Dead Programmer's Cafe

Author: deadprogrammer

  • I Wonder What He Looks Like From the Top Of the Building


    Lee Lawrie’s Atlas in front of the GE building. A nice cliché shot.

    When it rains, it looks like Atlas sweats.

  • Worldwide Plaza


    I see this building daily. I’ve even been inside a few times attending some sort of Microsoft training (they have a few floors there). After I took this picture I decided to find out a few things about the triangular beacon on the top.

    Turns out that it’s called “David’s Diamond” (after David Childs of SOM). Digging deeper, I found out that the diamond was put together on the ground, then disassembled and assembled again on the top. And if I understand this correctly, the diamond was made by “Mohawks who live on a reservation near Montreal”. That’s so freaking cool.

    More than that, the smaller tower of the Worldwide Plaza complex contains condominiums. $0.55M to $0.75M for a 2-bedroom. Hey, compared to what you can have for that much in Brighton Beach it’s a good deal methinks. A two bedroom in Oceana goes for $535,000 these days. Huh.

    Maybe there will be a time in the future, in a galaxy far, far away when middle class people (an not just the upper and proletariat) will be able to afford to live in a highrise in Manhattan. But so far it looks like that’s not happening any time soon.

  • One Hundred Views Of The Empire State

  • Normal People Don’t Think About This Stuff

    If you pay attention to NYC infrastructure like I do, you might have noticed little lights that sit on street lamp poles on certain intersections.

    For a long time I tried to guess their purpose. I thought that they had somemething to do with street lamps. Maybe indicating when light bulbs need changing. But they do not appear on all street lamps. And sometimes they would be attached to a telephone or a power pole. Sometimes they would be lit up, and sometimes not. They do not appear on all intersections. A mystery, right?

    I’ve searched the net finding nothing. Finally I found a reasonable explanation in Time Out New York magazine. The little lights simply appear on the intersections where a fire alarm telegraph box used to be located.

    I knew about fire alarm telegraph boxes from an awesome book Underneath New York. You see, those fire and police alarm pull boxes that were retired a few years back in fact were automatic telegraph boxes. They all shared the same circuit which would be normally closed. When somebody pulled the handle, a clockwork mechanism would rotate a little wheel with a pattern of bumps. The bumps would break the circuit and transmit an id of the pull box in Morse code to a nearby fire station. I guess they did not handle collisions — if two boxes were activated at the same type there would be trouble.

    I wonder how much electricity is wasted on those things.

    Some links:
    Interesting, ADT stands for American District Telegraph. I didn’t know.
    Some pretty cool pictures of fire telegraph control rooms.
    A site about Fire Alarm Telegraph Systems

  • The Rocketship Building

    I really like seeing this building in the morning. The rising steam makes it look like a rocket. I still don’t know what generates the steam. Probably a cooling plant or something. It’s not the GE building like I mentioned earlier though. It’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza.

  • An Evening Walk In Times Square


    US Armed forces recruitment station is conveniently located in the middle of Times Square. I wonder, how many people actually enlist there.


    There is always something being filmed or photographed in Times Square.

  • Whatdya Know : There Are Smart Doctors With Blogs

    From the list of medical blogs with rss feeds provided by I’ve created a bunch of syndicated lj users:



    The payoff was instant:
    Canadian researchers have identified a special gene in red heads and fair-skinned people that they think plays a role in pain suppression

    Hey, , are those hosers on the money?

  • One More Reason Why Classical Guitar Sucks

    , MD : “.. punk rock is healthier for the nipples ..”

  • Shocked and Awed

    Future doctor writes:

    man, i mistakingly signed up for the bush sucks community. it was great for awhile, people agreeing with me and all. it made me feel warm and tingly knowing that other people are going for peace in this. unfortunately my email got flooded with responses from people correcting my grammar and calling me dumbfuck and other nice names. all part of voicing your opinion though i guess. heres what i have to say so i can get all my ideas straight for me and anyone who is reading. ….

    They did what? They called her what?? I am shocked.

  • More of Deadprogrammer’s Aspirations

    I want to become rich in one of the most honorable ways possible – by inventing something. The first step that I took in that direction some time ago is writing down ideas into a notebook.

    The notebooks is kind of special. It’s an NYPD style memo binder that I bought from DeSantis. Interesting to note that the NYPD binder is 4×8, but regular one is just 4×6. It took me a while to find correct paper that would fit the notebook, but I found out that the reporter’s notebook available in all stationary stores fits. I just had to remove the wire spiral. You know, the most amazing thing about this notebook is that cops manage to stuff it into the back pocket of their pants. I thought about buying some uniform pants (they look like dark dress casual pants, but are probably very comfortable and durable) but it turns out that you can’t buy them without a cop’s id.

    But I digress. Inventing. Right. Well, sometimes I stumble upon companies that are already doing what I was thinking about. Maybe some of my ideas are actually not without merit.

    I had an idea bout billboards beaming advertising to PDAs. I made a note in my log about making a cheap beaming module that could be used in subway ads. A blinking light would attract one’s attention, and if the passenger would point a palm pilot towards the ad, a coupon would be beamed down. I did a bit of searching, and it didn’t seem that any company was doing that at the time. That was a few years back, when I got my Palm III. The first company to actually do this (I think, I am not sure though) was Streetbeam. Today there are many more companies that make beaming booths, beaming nodes, etc. Wide Ray is just one of them.

    Later I was thinking a lot about wireless power transmission after reading a book about Tesla. Tesla had his lab illuminated by wirelessly powered fluorescent lights. Why not power devices that don’t need that much juice, like cell phones and PDAs wirelessly, I thought? I was also thinking about magnetic fields in trains. Could it be possible to recharge a Palm Pilot or a cell phone from an induced current somehow? My hate of wall warts (12 volt transformers) is also well known. I was thinking for a while about a system of modules that would allow using one power cable to charge multiple devices. The system would involve a modular “multicradle” that would allow to store all devices needing powering neatly on the desk. This Friday I’ve read about a British startup that is going to produce a very cool wireless charging solution. That is going to be so cool.