Funny, the things I noticed the most in the London one were that there weren't any road markings, and I half-expected the policeman at the end to tell them, "Oi, you can't film 'ere."

Oh, and everyone's wearing a hat!

I love the Prelinger footage. We've got tickets for the Long Now event that Prelinger is doing in Dec., and very much looking forward to it.

Watching film of San Francisco gone by, I can't help but feel nostalgic for "The City That Knows How"... The city of San Francisco today seems so tripped up and tied down by itself. Imagine! Functional trolleys traversing the entire city! We're now squabbling about the how to run "bus rapid transit" (a dedicated bus-only lane) down the Geary corridor - a street that once had streetcar rails end to end. The rails were ripped out 45 years ago because BART was supposed to run a subway line under Geary Street. Half a frackin' century later, there's no subway and we're arguing about *busses*. Nobody who can afford otherwise will take a bus. Everybody will ride trains. But instead of building trains to serve an entire half of the city, we're going to spend 130 Squintillion dollars to build the Central Subway, a mile-long spur from Chinatown to neither of the major Market St. stations. It makes me want to spit.

And at the same time, I know I should savor what we have... the Quake is coming - and when we rebuild again after the next one, I can't help but think we won't be able to rebuild this crazy beautiful city, so full of drafty old $2 million blighted homes...

What struck me in both videos was the very low number of chubby folks, and almost no one is actually obese.

The London one is amazing, because the city is so vehicle-dominated already.

What struck me in both videos was the very low number of chubby folks, and almost no one is actually obese.

I find the same true in major cities today, though. People just have to walk more in cities.