Veritas et Venustas

Finally, a Starbucks to love

THIS ROOM is upstairs at the new(ish) Starbucks in Harvard Square. It has a great view of the square, chairs set up along the window to look out at the square, and decor that has virtually none of the old Starbucks look. That's a good thing.

BTW, the floorboards are recycled, and there are a lot of recycled materials in the store.

¡Hip Hip Jorge!

It's sad to see Jorgie go. He came up in 1965 with Captain Jeter, Andy Pettite and Saint Mo, and the Yankees went to the World Series 5 times in the next 6 years, winning 4 of them. Then they went again 2 years later, and finally won again when they beat the Phillies in 2009 with Jorgie catching - so he has 5 rings and 8 appearances.

He's on the cusp of being a Hall of Famer. You might not think so looking at his individual years, but only a handful of catchers have better career numbers. Of course one of those is 3-time MVP Yogi Berra, who won 10 rings playing with the Yankees and 3 more as a coach with the Yankees and the Mets.

This YouTube video shows Jorgie getting the hit that clinched the the AL East at the end of a tough season for him. Watching at the time, you knew it was a hit the second his bat hit the ball.

Modernism is the Old New

pass it on

Blame the Architect, The Video

UPDATE: "Riots always happen when cities consider themselves to be at a high point in terms of their urban development," says Dutch architectural historian Wouter Vanstiphout, speaking to me from his home in Rotterdam. "We've studied riots in every decade since the 1960s, and every time you can see that the officials of the city felt that on a planning level they were doing the most fantastic things." - Kieran Long, "What now for the regeneration of London?," London Evening Standard, August 17, 2011.

Vanstiphout is the Dutch professor who made the video below, as well as the author of the quote here about high-rises and violence. In Lecture 1 part 3, he introduces New Urbanism, 'the true believers.'"

"Somehow there's always been this relationship between high-rises and violence."

“Le Corbusier called houses “machines for living.” France’s housing projects, as we now know, became machines for alienation,”Christopher Caldwell, "Revolting High Rises," New York Times, November 25, 2005.

There are more parts of the lecture here. And the Design As Politics blog is here.

OpenStreetMap, The Video

An open source competitor to Google Maps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Street_Maps

http://www.openstreetmap.org/