Results tagged “website”

Website Ride the City debuted in 2008, integrating Google maps with data about ideal cycling routes. The site enables users to map a bike ride along as many bike baths as possible, or take their chances with the "fastest," most direct route. Tomorrow the site will launch a new version, which will now maintain elevation data for every city and show riders how much climbing to expect from any given route. Ride the City will also allow visitors to create a user profile and save their favorite routes.

We can't decide if this trend is more or less inappropriate than the slatternly tween Halloween costume fad. While it's true that only a very sick perv would be aroused by these provocative pooch costumes, isn't that also true of the "Devil Grrrl" costume for eight-year-olds? As we were recently reminded by that New Jersey cow-fucking incident, bestiality is still a thing, and if you're going to go out with your dog dressed like this, you should definitely keep it on a tight leash.

Who among us can sit comfortably for longer than 90 minutes without urinating? Okay, maybe adults under 30 and sober people, but we're neither, and our path to utter incontinence keeps depriving us of pivotal Hollywood plot points. Thankfully, a new technology is giving moviegoers with disadvantaged bladders an alternative to unsightly catheters and adult undergarments: the website RunPee.com, which is now available as an iPhone application, compiles the best opportunities to race to the restroom during motion pictures. The app gives you a cue for your exit, tells you how long you've got and even summarizes what you missed. It's the work of 42-year-old Flash developer Dan Florio, who tells 1010 Wins he got the idea while watching Peter Jackson's three-hour-plus King Kong remake. (Funny, we couldn't wait to go to the bathroom during that.) Florio's currently raking in about $800 a month with RunPee, and he spends his days watching movies to take notes. So basically, he's living the dream. But if he really wants to cash in, he'll get a RunSmokeJoint app ready in time for Tron Legacy.

The Times is tired of giving it up for free, and at a staff meeting yesterday executive editor Bill Keller revealed two possible scenarios that would force website readers to make an honest woman out of the Gray Lady. One scheme is a "meter system" which would kick in after a reader hits a predetermined limit of word-count or page views. At that point, the meter would start running and further content would come at a price. A second scenario could be a "membership" system akin to public television. Readers who pledge money to the site would be invited to join the cool kids in the "New York Times community" and get sweet merch like Times baseball caps, or tote bags, or plush Moose dolls. The Observer, which got the scoop on the announcement, also quotes Keller as saying—and this has got to be a joke, right?—that "he wouldn't even be opposed to offering a donor access to a Page One editorial meeting as long as it doesn't affect the paper competitively." Well, if that actually happens we are so ready to pay to join those meetings and finally get the Hipster Grifter above the fold where she belongs.

Question: If you could stay overnight at the Hotel Chelsea for $129/night, why would you spend $40/per person on a tour of the place? Starting June 1st the hotel will offer guided tours of the historic establishment, that as of late has been run and overrun by Marlene Krauss & Co. The new corporate overlords might be willing to make a buck off the hallowed halls, but they're also making sure that the Bard family legacy of running the joint is erased from the URL, according to some residents. The recent website redesign makes no mention of Stanley Bard, the general manager of the Chelsea for half a century, who was ousted two years ago. Oh, and did you know the updated ghost of Nancy Spungen is all about the little black dress?

The war between Park Slope parents and ParkSlopeParents.com rages on, to no one's surprise. Gawker calls it "a contest to see who can be the most shrill and sanctimonious" and reports on one mommy's tirade that was rejected by a moderator on the site. The $25/year fee is mentioned, as are "earth-destroying plastic Easter eggs," a kid who can't climb a rock wall because he's French (duh), and kids all over the Slope getting punished because of their parents' failure to play by the rules. But this is really only the beginning; one imagines these kids will be punished for their parents' failure for many, many years to come.

Director, Brooklynite and cardboard box aficionado, Michel Gondry is offering up some quirky deals on his website. For example, you can get a roll of toilet paper with his very own random thoughts imprinted on it for just $13.95 (2-ply, 500 sheets per roll!). You can also get a replica prop from his movie The Science of Sleep: the disasterology calendar, for just $5.95 (it's for 2007, but will be accurate again in 2018!). But hands down the most coveted object being offered up (we can't imagine how long this will last after orders start flooding in) is the hand-drawn, signed portrait of YOU by Monsieur Gondry, based off a photo you submit. The cost? Just $19.95. Quite the deal, even during these recessionary times. We'd really like to see an infomercial-esque video to go along with these items, however. [via Pop Candy]

Unsurprisingly, Brooklyn breeders have worked themselves into a tizzy over their favorite bookmarked site and online soapbox, ParkSlopeParents.com, who have dared ask that their 13,000 frequent visitors toss some coin in the tip jar.

Passive-aggressive blogging is the new passive-aggressive note-leaving. The crutches-bound blogger behind the People Who Sit In The Disability Seats When I’m Standing On My Crutches website documents able-bodied straphangers who won't give up their seat for the disabled. He says he doesn't take pictures of anyone "if there's an open seat within sight. I also don't take pictures of elderly people, visibly pregnant women, or anyone who looks like they might have a disability." But even those getting some subway shut-eye could land on the site. Do you get up from your seat if someone clearly needs it? Seems not everyone pays attention to the “Stand Up for People with Disabilities” campaign.

There's good news and bad news in Mayor Bloomberg's latest status update on the city's performance. According to the mandated "Mayor's Management Report" for Fiscal Year 2009, major felony crime decreased 3% during the first four months of the fiscal year (July to October), while homicides rose 10.6% and grand larceny auto also increased, compared to the same time period in 2007. The annual report is an early indicator of how the city will fare this year; here are some other findings:
• Traffic fatalities decreased, from 112 to 102.
• The 311 customer service center received 12% more calls, from 4.78 million to 5.37 million.
• The number of trees planted nearly tripled, to 1,028, due to projects associated with the Million Trees Program. (Only about 999,000 more to meet the goal!)
• Less cacophony? The city received 15,275 noise complaints compared to 19,998 last year.
• The Department of Homeless Services saw an across-the-board increase in single adults and families entering the shelter services system, including an increase of 38% for families with children.
• The number of persons receiving food stamps increased by 18.1%. Among these recipients, the number of non-cash assistance persons receiving food stamps increased 25.8%, reaching an all-time high.
• The number of syphilis cases rose by 30%, reflecting national trends.

Mayor Bloomberg and other officials introduced the revamped NYC Information Center this morning in midtown, unveiling a big room full of high-tech, interactive touch screen tables that enable visitors to plan a customized tour of New York with a wealth of integrated information, and then upload their detailed plans to their mobile devices. (Eat your heart out, John King.) The Information Center, located at 810 Seventh Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets, had been closed since last July, when a $1.8 million renovation began.

For those of you who CAN'T SLEEP AT NIGHT knowing there are thousands and thousands of bodegas throughout New York City WITHOUT AN INTERNET PRESENCE, forced to do business in utter obscurity, take heart: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. The situation is driving one Jeff Sisson crazy too, and he's calling on all New Yorkers to join him in his quest to provide every cramped little grocery in town with its own website, to be organized alphabetically with maps and addresses in a massive index on his Bodega List website, like an OCD Social Register for plebes. Whatever keeps 'em off the streets.

Well this gives a whole new meaning to those amusement park height requirement signs! Last night we received a flurry of tips about how the Future of Coney Island website, launched in 2007 by Thor Equities, has become a porn website. Not only that, one tipster wrote in: "when clicked on, a warning message came up from Norton saying an attempt to hijack my computer had just been blocked. The risk name was Malicious Toolkit Variant and the risk level was High." The site is registered under GoDaddy and lists a contact as "Davina Cukier," whose Google results aren't very G-rated.

Bad news, honey: DList, the simply fabulous social networking website for gay men, will go offline sometime next month. DList creator Daniel Nardicio tells New York Press the site "is pretty much dead. I moved on emotionally when I realized I’d partnered with the wrong person. So I’m developing the next, new exciting version of what I wanted for DList! It'll incorporate all my original ideas from DList, but move the whole venture into live, real contact." Considering the amount of "contact" facilitated by the original site, this could get interesting. And Nardicio wants everyone to know that just because DList is done, that doesn't mean NYC nightlife is over, too: "God I'm so sick of faggots having to declare everything is ‘over’ so they can be perceived as ahead of the game. This self-induced ennui at 20, now that’s over." Meow!

Representative Charles Rangel is a just a magnet for media investigation these days! The NY Times questioned his four rent-stabilized apartments and, more recently, a large donation to a school being named after him; the Post found out about his vacation villa and unreported income from it. Now it's Politico which does some digging about campaign websites Rangel's son created for his dad.

If you went to NY1's website this morning, your mind might have exploded, because there's a re-design! NY1.com's webmaster Marc Nathanson says the site has beefed up its video offerings, "We've converted all the video in our archives going back to 1999 – that's about 70,000 clips – over to the current Flash video format. With our search function, you can just as easily see a video from 20 minutes ago as you can from eight years ago.”

While some New Yorkers are hustling to pick up free condoms distributed by Trojan today, others are showing their support for the presidential candidate of their choice by ordering John McCain and Barack Obama condoms from a local entrepreneur. If you haven’t heard about this yet, expect an email from your corniest family member in, oh, about five minutes.

For the first time, tickets for the Public Theater’s free Shakespeare in Central Park shows will be made available online. While most tickets will still be given to those who wait for hours (pictured) in Central Park, a limited number will be available to theatergoers who log on to the Public theater website at midnight before each day’s show and submit a request for up to two tickets.

It’s never to early to start planning for the future One World Government, and one great way to fill the odd hours is by building websites about it, as one group of visionaries have done with their Reservoir Project. The pseudo-serious website is dedicated to securing New York City as the capital of the “Earth Government” and converting the Central Park Reservoir into “the Biggest, the Tallest, the most Elegant and Innovative Structure in the history of our civilization. The CENTRAL, a.k.a. CTRL.”

As of this month, New Yorkers will have an easier time finding their long lost gloves. A website called One Cold Hand has launched to reconnect bare hands with missing mittens. The site first launched in Pittsburgh (New York is the second city to get a helping hand) and their mission is simple:

We are connecting the community of the five boroughs through one unfortunate event – the loss of a glove. This site creates a method for dealing with the conundrum of finding these lost articles. Do you leave it and hope the owner comes back to find it? Do you pick it up? Throw it away? With onecoldhand-nyc.com, the abandoned object now becomes a symbol of benevolence and hope.