While (I believe) there's been less precipitation then normal here in Pittsburgh, it's been consistently below freezing, so we've had some good snow buildup. And it's not been icy, nor has there been a miserable cold rain. Being a little colder then normal beats the just above freezing cold rain.

I have an old AMC Eagle, an all-wheel drive car designed in 1979 if you haven't seen one and can picture it. It's part car and part Jeep. It drives very well in the snow, and there hasn't been a storm in years where it has had any problems out here.

Once the first few snows get everyone in the mental frame for driving in winter again, it's not so bad driving out there, although I wish a few more people with neither the vehicle nor the skill for driving in the snow would just stay home. Although it often probably is because of our antique labor laws that make them have to go to work for one reason or another.

But, yeah, Cold, snowy and wonderful here.

Bob also gave us that annoying "Search Dog" in XP. It even mocked you when you tried to turn it off!

Price does have a trade off: user productivity.

Some applications, like desktop publishing, graphics, and CAD are still moving fast enough that new hardware and software every few years actually makes enough of an improvement in productivity that it can pay itself back. Someone waiting on a drawing to render on 4 year old hardware is wasting time!

The old London sewer system had a system of gas lamps atop flues that drew the air out of the sewers, and the flame helped reduce the odor of the sewer gases. Most of these sewer problems have been looked at for a couple thousand years now. Electric wires are a new addition, but I'm sure that other ignition sources were problems before.

I'm actually surprised that several hundred gas explosions that rocket 300 pound discs of steel into populated areas is considered so minor, but perhaps the chances of death are much less then I would expect.