Forget the terrorist watch lists, I’m almost fearful the next couple of elections will be a bloodbath if liberals and conservatives are allowed near each other. I’ve been away and busy for a while but I’ll chime in on a few of the more recent controversies, statements and curiosities I have running through my head:
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In Virginia, on I81 southbound (not sure about northbound) there is a sign that says trucks operating under 65 mph need to stay to the right. The subtle irony being that 65 is the speed limit, or maximum speed permitted by law. You might think setting a speed floor might be more appropriate.

Too good to pass up:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234674

A report being released on behavior showed a tendancy of “green” buyers to lie, cheat and steal more frequently than other buyers.

I have a penchant for technology. So I am often amused by, interested in, and spend vast quantities of time looking over different ideas for building a low cost, on-going cost-efficient home. I’m always driven to the point of laughter when I see many of the so-called “green living” websites talking about affordable housing – only to find out that the costs of actually building many of their fantasies will run about the same price per square foot as a traditional, stick-built home.

So what is the yard-stick measurement of affordable? Is it affordable to the smug, urban hipster? Or is it affordable to the every-day joe?

One of the ideas I’ve been working with in my head is the idea of building out a shipping container home. They are often mentioned as a low-cost building tool that can be used in a variety of ways. And I agree to a certain point. Shipping containers can be a low cost way to recycle some old steel into a modern home. But by the time most of the plans I see on the Internet are finished being built, there is nothing but a small living space with the price tag of a large home.

Call me a heretic. Maybe I’m just a tad bit more skeptical than others. But I’ve been lumped in to a category of miscreants, rabble-rousers, and wholesale kooks because… well… I’m skeptical. And it is funny with respect to the fact that you might usually place me on the side with the so-called enlightened, liberal progeny. But the global warming issue is still chapping my hide, years after the science world reached “consensus” on the “facts”.

I don’t argue that man has no impact on the nature surrounding him. Man is a very key part of the natural world. I might concede that man is a key contributor of CO2 gasses in the atmosphere. It would be, to this mind, a specific, unseen cost associated with our activities here on the earth.

I might concede that CO2 is a significant greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. But where I diverge from the pack comes when we start seeing scientists whip out their crystal balls, begin having alternative science sessions and dictating the very real events that will take place tomorrow.
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Osama Bin Laden resurfaces to chastise the United States (and other economically successful nations) for… not doing enough about global warming. Next up, a power point presentation and Nobel Peace Prize…

Jeff Atwood writes an excellent and well-needed post on my least favorite technology: email

Coming out of corporate america, email is, above all, the most misunderstood, poorly executed communications medium available. In fact, I’d rank email below Twitter. Or maybe Twitter is getting bumped up higher because of its restrictive nature.

So, let me be clear:

Email has a use. I use it when I need to convey information in writing that might generally be too long or complex to write out in a chat client or when I need to formulate a response that can’t be given immediately that will take more than a sentence or two.

Whenever I see an email that consists of one or two lines, I cringe. When I have someone ask me if I read the ‘email’, I cringe. I cringe because it adds weight to Jeff’s point. It also reinforces my long standing habit of *not* reading email *unless* someone asks me about it. Why? I find it much faster to actually use email. I can sift through my email when needed rather than as a trained monkey pulling a lever.

Now, in corporate American, if you really want to anger a boss make him or her constantly ask whether you got the email. They hate it. But that one second of asking saves me countless hours non-productivity. Instead of wasting precious time organizing, managing, and cleaning up, I just wait until it is asked. I call it Just-In-Time-Annoyance-Email.

Let’s just say this approach is *not* an efficient approach *at all*. But I’ve been witness, and party to, using email as a chat client – something it is clearly not designed for. I think anyone who has worked in a production capacity in an IT shop knows what it is like when something blows up. Emails start flying everywhere. You have someone who changes the subject or fails to follow a protocol in the subject line and then you have a gigantic mess on your hands. Then you have streams of conversations that become circular – or even worse, conversations that break off into their own little world where nothing is communicated at all. Add on to all of this the massive FAIL committed by someone abusing mailing lists and you have one fine mess.

I’ve even thought about setting up a mail filter that works much like a challenge-response system for spam. Basically, you have to pay me to read your email unless I manually override it (i.e. you tell me I need to read the email). This would get me around people sending me useless emails devoid of any substance because an actual, tangible cost is incurred in the form of money. Now that would be cool.

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