Disqus - Latest Comments for Yule

Re: Optimism

Yule Heibel — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 14:15:33 -0000

Hi Fred, your possible arthroscopy caught my attention. I had that procedure decades ago to remove "joint mice" (or "rats"), which are bits of cartilage that have come loose (in my case from the inside face of the kneecap). It was effective, but over time I've also developed secondary problems (even some osteoarthritis) – I'm not sure my arthroscopy truly fixed the problem of what the surgeon called "shredded kneecap"... Even though I don't know the nature of your problem, I wanted to recommend another procedure, which, depending on what you're dealing with, might be a non-surgical solution: platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections. I've had this done, and found it effective in eliminating pain and improving joint mobility. My orthopedist in Greater Boston does it, and you will likely have NYC-area doctors familiar with the procedure. For details of what my doctor does, see Dr. Navid Mahooti's site: https://www.northshorephysi... Good luck with the yoga, and any other physical therapy!

Re: TBA

Yule Heibel — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 11:25:04 -0000

Quick comment about consumer behavior, which came up on the program in relation to the issues of shopping on price vs. on the principle of supporting the local economy / small bookseller. For consumers, there's another angle here: shall the book be new or used? Just as many of us shop used for clothing and other consumer goods, so, too, do we shop books used. I go to my favorite (local) used bookstore first (online inventory, too), then I visit abebooks.com (incidentally acquired by amazon.com...) to browse the availability (and of course price) of the book I want in case the local guy doesn't have it.

I would argue there's a growing segment of people who don't want to consume new products continually, who like the idea of used products or a shared economy for various reasons, which include cost as well as a desire to reduce our ecological footprint. (That is, we visit clothing consignment shops that sell garments that may have been made in a sweatshop, but not made specifically for us as the first consumer; likewise, we buy books that might otherwise just get pulped...)

Not sure how the economy likes us or factors us into the GDP, but I know we're a trend – just look at the apps and websites that have sprung up just around "used" clothing.

By the same token, when it comes to books it's not just a question of "do you buy a 'real' book or an ebook?" It's also, "do you buy a new book or a used book?" – whereby you have to keep in mind that many of the latter are practically brand new and never used.

PS: ebooks are very convenient when traveling (or moving house), but in my opinion there's something about an actual physical book that's superior. There's the heft and tactility of the thing. There's the sense of knowing *where* in the book you're at. There's the ability to scribble with a pencil (vs tapping around with fingertips) to add notes – which leads to amazing discoveries years later, when you go back to that book, having forgotten that you ever read it, and then marvel at the "intelligent" comments in the margins while you wonder who might have written them ...until you recognize your own handwriting; try having *that* experience with an ebook!). For books on art and architecture, you can't beat a print book. And there's the knowledge that you're not going to be tempted by distractions (on an ereader – say, an iPad – it's just too tempting to check Twitter or email ...just in case, you know, something earthshaking came through: the point of the book is that *it* is supposed to rock your world for the duration of the distraction-free time you've carved out with it, not all the other stuff we're already surfeited with out in the world...). There's the fact that *you* own it outright. There's the fact that you can lend it out. And if you wish, you can sell it or give it away. It's yours. :)

Re: Now You Can Make Your Own Street View Scenes - Megan Garber - The Atlantic Cities

Yule Heibel — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 15:22:13 -0000

Yes, well spotted!

Re: One Answer to San Francisco's Overpriced Housing: 'Co-Living'

Yule Heibel — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 11:07:16 -0000

That struck me, too. And then, the preference for "a graduate student on a ...mission to cure aging"? "Cure" aging? Hubris, much?

PS: I just finished reading the article. Re. Balaji Srinivasan: isn't he the guy who was in the news for proposing that SV secede from the US?

Re: The Real Estate Deal That Could Change the Future of Everything

Yule Heibel — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 15:27:26 -0000

This was a real eye-opener - thanks, Emily Badger. The Miller brothers' challenge to finance is right on. This part...

QUOTE Most American cities as we know them today weren't built this way. Historically, hotels and restaurants and shops were built by local people investing in their own neighborhoods. "And now, people are invested in nothing local!" Ben exclaims. "Everything’s remote, everything’s on Wall Street, everything's in mutual funds." UNQUOTE

...is key.

A couple of months ago I wrote an article about the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem MA. I didn't know it at the outset, but the hotel, built in 1925, was financed by the community, through subscription. Building the hotel was a matter of civic pride - and to this day, there's not another grand (if not overly huge) hotel like it on Boston's North Shore. It absolutely anchors the city.

Could it be built via the same financing strategy today? Apparently not. That's sad. Instead we get our civic pride from big stadia - which are then renamed after corporate donors? Meh.

Further, as to gentrification: where I live now (once again on Boston's North Shore) there are many, many properties that are owned by people who can't afford to upgrade them, but the communities as a whole would benefit from the revitalization of the urban fabric. Right now, if you're in a city with a MainStreets.org program and own a business, you can apply for some tiny amount of funding to do facade upgrades (painting, etc.), but the expensive stuff (infrastructure like HVAC or greening the building - things that aren't typically even visible on the outside) don't get done. Or, take another scenario: a surface parking lot along a main street, where a building burned down several decades ago, doesn't get redeveloped because no developer is willing to step up to do it. And the community can't. If this disruption of how development is financed rekindles civic pride (as the building of The Hawthorne Hotel did in Salem in 1925), I'm all for it. There are too many ways to be apathetic about where you live; I support strategies that get people engaged.

I understand the concern about gentrification, but calling improvements to the existing fabric "gentrification" in all cases is wrong (probably more a case of gentrificationphobia, ...or guilt about playing what appears to be a zero-sum game, as if there was only so much "nice" to go around). I can think of plenty of cases in my vicinity where it would just be an uplift for everyone, including the folks who are already there and who would not be displaced. :)

Re: Do you love Silicon Valley?

Yule Heibel — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 20:50:57 -0000

You're in NYC, which is in a class of its own, but I found this article on the *cultural* differences between SF and Boston useful:
http://www.smartplanet.com/...
I've decided I'm mentally bi-coastal, sort of like being bi-polar... ;) Not totally at home here, but not wanting more Left Coast (whatever that means) at this point.

Re: The Risky Business of Parking Lot Creation

Yule Heibel — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 22:15:07 -0000

I see that the neighbors in Hopkinton object to the view being ruined, which means they'd probably object to what I'm going to say, but...: I don't understand why corporate entities continue to build parking lots instead of parking garages. With regard to "the view," you could sink a garage partway below grade and build 2 stories on top, put a green roof on the thing, save the view, and get the same number of cars into a much, much smaller footprint. Would it cost more? Of course it would. But it would look better, and not create heat islands. Sadly, it's no doubt too expensive (according to tunnel-vision accounting that also discounts negative externalities...)

Off-topic, but still related to parking lots: Returning here after 10 years in the Pacific Northwest (specifically British Columbia), I'm pretty upset by the absence of any kind of infrastructure other than for automobiles on or in parking lots. There's nothing for pedestrians (or cyclists) in your typical parking lot here.

In Canada, in contrast, I got used to parking lots that had pedestrian infrastructure painted or built in (walkway lanes running between the rows of parked cars, for example), clearly marked areas for pushing shopping carts, and so forth. Here (Massachusetts) a parking lot is typically just that: a lot for parking cars, with pedestrians tolerated at best, ignored and/or practically prey at worst. Shoppers dodge nervously between cars jockeying for a space instead of having their own designated walkways for returning to their cars. It's a small difference, but it makes all the difference because it signals what the priorities are.

Ditto with regard for disrespecting design and the built environment when yet another parking lot is rolled out, versus building a parking garage, simply because asphalt, bucket loaders, and graders are cheaper.

Re: Los Angeles Walks!

Yule Heibel — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 02:48:43 -0000

Horrifying, and so sad.

Apposite to this, Atlantic Cities just ran an article by Sarah Goodyear, "The Invention of Jaywalking," on the change of attitudes toward pedestrians (and drivers who kill pedestrians).
QUOTE
Browse through New York Times accounts of pedestrians dying after being struck by automobiles prior to 1930, and you’ll see that in nearly every case, the driver is charged with something like “technical manslaughter.” And it wasn’t just New York. Across the country, drivers were held criminally responsible when they killed or injured people with their vehicles.

So what happened? And when?

According to Peter Norton, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, the change is no accident (so to speak). He has done extensive research into how our view of streets was systematically and deliberately shifted by the automobile industry, as was the law itself.

“If you ask people today what a street is for, they will say cars,” says Norton. “That’s practically the opposite of what they would have said 100 years ago.”
UNQUOTE
http://www.theatlanticcitie...

A couple of years ago I attended one of Gordon Price's lectures - he writes Pricetags in Vancouver BC. Gordon described the creation of "Motordom" wherein automobile traffic becomes "normal," while pedestrians are hedged, regulated, and even criminalized (via jaywalking fines). (See http://pricetags.wordpress.... We now take it as a "natural" state of affairs that pedestrians have to watch out for cars, vs drivers watching out for pedestrians. We still make the same mistakes, even in cities (like Victoria BC, where I used to live) that trumpet a commitment to multi-modal transportation. But when push comes to shove, more room for cars remains the ne plus ultra, something I criticized on my blog, here: http://blogs.law.harvard.ed...

Finally, check out Charles Marohn's devastating critique of roads (at the expense of "multi-modal" and pedestrian streets) in this TEDx talk: The important difference between a road and a street
http://bettercities.net/vid... Marohn looks at how expensive our propensity for roads is.

If all of these critiques were better known and influenced public policy, maybe we could also stem the tide of people getting killed by drivers.

(On an unrelated note: I went to both your Creative Cities presentations in Portland OR, Alissa, which I really enjoyed very much - at the end of the 2nd one held at ADX, we chatted briefly. I hope to see events like this in the city I'm moving to next, Boston. When I was last there, 2 years ago, it was clear that cars still rule in Beantown, but here's hoping that there, too, greater walkability is making 'inroads,' as it were...)

Re: The Science of How We Walk - Commute - The Atlantic Cities

Yule Heibel — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:57:11 -0000

As it happens, I just read an article by 2nd Ave. Sagas, A subway rhythm found in exit placement, which dovetails nicely with your closing paragraph.

Re. the Germans slowing down when in a crowd vs the Indians not lessening their pace as much: I'm really curious to know whether Moussaid's research has anything to say on who arrives at their destination most efficiently / quickly? Is it more efficient to act counter-intuitively to your body "needs" and just to continue plowing through a crowd, body contact and all, even if your acquired cultural norms demand more distance? Since the study says the "unordered" behavior is more effective, it suggests it does get the job of moving from A to B done more efficiently, yes? This is fascinating, I think.

Re: Scripting News: The year is twenty-twelve

Yule Heibel — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:58:10 -0000

Agree wrt Kubrick and 2001.

Re: Scripting News: The year is twenty-twelve

Yule Heibel — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:56:39 -0000

I started calling 2010 "twenty-ten" in the years-long lead-up to Vancouver's 2010 Olympics (way before 2010 actually arrived), and I called 2011 twenty-eleven as soon as it rolled around last year. For the past couple of years I've applied the nomenclature (?) retroactively to the preceding years, too, because I think it makes sense, although people sometimes look at you funny when you say twenty-o-six instead of two-thousand-and-six. But twenty-o-<blank> sounds better than two-thousand-and-<blank>, imo, and going forward, it's twenty-twelve, twenty-thirteen, and so on for sure.

Re: A 2011 Retrospective On The AVC Community

Yule Heibel — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 00:30:48 -0000

Wow...! Congrats, Fred and all the AVC regulars - and Happy New Year 2012!

Re: Scripting News: Facebook fraud

Yule Heibel — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 22:45:37 -0000

^ Yep, that's what I get, too ("organization"). You (Dave) are definitely not listed on my FB friends list... (which kinda makes me sad, but...)... ;-)

Re: Scripting News: Howto for credit unions?

Yule Heibel — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:11:30 -0000

Since the early 90s, we (well, ok, my husband) have (has) had an account with Northern Massachusetts Telephone Workers Credit Union - https://www.nmtw.org/ . Great service and support, pretty easy to use for online bill paying, etc. Good people.

Re: Scripting News: The "Internet Industry" does not speak for me

Yule Heibel — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:29:24 -0000

I expanded Sylvia Paull's Disqus profile, to her comment on your post about Richard Stallman, and sometime around a year ago she wrote this on one of your posts:
QUOTE
on Scripting News: How Obama could have avoided the shellacking [last year]

yes, you'd think Democrats would believe in democracy. The only structure
keeping democracy alive is the Internet, not government.
UNQUOTE

Perhaps neither here nor there, but reading that sent a chill down my spine. She writes that the internet is the structure that's keeping democracy alive, you write that regardless of what the bastards do to rein it in, we'll figure out ways to keep routing around their machinations... Oh boy, sounds like heavy weather, and if you snooze you lose...

Re: Scripting News: I shouldn't have worried about the kids

Yule Heibel — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:11:12 -0000

Re: occupyweb.org

Yule Heibel — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 00:54:54 -0000

I don't think that the Vancouver riot had much to do with Occupy Wall Street (OWS) - and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall that "culture jamming" (see Adbusters - Kalle Lasn July 13, 2011), which actually instigated the whole OWS meme, waxed enthusiastic about what the Vancouver rioters did. From what I could tell, the Vancouver rioters were a bunch of really obnoxious brats acting out the worst sort of mob mentality. And let's not get started on how badly the Vancouver city government has screwed up on the pre- and post-assessment/ investigation of this matter... The OWS movement is a different animal altogether. A very very interesting animal...

Re: birthday

Yule Heibel — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 01:01:24 -0000

Happy birthday (belatedly), Joanne! Having dropped off the blog-reading-circuit of late, I *nearly* missed your birthday and the lollapalooza week of postings related to happy trails in Napa. It sounds like you're having a blast and are gearing up for a helluva decade-and-more to come. Keep on rocking it!

Re: Scripting News: My 9/11

Yule Heibel — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 14:01:01 -0000

Have you seen the thread on Quora, What did it feel like to be inside the World Trade Center at the time of the 9/11 attacks? Some interesting posts there (plus comments on the posted answers).

I like your summary (1-7), Dave, especially #1 (even if we don't know all the time what we're in now). ;-)

Re: Scripting News: What NYers don't grok about earthquakes

Yule Heibel — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:32:20 -0000

Agree - all those wonderful old masonry buildings on the East Coast? Potential bulldozer bait, depending on how and where an earthquake hits.

When I lived in Brookline, MA, we experienced a small earthquake centered in Montreal - it made the cast-iron hot-water radiators in our 3rd floor walk-up sway! I was reminded of that again when I saw a waggish tweet yesterday: earthquakes out of Montreal use the Richler scale. Hahaha, good one! ;-)

Re: Scripting News: Today's ride on a new route!

Yule Heibel — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:39:35 -0000

That was certainly no longer Manhattan. You must have been up at the crack of dawn to drive all the way there!

Re: Scripting News: A big diff betw Google-Plus and Facebook

Yule Heibel — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 23:21:45 -0000

Not exclusive enough. They let me in. ;-)

Re: Announcing the Collaborator View | The Flow Blog

Yule Heibel — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 23:38:22 -0000

Great idea - a simplification that's also an enticement: perfect!

Haha, I was just reminded of Jason Fried and his 'drug dealer' analogy, too... You're gonna get the people hooked, Andrew. ;-)

Re: Scripting News: An idea for Mayor Bloomberg

Yule Heibel — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:07:03 -0000

Great idea. Condos are getting breaks for providing bike storage for tenants, but yours is the first time I've seen the suggestion to extend any kind of similar scheme to commercial buildings, and particularly to include visitors to the premises.
[PS/ edit: the kind of breaks I've seen condos get is that they don't have to provide as many underground (car) parking spaces as normally dictated by a city if they instead provide bike parking.]

Re: Scripting News: Andy Warhol in Union Square

Yule Heibel — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:00:23 -0000

I don't know...

I love Andy Warhol, but at first blush, I can't say that I love this statue. Maybe if I saw it in person, I'd be more certain either way. Is it over life-size? *Anything* to lessen the (cloying, imo) realism would swing me toward perhaps liking it. But if it's life-size and even more realistic than it looks in the photo, I think I'd really - I mean *really* - dislike it. I might even hate it.

Wish I were traveling and looking at things like this in the flesh, instead of digitally...! ;-)