I roast coffee at home and have been experimenting a lot with ratios and techniques for brewing. I've come to realize that my favorite technique is cold brewing. For home coffee brewing, I think it's underrated. I make a batch on the weekend, and for the rest of the week I have coffee ready to drink whenever I want it. The concentrate can last a long time without any big changes in the flavor profile, and I can make coffee of varying strengths (by adjusting the water dilution). I highly recommend cold brewing at home if you like coffee and have yet to try it.
The area around Mint Plaza in SF, specifically at and around Blue Bottle, does this well. This was achieved by closing off that street to vehicle traffic, and allowing only people on foot and bikes in that area.
I live in SF and have both a personal commuter bike, and a BABS membership. When I factor in the convenience of not having to do any maintenance on the BABS bike, don't have to worry about fixing any flat tires, don't have to worry about theft (a big problem in SF), and can quickly dock a bike where I'm going, $88 a year feels like a very good deal. The only thing preventing me from going 100% BABS is the network of stations in SF is very sparse and located mostly downtown (see: https://twitter.com/ptraughber/status/388368763281625089).
Based on what I saw from researching this piece, many of the drivers in the accidents are professional truck drivers, who typically have a lot more experience and more stringent driver's education requirements. It seems that in a lot of these collisions they simply don't see the cyclist (note that many are during right turns, when a cyclist would fit in the blind spot of a truck). This happens to me constantly, both on my bike and driving a car (not being able to easily see a person on bike approaching from the back right part of my car). I think protected bike lanes would help mitigate that risk in that situation, as an example. And yes, it'd be nice if we didn't require so many streets and vehicles in our dense cities. Vehicles require a lot of space and it'd be a great public benefit if we could use that space for people and figure out a different, efficient way of move people and goods around a city.
People driving cars and people riding bikes are sometimes careless, take shortcuts, and break the rules. We do a lot to deter that behavior (citations, education, public awareness campaigns) but there is always going to be some degree of that no matter how hard we try to avoid it.
What we can do, however, is better design our streets so that this behavior from both people in cars, or bikes, or pedestrians doesn't end in serious injury or death as often as it does today.
Great idea Jonathan. I think a really simple and quick-to-build tool similar to what you suggest would be really helpful in situations like this. Right now people are eager to help out but there isn't a great place to see all of the photos and the best leads/analysis.
It bothers me to continuously see articles with headlines like this. Just look at the comments—it gives false hope to patients and their families. As the author mentioned later in the article, there is a big difference between seeing cancer cells die in a petri dish or reduction in size of a transplanted tumor in mice and it being safe and effective in humans. I hope this succeeds, but it is a long way from a Phase 2/3 clinical trial.
Cancer research is too important to use misleading, link bait headlines to attract attention.