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Walkable Cities Meme::Does closing roads cut delays? | csmonitor.com

In the Philippines people practice something called counter flowing, this is the act where a driver moves his car and enters a lane that is going at the opposite direction. You see this behavior whenever only one side of a busy road is experiencing heavy traffic. Well this behavior is dependent on two weaknesses. ONe is that when they are trying to get back at the proper lane drivers are either scared or kond enough to let them back into the proper lane. This creates a feedback loop where you one up other people by not following the rules and it is expected. This is bad because this causes the other lane to be more congested and in turn creates a very bad traffic jam. I suggest that traffic enforcers be made to book these traffic offenders to lessen this driving barbarism and that we do not let these types of drivers dominate the streets. If you read the article it has a nice dissection of the problem. The individuals are optimizing for themselves and thereby decreasing the total societal value. What is needed is for traffic enforcers to be the ones, through doing there jobs, force these players into a nash equilibrium where everyone wins!

But maybe these two traffic models have more in common than it first seems. Both encourage individuals to drive more slowly so that everyone gets to his destinations faster. Both favor a holistic approach to traffic, one that designs from the perspective of the overall flow rather than that of an individual driver. And both open up more space for pedestrians.
It’s not too difficult to imagine a city designed with these principles in mind. Fewer roads with slower but smoother traffic. Spaces that can easily be converted to car-free zones to suit the needs of the network. And fewer opportunities for people to drive like jerks. Sounds like a nice place to take a walk, actually.
via Does closing roads cut delays? | csmonitor.com.

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Hearting Google Reader's New Social Features

Image representing Google Reader as depicted i...
Image via CrunchBase

At the start of the day I have something of a ritual which involves in almost chronological order:
-Get Coffee
-Check Email, Answer only immediate and important emails, leave the rest for later
-Read RSS Feeds of  Expansion/Thinkers/Coding
-Check Unimportant/Not immediately pertinent emails
-Check Friendfeed
-Check Facebook
-Read RSS feeds from news sources (Inquirer/GMA)
-Breakfast
-Check tasks for today.
-Check production servers applications I am supporting.
-Begin work on tasks.
All in all this takes about 1-2 hours of my workday.
I’ve recently lost internet acces to most sites I go to, thank God for google reader, still can read most posts.
So I was pleasantly surprised with the new “social features” that they have included in google reader.
As far as I can see they have made liking more open, because now people who allow other people to see their likes are showing up at the rss entry.
This is interesting because  now you can follow these people.
Following other people has been an old feature of google reader, what’s new is that it is now far easier to find people who read the same things you do.
Hope they can do this with google reader notes, and that they find a way to convince more people to read posts from rss.
I’ve been just using the new social features for a few minutes but, I can see the possibilities!
Kudos to the google reader team, I don’t know what they plan for the future but I am surely going along for  a ride!

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Feeling Special

I think it is totally defensible that a lot of people need or is at least is happy with the notion of feeling special. I think this is one of the reasons that cults proliferate in our world (People who know me may actually call me out in with an irony), that conspiracy theories do not only abound but it seems it to be the default among polite company.
I don’t know maybe my need to feel special is driving me towards solitude. I just have this default action when I don’t like the game I do not play. I can’t understand why it seems to me that most things belong to the walk away from category.
I do not think I am special, What I believe is that we are special by striving for something, trying to find what paolo coelho terms as our personal legend. It is about finding our place in this world, the things that we we’re meant to do.
This post was prompted by this, ty to Chris Blattman for the pointer

meh
meh

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Wanted: A More Walkable City:Why New Yorkers Last Longer — New York Magazine

The urban health penalty, they decided, had inverted itself. The new reality was that living in the suburbs and the country was the killer. In January 2005, Vlahov and his colleagues penned a manifesto they cleverly called “The Urban Health ‘Advantage,’ ” and published it in the Journal of Urban Health. Cities, they posited, were now the healthiest places of all, because their environment conferred subtle advantages—and guided its citizens, often quite unconsciously, to adopt healthier behaviors.
via Why New Yorkers Last Longer — New York Magazine.

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Learned Today : College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways – Race – Gawker

College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways
By Hamilton Nolan, 12:12 PM on Wed Jul 8 2009, 30,144 views (Edit, to draft, un-top, Slurp)
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College: where drunk kids are guinea pigs for social science. The funnest college-kid studies involve race, because they make everyone uncomfortable! Now comes a new study of interracial college roommates that proves we’re all terrible. A racial breakdown:
If You Are White:
* Your black roommate makes you uncomfortable.
* You make your black roommate uncomfortable.
* You are far more likely to “break up” with your roommate if they’re not white.
* You will not be affected academically by your roommate’s race, because you care only about your own kind.
If You Are Black:
* You will do better academically if you have a white roommate, maybe in an effort to overcome your inferiority complex.
* Or maybe because you just don’t like them and can get some work done.
* If you have a white roommate, your own “positive emotions” will decline.
If You Are Asian:
* Not only are you more racist than any other group, you also make those around you more racist. Scientific fact!
If You Are of a Race Other Than These:
* You are not as interesting to social scientists.
Jerks, every last one of us!
via College Kids All Racist In Their Own Special Ways – Race – Gawker.

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Why Are We Doing This To Ourselves? ::wronging rights: Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban

I’m starting to be really irked at this moralist types. Here’s a thought FUCK YOU!

Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban
I’m pretty good about keeping tabs on viciously stupid domestic policies all-time favorites include the anti-prostitution pledge and the merciless application of the material support bar to asylum but I rely on experts in the field to keep me apprised of other countries’ bullshit legislation and executive orders. Recently, via a tip from the very wonderful Payal Shah at the Center for Reproductive Rights, former Mayor of Manila Jose “Lito” Atienza‘s Executive Order 003 made it onto the list.
EO 003, which was issued in 2000 and remains in force, deprives women in Manila of access to contraception and family planning information. Although the order did not impose an outright ban, its call to “promot[e] the culture of life” by “discouraging the use of artificial methods of contraception” has resulted in an effective prohibition. Since its issuance, city clinics and hospitals have not provided contraception.
via wronging rights: Things That Suck: The Manila City Ban.

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Praise To Commitment::48 Minutes of Hell » Blog Archive » In Appreciation of Peter Holt

Brave Peter Holt! This is why San Antonio has been a model franchise for mre than a decade! The Right people doing the right things!

Peter Holt took a serious financial hit yesterday and he did so for the good of the franchise you love.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for a man whose net worth is counted not just in millions but in tens of millions, but compare Holt’s situation to Mark Cuban’s, whose net worth is presumed to be north of $2 billion, and you begin to recognize the commitment Holt is making to the franchise. When the Mavericks head into the luxury tax, Cuban hardly feels the prick of a pin. Holt and the rest of the Spurs ownership group commit a significant fraction of the franchise’s net worth to the team’s success.
Mr. Holt’s financial commitment to the team is significant to no one more than the 3 individuals we adore most: Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker. Whether by only requesting reasonable contracts or restructuring their contracts to allow the team to acquire the necessary supporting cast, over the last several years the big three have done their part to ensure the Spurs are in a position to compete for championships. By allowing the front office to take the steps they took today, Holt has kept up his end of the bargain.
via 48 Minutes of Hell » Blog Archive » In Appreciation of Peter Holt.

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Paradox Of Choice Experiment::Is less always more? : Cognitive Daily

Such a simple but illuminating experiment, click through to find their results!

But is less always more? Most of the studies on number of choices have either given participants a very small or a very large number of options. Does this mean just one choice is the best? Or is there some larger number of choices that is optimal?
To find out, Avni Shah and George Wolford set up a table in a busy corridor at Dartmouth University and asked passersby to help their department select the best pen to order for its supply closet. They varied the number of pens sampled from 2 to 20. Each pen was similarly priced at around $2, and while each pen was different, all were “roller-ball” style pens with black ink.
via Is less always more? : Cognitive Daily.

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