By Ian Lamb 10/30/12 8:28pm

Frankenstorm

A zombified cell phone cluster. (Ian Lamb)

People Clustering for Cell Phone Service, Pitch Black Hospitals Among the Oddities of Post-Sandy Manhattan

Special correspondent Ian Lamb tried to pitch in at Bellevue, but not being a doctor or a generator mechanic, he was turned away. Here is his report from the Middle to Lower East Side of Manhattan this afternoon.

There’s no power anywhere on the East Side until 42nd street. Drivers were surprisingly civil but it weirds me out. Every few blocks there’s a crowd of people who have found cell service; otherwise there is none. It’s all very 28 Days Later.

The whole of lower/downtown/LES manhattan was really creepy this morning. The weirdest thing was driving without any traffic lights or traffic cops. Everyone was being very respectful though, everyone stopped at every intersection. No animosity between pedestrians and drivers, for once. I think everyone was just in shock, though, because by the time I was driving out of Manhattan, everyone was back to being assholes. Read More

By Drew Grant 7/09/12 5:01pm

High School drama

Stuyvesant High School (Wikipedia)

71 Stuyvesant High Schoolers Accused of Cheating on Regents Exams; Face Expulsion, Suspension, Shame

Every month, there’s some new scandal over at the uber-prestigious  Stuyvesant High School.  Last month, the young ladies of the  math and science public school held a “Slutty Wednesday” to protest the dress code that denied them the right to wear booty shorts and mini-skirts to home room.

Later that month, over 50 students were implicated in a ring that cheated on the state’s Regents exams, using their cell phones to pass around a photocopied version of the test and swapping answers. Today, justice was served…at least partially…on a radio program announcing the possible punishment of these 2.0 sneaks. Read More

By Foster Kamer 7/09/12 12:31pm

Things There Should Be Draconian Punishments For

broken-iphone-screen

Battle of the Bands (Who Hate Your iPhone): Should Concerts Outlaw Cell Phone Photos?

Unless you’re seeing a concert in a stadium, getting a good sight-line is hard enough as it stands: Unless you are tall-folk, you’re trying to see over the head of front-row tall folk. And if it’s not tall (or taller) folk—now that nearly everyone’s cell phone has a halfway decent camera affixed to it as a standard feature—it’s their phones. And if it’s not tall people’s phones, it’s everyone else’s phones. Because cell phones are now as standard a live music fixture as overpriced drinks and that high-pitched “eeeeeeeeee” sound of your hearing dying. And the desire to Instagram or Facebook or Tumblr a moment at a concert from one’s phone is—as going to pretty much any concert in 2012 will demonstrate—apparently insatiable. And we, as a people—or at least, the people of some respectably metropolitan cities—are better than that.

Or so one club would like to think. Read More

By Drew Grant 9/28/11 4:35pm

Technology

Now life is perfect!

Subway Cell Service Proves “Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy” Theory

First the iPhone was only available to AT&T customers, forcing Verizon users to wait four whole years until they could play Angry Birds like the rest of the tech elite. But with the release of the Android and various other Smartphones using a variety of carriers, it no longer seemed necessary to pay the $200 cancellation fee to switch cell phone providers. Until now. Read More

By Steve Cohen 6/23/09 8:49pm

The Impact of Technology on Political Communication

Watching the mass impulse toward democracy in Iran over the past week has been alternately inspiring and terrifying. The power and clumsiness of the state never fails to scare me and the courage and intensity of the public in the street continues to inspire.  Something is different about political participation in these early years of Read More

By Joe Pompeo 12/09/08 5:17pm

The New Phone Phobics Use Gizmos For Everything But Talking

Sarah Morrison, a Williamsburg resident in her late 20s who writes for Missbehave magazine, had no problem copping to the fact that she often ignores friends’ phone calls.

“I’ll sit there and watch the phone ring and be like, ‘UGH! Why are they calling?’” said Ms. Morrison, “99 percent” of whose Read More

By Tom Acitelli 5/20/08 1:29pm

Good Economic News of Sorts

From the Wall Street Journal this morning:

U.S. purchases of new cellphones declined in the first quarter for the first time in several years, signaling that worries about an economic slowdown are hurting the handset market, according to two new studies.

Perhaps soon fewer people gabbing away in the Amtrak quiet car?