Useful / Useless

The Google calculator helps me cook (google:"16 teaspoons in cups"), and do my daily combinatorics (google:"8 choose 6"). Full instructions here.

NYSC's entertainment channel, Clubcom, claims to have some website where you can give feedback, helping them choose music to your preferences. Something like mysportsclubsnetwork.com, sportsclubnetwork.com, etc. Whatever it is, I can never remember it exactly by the time I get back from the gym, and its not showing up on google. And I'm no idiot when it comes to google. What use is it making a website if there is no way to get to it? Don't be a cheapskate (wow, who uses that word?) and buy out the cybersquatters with your similar domain names and have them redirect to your site. And spread the word. People are stoops (wow, who uses that word?)
And while we're at it, lets outlaw, or at least do something mean to cybersquatters. (Any suggestions?) I love their holder pages... Like anyone is going to think, "Oh this is the wrong URL...But while I'm here, let me click here to get a free backgroud check and some viagra" ... I'm just bitter that foson.com is taken, thats all...

Haikus for Jews

Stolen from Haikus for Jews:

How soft the petals
of the floral arrangement
I have just stolen.

Left the door open
for the Prophet Elijah.
Now our cat is gone.

How can I atone
for scalping my tickets to
the High Holidays?

Why are we all about stealing packets of jam and maple syrup from brunch? I don't know, its just in our genes. Maybe one day we'll have no jam and 'll have no choice but to resort to using our well-stocked supplies.

Critical info for the NJ transplant

I used to be ashamed to tell people that I was from New Jersey, that is, until Garden State came out. Now I’m proud of my semi-suburban heritage. After moving to Manhattan, there was only one thing that I missed about NJ, the 7-Eleven. One of my earliest disappointments as a child was when the local 7-Eleven defected and recoined themselves "7-Twelve", selling Blurpees instead of Slurpees (I kid not). Happy was the day that 7-Eleven opened up on 23rd Street in Manhattan, yet it still does not show up on google maps (now there are 4 of them on the isle). So I mapped them with this great geocoding site, batchgeocode.com
Slurp away, just don't eat the strange, rotating meat-cheese things.

Because the phone book is for losers.

After Google Local recently failed me (there is no Gap store at 625 6th Ave #3, Google, but don’t worry, I still love you), I went to maps.a9.com to verify another address Google gave me. A9 had this great feature that let you see street level photos of the storefronts in popular cities, like Manhattan, and take a virtual sideways stroll down the big streets. To my shock, surprise, and dismay, maps.A9 closed shop from pressure from bigger rivals. Rumor is that Google Earth will include full textured 3-d renderings of buildings which would definitely out-cool A9’s functionality.
On the plus side, I found a map site, alkemis that shows some potential, if only they throw in some more nifty features on top of mapping movies and live traffic cams.

Fire, Flee, Foes, Escape!

I kinda want one, but not badly enough to wait in line in the rain/cold for 10 minutes, let alone 8 hours. I'm just excited to see a lot of disappointed people, a lot of clamoring, pushing, and shoving, and a couple of servers being knocked down by the online rush. Nothing like a little good, ol'-fashioned, human-caused chaos. Do games teach violence? Can't wait to see how this weekend compares to your average soccer riot.

Wild, Wild WoW

I overheard one of the network guys at work claiming that subscribing to World of Warcraft has really saved him a lot of money. His gaming budget used to be $3000 a year, now he's only spending $200 on the subscription plus the occasional single player game here and there.
Yet another reason why I should join.


P.S. When is Wired going to stop talking about Second Life already?

I'd rather eat (like) a caveman

Still haven't had the time to go into a whole tirade about organics, but today I saw the Food Liberation Inc on my corner wants me to check out its "new Raw Foods section!!"
If we can find something positive from this summer's E.Coli-in-spinich scare, it could be that the public was once again made aware of the danger of bacterial contamination in vegetables. This isn't the first time this has happened; lettuce (2005) and alfalfa (1997) are among the others that have also been subject to bacterial outbreaks. You know what kills bacteria in foods? Cooking. "But what about the nutrients?!" raw food aficionados cry, "Think of the nutrients we lose by cooking!" Turns out that the beta-carotene in carrots and the lycopene in tomatoes are actually more readily absorbed after cooking. What about vegetables that you want raw, like lettuce? Well, the CDC has a suggestion, but those shopping for raw foods aren't going to like it: it's Irradiation. Scary word isn't it? But the FDA has deemed it so safe that foods don't even need to be labeled if irradiated.
The idea is simple: all electromagnetic radiation is basically the same phenomenon, whether its radio waves or light or x-rays; from the moment they are generated (by electricity, chemical reactions, or nuclear decay) they travel away from their source at the speed of light. Some can pass though us with no effect, like radio waves. Some can not, like visible light. Microwaves can cook by exciting molecules without disrupting them, generating heat. In irradiation, we are utilizing the ability of UV, X-rays, or Gamma rays to disrupt certain bonds in DNA. Biology is dependant on a chemical's precise structure, and when a structure is changed, its function is usually lost. Exposing the food to radiation damages bacterial DNA so that it can not replicate or express genes. It will also inactivate plant DNA, which will stop the plant from doing any more chemistry. DNA is not a nutrient; it just stores the codes for making proteins and replication; we don't lose anything by inactivating it. The radiation passes right through and can not be stored in the food any more than you can catch and store light. Yes, we must protect ourselves from being exposed to DNA damaging radiation (limit x-ray exposure [don't star in x-ray movies] and stay out of the sun), but we do not need to protect our foods. We do need to protect ourselves from food-borne illnesses in meats and vegetables and most importantly, we do need to protect ourselves from ignorance.

And cancer, stroke, heart-attacks, obesity...eat your veggies!

NYC: Dont Walk

NYC: Dont Walk,
originally uploaded by wallyg.

Anyone know why Park Av is missing its Don't Walk signs in the high 40s, low 50s? I don't know exactly which intersections are missing the signs because they are also missing their street signs. I have two theories:
1. Its a ploy by the MTA to use the otherwise mostly useless, underused, $112 million dollar Northeast passage of Grand Central Terminal ?
or or or
2. Its part of the Waldorf=Astoria's grand plan to make visitors so afraid of stepping out of the hotel that they a. take a cab or bus tour anywhere they go or b. resign themselves to eating in the hotel? (How else could they get by on charging $19 for bagels and lox? )

What do you think? Are these actually crazy enough to work?

Do I have a chance at my lifelong dream of conspiracy-theory blogging?

Michael J. Fox Lives On...

It's been ten days since his initial TV ad, yet he's still in the news. I guess Anderson Cooper is getting bored with Iraq and has decided that its time to hug Fox. If I hear another analogy to explain to us how adult stem cells differ from embryonic stem cells, I think I'm going to shoot a CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT.

The WholeFoods Agenda, part I

I've got to hand it to Men's Health on their recent article on Frankenfoods, genetically-modified-organisms, or whatever scary name you want to call them. Its about time that accurate reporting replaces fear and ignorance about this important issue.
I first read about organics and GM-foods in this great book I got from the library, Mendel in the Kitchen. I highly recommend it for its fairly simple language and its engaging, historical narrative of American agriculture. This book has me so convinced that biotech is the right thing, I have trouble believing that this book has been out for 2 years and the myth of that organics as better for us is still strong.
I'm going to repeat some of the points the book in my next post, so stay tuned.

I choose you, K.T. McFarland!

My brother, the gun-toting Republican, registers Democrat for the New York elections. He says that for next election, he plans on voting for the 2nd strongest Democratic candidate. He knows there’s no chance of Republicans winning New York; the logic is that if the weaker Democratic candidate wins the primary, he (1) hurts the Democrat’s overall chances in the general election and (2) gets the satisfaction of fucking with the Democrats.

But don’t worry about him turning New York red; the Green Party for the Legalization of Marijuana is going to hack and steal this election anyway. All the talk of the crackability of the new line of voting machines is very reminiscent of the Florida "hanging chad" fiasco.
The voting system should be a simple issue, should be designed meticulously, should work flawlessly, and should not generate all this attention. A large part of the problem is that each state has its own voting system. Since the elections are (once in 4 or so years) national, why isn’t the voting system? Design it right once. Why design the system 50 times over? (Especially since state governments, with their limited budgets have the tendency to contract out to the lowest bidder.) Democrats, Republicans, (yes even Independents) we all have a common interest in an accurate voting system, so lets push for a national standard.

What goes on at 10PM

I hate the news. A category 5 hurricane nears the coast, thousands could die, millions of dollars in property damage, and what’s happening in the newsroom? The anchors are salivating: "Please make landfall, please make landfall". They’re dying for a story, a story others pay for. But cut the sensationalism; that’s the side of the anchors’ personalities we never get to see.

The networks, in their struggle for viewers, have to set their news programs apart from the pack. If it were just about reporting news, what would draw you to CBS over NBC, FOX, CNN, UPN, etc? The anchor personality was invented. The "early days of television reporting" (before I watched the news), Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, and any other older male personality were chosen as newscasters because they were faces you could trust to be honest. The late night news team was a crafted ethnic and gender balance to earn the trust of all races and sexes. But today, trust isn’t enough in an anchor, they also have to be good people. News must be a feel-good experience. Enter Anderson Cooper hugging people around the globe.
I watched Katie Couric for the first time last night in her interview with Michael J. Fox (at the gym). Before a commercial break, Katie had a little one-on-one with the viewers and "in the interests of full closure" revealed that her father has Parkinson's Disease and that she too has donated to Parkinson's foundations. Her brown-nosing of the American public (esp. anyone who has had disease in their family) really warmed my heart. "In the interests of full disclosure" used to be a measure to guarantee honest reporting. Now all it guarantees is that I am not missing anything by getting my news off the Internet.

(Full disclosure: I don’t watch the news, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about)

Update

Work is slow, so I've decided to contribute to society. Let the felons clean the highways; I've turned to blogging and joining SourceForge. I'll write more about the projects I'll be working on as soon as they take off. I am now what I always was, a hacker.

Modern Art without the modern pricing

I'm big into the culture, big into the art, the expression of ideas beyond words, but I'm not big on spending a lot of cash. With Modern Art galleries raising their prices higher than movie theatres, its good to know that some days, you can get a good deal.

Whitney, Fridays 6-9pm, voluntary donation.
Guggenheim, Fridays 5-8pm, voluntary.
MoMA, Fridays 4-8pm, free
New Museum of Contemporary Art, Thursdays 6-8pm, voluntary.
Dahesh Museum, First Thursday 6-9pm, voluntary.
Brooklyn Museum, First Saturday 11am-5pm, free. Jazz program too.
Studio Museum in Harlem, First Saturday, free.

Cheap date, free culture, it's all good.

On the path of the Highline

I probably shouldn't give this away on my first post but here goes...
Its been my month-long dream to trespass on the High Line, a 1.5-mile-long historic elevated rail structure on the West Side of Manhattan, from 34th (11th Av) southward into Chelsea. Abandoned for 30 years, its overgrown with plantlife. It even passes through buildings on their 2nd/3rd floors. Check it out at http://thehighline.org/.
Most of the ways up onto the Highline are heavily razor-wired or require access to an overlooking apartment (if you have one, please email me :-), but half the adventure is in the planning.

Two Discoveries on my first reconnaissance trip, neither Highline Related:
On the corner of Jane and West, someone has actually planted grass. That's right, a lawn in Manhattan. Big deal you say? Well ok, you're right. But this you should really see...
The Chelsea Market (website doesn't do it justice). Its decor is amazing: cross a post-industrial abandoned factory with modern sleek design and that's what you get. A supermarket, bakeries, Thai, Italian, two television networks and of course Wifi access, in a building that perfectly reflects the neighborhood -- the industrial meatpacking district reborn into trendy nightclubs. After a day of surveying the Highline I stumbled into Chelsea Market's 10th Av entrance. Wrought iron and stone gives the place an Indiana Jones feeling. Check out the 9th Av stairwell -- each floor is graffittied in a different style -- real beautiful stuff. Great place to go when its crowded on weekends or when the weather isn't at its sunniest.

Welcome

Welcome to Manhattan, home to over a million and a half people.
We all want to have fun, but most of us don't know what there is to do. As an unemployed quasi college grad, I feel the obligation to share with the world what I've found.
Stay tuned.

Thats me -- I don't really smoke, I just play a smoker on TV