My trip was indeed a long one... Over 24 hours each way. With more than half of that time spent on the older trains.

And yeah, on shorter trips, I probably wouldn't have minded. In fact, if they just fixed the seats, i'd have been okay. (The track rumble and noise didn't actually bother me, even when I was trying to rest.) But they didn't, and probably won't.

The higher cost over driving was acceptable because I could *do* things on the train, where in a car I can only drive. (Especially alone.)

My reason for the train was also the TSA. I doubt I'd have considered it if it weren't for their antics. (And this was quite a few years ago now.)

Interesting. I worked phone support for a company, and their systems would occasionally do this. The delay was anywhere from a fraction of a second to a couple seconds, randomly for each call it happened to. It is really, really annoying, but I always assumed it made me stop talking because I was trying to be polite to the customer and when I hear a voice from their end, I'd stop and listen.

It took me about a week to learn to just keep talking when I heard my own voice, and not someone else's.

After having lived in Florida most of my life (no public transport other than horrible busses) I recently visited NY and Boston. I was pretty impressed with both of them. If that kind of system existed here, I'm sure I'd use it.

But as you point out, 'mass transit' in America is largely a joke. It only exists in the largest population centers, and even there it's pretty lame.

Also, I took a train to NY and Boston when I went. That was pretty bad, too. Half the line had cars that I wouldn't use again on a bet, and the other half was just adequate. No wonder so few people will use a train here! And... I looked up the route for a trip I wanted to take later this year. You apparently can't get there from here, despite rail stations existing at both ends. Ugh.

I couldn't find anything in it to suggest they had actually done a double-blind trial, or even a half-assed blind trial, so their results are purely correlation, and not causation, despite the time they spent talking about causation. They do suggest that 'hangovers' from the drugs are a cause of traffic accidents and such, though, so they at least thought of that.

No mention about mental stability that I saw.

It'll be a long time before we can be sure it's safe.

However, it could be offered as a way to cut their sentence, or as part of their rehab. I'd fully support them having the option.

I'm okay with infinite backlog. I simply make sure that I know at any given time what my first and second priorities are (in case I finish the first, or get stuck) and then start working. They can change priorities all the want. I told them there was one thing they had to mind, and it was that changing tasks in the middle of something was extremely stressful, and they shouldn't do that if they can help it. Since then, new priorities are always 'after you finish what you're on' and everything is fine. They change their priorities every day, so long as I can get out of what I'm doing that quickly.

That's what they pay me for, and they appreciate it.

While I disagree that "Agile" never works, I totally agree that "agile" always works. If it's not working, then you're not "agile"... The very definition is to do what works best and not do what doesn't. Unlike "Agile" which has a set of prescribe methods to do things, just like Waterfall does.

The collector will be orbiting, too.

Why did they bar him from using the internet? What are they afraid he'll do, start another illegal website?

If they're afraid he'll try to hide evidence, they'd have to cut him off from all contact, since others could easily just do the hiding for him.

Do they bar people accused of telephone fraud from using the telephone?

I'd understand if it was a car or gun, where he could do something stupid with it, but the internet?

I think it's worth noting that #1 could indicate you're screwing yourself, and could still be dealing with a reputable company. If you're not asking for a good enough deal, then the decision is quite a bit easier to make for the VC.

I actually like targeted ads, too. But there are those who don't, and my preferences shouldn't override their privacy. In fact, I like to know about new things, so long as they don't annoy me with the process.

But it should also be noted that targeted ads existed before tracking cookies. A gamer-oriented forum should be targeting gamers, and it did. No big surprise there. The new targeted ads target the person directly, based on their history. I'm not even sure that's better! If I'm on a gaming forum, and see an ad for gaming stuff, I've already been primed to want it by the forum itself. I'm in that community and thinking about that kind of thing already. If they give me an ad for one of my other hobbies, I'm probably not in the mood to think about that right now, and they've lost me.

The newspaper wasn't killed by lack of targeted advertising, anyhow. It was caused by lack of readers. What's the point in targeting readers you don't have?

This doesn't block ads, it just protects people's privacy from being abused by them. The companies will still be able to show ads. For targetted ads, they'll have to use the same techniques they use for TV and print media, and those things haven't died yet.

I've actually considered it, but I have 2 main problems:

1) It's expensive and time-consuming. While I want to enjoy the site, I don't want to run the site.

2) I'm a very heavy-handed moderator. I recognize this failing in myself enough that I wouldn't put me in charge of that. It would be okay at first, but who knows how long it would be until someone annoyed me and I abused me power? No thanks, I don't need that stress.

Have you found a place for good topic-based sharing of links and information and discussion that doesn't allow this kind of sickness?

I've been increasingly dissatisfied with Reddit (and most other sites) lately because of the ridiculous groupthink that occurs on them and I'd love to have moderated place for actual discussions on a wide array of topics.

Maybe they were so rabidly insane that any change brought out the worst in all of them? There is such a thing as a customer that isn't worth having. Perhaps there were ~7 million of them on this game.