April, 17, 2005 archives

i’m on a roll with local charities, so i’ve continued the streak with a donation to the midnight mission, which just last week opened their new facility a few blocks from their old one (which i can see out my window).

a few weeks ago one of the alôud sessions at the central library was with sam davis, author of designing for the homeless: architecture that works, who has steadily worked his way down the economic ladder in his architecture — his previous book was the architecture of affordable housing. it was an interesting perspective on the homeless problem, and i was sitting amidst a number of people from dome village who had a fairly negative take on the larger missions in los angeles. but i guess one important bit of knowledge i took away from that is that it is going to require a range of solutions to tackle the homeless problem, and it is good to see it being attacked by considerate and considered people.

i guess sunday’s opinion section in the los angeles times was about transportation, because there were a number of interesting commentary pieces on the issue over the weekend: why free parking may be hurting; why tolls are the answer, not rail; how privatization could help, and why rail is a good long-term solution because it reshapes the landscape.

boing boing passes on ross mayfield’s report that the number of books you can carry on to planes will be (and is) limited. this is the sort of case where a journalist would do something tedious like contact the tsa and actually find out what the reality is, rather than relying on second-hand information that originated from a screener.

i think it is pretty clear that the policy is in regard to books of matches, regardless of ross’s impression of what the screener was talking about.

this is the sort of thing that undermines the bloggers-as-journalists argument.