Saturday, December 26, 2009

Actuatr

a model of simplicity


Application Gallery - NYC BigApps






Ride the City

Jordan A., Brooklyn
Data Set(s) used: LION centerline data
Ride the City helps bicyclists find safe bike routes in major cities. Like MapQuest, Google Maps, and other mapping applications, Ride the City finds the shortest distance between two points, with a difference. First, Ride the City avoids roads that aren't meant for biking,... [read more]


Spokes NYC
Matt A., Brooklyn
Data Set(s) used: LION: single line street base map GIS: MapInfo Table, CITYRACKS: City Bicycle Parking Racks
Spokes NYC is a free iPhone application (available here) for New York City cyclists. It generates ideal bike routes with turn by turn directions for cyclists within city limits. Other features include a bike rack locator, bike shop locator, and the ability to report thefts from a... [read more]


Website http://www.8bstudio.net
Video of Applicationhttp://www.screencast.com/t/ZjliNjQyY

NYC.ByCycle.info
Adam C., NYC
Data Set(s) used: cityracks.kml - a list of bike racks installed
NYC.ByCycle.info allows users to locate the nearest bike racks to their current detected location or a specified address. Bikers can save time and ensure their bike's safety by using this tool.
Website http://nyc.bycycle.info

Saturday, December 19, 2009

NCIIA 14th Annual Conference | NCIIA

NCIIA 14th Annual Conference | NCIIA: "NCIIA 14th Annual Conference

NCIIA 14th Annual Conference







Matychak, X and J. Schull:  Collaborative Innovation Program
a creative conspiracy for cross-college collaboration at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. March 25, 2010.





Mayavi User Guide — Mayavi v3.3.1 documentation

Mayavi User Guide — Mayavi v3.3.1 documentation:

Welcome. This is the User Guide for Mayavi (version 3.3.1), the scientific data visualization and 3D plotting tool in Python.

Mayavi banner

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor - A Fish Oil Story - NYTimes.com

Op-Ed Contributor - A Fish Oil Story - NYTimes.com:

"For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year."

Paul Greenberg is the author of the forthcoming “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.”


The Best Walking Partner: Man vs. Dog - Well Blog - NYTimes.com

The Best Walking Partner: Man vs. Dog - Well Blog - NYTimes.com:
Is walking with man’s best friend better than walking with man?Suzanne DeChillo/The New York TimesA dog will never try to talk you out of going for a walk.
Flawed study (because subjects were self-selected) but great caption, and probably a real phenomenon.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

CYCLING: Rochester: an emerging world-class cycling spot - News Articles - Rochester City Newspaper

CYCLING: Rochester: an emerging world-class cycling spot - News Articles - Rochester City Newspaper
CYCLING: Rochester: an emerging world-class cycling spot

Andrew Dollard, Gary Young, and Frank Regan, all members of the Rochester Cycling Alliance. PHOTO BY MATT DETURCK


One way to make the region more bicycle-friendly is for municipalities to make sure they connect existing trails and trail segments. Over the past decade or so there has been progress, DeSarra says.The Erie Canal trail and the Genesee Valley Greenway are examples; they even connect to each other. But there's still work to be done on those trails, such as making more connections or offering better markings.

The Greenway, combined with the Genesee Riverway, provides a straight shot from RIT to downtown, says Jon Schull, an RIT professor who's involved in bicycling-related projects at the school. The Greenway and Riverway are actually the most direct way to get from RIT to downtown. And the University or Rochester is along the way.

Students could live downtown "without having to worry about cars and parking and all of that," Schull says. "So I see that as a real transportation innovation that could make a difference."

The Greenway and the Erie Canal trail are not complete or connected in certain parts, mostly in lesser-populated areas. If they were, those paths could be useful to commuters, Dollard says. They could act as a bicycle highway from outlying areas into the city.

On a broader scale, there's the potential to connect trails from Lake Ontario and the City of Rochester to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, via 230 miles of trails, including the Genesee Riverway Trail and the Genesee Valley Greenway. The only hurdle is a few short gaps and one 20-mile gap that need to be connected, Schull says.

And that doesn't even touch on the cycling opportunities that are available in the Finger Lakes region, east of the Greenway. Bike-based scenic tours and wine country tours are already popular.

(read the rest)

Ever confused, cyclist Jon Schull leads the way

High Falls is a stunning natural landmark and attraction in downtown Rochester, but to people bicycling through the city on the Genesee Riverway Trail, there's no clear, marked way to get there. Cyclist Jon Schull says that he takes a different route each time because he doesn't know the best way to go.

"We are already one of the best bicycling destinations in the world, but no one is telling that story," says Schull, a member of the newly formed Rochester Cycling Alliance, an advocacy group. "And if you were going to tell that story, you'd want to take care of a few embarrassments, like what's the right way to ride to High Falls? And how do I get from High Falls back on the trail that will take me up to Seneca Park and Lake Ontario?"

Schull is one of several people trying to hammer home just how close the Rochester region is to becoming a world-class cycling destination.

(more...)

Sunday, December 13, 2009

AJAX APIs Playground

AJAX APIs Playground

AJAX APIs Playground

Extreme Programming Roadmap

Extreme Programming Roadmap

Specific ExtremeProgramming practices:Results in...

Main Page - InfoVis:Wiki

Main Page - InfoVis:Wiki





Thursday, November 12, 2009

iPhone turned into interactive children's book – Apple / Mac Software Updates, News, Apps | Geek.com

iPhone turned into interactive children's book – Apple / Mac Software Updates, News, Apps | Geek.com

Video to Panorama

Panoramas are neat.

Taking lots of stills and stitching them together is tedious.

But in one continuous pirouette, you can make a video that contains a panorama.

So I want a tool that will take a short video taken while turning in a circle and convert it into a panoramic photo.

The preceding links may be the ingredients (for a python programmer like me).

Stitch Panorama

Stitch Panorama: a GIMP Plug-in

Stich Panorama is a plug-in for the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) which takes digital images and overlays one atop the other to make a panorama. With multiple applications of Stitch Panorama, any number of images can be combined into a large panorama. Features include image blending, color balance, and distortion matching. The above image was stitched together from four separate images. Try it yourself, the images are in the example directory.

The Stich Panorama plug-in gives give you a lot of control over how the final panorama is stitched together. You select the features to correlate in the images, how the blending is to be done, and how the colors are to be matched. Extensive control over the final panorama was a major design goal. There are other, more automated, tools available (see below), but I prefer to have as much control as possible over the stitching process. The final panorama uses a rectilinear projection, well suited to panoramas that do not cover an excessive field-of-view. However, the rectilinear projection will not work well for panoramas that cover a full 360 degrees.

Stich Panorama is written in the Python language and requires that your GIMP has python support compiled in.

Extract Still Image Sequences from Video Clips with AVCutty - Digital Inspiration

Extract Still Image Sequences from Video Clips with AVCutty - Digital Inspiration: "� AVCutty can export the entire movie or a part of the video to a series of bitmaps or picture frames which can later be printed as creating Flipbooks - a book of still images where you just flip the pages quickly and some animation appears to play."

PyMedia - Python module for avi, mp3, dvd, wma, ogg processing - pymedia

PyMedia - Python module for avi, mp3, dvd, wma, ogg processing - pymedia


PyMedia is a Python module available on Linux, Windows and cygwin and features the following:

  • Encode/decode audio compressed streams. The following formats are available:
    • MP3,MP2
    • WMA( v1 and v2 )
    • AC3
    • OGG( optional with vorbis library )
    • AAC( optional with faad library )
  • Encode/decode video compressed streams. The following formats supported:
    • AVI( divx, xvid ), generic file format, carrying many possible streams
    • ASF( wmv1/2 ), generic file format, carrying many possible streams
    • MPEG1,2( VCD, SVCD, DVD compatible )
  • Sound output through the OSS / Waveout. Mutlichannel for digital output.
  • Sound input through the OSS / Wavein.
  • Sound mixer manipulation, list all lines, set/get values of every line.
  • Sound manipulation classes such as SpectrAnalyzer, Resampler.
  • Video manipulation to convert video frames between YUV and RGB formats
  • Direct CD/DVD ROM access to read audio/video tracks in a raw format.
    This way you can play Audio, DVD and Video CDs using the same interface.

Visit the documentation section to find out more on interface.

You may also take a look at examples directory in tarball distribution or just browse the tutorial to have more confidence on what you can do with PyMedia.

Download the recent tarball from here.



Saturday, November 07, 2009

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Fwd: Greenride Organizing Committee

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <bradfreeman@frontiernet.net>
Date: Sun, Oct 18, 2009 at 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: Greenride Organizing Committee
To: Jon Schull <jschull@gmail.com>
Cc: Ricardo Louis <rlouis.engineer@gmail.com>


Jon and Ricardo-

What a lovely afternoon for a ride on the Greenway!

If the purpose of this whole event is to raise awareness of the trail,
you've caused at least one new person to ride it. I'd ridden many times before from Genesee Valley Park to downtown, but had never ridden out to RIT before on the Lehigh Valley Trail. It makes RIT seem a whole lot closer to downtown then I'd ever thought before. It's a nice ride even with road tires!

There are a dozen flyers in page protectors along the trail now. They are mostly attached to Genesee River Trail signs and the gates at road intersections on the Lehigh Valley Trail. Some pictures are attached.

Please let me know if there's anything else that I can help you with in getting ready for Saturday. I plan to drive out to RIT on Saturday morning and ride the round trip, set up a table for R Community Bikes, and hang out at the event until it's over.

See you then!

Brad

Thursday, October 08, 2009

Rochester GreenRide Oct 24 Downtown Library to RIT and the Rochester Bicycle Summit


Greetings,

I'm writing to alert you to an event that should be of interest to bicyclists and environmentalists throughout the Greater Rochester area.

Saturday, October 24th will mark
350.org's International Day of Climate Action and the end of a week of climate action teach-ins at RIT. The culminating event in Rochester will be a mass bike ride along the proposed Rochester Greenway. The Rochester Greenway goes south from Downtown along the river, past the University of Rochester, through the Genessee Valley Park, and on down the Lehigh Valley North Trail to RIT. The draft GreenRide poster sketches the route.

Once at RIT, the Rochester Bike Summit will be held in the new Center for Student Innovation. Its goal: to discuss a number of exciting bicycle and alternative transportation initiatives, and to make connections between the bicycle community, city planners, and environmentalists. We might also consider the need for a "common cause" organization that could help these initiatives become realities. For more information, see the draft Rochester Bicycle Ecology Poster (attached), and look for details coming soon to
RochesterGreenway.org. Your input and projects would be most welcome additions!

Among the attractions planned for the Rochester Cycle Summit
  • volunteer-manned stations for free bicycle maintenance
  • exhibits on pedal power and bicycles as energy-conservation solutions
  • posters and exhibits describing numerous bike initiatives
  • an ultra-wide screen short describing the potential for making Rochester a world class center for recreational and functional transport
  • free rides on electric bikes and recumbents
  • · your bike shop, project, or proposal!
We'd like your help shaping the event and recruiting participants. The attached materials are still evolving, but time is short. Please pass this message on to others who would be interested, and let me know, how you or your organization would like to be involved.

Jon Schull schull@digitalgoods.com cell: 585-738-6696
Associate Professor Rochester Institute of Technology
http://innovation.rit.edu


Sunday, October 04, 2009

epost

This is emailed from gmail 

Shared from jon schull: ask jonschull.----@blogger.com This is typed from reqa

it would seem that ANYONE can email to my blog?
reQall Logo

jon schull created this reQall reminder for you:

ask jonschull.-----@blogger.com This is typed from reqall on the web, aimed at jonschull.blogspot

So, what can you do now?

  1. You can select "reply" and write a response to the sender if they've included their address in the reply-to line (reQall ignores your reply).
  2. You can learn more about reQall and see why jon schull is using reQall to remember all the important things in life.
  3. You can manually add this task to your calendar or to-do list. If you were a reQall Pro user this reminder could be added automatically to your reQall To-Do list and your Outlook or Google Calendar.
What's reQall?

reQall is a voice-enabled productivity application that is a:
  • task manager
  • reminder service
  • memory aid

reQall is easy to use and you don't need to download any software to use it—although we do offer downloadable versions for the iPhone and BlackBerry.

We hope you'll learn more about reQall and sign up today.

Transcribed by:
Transcribed by Yap & reQall
If this reminder includes a specific time, it is based on the sender's time zone. (We'd love to send you reminders based on your time zone - just sign up to be a reQall user and tell us your time zone.) If this reminder includes a specific due date/time, you may receive another reminder just prior to that due date/time, depending on the preferences of the sender.


If you don't know this sender or do not want to receive reQall emails from them, please report it.

©2009 reQall Inc. reQall is patent pending technology and is a trademark of reQall Inc. www.reqall.com

Saturday, October 03, 2009

Voice Memo from Jon Schull, 6:54 PM

Audio File attached
Sat Oct 3 18:54:45 EDT 2009
Just 'Say it & Mail it'

Google Map Location
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=+43.1487,-77.5723

ultralight documentation

I'm looking for the most lightweight system for documenting what's going on the Innovation Center.

I'd like to be able to take a picture or video, add a voice annotation and/or text, send it to the web and see the post with the voice annotation transcribed. (Is that asking so much?)

I can't figure out how to mash that up (see below), but what I can do with my iphone easily is upload video to youtube (with narration say) and later do easy "captions" in the form of annotations and even swap in a sound track...all from within youtube on the web.

like this:





Below are the approaches I explored before deciding the above is as good as it's likely to get.

For example there's a neat $1.99 iphone app called "Say It and Mail It" that makes it easy to attach a voice recording and a photo (and a map) to a single email message.
Now what about transcripts?
  • I can call reqall and get a transcript back by email
  • but I can't send the voice recording to reqall
  • --I might be able to finesse that by playing the voice recording through skype, but I can't get reqall to accept the skype call (though this reportedly can be done).





Thursday, October 01, 2009

Music Apps Blur the Gap Between You and Clapton - NYTimes.com

Music Apps Blur the Gap Between You and Clapton - NYTimes.com:

There’s something about an iPhone music app. For musicians, it’s like having an instrument in your pocket. For nonmusicians, it’s a way to coax sounds -- often programmed to stay on key no matter what note one actually plays -- out of what may be the only instrumentlike device they ever pick up.

Jennifer Daniel

A main goal for many of these apps’ developers is to introduce nonmusical people to music, and musical people to different kinds of music. And when taken less as a serious instrument and more as a sampler for the wide world of music, these devices are wildly successful.

...

Many musical apps offer the ability to record a track, then add layers on top of it. Doing this between disparate apps is impossible without external recording software, but a multi-instrumental app like Moocow’s Band gives novices the opportunity to record and edit tracks with drums, bass and guitar, and make sure it all sounds pretty good (even if one doesn’t know how to play a lick of music). It’s as much a game as Guitar Hero, only instead of trying to keep up with prerecorded music, the goal is to make music of one’s own.


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

ETH - Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation - Videos & Simulations

ETH - Chair of Sociology, in particular of Modeling and Simulation - Videos & Simulations

The outbreak of cooperation among success-driven individuals under noisy conditions

This is the supplementary webpage to the publication on The Outbreak of Cooperation in PNAS.

pnas_cover
Description of cover figure: Illustration of self-organized pattern formation in migration games. The snapshot, taken after 200 time steps, shows the outcome of the spatial interaction of mobile individuals, who strategically interact with their four nearest neighbors and copy the strategy of their most successful neighbor. The simulation assumes that individuals earn no payoff, if they meet individuals who use the same strategy, while their outcome is positive, if interacting with individuals using another strategy. Strategy 1 is represented by blue disks, strategy 2 by red disks. A change to strategy 2 in the last time step is indicated in green, a change to strategy 2 by yellow. White spaces are empty. Individuals perform success-driven migration, i.e. they move to empty locations with a higher expected payoff. The maximum migration distance in one time step was assumed to be 5. Starting with uniformly distributed strategies, one observes an agglomeration of individuals, and individuals with different strategies mix. This is to be distinguished from the migratory dynamics in other spatial games, which lead to segregation patterns, for example, as studied by Nobel prize winner Thomas Schelling. For animated videos see http://www.soms.ethz.ch/migrationgames.



Your mind is a great place to have ideas, but a terrible place to manage them.

--David Allen (Getting Things Done)

Monday, September 07, 2009

Vimeo - Video Embed Loop

Product Planner Vimeo - Video Embed Loop

This looks like a very useful product for interaction designers.

Video Embed Loop
View more Vimeo user flows.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Almost Lawnmower Man:

Almost Lawnmower Man: Introducing the Vuzix iWear VR920

VR920Details:http://www.vuzix.com/iwear/products_vr920.html

INTRODUCTION

I was quite excited a few months ago when I stumbled across the Vuzix VR920, a lightweight set of virtual reality eye glasses with dual hi-res displays. The amount of features packed into the three ounce package is really impressive:

  • dual 640 x 480 VGA progressive scan LCDs with a 32 degree field (scales to 1024×768)
  • head tracking
  • built in microphone
  • dual speakers
  • USB powered
  • nVidia stereo driver support

Most importantly for us, it supports Second Life, as well as World of Warcraft, and a suite of games. The Second Life support is currently not native, but works well with mouselook mode, as I demonstrate in the video below. Vuzix was kind enough to loan me one to test out with Second Life and is actively seeking enterprising developers who may be interested in helping develop native Second Life support for the device. The VR920 is the first device that supports immersive three dimensional graphics, head tracking, as well as microphone and audio all in one device.

VIDEO DEMONSTRATION

In the video below, you can look over my shoulder and see what I am seeing.

...

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Saturday, July 18, 2009

SketchUp Plugins: Creating Tensile Like Structures - CAD Addict

SketchUp Plugins: Creating Tensile Like Structures - CAD Addict

SketchUp Plugins: Creating Tensile Like Structures

Learn about a Plugin that will allow you too create Curved Tensile-like surfaces.
Català - Castellano
Soap Skin Bubble is a Plugin developed by Josef Leibinger intended to represent tensile like structures.
The truth is that as you will learn with some practice, it is a tool to create almost any curved surface based on it´s profiles. THe plugin includes a Flash animation that I am includingbelow and that quickly shows some of the features of this Plugin.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

CenterLines #229

CenterLines #229

NEW YORK CITY: BIKING UP, CRASHES DOWN

-> According to the June 4th Transportation Alternatives' StreetBeat, "New data now reveals that there are 185,000 daily cyclists in New York City, an increase of more than one third from just four years ago. This staggering surge is not only a testament to the infrastructure improvements that have been implemented in the last couple of years, but also a contributing factor to the increased safety of cyclists throughout the city.

"It's a well established fact that for bikers there is safety in numbers. With more cyclists out and about, more drivers are accustomed to sharing the road. In fact, cycling in New York City is safer now than it has been at any time in recent memory, so spread the word and hit the streets..."

Source: http://tinyurl.com/lya7sv


Smart Growth America

Smart Growth America
New report: 120 days of stimulus spending
Within the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law in February, Congress provided states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) with $26.6 billion in flexible funds for transportation projects. The first half of the funding was to be committed within 120 days, by Monday, June 29th.

Despite a multitrillion dollar backlog of roadway and bridge repairs throughout the

country, almost a third of the money — more than $6.6 billion — was committed to new

capacity roads and bridges rather than to repair and other preservation projects.

The nation is growing, and many areas need substantial improvements in connectivity. Many

places will need additional roadway capacity. However, given the enormous roadway and

bridge repair backlog, its costs in terms of vehicle repairs, its threat to human safety, and the

job‐creation advantages of roadway preservation projects, this magnitude of new

construction cannot said to be fulfilling the goals of the ARRA.


2. States generally failed to take advantage of a golden opportunity offered by the flexibility

in the STP to make progress on the huge public transportation backlog, and move

towards a more balanced transportation system.

Given the growing demand, the need for upgrading identified in the ASCE report, and the many

benefits of public transportation, the $189 million in STP funding allocated by the states so

far is grossly inadequate. Even when the dedicated, non‐STP funding for public transportation

is taken into consideration, commitments to transportation choice fall far short of the need.

The $600 million in STP funding commitments to non‐motorized transportation is better, but

also fails to meaningfully respond to the public’s need for more affordable and healthy

transportation options. This level of spending for bicycling and walking will have minimal

impact on the nation’s stock of bicycle and pedestrian routes, or on individual mobility.

3. We could get much more from our transportation spending, but the federal program


isn’t set up to ensure that we get the most from the money spent. With scarce resources,

large backlogs and increasing challenges, it’s an opportunity we can’t afford to waste.

The data make clear that with different funding choices, greater progress could have been

made combating climate change, increasing energy security, increasing mobility for elderly

and low income populations, and reducing the repair backlog. More jobs could have been

created, more quickly. However, the federal transportation program does not clearly

articulate what goals should be achieved with each tax dollar spent, nor how to compare

different spending options against those goals, nor how to ensure progress towards meeting

them. The result is wasted opportunity and money.


CenterLines #231

CenterLines #231

MAGAZINE NAMES WORLD'S TOP BICYCLING CITIES

-> According to an article in the July issue of Travel + Leisure, "The humble bicycle has been seeing a resurgence with commuters and city dwellers around the world. From Amsterdam to Perth, Australia, people bank on the premise of bicycles as low polluting, cost effective, and a healthy way to move about. They're also faster than cars in many cities...

"For travelers, bikes offer an intimate way to see a city. You can coast along a canal in Amsterdam, or pedal uphill for arguably the best view in Montreal on the twisting road in Parc du Mont-Royal. In Paris, grab one of the 20,000 vehicles available at the Velib bike-rental stations around the city, which rent for less than $1.50 an hour. Checkout stations around the metropolis -- more than 1,000 in all—put a bike close by at all times...

"From the U.S. to Australia, across Europe and down in South America, people are choosing pedals instead of a car as the most efficient means to get around. So whether your plans include seeing the world on two wheels or just getting across town, read on for our list of the world's best biking cities and our tips on where to rent..."

The magazine's list of the top 10 bicycling cities include: Copenhagen, Portland (OR), Munich, Montreal, Perth, Amsterdam, Seattle, Paris, Minneapolis, and Bogota.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/lpbfyo
Archive search: use "Search" window
Archive cost: No
Title: "The World's Top Biking Cities"
Author: Stephen Regenold


Flatless Tires


http://www.schwalbetires.com/

Friday, July 03, 2009