{"id":972,"date":"2005-01-28T00:20:56","date_gmt":"2005-01-28T04:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/2005\/01\/28\/c-you-in-about-9-months\/"},"modified":"2008-05-11T12:40:30","modified_gmt":"2008-05-11T17:40:30","slug":"c-you-in-about-9-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/2005\/01\/28\/c-you-in-about-9-months\/","title":{"rendered":"C you in about 9 months…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It’s actually kind of amusing that the original estimates of 3-5 years<\/a> to fix the signal lines on the A\/C trains have been drastically reduced to 9 months (hey – maybe the MTA administration won’t all be getting new automobiles<\/a> this year!). And the only train that has completely stopped service is the C, for now.<\/p>\n

What I find really amazing though, as related in this<\/a> NY Times article, is that our incredibly antiquated transportation system (101 years old) may actually be a benefit in this situation (an extremely slow benefit, but still). I mean, if the entire system was dependent on computers and conductor-less trains (which they were going to start testing next year), there’s no way that they could engage in the kind of stop-gap measures they’re engaging in now.<\/p>\n

\n

Men with pencils and walkie-talkies tell the operators to stop and go. Motormen themselves pull levers on the tunnel walls to unlock emergency brakes. And workers flash lanterns and blow whistles to clear the tracks. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s like a chapter from Atlas Shrugged.<\/p>\n

Of course, if the entire system was computer-based, with off-site redundancies, it’s possible that one fire would probably not completely destroy the entire signaling system. So maybe it’s a wash.<\/p>\n

Side Note: You may notice that I haven’t been posting too much about politics these days. It’s certainly not because I don’t care, and I’ve been keeping up with all of the latest stories (from Social Security to Spongebob), but I just don’t have enough energy to analyze at length about it these days (and the Political Scientist in me, I need to analyze if I’m going to write about stuff). Frankly, there are a lot of other bloggers who say things much more eloquently than I do, and are more widely read, and by the time I get home at the end of the day, everything that I’d want to say has been said, tenfold. I’ve been using the sideblog to post links to the items that are still important to keep an eye on, and I’ll certainly post about the administration’s latest shenanigans (ooh, they found a 3rd guy on the payroll? shocking! not.) when the inspiration strikes, but I need to divest myself, at least slightly from the 24\/7 political news cycle. Because, while I’m a computer nerd at heart, I do have a life, and a job, and an overwhelming desire to take naps sometimes. I’m not saying that the blogging is going to slow down per se, just that the focus may shift a bit from where it was in the months preceding and immediately following the election to something a little more…frivolous.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s actually kind of amusing that the original estimates of 3-5 years to fix the signal lines on the A\/C trains have been drastically reduced to 9 months (hey – maybe the MTA administration won’t all be getting new automobiles this year!). And the only train that has completely stopped service is the C, for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[14,3],"class_list":["post-972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-new-york-city","tag-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6ZBi-fG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.very-simple.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}