Farmboat

Floating the Idea of Local Food

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 ~ Every Thursday from 11:00 - 3:00 through the week before Halloween, tour a vintage wooden boat and buy local farm produce:

The FarmBoat Floating Market is held aboard the historic steamship Virginia V docked at Lake Union Park Wharf. Vendors display locally grown produce, specialty foods and artisan crafts on board the 125' wooden vessel--just as it was done a century ago. Market visitors can tour the ship for free and learn about Puget Sound agricultural and maritime heritage while they shop. (There is plenty of space on deck to enjoy lunch with fantastic shoreline views of downtown Seattle and Lake Union).

Love Trains

Dating In Prague

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 ~ Officials in charge of the Prague subway are creating a novel kind of singles scene:

Starting later this year, select carriages on each of the city's three underground train lines will be designated as singles-friendly. The idea was hatched as a way to increase ridership on public transportation, according to Filip Drapal, a spokesman for Ropid, the city's public transport authority. "This idea is just part of a new long-term campaign whose aim is to show what activities can you do in public transport that you cannot do inside your car (like reading, studying, listening to music, playing e-games and checking emails)."
Of course, there are many things one can "do in public transport which you cannot do inside your car." Why stop at dating?

Why indeed? Perhaps because the typical ride is only 5 minutes? Speed daters will need to perfect their "elevator" pitches... and here's the soundtrack.

Two Countries

Hotspots of Hate

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 ~ We're two countries alright, just not divided the way you might think:

The map shows the use of hateful epithets used in tweets, aggregated by county.

Um, so just exactly where is "middle America"?

A lot of related maps to look at and more detail here. Especially interesting (or sobering) to zoom in on where you live, or other places of interest, both to see the localized hotspots, and which hate words predominate. (Here in Washington State, the hate in Aberdeen is visible from space. What's up with that?)

A Walk in the Greenbelt

Leo Strolls Bellevue

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 ~ It's awesome having the Bellevue Greenbelt nearby, with trails reaching out into neighborhoods all around. The peripatetic pup and I can log 5 miles walking down to the Robinswood dog park and back. And he adds a few more miles with the pack at the park.

More Regulatory Evils

Gun Control Stands Alone

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 ~ Where else do we choose to have our civilization out of control?

Even though we regulate all of these things, we neither ban them, nor confiscate them from those owning and using them responsibly.

Control is not confiscation. Regulation is not a ban.

The Purpose of Art

To Provoke

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 ~ The manufactured and fictitious crisis of the so-called fiscal cliff has provoked a lot of people. Time to provoke a broader audience about the real crisis, and to replace the bogus framing of the problem.

We're not broke—we're being looted.

More from Artstrike, including this evocative poem:

Proverbs 22:16
by Elizabeth Conall

what do they care
if we can’t pay
the bills run up
to keep us alive?
to save our kids?
why bother with
expensive care
we don’t deserve?
plenty more
where we came from

Plenty more serfs out there. Read the whole thing.

Where's It Wednesday—CV

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Liberté, Égalité, Gratuité

Free Public Transit Works

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 ~ Atlantic Cities reports on a mid-size French town that has had free public transit for more than a decade. Châteauroux has seen its ridership double. Meanwhile in only 3 years a metro area west of Paris has seen use go up 170% even as private vehicle traffic volumes fell 10%.

Like many transit systems, the fare box makes up only a small percentage of system revenue. Eliminating the infrastructure and logistics of fare collection, with minor adjustments to other funding sources, can allow transit systems to be profitable as well as more usable.

The motivations for making a transit system free are obvious. Increased ridership can relieve traffic, improve the environment, boost the system’s efficiency, give residents more spending money, help the poor, and rejuvenate central business districts.

Shared transportation is a public good and a desirable and necessary part of civic infrastructure. Like sidewalks, parks, trails and other similar public space amenities, it should be free, easy to use and widely available. Most cities in the US still have quite a ways to go.

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Also posted to the Fare-Free Northwest blog.

Come to the Nightmare

Only 5 Nights Left

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 ~ The Puget Sound's premier haunted attraction, The Nightmare at Beaver Lake runs through Halloween night. Bring your fiends.

It's less scary than the elections, but much more fun.

More. Yet more.

Amazing Endeavour

The Last Mission

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 ~ The retired space shuttle traveled across Los Angeles on its way to the California Science Center. The 12-mile journey took 3 days, and enchanted a community.

A stop-motion video (2:41) of its journey, well-worth watching, is here.

"So, What Are You Doing?"

"(These Days?)"

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~ I get asked this a lot. So, just as I did a year ago on my last lap around the sun, I'll write a quick update.

I'm still doing consulting and contract work, as well as working on some startups (of my own as well as others.) The best description that more or less braids all the strands? Entrepreneur-at-large, pitching in wherever there is opportunity to create or grow an interesting business from idea to revenue.

Some of my current projects are the same as a year ago. A couple didn't work out and had to be put down. There's also a few new ones:

The Incredibly Shrinking Middle Class

Watch Them Disappear!

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 ~ From the Pew Research Center:

When you consider how the ranks of the poor are swelling, their per-capita income looks even worse. Our country is having an identity crisis—is this who we want to be?

Wise Donation

A Easier Way to Give

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 ~ And a better one too.

The idea of a donation portal is not new, but wisedonation.com has produced a better version in a clean and appealing web site. Their raison d'etre:

Wise Donation is a new way to give. Our goal is to empower everyone to become philanthropists. We make giving accessible, regardless of income level. We help people support their passions by connecting them to charities they care about. And we make it so easy, it not only feels great, it’s fun!

The site provides not only a huge database of searchable charities but budget-based giving that the donor can customize by fixed amount or percentages on a one-time or recurring basis. It's a great idea that fills a growing need. In an era of shriveling public support for social good, WiseDonation provides a powerful, flexible, and accessible way for anyone to make a difference in their community or in the world.

(Full disclosure: WiseDonation is a client of Fingo Consulting.)

OWS—X

Wither Wages

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 ~ Many continue to wonder what the Occupy movement is about. The following two graphs highlight a central critique:

Wages as a fraction of GDP

Corporate profits as a fraction of GDP

Workers are not sharing in the bounty produced by their steadily increasing productivity.

Lack of purchasing power is hollowing out the middle class, and as goes the middle class, so goes the rest of the economy, and eventually everyone else in it. There's gas in the coal mine, and the canaries are starting to die.

Visions of Transportation

Walking, Biking, Riding

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 ~ Sound Transit is extending light rail to Northgate. There's a vigorous debate about whether to build park-and-ride spaces or infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians, especially a foot/bike bridge over I-5.

Which to build?

Park-and-ride use is popular in King County, where most major lots are filled or overflowing. The 1,500 spots at Northgate are generally full, sending people to park on surrounding streets.

"We could fill more, I could assure you of that," says Ron Posthuma, a Metro Transit assistant director for planning.

Where's It Wednesday—LXXXV

Where in Seattle is this?

Answer next week.

Details on the weekly Where's It Wednesday puzzle here.
Other weeks' puzzles here.
Answer to last week's puzzle, after the jump.

Social Change

Time to Aim Higher than CSR

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 ~ My one-time high school classmate, Paul Klein, is now a sometime blogger for Forbes, where he pens thoughtful pieces arising from his work advising corporations on CSR, Corporate Social Responsibility. Today he published a piece on "the business value of social change."

It's a worthwhile read, and raises an intriguing point that incessant blather about CSR conveniently skirts: can CSR alone make a real difference when it remains subservient to the core corporate purpose of maximizing profit?

OWS—IX

It's the Inequality, Stupid

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 ~ After more than 30 years of growing and glaring inequality, it has become impossible to pretend that the gap can be entirely explained by hard work. In fact, it is the middle class that has worked hard and tripled their productivity even as their real wages have declined. The result of that increased productivity has been a reduction in the number of workers needed to produce the same goods and services, and relentless pressure on employment, while the financial rewards have gone to the top tier.

The system that allocates vast riches to the very top as the rest struggle is not meritorious so much as meretricious.

Start Up Really Fast

Seattle's Newest Startup Incubator

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 ~ I stopped by the open house at SURF Incubator last night. Whether SURF stands for Start Up Really Fast, or Start Up Really Frugal or Start Up Really Fun, it is a fantastic concept in a fantastic space.

The lobby area is a work in progress, but full-time reception staff starts Monday, the "official" opening day.

A couple of dozen folks were engaged in lively conversation at the open house, including quite a few of the nearly 40 people already moved into the space.

Entrepreneurs and teams of 1-5 are the best fit, and the space will reach capacity at about 100.

Micro Power Loans

Empowering Communities

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 ~ Hundreds of thousands of people have electricity because of distributed generation from small renewable energy systems financed by micro lending:

The Solar Home System (SHS) dissemination programme in Bangladesh is considered to be one of the most successful of its kind in the world, bringing power to rural areas where grid electricity supply is neither available nor expected in the medium term.

The program started in January 2005 and nearly 350,000 SHSs were installed by the summer 0f 2009, most of which had a rated power output of 50W. Systems came with 3-4 compact flourescent light bulbs. Owners benefit from lighting, especially in their kitchens and courtyards, and also use the systems to charge batteries, power radios, and even run 12V televisions. While statistics are lacking, it appears that some owners are using the power in their small stores and restaurants, boosting their income.