Commuter rail stations conspiracy

(Or, actually, this is more of an anti-conspiracy).

Commuter rail cars have doors on both sides, because on some stations you exit to the right, and on some - to the left. However, there's often no need to differentiate which side of the platform the train arrives at.

Clearly, it may be more convenient to do one way or another in a city streetcar system:

- stations raised above the ground have one platform, trains arriving on two sides - this design needs only one set of elevators/stairs down to the street level;

- stations that are on the street ("stops" would be a more appropriate name for those) don't need any special ways to get from the platform to the sidewalk and therefore the platform is on the right side of the train.

However, inter-city commuter rail systems, like BART, usually don't have a stop just in the middle of a street - not only because such transit systems usually require a huge parking lot, but also because a 9-10 car train would create quite a traffic distraction if being let loose on the open street. So, as BART stations are already full-fledged stations, using up a lot of land, it would seem strange that some stations have one platform in the middle and some - two on the sides.

Therefore, as it would have been easier - and cheaper! - to build each and every station more or less a copy of others, I can only conclude that varying station layout is intentional, and, as the side of the upcomming exit is not announced, I can only conclude this is done to catch spies. See - a local would know where the exit is, while a spy, no matter how good he is at blending with locals, would not. There are cameras right above each exit on BART, so interested authorities can monitor those who hesitate, or prepare to exit through the wrong door, and then do a background check on them. It's OK if that was just a guy who moved into the area recently, but if that was a member of a foreign diplomatic mission, who is, according to the official consulate's schedule, supposed to be at a trade meeting in another state, then something is obviously fishy.

Dr. Evil's spam

Email spam is ubiquitous these days, and its 'superfluidity' may give it an additional application besides selling stuff to people and hijacking their data and/or machine time.

If you read any detective stories about international assassins, spies and whatnot - and these are the only type of detective stories worth reading - you've definitely noticed how convoluted are the schemes for contacting the guy who spends most of his time in hiding. Every third Saturday of the month come to Piazza del Popolo in Rome, holding 3 red roses and a copy of Sacramento Bee dated exactly 10 days earlier. Now the guy who needs to be contacted has to wander around the square, looking for someone with Sacramento Bee. Thankfully, international assassins have to have sharp eyes, so he will be able to read the issue date, but still... what if Sacramento Bee goes bankrupt?

Or consider the "moles" -- the guys who work quietly in the heart of the enemy's government for years and even decades, only passing the most valuable information or acting in the most critical moments.

How to communicate effectively with these people? Email would be nice, but a permanent email address can be monitored and again, what if you loose the access to it? Thankfully to the cloak-and-dagger people, they don't have to rely on a constant email address. Instead, what they can do is set up an email address -- at any free service, for example -- and just leave it at a few message boards. Then, their handlers call one of those companies who offer "mass mail services" and send the message out to their guy and to the whole world.

Sure, everyone will receive the secret message, but who's going to know if it is a secret message? Do you have a habit of counting spaces at the ends of the lines in Ci41is ads? :p