Found this via Yahoo Finance:

Unfortunately, commuting is a bitter pill that rarely gets easier to swallow. Researchers have found that people have the capacity for “hedonic adaptation” — in laymen’s terms, the ability to adjust to extreme circumstances, both happy and unhappy.

For instance, classic studies of lottery winners and paralyzed accident victims found only small differences in life satisfaction between these groups and control subjects. But certain experiences — living near a noisy highway, for example — become more aggravating over time, something scientists call “sensitization.” Commuting falls into this category.

A 2004 study by two economists at the University of Zurich found that people tend to overestimate what they’ll get by commuting long distances — i.e., a bigger paycheck, a more prestigious position, the ability to buy more stuff — and underestimate what it will cost them in stress, health, and loss of connection to family and friends.

I hold in my hands a copy of the September 1994 edition of Boardwatch Magazine. This was from back in the day when BBSes were in their prime, and the Internet was just about to take over. There are ads in here for 28.8 k modems, eSoft’s TBBS system, and deltaComm’s Telix Communications Software for Windows, which includes support for RIPscrip graphics.

Also, in this edition, is a column from John Dvorak:

I have a preoccupation with fads. When I see a spike in activity such as with the Internet, I immediately think to myself: FAD!

[He goes on to discuss fashion fads… then … ]

So why did interest begin to spike? Some might argue that cheap 14.4 kbps modems allowed newcomers to get into online activity and they all piled onto the Internet because it’s cheap and easy. This of course makes no sense because a newcomer doesn’t get a modem one day and log onto the net the next day. It’s not trivial. You have to have software, and you need a way to get onto the net in the first place. You aren’t born with this knowledge.

[He speculates for a few more paragraphs]

Let’s look at free mail. Free mail seems to be a societal trend and part of a communications revolution. Much of the activity on the 50,000 BBSs around the country is about free mail.

[He discusses the free mail phenomenon, what happened when Prodigy cut off free, unlimited mail, and how some kid named Morris nearly brought down the Internet by sending a worm virus over email.]

You can put two and two together as well as I can. The Morris case dragged on long enough to put the Internet into the public mindset as a commonplace. It was after the Morris case that the growth of the net began. And the growth began to spike after Prodigy cutt off the free mail. I don’t see these things as coincidences. What I do see though is the other aspects of the Internet as a fad and the Internet as a network for free mail as a trend. All the fancy stuff you can do on the Internet will still be do-able, but people will fall back to using the net for free mail and not much else. There are better ways to get information than from the Internet, let’s face it. But there is no better way to deliver mail to Bulgaria! The net will eventually go back into being the low-profile academic and professional meeting place where professors can exchange ideas and documents. Its use as a secure place for business to do transactions will never come to fruition. Simply put, the net is too easy to hack. And its usefulness as a source of information is questionable.

So at the coalition, we’re looking for a web developer to create three sites for us. I figured that a posting in Craig’s List might be a good place to go. This would be a great web gig for anyone looking to raise their profile a little bit — not that it would be so difficult for a good developer to raise his or her profile just by having a great blog and showing off some über skills.

I’ve learned my lesson.

Most web developers responding through Craig’s List apparently don’t know how to read a job posting. A specific instruction is given — send your resumé and cover letter to this email address — and most of the responses don’t include either of the two. One respondent even sent a response without a resumé or cover letter to the wrong email address!

Some of the responses were clearly not local. I suppose we could outsource this work to India, but it wouldn’t feel quite right.

Out of 21 responses, only one featured a website that demonstrated a clear commitment to XHTML/CSS web design standards, rather than nested tables. This is a sure sign the world of web design is in trouble — not that my personal web site is any better, but I don’t consider myself a web developer
For anyone who reads this, if you’re a web developer looking for a little extra work, feel free to contact the coalition for more information and a copy of the job posting. Just be sure you can demonstrate a good commitment to good design standards.

• Mark Taylor wins the primary over Cathy Cox. Now he’s got a bigger fight: unseating an incumbent whose approval ratings are not that bad.
• Ralph Reed loses. As it turns out, at least a bare majority (56%) of Georgia’s Republican voters are not that nuts. Or, perhaps there were enough “crossover” votes from moderates who would barf over the prospect of Lt. Gov. Ralph.
• We can essentially thank the Newslady for running the Lt. Gov. Dem. pri. to an R-O.
• Democrats put the red light on Reddy. Hailed in the press for being smart, he was apparently not smart enough to knock on doors and connect with average voters.
• In Sen. District 17, John Douglas is vulnerable. His was the only uncontested race to not get 100% of the vote, as far as I can tell. You heard that right. As of right now, with 92% of precincts reporting, John Douglas received 7,323, or 79.7%, of the vote in an uncontested primary. Perhaps that has something to do with his support for the tax on commerce. It would be reassuring to know that Republicans aren’t that nuts to re-elect a Boortz clone. We can really thank Mike Crotts, who lost his fight to actually appear on the ballot. Still, there is a Democrat in the race, Silvia Delamar. Given the numbers (his 7,323 votes, versus Silvia’s 5,585), it’s unlikely Douglas is all that vulnerable.

Speaking of D vs. R primary numbers, there are a couple worth pondering:

• Jill Chambers-R received 597 votes, versus Bob Roche-D’s 1,166. I still wouldn’t underestimate her vote-getting abilities by any means.
• With 97% of precincts reporting, the Republican Gov. primary recorded 416,749 votes, versus 477,771 in the Democratic primary. That’s a difference of more than 60,000 votes. Still, I wouldn’t take that as much of a good sign for Taylor. Still, the Republican Lt. Gov. primary got even fewer total votes — 404,310.

Meanwhile, in Cobb County:

• Helen Goreham’s seat was the only contested seat up for the Cobb County Commission. Apparently, five candidates thought she was vulnerable. She wasn’t. If anything is uniting West Cobb at the moment, it’s the fight against traffic and the effects of sprawl.
• I watched a debate recently that included School Board candidates from Districts 4 and 6. In District 4, John Abraham and Chris Callaghan competed against one another. At one point, Abraham suggested it would be a good idea to move bus stops further away from the kids so that the kids would get more exercise. Honestly, it was the only nutty-sounding idea he had. Overall, Abraham was all positive. Callaghan, meanwhile, sounded something like:
  

  blah blah blah family values blah blah blah John Abraham is really a Democrat blah blah blah I’m an asshole blah blah blah Christian blah blah blah Conservative blah blah blah bully blah blah blah.

  Abraham won.

• In District 6, Cobb School Board Chair Kathie Johnstone was clearly vulnerable, and she had three opponents to offer her that challenge. Kathie somehow had the dubious honor of presiding over a School Board that could do nothing right — laptops, ethics and biology, oh my! With a record of wasting money and making a concerted effort to deprive children of a quality science education, the entire School Board should be vulnerable. Despite that, biology was never a subject brought up in the debates I saw. John Crooks, a Baptist minister, will be going against Kathie in the runoff election. On this issue, everyone seems to skirt the issue.
• The AJC had endorsed John “Eviction Notice” Wiles only because he had weak opposition, not because he was a strong candidate. I expected the weak candidate to get less than 20% of the vote, but Andy “one-issue, and that’s property rights” Rice got 22% of the vote. Could Northwest Cobb do any worse?
• Andy’s wife, Taffy, ran against Earl Ehrhart and got nearly 21% of the vote.

I would like to mention that today’s article in the Living section of the AJC is not about me.

Yeah, I do enjoy coffee (Dunkin Donuts and Waffle House much more than Starbucks), and I have done a little computer programming. But I’m not a freelance programmer, and I’m not 34, and I’m not from Texas, and I am certainly not “fame-seeker” Winter whose life’s goal is to visit every Starbucks in the world.

Neil Peirce, a Washington Post writer covering “regional issues of national importance” recently wrote a snapshot of Atlanta’s transportation story for a national audience:

For Exhibit A of the perils, check what’s happening in fast-growing Atlanta. First, there’s the sheer immensity of what the Georgia Department of Transportation favors. Top example: a widening of Interstate 75 in fast-growing, suburban Cobb County, as it heads into the city, to include an incredible mile-long section of no less than 23 lanes.

The story goes on to mention the proposal to double-deck I-75, and the City of Atlanta moving pulling itself up by the bootstraps with the Beltline initiative.

Somehow it doesn’t seem suprising that metro Atlanta is all at once derided for spending billions of dollars on short-term solutions like I-75, yet praised for also moving forward on long-term, cost-effective solutions like the Beltline.