Why not make Dallas' FAIR PARK more bicycle friendly?

I hopped on my bike the other day and rode from White Rock Lake down the Santa Fe Trail towards Fair Park.  After a pleasant ride, the trail delivered me (almost) to Fair Park's front door.  I entered the park through the main gate and headed north to Washington Street.  I then headed east and rode a roughly three-mile loop around the park's inside perimeter.  Three times.  The parking lots are not -- big surprise -- all that interesting.  But the rest of the park is actually very enjoyable.

The thought occurred to me that Fair Park should be a destination for recreational cycling.  This would be a great way for people to get familiar with the park.  I can easily see people exploring the lagoon or the art deco paintings along the Esplanade.  It would be a pleasant experience. It would also be a good way for people to connect with Fair Park.

FAIR PARK in Dallas -- Another reason for smaller events

  Another potential benefit of dividing the State Fair of Texas into a series of smaller events is that it would increase the activity level at Fair Park.  Yes, there are occasional school field trips to the Discovery Garden and concerts at Gexa Pavilion, but for most of the year, most of Fair Park is a ghost town.  Translation:  It lacks vitality; nothing's going on, and that becomes the brand.

Texas State Fair - Break it into smaller events?

  Has anybody ever considered breaking up the Texas State Fair into a series of smaller events?  One benefit of this would be that smaller events would require less surface parking.  Occasionally, the Gexa Pavilion has an event that needs lots of parking, but for the most part all those spaces exist mainly to accommodate one three-week event:  The Texas State Fair.  The rest of the year, they're empty.

There is no clear correlation between the minimum wage and employment levels.

There's a great deal of debate on the minimum wage.  On the one hand, there is the argument that raising the minimum wage will reduce employment.  On the other hand, there is the argument that people should get a living wage.  Well, below is a table that shows what happened to employment in the 12 months after an increase of the federal minimum wage.  Be aware that this table was used to refute the statement that increasing the minimum wage always resulted in job growth.  In this case, that statement was judged to be mostly false.

Source:  Does raising the minimum wage always result in job growth, by Lauren Carroll, Politifact.com, November 6, 2014.

It's clear from the table that sometimes job growth occurred after raising the minimum wage, and sometimes it didn't.  Upshot:  There is no clear correlation between the minimum wage level and job growth.  Why?  Probably because wage levels are just one of many factors that influence the economy.

Do income statistics tell the whole story of income inequality?

It's pretty well-known that real incomes in the bottom 90% of the U.S. income ladder have only improved modestly since the early 1970s, after having doubled (i.e. increased by 100%) over the 25 years before that.  But is it possible that those statistics do not tell the whole story?  Is it possible that, even though those incomes haven't improved, the quality and caliber of the things that can be bought with them have?  And further, does the improved quality of those goods compensate for the reduced apparent income?

Idea for a music app

Wouldn't it be cool if there was a music app that would search for songs based on their beat?

Things NOT to do at work, #2.

Ever get an email that simpy says "see below," or something similar, and has several more emails attached below?  It's then left up to you to sort through all the previous emails and ferret out the point.    This has multiple glaring pitfalls.  First, it is communication by hint, and that leads to miscommunication.  Second, it devalues the time of the recipient since they have to spend their time figuring out what the sender wants them to glean from the chain of messages.  Third, it's basically rude in that it essentially says the the sender's time is more valuable than the recipient's.

Instead of writing "see below," take the time to tell the recipient what you want to communicate from the email chain, or at least point out the specific passage(s) you want them to focus on.  That will then give them the option of reading through the entire chain at their discretion to find context or other meaning.  And it shows that the sender respects the recipient's time.