Everything we know about traffic-calming is wrong
[www.boingboing.net]

Mind-blowing article about the European and Chinese challenges to the received wisdom on traffic planning and calming, arguing that the separation of peds and cars leads to less-safe streets…

---

HeInventedTheTerm
[c2.com]

A collection of some of those old

• <X> presents in front of <AUDIENCE>;
• <X> makes an emphatic assertion;
• <Y> stands up from the back of <AUDIENCE> and <DEBUNKS>;
• <X> queries this;
• <Z> stands up and points out that <Y> is <GODLIKE AUTHORITY>

stories; there seems to be much other useful stuff at the site.

A lot of the developers and managers at Apple were gathered around watching a presentation from someone about some “wonderful” new product that would save the world. All through the presentation, he had been stating that the product was “object-oriented” while he blathered on…

---

Enormous model B-52
[www.mcgirt.net]

Link c/o Jon Katz.

---

Judge defines “Wooden Stick”
[www.enquirer.com]

This is what I love about the American legal system. I especially love that I am mostly far far away from it.

A Cincinnati law governing picketers’ behavior on Fountain Square forbids anyone to use a sign held with a stick.

A U.S. District Court judge temporarily lifted the ban Thursday while the city and a local man battle about whether the law violates a person’s right to free speech.

But Judge Sandra S. Beckwith was quick to add: Any stick used has to meet certain criteria.

It must be wood. It cannot be more than 2 inches wide. It cannot be more than a quarter of an inch thick. It cannot be more than three quarters of an inch in diameter. It must be blunt on both ends.

---

Are all UK SMS text messages being intercepted ?
[www.spy.org.uk]

PUNK rock fan Mike Devine sent an innocent text message containing lyrics by The Clash and was quizzed as a terror suspect after it was INTERCEPTED.

Computer worker Mike, 35, was confronted by a Special Branch cop at his office and taken for a grilling.

He was stunned to be shown a printout of his text which contained the words gun and jet airliner .

Mike, who in his spare time plays bass in a Clash tribute group, had sent the lyric from the song Tommy Gun to a bandmate a month earlier.

---

UK Big Brother Awards 2004 – Wed July 28th
[www.spy.org.uk]

UK Big Brother Awards 2004 – Wed July 28th

UK BIG BROTHER AWARDS 2004

To recognise the villains and heroes of civil liberties

at 7.00 pm, Wednesday 28th July, 2004 With the Big Brother party to follow until late

Presented by Mark Thomas

Featuring the hilarious “Topping & Butch” (‘Best Cabaret’ winners at the London Fringe Awards)

In “The Quad” , Clare Market Building, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, WC2

Awards will be presented for: Worst Public Servant; Most Invasive Company; Most Appalling Project; Most Heinous Government Organisation & Lifetime Menace.

RSVP to Simon Davies: simon@privacy.org Phone 0207 955 6579

---