2008.11.24
The city seemed to be doing a good job keeping things running as well as possible, cops directing traffic, T-stations still open. Still it was disturbing exiting the train into Arlington Station and seeing it lit by a few emergency floodlights powered by generators.
Followup of the Moment
Heh, yesterday I was talking about Youtube but I forgot to mention one of my core points-- last month Youtube may have surpassed Yahoo as the #2 search engine. (Which, of course means that the #1 search engine is Google, and the #2 engine is Also Google-- scary!)
Online video is so common now (mostly google but some other sources) it's almost easy to forget what a revelation it was, I was flabbergasted that they could have the bandwidth for that. And it's so popular... I guess we really are visual creatures.
Lego of the Moment
Boingboing had a link to Peter "legoloverman" Reid's awe-inspiring Flickr stream.
I'm so jealous... both of the two fiddly bits that have come out since I was so dedicated to collecting and thinking about Legos, and how well he uses them.
I guess the technoscavenger I made back around 1990 or so is in this mold, taking advantage of new, small pieces as functional ornamentation rather than trying to make square bricks look cool, so I shouldn't begrudge him all the awesome part he now has. Especially with his neoclassic space stuff that respects the blue/gray bricks and yellow windows of the stuff from the 80s.
I'm tempted by the new Lego Mindstorms. It looks like, unlike prior generations (some of which is sitting in a closet at home) they may have finally given tools with enough precision that I could make that typing bot I've always dreamed of... though I'm still very inexperienced at that kind of "Technic" construction.
Power out in Back Bay + Theater District because of a manhole fire. Last night in Chinatown they were doing water stuff-related? (Day off!)
"BOOM BOOM that's all you hear when MY cannon bust" --Overheard in Mission Hill
I wish I could figure out if someone makes a tilt and swivel platform for a projector that's already sitting ona damn shelf.