#Booksky #AmazonBoycott 3/? That said, our sale on backlist titles on Smashwords kicks off tomorrow 3/2 and runs through the week (link in comments). Our sale on the Astreiant Series kicks off on our website on 3/10 and runs to 3/20 (buy your Kindle books from us and keep the books you buy)!

To anybody in leadership at the state or municipal level: 18F’s destruction makes this *the perfect time* to hire experienced technologists, which you all need very badly. Most 18Fers would love to stay in public service. They are spread throughout the country.

Go go go!

My science teacher finally got to the Admin office, I explained to him what happened. He stood up for me which kept the cops from taking me to juvie jail. I got suspended for 2 days and had to stay late and clean the test tubes and glassware used by the science class all year.

I tried to say it was an accident, and another student blurted out “that Fromm blew up the library with a Hydrogen bomb”. That escalated everything. The next 30 minutes in the administrative office sucked trying explain science to cops, which was futile, and I kept asking for my science teacher.

The filament ignited the hydrogen gas at the focal point of the near-parabolic light fixture. The concentrated downward explosion and flame broke the fixture loose and drove it through the lower ceiling to the underside of the roof with a massive bang. Teachers came running from every direction.

I brought several hydrogen balloons to school to show classmates, one got away in the library and floated up into the ceiling light fixture containing a large, 300 watt E39 mogul base incandescent bulb.

Balloon touched the hot bulb, breaking the balloon and bulb while releasing the hydrogen gas.

9th grade science class, after learning about electrolysis of water in a test tube separating O & H gases, I began production at home. I captured hydrogen gas with water displacement then pressurized the vessel, forcing water back into it, filling balloons with escaping pressurized hydrogen gas.

Flying, and safely landing, is mission critical for sure!

I built a system in 1989 that wasn't y2k compliant, it needed to be compatible read/write with a 1983 (32K RAM!) system and was told to design a "24 month stopgap" solution. In 1999 the owner asked me if it was y2k compliant and I was horrified to discover they were still using after 10 years

We started systems migration in '97 for the main systems, and were pretty solid by late '98, with some tweaks thru '99. There were a lot of weird small "unknown" systems that ended up crawling out of the woodwork in 98 after we worked the core systems and those ate a lot of time.

Agreed, the party was awesome but our computer systems were rock solid and stable ;-)

Back then there was plans on how to take the case of a VAX 3600 and install a small fridge inside it to make a "VAX refrigerated beer keg tap" but unfortunately management veto'ed that plan. And my partner said if I brought any of the retired VAX's home I could sleep outside with them. :-)

My first certification was Novell 3.11 in '92 but about that time I discovered Unix workstations: Sun's SunOS, SGI's IRIX and HP's HP-UX and never looked back. I felt like that was what I was meant to do and never used any of my new Novell skills

I remember back then I used to say we were either "invisible or in trouble" because alas most folks don't really understand large computer systems.