FSP 1.1

Collective upstart architecture

These days, young architects are forming collaborative firms right out of
architecture school; many don't even consider jobs with traditional firms, where
they worry they will have to spend years designing bathrooms and closets.

"Part of the collaborative spirit among younger architects is that they're seeing
what's required to compete in a profession dominated by fame and by track
record," said David Rockwell, who worked with the Think team. In an effort to
gain notice, he said, young architects ? emboldened because they can first
support themselves with computer-based design work ? are banding
together. Goodbye Fountainhead, Hello Kibbutz [NYT].

Blinking find tool in text tools

Which is easier to notice:

I wish this choice of colour was a choosable preference for the Edit/Find command.

Adding an MT category index in 22 steps

Here's how I put the MT link on the left.

1. In the master menu, choose FSP (name of my blog).
   
2. In the FSP menu, choose categories
   
3. In Categories, create and save an MT entry.
   
4. return to the FSP menu.
   
5. select blog config.
   
6. select archiving.
   
7. turn on category archiving.
   
8. go CoreSetup tab.
   
9. note the directory location specified for archives.
   
10. SSH into the web host.
    
11. cd to the archive directory.
    
12. ls cat*.
    
13. copy the output of ls to an editing buffer ( a vi session, teachtext, Word2003, etc).
    
14. edit the ls output to linkify: change cat_MT.html to
    < a href="archives/cat_MT.html" > MT < /a > .
    
15. back to the MT FSP Editing Menu.
    
16. select templates.
    
17. select Main index.
    
18. between Recent Entries and Links, add
    in the linkified text.
    
19. to get the Categories, copy the div
class=sidetitle and div class=side
    from another section and edit accordingly.
    
20. save.
    
21. rebuild (you may lose your work if you rebuild before saving).
    
22. Enjoy.
    

MovableType is great, but could benefit from some task oriented walk through
the process documentation.

Read categories and ask yourself,
How would a reader find the categories ?
How would a blog author tell the reader what categories there are ?

Movable Type User Manual: CATEGORIES
Table of Contents
CATEGORIES
Edit Category Screen
CATEGORIES

Movable Type allows you to enter a list of categories, then assign one or more
categories to each of your entries. This allows you to keep track of your entries
from a maintenance standpoint--for example, when listing your entries you can
choose to list entries only from a particular category--and it can also be used to
provide a categorization structure to your archives.

Each entry can be assigned one primary category and any number of
secondary categories. The primary category is used when you wish to display
information about only one of the categories to which an entry is assigned--for
example, when using the <$MTEntryCategory$> tag. When you wish to display
a list of all of the categories to which a post has been assigned, you can use the
< MTEntryCategories > container.

The difference between primary and secondary categories is not one of ranking
but rather of usage--your secondary categories are not necessarily ``lesser'' or
``lacking in importance'' when compared to your primary category. Rather, the
difference is one of usage: the primary category is the category which will be
displayed when using the <$MTEntryCategory$> tag, or when linking to the
Category archive for an entry using <$MTEntryLink
archive_type="Category"$>.

You can manage your list of categories in Movable Type by logging in, selecting
a weblog, then clicking Categories. Add new categories by typing their labels
into the empty text entry boxes; the system always shows five empty boxes, so
if you fill up the first five, just press SAVE and you'll get five more.

Edit Category Screen

By clicking the Edit category attributes link, you can edit some additional
metadata regarding the category. You can associate a description with each of
your categories. This description can then be used on your archive pages, for
example, as introductory text describing that particular category and the entries
within it.

You can also manage TrackBack-related information for the category:

TrackBack URLs to ping
Use this field to associate a list of TrackBack URLs with a category. When you
post a new entry into this category on your own site, each of the URLs you have
listed will be pinged with information about this new entry.

Accept incoming TrackBack pings
When you turn on a category's ability to accept TrackBack pings, the system
sets up a TrackBack item for this category so that remote sites will be able to
send pings to your site, notifying you of new entries that fit within the category.
These pings can then be displayed on your site, allowing you to build a
repository of links relating to a particular subject.

After clicking the ``On'' checkbox, save the changes, and the system will give
you the TrackBack URL that other users can use to ping your category.

Passphrase Protection
If you only wish to allow a certain set of users to send TrackBack pings to your
category, you can set a passphrase for the category. Users who wish to send
pings to your TrackBack-enabled category will need to know the passphrase in
order to ping you.

This is a good way to enable ``private'' TrackBack items; even if someone can
guess the TrackBack ID, he will not be able to send a ping unless he knows the
passphrase.

This is optional. If you do not set a passphrase, everyone will be able to ping
you without providing a passphrase.

You can set up category archiving in your weblog configuration--select a
weblog, then click Weblog Config. In the Archive Configuration section, under
Archive Frequency check the box next to By Category.

Copyright © 2001-2003 Six Apart. All Rights Reserved.

Corporate posters

These pseudo-oriental fonts are just annoying. Besides,
most asian-americans I know speak in flawless sans-serif.

[poster by Special Observances]

Good Web: StrapHangers.org

straphangers.org is a great website for NYC Subway fans.

Clean, everything above the fold, no cascading DHTML springing out at
you, no broken Javascript navigation, no images as text. A site map
up front with understandable topic labels, and several ways to drill
down and get involved, all on the front page. Much better
than most transit agency sites. Well done.

Captions: subject or author

The top picture is Paul Krugman, but is lower picture that of Floyd Norris ?
Regular readers of NYT Business page would know.

And is this a picture of Saddam Hussein ?

Again.

It's Sherron S. Watkins, the Enron vice president .

Dangerous Trees: Trees responsible for 1 in 10 traffic deaths

Trees lining roads take the rap for fatal French crashes
Many `arbres' slated for removal

Critics say booze, speed real culprits

ERIC LAI, LEGAL BRIEFS

YOU CAN'T MISS IT

Les arbres, trees, in France are increasingly being blamed for the country's high
number of traffic deaths, reports the French news magazine L'Express.

Of the 7,643 motoring fatalities recorded in the year 2000, striking a tree was
implicated in 799 cases (or roughly 1 in every 10 deaths).

As a result, between 10,000 and 20,000 trees standing less than two metres
from the roadway are slated for removal.

Critics of the clear-cutting plan charge that the true cause of the traffic fatalities
isn't the trees, but rather driving while impaired and excessive speed.

They urge the government to focus its efforts in those areas.

Nonetheless, some 400,000 trees that line France's roads could ually be
on the chopping block if the initial effort proves successful in reducing roadway
deaths.

2003 Apr. 12, 01:00 AM, The Toronto Star.

Red Light District Cameras

Red Light cameras are a fraud:
Analysis [Weekly Standard] and discussion [TalkLeft].

Update: recent discussion in Sacramento, CA.

Obvious Graph

Vancouver Airport Skytrain Project has a graph:

If at-grade crossings are eliminated, there will be no at-grade crossings.
Tufte would be proud.

SARS vs Masked

It may be illegal to wear a mask in public, unless you're a welder, fencer, hockey goalie,
or burka wearing orthodox muslim.

Will SARS change this ? Ask Eugene Volokh.

SARS in Hong Kong Report by an SUV driver.

SARS in Hong Kong.

Speak no evil

One Sunday I was driving through Missouri on Interstate 70, letting the
radio scan through the frequencies, and pausing on each station for a
minute. I heard a country station, a news talk station, another country
station, and a religious service. The commentator on the news talk station
was horrified that a grant for AIDS awareness was being used to
talk about sex (in San Francisco). His view now enjoys national influnece.

Speak No Evil

Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases say they
have been warned by federal health officials that their research may come
under unusual scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services or by
members of Congress, because the topics are politically controversial.

The scientists, who spoke on condition they not be identified, say they have
been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain "key
words" out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health
or the Centers for Disease Control and Prion. Those words include sex
workers, men who sleep with men, anal sex and needle exchange, the
scientists said.

[Full story below]

2003 April 18
Certain Words Can Trip Up AIDS Grants, Scientists Say
By ERICA GOODE

Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases say they
have been warned by federal health officials that their research may come
under unusual scrutiny by the Department of Health and Human Services or by
members of Congress, because the topics are politically controversial.

The scientists, who spoke on condition they not be identified, say they have
been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain "key
words" out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health
or the Centers for Disease Control and Prion. Those words include "sex
workers," "men who sleep with men," "anal sex" and "needle exchange," the
scientists said.

Bill Pierce, a spokesman for the health and human services department, said
the department does not screen grant applications for politically delicate content.
He said that when the department singles out grants it is usually to send out a
news release about them. But an official at the National Institutes of Health, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, said project officers at the agency, the people
who deal with grant applicants and recipients, were telling researchers at
meetings and in telephone conversations to avoid so-called sensitive language.
But the official added, "You won't find any paper or anything that advises people
to do this."

The official said researchers had long been advised to avoid phrases that
might mark their work as controversial. But the degree of scrutiny under the
Bush administration was "much worse and more intense," the official said.

Dr. Alfred Sommer, the dean of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at
Johns Hopkins University, said a researcher at his institution had been advised
by a project officer at N.I.H. to change the term "sex worker" to something more
euphemistic in a grant proposal for a study of H.I.V. prion among
prostitutes. He said the idea that grants might be subject to political surveillance
was creating a "pernicious sense of insecurity" among researchers.

Dr. Sommer said that if researchers feared that federal support for their
work might be affected by politics, whether it was true or untrue, it could take a
toll. "If people feel intimidated and start clouding the language they use, then
your mind starts to get cloudy and the science gets cloudy," he said, adding that
the federal financing of medical research had traditionally been free from
political influence.

At the National Institutes of Health, for example, grant applications are
evaluated and rated by a panel of independent reviewers. The grant application
is then given a score.

In another example of the scrutiny the scientists described, a researcher at
the University of California said he had been advised by an N.I.H. project officer
that the abstract of a grant application he was submitting "should be `cleansed'
and should not contain any contentious wording like `gay' or `homosexual' or `transgender.' "

The researcher said the project officer told him that grants that included
those words were "being screened out and targeted for more intense
scrutiny."

He said he was now struggling with how to write the grant proposal, which
dealt with a study of gay men and H.I.V. testing. When the subjects were gay
men, he said, "It's hard not to mention them in your abstract."

The titles and abstracts of federally financed grants are available to the
public on a computer database maintained by the national institutes. The
database, called CRISP, is also frequently read by Congressional staff members
on the lookout for research on topics that are of concern to the politicians they
work for. Over the years, studies on cloning, abortion, animal rights,
needle-exchange programs and various types of AIDS research have been
criticized by members of Congress.

But researchers said they feared that the concerns of individual members of
Congress were now being taken more seriously by the health and human
services department.

John Burklow, a spokesman for the N.I.H., said project directors at the
agency were responsible for "providing advice and guidance on myriad issues
related to grant applications," but he did not confirm or deny that the project
officers were cautioning researchers about the language they used.

He said that the health and human services department "from a
management perspective has a right to oversee N.I.H. affairs" but that
department officials "have not interfered with the awarding or renewing of any
N.I.H. grant."

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

Lady Madonna

I searched for sex worker in the NYT, and the first
match was Madonna. Why search for sex worker ?

Excerpts from the review of the Material girl:

As she blankets the media yet again, Madonna is the exact opposite of a
politician striving to stay "on message." Madonna's priority is to keep people
watching whatever she does; she maintains a presence, not a message.

...

A few weeks ago, Madonna withdrew her original "American Life" video
because, she said, she was worried that it might be misinterpreted during
wartime. It had intercut a fashion show of camouflage fantasies with images of
bombs and destruction, and it ended with Madonna tossing a grenade that was
caught by a George W. Bush look-alike. He opened the top — it turned out to be
a cigarette lighter — and nonchalantly lighted a cigar.

Madonna told VH1 that the video, made before the war with Iraq, was meant
to insist that viewers should "stop being distracted by all of your entertainment"
and try to avert a war. Having the grenade turn out to be harmless was, she
said, "wishful thinking, symbolically, that we could find a different way to deal
with our conflicts with Iraq." But the video could also have been seen as a Bush
endorsement (he could bravely defuse a grenade) or a callous equation of
dancing and preening with bombings.

...

The music of "American Life" continues Madonna's collaboration with the
ingenious French producer Mirwais Ahmadzai, who produced the album "Music"
in 2000. It uses a similar mixture of acoustic guitar-picking, ticking drum
machines and swooping, buzzing synthesizer lines. The guitar signals the
sincerity of a singer-songwriter, while all the gizmos add the retro catchiness of
the synth-pop music now being revived under the name electroclash.

Bigger screenshot:

s2000 egress

The Honda s2000 is a great car, but easy to get in-and-out-of it's not.

Picture from s2000 owner's association s2ca trip to Suzuka, Japan.

Re-Code

Re-Code allows you to print your own UPC symbols, which can be read by checkout scanners.

Can it also print boarding passes ? [Salon link]

USA Today story on Self-Reduction of Prices from 1996 August 01 link;
More frequent flyer blogging.

Flaunt flout

A google search for flount flaunt gives many links to language advice, as does bildungsroman.

Home front

Bay Arean protest marches range from sombre to comical.
Recent peace/anti-war gatherings have been mostly calm affairs.
But there are participants who are intent of getting themselves
arrested, only later to protest their own arrest.

Sitting down and blocking railways, highways is a sure way of
getting yourself arrested. Media coverage of these should
include the impact on bystanders and reasons for arrest.

In Oakland, Calif., local police arrested dozens of antiwar activists who flouted
their free-speech rights in a treacherous attempt to shut down a port involved in
shipping military supplies to soldiers during wartime. Elsewhere in the Bay Area,
several others were cited for crossing a police line outside the Concord Naval
Weapons Station; seven more face felony charges for stopping traffic nearby on
Interstate 680. Michelle Malkin's When antiwar speech turns seditious.

Winter Driving

SportCompactCar gave Bridgestone's WinterDrive a great review.

Are there any first person reviews from students ?

Correction: liberal weenies

An article in Business Day yesterday about the influence of Rupert Murdoch on the
News Corporation's properties misidentified the Fox News Channel commentator
who accused competitors of dwelling on casualties in Iraq and misstated the term
he used for them. He was Fred Barnes, not Bill O'Reilly; he called the competitors
"weenies," not "liberal weenies". New York Times 2003 April 08.

Why blog ?

Blogging provides a public post-it note about something. An observation,
a quotation, a picture, an idea.

Posting a link is a vote in support of the linked-to resource, whose rank
will be increased by google, blogdex, etc.

Many a blog entry serves also as a public vote to support a particular
noted improvement. For instance, if I write, Office atria should sport
three-way mirrors --watching them, watching you, watching them.,
random people googling for atria will encounter my idea.

Most of the posts here are on the topics of

1. economics, especially pricing mechanisms;
   
2. information architecture, user centereed design, and usability; or
   
3. urbanity and transportation and physical architecture.
   

Q.Is it unusual to mix economics and urbanism ?
A.No, see for example Emanuel Tobier of the Wagner Graduate School of
Public Service of New York University or Jane Jacobs (neither of whom has
a blog (heh)).

Blogging furthers the revolution of do-it-yourself media criticism. Another
advantage to the Internet is that stories with a local bent in news magazines like
Newsweek and Time can be fact-checked against the version offered by
bloggers and by local newspapers, which are usually available online, and which
also usually have a more nuanced approach to the story.

And like Matt Welch said, the New Journalism of the 1960s
was built on a foundation of exposing boring conventional newspapers
for sucking up to power, lulling readers to sleep, and missing the truth.

I am also testing the notion that I can write great works by writing only
fifteen minutes per day. I have a few ideas for books
on information architecture, urban design and transit,
and applied economics, and want to see if

* I have sufficient illustrated examples and anecdotes to
support such a longer work; and

* If my inclination to write will be improved and my direction
in writing will be better focussed by starting with a review
and reflecting on the accumulated base of blog entries.

Pulitzer Prizes for Information Graphics

There is no Pulitzer Prizes for Information Graphics, although the
competition recognizes various forms of writing, reporting,
editorial cartooning and photography.

My goal is to compile information from journalists nationwide
to assess how informational graphics are presently used, and how
they were used to help deliver the information in 10 years of
award-winning work.

[From Hili Banjo and Susan Mango Curtis, by way of Edward Tufte]

What's smart about this campaign is that it seeks to involve
leading, Pulitzer-calibre, journalists. A lesser undtertaking
would have just said,

Let there be a prize, donate here.

By involving Puliterian journalists, we avoid launching some marginal
unrecognized award.

Update 2003 April 27: The Webby awards are really marginal --
the gala event is cancelled.

Social capital

Dora Costa has some interesting work on social capital:
Understanding the Decline in Social Capital, 1952-1988 (with Matthew Kahn); and
Civic Engagement and Community Heterogeneity: An Economist's Perspective.[PDF]

Theater of War

When space is filled with satellites, all the world becomes a proscenium arch, the
narrator of the Marshall McLuhan movie suggested. The phrase "theater of war" becomes
literal. -- Sarah Boxer.

Airport lockers: fingerprints required

MSP now has lockers for rent inside security.
Fingerprinting is now required.

TSA 91-02
Tuesday, September 3, 2002
TSA Press Office: 202-385-1800

New Airport Lockers Use Fingerprints to Keep Valuables Safe and Airports Secure
-- Technology Unveiled Today in Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport By
Representatives James Oberstar and Martin Sabo

Today, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) joined Representatives
James L. Oberstar, (D-MN) and Martin O. Sabo, (D-MN) as they announced the
launch of an innovative pilot program using fingerprints to secure public lockers
at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport.

Immediately following the s of September 11, 2001, lockers inside airport
security checkpoints were shut down for security reasons and have remained
closed. There was concern that a credentialed employee, not subject to security
screening, could put a prohibited item in a traditional, key operated locker. A
co-conspirator, using the key, could then collect that item from the locker and
possibly take it onto a plane and jeopardize the safety of the passengers.

The new lockers, unveiled today, utilize a biometric, computerized lock system
offered by Smarte Carte, Inc., headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota. A touch
screen leads the customer through the locker rental process, where, instead of
using a key, the user’s fingerprint verifies identity when storing or retrieving
items.

During today’s news conference, Rep. Oberstar, ranking member of the House
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said, “It is important to balance
security and customer service. This pilot program shows great promise to
deliver both.”

Rep. Sabo, ranking member of the House Appropriations Transportation
Subcommittee commented, “Lockers are a necessary part of any airport as they
are a convenience to passengers. It is fortunate that both TSA, the airport and
Smarte Carte are working together to provide this service.”

The Transportation Security Administration, (TSA) will review the results of the
program and, if successful, will revise its policy, which currently prohibits the use
or installation of any lockers at airports.

Caltrain fares 3

Caltrain responds

Some Caltrain riders advocated replacing the zone system with a
"point-to-point" fare system, where riders would be charged based on the
distance between two stations.

Caltrain officials said they simply did not have the ticket machines needed to
implement such a system and it could be confusing to riders. But they did not
rule out a point-to-point system down the line.

"This is as far as we can go right now," said Mike Scanlon, executive director of
Caltrain. "This is not the final version of the fare structure for this railroad, but
this is a step in the right direction."

San Mateo Independent
According to Caltrain staff, the zoning shift is designed to
be "revenue neutral" and to impact the least amount of riders, with
less then 40 percent of trips receiving hikes, while roughly 60
percent of fares decrease or remain the same.

See also Adrian Brandt

MINI mug good; Chris Bangle ?

This coffee mug fits the MINI just fine.

In other BMW-related news, I signed the Stop Chris Bangle petition.
Mr. Bangle worked on the lovely Fiat Coupe of 1994, but since then has corrupted BMW's tradition
of taut, svelte athleticism with his garish and gimmick-ridden indulgent designs, such as the
new 7er (2002+) and 5er (2004+).

Good: fastmail, technorati, strip door

In praise of clean cut fast web sites with useful content and services.

Today's praise goes to technorati.com's web-watch services, url watching,
link watching, blogdex-like and more.

fastmail.fm is a web based e-mail service with more features and no
obtrusive adverts. Once again, Yahoo! is toast.

And in meatspace, Source Equipment's strip door is praised for being
safe: can see oncoming traffic; and
efficient: keeps heated air or chilled air inside.