Thursday night I came home from eating dinner, and my keeper, Raymond
had a new DVD to watch, called 'Impulse'. It was a story about this
college age computer programmer who liked writing and spreading
viruses. (Not for his own computer, of course, but rather for everyone
else's computers.
A moody, melancholy guy, he decided to commit suicide. In doing so, he
released a lot of evil spirits from his mind and body. These evil
spirits learned how to communicate with others of their own kind _and
real, human people_ using the computer, you know, using Instant
Messenger and Email, IRC, stuff like that. This guy was a computer
science major at college, specializing in 'telecom'. He had vast
amounts of knowledge in subjects like WiFi, cell phones, land line
phones, and the computers behind them. Natually, all this guy's
knowledge about these subjects were transmitted on to the evil
spirits, and soon they knew how to spread themselves around the world
after reading the 'telecom paper' this guy had written.
We see signs of the evil spirits learing how to use these computers,
with messages saying 'please help me' appearing spuriously on the
various terminal screens. Then it appears that no matter what anyone
does, the hard drives cannot be cleaned off, and computers boot up
with a dreadful movie entitled 'Watch me commit suicide' and the man
killing himself.
Soon, every computer everywhere was plugged up with these evil spirit
viruses, but in particular, all cell phones, landline phones, instant
message programs, and land line phones were clogged up with them. How
badly plugged up? To illustrate this, a multi-line phone is displayed
with the ringing of phone bells in the background and all the lines
flashing and going unanswered; people nearby were seated at computer
terminals getting nowhere, and a recorded message voice is repeating
over and over, "Your call has been received by 911. All operators are
busy assisting other callers. Please hold until a 911 operator is
available."
The obligatory characters included the police and their investigation,
of course, the dull college professor who kept denying that evil
spirits could exist, two other sort of half-witted college students in
the same computer science class, and other assorted characters.
One of them found a script, which it was stated, could be run and
eliminate the viruses. But it had to be run 'from the server' which
as luck would have it, was down in the basement of the 'Computer
Science Department' building at the university. 'Crash all the
terminals, shut down the servers, load this script then restart it
all' is what they had to do.
Well, our hero and heroine (two of the college students) decide to try
this and they rush to the basement. But alas, they are too late, as
the worm-like evil spirit viruses have escaped and are now in the
process of infesting the entire internet. They do not say exactly
where all this is located, but New York City is implied as the
location of 'the university'. As the viruses infest all computers
everywhere, we see the results in the form of clogged streets and
stalled subways, lights flashing or not working at all. A television
news station is telling everyone about this dillema when it, itself
suddenly shuts down.
Our hero and heroine consult again with the police and are told to
flee for their lives, because it appears everyone is following the
example of the computer science student and committing suicide. They
decide to take that advice and get out of the city as soon as they
can, driving off to some rural countryside area. We can tell it is a
rural area because we see cows and horses, and the heroine is telling
us that 'the things we thought were to help us are actually killing
us; driving us to the brink of insanity.' Both hero and heroine swore
they would never again use a telephone, a cell phone, Wi-Fi, instant
messaging or any 'computer', because of the evil spirit viruses which
had taken over the entire thing at this point.
Raymond said to me the whole movie ("Impulse") stunk very badly. I
would generally agree, but one *good* thing about the movie was it
was done in black and white with interesting contrasts in what we
saw. Black and white, with flourescent lights flashing off and on at
the right intervals, dashes of blue and grey in the scenes and quite
good sound and music effects.
Raymond noted the movie ended 'a lot like 28 Days' (if you have seen
that movie), where the surviviors never actually win, but they instead
just flee the big city and move to a safe, rural area.
Not a bad deal for a $4.00/week rental from Blockbuster.
PAT
Path: telecom-digest.org!ptownson
Date: Sat, 9 Jun 2007 18:05:28 EDT
From: ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu (TELECOM Digest Editor)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Cleaning up Some Odds and Ends
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 26, Issue 162, Message 8 of 8
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I apologize for earlier this week when I interuppted the conversations
in progress for one of my periodic money requests. The money received,
while not enough to allow me to go live high on the hog in some
exotic land, __was enough_ to meet this month's living expenses,
and provide for my 'children' (three cats and one dog).
Something very strange is happening here. I know I should not count
on Google AdSense to earn a supplementary living, but I have been
doing just that. When I first started using AdSense, in September,
2004, I thought at that time it was some sort of (most likely)
unpayable gimmick. Particularly when I saw so many 'make money fast'
reports from Google itself. So I checked with a few independent
witnesses who (like myself) had signed on with AdSense almost from
day one of the program. I spoke with a few guys, who like myself,
have years and years of files on line for research. The figures they
quoted me were that I could count on Google for at least a 'few'
dollars each month. And so it was for the first year and a half; on
the one hand, nothing to get excited about, except that I always did
mark the days on my calendar each month until I knew the Google wire
transfer had been made into my account. It, plus my social security
disability check always managed to 'tide me over' one month to the
next, along with the scrapings I collect from State of Kansas' own
welfare services, etc. State of Kansas/City of Independence does
provide me with a few things: a housekeeper for four hours per week,
(of which I have to pay twenty percent of her competitive wages),
one meal per day (no charge, delivered here to my door, not the best
food, but hardly the worst). Social Security got me a motorized
wheel chair; prior to the delivery of the chair (and still available)
are discount taxicab rides around town. Taxicab charges flat rate
around town anywhere to anyone, five dollars, but City of Independence
gives me a coupon book allowing me to ride for two dollars plus a
coupon. So, you might say I make do, although I have been out of my
house and riding around more now that I have the motorized wheel
chair, and riding less in the taxicab.
I also, once each year, get two interesting benefits: food sales tax
exemption (a flat payback of $72 for the prior year) for whatever I
paid in food sales tax. The second benefit is 'property tax refund'
which is some percentage of whatever the mortgage company paid on my
behalf in property taxes. I pay my monthly mortgage, mortgage company
pays taxes and insurance, eventually city rebates some percent of it
back to me. Actually I am paying _mother's_ mortgage, she is in the
old people's home now for a few years, but _she_ cannot claim
homestead tax exemption as I can; her monthly upkeep at the old
people's home is itself in part subsidized by government. So, with all
that in mind, let's say I get by ... barely, but I do. I use every
single discount available to 'senior citizens' or 'disabled citizens'
I can find that I would otherwise be using ... and yet, and yet, I
still wind up at the end of the month (Social Security Disability
payments run from the 4th 'payday' of one month to the 4th 'payday' of
the next month) right back where I started, zero or a few dollars
either way in the bank, preferably in my favor, because if it is the
bank's favor the bank 'treats' me to an overdraft fee when the next
monthly payment from the feds is made. I think this month it will run
in my favor (thank you, readers!) since your donations got me 'over
the top' by a few dollars.
That's another thing: the monthly federal payout on Disability is
_not_ the third day of each month. Feds cut that system out many years
ago. If you *were* getting paid on the third of each month, then you
still are; but for those of us who started either disability or
retirement later, now the checks are paid on Wednesdays; the first
through the fourth Wednesdays of each month are the paydays, based on
Social Security numbers, staggered throughout the month. I am on the
fourth Wednesday of each month. At 2:00 AM on the fourth Wednesday of
each month, Social Security's computer automatically makes a deposit
into my bank's computer of the amount of money I receive. Bank
automatically pays bills, etc. I do not actually _see any money_ all
month. All I see are computer pixels; starting at about 2:00 AM on the
magic day (fourth Wednesday) my credit balance fills up with money,
then all day long the same day and the next, I see it bleed away to
the various creditors. The bank does give me a debit card and I can go
to any ATM (preferably theirs, to save fees) and withdraw it as I go
along. Those of you who sent me money this month; that goes into the
PayPal bank. From time to time, I can authorize PayPal to
automatically transfer some or all of it (usually all of it) to the
regular bank. So I do not, as some have suggested, live 'high on the
hog' with 'all' my money.
But, back to AdSense to conclude this wrapup: Ad Sense was running
along pretty well for a year or so, then, one month it began getting
very meager. Once per month, (like Social, the month following, and
about three weeks into the month) Ad Sense makes payout. It _had been_
running along okay. But AdSense only pays on those months in which
the payout is more than one hundred dollars. A year ago (last summer)
AdSense claimed I did not reach the hundred dollar mark, and they held
it back. Well, when you live as close to the wire as I do, that tipped
me over entirely. Ad Sense did not come through, bank account ran
_very low_ and Bank charged me a few of their $35 per incident fees.
Frankly, I never did recover from that until now. And when you add in
the credit card overlimit fees it gets a bit much. Ad Sense seems to
have recovered from whatever was ailing it and is now back to more or
less normal payouts.
I have learned to live very close to the wire, and have learned how
to use things like bank float, credit card float and creditor
good-will to get through life. But ... anytime some part of the
machine fails, I am so close to the edge that I topple over, and have
a very hard time recovering, which is what finally happened during
May/June. I thank all of you who participated in getting me back on
my feet once again. I sincerely do thank you.
PAT
TELECOM Digest Editor (ptownson@massis.lcs.mit.edu)