Escalators
Brent may not remember this, but we once wondered how many stories the escalator at the Porter Square T station, Boston’s deepest subway station, covers. It’s a really long escalator – one of the longest I’ve ridden.
The Wikipedia entry on the Porter station and this article on a scary escalator accident that occurred there both claim that the long escalator out of Porter station is 143 feet long.
I did a few calculations using numbers from the Wikipedia entry on escalators (a surprisingly and wonderfully interesting read), and found that a typical angle of incline for an elevator might be around 27º. This means that the Porter escalator covers about 65 feet in vertical distance, which, depending on how tall you think a “story” is, is somewhere between four stories and 5.5 stories.
(Incidentally, the Porter Square T station has a really cool art piece spread throughout, worth looking out for if you find yourself there.)
Some highlights from the Wikipedia entry on escalators:
- “passengers who stand customarily stay on one particular side of the escalator, leaving the other side free for walkers. The proper side for walking does not necessarily correspond with the passing lane in road traffic: passengers stand on the right and walk on the left on the London Underground as well as the Washington, Boston, Hong Kong, Toronto, and Moscow subway systems; but in Singapore and Australia, they stand on the left. In Japan, riders stand on the left in Tokyo but on the right in Osaka.”
- “For fun, people sometimes use an escalator running in the opposite direction, climbing up or down the stairs faster than it moves. This is forbidden in some places, notably the Paris Métro, where running in the opposite direction can lead to being fined.”
Here’s a picture Hansie took last December, of me looking at escalator innards at the Harvard Square T stop:
Best view of Boston
Two-and-a-half of my friends have the coolest view of Boston I’ve seen, from the skydeck in their apartment building (next to me in Cambridge). I was lucky enough to see it earlier today, for the first time. Boston is really a pretty city, and when the light shines on the brown buildings downtown, they look all warm and glowy.
Here are K and Turtle and a wonderful view:
Ginger snap molasses RUL35!!
I decided, for the second time, that Toscanini’s “ginger snap molasses” is one of the best flavors of ice cream I’ve ever had. The key to awesome ice cream is that it have HUGE chunks of cookies in it. Behold, my scoop last night!
Saturday shopping trip
Things I learned while shopping, mostly to do with hosiery:
- In Calvin Klein hosiery, a 5’2″, 150-lb woman wears the same size as one who is 5’9″ and exactly 115 lbs.
- Hanes makes “Anti-Cellulite” hose, which “Improves circulation, reduces appearance of cellulite” by, yep, being tight, and covering more of your thighs with the thick panty layer.
- Hanes also has a “Revitalizing” brand, which is “Enhanced with natural extracts that refresh legs”.
- You must not always expect a “Nude”. The closest match might be called “Buff”, “Little Color”, or “Le Beige Bare”.
- Flexibility may be required.
- You can get a “multifunctional” bra with convertible straps. This means you can transform it into a halter with just one strap over the neck, or “criss-cross style”, or you can opt to wear it “conventionally”.
Frida Hyvonen can be very entertaining.
Tonight I went to see a show at the MFA. (The MFA!! I had a little Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler moment…)
The first band was not good. Not horrible, but not good either. Working strongly against them was the fact that not one of the four performers broke a smile during the set, and I’m pretty sure that the bassist was going to go kill himself immediately following the performance. I need some glee, people. ¡F minus, El Perro del Mar!
Then, Frida Hyvönen took the stage, complete with red shawl, paper Starbucks coffee cup, spiral notebook. Very funny, poetic lyrics, beautiful music, perfect timing. I believe she, at one point, rhymed “Cricket cricket cricket” with “It’s sick it’s sick it’s sick.” One of the most entertaining performances I’ve seen in a long time.
+10 for looking like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner.
The last band: Under Byen. You get a B-:
+30 TWO DRUM SETS. +5 someone played a saw +4 cello spiccato rock-out +2 having a girl bassist +12 someone played a xylophone -80 extensive use of strobe light ------------------------------------ B- *total*
Guitar Hero too much
(for Saturday (2/24/07)… it’s just late.)
We have Guitar Hero 2 set up in our lab area (because Alex Rigopulos, of Harmonix, graduated from my group some years ago), and it gets played a LOT. Since there are other groups around us who want to work, we have the game hooked up to two pairs of headphones, so all you can hear when someone is playing is the click-click-clicking of the strumming. Adam says that he plays Guitar Hero so much that he can recognize a piece by the click-click-clicking alone. Amazing, Adam!
This morning, I woke up with a Guitar Hero song stuck in my head. “What song IS that??” I did a search on the web for Guitar Hero, and found a group of guys wrote some software to grab the “tabs” off of Guitar Hero 2. Just by looking at each set of tabs in turn, I was able to find the song (“Less Talk More Rokk”!!), notable for its regular ascending patterns and totally infectious off-beats:
I went on a walk today, across the Mass Ave bridge, up Beacon St, and through the Common to Downtown Crossing. Things I noticed during the walk:
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People throw phone books on the river. (And why not!)
- My chin is an extremity.
- Today was a good-weather day in Boston. There were people out playing frisbee, kicking a soccer ball around where there wasn’t ice, and joggers all over the place. Today’s low is 17, high is 36, and it’s sunny. Yay!
- The fitting rooms at Filene’s Basement are just one room, lined with mirrors and hooks next to them, spaced about 3 feet apart. After waiting my turn, I walked in, looked around, found the one empty mirror, and squeezed between two naked people to claim it.
