stephanieNY

Gmail automatically set me (and everyone else) up with Google Buzz the other day. Presumptuous, yes, but I didn't really care either way.  It's sort of Facebook meets Twitter but requires less involvement because it's right there in your Gmail window and just automatically links you to people in your contacts.  You get buzzed every time someone changes their status, posts a link, or uploads pictures, etc.  Fine, right?  Nope. This afternoon I got two new buzzes. They were the personal IMs of someone in my contacts to other people. (For example: at 2:15 Sally sent Jimmy an IM: Hi Jimmy, wanna get lunch?)  Whaaaaaaat?!  That's a personal message from one person to another, and now it's in my Inbox?!  Minutes earlier, I had sent an IM out and then realized that all the people that were "following" me on Buzz got notified about it! Really, Google? Really?

And to boot, they make it nearly impossible to get out of it.  To disable it, you have to individually unfollow and block each and every one of your contacts that they had automatically set you up with, and then shut it off.  

There's a whole long list of other sketchy privacy infringements, and they're getting a lot of flak for them.  It looks like they're admitting fault and are going to make some changes.  But still...not cool Google, not cool at all.

Apparently there is this crazy network of secret tunnels under the city of Moscow. Construction workers just uncovered one near the Kremlin and now federal agents are trying to keep it all secret. This article along with other counts claim that "subterranean Moscow is honeycombed with secret facilities" that were meant for Communist Party officials in the event of a nuclear war, and are still maintained "just in case".

One of the lines runs all the way out to the suburbs and is equipped to "sustain the lives of thousands of people for up to 30 years". (!!!!) And there may or may not still be "food depots, generators, sleeping quarters, cinemas and even swimming pools" down there!!

One of my classmates came across this guy that photographs this city's underground tunnels. (Some must be less secretive than others.) He uses HDR processing (ala Adam's experiments last year) on the images so they're really detailed. These are my favorites, but check out the others here.

Whoa! The building across the street was just on fire! A real live fire. Way too many engines were pulling up outside for it to be a simple oven malfunction, so I watched to find out. Then flames started pouring (no exaggeration) out of the 11th floor, so I got my camera (don't judge). They NYFD worked faster than me, because I missed the flames but got the subsequent stream of smoke and water spray. The crazy thing about it is just as I was standing in my living room window watching it all, lots of people were doing the same exact thing, except from the building that was on fire. I guess NYC fire codes don't require building-wide alarm systems in these old places. Yikes.

Now my room smells like smoke because my window was open. It usually smells like the restaurant right below us...and not of what they're cooking, but more like what they're throwing away. Is it awful that I'm kind of enjoying the subtle smell of a burning building right now? It's only because it doesn't make me think of dumpsters and rats as I fall asleep.