We've had our parklet for 15 years, and now SFMTA says they're going to fine us $500/day if we don't demolish it in two weeks.

We have spent nearly two years trying to negotiate with them to figure out some rational way to satisfy them, and they have been 100% unwilling discuss any alternatives. In their view, they can demand whatever they want and we just have to suck it up.

Over the last few months, we have reached out to Mayor Lurie, and to District 6 Supervisor Dorsey (through various channels) and have gotten no response of any kind.

Protecting local small businesses (and a Legacy Business at that) from the predations of petty bureaucrats is supposed to be what this business-focused administration is all about, is it not? That's what I've read. But they won't return our calls.

We love our parklet. We love all parklets. Probably you do too. Probably you also believe that the San Francisco street-scape should be a place for people, rather than solely used as free parking for Ubers and autonomous robo-murdercars.

If you have any pull with anyone in this administration and could get someone to return our calls, that would be extremely helpful.

I'd hate to have to resort to an emailing campaign, since those are annoying for everyone involved, but I guess that's next on the agenda if we can't get someone to talk to us.

Basically SFMTA's demand is that there be a new bus loading zone right smack in the middle of where the parklet is; directly in front of the entrance to DNA Pizza.

When we asked questions like, "Would sliding the parklet South by ten feet solve the problem?" they just keep repeating, "The loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here and it has to be 5' wide and 8' deep." Then we say, "I understand that, but how would you recommend we reconfigure our parklet to accommodate that without destroying it entirely?" And they just go back to, "the loading zone for a 60' bus has to be here." They won't discuss it. They just demand it be gone.

What we are asking of you:

• Help us find someone in the Lurie administration who will return our calls. (415-626-2532)
• Get the local press to make noise about this.

What we will be asking of that official:

• Pause these ursurious, debilitating fines until we find a solution.
• Convince someone to negotiate a solution with us in good faith rather than just telling us "fuck you, no".

Here's an email I sent to the Mayor nearly two months ago. No response of any kind:

From: Jamie Zawinski <jwz@dnalounge.com>
Subject: Please help us keep DNA Lounge's parklet
Date: August 1, 2026 at 9:42:37 PM PDT
To: daniel.lurie@sfgov.org
Cc: Devon Dossett <devon@dnalounge.com>

Dear Mayor Lurie,

I am the owner of DNA Lounge (one of San Francisco's oldest and most well-known nightclubs, at 41 years, and a Legacy Business) and we need your help.

SFMTA is currently threatening to completely destroy DNA Lounge's 15-year-old parklet.

This will have a hugely deleterious effect on our business. The parklet is beloved and heavily used by our customers, and by customers of other businesses on 11th Street. It brings life to the street, and helps keep the sidewalk clear. It provides much-needed shelter from rain, wind and sun.

THE PROBLEM:

Our parklet was installed in 2011. In 2017, in order to accommodate a sidewalk reconfiguration, we were forced to rebuild it and reduce it in size. In 2017, SFMTA approved the current configuration of our parklet, and at the time, all communication with them referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses.

Now they are telling us that it was never "really" approved, and, surprise, now it has to support a pair of 60' busses instead, so our parklet must be destroyed.

This is straight out of "Brazil" -- "Oh, we may have said that, but your form isn't stamped, you see."

Nine years after we re-built the parklet to their specifications, at great expense, they have come back and told us that they're moving the goal posts.

WHAT WE WANT:

To keep our existing parklet at its current size and location. It is highly valued by our community, and very helpful to our business. Having already spent $15,000 on this gift to Eleventh Street, we do not look forward to losing it, or to having to spend even more money to make it worse and move backwards.

I hope you can help us with this, and cause saner heads to prevail.

Thank you for your time.

Jamie Zawinski

PS:

A slightly longer version of the timeline:

• In 2011, we received permission to install a parklet in two parking spaces in front of DNA Lounge. It was enthusiastically supported by our neighbors. Though it cost over $11,000 to build and install, we were able to crowd-fund that from our local community.

• In 2015, SFMTA told us that our parklet would have to move, due to a sidewalk widening.

• In 2016 through 2017, SFMTA approved our parklet in front of DNA Lounge. All communication, drawings, plans and permits referenced a bus stop supporting 40' busses. Reconfiguring and re-installing the parklet cost over $4,000. But again, we were able to crowd-fund that, because our local community values it so highly.

• In 2025, SFFD told us that our parklet would need to be removed entirely because (they falsely claimed) it is encroaching things that it demonstrably is not.

• In 2026, SFDPW told us that our parklet would need to be removed to support the loading of 60' busses. We pointed out that all discussion with SFMTA in 2015, and all permits, referred to 40' busses. That's what they designed, and that's what we built. But they claim that that doesn't matter because suddenly, after all this time, we were "not fully permitted" so they can do whatever they want.

• SFDPW are now making threats about "enforcement action".

And yesterday, SFMTA finally tacked up a poster on our parklet saying that in two weeks they plan to start fining us $500/day. We didn't even get the courtesy of an email.

And to add insult to injury, they started this a week before the Folsom Street Fair, our busiest weekend of the year. We do not have time to deal with this right now!

Sing that Ramones song with me: "SFMTA wants to take our parklet away".

Our parklet is 15 years old; it nearly pre-dates the parklet program itself, and that's part of the problem: because it has been nearly-first-of-its-kind and special-cased multiple times, there's not much of a paper trail. There were a bunch of phone calls and in-person conversations where people pointed at things.

And this city is dead-set on doubling back on every possible good thing that came out of the pandemic. How many parklets have been destroyed over the last couple of years due to massively increasing fees and bureaucratic intransigence like this? I don't have a precise number but it is "a lot". There are years of articles about this pattern: "Business and their community are sad about their now-former parklet, how could the city let this happen?" Apparently the Lurie (and Breed) administrations don't even consider this to be bad press. They just don't give a shit.

Aaron Peskin back in 2021: "It's the most uncoordinated, messed-up, insulting display of government incompetence. It's breathtaking."

On academic mentoring platform Nova Learning, Computer Science and AI, "once the dominant choice among students... is losing ground fast, while Engineering has nearly doubled its share." It's a small survey, but "The steepest proportional decline is in Software & Data Science, the most traditional 'learn to code' pathway, which lost 44% of its 2025 share. AI saw the largest absolute drop of any single subject in the survey, down 6.2 points.

"The category did not decline uniformly. Students moved away fastest from the pathway most associated with entry-level software work, while the more applied and human-facing subfields held their ground better."


Slashdot reader BrianFagioli writes:


Nova Learning says the share of surveyed middle and high school students naming Computer Science and AI as their primary academic interest fell from 42.3 percent in 2025 to 27.9 percent in 2026, while Engineering rose from 11.9 percent to 23 percent. The biggest gains came from Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering...

[B]roader enrollment data points in the same direction. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported declines in Computer and Information Science enrollment at four year institutions, even as Engineering grew. AI coding tools are not proven to be the cause, but as software development changes and AI handles more coding tasks, students may be starting to rethink what a future in technology should look like. [Undergraduate enrollment in CS programs at four-year institutions fell 8.1%, to approximately 606,000 students.]

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lang heb ik Latijn en Grieks gegeven in Brabant. Nu alweer twee jaar op een middelbare school in Groningen. De leerlingen zijn hetzelfde.

Plaats de cijfers 1 tot en met 9 zo in het diagram dat elk cijfer precies één keer voorkomt in elke rij, kolom, de negen vetomrande 3x3 vakken, én de vier grijze 3x3 vakken.

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

WASHINGTON (ANP/RTR) - De Republikeinse senator John Curtis heeft opgeroepen tot een onderzoek naar de vraag of de familie van de Amerikaanse president Donald Trump profiteert van zijn ambtstermijn. Volgens Curtis bestaat onder het publiek de indruk dat familieleden hun positie uitbuiten, wat het vertrouwen in de overheid ondermijnt.

In een brief aan de juridische commissie van de Senaat vroeg Curtis onder meer om onderzoek naar de zakelijke activiteiten van Trumps oudste zoon, Donald Trump Jr., zoals zijn promotie van cryptovaluta, vastgoedtransacties en platforms voor voorspellingsmarkten juist nu zijn vader in het Witte Huis zit.

Ook uitte hij zijn zorgen over betalingen door de Russische oligarch Omar Kremlev voor diens huwelijksfeest op de Bahama's eerder dit jaar. Democraten in het Congres zijn vorige week al een onderzoek gestart naar die betalingen.

De oproep van Curtis is het jongste voorbeeld van prominente Republikeinen die afstand nemen van de steeds minder populaire president, de facto de leider van hun partij, nu de tussentijdse verkiezingen van 3 november naderen. De Republikeinen verdedigen daarbij krappe meerderheden in het Amerikaanse Congres.

Zo hebben de Republikeinse Senaatskandidaten Ashley Hinson en Mike Rogers onlangs opgeroepen tot een snel einde aan de oorlog met Iran. En Paul LePage, voormalig gouverneur van Maine en kandidaat voor het Huis van Afgevaardigden, heeft kritiek geuit op Trumps beleid om immigranten zonder papieren uit te zetten. Hij vindt dat de handhaving zich moet richten op gewelddadige criminelen.

Een besluit over Curtis' verzoek kost tijd, zei commissievoorzitter Chuck Grassley, eveneens een Republikein, tegen verslaggevers. Een beslissing wordt pas na de tussentijdse verkiezingen verwacht.

OzGFK has added a photo to the pool:

January 2024.
Furano, Japan.
Ilford HP5+, Ricoh 35 ZF.
Home dev and scan.

Australian Field Recording has added a photo to the pool:

Tarban Bay and Tarban Creek Bridge
Hunters Hill, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
7th of June, 2006.
Nikon D200 (CCD Sensor) + Tokina 12-24 f4 lens.

A Scandinavian-inspired identity that brings the refreshing spirit of the North into the warmth of everyday Vietnamese café culture.

Our expert betting writers have picked a four-leg early Bet Builder, including podium finish and top-six selection.