The NYPD released a sketch earlier this week of a suspect wanted in the killing of an elderly man during a jewelry store heist on the Upper East Side on Wednesday, January 27th. Posters of this man are blanketing the UES side at the moment and several sources say the man was able to make away with upwards of $1 million in jewelry (if you want to see a list of the items stolen, see this NYPD page).
My question however, is how anybody is supposed to look for a guy like the one depicted in this sketch. This could literally be anybody with a coat, some sunglasses, and a face mask. And given the cold temperatures lately, I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of people are dressed this way. Still, I suppose any clue is worth mentioning, so if you’ve got anything, let the NYPD know!
This is a pretty hilarious comedy sketch from the TV show “A Bit of Fry and Laurie” (featuring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie) in which Laurie has to give his name and address to an officer at the police station. [via]
There’s a very interesting article over at the LA Times about the founding sketch made by Jack Dorsey which eventually led to the creation of Twitter. Apparently, back on July 6, 2006, Dorsey uploaded a photograph of the original sketch behind Twitter to Flickr and the rest is history.
It took nearly 6 years for Jack Dorsey to turn his idea on paper into what we know now as Twitter, but he says he’s been trying to implement its idea into just about everything he’s work on in the past 6 years prior to Twitter being started. Here’s his story:
On May 31st, 2000, I signed up with a new service called LiveJournal. I was user 4,136 which entitled me a permanent account and street cred in some alternate geeky universe which I have not yet visited. I was living in the Sunshine Biscuit Factory in Oakland California and starting a company to dispatch couriers, taxis, and emergency services from the web.
One night in July of that year I had an idea to make a more “live” LiveJournal. Real-time, up-to-date, from the road. Akin to updating your AIM status from wherever you are, and sharing it. For the next 5 years, I thought about this concept and tried to silently introduce it into my various projects. It slipped into my dispatch work. It slipped into my networks of medical devices. It slipped into an idea for a frictionless service market. It was everywhere I looked: a wonderful abstraction which was easy to implement and understand.
The 6th year; the idea has finally solidified (thanks to the massively creative environment my employer Odeo provides) and taken a novel form. We’re calling it twttr (though this original rendering calls it stat.us; I love the word.ed domains, e.g. gu.st). It’s evolved a lot in the past few months. From an excited discussion and persuasion on the South Park playground to a recently approved application for a SMS shortcode. I’m happy this idea has taken root; I hope it thrives.
And believe it or not, the original concept idea for Twitter (known back then as stat.us or simply twttr) actually came from the idea that bicyclists and motorists had to keep each other in the know about where they were and what they were doing on dispatch.
If you’re a Twitter user, you might find this early history fascinating like I did. The LA Times is supposed to reveal Part 2 of the article either today or tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. For now, read Part 1 of the history behind Twitter.
