The Surface Transportation Policy Project released a report, Driven to Spend, which compares costs in 25 metropolitan areas for household transportation. One unsurprising finding is that in metropolitan areas with good public/regional transit networks, households spend a smaller percentage of their income on transportation. These metropolitan areas are also less exposed to fluctuations in gas prices through the transportation spending habits of their residents.

"If Baltimore households spent the national average on transportation, (19.1% instead of 14%), they would have spent an extra $2 billion in 2003 on transportation, and if Houston households would have spent the national average on transportation (19.1% instead of 20.9%), they would have saved $1.2 billion on transportation."

Posted by Chris at 07:51 PM in Transportation | Comments (0)

The HIPAA laws and those privacy informational notices then you get each time you go to the doctor were put in place to protect the privacy of your medical records. Even President Bush decided it was a good idea when he first came into office. Now his administration, through the Department of Justice seems to have rolled over for the Medical industry and taken the teeth out of the legislation by removing important criminal penalties.

Posted by Chris at 05:54 PM in Health, Politics, Security | Comments (0)

An awesome application that visually shows songs and groups that sample old hip-hop, soul and funk, and those same songs and groups along a timeline. Interactive. Definitely check it out.

Posted by Chris at 11:04 PM in Computing, Music | Comments (0)

Support Marriage for Same-Sex Couples - Sign the Vacation Pledge for Equal Marriage Rights:

We, the undersigned, promise to vacation in the first state that democratically chooses (by either legislation or voter referendum) to legalize same-sex marriage, within three years of the effective date of the legislation.

Posted by Chris at 08:54 PM in Politics | Comments (0)

Douglas Coupland has an exhibition in Montreal on building with Legos and Super City building sets. He wrote briefly about Legoland and is pictured in it on the cover of microserfs.

Posted by Chris at 12:13 PM in Architecture, Art | Comments (0)

Oil and gasoline are going to be with us a little bit longer, so here is a bit of visual data on why this country, and the world really, needs more fuel efficient vehicles.

Transportation - mainly cars and trucks - make up the largest part, and growing, of our use of oil.

We are registering more vehicles and using more fuel (the proportion of fuel-to-vehicle is fortunately getting slightly smaller as one person can only drive one vehicle at a time)

We are driving more and more in our vehicles.

After a brief to jump in fuel efficiency and amount driven per car after the last energy crisis, both have stayed constant. It is really quite a shame that and advanced country like ours can not - or shall I say does not - produce more fuel efficient cars then we do. The other average has stayed the same because, see above, we have more cars to drive.

The president mentioned conservation a couple weeks ago as the first point in a strategy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Given the above data, it is obvious where that conservation should start.

Posted by Chris at 02:55 PM in Science, Sustainability, Transportation | Comments (0)

"Heal the Bay's 15th Annual Beach Report Card provides essential water quality information to the millions of people who swim, surf, or dive in California coastal waters. Essential reading for ocean users, the report card grades approximately 350 locations year-round (about 460 locations in dry weather from April to October) on an A-F scale based on the risk of adverse health effects to swimmers and surfers."

Posted by Chris at 02:57 PM in Environment, Science | Comments (0)

This is the official web site sponsored by the three main credit reporting companies where you can get your free credit report once a year.

Posted by Chris at 12:03 PM in Economy | Comments (0)