You get a ticket

Apparently in New York, the police are allowed to give tickets to cyclists who are riding out of the bike lane.  I don't think it is illegal to ride out of the bike lane (I didn't look it up though, so don't count on that), I did it all the time when I was bicycle commuting so I'm glad I never got a ticket.  This guy got a $50 fine for riding out of the bike lane, in response he paid the fine and made this video.  He is a bit of a whiny biker who thinks they deserve everything because they ride their bike to work, but he makes a good point overall.  I am supportive of bicycle rights and think it is important to promote bicycle commuting so I agree with him that the ticket was ridiculous, and he made a funny video to support his case.  

He also makes a good point about ticketing people who park in the bike lane, it makes biking very dangerous, most of the time not only forcing bikers to go into the road where people are not expecting them, but you also have to worry about cars coming from side streets and driveways that may be just on the other side of the street.

Anyway, I hope they don't keep ticketing people for riding out of the bike lane, that would be very discouraging to commuters and cyclists in general.  He plays an audio clip at the end where he called in to a radio station and they claim that biking out of the bike lane is not illegal, so I guess I'm not in danger of being a criminal, at least in New York. 

S

Modern castle? I want a moat!

Here is a safe house in Poland. The owner wanted their home to have a "maximum security" look.  The window covers can open, the fence can be moved, and an entire wall lifts to expose the house to more sunlight, but it is pretty awesome and seems like it would be pretty safe.  But honestly, the reason I wouldn't be attacking that house is because of the guard cat, I hear those can be vicious.  A short post, but I thought the house was pretty awesome.  

I would definitely live in a place like this, although I would probably just leave it open most of the time.  I wonder how hard it is to open the window covers, and I assume is it all automatic, so if the power went out when it was closed you would be stuck in there!  Or worse, if it went out during a zombie apocalypse and it was open it would not help you at all!

S

Bus Buddies

Please, take note, Chicago apparently is the most romantic city.... at least on the bus. The CTA was recently named the most romantic transit system in the US according to craigslist missed connections. It seems that article needed a map, and of course google supplied me with the perfect one. Illinois is the big BUS right next to Lake Michigan, in case you didn't see it. I love craigslist missed connections, now it makes me want to read them even more for Chicago, Maybe I'll meet a random dude on the bus... oh, wait, I do that anyway!


R

For a little fun

I know, my last post was a little heavy, so I just want to post this to support everyone out there who likes to invent new words! (I think this word is valid)


And I love Popstrip!

R

Doing the right thing

When is not helping doing the right thing? Recently a New York Times journalist filmed a South African man being beaten to death for falsely being accused of theft, and the journalist did nothing to stop the mob. Every article I've seen, including the one linked on the black image to the right, seems to show the outrage of the American people at this journalists unwillingness to step in and stop the mob. I agree that if something could be done, he should have stepped in and done it. But if a mob of hundreds of people were attacking one man, and one other man tried to stop it, I guarantee they would both end up dead. So is it right to just step back and not do anything if it would risk your life? I would like to think that I'm the kind of person who would stand up to this, and beg the people to stop before it was too late, but I don't know if my fear would put a quick stop to that desire. I would hope that if it were one or two people and the journalist saw it, he would stop them, but hundreds? really? and we're mad about this? I think the article makes a good point that the journalist at least got the murder on tape, and was able to show really what is going on, but at the same time, it is written as if one man could stop hundreds, and I feel that he probably could not have done it. The point of the article is a good one though. Is a journalist in a position to stop a murder if he/she sees it taking place and CAN stop it, or should he/she step back and document the entire process? I think the journalist should (and in most cases WOULD) step in to prevent a murder, at least with my rose colored glasses that I wear all the time, I think the world is a good place.

But it really depends on where you are. On a totally different scale from murder (and please do not think I'm comparing the two) in this Dallas diner, "What Would You Do?" presents a waitress who berates a gay couple and sees what the other diners have to say about it. Many in Dallas step up. They give the statistics at the end, and show that actually, even though Texas is known for being more conservative and anti-gay even, more people in Dallas than in New York (one of the most liberal states) stepped in to tell this waitress/actress to stop treating these customers poorly. Every time I see parts of this show it makes me hope that if I were in the other customers' places I would step in and say something to stop it... let's just hope that is what this show does for people.

R

I'm addicted

To Facebook.

And I think I'm not the only one. I heard somewhere that at any one moment 50% of Facebook users are logged in. With smart phones this continues to increase. I don't know if it counts smart phones that automatically sync and update you when you get a notification as "logged in" but still, even if it were 25% of users logged on at any one time, I would be surprised. Many users don't use Facebook often, which means that of the 75% that use it regularly 66% are logged in at any one time. Does that seem crazy to you? It seems crazy to me.

Another thing about Facebook is it makes us feel less adequate as we see our friends with happy posts all the time, (and for other reasons, like misspellings, and misunderstandings). We spend all of this time assuming everyone else is doing ONLY what they post on Facebook, and nothing else, yet we post only eventful stuff on Facebook, not the normal hum drum of life (although... I do have a few friends that post ever time they wake up, brush their teeth, change their clothes etc etc...). I think I will continue to post happy events on Facebook, and continue to enjoy other people's happiness, but I'll just imagine that they are sitting at home, staring at their wall, hoping someone will post on it as much as I am :)

After writing a final paper on privacy though, it got me thinking, has our social media really changed our ideas of privacy. According to this article (and it actually links to a book site), people have changed their views of what is private and what is not. Breakups are now in the public realm, and people post ultrasounds for their babies almost as instantly as they see them. With this, the element of surprise has been destroyed, and people know exactly what to expect the next time they see you, unless you're only posting the happy things. Similarly, we choose our lives the way we want to live them, but we often envy parts of people's lives that we chose not to have. The first article I linked mentions that infertile women should try to shield themselves from Facebook posts by friends who recently had kids. But I also have friends who post about their inadequacies, possibly searching for support from friends, and sometimes these make me feel better (or when they misspell stuff).

But Facebook is doing one more thing for us that we don't realize, it is opening up our connections to more friends than we can handle. According to an experiment done at Gore-Tex (an outdoorsy production company) people can really only handle about 150 "friends" at a time. I know I have 350 friends on Facebook, and I have friends with over 1000, but I couldn't name all 350, I could probably barely name 100 of them, simply because my brain doesn't have the capacity. However, I can definitely stalk them all!

R

No more fizzy drinks

New York has recently been taking action to increase the public health.  They banned smoking in public parks, although this article suggests it may not be very well enforced.  The city has also required chain restaurants to display calorie counts on their menus since 2008.  This applies to about 10% of the restaurants in the city, but it is a start.  A more recent development in this public health improvement project has been to suggest that sodas (or "fizzy drinks" according to bbc) should not be purchasable with food stamps.  The article is pretty crazy.  Some teenagers that are interviewed suggest that soda is good for you (!!), but that may just be teenagers coming up with excuses.  The woman they interview for the article describes food stamps as free money the government gives you and seems to think that her definition makes it reasonable for the government to allow the use of food stamps for sodas.  I don't think the government should control what people buy, so long as it is sustaining (even if unhealthy), but her reasoning doesn't make sense.  She also argues that the air is bad and they aren't trying to stop that which is not true, but that again is not a good argument.  Basically I was shocked by the article describing the ban on fizzy drink purchases with food stamps, not because of the main story, the overall story was expected, but what each person said was pretty shocking, even though I generally agree with them.  Maybe New York will solve the childhood obesity problem, we will see.

S