Basement Office

Just a Little While

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 09:41:13 -0600

Michael Gregory, of Auto-Tune the News, has penned a gem of a pop song. Though the mp3 of the song misses the 2:42 mark of perfection by a couple of seconds, it’s close enough to lend credible evidence to the theory.

$0.98 for the song, and the thought that my small contribution may help genius like this continue, seems like a good deal to me.

Questioning our Values

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:09:00 -0600

Questioning our Values:

Charles Marohn and crew continue to fight the good fight for sustainable urban growth. More power to them.

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:38:00 -0600

A Trailer for Every Academy Award Winning Movie Ever:

Inspiring final lines of a speech that douchebags will quote in their Facebook profiles!

I’m pretty sure I know what that makes me.

(via)

Auto-Tune the News #10: Turtles

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:31:47 -0600

Auto-Tune the News #10: Turtles:

Get it while it’s hot.

"If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would..."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:42:00 -0600

“If we in the Third World measure our success or failure as a society in terms of income, we would have to classify ourselves as losers until the end of time. So with our limited resources, we have to invent other ways to measure success. This might mean that all kids have access to sports facilities, libraries, parks, schools, nurseries.”

- Enrique Peñalosa, ex-mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

(via)

Scrobbled!

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:03:46 -0600

Truly, my ascent into fatherhood is complete.

Unfortunately, the speechifying was left out. But what it lacks in fury, it makes up for in softly played xylophones.

U.S. Postal Service might end Saturday delivery to help close $238 billion gap

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 06:23:30 -0600

U.S. Postal Service might end Saturday delivery to help close $238 billion gap:

I’m pleased to see that my ideas are finally being taken seriously.

Despite periodic reminders from he who knows best, I am a...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:22:00 -0600

Despite periodic reminders from he who knows best, I am a complete and utter failure at watching TED talks. However, spurred on by this discovery of a vintage but still relevant Kunstler (via), I may have to try harder.

Austin kamikaze pilot's suicide note

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 13:57:25 -0600

Austin kamikaze pilot's suicide note:

Joe Stack, the software engineer who crashed his plane into an Austin IRS building, left a rambling screed (taken down; Smoking Gun copy here, other saved copy here) for all to see. I hope that if I were to ever go out in flames like this guy, I would have the presence of mind to leave behind a note that validates, and moreso, one that wasn’t created in MS Word.

hipsterpuppies: muffin arrogantly insists that she doesn’t...

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:59:41 -0600

hipsterpuppies:

muffin arrogantly insists that she doesn’t “own a tv,” but still watches mad men and arrested development on her macbook pro

It’s funny because it’s true.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:50:01 -0600

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man:

There’s a reason why everyone is linking to this story. Ebert, through his blog, has taken the art of the personal essay to new heights, and proven himself to be one of the most gifted living writers of our time.

The Dandy Warhols pull through

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:16:13 -0600

I’m a bit behind the curve on this one, but did you know that Michael Jackson died? I was reminded of this fact while listening to “Welcome to the Monkey House” by the Dandy Warhols. Recorded in 2003, the title track contains this contractual line:

When Michael Jackson dies / We’re covering Blackbird

Intrigued by this six-year old promise of a future song, I did a little digging. Sure enough, they did it. While initially caught off guard, they got together and put out a single soon thereafter.

mediumhigh: Learning about humanity & history through the news & TV is like observing...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 11:21:08 -0600

mediumhigh:

Learning about humanity & history through the news & TV is like observing the Great Wall of China through a microscope.

Second attempt at a shoveling video. There’s time travel...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:12:00 -0600

Second attempt at a shoveling video. There’s time travel in this one, but no Gus. On the whole, it feels kind of empty.

'Complete Streets' promotes livability

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:02:48 -0600

'Complete Streets' promotes livability:

The Star Tribune gets behind a complete streets approach to urban planning in Minnesota.

I’ve heard that our state DOT is not as welcoming to these kind of ideas. Hence the appropriateness of this line:

Small towns have been stripped bare by wide highways that eat away so much of Main Street that there’s little space left for commerce and community life.

That sounds familiar. Here’s hoping it will change.

What a completely backwards time we live in when special effort has to be made to make our cities habitable, let alone welcoming, to pedestrians.

(via)

It’s Try Something New Friday (I just made that up)....

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:29:55 -0600

It’s Try Something New Friday (I just made that up). Today’s new thing is Google Chrome. In the two hours that I’ve used it so far, I have no complaints. I do appreciate the humor sprinkled throughout, such as the “Stats for nerds” link in the Task Manager, above.

I like that it uses the WebKit rendering engine. And I like that the UI is different enough (in several good ways) from Safari that it gives me pause when considering what my daily browser should be.

Of course, I’ve only used it for two hours. But still.

Very Demotivational

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:28:14 -0600

Very Demotivational:

Holy crap, these are funny. (And sometimes NSFW, unless you work in a basement, alone, like me.)

What we need: Bike lanes

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:15:18 -0600

One of the things I’d most like to see our town do is put in additional infrastructure for bicycling, especially on-street, bike-only lanes. While I’m personally comfortable to take up my fair share of the road, bike lanes do afford the casual cyclist some degree of confidence and are safer than the usual alternatives of riding on the sidewalk or being bullied into the gutter by a passing car. Bike lanes are also an attractive marketing tool for the city that has them.

While on my morning run, I had a vision of what such a lane could be like on the street that runs in front of our house (4th), which is one of the main north-south streets through town:

The recent snowfall, cold weather, and lack of intense plowing left well-defined paths of travel and generous shoulders of packed snow along both sides of the street. Running on these shoulders in the presence of traffic was a pleasant experience: I didn’t have to run up into a snowbank and the passing car simply moved over slightly so that it straddled the inner tire track. This is quite unlike the summertime, where cars tend to hug the sides of the road, only reluctantly moving over into the left-turn lane to make room for runners or bikers.

The left turn lane on this street is, in my opinion, wasted space. Except for short periods in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, traffic flow is light; backup problems by left turning vehicles are a non-issue. Additionally, two blocks south of where we live is the older part of town. Alleys run parallel to the north-south streets and serve as access to the adjacent houses — along 4th Street, for example, there are very few street-facing driveways. The left turn lane is all but useless, save for the end of each block.

Instead of an ultra-wide street where cars speed with impunity, 4th Street could become more like a traditional neighborhood street, with slower traffic and improved conditions for cyclists:

This section of 4th Street runs between downtown and the northern edge of the city, and contains entrances to our fishing/camping/recreation area along the Red River, our golf course and city park, and is adjacent to the NDSCS campus. All of these facilities could stand to benefit from the increased connectivity that a bike lane would bring.

There’s obviously some cost associated with re-striping the street, but it shouldn’t be substantially more than the usual costs. The two lines that define the left turn lane are simply moved out to indicate the bike lanes, while the center line is basically an assemblage of the dashed lines that now lie inside each solid line of the left turn lane (see Google Street view for a better idea of what I’m talking about). Though the street was striped last summer, this would be a good improvement to keep in mind the next time around.

Big cities aren’t the only places that can benefit from more complete streets. They can make our small towns better places to live too.

#parkingchair

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:40:31 -0600

#parkingchair:

The best meme going on Twitter right now. Kind of makes me miss the place.

(via)

Winter

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:31:00 -0600

Looking back towards 4th Street and the dorms from the golf course road. A nice picture, but primarily a test of wide images in this design. ~~It may help to force a refresh of the page to make it look right (centered over text).~~