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Oh goody, the photo idiocy has spread from Silver Spring

Photo courtesy of MeI was renewing some domain names earlier in the month and noticed that FreeOurStreets.org was coming due soon, and I pondered for a minute whether to spend the money to get another year. After all, we’d gotten what we wanted with it. After our 4th of July photo walk the city attorney made a written statement to the management company indicating that they did not have the right to restrict people’s freedom of expression on public land, even if it was managed by a private corporation under contract with the city.

Silly me, thinking we wouldn’t need it again someday.

Now the foolishness has some to DC proper. Andy Carvin writes here about his experience with being bothered by security guards in Union Station. Now, Chip Py managed to make Downtown Silver Spring look beautiful, but one of the challenges in talking about that incident was always how to respond to “why would you want to take pictures of a strip mall?” Union Station, on the other hand, is obviously beautiful architecture and photographed painlessly by a multitude of people every day. Yet for some reason the management company there has decided to harass some photographers.

She informed us that we would have to cease taking pictures immediately and leave. I asked what the problem was, and she said that this is a private space, and we didn’t have permission from management to take pictures.

Here’s hoping it stops with a single misunderstanding and this gets cleared up promptly.

The above photo of the ghost of security-ruined photos is a snipet from Carvin’s aborted 360 degree panorama. Check it out in full here or a non-aborted pano elsewhere in Union Station here. The gigapan technology is pretty neat.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

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DC Drivers Love the Rage

Okay, I’m going to come right out and do something I hate people doing, myself. Fire up the hypocrite comment-engine, because here I go.

WTOP points out that DC Area Drivers are 5th in the nation for road rage. All I can say is, “Guys, really, chances are, the people who are driving like major league asshats are probably doing so in Maryland and Virginia plates.” It sucks that the District gets the bad PR for all these guys who live in Reston, or Springfield, or Gaitherburg, or Laurel and drive like complete idiots.

Most of the folks I know who live in the District commute either by bus or metro, though I do on occasion see DC Plates on the major thoroughfares in rush hour, it tends to be the crazy-ass mofo from Maryland or Virginia making everyone else’s life difficult.

Not to say that DC drivers are all that great, far from it, they’re just not causing the road rage you see every day on the Beltway, 395, 270, the B-W Parkway, etc.

Entering A Road Rage Zone — Originally uploaded by garyturner

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs

Legacy articles

DC Drivers Love the Rage

Okay, I’m going to come right out and do something I hate people doing, myself. Fire up the hypocrite comment-engine, because here I go.

WTOP points out that DC Area Drivers are 5th in the nation for road rage. All I can say is, “Guys, really, chances are, the people who are driving like major league asshats are probably doing so in Maryland and Virginia plates.” It sucks that the District gets the bad PR for all these guys who live in Reston, or Springfield, or Gaitherburg, or Laurel and drive like complete idiots.

Most of the folks I know who live in the District commute either by bus or metro, though I do on occasion see DC Plates on the major thoroughfares in rush hour, it tends to be the crazy-ass mofo from Maryland or Virginia making everyone else’s life difficult.

Not to say that DC drivers are all that great, far from it, they’re just not causing the road rage you see every day on the Beltway, 395, 270, the B-W Parkway, etc.

This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs