I saw this advertisement on my way home from work today. It’s a very clever bit by New York City’s MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) as part of a series of ads describing how the MTA is continually improving service in NYC. Whether or not service is actually improving is questionable (although the addition of “next train arrives in X minutes” displays on some lines is welcome). The timing of these ads probably has a lot to do with the fact that the MTA is increasing prices for its best customers from $89 for a 30-day “all you can eat” pass to $104. As a New Yorker and daily subway/bus rider, this is an annoying increase. I estimate that I ride the subway/bus about 60 times a month, making this a “per-ride” increase from $1.48 to $1.73. Not much, but coupled with the never-ending renovations that shut down whole stations, schedule changes, entire line-and-timetable cuts, it’s mildly annoying. Where is the better service the MTA is touting?
So presumably this advertising campaign is an attempt to restore some good feelings towards the MTA—and hot damn has it for me! The advertisement above is both a jab at transit authorities that still have not authorized public use of their (publicly available) timetables and a nice shout-out to hackers. It’s particularly cool because my friend Jonathan Wegener‘s Exit Strategy NYC app is exactly what the MTA is describing. Jon—how are you going to respond?
Dear Rovio,
Today I finished getting three stars in every single level of Angry Birds. Thanks for distracting me on the subway and bus for the past six months! That being said, I feel a little let-down. I was hoping for an extra level or maybe a chance to play as the pigs. I know you guys are busy porting Angry Birds to every platform under the sun—maybe you could take a break and code up an extra level for your super dedicated fans?
Best,
Ron
This morning I was scheduled to take an 8:30 AM bus from NYC to Philadelphia. I’ve taken BoltBus to DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston in the past, so I’m used to the drill. They’ve never been late and the bus has almost always been there before me. Today was different only in that I arrived somewhat early (at 8 AM) and the bus did not show up until 9:05. Big deal, right? Well, not when it’s 22º outside! I’m neither angry nor annoyed at BoltBus because my ticket cost $10 and included leather seats, WiFi and power outlets (from which I am writing this post). However, I would much rather have cuddled with a cup of coffee at a cafe than frozen my fingers off waiting outside. Which brings me to the subject of this post:
Dear BoltBus,
Please wire your buses up so that their location can be tracked by riders and other interested parties (e.g. people picking them up). This would be trivial to do since your buses are already wired up with WiFi. All you need is a smartphone with GPS (e.g. an iPhone 4) sitting next to your WiFi box. Afterwards, setup a system whereby riders can sign up to be notified if the bus will be late and given an updated ETA.
Thank you,
A loyal rider
Yes, yes, it’s a budget bus service. But BoltBus is so sophisticated in every other way that it is a bit strange that they don’t offer some sort of automatic notification when a bus has been delayed or even a webpage where you can check the status or location of a bus.
Mint is website I use daily to organize my finances. This afternoon, “Get Quote” drew my eye down to “in life” and it took me a moment to shift over and notice the “Insurance” header. While the design of this section looks good as a whole, it ends up being confusing if you’re just scanning down the page.
Posted 10 December 2010 |
DNA seen through the eyes of a coder. http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/
Posted 18 October 2010 |
Tagged: tweets
Lived in NY for >4 years, but never seen him in person. I should fix that.
Link
Posted 05 October 2010 |
Tagged: tweets
Humor on the web & how to stop it
The Internet has a citizenry. Like how some people self identify has African-American or Asian-American, there is a subset of the population for which it would be most accurate to label them Internet-American. Not everyone who has ever been on the Internet is part of this group. Most people are merely tourists or commuters, they come in, they visit a while but, at the end of the day, they go home to their real lives. For the Internet-Americans, the Internet is, at least in part, their real lives and meatspace existence is the culturally foreign experience.
By far the largest majority of humor on the web comprises of memes, catchphrases, remixes and repetition. All your base are belong to us, lolcatz, goatse and the rest. Some of them are funny. With the enormous profusion that is characteristic of the Internet, it would be impossible for some of them not to be funny. But, by far, the majority are not. They are tired, cliched rehashes of beaten to death jokes. Why then, do they persist? Because their goal never was to be funny, your amusement is never the prime concern. Instead, they exist as a credential of citizenship. It is a communication from the poster that he belongs to some in-group for which a set of memes form the common language and the humor is both simultaneously inclusionary of those who get the reference and exclusionary to those who do not.
Serious communities need insulation from “Internet-Americans.” This is an excellent characterization of what plagues Digg, Reddit and is, in some small measure, beginning to plague Hacker News.
The New York Times ran a story today about the struggle that software developers face in getting physicians to adopt electronic healthcare software. I have a few problems with this article, both with what they say and what they leave out.
…medical experts have long agreed that digital patient records and electronic prescribing can help improve care and curb costs.
On the contrary, in recent years the idea that electronic healthcare records will improve care and cut costs has been hotly debated. A few papers published in the past year make the case (and the NYTime’s even covered one!). That is not to say that electronic health records will not eventually make a difference (I think they will), but it does mean that the current software, hardware, training and usage of these systems is not making too much of a difference. This article should at least have acknowledged that.
The second, and more concerning issue, is what was left out. In an article about healthcare software the issues of open-formats and interoperability must at least be mentioned. The bill passed by Congress in July was extremely meek in this regard.
The final rules do not guarantee that doctors and hospitals can electronically exchange clinical information on patients. The rules do require health care providers to work toward that goal, widely seen as a way to improve the coordination of care and avoid the duplication of tests.
Everyone, Congress included, must be reminded that we cannot simply throw money at doctors (and thus technology companies) and expect excellence. For electronic health records to fulfill their promise of reducing costs, eliminating redundant tests and, eventually, improving patient care, they must be fully exchangeable between different doctors, practices, clinics and hospitals. Without such interoperability (preferably standardized internationally) we will be in no better shape than we are today with a printer and fax and we will erase any time and cost savings brought about by moving from paper to electronic records.
Atlantic blogger Jeffrey Goldberg posted a letter written by Israeli President Shimon Peres to Fidel Castro, in Spanish. I’ve translated the letter, attempting to stay faithful to Peres’ literal wording, while clarifying some of the “plays on word.”
24 de Septiembre 2010
Estimado Sr. Presidente Fidel Castro,
He leído los comentarios que Ud. hizo durante la entrevista otorgada al periodista Jeffrey Goldberg y me han conmovido profundamente. Debo admitir que vuestras palabras me resultaron inesperadas y de una original y especial profundidad intelectual .
Yo se que bajo las montanas de las controversias ideologicas existe – debe existir un alma humana, sin la cual no tiene sentido la vida o al menos, seria muy difícil entenderla.
Ud. Ha describto el sufrimiento del pueblo judío en su marcha por el desierto, de la esclavitud hacia la Tierra Prometida, el Holocausto que extermino un tercio de nuestro pueblo y el sufrimiento que fue parte de nuestra historia y lo ha hecho en una forma muy conmovedora.
Es un camino muy difícil, es un dolor que no se puede borrar. Aun asi, jamás no hemos perdido la esperanza humana, la esperanza de igualdad que no permite dividir a los hombres en esclavos y duenos , la esperanza de una fe donde no es permitido inclinarse frente a falsos dioses y la esperanza de paz entre las personas y entre los pueblos. Desde entonces ansiamos, como en los dias del recibimiento de la Torah, que los Diez Mandamientos nos guien en nuestro camino, hacia nosotros mismos y hacia el prójimo.Cuba es una isla rodeada de mar. Israel es una isla política, rodeada de amenazas. Ud trato de navegar hacia grandes mares, para poder mostrar que pequenez geográfica no necesiariamente significa pequenez humana.
Nosotros tratamos de probar que pequenez politica no deberia ser pequenez de valores. Y es por eso que nosotros queremos ver en nuestros vecinos a nuestros amigos.Y cuanto mas bien y mejor ellos estén , mejor será para nosotros. Sus palabras han sido una especie de puente sorprendente entre la dura realidad y un nuevo horizonte.
Y es por eso que le quiero agradecer sinceramente.
Ha demostrado que lejanos pueden también ser cercanos.
Lo saluda atentamente,
Shimon Peres
Presidente del Estado de Israel
| 24th of September, 2010
Esteemed Mr. President Fidel Castro,
I’ve read the comments you made during the interview granted to the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg and they have moved me profoundly. I must admit that your words caught me by surprise and came from an original and especially profound intellect.
I know that there exist, must exist, beneath the mountains of ideological controversy, a human soul, without which life has no meaning, or at least, would be very difficult to understand. You have described the suffering of the Jewish people in their march through the desert, from slavery until the promised land, the Holocaust that exterminated one third of our people and the suffering that was part of our history—and you have done it in a very moving way.
It’s a very difficult path, it’s a pain which cannot be erased. Even so, we have never lost our human hope, the hope of equality, that does not allow men to be divided into slaves and owners, the hope of a faith which does not allow us to kneel in front of false gods and the hope of peace between people and between nations. We have longed, like in the days when we received the Torah, that the 10 commandments should guide us in our path, guide us and our neighbors. Cuba is an island surrounded by ocean. Israel is a political island, surrounded by threats. You tried to navigate wide oceans to show that limited geography does not necessarily signify human lowliness.
We tried to prove that limited politics should not mean primitive values. And it is because of that that we want to see in our neighbors, our friends. And the better off they are, the better it will be for us. Your words have been a sort of surprising bridge between grim reality and a new horizon.
Because of that I want to thank you sincerely.
You have demonstrated that strangers/distant people can also be near/neighbors.
Yours faithfully,
Shimon Peres,
President of the State of Israel |
