The geniuses at JibJab have published their next animated political commentary entitled What We Call The News. You may remember This Land from the 2004 election season, which made a huge splash, deservedly so. Go check out the new one.
Month: March 2007
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Favorite Photo of the Week
It is pollen season in Georgia right now. It’s the time of year where no one washes their car for three weeks. We’re all hoping for some rain this weekend to make everything a bit less yellow. The image above is from my front porch, where evil squirrels regularly case my house.
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Georgia Marathon Fiasco?
As you may have gathered from the previous postings here and here, I attended the inaugural ING Georgia Marathon last weekend in and around Atlanta. I confess some disappointment with the organization of the race.
I know several people who ran this race and they all complained about the way in which it was operated. For one thing there was no corralling at the start line; all marathoners and half-marathoners were mixed together with no regard to projected finish time. This led to a mess at the start due to numerous passing maneuvers, etc. The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and a blog or two, reported that some water stations were out of water and/or sports drink. One runner said he detoured into a bakery and asked for salt to replenish his electrolytes.
From my vantage point, it seemed like they didn’t think this all the way through. “How do we get runners to the start?” “How do we communicate splits?” “How do we get the half and full runners to part ways at junction?” “How do we keep the Half marathoners from getting in the way of the elites?” These would have been good questions to have answers for.
I mention that last item because I was getting worried around the 1:30 mark. Saint Charles was packed from left to right by the mid group of half-marathoners and I was expecting the elite marathoners at any moment. It turned out I was too early in my estimate by about 20 minutes, but that 20 minutes was more than short enough for the elites to catch up to that pack before they finished. I wonder if they ran (ha ha) into any problems, but I haven’t heard anything about it.
If you’re reading this entry and haven’t read my offer of images to all (well, most) runners, make sure you go here and find out how!
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This Week in Traffic: 30 March 2007
Stuck in Traffic? Dance!
Cairo commuters dance the blues away.
Brooklyn Reroute Project Stirring Ire
The plan to reorient two two-way streets into a one-way pair in Brooklyn, NY is causing outrage.
Lubbock Traffic Signal Enforcement
At least someone thinks that Lubbock, Texas will have red light enforecement in the near future.
Speaking of Red Light Enforcement…
Judge rules the enforcement in Des Moines is illegal at the same time a State Senator in Iowa wants to ban them.
Public Transit to Support Drinking
Matt speaks his mind about the early closing times of the Boston’s T system.
Important Safety Tip
How to escape from a sinking car!
Lots of Bad Physics
This post describes how to trip an in-pavement sensor at a signal (a.k.a. detector loop, induction loop). It’s mostly filled with silly ideas about magnetism, but I’d definitely go with numbers 5, 12 and 13. 1 for desperate situations, although 5 would be quicker. 2, 3, 10, and 14 are all illegal in every state I’m familiar with the law. 4, 7, 8, and 9 all demostrate a lack of basic knowledge about magnetic fields and EMF. And don’t forget my addition, the sensor may not be working at all.
The fact that about.com allows this to remain reduces their reputation in my eyes.
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Georgia Marathon Photos
As I mentioned in my post a few days ago, I went to take photos of the runners in the Georgia Marathon today. It was a great time, and I learned a lot about taking pictures of sporting events.- Make sure the battery that is in the bag as a backup is charged, too. Wasn’t a problem, but it could have been
- Bring more memory. I had 2 gigabytes, and it wasn’t enough by a long shot. I shot from 7:22 AM til 10:08 and we were just getting to the thick of the Marathon group
- Get a better lense. I’m using the kit lense that came with the Digital Rebel XT, and it sucks in low light, which 7:00 most definitely was
- Check my camera to make sure it’s showing daylight saving time, and not eastern standard
I had a great time and I hope all of the runners did, too.
I’m currently in the process of posting all ~1,400 photos I took today to my flickr accout, Georgia Marathon set. As I mentioned previously, if you’re in one of these pictures, feel free to take it with no restrictions. I’m fully licensing the occupants of these photos to do with them as the will.
A few Notes:
- I was standing at the corner of Saint Charles and North Highland, which by my calculations was at mile 7.6 for the half marathoners and just shy of the mile 21 for the full marathoners.
- In order to find the photos that you (might) be in, you’ll have to figure out what time you ran by me and check out the timestamps on the photos to narrow it down.
- I forgot to set my camera to daylight saving time, so you’ll have to add an hour to the photo time to get the actual time you ran by me.
- 23:00 Edit:I ran out of memory at 10:08 AM, so if you passed by that location after that, I’m sorry. I’ll try to do better next year.
If you have any questions, send me an email. If you find the photo you’re in, and you want the full-res version, send me an email.
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Favorite Photo of the Week
I was at the Georgia Aquarium this week with a friend and snapped this photo of a big grouper looking over the shoulder of two people. The groupers generally spend their time staring directly out the window at all of us, which makes me wonder whether they can see us or not. Those are some cool fish.
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SF Movies I Need to See (again): SF Movie Series Part One
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has a list of “classic” films that they’ve never seen. It wasn’t until about two years ago that I watched Casablanca, I’ve never seen The Graduate which some people assure me is a crime, and I’ve never watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High which I know is a crime.
Unfortunately, I have neither the time nor the desire to watch every movie I “need” to see, so I’d rather specialize a bit. Here’s a list of Science Fiction* films that either I haven’t seen, or haven’t watched in so long I barely remember what happened. I’m going to make an effort to knock these out by the end of the summer 2007. I hear Netflix calling my name…
If there’s something not on here that you think I should add, please note it in the comments. The List, in no particular order:
- Gattaca
- Blade Runner**
- Digitally scragged Return of the Jedi (I was so fed up with Lucas after his “improvement” of episode IV and V that I never went to see VI)
- Akira
- The Last Mimzy
- The Animatrix
- Time Bandits**
- King Kong (the original)
- The Day the Earth Stood Still**
- THX 1138
- Soylent Green (is people!)
- The Terminal Man
- Robocop** (I saw this at a very impressionable age and it gave me nightmares. I’d probably enjoy it more, now)
- Bicentennial Man (we briefly saw the filming of this as we drove on
101Hwy 1 in CA) - The Thirteenth Floor
- Red Planet
- 28 Days Later
- The Butterfly Effect
- Thunderbirds
- Children of Men (after I finish the book)
- The Fountain
- Ultraviolet
I’m sure there are movies I’m forgetting at the moment. I’ll add them later. As I count up the list (22) I realize that if I watch one a week, I’ll be done in late August. That’s iffishly doable; I do have other things on my plate (wife, yard, vacation, work, hiking, other hobbies) so I may not be “successful”.
*There may be some films on this list that don’t qualify as “science fiction” in some fans’ minds. That’s ok. Make your own list! And keep in mind this is not some Top 10 or Top 100 list, an exercise I find is a bit meaningless on the hugely interactive web because no two people will ever agree on the contents of those lists.
**Seen it at least once. Barely recall the plot
***Astute readers will note that most of this is a chronological/alphabetical list taken piecemeal from wikipedia
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Hot Kirk and Spock Action!
There is hot Kirk on Spock action at the Wednesday YouTube at SFSignal. Someone watches too much Star Trek.
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Georgia Marathon
The first annual Georgia Marathon is this Sunday, starting at 7:00 AM EDT* (wow that’s early). If you’re in the area, come by to cheer on the runners! I’ll be down near the corner of North Highland and Saint Charles taking pictures (popping back and forth between N. Highland and Briarcliff). If you see me, say hi!
It was nigh impossible to find the course map on the website, so I provide the link here.
You might think that watching a marathon is boring, and you might find it so, but I find it exciting to cheer on the runners, especially the runners toward the back who are out there only for their own enjoyment. The energy coming off of them is contagious, and I try to share it back to those runners who need a bit of a boost.
I will be posting all of the pictures I take of the Georgia Marathon on my Flickr account, subject to the Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike Creative Commons restrictions. However, if you are in the photo, I’m exempting you from all restrictions and you can take the image with my compliments. I hope that this will provide a service to those runners who want some photo documentation of their run, yet don’t want to pay a professional photo company an arm or a leg (or both) for the image. I don’t promise to take a picture of everyone (there’ll be 15,000 people!) but I’ll do what I can.**
I invite all photographers at the Georgia Marathon to follow my lead and let the runners have the images of themselves, with whatever restrictions you desire, for their own use.
*I assume that they scheduled the start and forgot to account for the changed daylight saving time. 7:00 right now is just past dark and into a bit of twilight. Not exactly good running light.
**In case anyone from any of the photography companies gets up in arms about this, I’d like to point out that I will not be indexing the photos by bib number, nor framing, nor matting, so I don’t think I’ll be impacting your business. -
This Week in Traffic: 21 March 2007
Elderly Fail to Yield
According to this news report, the U.S. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety published a study that says older drivers tend to have collisions due to failures to yield at intersections. They pull out at inappropriate times and are struck by oncoming vehicles.
Other age groups are prey to different types of collisions. 35-54 year olds tend to rear end people
An interesting quote, which I need to go to the IIHS report to find, is:To prevent such accidents, the Institute is recommending more left turn lanes and arrows at intersections and roundabouts.
More misinformation about roundabouts! There shouldn’t be any need for (pavement) arrows at a well designed roundabout. Don’t get me started.
I read the IIHS report, and it refers to roundabouts and fewer permissive (allowable on a green ball signal) left turns, but no arrows at roundabouts. Perhaps that was a grammar parsing error. “Signal arrows at Intersections, and more roundabouts” might be better.
North Carolina Traffic Web Cams
My friends in the Raleigh, NC area may be interested in this download. Let me know if it’s any good.
Ad Censorship on Public Transit
Kezins had this to say about the Denver Regional Transportation District proposal to ban violent video game advertisements on its vehicles.
Blog Firestorm on Hampshire Congestion
Apparently a road agency in Southampton installed some traffic signals and lit off furious public responses. Check out the comments.
What freaks me out is this quote:
Agency route manager Guy Berresford said: “The new traffic lights on the roundabout will ease congestion at this location…
The British invented the modern roundabout, so why are they installing signals on something that is specifically designed to do away with them. I hope the writer is using the term “roundabout” in this case as a cover all for “round intersection.” Traffic Circle and/or Rotary does not equal Roundabout.
Transportation Madness!
York County, Pennsylvania is using an interesting tool to educate their public stakeholders as to the tradeoffs involved in transportation planning. To that end, they’ve developed the Transportation Madness bracket. Check it out.