This morning I needed to dig out a software manual from storage (remember when software came with printed manuals?) and had a small blue pressboard binder fall on my head. It looked familiar, but I didn't know why.

Remember when I was lamenting that I couldn't remember my CompuServe ID Number? Well, yeah, the small blue pressboard binder had all my CompuServe stuff in it... including my ID...

Now that I see it... 70717,3107... I can't imagine how I ever forgot it. Those digits flow through my mind like my own name, because it was my name for a number of years. When I typed it just then, I didn't even need to take a second look, my fingers automatically keyed it in. Just like old times.

Somehow, I feel more complete than I did yesterday.

ALSO in the small blue pressboard binder... COMPUSERVE INFORMATION SERVICE RATES: 1984!"

A few things...

• $2.00 per hour evening rates in 1984 is $4.52 per hour in 2014.
• $10.00 per hour daytime rates in 1984 is $22.60 per hour in 2014.
• Can you imagine paying $4.52 per hour for internet? $22.60 an hour in the daytime?
• If you lived in Alaska, Compu$serve was $33.90 per hour... $31.64 per hour in Hawaii.
• In 1984 I would have been a senior in High School working 18 hours a week (evenings and weekends) at a local shop... at $3.85 an hour, or $69.30 a week before taxes. Adjusted for inflation, that's $156.60 per week before taxes.
• And I think CompuServe charged extra to access the internet through their gateway.
• My access speed at the time was probably 1,200 baud. Just to put that in perspective, a typical 2.2 MB photo would take me 4 hours and 15 minutes to download. Not that digital imagery at the time was anywhere near that for consumer photography.
• You can probably guess where every cent I had in disposable income went in 1984.

Wow.

All told, I'm currently on the internet for one thing or another at least 5 hours a day. That's minimum 35 hours a week... probably much more. Putting two hours of that in the daytime and three hours of that in the evening, in 2014 dollars I'd be spending $58.76 per day... $411.32 per week... just to get online.

And "being online" then sure ain't what it is now.

How in the hell did we ever make it out of the dark ages of technology?

One of my favorite blogs is Letters of Note, which is a fascinating collection of letters by famous persons which have been nicely transcribed. I happened across it a year ago while researching Alan Moore's work on Marvelman, and have been a huge fan ever since. Pulling a few recent entries from the webfeed, there's a letter from John Lennon saying Yoko Ono doesn't sweat, a speech for President Nixon if the moon landing should fail, John Byrne's introduction of Kitty Pryde to X-Men, and a letter from J.K. Rowling to a young fan about her plan for seven Harry Potter books. The site is addictive, and there's some amazing stuff to be found in their well-organized archives.

It's all good stuff, but this morning's entry "To My Widow," is particularly touching. It's a letter written by doomed South Pole explorer Robert Falcon Scott to his wife when he realized the expedition party wouldn't survive the journey back...

I became interested in the so-called "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration" after visiting Frammuseet (The Fram Museum) in Norway, which is home to a ship used for expeditions to both of earth's poles... including the Amundsen Antarctic expedition which beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole by 35 days...

It's a fascinating period in history, and one which has been continuously reinterpreted since it began. Historians have alternately praise Robert Falcon Scott as a hero, then dismissed him as incompetent. Despite all that, Scott's journal (which has been brilliantly reproduced in blog-form!) makes for interesting reading. Humans are at their best and worst while on the cusp of discovery and high adventure, and first-hand historical accounts are a treasure.

   
In other news... it's Black Friday today! A magical time for our consumerism culture to run amok!

I try hard not to buy something "just because it's on sale," so this day isn't particularly special to me. But I do need to get a new television to replace my ailing one, so I'll keep my eyes open and see if anything interesting turns up. Hopefully I'll find something before mine dies completely, because television is where humanity finds itself on the cusp of awesome discoveries and high adventure now-a-days.

Or at least it will be until the last episode of Hannah Montana airs early next year.