Tripod: Messages from the Staff

<body bgcolor="#CCFFFF" link="#FF0000" vlink="#990000" text="#000000" background="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/bg.gif"> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td valign="TOP" align="CENTER" width="178">  <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="170"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal2-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal2.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="59" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr><tr><td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/tripod_zones.gif" alt="tripod zones" width="81" height="17" border="0"></td> </tr><tr> <form 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href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/logo-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/logo.gif" alt="Tripod Map" border="0" height="58" width="170" ismap></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="100%"> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/universal2-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/universal2.gif" alt="Member Services Map" width="170" height="59" border="0" ismap></a></td> </tr><tr><td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/tripod_zones.gif" alt="tripod zones" width="81" height="17" border="0"></td> </tr><tr> <form action="http://www.tripod.com/bin/redirect" method="POST"> <td align="LEFT" valign="TOP" width="170" bgcolor="#999966"> <select name="URL"> <option value="/">Choose one:</option> <option value="/cars_trucks/">Cars&Trucks;</option> <option value="/computers_internet/">Computers/</option> <option value="/computers_internet/">       Internet</option> <option value="/entertainment/">Entertainment</option> <option value="/fun_games/">Fun&Games;</option> <option value="/health_fitness/">Health/Fitness</option> <option value="/home_family/">Home/Family</option> <option value="/jobs_career/">Jobs/Career</option> <option value="/money_business/">Money/Business</option> <option value="/shopping/">Shopping</option> <option value="/society_culture/">Society/Culture</option> <option value="/sports/">Sports</option> <option value="/teens/">Teens</option> <option value="/travel/">Travel</option> <option value="/women/">Women</option> </select><input type="IMAGE" src="../../../img/www_subdomain/go.gif" width="24" height="20" border="0" align="ABSMIDDLE"> <img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/trans.gif" width="1" height="3" border="0"><br><img src="../../../img/www_subdomain/p_member_comm.gif" alt="pod member communities" width="146" height="11" border="0"><br> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/adm/imagemap/pods-map.html"><img src="../../../img/nav/www_subdomain/pods.gif" alt="Pod Map" width="170" height="18" border="0" align="top" ismap></a></td> </form> </tr> </table> <table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" width="170">  <tr><td></td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> <tr><td align="CENTER"> <center> <a href="#"></a> </center> </td></tr> </table> <center><form name="FreeShop"> <table border="0" width="120" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <a href="/"> </a></td> </tr> <tr valign="TOP"> <td align="center" valign="TOP" nowrap bgcolor="#ffffff" width="120"> <select name="FreeShop" onchange="self.parent.location.href = "http://www.tripod.com/bin/accipiter/tripod_adclick?CID=000023280000033200000000&overrideURL=" + this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;"> <option value="">FreeShop <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00013.htm">Computing <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00013.htm">-& Electronics <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00019.htm">Entertainment <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00022.htm">Travel <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00014.htm">Software <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00015.htm">Style & Image <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00016.htm">Personal <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00016.htm">-Finance <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00017.htm">Business <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00017.htm">-& Career <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00018.htm">Lifestyles <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00018.htm">-& Interest <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00020.htm">Hobbies <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00021.htm">Family <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00023.htm">Auto <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00024.htm">Home & Living <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">Health, Fitness <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00025.htm">-& Sports <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">Completely <option value="http://tr2.freeshop.com/pg00029.htm">-FREE Offers </select></td> </tr> </table> </form> </center> </td> <td valign="TOP" width="100%">   <p> <p> <img src="../../../tripod/letters/img/www_subdomain/letter.top.gif" alt="from tripod..with love.." width="401" height="124" border="0"> <br> <center> </center> <br> <br> <p> <blockquote> <b>From Derek Bruneau, Software Engineer:</b> <p> If you've visited our site a few times, you're already familiar with Tripod's online community: perhaps you've participated in a conference, joined a Pod, or taken a survey about an issue discussed in one of our articles. But you might be curious about Tripod's physical community, especially if you've noticed that we work in a rural Massachusetts town  and not a large city, as you might expect. You can always visit us here in Williamstown, but since that isn't practical for most of you, I thought I'd introduce you to one of our local characters, one you can't meet online: the Squeeze machine.<p> Unless you're from the Berkshires, "Squeeze machine" sounds a bit like a <a href="../../../womensroom_subdomain/feature/columns/diy.html">sexual aid</a>, but it's really just an old coin-operated beverage dispenser. Squeeze is a local manufacturer of sugar-charged sodas, with flavors like birch beer, dark cream, and ginger ale. (Unlike conventional varieties, Squeeze's ginger ale is strong enough that you can actually taste the ginger). The sodas come in glass bottles, not plastic or aluminum, and one variety even requires an old-fashioned bottle opener to remove its caps. The whole device is an artifact of nostalgia.<p> This is not the Squeeze machine's most noteworthy characteristic, however. After decades of prostituting itself in the service of liquid refreshment, it has achieved a measure of cranky sentience. Something awakened in it when Tripod moved to its current location above the General Cable factory. The proof is not in the machine's idiosyncratic refusal of nickels, for that is a common disability among aging soda dispensers, sentient and non-sentient alike. It's in the subtly-patterned number of quarters and/or dimes it accepts before vending its saccharine cargo.<p> Currency is the Squeeze machine's only means of communicating with other mechanical or biological entities. For those of us who treat it with respect, it shows its appreciation by discounting sodas from the listed price of 40 cents. For others, it toys with their legal tender, finally dispensing a grape soda from the lemon-lime chamber. On its best days (which usually fall on Friday), it will occasionally return more change than we give it; at other times, depressed by the solitary and immobile nature of its existence, it becomes inconsolable, refusing all change and unplugging itself from the wall.<p> Tragically, none of us know if there are other awakened machines in the area, and no one has been able to figure out how to connect the Squeeze machine to the Web.<p> <ul> May your bearings never rust,<br> <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/staff/tech-html/anchor_dbruneau.html">Derek</a>, Software Engineer (10/3/97) </ul> <p> <center> <hr width="330"> <p> Read more "Letters from Tripod" in the <a href="../../../www_subdomain/tripod/letters/archive.html">archive</a>. <p> <hr width="330"> </center> <br> </blockquote> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>