Author: Aaron Weber

Mass. Mass Transit: Needs More Mass

Check out this transparency from Good, illustrating the size and impact of mass transit systems around the world. At first it looks pretty bad for Boston, illustrating fewer riders and less track than anyone but San Francisco.

But Boston’s a smaller city. Of course Tokyo transit serves over a billion riders a year: It’s the hub of an enormous metro area. It’s probably a better system, but how much better? How much more useful, per capita? We don’t really know, at least not from this chart. A better reflection would be annual passenger-miles charted against the population of the entire metro area.

I’m guessing Boston would still come up a little short there: We really could use a more extensive transit system, something which is pretty clearly reflected in the chart. But we might not come up as short as this chart initially suggests.

Like air pollution and water damaged ceilings?

Then you’ll love the value in this beautiful Victorian single-family home on Alston St. in Somerville, located a stone’s throw from the McGrath elevated highway, Pat’s Tow impound lot, and the local waste transfer station.

Sure, it needs a new roof, interior paint & plaster, new siding, probably floor-refinishing, de-leading and maybe even asbestos remediation, but what an opportunity to own a home! Plus, if they ever build that proposed green line extension, you’ll just have to dash across four or five lanes of traffic to get to your trolley stop!

MBTA & Search & Seizure

The other night on the way home, I walked over the Charles/MGH stop on the T and saw that police had parked an SUV and a cruiser from the K9 unit on the sidewalk by the entrance. Inside the station, they had set up a bomb-scanning/inspection station on the left side of the information booth and were inspecting random passengers that walked past them.

So I entered on the right side of the information booth, where there were no inspections.

Not sure what they managed to accomplish, aside from just standing around being intimidating.

Got credit?

Linked from a Zillow blog post, a house which has attracted a lot of interest… but is it the good kind?

There’s a note on the description saying “Buyer must provide bank prequal letter including credit review, copy of earnest money (min.$500) Cash offers must show proof of funds & copy of earnest money. There is a delay penalty of $100 per day charged to buyer if closing is delayed due to buyer/buyer’s lender.”

The house is for sale for $6,900.00. Less than seven grand. And they’re concerned about buyers getting financing.

I don’t think that’s a sign that “buyers are lurking” on the sidelines, waiting to jump in. I think that’s a sign that the internet loves a goddamn train wreck.

Marriage Made In Heaven

Obviously, the best thing for a struggling North American auto manufacturer with a poor quality reputation is a partnership with a struggling Italian auto manufacturer with a poor quality reputation.

What a great idea!

Fiat’s not putting any cash into the deal, so it doesn’t stand to lose much, but I just can’t see the logic in it. Sure, they have a lot in common, but is it anything good? Reading about it is like being invited to a wedding where you know the only things the bride and groom have in common are bad personal hygiene, drinking problems, and a fear of dying alone.

Taxes: Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes it’s the rules

In software, I’ve always felt that if an application needs really long instructions, it’s probably just got a crappy user interface. Obviously a complex application needs complex instructions, but any given task within it shouldn’t require more than a few words of basic introduction. And sure, if one user makes a lot of dumb mistakes again and again, it’s both easy and often correct to blame the user. But when lots of users, even the really skilled ones, keep making the same dumb mistakes, it’s probably the software’s fault.

That thought came to mind today when I read about yet more tax problems facing cabinet nominees. Given that politicians are so prone to public and embarrassing tax problems involving “honest mistakes,” you’d think they would have simplified the tax code to avoid them.

No, it wouldn’t avoid Daschle’s troubles with unreported income but it might avoid some problems. If so many very smart people are making “honest mistakes” on their taxes, maybe the national tax code really is so complex that it’s too easy to make mistakes, especially when they’re in your favor.

Or maybe the tax code is complex enough that it’s easy to hide cheating unless you’re facing dramatic scrutiny. That’s also possible. In which case the argument still stands: Simplify.

Virtual Inventories Piling Up?

I hear that unsold goods are piling up in inventories. Does that also apply to virtual goods? How’s the Norrath Platinum Piece holding up against the dollar? How about World of Warcraft armor? Is that piling up in someone’s virtual warehouse? Can you run out of virtual space for your virtual inventory of fictional goods that you’d hoped to sell for real money?

James Howard Kunstler Is Kind Of A Dick

Whether you read the profile of our nation’s leading doomsayer in the New Yorker this week (print only) or in The Morning News, you’ve got to acknowledge he’s a man of his moment.

Of course, he was also a man of the Y2K moment, but we’ll ignore that for the moment.

He’s right about a lot of things: Big-box stores are ugly. Suburbia as currently constructed is probably unsustainable. Oil won’t cost $40 a barrel forever, and if it does, we’ll really screw the climate.

On the other hand, he’s also pretty smug about all of those things. He’s pretty sure that society as we know it is headed for collapse in the next 2 years, and that nobody is doing anything about it. I’m pretty sure he’s wrong there. Oil will get more expensive, but it’s not like we’re not developing sustainable initiatives: Better batteries. Better solar. Better hydrogen production. The public transit funding in Obama’s stimulus plan is less than I would like, but it’s not exactly small change either.

Kunstler is basically the sort of curmudgeon who writes those semi-humorous rants in the Sunday paper that mix some important issues with others that are far less germane. The problem is that he hasn’t got the self-awareness to recognize it. He doesn’t understand the difference between oil and climate on the one hand, and the insidious nature of electronic devices and the poor quality of contemporary American architecture on the other. Oh, the kids these days, with their drywall and their iPods and their interstate highway system!

He’s basically confusing global ethics and personal taste, and insisting that everyone who doesn’t share his taste is profoundly unethical. And then he wonders why people don’t take him seriously.