The Smell of Cocoa

The Stupidest Sound Effect Ever

2008-06-04T09:51:00.000-07:00

At South Station, they've been installing a new sign system for several months. It features new trackside displays we wells as a large sign board in the main waiting area which shows both MBCR and Amtrak trains, a welcome improvement from the old situation where each had its own sign. They started testing the new signs last weekend, and they seem to work well. Here's a picture from specmotors at flickr:

However...

The new big sign has one of the dumbest features I think I've ever seen, er, heard. It replaced the two older boards, which were both of the flipping-letters type. When the old signs changed, they made a characteristic clicking sound as the letters and numbers cycled by. The new sign is lit, with numbers and letters formed by LEDs. But when the sign changes, out of a little speaker on the side comes a rhythmic "clicka-clicka-clicka" sound -- an imitation of the sound the old boards made!

What's the point?

An audible alert for riders that new information is posted? Apparrently so, and it was an early decision, judging from this 2006 Boston Globe story. I can appreciate wanting people to know when there's something new on the board, but they should just use a tone or two.

Not only is it a completely WTF sound to use, it's actually louder and more frequent that the old, authentic flipping sounds were.

I just don't understand.

An odd beginning, I suppose, but let's talk about pee.

2008-05-22T05:04:00.001-07:00

The smell of urine is common in Boston and Cambridge. It comes at you where you most expect it, like rounding a stairway corner on the way to a Red Line platform, but also where the whiff is more surprising. I have been especially puzzled, and increasingly nauseated, by the reliable presence of acrid pee smells each time I enter the passage in Harvard Square that cuts between City Sports and Crate and Barrel so one can walk from Brattle St. to Mount Auburn St. I've taken to breathing through my mouth as I pass.

I find myself wondering, why does it smell like urine every day, in that same spot? Do tipsy bohos stagger up from the Casablanca in the wee hours to relieve themselves against this icon of modern architecture and crass commercialism? Is it a favorite boundary marker for neighborhood dogs? And yet I never see an actual puddle there, or even a hint of dampness. Does the smell live underground and waft up through the storm drain?

I have a new idea: rats. I just finished reading a mostly fascinating, and self-admittedly disgusting at times, book about the urban natural history of rats: Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants.

Author Richard Sullivan makes it clear that every large city is home to rats, and that even if you never see them, there are probably some living nearby. I had always assumed it was people who were responsible for the urinary bouquet, but it now seems much more likely to be rats. They come out every night and follow the same paths to and from their nests, and they prefer to move along next to walls or other objects. The book doesn't specifically mention the toilet habits of rats, but it's easy to imagine they piddle while they work, and rat-sized pee spots might dry up by morning.

Not that I find this idea reassuring, but it at least seems a more likely explanation than humans or dogs.

The Obligatory Hello

2008-03-26T10:15:00.000-07:00

Hi.