Author Archives: Andy McMillan
1917 Portland—In Color
More upscaled, century-old footage! This time a little closer to home, featuring shots of SW Portland, the US Custom House building, and a sneaky shot of the second Oregon State Capitol in Salem. Related: my previous post on the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, featuring upscaled footage of the suspended railway in Wuppertal, Germany operating in 1902.
Historical Context of Racist Planning in Portland
Buried in a Planning and Sustainability Commission meeting from September 2019 is this excellent presentation from BDS planning assistant Jena Hughes on the “Historical Context of Racist Planning in Portland”. (Hughes’ presentation begins around the 48:57 mark.) It’s a great primer on how we’ve historically used city planning mechanisms like zoning to continually prevent communities …
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Why American Public Transit Is So Bad
A really great primer from Vox on how American public transit got to be the way it is today, and how we can begin to change it. I also took screenshots of the maps mentioned that show bus routes that run “at least every 30 minutes, until midnight, 7 days a week”. Here’s Portland vs. …
The Map
New York City has a new “live” digital subway map, designed by Work & Co. The new map attempts to combine the style of the classic Vignelli map with the Tauranac/Hertz map that replaced it, becoming more geographically accurate as you zoom in; revealing the real-time location of trains, the actual location of lines in …
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life
A month after receiving a fatal diagnosis in January 2015, Oliver Sacks sat down for a series of filmed interviews in his apartment in New York City. For eighty hours, surrounded by family, friends, and notebooks from six decades of thinking and writing about the brain, he talked about his life and work, his abiding …
The Science Behind Nike’s New Marathon Shoe
A surprisingly fascinating deep dive by Wired into how Nike’s new “ZoomX Vaporfly Next%” shoes make runners more efficient, which might finally open up the possibility of an athlete like Eliud Kipchoge running a sub-2 hour marathon.
Bad Bridges
According to a new study conducted by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association, 1 in 3 of America’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the Teddy Roosevelt bridge in D.C., and the San Mateo-Hayward bridge—the longest bridge in California. ARTBA also estimates the cost of the necessary repairs at …
Wheeler Is Illegally Financing His Reelection, And The City Auditor Is Clearing The Way
Yesterday, it was revealed that Portland mayor Ted Wheeler had made an illegal $150,000 personal contribution to his reelection campaign last month, in violation of Portland campaign finance law. On discovering this, I emailed the City Auditor’s office to file a complaint, and received the following reply: The City Auditor’s Office is not currently enforcing …
Duocon 2020
It’s been a little quiet around here the last few weeks—and for good reason. Since last Fall, I’ve been working with the team at Duolingo and leading production on their annual conference, Duocon. Our original plan to fill a warehouse in Brooklyn full of speakers, performers, and attendees … suddenly fell out of vogue earlier …