Archive for August, 2009

Junk mail by spam

Posted in Poll/Quiz on 08/27/2009 07:31 pm by enjanerd

I spent my walk from the office to the metro today contemplating my mail. I have a major backlog of snailmail. But I don’t seem to have any kind of comparable problem with email.

What if there were some way for individuals to register their mailing address and name and associate it with an email address? Companies could then pay to have their mailings distributed via email. Even if it cost as much as postage, the money saved in paper and printing would still be significant.

Could the post office incorporate this? Companies could be assured (as much as they would be with physical mail) that their distribution would go to the appropriate individuals. But people could keep their email addresses private if they so chose. And there would be much less chance of getting mail for years for people who used to live at your address multiple tenants ago.

People could opt in and out as desired, the post office would incur revenue from it while continuing with the potential decrease in mail delivery days. Granted, implementation of this would require more manpower — different from what they currently have at their disposal, I’d assume.

Just thinking out loud, mostly… but I’m selfishly hoping it’ll happen.

 

Decisions, decisions…

Posted in School on 08/14/2009 04:56 pm by enjanerd

The drama that is school…

So I logged into my student account last week to check that I was registered for my class next semester. I was not… and I had a hold on my account which prevented me from registering.

It turns out I’m supposed to fill out an Academic Report every spring. So I have to do that before I can register. Ok, cool. Took ~5 mins, I send to my adviser, then he sends to the person in charge of these forms for the department.

But then it turns out my adviser isn’t officially my adviser. I can’t have him submit that until I have my Plan of Study. And I can’t submit my plan of study until I choose my adviser and 3 committee members. And I can’t choose adviser and committee members until I choose a thesis topic, so I know that the professors I choose are the right ones to support my thesis work.

So. To take a 3-credit class next semester, I need to pick a thesis topic. And soon.