jpreardon.com

Where to Eat (or not) in Chinatown and Little Italy

jpreardon — Sun, 19 May 2013 21:17:39 +0000

Serious Eats has a rundown of some of the tastiness located in Manhattan’s Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods. There’s also a handy printable map.

Social Roulette

jpreardon — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:48:09 +0000

Social Roulette–the brainchild of Jonas Lund, Jonas Jongelan and Kyle McDonald–was a great idea:

Social Roulette is a game that gives you a one in six chance of deleting your Facebook account. If you lose, the game will delete all of your posts, friends, photos and other elements of your profile before completely deactivating it. If you’re lucky enough to survive, the message “I just played Social Roulette and survived” will be published to your wall.

But, it is not to be, Facebook pulled the plug. Too bad.

via Beta Beat

Transitional Interfaces

jpreardon — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:57:25 +0000

This post about transitional interfaces, and the importance of animation in them, has been making the rounds at the office. The examples provided are a good jumping off point for smoothing out tricky transitions.

NYC Bike Share Signup is Open!

jpreardon — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 16:55:10 +0000

The wait is almost over. Stations have been sighted around town, and as of today, you can sign up for an annual bike share membership! The first 5,000 sign-ups get special, founding member keys.

Spiedie Roadtrip

jpreardon — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 23:03:18 +0000

Fork in the Road’s post about the availability of spiedies in Brooklyn (pictured above) garnered so many “WTF!? comments” that they are taking a spiedie road trip to investigate. The Brooklyn sandwich they originally wrote about–with its american cheese and hot dog bun–looks less like a spiedie and more like a school lunchroom abomination. I’m sure they’ll find something more authentic (pictured below) in the Southern Tier.

Photos: Fork in the Road (Top), Linda’s Italian Table (bottom)

XKCD: Subways

jpreardon — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 02:04:16 +0000

Bar Room Superstars

jpreardon — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:28:30 +0000

Who rules the bars of New York? The Times answers this question with a slide show. By the way, my bar talents closely resemble those of the writer.

Photo by: Jeff Brown for the New York Times

Ten

jpreardon — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 15:13:24 +0000

What started off as a test installation of Movable Type has turned into a ten-year-old site. To mark the tenth anniversary of jpreardon.com, here are the 10 most popular posts:

I’m not sure why a random post about a weather widget is so damn popular. It continues to be one of the most visited pages on this site. Although, in the last six months or so, it is has been been knocked out of the top spot by more informative posts such as Temperature Logging with Twine and ThingSpeak and Pomodoro Timer.

NYC Bike Share Test Ride

jpreardon — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:58:39 +0000

Ben Fried of Streetsblog took a NYC bike share cycle for a test ride at the Navy Yard and documented his experience. The bikes look great, and the large neighborhood maps will be great for riders and pedestrians alike.

Photo from Streetsblog

Updated NYC Bike Share Map

jpreardon — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 16:40:33 +0000

An updated New York bike share map has been released. Streetsblog points out that this phased approach skips large portions of Brooklyn and all of Queens initially.

If one of the main benefits of the bike share program is to extend the public transit network, why are so many bikes being placed in areas so dense with transit? It seems like this program would serve more people if some of these bikes were moved to locations where they extend public transit rather than sit on top of it.

While I think this bike share will be a great asset for the city, I hope the planners aren’t making a mistake by concentrating the first bike stations in midtown and lower Manhattan. Even the most seasoned urban cyclists I know avoid midtown, and with a few exceptions, a person in midtown is only minutes away from a subway. As currently designed, this plan has the potential to put a lot of inexperienced cyclists on the streets (and perhaps sidewalks) of one of the most densely populated central business districts in the world. I’m concerned that this will do little to extend goodwill towards the city’s cyclists or increase ridership long term.