Where else but San Francisco City Hall could a 10-foot-long wheelchair ramp wind up costing $1 million?
Thanks to a maze of bureaucratic indecision and historic restrictions, taxpayers may shell out $100,000 per foot to make the Board of Supervisors president's perch in the historic chambers accessible to the disabled.
Supervisor Jake McGoldrick [...] asked that the board take some more time to come up with an alternative, like maybe just getting rid of the president's elevated seat.
The root of the problem dates back to when City Hall got a $300 million makeover in the 1990s that made just about every hallway, bathroom and office accessible to the disabled. The exception was the board president's podium, which is reachable only for someone who can climb the five steps from the chamber floor.
The understanding was that the room would eventually be made fully accessible. But no one worried about the podium until 2004 when Supervisor Michela Alioto-Pier, who uses a wheelchair, joined the board. [...]
Even if the board gives its final blessing, however, construction of the ramp won't be completed before the end of the year - midway through Alioto-Pier's second and final term.
"I deserve equal access to every part of the chamber," Alioto-Pier told her colleagues, adding that ending discrimination is worth the $1 million.
Wheelchair ramp will cost $100,000 a foot
Richard Box: Field
electric fields generated by overhead powerlines."
QTVR panorama:
"There's an interactive element to all this, too, if you go to the site itself. 'You affect the lights by your proximity', says Richard, 'because you're a much better conductor than a glass tube. And there's sound as well as light - a crackling that corresponds to the flashing of the lights. There's a certain smell too, and your hair stands slightly on end.'"
mixtape 019
Please enjoy jwz mixtape 019. This is the sequel to mixtape 014, in that back before the Pleistocene extinction event, this is also music we used to refer to as "industrial", at least until it was retconned into "EBM".
Implantable Orgazmatron
The experimental implant -- now trademarked by Meloy as the Orgasmatron -- rests on the skin just above the belt line. Two electrodes snake into the space between the vertebrae and the spinal cord. A video-game-like remote control allows women (or their partners) to turn electrical pulses on and off and fiddle with timing and intensity.
Design work is underway to get the cost of the procedure down to about $12,000 -- roughly the price of breast implants, Meloy says.
He plans to shrink the size of the internal processor to the size of two sticks of gum and the external processor to roughly the size of a belt pager, all while ensuring that the system is durable enough to withstand shear forces of typical use.
DNA Lounge: Wherein you view many photos.
I think this was the best Hubba Hubba Revue yet, so those of you who missed it (which is far too many of you! What the hell!) made a big mistake. Next month HHR does a James Bond show. It should be epic.
Also, I hope by now you've all caught on that Pop Roxx is now third Saturdays instead of fourth. This is because Bootie is now twice a month, on every second and fourth Saturday.
mixtape 018
Please enjoy jwz mixtape 018. No particular theme this time; in fact, I did this one the old skool way: by taking the song that happened to be playing as a starting point, and then giving myself only the length of that song to decide upon the next one, ad nauseam. Imagine that. Lazy? Or disciplined? You decide.
looking forward into the past
MySpace, 2008:
NCSA Mosaic, 1993:
the smell of space
Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces. It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
