Hayward

I played Tetris (by EA) on my iphone. They should ban this game. By the end you are smashing the screen with your fingers to frantically rotate the pieces. It kept me busy the whole way from Chicago to Cincinnati on the bus.

Oh nothing much. I talk to myself in my Chicago thread, occasionally rant in the Pet Peeves thread. I heard somewhere this board was about cities and stuff.

Why do Nintendo things always have to be so clunky. I understand all ages of kids will beat the crap out of this thing, but it's got a hell of a lot of extra plastic.

I watched our neighbor's kids a few times. They'd ask to eat the whole carton of ice cream and I'd say "Ok go ahead" or want to stay up beyond midnight, which I'd say "Sure that's fine." They'd still only eat about a bowl of ice cream and fall asleep around 10:30. I found it hilarious I could say yes to anything, but they'd still be good. The parents were impressed because the kids said I was the greatest so they paid me a sh!t ton of money. I guess not being strict made it easy. They had a dog which they were sometimes playfully rough with. I'm surprised it never got pissed and lashed out.

Depends. For big R&D components you need alot of contiguous floor space....which is why techtowns in old historic warehouses work so well.

On the subject, I can't stand when people try to bring politics into the workplace or even during a friendly conversation. Though I tend to agree with most of my friends and coworkers on political matters, there's many nuances. I think where it's acceptable is in a relationship. At least with my girlfriend we are pretty aligned on our beliefs.

Student housing in the South Loop NorthAndre

Various West Loop, now "New Loop" projects moving forward. Nothing really over 40 floors, which makes me miss the pre-recession days where 60-80 story towers were regular. All photos from Curbed Chicago

Oh wow, thanks for posting these. What an incredible set. I think they tell the story far better than any news channel can. Those barges btw are huge!!!

Hyde Park office tower. The Harper Court area is getting residential highrises, hotels, office buildings, grocery stores and other stuff, along with the restoration of some older buildings, notably a historic theater. A former hollywood video will be demolished for this project. The rest will replace surface parking. After Hollywood video closed, it briefly became OppShop, a temporary community center for the arts http://www.flickr.com/photos/metroblossom/4375104432/# Hopefully they will return in a new storefront. The quality I'm seeing in southside developments seems to be a step ahead of downtown's. The shorter retail buildings can support towers when the market commands. These projects are financed, they are moving forward. Original source unknown, will update when verified.

The Ritz has obviously made progress since my Dec 20th posting. Here's a photo taken today on my bike ride. 85 and sunny!!! Note the reconstruction of the Farwell building, which I'm assuming will be re-awarded historical landmark status. I'm not exactly sure how that works for historical reproductions, though it worked for the McGraw Hill building down the street.

That's more of an incremental replacement vs full replacement. I guess I'm not into constantly upgrading a desktop tower with new parts. And displays are always improving as well. I'm not even talking about upgrading the desktop's internals, just the monitor vs. the computer as a whole (excluding the monitor). If one technology moves faster than the other you can just buy a new monitor (or vice versa, buy a new computer and keep the monitor if you still like it). But all the iMac does is tie the two together and force people to upgrade everything, even if they don't need to. I can understand people that don't want to crack the computer open and swap in new parts, but the monitor (IMO) should be as independent from the rest of the computer as the printer or keyboard. Would you want to have to buy a whole new computer because one of your keys stopped working? The only advantage I see to marrying the two together is portability. But the thing's a desktop, you're not going to carry it around. Most people were buying laptops (and still are) during the mid 2000's and obviously plenty of people have encountered a key breaking or disk drive getting stuck, or a spot on their monitor. That's why most of these laptops came with service plans and warranties. Really, the bulk of those issues were the result of abuse from moving them around. The possibility of broken parts has never been considered a drawback of the imac, rather the fact that you mentioned, it's immobile. But if you want the power of a desktop without all the wires hanging out, then an imac is a good computer. It's simplicity is what makes it marketable. I don't need to be lumped with the "macs are the best group." Actually, I see no quality difference between Macs and PC's, and I use both every day. The real problem is Windows, which is an absolutely horrible operating system, and it will have the same problems on both machines.

That's more of an incremental replacement vs full replacement. I guess I'm not into constantly upgrading a desktop tower with new parts. And displays are always improving as well. Regardless of when you replace one or the other, you still are buying new every so many years for whatever system you choose. As my backup, I got the 4 year Apple Care. Before it runs out, I'll donate my imac and purchase a new computer. Otherwise, if I have an issues, the most inconvenient part will be boxing this computer up, getting a taxi, and going to the store. There's times where I'd like to have a souped up desktop computer and just use a TV as the screen, but as imacs improved, they achieved a pretty good balance. I guess I'm also into the design. I like the fact that's it's just a big screen, and that's it.

Well even with the iMac my desk gets like that anyway lol

My thoughts: Laptops still seem most practical for college students. They load them up with a bunch of software and take them to classes and coffee shops. Upon graduation, "residential" laptop usage seems less practical. The majority of time spent on a computing device outside the home is done on a smartphone or tablet. The laptop is basically overkill Commercial laptop usage is still popular. Obviously they are convenient during business travel. But guess what? I'm seeing way more clients and sales people walk in with iPads. They just hook them up to our smart board and show their power points. If you are writing long reports and stuff or in the design industry, then a laptop would be more convenient, but most of the business world does everything on blackberries. I'd say mid-2000's desktops definitely saw a drop in popularity, but I think they will rebound. I don't have any facts to back this up, but I think users are spread on far ends of the spectrum. There's the gamers, 3d modelers, web developers, graphic designers who want powerhouse machines. On the other end are people who just use the computer for internet and to look at photos. There doesn't seem to be much of the in-between group anymore. But I'm one of those people. I bought the iMac. I just wanted a really big screen, and since all the stuff is inside the screen I get the benefits of the simplicity of a laptop but the huge screen along with it. And the new iMac pack enough power to do computer renderings and graphic design stuff.

I realize this thread pops up frequently, but I couldn't find the old ones where this topic was discussed before. I'm excited but frustrated at the same time. Photography is my big hobby. If my photos don't look good, I'm not happy. Additionally, I take a lot of photos at my job, so they need to be good so that clients are impressed or our marketing materials look good to win jobs. I've used 3 digital camera since 2002. It started with your typical point and shoot, to one of those in between point and shoot/looks like an DSLR kind of cameras and then finally a DSLR. I've listed in order the cameras I've had 1. Canon PowerShot S30. Purchased in 2002 This camera was considered to be pretty high end at the time when digital quality still had to prove itself. Though the photos were only 3 mp at the time, the images were crisp and the colors were extraordinary. No there is no post-processing! I didn't do that in 2002, uploaded right to the internet from the camera. Again, superb color and nice balance 2. Canon PowerShot S2 1S. Purchased in 2005 This camera was a step up in terms of resolution. It also had more manual features and a better zoom. Colors were almost just as good despite that I manually set them identical to the last powershot. Pretty good color and much sharper looking than the previous powershot Nikon D40, purchased in 2007. This camera has taken some really great shots. They are always razor crisp and it performs well at night. The camera has superb balance, especially when shooting in dark downtown canyons, it doesn't bleach out the sky. But my biggest gripe has been color loss. Images look good on the LCD screen, but come up bleached out. I've tested it on various monitors, Macs and PCs, different operating systems, switching all the color profiles in photoshop (yes I've done my homework). Still I think it's the camera Even with the vibrance cranked up in photoshop, I still couldn't get this photo to pop. It was just too desaturated out of the camera. Photos taken in RAW have yielded improved results, coupled with some photoshopping A photo taken in jpeg format, but heavily photoshopped to increase the colors. ----------------------------------- So from what you see above, I like the vibrant colors I used to get from Canon's, but these cameras were not DSLRs or anything close to professional level I like the kind of balance, crisp edges and good resolution I got from my Nikon, but the color is way too desaturated. When I look at photos I've seen taken by Canon DSLR's they always seem to have rich color, but I can never tell if they've been post-processed or not. But I've been more impressed overall with photo threads on other sites that were taken with Canons. On the other hand, I'm comfortable using a Nikon and have invested in expensive lenses already. So buying just a new camera body could get me something nice. However, if I'm convinced to buy a Canon, I could just sell the lenses and with the money I have saved up, buy a pretty nice Canon camera. My budget is up to $1999.00. No more than that, unless there's a really good reason and I should wait. I'm currently looking to buy a Nikon D7000, but only after hearing some opinions. What are your thoughts. What do you use? What have you done to get good colors? Is there possibly something wrong with my Nikon that I'm not getting desirable results? Show me then! This is big to me like buying a new car.

It's surrounded by industrial buildings and the freeway. There's some residential structures a block and a half away. Assuming the building doesn't become an overlay obtrusive billboard, it might get away without having too many complaints. This particular developer has teased us before. I hope he can at least get something built. Chinatown needs some more highrise stuff.

As silly as it sounds, I can't wait till the Water Tower Chic-fil-A opens in Chicago. I pass by it everyday on my commute to work and they are nearing completion. It actually looks kind of fancy on the inside. Maybe the extra effort because it's first in the city, and near the Mag mile.

curbed.chicago New proposed building in Chinatown

Not so much UO, but I HAVE to get on skyscraperpage.com occasionally for project research sometimes at work.....which is actually kind of annoying trudging back through 100s of pages of a thread to find good examples for case studies.

Wow, call me ignorant, but I wasn't aware there was that much undeveloped space in Chicago. This looks like it would have a, dare I say, Pesht like transformational effect on the area. [sigh] There's actually buildings there....just with a lot of park space in between. They are all apartment highrises. I think the reality will be the towers (which are all in great condition) will remain and new towers and midrises will go up in between. But I think this plan is still years away. The area has already built way too many housing units and needs time to catch up. This is a big housing development just south http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Chicago,+IL&aq=&sll=41.834142,-87.606096&sspn=0.054358,0.132093&gl=us&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Chicago,+Cook,+Illinois&ll=41.824821,-87.61219&spn=0.00307,0.016512&t=h&z=17&layer=c&cbll=41.824823,-87.612191&panoid=bXmUP3qYZ13iASaRRuey3Q&cbp=11,102.6,,0,-2.69

Good to see. I look forward to the update on the hotel.

What? why would your dad text her? I think both sides should just play dumb for awhile.

David, that story is hilarious. I was talking to one of my friends the other day if that kind of thing ever happens. There's the proof. So I'm wondering if anyone with legal knowledge knows the answer to this. I locked my bike to a sign post the other day. When I came back, someone had locked this POS bike...I'm talking assembled from scrap parts....to my bike. They wrapped a heavy duty chain lock several times around my frame. It just didn't seem accidental. I've had this happen before in college, and the university used a plasma cutter to remove the lock, and just left the other persons bike there. But it took a week and half of calling and complaining to get action. My initial thought was go to the police. But then I've heard numerous bad stories of how the police in larger cities couldn't help unless the owner of the other bike was present..uhhhhh. ok. And the cops would refuse to just impound the other bike. I figured, whatever take it into my own hands. I ran home and got my proof of ownership of the bike. I went into our buildings maintenance room and grabbed some pipe cutters. When I got back, I had the pipe cutters just positioned, when this guy runs from the alley "hold up, hold up, hold up." Let me unlock it! Unlocks it, throws the chain around his neck and just rides off. Apparently this is becoming a common way to steal bikes. Luckily I didn't become a victim. But can I legally cut someone else's lock to retrieve my own property if this ever happens again? I've heard different answers. I don't see why not.

It's been dead around here. Almost as dead as my Chicago Development Thread where I talk to myself.