Comments by Darin Boville

Coastsider videos are now available for Windows Media Player

John and Leonard,

Thanks for the interesting discussion of Flash and other video formats. As you know, there is quite a bit of debate on the question of the proper video format for web display. There are, as you suggest, a large number of factors to consider, from quality, size, download speed issues, to the need to install additional software, to long-term viewability.

It’s a complicated question with no clear answer.

But it seems that both of you are able to view the videos--if so then my goal has been achieved.

Leonard, the videos do download (to your cache)--these are not being streamed. You should be able to play them again without re-downloading them. Check your settings and e-mail me if the problem continues. Indeed, if you do reload them you should be able play them again with little to no wait, assuming you are not using a dial-up connection.

Thanks,

--Darin

Video: How is business?

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the comment on my video.

For the record, I did, in fact, visit roadside businesses in Montara and Moss Beach (I’m a resident of Montara and see every day the light traffic on Highway 1).

For example, I visited both Sweet Pea’s and Cafe Lucca in Montara but the employees at each were unwilling to go on-camera. Coastside Market, the first interview on the video, is located in Moss Beach. Other businesses represented in the video, such as Ebb Tide Cafe and the HMB Board Shop, I would place in the same category--roadside businesses--though they are a bit further south.

I chose businesses in a haphazard, random fashion--I simply drove down Highway 1 from my home and stopped here and there as the impulse struck. I gave slightly more emphasis to downtown HMB due to the greater density of retail businesses located there.

All businesses that went on-camera are in the video--I did not delete any of the participants. Except for a slight re-arranging of the downtown HMB interviews, they are shown in the same order in which I shot them.

There are certainly many businesses suffering (as the video shows) but there also seems to be (as the video shows) those who are being patronized--indeed, discovered--by locals who once did their shopping “over the hill.”

The picture depicted by my video is by no means a complete one as I’ll be the first to admit but it does seem to indicate that the full story is more complicated than it might at first seem.

Thanks again,

--Darin

Opinion: One step at a time

Is it possible that temporary busing be implemented through the rest of the year (and maybe the beginning of the next school year) based upon the availability of funds made available via the various declarations of emergency (especially if Bush signs the federal proposal)?

If people get used to having busing and decide that they like it might it not strengthen the case to raise taxes to make busing permanent once state (and federal?) funds go away?

In any event there would be traffic relief during the next few months.

I know that Bayless was briefed on the options available due to the declaration(s) of emergency but I’m not clear on the status of busing. Anyone?

--Darin

Letter: School district’s dropout statistics are misleading

Here’s an interesting article:

Would you define these students, who have so far failed to pass the graduation test, as drop-outs? I don’t think that I what I had in mind but I believe they would show up in the above numbers as drop-outs.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/14134500.htm

I’m not sure what else these is to say--few facts have been presented to support the case of an alarmingly high drop-out rate--I think the burden is on those making such claims to define their terms and develop their evidence.

I would be happy to do it for Ken and others but I charge by the hour :)

--Darin

Letter: School district’s dropout statistics are misleading

If “upwards of a third” of high school students are dropping out on the midcoast (or even 16.8%, as suggested above) then it should be child’s play to come up with extensive, in-depth evidence of such a disaster without the need to read the tea-leaves of class cohort sizes.

I still have not seen that evidence.

I’m not saying drop-out rates are high and I’m not saying they are low. I’m saying the evidence is weak and unconvincing.

--Darin

Letter: School district’s dropout statistics are misleading

I think Ken is doing a little more than simply raising the issue that there is no verification of what happened to the missing seniors, etc. As I read his somewhat meamdering post I get the clear suggestion that he thinks there is a major problem occuring at the high school and that there is a cover-up of that problem by school officials. That’s a high level of accusation considering the lack of any supporting data. (Innuendo doesn’t count, I’m afraid.)

Jonathan says that it is suprising that, if this is normal movement to and from Mexico, it occurs only in the 12th grade. Assuming that we are talking about students from Mexico (which I have seen zero data to back that up) then a big movement in the 12th grade seems plausible, perhaps expected, for a whole host of reasons both economic (jobs) and social (girlfriends, wives). I simply ccan’t imagine why a high school senior might consider Mexico City a more attractive place to be compared to Half Moon Bay (joke!).

What this debate lacks is data. You don’t need cooperation from Bayless to do a simple analysis.

Start with the school yearbook. Compare junior to senior. Take the gradution lists--aren’t they published in the paper like in other parts of the country? With only one high school isn’t it a simple afternoon project to learn:

1) How many students appear on the senior roles that weren’t in the junior roles. (New entrants)

2) How many juniors vanish by senior graduation time. (Exits)

3) Look at the pictures, look at the names. Can you make a crude generalization if a “gone to Mexico” theory can still be true?

4) You have names of possible drop-outs. You are assuming that they have not moved. We are only talking about a few dozen kids--why not just call each of them and see if they dropped out?

Of course, you can skip all that nonsense and, in what appears to be a coastide tradition, and write incendiary letters to local news outlets! What fun!

--Darin

Letter: School district’s dropout statistics are misleading

Ken,

I’m afraid you lost me.

You seem to be saying that the drop-out rate is higher than officially admitted. You point to the evidence of a smaller senior class this year than the junior class last year. Am I right so far?

Did you account for the students who really did go to Mexico, or went at least to a different school district in the US?

Did the rate of incoming students change (perhaps a 12% exit rate is the norm and it is the entry rate that has changed)?

Is this phenomena something new this year or is it part of a pattern over a number of years?

Your claim may be true or it may not be true--I don’t see anything in the information you present that convinces me to worry quite yet.

--Darin

HMB City Council video is no longer available on Coastsider

Well, *way* before video and online streaming we sat around in caves and grunted a lot.

It generally been a pattern of increasing democracy ever since then, in no small part due to technology.

I wouldn’t want to go back, even ten years…

--Darin

HMB City Council video is no longer available on Coastsider

This is very frustrating. MCTV is a government/taxpayer funded entity (partly funded by HMB, it seems), who has posession of a film of a highly newsworthy event--and how do I see it? Catch it on the community channel, if you can. No other broadcast allowed. For information on MCTV’s funding, see http://www.mctv.com/history.html

Is this still 1970?

--Darin

Letter: Peak Oil is here. What does this mean for the Coastside?

Ahhh--"The Prize"--what a great book (by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw, by the way). Yergin has been vocal recently trying to make the point that oil hasn’t peaked yet.

But the book is a great one. PBS made a multi-part series out of it, though I haven’t seen it.

I even once had an intern who I turned on to “The Prize.” A few years later (and degrees from MIT and Oxford later, too) he gets his first job at Yergin’s CERA (Cambridge Energy Research Associates). Still has his copy.

--Darin

Letter: Peak Oil is here. What does this mean for the Coastside?

To be sure, oil stocks are limited--it is a question of “when” not “if.” Everyone agrees on that point. But the answer to that question makes all the difference.

A rapid, large, unplanned for loss of oil production would certainly be a shock to the world with ramifications that are difficult to predict--a very scary situation.

A slightly more gradual decline in oil would make all the difference--not only giving various technologies that were formerly too expensive on the consumption side a chance to reach the market but it would make a large supply of oil that is currently economically out of reach more viable.

Indeed, Dennis’s chart, which appears to support the premise that doomsday is upon us was actually prepared to demonstate that the time has come to invest in developing the oil-shale depoits in Colorado. Though labeled as coming from the Department of Energy (DOE) it originates in a consultant’s report to DOE. There is more than a hint of self-interest in this report (consultant: AOC, see http://aocpetro.com/ Report, see: http://www.evworld.com/library/Oil_Shale_Stategic_Significant.pdf Figure 7 is the one Dennis borrowed).

The chart, as it states, does not include production from OPEC nations nor nations made up from the former Soviet Union (FSU), a large oil-producing region. These areas are generally expected to *increase* production in the near term, making that sudden drop on the right side of the graph much more gradual.

The bottom line is that there is little credible evidence that the oil peak is upon us now or has already passed. There is plenty of eveidence that it is coming within the next twenty years, with a gradual decline following the peak. We’ve got a serious problem but our way of life is not coming to an end quite yet.

Or is it? Consider this: Dennis is right that higher gas prices will mean fewer over-the-hill trips...but that will also mean that it will suddenly be economically viable to put a Target or Wal-Mart here on the coast--all those shoppers who now want to shop on the coast to avoid gasoline expense. I saw plenty of Wal-Marts in small towns in a recent cross-country driving trip. You say “no way, not here” but just wait until it costs you $20 to go over-the-hill--there will be petitions to demand that Wal-Mart build a store!

Coastsider now requires real names and prior review of all comments

Leonard’s “reasonable setup” #1 is closer to what I see as the ideal solution. I don’t know the history of the post that caused Barry to institute the new rules but I suspect that if people were required to use their real names the tone of some of these posts would change.

After all, Coastsider, as Barry has expressed in print, in an exercise in community-building and openness. I would find it valuable to hear my neighbors’ views on things--mystery posters aren’t much in the way of neighbors.

But I also see the need to set limits. This isn’t the Usenet, after all.  We don’t need trolls and people set on causing trouble.

Barry should set out a few basic ground rules (or re-state them, to be more accurate) about what sort of posts are improper. And then delete those where he feels his ground rules have been violated. (Posting a placeholder to inform others of the deletion, of course.)

Coastsider isn’t public property, although it is an asset and a resource to the community. (It was, in fact, one of the key resources I used to learn about about the various communities in the Bay Area and influenced my choice in deciding to move here from the Easy Coast last year.) Barry needs to set rules and enforce them so losers don’t destroy the valuable thing that he has created (on his own initiative, with his own time and money).

The trick is to do it in line with the goals of community-building and openess. Requiring real names is certainly a step in the right direction.

If someone has facts to share but are afraid of revealing their identity they need not despair. I’m sure Barry would love to hear their tips and leads for future stories. But an opinion by the same person, with a secret identity, is of much less value.

--Darin (real name Darin Boville, in Montara!)

We need a common vision of downtown Half Moon Bay

>>I want to reiterate one of the key points in the survey. This was a real surprise to us because we had no idea that so many businesses were “propped up”, so to speak, and needed outside support to help keep the doors open.<<

No offense, Frank, but I find it hard to believe that it took the survey to figure out that. When I first moved here I was toyig with the idea of opening a center for photography--exhibits, lectures, classes, events--something that stayed open in the evening and was an active place.

So I took an afternoon stroll around downtown HMB and talked to the owners about the idea of opening a business downtown. Almost all that I spoke with advised against it (I say “advised against it” to be polite--the real answers were along the lines of “There’s no way in hell I’d open a business here").

I think what you are seeing in downtown HMB is the migration of “for-profit” businesses to locations that make more economic sense (especially higher visibility), if they ever considered HMB at all, and the retention/attraction of “lifestyle businesses” which live off of the financial support of the owner. You can’t then expect “lifestyle businesses” to aggressively court customers, put together effective marketing plans, and you certainly can’t expect them to stay open in the evening, etc. That’s not what they care about, not what they do.

I still think that the key here to a better future is an “anchor” downtown--a major destination such as a movie theatre. There would be a lot of people who would come down to the beach during the day and see a movie later on--and a lot of people who would come down on weekdays to see films. Once the people are there it would seem that new kinds of buisnesses would become possible.

--Darin

Darin Boville
[url=http://www.darinboville.com]http://www.darinboville.com[/url]

We need a common vision of downtown Half Moon Bay

I’ve been here, in Montara, for almost a year. I’ve tried to spend money in downtown Half Moon Bay but have found it to be a difficult task. There is very little there that I would buy. I do buy fish food at the Feed Store. I bank at Bank of America. My kids take swim lessons at the pool. That’s about it. My other needs are served well elsewhere.

There is also nothing to *do* in downtown Half Moon Bay. A Movie theatre would be great, especially one with “character.” I grew up in Akron, Ohio and the redevelopment there was led by the rehabilitation of the wonderful Civic Theatre (http://destinationdowntownakron.com/civic/). We don’t have an old theatre as a starting point but just putting in a large screen with a high quality sound system would make it both an attraction for locals and outsiders--perhaps appealling to both sides of the tourist/local question.

And it would give people a reason--oh my God!--to go downtown after 6 pm.

--Darin

Darin Boville

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