Tag: transit

Chum to Chew On

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Some accumulated news chum from the weekend and today’s lunchtime perusal of the newssites:

  • From the “Didn’t They Try That In Santa Clarita” Department: Shades of the Honda ad that played the William Tell Overture on an isolated road in Santa Clarita when you drive it in the right Honda at the right speed, there are those who are claiming that the subway cars that run beneath Broadway play music from West Side Story. Specifically, just as the No. 2 train pulls out of Times Square station, people seem to hear the first few words from “Somewhere”. Of course, there is no such music playing: it is a side effect of newer trains that run on AC instead of DC. The inverters that convert the DC frequencies excite the steel, he said, which — in the case of the new R142 subway cars — responds. No, it really doesn’t sing “Somewhere”; rather, it creates intervals that the mind fashions into the song. In the case of “Somewhere”, there are two intervals: Between the first note — “there’s” — and the second note — “a” — the interval is known as an ascending minor seventh. From that second note to the third — “place” — there’s a descending half-step interval. “Somewhere” is one of the few songs with those intervals, and thus… the mind hears it. It’s always amazing how our minds work.
  • From the “Memories of Brands Past” Department: Last week, the auto bailout was in the news, and with it was a lot of nostalgia for what the Pontiac Division of GM was. There were memories of Pontiac’s muscle car days, days of the GTO, Grand Prix, and Bonneville. There was discussions of how Pontiac lost its way (funny, but there seems to be no nostalgia for Saturn, the other division on the chopping block). I mention this because there’s another auto brand memory story, but this time it is one of a more FrankenCar (and I don’t mean Al, pal). It seems that Boiceville NY is the home of the second Collectible Car of the Year contest winner, and his car is an interesting mix: a custom car constructed out of a 1998 Mercury Grand Marquis sedan and body panels from 11 different classic cars, in particular a 1957 De Soto. The “Marquis de Soto”, as he calls it, retains the DeSoto look with the positive traits of the newer Mercury: air-conditioning and predictable handling. It even passes the state inspection. Of course, folks like us will appreciate him less for the car, and more for what he is doing with his winnings: Buying the ‘Stargate Atlantis’ action figures and building a small Jumper spacecraft like those on the show.
  • From the “Because I Find You Trustworthy” Department: In an interesting twist on the infamous Nigerian Email Swindles, a Nigerian has been arrested for trying to swindle a bank directly, vs. going after the depositor. To carry out the elaborate scheme to dup Citibank out of $27M, Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world. The fraud was uncovered after several banks where the conspirators held accounts returned money to Citibank, saying they had been unable to process the transactions, and an official of the National Bank of Ethiopia said that it did not recognize the transactions. What’s scarier is that Citibank didn’t catch the problem: in October they received two dozen faxed requests for money to be wired and dutifully transferred $27 million to accounts controlled by the conspirators in Japan, South Korea, Australia, China, Cyprus and the United States.
  • From the “And The Saints Go Marching In” Department: In the spirit of the upcoming Mardi Gras, I must bring you a story about saints. This time, it’s a new one. In an attempt to curry favor from Barak Obama, the Pope is elevating Father Damian of Hawai’i to sainthood for his work ministering to the lepers of Molokai. He will be declared a saint on October 11.
  • From the “The Changing Face of News” Department: You may have noticed that all of the articles so far have come from the New York Times. That’s because many of my local newssources are going down the tubes. The LA Times is a shade of its former self, and as for the Daily News… well, it is soon going to be back to the Valley News and Green Sheet quality, if Singleton keeps things up. San Jose — watch out — the Mercury News is likely next. Anyway, according to LA Observed, the Daily News has formally lowered its sights back to the valley: the Editor has said coverage will be focused almost exclusively on the San Fernando Valley, which would be a return to the coverage model that predated Dean Singleton’s ownership. This is made clear by a note to readers in today’s issue, which tries to put a positive spin on things: “We thank you for your loyal support as we confront this troubled economy. We are committed to producing a relevant local news report that is focused on the San Fernando Valley.” As for other local news, the distinction between KNX and KFWB is blurring, which likely means at some point there will be only one all-news outlet in LA. As for the Times, they just keep losing more and more staff — well, losing isn’t the right word — they know where they are, they just keep kicking them to the curb. On the positive side, they are dumping the retconned “For Better or For Worse”.
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News Chum O’the Day

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Some selected chunks of chum, for you to chew on over dinner:

  • From the “Just Put It On The Tray” Department: The Los Angeles Times has an interesting piece on Clifton’s Cafeteria. Clifton’s was one of the earliest cafeterias in Los Angeles (I have vague memories of going to it as a child). There was a small chain of them, each one with its own theme. They have their recipes… and their regulars who know if a single spice is varied. They have their traditions. All in all, it sounds fascinating, and I’ll have to go visit there.
  • From the “Twenty-Five Is A Good Number” Department: I know you’ve seen it. That 25 Random Things meme that has been going around everywhere. Well, it’s now made the New York Times! An article in their Fashion section today discusses the meme, and notes that a Google search for “25 Random Things About Me” yields 35,700 pages of results, almost all of which seem to have been created in the last two weeks. I do have to say I’m seeing it everywhere, and it reminds me of the old days when memes would propagate like that on LiveJournal.
  • From the “Old Friends” Department: The Daily News has a nice piece on an old friend of mine, Jolie Mason, who runs the Los Angeles Radio Reading Service. They were knocked off the air during the recent Sesnon fire (which burned the KCSN transmitter), and are now attempting to raise $7,000 to get back on the airwaves. They do such a great service for folks, that I just wanted to mention the article. I worked with Jolie back when she was a programmer at SDC — yet another BLACKER person!
  • From the “Be Careful What You Eat… Or Maybe Not” Department: The New York Times today has an article today about how many food allergies might be false alarms. The article is interesting, but seems to forget one significant fact: Allergy .NE. (that’s != for you perl folks) Sensitivity. An allergy is something that raises a histamine reaction. But there are other forms of non-allergy sensitivies (such as Celiac Disease), which can be equally or more problematic. Further, those sensitivities can serve to create more sensitivities (i.e., if you are Celiac and keep eating wheat, other foods tend to create problems — often getting off the wheat clears the other sensitivites). So, eat what makes you feel healthy. If you don’t feel good eating it, don’t. But do eat your brussel sprouts.
  • From the “A Quite Amazing Paradox” Department: The New York Times is also reporting on an interesting transit paradox: although the economy is driving ridership on transit systems up, the economy is forcing such systems to make significant cutbacks. The problem is that fare-box revenue accounts for only a fifth to a half of the operating revenue of most transit systems — and the sputtering economy has eroded the state and local tax collections that the systems depend on to keep running. Further, the billions of dollars that Congress plans to spend on mass transit as part of the stimulus bill will also do little to help these systems with their current problems because the stimulus is for capital projects, not operations.
  • From the “Now You Take That Back!” Department: You may have heard that the Pope recently unexcommunicated (would that be communicated?) some cardinals who had very conservative views. The problem was the one of them was a holocaust denier. Well, the Pope (after some pressure from Merkel) has now directed that cardinal to recant those views. Evidently, the Pope knew nothing about them. Right. I thought he was infallible. In any case, he’s done the right thing.
  • From the “Where is the most unusual place that you and your husband have ever made whoopee?” Department: Yes, that story is true. But that’s not what this chum is about. You see, GSN is reviving the “Newlywed Game”, and has announced the new host. Carnie Wilson. Why, oh why? It’s not like Bob Eubanks is dead. In fact, he’s looking for work. Right now, he only seems to work one day a year. If the original is still around, why not use him. And if you can’t use him, rub it in his face and hire Stephanie Edwards!
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Oh, Ye of Little Faith

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today, there is a fire in the Sepulveda Pass. This prompted the closure of the San Diego Freeway (I-405) in both directions over the pass, which impacted our normal vanpool route. I started the van at 530a, and by 540p I had been called by three of our five riders to cancel. So, Phil and I went in by a different route. We got in perhaps 15 minutes later than our usual time. I’ll note that had I been driving, I would have taken a canyon route, but Phil was more comfortable with Vermont, as his wife works at USC.

C’mon folk… you gotta trust your drivers 🙂

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Of Particular Interest to the Transit Fans

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Seen on bottleneckblog: Bus Driver: The Computer Game:

“In Bus Driver, your job is to transport passengers around an attractive and realistic city. You must drive to a timetable on a planned route, whilst obeying traffic rules, and taking care not to upset or injure your passengers. This makes Bus Driver unlike any other driving game — the experience of driving a bus is very different from blazing through a racing circuit.”

There are some complaints. According to Steve Hymon, the Road Sage at the LA Times:

Not enough could go wrong. I never encountered any shirtless passengers juiced on crank ranting about the LAPD. Nor were there any fireballs, no matter how many times I crashed. At the least, there could have been a passenger dropping 125 pennies on the floor of the bus near the fare box.

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