The Black Hole that is the Government

I remember the first time I sent away for a passport. I was astounded that the government expected me to send my original birth certificate off to some address in New Orleans. I was even more astounded when, about eight weeks later, I received my birth certificate back and then a few days later, received my passport.

My parents are currently going through the same thing. They are taking a cruise that involves one day in Cozumel - which, by the new foreign travel rules, means they have to have a US passport. The sent off their much harder-to-come-by original documents and are currently twiddling their thumbs, waiting. There's not feedback in this system. Either everything works and you get back your most valuable documentation - or you just keep praying until you give up.

I never realized just how frustrating this can be until recently. I e-filed my tax return on April 1st. I bought a house on April 24th. So I submitted an amendment to my tax return that evening. But amendments cannot be e-filed. So, I went to the post office and mailed off a stack of paper containing things like both my Social Security Number and my wifes, our AGI for the year (which is considered a super-secret number when dealing with the government) and our checking account routing information (because we wanted our return direct deposited). Almost two months later, I called the IRS to find out that they never received this stack of papers!

What amazed me was that there is no way to provide active tracking of paper-filed tax returns. They have tracking for e-filed returns, but they are pretty straight-forward. So, I printed a new stack of very important papers and took them down to the post office. I thought I'd play it safe and send them Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. I now have a piece of information I can use to actively track my papers, at least through the postal system. I've dutifully plogged the 20-digit number into USPS.com every morning hoping to see "delivery confirmed". But here it is, seven business days later, and the tracking still says "Processed through Sort Facility, June 19, 2009, 1:43 am, FRESNO, CA 93706".

This piece of "priority mail" is going to a special IRS postal box in Fresno. How is it possible that it's taken a week for the Fresno post office to get it in the right box?

Of course, once it is delivered and confirmed, it passes in to the IRS black box. Sure, they have this "Where's my Refund" thing. But it's unclear what numbers you should put in for an amended return and it doesn't work at all if the IRS hasn't received the information. What happens between the time the USPS says it's delivered and the time the IRS enters it in their system? How long should I wait before assuming my personal details are, once again, spread over Fresno?

Why can I track a $5 book purchased from Amazon.com from the moment I click "order" to the moment UPS drops in on my front step - but my priceless personal information is left to the abyss?

BTW, I called the USPS help number. It had me enter the 20-digit number about three times and kept routing me in circles. I would start going through the menu-maze towards what seemed like the "let me talk to a person" cheese, only to be asked to enter the 20-digit number (and have it painstakingly read back to me by the computer) and hear "Our system shows that your package has not been delivered yet." I did finally get a real person on the phone. I really feel sorry for her, because I'm sure people with real problems, like mine, are about to blow a gasket by the time they actually hear her voice. And, of course, the first thing she does is ask for the 20-digit number. She issued a trace on my package and said someone would get back to me by end of day tomorrow. She also mentioned that packages sent to the IRS should be sent Certified. Why didn't the post office tell me that when I sent it?

Vocaboly

A friend is preparing to take the GRE. He took it before - about 20 years ago - and needs to take it again. One of the most challenging parts of the GRE is the vocabulary section - lots of really vague similes. I decided to give this vocabulary software a spin to see if it would help him.

Vocaboly sports a fairly easy to use interface once you get used to the navigation. Each screen takes up the entire window and you are presented with a "return" button instead of the normal windows navigation - like clicking the X in the upper right corner to close the window.

The demo version only uses the Windows Speech to pronounce words but the licensed version claims to have better voice overs. This is good, because I bet Windows Speech doesn't get some GRE-level words right.

The Free Study mode and quizzes were OK. The "Star War" game was pretty cool - especially in "Meaning" mode where you have to click on the right multiple choice definition to zap a word before it scrolls down the screen.

For GRE prep, though, Vocaboly completely lacks antonyms and synonyms - much less similes. But the basic structure is there and maybe future versions will round things out.

Another gripe - the registration fee is $39.95. That's pretty steep educational software. But it would be reasonable if it did a better job of GRE prep. In fact, I'd recommend to the authors that they sell a basic version for, say, $14.95 and then a GRE-focused one with synonyms, antonyms and similes for $39.95.

The Coming Asymptote

There's this faction of the science and computer world that believes that we are approaching a singularity. The prediction is that either technology becomes sentient or human intelligence is greatly amplified where such technology becomes self-replicating. That this new intelligence will be vastly superior to normal human intelligence - and that we'll no longer be the dominant lifeform on the planet. This theory relies on two conceits. First, all predictions use Moore's Law to project a future of massively powerful computers. Second, that we really understand intelligence and, thus, how to create it.

While I'll leave the artificial intelligence thing for another time... Right now I'm beginning to think that we are seeing technology become more asymptotal - that is, we are hitting a point here processing power is leveling off rather than increasing. For example, Windows Vista has been a flop - partly because of people having issues and partly because it really didn't provide anything better than Windows XP, it just required greater processing power. Windows 7 is likely to suffer a similar fate. We are also seeing the same thing with NetBooks. People are finding that faster doesn't equate to better. That maybe lighter weight and longer untethered use is better. If you read the reviews of Netbooks, most barely bother with benchmarks because they are all almost identical. Even newer revisions, like the Asus Seashell, doesn't offer any more computing power over older models. This ComputerWorld piece is a very good example - Intel is releasing a new Atom CPU that provides no significant processing improvements over the old Atom -but does provide greater power savings.