Cur Non

pbump:

Coming soon: A show from the creators of Downton Abbey about the Gilded Age in New York City. Spectacular.

I’d like to say I’m excited, but you know how I feel about Downton Abbey. Let’s just say I’m intrigued.

The New York City Public TransLit Book Club

togatherinc:

A while back we heard about a program in Seattle that encourages commuters to read more. It’s called “Books on the Bus” and it’s hailed as ‘the first-ever book club for commuters.’ And since imitation is the highest form of flattery, we figured we should try to bring something like that to New York.

So we created The Public TransLit Book Club! And while we certainly drew our inspiration from the group in Seattle, we take our book club a little further. We’re bringing the author to an event where they will speak with the book club!!  That’s right! Not only will we all be reading the same book as we schlep to work. We’ll also be rubbing elbows with the authors, too! 

Our first event is at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, December 11 at Lolita Bar in Manhattan. The first selection is “This Machine Kills Secrets” by Andy Greenberg.  In order to RSVP to this event, just buy a book through Togather. This will act as your ticket to the event and will also get you one free drink at the event! And, don’t worry about the designated driver. You can always take public transit home!

To learn more about future events, check out our Meetup page!

Check out this cool thing my company is doing. THEN MAYBE THINK ABOUT JOINING, MAYBE? It will be fun. You can read about hackerz and cypherpunks and then talk to Andy Greenberg, the author, himself!

CATCALLED

catcalled:

Welcome to CATCALLED, a collection of women’s stories about street harassment in New York City. For two weeks this August, eleven women in the city kept a log of their harassment experiences, and how the presence (or absence) of catcallers affected their actions. Their experiences may surprise you—they certainly surprised each other, and at times, even the participants themselves.

Street harassment is a tricky issue. Its interpretation is almost entirely subjective, and the experience of it can range from violated and frustrated to annoyed. Harassment itself is hard to define, as well. What’s the difference between harassment, a catcall, flirtation, and a compliment? At the same time, it’s difficult to argue that sexual harassment is anything but an unfair burden placed on women in urban spaces, and one that can be incessant and invasive.

Part of the story of this project has been discovering that most women have found a way to deal with harassment on a regular basis. Even if an individual woman may feel that the status quo is acceptable, she is usually able to point to precautions she takes to feel safe as a woman. Even if an individual woman feels flattered by catcalling, she can probably point to a situation in which she felt extremely vulnerable due to catcalling—probably as a young teenager. We believe that all women, in some way or another, have to grapple with objectification and safety in public spaces, whether that space is Central Park or Times Square.

CATCALLED is an attempt to give that struggle a voice. Over on the right you can see 11 different badges, one for each of our 11 participants. The women who wrote for this project live in four different boroughs and have a range of sexualities, ethnic backgrounds, and life experiences. There is no one place to start reading, no one person to focus on. Each participant has an introduction from me, giving you a sense of what you might get out of reading those entries; each woman has additionally highlighted her own entries, to reflect what she has found most valuable. After the project was over, all 11 participants responded to someone else’s logs for their exit interview, beginning a conversation about different experiences that we hope you continue. You can add to the dialogue by clicking respond. In addition to publishing questions, comments, and ideas on our blog, we will also be featuring readers’ daily logs—a single-day entry about street harassment. And of course, if you would like to contact us more directly, you can find out how to do that here.

We hope you get something out of this—men and women, in the city and out of it. We have learned a lot from beginning this dialogue, and we can’t wait to see how you respond.

Rad. Check this out.

This Guy Is The Reason Hurricane Sandy’s Wikipedia Page Didn’t Mention Climate Change Until Today

gawkercom:

Popular Science’s Dan Nosowitz introduces us to Ken Mampel, the 56-year-old unemployed Floridian who  is largely responsible for the creation of Wikipedia’s Hurricane Sandy page—and its conspicuous lack of any reference to climate change: 

When I talked to him, I believe he had slept for maybe 15 hours in the past five days. He spoke quickly and passionately but without any focus whatsoever, and even the simplest question could lead into a tangent from which I had significant trouble pulling him away. “Did you create the Wikipedia article originally?” I’d ask. Two sentences later, he was telling me about his son, who is about my age, who does something at George Washington University and is a veteran and received some impressive military medal and did I know that global warming is definitely not man-made?

At one point I told him I lived in Brooklyn. He paused, and then yelled “JOEY BAG-A-DONUTS!” at me in some kind of 1970s Brooklyn accent.

Read More

DANGERS OF WIKIPEDIA