May 4, 2012

There were 7 posts published on May 4, 2012 (this is page 1 of 1).

Tidal wave of cool

I’ve been considering all of the cool little projects that are going on in Raleigh: Artsplosure, Hopscotch, CityCamp, SparkCon, First Friday, Kirby Derby, the Benelux Cafe Cycling Club, TriangleWiki, 1304 Bikes, Music on the Porch, Little Raleigh Radio, Oak City Cycling Project, greenways, a future whitewater park, a skate park, and many, many others. Each of these is a decent project on its own. Each creates its own little ripple. In Raleigh right now, these little ripples are coming together with other ripples to create little waves. Those little waves will combine with other little waves to make big waves, and soon those big waves will come together to create one gigantic wave that can’t be ignored.

Few might be paying attention now, but the waves are building that will soon wash over Raleigh in a tidal wave of cool.

Oskar Blues coming to NC

Oskar Blues's G'Knight

Hot on the heels of two other breweries moving into the North Carolina mountains, Colorado-based Oskar Blues announced that it will be building a brewery in Brevard, NC:

In a statement released late Tuesday, founder Dale Katechis, a mountain biking enthusiast, said he has kept a bike in Brevard, on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest, for years, and travels there frequently to go mountain biking and to attend the annual Mountain Song Music Festival.

“This place rings true with the same eclectic mountain charm that inspired Oskar Blues to put Dale’s Pale Ale in a can back in the day in Lyons,” Katechis said in a statement announcing his plans.

I’d never heard of Oskar Blues’s beers until Kelly and I enjoyed a pint of Gordon (now G’Knight) in Fredericksburg’s Capital Ale House. I remember that it tasted amazing. That beer will forever hold a special place in my heart.

Welcome to North Carolina, Oskar Blues! I hope to visit your brewery when it opens!

Statement from Adam Yauch’s publicist

Here’s this morning’s statement from Adam Yauch’s publicist, Nasty Little Man PR.

It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Yauch taught himself to play bass in high school, forming a band for his 17th birthday party that would later become known the world over as Beastie Boys.
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RTP reset

Yesterday there was yet another massive traffic jam on I-40 in RTP. Commutes that usually take 30 minutes took three times as long. I was fortunate that it was a day that I work from home, but thousands of others weren’t so lucky. I don’t know anything that could have better validated my earlier thoughts on RTP being doomed.

Today’s N&O editorial echoed my earlier thoughts, though I found a contradiction. The N&O says RTP seeks to urbanize, yet it’s still touting its “large amounts of green space.” You can’t have it both ways! You can’t have density and not have density. Right now RTP has little to no density and the odds of it achieving any are slim to none.

In short, RTP is a losing model. RTP may die a slow death, but it will die. After sixty years of service, it’s time for RTP to retire.

The park’s model has become an American classic – large, woodsy, campus-like settings where companies and agencies have plenty of elbow room. Its founders took advantage of the synergy derived from the surrounding constellation of major universities.

Chemicals, computers, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, environmental sciences – these have been the park’s backbone, and its prosperity has driven growth throughout the Triangle, especially in North Raleigh, Cary and southern Durham.

But if companies like IBM, Nortel and Glaxo were the anchors, the park has had to adjust as those companies have evolved or (as in Nortel’s case) faded from the scene in the face of new technologies. And what used to be an attractive sense of isolation from hectic commercial corridors has become, in some people’s minds, more detriment than advantage.

via RTP reset – Editorials – NewsObserver.com.

Cheap thoughts: medical care reverse auction


Joseph Ness’s recent series on profits in supposedly non-profit hospitals in the News and Observer is some great reporting. I was glad to see my neighborhood hospital, WakeMed, was holding its costs down, comparatively speaking.

On my morning walk the other day, I was still steaming about my last doctor’s visit, where my doctor basically sleepwalked through our appointment. Why does it take a medical degree to write a prescription to whatever high-priced drug-du-jour the pharmaceutical companies are pushing? Where’s the curiosity into what might really be going on? If I’m going to pay $150 to see my doctor for all of 15 minutes, what does it take to get his full attention during that time?
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