No, they won’t get permission first

In 2011, I wrote a novella about a Silicon Valley startup that trains its virtual reality software from tourist photos it scrapes off the Internet. Millions of these photos are stitched together to create a virtual cable car ride across San Francisco.

This story became Everywhere Man, which was also recorded as an audiobook that you listened to while riding the actual, real-life cable cars. It was one of several literary tours that Oakland-based Invisible City Audio Tours offered. Their i...