Thursday, July 31, 2008
Wordscraper
The game formerly known as Scrabulous is back as Wordscraper.
I fear and dislike these changes. This does not bode well.
Another way to set themselves apart from Scrabudodo would be to expand its dictionary into modern vernacular, using popular online dictionaries as a base. Including webbish words would be very nice. Wouldn’t be the zaniest thing in the world.
Speaking of which, there is tumbleweed blowing across the screen at Fauxcabulary. Submishes are nutritious! Think of the children.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
It's been Scrabulous
Hasbro doesn’t like to share its toys.
Without Scrabulous on Facebook, my inability to balance friends, family, work, and life will no longer be demarcated by emails bearing false claims of impending bingos and hastily expired games.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Wordle
Wordle makes spiffy wordclouds.
I’m tickled by the words that appear (read: relieved it caught the feed of a decent post). Yay!
They’re all different, like this one, or like one of my Delicious feed. Make some.
I used Mac’s Grab to get a screen capture so I could orient the image right side up. Paparazzi! which is normally great for doing whole window (not just visible screen grabs) didn’t work. It captured the image of a java applet not loading.
tee hee =]
Get a Grip: the MTA's Anti-Groping Campaign
Holla Back NYC is the one place I’ve found that gives victims of harassment not just a voice, but a course of action through which to channel their rage and feelings of impotent despair over a society that neither values nor protects human rights.
Ok, sorry for the volley. Lemme back up. Normally I gag when I hear the words “raise awareness.” But I have strong feelings about the MTA’s canceled campaign to raise harassment awareness, and think that it’s a proper balance to my “I Heart the Subway” post. In brief:
Last year the MTA did a study to see how bad icky people were harassing women. Their own study “found 63% of respondents have been sexually harassed and 10% reported having been sexually assaulted in the subway system.” MTA knows this but decided that their own ad campaign against the subject was “too pervy.” The argument the MTA makes is that these ads will actually lead to more groping.
There is no study indicating that would be the case. Reporting crimes doesn’t indicate a rise in crimes. It indicates a rise in reported crimes. The NYPost makes this smart distinction (though I would have too — just like “best selling author” only means most books sold, definitely not best-written).
The MTA has discomfort over their own posters, ones that reveal how uncomfortable and sick those little public groping sessions are. And it’s true, that is a very uncomfortable thing. But it’s the MTA’s domain, and they can’t be more squeamish than the folks who ride their trains. They can’t pretend something isn’t a huge problem when they know full well it is.
According to Douglas Sussman, Director of Community Affairs, “the MTA is reconsidering the posting of these ads and we should have some announcement on this matter very soon. If I can be of assistance on any other matter, I can be reached at ”
Holla Back NYC is asking people to email him, let him know where they stand on this squeamishness. I wrote Doug a nice note. I invite you to help make the world a better place, one dark dirty tubehole at a time.
(I’m really interested to hear what anyone in Boston has to say on this, I just don’t have as much of their info in my brain, so I apologize for the “NYC as center of the universe” tone.)
A few weeks ago someone killed themselves by jumping onto the tracks of the F train. I only know this because Mike got stuck on that train and told me. We never saw anything about it in the news. Going by the news, I’d guestimate subway suicides have only happened like once in the past five years. The reasons for are pretty obvious. This silenced anti-groping campaign smells like the same thing to me. I’ve never reported my incidents. I have no idea how regularly it happens. But if we have a campaign showing that the system is rife with sickos and perverts, wouldn’t that change things, raise awareness? The only thing the MTA wants to change and raise is their prices (booyah!).
Heavens to Mergatroid! What if that ashamed and sickened woman feels less alone after she’s been a victim, feels like it’s not she who failed by having the nerve to EXIST without a male bodyguard… but that a service she pays for, in public, has the responsibility to prevent one patron from doing to harm another. She’ll report it. Maybe they’ll get the guy!
If this were a restaurant, and a person got groped waiting in line for the bathroom, wouldn’t the management be railed against for not immediately calling the cops, arresting the jerk, and keeping a better lookout?
Yeah, I have a lot of rage. And sure… yes, I’ve been groped and felt up and all that jazz on the subway. Who do I fear on the train? Not the drunk asleep in his poop. Not the guy actually dripping blood (I couldn’t tell if it was his blood or if he was fresh from a nice vigorous stabbing). Those guys are just riding the train. I fear the one who decides he’s going to pet me because he can. The touch that is not accidental, but pervy. And I think about breaking his fingers.
Ok, I don’t actually fear them, I fear committing a felony that might mess up my eligibility for student loans. Why should I fear them? They fear nothing. They certainly don’t get in any trouble. It’s harder to find someone who looks more proud and happy with themselves.
Lots. Lots of rage. It’s true. Wanna make sumpthin’ of it? I do.
But how do you feel? What do you think about this? Also, if you are feeling brave and perhaps have the next couple Fridays off, contact me. I and a friend are working on something that could be illuminating…
[update] This just found via BuzzFeed: Camera phones in Japan all have alert sounds so perverts can’t take up-skirt photos. Shockingly I feel like these posters would give people in NYC ideas, or like they’re more a warning about what women should look out for. Why am I thinking like that after my strong impression that the MTA posters wouldn’t inspire nasty minds? Because it’s cartoon people in the Japanese poster maybe? I honestly don’t know. Design? Lack of wording?
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Off the Beaten Subway Track
Hello my bunnies, we’ve just returned from a lovely trip to visit retired family in Naples, FL. Aside from dipping in the ocean and waiting in line for the iPhone, we kept chill: watching movies, playing games, and swimming in the pool. My mom’s backyard abuts a nature preserve where I saw 3 species of butterflies, and the wing-folding origami of their mating.
Waiting in line at an Apple store in a high-end retail mall went like so: canvas umbrellas for shade, a linen covered table offering icewater with lemon, and waitstaff from a nearby California Pizza Kitchen coming by every few minutes with a different entree or appetizer cut into pieces. I feel like I should have suffered more with my fellow humans, so I’ll be going to the DMV here in Brooklyn this week. That should balance out the cosmic scale.
My expired driver’s license sucked in the suburbs. The mental map I have of my grandparents living “close” to my parents is shredded by the traffic in between. To meet my parents at a restaurant after getting dropped off at the movies, we had to walk to another strip mall to find an ATM (some have none, because there is no foot traffic except for dislocated New Yorkers), ask a bar for the best local cab company to use, walk again to an ATM inside the Costco ("my mom belongs here, please! thanks!"), then wait 45 minutes for the cab to arrive.
I love the NYC subway system with all my heart and soul (except when I hate it with the power of a thousand suns). I love that it exists and I hope it improves. I love that Manhattan is only 3 miles wide, that its bridges have foot and bike paths.
Hearing stories of my grandparents’ experiences of New York City gives me a nice feeling of continuity with my family and city’s history: the antique subway lines they took from Westchester (Yonkers, then Katonah) to Columbia and NYU, which tunnels and road projects my grandfather worked on, and how they had to keep moving further out as their family grew. Being away renews my appreciation for this funkyTown of ours, makes me eager to explore more.
One of the most useful new apps for the iPhone is CityTransit which sells for just a few more cents than the cost of a subway ride itself. I’ve not had the Locator function work for me yet, but it gives you all the maps for the NYC Subway, LIRR, Metro North, and even the Antique Subway, as well as the detailed line routes and transfers. As the MTA papers the walls and trains with more and more advertising instead of helpful maps, it’s useful to have them in my pocket when there’s no reception, or can’t move because of rush hour crowds.
I had no intention of mentioning last, an excellent book for anyone looking to explore the wonderland which is NYC: Off the Beaten (Subway) Track, by Suzanne Reisman.
I met the interesting, virtuous, and very lively Suzanne earlier this summer, who explained to me that during the course of her work (wielding a flaming pen of justice in official ways I can’t explain) she’s become aware of many extraordinary places. Since most people are oblivious to these tiny museums and peculiar galleries, she was compelled to write this treasure of a book. Actually, I’d call the book a treasure chest: open it and dip elbow deep in shiny jewels of troll museums and antique toy collections. You could spend years, or the next 1,000 family visits checking out the obscure attractions in this collection.
Suzanne will be at BlogHer in San Fran at the end of this week (jealous!) and the book party is next month here in New York City. Check out her site for more details.
Suzanne says one of the best things about discovering these wacky places is meeting the people behind them. I say the best thing about living here in NYC is the awesome people I constantly meet, like the author herself.
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