This idea came up when I was bitching about the pictures condo developers show for their buildings. In Toronto, there is the CN Tower one of the tallest free standing structures in the world. Being so iconic most condo developers feel compelled to show the CN Tower even if they no where near. I mean if everyone can see the tower from everywhere, maybe we should just have long cable wires connecting major intersections, and everyone would just zip-line their way home and to work. Of course that would just mean a massive line up for the elevators at the CN Tower during rush hour.

Danny

Yeah

All my lecture notes would eventually turn into something like this, back when I was in university.

– Alex

The TTC’s now serious business when it comes to PR. What with the fare hike and generally disgruntled commuters. Also, perhaps you’ve heard about ttzzzzzzzgate, where some collector was spotted sleeping. (Apparently, he saved some guy’s life a few years ago.)

Anyways, I’m not all that mad at the TTC, though the 116A route at Kennedy Station really pisses me off sometimes.

Also, Perl has a FN-P90 in her violin case, to match her cosplay.

– Alex

According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, it takes 10000 hours to become an expert at a task.  As we’ve seen with kids who start playing hockey at four or in the case of Tiger Woods who started playing golf at two, practice makes perfect.  This got me thinking about tasks that we do for hours on end, which we never get good at.  For example, how about about sleep?  Why can’t we master falling asleep instantly, or feeling completely rejuvenated after only a few hours?  What about walking up in the morning?  I’ve done it thousands of times, yet I still have trouble getting out of bed.

Danny

Re: Practice

I think the idea is that it has to be an intentional (conscious) practice. Don’t practice things you’ve already done well in the past, instead do things which you’re bound to fail. I’ve seen this lack of practice with people who are computer illiterate; they don’t care about becoming a power user, they care about doing their work (or getting their porn). Once they know how to do something (e.g. open a web browser), they keep doing it the same way and only that way. They don’t try new things, because it might “break the hard drive”.

It makes sense; we can’t be masters at everything because we only have so much attention to distribute during a day. If you actually payed attention to everything you did, you’d spread yourself too thin and never get anything done. We avoid doing things we’re bad at because, well, doing things badly makes us feel stupid.

Did a quick search for the post I first heard the story from and came up with this inspirational (sort of) blog post:

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/03/how_to_be_an_ex.html

– Alex

The streetcar system needs to be REMOVED. Not only do you get a bunch of cars backed up, in some cases 5 streetcars, behind a broken streetcar. You can actually get cases where a streetcar breaks down midway through a turn, BLOCKING the entire intersection. The only solution is to get buses, or to build dedicated tracks for all streetcars, that are elevated or something.

Danny

The Subway systems are far to crowded these days. People need to stop working everyday.

Danny

Sometimes the commute annoys me

You know how sometimes people just board the subway train and then just stand in the doorway blocking everyone else from boarding? It’s like they don’t realize there’s a crush of people behind them; they’re on the train, so I guess they don’t see why anyone would be angry at them.

– Alex ^.^()