July 31, 2007
July 30, 2007
Thoughts on Glasgow
In no particular order:
- Boy, everyone here sounds like Charlie Mackenzie
- Any city with a river named Clyde running though it is OK in my book
- Guinness really does taste better the closer to Ireland you are
- The city centre is quite easy to walk, with two main pedestrian only streets: Buchanan Street & the nearly-impossible to pronounce Sauchiehall Street
- Nowhere is the failure of unfettered free-markets more apparent than in UK train stations. Glasgow has six main stations, and London has 18 stations! Not that one giant station would be feasible, but the National Rail system has been undoing the Gordian Knot for the last 60+ years and there are lessons here.
- On the flight into GLA there was a whole bagpipe troupe returning to Scotland from a competition and the Australian national rowing team leaving Scotland after their competition. Think of the possible combinations of the two competitions!
- Charles Rennie McIntosh had a keen eye for proportion and material tectonics.
- How many mobile phone stores does a single high street need, anyway?
- A word: Haggis.
More later.
July 26, 2007
Faceball: your face, our balls
those Flickr people have all the fun
July 25, 2007
President Bush wants to take away uninsured children's government care
And their lollipops, too. The gumption!
July 24, 2007
Things have been quite around here for a bit since I've been working on a newer website: Smogr.com, an urban website of sorts
It is so web 2.doh it has an "r" at the end!
-
The debate last night was supposedly GOATSE'd - but I think this is fake (no video or screen caps).
Vinokourov fails Tour doping test
OK, I've had about enough of this nonsense
July 21, 2007
If you, like myself, have never read a single Potter book and was wondering what exactly happens at the end, read Wikipedia's article, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and you can short-circuit 7 volumes of questionable literature
Hypothetical questions they should ask at the presidential debates
As you are flying home from Moscow—having told the world you will never deal with terrorists—hijackers, posing as reporters, seize Air Force One.... I'll start with Senator Obama. Do you negotiate with the hijackers in the hope of saving lives, or do you flee into the bowels of the craft, then pick them off, one by one, with makeshift shanks and your bare hands?
July 20, 2007
Thriller as performed by inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center & via JL Indian Thriller (later) sc reminds us of Robot Chicken's Michael Jackson
Far Away Clients, Projects
My day entails phone calls from the above time zones. Which makes the day very long.
July 19, 2007
July 18, 2007
July 17, 2007
Machinist: Tech Blog find complete final Harry Potter book leaked online, doesn't post any spoilers, or link to the website or to the book, and the
Potter fans freak outI'm waiting for the Snape killed Dumbledore prank to happen again
TSA and electronics: My Encounter with the TSA
Even when I take something as simple as a microphone through security, I get a dirty look. And some guy singing,
Microphone check, One, Two.
. Every. Time.
July 16, 2007
July 15, 2007
July 14, 2007
The 10 Best Moments from 30 Rock
Mind Grapes
makes the cut, but what aboutShe's so smooth!
?
July 13, 2007
On a lighter note, check out this insane view of the YouTube - 1990 Match Sprint World Championships:
I can barely ride straight half the time, and these guys bring their fixies to a standstill and hold it. Impressive.
Rationing health care: How I almost died waiting for treatment in the USA
People can STFU about rationing this, or market that. Insurance companies are inherently evil places created to do only one thing: minimize paying for procedures in order to maximize profit.
Calling all cars - Escaped Elephant
:Dispatch, the one outstanding elephant ... is just eating somebody's tree
The Canadian accents make this great...
Washington City Paper, Members Only:
Late Night Shots is herding the next generation of assholes through Georgetown bars. And you're not invited.
, or as Yglesias notes,...a DC social club for young conservative assholes.
BigMediaMatt on the irony of weather-dependent walkable cities
Progress
These are tough, tough boys here.
Geoffroy Lequatre, who lost the battle with a collision with a musette (food bag) bravley finished the stage 21 minutes after the penultimate finisher:
The crowd had dwindled away and not many people were there to witness the single bravest moment of stage five, 44 minutes after stage winner Filippo Pozzato nosed across the line and 21 minutes after the penultimate finisher.
His face contorted with agony, shorts ripped to shreds, thigh looking like a side of meat, and fingertips all stripped of skin, Lequatre crossed the line and simply collapsed in tears. These are tough, tough boys here.
Indeed.
July 12, 2007
A list of people who could bring Rudy Giuliani's campaign to the ground
this man is beyond bad...
July 11, 2007
Double Happiness to be renovated & reopened to the Boat & celeb crowd
sad...
Transport for London released fifth annual Congestion Charging Impacts Monitoring Report (download here)
Early Childhood Lead Exposure and Criminal Activity Later In Life
July 10, 2007
Rep. Brodsky Represents NYC's Wealthiest Car Commuters
Manhattan-bound drive-to-work constituents in Brodsky's Westchester district earn on average $176,231 annually—the highest of any New York county in the metropolitan area
- surprising...We Love to Fly and It Shows: Inside the World of Mileage Running
The FlyerTalk crowd is insane, but in a very geeky way
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: A Letter to Optimus Prime From His GEICO Auto Insurance Agent.
Your policy with GEICO only reimburses you for accidents that occur while you are engaged in the reasonable use of your truck and trailer. As I told you when you originally purchased the policy, GEICO does not offer Megatron coverage, Starscream coverage, Soundwave coverage, Decepticon coverage, or Energon-blast coverage. Those are just not the types of damages we would expect from reasonable use.
Dancing Stormtrooper
July 9, 2007
Vice President Dick Cheney favorability rating is 13 percent
this is nearing Dan Quayle levels
New York Bike Share Project:
A Summer Charette Produced By The Forum for Urban Design and Storefront For Art and Architecture
Where the City Schleps - New York Times on the NYC Subway
Yes, we all know it is complex; read a map before you get here, and it might make more sense
Video: Kids ignite 30,000 match heads
the explosion creates a tiny mushroom cloud
NYC Congestion Charge being torpedoed by Westchester
Looks like upstate is again blocking progress in New York City:
As part of a long-term effort to improve air quality and ease traffic, the mayor’s plan would charge most drivers $8 to travel below 86th Street in Manhattan between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.
The plan has been endorsed by a number of environmental groups but has aroused widespread concern in the Democratic-led Assembly, where a number of members want to proceed cautiously on such a fundamental change to the city’s traffic management.
The new report characterizes the plan as a regressive tax that puts most of the burden on poor and middle-income drivers, and cautions that the charges would need to be raised substantially to have the desired effect of easing congestion.
This isn't a snarky question: anyone know why something wholly within the City of New York boundaries is being subjected to the State of New York? I am sure there is a logical explanation.
Because seeing a doyenne legislator from Westchester gumming up the works because his commuters, who don't pay New York City taxes, are upset that they finally have to foot the bill for using and clogging up our streets.
Some easy way to alleviate the problems outlined by those living outside New York City:
- Make a percentage of all congestion charge payments tax deductible;
- Mandate a percentage of the revenue to extend mass transit outside the city core;
I'm sure there is room to negotiate on this matter, if Albany isn't too afraid of change.
Update @ 14:38:
Surprise, surprise: According to Streetsblog, Rep. Richard Brodsky has received $16,500 in donations from the parking industry over the past five years:
Yet, over the last five years Assembly Member Brodsky has accepted at least $16,700 in campaign contributions from parking garage interests, according to the New York State Board of Elections. Brodsky's parking industry contributions far exceed those of any other state legislator (though Queens City Council Member David Weprin leads the pack with his
$20,500$40,650 haul). Specifically, Brodsky's contributions have come from the Metropolitan Parking Association and the Mallah family, the owner of several parking companies and sometimes referred to as New York City's "parking royalty."
The Mallah family has interests in several parking corporations including Merit Parking, Mallah Parking Corporation, Advance Parking, and Icon Parking. Shelly Mallah is also associated with New York City's Metropolitan Parking Association and has made campaign contributions to its political action committee.
Vincent Petraro, the executive director of the Metropolitan Parking Association, a trade group representing about 800 lots and garages in New York City, has served as an intermediary for political campaign contributions for Sheldon Mallah, according to the NYC Campaign Finance Board. Petraro is also a board member of Queens Chamber of Commerce and chairman of its Legislative Advocacy Committee.emphasis original
July 6, 2007
Plans for Moynihan Station Revived
includes moving Madison Square Garden to the west, and erecting two skyscrapers, one being as tall as the Empire State Building
Soldiers out of Cable
July 5, 2007
I shit you not: National Healthcare: Breeding Ground for Terrorism
guess which
news
station aired this?James Fallows, reports that according to Gary Hart and Lee Hamilton, Lynn Cheney wanted to start a war with China back in the pre-9/11 era because
There was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because they felt that the Republican Party didn't do as well
according to Francis FukuyamaRemember the April, 2001 China-U.S. Aircraft Collision Incident (pdf)? I don't mean to suggest that this incident was planned, but it could have very well gone up Kahn's Escalation Ladder. These people are insane.
Fred Thompson was a mole for Nixon during Watergate
surprise, surprise
Ugly Airline Math: Planes Late, Fliers Even Later
I do a lot of flying, and have noticed in the last 6 months that flights are more delayed and at full capacity (and more expensive)
Inversion by sculptors Dan Havel and Dean Ruck
The Suburban Paradox
San Ramon suburban sprawl 2005-10-15 057, originally uploaded by Exuberance.com
BiggestMediaMatt on The Suburbanist Paradox:
Whenever I say that one key pillar of a viable strategy to curb global warming ought to be efforts to promote high-density living arrangements, I'm invariably confronted by a kind of circular argument that Ross captures well here, channeling Joel Kotkin but with my emphasis added:
The traditional unipolar urban downtown isn't going to make a comeback: Young couples with families can't afford to live there, and aging Baby Boomers don't want to. The American city of the future will be more of an archipelago of suburbs than the kind of one-downtown organism bred by the Industrial Revolution: "We aren't creating more New Yorks and Chicagos; we're creating more Los Angeleses. (sic)
There's the paradox. The urbanist proposal isn't "hey, jerks, why don't you all move to dense downtowns." Rather, the proposal is something like "why don't we impose carbon taxes so that things like driving long distances and heating or cooling large detached structures are priced in accordance with their social cost? Why don't we stop having the federal government heavily subsidize driving cars as the preferred mode of transportation? Why don't we have more areas that allow for high-density zoning, thus reducing the cost of urban housing?" It's not that we urbanists are unaware that many people live in low density areas because its (sic) cheaper, it's precisely that we are aware of this fact that makes us believe that the "traditional unipolar downtown" could make a comeback.
The idea that urbanity consists of only a unipolar urban downtown
is quite rubbish: anyone been to New York City, Los Angeles or even Minneapolis? No one wants to take your car away, only better distribute the massive monies and subsidies pouring forth as a sea of asphalt into transportation types which are functionally better and more democratic. Additionally, the scare words central planning
(c.f.) which inevitable come up, much to my comrade's dismay, is so fucking inane; please tell me who exactly plans & pays for the massive amounts of new sewer, water, road & the sundries of governmental services suburbs require?
The Tysons Corner that Could Be
I'm not well versed in District transportation problems (besides the mystifying DC cab rates & maps), but on the surface connecting the Metro System to Dulles seems to be a great idea. Alas, the problem is always in the details. In this WaPo story, Path of Diminished Potential, regarding the Tyson's Corner section:
Critics of Metrorail's proposed 23-mile extension to Dulles International Airport say there is no better illustration of the lost opportunity to transform Tysons from a traffic-clogged edge city to a functioning real place than the plans to preserve that interchange. Routes 7 and 123 will be maintained as arterial highways; Route 7 will even be widened. And the rail line's aerial route down the middle of the highways, critics say, will make it all the more difficult, if not impossible, to remake 7 and 123 into something less -- and Tysons into something more.
Below, see the proposed route (pdf) and check out the Dulles Metrorail System Map:
The only additional commentary I really have, besides express connections from busy nodal points to the city center make sense, is that sometimes time and inertia keep an area - for no good reason - in complete stasis. It appears that Tysons Corner (sans apostrophe) is at this very point, and only a concerted effort by all levels of government and the populace can change this. Tyler Cowen seems to think this is a travesty, but I don't know enough specific on why Tysons Corner is one of America's most successful 'edge cities'
. This doesn't happen very often especially when large infrastructure elements are at play; Boston's Big Dig is the only project which comes close to reinvigorating the urban landscape on the scale which the residents of Tysons Corner dream of.
Did "The Bomb" end the War?
Lanterns, originally uploaded by Nab'in
Not to bring Yalta historical revisionism up again along with the US's proclivity to underplay Russia's invasion of Japan, an interesting paper in this quarter's International Security entitled The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima (em>pdf) should put any doubt vis-a-vis Russian involvement to bed. A quote:
This article reexamines the widely held presumption that nuclear weapons played a decisive role in winning the war in the Pacific. Based on new research from Japanese, Soviet, and U.S. archives, it concludes that the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, played virtually no role in this outcome. A comparison of the responses of high-level Japanese officials to the bombing and the Soviet invasion on August 9 makes clear that the Soviet intervention touched off a crisis, while the bombing of Hiroshima did not. The article examines the evidence that, to save face, Japanese leaders blamed the bomb for losing the war. Finally, it sketches the profound impact this reappraisal may have on how nuclear weapons will be viewed in the future.
...
The bomb offered a convenient explanation to soothe wounded Japanese pride: the defeat of Japan was not the result of leadership mistakes or lack of valor; it was the result of an unexpected advance in science by Japan’s enemy.
The bomb as a tactical weapon gave the U.S. a clear advantage, but to quote myself:
The Japanese ignored the Potsdam Conference (26 July 1945), calling for Japan's surrender, until 9 August - after the Soviet Union invaded Japanese-held Manchuria. This was two days after the US dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Only after the second atomic bomb on 9 August on Nagasaki, and after the Soviets had invaded, did Japan begin to seriously consider unconditional surrender. World War Two would not have ended if the Soviets did not enter the war, partly due to the Japanese fear of the Soviets. Japan and the then Russia had been antagonists for quite some time prior to World War Two, with Japan defeating Russia in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
Reviewing the historical record makes clear that Japan's capitulation hinged on the U.S. continued bombing and forthcoming invasion, and 1,500,000 Russian troops rapidly moving through Manchuria toward the Home Islands.
July 4, 2007
Happy Independence Day
231 years ago, rich white men decided they about had enough of English rule, and decided to form a more perfect union. Good thing they did.
I think the words of Trong Van Din sum up today:
When my family arrived in this country four months ago, we spoke no English and had no money in our pockets. Today, we own a nationwide chain of wheel-balancing centers. Where else but in America, or possibly Canada, could our family find such opportunity? That's why, whenever I see the Stars and Stripes, I will always be reminded of that wonderful word:
flag!
Have a happy 4th, grilling and blowing things up at your leisure.
July 3, 2007
Video: NBC
FoxNews Guys Attack Harmless Charity Mascot In Streetout of all the press people I've met in my life, television news guys are the worst
Beijing Aquatics Center
Wired has an essay on the by PTW Architects. Some interesting quotes:
"Our engineers became obsessed with the concept of bubbles," says PTW project director John Bilmon. Combing through existing literature on the structure of bubbles and foam, PTW and Arup discovered an old physics problem originally elaborated by Lord Kelvin in the 19th century that concerns the most efficient method of subdividing space in equal-volume cells. Kelvin proposed that the answer involved identical geometric bubbles. But in 1994, Denis Weaire and Robert Phelan, physics professors at Trinity College, did one better by finding a more efficient way of subdividing space with a foam that used two bubbles of equal volume but different shape. That mathematical foam became the basis for the Water Cube.
Read more and see additional photos on Flickr.
July 2, 2007
Bush Commutes Libby's Prison Term
Nice to see the President commuting the POTUS aide (he worked for Bush also), who is a Felon
Keep Calm, Carry On
The above posters were ubiquitous in London during World War II, and as seem fitting today as they were 60+ years ago. Especially considering what's been happening in the UK. One wonders if the US media's only response to world events is to breathlessly over hype them beyond any connection with reality; especially regarding three recent examples of amateur-hour class acts.
Jeffrey Milstein: Plane Spotter Extraordinaire
Qantas Boeing 747-400 by Jeffrey Milstein
São Paulo: The City That Said No To Advertising
IMG_7558, originally uploaded by Tony de Marco
Check out Tony de Marco's set São Paulo No Logo which documents São Paulo's removal of all Advertising.
July 1, 2007
Danah Boyd has an interesting new essay: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace