FSP 1.1

APTA Commuter Rail

Transit nerds make the case.

APTA Commuter Rail meeting, Chicago, IL: 2003 April 13-16.
Announcement.

APTA Rail Transit Conference San Jose, California: 2003 June 08-12.
Sessions; CFP.

Planned presesntation:
Beyond Signage: Wayfinding and Information Architecture for Rail Commuters.
Check back by 2003 March 21.

Abstract:

Wayfinding is a two-stage process during which people must solve a wide variety
of problems in architectural and urban spaces that involve both "decision
making" (formulating an action plan) and "decision executing" (implementing the
plan).

User centered design of commuter facilities and systems must accommodate a
variety of users

(classes of rider: potential rider, new rider, frequent rider, choice rider, captive
rider; all with varied abilities and experiences) and tasks of both trip planning
(scheduling, routing, ticketing) and trip execution (station access: arrival, exit,
escape, driving, parking, and walking routes; and train access: boarding,
seating, alighting). Also addressable are accessory tasks such as kiss and ride
pick-up meeting, discovering and using station amenities, and facilitating trip
combining, and performance monitoring ('Is my train on time today ?').

This paper outlines a methodology for designing commuter rail systems to better
communicate with riders. Techniques such as use of personae (assembling a
collection of representative users) and use cases and heuristic task analysis help
avoid the worst blunders. Design blunders pr and discourage ridership. In
evaluating systems, a measure of efficiency is used: if a trip that met a
commuter's needs was available but not found and thus not taken, the system is
inefficient. Efficiency is key for commuter rail systems to win over choice
riders.

Importantly, necessary solutions go beyond signage. Some include architectural
aspects, and all require careful organization of information.

A research agenda for developing conventions and standards and guidelines for
providing information to rail commuters is proposed.

Oakland

Oakland: A city overshadowed by San Francisco on the west,
outpaced by the rapidly developing high-tech metropolis of
San Jose on the south, less media spotlighted and exposed
than the politically legendary university town of Berkeley to
the east, and far less of a tourist mecca and destination than
the Napa-Sonoma wine country to the north, Oakland seemingly
exploded out of its anonymity through the images, actions
and unparalleled successes of the Raiders, the A's and the
Golden State Warriors in the 1970s.

-- Harry Edwards, former UC Berkeley professor who now
leads the city's parks and recreation agency, 2002.

Data mining by Poindexter

The system would look only for certain patterns in commercial databases — not
create any centralized record-keeping system of American citizens' activities — it
would not violate civil liberties.

Vice Adm. John M. Poindexter, PhD. in the New York Times.

How to argue: crack = mother's milk

Critic: California's vehicle license fee (VLF) is the crack
cocaine of local government.

Apologist: VLF isn't crack cocaine. It's more like the
mother's milk of local law enforcement, fire safety,
public health, parks and libraries.

Cites: 1, 2, 3, 4 .

None of the power, all the corruption

If the adage is true that power corrupts, the federal NDP
reveals the opposite: that sustained lack of power also corrupts.

It corrupts, not in the power-wielding sense of encouraging
arrogance and venality, but by leading to a cast of mind whereby
the complexities and compromises necessary for serious governing
are overwhelmed by slogans, bombast, extravagant rhetoric and
ideological nostrums that work up the faithful and turn off everybody
else.
-- commentator Jeffrey Simpson in the Globe and Mail newspaper.

Wireless Vision

The new days of unlabeled buttons, inaccessible scrollers,
wasted margin and unused graphics. Sprint Vision.

Phone: Sanyo 4900, the phone of autumn 2002.

.

The simple old days of Sprint Wireless Web:

Phone: Samsung 8500, the phone of autumn 1999.

This example is from the ACERail silicon valley commuter train system [more info.]

luggage: lock and load

Q: Can I still transport a firearm in checked baggage?

A: Subject to state and local restrictions on transporting firearms, you may still transport a firearm in your checked baggage. However, you should first check with your airline or travel agent to see if firearms are permitted in checked baggage on the airline you are flying. Ask about limitations or fees, if any, that apply.

Firearms carried as checked baggage MUST be unloaded, packed in a locked hard-sided gun case, and declared to the airline at check-in. Only you, the passenger, may have the key or combination. Ammunition may be packed in the same locked container as the firearm, so long as it is not loaded in the firearm. Small-arms ammunition must also be declared to the air carrier and placed in an appropriate container - securely packed in fiber, wood or metal boxes or other packaging specifically designed to carry small amount of ammunition.

In addition, small-arms ammunition must also be declared to the air carrier and placed in an appropriate container: "securely packed in fiber, wood, or metal boxes, or other packaging specifically designed to carry small amounts of ammunition." Ammunition may be packed in the same locked container as the firearm, so long as it is not loaded in the firearm.

Alibi construction kit

Note the dates of purchase. It appears I've created an
alibi for last autumn.

Which city: where is CO taking me ?

Today my Continental welcome page lists a trip
that I'm not taking (from SJC to EWR, 2003 Jan. 13).

I follow the All saved reservations link, and see this trip is actually
from SJC to STL.

Following this flight's link, I see the details:
SJC to IAH to CLE to STL; then returning
STL to EWR to SJC.

Is this a trip I would summarize as SJC to EWR ? No.

[More frequent flyer tales]

Ivan Brunetti

Ivan Brunetti has some good illustrations. But this font is not Kanji.

Brinworld

Brinword, noun.
Mesotopian environment where subjects monitor authorities, typically as
systematically and as technologically adept as authorities monitor subjects.

Reference to David Brin's
The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between
Privacy and Freedom?.

Precision speaker, tense

Scene: The Anheuser Busch Brewhouse in Saint Louis Lambert airport,
Terminal A.

Waitress: Who had a brat ?
Waitress: Did you have a brat ?

dc: No.

[Waitress walks to next table.]
Waitress: Who had a brat ?
Waitress: Did you have a brat ?

[Waitress walks to another table]
Waitress: Who had a brat ?
Waitress: Did you have a brat ?

[Waitress returns to my table.]
Waitress: Who had a brat ?

dc: [Supposes that waitress recalls serving a bratwurst,
but fails to remember to whom.

For some reason, the waitress now needs to identify who had
this bratwurst.

Is she just trying to determine to which table she should bring
the bratwurst check ?]

dc: I ordered a bratwurst, but I haven't had it yet.
I am still waiting for my order to be served.

Waitress: Aggh. It's yours. Sorry, here is your meal.

Rule: A waitress who does not remember a food order gets a less
than 20% tip.

Kanji-riffic

I like situational Kanji. Pictographs created for a specific purpose.
A typical view is that Japanese or Chinese characters are centuries old,
and static.

But in English, new words, phrases and idioms are coined all the time.
Think of a jazz hipster (or a Will Smith song). My view is that new
Kanji can be and are coined all the time. They're just not recognized as
Kanji. Don't you agree, you jiggy bootknocker ?

As logos:

list categories of entry

I'd like an easy way to list all the categories an entry currently has,
and add categories in the context of still seeing already assigned categories.

Top 1 %

My favorite polling result of the 2000 election was a Time magazine survey that revealed that 19 percent of Americans believe that they have incomes in the top 1 percent, and a further 20 percent believe they will someday. A large majority of us regard ourselves as pretty far above average.

David Brooks, a senior editor of The Weekly Standard, and the author of Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.

[Quoted in the NYT]

Dogs sniffing

I see a need for cheese- and chocolate-sniffing dogs.

Travelers are being warned not to lock bags they plan to check,
because screeners may be forced to break open locked bags to search
for any suspicious items inside.

In addition, travelers should not place food items inside checked
bags because certain edibles, such as chocolate and cheese, can be
mistaken for explosives by electronic baggage-scanning devices.

[...]

Bomb-sniffing dogs and manual searches will be employed as well,
said Oakland airport spokeswoman Cyndy Johnson.

2002 Dec. 31 Contra Costa Times: New airport bag screening law may cause