editor

Revive (and update) the graphic! It happens again on January 3rd.

Done. And check your e-mail for a little something for the suggestion.

Downloading now, but it will be a couple of days before I get a chance to sync it with my phone and try it out. Still, I know what goes into making an iOS app, so congrats!

This would have been timelier if I'd posted it a few days ago, but I'm behind on my Wall Street Journal reading. Still, it's pretty funny.

One of Rice University's television commercials has been selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best college TV ads:

Wall Street Journal article: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704104104575622770930775934-lMyQjAxMTAwMDEwOTExNDkyWj.html

The spots that fared best were the ones that took a narrow approach and made their point without resorting to trite buzzwords and images. "Our motto here at film school is show, don't tell," said Mr. Irving. One of the best examples of that, according to the panel, is Rice's spot. The ad is basically a highlight reel of a major moment in the university's history: President John F. Kennedy's 1962 speech there about putting a man on the moon. The school says it chose Kennedy for its ad because the small Houston school considers itself unconventional and because the speech connotes achievement. In it, Kennedy asks rhetorically, "Why does Rice play Texas?"

"Because once in a while, we win," said Linda Thrane, vice president for public affairs at Rice, which lost its 11th straight matchup against Texas earlier this season. "Not very often, but by gosh we try."

Merry Christmas to you, too. Though I never associated Christmas with being devoured by robotic wolves before.

That looks like it's near my old stomping grounds.

I'd say around Hogg Park.

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Glassdoor is out with its annual list of the best companies for which to work in America. Three are Texas-based:

2. Southwest Airlines, Dallas

19. National Instrument, Austin

32. Fluor, Irving

None in Houston, though.

Glassdoor ratings are interesting because they are based, in large part, on reviews by actual employees inside the companies, and not just on numbers. I'm sure a lot of us have worked for companies that look great on paper, but provided a less than great working environment.

Here's the full list, where you can read the employee reviews: http://www.glassdoor.com/Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm

Here's the top ten:

1. Facebook, Palo Alto (San Francisco)

2. Southwest Airlines, Dallas

3. Bain & Company, Boston

4. General Mills, Minneapolis

5. Edelman, Chicago

6. Boston Consulting, Boston

7. SAS Institute, Cary (Raleigh)

8. Slalom Consulting, Seattle

9. Overstock.com, Salt Lake City

10. Susquehanna International Group, Bala Cynwyd (Philadelphia)

It's interesting to me that so few dot-coms are in the top ten, even though there is a stereotype about what it's like to work at a dot-com. Apple and Google were in the 20's, and 30's. And there's only one true dot-com in the top ten.

What's the best company you've ever worked for?

It did not and it does not.

If he wants to count the Jerome thing, let him. They're his predictions, and this is only friendly speculation. You should not take it upon yourself to be the judge of a contest that doesn't exist.

It's cute that he spins this as $14 million more for Metro, but how much was sacrificed on this contract that never should have been signed in the first place?

11 seconds of Googling turned up this KUHF article.

$41 million already paid to CAF, $14 million being returned. So, $27 million spent. $900 million that may or may not go to Metro will not have this contract working against it.

The total value of the contract with CAF was $300 million. Here's CAF's take on the situation from a couple of months ago: CAF USA calls on Houston Metro to work together to save taxpayer money, prevent delay on light rail system

A quick scan of CAF's web site shows that it makes some monumentally ugly rail cars. Houston's are the only good looking ones in the bunch:

Sacramento

Pittsburgh:

DC:

Houston:

I'm happy to look at this idea once again. Here's what I'd need to make this happen:

• Two moderators. At least one would have to live in the Metroplex, the other would have to live nearby.
  
• Commitments from a group of at least six other people to become regular posters.
  

That's pretty much it. I don't mind coughing up the $10/month it would cost to get things started on a new host. Where these things usually fall apart is in the commitment of time. We all lead very busy lives these days, and getting people to check in on a forum even once a day for 10 minutes, is a lot to ask. Lots of people step forward and say they'll do it, but when it comes time to actually do stuff, they tend so suddenly stop responding to e-mails, etc...

Still, if anyone wants to try this again, let me know either here or by PM or by e-mailing me on editor@houstonarchitecture.com. As always, I'm open to ideas.

But there are already fragmented groups on HAIF. The Heights rules disproportionately, and there's other groups that rarely show up behind certain groups: Historic Houston, Katy, etc.

While, it's true that the Heights section is very active lately, that has not always been the case. Until just a couple of months ago, the most popular sections of HAIF were:

1. Historic Houston
   
2. Going Up!
   
3. General Houston Discussions
   
4. Katy and Points West
   
5. Houston Area Dining, Shopping and Entertainment
   
6. Traffic and Transportation
   

Alternatively, we can jettison the Dallas-FW boards and create a new, non-HAIF forum. A second HAIF, only not focused on Houston. I propose the name HA2F!

"HA2F" is a cute name. I wish I'd thought of that before. Reminds me of the trend in the 90's when all the radio stations started buying other radio stations and you ended up with WQBE2 and WLW2 and such.

I think so. How much more space would the Dallas-Fort Worth board need? 512k? 1GB?

Probably a lot less than that. The entirety of HAIF compresses to 145.7 MB. One of the ways I keep the speed up on HAIF is that the entire thing runs out of RAM. There's almost no disk access, except for pictures uploaded by users.

Sorry I'm a little late to this discussion. Here are some thoughts:

This is about the fifth or sixth time this has been proposed to me. Two or three times publicly here on HAIF. And a few times in private. Each time when I've investigated it, the reaction has been mixed.

At one point, some members of one of the larger Dallas forums approached me about starting one for Dallas. They specifically asked for their own version of HAIF. I did I discrete inquiry of some of the more active members of that forum and found that while they agreed that the current forum was not well run, they would not pledge their support to a new forum.

I approached the owner of one Dallas forum about buying him out, or at least taking over his forum in exchange for a cut of the ad revenue. Because of his job, however, he is frequently offline for months at a time (which helps explain why his forum users aren't all that happy). It took him four months to get back to me on my initial inquiry, and he said he would think about it. I haven't heard from him since then, eight months ago.

I have seriously considered the idea. It comes up often enough that I actually bought a domain for it, in case we finally make this happen: http://dsfwa.com

Will it ever happen? I'm not sure. I'd like it to. But I'd need some firm support.

Given that HAIF, as an acronym, is now obsolete (it stood for HoustonArchitecture.Info Forum), why not just drop the tagline "Houston's original social network", give the Dallas-Fort Worth board more space,

Because the people in Dallas and Houston are very proud of their cities, I don't think either would be happy with a shared forum. The Dallas section on HAIF exists because it is natural for people in Houston to want to talk about Dallas, just like they talk about New Orleans or Austin, or any other place. It is not intended to be a Dallas forum replacement. I think Dallas is a big enough, and interesting enough, city to warrant its own forum.

and put the screws to the "Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum" and MyBCS.com?

I don't mind friendly competition. I don't think I want to put the screws to anyone. In fact, the owners of some Dallas fora have been very helpful to HAIF in the past. I wouldn't want to hurt our cordial relationship.

I can imagine that some shortfalls would be...

- Bandwidth concerns

At first, no. Not for a long time. Since I recently sold one of my web sites, I have lots of extra bandwidth.

- Quality control

A problem for any forum. I'd need a solid pair of moderators to start out with. Not just to keep things orderly, but because I have little enough time to devote to HAIF and my 14 other web sites.

- Houston-only pride

Dallas deserves its own forum. It, naturally, would eventually have an area to talk about Houston, just like HAIF has an area to talk about Dallas. Maybe in time the two areas could be linked somehow.

It's just an idea, but what do you think? Could HAIF work as the premier forum of Texas?

A Texas superforum? Dunno. In a lot of other states it wouldn't work, simply because the cities have too much pride in themselves. Texas, however, is a different beast.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority announced today that it has reached a settlement with CAF USA, Inc. (a subsidiary of the Spanish Firm Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A.) over two disputed contracts for the construction of light rail cars for its North and Southeast Corridor lines. Under the agreement, the contracts are canceled and CAF will forego any additional payments for unpaid work and lost profits. In addition, CAF will refund $14 million to METRO. The agreement was ratified by the METRO board this morning.

“This is $14 million more for public transportation than we had yesterday,” said METRO Chairman Gilbert Garcia. “More importantly, it’s another step forward from old legacy issues to the safe, reliable and affordable public transit and mobility services that our customers and taxpayers deserve.”

In September, the Federal Transportation Administration found that CAF and prior METRO management had violated federal procurement law and Buy America requirements regarding the contracts, putting $900 million of federal transportation grants for the rail lines in jeopardy. METRO’s new management ordered CAF to stop work on the rail cars and immediately swung into action to protect access to federal funds.

“We’re building a new METRO based on clear goals, measurable objectives and absolute transparency,” said METRO CEO George Greanias. “And we require our employees and vendors to meet those standards.”

METRO initiated a mediation process with CAF that took place recently, leading to the settlement announced today. Today’s settlement allows METRO to move forward quickly to protect the $900 million in federal funding for the rail lines.

Today (Friday, December 17) Metro has buses on display at the downtown transit center that were decorated for Christmas by Metro employees.

Photograph courtesy of Metro

Photograph courtesy of Metro

Photograph courtesy of Metro

Actually, the Dems up in Wisconsin have been stating that 13,000 jobs will be lost. The 5,500 figure I came up with was a conservative estimate based upon this;

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements

click on the 2nd link. I actually even undershot the politifact estimates.

Are these jobs "lost" in the real world, or in politics where "not created"="lost?"

Wasn't there that huge flooding event in Pakistan a few months ago?

You're right. I didn't think of that. My intent with the prediction was that it would be a man-made event, though.

Does that mean that Amtrak's 'Spirit of New Orleans' is about to get cut back?

No, it just means that the City of New Orleans will run faster on that stretch of the route, as it won't have to wait for the freight bottlenecks at the Mississippi River in Alton, and the one further north near Joliet.

Occasionally I'll encounter seemingly random words and phrases on search engines and forums. An example:

Offence Limit,rain mean previously flow initial colour history village place civil reality powerful window membership therefore imply sound prison quick well better respond mother game immediately assume user tool business county priority letter notice with connect hope avoid should spread south propose growing paint mile remain roof further think here defendant source tall sexual meal sort tax direct can minister option his prevent old release increase now obtain climb both word alternative individual bottom channel demand under bind hold claim railway bad stick representative and proper

What is the purpose of this gibberish? Is it an attempt to create a search engine presence so as to attract random viewers to a website? Whatever the case, I hope unusual and cruel things happen to whomever is responsible.

It's a poison post. There are pieces of software that can analyze a block of text, like an e-mail message or a forum post, and determine if it's really someone writing something, or if it's just spam. These systems learn by reading other messages. One way that spammers use to reduce the effectiveness of these pieces of software is to use blocks of gibberish to confuse, and ultimately reduce the effectiveness of, the analytical model.

Wow, this will help build about 500 ft of light rail, woohoo!

Considering how little people in Houston like the idea of walking, every foot helps!

I think METRO should be proactive and go after the rail money that the newly elected Tea Party Republicans turned down in Wisconsin and Ohio (hundreds of millions of dollars for high-speed rail was earmarked for those states and the new Governors TURNED IT DOWN). Lets turn their idiocy into our rail!

Is that what happened? I thought it was strange that construction is underway on the HSR link between Chicago and Saint Louis (259 miles), while the link to Milwaukee (86 miles) hasn't. I guess the mystery is solved.

I don't know if any other members of the Houston city council are doing this, but Costello's is the only press release that crossed my desk.

--------------

Council Member Stephen Costello To Take Multiple Voluntary Furlough Days

Tuesday, December 14, 2010 - In the spirit of helping the City, Council Member Costello joined the Mayor in taking a day without pay this past Wednesday, December 8th. Further, he will work each of the remaining three Wednesdays in December without pay. Additionally, in November, Council Member Costello’s office cut its own office budget and returned $7,872 to the City’s general fund.

“We are all in this together,” states Council Member Costello. “I am very proud of the sacrifices my staff and other city employees are making to see the City through this difficult economic time.”

To help alleviate the City’s considerable budget challenges, City Council voted unanimously last Wednesday to pass an ordinance authorizing Mayor Parker to implement a voluntary/involuntary furlough program for non-classified municipal employees. Working together with HOPE union leadership, the Mayor announced a voluntary furlough plan Friday, December 3, 2010. Through sufficient participation in the voluntary program, the Mayor hopes to limit the need for an involuntary furlough program to be instituted in the second half of the fiscal year 2011 (January 1 through June 30).

Metro is getting $50 million from the feds to expand rail in Houston. I'd paste the press release here, but for some reason, instead of sending out the release as actual text, it came as a typed sheet of paper scanned into a document that was then turned into a PDF. I guess there must be a new intern.

METRO TO RECEIVE $50 MILLION FOR RAIL EXPANSION.pdf

It's time for the annual HAIF predictions thread.

Here's the one from 2009: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/index.php?showtopic=18664

Here's the one from 2010:

My predictions for 2011:

1. The real estate market will remain in the crapper.
   
2. One or more Kardashian will end up under arrest.
   
3. There will be a significant shift in the world on online television streaming: CBS will join either Hulu or AppleTV, or both; or NBC will finally make its shows available for rental on AppleTV.
   
4. Google will dump another significant product, like it did with Wave.
   
5. Sarah Palin's 15 minutes of fame will finally end.
   

What are your predictions for the coming year? Make five before January 1, 2011.

Need some inspiration, you can follow this optional format:

1. Celebrity death prediction
   
2. Political prediction
   
3. Economic prediction
   
4. Technology prediction
   
5. Earthquake/terrorist attack prediction
   

A year ago, HAIFers were asked to make their predictions for 2010 in this thread: How did you do?

My 2010 predictions:

1. There will be some economic recovery, but things will continue to be bad through the end of 2010.
   
2. Yahoo! will cease to exist as it currently is
   
3. E-readers will be the subject of a lot of talk, but won't lead to a renaissance in reading.
   
4. A new social networking site (something like Twitter or Facebook) will rise to prominence.
   
5. Something very bad will happen in Pakistan
   

Results:

1. Debatable. I'm going to mark myself wrong on this one.
   
2. Yahoo! got out of the search biz, and is now just a portal like AOL. I'm going to give myself half credit for this one.
   
3. E-readers remain a novelty, though acceptance is spreading. One right!
   
4. A million social networking sites have popped up, but none has risen to the same prominence as Twitter or Facebook. Wrong.
   
5. Wrong.
   

So how did you do? Here's the 2010 prediction thread: /

And here's the thread where you can make predictions for 2011:

And if you're interested, here is the thread for 2009: