bshirley

It Burns

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I was… having an enjoyable evening. Exploring my new neighborhood, dining at a new place, enjoying the food, the drink. I stopped into a japanese book store: interesting nick knacks, a nice pen, an intriguing book. I stepped into the japanese market: looked at the deli items, the varieties of fish cake, the baking ware. … Read more

Swift Xcode Asynchronous Testing

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A while back I posted my tweak to some Xcode testing for asynchronous calls. Here’s an update I did in Swift for XCTestCase. extension XCTestCase { /** For use testing async functions. Will wait for completion of the function. You need to provide a test function for when the call is completed. The ultimate timeout … Read more

Mac Black Screen of Death

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After a power outage, my iMac (27″, Late 2012) with macOS Sierra (10.12.2) booted into a black screen with the mouse in the upper left. Notifications seemed to be showing up (as they do on the login screen). Several leads didn’t pan out. Ones that were basically different kind of resets. Mark Gibbs tipped me … Read more

Open Letter on Bike Path Diversion

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Mayor Sylvester Turner
sylvester.turner@houstontx.gov
@SylvesterTurner

Council Member Ellen Cohen
districtc@houstontx.gov
@EllenCohen1

Dear Mayor Turner and Council Member Cohen,

When I read the Chronicle article attached below, I understood the need for a detour around the often used route, and appreciated the thought put into it. It seemed like a good solution.

The article states “The detours will not be continuous, but periodic throughout the construction project when construction nearby could create unsafe conditions along the original bike trails” as well as “the detour and reroute are expected to begin between April and May and will last through the third quarter of 2017.”

However there seems to be either,

  1. a miscommunication,
  2. a failure to execute, or
  3. deception by someone

going on in this situation.

There are already signs up along the path redirecting users to use the detours. They have been up for over 10 days. There is also signage that appears to indicate that cyclists should use the sidewalk on the west side of Houston Avenue as the detour.

This is neither safe, nor acceptable.

I would like to know if the original decision has been changed or if there is a timing and communication failure occurring. Please remedy the situation.

Your Constituent,
Bill Shirley

“Heights Area Bike Trails to be Rerouted to Houston Avenue“, Tara White, Houston Chronicle,  Wed Mar 9 2016

CC:
Council Member Karla Cisneros (as the detour is in your district)
districth@houstontx.gov
@Karla4Houston

Deidrea George, TxDOT Houston Public Information Office (quoted in the article)
Email via web-form
@TxDOTHoustonPIO

Tara White, freelance writer for Chronicle (author of the article)
viewpoints@chron.com
@houstonchron

Read more

Politically Correct Incorrectness

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Recent Reuters coverage by Emily Flitter of the 2016 campaign was asking Donald Trump supporters why they liked and supported Trump. Many of the answers were “he’s not Politically Correct”, that he “says what he thinks, I like that, he’s not political [sic] correct”, “he’s not afraid to say what he thinks”, and “he’s speaking for … Read more