Motherfucker -- the UPS website says they tried to deliver my coffee table, but of course no one rang my bell, and there is no note on my door. I'm on the phone with them now, but COME ON.

Amy, I've been doing considerable research on the subject, since I've come to believe I could write a better post- apocalypse novel (without zombies)than many other there now. Most of them don't think through the subject on so many levels, and they so often act as if we went back to 18th century technology, we'd also go back to 18th century social norms. Fat chance.

The peak oil people has worked out some scenarios, although the argument for the end of oil is laughable. The Long Emergency by peak-old guru James Howard Kunstler includes some possibilities, but are unnecessarily pessimistic.

There are a few novels that deal with survival for ordinary families, sans zombies and sadistic warlords. The best recent ones I know are Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It trilogy. There are a million survivalist sites that touch on aspects of this. Maybe someone more accounting-oriented can come up with possible ways for the economy to collapse. There are a lot of crazy conspiracy theories about how it could happen, but I haven't found many sane ones.

I'd be happy to kick so ideas around, since I'm doing it anyway.

My company prides itself on having "military-grade" security, which is apparently why we are still running WinXP and IE 8.

Perhaps CPM would be safer still.

I am trying to remember a comment I read on the election, and can't remember the state--they said it was like Obama's golden snitch--he didn't need it to win, but if he got it, the game was over. Would that have been Florida?

Sounds like Ohio.

Ohio. For sure.

Obama's strategy had been to attempt re-election without OH. They thought OH might be dead to them after 2010 elections. Then the economy started coming back and the auto industry bailout and they saw an opportunity and grabbed it.

Ginger, that sounds great. I'll email your profile address later, if that's good.

Aha. Thanks.

Wow, Romney's ORCA program (that was to track voting for GOTV work for his volunteers) is really getting a lot of coverage. Here's another.

Romney's fail whale: ORCA the vote-tracker left team 'flying blind' (Updated) - POLITICO.com

I think university CS departments will teach this for years as a "what not to do" when rolling out critical new software.

That's fine, Amy.

Perhaps the ORCA creators can teach "what not to do," since I assume they'll be unemployed soon.