Loosely Assembled » places

Embracing the Social Scatterplot

fekaylius — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 21:56:40 +0000

You have a checkin tool as part of your webservice, don’t be embarrassed, everyone does. You also don’t have to be shy about the fact that you are passing the user’s lat long over to Google, Yahoo, PublicEarth, or even foursquare, for a list of potential places they might be at, because, let’s face it, these place databases are not just growing on trees. It would make sense for you to pay attention to the coordinates sent over and which place the user ends up picking as “the place they are at”, to build up a user generated scatter plot of GPS points that might be used in future candidate offerings, but sometimes we all simply depend on the longevity of benevolence from our chosen API providers, no harm in that.

I think the only harm done in this situation would be to continue to assume that a Place has a singular, static, defined relationship to a cartographic framework. If we aspire to understand what Places people are talking about, as they connect to these places with a growing variety of devices and standards, we might do well to move from a vector based polygonal model to something more pointillist.

If we can establish an array of coordinates as the historical collection of points that have been used to define, or to reference, a Place, no matter how askew they may be from our sense of the real boundaries, then we can actually start talking about the same Place, regardless of each tiny, singular, gadget or app specific definition. This methodology is conceptually related to the common notion of subjectivity, in which we learn to understand from early childhood that a toy, or a person, or a Place, looks different from different perspectives, or as seen through different media. We eventually learn that we are talking about the same kitten, even if your photograph looks different from my drawing. The concept of the kitten is just a collection of all the successful references to the physical object. Even in the act of trying to capture, or document, that actual objective nature of the kitten, we are simply creating more subjective references to it. The need, and ability, to objectively define and describe a physical object only becomes increasingly ridiculous and futile the more one tries. The same can be said of Places. The harder we strive to objectively define exactly where a Place is, or what happens at a Place, or what category a Place falls into, the more we realize our measurements and descriptions add to the collage of data they are hoping to clean up.

It’s time to put down the minimalist fallacy of Place Objectivity, and embrace the polymorphic cloud of the Social Scatterplot for Subjective Place Definition.

photo from gps insight

Looking into the past

fekaylius — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:40:14 +0000

(Via Looking into the past: Market Street on Flickr – Photo Sharing!.)

About New York – No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest – NYTimes.com

fekaylius — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 06:20:59 +0000

“The cop wanted my ID, and I showed it to him,” Mr. Taylor said. “He told me I couldn’t take the pictures. I told him that’s not true, that the rules permitted it. He said I was wrong. I said, ‘I’m willing to bet your paycheck.’ ”

(Via About New York – No Photo Ban in Subways, Yet an Arrest – NYTimes.com.)

The Atlas of True Names

fekaylius — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 20:19:47 +0000

334 – The Atlas of True Names: “

Travellers, discoverers and cartographers have named the world around us so that we might find our way in it. The purpose of a place name, therefore, is to be as distinguishing as possible. But there is another, opposite force at work in toponymy: geographical and other similarities often lead to different places receiving similar names — even if these names are then modified by differences in language.The English city of Oxford and the Dutch city of Coevoorden (*) were named after river segments shallow enough to facilitate bovine transport.

This phenomenon becomes apparent when one digs up the ‘deep etymology’ of place names, as is done in The Atlas of True Names. The Atlas substitutes the original meanings of the world’s place names for the better-known, ossified toponyms. The authors of the Atlas, German cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Preust, have said their clever technique was inspired by the place names in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, some (but not all) of which are indeed quite direct. (’Mount Doom’ is grimly descriptive, but a name like ‘Lothlorien’ means diddly squat — unless you speak Elvish, of course).

The Atlas was first published in German as Der Atlas der wahren Namen, and in that version all the original etymologies are of course rendered in German. If like most people you are at least mildly conditioned by movies, literature and other media dealing with World War II to associate the German language with fascism, this ‘germanified’ version of the world is a bit disconcerting. London, for example, transmogrifies into ‘Hügelfest’, and nearby Norfolk is still recognisable but considerably more ominous as ‘Nordvolk’. Ethiopia becomes ‘Land der Brandgesichter’ and its capital Addis Abeba ‘Neue Blume’.

The more recently published English version of the Atlas presents us with an equally disorienting and sometimes revealing array of ‘original’ place names. Across the Irish Sea (or ‘West Land Sea’) from Blackpool lies another ‘Blackpool’, more commonly referred to as Dublin. ‘Trading Folks’ is none other than the Canadian capital of Toronto Ottawa. The British port of Plymouth is literally ‘Mouth of the Plum’, Brussels is ‘Marsh Cell’, and London’s ‘Hügelfest’ translates as ‘Hillfort’. Nicaragua is ‘Here are people’ and Newfoundland… remains ‘Newfoundland’, one of remarkably few place names with an etymology recent enough for us to take the toponym literally.

But etymology is not an exact science, and some derivations are too funny or elegant to be true. Consequently, some of the etymologies used by Hormes and Preust have been disputed. One example is the word-origin of the Mexican peninsula of Yucatan, which is rendered in the Atlas as ‘I don’t understand you!’ — supposedly uttered by the Maya when addressed by the first Spanish conquistadores (a similar folk etymology traces the origin of the word kangaroo to a miscommunication between aboriginals and British explorers). Other examples abound, but the authors themselves include a caveat lector, stating that they think their work is not scientific, approximately 80% correct and should primarily be seen as an invitation to look at the world through fresh eyes.

Thanks to the dozens of people who sent in this map. A few excerpts of the Atlas can be found here on Kalimedia, which also publishes the German version of the book (here). For a critical discussion of the book, see this entry on Languagelog.

*: and, by derivation, the Canadian city of Vancouver, named after a British captain of Dutch descent whose surname originally was van Coevoorden.

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(Via strange maps.)

Where I Was When Obama Won

fekaylius — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:47:32 +0000

Add yourself, no reg required.

space collective gallery

fekaylius — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 07:18:12 +0000

just found a stimulating new thing to look at, scroll through, and share:
http://spacecollective.org/gallery/

WhereCampPDX :: Oct 19th

fekaylius — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 19:55:02 +0000

WhereCampPDX

It’s going to rock!

Scavenger Hunt, RIGHT NOW

fekaylius — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:08:16 +0000

Get details and play at http://platial.com/laborday

Win a trip to NYC for the Conflux Festival!!!

Platial’s iPhone app

fekaylius — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:17:10 +0000

The All New Platial

fekaylius — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:36:34 +0000

As everyone in the inner circle knows, we have all been very heads down over at Platial for the last couple months working on the redesign that just launched today! Now, while still working on more improvements for the site, we’ll also have bandwidth to kick our native iPhone app development into high gear.

So go get up on one of my maps, and let me know about your Places.

Portland, the way I like it.

fekaylius — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:51:45 +0000

Church of Elvis is back

fekaylius — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:28:59 +0000

Apparently in a new Old Town location (4th and couch), i’ll check it out later today and post a pic.

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Cabaret Life Drawing Class

fekaylius — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 18:43:29 +0000

Found this on Tracy’s Platial page, looks really great!

Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School Cabaret Life Drawing Class

$7 2:30pm 18+ (bring your ID, this is a bar)

I’ve been trying to manange to go to one of these for ages now.

Aside from the standard structure of short poses to warm you up and then longer ones to give you more time to concentrate, this is definitely not your typical life drawing class. The model wears awesome outfits and slowly strips out of them! The model talks! You’ll clap for them and hoot and holler! You’ll tip them! You’ll chat with your neighbor! There is no teacher to embarrass you when you don’t produce enough! You get to drink and draw without getting in trouble! There are snacks! Now is the time to heal those art school wounds. Dr. Sketchy’s will guide you.

Mostlandian Food Cart

fekaylius — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:04:48 +0000

I rarely make it over to the west side of I-5 these days, but when I do, it’s to hit up Rudy’s Mostlandian Food Cart, by way of introduction here is this weeks update from the cart, I wish he spoke more about the ice cream flavors (amazing) like rosemary+honey+goatcheese. Anyway, any pdxers in the house should totally make a point to visit the cart.

The weather couldn’t be more perfect for eating at an outdoor food cart, wouldn’t you say?

Be sure to set your watches to Lunch Savings Time!
In observation of the dark and short days of Winter, Junior Ambassadors will open one hour earlier, at 11am (Wednesday – Friday), and have a FREE cup of hot SOUP waiting for you if you get a Panwich before Noon.

“Soup’s of the Day” happening this Week:

POTATO LEEK THYME
ROASTED RED PEPPER
CLAM CHOWDER
&
VEGAN CHILI

The New Winter Time Panwiches go a little something like this:

HAM & CHEESE with Hot Pineapple and Gouda.
EGGPLANT PARMESAN with Roasted Garlic, Tangy Tomato Sauce, and Fresh Spinach.
TUNA MELT of the Season: Goat Cheese, Rosemary, Orange Zest, and Hazelnuts.
GRILLED CHEESE with Sharp Cheddar.

All Panwiches come with homemade ginger SLAW or Cheez-its.

Homemade Hot Drinks and Ice Cream are also in the house.

Treat yourself to the invigoration, come on out for the good times!
Winter in Portland, love it!

Love & Friendship,
JUNIOR AMBASSADORS
~a Mostlandian Food Cart
~Open 11am-Dark, Wed-Sat

{ the lil’ orange food cart on the grassy lot next to 4734 North Albina, up from Mississippi, south of Alberta, and kitty corner from the Albina Press }

Call 503-880-0851 for the menu of the day.
or go to myspace.com/juniorambassadors for more info.

Radical History

jason — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:15:04 +0000

check out the new map page – Portland Radical History

Nine Nations

jason — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:36:26 +0000

A great find from the Strange Maps blog.

Heely Turbines – Situationist Action Sports – Dope Ass Rolling Cyborg Shoes

jason — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:02:11 +0000

Christian Croft and Kate Hartman have hacked a pair of Heelys (those sneakers with the hidden wheel in the heel) to generate enough juice to power a little onboard navigation system with unconventional ideas about navigation. As you roll down the street, a little toe mounted digital screen gives directional suggestions, but these suggestions are not trying to help you get to a specific point B, they are directions to help you get lost, to help you wander and explore your own city in a new way, in a way that isn’t influenced by your own habits, nor by urban design, nor by instinct. It’s a pure wandering route generator.

Despite understanding that the project is primarily a technological sketch for sustainable energy harvesting, I am primarily interested (for this venue) to examine the relationship it has to the situationist practice of the dérive because I feel that a purely random, or even algorithmically based path through a city misses the experience of ‘feeling’ one’s way around the psychological topography, which Guy Debord expresses as essential in his Theory of the Dérive:

One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive [literally: “drifting”], a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiances. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects, and are thus quite different from the classic notions of journey or stroll.

In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their relations, their work and leisure activities, and all their other usual motives for movement and action, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. Chance is a less important factor in this activity than one might think: from a dérive point of view cities have psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.

If the onboard digital instructions were less about turn right or go straight, but were more about looking, feeling and following currents like: oncoming traffic, the loudest street, the most or least crowded path, a smiling face, towards the sunrise or sunset, towards the sound of music, into an empty shop, up the steepest stairs, towards the shortest person or away from home, then i would say that this (already very cool) project would actually be participating in the historic conversation on psychogeographic dérive. But in the meantime, shit, I’d sure rock some dope ass rolling cyborg shoes! Wouldn’t you?

tip off via wmmna

Been There Mapplet Map

jason — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 17:24:10 +0000

using the new platial been there mapplet inside google maps is a fun and really wasy way to make a map of where you have been around the world. (when it’s working, we have been involved in a lot of platform launches recently, and it’s invariably hectic, with requirements and stability being incredibly iterative). something seems to have upgraded on google’s end just about 5 minutes ago, so go for it now, make a been there map.

iPhone City Explorer

fekaylius — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 21:16:18 +0000

update: the app is now pulling data from the live site, hopefully this will give much better results.

As a remote iPhoneDevCamp participant, I finally got my little hacked together app up and running – announcing the City Explorer. It could use a lot of work still, but this is a 1.5 days worth of messing around. Basically you can add your own cities to it, then it goes and asks Platial for the most common tags in that city, clicking on a tag brings up 20 Places with that tag in that city, each one links off to the native google maps app on the iphone. More info about the Places is coming, images, descriptions, clickable phone numbers, etc. Anyway, play around with it on your iPhone.

The link to start without any prefilled cities is http://0009.org/i – the app will likely be ported over into Platial once it’s up to par – so this url isn’t the most permanent thing.

126 – Hannover On Her Mind – and On Her Back

fekaylius — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:31:39 +0000

126 – Hannover On Her Mind – and On Her Back: “

‘I wanted something unique, something nobody else had. But every idea I had – it had already been done,’ says Britta Oelschlaeger. The 33-year-old photographer, who hails from the city of Hannover, knew she wanted a large tattoo on her back. Eschewing more popular designs as elves, dragons, dolphins and roses, she looked for ten years until she found this 1896 map of her hometown. ‘I’m a fan of Hannover’s football team and I’m completely crazy about maps,’ the artist explained her choice of tattoo.

It took the tattooist 7 hours to etch the outlines of that late 19th-century city plan on her back, and it will take many more to etch in the various hues of brown and green to give it the exact look as the original map. According to the AP press report, Oelschlaeger’s daughter is absolutely thrilled with her mom’s cool and original tattoo. Hannover is the capital city of Lower Saxony, one of Germany’s constituent Länder. 1896 happens to be the founding year of Hannover 96, Oelschlaeger’s favourite football club.

Image found here on the website of 20 Minuten, a German-language Swiss news service.

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(Via strange maps.)