East Village, Manhattan, yesterday.
Weird lighting effects thanks to a film shoot.

Then several dozen save-the-gardens ban-all-cars kill-your-TV people came through on bikes. The movie people gawked at the bike people, and vice versa.

Photos:

New York A-Z

Between Nothing and Nowhere

I found this on the sidewalk near my subway stop. Last summer's news sewn onto a mounted pink canvas with pink thread. It's either art, some kind of notebook or a message in code.

I wrote today's Cyber Law Journal column on nytimes.com: Movie Industry Frowns on Professor's Software Gallery. It's about the controversy over this site. Oh wait, that link was most likely illegal. I'm sorry. Don't use it.

(Last year I edited a story on this issue and ended up getting the company's lawyers involved. And my boss. Oops.)

At the bottom of my clips page, you can now sign up to get an e-mail when I publish something new on some other site. Andy refers to this kind of self-promotion as 'pimping.' I prefer the term 'personal brand management.'

New York Public Library, Fifth Ave., Manhattan.
There are seven floors of stacks under the reading room. More under Bryant Park out back.

First it was e-mail from Saks. Now I'm on the mailing list for the ridiculous International Male catalog. I like to think of myself as an international male, but that doesn't mean I want to look like a pirate or a python. Target marketing often misses.

Canal St., Manhattan.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Park Slope, Brooklyn.

At bgirl.net: Corporate-speak. One of my personal favorites, from a CEO: "We're developing that perspective." Translation: "I don't know."

Who is your daddy? This URL is spreading faster and further than any in recent memory. People who don't even like the Internet are sending it to me.

West Side, Manhattan, from a taxi.

Through the random magic of Google I came across this "scene report" on my hometown, written by a disgruntled teen. I don't know about the band reviews, but the rest brings back fond memories. The author also dislikes Starbucks.

I got a Suntory C.C.Lemon Marge sticker in the mail from Andrew of GMTplus9. It was a prize of sorts. Who says you can't get free stuff on the Internet anymore?

Good fortune.

I wrote a little something that's in the business section of today's Times: Saks.com Mines a List of E-Shoppers. It was inspired by an unwanted e-mail.

Interesting follow-up note: If you call the old customer service number for Urbanfetch, you get a recording of a woman impersonating a phone-company robot: "The number you have dialed, 981-3500, has been disconnected. There is no further information." Then if you wait a few seconds, you get some voicemail system prompts, indicating that the woman was lying. The spin continues, even in the grave.

Midtown Manhattan.

Chelsea.
Screen grabs from 360-degree panoramic photos of street corners found at DizzyCity. Why take photos outside when you can cheat? The panoramas require a plug-in or maybe Java. These were taken at my old work and home corners. The site also has thousands of pages devoted to obscure neighborhood storefronts. It's not an obsessive art project -- it's supposed to be a business. Good luck with THAT.

See also this article about the photographers. For more cheating see 02.10.

Greenwich Village, Manhattan, yesterday.
So I met some people at a bar to watch a basketball game (?!) and instead we ended up watching Matt Curran and the Projectors. Matt is 10. Wicked blues/rock licks? On a school night? With a woman in gold pants?

"We have just finished a tour, we played in Barcelona, the next day the entire performance was up on Napster and three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful..." -- Colin Greenwood of Radiohead. Quote found on Napster.com, of course.

Lost and found.

Noho, Manhattan, Tuesday.
On Lafayette, huge billboard for a company that blew up on the launch pad months ago.

Who says New Yorkers don't care?

Nutella vs. Gnutella. I had been wondering about this. They should really just go with the flow and cash in.

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Amateur ballet social.

Greetings to all the new visitors from Schwartz Communications Inc. (p.s. The story's running Monday.)

Internet privacy is a complicated thing. (Link from Rebecca.)

Today this site is a cool stop.

Have you tried a file-sharing service other than Napster? If so, tell me about it. I won't tell the RIAA.

Sticking with the transportation/architecture theme.

Lyon-Satolas Airport TGV Station, Lyon, France, October 2000.

"Theme Building," LAX, December 1999.

A micro-film at bryanboyer.com.

Eero Saarinen's TWA terminal at JFK Airport, completed in 1962. For more of these, see the special bonus gallery.

Read about this building here and here.

St. Louis --> JFK.

Window ice.

Jersey sprawl.

Anything is possible at Zombo.com.

More of Austin, Tx.

This is the state highway building.

From the in-box:

Subject: Fwd: Fw: FW: It works!!! I love it!!!! THIS IS NEAT!!!!!

Send this to 6 people and you will see the Taco Bell dog run across your screen. If you send this to 8 people Ronald McDonald comes out and attacks the taco bell dog. it is really funny and it works!! you have to try it .

E-mail tracking technology has certainly come a long way.

More of Austin, Tx.

Please don't bring your gun to the Internet convention.

I still don't know what microcontent is, but while in Austin I did get to talk to some interesting people, including Brad L. Graham, Rebecca Blood (actually, yes, she did look weirder than I thought she would) and the very dangerous Ian Clarke. I was also unexpectedly embraced by a cocky bastard.

Andy was there too, and he's a better link-dropper than I am.

Austin, Tx.

Wide-open country... in the city.

Vent TV. "Service Industry: Call In And Vent Your Frustration." Outlet for the rage of the underclass. Austin public access is amazing.

Re: the new zipern.com:

ddaavveeeedd (6:55 PM): you need more content
Zipern (6:55 PM): nonsense. my site is a complete work.

Key Food, Park Slope.
These signs are all over the aisles of my local supermarket. Where can I get this font?

The store also offers a vast array of roots and tubers.

Did anyone else get spammed by Saks Fifth Avenue recently? If so, let me know.

Having shopped UrbanFetch, you expect to get what you want, when you want it. We believe the same to be true at saks.com.

(But do they deliver videos?)

Also let me know if you happen to be going to the South by Southwest Interactive conference, because I am.

West 4th St. station, Manhattan.

Seventh Ave. D-Q station, Park Slope.
So I was standing at the very end of the platform, shooting into the tunnel as a train approached. The train blew its horn, and seconds after I took this photo, it stopped at the edge of the station. The driver (engineer?) opened his window and told me, "You can't do that. All I see is a red light flashing." He was talking about the little rangefinder thing on my camera, which I had forgotten about. I said I was very sorry and wouldn't do it again.

This is kind of like having the president stop his motorcade to tell you how ugly your shirt is.

A bonus link for readers who made it to the last paragraph of my recent article about a site called Disturbing Search Requests. That site's live search-request records are here. (Warning: Contents may be disturbing.) In other words, this is a page with information about searches people are doing that have led them to a site where people post information about other searches done by other people that led them to other sites elsewhere, most of which had nothing to do with what they were actually looking for.

Marriott Marquis Hotel, Times Square.
How to make people feel small.

Only eight days until the start of the Tagata Fertility Festival. (Thanks for the bulletin, DJ.)

And speaking of Japan: gmtPlus9 opens the door to an entire nation of obscure sites, like this gallery of electrical towers.

Upper West Side, today.
Remember when snow was a cause for excitement?

I wrote something for the Village Voice: 'Teacup Rescue Dogs Vancouver': Site Reveals What Surfers Really Seek.

Times Square, Manhattan.
On the Nasdaq screen. See also 2.4.

I got an e-mail telling me that this photo had won an award. "Our congratulations," the note said. He meant "our" in the sense of the royal "we" -- it's just one guy in the U.K. who decided to invent his own awards. Still, it's not nothing, I guess.

"Most e-mailed articles:" nytimes.com copies Yahoo.

L train, Manhattan.
"You know he's going to put you on his Web site."

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
Appliance models.

A reader in Spain writes:

Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 00:50:52 +0100
Subject: greetings

The Club of Soccer San Roque Casablanca, salutes to them in the New Century and with the pretension to promote Soccer BASIC, to observe ours Web http://www.srcasablanca.com
thanks for his visit.
José Bargiela

No, thank you.

Manhattan elevators:

Upper West Side.

Stuyvesant Town.

Upper East Side.

I was in a sharing mood, so I sent a link to my article about the Real David Gallagher (who just turned 16 -- yay!) to the official mailing list for fans of the Real David Gallagher. It didn't make it past the moderator:

Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2001 12:15:06 -0000
Subject: Message not approved: article about david

Inapproprate link to be distibuting. Article has to do with teaching people how to pretend to be David. This is not allowed. Do not post such an article or link here.

In response I pointed out that the article was anecdotal rather than instructional. I also suggested that the moderator should lighten up. He was not amused.

Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2001 15:03:12 -0600
Subject: RE: Message not approved: article about david

I read the article ALL it does is to teach people to pretend to be David. This type of article just hurts David and give ideas to others to do what you did. The azrticle is WRONG and should never have been published.

Andy, I guess we should take it down. So sorry, David Gallagher.

Doylestown, Pa., Sunday.
Yes, I took a lot of photos last weekend.

Through a series of unlikely events, the cartoon cloud photo seen here last week appears with an article on skywriting at nytimes.com today. Taking your camera everywhere can pay off.

My only photo credit in the actual newspaper was more of a poetry credit. Not one of my finest creations.

The not-so-overwhelming response to yesterday's questions confirms my suspicion that people are TOO SHY to talk about something as personal as their site traffic. You still have time to prove that you have some guts.