The following night (see my last post) the #EmpireStateBuilding looked like this. Can’t remember the last time I saw it lit this way. (This was shot by #MSG on #w34thSt #NYC #throughglass.)

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A green and blue #EmpireStateBuilding shot #throughglass from #UnionSquare #NYC shot 2/25/14. Anyone know why it was green and blue?

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Sure, #Apple! I’ll agree to your ToS even though it refused to load! #sigh #ios7sucks

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Are you an American? You should go here: http://WLOL.US/publiccomment and tell the USG what you think of a pipeline stretching from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. I said no to #KeystoneXL I hope you will, too.

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#BigBrother is in the house!! Well, your house and mine, via our webcams. #notcool (via DemocracyNow.org)

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I guess we’ve known for a while that your webcam could be hacked by those who know how (safe to assume NSA has a few people who do) but I this is the first time I’ve heard of this “Operation Optic Nerve” which the NSA and the UK’s GCHQ used to grab image and video streams en masse and save them for later perusal. Here’s the most alarming bit from the Democracy Now piece:

The program was reportedly used for experiments in “automated facial recognition” as well as to monitor terrorism suspects. A more accurate name for the “Optic Nerve” program may have been “Peeping Tom,” because it ended up collecting a large number of sexually explicit images. According to the documents, between 3 and 11 percent of the Yahoo webcam images contained what the GCHQ called “undesirable nudity.”

In other words, they’re just grabbing everything and watching enough of it to know that they’ve gone too far. Surely, we, as Americans–no–as human beings have the right to not have our clotheless bodies seen by people without our permission.

Go check out the rest of Democracy Now’s coverage–it’s a real eye-opener.

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#Toronto #Artifact #2: a 50ml bottle of real maple syrup that the TSA made me empty my entire bag for. That’s right, the US has TSA in Toronto. Oh and the syrup is delicious.

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ThePeteMiniTV: Ever wonder what one of those “cubed” #Tshirts from #Muji was really like? I did, too. So, this.

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Above it all… well, some of it, anyway. #NYC #TheBronx #ElevatedTrain #1Train #225thSt #subway #MTA taken 2/17/14 #throughglass

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Meanwhile, up at #Target, there were some bare shelves in the toy section due to a storm of sales caused by the awesomely awesome #LegoMovie.

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Close-up on the letter apologizing for the empty snack shelves at #TraderJoes. UWS = #UpperWestSide

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First day back in #NYC from #Toronto last week, I tried to shop at #TraderJoes. Turns out the storm I missed meant no snacks for NYers for a while.

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Seeing #NYC reflected by/in #NYC.

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#Toronto #artifact #1: red soap. It was red, so I had to buy a bar. It’s carbolic, which I have discovered I really like, so I’ll probably buy more.

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Upon returning to #NYC from #Toronto, I added a few @steamwhistlebrewing beer bottle caps to my collection. Really wish #SteamWhistle was available in the US.

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Don’t want to fly on a plane this small again. It wasn’t scary, it was just cramped and they parked us far away, outside, with no jetway. #jfk #nofun #Delta #latergram

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ThePeteMiniTV: From 2 Sundays ago: Taking the overpriced #Airtrain from #JFK to the #subway. $5 each way. Twice as expensive as the regular subway for a tiny fraction traveled. #ripoff #LGA #FTW

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ThePeteMiniTV: From 2 Sundays ago: landing at #JFK #throughadirtywindow but #notthroughglass #throughipadmini

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On the way home from #Toronto two Sundays ago. #throughthewindow #throughglass

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