And Now for Something Completely Different

Well it's a good thing we here in the Linux community had that refreshing and refocusing break recently, courtesy of Linux.com and Carla Schroder, because last week it was back onto the hot coals once again.

The Systemd inferno -- which Linux Girl is starting to think of as "The Blaze That Must Not Be Named" -- has spread even further, your trusty reporter is dismayed to report, extending now to encompass the entire FOSS community.
The accelerant this time? "Quite a sick place" is how Red Hat engineer and Systemd developer Lennart Poettering described the open source community in a recent post on Google+.
Not only is the community "full of [assh*les]," but "I probably more than most others am one of their most favorite targets," Poettering wrote. "I get hate mail for hacking on open source. People have started multiple 'petitions' .... asking me to stop working. Recently, people started collecting Bitcoins to hire a hitman for me (this really happened!)."
Smoke and flames can now be seen from miles away. Emergency supplies have been requested. In the meantime, the elderly and infirm are encouraged to seek shelter elsewhere. For those who appreciate tequila, Linux Girl recommends the blogosphere's seedy Punchy Penguin Saloon.

'Who's Leading the Charge'

It was there at the Punchy Penguin late last week, in fact, that a diversion finally arose, and Linux Girl seized upon it with enthusiasm -- and both hands.
"Best Distro 2014" is the title of the post that appeared over at Linux Voice magazine, and it's a juicy one.
"You might be using the wrong Linux distribution," the Linux Voice's brave voices proclaimed. "Or to put it more diplomatically, you might not be running the distro that's best suited to you."
With that in mind, "we decided to look at the current state of play in the Linux distro world," they wrote. "We wanted to see which distros excel in certain important areas, to find out who's leading the charge here in mid-late 2014."
The rowdy Slashdot masses picked up on the topic in no time, followed soon afterward by conversations and debates in blogobars and watering holes throughout the land.

'Great for Experimenting'

"To me it is a mix -- Ubuntu and Fedora -- because I work in two main fields: consulting and training," offered Google+ blogger Rodolfo Saenz.
"Both distros satisfy my need, and they have the two more commonly used package systems in the Linux world," Saenz added. "Also, the two distros are great for experimenting, and to my students -- they usually come from Windows -- it's easier to adapt."
The answer from Google+ blogger Alessandro Ebersol -- who works on the PCLinuxOS distribution -- wasn't exactly surprising.

'Fastest to Fix Shellshock'

"It's gotta be PCLinuxOS," Ebersol said.
"Most solid Linux distro: Check," he asserted. "Most DEs available: I make seven different PCLinuxOS versions, not counting Cinnamon, WindowMaker and E-19."
Also, "fastest distro to fix Shellshock," Ebersol said. Specifically, "two days after the security hole was made public."
In short? "Call me biased, but PCLinuxOS is Da Bomb," he said.

'The One That Does the Job'

"To me the real point is variety and choice," Google+ blogger Kevin O'Brien told Linux Girl.
"While some may complain about fragmentation, I love the idea that I can choose a distro that suits my needs," O'Brien said -- "or more than one, if I have several different needs.
"Right now I have three different *nix systems on my home network -- two of them Linux and one BSD," he noted. "The best distro is the one that does the job you need it to do."

'Philosophical Questioning'

Similarly, "there is no answer better than, 'any distro that works for you, has more than two users and has good information and forums online,'" suggested Google+ blogger Gonzalo Velasco C.
For fans of free and open source software, "the present year has been one of philosophical questioning about the future of GNU/Linux, freedom of choice and 'market' share," he pointed out. "So, the answers will reflect this."
Gonzalo Velasco C. has been using four different distros in the last year, he told Linux Girl.
"I got some update glitches in some, not in others," he noted. "All of them worked for me in more than one computer, and I can only vote for all of them: PCLinuxOS, MiniNo, Xubuntu and SolydXK."

'2014 Has Been Disappointing'

Last but not least, "I wish I could say that Debian GNU/Linux was the best distro of 2014 as usual, but I can't," blogger Robert Pogson lamented.
"I switched all my machines to Debian Testing/Jessie months ago, when the bug count was plunging like a stone, and then they went with Systemd," he explained. "I've been updating dozens of packages every day since then and the bug count has gone sideways.
"'The Freeze' is still a long way away," he added. "I would have switched back to Wheezy/Stable if I had known it was going to take this long to sort out the mess."
That said, "I haven't really used any other distro than Debian for six years," Pogson told Linux Girl. "Until 2014 it did all I asked of a distro with very few irritations."
Looking ahead, "I really don't know what to do," Pogson said. "I could go back to Wheezy, but that would just delay the inevitable. I like APT and hate Ubuntu.
"Maybe I will be like the stubborn XPers and just run Debian unsupported," he mused. "There isn't any distro on DistroWatch that has the power and flexibility of Debian. I know it will be fine next year, but 2014 has been disappointing."

When Computers Get a Right Brain

IBM is massively increasing its commitment to Watson, which was evident at last week's IBM Think Forum. IBM recognizes that if it can get a product that thinks first, then it can again take absolute control over the technology market, and every other company will be chasing it again.

It is making some impressive headway, and I agree that the firm that succeeds at this will not only massively change the technology market, but also change the world. The very real outcome is that many of us will find our skills have become redundant -- and when I say "many of us," I include analysts, because we are obviously at risk.
I'll close with my product of the week: Gorilla Glass, which is what's keeping us from having far more broken phone screens and likely helping Apple to avoid having to recall the iPhone 6 (though I still think it should).

The Wonder of Watson

Watson is a fascinating system. I'm referring to this class of systems as "decision engines," because they aim to help people make better decisions. What makes them different from any other tool is that they learn about you, rather than you having to learn as much about them.
Granted, with these early versions, it is kind of a shared experience -- but prior to systems like Watson, all of the effort to learn how to interface was on the user side. With Watson, the end goal is to shift virtually all of this burden to the system.
What this means is that in the near-term future, when you need something from Watson, you'll be able to sit down and immediately be productive rather than spend the weeks to months it typically now takes to learn a new system. Because Watson learns from you, the longer you work with it, the better it becomes.
As more and more Watson computers are deployed, they learn from each other creating sort of a digital Gestalt providing a massive acceleration in the learning process.

Near-Term Expectations

There were a number of examples at the Think Forum of working systems and prototypes that showcased what Watson can do today. For instance, a hospital treating a cancer patient can look at the detailed information captured on the patient and then determine the highest-probability path to wellness. Watson already has information on obscure treatments and illnesses, which it can apply to the solution.
The end result is a customized program that is developed from information gathered all over the world -- both preventing mistakes that already have been made and identifying little known successes to reach an optimal solution.
Watson could provide travelers with an experience similar to what travel agents once provided. For instance, if your plane were delayed or grounded, it would automatically find and recommend an alternate route while you were in transit, which you could execute with one Amazon-like click. When called upon to help plan a trip, Watson could apply what it knows about you and about the various airlines and hotels to create the itinerary most likely to make it trip the best you've ever had.
For help desk issues, it would take customers through custom decision trees defined by the system's ability to diagnose the problem remotely and gauge the technical capability of the caller. That would enable it to provide the fastest resolution for the lowest cost, optimizing on a blend of customer satisfaction and cost containment.
It automatically would identify and report bad trends to decision makers, along with optimized recommendations, both to resolve the core issues in a timely way and optimally reduce the related costs.
Company after company testified at the Think Forum that they were seeing massive increases in customer satisfaction and getting a far better handle on costs from Watson-type technology, which is still in its infancy.

Jobs at Risk

Now with the next range of technology advancements, there are a ton of jobs at risk -- and not the obvious ones, either. Specialists are pretty safe for a while, but folks who provide general services -- like accountants, tellers, bankers, stock traders and, well, analysts -- are kind of screwed in the long term.
Fortunately, this won't happen overnight, and in the near term there will be some great jobs training systems like Watson but, once trained, these systems will be able to train each other almost instantly.
It will be even longer before specialists are at risk, because the costs of training a system like Watson to handle a specialty will likely exceed the benefits for some time. If the specialty is unique, that time could be indefinite.

Wrapping Up: The Future

The Think Forum wrapped up with a look into the future, and it was a fascinating discussion. Watson is kind of a left brain decision engine. It is very strong numerically, but it is kind of an extreme version of Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory. It isn't very empathetic, and it isn't intuitive.
Efforts like neural networking and cognitive computing will close the gaps, resulting in machines that can do more than suggest the top choices in a decision. They will actually make the decision, moving to the next stage and doing the whole job. Fortunately, this right brain aspect is still years off, and until it is ready, people will fill that role.
Two clear job growth areas, for now and in the near term, will be trainers for systems like Watson -- people who understand both a particular subject area and how best to present it to Watson. They will be Watson's right brain partners.

Product of the Week: Gorilla Glass

I was on Fox Business News this week covering the pain of a broken smartphone screen. Toward the end of the show, we tried to break a phone on air, but the phones bounced and didn't break. That was largely because the phones used Gorilla Glass, which is broadly used on smartphones today. It isn't invulnerable -- phones that use it still break -- but they break far less frequently, and as we so humorously demonstrated, it often takes a real boneheaded move to break one.
There was a lot of speculation that the iPhone 6 was going to use sapphire glass, and that would have ended badly. That's because for some screwy reason -- likely to save money -- Tim Cook allowed the iPhone 6 to have an aluminum frame rather than the steel or magnesium alloy frame that other large phones use, and that makes the screen the stiffest part of the phone.
Gorilla Glass bends a little, which is why you have a lot of bent iPhone 6s that don't have cracked screens as well.

Corning's Gorilla Glass

Sapphire doesn't bend at all, and though you'd likely have fewer bent phones, you'd have a far higher number of even more expensive cracked screens.
Much like jewels, if you do get a nick in the screen with sapphire, that becomes a flaw -- and the screen will break on that flaw. So sapphire would have cost more and not held up well at all on a large phone.
Now, if phone makers would just work a little harder on protecting the screens, we likely could eliminate most of the breaks that occur when the phone lands on its corner on something as unforgiving as cement or tile. However, Corning's Gorilla Glass is why far more of us don't have smashed phones, and it turned my spot on Fox Business into a comedy sketch, so it is my product of the week.

Apple Faithful Prepare to Not Be Dazzled

If you're looking for an extravaganza on the scale of last month's new iPhone unveiling, chances are you won't find it at Apple's "Way Too Long" event to be held Thursday in the Town Hall auditorium at its Cupertino headquarters.

"This will be a very low-key event," Gartner Research Vice President for Mobility Van L. Baker told TechNewsWorld. "They're always low-key when they happen on campus."
While no one knows for sure what Apple has up its sleeve, the consensus leading up to the event is that it will be refreshing its tablet and computer lines and releasing the prime-time version of its desktop operating system, OS X Yosemite. There's an outside chance it will upgrade its iPod line or Apple TV set top box.
"I don't expect any announcements from the event to be revolutionary," Jeff Orr, senior practice director for mobile devices at ABI Research, told TechNewsWorld. "I'm not expecting any major departures from the iterative process this time around."
What that probably means for the iPad is shaving off a few millimeters, upgrading to the A8 processor, sporting a new color (gold), tweaking the display's resolution and reflective qualities, and perhaps adding fingerprint recognition with TouchID.

iPad Air Pro

There have been rumors of a new larger iPad Air Pro with a 12.9-inch display, but "I don't think we're going to see a larger iPad," Orr said. "It's a very small market as it is, and it's an area where Apple would not be adding distinct capabilities. For a larger iPad, you'd want to see something more than just a larger screen size."
An iPad Pro would be very much a specialty product, noted Bob O'Donnell, founder and chief analyst at Technalysis Research.
"More and more companies are going to have to make specialized devices. This large iPad is going to be a good example of that," he told TechNewsWorld. "In general, it's getting harder and harder for companies to do general purpose devices that everyone wants. You're going to start seeing more and more specialization and focus going on moving forward."
Another driver behind a bigger iPad could be Apple's new good buddy IBM.
"I think, given the IBM deal, which signifies a stronger push into the enterprise, a larger iPad would be a faster way into the enterprise than the Mac," Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business for Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, told TechNewsWorld.

New 5K iMac?

On the Mac side of things, a new 27-inch iMac with a 5K retina display could be in the offing, as well as a more powerful MacBook and even a new Mac mini.
There have been rumors of a refresh of the MacBook Air, which would add a 12-inch Retina display model and completely reimagine the unit's design, but those rumors have been losing steam as the event draws nearer.
While Apple is spreading the footprint of Touch ID, it could decide to add it to its Macs as well.
"A huge portion of online purchases are still made on PCs," O'Donnell explained, "so it might make sense for them to do that."
Possibly making sense doesn't mean it will rise to must-have status, though.
"I do not think Touch ID is as necessary on a Mac as it is on iPhones and iPads, where speed of access plays a role in the way we use those devices," Milanesi said.
TouchID could make a Mac a more attractive corporate buy, though.
"It could be interesting as an extra layer of security in the enterprise environment," Milanesi noted.
To go along with the new Mac models, Apple is expected to release OS X Yosemite, which, among other things, allows Apple users to work on projects across its mobile and desktop products.
Since the theme of the event is "way too long," two other Apple products have been connected to Thursday's happening: Apple TV and the iPod touch.
"Apple TV continues to be enhanced by announcing more partners and things, but I'm not expecting any significant announcements any time soon," Baker said.
"The iPod touch is a declining business," he added. "The only question about iPods is when does it cease to make sense for Apple to be in that business, because the unit volume keeps going down and down."

India won’t make first move to lower tension along Pakistani border

NEW DELHI: India is in no mood to make the first move to de-escalate border tension with cross-border firing that began over two weeks ago continuing intermittently, according to top government sources.

In fact, the present strategy is to return Pakistani fire aggressively instead of considering any resumption of talks with Pakistan any time soon, it is learnt. Bilateral dialogue with Pakistan looks distant at the moment, said the sources, with New Delhi putting the blame on Islamabad for not allowing the atmospherics to be created for talks, by its continuous violation of the ceasefire.

Apart from adopting the staid old tactic of pushing in terrorists through the international border and line of control (LoC) under the cover of cross-border fire to divert the attention of Indian security forces, the government has received reports that the border offensive by the Pakistani army has the backing of Islamabad.

The fact that 18 infiltrators were killed by the Indian forces between the floods in Jammu & Kashmir and now is being seen as a typical evidence of the usual practice by the Pakistani army to push in terrorists if the winter snow sets up on the mountain passes.


(With no signs of any let up in the offensive from either side, the possibility of de-escalation seems dim.)

Government sources said the border offensive is a part of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's strategy to internationalize the Kashmir issue and keep its domestic audience engaged at a time when he is faced with troubles at home with political rivals like Imran Khan going after the establishment and the economy in bad shape. It's to keep the volatile domestic situation from blowing up on Sharif's face that the government in Islamabad has been backing the border tensions, sources said.

Defence minister Arun Jaitley is also being constantly updated, it is learnt. On the back of these inputs from various government agencies, Jaitley had said last week that the offensive will become "unaffordable" for Pakistan.

RTE effect: 26% drop in number of out-of-school kids since 2009

NEW DELHI: In a vindication of sorts for the Right to Education Act, the latest HRD ministry-mandated survey shows a 26 per cent drop in out-of-school children in the country since 2009.

According to the latest survey conducted by Indian Market Research Bureau for the ministry, out-of-school (OoS) children have declined to 60.6 lakh — 2.97 per cent of all children in the 6-14 age group — from 81.5 lakh in 2009. In the first survey of 2005, 1.34 crore children were out of school.

Interestingly, there were less girls (28.9 lakh) out of school than boys (31.6 lakh). In fact, girls have consistently done better than boys in all three surveys. A survey of OoS slum children was done for the first time and it their number was found to be 4.73 lakh.

The survey found a continuing drop in the number of OoS children among scheduled castes and Muslims. Among tribal OoS children, the drop was marginal — from 10.69 lakh in 2009 to 10.07 lakh in 2014.


Schoolchildren in a Mumbai school. (TOI file photo by Anahita Mukherji)

In terms of social classes, the number of SC out-of-school (OoS) children have come down to 19.66 lakh from 23.08 lakh in 2009 and 31.04 lakh in 2005.

In the latest survey found there were 15.57 lakh Muslim OoS children, down from 18.75 lakh in 2009 and 22.53 lakh in 2005.



While states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Delhi, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal witnessed a decline in the OoS children, in 13 states and Union Territories percentage of such children has increased since 2009.

These include Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Uttarakhand.



What dampens the good work of RTE is that the decline in OoS disabled children has followed a different trajectory. In 2005, 5.82 lakh disabled children were out of school which went up to 9.88 lakh in 2009 and in the latest round has come down to 6 lakh.



Sources said it could be due to inclusion of more kinds of mental and physical disabilities in the list so that RTE becomes more inclusive. But there is a general acknowledgement that a lot needs to be done on this front.

Ebola Puts a Dedicated Nurse Unaccustomed to the Spotlight in Its Glare

Dallas:  Nina Pham spends her days in isolation inside the same hospital where she contracted the Ebola virus working as a critical care nurse. She discusses her care plans with doctors, said a friend who has corresponded with her. She reads, video-chats with her family and keeps in touch with friends through text messages and emails.

"She's hopeful and just resting," said the friend, Jennifer Joseph, who until recently worked with Pham at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. "Not letting the media and all this overwhelm her. She's just having some time to herself, to be able to read and relax."

Joseph called Pham, 26, a conscientious and careful nurse who double-checked her charts and never seemed to make a mistake, a description that deepens the mystery of how a nurse garbed in gloves, mask and other protective gear contracted the disease from a Liberian man who died last week of Ebola. On Monday, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that Pham's positive test for Ebola over the weekend had prompted the agency to "substantially" rethink how it approaches infection control for health officials.

Frieden also apologized for the wording of his comments of a day earlier, in which he suggested that the nurse had apparently breached safety protocol at the hospital. On Monday, Frieden said he had not meant to give the impression he was blaming Pham - whom he did not identify by name - for contracting Ebola.

Pham's diagnosis fanned fears among hospital workers and raised questions about how the authorities have been monitoring health care workers like Pham, who treated or came into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian Ebola victim.

Officials have said that Pham felt a low-grade fever overnight Friday, and apparently drove herself to the emergency room at Presbyterian, where she was admitted and put into isolation 90 minutes later. Officials say she is in stable condition.

Since local officials announced her positive test for Ebola early Sunday, the news has resonated through circles of friends who worked with Pham or studied nursing with her at Texas Christian University, and through the Vietnamese community in Fort Worth, where she grew up.

In interviews and news reports, friends have described her as a compassionate and caring nurse who loved her job, was grounded by her Catholic faith and cherished her King Charles spaniel, Bentley, named for her old neighborhood.

A Dallas city spokeswoman has said that the city would care for Pham's dog. (Read)

In photos from friends and family and her now-deactivated Facebook account, Pham is invariably smiling - posing with a friend on a trip to Boston, sitting outside at a cafe or taking a selfie while her dog nuzzles her.

"She's able to make friends in any setting, any scenario," Joseph said. "She has a contagious laugh."

The daughter of political refugees from Vietnam, she grew up in the Bentley Village subdivision of Fort Worth, in a large red-brick home that her family built in the mid-1990s, said a next-door neighbor, Jim Maness. Neighbors said the family was exceedingly private and quiet, and they saw Pham only when she was walking her dog, or coming and going from home in a car emblazoned with stickers from Texas Christian University.

Pham attended the accelerated nursing program at Texas Christian in Fort Worth, and graduated in 2010.

Ashlee Mitchell, a friend from college, said she bonded almost instantly with Pham as they took classes together. Not long after they met, she said, "We were best friends."

On Sunday, the university sent an email to students letting them know that "a TCU nursing alum" had received an Ebola diagnosis, but said she had not been on campus recently, and asked the community to keep her in their prayers.

Pham and her family were active at Our Lady of Fatima, a largely Vietnamese Roman Catholic church, said Tom Ha, the church's education director. Because the family prizes its privacy, he said, congregants are meeting in small groups, rather than large gatherings, to pray for Pham.

Christina Mykahnh Hoang, another church member, said Pham's mother had simply asked friends "to continue to pray."

Ha said Pham's family had not been overly worried about her risk of exposure at Presbyterian, and had been stunned by the news. Her family could not be reached for comment, and have said almost nothing publicly.

"They did not have a concern when the daughter was working with the patient of Ebola," Ha said. "Once they got the news that their daughter caught it, the family was totally shocked. Many Vietnamese-Americans do not know much about the disease. They really don't have a concrete idea of what it is, so people are very confused about it."

Mitchell, Pham's college friend, said the two spoke only fleetingly about her work at the epicenter of Ebola in the United States. Duncan was treated on Pham's unit, Mitchell said in a brief telephone interview Sunday, but Pham had said that only "at one point in time did she have him."

Immersed in such high-stakes work, the two friends tried to steer their conversations toward happier subjects.

"When we talk, we try not to talk about work," said Mitchell, who lives in Colorado. "We didn't talk about the Ebola incident."

To Joseph, Pham was both a great nurse and great friend. She said Pham helped her get oriented at Presbyterian, and during their 12-hour shifts together, taught her "how to become the nurse I am today." Frequently, when thinking about a patient, Pham would ask herself, "What would I do if this was my mom, dad or grandparent?" Joseph said.

She said she feels confident that Pham is getting the best treatment possible and will pull through, and said her work treating a man infected with a deadly disease that has spread fear and paranoia across this city exemplified her commitment to her profession and compassion for people in need.

"We have heroes that are willing to make sacrifices when no one else will," Joseph wrote in an email. "Because I know for a fact the she would take care of him again."

© 2014, The New York Times News Service

New Park Avenue Tower Is Tallest, if Not the Fairest, of Them All

New York:  When viewers tune in to "The Tonight Show" these days, besides Jimmy Fallon's huge smile and the Afro of his bandleader, Questlove, they are met by a remarkably realistic Manhattan skyline.

There is the cityscape on a curtain, of course - a staple of late-night television since Johnny Carson was on the air - but also 37 wooden models behind Fallon's desk. And not just of familiar landmarks like the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, but less obvious ones, too, including the Hearst Tower, the Pier 17 mall and the Maritime Hotel.

Yet one building is missing that is impossible to miss, and not only from Fallon's offices at Rockefeller Center but just about everywhere in New York City: 432 Park Ave.

On Friday, the 104-unit condominium tower, between 56th and 57th streets, reached its peak of 1,396 feet. At 96 stories, it is arguably the tallest building in the city. One World Trade Center has its spire, but the skyscraper itself is 28 feet shorter than 432 Park. As for the Empire State Building, this new 93-foot-by-93-foot concrete megalith bests it by nearly 150 feet. From the living room of 432 Park's penthouses, it is possible to look down on the observation deck there, flash bulbs glittering like an oversize chandelier.

But even more than the views from the apartments, it may be the views of them that give 432 Park its allure. From Central Park, Park Avenue or Park Slope, there it is. On the George Washington Bridge or Long Island Expressway, there it is. In the bleachers at MetLife Stadium or Citi Field, there it is. Everyone from cinematographers and muralists to tourists and snow globe makers must now contend with the tower.

"It's almost like the Mona Lisa," Harry B. Macklowe, the developer building the $1.3 billion tower, said at a topping-out ceremony on Friday for 1,500 construction workers. "Except instead of it looking at you, you're looking at it wherever you are. You can't escape it."

Not that everyone agrees the building, developed with the CIM Group, based in Los Angeles, is a work of art.

"God, does it stand out," said Marlene Rosenthal, who regularly glimpses it while riding Metro-North. "It's a status symbol, and that's the name of the game in this city."

There can be no doubt the skyline has changed, yet New Yorkers are less sure whether it has changed for better or worse. Some are awed by the slender, omnipresent obelisk, its perfect symmetries, an undeniable feat of engineering; others are repulsed by its dimensions, both physical and financial, where units cost as much as $95 million, an undeniable feat of excess.

"For people who watch the skyline and love it, I think there's a real struggle," said Vin Cipolla, president of the Municipal Art Society. "There's a handsomeness about the building you can't deny, but it's so out of context and so imposing, it's hard to know what to make of it."

His group has urged City Hall to more closely monitor these supertowers. A dozen others are already in the works throughout Manhattan.

The monuments in New York, unlike those in London, Paris and Washington, have always been its tall buildings. This one is no different.

For the first three centuries, it was a pair of churches, Collegiate and Trinity. Then came the World Building, Manhattan Life Insurance, Park Row and Woolworth, emblems of the city's business and media might. The Empire State Building, constructed in 410 days, showed hardworking beauty and recessionary resolve. The World Trade Center, both original and resurrected, built as a symbol of defiance that the city would be great again.

And now, with more than half of the 104 condos sold, including the $95 million penthouse and the cheapest units starting at $7 million, 432 Park proves that that skyline is for sale.

Whoever said money can't buy happiness has never been inside an apartment 1,300 feet above a bustling metropolis.

Yet even if those apartments are out of reach, it is only a matter of time before anyone can buy one - albeit on a postcard or a plate at Fishs Eddy. Movie and advertising backdrops also seem inevitable. Snow globes and other knickknacks might be slower to incorporate 432 Park.

"Unless it becomes a part of the lexicon or the public consciousness of New York, I don't see it becoming a big souvenir," said Nathan Harkrader, a co-founder of NYCwebstore.com, an online souvenir shop. "This has to be something people in Atlanta, Chicago or Las Vegas are going to recognize and know."

And so the producers of "The Tonight Show" have yet to decide whether to include 432 Park in their skyline. The New York Mets have ruled out adopting it in their logo, a spokesman said, and the same goes for the badge of the Fire Department.

Tony Malkin, whose family has controlled the Empire State Building since 1961, said he would not add 432 Park to the interactive displays on its observation decks, which help visitors identify the skyline. "It's medieval," Malkin said. "That's where towers come from, the Middle Ages. The wealthy built them for protection and isolation from the city below."

Fortresses can still be seductive, though. For Demid Lebedev, a 17-year-old daredevil who posts his exploits on Instagram, 432 Park was his Everest. One day, after watching the tower grow, he and a friend decided, "We need to get up there," he wrote in an email. "When we made our way up to the crane I believe we were around the 90th floor and it was incredible! We were literally above the clouds. I can't really compare it to any other building." His photos received thousands of views online, and he received a visit from police detectives a few days later but was not arrested, Lebedev said.

Such reactions are what inspired Macklowe to build 432 Park, he said, which is unlikely to be overshadowed anytime soon, thanks to its location at the edge of Midtown.

What surprised him was any criticism of his building as ugly or uninspired. "If somebody thinks a 1,400-foot building is boring, well, I just don't get that," he said. To those who find it crass, he pointed to the hundreds of workers building and soon operating the tower: "A lot of guys have come up to me today and said, 'Thank you. Because of this building, I can afford my own house.'??"

It just won't be one down the street.

If Manhattan has truly become a playground for the rich, here is its new beacon.

© 2014, The New York Times News Service