Open Thread

[datadyne007]

I will never, ever understand the appeal of listening to people yammer on (and shout) about politics.

It would almost make sense if it were an even-handed, actual discussion, but listening to people bleating the same talking points over and over again seems like a form of torture to me.

Hence why Adam Gaffin titled the post on UHub: "WFNX might become right-wing wankfest"

because it's just the same people over and over again getting fired up over the same hatred repeated time and time again.

[Lurker]

I will never, ever understand the appeal of listening to people yammer on (and shout) about politics.

It would almost make sense if it were an even-handed, actual discussion, but listening to people bleating the same talking points over and over again seems like a form of torture to me.

And yet NPR, sans apolitical programs, has survived for all these years.:rolleyes:

[statler]

Surely you see some subtle differences between NPR and something like Air America, no?

That said, I don't don't listen to NPR either. Just don't like listening to people talk on the radio. Not even Click & Clack.

[Hutchison]

I will never, ever understand the appeal of listening to people yammer on (and shout) about politics.

It would almost make sense if it were an even-handed, actual discussion, but listening to people bleating the same talking points over and over again seems like a form of torture to me.

Sports radio - same thing, different subject. Wonder which is more popular?

Kz - sweet mashup. Why do I love gospel but hate christian rock???

[datadyne007]

Kz - sweet mashup. Why do I love gospel but hate christian rock???
Switchfoot <3

[Lurker]

I would rate sports radio as the worst stuff on the air.

[kz1000ps]

Why do I love gospel but hate christian rock???

Great question, and I'm 100% onboard with you. Best I can do to answer that question is to reveal my reverse racism (I'm white) and say that when it comes to music, Blacks do it better.

Is it me or does HSR seem to be dead in the water in this country?

Speaking of which, tomorrow is the big vote in the California state senate for whether to release $2.7 billion in state funding for the first phase of HSR construction (SF to LA). The assembly just voted yay, but if the senate shoots it down the project essentially dies because the associated federal matching funds--$3 billion--will automatically get divided up and spent elsewhere.

Meanwhile, statewide enthusiasm for the project has been dropping with each new cut made to education funding, among other things. HSR or not, their budget is truly screwed.

[GW2500]

Sports radio - same thing, different subject. Wonder which is more popular?

Kz - sweet mashup. Why do I love gospel but hate christian rock???

B/c gospel is soulful and beautiful and IMO spiritual, it could have different lyrics but that sound is undeniable. Also vocally its some of the best of the best on this planet. And it's not too hard to hear the parallels to soul and blues, really the three come from a very similar place. Also the black church is a different thing as well, it taught literacy, was heavily involved in abolition/ civil rights, and was a place of community gathers, and in a gathering fun also happens. Where as most white churches involved its parishioners groveling before god and the priest each sunday, just counting the seconds to get out. I think some of the music reflects that.

[tobyjug]

Talk radio, regardless of its political orientation, is gruesome. Those worried about the demise of superficial liberalism might enjoy 2007's "Liberal Fascism" by Jonah Goldberg.

As to other gruesome matters, the "Shard" seems to be garnering attention out of proportion to its merit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jun/13/shard-renzo-piano

[Corey]

Just saw the movie Ted (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/). Lots of scenes around Boston to enjoy.

[datadyne007]

Just saw the movie Ted (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637725/). Lots of scenes around Boston to enjoy.

The dig on Quincy that gets dropped got my entire auditorium at Legacy Place clapping.

[bostonbred]

So. haVe YOU PIcked YOUR vacaTIOn SPOT?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2170276/Balls-Families-stay-popular-rural-lake-discovery-deadly-fish-eats-male-genitals.html

[czsz]

NY is in the process of annihalating Boston's single remaining economic niche advantage:

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/2012/07/06/boston-the-endgame/FPGsR99VKIpD56IShM8ENM/singlepage.html

Oh well. Hope someone at MIT is cooking up something unheard of for Boston to survive on until other cities manage to successfully co-opt it again?

[kz1000ps]

We've all had thoughts of leaving ourselves a time capsule. Well, one guy actually did it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFGAQrEUaeU

[GW2500]

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120712/NEWS/207120343/1018/OPINION

NEW BEDFORD — With the goal of increasing commercial links between Mexico and New England, the port of New Bedford on Wednesday entered into a sister port agreement with Tuxpan in the state of Veracruz on Mexico's Gulf Coast.

Alfredo L. Sanchez Hevia, director of the port authority in Tuxpan, formally signed the agreement in a ceremony at the Waterfront Grille with New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, who also chairs the city's Harbor Development Commission.

"This agreement will make it easier for businesses to develop relationships and profit," Mitchell said. "It creates a symbiotic relationship so both ports can experience the benefits of international trade."

The agreement is more than ceremonial, Sanchez Hevia said. "Having these agreements instills confidence in the business community that government is behind them," he told The Standard-Times.

An international shipping company has already expressed interested in becoming involved in the route which hopes to bring fresh produce from Mexico to New Bedford as part of a weekly shipping service, Sanchez Hevia said, but declined to name the company. "It's too early for that," he said.

Pierre Bernier of Maritime International Inc., the waterfront cold storage facility that is one of the largest on the Eastern Seaboard, has also been working to establish the service. Bernier confirmed that a shipping company was interested but also declined to reveal its identity.

"I can tell you that they are the world's largest refrigerated shipping company and operate 185 vessels," he said. Three independent cold storage facilities in the region are also interested in participating, he said.

In 1984, a similar attempt was made to establish this route, Bernier said. "Three ships came up from Tuxpan with produce but they were the wrong kind of ships for what they were carrying" and the attempt was abandoned, he said. But with new Department of Transportation regulations restricting truckers' daily driving hours that goes into effect in 2013, shipping by sea will become even more attractive in the future, he said.

Officials in both countries are actively seeking wholesalers and producers to develop the new markets, according to Daniel Hernandez Joseph, Mexico's consul general in Boston. "And New Bedford is strategically positioned to open up sea routes that will make our producers more competitive," he said. Mexico is the fourth largest bilateral trading partner with Massachusetts, state officials said.

"I'm very excited by this. We have to make it happen," said Gerardo Patino Fernandez of ProMexico, the country's trade commission.

To further the shared goal, a trade development summit is scheduled for New Bedford in October, according to Ed Anthes-Washburn, New Bedford's port director and acting harbor development commissioner.

"We'll get the producers from Mexico in the same room as the buyers here," he said. "The port already has all the facilities. We could start tomorrow."

[czsz]

But with new Department of Transportation regulations restricting truckers' daily driving hours that goes into effect in 2013, shipping by sea will become even more attractive in the future

On a side note - effectively this means a lot of truckers will retrain as railroad workers or longshoremen and work the same hours as before. But also that there will be less redevelopable waterfront space and more demand for freight trains, making it difficult to expand passenger rail transit in urban areas. Working ports are cool, but I'm not sure this is all that good for cities.

[Lurker]

This is good for cities as it brings jobs back to urban areas and life to otherwise derelict post-industrial districts. If only Boston and Cambridge hadn't been so quick to obliterate their peripheral rail yards we'd be in a better position.

If anything rail freight is far more efficient over long distances than trucks, generally faster, and more environmentally friendly. If only the freight routes could be rebuilt in a few key bottlenecks to have clearance for double stacked containers, the country would be golden for a new era of rail freight on the east coast. Much like the Midwest and West has seen.

And I must say thank heavens the Castle Island port facility has space to expand into the abandoned tank farm. Too bad it no longer has decent rail freight access.

[GW2500]

I think there is a plan to add rail via haul road to the port (something like that). And working ports are good for cities, most cities came to be b/c they were working ports.

[statler]

This seems familiar somehow....

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17spmtehesbcrjpg/original.jpg (http://www.archdaily.com/251694/hanoi-museum-gmp-architekten/)


(BTW: The picture is a link to the story)

[Beton Brut]

This seems familiar somehow....

There's this (http://libraries.ucsd.edu/about/geisel-building.html). And there's this (http://www.archdaily.com/34037/china-pavillion-for-shanghai-world-expo-2010/).

[datadyne007]

Seamless, highly-detailed German engineering. Love it.

http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/4ff51a5228ba0d034e00000b_hanoi-museum-gmp-architekten_1851_schnitt_2-2-1000x351.png

Awesome section.

[statler]

Is it Autumn yet?

http://i.imgur.com/gPVeY.png (http://nedroid.com/)

[dshoost88]

Ted has officially become the highest grossing film at the domestic box office that is set in Boston; pretty great that millions of people are seeing the city on the big screen.

[statler]

http://i.imgur.com/K6ZcP.jpg

[BostonUrbEx]

Anyone have recommendations for dealing with lens flare ....... at night?

Headlights/streetlights = amazing pictures RUINEDDDDD. :(

Usually I don't even notice until I see it at full size.

[statler]

J. J. Abrams, is that you?

[Shepard]

Ted has officially become the highest grossing film at the domestic box office that is set in Boston; pretty great that millions of people are seeing the city on the big screen.

Saw it last night, very good entertainment though maybe not MacFarlane at his comedic best (some slow points, overwritten and unfunny dialogue, flopping one liners). Still great fun.

One bit of the way Boston was portrayed disturbed me a bit - cars, cars, cars. Main character works at a car rental. Girlfriend drives to work ("no space in the garage today")... from the South End to the FiDi. Even the Hatch Shell is portrayed as having an adjacent parking lot (and I don't mean Storrow at rush hour). Car chases over the Zakim (which somehow leads to Fenway Park).

Anyway - I don't know how much has been written about Hollywood's obsession with cars as facilitating plotlines. I know I've read a few things on this. But it seems very clear that the Hollywood standard is car, car, car - based on familiar tropes (car chases, etc) and audience familiarity (most people drive).

Thoughts?

[Lrfox]

Anyone have recommendations for dealing with lens flare ....... at night?

Headlights/streetlights = amazing pictures RUINEDDDDD. :(

Usually I don't even notice until I see it at full size.

A good lens hood can reduce lens flare. Day or night. Still, it's not fool proof.

That's where the spot healing tool is helpful. If you don't have photoshop, I'm sure gimp or some other freeware has something similar. It's great for dust spots on those long exposures too.

I usually setup my night shots with the "live view" function as lens flare shows up on that before you even take the photo. Sometimes moving a few inches will fix the problem.

Some photographers prefer the lens flare as it's "real," and it adds to the effect of the photo. In some cases that can be true, but it's one situation where I fully support some post processing work.

[Ron Newman]

The Ted filmmakers closed down Davis Square for several hours on June 14 last year to film a scene of people standing in line for a Star Wars opening at the Somerville Theatre. At that time, some of the marquee's letters happened to be burned out, causing the sign to read 'SOME THEATRE'. Does it look like that in the movie, or did they correct it in post-production?

[Shepard]

The Ted filmmakers closed down Davis Square for several hours on June 14 last year to film a scene of people standing in line for a Star Wars opening at the Somerville Theatre. At that time, some of the marquee's letters happened to be burned out, causing the sign to read 'SOME THEATRE'. Does it look like that in the movie, or did they correct it in post-production?

Ha. I think that scene was a seconds-long establishing shot, I'd be surprised if you could even see the marquis at all.

[KentXie]

Saw it last night, very good entertainment though maybe not MacFarlane at his comedic best (some slow points, overwritten and unfunny dialogue, flopping one liners). Still great fun.

One bit of the way Boston was portrayed disturbed me a bit - cars, cars, cars. Main character works at a car rental. Girlfriend drives to work ("no space in the garage today")... from the South End to the FiDi. Even the Hatch Shell is portrayed as having an adjacent parking lot (and I don't mean Storrow at rush hour). Car chases over the Zakim (which somehow leads to Fenway Park).

Anyway - I don't know how much has been written about Hollywood's obsession with cars as facilitating plotlines. I know I've read a few things on this. But it seems very clear that the Hollywood standard is car, car, car - based on familiar tropes (car chases, etc) and audience familiarity (most people drive).

Thoughts?
I think it makes more sense with driving than walking. By driving, it allows the location to change quickly between scenes. It would be weird to have, for example, three scenes that would occur within 5 minutes, in which each individual walked. If they walked, people would assume that, either a large portion of the walk was left out, or the locations are incredibly close. Having a car allows the audience to think logically, okay so the two work fairly far apart or far enough that the two can't just check up on each other (a major factor since John gets caught skipping work).

The usage of the parking lot and car at the Hatch Shell was to emphasize Rex's wealth. Who in their right mind wouldn't drive their fancy car everywhere, especially to impress a girl, if you had the wealth to do it.

Kidnapping wouldn't really be kidnapping if they ran and walked. How many kidnappings have you seen, real or fictional, where the person wasn't using a vehicle?

[kz1000ps]

A good lens hood can reduce lens flare. Day or night. Still, it's not fool proof....

...Some photographers prefer the lens flare as it's "real," and it adds to the effect of the photo. In some cases that can be true, but it's one situation where I fully support some post processing work.

I like lens flares by day, hate them by night. And I'll second the lens hood; they take up a lot of room in your bag but they can make a world's difference. Plus they're relatively cheap (~$40).

[Shepard]

I think it makes more sense with driving than walking. By driving, it allows the location to change quickly between scenes. It would be weird to have, for example, three scenes that would occur within 5 minutes, in which each individual walked. If they walked, people would assume that, either a large portion of the walk was left out, or the locations are incredibly close. Having a car allows the audience to think logically, okay so the two work fairly far apart or far enough that the two can't just check up on each other (a major factor since John gets caught skipping work).

The usage of the parking lot and car at the Hatch Shell was to emphasize Rex's wealth. Who in their right mind wouldn't drive their fancy car everywhere, especially to impress a girl, if you had the wealth to do it.

Kidnapping wouldn't really be kidnapping if they ran and walked. How many kidnappings have you seen, real or fictional, where the person wasn't using a vehicle?

Red line breakdowns aside, couldn't subway riding be equally effective at establishing distance and changing scenery?

(As an aside, I would love to see a Boston film the includes, for whatever reason, some character racing the B line on foot - that's comedy right there.)

[czsz]

I think possibly because few recent films are made in Boston because they're meant to be set in Boston -- but rather because tax credits make it cheaper to film here, or because people like Wahlberg want to work closer to home -- most of these films involve relatable scripts that could work in Anycity, USA, and that relatable city will, inevitably, include people getting around the way most Americans do -- by car.

By contrast, Good Will Hunting, which was meant to be set nowhere other than Boston, has scenes where Matt Damon takes the T home.

[Shepard]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Definitely makes it feel like Anycity, USA courtesy of Anyscript, Hollywood.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Red line breakdowns aside, couldn't subway riding be equally effective at establishing distance and changing scenery?

(As an aside, I would love to see a Boston film the includes, for whatever reason, some character racing the B line on foot - that's comedy right there.)

No, no, have someone racing the Silver Line.

And winning.

[CSTH]

There's this (http://libraries.ucsd.edu/about/geisel-building.html). And there's this (http://www.archdaily.com/34037/china-pavillion-for-shanghai-world-expo-2010/).

Also, of course, this: http://goo.gl/maps/Fuhr

[Ron Newman]

Good Will Hunting, which was meant to be set nowhere other than Boston, has scenes where Matt Damon takes the T home.

But also a scene where he and Robin Williams walk directly out of Bunker Hill Community College into the Public Garden.

[Beton Brut]

Also, of course, this: http://goo.gl/maps/Fuhr

Boston City Hall in single-serving size.

[czsz]

But also a scene where he and Robin Williams walk directly out of Bunker Hill Community College into the Public Garden.

Yeah, that's a jarring transition. But I forget - is the conversation seamless, or is there a jump? I mean, just because they cut from one setting to another doesn't necessarily imply there wasn't a long trip in between.

Also, for what it's worth, don't forget there's a film titled after a T stop ("Next Stop Wonderland"). How many films have you seen with even a scene filmed on BART or SEPTA?

[Ron Newman]

'Speed' was filmed partly on the LA subway.

[KentXie]

Red line breakdowns aside, couldn't subway riding be equally effective at establishing distance and changing scenery?

(As an aside, I would love to see a Boston film the includes, for whatever reason, some character racing the B line on foot - that's comedy right there.)

It could be possible they didn't want to shut down a train line just to do filming (even if they filmed it on Sunday with a smaller impact). It could also be because of the permits they have to go acquire to film inside the station.

Besides it not like it's inaccurate. While Boston ranks high in the % of people who commute by public transportation, biking or walking, 2/3 of the city still commute by driving.

[choo]

They took the T in the departed. and it supported cell phones!

[KentXie]

I also want to state that a car rental isn't strange either. Zipcar stations are located all over Boston and a lot of college students in Boston do have memberships with them, including me. I feel like using a car rental office was just Seth MacFarlane's attempt on a modernized version of a dead-end job, contrasting Lori's higher skilled and higher paying job.

[choo]

safe to say that this is by far the analytic conversation centered on a movie that starred a pot smoking teddy bear in history.

What about how TED exposed the social norms around the conventions of modern marriage {insert bong hit here}

[czsz]

'Speed' was filmed partly on the LA subway.

Similar phenomenon led to this choice, except they were looking for "anysubway" instead of "anyplace". They wanted to make a movie generically involving certain forms of transportation, and it didn't matter where it was set, so they chose LA, close to the studios, and filmed its subway, even though no one takes the LA subway (it also probably helps that no one taking the LA subway means it's easy to film in it).

[blade_bltz]

Pursuit of Happyness featured BART very prominently, all the way to the grungy bathrooms that a semi-homeless Will Smith used for shelter.

Ironically, all or most of the bathrooms are now permanently closed - presumably as an anti-homeless measure...

[Beton Brut]

Clint Eastwood rides the MUNI is the first Dirty Harry.

I was living in Rhode Island when I saw Next Stop Wonderland. The entire film is a carnival of continuity errors.

[czsz]

Would have thought Boston would do better on this:

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/07/12/Screen%20Shot%202012-07-11%20at%204.27.22%20PM.png

[Shepard]

When will the "lazy infographic" craze finally end? This is a completely meaningless map/chart. Watch out, San Jose, here comes Springfield!

[Commuting Boston Student]

About how much would it cost to have Platform Edge Doors installed in all subway/rail stations, anyway? Or just per station?

Is this generally something that wouldn't be worth doing?

[Ron Newman]

There aren't enough falling-off-the-platform accidents to justify this. Also, some Red Line cars have 3 doors and others have 4, making this infeasible with the current set of equipment.

[statler]

I understand that Boston.com is free and there are other local news outlets available but I swear to God if they run that fucking "You know you're from Boston if" filler piece one more time, heads will roll.

[czsz]

I once applied for a job at Boston.com that would have involved walking around the city and asking people questions for slideshows. At the interview, I proposed to ask questions about issues like gay marriage (not yet legal in MA at the time). They told me they were looking for something more like "Do you prefer sneakers or sandals?"

To be fair, I should have known the organization I was applying for. Also to be fair, Boston.com is idiotic.

[BostonUrbEx]

This makes no sense to me. What is this?

Omaha > Springfield > Boston > Chicago ??????

[tobyjug]

At the interview, I proposed to ask questions about issues like gay marriage (not yet legal in MA at the time). They told me they were looking for something more like "Do you prefer sneakers or sandals?"

I suspect you haven't seen the Lawrence Olivier/Tony Curtis bodyservant scene in "Spartacus".

http://youtu.be/jc3b7MP4pyw

[Lrfox]

I was living in Rhode Island when I saw Next Stop Wonderland. The entire film is a carnival of continuity errors.

My uncle is a local comedian who had a small role in that movie. He was embarrassed to have us watch it.

[czsz]

A tribute to Boston, in Bulgaria:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7e/Burgas_Amtsgericht.jpg/320px-Burgas_Amtsgericht.jpg

[Commuting Boston Student]

There aren't enough falling-off-the-platform accidents to justify this. Also, some Red Line cars have 3 doors and others have 4, making this infeasible with the current set of equipment.

I like the aesthetic of them, and if they're cheap enough to install, I'd argue that there's a benefit to being proactive in your preventing such incidents.

Obviously, with the Red Line's mix and match situation, it can't be done, and if it's going to cost us some obscene amount of money to do it shouldn't be done.

[blade_bltz]

^ The door alignment issue is an impediment to widespread implementation in Japan, where they see everything from two to six!-door trainsets on a single line, but they're working on it:

http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFK0903H_Z00C12A3000000/
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0928/TKY201109280229.html

[KentXie]

This makes no sense to me. What is this?

Omaha > Springfield > Boston > Chicago ??????

The map make sense because Boston has a smaller ratio of HQ to population or in another word, smaller density of headquarters compare to population (Springfield and Omaha has a smaller population, meaning it requires less hq to increase its ratio). It's similar semantics to how many populated cities has a lower density than less populated cities due lower ratio of people to land size of the city.

However, the map doesn't really tell much of anything.

[Lrfox]

^ The door alignment issue is an impediment to widespread implementation in Japan, where they see everything from two to six!-door trainsets on a single line, but they're working on it:

http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFK0903H_Z00C12A3000000/
http://www.asahi.com/national/update/0928/TKY201109280229.html

The barriers made a huge difference (in my opinion) in Tokyo. At rush hour those platforms got so crowded I was amazed no one got bumped off. If nothing else, they offer peace of mind. The Marunouchi Line line implements them at at least a few of the busier stations (Otemachi for one, and I believe at Shinjuku as well).

http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/yy139/jfoahs04/platformdividertokyo.png

It's a shame you couldn't implement them on the Red Line because I think that (and Orange) is the line that could use them the most.

[blade_bltz]

Haha, the real danger, of course, is drunken salarymen stumbling to gruesome death.

Found an article that says between 2002-2009, 1253 incidents (either falling onto the tracks or getting hit/sandwiched by the train) were recorded throughout Japan, with Shinjuku being the biggest offender.

[czsz]

I'm always amazed how many people on here are incredibly knowledgeable about Tokyo/Japan. Is there some (Arch)Boston-Japan connection I'm not aware of?

[BostonUrbEx]

Anyone see that video of the guy that stumbled and got fried by the third rail in NYC? It was pretty recent. Absolutely horrifying way to go....

[kz1000ps]

I'm always amazed how many people on here are incredibly knowledgeable about Tokyo/Japan.

I was just thinking the exact same thing! Works for me since I know next to nothing about the culture.

[Beton Brut]

Is there some (Arch)Boston-Japan connection I'm not aware of?

I spent a couple of weeks in Japan back in '06 for a friend's wedding. I know quite a few posters travel internationally for business.

In terms of efficiently moving large volumes of people via public transit, they're 20-30 years ahead of us here in Boston.

[Lrfox]

I'm always amazed how many people on here are incredibly knowledgeable about Tokyo/Japan. Is there some (Arch)Boston-Japan connection I'm not aware of?

I went to Japan in May out of sheer curiosity (and cheap fares with my AA miles on JAL in/out of BOS). Loved it. Have a few pictures, but still know next to nothing about the country. I'd be lying if I said some of that curiosity wasn't because of how often Japan is referenced in a positive light on this forum.

Anyone see that video of the guy that stumbled and got fried by the third rail in NYC? It was pretty recent. Absolutely horrifying way to go....

Awful. Like an idiot, I watched the video on Barstool. Pretty horrific. Although I'm fairly certain the guy was dead within a few seconds. After reading up on it, it turns out the guy was wasted and suicidal. People were trying to help him back up. Not that it makes it any less tragic/horrific; but I feel a little better (selfishly) knowing that it wasn't a complete accident.

I can't imagine being there in person. There was a girl screaming "somebody do something!" (umm... maybe you can do something if you're so concerned); but what can anyone do? You can't touch him or else you'll be zapped. And again, selfishly, the smell must have been horrible. I'm not generally the knee-jerk type, but I'm sure I'd be locked away in my apartment for weeks if I witnessed that. I was sick to my stomach just seeing the video.

[Commuting Boston Student]

...you know what?

That catastrophe happening once is one time too many.

Forget the cost, let's be proactive about platform safety re: platform doors.

[Ron Newman]

There are many better (more bang for the buck) things the T can spend that money on -- most notably, better reliability of their rolling stock.

[BostonUrbEx]

Awful. Like an idiot, I watched the video on Barstool. Pretty horrific. Although I'm fairly certain the guy was dead within a few seconds. After reading up on it, it turns out the guy was wasted and suicidal. People were trying to help him back up. Not that it makes it any less tragic/horrific; but I feel a little better (selfishly) knowing that it wasn't a complete accident.

I can't imagine being there in person. There was a girl screaming "somebody do something!" (umm... maybe you can do something if you're so concerned); but what can anyone do? You can't touch him or else you'll be zapped. And again, selfishly, the smell must have been horrible. I'm not generally the knee-jerk type, but I'm sure I'd be locked away in my apartment for weeks if I witnessed that. I was sick to my stomach just seeing the video.

Same here. I mean, honestly, it was just so hard to watch but I couldn't help it once I realized what I was in for. If I was there, I'd probably have puked. And nothing makes me puke... Except a drive on Lynn Shore Drive at low tide... No joke, it was just awful awful awful.

[Shepard]

I thought many systems only ran current through the third rail on small sections just ahead of where a train is running?

[Lurker]

I thought many systems only ran current through the third rail on small sections just ahead of where a train is running?

The MBTA can't even maintain a mechanically simple and quite obsolete signal system. A high tech system of blocking power to each train is way beyond the MBTA's capabilities.

[tobyjug]

I spent a couple of weeks in Japan back in '06 for a friend's wedding. I know quite a few posters travel internationally for business.

I have older family members who used to fly there regularly.

[statler]

Just tuned into 101.7 to see what kind of music they will be playing and the first song I hear is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People.

That's a bad start.

I wonder how far in advance the set list is programmed.

[datadyne007]

Just tuned into 101.7 to see what kind of music they will be playing and the first song I hear is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People.

That's a bad start.

I wonder how far in advance the set list is programmed.

WFNX played a LOT of Foster the People, including Pumped Up Kicks at least once an hour back when it was charting. The press releases are saying the new format starts Monday. I think WFNX might just be airing their auto-playlist in the meantime. I heard typical WFNX songs on it today in the car.

[BostonUrbEx]

WFNX played a LOT of Foster the People, including Pumped Up Kicks at least once an hour back when it was charting. The press releases are saying the new format starts Monday. I think WFNX might just be airing their auto-playlist in the meantime. I heard typical WFNX songs on it today in the car.

Yep. WFNX is basically on "shuffle". Just autopiloting until Clear Channel kicks us in the jaw.

[F-Line to Dudley]

Yep. WFNX is basically on "shuffle". Just autopiloting until Clear Channel kicks us in the jaw.

It's officially "Harbor 101.7" now. Where you can hear Madonna next to Nirvana next to The Eagles any hour of any day beamed remote from some server shed in Ft. Worth.

[F-Line to Dudley]

http://video.mit.edu/watch/view-from-the-road-1958-kevin-lynch-7395/

Saw this on UniversalHub. I am transfixed.

[BostonUrbEx]

It's officially "Harbor 101.7" now. Where you can hear Madonna next to Nirvana next to The Eagles any hour of any day beamed remote from some server shed in Ft. Worth.

They also "don't care about playing a song back-to-back because we know you don't care either." And then they played Dirty Water literally 3 times in a row. WTF? And yes, that quote there? That is one of their pre-recorded messages they play on air.

[Commuting Boston Student]

One of the commenters on the Herald's Power to the Pedal (http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20220725power_to_the_pedal_hubway_expansion_to_bri ng_another_400_bikes_to_roads/srvc=home&position=0) article made a troll suggestion that Menino wanted as many people biking as possible so that he could later make bank on instituting a bicycle license.

But actually, after thinking about it some, I'm not sure that forcing urban cyclists to demonstrate proficiency and knowledge of the rules of the road prior to being allowed onto our mixed-use streets with cars, buses and/or pedestrians is actually such a bad idea.

On the other hand, I freely admit my own personal bias against bicyclists, so I wanted to check with you guys to make sure that this is/would actually be a good idea and it is not just me convincing myself that something harmful to cyclists is actually a good thing.

[kz1000ps]

Word is both Nickelback and Creed were heard on 101.7 The Harbor today.............

[Beton Brut]

^^ Thanks kz. Your news makes me want to reenact the cover of the first Rage Against the Machine album.

[GW2500]

Yea, it sucked, a lot actually, when WBCN went away, but you had WFNX, now you have neither. Well you do have WAAF which decided to do a right wing politics butt rock combo.

[Justin7]

...Rage Against the Machine album...

Turn on the radio, nah, fuck it, turn it off.

[BostonUrbEx]

http://www.weei.com/sites/default/files/WheresWally_Header.jpg?1337975497

[kz1000ps]

The guys in my band and I have decided that the ONLY station we're allowed to listen to now is 88.9 WERS Emerson radio. Just thought I'd throw that out there :)

[Commuting Boston Student]

http://www.weei.com/sites/default/files/WheresWally_Header.jpg?1337975497

WE'RE GOING TO DEF CON ONE

No expense will be spared towards the safe recovery of Wally the Green Monster!!!

[GW2500]

The guys in my band and I have decided that the ONLY station we're allowed to listen to now is 88.9 WERS Emerson radio. Just thought I'd throw that out there :)

88.9 is cool most of the time, but I believe on saturdays it is accapella, and not the cool black kind, the dorky white kind (except Carmen San Diego).


edit: It still kind of lives www.wfnx.com , but something tells me most of the DJ's will be looking else where.

[statler]

http://i.imgur.com/E7lwz.png

[datadyne007]

All the Britons looked SOOOO grumpy last night when GB was marching out in the Parade of Nations. It was as if they were watching footage of the London bombing or something and not the fact that their athletes (whom they should have pride in) were marching out.

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/315302_4385132948175_1750199382_n.jpg

[czsz]

I think this one perfected it:

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250x250/24095077.jpg

In her defense, the Team GB outfits were scandalously terrible.

[KentXie]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24086424.jpg

[statler]

http://img3.etsystatic.com/000/0/6270096/il_570xN.325646659.jpghttp://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/6270096/il_570xN.322488500.jpg
Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/listing/96726756/boston-lineposter-sm-screen-print)

[datadyne007]

I'm extremely confused as to what maps they are using for Boston.

Love the Berlin U/S map. I just wish it wasn't in that ugly blue/orange color. The BVG yellow/black would be nice.

Edit: I guess they have a yellow Berlin one, but it's the U-Bahn (BVG) only. No S-Bahn.

[BostonUrbEx]

Definitely looks like somebody's fantasy MBTA map.

Is it Van's?

[Shepard]

It would be cool to do this against the old streetcar routes.

[BostonUrbEx]

This one street is the Back Bay/South End of Springfield? -> https://www.google.com/maps?ll=42.105522,-72.587013&spn=0.00271,0.005681&t=h&z=18&layer=c&cbll=42.105457,-72.58711&panoid=t_C7aKA6SYZ1NuNsoHb3ew&cbp=12,224.65,,0,-4.49

[Lrfox]

Awesome

[KentXie]

Commuter Rail, HR, LR, BRT, and important bus routes?

[BostonUrbEx]

The Yellow one is clearly based on Van's 2050 map: http://futurembta.com/thefuturemaps/

Van, you gettin' paid for this? I don't see them giving any credit to you. :(

[vanshnookenraggen]

Yeah it's mine. They are straight ripping me off. I'm working on it.

Best part? I found out because my sister gave me it for Christmas. I was like... WTF?!

[datadyne007]

I don't get why they don't just use the map we've got today. It looks really nice in simple line form.

[czsz]

I think probably because it's a little too simple for the "crazy circuitboard" effect they're going for here. Look at DC and Chicago; they look a little sparse by comparison:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lineposters?ref=seller_info

On the other hand, Philly also looks beefed up somehow...

[statler]

Sorry Van. I didn't catch that. That sucks.

[datadyne007]

Mass Ave bridge is chopped in half on Google Maps today:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mass+Ave+and+Beacon+St+Boston+MA&hl=en&ll=42.353153,-71.088152&spn=0.009752,0.024354&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-beta&hnear=Massachusetts+Ave+%40+Beacon+St&t=m&z=16

http://i50.tinypic.com/2r7a7o8.png

[czsz]

The images on the right-hand side are supposedly details that "make Boston Boston," captured for an algorithm that's intended to help build realistic simulations of cities based on their indicative parts:

http://cdn.theatlanticcities.com/img/upload/2012/08/08/random%20street%20Boston.jpg

Full story here:

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/08/data-mining-citys-visual-identity/2875/

And in case you were wondering what the Big Dig tunnel walls and cars were doing there:

The researchers note that their algorithm had a much harder time with American cities, where some of the most commonly identified elements were car brands and road features. "This might be explained by the relative lack of stylistic coherence and uniqueness in American cities (with its melting pot of styles and influences)," they write, "as well as the supreme reign of the automobile on American streets."

[Beton Brut]

Qué lástima!

[datadyne007]

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/185893_400275456703426_1219781030_n.jpg

WOW

[vanshnookenraggen]

There was a documentary with him in it a few years ago. Totally real (or surreal).

[BostonUrbEx]

Mass Ave bridge is chopped in half on Google Maps today:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mass+Ave+and+Beacon+St+Boston+MA&hl=en&ll=42.353153,-71.088152&spn=0.009752,0.024354&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-beta&hnear=Massachusetts+Ave+%40+Beacon+St&t=m&z=16

http://i50.tinypic.com/2r7a7o8.png

This is happening alot lately.

The other day, route 24 between 128 and 495 disappeared entirely. No matter what level I zooming in on, just *poof*, gone!

[statler]

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/ourit-ben-haim-underground-new-york-public-library

[bostonbred]

http://www.playkon.com/

[BostonUrbEx]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lutNECOZFw

[mikelaw85]

I'm new to this forum and really enjoy reading all the different posts. I would really like to see a thread on metro boston forming a two tier regional government, maybe everything inside 128 loop would become boston metro and have one unified city counsil and police/fire school department but keep each community is it's own sort of bourough. Kind of what london has. I would really like to see what people think about that and if it would save the region money , more or less curruption . I know back in 1912 the state wantyed to do this but obviously failed.

[mikelaw85]

I really think it would also help our region as a whole instead of every community fighting for themself like revere hurting lynn by building on the RR row and sort of nimby crap that goes on.. We are one region i feel we should be represented as one and unfied as a whole.. the problem is that towns like newton/brookline would hate this because they have more wealthy residence who wont want to be paying for people in lynn or chelsea and the inner city communites wont want this because it will brakje up there local power structure but i think it is exactly what boston needs to grow into the 21 century...

[Lurker]

The smaller independent systems of local government are a means of preventing wide-scale corruption. Many of the residents in surrounding communities fled Boston, and cities in general, in the past because of crummy government. If such a scheme was forced through without consent, something which I don't think could ever be attained, people would get up and relocate outside the new metro government's sphere of influence; just as they did with the previous city governments.

[statler]

Why does CTBUH exist?

As far as I can tell their only raison d'etre is to 'settle' debates among skyscraper nerds.

Do they serve any useful purpose?

[Ron Newman]

what is CTBUH?

[statler]

Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (http://www.ctbuh.org)

I think I'm going to start the CSTCSS (Council on Star Trek Captains and Star Ships) and settle this Kirk/Picard, OS/TNG debate once and for all.

[KentXie]

RIP Johnny Pesky. Too bad he passed away during one of the worst Red Sox season in recent memory.

[Hutchison]

Sox players haven't always been classy, but Pesky certainly was. Sad to hear of his passing.

[czsz]

"Inadequate rail system". SimCity nails it.

http://www.mobygames.com/images/shots/l/77448-simcity-windows-3-x-screenshot-city-view-of-bostons.png

[statler]

http://blog.noupsi.de/post/28896819324/why-are-americans-so

[Patrick]

Why does CTBUH exist?

As far as I can tell their only raison d'etre is to 'settle' debates among skyscraper nerds.

Do they serve any useful purpose?

CTBUH is a fantastic resource for those in the industry of high rise construction design/engineering, and exists to spread technical information on state of the industry and best practices. Its journal is a really interesting read.

[statler]

The Fairmont Copley was built in 1912 (http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/back_bay/2012/08/fairmont_copley_plaza_celebrat.html) too?

Jesus, the 1912 Bostonians were on their game.

[czsz]

Boston really seems to have lost its mojo after WWI. Damn Kaiser.

[tobyjug]

I'd have said "Damned Churchill and the Admiralty". We had no national interest at stake in entering that war. We were duped. We'd have done better continuing to sell arms to all sides, letting the exhausted Germans win. It wasn't the "end of the world" or "end of democracy" when they won in 1866 and 1870.

[czsz]

True, but we might have had to deal with French Nazis.

[BostonUrbEx]

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dugway&hl=en&ll=40.727486,-113.350067&spn=0.704554,1.454315&safe=off&fb=1&gl=us&hq=dugway&cid=0,0,1542489061503290387&t=h&z=10&layer=c&cbll=40.727762,-113.351113&panoid=BokfOKIAK_UEbxlN9xMxGg&cbp=12,273.86,,0,11.69

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dugway&hl=en&ll=40.75831,-113.016186&spn=0.022137,0.045447&safe=off&fb=1&gl=us&hq=dugway&cid=0,0,1542489061503290387&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=40.75851,-113.015421&panoid=qN90nKb0ECxMuZDR6E3_Yg&cbp=12,58.22,,0,11.47

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dugway&hl=en&ll=40.765856,-112.989605&spn=0.04427,0.090895&safe=off&fb=1&gl=us&hq=dugway&cid=0,0,1542489061503290387&t=h&z=14&layer=c&cbll=40.765856,-112.989605&panoid=mZqFZatG-6yqobmYTRyArA&cbp=12,307.81,,0,19.21

The hell is this? A Google car taking pictures of another Google car?

[F-Line to Dudley]

https://p.twimg.com/A0gNUzMCEAAO3iD.jpg:medium

That reminds me...time to call the bookie and place bets on the Sept. 1 Storrow pool.

[tobyjug]

True, but we might have had to deal with French Nazis.

Interesting thought. I think the war would have been over in 1919 with the German capture of Paris, annexations of territory as far west as Reims and as far east as Brest-Litovsk, a White Russian Ukraine, no Hitler, and a neutered French Fourth Republic.

[Lurker]

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1300
The Last Compromise
Walter Russell Mead

Many hoped that the election of the first African-American President of the United States meant a decisive turn in the long and troubled history of race relations in the United States. And indeed President Obama’s election was a signal success for the American racial settlement of the 1970s. But at the moment of its greatest success, that settlement—call it the Compromise of 1977—was beginning to unravel, as evidenced by the fact that President Obama’s nearly four years in office to date have witnessed decades of economic progress and rising political power in black America shifting into reverse.


The race question is like no other in American life. From the beginning of the colonial era through the Civil War and up until today, American efforts to grapple with (or to avoid grappling with) the practical, moral, political and institutional consequences of race have shaped our political and institutional life. The Virginia House of Burgesses, the first elected assembly in the American colonies, assembled on July 30, 1619. In that same year the White Lion and the Treasurer docked in Virginia and unloaded the first African slaves to reach the present-day United States. Since that time, the stories of American representative government and race have been entangled in American history. The very structure of the Federal government and the nature of the party system were shaped by the slavery issue. The slavery question also shaped and ultimately limited national expansion. It affected the practical meaning of Federalism itself and the meaning of the rule of law. Nor is that entanglement yet over.
At every stage of American history, complicated political and economic compromises surrounded the question of race, each one managing it for a time but, despite the hopes of many, never settling it once and for all—not even by dint of a horrendously destructive civil war. The first of these was Compromise of 1787. The U.S. Constitution was written in a way that effectively banned Congress from interfering with slavery in the states, and the political interests of the slave states were protected further by the three-fifths clause as well as by weighted representation in the Senate and the Electoral College. On the other hand, that first compromise was shaped by the belief of many of the Founders, including enlightened slave owners like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, that economic progress would before very long make slavery unprofitable and that gradual emancipation on a state-by-state basis would bring an end to this evil. Thus when Congress gained the power to ban the importation of new slaves after 1807, it exercised that power at the first opportunity with the enthusiastic consent of Jefferson and many other slaveholders.
Alas, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and the Industrial Revolution upset the constitutional settlement. Slavery transformed almost overnight from a dying and backward agricultural system into a vital link in the most dynamic industry of its time. The cotton looms of the industrializing world depended on slave-grown cotton from the American South. The huge returns on cotton spawned an enormous and complex web of interests. Great swathes of the shipping, insurance and banking industries of the North depended on slave-based commodity production in the South. As a result, the Compromise of 1787 no longer satisfied either pro- or anti-slavery forces. The slave system needed to expand; demand for cotton was growing exponentially but yields on cotton plantations fell as the demanding crop exhausted the soil. Anti-slavery forces, including the growing presence of educated free blacks in Northern states, no longer believed that slavery was on the road to extinction and began to worry that, instead of dying out, the economic power of the “slave interest” would increasingly dominate national politics.


The three great compromises of the antebellum years (1820, 1850 and 1854) each attempted to cope with the new situation created by the conversion of slavery into an aggressive and wealthy force that depended on territorial expansion. The formal elements of territorial compromise, dividing Federal territories into those open to slave settlement and those closed to it, aimed to preserve a rough electoral balance between slave and free states. These territorial concessions, however, could not offset the growing economic and demographic advantages of the free states. The railroad accomplished for the North’s free labor economy what the cotton gin had done for the South: thanks to the railroad, northern agricultural produce and manufactured goods became caught up in the rapidly expanding global economy. By the 1850s, the slave interest felt itself back on the defensive as new patterns of trade and production reduced the weight of cotton in the national economy.


In 1860, Abraham Lincoln ran on a platform of what, in today’s language, might be called the containment of slavery. Lincoln essentially offered the slave states a return to the Compromise of 1787: He would preserve and even strengthen the constitutional protection of slavery where it existed, but he would prohibit the expansion of slavery into new territories. Additionally, the Republicans refused to expand into non-U.S. territories suitable for slavery; the 1850s had seen a range of diplomatic and filibustering efforts by Southerners aiming to annex Cuba and various parts of Central America in order to bring new “slavery-friendly” territory into the Union. In the efforts to find yet another sectional compromise to avoid civil war, Lincoln was adamant on the question of expansion, but he was flexible on the question of new constitutional guarantees to protect slavery where it already existed.


Indeed, oddly enough, Lincoln and Jefferson Davis shared the same belief about where a containment strategy would lead: If slavery could not expand, it would sooner or later disappear. Politically, the weight of the free states in the North would rise with slavery permanently confined to one section of the country, and economically the vitality of cotton agriculture would rapidly decline without fresh new land. Lincoln relished this future, but Davis was unwilling to consider any compromise that locked the South into a situation in which the territorial expansion of slavery could be blocked by Northern opposition. The South, in other words, was no longer content with the original racial compromises, which granted protection for slavery as it slowly withered away.


The result of this disagreement, of course, was a civil war and the forcible abolition of slavery. But the war did not remove the question of race from its place as a core factor in the shaping of American politics and order. Indeed, by taking slavery off the table, the Civil War raised the importance of race, for now that African Americans were all free, the question of their rights and their relationship to the Federal government moved to the forefront of American politics, and in many respects continues there today.



Before the Civil War, the question of the rights of free blacks, and indeed of all “persons of color”, was left to each state to decide. Some Northern states banned free blacks from settling there. Others gave them equal suffrage and property rights. In some states free blacks served on juries; in others they were excluded from the administration of justice. The slave states adopted codes of varying severity aimed at preventing free blacks from establishing rallying points for slave revolts. After the Civil War, questions about the place of free blacks in American life could no longer be treated as a secondary issue or left entirely to the states to decide. There were several states in which blacks were a majority—South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana—and, if allowed to vote, would dominate political life. The experience of the war, in which black soldiers fought and demonstrated heroism and courage, along with the strong sentiments in favor of equality that were reinforced by the war, gave new weight to demands for full social, political and economic rights for black people.
The politics of race thus became much more complicated during Reconstruction. For one thing, as a result of emancipation, the South actually stood to gain political power in Washington once the states of the former Confederacy were readmitted to the union. Blacks held in slavery counted as only three-fifths of a white man for purposes of allocating congressional seats and electoral votes. But now congressional representation had to be based on the full number of people living in a state. If blacks were denied the franchise but included in the census totals for assigning congressional seats and electoral votes, white Southerners would have gained political power by losing the Civil War.


The question of race relations in the South was intimately bound up in questions about the relations between the sections and the parties after the Civil War. In the end, a new great compromise was adopted that shaped American politics as well as race relations for almost a century. The Compromise of 1877, the year when the last Federal occupation troops left the last Southern states, had several dimensions. The South accepted the election of the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to the presidency over Samuel J. Tilden despite clear evidence of fraud in exchange for the removal of the troops and the real end of Reconstruction.
But more fundamentally, the white South accepted the results of the Civil War, acknowledging that slavery, secession and the quest for sectional equality were all at an end. The South would live peacefully and ultimately patriotically in a union dominated by Northern capitalists. White Southerners might complain about Northern banks and plutocrats (and they did for decades), but they would not take up arms. For its part, the North agreed to ignore some inconvenient constitutional amendments of the Reconstruction period, allowing each Southern state to manage race relations as its white voters saw fit. In particular, the North allowed the South to deny blacks the vote while counting them for representational purposes. The Republicans also accepted the renewal of real party competition at the national level; while the GOP would mostly control the White House in the generation after 1877, the Democrats would often control one or both houses of Congress thanks to the new weight of the “Solid South.”


The defeated South also benefited from other elements of the Compromise. The death of the Southern wing of the Republican Party after 1877 made the South a de facto one party region, so that Southern Senators and Representatives accumulated enormous power under the seniority system. The Democratic Party’s rule, adopted in 1832, that a presidential nominee had to have the support of two-thirds of convention delegates, gave the white South an effective veto over the Democratic presidential nomination. This meant that no Democrat from the North with national political aspirations would alienate Southern powerbrokers.


For blacks, the Compromise of 1877 was a disaster. Not for another eighty years would the Federal government seriously try to uphold the constitutional rights of black Americans in the Southern states. Disarmed, degraded, denied the franchise in much of the country, black Americans were relegated to second-class status in civic life. Economically most blacks remained marginalized and held in conditions of peonage (sharecropping) that offered little more freedom and opportunity than slavery itself.


Yet even in these conditions, blacks found a way forward. Dogged by disabilities, discrimination and even mob violence, courageous and determined people built an educational system in both the North and South and created a vibrant and competent middle and upper-middle class. Lawyers, teachers and professors, business entrepreneurs and above all ministers of the Gospel gradually built a national infrastructure of black leadership that lead the fight for black rights in the courts, in the press and on the street.


The mechanization of Southern agriculture then combined with the 20th-century industrial boom in the great Northern cities to promote what has been called the Great Migration. Millions of African Americans streamed out of the South to establish themselves in cities like New York, Chicago, Washington and Los Angeles. Though discrimination and segregation were still present in these cities, there was more opportunity and certainly more freedom from mob violence and terror than in the Jim Crow South. There was another difference, too. In the North, blacks could vote and, as the Great Migration persisted, black voting strength became a significant factor in Northern urban politics. Politicians from both parties courted blacks, and largely as a result the issue of Federal civil rights legislation, nearly dead by 1900, revived. The Compromise of 1877 was coming undone.


Changes in political economy had clearly influenced past racial settlements, and now this was happening again. When the black population in America consisted largely of economically dependent sharecroppers in isolated rural areas, its members had little ability to communicate or work effectively together. It was not possible in early 20th-century conditions to provide much beyond the most basic education in these rural areas, especially against the opposition of the local power structures. And since sharecroppers often struggled under long-term debt (and high interest rates), they were dependent on their landlords—so it took great courage to speak up against the system. That was the case even without taking the ever-present threat of white mob violence and lynching into account. Clearly, the end of the sharecropping economy, the rise of the mass-manufacturing system and its gradual extension from North to South undermined the conditions that sustained the Compromise of 1877. Urbanized Northern blacks were educationally more advanced and politically more active. Corporations moving manufacturing into the South found the Jim Crow system and racial hierarchy an obstacle. The New Deal and World War II dramatically accelerated all these trends as African Americans entered the modern economy, the manufacturing economy entered the South, and the mass conscription of World War II (soon renewed for the Cold War) forced the armed forces to re-examine the practicability of racial segregation under modern conditions.



The Compromise of 1877 thus came under increasing pressure during the 1940s and, by the end of the decade, was clearly coming apart. President Truman’s order desegregating the armed forces in 1948 and Brown vs. Board of Education in 1954 marked the decline and fall of the post-Reconstruction racial settlement. From 1947 through 1967, blacks’ median incomes rose at a blistering pace of 3.6 percent per year (while white median income grew on average by 2.8 percent per year). This change both reflected the progress of the Civil Rights movement and fuelled its further development.


Over the generation after World War Two the interplay of the civil rights movement and white backlash against it dominated the American political scene. Mob violence in the South and devastating riots across the nation’s cities, in the worst episodes of domestic violence since the Civil War, led to the most important wave of political change since Reconstruction. They led to the Compromise of 1977.


As the Compromise of 1877 began to break down, the country struggled with a series of issues: the legally mandated segregation of schools and public accommodations, mostly in the South; private segregation in housing and associations like private clubs; discrimination in employment, whether formal or (as in the case of many trade unions, informal through control over entry into apprenticeship programs); racism as a set of preconceptions and negative stereotypes that influenced public and private judgments about black capabilities and rights; and a set of issues related to the treatment of the poor by the police and by various levels of government. That struggle, encapsulated in the catchall phrase “the civil rights era”, was one of great progress in race relations. To an extent that was unimaginable as recently as the 1930s, Americans of all races and sections examined and discarded old ideas and practices deeply embedded in popular culture. One can speak of a national conversion experience; the American worldview of 1970 was radically different from that of 1930, and the word “conversion” is used advisedly, for much of the change of the national heart was channeled through religious institutions. Racial inequality had been a fundamental working assumption of American life before the civil rights revolution; afterwards the country was committed to fight inequality and work to build a society in which all races had equal opportunity to succeed.



The Compromise of 1877 had been deeply woven into the country’s political institutions, and it was not easily dismantled. Even as demonstrations and sit-ins swept the country, powerful Southern conservatives kept new civil rights legislation bottled up. In the 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson used his mastery of the Senate and his close relationships with Southern powerbrokers to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress, the dam burst, and American race relations were fundamentally recast. The politics of race in the civil rights era were bitter and complicated. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended most forms of legal discrimination and the Voting Rights Act undid a century of Southern resistance to black voting. But resistance to “forced bussing” to achieve school integration spread from the South to the North in those years, and the openly segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace shocked the country by running strongly in Democratic primaries in the Northern states. Waves of race riots in the nation’s cities coming after the passage of the civil rights laws and intensifying after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King demonstrated that black anger was far from appeased by the 1960s reforms. White flight hollowed out cities like Detroit as whites fled what to many seemed an intolerable mix of crime, racial violence and busing; after a century of forced silence and deference, blacks developed a new culture of assertion and pride.



In the end, Americans stitched together another complex racial settlement to replace the discarded post-Reconstruction compromise. This “Compromise of 1977” was never formally negotiated, but it provides the framework within which Americans continue to work as we struggle with the country’s racial issues.



The inauguration of Jimmy Carter, a white Southern evangelical who was liberal on racial issues but conservative on moral and some social ones, marked an end to the period when the politics of race played a decisive role in national elections. One can call the post-civil rights era that began in 1977 a settlement or a compromise because, once again, it balanced various claims and demands. At its core, the compromise offered blacks unprecedented economic opportunity and social equality, but it also allowed for the stern and unrelenting repression of inner-city lawlessness and crime. Blacks who were ready, willing and able to participate in the American system found an open door and a favoring wind; blacks who for whatever reason were unable or unwilling to “play by the rules” faced long terms in prisons where gang violence and rape were routine.
It was a liberal settlement, not a radical one; claims for reparations for slavery were rejected, but society sought to compensate for past discrimination by offering greater opportunity to individuals in the here and now. In the same way, it mandated the desegregation of schools and workplaces but, after some initial experiments, no serious efforts were made to force integration (as opposed to banning discrimination) in housing patterns. People who wanted to live “with their own kind” could still do so, but they could no longer invoke deed restrictions or other legal means to preserve what President Carter in an unfortunate turn of phrase called the “ethnic purity” of their neighborhoods.



There were other ways in which the settlement both advanced and contained black interests and aspirations. The Voting Rights Act, for example, not only firmly secured the franchise for blacks; it also required that legislative districts be drawn in such a way as to guarantee the creation of black-majority districts whenever possible. This ensured the greatest number of black elected officials since Reconstruction, increasing the number of black Congressmen from four in 1960 to 42 in 2010. Similarly, in 1964, 94 blacks were serving either as Representatives or Senators in state legislatures, of whom 16 served in Southern states. By 2009, 628 blacks served in these positions. But the additional numbers of black elected officials did not always result in more favorable political outcomes. By concentrating largely Democratic minority voters in a few districts, the reforms reduced the chances for Democratic majority legislatures in the affected states and reduced the number of Democrats returned to Congress from Southern states. Blacks were a larger share of a smaller party, and in many states Republican legislatures were able to pass pretty much any laws they wished over the objections of Democrats both black and white. Not surprisingly, many Republicans continued to support key provisions of the Voting Rights Act as they studied its political effect.
One distinct element of the new racial settlement was the centrality of urban policy. Blacks were the last major American ethnic group to urbanize, but, when the Great Migration ended in 1970, 47 percent of blacks lived outside the old Confederacy, and the majority nationwide lived in urban areas. Race policy had once been primarily about the rural South; for the past fifty years it has been almost a synonym for urban policy. A steady flow of funds to the cities from the 1960s Model Cities program to the present day supported expenses beyond what the local tax base could support. In many cities, black-run political machines built up encrusted systems of corruption and incompetence with little oversight or prosecutorial review, unless the corruption became truly spectacular—as in Detroit and a few other cities.


The most consequential element of the new settlement was the commitment to build something the United States had not had before: a substantial black middle class. The Federal and state governments, universities, and large corporations set about systematically to hire and promote blacks. When normal hiring and recruiting methods fell short, more unconventional forms of affirmative action ensued. Significant efforts to increase the pool of black students and graduates capable of filling these jobs were mounted, and success was particularly high in government. In 2011, 11.6 percent of the total American workforce was black, but blacks accounted for 21 percent of postal employees and 20 percent of government employees nationwide. Government is the largest employer of black men and the second largest employer of black women. Government jobs are especially important for the black middle class. Teachers, police, firefighters, sanitation workers, state and city office workers, health workers: These are the jobs on which a generation of African Americans have built middle-class lives.


As American racial settlements go, the Compromise of 1977 was certainly the fairest and the most constructive in U.S. history. Under its terms, for the first time a majority of African-American families are middle class. Taking advantage of new opportunities in a host of fields, African Americans emerged as leaders; the upper ranks of the U.S. military, the legal profession, literature, journalism and the academy, too—all benefited from newly unleashed black talent. In entertainment, music and sports, where blacks had long succeeded as performers, blacks rose to the top and became not just stars but owners, coaches and moguls. Popular racial attitudes changed dramatically; race prejudice was no longer acceptable in polite society, and interracial marriage, once illegal in many states, became widespread.



Yet as relatively benign as it was, the Compromise of 1977 did not end America’s racial problem. The majority of blacks may have achieved, however precariously, a middle-class standard of living, but the large minority of blacks who did not get there found themselves trapped in an intensifying cycle of poverty, social dysfunction and despair. Conditions in many American cities deteriorated dramatically as white flight, globalization (destroying the manufacturing base of many rust belt cities), poor governance and the drug trade ravaged urban America. The heavy police presence and law enforcement crackdowns sent a growing proportion of young black men to prison. Weak family structures, absent fathers, abysmal schools and the consequences of a culture in which drug abuse and violence were widespread placed almost insuperable barriers in the way of young generations of African Americans born into the inner cities.
In some ways the City of Baltimore as depicted in The Wire is a disturbingly accurate picture of inner-city African-American life three decades into the post-civil rights era racial settlement. We see blacks represented in positions of authority in many though not all institutions; city government, the police and the schools have a particularly strong black presence. But we also see the projects, the prisons, the long-term unemployed and the hopeless. And dominating the picture is the decline in Baltimore’s economic situation: the port, the freight yards and manufacturing no longer provide steady work at middle- or lower-middle-class wages for Baltimoreans black or white. Baltimore has negotiated a careful and reasonably successful compromise that both races can live with, but the bottom has fallen out from under the city’s economy. The inner city’s social structure has imploded as a consequence, the political culture makes Tammany Hall look like Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity, and thousands of young black children are growing up in a murderous and toxic—and almost totally segregated—world.



The election of President Obama marked both the definitive triumph of the 1977 racial settlement and the beginning of its end. A generation of national struggle against the spirit of race prejudice had created the closest thing to a color-blind electorate American politics had ever known. A generation of opening doors to talented blacks provided the opportunity for not just Barack Obama but a galaxy of African-American leaders in business, politics and culture to reach the summit of national life.
But the financial crisis that helped Obama win election in time devastated the black middle class and demonstrated the extent to which the core economic assumptions that shaped the new era in race relations were under threat. The housing bubble’s greatest victims were striving minorities; a combination of well-intentioned efforts to increase home ownership among low-income and minority families with unscrupulous and irresponsible Wall Street lending products left millions of Americans stuck with pricey mortgages in overvalued properties.



Worse, state and local governments were hit hard by the ensuing recession. Massive government layoffs rippled across the country as revenues fell and governments frantically slashed their budgets. Blacks are disproportionately represented among government employees, and government employment has been a mainstay of the new black middle class. The numbers are therefore revealing. Black unemployment under President Obama hit 16.2 percent (June 2011). The median net worth of black households collapsed, falling by 59 percent between 2005 and 2010, wiping out twenty years of progress and plunging to levels not seen since Ronald Reagan’s first term. By comparison, the net worth of white households only fell by 18 percent from 2005 to 2010. The gap between black and white net worth doubled during the Great Recession, and the “wealth gap” between the races rose; the median white household had 22 times the net worth of the median black household. Moreover, the damage to black prospects will not soon be repaired. Indeed, if we now (as seems likely) face a prolonged period of austerity and restructuring in government, there will be fewer job openings and stagnant or falling wages and benefits in the middle-class occupations where blacks have enjoyed the greatest success.



Politics will probably make the government jobs squeeze worse. The black middle class isn’t based so largely on government jobs because blacks aren’t entrepreneurial or because they have some natural affinity for bureaucratic paper pushing. Historically, municipal government in particular has been a major avenue for the economic advancement of different American ethnic groups. The Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Poles and many others used their voting strength in urban centers to elect politicians sympathetic to the interests of their group, and over time that turned into municipal jobs for many voters and contracts for others. The urban ethnic political machines and their traditions of patronage, wholesale electoral fraud and influence peddling often led to bad governance, but historically the system did help millions of new immigrants bootstrap themselves into the American middle class. Charlie Rangel and William Jefferson aren’t evidence of some peculiar disease of black urban politics; they are as American as Tammany Hall.


The rise of black voting power in American cities led naturally to improved access for black workers to city jobs, just as Tammany Hall once helped the Irish and other political organizations helped other groups get that first toehold on the first rung of the ladder of success. Blacks, whose Great Migration to the Northern cities came as World War I and immigration restrictions closed the door to European immigrants early in the 20th century, were (until the recent Hispanic influx) the last major group to colonize America’s great cities; it is the misfortune of black America to be establishing a middle class on the basis of government work just as the economic foundations of government are shifting.


Now, however, urban demographics are changing, and the politics of urban employment will change with it. In cities like Los Angeles, New York and even Washington, DC, black political power has begun to decline. Spanish-speaking immigrants and immigrants from Asia are exerting more power in local elections, and the patronage networks that have served blacks well in recent decades will now increasingly serve other client groups. An influx of affluent whites, who dislike machine politics and want to improve services like schools while cutting costs, puts additional pressure on the patronage networks. Add the squeeze on state and municipal government hiring together with a decline in relative black political power, and the future is not particularly hard to calculate.



But the true dimension of the dangers facing the black middle class emerges only if we look at the full range of changes taking place in the American economy. Affirmative action and other methods of improving black access to middle-class jobs work best in large, stable firms with fairly bureaucratic structures and large numbers of employees performing reasonably similar functions. The U.S. Postal Service, regulated utilities, universities, healthcare firms, mass-market manufacturers like the automobile industry and large clerical intensive firms like national insurance companies have established programs that have been successful at hiring, training and promoting minority employees in middle-class and professional jobs. The trouble is, healthcare excepted, these firms are being forced to change their ways of doing business. In some cases, like the USPS, large layoffs have already taken place: Its headcount will drop by 220,000 by 2015. Other employers are busily outsourcing or automating many of the functions that once provided stable middle-class livelihoods for large groups of workers.



Perhaps worse, new business and new industrial facilities are often built in places where not many blacks live. Some of this is to avoid the high costs and heavy regulatory burdens associated with most urban locations. It is much cheaper to set up operations in the exurbs than in the inner suburbs and inner cities where many blacks live. The heavy compliance burdens imposed by environmental, construction and other regulations on urban areas discourage startups in precisely those areas where minority unemployment is highest. There is also a troubling pattern of foreign investment going into parts of the country where fewer minorities live. I have heard from both German and Japanese sources over the years that the absence of large black populations has influenced choices about, for example, locating new factories away from the South Carolina Low Country and the Mississippi Delta. It would be hard to prove that race alone is shaping these decisions, but race has clearly been a factor in the location of some significant foreign-owned plants.



Since 1979, manufacturing employment has been declining throughout the country, but it has declined farther and faster in cities with large black populations. Between 1990 and 2011, manufacturing employment fell by 34 percent across the country; in Detroit it fell by 53 percent, in Baltimore by 52 percent, in Flint by 80 percent, and in Los Angeles by 55 percent.
One of the tragedies of black history in America is that blacks often only get to the gravy train when the locomotive is coming to the end of its run. Blacks are qualifying in large numbers for civil service pensions just as those pensions are looking shaky. Blacks have moved into professional, middle-class government employment just as state and local governments are heading over the financial cliff. In the same way, blacks came relatively late to the other pillar of 20th- century American middle class prosperity: manufacturing jobs. For the European migrants to American cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as productivity rose (and as immigration restrictions cut off the supply of low-wage competition), rising manufacturing wages and employment opened the door to mass prosperity. The children and grandchildren of immigrant factory workers would go to college, enter the professions and also build new businesses, but that factory employment gave the economic stability that underwrote the economic integration of whole waves of immigrants into the American system. Blacks, drawn to the urban North after European immigration was curtailed by World War I and the draconian restrictions passed in its aftermath, came late to the factory economy as well. Many labor unions refused to accept black apprentices into skilled trades until the 1960s. Formal and informal systems of discrimination kept blacks from competing on equal terms for many factory jobs in the North and South until well into the 1970s.


But again, many blacks got into the game just as the game was starting to change. As a percentage of the labor force, manufacturing jobs peaked in 1979. Since that time, a combination of productivity-raising technological change, global competition, the full entry of women into the labor force and the start of a new wave of mass immigration following immigration law changes in 1965 has held real wages down and reduced opportunities for struggling urban families to achieve a secure footing in the middle class.
Exacerbating these problems is the challenging nature of urban life for poor young people. Many of the waves of immigrants into American cities come from the countryside where there are strong religious and cultural patterns that help people live disciplined lives. Over time, those values and institutions lose their hold on immigrants living in new and unfamiliar urban surroundings. Youth gangs, the excitements and temptations of city life and the easy availability of demoralizing drugs, from alcohol to the many stimulants available today, threaten the ability of new urban generations to acquire the habits and skills that make success possible. Religious institutions, schools and social initiatives like Jane Addams’ Hull House have for many generations been fighting the forces of personal and social disorganization that take a great toll in each rising generation of poor urban young people, whether we are thinking about Irish, Italians, Jews, Poles or blacks. And the longer a population remains trapped in urban poverty, the deeper the damage to new generations.


Over the past two centuries, the question of race in America has been indissolubly linked to the general social and economic development of the country. That is not surprising; blacks and whites live and work in the same economy and the same forces act on their lives. But race and the history of race have meant that these forces play out in different ways. Just as past compromises going back to 1787 were based on the political economy of the day, the Compromise of 1977 reflected the nature of American economic and political life at that time. The United States was then still in the late heyday of the “blue social model.” Stable corporate oligopolies provided lifetime employment for both blue- and white-collar workers. Both public and private entities were bureaucratically organized with large clerical staffs dedicated to relatively low-skilled information processing. Employment in government and in the academy was rapidly expanding, and real wages had been rising for a generation. Manufacturing employment was high and presumably headed higher. The Compromise of 1977 was predicated on the assumption that these conditions would endure; they have not, and race relations must once again be rethought.
As Americans ponder how to build a prosperous and equitable post-industrial society, the question of race must be on the table. The racial policies reflected in the Compromise of 1977 do not suffice today. For much of the 20th century, the core problem facing black America was one of access. If blacks could get into the building and manufacturing unions on equal terms, they could build middle-class lives. If blacks could gain access to civil service and municipal jobs on the same terms as whites, they could enjoy a rising middle-class standard of living. If blacks could gain access to credentialing institutions like colleges, they could move into white collar and professional jobs—again, if they could compete on equal terms.


In the 21st century, access has not disappeared as an issue. Poor black kids in a chaotic, crime-ridden neighborhood with no option but to attend lousy schools can hardly be said to enjoy equal access to the opportunities of American life. But for the growing number of middle-class blacks, the problem today is less one of access than it is that the social model on which the progress of the past half-century depended is disintegrating. It’s no good having equal access to factory jobs if those jobs are disappearing. It’s no good having equal access to municipal government jobs if the city is laying off rather than hiring, and if wages and benefits for the jobs that remain are being cut. It’s no good having a pipeline into the healthcare sector if that sector faces an immense financial crisis and is skidding along on an unsustainable path. For blacks, as for all Americans, the central problem today isn’t how to get access to blue model jobs. It’s what to do next. This is not a racial problem, of course, but given the special circumstances and unique history of black America, those who want to get past blue are going to have to reckon with black. And in the reckoning we must recognize that we have no guarantees that the generally positive trajectory of the past half-century in race relations will persist if the underlying supports for it in the political economy fall away. That will surely affect the contours of the next great compromise, whenever it forms and whatever its terms.

[datadyne007]

http://i50.tinypic.com/2w2hr35.jpg
Edit: Answer solved

DON'T BLOCK THE BOX!!!

Lines are being put down all over the city.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Looks like diagonal sidewalks to me, so that you can (legally) cross from one corner of the sidewalk to the other.

Maybe they're ramping up for some serious jaywalking enforcement?

[datadyne007]

It's Don't Block the Box!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!

http://www.universalhub.com/2012/bpd-dont-block-frickin-block

They can pay off the entire MBTA debt with tickets from this intersection I posted (Longwood/Huntington) alone. Each light cycle, there's about 20 cars that end up in the box, blocking all E-line service and through-traffic on Huntington.

[underground]

Anyone want to offer odds on that guy from Arlington showing up to complain about auto persecution?

[choo]

I have been saying to myself for years they should have detail cops with pre-written tickets at intersections to just drop in the people's windows when they do this. The other day at Mass Ave and Boylston street. a 3 minute congestion back up literally turned into 30 minutes with multiple cycles going without a single car going through. I hope the ticket for this is like $500 bucks and a public shaming.

[datadyne007]

It's a measly $150.

Most cities have $200 and up, PLUS traffic violation points (such as NY's point system)

[Corey]

Looks like diagonal sidewalks to me, so that you can (legally) cross from one corner of the sidewalk to the other.

Maybe they're ramping up for some serious jaywalking enforcement?

Does Boston currently have any intersections like this [Pedestrian Scramble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble), per Wikipedia]? I imagine there are some places that it would make sense. I'm all for anything that prioritizes pedestrians and bicyclists over automobiles.

[datadyne007]

I always cross diagonally at this intersection anyway. I just thought it was funny that the lines they drew are my (and many others) exact path.

[davem]

Does Boston currently have any intersections like this [Pedestrian Scramble (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedestrian_scramble), per Wikipedia]? I imagine there are some places that it would make sense. I'm all for anything that prioritizes pedestrians and bicyclists over automobiles.

Harvard and Comm is not signed as such, but there is an all pedestrian phase every light cycle that is long enough so people can, and do cross diagonally. With the T and everything else there its much utilized.

[Lurker]

The intersections of State, Court, & Congress Streets and Longwood Avenue at Brookline Avenue come to mind. Exclusive walk phases are likely the only way to stop Boston's homicidal habit of turning right on red into pedestrians in crosswalks without ever stopping or yielding.

[datadyne007]

Sweet victory.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/datadyne007/DSC07171-Copy.jpg

[statler]

http://i.imgur.com/ojcTs.gif

[BostonUrbEx]

Awesome! Congratulations, Data! :)

[kz1000ps]

Congrats, guy. Now that phase 1 of adulthood is done, what's next? Any job leads or are you going to relax for a bit?

[Beton Brut]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPCntBJBnAM

[kz1000ps]

Phase 1: hire Frank Gehry
Phase 2: ???
Phase 3: PROFIT!

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/375934_10152054202370603_807236191_n.jpg

http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1346069047-facebook-new-campus-frank-gehry-01-1000x664.jpg

http://ad009cdnb.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/1346069043-facebook-new-campus-frank-gehry-02everett-katigbak-facebook.jpg

http://www.archdaily.com/267366/facebook-frank-gehry/facebook-new-campus-frank-gehry_01/

[czsz]

^ That is one hideous POS. What's with the high tension wires? Staying as abstract sculpture or something?

On a totally unrelated note, here's some numbers for perspective on Boston as College Town:

Two metros are home to more than one million college students — greater New York City with 1.3 million and greater Los Angeles with nearly 1.1 million. Both of these metros contain multiple major schools, like New York's Columbia University, New York University, and Barnard College and L.A.'s UCLA, USC, and Loyola Marymount University, just to name a few.

Chicago is next with more than 670,000 students, followed by Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, each home to slightly more than 450,000 college students. Boston is next with nearly 400,000 college students.

The next several metros are a bit more surprising. Dallas-Fort Worth and Miami are the nation's seventh and eighth largest college towns respectively, with roughly 380,000 students each. San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, and Detroit are each home to more than 300,000 college students, while San Diego, Riverside, Phoenix, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Seattle, and Baltimore all host more than 200,000 collegians. St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and several other metros have more than 150,000. That's more than double the number who go to school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and five times more than Ithaca, New York.

[blade_bltz]

I've driven through that area and am pretty sure I've noticed those very wires. This particular plot of land is located in an absolute wasteland sandwiched between the 'hood of East Menlo Park and some funky looking wetlands at the edge of the Bay.

[Lurker]

Sweet victory.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y95/datadyne007/DSC07171-Copy.jpg

Congratulations on the worst mistake of your life!
Welcome to the club. Now get yourself a professional degree and a job.

[Ron Newman]

Chicago is next with more than 670,000 students, followed by Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, each home to slightly more than 450,000 college students. Boston is next with nearly 400,000 college students.

I'm curious how the metro areas are defined for this purpose. For instance, does Philadelphia's go all the way out to encompass Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, and Villanova?

[choo]

Congratulations on the worst mistake of your life!
Welcome to the club. Now get yourself a professional degree and a job.

I never actually read a diploma, always kinda put them in a drawer. I wonder how the choose what words to capitalize and which to not, it seems pretty random. Also, "In the year of Our Lord" is Wentworth religiously affiliated at all? I didn't think it was

[datadyne007]

No, but all colleges use the diploma language from the medieval times. The whole idea of college/the graduation/cap, gown, hood is based off Christian traditions.

[datadyne007]

Endlich wird sie produktiv! ;-)
(Finally, she is productive)

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/320229_4579058478762_485394726_n.jpg

Hahahaha. Döner <3

[statler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQ4cRW8gLpw

[BostonUrbEx]

So the GOP is simply flaunting how outrageous they are now. How much longer can this party survive? And yet the media doesn't cover most of the insanity they commit. Fucking politics.

At least the Dems try to look nice, even if they're making us take it in the butt just as much.

[statler]

Cafe from Hell (http://www.retronaut.co/2011/06/the-cafe-from-hell/), Paris:

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/door-detail.jpg

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/front1-520x325.jpg

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/interior2.jpg

Question: How come this looks so cool in old-timey B&W photos but if you tried to build something like this today it would look like a cheap Disney attraction?

[datadyne007]

I'm sure it looked and felt like a Disney attraction in person.

[tobyjug]

Plaster instead of foam. More grain in the film print. But the Heaven and Hell bar pairing is kind of cheesy (but fun)!

(Wonder how Helena Bonham Carter got that seat on the left.)

[statler]

I'm sure it looked and felt like a Disney attraction in person.

I guess that's the gut of my question. I really don't know enough about turn of century Parisian culture to know if this would have been a tacky/fun type place (was that even a concept at the time?) or would it have been more of an avant garde type place where the beatnik types would hang out?

[datadyne007]

I guess that's the gut of my question. I really don't know enough about turn of century Parisian culture to know if this would have been a tacky/fun type place (was that even a concept at the time?) or would it have been more of an avant garde type place where the beatnik types would hang out?

Well, just look at the ridiculous design of the Metro (Metropolitain) stations.

http://whygo-eur.s3.amazonaws.com/www.parislogue.com/files/2009/02/abbesses1.jpg

Art Nouveau swept Paris and you can feel the influence of Gaudi's organic forms from Spain.

[czsz]

Question: How come this looks so cool in old-timey B&W photos but if you tried to build something like this today it would look like a cheap Disney attraction?

Because things we consider tacky are things we're used to, whereas this was probably a novelty?

I mean, football used to be considered a rich people's sport. Tastes and attitudes change with time.

[Beton Brut]

(Wonder how Helena Bonham Carter got that seat on the left.)

I'd like to spend a weekend with her, and a a case of absinthe.

[statler]

I swear the internet is more unbearable during the election season than it is on April 1st. Politics manage to seep into discussions about the most apolitical topics everywhere.

Just want to shut down my computer until Nov 7.

[czsz]

At least you don't live in Tampa and your local news portal wasn't transformed into this:

http://cdn.theatlanticwire.com/img/upload/2012/08/29/Screen_shot_2012-08-29_at_12.49.07_PM/large.png

[tobyjug]

I'd like to spend a weekend with her, and a a case of absinthe.

Hanging around her you'd need it.

And Datadyne, our friendly local Krautophile, I have a feeling that if that Metro station picture were a picture of a Jungendstil Otto Wagner train pavillion in Vienna, you'd be cool with it!!!

[datadyne007]

Hanging around her you'd need it.

And Datadyne, our friendly local Krautophile, I have a feeling that if that Metro station picture were a picture of a Jungendstil Otto Wagner train pavillion in Vienna, you'd be cool with it!!!

Oh don't get me wrong, I like the Paris Metro headhouses and that kind of Art Nouveau. The word "ridiculous" wasn't the best word choice. It was more used to be relative to what is the norm for headhouse design. I guess "unique" is a better word. It's truly sad that only 2 still exist.

And I have sooooo many pictures of all of Wagner's work from Vienna.

[tobyjug]

Just teasing. I enjoy your "postcards" from Mitteleuropa!

[datadyne007]

I'm still sorting through all my pix of Germany/Berlin, Vienna, Bregenz, Sevilla, le Couvent de la Tourette, and all of Switzerland/up in the Alps. There's just so many.

Perhaps I could gather a thread together eventually.

[BeeLine]

For the past month I have noticed a new park taking shape next to the pike. It is called the Fierda Garcia Park and is at the corner of Claredon and Stanhope Streets. Did we know about this?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8037/7891527156_ba60f4f666_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/7891527156/)
Frieda Garcia Park Boston 8/29 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/beelinebos/7891527156/)

[Beton Brut]

"Columbus Center Memorial." Urban design by Ned Flaherty, MUP, MLA.

[Matthew]

Strange day. I walked off a bus and found a small fire burning in the wood chips of a sidewalk tree. I failed to stomp it out, but luckily some woman ran up with a container of water to dump on it. Good thing too, as dialing 9-1-1 had only produced me a busy signal.

[statler]

http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2012/08/30/wolframalpha-personal-analytics-for-facebook/

[Ron Newman]

What was on this site before the park construction?

[Commuting Boston Student]

Well, this is new to me.

When did the digital signboards get reconfigured to show useful information?

https://p.twimg.com/A1oB1XpCUAAJgAm.jpg

edit: Aw, no, MBTA, don't tell me that's unique to South Station...

[statler]

They are doing a slow roll out across the system (save green line, of course).

[Commuting Boston Student]

They are doing a slow roll out across the system (save green line, of course).

Oh. I feel less betrayed now.

How slow is slow, and are any other stations wired up with this yet?

[Beton Brut]

What was on this site before the park construction?

Not much since the Turnpike extension, Ron.

The entrance to a retail or restaurant space at the base of the Columbus Center tower (Clarendon Street side) would have been right about where the photographer was standing.

Here are some thoughts from our friend John (http://www.johnakeithrealestate.com/boston-real-estate-condo-news/columbus-center-project-is-officially-dead-the-last-word-is-mine/).

[BostonUrbEx]

Is anyone else signed up to a Somerville GLX mailing list? I received an email every month simply informing me I was on the list. Finally some did the unthinkable... they requested to be removed from the mailing list... via 'Reply All'. A hilarious 150-250 email chain ensued.

[Ron Newman]

I saw that, too! Except I wasn't getting those monthly reminders.

[datadyne007]

Is anyone else signed up to a Somerville GLX mailing list? I received an email every month simply informing me I was on the list. Finally some did the unthinkable... they requested to be removed from the mailing list... via 'Reply All'. A hilarious 150-250 email chain ensued.

Yes. It was absolute chaos. I used my Wentworth e-mail when I signed the petition, so that was the e-mail they had on file and got bombarded with that hilarious chain. I get Outlook Online notifications on my phone and it was fucking BLOWING UP.

Luckily Outlook was able to group all of the messages and I could delete most of them at once, but I had to kill some stragglers on my own.

[datadyne007]

Deval just told all the democrats to grow a backbone at his DNC speech in a passionate screaming speech.

Holy lord. That was the best speech I have EVER seen! Twitter was abuzz with praise. He made me even prouder than I normally am to be from Massachusetts tonight.

http://bostinno.com/2012/09/04/governor-deval-patrick-speech/

[JohnAKeith]

Winn, et al wanted to use the sliver of land as part of the Columbus Center project but its owner, John Hancock, pulled a fast one and decided instead to make it into a park.

Construction to start this fall on Frieda Garcia Park (http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/back_bay/2011/09/construct_to_start_in_fall_on.html)
By Patrick Russo, Boston.com

Construction on the Frieda Garcia Park is set to begin this fall and could be completed by late spring 2012, park designers told residents.

The park and playground, in the works since 2004, will be located between the Mass Pike, Clarendon Street, and Stanhope Street. It will cover about 12,000 square-feet and include benches, green space, new trees, and a children's play area.

The space is named for a longtime South End community advocate.

Local residents, John Hancock officials, and city and state officials gathered Wednesday night at the Back Bay Event Center to discuss the status of the park and hear an update from the team from the Halvorson Design Partnership.

Along with the creation of the park, which sits on land owned by the John Hancock Financial Services company, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation will redevelop a portion of their land next to the Frieda Garcia Park. MassDOT officials in attendance said that trees and grass will be planted to compliment the Frieda Garcia Park, but will not be open to the public.

John Hancock is funding the park development, but will turn over ownership to the Boston Parks and Recreation upon completion of construction.

“We can finally say that we are nearing the finish line,” said Carol Fulp, senior vice president of brand communications and corporate responsibility for John Hancock.

Fulp added that she was especially excited that the park would be completed in conjunction with John Hancock’s 150 anniversary celebration.

Although many in attendance expressed their excitement to see the park finally come to fruition, some still had concerns about the security and maintenance of the park.

“My issue is what happens in the park when it is closed,” said Anthony Gordon, who lives on Stanhope Street.

Liza Meyer, chief landscape architect for Boston Parks and Recreation, said that as of now they do not plan on locking the park at night. Meyer was quick to add, however, that once a Friends of the Park association is set up and the park is opened, the city is willing to work with the neighbors to ensure the park is safe and not used for illicit activities.

Joel Miller, a local resident, added that the neighborhood would help with the responsibilities of the park.

“I think we all have personnel to get out there and patrol the area. I think you will find out that a lot of the abutters will be happy to help out,” he said.

In addition to security issues, some residents commented about the park benches that will line the exterior perimeter of the park. Many were concerned that the benches could bring people to the park at inappropriate hours and provide a sleeping area for the homeless.

Meyer assured the group that although the design is approved and they hope to begin construction, aspects of the design could be changed if residents don’t like what they see.

Along with large shade trees being added to the park, designers will install two mosaic murals by Lisa Houck as well as new-age play structures that will be built on a rubber-base material found commonly in Boston parks.

In addition to the discussion and the question and answer session, attendees had a chance to speak with Frieda Garcia, the person for whom the park is named.

“She’s been a long time civic leader in the South End who has helped transform lives, from toddlers to seniors,” commented Fulp.

Garcia, an activist in the community, has a history in the neighborhood that includes being executive director of the United South End Settlement for 20 years, board member of United Way, and a founding member of the Alianza Hispana. She said she was honored to have the park named after her.

“This is my first time seeing the redesign and I kept wondering what it was going to look like, but from my perspective it looks quite beautiful,” she said.

Email Patrick Rosso, patrick.d.rosso@gmail.com. Follow him @PDRosso.

[Justin7]

Deval just told all the democrats to grow a backbone at his DNC speech in a passionate screaming speech.

Holy lord. That was the best speech I have EVER seen! Twitter was abuzz with praise. He made me even prouder than I normally am to be from Massachusetts tonight.

http://bostinno.com/2012/09/04/governor-deval-patrick-speech/

I had no idea he was capable of that. Blew me away.

[statler]

I can't believe they are letting Mumbles speak. Though obviously not during prime time.

[datadyne007]

I can't believe they are letting Mumbles speak. Though obviously not during prime time.

I had the same horrific revelation this morning as well.

I honestly can't wait to see what he has to say.

[statler]

Too bad it could have been the DNC's answer to Clint.

Oh well, there is still Biden.

[datadyne007]

It's a gweat'day in da CityaBawston...

Maybe he'll be grandstanding his stance on gay rights/Chick-fil-A.

On a related note: did anyone see the little interview CNN had with Dukakis in the press booth? I enjoyed that as well. I really like that they are getting all the Democratic MA politicians involved because Romney's past experience involves RUINING our great state of Massachusetts (while in the meantime enacting sweeping healthcare reform (edited) that he is now vehemently against).

[czsz]

I had no idea he was capable of that. Blew me away.

Deval is capable of doing a lot of things on the national stage, which is where he actually wants to be, that you would not see him waste his energy on for the local press in Boston.

Also, FWIW, Romney didn't legalize gay marriage in MA, the courts did. Either way, sort of sly for Deval to imply that it was only possible after Romney left office.

Warren tonight. Wonder if a good speech will give her a boost vis-a-vis Brown, who tried to distance himself from the RNC.

[tobyjug]

The swing vote on the court was Justice Cowin, a Republican appointee.

[datadyne007]

I don't think CNN broadcasted Menino's speech. Did anyone see it??

[czsz]

The swing vote on the court was Justice Cowin, a Republican appointee.

Appointed by Cellucci.

[choo]

I am on the fence in brown-warren. A moderate republican is a good thing to support, i think, even if there are more policy differences with him than i have with her.

Clinton, however, totally dismantled Romney. Every attack Romney has attempted, every incomplete policy proposal, Clinton went line by line and called him out. As a political junkie, it was impressive the way he could talk detailed policy in a way that still captivates people. For the non-political people that are largely paying little attention so far other than what is picked up from osmosis, they came out impressed and behind Obama. I don't think Romney has the likeability, political skill, and most importantly substantive policy to win many back. I think if these are the arguments still outlined when debates come around, Romney will get quickly exposed. Herman Cain and Santorum were not worthy sparing partners. Should be entertaining.

[Beton Brut]

I don't think CNN broadcasted Menino's speech. Did anyone see it??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTtAfQivINI

When King Tom retires, I wonder if he'd consider a career in television. An enterprising TV exec could re-imagine this forgotten Suzanne Somers vehicle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She%27s_the_sheriff), retitling it He's the Mayor.

[BostonUrbEx]

Have all elections been equally horrendous, or are they getting worse?

The Dem nominee should be Jill Stein and the Rep nominee should be Ron Paul. Now there's a race I'd like to see. Two people with legitimate concern for the public and without Goldman Sachs' dollars in their pocket.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Have all elections been equally horrendous, or are they getting worse?

No, they've been getting worse.

There's always been rhetoric, but the ease at which you can get your FUD on in the Internet Age is taking everything to a whole new level.

Think about it. What has the blogosphere and the 24-hour news cycle and social media and search engine optimization really given us? We're not getting a broader spectrum of opinions, we're not getting a wider range of coverage, we're not getting anything of any intellectual value.

A million different people are spinning a million different stories every which way but loose, and the modern American - no, the modern human being - never has to be confronted with or challenged by a spin they don't agree with.

We've been given all the tools to establish ourselves nice little echo chamber isolation boxes from the world, kept safe from the threat of actually having to evaluate our opinions by the never-fading cacophony of whatever sound bytes match our set-in opinions most.

And you know what? Pandora's box is already broken wide open. Things are only going to get worse from here.

I realized that I myself was guilty of this, and that's why I'm never going near politics again for the rest of my life.

[datadyne007]

^ You are a student. I don't understand how you could ever consider not engaging in politics. Your future and your kids' future are at stake. One guy will let your loan rates skyrocket, end Pell Grants, and kick you off your parents' healthcare and the other will support you in school, regulate interest rates, and ensure that you are insured until you're 26 (if need be).

For me, my upcoming marriage is at stake of being nullified and rights stripped with one guy and the other will stand up for our civil rights.

For my mother, it means more painful education cuts, which means even more supplies being bought for her classroom with the money from her own pocket, while we blindly increase defense spending beyond the requested levels. The other guy wants to invest in education and our nation's youth.

We all have some stake in this and we all have something to lose by electing a republican. You have to find what is meaningful to you and take a stand for it.

Edit: You are also a transit advocate. One guy wants to cut infrastructure spending dramatically and the other believes in investing in the nation's infrastructure.

[Commuting Boston Student]

^ You are a student. I don't understand how you could ever consider not engaging in politics. Your future and your kids' future are at stake. One guy will let your loan rates skyrocket, end Pell Grants, and kick you off your parents' healthcare and the other will support you in school, regulate interest rates, and ensure that you are insured until you're 26 (if need be).

For me, my upcoming marriage is at stake of being nullified and rights stripped with one guy and the other will stand up for our civil rights.

For my mother, it means more painful education cuts, which means even more supplies being bought for her classroom with the money from her own pocket, while we blindly increase defense spending beyond the requested levels. The other guy wants to invest in education and our nation's youth.

We all have some stake in this and we all have something to lose by electing a republican. You have to find what is meaningful to you and take a stand for it.

Edit: You are also a transit advocate. One guy wants to cut infrastructure spending dramatically and the other believes in investing in the nation's infrastructure.

We all have some stake in this, that's true. And yes, perhaps we all have something to lose by electing a republican.

We also all have something to lose if we elect a democrat. Something to lose if we elect a libertarian. A conservative, a liberal, a tea partier, an occupier. No matter who we elect, no matter how sweeping the changes are in the wake of this election, we will all have walked away from it having lost something. It might be something life-altering, or it might be something minor. You might make the 'Lesser Evil' argument - but nobody agrees with 100% of someone else's opinions.

I don't believe the world can be so clearly split along these dichotomies. Left and right, black and white, R and D, liberals and conservatives. It's always either us or them, this or that, never any compromise, never any progress. The only thing that we can be certain of, our only constant, is that the rhetoric gets louder, the poles drift farther apart, and people spend more time screaming at each other despite all of us knowing that deep down, we can't change that guy's mind, just as he can't change ours.

I'm rambling now. Let me try and bring things back to the original response I wanted to make - the system is broken. Politics are broken, and they've broken me. I don't profess to be all that smart or all that informed or all that persuasive. I didn't start writing this post to engage in a debate. I started writing this post because to me, walking away from politics is just the same as walking away from any other machine that's broken beyond the point of repair.

At the end of the day, all I can do is speak my mind. I don't have the power to enact the change that's needed, and every day that goes by, I become more and more convinced that nobody has that power, because the days where politics and government and businesses worked as they were supposed to are over, and they're never coming back. We're never going to have another JFK or Harry Truman or Theodore Roosevelt, because the truth that nobody wants to admit is that none of those Presidents would have survived the primary had they been running for office in 2012.

And that's why I've given up.

God, this is a depressing way to end my day before going to bed.

[kz1000ps]

^ You are a student. I don't understand how you could ever consider not engaging in politics. Your future and your kids' future are at stake. One guy will let your loan rates skyrocket, end Pell Grants, and kick you off your parents' healthcare and the other will support you in school, regulate interest rates, and ensure that you are insured until you're 26 (if need be).

For me, my upcoming marriage is at stake of being nullified and rights stripped with one guy and the other will stand up for our civil rights.

For my mother, it means more painful education cuts, which means even more supplies being bought for her classroom with the money from her own pocket, while we blindly increase defense spending beyond the requested levels. The other guy wants to invest in education and our nation's youth.

We all have some stake in this and we all have something to lose by electing a republican. You have to find what is meaningful to you and take a stand for it.

Edit: You are also a transit advocate. One guy wants to cut infrastructure spending dramatically and the other believes in investing in the nation's infrastructure.

That's awesome that everything is so crystal clear for you. Me, I'm going to cast my vote for whichever d-bag pisses me off less over the course of the next two months.

http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/shared/characters/non-human/giant-douche-and-turd-sandwich.jpg

Edit: in 2004 ^ Kerry was clearly the giant douche (versus W's turd sandwich) while this time around I'd say Romney gets that title. So good job Massachusetts on providing the national electorate with yet another douche that'll probably lose it for their party because they're so damn unlikeable. We're proving to have quite the knack for producing these types.

[Beton Brut]

Has Giant Douche chosen a running mate yet?

[datadyne007]

Has Giant Douche chosen a running mate yet?
ohhhh THAT's what that is!!!

[czsz]

You people lack so much historical perspective. Do you know how vicious the attack ads were in the late 18th century? This election looks like a love-in compared to the mud Jefferson and Adams slung at one another. To be cynical out of a misplaced nostalgia for a time before you were born is shooting yourself in the foot when there are actually substantive policy choices at stake.

Look, it's a phase. People of a certain age especially (but not exclusively - it afflicts people of all ages) like to be all suavely above it all. It can be easy if your life situation doesn't put you in the crosshairs of political choices, particularly when you're in college and debt obligations haven't come due, health costs are not something you have to worry about yet, the economy is an abstraction and you don't earn enough to pay taxes. This is why so many college students were attracted to Obama's equally bullshit "there are no red states or blue states but the United States" reconciliatory message that got him nowhere in dealing with Congressional Republicans in office. This is why so many are tuned out now that he has embraced the fighting stance needed to get shit done.

Oh well, I guess my vote will count for more with all you people too good for the voting booth staying home. You'd better hope I make the right choice.

BTW, Scott Brown is very effective at talking the talk of moderation in order to win in MA (just as Romney did), but it's a bad reason to vote for him. His voting record is far more indicative of what you're getting, and I would make sure to review that carefully if you haven't already.

Also, Jill Stein is actually the Green Party nominee for president this year, just in case anyone was seriously interested in voting for her.

[datadyne007]

^ Fantastic post, czsz.

Oh well, I guess my vote will count for more with all you people too good for the voting booth staying home. You'd better hope I make the right choice.

This was my favorite line.

[choo]

I realized that I myself was guilty of this, and that's why I'm never going near politics again for the rest of my life.

The one sure-fire way to make politics more out of line from reality is to not vote. I am like most Mass-folks, slightly left of center- pushed there more on social issues. If the people in and around the middle don't vote, then politicians are just competing on who can develop a larger amount of crazies on each extreme.

It is wrong to think of voting as an implicit acknowledgement of you agreeing with someone on everything. That's not realistic for anyone, let alone a national politician who will be confronting literally hundreds of issues. It's who do you align with more, and trust to make decision on your behalf.

If you make a relatively informed opinion on issues that matter to you and vote for one or the other, that means politicians will compete over your vote. That's why everything is so tilted to protecting senior benefits, they vote! If every 18-25 year old voted, it would be the other way around. The quickest way to undermine democracy and the importance of voting is to not do it. Why this country has voting on a workday is stupid! I would even be for providing greater incentives to vote. The more the people in the middle that don't really care vote, the better and saner our political process will be.

The paradox is that the political process has become so toxic it turns people away, but the only way to fix it is to bring people back in.
[/rant/sorry]

[davem]

The one sure-fire way to make politics more out of line from reality is to not vote. I am like most Mass-folks, slightly left of center- pushed there more on social issues. If the people in and around the middle don't vote, then politicians are just competing on who can develop a larger amount of crazies on each extreme.

It is wrong to think of voting as an implicit acknowledgement of you agreeing with someone on everything. That's not realistic for anyone, let alone a national politician who will be confronting literally hundreds of issues. It's who do you align with more, and trust to make decision on your behalf.

If you make a relatively informed opinion on issues that matter to you and vote for one or the other, that means politicians will compete over your vote. That's why everything is so tilted to protecting senior benefits, they vote! If every 18-25 year old voted, it would be the other way around. The quickest way to undermine democracy and the importance of voting is to not do it. Why this country has voting on a workday is stupid! I would even be for providing greater incentives to vote. The more the people in the middle that don't really care vote, the better and saner our political process will be.

The paradox is that the political process has become so toxic it turns people away, but the only way to fix it is to bring people back in.
[/rant/sorry]

Well said.

[datadyne007]

Damn, another fantastic post.

To quote Obama last night: YOU are the change.

[kz1000ps]

Well, the vote or die brigade certainly showed up today...

[Justin7]

^ It is kind of important.

The US is going to move in one of two very distinct directions over the next four years. You have a chance to help decide which one.* Why would you not take a few minutes out of your day to do that?

Yeah, ok, in all likely-hood Romney isn't going to win MA, so that vote may not amount to much, but the senatorial race could decide control of the senate.

[datadyne007]

Yeah, ok, in all likely-hood Romney isn't going to win MA, so that vote may not amount to much, but the senatorial race could decide control of the senate.

Over 500,000 vote gap in the recent polls, which is just fantastic. I wish the rest of the nation would just listen to us. We've experienced Romney's destructive tyranny first-hand. There's a clear reason why we are not voting for him.

The Senate is really the crucial issue. We've gotta get Brown's obstructionism out.

[Lurker]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYS7aQY1iZI
*sigh*

[kz1000ps]

^ It is kind of important.

The US is going to move in one of two very distinct directions over the next four years. You have a chance to help decide which one.* Why would you not take a few minutes out of your day to do that?

I said in my initial post on this subject that, "I'm going to cast my vote for whichever d-bag pisses me off less over the course of the next two months." I never said I wouldn't.

I'm just done with the whole getting into hysterics thing over one candidate or another. I did that in 2004, convinced the world would end if Bush got reelected, and heyyyy--the world DIDN'T come to an end in 2006. The doomsday drum getting banged every damn day by Fox News, the New York Times as well as various Facebook "friends" is one I refuse to listen to now.

[BostonUrbEx]

Third Party/Independent or none at all. \o/

[datadyne007]

I did that in 2004, convinced the world would end if Bush got reelected, and heyyyy--the world DIDN'T come to an end in 2006.

Nah the world didn't end. The economy just completely collapsed. NBD.

[kz1000ps]

Datadyne, the mechanics behind the crash were in place long before Bush got back in.

[Beton Brut]

As we reflect on the atrocity that took place eleven years ago, I think these thoughts (http://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/EngineeringandHomelandSecurity/ReflectionsontheWorldTradeCenter.aspx) from Leslie Robertson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Robertson) are worth reading.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Look what I just picked up on the train tonight!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A2oDuw_CMAAwRxg.jpg

[Ron Newman]

is that a plate, to eat from?

[Commuting Boston Student]

is that a plate, to eat from?

A commemorative deck of Amtrak playing cards.

I suppose I should have made that more clear in my impromptu photography.

...on the other hand, as I've been informed that they're being phased out, I can't decide whether I want to open them or keep them as a collectable...

[BostonUrbEx]

A commemorative deck of Amtrak playing cards.

I suppose I should have made that more clear in my impromptu photography.

...on the other hand, as I've been informed that they're being phased out, I can't decide whether I want to open them or keep them as a collectable...

I'd probably keep them, and see if I could get a second deck to play with.

How exactly did you get it?

[Commuting Boston Student]

I'd probably keep them, and see if I could get a second deck to play with.

How exactly did you get it?

$5 from the Cafe Car on the Northeast Regional, assuming there are any when you ask. (Doesn't seem like they have them that often.)

[kz1000ps]

Wow that looks like an old shot on the cover.....seeing an Amtrak F40 makes me think of the 1990s, back when they still had a few FL-9s in service. Ah, the good old days.

[Shepard]

Maybe not what was meant by "walkable neighborhoods"... but good effort.

http://cdn.iwastesomuchtime.com/9122012012036iwsmt.jpeg

[bolehboleh]

I said in my initial post on this subject that, "I'm going to cast my vote for whichever d-bag pisses me off less over the course of the next two months." I never said I wouldn't.

I'm just done with the whole getting into hysterics thing over one candidate or another. I did that in 2004, convinced the world would end if Bush got reelected, and heyyyy--the world DIDN'T come to an end in 2006. The doomsday drum getting banged every damn day by Fox News, the New York Times as well as various Facebook "friends" is one I refuse to listen to now.

I agree with you, more or less. I'm voting for Obama, but if Romney wins, it probably won't be the end of the world. With Bush it was a different story. Maybe the world didn't end here (excluding the economy I guess), but ask the Iraqis what they think about his presidency.

[Ron Newman]

Shepard, where did you take that photo?

[statler]

Shep, it's a start.

A sad, pathetic start, but at least 'walkabilty' is starting to be used as a selling point.

Maybe if people like they will start demanding more things be built in walking distance or even move to a place that is already walkable.

[statler]

Has anyone taken any of those online course offered by EdX, Coursera, Udacity, etc?

Thoughts, opinions, theories(fad vs end of college as we know it, etc)?

[choo]

I am currently doing a program at northeastern that has a large online component. It def has its pros and cons, and I was skeptical but the pros largely outway the cons, for me.

1) I am able to keep doing my full time job that does require occasional travel (extra important b/c my company reimburses most of my tuition)
2) I am able to watch lectures at my convenience (before work, lunch break, evening)
3) I am able to go to the campus, utilize facilities (library, study groups, office hours) if needed (obviously not a feature of every online program).
4) I figure most of my undergrad workload was spent outside the classroom- reading, writing, etc. The actual in class lectures were the least time consuming part of most classes. If the prof. is a great lecturer than I think you do miss that component in an online course, if they are average, than it's the same thing.

[tobyjug]

You know who you are:

https://vimeo.com/16116523

[BostonUrbEx]

https://twitter.com/M_Stand/status/248517375035592704/photo/1/large

495 today.^

[kz1000ps]

What? Today? Didn't that happen in 2007?

[kz1000ps]

For all you Facebookers, click this link and get busy de-friending!

https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=6248267085

(I promise it's a safe link)

[Commuting Boston Student]

For all you Facebookers, click this link and get busy de-friending!

https://www.facebook.com/browse/friended_fans_of/?page_id=6248267085

(I promise it's a safe link)

I deleted my facebook account because of timeline.

You're going to have to tell me what the joke is.

[BostonUrbEx]

What? Today? Didn't that happen in 2007?

Hmm, maybe the picture is.

But the same thing happened today in Middleboro.

[kz1000ps]

I deleted my facebook account because of timeline.

You're going to have to tell me what the joke is.

It shows you which friends of yours have liked Nickelback. It's kind of worth knowing.

[Commuting Boston Student]

With Regional service set to start on December 12th, I thought I'd share with you some interesting facts that don't rate as 'press-release' worthy news: Trains en route to or originating from Norfolk will stop at Petersburg, Staples Mill Road, then make all existing station stops en route to Alexandria, Washington DC and points north. Naturally, service from Woodbridge, Quantico, or Petersburg to Norfolk and back is much less exciting than service to the NEC.
Trains #71, #125 and #157 will originate from NYP. This means that there is NO direct service from Boston to Norfolk. (However, train #174 proceeds from Norfolk all the way to Boston, so there is a direct northbound connection.) Fortunately, the NYP connection seems relatively painless and you can likely connect anywhere else on the route as well.

[BostonUrbEx]

Do you want:

-Free brunch?
-Free raffle ticket to win Celtics tickets?
-To meet a vice presidential candidate?

Brunch With Libertarian Vice Presidential Candidate Jim Gray!: http://www.facebook.com/events/115073268642398/

Saturday, 9/22 (tomorrow)
9:30am - 11:30am
73 Tremont, 9th Floor

[statler]

So attempting to get support for the Libertarian Party with freebies and handouts. That's just beautiful. :)

[BostonUrbEx]

So attempting to get support for the Libertarian Party with freebies and handouts. That's just beautiful. :)

And to think, we (the Suffolk Libertarians group) don't even like the LP. Not to mention, the LP is a pain in the ass with its rules and views.

[Commuting Boston Student]

And to think, we (the Suffolk Libertarians group) don't even like the LP. Not to mention, the LP is a pain in the ass with its rules and views.

So, what do the Suffolk Libertarians stand for, anyway?

I would've gone, but I was feeling sick and decided that maybe coughing/sneezing it up at a brunch was not the best plan...

[BostonUrbEx]

So, what do the Suffolk Libertarians stand for, anyway?

For the most part, anarcho-capitalism. But due to the perception ingrained into society about what anarchy is, we can't just call ourselves that. But we try to encourage people towards libertarian (lowercase L) thought through debates, speeches, and books. Why? As they adage goes, what is the difference between a libertarian minarchist and an anarchist is? Six months. Also, we need some way to transition, as I think we all agree we can't just pull out the rug, and the transition could be decades even. So libertarian minded candidates are generally our compromise. The Johnson/Gray campaign is pretty disappointing on foreign policy though. They'd probably get us into another war, frankly.

[Commuting Boston Student]

For the most part, anarcho-capitalism. But due to the perception ingrained into society about what anarchy is, we can't just call ourselves that. But we try to encourage people towards libertarian (lowercase L) thought through debates, speeches, and books. Why? As they adage goes, what is the difference between a libertarian minarchist and an anarchist is? Six months. Also, we need some way to transition, as I think we all agree we can't just pull out the rug, and the transition could be decades even. So libertarian minded candidates are generally our compromise. The Johnson/Gray campaign is pretty disappointing on foreign policy though. They'd probably get us into another war, frankly.

...so, wait.

You're advocating the gradual elimination of state and federal powers?

[Lurker]

Gabriel Over the White House on Turner Classic Movies. Gee I'm glad our betters in the media and academia don't fantasize about that kind of thing anymore. :rolleyes:

[kmp1284]

...so, wait.

You're advocating the gradual elimination of state and federal powers?

That's generally what one means when they talk about anarcho-capitalism. In theory, I'd love to see such a system, provided a mechanism could be created to ensure access to vital resources overseas - oil, coal and iron ore among others(think Blackwater on steroids).

[Commuting Boston Student]

That's generally what one means when they talk about anarcho-capitalism. In theory, I'd love to see such a system, provided a mechanism could be created to ensure access to vital resources overseas - oil, coal and iron ore among others(think Blackwater on steroids).

Look, I like freedom and self-determination and all that good Libertarian party stuff as much as the next guy, but doesn't this end in the total collapse of the country as society breaks down completely without basic things like, y'know... laws and law enforcement?

Or is this the sort of thing like "free market woohoo BUT the government is still there for running the military and the police and dealing with other governments?"

[underground]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0

[datadyne007]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5FT47kLZfs

Oh, Europe...

[BostonUrbEx]

Look, I like freedom and self-determination and all that good Libertarian party stuff as much as the next guy, but doesn't this end in the total collapse of the country as society breaks down completely without basic things like, y'know... laws and law enforcement?

Or is this the sort of thing like "free market woohoo BUT the government is still there for running the military and the police and dealing with other governments?"

Total collapse and breaking down completely isn't the goal. The goal is gradual change in society from within, and a gradual transition into a more efficient and advanced world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QDv4sYwjO0

And this entirely supports my argument that complete and utter collapse at the drop of a hat is not good for anybody. It's all about how to transition. Not to mention I don't see how multiple factions vying to be the next government constitutes a proper anarchic society.

[Commuting Boston Student]

Amtrak will be conducting tests of 165 mph Acela operation right here in Massachusetts, according to today's Metro, which names South Attleboro and Readville as likely sites.