Fire that copy editor

Notice anything wrong with this? And I’m not talking about the constipated look on Kevin Garnet’s face. Take a look at the caption, and if you’re (hint, hint) still stuck, read the file name.

Strong Bad would not approve.

The Facebook version of ‘You’re doing it wrong’

On my Facebook profile, my political views are listed as “liberal,” and Barack Obama is one of the politicians I support. Why, then, with their fancy advertising system promising to reach “the exact audience [advertisers] want with relevant targeted ads” am I getting the following ad on my profile?

New York City, now with 17.2 fewer square miles

New York City is shrinking, reports Sam Roberts in The Times today. Well, maybe it’s not shrinking, but city planners have calculated that the landmass of our fair city is actually 17.2 square miles smaller than it used to be. No longer a robust 322 square-mile city, the Somewhat Smaller Apple is now down to 304.8 square miles.

And what can you do with 17.2 square miles? Roberts tells us:

¶17 square miles could accommodate 13 more Central Parks, nearly a third of Washington, D.C., about three dozen versions of Vatican City and nearly two dozen replicas of Monaco.

¶If 17 square miles were populated at Manhattan’s density, New York might be home to as many as 1.1 million more people.

¶At the price of an acre in Midtown, as recently computed by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 17 square miles could be worth $1 trillion.

Brooklyn, my current home borough, emerged the biggest loser. Kings County finds itself 10 square miles smaller than it was yesterday. Mabye it’s time to invade New Jersey to reclaim those 28 square miles the feds took from us when they award Ellis Island to the Garden State.

How many rock radio stations does it take to play new music?

Right now, K-Rock is playing Cheap Trick’s Surrender while Q104 is playing Cheap Trick’s I Want You To Want Me. Welcome to corporate-run radio stations in the year 2008, thirty years after these songs first came out.

A meeting of the blogging minds, but to what end?

Six days ago, I attended the popular Brooklyn Blogfest. While my blogs aren’t particularly germane to Brooklyn — the subways go everywhere and the Yanks are New York’s team — I live in Kings Country and plan to do so for a while. I consider myself a Brooklyn-based blogger and stay attuned to the goings-on in my neighborhood and borough through many of the blogs represented at the Blogfest.

In the intervening six days, I’ve had a long time to think about the Blogfest and no time to write down some of my thoughts. While the participants all had praise for Louise Crawford’s excellent event-planning and generally tireless organization, the few blogs that dared to critique the blogfest drew some ire from those who participated. Most notable were two posts from Brooklyn Skeptic — here and here — that touched upon some of the Blogfests shortcomings.

From the outset, the people who ran and produced the Blogfest did amazing work. Many people do not blog for a living, and those that do are busy running their sites. That the Blogfest went off seemingly without a hitch and with such a large public response speaks volumes to the dedication of those behind the gathering.

But my problem with the blogfest, similar to those views expressed by Brooklyn Skeptic, is that the festival’s programming is not geared toward the proper audience. The sense I got from the crowd last Thursday at the Brooklyn Lyceum was one of blogging sophistication. The overwhelming majority of folks in attendance ran their own blog, worked for a Web 2.0 company or were familiar with the intricacies of blogging. Gersh Kuntzman, the editor, as he’ll remind you over and over again, of The Brooklyn Paper, was one of the few print media people in attendance, and his presentation about blogging and the role they will play in the future was by far the most interesting.

The programming, I found, was geared toward the hypothetical people in the audience with a limited knowledge of blogging and the Internet as a medium for creative writing, photography, reporting, neighborhood watches and so on. The group at the Lyceum didn’t need a five-minute presentation on the top ten tips for starting your own blog; the overwhelming majority of us in attendance had figured out those tips and many more back in, oh, 2005.

What the Blogfest needs — and what Gersh touched upon — are serious panels about the nature and shape of neighborhood blogging. We don’t need introductions; we need depth. While some presentations covered these topics, a revamped panel format instead of a one-off speaking format would do wonders for the Blogfest.

Kuntzman in his presentation mentioned the Brownstoner comment epidemic. On Brownstoner, every comment thread devolves into an Internet fight among anonymous trolls. As these comments are a very public part of the blog presentation, what does this inability to have an intelligent and unmoderated comment discussion say about the future viability of blogs as a news source? Are we doomed to Godwin ourselves into oblivion? Can blogs really democratize — or is it socialize? — media without moderation?

And that’s just the tip of the ice berg. Bloggers as a group can discuss the various ways blogging is just like traditional media coverage. We cultivate sources; we accept tips; and some of us even fact-check.

Maybe at next year’s Blogfest — and, yes, there should be one next year and in the years to come — the Brooklyn Bloggers can move beyond the idea of “Hey, we’re the bloggiest borough in the country” to something more substantial. With all these Brooklyn blogs and many among the most prominent in the country, we all collectively must have learned something more than how to give a good shout-out, right?

I am younger than John McCain…

…and so are all of the things listed on this excellent new blog. You can submit your own on the site. The word game Scrabble is younger than John McCain.

Editing street signs with stickers

The scene: A lamp pole at the southeast corner of 7th Ave. and Carroll St. in Brooklyn.

The strategically-placed sticker actually makes the sign more accurate than it would be with the “D” uncovered. How many people in New York City are honking out of actual danger and how many honk out of anger? It’s not even close.