Wednesday, March 28, 2007
From 1973 until 1993, Harry Nugent provided entertainment in addition to information as a conductor for the New York Subway. The IHT had article an about his retirement, which included this witticism, which he used when the train was delayed:
Someone once said that success is a journey and not a destination, and by that definition [...]
Jason Kottke recently pondered what the minimum number of New York City residents one would need to choose, such that these people know every single person in the city:
Any guesses as to the smallest group size? Better yet, is there any research out there that specifically addresses this question? Or is it impossible…are there people [...]
Snickers has a new ad that imagines what would happen if the Walk/Don’t Walk guys in the street signs at crosswalks came to life. The Red and Green guys duke it out, apparently hard-wired to fight their opposite color. The graphics are great and it’s an enjoyable and very watchable ad. Most importantly, it stands [...]
In the article Salvage Artists in a recent New Yorker, Paul Goldberger wrote about the construction of the Big Dig House. Single Speed Design, at the commission of Paul Pedini, built a house entirely out of leftover materials from Boston’s Big Dig:
The basic structure is entirely made up of salvaged steel and concrete from the [...]
I just noticed that some USPS mailboxes are decorated to look like R2-D2, which is fun and great. I also noticed that there is a web address on them: uspsjedimaster.com. I went there and the site cryptically announces the union of Star Wars and the Postal Service on March 28. I have no clue what [...]
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
I was recently in Scranton (home of, among other things, Dunder-Mifflin), and saw the large sign proclaiming Scranton as the Electric City. It is called this due to being one of the first electrified cities. Buffalo, also one of the first cities to have electric lighting, has the nickname the City of Light.
This all got [...]
No, this is not about Steagle Colbeagle the Eagle. The Steagles were a football team for only the 1943 season. They were a merger of the Steelers and the Eagles, due to the military service of many football players. Interestingly, this merger turned out to be the first winning season for Philadelphia.
It turns out that there are a lot of buildings that look like they were built out of Legos. I just started a Flickr group devoted to finding all those buildings and places. It is called, appropriately enough, Lego-Like Buildings. Please feel free to join it and add your Lego-like building photos to it.
Note: we [...]
About a month ago, I discussed the Heat Island Effect (where cities are warmer than their surrounding areas). Well, it turns out that this phenomenon has affected the evolution of the organisms that live in cities, or at the very least, ants. In their paper Urban Physiology: City Ants Possess High Heat Tolerance Angelleta et [...]
The CDC is planning to scale back its main disease surveillance system, BioSense, and will now only focus on tracking diseases that occur in the largest cities in the United States. While this might be due to budget cuts, this strikes me as a foolhardy decision. To focus only on the larger cities is to [...]