Deep freeze

We are the in the midst of a Seattle deep freeze. Our house is cold. Jeremy has had three snow days in a row (which would be great if it wasn't for that - oh my god we've lost three whole days that a teacher feels much more than a student). I canceled my class last night - well, not really canceled it but moved it to a virtual class which resulted in a small yet vocal group of students posting interesting and smart things to the class disucussion board for a couple of hours.

Sassy loves the snow. I just thought it was cause dogs just like snow, but tonight I discovered the darker more revealing reasons. It's because with a deep Seattle freeze our urban critters don't seem to survive as well. Or at least that's my theory after taking Sass for a slippy, late night walk where she pulled small crunchy brittle bones out of every leaf pile, which I then attempt to pry from her fierce and stubborn mouth while wearing gloves. Birds? Squirrels? Baby Racoons? Whatever they are - they seem to be the most delicious morsels ever.

One more snow storm tonight and then I'll actually get to leave the neighborhood (hopefullly) for the first time since getting back from Cleveland.

Leveraging your data - the Washington State DOT

The Washington State Department of Transportation has a long history of providing data to help drivers make decisions about when to drive and what to route to take.

Their holiday info on the Best Times To Travel Snoqualmie Pass During The Thanksgiving Holiday is another example of that.

They combined road data from the past several years to show, in the form of a bar graph, peak times.

Cool stuff.

Couch surfing

Another form of social networking, several sites have popped up to let people connect and find places to stay temporarily while traveling. Yes, it's a couch surfing network on a global scale.

Here's a story about it on CNN:
Need a place to crash? Try a stranger's couch

I'm mostly posting this for Jeff and our encounter with an early adopter of this new trend when we camped a couple summers ago at Rialto. Ah Jodie, the beach slut, you were so ahead of your time.

It's about damn time

Some days you wake up and the world looks just a little bit better:

• Rumsfeld is gone
  
• Santorum is done
  
• Madam speaker
  

Three cheers for change.

Design that changes

Check out this post about shapeshifting clothes design. I would love to be somewhere and have my clothes starting moving around and reconfigure themselves.

Shapeshifting at Hussein Chalayan

RIP: Geertz

A passing of an icon.

Clifford Geertz 1926-2006

Clifford Geertz, an eminent scholar in the field of cultural anthropology known for his extensive research in Indonesia and Morocco, died at the age of 80 early yesterday morning of complications following heart surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Geertz was Professor Emeritus in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he has served on the Faculty since 1970.

I just reread Thick Description and Deep Play in my Qualitative Research Methods class. Geertz made monumental contributions to the field of anthropology and the development of research methodology in general.

Studying sidewalks and the like

I read about this and thought of Helen, the pedestrian activist, and Matt C (aka the Rooster) and his interests in accessibility and usability.

The PAMELA project:

A research project, where a reconfigurable laboratory is used to simulate existing and proposed pedestrian environments, being carried out by Accessibility Research Group at University College London.

This will allow existing “open space” accessibility issues to be examined rigorously under controlled conditions. It will also enable infrastructure designs to be checked, thereby avoiding the possibility of costly mistakes on site arising from a subsequent accessibility audit