Tails of the Ice Age

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

30 Jan 1994


As many of you know I live in very rural Pennsylvania. It is usually really
nice  except for the past few weeks. The weather has been impossible.
Starting in early January, it has been (or would have been almost
impossible to live in this area except for the "data cow trails".


It all started on Jan. 5 when GG and I went to California for the NRC CSTB
meeting and the NREN study panel's last meeting (by the way that was the
last time we could get smail from our post office box till a terrible drive
yesterday to do that).  California was warm and nice and we had heard bad
stories of the weather in Penn so we thought maybe we would stay another
day. We decided not to and flew out the evening prior to the Quake. We got
home and guess what. I went into Penn for my class on Monday and it started
to snow and ice and everything (no fire and brimstone). Just got home and
the ice descended on my area. I could not get out to give a talk at Penn
and did not get out till the following Friday  (Penn closed for four days
for ice and power) when the roads cleared enough for a hectic and in
hindsight dangerous drive to PHL. We flew out (or rather the plane skidded
to the runway.). Off for a weekend in California. While there we managed to
get the driveway plowed enough for an adventurous drive home. Got home and
guess what, ICE came down and we were stuck in the house till yesterday and
I should not have gone out then.


So, why am I saying this all. Part of the reason is for sympathy ( :-) )
and part is to explore life during that period. It was funny in that many
of my colleagues at Penn seemed to think I should have been there (even
though it was physically impossible to do that) while many other of my
colleagues and students at Penn and else where saw as much of me (many said
too much) as they wanted. I telecommuted to Penn, worked setting up my
Computer Ethics and Society class, gave papers to the students to read,
organized the class, read several student papers and chatted with them,
looked at a video of the roads in NY and transmitted the ice age of
Landenberg all from my warm home and hotel rooms in California.


What would I have liked to make it all work even better than it did, not
much. I had my radio based HP100lx getting RadioMail, my Newton getting
pages via the Messaging Card, my Duo connecting via 800 ARA to my pop3
server at Penn and my cellular phone functioning even when the lines out of
Landenberg were overloaded  with most likely telecommuting neighbors. I
would have liked to be able to give my talk from home but till I get my
ISDN line, that is marginally feasible.


Now if there were cable to my area, maybe I could have gotten a 10 megabit
connection (most likely the data highways will remain data cow paths in my
area for a long time.).


If I had been a technological novice maybe I would have been stuck at home
with nothing to do but read and think. As is I could work and interact
almost as well as when the weather is good. Is that a plus for the
technology, you call that.