The 1916 Zoning Resolution Architecturally, what is striking about the 1916 legislation is that it sought to articulate a logical formula for achieving a public good in the absence of a specific vision of exactly what would actually be produced. Michael Sorkin, 20 Minutes in Manhattan regulationsconstraints
The air doesn't know about zoning boundaries Work uses suggest another bugaboo: reeking smokestacks and flying ash. Of course reeking smokestacks and flying ash are harmful, but it does not follow that intensive city manufacturing (most of which produces no such nasty by-products) or other work uses must be segregated from dwellings. Indeed, the notion that reek or fumes are to be combated by zoning and land-sorting classifications at all is ridiculous. The air doesn’t know about zoning boundaries. Regulations specifically aimed at the smoke or the reek itself are to the point. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities zoningregulationsseparation
The source code for SimCity Local Code was Sorkin’s attempt to design a whole city from scratch—with one big twist. The whole thing had been written as if it were the byzantine, nearly impossible to follow codes and regulations for an entire, hypothetical metropolis. The effect is like stumbling upon the source code for SimCity. Sorkin’s exhaustively made point was that, if you know everything about a given metropolis, from its plumbing standards to its parking requirements, its sewer capacity to the borders of its school districts, then you could more or less accurately imagine the future form of that city from the ground up. Geoff Manaugh, A Burglar's Guide to the City Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude rulesregulations
Local Code: The Constitution of a City at 42º N Latitude A Book by Michael Sorkin www.goodreads.com The source code for SimCityLocal Code: 3,659 Proposals About Data, Design & The Nature of Cities regulationslawcities
Never change the technology Once you choose the technology that runs your blog, use it. Don’t replace it, ever. Never ever rewrite it. If you’re trying to blog, write. Work in the ‘posts’ and ‘drafts’ folders. Create TODO lists and schedules to get posts live. Stay out of the blog configuration, templates, plugins, and whatnot. ...This is a specific instance of a larger problem: most people are unable to finish their side projects or focus on their side hustles, because they get distracted and sidetracked by tinkering and other things that increase the complexity of the project, instead of working toward the original goal. Being able to manage oneself is a skill as useful as it is rare, and I’m sure there are a few business books that draw that idea out into hundreds of pages. Tom MacWright, How to blog macwright.com Managing Oneself writing