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Cichlidae posted:Jeez, that plan for Berlin... assuming the model on the right is to scale, the Volkshalle would be about twice as tall as the Eiffel Tower. That's hard to even imagine! The Brandenburg Gate is UNDERNEATH THE GIANT ARCH STRUCTURE in the middle
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 02:39 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:10 |
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kefkafloyd posted:As long as you don't retain any form of unique identifier from the phone, it should be OK, I think. Not really, no: quote:The call logs—which identify the towers used to transmit calls—allowed the researchers to trace each individual’s commute, anonymously, from origin to destination. It is impossible to keep anonymity when you can see someone leave their home, arrive at work, and go back home after 8 hours. Just because the record you have on someone doesn't have their name, doesn't mean you can't effortlessly find out who they are or what they are up to when you can track them. Hell, birthdate, gender and zip code is all you need to pin down someone from anonymized medical records.
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 05:10 |
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will_colorado posted:The Brandenburg Gate is UNDERNEATH THE GIANT ARCH STRUCTURE in the middle Wasn't Berlin built on top of a marsh? Wouldn't there be an upper limit as to how heavy you can build, before the structures could not be prevented from sinking?
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 05:21 |
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will_colorado posted:The Brandenburg Gate is UNDERNEATH THE GIANT ARCH STRUCTURE in the middle Oh sweet lord I totally missed that.
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 06:39 |
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Hedera Helix posted:Wasn't Berlin built on top of a marsh? Wouldn't there be an upper limit as to how heavy you can build, before the structures could not be prevented from sinking? I don't know what kind of geotechnical expertise they had back then, but there are plenty of ways to get around unstable ground. A bigger question would be, how the hell are they going to build a 2000-foot dome?
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 12:16 |
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Cichlidae posted:I don't know what kind of geotechnical expertise they had back then, but there are plenty of ways to get around unstable ground. They actually built a giant concrete block and measured how far it would sink into the ground. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerbelastungsk%C3%B6rper
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 12:27 |
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Terminal Entropy posted:Not really, no: My understanding of Chiclidae's particular implementation they were talking about is that it only tracks when someone enters and leaves a work zone. Presuming that is all it does and it does not record a unique identifier, how could you be identified from that? It's an automation of old-school traffic counters. These two other examples linked were far broader in scope and could store personally identifying information even if it was anonymized.
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 12:34 |
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kefkafloyd posted:My understanding of Chiclidae's particular implementation they were talking about is that it only tracks when someone enters and leaves a work zone. Presuming that is all it does and it does not record a unique identifier, how could you be identified from that? It's an automation of old-school traffic counters. If it's limited only to work zones and the data is properly anonymized, unless you live very close to the work zone it's probably not a privacy concern. That said, Bluetooth fails as a reliable tracking method because it's a low-power protocol by design and doesn't tend to transmit unless it needs to. Unless your phone is in pairing mode or actively transferring data/streaming audio it's not likely to be emitting a BT signal. Basically you'd only see drivers who were talking on hands-free or streaming music/podcasts from their phone. I guess in some areas that might be a large portion of the population, but its hard to tell. WiFi might be better thanks to beaconing and devices trying to attach to any open APs, and of course cellular monitoring would be the most reliable but makes the privacy concerns of Bluetooth pale in comparison. It's also not as easy, a good high-power BT or WiFi transceiver and a few scripts on Linux can do the job there, where cellular monitoring involves a pile of radios across a number of bands. wolrah fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Aug 16, 2013 |
# ? Aug 16, 2013 14:52 |
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will_colorado posted:The Brandenburg Gate is UNDERNEATH THE GIANT ARCH STRUCTURE in the middle Nope, it's to the right of the big mega-dome. This model is photographed with "up" being north. You can see the park (Teirgarten) to the left of the dome and the Reichstag is included in the right hand part of the grand square/courtyard zone in front of the dome. Brandenburg gate is just south east of that, too small to be seen. That new mega-arch could never have been built, the nazi's actually built a massive concrete test slab to see if the marsh could support it, it sunk like 20cm in one year when the max settling allowed was like 1-2cm.
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# ? Aug 16, 2013 17:47 |
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PkerUNO posted:As a counterpoint, you may want to rethink that. Well, those guys were using it commercially, for consumer behavior analysis. that's why people were upset, just as they were when Google was logging every Wifi hotspot their mapmobiles drove past. I'm sure they wouldn't object to the local municipality using the same information for improving traffic. (Would they, though? Big Data, tinfoil hats, etc.) E: Who drives around with bluetooth enabled? That's how you catch cell phone viruses! Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 21:49 on Aug 16, 2013 |
# ? Aug 16, 2013 21:38 |
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Cichlidae posted:I had a webinar about Kansas City today, specifically their smart workzones. One thing that was mentioned, and which we'd considered for our next SWZ, was Bluetooth tracking: you set up a few Bluetooth readers along your work zone, and they contact every Bluetooth-enabled phone that passes by. You can track them origin-destination, get travel times, speeds, all that fun stuff. Doesn't that seem like it would violate privacy, though? It's technically anonymous, and it's something you could do yourself if you had a hundred people sitting around and tracking every license plate that goes by...
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 01:39 |
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grover posted:Could you buy that meta-information from google? They already have implied consent (since it's used for google's traffic), and a ton of data. Google wouldn't have their position info, though, unless they're tracking every individual who is using the navigation app. Which I guess they could be doing, but that's far from a majority of passers-by, I'd bet. On the other hand, telecom companies are wholesaling positioning info all the time, and everyone has a cell phone... Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 15:35 on Aug 20, 2013 |
# ? Aug 20, 2013 15:32 |
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wolrah posted:Basically you'd only see drivers who were talking on hands-free or streaming music/podcasts from their phone. I guess in some areas that might be a large portion of the population, but its hard to tell.
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 16:17 |
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Google wouldn't have their position info, though, unless they're tracking every individual who is using the navigation app. Which I guess they could be doing, but that's far from a majority of passers-by, I'd bet.
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 18:42 |
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GWBBQ posted:Where do you think the data for the traffic layer on Google Maps comes from? That's exactly what they're doing (unless you opt out.) That's also how they get their travel estimates when giving out directions, and a number of other things.
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# ? Aug 20, 2013 20:50 |
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The FHWA is cracking down big time on colored pavement. The rules in the past were pretty lenient and open to interpretation, since you could just argue that any decorative pavement marking isn't intended as a traffic control device, and then it's not under the MUTCD's jurisdiction. Now the FHWA is saying that, if it's in the road, and it catches people's attention, it's going to lower safety. In the past, people (mostly vendors) have claimed that painted crosswalks that incorporate colored pavement are safer for peds, but research hasn't shown that to be true. I uploaded the official policy statement here. Worth a read if you're in the business.
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 01:35 |
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Cichlidae posted:The FHWA is cracking down big time on colored pavement. The rules in the past were pretty lenient and open to interpretation, since you could just argue that any decorative pavement marking isn't intended as a traffic control device, and then it's not under the MUTCD's jurisdiction. Meanwhile in Vancouver, we just installed this.
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 09:36 |
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Cichlidae posted:I uploaded the official policy statement here. Worth a read if you're in the business. Green pavement for cycling lanes? What barbarism is this?
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 09:45 |
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John Dough posted:Green pavement for cycling lanes? What barbarism is this?
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 16:29 |
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Cichlidae posted:The FHWA is cracking down big time on colored pavement. The rules in the past were pretty lenient and open to interpretation, since you could just argue that any decorative pavement marking isn't intended as a traffic control device, and then it's not under the MUTCD's jurisdiction. Aw, there's nothing in there about bike boxes.
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 16:34 |
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Varance posted:It's usually used in high-accident areas where bicycle and automobile traffic cross paths (IE for right turns, like this). He means why not use red, the only legit bikelane color
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# ? Aug 21, 2013 17:15 |
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http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2010/11/22/confessions-of-a-recovering-engineer.html Confessions of a recovering traffic engineer. "In retrospect I understand that this was utter insanity. Wider, faster, treeless roads not only ruin our public places, they kill people. Taking highway standards and applying them to urban and suburban streets, and even county roads, costs us thousands of lives every year. There is no earthly reason why an engineer would ever design a fourteen foot lane for a city block, yet we do it continuously. Why? The answer is utterly shameful: Because that is the standard." I see this a lot, well meaning engineers and towns clinging to traffic engineering orthodoxy and ending up making things worse. And here's a follow-up of a town rejecting traffic engineering orthodoxy and seeing real improvements. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/08/what-happens-when-town-puts-people-cars/6600/ Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Aug 21, 2013 |
# ? Aug 21, 2013 21:37 |
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Kaal posted:That's also how they get their travel estimates when giving out directions, and a number of other things.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 02:54 |
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John Dough posted:Green pavement for cycling lanes? What barbarism is this? Some countries use red, some countries use blue (this sounds like it should be a poem), and some use green. Vancouver apparently can't decide yet so we get a mixture of green and red. Hedera Helix posted:Aw, there's nothing in there about bike boxes. Well, not explicitly, but I'm pretty sure they mean to imply it under the general cycling infrastructure section?
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 07:17 |
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What's the legality of the red asphalt in parts of PA that's red because of the local red shale used for aggregate?
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 10:50 |
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Red is the only proper colour for bicycle lanes.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 11:47 |
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So does the FHWA policy mean that Portland, Oregon has to go and repaint all of its blue bike lanes green?Baronjutter posted:And here's a follow-up of a town rejecting traffic engineering orthodoxy and seeing real improvements. I'm a big fan of these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_street In fact, I honestly think that in cities and towns neighbourhoods should be designed with ultra-slow (7-10km/hr) streets that are safe for kids to play in for residential access, feeding into faster but still significantly calmed (30km/h) collectors, feeding into full-speed (50km/h) arterials, which can if necessary feed into faster roads for longer trips, but these should be rare.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 19:01 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:In fact, I honestly think that in cities and towns neighbourhoods should be designed with ultra-slow (7-10km/hr) streets that are safe for kids to play in for residential access, feeding into faster but still significantly calmed (30km/h) collectors, feeding into full-speed (50km/h) arterials, which can if necessary feed into faster roads for longer trips, but these should be rare. I'm pretty sure Cichildae has talked about this kind of thing road hierarchy before--this is not news. What you put next to those streets is what matters.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 19:15 |
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10 km/hr streets would be ridiculously slow, my car's speedometer doesn't read that low and if I don't ride the brakes it idles more around 25 km/hr as long as I'm not heading uphill.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 20:03 |
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Install Windows posted:10 km/hr streets would be ridiculously slow, my car's speedometer doesn't read that low and if I don't ride the brakes it idles more around 25 km/hr as long as I'm not heading uphill. The whole point is that the street prioritizes pedestrian experience over vehicular to an high level. Imagine driving through a busy parking lot or street market. If it sounds a bit extreme, perhaps it is, but also consider that many, many suburban roads in America prioritize the vehicular experience to pedestrian experience to a high level.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 20:20 |
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Lead out in cuffs posted:So does the FHWA policy mean that Portland, Oregon has to go and repaint all of its blue bike lanes green? That's what it looks like, as they clearly state, "Blue is not a colored pavement and is not to be used as such". It's unclear how these policy changes are expected to be implemented - whether they will grandfather in the existing projects or not. I'm sure that Cichlidae has an idea of how these memos are typically interpreted. Mandalay posted:The whole point is that the street prioritizes pedestrian experience over vehicular to an high level. Imagine driving through a busy parking lot or street market. Yeah the whole idea is that you create pedestrian-friendly areas as well as car-friendly areas. Think the interior of a college campus, where there is vehicular access but minimal through-traffic. I just read a good article on the idea the other day: http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2013/02/nearly-car-free-areas.html Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Aug 22, 2013 |
# ? Aug 22, 2013 20:21 |
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Mandalay posted:The whole point is that the street prioritizes pedestrian experience over vehicular to an high level. Imagine driving through a busy parking lot or street market. That doesn't really prioritize pedestrian experience. It's just a pointless pain. You can walk just as well beside cars going 15-25 as those going 6 mph. You still have to stay pretty much as far away from a car going 6 as those. Where I grew up the speed limit was 25 mph but we had absolutely no problems playing in the street. I see no reason why requiring people going to their driveways to slow down would have improved anything.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 20:25 |
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Install Windows posted:That doesn't really prioritize pedestrian experience. It's just a pointless pain. You can walk just as well beside cars going 15-25 as those going 6 mph. You still have to stay pretty much as far away from a car going 6 as those. I don't see a reason either for 5mph residential roads when you have low-density single-family homes with driveways. aka most of America. I was more thinking of an urban setting with 5 story multifamily dwellings and lots of transit options nearby. Kind of like Shibuya in Tokyo or alleyways and piazzas in Florence.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:08 |
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Mandalay posted:I don't see a reason either for 5mph residential roads when you have low-density single-family homes with driveways. aka most of America. Then there just shouldn't be cars there as a thing on a daily basis, you know? Honestly the whole idea seems like a way to halfass truly excluding the car from daily traffic in a given street. I believe there are already places where you basically need to get specific permission to bring cars onto the street during the day.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:13 |
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Install Windows posted:Then there just shouldn't be cars there as a thing on a daily basis, you know? Honestly the whole idea seems like a way to halfass truly excluding the car from daily traffic in a given street. I believe there are already places where you basically need to get specific permission to bring cars onto the street during the day. Setting a 5 mph speed limit would effectively stop people driving there, unless they really really need to.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:19 |
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Setting a 5 mph speed limit would effectively stop people driving there, unless they really really need to. It really wouldn't. Not letting cars through at all would.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:40 |
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Setting a 5 mph speed limit would effectively stop people driving there, unless they really really need to. Depends, if it's in America or Canada where the cult of the individual reigns supreme, they will just drive it anyways, and probably speed. New suburban concept (you heard it here first) Roadless communities. Large underground garage on the corners of each neighborhood. Green space over garages. Each Neighborhood is a 1km sqare with 8 surronding a centralized comercial zone (Grocery, gas, restaurants). Freight-only road around inside loop, large commuter roads around outside loops. Smooth and wide walking paths to each propery (for moving, large loads) Use a side-by-side for garbage collection and maintainance. Maybe run a strip of commercial between each Neighborhood for other services.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:47 |
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Don't forget, if a road feels and looks perfectly safe, most drivers aren't going to obey political speed limits. The streets them selves need to be designed for low speeds. There's a few roads in my city that for most purposes should really be highways. No driveways, very long gaps between intersections, 3+ lanes. The speed limit is 50k but EVERYONE does 60-70 on them. And without other ways to get around or access an area, setting a brutally low speed limit is just going to piss people off, not really improve the situation. I'm all for "gently caress you, cars!" but there's got to be some carrots to go along with those sticks. A "normal" residential street with parked cars doesn't even need a special speed limit sign, technically they're all 50 here but most everyone will drive 30 naturally due to the street being basically 1 lane and feeling so tight. These streets are perfectly pleasant to walk through, intersections are very frequent and pedestrians always have right of way. What needs fixing are those big ugly fast arterials that ruin neighbourhoods. All you need is a 4 lane road with turning lanes and suddenly the nicest area feels like a nasty car-centric strip mall hell. I'm not an engineer so I certainly don't have any numbers here, but just anecdotaly I always found the nicest locations were places that didn't follow this strict road-hierarchy. Instead of tiny streets feeding into bigger streets feeding into bigger fast nasty streets it's just a grid of medium streets with the traffic sort of evenly distributed everywhere. All the streets share the load so no one area has to become a nasty "stroad". All the roads are about the same width and what varies is street parking or not. Some streets are busier than others so lose parking on one or both sides in exchange for turning lanes at intersections (but not necessarily fully 4 lanes for the whole block). Sometimes you'll get a 1-way street. But you'll never get a big nasty arterial, at worst a sort of mini-arterial that still creates an environment that puts pedestrians first.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:58 |
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A few historic walled cities in Holland that never grew big but are tourist attractions just block all roads into the old city during the day. There's lots of parking space just outside the city. In the evening, delivery trucks etc. can come in. I'm not sure if residents can get through the road barriers at any time with a card or something. Those city centers haven't changed much in centuries, meaning they have really narrow cobblestone roads and lots of centuries-old houses. I can understand why they might not want cars in there, especially when it's full of pedestrian tourists.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 21:58 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:10 |
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Baronjutter posted:"stroad" I know where the term stroad comes from, and I'd like to add "car sewer" to the vernacular of terrible road designations.
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# ? Aug 22, 2013 22:57 |