So here we are in Twenty Ten, with the same blog setup. That’ll change…
Meanwhile, City Neighborhood Posters by Ork caught my eye because it looks familiar. If you read the Literary Birmingham part of the Unfinished Business post, you’ll see a clear typographical resemblance between Jenny Beorkrem’s work and Katy Parry’s.
Something’s happening here. Is it a new trend in typocartography? Or does it go back to previous decades? Are these design ideas occurring separately and spontaneously, or is one influenced by another?
For me, I reckon that if Jenny can flog posters of US cities, then it can work here too.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/94
Following on from the incomplete post, here’s Fake is the New Real’s US-based scheme, where the political boundaries are those of urban areas: cities, metropolities, sprawl.
Each blue bit fits into one of the brown bits.
It’s tricky identifying some of the states. 30% of California and New York has been excised. The urban areas aren’t so easily identified with one city. It looksl ike northwestern New York state has been removed as one - which would mean Buffalo, Rochester, and a bunch of smaller cities.
Still, and interesting exercise, and one with further creative possibilities.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/92
My efforts to publish a bit more frequently have met with resistance in the form of conflicting priorities. Priorities like looking for work, working, recovering from work, and tending to the other things that I need to do that have been put aside for the same reasons.
Rather than delay any longer, I’m going to combine the unfinished posts. This is a bit like the way lots of other people do a ‘Links I’ve Seen’ page. It’s a roundup of things that I can’t give full attention to. These three are substantially under way. There are others that haven’t got this far, that are only assembled in my mind.
Literary Birmingham
Way back in March I started looking for ways to make a map of the city using text for lines. The idea was prompted by these maps of St. Petersburg and San Francisco, by Katy Parry’s design for a CiB charity campaign and by various thoughts about text and mapping like this post about Thomas Jefferson using a cut-up technique 150 years before William Burroughs got around to it.
Except that they are mostly blocks of text. I was thinking of something more like a map using road names as lines.
But that gets awkward, as the streets get longer.
So I tried waterways and narratives about them.
This works a little bit better, but I still need to find sentences long enough to do the roads. The map becomes a narrative - a songline - to recite as a way of tracing the city.
So I started looking for evocative passages, and this is where an encyclopaedic knowledge of Birmingham’s literary culture and heritage come in, because that’s what’s needed in order to thresh out the evocative bits from all the other mentions of street names. But guess what I don’t have. My knowledge of this stuff stops at about 1880. So the available resources are being queried: ye intrewebs, the Central Library literature section, and local cultural mavens.
Pretty quick like a few items, authors, and resources popped up.
Birmingham Goldsmith by Sue Hubbard, this bit about Conroy Maddox,
and then I got stuck into drawing.
… and that’s as far as I got in writing it up. There’s more material on my hard drive, but no time for it.
On to the next bit of unfinished business.
Granarian Birmingham
There are many reasons to visit Birmingham’s seasonal Frankfurt Market - and I can think of exactly two.
First there’s the ambience. It’s nice to wander around among the people. They’re having a good time, probably in just the same way, although various of them are also buying things. It’s a simple pleasure, and since it’s damn near impossible to get anywhere in a hurry, or in a straight line, the enforced leisure is a good thing.
Second, there’s the opportunity to see and acquire things. I like to see the space lit up. Birmingham has done very well with theTown Hall lighting, and had a nice Eastside lighting festival in 2006. So when I’m in town and it’s dark outside, I prop my camera on something and get a few snaps of this scene or variants thereof. I particularly like catching the moon in passing.
But there’s one thing about the German Market that it alone can do, and that’s provide this bread.
… which is where this has halted.
I meant to get this next one out in early November. I failed.
Political Geography
This story starts in the US, but is relevant to us here too.
To help kick off the US version of Geography Awareness Week (whereas the UK version is set out here), National Geographic invited all 100 U.S. Senators to draw a map of their home state from memory. So I’m thinking, if I wanted to suggest a parallel activity here, what would it be?
It’s a bit tricky. For starters, there’s a question of whether the separate countries of Britain would be the best parallel, or whether it should be regions or even counties? Then there’s the question of an equivalent to Senators. In the US system, each of the 50 states elect two Senators (and a varying number of Representatives). The British system, especially since devolution, has no similar setup. So I’d need some other way of figuring out an equivalent. Since MP’s are the nearest equivalent, one solution is to do is ask them to draw the boundaries of their constituencies.
By and large I’d expect them to know the boundaries, because constituency boundaries are subject to change every few years through Boundary Commission review, and every MP is bound to keep up to date with those. The next boundary change will be within a year, at the date of the next general election. Those changes were set out some time ago, and prospective candidates will have memorised them - perhaps to the point of being able to draw an outline.
Let’s have a look at the current and future boundaries for the constituency I’m in.
I live in Moseley, which is currently in the Selly Oak constituency, but as of next election, will be part of Hall Green constituency. The map on the left is how it was at the last election; on the right is at the next election. The red dot is the junction of Vicarage Road and the High Street in Kings Heath. The junction stays where it is, but the name of the place changes from Selly Oak to Hall Green, as does the political profile. (Go here to see the boundaries for your area).
As mentioned, it’s pretty likely that each of the current candidates (…, ) already knows the outline of this place.
Jo Barker,
Jerry Evans,
Roger Godsiff,
and Salma Yaqoob
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/91
The November 5 Planning Committee meeting will consider a request to hide scaffolding on the Beneficial Building with a banner. The request is set out on the Council website, and in a PDF.
The request says
This application is for the installation of three temporary large format PVC mesh banners, including advertisements, attached to scaffolding on the north, west and south elevations of the Beneficial Building. The banners would display a 1:1 image of the building underneath, whilst renovation and re-cladding works are taking place.
Here are the North and West elevations.
Planning guidance ’states that advertisements can be controlled, ‘in the interests of amenity and public safety’. When considering amenity, paragraph 11 notes that regard should be paid to the advertisement’s effect on the appearance of the building, the visual amenity in the immediate neighbourhood and the cumulative impact the advertisementwould have on its surroundings’.
So what happens a lot of times is that the banner is just a huge photo of the building - which is pretty cool. But what if the banner were more like experimental art? Or a photo of something else? Do you think it would be worth writing to the Planning Committee to see if they would ask the builder to do something a bit more creative? Do you think the builder might actually grab the opportunity to work with local creatives - thereby upping their social status? If so, get writing!
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/82
Surprising that a search turns up just one use of the phrase, and that from three years ago.
I reckon it’s time to revive it, if only this once.
Freecycle is Evil
freecycled_out - Community Profile
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=203
Garden Guerillas Dig In To Fight Court Decision (from The Herald )
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Glasgow, Lanarkshire and West | Legal row over derelict land use
North Kelvin Meadow Campaign - Google Search
Press « NORTH KELVIN MEADOW CAMPAIGN
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=202
It’s nearly time for some website redevelopment. The ten blogs I’ve set up under this domain are going to get combined, which means that various links will stop working. Half of those blogs were set up for experimental purposes, so their disappearance may not have any effect. The main three: Something I said, Bag and the annex are a slightly different story, and I am wondering how I might set up redirects for any trackbacks and incoming links.
I set these up in 2008 after my Drupal installation was attacked by spambots, and had intended to develop a multiblog covering 3-5 different areas of interest. The interim solution was to set up 4 separate blogs and see how they fared. I didn’t have the knowledge to set up one blog with multiple posting divisions. But that seems to have been addressed - in Wordpress at least - by multiblog adaptations like WPMU , WP Hive , Virtual Multiblog and Multiply . The idea is to have one interface, and one administrator account, but multiple ‘main’ sections, like a newspaper or magazine with internal divisions for News, Society, Science, and so on.
I believe that an easy alternative is to use posting categories, but this doesn’t produce a graphic layout like the one below.
So sometime this year - sooner or later - the existing sites will come down, then be replaced with something more manageable, more effective.
Del.icio.us : design, format, management, website Technorati : design, format, management, website
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/rag/?p=54
It’s nearly time for some website redevelopment. The ten blogs I’ve set up under this domain are going to get combined, which means that various links will stop working. Half of those blogs were set up for experimental purposes, so their disappearance may not have any effect. The main three: Something I said, Bag and the annex are a slightly different story, and I am wondering how I might set up redirects for any trackbacks and incoming links.
I set these up in 2008 after my Drupal installation was attacked by spambots, and had intended to develop a multiblog covering 3-5 different areas of interest. The interim solution was to set up 4 separate blogs and see how they fared. I didn’t have the knowledge to set up one blog with multiple posting divisions. But that seems to have been addressed - in Wordpress at least - by multiblog adaptations like WPMU , WP Hive , Virtual Multiblog and Multiply . The idea is to have one interface, and one administrator account, but multiple ‘main’ sections, like a newspaper or magazine with internal divisions for News, Society, Science, and so on.
I believe that an easy alternative is to use posting categories, but this doesn’t produce a graphic layout like the one below.
So sometime this year - sooner or later - the existing sites will come down, then be replaced with something more manageable, more effective.
Del.icio.us : design, format, management, website Technorati : design, format, management, website
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/81
It’s nearly time for some website redevelopment. The ten blogs I’ve set up under this domain are going to get combined, which means that various links will stop working. Half of those blogs were set up for experimental purposes, so their disappearance may not have any effect. The main three: Something I said, Bag and the annex are a slightly different story, and I am wondering how I might set up redirects for any trackbacks and incoming links.
I set these up in 2008 after my Drupal installation was attacked by spambots, and had intended to develop a multiblog covering 3-5 different areas of interest. The interim solution was to set up 4 separate blogs and see how they fared. I didn’t have the knowledge to set up one blog with multiple posting divisions. But that seems to have been addressed - in Wordpress at least - by multiblog adaptations like WPMU , WP Hive , Virtual Multiblog and Multiply . The idea is to have one interface, and one administrator account, but multiple ‘main’ sections, like a newspaper or magazine with internal divisions for News, Society, Science, and so on.
I believe that an easy alternative is to use posting categories, but this doesn’t produce a graphic layout like the one below.
So sometime this year - sooner or later - the existing sites will come down, then be replaced with something more manageable, more effective.
Del.icio.us : design, format, management, website Technorati : design, format, management, website
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=200
Photographer’s panoramic vision turns decay into art | detnews.com | The Detroit News
Michigan Central Station, Detroit, the waiting room. The Decline of America in 360 Panoramic photography, photographie panoramique 360 - photojpl.com
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=198
This speaks to my experience.
“Students don’t have problems finding internships, students have problems getting internships,” Eric Normington, the company’s chief marketing officer, said by telephone from Hong Kong where he was overseeing the local program. “We can secure those exclusive positions.”
Employers say the middlemen save them time and hassle. “They make the search process a lot easier,” said Sarah Cirkiel, the chief executive of Pitch Control Public Relations, a small New York firm that started four years ago and has taken in 20 summer interns, all from the University of Dreams. “I feel like they hand-select their interns for the specific agencies to make sure it’s the right fit. They just show up at our doorstep, ready to go.”
But many educators and students argue that the programs bridge one gulf — between those who have degrees from prestigious colleges or family connections and those who do not — only to create a new one, between the students who have parents willing and able to buy their children better job prospects and those who do not.
Students Pay Services to Obtain Internships - NYTimes.com
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/rag/?p=52
With all the talk about internet blocking, malware, censorship and the like, I thought I’d look around for some alternative internets. But in doing so I found that the mis-spelled alterntative brought up a different - and more interesting - set of links.
alterntative internets - Google Search
The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition
I also found out about Open DNS.
OpenDNS service is an alternative to major Internet providers
OpenDNS | Providing A Safer And Faster Internet
DNS-O-Matic | Distribute dynamic IP changes to multiple services (dnsomatic.com)
Then, in wanting to compile a list of all the pages I read, I decided to look for something that would blog all tabs. I reckoned there’s a browser, an extension, or a desktop tool that would do it - but maybe not on my setup.
The first things I found had several instances of ‘blog all open tabs’, so I searched on that too.
“blog all open tabs” - Google Search
randomWalks: all open tabs
randomWalks: My New Blog All Open Tabs Technique is Unstoppable
Wanted: convert Firefox tabs to links
Bin-Blog
Having accomplished all that, a link to this story caught my eye.
Creationist exams comparable to international A-levels, says National Recognition Information Centre (Naric)
And with it, this, this, and this comment by Eurojohn.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=197
There is no technical requirement that the Internet’s only root server be the A server in Virginia.
To use a different root server, an ISP merely edits a couple of lines of in-house computer code. This change allows the ISP’s subscribers to browse all of ORSC’s Web locations, including “.cars,” “.family” and others. Yet the same browsers will still work with all of ICANN’s TLDs, such as “.com,” “.net” and “.org.”
The switch can even be made by individuals on their personal computers, regardless of the ISP they use. The process is described in a document by the SuperRoot Consortium, a group that supports the ORSC.
ICANN is in a self-imposed “quiet period” while it evaluates the proposals it received for new TLDs and won’t comment on those proposals or ORSC’s.
A switch to an alternative Internet? - CNET News
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=196
1. How can I use XnView to upload photos to a directory on my website (e.g. FTP) and to one of my hosted photo services (e.g. 23, EasyCaptures, Panoramio, Picasa, TinyPic)?
+email +client
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=195
In travelling around Birmingham, when I want to get somewhere I haven’t been before, I mostly go by bus. So I need a reliable, easy method of identifying routes and timetables.
Let’s say I want to go from Moseley to Merritt’s Brook in Northfield. The first thing I’ve got to do is identify the local roads, then find the buses that travel them.
Fortunately, Google Maps do a good job of locating bus stops, so I can look round an area til I find a stop that looks close enough. I’m choosing the stops at the junction of Merritt’s Brook Lane and Holloway, one northbound, one southbound. Let’s see which buses get me there. Using the pop-up ‘Get Directions to here’ option, I add “St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK” as the starting point.
That brings up St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK to NE-bound. But that’s not showing bus routes. So I go back to the map and choose the Transport Direct link. Which presumes I want to leave from that stop rather than arrive at it. So I need to move over to Moseley and pick my start point, then add the address of the end point.
When the Transport Direct options page comes up, I add “Ley Hill, Holloway” to the destination, and select the “All stops (e.g. Bus, Tube, Tram)” option as well.
That brings up a list of 59 places around the country, 17 of which are in Birmingham. - 0: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Opposite Ley Hill Farm Road (SMS:nwmatgad) - 1: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Ley Hill Farm Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatgag) - 4: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Holloway (SMS:nwmdmtgm) - 5: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Merritt`S Brook Lane, Bef (SMS:nwmatgaj) - 17: Northfield (Birmingham), Bell Hill, Bell Holloway, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatpgp) - 21: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpd) - 22: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpg) - 24: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Opposite Basil Road (SMS:nwmatwaw) - 25: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Basil Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatwda) - 34: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Vineyard Lane, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjw) - 35: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, School Playing Fields, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjt) - 37: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Opposite Colworth Road (SMS:nwmgjtwt) - 38: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Colworth Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjwad) - 42: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwam) - 43: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwap) - 44: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Opposite Taysfield Road (SMS:nwmatdwd) - 46: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Taysfield Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatdwg)
I don’t know which of these stops is the one I aimed for, so I’ll just pick the first one.
When the results come up, it’s not the stop I had in mind. But I can zoom in and look at the 8-digit codes for the stop I do want, then back track and try again. The stops labelled nwmdmtgm, nwmatgaj, and nwmgjtjt look like better prospects.
The nwmdmtgm result looks good, indicating that a 50 to the 18 is an effective option. But I want to see another one. The nwmgjtjt result tells me that the 50 to the 27 is also an option. Both routes take about 45 minutes.
There is, however, a simpler method of planning. Centro have plotted stops on a Google map. All I need to do is zoom in on an area, pick a stop, and the Centro map tells me which buses are running there. If I want to plan ahead, it links to the Transport Direct page, where I have to go through the same faff about the start or end point. But it gets me there!
Things found in the process of reseaching this stuff:
Network West Midlands - Network West Midlands
ÖPNV-Karte (related to Birmingham - OpenStreetMap)
Transport Direct - Britain’s free online route planner & journey planner
walk — walkit.com
and the somewhat less effective National Express West Midlands, which shows timetables if you know what bus you want. It’s not so good at identifying the route by searching on the destination. I tried Merritt’s Brook Lane and had poor results.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=194
In travelling around Birmingham, when I want to get somewhere I haven’t been before, I mostly go by bus. So I need a reliable, easy method of identifying routes and timetables. Let’s say I want to go from Moeley to Merritt’s Brook in Northfield. The first thing I’ve got to do is identify the local roads, then find the buses that travel them. Fortunately, Google Maps do a good job of locating bus stops, so I can look round an area til I find a stop that looks close enough. I’m choosing the stops at the junction of Merrit’s Brook and Holloway, one northbound, one southbound. Let’s see which buses get me there. Using the pop-up ‘Get Directions to here’ option, I add “St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK” as the starting point.That brings up St Mary’s Row, Moseley, Birmingham, West Midlands B13, UK to NE-bound. But that’s not showing bus routes. So I go back to the map and choose the Transport Direct link. Which presumes I want to leave from that stop rather than arrive at it. So I need to move over to Moseley and pick my start point, then add the address of the end point. When the Transport Direct options page comes up, I add “Ley Hill, Holloway” to the destination, and select the “All stops (e.g. Bus, Tube, Tram)” option as well. That brings up a list of 59 places around the country, 17 of which are in Birmingham. - 0: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Opposite Ley Hill Farm Road (SMS:nwmatgad) - 1: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Ley Hill Farm Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatgag) - 4: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Holloway (SMS:nwmdmtgm) - 5: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Holloway, Merritt`S Brook Lane, Bef (SMS:nwmatgaj) - 17: Northfield (Birmingham), Bell Hill, Bell Holloway, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatpgp) - 21: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpd) - 22: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Meadow Brook Road, Merritts Hill (SMS:nwmgjtpg) - 24: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Opposite Basil Road (SMS:nwmatwaw) - 25: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Trescott Road, Basil Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatwda) - 34: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, Vineyard Lane, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjw) - 35: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Brook Lane, School Playing Fields, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjtjt) - 37: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Opposite Colworth Road (SMS:nwmgjtwt) - 38: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Elmdale Crescent, Colworth Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmgjwad) - 42: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwam) - 43: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Hoggs Lane, Barnsdale Crescent, Bef (SMS:nwmatwap) - 44: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Opposite Taysfield Road (SMS:nwmatdwd) - 46: Ley Hill (Birmingham), Merritt’s Hill, Taysfield Road, Adjacent (SMS:nwmatdwg)I don’t know which of these stops is the one I aimed for, so I’ll just pick the first one.
When the results come up, it’s not the stop I had in mind. But I can zoom in and look at the 8-digit codes for the stop I do want, then back track and try again. The stops labelled nwmdmtgm, nwmatgaj, and nwmgjtjt look like better prospects.The nwmdmtgm result looks good, indicating that a 50 to the 18 is an effective option. But I want to see another one. The nwmgjtjt result tells me that the 50 to the 27 is also an option. Both routes take about 45 minutes.
There is, however, a simpler method of planning. Centro have plotted stops on a Google map. All I need to do is zoom in on an area, pick a stop, and the Centro map tells me which buses are running there. If I want to plan ahead, it links to the Transport Direct page, where I have to go through the same faff about the start or end point. But it gets me there!
Things found in the process of reseaching this stuff:
Network West Midlands - Network West Midlands
ÖPNV-Karte (related to Birmingham - OpenStreetMap)
Transport Direct - Britain’s free online route planner & journey planner
walk — walkit.com
and the somewhat less effective National Express West Midlands, which shows timetables if you know what bus you want. It’s not so good at identifying the route by searching on the destination. I tried Merritt’s Brook Lane and had poor results.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/rag/?p=51
Googling ‘mental maps’, the interesting results.
Mental maps versus physical cartography
Mental maps are a personal way of representing geographical space: instead of considering a place in its absolute sense, a mental map looks at it in relation with other places emotionally close. Each mental map is particular to the the environmental perception of its author, the images they have of their own life, known places and the way they are connected.
Cognitive maps shows not just where we are and what we know, but who we are. Because of their serendipitous quality, they have a great potential for the discovery of relationships not explicitly intended; they allow appreciating the internalised spatial structure upon which a person is operating. The most significant differences are those between people (or the same person at different points in time) of the same places. “It’s possible to take one geographical area and to demonstrate that it really consists of a set of overlapping places depending on which group of people we are considering. 3” Mental maps are thus interesting indicators of how we interpret our neighbourhood.
3 David Canter, Psychology of Place. Palgrave Macmillan, 1977, p.68
http://www.ctrl-n.net/journal/archives/on-cognitive-mapping/
http://www.fedstats.gov/kids/mapstats/concepts_mentalmaps.html
http://pgh-hash.blogspot.com/2009/04/poon-lim-landing-day-hash.htmlhttp://www.landslidecommunityfarm.org/Landslide_Community_Farm/Home.html
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=193
Today’s Birmingham Post ran a story about a new commercial kitchen hygiene rating scheme called Scores on the Door, where restaurants, diners, canteens and even mobile kitchens are given a rating of 0-5 stars. The story focussed on those places with a 0 rating, and ran a bit of counterpoint from some of the businesses concerned. At least one felt that the rating was erroneous.
The Scores on the Door rating scheme is apparently nationwide, and is set up to list places based on a variety of criteria. It lists 158 0-rated kitchens in Birmingham. It provides a map for each one, but doesn’t show the entire group. So I copied the list, did a bit of work on it, then ran it through Batch GeoCoder. The result is a geographical distribution that doesn’t reveal any distinct concentrations of poorly-rated kitchens. There are some blankspots of interest, such as Hall Green and Kingstanding - which might mean there are no restaurants, or that those areas have higher quality kitchens than elsewhere.
But what struck me most was the number of well known or favourite eateries on the list: Mr Egg, Canal Side Cafe Gas Street, K2 Restaurant, and The Sunflower Lounge. The Canalside Cafe being one of my favourites. On that basis I’m wondering what criteria are used in rating the kitchens, and whether there are things I’d disregard one way or another.
I wish the Scores on the Door people would provide the complete dataset — or subsets thereof — via the website, so that mashups would be easier. I may go back to get each of the higher rankings and pass those through Batch GeoCoder as well.
Del.icio.us : food BirminghamUK restaurant hygiene ratings mapping Technorati : food BirminghamUK restaurant hygiene ratings mapping
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/78
A smallish part of the reasons for lack of more and longer blogposts here and elsewhere is the awkwardness of using the software. I think I may have fixed that.
I haven’t ever shelled out for one of the premier clients - partly because they don’t necessarily keep up with the things I want to do on the net. For instance, had I been using a paid-for client that dind’t support tags when I started using Wordpress, I’d have been stuck with an obsolete tool.
But free clients aren’t necessarily better, and I periodically do a search for improved tools for the job. For the last year or so I’ve used the Firefox ScribeFire plugin, as it’s both straightforward and multi-featured. ScribeFire’s main limitation is that it’s a Firefox plugin, which means it’s slow… very slow.
After fiddling about with yesterday’s post, I decided to see what might be out there on the ‘net, and found that Zoundry (now known as Raven) had gone open source and updated versions from the 0.9.284 I’d previously tried to1.0.375. It looked quite different in the screenshot, and, even better, it works quite differently as well! It looks more like a full-fledged page editor.
It seems to have created a filestore in my Windows profile folder, and tracks my links and images separately as well.
I’m liking this enough that I’ll give it a spin - as I’m doing just now - to see if ScribeFire joins the list of obsolete clients.
Del.icio.us : blogtools client software Technorati : blogtools client software
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=192
Baltimore Slumlords
If you own property in Baltimore City, clean it up!
24 N. Fulton Avenue « Baltimore Slumlords
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=190
Occasionally the Birmingham Post ges a bit ahead of itself by reporting from the future, as shown in this screenshot. The time of the screenshot is shown in the masthead, as 7:53 PM, March 29th.
The story below, however, is dated March 30th.
Okay, it’s a bit of silliness on my part, but this whole Springing the clocks forward thing has gotten a bit out of hand here, don’cha think?
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/76
As usual, top stuff Joanna.
I’d like to make three broad comments, but they have to be brief as I’m woozy from lack o’ sleep. 1 & 2: Perceptions of friendliness online and in person are unpredictable. 3: Blogs are for working out what one wants to say, regardless of audience.
A bit more detail: while writing does have an etiquette of its own, it shouldn’t be mistaken for other sorts of interaction, e.g. f2f, phone. Different expectations and different sensitivities apply in each.
Some people are great at coming across well online, and lousy in person. Vice versa too, as your remarks about Richard indicate. It’s the same when going from voice to print. If you consider what Richard says at about 6:30 about why bothering and dead wood, and how that would come across in print, it’s easy to see why readers might misinterpet his intent.
Similarly, I gather that my own style of writing is a turn off for some people, but the flip side of that is the difficulties I’ve seen in f2f conversations among people who obviously don’t understand each other and cannot communicate. On the whole, communication is best in established relationships where people have done a certain amount of exploring and negotiating. On line or off. Aside from that it’s unpredictable. So I reckon the three key points to web-based communication are: make a bit of effort to be polite; maintain an open mind about other people; speak your mind without fear of misinterpretation. Let the cards fall where they may.
At 3:40 you talk about two ways of blogging - as something of interest to others, or as a chat among interested friends. Both are obviously true, and I sometimes write on topics of public interest or for distant friends. But often my main motive is in developing an idea, regardless of the audience. I suspect that’s true of many writers. Publication is a means of sharing an idea, but is secondary to one’s own interest in working it through.
Other potential topics prompted by your interview: making the Post blogs more substantive, developing a regular clientele. Things that make me want to join in: whether it’s something I can say something about, and whether the writer’s calibre of thought makes me want to respond. That, plus, as Richard says, having a regular crew, keeping things churning over.
Again, top stuff. Thanks for keeping it interesting.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/71
A story similar to the one Peter Marcuse tells about asset-stripping of New York City tenements, but in a different context:
This is the vision of recycling we all want to hold dear in our heads as we wash up baked bean cans and sort wine bottles from plastic milk cartons ready for collection: confirmation that as much of our waste as possible is collected, sorted and sold on for a profit.Leo Hickman: The truth about recycling | Environment | The Guardian
This is about deriving value from wasteand the possibility that all waste continues to hold potential value for someone, something, somewhere.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=189
Checking in at marbury led me to Noise Addicts and some entertaining comments, then on to the also entertaining Everything, and from there to Fossfor.us, which is an acronym for Free Open Source Software for Us.
That’s where I found the software that does this:
Now if I could just think of something to use it for.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/rag/?p=50
I haven’t come across examples of this before - where someone applies a metaphor for one sort of dereliction to the virtual, the webscape - other than my own thoughts on the topic. A bit of proof then, that I’m not the only one.
What happens in a recession when the company needs to raise more money? Suddenly there is no collateral upon which to borrow. In a public company, that leaves only the shareholders to go to with cap in hand for more money. In a private company, there aren’t many places to go at all. … It’s one of the reasons we are seeing so many large buildings falling empty and into dereliction at the moment.
Domain names are virtual real estate. It doesn’t matter if a domain name is left empty and disregarded in a portfolio, or if it’s parked, or if it’s simply left with a “for sale” sign on the front page, since it will still be worth more than it was when it was registered and the price is dependent upon who you sell it to and why they want it.
David Carter
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=188
Making a Sideblog or Linkblog | General Tips and Tricks | Learning Movable Type looks like it might come in handy for my next site redesign.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=187
Opening Times
“What time is that shop open again? It’s a question we all ask from time to time, and yet one which the web is quite poor at answering. Websites differ greatly in how they present opening times, sometimes they can be hard to find or understand. And what if the shop isn’t open, wouldn’t it be nice to present a list of alternatives which are open right now?”
“The goal of Opening Times is to provide a comprehensive list of opening times for UK shops and services.”
http://opening-times.co.uk/ via
Free Map Tools
“A place to find free tools to allow you to measure, save and send maps to other people.”
* Meeting COG for Postcodes - Find the best place to hold a meeting for it’s attendees by inputting their postcodes
* How far is it Between - Find the distance between named points A and B
* Save Route - Plot a route and save it for later
* Measure Distance - Find the distance between two points that you click
* Radius Around Point - See the radius around a point you click on a map
* Radius From UK Postcode - Plot a radius around a UK postcode. You can specify the radius size and postcode
* Area Calculator - Calculate the enclosed area that you specify on a map
* Map Tunneling Tool - Find out what lies below your feet
* Distance Between 2 UK Postcodes - Type in two postcodes and the distance between them will be returned.
* UK Postcode Map - Map of the where you can see all area level / out code postcodes.
* Free Wi-Fi Points - Find a free Wi-Fi signal near you
* Meeting COG for ZIP codes - Find the best place to hold a meeting for attendees by inputting their US ZIP code
http://www.freemaptools.com/map-tools.htm
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=186
This could be useful as a teaching device to show people about setting up mail accounts.
Say that I want to show someone how to retrieve mail from a server. Plug a memory stick onto their machine, fire up the client, retrieve some messages, then show them the account settings so they can do the same on their own desktop.
Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=185
Here’s a list of Web browsers for Windows including several I hadn’t heard of.
K-Meleon
kmeleonbrowser.org
Download version 1.5.1
Amaya
W3C
Download version 10
Maxthon Browser
Maxthon
Download version 2.1.4.443
Slim Browser
FlashPeak
Download version 4.11
KidRocket
KidRocket.org
Download version 1.5
PhaseOut web browser
PhaseOut
Download version
Crazy Browser
Crazy Browser
Download version 3
Smart Bro
Mind Vision Software
Download version 2.7
ShenzBrowser
Shenz International
Download version 1.1
JonDoFox
JonDoNYM
Download version 2.1.0
Avant Browser
Avant Force
Download version 11.7
xB Browser
XeroBank
Download version 2
Sleipnir
Fenrir Inc.
Download version 2.8.2
space time
space time
Download version 1
Browse3D
Browse3D Corporation
Download version 3.5
3B Room
3B
Download version 3.11
Bitty Browser
Turnstyle
Download version
Grail
CNRI
Download version 0.6
Lynx
Thomas Dickey
Download version 2.8.6
Happy Browser
Igoodsoft Software
Download version 1.03
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=184
Provides useful information aboutIP(s) a site is hosted on, Parent domains, Name servers, and other stuff.
Request a URL in the format http://www.sitedossier.com/site/domain.netFor example http://www.sitedossier.com/site/nunovo.org.uk. Or http://www.sitedossier.com/site/birmingham.gov.uk, which shows some interesting bits of information.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=183
I’m a bit surprised that I am the first one to say something about linking a specific phrase with a given website between now and next Tuesday night.
What I want to achieve will be obvious to many, so I am not going to spell it out in any detail, except to say how I arrived at this particular phrase. Initially it seemed that the phrase ‘Best UK blog’ might be appropriate because it is short and already widely used. But that latter quality may also keep it from appearing in search results.
So I considered a couple of other phrases and the number of results each brought in a search.
‘Best UK blog’ returned 19 million results;
‘Best UK blog 2008′ returned 46 million results;
‘Best British blog 2008′ returned 14 million results;
‘Best British blog contest 2008′ returned 425,000 results
‘Best blog UK contest 2008′ returned 600,000 results.
It’s clear that the phrase ‘Best British blog contest 2008‘ will be the easiest one to effect; the phrase most likely to show up in search results when copied by relatively few people.
It is also the link to the CiB page describing this year’s weblog contest. It means that anyone searching for all of those words should come across a link to that page fairly quickly. (Some people will know the nickname for that process, but I’m not going to mention it here.)
So I’m hoping a bunch of bloggers will copy the link above into a blog post of their own between now and Tuesday January 13; that search results will reflect that link, and that it will prompt more people to vote in that contest. It might even get to the point where Best British blog 2008 becomes an accurate link.
PS: it seems a bit odd to be voting on last year’s best blog. Here we are in 2009, so nominating and voting for a 2008 effort seems strange. I guess it’s just belated recognition for having done good last year.
Technorati tags: birminghamuk, brumuk, blogging, awards
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/65
TARA ATKINSON - AUDIO/VISUAL ARTIST PRODUCER http://www.taraatkinson.blogspot.com/
In Transition is a collaboration between both Lucy Tucker ( Creative Contemporary Practice at Leeds Met) and myself. We both met and talked about the previous projects we had done about the city speaking about the potential of using video to create city interventions. The project we developed was inspired by the Leeds debate: ‘Is Leeds going in the right direction ‘which took place on February the 28th at Leeds University. We researched and networked with the people we met at the debate thinking about why it took place and the possible short term changes we could make as artists/ inhabitants whilst living in the city of Leeds. Leading on from this we decided to explore the way derelict buildings were seen and the potential for their uses as urban playgrounds- to showcase work in. These short term changes to buildings in transition can help the regeneration process of the city through giving life to dormant areas and highlighting the uncanny beauty within these spaces that were set to be demolished.
“time dereliction and beauty” - Google Search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hs=9ZQ&q=%22time+dereliction+and+beauty%22&btnG=Search&meta=
See Armstrong
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=181
Bosses at Burson Land say they want to make sure the land is put to use rather than left derelict, until the housing scheme can be resurrected.
The old church building was flattened in 2007 to make way for the proposed apartment development, but it could now be years until that goes ahead because of the slow-down in the market.
The landowners are now looking into the possibility of building a temporary stand to house a hand car wash area and a car sales centre, with parking for customers.
This would be in addition to putting up the seven advertising boards for rent along the roadside.
Burson Land director Mark Stewardson said: “Because the market is so unsettled at the moment we are considering various schemes so for now we just want to have a temporary use while we are drawing up details for a more permanent option.
“We want to have a use for the land otherwise it will just become another scrap of derelict land and an eyesore.
“It is about trying to make something of the land that will add a bit of interest to that bottom end of the high street, which is really neglected to be honest.”
Cradley housing plan on hold : Express & Star
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=180
http://www.gogeo.ac.uk/cgi-bin/resource.cgi?cat=41 —
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=179
Teachers and students GenesisIV is the only landscape product designed specifically to help teach geographical concepts. You’re up and running immediately comparing 2D and 3D maps and students can be looking at historical maps, satellite photography and learning about grid references within minutes. GenesisIV’s multimedia hotspots are for project - get your students out of the collecting photographs, audiovisuals and notes to enter into the landscape database.
A user interface that lets you explore If you’ve ever been perplexed by the blank sheet of modeling software then you’ll appreciate GenesisIV’s immediate interface. Don’t be deceived, there’s powerful database and graphics software underneath with a myriad of features than can be adjusted. But you can get results straight out of the box with just a few mouse clicks.
Documentation and tutorials galore - with more on the way
Need to see what the visual impact of that turbine will be? Or want a lesson plan for your 14 year old students? We’ve numerous tutorials online with step-by-step guides to common tasks, and a series of free educational projects, with data, will be soon be available.
Eye-catching visuals GenesisIV’s photorealistic renderer brings landscapes to life, and because we using modern OpenGL techniques you won’t be waiting hours for your images to complete.
Import, export or extend. GenesisIV is as open as we can make it. Import and export between GIS applications, paint programs, data files and renderers. Our database uses Open Source software and the schema is freely available. And we’ve numerous plug-ins to extend the system.
At a price you can afford GenesisIV is available in four versions. GenesisIV Freeware is a completely free version of GenesisIV for personal use, GenesisIV Educational is a cost-effective solution with a licence. GenesisIV Pro offers additional features for more comprehensive modeling and GenesisIV Enterprise is our high-end product aimed at professional GIS users. See our comparison chart for a feature listing.
http://www.geomantics.com/genesis4.htm
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=178
- After 40 Years, Kwanzaa Spreads Its Roots - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/after-40-years-does-kwanzaa-still-resonate/?partner=rss&emc=rss
- Hope and rust http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:13187
- wildspirit http://wildspirit.me.uk/
- There’s no such place as away for UK domestic waste | Environment | The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/27/waste-recycling
- Margaret Drabble - Google Search http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Margaret+Drabble&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a
- Visualization Wordpress Magazine Theme - Thad Allender http://thadallender.com/2007/11/27/visualization-wordpress-magazine-theme/
- Margaret Drabble - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Drabble
- Graph Paper Press Wordpress Themes http://graphpaperpress.com/
- Gridline Magazine | Graph Paper Press http://graphpaperpress.com/2007/12/08/gridline/
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=177
As the Telegraph is a broadsheet redtop, I cannot take it at face value, but this piece strikes me as interesting nonetheless.
Paul Groves put it this way:
…scientists in Japan have have created a
device that enables the processing
and imaging of thoughts and dreams as experienced in the brain to appear on
a computer screen.
It sounds interesting - partly because it would be quite compelling to see the
full horror of my dreams from a waking state.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=176
Something that may change the way I blog, from here
…probably using WP-o-matic, blog fans…
to here
WP-o-Matic makes autoblogging a snap by automatically creating posts from the RSS/Atom feeds you choose, which are organized into campaigns.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=175
I know there are other phone number reporting websites, but Who Calls Me is the one that came up when I put in the number for Virgin Media’s txt-to-voice scheme.
This is a user supplied database of phone numbers of telemarketers, non-profit organizations, charities, political surveyors, SCAM artists, and other companies that don’t leave messages, disconnect once you answer, ignore the Do-Not-Call List regulations, and simply interrupt your day.
If you received a strange call, most likely you are not the only one. Search for this phone number to see the reports of others. If there are no reports yet, leave your comment to start a conversation.
Phone Call Comments
Also worth a mention: Grumbletext, which looks like a complaint resolution service, if
You have a problem with a
company which you want to sort out
You have a complaint about a company which you would like to post on this website
You have a problem with premium
rate telephone calls or texts which you want to sort out
You have received a strange
call, text or email and are wondering what it is and if it’s a scam of some kind
You are looking for information
before buying or you’re just browsing
You want an overview of what Grumbletext is and what it does
Find out about the online
Small Claims Court
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=174
It seems that the Andy Warhol (or Bill Weegee?) inspired campaign art is making its way into other places and spaces.
First this shows up as Sarkozy attempts to recast himself in Obama’s image.
Then commercial America gets the right and adds the appropriate tag line: 20% off!
I’m wondering why Darling & Brown didn’t appropriate the graphic scheme for promoting the VAT cut.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/61
Good Reading
via Techno
I’m particularly liking Marbury, and may check back on Copyblogger. The Pulitzer-prize-winners-2008 is already a bit out of date. The link is broken. So go here to see who’s anointed best and brightest in the Columbia University view of things. And go here to see the story behind the map.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=172
I started this blog as a more useful alternative to services like delicious, googlemarks and so on. It’s meant as a cuttings file for future reference with the functions of a blog. In some respects it works quite well.
But organising the material is quite cumbersome. I’m still using Omea, which has the very useful feature of saving any given feed item as an html file. I could organise my Omea clippings, then post them in category-shaped chunks. But that turns out to be quite cumbersome too. What I’ve got instead is a massive
feed dump that doesn’t bear reading.
So there’s a bit of a problem. Feed dumps are the laziest way of archiving the stuff. They are straight copies, as distinct from a simple link with a bit of my own explanation. I can’t use Omea to do further refinement, and editing in plain text or WYSIWYG editors is also out of the question. So I’ve hit on this method of uploading an html file and linking to it. That way it’s at least a bit more discreet, while still being straightforward.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=171
I.
There is public art, and then there’s public art. Nathan Coley, the sculptor/photographer involved here, does not do the lipstick-on-the gorilla kind of public art that is intended to sanctify or prettify its surroundings. What he does is respond to context, particularly buildings.
Gabion: Faith, hope and sub-prime: Nathan Coley reveals England’s seaside favela.
II.
“This is not a typical public works project,” said Ed Reiskin, director
of the city’s Department of Public Works. “It’s the first time
performance art has been part of public art.”
Words Take Wing
III.
New York has one of the world’s most complex water systems. Eight million residents in the city, and another one million upriver, daily consume 1.2 billion gallons that flow through a network of reservoirs and aqueducts stretching from the Delaware River watershed to the Connecticut border almost 100 miles to the southeast.
Fixing New York’s Drinking Straw (now archived in the useful TimesFile)
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=170
After much more to-ing and fro-ing with map tools, I’ve got an example of the results I want.
(Note: I have made further additions to this map since writing this post, so it is probably in its final form, though I would like to find out how to use the OpenStreetMap as shown below instead of the Google map.)
This is a mapping of photos taken as the bus crossed canals, brooks or rivers. The next version will show other features with different symbols: parklands, industrial greenspaces, wild/derelict spaces and so on. Essentially, the map will be accompanied by a very long list of photos and photo data. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to handle the instances of places that fit multiple categories, like canals with industrial and wild features. The nice thing would be a means of searching on a particular type of space, and having the map show only those sites and their accompanying photos. But I don’t see how I’m going to do that, and will settle for the kitchensink result.
This map is a plotting of Geosetter data onto a Google map via the GPS Visualizer scripts, but has also seen some work with GPSBabel, GPSies.com, Fotki and Photobucket. I had to convert the GeoSetter KMZ output to KML, then modify the XML data in a spreadsheet, upload it in its revised form, run it through Google maps and set it as an iframe on this post.
Addendum:
I’m hoping to find a way of adding the information to an OpenStreetMap (OSM) tile base, but as the map below shows, it seems that OSM is rendered as static png tiles that can be drawn over using Google drawing tools. To see the OSM background, select it from the dropdown list at upper right in the map.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/51
Embedded OpenStreetMap Zoom in to level 12
View Larger Map
coordinates: NW:52.5,-2 SE 52.4,-1.8
iframe width=”600″ height=”600″ (size of display box)
bbox=-17.3,43.1,13.5,60.2 (lat/long of box sides)
Framing bbox with -8.9,47.65,6.1,55.65 centres the map near Oxford at Level 6.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=169
Further mining of the data collected on Tuesday’s Outer Circuit is proceeding through the use of open source map imagery from OpenStreetMap (OSM), GPS Trackmaker, the previously mentioned GeoSetter and the track data I gathered en route.
OSM has a nifty JPEG export function that I can set as a background map in Trackmaker. The track data shows up as a blue line.
But the photo locations have to be imported from Geosetter, which I cannot do directly. Instead, I have to export it as a Google Earth file (*.kml), then load that into Trackmaker. Geosetter is a bit underdeveloped in that regard, as it seems to be missing various Save and Export capacities. But damn is it good as a photo::GPS synch tool!
The OpenStreetMap has much better information about parks than Google maps, but it doesn’t have the same level of interactivity, e.g., I can’t make anything other than a static superimposition of my track and photo data, so it ends up looking like this.
But it’s a start.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/46
Having spent a good chunk of the evening playing with a combination of GeoSetter, XnView and GPSVisualizer,I’m starting to get some usable results in map form.
This is a plot of the points where my 11A met an oncoming 11C. 21 times. You can almost see them bunching into twos and fours.
GeoSetter is really fab as regards filtering and mapping on the desktop. I can use it to filter by IPTC keywords, so all the photos keyed with ‘11C’ get mapped directly, then exported as KML, uploaded to GPSVisualizer and into the form you see above.
The GeoSetter desktop looks like this.
It auto-synchronises my GPS trackroute to the photos using the date/time of each, then plots it on a map. There’s also a facility to upload data and photos to a photomapping website called locr. It will also go to Google Earth, and I’m wondering if there’s a way of doing a slideshow, animating the sequence of photos with trackpoints.
In any case, I’ll be mapping the greenspace info as time allows and posting about that, too.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/42
I managed to make one complete 80km circuit on the 11A between 12:55 and 15:20. According to my GPS unit, that is, which apparently includes the vertical travel as well as the horizontal. I think the horizontal distance was more like 35km.
While riding in the upper front left seat of the 12:55 from Acock’s Green I also managed to take 139 photos, most of which were of publicly accessible greenspaces: parks, cemeteries, riverways, bits of derelict land and a few of the horizons. These are currently being uploaded to my Zoto account. The intent was to stop at every park, take a nice photo of each, then catch the next 11A. This plan changed when I realised a) that there are far more greenspaces than I’d on maps, and b) there wouldn’t be enough daylight to do all of them. So I opted for a passing view from my stagecoach seat. Several of the places I passed are worth a revisit, so that’s already on the agenda.
I also tried to snap every 11C. One of them slipped past undocumented, just north of Ward End, but I think that was the only one.
The majority of photos have flaws, from poor focus, scratched window glass, or solar flare. Image quality doesn’t make the trip, so to speak. But they are indicative of things: greenspace, buses, the Outer Circle context.
This bus looks like it may have had 11ers aboard
I’ll be returning to Bromford Lane for a longer reccie
Including a visit to Rookery Park.
http://nunovo.org.uk/wordpress/archives/38
Three items of interest.
1. A book
2. A website from the Obama-Biden transition Project; the
source for the latest news, events, and announcements so that you can follow the setting up of the Obama Administration. And just as this historic campaign was, from the beginning, about you — the transition process will offer you opportunities to participate in redefining our government.
Come back often as we define new programs and possibilities to engage and be part of this administration.
Including something called America Serves:
Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
3. TinyGeoCoder
Write a name, like Birmingham UK, and get a lat/long set in response: 52.4829323,-1.8936213. Plug it into a Google map, or a geocode field in your photo sharing service.
Even better, they give you the Google code for a static map grab.
http://www.nunovo.org.uk/journals/annex/?p=168
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