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Power unites: New Yorkers come together, charge together

Jeff John Roberts — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 00:01:51 +0000

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the teeming streets of lower Manhattan have become an eerie, empty wasteland. Amidst the cold and the dark, the most pressing need is not for food or water — but for power to charge phones and laptops.

Fortunately, New Yorkers are looking out for each other as they always do. Outside bars and bodegas, merchants with generators are sharing them with residents who need to charge up and contact the outside world. This was the scene near Avenue A in the East Village where Percy’s Tavern set up tables with dozens of power outlets to use free of charge:

Similar scenes played out in front of hairdressers and coffee shops around the blacked out part of the city. Strangely, for this week at least, the cell phone habits of many New Yorkers resemble those of rural Africans who regularly pay small sums to charge their mobile devices from a generator.

The situation in Manhattan also highlights how, in a crisis, the city’s post-industrial economy still ultimately depends on very industrial fuels like diesel. (To see how we might one day progress beyond this, see the excellent reporting by Katie Fehrenbacher earlier this week.)

Finally, this scene on 2nd Avenue shows that water is also an issue for some New Yorkers in the black out zone:

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Tweeting fake news in a crisis — illegal or just immoral?

Jeff John Roberts — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 20:17:46 +0000

When Hurricane Sandy battered their city on Monday night, New Yorkers looked after each with courage and generosity. Unfortunately, a few people behaved badly and one person was downright despicable.

That person was Shashank Tripathia, a hedge fund analyst, who began issuing false and alarming news reports on Twitter at the height of the storm. As hospitals lost power and a major power station exploded, Tripathia contributed to the chaos by falsely claiming that all of Manhattan had gone black and that:

BREAKING:Confirmed flooding on NYSE.The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water.

— ComfortablySmug (@ComfortablySmug) October 30, 2012

The tweet — which said a pillar of the world economic infrastructure was in peril — was finally refuted by the stock exchange, but not before it had been repeated hundreds of times, including on CNN and the Weather Channel. In short, Tripathia used a media platform at the height of an emergency to promote panic and anxiety.

Everyone agrees that his behavior was reprehensible. But there is also the question of whether tweets like Tripathia’s are (or should be) illegal.

Keep in mind that Twitter is not just an online gab fest, it is also a newswire. During the hurricane, a phone-based Twitter feed was the last and best source of news for some of us who had lost access to TV and the internet. It was at this very time that Tripathia chose to make mischief with his fake news reports, knowing full well his lies would be picked up by other news sources. It’s as if the local TV channel began broadcasting fake hurricane news just for fun.

Criminal mischief or Free speech?

Should he be punished? As others have pointed out, the damage he caused is limited because Twitter operates much like a self-cleaning oven by disinfecting false news. And Tripathia himself is likely to face the wrath of angry New Yorkers and possibly lose his job, now that BuzzFeed exposed his identity.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the state or city shouldn’t consider criminal charges against Tripathia — or anyone else who uses a broadcast channel in an emergency to endanger or incite. But any government action would, of course, be subject to the law of free speech.

“Lies are constitutionally protected except in very rare exceptions. Someone recklessly tweeting is beyond the reach of the law except in rare exceptions,” said Ken Paulson, a lawyer and former USA Today editor at the First Amendment Center, in a phone interview.

Paulson added that Twitter is typically so much loose talk and that “anything you want to outlaw on Twitter, you’d have to outlaw in conversation.”

Paulson’s reasoning is appealing, especially to a journalist, but may be hard to square with situations in which a Twitter feed becomes a de facto emergency broadcast channel. After all, the government already regulates rumors related to the SEC and the stock market, and courts say they will draw a line at protecting speech that gives rise to “imminent lawless action.” Should there be limits on social network speech in emergencies too?

At GigaOM, we’re fond of highlighting Twitter’s role as a source of freedom and public media tool. For now, my instinct is to leave Twitter alone. But future emergencies may test that position.

Update: it looks like at least one city official in New York thinks Tripathia’s tweets amount to a criminal act:

City Councilman Peter Vallone says he’s going to DA over @comfortablysmug ‘s false tweets : bit.ly/W3ojOe #VALLONEZONE

— KateNocera (@KateNocera) October 30, 2012

Update 2: Tripathia has apologized for the tweets and resigned as campaign manager for a Republican candidate for Congress. Respected Reuters columnist Felix Salmon isn’t in a forgiving mood.

I wish to offer the people of New York a sincere, humble and unconditional apology. twitter.com/ComfortablySmu…

— ComfortablySmug (@ComfortablySmug) October 31, 2012

.@comfortablysmug if your apology is so sincere, why didn’t you put your name to it?

— felix salmon (@felixsalmon) October 31, 2012

And if you have any sympathy for @comfortablysmug at all, Google “I’m satisfied by the thought this will probably leave her with bruises.”

— felix salmon (@felixsalmon) October 31, 2012

(Images by Benjamin Simeneta and Zacarias Pereira da Mata via Shutterstock)

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Turning big data into action: Know when to evacuate

Stacey Higginbotham — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 19:20:03 +0000

Rice University researchers have built a web-based calculator that predicts the risks associated with hurricanes for a specific address in Houston. The tool uses historical and meteorological data to generate a risk profile for residents of the city in real-time (hat tip Discovery News). As a former Houston resident who has lived through several hurricanes, this is a pretty nifty combination of a variety of data sources into a tool that helps regular people makes decisions.

The tool, which is limited to Harris County, was inspired by the mass evacuations that occurred during Hurricane Rita in 2005. Millions of Houstonians fled the storm and blocked major roadways. Not all of those who left needed too, but absent hard data it’s hard to know what to do if you’re reading about a Category 5 storm heading your way.

For those who stayed, understanding their risk of power failure or wind damage might help them prepare for the storm in ways they may not have otherwise. That’s why I like this calculator and project so much. It takes quantifiable elements such as weather, geographic and historical flood plan information and analyzes it with some algorithm or algorithms (hopefully it’s open so others can improve upon it) and delivers actionable information in a format that people can relate to.

This to me is the promise of big data — and something that more and more data nerds should focus on. The end result of all the data crunching isn’t a spreadsheet or even a table. It’s a decision, be it a manager asking themselves if they should stock more ice cream this July or a citizen wondering if they should evacuate before an oncoming storm. Data — even prettied into a chart — isn’t what most people are after. They just want to know what they should do.

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Tips for working through a power outage in the iPad era

Mark Crump — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:30:27 +0000

I live in Massachusetts, an area barely hit by Hurricane Irene (I never thought I’d hear the words, “Vermont Flattened By Hurricane,” and my heart goes out to people who have really suffered), yet we endured the longest power outage I can remember since the big blizzard of ’78. The outage reminded me that having power in the era of mobile devices is crucial.

I’m a work-at-home freelancer who was denied the main thing he needs to do his job: Internet access. Now, most workers need access to email, Instant Messenger, social media and the web. My primary workspace — my house — actually had power, but I was actually working away from home for two weeks at the time of the hurricane. Naturally, the place where I was working lost power for three straight days. A wise man (my editor) once said, “As a freelancer, the ability to work from anywhere is our greatest strength and our greatest weakness.” I was stuck in a bad situation. However, from great adversity comes great good, or at least an article about how to try to work through a power outage in the age of iOS devices.

Plan for the worst case

I was naive and hopeful. I never expected we’d actually run out of power. My iPhone was fully charged, but my iPad wasn’t. Most power outages here rarely last more than a few hours, and I thought I had enough juice to get through it. I was wrong. So, as obvious as it sounds, make sure everything is fully charged as soon as you hear word that a storm might be coming. Also, shut down non-essential devices to make sure they stay fully topped off.

Think ahead

As a writer who already uses his iPad as a supplemental office, I was all set with apps I can work from. Make sure you have a good text editor and PDF reader to handle your business needs, even if they aren’t as powerful as your desktop tools. In many cases, getting something done slowly, or less-optimally is better than not at all.

To stay up to date on the progress of the storm and efforts to restore power, download weather-related apps, and any apps your local news providers might have. In my area, CBS Boston has an iPhone app. Make sure you download and sync them before the storm hits in case one of them exceeds 2o MB.

Bookmark your power company’s outage map’s website on your iPhone if they have one. Take their power restoration estimates with a grain of salt, however. And don’t worry; being mad at the houses around the corner for having power when you don’t is a natural, human reaction.

Be realistic

When I saw the estimates for how long it was going to take National Grid to get power back, I had to accept a period of lost productivity. My chief goal was keeping my phone charged so I could field calls from my family. Writing and job searching came second. I’m also lucky my lost time didn’t have a major cost associated with it. Everyone’s situation is different, but realize during a major power outage your life is going to be impacted and set realistic expectations. I was prepared to use my iPad as my primary device. I could at least draft articles and queue them up for when normal access to the Internet resumed.

Be conservative and creative with power

My number one concern was being able to get in touch with my mom. I followed Geoffrey’s excellent tips conserving power. I also eliminated Internet tethering to get work done due to the power costs. So the Internet became a beer nursed to last the entire ball game. I’d turn it on to grab emails and give Twitter and RSS a quick scan, marking many items to be read later. It also seemed like AT&T was straining in my area under the load, thus making tethering a risky choice.

My friends give me a hard time about my growing collection of iPhone cables and power adapters, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t use most of them this week. The other day, my truck came in very handy for charging two phones and two iPads. Don’t forget about your vehicle’s ability to charge things with the right adapters.

Prioritize your charge levels

I prioritized my device charging in this order: iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro. The iPhone came first, for communication reasons I’ve already outlined above. My iPad, with its 10-hour battery life, was my main source for reading, and doing light writing in Pages. My MacBook never got turned on, instead was held in reserve to charge the other two devices in a pinch.

Any other tips for dealing with power outages? Share them (along with your Irene-related stories) in the comments.

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