Aaron Draplin hates Blippo, and everything it’s done to America. I agree with him, and I’m looking forward to finding out more about The Draplin Project.

(h/t BoingBoing)

Zombie haiku? Yes.
Poetry apocalypse!
My morning’s complete.

(h/t BoingBoing)

I’m still taking a break, but I thought I’d interrupt this attitude maintenance window to point you at an article about traffic engineer Hans Monderman, whose innovative ideas about the people, driving, and traffic have led him to remedy dangerous streets in several Dutch towns by removing almost all of the traffic controls. It’s a fascinating idea, and it seems to be working.

Beyond simply figuring out ways to move more cars through the streets, Monderman’s ideas revolve around how people drive in different contexts, and how overriding those contexts with traffic controls takes responsibility away from drivers, who then stop paying attention.

There’s also an interesting discussion about differences in perception of distance between peds, cyclists and motorists.

Monderman was interested in this notion that the car changed time and space. He commented on Proust’s observation that a visit to a relative that once took a few days could now be completed in one. Suddenly, more trips could be made, but each trip seemed shorter. “What happened to these people?” said Monderman. “They had gone to their uncle’s, spent three days. Suddenly they’re in a hurry. . . . It’s quite ­simple—­they bought a car. The first thing put in a car is a clock, ticking away in an objective linear time. In the past time went different. They woke with the chickens, and went to bed when it became dark. You had your own time schedule depending on what the seasons told you. Suddenly we can measure the whole day around objective time.”

The implications are clear to any modern driver. Commute times are precisely that—times—with distance obliterated, as if we were driving across the face of a clock. Cities have essentially expanded in size to the extent that new transportation means have arisen to keep commuting times more or less stable. Pedestrians, on the other hand, who possess a more intimate knowledge of the geography they are traversing (and must provide the actual power to do so), tend to think in terms of distance. As a New Yorker, my first instinct is to think of some destination in terms of how many blocks away it is, not how long the walk ­is.

I also enjoyed this quote: “all traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity”. I concur, a cross country flight is practically a miracle of transportation by any historical standard, but I’d rather read and re-read a Reader’s Digest than pass the time watching Kansas or Utah slowly scrolling beneath me. Throw in the delights of navigating through the airport, and you’ve got an experience that’s both aggravating and dull!

Monderman’s ideas challenge the fundamentals of traffic engineering, and is changing the way people look at this aspect of urban space. If this kind of thing interests you, it’s definitely worth a read.

The Neistat Brothers film themselves stealing their own bikes in NYC with a variety of conspicuous methods in broad daylight. No one says a thing, not even during the 6 minutes it takes him to hacksaw through a chain. Awesome.

Look what just came up through the series of tubes.

I’m still feeling cranky, so I’ma take a little break until I can post something without having to be wound up to do it.

For instance, I enjoyed this, XKCD loving the world, and I oughta be glowing with sympathetic well-being. But all I can think of is:

I hate your iPod
I hate your SUV
I hate your brand names
That shit on your TV
Avarice and ignorance,
So much for democracy

Boom de yada
Boom de yada
Boom de yada
Boom de yada

You can see where this is going, and that’s not what I want this to be about. You deserve better. So I’m going to recharge a while, and I’ll be back when I have something nice to say.

I’ll still see if I can post something reasonably entertaining on Friday though. I mean, that Fu Manchu / Steve McQueen thing was pretty cool, eh?

[UPDATE]: As long as I’ve got a post up dedicated to crankiness, fuck you very much Tom Coburn. Will the good people of Oklahoma please come pick up your Shitbag Senator? Thanks much.

Behold, the beauty of the market!

(h/t GGW)

The Internet, bless its heart, sent us a couple AirZound refillable air horns for our steeds, and some Incredibells too. By gawd, we will be heard.

Getting in and out of Northeast D.C. requires riding some routes that aren’t bike friendly, and as much as I’m averse to riding sidewalks, there are some spots where it’s safer than being on the street. I take it slow and easy through those sections of the commute, and make every attempt to be courteous and non-threatening to pedestrians since I’m a guest on their turf. Even in my most cheerful voice, yelling “Coming up on your left!” feels abrasive. The sweet tones of the bell are a mellifluous way to announce my approach, and break the ice enough to occasionally say “Good Morning” as I pass.

And then, upon returning to the road, I frequently have to get the attention of motorists who don’t seem to notice that they’re about to cross my path. I’ve found that yelling is effective, but there’s a chance they’ll take it as a sign that I’m engaging them in a conversation.

The last such conversation took place one night recently, as the family and I were headed home from the pool, with a young woman riding shotgun in her friend’s car. He floated through his stop sign, nearly T-boning me in slow motion, so I yelled “HEY!”. I got their attention, and he stopped for the 2 seconds it took my family to clear the front of his car, but she felt like she had to respond, and passed on this piece of advice: “You need to learn to… watch out!” I’m doing ten miles an hour on a straight road, following a massive parade-float of a bike with my wife and both kids on it, we’re both decked out in lights front and rear, passing directly in front of his car. And I need to learn to “watch out.”

Yeah, so I’ve decided I don’t want motorists mistakenly believing I’m interested in talking to them, I just want to let ‘em know I’m there. And ya know what seems to work really well for that? A refillable 115 dB air horn, that’s what. I’ve used it two or three times since I put it on the commuter earlier this week, and it definitely got the reaction I was hoping for from the daydreaming, phone yammering, cavalier drivers (which is not to say, drivers of Chevy Cavaliers) that may or may not have been pretending I wasn’t there. You’re awake now there, eh buddy!

Ironically, the one person I really wish I’d had it ready for was the young lady on the bicycle, early in the week, that blew through her red light at 14th to make a right on Rhode Island just as I was coming through with the green and traffic. Having to grab fistfuls of brake to avoid crashing another cyclist, one who actually saw me coming and decided to cut me off anyway, was beyond annoying. I expect that kind of dangerous disregard for bikes from drivers, this felt like a betrayal from one of my own.

Come to think of it, I’ve seen a lot of boneheaded bike maneuvers over the last few weeks, not like Idaho Stops, but “wrong way, downhill through a red, threading cross traffic” kind of stupidity. I don’t know if it’s new cyclists trying an alternative to driving, and testing the limits of natural selection, or if this is par for the area and I’m just new to this side of town. But it’s a disease, and it fuels the already abundant antagonism between bikers and drivers.

Well! Ain’t I Mr. Crankypants! Clearly, I need some release. How about we look back into the idyllic past, to a time when men in high-octane muscle cars could chase each other around San Francisco, a time when the Mustang was king, and when bad guys looked like your wood shop teacher. And how about we rock the fuck out while we do that. Check out this superdeluxe Bullit / Fu Manchu mashup, and then have a great weekend if ya can.