I'm a lasagna boy!

In which the two tons of metal win over the twenty pounds of aluminium*

The gentle folks of SF Party Party speak out on the smack-down that San Francisco's boys in blue have put on cyclists breezing through stop signs.

The video (not available directly, for permissions reasons I do not understand) shows the same intersection where I narrowly avoided becoming part of some jackass's spokes on two separate occasions Tuesday, once in the morning and once at night.
The man-on-the-street (bicycle, in this case) interviewed in the video notes that the neighbourhood suffered through two recent murders, and wonders why the police go after cyclists like him who "slow most of the way down". Don't they have anything better to do? he asks. Better than protecting your stop-sign-flouting ass? Probably. But it's not just about you: their job is to protect everyone, and to ensure order and respect amongst the community. That job is in addition to tracking down drug-dealers, murderers, sham artists (of w. we in the Lower Haight have plenty), and ignoring the dope-shops further down the block (lowest-priority).

Bringing awareness to the importance of road rules is a significant part of the "gold in peace" job: not only do cyclists die at this intersection after failing to stop, but pedestrians are jeopardized. I am all in favour of the police pulling over all vehicles -- private cars, taxis, delivery trucks, cycles, and skateboards -- that don't stop. In the spirit of American innovation, I propose another solution: instead of the motorcycle police stopping you, how about a Mini Cooper? Don't worry, folks: that cyclist was still breathing when he was pulled away from the wreck. I have seen others die at this intersection, and at others around San Francisco. Die, as in never again able to weave around pedestrians, never able again to flip off a car, never again able to pop a a wheelie.

Let us look to the law, the law, and plain ol' common sense. On the other hand, a picture is worth a thousand words -- and I have a half-dozen.

* and hundred-seventy-five pounds of hipster flesh

UPDATE: jimg (as in yojimg!) sez: Same roads, same rules.

UPDATE: I should also point out, in the case that it is not blindingly obvious, that I feel none of the camaraderie that one might expect of people who form cliques based on the "we're all in this together" groupthink. The "we" is every person on the streets: cars and peds and skaters and bikers and weirdos in wheelchairs. I do not have the knee-jerk reaction that cyclists are right, or in the right, because they are not in death monsters or in fossil-fuel-burning SUVs (or hybrids ...); cyclists are right only when they are right, each as an individual. And ditto motorists, to whom I also give a hearty raspberry for blowing through stop signs at the intersection near my house, for roaring down the short block at forty m.p.h., and for blocking the bicycle lane anywhere.

Patisserie Stéphane Secco

The Patisserie Stéphane Secco, at 20 rue Jean Nicot - 75007 Paris (not far from the Quai d'Orsay and the Esplanade des Invalides, a very pretty part of Paris indeed) has delicious honey. Good bread, macaroons, and other pastry -- and delicious honey. Close to the riverfront, should one want a picnic.

prompt side

According to the Theatre Protective Union Local No. 1, the "prompt side" comes from opera, and means "stage right": "Our backstage tour began on the prompt side of the stage (many of the Radio City stagehands use the opera term prompt side for stage right)". I read it initially in a P G Wodehouse story describing the weekend-morning mob at Marble Arch, replete with Communists, sham-artists, and run-of-the-mill lunatics.

stumer

The inimitable Plum, P G Wodehouse has taught me many words (and many shades of meaning) in his delightful comic novels; re-reading a story included in the "Wodehouse Bestiary" anthology, I came upon stumer, "something which is worthless; a failure, a flop, a dud" describing a particular horse's outcome at Goodwood. The word comes from Cork slang, and also has a specific meaning of "counterfeit", but generally refers to a sham or failure. (Answers dot com generally labels the word as "British slang", which would infuriate any Corkonian I know.)

In which we collect the modern language

Describing email as "the first major upheaval in written English since the invention of the printing press", sociolinguists at The British Library are collecting common-or-garden email messages in an effort to document the evolution of our English language. The effort takes place with the coöperation of Microsoft's email system, New Hotmail (or something like that; the site is abysmal and I couldn't look at it for too long).
Aside from the changes in spelling (eliding non-leading vowels, omitting repeated consonants, such as "chng splng, avd grmmr corctns" -- a short-hand scheme my ninth-grade English teacher espoused), and increased use of acronyms, even for common phrases (AIUI for "as I understand it", IM[H]O for "in my [humble] opinon", et al.), the more subtle change in attitude is notable. I receive communication from a lawyer who immediately addresses me on a first-name basis, even though we are in a business relationship; similarly, each of the many messages bears the imprimatur of the email service provider or device ("Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld"). The decrease in formality intrigues me, as email breaks down barriers of society: anyone can easily write to anyone else.
One of the many spelling, grammer, and style exercises repeated in my grade-school lessons was to write a letter to my Congressman, my Senator, the President; we learned formal modes of address, penmanship, and style as well as the format of a proper letter. Salutations, closings, and post-scripts: all part of a concept disappearing.

On the usefulness of the two-dollar bill

Metafilter reminded me of a favourite news story: The Man Arrested for Using $2 Bills.

On personal rapid transit

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hasan article on West Virgina University's thirty-year-old Personal Rapid Transit system.

The 20-passenger cars carry about 15,000 riders, mostly students, a day when classes are in session -- and twice as many for Mountaineer football games.

That compares with about 25,000 riders a day on the light-rail system operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, which covers 25 miles and operates 45 more hours a week than the PRT. Also, the authority's LRV operating cost per ride is about four times higher than on the university-funded PRT.

A transportation charge in their activity fee entitles students to unlimited rides on the PRT. The single-ride cash fare for the public is 50 cents.

The system drew praise this month when the school played host to a small but spirited national seminar focusing on the PRT and other advanced people mover transit technologies. After 30 years, it remains relevant and ahead of its time, attracting transit officials, academics and researchers from around the globe.

Pittsburgh and Allegheny County almost got a similarly unique system in the early 1960s, but political opposition and community controversy killed Port Authority attempts to build an automated, rubber-tire Skybus project. Construction had advanced to building a test track in South Park, now demolished, and rebuilding an abandoned Wabash Railroad Tunnel, now a little-used high occupancy vehicle facility.

... shades of Maglev?

posy

Along with tantivy, another good hunting term: posy, which means "a bunch, an arrangement" for game as for flowers. Imagine a brace of rabbits, but a posy of partridge.

In praise of Malmö

To replace their beloved Kockums Crane, the weeping Swedes of Malmö turned to Santiago Calatrava, who drew inspiration from his sculpture and built the Turning Torso skyscraper.
Calatrava has a fascinating design process and a predliection for pragmatism, despite the fantastic appearance of his structures.

In which we dig on pop

Although I was not at last weekend's Maker's Faire, I was glad to see these (high-speed!) pictures (of people popping balloons!):

In which we take the survey

Caltrain is soliciting input from cyclists through an online survey. Especially interesting are the questions about realigning the bike cars, which are typically at the "northern", or cab-car end of the train (right beneath the crossing horn and station bell, which makes for a restive nap on the trip home). The survey also focuses on the almost-ready San Francisco bike station. (The Caltrain bicycles FAQ is well-written and useful, despite having some out-of-date information -- such as "Caltrain is working to build a bikestation at its San Francisco station, with anticipated opening in fall 2006.")

I have been riding Caltrain since I moved to the Bay Area, in 1997. At the time, Caltrain had embarked on one of the more liberal bicycles-on-transit schemes in the United States: no surcharge for bringing a bicycle on board; reserved seating, with spacious bicycle accomodations, for cyclists; and a policy that encouraged people to use their bicycle for part or all of their trip. Typically used by long-haul commuters, the scheme really caught on. Bike lockers appeared at stations along the route; the party car became an institution (I've eaten wings and downed beer with all sorts of a Friday afternoon); and more and more cyclists took the train. Caltrain has done an admirable job of taking cyclists into account when planning service, rolling stock (even if the results with the Bombardier cars were mixed!), and station renovations.

In which the Cutty Sark burns

Blaze ravages historic Cutty Sark.

A fire which swept through the famous 19th Century ship Cutty Sark may have been started deliberately, police say. The vessel, which was undergoing a £25m restoration, is kept in a dry dock at Greenwich in south-east London.

An area around the 138-year-old tea clipper had to be evacuated when the fire started in the early hours.

A Cutty Sark Trust spokesman said much of the ship had been removed for restoration and the damage could have been worse.

Half the planking and the masts had been taken away as part of the project.

Chris Livett, chairman of Cutty Sark Enterprises which is repairing the clipper, said at the scene: "From where I stand there is not a huge amount of damage to the planking that was left on.

"There are pockets of charred planking and some have gone, but it doesn't look as bad as first envisaged."

The chief executive of the charitable Cutty Sark Trust, Richard Doughty, said: "What is special about Cutty Sark is the timbers, the iron frames that went to the South China Seas, and to think that that is threatened in any way is unbelievable, it's an unimaginable shock."

Following an inspection of the site on Monday afternoon, Mr Doughty said: "Buckling of the hull remains a big fear but until we do the measurements we are not going to know.

"With my naked eye, as far as I have been able to see, the structure of the ship seems to be intact."

Insp Bruce Middlemiss said detectives were looking into the possibility that the fire had been started deliberately.

Special history

Police are analysing CCTV images which are thought to show people in the area shortly before the fire started.

Firefighters were called to the scene at 0445 BST and the flames were put out by 0700 BST.

"The cause of the fire is now under investigation by London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police," a London Fire Brigade spokesman said.

A number of witnesses have already come forward and the police are urging anyone else who may have been in the area to contact them.

A silver car was seen leaving the scene but police said there is nothing at this stage to link it to the fire.

CUTTY SARK
Built in 1869 at Dumbarton on the River Clyde
Designed by Hercules Linton
First voyage February 1870
210ft (64m) long
Main mast stood 152ft (46.3m) above the deck
Has had 15 million visitors
Preserved as a tribute to merchant navy workers

Greenwich Council leader councillor Chris Roberts said: "This is a devastating blow for what is a truly iconic symbol of Greenwich across the world.

"The Cutty Sark has a unique and special history, which helps to draw millions of visitors to Greenwich every year."

The Cutty Sark left London on her maiden voyage on 16 February 1870, sailing around The Cape of Good Hope to Shanghai in three-and-a-half months.

She made eight journeys to China as part of the tea trade until steam ships replaced sail on the high seas.

The ship was later used for training naval cadets during World War II, and in 1951 was moored in London for the Festival of Britain.

Shortly afterwards, she was acquired by the Cutty Sark Society.

The ship was undergoing conservation work because sea salt had accelerated the corrosion of her iron framework.

Dr Eric Kentley, curatorial consultant to the Cutty Sark Trust, said of the ship: "It can be saved. It's certainly not completely devastated.

"We will put her back together - but it's going to take much, much longer and a lot more money than we originally thought."

Visit London's chief executive James Bidwell said: "The ship's need for vital conservation has put it in the public eye recently and we can only hope that this terrible fire will redouble all our efforts to preserve this wonderful part of London's heritage."

The Duke of Edinburgh is due to visit the Cutty Sark on Tuesday. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell inspected the remains on Monday afternoon.

The Cutty Sark Trust is appealing for funds to help repair the fire damage and complete the restoration.

In which we see shadows of Mole People

A few years after reading Jennifer Toth's Mole People, watching the film Dark Days, and generally getting quite excited about the decaying, Gothic life in the rail tunnels of New York City, I read some commentary on the book's veracity. Joseph Brennan, a self-professed rail buff and "abandoned sites" aficionado, wrote a fact-based critique of Toth's topology and geopgrahy, finding fault at 'most every turn; similarly, popular myth-busting madman Cecil Adams gives us The Straight Dope on the book and its lack of reproducibility.

In which the MUNI melts

The San Francisco Chronicle scored a point this morning, with its snappy Muni Metro falls down on the job again headline. The story's personal anecdote: "Rebecca Krueger, who takes the Metro to her job in Mission Bay, said she left her home in the Inner Sunset at 5:30 a.m. and two hours later still wasn't at work." Inner Sunset to Mission Bay is just over five miles as the driving goes, or 45 minutes on the theoretical MUNI. If MUNI's T-Third were cheese, you could put it and some chopped beef between day-old slices of bread and have a melt.

In which we consume the quantity

UPDATE: Chris Jordan understandably disables linking directly to images on his site.

Jim Gray

Last month, The Register published a memorial to Jim Gray, the Turing Award winner and computer-science researcher.

lart

Although I do not often worry about jargon, and especially not computer/geek jargon, something about the casual bounciness of "lart" caught my eye.

BART 2.0

BART has started to distribute its schedule data via an open feed format. Now, in addition to embedding a BART planner widget, you can take the actual data and have at it.

A Shropshire Lad

One of my very favourite volumes of poetry, both for its compact and practical attitudes and for this edition, which fits neatly in my pocket -- any pocket. Housman is best known for To An Athlete Dying Young, When I Was One and Twenty, and the beautiful advice of LXII, "Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff":

And malt does more than Milton can

To justify God’s ways to man.

Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink

This is by way of explanation for the pile of empty bottles and growlers lying at the kerb, and for my not having read anything else these past few days.
UPDATE: The power of text search reminded me that I last read this collection just over a year ago, in concert with Stoppard's play The Invention of Love.

In which we read the newspapers

Four Saved From Giant Vat of Fish Feces

(05-11) 15:52 PDT Turners Falls, Mass. (AP) -- This nasty rescue is no fish tale. Rescuers cut through a filtration tank of dense fish feces to reach four workers who fell into the sludgy dung Friday while cleaning the 18-foot tank at a western Massachusetts farm.

The workers became trapped for 45 minutes after a bracket holding a plastic filtration pad collapsed as workers stood on it to clean the fiberglass tank at the Australis Aquaculture fish farm, said Capt. David Dion of the Turners Falls Fire Department and the fish farm's manager Josh Goldman.

One of the farmhands fell below what Dion described as a sand-and-feces mix, while the other three had their heads above the sludge, he said.
Goldman said the workers and the pad, which collects bacteria created by fish urine and feces, like some household aquarium filters, fell to the bottom of the tank.

"Everybody's present and accounted for," Goldman said. "A couple of the guys even came back to say hi."

Rescuers slashed through the feces mix until they were able to pull out the workers, Dion said.

"It was very slimy and it was heavy," he said. "Never seen anything like it in my life."

One worker who became submerged in the feces was airlifted to Bay State Medical Center in Springfield, but was talking with paramedics and did not appear to have life-threatening injuries, Dion said. The other three were taken by ambulance to a local hospital with minor injuries.

Dion said rescue workers cut a hole in the side of the tank at the farm which raises barramundi, a new fish farmed as a replacement for grouper.

And Bay Area newspapers report that the City of Berkeley has finally issued The Shipyard a cease-and-abate order. The Shipyard is an artists' and engineers' collective, housed in shipping containers at the western edge of the city.

In which I rofflemayo

I swear that no two neurons are connecting right now.

Invisible LOLcat gags are making me chuckle (even with macro).

In which we remain in suspense

The New York Times has an article on bridges: bridges of the Incas.

In a recent research paper, Dr. [John A.] Ochsendorf wrote: “The Inca were the only ancient American civilization to develop suspension bridges. Similar bridges existed in other mountainous regions of the world, most notably in the Himalayas and in ancient China, where iron chain suspension bridges existed in the third century B.C.”

In which I am a millionaire

If I had a nickel for each time I heard the phrase "Your call is important to us" and a dime for "Your call is very important to us", I swear, I would have money pouring out my goddam ears.

Elective Affinities

One of Goethe's more famous quotations comes from his novel(la) Elective Affinities, which I first read after a review of Tuffaut's Jules et Jim mentioned that that Jeanne Moreau's character symbolically read this book.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

On a day like today

"Check the record, check the record, check the guy's rock record."

In which we meet the gelato makers

These are the men I want to sell me ice cream. (Seeing this photo of cheerful men with tasty food makes me too cheerful to record my second, unwelcome experience yesterday at Rick's Rather Rich.)

aubergine

Although not as tortuous as this might suggest, I had an online adventure. It all began when I wondered about the word juggernaut (not related to astronaut, except through an attempt an English orthographic standardization) when I confirmed my little knowledge of Rath Yatra by looking it up on the internet, which led in turn to Wikipedia, and thence to the discovery that aubergine comes to English through Catalan and Arabic, but ultimately the word comes from Sanskrit.

In which it is unstoppable

In which we see the master plan for Los Angeles ...

... and can't stop laughing.

The plan to get LA moving has ambitions to connect, with public transit, Los Angeles' many neighbourhoods, breaking through the many barriers of geographic, social, and political difficulty.

(copy from getlamoving dot com)

And, oh, yes, who will pay for this?