After reading this thread I could not help but remember how my last package was delivered. The package was shipped using Fed Ex, but it arrived via USPS. Fed Ex flew it across the country, then dropped it into the mail for the last hundred miles. That tells me it's more economical for them to use the USPS instead of their own trucks for the last leg of the journey.

One interesting aspect about this storm is the snowfall. Snowfall is expected in WV and KY. Moisture from the storm is wrapping around into cold air in the higher elevations. A hurricane producing snow, how unusual! http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT3+shtml/291149.shtml?

I've noticed that when companies start to go overboard with the amount of time and/or project tracking detail people need to record, employees resort to just making stuff up. I'm not saying they out-right lie, but because it's impossible to have a system detailed enough to record every little thing that may happen in a work day, people will often just pick a generic bucket to dump time into for things they don't remember or don't know how to categorize.

This defeats the purpose of installing these types of systems. Instead of simply not knowing exactly what employees are spending their time on, they now have an inaccurate or down-right false picture of what employees are doing. This can lead the management to make the wrong decisions on things such as when to hire or how to allocate resources, especially when they believe the data over their lower level managers.

One thing I've always wondered: If the market for the most part trades based on other trades, then it is basically trading with itself. It is a closed system, occasionally infused with data from the real world. What meaning then does the stock price have?

As I understand it, supposedly the market arrives at a price based on its perception of the value of the underlying company, with its future prospects and the time value of money factored in. Unless these algorithms are taking this data into account, I'm not sure this idea is true now. After all, these algorithms are the ones setting the price. If they are not looking at the underlying company while setting the price, then the price they set has nothing to do with the underlying company or its prospects. Of course, there are still trades made that take the fundamentals into account, but as more volume becomes algorithmic volume, then the relationship between the stock price and the underlying value of the company becomes more tenuous.

I remember "The Wall at the Edge of the World" by Jim Aikin and "The Shattered World" by Michael Reaves.

The first novel is about a dystopia set in the future. Mankind consists of a small totalitarian, telepathic, hive-like society. The old world was destroyed by this society and has long since returned to a wild state. However, small groups of ordinary survivors still remain, and when they discover the telepathic society, confict results.

The second novel is a fantasy novel, set in a world that was broken up by magic. I honestly don't remember much of the plot now, but the novel was set in a very original world that I still remember.

No, ED-209! Then, after OCP destroys "Old London", it can start on "Delta City". Delta City certainly looks like the kind of place I would want to live.

There is a good horror/sci-fi/suspense movie here somewhere.

Based on my own experiences, my cable company now tries to discourage technician visits. It takes a week to get an appointment, even if you have no service.

Now, they are encouraging customers to go to the local cable office to pick up their own equipment and install it themselves.

In recent years, the equipment itself has changed. The cable box is now a simple box, without even an on/off button. I think the idea is supposed to be "hook it up, plug it in, it works", requiring no expensive visit. Unfortunately it does not always work that way.

In my case, after hooking everything up and having the cable company register the box over the phone, the box would simply die. I could not even be able to turn it on. Following their advice, I did three exchanges before I lucked out with a phone person who knew what was happening. After entering a series of secret codes using the remote, the box suddenly worked. I don't think the boxes were physically defective at all. It would have been so much easier to have someone come out.

Now if only all of my channels would work...

Wordperfect? Windows 95? What decade are we talking about here? Not only have the horses left the barn, they have established a healthy feral population.

For this subject, it's useful to see tax revenue and expenditures in a pie chart format. Even though this data is a little old, it still provides a good view of the landscape. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget

This reminds me of a short story called "The Carnival" by Michael Fedo. I read it in junior high school. It was a good creepy read. I've always thought it would make a good Twilight Zone episode.

"So, developers do the refactoring on the sly. If they are really honorable, they come in on their own time and implement architectural improvements on their own dime."

I used to have this attitude when I first started out, but I learned the hard way that the best thing a developer can do is leave well enough alone, "first, do no harm". This is especially true for hacked up, patched up code. Chances are, ugly as it is, that code is working as expected, especially if it's old, and you may not be able to figure out all of the subtle behavior. You will miss a few subtleties, and introduce bugs or unexpected behavior in a part of the system that was considered to be correct. In addition, you will have the client complaining "We only agreed to fix this one specific issue. What are you doing making all of these other changes?"

Clients and management what to know exactly where things stand. They don't like surprises.

Sounds like to me that Google's all grown up now.

Everyone is always chomping at the bit to work on something, so you need project managers to make sure that only the right work gets done. If you need a garden shed then don't let them build a skyscraper. Instead direct that extra energy to get some weeds pulled.

I think there may be something behind the idea of hearing voices in white noise. I leave my floor fan on all night in the hallway. Sometimes, I wake up thinking I am hearing garbled voices or screams. When I turn the fan off, it disappears. I wonder if this is an audio illusion. It may be the mind trying to make something sensible out of the fans white noise, in the same way your mind makes faces out of the clouds.