Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week. Social issues and technology; a procedurally generated video game makes a big splash at E3; a surprisingly insightful review of a web series; and an autobiographical critique of Modernism. Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week. Social issues and technology; a procedurally generated video game makes a big splash at E3; a surprisingly insightful review of a web series; and an autobiographical critique of Modernism. Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week in this, the first ever evening edition. In tonight’s issue: computer games that encourage physical contact; baseball players wearing camo; 24-Hour Book club announces its selection; visualizing Moves data; and some thoughts on critics. Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week in this, the first ever Afternoon Edition of Monday Morning Meeting: the emotions of being a sports fan, a defence of the written signature, and ... browser tabs! Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week: thinking about research and what data can tells us; a old browser's new polished interface; an essay about Twitter bots; a reminder about permanence; and some bonus links to thank you for your patience. Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
Links randomly selected from the stuff I saw the previous week: an essay on climate change by Zadie Smith, a tweet about baseball statistics, a photo I took of cherry blossoms in Vancouver (which itself contains further links), and an interview with the developer of a social reading service. Some links are from longer than a week ago. read more →
The first try was an unmitigated disaster.
I plotted a running route in Vancouver's Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood using online tool. I accounted for the part of the route that crosses a busy street at an uncontrolled intersection and instead had it take the crosswalk near King Ed. A test run, which is to say, a test walk with the Co-Rider app to make sure turn-by-turn directions with a previously-defined route was successful. I made the mistake of updating the app the night before. And it started to snow just as I started my run.
Arriving at my hand-picked start and end point on February 22nd in the alleyway at E. 28th and Ross and Fraser area, I encountered a critical bug introduced into the version I updated to the previous night. The app itself would start but I could not press "play" for the turn-by-turn directions. I followed the route by looking down at my phone at every turn to see where I'd go next.
Apple recommendeds that one operate an iPhone 5 in between the temperatures of -20º and 45º Celcius. At the end of the run, with about 20% battery left, at an outside temperature below or just at freezing, the phone turned off on its own accord. Miraculously, the Couch-to-5k app had already logged it (twice, somehow), so I can count Feburary 22nd, 2014, against Week 7 Day 2 of the program.
This was the first run where I let a website randomly generate a running route which started and ended at the same point. As a way of seeing as much of Vancouver as possible, I didn't want to decide what direction to go it to see it. RouteLoops can randomly generate a map suitable for different modes (walking, running, cycling). You set the distance and it calculates the route, ending you where you started.
Things were decidedly different for my run in Kerrisdale. A week after my first run, on March 1st, instead of hand-picking a starting point, I used the Random Point Generator. It chose a spot on W. 47th Ave. between Yew St. and West Boulevard. The route, randomly generated by RouteLoops, had me turn right on West Boulevard, skip over to the parallel East Boulevard using 49th Ave and then run down East Boulevard to 50th Ave. With its lack of sidewalks, I had to run on the street. Turning right on Angus Dr., I found these pleasant little stop signs.
The second-longest leg of the run, Angus Dr. took me to W. 57th for a block, then turning left back on to West Boulevard where I saw a trolley pass by.
Hanging a right on W. 60th took me past Dr. R.E. McKechnie Elementary School, around Arbutus Park (by taking Arbutus St. and 59th Ave.) to SW Marine Drive.
Suspecting that SW Marine Drive lacked sidewalks, before the run, I looked it up on Google Street View. Arriving at the scene I got my final confirmation:
I ran against traffic, which was a little harrowing. At least one car cut the white line separating traffic from the shoulder, right in front of me no less. I know better than to run on any street like that again.
My 5K program for the "week" ended about 2/3 on SW Marine Drive. I was determined to finish the rest of the route and saw some construction on the 45th Ave. bike route.
- construction on the bike path
- Ryerson church.
All the while I had the Fog of World app track my movements. How do I describe Fog of World? I remember playing Warcraft II, and any movements into unkwown territory would reveal the map. As you left, the map would stay but you couldn't see any of the activity there. Fog of World operates in the same way: you visit a place you've never been to, and it "unlocks" that area.
The app runs in the background and when tracking is turned on, shows you the places you haven't been to yet. (It's possible you've been to that place before, just not with Fog of World turned on.) My FoW data suggested that I had already been on a portion of 45th, and it wasn't until I came upon the Ryerson United Church that I remembered how that was possible: at some point a few years ago, it seems I had been going in the wrong direction biking from Kerrisdale and must have turned around. (This was captured by RunKeeper, the data of which I imported into Fog of World.) I took a quick photo of the church and I was back to finishing my randomly generated route.
The result of yesterday’s run of a randomly generated route from a random starting point on my Fog of War. @ollixsoft pic.twitter.com/DwHOJfgQVA
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) March 2, 2014Kerrisdale doesn't loom large in my image of Vancouver, so I'm grateful that a computer chose for me to go there. Without randomly selecting a starting point and randomly generating a route, I'd have to rely on the invitation of others or know about its significance. This way of exploring a city leads to little surprises, like the mansion surrounded by trees, (barely) seeing unusual architecture, and a little exercise along the way.
There’s no better way to see a city than to generate a random route from a randomly chosen starting point.
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) March 2, 2014A degree confluence is the intersection of longitude and latitude lines. For example, the closest confluence to Vancouver, B.C. are 49°N 123°W (in Boundary Bay) and the closest land-based confluence is 49°N 122°W (on the Canada-U.S. border near Abbotsford). The project to document them all on the web is big enough of a deal to have its own Wikipedia page. Since confluences of latitude and longitude have mostly been documented, Charlie Loyd set out to document microconfluences, which he defines as the intersections of hundredths of latitude and longitude points. I found this out after stumbling on his tweet late last year.
To find microconfluences, Charlie built a web page you can load up in your phone pointing out your current location and how far away from and which direction to find the nearest microfluence. I found my first microconfluence in my hometown of Courtenay, British Columbia over the Christmas holidays. I could only get as close as the front door of a new housing development on Piercy Ave., taking a photo of my iPhone's screen with my iPad mini. Later, not wanting to always carry two cameras around, you'll notice I take screenshots of Charlie's web page with a photograph of something notable next to the screenshot.
About as close as I’m gonna get to a microconfluence here in Courtenay. Context: https://t.co/sN0w6S1Iw4 pic.twitter.com/C6J0TgjAlc
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) December 23, 2013On the same trip, Karen indulged me as we came across a microconfluence downtown in an alleyway, just before having dinner at a Mexican restaurant nearby, and took a picture of me.
Me at a microconfluence in Courtenay, B.C. Context: https://t.co/sN0w6S1Iw4 pic.twitter.com/WDyRjXWjTX
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) December 28, 2013I found my first microconfluence in Vancouver a week later, just behind the NO TRESPASSING sign of an apartment complex in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood (near 12th and Main).
Past this gate in Mount Pleasant is a Vancouver microconfluence. Context: https://t.co/sN0w6S1Iw4 pic.twitter.com/lYWPBu52M5
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) December 30, 2013Closer to King Edward and Cambie, a microconfluence on Heather and W. 24th features a stop sign with blinking lights.
The microconfluence at Heather St. and W. 24th Ave. in Vancouver features stop signs with blinking red lights. pic.twitter.com/738tvO65Ej
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) December 30, 2013Separately from deciding to locate microconfluences in Vancouver, in December of 2013, I made a new year's intention to let fate decide more frequently in my day-to-day decisions. That means making lists of things that I like or might like do or eat or read or places to go, then letting a computer randomly decide which item on that list to do. To help further another goal of (eventually) seeing the entire city of Vancouver, I use a random point generator to pick for me which part of the city I venture to. On January 5th, I put that into practice, and it chose the point of 49°13′54″N and 123°04′48″W. That converts to 49.231667, -123.08 in decimal, and the hundreths of those are just rounding down to 49.2300 and -128.0800 (the last one was already conveniently a hundredth). That turned out to be a house between E. 43rd and and E. 45th on Inverness St. in Vancouver. (There is no E. 44th on Inverness.)
House at the microconfluence between E. 43rd and E. 45th on Inverness St. in Vancouver. pic.twitter.com/LiJgyXZpqI
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) January 5, 2014Not pictured: three teenagers rolling by on a single ATV, which reeked of gasoline. "Hello sir," they said to me.
Just recently, after scoping out some office space in Chinatown and heading to the library to finish up some work, I came across a microconfluence on the Dunsmuir and Cambie corner of Stadium–Chinatown SkyTrain Station near B.C. Place and Rogers Arena (formerly GM Place).
Just outside Stadium–Chinatown SkyTrain Station is a microconfluence. Context: https://t.co/sN0w6S1Iw4 pic.twitter.com/4Cp8QClxnJ
— Richard Eriksson (@sillygwailo) February 6, 2014Along with my SkyTrain Explorer walks, microconfluences are non-random but still somewhat arbitrary points on map to explore the surroundings. In the future, I'll add more randomness to documenting microconfluences, removing the need to decide where to go based on the characteristics of the neighbourhood and letting a random number generator (memories of RANDOMIZE TIMER flooding back) make the call.
I see Nathen is also ground-truthing microconfluences, same with, I hope, others Should we build a microconfluence community website? With microconfluence antipodes?
The receipt says I bought the app on or about November 20th, 2012. That means it has been a little over a year since I started running. There's a gap in the summer months of this year, even though it doesn't really get very hot in Vancouver (maybe for 2 weeks). Maybe it's my Icelandic blood, but I prefer to run in the cold.
The reason I avoided running for so long, all through college and after, even on the treadmill, was that it was so high-impact. I'd always done the stationary bike for cardio, and now regular cycling in the not-freezing months. When running, I do notice strain on my calves and shins sometimes, but rest, yoga and stretching helps with that.
Running in the morning is a struggle, but then, so is everything, being a not-morning person. I mostly run during evenings on weekdays and afternoons on weekends. On some mornings I'm able to sit down and will myself to run. It's mostly just a matter of finding pre-existing will from the previous night, after setting out running clothes and making sure there is something small to eat. I finally bought a pair of dedicated running shoes after a year with my basketball shoes (since washed so I can use them indoors).
Which app do I use? More like which apps, plural, do I use? I stopped using the Couch-to-5K app pending a support request. The app doesn't add up the total time right (right now the number is negative) and while all my runs are logged, the dates are missing from some of them. I've started the training program over again, and with a different C25K app.
I listen to podcasts while running. The Welcome to Night Vale podcast and Joseph Planta's interview podcast are my favourites.
The Moves app runs constantly in the background, and using Moves Export, if the running stretches are long enough, it will post to RunKeeper. (I used to have RunKeeper for the runs, but no longer.)
I wouldn't have started running without using an app to track it. Running seemed daunting until having a program, and even though the programs were available for quite some time (like those training programs marathon have always put out beforehand), having a handheld computer tell me when to start and stop is better than having to track it myself. It's also fun to relive it through the map right after the run and the stats, and having Fog of World tell me where I haven't been shows me alleyways and streets and neighbourhoods I'd never consider otherwise and gets me running farther and father away from home.
Has it really been almost three years since my last SkyTrain Explorer walking tour? It sure doesn't feel like it. Not including the Metrotown Station tour, which only takes you through the mall, all that's left is Burrard Station, Stadium-Chinatown Station, Broadway Station, and, up until this weekend, Granville Station.
The route took me from Granville Station heading south to Smithe. Along the way, I gazed upon the Sears building renovation project and the Vancouver Block. Past Granville and Robson, I admired the facade of the Commodore Ballroom, a venue I've been fortunate enough to attend a few concerts at. Atkin points out the B.C. entertainment hall of fame plaques lining Granville Street and especially the one in from of the Orpheum. Along this section of the tour, changed since the book's publication date has been the tearing down and rebuilding of the building on the corner of Robson Street, formerly an optical store, soon to be an Old Navy store, and the closing down of the Granville Seven theatre.
Taking me along from Granville and then onto Smithe, Atkin directs me to walk up the stairs to Robson Square. How did I not until now visit this side of it? The view of downtown Vancouver is incredible. Did I know the multicoloured sculpure by Michael Banwell was there until yesterday? No, I did not.
After some confusion as to which route to take to get there (Hornby? through the square?), I found myself on the west side of the Art Gallery, where we see a memorial to Edward VII (Shakespeare quote!) and an entrance to the old law courts (now the art gallery) with Police and Sheriff signs outside. (I'd been watching a little bit too much Doctor Who, 2005 edtion, so I half expected the Doctor to pop out of it with Rose.) Through the art gallery's square, where so many protest has taken place, we are led to gaze upon Hotel Georgia.
All in all a short tour, just south down Granville, hang a right on Smith, then back north through Robson Square to the Art Gallery. For all the photos, visit my Granville Station SkyTrain Explorer page, or the set on Flickr.
