I've been moderating the beta posts off-topic as well.

Horizontal space really is not that hard -- just resize your browser window if you don't want text over all 1920 pixels of width.

Perhaps if one of your friends comments on that status and they are friends with your non-friend coworkers, your coworkers can then view your status. I haven't verified this, but developments in Facebook's privacy policy make it seem plausible at least.

I don't like it either. Whenever I ride in the US, its always in the street or on a bike lane. The only reason you would find me on a sidewalk is if it is deserted and the street traffic is dangerous. This isn't to say that people don't ride on the sidewalk in the US. Certainly the law says bikes belong on the road, but in many places that official location for bikes is far from safe.

This Summer I'm in Japan for a short internship, and by all accounts it is the safest place I have lived. I guess when my biggest complaint is that bikers on the sidewalk render me uncomfortable, it is a good sign.

I too love my bike. In every city I've lived in the law is either to ride on the sidewalk or bike lines are increasing at a surprising pace.

In Atlanta I had a six mile commute and only a bare area of that was without a bike lane, and a good portion of it was through a lovely scenic park. Of course such a commute would not be possible without a shower at work. Showers for employees is a requirement of LEED office buildings, and many are built at least to the minimal LEED requirements these days.

To be on topic, parking is free and easy to find almost everywhere on a bike. Even where there are no bike racks, a street sign or a small tree will do most of the time for securing your ride.

This obviously doesn't solve the issue of a corrupt or poorly-outsourced running of public resources, but I'm not wholly against anything that will push us away from an absurd amount of privately owned vehicles.

I'd like to share a short personal anecdote here.

In Philadelphia, where I live, access to fresh produce is a large problem. Even in the city center we are limited to a very few expensive supermarkets. In the poorer areas of the city, sometimes all that exists within a reasonable area is a small corner store, and these stores do not exactly contain an abundance of healthy choices. Their signs advertise cigarettes, alcohol and bread as their staple products.

I've spoken with a few small grocery store owners who are in a program run by the city to help provide incentives to carry more products, including some fresh vegetables and fruits and sometimes small takeaway foods. But by and large, whole areas of the city seem derelict of proper nutrition. Its bad enough for government to intervene in providing what is necessary for a healthy diet and survival.

If you don't mind, I'd love to see these letters posted to Wikileaks.

A

I'm currently in architecture school, and the expectation at both of the universities I have attended is to stay up all night for days at a time, especially during mid-reviews and final reviews. As for whether it increases creativity, it certainly does up to a point. A small anecdote, if I may be allowed: During my second year in architecture school I had a professor that gave us absurd amounts of work above and beyond that of the other studio sections. Her justification? So that we would learn work ethics even if it meant staying up all night. She even had a definition for the all-nighter. According to her, if we had time to go home and take a shower, it was not a true all-nighter. The other thing I can say is that this semester, now in grad school half-way across the country, the all-nighter is just a prevalent or more so. It's the nature of architecture school. I ended up sleeping for 2-3 hours a day for almost two weeks towards the end of the semester, and eventually, with enough sleep deprivation you become despondent, and its time to put your head down or go home and get some rest so you can actually be productive. Both of these cases were somewhat extreme. There have been tales on various architecture forums of schools trying to ban all-nighters, but the expectations of perfection, extreme amounts of production, and a project constantly in flux never go away, so the all-nighter won't either. Even at Georgia Tech which touts its 24 hour access to the architecture building and its resources (even parts of the wood shop), the administration gets nervous when people move cots and couches into the building. I think I've ranted enough on the subject, but if anyone wants to start a thread, lets do it.