I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but Gemini is a perfect network to browse on the phone while sitting in the car to comply with the current version of NYC Alternate Side Parking...

I've been using Ariane on my Android horror to read (and surprisingly, find comfort in) gemlogs when I can't sleep (after being woken up by noises from outside or inside the apartment)... I generally don't use my phone for anything other than calling and texting, even then, reluctantly.

My phone plan provides 1GB of data (unless I pay for another). This is not much in modern terms - listening to a podcast and navigating around will eat it up in days. So I generally just don't. I am around a WiFi most of the time, so it's not an issue.

Alternate Side Parking

NYC cleans the streets relatively often. They used to do it every weekday, but now it's (sometimes) twice a week. It's still great compared to other places - Portland OR cleans the streets once a year, and they charge homeowners $100 to do so...

In the old days, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (or Tuesday and Thursday on the other side), you would have to either find another spot (good luck with that) or double-park on the other side for 3 hours or so. The unwritten rule was that you could just stick a note with your phone number on the windshield, and if the person you blocked needed to get out, they would call you. This was before cell phones, mind you.

Then you would run to the car and move to the other side, trying to beat everyone else. If you did it too early and the street cleaner came, you would get a ticket or at least get yelled and honked at.

Eventually, everyone just started sitting in the car, moving across to make way for the cleaning vehicle, than moving back and sitting some more. Some people just didn't bother moving, as getting tickets is still cheaper than renting a parking spot in a garage (for more money than it cost to rent an apartment just about anywhere else)...

NYC reduces services

At some point the rules changed cutting down the street cleaning window. It became two days a week, for 1 1/2 hours. No more double-parking - everyone just sat in the car.

Then, they dropped it to one day a week for 1 1/2 hours. The street cleaner usually doesn't come at all, so you sit there for no reason, really. About a quarter of the people don't bother and opt for the ticket, and the cleaner just goes around them (and often around a whole bunch of cars whose drivers weren't fast enough to get out of the way). It's really a joke.

An hour and a half of quiet?

Well, I get to read on my tablet... It's hard for me to concentrate after Covid, and reading gemlogs on the phone is much easier (as I get to finish a complete post, something I am having trouble doing with short stories).

Quiet? This is Manhattan, and there is no such thing. Someone is always doing something awful - smoking directly into your car, gathering 50 screaming children for a class trip, idling a truck in your face, etc. Last week, a bunch of tree-cutting dudes tried to bully me into giving up my spot, and when I politely refused (and suggested they get a permit), dragged large branches threateningly too-close-to-the-car while glaring at me. Eh.

Data usage

It's amazing how little data Gemini uses in modern terms. Almost an hour and a half of reading cost me less than one Megabyte... Although in terms of text, I doubt it was 100KB, but I guess the overhead of TLS eats up some bandwidth...

It's nice to see something positive.