Planes, Trains and Automobiles

DFW Airport has been serving north Texas since 1974, yet still has no direct mass transit connections serving it. DART brags that from its Belt Line Station on the Orange Line, it's just a "short, 4-mile ride over to Terminal A via a DART bus."

To be fair, this might be the last year I can badmouth DART's lack of light rail service to DFW Airport. DART says it's "hard at work building a state-of-the-art light rail facility at Terminal A. The DART Light Rail service will arrive at its permanent, Terminal A station in 2014."

That's still just the Orange Line. Which is fine if you're coming from downtown Dallas. But what if you're coming from, say, Richardson? You'll be waiting a while longer than 2014. After the jump, the dismal outlook.

First Day of Summer in the Steger Garden (2013)

From Flowers

Who Needs the NSA to Erode Privacy?

Ernestine: What's that Mr. Veedle? Privileged information?... that's so cute. You're dealing with the phone company, Mr. Veedle. We are not bound by city, state, or federal regulations. We are omnipotent.

Source: Lily Tomlin as Ernestine.

A lot of people are apoplectic over the NSA's surveillance program that captures metadata from phone calls (which numbers are calling which numbers). In the past, courts have ruled that persons have no expectation of privacy about this data, which seems to be a surprise to many. Look folks, this isn't news.

After the jump, privacy from the days of Ernestine to Twitter.

Indie Game (2012)

IMDB

Indie Game (2012): Nerds hope to get rich writing video games. Maybe if you're into Super Meat Boy or Fez. Even then, play, don't watch. D+

Who Is Encroaching on Nature Now?

In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World.

Source: Henry David Thoreau.

"My dream of a greater Spring Creek Nature Area may be over. My dream of a greater Richardson isn't." That's what I wrote back in April, 2011, when I saw bulldozers and construction cranes encroaching on the biggest, best chunk of natural area left in Richardson. Blue Cross plunked down a huge office building to the south. The City of Richardson accommodated it by cutting a wide gash through the forest for the Routh Creek Parkway. That big empty lot north of Renner Rd was rezoned for development (and now, two years later, major development is finally underway). The Spring Creek Nature Area was getting sliced up and hemmed in on all sides. Didn't anyone see what Richardson was losing?

In that blog post from two years ago, I conceded that my dream of preserving wildness was just another quixotic dream of mine. Sigh. But I challenged the city to think long and carefully before they allowed more development of the land surrounding the Spring Creek Nature Area. It has to be done right, I said, in a way that organically transitions between nature and neighborhood, in a way that enhances both park and commerce.

After the jump, so who's encroaching on Spring Creek Nature Area now?