shopping mall rehab

Growing up in a small town on the East Coast, the mall was the groovin' joint, the centralized hub of Friday night activity, the hangout joint. Sure, these were the nostalgic days before Walmart dominated the small towns with big box culture, but hey, you had variety of things to do and goings on.

Now, after living in Columbus and personally seeing the death of an urban center after the downtown mall's demise, I wonder what can be done to reactivate these centers without massive reconstruction? The suburban mall, with its sea of parking, seems to offer hope after seeing the success of such shopping centers as Santana Row, the Groves, or even Easton, where a combination of indoor shopping is joined with street front, 1-2 story retail streets nestled with residentaial apartments, condos, offices, and hotels. This would require a shift in thinking, however, to move away from spattering big box stores on the periphery of the parking lots, dismissing any potential of pedestrian connectivity, and providing strategically placed parking garages to replace the surface parking(goodbye heat islands, hello additional retail leasing sf!). But, the potential is there, we just need to hope that some day mall developers develop some civic-focusded morals ;)

apartment hunting

As a side effect of our evil plan to repopulate SF with midwesterners(its already well underway - see where your co-workers are from!), we've found ourselves constantly cross-referencing craigslist and Google maps to plot out apartment tours. The huge frustration, however, lies in Craigslist's current inability to field multiple locations to a single map, to compare proximity and lay out a set of tours. This might be a result of Google's current capabilities as well, without a quick and easy way to set up multiple searches and persist the results? I'm not pointing fingers, but merely asking if we could all get along...maybe get a place together...spend some quality ti...oh, wow, that got weird ;)

Process Design tools

For whatever reason, I don't know why I am jaded with software when it comes to planning tools, especially for easy-to-use dynamic scheduling. Why there doesn't exist a scheduler that quickly lets me pull down a list of team names, lay out a short term workplan, and then automatically propogate their tasklists or calendars is such a void in my head - long term MS Project schedules are great, but 3 week lookaheads are essential as well, especially without spending nights doing excel worplans?

Where's that damn manual...?!

After spending all weekend ripping apart my apartment searching for a manual for a game that was a substitute for another game that I could not find the media for, this started an internal question as to both a) why there is not an online account management system for PC video games (or software in general, for that matter), and why are manuals still included in games, and not just linked off of the web? How many people still honestly read them, and how many trees die for these mini-novels that never see the light of day? I know Steam is trying to change the media delivery system, but could someone please solve and unify the industry to take away these other frustrations?

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reading material for the potty...

Have you ever wondered why Barnes and Noble or Borders never provide reading material in their restrooms?? How insensitive...

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no installation necessary

With this miniaturization of OS's by Apple, Microsoft , and Google, I wonder if we are on track to see the development of computers, cell phones, maybe even gaming consoles merging into a terminal/client relationship, in which the the entire ecosystem of applications for a tiered organization is streamed and tied together? For example, due to hard drive maximization, all of Apple's apps are server-based, and could be streamed to your macbook, your iphone, or whatever other peripherals that they may develop? Would this evolve into pay per use or subscription apps, and a new model of sustained revenue for lesser used but useful software applications? Is it possible by Google, since they do not have a hardware tier?

iTunes, but for software...?

another commute...

While still adapting to the life of a Bay area commuter (after just moving out here a few months ago from car-centric and fuel-guzzling Columbus, Ohio), a host of questions stir within me regarding the Bay area trains:
- why do I have to use a different pass on MUNI, BART, Caltrans, Amtrak, and AC Transit?? (if anyone has been to cities like Taipei recently you can see its a beautiful thing when they are all in sync!)
- with our lawsuit driven world, how do they get by without handrails or protection screens in the subway tunnels, especially with the speed the trains come flying through?
- why is there not one system that runs full circle from SF to San Jose to Oakland???
- has anyone studied piezo-electric generators in the downtown metro stations (just hafta ask :) )?
-wifi on BART (especially on the east bay commutes!)
-the bus from the Coliseum to Oakland airport does not seem to be encouraging growth and connectivity to Oakland(or is that the plan...?)

These are just some lingering questions from a morning commute, in an uncaffeinated state...now to find some coffee!

rentable books

The poor bookworm...why isn't there a Netflix for books? How many of us waste $$$ on books, only to read once and never touch again - architects are exceptionally noteworthy on this (hence so many 'coffee table' design books...), or magazines or manga that need cleaned out every year...think of the paper waste alone!

It exists for videos, games, and porn -There sooo HAS to be a market for this...

mobile cell phone tv

Sony LocationFree or Slingbox tied to a cell phone would be terrific...mobile control of your tv over cell phone data, not trying to locate a wifi point (sorry Steve, they're not everywhere, yet, not even in the valley...)

iTunes Auto?

After a weekend of being inundated with Microsoft Sync commercials, it brings about a question of if/when Apple will take on this competition? From the standpoint of a direct download version of iTunes running through a car's entertainment system, linking up on-demand movies to your dvd player and downloading any song while driving through voice-activation...makes you wonder, eh?

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Convenience

This is a test, but a cool one - I may be a little late here, but in finally installing Flock I am entering an age of convenience, with direct access to sooo many things...not a plug for the browser, which is a nice Mozilla overhead, but the integration to social connections is a statement for life in this day an age. So all I can say is a resounding 'wow'...

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