“Robots to get their own internet.”
 — Enough said, right? Yes, I know, you’re saying out loud: “How could this go wrong? The best part is that the RoboEarth website has a section called “collaborators,” which, they certainly are. RoboVichy!

Because my goal is for all of you to be semi-fluent in code, because if you are not at least vaguely proficient, the coming decades will leave you behind, I expect you all to read this take on the Gawker redesign, Javascript and hashbang URLs — a situation that the author, web developer Mike Davies, calls an “architectural nightmare.” There will be a quiz. (One current outcome of the Gawker Media site redesign? Nothing they publish appears in Google News at this time.) Seriously, it’s possible for the layperson to read this without smelling toast, I promise!

by Zachary Urbina

Trouble. It’s out there. Sometimes you find it; sometimes it finds you.

I first met Edward T. Hall III last October at TEDxGotham, one of those independent TED offshoots that spring up around the world. A friend had invited me to attend her presentation on social robotics. Edward — Ted to his friends — distinguished himself from the rest of the speakers by reading a poem on the steps of Cooper Union after the event.

As the poem concluded, he wept openly, tears streaking his cheeks between long locks of hair. There’s a special kind of person who can authentically cry in public, bridging the gap between goony political hack and genuinely heartfelt devotee. Later, I discovered that Ted was the grandson of world-renowned anthropologist Edward T. Hall, Jr. whose obituary reads more like an astronaut’s.

Last month, I was surprised to learn that my pal Ted had made the tabloids and then became news around the world while trying to catch a plane departing New York City’s JFK airport for San Francisco using an extremely unconventional approach. The consensus among various news outlets is that Ted, desiring to see a woman named Maya, tried to board a United Airlines flight without an ID, and then, when he was denied, he attempted to crawl through the baggage carousel to gain entry to the tarmac. I chatted with Ted not long after his release from jail.

Zachary Urbina: First, what were you thinking?

Ted Hall: Ha ha! I wanted to spend a little more time with Maya. The universe conspired for this to happen. I decided to buy a ticket at the last minute from one of those ticket kiosks. I didn’t bring my ID to the airport, but they let me buy a ticket. We waited in the security line and when I got to the front of the line, they said they had to find a way to validate my identity.

I was determined to make this flight. I waited while they tried to check my identity but it was very close to the time the flight was scheduled to depart.

At some point, I asked security, “What will happen if I just go past you.” Their response: “You will reap the consequences.” Really, I wasn’t thinking about other people. I realize that especially in New York, I was trespassing on social norms, but I was just thinking about spending more time with this girl. Eventually, I decided to return to the United ticket kiosk to see what they could do for me. In my eyes, I was a customer and they should be able to help me. United. UniTED. There’s so much Ted in my life! At that point I realized I was getting on this flight, or getting arrested. I felt a certain magnetism. I remember thinking, I’ve gotta do it myself. I’ve just gotta try. If I get arrested, so be it. Love can be that strong.

Zachary: At what point did you get on the baggage carousel?

Ted: I was at the ticket kiosk and I half-jokingly told the person at the counter. “Could you zip me up in a bag and send me through?” I saw a bag moving through those floppy plastic dividers. At a certain point they could tell that I was actually rather serious. They said “Well, there’s nothing stopping you….”

I stepped over the scale. I didn’t jump. I walked over to the baggage carousel and climbed onto the conveyor belt. Over my shoulder I heard people yelling, “Sir, sir you can’t go in there.” By the time I got to the plastic dividers, they stopped the conveyor belt, and I had to crawl on my hands and knees. It was like that scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where Harrison Ford and that Asian kid were on the mine cart. Low ceilings and totally dark in some places. I had to push someone’s bag out of the way. Eventually it opened up into a corridor.

There was a baggage handler who saw me emerge. He looked surprised and said, “What in Scott’s name are you doing?”

The security guys were just doing their job. They took me to the control office. Someone else told me “We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

I waited for the police to show up. I thought that the worst that would happen was people would tell a story about New York City and airplanes that wasn’t terrible. I realize now that I worried my frienda and family.

Eventually I was cuffed and dragged out. The NYPD was very respectful toward me. My experience with the police was ideal. I felt like they were looking out for me. Incredible, awesome people.

One of the officers asked me, “What were you thinking?” It was really more about doing.

Zachary: What can you tell me about your time in jail?

Ted: Jail was an interesting experience. Airport security was flabbergasted. I saw mostly smiles, and a couple of scowls. The police on the other hand, were peeved.

Security and flying are sensitive topics in New York. I most certainly freaked some people out. The police station that they took me to had a 9/11 mural on the wall. I’m sure that some of the officers involved lost friends on 9/11.

A few of the cops were a bit rough, but it was nothing that I wouldn’t understand. I did something so asinine around such a sensitive place.

After they questioned me I was led into a solitary cell. The jail cell was 10×10. I was in there alone and I mostly meditated. The cell was painted all white and had in it a toilet and a bench.

There was a Russian gentleman that I tried to start a conversation with, but he wasn’t having it. There was also a Spanish fellow that was having an asthma attack. I had chronic asthma as a kid and I tried to help.

What I’ve learned is that even if you have good will toward something, people will use it as an opportunity to vent. This was a sobering experience, but I’m not letting go of the passion. I wanted the world to know that I really want to see this girl.

I’m accepting of any punishment they have for me.

Ted was eventually charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Three weeks have now passed since Ted’s initial airport drama-comedy. I caught up with him to get a sense of what perspective he’d achieved regarding his unique adventure.

Zachary: It’s been three weeks. Have you since seen the girl?

Ted: I have not seen Maya. Haven’t yet taken the trek to San Francisco. I plan on surprising her in some fashion. We‘ve discussed a Burning Man collaboration. After the wreckage, I don’t know if I still have the freedom to travel as I once did.

Zachary: That brings me to my next question. Are you allowed to fly?

Ted: I don’t know. I suspect that I am. I recently went to JFK to pick up my bags and a few other things. I didn’t get tackled by security or anything like that. Actually, the people at the security office treated me like something of a folk hero: “Wow, it’s that guy,” that sort of thing.
I’m still facing possible trespassing charges, but as of now, they’re calling it conditional discharge. I’ve since quit my job at Columbia and lost my apartment.

Zachary: One final question. Are you happy?

Ted: Yeah, very happy.

Conditional discharge in New York State means that if Ted stays out of trouble for a year, he stays out of jail. When he was not actively looking for trouble or trying to spend a little more time with Maya, Ted was previously employed as a research assistant at Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions: his specific discipline, human impatience.

Zachary Urbina’s narrative nonfiction

has been published consistently since 2006 and his photography has been published in print and on the internet, in both New York City and Los Angeles.

Today’s reason to hate myself: for missing Prince play “Crazy” with his opening act Cee-Lo at Madison Square Garden last night. God, that guitar! (This video will disappear soon too, because Prince, copyright, etc. Which is funny, since this isn’t even his song!)

“Animals should be treated the same as you would a kid. Would you want someone just to walk up and skin your kid? Hell no!”
 — New PETA spokesperson Waka Flocka Flame comes down somewhere in between “Tiger Mother” and “helicopter parenting.”

A rant about Rihanna’s horrible new video http://bit.ly/i5xEgHTue Feb 01 16:09:07 via web

Wears The Trousers
trsrstweets

I don’t follow a lot of “servicey” Twitter accounts. I prefer to find people that crack me up, mixed in with a few hate-follows. But one of the few useful Twitter accounts that I do follow is from Wears the Trousers, the small England-based website that only covers female musicians. It’s completely to the point, short, unexpected and drama-free.

[review] Marnie Stern’s demos cassette http://bit.ly/fPWKhcFri Jan 21 16:03:05 via web

Wears The Trousers
trsrstweets

Previously:
DCJourno; Kate Riley; Roger Clark; Emma Gilbey Keller

By way of Europopped comes Nikita’s new video for “Искусаю.” It is barely safe for work, features some highly aggressive eating, lobster-licking and also scantily clad girls getting it on in a hallway and tandem biking. It ends with her them eating $100-bills. Game on.

Goddamnit, am I really gonna have to buy Muswell Hillbillies again?

This weekend will mark the midpoint of the NBA season, which is a true moment of reckoning. It’s time for owners to take stock in their teams’ fortunes — which ones have a chance to make some playoff hay, and who had better start playing the rookies and grooming the fall guy — head coach or GM, whoever has fewer contract years left.

Rather than just solely ruminate on the fortunes of the Miami Heat any longer — and let’s face it: that conceit is getting older than Charlie Sheen’s TV nephew — I figure that I would take stock, too. Why not? I’ve already made enough friends in Miami; it’s time to spread the love.

I’ll readily admit that there are far more qualified folks to speak on such weighty subjects, as whether teams should hold or fold: Ex-players with ill-fitting suits, former coaches and GMs, beady eyed sports bloggers and even that racially indeterminate host on TNT, Ernie Johnson, who freaks me out. And sure, perusing the standings, I’d thought that some of the current teams had folded years ago — I’d wrongly figured the Jazz went bye-bye when Jerry Sloan passed away. But I usually have a strong sense of momentum, I really do, and so I am offering my two cents as to the state of their unions. Free of charge. One division a week. For the next however many divisions there are. I think, like, 6 or 7. Maybe more. But not 10. Definitely not.

This week it’s the Western Conference’s Southwest Division, where the San Antonio Spurs are lulling teams to sleep with Ambien-like efficiency, Dallas is cock-teasing fans once again and Chris Paul is staring off into the middle distance, dreaming of calendar pages flipping madly by.

San Antonio Spurs (42–8)
Long after the league tired of Tim Duncan’s mumble-mumble-eye roll-sneer approach to the media, the Spurs are still threatening to bring the NBA Finals back to a tiny media market and a drab arena, and a team whose two best players are foreigners. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has a way of convincing wily veterans to submit to his system in order to prolong their careers.

Professional bride jilter Richard Jefferson got the memo and is now a jump shooter who feasts off of collapsing defenses. The deep Spurs and their gaudy record will be there at the end, and depending upon whether or not hairy Lakers forward Pau Gasol wakes up from his season-long slumber and denies them the Western Conference, they may actually make it to the NBA Finals, in which case Commissioner Stern had better start contemplating a media rate for the cherry Four Loko.

Dallas Mavericks (35–15)
They won’t win. They never do. The Mavs plow through the regular season, dominating occasionally, and are usually a Top 3 or 4 playoff seed. I would say that bricklayin’ Jason Kidd is not getting any younger, but he can still get it done, as long as “it” doesn’t involve jumping, shooting or getting to the hoop. Or playing defense. Jason Terry is also still around hitting big threes in games that don’t matter. The team always has good athletes and supportive fans, which gives the appearance that they are a contender. Then owner Mark Cuban parades around, exhibiting muscle-shirted jackassery on the sidelines, proclaiming Dirk Nowitzki the most dangerous weapon in the playoffs. However, come playoff time, referees loosen their grip on the physical play and opponents tighten theirs on Nowitzki and poof! Mark Cuban goes back to his McMansion to play Wiffle ball with the Caeser-do’ed guys pretending to be his buddies.

New Orleans (32–20)
Chris Paul is in hell. Not literally. Because if you were a NBA basketball player (bear with me) and had to play for a city where you had zero chance of winning it all, New Orleans is a great place to do it. But slender point guards who are called upon to carry a team’s scoring (as Paul is, nightly) have a career-expectancy of about 7 years, give or take. He has some talented cohorts — David West could start on any team — but the Hornets are 6–4 over their last 10 games. You could use that proportion to play out the season and figure out that Paul will make the playoffs, but ultimately lose the war of attrition. He usually grinds down and hobbles through a round or two, and then goes home lamenting his fate: the best at his position watching lesser talents hosting hardware. But when times get tough he needs to think of the bigger picture: the 2012 Knicks team photo with Amar’e, Carmelo, the Italian kid and Landry Fields, this season’s Tayshaun-Prince-as-a-rookie.

Memphis (27–25)
A few months ago none other than my former archenemy Reggie Miller told me not to sleep on Rudy Gay who, in his mind, was about to be a breakout NBA superstar. He was referring to how the Knicks should sign him, when LeBron ultimately spurned them. I laughed and said something to the effect that we didn’t clear cap space for the likes of Gay. But I said “the likes of” in that way that meant he was a Nets-level talent. Well, Reggie was right — ouch — as Gay has become a 20-and-6 guy, while developing a nice chemistry with Zach Randolph and Mike Conley. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to visualize how good the team would be with Pau Gasol, whom the Grizz sold to the Lakers for just under $12 and Kwame Brown, rather than Marc Gasol, the margarine to Pau’s butter. OJ Mayo’s recent suspension for some kind of substance was annoying, but the Grizz still aren’t going anywhere and are two keen drafts away from being the team that loses to Oklahoma City in the playoffs.

Houston (24–28)
I have to admit: the last time I really considered Houston’s playoff chances, Yao Ming was upright, Steve Francis was bitching and T-Mac was injured, so it’s been awhile. But as I look through the roster of pretty talented players — Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, Chuck Hayes and Shane Battier are the core four — I realize something pretty quickly: this is a team made up mostly of Sixth Man of the Year candidates. They have no chance of getting out of the West, in the playoffs, so they should concentrate on trading some of their marginal players for expiring contracts and draft picks. I would also make Scola and Martin untouchable (obviously) and pimp Battier hard and Yao Ming’s contract harder. The irony here is this: if the Rockets were in the East, they’d be competing for a playoff spot.

Tony Gervino is a New York City-based editor and writer obsessed with honing his bio to make him sound quirky. He can also be found here.

Photo by Eric Kilby, from Flickr.

As hard as I have tried, I have never been quite able to get into the Blue Nile, even though they are the kind of band I should, by many metrics, love. I will, however, agree with the contention that “Family Life” is indeed something lasting and great.