public plazas not working? (nyt)
"Now, the first comprehensive survey and analysis, undertaken by Mr. Kayden, the New York City Planning Department and the Municipal Art Society, has found 503 spaces at 320 buildings. All but 22 of the buildings received a zoning bonus.

"Based on site visits in 1998 and 1999, the study concludes that nearly half of the buildings' public spaces do not comply with city rules, and that 41 percent of the spaces are of only marginal value even if they do meet the design requirements.

"Armed with the findings, the Giuliani administration sued the owners of three buildings this month and issued notices of violations against the owners of eight others. The owners could be fined if they do not comply."
(Thursday, September 28, 2000)

"fucked." (simon says)
"I was scampering through midtown on my way to COOGI–yes, the Australian company responsible for those endearingly cheesy, Technicolor-vomit, Bill Cosby sweaters was having a fashion show–when I noticed a homeless person half a block away, clutching a cardboard sign. The scurrying fashionistas ahead of me were responding to this bedraggled unfortunate with alacrity–reading his sign, then rummaging in their purses and tossing cash in his cup. I speculated about the exceptional tale of autobiographical woe inscribed on the makeshift sign–fire damage, H.I.V. status? What could possibly be motivating such a high response rate? As I drew level with the unhappy hobo, I instantly understood. His sign consisted of one word: "FUCKED." The lack of minced words–and, more importantly, the sentiment–had clearly struck a deep and resonant chord with the exhausted fashion professionals, me included."
(Thursday, September 28, 2000)

forget government. the poor cope alone. (nyt)
"In a presidential election season, when the two major-party candidates are suggesting that everyone should benefit from the nation's prosperity, the people who might be buoyed by the words have little use for national politics. In dozens of interviews in communities the president visited — Clarksdale, East St. Louis and the Eastern Kentucky towns of Hazard and Annville — what was clear was that Democrats are Democrats, Republicans are Republicans and people are more concerned with how to fix their own communities than in the state of the country."

Part of what seems to be a minor trend towards the Times reporting on the plight of the poorest citizens in our nation.
(Tuesday, September 26, 2000)

me+evany@frayday4
we're near the bottom, making strange faces.
(Tuesday, September 26, 2000)

annotated dennis miller monday night football (britannica.com)
this is pretty amusing.
(Monday, September 25, 2000)

pepsi = weapon @ olympics (guardian)
"Security guards checking for dangerous items have been asking visitors attending sports events at the Olympic complex if they are carrying "knives, weapons or cans of Pepsi" in an attempt to appease official sponsors Coca-Cola. Those who refuse to give up their cans or bottles of Pepsi are told that they will be refused entry."

Apparently brand choices do carry some rebellious weight.
(Monday, September 25, 2000)

the death penalty (still) doesn't work (nyt)
"Those who 'have labored long in the criminal justice system know, supported by a variety of studies and extensive personal experience, that blacks get the harsher hand in criminal justice and particularly in capital punishment cases,' Mr. McCann wrote in 'Opposing Capital Punishment: A Prosecutor's Perspective,' published in the Marquette Law Review in 1996. Forty-three percent of the people on death row across the country are African-Americans, according to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

"The death penalty also has been employed much more often when the victim was white — 82 percent of the victims of death row inmates were white, while only 50 percent of all homicide victims were white."
(Friday, September 22, 2000)

gnutella gets sticky (inside)
too many users makes gnutella slow. too many users on dial-up connections makes gnutella like nutella. but, hey, who expected a panacea?
(Tuesday, September 19, 2000)

manhattan's office space crunch (nyt)
"We haven't had a physical development policy for the city since the Koch administration," said Mitchell L. Moss, director of the Urban Research Center at New York University. "Instead, we're building minor league stadiums on Coney Island and Staten Island and failing to encourage the development of major league office buildings."

I don't think you'll ever see the equivalent of this story in the local papers.
(Tuesday, September 19, 2000)

details detailed (inside)
this is the sort of article that keeps me hooked to inside: media-centric, loaded with critique and backstory. it's also what josh may have been shooting for with his magazine column in smug.
(Monday, September 18, 2000)

overtime (nyt)
"The death of a 30-year-old lineman from remote Industry, Me., might have gone unnoticed beyond family, friends and the woman he had planned to marry in June, but for a coincidence: Mr. Churchill happened to die at a time of heightened public concern about the expanding workweek — a time, in fact, when the Maine legislature had been debating whether to cap the amount of mandatory overtime allowed in the state.

"The bill was not exactly a clarion call for worker ease, placing the overtime limit at 96 hours within any three-week period. The governor had already vetoed two versions, and there had not been enough votes in the Senate to override him. But the outcry over Mr. Churchill's death lent new momentum to efforts to cap overtime. The lawmakers compromised on a cap of 80 hours in any two-week period, and in May, Maine became the first state in the nation to limit the number of hours an employee can be required to work.

"But it is not the first to recognize the problem of physical exhaustion on the job in the tightest labor market in almost half a century. Although Maine faced an especially stark catalyst in Mr. Churchill's case, elsewhere around the nation, in courthouses and state legislatures, on picket lines and at negotiating tables, a backlash is building against the new economy's voracious appetite for Americans' time."
(Sunday, September 17, 2000)

long term capital, short term memories (nyt)
"Does that mean the professors should all be fired? Absolutely not. History is a good guide to the future; it just shouldn't be viewed as infallible. That was Long-Term Capital's mistake. It had huge positions, it used excessive leverage, and it wasn't truly diversified. (Its trades, though scattered worldwide, were mostly bets on lower risk premiums.)

"Although some Long-Term Capital trades were poorly conceived, the fund ran into more trouble on trades that were "good" but not infallible. Overconfidence led to overexposure; it could not afford to be wrong."
(Sunday, September 17, 2000)

the rich get richer. big surprise. (nyt)
"The center's report did not include one fact that illustrates the sharp divergence between the fortunes of the economic elite and the rest of America: From 1996 to 1997, the increase in average income for the top 1 percent of Americans — a gain of $69,009 — was nearly triple the total average income of the bottom 90 percent."

Think about that: the gain in average income in one year for the richest 1% was triple the average income of the bottom 90%.
(Sunday, September 17, 2000)

why don't people vote? (nyt)
"She hears Al Gore talk about continuing the nation's prosperity and she cringes.

"She hears George W. Bush talk about how things could be done so much better, and she cringes again. She knows what the Republicans mean when they talk about good times, and she believes that it seldom includes a 31-year-old black woman who works in the heat and grease of a fast-food restaurant.

The people quoted in this article are much more politically savvy, I think, than most of this country. At least in terms of seeing through the hype to the essential question of elections like this one: which spoiled white guy do you vote for?

Me, I'm voting for Ralph. Again.
(Sunday, September 17, 2000)

bull and gore (new york)
James Cramer: "Which is why this out-of-the-closet, card-carrying, big-lever Democrat money manager is scared to death that George W. Bush is going to win in November and, with his massive tax cuts, bust up the Big Deal that made the market roar. That's right: I expect if George W. Bush gets in, I will have to switch my mostly long stock fund into a fund that shorts with abandon, because I expect interest rates to shoot up as we get ready to finance the budget once again with bonds and not tax dollars. In short, we will be back to the same miserable stock market with the same second-rate Treasury Department we had when George senior ran the joint (and when I made millions betting against stocks)."
(Sunday, September 17, 2000)

injury-o-matic (nbc)
this is quite possibly the coolest thing online right now.
(Friday, September 15, 2000)

nota bene:
if you've got a problem with something i've posted here, you should probably say something to me. it's not too hard to figure out how to contact me, after all.
(Tuesday, September 12, 2000)

christi
she's making me some more furniture. it's so gratifying to see people i went to college with doing such great work, consistently. especially since i get to partake of some of it.
(Tuesday, September 12, 2000)

.com consulting firms feel the chill (nyt)
"The main reason for the gloomy outlook is a shift in the demand for the services these companies provide. While the consulting companies feasted on business from cash- rich start-ups and the brick-and-mortar companies that tried to keep pace, the dot-com shakeout has meant even old-economy companies feel less urgency to develop their Internet strategies."

A secondary reason for the sudden shift into red ink this quarter is that every big agency is still expanding, trying to get even bigger. Which means more overhead, thus higher fees, thus a greater barrier to entry for potential clients. When companies suddenly have to worry more about their burn rates, the big agencies find themselves not getting as much business.
(Monday, September 11, 2000)

a soft landing may not be so soft (nyt)
"If consumers were in sounder financial shape, the job losses that a slowdown might bring would not be so worrisome. But installment debt and stock market margin debt carried by consumers are now an astounding 24.5 percent of disposable personal income. From 1965 to 1995, this figure averaged 18.4 percent. It is off the charts thanks to margin debt, which now accounts for more than 3.5 percent of disposable income, up from an average of 0.78 percent for the 30 years ended in 1995. This debt load also means that consumer spending could contract significantly, exacerbating the downturn."
(Sunday, September 10, 2000)

prosperity (nyt)
"The prosperity that I keep hearing about is not what keeps money in my bank account and my bills paid every month; it is the fact that we are spending carefully," she said. "If I don't need new shoes, I don't buy them. Most people do. We drive old cars. We do spend $800 a month on takeout food and restaurants because we work so many hours. And we tithe at the church, $6,000 a year. But we have not gone out and built the new house yet. Bankers are trying to loan us the money. They tell us we are nuts, build it now. But we want to wait until the loan for the lot is paid off."
(Sunday, September 10, 2000)

aaa cups (simon says)
"'I remember the days when small tits were considered sexy and hip. All the girls I worked with in the 1960’s—Edie Sedgwick, Peggy Moffitt—I didn't make a bust dart for years,' said Ms. Johnson. 'Those chicks were all young, sexy and beautiful, and they all had small knockers.'"
(Saturday, September 9, 2000)

a gapless world (washington post)
alas, not the article you might hope for, given the title, but not exactly an awful proposition, either.
(Tuesday, September 5, 2000)

the ultimate laptop (nyt)
physics is cool.
(Tuesday, September 5, 2000)

scour's other shoe drops (inside)
Only twelve people are left on staff.

"Soon after the associations filed suit, Scour investor Michael Ovitz began distancing himself from the company and reportedly sought to divest of his stake in the company. Apparently other potential new investors have been scared off as well."

As they should be, when the big shot is trying to get out of the box.
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

pop not bought (inside)
If they're wondering why nobody's buying, maybe it has something to do with the lack of a business plan, content plan, or even having anything online other than a press release.
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

teen gurus (brill's)
"This fact intersects with the other giant demographic reality: the rise of the so-called echo boom, the generation comprising the baby boom's children. There are more Americans turning 18 now than ever before, says William Strauss, author of Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. About 78 million Americans are between the ages of 0 and 22, accounting for 28 percent of the population. 'In the last couple years, America has gone totally teenage,' says Strauss. What television was to their parents, computers are to them."
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

outdoor ads in nyc (stay free!)
from my favorite branch of the consumerist critique.
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

millionaires fighting tax assessments (nyt)
"Already, said Nelson Lee, the chairman of the town Board of Selectmen, Vermont's recent property tax reform is hurting Bridgewater, and cases like the Manzi house further fuel the anger among old-style Vermonters that is visible these days in the thousands of "Take Back Vermont" signs along the state's roads.

"'People born in Vermont are having to give up their properties because of the tax rate being rammed down their throat by people who are like the Manzis,' Mr. Lee said. 'It's happening in Colorado, it's happening in Maine,' he added. 'You should see what's going on there. The gentrification and the tastelessness -- and the disregard of the local guy.'"
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

work work work (nyt op-ed)
"'The total wealth of the typical American household improved only marginally during the 1990's. The net worth of the typical household rose about $2,200 in the 1990's -- from $58,800 in 1989 to $61,000 in 1998. While this household's assets grew modestly -- stock assets were up by $5,500 and nonstock assets by $8,500 -- its debt rose as well, by $11,800. Thus, the relatively modest gains in stock and nonstock assets combined with the offsetting rise in household debt meant that the 1990's were far less generous to typical households than business-page headlines often suggest.'"

When the presidential candidates talk about tax cuts, look at who gets the lion's share of the money. It won't be the struggling middle class.

n.b. San Franciscans have double the debt of the national average
(Monday, September 4, 2000)

$1 million garages (chronicle)
"It's so hard to find parking in The City that folks can wait two years to rent a space in a garage, and then fork over as much as $500 a month for it.

"And those are the options for the lucky ones who can afford to build that garage, buy that house, rent that stall.

"For the rest, parking on the street in The City usually means endless circling followed by that all-too-familiar, inevitable, desperate last resort: parking in crosswalks, by fire hydrants, in bus zones, across driveways and even on the sidewalk."

Nowhere are public transportation, carshares, bicycling, or walking mentioned as less costly alternatives to this horrendous 'problem.' If this city had world-class public transportation think of all the gas stations and parking lots that could be converted into more housing, offices, and pocket parks.
(Monday, September 4, 2000)