Categories
culture technology

Progression of Transit

Hopefully the idea of growing into light rail does not come as a real surprise to anyone.

{Darrell Cook}, executive director of Mountainland Association of Governments, said if the dedicated bus system linking Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University and Provo’s East Bay works as expected, the system could, in time, be replaced by a light-rail system.

There would seem to be a natural progression for public transit that city planners could prepare for that would allow for public transit to be tailored to the current needs of a community with a defined growth potential as ridership needs increase over time. With advanced planning it should be relatively painless to meet expanding needs by starting early without investing prematurely in expensive systems.

The transition from BRT to light-rail is a last step along one line of progression, but I think there may be two progressions available. There is the regional transportation which starts with simple bus service and graduates to more complex bus service (with BRT and dedicated bus lanes etc.) before converting dedicated bus lanes into light rail – assuming that the growth and ridership supports each successive transition. Then there is the longer range transportation between metropolitan areas which starts with shuttles or express buses and eventually graduates to commuter rail or even high-speed rail. There may even be a step between the express/shuttle phase and the commuter rail phase that can be filled with DMU’s.

If early development incorporated the possibilities of future transit options then it might be easier and less costly to build and maintain transit commensurate with population.

Categories
National politics technology

Ambitious Pronouncement

I’ve already stated that I believe the goal of using only energy from clean, renewable sources is attainable but I think the Green Prophet might be getting ahead of himself.

{Al Gore} said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not some farfetched vision, although he said it would require fundamental changes in political thinking and personal expectations.

“This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative.”

I would love to be proven wrong on this, but I’m skeptical of the 10 year time-frame. The only real question in my mind is, will Barack Obama endorse this idea before I publish this post?

I guess my personal expectations are among those that he predicted would require fundamental changes.

Categories
culture technology

Energy Optimist

Considering that our homes use much more energy than our cars – it’s always nice to see improvements in how we can generate or use energy. I was reminded of that when I saw two articles on better/cheaper ways to harness the power of the sun. One would generate power from energy gathered at windows rather than needing full solar panels. The other promises the possibility of printing cheap solar collectors with special ink (no indication of how the enrergy being collected could be stored for use).

The more I think about such technologies the more optimistic I become that human enginuity will eventually allow is to lower our energy usage and raise our energy production from clean and limteless resources such as wind, solar, and gravity (hydro-electric dams which generate power from the force of falling water) to the point that we will no londer need to rely on fossil fuels. Such a transition should also be welcomed by anyone who thinks we have passed peak oil production or who is worried about manmade global warming.

Categories
technology

I Finally Dig Digg

When Digg arrived on the web I wrote it off as another Slashdot – nothing wrong with it, but no reason for yet another account to remember. I change my tune today because of the fact that there are no editors deciding what submissions get posted. By itself that’s no big deal, but I was trying to get access to a story in the Wall Street Journal without paying $80 a year. I learned that you can access full stories when coming from sites like Google News or Digg.

When I couldn’t find the month-old story on Google News I registered with Digg and submitted the story myself (I had already found the link that leads to an article stub when coming from the sites of mere mortals like myself) – through Digg the link produced instant access to a valuable story.

Categories
life technology

Strengthening Families, One Cell Phone at a Time

Laura made an interesting observation today. She suggested that cell phones might actually make for stronger extended families with nearly ubiquitous features such as free nights and weekends and free long distance as well as not quite universal features like free calls within the network or plans such as T-Mobile’s MyFaves. Of course that would depend on whether people use those features to connect with family members, but the potential is certainly there. I know I have talked with my not-local family members much more since getting my cell phone with many of those family-friendly features.

Categories
meta pictures technology

Similarity

I have been using Darren’s Related Posts plugin (DRPP) for a long time. For my purposes it was the best plugin for showing related posts that I had encountered. After a while I decided that I was not completely satisfied with the way that it seemed to favor more recent posts. I developed a new algorithm that I felt would not give preference to newer posts unless they were actually more related.

When I learned that WordPress would be adding native tag support in version 2.3 I decided that I would create my plugin to work with tags after they arrived. Life got busy so I never worked on the plugin until version 2.5 came out (partly because I wanted to convert the post_meta “keywords” from DRPP to tags). I finally buckled down and created my Similarity plugin this week. I have tested it on version 2.3.3 and version 2.5 (I assume it will work with any version of 2.3). I will continue to test it on new versions of WordPress as they are made public. (Przeczytaj opis wtyczki po polsku)

Latest Version 2.13.1 (September 9, 2009)

New options make it possible to layout and style the php function generated lists (for sidebars) independent of the auto-generated list. – Version 2.13 was released with an incomplete development copy of the plugin so it did not have the promised functionality. (In other words, “Pay attention Miller.”)

To install it simply unzip the file linked above and save it in your plugins directory under wp-content. In the plugin manager activate the plugin. Settings for the plugin may be altered under the Similarity page of the Options menu (version 2.3) or Settings menu (version 2.5 or later).

Options include:

  • Number of posts to show – this is a maximum, it won’t invent connections that don’t exist, set it to 0 (or less) and it will display all matches.
  • Minimum match strength – enter a number between zero and one (one being a perfect match) and items related weaker than the number indicated will not be included – this limit is ignored for the one extra if that option is used.
  • Default Display if no matches – if there are no matches this is what will be displayed, this is not displayed if there are matches, but fewer than the set maximum.
  • Text and Codes before the list – assuming you want to do a list this is where you would place the <ul> or <ol> You may also place any other code you would like to have preceeding the list. (There are two boxes here – one for function calls in your template and one for auto-generated lists.)
  • Text and Codes after the list – this would be the place for </ul> or </ol> You may also place any other code you would like to have following the list.(There are two boxes here – one for function calls in your template and one for auto-generated lists.)
  • Output template – this would be where you place the <li> tags. (There are two boxes here – one for function calls in your template and one for auto-generated lists.) There are also 4 template tags you may use (in any configuration you can imagine) to define how the results are displayed
    • {link} – provides a link – equivelent to <a href=”{url}”>{title}</a>
    • {strength} – outputs the calculated degree of relatedness
    • {url} is the permalink for the related post
    • {title} is the title for the related post
  • Display format for similarity strength – Value displays the {strength} in a decimal format (0.873), Percent displays the {strength} in a percentage format (87.3%), Text displays {strength} as a word (Strong, Mild, Weak, and Tenuous are the defaults), and Visual displays a color block (Green for 100% fading to Yellow and then to Red for weak connections)
  • Relative mixing weights – these values determine the ratio given to the weight of tags vs categories when using the sim_by_mix function. Invalid ratios are treated as a 1 to 1 balance.
  • Custom text for strength – allows you to insert custom text (including markup) for the strength indicator when using the text display format. (Hint: using markup allows for the possibility of showing custom images.)
  • Show one more random related post – dig deeper into the related post list with one random selection (you can set a minimum strength for these random items).
  • Auto-display a Similarity list at the end of a single post – without modifying any templates.

The plugin allows for three function calls anywhere in your page templates or their shortcodes in text widgets (all use the same options):

  • <?php sim_by_tag(); ?> – determines similarity based on the tags applied to the posts (shortcode: SIM-BY-TAG)
  • <?php sim_by_cat(); ?> – determines similarity based on the categories assigned to the posts (shortcode: SIM-BY-CAT)
  • <?php sim_by_mix(); ?> – determines similarity based on the tags and the categories with the relative weights determined by the relative mixing weights setting (shortcode: SIM-BY-MIX)

Alternately you may choose to auto-display any of the similarity lists at the end of posts on single-post pages without getting into the php by selecting the function you wish to auto-display on the Similarity options page.

Categories
politics technology

Bob Barr

Unless you are an active participant in the Libertarian Party, this is probably the first and last time you will hear that Bob Barr is exploring a run for President in 2008. Why do I bother to mention it – because I was bored.

I got an email as part of an email list I didn’t know existed with the announcement about Mr. Barr. As soon as I located the way to unsubscribe I visited the campaign website. I decided to write about it because of how familiar some of the features were – they looked like they had been lifted off of the Ron Paul website. Some of the widgets he had looked like leftovers from the Mike Huckabee website. It turns out that the firm that designed Bob Barr’s site also designed Ron Paul’s site. (I have no information on who designed the Huckabee website.)

Unless Obama is convicted in October of having McCain assassinated in September there is no way we will be hearing about Barr in November. If he, or any other third party candidate, gets into any debates he will be largely ignored as every minor candidate is (as determined by the media) during each debate where they are allowed a backstage pass – I mean a place at the debate.

Categories
politics technology

Have Your Say

At the blogger briefing this morning with Mark Shurtleff I was reminded of why I believe that every public official ought to have a blog of some sort. Mark started by talking about how important he things that transparency in government is and how he has used his time in office to try to make more information available to citizens and help citizens work with their government – specifically with law enforcement (he is the AG after all).

Later, the discussion began to focus on blogs and media and I realized that running a blog as an elected official amounts to a certain degree of personal transparency. It indicates a willingness to put yourself out there on record where others can challenge you through comments and other responses. It also provides original source information about your positions where you can explain yourself without a media filter. This can prove very beneficial to any honest public official because anyone who is taking the time to look will be able to see how well you do at sticking to principles or how thoughtful you are in correcting a mistaken opinion as you gain more information.

For those who would say anything to get elected, that inconsistency would become apparent quickly when they blatantly ignore the positions they espoused on the campaign trail or else offer up lame excuses for changing their positions.

Of course blogging politicians will not solve all our problems, and those who do blog are not all perfect, but that willingness to leave a lasting trail and be held accountable is definitely suggestive of a good candidate and a good public servant.

Categories
life meta technology

Old Goals, New Goals

I have made a goal ever six months for the last couple of years to review every talk from general conference before the next general conference. I have to make the goal anew each conference because each time I fail – until now. Thanks to my introduction to ScriptureCast I reviewed the final talk from the October 2007 conference this morning. ScriptureCast allows you to create custom podcasts from the scriptures (and the last conference or two) where you set the starting point and completion date and it generates a podcast for you. They don’t have the Bible but I hope they are working to add it – though I have no information about whether they are or not. it’s nice to finally meet that goal – just in time to start over again (as soon as this week’s conference gets added).

I have been trying, with pretty good success, to be consistent at writing here. I had hope of ensuring that my blog would be consistent enough to hold the interest of those who read it, and attract responses to continue refining my thinking. At one point I had an average of more than 2 comments for every post on the blog. That may not sound like much to some people, but considering the large number of posts from when I started the blog where there was nobody to respond I felt pretty good about that. Then I went through and added something above 100 posts from my earlier blogging and the comment count was again well below the 2:1 ratio I had achieved – I’m almost back to that ration thanks to much feedback from a half a dozen regular readers.

I have recently recognized that I have been holding back somewhat because of that relatively arbitrary goal (the 2:1 comment ratio). I have avoided writing about things that don’t feel very current or likely to generate some interest. I have decided that being picky is not my strong suit and I would like to make more strides on another goal that I had made – to go through all the founding documents (especially the Federalist Papers). I have decided to push for two posts per day until I achieve that goal – one covering Federalist papers, and another like what I have been posting regularly (that way I won’t put off studying one of the Federalist papers just because I saw something interesting to write. Hopefully that study will make my other writing and thinking deeper and more grounded in principle.

Wish me luck.

Categories
politics technology

Straight Party Tickets

While thinking about the importance of voting my mind led me back to a personal belief that voting a straight party ticket with one mark is a bad thing for government. I have nothing against someone choosing to cast all their votes for one party, but they should do so for each candidate – parties are not supposed to run the government, elected individuals are.

The only argument that I can imagine in favor of the straight party option on a ballot is that someone might accidentally vote for the wrong candidate when they mean to vote for candidates from a single party. Imagine that they vote D, D, D, D, D, D, R, D where that R was a candidate for the school board that they accidentally mixed up the name since there was less advertising for that race.

This is where technology can help us. Since we have already moved to touch-screen voting machines (here in Utah as well as many other places) we could change the straight party selection so that instead of casting our votes for us that selection would make the candidates from our chosen party stand out (change color, larger font – there are plenty of options) but the voter would still be expected to select the individual candidates for their votes to be cast in each race.