{"id":905,"date":"2008-06-13T11:43:39","date_gmt":"2008-06-13T15:43:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/?p=905"},"modified":"2008-06-13T11:49:59","modified_gmt":"2008-06-13T15:49:59","slug":"friday-notes-still-faster-than-the-red-line-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/2008\/06\/13\/friday-notes-still-faster-than-the-red-line-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday Notes: Still Faster Than the Red Line Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a pretty reliable defender of DC’s Metro system. The people that bitch about it either 1) don’t use it, 2) have never used another metro system in the US, or 3) are from NYC. Which means that its critics have no standing, by definition. But that defense got a little harder this week – a couple of near-shutdowns of the Orange line in VA this week, and apparently the Red Line is a complete clusterf(@k at this very moment. And who’s the only person in VA really trying to do something about this? Outgoing Rep. Tom Davis(R)<\/a>. Strange days. C’mon, Jim.<\/p>\n

~
\nSciFi site io9 asks William Gibson questions no one else does, and gets interesting answers<\/a> as a result (imagine that):<\/p>\n

None of us ever live in dystopia. That’s an imaginary extreme. They just live in shitty cultures. And these societies [in my books] seem dystopian to middle class white people in North America. They don’t seem dystopian if you live in Rio or anywhere in Africa. Most people in Africa would happily immigrate to the Sprawl.<\/p>\n

I don’t think a writer can hit the dystopic key without being misanthropic. I’m actually not misanthropic. I think people are capable of wonderful things. I’m quite fond of them and enjoy their company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

~<\/p>\n

Speaking of Wonderful Things, the Directory Of<\/a> pointed us to this gem yesterday:<\/p>\n

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~<\/p>\n

The New York Times is running a series on the them of American Exceptionalism, and this article<\/a> on the near-absolutist take on free speech is excellent. I want to write more about that, but I thought I’d throw up the link now, lest it get lost in the ever-growing pile of drafts around here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m a pretty reliable defender of DC’s Metro system. The people that bitch about it either 1) don’t use it, 2) have never used another metro system in the US, or 3) are from NYC. Which means that its critics have no standing, by definition. But that defense got a little harder this week – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4,2,3,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dc","category-law","category-personal","category-society","category-virginia"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blacknell.net\/dynamic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}