Category Archives: urban
I, for one, welcome our new patriarchal overlords
(Know your meme.) McClatchy (Blumenthal, “FDA nears approval of genetically engineered salmon,” 2010-07-11): And the modified fish, all females, would be sterile so that they couldn’t breed with wild fish if any escaped, the company said. You gotta be some sort of crazy liberal DFH to think that’s anything but either (a) awesome or (b) [...]
Google’s new motto
Don’t be accidentally on purpose evil. gOfficialblog: Nine days ago the data protection authority (DPA) in Hamburg, Germany asked to audit the WiFi data that our Street View cars collect for use in location-based products like Google Maps for mobile, which enables people to find local restaurants or get directions. His request prompted us to [...]
Also posted in digital, government, law, neighborhood, network, privacy, technology Tagged data, Germany, google, wifi Leave a comment
LAX in 3 images
LAX, ca. 1928 (via rick prelinger) Now, with the same map in overlay (lower right): LAX flight paths ca. 2004 (source): ]
Also posted in architecture, neighborhood, rural, trend Tagged airport, history, Los Angeles, map Leave a comment
Hobbesian ’80s
NYTeims takes a walk down memory lane: “Justen Ladda leads people to the basement of an abandoned school in the South Bronx to show them an installation he’s created featuring the Marvel comics character known as the Thing.” This one, from Ladda’s site:
Reality sues fiction
NYTeims (Bagli, “A Whistleblower at the Deutsche Bank Building Is Now an Outcast,” 30 Nov’09): [Marshal Greenberg] is suing the contractors who employed him, Bovis Lend Lease and the John Galt Corporation, accusing them of retaliating against him for telling the truth. Bovis, in court papers, has denied his claims. The kicker: Galt has yet [...]
Also posted in architecture, crime, security, standards Tagged 911, architecture, NYC Leave a comment
Flickr Pro, Flickr Con
Bernie Kerik’s Flickr photostream includes gems like Officer Kerik in ’93… …“plainclothes” (modulo the assault rifle) Kerik escorting Susan Rosenberg (ca. ’83?; SR playing ping pong here)… …authentic arrest scenes… …and, indeed, pretty much his entire rise and fall. Except for his mugshot: The kommissar disappears: (Left: Flickr, plemeljr, 8 Feb ’05 [detail]; right: m3t00, [...]
RLcaptcha
Aram Bartholl, just checking to see if you’re human:
Tweet tweet: a little birdie told me…
The Guardian reports on an NYC anarcho arrested for twittering whereabouts of police at Pittsburgh G20: Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (£19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September. [...]
NYC, World Capital of FAIL
Cryptome catalogs it.
Also posted in LDCs, architecture, design, economics, environment, finance, government, media, neighborhood, security, trend Tagged NYC Leave a comment
Seven years of 9/11 9/11 9/11…
…only to read this: “New Calls for Regulating Airspace over Hudson” Go team.
Background/figure
New Yorker illustrator newyorkerizes the rat: The rat: Sandwiched between a parking reg, a for-rent sign, a scaffold, and a traffic jam of SUVs. Very New York. And, of course, it’s not the union rat — it’s the owner rat.
Einstürzende Neubauten
Building under construction in Shanghai collapses:
Also posted in architecture, design, international, security, standards Tagged China, collapse, Shanghai Leave a comment
Wilderness of twitters
Someone — it really doesn’t matter who: Pretty much sums it up.
Also posted in digital, government, international, media, network, trend Tagged elections, Iran, propaganda, Twitter 1 Comment
Breakfast at Tiffany’s 2.0
NYT discovers the “famed” yet previously unmentioned remunerations networks of the wealthy that have subsidized NYC’s “innovation” for a decade and a half: Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most [...]
You’re breaking up
NYT (Labaton, “Millions Face Blank Screens in TV Switch,” 5 Jun ’09) quotes another Obamatron suggesting that Shrub’s administration had other priorities than, say, doing what government is supposed to do: Michael J. Copps, the acting head of the Federal Communications Commission, said that the people most likely to lose reception are society’s most vulnerable [...]
POTD
Phrase of the day: see-through buildings. Washington Business Journal: Anyone who follows the commercial real estate market knows there are buildings in trouble throughout Washington, but as one drives along the Dulles Toll Road or Route 28, it’s hard to miss the signs of distress. “See-through buildings” dot the corridor, bereft of the interior office [...]
Also posted in architecture, finance, language, neighborhood, trend Tagged crisis, real estate Leave a comment
2009, 1969 [updated]
Corporate-sponsored “naked cowboy” in Times Square, 2009 (via streetsblog): Current context: Cowboy in Times Square ca. 1969: (Midnight Cowboy) [Update: Krugman, ever impolitic, asks this about the new TS pedo zone: I’m definitely in favor of making part of Broadway a traffic-free area. But you have to wonder—who’s this for? As far [...]
Just another future song
Audio: [Rev. ed. 09-05-21: Seeqpod went bust; you can manually reconstruct this post yourself by finding a recording of David Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs.”] Video: The Top 25 Fortune 500 Companies in New York City rank in: corporation Headquarters (New York, NY) Fortune 500 industry group 2007 Revenues ($ million) Stock price 2008 NYC NYS US [...]
information:history :: globalization:globe
The Independent (Castle, “Brussels Stories: Playground craze gives Eurocrats’ offspring lessons in diplomacy,” 2005): Every parent knows about playground fads and the nightmare of having to track down that elusive, must-have toy. But for those with children at the European School in Brussels there is an added problem. The pupils here are sons and daughters [...]
Also posted in design, history, international, media, trend Tagged children, film, globalization, Godard Leave a comment
“thousands of aspiring models waiting in line to be discovered”
A nightmare teetering on the edge between the past and the future.
Chariots of the Gods 2: the Keynes Generation
Right on schedule—for example, WRT the decline and fall of Western Civilization currently underway—comes a host of “Atlantis experts” who believe they’ve found the object of their expertise: “The site is one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis, as described by Plato,” the Atlantis expert said. “Even if it turns [...]
Whiter shade of gray
For decades, NYC’s politics have been twisted like a Moebius strip (i.e., one-sided) around real-estate developers; through every trend, the NYT has indulged in coke-fueled cheerleading binges and breathtaking sins of omission, breezily drifting whichever way the wind blew. Now, in its own words, comes the beginning of endgame of its abject inability to utter [...]
GWOT ca. 1974
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: The whole thing online for free. (Now Mr. Hollywood, that didn’t hurt so much, did it?) See also: “Minor detail,” “1974est guys in the room” [and “What a diff 24 years makes”].
Lawsuit from hell