Summer is going out with a bang.

Vincent van Gogh was 27 when he started painting.

Fuck You by Cee-lo. YouTube says this is just a placeholder til the real video is done, but I really like this version.

My new apartment has a closet inside a closet.

If you are trying to get a fetching young lady to take an interest in being your special gal, here are a few suggestions to woo her: If she asks you what you’ve been up to, always respond with; “I just got back from sky-diving.” If she asks you what you like to do in your spare time, say; “I like to put out forest fires. When there are no fires, I sky-dive or volunteer at my personal trainer’s bear farm.” If she wants to know where you live, say; “If I had my way, I’d live on the rim of an active volcano, but for now I’m at (insert address here).” If she wants to know what you’re doing tonight, respond; “I’m throwing rocks at myself in order to become immune to fear and pain, but I can push that off till thunderday so that you and I can go out.” If she asks what “Thunderday” is, say; “its the secret 8th day of the week that’s taught to presidents, tribal leaders and people who have survived being struck by lightning.”

Gap clothes have never fit me particularly well so I’d normally ignore a 25% off sale, but the novelty of the Foursquare tie-in caught my attention.

Eventually the novelty of Foursquare will wear off; some say it already has. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had very few of the serendipitous “hey my friend just checked in at a bar around the corner; let’s go!” experiences that were the initial selling point to consumers. I rarely remember to check in these days, and collecting badges, mayorships, and points lost their thrill long ago.

But I don’t think this matters to Foursquare’s long-term success. The game was just a Trojan horse - a way for the service to collect a critical mass of users. It doesn’t matter that people grow tired of the game mechanics and stop checking in to bars after a couple months. That’s not the point.

Foursquare’s actual goal is to be the Google Analytics of the real world. By tying promotions to check-ins, businesses can easily track the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. This is worth a LOT of money. Rather than flying blind or making guesses based on sales numbers after the fact, brick-and-mortar businesses can hone their marketing the same way that web businesses do. Eventually someone will close the loop by tying Foursquare check-ins to actual purchases, and business will be able to do real-world conversion tracking. CPC (Cost-per-conversion) revolutionized advertising on the web; imagine the impact when that model can be used everywhere else.

I’m hardly the first person to think this, but it’s only recently that Foursquare has demonstrated that they’re really moving in this direction. Should be interesting to see how Facebook’s inevitable location product alters this market.

Check out TripTrop.

It shows how long it would take to get from a specific point in NYC to any other part of NYC, factoring in subway and walking time. I used it constantly during my recent apartment search.

I broke my smug sense of moral superiority.

Flaming Lips @ Central Park Summerstage, 7/26/2010

There’s a store near my apartment called Pickles and Olives. They only carry pickles and olives.

So Google launched an Android App that is supposed to make parking a breeze. One problem: it won’t.

The app works by having people report when they’re leaving their street-side parking spot. That data gets fed into the app, and then drivers can see where people recently left an open parking spot.

The problem is that data has a very short lifespan. In the time it takes you to pull out your phone and figure out how to get to that open spot you found using Open Spot, that spot will get taken. By someone who wasn’t futzing around with their smartphone.

The real solution is to price street parking for what it’s worth. That means parking meters, and that means much more expensive parking meters. Higher prices for parking create greater turnover in the spots, which makes it easier to find a parking spot. San Fransisco is taking a stab at this with the SFPark project. (Fun fact: the original premise of ParkWhiz was to do exaclty what SFPark is doing.)

Not being able to find an open parking spot is one of the hidden costs of “free” or cheap street parking. There are some other hidden costs too. Because these costs are hidden, raising the price of municipal street parking has long been a politically untenable issue.

So even though Google Open Spot won’t directly “make parking a breeze,” it, along with SFPark, and yes, ParkWhiz, helps comprise a rising tide organizations that are using technology to make parking more efficient. The best way for Open Spot to succeed is to make it unnecessary to use Open Spot in the first place.

This song is what a hot summer day sounds like to me.

hanael-assad:

So this is opening a few blocks from where I used to live. Regret regret regret.

Lose a neighbor, gain a Shakeshack? Not a fair trade, but delicious Shackburgers do make a good consolation prize.