-year old daughter, contrasted with his world at seven:

Her world at seven: cell phone with free long distance, laptop, wireless broadband access, interactive web-based software. (And if I’d brought a webcam they could’ve videoconferenced as well.)

My world at seven: wired phone (I think just one in the house), we didn’t use long distance except for very special occasions because it was so expensive, no computer, no Internet (much less wireless, broadband, or web-based software), and certainly no videoconferencing.

My world at seven:

At our house: Ditto on the long distance, computer, internet. One rotary phone at home; one on a party line (I’m pretty certain) at my aunt’s house. One TV, black-and-white with antennae reception (two channels came in good, one not so good). Kodak camera. Manual (portable) typewriter. Two cars; camping trailer; lots of books.

Around the country, world: The first international satellite television broadcast. John Glenn is the first American to orbit the Earth. The World’s Fair is in Seattle (not yet my home!). The Supreme Court rules that state-sponsored prayer in schools is unconstitutional. Cuban Missile Crisis. Gas costs $0.31 ($2.14) per gallon, milk $0.49 ($3.38). A movie ticket is $.50 ($3.45) and a color TV, $400 ($2757.35). (Price in parens is adjusted to Sept 2007 dollars, base year 1967.)

The Seattle Times published a story today with the headline, “Study chips away at hormone therapy” (online: “Breast cancer rates fell with drop in hormone therapy, study says”) This is my response. Read the rest of this entry »

Now I understand why folks use third party sites like FeedBurner for RSS feeds … if they change platforms, they don’t have to change their RSS feed URL. I’m moving WiredPen to WordPress … so your RSS feed will break in a day or two. :-/

Advance Apologies!