I think because I don't spend evenings in the late spring and summer sulking in frustration over the limited daylight, this is the time of year when I feel most creative and when I get excited about possibilities.
Recently, I've been thinking more and more about the original map-meets-web idea, which, for lack of a better idea I called "terraarte". The idea is simple. Make maps art.
The first road block came when I realized I am not an artist.
But I worked on it.
I familiaraized myself with many of the tools I would need and scoured the WWW for images I could use. I began to do mockups. The first was this image of Angola. Despite some issues, I was happy that it "looked cool".
The next hiccup was getting an iPad which allowed me to ignore the fact that my home computer functionally croaked. As much as I rave about the device, it's not great for creating things such as, well, map art.
Soon I'll be remedying the latter of the two issues which unfortunately is probably the lesser of two weevils.
But some map art, combined with a swing at photography and historical integration is on its way.
I'm absolutely eating up all of this Osama (Fox: Usama) talk and simply must write one more post on the topic. For this post I'm going far beyond my area of expertise (hobby) and for that reason it's important you not allow facts, incorrect math or easily disproved thoughts to get in the way of the point- if you can decipher it. I would at this point insert the rules read by a member of the audience from "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" but I cannot, for the life of me, find the text. Curse you Google!
I have heard the phrase "hiding in plain sight" far too often this week, but it got me thinking about how common an occurance it must have been for random Google Earth users to unknowingly look at Osama's compound (and you know SOMEONE is looking into that data). The pictures we usually see of the compound show about a quarter square mile of area. So what are the odds of someone looking at this area or how long might it take to look through ALL of the Google Earth imagery at that scale?
I was reminded of the great Mr. DNA movie from Jurassic Park talking about the length of the human DNA sequence.
Google search delivered this time:
So the question is simple. Using Mr. DNA's logic, looking at screens as he described how long would it take to find the compound. This of course would only work if there was a picture of bin Laden on top of the compound ala Col. Sanders.
So if DNA has about 3 billion base pairs (don't worry I had to look it up too and am probably wrong despite it) reverse engineering leads us to a number of about 142 things being displayed per second...or as Mr. DNA says "screens like these".
142 things * 60 per minute * 60 per hour * 8 hours * 365 days * 2years. That was fun to figure out.
Let's use what we just learned.
Assuming we could comprehend 142 images of quarter square mile areas once a second (we've already skipped out on reality) for eight hours a day and just looked at areas covered by land. It would take us...
228000000/142/60/60/8/365 = .15 years or about two months.
One of the things I like about cable news is the "breaking news" aspect. Because they are on 24/7 they are better equipped to take on special news situations than network TV. It was very exciting to watch as the news rolled in last night. I was fascinated that while Geraldo was speculating that the Obama announcement involved Libya, CNN was taking great care not to speculate, all the while George Stephanopolous was zooming his way to ABC news headquarters and NBC was trying to figure out how to activate Brian Williams. Looks like Katie Couric missed out on her best opportunity to have a sound byte live on.
While it took all the energy I could muster to stay awake, I was excited about finding out where he has been hiding. Many times I've thought as I scan a map or google earth that I might be looking at the hiding place.
I never would have guessed it to be right in the burbs of Abbottabad (once I learned where it was). Most conspiracy theories drive me nuts (this morning on the radio someone said that Obama made the announcement when he did to interrupt "The Apprentice") but Pakistan looks pretty bad in this situation. The compound is too close to the central Pakistan Government area for comfort. It's as if we were looking for a DC area celebrity and couldn't find him for ten years, only to discover he was hiding in the luxury suites at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Add to this the proximity of the residence to a Pakistani military compound and the Google Earth imagery (and of course the fact that nobody thought this giant high security compound wasn't worth investigating) and, like I said, Pakistan looks bad.
The little black dot of Abbottabad just north of Islamabad seems awfully important today.
I have been spending some time over the last two weeks attempting to become more proficient at Google Sketchup. After familiarizing myself with how not to do things, I went back and watched a couple dozen videos on youtube. I found Aiden to be particularly helpful, in addition to the Google tutorials.
So I went and grabbed an image of the reported compound and through together a quick sketch model in about a minute.
And just like that - a recreation of a place which has proved to be much more important than anyone could have imagined.
With my marathon only four weeks away, the amount of time required for training is peaking. You'll have to forgive me but because of the time spent training it ends up being pretty much the only thing I talk about. This past Saturday was a 19 miler. A little over three hours of straight running. About the time my runs passed ten miles, the straight line urban runs turned extremely monotonous. I had become too accustomed to my route, both for my sanity and for my ability to grow as a runner. I knew exactly the places I could cheat, knew how to time the traffic lights if I was feeling tired, and barely ever had to deal with a hill.
Someone at work tipped me off to the >8 mile loop at Kensington Metropark. Last week I did the loop twice. This week I did two loops plus a spur out on a horse track.
When you're out there, on your own for that long, running, it really shapes the experience of your weekend. So much so that, when the question is asked, what I did this weekend, the default answer is simply "I ran".
Comedy break---
As I said to myself "Iran". I realized I must share this MAD TV classic.
The point is, runs this long become an experience and get you in touch with a certain Place.
The Kensington run exposes me to hills, unknowns, extreme winds and a challenge I can't find in my own back yard. Google says that there is only about an 80ft vertical range to the run but with all the hills throughout the course, it really begins to add up.
It doesn't look like much as a Google track, but it sure takes some effort!
Last year I was fortunate enough to be elected to the Eastern Michigan University Alumni Association Board of Directors. I'm required by law, well, a sheet that I signed, to state that my opinions are my own, and do not represent the Alumni board as a whole. Of course, I won't be mentioning anything disparaging here. My involvement with the group has brought to light some little known facts about the university that often falls within the shadow of the University of Michigan, just s few miles down the road.
Eastern Michigan's roots are as a teaching college. To this day it pumps out some of the best prepared elementary educators in the country. Despite some terrible press over the last 10 years over a murder cover up, and an extremely controversial new President's house and one of the worst runs in NCAA football history, EMU has built itself an impressive alumni base that is spreading quite literally around the world.
I took some data showing the location of the EMU alumni base and made a country map. I haven't included numbers because that's not really the point. I'm pleased to see that the near 150,000 living alumni seem to be making an impact all over the world. So while it's Easy to think of EMU as U of M's little sibling, were making quite a splash internationally.
Two places jumped out as me as real surprises, Angola and Swaziland. I never would have expected the amount of alumni in those areas. Time to investigate!
If you don't like it, wait five minutes - so the Michigan weather adage goes.
It's easy to get jealous of those sporting latitudes nearer to zero than myself. Most of us Michiganders (and most of us prefer that demonym), will point to the fact that we have four distinct seasons as a reason our state is so wonderful. We are the same people that ask "What happened to spring" when the weather jumps from 40 to the mid 80's in a few hours as it did Sunday.
The temperature swing happened as I was on a 15 mile run through, interestingly enough 6 different cities. Six different cities and 40 degrees in the course of a morning got me thinking about the extremes we see in Michigan, despite our moderate lat/long.
Temperature swings are one thing, time is another. We're "blessed" to use a daylight savings "system" causing us to jump between -4 and -5GMT and causing daylights swings so dramatic that the first hint of morning can be seen just eight hours after that last light of day in June. Winter, of course brings the depressing opposite, where 8 hours of real light causes many of us to wake up in the dark, drive to work in the dark and drive home in the dark. While light perks up any day, it's strange that work probably still isn't the "perkiest" time during a cold winter day. Fortunately, cabin fever is clearing up all over the state.
Now that we in the midwest are getting away from the penguin walk induced by long periods of cold air its almost nice to look back at all the extremes we in Michigan experience. Although, as far as running is concerned, we can postpone the 80 degree days another five weeks or so.
And we have funding for our wonderful tourism campaign.
Speaking of running, I have to figure out a 17 mile route for this weekend. I'm growing pretty tired of the area near my house and might actually have to drive-to-run, which I generally avoid, most often because of the short days we have in the winter and spring months! At least I'll have an opportunity to see something new!
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