• Streisand effect – The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be publicized widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no censorship had been attempted.. Origin is in reference to a 2003 incident in which Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully sued photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for US$50 million in an attempt to have the aerial photograph of her house removed from the publicly available collection of 12,000 California coastline photographs, citing privacy concerns
• NYC replaces automated toilets with staffed restrooms, a signifier of trust – But where the floors of the old restrooms had a tank-tread-like surface that automatically rotated across a scrubbing system after each use, and the toilets themselves were cleaned by a rim-mounted U-shaped traveling brush, the new ones are inspected, mopped and scrubbed — 15 to 25 times a day — by eagle-eyed, uniformed men and women.

  “It’s an attendant who knows what’s going on and has functions that go from sanitation to exchanging a few words with you to generally having a sense of what should be done,” said Jerome Barth, the partnership’s vice president for operations. “People see them, and they know the bathrooms are clean.”

• Florida judges shouldn’t friend Florida lawyers on Facebook – A new advisory warns it may create the appearance of a conflict. Being a "fan" is still okay.

I’ll be headed to NYC and environs next week for a couple of days. Not a lot of downtime, but I am hoping to check out the Apple store. Any other suggestions? It’s been six months or so since I’ve been there.

I was in New York earlier this week. On Friday morning I looked out the window and saw this

I am pretty sure it’s been several years since I had seen snow. After a while it stopped. There was quite an interesting view looking north at Central Park.

It worked out fine for me; despite some anxiety about just doing basic stuff like getting around when weather was happening, it stopped for good once I left the hotel, and turned into a sunny day. Some annoyance with slush, but it worked out. I was amused at myself having grown up with this stuff but being so completely unsure (or to some extent, unprepared) in dealing with it.

This is not Photoshop – this is how the picture came out. Of course, it was an accident, but still…

I’m here in the Millenium Hilton directly across from the World Trade Center site. I went out about 9:30 pm and there were more than 50 police cars parked alongside the road. Some had flashers on. Police were walking around and standing around. I walked through the area to see what was up; eventually it seemed that they were staging for something else. After about 30 minutes they peeled off in heats of 5 to 20, every few minutes, with lights flashing, and sires whooping. They went in the same direction, but then turned off different side streets.

Why? What was this about? There was one TV crew there; I’ll see if anything is on the news about this.

Update: the waiter in the restaurant says that the police do this every morning, staging before their morning assignments. Maybe this was the evening version? Seems awfully dramatic.

Hey, what am I doing standing here on the corner of West 8th Street and the 6th Avenue and…
Ah, skip it.
Nothing. Keith! Watcha, watcha doing? (whistle)
Oh, I think the time has come to get out, get out
Get up, get out, get into something new

We had a really nice lunch at a fancy-type of Italian restaurant in Midtown yesterday. I just spent 3 minutes on Google maps to see if I could find the name if I knew where it was, but really, it’s too much of a chore and if anyone really cares, they can write me and we’ll figure it out. At any rate, here are the appetizers and the freebie dessert plate. Looked and tasted great! No entrees because maybe we were too hungry when they came?

Looks like I’ll be back in NYC later this week. My second trip in 2 (or 3?) weeks – sometimes it’s years between opportunities to visit New York, now my cup runneth over. I’m pretty excited!

This seemed like a nifty innovation, small, yet simple. This UPS truck was parked in Manhattan, presumably the driver might be away from the truck for several minutes, meanwhile, it serves as a convenient drop-box for passerby. I mean, the truck is there, you might as well make use of it, right?

I don’t know, perhaps others do, if they are leaving these trucks in fixed locations for predictable times, serving as reliable-if-temporary drop boxes?

Wanna buy a watch?

Gorgeous new bakery on 9th ave in Manhattan, with an example of what I guess is a food trend – the Fwinkie, as they call it, an example of what a Twinkie would be if it was made by a baker and not a processed synthetic food shmechhghh company. They had regular, and chocolate (dipped in chocolate) – which is what this is. It was pretty good. Not freak-out good, but pretty good. Looked better than it tasted, I’d say.

I’m off to New Jersey/New York this week. I’ll be doing some meetings in NJ to kick off an exciting new project, and then hanging for a couple of days in NYC (staying at the W Hotel) to see some friends. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve been out there; looking forward to it!