Archive for the 'calgary' Category

The duck has posted some photos of our apartment on Flickr in a panomara style. We really like it there sitting in the Poäng, having a nice view and living in the center of Calgary.

Please, excuse if this blog comes down to a place of personal ranting, however, dear readership, as an auto-therapeutic practice preventing further harm or damage i need to share my frustration about the website of Calgary’s transportation company with you. I have written it all up as a customer feedback email, that i actually sent them.

Dear web team of Calgary Transit,

I value very much the existence of public transport, even when there may be some service irregularities, and I think Calgary Transit is a valuable part of the city’s life. However the CT website has very fundamental shortcomings. In fact, looking up connections and bus schedules on the CT website is an extraordinarily frustrating experience. Being forced to enter bus stops or road names in a specific way and even when entered correctly being told that there are technical difficulties is just not acceptable. Furthermore the site is very slow and it is not possible to bookmark certain connections or bus stops. There are many other things I could mention, but I am certainly not the first one to complain. I just don’t understand how Calgary Transit - the transport company of such an economically thriving city - gets by with this kind of service. What are the plans? When will this problem be solved? Would you consider putting the route data on Google Transit? I would really appreciate any clarifying answers on this. Thank you.

Today it occurred to me (again) that urban planning and city lifestyle weaves itself like a red thread through many contemporary issues. In the previously mentioned CBC radio programme it was discussed that among other factors, the location where one lives in the city and the fact whether certain services and shops are within walkable (or public transport) distance seem to have quite an impact on one’s health and happiness. Tonight the editor and founder of WorldChanging Alex Steffen gave an inspiring and motivating talk about interesting ideas for how to address global warming and the general disconnect between humankind and earth. Check out his TED talk on similar things. He talked about all kinds of ideas, products and services that make a contribution by contributing less waste or emissions and by using up less resources. Great examples are sharing of cars, tools, and even handbags. When asked what he considers the three major innovations, he responded with a list of interventions and named urban planning as the first one. While i am not sure whether it is interesting what some urban planners are doing, i certainly think that what they should be doing is worth taking a closer look.

D’Arcy Norman writes about his bicycling experience in Calgary. Interesting observation among others that i’d like to second:

The likelihood of a vehicle displaying a yellow “support our troops” sticker/ribbon seems to be directly proportional to the size of the vehicle. I haven’t seen one on a Prius.

This is also a good occasion to point out that there is a monthly Critical Mass ride in Calgary every last Friday 5:30 pm at Eau Claire Plaza. I have attended the last one and met quite a few friendly people – on bikes.

Heute tagsüber war es noch sonnige 22° C und jetzt kurz nach Mitternacht schneit es und die Temperatur liegt um den Gefrierpunkt. Das ist allerdings nicht nur dem Temperaturunterschied zwischen Tag und Nacht geschuldet. Heute gab es nämlich Föhn zum Mittag direkt von den Rocky Mountains. Die Calgarianer nennen das dann Chinook.

Now that i have velocipede and shared flat in Calgary – where i am now until spring – i started biking around with my GPS logger on. When i arrive at the university i upload the tracks to OpenStreetMap, add the missing streets and bike tracks. The latter seem to be kind of under-represented probably due to the marginal role of bicycles in Calgary’s commute. So if you have a bike and plan on getting involved with GPS consider contributing to this great open data project, too.

I’m about to be on my way to Banff and Calgary to attend the World Wide Web conference and to transmit birthday wishes to the duck. On the Atomique blog you can read why i am quite happy to be able to attend this conference.

Sozusagen Kamrans partner in crime in Sachen Fotographie, macht Jens sehr ästhetische Fotos und veröffentlicht sie auch sowohl auf Blipfoto als auch auf Flickr. Jetzt ist er für ein halbes Jahr nach Calgary für ein Praktikum im iLab gegangen und kann das nachholen, was ich letztens ein wenig vernachlässigt habe: schicke Fotos machen.

I am back in Magdeburg and i still want to mention some political, social, and cultural alternatives that can be found in Calgary that is situated in Alberta a rather conservative province of Canada. As i don’t find the time (read: patience in sunny spring) of dedicating proper reviews, just a quick list:

• Haymarket Collective
• Revolutionary Knitting Circle
• Calgary Culture-Jammers
• Critical Mass
• Calgary Activist Calendar
• Higher Ground
• Broken City