posts by medina

From Yves at Naked Capitalism:

Wall Street Losses a Disaster for New York City Finances
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/08/wall-street-losses-disaster-for-new.html

But the charm of cities depends on adequate municipal budgets. It wasn't until the Giuliani era that the number of parents deciding to remain in the City grew sharply, and with good reason. Even in the fat years of the 1980s, Manhattan wasn't entirely safe. I was lucky. I merely had my wallet stolen more times than I can remember.
All cities will be hit by declining tax revenues, but New York will fare worse due to its dependence on financial services. Despite the view that foreign buyers will keep the real estate market from declining too far, a return to 1980s conditions may dampen their enthusiasm.

Some more information on demographic changes:

Trading Places
The demographic inversion of the American city.
Alan Ehrenhalt, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
http://tnr.com/story_print.html?id=264510ca-2170-49cd-bad5-a0be122ac1a9

Excerpts:

Before September 11, 2001, the number of people living in
Manhattan south of the World Trade Center was estimated at about
25,000. Today, it is approaching 50,000. Close to one-quarter
of these people are couples (nearly always wealthy couples) with
children. The average household size is actually larger in lower
Manhattan than in the city as a whole. It is not mere fantasy to
imagine that in, say, 2020, the southern tip of Manhattan will
be a residential neighborhood with a modest residual presence
of financial corporations and financial services jobs. What's
happening in Lower Manhattan isn't exactly an inversion in the
Chicago sense: Expensive condos are replacing offices, not poor
people. But it is dramatic demographic change nevertheless.

In fairness, a lot of that condo construction had probably been pending
since they tore down the old elevated West Side Highway.

[wikipedia.org] West Side Elevated Highway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_Highway

The new Stuyvesant building (built 1992) used to be about the only
thing at the lower end of Manhattan there, with nothing but grass
fields between it and the World Financial Center (or rather the
two buildings just before it, one of which housed Merrill Lynch.
Those fields are nearly all condos now (one with a new public school
at its base).

Another point, which I've heard much earlier courtesy of my cousin
(uncle? who knows) Louie, a former police officer:

The young newcomers who have rejuvenated 14th and U believe that
this recovering slum is the sort of place where they want to
spend time and, increasingly, where they want to live. This is
the generation that grew up watching "Seinfeld," "Friends," and
"Sex and the City," mostly from the comfort of suburban sofas. We
have gone from a sitcom world defined by "Leave It to Beaver" and
"Father Knows Best" to one that offers a whole range of urban
experiences and enticements. I do not claim that a handful
of TV shows has somehow produced a new urbanist generation,
but it is striking how pervasive the pro-city sensibility is
within this generation, particularly among its elite.

Have I mentioned I'm re-reading TBS? Are we looking at an
unexpected event (increasing popularity of cities) and reaching to
apply "becauses" after the fact? Yep. I guess my question now is
whether the trend that led us here will persist, or whether it will
ebb over the next decade.

-- Dan

Makes a hell of a lot more sense than developing your own stand-alone
applications, doesn't it?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/05/going-back-to-school-picking-up-where-facebook-left-off/

Back when Facebook was a social network only for college students, one
of the most popular features was the ability to see not only who was in
your class, but who else was taking the same courses as you. [...]
Rather than reinvent the wheel, Inigral is building its applications on
top of Facebook. Its first Facebook app was called Courses, which
basically aped the canceled feature that students loved. [...]
In fact, it has so many features that Inigral is planning on charging
for it. Who would pay for a Facebook app? Not students, that's for
sure. Instead, Inigral plans on charging universities. It is, in
that sense, one of the first enterprise apps on Facebook.

I remember seeing university IT admins planning a "portal site" which
would do a lot of this, including allow blog hosting, etc. This was
shortly after Facebook came out. I spoke to one of the managers and
pointed out that a lot of this already existed; he seemed surprised.
The university already had their own "community" clone site that did
much the same.

I see some universities are already plugging into facebook:

[stanford.edu] Facebook App Contest
http://stucomp.stanford.edu/facebook
[uoregon.edu] UO Libraries Search facebook app now available!
http://www.uoregon.edu/~bonamici/2008/07/uo-libraries-search-facebook-app-now.html
[rit.edu] Facebook Now Includes an RIT Libraries Application!
http://wally.rit.edu/whatsnew/facebook-now-includes-rit-libraries-application.html

Jason Nieh was scheduled to teach "Building Facebook Applications" at
Columbia in Spring 2008, but no idea what came out of that:

Special Topics In Computer Science, I (Bldg Facebook Application)
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/courses/list?yearterm=20081

Where the Race Now Begins at Kindergarten
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/nyregion/06private.html

But with the recent boom in the city\x{2019}s under-5 set,
the competition for kindergarten places can rival that of Ivy
League admission.

Emily Glickman, a private school consultant for Abacus Guide
Educational Consulting, which helps parents gain admission to
private schools, said competition had intensified not only for
brand-name schools like Dalton, Collegiate and Trinity but also
for lesser-known and newer schools, as more couples opt to have
two or more children; more families remain in the city rather than
moving to the suburbs; and the wealthy in New York get wealthier.

A bit more on Emily, since I like to know who these sources are:

Emily Glickman - Abacus Guide
http://www.abacusguide.com/about%20Emily%20Glickman.htm

Emily Glickman is the founder and president of Abacus Guide,
experts in admission and achievement at New York City and greater
New York area schools. Emily is an educational consultant who
works with private and corporate clients.

Before founding Abacus Guide in 1999, Emily worked for The
Princeton Review. A life-long New Yorker educated at every level
at New York City schools, Emily attended elementary school at
Packer, high school at Hunter, and college and graduate school
at Columbia. She serves as an alumni interviewer for Columbia
University.

I think this is a post-9/11 trend, call it a mini-boom. People want
more kids. They even perfer to stay in NYC rather than retreating
to the suburbs. Now this could be because a lot of those parents are
more established and other when they're having kids. As usual, I have
no data to back this up.

Now this trend may be cresting (seven years later, folks are on their
second kids, the demographics may be softening in another few years,
relieving the pressure at the pre-K and K levels). So is there still
a business opportunity here?

Where's the app that finds you across "all the others"?

The one that takes "username" and points you to

http://del.icio.us/username
http://flickr.com/photos/username
http://twitter.com/username
http://posterous.com/username (naturally)
http://username.blogspot.com/
http://linkedin.com/in/username

etc, etc.

Also useful for picking what your newest username should be, I imagine.

Finished reading I Am a Strange Loop over the weekend, now on NNT's Fooled By Randomness.

I Am a Strange Loop didn't really do it for me cover-to-cover.Talking to Irina about "how do we measure consciousness?", I was surprised that she came back with a fast answer of "a brain that oscillates at 40 MHz". I think in the end we agreed that this could be evidence of consciousness, but is certainly not sufficient.

Thinking a bit about cognitive oddities, one keeps coming to mind.

I've visited my old job several times in the past few months, and stopped by my old office. The group I used to work in three years ago merged with another group I worked in about eight (so old!) years ago. So when I visit, I'm swept by what I can only describe as some sort of memory-ind
uced disorientation. I know the faces, I know the places, but they're jumbled together!

I worked with that guy, but not in this building. I know him!, or was it his brother? Everyone's lost (or gained) weight and hair. Well, mostly lost the latter. The old guard looks the same as they ever did; when you've been around 35 years another three won't wear too heavily. The intern I worked with is still there. Right, because he hasn't graduat
ed yet, it's only been three years since I stopped working with him, not eight. And there's that web app, it looks the same (clunky), but I guess it still works.

Via the New York Times:

Google Changes Home Page, Adding Link to Privacy Policy
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/04/google-changes-home-page-adding-link-to-privacy-policy

"In the main blog post, Marissa Mayer, the Google vice president who looks after the user interface of its search engine, reiterated that the company believes in keeping its main page short. She said that Google’s two founders told her the word privacy could only be added to the home page if another word was deleted, leaving the page at 28 words. So the copyright notice at the bottom of the page was changed from “© 2008 Google” to “© 2008 - Privacy.” Ms. Mayer wrote that it is implied that Google is the one copyrighting the page."

Really? 28 words? Because it looks a little silly now.

How about changing "Advertising Programs" to "Advertising"?

Or "Language Tools" to "Languages"?

Or "Business Solutions" to "Services?

Or just axe iGoogle. I mean, it's neat, but raise your hand if you're using it.

Anyhow, the story behind the 28-word limit is at

What comes next in this series? 13, 33, 53, 61, 37, 28...
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/what-comes-next-in-this-series-13-33-53.html

And I don't buy "the Google is implied":

What is a copyright notice? How do I put a copyright notice on my work?
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html#notice

"A copyright notice is an identifier placed on copies of the work to inform the world of copyright ownership that generally consists of the symbol or word “copyright (or copr.),” the name of the copyright owner, and the year of first publication, e.g., ©2008 John Doe."

posterous: no tagging that I see. Not that I care too much. Perhaps a list in the subject line, followed by a colon?

My text-wrapping is being respected. and comes out looking ok. But I think I should get in the habit of disabling it. While I like the way it looks in my vim edit buffer or terminal mail client, I find that my messages don't look so good in the myriad of systems and devices people may use to read mail from me.

Anecdote:

-snip-

* Co-worker: Speaking of tangents... what in the world do you use for a mail client? Just curious.

* Me: I use Mutt!

And I am not alone [ link to firm's Mutt User's Group ]!

Did something come out formatted strangely?

* Co-worker: My last mail is always on top, then your reply. The formatting comes out weird.

Plus it forces everything to plain text, a la Blackberry.

I figured it wasn't Outlook.

* Me [ flaunting it at this point ]:

On Mon, Jun 14, 2008 at 04:59:17PM -0400, you wrote:
> My last mail is always on top, then your reply. The formatting comes
> out weird.

It's a leftover from newsgroup habits, where you see the joke:

A: Because it reverses the normal flow of conversation.
Q: Why is top-posting a bad idea?

> Plus it forces everything to plain text, a la Blackberry.
> I figured it wasn't Outlook.

As I read mail on a BlackBerry more, I find top-posting annoying. But I still prefer it when using my normal text-based mail client.

-snip-

I didn't go into RFC 1855, "Netiquette Guidelines", or the advantages of a threaded email client.

Use Mutt! It sucks less! http://www.mutt.org/

Reading I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. Surprisingly
slow going; I'm not getting into it for some reason.

I Am a Strange Loop (Hardcover)
http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030785

However, reading it has led to one discovery:

"As I mentioned in Chapter 4, at age fourteen I ran across Ernest
Nagel and James R. Newman's little gem, Godel's Proof [medina here:
no idea how to do umlauts or italics properly], and through it I
fell under the spell of the paradox-skirting ideas on which Godel's
work was centered. One of the strange loops connected with that
period in my life was that I became acquainted with the Nagel
family at just that time. Their home was in Manhattan, but they
were spending the academic year 1959-60 "out west" at Stanford,
and since Ernest Nagel and my father were old friends, I soon got
to know the whole family."

As it turns out, I have a 1958 edition of that book on my shelf
here. I swiped it from my father, but I never read it. Until I
took Computational Complexity, paradoxes hurt my head too much.
I guess I'll queue this book into my reading list.

Nagel just happened to be vacationing next door to Hofstadter as
a kid? Our neighbors... not so much. Clearly we need to move and associate with more academics.

For reasons which we may go into later, my toddler insists that he is a (Star Wars universe) Stormtrooper.

There's no way he's getting a lousy plastic toy gun. But this, found on Walmart, seems to weight more than an actual machine gun ("Shipping Weight: 34.0").

Star Wars Stormtrooper Blaster Replica
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=3321589