Tuesday, January 09, 2007

New York Stinks -- Sometimes

See Darin Foster, New York Stinks, The smelly secret of America's largest city, OhmyNews International (Jan. 9, 2007).

Samples of this delectable fare:

Inevitably, many [unlovely] odors find their way down into New York's decrepit subway system. The morning commute is always a treat for the senses. Packed in like cattle, even normal human smells sometimes reach overwhelming proportions, and this is before the homeless make their appearance. Sad as it may be, one homeless person can clear an entire train car in less than 10 seconds. Add to this the smell of decades-old dirt, mold and general decay, and you can imagine something of the typical New York subway smell.

On the other hand, certain smells can be useful markers in such a vast city. Anyone hunting for Claremont Riding Academy, New York's last surviving urban equestrian center, can locate it three blocks away without a map. While the facility does its best to maintain a clean, professional establishment, the fact remains that dozens of horses reside and are trained within a converted apartment building. Certain facts of nature simply cannot be avoided, and a familiar horsey smell permeates the surrounding neighborhood.

The catalyst for this minor non-odiferous masterpiece was a mysterious odor that enveloped large chunks of Manhattan and parts of New Jersey for several hours.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'd use the opportunity to add to the earlier topic (the Japanese policy of unspecified waiting time for execution).

Sakae Menda spent 34 years on death row. He describes the system at
http://www.worldcoalition.org/bcoaljm10.html

"Interdisciplinarity is the sign of our times." -- write Spiegel, Sherwin and Feigenson in the forthcoming book "Law in the Age of Images". This raises an important methodological issue: to what extent are theories of other fields applicable to legal issues? There is a good, practical theory of waiting that every MBA student knows, but does it apply to waiting for .. capital punishment?

Theoretically, the execution system can be viewed as a queueing system. This is the management (business administration) point of view. If this view is accepted, then death row prisoners become 'customers' waiting for 'a service' to be provided. (This view is not too far-fetched, because of goverments' strong intention around the world to systematize public services, for streamlining and efficiency. Goverments want to call everything that public service does service.) In this case, applied psychology - psychology of waiting, in particular, should help to analyze the policy. David Maister, in the 1985 book "The Psychology of Waiting Lines", was the first to develop a meaningful psychological theory of waiting. http://davidmaister.com/ Maister's theory generally consists of eight propositions; these are taught widely in MBA programs:
(1) Unoccupied time feels longer than occupied time.
(2) Pre-process waits feel longer that in-process waits.
(3) Anxiety makes waits seem longer.
(4) Uncertain waits are longer that known, finite waits.
(5) Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits.
(6) Unfair waits are longer than equitable waits.
(7) The more valuable the service, the longer the customer will wait.
(8) Solo waits feel longer than group waits.

MBA textbooks offer detailed recommendations for improving queue systems. For example,
J. Martinich (1997) Production and Operations Management, Ch 9 Waiting Lines make the following suggestions for improving queueing systems:

1. Allow customers to serve themselves.
2. Shorten service times by performing tasks in advance.
3. Use two queues for each server.
4. Reward customers for being patient.

Now, it is clear that the general theory of waiting psychology does not apply to full extent in the case of waiting for capital punishment; - maybe in part. Yet, Maister's #3 and #4 seem to support the critics of the current Japanese policy.