The best solution is often the simplest: start picking up additional people to, you know, actually carpool.
Sources to find additional riders:
This answer originally appeared on Quora: What is the best option for access to the Bay Area carpool lane after hybrid access expires June 1, 2011?
I have an off the wall theory that seems fairly well supported in terms of the people I know who do this:
They all seem to lack a strong intuitive/ideative ability. It’s there, but it’s not something they’re constantly doing like the rest of us.
For example, I could take a few pages from the beginning of a book, the setup, and a lot of the time people will be happy to start to create “milestones” – filling in “what happens next”, or even “how it will end”. They may be 100% wrong about either, but it’s irrelevant – they’ve set an expectation that can then be met, exceeded, or subverted.
The people who read the endings of books, on the other hand, tend to see the whole world a bit differently – they are either more present in the moment, or perhaps emotionally tied to what already exists somehow, that they can struggle a bit “spooling things out” into an unknown future, or to find such mental play to be more fun than distracting. They like, in short what is… And because of that, finding out how things end has no or very little diminutive effect on their enjoyment of the whole book – because, at any moment in a story, they can draw out the pleasure of that page, and the “how will we get to the end” can often be just as entertaining. And, getting back to my milestones analogy – all they’re really doing is setting these markers based on facts, rather than imagination.
Take a further step out onto my thought ledge, and you could guess that these people are ultimately better prepared to handle death – I mean, seriously, we all know how our own stories end, just not how and when we’ll get there. And really, shouldn’t discovering those twists and turns and relishing them be the focus, rather than adding as many additional pages as possible?
I would submit that, whether one is the type to read endings first or not, that the true enjoyment achieved in both cases is in appreciating the journey. Some people like road trips for not knowing what goofy misogyny will be available for sale at the next truck stop, and some like the smell of exhaust fumes and freshly laid asphalt. Neither is more right, and we have a lot to learn from each other if we stop thinking about it in such oppositional terms.
This answer originally appeared on Quora: Why would someone read the end of a story before reading the book?
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):
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?
Two reasons:
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?
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.com 