Category: Q & A

Questions, and Answers, from the man himself

Deano’s answer to: “What are your best safety tips for women walking alone at night?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

This question was originally tagged “Boston” on Quora – and yeah, even for a “scary black guy” like me, lots of areas of Beantown[*] (or even places like Harvard campus) were pretty frightening to walk alone at night.

A few key guides that helped me in my East Coast years, which should be readily applicable to any fairly dense metro area(s):

  • Know the people, so they recognize you. Stop in regularly at stores and restaurants along your path home. Figure out who has the best exorbitant price on snacks, which places will let you use the restroom in exchange for some quick banter, etc. If something happens to you around their shop, you may find you’re not as outnumbered as you originally thought… And if they’re still open at night (or the doors aren’t locked) it’s usually okay if they know you and you’re honest about just wanting to duck inside to avoid some creeps. In a pinch, you can do this with the residential brownstones as well – just walking up the stoop can make some followers hunt other prey, and if that doesn’t work, the shame in asking a stranger to let you in because you’re terrified is nothing compared to the worst that could happen.

  • Don’t be distracted. Okay, this is a much bigger problem now – when I lived in Boston, I had barely started looking into cell phones, and the iPod didn’t exist yet. Just turn all that shit off, put it away in your bag, and notice your surroundings. It may seem boring at first, but would-be thieves/attackers have less overt signs you’re carrying valuables, and they know you’ll see them coming… Most times, that’s all it takes for them to wait for the next unlucky soul.

  • Swim with the other fish. While route planning, try to not only look for the best-lit routes home, but see if there are regular faces on your morning/evening trains who head at least a block or two “your way” at night… You’re not the only one who feels nervous at night – old brick casts a dark shadow – and most people are happy for the company, even if all you ever do is slightly nod heads that you recognize each other. Sort of a dupe of the first item, but for mobile, rather than stationary peeps.

(Even just a couple people going the same way is a huge deterrent. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/998…)

  • In case of fire, break a $20. Always, ALWAYS have cab fare home, in cash. If the situation starts looking too sketchy, don’t get all brave about it, walk back to the nearest sign of civilization, and call up a taxi to get you the rest of the way. I say this as someone who unknowingly lived across the street from a crackhouse for 3 months – I never felt like I had conquered that fear, or that I was getting closer to doing so. Eventually I just wised up and moved somewhere safer.

  • Just. Fucking. Lose. It. If the worst should happen – there’s someone right behind you, same turns last four blocks, looks weird and evil, etc… Just scream. Lose it. Call as much attention to yourself as possible, but unless you are actually attacked, do so without accusing/referencing your stalker. I can’t think of a time when loud human noises in whatever neighborhood I was in didn’t get a fair number of folks popping to check windows, or running outside with a frying pan in hand. Most of the people living, working, and sleeping around you are good folks, and they won’t just let you be taken. Note – If you acknowledge the “bad guy(s)”, they are more likely to try to actively silence you… But if you’re just “crazy lady/guy”, then they can easily walk on without any ego bruising.

(Sometimes, you may have to go “ren fest” crazy to scare them off. Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/esc…)

Hopefully, none of the above situations will happen to you, but given how hard it is to properly arm and defend yourself effectively without a lot of training and practice, I highly advise using a mixture of evasion and escape techniques for your summer stay. Oh yeah, and sneakers. Put the heels in your bag if you have to wear them at work, and swap to sneaks for the commute. Night and day as far as escape velocity/running speed on cobblestone and cracked cement pavers.

[* Yeah, I said it. You heard me. Whatchoo gonna do about it? ]

This answer originally appeared on Quora: What are your best safety tips for women walking alone at night?

Deano’s answer to: “Why do people like mobile food trucks so much?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Two reasons:

  • People like a variety of foods, and
  • Brick and mortar restaurants have a tendency to stick to a single menu.

The combination of these two factors means that mobile food trucks have a greater ability to meet a fluctuating market demand for their food.

A taco truck can sit on the same curb for 5 years, or quickly drive a mile up the way to be the only source of mexican food in a given neighborhood. Indeed, they can do both – sticking to a few “set” locations on particular days of the week, and being more flexible, or catering specific events the rest of the time.

This is great because if the local officeworker population knows your truck will only be nearby on Thursdays, then they may well hold off on eating Mexican food the rest of the week, if they really like your truck’s tacos. This sort of “predictaburst” traffic also helps in reducing food waste loss – worst case scenario, you won’t have enough supplies, and have to close shop early.

And that’s just from the “truck perspective” – if as a worker/eater you get a different truck in your office parking lot every day, then you get the ability to eat a wide variety of lunches/snacks without travelling far… Much more so that you would get from a single café nearby. Don’t get me wrong, such establishments, done well, are sure to sustain traffic and interest – but even the best restaurants eventually “get old” after 3-4 lunch meetings there a month.

In short, food trucks have greater mobility, that helps them find friendly pockets of consumers; and diners get to mix up their cuisine routine much more than they otherwise would. Everybody wins!

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Why do people like mobile food trucks so much?

Let’s play “Celebrity Quora”!

Posted on by Deano in Personal Observations, Q & A

There appears to be a new feature on Quora:

“Allow comments on my answers and posts”.


(See right there at the bottom? Yeah. That.)

I dunno why it took me so long to realize this setting existed, but it did… Oh no, wait, I know exactly why – I’ve never, ever seen this feature used before Michelle Rhee‘s (otherwise excellent) answer to What are some of the biggest problems with public education in America?

Maybe I’m just trolling about the seedier side of Quoraville or something, but in my experience one of the great attractions of the site itself is the perception that public figures who do choose to participate do so “fully”, even when they do not wade into the muck of comment threads. Hate on him all you like, but Robert Scoble seems like a “Quora member”, and not a hit-and-run “Quorcaster”, which is what I worry this feature will ultimately promote.

In many ways, this is worse than aggressive/hurtful anonymous answers, as it limits the querent’s ability to followup with what may often be popular answers, and applies an explicit social hierarchy that would seem to mark the average Quoran as part of the “untouchable class”.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people maintaining their privacy, and limiting their interactions for what they have time and energy for, but I simply don’t see the utility here in preventing communication in this fashion – wouldn’t it make more sense to have a setting that just said “don’t notify me when the plebes reply”?

(Oh wait, that does already exist. Huh.)

This is like the “Ignore Facebook Friend Request” feature… I can see Michelle, but in some significant ways, she can’t see me – not in the contexts that matter to her, at least. And, being that I’m so awesome, the whole thing just strikes me as sad. For her. You know?

Anyway, just finishing my lunch, noticing new things about Quora that make it feel a little bit more elitist than usual. Carry on, and have a good weekend…

You can read my original Post on Quora, if you like. I wonder if Michelle will respond? 😉

Deano’s answer to: “How much impact have food trucks had on the lunch business of normal restaurants?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

How much affect has the internet had on the music/movie business?

In many senses, “none“. They are two entirely different channels. Their respective rises and falls are not correlated, for many good reasons.

In other ways, however, “huge“. It’s now possible to know in advance whether a movie/album is any good… And in some cases to even download the content itself “for free” in order to try it out, or even avoid paying for it. Still, there are solid arguments to be made that the net effect is that bad content suffers, and good content becomes more popular, faster.

Similarly, between sites like Yelp providing reputable and voluminous reviews of restaurants, and the food truck phenomenon disrupting the distribution and competition for restaurants, it’s a lot harder to “skate by” with a crappy restaurant in a convenient location… Or to open to raves in your first six months, and then allow food and service quality to backslide a bit as a profit-taking measure.

What food trucks do, primarily, is put pressure on restaurants and cafés to perform to a higher standard for their lunch crowd – and to highlight or even force out of business those businesses that fail to compete effectively. In the latter case, definitely, those restaurants lose lunch business to the food trucks, even if they have no overlap between menus.

For an example of a restaurant that “couldn’t handle the pressure”, and instead legally challenged the food truck parked outside, read on:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/foodie…

In that case, the result was a backsliding of Yelp rating for the restaurant, as well as awkward search result placement: http://www.yelp.com/search?find_…

This answer originally appeared on Quora: How much impact have food trucks had on the lunch business of normal restaurants?

Deano’s answer to: “Why do some people find it hard to maintain focus while reading books?”

Posted on by Deano in Q & A

Format may have a lot to do with it:

  • Some people thrive on reading printed paper or hardbound books in a linear fashion.
  • Others excel at retaining information gathered by hopping around quickly through a digital text, as well as the additional options to easily read for a short time (in line at the bank, for example) while also marking one’s place as provided by most e-readers.
  • Still others find “reading” audiobooks is the best method to ingest and retain knowledge long term for both fiction and non-fiction works.
  • Graphic novels blur the line a bit – in some cases retaining key description and dialogue, and replacing a bulk of the text with pictures, which can convey meaning equally, or in some cases, with much greater understanding.
  • While there are precious few titles available, even “micro-chunking” a book, by having it sent over time as a series of emails is now an option for some books – see http://www.dailylit.com/ for one example – which again provides an ease of access/lack of routine change element that can bring regular reading to those who otherwise can’t push through a 200 page paperback.

Overall, I think we’re finding that as scientists discover more details about how different personality/behavioral types learn, the options to accomodate these different types is expanding into areas that aren’t thought of as traditional “reading”. And as this fragmentation is then perceived (perhaps wrongly) by some as an inability to “focus on reading” in a specific medium.

Thus, it may be the case that people are not losing focus while reading in a given format, simply that their ability to focus while reading is tied to an alternate reading method.

This answer originally appeared on Quora: Why do some people find it hard to maintain focus while reading books?