Category Archives: Boston

Food, clothing, shelter basic rights? Of course!

In a letter to the editor in the September 21 edition of the Boston Herald, one Christine Giroux wrote: At the core of the health care controversy is the question of whether health care is a basic right held by every American citizen…  We all need food, clothing and shelter.  Are these basic rights too?… Read More »

King Richard’s Faire in the news

Well, she made it sound like I’m the only King Richard’s Faire patron who ever complained about it, said nothing about the fact that more importantly than the Kosher thing, the Faire’s policies discriminate painfully (literally) against people with medical conditions, let stand unchallenged a statement from the owner of the Faire that her policies… Read More »

Why I won’t be voting for Ayanna Pressley

On July 29, I received an unsolicited bulk email message from Ayanna Pressley, a candidate for one of the Boston City Council’s At-Large seats, with the Subject line, “Our Campaign Kick-Off for Boston City Council At Large!”  The email message to which it was sent (I use different email addresses for different purposes to make… Read More »

Citizens Bank screws the pooch on weekend “upgrade”

Citizens Bank “upgraded” their online banking site over the past two weekends. This morning, when I attempted to log in, here’s what I experienced: 30 seconds to load the initial login page 72 seconds to load the identity verification page (i.e., “you’re using a computer without one of our cookies already in its browser cache,… Read More »

Now Google Maps is right, but MBTA Trip Planner is still wrong

I was delighted to discover a few days ago that the problem with the MBTA’s on-line route data that I’ve been trying to get the T to fix for over six years and almost got arrested over is now fixed in Google Maps. Alas, it’s still wrong in the MBTA’s own Trip Planner. Go figure.

Brief mention in the Boston Globe

From “MBTA announces latest arrival: Google mapping tool for riders“: But not everyone at yesterday’s news conference was trumpeting the partnership. Jonathan Kamens, 39, of Brighton said Google Maps’s public transit routes are faulty because they rely on schedules provided by the MBTA, which are sometimes wrong. Kamens, a software engineer, said his complaints to… Read More »