FSP 1.1

Fly Continental

I usually fly Continental becasue it goes where I need
to go, and they have a great frequent flyer program.

But they do save money in some picky ways:

There will be 100 initial changes, he said, and some will
directly affect customers. For example, the airline will
charge $20 extra for each paper ticket, a change that
American and United Airlines have already made.
Passengers will not receive a full can of soda unless
they ask. They will also have to ask for plastic
knives at breakfast if they want one. Those
last two changes will save the airline $1 million and
$80,000 a year, respectively.

-- Ned Walker, Continental spokesman.[NYT]

Quicktime plugin, uninstallable ?

The QuickTime FAQ asks, Q. How do I launch QuickTime Player from a web page?
and answers by explaining how to reference a QuickTime movie file on my server. A better answer would instruct me how to tell my browser to invoke the QuickTime application from my web browser or how to invoke the QuickTime plug-in from my web browser.
Nowhere does http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/qt/specifications.html suggest QuickTime can play .MOV files, or suggest what MIME-type such files should have in my browser configuration. Type X-don't-give-a-toss didn't work. Moreover, the Get plugin link actually gets an entire QuickTime application, not just a plugin.
Since this page contains a gratuitous mention of Ellen Feiss, many will find it.

FasTrak to privacy

The SF Bay area MTC is planning on using toll-taking transponders to
track drivers on non-toll roads.

[NYT], [BATN], Adam Clymer, New York Times, 2002 August 26.

Phil Agre who was quoted in the Times story responds.

This alternate use of toll-transponders is harly a novel idea:
The local toll authorities are going to install an AVI system at
existing toll points, namely the bridges that link up New Jersey and Brooklyn
to Staten Island. These readers will identify vehicles that are participating
in the AVI system and bill them for using the bridge.

TRANSCOM wants to install more AVI readers every few along the
highways feeding the bridges. Then they want to take the vehicle ID's from the
bridges and notice when they encounter the same vehicle ID's at various points
along the highways. Their computer will then be able to calculate the average
speed of the tagged vehicles and set off an alarm if the average speed is below
some threshold, indicating that there is a traffic incident of some kind
slowing things down. [comp.risks]

And the Times needs a fact checker:
The Golden Gate Bridge toll is a $3, not $2.
The tolls are charged in only one direction (typically towards San Francisco),
so recording direction for toll-taking reasons is moot:

from FasTrak itself, which sends customers monthly statements saying
which bridges they have crossed, with the date, time and direction of
travel.

Back on the topic of privacy, obviously assurances that

We're not going to comply with the California Highway Patrol if for
some reason they ask us to change the policies.
could me more convincing if there were significant penalties for
requesting the info, (and there were assurances that lawful orders to
reveal such info would also be denied).

More info in the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune: 1, 2,
and AP Wire.

Blogger meetup

Blogger Meetup day was last week. I was in Clayton, MO.
There I met James Durbin, another recent import from CA. I saw quite a few people with laptops, but didn't pester them all to see if they were STL.bloggers present for Meetup.
Next time I will bring a meetup flag or other icon.

St Louis life: St Charles chapter

The big excitement in St. Charles:
a radioactive dumpsite is opened up to gawkers.

maps without trains

The Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group produce important
s such as Projections 2002 which plan needed
transit and other infrastructure improvements.

But their map shows all freeways and no transit.

Compare SVMG's map

to the BayRail Alliance's:

Also see the MTC's regional_transit_diagram.pdf [2 mb].

reverse polish

The reverse polish web calculator has been revived. Better than MSWindow's built in calculator. And what happened to Mac OS's graphing calculator in OS X ?

Bridge Boondoggle

Thanks to Richard Mlynarik of Bay Area Transportation News
for this report on the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge
seismic rebuilding:

Caltrans' 1997 estimate of $2.6 billion to retrofit bridges and
replace the eastern span of the Bay Bridge swelled 77 percent to $4.6
billion, while completion dates stretched from 2004 to 2009.

* The new eastern span is the largest cost factor: Caltrans now puts
the price at $2.6 billion, double the original estimate.
* Caltrans' failure to include inflation in its cost estimates led
lawmakers initially to underfund the toll-bridge program.
* The Bay Area's insistence on a signature or landmark eastern span
and amenities such as a bicycle path drove up the cost.

* Motorists will pay a bigger share than initially intended: Tolls now
cover 49 percent of the program costs, up from 35 percent in the
original funding plan.

* Rising support costs, such as staff salaries and consultant fees,
account for a fourth of the overrun.

BATN note: in fact, the over overrruns have been far, far greater.
Caltrans originally promised to replace the span for $1,005 million
(April 1997 Caltrans memo justifying replacement rather than retrofit
by lower "life cycle" costs, compared to a $909 million retrofit.)
By April 1999 (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) replacement was
$1,500 million. [1]

"They've more or less confirmed what we knew all along," said Steve
Heminger, executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation
Commission. "The issue that remains that neither they nor we know is
what will be the final cost."

BATN note: then-MTC Manager of Legislation and Governmental Affairs
Heminger repeatedly insisted during the "Bay Bridge Design Taskforce"
"process" of 1997-1999 that East Span replacement, as proposed by
Caltrans and the interest-conflicted consultants associated with the
panel, was the only (politically or fiscally) acceptable
alternative, and justified this by reference to Caltrans' budget
estimates, which at the time and subsequently he showed no qualms
whatsoever in portraying as "final costs". [2]

The cost of steel on the eastern half of the Bay Bridge rose $244
million. Transportation experts familiar with the project say this is
a consequence of Gov. Gray Davis' decision to start a Buy America
program on the bridge and seek federal bridge funds. Ultimately, the
federal government kicked in $642 million. [3]

View a full copy of the state Auditor's report.

Sunday papers

Catching up on Sunday papers, I see the LA Times has a story
on recent proliferation of the English flag in England:

Columnists have attributed the flag-waving--even, surprisingly, by standard-bearers of the left--as a sign of resurgent patriotism in a land usually reticent about expressions of nationalist sentiment.

"The English have come slowly, shyly to their national identity," Tony Parsons wrote
in the Mirror newspaper recently. "It looks as if the English are finally allowed to start
loving themselves. The sting has been drawn out of the flag of St. George. All the old
connotations, that a red cross on a white background meant a mind-set that was white,
racist, boozy, xenophobic, exclusive, have gone out the window."

"I think the Union Jack has connotations to do with Britain's past," Billy Bragg said.

"I think of British culture as being rather monocultural and that monoculture as centering
around the monarchy, the flag and the British empire. The English flag doesn't really
have those imperial connotations."

Also in the papers, Florida debuts a confusing ballot [NYT].

...the unified statewide ballot created to avoid a repeat of the disastrous 2000
presidential election. The Democrats say it is confusing, and could mislead voters
into choosing two candidates for governor instead of just one. The top of the ballot
instructs people to "vote for one pair," meaning one pair of candidates —
a governor and a lieutenant governor.

In a perfect world, the ballot would then list three pairs of candidates. But it
does not because none of the three Democratic candidates for governor has chosen
a running mate yet. (They have until a week after the primary to do so.)

The ballot lists only the names of the three candidates for governor —
Daryl L. Jones, Bill McBride and Janet Reno — with a bubble beside each for
marking a vote. Beneath each name is the phrase "Not Yet Designated."

State Democratic officials say voters may not understand that "Not Yet Designated"
is a person. They fear, for example, that voters may fill in two bubbles and
join Ms. Reno, the former United States attorney general, with Mr. McBride,
a Tampa lawyer who is her main challenger, in a Reno-McBride ticket.

You will

This Joel Garreau story [WashingtonPost.com], based on Howard Rheingold's paper
reminds me of an old Suck column on AT+T's You Will.

Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada, accused of massive corruption,
was driven out of power two years ago by smart mobs who swarmed to demonstrations,
alerted by their cell phones, gathering in no time. "It's like pizza delivery,"

Alex Magno, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines,
told The Post at the time. "You can get a rally in 30 minutes -- delivered to you."

"It's a great way to get people who are in offices involved," Christina Bautisto,
who works in Manila's financial district, said of her fellow professionals.

"They don't have to spend all day protesting. They just get a message telling
them when it's starting, and then they take the elevator down to the street.
They can be seen, scream a little and then go back to work."

Time softening
"If you didn't have the cell phone, you'd make more of an effort to be on time,"
says Kaine Kornegay, 21, an intern in the Senate. "It's more socially acceptable
to be late," he says, "because you've given notice that you would be."

"With that, the problem is resolved because the information was transmitted,
although not his physical body," chimes in Ky Nguyen, 30, a Laurel freelance writer.
"There's a level of service agreement," he says.

Just-in-time Partying
Theresa Ward of McLean admits that she now waits until the last minute to make
social commitments, responding to the best offer. "One example, embarrassing
but true -- I was supposed to go to my friend's graduation party and when I
found out about a dollar draft special, at the last minute I ditched my plans
and met other people."

The MTV lifestyle
"If I've shown up and not found the love of my life, not had a love-at-first-sight
experience," at one location, "then I have the opportunity to find out if there are
other s going on where that might happen," says Bernardo Issel, a writer.
"It distracts you from real life that you're engaged in," says Issel. "You're
flitting from one place to another. You're more likely to pursue superficial
engagements rather than deep pursuits. "It contributes to this certain
MTV approach to life where you engage in something for a few minutes
and then there's a commercial.".

In the real world the mobile phone experience is marred by lousy user interfaces,
tiny keyboards, short battery lives, miniscule screens, low resolution, limited
range, underprovisioned networks and spotty coverage, and incompatibilities.

Update 2004 June 13: That's mLife [/.]