I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you have a storm drain in front of your house, clean the debris our of it before this snow hits. This will eventually melt, and then our streets will be flooded. But, if everyone takes five minutes to clean out their drain… no floods.
Thanks!
Filed under: General
Folks, I have four blogs, two of which are “catch all” anything-I-want-to-post blogs. Those two would be this one and my Tumblr blog.
This seems a little ridiculous. I first started the Tumblr blog as an experiment on several levels: to see the interface (love it), to assess Tumblr for Amanda’s usage (she now uses it and likes it), to test Disqus as a comment plug in (worked there, works on Amanda’s), and to try out moblogging (pretty neat).
So it turns out that pretty much everything I need for a personal blog is on Tumblr, since I’m just looking to keep it simple there, and I have other blogs for “pro-level” blogging and customizations (whatever it means).
Should I stop posting here and move my longer text posts to Tumblr? I’ve thought about integrating my Tumblr blog onto my personal domain (briandigital.com) because that looks simpler than any other system.
Can I get an opinion from you, one of the (at least) six of you that read this blog on occasion?
Many thanks!
Filed under: Local, politics | Tags: environment, Green Line, medford, public transit
Below is the text of my correspondence, sent this morning, to my U.S. Representitive, Congressman Ed Markey of the 7th district. It urges his public support of the Route 16 terminus for the Green Line extension through Medford. For more on this issue, please visit the Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance web site.
—
Dear Congressman,
I’m writing to urge your public support for a local issue here in Medford that has a strong, positive impact on Eastern Massachusetts, on which you can have a very positive impact on I urge your support and leadership for the MBTA Green Line Terminus at Route 16 in Medford.
I’ve been working along with the Medford Green Line Neighborhood Alliance to ensure that we take this once in a lifetime opportunity to build as much infrastructure as possible to benefit the future generations of our city.
As a new resident of the city (3 years) I got involved too late to help support the state’s initial plan to have the Green Line terminate at the West Medford Commuter Rail Stop, which is the line’s logical terminus. I sincerely regret this. I feel the residents of that part of town made a poor choice for the future of our city, for our environment and for our neighbors who rely on public transportation to make their lives in the greater metro area possible.
I hope that you do not make the same mistake I did, but in regard to the Route 16 terminus, supporting it too late to make a difference.
I am a home owner on Orchard Street. My backyard abuts the railway that will be under strenuous construction for an untold number of years to make this extension possible. I am willing to deal with that inconvenience for the greater good of our city, its citizens and our environment. Right now, I deal with very loud commuter trains passing every 15 minutes or so, from which I get almost no benefit. At 2 in the morning, CSX freight trains roll by and shake my house, only about 25 yards from my newborn son’s nursery and my own bedroom. It’s about time something moved through that ravine that benefitted its neighbors instead of only annoying us.
As a former resident of Brookline who lived very near to the C-line, I know the noisiest that line can be, on outdated tracks that make the trains squeal. Even that noise would be many times more acceptable than what I have now, but that does not benefit me. New tracks and new trains on the all-electric Green Line would be nearly silent compared to the diesel behemoths that pass by now. Improved sound walls that the EOT has promised with construction will actually make my situation better, despite increased traffic in my backyard. The new sound and vibration damping will work with commuter trains and freight trains as well as the much quieter electric trolleys.
I believe that this is the first time I’ve written to you that I’ve urged you to take a stance on an issue I didn’t believe you already favored. I’m very appreciative of your leadership in high-tech and communications issues, such as net neutrality. In all, I’m extremely pleased that you are my Representative. I hope that you’ll come through for me here, in an issue that perhaps one of the most personally important to our city’s life.
Please feel free to contact me personally if you would like any additional input from a direct abutter to the tracks.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Brian W. Christiansen
Filed under: General
- The fine print on common TV ads that tell you something asinine.
- Photoblog: screen caps of silly things (usually facial expressions) caught when pausing your TiVo
- A blog that just lists ideas for other blogs
Filed under: General
This is a fascinating interview with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and CNN, where Mr. Putin suggests that the United States may have pushed Georgia to begin the conflict in South Ossetia, and possibly to benefit the U.S. Presidential bid of John McCain.
CNN’s Matthew Chance interviews Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
I’m not making this stuff up. If Putin is (and frankly, let’s remember he was in the KGB) it still makes for interesting reading.
Also, Mr. Putin gives us some historical background on the region, and offers some thoughts on other international issues, from Kosovo, to Iran, North Korea and even agricultural trade between the US and Russia.
Filed under: politics
Over the past two weeks, The Daily Show has covered the Democratic and Republican National Conventions in the cities that they were held. What transpired was truly the best two weeks of the Daily Show yet.
Here are the two best clips from the RNC week, which may be two of the best DS clips of all-time:
Sarah Palin and the Gender Card
John McCain the Reformed Maverick
I would embed these clips into this post, but stupid WordPress.com can’t cope with embed codes. This remains the lamest part of WordPress.
Filed under: politics
…it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is “a task from God.” The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.
Excuse me, are we living in China or the United States?
I’m pretty sure we just got finished seeing protestors get arrested in China for attempting free speech, including some Americans.
I am besides myself that this is happening in my country. Outraged. If people continue to allow this jackboot thuggery in this country, things are going to turn bad. I’m going to say under one potential presidential administration, this will be less likely to continue. I’ll leave the answer up to your interpretation.
Read up:
Salon (with video): Massive police raids on suspected protestors in Minneapolis
New York Times: Dozens Detained Ahead of Convention.
Minnesota Independent: Crackdown Begins: Food Not Bombs House Among Saturday Raids.
Filed under: General
The Editor of the Jerusalem Post has interviewed Bush, McCain and Obama on the US’s stance on Israeli issues.
In this piece, he compares his impressions of the three men, their cadre and in the second part he shares his most recent interview with Barack Obama, where he drilled the Senator on the intricate details of Israeli internal and external affairs. A very revealing interview, which may shed light on whether Obama will make for a capable leader on international affairs.
Filed under: General
Something has really had my head turning the last few days. I have a childhood friend whom I haven’t seen for a little while. We grew up together, probably about a mile down the road from one another. I was a year older, but we did many things together. He was on my Little League team, he played in my section in school band, he taught me how to drive a standard transmission, and we took our dates to the prom together one year. Smart enough guy, nice guy, you know just an average guy.
Sadly, we didn’t stay in contact so much when I went off to college. I stayed in-state, but when he went the next year, he went off to the midwest. We saw each other occasionally on breaks, for the first few years at least. The occasional email or IM would be exchanged. We found each other on Facebook in the last year. I learned he was still involved in rowing, which he started in high school. We lived in the type of town that actually had a crew team…
Boring enough story for you? Well, let me jump to the extraordinary part. He’s traveling to China in August. Going to the Olympics—As a member of the U.S. Olympic Rowing Team. This is a guy who was, no offense, never picked first for any sport. He was a decent athlete. Played on a handful of school teams. I was pretty impressed when I found out he was rowing for a Division III college. I wasn’t surprised, I figured he definitely was talented enough for that. But somewhere about the time that we started losing touch, Andrew was apparently really dedicating himself to rowing.
This really gives me cause to pause. I wonder, if he can do that, what extraordinary thing can I do? I’m doing a lot in my life right now. I pretty happy with my job, in the industry I want to be in. I’m doing a full-time Master’s program, and participating in an open source educational software project, too. I have a beautiful wife and we’re expecting our first child in September. All great things that I’m proud of.
But I wonder what it would take some part of of my life and really kick it up to that next level. Something that when you tell someone, “x” they say, “Oh really?”
Filed under: General
I’m on my lunch break in the second and final day at the University of Pennsylvania’s Higher Education Web Symposium 2008. My own UIE helped to put the conference together and I must say that I think it’s going exceedingly well. Big congratulations go to Ben Adams and the Penn Med Web team for really getting the conference going smoothly. Plus, it’s all being held in Wharton’s Huntsman Hall, which is a structure that’s less than 10 years old, and is a wonderful scholastic building.
I’ve had the privledge of attending with presenter perks, thanks to UIE’s involvement, and it’s pretty nice to get a nice dinner and lunch without having to conduct a 7 hour workshop. One day, maybe.
They’ve put us up in the Club Quarters Hotel. From what I can tell, only organizations that “belong” to the Club can have their members stay there. A neat business model for CQ, and it seems hotel rooms in the heart of Philly are really cheap there for the member orgs. Overall it’s a classy place, the room was comfortable, if compact (think European proportions). I had the misfortune of arriving to a room with a few issues, but my gripes were quickly addressed. A fine enough place to spend sleeping hours.
Working at UIE, I have the good fortune of being able to schmooze with all the speakers, which is a real treat. They’re always a lot of fun as people, beyond just being very intelligent people. The two are not always found in a single person.
I took the Acela down from Boston’s Back Bay Station, and just found that the train goes all the way to South Station (maybe another mile down the track) which would be much more convenient to my travel. The question is, will I be able to stay on the train 5 minutes longer than I paid for? We’ll see.
I was impressed with Philadelphia’s 30th street station. Reminiscent of New York’s Grand Central, with a very high ceiling and a classical design. I had expected something less, and compact, like Boston’s Back Bay which architecturally uninspired, but perhaps functional. Boston could really use a beautiful train station. (See post update below) Of course, we could also use a tunnel that connects North and South Stations, so Amtrak can travel on to Maine! If you are unaware, currently, to travel by train from, let’s say DC to Maine, you have to get off in South Station, and travel by another mode (there’s a subway connection for example) to get to North Station, and hop on another Amtrak train. That’s pretty lame, if not downright embarrassing. Especially given the Big Dig project.
I’m thinking we’re going to see a major shift to train travel in the next few decades, due to its efficiency. Amtrak needs a lot of help, but the basics are there. Following Europe’s and Japan’s lead, high speed rail works. Maybe not the fastest for trans-continental travel, but for most trips, it is a pleasant mode of travel. Especially when the tracks have been converted for high speed travel (>100mph, which means banked rails and few stops). But I digress.
I felt pretty awful this morning, but I’ve recovered and hope to maintain till I get home to Medford. Sadly, this meant I had to strategically skip today’s authentic Philly Cheesesteak lunch. If you know my tastes, despite eating a reduced-animal protein diet, this saddened me greatly.
That ends today’s dispatch.
UPDATE: I short changed Boston’s South Station here. I had not been in the portion that Amtrak travelers would see until the night I returned from Philly. It’s pretty cool.
Filed under: General
Granted, it isn’t Global Trottage like my good friend Ash is doing right now, but damn it, I’m going on vacation.
We’re headed to the northern Adirondacks. It’s become a yearly tradition to go visit my Aunt and Uncle at their lakeside “camp” in the summer. It takes six or seven hours to get there, but it’s worth it. Even with gas prices as they are.
When I get back, I immediately head to Philly for UPenn’s Web in Higher Ed conference for a couple days. Should be cool.
Filed under: music
Spent a good portion of the night in my headphones, after completing a bunch of work for school. After listening to a bunch of Radiohead podcasts (search iTunes to see if they’re still available, I downloaded them months ago) which had rough cuts of all their tracks from In Rainbows, along with video of the band laying the tracks down in the studio, I decided to finally, actually purchase the “new” album at iTunes.
I’m way behind on this, I know.
I should have participated in their “download and set your own price, if any” experiment, to show my support for their innovative attempt at breaking the stranglehold that traditional labels have on music distribution and rights.
Then, once the album was fully, regularly released, I was happy to see it was an EMI track, at least, so that it qualified for iTunes Plus (no DRM, 256kbps). I’ve set out a rule for myself that I no longer buy DRMed stuff.
But to take it to the next level, Radiohead then on iTunes released the “stems” from their song “Nude.” Stems are the individual musicians’ tracks, eg the bass line, the drum track, etc. You could buy them and remix them at will. They would also send you a link to a fully editable GarageBand file to remix. Very cool, except that artists like Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) have already done such experiments, without asking people to pay. The whole experiment is great advertising. I don’t think you should make the participants pay to do your advertising.
http://www.radioheadremix.com/
Never the less the results have been impressive. So many masterfully made tracks, all very different from each other. This week I saw a full-fledged video built around Nude, in a way that defies explanation. You need to watch it. Be patient, it takes about a minute to really get into it. Brilliant.
I had a lot of respect for Senator Hillary Clinton before she entered the 2008 Presidential campaign. She had lived through a lot of public turmoil, with many personal attacks from conservatives during her time in as First Lady. She tried to use the First Lady’s position as one that could actually accomplish something meaningful, other than hosting teas and giving tours of the White House.
She set back the cause of universal health care in this country 50 years when she bungled that task. Granted, it wasn’t totally her fault, she was just acting like the Republicans who were attacking her on the issue.
Then, she had the great personal tragedy for all the world to see, all while trying to raise a teenager in the White House. Then she recovers a few years later from all this to successfully become a Senator in a state she’d never lived in. She certainly is a fighter, and she dedicated her life to the public, despite all the personal difficulty it may have caused for her.
But now, we’ve seen her Presidential campaign.
She’s repeatedly been unable to properly budget her campaign’s finances. She’s repeatedly had to “loan” her campaign millions from her personal fortune. All while claiming she’ll be able to run the national budget better than the current administration—who is also always taking out loans to finance its hi-jinx.
She conveniently bends the truth to make it fit her agenda, whenever it’s convenient for her. If you disagree, her surrogates will attack you. She’s all for the rules… that are beneficial to her. She’s against rules that are “unfair” even if she was for them just a few months ago.
She’ll say anything for an applause line. Drop the gas tax? Sure. It doesn’t make any financial sense, but what do economists know? It’s get me a few votes!
She’ll leverage racist poor whites to advance her personal agenda, and tell us “You never know, look what happened to Bobby Kennedy.”
Despite absolutely no chance of winning a fight she’s quagmired in, she refuses to quit, continuing to fight on wasting untold millions, at untold cost to her party’s ultimate success in November. All for personal glory.
Now I have no personal respect for Senator Clinton. Senator Clinton represents all that is wrong with the Democratic Party. Senator Clinton is one example of why I am not a Democrat.
Filed under: General
This week’s Medford City Council meeting will include a presentation from EOT (Executive Office of Transportation), Green Line Extension Project Team to discuss proposed Green Line Extension in Medford. 7PM, Howard F. Alden Memorial Auditorium, Medford City Hall.
Be there to voice your opinion on the project!
