The long way around II:
From Amsterdam to Singapore, via Mongolia. It took 33 days. Now that's what I call a road trip.
« March 2007 | Main | May 2007 »
April 30, 2007
Mosaic Earth:
This is something I've been wondering about myself... How does Google Earth get put together.
Honor bound:
Deborah Prothrow-Stith compares the culture of dueling to the culture of urban violence. I think I get the idea about a historical precedent, at least in very broad terms. But in just about every-other way this comparison fails. Among the counter-arguements:
Duels in America were, more often than not, between adult men who understood the consequences of their actions. Alexander Hamilton was in his fifties when he took on Aaron Burr, the Vice President of the United States, in a duel. Street violence takes place among teenagers, many of whom are still in high school. They don't yet understand the value of life.
Duels were arranged contests, not impulsive sneak attacks as many incidents of urban violence are.
And duels were fought between the two contestants. There was no collateral violence against babies, people in their homes or innocent young women who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
WTF:
ARBC, indeed.
April 27, 2007
Flavonoids:
There's a grassroots movement afoot to fight government meddling into a matter of grave importance: the definition of chocolate. Who said we Americans were politically apathetic.
Transition:
It's not exactly the flying car that I fully expected to be driving by now, but it's a start.
April 26, 2007
Up is down:
It looks like I'm in a (select) minority on the poll question about changing names and designations for Rt 128 / 95 / 93. Just leave things be, I say.
Sure it's confusing, but it's a uniquely Boston-area instance where (as Adam notes) you can be driving on the same road and be going south and north at the same time --and actually be heading east.
Food choices of the stars on trial for murder:
The LA Times is blogging the Phil Spector trial. There's lots of detail, maybe too much.
...Bailiffs brought boxes of leftover food, apparently catered, from the courtroom as the lunch break ended. Visible were brown rice, something a deputy described as chicken kebobs, the chickpea dip called hummus, and pita bread. Another reporter said he saw what looked like fresh sliced pineapple from the meal...
Inquiring minds want to know.
Nice pipes:
In this week's Dig, Chris Faraone writes about the underground market in copper.
April 25, 2007
Invisible viewers:
An op-ed contributor to the Globe accuses PBS of being "paternalistic" and pandering to a "shrinking white audience." Shocking.
I don't know where he got the idea that PBS's audience is shrinking.
In another context:
Being around City Hall is not a pleasurable experience for many people, as indicated by the folks quoted for this article about giving the building landmark status.
But it's not the building itself. It's that damm plaza that makes City Hall seem much worse than it really is. Imagine the despised concrete behemoth set in a green-space with trees, shade and comfortable benches (and free wi-fi that connects to Boing Boing). Now it's not so bad, is it?
As far as landmark status goes, I'd hold off. What's the point? No one's going to demolish it -it would be cost prohibitive with all that concrete.
April 24, 2007
Beautiful day:
Was yesterday's weather "the most perfect weather, ever. In the history of mankind"?
That's how a Mainer, quoted in the Herald, described it. I'm tempted to agree. Last week was too cold, soon we'll be complaining about the heat. With summer just around the corner, yesterday was a sweet spot of sun, temperature and anticipation.
Seized:
An interesting case in front of the Supreme Court could clarify the status of passengers during a car stop.
Two steps forward:
It takes one kind of hero to tear down an oppressive regime and another to build something better. Boris Yeltsin was one, but not the other. Marshall Goldman elaborates in the Globe, Fred Weir in the CSM.
April 23, 2007
Through the looking glass:
Who hasn't, upon visiting the Apple Store, pulled up Photo-Booth and snapped a shot? Well, it looks like an Apple employee put together a compilation and put it to music. See if you're on it!
Why bother?
This post is a blatant violation of Rule #1, but what the heck. It's Monday.
A Globe 'analysis' shows that at least 40 people arrested carrying a gun last year in Boston could be impacted by a proposed law that would keep them from getting drivers licenses. Or at least that's one way to put it. The writers put it another way.
Of the 119 gun offenders convicted in Suffolk County last year whose records were reviewed, 79 have already had their driver's licenses revoked or suspended for other reasons, for offenses from selling drugs near schools to repeatedly failing to appear in court on traffic violations.
Many of those 79 have a long history of motor vehicle infractions. And 18 others are not licensed in Massachusetts for other reasons. Just 22 of the 119 have active licenses, according to the analysis.
Half full, or half empty? And why is the Globe coming out against doing something, even to a limited degree, to impact gun violence? This seems a strange subject for a critical page one expose.
Oh, and on that 'analysis' that forms the basis for the expose, you'll find this, buried much further down in the story.
The Globe analysis, which sampled a quarter of those convicted last year, was not scientific. But the findings are consistent with what law enforcement specialists said they would expect to find.
What does that second sentence mean, anyway? It sounds to me like a circular argument made in support of a story that has no point. Very disappointing work. This would have been more appropriate on the op-ed page.
(Disclosure, see About)
April 22, 2007
Out standing in his field:
If you didn't catch Rich Little on CSPAN performing at at the White House Correspondent’s dinner last night, it was pretty bad. Here's one review. And from Mitchell Freedman, an interesting parallel to an old Lenny Bruce routine.
Resorting to caricature:
I fully support that journalists should look for stories that highlight injustices against the little guy. Who would, otherwise? Prisoners, more than just about any other segment of society, need someone to look after their rights. But today's formulaic Spotlight Team look at DOC sentencing computations goes astray.
At its heart, the story is about overly complex and hard to track sentencing computations. But that wasn't exactly the theme presented. Somehow it was formed into a morality play about a heartless, incompetent and indifferent government oppressing a powerless, sympathetic victim. A cynic might say the facts were stylistically stuffed into a template for a journalistic prize.
The 'victim' in the story was sentenced in 1988 to 30 years in prison. He was released six months later, on parole. He violated that parole and went back to prison until 1997 when he was released on parole a second time. Again, he violated the terms of his parole and went back to jail.
In 2002 (note that his 30 year sentence would end in 2018) the complex sentencing rules indicate that he should have been released again, but he wasn't. It wasn't until 2006 that he was released, four years after he could have been but twelve years before his original sentence expired.
Was the guy jerked around by the complexity of the system? Absolutely.
Should the DOC have told him they screwed up? Yes!
Was the public, including victims of the robbery, assaults, etc. dis-served by a 30 year sentence that translated to six months? Without a doubt.
In other words, this is a big complicated story about sentencing rules that are too opaque and much too complex. Sure, dry complicated stories are hard to present without resorting to caricature and they're hard for readers. But try us anyway.
Fashion for China:
It's often surprising where things end up on the web. A quick, one-off shot of the interior of a shopping mall in Xian that I took a couple of years ago turned up here. I'm sure the check is in the mail. At least credit is given.
April 21, 2007
Rock around the clock:
One of the cool things about iTunes is how it displays the time, in days, that your music library will play without repeating. I've got a fairly big library on my main machine, about 20 days worth. That's a pretty long party.
But it's nothing compared to this guy who, with 802 days worth, can measure his music marathon in years, a little over two to be precise. That library belongs to Will Friedwald, a jazz writer, who with over 172,000 songs, claims to have the biggest iTunes collection in the world.
Access restricted:
This is not good.
Granted, it's a free hotspot, but as the city wireless network builds out things like this will have to be fixed. (Another is the page design.) There seems to be a another city wireless initiative, through Main Streets. Maybe they're both part of the same program but that doesn't appear to be the case.
What's good for the goose:
Washington Post columnist Colbert King came down hard on Imus for his broadcast comments. So did Hillary Clinton, who criticized the talk show host for being disrespectful and degrading to women.
Back to Colbert King, who, in today's column, notes that the Clinton campaign accepted nearly a million dollars from a gangsta rapper who could also be described as misogynistic. He reprints some of the rapper, Timbaland's, lyrics. Here's more if you're interested. Not the worst I've seen but I don't anticipate Hillary reciting any of them on the campaign trail.
Plan W:
The need to build a wall between Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdad is a clear signal that people on the ground have given up on any hope of unification.
April 19, 2007
Crossing the T:
It's not cheap to ride the T. But, as with most public transportation systems, fares don't produce nearly enough to maintain the system. Throw in debt service and things get worse. From an op-ed by Charles Chieppo:
How debilitating is the MBTA's debt? The agency paid more in debt service last year than it collected in fares. When debt service is included, fares cover just over a quarter of the T's costs.
The money to pay debt interest and maintain the T has to come from somewhere. The State is broke. I expect that the working people who depend on the system will be asked to pay more to keep the T afloat. That does seems to be the pattern. And, as Chieppo notes, with plans to expand the system, service and maintenance will suffer system-wide, impacting discretionary ridership and putting more on the shoulders of those who have no choice but to use public transportation to get to work each day.
Long way around:
A tunnel between Russia and the US? Apparently it's in the works. (And this is not an April 1st news story, I checked.)
Imagine driving between Tierra del Fuego and Capetown. Or from Hyannis to Liverpool. Get that RV fired up!
Two men sit in the corner of a diner:
I'm still recovering from the search for a Hub poet laureate. But that doesn't mean that I don't like a good rhyme like, say, "I saw you talkin' to Christopher Walken," from the song Hackensack by Fountains of Wayne. And there's the classic "God save the Queen, she ain't no human being"... "fascist regime"... etc. from Sid Vicious and company.
FoW scores again with New Routine, a song from their latest album. It's all rhymes and hooks. Here's how it starts...
Two men sit in the corner of a diner
Both of them look quite a bit like Carl Reiner
"China" comes later. They also mix "routine" with "Liechtenstein," "Mercedes" with "ladies" and "into" (or more accurately inta) with "La Quinta."
And that just scratches the surface. This song is chock-full of rhymes and it's over the top enough to work. Now if the band would only move to, and write about Boston, we'd have our official poets.
April 17, 2007
Mr. Brownstone:
Cho Seung-Hui, the Virginia Tech shooter, has been described as troubled, a ticking time bomb. Two plays he wrote for his English class are now published here, along with a classmate's response to hearing about the shooting,
When I first heard about the multiple shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday, my first thought was about my friends, and my second thought was "I bet it was Seung Cho."
The plays paint a disturbing picture.
April 16, 2007
Marathon 07
Last year I played the crowds along the sidewalk on Boylston Street. The year before that I looked down on the finish line. This year I went to Cleveland Circle and concentrated on the runners and wheelchair racers.
Although it was cold and wet, the sun was out for one runner, thanks to a friend.
Lights on:
No power this morning. It's back on and the entries that I intended to post are now up.
Use it or lose it:
We all know that judges don't like minimum mandatory sentences because they restrict the court's discretion. Thus, according to this Globe article, judges are protesting not having discretion by not exercising discretion. They refuse to give a sentence harsher than the minimum, even when it is deserved or when it would benefit the defendant.
There's something about all this that reminds me why we instituted minimum mandatory sentencing in the first place.
Sony vs. Sony:
When Sony was strictly a consumer electronics company nobody could beat them. The Walkman, then Discman, were everywhere. But Sony also became a music and movie company just as distribution models started to become threatened by the move to digital. So while Apple was eating Sony's lunch with the iPod, Sony's music arm was suing it's consumer electronics arm to keep it from going digital.
That was just a few years ago but plenty has been written about it and you would think that the company would, by now, have smartened up. But you would be wrong.
A buzz in the air:
Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate here and in Europe. Something is up and it's fairly serious.
Global climate change and genetically modified crops have been considered as possible culprits. Now some scientists are suggesting that the real reason may have more to do with cellphone proliferation.
April 14, 2007
PR disaster in the making:
Comcast won't tell its customers how much internet use is too much, but they will cut them off when they get there. It happened to this guy and he's blogging about it.
Rotation:
A Globe article on a harbor radar system for Logan controllers led me to Google Maps to check the runway numbers referenced. Either Google recently updated its airport imagery or I just hadn't noticed it before, but check out the plane just lifted off at the end of runway 9. And, there's another one that's either ready to take off behind it, or that has just landed. It's close in any case.
UPDATE: Here's what could be another plane in flight or someone from Georgetown with a Learjet parked in their driveway.
April 11, 2007
Download this:
A 23 year-old break-out musician hit's the big time, selling more copies of her album than offerings by established superstars like Elton John. What's missing from this picture? A major record label deal and the inflated costs of production, promotion and distribution.
Kate Walsh is the artist's and the record is Tim's House.
Stitches:
A new study (pdf) explores the influence of the stop snitching movement. (Maybe someone should send a copy along to Dave Bernstein who, while covering crime, somehow missed the whole phenomena.)
April 10, 2007
Green for go:
I've become a huge Mac evangelist, preaching, to all who will listen, the benefits of switching from Windows, at least at home. There is one irritating thing about the Mac, though: that damm green button.
Meaningless:
What does the length of the white jacket tell us about a medical professional? Not much, it turns out. Choices differ from person to person and hospital to hospital. Which begs the question, why are we reading about this in the newspaper?
Six murders, one day:
Friday was a bad day in the LA area.
April 9, 2007
Shady acres:
From today's Herald: Funeral director suspects shady plot.
Writing headlines can be an art.
Excessiveness:
I took a few days off from posting. Then this morning when I tried to get back on the horse, it turned out that my provider had disabled my Moveable Type functionality due to "excessive processes." Curious, since I haven't been doing much with it.
Anyway, I lost most of the morning but MT seems to be back up. Kudos to the support folks.
Handles:
I hesitate to get into the whole Guardian Angel thing, but I thought the names of the guys and gals in red were interesting:
...Roadblock, Pitt, Airborne, Dancer, Quiet, Agent, Diego, G-Force, Ranger, Professor, Ricky. These are a few of the Boston Angels working hard for you. Say hello when you see them...
Ricky? What kind of name is that?
April 6, 2007
Great country:
Steve Bailey finds a sweatshop in the heart of historic Boston.
April 2, 2007
Viability:
Hillary and John Edwards have released fundraising figures and both are doing pretty well. Clinton, in fact, has broken records. Nothing yet from Obama or the leading Repbulican candidates.
Running easy:
This is an interesting example of targeted local advertising from Rebok.
Let it be:
Despite earlier reporting, it appears that The Beatles music will not be coming to the iTunes Music Store. What could be in the works for today's press conference may be even more groundbreaking, a major label move towards online distribution of non-copy protected music.
Out of focus:
April 1, 2007
Big pipes:
Google, in the spirit of the day, announced two new products: Gmail paper email and a broadband internet service --through your plumbing!