I changed my driving patterns after first reading this remarkable essay some years ago. Now I follow what I affectionately call the "zen of driving", to wit: leave a huge gap in front of me, drive at a constant speed where possible [1], avoid using the brakes except in case of emergency, and so on.

On long driving trips through mixed traffic, I have made several observations, some obvious and some surprising:

* Driving in congestion is no longer stressful. It just isn't. (Hence the "zen".)

* Dramatically improved fuel economy.

* It's possible to drive through even wildly erratic traffic (swinging from 100 km/h to 20 km/h) without ever touching the brakes. It becomes a kind of game. Manual transmission helps.

* Some other drivers seem to figure out what I'm doing, and they fall into place behind me at a reasonable distance. I've had people follow me for hundreds of kilometres this way.

* Even though you'd assume leaving a huge gap in front is an invitation for other motorists to cut ahead, they rarely do - especially in congestion. If they do, I just let them race up to the front of the gap and then fall back by a single car length to restore the same gap.

I absolutely swear by this driving method. It's easier on the car, easier on the heart, and even serves to create a bubble of calm around you in an otherwise turbulent flow of traffic.

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[1] Edit to qualify "drive at a constant speed". As I noted later, my speed ranges dramatically based on the congestion level - what remains more or less constant is the safe opening in front of me. Sorry for any confusion with my original choice of words.

Flagged for drama. GTFO, this isn't the Ruby community ;)

I read a quote somewhere (forget where) saying "folks in favor of universal healthcare keep saying 'lets have a debate'. OK, then Mackey's editorial was a PERFECT example of having a debate ... and he's getting castigated for it. This shows that folks in favor of government run healthcare are not really interested in a debate - they are interested in complete victory, with zero dissent. It's an ideology, not a rational position."

I 100% agree.

This is hysterical. They forgot to photoshop his hand.

Clickable links:

http://www.microsoft.com/businessproductivity/default.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/poland/businessproductivity/default...

The thing about OOP is that you need your objects to belong to your solution domain, not your problem domain. If you get this backwards, you will likely be unhappy.

Your pricing may be off by as many as two orders of magnitude.