Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New York. Show all posts

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Watching The World Cup In NYC



Watching the World’s Game, in the World’s City
Outside Brazil, there is no better place to experience the world’s sport than the world’s city. Passion for soccer runs deep in New York ..... In 2013 alone, nearly 900,000 Brazilians visited New York City ..... Tonic, a three-story sports bar in Times Square that has been the de facto headquarters for the Netherlands during World Cups past. .... Amsterdam Ale House 340 Amsterdam Avenue, Manhattan ..... To love Italian soccer is to suffer passionately. To follow the Azzurri is to be superstitious. ..... El Pequeño Coffee Shop 86-10 Roosevelt Avenue, Queens
The World Cup Takes New York
World Cup Fever in New York's Little Brazil
World Cup Fever
World Mug: Here are New York's Best Soccer Bars
The 20 best New York bars for watching the World Cup
Best Bars To Watch Soccer

New York Times: Full Coverage

Tonic
(212) 382-1059
727 7th Ave,
New York, NY, 10019

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Houston Hall In The West Village

Houston Hall in the West Village on 222 Houston (take the 1 train to Houston and it is steps away) is an awesome place. I like the bigness of it. And there is an authentic ambience. Two big screens of sports help too. Friday and Saturday evenings here are epic, if you like large crowds.







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Thursday, March 20, 2014

San Fran And New York

Out of fog Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge a...
Out of fog Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco in fog and crepuscular rays. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
San Francisco is not a "city" the way New York is a city. San Fran is not big enough. It is not dirty enough. It is not Delhi/Mumbai enough.

Why San Francisco Is Not New York
For one thing, today’s San Francisco is much more of a company town. Go into any bar in San Francisco and you will hear people talking about their start-up, or a battle they recently had with a line of code. Stop by a coffee shop in some neighborhoods here and you will be surrounded by venture capitalists being pitched a new idea for a new app. All of these people rarely, if ever, interact with people outside the tech world...... In New York, if you meet someone who works in tech you feel like you’ve met a long-lost relative. Bars, coffee shops and restaurants are a mishmash of people from vastly different industries. ..... The lack of diversity between social groups in San Francisco isn’t going to change anytime soon, as the number of tech employees in the Bay Area is only going to continue to rise. ..... in the early-90s, tech workers made up less than 1 percent of city workers in San Francisco. In 2000, tech employees had risen to 3 percent of the workforce. By 2013, that number had passed 6 percent. ..... Unlike New York, which arguably has more economic, social, and employment diversity than anywhere else on earth, San Francisco’s tech-on-tech layering has created a not-so-little echo chamber. As I wrote last year, people seem to build products here that would make the rest of the country scratch their heads. ....... In San Francisco .. (I know of one successful founder who owns an old beat-up 1985 Honda that he drives to his secret private jet.) ....... When I came across a passage in the book, “The Annals of San Francisco,” about the 1840s Gold Rush, I found the answer to that question...... “Despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in early San Francisco was supremely confident that he would soon be able to return home with an incalculable amount of gold,” the author writes in the book while describing the city decades ago. “Everything was conceived on a vast scale, and there was always plenty of cash available for any scheme that might be proposed, no matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed.” ..... Well would you look at that. It seems that San Francisco is the new San Francisco.
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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Ingress: Imagining 10,000 Agents In NYC


I think we are in an early phase of moving from 1,000 portals and 500 agents in New York City to 2,000 portals and 1,000 agents. And the pace is not fast enough for me. But it is only a matter of time when the game gets bigger and we will eventually end up with 100,000 portals and 10,000 agents in the city. I can see that happening. And I can see that happening by next summer at the most. I can't wait for the game to go public.

When there are 10,000 agents in the city there will be at least 10 blue and 10 green teams in the city. Each team will have a slightly unique character. The current crop of L8 agents will be largely irrelevant to those future generations of agents. Face it, this is not a complex game. You will still play the game with the Intel map and the app. Everything those 10,000 agents will do will get reflected in the Intel map, and you will still just be reacting to the Intel map. I think 10:1 is a healthy ratio. As in, there are 10 portals for every agent. Less than that and the game is hampered. Like right now. There are not enough portals in my home territory for me to be able to get into recruiting in a major way.

Most agents will choose to play solo, like now. Even those who join organized teams will mostly play solo, like now.

Complex fielding will remain the top challenge in the game. The game will turn New York into an even more of a walking city than it already is, and has been before the game, and that is awesome. The game also has a Neighborhood Watch element to it. Agents hungry for AP visit portals in the remotest locations at the oddest hours.

If you think of the game as a great way to explore neighborhoods in the city, this game is as interesting as the city, which is very interesting. If you think of the game as a way to meet people as I do, this game is a great icebreaker. You do meet plenty of people.
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Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Ingress: New Scanner: Version 1.30.2 Update



Being able to see how many keys you have to a portal before you link to it is great. I have over 30 portals that I like to have at least one key of. But I also want to link and field - the most fun part of the game.

I think this scanner favors agents who walk to agents who drive around in cars. That is also a plus. The car advantage might have been diminished. If Ingress could turn America into a walking nation, that would be trillions in health care savings. That alone would make the game worth it. I was not overweight when I started playing, but I have lost weight playing. That is a good thing. My waistline is slimmer. Walking is the best aspect of the game. I was already a walking maniac before the game. Now I am even more so.

What they have not worked on is the COMM. Unless they fundamentally rework the COMM the app is not tremendously helping the social aspects of the game. The COMM is currently the weak link in the chain.

My only bigger gripe than the COMM is that Niantic is not approving portals fast enough. Unless New York City has 10 times more portals it can not accommodate its current batch of players, let alone the expected five times increase in player numbers. I would like to attempt complex fielding, but that is currently not possible. Please approve my 1,000 portal submissions already.
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