I doubt a delivery truck would cut down on my carbon emitions. I have to drive to work and home (no public transit is available) and there is a grocery store on my route home, so I stop every day or 2 to pick up what is needed. In essence, the only CO2 emitions are from when I start my car when I'm ready to go home, which should be less than what any delivery truck could emit while either starting in my yard, or idling while unloading, not to mention I have a LONG driveway, which would offset any savings if the truck could either start again or idle with higher efficiency than my relatively new car. I do have a lot of my purchases delivered, but it's all to my office, which sees delivery trucks from most courrier services daily, so truck is usually making a special trip to deliver one box to me. Definatly in urban areas, deliverys could be more efficient due to proximity of houses, and I suppose in rural settings it can help too, but in both settings, the biggest savings would be if people were more careful with scheduling their shopping and errands. I know people who will drive to town (20 minute drive) to pick up 3 things at the store, and other people that zig-zag back and forth around town to go to 100 places, when they could save time and gas by planning their trip first.

Sounds good to me. I love to work, but would love it more if I could afford to survive a couple months at a time between projects that interest me!

In my area mindless manual labor isn't a choice now. I have neighbors who have large vinyards and orchards who are crying because they can't bring in Mexicans to do the spring work. With a wedding this summer, I'd love the extra income, and would gladly spend my 3 free days a week working in their fields for minimum wage, but that's too expensive for them. Importing workers is a lot cheaper, and so the system falls apart.

I know when I have to switch machines again, I'll be going for a no-OS option, slapping on whatever the *nix flavor of the month is, and from there, loading win7 or xp in virtualbox. I don't want a fancier, more beautiful OS, I want an "It simply works " {TM} OS. Nice thing with Virtual machines is that I have them set up for each task, so it's a minimal install with what's needed, on drive or folder mapped to my physical drive to save files, a virtual drive for the OS and programs that reverts to it's known good config every time it boots, plus if I fark it, I can just copy it back from a DVD, and be ready to work again.

The only physical machine install I maintain is win2k on a PII, to run the controler software for my CNC mill. every other machine I own is a barebones install that runs virtual machines, so there is no more Crap, the motherboard dies, and now I need to find a full day to do a full install on a new machine! moments. Just open the box, download VMWARE, and copy whatever VM's I need onto the HDD.

In a cool zone, it might cool the house a little more, but that's where insulation comes in. THe white roof may reflect heat, but the insulation traps the heat already inside. In cold areas, the snow is white, but acts as another layer of insulation. Look at the eskimo population. They lived well in houses made from white ice for thosands of years

Hey if anyone stole my CITI mastercard information, just let me know, and I'll willingly transfer it over. My account is only about $500 overdrawn. Take my account, it would help my credit rating!

If gas was banned, I'd never be able to go anywhere! Seriously, I haven't had to fly since 2006, but will be flying from Burlington VT to Phoenix AZ this fall. I am seriously NOT looking forward to the security checks as things stand now. Even more so, since I'm Canadian, and my girlfriend is american, of perivian descent.

Yep, I've seen that several times. I had parts for a dead server overnighted to my home office, with a promise of delivery before 10:00. I was working in my shop when the truck pulled in. By the time I got to the yard, he was leaving, and had left a notice, even thought there is a card in the window sayin no signature required. By the time I got my keys, the truck was nowhere to be found, so I called Purolator to complain and they could only promise to ask the driver to return IF he called in before he headed on to the next town, otherwise it would be retried the next day. Sorry, I need that parcel NOW! my only option was to pick it up that NIGHT at the office when the truck returned from his run, if he didn't get back durning the day. Well, at 4:30, there was no package, so I drove 30 minutes to the purolator office, and oops, the package wasn't there it had been left at the post office for me to collect, and of course by that point, the post office was closed. The next morning I was at the post office the minute they opened, just to find the package had been sent out for delivery. I returned home, made several calls to reschedule clients, and inform the big client that I should be receiving their parts any minute. Of course the mail delivery passed by while I was on the phone, and they made no attempt to deliver to the door, just left a card in the box saying the package was too big to fit, and I could collect it at the post office after 4:00. A freeking overnight delivery to a full 2 buisness days for me to be able to collect because no one would be bothered to try to deliver it, or wait 1 minute for me to get to the door!

Bah, back in my day, we used to have to manipulate files by toggling the individual bits on a drive! ED made things so much easier.

Been there, done that. I've spent shifts sitting on top in a large dairy barn programming the controller for the cleaning system (a system of chains on tracks that drag th $@#% through the barn to a large piston pump that pushs it out to a holding tank. The control wasn't fancy, but my client was installing a new automated system that involved sensors at various points, and since there were multiple chain loops, timing became a major issue, that took several days to calibrate. Working on a custom designed grain mixer for the same dairy operation was actually even worse. Dealing with the feed involved a lot of dust, while the excrement just sat there, unless the motors were causing it to be moved. THe worst machine I've ever seen was a PC controlling a CNC machine in a wood shop. The sawdust wasn't that dirty compared to other places I've worked in, but that PC should have been sent to the DELL marketing department to promote the durability of their machines. I actually opened it up to install a NIC, but it turned into a huge job cleaning out the sawdust that was basically PACKED into the machine. the fans were struggling to turn, and not moving any air in any useful direction. Then there have been cable runs for the sewage treatment plant, which can only be described as a shitty job. I worked at on site where we were moving the patch pannels to a centralized location, and I looked like a coal miner at the end of every shift there. Can't complain too much though, I chose to do general IT contracting in a rural area instead of taking a nice desk job in the city. It gives me the freedom to live on a farm without a horrible commute, and I have flexible hours, and interesting challenges.

Something must be working to stop the spam. My mail logs are showingg that my daily spam is now ONLY 73% of all email passing through my server. THis time last year it was hovering around 98%. I'm also seeing a slight reduction in bandwidth fees, but then blocking youtube and facebook probabaly had more of an impact...

Good question. As long as I have burbon, I don't need to go anywhere.

MAybe not playing farmville will improve my credit score?

Yes, it's a great idea. Now, it's still near dark when I get up at 6:00, I have to use lights in my barn to see what I'm doing with my animals. Then just light when I drive to work, and wow, it's light for an extra hour at night after i'm home, and taken care of the animals for the evening. Thanks, but I like it to be light when I get up in the morning!

Good question. My lawn is simply clover and alphapha and whatever weeds have taken over. In the late spring, early summer, its nice and green, and needs mowing about every 5 days. Mid summer, to autumn, it stays fairly green, and needs mowing about every 10 days, with no water added. Of course, everyone wants the nice perfect sod, that sucks water like there's no tomorrow, or turns brown. Simply use vegetation that is natural to the region, and accept what happens. if you don't like the appearance, then invest in astroturf. No need to water, mow, or maintain in any way!