American Madness

I know, it isn’t “cool” to insult the intelligence of Barack Obama. So then, at whose feet should the blame be laid for this piece of idiocy? From barackobama.com, specifically his page laying out his foreign policy positions:

“Seek New Partnerships in Asia: Obama will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. He will maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia…”

Um, Obama does know that Australia is not “in Asia,” right? He does know Australia is a continent separate from Asia, right? Or do they not teach geography at Harvard Law? Maybe he should have snorted coke off a globe.

Although I am not a paranoid shut-in, afraid to step out my door, positive that imminent disaster waits around every corner, this is the website that could definitely turn me into one. So, before you go and check it out, be forewarned: This is not for people who fear disaster.

The Global Incident Map is just that, a map that charts the latest “Terrorism Events and Other Suspicious Activities.” This could include anything that could even be remotely considered “suspicious” including false alarms, as they raise fear and terror levels.

Click on any of the events on the map, each with its own icon to display the type of event (a little explosion for bomb threats, little trains for railway threats, little planes for airports, etc…) and you will discover what caused the little alert to show up, ranging from “Brooklyn-bound subway service on the 6 line was disrupted between 125th and 42nd streets due to a police investigation at the 77th street station” to “A suicide bomb on the outskirts of the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday killed six schoolchildren and wounded three Italians working on a project to build a bridge.” (more…)

WeFeelFine is a project I learned about at the Beautiful/Decay: Vis/Ed event last week.

To learn more about Jonathan Harris, the mind behind WeFeelFine you can watch a video of him talking about this project and his new project, Universe on CoolHunting. Anyway…

WeFeelFine is a project that… Well, actually, they have a really good description of what they are doing, so let’s let them say it in their own words:

Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the “feeling” expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.). Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written. All of this information is saved.

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Do you have awful neighbors? Maybe a slum lord managing your building? Feel like you have no recourse about the problems you are dealing with in your current situation? Well, that really kind of sucks. And this isn’t going to make things too much better for you, but it will help others from falling into the same situation you are in.

RottenNeighbors is a site that let’s you locate your apartment on a Google map, label it and write your problems with where you are, allowing other visitors to learn about the pitfalls of that seemingly perfect building they were considering renting in.

Gripes go from the paper thin walls and loud neighbors next-door to stolen grill components, homeless sleeping on the stoops and collapsing roofs. It even says on the site: “we are here to help you find and discover bad neighbors no matter where you are thinking about relocating.”

Of course it only works if you take part as well, the more people who write their stories on the site, the more neighborhoods are covered. There is even a blog that discusses different ways to deal with bad neighbors and advice on how to resolve problems with neighbors. Pretty interesting, well at least until your apartment is highlighted as an undesirable neighbor… So preempt that, go on their and write yourself up as being an excellent, caring neighbor, as oppossed to all those other bastards who live in your building.

Yes, I know this has been slowly making its way around the net this week and when I first saw ti I wasn’t too excited about it. But then I took a little while and actually checked it out- it is kind of useful and definitely worth peeking at, especially if you are in New York, and get this, it even has some information on the boroughs.

Basically it is yet another Google map mash-up, but this one has implications beyond locating your favorite site in the Ghost Busters movies. This map mashes up New York with prices for Milk, Lettuce and a six-pack of Beer.

The project was conducted by the Brian Lehrer listeners of his WNYC radio show and the results are up on the WNYC website where you can find the cheapest places in your neighborhood to pick up any of those items. Some surprises, others, not so much.

The biggest disappointment I have to say is that the map is not more complete and the listeners don’t go to some of the supermarkets I go to, though now, having a better sense of the prices around me I might need to start going to different supermarkets

Next weekend we have one of my favorite city wide events happening:

Open House New York is a day when a number New York buildings and sites throw their doors open and invite the public to come and see what they’ve got going on. This is the 5th year te program has been running and each year it just seems it get bigger and bigger.

In the past I have gotten a chance to visit: the “Hidden Harbors” around the city, the Marble Cemetery on 2nd Avenue (one of the oldest in the city), the Free Mason’s Lodge on 23rd Street and the High Line.

Almost all of the locations are free to visit, though some do require a reservation in advance and some of them fill up pretty quickly, though you have a slight advantage, the listings just went up today. It’s really worth checking out and there are some awesome places to see, so check their website for participating locations (and more will probably be added in the next week) and take a peak at some of the hidden treasures of the city.

I am hoping they again offer a chance to see the City Hall Subway Station alog gthe 6 line… Otherwise I might just have to illegally ride the train around the turn… Nah, I’m just kidding, I would never do anything like that

Ever have trouble finding a parking space? Well, this Friday it is about to get worse, at least for the day.

Friday, September 21st is Park(ing) Day.

Back in 2005 an art collective called Rebar took over a metered parking space and turned it into a mini park for the day . They got such a positive response from the project that they have turned it into an international event, in cities across the US and around the world (which, I guess is a bit redundant since I already said it was an International event…).

Anyway, the basic idea is to find an empty metered spot and set up your park, just remember to feed your meter, as you are “leasing” the spot on an hourly rate (possibly one of the best deals in the city). (more…)

Does anyone else remember the Time-Life Series “Mysteries of the Unknown“?

It was the one that had the long commercials asking how the Egyptians were able to build such incredible pyramids and the Sphinx and then commenting how the moon had similar structures on it. Basically the books, as far as I know (unfortunately, I do not have the complete 33 book set or even one of them for that matter), examined some world mysteries, some dealt with the paranormal, and (okay) most dealt with the paranormal. Some just doled out paranormal explanations for mysteries of the world. Well, I found a website that totally reminded me of the series.

I admit, I was always intrigued by the series (and, at that age, a little unsettled by it), which is probably why I just spent a bit too much time flipping through it today. Word Mysteries is broken down into a couple of different sections, each with a ton of writing on the topic (after a bit, I took to skimming).

Of particular interest was the map by Piri Reis from 1513, which accurately maps the coast of Antarctica, an area believed to be covered in ice for at least the last 6000 years, and the Baghdad Batteries (possible batteries dating back to 245 BCE) — some really interesting hard to explain things. The site goes beyond just these “mysteries” and also looks at some “Mystic Places” and Ancient Writing,” plenty of stuff to check out while wasting away an afternoon

As frequent readers know, I went to Tokyo recently. Being completely unfamiliar with Tokyo and Japan as a whole I decided to check out a couple of guidebooks on the town. I checked out the usual big names for guidebooks: Rough Guide, Time Out, Fodors, Lonely Planet as well as a handful of others. In the end I settled on Time Out: Tokyo, Rough Guide Tokyo and a new guide that comes out later this month: Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter. After less then a day in the city I closed Rough Guide Tokyo and ended up returning it which left me with Time Out: Tokyo and Lonely Planet Tokyo Encounter.

Now, before I say anything about either guidebook let me talk about Tokyo as a city: It is huge, it has no street names and only a couple of real tourist sites or identifiable landmarks. With (at my count) at least 4 different sets of trains (including the subway and monorail) owned by the government and various private companies it is not exactly the easiest city to get around.

Though coming from a city with a pretty complete and, supposedly, confusing subway system, I found navigating the Tokyo subways not nearly as difficult as you would think. Finding things on the street was a different story.

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As of last week in fact, and with summer has come summer weather. We are hitting the 80s and 90s on a regular basis now with lots of sun (and, well some haze too, but that is to be expected in NYC). There are some folks out there, sitting at their desk right now wishing they could just get out, go outside and enjoy this warm weather somewhere nice as opposed to under the harsh fluorescent lighting that they are regularly exposed to.

Well, for all you folks with laptops and WiFi cards (ok, does anyone still own a laptop without one these days?) there is hope:

The Parks Department has posted a map showing which parks are wired and up and running now for a wireless connection.

There is also NYC Wireless Supernode, a company providing free wireless connections throughout the city through nodes. They have a map up as well showing you were they have hotspots and which are currently up and running.

So, gather all of those important papers together, grab that laptop case, check out one of the maps, and get yourself out into the open, spend the day soaking up some sun while you work from outside the office. What a concept, once I get a battery pack for my office iMac maybe I’ll be able to heave it to a park and enjoy some of these sunny days this summer too.