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Message Digest
Volume 28 : Issue 76 : "text" Format
Messages in this Issue:
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Re: under-sea power transmission cables
Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up
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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:35:58 -0600
From: Reed <reedh@rmi.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Message-ID: <kpidnakQTeUgqyLUnZ2dnUVZ_sTinZ2d@earthlink.com>
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> Per our recent discussion on Western Union services, I found some
> information about Western Union's public facsimile services.
>
Anyone remember FedEx's ill-fated ZapMail fax service ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZapMail
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 13:32:05 -0700 (PDT)
From: hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Message-ID: <123ddc1e-1ab9-4f73-a85a-f31c4ef8adc6@t7g2000yqa.googlegroups.com>
On Mar 17, 12:50 pm, Reed <re...@rmi.net> wrote:
> Anyone remember FedEx's ill-fated ZapMail fax service ?
There used to be some public stores (eg copying stores, stationery
stores) that offered fax service for about $1/page, there may have
even been self-service machines.
Is that still even offered?
Not everyone has a fax machine in their home or office, particularly
retired people. Remember, a lot of everyday people out there do not
have a computer in their home. Even those that do and can use the
built in fax modem don't have the capability to scan a document, only
fax text typed in.
But Western Union's prices seem awfully high, plus the cost of getting
to their central office. I don't know the conversion factor for
inflation for 1960, I'd guess maybe 8, so a single page to Chicago
would be $29.00 in today's money. That's not cheap, and if the
document was multiple pages . . . .
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:40:45 -0500
From: John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Message-ID: <6645152a0903171340i17e48e4sb7c8a862ed1e5f59@mail.gmail.com>
On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 3:32 PM, <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Mar 17, 12:50Â pm, Reed <re...@rmi.net> wrote:
>> Anyone remember FedEx's ill-fated ZapMail fax service ?
>
> There used to be some public stores (eg copying stores, stationery
> stores) that offered fax service for about $1/page, there may have
> even been self-service machines.
>
> Is that still even offered?
Yes, Office Depot and FedEx Office (formerly Kinkos) continue to offer
this service. We don't own a fax machine and every once in a blue
moon have to use their services to send a fax.
John
--
John Mayson <john@mayson.us>
Austin, Texas, USA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:56:58 -0400
From: Curtis R Anderson <gleepy@gleepy.net>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Message-ID: <49C01CAA.6000008@gleepy.net>
hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Mar 17, 12:50 pm, Reed <re...@rmi.net> wrote:
>> Anyone remember FedEx's ill-fated ZapMail fax service ?
>
> There used to be some public stores (eg copying stores, stationery
> stores) that offered fax service for about $1/page, there may have
> even been self-service machines.
>
> Is that still even offered?
My credit union offers a public fax service for its members, something
like $1 plus toll charges, but I'd have to call the office for exact
pricing.
> Not everyone has a fax machine in their home or office, particularly
> retired people. Remember, a lot of everyday people out there do not
> have a computer in their home. Even those that do and can use the
> built in fax modem don't have the capability to scan a document, only
> fax text typed in.
My mother tells me that at her retirement community, there is a "public"
fax for its residents at the big administrative building, which they
call the "big house". Many seniors probably don't want to bother
excessively with fax unless they must.
ObTelecom: When my mother switched her landline phone number in her
dwelling at the retirement community, the admins at the community wanted
to make sure that 911 would work okay when going from the ILEC, EMBARQ,
to Atlantic Broadband. At 80+ years of age, she wanted her high speed
cable internet access!
As a standby, the community has those "pull the cord for assistance"
signaling systems in the bathrooms and bedrooms which signal an
attendant at the Big House.
--
Curtis R. Anderson, Co-creator of "Gleepy the Hen", still
Email not munged, SpamAssassin [tm] in effect.
www.gleepy.net gleepy@intelligencia.com
mailto:gleepy@gleepy.net (and others) Yahoo!: gleepythehen
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:32:14 +1100
From: David Clayton <dcstar@myrealbox.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960
Message-ID: <pan.2009.03.17.07.32.12.949097@myrealbox.com>
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:02:19 -0400, hancock4 wrote: .......
> *I am amazed that anyone can sit at their desk today and, at no charge,
> receive stock quotes, stock history, and current analysis from many
> newspaper websites; that information that once was only available in a
> stockbroker's office to regular customers. Stockbrokers used the Western
> Union "900 speed" ticker to keep up. The Bunker Ramo company had
> stock-lookup computer terminals in the mid 1960s.
>
I once had a job installing/maintaining the technical infrastructure with
a company that provided "real time" financial market information
world-wide.
In Australia the whole thing was fed (back in the mid-1980's) by one
9600bps dedicated data link from the USA, with two dial-up modems as back
up.
Now, this link cost absolute mega-bucks in those days and it served
hundreds of local customers who were on various multi-drop polled network
nodes - all connected by 1200bps 4 wire dedicated links.
The service itself cost thousands per month per terminal, but every money
market in the country had at least one - and these days the same data can
be served hundreds of times quicker at a fraction of the cost!
--
Regards, David.
David Clayton
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Knowledge is a measure of how many answers you have, intelligence is a
measure of how many questions you have.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 14:31:55 -0700
From: Richard <rng@richbonnie.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: under-sea power transmission cables
Message-ID: <lg50s49dgt5ltqfong2un16pv8uphn6sp1@4ax.com>
On Mon, 16 Mar 2009 10:10:10 -0400 (EDT), David Clayton
<dcstar@myrealbox.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:12:14 -0400, David Kaye wrote:
>
>> On Mar 12, 10:07 am, Will Roberts <oldb...@arctos.com> wrote:
>>> Following up on the discussion of underground high-voltage power
>>> transmission lines, it's worth noting a project which was under
>>> consideration in Hawaii.
>>
>> I'm wondering how safe it is to transport high voltages through bodies of
>> water. I realize it happens in the Bay Area (the cable that replaced the
>> Hunters Point power plant, for instance), but does anybody know how safe
>> this practice is?
>>
>> I know that rats are drawn to electric cables, which is apparently why
>> there are so many electrocuted rats who have eaten through cables. I'm
>> wondering if there is any other danger from running high voltages through
>> water.
>>
>The DC cable between Victoria and Tasmania was originally going to use the
>sea as the "return" conductor, but there were oil rigs in the vicinity and
>they kicked up a (justified) fuss about electrolysis corroding the rig
>structures, so the line ended up being dual conductor with both insulated
>from the environment (AFAIK).
>
>I'm assuming all these long cable runs are now DC to maximise the overall
>power that you can pipe down these things - all built on the back of
>super-efficient AC to DC conversions at either end. That might keep
>"bitey" things away from the cable rather than an AC field.
There is another reason to use DC. With AC, some of the transmitted
energy is in the fields between the conductors, leading to losses due
to the conductive sea water. With DC, any fields are static, and do
not lose energy.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:56:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: wleathus@yahoo.com
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Western Union public fax services, 1960 (telecom)
Message-ID: <167625.12472.qm@web112216.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
Re: [telecom] Western Union public fax services, 1960 (telecom)
On Tuesday, March 17, 2009 3:32 PM hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>> Anyone remember FedEx's ill-fated ZapMail fax service ?
> There used to be some public stores (eg copying stores, stationery
> stores) that offered fax service for about $1/page, there may have
> even been self-service machines.
>
> Is that still even offered?
>
> Not everyone has a fax machine in their home or office, particularly
> retired people. Remember, a lot of everyday people out there do not
> have a computer in their home. Even those that do and can use the
> built in fax modem don't have the capability to scan a document, only
> fax text typed in.
>
> But Western Union's prices seem awfully high, plus the cost of getting
> to their central office. I don't know the conversion factor for
> inflation for 1960, I'd guess maybe 8, so a single page to Chicago
> would be $29.00 in today's money. That's not cheap, and if the
> document was multiple pages . . . .
Certainly there are many places today offerining public fax
services, both outgoing snd incoming. UPS stores (which are also
public copy centers), Kinko's (whatever they are called now since
their takeover by FedEx), Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax, many
independent copying and printing services and office supply stores,
including one near me that charges only 75c per page ($1 or more is
more common).
As to the Western Union prices in 1960, for many custonmers and
certain documents the price was not the significant factor; the fact
that the service was available at any price was of more importance.
Wes Leatherock
wleathus@yahoo.com
wesrock@aol.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:07:41 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
To: redacted@invalid.telecom.csail.mit.edu
Subject: As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up
Message-ID: <p06240817c5e615b6af93@[10.0.1.6]>
As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
March 18, 2009
Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to
the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the
Internet, directly violating the judge's instructions and centuries
of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury,
he got an even bigger shock.
Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge,
William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of
eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.
"We were stunned," said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told
by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. "It's
the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it
hit us right over the head."
It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and
iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases
is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending
deliberations and infuriating judges.
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/18juries.html
------------------------------
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