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The bus driver is not going to protect you; he at best will report the crime to the overworked police, who may show up to collect your body. At worst the driver will ignore the crime - he is in the area every day, and he needs no trouble with locals.

And the bus driver will take 60 days off if even spat upon by a passenger.

News used to come from reporters.. and some of it still does, full time professional ethically balanced reporters. These are different from news readers and talking heads who have a bias and and a point of view.

However more and more of what seems to be news is actually generated through the PR business; PR companies pitch stories to reporters looking for "news." Some time they provide footage and certainly make people available for interview including primary sources but also third parties who may seem neutral, etc.

As more and more news comes from the PR process, there is less and less need for the local news since they are not really reporting anything that could not be directly posted on YouTube. In the end we will have "news" channels' like http://gothamist.com/ which collects and presents, curates, and presents stories that other people have reported.

In the future we will have a few real reporters and the rest will be a collection of people who report ABOUT the news pushed by the PR folks. Collaborative filtering and other social filtering methods will help us find the news we need.

I use Verizon DSL.

The rate is reasonable ($15), and I've never been throttled, ...

Really? I'm pretty sure that throttling is part of the service plan. You should call them and ask :D

IANAL, the lawyers reading this can correct me as needed.

If the burglar gets hurt due to a trap you have set, it's a crime not a tort. The burglar is not suing you, the police are arresting you on evidence of setting a trap. The crime is "Reckless Endangerment" if no one is hurt, various others if someone *is* hurt.

Traps are illegal because lots of people can be in your home without your consent: firefighters, police chasing a suspect, gas line repairmen,and the super. You must keep your house reasonably safe for that reason. It's a bit of a grey area if the burglar trips over a rug and breaks his leg, depending on the circumstances.

The burglar can sue for damages because we have the presumption of innocence. At the time of the break-in, he had not been convicted of the crime. The "deadly force" argument may or may not be valid, since the trap may very well be non-lethal, like restraining the burglar with a net.

I believe that this last bit varies from state-to-state, so check your local laws.

Interesting link

For those posters who talk about putting up signs, note that the trespasser could be a small child who hasn't yet learned to read, or am adult who only reads a different language.

IANAL, the lawyers reading this can correct me as needed.

If the burglar gets hurt due to a trap you have set, it's a crime not a tort. The burglar is not suing you, the police are arresting you on evidence of setting a trap. The crime is "Reckless Endangerment" if no one is hurt, various others if someone *is* hurt.

Traps are illegal because lots of people can be in your home without your consent: firefighters, police chasing a suspect, gas line repairmen,and the super. You must keep your house reasonably safe for that reason. It's a bit of a grey area if the burglar trips over a rug and breaks his leg, depending on the circumstances.

The burglar can sue for damages because we have the presumption of innocence. At the time of the break-in, he had not been convicted of the crime. I believe that this varies from state-to-state, so check your local laws.

Interesting link

...but you'd be hard-pressed to find many customers if you didn't have any training or experience.

Yeah, nobody falls for fake doctors!

OK. 1, 2, those are the ones that came up immediately, no doubt there are studies if you look for them hard enough. It seems that coroners don't usually rule that perfectly healthy children were simply pushed too hard and died of it.

You can simply google "the warranty has expired on your car" and get message board complaints going back a few years now. Apparently tens of thousands of people complained. But when they finally rang Ted Schumer, during a Senate session, god forbid, action against these scammers actually happened. http://gothamist.com/2009/05/11/schumer_calls_for_investigation_int.php Why the *bleep* did it take this long for action? I am on the no call list, and I have gotten these calls constantly for 2 years now on my cell. They tend to come in clusters, many calls in a week or two then "quiet." These guys should be locked up in a cell for 10 years with ringing phone that cannot be picked up with the number posted daily on 4chan. Rot in hell.

From the article:

Con Edison's steam system provides service to more than 1,800 customers and serves more than 100,000 commercial and residential establishments in Manhattan from the Battery to 96th Street.

It's more than that:

The nail in the coffin for the officer though was probably some online comments he had left on an arrest video that included, "If he wanted to tune him up some, he should have delayed cuffing him... If you were going to hit a cuffed suspect, at least get your moneyâ(TM)s worth â(TM)cause now heâ(TM)s going to get disciplined for a faggot-ass love tap."

Hardly. The lexicon was read aloud in court, along with the source material it pulled from. The book was a clear case of plagiarism to the court.

You mean selected snippets of the Lexicon were read in order to trick the judge into believing that that was all there was. A clear logical fallacy, but common tactic in cases like this.

The crux of your defense appears to be that a website previously existed that Rowling was happy with. Yet one has to be clear on one aspect here: There is a large gulf between publishing large pieces of someone's work for a no-cost reference and publishing someone else's work for profit.

Which is funny, considering the HP Lexicon website itself had advertising revenue associated with it.

And of course, there's the fact that the research was obviously independent, given that Rowling started attacking them for "getting things wrong":

Vander Ark's frown did turn upside down at one point during his three hour testimony when an attorney said Rowling had criticized his Lexicon's erroneous etymology for the door-opening charm "Alohomora;" Vander Ark had speculated that the word originated from "aloha" and the Latin word "mora." In fact, Rowling testified, Alohomora comes from a West African dialect.

In summary: the judge was dazzled by Rowling's star power and way too much lawyering, and should never be let near a copyright case again because he's proven himself utterly incompetent in the area.

How far does something have to be to the right to count for you? Law enforcement is bought and paid for and working for the people in power.

The FBI says: this.
ABC says this.
Do the police there have a history of unjustified assaults into houses and then trying to pretend that it's okay? Yes, they do.
Are there more police assaults not being mentioned here? Yes, there are. They've been quite busy. Overwhelming force against people who haven't resisted seems to be a constant.
Now, like all of us, I would love to see a more detailed statement from the police. But I've just been looking and what I'm mostly finding is variations on: "Minneapolis/St. Paul police could not be reached for comment Saturday."

But maybe an option should have been that if somebody was there for more than 30 minutes then the self cleaning should have started.

And that is exactly what the public toilets in NYC do. They are similar self-cleaning high tech toilets. The time limit is around 15 minutes before the door opens automatically so you need to "work fast" to finish your business. ;)

http://gothamist.com/2008/08/11/youtube_bows_to_olympic_committee_p.php

Just to give credit where it is due. (Gothamist is cited in the Firehose.)

Cheers!

But don't just whine because your publicly displayed identifier is being checked against known offenses.

Yeah, tell that to one of these cops when you want their badge number. Go ahead, take a picture smarty. They'll break your camera or your face, and they'll DARE you to do something about it.

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But don't just whine because your publicly displayed identifier is being checked against known offenses.

Yeah, tell that to one of these cops when you want their badge number. Go ahead, take a picture smarty. They'll break your camera or your face, and they'll DARE you to do something about it.

• cite
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http://gothamist.com/2008/01/31/nitrogen_tanks.php

Indeed, apparently they belong to the phone company.

I always thought Con Ed used those tanks when it got hot to forestall those pesky periodic transformer explosions.

One of the characteristic sights on New York City streets is big tanks of liquid nitrogen standing on the sidewalk, steaming away, with lines running from them down a manhole. Why? Because, iirc, many of the telephone company switching systems already run supercooled and when a repair needs to be done they need supplementary chilling.

Those nitrogen tanks are used by Verizon to pressurize underground telephone cables and keep moisture out:

http://gothamist.com/2008/01/31/nitrogen_tanks.php

Yeah sometimes Edison gets some bad press about this however apparently the elephant had "squashed three handlers in three years" and was going to be put down. The ASPCA was actually involved and gave Edison the thumbs up. http://gothamist.com/2008/01/04/edison_vs_eleph.php

You were misinformed by the tour guide. Here's a link to something from 2005:

http://gothamist.com/2005/04/29/nyc_has_9th_highest_income_in_country.php

Not definitive and it includes some areas outside NYC proper, but it was the first link that came up in Google. $1500/month is $18000/year; in Manhattan, that won't get you a sublet of a discarded refrigerator box. Hope your trip goes well otherwise - there's plenty to see and do in NYC. I haven't been there in almost a decade, but I wouldn't mind visiting again. I'd never choose to live there, though.

Regarding the security problem, try to go easy on us. Too many of us are scared sheep, and our leaders are doing little to address that - some would say our leaders are exploiting it. Our Constitution is barely covered in public schools, and few of us have even heard of the Federalist Papers, let alone read those works; we think Liberty is being able to pick the laundry detergent we like. We should be much better than this, we have been before, and we could be again, but I have no idea how. Still, most of us are quite nice if you avoid discussions of anything that matters....

- T

I live in NYC. Notice that the city isn't banning hoax devices that *look* like geiger counters. They are only banning the real thing. This suggests they are more worried about the real thing getting into the hands of environmental activists than they are about preventing false terror alarms.

A few reports of a "funny smell" in the subway is major news even when machines can't detect anything. There have been huge outbreaks of a mysterious "maple sugar smell" [ http://gothamist.com/2007/11/16/as_seen_on_tv_t.php ], and other weird smells that machines can't pick up [ http://gothamist.com/2007/01/08/maple_syrup_was.php ]. A machine isn't needed to start a panic.

I live in NYC. Notice that the city isn't banning hoax devices that *look* like geiger counters. They are only banning the real thing. This suggests they are more worried about the real thing getting into the hands of environmental activists than they are about preventing false terror alarms.

A few reports of a "funny smell" in the subway is major news even when machines can't detect anything. There have been huge outbreaks of a mysterious "maple sugar smell" [ http://gothamist.com/2007/11/16/as_seen_on_tv_t.php ], and other weird smells that machines can't pick up [ http://gothamist.com/2007/01/08/maple_syrup_was.php ]. A machine isn't needed to start a panic.

If you can't get an agreement with the bosses, just take over the damn factory and run it yourself! http://www.thetake.org/index.cfm?page_name=synopsis It looks like the strike will be settled one deal at a time, like they just did with David Letterman. ( http://gothamist.com/2007/12/29/wga_update_real.php ). The power of the AMPTP has been seriously underminded. The writers will get deals eventually. After all, without writers, how will they make reality TV shows?

Yes, it's true. All the scientists who originally developed the weapon changed careers after a horrible lab accident, in which the weapon accidentally discharged. Fortunately, they were quite successful in their new jobs as well.

Of course it doesn't. It's also possible for me to get drunk and try to fly an airplane (the more drunk, the more likely, I'd say). But at least I'm not setting myself up for it by driving to a house of merriment with the intention of drinking until the wee hours, then driving home with a premeditated plan to outwit the police, like our pal "nice nate" upthread. I mentioned bicycling because drunk drivers are one of the chief dangers to bicyclists in the late night.

I for one welcome our horny police overlords.

In the past they've shown that they can be trusted not to abuse their survellince for their own sexual gratification. After all this is based on a British program.

Our discussion boils down to two points:

* Cost

If return-on-investment is not a valid measure, what is? $500 billion dollars (more, with stateside spending) has cost >3000 more lives and has not made us any safer. Partly, we are not safer because the US was already very safe; mostly, Iraq has proved to not have any WMDs or sponsorship of terror, and the resulting chaos has fomented Islamic fundamentalism and terror.

* Rights

These are the facts at the federal level:

- Habeas corpus was suspended at a time without civil unrest. It's black letter in the Constitution, and the Supreme Court did grant the writ over the objections over the administration.

- The NSA surveilled US citizens without a warrant. The court ruled that it violated the First and Fourth Amendments; the ruling is stayed pending appeal.

- The US obtained private telecommunications data without a warrant. The court ruled that the relevant section of the PATRIOT act is unconstitutional, again because it violated the First and Fourth Amendments.

- As discussed, Real ID legislation has passed and merely awaits funding; to date, Bush has received funding for all his domestic security initiatives (TSA, DHS, etc.).

And changes at the local and state levels:

- NYC considered a ban on subway photography for reasons of terrorism (read the article). Even though the MTA relented, there have been incidents of MTA cops harassing photographers.

NYC has had filming permit process for 40+ years, however it's not coincidence that Rakesh Sharma was harassed only last year. This is not even counting the Nepali who was thrown in solitary for 3 months for accidentally photographing an FBI office.

- Similar harassment on the CTA.

- More on the harassment of street photographers.

- Last, but not least, the Ohio Patriot Act, which has clear violations of the First and Fifth Amendments.

I used to like Spitzer, but don't like some of the things he's done now that he is governor:

http://www.gothamist.com/2007/05/14/spitzer_wants_ c.php
http://ibtimes.com/articles/20070417/ny-spitzer-vi deo-games.htm

just for the pics

company's site

There was a sidewalk going right under the bridge girder in question, it was also on the outermost girder of the bridge, facing out. Anyone walking or driving down that street would have seen it; I have seen traffic lights mounted in less conspicuous locations.

There were plenty of pictures on zebbler.com but their site seems to be buckling under the traffic.

There are some pictures here: http://flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358742603/ that aren't as good as the ones on zebbler, and there is a video embedded in this article that was made by the people at zebbler showing the instalation of the mooninite signs.

It is pretty clear they were meant to be seen.

The NYPD has more or less done this: http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2006/07/21/lucky _bag_opera.php

First of all, I am John Eberly (I read slashdot, but have never posted) and I hosted this site for free with no advertisements. I grabbed their data every 2 minutes via cron/perl and posted it on my site. I am sure I "saved" them bandwith. Real time police and fire data is nothing new, NYC has both Police and Fire data here... http://gothamist.com/labs/map. Where do they get their data you ask? They subsribe to a server for a $100/year over the internet. I am sure glad the terrorist can't figure that out. Once I had figured out they switched their data feed to a jpeg, I did a quick 30 second google search, apt-get install gocr, etc. and I had the feed again... It was actually even slightly easier than before, not tags and extra junk to strip, just fixed width text. I am a little tired of government crying "terrorism" and implementing worthless security measures. You don't need a "fancy software program" to get the Police/Fire resources tied up, just place about 3-4 bogus phone calls. By the way, my blog has been up/down today, because have some "runaway process on a separate node" according to my VPS. My server easily withstood the 20,000 hits in 12 hours from reddit.

Oh, sure, until the day the FreshDirect guy sticks his foot in the doorway and won't leave until you tip him. :-P Wasn't their policy originally not to accept any tips, ever, expressly to prevent situations like these? Or am I thinking of someone else (Kozmo, MaxDelivery)?

But I agree, on the whole, the FreshDirect experience is hard to beat. Did you ever see those signs at Fairway hanging from the ceiling, bashing FreshDirect and its owner for various injustices apropos nothing? Priceless.

At least he wasn't playing solitaire.

Oh, wait...

Gothamist ran this story weeks ago, and by the time Gothamist picks it up, it's over. You nerds aren't exactly the quickest bunch, are you?

SOMOZA SLAIN BY BAZOOKA
(News, 1980)

HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR
(New York Post, 1982)

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
(Senate fails to convict Clinton; News, 1999)

COPS MAKE BUTT-ER KNIFE CON SPREAD 'EM
(Post, natch)

You people need to quit being stupid fratboys. As a recent grad, it's embarrassing.

You gotta wonder.

(note: yes, it's all bullshit)

And still other times competition might be good for the consumer on the face of it but the companies drive themselves into the ground in the process (the airline industry) and the customers/taxpayers get to pick up the pieces.

I'm confused too, but I think this site may have something to do with it?

Where's the obligatory explain-the-joke post?

Are you sure this would never happen in the US? http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2003/06/19/hot_h arry_potters_dont_make_jk_happy_neither_does_killi ng_a_main_character.php

That articles only has a question for Miller asking if he'd "take the subway every morning like the mayor".

The article about him being stuck also mentions only that he was taking the subway to "an event". That blog also has a story from this past week with Bloomberg taking the subway to comment as his response to the London subway bombings last week. Bloomberg clearly takes the subway sometimes, but the ones we know about are photo-ops for the media.

He's the most media-savvy mayor ever (his billions come from his media corporation, including a TV and radio network). And the press about which he's savvy is the least politician-savvy media ever. Far from implicit that he's still taking the subway to work every morning, it's much safer to assume that without citing a specific fact, that fact doesn't exist. With all the important screwups and crimes by major politicians these days getting whitewashed or ignored daily in the press, I expect that they merely print PR. Especially star-dazzled local blogs, and reporters hardballing the challenger in the upcoming election.

However, I am having dinner with someone on the NY City Council this evening. I will find out whether Bloomberg really does take the subway regularly, often, or just for the cameras.

Don't you think the press would have a field day if he'd stopped? Asked after the speech whether he would take the subway to City Hall like Bloomberg if elected mayor, the Upper East Side resident hesitated.

In fact, he got stuck last year.

Cookie Monster is backing a more balanced diet these days.

We'll have to find new and different way to get our kids to adopt poor eating habits.

Your message implies "who to sue". How about sue no one?! How about the personal responsibility of knowing 911 works this way when you buy the device... I own Vonage, no secret to me that 911 worked different. Pretty clear when I installed the device. Of course, everyone who visit the house know this? No... but damn, we DID NOT go through this bullshit when Cell Phones were new.

I called 911 via a cell phone in 1988... and had to provide precise directions to where I was. I called in Dec 2004, and they knew exactly where I was. As late as two years ago, our local 911 had significant problems, because there were large areas of the county who were actually served by cells on the other side of the Sound... Leading to massive confusion as to which 911 response area the caller was actually in.

In fact, we are still working though issues related to 911 and cell phones. Try this incident in Miami (FL) in 2001. Or this editorial from New Hampshire in 2002. Or this newsbite from New York City in 2003.

The interface between cell phones on the 911 system is far from completely worked out.

Remember to vote, or P. Diddy will kill you.

Read here

Now this could be a reason for the change in the trilogy's direction in the sequels. We knew that the bros were kinda whacky but this is really strange. Considering the whole love theme in the sequels this really bring to light how far the these movies are from the first one.

Let's say Cloobie works for an electric company...

Oh wait, that happened last summer.

That explains it!

The photographer, Ryan Mcguinley, made a splash last year with his show at the whitney

he is famous for his pictures of the east village gay-grafiti scene.