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Category: good news
improving urban traffic
In the film Beverly Hills Cop, Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) asks his love interest, “Is this your car?”
She replies, “Oh, no. In Beverly Hills we just take whichever car is closest.”
I always loved that line.
Now it’s (almost) come true.
“Car Sharing Goes Upscale” by Paul Boutin, a Slate.com podcast brought me up to speed.
No longer a “save the Earth guilt trip”, car sharing is now cool.
In San Francisco you can grab a CityCarShare.com economy car just about anywhere in town and pay just $4/hr plus $.44/mile. That includes gas, insurance and parking.
Sweet!
As a non-car-owner I would take advantage of that often. A friend in Calgary has been doing something similar here. I will check it out.
High rollers and business travellers are paying much, much more for short-term luxury car hourly rentals. In San Francisco check ZipCar.com
It’s become a hip thing to do there.
Product complaint: I would love to link to the original Slate.com podcast archive so you could listen for yourself. But they look to be 3 weeks behind in posting them!
Instead you could search iTunes > podcasts > Slate Magazine Daily Podcast.
welcome Liam Burgess
The proud father reports that “Liam Isaac Emil was born in Saskatoon on Thursday, August 31, 2006 (one month early, but luckily one day AFTER father Dave’s Ph.D. proposal defense and as mother Jenn was just starting on the mend from a cold).
Mother and baby are doing very very well and we have returned home from the hospital.
Father is doing fine, too.”
More photos will be posted on the family website: theBurgesses.ca
video – hydrogen fuelled vehicle
Rocco is fond of saying, “Hydrogen is the fuel of the future. And always will be.”
But check the multi-million dollar prototype of the GM Highwire.
Impressive.
Click PLAY on the video below or watch the clip on YouTube.
bunks for drunks
In the past I dismissed the homeless.
That was until I moved to the downtown East side of Calgary. In the centre of the homeless area. Those folks became part of my daily existence.
The homeless normally claim they “like the freedom”. They cannot hold a job because they refuse to knuckle under authority.
They cannot live in a shelter because of the tyranny of rules imposed there.
Sounds believable.
Then I heard an NPR podcast: Homeless Alcoholics in Seattle Find a Home
Bill Hobson is a homeless advocate in Seattle who runs a government program that one critic calls “bunks for drunks.” It’s a facility that offers a home for alcoholics in exchange for nothing. They can even continue drinking while living there. Renee Montagne speaks with Hobson about the logic behind the program.
Of 79 chronic, oft-hospitalized alcoholics offered a chance at shelter — 75 accepted.
Seems the real reason for homelessness, normally not admitted by the homeless, is addiction. At least for alcoholics.
This is a brave, honest experiment in how to truly help the homeless. Congratulations Bill Hobson.
Not everyone agrees with me. Especially regarding the funding of the project:
New York Times – Homeless Alcoholics Receive a Permanent Place to Live, and Drink
TV network advertising on eggs
I hear that TV viewership is at low ebb.
Good. The current model supported by contemporary commercials (that suck the oxygen out of my lungs) needs to die.
TV executives will be testing alternative forms of advertising. But what comes first, the chicken or the egg?
bloggers improving the world
Works for Me: Nincompoops: saviors of journalism – CNET reviews
Why egocentric hacks like me are the saviours of traditional journalism.
The massive competition from the entire community of Web users is making MSM, including CNET, better. It has to be to remain relevant. Television news shows can’t get away with faking results. Newspapers can’t tolerate bad reporters. Irresponsible journalism gets called out these days and doesn’t survive. And that’s good.
biodiesel sport car
A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver’s interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No — just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School
(They) built the soybean-fueled car as an after-school project. It took them more than a year — rummaging for parts, configuring wires and learning as they went. As teacher Simon Hauger notes, these kids weren’t exactly the cream of the academic crop.
I love stories like this and hope those kids get rich. Awesome!
breakfast at the Mosque
A great tradition in my town is the “Stampede Breakfast”.
All sorts of organizations put on free grub as an annual open house for the city during the major rodeo — the Calgary Stampede.
This year, for the first time, we visited the local Mosque (Calgary Islamic Center). An excellent event! Seemed to me the highest priority was presenting a positive face to the local community.
The highlight was an Imam, a most intelligent and charismatic figure, who explained Islam to a fairly unknowledgable crowd. I learned that the Koran in Arabic is identical world wide and has never been revised.
In 2006 the more we can learn about the Muslims who do not make the news, the better.
Rick McCharles 