I've put up some pictures from last weekend's beautiful Ohanami along the Charles River. The weather was awesome and the cherry blossoms were gorgeous. The photos don't do it justice.
As part of this I finally got around to setting up my own Gallery 2 install, so I don't have to rely on Flickr and Facebook as the canonical locations for my photos.
I think I'll be stopping by to get an entry form for this. The deadline is April 28th.
Bukowski Tavern, Harpoon, and The Weekly Dig have teamed up again for the “Pint and Pen” writing contest. The premise is simple: write a short-short story between 500 and 750 words long. The hard part is including these four essential words: pint, pen, Bukowski, and Harpoon.
Drinking in Boston: Pints and Pens - Bostonist: Boston News, Food, Arts & Events
I don't really care that much about my contact information being easily available on the Internet, but other people care quite a lot about that and often for good reason.
As I'm still sorting out how to get my FreeRunner to decipher the MBTA's text message alerts (which are in an MMS format that gets presented to me as "This is a binary message," I decided to disable them for the time being.
I went to the page for changing subscription settings, and entered my email address, expecting to then have to enter a password. But no, there's no password. If you know someone's email address, you can just enter that and see their settings -- which likely include their cell phone number, alternate e-mail addresses, and zip code. Pretty handy stalker information when combined with seeing what specific subway lines and bus routes someone is monitoring. It's also inconsistent with the MBTA privacy policy.
They should probably rethink this.
Here's the story behind the 6:27pm Red Line alert you might have received tonight. Except not really, because I have no idea what happened. All I know is that about 5 seconds after I got off the Braintree train at Downtown Crossing, the train started to pull away at an unusually high speed and lots of people were yelling STOP.
I looked back at the train — and the doors were still open.
They were definitely still open on the last car and I'm pretty sure they were open on other cars as well. People had been still trying to get on the train when it jerked away. It went over a third of the way down the platform before it stopped again. Probably almost halfway.
I hung around for a minute, but I was trying to catch a bus and no one seemed to be hurt, so I left. I'm looking forward to the explanation for this one. I mean what, foot slipped off the brake?
That was on the way back from Central after returning the first disc of Pushing Daisies — awesome show. On the way there from work, I saw a kid squeeze through the gate behind someone else without paying. This is a common occurrence but for some reason tonight it struck a nerve. I think the next kid I see do that is going to hear about it. Yes, getting crotchety, I know.
I'm pretty sure there are better ways to get to Back Bay from Downtown Crossing than to get on the Commuter Rail. And don't get too excited about Itinerary 2 -- it's just the Needham train instead of the Providence train.
And no, I didn't type "downtown crossing, MA" -- I typed "downtown crossing" and it added the ",MA" of its own accord. Strangely if you choose Downtown Crossing from the list of stations instead of typing it in manually, it works correctly and suggests the B line. Or if you include the word "station".
THINGS TO DO IN (AND AROUND) BOSTON
go to work
read the Globe, the Metro,
remember how briefly
you read Boston NOW,
never forget
pay the toll
oh Dear God,
don't run the Marathon,
run for the bus,
run for the train,
invite her to sit
behind a post
at the Regatta Bar
pay the toll
hit a kid on the Common
with a Frisbee
in the head,
call her again
drip tahini all over the taxi
make a scene, smoke
on the sidewalk
bump into people
who stop in the wrong
places
fail to find food
late at night
in the morning,
get the mail,
which is wet
pay your bills,
which are large
maybe she'll answer
this time
wave the short cue
at the Field
kick the door open
make your shot
pay your bills
which are large,
get drunk no get
to the library
before it closes
get a coffee, regular,
block the door,
don't park.
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I took this picture at the Trident in Boston. The juxtaposition of the Buddha with the Playboy Bunny reminded me a lot of the fantastic photos in If You Find the Buddha
Commuter Rail All Lines/Routes running from South Station are experiencing 15-20 minute delays due to right of way maintenance activity.
I've been subscribed to the MBTA's T-Alert service since it started, and it's been entertaining. It's just a pilot, so I expected some snags — and have not been disappointed. There have been empty messages, warnings with timestamps hours later than the problems their texts refer to and warnings that are less far off but still too late to be useful. Some of these problems are undoubtedly due to T-Mobile's notoriously bad MMS delivery (what's this "Twitter" thing?). There have been plenty that seem to be working right too, but they haven't come at times that have affected my plans.
Tonight at work I got a message saying that all the commuter trains passing through South Station were being delayed by 15-20 minutes due to "right-of-way maintenance activity" (I think this is bureaucratese for "CSX is screwing us again"). It came at 6:56pm, and to be safe I leave for my train at 7:00pm — the train leaves at 7:15pm. So here was a chance for the warning to be useful. I hung out at my desk for a bit longer, and headed over to the station at about 7:10pm.
I arrived just as the train was pulling away — exactly on time. There was no crowd in the station and no sign of delay on any of the lines. In fact, things seemed to be running better than usual.
A false alert is much worse than a nonalert. I don't think I'll be changing my plans by the warnings during the pilot anymore. Worse things have happened — I'm just stuck at Buddha's Delight eating delicious vegan food.
An hour and a half later, no all-clear message has been issued yet, despite the fact that the train I caught after missing the initial one also departed on time. Providing an effective alert system like this is a pretty big challenge. I'm glad they're trying but they've got a lot of work left to do.
So, there was a fire on the Longfellow Bridge last Friday night and I happened to be in it en route to Flattop Johnny's.
The Red Line train pulled into the Charles/MGH station around 7:45pm and stopped. There was a horrible smell, like singed hydraulic fluid or maybe burning plastic. I closed Satanic Verses and scrunched up my nose. Someone on the train yelled that there was a fire. I looked out the window and saw black smoke billowing out from the Park Street end of the train. I couldn't tell if the smoke was actually coming from the train, the platform, or somewhere else on the bridge.
The doors on the train opened as usual. There were some mildly flashing emergency lights and sounds, but nothing very exciting. It smelled and looked terrible but I guessed that it wasn't that big of a deal. Still, it clearly was a fire and it clearly was close by. Nobody on the train knew what to do, which wasn't surprising since no instructions had been given by the train crew. The fact that the doors had opened seemed like an invitation, so I stepped off the train and looked down the platform. I was close to the opposite end of the train from the fire, and would have had to walk toward the smoke to get to the stairs. That didn't seem like the best idea. Plus it wasn't my stop. So I stayed put.
After a couple minutes, one of the conductors (are subway train drivers conductors?) came walking down the platform toward the smoke. "Don't worry, it's on the other side," he said. "Just get back on the train and we'll be leaving the station momentarily."
Well, that's good. I got back on the train, but as I was stepping back onto the train, I almost collided with a young woman trying to get off the train. "They're evacuating the train," she said.
"No," I said, "the guy just told us that it was on the other side, and that we should get back on the train."
We shared confusion and stayed on the train.
Then there was an announcement over the loudspeaker. It was from a different conductor and went something like, "Ladies and Gentlemen, nice and easy, please evacuate the train and exit the station down the stairs, and await instructions there."
Sigh.
I exited the train along with everyone else, and meandered partway down the platform. On the way I passed the two dueling conductors, who were now hunched together over a radio listening. There were some people just hanging out by the benches, and I thought that since the conductors didn't seem to be in any particular rush to evacuate and there were still people after me, I'd just hang out for a minute and see what the deal was.
Within a couple minutes, the conductor came over the loudspeaker again. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this train will be leaving momentarily. If you'll get on the train we'll be on our way shortly."
Sigh.
I got back on the train, and sure enough, we left without incident. But a few days later, some thoughts about it are still lingering.
One, if there was a fire in the station, why is it that we entered the station at all? The smoke was black and not particularly hard to see. Apparently some other passengers tried to point this out.
Two, once we were in the station and it turned out to be on fire, why exactly did the train remain in the station? Perhaps, the train should have left without opening the doors. I'm sure the people who intended to exit at Charles/MGH did not intend to exit if there were a fire there, and would have happily accepted an alternative non-flaming ride from Kendall to reach their destination.
Third, how is it that the conductors failed to make an immediate announcement over the loudspeaker to the effect of, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you may have noticed that there is a fire in the station. Please remain calm where you are and we will give you instructions momentarily." It was three or four minutes before anyone said anything over the loudspeaker. The guy who before that told us to get back on the train did so in a tone that was only a little louder than conversational. The MBTA is very fortunate that the passengers were sensible and did not take matters into their own panicked hands, because there was plenty of uncomfortably uncertain time for some idiot to get excited and ruin things for the whole gaggle.
Fourth, is this the kind of treatment we get after all of the millions of dollars invested in Homeland Security? Two guys and a support system who apparently have no procedure to follow in the event of a fire and end up giving contradictory instructions? And a substantial delay before any kind of response at all?
At least the loudspeaker on this train was working. Well, in my car anyway. We all know how common that is.
In the end, it was no big deal. They probably screwed a lot of people, because the passengers who actually listened to the conductors ended up at the bottom of the platform, even though the train left shortly after, and I know that the train was substantially less crowded leaving than it was arriving. I'm sure alternative transportation was arranged, but I know that they closed train service and started running buses all the way from Broadway to Harvard, so it probably sucked.
Maybe there is an explanation for all of this. I'd like to know what it was, because as it stands I don't have so much faith in the T's ability to handle emergency situations. I'm not trying to lay blame with the individual conductors, but this is not a system I want to be stuck in a tunnel with — imagining a similar situation occurring underground is quite scary. The minorness of the incident really just makes me worry more.
On the upside, the new SMS T-Alert system seemed to work reasonably well. I received the first notice about the problem within a few minutes of me texting friends who might be affected about it, and there were updates throughout the evening.
Boston area people might want to run over and sign up for the MBTA's new alert service, which promises text messages and emails in the event of service disruptions. They are limiting it to 3,000 subscribers right now.
Unfortunately, I looked up who is hosting the service, and "eAlert is built using Microsoft .NET, SQL Server 2000 and designed for Windows 2003". It's always sad to see examples of the government relying on proprietary software to provide services; we need to change that.
Update: Well, I just received my first "T-Alert". It announced delays for all trains running through North Station. Neither of the two trains I chose to receive alerts for goes through North Station...
Between Sunday night and Monday night, my power was off for 18 hours. This took my mail server offline. Nothing should have bounced, but if you sent me mail, you may have received a warning about it being delayed.
Last night around 4am, the power went off again, and it's still off. The NStar ETA for having it fixed has been pushed back 3 times already. I'm considering rerouting my mail, but in the meantime the johns at gnu.org address is still working.
Update: Power seems to be restored, email is working again.
This is totally old news, but for the sake of completeness, I'm recording it here.
Fung Wah told a blind couple that they couldn't come on the bus because no pets allowed and they had a guide dog.
Arguably, Fung Wah was doing the couple a favor, given the company's safety record. However, you just can't do that.
I'm home safely in Boston again after my Iceland-Paris vacation—some stories and pictures to follow. My favorite story might actually come from the Icelandic leg, and might be titled, So You Want to See a Whale: Adventure Aboard the Icelandic Vomit Comet.
We were just ejected from the sidewalk in front of the Boston Common theater, where we were handing out leaflets about DRM to people passing by or entering to see the new Pirates movie. We were not obstructing traffic or bothering people aggressively. But after an hour and a half, we were informed by officer 284 that the entire sidewalk is privately owned. He said that we either had to move down a couple blocks, or cross the street to the park. We expressed our disbelief that a sidewalk in downtown Boston along a major road (Tremont) could be privately owned, but he was adamant. He said that most sidewalks in the Downtown Crossing area are in fact privately owned. He insisted that the nature of the protest was fine, and that we just needed to move. This was contrary to what an earlier officer had told us, but apparently the whim of the property owner changed.
So, yes, you walk through the seemingly public areas downtown only at the whim of the property owner. Free speech does not exist there. On a positive note, people were very receptive and understandably upset about the fact that technology is being used by companies like Disney to prevent copying that the law actually permits.
Blocking access to BoingBoing was one thing, since, well, BoingBoing is obscene sometimes. I can understand how that might happen, though I doubt there really should be any such restrictions on public wifi networks run by the government.
But being so sloppy as to block access to government web sites is something else entirely. We wouldn't want kids to, you know, find out they live in a democracy. That's bad for business.
I've never used the network. I was surprised to hear that it existed at all.
Can it finally be here? Taxi cabs that take credit cards in a reasonable fashion and that can be scheduled via the internets? In Boston even?
