May
16th
Fri
16th
RAAAAAAAARGH!
What if gas cost $10 a gallon? Forget pizza delivery. And cheap airfares. And bottled water. In fact, forget a way of life that looks much like today’s. But would that be so bad?
May
15th
Thu
15th
…the new American dumbness: not lack of knowledge per se but arrogance about that lack of knowledge. The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place.
May
13th
Tue
13th
I should stop doing this. Every time I check, Winnipeg has a sunnier, warmer forecast than we do.
Fuggit — I’m going to middle of Canada, where it’s warm.
Everyone has this strange archiving addiction now. …To me, a gig isn’t supposed to be for posterity. It’s supposed to be a bunch of people tossed together in a room, making a mood, and then it’s over. You can’t see the world through a viewfinder.
— Feist, in an article for the Dallas Morning News (via seagull) (via somethingchanged) (via asprettyasasong) (via alexamayiborrowyourpencil)
May
12th
Mon
12th
Is it worth spending $200 million or more just so 3,350 lucky people can take a heavily subsidized train to work? Remember, these are your transportation dollars, mostly paid out of your gas taxes. They could be used to improve bus service, coordinate traffic signals so you don’t have to stop at every light or replace old bridges.
The most important thing cities can do is relieve congestion. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates urban congestion wastes nearly 3 billion gallons of fuel each year, in turn emitting 28 million tons of CO2. This has more than quintupled since 1982. One simple way to relieve congestion is to coordinate traffic signals. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that three out of four traffic signals need updated coordination systems. Signal coordination costs little yet can save huge amounts of time, fuel and emissions.
Apr
30th
Wed
30th
While technology has radically altered the externals of life, it has done nothing demonstrable to enhance the internals: moral, emotional, philosophical and spiritual values.