Saturday, January 17, 2004
Bridge and Tunnel News
Just got back from a very cool afternoon at the Met where we took part in a scavenger hunt. (More on that later.) Since we had to pick up the little lad in the suburbs this morning, we had the car this afternoon on the way back to Brooklyn. From the FDR we could see flashing police lights on the Brooklyn Bridge. The radio only said it was closed for "police activity" and there wasn't a bit of news on the Web via the Treo. We figured it was nothing serious based on the very-routine manner of the national guard guys checking the vehicles as we entered the Battery Tunnel a few minutes later.
Friday, January 16, 2004
A Little Outrage Music, Please?
Am I alone in my concern about Netflix's non-disparagement policy? I heard not a single peep after I pointed out last week that the DVD rental company -- one of the top advertisers on the Web -- has a non-disparagement clause in its affiliate contract. I blogged about it here and then sent off an e-mail to the company a week ago, but haven't had a reply.
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:59:56 -0800 (PST)
From: "heyheyamy @ yahoo.com"
Subject: Non-disparagement policy
To: affiliates@netflix.com
Dear Mr. Lum,
I've been a big fan of Netflix since I started using your service this past summer, however I'm quite troubled by this clause in your affiliate agreement:
"During the Term, you will not disparage Netflix, the Netflix Site or the Netflix Service, or portray these in a derogatory or negative manner. The content of your website will, at all times, be in good taste."
You wouldn't expect a newspaper to agree to that clause when running your ad, so why would you ask Internet publishers to limit their speech? I'm very interested in your reply.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Amy Langfield
www.amylangfield.com
Ode to the Oleander
Lisa Mascaro, another member of the Santa Barbarab mafia, writes in the LA Daily News about the death of the oleander. Seems the glassy-winged sharpshooter intends to kill off every one of the big massive bushes in Southern California. They're not the prettiest plantss you've ever seen, but are sadly missed when CalTrans rips them out of freeway center dividers and replaces them with concrete barriers. (link via L.A. Observed.)
"It hasn't generated a lot of interest because, as I tell people, the oleander is the Rodney Dangerfield of the plant world," said Matthew Blua, an entomologist at the University of California, Riverside. "It doesn't get much respect."
Tom Friedman's Quick Links?
Jeff Jarvis talks to Tom Friedman about starting a blog:
Afterwards, I got to meet the one luminary I most wanted to meet: Friedman. Nothing better to say than, in the fine tradition of Stuttering John, "big fan, big fan." To my utter delight, Friedman knew this very URL and, no surprise, he knows blogs. I then asked the obvious: Are you going to blog? He said he'd been asked whether he wanted to (note that blog/Times watchers) but in his line of work, he somewhat fears the immediacy of it. He's supposed to think for three days, and sometimes, he said, that's not enough. Oh, I get that. But still, I'd kill to see just links to what he's reading: Tom Friedman's Quick Links.
'T' Rhymes with 'P' and that Stands for Pinball
Ah New York, the city where you can drink in the bars until 4 a.m. but dare you try to buy a six-pack before noon on Sunday or wine for that matter anywhere on Sunday (now legal but still difficult.) Manhattan Users Guide explains why New Yorkers also must be protected from the evils of pinball. Seems it's still illegal to win a free game in Gotham. Oh we got, Trouble!
Honey, Get Me Heat Miser on Line 1!
It's Friday, it's cold. I think it's time we spend a little time with my favorite Christmas character of all time, Heat Miser from "The Year Without a Santa Claus." Follow the link to hear the song yourself and then follow along at home.
The Heat Miser Song
I'm Mister Green Christmas
I'm Mister Sun
I'm Mister Heat Blister
I'm Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!
He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun
He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
He's too much!
Thank you!
I never want to see a day
That's under sixty degrees
I'd rather have it eighty,
Ninety, one hundred degrees!
Oh, some like it hot, but I like it
REALLY hot! Hee hee!
He's Mister Green Christmas
He's Mister Sun
Sing it!
He's Mister Heat Blister
He's Mister Hundred and One
They call me Heat Miser,
What ever I touch
Starts to melt in my clutch
I'm too much!
Too Much!
Mom Calls with Correction
Mom has called with a correction to material published earlier this week in Amy's New York Notebook. Seems I missed my five-year anniversary by a couple days. Mom's records indicate I moved to New York via Tower Air flight 30 to JFK on Friday, January 8, 1999. I called mom from the airport at 10:30 p.m. to let her know I'd arrived safely. Yes, she keeps that in my permanent records. I really don't want to know how thick her file is on me, but let's just say I try to be very, very nice to her all the time.
Too Damn Cold for Sprint?
On both Wednesday and Thursday nights -- when, you may recall, were unbelievably freezing here -- I had a lot of problems connecting with Sprint. Real trouble connecting to the web, transmitting pictures and even making cell calls. I assume it had something to do with the weather?
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Happy Anniversary, NYC
I think this past Sunday I hit the five year anniversary of my arrival in New York. And what a lovely arrival it was. I took a cheap airline that has since gone bankrupt. The pilot was clever enough to make the last landing allowed at JFK before a massive storm hit, but then the baggage folks had some mechanical problems and didn't produce a single piece of luggage from the plane for about two hours. By the time the baggage appeared, the storm was in full force and there wasn't a taxi in sight - alas the airport was closed to all incoming flights so cabs had no reason to go out there and even the arranged car service guys had bailed out. So I was standing with a suitcase and a carryon in a few inches of slush as it snowed and a few hundred angry passengers cursed our fates in the dark of night. Out of nowhere a man magically appeared and asked if I was going to Manhattan. He was the last legitimate cab driver. He had parked and quietly worked the crowd; he found a couple traveling with a baby and upon finding their luggage left space for one more - he found me traveling alone with only a bit of luggage. No scam, it was just a really nice cab driver.
Oh, and a week later I met the guy who I ended up marrying.
It's been all gravy since then. Happy anniversary, New York.
Boldtype Review
The people who bring you Flavorpill each week have recently launched Boldtype, a monthly book review. Here's the current issue, or you can sign up to get it as a free monthly e-mail.
Santa Barbara Parking
Gawker reported last night that the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will charge media $250/day to park close to the courthouse while covering the Michael Jackson trial.
I was pretty puzzled about this considering I lived in Santa Barbara for four years and actually had the pleasure of being married at the SB Courthouse not quite three years ago. Then I got around to reading the fine print. The proceedings are actually in little Santa Maria, not Santa Barbara.
The Santa Maria Times has the story on parking, and rightly points out that the charge will screw the local media (such as KEYT) who can't so easily absorb $250/day when they're competing with the network big-rigs and correspondents who sometimes get chartered planes for big news events.
So as I was looking at the regional papers online, I noticed that an awful lot of them have really annoying registration policies. Here's the quick list:
Santa Barbara News Press - today's short headlines are free; $2.50 per story
LA Times, - free (but annoying) registration gives access to most daily content
Santa Maria Times - free!
Ventura County Star - free registration required w/ legit e-mail address
South Coast Beacon - free weekly, but no archives at all
San Luis Obispo Tribune - free
Santa Barbara Independent - free weekly's free briefs
UCSB Daily Nexus - free, but will they cover the trial?
LA Daily News - free but will they only use AP for the trial?
CNBC Reduces Conflicts
This is actually quite a big deal:
Taking one of the hardest lines to head off financial conflicts of interest in the media industry, CNBC said that its managers and news staff and their spouses and dependents would no longer be allowed to own individual securities, other than those of their employers. The rest of the network's full-time employees, all the way down to those who apply makeup and hairspray to guests, will be able to keep any securities they own, but will not be allowed to buy more.
Blogads Love
Matt Welch took note of my GoogleAds rejection and noted that most of his favorite weblogs are "too personal and irrelevant" for GoogleAds, anyhow. Doug also rightly says in the comments below that it's one more reason to root for Blogads.
Speaking of Blogads, the committee of Amy is happy to report that we're currently at an all-time high for this website regarding Blogads. There are currently four paid ads over there in the right column. I should extend a welcome to new advertiser GoatCactus which is selling a music program for you Mac users. Give it a few clicks. Also of note, longtime Blogad supporter Hugh MacLeod has changed the text of his ad to let you New York capitalists know he's looking for an ad writing job. Will blog readers come through for him and bring Hugh back to NYC?
Henry Copeland is our man in America running the Blogads weblog. Also, some of you might find it interesting to see which sites are running Blogads and their monthly rates, which range from $6 to $1,000.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
NY to Go
If you have web access on your phone, please try out the page I put together this weekend to deliver my NY news while I'm out and about. It's called NY to Go. Today's NY nugget is about Ben Stiller screwing over Saturday Night Live right after Sept. 11.
I Spy
Smart Mobs links to a story in Australia about a spiffy, cheap new technology that will allow parents (or your boss) to send a short message to your cell phone and embed a secret ping that will let them know exactly where you are. I suspect it's the shape of things to come.
It reminds me of when I was working at a small paper in California years ago and the staff was ticked off that the company car made a record of each time it went over 55 mph. They all thought it was an invasion of their privacy -- until a few months later the IT guy for the newsroom showed me that he could pull up copies of every screentop (IM-type) message a certain reporter had sent during the past three months. Until then, none of us knew those messages weren't private.
Rejected by Google
You may not know it, but I still consider this blog here largely an experiment. I still don't know exactly what it's supposed to be. I started it a couple years ago at the urging of pals Ken Layne and Matt Welch who said I should just see where it leads. Even though I'm a tech chowderhead, the blog gets me to try the new gee-gaws once in a while. So over the weekend I tried to sign up for GoogleAds. But what do you know? Rejected.
Personal or chat site: We don't currently accept personal or chat websites into the AdSense program. We've found that we're unable to deliver relevant ads to such pages, resulting in less return for our advertisers.
You Can See This, but Not That
A few puzzling things in the last few days about what we can see and what we can't.
A New York appellate court ruled on some Sept. 11 privacy issues. We can hear: "personal feelings expressed by firefighters in interviews conducted by the Fire Department." But we cannot hear "several other portions of the records -- including opinions of firefighters and 911 operators." (From a New York Times story.)
Here's something we can't hear: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Bush administration to keep secret the names and other basic details about hundreds of foreigners detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." (Story from Reuters, but if you do a search on "Kafkaesque," you'll get this opinion on the matter from the Star-Telegram.
Ah, but here's some information you can get. If you need the social security numbers of NYU students who signed up for intramural basketball a few years ago, that's on the Internet. (Story in the NY Times.) Or you can have the e-mails of people who commented on an Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms proposal under the condition that their anonymity would be protected. The Treasury Department decided that since there were too many comments, it would be too hard to delete the e-mail addresses before going public. (Story at CNet, via Reason's Hit & Run.)
Monday, January 12, 2004
Changes Coming Down the Tracks
There was joy at Langfield Manor this weekend as we studied our copy of the "New Subway Service" manual. Changes are coming Feb. 22 -- or as we guessed, the MTA will probably just start phasing it in at their leisure without telling passengers where the trains are really headed.
The changes impact the B, D, N, Q, R and W trains. The diamond Q and the Grand Street Shuttle will be discontinued. (I didn't even know there was a grand Street Shuttle, but now I want to use it before it disappears.)
For us here in Park Slope, it means we get new service on the B which will go over the Manhattan Bridge and stop along Sixth Ave in Manhattan. Except on weekends, when it goes dark and does whatever subway cars do on the weekends. (Hits the tables at Atlantic City maybe?)
Honestly the changes are pretty complicated even with this fancy little booklet. I used to think I had the system memorized, but then that terrorist thing happened and trains started getting re-routed all over the place. Mixed in with routine construction and the MTA's aversion to communicate with its riders, I spent plenty of unintended time uh, exploring unfamiliar routes. I check that big map on the platform more now than I did the first two years I lived here.
Transit Museum
The husband and I trekked to the city's Transit Museum near Borough Hall in Brooklyn on Saturday. It was definitely worth the trip. It's housed in an abandoned subway station -- one that was actually supposed to link up to that 2nd Avenue line they've been talking about for fifty years or so. They have gads of subway cars and buses dating back decades and great old signs, turnstiles, tokens, slugs and other stuff. Great place for kids and grown-ups. My pictures are posted at Buzznet.
Among the cool little fact-ettes I picked up were these:
By 1930, 52 percent of the Irish working in New York were employed by the city (think Tammany Hall).
The "third rail" was created by a black man who became an inventor after his race prohibited him from getting the transit job he really wanted.
There is indeed at least one subway tunnel under Central Park. The museum has a picture of men building the "Central Park Tunnel" under the park in August 1903.
Avoid RyanAir
Matt Welch returns from Europe with the warning to never fly RyanAir. He and wife Emmanuelle each paid 30 euros for a flight from France to London - but got whapped at the airport with luggage charges of 240 euros. Nice way to finance a budget airline, eh?
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Anna Conquers the Big C
Please join me in wishing a big congratulations to my friend Anna, who returns to work at NYU today after beating out breast cancer. May we all show such grace and courage in the face of adversity. She doesn't like to admit it, but she's one tough chick.
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