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This morning’s news in Costa Rica are a little disappointing given the current state of world affairs. While the government’s ombudsman flatly rejected the concession (Spanish) to conduct a feasibility study on a metropolitan electric light rail system, plans are underway to build overpasses, underpasses (Spanish) and highways for petroleum-guzzling vehicles from one coast to the other.

Exhibit A: The Growing Problem 

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m no fan of traffic congestion, but adding highways, lanes and overpasses to solve a traffic problem is akin to buying a bigger belt to solve an obesity problem. With fuel prices going through the roof at a frantic pace, and this country producing exactly zero barrels of oil per year, you’d think the highest possible priority would be to alleviate that immense burden on the economy.

Exhibit B: The Admittedly Old-School, Yet Unabashedly Practical Solution 

Reviving the coast-to-coast cargo/passenger train, plus adding a light rail urban network on existing tracks (or at least the free land that they’re on), would go light-years towards both alleviating traffic congestion and the yearly petroleum bill. And that’s just on the transportation end of things — don’t get me started on the electricity generation hoopla going on down here.

Jeff :: Apr.30.2008 :: Livin' in Costa Rica :: No Comments »

Jeff :: Apr.29.2008 :: Interesting Stuff :: No Comments »

…when you can launch 10 of them at once? Leave it to resourceful, highly intelligent Indians (yes, the ones from India, sheesh) to figure out how to make do with the resources you have. The Indian Space Research Organization set a new world record for multiple satellite launches (in the Launch section, next to “longest distance milk has been launched from someone’s nose”) with their Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Reading it, it’s actually kinda cool… but I wonder how many Indians are pissed off that their government can launch 10 satellites but can’t get running water and there’s a food shortage.

Jeff :: Apr.28.2008 :: News 'n' Commentary :: No Comments »

Believe it or not, spam is 30 years old… on May 1, 1978, a mass ARPANET message was sent from DEC promoting their new servers, a flagrant violation of ARPANET rules at the time (back then the Internet was for U.S. government purposes only). The original e-mail and reaction are pure gold.

Jeff :: Apr.25.2008 :: News 'n' Commentary :: No Comments »

This latest bungle by D.C. shows why Wesley Snipes wasn’t too eager to pay his taxes… may as well be flushing the money down the toilet.

Three streetcars purchased [3 years ago] by the District of Columbia for about $10 million are being held in the Czech Republic until the city builds tracks for the cars.

I suggest that the streetcars are donated down here to Costa Rica — we have an urban rail system, complete with tracks and stations, badly needing modern streetcars.

Jeff :: Apr.24.2008 :: News 'n' Commentary :: No Comments »

Looks like piracy is alive and well… I covered this topic before but this time German warships helped a Japanese tanker. This kind of German-Japanese love fest hasn’t been seen since, um, the last time they got together to try to kick our collective asses.

Jeff :: Apr.23.2008 :: News 'n' Commentary :: No Comments »

With Celebrations (and riots) like this you’d think the Habs already won the Stanley Cup. Hold your horses, you’ll have to face either the Flyers or the Rangers and they’re going to be much harder than the Bruins (which took 7 games to take down). I hope the Habs make it back into the Finals though, to face Calgary (I know, longshot) in a 1989 repeat.

Jeff :: Apr.22.2008 :: Interesting Stuff :: No Comments »