Good, Better, Best Streets

Consider Good street, Better street, and Best avenue. The first two ran east from Aberdeen street one and two blocks respectively south of Polk street. They were only a block long. The first was rechristened Hope street in 1935 and is now known as Cabrini street. Best avenue [named Wilton avenue in 1937] is two blocks long running south from Diversey next east of the elevated railroad.

Walter B. Smith

It looks like Better street is now known as Arthington street.

And, here is something that is awful, horrible, embarassing, exploitative, and should be illegal:

Anyone want to step up and explain the difference to me?

February 7, 2005, 10:15 AM

DETROIT (AP) — Karl Haas, who brought classical music to millions of daily listeners through his syndicated radio program, “Adventures in Good Music,” has died, according to the station that produced his program.

Karl Haas was a regular guest at my family’s dinner table when I was young. Usually when we’d just finished eating, just after clearing the plates, we’d sit at the table and the opening chords of his show’s theme would begin to play. There’d be a moment when the three of us would fall silent and just listen.

The article goes on to suggest darkly that Google hasn’t acted against comment spam because of their financial stake in Blogger, but I think this is unlikely — I think it’s just a very hard problem. Staying ahead of a motivated attacker is nearly impossible, as countless computer security experts will attest — close one hole and a motivated attacker will just find another. I looked for a reference to this idea on Bruce Schneier’s site, but I couldn’t find one.

It’s the evil-Universe doppleganger of Open Source software development: not only do we have “given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow,” but also “given enough spammers, all opportunities will be exploited.” It’s the same everywhere — a truly determined attacker, no matter how many holes you plug, will find a new hole.

It’s not enough to blacklist commenters, to bayesian sort your email, to digitally-rights-manage your music, to X-ray every bag at the airport. Motivated parties will find a new way, a new method, a new weakness to exploit. There just isn’t a long-term technical solution, as far as I can see.

I shrugged it off, back in 1994, but maybe spam is going to turn out to be a big problem.

The best thing I saw in NYC was the public library, specifically, the Newton exhibit. If you’re at all the kind of person who would totally spazz out upon seeing, for instance, a first edition of the Principia interleaved with Newton’s handwritten notes for the second edition, you should certainly go.

And, if like me, you found the scene in Quicksilver where Newton stuck a knitting needle in his own eye unbelievable, you will be thrilled to see the actual notebook he was taking notes in while he was doing it, along with a hand-drawn diagram of where he was putting that needle.

It’s on until February 5th.

I spent a little time yesterday mourning the loss of my old hot dog stand, from back when I lived at the Camel Clutch — which is also going away. Sim and Sue’s (I never met Sue) nourished and sustained me for a year, and I think I can blame at least part of my post-college increase in stature on those fries. Oh, those fries. I haven’t yet found a new stand with the charm of Sim and Sue’s , and I don’t think I ever will.

And the Camel Clutch, well, I’ll miss it too. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Burdick.