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  Long Island Town Uses Google Earth to Find Rogue Swimming Pools

  JP 1:45 am on August 9, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Barnes (7), community norms, D.C. (8), Earth (3), faulty plumbing, google (193), Long Island, nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473), Riverhead, riverhead new york, Summer Fun (12), Wall Street (30), Washington (15)

  Filed under: Google, Summer Fun, Web

  

  Officials in one Long Island town are cracking down on rogue swimming pool owners by using Google’s satellite imaging technology. According to an Associated Press report in The Wall Street Journal, Riverhead, New York’s chief building inspector, LeRoy Barnes, Jr., is using Google Earth to locate swimming pools that haven’t been registered for a city permit. So far, Barnes and his staff have discovered about 250 pools to be missing permits, and have collected about $75,000 in fines. The city claims that this rash of unregulated pools could have faulty plumbing or electrical work, which would endanger Riverhead residents.

  Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. told the AP, “The technology is going so far ahead of what people think is possible, and there is too little discussion about community norms.” The decision to use Google Earth probably didn’t stem from safety or privacy; the city used a free service to do a faster, more efficient (and invasive) job. It makes perfect fiscal sense, even if it might ruffle some feathers. [From: AP/The Wall Street Journal]

  Long Island Town Uses Google Earth to Find Rogue Swimming Pools originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  The One Person Kanye West Follows on Twitter Says Fame Is 'Vacuous'

  JP 1:44 am on August 9, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: anonymous student (2), chomping at the bit (2), interview requests (2), Kanye (2), nbsp (1,691), New York, West (3)

  Filed under: Celebrities, Web, Social Networking

  

  When recent Twitter convert Kanye West chose to follow the account of a kid named Steven Holmes, everyone struggled to comprehend why Mr. West would want to follow a relatively anonymous student — and no one else. Surely this kid must be the world’s most rabid Kanye fan, right? Or perhaps he’s another struggling musician who’s been chomping at the bit for his one shot at fame? Well, not exactly.

  “The funny thing is I like his music but I’m not his biggest fan,” the media student tells his local Coventry Telegraph newspaper. “Before this weekend I thought it would be cool to have a celebrity following me on Twitter but now I think it’s really not worth it.” Ever since being anointed as Kanye’s “Chosen One,” Holmes has accumulated upwards of 3,000 followers, and has been barraged with messages from aspiring artists, filmmakers and musicians, “as if I have some sort of influence over Kanye West.” He’s also received a slew of interview requests from major media outlets like the BBC, New York Magazine and CNN. And he’s refused every single one. “I didn’t want to talk to any of them,” Holmes says. “Fame has never appealed to me. It’s vacuous.”
  

  Continue reading The One Person Kanye West Follows on Twitter Says Fame Is ‘Vacuous’

  The One Person Kanye West Follows on Twitter Says Fame Is ‘Vacuous’ originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 15:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  Bernie Kerik Tweets Against Ground Zero Mosque from Prison

  JP 1:44 am on July 25, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Bernie Kerik, Carl Paladino, Commissioner Bernie Kerik, Frank Gaffney, Gingrich, Ground, Maryland (2), nbsp (1,691), New York, newt gingrich, nyc police commissioner, Read (1,473), Rick Lazio, Sarah Palin (7), Zero

  Filed under: Web, Social Networking

  Joining the ranks of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and New York gubernatorial candidates Rick Lazio and (the unlikely) Carl Paladino, former NYC Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik has also come out in opposition of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque.

  That’s great news for the anti-mosque organizers, but we must remind ourselves that Kerik is also a convicted felon currently serving time in Cumberland, Maryland. (Click here for the laundry list of his crimes.) And yet Kerik was able to tweet a link to a video hosted on conservative website Newsmax (Palin once described Newsmax as one of her top news sources) created by right-wing pundit Frank Gaffney’s group, Center for Security Policy. Kerik also reposted Gaffney’s Newsmax article on his personal blog. But how did he do it?

  Continue reading Bernie Kerik Tweets Against Ground Zero Mosque from Prison

  Bernie Kerik Tweets Against Ground Zero Mosque from Prison originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 24 Jul 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life

  JP 1:45 am on July 16, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Brian (3), Ed (19), ed note (2), life (6), nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473), social networking (65), tweet (27), Web (76)

  Filed under: Web, Social Networking

  

  Crowd-sourcing your dating life as a last means hope of finding that special someone is, well, desperate. But who are we to criticize a chosen path to love? Earlier this week, a 23-year-old New Yorker named Brian became a hit on the Web because he let the Internet pick his partner. Part of his internship at advertising agency BBH required him to “make something, anything famous,” his tweet to Mashable says. So he chose to boost his social life at the same time, claiming, “conveniently… I have no dating life.” He initially proposed the idea to his friends as a joke, thinking they would get a few laughs out of it. Instead, they embraced the idea, seeing it as a way to end their friend’s love slump. (Brian hasn’t had a date since he was 17.) Together, Brian and his friends made a video, created a website, set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page, all advertising Brian’s emergence into the New York dating scene.

  Brian’s goal is to go on 30 dates in 30 days, which is lofty for even the studliest of men. But with the Net on Brian’s side, the pool is wide and deep. Interested singles can volunteer themselves as potential dates on his website, friends can recommend others for Brian to date, and those just looking to join in on the fun can tweet dating advice to Brian’s Twitter account. Officially, Brian’s quest begins on July 19th, but we don’t know how many dates are booked after that. So, ladies, if you’re interested, sign up fast. While we can’t say that anyone here at Switched is willing to date Brian [Ed. Note: Do you mean the one female on staff?], we are willing to bet that, out of the vast number of women surfing the Web, someone will find charm in his nerdiness. [From: Mashable]

  Continue reading 23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life

  23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life

  JP 1:45 am on July 15, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Brian (3), Ed (19), ed note (2), life (6), nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473), social networking (65), tweet (27), Web (76)

  Filed under: Web, Social Networking

  

  Crowd-sourcing your dating life as a last means hope of finding that special someone is, well, desperate. But who are we to criticize a chosen path to love? Earlier this week, a 23-year-old New Yorker named Brian became a hit on the Web because he let the Internet pick his partner. Part of his internship at advertising agency BBH required him to “make something, anything famous,” his tweet to Mashable says. So he chose to boost his social life at the same time, claiming, “conveniently… I have no dating life.” He initially proposed the idea to his friends as a joke, thinking they would get a few laughs out of it. Instead, they embraced the idea, seeing it as a way to end their friend’s love slump. (Brian hasn’t had a date since he was 17.) Together, Brian and his friends made a video, created a website, set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page, all advertising Brian’s emergence into the New York dating scene.

  Brian’s goal is to go on 30 dates in 30 days, which is lofty for even the studliest of men. But with the Net on Brian’s side, the pool is wide and deep. Interested singles can volunteer themselves as potential dates on his website, friends can recommend others for Brian to date, and those just looking to join in on the fun can tweet dating advice to Brian’s Twitter account. Officially, Brian’s quest begins on July 19th, but we don’t know how many dates are booked after that. So, ladies, if you’re interested, sign up fast. While we can’t say that anyone here at Switched is willing to date Brian [Ed. Note: Do you mean the one female on staff?], we are willing to bet that, out of the vast number of women surfing the Web, someone will find charm in his nerdiness. [From: Mashable]

  Continue reading 23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life

  23-Year-Old Tries to Crowdsource His Dating Life originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  Paul Ceglia Claims to Own 84-Percent of Facebook, Zuckerberg Disagrees

  JP 1:44 am on July 14, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Allegheny County, ceo mark (7), CEO Mark Zuckerberg (8), facebook (320), Judge Thomas Brown, nbsp (1,691), New York, Paul Ceglia, percent (16), Read (1,473), social networking site (64)

  Filed under: Web, Social Networking

  Paul Ceglia thinks he should own 84-percent of Facebook. And he’s not kidding. Last month, the Web designer from New York filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court of Allegheny County, claiming that he had signed a contract with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 that gave him partial ownership of what would eventually become the world’s most popular social networking site. According to prosecutors, the contract, signed April 28th, 2003, stipulated that Ceglia would pay a $1,000 fee to Zuckerberg, in exchange for 50-percent ownership of the site. Ceglia also claims that the terms of the contract specified that he “would acquire an additional 1-percent interest in the business, per day, until the website was completed.” By his calculations, then, he should have held 84-percent of the company, as of February 4th, 2004.

  Facebook, of course, dismisses Ceglia’s suit as frivolous, and, in a statement, vowed to “fight it vigorously.” In response to the suit, Allegheny County Judge Thomas Brown ordered that all of Facebook’s transfers be frozen — an order that the company is asking a federal judge to strike down.

  Continue reading Paul Ceglia Claims to Own 84-Percent of Facebook, Zuckerberg Disagrees

  Paul Ceglia Claims to Own 84-Percent of Facebook, Zuckerberg Disagrees originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  Jeremy Wood's GPS Art Map: the Cartography of Experience

  JP 1:46 am on July 12, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: art (6), Art Map, cartography, experience (2), google maps (22), Jeremy Wood, Mark Velasquez, nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473), university of warwick, Wood

  Filed under: Google, Web

  

  Have you all been watching ‘Work of Art,’ Bravo’s latest horrible venture into competitive reality programming? The show — which pits artists of varying skill, experience and taste against one another for a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum — asked the contestants this week to make an artwork based on their experience visiting an Audi showroom. (We’re just going to gloss over how ridiculous that is for the sake of this piece.) Anyway, photographer Mark Velasquez decided to paint an overhead map of New York, which came across as a poor Mondrian rip-off, and which the judges rightfully dubbed “hotel art.” What does this all mean in the context of this post? Well, it got us thinking about the function of maps as art objects.

  Artist Jeremy Wood is similarly drawn to cartography, a discipline which is nearly extinct thanks to satellite technology and Google Maps. Wood decided to employ a GPS device as he spent 17 days walking 238 miles of unmapped land around the University of Warwick (eschewing both roads and paths). The result — called ‘Traverse Me’ — was a tangled abstraction of Wood’s singular sojourn, pictured above.

  Continue reading Jeremy Wood’s GPS Art Map: the Cartography of Experience

  Jeremy Wood’s GPS Art Map: the Cartography of Experience originally appeared on Switched on Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  Alleged Russian Spy Ring Mixes Old Tricks With New Tech

  JP 11:06 am on July 3, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Morse Code (2), nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473), readable text files, ring (2), russian spy, spy (2), spy novel

  Filed under: Computers

  

  The exposure and detainment of an alleged Russian spy ring in New York state this past week has provoked a steady stream of disconcerting references, like “Cold War-era,” “old-fashioned cold war thriller,” “007-worthy” and “right out of a Cold War spy novel.” Salivating scribes eagerly detail, and sometimes ridicule, the purported gang’s dated and cliched tactics, particularly the brisk public handoffs, the hidden messages scrawled in invisible ink and the Morse Code radio blasts. The agents apparently relied on more than just established espionage stereotypes, though, including private Wi-Fi networks, encryption programs and password-protected disks.

  The art of concealing messages, known as steganography, dates back thousands of years, but these new-millenium spies shrouded their correspondences under a particularly modern cloak. Various researchers, including a 2008 team from the Warsaw University of Technology, have discovered steganographic methods of exchanging messages through Internet communications and networking technologies. But, according to the Justice Department, back in 2005, these alleged spies received instructions via “wholly unremarkable photos” that actually contained secret, “readable text files” — on public websites.

  Continue reading Alleged Russian Spy Ring Mixes Old Tricks With New Tech

  Alleged Russian Spy Ring Mixes Old Tricks With New Tech originally appeared on Switched on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  'Mafia Wars' Will Be Made Into a Movie... and It Really Shouldn't Be

  JP 1:44 am on July 1, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Bangkok (2), crime thriller, Cuba, Joe Pesci, Mafia, mafia wars (10), Moscow (3), movie (2), nbsp (1,691), New York, Read (1,473)

  Filed under: Video Games, Web, Social Networking, Playroom

  

  ‘On the Waterfront’ spawned ‘The Godfather,’ which spawned ‘Goodfellas,’ which spawned… ‘Mafia Wars’? Somewhere, Joe Pesci is choking himself with a telephone cord right now.

  Yep, a movie based on the absurdly popular Zynga-produced Facebook game is definitely in the works, effectively driving a stake through the heart of American cinema. The “film,” which describes itself as a “crime thriller based on the popular video game,” will reportedly take place in New York, Moscow, Cuba and Bangkok. Much like the game, it will probably involve (middle-aged) characters who perform tasks to earn cash and “experience,” and then flock to their Facebook accounts to tell everyone about it. The financial formula here is pretty transparent: cook up watery script, call it ‘Mafia Wars,’ and lure all of its 26 million addicts into theaters.

  Continue reading ‘Mafia Wars’ Will Be Made Into a Movie… and It Really Shouldn’t Be

  ‘Mafia Wars’ Will Be Made Into a Movie… and It Really Shouldn’t Be originally appeared on Switched on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  With YouTube Play, the Guggenheim Searches for the Next Great Video Artist

  JP 1:45 am on June 16, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Berlin (18), Bilbao, deutsche guggenheim, guggenheim bilbao, nbsp (1,691), New York, Peggy Guggenheim, peggy guggenheim collection, Read (1,473), Solomon R. Guggenheim, Spain (2), Venice (2), video (28), Youtube (21)

  Filed under: Web, Social Networking

  

  Well, the Internet has won. The last exclusive, nigh-impenetrable institution known as the art world has buckled to the social media cloud. The New York Times reported yesterday that the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation has joined forces with YouTube to create a user-driven biennial of video art, to be exhibited at all four of the Guggenheim’s global outposts. The project, called YouTube Play, encourages budding video artists (or even first-time dabblers) to upload clips of themselves or their work for a chance to cross the gaze of high-end curators.

  Starting today, aspiring artists can submit their videos — only one entry per person, made within the last two years and not extending ten minutes in length — to be assessed by a team of Guggenheim curators. Once the best 200 videos have been selected, a panel of nine judges (composed of experts in the fields of visual arts, music, graphic design, film-making and animation) will filter those submissions down to a pool of twenty, which will then go on display simultaneously at the Solomon R. Guggenheim in New York, the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice.

  Continue reading With YouTube Play, the Guggenheim Searches for the Next Great Video Artist

  With YouTube Play, the Guggenheim Searches for the Next Great Video Artist originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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