Tag Archives: Data

The Pittsburgh Tunnel Monster gets national attention?

Posted on by Standard 6

Well, sort of.  The buzz around town on the news & radio lately has been about a survey by a GPS data company called INRIX that calls the sweet spot from Greentree to the Fort Pitt tunnels on the Parkway West here in the ‘Burgh the worst traffic outside of New York or Los Angeles.  Read the Post-Gazette article for all the juicy details.  Here’s an excerpt…

According to INRIX, it takes an average of 13 minutes — nine more than it should — to traverse that stretch. That doesn’t count the time it takes to get there, as morning backups now routinely spill well down the back side of Green Tree Hill and sometimes past Carnegie.

At a delay of nine minutes a day, for a regular commuter that works out to about 36 hours a year down the rat hole, just for the morning rush. According to INRIX, drivers on the 10 worst U.S. corridors may squander up to 60 hours a year stuck in traffic.

Those who while away their mornings in the daily tangle might be inclined to dream of a wider Parkway West or new tunnels drilled through Mount Washington, but financial and topographic realities make that a bit like yearning for world peace.

105.9 WXDX-FM

105.9 WXDX-FM

The guys on the X were talking about it yesterday morning, so I sent Bob a link to my Tunnel Monster blog.  Bob posted it on their morning show blog & I’ve been getting mad hits today because if it.  Ha ha.  Thanks guys!

I do have to say though that the Steely McBeam tunnel monster image isn’t mine.  Someone named Angry Mongo posted it first.

I have one more “artist rendering” from Eric Yano (I’d still like to see more!):

Flying Tunnel Monster

Flying Tunnel Monster (by Eric Yano / Valley of Steel)

And here was the letter to MythBusters & Dirty Jobs, that didn’t get a reply from anyone…

From: Waldo Lunar <world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2012
Subject: The Pittsburgh Tunnel Monster (Mythbusters & Dirty Jobs team-up?)
To: jamie@m5industries.com, mythbusters@m5industries.com, adam@adamsavage.com, info@mikeroweworks.com, torybelleci@gmail.com, swift@buchwald.com
Cc: info@beyondaction.com.au

Dear Duke of Dirt and Sultans of Science (or Emperors of Explosions?),

I’m a big fan of both of your shows, I believe that I have been watching since the first season of each, and have seen almost all (if not all) of the collective episodes.  My wife & I enjoy the Saturday morning/afternoon marathon runs of each, sometimes they prevent us for doing anything productive (except learning while being entertained of course) for most of the day.  My favorite Dirty Jobs moment has to be an early one… where Mike was at the charcoal factory & asking the guy how you can burn it after it has already been burned and the guy either didn’t know the answer or comprehend the question and started to get irate.  It set the tone for the rest of the series!  Of course I love all the dirty gross stuff like expressing the anal glands during pet grooming… who knew?  Having worked an assembly line myself, I really appreciate that you manage to shed light on jobs that most people never even think about (or know existed).  With Mythbusters, I don’t know how to pick a favorite… I loved the ninja & pirate myths, the ancient mirror laser thing, all of the movie scene recreations (or attempted recreations), the many abuses of Buster, and for some odd reason… the car filled entirely with A/B foam.

If I’m not watching the Discovery Network, I’m over on the History Channel.  My wife likes to remind me that we have about 200 other channels.  I don’t need them, really.

I first attempted this (intentionally humorous) pitch to the people over at history with MonsterQuest or MysteryQuest in my sights.  I had assumed I’d receive some sort of “Yeah, whatever goofball” type of reply.  Sadly I have not received any reply at all.

The more I thought about it, I feel that this is a serious subject.  It would work for Mythbusters… not sure how you could word the myth… but basically your task would be to get to the bottom of seemingly inexplicable tunnel traffic/congestion.  You could look at how people slow down when approaching, how throwing a roadside distraction (like a car accident) in there would effect things?

As for Mr. Rowe, I’m sure that working in a tunnel is a dirty job.  There are nightly cleanings/work in the Liberty tubes some times… and someone sets out traffic cones every day for the changing of a lane’s direction when going into/coming out of the tunnel.  I’m also guessing that being a Mythbuster (or one of their crew) is a dirty job.  Pittsburgh is a little Hollywood lately, why not capitalize on it by coming to check out our little town?  I know Grant & Tori were at the Zabmelli firework factory in New Castle once!

Did you see the incredibly forced Pawn Stars/American Pickers/American Restoration crossover?  You guys could do way better than that, and it would be unscripted.

Here’s the meat of my original email…

I believe that we have a monster in the Pittsburgh area that you may want to check out.  It’s affectionately referred to as the Tunnel Monster.  People in the southwestern Pennsylvania area live in a great fear of the Tunnel Monster.  Many yinzer drivers slow down as they approach any area tunnel… but most especially the Fort Pitt Tunnels, Liberty “Tubes”, and the Squirrel Hill Tunnels.  I’ve heard theories that the tunnel monster also perhaps takes shelter in one or all of the three rivers when not lurking in the tunnel.

Fear seems to increase in times of rain, snow, and (perhaps strangely) before sporting events, holiday festivities, and large concerts.  I believe we have weekday tunnel anxiety between 7:00am & 9:00am, and again from 2:00pm to 7:00pm at all tunnels.  I’ve never heard a first-hand account of an actual sighting, but it’s clear that there is something strange happening at these locations.  There are also spikes of Tunnel Monster fear when traffic accidents happen nearby.  Perhaps the tunnel monster feeds on broken down cars, flat tires, or the corpses left in the wake of fatal accidents?  Rubberneckers seem to be ripe for the picking also.

I have personally seen 18-wheelers get to the entrance of a tunnel and turn completely around, most likely out of fear of the tunnel monster perhaps lurking within the yellow-hued florescent-lit man made caverns.  Some people go through the entire length of a tunnel holding their breath so the tunnel monster doesn’t steal it, or honking their horn the entire way to scare it off.  I’ve seen motorcycles and ambulances go right down the center line at accelerated speeds, no doubt trying to avoid a tragic end.  I’ve even heard of people tapping the roof of their car when spotting a Padiddle to ward off the evil tunnel monster.  The theory perhaps being that the tunnel monster is on the hood of the other car, and its webbed fin (a paddle or “padiddle”) is blocking one headlight.

I have seen strange markings on the inside of they Liberty Tunnels, but they have since been covered-over.  They were strange numbers and hieroglyphic-like symbols that appeared right before a construction project.  Do you think the crews working in the tunnel are in any danger?  Perhaps it’s a conspiracy?  Are they in there hunting for the tunnel monster under the guise of construction efforts while they cover up the monster’s cave paintings?  Could the monster be some sort of Neanderthal, or perhaps a supernatural being, or some sort of demon?

There are countless videos on YouTube documenting fearless drives through the Fort Pitt Tunnels, but I don’t believe that any concrete video evidence has been recorded.  I have attached some artist renderings of the Tunnel Monster that I have found on the internet.  Perhaps you would like your experts to interview the area residents and come up with your own?

I really would like someone to get to the bottom of this Tunnel Monster thing, and I believe that Monster Quest is perfectly suited for the job!  Thank you for your time, I hope to hear from you soon!

So, now you know where my thought process has gone, & how it has developed.  I’d love your consideration for this idea.  Please don’t make me turn to TV shows that I don’t watch like Billy the Exterminator or Dog the Bounty Hunter.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hearing from you!

Not afraid of the Tunnel Monster,
-Waldo Lunar

I tried message boards, email addresses, all kinds of outlets… all to no avail.  Party poopers.

Maybe this will get a reply:

Should I try PennDOT or the city of Pittburgh next?

Fort Pitt Tunnel

The Monster’s Lair | Fort Pitt Tunnel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related Articles

AskCensus | A response on the ACS from the US Census Bureau:

Posted on by Standard Reply

So, out of all the people that I asked about the American Community Survey, none are so relevant as the U.S. Census Bureau itself.  After all, they’re the ones who put it out.  While PA State Rep. John Maher’s response is insightful and amusing, and the Spencarian’s Benjamin Kirby offers a different perspective… only the Census Bureau can comment officially.  It took me slightly longer than their professed 2-day response time to get back to me, but I’m sure they have better things to do than respond to some goofy idiot with pseudonym and an email account.  Also to be fair, they did kind of address my concerns on the FAQ.  I was just a little more long-winded about it.

Well, without further adieu, here’s what they had to say…

– ☞⌨☜ –

from: AskCensus <askcensus@custhelp.com>
reply-to: AskCensus <askcensus@custhelp.com>
to: recrat.demopublican@gmail.com
date: Thu, Oct 28, 2010
subject: The American Community Survey? [Incident: 000000-000000]

Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response.

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 0 days.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.

To access your question from our support site, click here.

Subject
The American Community Survey?
Discussion Thread
Response (ACSO – SLH) 10/28/2010 16:21
Thank you for using the US Census Bureau’s Question & Answer Center.  

We appreciate your feedback regarding the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. You make many valid points and in a world free of people too busy to respond we could easily get by with one mailing. As it is, our research has shown better response results from multiple mailings and reminder cards and for this program using multiple mailings to get someone to respond to the paper questionnaire is cheaper than obtaining the information by phone or personal visit.

As for the Internet response option we are in the development and testing phase for this application. The Director of the Census Bureau, Dr. Groves, supports this project not only for the ACS but also for the 2020 Census.

As for reducing the time burden on the American public, the director is dedicating resources to researching adminstrative/alternative sources for the information collected on the ACS and Census forms.

If you need more information or have further questions about the ACS, please call our Customer Services Center on 1 (800) 923-8282.
Question Reference #000000-000000
Escalation Level: 16 hours from created
Category Level 1: American Community Survey
Date Created: 10/20/2010 10:49
Last Updated: 10/28/2010 16:21
Status: Solved PII (Admin)
Cc:

[—000:000000:00000—]

– ☞⌨☜ –

Well, that was certainly bland, but at least they are looking to technological advances in the future.  I still see this statement as crazy: “…for this program using multiple mailings to get someone to respond to the paper questionnaire is cheaper than obtaining the information by phone or personal visit.”  I’d love to see that on paper.  (Or better yet, in an email.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Spencarian’s Benjamin Kirby | Thoughts on the ACS…

Posted on by Standard 1

So, you ready my letter to anyone who would listen about the American Community Survey, right?  Hopefully you’ve also read the amusing reply from PA State Rep. John Maher.  Now we have the thoughts of political blogger, Benjamin Kirby of The Spencerian.  Through the magic of Google I happened upon his blog, saw that he liked answering political questions, and (of course) asked my question(s).  I got an excellent reply…

from: Benjamin Kirby <bkirby816@yahoo.com>
to: Recrat Demopublican <recrat.demopublican@gmail.com>
date: Thu, Oct 21, 2010
subject: Re: A POLITICAL QUESTION: The American Community Survey?

Hey, great letter, Recrat!  Really good.

I’ll try to answer it on the blog — you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t re-post the whole thing.  I’ll try to do your general concept justice, though.

Just as a quick answer, let me say that I think you’ll see huge changes in things like the ACS as well as the ten-year census over the next five to ten years.  We have Facebook, Twitter, and who knows what else in the future.  There is almost no reason to cut down a forest to do the ACS.

That said, I know some people who rely on the data the ACS provides, and it.  Is.  Critical.  It’s really important stuff, and it’s so important that people fill it out, that they’ll do whatever it takes to get their attention.  There’s the old marketing adage: tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you’ve told them.  And the only way the government can do that efficiently right now is through snail mail and paper.  Sounds weird, I know — but it’s true.

We’ll explore this more in the post in the next few days.

Thanks so much.

BJK

…and it was followed-up by a blog post:

Q & A: Answering a Question with a Question

I won’t re-post the whole thing here, but I would urge you to check out his blog, and post your comments there or here.

An excerpt…

First of all, let’s be totally fair to Recrat: he asked a great question.  The only problem with it was that it was in the neighborhood of, oh, around 1,250 words.  The highlights he asked about involved wasted resources in producing the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey in the area of money, time, energy, and paper.

Ha ha.  Sorry for being wordy, but…

Hello Pot... ...Meet Kettle.

I guess it’s in all of us blog people.  ☺

Your tax dollars at work

Posted on by Standard 7

…or lack thereof.  Yesterday, we got this in the mail:

2010 Census Warning Letter

Really?  I mean, really? I can’t imagine one person out there who thinks this is at all necessary.  Your government actually spent time writing a letter, translating one line into several languages, printing, assembling, and mailing this thing out to every residence?

The one line at the end must be the important line, because it’s the only one they translated… yet, it wasn’t important enough to be in the actual body of the letter.  Are we to ignore the thole main part of the letter?  How did they pick the languages in which to translate the line?  What are they?  Please excuse my public education.  I recognize the English of course, Spanish, what I think is Chinese, then most likely Japanese or Korean, under that… I have no idea, then the Cryillic letters… is that Russian?  Why no French, Italian, German, or at this point Navajo?  Did they just throw darts at a map?

What if I’m politically opposed to the social programs that you need this census data for?  Is this my warning to fill the census out incorrectly?  Doesn’t the government already know everything about me when I do my taxes?  What exactly is my fair share, and who determines that?  I’m sure it’s nothing even close to “if I pay more taxes I get more out of government assistance”… which would seem fair to me.

On the other end of the political scale, even if this paper is made from recycled material, the plastic window in the envelope couldn’t have been environmentally friendly… and this is still a giant waste of paper, ink, envelope glue, and the gas that went into the trucks/planes/cars that delivered these things.  I really hope the tree-hugging hippies pick up on this and rail against it.  If the government expects us to be more responsible with our resources, they ought to lead by example.  Even a fictional villain from the Captain Planet cartoon would find this wasteful.

Oddly, it didn’t even mention the not-so-humorous “Snapshot of America” campaign that’s been shoved down our throats via TV, radio, print, and the ‘net.  I could almost see if it was some expansion of that, or more of an explanation.  This basically translates to “please fill out the census when you get it”… and if you need help, we have a website you can go to.  They couldn’t have done that in the useless ad campaign?

Who paid for this?  We did.  You, me, and everyone else that pays taxes.  Wouldn’t the money used for this mailing have been better used in the schools, health care facilities, highways, and programs that the census letter speaks of?  Or, it could have gone to disaster relief, homeless shelters, cancer research, or better yet, you could have all gotten a few more tax dollars back in your refund.  Before you laugh…  It wouldn’t just be the cost of the paper, ink, envelope, & stamp.  Think of all the people who where paid to write, print, fold, stuff, stamp, & transport these things and how many hours they spent doing it… and imagine what they get paid an hour.  Even with automated machines to do most of the work, someone had to monitor the progress and set the ball rolling.

Was this a ploy to keep the post office running for another few months before it shuts down?  The one sentence that stands out to me is “Without a complete, accurate census, your community may not receive its fair share.”  This reads like a threat in a stereotypical “pay for protection” plot line on your favorite crime drama or Simpsons episode.  I imagine someone sounding like Joe Pesci saying “I would ‘ate for sometin’ bad to ‘appen to your community were you to ignore this important mailing coming your way.”

Yes, I just wasted more of your time.  Sorry about that.  Maybe I need a government job…

teriyaki as a competitor to subway

Posted on by Standard 8

Heh.  This are still amusing to me.  People searching for these terms ended up at my blog…

Search Engine Terms

These are terms people used to find your blog.

Today

Search Views
data next generation 1
teriyaki as a competitor to subway 1
who won the pens game last night 1
9 levels of hell 1
palm pre “msg 1051” 1

Yesterday

Search Views
9 levels of hell 2
what seats are blocked at mellon arena 1
sprint short code expired 1
9230: the short code you are attempting 1
chart of dante’s hell 1
“parking chair” 1
9230: message failed. shortcode may have 1
sprint error msg 1051 1
pizza hut allergen 1
pizza in alliteration 1

It’s a strange world we live in.

  • teriyaki as a competitor to subway – What?  Teriyaki as a condiment is going to compete with a sandwich chain?  I’m hoping this was just a malformed input into a smartphone… but really to what end?  Maybe it’s an upcoming Kaiju Big Battel fight?  What did they think when they clicked here?  Was it at all informative or entertaining?
  • who won the pens game last night – Brought you here?  The Pens won last night, but If you type “Pittsburgh Penguins” into the Google search box, the latest scores and the schedule for the next game come right up.  Or, you could just go to penguins.nhl.com.  I’m guessing you were disappointed by your visit?
  • pizza in alliteration – Someone couldn’t come up with their own alliteration involving pizza?  Are you trying to get me to do your homework?  Fine.  I’ll do it if it’s not too late.  Penelope politely perused the pizza parlor for pungent pepperoni to polish off.

I see that Dante’s levels of hell, the Sprint shortcode error, and Pizza Hut are still big hits… and someone must have read my Data vs. C-3PO article.

Stats

Posted on by Standard 5

Heh.  Stats are amusing to me.  I love relatively useless information, and I love that they’re built in to WordPress.  I don’t even have to do anything.  They’re just… there.

First off, thanks to all the readers, posters, and all 3 or 4 people brave enough to comment here on the blog.  I really dig comments.

You can see over the weeks, the views have been up & down each day, generally according to whatever was posted that day… but steadily over the weeks, the number of views has climbed.  (That last drop is because it’s meed-week, I believe…)

W(aL)D,graph,World (and Lunar) Domination,views,readers,clicks,days

W(aL)D,graph,World (and Lunar) Domination,views,readers,clicks,weeks

Apparently, the goofy emails go over better than the other stuff.  I’ll have to try some more of that… but this is really my only outlet for anything, so it may stay a mixed bag for a while.

Not only are the graphs funny to look at, but I can tell what people have been reading…

Sprint,shortcode,short,code,short code,W(aL)D,World (and Lunar) Domination,Yuengling,Yeungling,Sauce,Kmart,Kmart Feedback,Store,manager,Mrs. Santa Claus,Quiznos,West Liberty

Apparently the shortcodes are still a problem with Sprint. Wonder why this isn’t a news story yet?  Others are wondering why they can’t get Yeungling Lager Sauce any more.  Me too.  People are still inquisitive about Quiznos, Kmart, Wendy’s, and apparently a naked Asian Mrs. Claus.  I hope any of you that landed here randomly were amused, apologies for the lack of naked Asian Santa’s wife.

This is what you’ve been reading recently…

C-3PO,Data,Star Wars,Star Trek,Mrs. Clause,Creepy,Quiznos,Toasty Torpedo,Stuffing

So, the Data vs. C-3PO thing was read (or at least clicked on) a lot… No real interest, or just nothing to say about it?  Subway is still apparently amusing.  Still haven’t heard anything further from Quiznos once I let them know that I had a blog, and the allergy amigos must not find alliteration amusing.

Here are the URL’s if you missed any of the stuff the 1st time and want to read it now…

Today

Title Views
Data vs. C-3PO? 6 More stats
Sprint, Shortcodes, SMS, Service, & 4 More stats
Wendy’s in Dormont (Pittsburgh, PA) – W. 2 More stats
Allergies, Alliteration, and Annoyance. 2 More stats
Think of the Kmart employees this holida 1 More stats
So, we have a response from Subway! 1 More stats
Stuffing Recipe – Thanksgiving 2009 1 More stats
The Yuengling Sauce and the LaChoy Teriy 1 More stats
If we’re keeping score, that’s Subway 1 1 More stats
Mellon Arena – Customer Service WIN. 1 More stats

Yesterday

Title Views
Data vs. C-3PO? 40 More stats
The Creepy Mrs. Claus 3 More stats
The Yuengling Sauce and the LaChoy Teriy 2 More stats
If we’re keeping score, that’s Subway 1 2 More stats
Mellon Arena – Customer Service WIN. 1 More stats
The Quiznos Toasty Torpedo™ and the dimi 1 More stats
Stuffing Recipe – Thanksgiving 2009 1 More stats
Impressive. 1 More stats
Think of the Kmart employees this holida 1 More stats
Sprint, Shortcodes, SMS, Service, & 1 More stats

At any rate, thanks for reading!

Data vs. C-3PO?

Posted on by Standard 6

Nerd alert.  We’ve all seen the “vs.” threads on message boards, and I believe there’s even whole sites dedicated to them… be it comic book characters, TV show casts, movie characters, or sci-fi icons.  A lot of geeks like to argue about completely hypothetical situations for fictional characters for no apparent reason other than because we can.

I noticed that I’m following both Brent Spiner and Anthony Daniels on twitter… and is struck me that they’re in the same category as a golden-hued “tin man” of sorts in their respective powerhouse franchises. 

This is a vs. that I’d love to see.  Has this been done?  Probably.  I didn’t Google it yet… I’m almost afraid to.  I don’t want the discussion to be biased from my point of view anyway.

Why not Data vs. C-3PO?  I started a hashtag just to see what would happen:  #datavsc3po.  It will be interesting to see if it takes off at all.  A few people are on to it.  On twitter?  Please throw in your 2¢!  Or, you can comment on this blog with your thoughts.  I’d love to see all out stories…  perhaps I may write up a scenario myself.

It was brought to my attention rather quickly that R2-D2 must accompany C-3PO… they are after all, a set.  Then, it was suggested that if C-3PO gets a sidekick, then Data must be able to utilize Geordi La Forge.  (Oddly enough, I’m also following Levar Burton on twitter, and it was brought to my attention that R2-D2 does indeed tweet – to make this “legit” though, does Kenny Baker tweet?)

I’ll digress here by saying that yes, I do realize that the actors are not the characters that they play, and that they have had other rolls in life… and I realize that they might be mildly annoyed by such discussions.

Oh well, this is what geeks do.  So, please join me and the people who have already started discussing this so far.

Data | Star Trek: The Next GenerationC-3PO | STAR WARS

P.S. – Did an image search for “C-3PO Data” and this came up.  So, someone has paired them before, albeit in a completely different manner.