Viva La Lengua, Viva La Lengua Libre!
The La Lengua Revolutionary Army (LaLeRa) has noted the unprovoked acts of aggression on the part of the San Francisco Association of Realtors to subsume the chosen land of La Lengua into Bernal Heights from the Mission.
(base map courtesy Mission Local & tanks here)
This travesty shall not stand! Please consider these facts:
1) Bernal “Heights”. Heights. (Bernalians, we know this is not of your doing — you are entitled to safe passage.)
2) “Mission” St.
LaLeRa suggests La Lengüense adopt one of these two battle flags to be deployed on sight against any realtor found within our borders:
Or our new standard:
(snake via photobucket)
Viva La Lengua Libre! For Great Justice! La Lengüense, Unite!
Mission in Motion
The Mission in motion, as seen by moving Flickr photographers:
Better yet, watch it grow dynamically (requires a web browser that supports HTML 5 canvas — if you’re using IE, don’t bother.)
In dots aren’t your thing, you can watch the vectors.
Burrito Justice reader Concerned Guajolote was kind enough to write a script to parse Eric Fischer’s geotagged photo data, details here. CG made indexes for the top 100 cities in Eric Fischer’s geotagged atlas, so if you are handy with both the latitude and longitude, you can see your city in motion using this URL syntax.
Added bonus — Active Pass, on the ferry route between Victoria and Vancouver where several hard turns are made between narrow island straights.
(Click on image to see dots in motion, or here for vectors.) For some perspective, here’s a map, as well as some aerial shots on Flickr. And a couple of representitive shots (links in images). It’s pretty narrow:
The ferries pass close enough for people to wave at each other.
This is looking to the east.
Zoom on the pass itself (click to see dots in motion, or the vector version)
I don’t think I can embed HTML 5 frames, so here’s a slowed down video version:
Thanks to Concerned Guajolote once again for the post-processing.
Definitely worth taking the ferry in the summer – it’s rather glorious. But do call ahead and get a reservation (or take the bus onto the ferry) or you’ll easily have a 2 or even 3 ferry wait at either end.
Chalky History
This is awesome. I’m flattered.
URLs are hard to write in chalk, so here’s the post they’re referencing.
Before:
After:
The World According to Flickr
Quick, what’s this? Ants?!? It had better not be ants. Fuck do I hate ants.
Hmm, this is looking more familiar (hint: tilt your head).
Another hint (if you don’t get this one, you’re out):
If you are guessing “Eric Fischer” and “Flickr” you are correct! They are from a world map made from geotagged photos. (Maps above are the American west (Sierras to Rockies), the west coast of North America, and the UK to Italy).
The darkest pixels are where a geotagged picture was posted in May, 2004, the oldest data I have, and get lighter and lighter by month for places where the oldest available picture is more and more recent. The areas that are totally white have no geotagged pictures at all.
Eric once again delivers a unique and practical algorithmic approach, shading the data by age — otherwise the map would be a dark, swarming mass (and entirely too ant like).
Three Frames
How did I not know about Three Frames before? Somewhat disturbing 3-frame animated GIFs from movies.
Anyway, they were kind enough to include frames from Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus. (I took the liberty of removing the pan in the original shot to enhance the bridge-chomping greatness. This only took me several days — anyone know of an app that makes it easier to nudge frames in a film clip? Maddening.)
Note how the shark has carefully planned his attack to take out the cyclists on the west side of the bridge first. Mega Shark is clearly not in favor of the Noe Valley Plaza.
We have covered giant animal attacks at length in the past, including MSvGO and laser walrus. But Peter Hartlaub brings up a good point — where are the attacks on Sutro? Is our favorite telecommunications tower that intimidating of a target?
BARTagonal
Hmm. Dulay Lines? Or a little known piece by Theo van Doesburg?
Fans of Tufte will immediately recognize it. If you guessed something transportation related, you are correct. The great dataplotter Eric Fischer has once again wrangled meaning out of a hapless API: The chart above shows BART train movement between Millbrae (top) and Richmond (bottom) between 7:30 AM to 9:30 AM on July 2. The entire day along with Eric’s comments are available on Flickr.
(I find the thought of a Muni version of this chart mildly terrifying.)
On a side note, Eric is in print! His tourist vs local mapping made the Boston Sunday Globe! Congratulations!
Serpentine Politics
Once again, Los Angeles is attacking San Francisco. California State Senator Gloria Romero (East LA) has sponsored a bill (SB 624) that would remove serpentine as California’s state rock. She said:
“This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Serpentine contains asbestos, a known carcinogen. Toxic materials have no place serving as emblems for the State.”
(Warning: long, nerdy, hopefully accurate science talk ahead.)
Serpentine, common in California and rare elsewhere, was designated as our state rock in 1965. Why? According to the original bill, “It is a host rock for the state’s newest and most rapidly growing mineral industry – asbestos, now bringing in several millions of dollars annually.” (Yet another tidbit I learned this evening — California was the first to designate a state rock.)
Now I know you are thinking, “Hey, I just checked out the GeographCA iPhone app and a huge swath of serpentine (dark green) bisects San Francisco.”
But some clarification is in order — not all serpentine is asbestos. No need to evacuate Potrero and Hunter’s Point. In fact, little serpentine is in asbestos form.
Warning: IANAG (I am not a geologist) but (fortunately?) for you the internet allows me to bring geological prowess directly to you.
- I always thought asbestos was one particular mineral but it’s the long and fibrous crystal form of several different minerals.
- Amphiboles and chrysotile serpentine are the two most common types of asbestos — they were considered the miracle minerals of their day given their strength and heat resistance.
- Asbestos is dangerous in powered form when airborne. Some consider chrysotile asbestos “safer” than amphiboles. Others disagree.
- There are 20 “blends” of serpentine. The most common types of serpentine — antigorite (hard, dark green) and lizardite (scaly and whiteish) — are safe.
- Chrysotile is sometime found as veins within serpentine deposits.
Electron scans show the difference.
(Images via Geology of the Golden Gate Headlands and University of Arizona)
So not all serpentine is asbestos. Lounge of the Lab Lemming summarizes the imprecision of the bill:
- There are 20 forms of serpentine, only one of which is an asbestos mineral.
- The very dangerous amphibole asbestos minerals specifically mentioned in the bill are completely unrelated to serpentine.
- Safety disclaimer: The inhalation of ANY rock dust is harmful to the lungs. Asbestos dust is particularly dangerous. Do not breathe rock dust.
I’ve been trying to find a map of the various flavors of serpentine in SF but with little luck. The SF USGS Google Earth layer doesn’t break it down, and neither Wakabayashi’s “Contrasting Settings of Serpentinite Bodies, San Francisco Bay Area” nor the Geology of the Golden Gate Headlands specify the regional makeup. A 100 year old report by the American Philosophical Society breaks down San Francisco’s serpentine by molecule but nothing specific around chrysotile.
There are already regulations on the books — the California EPA recommends that serpentine not be used to surface roads because the potential for asbestos dust but the risk seems to vary by location.
Senator Romero’s well-meaning but imprecise bill and statements have caused controversy amongst California geologists.
Geotripper extends Senator Romero’s overly broad statement to other dangerous state symbols:
California Poppies, our state flower, contain some morphine and codeine, the raw materials for making heroin, an illegal drug. Therefore “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. California Poppies contain morphine and codeine, illegal drugs. Illegal materials have no place serving as emblems for the State.” Let’s get rid of poppies as our state flower…
Grizzly bears killed hundreds and hundreds of Native Californians and Mexican-Americans in the early history of the state. So… “This bill is about raising awareness to protect the health of our citizens. Grizzly bears contain teeth and claws, known killers of people. Toxic animals have no place serving as emblems for the State.” Let’s eliminate the California Grizzly Bear as our state mammal.
Oh, wait. We did one better: we eliminated the California Grizzly Bear instead. The last one was shot in the 1920’s.
Geotripper concludes:
I do not want to belittle the problem of asbestos, lung cancer, and mesothelioma. These are serious enough issues, but going after serpentine is misguided, and I believe, actually hurting the effort at raising awareness of the connections between the two.
Andrew Alden has more, including the potential legal consequences: (bold emphasize is mine)
As any geologist will testify, there is no such mineral as “chrysotile asbestos”; neither does serpentinite always contain chrysotile, which is not in itself asbestos.
I use the word “testify” because a legislatural finding has legal weight, and the mesothelioma legal industry is both wealthy and running out of legitimate victims to make money from. The old cases of heavy industrial exposure to powdered asbestos are near extinction. New cases will have to come from the far more nebulous situations where people in or near areas of serpentinite will claim damages purely from fear of “asbestos.” This is not at all unlikely. The legislature is about to make a mistake it will regret, and only the lawyers will benefit.
The bill has already passed the CA Senate, but has yet to be approved by the House or the Governor. (It already has a hashtag of #CAserpentine.)
But if they DO decide to spend time thinking about a new state rock instead of passing a budget, I hereby nominate chert.
Bernal King
Tyranny of the Valley
The Tea Party, alive and well in Noe Valley:
Unfortunately for the screamers, many in Noe Valley do want to try a temporary plaza. And the volume that this hysterical naysaying minority goes to against a temporary, reversible plaza tells me one thing — it is a good idea and will make Noe Valley a better place.
But I am most disappointed in Bevan Dufty. You let decibels shut down debate. You should be ashamed.
From an open letter to Bevan from Noe Valley resident Mike Underhill:
“Many of us went to last night’s meeting so that we could listen, learn and participate in this experiment we call representative democracy. What we saw and were forced to endure was instead a staged, choreographed, and role-assigned Tea Party-style, Fox News and town hall ‘meeting’ inspired takeover of a public forum by the “No Plaza” screamers, shouters and their organizers. Not only were the meeting’s sponsors (you, among others) shouted down, but citizens like myself were told to “shut up,” sworn at, and called various names that don’t merit repeating. The very fact that you even publicly referred to how it would appear if the police were called says it all.
But what troubles me most: it worked…”
“So I’ll end with three questions: What kind of leader are you and what kind of leader do you want to be? How will you respond to a small band of screamers who act like little more than grown-up bullies? And most importantly, will you lead on our behalf?”
Noe Plaza: Just try it! You might like it. Sign the petition here.
And Antiplazanistas: Your reaction makes it seem like all of 24th from Church to Castro will be one long, giant greenspace. (You’re just lucky I don’t turn it into a canal.)
Signs of Airlines Past
Mission travel agency signage = airline history.
50-50 odds, it seems.
Truly “imperial” travel would have been on BOAC, however. And it kills me that Aeroflot outlasted Pan Am.
I love the jaunty Valencia.
Burrito Justice 
