At one point I thought I had posted about a trip I took on the Metro from Pasadena to El Segundo but it's still sitting in my 'not completed' file. That trip consisted of the Gold Line, Red Line, Blue Line, to the Green. Which was cool because I got to go through Union Station, the 7th Street Metro Center, and the Rosa Parks station. The uncool part was that it took about 1.5 hours and required a separate ticket for each hop (although now I find out they have day passes). Obligatory Metro link.
Today I had a similar mission: get from downtown to the SouthBay. I could have done a similar trip but I wanted to try something I had only read about called the FlyAway bus service. It is operated by Los Angeles Regional Airports and consists of shuttles that go from all the regions airports to Union Station and other population centers. My experience was great. I asked some very nice people at Union Station where the kiosk was and after a short walk and seven dollars I had a ticket in my hand. Buses leave every half hour and although the driver told us that the trip would be longer because it was rush hour it only ended up taking about 35 minutes (and even went over my second favorite interchange: 110 south to 105 west carpool lane - booyah!). I waited longer for my friends to pick me up at the Southwest terminal.
Map of where the FlyAway kiosk is:
View Los Angeles Union Station in a larger map
Also here's are a couple of ideas: how about taking and rating all the different transportation agencies in Southern California? Or how about some enterprising young programmer puts a database together of all the timetables of said agencies along with the cost for different hops and transfers and walking times, uses a little Dijkstra magic, and figures out routes that are either cheapest or fastest (or better yet let you weight each). Kind of like the Metro Trip Planner but cool and useful. Has GoogleMaps done this yet? Actually, can I have that job? Thanks...
Stupid video link even though the stupid record company won't allow embeds
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Treme Recap
Book Report: 9, 10, and 11
Reading my 9th book of 2010, Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, was a taxing ordeal. It's a satire of American culture in the early 20th century but with everything happening now (hello income gap!) it was basically super depressing and made me read magazines for a couple months.
Fortunately I borrowed the hot novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson from my mom and tore through it in a couple days. Very cool noirish story set in Sweden. It's the first in a trilogy so hopefully I can get to the other two pretty quickly. Unfortunately Steig died unexpectedly a couple years ago. (Also he was a socialist so watch out!)
To round out my latest trilogy I pulled The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger from my bookshelf which I probably 'borrowed' from my mom as well. Great piece of reporting/writing and of course the movie starts George Clooney so I'll probably watch that too.
Fortunately I borrowed the hot novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson from my mom and tore through it in a couple days. Very cool noirish story set in Sweden. It's the first in a trilogy so hopefully I can get to the other two pretty quickly. Unfortunately Steig died unexpectedly a couple years ago. (Also he was a socialist so watch out!)
To round out my latest trilogy I pulled The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger from my bookshelf which I probably 'borrowed' from my mom as well. Great piece of reporting/writing and of course the movie starts George Clooney so I'll probably watch that too.
Monday, May 17, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Book Report: The Undercover Economist
The 8th book I've read this year was The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford. I initially read Tim somewhere on the internet and liked his writing style enough to buy his book.
The Undercover Economist was thoroughly enjoyable although I wanted to understand it so I took my time reading it. In addition, some of it I had to take with a grain of salt. I don't know that any book will convince me that markets are inherently free and that taxes are simply inefficiencies in markets. Experience would dictate that markets are under constant flux because of both government and market participants and taxes can be ways of either correcting for inefficiencies of market structure, forcing participants to address externalities, and (yes) inefficient in and of themselves. He glosses over the example of how Singapore provides health care to its citizens but that seems to me the crux of the type of question his book can help to answer: requirements by governments that in effect create a market. How can this market be created so that consumers win and no monopoly rents can be generated?
That being said, this book was excellent at pointing out ways in which economics can be useful in explaining why prices are what they are (scarcity power driving up rents, barriers to entry, extracting information, and even auctions to name a few) and other such interesting economic phenomena (like congestion pricing - which is good!). It really gave me a lot to think about in how to think about a lot if that makes sense.
The Undercover Economist was thoroughly enjoyable although I wanted to understand it so I took my time reading it. In addition, some of it I had to take with a grain of salt. I don't know that any book will convince me that markets are inherently free and that taxes are simply inefficiencies in markets. Experience would dictate that markets are under constant flux because of both government and market participants and taxes can be ways of either correcting for inefficiencies of market structure, forcing participants to address externalities, and (yes) inefficient in and of themselves. He glosses over the example of how Singapore provides health care to its citizens but that seems to me the crux of the type of question his book can help to answer: requirements by governments that in effect create a market. How can this market be created so that consumers win and no monopoly rents can be generated?
That being said, this book was excellent at pointing out ways in which economics can be useful in explaining why prices are what they are (scarcity power driving up rents, barriers to entry, extracting information, and even auctions to name a few) and other such interesting economic phenomena (like congestion pricing - which is good!). It really gave me a lot to think about in how to think about a lot if that makes sense.
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