NYT Covers Chicago’s Parking Meter Mishap

The NYT has an interesting article about the Chicago parking meter privatization deal that I was none-too-happy about last year.

Interesting interview from NPR’s Marketplace about U.S. green biz.

This interview largely confirms what I’ve thought to be the case about the regulatory environment in the U.S concerning green businesses: in the global marketplace, we are not considered the best country to invest in.  If the U.S. intends to maintain influence in this century, we must pursue these ventures more adamantly, or lose the opportunity to more ambitious companies and countries.

Second City to Celebrate 50th Anniversary

Chicago’s Second City is the city’s worst-kept comedy secret.  Their alumni includes many of the best comedians of the past 30 years, from John Belushi & Dan Akroyd to Tina Fey & Stephen Colbert.  Congratulations to Second City for reaching their 50th year.

Second City Celebrates 50th Anniversary – Chicagoist.

U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Hearings

.: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works :: Hearings :..

The Excesses of God

by Robinson Jeffers

Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God? For to equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
And make the necessary embrace of breeding
Beautiful also as fire,
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music:
There is the great humaneness at the heart of things,
The extravagant kindness, the fountain
Humanity can understand, and would flow likewise
If power and desire were perch-mates.

Con10uum

I’m not totally sold on this, but the idea seems to have legs. Couple the general idea of how windows are managed with an accelerometer, so that scrolling could happen vertically as well, and you may have sold me.

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

Biking is Wacky?

Granted, in the past few months I haven’t taken the train or bus as much as I used to, and I rarely bike, but I’m still surprised by this ad.

McDonald’s Lights up the U.S.A

Not literally.  But I’m taking a brief study break to share with you something I stumbled along on Twitter.

This is  a visualization of all the McDonald’s in the continental U.S.:

Click on the photo to read the article about it.  Apparently, you’re never more than 100 miles from a location.  Technically, 107 miles.  But you get the picture.

Rant about the Internet

So this post originally appeared on Twitter, in very small snippets, throughout a day last week.  These ideas started coming to me piece by piece.  I was at work, and wanted to have some way to get the thoughts out of my head and somewhere else.  Twitter is where they went.  Typically, Twitter is where I go to scream into the void and expel the random thoughts that have no other outlet or rational place.  Yet for a few hours, it helped me form a visible string of thoughts I might not have otherwise  been able to achieve.

It did get a little long, though.  A friend from college recommended that they would be much easier to read in a single post, and I am eager to see how it turns out.  I’m not editing anything.  I’m simply stringing together my tweets, so proofreading is minimal.  Curt sentences, abbreviations, or poor punctuation are all due to Twitter’s 140 character limit.  However, for the sake of readability, I’ll insert some paragraph breaks.  So here we go:

Powered up tweetdeck this morning. It interfered with listening to @ifanboy, hit pause. Clicked iPhone headphones, Man Man started up instd.

Griping abt technical glitches sounds so petty, but they can be so frustrating. It’s moments like these when I realize how much time I spend working with a computer or electronics in one fashion or another. All in all, it’s far too much time. And how ironic is it that I express this on Twitter?

Occasionally I’m struck by how engrossed our society has become in technology. It’s ubiquitous. I love being able to have a map of the whole world in my pocket. Or be an email away from anyone. 30 years ago, none of that was possible. But I grew up just as everything was changing. I knew a day before the internet, albeit briefly. And I also know that the existence of the Internet has changed the way I think. I expect immediate satisfaction of any question.

That can be highly rewarding, as well as highly distracting. I naturally don’t think in a straight line, so hyperlinks are dangerous. Spending a random 15-30 minutes is like going down the rabbit hole. 15-30 minutes online that is. I know I’m not the only person to believe that the Internet has the capacity to change the way we think as individuals & as a society@large.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the Internet. It’s a wonderful tool, and I advocate for it. It empowers everyone with a chance to be heard. The barrier to entry to become a netizen is minimal. Everyone may voice their opinions. The downside is, with so many voices screaming to be heard at once, the result is cacaphony. It’s still hard to separate the wheat&chaff

So although in theory the Internet allows equal footing (anyone can start a blog), old media archetypes seem almost inevitable. Big name websites like @gizmodo or @boingboing become trendsetters, tastemakers, and content finders, much like trad. publishers. Anyone who may have started a blog has learned how hard it is to get noticed. I’ve lost count of how many blogs I’ve started and stopped….Largely from what I perceived lack of interest. Perceived as a lack of interest. It’s still hard to get noticed, even with all the benefits of self-publishing that blogging allows.

But writing is just one aspect of the Internet. It goes far beyond writing, of course. The Internet frees access to information. And that is a wonderful thing. It is a great tool that encompasses anything that is susceptible to digitization. Which is a lot. I will end my rant soon. A couple more points to make.

As I may have already mentioned, the Internet is a tool. And as all tools, it is an extension and expression of our humanity. (Or at least an aspect of our humanity) However, because of how broad and deep the internet is, we must be wary of it at times. It reflects a large part of the human experience. Both good and bad. I believe that the Internet heightens aspects of our humanity, the good along with the bad. And b/c of that, we must be vigilant…In how we use it, and remember it exists to enhance our lives, not control it. Otherwise, the relationship between tool and user is reverted Should that day ever come where we exist to serve the Internet or any other tool, we should abandon it.

Ok. I’m done with that line of thought now. Back to random tweets.

Fin

So?  What do you think?  Does a post that started on Twitter, which is supposedly accelerating the death of the English language, still make reasonable sense?  Granted, it doesn’t have the polish that a normal piece would have.  But does it still convey the central train of thought?  Let me know.

Old Photos

James Fallows has a great post called “Industrial Age Glamor” that features old photos of airplanes made by American companies, and celebrating American (automobile!) companies.  We no longer live in the good ol’ days.

On a similar note, the Smithsonian has a website dedicated to transportation in America. It’s a website that is as interesting as you make it.  I didn’t explore it that much before moving on.  But I’m hair-brained and easily distracted.

Finally, if you want to see a collection of photos that beautifully illustrates how buildings remain constant in a changing community and society, check out the post my wife put up. The photos themselves speak more eloquently than I ever could.  They are visually arresting and a delight to go through.