I feel like I’ve ranted about this topic at length, but I can’t find any evidence, so it must have been on Twitter. The issue deserves some explication, since I think this is a point of actual confusion among decent people who are actually trying to be nice. You should not stop when you have […]
Author Archives: Alexis
Not terribly impressed with The Long Tail
So far I’m not impressed with Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. It was boring for several chapters as it banged on about things I already know. Then it was interesting for about a chapter as it described the rise of the enabling technologies and early “long tails” like Sears Roebuck (plus the founding of Amazon). Then it […]
What can I contribute?
Asked of oneself, in the context of being able to contribute one’s non-material resources to societal endeavors, the question What can I contribute? can be taken at least two ways. One is: what resources am I able to contribute, or capable of contributing? The other is: what resources can I offer that constitute a unique and […]
Road $$ is not cycling $$
There’s a problem with transportation funding framing. The problem is exemplified by the notion that we have enough money to build and maintain roads, but not enough money to build out bike facilities. Frankly this doesn’t make any sense, and no one should be allowed to say it ever again without being strictly challenged on […]
How not to be a jerk: pay attention to signal timing
When I had a sprained ankle, I got passed a lot on the bike. And I noticed, even more than I had noticed before, that after people passed me, I frequently caught up to them. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have passed me, but it does mean that when they passed me dangerously, or when […]
Vision Zero and enforcement?
When you’re walking and riding around and you see people in 2-ton vehicles doing things that are dangerous to you, I think it’s natural response (especially for rule-followers like me) to think “Someone should stop them from doing that.” Often what they’re doing is already illegal, so it’s natural to think that enforcement by the […]
Low-stress route choice
I decided to quit public advocacy for a while (time TBD), but one of the things I decided is that I’m going to keep writing stuff here if I feel like it, just focusing on my personal experiences and not trying to get attention for them. I can’t turn off my advocacy brain so I […]
UI things.
I care a lot about design things. It’s part of caring about details, to me, and also caring about user experience. I’m not formally trained, but you don’t need two years of school to figure out that doors that say push, but have a pull handle, are confusing and annoying. (On the other hand, this […]
The emotional challenges of advocacy.
I was having a hard time last summer and fall with getting back to riding my bike more, and with doing advocacy and encouragement work for bicycling. I didn’t — don’t — feel safe riding anymore, and I felt frustrated about the barriers to bicycling, so I didn’t feel comfortable encouraging people, and I didn’t […]
Smitten Kitchen cookbook adventures (7)
Gnocchi in tomato broth This came out nicely in terms of execution, and didn’t take a whole lot longer than advertised (if you actually chop stuff first, probably it really would only take an hour). But: it took All The Dishes, it was pretty fiddly, and the result was underwhelming for someone who doesn’t love […]