NYC: An Amazing Web of Movement

I love NYC and am interested in how it changes from an anthropology perspective. Here is an interested story: a Wired reporter covered the increase in ridership on the NYC subway and Long Island Railway. Alexander Lew says:

New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced this week that both the subway and the Long Island Railroad had a significant increase in riders. The subway carried 1.56 billion people in 2007, an increase of 4.2% over 2006's ridership, maintaining the New York Subway's spot in the top three busiest subways in the world. Tokyo's subway system carries about 2.65 billion passengers each year and Moscow estimates 2.47 billion rides are taken on its metro per year. Long Island Railroad saw a 4.9% increase in riders but also had a record monthly on-time performance with 96.5% trains arriving on time in January 2008 (on time is defined as within six minutes of the schedule). Both the LIRR and the subway haven't seen this number of riders in decades. One major issue that the New York subway will face in the coming years is its capacity. The MTA's Rider Report Card showed that many passengers (especially on numbered lines, which use narrower and shorter trains than lettered lines) would like to have "adequate room to board during rush hour." The MTA reported that many of the lines cannot add anymore trains. Expanding platforms has been considered. One project that will relieve traffic off the Lexington Lines, which carry 1.3 million daily passengers, is the Second Avenue Subway (opens 2014). The initial segment from 96th Street to 63rd Avenue (where the trains will connect to the Q Broadway Express) will cost $3.83 billion. But in the mean time, the MTA encourages people to use the lettered lines.

Virtual Worlds - What Can We Expect?

Looking ahead at the world order - much is in flux, and this coverage of a virtual world is beyond the understanding of many who are not tech afficionados. I am interested in how those who understand social media vs those who do not will make a divide in coming years. Even the Obama campaign is working crowds in Second Life!

More Evidence Of Why Virtual World Economies Are Risky - from TechDirt

We've already discussed the inherent dangers of basing a business model on the economics of virtual worlds. While there definitely is quite a bit of trade in virtual goods (often for lots of money), it's mostly based on ideas of artificial scarcity on goods that are effectively infinite. To drive that point home, Josh sent in an interesting story about a lawsuit between two founders of one such virtual world, where part of the complaint was that one of the guys effectively handed over the company to a third guy -- who planned to make money by selling the game world's currency, noting that once he controlled the company, he could just create an "infinite" amount of money in "a few minutes" and sell it at "below market" prices. While this suggests the folks in question had little sense of how basic economics works, it also highlights a pretty serious risk in these virtual worlds. At the same time that we're seeing Ben Bernanke struggling with managing the monetary policy of the US economy, for virtual worlds where there really is no scarcity at all, the temptation to simply flood the market without recognizing the consequences is just too great.