Pick a random spot on a slide-rule. You are more likely to hit a region where the mantissa starts with 1 than any other region. And as posters have already pointed out, a base-2 slide-rule would guarantee that the first digit is 1. There is nothing magic about Benford's law, it only shows that random numbers based on measurements are logarithmically distributed.

1. San Francisco prohibits new parking lots, and the city voted for anti-parking (A) and againt pro-parking propositions (H) on last year's ballot . So don't count on more parking lots.

2. The "bridge & tunnel" crowd may check their cell phones before they drive to the City, and see that there is no parking, so might just give up on the trip altogether. I certainly have been guilty of driving up from the Peninsula and not been able to find a parking place in the Mission after driving around for 20 minutes and just giving up (and going elsewhere).

3. The key piece of this technology is that is designed for parking ticket enforcement, to generate additional revenue for the city. The city will be able to see globally where all the expired meters are and will be able to more efficiently give out tickets for expired meters.