I'm back into Airbnb life, and just moved to Philly Chinatown. A modest number of surgical masks in older Chinese people at the grocery stores, plus one young woman in a K-mask I saw around. A couple old white people, homeless or semi-so, in surgicals. Very little masking in Trader Joe's, mostly one cashier, despite TJ having the highest CO2 levels I've seen in a grocery store -- 1300 when I checked. TJ packs in customers and does not have great ventilation.

It also turns out that Pax Unplugged, a large table/board game convention, was happening this weekend, two blocks away. Perhaps this explains why getting an Airbnb was annoying and expensive, compared to what I saw in DC. A friend of mine was flying out Sunday morning, so swapped me his 3-day pass so I could check it out. Free in money and almost free in time, why not?

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Previously

I forgot one tool I'd consider pretty important, especially without a dishwasher: a drying rack! Amazon has some for $17-19 list. Though, if you're single and careful about rinsing right after eating, you can get away without one. Then there are sponges or cloths, though arguably those fall under "consumables". Whether you need a potholder depends on what tools you cook with; a cast iron handle is more likely to heat up. $8 for cheapest holders, though you could maybe use an old shirt or towel.

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I've been reading Goodman's The Domestic Revolution and should blog about it sometime, but a brief post for now. In my current section she's been talking about the evolution of cleaning as Britain transitioned to burning coal in homes, like how beforehand cleaning was mostly sweeping/brush, scrubbing with wood ash or sand, and using lye on laundry. Also talking about massive advertising by the later soap companies, associating soap with all forms of cleanliness, and British imperialists overlooking ways that e.g. Chinese people were cleaning their homes, like earlier British people.

Anyway, one thing she says is that often just hot water will get something clean, but a lot of people won't accept it unless soap was involved, and that echoed with me. Even as a kid, I noticed that if you rinse a bowl used for milk-and-cereal right away, that's pretty much all it needs. Ditto for a glass of orange juice. But if you let them sit and develop dried milk or juice residue, then eww.

Much more recently I'd noticed that hard surfaces, when greasy, often get clean just from a jet of hot water, like the grease simply melts off. Cleaning to the point of being squeaky-clean, even. But, I realized, today, it may really depend on the material.

Metal fork and spoon? Squeak.

Ceramic (or maybe hard plastic, I'm not sure in this Airbnb)? Squeak.

Rubbermaid plastic? Nope. A lot leaves, but a greasy film and its tomato stain remained, until I brought soap in.

Notably, I was removing the same stuff in all three cases: a fatty tomato pork sauce. To be fair, the Rubbermaid had been storing the sauce for days, while the other pieces only had minutes of exposure. Still, I suspect that glass storage could have gotten clean with just hot water.

Previous post. I did more traffic counts today, a bit after 5 PM so should be around peak busy-ness. ( Read more... )

Gratifyingly consistent results, of 7-8 cars per lane-minute. Might be a coincidence that the signalized intersection falls in the same range.

In the past, I've estimate the car capacity of city streets with "two second following distance, cut in half for intersections" which yields 15 cars per lane-minute. But what about reality?

Signalized

Today in Philadelphia, around 6 PM, I counted at various intersections. One lane of travel, 30 second light, reliably had 10 cars passing me before running out of light rather than cars. 3 seconds per car.

At much bigger intersection, a near-highway with 6 total lanes of travel, I counted 37 cars in 38 seconds, and 33 cars in 38 seconds. In this case it was the cars that ran out first, I suspect the previous light cutting off supply. 3 lanes in the direction, so once again about 3 seconds per car per lane.

Your big bottlenecks will be where two major streets intersect, each getting green for half the time, so 10 cars in 30 seconds of green is basically 10 cars per minute overall, on average carrying about 15 people per minute.

One articulated bus (120 people) every 8 minutes would double the capacity of a lane, while serving a lot of people who can't or don't want to drive. Or better, turn the lane to a bus lane, keep the same capacity while serving a lot of people etc.

Mostly, it was funny to count 10 cars before the next red light, and think "if one of these was a dinky bus it could be carrying 40 people." Heck, even a little passenger van carries 15 people, one van a minute doubles your capacity.

Stop signs

So much for signalized intersections; what about 4-way stops? I'm not sure; for one thing, my nearby intersections didn't feel like they were at peak traffic. For another, a busy intersection is messy. At first I paid attention to just one lane at a time, and got maybe 6 in a minute, then 7. Later I counted every car going through in all directions (actually the intersection of a two-way two-lane and a one-lane), and got 52 cars in 3 minutes; 3 lanes, so 5.78 cars/lane-minute. But the traffic definitely wasn't fully saturated... Of course, when orthogonal directions are saturated, that slows both down, as do pedestrians. Especially since Philly drivers make rolling stops when they can, so being physically forced to actually stop would slow them down.

I remember that back in Albany, my peak traffic counts were on Marin or San Pablo, about 10.3 cars per lane-minute.

There's this belief I've seen, exemplified by a recent Youtube comment:

everyone knows that cities can have grids.

but show a grid city and everyone will guess it's a North American city.

most cities in the world grew organically so grids aren't a big thing everywhere else. you might find a few grids here and there, but that's it. going all out on grids is a North America special.

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No one badly injured, probably.( Read more... )

I want to talk about one-lane city streets: streets with only one travel lane (and are thus also one-way, at least for cars.)

Advantages:

• They're great for pedestrians, with only 3 meters to cross to get out of the active car zone. (A pedestrian refuge between each lane would give similar benefit; in reality you'd likely only get that in a one-lane-each-way street.)

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After visiting the Jewish museum Friday, I found myself wanting pastrami. BOP Kosh (nee Koch?) deli was a block away, and had a good price ($12), but no pastrami in stock at the moment. Oh well.

Today I set out around my neighborhood, having asked Google Maps for candidates. ( Read more... )

If you've read Sherlock Holmes, you likely recall his supposedly paying attention to all details around him, like how many steps were in the staircase. That seems mostly unnecessary[1], and 'all' details is bunk/impossible... but I am building up a list of things to try to be more conscious of, whether for personal utility or good citizenship. And a recent afternoon where I kept an eye out for bike racks, in an area I've been up and down multiple times since March, and discovered many racks I had been totally unaware of, highlighted how much difference conscious attention can make. ( Read more... )