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Justin Heideman

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 19 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 01/18/13 at 02:36 pm in response to In a massive winter power outage, how would Minnesotans heat their homes?

My house has a pretty old boiler form the late 60s, without a circulation pump (hot water rises). I am pretty sure that I can fire the boiler manually without power, since there is a pilot, but the thermostat wouldn't work. Thanks for writing this as a reminder to make sure I test that out (on a day when we're not heading into a long cold snap).

It would appear from watching this video at This Old House that fully draining your pipes without electricity is pretty hard. How else do you...

Posted on 10/26/11 at 09:08 pm in response to Minneapolis bikers getting increased attention, new safety measures

@Paul (#9):

The bike lanes around the lakes and parkways have a 10MPH speed limit. They're also often used by joggers and pedestrians, even though there is usually a pedestrian track. If you wish to bike faster than 10 MPH (which isn't hard for a serious biker), the road is a better choice. Until recently, the road along west river parkway was also smoother than the bike path.

Posted on 04/22/11 at 09:51 am in response to Danish bicycle expert: Minneapolis can triple bike ridership

Sadly, Minneapolis seems to only be growing more dense at the peripheries or the first ring suburbs, not in the city itself. Without more core city density, bike transit is not going to get much better.

Posted on 03/28/11 at 11:22 am in response to First impressions: the Star Tribune's new website

The Strib has always had one of the worst page sizes for a media site around. If they're using the same CMS, there's only so much they can do to make it better. Sounds like they haven't done much. Have their developers never heard of ySlow or Google Page Speed?

The page refresh is one of the most disingenuous and dishonest practices I've seen on the web. The fact that they're keeping it tells me they're not serious about thinking of the redesign as anything other than a re-skin....

Posted on 10/20/10 at 11:37 am in response to Braublog's first Local Media web rankings

While I believe the Star Tribune is at the top of the heap, I have a hard time believing they're getting three times the traffic of their next competitor. How accurate this is really depends on how hitwise is analyzing their data. The Strib still has their shady 10-minute page refresh, which almost certainly drives up their traffic figures. If hitwise's sampling for visits is short, the Strib will wind up which vastly inflated numbers, as we see here.

I could be all wrong, but...

Posted on 10/19/10 at 05:09 pm in response to Emmer rally: Romney on liberals and American exceptionalism

Aren't Pioneers by definition liberal? I mean, a conservative would wake up and say "I like things just the way they are, I don't need to go see what is over there beyond that mountain range".

Posted on 06/14/10 at 10:12 am in response to Sid Hartman and the statues of downtown Minneapolis

When I was in college a friend and I were in a class that asked us to create changes in the public perception on a small scale. (The class was focused on political propaganda). The project my friend decided on was to every day at noon go down to the Mary Richards statue and put a garbage bag on it, with the following phrase stenciled on in gold lettering: "The achievements of fictitious women should not be celebrated." I was the getaway driver one day, and saw the looks on people's faces...

Posted on 06/11/10 at 10:24 am in response to Gov. Pawlenty discusses hockey, limited government and bong water with Jon Stewart

I am no fan of Tim Pawlenty. Despite this, and aside from the his HUGE and now very obvious dislike of higher education, I thought he came off as pretty reasonable and likable.

But, as others have pointed out, his remarks on higher education are totally out there and crazily simplistic: You can already get college classes online, from big name, non-public institutions for free: Stanford, MIT, and others have entire lectures and coursework for many, many classes for free posted on...

Posted on 04/28/10 at 11:34 am in response to Gov. Tim Pawlenty may decline the offer -- or veto it

Now that, my friends, is brilliant.

Posted on 12/21/09 at 09:53 pm in response to Startribune.com: One billion page views served

@John O'Sullivan:

Yeah, I showed that slide comparing the number of links on the homepages (advance to slide #4). More is not better. Most of what the Strib has is recycled junk and marketing fluff.