we get it... daily
October 2, 2005
FUNYCMTA...
We love NYC. We love the transit system that lets us forget about driving, parking, and dealing with the mental trash who try to drive and park.
However, this morning we have to send a big FUCK YOU out to the New York MTA and Bay Area Rapid Transit "Authorities" who are apparently stuck on some bizarre notion that their opinions matter.
Good guy William Bright, and we should note others, have tried to take the fucked-up transit maps into the 21st century by making them available on hand held devices. We'll stick with Bright's effort, as he's the most recent hero/victim.
Bright cut up the online versions of the MTA and other transit maps and wrote a little program to make them appear on iPods. Virtually free, he did this just so people would be able to better navigate the various systems. For his hard work he got "Cease and Desist" orders from the larger transit authority goons lawyers.
The logic: Well, the closest statement to reason comes from BART's Linton Johnson, who said that "The maps don't reflect changes made to the transit system's route alignment earlier this month. We don't want to confuse our customers." Yeah, that's a good reason to shut the guy down, because no map at all is better than one with a couple of errors that you morons created in the first place. And like you move the rails on BART all that often... Guess spending less effort with lawyers and simply getting him the correct data would be inefficient, eh?
Bright is working around the systems by constructing his own maps, for which he owns the copyrights. In some cases he's been hit up by the TAs for "licensing fees" that exceed his revenue in the endeavor. All this aside, we have to ask the "authorities" Since fucking when do you own instructions on how to get around on OUR system anyway? This stuff is paid for by taxpayer dollars. Its downloadable for free. It should be repurposed for reasonable use for free.
Once again, repeat the mantra: fucking pinheads, fucking lawyers, fucking pinhead lawyers.
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