Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Jon Carroll and Danny O'Brien both have Roombas. "If…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2003 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
Jon Carroll and Danny O'Brien both have Roombas. "If the pathetic fallacy is ascribing human emotions to animals, then ascribing human emotions to disc-shaped machines must be the Truly Pathetic Fallacy."
Cameron is seeking editors for an opinionated multi-author blog covering the 2004 US elections. Sounds like a neat project.
BART Extension Wackiness: There is a Friends of BART Committee. Excursion fare -- $4.00 -- will get you a tour of the new stations, the day before they open -- I suppose the turnstiles start working Sunday. (Update: Seth points out, "In fact, you can do better than that. For example, if you start from the 16th Street BART, go on an excursion, and get off at 24th Street, you'll pay only $1.15 (not $4.00).")
A DeLongish question: the BART extension means that there is more real estate near BART. Indeed, I saw an ad in the Balboa Park BART station for a housing development near the South San Francisco BART station. So prices for housing near BART staions, in general, should go down. But, as Michael pointed out, consider the network effect: as BART goes more places, BART is more useful, and thus the BART-proximity of a house lends it even more value. What phenomenon will affect housing prices more?
Oh, and airport shuttles to SFO will lose business, I'm sure, as people can just BART to SFO. (SFO-bound trains will get so crowded with luggage!) Michael posits that airport shuttle cabals are forcing BART to stay closed at least 4 hours a day.
