Philadelphia’s fascinating Barnes Foundation is set to move downtown (from the Main Line) to Museum Row. Virtual Properties has a VR scene of the exterior here. Founder Albert C. Barnes, a patent medicine millionaire, never wanted this – he loathed the downtown art crowd. Visit the Barnes before it moves… Carol Vogel has more. Background links: Alltheweb Clusty Google MSN TeomaYahoo Search
“Everything these days doesn’t have to be a tourist trap.”
Atlanta Commits to WiFi Network
Atlanta is rolling out wifi across municipal facilities, according to Glenn Fleishman:
A big chunk of City Hall unwires this month, and chunks of the Atlanta airport by March 2005. A private firm has contracted with Atlanta to add Wi-Fi to city buildings, but will also continue its own rollout at private locations like hotels and retail stores. This is an interesting partnership, because the city?s stamp on the Wi-Fi carrier, Biltmore Communications, and the branding of the service as Atlanta FastPass should make it a much easier sell for private parties to want to climb on this particular bandwagon.
Meanwhile, Megan Costello has more on Madison’s WiFi plans.
Madison WiFi Paid or Free Service?
David Isenberg emailed me and PLEADED that the Madison folks make this a free WiFi service as he rarely pays for it any more (other than hotels). That is largely my experience. There’s often a free hotspot available in the big cities (I parked recently in San Francisco prior to a meeting and fired up my laptop, only to find several free WiFi hotspots).
I think any local WiFi network based on subscriptions will be a challenge.
Letter to America: Jurik Martin on The Airport Security Mess
Dave Farber forwarded Jurik Martin’s email regarding the impression the current airport security mess makes on visitors:
The collective agony is compounded because to complain publicly is not allowed any more when the issue is national security, even if its implementation is far from perfect. It is, for example, patently obvious that Dulles does not have enough security gates, but to point this out could mean a one way ticket to Guant?namo.
It would also be unwise to ask if it is always entirely necessary to half undress before passing through screening, frozen-footed, clutching belt-less trousers, boarding passes and government-issued identification clenched between teeth.
Last month I witnessed a security agent ordering a mother to pass a three-month-old separately through screening (by rolling the child through, perhaps).
Wyland battles destruction of his Milwaukee Mural
Tim Kelley: Kenton Peters on local politics & development
Tim Kelley summarized a recent letter on Madison’s downtown development trends from local developer Kenton Peters. [I’d like to link to it, but their articles go offline rather quickly]. Peters likely makes some useful points on the City’s “development process”, however, I for one, do not want to see another Peters building inflicted on the city. Peters’ federal courthouse (the blue silo version) and the WARF monster on University Avenue are surely more than sufficient eyesores. Background links: Alltheweb Clusty Google MSN TeomaYahoo Search
Singapore Math?
Cris Prystay discusses the growing use of the Singapore Math curriculum in US schools.
Dunkin Donuts vs. Starbucks: Will Speed Win?
John Moore summarizes Dunkin Donuts’ strategy to take on starbucks: sell latte’s faster (time from order to delivery) and cheaper than Starbucks.
Wisconsin Agri-Business: South American Competition
Larry Rohter takes us to Brazil where he explores the world’s new breadbasket.
Sometime over the next decade or so, Brazil, which Secretary of State Colin L. Powell described as “an agricultural superpower” during a visit in October, hopes to pass the United States as the world’s largest agricultural producer. But the trend is far broader and can be felt also in parts of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, with a deep impact on the region’s economy and environment. And it has spurred a debate that has mainly focused on expansion into areas where the Amazon rainforest is thought to be jeopardized.
“There has been a silent revolution in the countryside” since the 1990’s, Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Roberto Rodrigues, said in an interview in the capital, Bras?lia. The past four or five years in particular, he said, have been “characterized by spectacular growth and a huge increase in demand” abroad for foodstuffs, which has given Brazil “the capacity to compete with anyone.”
1906 San Francisco Aerial Photographs
Chicago’s George R. Lawrence used his captive airship to take aerial photographs of San Francisco just after the 1906 earthquake. Take a look at these fascinating photographs here. More on Lawrence.