November 2, 2012

Casey Neistat Rode His Bike Though Hurricane Sandy

Casey Neistat Rode His Bike Though Hurricane Sandy and Made Us This Video

Following Twitter like it was a verbal TV, I saw that Casey Neistat was out in Sandy. I tell ya, that guy has a pair of waterproof brass balls. Hollered at him to ask if he’d shoot a little video for us, and here’s what went down:

#t=73s

November 2, 2012

Techies who want to help Sandy survivors can register at this site

http://nytm.org/blog/entry/12-01-2012/update-on-ny-tech-opportunities-to-help

Update on NY Tech Opportunities to Help
November 01, 2012 by Developer

Hi NYTM Members -

Thank you to so many of you for raising your hands already to help with Hurricane Sandy recovery efforts, especially when so many of you are still without power and without offices and apartments yourselves. We expect that we will be receiving more requests for assistance in the coming days and we are working on hackathon plans for next week (including working with hackathons that had previously been scheduled).

In the next 24 hours, here are some things you can do to help:

REGISTER AS A VOLUNTEER
If you haven’t done so already, register yourself as a tech volunteer:
http://bit.ly/hurricanetechvolunteers
snip

*If You Need A Space to Work in Other Areas*
If you need an office or have an office for displaced visit bit.ly/sandycowork

HELP US REACH PEOPLE WHO NEED HELP
If you need help or you know of small businesses, non-profits, schools, or other organizations that are in need of assistance, please submit your information or have them complete (or complete it on their behalf) our request for assistance: http://bit.ly/hurricanetechhelp

OTHER WAYS TO HELP
If you are looking for other ways to help on the ground, please check out what the Red Cross needs the most help with: http://www.nyredcross.org/?nd=news_room_detail&news_id=606&jid=63321

Thank you again for your commitment to helping New York recover – you are what make this city amazing. We’ll be in touch again soon.

Best,
Jessica

Jessica Lawrence
Managing Director, NY Tech Meetup
www.nytm.org

November 2, 2012

1776 map of Manhattan vs evacuation zones...eerie

Manhattan’s Sandy Evacuation Zones Match Up With the Island’s Original Coastline

By Leslie Horn

Look at the http://updates.gizmodo.com/post/34784175229/manhattans-sandy-evacuation-zones-match-up-with
two maps above. On the left is Manhattan in 1776. On the right is the Hurricane Sandy evacuation map. If your apartment’s in Zone A in 2012, it would’ve been in the ocean in 1776, before the island was built up by landfill.

On the evac guide, red is Zone A, or the lowest lying area with the highest flood risk—in fact much of it is still under water. Greenwich Street, the eastern line of Zone A is on the edge of the Hudson River. ManhattanPast explains the correlation:

The eastern line of Zone A along the Hudson River runs along Greenwich Street, which was at the waterfront in 1776. The old slips on the East River extend inland to Queen Street, now Pearl Street, which is near where Zone A runs along the East River. Also notable on the 1776 map is Bayard’s Mount, the high land rising in the area marked “Marshy Ground” north and northwest of the old Collect Pond. The pond was drained in the early 19th Century and Bayard’s Mount was leveled to fill it in, but as can be seen in the evacuation plan, the pond and the marsh left their mark on modern Manhattan in the form of a hook-shaped low area delineated by the border of Zone B.

I guess once a flood zone, always a flood zone. [ManhattanPast]

h/t Adam Rogers, Tim DeChant

November 1, 2012

Republicans are adamant about their distrust of "the polls"..here's why

Their "on the ground", and "in the counting rooms" helpers MUST have "close" numbers in order to work their voo-doo magic with some degree of believability.

At the heart of it, they really don't care how it "looks", but they may just fear the tenacity of those "Chicago campaign masters" who might not just "move on" and send out the president for an early and polite concession speech (see Kerry '04)

This is so important to them that they (Karl Rove, for one) actually STARTED new polling operations this election, since the aggregated-averages style polling seems to be more trusted these days, so they had to have more right-skewed polls to drag down Obama's numbers....does anyone really think we actually NEEDED more poll takers?..or that THAT many people really like Romney enough to have his numbers gaining for no apparent reason?

I think they were hopeful that enough media types would buy into the Romney surge to help them at the end, but Sandy took away a lot of the air time they counted on, and it may be too late for them now.. (hoping it is)

November 1, 2012

How ironic it is that Chris Christie's Mom's name was Sandy

He called her Sandy yesterday in the press op.. Her given name was Sondra, but apparently was nicknamed Sandy..

There's a lot of detail in this article from a while back..she was a lifelong dem

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/christie_a_need_to_lead_honed.html

October 31, 2012

Where all that "debt" really came from....1776-2008

October 31, 2012

I love it when GOPers are on tv in front of their elephant logo

Shows me just when I need to hit the mute button..



That should be a "New Rule"

October 31, 2012

Sorry, but Bloomberg is being an ass

This would be the perfect time for a presidential visit

He has his own security & vehicles
There is not much traffic to snarl (as is the usual happening)
The visit would not be a very long one

The people of NY probably would welcome a brief visit

October 31, 2012

Chucky Toad and his Magical Mystery Map

Hey Chucky, while you're "playin' around" with your map toy, why not just go-for-it..

Makes as much sense..

Mittens is such a great candidate

October 31, 2012

Starving Biafrans, flooded-out Bangladeshis were in the news when I was a kid

In fact we were always being asked to donate to this drought/famine or disaster or another all over the under-developed world.

Schools I attended, regularly collected money to help these people.

They lived in a precarious part of the world..devoid of stable governments, and seemingly right in the path of one disaster after another.

Our teachers always reminded us how lucky we were to live in a peaceful place with the ability to protect us from famines, and how lucky we were to have people to help us get over things like tornadoes & hurricanes, fires, floods and all the other possibilities.


What separated us from those Biafrans & Bangladeshis (and all the others we donated to) was our INFRASTRUCTURE and government.

"Weather" is everywhere, and so is the possibility of fires & local disasters, but we had the satisfaction of knowing that "somebody" would always be there to help us....without having to go begging to the rest of the world for handouts.

We have seen, quite recently, what happens when no one comes to help (see Haiti earthquake), and to some degree New Orleans after Katrina. Haiti has more or less been left to the celebrities who try their best to help and the NGOs who have been trying to help forever, with little success. Their government is unable/unwilling to do what needs to be done.

Today on MSNBC, there was a graphic shown that represented dollar amounts for "repairs" after Katrina..$106 Billion..but then I wondered how much that would be if New Orleans had actually BEEN "restored".. Seven long years after the fact, there are still large swaths of land that look like it happened weeks ago.

What's different about "Sandy", is that it involved 1/5 or more of our population, and the lack of attention to our aging/stressed infrastructure is coming into a greater focus for us all..

I'm sure the subway system is great, BUT it's ONE HUNDRED & EIGHT years old.. Our "wires" are still basically strung from "poles" above ground, like they were when we first got widespread electrification..and these poles+wires are toppled with regularity by falling trees.

Too many of the communities built within the last 50 years or so have probably been built way too close to coastlines. (and out here, in fire-prone, fragile canyons & hillsides)

Money always changes hands when variances are needed, and developers who really really really want to build in areas that probably would be best left as public beachfront parks and open access to all, will almost always find the right pockets to line with cash in order to get those variances.

With ferocious storms seeming to be on the rise . and the cost of repairing damages, only to put the same people (or new, richer ones) into harms way over and over again, it seems to me that there needs to be some serious attention paid to what is in the best interest of the general public...and to the extreme costs of pretending that things are the same as they "used to be"..

Politicians of all "flavors" seem to be suddenly worried about handing down debt to "the children", but what's worse may just be handing down a wrecked, inefficient infrastructure to them in a more "dangerous" and fragile world..