I will tag this post ‘local’

There is a battle going on over what ‘local’ really means. I figured that it would be rather good fun to jump into the fray. So here I go.

I was informed of the rising storm on the fourth of August, sometime in the evening. A twitterific update by one of the JFP’s self referential accounts indicated that ShopLocal had ‘declared war’ and linked to this JFP article with the details. This is what had happened.

A JFP article criticized ShopLocal, the Clarion Ledger and the parent company of both, Gannet, for the misleading use of the word local. ShopLocal responded in a post which tried to belittle the JFP and claim that ShopLocal itself was local. This then led to the twitter post and article which came to my attention.

Its a bit odd, the ShopLocal post. The title asserts that they are local (it actually says that explicitly, “ShopLocal IS Local” you can tell they are serious because even the ‘is’ is capitalised), but their article provides absolutely no support for it. Their article is dedicated to saying that national chains can actually in some sense be considered local (more on that later). They end on the surprisingly weak point that they “support” local retailers. By this, presumably, they mean that they take local retailers money in exchange for advertisement. Support really isn’t the right word, they provide a service, for which they get paid; they are not investing in local businesses, they are quite literally taking their money. I will allow them this massive discrepancy and focus on their two separate claims.

The claim that ShopLocal supports local businesses rests heavily on their definition of local. By clarifying the definitions as they are used in daily parlance, I will disprove both main claims made by ShopLocal. The three definitions of local they provide are absurd. The presence of a business is the only factor in determining if it is local:

National-local: These are stores that have a national footprint, but still on a granular form have local market presences across many communities and cities.
Local-local: These are stores that are only found in one region. Examples include a small up & coming chain or a successful multi-location family business.
Hyper-local: These are stores that are only found in one (1) and only one town. Typically, these are referred to as mom & pop type operations.

It is easy to see that the only consideration is the distance from a certain town in discerning if it is local or not. So presumably this makes every Wal-Mart a local store, because, they are, after all, located in only one place. Actually, this makes every business a local business wherever it is located. Toyota becomes local – they have a dealership here, Nissan even has a plant nearby! This is kind of like HSBC’s marketing slogan “The world’s local bank.” Even though it is based in London, every HSBC branch is a local business, according to ShopLocal. Furthermore, if you have internet banking, HSBC has a presence wherever your computer is. The ‘local’ locations are endless! This means that while I was in Bristol, England, Trustmark National Bank (based in Jackson, MS) had a local presence in England – making it both local and international at the same time!

To define “local” we must look at what people mean when they use the word. The meaning is easily multifaceted. There are considerations like the distance of a business from the reference point (community, city, etc) which ShopLocal understands. People refer to places as local when the management has a local presence, understands the clientele and can respond to community needs and wants. This is roughly having not only local management, but also locally autonomous management. Lastly, the local business model that many people cite comes from a more economic standpoint – a local business is one that invests in the community in which it is based.

In Bristol, my Local (pub) was about a 90 second walk from my house. This is clearly very local in the grand scheme of things. The problem is, there were four other licensed establishments (excluding the restaurants!) which I had to pass in order to reach my Local. Did this make The Cat and Wheel less local than the others? While distance and location play a role, its not the whole story. While being a local business implies that the business is located in the locale in question, the implication is not an equivalence: merely existing in the locale in question does not imply that the business is local.

Pretty much any store, no matter how large the chain, has locally based management. When Brookshires grocery store opened in Jackson, they imported some managers from Texas to run the individual stores. The managers lived and worked in Jackson from that point on. When people talk about a business being locally operated, what they really are talking about is where the autonomy of management lies. Local management can react to the communities needs, desires and tastes; this generally means a management more responsive and dedicated to the community it serves. With a large corporate chain such as Wal-Mart, there is little autonomy of management at the local level. Each store looks the same and sells the same products. Local management is a matter of corporate paperwork, shift scheduling and signing off on deliveries from the corporate truck fleet. Local Wal-Mart management cannot actually manage the store in a way that reflects the community around it. Local products and local tastes are not found in Wal-Mart stores. Sure, they sell Mississippi Blueberries in some stores but that took negotiations by the state Agriculture Commissioner to achieve. On the other end of the management spectrum there are chain stores which really only carry the brand. In the Shell station in Macon, MS, the local management is fairly autonomous from Royal Dutch Shell corporate headquarters in The Hague (click here to listen to that in Dutch). Sure, the station carries only Shell gasoline, and pushes Shell credit cards on you, but they also have a deli which serves up breakfast, lunch and dinner for the town. Besides the branding, the stations management is free to shape the store to local taste, and adapt to feedback from local customers (and yes, I do realize that the management probably does not even live in Macon, and probably manages many other stations, but my point remains). Even with locally responsive/autonomous management, nobody would mistake the Macon Shell for a local chain. If you ask for something at CVS, the management will have to get permission from higher management to carry the item; if you ask for something from Deville, they will pick up the phone and place an order without having to ask permission.

Investment in local communities is what motivates many people to patronize local businesses. Somewhere on the interwebs there is more exact information on the topic, but the general idea is as follows. For every dollar in revenue, a locally owned and operated business will make a larger contribution to the local economy than an out of town chain. Take this example of two fairly identical stores, one a locally owned drug store, the other being an out of town chain. Since each is about the same, their taxes and utilities will be roughly the same. So for a dollar spent in each business, say, ten cents goes to taxes and utilities. We can now ignore that ten cents. Another fifty cents may go to covering the wholesale cost of the product bought – so that goes to the product maker/distributer. Chain stores can often lower this cost as they own distributers or can negotiate better prices from the maker, but thats pretty much irrelevant in this simplistic example. Say another ten cents goes to pay wages of the workers. The remaining thirty cents is profit, this goes to the owner of the company. With a chain, this goes to headquarters, way out of town (or to shareholders worldwide). With a locally owned business, this stays in town, with the owner returning that money to the local economy when they shop, eat out, and donate to charity. So thats the idea, when you shop locally, the local economy does better. Instead of acting like a drain for local dollars, local businesses act as a fountain, supporting businesses all around them. The idea is, this is a good thing. As a bonus, if a business uses local suppliers, those suppliers support the community even more. Why politicians spend their time trying to attract companies to open branches locally is a mystery – encouraging local entrepreneurship would grow the economy and boost tax revenue much faster.

The other day, I used an online service provided by a company called Google. I used this service to find the website of Deville Camera and Video, a locally owned business. So, I guess that ShopLocal would say that Google is supporting local businesses. We cannot really, on anyones definition, debate that Deville is a local company (they even have a big sign when you go in the store that says they are, with proof, and thanks the people who support them – the ones who give them money in exchange for goods). Google has done pretty much what ShopLocal would do: provide me with information on this establishment, including a list of all services they provide. If you aren’t convinced, Google even has the power to suggest local businesses that I have not even heard of when I only know the business type and location (just type in something like “camera shop in jackson, ms”) thus encouraging me to patronize these businesses. Google has done this without taking money from Deville though, so I guess they are just more altruistic in their support of local business. Should we call Google a local business? (What about local.google.com? Its got local in the URL!)

Google is not based in my house, it does not invest in my house and I do not have a say in the searching algorithm. Google is not local. ShopLocal is based in Chicago, the owners and operators are in Chicago and they do not actually support the Jackson community. ShopLocal is in no way local to Jackson. It doesn’t even appear that one could say that the retailers who advertise on their site (see below) could even be considered to be local businesses. There is a difference between having a local address and being a local business.

**UPDATE** Time has an nice article on the buy local point. This is besides all of the stuff in the JFP.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html

Dr. Cooley buys me coffee

After the first transition team meeting at City Hall, I met two gentlemen (about my age) who had an enticing proposition. They figured me the type who would enjoy attending another public forum, one with a little more discussion. There was a regular public forum, they told me, held at Koinonia Coffee House. I did not really get how to spell this when he said it, and i did not get how to pronounce it when i saw it. But that is not important, as it is big, yellow, and from Jackson Metro Parkway, it looks like this:

Every friday morning at Koinonia Coffee House there is a public forum. Dr. Cooley, the facilitator of the transition team public meeting appears to be behind this somewhat, as rumor had it that he was picking up our coffee tab. While I am on the topic, I will give a word about Koinonia Coffee House. It is big, it is yellow, it is a house, they sell coffee. Those are the important details. It is just off the Metro Parkway, details on website. I had a reasonably priced double Espresso, $1.50. The beans were not the freshest, and were midway between being sweet and bitter. The flavor was rich and refreshing. I couldn’t complain as they didn’t ask me for money. This is not the usual case, or else they would not really do well as a business; Dr. Cooley was paying for everyone at the forum. Considering that it is not easy to get truly fresh coffee, I wouldn’t have complained even if they charged a bit more and I paid for it (I ended up tipping $2, about 133%). It looks like they have a fairly comprehensive coffee place menu, pretty much covering expected coffee based drinks. They had a slightly sad batch of muffins out, but some deliciously huge cookies as well. As I stood listening to the speaker, I saw a number of people enjoying excellent looking toasted croissants with ham and melted cheese. The sitting area itself was lovely. Freshly done, in a colorful yet minimal style. High ceilings and bright windows lent a pleasant open ambiance to the room, even the burglar bars were a bit artsy and nice. Thats just the front room, i didn’t even explore! Its not the type of place to go for a questionable coffee, but a nice light meal and smoothie would fit well. If they expand the breakfast selection (add some fruit or granola or yogurts) it would be absolutely delightful on a sunny morning. Unfortunately, their food menu is limited to bread based foods that are traditionally found alongside coffee.

Now, seriously. The forum. I arrived a few minutes late and was pleased to see Mr. Anderson leaning against the back wall. I sidled up to the till and got myself some coffee before settling in leant against the back wall. George Flaggs Jr., state representative from Warren county, was speaking at the front. As I did not have any note taking utensils with me at the time, what follows is a rough sketch of the flow of conversation.

Representative Flaggs was talking about a recent Medicaid bill In the Mississippi State House of Representatives. He had the bill read out, because people were complaining that it was a long bill, over 80 pages, and they did not have enough time to read it. He said to us that the length of bills was just because the issues were complex. People complaining about the length needed to appreciate the complexity of the issue at hand. This reminded me of a similar note in a recent post on the economist dot com which I mysteriously cannot find again! It is important that bills be understandable, easy to read. They do not have to be short to be readable; they do not have to be difficult to read when covering a complex issue. At least provide some complete, accurate simple english summary of the bill.

Education, Rep. Flaggs believed, was key to economic growth. Take care of people and educate them, and htey will prosper. Education should provide people with the tools to make it on their own. I have to agree with Flaggs on this one. Education is one of the most important aspects of economic development that the government can work on. Noting the large amount of predatory lending in the area, he mentioned that he hoped to integrate more financial education into our school system. Giving children the financial (and other!) skills to succeed in life is important. Right now, people don’t understand the uses of debt, how to use credit wisely or what all of the consequences of various financial dealings are until they are trapped in a paycheck to paycheck debt repayment cycle.

I had a few ideas on this topic, and many ideas were bounced around at the forum. People addressed the extortionate rates of paycheck loans, and the lack of availability of other financial instruments in many communities. Providing more data on such lending, not only terms of the loans themselves, but where this lending is taking place, would be important in getting people out of crippling debt. Financial education in schools could include providing children with savings accounts, and help taking a role in family budgeting. The City could encourage small affordable loans, and guarantee some of the capital based upon the borrowers completion of City sponsored financial education classes.

A local restauranteur encouraged people to support local businesses, emphasizing that local businesses can invest more in local communities than out of town operations. Pastors were urged to get more involved in the community. Energizing congregations and leading them in revitalizing their communities. Churches could provide education, financial and otherwise, helping people get out of debt or providing mentors for local schools.

A Dr. Perkins ended the discussion with a well thought out statement about how some senators support businesses in their districts, while some only support social programs. He lamented the fact that some people are only taught to act as victims, while some people are encouraged and supported in entrepreneurial endeavors. People should be taught and encouraged to stand on their on feet instead of leaning on state support. Certainly this is an area which can be helped by education as well…

In all, the forum at Koinonia Coffee House was excellent. Representative Flaggs was clearly a passionate man who truly cared about health care, education and the Capitol city. The discussion was informed and informative. I did not try to contribute anything to the discussion, but i will certainly be in attendance in the future. So remember, 9 am, every friday at Koinonia Coffee House off Metro Parkway. Be there.

sharing ideas with the public works transition team

What happened: Mayor Harvey Johnson’s transition team for public works is preparing a report for him, this was the public’s chance to give input. Our words would be recorded and the team plans to use our input and data to form their report. They will need more data than they got today. The meeting took place in city hall. The transition team was introduced, with Mr. Matt Thomas at the helm. Other team members flanked him, including the Reverend Damuel Boyd, Tommy Darnell, Calvin Dean, Ruthania Hudson and Waddell Nejam. The event was facilitated by Dr. Bill Cooley. Mr. Thomas opened thanking people for showing, and saying how important it was that people give their input. The public works department operates on a 62 million dollar budget and consists of the road and infrastructure maintenance side as well as the water billing department.

I saw the notification of this series of forums by chance on the Jackson Free Press website. Granted, it was a very high chance that I would have seen it, as I have their RSS feed in my browser, but a chance nonetheless. It did not seem well advertised, as this was only announced sometime the morning of the 29th, with the meeting on the 30th. When I arrived at the meeting, my suspicions were confirmed. There was one news van outside, and the room was sparsely populated.

Originally I thought that there would be more discussion with the transition team. I also thought that the Mr. Johnson would be there, to share ideas and take criticism. This was not the case. Dr. Cooley stood at front with the microphone and invited audience members to the front to pitch their ideas at how to improve public works in Jackson. This felt a bit awkward at first, as I had no idea what sort of thing to say to a transition team, not knowing their background, expertise, or authority on implementing these ideas.

The first speaker was a city worker who bemoaned the shape of the roads where she lived. No sidewalks and terrible condition of streets coupled with irregular, and unreliable garbage pick up made the area a horrible place to live. The transition team looked on in somber silence. This was a good point about garbage collection which was reflected later in comments by an out of towner who commented on the large amounts of sometimes unnecessary waste which the city is paying to have dumped. Perhaps we should deal with our waste more efficiently. Although it was not mentioned explicitly in the meeting, recycling, lawn/tree waste and possibly compost material could be removed from our waste system more effectively, saving, and possibly generating money for the City of Jackson.

A young Mr. Upkins praised the Jackson Metro Parkway as an excellent roadway which was well maintained. He then turned to voice concerns over the long term prospects, wanting to know if regular maintenance, mowing, street sweeping would be taken care of. He felt that the area could do with more beautification, moving utilities underground and adding public green space. Improvements such as these would promote the social improvement and economic growth of the area, he hinted.

Another gentleman stood up to speak. Instead of bringing the hopeful tones of the previous speaker, he came down to criticize the department for their inaction. He brought up past arguments with the department including a burst water main that took three months to be completely resolved, an overflowing creek flooding his and neighborhood properties that took over a year to be seen to. He noted that foreclosures in the area meant that yards were left strewn with the insides of homes and only attention from the news brought any action. He recalled an episode in which “the worst road crew in the world” was brought in to re-pave a road, when they had finished, the road looked “about the same” as when they had started. It was his luck to live in Ward 1, where things actually did get done, he said. He later lamented that he had been told that homeowners were responsible for maintaining their own gutters, but could not believe that he was the person to fix all 35 feet of his crumbling gutter. He highlighted communication and inactivity problems which have characterized the department of Public Works in the past.

Mr. Anderson (von Anderson?) took the floor with three key points. While he was appreciative of the pothole reporting hotline (601-960-POTH) he said more use of online reporting could be made. I would like to point out that there is an awkward comments form that can be used for just that but his idea can be taken further with mapping and response capabilities. Perhaps the online form could map complaints as well as be updated whenever crews fill potholes in. Noting that Jackson was the capital of a rural state, and we have a lot of old trees, he introduced his idea that the Public Works department invest in wood-chipping machines. This goes back to what appears to be a theme of the night on dealing with waste effectively and efficiently. The department could certainly use some new methods, systems and ideas in that area. Finally he proposed rolling dumpster days. Making more regularly scheduled days for a dumpster to be placed in an area for the residents to use. It used to be the case that people could dump off extra waste and recycling at fire stations, but as far as I know, that was discontinued long ago. Rolling dumpsters allow residents to dispose of extra large items more conveniently, as well as promote general cleanliness of neighborhoods. If these were organized more regularly, people could participate more effectively. He also noted that communication problems between citizens, the government and fellow citizens should be addressed in order to make these solutions more viable.

It was here (at 18:18) that we were pleasantly interrupted by Mr. Harvey Johnson himself. In between meetings, the incoming executive stopped by to thank everyone for attending. He promised a more transparent supportive government which would not be a “black box”, opaque to its citizens.

After yielding the floor to Mr. Johnson, I appealed to the committee to work to ensure that this citizen input would continue throughout the administration. Citizen input as well as feedback from all sides of the issue is important to ensure effective operation of the Public Works department. I asked how far the new department would go to solve problems of an increasingly dilapidated infrastructure and possibly shrinking budgets. I would like to see radical steps taken, thinking out of the box and trying solutions which may not have been tried before. It is not easy to tell a crowd of older Mississippians that we must try new solutions, but I tried to go delicately.

There were further ideas thrown about, including a desire to have online water bills. One man called for more transparency and review to contract bids. One suggestion was that department heads piggyback on the COPS community meetings and engage with the citizenry on a monthly basis alongside the police force. The facilitator, Dr. Cooley, amusingly announced that he “Just recieved a tweet! Well, actually it was a handwritten sheet.” Someone wanted discussion on whether or not there should be a rating system on which streets should be attended to first. A slight discussion ensued. Two people speaking expressed partial support for a rating system, but that it should have factors other than citizen voting. I agree, some objective importance of roads should be assessed, in terms of use, economic development, and emergency situation use. There should be more science of traffic control employed.

I again returned to the floor to address the need for proper investment in out infrastructure. I proposed a somewhat modular system for infrastructure, an “infrastructure for infrastructure.” The idea I had was that while water and sewer mains were upgraded, space could be left for fiber optic lines, traffic control devices and the like. Upgrading the infrastructure in such a way as to expand its capability would make Jackson a more appealing location for businesses (especially with improved fiber optic networks). Proper investment is needed to provide quality roads and infrastructure which will not need to be replaced often and will be easily upgradable and pay off in the long run – a time span difficult for the average politician to comprehend.

Mr. Matt Thomas ended with a promise that our input would not fall on deaf ears. The meeting was recorded and notes were taken. The information that we provided would be reviewed as the committee crafted its report for Mr. Johnson. He said that he was “in the book” and we should look him up and get in touch. He would be pleased to meet with anyone. Unfortunately, I was unable to decide who he was in “the book” there being a Mat, Matt and Matthew Thomas, of Jackson, Clinton and Madison, respectively. If anyone does manage to get in touch with him, please, don’t ask him for a job, there are vacancies which you may apply for, but don’t ask him for a job. Also, do not ask who he is hiring or firing, as that is not his remit.

In all, it was a decent public forum. I would have appreciated more input from the transition team, and maybe some substantiation of the idea that citizen input would be appreciated throughout the administration. I didn’t propose any specific ideas in the meeting, but may in a later post.

good Polish Portions at good Polish Prices

Sometime over easter holiday, there appeared a new restaurant around the corner on Gloucester Road. EasyJet orange chairs, paintings of the Beatles on the wall, and a sign that beckons you to come in and enjoy “Delicions Fresh Polish Food.” The delightful misspellings and half-translations don’t stop there. Really, it is part of the appeal that not everything has been translated properly into english. It adds a new dimension of authenticity of the experience. As I have learned, it is fun to go into a restaurant in a foreign country where you don’t know anything on the menu. In your home country (or at least one which shares its language with you) you would expect to be able to read menus clearly. Chopin provides the perfect balance of the experiences.

This is, by the way, a review. As far as I can tell, this is the second review of Chopin to hit the interwebs. A not so thorough search on the googles indicates that a Mark Taylor beat me to it.

So. My first experience was probably within a few weeks of the restaurant being opened. M and I headed there for a cheeky “Beef Stroganow” before dinner. We got it takeaway and it took about 10 minutes, what one might expect for a takeaway. Nothing to be surprised about here. We got home and opened the box, delighted to find a massive load of meat and gravy. This was definitely the hearty fare that we expected. The two of us split the tab, which was £4. Very cheap for a large main course, even if it didn’t have any vegetables with it – though, if we had sat down to eat it, it would have come with bread.

The next visit had ulterior motives. We had just booked tickets to Poland and needed a hostel to stay in. The only hostel in Rzeszow required phone booking. M, A and I headed to Chopin for lunch. We dined on massive baked potatoes and hearty soups before lectures. The waitress/hostess/lady who works there, was very sweet and tended to the table probably the perfect amount – she made sure that we had everything we needed without being pesky. This is when we learned that she doesn’t speak much english. Generally fine as the menu is numbered, but when we asked if she could make a phone call for us, she stalled. She got the chef out to handle us. Very nice chap as far as we can tell, was amused to fine we were going to Rzeszow, and said we should go to Warsaw instead.

I came to frequent the restaurant more, hitting it three days in a row at one point. The food is hearty, fresh and served in large portions. The prices are pretty much as low as possible. Side dishes are all 99p, but these can easily be a starter for their size. I personally love the fried beetroot and the cabbage. Every day has a special deal on, which I have taken advantage of twice. Once was a free starter of bread, pate and lard, which is surprisingly nice. Not a big fan of pate, but this one was nice, and the lard mixed in was an interesting substitute to butter on bread. Sunday is pork chop schabowy day, and their fried pork chop (comes with cabbage and chips) is only £5.20, a decent discount from the usual. At one point, there were six of us having dinner there. each of us had two or three courses and a pint. The total was less than £60. At least two of us eked out three courses on a tenner.

This is my review of the pork chop. One review (yes, that only other review), doesn’t rate it highly, claiming that the flattened pork chop schabowy could have been anything, chicken, veal, pork, cork or a shoe insole. The author is certainly right, it could have been anything, but for those who would prefer to ignore skepticism, this is not a relevant point. I would like to add that while it could have been anything, it tasted like a fried pork chop. People are less likely to confuse tastes, such as pork, chicken, and insoles, if they know how to tell the difference between the items. So, if one thinks that the pork chop schabowy it could have been chicken or veal, it is probably an indication that all of the chicken, veal and insoles they have had actually taste of pork. I have been fortunate to have good quality and diverse foods in my life, and I am inclined to say that it tasted of pork. I am not an authority on how insoles taste, so I do not speak with the authority Mr. Taylor has. One housemate even gave a good rating to their burger, not what I would have thought to have at a Polish restaurant, but well done nonetheless. Bigos, which is described on the menu simply as “Bigos” is delicious, various smoked meats in cabbage. Potato thug pie was enthusiastically recommended by the waitress, and it turned out to be some sort of large potato pancake folded over a meaty gravy-y filling. For £7.20, this is a cracking deal for hungry people who don’t want to be hungry anymore. Or even for those who just like the rich taste of good meat in a tasty gravy. You cannot lose.

I have eaten many other things there, and sampled off other peoples plates as well. These things I found to be good. My main complaint was that the chicken soup with noodles was very hot, and the layer of oil on top (its the same in Poland, I found) keeps the soup from cooling off. So, it was a bit hot. There are times (about half the time I have been) when they run out of things in the kitchen. They always come up with an acceptable substitute, as far as I can tell.

So, to summarize:
Large portions.
Hearty food.
Meat.
Very cheap.
Really, really cheap – £10 for three courses and a pint.
They find it jokes when you tip in Zloty.
Excellent rail links: walking distance of Redland station and Montpelier station.

This is where it is.

Really, cracking resteraunt. I don’t think they know anything about profit margins, and seem to be having a hard time drawing in customers. It is very nice inside and the staff are about as lovely as they come. The ad hoc substitutions and minimal english make the experience exciting and authentic in a whole new way. Go there. Its delicions.

This is the part where I load the post with keywords in the hopes that it will be picked up by the great algorithm by which we search the interweaves: Chopin Bristol Gloucester road arches fresh Polish food takeaway take away eat cheap good Chopin restaurant.

Ah, and here is the address/phone number:
217 Cheltenham Road
Bristol BS6 5QP
0117 904 3573

Accommodation in Ukraine

“I’ve had many a good blanket on this trip.” -Ste

And so I present a review of the accommodation encountered on our trip to Ukraine. Disclaimer: There is one hostel in Poland, and one hostel we didn’t actually stay in.

PTSM Hostel, Rzeszow

Our first night was spend in Rzeszow, Poland (pronounced shay-shouf). There is one hostel in town, cracking location right on the main square. We went to our excellent local Polish restaurant, Chopin, to book the hostel – they have no online booking, so we needed someone who spoke Polish to do the calling for us. They found this fairly amusing, and were perplexed at why we would want to go to Rzeszow, but excited we were going anyway.

We arrived in town late. It was about 22.30 before we got to the hostel. At 32zl each for a night, it was a bit more expensive than we expected. Bit of confusion paying, somehow ste lost about 20zl. We dropped our stuff off in the two private rooms and headed out for food. The lady at the reception, who spoke very very little english let us have an hour to get food – there was a 22.00 curfew! That was lovely of her. The rooms were very basic. Basically a standard Soviet style concrete building. A bit old and maybe crumbling in the corners. The eight of us shared two rooms of four. Bedding was included, but the mattresses were poor, one bed looked like a cannonball storage shelf. The rooms were plain, other than a negligible attempt at putting artwork on the wall. Nothing special, nothing besides the bare minimum for furnishings. Comfortably empty.

Location: 5/5 Excellent, on the main square!

Price: 2/5 cost 32zl for a night, but it is the only place in town.

Staff: 3/5 well, there was only one person there, very nice, but not much English.

Owner: n/a we never saw the owner.

Beds: 2/5 a bit better than sleeping on a stoop in the Netherlands, but bedding included.

Quality/Cleanliness: 3/5 Was pretty much like a worn down hotel.

Amenities: n/a there aren’t really any.

Retro Hostel Shevchenko

Our local questionable cafe across the street from the hostel.
Our bus dropped us off at the train station where we emptied the cash machines of their cash. We caught a cab to the hostel (40 hiryvna per car) Retro Hostel Shevchenko. Again, it was getting late so we dropped our stuff off and wend out to get food. Marushka (sp?) gave us advice on where to eat and pointed to a few things around town before we headed off. Her advice for food was spot on. It was a chain buffet restaurant, but served legit Ukranian food, cooked right in front of you. Returning to the hostel later we found that the toilets were still under construction. It was quite tricky to flush, having to fill the tank manually and then pull up the seal on the bottom of the tank, also by hand. Replacing it was a delicate act, and refilling it meant it would leak out before the next usage.

The dorm we stayed in was at the top of the building, a bit if a trek, but pretty much fine. There were bunk beds packed in, with perfectly acceptable beds. Nothing really of note here. There was rumored to be free wifi throughout the building, though we could not test this. There were two old computers in the lobby which provided internet for us. During our stay Marushka worked and worked and worked. She seemed to be the only person employed there. She was constantly cleaning or doing some admin work for the hostel. Even though she was constantly busy, she was always willing to have a chat or give advice to us about our trip. It is difficult to describe how lovely she was to us. She always offered help and chat when we were around. On the last day we stored our bags behind the reception desk, and she didn’t mind us hanging around in the evening. There was a ping pong table that we played on a bit. They only had one ball left though; we would have bought more but it was a sunday, and the sports shop was closed. Besides the remodeling in progress (apparently it has been in an unfinished state over a year now), the only downside was a strict closure of the hostel from 12-14:00. Apparently this is a throwback to the origins of hostels when they would be closed for cleaning and to force the young’ns out. This is the only hostel I have ever encountered to keep this rule up.

Location: 4/5 Minutes away from the old centre.

Price: 5/5 dirt cheap as far as I know.

Staff: 5/5 Marushka will probably do anything in the world for you.

Owner: n/a never encountered owner, rumored to be a vicious Siberian.

Beds: 3/5 they were fine.

Quality/Cleanliness: 4/5 toilets under construction.

Amenities: 3/5 cheap drinks/free juice when you leave and partial ping pong.

Hostel Kosmonaut
Whilst chatting with M, Ste and R(1) one night the owner of another hostel in L’viv came and joined our table. He was an Australian who ran Hostel Kosmonaut. He had a bit of a rant about the treatment of the workers at the hostel that we were staying at. He had a massive go at us when we let slip that we came because it was cheap to come here – “you come here because it is cheap? … you dont even know man …” He also got angry when I asked the difference between two pronunciations of the currency, I said that I noticed more Russian and older people said Gryvnia, while younger and more English speakers said Hryvnia. He responded by yelling that I shouldn’t even think about saying Gryvnia and “these people have been oppressed for a thousand years … and you say Gryvnia?!” Obviously there was some deeper meaning, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of actually answering my question. His passionate, close-minded anger was not restricted to just talking about Ukrainians he even got angry when i mentioned that I was heading back to the hostel to use the toilet – he angrily directed me to nearby toilet facilities (“don’t pee in the hostel man! Just go over there!”). On the bright side, he turned absolutely timid and sneaked away when a few young Ukrainian chaps showed up to join the chat.

Location: 3/5, not as near centre, but closer to a tram line.

Price: 3/5 more expensive than our hostel.

Staff: n/a they work 8 hours a day and are probably lovely.

Owner: 1/5 angry man.

Beds: n/a

Quality/Cleanliness: n/a never saw it.

Amenities: n/a.

Overnight train to Kiev


It was easy enough to get to our overnight train to Kiev. Just a little walk to a tram stop, then a 1 hiryvna ticket on the number 2 to the station. Last stop. Wonderful station, beautiful at night, and possibly the nicest waiting area in the world. Men’s toilets are free, women’s are 1 hiryvna.

The train was new and pretty much the nicest train ever. Second class, two compartments with four beds each. Everything we needed was in there. Sheets, blankets, pillows, towels, mattress covers, secure storage under the bottom beds and storage over the corridor for the top beds. A light to indicate which toilets were occupied and personal lights over each bed, as well as dim settings on the main lights and a volume control for the radio. There was a bit of a problem of no A/C for a while, though it cycled on a times during the night. It wasn’t too hot on the top bunk, but we certainly didn’t need the wool blankets we were provided with. It was quite a noisy night, and the train rocks a lot as it is fairly fast on poor tracks. This oddly didn’t provide any barrier to me getting to sleep easily and having a long sleep all night. It was a bit of a short trip (about 8 hours), so I didn’t really have enough time for a full nights sleep. All in all though, it was wonderful.

Location: 5/5 Its a train! L’viv AND Kiev!

Price: 4/5 good value at 164.05 hiryvna, transportation and accommodation.

Staff: 4/5 they offer tea and coffee in the morning.

Owner: 3/5 Ukranian state trains, seems fine.

Beds: 4/5 nice bed, mattress cover, and you wake up in a different city!

Quality/Cleanliness: 5/5 perfect, new!

Amenities: 4/5 hot drinks and a light in the compartment to tell you which toilet is free!

Kiev Lodging Hostel
We arrived in Kiev and got a taxi to drop us off at the hostel. We were taken exactly to the address and found the number. We could not find any sign indicating that there was a hostel. We looked up and down the street thinking that maybe were were dropped off at the wrong place, no luck. Plenty of restaurants and a couple of travel agencies, no hostel sign. It has been my experience that hostels do not always advertise their presence more than a small sign, but there was nothing to be seen, not even on the names by door bells. Finally, with the help of a man in a five star hotel down the road, we were able to find the door code and details of how to get in. We went through an anonymous door and up some stairs, to find a tiny piece of paper that said only “Backpackers” next to a door, so we rang the bell.

Shoes are not allowed past the entrance corridor, as the hostel is kept very very clean. Possibly clean to an obsessive point, but this should not be a problem for the short term visitor. There are showers and bathrooms near the entrance, and you may be able to get away with shoes in there. There are a couple of large dorms, and a staff closet to stash bags before checking in and after checking out. The staff are fine people to get along, but do not make the effort to talk to you. This is in contrast to many other hostels with bubbly, extroverted staff who immediately offer help with your stuff, advice and sneaky hints for the city and ask about your travels. Some people may like this more reserved breed of staff; but I find having a good bit of chat with people who know the area is much appreciated on any trip. There is a full kitchen where slices of ham disappear one at a time, but this is to be expected in any hostel really.

The owner of the hostel may offer a free drink around every now and then, but don’t get too excited. After following some of his strongest recommendations we were massively disappointed with the results. A local place to eat (with a large spoon out front) turned out to be a buffet with dismal food which was probably days or weeks old, and microwaved as you watched. The food was some of the lowest quality I have ever eaten, and was not even fully heated. Probably the least safe food I ate on the holiday (less safe than uncooked sausages, moldy bread and that strange beverage from the large metal tank on the side of the road). A market he recommended turned out to be a tourist tat market. A book he had prepared on the city mentioned wells found around the city as excellent places to drink. I had not seen any of these and asked about them, where I might find them. He only said something to the effect that I would not find them, and could not go to them. So I asked if the book was wrong, to which he looked blank. I asked “was it a lie?” that the book said they were everywhere (a more universal word?). He said there were none (for me at least?) and I said off hand that my hopes and dreams of drinking from the wells were smashed. Bad call. He kicked off on me immediately. He got very angry and assumed that I thought myself a university educated “big man” (a term that makes me shudder because of the connotations with warlords) and that he was stupid because he was a hostel owner at the age of 40. I will spare the details, but the idea here is he completely kicked off on me in a fairly unrelated manner. He later told the others in the group that the water would not be any good for us for biological reasons, as we were not used to the organisms in the local water. When I returned moments later to give an apology for any misunderstanding, he responded with a fairly blank look.

On the basis of the poor quality of the hostel owners recommendations, I drank some water from a fountain I found in a cemetery. It pretty much tasted like the tap water, which I read is fine biologically, but may have high levels of lead in it. We visited hidropark later as he had told us that it was disgusting. The water was somewhat clear and cold (sure, Chernobyl drains there, but thats less of an immediate threat than the agricultural waste in the Mississippi River that may have exacerbated a staph infection I once had). Hidropark was lovely, and had free beaches, so was again, the exact opposite of what the owner said.

Back to the accommodation review, the hostel was pristine. The dorm we slept in was fairly nice. It was a bit easy to tip the bunk beds over when climbing to the top, if nobody was weighing down the bottom. The mattresses were fairly poor, and rested on s hard but thin slab of masonite, or something similar. There was air conditioning, which was pretty lovely after a hot day out in kiev. No food allowed in rooms, but drinks are.

Hard to find hostel, but really nice, just keep a low profile around the owner and staff.

Location: 5/5 cant argue with dead central, even if it is hard to find.

Price: 3/5 more expensive than most, but cheapest in kiev.

Staff: 3/5 seemed fine, nothing special.

Owner: 1/5 makes horrible recommendations, thinks everyone is calling him stupid.

Beds: 2/5 completely shot mattresses on top of Masonite.

Quality/Cleanliness: 5/5 pristine.

Amenities: 5/5 ticks all the boxes, +free drinks, big telly and air conditioning.

Overnight PKP train from Kiev to Rzeszow

We exchanged our last hiryvna for dollars and euros and spend our change on food. Our train from Kiev to Rzeszow was our most expensive bit. Around 762 hiryvna, it was a 17 hour train ride which involved an international crossing, two customs inspections and a gauge change. There may be cheaper options, such as only taking the train to Przemysl but changing there before the gauge change. Also, stopping short of the border, taking a different train or a bus across the border may end up much cheaper (after all, it only took us roughly £20 to make it to Kiev). Taking a bus or walking across the border would be much more hassle (it was trouble free on the train) but much much cheaper. Also, it would be possible to take a lower class carriage if not going beyond Przemysl.

The carriage conductor was a lovely man. He escorted us to our compartments and provided us with a washcloth and soap. The compartments had a bottle of water and a sink. Three beds stacked on one wall, the middle one folded down to make the back seat of the bench when not sleeping. When we found a problem with keeping one of our beds stable, the conductor solved the problem – by swapping our compartments. At night when people wanted to have a drink before bed, we just had to ask the conductor, and he directed us to someone on the train who was willing to share their smuggled drinks for a cheap. The train was quite hot. It didn’t take long before all the guys had their shirts off leaning out of the windows as we went along. Thankfully we were able to lower our windows in the compartment, but you have to hold them down for some time to make sure they don’t spring back up. We were able to keep ham cool by dangling it out of the window as we went. The carriage was nearly empty besides us, or at least nobody hung out in the corridor or with their doors open as much as us.

The train was excellent. Being a bit sweaty just added to the ambiance, but it cooled down well as the sun went down. It was a great train. Excellent trip, plus pretty much the nicest sleep all holiday. Surprisingly, even with the window open, I think it was quieter than the other night train… not sure how that happened. It may be the case that our previous train was multiple units, while this one was locomotive driven. That is just pure speculation, though we definitely had a locomotive the second time around.

Location: 5/5 exactly where we wanted to be. Its a train!

Price: 0/5 pretty much the most expensive thing on the trip, next time take a lower class and get off before border crossing.

Staff: 5/5 lovely guys, free tea or coffee, sorts out problems in rooms happily, shares stash of smuggled goods if you ask.

Owner: 4/5 I generally rate PKP trains highly.

Beds: 5/5 quite possibly the best sleep I got all trip.

Quality/Cleanliness: 4/5 tidy, clean compartments, thoughtful interior with everything we needed, plus a few nice surprises.

Amenities: 5/5 had pretty much everything we could (and did) ask for. Ensuite sink, washing kit included.

cafe part two: someone else agrees with me

It is with pleasure that i direct your attention to the Christian Science Monitor. They have recently put out an article also questioning the rumored vehicle size/safety link. The bit that says a major news network commentator would actually push the line that higher fuel economy standards are more dangerous than war was particularly shocking. That is incredibly irresponsible. It is also pretty much wrong.

Also, an article livening the debate on this ‘rebound effect‘ that says that efficiency gains will be negated by more driving. They show that the figures (amount of increased driving) people come up with vary widely. The debate is clearly not over. Driving isn’t just something people do because they can afford it: people still have to get to work and deliver goods even if it costs money, just because it is cheap, people won’t just get in the car and run their engines. Besides, to suggest that getting people to drive/travel less is how to help the environment is missing the point. People need to travel, our economy and lifestyles depend on that; people need to travel more efficiently. More people moving around the country is a good thing, so long as they do it efficiently.

Thank you, Christian Science Monitor, for the perspective. Now please can you fix my trackbacks?

this is what i was getting at

NYC mechanic grades peoples locking job. This is what i do as i walk down the street too, except i don’t have a camera following me. Or dreadlocks.

He is a bit inconsistent though. Of course, as a bike mechanic, he is bound to deliver harsh judgments on all bicycles. I wouldn’t really give an F if some part of the bike were actually secured. Save F’s for those bikes that can be taken with little thought or effort. Thanks to KarlMcCraken whose blog i found this on.

So I suppose that if i were to make a rubric for bike locking, it would look like this:

A+: Top quality lock holding the frame and rear wheel to something that is well attached to the earth, plus a supplemental lock.

A: Impressive lock holding rear wheel and frame to something immovably sturdy.

B: Good lock holding the frame and rear wheel to something that is probably not going to give.

C: Frame only locked, but with decent lock.

D: (the pointless grade) Wheel only locked. Anything with a poor lock, or attached to an easy to move object (such as a small dog or a rubbish bin). Any vaguely desirable bike with a disproportionately weak lock.

F: Lock can be removed by mind power or hand tools. Freelocking in an area where pickup trucks operate.

There, now you too can go about your day judging other people’s skill at locking bikes.

the rise and fall of standards

President Obama recently proposed that we raise fuel economy average from around 25 MPG now to about 35 MPG in a few years. This post is not about raising CAFE standards.

I would like to start by saying that I really like the Atlantic. The biggest disappointment about it is that it has too much good content to make an RSS feed useful. I generally find the quality of writing to be excellent, the views well supported and in depth. Every now and then I find a poor article or post. The latest example of the latter description is this post about the new CAFE standards. I have decided to pick apart each point here, because that is what I did when I first saw the article. Finding unsupported statements masquerading as fact such as this is always annoying; when someone does it under the respectable branding of the Atlantic, it is disheartening. I have tried to assemble some evidence, and am going to squeeze some more scientific information out of official safety ratings and fuel economy information. In the meantime, articles which express concerns similar to the original can be found on the Atlantic and Christian Science Monitor.

Firstly, 35 MPG? How does that have people all in a fit? That isn’t radical! When driving a 1999 Toyota Camry I generally average 33 MPG combined driving. I can easily eke out over 35 MPG if i drive a bit more carefully. Driving a 3000+ pound 1980’s Volvo (It is a solid steel beast!) I have pulled over 28 MPG out of a tank. Even a simple engine tune up would give a power and efficiency boost. I am pretty sure that two decades of technological innovation and weight reduction strategies could be produce a similar car with far better mileage.

I will go through the four points in backwards order:

• If you want to cut down on the pollution from driving, this is about the worst possible way to do it.  On the other hand, it may be the only politically feasible way to do it.  If you take global warming seriously, as I do, it may be the best of a bad set of policy choices.

Is this really the worst possible way to cut down on pollution from driving? Really? You can’t think of a worse way? Is it worse than easing restrictions on pollutants in the hopes that the market sorts something out? This is heavily context dependent, and if you judge solutions in any part by feasibility, then you may find that this is the best solution.

• This will either help the Big Three compete, or seal their doom as the Japanese manufacturers continue to eat into their market share.  If I had to bet, I’d wager this means big ongoing subsidies for our favorite three public charities.

This is a safe non-statement. “Maybe… but maybe not” is not an argument. It is not even a proposition. Yes, the new standards may help the Big Three. Yes, the new standards may hurt the big three. But there is a third way: it may have no real effect on the Big Three. They may adjust fine, just like the rest of the world probably will.

Also, apparently the automakers support the new standards. So at least they aren’t being coerced into it. Maybe their new cars will be more competitive around the world.

• It will reduce our carbon emissions, but not by as much as advertised, because more fuel efficient cars make driving cheaper, so people will do more of it.  This “rebound” effect robs about 25% of gains, and also means more congestion, and more wear-and-tear on roads.

Even if it did make driving radically cheaper, and we only got 75% of the gains out of the improvement, how is that a counter argument? This has said “Yes, this will be an effective program, just not quite as effective as you say.” Its like winning the lottery and then complaining that you would rather have won more money.

• It will raise the prices of cars, and make them less safe.

This is a desperate shot. This is actually two separate assertions, each runs into contradictions with other points raised. These points are also not linked as the sentence format would suggest. It is misleading to put these together, safety and price do not go hand in hand.

If you assume that it will make vehicles more expensive, then surely the previous point about cost of driving makes no sense. The purchase price of a new car is the largest part of the cost of driving. Gasoline costs for a year at 25 MPG, 12000 miles a year and $3 gasoline would be about $1440 a year. Raise that to 35 MPG with the same price gas only $1028. Sure, its a savings, but is that really enough to make you get a new car just to drive a few more miles? More expensive gas in the future will close that gap more. Sources vary widely on how long people keep their cars for, but at a four year life span (this seemed to be a popular upper limit in my unscientific scouring of the internets), the gas savings only add up to about $1600. Clearly gas cost is not a major component of the vehicle cost. The argument that it will make cars more expensive and driving cheaper just don’t belong together.

But then, when you look at it, what they are all quoting a senior administration official who pointed to a $600 price rise over 10 years. Thats 60 dollars a year. If you are worried, put away twenty cents into a jar today. Put twenty cents in tomorrow. Put twenty cents in that jar every day. On Sundays, put that twenty cents in the offering plate. Take a two week holiday away from the jar every year. In ten years, that jar will cover the price rise. Painless, isn’t it? You don’t even have to sacrifice vacation time. So maybe it will lower the price of driving – but that would make cars more affordable.

The safety argument is completely unfounded and dangerous to make. The basic train of thought goes like this: to be more efficient, cars need to be lighter, if they are lighter, they are more dangerous. This is wrong. Making cars lighter is not the only way to make them more efficient (and indeed, since 1984 fuel economy has changed little as “cars have gotten bigger faster and uglier” as my grandfather observed). Lighter cars are also not necessarily more dangerous, in fact, the opposite may be true. This argument is dangerous to make as it ignores issues more important to safety and may give people the impression that there is nothing that they can do to make themselves safer on the road.

If one assumes that more efficient cars have to be lighter, they can contradict other arguments pushed in this article. One argument says lighter car has less energy and so will absorb more energy in a crash. This is true. So if we are to assume that making all cars more efficient will make them lighter, then we see that all of the cars involved in a crash will be lighter. There will actually be less energy banging about in future crashes. As it turns out, this is fairly unimportant. Car design and safety features are far more important than weight in a car crash. Driver ability, in turn, is far more important in having a safe car than anything. Cars are not dangerous without a bad or impaired driver lurking behind a wheel. Vehicle weight cannot cause an accident, but drivers can avoid accidents.

Many people site this report by the National Academy of Sciences which states that CAFE standards were “probably” responsible for a rise of 1300 to 2600 deaths on the road each year. The report notes that not everyone on the committee agreed with this, and some thought that CAFE was only responsible for 0 deaths. A few pages later it says that decreasing weight of heavier vehicles (the ones which have the most to lose) would actually make them safer and less damaging, potentially resulting in fewer deaths from traffic accidents. While the report is a cracking read, the issue is clearly undecided. Some sites such as one HotAir.com compare the 1300-2600 figure to the number of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afganistan, which is not really relevant at all. A generous rounding up gives about 300,000 soldiers in the two countries. A small rounding down gives about 300,000,000 people in the United States. The scale just doesn’t work for that argument. Overall, there were about 41,000 traffic fatalities in the US in 2007. Thats about 41 fatalities per 300,000 people, the high National Academy of Sciences estimate (which they aren’t even certain about) works out to 2 people per 300,000 in population. Besides, if those people were wearing helmets, flak jackets and had proper training on how to defend themselves on the road, there would probably be significantly fewer accidents and fatalities on the road. At this point it may be pointless to note that Americans aren’t the only ones to die in Iraq or Afghanistan. While our roads may be dangerous, they are not nearly as dangerous as active war zones. The comparison is silly, and the assertion is based on a report which admits that it could be completely wrong. It hasn’t even been demonstrated that the CAFE standards do lead to more deaths.

Better driver education and stricter driving tests may do more to improve safety than anything else. The only driver education i received was chauffeuring my grandfather around the countryside for a week. My written test was a ten question multiple choice test. The hardest question was “Up to what age should children be kept in child safety seats?” the easier questions were along the lines of “What color is a stop sign?” and “Which side of the road should you drive on if there are no lane markings?” I still don’t know how old kids need to be before they get out of a car seat. My driving test was going around a block in an empty neighborhood. Anyone who actually cares about improving vehicle safety should start with driver safety. As long as tests ignore real safety skills and insurance companies don’t bother with education, our roads will be full of idiot drivers. All the safety features in the world are useless if someone is barreling down an unknown road at night while on the phone and changing the radio station.

If you assume that cars will get lighter, then surely you must also recognize that the cars will cause less damage to our roads. Lighter cars means less wear and tear.

Reducing the weight of a car is not the only way to make it more efficient. Engine technology has not stopped evolving. According to www.fueleconomy.gov less than 15% of the energy in gasoline ends up getting the car from point a to the destination.

There is tremendous room for improving the efficiency of engines and drive systems of vehicles. It is not a big secret as to what can be done to improve efficiency, a link on the same page lists seven improvements which increase efficiency 5-13%. The forthcoming Aptera and Loremo tout their aerodynamic shape as the best way to reduce energy use at cruising speed. Yes, these are stereotypically small cars, but they are just extreme examples (getting 120-300 MPG). The faster a car goes, the more energy it loses to air resistance. More efficiently shaped cars could save fuel with no change to the inside or engine. To think that there are no technology improvements to be made, and only weight can cut down on fuel consumption is to be ignorant of innovation and scientific progress happening every day.

Performance does not need to be sacrificed for fuel economy. The report from the National Academy of Sciences observes that between 1975 and 1984 there was a 62% improvement in fuel economy without any loss in 0-60 performance. After that it says that “Fuel economy remained essentially unchanged while vehicles became 20 percent heavier and 0-60 mph acceleration times became, on average, 25 percent faster.” So the argument that performance or weight needs to suffer for fuel economy to improve simply fails here. The report goes on to detail technological improvements which would improve fuel economy without sacrificing performance.

The efficiency for safety tradeoff is a myth. You can speculate all you like as to who may benefit from perpetuating that myth, but the fact remains that the evidence does not wholly support that argument. The argument is not over, the debate has not been settled. Presenting this argument as a fact is irresponsible at best. Supporting this idea contradicts other arguments made. The safety argument is not only wrong, but it is dangerous. Larger cars are not inherently safer (am I the only person who remembers the SUV rollover epidemic about 8 years ago?). Car safety is determined far more by design and safety features than weight. This also glosses over the fact that far more can be done for safety by improving the drivers themselves.

So if I were to assemble some points to post about CAFE standards I would say:

Lighter vehicles, with more appropriate performance, with far better fuel economy may be safer than current vehicles.

Safety concerns are not valid as arguments against CAFE or lighter cars: the conclusion does not follow from the premises. They are not helpful either, as they ignore the importance of the driver in road safety.

Inflation happens, or so my economist friends tell me. But also, scientific progress makes technology cheaper (similar to Moore’s Law).

Innovation and technological advances will probably provide the greatest influence on fuel economy and safety in the future.

Calm down, CAFE is only an average: fuel chugging trucks and SUVs will still be on tap at your local dealership as long as people want to buy them. Even better: those vehicles will probably benefit from the performance upgrades that technology can bring. Performance and fuel economy can improve hand in hand.

I do not know if CAFE standards are the best way to improve things. The point of this post is not to glorify more stringent fuel economy standards. The point of this post is to point to more information on the matter. The debate about the effectiveness of rightness of CAFE is not over. I hope that I have brought a little debate to the original article. I want people to see that the original article (and so many others) may not have all of the answers, and are not be the final word on these matters. Hopefully people will find more objective reporting on the matter elsewhere. Hopefully this blog will not become a refuge of unsubstantiated claims and abuse of logic.

getting more out of technology?

This post is about twitter. but generally internet communication mediums. but its really about Adium. A while ago i was going to write a post about twitter, but never got around to doing it. So this is what i was thinking of.

I got a twitter account sometime around easter in 2008. Not an early adopter or anything, but I beat Oprah to it. I was inspired by an article in wired which i can’t be bothered to find anymore. It pretty much made twitter out to be something that was interesting to use, and possibly useful sometime maybe in some sort of context that might occur somewhere. I think the most ‘useful’ use of twitter at the time was when someone was arrested in egypt and sent a tweet about it. It’s actually not that impressive. This just kind of highlights the main question people have about twitter. “What is the point?”

I got an account because I figured it would be interesting to play with. With pretty much everyone on facebook, and a massive limit to what you can do on twitter (really, just the one function) I guess it didn’t make that much sense. There was a sense that maybe this would be my joining of the technological revolution. These social tools would actually make life better by connecting people more. I sent a slightly passionate email around to some friends about joining twitter so that it would be more interesting. I found that it was useful for telling my friends (followers in twitter speak) things that weren’t worthy of email, or were too urgent. One day I saw a steam train leaving the station, not really worth sending an email about, but interesting nonetheless, I sent a text message to my twitter account mentioning it. My friends could see the post without the bother of checking through emails expecting something more profound.

I once sent a tweet announcing that i was boarding my plane home, my brother saw the update and let mom know that I was on my way. You could argue that this was pretty much pointless as she knew when i was due back anyway, but you have to take into account that a mother is always glad to hear where her son is, even if she already knows.

Other people have clearly found uses for twitter as well. The local paper tweets their latest headlines, and even covered a federal trial through tweets.

They have launched a new channel JFP_local which announces local events, currently it seems that they text every time their favorite bar has a drink promotion, but im sure there will be more useful updates soon. This is a great service, if you follow the feed, and have it sent to your phone, you would get texts with ideas for going out every week. Not a bad use. Urgent updates and casual conversations live side by side with drinks deals and details of lunch in my feed.

At the end of the day, twitter helps keep me in touch. I can see little glimpses of the lives of my friends. Its not something that weighs me down to check, it doesn’t take much time to update, glance at everyones updates and go. It is another one of the tools that people who happen to find themselves in front of a computer screen use to keep in touch with other people who find themselves in front of a computer screen. Before twitter though, everyone was on AIM (or MSN). Chat programs were what kept me in touch with people online before the days of facebook. When I got an iBook before senior year in high school, my brother recommended Adium as a client for my AIM account. It was simple, easy to use, and had a cute green duck as the dock icon, he even flapped his wings and quacked when someone wanted to chat.

It is hard to convey the importance of IM programs at the time. It is just what people did – we chatted online. I would leave adium running whenever i was on my computer. I would leave adium running whenever i was not on my computer – this lead to my mom thinking that i was just ignoring her all of the time. Unfortunately in the last year I have not been on Adium as much. I have been working more, studying more and wanting to be disturbed less. Now this goes against the idea that I would get more into these technologies to get more out of them. Deep down I still prefer Instant Messaging to other technology assisted communications – its always available, quiet in the background, and not distracting. With adium it is easy to organize multiple conversations across accounts. It is a good thing that I could connect to everyone. If I am to keep adium up and running all of the time, it makes sense that I update twitter from it as well…

Opening safari to update Twitter is a hassle. The twitter clients that are available for my old Mac os 10.4 are limited, very limited. In fact, only Twitterific appears to work (well, tweet deck too, but it asked for unrestricted access to my system and network connections. I dont know what that even means, so i figured it would be best to stay away). Twitterific is far from ideal; besides, i prefer fewer things running. It just makes a lot of sense to update through an IM client. Support for IM updates was poor in the past, and apparently was cancelled at some point. Adium 1.4 promises Twitter integration, but it appears that that will not be available on my old Mac OS 10.4, besides, waiting is difficult. excla.im restores the simple IM update to any jabber account. A simple way to update twitter, through a client I already have and use. After signing up for jabber and making a few tame authorizations, i had an update. The creator, Harper Reed, was even kind enough to give it a “little kick” for me when i decided that 17 seconds was too long to wait for it to start working properly.

i now have five accounts consolidated into my Adium. The original AIM serves my american friends, the rest of the world can find me on MSN. Facebook and Gmail chats (pointless in a browser) are now consolidated in. Why facebook and gmail added chat is a mystery (well, no its not, they want more information, to sell more ads). The real question is why are the chat services so poor. Both of these require that you remain on the site to use it. After the initial excitement of facebook wore off, I realized that I really had nothing to do on facebook besides an occasional update or message. Checking gmail only takes a moment (or less when I don’t have any email). Having chat on these sites gets in the way of the useful bits of the screen, the buggy conversation windows just keep me from getting things done. Most annoying is if someone navigates away from the site, the chat ends completely. People do use these chat features, and adium has rescued them from my disdain by bringing them into the fold. Throughout all of this, adium has remained pretty much the same. There are more accounts, more people to talk to, and i can customize the look (‘smoothseparatelines‘ theme message window, buddy list 35% opaque, spacing adjusted to the pixel, and a bounding Hobbes as my dock icon upon launch). Other than that, no real functions have been added, no irrelevant uses have been invented for it. Adium is a small window which holds my text conversations. Nothing else is needed.

Moving twitter onto adium will definitely get me on adium more. Integrating the accounts have made it more useful, and it will get more use from me. Maybe full twitter integration will come with the next adium upgrade, but until then, I am happy with excla.im. I know that chat and twitter updates are not really the best way to connect with people but it is far better than not connecting. For all of the time that i would spend on my computer, online or otherwise, having a line open to chat is convenient. Hopefully this will work out as I originally hoped, and I will be able to get more out of the technology. I do want to get in touch with people, i just don’t want these to chain me back to my computer screen.

bike thief

I am not a bike thief, but sometimes people make it easy to be one. David Cameron, for instance, ‘locked’ his bike to a bollard last summer. That was an easy score for somebody – all they had to do was lift the bike. Apparently Dave hasn’t learned his lesson and has had the bike taken again. No details on how securely he had it locked.

Not that I like it when a politician has his bike stolen. It may be amusing to read the story, and imagine the look on his face, but bike theft is not amusing in general. The problem is, many people just do not know how to properly secure their bike. Some people think that they may not even mind having an old wheel or seat taken from their bike. Or maybe they don’t feel that their bike is worth the trouble to lock up. That opinion will usually change when they try to ride the bike without having a seat, or wheel, or, when they realize that even though the bike wasn’t worth much money, it was very valuable for getting around town. The pain is multiplied when they pop into a bike shop to get a replacement wheel, or seatpost and find that they need to spend far more than the bike was actually worth just to replace a few bits. A decent rear wheel can set someone back over £70, far more than most people would pay for a used bike off the street. If David Cameron only had his wheels taken off of his £300 bike, replacing them with similar quality parts could run him around £200, a significant portion of the bike.

For the past few days there has been a bike parked just up the road. This bike appears to have a lock on it, but that is just for show. Not only is the lock a fragile combination lock, but it is not actually securing the bike to the stand anyway.

To take this bike away, one would only have to stretch the cable over the handlebars and slide the wheel through. Not that someone would seek out this bike, but it is all about opportunity. If someone wants the bike, they can easily have it.

Most bike parts are stolen by opportunists. Unattended bikes without locks can be ridden off in seconds, no questions asked. A loose quick release seat or wheel can be had with the flick of a wrist and sold on for a few pounds. It only takes a moment for a bike to plummet in value in the hands of an opportunist. Bikes poorly locked can be taken by anyone who has a moment to see how to circumvent the lock. BikesnobNYC notes that in this way cyclists can be their own worst enemies. Of course people hate having their bikes stolen, and incidents of bike theft discourage people from investing in a decent bike and using it often, but some cyclists just aren’t aware that they are leaving their bikes out for theft! (Another thing that could go on that post is cyclists on the pavement/sidewalk/any other exclusively pedestrian area – very dangerous, annoying, and fails to make use of the road. But that is a whole different matter.)

While nothing will stop a determined thief, locking your bike poorly will not stop even the most casual of bike thieves. With that in mind, try to lock your bike appropriately.

A strong lock with a key will slow or stop someone just looking to smash a combination lock with a hammer. D-locks, while not impervious to all attacks, will fare better against a pair of bolt cutters than a small chain or cable.

Two types of locks will deter professional thieves who are only used to breaking one type of lock. A D-lock and a heavy chain will require two large tools and a lot more time to break.

Any loose or quick release parts should be fastened down either with a cable or security skewers (to replace quick release).

The most important thing, however, is awareness. Be aware of where your bike is, and the risks that you are taking in locking it where you are. Use the strongest lock you can when you don’t know the area, or know you won’t be able to watch your bike. A smaller chain may suffice for setting down at a cafe where you will watch your bike, but a long shopping trip calls for something heavier.

Making your bike less attractive (either absolutely or relatively) is often suggested, but regardless of how good looking your bike is, an opportunist will go for what they see available – not necessarily what they like. Keep that in mind.

And of course, when you do lock your bike, actually lock it, don’t wrap it in a cable that can be slid off, dont lock just the wheel either. Get your frame and rear wheel secured to something which will not go away (don’t lock to an animal, small tree, or plastic drain which can be ripped off of a wall) and is secured strongly to the earth.

More tips on locking your bike can be found here:
The Guardian: Tips to Stop Bike Theft
Or see Sheldon Brown’s sneaky hint about locking up: Sheldon Brown: Lock Strategy

Ride more. Don’t get your bike stolen. And whoever has left their bike locked poorly, sort it out.