Ten top cities in the U.S. for making a living. Tourist spot in each

by Jamie Rhein on

There is a newly published Forbes.com article on the top 10 cities for making a living in the United States. Each has something to offer travelers as well. Here are the top cities and one place to go to in each. These are the first places that immediately came to mind. It’s an odd assortment.

1. Houston, Texas. I’ve been to the Holocaust Museum in Los Angeles and found it incredibly worthwhile and moving. From the description of the Holocaust Museum in Houston, it sounds similar, although there is a section that includes first person accounts of the Holocaust survivors who live in the city.

2. Minneapolis, Minnesota. As I’ve posted before, the outdoor art in Minneapolis is fantastic, particularly, the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.

3. Boston, Massachusetts. The Freedom Trail that winds through the old part of Boston highlights the important places during the American Revolution. Here’s a tour that looks like a fun way to take it in. When I walked the Freedom Trail in Girl Scouts, we were on our own. I wish we had been on this tour.

4. Washington, D.C. For my next trip to D.C., I’d take Jeremy’s suggestion and head to the Brickskeller, a beer lover’s paradise. Sure, I’d take in the sites, many I’ve seen before, but Jeremy’s post offers something new.

5. New York City When I was sweltering in line in Central Park at the Delacorte Theater, not getting tickets to “Hair,” an experience that I recounted in a recent post, a Danish man and his daughter visiting NYC wanted recommendations on what to see. I suggested Ellis Island. The ferry trip there also swings by Liberty Island for a close look at the Statue of Liberty, and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum is superb.

6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’ve only driven through this city, but have plans to visit the Andy Warhol Museum one fine day.

7. San Francisco, California. I must have a thing for taking boats to landmarks. I just love the tour of Alcatraz Island, that includes the famous prison that has been the backdrop for escape stories and intrigue.

8. Dallas, Texas. I went here to attend a cousin’s wedding and picked historic Dealey Plaza, the location of the grassy knoll and the Texas Book Depository, the scene of John F. Kennedy’s assassination, as my must-head-to-before-I-leave-town destination.

9. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s not that I am overly fond of beer drinking, but the Miller Brewing Factory tour of is a lot of fun, particularly if there is a polka band involved.

10. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Liberty Bell may be just a bell, but there’s something about that crack in it that makes for an icon to see if you can swing it.

To find out why these cities are top notch for making a living, read the article. One hint: It involves money.

Hack your local subway

by Grant Martin on

Frequent travelers on any metropolitan subway system know that the two major means for fare tracking and billing are via magnetic strip and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). And every nerd and his RPG character know that those systems can be both readable and exploitable.

To see how secure the Boston subway system was, several MIT students decided to run an analysis on the security of the infrastructure; what they found was a little disturbing. By simply wandering into unlocked doors, opening unlocked cabinets and peering around they were able to find keys to the system, get access to network hardware and find and copy employee identification.

On looking into the security of the magnetic and RFID systems, they were able to reverse engineer the code on the magnetic stripes and reconfigure the data to post $653 to a subway card. Similarly, the group analyzed the RFID contents and were able to disassemble the code.

The students point out that numerous transportation systems around the globe use these systems and technology.

Naturally, all of this quite illegal — the students were just illustrating a point to the MBTA that there are security vulnerabilities in the system that can fairly easily be exploited. Hopefully, they and the company that makes subway infrastructures perks up and makes some serious security changes as a result of this reserach.

Check out the full 87 page presentation on the execution hosted at MIT.



Boston country’s best city for singles

by Jeffrey White on

As someone who lived in Boston for nearly 10 years (a run that closed at the beginning of 2005), I’m happy to report that it is hands down the best city in the United States if you’re single.

Don’t trust me? Fine. Money magazine says the same thing.

In its 2008 rankings of U.S. cities with the most singles, by percentage, the top five includes three communities that are essentially greater Boston. Cambridge, Mass., ranks as the country’s second best city for singles, Somerville next door ranks as the third and Boston proper is at No. 5.

In all three singles make up more than half the population.

Obviously Boston is helped by the sheer number of colleges and universities present, pouring all manners of late teens and twenty-somethings into the city for nine months every year (they’ll be starting to arrive in, oh, a hair under three weeks from now).

The country’s best city for singles, according to Money? Brace yourselves: Hoboken, N.J. There are many young Manhattanites that have taken the plunge and moved there, and others — my brother, included — who just can’t make such a leap yet.

Here’s Money‘s Top 20 cities for the unattached, based on the percentage of each city’s total population that are single.

  1. Hoboken, N.J. (57.7 percent)
  2. Cambridge, Mass. (52.4 percent)
  3. Somerville, Mass. (51.4 percent)
  4. Berkeley, Calif. (51.2 percent)
  5. Boston, Mass. (50.3 percent)
  6. Burlington, Vermont (50 percent)
  7. Washington, D.C. (48.5 percent)
  8. Boulder, Colo. (48.2 percent)
  9. North Druid Hills, Georgia (47.6 percent)
  10. Hermosa Beach, Calif. (47.2 percent)
  11. Minneapolis, Minn. (46.3 percent)
  12. Hempstead, N.Y. (45.8 percent)
  13. Atlanta, Georgia (45.7 percent)
  14. Syracuse, N.Y. (45.6 percent)
  15. Albany, N.Y. (45.4 percent)
  16. Hartford, Conn. (45.3 percent)
  17. Santa Cruz, Calf. (45.3 percent)
  18. New Haven, Conn. (44.9 percent)
  19. San Francisco, Calif. (44.7 percent)
  20. Newark, N.J. (44.1 percent)

East Orange, N.J., St. Andrews, S.C., Marquette, Mich., Tempe, Ariz. and Madison, Wis. round out the top 25.

Air One kicks off flights from Boston and Chicago to Milan

by Grant Martin on

When most people are asked to think of an Italian airline, they automatically think of Alitalia, the struggling national carrier known for mediocre service that was almost bought out by KLM and Air France earlier this year.

Few outside of Italy actually know of the nation’s second largest carrier, Air One, a privately held company that until now has flown mainly to domestic destinations. With the nation’s carrier stumbling though and the Open Skies Agreement in play, Air One (pronounced in Italian “heron”, as in the bird) is ready to make it’s move.

Starting this week, the airline is launching flights from Chicago and Boston directly to Milan on two Airbus A330-200 jumbo jets. They plan to offer a uniquely Italian experience, with catering from Chicago chef Phil Stefani, Italian movies and superior inflight service.

The interior of the cabin will be configured with 22 business class and just over 200 economy seats, although they tell me that they’re going to be expanding their business product by the end of the year. Each business class seat will have private video screens with a selection of movies, while there will be shared overhead screens in Coach.

For the frequent flyers out there, Air One has allied itself with Lufthansa and United, so you’ll be able to earn Star miles on your way to Milan. On the Italian side, connecting flights on Air One and Lufthansa will be available.

How different will the service be from the Lufthansa and United tranastlantic products? The top brass assure me that the “authentic Italian experience” will be enough to set the carrier above the competition, but I wasn’t able to get solid leg-room, inflight entertainment or operational data just yet. We’ll see how the first few flights go.

In the mean time, AirOne flights have already been loaded into the search engines, so you’ll pick them up when running a Kayak search. You can also check out their website for more details. Give them a try and tell us how it goes.

One way to stand traffic hell

by Jamie Rhein on

“I am in traffic hell,” I said to my friend over my cell phone Friday right before the I-64 split off I-75 a few miles before Lexington, Kentucky,

I didn’t expect this traffic. It was 3:45. What was everyone doing off work already?

The miles of orange barrels cutting off the left lane, merging traffic from the right, another highway merging in from the left, plus every tractor trailer truck available to humankind had created five-miles-an-hour to no-miles-an-hour speed. Walking would have been faster.

Just three hours prior I had avoided traffic hell in Columbus by taking an alternative route out of the city. Due to construction, I-71 has turned into a mess at Exit 17. I also had braved on during a torrential downpour when I made it as far as the “Florence Y’all” water tower in Florence, Kentucky. I was making good time on my way to Harrogate, Tennessee—until right before Lexington.

That’s when it felt like I had been transported to Los Angeles where traffic is often choked up for hours on the freeways. If I had bubbles, I would have blown them.

A good friend of mine used this strategy to keep from getting steamed whenever he was stuck in L.A. traffic. Once when I was visiting him, he shared the technique.

  • Open the car window.
  • Open a bottle of bubbles, the kind you can buy about anywhere-or make your own out of a mix of dish soap and water.
  • Put the wand inside the bottle to get the right amount of liquid
  • Put your hand holding the wand out the window to let the breeze make the bubbles and carry them away.

The slower you go, the better this works. This, in essence, is reverse psychology. In a sick sort of way, you actually WANT to go slow.

The fun part about this blowing-bubbles-in-traffic activity is the reactions you get from other motorists. As bubbles floated over my friend’s car across the highway, people laughed, clapped, gave us a thumbs up and honked. Traffic had turned fun.

Yesterday, though, on I-75 south, it was hell— until I called my girlfriend who lives in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, a sleepy, quiet town. When I said “traffic hell,” she had one word, “Boston.” Then added, “Traffic. It’s why I moved out of there.”

Come to think of it, my friend who used to live in Los Angeles, now lives in Butte, Montana, a place that also is traffic-jam free. Since I live in Columbus, all I have to do is to keep remembering to avoid Exit 17.

To those of you heading past Lexington–bubbles.

Here’s a post I found about the therapy of bubble blowing. It works in more than traffic.