Word: plug
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Even the highest-ranking of University officials acknowledge surprise at the intensity of the media blitz, but not without wondering at the focus on all the glamor and glitz. Maybe they don't realize it, but they're partly responsible. They held a press conference in August to plug the fireworks and other festivities, but the academic symposia, arguably the week's most significant activities, are proceeding with no such promotion...
...play this game, begin by assuming that your income will not change, then retrieve your 1985 AGI (adjusted gross income: line 32 on your last 1040). Plug that figure into the first box. In the first part of the game, add back items that were previously deductible to arrive at your probable 1988 AGI. Then subtract the deductions still permitted. This will yield your new taxable income. Multiply that by 15% or 28%. Like any game, this one has both winners and losers...
Nevertheless, the wiring of America proceeds apace. Some local phone companies are testing systems that will divide standard voice telephone lines into three digital channels, allowing telephone customers to plug terminals directly into their wall sockets, without benefit of modem, and to program their phones like computers. Networking firms, such as 3Com, Sytek, Ungermann- Bass and Network Systems Corp., are stringing up mile after mile of high- speed coaxial and optical fiber cables and offering communications rates in excess of 275 million bits of information a second...
...ordering their groceries and setting their thermostats by computer, futurists are now envisioning a brave new world of one-stop networking. Commuters will set burglar alarms, start air conditioners and program their VCRs--all through the digital keypads of their mobile phones. When appliances break down, homeowners will plug them into diagnosis outlets, dial the manufacturers and be told in a flash precisely what has gone wrong. Television sets will interrupt broadcasts to announce that clothes dryers have completed their cycles. Viewers, with the press of a key, will tell those dryers to run the clothes through one more time...
...jellyfish, are particularly attracted to plastic bags. Says University of Florida Zoologist Archie Carr, an authority on sea turtles: "Any kind of film or semitranslucent material appears to look like jellyfish to them." Trouble is, the bags--or other plastic items like golf tees--can form a lethal plug in the turtle's digestive tract...