Bay area bridges eliminating toll collectors!

This article spends about three lines on the benefits and several paragraphs on the drawbacks.  

Let me correct that a bit:

Even as an infrequent commuter, I really love the fact that I'm no longer slowed down by 2-20 minutes just to hand someone $5.  That time doesn't benefit anyone -- it's a secondary toll, a "cost of collection" that simply vanishes.  Sometimes, though, the lines are long enough that I can't get to the fastrak lane without waiting for a while in the toll lanes.  

It's true that their implementation could be better -- rental cars should have fastrak support built in, with the bill automatically added into the rental.  The places to buy prepaid passes should be next to the bridge, not somewhere else.  Maybe there should be one toll-collection line kept open, and people will quickly learn not to use it anymore.  

I didn't realize some people form social relationships with their toll collectors, but it seems like the loss of brief social interaction with them is more than outweighed by the gain in social interaction you'll get by having more time at your destination.  

Kids these days... (people's memories are short)

Every now and then when people complain about the music that "kids these days" listen to, I have to remind them of things like this from the '80s:
 

It seems as if when people reach the age of 30 or so, they forget everything that happened before age 18.

Dear Livejournal: Spammers are going to kill your business.

I am tired of Russian spammers getting lj accounts and then using them to make comments on my blog.  I really should not have to remove 2-3 per day.  I don't want to restrict comments to friends only.