I have the RFP for the TTC Web “redesign.” I know who bid on it (not hard to find), and I have asked them all questions for attribution.

Does anybody still think it makes sense for Adam Giambrone to indulge four blog editors in their fantasy that they are collectors and arbiters of public opinion?

Not that beauty is necessarily a criterion (let’s start with function), but why not compare two sources half a decade apart?

Katherine Ashenburg, “Motion pictures: When commuters board the subway on the new Sheppard line, they’ll ride through stations notable not for their architecture, but for their public art, each stop like a visit to a neighbourhood gallery,” Toronto Life, August 2002

When it was built, in 1996, Downsview [station] raised alarm bells at the Ministry of Transportation. David Lawson[, architectural coordinator of the Sheppard line,] summarizes the bureaucrats’ reaction to the chic, column-free layouts: “How much did this flash cost?” The designer details – what they considered “fripperies” – had accounted for 10% of the total, so when it came time to plan the Sheppard line, the ministry cut the budget accordingly. The austerity meant much less high-end terrazzo and much more exposed concrete on the floors and walls.

“University Subway Stations Renaissance: Design Enhancement Initiatives, Museum Station” (sections reordered)

In 2006, funds of $600K have been approved… with $500K to be accommodated from under expenditures in other programs. A further $1.5M was also included in the years 2007–2009 for this project…. Approve the award of the Museum Station detailed design assignment to Diamond Schmitt Architects Inc. (DSAI) on a sole-source basis for an upset limit amount of $500,000 which includes detailed design and design support during construction….

The conceptual design was developed prior to the agreement being reached between [Toronto Community Foundation] and TTC in consideration of the best use of funds within the agreed capital limit of $5M. […] The DSAI workplan was submitted May 30, 2006 and indicates a total fee requirement not to exceed $500,000, which includes approximately $250,000 for design and $250,000 for design support during construction[.]

Art in the Sheppard subway was capped at 0.5% of budget and “design” (undefined in Ashenburg’s article) at 5.4%. Howard Moscoe allegedly wanted to increase the art budget to 1%.

What else could we do with that 0.5% increase? What could we do with $1.5 million misdirected to a station redesign? (It is a station redesign, moreover, that nobody needs and that only the Toronto Community Foundation [who?]; its mink-stole, Bill Thorsell–style backers; and TTC management want.)

And here’s another question: If the TTC can “sole-source” a half-million-dollar contract to a star architect, then turn around and sole-source a merchandising contract, why does it refuse to talk to the Spacers until some unspecified other tender is in place? They’ve grossed more from subway buttons in two years than the merchandising contractor did from its entire line in one year.

Lynn Crosbie, Globe and Mail. 2005.02.05:

Lately, it is the unlikeliest of heroes, the long-capsized NYPD Blue star Davis Caruso, who has emerged as a vocal stylist nonpareil…. The show starts, and Caruso appears on some blood-lashed crime scene and discovers a lead. He, without fail, raises his ubiquitous sunglasses and comments, in a way that implies he is inventing language as he goes along. Then the Who’s Roger Daltrey slices through in a scream that punctuates the fervour in motion.

I watch this show every week with a friend and we both scream along, like bong-carrying disciples at a monster rock concert. And then it occurs to us: We have become excitable maniacs over the delivery of such prosaic comments as “Ricky. He doesn’t know what’s going on. But we do” or “Accidents happen, that’s quite true. And so – so’s murder.”

With all due respect to the writers, the words mean nothing. It is Horatio Caine (Caruso’s character) we are flipping the heavy-metal index and pinkie at; it is his staggered, drawling and almost insanely portentous delivery that ignites the dormant lighter in all of us; that lets us know we are in the presence of the kind of star heat that burns all the more brightly for its rarity….

I too enjoy the spectacle of this leathery ginger acting with his eyeglasses and blazer, after the manner in which J. Roberts acts with her bosom.

Now: D. Caruso–A. Rodriguez slash fiction? I would attend a staged reading. I would perform at a staged reading – acting with my Gore-Tex hat, veganist Docs, and Carhartt pantalon.

Well, it’s either this or hairless quarter-Burmese engineer go-go boys across the street.

“Queen’s”? Don’t be so obvious.

In an “Australian” winter.

Or is it a lyre?

Chris Hofstader (q.v.) – a former functionary at Freedom Scientific, makers of the much-unloved Jaws screen reader – has always presented himself on his blog as a principled defender of accessibility for blind people. As such, he would have no ethical choice but to lambaste Apple for selling iPods that blind people can’t use.

The iPod and Apple’s Barriers to Accessibility

[W]hy does Apple remain so completely bigoted against us blinks? […] Why… can’t an iPod talk? Because Apple doesn’t want it to. Why doesn’t Apple want the iPod to talk? Ask Steve.

Is it technically feasible for an iPod to talk? [… iPods all] had more than enough compute power and storage (with zillions of bytes left over) to run a speech synthesizer. Having walked through the iPod interface with a sighted guide, I can also state quite clearly that offering the interface as a self-voicing application would not challenge the talented Apple engineers to[o] much. […]

Effectively, the iPod has no accessibility features because Apple thinks of accessibility well after anything else they design into their products. Speech in an iPod would have been relatively cheap and easy[,] but Apple thinks of “cool” first and nerdy ideas like universal design just isn’t cool. […]

Why… do we insist on giving Apple a free advertisement for a product that might as well have a sign saying, “No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish” hanging on it as far as we blinks are concerned[?]

More About Apple and Me

Needless to say, there is little love lost between old-time Apple people and me. So, when I got into the AT biz and Steve made his proclamation that “speech technology is superfluous to our mission,” I already had a distaste for them[,] and their poor to nonexistent accessibility didn’t do much to help change my mind about the company. […] Why do I hold Apple to a higher standard than other companies who make portable media players?

Indeed, why does he?

It is surely axiomatic that this avowed defender of Windows adaptive technology (“with an excellent collection of AT products in all categories, Windows had a substantial lead… I’ll stick with Jaws on Windows”) would never play favourites or deride Apple merely because it fails to be Microsoft. Obviously his sense of fair play is impeccable, and Hofstader would decry any inaccessibility that arises due to incompetence or ignorance no matter whose products are involved.

In that case, when can we expect a full historical excoriation of Microsoft for releasing an iPod competitor, the Zune, that is no more accessible to blind people than iPods are? Microsoft had five years to get this right; in fact, Microsoft had about half a year from Hofstader’s original posts to bolt on some accessibility as an afterthought. Why didn’t it happen, and why isn’t Hofstader, cane and/or guide dog in hand, leading the charge at (the) Gates?