blag.dh

A few years ago, I lived in Deer Valley, a part of Phoenix designed for cars intersecting the I-17 and Loop 101.  Ironically, only a gas station was within reasonable walking distance from where I lived, reminding me who was boss there.  It sucked.  A few years later, I moved to Tempe and have found what a city designed for people felt like without having to wait for peak oil to force it into Phoenix.  People in Tempe still drive, but only if they want to; Extensive bike lanes, light rail, and Orbit give people choices.  The city is small by design and features a walkable urban center that isn’t just a shopping center surrounded by a massive parking lot.*  Tempe is home to Bike Saviours, TBAG**, and the only light rail station with a full-service bike cellar.  Many people here own a bike instead of a car and use it just as often.  I intent to be among them.  There are several reasons for this:

• Cost - Given what I pay for car insurance, oil changes, fuel, car washes, and yearly maintenance costs spread out over 12 months, I could instead buy a nice bike every month without putting a dent in my income.  Or, I could just buy a nice bike once and rake in the savings.
• Carbon - Commuting to Phoenix in my car gives me a view of that city from the highway, and it looks gross.  A small atmosphere of brown air visibly hovers around it and I can smell it on the highway.  I’d rather not contribute to this problem as much.
• Carbs - At the moment I drive to a gym for cardiovascular exercise.  Sometime I don’t because I don’t have to.  Now I will have to, and that means more room for scones and cupcakes a healthier lifestyle with less money spent on heart attacks.
• Coolness - I like bikes.  They’re an example of simple, polished engineering.  That makes them cool.  Care are explosions shoehorned into being over-engineered beasts of transit that can fail in a thousand different ways.
• Community - Deer Valley was plagued with social isolation; People drove to someplace designed to not spend much time in and return as quickly as speeding cameras would let you.  This was life there.  It was boring and predictable (unless there was a traffic accident).  Riding a bicycle is slower and prolongs your exposure to more of your neighbors in a situation where you could easily have a conversation or just say Hi and thus, you end up actually meeting them.  Riding on a circulator, bus, or light rail can also have a similar effect.  There is a reason why Arcology’s foundation is the premise that cars don’t belong inside a city.

* We do have one of those too though, for newcomers and visitors to shop.

** Tee hee hee

A few weeks ago, a couple of friends of mine had a Guinness or two (three?) at a bar full of hipsters.  Somehow after the obligatory round of accusing each other of being hipsters, we ended up agreeing that we were nerds, and that nerds are sometimes mean to their own kind.

As one of the many new Digg refugees, I’ve been recently exposed to the world of Reddit and its many odd internal memes.  One of the less prominent memes struck me as a bit odd: Undying hatred for Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg.  Quoth my tour guide to Reddit (and Hacker News): “I mean, we all grew up as geeks being picked on and I don’t know how they can so vicious to someone so similar to us who I could see myself hanging out* with.”  This was puzzling, but I think I have it figured out.

Hardcore** nerds value pure intelligence above all else, including above doing something with it, and especially above doing something with less intelligence than they have.  Almost half a decade ago now, Time Warner bought up MySpace for no small amount of money.  The response among my friends was mostly all along the lines of “TOM SUX lololol!  Derp derp I could have made that!“  But the fact is they didn’t.  Someone less intelligent was massively rewarded for starting something that they could have started had they not been too busy comparing each other’s cognitive penis lengths.  Same with Digg; The failures of Digg are proclaimed loudly by people who feel that they’re smarter than the people behind the wheel, but themselves have failed to  bother taking the wheel and spent the 2000s crying in the backseat and throwing their pacifiers at Kevin Rose after every missed turn.

PROTIP: Ranting in a comment system you didn’t actually build doesn’t prove you’re smarter than the people behind the systems you decry.  Besides, this is Tumblr, you can’t comment anyway.  Go build something better instead.

* Having very briefly hung out with the dude in the year 2006 at the Skeptical Chymist after their Diggnation shoot at Godaddy HQ, I can vouch that he is indeed a chill dude, and didn’t ignore me for wearing a Basque beret in public (long story).

** Hardcore in a scale of nerdom I totally made up and will illustrate with graphs and stuff in a future post.

I’ve discovered that there’s stuff in Arizona outside of the Phoenix valley area that I’d like to visit.  I plan on visiting most of it before I sell my car in the near future.  More on that in an upcoming blag post…

Arcosanti - An experimental town designed around sustainable urban design and cool architecture.  Futuristic and low-tech at the same time, reminiscent of a city in Bajor.

Antelope Canyon - Pictured at the top of the post.  ‘Nuff said.

The Grand Canyon + Skywalk - I have lived in the Grand Canyon State for seven years, and I have yet to see the cliff its named after.  The Skywalk seems like something one needs to do to know that they have.

Macys European Coffee House and Bakery - Supposedly the longest-standing non-SBUX coffee shop in the state, supposedly due to being awesome.

London Bridge - Once a monument to 19th century English engineering, the London Bridge was relocated, brick by brick, to Lake Havasu City in the 1960s.  In modern Arizona, its used by drunk college kids as a place to throw up from every spring break.

Biosphere 2 - After its failed attempt at imprisoning scientists with their own research, the massive, not-quite-self-sustaining glass campus now serves as a way to for tourists to see climates other than desert in southern Arizona.

Pima Air and Space Museum - Aside from having my eardrums blown off by electronic and industrial music at the Hotel Congress, this remains something I’ve been meaning to visit Tucson for.

McDonald’s (Sedona) - I have no intention of eating at any McDonald’s, but this is the only one on Earth with a non-yellow Arch.  Actually, I really just want to visit Sedona in general.

Kartchner Caverns - The otherworldly landscape of massive, ancient limestone formations is relevant to my interests.  I almost had a chance to visit it in 2003, but overslept and missed the caravan. and I think its time to rectify that fail.

Titan Missile Museum - I haven’t been inside a Titan missile silo since 2009, I think its time.