DWow

Dreamwidth got a big update last night, with new styles (I may pick a new one), updated importer (it won't duplicate entries that you crossposted anymore), and e-mailed comments threading correctly in Gmail.

Coming down the pipeline are an expansion of the current search abilities

In particular, we've made it so that when you create a content filter and add someone to it, you can now set options on which content, exactly, you want to see. For example, with the new system, you can do the following:

• Create a filter, name it 'Tech Stuff'
• Show posts by mark with ANY OF the tags: perl, code, computers, tech
• Show posts in dw_dev posted by a community maintainer
• Show posts in dw_biz
• Show posts in randomstuff with Safe For Work content

Turn Turn Turn

The downtown Metro station I walk through every day is one of four stations getting turnstiles.

You may not realize this, but Los Angeles didn't have turnstiles, or any other sort of fare gates before this.

The LA Metro effectively runs on the "honor system." When it was opened, there was no barrier anywere, just ticket machines in front of a sign that reads "Ticket required beyond this point." A little while ago, when MTA started using TAP cards, they added a few strategic pylons where you could swipe your card. (At Hollywood and Vine, the smaller entryway makes them look kinda like fare gates, but in other stations like Pershing Square, there might be four pylons stretching across a wide-open space.) Periodically, fare checkers will appear on trains to check the fares of riders, or will station themselves at exit points to check the fares of people leaving the station.

Right now, the Pershing Square turnstiles look silly, since they're just kind of sitting in the middle of that huge space, but I guess they'll be putting up barriers to stop that too.

The fare gates have been hotly debated for quite a while, especially during the last two years. The LA Weekly reported in 2007 that the MTA was most likely motivated less by security or fare-evasion concerns and more by the possibility of using the TAP card "to generate more and more cash by creating a 'smart card' debit-card revenue stream." And it's true that leading up to this, the MTA has been replacing all of its paper passes with virtual ones to be stored on TAP cards. Personally, I agree with the one dissenting MTA Boardmember Richard Katz, who has consistently argued that the turnstiles are a boondoggle and that, all things considered, anything that gets a few more Angelenos out of cars is a net gain.

Warehouse 13: Full Inventory—"Resonance" and "Magnetism"

I'm going to go into a bit more detail about the appropriation and misrepresentation of culture and history by looking at the artifacts mentioned in episodes of Warehouse 13. For a brief overview of what I'm talking about in this series, read "An Extraordinary Rendition of History; Items in Warehouse 13 that Don't Belong in "America's Attic". I won't be going into too great detail of research; if I prove something horribly inaccurate, I do so using only minimal Googling. Corrections and clarifications are thus welcome.

I'm doing both together because they're relatively low on things and things to say about those things.

( Spoilers for 'Resonance' )

( Spoilers for 'Magentism' )