A must-attend for those in and around land use/planning, development, transport and sustainability in RI, and it only happens every other year:
Always a high impact event where powerful partnerships and collaborations are born. If you love your community and want to make it better, come to the Summit, Friday, May 3 at the Rhode Island Convention Center. More here - https://lnkd.in/ewGg8qkX
I posted this a couple weeks ago, mining a bit of silver-lining humor from the AIA's dark clouds of absurdity. It got more attention than I expected, so I'm adding this sober coda: my previous letter to the AIA board laying out WHY the public dysfunction at national is so damaging: because it blocks our profession's ability to execute on critical challenges to society, especially climate change. OK, the WH Climate Czar give a speech at the convention. Yay. But preaching to the choir about national standards is deck-chairs-on-the Titanic stuff. So much more, at so many levels, needs to be done, and isn't getting done under the current regime. https://lnkd.in/et7UX-YS
The tire fire at AIA national HQ, and the scrambling use of the national conference for wagon circling and doubling down in response, is just... bad. But at least there's some exquisitely painful copy coming out if it! Here is part of the AIA's statement on why there is absolutely, positively, nothing at all to see here, move along with only shallow breathing through your mouth, please: "... the Board directed external counsel to review the planning and execution of the AIA Staff Learning Retreat that took place in March 2024. The review focused on the specific issues raised to the Board. That portion of the review has now concluded. The Board has reviewed the facts, found and confirmed that there was no wrongdoing, and there is no action to be taken by the Board..." Let's unpack. The first sentence you can take at face value. Well, except that the "learning" was taking place at an all-inclusive in the DR. The second flags that this review purposefully left stones unturned. The next two sentences say two different things: one, said limited-scope review is over (that was quick!); two, the board is sitting on its hands. There is a period in between. To a former wordsmith, this is exactly the construction I'd employ to use the magic of proximity to suggest two things were connected, without explicitly saying so. The icing on this tortured-prose cake is "found and confirmed." There's no way this phrase has ever been used outside of an 18th-century royal proclimation. How do you "find" something (as in, making a determination), and then "confirm" your own finding? If you only "confirmed" something, that could suggest it was the outside counsel that made the initial finding. But if they had, I'm sure the board would have trumpeted that. If the board just "found" something, that could suggest it was different from what the actual report concluded (if it did make any conclusions). Ramming the two words together muddies the waters enough to create plausible deniability. If you rearrange the letters a bit, you get "a confounded firm," which seems a much better fit for this situation (sorry, readers, couldn't resist). What would clear all this up: releasing the entire completed report to members. When that might happen: when an intrepid PhD student working on her thesis, "Why Architects No Longer Matter: Mismanagement and Turmoil in the 2020s AIA," uncovers it in 2064. https://lnkd.in/ezfdp7Mm https://lnkd.in/ea8AHY3b https://lnkd.in/eqetCfVa
The tire fire at AIA national HQ, and the scrambling use of the national conference for wagon circling and doubling down in response, is just... bad. But at least there's some exquisitely painful copy coming out if it! Here is part of the AIA's statement on why there is absolutely, positively, nothing at all to see here, move along with only shallow breathing through your mouth, please: "... the Board directed external counsel to review the planning and execution of the AIA Staff Learning Retreat that took place in March 2024. The review focused on the specific issues raised to the Board. That portion of the review has now concluded. The Board has reviewed the facts, found and confirmed that there was no wrongdoing, and there is no action to be taken by the Board..." Let's unpack. The first sentence you can take at face value. Well, except that the "learning" was taking place at an all-inclusive in the DR. The second flags that this review purposefully left stones unturned. The next two sentences say two different things: one, said limited-scope review is over (that was quick!); two, the board is sitting on its hands. There is a period in between. To a former wordsmith, this is exactly the construction I'd employ to use the magic of proximity to suggest two things were connected, without explicitly saying so. The icing on this tortured-prose cake is "found and confirmed." There's no way this phrase has ever been used outside of an 18th-century royal proclimation. How do you "find" something (as in, making a determination), and then "confirm" your own finding? If you only "confirmed" something, that could suggest it was the outside counsel that made the initial finding. But if they had, I'm sure the board would have trumpeted that. If the board just "found" something, that could suggest it was different from what the actual report concluded (if it did make any conclusions). Ramming the two words together muddies the waters enough to create plausible deniability. If you rearrange the letters a bit, you get "a confounded firm," which seems a much better fit for this situation (sorry, readers, couldn't resist). What would clear all this up: releasing the entire completed report to members. When that might happen: when an intrepid PhD student working on her thesis, "Why Architects No Longer Matter: Mismanagement and Turmoil in the 2020s AIA," uncovers it in 2064. https://lnkd.in/ezfdp7Mm https://lnkd.in/ea8AHY3b https://lnkd.in/eqetCfVa
Some days, you get blindsided by a problem you never see coming: an unknown unknown. Because you can't anticipate these issues, and don't know how serious they are, you have to turn away from whatever you're doing to solve them. The only solace I can take from that lost time is letting others know what happened and how to fix this problem, which can happen to any Windows user. I had downloaded some emails from server to desktop. I tried to move them to my NAS, but nothing happened. I tried to delete them so I could start over. Nothing happened. Sometimes Windows doesn't visually update what's going on in real time, so I refreshed the desktop. Nope. I restarted the computer and tried everything again. The files defiantly stared back at me. How was it possible to create files that couldn't be un-created? There was no warning, no pop-up saying why I couldn't move or delete these files. Panic time approached. After some frenetic searching and trial and error, I found the problem: the file names were too long. Almost unbelievable, but yes. Windows, up to and including Windows 11, cannot by default deal with file paths (you know, like C:\Users\Me\Desktop\Notes.txt) over 260 characters. But it still allows them to be created! "Oh, so I'll just rename the files to something shorter," I thought. "Your naivety is charming," chuckled Windows. The digital squatters remained, names intact. It took more searching and trial and error to find the fix that worked: https://lnkd.in/ePPPxJFr Open a file explorer window, right-click on the file while holding shift, pick "Copy as path," open a command-line window, type "del\\?\" and Ctrl-V the file path after. Repeat for every single file you need to remove. Easy, convenient and in no way tedious or time consuming! Windows operates 70% of the world's PCs and is 38.5 years old. Good to know they've worked out all the basic flaws by now. 🤔
Recently got some GREAT rendering work from two Ukraine-based studios: PRYPLYV architectural visualization studio and cgistudio.com.ua. Both were a dream to work with, helpful, engaged, very responsive to feedback and delivered a great product. I wanted images that showed a "split personality," and the two shops excelled at totally different aesthetic approaches. 🙌 In addition to great value, the 8-hour time difference added a logistical bonus. 🕓 I could message them when I started work in the morning and have the revisions <24 hours later. Ukraine's civilian economy needs cash, but not charity: The talent, tenacity and energy they bring to their work is amazing. I would not bet against this country! 💙 💛 #architecturalrendering #ukrainesupport #standwithukraine
https://lnkd.in/ezBP2Kgi MBTA communities pushback inspires Wrentham charm warriors:
More sheathing shenanigans from a project near me I posted about a few months ago (https://lnkd.in/eW4Gddkg) Adhered Air Barrier over Zip System? 🤷♂️
A little truss bridge and a section of walkway where coal-handling cranes and chutes once stood is finally open. This 820-foot missing link closes the mile-long loop along both sides of the Providence River between the Crawford and Point Street Bridges, with the Van Leesten pedestrian bridge (2019) spanning across the middle. It's a nice project -- the only thing about it that's not thoughtfully designed is the name, "The Urban Coastal Greenway," which is as fun to say as it is evocative. Go walk!