Bibliography
2024
- Why Strict Churches Are Strong - Laurence R. Iannaccone (paper) READING
- REFERRAL: 622: How Ideological Purity is Killing Churches with Ryan Burge - Holy Post (video)
- “Statistical studies have confirmed that denominational growth rates correlate strongly with “strictness” and its concomitants (Hoge 1979), and new historical research has revealed that the mainline’s share of the churchgoing population has been declining since the American Revolution (Finke and Stark 1992)” (p. 1181)
- “…seemingly unproductive costs provide an indirect solution. These costs screen out people whose participation would otherwise be low, while at the same time they increase participation among those who do join. As a consequence, apparently unproductive sacrifices can increase the utility of group members. Efficient religions with perfectly rational members may thus embrace stigma, self-sacrifice, and bizarre behavioral standards.” (p. 1183)
- “There remains, however, an indirect solution to the free-rider problem. Instead of subsidizing participation, churches can penalize or prohibit alternative activities that compete for members’ resources.” (p. 1187)
- NOTE: This reminds me of a section in Bowling Alone where he mentions that Evangelicals mostly involve themselves inside the church rather than in the surrounding world. If we assume Evangelicals are stricter than Mainliners, and that Evangelicals are less involved in the outside world than Mainliners, it seems plausible that strictness and lack of outside involvement are related. For Evangelicals to become more involved in the outside world, perhaps they could channel more service through the church institution to baptize it and make it compatible with strictness.
- “…the standard ranking [of strictness] begins with the “liberal,” “mainline” denominations, and runs through “evangelicals,” “fundamentalists,” “pentecostals,” and finally “sects.” (p. 1189)
- Human Transit, Revised Edition - Jarrett Walker (book, ISBN13 9781642833058) READING RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- “Some transit authorities do have lower operating costs for smaller vehicles, but if so, that’s not because of the vehicle; it’s because of what the labor agreement says about the vehicle. Many transit labor agreements allow the driver of a smaller vehicle to be paid somewhat less. But the difference usually isn’t nearly enough to make it possible to, say, replace one big bus with two vans half the size.” (pp. 18-19)
- “…spontaneity is also the biggest payoff of legibility. Only if you can remember the layout of your transit system and how to navigate it can you use transit to move spontaneously around your city. Transit apps can give you directions for a particular trip, but most people need a more stable mental image of their city and its network, so that they have a sense of what is easy to reach. Legibility has two parts: simplicity in the design of the network, so that it’s easy to explain and remember, and the clarity of the presentation in all the various media.” (pp. 27-28)
- “The commute wall is about 30 minutes away, a number known as Marchetti’s constant. While some people have hellishly long commutes, most people travel about 20-40 minutes each way, just as people in ancient and medieval cities seemed willing to walk that long.” (p. 33)
- “An I-shaped line can easily be extended on either end without affecting the existing riders, but loops can’t be extended; a city that outgrows its loop has to break it apart, disrupting existing trips.” (p. 64)
- “…the park-and-ride catchment area of a stop is usually defined by a large area that is upstream of the stop, where downstream is the traveler’s intended direction.” (pp. 68-69)”
- “…the walking distance most people seem to tolerate–the one beyond which ridership falls off dramatically–is about a quarter mile (approximately 1300 feet or 400 m) for a local stop service but farther for a faster service.” (p. 70)
- “…a transit map that makes all lines look equal is like a road map that doesn’t show the difference between a freeway and a gravel road.” (p. 97)
- “For a motorist, roads are there all the time, so their top speed is the most important thing that distinguishes them. But transit is only there if it’s coming soon.” (p. 97)
- NOTE: Traffic delay, signal delay, and passenger stop delay are the three main types of delay experienced on a transit route.
- Bowling Alone - Robert D. Putnam (book, ISBN10 0684832836) READING
- REFERRAL: Why Does Suburbia Suck? - David Pakman Show (video)
- REFERRAL: Life After Lifestyle - Toby Shorin (article)
- REFERRAL: Walkable City Rules: Jeff Speck – CNU Real Places November 2018 - Congress for the New Urbanism (video)
- REFERRAL: The Great Deterioration of Local Community Was A Major Driver of The Loss of The Play-Based Childhood - Zach Rausch (article)
- NOTE: Apparently discusses negative effects of long car commutes.
- NOTE: He calls Alexis de Tocqueville the patron saint of American communitarians
- “Even more valuable, however, is a form of generalized reciprocity: I’ll do this for you without expecting anything specific back from you, in the confident expectation that someone else will do something for me down the road.” (pp. 20-21)
- Arriviste
- Frisson
- The Grange
- “Active involvement in the parish depends heavily on the degree to which a person is linked to the broader social context–having friends in the parish, in the neighborhood, at work, being a part of a closely knit personal network.” (p. 74)
- “The revitalization of evangelical religion is perhaps the most notable feature of American religious life in the last half of the twentieth century. As church historians Roger Finke and Rodney Stark have argued, this development is merely the latest reinactment of a familiar drama from American religious history: an insurgent, more disciplined, more sectlike, less ‘secularized’ religious movement overtakes more worldly, establishmentarian denominations. The Methodists did this to the Episcopalians in the mid-nineteenth century, and now the fundamentalists have done it to the Methodists.” (p. 77)
- “Historically, mainline Protestant church people provided a disproportionate share of leadership to the wider civic community, whereas both evangelical and Catholic churches put more emphasis on church-centered activities.” (p. 77)
- “The social capital of evangelicals, however, is invested at home more than in the wider community. Among evangelicals, church attendance is not correlated with membership in community organizations.” (pp. 77-78)
- “Thus the fact that evangelical Christianity is rising and mainline Christianity is falling means that religion is less effective now as a foundation for civic engagement and ‘bridging’ social capital.” (p. 78)
- “Architects specializing in office design began to configure the workplace to bolster employees’ sense of connectedness, creating spaces with such evocative labels as ‘watering holes,’ ‘conversation pits,’ and ‘campfires’ where empoyees come to warm their hands.” (p. 86)
- Gin rummy
- Canasta
- Whist
- “…people born between 1910 and 1940 constitute a ‘long civic generation’–that is, a cohort of men and women who have been more engaged in civic affairs throughout their lives–voting more, joining more, trusting more, and so on–than either their predecessors or their successors in the sequence of generations.” (p. 132)
- Incivisme
- NOTE: He talks about millennials, and I did not realize that term was coined by 2000. Apparently was coined in 1987.
- “Thin trust is even more useful than thick trust, because it extends the radius of trust beyond the roster of people whom we can know personally. As the social fabric of a community becomes more threadbare, however, its effectiveness in transmitting and sustaining reputations declines and its power to undergird norms of honesty, generalized reciprocity, and thin trust is enfeebled.” (p. 136)
- “Driving is one important domain of anonymous public intercourse…” (p. 142)
- “Droll confirmation of declining civility on the highway comes from a long-term study of drivers’ behavior at stop signs at several intersections in suburban New York, as summarized in figure 40. In 1979, 37 percent of all motorists made a full stop, 34 percent a rolling stop, and 29 percent no stop at all. By 1996, 97 percent made no stop at all at the very same intersections.” (p. 143)
- Emollient
- “In a careful survey of community involvement in suburbs across America, political scientist Eric Oliver found that the greater the social homogeneity of a community, the lower the level of political involvement: ‘By creating communities of homogeneous political interests, suburbanization reduces the local conflicts that engage and draw citizenry into the public realm.’” (p. 210)
- “In round numbers the evidence suggests that each additional ten minutes in daily commuting time cuts involvement in community affairs by 10 percent–fewer public meetings attended, fewer committees chaired, fewer petitions signed, fewer church services attended, less volunteering, and so on. In fact, although commuting time is not quite as powerful an influence on civic involvement as education, it is more important than almost any other demographic factor. And time diary studies suggest that there is a similarly strong negative effect of commuting time on informal social interaction.” (p. 213)
- “…work-based ties now compete with place-based ties rather than reinforcing them. If your co-workers come from all over the metropolitan area, you must choose–spend an evening with neighbors or spend an evening with colleaues. (Of course, tired from a harried commute, you may well decide to just stay at home by yourself.)” (p. 214)
- Oenophile
- “The fraction of sixth-graders with a TV set in their bedroom grew from 6 percent in 1970 to 77 percent in 1999.” (p. 223)
- “…39 percent of the light viewers attended some public meeting on town or school affairs last year, as compared with only 25 percent of the demographically matched heavy viewers.” (p. 229)
- NOTE: Light viewing is an hour or less of TV per day, and heavy viewing is 3 hours or more per day
- “Television privatizes leisure time.” (p. 236)
- “Even within demographically matched groups, people who attend more movies also attend more club meetings, more dinner parties, more church services, and more public gatherings, give more blood, and visit with friends more often.” (p. 237)
- “…figure 71 depicts a long civic generation, born roughly between 1910 and 1940, a broad group of people substantially more engaged in community affairs than those younger than they.” (p. 254)
- NOTE: the ‘long civic generation’ became dominant in the population around 1960, when many social capital indicators reached their maximum in the 20th century
- Putative
- “At its peak this most popular of civilian war efforts generated nearly twenty-million Victory Gardens in backyards and vacant lots, yielding 40 percent of all vegetables grown in the country.” (pp. 269-270)
- “When people lack connections to others, they are unable to test the veracity of their own views, whether in the give-and-take of casual conversation or in more formal deliberation. Without such an opportunity, people are more likely to be swayed by their worst impulses.” (pp. 288-289)
- Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis (book, ISBN10 ???) READING Ch. 2/??
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903) READING 115/382
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- “Loyalty versus quest for good introduced an unresolvable tension into life. But the awareness of the good as such and the desire to possess it are priceless humanizing acquisitions. This is the sound motive contained, along with many other less sound ones, in openness as we understand it. Men cannot remain content with what is given to them by their culture if they are to be fully human. This is what Plato meant to show by the image of the cave in the Republic and by representing us as prisoners in it. A culture is a cave. He did not suggest going around to other cultures as a solution to the limitations of the cave. Nature should be the standard by which we judge our own lives and the lives of peoples. That is why philosophy, not history or anthropology, is the most important human science. Only dogmatic assurance that thought is culture-bound, that there is no nature, is what makes our educators so certain that the only way to escape the limitations of our time and place is to study other cultures.” (pp. 37-38)
- “To overstate only a bit, there are two writers who between them shape and set the limits to the minds of educated Frenchmen. Every Frenchman is born, or at least early on becomes, Cartesian or Pascalian. (Something similar could be said about Shakespeare as educator of the English, Goethe of the Germans, and Dante and Machiavelli of the Italians.) Descartes and Pascal are national authors, and they tell the French people what their alternatives are, and afford a peculiar and powerful perspective on life’s perennial problems. They weave the fabric of souls.” (pp. 52)
- “Americans believe in equal access. Mortimer Adler’s business genius recognized this and made a roaring commercial success out of the Great Books. He was not even concerned about the translations he used, let alone about learning languages. Most writers in older lands despaired of being understood by those who had not lived their language. Heideger, who desperately tried to maintain and revitalize this view, thought that ‘Language is the house of being,’ that it is the height of superficiality to suppose that translation is even possible.” (p. 54)
- “All significant political disputes [in America] have been about the meaning of freedom and equality, not about their rightness.” (p. 55)
- NOTE: He considers Carl Becker, John Dewey, and Charles Beard to all be writers that cast doubt on the validity of America’s founding myth
- “The dreariness of the family’s spiritual landscape passes belief. It is as monochrome and unrelated to those who pass through it as are the barren steppes frequented by nomads who take their mere subsistence and move on. The delicate fabric into which the successive generations are woven has unraveled, and children are raised, not educated. I am speaking here not of the unhappy, broken homes that are such a prominent part of American life, but the relatively happy ones, where husband and wife like each other and care about their children, very often unselfishly devoting the best parts of their lives to them. But they have nothing to give their children in the way of a vision of the world, of high models of action or profound sense of connection with others. The family requires the most delicate mixture of nature and convention, of human and divine, to subsist and perform its function. Its base is merely bodily reproduction, but its purpose is the formation of civilized human beings.” (p. 58)
- “…the family has, at best, a transitory togetherness. People sup together, play together, travel together, but they do not think together. Hardly any homes have any intellectual life whatsoever, let alone one that informs the vital interests of life.” (pp. 57-58)
- “…fathers and mothers have lost the idea that the highest aspiration they might have for their children is for them to be wise–as priests, prophets, or philosophers are wise. Specialized competence and success are all that they can imagine.” (p. 58)
- “Along with the constant newness of everything and the ceaseless moving from place to place, first radio, then television, have assaulted and overturned the privacy of the home, the real American privacy, which permitted the development of a higher and more independent life within democratic society. Parents can no longer control the atmosphere of the home and have even lost the will to do so.” (pp. 58-59)
- NOTE: He uses the word “privacy” in a different way than I would. I mostly consider privacy to be a protection from others peering in, but it could go both directions. His definition says “separateness” or “set-apart-ness” to me.
- Ineluctable
- Will-o’-the-wisp
- bon sens
- “…democratic relativism joins a branch of conservatism that is impressed by the dangerous political consequences of idealism. These conservatives want young people to know that this tawdry old world cannot respond to their demands for perfection. In the choice between somewhat arbitrarily distinguished realism and idealism, a sensible person would want to be both, or neither. But, momentarily accepting a distinction I reject, idealism as it is commonly conceived should have primacy in education, for man is a being who must take his orientation by his possible perfection. To attempt to suppress this most natural of all inclinations because of possible abuses is, almost literally, to throw the baby out with the bath. Utopianism is, as Plato taught us at the outset, the fire with which we must play because it is the only way we can find out what we are. We need to criticise false understandings of Utopia, but the easy way out provided by realism is deadly. As it now stands, students have powerful images of what a perfect body is and pursue it incessantly. But deprived of literary guidance, they no longer have any image of a perfect soul, and hence do not long to have one. They do not even imagine that there is such a thing.” (p. 67)
- Autochthonous
- Massage Basics - Davide Sechi (book, ISBN13 9781402711725) READING
- “…on every square centimeter of skin there are on average 3 million cells, 10 hairs, 15 sebaceous glands, 100 sweat glands, 200 pain receiving centers, 25 pressure points for the reception of tactile stimuli, 13 devices for the reception of cold and 2 for heat, 4 meters of nerve fibers, and 3000 cells connected to the sensory organs.” (pp. 24)
- “…the layer of wax [sebaceous glands] produce not only makes the surface of the body soft, but also acts as an insulating material protecting the skin from potential heat loss.” (pp. 24)
- Emery ++ A Film - Hayne Griffin (film)
- REFERRAL: Own DVD
- NOTE: Actually watched off of DVD but linking video here for others
- NOTE: Used Sony MDR-756 headphones in one recording session
- Aaron Sprinkle
- Silverchair
- Winthrop College
- Rock Hill, South Carolina
- The Housing Market Is a Bubble Full of Fraud, and It’s Going To Pop - Chuck Marohn (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Too handwavy
- What Makes A Perfect Pizza? - Schlatt & Co. (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Jesus Revolution - Jon Erwin, Brent McCorkle (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Ward I candidate calls for direct election of Lynchburg mayor - Mark Hand (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “In Virginia, the mayor is directly elected by citizens in 22 cities and elected by the city council in 16 cities.”
- Goodbye Mr. Chips - Stuart Orme (film)
- REFERRAL: Shelf browsing
- “Distance lends enchantment to the view”
- George Bernard Shaw
- Gnaeus Julius Agricola
- Tacitus
- Saving this house’s wood from landfill (about $15k worth) - Beau Miles (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Some houses in AUS are framed with eucalyptus hardwood
- Kayaking the sickest urban river in Australia - Beau Miles (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Cooks River
- Running 43km along a hidden railway line - Beau Miles (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Similar to what I was doing tracing Watering Branch
- Shocking things I’ve never done ++ The 12 Days of Newness ++ Ep 1 - Beau Miles (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Sick of second hand life? So was I. - Beau Miles (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- What if we teleported the oceans to Mars? - xkcd’s What If? (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Joe Rogan Experience #1491 ++ Bill Burr - PowerfulJRE (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “Bill Burr Joe Rogan”
- Filmmaking Lessons from a Youtube Misfit - Digital Spaghetti (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: ytch.xyz
- NOTE: Beau Miles is a less pretentious, Australian Van Neistat
- Bill Burr Philadelphia Incident - MotleyTV (video)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Geri’s Game - Jan Pinkava (film)
- REFERRAL: A Bug’s Life - John Lasseter (film)
- There Are Some Problems With Not Being Bilingual. Josh Blue ++ Full Special - Dry Bar Comedy (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- The Soul of Maintaining a New Machine, First Draft - Stewart Brand (book chapter) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “A major attraction of a community of practice is its role as an arena for recognition and endorsement by one’s peers. Orr showed how amicable competition among Xerox technicians built competence and spurred achieving mastery.”
- Community of practice
- “Unlike financial forms of capital, social capital is not depleted by use; it is depleted by non-use.”
- NOTE: Quoted from the Wikipedia article on Social Capital “…practice is a continuous, highly skilled improvisation within a triangular relationship of technician, customer, and machine…. Narrative forms a primary element of this practice. The actual process of diagnosis involves the creation of a coherent account of the troubled state of the machine from available pieces of unintegrated information…”
- NOTE: Quoted from Talking about Machines by Julian E. Orr
- Urban Planners Overregulate Private Lots but Neglect the Design and Regulation of Public Spaces - Alain Bertaud (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “The pattern and width of streets in the downtown Wall Street area remain identical to what they were at the time of the early seventeenth-century Dutch colony. Even the name, Wall Street, has not changed. The introduction of new, wide avenues, carved by Baron Haussman out of Paris’s medieval districts, is one of the few exceptions to the overwhelming endurance of existing street patterns. Most streets in our cities are fossils dating from the time when surveyors designed the neighborhoods.”
- America Drawn Inward: Assessing Bowling Alone at 20 - Ian Marcus Corbin (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search “Bowling Alone 20 years later”
- “Television takes your average human - from a species that evolved to its current form while navigating hills and beaches, hunting expeditions, farming, sex and childrearing - and pumps in an astonishing, carefully composed stream of bright, undemanding, frenetic stimulation. It occupies our inner lives so that we don’t have to be our difficult, boring, ambiguous selves, or be in our difficult, boring, ambiguous places, surrounded by difficult, boring, ambiguous people.”
- “This de-frictioning extends also into our chosen relationships. Sitting face to face with another human is an immense thing - their personality shows itself in words, yes, but also postures and glances and a thousand other small things. Your personality, too, is oozing out of your pores, and so meeting in person is a large, rich and dangerous activity. Boundaries are harder to maintain, disagreements and dislikes harder to hide. To have a friendly conversation in person is a much greater achievement than to have it via telephone, email or text.”
- The triumph of stasism - Matt Zwolinski (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Whatever else might be said for or against it, capitalism as an economic system is a dynamic, internationalist force which tends – as even Marx recognized with a kind of grudging admiration – to tear down both national borders and traditionalist ways of life. The constant, churning creative destruction of markets has never been a comfortable fit with the conservative emphasis on traditionalism and localism.”
- “Importantly, liberalism in this sense is not in any way opposed to the kind of conservatism associated with Edmund Burke, Michael Oakeshott or, despite his protestations to the contrary, Hayek. It is entirely possible to put one’s confidence in individual liberty and spontaneous order while still maintaining the importance of tradition and custom – both of which are often themselves examples of decentralized, evolved social norms.”
- Glorification: Romans 8:18-19 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Urbana Missions Conference
- Transposition from The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses
- ἀποκαραδοκία apokaradokia
- A Bug’s Life - John Lasseter (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Crawl Space 101 - Scott Sidler (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search “digging out crawlspace”
- “Ventilation allows moisture from the earth to escape through the vents rather than work its way into your house, potentially causing mold and mildew problems.”
- Genesis 12 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 6 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 5 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 4 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 3 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 2 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 11 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 10 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 9 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- On Seeing Through and Unseeing: The Hacker Mindset - Gwern (article)
- Everything that turned out well in my life followed the same design process - Henrik Karlsson (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “If you want to find a good design—be that the design of a house or an essay, a career or a marriage—what you want is some process that allows you to extract information from the context, and bake it into the form. That is what unfolding is.”
- “The opposite of an unfolding is a vision. A vision springs, not from a careful understanding of a context, but from a fantasy: if you could just make it into another context your problems will go away.”
- “The faster you can collide your ideas against reality, the faster you get feedback. By increasing the speed at which you can act on the context, trying new things will become cheaper for you—and so you will take more risks, and extract more information from the context. Write faster, prototype faster, ask for feedback faster. Velocity is underrated. It sounds crass and careless—speeding up. But it doesn’t have to be.”
- The Multitasking Marvel: How Street Trees Can Solve Many Municipal Problems - Emma Durand-Wood (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “A mature tree can intercept 30%-40% of rainfall before it even hits the ground.”
- “…trees actually lower the nearby air temperature through the process of evapotranspiration. This makes them far more effective at cooling than the ‘artificial’ shade created by buildings or other grey structures.”
- Do Quests, Not Goals - David Cain (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “Still, the tendency is to wait for a better, less cluttered stretch of time to appear before you do that. You will execute your great plans as soon as life becomes a little easier and more spacious than it is now. This is exactly backwards. Forming and achieving aspirations is how life gets easier and more spacious. It’s how people build skills, gain experience, invent things, declutter their homes and lives, start businesses, and enrich the mind with art, exploration, and creative work.”
- Five Facts on Tim Walz’s Sustainable Transportation Track Record - Kea Wilson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- This is Big News For Minnesota - Chuck from Strong Towns (video)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- The rise of a new pragmatism - Geoff Kabaservice (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “But low-salience bills that don’t attract the media spotlight — because they are too complicated to be reduced to sound bites, or because they can’t be easily slotted into culture-war frameworks, or because they aren’t identified in the public mind with either Biden or Trump — can and do pass with significant bipartisan support.”
- “high-profile nihilists and destructionists”
- NOTE: Terms used to describe some Republicans. I wonder if “destructionist” refers to those that want to gut the administrative state
- “As Leonhardt pointed out, Trump blew up much of the zombie Reaganism that had previously dominated the GOP, knowing that the working-class voters who now make up the base of the party rely heavily on the public goods and services that are at the heart of the Abundance agenda.”
- Oh Crap! Dealing With Sewer Upgrades Is a Complicated Mess - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: Email
- NOTE: Talks about how sewers flowing into rivers seem insane now, but were a natural first step in getting dangerous sewage away from where people lived
- What Strong Towns Really Says About Infrastructure Spending - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Email
- The French Dispatch - Wes Anderson (film)
- REFERRAL: Shelf browsing
- Angoulême
- Roslyn Ross on ‘Job Parenting’ - TheProgressiveParent (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “Roslyn Ross unschooling”
- The Glass Menagerie - Anthony Harvey (film)
- REFERRAL: Shelf browsing
- NOTE: Amazing and hard to watch in the same way that Fences is hard to watch
- dracula flow 3 - PLUMMCORP RECORDS (video)
- dracula flow 2 - PLUMMCORP RECORDS (video)
- dracula flow - PLUMMCORP RECORDS (video)
- Ghost Gunner 3-S ++ Optic Cut Library - Defense Distributed (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The Aladdin Lie: A Response to Hoe_Math - BraveTheWorld (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Considers “Titanic” to be a film perpetuating the lie that women will leave someone of their same social class for a man of lower social class
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News August 2024 ++ Brightline West, CAHSR, DFW HST, Acela/NEC And More! - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Videos subscription
- 622: How Ideological Purity is Killing Churches with Ryan Burge - Holy Post (video)
- REFERRAL: Video Search “Megan Basham Shepherds For Sale”
- NOTE: Weird how they say Deacon is typically a preaching role…give example of deacon Stephen preaching in Bible
- NOTE: They keep conflating deaconesses and female pastors
- NOTE: Used term NETR (No Enemies To the Right), which is the opposite of what I hear conservative friends complaining about with people
- “moderate churches have always struggled with freeriding”
- NOTE: They seem to believe that pastors should not order their congregation to believe or do something…merely influence them.
- Climate Change: Why Christians Should Engage - Truth Unites (video)
- Megan Basham’s Shepherds For Sale: Problems With This Book - Truth Unites (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “Gavin Ortlund Shepherds For Sale”
- Common Sense Gun Laws - Dan of Antiquity (video)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- Selfie Waves - Vsauce (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- The $2.1 Billion McDonald’s Machine - Fern (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- NOTE: Video calls the things “self order terminals”
- Rome’s Historic, Wacky, and Modern Railways - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Ikea Heights (The Complete Series) - UberVidz (video)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Hobbit Software - Dave Anderson (social thread)
- Running One-man SaaS, 9 Years In - Pēteris Caune (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “Healthchecks the product is hobbit software”
- The Refuge On Memorial ++ Lynchburg’s Homeless Shelter - Mullins Media Co. (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “Lynchburg, Virginia”
- My FBI Declassified Story - Marques Brownlee (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Frida - Julie Taymor (film)
- REFERRAL: Shelf browsing
- Frida Kahlo
- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - Peter Jackson (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- 5 issues I’m STILL undecided on ++ KingdomCraft - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- “The reason conservative Christians lose every cultural battle (and every religious battle honestly) is because their instinct is always to retreat. If a city gets hijacked by liberals, leave it, move to the countryside. If a university gets hijacked by liberals, become anti-intellectual hillbillies and just move to a farm and tell your kids not to go to college and then be surprised when they’re not the elites running culture in 30 years. If your church…if your mainline church gets hijacked by liberals just leave it and go to some evangelical church run in a strip mall somewhere. Conservatives always have this retreatist mindset and it’s why they always lose their influence. It’s why progressives always end up changing the culture. It’s because progressives like to get involved in the world and conservatives just like to leave when things don’t go their way.”
- ‘The Interview’: Robert Putnam Knows Why You’re Lonely - New York Times Podcasts (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video search “bowling alone after 25 years”
- One Year Quitting Caffeine ++ Update on my life and videos - Alex Kojfman (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- I Accidentally Quit Coffee ++ Caffeine-free never going back ++ How to quit caffeine go caffeine free - Alex Kojfman (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “caffeine withdrawal”
- I quit caffeine for 30 days - Matt D’Avella (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “caffeine withdrawal”
- What Michael Pollan Learned from Quitting Caffeine for 3 Months - PowerfulJRE (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “caffeine withdrawal”
- NOTE: He said even after 3 months being off caffeine he still didn’t feel the same. Possible that I’m not having such a bad time because I’m younger?
- I Abruptly Stopped Drinking Caffeine And This Happened - Heme Review (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “caffeine withdrawal”
- How Caffeine Addiction Changed History (ft. Michael Pollan) ++ WIRED - Wired (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search “caffeine withdrawal”
- Common Places: Finding a Christian America? - The Davenant Institute (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Podcast search “Davenant Institute”
- Do People Travel Less In Dense Places? - Michael Lewyn (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Replica HQ, a new company focused on data provision, calculated per capita travel time for residents of the fifty largest metropolitan areas. NYC came in with the lowest amount of travel time, at 88.3 minutes per day. The other metros with under 100 minutes of travel per day were car-dependent but relatively dense Western metros like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and San Jose (as well as Buffalo, New Orleans and Miami). By contrast, sprawling, car-dependent Nashville was No. 1 at 140 minutes per day, followed by Birmingham, Charlotte and Atlanta.”
- Welcome to OpenEd - Isaac Morehouse (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Seems like something I’ve dreamed about for “composing” an education from different programs, courses, materials, etc.
- Rail Passengers Statement on Complaint Against Norfolk Southern - Rail Passengers Association (press release)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- An Unfair Fight: Romans 8:9-11 - Rev. Samuel Hicks (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- Genesis 8 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Why We Are Doing All We Can to Increase Our Kids’ Chances of Marital Success - Ana Samuel (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The Master Plan: An Obsolete Urban Management Tool - Alain Bertaud (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Planners should monitor their city’s demographic and economic development at least quarterly. This monitoring should include indicators reflecting land and housing prices and the commuting times of various neighborhood and income groups. Planners should also develop indicators reflecting the performance of social services’ housing affordability, and the city’s environmental quality. Elected officials should establish the minimum or maximum indicator values that trigger urgent municipal action and require priority investments.”
- Thousand-page document governing nearly every street in the U.S. gets a refresh - NACTO (press release)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The Flesh: Romans 8:5-8 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Various heretics in the church have tried to hammer out exactly what determines if a person is a believer or an unbeliever. Federal Vision movement tried to tie salvation to baptism, and some pentacostal movements have tried to tie it to spiritual gifts.
- δύναμαι dunamai
- Relationships are coevolutionary loops - Henrik Karlsson (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- The Wicker Man - Neil LaBute (film)
- REFERRAL: Accident
- NOTE: Confused with 1973 version at library but still watched for some reason after realization
- The Two Towers - Peter Jackson (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Genesis 7 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 6 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 5 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 4 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 3 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 2 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 1 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew 1 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 22 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 21 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 20 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- America’s Weird, Small Political Parties Explained ++ TLDR News - TLDR News US (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- NOTE: Mentions American Solidarity Party
- A Typology of Conservative Protestants in an Anxious Age - John Ehrett (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Eli M.
- “From the perspective of the Pugilists: the Pluralists are cultural compromisers, the Patriots place the national partisan horse-race over the hard work of local institution-building, and the Tweeds are nerds who will be steamrolled by a hostile culture.”
- The Marvelization of Cinema - Like Stories of Old (video) RECOMMENDED 2X
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Vocal Fry: what it is, who does it, and why people hate it! - Dr. Geoff Lindsey (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- NOTE: Good analysis of the physiology of vocal fry and where/when it is popular, but very light on the social aspects. I want to know how people come to do it, and what level of fry (or lack thereof) is most and least attractive to each gender. How about fried-ness by age, by cohort, by level of education, by sexual orientation, etc.
- Americans’ confidence in higher education falls, poll shows - Kiliane Gateau (article)
- REFERRAL: Email
- NOTE: LOL
- The Hidden Marriage Market - Rob Henderson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “A study from 2005 that tracked assortative mating in marriages found that if your highest level of education is a high school diploma, your probability of marrying a college graduate is only nine percent. In contrast, if you hold a college degree, your probability of marrying a fellow college graduate is 65 percent.”
- “A decade ago, an article in The Atlantic stated that ‘If male enrollment falls to 40% or below, female students begin to flee.’ One reason for this is that in addition to receiving an education, people also want to go to college to meet romantic partners; 60% of college students are now women.”
- “A recent meta-analysis found that the average intelligence of university students and university graduates has dropped to the average of the general population. The college degree is losing its signaling power not only for the labor market, but for assortative mating, too.”
- Getting over getting to space - Anders L. (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services
- Why Budget Airlines are Suddenly Failing - Wendover Productions (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- NOTE: Mostly due to fuel costs, lower utilization of highly utilized planes because of delays, some high-efficiency jet engine recall, and people wanting frills when they fly on vacation
- Amtrak Unveils Renderings of Future West Baltimore MARC Station - Amtrak (press release)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Awnings: a simple cooling tech we apparently forgot about - Technology Connections (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Are New Cities Necessary? - Alain Bertaud (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Cameron Craddock Howe running as Independent for Ward I City Council seat - Mark Hand (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The Flaneur on Public Transport - Jarrett Walker (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- 80 Hours in the Country Everyone Wants to Leave - Yes Theory (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- Genesis 3 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- The Law of Sin: Romans 7:21-25 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- Genitive case
- NOTE: One of four cases in Greek
- NOTE: In paul’s thinking the heart and the mind and the soul are extremely connected. The heart controls the mind.
- John Owen
- Spaceballs - Mel Brooks (film)
- REFERRAL: Michael R.
- REFERRAL: Tim M.
- Revelation 19 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Proverbs 1 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Genesis 2 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- My Son Lost a Hat On a Tram. Can We Find It? - Mendertainment Studios (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Revelation 18 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Discipline is Underrated - David Cain (article) RECOMMENDED
- Furlong - Adam Meeks (film)
- REFERRAL: Letterboxd browsing
- Despicable Me 2 - Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Why Redbox has been powering down - Janko Roettgers (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search “abandoned redbox”
- “The convenience store chain had Redbox kiosks in front of its stores nationwide, and Redbox was contractually obligated to pay 7-Eleven a percentage of the fees it got from every single rental. A lawsuit filed by 7-Eleven in June alleges Redbox stopped paying those fees last spring. 7-Eleven terminated its contract with Redbox in August of 2023 and demanded that the company pick up its kiosks but says Redbox never did. As a result, 7-Eleven franchisees began to unplug the machines and tape credit card readers shut. Countless inoperable kiosks remain in front of 7-Eleven stores to this day.”
- Sundance 2016 IndieWire Panel January 24, 2016 ++ “Captain Fantastic” - GigViz (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- Agitprop
- Genesis 1 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 17 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Captain Fantastic and Ideology - TRCMEDIASTUDIES (video) RECOMMENDED 2X SPEED
- REFERRAL: Video search
- Lockheed P-3 Orion
- Diegetic music
- Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter XVI - Westminster Divines (document part)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- “II. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.”
- Construction Begins on New High-Speed Rail Line - Flynn Nicholls (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The Most Underrated Thing About American Urbanism - Oh The Urbanity! (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Malachi 4 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Malachi 3 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- We SAVED our denomination from destruction - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The state of SourceHut and our plans for the future - Drew DeVault (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Revelation 16 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Ladybird Web Browser becomes a non-profit with $1 Million from GitHub Founder - Bryan Lunduke (video)
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- Ladybird
- Cold Law, Hot Gospel - Canon Press (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Javier Milei has turned Argentina into a libertarian laboratory - The Economist (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Devaluation
- Everything Everywhere All at Once - Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan (film)
- REFERRAL: Tyler W.
- The Third Use of the Law (Formula of Concord Article VI) - Dr. Jordan B Cooper (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: For Lutherans, 3 uses of law in order are curb, mirror, and guide. For Reformed people, 3 uses in order are mirror, curb, and guide
- “It doesn’t say here that all we need is the warnings of the Law so we flee to the Gospel…it’s not what it says. It says we need the punishments so that we might follow God’s Spirit…we hear the punishments of what is wrong, and through those punishments we then look to God’s Spirit and strive toward obedience.” (38:13)
- “What I hear from people is they say ‘Well of course we preach the Law…of course we believe in the Law.’ If you’re saying that, but your preaching is simply not the law itself but just saying ‘You’re a sinner,’ that’s not the Law, ok. ‘You’re a sinner and God forgives you,’ that’s not the Law and the Gospel. If you’re doing that, and never actually instructing anyone toward specifics of anything in the Law, that is antinomianism by the definition that Luther gives toward antinomianism. Or, if you don’t preach the Law and then the only law that you preach is ‘we all are self-righteous…and the problem with us is really that we have too much righteousness and we just are always attempting to get self-justification,’ that’s not the Law. Not that there’s no sense…of course self-righteousness is a Sin, but to define all sin as one thing and then say ‘well that’s the only Law,’ you’re not actually teaching the Law. And if you’re not actually teaching the Law in the pulpit, that is antinomianism, because Luther’s critique is not toward those who say there is no Law or function of the Law, but they’re saying ‘there’s no function of the law in the pulpit in the church,’ so if you are not proclaiming specifically the Law–the actual demands of God, and not just some vague sense–in its fullness, that’s antinomianism.” (39:24)
- Sin Shown to Be Sin: Romans 7:13-14 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- ἁμαρτία \hamartia\
- NOTE: a sin or a failure
- “the law is like a bucket of ice cold water…and we are awakened to the reality of sin”
- NOTE: Sin has a will and volition of its own and is trying to kill you.
- Malachi 2 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- “For the man who does not love his wife, but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
- Before Smartphones, an Army of Real People Helped You Find Stuff on Google - Amelia Tait (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- Anglosphere Costs and Inequality - Alon Levy (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: In essence, author considers rise in costs to be result of contracting out whole process of constructing subways, rather than building in-house expertise.
- TIERLIST of Reformed Confessions - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Stew’s July U.S. High Speed Rail News 2024 ++ Dallas Fort Worth HST CAHSR Acela NEC Brightline West - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Sin Came Alive: Romans 7:9-12 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: “I was once alive apart from the Law” means that he was living unaware of his sin, in blissful ignorance
- NOTE: According to 2018 Pew research study, 69% of professing Christians said that God would not condemn people for a small sin
- NOTE: Law without Gospel is condemnation. Gospel without Law does not make sense. Law and Gospel together bring awareness and salvation from sin.
- The Fellowship of the Ring - Peter Jackson (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Is Wayfinding Worth the Extra Cost of Static Signage? - Asia Mieleszko (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Schedules, system maps, potential detours, and route and fare information are typically located on separate web pages. And if you, like most, opt to Google the answer, you may be directed to a five-year-old PDF. The MTA is excellent at keeping its web pages updated. Many smaller agencies are not. Being able to scan this medley of particulars in an instant at the place you’re expecting to catch your ride is, according to everyone I spoke with, unbeatable.”
- Want To Build Strong Cities? Win the Definition Game, First - Tiffany Owens Reed (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- New Possibilities on the Horizon for Historic Downtown Lynchburg’s 12th Street - Central Virginia Planning District Commission (press release)
- Brightline West is Great. Let’s Make it Even Better. - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Revelation 14 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Chris Fleming ++ He Should Be Way More Popular ++ Mike Birbiglia’s Working It Out Podcast - Mike Birbiglia (video)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Malachi 1 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Stress is about cheating - Tove K (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAl: Memory of blog existing
- Why I bought an Encyclopedia - Janet Vertesi (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- “epistemic literacy”
- The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand (book, ISBN10 0026009102)
- REFERRAL: Julia Tourianski
- “Some give up at the first touch of pressure; some sell out; some run down by imperceptible degrees and lose their fire, never knowing when or how they lost it. Then all of these vanish in the vast swamp of their elders who tell them persistently that maturity consists of abandoning one’s mind; security, of abandoning one’s values; practicality, of losing self-esteem. Yet a few hold on and move on, know that the fire is not to be betrayed, learning how to give it shape, purpose, and reality. But whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man’s nature and of life’s potential.” (p. xiii)
- NOTE: From foreword by author
- "’…Your Greeks took marble and they made copies of their wooden structures out of it, because others had done it that way. Then your masters of the Renaissance came along and made copies in plaster of copies in in marble of copies in wood. Now here we are, making copies in steel and concrete of copies in plaster of copies in marble of copies in wood. Why?’” (p. 12)
- NOTE: Would die to hear a dialog between Roark and Christopher Alexander
- Tracery
- Crenelle (crenellated)
- “[Ellsworth M. Toohey] called upon architects to abandon their selfish quest for individual glory and dedicate themselves to the embodiment of the mood of their people.” (pp. 70)
- “There seemed to be a great many aspiring to that title [of intellectual]. Readers acquired erudiiton without study, authority without cost, judgement without effort. It was pleasant to look at buildings and criticise them with a professional manner and with the memory of page 439; to hold artistic discussions and exchange the same sentences from the same paragraphs. In distinguished drawing rooms one could soon hear it said: ‘Architecture? Oh, yes, Ellsworth Toohey.’” (p. 70)
- Drawing room
- NOTE: Short for withdrawing room and synonym for living room
- Pilaster
- Astoria, Queens
- Dado
- Hadrian Mausoleum
- “That’s not the way it’s done. You must be pretty hard up to come running after a sculptor. The way it’s done is like this: You make me come to your office, and the first time I come you mustn’t be there. The second time you must keep me waiting for an hour and a half, then come out into the reception room and shake hands and ask me whether I know the Wilsons of Podunk and say how nice that we have mutual friends, but you’re in an awful hurry today and you’ll call me up for lunch soon and then we’ll talk business. Then you keep this up for two months. Then you give me the commission. Then you tell me that I’m no good and wasn’t any good in the first place, and you throw the thing in the ash can. Then you hire Valerian Bronson and he does the job. That’s the way it’s done.” (p. 335)
- “He looked at Roark and saw the calmest, kindest face–a face without a hint of pity. It did not look like the countenance of men who watch the agony of another with a secret pleasure, uplifted by the sight of a beggar who needs their compassion…” (p. 337)
- Parvenu
- Theosophy
- Patrician
- Davenport desk
- “My building will be seen. It will reclaim the whole neighborhood. Let the others follow. Not the right location, they’ll say? Who makes right locations? They’ll see. This might become the new center of the city–when the city starts living again.” (pp. 620)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- “There is always a girl who mentions Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, a book, although hardly literature, which with its sub-Nietzschean assertiveness, excites somewhat eccentric youngsters to a new way of life.” (p. 62)
- Can YIMBY policies cause large price declines? - Salim Furth (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Supply has never and will never cause a collapse of prices and rents. It causes stability.”
- NOTE: Quoting Kevin Erdmann
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Revisited - Sebastian Lehodey (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Seven Pounds - Gabriele Muccino (film)
- REFERRAL: Dave ?
- My thoughts on the RPCNA (Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America) – KingdomCraft - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: He considers RPCNA to be the most conservative presbyterian denomination in the United States, and somewhat unique in that they are “mainline”, but never became theologically liberal
- The Great Deterioration of Local Community Was A Major Driver of The Loss of The Play-Based Childhood - Zach Rausch (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- The Curious Law Problem: Romans 7:7-8 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: ἐπιθυμία \epithumia\ is word used for coveting, meaning desire, passionate longing, lust
- NOTE: Covetousness is a form of idolatry, because we make ourselves into gods and consider following our desires to be most important
- “The law brings knowledge of sin, and the knowledge of sin is good for the believer”
- Bourne Supremacy - Paul Greengrass (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- More Crowding, Fewer Babies: The Effects of Housing Density on Fertility - Lyman Stone (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “At low population densities, there isn’t much correlation between “crowded housing unit” and lower fertility. But as area population density rises, the fertility rates of people in the least-crowded units rise, and the fertility rates of people in the most-crowded units falls.”
- Ivan Illich on Bicycles - Kent Peterson (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- “The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored. That better traffic runs faster is asserted, but never proved. Before they ask people to pay for it, those who propose acceleration should try to display the evidence for their claim.”
- NOTE: Quote from Ivan Illich within article
- The Solar Sermon - Krazam (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Actual Clickbait ++ Smarter Every Day 299 - SmarterEveryDay (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The Grudge - Takashi Shimizu (film)
- REFERRAL: Eric M.
- Zechariah 14
- REFERRAL:
- What About Bob? - Frank Oz (film)
- REFERRAL: Lauren R.
- 2 battery storage siting agreements get council approval - Mark Hand (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The Bourne Identity - Doug Liman (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- A Tangled Mess: Romans 6:19-23 - Samuel Hix (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- “The cruciform life”
- NOTE: Duplex gratia means that you have been made right with God and have been unified with Christ Jesus
- NOTE: Mentioned psychoanalyst Karen Horney that theorized that neuroses come out of the discrepancy between an idealized picture of ourselves and the reality of our lives. Sam was primarily drawing from her book Neurosis and Human Growth.
- City of Lynchburg Awarded Funding for Urban Forestry Projects - City of Lynchburg (press release)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- One nation, under watch: New brand of largely unregulated mass surveillance is expanding in Virginia - Katie King (article) READING **RECOMMENDED
- Wisconsin AI-powered Flock cameras are tracking where you drive - Brian Polcyn (article)
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News June 2024 ++ Brightline West CAHSR DFW HST Acela NEC Keystone - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Virginia Breeze to offer east-west bus line in 2025 - Nathaniel Cline (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- How Car Sharing Can Make Your Community Stronger - Emma Durand-Wood (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Horatio Hornblower - Andrew Grieve (television series)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- Midshipman
- Tenterhook
- French Revolutionary Wars
- Forecastle
- Lead line
- Revelation 13 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Main Streets Suck.* - Eryngo Urbanism (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Oglethorpe plan
- The Nonprofit Industrial Complex and the Corruption of the American City - Jonathan Ireland (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Zechariah 13 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Die Hard - John McTiernan (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Communications and Public Engagement - Anna Bentson, etc. (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- Revelation 12 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- New DHS publicity about REAL-ID - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “The May 7, 2025 date is entirely arbitrary, not fixed by law, has been extended time and time again for years, and can and likely will be extended again.”
- Escaping the “Transit Sandbox” - Tony Dutzik (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Data is Overrated - Alon Levy (article)
- “from 2004-2012, the average federal funding share for transit New Starts projects was 45 percent, compared with 80 percent for highway projects eligible for federal funding”
- Americans don’t Understand Passenger Trains - Alan Fisher (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Lawless - John Hillcoat (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- High Fidelity - Stephen Frears (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Marvin Gaye
- Bedford council making strides in passenger rail stop goal - Justin Faulconer (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Mary Zirkle, the town’s economic development coordinator, reported to council in November a site along the north side of Macon Street and west of 4th Street was chosen as the preferred location. The property is directly across from the town’s athletic fields between the Bedford County Health Department and Bedford Primary School.”
- Remember the Titans - Boaz Yakin (film)
- REFERRAL: Laurel C.
- Zechariah 12 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Is Alberta finally doing it? - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Contra Strong Towns - Arpit Gupta (article)
- REFERRAL: Interrogating the Strong Towns “Ponzi Scheme” - Salim Furth (article)
- NOTE: This is what I posted in Strong Towns Discord along with link -> My knee-jerk response is that: 1. “Bankruptcy” just looks like not fixing things and letting them decay. 2. Regardless of whether infrastructure is a small part of budget pie, it’s not easy to expand the budget, so if that doesn’t cover maintenance, a place is screwed. 3. Urban spending/capita is higher in raw numbers, but everything is more expensive in more desirable places (cities), so maybe infra spending as % of GDP would be more accurate? 4. Infrastructure quality is actually higher in these places that can and are willing to support it (crosswalk bars 1ft apart vs. 2ft apart). 5. Maybe “ponzi scheme” is too strong of a term.
- Interrogating the Strong Towns “Ponzi Scheme” - Salim Furth (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Revelation 11 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- FF-24: Roslyn Ross on having a family in spite of Ayn Rand and being an expat - Fountainhead Forum (video)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “Never do for a child what a child can do for themself.”
- NOTE: Mentioned that Amish people reject the bicycle because it separates people, but accept rollerblades because they bring people together. Likewise, they reject soccer but accept volleyball.
- Microtranist Is Taxpayer Funded Uber, Advocates Warn — And It’s a Threat to Real Transit - Kea Wilson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Fortunately Lynchburg is keeping microtransit in-house, and only deploying to low-density areas. Have heard concerning rumblings regarding deploying service to whole city, though.
- Bedford six-year plan for secondary road improvements set at $7.4 million - Justin Faulconer (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Somewhat maniacal that they’re trying to pave every rural road. This has to be a massive subsidy.
- Have you noticed what Jon Jon has noticed? - Strong Towns (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Are we there yet? A guide to highway distance signs - David Rookhuyzen (article)
- REFERRAL: Stephen E. (OSMUS Slack)
- Control city
- Living in Christ: Romans 6:12-18 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Under grace the law should become increasingly important to us, because we’ve been freed to follow the law
- Alistair Begg
- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Terry Hughes (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Dardanelles
- Beadle
- Chasing
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople - Taika Waititi (film) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Modern Times - Charlie Chaplin (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Press Release: Niskanen welcomes committee passage of the YIMBY Act - Louisa Tavlas (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Data is Overrated - Alon Levy (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Yangbo D. (Strong Towns Slack)
- NOTE: TNC (Transportation Network Company) is a jargon synonym for “rideshare company” like Uber or Lyft
- “An app showing me that the bus in Boston will not arrive for another 17 minutes is not going to make me ride the bus (I took a taxi that time; the public bus tracker was down but there was some dodgy third-party app). A schedule in which the bus shows up every 6 minutes without variation is.”
- “Important aspects of planning require either very coarse information, readily available not just from conventional present-day census sources but often also from the state of data analysis of the 1920s and 30s.”
- Why Airport Security Suddenly Got Better - Real Engineering (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Ben A.
- NOTE: Normal xray scanners just shoot high energy radation and low energy radation through the luggage at different times and record the ratio between the high-energy and low-energy reflections. Different materials have different ratios, so they can look them up in a table and color code items by material for security staff. Water has a very similar ratio to many explosives, so was banned because it was too difficult to distinguish. Newer machines from Smiths Detection take many images of the luggage to create 3D models. This allows the software to identify the volume of different bodies and consider the material’s density as well as high-energy to low-energy reflection ratio. Apparently makes it technically feasible to scan for explosives while letting people keep water in their bags.
- Hill City Trolleys - Harold E. Cox (book, ISBN13 9781938205415)
- REFERRAL: Christian Crouch
- NOTE: Revision published by Blackwell Press, a local press associated with Lynch’s Ferry journal of local history. Not to be confused with Wiley-Blackwell, a much larger publishing company.
- “The land companies were often associated with street railways, good public transportation being essential for the development of remote subdivisions in a day when roads were generally impassable. The land company generally built a hotel, an amusement park, or some other facility to attract business. In Lynchburg, the Rivermont Company engaged in a project which may be unique in the annals of land schemes - the establishment of Randolph Macon Woman’s College.” (pp. 8-9)
- David Lamar
- NOTE: In 1891, trolley trip from downtown to modern day University of Lynchburg took 25m
- Jackson and Sharp Company
- NOTE: Lynchburg Traction and Light Co. created in 1901 as result of several mergers
- NOTE: Virginia Nail and Iron works was at Reusens Road
- Bonsack Cigarette Machine
- “During its first fifteen months [the Lynchburg and Rivermont Street Railway Co.] hauled 300,000 passengers without an injury. On 4 July 1892, it hauled 5363 passengers.” (pp. 22)
- Macadam
- NOTE: 12 minute headway was standard for most of the years electric trolleys were in operation
- NOTE: Mentioned a federal policy in 1930s of not subsidizing road maintenance for roads with trolley tracks on them
- “The Diamond HIll line, which had been Rivermont’s alternate partner, was abandoned on 25 September [1901], and College Hill was paired exclusively and reliably with the Rivermont line. This routing became the most prosperous and pampered of LT&L’s lines, getting the newest and best cars when there was a choice. The pairing continued until the abandonment of the Rivermont line on 7 August, 1938.” (p. 94)
- NOTE: This would absolutely still be the most profitable bus route
- Black Swan - Darren Aronofsky (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- How to measure the impact of zoning on housing in your city - Jonathan Nolan (article) RECOMMENDED
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Financial Services - Donna S. Witt, etc. (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- NOTE: About 25% of land value in city is non-taxable according to VA state standards (does not necessarily align with 501c3 status)
- NOTE: State code mandates that debt service no more than 10% of expenditures
- NOTE: Water and sewer and such are in “enterprise funds” that must self-maintain outside of general fund
- Zechariah 11 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- How Amsterdam Built A Dystopia - Hoog (video)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- What I learned by living without artificial light - Linda Geddes (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “Morning light seemed to be particularly powerful: those exposed to a high stimulus between 8:00 and 12:00 took an average 18 minutes to fall asleep at night, compared to 45 minutes in the low stimulus group. They slept for an extra 20 minutes. Their sleep efficiency was 2.8% higher. And they reported significantly fewer sleep disturbances.”
- “It supports the idea that brighter and blue-enriched morning light could be a useful countermeasure to artificial light in the evenings especially during the darker seasons, when less daylight is available.”
- How Private Equity Consumed America - Wendover Productions (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video search
- NOTE: Even at 2x speed it was very low-content
- Follow the Money to the After Party - Megan Basham (article)
- REFERRAL: Bob P.
- Revelation 10 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Dark Ecology - Paul Kingsnorth (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- “If you want human-scale living, you doubtless do need to look backward. If there was an age of human autonomy, it seems to me that it probably is behind us. It is certainly not ahead of us, or not for a very long time…”
- “Schumacher’s riposte reminds us that Ivan Illich was far from being the only thinker to advance a critique of the dehumanizing impacts of megatechnologies on both the human soul and the human body. E. F. Schumacher, Leopold Kohr, Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul, Lewis Mumford, Kirkpatrick Sale, Jerry Mander, Edward Goldsmith—there’s a long roll call of names, thinkers and doers all, promoters of appropriate energy and convivial tools, interrogators of the paradigm.”
- “But though they burn with the shouty fervor of the born-again, the neo-environmentalists are not exactly wrong. In fact, they are at least half right. They are right to say that the human-scale, convivial approaches of those 1970s thinkers are never going to work if the world continues to formulate itself according to the demands of late capitalist industrialism. They are right to say that a world of 9 billion people all seeking the status of middle-class consumers cannot be sustained by vernacular approaches. They are right to say that the human impact on the planet is enormous and irreversible. They are right to say that traditional conservation efforts sometimes idealized a preindustrial nature. They are right to say that the campaigns of green NGOs often exaggerate and dissemble. And they are right to say that the greens have hit a wall, and that continuing to ram their heads against it is not going to knock it down.”
- “[The Amazon Rainforest] teems with a great, shifting, complex diversity of both human and nonhuman life, and no species dominates the mix. It is a complex, working ecosystem that is also a human-culture-system, because in any kind of worthwhile world, the two are linked.”
- “Hunter-gatherers living during the Paleolithic period, between 30,000 and 9,000 BCE, were on average taller—and thus, by implication, healthier—than any people since, including people living in late twentieth-century America. Their median life span was higher than at any period for the next six thousand years, and their health, as estimated by measuring the pelvic inlet depth of their skeletons, appears to have been better, again, than at any period since—including the present day.”
- “…the successors of the neo-environmentalists will be making precisely the same arguments about the necessity of adopting the next wave of technologies needed to dig us out of the trap that GM crops have dropped us neatly into. Perhaps it will be vat-grown meat, or synthetic wheat, or some nano-bio-gubbins as yet unthought of. Either way, it will be vital for growth and progress, and a moral necessity.”
- “Ground yourself in things and places, learn or practice human-scale convivial skills. Only by doing that, rather than just talking about it, do you learn what is real and what’s not, and what makes sense and what is so much hot air.”
- NOTE: A snath is the handle of a scythe
- 1992 Earth Summit
- Neo-environmentalism
- Progress trap
- Pelvimetry
- Whiplash - Damien Chazelle (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- All Aboard With Stephen: Infrastructure and Fleet - Amtrak (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- What happened to cheap food? Diners, Automats, and affordable eating - Kendra Gaylord (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Automat
- The Young Victoria - Jean-Marc Vallée (film)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- NOTE: Really like Hagen Bogdanski’s photography. Has a lot of interesting shallow depth-of-field shots.
- Wedding Crashers - David Dobkin (film)
- REFERRAL: Own DVD
- Union with Christ: Romans 6:5-11 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- σύμφυτος \sumphutos\
- NOTE: Union with Christ does not mean we are planted beside Christ, and it does not mean that we are engulfed by Christ like a vine engulfs a tree. Rather, it is like when two trees grow together such that they operate as one tree.
- Inosculation
- First Reformed - Paul Schrader (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Thomas Merton
- The Cloud of Unknowing
- “In order to grasp the spiritual in films, you have to leave room for the viewer to lean in. You can’t do it all for them. You can’t tell them how to feel. You can’t use music to tell them how to feel, you can’t use motion to tell them how to feel. You have to get them to the place where they–come, and the whole trick is how to push a viewer back, ever so slightly, while giving him reason to come forward, and so you push him back technically, and you try to bring him forward through story and character elements.”
- NOTE: Quote from interview with director Paul Schrader
- The Wolf of Wall Street - Martin Scorsese (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- American Myths of European Poverty - Alon Levy (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “The United States is, by a slight amount, richer than Northern Europe, which for the purposes of this post comprises the German-speaking world, the Nordic countries, and Benelux. Among the three largest countries in this area, Germany is 16.5% poorer than the US, the Netherlands 8.3% poorer, Sweden 14.3%. This is more than anything an artifact of shorter working hours – Sweden has an ever so slightly larger GDP per hour worked, the other two are 6-7% poorer per hour worked.”
- I Fixed Stuff in Prague with Magical Mouldable Sticks - Mendertainment Studios (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Major US Public Transit Union Questions “Microtransit” - Jarrett Walker (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- How Britain Made a Dystopian City - JimmyTheGiant (video)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- Cleveland: a target of rail competitors? - Ken Prendergast (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Vehicle Miles Traveled Taxes Rollout across States - Jacob Macumber-Rosin and Adam Hoffer (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Her - Spike Jonze (film) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- NOTE: Must be a good bit in the future because LA has a ton of trains
- The Genius of 2x4 Framing - Stewart Hicks (video)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- HARD Lessons from Building a House in Germany - Type Ashton (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Thought it was going to be about particularly German construction gotchas, but was a long-winded account of general project-management failures.
- There Are Many Reasons Why Stockholm Is So Pleasant to Walk In. Here’s One! - Streetfilms (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: RRFB gives about the same result here as those blue signs do in Stockholm
- Zechariah 9 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Zechariah 8 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 9 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- 3:10 to Yuma - Delmer Daves (film) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Shall We Go on Sinning?: Romans 6:1-4 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- “Union with Christ necessitates a complete and total transformation.”
- NOTE: Baptism in the name of Moses is to be baptised into the discipleship of Moses, while baptism in the name of Christ is to be baptized into union with or discipleship of Christ.
- Revelation 8 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Zechariah 7 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Zechariah 6 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Season 6 Episode 16: Christian Nationalism - Southside Rabbi (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Podcast subscription
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Department of Human Services - April Watson, etc. (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- NOTE: 644 CPS complaints for 944 kids in FY23
- NOTE: 763 children getting childcare assistance right now
- NOTE: LCS truancy is defined as 7 days unexcused absence in school year
- NOTE: ~24k medicaid recipients in city of Lynchburg, and ~14k before Covid
- VQB5
- Virginia Comprehensive Services Act
- Combining radio and visual tracking of road vehicles - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Once the unique identifying numbers of the in-vehicle wireless access points are linked to a vehicle and the vehicle’s registration record and owner by matching the time and location of device detection with an ALPR scan of the vehicle’s license plate, they can be used to track those devices and log their movements in a permanent file associated with the registered owner, even when those devices leave the vehicle.”
- National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System
- Could Amazon be a source of significant long-term growth for intermodal rail? Analysis - Chase Gunnoe (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- NOTE: Watched a train go by that was 15-20% Amazon Prime intermodal containers, so wondered about that
- America’s Newest Interstate Nears Completion in Indiana - Jared Brey (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Roundabouts Are Safer. So Why Does The U.S. Have So Few Of Them? - CNBC (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Cycling in Carmel, Indiana from a Dutch perspective - BicycleDutch (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Arizona’s Culdesac: A Car-Free Paradise or Part of the Problem? - Ben Abramson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “…the model of another large residential development built to completion from day one is a long way from the incremental urbanism and thickening our cities need.”
- Stew’s High Speed Rail News May 2024 ++ Brightline West Texas Central CAHSR Acela NEC - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Brightline West CEO encouraging LA rail operator to electrify one of their lines so Brightline could run trainsets further into LA
- Revelation 7 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- The Blues Brothers - John Landis (film) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- She Caught the Katy
- Cook County, Illinois
- NOTE: County that Chicago is within
- Elmore James
- Let Us Go Back to the Old Landmark
- Howard Johnsons
- Rawhide (song)
- Birdman - Alejandro González Iñárritu (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- NOTE: Really beautiful cinematography from Emmanuel Lubezki
- Zechariah 5 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Reigning Power: Romans 5:20-21 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE:
Irreligious Religious Gospel Sin Non-existent Containable/Controllable Pervasive Law Unnecessarily oppressive Can obey perfectly “To increase the trespass” Hope Self-fulfillment Obedience Grace - NOTE: Law increases the trespass by increasing the seriousness of sin and the culpability for sin
- True Facts: Bees That Can Do Math! - Ze Frank (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Revelation 6 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- The Mask of Zorro - Martin Campbell (film)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- Destreza
- That Hideous Strength - C. S. Lewis (book, ISBN13 9781451664829) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: David W.
- NOTE: Physical book contains whole space trilogy.
- “You want a man who loves business and wire-pulling for their own sake and doesn’t really ask what it’s all about. If he did, he’d start bringing his own–well, I suppose he’d call them ‘ideas.’” (pp. 40)
- NOTE: Bracton College setting is weirdly similar to the college in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It features stuffy characters that are comical in their detachment from reality, an unfathomably old campus littered with memorials to forgotten alumni, etc.
- “Husbands were made to be talked to. It helps them to concentrate their minds on what they’re reading–like the sound of a weir.” (pp. 75)
- “Statistics about agricultural laborers were the real substance; any real ditcher, plowman, or farmer’s boy, was the shadow.” (pp. 85)
- NOTE: Kvetching about renters has apparently always been a thing. The way N.I.C.E. fellows talk about them in this book is exactly how some local planning commissioners talk about renters.
- Bursar
- Traducer
- Drollery
- “‘I thought love meant equality,’ she said, ‘and free companionship.’ ‘Ah, equality!’ said the Director. ‘We must talk of that some other time. Yes, we must be guarded by equal rights from one another’s greed, because we are fallen. Just as we must all wear clothes for the same reason. But the naked body should be there underneath the clothes, ripening for the day when we shall need them no longer. Equality is not the deepest thing, you know.’ ‘I always though that was just what it was. I thought it was in their souls that people were equal.’ ‘You were mistaken,’ said he gravely. ‘That is the last place where they are equal. Equality before the law, equality of incomes–that is very well. Equality guards life; it does not make it. It is medicine, not food. You might as well try to warm yourself with a blue-book.’ ‘But surely in marriage…?’ ‘Worse and worse,’ said the Director. ‘Courtship knows nothing of it, nor does fruition. What has free companionship to do with that? Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not. Do you not know how bashful friendship is? Friends–comrades–do not look at each other. Friendship would be ashamed…’” (p. 145)
- Kinuko Y. Craft
- NOTE: Illustrator of beautiful original artwork reused on cover of this publication
- Viridical
- Numinor (misspelled by C. S. Lewis from hearing Tolkien read an unpublished manuscript
- NOTE: Seems to represent “the true west”
- Cheroot
- Stile
- Spinney
- Démarche
- Logres
- “The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it.” (pp. 313)
- “…only one in the saddle of whose soul rode Mercury himself could thus have unmade language.” (p. 350)
- “He had passed from Hegel into Hume, thence through Pragmatism, and thence through Logical Positivism, and out at last into the complete void.” (p. 350)
- How Investor-Owned Utilities Turn (Your) Money into Political Power - John Farrell (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Lynchburg Regional Airport - Marjette Upshur, Tom Martin, etc. (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- NOTE: 72% of workforce in the city commutes from the counties. Average commute is 24 minutes.
- NOTE: 1541 businesses licensed in the city with gross receipts over 150k
- NOTE: Manufacturing sector is largest contributor to city GDP
- NOTE: Old Holy Cross site will be home to 125k square foot Centra office building
- NOTE: Co-starters curriculum came out of Chattanooga, TN
- NOTE: Community development has 27 employees
- NOTE: 1490 building permits issued in 2023, 1/2 commercial, 1/4 residential, and 1/4 institutional
- NOTE: Each year city receives about $1M in Community Development Block Grants, and it can be used for infrastructure if it benefits low and moderate income residents
- NOTE: ~300 properties in the city that are condemned and ~50 that are derelict, which means owner has 90 days to make repair plan and gets fined $500 a month for every month they don’t deal with the issue
- We Are In A Housing Trap. Can We Escape? - Strong Towns (video)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Zechariah 3 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Revelation 5 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Techno City - Ben Cohen (film)
- REFERRAL: Video search
- “The main boundary in Detroit that everyone in the city recognizes is 8 Mile Road.”
- Rhythim is Rhythim
- Shake
- Paperclip People
- E-dancer
- Stacey Pullen
- Eddie ‘Flashin’ Fowlkes
- Octave One
- Gone with the Wind - Victor Fleming (film)
- Run Lola Run - Tom Tykwer (film) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Eli M.
- Erwachet!
- Arriflex 535
- Germany’s BIG DUMB BOXES ARE AWESOME. - Type Ashton (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- “Every time a corner, or a recess, or other facade modulation is introduced into a building, the chances of issues related to weathering, durability, and building movement increase.”
- NOTE: Weird how all the new developments she filmed were just white big, dumb boxes. Any amount of color would significantly improve the appearance of these places. If albedo is a concern, just use pastel colors.
- Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ: Romans 5:18-19 - Ruling Elder Wynn Shackleford (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- District 9 - Neill Blomkamp (film) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Soweto
- Perry Mason: The Case of the Shattered Dream - Andrew V. McLaglen (television episode)
- REFERRAL: Dona M.
- Perry Mason: The Case of the Borrowed Brunette - Arthur Marks (television episode)
- REFERRAL: Dona M.
- How Your City Can Ensure It Can Afford Its Infrastructure - Edward Erfurt and Lindsey Beckworth (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Company backed by $100 million in federal funding looks to open battery plant in Lynchburg - Matt Busse and Markus Schmidt (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Applied Materials
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Library System and Parks & Recreation - Beverly Blair (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- Frequency is Relative - Alon Levy (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “The German system of a train every two hours on every city pair is wise, in light of the typical intercity rail travel distances in a large country with slow trains. Higher frequency is warranted if the cities are bigger and therefore require more service, or if they are closer together in time through either a short geographical distance or higher speeds. New York and Philadelphia are about 1:10 apart by rail, and high-speed rail could cut this to about 45 minutes…”
- Future Interstates - L&E Geography (video)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- Revelation 4 (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Matthew Henry’s Commentary on Acts to Revelation
- “The prevailing colour was a pleasant green, showing the reviving and refreshing nature of the new covenant. Four-and-twenty seats around the throne, were filled with four-and-twenty elders, representing, probably, the whole church of God. Their sitting denotes honour, rest, and satisfaction; their sitting about the throne signifies nearness to God, the sight and enjoyment they have of him.”
- Sardius
- Jasper
- Amtrak is coming to Christiansburg - Keshia Lynn (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “If the Amtrak train is off of Cinnabar Road, it will be completed by 2028 and cost almost $400 million. If it’s near the mall, it would be finished by 2030 and cost almost $800 million. Finally, a stop at both locations would cost more than $950 million, and it wouldn’t be completed until 2030.”
- Hill City Hardwoods owner running as a Democrat for Ward I City Council seat - Emma Martin (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- The “Urban Planning Activist” Starter Kit - Nth City (video)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- Extending The Northeast Corridor & Acela Service to Virginia - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The Missing Transit in This Fast-Growing Canadian Province - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- What is Incrementalism, Anyway? - Alon Levy (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “already in the 1970s, SBB timetables were such that trains arrived at Zurich shortly before the hour every hour and departed on or shortly after the hour. The Rail 2000 plan expanded these timed connections, called Knoten or knots, to more cities, and prioritized speed increases that would enable trains to connect two knots in just less than an hour, to avoid wasting time for passengers and equipment. The slogan is run trains as fast as necessary, not as fast as possible: expensive investment is justifiable to get the trip times between two knots to be a little less than an hour instead of a little more than an hour, but beyond that, it isn’t worth it, because connecting passengers would not benefit.”
- “Switzerland pads the timetable 7%, whereas the TGV network (largely on dedicated tracks, thus relatively insulated from delays) pads 11-14%, and the much more exposed German intercity rail network pads 20-30%. The extent of timetable padding in and around New York is comparable to the German level or even worse; those two-hour trip times include what appears to be about 25 minutes of padding. The related LIRR has what appears to be 32% padding on its Main Line, as of nine years ago.”
- Zechariah 1 - Zechariah (book chapter)
- REFERRAL: Reading plan
- Shevat
- NOTE: Occurs in January and February of Gregorian calendar
- Darius the Great
- Are Rents About to Crash? - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “It doesn’t work this way for an apartment, which in the financial world is called Commercial Real Estate (CRE). The set of guarantees for CRE is not nearly as comprehensive and robust as it is for residential mortgages. As a result, many loans have much shorter terms (three to seven years) with a balloon payment at the end. This lowers the risk for the lender by increasing the risk for the borrower.”
- Gran Torino - Clint Eastwood (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Ford Gran Torino
- NOTE: Special features on DVD include segment where one Detroit car enthusiast mentions how cars are “a second layer of clothing”
- Hmong Americans
- Dreamer - John Gatins (film)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- Filly
- Why You Click with Certain People - Sharon Begley (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “Short of connecting brains with electrodes to sync their activity, there might be a way to increase your chances of clicking. We feel more connected with people whose postures, vocal rhythms, facial expressions, and even eyeblinks match our own. Maybe clicking can be triggered from the outside in: Consciously sync the actions you can control—posture, expression, and the like—with other people’s, and your brain activity may follow.”
- How Much More?: Romans 5:15-17 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: The word used for transgression is one that means misstep or accident. One way the free gift of God is different from the transgression is that it is not an accident.
- παράπτωμα \paraptōma\: a false step, a trespass
- χάρισμα \charisma\: a gift of grace, a free gift
- Come Thou Fount - Robert Robinson, John Wyeth, and Ashael Nettleton (song)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- Ebenezer: the stone that was erected by Samuel following the Mizpeh success
- Here’s How We Get Housing That’s Both More Affordable AND Better Quality - Emma Durand-Wood (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “News about ‘renovictions’ caught my attention. That’s what happens when a building has been neglected to the point that major renos are unavoidable, tenants are evicted to enable the work to be done, rents on the renovated units are jacked up, and a whole new set of tenants moves in. But renovictions are also done disingenuously as a predatory landlord practice, where the need for major renovations is exaggerated for the sole purpose of getting lower-paying tenants out and higher-paying tenants in.”
- “Landlord-tenant laws and renter protections can only go so far. At a certain point, effective protection for tenants comes by virtue of having actual choice in where they spend their rental dollars.”
- Trucking and Grocery Prices - Alon Levy (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Peri-urbanisation
- The sudden death of the American condo - Salim Furth (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “One suspect is condo defect law, which has (at least in some states) swung so far that most builders and insurers won’t touch condos. Another is the fact that older condos have appreciated less than houses over time suggests that it’s not just construction problems.”
- Moneyball - Bennett Miller (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Sabermetrics
- On-base Percentage
- Plans for private San Francisco-Los Angeles overnight sleeping car service revived - Bob Johnston (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- Dreamstar Lines
- The urban economics of sprawl - Salim Furth (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Cities also come with significant infrastructure costs that intensify with built and human density. I’m skeptical that a full, accurate accounting of costs can be done at the micro level. And the macro-level indicators, like overall tax rates, certainly don’t suggest large savings from density.”
- NOTE: Author does not consider whether the higher tax rates of high-density places are the result of a higher cost of providing the same services as low-density places or just the propensity of urbanites to desire a larger variety and higher quality of services. If Lynchburg was twice as densely populated, and kept the current tax rates, budget proportions, and set of city services, the quality would significantly increase.
- “Can we allow housing at the urban fringe but ban new highways? This is just a recipe for stroads. Places like Northern Virginia that failed to build a network of limited-access highways instead have 6-lane arterials with traffic lights that mean they always run at half capacity. For a major city with serious demand pressure, building new highways or parkways is a good and necessary part of greenfield growth.”
- NOTE: He’s right about stroads being what happens when you ban highways but keep it car centric, but why can’t each of those highways be replaced with a BRT or light rail line? He says transit to these places is impractical, then says we need to build more limited access highways, which are not cheap.
- Why Utah is So Weird - Wendover Productions (video)
- REFERRAL: Video recommendation
- Why Does The U.S. Destroy Its Cities For Highways? - Strong Towns (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- I-45 Connector project website
- Anatomy of a credit card rewards program - Patrick McKenzie (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “…interchange fees are not constant and fixed. They are set based on quite a few factors (gibbering madness intensifies) but, most prominently, based on the rank of card product you use. The more a card product is pitched to socioeconomically well-off people, the more expensive interchange is. Credit card issuers explicitly and directly charge the rest of the economy for the work involved in recruiting the most desirable customers.”
- Feeds are Not Fit for Gardening - Chris Krycho (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden - Maggie Appleton (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Feeds are Not Fit for Gardening - Chris Krycho (article)
- “… streams only surface the Zeitgeisty ideas of the last 24 hours. They are not designed to accumulate knowledge, connect disparate information, or mature over time. Though the rising popularity of Twitter threading is an impressive attempt to reconfigure a stream environment and make it more garden-esque.”
- “The garden is our counterbalance. Gardens present information in a richly linked landscape that grows slowly over time. Everything is arranged and connected in ways that allow you to explore. Think about the way Wikipedia works when you’re hopping from Bolshevism to Celestial Mechanics to Dunbar’s Number. It’s hyperlinking at it’s best. You get to actively choose which curiosity trail to follow, rather than defaulting to the algorithmically-filtered ephemeral stream. The garden helps us move away from time-bound streams and into contextual knowledge spaces.”
- Moveable Type
- Amazing Grace - Michael Apted (film)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life - Terry Jones (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Inherent Vice - Paul Thomas Anderson (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Death Reigned: Romans 5:12-14 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- Pelagius
- NOTE: NASB verses copied below. Pastor preaching from ESV.
- “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned–for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.”
- NOTE: The word for “type” in “type of Him” is Strongs number G5179b
- Federal headship
- 3:10 to Yuma - James Mangold (film)
- REFERRAL: Unknown
- Lynchburg Citizens Academy at Department of Public Works - Lee Newland, Ryan Roberts, etc. (lecture)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- NOTE: Clay Simmons deputy director
- NOTE: Departments are Solid waste, grounds, building maintenance and custodial, streets, engineering, and administration
- NOTE: Staff of 168 employees + ~30 seasonal workers hired through staffing company
- NOTE: FY2024 operating budget of $22,545,794
- NOTE: Have lots of contracts, including paving contracts and guardrail contracts
- NOTE: 118 Signalized intersections, 3200 regulatory signs, and 6800 non-regulatory signs
- NOTE: Pavement markings on over 350 lane miles of city streets
- NOTE: 4 corridors with adaptive signalization (Wards Road is one), and Old Graves Mill road will be 5th
- NOTE: MUTCD compliance required for projects receiving VDOT or federal funding
- NOTE: City does get billed by APCO tarriff document
- NOTE: 5th Street final project should start summer 2025
- NOTE: Lee Newland said the city is about 40% short on funds to maintain existing roadways.
- NOTE: Most of the loop vehicle detectors are along Enterprise Drive
- NOTE: Traffic engineer confirmed Synchro vehicle detector cameras detect bicycles and motorcycles as well
- NOTE: Fellow academy attendee asked about getting bike lanes on Bedford Avenue and city engineer said there’s no room
- NOTE: Director of Public Works said new pavement condition index survey should be done in the next couple of years.
- Tom Martin wears a lot of hats; the common thread is service to his community - Emma Martin (article)
- Local and Intercity Rail are Complements - Alon Levy (article)
- Bright from the Start: GE’s CFL with an incandescent trick up its sleeve - Technology Connections (video)
- Fifth-Hand Dealers in Ideas - Isaac Morehouse (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Self Driving Kids - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Lillian Moller Gilbreth
- “The couple pioneered the use of short films to study how jobs were performed, and they once set up camera equipment in their laboratory to film five of their children getting their tonsils out.” (pp. 2)
- Kitchen work triangle
- Reggio Emilia approach
- Jean Piaget
- Fabulist
- Leitmotif
- “Storage becomes a leitmotif of the family home, which first bulges with attics, basements, and garages, then streamlines with carports, builtins, and kid-size cupboards. Pushed and pulled by the perceptions of children’s space needs, the average size of the American house grows from 980 square feet in 1950 to 1660 square feet in 1973 to 2600 square feet today.” (pp. 7)
- "”From the late nineteenth century on, writers, thinkers educators, and politicians wanted to get children out of the city. Off the streets, out of apartments, into private homes, and bused to suburban schools. Children were to be their parents’ problem, and the building of playrooms and the purchasing of play equipment–a swingset for every yard!–created an ideal of childhood that was privatized and consumer-driven.” (pp. 8)
- “The act of making that designers find so satisfying is built into early childhood education, but as they grow, many children lose opportunities, to create their own environment, bounded by a text-centric view of education and concerns for safety.” (pp. 9)
- Howdah
- Parti-colored
- “As a number of writers have argued, children’s toys and children’s play are a space dominated by intense commercial energy and an ever-increasing explicitness of purpose.” (pp. 14-15)
- “Some early block sets, following Locke, used the six sides as an opportunity to display symbols: letters, numbers, or stories, often taken from the Bible. Designer and historian Karen Hewitt describes these early commercial products as ‘dipped in honey,’ sweetening learning by treating the toy like an advertisement for itself, with multicolor imagery made possible by chromolithography, a then new printing technology. To focus the child’s mind on letters, it would be better if alphabet blocks weren’t all colors of the rainbow, or if the colors corresponded to a next step in reading, like differentiating vowels from consonants. In recognition of this, twentieth-century Montessori alphabet sets use blue for vowels and red for consonants.” (pp. 16)
- Froebel gifts
- NOTE: Buckminster Fuller owes his appreciation of triangles to Froebel’s nineteenth gift, peas-work, where children make structures from toothpicks and peas or cork.
- “Pratt’s blocks are commonly referred to as unit blocks, and these were staples of my own childhood, at home and at school. The basic brick is 5 1/2 by 2 3/4 by 1 3/8 inches (140 by 70 by 35 millimeters), a 4:2:1 proportion. Unit blocks are large enough to use on the floor but small enough for three-year-olds to manipulate.” (pp. 31)
- Urea-formaldehyde
- NOTE: First Lego bricks were made of cellulose acetate
- NOTE: Original Lego bricks came in red, green, white, and tan
- “The company’s existing boxes already included a number of architectural models, to which LEGO added a large vinyl mat, marked with streets and blocks, new 1:87-scale vehicles, trees, bushes, and signs that matched the so-called HO standard size used for model railways.” (pp. 43)
- “System of Play laid out a large, car-centric town on a grid plan, rationalizing and modernizing the village.” (pp. 43)
- “The playroom, well stocked with toys, was supposed to replace the pleasures of the urban, social street.” (pp. 43)
- Muji
- NOTE: Appears to be like a Japanese answer to Ikea with a focus on minimalist design
- Tripp Trapp
- “High chairs and their cousins, playpens and perambulators, became the inanimate replacements for female servants, silent assistants for mothers who now had to cook, clean, and keep their children out of trouble, while also instructing them in good behavior.” (pp. 80)
- “Until the early twentieth century, house plans, and even apartment plans, waver between creating a private sleeping zone of bedrooms either upstairs or at the back of the domicile and placing a principal bedroom downstairs or up front as a sign of status.” (pp. 85)
- “[Melusina Fay Peirce’s] solution was ‘cooperative housekeeping,’ where women would band together to buy a building and outfit it with equipment for cooking, baking, laundry, and sewing, performing the work together and charging their husbands retail prices for the result. Once established in the area, families who were part of the cooperative could move into kitchenless houses, set in the center of an urban block rather than along its edge, creating a commonly held yard around the domicile. One in every thirty-six lots would be taken over for the cooperative building, the work engine of the reorganized domestic space.” (pp. 85)
- “It was clear from the beginning of the set-aside single family home that it would be ‘more work for mother,’ but nonetheless, it remained the American ideal and only grew in isolation and complexity.” (pp. 86)
- “Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge wanted to create a nation of homeowners, with the underlying goal of beating back Bolshevism by mass ownership of property.” (pp. 90)
- “As children completed each primer, they would move farther from the teacher, so that everyone in a row would be studying the same book and could file forward as a class.” (pp. 127)
- NOTE: Massachusetts was first state to make schooling compulsory in 1852, and Mississippi was the last to do so in 1917. That’s a 65 year gap. I wonder if other laws banning or requiring things have a similar time gap between these states adopting them.
- “Once a Harkness Table is installed in a classroom, it fixes the room to that method and is as inflexible, in its own democratic way, as rows of desks. The trapezoidal tables of my open-plan middle school in the 1970s hinted at a brave new order, cellular rather than gridded.” (pp. 135)
- NOTE: Perhaps inspiration for Vector Space classroom desks
- NOTE: In 1847 Horace Mann and Henry Barnard created Quincy Grammar School in Quincy, Massachusetts, which was the first (or one of the first) school to divide students into grades based on their abilities. By 1855 all the grammar school in Boston was divided into grades, and by 1860 every primary school in Boston was divided into grades.
- “In order to break the rigidity of the traditional classroom structure, [Dewey] saw the school as a node in a network of child-centered architecture including homes, parks, libraries, and museums. Learning should not take place only in the room, and it was not solely transferred from teacher to student.” (pp. 143)
- “In 1912, [Booker T.] Washington proposed to build six rural schools around Tuskegee, Alabama, with funding from Julius Rosenwald, who had made a fortune through his nationwide expansion of Sears, Roebuck, and Co. stores and was a new Tuskegee trustee. Rosenwald initially proposed that the schools be standardized and sold as kits, like Sears’s famous kit houses, but Washington thought local participation was key. The Rosenwald Fund would contribute one-third of the cost; interested communities would raise another third in cash, labor, or building materials; and the final third would be contributed by the white-run school boards. Once the schools were built, they were handed over to the school boards.” (pp. 145)
- “…by the time of Rosenwald’s death in 1932, which ended the building, there were more than five thousand schools across fifteen southern states, from Virginia to Texas. By 1928, one of every five schools in the south was a Rosenwald School.” (pp. 145)
- “When it came time to build a new school in his district, it was only natural that [Carleton Washburne] wanted his architect to work from a child’s perspective. ‘The building must not be too beautiful, lest it be a place for children to keep and not one for them to use. Its materials must be those not easily marred, and permitting of some abuse…’” (pp. 149-150)
- NOTE: Grade system was introduced around the 1850s, and already in 1912 and educator named Frederic Burk was advocating for its abolition.
- NOTE: Washburne’s “Winnetka Plan” involved students going through curriculum as they increased in skill. If you passed the test for a lesson, you would move ahead, and if you failed, you would repeat it. Later in the book this is called a “continuous progress” system.
- “Hertzberger also tinkered with school furniture, making his own play on building blocks: a square, recessed section of floor, termed a ‘sitting-hollow,’ in which sixteen hollow blocks, with cut-out handles, could be stored. When taken out, they became campfire stools or the makings of a tower, and the pit became a secondary play space. For another school he devised a learning banquette with a low L-shaped sofa, high walls, and a built-in desk. On the exterior, the area underneath the sofa serves as storage cubbies. The changes in height that pieces like the blocks or banquette create insert pockets of privacy within the large, open schoolrooms without buildng actual walls. (pp. 176)
- NOTE: Author says that her open-plan Quaker Friends school allowed students significant flexibility in what they studied, and used a “continuous progress” system for mathematics classes.
- “If you put a class of kids in a room with one adult, she says, you’ll revert to one-directional teaching. ‘Change is like a little grass which is bending. If you don’t actually finish it off with physical design, it will bend back.’”
- NOTE: All this creative work in the area of building schools more conducive to learning and creativity is great and all, but why are we separating our children from the world like this in the first place? This really hit me when I read about schools trying to internally replicate “main streets” and “town centers.”
- “Alexander’s answer to the problem of maintaining a physical connection between home, neighborhood, and school is to decentralize the school, inserting it into the neighborhood fabric in a storefront or other small-scale commercial space on a pedestrian street, near adult workplaces, and within walking distance of a park.” (pp. 198)
- “Playgrounds are places made by adults, for children, always with the hope of harnessing their play to a specific location.” (pp. 203)
- “The parents of the boys are happy with their experiment, estimating that eight months of schoolwork have been covered in a summer in the sand. The boys have solved their own problems of administration, carpentry, industrialization, sewerage, and monetization. They have cooperated and rarely been idle, even as they played in the yard under observation and minimal intervention.” (pp. 208)
- “In a 1907 letter to Cuno H. Rudolph, president of the Washington Playground Association, [Theodore] Roosevelt wrote: ‘City streets are unsatisfactory playgrounds for children because of the danger, because most good games are against the law, because they are too hot in the summer, and because in crowded sections of the city they are apt to be schools of crime. Neither do small back yards nor ornamental grass plots meet the needs of any but the very small children. Older children who would play vigorous games must have places especially set aside for them, and since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools. This means that they must be distributed over the cities in such a way as to be within walking distance of every boy and girl, as most children can not afford to pay carfare.’” (pp. 211-212)
- “The sturdy field houses that were part of these new parks grew to house branches of the public library, as well as offering classes in infant welfare, musit, painting, drawing, and dancing. Pasteurized milk was on tap, along with professional nurses and day nurseries.” (pp. 215)
- “The creation of the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1972, and the publication of 1981 guidelines for public playgrounds, changed the allowable height and distances between apparatuses as well as the type of surfacing material recommended for use underneath.” (pp. 218)
- “While many public officials were content with the four Ss–sandbox, slide, swing, seesaw–postwar focus on controlling and improving the lives of children, and rebuilding cities, led to an explosion of new forms for outdoor play.” (pp. 219)
- NOTE: Aldo Van Eyck architect designed a number of buildings for Amsterdam’s post-WWII reconstruction. He was also part of CIAM, which I remember Christopher Alexander decrying in “A City is not a Tree.”
- “…you rarely see children’s architecture today, even in contemporary schools, in gray and brown, without carpeting, without imagery, without the tiresome palette of primary colors.” (pp. 221)
- “Somersault frames near the street act as a portal, with activities becoming more intense, and more dense, as you head to the back of the site.” (pp. 224)
- NOTE: Same idea as Jeff Speck expounds on in “Walkable City”. He says that buildings facing the street should be transparent or permeable to attract interest and invite passersby in.
- “…for thirty years [Van Eyck] seeded an old city with slices of modernity that offered children stages for play, separate but not sequestered from teh business of adult streets and sidewalks.” (pp. 226)
- NOTE: That doesn’t sound so bad. It seems to fit with Christopher Alexander’s idea that children should be separated from the city. Maybe he hated the playgrounds of other CIAM theorists.
- “When Kodomo Yume Park opened in July 2003 it was hot and humid, and the children spent most of their time huddled in its one air-conditioned space. After a week of that the playworkers had had enough and cut the power. ‘We told them the air conditioning was broken,’ says my guide, Hitoshi Shimamura, director of the organization Tokyo Play. ‘Then they started playing with water.’”
- “Junk playgrounds had a brief postwar flourishing in the United States. The first one opened in Minneapolis in 1949, a one-year experiment called The Yard sponsored by McCall’s magazine, which published a 1950 cover story about the experiment.” (pp. 230)
- “By 1977, there were twenty adventure playgrounds, most about a decade old, operating in Roxbury, Massachusetts; Eugene, Oregon; and Milpitas, Irvine, and Huntington Beach, California. The oldest continually operating American iteration opened in 1979, on the Berkeley Marina, but it is one of only a handful today outside Europe and Japan.” (pp. 231)
- NOTE: Mentions The Land, an APG near Wrexham which was later the subject of The Land, a documentary I watched at the Miller Center.
- “Current guidelines suggest seesaws can be used safely if there is a tire installed beneath the seats and a buffer zone around them in case of falls, but the result has been the slow disappearance of the apparatuses, which were on 55% of American playgrounds in 2000 but only 7% by 2004.” (pp. 235)
- “Seesaws, merry-go-rounds, and other disappearing equipment of the past developed the vestibular system, which senses the body’s relationship to the ground, improving children’s balance and coordination.” (pp. 237)
- “Exposing themselves to risk, and coming back unharmed, is an essential part of psychological development. Direct experience may, in fact, teach children about which risks are worth taking. ‘Adults should therefore try to eliminate hazards that children cannot see or manage without removing all risks, so that children are able to meet challenges and choose to take risks in relatively safe play settings,’ Sandseter and Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair write…” (pp. 238)
- NOTE: High Point Childrens Museum has a KaBOOM! Imagination Playground foam block set as mentioned in this book
- “Loose parts theory arises out of an interest in anarchy rather than order. Whether designer loose parts actually fulfill this mission is unclear. The Toy, the Play Panels, the Imagination Playground blocks are perhaps too clean, too easily lofted and joined. In the adult design world, constraints are a creative opportunity, but these loose parts intentionally minimize the degree of difficulty.” (pp. 263)
- Harkness Table
- Facticious
- Julius Rosenwald
- Rosenwald School
- Winnetka Plan
- Eliel Saarinen
- Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, New Orleans
- Vittra Utbildning
- Settlement movement
- Dowager
- Circumscribed
- NOTE: She refers to the “Karymor playground spinner”, which from an image search appears to be those rapidly spinning tables with handles on old playgrounds.
- Terrazzo
- Loggia
- CPSC Public Playground Safety Handbook
- Kompan Saturn Carousel
- Kompan Giant Swing with Bird’s Nest
- Bosque
- “Geography and maturity can be linked, if we let them.” (pp. 271)
- “In the late nineteenth century, when avenues on the Lower East Side were first paved and the speed of vehicles increased, boys spread glass on the streets to keep carriages from disrupting their games.” (pp. 273)
- “I proposed a supra-agency combining departments of planning, transportation, education, and health in order to restructure the physical planning of the city to promote [child-friendly] ends. As it happens, Vancouver has already done this, and in the ensuing years, more cities would follow.” (pp. 277)
- Solarium
- “…most enclaves are designed in a similar high-1970’s manner: arcs of attached units, up to four stories tall, create a long oval open space at the center and are separated by narrow, crooked paths. To children, these paths create a porous structure, secret routes between one courtyard and another.” (pp. 291)
- “The most relevant pattern to False Creek South is #68, Connected Play. ‘Children need other children. Some finding suggest that they need other children even more than they need their own mothers,’ Alexander writes. And indeed, one of the chief difficulties of contemporary parenthood is connecting your children to others in healthy ways.” (pp. 293)
- “Women-Work-City, a housing complex built in Vienna in 1993, combined midrise apartment buildings with landscaped courtyards, private balconies, and an on-site kindergarten and doctor’s office, all close to public transit. It was developed as a part of that city’s gender-mainstreaming project–an attempt to provide equal access to city resources for men and women by taking a careful look at how men and women use cities differently. Connections, and safe connections, turn out to be a major part of that effort, as does a focus on family life.” (pp. 296)
- “The Children’s Home operates as a pressure valve for the family, a nonjudgemental third parent to fill in the gaps and allow parents to get away from their children for an evening (even if they stay in). The Children’s Home is one of those third spaces, often discussed for adults as an alternative to home and work.” (pp. 297-298)
- “The century of anarchists, educators, and theorists who wanted to give children back the city through design also believed that children should have input into the city’s structure, sparking a series of continuing experiments in gathering their kid-size view of the world. Urban95, an ongoing project of the Bernard van Leer Foundation, takes the average height of a three-year-old, just above three feet, as the vantage point for a new set of planning principles for healthy child development. The project is ‘premised on the belief that if we want to make a city livable for everyone, planning from the vantage point of a toddler is the best place to start.’” (pp. 298)
- “Heather represents an ideal: Her spirit of inquiry has not been limited by poverty or urban life but allowed to flourish, aided by her mother’s comfort with her playing in spots not marked as ‘for children.’ [Robin C.] Moore contrasts Heather’s freedom with that of Gill, a girl of the same age whose mother would only allow her to be interviewed, awkwardly, in her presence and who was only allowed to play on the windswept concrete playground of their housing estate.” (pp. 301)
- “The children also show him a variety of made up games based on street furniture, including lampposts, retaining walls, stairs, and railings. For the child, the path between places can be as exciting as the place, if they are allowed to make the journey in their own time.” (pp. 302)
- “Streetcar suburbs, built outside major American cities from the 1870s on, created a new model for domestic life: the detached house, with a garden on all sides, physically removed from its neighbors and from the real diseases at work in urban areas. ‘The new idea was no longer to be a part of a close community,’ writes historian Kenneth T. Jackson in
Crabgrass Frontier
(1985), ‘but to have a self-contained unit, a private wonderland walled off from the rest of the world. Although visually open to the street, the lawn was a barrier–a kind of verdant moat separating the house from the threats and temptations of the city.” (pp. 304)- NOTE: Everything’s relative. My streetcar suburb has a wildly more pro-social arrangement than a suburb I grew up in.
- “[Lewis] Mumford felt there was something unhealthy about the way children and child-rearing dominated home and social life. The green space was a blessing, for a time, but when children reached the age to explore, mentally and physically, there was nothing more within reach.” (pp. 305)
- “Streetcar suburbs were accessible, and dependent on central cities. Children could, and did, get on streetcars and buses and go into downtown. But sprawling suburbs, greater self-sufficiency, and dependence on the automobile pushed families and their children farther out.” (pp. 310)
- Coffee klatch
- Traffic Agents app
- SeeClickFix
- NOTE: Basically the institutional version of Lynchburg Road Issues
- Regional Planning Association of America
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News April 2024 - Brightline West CAHSR Acela NEC Dallas Ft Worth - Lucid Stew (video)
- Appalachian Power files for rate increase that would boost the average residential bill by $10 a month - Matt Busse
- “The latest request is the first under a new state law that requires Virginia’s second-largest electric utility to file rate review requests with the SCC every two years instead of every three. The $16 average monthly increase earlier this year was the result of the last triennial review.”
- The United States Has Too Few Road Tunnels - Alon Levy (article)
- The Anti-Helicopter Parent’s Plea: Let Kids Play! - Melanie Thernstrom (article)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- “Parents who limit screen time, as local families often do, tend to compensate by piling on extracurricular activities and tutors.”
- “Even if a boy wanted to play outside, Mike explains, with whom would he play? At any given hour, there might be a 30 percent chance that some kid was playing outside. But the so-called network effect, in which children influence one another’s behavior, means that 30 percent might as well be zero, because it is low enough that no boy can count on it and so will default to his screen — causing the percentage to drop lower. That is, kids don’t play outside because other kids don’t play outside.”
- “Mike found himself up against the fact that in America, the ethos of wealth and the ethos of community are often in conflict: Part of what the wealthy feel they are buying is privacy and the ability to be choosy about whom they socialize with.”
- “In a neighborhood in which front yards are for admiration only, Mike installed a picnic table, close to the sidewalk, where he and his family often sat, so that people walking by would have to talk to them. Mike put a white board on the fence and started projecting videos and slide shows onto it, in hope of luring neighborhood children. And it worked: Dogs stop to drink at a fountain made from a large, flat millstone in the shape of a hockey puck, children wander over to the play river and people pause to read the quotes on the mosaics he had an artist design.”
- “With all due respect to Westchester, Silicon Valley may have the densest concentration in the country of former engineers, executives and other highly educated women who have renounced work in favor of what they call uber-parenting — and they want results.”
- Demand for bus service has increased. The state’s proposed east-west bus line offers a solution. - Nathaniel Cline (article)
- “An announcement about the new bus travel option is expected in May pending approval by the Commonwealth Transportation Board, which will pick one of two possible route plans and give an annual investment of at least $500,000 to fund the effort.”
- “Survey results also determined that Richmond, Charlottesville, Virginia Beach, Harrisonburg, Williamsburg, Norfolk, and Stauton were the top seven priority stops for riders. High-interest destinations include schools, military bases, and medical facilities.”
- Transit and Scale Variance Part 2: Soviet Triangles - Alon Levy (article) RECOMMENDED
- “There is no chance of [transit-oriented development] happening in a bus city, let alone a bus city with just a handful of radial lines. In a first-world city where public transit consists of buses, the actual main form of transportation is the car. In Stockholm, academics are carless and shop at urban supermarkets; in Växjö, they own cars and shop at big box stores. And that’s Sweden. In the US, the extent of suburbanization and auto-centricity is legendary. Providence has some inner neighborhoods built at pedestrian scale, but even there, car ownership is high, and retail that isn’t interfacing with students (for example, supermarkets) tends to be strip mall-style.”
- “With a weaker center, buses can’t just serve city center, unless the operating budget is so small there is no money for anything else. This is what forces a bus network that has money for enough buses to run something that looks like a transit network but not enough to add rail to have a complex everywhere-to-everywhere meshes – grids if possible, kludges using available arterial streets otherwise.”
- Why small developers are getting squeezed out of the housing market - Noah Smith (article)
- “Even if an enterprising lender wanted to support a developer with a more innovative building, the absence of a secondary market for these sorts of non-conforming loans is a significant structural obstacle. The majority of mortgages are sold on the secondary market, which allows banks to export their risk to someone else. That risk can only be exported, however, if there’s Federal support. But Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don’t provide the backstopping lenders require to get comfortable with issuing these sorts of products, meaning traditional lenders must hold these loans on their balance sheets if they want to offer them. This is, you guessed it, too risky for most banks to contemplate.”
- Bad Manors - Kate Wagner (article)
- “The McMansion adds a fourth zone for entertaining, reflective of the increasing social alienation and distance from urban centers caused by decades of sprawl. Such a profound shift in American life necessitated the internalization of communal spaces—bars, gyms, billiard halls, and the like—into the home itself.”
- “Owing to its distance from all forms of communal space, the McMansion must also become the site of sociality. It can’t just be a house; it has to be a ballroom, a movie theater, a bar.”
- Why Paris is Doubling its Metro - The B1M (video)
- Unanimous Supreme Court rules that no-fly case can go forward - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- State budget includes $200K to study connector road at CVTC site - Justin Faulconer (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- How many people fly without REAL-ID? - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- REFERRAL: Buses, trains, and US domestic travel without ID - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- “The TSA records that include the 2015 and 2016 ID verification call counts don’t say what percentage of travelers without ID or with unacceptable ID were eventually allowed to fly. But IVCC call logs for 2008-2011 showed that 98% of such travelers were allowed to fly. We’ve heard nothing to suggest that the approval rate has changed.”
- Buses, trains, and US domestic travel without ID - Edward Hasbrouck (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Some US routes continue to be operated by Flix under the ‘Greyhound’ name, but in 2023 Flix took over all ticketing for buses in the US operated by Flix or Greyhound. Flix issues only e-tickets, not paper tickets, and requires passengers to show ID when boarding buses.”
- Acceptance Speech – Peter Sonski, Nominee for President - American Solidarity Party Official (video)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Dorothy Day
- Rerum Novarum
- Acceptance Speech – Lauren Onak, Nominee for Vice President - American Solidarity Party Official (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Web search
- The Transit Policy Riders Love to Hate - RMTransit (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Andrew J.
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: In Europe, stops are space 400-500 meters apart. He mentions some American systems having 100 meter stop spacings.
- The U.S. Northern New England High Speed Rail Corridor At True High Speed? - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Youngkin administration considers bill to expand local authority to lower speed limits - Nathaniel Cline (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- I Lay Down My Life: John 10:1-18 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Five dangers to the sheep: thief, robber, and hired hand, and wolf
- NOTE: Wolf seems to be combination of four other dangers
- Powerful Realtor Group Agrees to Slash Commissions to Settle Lawsuits - Debra Kamin (article)
- REFERRAL: Ben A.
- “The lawsuits argued that N.A.R., and brokerages who required their agents to be members of N.A.R., had violated antitrust laws by mandating that the seller’s agent make an offer of payment to the buyer’s agent, and setting rules that led to an industrywide standard commission. Without that rate essentially guaranteed, agents will now most likely have to lower their commissions as they compete for business.”
- Domicology (ABANDONED BUILDINGS, RECYCLED HOUSES & GHOST TOWNS) with Dr. Rex LaMore - Ologies (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: Mollie W.
- REFERRAL: Elise S.
- NOTE: MB mark on wood means treated with Methyl Bromide, which is apparently pretty dangerous
- Can Amtrak Finally Bring High-Speed Rail To Texas? - CNBC (video)
- NOTE: Web search
- Building code reform moves forward in Virginia - Andrew Justus (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- HB 368
- SB 195
- NOTE: Governor must sign or veto by 2024-04-08
- “If adopted, the Virginia bill would direct the BHCD to convene a stakeholder group, including firefighting professionals, to advise the BHCD on how to modify the existing building code to allow single-stair multifamily construction up to six stories to unlock more cost-effective and neighborhood-scale multifamily construction. The stakeholder group will submit its recommendations to BHCD by December 1, 2024.”
- Duverger’s Law and the Two-Party System Explained - The Center For Election Science (video)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- NOTE: Approval voting systems like ranked choice voting do not necessarily lead to proportional representation.
- NOTE: From further reading, seems like Single Transferrable Vote is a proportional representation system.
- What if America had More Political Parties? - TLDR News US (video)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- NOTE: Approval voting systems like ranked choice voting do not necessarily lead to proportional representation.
- Botswana: How to Make a Country Rich (From Scratch) - BritMonkey (video)
- REFERRAL: Video suggestion
- Why Strip Malls are Trash for Walkability - Alan Fisher (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Your Two-Day Shipping Needs to Change - Alan Fisher (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Annoyingly high-level overview that glosses over the possibility of incentivizing local rail freight by ceasing highway subsidy and goes directly to nationalizing the rail network.
- Urban Bikeway Design Guide - NACTO (book, ISBN13 9781610915656) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: A “diverter” seems to be a big concrete median in the middle of a 4-way intersection that turns it into two t-sections for cars. Bikes can be let through little gaps in the curb to go straight.
- “Dotted line transition areas to through bike lanes shall not be used on streets with double right turn lanes. Double right turn lanes are extremely difficult for bicyclists to negotiate.” (pp. 76)
- NOTE: Right turn only auxilliary lane / right turn add lane
- “Right-turn only lanes should be as short as possible in order to limit the speed of cars in the right turn lane. Fast moving traffic on both sides can be uncomfortable for bicyclists.” (pp. 76)
- “Preserves positive guidance for bicyclists in a situation where the bicycle lane would otherwise be dropped prior to an intersection.”
- NOTE: Benefit of combined bike lane / turn lane, which I’m thinking Campbell Avenue and Fort Avenue intersection should use.
- NOTE: In bicycle boulevard section, speed management designs are split into those that provide “vertical deflection”, like speed bumps and humps, and those that provide “horizontal deflection”, like bumpouts, chicanes, mini traffic circles, etc.
- “On many local streets, stop signs are ‘woven’ such that travelers along local streets must stop at every other intersection. On bicycle boulevards this pattern should be altered to remove stop signs on the bikeway and reorient them towards intersecting local streets.” (pp. 185)
- Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists: Concluding Thoughts - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Must It Always Be Kid-Friendly? (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 7) - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “Catholicism has a long tradition of talking about Christ as a suffering figure through the Stations of the Cross, passion plays and so forth. Anglicanism has a strong liturgical tradition that (as I noted in Pt. 3) faces the reality of human sin in a mature way. Evangelicalism occasionally makes little motions in those directions. Interesting little sub-cultures will pop up that try to capture harsh spiritual truths for a grown-up audience (the most overt example being the Christian metal movement), without every being really embraced by the mainstream.”
- The Negative Way (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 6) - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “Lord of the Rings presents us with someone who in a typical fantasy story or medieval epic would take a journey leading to treasure or conquest. Instead, Frodo finds that his quest will be all about carrying a burden to have it destroyed, with no guarantees he will succeed or come back.”
- “By and large, evangelicals haven’t built a tradition that explores the negative side of the spiritual life. As a result, evangelical entertainment struggles to explore spiritual ambiguity, the realities of doubt. Finding room for those kind of stories is key to producing better art in general, as well as a cultivating a balanced view of spirituality.”
- The Importance of “Thinginess” (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 5) - G. Connor Salter (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “There’s a sense of generalness designed to make you feel comfortable in the conformity. This means that suburban evangelicals struggle to appreciate things for their own sake. Crafting something requires immersing yourself in the material, sometimes in ways that may seem silly from the outside. Greta Gerwig tells an interesting story about getting advice from Steven Spielberg for making Little Women, since Lincoln was set in the same period. Spielberg recommended many resources, and convinced Gerwig to use celluloid film by having her smell a roll of film. He got her to appreciate the qualities of film stock, which Spielberg believed was part of what makes celluloid film perfect for making an 19th-century period film. Spielberg understood the qualities of film stock, even in small details. To put simplistically, he understood the ‘thinginess’ that made that thing special.”
- The Late Great Planet Earth
- “Suffice to say, [dispensational premilliennialism] was a view of the End Times that downplayed the Biblical mandate to care for things and use our skills well.”
- “On the literature side, Wendell Berry has become very popular in recent decades, with his detailed narratives about country living. Walter Wangerin’s memoirs about his childhood and pastoral career – less interested in landscape but very interesting in a down-to-earth Christianity – seem to have a similar attraction. For filmmakers, this gap seems to have been filled by figures like Wim Wenders and Terence Malick.”
- Apologetics and the Power of Tension (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 4) - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “This idea that religious concepts have to be held in balance can be difficult for many evangelicals, due to the high interest in a certain kind of apologetics. Many popular apologetics books, from Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ or Alisa Childers’ Another Gospel?, give the impression that all the big religious questions can be answered easily. Paradox? No such thing in Christianity. Nuance? Who needs it? Five minutes with the latest apologetics book or pamphlet or podcast, and all our concerns will be answered definitively.”
- The Need for Problems (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 3) - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Suburbs and Evangelicals (Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists Pt 2) - G. Connor Salter (article)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- “We must recognize modern-day evangelicalism is an inherently suburban concept.”
- “This union between suburbia and evangelicalism creates a dilemma for Christian art. Much of what we call Christian art (Contemporary Christian Music, Christian Fiction novels, Christian Films, etc.) is entertainment by evangelicals for evangelicals.”
- Why Do High Churches Get All the Good Artists? (Pt 1) - G. Connor Salter (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Web search
- Makoto Fujimura
- Frederick Buechner
- Beyond “Level of Service” — New Methods for Evaluating Streets - Angie Schmitt (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Measuring the vehicle mileage generated by new development is another useful metric that several California communities are using. Traditional LOS gives preference to new developments in sprawling greenfield locations because they disperse vehicle traffic over a broad area, reducing congestion at any one intersection. But add up all those developments and the effect of that strategy is to encourage more driving overall, worsening congestion. A VMT measure, on the other hand, gives preference to projects in locations that lead to shorter and fewer vehicle trips.”
- NOTE: Lynchburg has goal to develop target LOS for all modes in comprehensive plan. Submitted a FOIA request for information about this.
- The Beginning of the End for Level of Service? - Angie Schmitt (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “The state of Florida, for example, uses a multi-modal Level of Service analysis. The state of Virginia is considering something similar, said Weinberger.”
- Coders at Work - Peter Seibel (book, ISBN13 9781430219484) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Begin interview with Jamie Zawinski
- NOTE: Jamie Zawinski and his friend Dan Zigmond got jobs in a Carnegie Mellon lab when they were 15 because they went to an Apple Users Group!
- “Because everyone was so sure that they were right, we fought constantly but it allowed us to communicate fast. Someone would lean over your cubicle and say, ‘What the fuck did you check in; that’s complete bullshit–you can’t do it that way. You’re an idiot.’ And you’d say, ‘Fuck off!’ and go look at it and fix it and check it in. We were very abrasive but we communicated fast because you didn’t have to go blow sunshine up someone’s ass and explain to them what you thought was wrong…” (pp. 16)
- Second-system syndrome
- “If you want it to really be cross-platform, you have to do them simultaneously. The porting thing results in a crappy product on the second platform.” (pp. 20)
- “I think one of the most important things, for me anyway, when building something from the ground up like that is, as quickly as possible, getting the program to a state that you, the programmer, can use it. Even a little bit. Because that tells you where to go next in a really visceral way.” (pp. 29)
- “You’ve got to say in a comment something that’s not there already. What’s it for? Either a higher-level or lower-level description, depending on what’s important.” (pp. 36)
- “Long variable names. I’m not a fan of Hungarian notation, but I think using actual english words to describe things, except for loop iterators, where it’s obvious. Just as much verbosity as possible, I guess.” (pp. 36)
- “…I think you want to arrange for there to be no more than three or four people working really closely together on a day-to-day basis.” (pp. 37)
- “Well, I certainly picked up a bunch of computer science over the years. But learning to program was the goal. Making the machine do something was the goal and the computer-science side of it was a means to an end.” (pp. 41)
- “It’s weird that people often confuse these two pursuits. People who are into very theoretical computer science are thought of in this same way as people who are shipping desktop applications. And they don’t really have a lot to do with each other.” (pp. 42)
- “I think a lot of introductory stuff focuses on syntax and I definitely saw that in the classes I had in high school and in the intro classes at Carnegie-Mellon during my brief time there. This is not teaching people to program; this is teaching people where the semicolon goes. That seems like the kind of thing that’s going to scare people away from it more than anything, because that’s not the interesting part. Not even to someone who knows what they’re doing.” (pp. 43)
- NOTE: Zawinksi hated the Design Patterns book because he felt it involved too much copy-pasting and calling basic things by complicated names.
- NOTE: Zawinski’s only math exposure was algebra, physics, and a little calculus in high school. He said it wasn’t his thing.
- Six Apart
- GNU Debugger (GDB)
- Class invariant
- “Fitzpatrick: You don’t need that much math. For most programmers, day to day, statistics is a lot more important. If you’re doing graphics stuff, math is a lot more important but most people doing Java enterprise stuff or web stuff, it’s not. Logic helps and statistics comes up a lot.” (pp. 81)
- “Seibel: A lot of being a modern programmer requires finding the right pieces that you need to use and understanding them just well enough to use them.” (pp. 84)
- “Crockford:…Readability of code is now my first priority. It’s more important than being fast, almost as important as being correct, but I think being readable is actually the most likely way of making it correct.” (pp. 107)
- Literate programming
- “Crockford: I’ve become a really big fan of soft objects. In JavaScript, any object is what you say it is. That’s alarming to people who come at it from a classical perspective because without a class, then what have you got? It turns out you just have what you need, and that’s really useful. Adapting your objects…the objects that you want is much more straightforward.” (pp. 118)
- JSLint
- “Crockford:…Looking at where we’ve come on the timeline of programming, we started with machine codes and then we took a leap to symbolic assembly language and then we took a leap to high-level languages and then we took a leap to structured programming and then we took a leap to object-oriented programming. And each of these leaps takes about a human generation. We’re overdue on the next one.” (pp. 128)
- “Crockford:…Right now, the network does an extremely poor job of identity, does an extremely poor job of security, and those are a necessary component, I think, of building robust social systems.” (pp. 131)
- “Eich: I know a lot of JavaScript programmers who are clever programmers, and the best ones have a good grasp of the economics. They benchmark and they test as they go and they write tight JavaScript. They don’t have to know about how it maps to machine instructions.” (pp. 140?)
- “Eich: So a blue-collar language like Java shouldn’t have a crazy generic system because blue-collar people can’t figure out what the hell the syntax means with covariant, contravariant type constraints.” (pp. 147)
- “Eich:…Peter Norvig, when he was at Harlequin, he did this paper about how design patterns are really just flaws in your programming language. Get a better programming language.” (pp. 155)
- “Eich:…We aren’t going to impose any kind of waterfall, design then implementation. That was the big thing when I was getting into the industry in the early 80’s and it was a nightmare, frankly. You spend all this time writing documents and then you go to write the code and often you realize that it’s really stupid and you totally change the code and put the documents down the memory hole.” (pp. 157-158)
- Histrionics
- “Prolog is so different to all the other programming languages. It’s just this amazing way of thinking. And it’s not appropriate to all problems. But it is appropriate to an extremely large set of problems. It’s not widely used. And it’s a great shame because programs are incredibly short. I think I went into shock when I wrote my first Prolog program. It’s a kind of shocking experience. You just walk around going, where’s the program–I haven’t written a program. You just told it a few facts about the system, about your problem.” (pp. 233)
- NOTE: Joe Armstrong on Prolog
- Hoare property
- “…to be an entrepreneur you need to get energy from stressful situations involving money, whereas my energy is sapped by stressful situations involving money.” (pp. 248)
- The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith by Fred Brooks
- “…unless some people are working on radical and elegant things you’re going to end up in a local optimum, incrementally optimizing the mainstream but stuck on a low hill.” (pp. 251)
- “One thing that is hard, even for professional software engineers and developers, is to viscerally grok the size of the artifacts on which we work. You’re looking at the Empire State Building through a 1-foot-square porthole, so it’s difficult to have a real feel for how gigantic the structure you’re looking at is. And how it’s interconnected.” (pp. 280)
- NOTE: from Simon Peyton Jones interview
- “I think the primary limitation on software is not the speed of computers, but our ability to get our heads around what it’s supposed to do.” (pp. 281)
- NOTE: from Simon Peyton Jones interview
- “Systems are filled with so much goop–in order to build an ASP.NET web service-y thing you need to know about this API and this tool and you need to write in three different languages and you need to know about Silverlight and LINQ and you can go on doing acronyms forever. And each of them has a fat book that describes it. This is a tension I don’t know how to resolve. These are useful systems–they’re not designed by accident. Each of them is there for a reason and each of them has a smart person who’s thinking hard about how this thing should be architected. But nevertheless, each, individually, has a broad interface. It may or may not be deep, but it’s certainly broad. There’s a lot of stuff you need to just have in your head. It’s like learning a language–a human language–there’s a large vocabulary.” (pp. 282)
- “Every now and then I feel a temptation to design a programming language, but then I just lie down until it goes away.” (pp. 436)
- NOTE: Quote from L. Peter Deutch
- Frob
- “It’s a tile game. And I ran it on an IBM 1620 that was in the physics department. I knew where all the underground computers were in the place, and I had them all running at night doing my jobs. Plus, at the main computer center I probably had 20 accounts under different rocks.” (pp. 455)
- NOTE: Quote from Ken Thompson
- “Modern programming scares me in many respects, where they will just build layer after layer after layer that does nothing except translate. It confuses me to read a program which you must read top-down. It says ‘do something.’ And you go find ‘something.’ And you read it and it says ‘do something else’ and you go find something and it says, ‘do something else’ and it goes back to the top maybe. And nothing gets done. It’s just relegating the problem to a deeper and deeper level. I can’t keep it in my mind–I can’t understand it.” (pp. 459)
- NOTE: Quote from Ken Thompson
- “So I got to meet Peter Samson in his great failed attempt to solve the New York City subway system, to ride the whole system on one ticket as fast as possible.” (pp. 522)
- NOTE: Spacewar is considered to be the first videogame ever
- “I’m surrounded by people who think linked lists are magic. They don’t know anything about the 83 different kinds of trees and why some are better than others. They don’t understand garbage collection. They don’t understand structures and things.” (pp. 529)
- NOTE: From interview with Bennie Cosell
- “With TeX I was interacting with hundreds of years of human history and I didn’t want to throw out all of the things that book designers have learned over centuries and start anew and say, ‘Well, forget that guys; you know, we’re going to be logical now.’ In this case, the name of the game was mostly to take an enormously complicated problem and find a fairly small set of primitives that would support it. Instead of having 1,000 primitives, I have 100 primitives or something like that. But going down to 50 primitives, 10 primitives—which we would do if we wanted to be mathematically clean—I believe wouldn’t work. The problem of making books goes too much into the complexity of the world, which just doesn’t want to be simplified.” (pp. 598)
- NOTE: From interview with Donald Knuth
- America Has No Transportation Engineers - Steffen Berr (article) RECOMMENDED
- Latest Dutch Traffic Statistics (2024) - BicycleDutch (video)
- Freedom from Condemnation: Romans 5:6-11 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- “The love of God is rooted in eternity past…God’s love for you extends from before the foundation of the earth”
- dikaioó
- echthros
- NOTE: Word for “enemies” in text
- “What does it mean to be reconciled to God?…we enemies of God…our relationship to Him is changed completely…changed to the very last ounce of our being…”
- καταλλαγή
- NOTE: Word used for “reconciliation” in text
- “‘The best proof that He will never cease to love us lies in that He never began.’ - Geerhardus Vos”
- NOTE: When we consider salvation as being something that happened in the past, we become less and less effected by it as we move further from the time we realized that we had faith in God.
- Amtrak Adds More Service Throughout the Northeast Corridor to Meet Growing Customer Demand - Amtrak (press release)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: More daily trips from NYP-WAS and PHL-BOS
- Apples to apples housing cost comparisons - Michael Lewyn (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Our church is trying to get rid of us… - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Is North American Urbanism Actually Hopeless? - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Stew’s March 2024 High Speed Rail U.S. News – CAHSR Brightline West Acela NEC Dallas Ft Worth - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: Brightline West will be purchasing used trainsets from Europe instead of new Alstom or Siemens trainsets
- The problem with “house churches” – KingdomCraft - Redeemed Zoomer (video) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: He discusses the endemic “retreat-ism” of conservative/orthodox Christians from every area of public life
- The 10 Levels of Theology Knowledge - Redeemed zoomer (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Armchair Extra: Philly vs Chicago - Alan Fisher Extras (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The You Don’t need a Car for the American Lifestyle /// HovCart Ebike - Alan Fisher (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Justification = The Love of God: Romans 5:6-10 - Rev. Tony Myers (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: In Romans chapter 5 we are talking about the results of our faith
- NOTE: The mentions of time in this passage refer to Kronos, in that Christ died at the perfect/opportune moment
- Thomas Boston
- NOTE: Word for death used here is sort of horticultural…in that Christ was cut off from the Father
- The Beaufort County fire department saved a reported $765,000 last year by implementing into their response systems a new fleet of smaller-sized, “all purpose” vehicles. - TheDigitel (article) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: REFERRAL: Strong Towns Slack member
- “The move was the result of a number of internal studies, according to the department, that found that full-sized fire trucks were not of primary importance, considering only 1.1% of emergency calls were fire related while over 66% were medical emergencies.”
- Grid Cities are Fine, and OBF is a Copycat - Alan Fisher (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- This Review is Going to Make Me Very Unpopular - Linus Tech Tips (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: About the FairPhone 5
- Rural Towns don’t have to Suck - Alan Fisher (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Walkable City Rules: Jeff Speck – CNU Real Places November 2018 - Congress for the New Urbanism (video)
- REFERRAL: Web search “walkable city rules”
- Virginia and North Carolina are Home to the Busiest Amtrak Stations in the Southeast - Amtrak (press release)
- REFRRAL: Blog subscription
- Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere - The Onion (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Why Is It So Hard To Cross The Street? (& What You Can Do to Help) - Strong Towns (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Alexandria Fourth Track - Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- NOTE: By 2030 VPRA plans to have near-hourly rail service between D.C. and Richmond
- Opinion – Why the Music of Rich Mullins Endures, 25 Years After His Death - Tish Harrison Warren (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Group chat
- Rejoice in Suffering: Romans:5:3-5 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Several views of suffering: suffering is random, suffering is permitted by God, suffering is something to rejoice in
- NOTE: Because we have been justified by Christ Jesus, through that justification we rejoice in our sufferings.
- NOTE: It’s not that we should rejoice despite our suffering or in the midst of our sufferings, but because of or on account of our sufferings.
- NOTE: One of the dangers of health & wealth “gospel” is that it considers trials to be bad rather than something to rejoice in, and that experiencing many trials is an indication that you don’t have enough faith
- I just realized why I´m doing the Marble Machine Project - Wintergatan (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- In like Flynn - Amy Biegelsen (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Web search “Rachel Flynn Jerry Falwell”
- “At the time, Flynn was Lynchburg’s community development director, and Falwell, the city’s pre-eminent religious and business leader. Their feud started after Flynn insisted that Falwell build two exit ramps to accommodate emergency vehicles at his ever-expanding Liberty University. Falwell lagged. They clashed again about a Cracker Barrel restaurant he wanted to develop on a wooded lot. Flynn asked him to leave trees in one corner to protect a stream running through the property. He declined, and then denounced her from the pulpit.”
- How Qatar is Trying to Become the Switzerland of the Middle East - Wendover Productions (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- The Benefits of Justification: Romans 5:1-2 - Chris Deneen (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Chris is from Johnson City
- “Faith is believing the promises of God and living as if they have already come to pass”
- NOTE: Purposes of the law: mirror to show us God’s righteousness and our sinfulness; restraint of evil; guide for how to live holy lives before God
- NOTE: Is it possible to focus too much on justification and neglect the living of holy lives before God together? Faith without works is dead. I’m not sure how to bring this up without triggering peoples’ legalism alarm.
- NOTE: “Gaining access” can be considered an introduction. Once you have been “introduced” to God, you have access to him.
- I Renovated an apartment w/ FB marketplace ‘free stuff’ - Paranda (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Lynchburg Planning Commission 2-14-2024 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Virginia just passed a law that removes a barrier to building more housing - David McAuley (article)
- Hinkle: Are proffers built on shaky ground? - A. Barton Hinkle (article) RECOMMENDED
- “In theory, proffers are voluntary. In practice they’re about as voluntary as the money you fork over to a tow-truck company to get your car out of the impound lot. Localities don’t always require them. But when they do, developers cough up. Moreover: The localities, not the developers, decide how much the developers should pay. In Chesterfield the maximum proffer amount is $18,966. In Northern Virginia the sum can be twice that or more.”
- Koontz v. St. John River Water Management District
- Pierce Street Gateway celebrates successes, sets ambitious goals for 2024 - Rachael Smith (article) RECOMMENDED
- Improving The Northeast Corridor and Acela Into World Class High Speed Rail - Lucid Stew (video)
- Why induced demand is fake - Ben Southwood (article)
- NOTE: Fatal flaws are that he doesn’t consider the cost of roads and thinks more transportation/mobility is always better.
- Senate committee advances shared solar bills - Matt Busse (article)
- United Daughters of the Confederacy’s tax breaks are on the chopping block. It’s about time. - Samantha Willis (article)
- Shared solar bills clear House panel - Matt Busse (article)
- NOTE: Still need to work out how transmission is paid for if you subscribe to shared solar generation. Do the shared solar companies pass part of customer fee through to APCO for transmission? Would I still have a relationship with APCO? Would APCO mediate between me and shared solar company or would I exclusively interact with shared solar company?
- House Bill 108
- 4 Ways a City Can Hide Its Insolvency Using Accounting - Michael Durand-Wood (article) RECOMMENDED
- “…while municipalities aren’t allowed to take on debt in their operating budgets, they are allowed use debt for their capital budgets.”
- “So, simply by outsourcing roadwork, the City had turned a sizable portion of its operating expenses into capital expenses. The end result was the same, a newly maintained road, but now you could fund the expenses that used to be operations, with debt.”
- NOTE: Not sure if Lynchburg does it this way. I think they have road maintenance as an operating expense.
- The Best Argument for Parking Mandates (Is Still Wrong) - Daniel Herriges (article)
- REFERRAL: RSS Subscription
- NOTE: Decent introduction for the uninitiated
- Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, or, “Looking for the Mouse” - Clay Shirky (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- NOTE: Hacker news commenters were pretty skeptical of his history in this article and thought Shirky was too optimistic about people’s desire to share. They said interactive attention sinks like Tiktok sort of derailed the productive sharing Shirky was excited about.
- Clay Shirky
- “In April 2010, Kevin Kelly cited the phrase ‘Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution’, and called it the ‘Shirky Principle’”
- Waste milk from Westover Dairy leaks into Lynchburg creek - Justin Faulconer (article)
- NOTE: Article says Hendricks Street, but that doesn’t exist. It’s Hendricks Avenue.
- The Family of Faith: Romans 4:16-17 - Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- “That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring–not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”–in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.”
- NOTE: ESV passage used in sermon
- NOTE: NASB translation not used in sermon - “For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (as it is written ‘A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU’) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.”
- NOTE: I wonder how the italic sections get put in…is there some type of emphasis in the original language?
- NOTE: Sermon notes are really scattered because I’m zoning out today
- “It depends upon faith so that the promise may be guaranteed to all the offspring of Abraham”
- NOTE: The gentile nations do not have the law, sacraments, etc, so how will they be justified? It’s because they are saved not by adherence to the law but through faith.
- NOTE: Referenced related passage Hebrews 11:17
- “It is not about our faith but it is about the object of our faith”
- What are analog bulletin boards used for today? Analysing media uses, intermediality and technology affordances in Swedish bulletin board messages using a citizen science approach - Christopher Kullenberg, Frauke Rohden, Anders Björkvall, Fredrik Brounéus, Anders Avellan-Hultman, Johan Järlehed, Sara Van Meerbergen, Andreas Nord, Helle Lykke Nielsen, Tove Rosendal, Lotta Tomasson, Gustav Westberg (research paper)
- REFERRAL: No Tech Reader #43 - Kris De Decker (article)
- “Perhaps, rather paradoxically, part of the explanation to why the bulletin board has survived in the digital era of the internet lies in its immobility. Because of the constant global access to and character of social media, but also due to the mobility of the devices through which they are accessed, texts and messages posted on, for instance Facebook, can never be as local as those posted on a physical bulletin board.”
- A Fence and a Ladder: Subversive Acts of Everyday Urbanism at Home - Stephanie Davidson (research paper)
- REFERRAL: No Tech Reader #43 - Kris De Decker (article)
- “It is an example of what Margaret Crawford would call ‘everyday urbanism’¹ or what Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett would call the ‘urban vernacular’: ‘The vernacular is what ordinary people do in their everyday lives. It consists of local practices that take shape outside planning, design, zoning, regulation, and covenants, if not in spite of them. The relationship between the built environment and the social practices that occur within it reveal both intentional and unintentional effects of great importance.’”
- NOTE: Discovered long after reading this that they reinvented the “stile”, a structure designed to keep animals in a fenced area but allow humans to pass over.
- No Tech Reader #43 - Kris De Decker (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- New River Valley gets a look at Amtrak options - Mark D. Robertson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “If one of the plans goes ahead, Amtrak service could begin in the region as soon as 2028. The New River Valley has not had passenger rail service since 1979.”
- “The Virginia Rail Passenger Authority is expected to vote at its June meeting on which plan to adopt. The rising cost of the New River Valley project, driven primarily by the cost of renovating the Merrimac Tunnel, has raised concerns among some state legislators that the proposed extension to Bristol might be in jeopardy. At last week’s authority meeting, board member Beth Rhinehart of Bristol repeatedly urged the authority not to adopt any station site in the New River Valley that would preclude an extension further west.”
- NOTE: “Just another tool in the toolbox” is such obnoxious public agency corpo cliche
- A Virginia Church Plans to Convert Parking into Housing - Barry Greene, Jr. (article)
- NOTE: YIGBY (Yes in God’s Backyard)
- Virginia SB233: Faith in Housing for the Commonwealth
- Most Public Engagement is Worthless - Charles Marohn (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Where Do Infrastructure Projects Come From? - Charles Marohn (article)
- “Our thinking is a byproduct of the questions we ask. This is one of the reasons Steve Jobs was not a big fan of asking the customers what they wanted. Customers don’t know what they want, at least when it comes to something innovative. Something different.”
- “The meeting started out with the standard public policy questions planning professionals like to ask. What do you like about the city? What do you not like? If you could change one thing, what would it be? The answers were worse than worthless, and it was painful to watch non-policy people trying to answer questions that weren’t designed for them. After a bit of pain, we got around to asking the kind of questions Steve Jobs would have asked. How did you get here today? (A: Walk or bike.) Is this how you get around in the winter when it’s twenty below zero? (A: Yes.) Do you feel safe walking? (A: No.) Do you feel safe biking? (A: No.)”
- “Modern Planner: What percentage of the city budget should we spend on parks? Steve Jobs: Do you use the park?”
- NOTE: One commenter called this approach “Design Thinking”
- “Our planning efforts should absolutely be guided by the experiences of real people. But their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences.”
- “I’ve come to the point in my life where I think municipal comprehensive planning is worthless. More often than not, it is a mechanism to wrap a veneer of legitimacy around the large policy objectives of influential people. Most cities would be better off putting together a good vision statement and a set of guiding principles for making decisions, then getting on with it.”
- “Focus groups are good for getting you to local minima, but suck for getting to the global minima. Which is probably far less useful than what Jobs said, but it works better for my brain.”
- NOTE: From comment on article
- NOTE: A commenter mentioned CAVE (citizens against virtually everything)
- Where Do Infrastructure Projects Come From? - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: RSS subscription
- Cleaning up the built environment to reduce crime - John Macdonald (article)
- REFERRAL: RSS subscription
- NOTE: Mentions really interesting studies and quotes, but is sort of wonkily written. Wonder if the author used a little too much LLM.”
- Amtrak Celebrates Completion of New Baltimore Platform Construction - Amtrak (press release)
- REFERRAL: RSS subscription
- Stew’s Feb 2024 U.S. High Speed Rail News – CAHSR Brightline West Acela NEC Dallas Ft Worth Cascadia - Lucid Stew (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Go 101 - Tapir Liu (book, v1.21.0-745652d) ABANDONED
- “…I think the fact that, as a static language, Go is flexible as many dynamic script languages is the main selling point of Go language. Memory saving, fast program warming-up, fast code execution speed and fast compilations combined is another main selling point of Go. Although this is a common selling point of many C family languages. But for web development area, seldom languages own the four characteristics at the same time. In fact, this is the main reason why I switched to Go from Java for web development.” (pp. 4-5)
- The Promise: Romans 4:13-15 - Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- REFERRAL: Church attendance
- NOTE: Three promises to Abraham are descendants, that his offspring will be a blessing to all people, and land.
- NOTE: References Genesis 17:4
- NOTE: Commentator Murray says promises to Abraham ultimately find their fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth.
- NOTE: We are promised to be a blessing to all people but it appears that we are antagonizing to all people.
- NOTE: In Galatians we learn that Jesus is the [singular] heir of the promise to Abraham RE offspring.
- NOTE: If we are heirs by obedience to the law, we will be brought more and more under condemnation. The law is good, but we are deficient in our ability to obey it.
- Amtrak railway in New River Valley Delayed to 2028 - Thomas Mundy (article)
- Amtrak Virginia Sets Record with Calendar Year 2023 Ridership - VPRA (press release)
- NOTE: Route 46 to Roanoke saw 23.5% 2022 to 2023 ridership increase
- Why strive? Stephen Fry reads Nick Cave’s letter on the threat of computed creativity - Nick Cave, Stephen Fry (open letter) RECOMMENDED
- Hill City Happenings January 2024 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- The American Government’s Massive Plan to Build more Passenger Rail: Corridor ID - Alan Fisher (video)
- How to Build a Low-tech Internet - Kris De Decker (article)
- “Although the WiFi-standard was developed for short-distance data communication (with a typical range of about 30 metres), its reach can be extended through modifications of the Media Access Control (MAC) layer in the networking protocol, and through the use of range extender amplifiers and directional antennas.”
- RuralCafe
- Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth - Apostrophe S Productions, Inc. (television series)
- REFERRAL: Library browsing
- Oblique
- “Interviewer: What does it mean to have a sacred place? Joseph Campbell: This is a term I like to use now as an absolute necessity for anybody today. YOu must have a room, or a certain hour a day or so where you do not know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe to anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you, but a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the sacred place of creative incubation, and first you may find that nothing’s happening there, but if you have a sacred place and use it and take advantage of it, something will happen. Interviewer: This place does for you what the plains did for the hunter…? Joseph Campbell: For them the whole thing was a sacred place, you see, but most of our action is economically or socially determined and does not come out of our life. I don’t know if you’ve had the experience I’ve had, but as you get older the claims of the environment upon you are so great that you hardly know where the hell you are. What is it you intended? You’re always doing something that is required of you this minute…that minute…another minute. Where is your bliss station?”
- NOTE: He describes sanskrit as being the great spiritual language of the world
- Rota Fortunae
- NOTE: When interviewer asks him how one can keep ahold of one’s bliss and not lose the plot, Campbell refers to one’s bliss as one’s umbilical! If we are born of God, He is our bliss and our umbilical cord providing life to us.
- “When Peter drew his sword and cut off the…uh…the servant’s ear there in Gethsemane and Jesus said ‘put up your sword, Peter’ and put the ear back on…Peter has been drawing his sword ever since!”
- NOTE: Abelard in 12th century wrote about Christ’s death as atonement and not as a payment.
- “When you have a goddess as the creator, it’s her own very body that is the universe. She is identical with the universe, and in Egypt you have the mother heavens: Nuut…the goddess Nuut, who’s represented as the whole heavenly sphere”
- NOTE: Definitely misspelled Nuut
- “These fighting people are herding people. The Semites are herders of sheep and goats, and the Indo-Europeans of cattle.”
- NOTE: He refers to health, wealth, progeny and fun as the animal aims
- OPINION: Could Pedestrian Reflectors Reduce Fatal Crashes in the United States? - Matt Kalinowski (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Author is hilariously, unabashedly authoritarian
- Safety reflector -> Reflector for vulnerable users and non motorized vehicles
- EN 13356:2001
- NOTE: Defunct as of 2022-09-05 standard for personal reflective accessories that was referenced in article
- EN 17353:2020
- NOTE: This standard supercedes EN 13356:2001 and another related standard.
- The Computer Scientist as Toolsmith II - Frederick P. Brooks (article)
- “A folk adage of the academic profession says, ‘Anything which has to call itself a science isn’t.’ By this criterion, physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy may be sciences; political science, military science, social science, and computer science are not.” (pp. 2)
- “Have we abandoned art as subcreation for each other’s enrichment, in favor of an art of self-exorcism, art as primal scream?”
- NOTE: He jumps between topics somewhat schizophrenically…I wonder if the original “Computer Scientist as Toolsmith” that Coders at Work mentioned was significantly different? There’s a reference in this work to the original one, which was published in Information Processing 77.
- The Surprising Success of Private Passenger Rail - Wendover Productions (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Private activity bond
- Bills would bring shared solar to Appalachian Power territory, expand program for Dominion customers - Matt Busse (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Seems to be a completely alternative way to purchase power. There was a bit in the article about how the rates shared solar consumers pay for power is subsidized by the non-shared-solar ratepayers who pay a specific rate for generation and distribution. Apparently the rates at which these shared solar operators sell power is not regulated by the VA SCC (at least not with the same tariff as APCO or Dominion).
- Alexandria is exploring e-bike incentives. Could a statewide program be next? - Wyatt Gordon (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “Since Virginia’s e-bike bill is currently being drafted by the General Assembly’s Division of Legislative Services, no one yet knows exactly what the legislation carried by Del. Thomas will entail. The bill could lay out a statewide rebate, propose a pilot program or simply study how best the commonwealth could implement e-bike incentives.”
- Bad data: Not a decline in travel - Joe Cortright (article)
- “The critical takeaway for any user of this NHTS data has to be that it you simply can’t compare the 2017 trip-making data with the 2022 trip making data. This shouldn’t be an obscure footnote: it should be a cigarette-pack warning. But, with its cute-infographic, the USDOT did exactly the opposite.”
- Why Red States Are Suing to Hide Their Transportation Emissions - Kea Wilson (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Virginia is among the states that sued the president, DOT secretary, federal highway administrator, and USDOT
- Sunshine law
- “‘There’s this idea that as people drive more, it’s good for the economy, but that is a very questionable hypothesis,’ she added. “When people drive more, it costs people a lot of money — money that could be used on more wealth building enterprises like education or home ownership or retirement. … We’re disinvesting in rural communities and making rural households travel further for jobs and basic necessities. We should be looking for efficiencies that get people where they need to go with less travel and less cost.’”
- Narrower City Streets Could Actually Be Safer: Study - Nico Demattia (article)
- “So what do the researchers recommend changing? For starters, switching the standard road width to 10 feet for roads with speed limits under 35 mph that aren’t used as freight corridors.”
- Effective Transportation in Smaller Cities and Rural Areas - John Salmon (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Had an epiphany that regardless of what John thinks about fixed-route transit, his nonprofit taxi system would be an excellent complement to a strong, core network of fixed bus routes with <=15 minute headways. I’m interested in solving landuse issues and un-sprawling the city through the provision of excellent fixed route transit, and he’s just trying to help less fortunate people get where they’re going under a sucky landuse regime. We’re working on different problems.
- The Bialetti Moka Express (Episode #1) - James Hoffman (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube search
- 10 Resolutions for a Very Bicycle New Year - Ron Johnson (article)
- Your Eco-Friendly Lifestyle Is a Big Lie - Matt Reynolds (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Very fluffy
- Statement regarding the ongoing SourceHut outage - Drew DeVault (article)
- Resources for Reformers: Houston’s minimum lot sizes - Salim Furth (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- “In theory, lowering lot size mandates ought to raise the price of land while lowering the price of existing structures.”
- Member One Federal Credit Union and Virginia Credit Union to merge - Matt Busse
- Mexico City: Casa de Carla y Pedro (television episode) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- NOTE: They set up a privately-operated public library in their home that’s full of specialist books not found in other libraries. To check out a book, people have their picture taken with them holding the book.
- France: Hourré House - Katy Chevigny (television episode)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- Sweden: Naturhus - Doug Pray (television episode)
- REFERRAL: Claira W.
- Making a Home vs Finding a Home - Isaac Morehouse (article)
- The Procrastination Matrix - Tim Urban (article) RECOMMENDED
- “In other words, Quadrant 1 often does not exist. This isn’t always the case, but it’s especially likely to be true for people who have yet to get their career rolling, because usually when your truly important work is also urgent, it means you have something good going on. This creates a catch-22, where the people who most need urgency in order to do things—procrastinators early in their career—are often those with a totally vacant Quadrant 1.”
- How to Beat Procrastination - Tim Urban (article)
- Why Procrastinators Procrastinate - Tim Urban (article)
- Surprising And Fascinating Results From The Taste Test - James Hoffman (video)
2023
- Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams (book, ISBN10 0671692674)
- Otiose
- Lugubrious
- “He walked up to his workroom, which was the only room in the house that was not sterile with order, but here the disorder of books and papers was instead sterile with neglect.” (pp. 179)
- NOTE: Pre-prandial means before lunch or dinner
- Number 2 in 2023: Secularization Begins at Home - Lyman Stone (article)
- Thousands have housing thanks to ‘one of the best-kept secrets in Virginia’ - Andy Kegley (article)
- “Virginia Housing is governed by an 11-member board of commissioners, appointed by the governor, who in turn hire the CEO.”
- CAHSR Phase 2 – California High Speed Rail Merced to Sacramento - Lucid Stew (video)
- How Virginia’s Dept. of Forestry and Christmas tree growers spruce up the holidays - Meghan McIntire (article)
- NOTE: Species grown by the Virginia Department of Forestry include white pine, Virginia pine, Scotch pine, and Norway spruce
- “Approximately 500,000 white pine seedlings grown at the department’s Augusta Nursery Center are sold to local Christmas tree farms throughout the commonwealth, said Assistant Nursery Manager Joshua McLaughlin.”
- “According to the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, there are more than 460 Christmas tree farms throughout the commonwealth. Virginia ranks seventh among U.S. states in terms of total Christmas tree inventory, sixth in total tree acreage in production and 13th in the number of operations with Christmas tree sales.”
- Anathem - Neal Stephenson (book, ISBN13 9780061474095)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- “Back in some day when there had been more vehicles, the full width of the right-of-way had been claimed by striped lanes. Now there were a lot of pedestrians and people getting around on scooters and wheeled planks and pedal-powered contraptions. But instead of going in straight lines they, and we, had to stitch together routes joining the pavement slabs that surrounded the businesses as a sea surrounds a chain of islands. The slabs were riven with meandering cracks marked by knife-thin hedges of jumpweed that had been straining dirt and wrappers out of the wind for a long time” (pp. 71)
- “Just to watch Fraa Corlandin was to feel a link to a time when concents had been richer, classier, more well endowed, and–though it made no sense at all–somehow older than they were now.” (pp. 175)
- Germane
- “An old market had stood there until I’d been about 6 years old, when the authorities had renamed it to the Olde Market, destroyed it, and built a new market devoted to selling T-shirts and other objects with pictures of the old market. Meanwhile, the people who had operated the little stalls in the old market had gone elsewhere and set up a thing on the edge of town that was now called the New Market even though it was actually the old market.” (pp. 314)
- Compunction
- “…the Convox was political, and made decisions by compromise. And it happened all the time that the compromise between two perfectly rational alternatives was something that made no sense at all.” (pp. 573)
- A Dog’s Breakfast
- SPOILERS “The face shields on the soldiers’ helmets kept fogging up. Their gloved hands could not feel the sticky wetness, their air-filtration devices removed all odors. Standing near the probe, getting used to the collar snugged around my neck, I realized that a long time might actually go by before any of the soldiers became aware of the fact that a Geometer had come down in this capsule and was lying dead in the back of a fetch a hundred feet away. The billion people watching Sammann’s feed over the reticulum all knew this. The soldiers, isolated in their own secure, private reticule, had no idea.” (pp ???)
- Youngkin exploring repeal of ‘hated’ car tax - Michael Martz (article)
- NOTE: Seems like this would mean VA rescinding the right of its local governments to levy personal property taxes on cars. Because VA is a Dillon Rule state, localities can only levy taxes specifically permitted by the commonwealth.
- Breaking Bread with Salomé Sibonex in D.C. Metro – Episode 12 – Speaking Wrong At The Right Time - Adam B. Coleman (video)
- New Guidance to Repurpose Transit Properties for Affordable Housing - Mary Hammon (article)
- NOTE: Sent this to Josh Moore, director of GLTC, noting a couple of plots near the GLTC transfer station that could be developed into apartments.
- City of Lynchburg Press Conference 12-11-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Revenge of California High Speed Rail ++ $6 Billion in HSR grants ++ Stew’s News ++ Brightline West - Lucid Stew (video)
- Confessions of a Recovering Engineer - Charles Marohn (book, ISBN13 9781119699293)
- NOTE: He says the state [of Minnesota, I assume] did not permit cities to enforce speed limits of lower than 30 mph! I wonder if there are laws like this in Virginia
- “There is rarely the acknowledgement of the opposite capability, however: that slow traffic speeds can be obtained by narrowing lanes, creating tighter curves, and reducing or eliminating clear zones. High speeds are a design issue, but low speeds are an enforcement issue.” (pp. 6)
- “Once speeds exceed 15 or 20 miles per hour, traffic is moving too quickly for a place to really thrive.” (pp. 20)
- NOTE: Almost no streets in the city encourage these speeds excepting Main Street, Jefferson Street, and a few really hilly streets in the old residential grid
- “The decision on whether a transportation investment is a road or a street is a policy decision requiring no technical expertise.” (pp. 30)
- “It is very strange because the cookbook establishes exactly what is supposed to happen in nearly every instance, but it then tells the professional to go ahead and use their own judgement.” (pp. 47)
- NOTE: In reference to engineering manuals like the MUTCD or the AASHTO green book
- “This is the paradox of Level of Service when misapplied to streets. LOS A is ostensibly the best, yet it describes an anti-place – the opposite of the platform for wealth that a city is trying to build with its streets.” (pp. 52)
- “Cities undermine their road in a death-by-a-thousand-cuts granting of access.” (pp. 59)
- “I estimate the necessary ratio of private investment to public investment to be 20:1 at a minimum, 40:1 as a more stable target.” (pp. 68)
- “Freeze neighborhoods in place with zoning and regulation, and rising land values will merely displace existing residents, creating pockets of affluence in a pool of stagnation and decline.” (pp. 71)
- “The Strong Towns approach to maintenance in these core neighborhoods is more like the way Walt Disney Corporation maintains their theme parks: ongoing basic maintenance with an obsessive attention to detail. See a streetlight out: replace it. See a weed: pull it. See a crosswalk faded: repaint it. See a sidewalk broken: fix it. The poor neighborhoods that are already generating such wealth for the community need to be showered with love and attention.” (pp. 72)
- “Wherever development patterns are most productive, wherever the highest value per acre is measured, those are the places where people will be found outside a motor vehicle.” (pp. 76)
- “…we should recognize that the hierarchical networks used in traffic engineering manufacture congestion everywhere they are deployed.” (pp. 87)
- NOTE: Lynchburg and VDOT folks seem to not talk in terms of road capacity anymore. They talk in terms of bottlenecks and eliminating bottlenecks. I’m not sure if this is slightly more sane than increasing capacity, or the same level of stupidity.
- NOTE: Extreme mobility makes geography irrelevant and tends to erase “places”.
- “The only way to respond to traffic congestion is by creating local alternatives to distant trips. Increases in traffic congestion increase demand for local alternatives.” (pp. 98)
- “Cities that deny requests to build a new duplex or corner store because of concerns with traffic have things backward. Local leaders should never deny a new apartment building or a new neighborhood restaurant because they may increase traffic congestion. It is traffic congestion that requires us to build more and more local destinations.” (pp. 98)
- “Stop using hierarchical models and instead designate segments as either roads or streets.” (pp. 98)
- “Traffic signals provide drivers with the privilege of driving at dangerous speeds when they are afforded a green light and it is their turn to proceed. In exchange, drivers accept longer delays and generally increased travel times due to red lights, not to mention a dramatic increase of serious injury and death, than they would otherwise experience if they were willing to travel at slower speeds.” (pp. 103)
- “The most dangerous traffic movement is the left-hand turn across traffic.” (pp. 103)
- “As with most roundabouts built in North America, the curves are gentle, not sharp, allowing traffic to maintain relatively high speeds throughout turning movements. Vehicles taking the next right are provided a massive curb radius, making that turning movement very easy, even at speed.” (pp. 107)
- “If we can wean engineers off a propensity to place traffic signals on city streets, we can start to ask them to contemplate ways to build wealth along those same streets, particularly at intersections, which are – from a visibility and access standpoint – a focal point for wealth creation.” (pp. 108)
- Shared-space intersections
- NOTE: Reached out to Strong Towns and OSMUS Slack folks to determine where US and VA route specs are defined. Knowing that traffic engineers are constrained by a state specification would allow activists to make more intelligent requests regarding their redesign.
- ”Since such a program (Economic Gardening) would have to compete with other local sources of funding, the community is more likely to seek a transportation grant for a streetscape project, wrapping the installation of decorative lights and concrete pavers in the veneer of job creation.” (pp. 124)
- “The city could support a culture of health by striping existing streets for bike lanes, creating a farmer’s market, and loosening restrictions on walkable, neighborhood businesses. These are low-cost responses, that can be done quickly and have other positive benefits beyond health. Instead, they are more likely to seek state assistance for a recreational trail or maybe a federal safe-routes-to-school grant to add a few blocks of sidewalk around a school.” (pp. 125)
- NOTE: Chuck Marohn decries the building of the Shreveport I-49 Inner City Connector. It bears the same language as the Lynchburg “Midtown Connector” and “Crosstown Connector”.
- “Transit in North America is failing because it exists without being tied to any discernble or measurable purpose. Like nearly all postwar transportation investments, it has moved from being a means to an end to being an end unto itself. And as an end, it is an afterthought, an appendage to a dysfunctional auto-based transportation system. If public transit is to have a real purpose it can fulfill, it must separate itself from the underlying auto-based system and stand on its own as the primary wealth accelerator for maturing urban areas.” (pp. 150)
- “Transit is the only way to overcome the geometric space limitations of the street while still building wealth. In an auto-oriented model, the more cars that are there, the more space that must be given over to accommodate those vehicles. That means parking lots instead of destinations, driving lanes instead of sidewalks, which is the opposite of wealth building. Auto-based development effectively puts a cap on the success of a place, a physical limitation for how many people can be at one place at one time, and subsequently, how much investment can occur. Transit removes that cap.” (pp. 158)
- “Operations and maintenance must be funded through the fare box, which should never be used to retire debt or fund capital improvements. Mixing funds between capital, operations, and maintenance makes internal accounting and management sloppy. We need transit systems to be well run and responsive, which means the routine constraints of having to balance operations and maintenance with fare collection.” (pp. 161)
- NOTE: I suppose completely profitable transit is out of the question for Chuck. His strategy seems like a watered down version of the strategy employee by for-profit transit companies of the late 19th and early 20th century.
- “A culture of walking and biking, the culture of place that is a prerequisite for successful transit, is an egalitarian culture, one where the functional gap between social classes shrinks. Rich and poor alike walk on two feet.” (pp. 162)
- “Given the speed of traffic on our local stroads, I tend to prefer separated infrastructure, but I will ‘take the lane’ and ride visibly (automobile drivers may say ‘obnoxiously’) in traffic when there is no separate space, or the bike infrastructure feels dangerous.” (pp. 170)
- “In places where speeding is the norm, it is unethical to use speed cameras to entrap people with bad design.” (pp. 198)
- Whatever Works - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- Bird Enters into Comprehensive Restructuring Support Agreement with First- and Second-Lien Lenders to Strengthen Financial Position - Bird Global, Inc. (press release)
- 5 Southern states had most of the nation’s population growth - Tim Henderson (article)
- “…Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina added almost 1.2 million people among them. The South was the only region that drew net new residents from other states.”
- Governor Youngkin Unveils a New Tax Plan for Virginia - Jared Walczak, Andrey Yushkov (article)
- Plans to expand passenger rail through Southwest Virginia get federal funding for further study - Susan Cameron (article)
- REFERRAL: RSS subscription
- NOTE: Mentions offhand that Cardinal service may be increased from 3 to 7 days a week.
- Parenting is the Key to Adolescent Mental Health - Jonathan Rothwell (report) RECOMMENDED
- “Generally speaking, political conservatism is associated with more responsive and discipline-oriented parenting, or what the child development literature would characterize as an “authoritative” style, in contrast to permissive or authoritarian styles. This relationship between conservativism and parenting remains significant even after controlling for an extensive list of parental demographic and socio-economic measures.” (pp. 12)
- Making garbage useful with Tom Szaky of TerraCycle - How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast episode)
- Reclaiming food waste with Jasmine Crowe-Houston of Goodr (2022) - How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast episode)
- A climate-resilient ancient grain with Pierre Thiam of Yolélé (2022) - How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- When our phones are just phones with Kai Tang and Joe Hollier of Light - How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast episode)
- Podcast: 83 – 3D Printed Guns and Death Athletic - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- Carl & Callum Visit America - Lotuseaters Dot Com (video)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - If Books Could Kill (podcast episode)
- The “Organized Retail Crime” Panic - If Books Could Kill (podcast episode)
- The 48 Laws of Power - If Books Could Kill (podcast episode)
- Episode 460: Sexy World of Bus Speed and Reliability - Talking Headways (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Should cities invest in full BRT or in incremental bottleneck improvements on traditional bus routes? Sometimes the incremental improvements can save passengers more travel time per dollar than these large, sexy projects.
- NOTE: Mentioned combined bus and truck lanes may work well if buses need to travel through an area without stopping much.
- NOTE: All doors on the bus opening can save time
- Tillis touts $1B for Richmond-Raleigh rail line, thanks Buttigieg - Nick Robertson (article)
- “The rail corridor is expected to be completed by the end of the decade.”
- Va. transportation board votes against proposal to lower application cap for SMART SCALE projects - Nathaniel Cline (article)
- “…the board bucked the agency’s wishes not only on the application caps, but also on a recommendation to use the land use factor as a way to enhance a project’s score. Instead, the body voted to remove land use entirely from the list of project considerations.”
- NOTE: I’m guessing that removing land use entirely from calculations will result in more sprawly projects
- “…the board bucked the agency’s wishes not only on the application caps, but also on a recommendation to use the land use factor as a way to enhance a project’s score. Instead, the body voted to remove land use entirely from the list of project considerations.”
- Mist Showers: Sustainable Decadence? - Kris De Decker (article) RECOMMENDED
- Lynchburg City Council Meeting 11-28-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Will raise blood pressure
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News DEC 2023 ++ Brightline West CAHSR Acela NEC Texas Central Ft. Worth - Lucid Stew (video)
- Senate bill introduced to ban TSA use of facial recognition in airports - Edward Hasbrouck (article)
- State regulators OK Appalachian Power rate hike - Matt Busse (article)
- “State regulators on Thursday signed off on a request by Appalachian Power to raise electricity rates, which will increase the average residential customer’s bill by about $16 a month, or about 10%.”
- SCENIC BYWAYS States’ Use of Geometric Design Standards - United States General Accounting Office (report)
- “State officials also indicated that concern over tort liability was a primary influence on their decision to use the green book’s standards. Seven of the eight officials we interviewed expressed concern that if drivers had accidents on roads that had been built to standards other than those set forth in the nationally recognized green book, the courts would be more likely to find the state negligent for using an inadequate design.” (pp. 6)
- “Five of the 29 states we contacted have developed or are planning to develop alternatives to the green book’s standards for their scenic byways. Idaho has implemented its own standards; Colorado, Rhode Island, and Vermont are at various stages of developing standards; and South Carolina plans to develop its own standards.” (pp. 7)
- NOTE: States have developed their own standards for scenic byway construction to reduce costs, preserve scenery, and not need to take lots of exceptions to the Green Book all the time to reduce costs and preserve scenery.
- Document discussing Transportation Research Board “3R” guidelines
- “FHWA is sponsoring the development of a companion guide to the green book that would show engineers ways of considering “aesthetic, historic, and cultural values” while using the green book.” (pp. 9)
- “Virginia, for example, typically follows the green book’s standards for its scenic byways, but it will also apply its own 3R criteria to help protect scenic resources on rural roads with a low volume of traffic. A Virginia transportation official said that 3R criteria help to protect resources such as trees and stone walls.” (pp. 10)
- Va. court: Zoning violation notices must spell out consequences of not appealing to local board - Sarah Vogelsong (article)
- Free money: Milton Friedman, unconditional income, and the neoliberal inheritance - David Dagan (article)
- Options for Virginia to reform its family tax benefits - David Trimmer (article)
- NOTE: Tax credits directly reduce tax liability by x dollars (different from deduction). A non-refundable tax credit can only be used to reduce your current year tax liability to 0 dollars, while a refundable tax credit can take your tax liability below 0 dollars and be carried over to another year. Not sure how the carrying-over works.
- Worries over secrecy grow as state officials shield records from the public - Kevin Hardy (article)
- A Convener Of Stature - John Salmon (article) RECOMMENDED
- “One thing I have learned is how to more effectively weed out those that have an ulterior motive, and also how to tell when an entity will feign interest simply because our mission statements clearly align, and the community expects that they are actually trying to search for effective solutions. Often these groups, despite their apparent goals, do not actually share a common pain point: the bus company does not suffer when they are unable to provide effective transportation for people in the region, as the people who lack this resource become the justification for ongoing federal and state support.”
- California High Speed Rail San Diego to Los Angeles City Pair Investigation - Lucid Stew (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 11-28-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Report: Bedford rail stop estimated at $23 million - Justin Faulconer (article)
- Lynchburg City Council formally censures Councilman Martin Misjuns for his behavior to city staff, council, residents - Hayden Robertson (article)
- Expanding American Rail Capacity - Uday Schultz (article) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Author concludes that flexible and nonexistent freight schedules do not mix well with the fully scheduled operations of passenger railroads. The three options are to build more track, separate passenger and freight traffic, or fully schedule freight operations.
- Sidewalks Should Be Designed for People, Not Cars - Lloyd Alter (article)
- NOTE: Currently have several tickets in with the city to address issues like this. They’re all over the place.
- How to turn your Neighborhood into a Village - Andrew Millison (video) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: This guy’s such a hippy, but offers amazing inspiration for adapting one’s neighborhood to a more human scale. There is tremendous potential for block-level intricate paths, waterways, gathering places, energy systems, etc.
- The Clapper: Yes, that one. - Technology Connections (video)
- We Must Become More Sensitive to the Stress Our Cities Are Under - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Lynchburg Economic Development Authority 11-16-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- The Story of Titanium - Brian Potter (article) RECOMMENDED
- “a commercially viable process for producing titanium wasn’t developed until the 1930s. In 1930 William Kroll, a scientist from Luxembourg, began experimenting with titanium in his home lab, and developed a process to produce titanium by reacting titanium chloride (TiCl4) with magnesium under a vacuum. By 1938, he had successfully produced 50 pounds of titanium metal, and successfully formed it into wires, rods, sheets, and plating.”
- Why Do So Many Millennials Have Those Kind Of Corny Signs All Over Their House? - Stephanie McNeal (article)
- Gen Z Is Making Fun Of Millennials And Honestly We Deserve It - Lauren Strapagiel (article)
- “Gen Z sees millennials as a generation too willing to define ourselves by our interests and identities. That comes through in a loyalty to brands, or ’90s nostalgia, or political figures, rather than movements, philosophies, or ideals.”
- The Failed Commodification Of Technical Work - Ludic (article) RECOMMENDED
- Your Olive Oil is (probably) a Lie - Johnny Harris (video)
- NOTE: Certifications like California olive oil council or USDA organic are a good indicator that more scrutiny is on the company and that they are less likely to be selling adulturated or low quality oil
- South Africa’s Slow, Inevitable March Towards Collapse - Wendover Productions (video)
- NOTE: Some neighborhoods have created business improvement districts to do the job a Public Works Department would typically do but fails to do
- Chapter 3. Highway Systems - Code of Virginia (law)
- NOTE: I assume the commissioner of VDOT Stephen C. Brich is who they’re referring to when they say “Commissioner of Highways”
- “Whenever any portion of the Interstate System that is to be constructed within cities or towns is to occupy existing streets, the right-of-way in the street shall be occupied by the Interstate System free of cost to the Commonwealth.” (§ 33.2-303.)
- “The primary state highway system shall be constructed and maintained by the Commonwealth under the direction and supervision of the Board and the Commissioner of Highways.” (§ 33.2-310.)
- “The Commissioner of Highways may, when requested by the governing body of a state institution, assume the maintenance of any highway within the grounds of such state institution that has been established and constructed by such institution to standards acceptable to the Commissioner of Highways. Any such highways accepted for maintenance by the Commissioner of Highways under the provisions of this section shall be a part of the primary state highway system, but the state institution shall continue to exercise police power over such highways.” (§ 33.2-313.)
- NOTE: These are the road systems referred to in this chapter (there are sections permitting Commissioner of Highways or the CTB to transfer between adjacent systems in this list):
- “Interstate System”
- “Primary State Highway System
- “Secondary State Highway System”
- “local system of roads operated by a locality receiving payments pursuant to § 33.2-319 or 33.2-366”
- NOTE: It seems like roads can be transferred from Primary State Highway System to “roads operated by a locality” as well
- NOTE: According to aaroads wiki, Primary State Highways are numbered 1-599 and Secondary State Highways are numbered 600 and up
- “The highways embraced within the primary state highway system shall be established, constructed, and maintained exclusively by the Commonwealth under the direction and supervision of the Commissioner of Highways, with such state funds as may be appropriated and made available for such purposes, together with such appropriations as may be made by any county, district, city, or town in the Commonwealth and such funds as are available or derived from the federal government for highway building and improvement in the Commonwealth.” (§ 33.2-317.)
- “A. The Commissioner of Highways, subject to the approval of the Board, shall make payments for maintenance, construction, or reconstruction of highways to all cities and towns eligible for funds under this section. Such payments, however, shall only be made if those highways functionally classified as principal and minor arterial roads are maintained to a standard satisfactory to the Department.” (§ 33.2-319.)
- NOTE: Following criteria must be met for state to provide funding for construction/maintenance of Virginia State Highways to locality. UROW stands for unrestricted right of way, HSW stands for hard surface width, and SHS stands for state highway system.
- (UROW > 50ft & HSW > 30ft)
-
(UROW > 80ft & HSW > 24ft & plans for HSW > 48ft) -
(UROW > 40ft & is a culdesac & has turnaround meeting standards) -
(was paved and part of SHS before annexation/incorporation) -
(was paved and part of SHS before annexation/incorporation & paved to HSW > 16ft after annexation/incorporation & not maintained under § 33.2-339 or 33.2-340) -
(was receiving funding on June 30, 1985 according to law on June 30, 1985) -
(street established before July 1, 1950 & UROW > 30ft & HSW > 16ft) -
(functional classification is local street & constructed after Jan 1, 1996 & met standards for subdivision streets at time of construction) -
((located in Richmond located in Norfolk) & closed to public travel for safety reasons & is in boundaries of public housing development) -
(is local street & is eligible under previous rules & has “protuberances” to control traffic speed)
- NOTE: Highway Capacity Manual published by the Transportation Research Board is considered authoritative on the topic of “levels of service”
- NOTE: It seems that cities cannot use State Highway road area for bike lanes if the lane miles used exceeds 3 percent of total city lane miles. Lynchburg has about 850 lane miles according to their website, so no more than 25.5 lane miles of State Highways in the city may be used for bike lanes
- NOTE: There are no Secondary State Highways in Lynchburg, but there are two Primary State Highways (SR 163 which consists of the north end of Wards Road, part of Fort Avenue, and all of 5th/Memorial Avenue, and SR 128 which consists of Candlers Mountain Road and some industrial roads in the south of the city))
- NOTE: Secondary highways must meet standards of AASHTO Green Book and some other things…thankfully Lynchburg doesn’t have any
- “A. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this article, the governing body of any county may expend general revenues or revenues derived from the sale of bonds for the purpose of constructing or improving highways, including curbs, gutters, drainageways, sound barriers, sidewalks, and all other features or appurtenances conducive to the public safety and convenience, that either have been or may be taken into the primary or secondary state highway system. Project planning and the acquisition of rights-of-way shall be under the control and at the direction of the county, subject to the approval of project plans and specifications by the Department.” (§ 33.2-338.)
- “On any urban highway upon which the Board has expended funds, the location, form, and character of informational, regulatory, and warning signs, curb and pavement, or other markings and traffic signals installed or placed by any public authority shall be subject to the approval of the Commissioner of Highways.” (§ 33.2-349.)
- “A. The Board shall allocate each year from all funds made available for highway purposes such amount as it deems reasonable and necessary for the maintenance of roads within the Interstate System, the primary state highway system, and the secondary state highway system and for city and town street maintenance payments made pursuant to § 33.2-319 and payments made to counties that have withdrawn or elect to withdraw from the secondary state highway system pursuant to § 33.2-366.” (§ 33.2-358.)
- NOTE: Not a clear or fun read! I still sort of wonder which highways within Lynchburg are kept to a particular standard merely because they must be to keep state funding.
- New Bill Would Finally Rewrite the ‘Notorious’ MUTCD for Vulnerable Road User Safety - Kea Wilson (article) RECOMMENDED
- “And when cities want to use those life-saving design elements anyway, they’re often scared off of doing it, lest they fall out of compliance with the all-powerful Manual — even though, technically, not all of its recommendations are legally binding, much like its companion document, the AASHTO Green Book. In part because remaining in compliance with the MUTCD may shield transportation agencies against lawsuits, many traffic engineers tend to treat it more like a Bible with strict commandments than a ‘recipe book’”
- The decline of the American Dream, with David Leonhardt - The Vital Center (podcast episode transcript)
- “People don’t really know exactly what the value of what they’re providing is. I don’t know what it is. And that’s where this ‘range of indeterminacy’ comes in, which is that the value that any worker is providing is somewhere between X and Y, and no one is totally sure what it is. Your employer’s not sure, the worker’s not sure. But the employer has a better idea and also, maybe even more importantly, has more leverage over the employee.”
- “So I get that some things have made progress. But you look around the world and in most of the world getting around is a lot quicker than it used to be thanks to new airports, thanks to high-speed rail. And in our country, it’s not just the rail system… I mean, I went back and I quote from this article in the New York Times from the 1960s, this great excitement: the Metroliner was going to get you from New York to Washington in two and a half hours. Well, that’s faster than you can take the Acela from New York to Washington today. And to me, it’s a remarkable and damning comparison.”
- “Four-year college graduates make up somewhere between a third and 40% of adults today. We are a minority.”
- Every mistake I’ve made since 2014. - Tom Scott (video)
- $9 Billion In Grants For High Speed NEC Intercity Passenger Rail ++ Stew’s News HSR Special Report - Lucid Stew (video)
- Credit agency Moody’s cuts outlook on US government to negative - Betsy Reed (article)
- FREE WEBINAR: What’s Next for PROWAG? - apbpvideo (video)
- Study: 12 Ft. Lanes Are Deadlier Than 10 Ft. Ones — So Why Do Many DOTs Build Them Anyway? - Kea Wilson (article)
- NOTE: Apparently Vermont stopped using the AASHTO Green Book in 1997. I could not find a list of which states use and do not use the AASHTO Green Book.
- How Shared Space Challenges Conventional Thinking about Transportation Design - Norman Garrick & James G. Hanley (article) RECOMMENDED
- Hans Monderman
- “Monderman re-invented shared space because, in his view, we have gone overboard and now routinely apply ‘system time’ to situations where it is an extremely poor fit.”
- NOTE: ‘context time’ is where social rules govern, and ‘system time’ is where vehicles are moving too fast to communicate with other road users and markings/signals/signs are necessary.
- “…the human-centric operation and feel of Homme De Fer. Strasbourg was one of the first systems with low-floor trams, which aid in easy boarding for everyone. This is complemented by extra wide doors, which further contribute to easy entry and exit. Add in the tall, over sized windows and the tram itself has a lightness and transparency that makes it feel very much a part of the urban context - with an unprecedented degree of communication between people on the street and people in the trams.”
- Coffee House Culture in 18th Century England - Sylvia Prince (article) RECOMMENDED
- “Businessmen turned coffee houses into workplaces. Many established predictable hours at their favorite coffee houses, where clients would pop in to discuss the latest business. Businessmen even received mail at coffee houses.”
- “Lloyd’s Coffee House became the merchant and sailor destination. Edward Lloyd, the founder, shared news on shipping. Clients bought and sold so many maritime insurance policies that the coffee house eventually evolved into Lloyd’s of London, still a major insurer today.”
- “Coffee houses shared news and distributed pamphlets. London’s first daily newspaper began printing in 1702. Between editions of the London Courant, runners visited coffee houses to share breaking news.”
- NOTE: Publick is a spelling of public that we should start using to make English weird again
- “By the late 18th century, tea eclipsed coffee as England’s drink of choice. Yet tea shops never rivaled coffee houses as public meeting spaces.”
- What’s Next for American Urban Development? - Pete Saunders (article)
- The Big Theory on American Urban Development - Pete Saunders (article)
- REFERRAL: Yangbo D. (Strong Towns Slack)
- NOTE: Early Era (1795-1860), Industrial Era (1870-1935), Auto Era (1945-2010)
- NOTE: He dubs 1900-1920 the “streetcar period” of the “industrial era”
- NOTE: He calls 1990-2010 the “mcmansion period” of the “auto era”, characterized by “More customized homes; greater emphasis on exclusivity combined with security (gated communities, golf courses)”
- Learning From Las Vegas: Henderson - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- “I spent some time following the little green lines of the official bike routes as displayed on Google maps. Henderson is built at a scale that precludes meaningful pedestrian activity. That’s a feature, not a bug. A landscape can be made to accommodate cars. Or it can be built to serve pedestrians and cyclists. But they are mutually exclusive.”
- “The stairs are painted with the bold church logo. It’s branding. This is another trend I see in places attempting to reactivate otherwise dead space. The problem here is the stairs serve as a subliminal indication of where the front door should be, the way classical buildings draw people in and up. But this is a contemporary building with industrial warehouse tendencies, not a Greek temple. The doors are tucked lower down and to the sides like a supermarket. Again, this is the suburban vernacular at work. So big signs and arrows were needed to direct people to the correct doors. Otherwise, the emergency fire exits and service doors are easily confused with the proper entrance.”
- Randal O’Toole and the Ukrainians - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- “Ukrainians understand the concept of a dacha. This is a modest part time granny house outside the city where people grow a big garden and enjoy a bit of nature during the warmer months.”
- NOTE: A dacha sounds similar to a schrebergarten house
- “Ukrainians understand the concept of a dacha. This is a modest part time granny house outside the city where people grow a big garden and enjoy a bit of nature during the warmer months.”
- Finding a New “Why” - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- NOTE: I can’t imagine the exhaustion one would feel after fighting for more human-scaled, adaptible places for the last 30 years or so. I feel somewhat exhausted doing it in 2023 when a lot of things are beginning to improve.
- Human Powered Neighbourhood: The Communal Kitchen - Human Power Plant (article)
- “The problem with cooking is not so much energy use, but power use. Energy use is power use multiplied by time. A refrigerator has relatively low power use but high energy use, because it’s used for 24 hours per day. If a refrigerator needs 100 watts of power, its energy use per day is 2,400 watt-hours. For a cooking stove, it’s the other way around. It’s only used for one or two hours per day, but cooking a meal requires 2,000 to 3,000 watts of power, depending on how many heating elements are used and at what temperature.”
- Fermentation and Daily Life - Kris de Decker (article)
- “Consider nukadoko, a fermented rice bran from Japan. Stir together salt, water, and bran—with optional ginger, dried fruit, and spices. Then ‘plant’ some vegetables like radish, beets, or carrots, burying them deep in the ‘soil’. Stir up to three times a day, preferably with your hands: get those skin microorganisms in there. After a week, you’ll have an active fermentation. Pretty soon it’ll be so strong that you can plant any vegetable in it and it’ll be pickled within one hour—these are then called nukazuke.”
- Seeing like a Bank - Patrick McKenzie (article) RECOMMENDED
- “The reason you have to ‘jump through hoops’ to ‘simply talk to someone’ (a professional, with meaningful decisionmaking authority) is because the system is set up to a) try to dissuade that guy from speaking to someone whose time is expensive and b) believes, on the basis of voluminous evidence, that you are likely that guy until proven otherwise”
- “It will similarly take decades to roll out the best-functioning refinements on customer service at scale to the entirety of the financial system…Partly this will happen as banks increasingly partner with firms that impose a tech-inflected view of the customer experience. Google is, for example, a legendarily hostile organization to attempt to get customer support from. Google is also beloved by users because of overwhelming competence in shipping products that work almost all of the time. If you think that talking to a compassionate human is a core part of the banking experience, there are many banks in Iowa who will sell that service to you.”
- Seth Kaplan: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- “…we shifted from making institutions that supported us and we belonged to everyday to making institutions that were more national, more professional, more distant, and we focused on efficiency…we’ve spent so much effort creating an efficient country. I think we’ve lost touch with what it is that helps humans–you and me…all of our listeners here–we flourish because we’re close to other people.”
- NOTE: Neighborhoods need a center and boundaries. Put institutions in the center.
- Opinion: They traveled on Metro for a week and loved it. Can two dozen German journalists be wrong? - Erik Kirschbaum (article)
- People of God: Romans 3:1-8 - Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- NOTE: 3 paradigms. Covenant of works, covenant of grace, and “seed of Abraham”
- “A Jew outwardly is not a Jew inwardly…that is one of Paul’s key arguments”
- NOTE: One of the advantages of infant baptism into a covenant family is that they receive the oracles of God in scripture through teaching, discipleship,etc.
- πιστεύω
- NOTE: Pronounced Eh-stew-oh
- NOTE: Chapter 3 is not a comforting chapter. It boils down to Paul saying “God is who God is…deal with it!”
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News Nov 2023 ++ CAHSR Brightline West Acela NEC Texas Central Ft. Worth - Lucid Stew (video)
- Boarding planes could have been very different - Tom Scott (video)
- NOTE: I thought these transporters were way more common, but they’re mostly used by Dulles airport, Montreal airport, and NASA!
- Boulder Bike Lane Barriers First in Nation
- Boulder Core Arterial Network
- NOTE: Core arterial network sounds like they think their city is a tree. Lynchburg’s bike network ought to be a semilattice.
- How Activists Are Making Streets Safer When Their Governments Won’t — And How You Can, Too - Kea Wilson (article)
- Lynchburg Planning Commission 10-25-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Planner made reference to commission about how B-4 zoning eschews the parking requirements that make it difficult to develop properties in the downtown
- Domestic Cozy: 13 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 12 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 11 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 10 - Venkatesh Rao (article) RECOMMENDED
- “Zoomers and younger Millennials playing “house” in ways that are indicative of the patterns of adult domesticity they will be adopting soon. This New Domesticity in the US is shaping up to be 80% Fifth-Wave Feminist households, 10% non-traditional (LGBTQ+) households, and 10% HouseBro households (a category that doesn’t seem to exist yet, but is bound to emerge based on the Dirac equation of anti-archetypes).”
- “In The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt noted that the domestic sphere, historically, was a fully constrained zone of non-stop labor, where nobody, not even the master of the house, enjoyed any freedom. It was only by venturing out in public that even the master could enjoy a measure of freedom and agency. At home, there was a defined role with duties for everyone. And if you never really left the domestic sphere, you were basically never really free.”
- Starting in the late 19th century, as Arendt observed, increasing availability of technological conveniences made the domestic arena primarily a zone of intimacy and leisure rather than non-stop labor. Consumer products and domestic automation slowly began replacing housewifery, slavery, and servant-work. Childcare increasingly became the business of schools and television. Entertainment media — board games, the phonograph, the radio, television, effective contraception, video games — injected increasing amounts of leisure activity where there was once only labor. Shopping began to replace cooking as the prototypical housewife responsibility.”
- “They enjoyed a peak of public life participation leading up to World War 2, but then ran into the feminine mystique era in the post-WW2 decades, which was an earlier trad turn between the first two waves of feminism. I personally attribute it to a sort of Parkinson’s Law kicking in for newly leisure-rich home economies, with domestic “work” expanding to occupy the leisure available.”
- “I suspect what’s actually happening is that a set of economic factors — inequality and high housing and childcare costs being the big ones — have made it financially advantageous for a certain segment of middle-class households to return to a pattern of domestic organization built around housewifery. Pamela Hobart has a thoughtful take on this surprising development. It’s a huge narrative violation that feminists are going to have to grapple with.”
- “In a way, the trajectory observed by Arendt is reversing itself. Homes are once again becoming entirely constrained spaces, where leisure and intimacy have a diminishing role to play, and there’s a lot more work for everybody to do. It’s just that instead of making their own soap, tradwives now have to find the coupons and deals that buy the desired soap at the available income. It’s almost as much work.”
- Domestic Cozy: 9 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- “Though domestic cozy is a Zoomer-native trend, I suppose it enjoys some higher harmonic resonance in the burnout-Millennial demographic as well.”
- Domestic Cozy: 8 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- “That is what the public has turned into: a zone of domestic-cozy space programs: safe spaces venturing into hostile environments under cover of high-tech defensive boundaries. This is true of both online and offline public spaces. Both are loci of something like a political space race.”
- Domestic Cozy: 7 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- NOTE: Folks are retreating from discomfort, danger, deprivation, and ceremony
- Domestic Cozy: 6 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 5 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 4 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 3 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- “When the domestic-cozy fam pack is out on the prowl in its pajamas, treating the world as its living room, the rules change. The culture war is, arguably, an ugly, metastasized family scene, spilling past all domestic boundaries at once.”
- Domestic Cozy: 2 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Domestic Cozy: 1 - Venkatesh Rao (article)
- Episode 141: Mondays at The Overhead Wire – Access Things Faster - Talking Headways (podcast episode)
- Climate Week has no micro, Bike Buses instead of Car Lines and Will We Start to See Front Loading Cargo Electric Bikes in the USA? - Ride On! by Micromobility Industries (podcast episode)
- 555: The Big Dig - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- Monuments of Misdirection - Geoff Manaugh (article)
- REFERRAL: BLDG Blog feed
- The Bourne Infrastructure - rodcorp (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Nakatomi Space - Geoff Manaugh (article)
- Nakatomi Space - Geoff Manaugh (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Privatism - A Dictionary of Sociology (article)
- “The tendency for people in advanced industrial societies to spend their lives less in the public domain and more within the confines of the nuclear family.”
- IRS advances innovative Direct File project for 2024 tax season; free IRS-run pilot option projected to be available for eligible taxpayers in 13 states - IRS (press release)
- Lynchburg City Council Meeting 10-10-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Director of GLTC is apparently an employee of first transit. Also, First Transit was purchased by TransDev in March
- Organizations voice concerns about ‘Hill City Connect’ program - Duke Carter (article)
- NOTE: Critic is with the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project
- Virginia Supreme Court reinstates ban on slots-like skill games - Graham Moomaw (article)
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 10-10-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Helgeson referred to sidewalk proffers as “sidewalks to nowhere ordinance”
- NOTE: Helgeson mentioned that he wants to hold a “Public Hearing on Harmful Regulations”
- Amtrak Airo Production Stimulates Nationwide Economy - Amtrak (video)
- Hill City Happenings October 2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Library renovation bid information
- Library renovation presentation
- NOTE: Library of Virginia has a lot of databases that citizens can access
- Bloated BART Extension, New Chicago Union station, and HS2 Cancelled: The Urbanist Update - Alan Fisher (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Meeting 10-24-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Legislative agenda is something city council puts together and sends to Richmond. It seems to contain policies that the council wishes to be enacted on a state level.
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 10-24-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Helgeson and Misjuns oppose ALPR and gunshot detection, while Dolan and Wilder think it’s fine. The others were unclear.
- New Amtrak Fares Debut - Jim Matthews (article)
- NOTE: Seems like they made flex fares [that allow refunds] an actually sane price rather than 3x normal fares
- Becoming Trader Joe - Joe Coulombe (book, ISBN13 9781400225439)
- “Another privilege of nobility, besides having a last name, was the right to raise pidgeons for food. The nobles built big, tall, round stone towers called columbaria after the Latin for dove, columba, which housed thousands of the birds.” (pp. xii)
- Succès d’estime
- Non-convex Problems
- NOTE: I’m 75% sure I linked the right concept here. It reminds me of a section in The Death and Life of Great American Cities where she discusses 3 different types of problems.
- “…if you adopt a reasonable strategy, as opposed to waiting for an optimum strategy, and stick with it, you’ll probably succeed.” (pp. 14-15)
- “The buyers at the supermarket chains knew nothing about what they sold, and they don’t want to know. What they did know was all about extorting slotting allowances, cooperative ad revenue, failure allowances, and back-haul concessions from the manufacturers.” (pp. 21)
- “I have always believed that supermarket pricing is a shell game and I wanted no part of it.” (pp. 71)
- Fair Trade law
- “The plan of February 20, 1977 declared, ‘Most independent supermarkets have been driven out of business because they stupidly tried to compete with the big chains in plastic goods, in which the big chains excel.’” (pp. 97)
- NOTE: By plastic goods he means highly packaged, highly advertised, ordinary branded products.
- NOTE: The abolition of fair trade laws in California in 1977 caused a lot of grocers to fail because they couldn’t deal with price competition or differentiate themselves.
- “We decided to sell only whole coffee beans, a field that the supermarkets had almost abandoned in the 1970s.” (pp. 106)
- NOTE: They decided to treat vendors really well by offering prompt meetings, prompt payment, paying in the vendor’s preferred currency, not doing returns of spoiled merchandise, and not acting as if they were adversaries. This allowed them to develop lots of creative products and product packaging with their vendors.
- NOTE: Large retailers and American consumers are used to “continuous” products that have a predictable formulation, can always be bought, and whose provenance does not matter. Trader Joe’s found their niche in discontinuous products that came in unique batches (like wines) and had a particular story of where they came from.
- “My rule was that the distance between stores should not be measured in miles but in driving time. I wanted no less than twenty minutes between stores. That pretty much avoided the dread word, cannibalization.” (pp. 147)
- Zig-Zag papers
- “Retailers seem to be falling into two distinct SKU modes: those with under 4000-5000 SKUs and those with over 25,000 SKUs. In the low-SKU class we find Costco. Stew Leonard’s in Connecticut, the highest-volume supermarket in the U.S., carries only 850 SKUs.” (pp. 170)
- Retail accounting method
- Product liability insurance
- NOTE: Certified Grocers filled the same niche in CA that MDI does in NC and VA
- NOTE: Aldi is short for Albrecht Discount
- NOTE: The Albrecht brothers pioneered the “box store” concept in Essen, Germany after WWII. Stores had about 6000 sqft and 600 SKUs. They bought the basics at the lowest possible cost and sold them for a low profit similar to that of Costco today.
- NOTE: Apparently Aldi writes up food specifications, then has manufacturers bid for contracts to produce them.
- NOTE: Aldi got started in the United States by buying Benner Tea Co. in the midwest and revamping it into a box store.
- NOTE: Coulombe says Aldi is the last box store left in the U.S. I wonder how Lidl fits in.
- Omertà
- NOTE: Realized that “inner-city” has a negative connotation, while “downtown” has a generally positive connotation
- NOTE: A controller is the head of accounting in an organization and is in charge of reporting and auditing. It is spelled “comptroller” when used in government context, but is pronounced “controller” in both cases.
- NOTE: Treble is a synonym for triple
- The long road to the 2000-watt society - Anna Ettlin (article)
- Commonwealth Transportation Board Meeting Workshop – October 17, 2023 - VDOT LIVE (video)
- NOTE: They talked a lot about how they’re reworking the landuse factor in Smart Scale to be a multiplier for other scores or something
- City of Lynchburg Midtown Plan (report)
- “Participants examined the existing road network and discussed various possiblities for the Crosstown Connector.” (pp. 2.5)
- NOTE: I wonder if the crosstown connector is another name for the midtown connector
- “The owners of the Plaza, Sandor Development Company, were also active participants in the design studio. The design team worked with a representative from Sandor for two days to explore redevelopment opportunities for the Plaza site.” (pp. 2.6)
- NOTE: Plan recommends a form-based code be adopted for midtown and that Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) principles be followed. Two of these TND principles are that a neighborhood should “have an identifiable center and edge” and be of a walkable size.
- “Over time, however, the traditionally walkable streets have been affected by road widenings and automobile dominance. In the future these streets must be reclaimed, creating a healthy balance between vehicular and pedestrian traffic.” (pp. 3.5)
- NOTE: This plan is much more blatantly urbanist and anti-sprawl than newer Lynchburg plans I’ve read.
- “A ratio of 1:3 for building height to street width is often cited as a minimum benchmark of success, although even more narrowly proportioned street spaces can produce a still more satisfying urban character.” (pp. 3.5)
- NOTE: They quote a source calle AIA Graphic Standards, which says 1:6 height to width ratio is absolute minimum ratio that should ever be allowed, and that 1:3 ratio is the minimum for a sense of enclosure to result.
- “…the old routine of widening roads but citing last-minute budget problems as the reason to leave street trees or sidewalks ‘for later’ is unacceptable, comparable to building a house with no roof.” (pp. 3.6)
- “The width of the sidewalk will vary according to the location. On most single-family residential streets, five feet will usually suffice, but more width is needed on rowhouse streets to accommodate stoops. On Main Streets, fourteen feet is usually most appropriate, but the sidewalk must never fall below an absolute minimum of eight feet wide.” (pp. 3.6)
- “Streets should be well lit at night both for automobile safety and pedestrian safety. Pedestrians will avoid streets where they feel unsafe. “Cobra head” light fixtures on tall poles spaced far apart do not provide for pedestrian safety. Shorter fixtures installed more frequently are more appropriate, and can provide light under the tree canopy as street trees mature. An example of good lighting can be Lynchburg’s Downtown and on Peakland Place.”
- “Such a disconnected pedestrian environment is in part due to bad habits on the part of auto-oriented chain stores, but also reflects the large setbacks and high parking requirements in conventional zoning.” (pp. 3.8)
- “Street oriented architecture does not turn its ‘back’ to the street; doors, windows, balconies, and porches face the street, not blank street walls.” (pp. 3.8)
- “The 1⁄4 mile radius is a benchmark for creating a neighborhood unit that is manageable in size and feel and is inherently walkable.” (pp. 3.9)
- “Amend the Manual of Specifications and Standards Details to include the the proposed street sections found in the Midtown Plan.” (pp. 3.10)
- “Concentrate retail in Midtown to create a ‘park once’ environment so that patrons can walk to many shops and stores rather than having to drive to each location.” (pp. 3.10)
- “The Blackwater Creek Trail is a tremendous asset to Lynchburg and the trail should extend as green fingers throughout Midtown.”
- “Create a Midtown Business Improvement District to enable a tax collection for specific services and neigh improvements.” (pp. 3.12)
- “Wadsworth Avenue should be transformed into a Main Street of shops, entertainment, and retail opportunities.” (pp. 4.9)
- NOTE: They meant Wadsworth Street, but I get the point
- NOTE: They provide pictoral examples of how the intersection of Memorial Avenue and Wadsworth Street could be developed over time. I agree with their assessment of this intersection as an important center of sorts.
- “Lynchburg College and its students are becoming somewhat isolated from Midtown as a result of an expanding ‘auto zone’ along Lakeside Drive. A non-pedestrian oriented environment has slowly evolved along the most direct link between the College and Midtown.” (pp. 4.15)
- “Plans have been proposed by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to redesign these streets as a part of the Crosstown Connector. Citizens and city officials expressed concern over the physical appearance of VDOT’s redesigned streets. In response to these concerns, the design team produced alternative design concepts at several key locations.” (pp. 4.16)
- NOTE: I’m pretty sure the VDOT plans ended up getting built. Langhorne Road went from 2 lanes in the picture to 3 lanes (One in each direction and a suicide lane). It’s a very loud and unpleasant place for pedestrians, and nearly all the houses along it are in disrepair. Utilities have been buried and street lamps have been added, but there are no street trees. Cars typically drive at speeds between 30 and 45 miles per hour.
- “As Midtown undergoes a revitalization process, the most important consideration is to preserve the existing levels of walkability. Next is to increase the walkable destinations in the area, which thereby lessens traffic.” (pp. 5.3)
- NOTE: Example street section recommends 10 foot driving lanes, 8 foot parking lanes, and 6 foot sidewalks separated from road by 6 foot landscaped strips with trees.
- “The Crosstown Connector is a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) transportation project designed to provide greater speed and capacity for vehicles traveling through the Midtown area. The first official mention of the Crosstown Connector was in the “General Land Use Plan for the Langhorne Road Area” by the City of Lynchburg Planning Commission in 1954. The proposed Crosstown Connector is shown in plan (map #4) and identified as a dotted line called “CROSSTOWN THOROFARES & CONNECTORS”. While the plan for the connector has been studied and designed for decades, portions of the project remain in the planning stages The current proposal for the Crosstown Connector would widen key roadways in Midtown in an attempt to reduce travel times and congestion levels along key corridors. Specifically, the plans call for the four and five-laning of Kemper Street, Park Avenue, and Lakeside Drive as these streets pass through Midtown.” (pp. 5.4)
- NOTE: Did not find map 4 that they referenced. Will need to find that original 1954 VDOT plan. Kemper Street has been successfully widened (ruined) to 4 lanes. Lakeside drive is still intact at 2 lanes most of the way, I believe. Park Avenue is 2 lanes with some bike lanes and some parking, but lanes are far too wide.
- “The design team identified a way to connect the existing Blackwater Creek trail system through the redeveloped Midtown area using a multiuse path along the west side of the Plaza. The bike trail would connect the Blackwater Creek Trail System to the Kemper Street Station.” (pp. 5.6)
- NOTE: Interesting. In reality they ended up building a trail far east of this plan along the railroad tracks to the station.
- “GLTC has decided to develop a City-wide transit study, expected to get underway in late 2005 and be completed in 2006.” (pp. 5.8)
- NOTE: Made personal note to find this plan and add to wiki.urban.lynchburg.xyz plans table
- “To insure that patrons can still reach the Plaza, at a minimum, sufficient bus lines and headways below 30 minutes are recommended by the design team.” (pp. 5.9)
- “The proposed street sections will allow routine passage of emergency vehicles and provide greater legibility and navigability through the corridor of confidence concept. Finally, the proposed alternative to the Crosstown Connector will move future traffic as well as the original Crosstown Connector concept, and will have the additional advantages of context-sensitive design, greater connectivity, and maintenance of the existing community fabric and walkable character.” (pp. 5.9)
- NOTE: Consultants and perhaps citizens and city staff seem very opposed to crosstown connector concept in this plan, and for good reason
- “The review of existing zoning regulations and site analysis indicated that in many cases the zoning in Midtown does not match either the existing use or the goals of the community. Appropriate zoning encourages development by providing certainty. A zoning process that requires additional hearings and variances increases the risk of time and money to developers. By establishing clear zoning that supports the City’s vision and provides a visual guide to design criteria, investors can be sufficiently certain that their project will be approved.” (pp. 6.2)
- “Federal grants require the City to have a Consolidated Plan in order to receive Community Development Block Grants. Lynchburg does have a Consolidated Plan and is eligible for funding.” (pp. 6.3)
- “New Market Tax Credits permits taxpayers to receive a credit against Federal income taxes for making qualified equity investments in designated Community Development Entities (CDEs). The Lynchburg Community Loan Fund (an affiliate of Lynchburg Neighborhood Development Foundation) is a certified CDE.” (pp. 6.3)
- “The pilot project would also receive design assistance from City staff, including architecture and planning expertise, and the final design must follow traditional urban planning principles (i.e. Wyndhurst Design Guidelines) and meet City approval.” (pp. 6.6)
- NOTE: Made a note to find these “Wyndhurst Design Guidelines”
- “…a citywide housing strategy is necessary, as discussed in the City’s 2002 - 2020 Comprehensive Plan. The strategy should evaluate how and where to increase housing and the types of housing needed to accommodate the current and future housing market.” (pp. 6.6)
- NOTE: ADT stands for Average Daily Traffic
- “ERA advises that because of the City’s limited land availability, it is important to redevelop vacant and deteriorated properties (such as the Plaza) to ensure continued economic growth within City limits.” (pp. C.2)
- “Participants in the community charrette process repeatedly expressed interest and support for a high-end grocery store, such as Ukrop’s and/or Whole Foods.” (pp. C.2)
- NOTE: Attempted to locate “Wyndhurst Design Guidelines” mentioned in this plan, but could not find them on the web.
- “Participants examined the existing road network and discussed various possiblities for the Crosstown Connector.” (pp. 2.5)
- The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien (book, ISBN10 0395177111) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Darwinion is the land of wines
- Sorrel
- NOTE: Spoke about “twice-baked cakes” that kept a long time
- Purple Emperor Butterflies
- Slowcoach
- The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash - Will Wilkinson (research paper) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: TWOC Bonus: Barcelona’s Superblocks with David Roberts of Vox. - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- “The basic story is that urbanization is a mechanism that sorts the population on attributes that make individuals more or less responsive to the incentives to urbanize. Ethnicity, education, and personality stand out in importance in this regard.” (pp. 5)
- “The electorate is typically equal parts Democrat and Republican at about 900 people per square mile, according to Mark Muro of Brookings.21 The exact number varies a bit from place to place; higher in more Republican and lower in more Democratic states. Overall, majorities tend to flip from blue to red roughly where commuter suburbs give way to ‘exurban’ sprawl. That’s where the political boundary of the density divide is drawn.” (pp. 12)
- “Those who prefer to pay more in taxes for more services, and those who prefer to pay less for fewer, will tend to vote with their feet by moving to jurisdictions with policy bundles they like better than the alternatives.” (pp. 22)
- NOTE: Charles Tiebout sorting model
- “If an immigrant from China, for example, wishes to live among Chinese, she is likely to end up near some Indians, Mexicans, African-Americans, and whites. For immigrants, finding one’s own subgroup means moving toward diversity across the board. The same is not true, however, for America’s white majority. Only white Americans have the option of satisfying their taste for homophily by steering clear of urban diversity.” (pp. 30)
- “However, this doesn’t mean we should expect the marginal white urbanizer, who is no longer willing to forego so much to live in a homogenous place, to throw caution to the wind, settle in a downtown loft, and start biking to work. It’s now relatively late in the day in the process of urbanization, and the later it gets, the stronger we should expect the marginal white urbanizer’s preference for homophily to be” (pp. 32)
- “In the context of the transformative trend of mass urbanization, the relationship between whiteness, lower-density residence, and Republican Party affiliation suggests that at least half of the story of the partisan density divide is the story of the set of white Americans most immune, or most resistant, to the magnetic pull of the city.” (pp. 34)
- “If you’re low in ‘Conscientiousness’ and high in ‘Openness,’ you probably identify as liberal; if you’re high in Conscientiousness and low in Openness, you probably identify as conservative. The other dimensions of personality are either unrelated to political attitudes, or ambiguously related.” (pp. 36)
- “…rapidly rising housing costs have already wiped out much, if not all, of the education and density wage bonuses in the most expensive metros, which is why the richest, most productive cities have net negative rates of domestic in-migration.105 It’s possible that these factors explain some portion of the steady slide in geographic mobility.” (pp. 51-52)
- “The higher the death rate from overdose and suicide in Rust Belt areas, the more Trump tended to outperform Romney. The Economist found that the most significant factor predicting Trump’s gains over Romney was an area’s percentage of whites without college education. The second most significant was an index of public health metrics.” (pp. 65)
- “When growth is broadly shared, it can nudge whole cultures in the direction of the individualism and egalitarianism of self-expression values. However, even a rising tide that lifts all boats can act as a moderately polarizing force if temperamental liberals are already more inclined than temperamental conservatives to move with the currents that pacify rivalrous, ‘us or them’ antagonisms of the survival-value mindset.” (pp. 73)
- Exploring the Geography of Prosperity
- Destiny & BraveTheWorld Discuss Porn - BraveTheWorld (video)
- BASED AND REDPILLED - BraveTheWorld (video)
- Think Tank Urges DOT to Begin National VMT Fee Pilot - Eric Miller (article) RECOMMENDED
- Field Dispatches from Four Continents - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Greensboro: A North Carolina City Imagines a “Car-Optional” Future - Jarrett Walker (article)
- NOTE: It’s Lynchburg’s largest neighbor to the south!
- Riding Out the Pandemic - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- The Biggest Untapped Transit Opportunity in the US? - RMTransit (video)
- NOTE: He advocates for expansion of suburban rail to serve the numerous suburbs of the U.S.
- What Was That Thing On The Street That Just Passed You? - Streetfilms (video)
- New PROWAG Guidelines a Major Advance for ADA (and All Pedestrians) - Ben Abramson (article)
- NOTE: PROWAG stands for Public Right-of-Way Accessibility Guidelines
- NOTE: Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 (ABA)
- Bedford commission votes against apartment proposal in Forest - Justin Faulconer (article)
- NOTE: Really interesting cornucopia of opinions here. At least one YIMBY is quoted who recognizes the demand for housing. Other folks seem to be upset that this development will create traffic, destroy farmland, and create lots of parking lots. The parking requirements suck, but it’s ironic that the lower densities that will be permitted after this denial will destroy much more farmland per capita.
- Madison Heights master plan moving forward - Justin Faulconer (article)
- Why Don’t Cities Use Hexagon Blocks? - City Beautiful (video)
- NOTE: For single-family homes, folks don’t find hexagons desirable because front yards are big and back yards are tiny pizza slices in middle of hexagon
- NOTE: Canberra, AUS has a hexagonal block surrounded by other non-hexagonal blocks
- NOTE: Hexagons are more space efficient and allow all intersections to be safer 3-ways instead of 4-ways
- NOTE: Using hexagons and triangles allows there to be continuous straight streets that can fit into other grids
- Walkable City - Jeff Speck (book, ISBN13 9780865477728)
- “…to be favored, a walk has to satisfy four main conditions: it must be useful, safe, comfortable, and interesting.” (pp. 11)
- NOTE: Portland, Oregon’s VMT/capita peaked in 1996 while most other cities went up. Made a task to check VMT/capita over time for Lynchburg, Virginia.
- “While transportation used to absorb only one-tenth of a typical family’s budget (1960), it now consumes more than one in five dollars spent.” (pp. 30)
- NOTE: Calculated that my family spends about 13.5% of budget on transportation: 45% on trains, 49.5% on car ownership and operation, 1.9% on public transit, 2.5% on taxis, and 1.1% on car rental
- propinquity: Nearness or closeness in space; neighbourhood, proximity.
- “These findings align with a recent Environmental Protection Agency study that found, state by state, an inverse relationship between vehicle travel and productivity: the more miles that people in a given state drive, the weaker it performs economically.” (pp. 34)
- NOTE: He mentioned interstate 495 around Boston, which confused me because interstate 495 is around D.C. I turns out that there are lots of interstate 495’s all up the east coast.
- NOTE: After Sweden heavily subsidized more efficient electric cars, people started driving more (cheaper to drive) and GHG emissions from transportation sector went up
- “We planners have taken to calling this phenomenon gizmo green: the obsession with sustainable products that often have a statistically insignificant impact on the carbon footprint when compared to our location.” (pp.56)
- “…ten to twenty units per acre is the density at which drivable sub-urbanism transitions into walkable urbanism.” (pp. 61)
- NOTE: R-3 district where I live is capped at 10.89 units per acre, but is bordered by some B-5 districts, so maybe the area has an upper limit of 15 units/acre overall
- “The researchers expected to find a broad range of historical and cultural causes behind the differing fates of Canadian and U.S. cities. Instead, they found that these cities appeared almost identical in 1940 and then tracked in different directions based upon relative highway investment.” (pp. 77)
- Cubic Synchro Studio
- NOTE: Traffic modeling software. Looking at the screenshots, I believe I’ve seen output from this program in Virginia Project Pipeline reports, and maybe others. I wonder what their market share is.
- NOTE: Virginia DOT calls trees “Fixed and Hazardous Objects”
- NOTE: Wesley Marshall and Norman Garrick at the University of Connecticut studied California cities and found that the variable most correlated with street injury and death was block size. The safer cities averaged 18 acre blocks and the less-safe cities averaged 34 acre blocks.
- “…a doubling in block size corresponded with a tripling in fatalities.” (pp.165)
- “The good news is that four-lane streets can be as inefficient as they are deadly, because the fast lane is also the left hand turn lane, and maintaining speed often means jockeying from lane to lane.” (pp. 166)
- NOTE: It’s Fort Avenue!
- “Comparison of seventeen different road diets conducted by the engineering firm AECOM found that only two streets lost capacity, while five stayed the same, and ten actually handled more cars per day after the conversion.” (pp. 167)
- “Naked streets refers to the concept of stripping a roadway of its signage–all of it, including stop signs, signals, and even stripes. Far from creating mayhem, this approach appears to have lowered crash rates wherever it has been tried.” (pp. 176)
- NOTE: I wonder if 460 BUS, 29 BUS, and 501 BUS are maintained by the federal government or have special rules surrounding them. I also wonder if VA state routes that go through Lynchburg city are maintained by VDOT or have special standards applied to them.
- “Stripping a sidewalk of its [parked car] protection in order to add bike lanes is just sacrificing one form of nonmotorized transportation for another.” (pp. 182)
- “In the interest of driver convenience, most American cities handed out curb cuts in the seventies like candy at Halloween, to banks, restaurants, dry cleaners, hotels…anyone who asked. These now send a very clear message to pedestrians that the sidewalk does not belong to them.” (pp. 183)
- NOTE: We need leading pedestrian intervals at all crossings in downtown and midtown! Anything else is absolutely pedestrian-hostile.
- NOTE: I find Speck’s assessment of vehicular cycling lacking. He acts like you can’t participate in the practices of vehicular cycling without buying into Forrester’s whole Vehicular Cycling philosophy that says bike lanes are bad. I love dedicated bike infrastructure and use it wherever it exists, but I bike vehicularly where it does not because I believe it is the best way not to die.
- Monty Python Architect Sketch
- NOTE: 1:1 considered historic ideal for enclosure width to height. Suburban Nation says 6:1 ratio is when enclosure doesn’t feel enclosed (“exceeds the limits of spatial definition”)
- NOTE: Jan Gehl dislikes tall buildings. Christopher Alexander says no buildings should be taller than 4 stories.
- “‘The first duty of the inhabitant of forlorn neighborhoods is to use all possible influence to have the streets planted with trees.’ So intoned the dominant landscape architect of the antebellum period, Andrew Jackson Downing.” (pp. 229)
- “My second suggestion is to abolish the curent practice of refusing to plant more than a few of the same tree in a row. Too many American cities are held hostage by urban foresters who, fearing the next Dutch elm disease, require that every street be planted with a tutti-frutti species mélange, so that no single blight can denude a whole street. While based on sound logic, the proscription typically prevents cities from doing what they once did, which was to create streets of distinct character based upon consistent use of a single tree species. Many of us grew up in towns with an Elm Street, a Maple Street, a Beech Street, and a Walnut Street.” (pp. 232)
- NOTE: After a cursory look at the Lynchburg city code, it does not appear that we have a rule like this
- NOTE: Sarah Hagan is Lynchburg urban forester
- “Enlightened developers like the ones at Mashpee know that hidden parking boosts retail sales and property values. Enlightened mayors like Joe Riley know that hidden parking boosts downtown appeal and livability.” (pp. 239)
- NOTE: People are attracted to the lively edges of spaces
- “When we built our house, I put a sitting-height wall on both sides, and a prominent sidewalk-hugging bench by the front door.” (pp. 241)
- Project for Public Spaces
- “…there is little to be gained in livability by improving the design of a street that is lined by muffler shops and fast food drive-thrus. When you’re done, it’s still the auto zone and not worthy of our attention.” (pp. 254)
- NOTE: Urban triage
- A streets can be made into great places soon
- B streets might be needed to tie A streets together
- C streets are auto territory that should be given up for now
- “Walkability is likely only in those places where all the best of what a city has to offer is focused in one area. Concentration, not dispersion, is the elixir of urbanity.” (pp. 259)
- Amherst County declines to purchase CVTC site recently showcased to developers - Justin Faulconer (article)
- Finnish Lessons - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: The Finnish planner they interviewed prioritizes pedestrians first, bikes second, transit users third, delivery vehicles fourth, and private cars fifth
- Live in Denver! - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Suburbans in the City - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: They say folks think of minivans with cyclist-safe sliding doors as loser cruisers
- Department of Bikeland Security - The War on Cars (podcast episode) Oonee pod bike parking
- WCAR Drive Time Radio - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Folks mentioned taking their children out in bike seats at 10 months or 1 year.
- Kara Swisher Says Car Ownership is Finished - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- You get a car! - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- AI Boyfriend - KRAZAM (video)
- Conor Semler: A New Decision-Making Framework for Street Design - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Tool designed by Semler for helping communities weigh street tradeoffs
- NOTE: Conor Semler works for Kittelson and Associates and was part of writing the NACTO Urban Bikeway Design Guide
- NOTE: Lengthening light cycles reduces “loss time” where no vehicles can go through intersection, so engineers like to increase light cycles.
- NOTE: Traffic engineers talk a lot about volume-to-capacity ratio
- NOTE: Most serious crashes happen at off-peak times when there’s very little volume compared to road capacity and people feel comfortable going very fast
- Governor Moore announces $20 million in grant funding for MARC train improvements in Baltimore - Christian Olaniran (article)
- Regional Cost Estimate Adjustments For Previous HSR Videos - Lucid Stew (video)
- Blacksburg Town Council looks to improve bike lanes - Thomas Mundy (article)
- LU’s relinquishes student radio station’s FCC license and pays fine to resolve FCC investigation - Mia Nelson (article)
- Virginia begins crafting new plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - Charlie Paullin (article)
- NOTE: apparently VA has not left the regional carbon market yet
- Career Advice - Moxie Marlinspike (article)
- “As a young person, though, I think the best thing you can do is to ignore all of that and simply observe the older people working there. They are the future you. Do not think that you will be substantially different. Look carefully at how they spend their time at work and outside of work, because this is also almost certainly how your life will look.”
- We Gamified Parking Reform - The Parking Reform Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: parking reform game was created by Paul Barter and improved by the Urban Works Institute in India
- Brightline to Orlando, California HSR Funding and NYC Parking: The Urbanist Update - Alan Fisher (video)
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News October 2023 ++ CAHSR Brightline West Acela NEC Chicago Hub - Lucid Stew (video)
- NOTE: Video shows screenshot from Brightline presentation outlining “Brightline 2.0”. The map shows the following routes:
- Portland <-> Seattle <-> Vancouver
- Las Vegas <-> Los Angeles
- Chicago <-> St. Louis
- Dallas <-> Austin <-> San Antonio <-> Houston (then back around to Dallas)
- Charlotte <-> Atlanta
- Boston <-> New York <-> Washington D.C.
- NOTE: Video shows screenshot from Brightline presentation outlining “Brightline 2.0”. The map shows the following routes:
- As Va. officials review SMART SCALE, some regional planners worry about shifting priorities - Nathaniel Cline (article)
- NOTE: Seems like changes could favor larger transit projects and disfavor some smaller cycling projects
- U.S. Department of Transportation Announces $14.8 Million in Grants to Help Small Communities Improve Air Service - USDOT (press release)
- NOTE: Lynchburg airport receiving 600k to initiate service to Chicago
- ‘Walk audit’ finds Westlake not very pedestrian friendly - Jason Dunovant (article)
- The Automotive Police State - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Interesting how the advent of auto-based policing has eroded the power of the 4th amendment
- What Uber Hath Wrought - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- 10 Steps to a Stunning Car-Free Street - Oh The Urbanity! (video)
- Regressive Property Tax Assessments ++ Extended interview: Dr. Christopher Berry - Strong Towns Library (video)
- VPRA Receives CRISI Grant for Franconia-Springfield Bypass Project - Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (press release)
- Amtrak Files STB Complaint Against UP - Jim Mathews (article) RECOMMENDED
- For All Rail Freight, Amtrak’s Fight With The Union Pacific Signals More Change - Patient Tech Investor (article)
- “Nevada now limits train length to 7500’, while Ohio mandates at least two crew members be aboard each train.”
- “In describing the change, the representee focused on Southern’s target toward a trillion-dollar flexible freight business now dominated by trucking. Further explaining the coming changes simply meant matching predictable truck delivery times while adding scale, a focus which also matches Amtrak’s critical needs.”
- NOTE: Can’t really figure out what is meant by “Amtrak filed a lawsuit against Pacific in December with the Surface Transportation Board (STB) under Section 213”. Does Amtrak complain then the STB sues based on that complaint?
- Durbin Introduces Bill to Allow Amtrak to Sue Freight Railroads for Delays
- REFERRAL: Hacker News comment
- NOTE: Seems like this has not passed, so not sure why Hacker News commenter referenced it as the reason Amtrak can sue Union Pacific
- H.R.2937 - Rail Passenger Fairness Act
- Episode 452: Beyond Greenways - Talking Headways (podcast episode) NOT RECOMMENDED
- Tucson Turquoise Trail
- NOTE: They painted a turquoise line all around one of their neighborhood so folks can just follow it and give themselves a walking tour of all the important historic sites!
- NOTE: They injected a geotargeted ad into my podcast download…obnoxious!!!
- Tucson Turquoise Trail
- The Drawback to ‘Cool Pavement’ - Diana Ionescu (article)
- “they found that around noon on a hot, dry day, a person standing on cool pavement could feel more than 7 degrees warmer than if they were to stand on uncoated asphalt”
- Leonardo da Vinci - Walter Isaacson (book, ISBN13 9781508242024) ABANDONED CH8
- U.S. Department of Transportation Announces that United Airlines Will Implement Industry-Leading Improvements for Passengers Using Wheelchairs - USDOT (press release)
- Lynchburg City Council 9-26-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Wayne developer has intention to build a part of bluffwalk and connect to existing bluffwalk
- The War on Cars: The Problem With Public Meetings, Part 2 - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- The Problem with Public Meetings, Part 1 - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Dying for Change - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- “The windshield perspective”
- Bridge NOFO Announcement - Federal Highway Administration USDOTFHWA (video)
- Construction Bid Letting September 27, 2023 - VDOT LIVE (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 9-26-2023 - Lynchburg City (video)
- Power outlets are topsy turvy – but does it matter? - Technology Connections (video)
- TWOC Goes to Japan - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Apparently it’s difficult to get authorities in Japan to build dedicated cycling infrastructure, because vehicular cycling is so popular and ubiquitous
- TWOC Bonus: Barcelona’s Superblocks with David Roberts of Vox. - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Strong Towns is Jane Jacobs in Action - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Chuck Marohn reads about 50 books a year!
- From nomad to municipal maven, Alicia Finney is the unsung hero behind City Council - Rachael Smith (article)
- Broader challenge to Federal blacklists filed in Boston - Edward Housbrouck (article)
- A new passenger rail corridor could connect Hampton Roads to Blacksburg and beyond - Wyatt Gordon (article)
- REFERRAL: DuckDuckGo search
- “Plaugher hopes the rail authority could complete the Commonwealth Corridor sometime in the 2030s. If the project has to wait on state dollars, the cross-Virginia connection may not be done until 2040, he fears.”
- Laura Kavanagh, Commissioner of the NYC Fire Department on how they are fighting battery fires - Ride On! (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: Randy S.
- traffic and development - Michael Lewyn (article)
- “…an already-congested area will not get much more congested with new development, because people react to congestion by going elsewhere or using slightly different routes. By contrast, when a basically uncongested area gets new development, the new development does not create enough traffic to scare off drivers.”
- What 5 Cities, 17K Cyclists, and 20K Cars Tell Us About Protected Bike Lanes - Nancy Scola (article) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Has really interesting graphs showing cyclist comfort levels with different cycling lane protection schemes
- Wayback Machine link to study referenced in article
- Pro Git, 2nd Edition (2.9.339) - Scott Chacon and Ben Straub (book) ABANDONED 80/513 RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Timothy M.
-S searchtext
is the “pickaxe”git log --pretty=oneline
andgit log --oneline
- NOTE: “progressive-stability branching” is a system where master/main is considered stable, and develop/next and topic branches are used for bleeding-edge development and only merged into main when they reach a stable state. All branches are kept open indefinitely.
- Lynchburg Economic Development Authority 9-21-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Speaker sighed some when mentioning the zoning discussions at the comprehensive plan kickoff meeting…potentially because ultra-NIMBYism could thwart their economic development efforts???
- U.S. High Speed Rail – Atlanta To Charlotte Greenfield Preferred Alternative Route Analysis HSR - Lucid Stew (video)
- Biden-Harris Administration Announces $1.4 Billion in Infrastructure Funding for 70 Projects That Will Improve Rail Safety, Strengthen Supply Chains, and Add Passenger Rail Service - USDOT (press release)
- DUCK FAT IS A HEALTHY ALTERNATIVE TO BUTTER - Science of Cooking (article)
- NOTE: Duck fat contains 35.7% saturated fat, 50.5% monounsaturated fat, and 13.7% polyunsaturated fats
- NOTE: Olive oil contains: 13% saturated fat, 75% monounsaturated fat, and 12% polyunsaturated fat (10% Omega-6 linoleic acid and 2% Omega-3 linoleic acid).
- Foie Gras
- Why Scalpers Can Get Olivia Rodrigo Tickets and You Can’t - Jason Koebler (article)
- Adam Conover Ruins The War On Cars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- TWOC Extra: The War On Cars Meets Car Talk – The Full Interview - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- WCAR–Easy Listening, Tough Questions - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Self Driving Kids - The War on Cars (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- Your Car is Your Castle - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Breaking the Law - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Infiltrating the Auto Show - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Why the World Needs a War on Cars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Virginia senators secure $100 million federal funding for pivotal rail bridge project - Ezra Hercyk (article)
- Rubbing Shoulders: Maybe - Dylan Dellisanti (article)
- In Harrisonburg, reconnecting Northeast will help heal urban renewal’s old wounds - Samantha Willis (article)
- Blackwater CSO tunnel construction to start May 2024 - Emma Martin (article)
- Brightline Orlando Station is now Open! - GoBrightline (video)
- Commonwealth Transportation Board Meeting Workshop & Action September 20, 2023 - VDOT LIVE (video)
- “DRPT (Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation) and VEDP (Virginia Economic Development Partnership) are directed to evaluate rail-centric economic development in the Lynchubrg region by November 1, 2024”
- NOTE: Mentioned “Pedestrian Safety Action Plan” and “Strategic Highway Safety Plan”
- Biden-Harris Administration Announces Grants to Support More Efficient Supply Chains Running on Our Marine Highways - USDOT (article)
- Four Communities Are Becoming Examples of Change - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- ‘Less than half’ fresh produce sold globally makes any profit - Mike Knowles (article)
- Study: How Low-Income People Really Use Micromobility - Kea Wilson (article)
- REFERRAL: Randy S.
- A lower speed limit could be coming to a Colorado road near you - Nathaniel Minor (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- National Standards for Traffic Control Devices; the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways; Revision
- “FHWA proposes to change the second sentence of the existing Standard to a Guidance, because the use of the posted or 85th-percentile speed for determining the appropriate sign spacing is just one factor, and there may be other factors that are more appropriate. Changing this to a Guidance statement provides agencies with more flexibility to use the factors they determine, through engineering judgment or study, to be most appropriate.”
- School board votes to close T.C. Miller, Sandusky elementary schools - Emma Martin (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- NOTE: Plan 3 closes Sandusky Elementary, closes or converts T.C. Miller Elementary, and implements close-to-home school rezoning, among other things
- Downtown Lynchburg Association receives $310,000 in grants for small business support programs, eight-week holiday lights activation - Rachael Smith (article)
- NOTE: Virginia Business District Resurgence Grant ($135,000) for storefront beautification
- NOTE: Community Business Launch Grant ($100,000) for starting or expanding businesses through Launch LYH
- NOTE: Downtown Investment Grant ($75,000) for downtown events
- NOTE: Ashley Kershner is the director of the Downtown Lynchburg Association
- West Virginia City Offers Doctor’s Notes So Commuters Can Avoid Road Closure - Seairra Jones (article)
- Big houses, small houses: Partisans continue to want different things in a community - Bradley Jones (article) RECOMMENDED
- A bright spot at the intersection of farming, electric vehicles and solar energy - Ivy Main (article)
- “Corn is now the nation’s number one crop and, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ethanol production accounts for 45% of the U.S. corn crop.”
- Charlottesville schools’ phone ban winning support - Jason Armesto (article)
- What Would It Really Take To Finish California High Speed Rail In 5 Years? - Lucid Stew (video)
- The Futility of Picking Up the Trash - Linda Poon (article)
- “By analyzing time and location data found on receipts left on the ground, Cowger’s new research also concluded that the majority of roadside litter travels less than two miles from where it was produced or sold, and most was dumped on the streets by people — as opposed to being carried by wind and stormwater runoff from their initial location.”
- AASHTO’s Green Book 8 Will Reflect Shifts Toward Multimodal Transportation - Julia Knudsen (article)
- Seattle is Building a $54BN New Railway - The B1M (video)
- New Central Virginia Planning Commission Officer Elections Drive Continued Positive Change - CVPDC (press release)
- NOTE: Jeff Helgeson elected as vice-chairman of CVPDC
- “Mayor Connor, who previously served as Vice-Chairman for a year, now assumes chairman responsibilities as the agency initiates a comprehensive safety action plan for all transportation modes, a preservation plan for the James River and a regional resiliency plan to evaluate mitigation actions for flash flooding.”
- Video Highlights Upcoming AASHTO Safety Summit - AASHTO (article)
- “…the summit’s goal is to produce a comprehensive safety action plan that ‘institutionalizes’ leading highway safety principles into state DOT policies, processes, and activities”
- Spirit Airlines looks to expand pilot pipeline through partnership with Liberty University - Caitlyn Frolo (article)
- Why the Dutch Government Has the Best Graphic Design - Hoog (video)
- Lynchburg Planning Commission 9-13-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Some townhome development that required CUP to build a few more units than R-3 allowed got approved by planning commission between Misty Mountain Road and Leesville Road
- The $1.5 Billion Plan to Clean Paris’ River - Hoog (video)
- NOTE: Paris has the same CSO problem that Lynchburg has
- This Should be the Standard for “Normal” Cities - RMTransit (video)
- Gov. Youngkin grants Downtown Lynchburg Association $310K for various projects - Caitlyn Frolo (article)
- Bike Parking: 101 with BikeWalk Provo - BikeWalk Provo (video)
- NOTE: Madrax, ULINE, and School Outfitters are their preferred bike parking suppliers
- Lynchburg City Council Meeting 9-12-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 9-12-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Building Our Community Diamond Hill Neighborhood Plan - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Siting bank branches - Patrick McKenzie (article) RECOMMENDED
- “Banks have extremely weird behaviors by the standards of parking engineers; the typical user behavior is to stop in for only a few minutes but the behavior the bank wants to optimize for, new account opening, can take half an hour to several hours. Through what turns out to be a simple result of queuing theory, bank branches end up with a lot of parking that appears mostly underutilized almost all of the time, and this is close to optimal.”
- “A physical location that has been a bank branch is poorly calibrated for other users and vice versa”
- “What makes a high quality versus a low quality curb cut? It comes down to everything from whether the angle a customer would need to turn at is subjectively an easy one to do at speed to factors like ‘is the physical cut large enough to accommodate the typical vehicle for this branch’s customer base.’”
- “But how does one measure access? One way, often used regarding so-called food deserts, is to drop pins on the map representing consequential retail locations, draw a circle around them, and count who is and is not within one of the circles using census data. This is fairly naive and therefore is much beloved of social scientists, who can get grad students to do it for them.”
- Hill City Happenings September 2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Lynchburg Airport is working with one consultant on returning pre-covid air service, another on convincing American Airlines to add a northern route to Chicago (or some other place like Philadelphia), and a third on courting low cost carriers to offer flights to vacation destinations like Miami or Vegas.
- The High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup (book, ISBN13 9781932364965)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns
- NOTE: Performance parking sets an occupancy target of, say, 85 percent for a parking district and adjusts the price to meet that occupancy target. The alternative is setting an arbitrary rate of x dollars per hour, and fighting over raising and lowering such an arbitrary rate is liable to happen. Performance parking “makes an end run” around the political game.
- “Removing a minimum parking requirement is not the same, however, as restricting parking or putting the city on a parking diet. Rather, minimum parking requirements force-feed the city with parking spaces, and removing a parking requirement simply stops this force feeding. Businesses will be free to provide as much parking as they like.” (pp. xxxi)
- “Deregulating both the quantity and the location of parking for the new housing was a key factor in restoring and converting the 56 office buildings Manville studied. Manville concluded that removing the parking requirements ‘led to both more housing and a greater variety of housing. Not only were more units built, but these units were constructed in buildings and neighborhoods that had long been stagnant and underused…” (pp. xxxiii)
- NOTE: Cities began adding off-street parking requirements to their zoning ordinances in the 1930s
- “We unknowingly support our cars with almost every commercial transaction we make because a small share of the money changing hands pays for parking. Residents pay for parking through higher prices for housing. Businesses pay for parking through higher rents for their premises. Shoppers pay for parking through higher prices for everything they buy. We don’t pay for parking in our role as motorists, but in all our other roles–as consumers, investors, workers, residents, and taxpayers–we pay a high price. Even people who don’t own a car have to pay for ‘free’ parking.” (pp. 2)
- “Off-street parking requirements collectivize the cost of parking because they allow everyone to park free at everyone else’s expense.” (pp. 2)
- “They estimate the demand for free parking and then require enough spaces to meet this demand.” (pp. 8)
- “Most markets depend on prices to allocate resources–so much so that it’s hard to imagine they could operate in any other way. Nevertheless, cities have tried to manage parking almost entirely without prices.” (pp. 8)
- “Every transport system has three elements: vehicles, rights-of-way, and terminal capacity.” (pp. 9)
- “Increases in fuel prices will spur increases in fuel efficiency, and increases in parking prices will spur increases in parking efficiency.” (pp. 17)
- “In effect, cities tell developers, no matter how great the cost, and no matter how small the benefit, you must supply ample on-site parking if you want to build in our town.” (pp. 24)
- “Parking spaces are an essential part of the transportation system, and they produce enormous benefits, but this does not mean that we need more parking spaces, or that parking should be free. Food also produces enormous benefits, but this does not mean that we need more food, or that food should be free.” (pp. 24)
- “Parking requirements illustrate a common pattern in transportation policy: politicians and planners typically respond to shortages with physical rather than economic solutions. (pp. 25)
- “Like it or not, demand is a function of price, not a fixed number, and this does not cease to be true simply because we ignore it (How much pizza would you eat if it were free? A lot more than if you pay by the slice.) Estimating parking demand without considering prices is planning without economics. Most cities are planned on the unstated assumption that parking should be free–no matter how high the cost or how small the benefit.” (pp. 64)
- “Both transportation engineers and urban planners should also ponder this warning from Lewis Mumford: ‘The right to have access to every building in the city by private motorcar in an age when everyone posesses such a vehicle, is actually the right to destroy the city.’”
- NOTE: Parking cash out option reduced driving to work by 11% for california employers
- NOTE: peak parking factor is percent of drivers parked at the time of peak demand
- “Parking requirements create winners and losers: drivers win and everyone else loses. More accurately, people win in their role as drivers, and they lose in all of their other roles.” (pp. 130)
- “In explaining the theory of New Urbanism, architects Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck also describe how providing too much parking damages older cities: ‘There is a point at which a city can satisfy its parking needs. This situation can be found in many small, older American cities and is almost always the result of the same history: at mid-century, with automobile ownership on the rise, a charming old downtown witha wonderful pedestrian realm finds itself in need of more parking spaces. It tears down a few historic buildings and replaces them with surface parking lots, making the downtown both easier to park in and less pleasant to walk through. As more people drive, it tears down a few more buildings, with the same result. Eventually, what remains of the old downtown becomes unpleasant enough to undermine the desire to visit, and the demand for parking is easily satisfied by the supply.’“(pp. 131)
- “You don’t go somewhere to park your car; you go there because you want to be there, and large parking lots in an area reduce the desire to be there.” (pp. 131)
- “Some insects, such as cicadas, periodically appear in such enormous numbers that enough survivors are left to breed and multiply even after all the potential predators have gorged themselves–an evolutionary strategy called predator satiation. Similarly, if planners require enough parking spaces, all potential drivers can park free even at the time of peak demand–a policy we can call parking satiation. Everyone can park free everywhere because parking requirements keep the parking supply high enough and zoning keeps the human density low enough.” (pp. 133)
- “Off-street parking requirements, Fulton says, mean that developers first have to build a parking lot, and then the city allows them to build something to finance the parking lot.” (pp. 134)
- “Most of the streets we admire for their great urban design cannot be replicated with today’s parking requirements.” (pp. 136)
- “‘No great city is known for its abundant parking supply…’” (pp. 136)
- NOTE: From a San Francisco planning department report
- "’…In older urban edge neighborhoods the porch contributed both formally and functionally to a human street scale. It provided an intimate transition space from the public to the private world and a safe space for social interaction among neighbors. As the garage has moved forward it has become the primary place of entry while the front porch has been reduced to a residual symbolic form reserved for strangers and formal occasions…’” (pp. 139)
- NOTE: Quote from a report on the urban edge of the San Francisco bay area from 1920-1990 by Michael Southwood and Peter Owens.
- “Planners initially intended parkign requirements to serve buildings, but architects now design buildings to serve the parking requirements. Form no longer follows function, fashion, or even finance. Instead, form follows parking requirements.” (pp. 141)
- “Parking requirements bundle the cost of parking spaces into the cost of dwelling units, and therefore shift the cost of parking a car into the cost of renting or owning a home–making cars more affordable but housing more expensive. The higher the parking requirement, the higher the cost of housing. When the U.S. Census Bureau surveyed owners and managers of multifamily rental housing to learn which governmental regulations made their operations most difficult, parking requirements were cited more frequently than any other regulation except property taxes.” (pp. 141)
- “In short, just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is no free parking.” (pp. 141)
- “Because a one-car garage for a single-family house requires a curb cut that reduces the on-street parking supply by almost one space, the off-street parking requirement does little to increase the total supply; instead, it vacates the on-street space to provide access to the off-street space; that is, the off-street requirement converts public curb parking into private off-street spaces.” (pp. 145-146)
- “Because the curb cuts are not available for on-street parking, and because the off-street parking spaces are often unused during the weekdays when residents are at work, the required off-street parking spaces effectively reduce the available parking supply” (pp. 146)
- “Jia and Wachs also estimated how the required parking increased the income necessary to buy a house. the annual family income necessary to qualify for a mortgage was $67,000 for a house without parking, and $76,000 for one with parking. As a result, 24 percent more San Francisco households could afford to buy houses if tey did not include the required on-site parking space. The parking therefore significantly reduces housing affordability in San Francisco.” (pp. 146)
- “A substantial share–or perhaps all–of the subsidies for low-income housing therefore goes to pay for the high cost of free parking.” (pp. 152)
- “Because all new dwelling units (and all other new buildings) come bundled with their full complement of required parking spaces, residents tend to buy more cars. As a result, each dwelling unit produces a larger number of vehicle trips and vehicle miles traveled (VMT): In 2001, the national averages were 2,200 vehicle trips and 21,200 VMT per household per year. Planners must then further restrict the density of dwelling units and all other development to restrict the amount of traffic they generate. This traffic-induced downzoning further restricts the ability of land to provide housing and further increases housing prices.” (pp. 152-153)
- NOTE: Very important to bring up in Lynchburg parking discussion!!!
- “Reducing or removing off-street parking requirements, however, can increase the supply and reduce the price of all housing, without any subsidy.” (pp. 153)
- “Scarce land and capital are shifted for housing for people to housing for cars. Zoning requires a home for every car, but ignores homeless people.” (pp. 153)
- “…the shop cannot obtain an occupancy permit without providing more parking spaces (which it probably does not have the land or money to do) or seeking a variance (which can be both time consuming and costly to obtain, if it is granted at all). Most likely, then, the bike shop cannot use the building. Unless a new furniture store–or another use with a parking requirement of one space per 1000 square feet–moves in, the building will remain vacant. Vacancy, of course, can lead to blight, which makes the neighborhood a less desirable place to open a business. Entrepreneurs therefore build new buildings in new areas, instead of reusing existing ones in established areas, and the result is disinvestment in older buildings and neighborhoods. (pp. 153-154)
- “As one consultant wrote to me, ‘There are heartbreaking stories of people who are trying to make use of vacant buildings but are forbidden to do so by onerous parking requirements.’” (pp. 154)
- “In effect, minimum parking requirements imply that no shopping is better than shopping without free parking. The result is tragic. Cities kill the chance of revitalizing older areas and drive development to greenfield sites that can be easily paved over for parking lots.” (pp. 156)
- “But as Jane Jacobs says:…‘In a panicky effort to combat the suburbs on their own terms, something downtown cannot do, we are sacrificing the fundamental strengths of downtown–its variety and choice, its bustle, its interest, its compactness, its compelling message that this is not a way-station, but the very intricate center of things…’” (pp. 161)
- “‘Parking is important where the place isn’t important. In a place like Faneuil Hall in Boston it’s amazing how far people are willing to walk. In a dull place, you want a parking space right in front of where you’re going’” (pp. 161)
- NOTE: Quote from Fred Kent, president of Partners for Public Spaces
- “Past some critical point, more parking spaces harm rather than help the CBD.” (pp. 162)
- “Although 8% of all households in the U.S. do not own a car, they pay for parking in the form of higher prices for everything they buy. Imposing hidden costs on the entire population to subsidize parking takes money from the poorest renters to subsidize richer homeowners.” (pp. 165)
- “Although 7% of white households, 13% of asian households, 17% of latino households, and 24% of black households do not own a car, they all pay for required parking spaces through higher rents and higher prices for all goods and services.” (pp. 166)
- “If all homeowners and renters were given a fair choice between parking spaces and something else (such as another bedroom or a larger garden), some would choose fewer parking spaces, fewer cars, and a more livable neighborhood. But off-street parking requirements deny us this choice, and they have helped to automobilize America beyond our natural desires; they hide the cost of parking in higher prices for everything else, and we respond accordingly. Consider an exactly equivalent system of subsidies for parking, financed by taxes on everything else. Rather than require off-street parking, cities could impose a sales tax on all goods and services, and use the revenue to reimburse motorists for all their parking expenses. The effects would resemble those produced by off-street parking requirements, but everyone would see that the tax-and-subsidize policy in indefensible, and even grotesque.” (pp. 169)
- “Suppose cities had always charged market prices for curb parking and had let private decisions determine the quantity of off-street parking. Parking would not be free, but few people would complain about a shortage of it. Gold is scarce and expensive, for example, and is essential for many purposes, but there is no shortage of it: shortages result from underpricing.” (pp. 171)
- “In the politics of parking requirements, planners and politicians weigh the interests of voters (who want free parking and no spillover) against the interests of developers (who must pay for the required spaces). Both of these are short-term concerns. No one takes into account how the required parking increases traffic congestion and air pollution, which are problems that can be shunted onto tomorrow.” (pp. 171-172)
- “Planners have disastrously misdiagnosed the parking problem as not enough parking spaces, and cities have imposed off-street parking requirements as the cure. Instead, parking requirements are a disease masquerading as a cure.” (pp. 175)
- “Since drivers paid only $3 billion a year for parking in 1990-1991, the subsidy for off-street parking was between $76 billion and $223 billion a year. Because the U.S. gross domestic product was $6 trillion in 1991, the subsidy for off-street parking amounted to between 1.2 percent and 3.7 percent of the nation’s economic output.” (pp. 207)
- “…the cost of all parking spaces in the U.S. exceeds the value of all cars and may even exceed the value of all roads.” (pp. 208)
- “Although the price of curb parking is one of the few policy variables that cities directly control, almost all American cities have chosen to require ample off-street parking rather than to charge market prices for curb parking.” (pp. 331)
- “Underpriced curb parking reduces turnover, increases the time it takes to find a curb vacancy, reduces public revenue, and increases vehicle travel for cruising. Market-priced curb parking, in contrast, increases total public revenue and eliminates cruising.” (pp. 335)
- “If each separate business has its own parking lot for the exclusive use of its own customers, you cannot park once and walk from shop to shop, even where walking is convenient. Off-street parking requirements thus rule out a compact, walkable, park-once business district” (pp. 412)
- “Unmarked curbs also give a selective advantage to smaller cars.” (pp. 385)
- “Underpricing creates the incentive for solo drivers to ‘squat’ in scarce curb spaces, reduces turnover, and deters visitors by creating a shortage of convenient short-term parking. Market-priced curb parking will relocate the curb spaces to visitors who place a higher value on their time. More spaces will also be available to short-term parkers who come for a quick purchase and leave immediately, so the curb parking spaces will generate more customers for local businesses. A low price for curb parking may sound good for business, but it is not. Careful study shows that raising the price of curb parking by just enough to create a few vacancies should improve business in Westwood Village and similar business districts.” (pp. 365-366)
- “Free curb parking is like rent control for cars. High demand for a limited supply of free curb spaces predictably leads to shortages, and to deal with this problem cities impose off-street parking requirements that increase the cost of housing. Free parking for cars thus raises the cost of housing for people.” (pp. 379)
- “Cruising and double parking are direct results of underpriced curb parking, and they greatly shrink the capacity of downtown streets.” (pp. 303)
- “Schools, commercial districts, medical centers, universities, and recreation sites are the leading sources of the parking spillover that leads nearby residents to establish conventional permit districts. These districts sometimes allow nonresidents to park free for one or two hours, and they can easily begin to charge for parking.” (pp. 457)
- “Parking is a perfect example of an economic activity where planners have usurped markets without justification. We have relied almost exclusively on the command-and-control approach to regulating parking, and we have failed spectacularly.” (pp. 465)
- “This problem contributes to what John Kenneth Galbraith termed ‘private affluence and public squalor’. In many older neighborhoods, for example, residents constantly remodel their kitchens and bathrooms while the sidewalks crack, the street trees die, and overhead wires mar the view. Charging for curb parking and spending the revenue to finance neighborhood reinvestment–sidewalk repairs, new street trees, and underground utilities–will match public wants with private means.” (pp. ???)
- John Kenneth Galbraith
- Public good (economics)
- NOTE: Adam smith endorsed land value tax in The Wealth of Nations
- “Charging for curb parking that was formerly free may seem to be a ‘taking’ by the community, but this is unfair only if motorists are assumed to have a private right to public property without payment. (pp. 535-536)
- NOTE: Common/public ownership and open access are two different attributes of a property. Open access is what tends to lead to the tragedy of the commons…not common ownership itself. The commons needs to be managed to avoid the tragedy of the commons.
- “A parking space is an ‘intermodal facility’ that allows travelers to change between two travel modes–driving and walking.” (pp. 632)
- “If cities remove off-street parking requirements, problems will arise where most buildings now offer free parking. Some drivers who visit a new building that does not provide free parking will be tempted to poach a space in one of the many free lots at other buildings nearby. This poaching problem is one argument against removing off-street parking requirements. Most building owners with free parking do not want to begin policing their lots and chasing away drivers who are not their customers. Preventing unauthorized people from parking in a free lot sounds like a monumental hassle. Minimum parking requirements may seem justified because they avoid the poaching problem, but building owners in some cities have found a way to prevent poaching and also to produce revenue from their parking lots: They contract with private operators to manage their lots as paid public parking and split the resulting revenue.” (pp. 6??)
- The Comfort Crisis - Mr. Money Mustache (article)
- “The book cited a study in which researchers told people to look for danger, in an environment which gradually became safer and safer: ‘When they ran out of stuff to find they would start looking for a wider range of stuff, even if this was not conscious or intentional, because their job was to look for threats.’”
- Dog Culture Must End - Abigail Weinberg (article) NOTE: lol
- Winter vs summer cycling in Oulu (Finland) - BicycleDutch (video) RECOMMENDED
- How Dollar Stores Quietly Consumed America - Wendover Productions (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Mostly worthless even at 2x speed
- Transit doesn’t go everywhere. But maybe it doesn’t need to. - RMTransit (video)
- The United States Gulf Coast High Speed Rail Corridor - Lucid Stew (video)
- plastic money - j. b. crawford (article) RECOMMENDED
- USDOT Establishes Two New U.S. Marine Highway Routes - AASHTO Journal (article)
- United States Marine Highway Program
- United States Maritime Administration
- NOTE: Part of USDOT
- Amtrak Adding to Trainset Order Due to Rail Demand - AASHTO Journal (article)
- “National passenger railroad operator Amtrak recently executed a contract option to order 10 additional Airotrainsets – bringing the total contract order to 83 trainsets…”
- Citizen Versus Developer? No! It’s Citizen As Developer. - The Strong Towns Podcast (video) RECOMMENDED 2X SPEED
- REFERRAL: Podcast subscription
- “No neighborhood should experience radical change, but no neighborhood should be exempt from change”
- NOTE: Because development is stuck in stasis between people who want housing to be affordable and people who want housing prices to go up, along with a restrictive zoning process, the only developments that are worth all of this trouble for developers are very large. This leads to the citizen vs. developer dynamic where the developer is always some out-of-town corporation that just wants to make a buck while destroying the character of your neighborhood.
- Taking Sidewalks Seriously - Alan Ehrenhalt (article)
- Linked study about how cities on average spend 1% of infra budget on sidewalks
- “Back in 2008, a countywide study estimated that the Arlington sidewalk network was unlikely to be completed for 25 to 30 years”
- How will Virginia’s new Office of Trails spend $89 million? - Wyatt Gordon (article)
- NOTE: Senator Emmett Hanger (R-Augusta) is behind this
- “Advocates hope the process for picking projects can be as removed from politics as possible through a potential prioritization process similar to SMART SCALE, which seeks to remove pork barrel preferences from transportation planning.”
- NOTE: Lynchburg “Peaks to Creeks” trail is one of these
- NOTE: Office will assemble a statewide trails plan similar to the statewide rail plan
- Brightline delays start of Orlando trips again - WPTV News (video)
- All Aboard with Stephen: Personal Connection (Part 2) - Amtrak (video)
- All Aboard With Stephen: Personal Connection - Amtrak (video)
- The Insane Ways Traffic Engineers Try to Make Streets “Safe” For Walking - CityNerd (video)
- NOTE: RRFB stands for Rapid Rectangular Flashing Beacon
- 540- The Siren of Scrap Metal - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- The Fastest Way To Remove Parking Mandates: Change One Word - Seairra Sheppard (article)
- This man built his office inside an elevator - Tom Scott (video)
- Here’s to Urban Parenthood - Joshua L. Sohn (article)
- Stew’s U.S. High Speed Rail News September 2023 ++ CAHSR Brightline Acela NEC Texas Central Cascadia - Lucid Stew (video)
- The Philadelphia Project that’s TOO Successful /// Hovcart Ebike - Alan Fisher (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- Where do fonts come from? This one business, mostly - Sara Friedman (article)
- WATCH LIVE: Amtrak CEO testifies before House hearing on improving train operations - PBS NewsHour (video)
- New Era of Rail: Portal North Bridge Project Update - Amtrak (video)
- Lynchburg Planning Commission 8-24-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Virginia State Trails Advisory Committee Oct. 27, 2022 - DCRVirginia (video)
- New horror movie ‘Lesions’ stirring up buzz around the Hill city - WFXR NEWS (video)
- Is Hot Beer Making a Comeback? - Clayton Schuster (article) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: glühbier (glow beer) is a German type of mulled beer
- Dovetail Brewery (Chicago, IL)
- Primitive Beers (Denver, CO)
- Cohesion Brewing (Denver, CO)
- WeldWerks (Denver, CO)
- Unguent
- Aleberry
- Bread Sop
- “Beers at the pop-ups are heated either in a percolator or using a more traditional method by inserting a red-hot poker into a freshly poured pint. The poker doesn’t get the beer as warm as a percolator. It does, however, create a marshmallow-like foam on top.”
- “The best styles for mulling are typically from the tangy world of sours and lambics, as well as malt-forward styles like bocks.”
- Residents Invited to Participate in the City of Lynchburg’s Comprehensive Plan Kick Off (Aug. 31) - City of Lynchburg (press release)
- Amtrak’s Long Distance Trains: Not Just “Land Cruises” - Jarrett Walker (article)
- Amtrak is bringing High Speed Rail to Texas?! - RMTransit (video)
- NOTE: I guess I was mistaken for Dallas to Houston route being entirely abandoned. I thought it had been scrapped in lieu of Dallas to Fort Worth HSR. Maybe both are under consideration.
-
[Metrolink Arrow Service Review / Overview / Analysis Stadler FLIRT 5K Subs Thank You - Lucid Stew (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSQDHBoZx8) - Measure Speed With Raspberry Pi + OpenCV + Python - Core Electronics (video)
- REFERRAL: Joel G.
- Commonwealth Transportation Board Meeting – May 24, 2023 - VDOT LIVE (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Special Called Meeting 8-15-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- It’s Time to Reshape the Federal Document That Shapes Our Streets: The MUTCD - NACTO (article)
- Yellow: Inside American Trucking’s Largest Bankruptcy ++ WSJ What Went Wrong - Wall Street Journal (video)
- REFERRAL: Youtube homepage
- NOTE: LTL Carrier means “less than load”, which means that they pick up and drop off partial trailer loads to customers
- When The Housing Crisis Breaks The Political Spectrum - Oh The Urbanity! (video) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Video subscriptions
- Why I have Hope for American Transit - RMTransit (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscriptions
- Amtrak’s Endless Ridership-vs-Coverage Problem - Jarrett Walker (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Blog subscriptions
- Passenger Rail Developments in North Carolina - High Speed Rail Alliance (video)
- This town banned cars (except tiny electric ones) - Tom Scott (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscriptions
- Poisonous Pietism ++ Two Kingdoms Theology ++ with Dr. Joe Boot - Right Response Ministries (video) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: In pietism view, he says church focuses on private faith, and state focuses on public reason.
- “What make the Christian perspective unique is a creational worldview.”
- “Abraham Kuyper actually crystallized that distinction…let me quote him quickly…he says that “Instituted church finds her province bounded by her offices, and these offices are limited to the ministry of the word, the sacraments, benevolence, and church government. All other expressions of the Christian life do not work by the organs of those special offices but by the organs of the recreated life: The Christian family by the believing father and mother, Christian art by the believing artist, and Christian schools by the believing magister.’”
- NOTE: Agree with a lot in here, but need more examples of how this guy imagines Christian intersection with government working out.
- Designing Urban Places that Don’t Suck - Not Just Bikes (video) RECOMMENDED
- Western charm, convenience coming downtown with new Trading Post store, event center - Rachael Smith (article)
- Say Goodbye to Permissionless Travel - Matt Welch (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “Starting at a so-far-unspecified date in early 2024, Americans and residents of 62 other countries that currently enjoy visa-free visitation to the Schengen Area of the E.U. will need to pay a fee and submit an online application (including biometric information, work experience, medical conditions, and initial itinerary), then pass a criminal/security background check…”
- ETIAS
- Beer Taxonomy. Part 1 of 5- Deconstructing “Lager” & “Ale” - Erin (article) RECOMMENDED
- People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features - Melinda Wenner Moyer (article)
- Rep. Good tried to get a Lynchburg council member to back his choice for mayor. Why that’s unusual. - Dwayne Yancey (article) RECOMMENDED
- Teaching McLuhan: Understanding Understanding Media - David Bobbitt (article)
- Get the bottles back: AB InBev director discusses reuse scalability ahead of Rethinking Materials - Joshua Poole (article)
- NOTE: Basically the answer is that they have no system for reclaiming bottles right now but they want to but they want to implement it in some fell swoop
- Florida’s High Speed Rail Corridor – Brightline Origins - Lucid Stew (video)
- 544- Chick Tracts - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- Taxonomy of procrastination - Dynomight (article) RECOMMENDED
- 56 - Michael Rosmer: The Multi-Grid Approach - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Obnoxiously buzzwordy, but the idea about being able to access countries with non-correlated economies, climates, or political regimes makes sense.
- Arrested Mobility with Charles Brown - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Modern Streetcars: Waste of Money or City-Building Miracle? - CityNerd (video)
- 23. Unenclosed Children School Sucks: Higher Education For Self-Liberation (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- 20. Don’t Be Anyone’s Useful Idiot - School Sucks: Higher Education For Self-Liberation (podcast episode)
- Arthur Berman: “Peak Oil - The Hedonic Adjustment” - The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens (podcast episode)
- Should You Fear AI? - The Isaac Morehouse Podcast (podcast episode)
- John Kitzhaber: “What Makes a Healthy Society?” - The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens (podcast episode)
- “The healthcare system has very little to do with health… it’s an after-the-fact acute care system”
- NOTE: most OECD nations spend same amount on health, which is medical care + social services. The US just spends vastly more on medical care and much less on social services.
- Economics Explained is Misled about Induced Demand - Alan Fisher (video)
- Episode 432: Why Public Space Matters - Talking Headways (podcast episode)
- Wirecutter: Brian Lam - How I Built This with Guy Raz (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- The Jackson Water Crisis Is Not a Fluke—Your City Could Be Next - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- The ”Other Story” of Buffalo - Upzoned (podcast episode)
- Collateral Damage: Theresa’s Story - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Local Bike to Work Day promotes green transportation and healthier lifestyle - Rachael Smith (article)
- On the Conservative Reaction to 15-Minute Cities - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- The Case For True High Speed Rail In The United States - Lucid Stew (video)
- The Most Evil Building in Europe - Hoog (video)
- How the World’s Most Dangerous Country Solved Murder - Wendover Productions (video)
- Why the American Lawn REALLY sucks - Hoog (video)
- The Dutch Aren’t Perfect - Hoog (video)
- Europe’s Largest Brain Drain and Lost Startups - Hoog (video)
- The end of the accounting search - Jonathan Corbet (article)
- Litter and circles of internalization - Dynomight (article) RECOMMENDED
- Why the Japanese don’t litter - Richard Mulvihill (article) RECOMMENDED
- “The public signs in America threaten, beg, and fine people to just put their garbage in a can. Surveys also point to the top 3 reasons why Americans litter. 1) Laziness. 2.) There is already garbage on the ground. 3.) Somebody will pick it up. These are reasons that never even occur to the Japanese. In Japan, they want you to ‘not litter’, but they also want you to keep your garbage and take it home with you.”
- The Face of Litter - Ecozine Staff (article)
- 130,000 Reasons Why Data Science Can Help Cleanup San Francisco - Aleksey Bilogur (article)
- “The cleaner the street, the more slowly it accumulates new litter. The volume of litter picked up on Polk Street has descended precipitously over time. And while it’s impossible to know for sure what caused it, it’s easy to see how the constant street presence and cleanup work done by the Rubbish team has had an impact”
- Can a Psychology Theory Explain Why Drivers Hate Cyclists? - Tanner Garrity (article)
- The strange psychological phenomenon that explains why people hate cyclists - Thom Dunn (article)
- “For whatever reason, people have largely come to accept the presence of cars, and an infrastructure built to accommodate them above all. There are lots of shitty drivers out there, of course, but that’s treated as an accepted, normalized phenomenon._ Bikes_, however, are different — so when there’s a bad bicycle, it’s an extra-bad indictment on all bicycles!”
- Fundamental attribution error
- New Studies Show Some Motorists Hate Cyclists, Won’t Ever Slow Down When Overtaking - Carlton Reid (article)
- Why Do People Hate Cyclists? - Jennifer Evans-Cowley (article)
- “The preliminary results find that pedestrians, vehicles, and bicycles do not follow the rules of the road. Vehicles rarely signal when passing a bicycle. Pedestrians routinely jaywalk without looking. And bicyclists rarely stop at stop signs. It is no wonder that drivers get mad at cyclists, cyclists are frustrated by pedestrians, and so on.”
- ALDI coming soon to Wards Road - Kaylee Shipley (article)
- The Top 10 High Speed Rail Systems in the World! - RMTransit (video)
- A simple water heater is more clever than it seems - Technology Conections (video)
- Where Have All the Black Men Gone? - Mike Maciag (article) RECOMMENDED
- Stew’s News U.S. High Speed Rail Monthly – May ‘23 – CAHSR Brightline Acela Texas Central Cascadia - Lucid Stew (video)
- Parallel Systems Autonomous Pod Train is an Obvious Grift - Alan Fisher (video)
- Too Many People are Going Outside - Wendover Productions (video)
- Can ‘Personal Rapid Transit’ Really Replace Buses and Trains? - Kea Wilson (article)
- The U.S. Is Preparing To Put Billions Into High-Speed Rail - Alan Ohnsman (article)
- The Hidden Cost of Gasoline - Kate Yoder (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Future of Transport Does Not Lie in a Pod - RMTransit (video)
- The first jungle gym was meant to hack kids’ brains - Tom Scott (video)
- What Happened to Amtrak’s New Acela Trains? - Alan Fisher (video)
- The Native American State That Never Was - Johnny Harris (video)
- Ending parking mandates isn’t just for big, transit-rich cities! Ask Fayetteville - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- “We’ve had precisely zero issue with this at all. In fact it’s just been very quiet…to the extent that I was very surprised to hear from Katie…in fact I think I’d forgotten about it.”
- “One thing I’ve learned through the years that developers like the least is uncertainty. They like to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible when they are evaluating a site…and that’s really where the genesis of this reform was…this amendment came ot of conversations with people repeatedly on certain specific building lots.”
- Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems - James Somers RECOMMENDED
- The Growing Revolt Against the US Dollar - Wendover Productions (video)
- Tennessee study of passenger rail potential will recommend the state consider a route to Bristol - Susan Cameron (article)
- The unusual demographics that are driving potential school closings in Lynchburg - Dwayne Yancey (article)
- Privatism - R. Dowling (definition) RECOMMENDED
- Stew’s News U.S. High Speed Rail Monthly – July 2023 – CAHSR Brightline Acela Texas Central Cascadia - Lucid Stew (video)
- The Temptation of Illiberalism in Theologically Conservative Christian Circles: An Initial Take - Brian J. Auten (speech transcript) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Joseph M.
- “‘Reactive Orthodoxy’ has a distinctive politics, which Riccardi-Swartz describes as an outgrowth of ‘nostalgic apocalypticism,’ a ‘protective’ politics which aims to create a ‘Christian America’ centered around three much less liberal democratic and less modernist prescriptions: the pre-Revolutionary Russian Orthodox tradition, a return to Christian monarchy, and agrarianism.” (pp. 5)
- The INCUP Secret: 5 Motivating Factors for ADHDers - Ashley Henshaw (article)
- Blue Ridge Trolley - Herbert H. Harwood, Jr. (book, SBN 0870950347)
- ‘Much easier to say no’: Irish town unites in smartphone ban for young children - Rory Carroll (article)
- Unfit for Work: The startling rise of disability in America - Chana Joffe-Walt (article) RECOMMENDED
- https://humantransit.org/2023/06/the-old-old-idea-of-high-tech-cars.html - Jarrett Walker (article) RECOMMENDED
- It’s Not the Chemicals, It’s the Cages - DanceSafe (article) RECOMMENDED
- Speed matters: Why working quickly is more important than it seems - James Somers (article) RECOMMENDED
- I had to throw out my script about this submarine simulator - Tom Scott (video)
- Why China and the USA are Fighting Over Greenland - Johnny Harris (video)
- Everything Must Be Paid for Twice - David Cain (article)
- The Dumbest Excuse for Bad Cities - Not Just Bikes (video)
- LYH pursues expanded air service opportunities with American Airlines, ultra-low-cost carriers, focused on meeting passenger demand, market potential - Rachael Smith (article)
- Lynchburg City Council votes to lower real estate tax rate - Hayden Robertson (article)
- How To Choose A Power Tool Brand - Rag ‘n’ Bone Brown (video)
- NOTE: Based on this video, as well as the fact that Makita has a wide product line and the broadest array of string trimmers, I decided to go in on Makita. I also like teal!
- Neil Postman: A civilized man in a century of barbarism - Jay Rosen (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Company Changing Rail in America - RMTransit (video)
- Ian Lockwood: Thoughts From an Engineer - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Regrid
- Dan Burden
- NOTE: Dan Burden invented the ‘road diet’ term
- NOTE: The term ‘complete streets’, while popularized by Barbara McCann, was coined by David Goldberg
- NOTE: City wealth is like GDP for cities
- NOTE: Houston spends about 16% of city wealth on transportation, while NYC spends about %10, Toronto spends about 7%, and Copenhagen spends about 4%
- NOTE: In rural areas, things are inherently far apart, so high speeds make sense. In cities, these high speeds are not necessary, and when encouraged, cause tons of safety issues.
- NOTE: Metrics that aim to maximize transport speed, like levels of service, tend to spread cities out
- NOTE: West palm beach used to be a dilapidated city…not a great place to be, and things began to come back when they started slowing streets down
- Stew’s News U.S. High Speed Rail Monthly ++ April 2023 ++ CAHSR Brightline West Acela Texas Central ++ Lucid Stew (video)
- Change My Mind: Density Increases Local But Decreases Global Prices - Scott Alexander (article) RECOMMENDED
- Pro-Life Comedy in London (full version) ++ Nicholas De Santo - Anglo Italian Comedy (video) RECOMMENDED
- Is Life Better in the USA or Europe? (An Honest Review) - Nathaniel Drew (video)
- Rite Aid managed to lose more than $600 million during the pandemic while its pharmacy rivals boomed. Inside the CEO’s high-stakes turnaround plan - Phil Wahba (article)
- School funding, real estate tax rate take center stage again as Lynchburg City Council nears tax rate adoption - Bryson Gordon (article)
- Pluralistic: How Amazon makes everything you buy more expensive, no matter where you buy it - Cory Doctorow (article)
- The Struggle of Success - Van Neistat (video)
- The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise - Marc Brooker (article)
- NOTE: Doing the thing, collecting the kit, talking about the thing, and talking about the kit
- Highlights from my interview with Conversations with a Calvinist - Redeemed Zoomer (video)
- You’d Be Happier Living Closer to Friends. Why Don’t You? - Anne Helen Petersen (article)
- “High-density urban neighborhoods would theoretically be the best place to build a super-close-proximity-intimate-friend-situation, but it’s so expensive and cumbersome to move (and if you have rent control, forget it, you’re never leaving) that it just doesn’t happen. You can’t move closer to your friends because having control over where you can move is, itself, a fantasy.”
- Is AI an Entity? A Spiritual Look, with Cyprian - The Isaac Morehouse Podcast (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- An Open Source CPU!? - Linus Tech Tips (video)
- I’ve never seen ANYTHING like this before… Temple OS - Linus Tech Tips (video)
- All Christian denominations explained in 12 minutes - Redeemed Zoomer (video) RECOMMENDED
- Pedestrianized Streets Are Good, So What Are We Even Doing? - CityNerd (video)
- 515 ++ Super Citizens - 99% Invisible (podcast episode) RECOMMENDED
- Tactical Urbanists transform streets overnight - Freethink (video)
- NOTE: Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought it was guerilla urbanism when unauthorized. All of it falls within tactical urbanism, I guess. They may not have wanted to dwell on the crime aspect.
- In love with the state - Tove K (article)
- Giving kids no autonomy at all has become a parenting norm ++ and the pandemic is worsening the trend - Gail Cornwall (article)
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage - Haruki Murakami (book, ISBN13 9780385352109)
- Pizza rolls and the meaning of midcentury food - Doug Mack (article)
- Can North America Have Walkable Cities? ++ Responding to Linus Tech Tips - RMTransit (video)
- Why people thought steel houses were a good idea - Vox (video)
- Is “Small City Urbanism” an Oxymoron? 10 Undervalued Cities to Ponder - CityNerd (video)
- This Tiny Island has Insane Traffic - Not Just Bikes (video)
- The Next Great Cycling City - Not Just Bikes (video)
- MARC eyes regional service expansion to Delaware, Virginia - Bryan P. Sears (article)
- “…Maryland transportation officials are studying potential expansion of MARC service from Martinsburg, West Virginia into Western Maryland. Potential stops include Hagerstown, Hancock and Cumberland.”
- Why Amtrak isn’t building High Speed Rail (And that’s okay for now) - Alan Fisher (video)
- Trad Lyfe: CORRECT or COSPLAY? – The Wickerman (Unreleased Episode) - Silver Eye Society (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- I Guess I’m an Anarchist (For) Now – Peasant Radio #09 - Silver Eye Society (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- STOP Pretending You Still Control Your Attention – Peasant Radio #11 - Silver Eye Society (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- Your city needs a parking reform non-profit! (an interview with Tony Jordan, founder of Portlanders for Parking Reform) - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- Rethinking Our Cities With Jason Slaughter of Not Just Bikes - Conversations with Joe (video) RECOMMENDED
- 515 Super Citizens - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- Pedestrianized Streets Are Good, So What Are We Even Doing? - CityNerd (video)
- REFERRAL: video subscription
- Amtrak’s Genius Plan to SAVE American Rail - Infra (video)
- CONNECT NEC 2035
- NOTE: Editor hilariously uses the NEC digital displays logo as the northeast corridor logo.
- Basics: The Spacing of Stops and Stations - Jarrett Walker (article)
- “In Australia, and in most parts of Europe that I’ve observed, local-stop services generally stop every 400m (1/4 mile, 1320 feet). Some North American agencies stop as frequently as every 100m (about 330 ft).”
- “Close stop spacing means smaller coverage gaps but larger duplicate coverage area. Wide stop spacing means the opposite.”
- Unfortunately, I am the Unabomber - Tove K. (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News (to the blog)
- American offices are half-empty. That could be the next big risk for banks - Julia Horowitz (article)
- Why we hate working for big companies - Luke Kanies (article)
- This high-speed rail project is a warning for the US - Vox (video)
- New Yorkers REACT to New Subway Cars With Wider Doors, All Digital Screens ++ NBC New York - NBC New York (video)
- John Deere’s ongoing GPL violations: What’s next - Denver Gingerich (article)
- Lynchburg’s plans for parking with addition of concert venue - Claire Foley (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- I’ve been employed in tech for years, but I’ve almost never worked - Emmanuel Maggiori (article)
- [Density Matters, So Let’s Make Every City a 5-Minute City (Not 15) - CityNerd (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzIx88f5AYI
- Bitcoin Clarity ++ Fundamentals Over Price Hype - BraveTheWorld (video) RECOMMENDED
- The REAL Red-Pill on Free Will! - Luke Smith (video)
- NOTE: Calls out the paralyzing determinism of reformed bros and internet atheists alike
- Slowmadding CDMX - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- NOTE: Seems like a slowmad is a [digital] nomad that stays in one place for a number of months instead of constantly traveling
- NOTE: CDMX is short for Ciudad de Mexico
- Jarrett Walker: Transit Truths - Chattanooga Design Studio (video) RECOMMENDED
- City of Lynchburg Comprehensive Plan 2013-2030 (report))
- “Downtown will continue to strengthen its position as the heart of the region’s public, cultural, and social life.” (pp. 7)
- NOTE: This document ceaslessly makes bold, dubious claims about reality like the authors are trying to manifest things into existence by declaring that they already exist. Weird.
- “Better Streets serve all modes of transportation and are designed to support the delivery of all services while enhancing neighborhood character…” (pp. 11)
- Proffers
- “Establish appropriate access management strategies and internal circulation patterns along commercial corridors to improve public safety and the long-term viability of these corridors.” (pp. 15)
- NOTE: Hooray for stroad prevention!
- “LU-3.4: Minimize land use conflicts between commercial, industrial and residential developments through active code enforcement and design enhancements as sites are redeveloped or changes of use occur. LU-3.5: Facilitate creative residential, commercial and mixed-use development designs that create vibrant, healthy neighborhoods.”
- NOTE: On one hand, the writers of this report believe that commercial, industrial, and residential uses are inherently in conflict. On the other hand, they intend to ‘facilitate mixed-use development designs’ that put at least commercial and residential uses together. This makes no sense to me. If any of the authors are reading this, please send me an email to help me understand the nuance, if it exists.
- “Upon the completion and adoption of neighborhood and corridor plans, update the Comprehensive Plan as appropriate to ensure consistency.” (pp. 19)
- NOTE: Seems like comprehensive plan or comprehensive plan legislation causes city planners to identify study areas for more specific plans, then the planners study the areas and make reports, and the creation of these reports triggers an update of the comprehensive plan.
- “Reinvent the river as a place.” (pp. 20)
- NOTE: Haha what!?
- NOTE: Below are the verb-object pairs used in the goals for each area and corridor studied:
- Downtown and Riverfront:
- maintain downtown
- create loop
- connect/extend neighborhoods
- reinvent river
- acknowledge gateways
- intertwine activities/design/development
- Midtown:
- establish neighborhood
- respect/maintain/restore neighborhoods
- establish streets
- maintain/enhance connectivity
- preserve/enhance resources
- Fifth Street:
- revitalize corridor
- provide access
- revitalize corridor/neighborhoods
- improve street
- improve environment
- honor history
- meet needs
- promote investments
- Wards Road:
- improve safety/convenience
- provide vision/blueprint
- Campbell Avenue and Odd Fellows Roads:
- create corridors/neighborhoods
- create streets
- promote investment
- Tyreeanna:
- revitalize/redevelop tyreeanna
- create neighborhood
- conserve/stabilize/revitalize neighborhood
- provide transportation/facilities
- enhance opportunities
- preserve integrity/character
- revitalize corridors/districts
- Tinbridge Hill:
- update plan
- identify ways
- address housing/crime/opportunities/recreation/needs
- inventory condition
- encourage participation
- develop model
- identify assets/challenges
- focus resources
- Downtown and Riverfront:
- “Support initiatives to increase permanent affordable rental and housing ownership opportunities” (pp. 24)
- “Ensure that zoning regulations facilitate the creation of a variety of safe, affordable and innovative housing options that serve the community’s diverse needs, including the establishment of small lot, attached units and other housing types that achieve densities established in the future land use map.” (pp. 25)
- “Connect neighborhoods through street, sidewalk and trail improvements.” (pp. 25)
- “Enhance neighborhood access to work, shopping, parks, schools and public services through better sidewalk, street, transit, trail and bikeway connections.” (pp. 25)
- “Implement the greenway plan and evaluate opportunities to expand the system along the City’s streams and other green corridors.” (pp. 28)
- NOTE: I guess the ‘greenway plan’ is a colloquialism for the parts of the Parks & Rec master plan that recommend and specify greenway facilities.
- “PR-1.4 Connect greenways to parks, natural areas, schools and other community facilities, such as the James River Heritage Trail through trails and sidewalks to facilitate bike and pedestrian access” (pp. 28)
- “PR-1.5 Encourage appropriate recreational use of and access to the James River and Blackwater Creek ‘blueways.’”
- I wonder if commuting to work is considered “appropriate recreational use”.
- “PR-3.3 Maintain a 10-year capital plan to acquire, develop, improve and rehabilitate parks and recreation facilities in accordance with the adopted master plan and levels of services.” (pp. 29)
- “T-1.3 Establish target levels of service (for vehicles, bicycles pedestrian and transit) and use those levels of service to evaluate the need for street improvements, transportation system management measures and access design improvements during the capital planning and development review processes.” (pp. 30)
- Put a task on my list to email the planning department about what these levels of service are and where I can learn about changes to them.
- “T-1.6 Include the City’s bikeway system as part of the City’s overall transportation system and include bike lanes and bikeways within the City’s capital improvement planning process.” (pp. 31)
- “T-1.10 Coordinate with Amtrak to continue and expand rail passenger service.” (pp. 31)
- NOTE: Unsure of what they mean by this but ok.
- “T-1.13 Maintain the Airport Master Plan to ensure that improvements meet FAA requirements to accommodate regional jets and larger aircraft” (pp. 32)
- NOTE: Could not find this “Airport Master Plan with a quick web search, so I set a task to inquire about it
- “T-2.2 Develop a multi-modal transportation system that supports a vital and growing economy, is economically sustainable, safe, affordable and environmentally friendly and offers seamless connections between transportation modes.”
- NOTE: Sounds good to me!
- “T-2.4 Coordinate with private property owners and neighborhood groups to identify opportunities to better connect streets, pedestrian and bicycle facilities.” (pp. 32)
- “T-2.5 Promote transit supportive design for development within walking distance of existing and proposed transit routes.” (pp. 32)
- “T-2.7 Coordinate bikeway and trail design and construction with the provision of adequate on-street facilities to connect neighborhoods with schools, parks, shopping areas, other community facilities and regional trails” (pp. 32)
- “PU-1.12 Develop a policy to fund and extend City sewer service to areas served by existing or failing septic systems.” (pp. 35)
- NOTE: Are these public, private, or shared septic systems? Why must users currently served by septic systems (low density development) now be served by the city sewer system? I’m skeptical of whether this makes long-term financial sense.
- “Comprehensive Water Quality Master Plan” (pp. 36)
- NOTE: Never heard of this before. Set myself a task to find it.
- “PU-5.2 Evaluate beneficial uses of bio-solids including but not limited to: land application, methane generation, and power generation” (pp. 37)
- NOTE: Poop power plants!
- “PFS-3.2 Involve citizens in the development and review of level of service standards as well as plans for new public facilities.” (pp. 38)
- NOTE: I wonder if/how citizens have been involved in reviewing level of service standards
- “Department directors should provide to the Planning Commission an annual review of comprehensive plan related activities prior to the initiation of the budget process each year.” (pp. 39)
- NOTE: Would be interesting to make a goal/year spreadsheet with color codes to indicate which department took action on a particular goal in a particular year.
- NOTE: Seems like neighborhood, area, or department master plans exist at the pleasure of the comprehensive plan. The comprehensive master plan is not a compilation of area/department plans.
- “The goals and policies describe what the City wants to become and how decision-makers should respond to varied circumstances.” (pp. 41)
- NOTE: Well that’s a bold and presumptuous statement if I ever heard one!
- “James River Interceptor 3A…James River Interceptor 3B” (pp. 43)
- NOTE: Appparently some kind of expensive sewer line
- “Wards Road Pedestrian & Bicycle Study” (pp. 43)
- NOTE: Wrote self a note to locate this
- NOTE: Wondering what the relationship between community development and planning department is.
- “Burton Creek Interceptor” (pp. 43)
- “Greenways/Blueways Plan” (pp. 45)
- NOTE: need to locate this
- “Blackwater Creek Natural Area Master Plan” (pp. 45)
- NOTE: need to locate this
- “Creekside Trail Extension Master Plan” (pp. 45)
- NOTE: need to locate this
- NOTE: seems like every park has or will have a master plan
- “Midtown Connector Construction 2013-2015” (pp. 45)
- NOTE: This was an upgrade to parts of Langhorne Road, Park Avenue, and Kemper Street
- “Develop Multimodal System Design Guidelines, 2014”
- NOTE: set myself a task to locate this
- “Virginia’s First Cities, of which Lynchburg is a member, is a coalition of 14 of the most fiscally stressed cities in Virginia.”
- NOTE: 37.8% of land in the ‘city’ is used for “Low Density Residential” development!
- “Encouraging coordinated planning for large tracts of vacant, developable land that incorporates smart growth techniques on key gray-field and green-field sites throughout the City.” (pp. 57)
- NOTE: Pittman Plaza and Albert Lankford area, among others, are designated for smart growth strategy
- NOTE: This is the first of two mentions of “smart growth” in the whole document. Wrote self a note to find the book on this topic.
- “The Cheese Creek area is likely to develop in a pattern similar to Wyndhurst’s with a mix of housing types and a community commercial area with a “Main Street” character that serves as a central retail area for the northwestern part of the City.” (pp. 68)
- “Interconnected grid street systems, though the grid will be somewhat limited by the terrain of the Candlers Mountain area.” (pp. 68)
- NOTE: Glory hallelujiah!
- “By encouraging the clustering of similar uses in these designated areas, the City seeks to preserve and expand the City’s employment base, concentrate infrastructure investment, and minimize potential use conflicts. (pp. 70) NOTE: …and ensure nobody can easily walk to work.
- “The City adopted a Future Land Use Map in its 1984 Plan. Significant amendments to the map were made in 1989, 1992, 1994 and 2003.” (pp. 71)
- “Concentrating businesses, rather than scattering them throughout the City, means business users are more likely to meet their needs in the same area. Less travel will be necessary, thereby lessening traffic congestion…” (pp. 85)
- NOTE: So meddlesome and idiotic! Citation needed for the traffic comment.
- NOTE: Contrasts ‘traditional neighborhoods’ with ‘conventional subdivisions’
- “To improve connections within neighborhoods, the City should work with neighborhoods to extend sidewalks and pedestrian paths between residential areas and parks, natural areas, institutions, and other public amenities.” (pp. 87)
- NOTE: for some reason businesses are always excluded from these ‘things-to-connect’ lists. Seems like public amenities are considered sacred and businesses are considered profane.
- Virginia First Cities
- “The City should also limit the conversion of single family homes into multifamily use. Efforts to consolidate parcels for larger-scale redevelopment efforts should be encouraged, where appropriate, to enable developers to provide a variety of housing types to meet the needs of residents of all income levels.” (pp. 96)
- NOTE: Don’t take initiative and split your home into multiple units! We’re working with developers to buy up your whole neighborhood, bulldoze it, and build exactly the kind of housing you ought to want. “The City is currently enforcing the 2009 Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC) and it’s referenced standards, as adopted on March 1, 2011. These referenced standards include the 2009 International Existing Building Code…” (pp. 106)
- “…the City recently adopted two institutional zoning districts – an IN-1 district intended for institutions that are smaller in scale and located primarily within or adjacent to residential areas and an IN-2 district intended for large scale institutions primarily located within or adjacent to non-residential area.” (pp. 109)
- “Those areas of the City that feature a highly dissected landscape of narrow ridges and steep-sided valleys present a challenge to developers, especially for large retail and industrial buildings needing large areas for parking.” (pp. 111-112)
- NOTE: A great reason to reduce or eliminate parking requirements.
- “The increased impact of floods appears to be due to increased urbanization of stream watersheds, not only in the City, but also in neighboring counties.” (pp. 113)
- NOTE: Another reason to reduce or eliminate parking requirements, allowing people to build developments with fewer impervious surfaces.
- “Land use patterns that promote redevelopment, connectivity and an appropriate mix of uses also reduce emissions while providing for more efficient service delivery and cost savings.” (pp. 117)
- “Several parks, including Miller and Riverside Parks, contain historic City Beautiful landscapes that need to be preserved, improved and interpreted.” (pp. 122)
- “The Plan is also consistent with VTrans2035 (Virginia’s Long-Range Multimodal Transportation Plan) and the Commonwealth’s Six-Year Improvement Plan (SYIP).” (pp. 128)
- NOTE: Made task for self to look up VTrans2035.
- “The City is in the process of preparing Multimodal System Design Guidelines to support its Better streets policy and help achieve the goals of VTrans2035 Corridors of Statewide Significance.” (pp. 128)
- NOTE: Made task to submit FOIA request for Multimodal System Design Guidelines
- “Multimodal System Design Guidelines were created by the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) and are meant to be adapted to individual localities within the state of Virginia. The City is developing Lynchburg’s Multimodal System Design Guidelines that establish short- and long-term transportation priorities that promote multi-modal ism and sustainability.” (pp. 143)
- “Citizens favor expanding the City’s bikeway system. The Regional Bikeway Plan was adopted in October 2010 by the Region 2000 Regional Commission. The plan included off-road bicycle trails along greenways as well as on-road facilities, throughout the region.” (pp. 144)
- “In October 2009, intercity passenger rail service, the first leg of the planned Northeastern Regional Service began from Lynchburg to Boston. Ultimately, the Trans-Dominion Express CTDX) will use existing rail lines to take passengers from Bristol throughout the Commonwealth…” (pp. 147)
- “Despite the growing population in Lynchburg, overall water consumption is declining significantly. Over the past 5 years overall consumption has decreased by nearly 10% with average household consumption dropping by a staggering 17%. This decline in consumption is due to several factors including: installation of low flow fixtures and appliances and customers being more conservation minded.” (pp. 149)
- “Downtown will continue to strengthen its position as the heart of the region’s public, cultural, and social life.” (pp. 7)
- These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us - Not Just Bikes (video)
- NOTE: Has a little more reason vs. vitriol compared to r/f***cars. Wonder how cities have dealt historically with large vehicles. It may be that at no point in history was there space in the streets for large vehicles, so using them was impractical. The romans apparently limited chariot use in city centers, but nothing else is coming to mind.
- The Fifteen Minute City: Carlos Moreno & Catherine Gall Explain To Streetfilms - Streetfilms (video)
- Content Moderation - KRAZAM (video)
- Interview with a Boomer CTO in 2023 - Programmers are also human (video)
- The NEW BEST Railroad in America - Infra (video)
- NOTE: Referenced railage article that mentions they’re considering Atlanta to Charlotte, Northeast corridor, St. Louis to Chicago, and some other corridors!
- The One Tiny Law That Keeps Amtrak Terrible - Wendover Productions (video)
- Trackless Trams: Yet Another Gadgetbahn - RMTransit (video)
- Walkable Parking: Why Most Parking Should Be Public - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Site-focused mindset of parking where every building has parking for its exclusive use, vs. Park once and walk mindset, where spots are shared among uses.
- How to Buy a House - Michael Bluejay (guide) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “The real benefit from buying is that you freeze your monthly payment for 15 to 30 years, and then you stop paying it altogether.”
- “To make it easier to pay for the first two, your lender provides a service called escrow. Your monthly mortgage payment includes amounts for taxes and insurance, which the bank holds for you, and then once a year they send the taxes to the tax assessor, and the insurance premium to your insurance agent. This service is free.”
- ‘Your lender will give you an estimate of closing costs on the purchase of a particular house you’ve selected. This is called a “Good Faith Estimate” (“GFE”). If they don’t give it to you, ask for it. Then, the day before the closing, ask your lender for the actual “Settlement Statement” (aka “the HUD” or “the HUD-1”), which is the final and complete form with all the numbers for the sale, including the actual closing costs.’
- “In some states the issuance of a title policy isn’t automatic, so make sure your contract says that you get an owner’s title policy. It’s inexpensive and it offers real protection. The cost of the policy is around 0.7% of the house price. A title policy lasts forever (or until you sell the house). The amount of coverage in a title policy is generally the sale price of the house.”
- “If you’re going to ask the seller to change the terms, give them two or three different choices. If you give them just one option, they’ll view their decision as between accepting a concession or rejecting it. But if you give them a few different choices, then hopefully they’ll view their decision as which concession they’ll accept. This won’t work every time, but it’s an old and useful sales trick: get the other party to choose among various options that all benefit you, vs. choosing between accepting your offer and rejecting it.”
- “if you take 30-year, make sure the lender allows you to pay it off in 15 without penalty”
- Childhoods of exceptional people - Henrik Karlsson (article) RECOMMENDED
- “As children, they were integrated with exceptional adults—and were taken seriously by them. When Bertrand Russell, at five years old, refused to believe the earth was round, his grandparents didn’t laugh him off—they called in the vicar of the parish to reason Bertrand out of his misconception.”
The adults had high expectations of the children; they assumed they had the capacity to understand complex topics, and therefore invited them into serious conversations and meaningful work, believing them capable of growing competent rapidly.”
- NOTE: Tutoring 1-4 hours a day is more efficient for knowledge transfer than teaching. It leaves more free time for the children to play and explore things on their own.
- “John von Neumann’s father would get so excited about their discussions that if they were, say, talking about machine weaving, he would set out to find a Jacquard automatic loom they could study.
Marie Curie’s father built a laboratory in their apartment so they could study chemistry.”
- “(James only seems to have been able to do this on walks, however. When he tried to instruct his son in the study, he would, perhaps because of the more formal setting, use less effective pedagogies - hammering John Stuart in the head with instructions, failing to give examples or demonstrate the skills he was trying to impart—resulting in a lot of pain and frustration.)
On the walks, James would refrain from giving lectures until John Stuart had himself struggled with the problems and gotten a visceral feel for their difficulty:”
- Valerie Pachner & August Diehl Speak On “A Hidden Life,” A Film Based On True Events - BUILD Series (video)
- NOTE: Malick is definitely influenced by Heidegger
- Terrence Malick & How To Save Christian Films - Why It’s Great (video)
- NOTE: Suggests that “Christian films” typically dont’ allow characters to go through doubt, while terence Malick’s films do.
- In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex - Nathaniel Philbrick (book, ISBN13 9780670891573)
- NOTE: Nantucketers called an aimless walk “a rantom scoot”
- Parkinson’s Law - Cyril Northcoate Parkinson (book, ISBN13 9781034965398)
- “It is now known that perfection of planned layout is achieved only by institutions on the point of collapse” (pp. 60)
- “During the period of exciting discovery or progress there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters. The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done. Perfection, we know is finality, and finality is death.” (pp. 61)
- “Examples abound of new institutions coming into existence with a full establishment of deputy directors, consultants, and executives; all these coming together in a building specially designed for their purpose. And experience proves that such an institution will die. It is choked by its own perfection. It cannot take root for lack of soil. It cannot grow naturally for it is already grown.”
- NOTE: He says that at parties, people enter and go to the left side of the room, that they flow around in a clockwise direction, and that the most important people are in the flow rather than standing at the sides of the room talking to people they talk with every week. Moreover, he says that the important people at a function don’t arrive on time, but intentionally somewhat late, as they have other things going on and want their arrival to be observed by as many people as possible.
- The Church Before the Watching World - Francis A. Schaeffer (book, ISBN10 0877845425)
- “…we must go back 250 years to Germany when German theological liberalism was born. At that particular time the German universities and German intellectuals were moving towards modern naturalism. That is, they were moving away from the concept held by early scientists (such men as Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Galileo and Newton) who believed in the uniformity of natural causes in a limited system open to reordering by both God and man. And they were moving into the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system, a concept which makes everything that exists a cosmic machine.” (pp. 11)
- “…theological faculties became isolated from the other faculties, and, not being able to stand alone, these faculties capitulated in their theology by accepting the naturalism of the other faculties.” (pp. 11)
- “In church history a cycle seems to recur: Living orthodoxy moves to dead orthodoxy and then to heterodoxy.” (pp. 12)
- “God made man in his own image, and this means, among other things, that man too can act into the cause-and-effect flow of history.” (pp. 13)
- “Naturalism leaves no room for miracle and eventually leaves no room for the significance of man.” (pp. 15)
- “During the period between the Renaissance and Reformation, and the age of Rosseau, Kant, Hegel and Kierkegaard, the mood of secular thinkers was optimistic. They believed that on. the basis of rationalism, man could rationally find a unified answer to all knowledge and life.” (pp. 15)
- “It was this [theologically liberal] drift that laid the base for the cultural, sociological, moral, legal, and governmental changes from that time to the present. Without this drift in the churches, I am convinced that the changes from a rural to urban society, etc., would not have produced the same results they now have” (pp. 65)
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
- Latitudinarian
- “…he has been given a repetitive orthodoxy, and sometimes the thing he has been taught to stand for is only a projection of the real position and not the position itself.” (pp. 85)
- How Every Small Town Is Made - Matt Mitchell (video)
- The Electric Shuffle - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- NOTE: He suggests buying an inexpensive induction cooktop that plugs into an outlet if you can’t or won’t use a gas stove.
- Portion of Kemper Street exit to close for 3 months for construction - Caitlyn Frolo (article)
- NOTE: Sidewalk installation!!!
- 10 Walkable US Cities That Won’t Bankrupt You - CityNerd (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- NOTE: Baltimore and Buffalo!
- GLTC chooses Equans, Masabi and the Transit app to deliver solutions modernizing its services - Mass Transit (article)
- REFERRAL: Andrew J
- NOTE: Seems like they’re not using the mobile ticketing offering from Transit App, but integrating other providers.
- Amsterdam Just Got Awesomer - Not Just Bikes (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- Google gave the Shweeb $1,000,000. - Tom Scott (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- ALL THE DRAMA on the Houston-Dallas High Speed Rail Line - Scott Dailey (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube search “texas central high speed rail”
-
[The Biggest Lie in Transit History? It’s “Served” - RMTransit (video)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2Ey8eU5yA) - REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- NOTE: Calls out how transit operators will say suchandsuch place is “served” by transit and call it a day, when the service they provide there is infrequent, doesn’t operate at the times users require it, or doesn’t connect easily with other modes or routes.
- Auckland: unsung parking reform champ - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Important to distinguish public parking, which is available to the public, and public-sector parking, which is operated by a government entity. Many parking facilities are both.
- NOTE: Public pools of parking rather than dedicated parking for every lot allows parking needs to be met with a lower number of spaces, because different uses have different peak occupancy times.
- NOTE: Host refers to the “congestion-free network”, which I suppose is a reference to cycling, BRT, and rail transit networks that don’t suffer from traffic jams
- Letters to the Church: Parts 3 & 4 (Revelation 2:12-29) - Rev. Tony Myers (sermon)
- NOTE: In letter to Thyatira, verse 23 stands out in that it speaks to all churches.
- NOTE: Pergamum was an acropolis with a large library, and was the worship center for Zeus, Athena, and other religious cults.
- NOTE: Balaam is also mentioned in Numbers 24, where he leads Israel into sin.
- NOTE: Manna was gathered for the day and would only last a day. Sacrifices would be offered for the day, but did not continue to cover sins. This passage mentions a hidden manna that does not decay, like that in the ark of the covenant. It is Christ, the bread of life.
- NOTE: Church in Ephesus had lost their first love, while Thyatira was doing greater works than at first.
- Cord Cutting Is Hitting Comcast Harder Than Ever - Karl Bode (article)
- A Cordial Reply to VICE Media - Paul Waggener (video)
- Vikings & Animal Sacrifices: The Pagan Far-Right - VICE (video)
- How Rod Dreher Caused an International Scandal in Eastern Europe - Balázs Gulyás (article)
- Why North American Buses Are Just Worse - RMTransit (video)
- NOTE: Europe has a lot more 100% low-floor buses, while most buses in the USA are 70% low-floor.
- A checkup for the checkup: Do you really need a yearly physical? - Amy Ship, MD (article)
- NOTE: Tldr probably not.
- SANS ICS HyperEncabulator - SANS ICS (video)
- I WILL NOT GO TO RESTAURANTS IN 2023. - Luke Smith (video)
- Lynchburg City Council Work Session 1-24-2023 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- Lynchburg City Council to consider real estate tax rate reduction; public hearing on Parks and Rec plan continues - Sean Tubbs (article)
- Visualizing Fiscal Impacts of Development Patterns: Land Use Stakeholder Group – Joe Minicozzi - Urban3 (video)
- “So Asheville at 14 billion dollars is 7 times the value of Ted Turner, so would a real estate development company worth 14 billion dollars…would they make economic decisions based off whose complaining on Facebook? Of course not. You wouldn’t expect Ted Turner to do that, so why is my community doing that? So if we don’t hold our elected officials to a more data-driven discussion, it’s going to fall down to the politics of what people believe and not necessarily have the data on.”
-
- NOTE: I would like to use a similar visualization for parking utilization
- “…our public officers who handle the finances put roads into an asset schedule, which is insane to me. So when we talk to finance officers I usally tell them–like–look–my computer’s an asset. If I had a delivery vehicle it’s an asset. If I had a piece of real estate, it’s an asset. I can sell the computer, the van, and the real estate. Can you sell your roads? Can Greely sell their roads to Fort Collins? No! That’s a liability.”
- NOTE: Roads cost about $100/year per lane mile for plowing, patching, etc.
- NOTE: Every 10 years, you have to do a millage, which costs 310,000 per lane mile.
- NOTE: Every 50 years, you have to completely reconstruct the road at a cost of 840,000 per lane mile.
- Reader Study: Getting Rich in Manhattan… on $65k/year - Mr. Money Mustache (article)
- guys who fold their beanie - Trevor Wallace (video)
- 5 Steps to Forming a Successful Neighborhood Group - Strong Towns (guide)
- “We’ve found there is a virtuous cycle when Local Conversations take concrete action to build a stronger, more financially resilient city.”
- How to start a movement - Derek Sivers (video) RECOMMENDED
- Does Your City Have Enough Parks? - City Beautiful (video)
- 5 Telltale Signs You’re on the Stroad From Hell - Ben Abramson (article)
- New Lynchburg councilman sues City, LFD, fellow councilman, others after 2021 cartoon post - Claire Foley (article)
- Lindy Effect - Wikipedia contributors (article)
- The REAL Downtown Parking Problem… - ERYNGO URBANISM (video)
- Basic Human Need? Or Investment Asset? Housing Affordability in the US - CityNerd (video)
- Covered Bridges: How to Build and Rebuild Them - Kris de Decker (article)
- In This Housing Fight, It’s Conservative Politicians vs. Conservative Policies - Ben Abramson (article)
- Scientists Want To Make (Some) People More Pessimistic - SciShow (video)
- Parking Reform Made Easy - Richard Willson (article)
- REFERRAL: Minus Minimums - Daniel Baldwin Hess & Jeffrey Rehler (paper)
- “In 1995 and again in 2013, I surveyed Southern California local planners about parking requirements and found a tautological justification for minimum parking requirements: planners wished to ‘ensure an adequate number of parking spaces.’ This response reflects a lack of critical thinking about fundamental public objectives, such as accessibility, economic development, and sustainability.” (pp. 30)
- “[planners] may want the negotiating leverage that excessive parking requirements provide to extract public benefits from developers. Furthermore, planners know that parking is a key point in NIMBY resistance to development, so avoiding parking controversy can help ensure economic development.
- “All the land-use plans, design reviews, and streetscape renderings in the world will not produce desired outcomes if we do not reform parking requirements.”
- “…a community with aggressive goals for transit and non-motorized transportation may decide to adopt lower parking requirements, or to eliminate them. A community with strong economic goals may embrace parking deregulation because it can reduce development cost.”
- “It makes sense to start where there is support, either from elected officials or from community or district stakeholders. Code reformers can work with these stakeholders and produce parking requirement reforms, parking overlay zones, or partial deregulation without creating opposition that might emerge in a citywide effort.”
- Does Your State Have a Marriage Penalty? - Janelle Fritts (article)
- “Under a graduated-rate income tax system, a taxpayer’s marginal income is subject to progressively higher tax rates. A marriage penalty or “marriage tax penalty” exists when a state’s income brackets for married taxpayers filing jointly are less than double the bracket widths that apply to single filers.”
- Electrified rail is the future. Is Virginia all aboard? - Wyatt Gordon (article)
- “‘Double-stacked freight traffic does not work well with catenaries, and part of our agreement with CSX includes that the tracks have to be interoperable, so they can run on our tracks for maintenance purposes,’ McLaughlin said in a phone interview.”
- How Mexico City lost its parking minimums - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)[
- REFERRAL: Podcast subscription
- NOTE: When there’s a parking oversupply, a lot of parking is bundled with particular uses rather than being open to the public
- NOTE: Interviewee said it was important to bring developers…particularly developers of medium and small developments–into the conversation
- You have to keep putting the topic of parking requirements in front of people, or nothing will ever change, because it’s a very boring topic for people
- Life After Lifestyle - Toby Shorin (article)
- “…there is the brand-artist sponsorship, the content marketing advertorial in which brand and artist portray each other as aspirational, and “co-creation” initiatives like the Tom Sachs Nike shoes. The essence of each of these is the elevation of a product to the cultural plane by affiliation with the artist.”
- “…European and American commentators of all political stripes recognize the current cultural moment as one that is stuck in some way. Endless remakes and reboots, endless franchises, cinematic universes, and now metaverses filled with brands who talk to each other; a culture of nostalgia with no real macro narrative. And there is a second common story, one about the decline of religion and the disappearance of civic culture in the US.”
- “…the practices and the moral premises of a subculture always are deferred when put in company hands.”
- Verso Books
- “Arnold was concerned to mould these things toward the pursuit of humanistic perfection. He envisioned national culture, quite explicitly, as a secular replacement for religious virtues. And his reforms were largely successful, with his promotion of “culture” playing an influential role in the expansion of state-funded education and school taxes.”
- “In 2022, the term “culture” has taken on an unquestionable positive moral valence. Along with the veneration of “creators,” “creating culture” has become impossible to disagree with, and the word “community” is blessed with a similar halo of virtue.”
- NOTE: Makes me think of the “Creating our Culture” mural on the building in downtown Lynchburg
- “Under CPSE models, companies brand products. They point to subcultures to justify the products’ existence, and use data marketing to sort people into starterpack-like demographics. Subcultures become consumerized subcultures, composed of products. In the new cultural economy, the culture is the product. It is composed of practices, ideas, and discourses. Products are auxiliary, supportive, but not the main event.”
- “As enthusiastic as I am about more tech wealth pouring into cultural initiatives, the regranting programs that are now so popular are just like software platforms: they outsource your own agency to some imagined future actors.”
- “The further from goods and services you go, the closer you get to ideology and belief.”
- The Nearness
- NOTE: Seems kinda like the new Unitarian Universalism
- Could removing parking requirements help revitalize Virginia’s cities? - Wyatt Gordon (article) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: References initiatives in Richmond & Charlottesville, as well as success story in Buffalo, NY
- A Countercultural Ecology for Spiritual Formation - Paul Loosemore (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Just save your time and read You Are What You Love by James K. A. Smith
- Debunking the Myth That Only Drivers Pay for Roads - Eric Jaffe (article)
- How Are Your State’s Roads Funded? - Janelle Fritts (article)
- NOTE: Virginia covers 41.7% of state and local road spending with road user fees and taxes (33.8% with taxes and 7.9% with tolls and fees). VA ranks 36th among states for the percentage of road costs covered by road users. First is Hawaii at 73.4% and last is Alaska with 12.7%.
- Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Seeks to Expand Housing by Curbing Zoning - Ilya Somin (article)
- Urban planner explains how we can make cities more human-centered - Tucker Carlson via Fox News (video)
- Would You Fall for It? ST08 - Not Just Bikes (video) Give Yourself the Green Light
- Why Switzerland Has 374,142 Bunkers (and likely more) - Johnny Harris (video)
- The Northman - Robert Eggers (film)
2022
- Toxic chemicals in receipts could be making you sick - Jacob Passy (article)
- Bisphenol A (BPA)
- Bisphenol S (BPS)
- “…BPS remains incredibly common. Indeed, many companies swapped it in for BPA. But studies have suggested that it could be as harmful as BPA and could contribute to disorders such as diabetes, asthma and cancer…”
- “Nearly 90 percent of human exposure to BPS can be traced to receipts…”
- A first look at the trains that will replace Amtrak’s 50-year-old rail cars - Luz Lazo (article)
- Greater Lynchburg Transit Company: Operations & Maintenance Center - Wendel Companies (video)
- Liberty Machines™ - Jeff Fong (article) RECOMMENDED
- How Beige Took Over American Homes - Kate Wagner (article)
- Lynchburg sidewalk ordinance gets update - Margaret Carmel (article)
- Lynchburg to create sidewalk rating system for city residents - Courtny Jodon (article)
- “Svrcek said the city is working on a rating system for where you think sidewalks need to go in the city.”
- NOTE: Cannot find anything about this online. Might be related to CVPDC pedestrian work.
- “Svrcek said the city is working on a rating system for where you think sidewalks need to go in the city.”
- Lynchburg addressing walkability with new sidewalks, citizen committee - Carrie Dungan (article)
- REFERRAL: DuckDuckGo search “Lynchburg Virginia sidewalks”
- “The 16-member Lynchburg Pedestrian Advisory Committee began meeting in August. The committee includes representatives from all four wards as well as community members with knowledge of pedestrian needs.”
- NOTE: There’s barely anything about this online. Looks like it might be part of the Central Virginia Planning District Commission’s (CVPDC) Central Virginia Transportation Planning Organization (CVTPO).
- NOTE: I sent a message to CVPDC requesting information.
- “Hitchcock said the committee has several goals — to compile a list of potential sidewalk improvement projects, formulate criteria to rank the projects, provide recommendations to city staff, and develop a sidewalk citizen’s guide.”
- NOTE: I guess a sidewalk citizen’s guide would provide instructions on requesting sidewalks?
- “The Lynchburg Pedestrian Advisory Committee provided three recommendations to city staff for this year’s funding requests — Langhorne Road between Tate Springs and Atherholt roads at an estimated cost of $300,000, along all of Wyndale Drive and to New Covenant Schools on Fleetwood Drive at an estimated cost of $792,000, and filling in all sidewalk gaps on Old Graves Mill Road from Timberlake Road to Graves Mill Road at a cost of $1.5 million. Deberry said staff added Mountain View Drive from Laxton Road to Wood Road to this year’s list because it will tie into future sidewalks on Laxton Road and Wood Road built with VDOT and developer funds. The cost of the Mountain View Drive sidewalk is estimated at $210,000.”
- NOTE: If they were talking about south of Langhorne, it happened, and if they were talking about the north side, it didn’t.
- NOTE: Wyndale and Fleetwood definitely did not happen
- NOTE: Old Graves Mill road definitely did not happen, though I think some recent developments did some of the work for them towards the Timberlake end.
- NOTE: Mountain View Drive did not happen
- Downtown landlords fret over lack of parking - Jonathan D. Epstein (article)
- REFERRAL: Parking spaces become more elusive as downtown Buffalo booms - Jonathan D. Epstein (article)
- NOTE: Article calls parking decks “ramps”…maybe a regional thing
- NOTE: Better title for article would be “Downtown landlords mad that someone else won’t build parking for them”
- Parking spaces become more elusive as downtown Buffalo booms - Jonathan D. Epstein (article)
- REFERRAL: Minus Minimums - Daniel Baldwin Hess & Jeffrey Rehler (paper)
- “‘It’s going to affect businesses downtown,’ said Rocco Termini, owner of Signature Development Buffalo. ‘You’re not going to lease any space in the office buildings in that vicinity because there is no parking.’”
- NOTE: The free market at work! Developers might be bad at determining how much parking to build at first, or try to get the city to build free parking for them, but in the long run, without laws mandating parking minimums or maximums, they’ll build to meet demand.
- Minus Minimums - Daniel Baldwin Hess & Jeffrey Rehler (paper)
- REFERRAL: REMOVING PARKING MINIMUMS - LIKELY CONSEQUENCES (THE BUFFALO STORY) - Cambridge Citizens Coalition (article)
- “…mixed-use developments introduced 53% fewer parking spaces than would have been required by earlier minimum requirements as developers readily took advantage of the newfound possibility to include less off-street parking. Aggregate parking spaces among single-use projects exceeded the earlier minimum requirements, suggesting developers of such projects were less motivated to deviate from accepted practices in determining the parking supply for urban development.”
- “market-driven parking policy”
- NOTE: I like this term
- “These zoning mechanisms limited the potential for parking spillover, a nuisance whereby high demand at one site leads to occupancy of nearby (and in many cases free) on-street parking spaces to the frustration of those at neighboring sites (Nichols, 2019; Shoup, 1999).”
- “The new approach allows developers to provide off-street parking quantities appropriate to their particular project constraints and community context.”
- “Developers can provide more or less parking than the modal share objective for their project (after accounting for TDM strategies); doing so by 10% or more requires written justification (City of Buffalo Mayor’s Office of Strategic Planning, 2017).”
- NOTE: Apparently parking policy is less liberalized than I thought
- “Our research quantified initial results of the reform, but our 2-year time frame may be restrictive because the point at which developers respond to deregulation is unclear. Developers providing fewer parking spaces demonstrated response to the reform, but it is unknown whether those who provided the same amount were simply adhering to the earlier minimum standards or whether they considered the newly available possibility to provide less parking.”
- “Despite the unprecedented scope of the reform, parking lots did not vanish from development proposals. Projects submitting TDM plans still provided 54 parking spaces on average in the first 2 years of the Green Code.”
- “It was also common for developers to avoid seeking variances for an issue that was frequently contentious among neighbors valuing a plentiful supply of off-street parking spaces. A shift in this mindset, particularly among mixed-use developers, appears to have taken place as site plan applications seeking to scale back parking preceded the repeal of MPRs.”
- “Developers supplying excess off-street parking spaces in the short term may find opportunities to share with future developments choosing to provide less parking, a scenario not possible if MPRs set floors for parking quantities on each site.”
- “Supply of off-street automobile parking could increase in response to greater demand in situations where available on-street parking reductions persist or public transit remains unappealing to the public. Alternatively, the off-street supply could contract with fewer people visiting worksites and retail spaces.”
- REMOVING PARKING MINIMUMS - LIKELY CONSEQUENCES (THE BUFFALO STORY) - Cambridge Citizens Coalition (article)
- REFERRAL: DuckDuckGo search “removing parking minimums was a disaster”
- New Documentary Explores What It Means to Be a MAMIL - Christa Lagler (article)
- NOTE: MAMIL stands for “Middle-aged man in lycra”
- The decline of the city grid - The Economist (article)
- ‘We’re thrilled:’ Jones Memorial Library one step closer to renovation into hotel - Jacob Hunziker (article)
- Berlin parking: model or warning? - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Abolished parking minimums in 1990s…first city in Germany to do so.
- NOTE: Each borough of the city manages parking independently. Some boroughs charge for parking and have good enforcement. Enforcement quality is correlated with parking price because enforcement is mostly funded with parking revenues. The boroughs with free parking have no enforcement because they have no money for it. Fines for parking illegally don’t fund enforcement well because they are set at a very low level nationally and also usually go to the police division rather than the transportation division.
- This 1970s tank simulator drives through a tiny world - Tom Scott (video)
- REFERRAL: Video subscription
- These ‘Luddite’ Teens Are Abstaining From Social Media - Alex Vadukul (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- NOTE: Very r/im14andthisisdeep, but it’s pretty badass that they actually stopped using their phones.
- The Pros and Cons of Airport Transit - City Beautiful (video)
- NOTE: Talks about “choice riders” versus “captive riders” of transit. Under this categorization 95% of GLTC riders are probably captive.
- New trail improvements coming to Tinbridge Hill area - Rachael Smith (article)
- REFERRAL: Lynchburg Planning Commission 12-14-2022 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- “The trail will be located at the base of Hollins Street, where there is a dead end. There is an existing trailhead that will be extended off the road easement and paved.”
- Lynchburg Planning Commission 12-14-2022 - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- NOTE: Jenny Jones is director of Parks & Recreation
- “The last time the Parks & Rec. department conducted a needs assessment and comprehensive master plan was 24 years ago…”
- Lynchburg Parks & Rec Master Plan 2022
- Templeton Center
- “…all of our efforts have gone into restoring that. We now have the funding to fully restore the bridges and reroute that trail so it’ll be sustainable even if we do have another major flood…now we’re just in the construction phase” NOTE: This quote by Jenny Jones is in regard to the flooding that destroyed trail infra several years ago and the work that is going into restoring that rather than building new trail infra right now.
- “I will say that the next section of trail that we’re working on we have the plans and the approval from VDOT is the section of trail from Ivy Creek Park to Peaks View Park…it’s called Peaks to Creeks trail…it’s 1.9 miles and we’re still waiting on…uh…to understand what that funding commitment is going to be. It’s an earmark, so Lynchburg has gotten an earmark through senator Newman’s office. The initial estimate is 4.7 million dollars and we don’t know if that includes contingency, and we’ve got to find out how much they’re going to fund and that sort of thing, so…”
- NOTE: Quote from Jenny Jones
- The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu (book, ISBN13 9780765377067) RECOMMENDED
- Why Amsterdam is Removing 10,000 Parking Spaces - Not Just Bikes (video)
- How Much Does a Mile of Road Actually Cost? - Strong Towns (article)
- ✈️ The Maddening Mess of Airport Codes! ✈️ - CGP Grey (video)
- Parking nerds look at Colombia’s cities - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- Parking Change for Better Public Space - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- Only 2 Ways to Fight Gentrification (you’re not going to like one of them) - Adam Hengels (article) RECOMMENDED
- “The battlefield is not in the gentrifying neighborhoods. It is in the more wealthy neighborhoods where empowered residents fight to keep new people out.”
- TDD Your Helm Charts - John Calabrese (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- Soil in Midwestern US is Eroding 10 to 1,000 Times Faster than it Forms, Study Finds - Daegan Miller (article)
- Highway Engineering Madness: 10 Waterfront Freeways That Need to Go (North America Edition) - CityNerd (video)
- Can the Millennials Win the War on Cars? - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- “Greening the status quo”
- The War on Cars Meets Car Talk - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Making the Bus Sexy Again - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Propaganda Blitz - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 11: WCAR Talk Radio - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 10: Whoops: The Liberal Blind Spot for Cars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 9: Cars Versus Guns - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: In pedestrian areas, clothing is fashion. In car-oriented areas, cars are fashion because people can’t see your body in public spaces.
- Episode 8: Why So Serious? The Lighter Side of The War On Cars. - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 7: Nice Legs, Dude - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 6: Quit Your Car: “It’s Zero Percent About Transportation.” - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 5: If E-Bikes Are the Future, Why Are They Illegal? - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 4: Cars and the Culture Wars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- [FDR’s Four Freedoms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Freedoms[
- Episode 3: Mayors: The Good, the Bad and Bill de Blasio - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 2: Attack of the Robocars! - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Episode 1: Why the World Needs a War on Cars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- NOTE: WOC people are super lefty. State good but incompetent, activist good but powerless, corporation competent and powerful but evil
- NOTE: They advocate for using car taxes/fees for transit/bike infrastructure, which seems unjust and unsustainable. Why can’t we just say “car taxes and fees should completely pay for car infrastructure maintenance and building.”?
- The Surprising Power of Parking Management - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- NOTE: A good rule of thumb is that a parking space costs more than the car that parks there.
- NOTE: Investment bankers are still wary of developments with fewer parking spaces and with unbundled parking.
- NOTE: Contingency-based planning allows developers to build on the lower end of the range of parking capacities, then provide a strategy for adding more spaces or manage the current spaces differently if there’s an issue.
- NOTE: Commuters and othet people parking all day are a huge burden on parking systems while providing little revenue. Parking near amenities should be priced so that people using those amenities can afford parking for an hour (or parking for the first 15 minutes is free), but people parking all day will seek out cheaper spots a few blocks away.
- NOTE: Required parking can be reduced by 30-50% in a typical urban area if reasonable parking management is applied.
- NOTE: Old paradigm is that the solution to parking shortages is to provide as much parking as possible via subsidy or mandate, usually for free or at low cost. The new paradigm is to charge reasonable rates for parking to achieve the most efficient use of the space available. Lynchburg parking department falls squarely in the old paradigm.
- NOTE: By requiring large numbers of parking spaces for bars and pubs, we are encouraging people to drink and drive.
- Taming India’s on-street parking: Shreya Gadepalli - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- NOTE: There is a land rent approach to parking fees, which seeks to maximize income, versus the managed approach, which seeks a particular utilization. I wonder what an Austrian-school economist would say.
- NOTE: What if first spot on street was very inexpensive, then spots increased in cost as utilization went up. You could create an exponential curve that made a convenient 85% utilization likely. Would require high tech meters. It would be price-based rationing with automatic adjustments for demand.
- NOTE: They discuss fully virtual parking management where your car is registered and you start/stop a virtual parking meter in an app. Sounds like a privacy and accessibility nightmare. Would much prefer cash/card acceptance boxes with digital options.
- Trailer - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- A new East-West passenger rail corridor could run through Charlottesville - Wyatt Gordon (article)
- Cities Switch From Requiring Too Many Parking Spaces To Banning Too Many Parking Spaces - Christian Britschgi
- REFERRAL: Sonny S.
- Suburbia Doesn’t Have to Be Boring - Yet Another Urbanist (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- The Sad State of US Passenger Rail: A Top 10 List That May Make You Cry (Or Enrage You) - CityNerd (video)
- Should Cities Get Rid of On-Street Parking? - City Beautiful (video)
- NOTE: The value of street width dedicated to parking in units of people benefiting per hour can be compared to the value of people utilizing the space as a bike lane or other type of lane per hour.
- Cheap, renewable, clean energy. There’s just one problem. - Tom Scott (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- Americans are choosing to be alone. Here’s why we should reverse that. - Bryce Ward (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “Relative to 2010-2013, the average American teenager spent approximately 11 fewer hours with friends each week in 2021 (a 64 percent decline) and 12 additional hours alone (a 48 percent increase).”
- The Great Places Erased by Suburbia (the Third Place) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- The War on Cars: Community Board 99 - Streetfilms (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- Programming is a Pop Culture - Baldur Bjarnason (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker news
- The world depends on a collection of strange items. They’re not cheap - Veritasium (video)
- REFERRAL: Daniel W.
- Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut (bok, ISBN13 9780440180296)
- “Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.” (pp. 39)
- “Campbell had been a fairly well known playwright at one time. His opening line was this one: ‘America is the wealthiest nation on earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on the wall asking this cruel question: “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?”. There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand–glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.’” (pp. 128-129)
- Animal magnetism
- Peter Paul Mound bar
- Golliwog
- NOTE: Fairly sure I’ve seen a rendition of this in an old Disney or Loony Tunes film.
- Peep show
- The Spirit of ‘76
- Ending parking mandates isn’t just for big, transit-rich cities! Ask Fayetteville - Reinventing Parking (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: Podcast subscription
- KYIV MISSILE STRIKE – building structure and repair - Mike Bell (video)
- Which is cheaper: liquid or bar soap? - Caroline Cakebread (article)
- 514 – Train Set: Track Two - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- Pantone alternatives mooted - Jo Francis (article)
- REFERRAL: DuckDuckGo search “pantone alternatives”
- FREETONE
- I Have to Pirate COLOURS Now?? - Linus Tech Tips (video)
- YouTube subscription
- Do-ocracy - Noisebridge Wiki Contributors (article)
- “If you’re not willing or able to put in the time or effort to hack, don’t stand in the way of the people who are are. If you have opinions, be willing to hack. Offering advice is fine, but it’s usually good to ask if it’s wanted, and if not, don’t give it.”
- Richmond could do away with parking requirements: ‘It’s the best thing for our city’ - Tyler Layne (article)
- REFERRAL: Sonny S.
- NOTE: Article slug “Richmond could do away with parking requirements for car lovers” indicates that the news source has a vested interest in maintaining parking requirements, they’re unilaterally conservative, or they’re just fear-mongering”
- The Guy who Changed the Way we Shop - Johnny Harris (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- How SUBWAY is Taking Over Korea - Johnny Harris (video)
- Bookmarking for Unix Chads (For Browsers, Terminals, IDEs and everything else) - Luke Smith (video)
- Halloween - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- Rorschach Test - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- Make Some Noise (with Brennan Lee Mulligan, Jess McKenna, Andy Bustillos) Full Episode - CollegeHumor (video)
- What Happens When You Build for Speed, Not Walkability: Stroad Bingo, Boulder Highway Edition - CityNerd (video)
- Thermostats: Cooler than you think! - Technology Connections (video)
- Don’t Patronize Those Who Don’t Patronize Banks - Jeanine Skowronski (article)
- What Does the ”Airbnbust” Mean for the Housing Market? - Upzoned (podcast episode)
- Kubernetes Up & Running - Brendan Burns, Joe Beda & Kelsey Hightower (book, ISBN13 9781492046530)
- “While imperative commands define actions, declarative configurations define state.” (pp. 4)
- “Decoupling components via load balancers makes it easy to scale the programs that make up your service, because increasing the size (and therefore the capacity) of the program can be done without adjusting or reconfiguring any of the other layers of your service.” (pp. 6)
- NOTE: Hadn’t thought about it this way before. Using load balancers between everything means you can have an X to X relationship between any components. It’s very different from hardcoding an IP or domain of a service directly into the config file of another service.
- “As noted in a variety of research, the ideal team size is the ‘two-pizza team,’ or roughly six to eight people” (pp. 7)
- Two-Pizza Teams NOTE: This article seems to indicate that while Amazon acknowledges the value of small teams, they eventually found that teams having a “single-threaded leader” to focus all of their energy on one thing was a better predictor of success.
- “…the container orchestration API becomes a crisp contract that separates the responsibilities of the application operator from the cluster orchestration operator.” (pp. 8)
- NOTE: Interesting to see the term “contract” here. I’m mostly familiar with contracts in software as they relate to Design by contract in languages like Eiffel.
- “Kubernetes has a number of plug-ins that can abstract you from a particular cloud. For example, Kubernetes services know how to create load balancers on all major public clouds as well as several different private and physical infrastructures” (pp. 10)
- “The most popular container image format is the Docker image format, which has been standardized by the Open Container Initiative to the OCI image format. Kubernetes supports both Docker- and OCI-compatible images via Docker and other runtimes. Docker images also include additional metadata used by a container runtime to start a running application instance based on the contents of the container image.” (pp. 14)
- Overlay filesystem
- “With multistage builds, rather than producing a single image, a Docker file can actually produce multiple images. Each image is considered a stage. Artifacts can be copied from preceding stages to the current stage.”
- NOTE: This is a special [horizontal] system for making smaller end containers without build tools and cruft in them. It is not to be confused with [vertical] layers.
- NOTE: Below are some important
Dockerfile
directives:- FROM - the image you start with
- RUN - run a command inside the container
- WORKDIR - set the working directory for running commands and receiving copied files
- COPY - copy files from a path relative to host workdir to a path relative to container workdir
- ENV - set an environment variable in the container, like
ARCH=amd64
- CMD - set a command to be run when the container is run
- NOTE: From cursory research it appears that the vendor-agnostic alternative to
Dockerfile
isContainerfile
. They both use the same syntax, according to the Podman documentation. - Container Runtime Interface
- NOTE:
kubectl config set-context my-context --namespace=mystuff
to create a context, andkubectl config use-context my-context
to switch to that context - “Each Kubernetes object exists at a unique HTTP path” (pp. 38)
- “Pods are described in a Pod manifest. The Pod manifest is just a text-file representation of the Kubernetes API object.” (pp. 47)
- “The Kubernetes API server accepts and processes Pod manifests before storing them in persistent storage (
etcd
). The scheduler also uses the Kubernetes API to find Pods that haven’t been scheduled to a node. The scheduler then places the Pods onto nodes depending on the resources and other constraints expressed in the Pod manifests.” (pp. 48) - NOTE:
kubectl port-forward podname 8080:8080
forwards requests from the host port to the pod port as long as the command is running. - NOTE: Liveness probes are a more surgical way to check whether an application is responding (better than just checking that a process is running. One of these is the
httpGet
probe, which checks if an HTTP endpoint can be reached successfully. - NOTE:
restartPolicy
for a pod can be any of the below options:- Always (default)
- OnFailure
- Never
- NOTE: Resource requests specify minimum required to run a container, while resource limits specify the max resources the container will be allowed to use.
- NOTE: Uses for labels and annotations overlap, but labels are more for sorting and selecting appropriate pods, while annotations are under the hood and usually contain more detailed information like git hashes or build information.
- “Just as the
kubectl run
command is an easy way to create a Kubernetes deployment, we can usekubectl expose
to create a service.” (pp. 76) - “NodePorts…enhance a service even further. In addition to a cluster IP, the system picks a port (or the user can specify one), and every node in the cluster then forwards traffic to that port to the service.” (pp. 80)
- “For every Service object, Kubernetes creates a buddy Endpoints object that contains the IP addresses for that service” (pp. 82)
- NOTE: An Endpoints object holds info about the IPs of pods behind a service. Apparently it was important to split this function off from Service because a service must have a ClusterIP, and sometimes K8s and apps built on K8s don’t want this. The term ‘endpoints’ was confusing at first, because I’m used to hearing people talk about hitting a REST API endpoint across the internet. Endpoint in this context means a pod within the K8s cluster that actually serves the application.
- NOTE: IP address range used for services should not overlap with ranges assigned to K8s nodes.
- NOTE: K8s Ingress is a type of virtual hosting for http applications (sort of like Apache virtual hosts, I think)
- “The Ingress controller is a software system exposed outside the cluster using a service of type: LoadBalancer. It then proxies requests to ‘upstream’ servers. The configuration for how it does this is the result of reading and monitoring Ingress objects.” (pp. 90)
- “Users can create and modify Ingress objects just like every other object. But, by default, there is no code running to actually act on those objects. It is up to the users (or the distribution they are using) to install and manage an outside controller. In this way, the controller is pluggable.” (pp. 90)
- NOTE: Ingress objects seem really wacky…will have to ask teammates if modern K8s or Rancher has done anything to simplify the use of these objects.
host
- NOTE: From some quick research, it seems that
nslookup
is deprecated,host
is for simple lookups, anddig
is a more fully featured tool.
- NOTE: From some quick research, it seems that
- NOTE: Deployments manage ReplicaSets, and ReplicaSets manage Pods
- “You should generally not use scheduling restrictions or other parameters to ensure that Pods do not colocate on the same node. If you find yourself wanting a single Pod per node, then a DaemonSet is the correct Kubernetes resource to use. Likewise, if you find yourself building a homogeneous replicated service to serve user traffic, then a ReplicaSet is probably the right Kubernetes resource to use.” (pp. 131)
- “One way to think about ConfigMaps is a Kubernetes object that defines a small filesystem. Another way is as a set of variables that can be used when defining the environment or command line for your containers. The key thing is that the ConfigMap is combined with the Pod right before it is run.” (pp. 153)
- kubelet
- Parking Is More Than a Number - Edward Erfurt (article)
- REFERRAL: blog subscription
- NOTE: Article emphasizes the value of shared parking agreements/arrangements and the legal permission to count on-street parking and spots in nearby vacant lots towards minimum number of spots for a use.
- Deep Fried Coffee: A Horrifying Discovery - James Hoffman (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube home page
- The Battle of SHARKS! - CGP Grey (video) RECOMMENDED
- Donald Shoup Explains Parking Reform - Planetizen Courses (video)
- Kris De Decker: “Low Tech: What, Why and How” - The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens (podcast episode)
- Live Car-Free In the Sun Belt Challenge: Accepted // Successes, Failures, and Utter Travesties - CityNerd (video)
- Why are HOA communities so popular? - City Beautiful (video)
- What “Work” Looks Like - Jim Nielsen (article)
- The Highway Boondoggles Report - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- The End of Suburbia – 52 minute documentary on peak oil - endofsuburbia (video)
- Testing the Arduino Marble Gate - Wintergatan (video)
- Humidifiers: Simpler is better? - Technology Connections (video) RECOMMENDED
- The Most Urbanist Soccer Stadiums in North America: 10 Cities That Do Association Football Right - CityNerd (video)
- Easy Way to Make Streets Safe for Cyclists - City Beautiful (video)
- The WET and WILD World Of The JESUS REVOLUTION!! - Say Goodnight Kevin (video)
- Carnival Cruise and The Fall of Civilization ++ Peasant Radio #04 - Silver Eye Society (video)
- You’re Not Privileged, Just Guilty - Salomé Sibonex (video)
- Pittsburgh: The Steel Biking City - Streetfilms (video)
- NOTE: Added a Pittsburgh visit to my someday-maybe list after this video
- Bioswale
- NOTE: They added ‘minicircles’ in neighborhood intersections to slow down through traffic
- NOTE: Pittsburgh has 800 public sets of staircases!
- NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: * NOTE: They have a network of slowed streets/alleys off the main bike network that they call neighborways
- asdfmovie14 - TomSka (video)
- Modern Vengeance? What No One Understands About The Northman - Silver Eye Society (video)
- NOTE: Taking vengeance and glory for oneself is compelling. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord” is also compelling. Courts and regulatory agencies as the ultimate takers of vengeance is not compelling.
- Why Alex Jones Isn’t the Problem ++ Alex’s War - Silver Eye Society (video)
- Traffic Engineers Gone Wild: Why Interchanges and Intersections are Getting Worse, Not Better - CityNerd (video)
- All the Types of Canned Tuna and Their Labels, Explained - Abbie Hui (article)
- NOTE: Tuna styles from wholest to most pulverized:
- Solid
- Chunk
- Flake
- Grated
- NOTE: White tuna is usually a big fish like Albacore, while light tuna is usually a little fish like Skipjack. Smaller fish have a lower mercury content.
- NOTE: Tuna styles from wholest to most pulverized:
- Pizza Day Prague 2022 ++ AMIR TAAKI ++ Bitcoin ideologies and narratives late 2010 onwards - Parallel Polis (video)
- NOTE: Had no idea how much energy Marc Andreessen invested in commercializing BTC technology early on.
- A Peek Inside Car-Brain: 10 US Cities Where the Cycle of Car Dependency Has Spiraled Out of Control - CityNerd (video)
- NOTE: Richmond, Raleigh, and Charlotte fare very poorly on this list. Makes sense for Richmond. Most of my on-the-ground experience there involved going to a show at a club under 2-3 overlapping highways.
- Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half - Barbara Salsbury (book)
- NOTE: Interestingly, author makes assumption that people think chain stores are more expensive than independents. 40 years later, the common perception among people I know is that independent stores are more expensive due poor economies of scale.
- NOTE: Types of brands and modern examples:
- National Name Brands: Heinz, Doritos
- Private Labels and House Brands: Sysco, Great Value (she says same quality as name brands, but debatable in 2022; 10-20% cheaper than name brands)
- Economy Brands: Smidge & Spoon, Ja! (slighty lower quality; 25% cheaper than name brands)
- Generics: Nothing is coming to mind. Everything seems to be branded unless it’s being scooped at a gourmet market or health food store, which is not what she’s talking about. Naturally a Deal or Hill City and Wood Co. may sell true generics sometimes. Amish markets sell only generics. (much lower quality; 20-40% cheaper than name brands)
- A&P
- NOTE: In 1930, it was the largest retailer in the world
- NOTE: Institutional ads try to create goodwill and positive associations with a whole brand, while product differentiation ads show you how a particular product is better than those of competitors.
- NOTE: Apparently jobber is another name for merchandiser, or perhaps merchandisers are employed by jobbers/wholesalers
- NOTE: Paying by check for groceries was apparently very common in the 80’s. Surprised that they were not typically cashiers’ checks. Seems that other info and/or ID is sometimes required when paying by check.
- “…the three most successful packaging themes today–the imported look, the contemporary look, and the handcrafted look–can be tiesld to shoppers’ concept of status” (pp. 171)
- “Generally, the following items are included in packaging only for your convenience, and containers without them usually cost less: windows, pour spouts, poptops, and tear strips (for easy opening). Shaving cream in aerosol cans, spices in containers with double openings, pop-in-the-container popcorn, boil-in-the-bag vegetables, cook-in-the-container dinners, etc. are also more costly. Generally, so are beverage mixes that include a measuring cup and products of any kind that come with individually wrapped servings.” (pp. 178)
- NOTE: Author of grocery book claims that computerized checkout, and the resulting removal of price labels from products, has made it much more difficult to comparison shop within the store. It also makes it harder to catch discrepancies between shelf price and database price. She relates an anecdote of one woman who writes the shelf price in grease pencil on the opposite side from the barcode so she can check for these discrepancies during checkout.
- McGovern report
- USDA Standards of identity for food
- Ice milk
- Zwieback
- MH17 - The Bellingcat Podcast (podcast series)
- Town employee quietly lowered fluoride in water for years - Lisa Rathke (article)
- REFERRAL: Reddit popular
- The Instagram capital of the world is a terrible place to be - Rebecca Jennings (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Are there CONS to moving to Lynchburg VA? - Living in Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube search “Lynchburg VA”
- NOTE: Watched at 3x speed due to low info density. Interestingly, the things he lists as cons (small/poor highways, lack of malls, lack of movie theaters, etc.) are all huge pros for me.
- Lynchburg Fleet Services Electric Car Rodeo - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube search “Lynchburg VA”
- How The U.S. Ruined Bread - Johnny Harris (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube recommendations
- Azodicarbonamide
- Why I will NEVER use the Metric System - Johnny Harris (video) REFERRAL: YouTube homepage
- How Toronto Got Addicted to Cars - Not Just Bikes (video)
- NOTE: Interesting how the metro was installed so they could get rid of above-ground trams and have more space for cars.
- The Update - Chris Fleming (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- 34 – Edward Snowden’s Permanent Record - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- orangewebsite
- The Strong Towns Podcast: The Jackson Water Crisis Is Not a Fluke—Your City Could Be Next - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- How To Stop Dead Lithium and Double Your Phone’s Battery Life - The Action Lab (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Daniel W Can the Best US Bike Cities Compete with Europe? - City Beautiful (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- [Rational Nexus](https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/rational-nexus
- U.S. Card Skimming Fraud Grows 700+% in First Half of 2022 - Debbie Cobb (article)
- Lebensraum - Johnny Sanphillippo (article) RECOMMENDED
- “Little by little I expanded my garden activities to include the whole space. The people next door never complained. As different people moved in and out over the years it was assumed to be a feature of the property. Instead of looking out at tar paper and pipes the light well was a giant terrarium. I had cultivated an island of greenery in the city.”
- “There are distinct benefits that come with rules and restrictions. But that’s not my natural habitat. I gravitate toward the cracks and wastelands that no one else cares about. I need lebensraum and this is my Sudetenland.”
- Sub rosa
- Smart Cities and Finance - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- “During the Q & A I asked why her otherwise prosperous town needed federal assistance and corporate sponsorship to keep the street lights on. A century ago all towns managed this sort of basic maintenance from local revenue even though they were far poorer. Isn’t that an indication that there’s a larger underlying problem that needs to be addressed first? She had no answer. That’s not the kind of question people are supposed to ask at a tech convention…”
- Canuary - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- “The idea is to be certain that what we eat in good times isn’t radically different from what we might have to eat if things get funky.”
- The Empty Shelves - Dawn McLachlan (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Who Else Writes Like…?
- “…as rare as hen’s teeth.”
- “People often ask me what the key to success in reader development is, and the single best piece of advice I can give anyone – be it parent, bookseller, librarian or teacher – is that the first important thing is choice. A wide, free, voluntary choice.”
- Hawaii’s Suburban Experiment - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Episode 117: Mondays at the Overhead Wire – Convening with the Ancients - Talking Headways (podcast episode) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- German Houses vs. American Houses: Construction, Design & Scale - The Black Forest Family (article)
- “Our house in particular uses a combination of both concrete walls as well as something called Kalksandstein-Mauerwerk which is effectively a limestone-sandstone concrete, with what’s called [unintelligible], which is a warm insulating compound system…”
- Calcium-silicate bricks
- Letting Go of Nostalgia Urbanism - Johnny Sanphillippo (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: blog subscription
- “What mattered most to them was the freedom that came with low overhead. Their city friends would migrate out with them for summer and winter holidays and they created their own cuisine, art, and conversation. And they read lots of books. They just weren’t interested in much beyond the inner world they were busy creating themselves. They didn’t need to purchase culture from a fashionable postal code. They made their own.”
- Maine Street - Johnny Sanphillippo (article) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: blog subscription
- What Is JWT and Why Should You Use JWT - Web Dev Simplified (video)
- So Many Planes! The Good, Bad and Ugly of Cities That Punch Above Their Weight in Air Travel - CityNerd (video) REFERRAL: YouTube subscription
- What Makes Fast Food Drive-Thrus Bad for Cities: Investigating Heinous Land Uses, Episode 2 - CityNerd (video)
- NOTE: He asserts that fast food restaurants with drive-thrus strongly prioritize car customers over dining room customers because they have a better ROI. Fairly consistent with my experience as a dining room customer at McDonalds. I remember hearing about a study a while back that concluded that buying in dining rooms was faster than buying in the drive-thru. Maybe that study was done before these companies had fully optimized their systems and before dining rooms started falling out of popularity.
- Luke Smith Livestream - Luke Smith (video)
- It’s Time for Some Real Talk on JTA’s Skyway Plans - Ennis Davis (article)
- I Will Be Throwing Away My Computers. - Luke Smith (video)
- Why is Europe so absurdly backward compared to the U.S. in rail freight transport - FreightWaves Staff (article)
- NOTE: The limit for train length in Europe is 2,460 feet, while US trains can be over 19,700 feet.
- Solid Brick vs Brick Veneer - Gambrick (article)
- Hot versus cool media - Middlebury College Wiki Contributors (article)
- Why Do All These 20-Somethings Have Closed Captions Turned On? - Cordilia James (article)
- Super Apps are Proliferating Across Emerging Markets - Emeka Ajene (article)
- How the Netherlands facilitate the most hated websites in the world - Carola Houtekamer & Rik Wassens (article)
- What is a Schrebergarten or Kleingarten? Germany’s Little Gardens - karenanne (article)
- A trillion prices - Alec Stein (article)
- Not Just Bikes and Strong Towns Discuss Public Transit in North America - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Rapid transit is a walking accelerator. It should get people from walkable place to walkable place.
- Why PartnerHacker? - The Isaac Morehouse Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Correctly diagnoses public exhaustion with marketing and advertising blasted in their faces. Discusses how ‘partnerships’ are the new thing, where relationships and networks of trust are used
- Yes, Everyone on the Internet Is a Loser. - Luke Smith (video)
- HECKIN’ PRIVATE CELL PHONE ROMs: Graphene, Lineage, Calyx, etc. - Luke Smith (video)
- George Carlin – Everyday expressions (that don’t make sense) - George Carlin via Gábor Hényel (video)
- Canada’s Racist Land Covenants - Not Just Bikes (video)
- How we got to Berlin from Amsterdam - Not Just Bikes (video)
- The World’s Energy Problem Is Far Worse Than We’re Being Told - Gail Tverberg (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- NOTE: Correct in that there is a finite amount of fossil fuels in the world, but seems fear-mongering. Apparently this author has doomsday predictions every few years.
- World’s Highest Jumping Robot - Veritasium (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube home page
- This machine can play a song by popping bubble wrap - Simone Giertz (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube search “Simone Giertz”
- Cops wanted to keep mass surveillance app secret; privacy advocates refused - Ashley Belanger (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Fog Reveal
- Why Geography Makes The US Insanely OP - RealLifeLore (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Apparently OP means “overpowered”
- NOTE: Did not verify, but video says US is the second oldest continually operating regime in the world.
- Why our Screwdriver took 3 YEARS - Linus Tech Tips (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube home page
- It’s Time to Build - Marc Andreessen (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Dictatorship of the Articulate - Florent Crivello (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- HOW TO REPLACE CIGARETTE LIGHTER SOCKET ON A CAR. CIGARETTE LIGHTER NOT WORKING - Auto Repair Guys (video) RECOMMENDED
- Setting Children Free (In An Age of Mass Panic) – School Sucks (podcast episode)
- Will Nonbelievers Really Believe Anything? - Scott Alexander (article)
- NOTE: Most and least religious people are least likely to believe in non-partisan conspiracy theories.
- A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L’Engle (book) RECOMMENDED
- Your Next Wooden Chair Could Arrive Flat, Then Dry Into a 3D Shape (Video) - American Chemical Society (video)
- “Is Carrying a Leatherman Worth It?” – Leatherman vs. Separate Kit (Knipex and Victorinox) - Ben Vallack (video)
- REFERRAL: Daniel W.
- Moving Fast How We Built Facebook Platform - Facebook (video) RECOMMENDED
- Digitizing 55,000 pages of civic meetings - Philip James (article)
- Datasette
- NOTE: Hacker News thread on this article mentioned following resource:
- NOTE: Interesting workflow. Wishing that Municode actually had a published API like Legistar does. Really baffled by why this guy feels like he has to pay Amazon hundreds for OCR when he could probably accomplish the same in a few weeks or a month with OSS running on a VPS or a little workstation at home.
- Death Athletic: A Speech - Defense Distributed (video)
- GG3: Zero Percent Receivers - Defense Distributed (video)
- Preventing the Collapse of Civilization / Jonathan Blow (Thekla, Inc) - DevGAMM (video)
- The Declaration Of Bitcoin’s Independence - BraveTheWorld (video) RECOMMENDED
- M… MY JOB DEFINES ME! - Luke Smith (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Weirdly dogmatic about being dispassionate about one’s work.
- Micromobility: The Obligatory Origin Story - Horace Dediu (article)
- “Interestingly, there have been recent studies looking at the efficiency of the electric bike. If you take a human and assume that they eat food, digest it, produce energy and then ride a bike, the electric bike is about twice as efficient as a pedal-powered bike.”
- Juvenoia - Vsauce (video)
- Curtis Yarvin speaks on his wife’s death – Ephemeral Angels with Curtis Yarvin - The Beautiful Toilet (podcast episode excerpt)
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Caroll (book)
- “‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at!’”
- Do I Want Kids? - Vox (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: It’s completely wack how dual-income households are considered the natural way of things by everyone in this video.
- Part 1: C Street & The Cult of Right Wing Politics - Cultish (podcast episode)
- It’s a pile of mining waste. Want to go skiing on it? - Tom Scott (video)
- A geyser that shoots sparkling mineral water - Tom Scott (video)
- My DNA test results - LindyBeige (video)
- Disc jockeys - why are they so often so very very bad? - LindyBeige (video)
- Weekly XMR Price Report, Vik chats about Cake Pay, Artic Mine joins us & MORE! Epi #77 - Monero Talk (podcast episode)
- The Real Reason Why Are Trucks Getting Bigger - andToddsaid (article)
- “The regulations meant to get better mileage out of vehicles also made it easier for larger vehicles to meet fuel-efficiency standards. In what should have been an unsurprising move, when faced with the choice between reengineering their vehicles or simply going bigger, automakers chose to go bigger.”
- A Simple Software Fix Could Limit Location Data Sharing - Lily Hay Newman (article)
- Why This Tiny Island Has More People Than Russia - RealLifeLore (video)
- The Car-Replacement Bicycle (the bakfiets) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- David Wood– Is There Hope For The Psychopath? Episode 1037 - oneminuteapologist (video)
- The Simple Secret of Runway Digits - CGP Grey (video)
- NOTE: Essentially, the digits on runways are the degree on the compass that a landing plane is pointing to, with the ones place cut off. When there are multiple runways facing the same direction, they append ‘L’ or ‘R’ or bump the number up by one (16 -> 17). Everyone bases this on magnetic north, because pilots have a mechanical compass, but Canada uses true (rotational) north, partially because they kept needing to repaint runways when magnetic north moved.
- Your City’s Accounting is Unnecessarily Obscure. It’s Time To Pull Back The Veil. - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Quantum Programming – Part 1 - New Mind (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Daniel W.
- A City is Not a Tree: 50th Anniversary Edition - Christopher Alexander (book, ISBN13 9780989346979) RECOMMENDED
- REFERRAL: Isaac Morehouse
- “Another favorite concept of the CIAM theorists and others is the separation of recreation from everything else. This has crystallized in our real cities in the form of playgrounds. The playground, asphalted and fenced in, is nothing but a pictorial acknowledgement of the fact that ‘play’ exists as an isolated concept in our minds. It has nothing to do with the life of play itself. Few self-respecting children will even play in a playground” (pp. 21)
- “Play itself, the play that children practise, goes on somewhere different every day. One day it may be indoors, another day in a derelict building, another day on a construction site which has been abandoned for the weekend. Each of these play activities, and the objects it requires, forms a system. It is not true that these systems exist in isolation, cut off from other systems of the city. The different systems overlap one another, and they overlap many other systems besides. The units, the physical places recognized as play places, must do the same.” (pp. 21)
- “In a natural city this is what happens. Play takes place in a thousand places it fills the interstices of adult life. As they play, children become full of their surroundings. How can children become filled with their surroundings in a fixed enclosure! They cannot.” (pp. 22)
- NOTE: If children are sponges, and they don’t live in a world worth sponging up (social or physical), then parents have to expend stupid amounts of energy taking them to places worthy of sponging up if they want their children to be well adjusted. Digital content can satisfy sponges for a while, but then the sponges are made of digital content rather than social/physical content.
- “In a traditional society, if we ask a man to name his best friends and then ask each of these in turn to name their best friends, they will all name each other so that they form a closed group. A village is made up of a number of separate closed groups of this kind. But today’s social structure is utterly different. If we ask a man to name his friends and then ask them in turn to name their friends, they will all name different people, very likely unknown to the first person; these people would again name others, and so on outwards. There are virtually no closed groups of people in modern society. The reality of today’s social structure is thick with overlap - the system of friends and aquaintances form a semilattice, not a tree.” (pp. 17)
- “In an organized object, extreme compartmentalization and the dissociation of internal elements are the first signs of coming destruction. In a society, dissociation is anarchy. In a person, dissociation is the mark of schizophrenia and impending suicide.” (pp. 32)
- “For the human mind, the tree is the easiest vehicle for complex thoughts. But the city is not, cannot and must not be a tree. The city is a receptacle for life. If the receptacle severs the overlap of the strands of life within it, because it is a tree, it will be like a bowl full of razor blades on edge, ready to cut up whatever is entrusted to it. In such a receptacle life will be cut to pieces. If we make cities which are trees, they will cut our life within to pieces.” (pp. 32)
- Viktor Gruen
- Greenwich Village
- “Our experience of the world as animated is far older than our experience of the world as a machine.” (pp. 81)
- NOTE: Le Corbusier versus Christopher Alexander and Jane Jacobs
- NOTE: His pattern language ideas influenced Ward Cunningham in wiki development and other software developers in the “design patterns” camp
- “If we take an example from urban infrastructure and transportation, it can be argued that a city with several public and private means of connection and modes of transportation along with the ability to switch between them (i.e. from rail to bus, or bike to foot etc.) is more likely a healthier and more resilient city than a city that is mostly based on a single mode of transport, usually private automotive transportation, as seen in many 20th century American cities.” (pp. 123-124)
- NOTE: I find this fairly plausible. Trains, cars, bikes, and pedestrians all have different speeds of connection and propensities to interact with other city elements on the way to their destinations.
mode speed pre-destination interaction likelihood inter-city train 50-270 mph 0% bus 15 mph 30% car 5-80 mph 40% bike 5-20 mph 75% foot 2-4 mph 85% Some modes quickly connect far nodes, but don’t meaningfully interact with anything in-between those nodes. If these modes are all a city makes accommodation for, the in-between places become desolate and dead. The [liminal?] spaces between homes and shopping centers is one example that comes to mind. * NOTE: While researching bus speeds, I discovered the term “vehicle headway”, which is the average time between buses on an individual bus route. On the busiest Lychburg routes, a bus comes by every half hour, while on the busiest TransMilenio routes in Bogota, Colombia, the headway is 13 seconds! TransMilenio is over 138 times more frequent than GLTC!
- “Alexander argues that from a human point of view, modern attempts to create cities artificially are completely unsuccessful when compared with known ancient cities that have acquired the patina of life.” (pp. 124)
- “patina of life” seems synonymous with James C. Scott’s “thick cities” concept.
- NOTE: Below are some categories of urban theorists set forth by Dellé Odeleye:
- Contextual Morphologists
- Functional-Aesthetic Reactionaries
- NOTE: Includes Jane Jacobs’ “The death and life of great American cities” and Christopher Alexander’s “A city is not a tree”
- Urban Humanists
- NOTE: Also includes Christopher Alexander
- Spatial Configurists
- Typological Urbanists
- NOTE: Also includes Christopher Alexander
- Complex Urban Physicists
- CNU Smartcode
- NOTE: Jaap dawson and Bin Jiang wrote the only responses really worth reading in this volume.
- ”..there’s been no way to move laterally through that system. You can only come and collect at the trunk of the tree or the Interstate. That was a planning principle that you will see exemplified in the British New Towns, after World War Two, and many other examples of Modernist planning. This was a rationalized scheme. They say, we have a community sized enough for an elementary school, and then we’ll have five of those that will be big enough for a high school, and five of those that will be big enough for a downtown, and so on.” (pp. 185-186)
- “…it was the first time that I understood how urban systems controlled who could know whom” (pp. 188-189)
- “So you’ve got all this stuff which has this wonderful way of bing shared, by observation, experiment, your own eyes, your own fingers, and so forth. But all the matters of value that we’re fundamentally concerned with as architects - they slip through the net, they’re just not dealt with. They’re all seen as arbitrary. (pp. 200-201)
- NOTE: I wonder if there is a connection between this loss of value and the loss of Aristotelian final causes for many buildings and developments.
- “…if one sets out a program where you’re essentially sort of copying old forms in any version, you’re liable to be in a hell of a lot of trouble. And I think that trouble is evident. I think that to some extent it explains the slight smirk of discomfort that people have when they’re looking at not only Classicist buildings, but what you might call developer kitsch. I mean, there’s a lot of developers who certainly clearly understand that people do not want glass and aluminium houses. But they don’t know what to do about it, so you get your - whatever - your Cape Cod, you know, lookalike, and all these different things.” (pp. ??)
- “And that’s realy what the people who have immersed themselves in classicism - that’s really why they’re doing it, because they have a passion for buildings, they don’t know how to get that result, without emulating those ancient types. It really is not a harmful thing to do, but it isn’t the best way to do it.” (pp. ??)
- “You know, I’ve known quite a few traditional craftsmen, in real traditions, in different societies and different cultures. I’ve never met a person who was in one of those traditions, who felt themselves to be in a bind, who felt themselves to be locked into something, who felt themselves to be under authority. Of course what they actually feel is free. Because they know what to do, and therefore they can do whatever they want. (pp. 214)
- “…what it really boils down to is the contrast between freedom to be arbitrary, as opposed to freedom to be appropriate. And if - of course if you want to have freedom to be arbitrary, that’s one thing. And much of what we have going on in the world of architecture today is based on that supposition. If you want to be appropriate, you can still do a million different things, but being appropriate is going to guide you, and that is what is going to tell you what to do.” (pp. ??)
- The Agricultural Revolution Has Been A Disaster for the Human Race - Luke Smith (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: podcast subscription
- Flynn Effect
- How Property Taxes DOOMED Compton - City Beautiful (video) NOT RECOMMENDED
- Why Swiss Trains are the Best in Europe - Not Just Bikes (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube “not just bikes”
- Make-Fun-of-Millennials Saturday Stream - Luke Smith (video)
- REFERRAL: YouTube “luke smith”
- thonkpeasant.xyz
- NOTE: librebootable Thinkpad seller
- Season 2: Episode 16 “CRT Series Part Two: ‘Fault Lines’ and Social Holiness with Bradly Mason” - Southside Rabbi (podcast episode)
- REFERRAL: Bryant M.
- NOTE: Critical race theory is based on critical legal studies.
- Why You Should STOP Looking for Your PASSION! (It Gets Real With TK Coleman) - The Table With AO (video)
- REFERRAL: DuckDuckGo “revolution of one tk coleman”
- NOTE: 1. Was not aware of how many personalities RamseyCorp had accumulated. 2. T.K. Coleman is just nice to listen to.
- Two-Party Tyranny vs. Libertarian Impotence – Peasant Radio #03 - Silver Eye Society (podcast episode)
- David Heinemeier Hansson at Startup School 08 - startupschool (video) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: He talks a lot about the “Fortune 5 Million”, which are all the small businesses that a startup has a better chance selling to. Also, when you don’t have one huge customer paying all of your bills, you have a less risky and stressful startup experience.
- Richard Cooper on being a sheep or a sheepdog - Monero Talk (podcast episode) NOT RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: This guy is pretty cringe. Should have stopped listening when he said he was some kind of redpilled pickup artist. Seems like he uses the terms bugmen and sheep interchangeably.
- Bugman
- Metcalfe’s Law
- Fixer
- Black swan event
- Nam Sardar on true cash in the digital age - Monero Talk (podcast episode)
- FreedomFest 2022: Mark Moss and Rich Checkan - Monero Talk (podcast episode) NOTE: Currency first becomes unit of exchange first, then unit of account.
- Sponge cities: a solarpunk future by 2030 – Future Explored by Freethink - Freethink (video)
- NOTE: Journalist seemed to have this weird idea that we need to totally spongeify cities to benefit from the concept at all. Why can’t we just replace impervious pavement with porous pavers in the course of normal maintenance. Why does he think that massive, centralized effort is required to make cities more porous?
- Democracy: Rule of the NPCs - Not Related! (podcast episode)
- Europe’s Experiment: Treating Trains Like Planes - Wendover Productions (video)
- NOTE: Since deregulation of the European rail market, Ouigo, Flixtrain, and Italo budget railroads have all appeared.
- How to Work Hard - Paul Graham (article)
- Albion’s Seed and an Ethnic History of America - Not Related! (podcast episode)
- You Weren’t Meant to Have a Boss - Paul Graham (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- “An obstacle downstream propagates upstream. If you’re not allowed to implement new ideas, you stop having them. And vice versa: when you can do whatever you want, you have more ideas about what to do. So working for yourself makes your brain more powerful in the same way a low-restriction exhaust system makes an engine more powerful.”
- NOTE: I read this pre-bibliography, but reading David Graeber’s “Bullshit Jobs” article got me riled up about entrepreneurship!
- On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant - David Graeber (article)
- REFERRAL: The Economy Is Fake, the Jobs Are Fake, the Money Is Fake - Not Related! (podcast episode)
- NOTE: The more money I make, the more my jobs consist of doing the things to fix the thing to do the thing that deploys the runtime that runs the script that does the thing.
- We Want Our 4 Causes Back! - Luke Smith (article)
- “In truth, Darwinian evolution is a useful theory specifically because it is a method of giving us a Final Cause for gradual evolutionary changes. That’s the whole point afterall. If it didn’t give us a Final Cause, it wouldn’t be an explanation. Striking the Formal Cause from scientific vocabulary is only a recipe for the typical postivistic science status quo of denying any “metaphysics” to your science while just tacitly assuming it all.”
- How to Not Get Hit by Cars - Michael Bluejay (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Economy Is Fake, the Jobs Are Fake, the Money Is Fake - Not Related! (podcast episode)
- Overpopulation and the Mouse Metaverse - Not Related! (podcast episode)
- The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- “In even less propitious circumstances, Hal Lenke found ways to share his expertise in his rural West Virginia county. ‘I have been a teacher-at-large–at-large in the sense that criminals or wounded or rogue animals are spoken of as being at large. For the two years before that, I was a teacher positioned, located, a classroom teacher, a teacher-at-small’” (pp. 139)
- McLuhanisms
- How Did REST Come To Mean The Opposite of REST? - 1cg (article)
- Please Consider Becoming Landed Gentry. - Luke Smith (video)
- “How Do I Get a Good Tech Job?” - Luke Smith (video)
- The biggest threat facing middle-age men isn’t smoking or obesity. It’s loneliness. - Billy Baker (article)
- The Impact of Chain Stores on Community - Stacy Mitchell (article)
- Train Rides Through New River Gorge Returning This Fall - Associated Press (article)
- 7kF4xlSuyaXWLvJ8.mp4 - jimcantcarry (GIF)
- Revisiting Bicycling in Minneapolis: One of USA’s Top Bicycling Cities - Streetfilms (video)
- Kubernetes and OpenShift: What’s the Difference? - IBM Technology
- Comparing SafeGraph and OpenStreetMap: The Hidden Cost of Free Data - Briana Brown (article)
- Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares - Lauren Murray (article)
- Jake and Amir: Q - JakeandAmir (video)
- Jake and Amir: Baby Bjorn - JakeandAmir (video)
- Jake and Amir: Bread - JakeandAmir (video)
- A.U.T.O. Lobbyist Veronica Moss (played by Kate McKinnon!) Visits Times Square (2022 Re-Mix) - Streetfilms (video)
- Illustrating Parking Reform: Dr. Donald Shoup Plays with Matchbox Cars (from 2010) - Streetfilms (video)
- Episode 4: Lights Out - Strong Towns (video)
- Episode 1: Gratuitous Sign - Strong Towns (video)
- The Second Life Cycle - Strong Towns (video)
- Episode 49: Sidewalk Business Incubator - Strong Towns (video)
- Episode 51: You can’t get there from here - Strong Towns (video)
- Taking a Hike on Walk Score Mountain - Strong Towns (video)
- Watch a licensed engineer coach cities on how to game FEMA assistance - Strong Towns (video)
- This place is for humans. Design like it. - Strong Towns (video)
- DNS Esoterica - Why you can’t dig Switzerland - Terence Eden (article)
- 21: Michael Snyder on Economic Collapse - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Michael Snyder is very alarmist and seems like an eschatomaniac…makes sense that he likes ZeroHedge. Inflation stats are genuinely appalling though. %99 of American wealth has been stolen since the early 1900’s. This is people’s lives.
- Lights On Making New Album ‘PEP’, Josh Dun Collab & Live Show Plans – Video Call - Rock Sound (video)
- 15: Privacy Expert JJ Luna on How to Be Invisible - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- 29: Childhood’s End and Surveillance - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- Lifelong New Yorkers Describe How The City Has Changed - ClickHole (video)
- Leadership Sync - KRAZAM (video)
- Post This Video On Facebook To Let Your Friends Know That You Have Officially Completed Puberty - ClickHole (video)
- I ate at every Rainforest Cafe in the Country - Eddy Burback (video)
- Why Does Suburbia Suck? - David Pakman Show (video)
- NOTE: Suburban streets tend to have a dendritic or branch structure vs. a grid structure.
- The All-In Cost of Car Dependency 2022: How Driving Wrecks Your Finances (Without You Noticing) - CityNerd (video)
- Smaller Cities With Great Transit: 10 Metro Areas Under a Million Population With High Ridership - CityNerd (video)
- My New Music Studio – Moving From France - Wintergatan (video)
- Did People Used To Look Older? - Vsauce (video)
- It’s All About the Safety Margin - Mr. Money Mustache (article)
- US Crosses the Electric-Car Tipping Point for Mass Adoption - Tom Randall (article)
- Love Song to Costco - Yuxi Lin (article)
- Love the One You’re With - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- 30: Joshua Sheats of Radical Personal Finance - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- 10: Rental Culture as Slavery - The Watchman Privacy Podcast (podcast episode)
- Americans still think they can make money flipping houses - Irina Ivanova (article)
- “Between 2006, the peak of the previous housing bubble, and 2019, average home prices have increased just 13%, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index. In that same time period, the S&P 500 rose 125%”
- Explained: Why Sri Lanka Is Battling Worst Economic Crisis Since Its Independence In 1948 - Pooja Yadav (article)
- Sri Lanka Parliament speaker: President to resign Wednesday - Krishan Francis (article)
- Do You Want to Drive a Train? #shorts - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Summer Blog Backlog: Distributed Systems - Andy Chu (article)
- “Deploying your code to someone else’s cloud just to test it is painful and slow. In contrast, an improved Unix shell should help you describe and run distributed systems locally.”
- What is Zookeeper and how is it working with Apache Kafka? - Conduktor (video)
- Using Kubectl Expose – Tutorial and Best Practices - Ujjwal Sharma (article)
- “When the
kubectl expose
command is run, it takes the name of the resource, the port, the target port that should be used to expose, the protocol over which to expose, and the type of the service. It sends this data using a REST request to the Kubernetes API server, which then instructs the control plane to make the service and assign an IP to it.”
- “When the
- The Isolation of Parents – 1st World vs. 3rd World - BraveTheWorld (video)
- Raising Children is an Act of Philosophy, Lecture 2 - Roslyn Ross (video)
- Raising Children is an Act of Philosophy, Lecture 1 - Roslyn Ross (video)
- Introduction to Helm – Kubernetes Tutorial – Beginners Guide - That DevOps Guy (video) RECOMMENDED
- How Work Became a Mess - Dropbox (report)
- What is Helm? - IBM Technology (video)
- Dealing with OFFENDED Parents - BraveTheWorld (video)
- Does Anyone Actually Cycle in Switzerland!? - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Why We Won’t Raise Our Kids in Suburbia - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Bitcoin: the Most Moral Money - BraveTheWorld (video)
- The Money Hole: America’s Debt Crisis - John Stossel (video)
- The History Channel Detectives - LutheranSatire (video)
- Frank the Hippie Pope Resigns - LutheranSatire (video)
- Video Church Date - LutheranSatire (video)
- Kubernetes is a red flag signalling premature optimisation. - Jeremy Brown (article)
- This clock was famous, but the internet ruined it. - Tom Scott (video)
- U.S. High Speed Rail: What’s Next? Analyzing Extensions and Expansions, and What Makes Sense - CityNerd (video)
- Popular Lynchburg bakery battles some not-so-sweet struggles - Tim Harfmann (article)
- KDC/One to close Lynchburg facility at end of 2023 - Rachael Smith (article)
- Percival’s Island, trail to close for maintenance - staff reports (article)
- Guns, Bitcoin, & Trust - BraveTheWorld (video)
- Our Approach - Josh Dahn (about page)
- “Unfortunately, practice is hard to come by, especially as a kid. Practice happens in sports or music, but the greater focus tends to be on discipline and execution. If the exercise of true agency comes in the daily life of an elementary or middle school student, it tends to happen by accident rather than by design.”
- NOTE: A sad admission to make, but mostly true in the US. This might be a good way to supplement children with real problem solving in a world of adults that isn’t ready to integrate children into the real world.
- NOTE: Below are some other schools that were mentioned in the same tweet I found this school in
- “Unfortunately, practice is hard to come by, especially as a kid. Practice happens in sports or music, but the greater focus tends to be on discipline and execution. If the exercise of true agency comes in the daily life of an elementary or middle school student, it tends to happen by accident rather than by design.”
- Fact Check: Did Thousands of Women Die of Illegal Abortions Before Roe vs. Wade? - Sarah Terzo
- NOTE: Need to track down a high quality counterpoint. A few folks on the “Skeptics” StackExchange noted that while “thousands” may be an inflated or made up amount, it is unlikely that the reported number of maternal deaths from illegal abortion pre-Roe vs. Wade was the real number (underreporting due to stigma).
- America Always Gets This Wrong (when building transit) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Donald Shoup - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Where Did the Long Tail Go? - Ted Gioia (article)
- New restaurant, Day & Night, opening this summer in downtown Lynchburg - Rachel Smith (article)
- Louis CK Everything is amazing & Nobody is happy - Conan via Marjo Duiveman (video)
- The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera (book, ISBN10 0060152583)
- Artist Monograph
- Élan
- “A young woman forced to keep drunks supplied with beer and siblings with clean underwear–instead of being allowed to pursue ‘something higher’–stores up great reserves of vitality, a vitality never dreamed of by university students yawning over their books. Tereza had read a good deal more than they, and learned a good deal more about life, but she would never realize it. The difference between the university graduate and the autodidact lies not so much in the extent of knowledge as in the extent of vitality and self-confidence.” (pp. 55)
- “It’s a tragicomic fact that our proper upbringing has become an ally of the secret police. We do not know how to lie. The ‘Tell the truth!’ imperative drummed into us by our mamas and papas functions so automatically that we feel ashamed of lying even to a secret policeman during an interrogation. It is simpler for us to argue with him or insult him (which makes no sense whatever) than to lie to his face (which is the only thing to do).” (pp. 187-188)
- Theodicy
- BLOG POST
- Navigating the new Lakeside Drive Bridge Project - Lynchburg Virginia (video)
- The 10 Biggest Cities You’ve Never Heard Of (Probably) - City Beautiful (video)
- Peterson and Weinstein Debate the Economy - Aerial View (video)
- What economists fail to understand about economics – Eric Weinstein and Lex Fridman - Lex Clips (video)
- Chongqing (3rd largest city in China as of 2022)
- FLY - DON’T HUG ME I’M SCARED (video)
- The Truth About Dentistry - Ferris Jabr (article)
- NOTE: Found it interesting that there’s not much evidence for a 6-month dental appointment cadence being better than a year.
- Reasons to Tour By Bicycle - Kevin Kelly (article)
- Construction is Life - Kevin Kelly (article)
- Still missing your tax refund? You’ll soon receive 5% interest — but it’s taxable - Kate Dore (article)
- The IRS backlog of paper tax returns is even more horrifying when you see it in pictures - Christopher Zara (article)
- Read a Book Every Week - Alex Gardner (article) NOT RECOMMENDED
- How to Read a Book a Week - Peter Bregman (article)
- Popular education in Sweden: much more than you wanted to know - Henrik Olof Karlsson (article) RECOMMENDED
- Please explain the “bucket” fare pricing system? - Cascadia (forum thread)
- Temporal Belonging - Lauren Collee (article)
- “With time, as with space, the locus of the ‘natural’ is constantly shifting. Caught between two fictions — the rigidity of clock time, and the undifferentiated soup of internet time — people hoping to rediscover a ‘healthy’ or rewarding relationship to time increasingly turn to the purest, most natural, and most objective timepiece of all: the body clock.”
- Firefighters respond Tuesday to US Pipe in Lynchburg - Staff reports (article)
- Downtown Branch of Lynchburg Public Library to Reopen June 21 - City of Lynchburg (press release)
- The Newest National Park is Just a Train Ride Away… - Gersh Kuntzman (article)
- There’s Something Wrong With Suburbia (The Orange Pill) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- No wait stop it matters how you raise your kids - David Hugh-Jones (article)
- Pickups and SUVs are driving the pedestrian death epidemic. But the tide may be turning. - Mary Wisniewski (article)
- Wake Up Higher Education. The Degree Is On The Decline - Brandon Busteed (article)
- If Operating Systems Were Beers - Richard Stueven (article)
- NOTE: Reminds me of Neal Stephenson’s comparison of operating systems to tanks in “In the Beginning was the Command Line”
- The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design - Galen Cranz (book, ISBN13 9780393319552) RECOMMENDED
- Architectonic
- Marcel Breuer
- Alvar Aalto
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
- Harry Bertoia
- Jalousie Window
- Akhenaten
- Triclinium
- Windsor Chair
- Percent for Art Ordinances
- NOTE: This book convinced me that I ought to get a “Balans chair” for my work, and a reading stand so that I don’t need to hunch over while reading.
- Food Anatomy: The Curious Parts & Pieces of Our Edible World - Julia Rothman (book, ISBN13 9781612123394) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Chianti, a type/region of wine I have not tried, is considered to be one of the earthier varieties.
- Why Cars Rarely Crash into Buildings in the Netherlands - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Chicken PLUMPING - What is it and how does it affect MY Chicken - Robert Woods (article)
- Dune - Frank Herbert (book, ISBN13 9780441005901) RECOMMENDED
- “‘When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual –from “Muad’Dib: The Ninety-Nine Wonders of the Universe” by Princess Irulan’”
- The Loss of Rites of Passage in Western Society. Will they be missed? - G. David Boyd (article)
- Touch-Typing, a Relic of Keyboard Design? - Xah Lee (article) RECOMMENDED
- The quick way to make new pedestrian plazas - City Beautiful (video)
- Why did cities build downtown malls? - City Beautiful (video)
- E-Bikes Could Change Cities Forever - City Beautiful (video)
- Parking minimums and maximums - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Parking Generation - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Safety is an Expensive Illusion - Mr. Money Mustache (article)
- Did pedestrian malls ruin U.S. downtowns? - City Beautiful (video)
- Business Parks Suck (but they don’t have to) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Will Texas’ High Speed Rail Stations Be Any Good? - City Beautiful (video)
- systemd - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Child process - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- US road deaths increased by more than 10% in 2021 - Jonathan M. Gitlin (article)
- How to feel engaged at work: a software engineer’s guide - Jason Tu (article)
- Tire Labeling ABCs - Rick Barnhart (article) RECOMMENDED
- Red Tape or Guard Rails? - Eric (article)
- I Don’t Exercise (my city does that for me) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- The Age That Women Have Babies: How a Gap Divides America - Quoctrung Bui and Claire Cain Miller (article)
- Pets Allowed - Patricia Marx (article)
- Are Cities Going to the Dogs - Michael Hendrix (article)
- Is a Love of Dogs Mostly a Matter of Where You Live? - Hal Herzog Ph.D. (article)
- Episode 380: The 15 Minute Church - Talking Headways (podcast episode)
- Paul Tillich
- Slow Cities
- NOTE: Interviewee brought up idea of helping children buy a bike and transit passes rather than a car when they’re 16. He weighed the costs and benefits with them, factoring in insurance, maintenance, etc. He said his kids were more free than many of their friends because they had their own vehicles and didn’t need to rely on family cars.
- XML Schema Definition-XSD - Mike Møller Neilsen (video)
- ‘It is Getting Worse. People are Leaving’ - Matthew DeLay (article)
- Shaving is too expensive - John Whiles (article)
- Unix command line conventions over time - Lars Wirzenius (article)
- The Direction of our Eyes - Isaac Morehouse (article)
- ‘Dark Social’ is the Only Social - Isaac Morehouse (article)
- When Negotiating a Price, Never Bid with a Round Number - Carmen Nobel (article)
- Hot Banana - Randall Munroe (article)
- ADHD-like behavior and entrepreneurial intentions - Ingrid Verheul, Joern Block, Katrin Burmeister-Lamp, Roy Thurik, Henning Tiemeier, and Roxana Turturea (research paper)
- Entrepreneurship and ADHD: Fast Brain, Fast Company? - Linda Roggli (article)
- ADHD and Entrepreneurship - Edge Foundation (article)
- The Pragmatic Programmer - Andrew Hunt and David Thomas (book, ISBN13 9780201616224)
- “There is a fairly subtle gain in productivity when you combine orthogonal components. Assume that one component does M distinct things and another does N things. If they are orthogonal and you combine them, the result does M x N things. However, if the two components are not orthogonal, there will be overlap, and the result will do less. You get more functionality per unit effort by combining orthogonal components.” (p. 36)
- Basic Vector Styling (QGIS3) - Ujaval Gandhi (tutorial)
- Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Post-Argument SCOTUScast - SCOTUScast (podcast episode)
- Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows - Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward (article)
- Importing Spreadsheets or CSV files (QGIS3) - Ujaval Gandhi (tutorial)
- The Unknown Citizen - W. H. Auden (poem)
- One of Virginia’s poorest cities is also its least healthy, new rankings show - Kate Masters (article)
- Everything you should know about certificates and PKI but are too afraid to ask - Mike Malone (article)
- I’ve Been to Heathrow but I’ve Never Been to London - Isaac Morehouse (article)
- The 8-Hour Workday Is a Counterproductive Lie - Lizzie Wade (article)
- How I put my whole life into a single database - Felix Krause (article)
- Apache NiFi for dummies, Hortonworks and Attunity Special Edition - Christopher Gambino, Dan Rice, Joseph Niemiec, Mark Johnson, and Jordan Martz (book, ISBN13 9781119471295)
- NOTE: It’s an okay guide to get started. Last few pages were basically ads for the now-aquired companies that helped write this edition.
- Cost Savings of Cloth Napkins vs. Single-use Paper Napkins - guiltygranola/hprievo23 (article)
- Friends are under-clustered. Why? - Ben Southwood (article)
- NOTE: I think a lot about this problem as it relates to church unity and mutual support. AFAIK, there is one church member within a 15 minute walk of my house. That’s terrible. The reason I’m learning QGIS is so I can enter the locations of friends and church members and generate walking isochrones to study this problem. The problem is dire for my family, but how dire is the problem of physical separation for my local church congregation? Is ‘the local church’ a misnomer?
- The surprising afterlife of used hotel soap - Zachary Crockett (article)
- A Plastic Bag’s 2,000-Mile Journey Shows the Messy Truth About Recycling - Kit Chellel and Wojciech Moskwa (article)
- Working with Attributes (QGIS3) - Ujaval Gandhi (tutorial)
- A 4-year-old can run errands alone … and not just on reality TV - Michaeleen Doucleff
- How Focus Became More Valuable than Intelligence - alexand.ro (article)
- Soviet Subversion of the Free World Press - G. Edward Griffin with Yuri Bezmenov (interview excerpt)
- Virginia police routinely use secret GPS pings to track people’s cell phones - Ned Oliver (article)
- Collapse Won’t Reset Society - Adam Van Buskirk (article)
- EPOCH A
- On Spiritual Worship - Stephen Charnock (book chapter) RECOMMENDED
- NOTE: Discourse IV from The Existence and Attributes of God
- “The ceremonial law was abolished to promote the spirituality of divine worship. That service was gross, carnal, calculated for an infant and sensitive church. It consisted in rudiments, the circumcision of the flesh, the blood and smoke of sacrifices, the steams of incense, observation of days, distinction of meats, corporal purifications; every leaf of the law is clogged with some rite to be particularly observed by them. The spirituality of worship lay veiled under a thick cloud, that the people could not behold the glory of the gospel, which lay covered under those shadows (2 Cor. 3:13): ‘They could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished:’ They understood not the glory and spiritual intent of the law, and therefore came short of that spiritual frame in the worship of God, which was their duty.” (p. 7-8)
- A pompous worship, made up of many sensible objects, weakens the spirituality of religion. Those that are most zealous for outward, are usually most cold and indifferent in inward observances; and those that overdo in carnal modes, usually underdo in spiritual affections.” (p. 9)
- NOTE: Unsure about this. If true, does the ‘carnal’ worship spring up as a compensation for the lack of spiritual worship, or do both ‘carnal’ and spiritual worship coexist, and the spiritual worship withers away?
- NOTE: Maybe this view of ‘carnal’ vs. spiritual modes of worship works well in a highly literate and educated society, but an illiterate and uneducated society needs more visuals/icons/smells. Maybe ‘carnal’ aspects of worship are a distraction to theologians, accountants, computer programmers, and other plaintext professions, but beneficial reminders and cues to other congregants.
- “The worship of God in innocence had been chiefly an admiration of him in the works of creation; and should not our evangelical worship be an admiration of him in the works of redemption, which is a restoration to a better state?” (p. 23)
- “It was utterly unlawful after the building of the temple, to sacrifice anywhere else; the temple being a type of Christ, it is utterly unlawful for us to present our services in any other name than his.” (p. 30)
- Point/Counterpoint, Mutt vs. Thunderbird - Kyle Rankin (article)
- Silver nanoprisms grown into structural colors by high power LEDs - Applied Science (video)
- How Long Until We’re All Amish? - Lyman Stone (article)
- Will the Amish take over America? - Ed West (article)
- Making a Map (QGIS3) - Ujaval Gandhi (tutorial)
- NOTE: Very fun! It’s amazing what can created automatically with some decent GIS software.
- Can Male Fertility Be Improved Prior to Assisted Reproduction through The Control of Uncommonly Considered Factors? - Daniel M. Campagne, Ph.D. (article)
- NOTE: Good summary of male fertility factors with a nice little chart at the end
- Using Bash Instead of VimScript for Macros - Rob Muhlestein (article)
- Exercise Your Mind Like You Exercise Your Body - Edvo (article)
- NOTE: A fairly trite article, but it convicted me of how erratic my learning is. I’ll just read anything vaguely interesting that people send my way. The world’s too wide for that.
- Preconception Care: A guide for optimizing pregancy outcomes - The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, District II/NY (guide)
- #226, Jo Boaler: How to Learn Math - Lex Fridman (podcast episode)
- Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) - Jerome K. Jerome (book)
- In Defense of Bitcoin Maximalism - Vitalik Buterin (article) RECOMMENDED
- Becoming Native to This Place - Wes Jackson (lecture)
- NOTE: Transcript of a talk given at the Thirteenth Annual E.F. Schumacher Lectures in New Haven, Connecticut, October 1993. Not to be confused with a book of the same title by the same guy.
- Joe Vs Elan School, chapters 1-72 - Joe Nobody (webcomic)
- The Big Here Quiz - Kevin Kelly (article)
- We Can Do Better Than “Same, But Electric” - Steve (article)
- Hundreds of Jets Are Stuck in a Fight Between Russia and the West — WSJ - Wall Street Journal (video)
- Urban3: Ten Years in Review - Urban3 (video)
- Why Open Data Matters for Cycling: Visualizing a Cycling City - ITDP (video)
- So, you want to be a darknet drug lord… - nachash (article)
- When Cyclists Made Up an Entire Political Bloc - Erin Blakemore (article)
- Why Everywhere in the US is Starting to Look the Same - Wendover Productions (video)
- 🚛 🚗 The Interstate’s Forgotten Code 🚗 🚛 - CGP Grey (video)
- The Pitfalls of Cost Sharing for Healthcare - Healthcare Triage (video)
- Suburbia is Subsidized: Here’s the Math [ST07] - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Tim Soerens: Reconnecting Churches with Their Neighborhoods - Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Jarrett Walker: ”Prediction and Freedom Are Opposites” - Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Progress and Poverty - Henry George (book)
- “These non-progressive purposes in which mental power is consumed may be classified as maintenance and conflict. By maintenance I mean, not only the support of existence, but the keeping up of the social condition and the holding of advances already gained. By conflict I mean not merely warfare and preparation for warfare, but all expenditure of mental power in seeking the gratification of desire at the expense of others, and in resistance to such aggression. To compare society to a boat. Her progress through the water will not depend upon the exertion of her crew, but upon the exertion devoted to propelling her. This will be lessened by any expenditure of force required for bailing, or any expenditure of force in fighting among themselves, or in pulling in different directions. Now, as in a separated state the whole powers of man are required to maintain existence, and mental power is set free for higher uses only by the association of men in communities, which permits the division of labor and all the economies which come with the co-operation of increased numbers, association is the first essential of progress. Improvement becomes possible as men come together in peaceful association, and the wider and closer the association, the greater the possibilities of improvement. And as the wasteful expenditure of mental power in conflict becomes greater or less as the moral law which accords to each an equality of rights is ignored or is recognized, equality (or justice) is the second essential of progress.”
- Understand Your Brain, Get More Done: The ADHD Executive Functions Workbook - Ari Tuckman (book, ISBN13 9781886941397)
- International Health Care Systems - Healthcare Triage (video playlist)
- Mate Selection for Modernity - Vincent Harinam (article)
- The effects of ‘parenting’ on child-rearing - Yvonne Abraham (article)
- Swiss and US democracy: twins separated at birth? - Bruno Kaufmann (article)
- “In a historical sense, Switzerland copied the concept of federalism from the United States, while the US took the idea of direct democracy from Switzerland.”
- A Brief History of the Chevrolet Suburban - Jon Branch (article)
- A Slow Reversion to the Historic Mean - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- Monopoly Hotels - Johnny Sanphillippo (article) RECOMMENDED
- The Debian Administrator’s Handbook - Raphaël Hertzog & Roland Mas (book, ISBN13 9791091414197)
- Don’t Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You - Joel Spolsky (article)
- The Art of Non-Conformity - Chris Guillebeau (book, ISBN13 9780399536106)
- Life Together - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (book, ISBN13 9780060608521)
- Hilbert’s Curve: Is infinite math useful? - 3blue1brown (video)
- More than a third of U.S. healthcare costs go to bureaucracy - Linda Carroll (article)
- Is Old Music Killing New Music? - Ted Gioia (article)
- How to (Quickly) Build a Cycling City - Paris - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Colors: Where did they go? An investigation. - Emily VanDerWerff (article)
- Why Dutch Bikes are Better (and why you should want one) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- You Don’t Need to Own a Car (If You Don’t Drive to Work) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Lessons from Canada: How To End Mandatory Parking Minimums - John Pattison (article)
- STUDY: What A Lifetime of Car Ownership Costs — And Who Pays - Kea Wilson (article)
- The High Cost of Bad Sidewalks - David Zipper (article)
- Mini-Stories: Volume 13 - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- Mini-Stories: Volume 12 - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- The Three Santas of Slovenia - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- Reaction Offices and the Future of Work - 99% Invisible (podcast episode)
- The ”Bikelash” Phenomenon (and Why It Shouldn‘t Scare Local Leaders) - Upzoned (podcast episode)
- Johnny Sanphillippo: The Trajectory of Suburbia - The Strong Towns Podcast (podcast episode)
- Shentel Expands its Beam Internet Service to New Canton, Mount Jackson and Dillwyn, Virginia - Shentel (press release)
- Why the U.S. Needs a National Zoning Atlas - Sara Bronin (article)
- Small is Beautiful - Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (book)
- Why Grocery Shopping is Better in Amsterdam - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Why City Design is Important (and Why I Hate Houston) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- New link between mother’s pregnancy diet and offspring’s chances of obesity found - University of Southampton (article)
- Freedom of Movement and Environmental Knowledge in Elementary School Children - Antonella Rissotto and Francesco Tonucci (research paper)
- Sequencing your DNA with a USB dongle and open source code - Ben Popper (article)
- The Single-Staircase Radicals Have a Good Point - Henry Grabar (article)
- Double-loaded corridor
- NOTE: “Tried to check Lynchburg, Virginia egress code, but they seem to use IBC 2018. codes.iccsafe.org/ is down as of 2022-01-09”
- 25 Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life - Luke Burgis (article)
- Strong Towns - Not Just Bikes (video playlist)
- Why Canadians Can’t Bike in the Winter (but Finnish people can) - Not Just Bikes (video)
- The Trains that Subsidize Suburbia - GO Transit Commuter Rail - Not Just Bikes (video)
- Why Conservatives Must Engage Urbanism - Jonathan Coppage (article)
- The Negative Consequences of Car Dependency - Andrew Price (article)
2021
- Granite Geek: Being car dependent isn’t being free, but creating choices is hard - David Brooks (article)
- Why our reliance on cars could start booming - Mark Johanson (article)
- EU clears final hurdle for ending mobile roaming charges - Julia Fioretti (article)
- Why US public transportation is so bad — and why Americans don’t care - Aditi Shrikant (article)
- Learning European Languages (Michel Thomas) - Luke Smith (article)
- How to Keep Someone With You Forever - Issendai (article)
- “Play-to-earn” and Bullshit Jobs - Paul Butler (article)
- “Autism is a Spectrum” Doesn’t Mean What You Think - C.L. Lynch (article)
- The leader who’s standing up to China - Mari Saito, Yimou Lee, and David Lague (article)
- Why It’s Bad to Have High GDP - Luke Smith (article)
- The One Thing You Need To Know About Your Pyrex Bakeware - Maggie Burch (article)
- Encrypting and Decrypting Files with PGP - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Encrypting and Decrypting Text with PGP - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Introduction to PGP (Part 3) - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Introduction to PGP (Part 2) - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Introduction to PGP (Part 1) - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Managing Your PGP Keys - Infosec Bytes (video)
- Is internet addiction eradicating the habit of reading? - Ben Wajdi (article)
- Why New York’s Billionaires’ Row is Half Empty - The B1M (video)
- The Great Bifurcation - Ben Thompson (article)
- The battle of the computing clouds is intensifying - The Economist (article)
- More than you want to know about gift cards - Patrick McKenzie (article)
- Why Thieves Steal Soap - Alex Mayyasi (article)
- Permanent Record - Edward Snowden (book)
- Zoned in the USA - Sonia A. Hirt (book)
- “Zoning as a form of land-use control plays a uniquely important role in the Unitd States likely because other tools of public intervention in the making of urban space are relatively weak: there is less public planning, less public building, and less public ownership in the United States than in western Europe (and in most other capitalist democracies). In the United States, the primary purpose of zoning is to regulate the private sector, which remains the main actor in city-building. Finally, the U.S. land-use control system is also unique in the elevated status it grants to one particular housing type, the detached single-family home, which it protects vigorously from interaction with other uses. (p. 89)
- “…the country that proudly proclaimed independence in 1776 was definitely an agrarian republic: about 2 percent of the population lived in cities. And even though much of the inspiration that brought about the Revolution came from intellectuals residing in cities, few Americans say their destiny as urban. With few exceptions, America’s new leaders cherished the rural character of their nation and feared European-like cities and population densities (Coppa 1976; Beauregard 2009)” (p. 113)
- Investing in Lego more lucrative than gold, study suggests - Mark Sweney (article)
- Signal secure messaging can now identify you without a phone number - Paul Ducklin (article)
- Opinion + Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of My Black Neighborhood? - Erin Aubry Kaplan (article)
- Where did ‘weird’ Omicron come from? - Kai Kupferschmidt (article)
- Buried In Biden’s Infrastructure Bill Is A Mandatory Backdoor Kill Switch For Your Car - Zak Killian (article)
- Running Back to NEW YORK CITY - Casey Neistat (video)
- Lemme Just Finish This One Thing… - Van Neistat (video)
- How Do You Shop For Healthcare? - Healthcare Americana (podcast)
- How to Adjust Disc Brakes on a Bike - Jonas Jackel (article)
- Firefox is the Only Alternative - Bozhidar Batsov (article)
- Escape from a House of Horror + 20/20 + PART 5 - Diane Sawyer (video)
- Escape from a House of Horror + 20/20 + PART 4 - Diane Sawyer (video)
- Escape from a House of Horror + 20/20 + PART 3 - Diane Sawyer (video)
- Escape from a House of Horror + 20/20 + PART 2 - Diane Sawyer (video)
- Escape from a House of Horror + 20/20 + PART 1 - Diane Sawyer (video)
- Opinion + Everyone’s Moving to Texas. Here’s Why. - Farhad Manjoo (article)
- The melancholy decline of the semicolon - Will Lloyd (article)
- The Internet is Held Together With Spit & Baling Wire - Brian Krebs (article)
- postmarketOS revolutionizes smartphone hacking - Drew DeVault (article)
- Social Media Fact Sheet - Pew Research Center (fact sheet)
- Mobile Fact Sheet - Pew Research Center (fact sheet)
- State of the Space Force - Amanda Miller (article)
- “…the Space Force joined the Intelligence Community as its 18th agency. ‘Now we have an opportunity…to dig deeper on the threats that we’re seeing in the domain, to understand those threats more fully, and really begin to work on this thing called the National Space Intelligence Center’”
- USAF’s Three Priorities: China, China, China - John A. Tirpak (article)
- Dr. Seuss did not get canceled. But if you think he did, you have a bigger problem. + Opinion - Stephen Silver (article)
- 27: Friend groups - Nadia Eghbal (article)
- Brave new world and Brave new world revisited - Aldous Huxley (book, ISBN13 9780060776091)
- “Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found. ‘…we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport.’” (p. ???)
- NOTE: The role of an entrepreneur is to create something that satisfies peoples’ interests. That’s hard enough. The state in this story takes on this role, as well as the chore of designing interests prenatally, placing the whole economic equation in the hands of one entity. No totalitarian state I’m aware of has mastered this vast complexity.
- “Industry, as it expands, draws an ever greater proportion of humanity’s increasing numbers into large cities. But life in large cities is not conducive to mental health (the highest incidence of schizophrenia, we are told, occurs among the swarming inhabitants of industrial slums); nor does it foster the kind of responsible freedom within small self-governing groups, which is the first condition of a genuine democracy. City life is anonymous and, as it were, abstract. People are related to one another, not as total personalities, but as the embodiments of economic functions or, when they are not at work, as irresponsible seekers of entertainment. Subjected to this kind of life, individuals tend to feel lonely and insignificant. Their existence ceases to have any point or meaning.”
- NOTE: In Huxley’s view, cities cause mental health problems, preclude democracy, and alienate people. Three huge accusations. I’m not sure about the mental health statistics on cities, but the 2nd and 3rd claims are dubious. If small, self-governing groups are necessary for democracy to form, cities, by Jane Jacobs estimation, are home to many of these (though they are called ‘neighborhoods’). Unhindered by needless regulation and eminent domain slum clearance, many neighborhoods can grow to meet these criteria. Regarding shallow attachments, Huxley takes a polar opposite view to Jane Jacobs. He decries relationships that are merely for mutual economic benefit, while Jacobs celebrates how cities afford a continuum of intensities in human connection. While lower density settlements are conducive to close friendships or nothing at all, cities allow for close friends, street acquaintances, shopkeeper trust relationships, etc.
- “Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found. ‘…we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport.’” (p. ???)
- Live Not By Lies - Rod Dreher (book, ISBN13 9780593087398)
- Václav Benda
- Parallel Polis
- NOTE: Seems to be inspiration for the Paralelní Polis crypto-anarchist institute/hackerspace/cafe in Prague.
- “But take care not to let reasoning prudentially turn into rationalization. That is the basis of ketman—and to surrender to that kind of self-defense will, over time, destroy your soul. Your consent to the system’s lies might buy you safety, but at an unbearable cost. If you cannot imagine any situation in which you would act like Havel’s fictional greengrocer, and live in truth no matter the cost or consequence, then cowardice has a greater claim on your conscience than you know.” (p. 108)
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs (book, LOC 61-6262)
- “…the activity generated by people on errands, or people aiming for food or drink, is itself an attraction to still other people. This last point, that the sight of other people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city architectural designers seem to find incomprehensible. They operate on the premise that city people seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet. Nothing could be less true. People’s love of watching activity and other people is constantly evident in cities everywhere.” (p. 37)
- “The more common outcome in cities, where people are faced with the choice of sharing much or nothing, is nothing. In city areas that lack a natural and casual public life, it is common for residents to isolate themselves from each other to a fantastic degree. If mere contact with your neighbors threatens to entangle you in their private lives, or entangle them in yours, and if you cannot be so careful who your neighbors are as self-selected upper-middle-class people can be, the logical solution is absolutely to avoid friendliness or casual offers of help. Better to stay thoroughly distant. As a practical result, the ordinary public jobs—like keeping children in hand—for which people must take a little personal initiative, or those for which they must band together in limited common purposes, go undone. The abysses this opens up can be almost unbelievable.” (p. 65)
- “Placing work and commerce near residences, but buffering it off, in the tradition set by Garden City theory, is fully as matriarchal an arrangement as if the residences were miles away from work and from men. Men are not an abstraction. They are either around, in person, or they are not. Working places and commerce must be mingled right in with residences if men, like the men who work on or near Hudson Street, for example, are to be around city children in daily life—men who are part of normal daily life, as opposed to men who put in an occasional playground appearance while they substitute for women or imitate the occupations of women.” (p. 84)
- “What if we fail to stop the erosion of cities by automobiles? What if we are prevented from catalyzing workable and vital cities because the practical steps needed to do so are in conflict with the practical steps demanded by erosion? There is a silver lining to everything. In that case we Americans will hardly need to ponder a mystery that has troubled men for millennia: What is the purpose of life? For us, the answer will be clear, established and for all practical purposes indisputable: The purpose of life is to produce and consume automobiles.” (p. 370)
- A Beautiful PDF Made From Markdown - Mark Beresford (video)
- Things you’re allowed to do - Milan Cvitkovic (article)
- Sourcehut’s third year - Drew DeVault (article)
- Debit cards as financial infrastructure - Patrick McKenzie (article)
- Ep 84: Jet-setters - Darknet Diaries (podcast)
- Answering the Claims of WitchTok - Cultish (podcast)
- Navigating the World of Witchcraft & Wicca - Cultish (podcast)
- How to Ride a Bike in Traffic - REI Co-op Expert Advice (article)
- Running a law firm on Linux - Neil Brown (article)
- Richard Sapper Documentary - Elia Hershon and Roberto Guerra (video)
- “Very often I take my ideas from the problems of production or from the problems of functioning or from the problems of handling. They somehow seem to give me a handle to which formal expression can be added…instead of regarding them as an obstacle, ‘cause for many people, technical problems are an obstacle. They say ‘Well…I would like to do that, but I can’t do that because there’s this and this and this problem, so we can’t find a good solution’. This naturally happens, and it also happens to me…it happens to me sometimes that I cannot really do what I want because there are technical problems. I have spend years arguing with engineers about these problems. But on the other hand, technical problems have always been a moving element in creating beautiful forms.” (9:27-10:22)
- NOTE: Principles of Richard Sapper’s design philosophy that hit me in this documentary:
- be truthful…don’t lie to users about what an object really is or what it’s really doing
- have some fun…industrial designers take themselves too seriously
- technical/material limitations can inspire creativity
- Scantool - OBDII Car Diagnostic Software for Linux - Sam Hobbs (article)
- Setting a default browser in i3 - Adam Simpson (article)
- The myth of revealed preference for the suburbs - Joe Cortright (article)
- Our Self-Imposed Scarcity of Nice Places - Daniel Herriges (article)
- I introduced my 5-year-old and 2-year-old to startx and xmonad. - John Goerzen (article)
- Hacker News comments
- “I do not want to artificially limit my kid to technologies that are no longer really relevant, but I do agree that safeguarding attention is THE skill of the next century, simply because it will be scarce.” - zwaps
- Hacker News comments
- Open Source Economics (is not what you think) - Mike McQuaid (article)
- Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation - Dan Slimmon (article)
- Notebook Primer: Nokiawave
- “The films simultaneously map the existence of the control-grid, reveal the cracks in its surface, and function as soft propaganda for its existence.”
- Nice Neighborhood, Except for the Houses - Tyler Cowen (article)
- The Evangelical Church is Breaking Apart - Peter Wehner (article)
- Watts vs. VA: What’s the Difference Anyway - APC (article)
- The metaverse is bullshit - Wes Fenlon (article)
- How Americans Became So Sensitive to Harm - Connor Friedersdorf (article)
- Trump’s Social Media Platform and the Affero General Public License (of Mastodon) - Bradley M. Kuhn (article)
- One Cup ? Eight Ounces – How Coffee Carafe Sizing Works - JES Restaurant Equipment (article)
- The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 5 (finale) - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 4 - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 3 - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 2 - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 1 - Charles Marohn (article)
- REFERRAL: Adam S.
- Book Review: The Housing Bias - Salim Furth (article)
- A River Reawakened - Jessica Plumb (article)
- The Role of C-RAN in 5G Networks - Connor Craven (article)
- NOTE: Sometimes C-RAN stands for Cloud Radio Access Network, and sometimes it stands for Centralized Radio Access Network.
- Use decision records already! - Andreas Zwinkau (article)
- Python args and kwargs: Demystified - Davide Mastromatteo (article)
- Laura McElroy of Comrades - As The Story Grows (podcast)
- When listeners pay close attention to stories, their heart rates synchronize - Carolyn Beans (article)
- The Martians of Budapest - Jørgen Veisdal (article)
- The COVID Vaccine and the Pro-Life Movement - Melissa Moschella, Ph.D. (article)
- Cities and Suburbs and the Gray Areas in Between - Paula Munger (article)
- The Great Resignation Is Accelerating - Derek Thompson (article)
- I Now Own the Coinhive Domain. Here’s How I’m Fighting Cryptojacking and Doing Good Things with Content Security Policies. - Troy Hunt (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Live Not By Lies - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (article)
- Republicans Like Dogs More Than Democrats, Poll Indicates, as Donald Trump Breaks Presidential Dog Tradition - Tim Marcin (article)
- The Interesting Stuff is the Important Stuff - T.K. Coleman (article)
- ‘When you study things that fascinate you, you increase the number of planes in your mind. Now the so-called “boring” stuff is able to find a surface in your consciousness upon which it can live. When people say things like “Oh that math stuff terrifies me” or “art bores me” or “philosophy makes my head spin” or “reading history makes me fall asleep”, it isn’t because they need more discipline. It’s because they need to increase the number of planes in their mind. There’s nothing going on inside their hearts and heads that resonates with the allegedly important stuff you’re trying to make them care about.’
- Two perspectives on the designer who Steve Jobs could not hire - Arun Venkatesan (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Part 6: William Branham & the road to Jonestown - Cultish (podcast)
- Part 5: William Branham & The Latter Rain - Cultish (podcast)
- Part 4: William Branham’s end times visions & the serpent seed - Cultish (podcast)
- Part 3: Congressman William D. Upshaw & the Ku Klux Klan - Cultish (podcast)
- Part 2: William Branham, Roy E. Davis, & the formulation of “The Message” - Cultish (podcast)
- Part 1: Exploring the origins of William Branham - Cultish (podcast)
- Future Shock - Alvin Toffler (book, ISBN13 9780553277371)
- “At each stage of this development a widely held set of images were attacked by a set of counter-images. Individuals holding one set were assailed by reports, articles, documentaries, and advice from authorities, friends, relatives, and even casual aquaintances who accepted conflicting views. The same mother, turning to the same authorities at two different times in the course of raising her child, would receive, in effect, somewhat different inferences about reality. While for the people of the past, childrearing patterns remained stable for centuries at a time, for the people of the present and the future, it has, like so many other fields, become an arena in which successive waves of images, many of them generated by scientific research, do battle.” (p. 143)
- NOTE: This book is mildly interesting, but the writing style is the opposite of concise. Toffler spends 1/4 of a section introducing a concept. Another 1/4 is spent giving an anecdote with a statistic that he states 3 different ways in case you suck at math or don’t get the gravity of what he’s saying. He then analyzes the trend with 5 times too many words for another quarter and finishes with telling us what he told us (in case we’re imbeciles).
- Blue Fugates
- “Groceries? Between 1950 and 1963 the number of different soaps and detergents on American grocery shelf increased from sixty-five to 200; frozen foods from 121 to 350; baking mixes and flour from eighty-four to 200. Even the variety of pet foods increased from fifty-eight to eighty-one.” (p. 235)
- “One major company, Corn Products, produces a pancake syrup called Karo. Instead of offering the same product nationally, however, it sells two different viscosities, having found that Pennsylvanians, for some regional reason, prefer their syrup thicker…” (p. 235)
- “Years ago, Dr. Hans Selye, a pioneer investigator of the body’s adaptive responses, reported that ‘animals in which intense and prolonged stress is produced by any means suffer from sexual derangements . . . Clinical studies have confirmed the fact that people exposed to stress react very much like experimental animals in all these respects. In women the monthy cycles become irregular or stop altogether, and during lactation milk secretion may become insufficient for the baby. In men both the sexual urge and the sperm cell formation are diminished.’ Since then population experts and ecologists have compiled impressive evidence that heavily stressed populations of rats, deer—and people—show lower fertility levels than less stressed control groups. Crowding, for example, a condition that involves a constant high level of interpersonal interaction and compels the individual to make extremely frequent adaptive reactions has been shown, at least in animals, to enlarge the adrenals and cause a noticeable drop in fertility.” (p. 303)
- “Today it embarrasses many teachers to be reminded that all sorts of values are transmitted to students, if not by their textbooks then by the informal curriculum—seating arrangements, the school bell, age segregation, social class distinctions, the authority of the teacher, the very fact that students are in a school instead of the community itself. All such arrangements send unspoken messages to the student, shaping his attitudes and outlook. Yet the formal curriculum continues to be presented as though it were value-free. Ideas, events, and phenomena are stripped of all value implications, disembodied from moral reality.” (p. 370)
- The Duct Tape Programmer - Joel Spolsky (article)
- What the Hell is Postmodernism? - Kate Wagner (article)
- Happy Path - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Squid Game + Official Trailer + Netflix - Netflix (video)
- I Love Plumbers. I Hate Plumbing. - Van Neistat (video)
- What Happened to Facebook, Instagram, & WhatsApp? - Brian Krebs (article)
- Python: how to use multiple decorators on one function - Jose Salvatierra (article)
- Python Tutorial: Decorators - Dynamically Alter The Functionality Of Your Functions - Corey Schafer (video)
- ugt - Favna (definition)
- “…it is always morning when person comes into a channel, and it is always late night when person leaves. Local time of any member of channel is irrelevant.”
- scope–Scoped packages - ethomson (documentation)
- Getting started with animating for the web, iOS & Android with Haiku Animator - Haiku (video)
- Introducing Haiku Animator - Haiku (video)
- Haiku Animator goes open source - Zack Brown (article)
- Detergent packs are kinda wishy-washy (Dishwashers Explained) - Technology Connections (video)
- The Antique Microwave Oven that’s Better than Yours - Technology Connections (video)
- Display configuration - emersion, atl-mk, carlpett, etc. (documentation)
- How to setup multiple monitors in sway - arte219 (article)
- Getting Started with Podman - Tom Sweeney, Lokesh Mandvekar, Daniel J Walsh, and other contributors (documentation)
- toml/README.md - Tom Preston-Werner, Pradyun Gedam, etc. (documentation)
- Replacing Docker with Podman - Dan Walsh (video)
- Bucky: A Guided Tour of Buckminster Fuller - Hugh Kenner (book, ISBN13 9780688051419)
- “Everyone knows that his dog hears sounds he cannot. Everyone has read of the interatomic spaces into which, for the physicist, “solid” reality vanishes. But hardly anyone knows what to do with such knowledge. It enjoys a kind of Sunday-supplement reality, after the brief astonishments of which we return to the really real, for instance television. We have learned this attitude from the long tradition of using the scientist’s reality to startle, thus stressing its incompatibility with common experience. Fifty years ago Sir James Jeans and Sir Arthur Eddington, founding fathers of this tradition of popularization, were making their living from elegant mystifications, and since then the scientifically literate have been mostly split men. Bucky puts it differently. Science, he says, lost touch with nonscientists, and engendered the famous “two cultures,” when it gave up the use of models, thus letting us suppose it was talking about nothing real.” (p. 125)
- “…we can imagine a country in which everything is structured in hexagons. Let’s infest it with insane tax assessors who insist on thinking in squares. Every time they want to survey a potato patch they solemnly drag out tables of square roots, muttering about the mysteries of their craft, and get unwieldy numbers like 23.1786⁺ square yards. Though simple uniform unbroken hexagons abound for the counting, the hex-squarers are too snobbish to count. Mathematics isn’t counting; that’s for kindergartens.” (p. 142)
- “In childhood, while his brother was collecting stones, he had collected pieces of paper with his name on them: letters, postcards, pictures, bills, programs, school reports.” “In 1917, he made what he now calls a Grand Strategy Decision, which was simply to throw away nothing of this kind. He would even file it chronologically, as (mark the conversion into altruism), a unique document of the life of one twentieth-century man. (If anyone, anyone at all, anyone in the seventeenth-century, say, had kept Everything, what a window for historians! We should still be more grateful than we are to Pepys.) By 1960 his Dymaxion Chronofile had amounted to 250 volumes, 80,000 letters, 3,500 clippings, innumerable hearsay reports of uncollected items.” (p. 166)
- “The working house frees the life it shelters: neutral itself, it should foster individuality. The house meant to ‘express’ individuality conceals its absence.” (p. 171-172)
- cin.get, cin.putback, and cin.peek() - Robert Martin (video)
- Namespaces - cplusplus.com (article)
- C++ Tutorial for Beginners - Full Course - freeCodeCamp.org-Giraffe Academy-Mike Dane (video)
- Compiling C programs with Multiple Files - Jacob Sorber (video)
- Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson (book, ISBN13 9780380788624)
- “A jeepney was retained. Concept of jeepney is impossible to convey fully here: a minibus, usually named after a pop star, Biblical figure, or abstract theological concept, whose engine & frame come from American, or Nipponese auto company but whose entire body, seats, upholstery, & encrustations of lurid decor are locally manufactured by high-spirited artisans. Jeepneys are normally made outside of Manila in towns or barangays (semiautonomous neighborhoods) that specialize in same; the design, materials, style, etc. of a jeepney reflect its provenance just as good wine allegedly betrays climate, soil, etc. of its terroir.” (p. 512)
- “To translate it into UNIX system administration terms (Randy’s fundamental metaphor for just about everything), the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with any deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into the church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.” (p. 585-586)
- EpiPencil Update/Faq - Michael Laufer (video)
- Introducing the EpiPencil - Dr. Mixæl S. Laufer (article)
- NOTE: There seem to be a few epinephrine autoinjectors out there. Namely,
- EpiPen (market leader for some reason)
- Mylan Epinephrine Injection, USP Auto-injector (authorized generic of EpiPen)
- $339/pack at CVS Pharmacy (Wards Road, Lynchburg) on 2021-10-14
- AUVI-Q (was recalled in 2015 but apparently is back at > $4k price)
- Adrenaclick (seems like an interesting alternative)
- Amneal (formerly Impax) Epinephrine Injection, USP Auto-Injector (authorized generic of Adrenaclick)
- $423/pack at Hill City Pharmacy on 2021-10-14
- Lineage Therapeutics epinephrine injection (authorized generic of Adrenaclick)
- Teva epinphrine injection USP (a generic offering that I need to research further)
- $572/pack at Hill City Pharmacy on 2021-10-14
- $339/pack at CVS Pharmacy (Forest Road, Lynchburg) on 2021-10-14
- AdrenaCard (small form factor alternative that never reached market)
- AllergyStop (another SFF alternative that never reached market)
- PowerOfPlainText - Wiki Wiki Web (wiki page)
- “The problem with the registry is that it’s a big black hole just like the windows/System directory. One of the main problems is readability and accessibility. Half of the things in the registry we don’t know what are for unless you sit there and study it for long periods of time. Sometimes the registry is used to hide things like security keys because of this fact of it being a black hole. People take advantage of the fact that it is a black hole. It’s not a debate of whether or not it is a black hole since people have proven it useful to hide things in. Unfortunately, it’s disadvantages are used as an advantage by commercial developers.”
- How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users - Issue 25 - Lenny Rachitsky (article)
- Rediscovering the Small Web - Parimal Satyal (article)
- I’m a POWER user - Peter Czanik (article)
- Tags are an ineffective association structure - Andy Matuschak (note)
- Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies - Andy Matuschak (note)
- Linux Sucks 2021 - The End of Linux is Nigh - Brian Lunduke (video)
- AWS DynamoDB 101 Lesson 2: Put, Get, Delete And Update Items Using Boto3 - Johnny Chivers (video)
- AWS DynamoDB 101 Lesson 1: Theory And Creating Tables - Johnny Chivers (video)
- AWS DynamoDB Tutorial AWS Services AWS Tutorial For Beginners AWS Training Video Simplilearn - Simplilearn (video)
- PEP 257 – Docstring Conventions - David Goodger and Guido van Rossum (documentation)
- Exceptions in Python Python Tutorial Learn Python Programming - Socratica (video)
- How to Use HTML to Open a Link in a New Tab - Kris Koishigawa (article)
- AWS Essentials: IAM Roles - Linux Academy (video)
- AWS Essentials: IAM Groups and Policies - Linux Academy (video)
- AWS Essentials: IAM Users and Policies - Linux Academy (video)
- AWS Essentials: IAM Initial Setup and Configuration - Linux Academy (video)
- AWS Essentials: What is IAM? - Linux Academy (video)
- AWS Tutorials - Deploy Simple Web Applications in Lambda - AWS Tutorials (video)
- Learn SPARQL in 5 minutes and use it to query WikiData - Louis Guitton (article)
- SPARQL in 11 minutes - Bob DuCharme (video)
- How US Presidents Died According to Wikidata - Ramiro Gómez (article)
- Wikidata Sparql Query Tutorial - Navino Evans (video)
- Create an AWS Lambda Layer for Python Runtime - Ronald Widjojo (article)
- How to create a lambda using Python with dependencies - Raz (article)
- Lambda concepts - Barry Devlin, Michael Wunderlich, and Ali Vest (documentation)
- ‘Lambda and serverless is one of the worst forms of proprietary lock-in we’ve ever seen in the history of humanity’ - Thomas Claburn (article)
- AWS Lambda Tutorial - Stephane Maarek (video)
- What Is NXDOMAIN? - DNS GEEK (article)
- DNS Trends - Geoff Huston (article)
- “…the DNS as we know it today may end up as a small set of high end luxury boutique activities that make a feature of the luxury of custom procedures to manage persistent names, while the rest of the DNS heads deeper into a commodity utility world of large sets of algorithmically generated transient names that are managed entirely automatically and tailored for one-off use by other processes. It may be that the overwhelming use of tomorrow’s DNS has nothing much to do with human names any longer and will be concentrated on serving a largely automated framework that leverages the DNS to support a general command and control signalling framework. Ephemeral names are as good as, if not better than, persistent names. Registration and attribution processes are largely irrelevant. The DNS may still be valuable, but individual names would be completely worthless!”
- Client Subnet in DNS Requests - Carlo Contavalli, Wilmer van der Gaast, Sean Leach, and Edward Lewis (Internet-Draft)
- Happy birthday, OpenStreetMap! - Steve Coast (article)
- Use plaintext email - Drew Devault (guide)
- Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading - Jakob Nielsen and Anna Kaley (article)
- A Guide to Godly Disputation - John Newton (letter)
- “Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines—as well as upon works! A man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature, and the riches of free grace!”
- An Opinionated History of Programming Languages - Ramkumar Ramachandra (article)
- Hacking Your Head : Managing Information Overload - Jo Pearce (video)
- Running Your Business on Linux (No, You Don’t Need Windows) - Carla Schroder (article)
- The US electrical system in not 120V - Technology Connections (video)
- Rookies to open new location in Rivermont - Rachael Smith (article)
- New lofts planned for 12th Street historic building - Rachael Smith (article)
- 100 Ways to Work Out Loud - Chuck Grimmett (article)
- What to Do When You Don’t Know What To Do - Van Neistat (video)
- Fixing the Zip-Line Without Permission - Van Neistat (video)
- DVI vs VGA: Which is Better DVI or VGA? - S. Santos (article)
- Shell productivity tips and tricks - Balthazar Rouberol and Etienne Brodu (article)
- The Surprising Reason Walmart Is Asking Customers Not To Pay With Cash - Christine-Marie Liwag Dixon (article)
- How To Sit In Your Office Chair Properly? 6 Simple Steps To Improve Your Posture - Vance (article)
- The Cryptocurrency Surveillance Provision Buried in the Infrastructure Bill is a Disaster for Digital Privacy - Rainey Reitman (article)
- As Demand for Bikes Surged, Amazon Got in the Way - Decca Muldowney (article)
- Cost Disease in Medicine: The Practical Perspective - Scott Alexander (article)
- Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40% - BBC (article)
- How to Start a Classics Book Club - Hannah Frankman (article)
- Many Americans aren’t aware they’re being tracked with facial recognition while shopping - Anthony Spadafora (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Tips for getting a better price on your health care - Ron Drummond (article)
- Be persistent with providers when negotiating medical bills - Paul D. Price (article)
- Why There are Now So Many Shortages (It’s Not COVID) - Wendover Productions (video)
- Why Thousands Of American Parents Are Sending Their Kids To ‘Russian Math’ - Carey Goldberg (article)
- Who owns your Bible? - Luke Plant (article)
- The Enclosure Movement - Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (article)
- Bursting the bubble: how gum lost its cool - Will Coldwell (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Hacking is the opposite of marketing - Tom MacWright (article)
- Amazon Is Creating Company Towns Across the United States - Alex N. Press (article)
- What I Look for in Homeschool Curriculums - Roslyn Ross (article)
- Escape from Freedom - Erich Fromm (book)
- “If I have the power over another person to kill him, I am ‘stronger’ than he is. But in a psychological sense, the lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expression of the inability of the individual self to stand alone and live. It is the desperate attempt to gain secondary strength where genuine strength is lacking.”
- “…early in his education, the child is taught to have feelings that are not at all ‘his’; particularly is he taught to like people, to be uncritically friendly to them, and to smile. What education may not have accomplished is usually done by social pressure in later life. If you do not smile you are judged lacking in a ‘pleasing personality’—and you need to have a pleasing personality if you want to sell your services, whether as a waitress, a salesman, or a physician. Only those at the bottom of the social pyramid, who sell nothing but their physical labor, and those at the very top do not need to be particularly ‘pleasant.’ Friendliness, cheerfulness, and everything that a smile is supposed to express, becomes automatic responses which one turns on and off like an electric switch.”
- Seeing Like a State - James C. Scott (book)
- “An illegible society…is a hindrance to any effective intervention by the state, whether the purpose of that intervention is plunder or public welfare. As long as the state’s interest is largely confined to grabbing a few tons of grain and rounding up a few conscripts, the state’s ignorance may not be fatal. When, however, the state’s objective requires changing the daily habits (hygiene or health practices) or work performance (quality labor or machine maintenance) of its citizens, such ignorance can well be disabling. A thoroughly legible society eliminates local monopolies of information and creates a kind of national transparency through uniformity of codes, identities, statistics, regulations, and measures. At the same time it is likely to create new positional advantages for those at the apex who have the knowledge and access to easily decipher the new state-created format.” (p. 78)
- “…high modernism implies a truly radical break with history and tradition. Insofar as rational thought and scientific laws could provide a single answer to every empirical question, nothing ought to be taken for granted. All human habits and practices that were inherited and hence not based on scientific reasoning—from the structure of the family and patterns of residence to moral values and forms of production—would have to be reexamined and redesigned. The structures of the past were typically the products of myth, superstition, and religious prejudice. It followed that scientifically designed schemes for production and social life would be superior to received tradition.” (p. 93-94)
- “The Le Corbusian city was designed, first and foremost, as a workshop for production. Human needs, in this context, were scientifically stipulated by the planner. Nowhere did he admit that the subjects for whom he was planning might have something valuable to say on this matter or that their needs might be plural rather than singular. Such was his concern with efficiency that he treated shopping and meal preparation as nuisances that would be discharged by central services like those offered by well-run hotels. Although floor space was provided for social activities, he said almost nothing about the actual social and cultural needs of the citizenry. (p. 115)
- “While something can indeed be said about forestry, revolution, urban planning, agriculture, and rural settlement in general, this will take us only so far in understanding this forest, this revolution, this farm. All farming takes place in a unique space (fields, soil, crops) and at a unique time (weather pattern, season, cycle in pest populations) and for unique ends (this family with its needs and tastes). A mechanical application of generic rules that ignore these particularities is an invitation to practical failure, social disillusionment, or most likely both.” (p. 318)
- “Mētis is not merely the specification of local values (such as the local mean temperature and rainfall) made in order to successfully apply a generic formula to a local case. Taking language as a parallel, I believe that the rule of thumb is akin to formal grammar, whereas mētis is more like actual speech. Mētis is no more derivative of general rules than speech is derivative of grammar. Speech develops from the cradle by imitation, use, trial and error. Learning a mother tongue is a stochastic process—a process of successive, self-correcting approximations. We do not begin by learning the alphabet, individual words, parts of speech, and rules of grammar, then trying to use them in order to produce a grammatically correct sentence. Moreover, as Oakeshott indicates, a knowledge of the rules of speech by themselves is compatible with a complete inability to speak intelligible sentences” (p. 319)
- To Get Good, Go After The Metagame - Cedric Chin (article)
- The Website Obesity Crisis - Maciej Cegłowski (article)
- “For programmers, the cloud offered a chance to design distributed systems across dozens or hundreds of servers early in their careers. It was like getting the keys to a 747 right out of flight school.
Most website work is pretty routine. You hook up a database to a template, and make sure no one trips over the power cord.
But automation at scale? That’s pretty sweet, and it’s difficult!
It’s like you took a bunch of small-business accountants and told them they were going to be designing multi-billion dollar corporate tax shelters in the Seychelles.
Suddenly they feel alive, they feel free. They’re right at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self-actualizing on all cylinders. They don’t want to go back.
That’s what it feels like to be a programmer, lost in the cloud.
Complexity is like a bug light for smart people. We can’t resist it, even though we know it’s bad for us. This stuff is just so cool to work on.”
- “Pretending that one needs a team of professionals to put simple articles online will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Overcomplicating the web means lifting up the ladder that used to make it possible for people to teach themselves and surprise everyone with unexpected new ideas.”
- A Reader Asks: Do I Make Enough Money To Have Kids? - Roslyn Ross (article)
- The Rise of Worse is Better - Richard P. Gabriel (excerpt)
- The Most Precious Resource is Agency - Simon Sarris (article)
- How to Work Hard - Paul Graham (article)
- Egyptian food truck brings new flavor to Appomattox community - Sarah Honosky (article)
- Static Typing in Python - Jerim Kaura (article)
- Single bee is making an immortal clone army thanks to a genetic fluke - Ben Turner (article)
- Brave, the false sensation of privacy - Werwolf (article)
- Introduction to Plug and Play - tedhudek, DCtheGeek, and TimShererWithAquent (documentation)
- Printer Installation and the Plug and Play Manager - barrygolden and DCtheGeek (documentation)
- The Complete Guide to Linked Lists in Python - Nick McCullum (article)
- There is no “us” in team - Graham Lee (article)
- How to Become a Hacker - Eric Steven Raymond (article)
- Language primitive - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Understanding the Banker’s Rounding - rounding.to (article)
- A Lifetime of Systems Thinking - Russell Ackoff (article)
- “The best thing that can be done to a problem is to solve it. False. The best thing that can be done to a problem is to dissolve it, to redesign the entity that has it or its environment so as to eliminate the problem. Such a design incorporates common sense and research, and increases our learning more than trial-and-error or scientific research alone can.”
- “Managers are incurably susceptible to panacea peddlers. They are rooted in the belief that there are simple, if not simple-minded, solutions to even the most complex of problems. And they do not learn from bad experiences. Managers fail to diagnose the failures of the fads they adopt; they do not understand them. Most panaceas fail because they are applied antisystemically. They need not be, but to do otherwise requires an understanding of systems and the ability to think systemically.”
- 115. The Motte & Bailey Fallacy - THUNK (video)
- The Motte-and-bailey fallacy - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Finish your stuff - Martin Sústrik (article)
- Efficiency is the Enemy - Farnam Street (article)
- Everything You Need to Know About the DoD 5220.22-M Wiping Standard & Its Applications Today - Richard Stiennon (article)
- How to Get Yourself to Do Things - David Cain (article)
- Health Level 7 - Wikipedia Contributors (article)
- Minimal Lower Layer Protocol (MLLP) - Apache Camel Contributors (documentation)
- “The MLLP protocol does not typically use a large number of concurrent TCP connections - a single active TCP connection is the normal case.”
- Minimal Lower Layer Protocol (MLLP) - Apache Camel Contributors (documentation)
- The Work-From-Home Future Is Destroying Bosses’ Brains - Ed Zitron (article)
- Plain Theology for Plain People - Charles Octavius Boothe (book)
- “The careful, thoughtful Bible student must be struck with the idea that every writer of the sacred book seems to feel himself perfectly free from any necessity of taking up the burden of proof regarding the truthfulness of his record. He simply makes his statements one after another, and seems not to have the least anxiety as to whether some one may not believe what he has written. The disciples who write of the Crucifixion take no pains to compare their books, so as to remove seeming contradictions, and hence one writes that one of the thieves reviled Jesus, while another writes that both the thieves reviled him. Every man seems to feel that it is not his to set up arguments. The reason for this is found only in what they themselves tell us about it; namely, that the book and the facts and the entire business was God’s, not theirs.” (p. 98)
- The Baptist Church: Its Doctrine of Perseverence of Saints - Lynn R. Wessel (article)
- Why We Won’t Raise Our Kids in Suburbia (and moved to the Netherlands instead) - Not Just Bikes (Video)
- Manufacturing the Librem 5 USA Phone in the United States of America - Todd Weaver (article) REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Simple as in SNMP - J. B. Crawford (article)
- An Unofficial Guide to the URL File Format - Edward L. Blake (article)
- New Evidence That British Workplaces Are Losing Viewpoint Diversity - Ali Goldsworthy, Nick Barron (article)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Reading in the Age of Constant Distraction - Mairead Small Staid (article)
- A (Self-Indulgent) Guide To Autodidactism - Jack Kinsella (article)
- “The internet is filled with a closely related vice: learning porn. Amongst its ranks lie blog articles about AI that gloss over the fully necessary details, popular science books that skip the pesky bit about physics, or lecture series on mathematics that omit any exercises. These education sources are enjoyable to consume as entertainment, and useful to the extent that they excite you about a field, provide helpful “broad before deep” introductions, and deliver the key jargon for Googling should you wish to investigate further. But we must recognise learning porn for what it is, complete with all its shortcomings, and be aware of the opportunity cost of its consumption when learning time budget is limited. Despite the subjective feeling of ease and the sense of speedy learning you’ll experience when watching Khan Academy videos on Linear Algebra, you probably won’t be capable of applying this knowledge to any real world problems without doing supplementary exercises.”
- Evil Unit Testing - Paul Wheaton (article)
- Systems design for advanced beginners - Robert Heaton (article)
- Things You Should Do Now - Evan Priestley (article)
- Choose between Btrfs and LVM-ext4 - Troy Curtis Jr. (article)
- An Introduction to LVM Concepts, Terminology, and Operations - Justin Ellingwood (article)
- Zero to One - Peter Thiel (book)
- Don’t End the Week With Nothing - Patrick McKenzie (article)
- Confessions - St. Augustine of Hippo translated by Sarah Ruden (book)
- “Look, God the Master, and look with forbearance (as in fact you do), on how carefully the sons of men mind the rules of spellings and syllables handed down to them from speakers in the past, but disregard the eternal and unending laws of their rescue handed down to them by you.” (p. 30)
- The Diary of Thomas Edison - Thomas Edison (journal)
- 23 Alternative Career Paths that Software Developers Can Grow Into (article)
- Insulation: first the body, then the home - Kris De Decker (article)
- Understanding Media Through Food: 8 Metaphors w Pratik (article)
- Getting That First Programming Job: Easier Than You Think - Dave Yarwood (article)
- Finally, I Closed My LinkedIn - PC Maffey (article)
- The Federation Fallacy - Alyssa Rosenzweig (article)
- Local-first software - Martin Kleppmann, Adam Wiggins, Peter van Hardenberg, and Mark McGranaghan (article)
- Better Than Free - Kevin Kelly (article)
- How Sustainable is High-tech Health Care? - Kris De Decker (article)
- Never Ending Niches - Ben Thompson (article)
- Ordinary - Michael Horton (book)
- Austin O.
- Getting Things Done - David Allen (book)
- Exam Ref MD-100 Windows 10 - Andrew Bettany & Andrew Warren (book)
- Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau (book)
- What is Wrong with the World - G. K. Chesterton (book)
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - Patrick Lencioni (book)
- REFERRAL: Scott F.
Future
- A Pattern Language - Christopher Alexander (book)
- REFERRAL: Isaac Morehouse
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Suburban Nation - Jeff Speck & Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk (book)
- REFERRAL: Why Does Suburbia Suck? - David Pakman Show (video)
- REFERRAL: A City is Not a Tree: 50th Anniversary Edition - Christopher Alexander (book, ISBN13 9780989346979)
- Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice About Children - Ann Hulbert (book)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Deschooling Society - Ivan Illich (book)
- Divine Sex - Jonathan Grant (book)
- REFERRAL: Audrey F.
- The Dark Forest - Cixin Liu (book) LPL
- The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure - Juliet Schor (book)
- Richard Sapper - Jonathan Olivares (book)
- The Decline of the West - Oswald Spengler (book)
- Anxious Parents: A History of Modern Childrearing in America - Peter N. Stearns (book)
- Lex, Rex - Samuel Rutherford (book)
- Rich B.
- How Will You Measure Your Life - Clayton Christensen LPL (book)
- Hannah Frankman
- Assimilate : a critical history of industrial music - S. Alexander Reed (book)
- The Underground History of American Education - John Taylor Gatto LPL (book)
- The ARPANET Sourcebook: The Unpublished Foundations of the Internet - Peter H. Salus (book)
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Eric S. Raymond (book) HOME
- How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler (book)
- Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software - Nadia Eghbal (book)
- Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Bryan Caplan (book)
- Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman’s Crusade for Free Software - Sam Williams (book)
- Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe - Voddie T. Baucham Jr. (book)
- REFERRAL: LaShonda D.
- Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder - Nassim Nicholas Taleb LPL (book)
- The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money - John Maynard Keynes (book)
- The Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera (book)
- REFERRAL: Live Not By Lies - Rod Dreher (book)
- The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies - Ryszard Legutko (book)
- REFERRAL: Live Not By Lies - Rod Dreher (book)
- The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation - Oliver Bullough (book)
- REFERRAL: Live Not By Lies - Rod Dreher (book)
- This saved us : how to survive brainwashing - Silvester Krčméry (book)
- REFERRAL: Live Not By Lies - Rod Dreher (book)
- An Introduction to GCC: For the GNU Compilers GCC and G++ - Brian J. Gough (book)
- Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces - Remzi H Arpaci-Dusseau (book)
- The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles - Noam Nisan and Shimon Schocken (book)
- Nutrition and Metabolism - Susan Lanham-New, Ian Macdonald, Helen M. Roche and Nutrition Society (book)
- x86-64 Assemby Language Programming with Ubuntu - Ed Jorgensen (book)
- Computer Systems: A Programmer’s Perspective (2nd Edition) - Randall E. Bryant and David R. O’Hallaron (book)
- Beej’s Guide to Network Programming Using Internet Sockets - Brian “Beej Jorgensen” Hall (book)
- High Performance Browser Networking - Ilya Grigorik (book)
- Copper, Iron, and Clay - Sarah Dahmen (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel K.
- Mastering OpenSCAD - Jochen Kerdels (book)
- TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 1 (The Protocols) - W. Richard Stevens (saved somewhere in reading folder) (book)
- The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss LPL (book) HOME
- REFERRAL: Matthew F.
- The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander LPL (book)
- The 480 - Eugene Burdick (book)
- Anarchy in Action - Colin Ward (book)
- Thinking in Systems: A Primer - Donella H. Meadows (book)
- The Long Night of the Watchman - Václav Benda (book)
- The Heavenly Man - Brother Yun (book)
- Lynchburg, VA Downtown 2040 Master Plan
- DNS and BIND - Cricket Liu, Paul Albitz (book)
- East of Eden - Jonathan EdwardS (book)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Reformed Worship - Howard L. Rice (book)
- The Tale of Two Adams - Chris Caughey (book)
- REFERRAL: Austin O. (book)
- Human Transit - Jarrett Walker (book)
- Symbolic Exchange and Death - Jean Baudrillard (book)
- REFERRAL: Cody Wilson
- Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities - Kevin Kelly LPL (book)
- You and Heredity - Amram Scheinfeld (book)
- The Box - Mark Levinson (book)
- I led 3 lives - Herbert A. Philbrick (book)
- REFERRAL: Kurt F.
- Edge City: Life on the New Frontier - Joel Garreau (book)
- The Bug - Ellen Ullman (book)
- Come and Take It: The Gun Printer’s Guide to Thinking Free - Cody Wilson (book)
- Lectures on Jung’s Typology - Marie-Louise von Franz (book)
- Programming in Scala, 5th Edition - Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, Bill Venners, and Frank Sommers (book) HOME
- Digital Vegan - Andy Farnell (book)
- The Tragedy of Great Power Politics - John Mearsheimer (book)
- Design manual for bicycle traffic - Crow Platform
- Central Banking 101 - Steven Wang (book)
- Levy’s Laws of the Disillusionment of the True Liberal - Marion J. Levy Jr. (book)
- Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates (book)
- REFERRAL: Bryant M.
- The Player of Games - Iain M. Banks (book)
- The Shadow of Christ in the Book of Job - C.J. Williams (book)
- REFERRAL: Pastor I met at Charlottesville Amtrak station
- Thank God for Bitcoin: The Creation, Corruption and Redemption of Money - Gabe Higgins, Derek Waltchack, Robert Breedlove, J.M. Bush, Julia Tourianski, Lyle Pratt, and George Mekhail (book)
- The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous (book)
- Layered Money - Nik Bhatia (book)
- The 48 Laws of Power - Robert Greene (book)
- Why things bite back - Edward Tenner (book)
- Christian Theology and Tragedy - Kevin Taylor & Giles Waller (book)
- John Acuff - Start (book)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- 48 Days to the Work You Love - Dan Miller (book)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- The Nordic Secret - Lene Rachel Andersen & Tomas Björkman (book)
- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman (book)
- The Insolent Chariots - John C. Keats (book)
- Subject Collections - Lee Ash (book)
- REFERRAL: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- Encyclopedia of Associations - Frederick Gale Ruffner, Jr. (book)
- REFERRAL: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- How To Be Invisible - J.J. Luna (book)
- REFERRAL: The Watchman Privacy Podcast
- The Existential Pleasures of Engineering - Samuel C. Florman
- REFERRAL: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- Blaming Technology - Samuel C. Florman
- REFERRAL: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- Amateurs: On the Margin Between Work and Leisure - Robert A. Stebbins
- REFERRAL: The Independent Scholar’s Handbook - Ronald Gross (book)
- A New Theory of Urban Design - Christopher Alexander
- REFERRAL: A City is Not a Tree: 50th Anniversary Edition - Christopher Alexander (book, ISBN13 9780989346979)
- Physics - Aristotle
- The Black Tax - Shawn D. Rochester
- REFERRAL: Bryant M.
- Pandora’s Seed - Spencer Wells (book)
- REFERRAL: The Agricultural Revolution Has Been A Disaster for the Human Race - Luke Smith (podcast episode)
- NOTE: book contains information about why east Asia may have socially selected against ADHD aleles
- Packaging: The Sixth Sense - Ernest Dichter (book)
- REFERRAL: Cut Your Grocery Bills in Half - Barbara Salsbury (book)
- Red Famine - Anne Applebaum (book)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- Why Do Rich People Love Quiet? - Xochitl Gonzalez (article)
- REFERRAL: jwz.org
- Strange Days - Kathryn Bigelow (film)
- REFERRAL: Michael R.
- God, Freedom, and Evil - Alvin Plantinga (book) HOME
- REFERRAL: Wikipedia article on the problem of evil
- The Pirate Book - Aa.Vv. (book)
- REFERRAL: notechmagazine.com
- The War on the West - Douglas Murry (book)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- The Great Good Place - Ray Oldenburg
- Current fear of crime, sense of community, and loneliness in italian adolescents: The role of autonomous mobility and play during childhood - Miretta Preza (paper)
- Parking Management Best Practices - Todd Litman (book)
- Fighting Traffic - Peter Norton REFERRAL: Episode 4: Cars and the Culture Wars - The War on Cars (podcast episode)
- Retrofitting Suburbia - Ellen Jones (book)
- How to be an Atheist - Mitch Stokes (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel C.
- The Power Broker - Robert A. Caro
- REFERRAL: reddit.com/r/f***cars
- The Streets of Lynchburg - Martha Helen Cleveland Craddock (book) HOME
- REFERRAL: Givens Books browsing
- Building the American Highway System - Bruce Edsall Seely
- Connect Central Virginia 2045 Long Range Transportation Plan
- How To Start a Business without Any Money - Rachel Bridge (book)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- No Logo - Naomi Klein (book)
- How to Do Nothing - Jenny Odell (book)
- Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Parking Reform Made Easy - Richard Willson (book)
- Reasonable Faith - William Lane Craig (book)
- REFERRAL: Twitter
- A Severe Mercy - Sheldon Vanauken (book)
- REFERRAL: Tyler G.
- The Highway and the City - Lewis Mumford (book)
- REFERRAL: The High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup (book, ISBN13 9781932364965)
- The Geography of Nowhere - James Howard Kunstler (book)
- REFERRAL: Active Towns East Coast Greenway video
- Economism - Jack Quack (book)
- REFERRAL: Bryant M.
- Orthodoxy - G. K. Chesterton
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns
- NOTE: One chapter discusses mystic patriotism for one’s place…similar to topophilia.
- The Wickerman - Robin Hardy (film)
- REFERRAL: Trad Lyfe: CORRECT or COSPLAY? – The Wickerman (Unreleased Episode) - Silver Eye Society (podcast episode)
- NOTE: Also added to Letterboxd watchlist
- Emergent Tokyo: Designing the spontaneous city - Jorge Almazan (book)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Slack member kaz.wojtewicz
- Against Heresies - Irenaeus (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel C.
- The Secret Life of Groceries - Benjamin Lorr (book)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Between Heaven and Earth - Sarah Ricardi-Swartz (book)
- REFERRAL: The Temptation of Illiberalism in Theologically Conservative Christian Circles: An Initial Take - Brian J. Auten (speech transcript)
- Haven in a Heartless World - Christopher Lasch (book)
- REFERRAL: Privatism - R. Dowling (definition)
- The Affluent Society - John Kenneth Galbraith (book)
- REFERRAL: The High Cost of Free Parking - Donald Shoup (book)
- The Fourth Trimester (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel K.
- Dominion - Tom Holland (book)
- REFERRAL: Josh D.
- An Autobiography - Booker T. Washington (book)
- REFERRAL: Josh D.
- Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey (book)
- REFERRAL: The War on Cars podcast - Infiltrating the Auto Show
- NOTE: He writes about the effects of industrial tourism in the national parks and the way driving through parks rather than hiking seriously affects the visitor experience
- The Lives of a Cell - Lewis Thomas (book)
- The Economy of Cities - Jane Jacobs (book)
- Streetfight - Janette Sadik-Khan (book)
- SaltFatAcidHeat - Samin Nosrat (book)
- REFERRAL: Dona M.
- The Epistle to the Romans - John Murray (book)
- REFERRAL: Steve H.
- Beyond Greenways - Robert Searns (book)
- The Past is a Future Country - Edward Dutton (book)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News
- Cities for People - Jan Gehl (book)
- REFERRAL: Walkable City - Jeff Speck (book, ISBN13 9780865477728)
- The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth - Benjamin Friedman (book)
- REFERRAL: The Density Divide: Urbanization, Polarization, and Populist Backlash - Will Wilkinson (research paper)
- NOTE: Quote from “The Density Divide” summarizing this book’s thesis:
- “…the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman draws on the relationship between business cycles and periods of social progress and retrenchment to offer a compelling argument that these psychological phenomena combine to create a powerful one-way ratchet effect.151 In the context of longstanding expectations of rising prosperity, a decrease in the rate of growth can seem like a painful loss, eliciting a propensity to jealously guard our holdings and advantages. We can become disposed to close the gates and bolt them, even if the economy, and each individual share, continues to grow. It follows, then, that actual economic stagnation or contraction will be even worse, and raise our competitive, zero-sum instincts from a simmer to a boil.”
- The Fall of Public Man - Richard Sennett (book)
- Affluent Workers Revisited - Fiona Devine (book)
- Tactical Urbanism - Mike Lydon (book)
- REFERRAL: Confessions of a Recovering Engineer - Charles Marohn (book, ISBN???)
- City of Brass - S. A. Chakraborty (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel K.
- Bottom of the Pot - Naz Deravian (book)
- REFERRAL: Daniel K.
- Fragile Neighborhoods - Seth Caplan (book)
- Lynchburg and its People - W. Asbury Christian (book) LPL
- REFERRAL: Browsing at Lynchburg Public Library
- The Art of Building Cities - Camillo Sitte (book)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Slack
- You and Your Research - Richard Hamming (lecture transcript)
- REFERRAL: Coders at Work - Peter Seibel (book, ISBN13 9781430219484)
- A People’s History of the United States - ??? (book)
- REFERRAL: Lady Bird (film)
- The Myth of the Birth of the Hero - Otto Rank (book)
- REFERRAL: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth - Apostrophe S Productions, Inc. (television series)
- How to Take Smart Notes - Sönke Ahrens (book)
- REFERRAL: Hacker News thread
- NOTE: A recommended book about Zettelkasten
- Starting FORTH - Leo Brodie (book, ISBN10 0138429308)
- REFERRAL: Web search
- City Comforts - David Sucher (book)
- REFERRAL: Nathan H. from Strong Towns Slack
- link to what author says is best chapter
- The Technological Society - Jacques Ellul (book)
- Switch - Chip Heath (book)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Local Conversations Leader Course
- The Righteous Mind - Jonathan Haidt (book)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Local Conversations Leader Course
- Storm Front - Jim Butcher (book)
- REFERRAL: Eric M.
- Sabriel - Garth Nix (book)
- REFERRAL: Eric M.
- Through a Screen Darkly - Jeffrey Overstreet (book)
- In Search of the Common Good - Jake Meadors (book)
- Finding Holy in the Suburbs - Ashley Hales (book)
- Wings of Desire - Wim Wenders (film)
- The Ninth Configuration - William Peter Blatty (film)
- Atlas of the Heart - Brene Brown (book)
- REFERRAL: Mollie W.
- Emile, or On Education - Jean-Jaques Rousseau (book)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Rerum Novarum - Pope Leo XIII (encyclical)
- Stratified Policing - Roberto Santos and Rachel Santos (book)
- REFERRAL: Nicholas L.
- Playborhood - Mike Lanza (book)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Characteristics of Risky Play - Beate Hansen Sandseter (article)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- How Not to Cheat Children: The Theory of Loose Parts - Simon Nicholson (article)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill - Maud Hart Lovelace (book)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- Free the Children! Down with Playgrounds! - Dennis Wood (essay)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- The Image of the City - Kevin Lynch (book)
- REFERRAL: The Design of Childhood - Alexandra Lange (book, ISBN13 9781632866356)
- NOTE: Discusses how children see the city through the making of maps of their neighborhoods
- The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice - William Shakespeare (play)
- REFERRAL: That Hideous Strength - C. S. Lewis (book, ISBN13 9781451664829)
- The Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis (book)
- REFERRAL: David W.
- A History of the Reformation in Scotland - John Knox (book)
- REFERRAL: Josh D.
- I have sent some version of this email to a lot of rookie developers - R. John Anderson (article)
- REFERRAL: Strong Towns Discord
- A Short History of Progress - Ronald Wright (book)
- REFERRAL: Dark Ecology - Paul Kingsnorth (article)
- A Fire Upon the Deep - Vernor Vinge (book)
- REFERRAL: Thom M.
- Slow Noodles - Chantha Nguon (book)
- REFERRAL: Whatever Works - Johnny Sanphillippo (article)
- “Find the pockets of freedom available o you. Exploit loopholes. Play the role of a defeated subject when necessary. Remain undefeated in the important ways, wherever possible. … Determine what you need and find a way to get it for yourself. It will not necessarily be supplied to you, no matter how earnest the promises.”
- Simplifying Saving and Improving Financial Security through Universal Savings Accounts - William McBride, Huaqun Li, Garrett Watson, Alex Durante (article)
- REFERRAL: Blog subscription
- Energy & Equity - Ivan Illich (book)
- Bloody Sunday - Paul Greengrass (film)
- REFERRAL: Bourne Supremacy - Paul Greengrass (film)
- NOTE: Referral was from dvd extras where producer was talking about Paul Greengrass
- REFERRAL: Bourne Supremacy - Paul Greengrass (film)
- The Anxious Generation - Jonathan Haidt
- The Republic - Plato (book)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- United States Declaration of Independence (document)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- Constitution of the United States (document)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- Democracy in America - Alexis de Tocqueville (book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_States
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- Scots Confession (document)
- The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger (book)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- “A few students mention recent books that struck them and supported their own self-interpretation, like The Catcher in the Rye. (Theirs is usually the most genuine response and also shows a felt need for help in self interpretation. But it is an uneducated response…” (pp. 62-63)
- REFERRAL: The Closing of the American Mind - Allan Bloom (book, ISBN10 0671479903)
- Chariots of Fire - ??? (film)
- REFERRAL: The Flesh: Romans 8:5-8 - Rev. Bryan Rigg (sermon)
- What We Know About Climate Change, Updated Edition - Kerry Emanuel (book)
- The Big Church Sort - Ryan Burge (book)
- REFERRAL: 622: How Ideological Purity is Killing Churches with Ryan Burge - Holy Post (video)
- NOTE: Want to read this side by side with Fault Lines
- The Big Sort - Bill Bishop (book)
- Politics and the English Language - George Orwell (essay)
- REFERRAL: Michael H.
- Still Connected - Claude Fischer (book)
- Talking About Machines - Julian E. Orr
- REFERRAL:
- Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman (book)
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