Yearly Archives: 2006
Bad Design On Wheels
October 7, 2006 – 12:39 am
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which runs Boston’s subways, commuter rails, and buses, is rolling out new fare collection devices on all of its buses. 356,400 people ride its buses every day, so you’d think that the MBTA would make sure that the new systems are efficient and user-friendly. They’re not. The first two images [...]
Google Thyself
October 5, 2006 – 2:05 pm
Google recently purchased the house where the company started in a garage just eight years ago Saturday. The story is interesting not for the purchase itself but because of what Google asked of the Associated Press: so many people drive by the Google house that the company requested that reporters not reveal the address, despite [...]
Today I Was Part of a “Very Isolated, Very Random” Problem
September 26, 2006 – 10:46 pm
. . . according to a Comcast spokesperson. Our good buddies at IDG News Service report that the failure of a DNS (domain name system) server at Comcast caused problems for some Web surfers in the northeast section of the U.S. today, making several Web sites, including Google, inaccessible. The server failure caused connectivity problems [...]
Plato on Today’s Social Sciences, Perhaps
September 21, 2006 – 11:16 pm
“Suppose a man was in charge of a large and powerful animal, and made a study of its moods and wants; he would learn when to approach and handle it, when and why it was especially savage or gentle, what the different noises it made meant, and what tone of voice to use to soothe [...]
Brookline: “No We’re Not Part of Boston!”
September 19, 2006 – 10:39 pm
Though surrounded by Boston, the 300-year-old town of Brookline is its own city. At the border of Brookline and Brighton—a neighborhood of Boston—you can see that each town seems not to take account of the other, at least with regard to fire hydrant placement (hydrants usually are more than just ten feet apart). From what [...]
Northern Forest Canoe Trail
September 15, 2006 – 10:10 pm
After reading about it in the New York Times, I’d like to try parts of the fairly new Northern Forest Canoe Trail. With rapids rated no higher than Class IV, it should be mostly scenic and leisurely.